Meet Ali Flynn – entrepreneur and performance coach

Ali Flynn’s memory of her life before university is foggy at best. But after suffering decades of abuse, a stroke and a diagnosis of postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome, she continues to choose a positive attitude on the daily – and teaches others how they can do the same.

 

What do I remember most about my childhood? Very little. It’s probably one of the toughest questions someone can ask me – because in that moment, I go straight back to the trauma. 

The sexual abuse started when I was five years old and lasted a couple of years. I’ve had physical, verbal and emotional abuse throughout most of my childhood and teenage years.

It came out when I was in Year 10. I was sitting in English class and we were reading a book that talked about incest – I felt sick. I didn’t have any memories of the sexual abuse at that stage, but I just knew something felt really off in my world. All of a sudden I didn’t feel safe.

I caught the bus home and met up with a friend to talk – that’s when I started getting flashbacks. Together, we went and spoke to my mum and it all started to come out. Up until that point I had no idea what had happened to me, because I’d repressed my memories for the past 10 years.  

I idolised the person who did it. 

I used to follow them around. I copied what they did. 

Everyone was so shocked – and they all had to choose their own way to process what had happened. But when confronted with that kind of information, some people can’t actually say, ‘Yes, that person who’s in my world, who I know, like and trust, has hurt someone else I really love’. Instead, I got told I was the reason it happened. I got told that, because of me, that person we once loved isn’t in our world anymore. 

Not my mum though. She loved me so much. She was devastated when it came out and action was offered, but it wasn’t the action I needed at the time. I remember feeling so trapped. I was sitting in the car and all I wanted to do was kick the windows out.

I became pretty self-destructive. I got involved in a lot of high risk behaviours. It wasn’t unusual for me to be drinking out on the streets until 4am. And while it’s normal for teenagers to take risks, I was taking a lot. While it’s normal for teenagers to be a bit forgetful, I was forgetting a lot. Ultimately I was drinking to forget too – but the dots were never joined because I always made sure I never did it with the same crowd. I didn’t want people to think that I was a bad person, but that was my coping mechanism at the time. 

It was a way of hurting me. I didn’t have any love for my body, my mind or for who I was. I had no self-worth, even though I presented as a highly confident woman with ambition and potential. The sexual and physical abuse aside, I’d grown up in a very privileged environment. I went to private schools, I played every sport under the sun and I had unconditional love in my life. But we moved a lot, from country to city, the beach to overseas. At my last count, I’d lived in 12 different homes by the end of university and no matter where I lived, decades of family violence followed. No one ever knew what really existed within our four walls – until that memory was triggered in a Year 10 English class.

I went into psychology for two reasons. Firstly, to understand human behaviour and why people do what they do. Secondly, because I wanted to help people in a similar situation to my own. I needed to see that people like me could get to a point where they didn’t live wondering if they were going to survive the next day. I knew from a young age that the life I was living wasn’t the life I was meant to live – I wanted to heal, move on and help others do the same. I wanted them to know that they can create the life they want to live and find joy and contentment outside of their trauma.

Studying and working in psychology means I have seen the worst of the worst of human behaviour, both personally and professionally. But it also means I have seen people come out the other side where they can heal and find love again.  

And despite working with people for 20 years, I’m only just learning how to speak up about my story. It’s taken years of therapy and ongoing study and I still get wobbly – because for so long I was told that no one would believe me and that everything that happened was my fault. That shame is something I lived with for a long time and it’s something that’s often unspoken. 

But silence breeds shame. So now I will talk. I will tell my story and I will go back and heal that inner child, that small girl who no one heard, no one saw, no one protected. I’ve done the work now and I can see she is safe, she can have a life and deserves to be loved. But therapy wasn’t easy, I’d take 10 steps forward, then 10 steps back. I wouldn’t be where I am today without my husband. He is my unwavering support, my rock, and still is today. 

It was like black tar coming out of me.

My nervous system had been on fight or flight response my whole life and it not only needed the mindset work to heal, but physical support too. For me, that meant deep breathing, meditation, healthy human connection and exercise to calm my nervous system and give my soul the best chance to heal. 

Today, I’m okay with not knowing my memories in detail. Some photos can help, but I’ll never really know what’s real. The body remembers, but I don’t have to have the facts. I don’t need them to heal. I don’t need to know the number of times or the places it happened. I just know that it is what it is and my memories will always be grey. 

What do I want people to know? First and foremost, that we can stop family violence. There’s no reason that should still be occurring, and as a nation, we need to step up and start having more conversations about it – the statistics are too high and we are too silent. 

The other message I want people to hear is that we can heal. It does take time and you’ve got to find your own road to that place, but you can get there. Does the trauma still vibrate in my life? Sometimes, absolutely. But 95 per cent of the time I feel grounded, safe, stable and secure. I love my life and I love what I do – and that’s something I never thought was possible. 

Challenges that Change Us

Ali is the founder and host of international podcast, Challenges that Change Us. Since launching in April 2022, it has skyrocketed to the top 10 on the Australian charts and ranks within the top 10 per cent of all podcasts globally. Featuring interviews with inspiring individuals who share a challenge they have faced, how they overcame it and the lessons they learned along the way, the podcast was born during yet another incredibly difficult time in Ali’s life. Here’s how it all began.

“I had a backpack from a very young age that said I can do this on my own. You can hurt me, you can touch me, you can do whatever you want – but you can’t touch my mind.

But when I was 32, I had a stroke, and it felt like they finally took my mind. 

I was in the bathroom, getting ready to run a bootcamp when I got a headache on my left side and pins and needles down my right. I knew my life was in danger. 

I’d had a stroke by the time they got me to RPA in Sydney and it was there they discovered I had a brain condition called reversible cerebral vasoconstriction syndrome. It’s a rare condition that lasts for four months of your life and five per cent of people who have it will end up having a stroke. I was in that five per cent.

I lost my vision in the top quadrants of both my eyes, the ability to read or write properly, my balance and my short-term memory – I remembered my life before the incident, I knew I was married and had three kids, but that was basically it.

I was so fortunate to have an undergrad in psychology and to be a fitness coach, because my mindset kicked in and my laser focus switched on. Each day, I did one thing that I knew would get me closer to recovery and I made becoming a triathlete part of my rehabilitation. I’d never ridden a road bike, been a long distance runner, or done an ocean swim – so what drove it? My ‘why’ is that I wanted to show my girls that you can do anything in this world. Anything is possible when we put our minds to it, when we’re disciplined, when we understand our why and our purpose and we layer that with habits, determination and the people and the external environments that support and nourish us.

Things were looking up – but I became unwell again during COVID. It started with pain in my legs, progressed to pins and needles and numbness in my arms. I had gone from being an iron woman to not being able to stand up to shower. I thought I was dying a slow death. 

I thought – what is my greatest strength and how can I pull on that now? It is my ability to talk, listen and sit with human experience. So, ‘Challenges that Change Us’ was born – a platform designed to not only alleviate the isolation that often accompanies personal trials, but also to equip individuals worldwide with tangible strategies and life lessons to enrich their ‘life toolbox.’

One of my primary motivations was to assure my children, who were too young to grasp certain complexities at the time, that they are never alone in their struggles. I wanted them to get a sense of who I was and understand that every person harbours a unique story, a tapestry of experiences woven from pain, shame, fear, joy, love, and courage.

After many, many doctors appointments – I was diagnosed with postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome, or POTS. One of my key symptoms is that my heart rate rapidly increases when I stand up, so I feel like I’m going to vomit or blackout. All that time I hadn’t made the connection that it was my posture that was the problem and it can take people years to get a diagnosis. It took me 18 months, I was lucky. I’m now on the Australian POTS Foundation board to help raise awareness and advocate in this country. 

Throughout this time, I’ve also founded and grown three companies and helped thousands of people across the country transform their own life of trauma into one filled with joy. I have this unwavering belief that, with the right support, obstacles can be overcome and everything I do – whether that be performance coaching, public speaking or interviewing people on the podcast – is a celebration of the human spirit.

It’s been a wild ride, but I have one key takeaway. You get to choose the attitude you wake up with every morning. So when you put your two feet on the ground, think about how you want to show up for yourself in the world and choose that.”

Challenges that Change Us Podcast | Altitude Fitness | 171 Rusden Street | Armidale NSW 2350 | Website | Facebook | Instagram | Photography Catherine Stephen