Becki’s Story.

Why I created this movement.

I am Becki, a mental health awareness advocate, mindfulness and breath-work facilitator, consultant, mentor and founder of Big Love Movement; a platform for positivity changing the way we think, feel and speak about mental health.

I believe well-being is more than a reflection of our physical health, happiness and sense of place in the world. I know, just as we have physical health we have mental, emotional, social, financial and spiritual health and each one affects how we feel, how we behave and interact in the world. Our physical health can be impacted by stress, grief, anxiety and depression which manifest in the body as physical symptoms, these experiences are not exclusive to the mind.

It’s my mission to shake up how we see mental health in ourselves, each other, our schools and the workplace. I intend to create a shift in our culture by openly sharing my experience, knowledge and transformational tools to support your wellbeing.

My own experience of mental illness began as a child when I was bullied from a young age and I struggled with depression. I experienced physical and emotional bullying and began to self-harm. At the age of 13, I experienced immense grief and PTSD at the loss of my dad. This is not a happy story but it is one of the reasons I am writing this and creating this movement. Mental illness has affected me and those around me in different ways throughout my life however it was never spoken about beyond hushed words accompanied by a sense of shame, and this is what I want to change.

Through my twenties, I experienced the knock-on effect of not healing my trauma, grief and depression; my behaviour and lifestyle were harming my physical health, my relationships and even my career, I was immensely unhappy and felt a huge disconnection from my body and to those around me. I was stressed and anxious, I felt misunderstood although I realise now I didn’t really understand myself.

At 24, I began to work with an incredible therapist and EMDR practitioner, I discovered yoga and mindfulness and began processing my trauma, my grief and started to heal my relationship with myself and my family. I worked in fashion for over 15 years and although I was a highly creative and confident communicator I felt held back in my career due to the challenges I was experiencing with my mental health. My role was stressful at times, as many people's role is, but as I lost connection with myself and my team I began to have anxiety attacks, difficulty sleeping and my IBS was uncontrollable, I even started to experience migraines which I’d never had before, once again my body was alerting me to something I’d been ignoring; my wellbeing.

I knew something needed to change because my body was living in fight-flight mode and my health on all levels was struggling to sustain me so I began practising mindfulness, breath-work and yoga, I learnt mindset techniques which enabled me to feel calm in situations I’d previously found very challenging, especially at work. This didn’t all happen at once but gradually over a couple of years I started to connect to myself and learnt to self-soothe when I felt anxious or stressed. The more I focused on becoming more self-aware the more I noticed my relationships were improving, I was building stronger connections to my team at work and to friends and loved ones.

I was slowly learning to be self-aware through mindfulness and yoga, these practices helped me reconnect to myself.

By approaching my health and wellbeing with a holistic blend of tools I realised I was able to support myself better, managing periods of stress and low mood more responsibly and mindfully, and learning ways to sustain my every day wellbeing.

This is what I now call , Empowered Wellbeing..

Through self-awareness I was able to develop a connection to myself on a deeper level, I began to understand my body and how it responded to my environment, certain experiences, the behaviour of others and even my own thoughts. I started to notice my own mood and behaviour and how they affected those around me. By strengthening my connection to myself I was able to connect with others in a way I hadn’t been able to before, I began to feel calm, more connected and slowly I began to communicate more clearly with more confidence.

As I said, this was no easy ride and there are still bumps in the road however I am now able to hold the space to share and support others which is the reason I created what I hope will be a movement within our society towards a better understanding of mental health, our bodies and emotions. I embody the values of Big Love Movement every day in any way I can through the practices I use to support myself, the tools I share with others and the way I speak to myself and others.

My intention is to educate, inspire and empower as many people through knowledge awareness and through the use of my transformational tools and programs. I hope to one day meet you in person or connect in the virtual space. Until then;

Big Love,

Becki