Apologies for the typos, this is an AI transcription.

[00:00:00] Hazel Showell: Hello everyone. I'm Hazel Showell and I'm here to guide you through the toughest transitions in life, business and even love. Welcome to Endings.

If anybody has to get this, and statistically someone's gonna get something like this, it's better me.

This week, we’ll be doing something a little different. I’m going to put myself in the hot seat and be interviewed by a fellow business psychologist. The incredible Hannah Jepsen, who you may remember from episode one. So without further ado, here’s Hannah.

[00:00:38] Hannah Jepson: Hazel is a remarkable woman who has gone through a few endings of her own. So many, that we had trouble deciding which one we should cover in this episode.

She's a business psychologist with over 25 years of experience in leadership development, and executive coaching… She draws on her own endings to help CEOs, national organisations, and multiple parliaments navigate periods of instability and change.

While listening to Hazel’s story, pay close attention to how she balances self-judgment with self-kindness by reframing the circumstances in her life that she has no control over. Hazel will share how to put this into practice at the end.

But first, let’s go back to the beginning.

This particular chapter in Hazel's story begins at age 33. Hazel has just set up her own business. She was size eight, sporty, and recently divorced from her second husband.

[00:01:38] Hazel Showell: Life was really feeling exciting. I had just moved from London to Manchester and life was really feeling full of possibilities.

[00:01:42] Hannah Jepson: But things changed after a routine visit to the chiropractor.

[00:01:46] Hazel Showell: He'd just said, oh, by the way, um, can you put your feet together for a minute?

I put my feet together and fell straight over. He said I knew it. You've been to me a few times and you're either really fidgety or you've got no balance, but it's happened slowly over time and you're just compensated.

[00:02:03] Hannah Jepson: Hazel was quickly referred to a doctor who confirmed the concerns of her chiropractor,

[00:02:08] Hazel Showell: It took him 12 minutes to go from doing some very quick reflexes and tests and asking questions to say, yeah, we think there's something wrong. And what? At the time, both of them thought it was MS.

In those moments, it's like, your life falls apart of what? This can't be real. This can't be what happens.

I went back to get my results in three days. There was the scan and he just said it's not ms. It's a brain tumor. I think I cheered and he said, that's an unexpected result you don't get many people going like, ‘yay, tumor’.

[00:02:54] Hannah Jepson: Hazel sought a second opinion, it became clear that to achieve the best outcome, Hazel would undertake surgery.

[00:03:00] Hazel Showell: And within just a like a week, we were in surgery and their first surgery didn't go well. Um, they couldn't get it out. It was deeper than thought. But the second surgery was just a week later. Of course, the words you never want to hear from brain surgery is it didn't go quite as we planned, you think, oh, no.

[00:03:48] Hannah Jepson: The tumor was fully removed the second time round, but at a great cost.

[00:03:54] Hazel Showell: You wake up and you know, you hear there's been a little loss of functionality. What that translated to her was entirely paralyzed down the left side. And I was told you'll probably not walk and you'll probably not work.

And I couldn't use cutlery and my lovely photographic memory had gone, being ambidextrous had gone, and things that I didn't even know I needed or mattered, I'd gone. And this was a very, very strange experience.

The surgery was not what almost took me out. It was the, uh, infection I developed. So they were throwing everything at me. They could, but I wasn't winning. And I got to the point where they just said, oh, you have, uh, no white blood sock out, and it's zero. There's nothing left to fight with the, the, it's, it's, we've come to the end.

So do you want us to call your family?

[00:04:59] Hannah Jepson: So you get this news from the nurse, you're in the bed on your own. Who did you call?

[00:05:07] Hazel Showell: In typical sting? And I have done a lot of therapy since this. I No, no. This is a ridiculously stupid choice, by the way. Um, I decided to say, no, don't call them because I don't want them sad and scared. Drive them through the night to come and watch me die. I either want them to wake up in the morning and deal with that, or it wasn't true, and I would get through it and it would be fine.

So I thought, why have them panic? I was being very British, like, oh, we don't need to cause a fuss. We don't even, don't even drown through the night. I now recognize that sometimes it can't work out what's worse. You know? You make that frantic class call. And you worry who doesn't come or the, the years you spend convincing yourself that members of your family don't like you, so you're convinced they won't come.

And actually, they do. And then you've spent all that time wasted on something that wasn't true. So I now know that's part of all of this. It's ridiculous. But anyway, I decided that was it. I wasn't gonna call them and I was gonna be okay. Whatever happened, I would just let happen in. I was in a lot pain at the time and I was tired from the fighting and tired from the drugs and all the side effects.

It was getting pretty bad. I was ready to let go and just sleep. Then felt someone sit on my bed and I just thought oh idiots. They blooming rung them and I struggled to open my eyes thinking, oh, I'm gonna have to bloom in, entertain the family now. The matron that knows the special code words, that means get the family out of here.

Right? Enough of them isn't on shift. And I opened my eyes and uh, it was me older. Sitting on my bed and I thought, what, uh, what? Of course the vanity part of me just went, oh, check me out. I look good. I'm looking all right in my fifties. And I looked successful and happy, and there seemed to be a calm presence with me, and it just, but I could hear.

This version of me talking to someone saying, no, she needs to wake up. She needs to know it's going to be okay. And I could feel a stroke in my head and just saying, ik. That's the words my German nanny used to say. Cause I was born in Germany and I thought only I would know that. Only somebody who knows me would know that I thought, what?

I don't get it. But it was just, yeah, really comforting and, but she said she needs to know. We're gonna have three boys and life's gonna be good and it's gonna be worth it, but she has to fight and she has to stay awake. But if it's too painful, just sleep, love, just go.

And it was, yeah, amazing. I can't explain that. It's my blood eyes. Morphine or a mad brain just going, well, I'll make a fight.

[00:08:12] Hannah Jepson: Well, hey, it doesn't matter. You don't need to, that We don't need an explanation for that bit. What happened after that came to you? What, what happened then, you know, what, what was that Did, did that change the course of things to tell

[00:08:26] Hazel Showell: us about that?

Well, first of all, it took tea and toast. It took tea and toast for hours because, okay. What happened then was I just thought, right, well, I need to stay. I want to live, I want my three boys. I'm gonna do it. What's it gonna take? And this lovely nurse came in at the time and just said, what are you doing?

What are you doing? I was trying to struggle to sit up and she went, I'll help you to get up. She went, do you want me to stay with you? And she stayed with me all night and made tea. She said, I better put the GLE on. We better have some tea and toast. And that is tea And toast has been my magical go-to to solve all things since then.

But it was phenomenal. We stayed. And in the morning they did my bloods and they just said, we have no explanation for this. Your white blood cell counts rebounded. And from then I went from strength to strength. I did the physio. It was blaming hard. I still hate it. I am still doing physio weekly. For 20 years I've been doing this.

It's annoying, but I'll do it. And I relearn to walk. I got out of a wheelchair within three weeks. I surprised my mom and uh, my sister by walking across the restaurant at them. The first time I learned to walk, they forgot to teach me to wiggle. So I walk like a man and it's only when a female physio walked down and went, oh, something's wrong here.

We need to add something into that walk. But there's still some bits I, I will struggle. Like, oh, screwed ups screwed up bottles. Ugh, my bane of my life, but I can do it. You realize whatever it takes, I will. It's gonna be hard and I'll do it. I mean, I was running the, the business from my hospital bed. Poor John Costner.

Couldn't, couldn't even use Word at the time. And I was been taught how to do all Microsoft Office by phone from someone in a hospital bed. Go and alls the nurses claim goes, no, no. The paperclip click the paper clip. But, uh, we did it and we managed to do it. And it was just the, the help and the friendship and the people who showed up for me.

We're just phenomenal and yeah, unforgettable. So I think that's the bit that showed me once I was determined and I was determined to live. And I think part of that philosophy is what I've carried with me ever since, which is every day I choose, I choose to live. I've

[00:10:47] Hannah Jepson: got the pleasure of. Knowing you, but I certainly didn't know some of the details of that story and it's, it's pretty amazing, Hazel, really.

You talked about some of the things that you surprised yourself physically. You learned to walk again within three weeks and gained your strength back and all of those things. But what about kind of the kind of, not the physical side of things, you know, the kind of more emotional side of things. What about this ending story came out of it that was kind of unexpected for you?

[00:11:13] Hazel Showell: I suppose the first thing is I. Hadn't realized what did matter and what didn't. Obviously that, um, I started that journey, uh, size eight and sporty. I'm, I was 18 and you know, I, my closest sport is Netflix Boxx. I just, I can't, you know, I, I can't walk to the end of my street anymore. Um, uh, my disability doesn't permit me to do that, but I.

Have found a way to enjoy life. I started it thinking that an active mind trapped in a body that doesn't work is the worst thing I could imagine. But that is exactly what I have and I have a life that is good. I've found different ways to find pleasure. Um, I ended a marriage board cause I thought my life would only be complete with children.

And yet one of the biggest sacrifices because of my surgery is I am unable to have children and yet I've married. To a man. Loved me more than he needed to have children himself. Um, we have built a fabulous child-free life. I did get the three boys, but they were all cats. I conned myself, absolute kid. I did think that one day when I was sitting looking at my, you know, George and Zach and my.

Oh, I do have three boys. Not quite what I thought,

but that's, yeah, there's so many unexpected th things you think you can't live through or with that actually you can and you can find different pleasures. There's a mantra I use every day that's very much about, to my tumor that is saying, you know, the space you left in my body, I feel with gratitude.

And it's that ability to find gratitude for everything. I have not missing what I haven't, when I first was, uh, disabled, I wasn't angry so much, but I actually found it very hard to come to terms with what I'd lost. I tried a type of therapy where it's quite radical and you almost imagine the person you were died on the operating table and you reinvent yourself as the person who are with the functionality you have.

And subsequently came to understand that that's, that's too brutal. That people are whole people flawed and fabulous. And actually, it's better if you can integrate all of who you are. It's the, it's the sheer acceptance of being able to say, I have this part of me that doesn't work and part of me that does.

And it's not something you get over, you know, you don't get over. Childlessness, you don't get over the kind of disability I live with. You know, every day is like, I caught my little mermaid. It's like walking on knives. You don't get over it. What you can learn to do is find a place for it. You learn to live alongside it and with it.

But it's all about integration.

[00:14:20] Hannah Jepson: And I think one of the things that I. Learn from you is that that mindset, which I've no doubt has, has helped you build the business and live your life the way you haven't, and all the things you just said about the gratitude that you've got. One of the things I'm interested in when I listen to your story, because you talked about the kind of how your personal endings kind of paved the way for some different personal beginnings and, and some professional beginnings and.

You talked at the beginning about this, this fascination with businesses zend ending and how that impacts on you personally. I suppose I'm interested in what did that give you in terms of. A different approach to business. What did that ending, because you were set setting up the business in, in hospital.

So what, what happened after that?

[00:15:09] Hazel Showell: You know? Yeah. Well, when you set up a business in hospital and when you cannot, you just can't, cannot do things the way. People traditionally do you have to think about things like energy. If you have a brain injury, you are absolutely drilled on what we call the three Ps.

So planning, pacing, prioritization, and I think those three Ps are actually brilliant for any business owner, not just the brain engine. Because I think if you don't want to burn yourself out and you don't want to end up mentally unwell in business, actually, Planning, pacing, prioritization. It's, it's, it's good.

It's just, it's drummed into me because my energy is finite. Um, my functionality is finite and I have to decide only do what matters. Cuz you don't have the energy or the capability to do stuff that just doesn't. Uh, I also find that when you've been through something like that, You really don't, don't give a shit about the small stuff.

You just think that simply does not matter. I only tend to work with people, I like with people who do things that I think matter in the world because life is. Desperately too short, and I have been told I've been dying so many years, I'm now bored of it. I will just live until I don't. It's brilliant. I am outpacing every estimate so far, and, but what it gives me is that absolute joy of it.

The true joy of it. I'm not missing moments, and so I don't want to run a business and feel. Oh, when the business is over, I'll stop and enjoy my life. I have to be able to do both. I've gotta have a business I love and a life that if it all ends tomorrow, I feel it's been a good one. And it's been a happy one and it has.

So I think that's always been a philosophy that I have great holidays. I use my best China, I go out in my best jewelry. I don't care. It's like, what the heck? Um, you know, it's just a sense of enjoying.

[00:17:22] Hannah Jepson: It is incredibly, and I don't mean this to sound cliched or, or in any way trite, but um, it's incredibly inspiring, you know, as someone who's setting up a business that, that comment that you just made about work and then start to enjoy my life.

And people say to me, you know, oh, you could just have some more stability in a quote unquote normal job. And I see people like you and I think. No, it might be hard, but actually at the moment, I'm enjoying my life and my work together. I also think one of the things that I, I noticed as you were talking then maybe the mindfulness gurus will think differently, but I feel like I learned a lot about mindfulness from you way before people were talking about mindfulness, right?

So you just said then, you know, you don't sweat the small stuff and you don't kind of worry about the small things. But there must be moments when you're. It's threatening to, to drag you down, whatever it is, some trivial thing. I'm interested in what it is that you connect with them to, to get back quickly into that positive mindset of this bit

[00:18:25] Hazel Showell: doesn't really matter.

So, and there's always those moments of overwhelm where you just think, oh my goodness, this is. Usually it's like paperwork, something in the business that you think, what am I doing tenders that can do it to me every time where sometimes you do have to think, okay, so so what if I didn't do it? But I just, I just trust in the universe.

I just trust that I'm gonna live as good a life as I can. I try and be a good person. I don't harm anybody or anything. So can I trust that it will be okay? And if it's gonna be okay, then let it go. So the, the let the capacity to let it go, which is a mindfulness of this thing that is worrying me or this thing that's bothering me.

The ability just to stop and breathe. And think, right. What's gone is gone. It's too late, it's done. So that's the past and what hasn't happened? Well, it hasn't happened yet. That's the future. So let's not worry about it. But to stay in the moment, one of the things I have for my business and, and it's something I, I have on my desk at home have this tiny pebble, it's a polished pebble that I hold in my hand and it's been obviously worn away.

Over so many, probably, you know, hundreds of years to this tiny pebble. And I always think this probably started as a cliff and it gets worn away and worn away this tiny little polished pebble. But I think of it as my business and I look at it and go, it's small and beautiful and it. Suits me, it fits my hand, and I can wrap my hands around it and I can hold it.

So, and it is mine. So, no, it's not the grandest, it's not the biggest. It's never gonna be some major Fortune 500. It's, but it is mine and I built it. And I can hold it in my hand and it's that ability of to sort of be able to hold onto something tangible. And so I have that little physical representation of my business and think, yeah, this, this, I built, this is mine, it's good and I will, I can hold it.

And you put it down. And that's through the side of it is be also to know and it's not me because the other bit of it is separation. It's be to be able to know, and even if I lost. It is not me cuz I'm still here. I'm creative, I can do other things and yes, I'm it. Always get worried when you think I'm 56 years old now, you know who on earth gonna gimme a job?

I'm probably unemployable, but what the heck I will be okay. So, yeah, I think there's, it is the mindfulness. I love music. I find getting lost in music is my absolute happy place. And it's the crank the music up. Dance sing. But sometimes just for, for me, for a particular certain classical music, I can really just

lose anything. I love it. I'm also an absolute lover of poetry, so I can just get lost in beautiful words and just listen to it and think, Ugh. Occasionally you just think being able to see something life-affirming online. Cause I think there's so much content that's makes me worry about humanity. So, That I like kind of collecting things that just make me watch and go, actually, there's some beautiful people that do wonderful things.

I was seeing something just, just the other day or two about the barber that shaved his own hair off to make a cancer person feel better about having their hair shown up. When you think, oh my goodness, that that's a, a customer who's just come in, They're obviously devastated at losing their hair, and it just did as an act of solidarity.

And you think that's human beings, we can also be magnificent and I love that. And I just like taking those moments of seeing what's possible.

[00:22:23] Hannah Jepson: Amazing. Thank you for sharing that story with me, with everybody. Um, as I say, I think it's, yeah, I, I think it's, it's a, it's a rare. Person that can turn something like that into what you've built and what you've who you are.

And I think it's incredible. So thank you for sharing it. I guess just sum it up, I suppose, and bring us to a close. You've got your mantra. But what's the biggest kind of lesson? What's the lesson you'd share with people that you've learned from the life

[00:22:54] Hazel Showell: you've lived? Find your joy. Find your joy and find your tribe.

The one thing about living with disability and um, particularly when it's chronic pain or something like that, is you. Need it. I, I believe it's really important to find the capacity for self-compassion and self-kindness, because only when you can learn those three P's and, and be okay that you can't work the way other people can, doesn't mean you're not valuable.

It doesn't mean you don't. You don't matter, you know, as a disabled person, I have the same value as an able-bodied person, and I am a really strong and passionate advocate for disability rights as anybody else who knows, we would know, um, can get about quite gobby on the subject. It's being able to advocate for your rights, but also know what you cannot do and be okay with that.

And that's the kindness part. I think it takes a lot of self-compassion and a lack of judgment. It's very easy to judge yourself and beat yourself up for what you can't do, rather than focus on what you can do and get that attitude. I think the other thing I learned is that not trying to just get over stuff, it's be okay that some of this is genuine loss and trauma and you just need to find a place for it in your life, and if you can find a place for it, you'll find a way to live.

But yeah, ignore. Anyone tries to tell you, just get over it.

I mentioned about compassion and I thought it would be worth just exploring this a little bit deeper, so, Compassion. The best definition I've heard is try not to think you have to stand in someone else's shoes, but to listen as somebody describes what it's like in their shoes, and believe them even if it doesn't chime with your experience.

And the reason that's so important is when somebody's had a difficult diagnosis or they are wrestling with a chronic condition, it's very tempting to try and use empathy to match it to your own experience, but actually the person just wants you to listen. Because there's nothing more frustrating if you are coming to terms with a difficult health condition that everybody tells you about their Uncle Bob or their Nana's version of that condition.

And you think, no offense, but I don't care. I just want to tell you about my experience. So just listen and. Hear how they feel about it because it might surprise you. Some people think very differently than you might expect. Now when it comes to self-compassion, the nicest e equation that I've come across was, uh, one I learned in my training, which was that compassion plus distance minus judgment equals love.

And when you. A little too close to the situation. You tend to find that that distance in the equation is not great enough and you're too close to the situation and you judge yourself. I should be better and I should be able to do these things and I can't do it, and I'm judging yourself. It's very hard to show any self-love in that situation when you can have the compassion to say, What is my life like in my shoes?

No one else can judge that other than. And can I look at the situation from a sufficient distance to have perspective? Because it may be bad now, but it won't be bad forever. The other mantra I have to say, I personally use a lot is this too shall pass. Because yes, there are times when pain's quite bad, but you know great meds and they will.

You know, it won't last forever. And that's often how you get through the more intense phases of it. But you find the distance at which to look at a situation today in the scale of a life. I've had 20 years more than anyone thought I would have. So that distance permits a different level of compassion, and then you get to judgment that when you can drop the judgment.

Personally, I think if we didn't judge anybody, but particularly ourselves, the world would be a more loving place because that ability just to say, I don't judge myself. I'm doing the best I can. And that again increases compassion and the whole cycle improves because the dropping the judgment is what am I capable of today?

And then each day maybe I'll do a bit more, maybe I can do a bit better, but I'll do the best I can and it's enough cuz I'm enough and all of those things. Just keeping a, a healthy cycle of self compass. Holding the situation at sufficient distance to retain perspective and no judgment whatsoever on what you can or can't do.

While that's enough love and all of this has been able to refrain things, to see things differently, that when things feel a bit dark or difficult to see you all, it won't always be this way, or there might be a different way of, of seeing the situation that, yes, I might not be able to do X, but I can do y.

Or I may not be able to do X as well as I used to, but that doesn't mean I can't do it at all. I funded my way through university with figurative painting, so I used to be a very good artist. Uh, I have a tremor now, so I can't hold a paintbrush properly, but I started to experiment, well, what can I do creatively?

And weird left hand. I can knit. It's bad. It's really bad, but I enjoy it. There's some very dodgy things get made, but it's, it's kind of comforting and repetitive, so you're finding things you can do. You also, I would say find your tribe because by finding people who share your experience, it makes that lack of judgment and the compassion a little easier because you're finding people who have that shared language, who know what you know, who understand the journey you've been on, where you don't need to explain.

They understand. It's really helpful to find those people. It's the one thing I regret most is after my surgery because of my children, I didn't actually join any groups. I didn't get that support, and I regret that because I would've found out a lot sooner what was and was not typical of people with their brain injury if I'd been able to do that.

And my final tip, I would say in this situation is all around Integr. And I mentioned before about this idea of integration of loss, so whether that loss is loss of functionality. In disability or loss of your sense of self in identity as you change when you're dealing with long-term health conditions or of grief.

That loss of when with things like, um, not being able to have children rather than trying to push yourself to get over it like it's a line in the sand, but rather seeing it is it is a part of you and it's just a part of you that you can put to side and you can learn to walk alongside and live with.

And when it's very raw. Big and it's, and it's hard and it's hard to ignore, like a bit of a noisy neighbor, that's okay, but it will get quieter to the point. You can simply like carry it in your pocket. Know that every now and again it might flare up and something might trigger it, and that's okay. It will quiet and again, and it'll go back to being something you can comfortably live with.

But what you're not doing is denying an important part of yourself. That something actually makes you stronger, makes you who you are. It will give you something maybe unexpected. And that's the bit to, um, be prepared for that. Even things that we see as losses sometimes open the door to a new beginning, and that's an interesting part of being human.

Thank you so much to Hannah for suggesting the idea of turning the tables and, uh, interviewing me as uncomfortable as that was. But yes, thank you so much. It was a pleasure and she, she did a great job. I hope you enjoyed today's episode of Endings. If you'd like to share your thoughts, I really would love to hear them and you can reach me at Hazel Cs on Twitter or LinkedIn.

If you are interested in understanding the endings happening in your own life a little better, I've the perfect thing for you. It's my five-step worksheet developed specifically for listeners of this podcast and based on years of my research. This first step will only take you 20 minutes and will bring you a lot closer to understanding how to make difficult decisions around endings.

Click the link in the show notes to download your Thriving through Endings worksheet now. And finally, if you know somebody who might benefit from hearing about coming to terms with disability or childlessness, please share this episode with them. I'm Hazel Showell and I hope you join me again for another episode of Endings.

Endings is produced by Fascinate Productions