A life buoy

Optimism and positivity is something Nicola Connolly-Byrne swears by. Not only that, but she lives by it too, minute-by-minute, day by day.

Reinforcing her own positivity and sense of optimism is one of the ways she "empowers" herself and helps to keep herself "buoyant," a word that is very important in her personal lexicon.

It's important because, she says, finding that buoyancy helps to sustain people, to keep their heads above water - and for some time now she has been engaged in showing others how to acquire and sustain that buoyancy; to keep them afloat.

It's one of the chief missions in her life - and one of the main reasons why she was recently nominated for a LIFT (Leading Ireland's Future Together) award supported by Dublin Airport Authority. She has won a series of awards for her work in recent years.

The founder of the 'I AM Positive Mindset' enterprise, Connolly-Byrne has worked with companies, groups and individuals, although these days, of course, it's all done from a distance. She has evolved a series of "tools" for people to use to improve and bolster their mental health, including written affirmations or what she calls "soulworks." Many may also recognise her from her talks on LMFM on mental well-being.

In this time of huge uncertainty Nicola's upbeat mantra, her philosophy of positivity, may well be a balm to many who's morale and, mentality, is battered and bruised by the harsh realities of life; particularly of life living in yet another lockdown.

Now 44, Connolly-Byrne has spent the last few years working as an inspirational speaker. When she talks to people she does so using a philosophy she has honed and crafted from her own life; from her particular journey down what has often been a rocky road.

She knows the value of focusing on the positives in life; the value in using words and phases that help to make the self stronger. She knows it because they have helped to keep her going in her darkest days. More than that they helped her reshape her life so that now she is in a so much happier place than she once was.

"The challenges are always there for everybody and they are always coming down the road. There is a difference between those who have worked on themselves and those who haven't worked on themselves. If you have not worked on yourself and you find yourself in a challenging position it's going to knock you for six and you're going to hit the deck and you could stay there for a long time but when you have worked on yourself you can bounce back far more quickly."

She clearly likes working with people but particularly those "who genuinely want change who want to be better and are willing to explore novel ways of achieving this." Her aim is to help people find "their zest for life and self-belief again."

EARLY YEARS

Nicola lives in Drogheda with her husband and two children, just inside the Meath border. Its not all that far away from Duleek, where she resided for a few years. Neither is it, for that matter, all that far from where she grew up in Edenmore in northside Dublin. There, she says, can be found "a wonderful community" but her youthful years weren't idyllic either. Far from it.

She had, she adds, "a very challenging childhood." She applied herself at school but struggled with various issues. She was diagnosed with depression at 17 and found that conventional medicine didn't work for her so she sought to find other ways to find comfort.

She wrote down her thoughts and feelings and discovered it to be a big help; it's something she continues to do on a daily basis. She read widely, discovered alternative medicine, became intrigued with the concepts of the energy in the human body and how it can be channelled - mental and physical energy.

Her interest in such matters were, no doubt, heightened by the fact that she suffered from, what at first appeared to be a mysterious illness that worsened to the point where it threatened her young life. "I became very ill as a late teen. I was eating rings around me, sleeping all the time. Brain fog, memory loss, irritability. The hospital tested me for everything, even cancer. I was diagnosed with Pernicious Anemia. Who knew that having low (vitamin) B12 and leaving it untreated could kill you! I was close to death. I had the lowest B12 ever recorded in Ireland back then."

After school, she attended a PLC course. She worked in a number of jobs in the IT sector, gaining invaluable experience. She also landed a job as an executive officer managing the affairs of the Political Science Department in Trinity College. It was a challenging yet fulfilling job.

She decided to move on from that in 2005 when she had her first child, usually a time of joy and pride for a couple. Instead there were further challenges. She knew, she says, from the minute he was born that something was amiss. "When he was two weeks old, his legs and arms went black," she recalls.

Nicola's baby was diagnosed with laryngomalacia "which means he had a floppy larynx so it would block his airways." It meant the baby had to be attached to a monitor that beeped constantly and sleep often proved elusive. That time thought Nicola a great deal about herself.

"I didn't waver from that task of minding our son for a moment, I'm really good in a crisis. I just hit the ground running, got him everything he needed. He was on the monitor 24/7 so there was constant beeping but when it was beeping it was good because it meant he was breathing."

ROCKY ROAD

In time Nicola had become aware of the power, the importance of positivity in overcoming the many challenges of life, of taking on the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune with the help of a strong mental outlook; that buoyancy she talks about. She decided to to use all her experiences, to formulate and forge a kind of personal philosophy and use it to help others.

She set up 'I AM Positive Mindset' in and started working with groups and individuals. She talks to them about a wide range of matters including the concept of self-care something that forms a central core of her message.

"When I say to people about self-care they generally talk about having their hair done, their tan done, their nails, whatever it's always external. When I talk about self-care it's about what's going on inside.

"What I care about is your mental health, what I care about is your opinion of yourself, it's about explaining to people about that difference between external and internal self-care and the positive, or negative, impact that can have on you, your family, your colleagues, your business and the consequences if that is not maintained correctly."

Nicola Connolly-Byrne has travelled a long way on a long, often rocky road, but, with the help of her daily positive reinforcements she has overcome many challenges, time and again stepped outside her comfort zone.

There was a time when she says, she "felt anxious all the time" when the world was a bleak place. Now she adds she's different. "I am strong, I am confident, I am happy, I am surrounded by wonderful people and I am most definitely fulfilled."

She has clearly travelled far down that sometimes rocky road.