Nik and Eva Speakman meet The Cheshire Magazine shortly before the launch of our first print copy since lockdown. Here they talk about how their enviable partnership works and how their innovative approach is helping thousands of people, every single day.

Rainbows, clapping and hashtags like #inthistogether have consumed our social media streams over the past six months. Heroic stories from the frontline and tales of survival have also hit the airwaves. Our TV’s have been filled with gallant efforts from businesses and people alike, playing their part in making the best of the pandemic situation. So it is apt that the sun is shining six months on from the outbreak at a socially distanced Chester Zoo, we meet with The Speakmans, the couple who radiate positivity from every inch of their beings and have used the time to publish videos of support, throughout what has been the most uncertain time in anyones lives.

Nik and Eva are the couple who grace our TV screens regularly, giving their take on counselling and therapy, which has garnered them world-wide medical and popular acclaim. The couple, who have been married for 25 years in January, not only show what focus and goal setting can achieve, but they are living examples of how making a life of experience over wealth, can make a fundamental improvement on every human being.

The bright pair met through a chance encounter in 1993 - Eva’s car had been stolen outside of her office where she was well into the start of a career in banking. Nik, the ever helpful and courteous gent, helped her to get aid and a thank you lunch turned into a marriage and two children, now aged 15 and 23. Nik’s thirst for knowledge, borne from his father’s love of the library matching his inquisitive mind, was intriguing to Eva, who began to see things from different angles on meeting her new beau.

“I remember going on our first big trip to Florida and Nik handing me a walkman. We are are both big rock fans so I thought it was going to be Aerosmith or someone like that, and Nik just said, ‘Listen’ and he handed me a note pad and I just heard a mans voice. From that day my life just changed.”

The voice talking through the foam speakers on the 90’s metal headset from the walkman was an American life coach. From there, Eva began to delve more into how people were challenging social norms and questioned alternative answers to what was already out there - that has invariably been passed down through generations. 

Health was one of the main factors which   urged Nik to think outside of the proverbial box. After suffering with severe asthma throughout his childhood, Nik was pumped with steroids and antibiotics and faced major surgery to save his life by removing his bowel. As, like his dad always taught him, answers could be found in the pages of books at the library. So the curious yet determined 19-year-old discharged himself and scoured every inch of any book he could find to try and cure his illness. Only to continually read bowels don’t heal.

“It was profound - I had a cut on my hand at the time and because I was anxious about potentially having life changing surgery, I kept picking at it and it kept healing. I thought, ‘if my hand can heal, then so can my body’.” After a period of fasting, Nik stuck to a diet of brown rice and slowly introduced foods into his diet, carefully charting the good and the bad. And after two years, he was cured.

It’s their mentality of goal setting, research, analysis and action that have brought the couple so much respect and notoriety in the medical world. It’s also the way of life that has got them through lockdown, helped them to set up their thriving business, build a beautiful home and create a legacy of championing the psychotherapy - Schema Conditioning.

Their daily routine is where it all starts. Eva explains: Every morning we get out of bed at 5.00 am, hit the snooze button and take the nine minutes snooze to practice gratitude. We then discuss and write down our goals for the day and what we need to deal with when we get back from the gym” Nik adds, “We don’t check social media until 10 am, as once you do that, you switch from being proactive about your life to being reactive to others.”

But from that moment in America, Eva, inspired by Nik and his teachings, now sets goals not only by the day, but by the month and even the year. Nik adds: “97% of people don’t plan their lives. Just 3% of people do. We are in the 3% because we believe that if you want something to happen you have to plan and take action. It’s the social norm to say that ‘I’ll be happy when I get this promotion, or that new car, or go on that amazing holiday’. But very few people take enough action to make it actually happen. Our method encourages you to make a note in the diary and if it isn’t achievable that day, put a note in for the next week or month and create the possibility that it will happen and great things will come.

“It’s how we have the house we live in now. The first restaurant we went to was a beautiful building built in 1277. We both said, ‘we will live here some day’ and 9 years later it is our home and we couldn’t be happier there.” Nik added.

Their historic Lancashire home is also home to an array of animals including their beloved cats and Feeniks the Serval and it also became the base for their business whilst the COVID-19 restrictions were in place.

Eva said: “We aren’t people to give up or rest on our laurels. We used lockdown as a time to set new goals, like creating more content for our YouTube channel and to work on developing our new podcast ‘Making the Change’ which is light and jovial in many ways, but tackles some really prominent issues.”

With topics such as, ‘Coping with Uncertainty’, ‘Relationships’, ‘Anxiety’ ‘Healthy Guts and Healthy Minds’ and ‘Emotional Eating’ just a sample of the subjects talked about, Nik and Eva were keen to make sure that they continued the wider education seen on their large stadium tours and more intimate workshops, along with their much loved chemistry and effervescent personality’s at the same time.

Eva said: “Our Facebook Live’s during lockdown seemed to really be a great support to the people that follow us, so we thought that with the YouTube channel and the podcast, there was a resource of advice and support at the click of a button - and they have been so well received.” 

It’s their mission to help even more people through their work with Universities in Amsterdam and Uterecht, in the hope their   Schema Conditioning Psychotherapy and Visual Schema Displacement Therapy could one day be rolled out in the NHS. And if anyone can make that happen, it’s the Speakmans.

Nik adds: “The first two studies comparing our Schema Displacement therapy with EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing), the World Health Organisation go to therapy for trauma, and a controlled condition showed Schema Displacement Therapy was superior to EMDR and the CC in reducing emotional disturbance. Two further scientific studies are underway currently, study four having received approval from the General Medical Council. Its no longer good enough to say prolific conditions such as PTSD can’t be cured and we believe our work has helped encourage changes in that way of thinking. So the next step is to get Schema Displacement Therapy recognised as a mainstream therapy.”

Their charity Trauma Research UK is an amalgamation of several organisations supporting those who have faced trauma in their lives and striving to raise funds to get progressive research off the ground for trauma based therapies struggling for funding, thanks to the Speakman’s dedication to mental health.

Whilst working to help change the face of trauma treatment, the pair continue to work with their clients in clinic and on screen, spending 24 hours a day together, like so many during the lockdown period.

“Relationships are about evolution; 80% compatibility and 20% which is different,” said Nik. “You either grow together and work on understanding and accepting the 20% or you don’t. It really is that simple.” And it’s clear from just a short time spent with them in the leafy surroundings of Chester Zoo, these animal loving go-getters are exactly on the same page.

www.speakman.tv

Top Tips For Coming Out Of Lockdown

1 - Routine

2 - Take time out for gratitude

3 - Set your goals for the day

4 - Use the phrase “…but luckily…” after   something negative

5 - If you’re working from home remember, a cluttered home is a cluttered mind - declutter!

6 - Have a set area for working at home

7 - Take time out

And remember, we adapted before when lockdown was put in pace, we will adapt again.

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