The Life Of Bryony - “You Have Always Mattered”: BBC Anchor-Turned NHS Therapist Sian Williams on Why Your Anxious Feelings Count

Episode Date: April 27, 2026

This week I’m joined by Dr Sian Williams – former BBC news anchor turned NHS counselling psychologist – who has swapped the newsroom for the therapy room to sit with people living through complex trauma, anxiety and stress. She talks about what she’s learned from reporting on some of the world’s worst days and now helping people survive their own, and why so many of us feel we don’t “deserve” our feelings. We get into anxiety as a full-body, thinking-feeling-doing experience, why trying to out-think it only makes it louder, and how to stop self-silencing and people-pleasing at the expense of yourself. Sian shares her “orchids and dandelions” way of understanding highly sensitive people, and why changing your environment – not who you are – is the key to finally feeling like you’re enough. If you’ve ever been told you’re “too sensitive” or wished you could grow a thicker skin, this episode is your reminder that you have always mattered, and your feelings really do count.BOOKS DISCUSSED IN THIS EPISODESian’s new book, The Power of Anxiety, is available to buy now.WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOUGot something to share? Message us on @lifeofbryonypod on Instagram.If this episode resonated with you, please share it with someone who might need it – it really helps! Bryony xxCREDITS:Host: Bryony GordonGuest: Sian WilliamsProducer: Laura Elwood-Craig Assistant Producer: Tippi Willard Studio Manager: Mitchell LiasProduction Manager: Vittoria CecchiniEditor: Luke ShelleyExec Producer: Jamie East A Daily Mail production. Seriously Popular. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Now, once in a while, I record a chat that moves something deep inside me, and this, my loves, is one of those. Sean Williams is one of the most familiar faces in British broadcasting. She's a former BBC Breakfast and BBC news presenter who's sat with people on some of the hardest days of their lives. And she's now a qualified psychologist working in the NHS with people living through complex trauma, anxiety and stress. Today on The Live of Briney, you're going to hear, Sean, as you've never done before, if she talks about claiming the title, Doctor, the health challenges that changed how she saw her body, and what it's like to move from reporting the news to quietly helping others survive it. There is more need for more people offering help.

We need more therapists. We need more psychologists. We need more psychotherapists. We need more counsellors. And, you know, people I see, they're sort of clients, whether it be privately or in the NHS, when they first talk to you about stuff, it's almost like they don't feel they deserve of their feelings. And that is so hard. My conversation with Sean coming up right after this. Doctor Sean Williams. Stop it.

I don't know. I'm going to give you your full flowers and title because you've earned that. You've studied hard for that. Thank you. Thank you. Welcome to the life of Brian. I'm so glad to be here. You know, it's funny, the whole doctor thing, when I was training, it's taking about

15 years to get there. And when you're doing a professional doctorate, you have to go out and I worked in the NHS and I worked with families with complex trauma and worked with adolescents who had suicidality and they were quite sort of complex things. You have to get your flying hours up. And then you have to publish papers and all this sort of stuff. And then when I was awarded the doctor after I don't know how many years, my supervisor said, congratulations, Dr. Williams. and I said, oh, no, no, not yet, not yet, not yet. And she said, why is it so hard to hold? She said, I often find this with women especially,

that even after working really hard for something where they've had to make sacrifices and it's taken chunks out of other areas of their life, they're not prepared to sort of say, and this is where I am, and I'm really proud of where I am. Can you say it now? Yeah, I can say it now. Dr. Sean Williams,

I think that's partly, though, because I've worked in the NHS now permanently for the last four years, and that's my title there. So, you know, it's on your door? I don't have a door. Okay. It's on your email sign off? Yeah, it's on your email sign off. And it's sort of how you're known, really, I guess. But, I mean, when you're sitting with someone, that stuff doesn't really come in because you don't, that patient, I don't like the word,

patient, but that's often how they're referred to in the NHS. That sort of patient expert relationship is quite difficult. In my sort of branch of psychology, I'm much more, well, no, hang on, you're the expert in your stuff. I'm along with you navigating, helping you navigate our way through this stuff. Got you. So let's take out some of the power here because I think power causes so much difficulty, power over somebody else causes a lot of difficulty.

And a lot of the time somebody who sits in front of you has experienced an unequal power dynamics somewhere in their life. Which is how they've ended up in either chair. It was certainly contributed to it. So the last thing you want is for them to think. Call me Dr. Sean. Yes, exactly. Yeah.

So Dr. Sean, I'm going to call you Dr. Sean the whole way through this recording. Listeners, viewers, however we consume our podcast, we'll know you from BBC Breakfast, from the news at 10. Did you also do the 1 o'clock news? Yes, and the 6 o'clock news. And the 6 o'clock. How could I forget? Sometimes I did the 6 o'clock news and breakfast in the same day.

Did you ever do BBC Breakfast, the 6 o'clock news and the 10 o'clock news? I did when I was working, if I was sent a lot of, to somewhere because news had happened and it was ghastly. Sometimes you're the first one there and the only one there for a while representing the BBC. So I remember when I did the earthquake in Kashmir, the Pakistan earthquake, I think it was 2004, and hundreds of thousands of people died. It was really, really difficult area to get to. And hundreds of thousands of people died. It was a ghastly disaster. And because it was an earthquake, of course, all the roads had been disrupted and the transport infrastructure. So me and my team, and when I say team, we're very small, it's just me

and a camera person and a producer Faradirani. We arrived first, and then you're doing everything. Obviously, you're doing everything because it's your responsibility to do it. It's your responsibility to say this is happening and it's ghastly and the world needs to see it because A, there'll be a lot of people who are from Pakistan who'll be really worried about what's going on. But also we need to make people aware so that, you know, funds are raised and rescue gets there and help gets there and all that sort of stuff. You have to bear witness to it. That's exactly what you're doing. You're bearing witness that on behalf of the viewer. So you would do, you know, the breakfast and then you'd do news 24 and then the 1 o'clock and then news 24 and then the 6 o'clock and then news 24 and then

the 10 o'clock and then the world tonight you know so there'd be but that's your response until other people came but that that is what you do that's important that you do that what was it about covering ghastly news events for the BBC 24 hours a day that made you think I don't want to do this anymore and instead I think I'll become a psychotherapist I don't mean to be flippered. No, there is a point here, Brianne, which I think is important to make, which is when you see people in crisis, and as a news journalist, and you'll know this as a journalist, you're often with people at their very lowest ebb.

You're often invited into their lives, or not even invited, but you're in their lives on their worst possible day. And again, I use the word responsibility because it is a responsibility to hold that story well and to make sure we don't go too deep because they might be too shocked or too grief-stricken or, you know, you've got to really understand where they are in order to properly represent them. And I felt I needed to know more. And when I was in the late 80s when I was covering disasters like the Hillsborough Stadium disaster, in Sheffield. I was working for Radio Merseyside at the time.

And having to interview people who were coming off the coaches as they arrived back in Liverpool, some of them had not been able to process at all what had happened at Hillsborough. Some of them had relatives who were still left behind and they didn't know what had happened to them. A lot of them had their unripped tickets, so the tickets hadn't been ripped for them to go into the Lepping's Lane end. I mean, it was just the whole thing was gas. And I was in my, what was I, 20 something, early 20s. And you're having to stop them as they come off the coach. And talk to them and get their, because the listeners at Radio Mersyside needed to know what was going on.

And there is something about, and you say bearing witness, there is something about that kind of communal grief and shock and hearing voices echoed back at you that go, yeah, that is what it's like. That is what I'm feeling. What can we do? that felt really important, but I felt I needed, as I did more and more of it, needed more understanding of the way the brain worked. So I did a master's, science masters, which was a lot about the neuro psychology. And I did that. And I helped my colleagues, before that, I trained as a trauma assessor so I could help people

coming back from difficult stories. Because a lot of journalists will carry stuff in their head. And then because news is news. and it happens and then the following day something else happens. There is not much time to fully process what's going on. And if you don't process it, you know yourself, Brian. If you don't process this important stuff, it can get put in a box at the back of your head and you think, oh, it's safe there, it's never going to come out.

I don't need to look at it. And then it can come out. So I trained as a trauma assessor for the babe. Then I did a science master's in psychology. and then after a few sort of ins and outs, I did the professional doctorate in counselling psychology. So it's, yeah, and became a counselling psychologist about sort of four years ago more.

And that's what you do now? That's what I do. Yeah, that's half of what I do. The other half I do broadcasting. So I've got a show on Radio 4 and a show on Radio 3. But yeah, the other half, I'm with emergency service workers, actually, sort of police officers mainly. Wow.

Who run towards danger. And that is really humbling because that is a, I think people who do that kind of job. And I think I see it as well in healthcare workers. A lot of my family worked in the NHS, but healthcare workers, emergency responders, teachers. There are a lot of people who deal with difficult stuff day after day. And you think, okay. And then they're expected to leave it and go home. In the office or whatever that.

Exactly. Exactly. And then what do they do with all that stuff? And unless they reflect on it and attend to it and are mindful of it, it can show up in other ways. It can show up in your relationship. It can show up in just how you live your everyday life. It can show up in your body. You know, we talk about anxiety and a lot of people think anxiety is all in the head. And it's not all in the head. You can't outthink or outrun your anxiety. It is held in the body and it shows up in your behavior. You know, anxiety is a thinking, feeling, doing thing. So if we're going to live with it well, we have to tackle those three. Well, so this is why you're here today. You have written a book called The Power of Anxiety. It is really spectacular and refreshing, which sounds like a really strange thing to say about a book about anxiety and worry and all of those things. Thank you.

But the way you talk about it is just inherently very healthy. And I think there is a tendency in today's society. Often I hear people say, I just want to get rid of this anxiety. I don't want to be anxious anymore. I don't, you know, they talk about, we often talk about anxiety like it is a problem to be disposed, to get rid of. And that we are problems if we have it. Yes, exactly that. And that is why I wanted to write the book, because I just thought, you can't fight it, anxiety. If you fight it, it just gets bigger. It's like a tug of war with a monster. It will pull you over because if you give it that power by being frightened of it or struggling with it or running away from it or just withdrawing, avoiding, trying not to look at it, it just gets louder. So why don't we just drop the rope if we're in the tug of war with a monster and walk away and just go, I see you. Thank you.

I know anxiety you're trying to keep me safe because we all have anxiety. It's important. We need it. It's a clinical necessity. And it is also something that if it has too much power can rob us of our sense of self, our relationships. It can affect the way we live our life. It can keep the people, certainly the people I work with, it can keep them inside away from the things they love away from joy, away from opportunity. And so how do we take some of that power back? How do we go, okay, I see you. I know what you're trying to do.

Sometimes you're doing this because it's a very old script. It's something from my childhood going, you know what? You need to watch out for that because you were in danger last time this happened. So let's give you a threat brain now and get the hell out if we can. So you can be prepped. So that you can be prepped and ready. So, and a lot of people can be hypervigilant where they're always looking for the next threat and danger.

And that can be because they faced some threatened danger in their past. Of course the body will go, right. How do we make sure this doesn't happen again because it was horrible? So anxiety is not our fault. It is there to keep it safe. It's just sometimes it gets it wrong. So there will be people listening who go, how do I walk away from it? And we're going to get to that.

We're going to get to that. But first I want to talk about your experience with anxiety because in the book, obviously, at the beginning of any book, it tells you about the author. And it says, this author has 85 degrees and 76 awards and speaks 105 languages and all of that kind of thing. That ain't my book. And lives with her husband and children in wherever. And then your one at the end says, anxiety. is Shan's constant companion, has been your constant companion throughout your life. Yeah.

And I wanted to talk to you about your experience with it because there was, you talk in the book and it's only a paragraph, but it really caught my eye about being very low in early adulthood, low enough that you went to the doctor to ask for help. And I wanted to ask you about what your history, your sort of meant, if that's okay. Yeah, of course. Piss off, Brine. I'm the psychologist, not you. Let me ask you.

You have a huge amount of empathy for the people that you've encountered in your work in both journalism and psychology. And I think that must come from a place of experience, perhaps. I think there is so much shame attached to depression and anxiety or low mood or. however you experience it, that it can be hard to ask for help. And I think our culture for so long, this might be my age, but I don't think it is. I'm sort of now 61. We did concentrate on the feeling side of life. We concentrated on the doing, achieving side of life.

And so when something shows up, it can feel just where has this come from? And is this really me? And perhaps I shouldn't be feeling like this. And I think it's only by opening up that chat and conversation and looking at it and going, oh, hang on, and doing something about it that we can understand that actually this is a universal experience. Everybody will have times in their life when something comes along that puts them in a position where they feel, this is really tough. Do I have the support around me? Can I ask for help?

And if I do ask for help, who do I ask for help? And some people will think, well, I can't worry my friends and family, or it's too boring, or I don't want them to know for whatever reason. And for me, it was, I'll go to the doctor and I'll, because it was more a case of, what's going, oh, got to sort this out. This is clearly something that I can get over quite quickly. What was it that you were feeling? It was just a sort of...

Or not feeling, perhaps. That's wise. It was a not feeling. Yeah, I think that was it. But I don't want to overplay it. So the reason I say anxiety has been a lifetime companion is because really, when I was growing up, I was a bit of a warrior and you're too sensitive and you need to grow a thicker skin. and, you know, all those things that many of us are told.

Yes. Which is get over that stuff that you are. And because that's not going to help you. You know, being sensitive, that's not going to help you. Stop being sensitive. Stop being sensitive. And it's like, no, sensitivity is actually something that is incredibly empowering. And you can nurture it and develop it.

And it makes you more empathic, more creative, more adaptive, more adaptive, more. more intuitive. Highly sensitive people are all those things and they also experience higher levels of anxiety. How can we have all the good stuff and tap down or recognize and acknowledge and accept and work with the bad stuff? So all the negative stuff, which, of course, highly sensitive people get too more quickly because they're simply more open to the stuff that goes on in the world. You know, the stimuli in the air, all the stuff that they feel everything. They feel how people are looking at you. They feel everything.

You know, there's, in your book you have, I was going to call it a quiz. It's like it's a jolly quiz. No, no, I love a quiz. Are you a highly sensitive person? Did you do it? Oh, yes, I did it. And? And I, well, according to this, I am a highly, highly sensitive person.

Off the scale. Off the scale. But also, I was reading some of the questions. And it's never occurred to me that other people wouldn't feel like that about things. You know, overthinking and all of that stuff about and reading people's faces and trying to intuit people's sort of feelings before they've said anything and thinking you can read into a situation. Yes.

You know, like that is my whole life's work. And overthinking. And perhaps interpreting rejection. when it's not there. Yeah, exactly. And all those things that highly sensitive people often feel. So, yeah, the quiz, I think, is really helpful at showing us which areas we are highly sensitive in. Because when we know where we are more highly sensitive, I bet yours was emotional reactivity,

which is the feeling other people. Yes. Yeah, yeah. As was mine, the feeling other people. that sort of stuff, you can go, okay, well, what do I do then? Now I know this. How can I protect myself and kind of nurture that, the amazing bit of it, which makes you more empathic, without overthinking and having rejection sensitivity? Well, getting bogged down by it, because I often say my superpower is that I'm really good at reading people's energy. Right. Unfortunately, I'm really bad at knowing who the energy is directed towards. And I just always assume it's,

towards me. Right. Right. Yeah. So I'm like, oh, that person's cross. It must be

because of something I'm done. Yeah. So it's actually about as much use as a chocolate teapot as a superpower. Well, no, because I think, right,

you're a journalist, you're empathic, you do this podcast, you listen to people, you understand what it is they are trying to say. That is a skill that not everybody has.

That's highly sensitive people or the orchids in the world because it's like, this flower theory. Okay, well, let's talk, because I think this is really quite revolutionary. Talk to me about the dandelion orchid theory. Okay. So this is not originally my theory.

As all our work is based on other people, can I just say that? But, but, or gleaned from places. This is a theory that comes from a pediatrician called W. Thomas Boyce. And W. Thomas Boyce said, children broadly fall into two categories. You've got your dandelion, which pokes up through the cracks in the ground and is hardy and resilient and always there. And no matter what you do to it, there it is. And you've got your orchid, which is magnificent in the right circumstances and the right environment. But if it's not the right environment, it will wilt and die.

And I thought, that is such a great theory. Highly sensitive people are the orchids in the world. Give them the right soil. give them the right light, show them some love, change their environment if it doesn't suit them, and your orchid will be magnificent and be the flower that all the other flowers want to be. And then that theory developed. About 10, 12 years ago, I did a program called The Science of Resilience, a meta guy called Professor Michael Ploose.

He was developing an adult version of that scale. And by then, it kind of developed into three categories of flower. So you've got your dandelions, they're about 30%. You've got your orchids, they're about 30% of the population. They've got a lot of people. A lot of people. And in the middle, you've got your tulips who are sort of a mix of both. Okay.

And I guess what I wanted to do with this is to say highly sensitive people are more likely to be highly anxious. And the reason is they are simply absorbing more of the stuff the world has to throw at them. They're absorbing more stuff from people. places, they're feeling things, they're picking stuff up in the air, and they can sometimes overinterpret what they're receiving as danger, threat, anxiety, worry, or they can overthink, or they can say, why does that person look at me in that way, it must be me? And all these sorts of things, it's like, okay, but these people are truly amazing. And I think orchids as well make great leaders, can I just say that, great leaders.

But sometimes they don't get to that role because they think, oh, I'm far too sensitive to be here. And they're the most – I'm doing a leadership course in the NHS at the moment. It's called compassionate leadership. Those are the leaders we need. Yes. Compassionate leaders. More than ever. More than ever. And Jacinda Ardenne, who was the former New Zealand Prime Minister. You writes about her in the book as an orchid. She is an orchid. And she was like, this is not something to be ashamed of. That is why people engaged with her.

because they want, everybody wants to be led by someone who goes, yeah, I absolutely feel what you're feeling. What can we do? I suspect that 30% of the population are orchids, but I suspect that are almost 100% of the listeners to the life of brineal orchids. Yes. And as an orchid myself, the way we grow up is thinking, I shouldn't be an orchid. I should be a dandelion. Yeah. I need to change my orchid.

make up and become a dandelion. And what your book says is, nope. No. You stay being your orchid. Yes. And you change your world in this kind of hope that you might flourish. Exactly. And because that doesn't work.

And so this is, the tagline of the book, one of them is your sensitivity is your strength. And I think if someone is listening right now and they're in the grips of anxiety, they might think, I just doesn't feel like a strength at all. No. But I think the powerful thing about this book and your work is that is saying that the aim is not to get rid of anxiety but to learn to live with it.

And that I think is in itself an incredibly liberating thing that isn't said nearly enough because so many of us are primed to try and get rid of essential, like bits of us that are essentially us, you know. Yes. That we don't feel or we've been told don't fit in with other people. Yes. Or the environment around us.

And actually there's a lot of orchids out there. And, you know, and when you try to change who you are, that only makes everything worse. Yes. Because there are things that play into this, things that play into anxiety. And we've got to understand ourselves first before we try to do anything. So, and that's the first. important step is sort of know yourself and perhaps where some of these anxious thoughts and feelings and behaviors are coming from that might be growing up perhaps you weren't feel you

weren't valued or you weren't listened to or you weren't allowed to feel anger or you weren't allowed to speak up or you had to be something else and in the being something else and that's often where people pleasing comes from it's who do you need me to be or who do you need me to be or who do want me to be for for you to like me and value me and for me to feel as though I have some sort of worth. And you're literally abandoning yourself in the process. Yes. So you call this in the book self-silencing. Yes. Talk to me about that because I think that's something that listeners will find really interesting. Self-silencing makes us ill. How many of us were told that we weren't allowed to express emotion, you know, difficult emotion, stuff that's hard.

I'm very conflict avoidant. And I have been since I was a child just because of, you know, the circumstances in which I grew up. A lot of people are conflict of it. And the times. We don't talk about our feelings. It's everything is based on rationale and fact and the doing. It's not about the feeling. And so, and I think, you know, that you, you, you, you, you, you, grow up or people who self-silenced. And I'm not saying I was a self-silencer, but I certainly know that if there was, if there was anger or upset or difficulty, just like when I went to that doctor, it's like, what do I do with this? What do I do with this? I don't understand this. Right. I've just got to, you know, just give me something that I can get out of it.

Stuff it down with. Yeah, or stuff it down with. Not, how do I understand this? Who's self-critical, who's, if there's a strong self-critical, who's, if there's a strong self-critical voice or a strong inner voice, is that mine or is that someone else's? The self-silencing is just tamping down all this stuff, all this emotion, all this voice and saying, okay, I can make myself small and likable. And that just turns in on ourselves and it affects our immune system. So there's, you know, there's lots of research in the book about how self-silencing makes people ill, especially women. Yeah.

And I think a lot of women self-silence. Absolutely. I think about my alcoholism and addiction and that was just a constant. That was just a tool to self-silance because the things I felt about society, I was like, ooh, I don't like that feeling. Yeah. Yeah. Or the thing I'm feeling is too much or too big or to this or to that.

Yeah. It's not to this or to that. Say it. Say it. My daughter once said to me, when I tried to leave the room when she was angry with me. She said, you have got to stay in the room to hear my anger. And she was 12.

Wow. So I'm thinking maybe this isn't, maybe younger people are feeling differently. But I think if there is something you need to say and you haven't been able to say it, you need to find a way of getting that stuff out because it's not good for you holding it in. So let's find a way of being compassionate. towards that thing. And being compassionate actually, towards that hurt, unseen, unvalued child who is the, what about me, what about me? What do I need to do to feel my worth or to feel that I am something? You know, you are enough. And, and, you know, there's something that is

really important to me, which is mattering. So many people feel they don't matter. You matter. You have always mattered. Don't let anyone ever think you don't matter or that you don't have worth, or that you can't say who you are and what you think, because you can. Wow. Does everyone want Sean to be their daughter? Because I sure as hell do. Can I go back to your story for a little bit? because you have been in many anxiety-inducing situations in your life. And I'm not just talking about having to go and cover dreadful news events in places like Kashmir. I'm talking about in your own personal life. So you nearly died running the New York marathon.

I did. Yeah. I'm going to go through this list. Are you okay to be retramatized? Always. Okay. By you always. No.

Of course, of course I am. This is stuff that's woven into all our lives, these difficult events, these difficult things that come up. Some of them we don't acknowledge ourselves, I think. And we go, I can deal with that. You know, let's just carry on as you were. So the one, the New York Marathon one was I was running a marathon with my then husband, who was much bigger than me and a rugby player and drank a lot of water. and when we were on training runs

I wasn't drinking much water it was both of our first marathon but there was a lot of hanging around as you know Brianie because we've run a marathon together so it's the first one that we're done and because there's a lot of hanging around we were drinking a lot of water

and because he's big he was drinking a lot of water and I'm not his size and I was drinking the same amount and then every mile stop I was drinking more water more water excelling him with his obviously there's what everybody else is doing must be right for me

and then as I was coming up to the line, the finish line, I had this just banging headache. And New York Marathon ends in Central Park and Central Park is a big park. See, you get it and you think, oh, I must be near the end. And I was feeling ghastly and also thinking, this is like hitting the wall. Is this hitting the wall? I don't know. I'm looking around. Nobody else looks like I feel. And I was progressively getting

or feeling iller. And then across the line. And then I collapsed. and then I don't remember that much, actually, apart from somebody gave me a pretzel, like a paramedic gave me a pretzel to suck on, which I didn't understand. And the other paramedic said to my then-husband, what's her first language? Because I wasn't making any sense. And then that was it. And then I woke up in a New York hospital and tethered down to lots of beeping white machines,

which is like a Kafkaesque moment where you are one minute finishing your first marathon and the next minute you wake up and you don't know where you are. And of course I started pulling everything out because I just thought, I'm on, I just need to pull all these wires out then. Everything went beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, went mad. And yeah, I'd been out for quite some time. And I had something called hyponutremia, which is, when you dilute all your essential salts.

And what it does, it shuts down different parts of your brain. So it goes, well, you no longer need to speak or you no longer need to walk or you no longer need to do this. And bit by bit, all your essential functions and then organs are being switched off. So I was lucky. More people die of hyponutremia than they do of dehydration. Or they did at that stage, but nobody really talked about it. How long were you in hospital for? I don't know, a few days.

I had two small children at the time. We had two small children at the time. So it's like, you know, get on. Get up you get. Stroll on. And get back into life because life still needs living. And it had more things to throw at you. So when I met you, you had been through breast cancer.

Yeah. Like, obviously that was a big thing. You're like, yes, Briney. Well, we've all experienced stuff, Briney. Yeah. We all have. So there's no, I don't think there's, there's no pecking order of trauma, is there? We've all experienced difficult things in life, I think. And that was one of them. But I'm thinking about, because when we did it together, right, that's 2017.

So I was still recovering from reconstruction after a double mastectomy. So I had breast cancer in, well, I had the double mastectomy in 2012. Right. And there were lots of different operations in the subsequent years. And it was the first, we were asked, weren't we, by the Royal Foundation for heads together to run as part of their mental health campaign with Kate and William and Harry. And it was, I mean, such a privilege to do. Was it your first marathon? Yes. Yeah.

It was your first marathon. And it was my, it was my first marathon after experiencing this thing. And I think I don't want to speak for you, but I think there's something about perhaps your, I felt my body had let me down a bit and I don't know whether I had the confidence. I didn't know whether I had the confidence to be able to do something that involved discipline and strength.

And I think being asked to do it for mental health is like, well, this isn't about you. This doesn't matter. It doesn't matter, you know. You lace up, you're running. us and you... It doesn't matter how long it takes. Doesn't matter how long it takes. Doesn't matter what you do, what matters is you are doing something, that in 2017, it still seemed quite new. Can you believe it, to say, this is stuff we need to talk about?

Well, it was. It was really like, so nearly 10 years ago. And it was, I just, I was talking about obsessive compulsive disorder. Yeah, I know. I remember my last months of alcoholism, of active alcoholism, I think. And it was that marathon that made me go, wow, there is this different way of living my life. Yeah. But it was a, it was an incredible powerful time. And I remember

there was, there was all this hope, I think, about people talking about mental health. And I was, we were talking about this before that it feels, I feel personally that in the intervening nine years that quite a bit of that has ebbed away for me in terms of, what the public discourse?

It felt like the public, it felt like the world was much more open to it in 2017 than it is in 26. In what way do you think? I think people are more, people were more empathetic in a way. I feel there's a real negativity and I feel like you see it in say the health secretary launching an investigation into the overdiagnosis of things like ADHD. And I'd be fascinated to know what you as a professional feel about. that because to me it seems like it's very clear that if there is quote on quote an overdiagnosis of ADHD which I don't even know if there actually is any proof that there is it's because there wasn't any diagnosis I think we're catching up yeah a lot it certainly feels like that in the

NHS we are catching up with people who would like help and don't know why perhaps they feel they work and think differently yeah and I think think that's, I think it's a good thing that we're attending to it now. I think going back to why it feels like something's changed, I wonder whether in 2017 it felt like a relief for many people. It's like, oh, okay, so what I've been feeling isn't wrong. It is something that if the royals are talking about it, if they're supporting a mental health campaign, this is something that is okay for me to talk about and feel and think about and act on. And that was felt quite liberating at the time.

Well, it was game-changing as well. Yeah, absolutely. I remember when Prince Harry came on my podcast at the time and spoke for the first time about the grief that he'd had to bottle up after his mother died. I think you spoke to him as well about it. Yeah, we did a television interview where he handed me my race number. So I think he did the interview with you and the podcast and the, the newspaper one and he did a television one with me and it was it was it felt like being let into

something that the debate was was being sort of widened I guess and and I think and that did feel like a pivotal and important moment and I wonder why if it feels like the debate is shifted and that can be for a number of things can't it but it can it might be that we are talking about it lot more. We are talking about a lot more. So yes, so maybe it is. But I also think the willingness of people in positions of power to get behind it and support it and throw resources at it has definitely dwindled. You know, it's not quote, unquote, the trendy thing anymore. I think, certainly when you work in the NHS, actually I remember when I was working, and this is years ago, when I was training as a counselling psychologist, I was working in Ken.

with families who are experiencing complex trauma. And it was so hard to get a diagnosis of ADHD or autism or attachment disorder or anything that could help access support. Now, I struggle a bit with the word disorder because I don't think people are disordered or defective. I also know, though, how useful it can be. And those arguments go on in families. You know, they go on in our families.

family, what is useful for you to find out about you? How can it help you? And is it about having something, having somebody say, you have this, which can allow you to access the medication you need? And that is a game changer. You know, those things are really important. So I think I would, I would say about the diagnosis and the disorder and the waiting times and all those sorts of things is that there are a lot of people who really do need help and would like somebody to sit down with them and understand them and to say this is the kind of support we think we can get. Mental health is complex. So it's very rarely one thing. So anxiety, anxiety's bedfellow is often depression. With ADHD, it can sit with autism and it can sit with detachment disorder.

So these threads are quite difficult to unravel and sometimes they don't unravel. That's the complexity of being human, is that we all live with this stuff, right? We were having to wait three years for a young person to get an ADHD diagnosis. And then if they had that and also suspected autism, they would have to go to the back of the queue again to get another. By that time, they might have fallen out of CAMs, you know, children, adult mental health and become adults and then be in adult services. They have to go to the back of the queue again. They go to the back of the queue again. So I think the need is intense. I also think there is more need for more people offering help.

We need more therapists. We need more psychologists. We need more psychotherapists. We need more counsellors. We need more people to be trained. Yeah. I mean, that's crucial, isn't it? We need more people to be trained and providing proper help, proper resources. Yes. So there is less misinformation that thrives on the internet. So I think that there is an issue with miss and disinformation. And I think having trusted sources is really important. And there are charities out there and the NHS website and there are places you can go where you can get support. Those places exist. It's going to the right ones, knowing which the right ones are, which are important. Because it can be hard to sit down with somebody, to get an appointment with somebody and just say, I'm feeling this. Is it

okay to feel this? And, you know, people I see, the sort of clients, whether it be privately or in the NHS, when they first talk to you about stuff, it's almost like they don't feel they deserve their feelings. And that is so hard. So, and often the people I see, especially in the NHS, have got post-traumatic stress disorder. What's the world come to for you that you can't go out and that you have panic attacks and that the, you know, we do need, you do need help. This is okay for you to seek help. It's not weak. It's not your fault. you know these things are incredibly important but also quite hard for people to say and and to ask for help I really understand that I understand how hard it is to ask for help but also honestly it is the

first step talking to somebody is the well noticing is the first step yeah because sometimes people don't notice but noticing what's going on with you and in your life bringing it above the veil of consciousness so what they say yes yes being curious about what's going on with you, then connecting with people who are important, safe people, safe places. So curiosity, connection and compassion. And often we're not taught self-compassion. I mean, most of us are not taught. So we have a really strong self-critical voice. Yes. I mean, that's finely honed. Yes, yes, yes. But the self-compassionate one is kind of the one at the back of the bus.

got this analogy in the book about being, you know, the passenger on the bus. And you're, driving, this comes from a brilliant guy called Stephen Hayes who works in acceptance and commitment therapy. But if you're driving the bus and you want to get to a destination, the person you want beside you is not the person who says you're going down the wrong road and you're driving too slowly and you should have taken that turning. And we're never going to get there. And why are we driving to this destination anyway? You'd want to punch them. You know, you're like, get off the bus. But if you punch them, right, or throw them off the bus, you've got to stop the bus, take your hands off the wheel, you're not going to your destination.

It's taking time, right? So far better to go, I hear you. Thank you for alerting me to the threat you think I'm going to face. I'm going to kindly invite you to take a back seat and invite the quieter person at the back, the self-compassionate voice that goes, you're doing a really good job. Where are we going? Yay. You know, let's go there together. And that's, I think, what we ought to nurture. We need to nurture the quieter, compassionate voice that goes, you are enough, you have value, you have worth. Some of these things are going to be difficult, but I'm right there with you. And I just think we often don't hear that voice.

So how do we do that? I would love to get some practical tips from you on the person at home who is struggling with anxiety with a terrible, negative, critical voice. One of the things I would love to hear from you, because I think this is something that people with anxiety disorders often do through lack of their being proper resources for them to be able to handle it, right? Which is, it's very easy to fall into the avoidant trap. Very easy. I will not do the things that cause me the anxiety. Yep.

And then through that, there were, and I say, there, my world will get smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller. Yeah. So I wondered, and I think that often through a lack of proper resources in public services for people with mental health issues, that is sort of where we've gone. So people are like, I have this condition, therefore I can't hear you talk about this or I can't go to this place or I can't go to that place. or I can't go to that place.

And actually, is that potentially making things a lot worse? Yes. Okay, good. That's what the research. All the research says, avoidance, withdrawal, blocking, fighting, struggling with, anxiety will just make it worse. So it's that sort of, you know, what you resist will not only persist, but will grow in size. Okay. So it's not, we don't necessarily have to like go out of our way to expose ourselves to the thing that causes our science.

anxiety, but... Well, so there are a number of things that I talk about in the book and that you can do to start noticing this and naming it and then acting on it. So you mentioned sort of avoiding withdrawing and it's safer sometimes when you feel anxious if something's coming up, if you've got to go to a social event or, I don't know, do anything which involves being in front of people. If you're feeling anxious, it's like, well, if I just stay in, if I just don't do it, if I just cancel. Yes. It'll all be okay.

Is this sounding familiar? Yes, it's sounding very familiar. And then there's short-term relief, isn't there? Because you're at home and you think, oh, isn't this nice? This is lovely. Box set, game on, you know, and everything is fine. And that anxiety then lessens a bit. The only thing that happens then, of course, is that afterwards you start thinking about the,

what if I had gone and what if I've done? Why is this? and it just comes back. And then the next time you try to go somewhere, your brain goes, yeah, it was much nicer when we stayed in. And it becomes more and more difficult to flex that social muscle because engaging with people can be difficult and uncomfortable. And we saw this during COVID.

Interesting study. Those who were anxious during COVID were much better prepared to deal with it psychologically and did deal with it psychologically because they equipped themselves with the tools to, cope. Well, this is interesting. So you mean that people with a history of anxiety, depression, mental illness were actually better prepared for COVID than those who didn't. So I definitely felt this. I felt incredibly calm when COVID happened because I was like, well, this is what I've been preparing for my entire life. Okay, I've got the coping strategies. The difference is there were some who

say, I like to be inside and I don't want to engage with people and therefore, so there's, you know, it's sort of too hard. There's nuance. There's nuance. Yeah. But I think those people who were anxious who had developed coping strategies or a few coping strategies, the research says they were more able to cope with COVID. And I certainly know that when I, during COVID, I was delivering psychological therapy to

people with cancer who couldn't get to hospital and their anxiety levels were off the scale. So, understandably so. So we worked a lot on coping strategies and they were, they're much more able to deal with COVID itself. So I think, but some of the things you can do for social anxiety is that you become curious about the person who's standing in front of you. So in other words, you go out with the intention of finding somebody interesting. And that takes the pressure off yourself. I'm going to find somebody interesting who's going to tell me something I don't know. And somehow that relieves the pressure on you to be funny and entertaining and all the things that you feel you ought to be and puts it in somebody else's corner.

So that's one thing. But there are also things you can do about looking at your fears, your worst fears. So there's a fear ladder in there. And I'm sure you're aware of this. Exposure therapy is the best thing for people with social anxiety. It is also quite hard. Exposure therapy means exposing yourself to the thing you find difficult. Yes.

So there's a sort of my feared situations list in there. And you have the one at the top and then it goes down to your least. The one you feel okay about. So you start with that one. You start with the one that feels the smallest. And then you do this with help and support because it's not easy. It really isn't. But you do it.

Sometimes you will fall back. You know, I worked with people in the NHS and they couldn't leave their house. And it's, okay, how do we get you to open the door and stand on the porch? How do we get you to the bottom of the path by the gate? How do we get you to the top of the road to the bus stop? How do we get you to engage with the person in the newsagents? And it literally was step by step by step by step. But, you know, it can feel like a really slow,

slow, timely thing to do. But it's incredibly important. It does take time. You do need support. It can feel quite difficult at first. But we need to flex that social muscle. And a lot of us lost it, especially during the pandemic. So that works with social anxiety.

Connecting with the body is really important. So breathing into our anxiety and sort of softening the edges of it, seeing where it sits in our body. I want us to ask you about this because you were the only person I've ever met who has been given a panic attack on purpose. Yes. Talk us through this. So this was for a program, you were.

It was for a radio program I was doing, yep. So you were put in a situation. Yes. Whereby they... So they put a mask. It was at the University of Cambridge. And I can remember the woman. Her name was Dr. Annetta Brule.

And she put a mask on my face and it had a mixture of carbon dioxide and oxygen. And what it replicated was when you breathe too fast. Right. Which creates the kind of panic. Which creates the panic. When you breathe too quickly, your brain goes, something's wrong. I need to get out of this situation as fast as possible. That puts you into fight-flight freeze.

When you're in fight-flight freeze, you can't think straight. So beforehand, I was given a series of tests to do, cognitive tests. Then I was put in a panic attack. Then I was asked to do the tests again, a different set of tests, but very similar. Beforehand, fine, quite relaxed going in, didn't realise. This is what my producer wanted me to do. Did the tests, okay. Having this mixture of oxygen and carbon dioxide,

a lot of us, when we're panicking, our breath gets very high and fast. And then we think, am I going to throw up? Am I going to faint? Am I going to, I'm having a heart attack? So the brain goes, well, reddala, reddala, amygdala, which is the bit of our brain that's a register's threat,

is going off like, make, make, make, make, make. And our prefrontal cortex, all the things that are responsible in our brain for context, it's okay, you're in a science lab, you're not at threat here. Memory, you know, this is, I know this is a new experience, but actually when you've been in something similar in the past, you've used breathing techniques to get it out of it or you've focused on, whatever it is. Those bits of our brain don't work, only the red alert. And that's why we panic. And I was in a panic state. And I was hopeless at the cognitive tests afterwards. It affected me for the whole of the day.

It was absolutely horrible. And I've worked with a lot of people with panic subsequently. And it's scary, really scary. But it is healable. It is healable. So I wanted to know what your top tips would be for people that find themselves in perpetual panic almost. Because I love the 5,4, 321 method. that you write about. I thought that was quite

a useful, practical thing that someone can put in their pocket and take with them. Because breathing exercises are obviously great, but it takes a while to get to them. It takes a while to get to. And also, I know when someone says, focus on your breathing, I go into panic. Yes, of course.

Of course you do. That makes perfect sense. Yeah, so the reason I do grounding first when somebody's in panic is because they're not thinking. They're just they're wanting to escape. And that, again, not their fault. Their body is just saying, we need to get out of here. This is threatening. So, and grounding gets you away from the threats of the past, because often it's something that has happened before that

is playing into the present. And the brain's going, that was horrible last time. Let's find a way of protecting ourselves. Is not being in the past, not being in the imagined, feared future, but being right here and now. So 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 is five things I can see. I can see, I can see the microphone, you know, I can see a camera, I can see the plasma screen, you know, I can see the headphones. And then four things you can hear, three things you can touch, two things you can smell, one thing you can taste. You can do it in any order. And if you don't have access to one of those senses, you can only do four. But the point is that it brings you right back to where you are. It takes you out of the... It takes you away from the past and away from

the present and you're here. And then, then you can, where am I holding it? Can I soften it? And my shoulders up? Am I feeling it really tightly in my stomachs? My chest, okay. All right, that's understandable. This is just your body trying to do what it does to keep you safe.

And that's okay. This is normal. It's a normal response to an abnormal feeling or to something happening that is no longer in your present. We can go with this. We can go with this. Bringing in the compassion, slowing things down. You do the 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, you notice, you acknowledge, you connect with all the feelings,

and then you engage with the rest of the world. You engage with what you need to do in order to move from that. And again, panic takes a while, but it is absolutely workable with. And one thing is really important is about connecting with your values. So when any emotion takes you away from the life that, You deserve to have. And the life that you want to live, go back to your values. Values are not goals.

Goals are sort of, I need to get there. Values are something that you hold with you on the journey there. If you ever get there, you might not. But they're incredibly important to you, and they'll be different from everyone, for everyone. But go back to your values. Whenever you feel something overwhelming, what is it that's important to me? connection is important to me compassion is important to me

integrity is important to me authenticity you know so there might be a few things that you think the decision I take needs to be based on those needs to be based on those so whatever whenever you're in an extreme emotion then deal with that emotion first which is acknowledge

connect with it do the actions that you can do in the moment the 5 4 321 the breathing, the softening around the edges, the running, putting your trainers on, getting out, getting into nature, doing whatever it is that just stimulates your parasympathetic system, slows down the nervous system which is on, which is going bonkers, and gets you back into a place where you can start to think where the bits of your brain light up that go, okay, we can work with this. What do we do now?

I have to say, Dr. Sean, listening to you talk has slowed down my nervous system. Has it? Dr. Sean Williams, thank you so much. The power of anxiety, how to ride the worry way. Yeah, that comes from John Cabot-Zinn, by the way, who's the mindfulness guru, who said you can't stop the waves, but you can learn to surf. We can't stop the waves of anxiety, but we can learn to surf. We can learn to surf. We can't. grab a surfboard and go, you know what, this is okay. The waves are not going to drown me here. Yeah. Some of them are gnarly.

Some of them are nigh. Get on that board and enjoy the ride, baby. And you might fall off a few times, but, you know, pick it back up, get back on the board. And you know what the best thing, guys, about the worry wave is? You're not going to get eaten by a shark. No, you're not. Dr. Sean Williams, thank you so much for coming on the life of Friday. Thank you for inviting me.

Thank you, Sean, for such an honest chat about anxiety and trauma and what it truly means to look after your mind in 2026. Let me know your thoughts over on Instagram at at Life of Brony Pod. I'd love to hear whether any of Sean's stories or strategies chimed with you. Sean will be back on Friday for our special bonus episode, The Life of You, where she'll be talking through all the small practical things that help keep anxiety at bay. In the meantime, don't forget to subscribe. Follow. Raid, rave about us to all of your friends, but most of all, keep being you. I'll see you next time.