36: Overcoming Curveballs in Life

hello and welcome to what's this story we're an inquisitive bunch of hosts from the what's the story team on a mission to uncover stories about faith and courage from everyday people and to help us do just that we get the privilege to chat with amazing guests and delve into their faith Journey the hurdles they've overcome and the life lessons they have learned along the way now if you enjoy our podcast don't forget to subscribe and sign up for our newsletter on our website which is what's the storypodcast.com it's your direct line too the latest episodes and detailed show notes and they all get delivered straight to your inbox and the best part it's absolutely free what's the story is brought to you by crowd church we understand that stepping into a traditional Church might not be everybody's cup of tea and that's where crowd church steps in providing a digital Sanctuary a safe space to explore the Christian faith where you can engage in meaningful conversations rather than just simply spectating so whether you are new to the Christian faith or are in search of a new church family we invite you to visit us at www.crowd.church and if you've got any questions just drop us an email at hello crowd.church we're here to help and we're genuinely love to connect with you and now without further Ado let's meet your host and our very special guest for today thank you hello and welcome to what's the story I'm Anna Kettle I'm part of the crowd Church team and I'm your host for this episode of what's the story podcast now today I'm joined by guest Claire Thomas Claire is a registered nutritional therapist and an NLP coach she has a mission to empower people to look after themselves and enjoy life by making personalized nutrition and lifestyle changes now Claire first developed chronic fatigue slash me in 2012 whilst working as a children's nurse and at the time she was told that she would never recover but as a Christian she knew God can heal even though she felt lost in the middle of this life limiting diagnosis until eventually A friend gave her a book that looked at the importance of nutrition mindset and Faith needed her gradual recovery in 2019 she went back to UNI to retrain as a nutritional therapist and in 2022 she graduated in personalized nutrition and launched her new business called nourished saw where she now works supporting clients to achieve results like improved energy hormone imbalance weight loss Better Health and so much more I'm sure she'll tell us all about it in a moment but can I thank you so much for joining us today it's really great to have you here thank you for having me it's a pleasure to be here I'm excited to unpack a little bit more of your story because I know there's lots to cover and yeah you know you've got backgrounds with chronic fatigue as we just touched on we've also experienced some infertility challenges and some mental health challenges and I want to unpack all of that um in the next 45 minutes hour if we can and I know it's a lot of grounds cover but I think all of them are really important issues um but let's go let's start from the top let's start at the beginning um so would you stop by telling us Claire a little bit about your early life how you became a Christian how your faith Journey started really sure sure so I didn't become a Christian until I was 21. I grew up in a household we did go to church and I remember doing like going to Sunday school but I don't ever remember thinking like I had a relationship with Jesus it was just something we did and then my parents separated when I was 12 and so Sundays became daddy day and I didn't really think anymore about kind of Christianity or any of church or anything really and then when I went to UNI to study children's nursing I suddenly were surrounded by a lot of Christians and they would invite me along to things that you know Christmas Easter and I'd go and then towards sort of the end of my degree I was having a rough time I think um yeah things that happened and and life was just hard and I remember my friend just going do you want to go to church and I was like all right then I don't know what made me say yes and she doesn't know what made her ask well she know obviously she was like it's probably the Holy Spirit but you know at that point she just felt that she needed to ask and it was the most bizarre service I've ever been to in my life like at the time I had no idea what was going on people were fainting and crying and like just overcome you know as the preacher spoke and now I know it's like they were filled with the Holy Spirit but at the time but I I don't ever remember being freaked out I just remember feeling peace I I think I felt like I'd come home like there was this sense of this is where I need to be like there was a bit of a hole in my heart and just in that moment like there was just an overwhelming sense of peace and that summer I went on a kind of second to Toronto as part of uni like you kind of go and see other places and that was the first time I'd really been traveling on my own and I remember walking through a park in Toronto and just looking at my life and and I think you know at that point I could see like there'd been a lot of Darkness a lot of like you know struggles with depression up to that point and and I just just knew that if I didn't choose God I wasn't sure what my life would look like and if I actually would be around for much longer so I just thought I'll give God a try and see what happens and that was almost 20 years ago uh and here I am and yeah it's it's been an interesting Journey being a Christian and there are days where you know you feel like you're Clinging On by your fingertips but I think what keeps me going is knowing what it was like before I met God and knowing that actually even in the really challenging times right now it's better than it was without him so yeah yeah that's that's amazing um yeah just amazing that God obviously had his hand on me because you know even though you were kind of introduced in quite a crazy service you weren't put off so you obviously really searching at the time and um that's really cool um but I wonder how life looked for you after that because it hasn't all been perfect since then has it and it's that thing of becoming Christian doesn't equal a perfect life even though you know you did say God really brought a clear sense of hope and you know in that sense life was much better after he found God but there was still what further kind of mental health challenges around depression and yeah just tell us a little bit more about sort of how the two coincided sure yeah it's so I think you know depression that I was experiencing did lift but the the problem like now I look back or it's not a problem but as I look back it's hard to know with with the depression that I was experiencing how much was learned behavior I grew up in a household with it with a mum who had severe depression so how much was it that I kind of picked up what was going on I recognized I'm a highly sensitive person I have um possibly got dyslexia it's not been formally you know so there's a lot of things like processing wise that was an issue and also I now have learned so much about the gut to uh brain link and I had this glandular fever at 18. so I'd already was living with some form of fatigue and then I had a huge amount of digestive issues for quite a number of years so whilst I found God and that definitely did help there was that hope there was that somebody's with me I think there was a lot to um pick and that you know I'm still unpicking it 20 odd years later around how I think and why I think the way I do and sort of how to put things in place to help me renew my mind you know if you think about being transformed by the knewing of your mind and that's definitely been a bath tool you know that kind of balance between I know God's with me and thinking on the word and standing on the word bitter so interestingly like looking back I think there was quite what now seems like a reasonably calm period I think as I became a Christian I definitely became more confident I went traveling around the world on my own you know I had all these experiences um I definitely I wouldn't say like you know the Depression was still there at elements like I remember like longing to be in a relationship and being single was was really hard but it was it was okay and then I developed chronic fatigue um in 2000 and 9 10. I got formally diagnosed towards the end of 2011. um and I think that then started a whole new kind of journey within my faith because when your health goes you have to really lean into God and I am fiercely independent I think it's still a it's still an issue now like I'm fiercely independent and it takes a lot for me to let go and trust and that's still something that I have to work on yeah yeah definitely definitely so yeah I think with the The Chronic fatigue that was really tough because everything got taken away so I you know I was very clear on where I was headed I was going to become an advanced nurse practitioner and then all of a sudden overnight I was told I wouldn't recover and it was that like you know you said in your intro this Middle Ground of I know God can heal but sometimes he doesn't heal and at that point I think My Fit like now I think there is an element of cynicism has come in especially with the infertility because at that point I was like well God can heal and there'd be nothing else to kind of compare it to you yeah and but it became a long season of waiting but in the waiting like I learned more about nutrition I learned more about mindset I learned more about how to look after myself and that did you know as as I became Weller as I recovered I I was that spark that desire to support others became ignited and I think I could see like there was definitely some challenging moments but you could almost start to see like this will work out this will be okay yeah yeah that's amazing and I I think so often you you know we're very good as Christians about talking about healing like in the miracle moment but actually more times than not my experience of having been a Christian for a long time too is that God's healing process is slow and he works with us through medicine through you know kind of self-care through lots of different you know types running of Mind stuff like you said and that it's more of a slow process more commonly than God just overnight touches someone in their hair miraculously um yeah it's interesting isn't it and I don't think one is less valid than the other but we can often feel that way can't we um so yeah it's really important to kind of look at these things I think and that that's why what you're doing now with nourish thesaurus so cool and um obviously you did recover eventually even though you were told that you'd probably never were to buy medical people at the time and you're now running your own business that supports the women in a similar positions so you can tell us a bit more about that like how did that all come about yeah so I think like I've said you know with the chronic fatigue it was I think you know I am a nurse so I'm very medically minded and that that has changed I think with training as over the time to be a nutritional therapist but you know I was like remember being in the GP surgery and she was like you cannot never go back to Pediatric Intensive Care this is it it's over your career is over gosh but you know like I said but God heals so it was really hard to sit in that because I'm very determined and I'm very proactive and I just couldn't accept that this was it and I remember like joining Facebook groups with other individuals who had chronic fatigue and it was I personally found it not comforting because there was a lot of this will never change this is it and I was like I can't cope with this and I think I almost kind of went insula and went there is there's got to be a Way Forward yeah and like and my friend gave me this book that combined nutrition mindset and and faith and some of the principles were were quite extreme but I was like I'm gonna do this and I committed and I committed to to what it was suggesting and I saw Improvement and yes that didn't fully heal me that came years later but I think what it did show me is that what I was eating prior to becoming unwell was not nourishing me was not supporting my health and actually the more I invested in eating well you know looking at my mindset because there is a link whilst chronic fatigue is not a mental health condition there is a link between physic physical and mental and you know so if I was exceptionally fatigued mentally I would feel weaker and if I was feeling mentally weaker I would also feel physically weaker and there was this kind of cycle and I learned that actually my body um I'm a hyper Vigilant individual so that means I'm always in a state of high levels of stress and so it's been this constant journey to sort of bring it all together to like how do you heal yourself and stay trusting God when things don't work out the way you want them what can you do in the moment and I think that's what it taught me it's like what can I do and then let God do what he can do yeah and it just really sparked this desire to want other people to not have to be in the position where they're getting a GP for example telling them you will never I wanted them to know that there was hope and there was possibility and it might not look their healing might not look like my healing but let's help them in practical ways to how do they nourish their body with the right food how do they you know look after their mindset all whilst you know sticking making sure we're following biblical principles so that it all comes together and it's quite extreme really when you think about it isn't it there's not many illnesses you would get where a GP would say you're never going to recovery although there are illnesses like that but it it's like at very least you would think it would be more the focus would be on managing a long-term condition well and staying as fit like like diabetes you all asked me yeah probably gonna recover from them but you can manage that condition and learn to live by like full life in spite of it and yeah it's funny isn't it um it's obviously a lesser understood condition perhaps still but um yeah it's it's so interesting and so in 2019 then you kind of quit working in the NHS yeah and kind of um shifter to focus in terms of your employment into looking at this more full time and this idea of supporting others so tell us a bit more about that transition and yeah well it was it was an interesting one and just as a side note I think now chronic fatigue is definitely much more understood and there is definitely a lot more done thankfully I mean because we are talking like 11 years ago but yeah I'm thankful to say things have improved that's good I think there's still room for improvement but yeah things have improved um but in terms of yeah 2019 I was I got healed in 2018 and so 2019 there'd been a situation at work where my job so I'd kind of built myself back up I was at that point a children's nurse educator so I was teaching in the healthcare setting and my job changed and we we moved companies and they were basically like yeah what you've been doing you can't do that anymore and I just remember being like I can't do this again I cannot you know after I went through what I went through to like leave Pediatric Intensive Care it took a lot to pick myself up and I don't think I ever fully recovered the past mission for nursing I think I lost it at that point but I was like no I'm a good nurse I can do this and I just picked myself up and I and I carried on for a number of years and that happened and I went I don't think I can do this anymore and at that exact moment I found out what a nutritional therapist was because I'd been looking at different ways to study nutrition and nothing I'd ever felt like it fitted and I found out what a nutritional therapist was and I went that's exactly what I want to do it's body and mind and I can bring the spirit into this and then this like say work changed and there was an opportunity to leave and I felt God was like you've got to go and you've got to go now and I was like but but why you know I've got plenty of time like you know I this course is you know I could start in a few months and God was like no no I really need you to go now and I was like all right then so I did I took a leap of faith and I make it sound like it was easy and it wasn't easy it needed a lot of prayer and a lot of am I really sure I want to leave the pension because it's always about the pension but also you know at that point we were trying for a baby I got married um in 2017 so by that point we were trying for a baby so we were like maternity pay there was a lot of things to consider yeah because it's stability isn't it and it's stability yeah from a stable NHS job to working for yourself it is but I was like no I think I'm just gonna do it all right I'll do this and um so I took the leap of faith started another business that's first aid training which I still do a little bit but not very much and uh and then covered hit six months later and I remember thinking like it was a blessing but not at the same time because there was an awful lot of guilt about leaving my colleagues in the NHS but also a sense of relief because for me whilst with chronic fatigue it's not a straightforward condition I look back and I can look in my past and go this is what contributed to it but the main trigger was probably swine flu which is related to to covid right and so I almost think by being out of the NHS I was protected and as far as I'm aware I've never had covid since and there was always that there was a slight fear of if I get this will I go get sick again yeah um and so I was protected and also if I'd have been in the NHS I'd probably still be there like I wouldn't have left you know I'd be like no gotta keep going um so I think God did protect me and and it was a really hard season I mean I I think I'm still there really in this challenging season but I think what I have learned is God was in it in every step like there are times that I look at my accounts and I go I have no idea how I paid for that course because it was self-funded because there was no way of um getting a loan with this particular course so it's self-funded and literally I had no work for months because of covid I was doing face-to-face training but there was thick like just things would pop up and think you know and I would just go okay right let's just do that then or at one point I was making face masks um because I was doing sewing and so I was just making face masks to sell to make money and bit by bit like I just kept going and got through the course and I even had a miscarriage in the middle of this course but I literally was like I know where I'm headed I know that I really want to support these women so I've just got to keep going um and sort of went through the course but yeah yeah it's just you know it's it's amazing because you did graduate and you started your company afterwards and you know I just think it's so inspiring that you've been able to use your own recovery journey and that story and that learning yeah and then turned it into a story of Hope for other people that now you're able to bring some of that hope and that experience to others I just I think that's amazing um yeah so just you know really want to encourage you in that like it's it's wonderful and I'm also really interested to hear a little bit about your fertility Journey too because you just touched on it briefly there you mentioned that you had a miscarriage a couple of years into marriage and you know I know you I know that it's something that you're still in the middle of now actually and it's also as you know it's it's a subject that's close to my heart too yeah because I've been through a similar path so yeah can you tell us a little bit about that how has that unfolded and has that affected your face as well sure yeah and in all honesty I think this has probably been the biggest challenge to my faith yeah and there have been moments and you know I don't know if you've ever watched SES who dares wins but there's like yeah it's my husband you know I'm just gonna give that one to him but there's a thing where there's armbands and when you're like just cannot take it anymore you take take your own Brian off and give it to the instructor and you leave and there have been many times I've literally been like God I can't do this anymore and I'm Clinging On by my by my fingertips so I guess I should give some context to kind of where what's happened with the fertility Journey so I was single for a very long time like you know you know how you've got life life goals you know sometimes I think yeah uh give God a was it give God a plan and then he laughs or something like that isn't it yeah but in my head sometimes and expectations in my head I was going to be married at 25 children by 30. thank you very much uh I got married at almost 35 so in my head I think I'm about to 10 years behind well I guess some of that delay was because of the chronic fatigue as well yeah for a long time and yeah you couldn't socialize and work in a normal way yeah yeah it had a massive impact because dating was like a I wouldn't call it a luxury but it was very much a I can only do this if I have so much energy yeah and interestingly God told me and I didn't listen God told me that um I wouldn't meet anyone internet dating and I carried on internet dating because I was like but that you're supposed if you want something you've got to be seen to be doing something and and then randomly I moved I was in Scotland and I moved back to Devon and uh one day I just walked into a church shook a guy's hand and went I'm gonna marry him and that was my husband and so we got married and literally literally shook his hand and was like that's it this is my husband um and yeah that that was that brilliant and so um yeah so we got married I was almost 35 and then obviously we had a bit of time together and then we started trying now God had actually giving me a promise and that I would have a son and this was before I met my husband so that was always like at the back of my head that you know this promise of a son and so we started trying and nothing happened and so after six months because I was over 35 we went and did the tests and they were like we can't find anything wrong with either of you that medically and so we were like do we do IVF and interestingly I'd never had any peace about IVF not way before I was married I just had this sense that IVF was not something that I was going to be able to do and I don't know if that was linked to the chronic fatigue or because my body was like I said before I is hyper Vigilant so the stress and stress as we know isn't very good for fertility process isn't it it's a very important process yeah yeah but my husband you know he he was really Keen to have a look into it so I was like I'm gonna do this because I don't want to regret it because obviously once in Devon once you're 40 you that's it you can't get free treatment like you're allowed a round of free treatment um so we looked into it and in the meantime I got we got pregnant which was incredible so about I think two years of trying um and that that was amazing but sadly we had a missed miscarriage so we had an early scan because I'd had so many friends go for 12-week scans and find that the the baby had died I was like I I want to do an early scan so we sadly went and found there was no heartbeat and and that was that was hard but I had hope because I so I chose to have a um a local DNC which I would not recommend doing um in all honesty because I think that sounds tough it was tough and now I look back and I go I think there was a lot of trauma associated with that but I think in my head I had people saying you know I had a DNC I got pregnant really quickly a lot of people going I had a miscarriage then I got pregnant really quickly so in my head I was like oh great I'll do this it's really sup it really sucks that you know our baby is with Jesus but it's okay because we got pregnant and that's great and that's amazing yeah but then I didn't get or we didn't get pregnant and we've not got pregnant again and that I think the month after month after month and then we went we ended up going back to the IVF Clinic because we had an appointment like um with them and they basically like even though you got pregnant there is no other option for you but IVF and I was just like no I'm I have no peace I can't do this no peace and they were like are you really sure because your time is running out um again I guess it comes but I've just had a thought of like it feels like being sat in the with the GP going you will never recover and again they're not saying it will never happen but they were like your time's running out you know you're getting older and I was just like no I can't do this and and I must say my mental health it like I was grieving but I think because when we had the miscarriage I was also in the midst of the degree I didn't realize how much I was grieving how much and we were also in the middle of covid until I finish my degree and then I finished my degree and was like oh my word I'm broken like I felt broken at that point yeah I ended up getting counseling but it was like a year later because I literally was like head down getting sad like I think that things were just getting harder and harder and harder because you know I was grieving but it was so hard to kind of know what it was that what was happening it's a lot to process um grief after loss I think and it's you know that's even you know obviously the covert thing separately and you'd have other issues before that and I think there is a lot of processing and sometimes processing comes quite a bit later doesn't it and it yeah it catches up with you later but it's I think you know I talk to a lot of women in this space and and they talk a lot about that sort of Hope and lost cycle or that hope and disappointment cycle that you're on as as a couple that are trying to conceive and facing infertility every month so it's like hope and then disappointment hope and disappointment and it's kind of this endless cycle and so that this is like disappointment layered on top of yeah like disappointment and on top of grief and it's it can be quite intensive when you're like living that reality for a long time and so I'm not surprised you're saying that is a thing more than anything else that really break your heart break your faith or come closer to breaking your face yeah I'm still I'm still clinging even now I'm still clinging going I have no idea what comes next because we have looked at fostering an adoption but again I at this present moment we don't have peace about it yeah and it's not saying that it's wrong it's just saying I think we're both exhausted you know five years of trying and you know the everything that's happened with you know I've run two businesses everything that has happened I think we're just exhausted so we've got this point of just being like we want a child but we're so we're just tired we're just tired now so we're clinging to God because I also remember what it was like pre-god and I don't want to go back to life without God but it's trying to find I think this is the hardest part of the moment for us is is finding joy in life without children and going you know things like we love to see swim and we'll often get a really early train at like 6 30 in the morning down to a local Beach and we'll be like this is really cool we don't have children because we've been able to get a train at 6 30 in the morning like we've had to go really small yeah just to be like it's okay right now that we don't have children it hurts but we have to and actually Robin I like we're so strong like if nothing else I am incredibly thankful because we joke that neither of us were what each other wanted if we'd have seen each other on a dating site because we're seven years in apart in age seven years younger than me we'd have just gone now he's not for me or she's not for me yeah um but I've always known he was the right man for me and like now like off our relationship is so strong and I'm so thankful for that that through it all like yeah I waited for a Christian man I waited for you know someone who knew God and that is one thing like whilst in the singleness it was hard I'm so thankful now like that I have a man who loves God because I think I would have lost my faith by now if I didn't have him walking beside me yeah it's like that ability to walk the path of pain and suffering together isn't it yeah and um not that we're everything online because I know God's walking with us yeah companionship isn't there and you know I know you're very much still in the middle of the journey and you don't know the final outcome yet but yeah um obviously at the same time I love that kind of truth that you kind of touched on there that is like it's almost like but what's the other alternative than Clinging On To God it's to go back to the hopelessness of your life before you knew God and that isn't an option and sometimes you know I've named that as well at points where it's like where else can I go God what other hope in this life do I have except you and sometimes it is as simple as that isn't it even yeah life's tough but like really what else offers us that kind of Hope um yeah yeah so that really resonates what you're saying there Adam yeah I wonder in all of this kind of what's what's kind of one big takeaway or perhaps one big lesson that you've learned up to now with about life or faith if you could kind of distill it down to just one thing I mean that's probably hard but like what would it be what would your takeaway be up to this point in your journey I know it's not done yet no it's not done yet but I think the biggest thing that God has been teaching me is to almost let go of control yeah which I find very hard to do but let go of the out yeah yeah it's like go with the outcome almost yeah it's almost just sitting in be it's being okay to be me right now I think I've been learning so much recently about trauma um from childhood and and how that's impacted how I think about God and so it's almost been kind of God right now is just going look I just want you to be okay to be you you know be okay to be you without children without the business that you expected without you know everything that you expected and it's just letting it go and going okay I am enough as I am yeah with God full stop yeah and you know whatever comes next I I don't know but it's like it's it's almost kind of going I'm hoping I'm still going to stay hopeful for children and hopeful for like you know the business to be how I want it to be but ultimately the most important thing is is god yeah yeah sorry yeah I love that I you know it's that idea of like so many of us are planners aren't we and yeah well it's okay to plan it's okay to have a plan right you said like your life plan to have you know get married at 25 and have children at 30. I think my plan was similar and mind them went out that way either and yeah um but yeah it's okay to have these plans but it's that idea of letting go of the outcome and just trusting God that actually he has the outcome and he's holding us and he's holding it all in his hands and kind of is really freeing if you can just sit in that truth isn't it in the middle of it rather than constantly wrestling and stressing about it all and I know there's moments of stressing and wrestling but those moments where we just sit and find a piece and relax into God and into trusting them so much easier um I know I found that to be really true as well so yeah I think that's really wise really good advice yeah and I think at the moment I have literally got to a place of just going okay God you know at the moment there's like two big things in my life you know there's the business and and fertility like there's those two things so each day I'm like God how are we partnering together today and what can I do to work towards these goals so it I've not given it a time frame because I find when there's a time frame it makes things worse and I remember reading uh Corey ten Boom when she was talking about the concentration camps and it was very much the sense of those that had a timeline of will be out by Easter or Christmas they were the ones that lost hope the quickest and that's definitely what I've seen as that thought of I'll be pregnant by or this will happen by and it's not happened and I've gotten like discourage disappointment you know struggled with depression because it's not happening how you want it to happen yeah so it is that sort of ability to just go you've promised this I know the Bible says that you are not someone who lies you are someone who keeps keeps his promises and these promises have been given to me from other people as well it's not just kind of what I believe um will happen and so each day it's like I can't think about when this will happen but it's it will happen and then it's like what can I do because I do believe that we're not just to sit back and do nothing yeah but it's not striving it's just what can I do to partner with you today and and what steps can I take to work so we're working together yeah if that makes sense yeah yeah absolutely yeah I love that that's that's really good advice well it's been really Fab talking to you today and hearing a bit about your story and I know we could probably talk and talk and talk about this to be honest um because we have a lot of overlap in that part of our stories um but obviously we are gonna have to bring this to an end um but it'd be really great if you could tell people where they can find you if they perhaps want to connect or find out a bit more about what you're doing nourish to soar or just want to talk to you and chat informally maybe a bit of your story resonates with us like how can people find you tell us all the ways so I'm on Facebook and Instagram under nourish to sort you can also find me on my website at narrator.co.uk I also offer a free 30-minute kind of chat just to kind of talk through you know sometimes I can give you some quick wins if you're looking at sort of diet and lifestyle changes or if you just fancy a cup or in a chat room then you can you can come and say hi really offer of like a free toaster as well it sounds good to me um Claire thank you so much for joining us and giving us a bit of your time and sharing your story so generously with us um it's been great my pleasure thank you for having me no problem everyone thank you for joining us today and we'll see you on what's the story again soon and just like that we have reached the end of another fascinating conversation now remember to check out crowdchurch www.crowd.church even if you might not see the point of church you see we are a digital Church on a quest to discover how Jesus can help us live a more meaningful life we are a community a space to explore the Christian faith and a 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