A Life Less Ordinary with Sophie Elwes
Hosted by Sophie Elwes, who knows a thing or two about overcoming difficulties, after sustaining a spinal cord injury in 2011. Each episode Sophie will interview an extraordinary guest who has faced and overcome enormous challenges and adversity and is achieving incredible things in spite of what they've had to deal with. She'll be finding out their story, about their greatest struggles and triumphs, and asking them what advice they would share with other people dealing with challenges of their own.
Episodes
39 episodes
A Life Less Ordinary Host Finale! Sophie Elwes - Surviving despite the odds, carving your own destiny and being grateful for all of the things
For this epsiode Sophie is interviewed by her good friend Sarah Orr (who appeared in series two of A Life Less Ordinary with Sophie Elwes). Sophie tells her story from when she sustained her spinal cord injury back in 2011 after falling from a ...
•
Season 4
•
Episode 38
•
57:26
Jambo Truong - Witnessing his sister’s death at a young age, growing up queer and Asian in South Wales and and why trauma is your trajectory
Jambo Truong is a practitioner of integrative medicine with a specialism in complimentary medicine and therapies who has impressive credentials and a vast knowledge and repertoire of different practices. Growing up in South Wales and fe...
•
Season 4
•
Episode 37
•
1:06:09
Sophie Dear - How speaking to her inner child transformed her life, how to set boundaries and realise your self-worth
Sophie Dear is a yoga teacher and self-worth coach who struggled with insomnia and undiagnosed anxiety since the age of 15. She appeared to have a thriving career in the TV industry but it wasn't until reaching a point of burnout t...
•
Season 4
•
Episode 36
•
1:01:23
Raquel Siganporia - Becoming a wheelchair user at age 11, top tips to assert yourself, and what she wishes people knew about sex and disability
Raquel Siganporia is the Director of Business Development and Senior Solicitor at Aspire Law and she sustained a spinal cord injury following surgery to correct the curvature of her spine, or scoliosis, which went wrong when she was aged ...
•
Season 4
•
Episode 35
•
1:05:28
Adam Wilder - Authentic intimacy, honouring ourselves and why playfulness is sacred.
Adam is the founder of Togetherness which is a social enterprise whose purpose is to make meaningful connection more accessible in our culture. Having been a people pleaser and studied it in depth, Adam has a great understanding of his ...
•
Season 4
•
Episode 34
•
49:17
Lauren Murrell - Getting a cancer diagnosis in her early twenties, manifestation and why main character energy works
Whilst in her last year of law school, in her early twenties, Lauren Murrell was diagnosed with an aggressive form of blood cancer (myeloid leukaemia) with only 20% chance of survival. Whilst she was in hospital her sister Sarah developed...
•
Season 4
•
Episode 32
•
44:52
Melanie Woods - Becoming paralysed after being hit by a car, finding fun in the darkest of situations and competing at the Paralympics before she expected
Melanie Woods is a former PE teacher and GB Paralympic athlete who sustained a spinal cord injury after being hit by a car whilst riding her bike. She tells me about her experience of rehabilitation, learning how to become independent and manag...
•
Season 4
•
Episode 32
•
48:38
Carlos Cervantes - Discovering meditation, cultivating creativity and becoming symptom free from bipolar disorder
This was such a special conversation with Carlos Cervantes who talks about his experiences in his late teens and early 20s of suffering from severe depression, 'overdoing it' on drink and drugs, dropping out of university having had a mental br...
•
Season 4
•
Episode 31
•
53:53
Bonus episode! Dr Clair Pollard - A psychologist's guide to helping others, breaking her back in Namibia and thinking about the stories we tell ourselves
Working in the NHS for 27 years, Dr Clair Pollard is a Clinical Psychologist and Acting Director for a large psychology mental health trust in South London and a Cognitive Behavioural Therapist. She also sustained a spinal cord injury during he...
•
Season 3
•
Episode 31
•
41:25
LGBTQ+ pride month bonus episode! Rosie Wilby - post-traumatic growth after a breakup, reinvestigating monogamy and sex party etiquette
Rosie Wilby is an award-winning comedian, author and podcaster who has appeared a number of times on BBC Radio 4 programmes including Woman's Hour, Saturday Live and Four Thought. Her first book Is Monogamy Dead? was longlisted for the Polari F...
•
Season 3
•
Episode 30
•
50:21
Bonus episode! Alexandra Adams - Getting gaslit by medical staff, running out of resilience and blowing up on TikTok
Alexandra Adams was the first guest on this podcast, and the inspiration behind starting A Life Less Ordinary. She's also a medical student who is deaf-blind. In 2020 she went into hospital with symptoms of an undiagnosed chronic illness ...
•
Season 3
•
Episode 9
•
52:25
Grace Spence Green - Radical acceptance, internalised ableism and how to ‘take up space’
Grace Spence Green is a junior doctor and a wheelchair user. Growing up, she had her heart set on becoming a doctor from the age of eight and was a keen competitive climber. In an extraordinary incident in 2018, while she studying at medical sc...
•
Season 3
•
Episode 8
•
51:39
Mark Berry - Why training is for everyone, questioning limitations placed upon us and the gift of realising your self-worth
This week I had the pleasure of interviewing Mark Berry who is my friend and personal trainer. We’ve known each other for years and every time I have a session with him, we end up deep in conversation and he is a real fountain of wisdom and lif...
•
Season 3
•
Episode 7
•
44:41
Gail Muller - Coping with chronic pain, hiking the Appalachian Trail and the power of surrender
Gail Muller is an adventurer, educator and author. Growing up in Cornwall, she was sporty and outdoorsy, but at 14 was told she’d need to use a wheelchair by the age of 40 due to muscular-skeletal issues. She has an extraordinary story of her j...
•
Season 3
•
1:09:11
Kalim Smith - The healing power of plants, how serious injury brought out the adventurer in him and why listening to his gut paid off
Based partly in Carlsbad, CA and in Keauhou, Hawaii, Kalim Smith and I met a few years back at a ski race in New Hampshire, after which we discovered we had a mutual friend/relative and since then we’ve enjoyed some great times in both London a...
•
Season 3
•
Episode 24
•
1:02:14
James Dashwood - Addiction, coping mechanisms and the quest for connection
Head of Wellbeing at leading employee wellbeing platform, Better Space, James Dashwood is a father, a husband, and a recovering alcoholic. Sober for seven years he has been on a journey of introspection where he’s learned so much ab...
•
Season 3
•
Episode 23
•
59:40
Andrew Cotton - The power of breathwork, breaking his back surfing a 75ft wave, and using his mindset to overcome fear
Andrew Cotton is a big wave surfer and Red Bull athlete. Growing up in North Devon, he started at 7 and it became his life. He left school and worked in a local surfboard factory until the age of 25 to fund his surf trips. At this point he figu...
•
Season 3
•
Episode 22
•
38:36
Cathy Reay - Empowering her kids to find their own way, self acceptance and choosing the spaces to exist in
Cathy Reay is a writer, editor, disability consultant and influencer. She is also a single mother of two and her Instagram account provides a great insight into life as a mum with dwarfism, disability justice, sex and dating, as well as some gr...
•
Season 3
•
Episode 22
•
1:04:40
Gregory David Roberts - Spirituality, finding solace in solitary confinement and life in an Indian slum
Gregory David Roberts is the author of best selling novel, Shantaram and sequel, Mountain Shadow. Selling over 6 million copies, it is partly based on Gregory's own life experience of escaping prison in Australia and being on the run, during wh...
•
Season 3
•
Episode 21
•
1:04:35
Mo Gawdat - Engineering happiness, losing his beloved son Ali, and how to take control of your thoughts
Mo Gawdat is the former Chief Business Officer at Google X (aka the Moonshoot Factory) and before that had a successful career as a stock-trader and tech executive in Dubai. Despite having professional, personal...
•
Season 2
•
Episode 9
•
1:03:11
Sarah Orr - Breaking her neck at 16, backpacking across Australia as a wheelchair user and gaining perspective through working in developing countries
After breaking her neck at the age of 16 in a car crash whilst on holiday in the Highlands, Sarah’s life took a course that was far from ordinary. We speak about her rehab in the spinal unit, where, thanks to some ‘tough love’ from...
•
Season 2
•
Episode 8
•
58:26
Marsha de Cordova MP - Growing up partially sighted, stepping up and becoming an MP to create change and being a voice for the voiceless
Marsha de Cordova is the Labour MP for Battersea since 2017 and is currently the Shadow Secretary of State for Women and Equalities. She was born with nystagmus and is registered blind. We speak about her upbringing, with five sibl...
•
Season 2
•
Episode 7
•
43:14
Jonny Benjamin MBE - Managing mental illness, self-compassion and the art of listening
Jonny Benjamin MBE is an awarding winning mental health campaigner, writer, film producer, public speaker and vlogger. At the age of 20 he was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder, which is a combination of schizophrenia and bipolar. Having ...
•
Season 2
•
Episode 6
•
56:39
Millie Gooch: Hangover anxiety, creating Sober Girl Society and why sober dating is superior to drunk dating
Millie Gooch is the founder of Sober Girl Society, an online community which destigmatises sobriety, and brings women together who want to connect and have fun, without the booze. Millie quit drinking in 2018 after experiencing one too ma...
•
Season 2
•
Episode 5
•
50:18
Megan Hine - How routine saved her life, recovering from Lyme disease and how to find your inner resilience in these challenging times
Megan Hine is a survival consultant, producer, adventurer and television presenter. She is also the author of Mind of a Survivor.During her career she has survived a snakebite, Lyme disease, being shot at and hunted by a lion, amongst m...
•
Season 2
•
Episode 4
•
1:02:51