Carla Miller 00:00
Welcome to the influence and impact podcast for female leaders.

My name is Carla Miller, and I'm a leadership coach who helps female leaders to tackle self-doubt, become brilliant at influencing and make more impact at work. I've created this podcast to help you to become a more inspiring and impactful leader. We'll be talking about all the different topics that affect you as a woman leading today. Think of it as personal development meets professional development. And I want to become the leadership BFF you didn't know you were missing until now. Welcome to this episode of the influence and impact podcast where we're talking about chronic illness and the workplace. Many people are experiencing chronic illness, but it doesn't seem to be something that is discussed much at work. Perhaps you are one of the people who is going to work every day with an ongoing illness or disease that is impacting your physical health, your mental health, your emotional health. Or perhaps you are a line manager and someone in your team or one of your colleagues is experiencing chronic illness. I feel like we don't talk about it enough. I certainly was not informed enough on how to create the best and most supportive environment for people experiencing chronic illness. Which is why I'm delighted to invite today's guest onto the podcast.

My guest is an Instagram influencer when it comes to chronic illness and her name is Rebecca Kudyk. She is a 33-year-old wife and a mum of a three-year-old little boy, and she suffers from fibromyalgia osteoarthritis, ME, which is also known as chronic fatigue syndrome, and also anxiety and depression. She has a career specialising in conduct risk within financial services. And she says that for as long as she can remember she has experienced pain, even as a small child and the medical profession continually fobbed off her pain as growing pains. Then at 25, she got private health care through work, and she was diagnosed with severe osteoarthritis in her knees. Her knees were similar to the knees of a pensioner because of the damage to them. She's had eight operations on her knees, as well as her jaw. And the physical trauma of the operations is what doctors believe to be the cause of her fibromyalgia. She's really open and honest about her experience. And Rebecca is just a lovely and inspiring person as well. So, I hope that this episode is both informative, and inspiring. And I'm grateful to Rebecca for sharing her experiences. So honestly, and so constructively with us. Let's roll that episode. So, Rebecca, welcome, lovely to have you on the podcast.

Rebecca Kudyk 03:06
Thank you very much. I'm really happy to be here.

Carla Miller 03:08
So, you reached out to me on Instagram and shared that you felt that chronic illness was something that we should be talking about on podcasts like this. Tell us a little bit about why you believe that and what what your connection to it is.

Rebecca Kudyk 03:23
What people don't realise is chronic illness. And disability is actually a lot more common than people think. So, I suffer with arthritis, fibromyalgia, and ME and up to as many people as 1 in 20 actually suffer with fibromyalgia. So, this is actually a really common thing. And there just seems to be a big gap between actually people being diagnosed and the support that's out there. And potentially lots of people actually been out there not being diagnosed. So, it's something that is really widespread in common, but it's not something that's talked about, and I think as well, if it is it's an issue that's affecting a great number of employees and employers, it's most definitely something that we should be talking about in the workplace and outside as well.

Carla Miller 04:08
Absolutely. So, 1 in 20. That is way higher than I thought it was. What is what is fibromyalgia? Explain it to those of us who don't know the details?

Rebecca Kudyk 04:16
Yeah, no, of course I can. Okay. So effectively, it's defined as widespread pain across the body. So, for example, it can manifest itself in lots of different ways. So, some people get excruciating migraines all over body aches and muscle pain, and something called fibro fog, which is a cognitive impairment. So, for example, you may be in a meeting at work for example, and talking and you just completely forget mid track what you were talking about. So that can be really difficult, especially if you're in a leadership or management role. If you're suffering with a flare up, which is quite common in fibromyalgia, it's where your symptoms would flare up and become more apparent so your body pain and your cognitive fog would become a lot more prevalent, you would potentially just struggle to remember what you were talking about mid-sentence, and it can make you feel really sort of incompetent and knock your confidence, even though it's something that's obviously out of your control.

And I think it's quite hard as well for other colleagues to understand because yesterday, you were fine, you know, and tomorrow, you may be okay. But that particular day your symptoms had flared up, and you're not performing in the way that you usually do at work.

Carla Miller 05:32

Well, and this is something that starts from a young age or can you get at any age?

Rebecca Kudyk 05:38
So, another problem with fibromyalgia is it's really difficult to actually work out a cause and the medical profession haven't been able to, what they've ascertained is it usually comes from a trauma, whether that be a physical trauma or a mental trauma, so an operation, even a virus, so obviously, we've COVID-19 haven't hit us. But we interesting to see if, if the virus COVID actually causes Fibromyalgia in people. Or it can be a sort of a more of a mental trauma, like bereavement or the breakdown of a relationship or something like that. That's what's quite scary about Fibromyalgia is that anybody can be diagnosed and can get Fibromyalgia at any age, it doesn't discriminate, and I think that's quite a common misunderstanding about it.

Carla Miller 06:33
Yeah, because I guess we just try. We tend to think of diseases and illnesses in a particular way, don't we? And particularly in a linear way, and like you were saying it isn't linear. So, on any given day do you do you wake up knowing what kind of day you're going to have health wise.

Rebecca Kudyk 06:47
I can wake up some mornings and literally feel like I'm not well enough to get out of bed. So, my muscles will stiffen up, but I have widespread pain and migraine, for example. And yeah, I can't get out of bed. Whereas the day before, I may have like been able to do see friends do the food shop, you know, do all of my other things. I'm a mum as well. So be able to do a full day of parenting and looking after my child, and then the next day wake up and be completely bedridden. But that can last for one day, one week, one month, several months sometimes. So, it's really, really difficult to track flares. But you can try and do things to sort of limit them happening as much once you begin to understand what your triggers are.

Carla Miller 07:32
So and so how do you do that? How do you start to understand those triggers and to limit what the impact of those.

Rebecca Kudyk 07:40
So, a lot of people will, you'll get a lot of people telling you all you need to do pacing to try pacing. And that's all well and good. But you need to think okay, so what does actually pacing mean? How does that work for me. So a lot of people like I did at the beginning, I kept a diary of what I what I was eating, because that can actually have a link and what I was doing and what activities were then resulting in me having a flare up. So typically, a flare up would happen after you overuse your energy. So, for example, for me, if I was to go out with the girls, for the evening, and have a meal, I can tend to do a meal. And but then I will get to sort of go out dancing afterwards. Or I would have to skip the meal and go dancing, you know, because I was noticing that those overexertion of physical activities, and actually mental activities as well. So, if I had a particularly tough project at work, I find if I was over exerting myself in the day, without taking the right breaks and rest periods, I was then flaring up the next day.

Carla Miller 08:47
Interesting. So how do you we're going to talk about work we talk plenty about work, but how on earth do you manage that with parenting? I mean, you've got a little boys but younger than my little boy, how do you you know, they don't understand really? Do they just want a need their mum at a certain point in time, how do you deal with that?

Rebecca Kudyk 09:04
Yeah, so I'm really lucky in the sense that my husband's incredibly supportive and he allows me to take the rest that I need to if I need to in the evening. But it is really, really difficult, especially like my son goes swimming every week, and he's really wants like mummy to take him swimming. And then some weeks like I really can't because I may be flaring up or I may know that doing less swimming will then flare me up to the rest of the day of the weekend. So, I wouldn't be able to do other things with him. And I think really important thing with my son even from a young age, I've been really upfront and honest about what my limitations are. And instead of sort of making up an excuse, I will tell him like mummy really wants to do this thing with you. But she's not able to because her muscles like today I have a lot of problem with my knees, so her knees hurt today. But when you come back from doing that thing mummy will do this with you that will play a game or so it lets him know that it's nothing to do with him. I'm not invalidating his emotions, and he has something to look forward to when he comes home that he knows that he can just do with me. So, I think that's a really important thing, because it's not just your emotions and feelings in your managing it's also your partner's your friends and your child. So, it's really difficult.

Carla Miller 10:24
And when I'm ill, I don't have very much tolerance, and I'm pretty grumpy with my child, it's just me and my child in my house. But yeah, I've been known to be a bit grumpy when I'm not feeling well. How on earth do you? Do you manage your mood when you're in such pain and deal with that?

Rebecca Kudyk 10:43
I'm not the number 10 that I have this perfect because I don't think that's a realistic interpretation. Sometimes I am perhaps not as patient as I could be. But I'm quite lucky with my son, he's very caring and we're very similar in character. So, his personality and the way that he is actually has the opposite effect it almost energises me. So we will spend a lot of time together and we've developed sort of like a mummy Kalin (my son's called Kalin) hour where we will do an activity that's actually resting so we may yesterday for example, we laid on my bed and we did monster truck hour so we listened to some monster truck songs on the radio and then we were just sort of playing with his monster trucks and like to him that meant the world but for me, it meant I was able to rest and then I had the energy to do his bath and bed routine later. So, it's using clever ways like that as well because you obviously don't want to be talking about your illness all of the time with your child because you don't want it to be all encompassing for them you know and what they associate with you. So, it's finding clever ways to incorporate rest and bring your child into that environment not necessarily child your partner your friends, whatever your circumstances and support network are.

Carla Miller 12:02
And you created an Instagram account to document your experiences will tell us why why did you create that Instagram account? And what is that account so everyone can go and follow you.

Rebecca Kudyk 12:11
Chronically_Beck's but I'm sure we'll share those details later. But it was it was sort of suppose selfish and selfless in equal measure. So, I wanted to use it as part of my recovery journey, you know, to start documenting what I found helped me and documenting my journey. So sometimes I can look back and just think, wow, okay, I have actually come a lot further than where I was at the beginning. But probably more so because when I was diagnosed, I was 25. And I've got Osteoarthritis as well, which is quite unusual for my age, I just was sort of thrown into this whole new world of chronic illness, I had nobody else around me that I could refer to that I could relate to. And I think a lot of chronic illness people out there or spoonies. That's the nickname that we go. But I would agree that people are very sympathetic when you first start talking to them about your chronic illness. But their patient seems to wane after the first few times because they're sort of thinking, oh, not this again, you're not getting better yet. And people don't realise that if you break your leg. It's it's a miserable illness, isn't it? So, you think, oh, okay, so she'll be better in six weeks, we can get back to doing what we did before. And that sympathy is a bit more like prolonged and well placed. But with chronic illness, it's really really difficult to get that. So, I wanted to create or be part of a community where people that suffer with chronic illness could actually come and learn what helps other people. So, I like to say what has helped me and what I found through my research that helps, and also to share a bit of a bit of humour as well as there's some quite funny chronic illness humour out there. And I think sometimes when you're despairing, it sometimes helps to just laugh at yourself a little bit. And yeah, the community's absolutely amazing. And I've found some really nice sort of friendship there a lot of people that have given me tips as well, because I'm not going to pretend that I know everything, you know, I'm putting out there what I've learned over a number of years, but my coping strategy and my toolbox, I call it my coping toolbox is constantly being developed, you know, so I'm developing different tools and coping techniques that I can put into that toolbox and then use as and when I need.

Carla Miller 14:38
And how has this chronic illness impacted your ability to do your job and your career?

Rebecca Kudyk 14:44
Oh, absolutely, hugely. So. I'm really lucky. I've just joined a company now who are incredibly supportive of my chronic illness and as part of that, and as part of the role I now work from home fully, which we talked about reasonable adjustments in the term and chronic illness and disability at work. So, a reasonable adjustment for a lot of people would be able to be able to work from home, you know, take micro breaks, be within your environment, remove the mobility, challenges of commuting to work, etc. But I think as well COVID really helped with that, because it's becoming a lot more commonplace. And people understand and respect homeworking a lot more. So, in a way, COVID has been quite useful in that respect, in terms of that being a more acceptable and widely used reasonable adjustment.

So I'm really lucky in that respect, but when I commuted to the office, I would have been absent, by the time that I've got to work and I've had an hour's change journey, I'd be an absolute agony, and I would, I've got ME as well, which is often associated with fibromyalgia, which means you get extremely fatigued very quickly and very easily. And it's not a normal level of fatigue, like, like somebody would experience tiredness, it's like a real sort of deep fatigue, where you need to rest, and there just wasn't the ability to do that. So, I'd find I'd go in for a few days, and then I'd be off sick trying to recover for a few days, you know, it was like a self. It's like a vicious cycle that you'd rest over the weekend to get enough energy to be able to commute and then by Wednesday, he'd be absolutely exhausted and logging in. So, logging in sick.

So, I think I learned this quite recently. And a really good way of defining chronic illness is imagine waking up every morning and wanting to call in sick, that's how you feel. But you can't, you've got, you've got to, if you're working, you've got to keep bringing an income in as you know, with a young family, it's important. You have to be sort of providing for your child, and then there's that decision, okay, well, if you're not well enough to where do I leave my job and go into the benefit system, which, as a lot of chronic people that suffer with chronic illness, or no, that is not an easy world to get into. And it's actually it's quite focused against the person claiming it as opposed to benefit them. But I suppose that's a whole other conversation for another day. But there's just a lot of challenges and actually carrying on with work if you're well enough to. And then if you're not, is actually making that decision to go into a benefit system that may not actually benefit you. It's just really, really difficult

Carla Miller 17:36
I can imagine. And so, I presume you've had some managers that have been really helpful, and some managers that have not so helpful, what are the things managers should avoid? When it comes to when they've got someone in their team who's experiencing chronic illness? What should they avoid doing?

Rebecca Kudyk 17:55
So, I think a lot of people can do ableist language, which is where a sort of somebody that is able bodied would say things to somebody with a chronic illness and a disability that, that is quite derogative without realising it, and it actually disempowers them, and something else called toxic positivity. So I think a lot of people can fall into this bucket of toxic positivity, where they will say things like to, oh, well, it could be worse, at least you're not dying or, and things like that, you know, and they think that they're helping you in terms of sort of making things better, but it actually just invalidates the suffering that you're going through, like, okay, yeah, it could be worse. But for us, this is our reality. And it's a really difficult reality where we require support. So, I think that's a massive thing for leaders, isn't it support versus sort of papering over the cracks?

So like, I think the key thing that I have, especially that I found in this job is empowering your employee who has the disability or chronic illness to speak up, because I think I've heard it from leaders myself that that they thought, okay, well, if my staff has got any issues, they'll just come to me. But some people I'm quite open and honest about my disabilities, I've had mixed responses, as you said from different leaders. But some people especially in a new role, may feel that if they mentioned their disability or chronic illness, even at interview stage or in the early days while on probation, that it may be held against them. And it may be considered that they're then weaker than their, their counterparts or they're not as reliable. So I think it's really important for the actual firm and the leaders to empower their staff to speak up to actually at the interview stage at induction, explaining it there and inclusive employer what they do, what supports out there, and if there's anything that you ever wants to talk about, or there's any anything that you struggle with no necessarily even chronic illness or disability, or mental illness, anything to them that they feel is important than shared. They need to empower that individual to share it, as opposed to waiting for that individual to have the confidence to, to actually do that.

So, an example that I heard recently was that somebody on the first day came in with crutches into the office. And she sort of struggled up the stairs by herself. And the manager thought, Oh, well, she's fine. She's on crutches, but she's fine. She's got up the stairs, if she needs help, she will ask. But actually, it was going up the stairs to all of the energy out of her for the rest of the day, she was really upset that there wasn't a ramp or lift available. And she was waiting for that leader to actually say, Do you need any help? What can I do to help you because it was a first day. And as I mentioned before, she didn't want to make a bad impression or, or be considered obviously, people that have chronic illness and disabilities are by no means like any less important or capable in the team. But I think there's still that stigma, that sense of that, if you talk about it and bring it up, that you may be considered in that way.

Carla Miller 21:15
Yeah, so I mean, it's been like this for a long time, hasn't it that the focus is on what you get done more than on the person isn't it more on how you can support the individual. And so, if, if someone does talk to their line manager, and say look this is my, this is my chronic illness, this is what needed to manage it, what kind of response would a great manager give, so it's a no on the toxic positivity. What was what would be the ideal response you'd love to hear?

Rebecca Kudyk 21:47
Thank you for telling me would be number one is I thank you for actually taking the time to tell me about this. This is what I can offer you personally, in terms of day to day working. So, my leader offered me a flexible start and finish times depending on how I feel that morning. So, I think, obviously, there's a business need that they need to balance. So, there's core hours within my company. So, between 8 and 10 in the morning, and then 4 and 6 in the evening. So, I can work sort of eight to four, nine to 5, 10 till 6, depending on how I'm feeling. Also, the ability to be able to take breaks when I need to. And then obviously, it's up to your leader, if you need to sort of tell them about that, because obviously some roles, you may be on the telephone, you know, some roles might like mine and more project based, so you can manage your time and a little bit more. And then once they've decided what they can offer you they may offer you occupational health appointment, you know, just from a medical perspective to see what reasonable adjustments that they can offer you is then actually talking about what HR do and what the wider organisation do to help.

So, something that's really helped me in actually all companies in my career, I've been part of a disability and mental health committee as such. So, it's an employee resource group or a committee, where typically people that suffer from disability and chronic illness not always are part of this committee, and then they're driving initiatives across the business. As how you can better manage employers, employees, sorry, with chronic illness and disability or as a leader, what you can do and what you can offer. So, I know in my company, they're starting to build it in as part of induction. So that managers will signpost colleagues to different sort of resources that can help and then how they can conduct an initial conversation with somebody that has a chronic illness or disability or as I said, a myriad of any other particular issues. That's personal to them. I think that's, that's really essential.

Carla Miller 24:03
Excellent. It's great to know that exists. It certainly didn't when I was actively employed, and I'm guessing the larger companies are better set up for it, because they're just more up to speed and better resource through the background in the charity sector. We're definitely seeing employee resource groups, but not a huge amount other than the statutory actions. beyond that. So if you were if you were making a business case to someone running a business about why employ people that have chronic illness, what case would you make because you're obviously hugely resilient, and resourceful, but what case would you make for them as to why they should be not only embracing and supporting the people who've got chronic illness but not having bias against them when it comes to an interview process?

Rebecca Kudyk 25:00
Yeah, firstly, thank you for saying that I'm resilient. That's always nice to hear. Because I think you can sometimes sort of tip along and not actually take the time to think, you know, well, I do balance a lot. And it's really hard. So, thank you for that. But I think that, that would be the point that I would lead with is actually people my position, we actually have a lot of challenges that we faced every day to begin with, and we can navigate those effectively. And the fact that we're in a position on wanting to work, as well as that, I think it actually shows a great tenacity, it shows a great ability to be able to sort of overcome any struggles and ongoing priorities as well. And I think people as well generally that have been through hardships and that are working through recovering them, they're, they're very personable, and I think we can miss that quite a lot in business, I think we can think I'm this person, I'm a manager, or I'm a senior manager, or, or that's an admin person, you know, and you can lose the personality. We're all people at the end of the day. And the way that I like to do business is through relationship building. So, I like to it. So, I've been in my role, new role for about three weeks, and I'd be making sure to put in introductions of all the people, firstly, in my team, and then why is it area to identify myself as an individual.

So, I think, when you've got a lot of a story to tell, and you've been through a lot of hardships, I just think that you'd like to break down the silos a lot more. And you, you, you get confidence in ways you never thought that you did. So I think it's all about having a business case to say, yeah, it's fantastic. I can, I'm great overcoming challenge I can prioritise, you know, like sort of the star of every CV will have that snapshot up is actually about how you relate and how you come across, and how I think you can show people your tenacity and your resilience and your enthusiasm for the role. And I think once you've got an enthusiastic person, that's the right fit for your culture, because I think you need to talk culture is another thing. You need to have somebody that fits into your business culture, and that will work out. Yes, I think there may be challenges in the sense that they may take more sick days than another person. But that's not a reason to stop. Because this person's managing and when they are in the office, and they are able to work. They're working really well.
So yeah, it's about finding that fine line, I think, as well, and not just instantly thinking of the business case. Because I know full well that people that are chronically ill, and I've had so many challenges, just brings a plethora of experience resilience and tenacity to the workplace, and enthusiasm, and it's just, it's a fantastic skill and essence to bring into a workplace, you know, to be more authentically you, no masks, nothing hidden, just authentically you.

Carla Miller 27:56
Yeah, and engaged in the workplace and like, wanting to work motivated, which I think so many people aren't engaged and aren't motivated. So, I think that's really useful. I read recently that certainly, in the old days wouldn't say the old days, traditionally, when you ask for references, you would ask how many sick days people had that? Has that now changed legally? Do you know? In terms of an obligation? Was it just now we all know better? And we don't ask that hopefully.

Rebecca Kudyk 28:30
I wouldn't quote me on it. But I haven't had that issue come up before as a marker of my competence. I certainly know that a lot of blanket references wouldn't include that it would be that if the employee the new employer would actually request that. Yeah. But then I think if they were requesting that, that goes against everything that I've just said in terms of the culture and empowering people to actually speak up, if they're using that as a measure that is quite, that's not progressive, and that isn't actually getting the right message and getting the right people out there. So, if I was to go for a job, and an employer actually asked for that, it wouldn't be an organisation or a culture that I would personally want to be a part of. So, I think as I can only speak up, I've been quite lucky in financial services in my industry, to work in quite big companies that have that structure. But yeah, for personally, I would not want to join a firm or a company that is wanting to know that kind of information.

Carla Miller 29:38
Yeah, I saw something. I mean, I know certainly years ago when I was doing references, it was asked for standard references. Now more people have moved to that standard guess this person worked here for those dates on references. Anyway, I saw something on LinkedIn the other day where they were asked for a reference for someone and it said, how many days sick they had in the person?

Rebecca Kudyk 29:58
Yeah.

Carla Miller 29:38
Yeah, that's not acceptable

Rebecca Kudyk 30:00
No, it's not for chronically ill people as well, like, they can have a really fantastic year, you know, when they only have sort of five or six or however many flare ups. And then the next year, they might have like, a lot more issues with their health. It's not it's a snapshot in time, isn't it an absence report? It doesn't tell anything about who that employer, employee sorry, actually is and what they bring to the table. So, I would hope to see that shifting. I'm lucky enough, I guess, in my industry that it is. And it's not something that they that they would consider. But yeah, it's so it's a very quantitative measure of somebody, and it's certainly not going to bring a value to that organisation.

Carla Miller 30:44
Yeah, I think you just summed that up perfectly. And I agree with you on that. Now, I know that one of the things that we touched on beforehand that we wanted to talk about is grief and loss and how that plays into this. Tell us a bit about that.

Rebecca Kudyk 30:57
So, I think this is something that I learned on part of my journey is I think the first thing we think of with grief is you would tend to think perhaps a bereavement. And that would typically especially that's how I thought of it, and somebody mentioned to me grief counselling, what do I need grief counselling for. But if you actually think about it from the point of diagnosis, or even waiting for a diagnosis of chronic illness and suffering your symptoms, there's a great sense of loss in that. So, there's a sense of loss for the abilities that you may be, may have lost through your job symptoms. So, for example, I'm extremely tired, and I'm a very social person, you know, so I used to go out a lot with friends and do different things. Whereas now I have to very carefully manage what I do. And if I am going out for dinner, factoring quite a lot of rest periods that day or that week leading up to it. And there's also that's the grief of losing the person that you were before, which is actually a really big adjustment, because you're changing as a person, but you haven't necessarily you haven't chosen, chosen to change yourself. And it's about being really adaptable to change and acceptance. And I use acceptance reluctantly, because I think people think that it's a linear journey to accept your new chronic illness or your disability when actually, you don't accept it one day, and then you're okay with it. It fluctuates constantly.

So, some days, you feel okay, I've got this, you know, I've got my symptoms under control. I've got my plan, I'm pacing I've scheduled in my wrist, I got to see my friend last week, everything's great. And then the very next morning, you might wake up with completely debilitating symptoms, you have to call in sick to work, you have to cancel on a friend. And you just think I'm right about square one, like I can't cope with this. This is awful. So, it's incredibly, incredibly difficult with grief and loss. And you may lose relationships where people just don't understand you get a lot of oh used to be really fun, or I used to be out a lot. Now we don't see you. But I think another thing across the chronic illness community as well is what people don't realise is you're only welling up, you're only seeing sorry, if you're well enough to be seen. So, if you're out in the world, and you're socialising or you're in the office, you're well enough that day to get out of bed to be seen, to talk to people. What they don't see is the day before or the day after, you know behind closed doors where you've just been bedridden in agony all day relying on painkillers or so there's a lot of loss and grief. Not only within yourself, but with actual other people as well and other relationships.

Carla Miller 33:48
It sounds incredibly hard. I know you're passionate about mental health as well and understanding the impacts of chronic illness on mental health.

Rebecca Kudyk 33:57
I am yeah, so what a lot of people don't think about is that my disability and my chronic illness is very mobility focused. So, it's I will struggle with my arthritis to move around very easily. Same with fibromyalgia, all the muscle pain. But what they don't understand is that also obviously a lot of mental health that comes with that as well. So obviously everybody has mental health, whether it's good or bad. So that's just everyone's got physical. Everybody's got mental health, which I think is in itself quite an important distinction. When people say, oh, I've never suffered with mental health. Well, no, you do have mental health. It's just your mental health is good and it's well and it's working for you.

I personally think it's sometimes for me personally more difficult than the physical side of things. So, you have to come to terms with the fact that you can't go out all the time so your friends may be getting frustrated. That used to be the fun one, but how about me I was the one that was going out and enjoying myself on the one that's missing out when you've got plans with your family, and you have to cancel because you've got debilitating pain, and often last-minute cancelling as well. So, you have the anxiety and these feelings of guilt about having to cancel last minute, you know, and letting people down. And I just think it can be a very isolating place that when people don't understand and can't relate to you, even your closest, so like my husband's absolutely fantastic and wonderful with me, I'm really lucky. But he doesn't understand sometimes why I've had to cancel last minute, you know, and it can be like, that's, that's a real shame, he obviously doesn't mean to get frustrated in any way. And he very rarely does. But then I'm thinking, okay, well what about me, I'm the one that's happened to cancel or bear all of that guilt on board. And then the isolation of no one knowing that can lead to depression. And negative feelings are a real dent on self-esteem.

So going back to that acceptance point, if you are trying to accept a new version of yourself that you don't lie, that can have a real impact on your self-esteem, and you have to create a path for the new you and what the new you want to achieve within the limitations of what you're capable of achieving. So, and I think as well for somebody like so I, my career, it's very important to me, I'm not quite focused on my career, and then the nature of my career that I am, and you can sometimes feel like you weren't as good as you were before. And then that's a really hard thing to come to terms with as well.

And yeah, it's really, and how people relate to you as well, within chronic illness like some people are incredibly supportive that made me think, do you know what, yeah, I can do this, and I am doing this well, like even you earlier saying that I was resilient. I was quiet. It was quite nice to hear that because you don't always hear it. And you don't always realise it. And it's just yeah, things like that. It's just you wouldn't think of what an impact they can have on your mental health, you know, just how somebody talks to you or addresses you or language that they use, but it does.

Carla Miller 37:08
Wow, I mean, I just think you’re very inspiring, been through such a lot, you're experiencing such a lot. Looking forward you can't tell what that's going to look like either, and you get up every day and do what you can, and then you're also inspiring others and making your energy is very precious, and the fact that you've given some of it. And it’s no mean feat going on a podcast, actually, that takes a lot of mental and emotional physical energy, doesn't it?
So, I really, really appreciate you doing that to help others, whether it's other people experiencing chronic illness to help me feel less alone, or managers and leaders thinking well, how can I, they're probably people in their team experiencing chronic illness that they just don't even know about, because they've not had this conversation. So, I'm sure this will inspire others, as well. And so, thank you so much. It's certainly been eye opening for me, and great for me to know. And I think about the women that I coach and support. And some of those are experiencing things like this as well. We've got your Instagram account. So that's the best place for people to get in touch with you.

Rebecca Kudyk 38:19
It is yeah, and I just sort of wanted to echo as well that my Instagram account is very much an open-door policy. So, if anybody has any individual stories or cases or anything that they don't feel comfortable going to, say, their manager or their doctor or anyone about please feel free to message me at any point. And I'll always take the time to talk to you and share what I know. As I said, I'm constantly learning and evolving as well. But I definitely want my Instagram to be a place of knowledge sharing and support wherever people need it.

Carla Miller 38:52
Fantastic. Well, you've got a very big heart to others, and I wish you many healthy days of waking up and take good care of yourself.

Rebecca Kudyk 39:02
Thank you so much. Fingers crossed.

Carla Miller 39:06
And take good care of yourself. Thank you so much.

Rebecca Kudyk 39:08
Thanks very much Carla, take care.

Carla Miller 39:17
If you've listened to the podcast and you want to know more about how we can work together, here are a few places you can look.

First of all, I've got a couple more freebies. I've got a free PDF on increasing your leadership impact at work, and I've also got a free masterclass on becoming a more influential leader without letting self-doubt hold you back. So, head on over to the website to book yourself a place on the masterclass or to download that PDF.

There are my open programmes influence and impact for women at management and leadership level and be bolder a four-week live assertiveness and confidence course for women at any level.

You can preorder my book closing the influence gap, a practice Guide for women leaders who want to be heard.
You can also work with me one to one particularly if you're a senior leader, and you can hire me to work in house to do talks for awareness weeks, one of workshops, a series of workshops, or to run my influence and impact programme or be bolder programme in house as a women's leadership or women's empowerment offering.

If you want to talk about any of those on my website, you can drop me an email or you can also book a quick 15-minute chat so we can talk about what you need and how I might be able to help you or your organisation. So, I look forward to chatting to you. Take care.