“When was the last time you actually liked yourself?”

Hello, I’m Jodie

I’m a mum. I’m a wife. And I’m someone with a lot of lived experience.

I’m not writing this as an expert with all the answers. I’m writing it as someone who has been exactly where you might be right now.

The question that changed everything

My sponsor in a twelve-step fellowship was one of my closest friends. One day they looked at me and asked, “Do you love yourself?”

No.

So they asked again. “When was the last time you actually liked yourself?”

I had no idea. None.

My life didn’t feel like my own. Sitting with that question, I knew I needed a change, for me and for my daughter.

Where food came in

Food was my comfort before I had words for what I felt.

I was five or six. Early morning, everyone still in bed, and me eating bowl after bowl of cereal. I wasn’t hungry. I was brushing feelings away.

I grew up one of six children, moving between Lancaster and Devon like a yo-yo. Food was what I reached for. I kept reaching for it for years.

At 18 I found the rave scene. Drink, drugs, nights out. I chased that feeling until my late twenties and early thirties.

For years I was part of a twelve-step fellowship. That’s where I met the friend who asked me that question. But my own therapy showed me something I needed to hear: I’m not an addict. I’m someone who used food and substances to feel better when I was in a bad place.

I don’t live that way any more.

Finding Clearmind

I was working at The Well Communities in Morecambe when my cousin started training as a practitioner with Clearmind International Institute. I got curious. I watched videos of its founders, Catherine and Duane O’Kane, and I knew straight away: this is absolutely for me.

My employer paid for the two-day Awakening course online. It was completely life-changing. For the first time, I saw how much of the way I coped had been handed down through the generations.

It wasn’t me.

In my mid-thirties I started the three-year practitioner training, online, and finished in 2024. The best three years of my life. The personal therapy at its heart changed everything: who I am, the family patterns I carry, how I show up in relationships.

Where I am now

Today I’m married to my wife, and she has shown me what love really looks like. We got engaged after eight weeks and married eighteen months later. Nearly three years on, here we are.

We don’t live together. Between us we have five children. Life is full, busy and very real.How I work as a counsellor

My relationship with food is so much better than it was.

I’m not a robot. I’m not fixed, not by a long way. But I know my triggers now. I know what I used to reach for. And I’ve learned a new way: noticing what’s going on for me, every day, and choosing how I respond.

I know what makes me tick.

“I’m not a robot. I’m not fixed. But I know what makes me tick.”

Why I do this

“I’ve sat on both sides of the room.”

I’ve been the person in the chair, scared and ashamed. And I’ve spent my working life on the other side, working in addiction and recovery services.

I carried shame for years. Nobody should have to feel that. Not on their own. Not for one more day.

I believe lived experience and community change lives. They changed mine.

If you’re reading this at 2am

“There is nothing to be ashamed of.”

Wondering why you can’t just stop? Hear me: there is nothing to be ashamed of. Nothing.

We all find ways to cope with raw, painful feelings. For some it’s food. For some it’s drink or drugs. It shows up in so many ways.

I slip up every day. I’m not perfect. Nobody is. We’re human, and we mess up.

But in those slip-ups there’s healing. There’s hope. There’s a light at the end of the tunnel you can really strive for, if you’re willing to work for it.

How I work as a counsellor

I bring everything I am into the room: my lived experience, years in addiction and recovery services, and a training that started with my own therapy. No judgement. Just curiosity. You choose what you share, and we go at your pace.

In one-to-one counselling I work with addiction and substance use, trauma, relationships, family difficulties, anxiety and health anxiety, stress, low mood, self-esteem, big life changes, and your relationship with food.

In my groups, I watch something powerful happen when people find common ground. That moment someone realises: I’m not the only one. I belong here. These women and men need this as much as I do.

And there’s a moment I live for. Sometimes it comes weeks in, sometimes in a single session. Something clicks, and I see the light switch on in someone’s eyes. That’s why I do this.

I’m a counsellor who has lived it, not just studied it. I offer counselling face to face in Preston, after our first two sessions online, and online across Ormskirk, West Lancashire and the rest of the UK.

“I’m not the only one. I belong here.”

Where I’ve worked

• Substance misuse services

• Prisons

• Community drug teams

• Residential rehabs, including as a rehab manager

• The Well Communities, Morecambe

Training

• Diploma in Transpersonal Therapeutic Counselling, Clearmind International Institute (2024): three-year practitioner training in the theory and supervised practice of individual, family and group counselling.

• Two-day online Awakening course, Clearmind International Institute