PODCAST · education
The Ugly Duckling Diary
by Mags Thomson
Welcome to The Ugly Duckling Diary (formerly SwanWaters Healing Podcast) where I, Mags Thomson, will be reading to you from my book!The Ugly Duckling Diary invites you to explore emotional abuse as I recount my own experiences and help you make sense of this power dynamic. This book is a potent combination of powerful storytelling and practical resources and although this may feel like a heavy topic, there will be plenty of giggles along the way because I am here to uplift my fellow survivors and help them find life beyond abuse
Episodes
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Understanding Emotional Abuse
Hi there! I am Mags, the author of The Ugly Duckling Diary. I have decided to read you my book! Want to read along (or ahead)? Get your copy of The Ugly Duckling Diary on Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ugly-Duckling-Diary-Understanding-Overcoming-ebook/dp/B0B8DW599D/
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The Parental Prequel
Hi there! I am Mags, the author of The Ugly Duckling Diary. I have decided to read you my book! Want to read along (or ahead)? Get your copy of The Ugly Duckling Diary on Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ugly-Duckling-Diary-Understanding-Overcoming-ebook/dp/B0B8DW599D/
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The Letter on the Kitchen Table
Hi there! I am Mags, the author of The Ugly Duckling Diary. I have decided to read you my book! Want to read along (or ahead)? Get your copy of The Ugly Duckling Diary on Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ugly-Duckling-Diary-Understanding-Overcoming-ebook/dp/B0B8DW599D/
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First Things First
Hi there! I am Mags, the author of The Ugly Duckling Diary. I have decided to read you my book! Want to read along (or ahead)? Get your copy of The Ugly Duckling Diary on Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ugly-Duckling-Diary-Understanding-Overcoming-ebook/dp/B0B8DW599D/
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Coming Soon: The Ugly Duckling Diary Podcast!
Hi there! I am Mags, one of the original co-founders of SwanWaters and the author or The Ugly Duckling Diary. I have decided to read you my book! Subscribe to have the first chapter delivered to your feed next week! Want to read along (or ahead)? Get your copy of The Ugly Duckling Diary on…
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Identified Patient
In this podcast from 26 August 2015, we delve into the concept of the Identified Patient. The term is used in family therapy to describe the situation where one family member is labelled as "the problem child", and has all of the family issues projected onto them. The identified patient is also...
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How Does Resilience Help With Life's Big Stuff?
Resiliency Essentials: Resiliency is our ability to deal with BIG Stuff. We create more successful outcomes the more resilient we are, despite the obstacles and heartaches we all face in life. Originally recorded in June 2016 As survivors of abuse, we sometimes feel we have to beat a lot of…
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Building Confidence and Courage
In today's episode I respond to a quote I found recently: “Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage.” Dale Carnegie - Fear and insecurity can freeze us into place - Fear will not go away by staring at it - You can start with the smallest possible steps - Being…
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How Mags Realised Her Family Was Abusive
I recorded this 30-minute podcast a few years ago. In it, I share my own story of becoming conscious of the abusive situation I was in, and how that lead me to cut all contact with my family. Want to learn more about escaping an abusive situation? Check out this free Healing Academy module:...
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Co-Parenting with a Toxic Person - Part 2
This podcast was originally recorded in 2015. This is part 2 of 2. Being a parent is never an easy thing to do, and co-parenting after a divorce is even harder. But co-parenting with a toxic person? It is probably impossible... Still, there are ways in which you can make the best of an extremely...
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Co-Parenting with a Toxic Person - Part 1
This podcast was originally recorded in 2015, and is part 1 of 2. Being a parent is never an easy thing to do, and co-parenting after a divorce is even harder. But co-parenting with a toxic person? It is probably impossible... Still, there are ways in which you can make the best of an extremely...
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E76 - Rewriting The Narrative
When we are addressing triggers and trying to heal from traumatic experiences, we need to change the stories we tell ourselves. Have you ever had an extremely emotional response to something that turned out to be pretty trivial? Well, looking back at that moment, you can probably reconstruct the...
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E75 - What Aubrey Learned About Managing Triggers
In the PTSD module in The Healing Academy, I share strategies Aubrey taught me for coping with my triggers. She based those strategies on the work she did in The Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Workbook, a resource she still recommend to anyone dealing with PTSD and other high-stress...
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E74 An Introduction to PTSD and Toxic Relationships
In this podcast Aubrey and Mags (under her previous screen name Monkey) talk about everything from what it is, to how it can manifest. Links to Resources: Effects of Domestic Violence by the Joyful Heart Foundation. And also important to remember is that “violence” does not have to include a...
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E73 - Building A New Life
Note: This audio was recorded as a Facebook Live, and it's not the best I've ever recorded. However, I felt the message was worth sharing. When leaving abuse, we undoubtedly leave a whole life behind. We have to redefine so much of who we are and how we do things. It can be overwhelming. In…
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E72 - Embracing The Imperfection
However hard you try, however much you prepare and try to control your circumstances, even under the best of circumstances, your life is not going to be perfect. Main Take Away: * Just because things are not the way you'd dreamed, or wished, or imagined, doesn’t mean they are not enjoyable, and...
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E71 - Compassion Grows Compassion
In this episode of the Pint-Sized Healing Podcast, Mags discusses the way that we can be our own worst enemies (and that we need to be more compassionate toward ourselves in our healing journey). Many survivors find it easier to show compassion to other people than they do to show it to…
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E70 - From Victim To Survivor
In this episode of The Pint-Sized Healing Podcast, Mags talks about making the escape from abuse. Learn how to make the transition from victim of abuse to survivor and overcomer. Main Take-Aways As long as you hold onto the notion that life is happening to you (rather than believing you have the...
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E69 - The Story of Aubrey Cole and Captain Crazy
In this episode of the Pint-Sized Healing Podcast, Mags talks with fellow SwanWaters team member Aubrey Cole about her experience of living in an abusive relationship for 25 years, how she left, and what she has done to help other survivors since. Main Take-Aways • When you enter into an abusive...
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E68 - Focus On Yourself
In this episode of the Pint-Sized Healing Podcast, Mags talks about how easy it is to fall into focusing all your energy on the person who abused you. While it's totally natural, it's not going to serve you in the long-run. Know that it IS possible to build a life where they're no longer the…
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E67 - Having The Feels
In this episode of the Pint-Sized Healing Podcast, Mags talks about the way we get too hard on ourselves when we're experiencing lots of emotion during the healing journey. Main Take-Aways: • You can feel conflicting emotions at the same time. E.g.like joy at not being around toxic family members...
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E66 - The Pendulum Swing
In this episode of the Pint-Sized Healing Podcast, Mags talks about the back and forth of emotional experiences, behaviors, and beliefs when you heal. Main Takeaways: • When you're healing, you can go from being lax about boundaries, for example, to being overly militant and forceful with them…
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E65 - Healing In Circles
In this episode of the Pint-Sized Healing Podcast, Mags discusses the way that healing often requires you to go back over the same painful territory. And usually at a deeper level because you haven't dealt with certain aspects of it yet. Main Take-Aways • Deep and complex issues (like dealing…
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E64 - The Not So Subtle Art Of Healing
In this episode of the Pint-Sized Healing Podcast, Mags talks about the fact that healing is often quite an in-your-face process. But that, given time, it can become intriguing—rather than only painful and exhausting. Main Take-Aways • Healing is less soft piano music and more punk rock • You can...
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E63 - Time For A Break
In this episode of the Pint-Sized Healing Podcast, Mags talks about why the SwanWaters team is taking a two-week break from social media between March 18 - April 1, 2019 (no April's Fools jokes here lol). Main Take-Aways: • We're always talking about how important it is that people take time for...
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E62 - Healing Is A Verb
In this episode of the Pint-Sized Healing Podcast, Mags talks about how you have to participate in your own healing or nothing's going to change. Main Take-Aways: • Healing doesn't just magically happen: it's somthing you DO • You can join all the support groups and buy all the healing programs…
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E61 - Quality Over Quantity
In this episode of the Pint-Sized Healing Podcast, Mags asks the question, "What if, instead of rushing to do as many things as possible in our day, we slow down and do less, but with greater care and more intent." The Main Take-Aways • Multi-tasking often means you don't give things the…
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E60 - Productivity In Healing
In this episode of the Pint-Sized Healing Podcast, Mags discusses the way we take the capitalist value of productivity over humanity into our healing journey with us. Main Take-Aways • You can't heal to a schedule. You do it in your own time as you navigate triggers and the curve balls that life...
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E58 - Brainwashing You For Good
In this episode of the Pint-Sized Healing Podcast, Mags discusses the importance of getting around people who can help you recalibrate your thinking in order to heal after abuse. And also to transform the way you think in order to see the world (and experience the world) differently. Main...
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E57 - Carrie Stages a Hostile Podcast Take-Over
Inspired by The Life After Podcast episode where Chuck Parson interviewed Brady Hardin, Carrie staged a hostile takeover of the Pint-Sized Healing Podcast to talk to SwanWaters director Mags Thomson about the origins of the organization, her own survivor story, and what The Healing Academy means…
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E56 - House of Mirrors
In this episode of the Pint-Sized Healing Podcast, Mags and Carrie reflect on a piece Stewart (Mags' husband) wrote about his experience with her toxic family. - Main Take-Aways • When you're aware that the abusive person in your life likes to drive wedges between people, make sure you compare...
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E55 - Setting Yourself Up For Success
So often, as soon as we wake up our mind flood with everything that we should be doing that day. All the chores and tasks that are on our mental to-do list. From the moment we wake up, we find ourselves in a state of overwhelm, because (if you are anything like me) we usually add too much to that...
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E54 - Make Your Chores Count
When we think about self-care and healing, we often feel overwhelmed at the prospect of adding more things to our all ready overflowing to-do list. So if we can't add more to the list, how can we make the items that are already on there really count? The answer: change how we feel about our...
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E53 - Productivity In Healing
In this episode of the Pint-Sized Healing Podcast, Mags explores the idea of slowing down to heal—rather than rushing because you think you think you "should" be more healed by now. Main Take-Aways • It's not self-compassionate or realistic to expect that you heal in an efficient, linear way....
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E52 - Oppressive Religion & Religious Trauma Syndrome
Before you get started with today's episode, I just wanted to address the fact that we are going to be talking about religion today. Religion is usually something we stay clear of because this topic is quite triggering for us and other survivors of spiritual and religious abuse who are part of…
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E51 - Two Things Can Be True At Once
In this episode, Mags addresses the temptation we have to exclude one truth in favor of another—as though they can't both be an honest representation of reality. Main Take-Aways • We can experience seemingly contradictory emotions at once. For example, being angry at an abuser while having...
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E50 - The Blissful World Where the Narcissist Is Never To Blame
In this episode Carrie and I talk about an old blog post entitled: The Blissful World Where the Narcissist Is Never To Blame. You can find the post here: https://swanwaters.com/the-blissful-world-where-the-narcissist-is-never-to-blame/ We also reference a video by Kit Kennedy, which you can find...
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E49 - The Best Revenge
I saw a meme recently that gave me a bit of a giggle. It said: Not giving a fuck, is better than revenge! The more PC version of that is probably: the best revenge is no revenge. That inspired me to talk about revenge today, and how it relates to your healing journey. - Too often we think of…
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E48 - The Passing of My Father
In this episode, I revisit a blog post I wrote two years ago about abusive parents passing away. It was inspired by my friend S who lost her toxic mother, and I wondered how I'd respond when it would inevitably happen to me. Well, a few months ago, it did. I lost my father. So in this episode, I...
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E47 - The Terrifying Euphoria
Today I talk about the Terrifying Euphoria, a concept I reference a lot. It is something that I feel we often encounter in our healing journey. - We sometimes identify with the trauma we have encountered in our lives - As harmful as abuse is, it is familiar harm - Escaping from abuse means…
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E44 - Road Trip of Narcissistic Abuse
This week I am joined my spiritual mentor and energy healer Jacqui McGinn. We talk about the effects of narcissistic abuse and focus especially on belief, disbelief, and mindset. - Disbelief is equally powerful as belief - Emotional abuse lacks tangible truth that makes it "easy" to remain...
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E43 - The Villain Is So Good at Playing the Victim
Carrie Maya and I read an old blog post of mine and comment on how our insights have developed over the years. Here is the original blog post from February 20, 2016: http://swanwaters.com/playing-the-victim/
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E42 - Moving Through Emotions When Overwhelmed
SwanWaters team member Carrie Maya talks you through her process as she deals with emotional overwhelm (it's real-time!) - Where are you feeling the emotion? - What is the emotion you are feeling? - What is at the root of the feeling? - Once you identify what's going on, come up with a plan of...
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E38 - You Are My Sunshine
In this episode I share a little trick I used (and still use) to quiet those nasty voices in my head that tell me I am not good enough, not worthy of love... After recording this episode I came across this Instagram post, and fell in love with it: https://www.instagram.com/p/Bl2oQuBguqv/
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E41 - Relationships with Others and Yourself
Today's episode was originally recorded as a Facebook Live. I answer the questions left for me in the Facebook Group. I talk about building and maintaining relationships and friendships. - We may have learned toxic relationship tools in the past - Our relationships are reflections of our...
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E40 - Mistake or Abuse
Sometimes we say the wrong thing, we make someone feel uncomfortable, insecure or just plain bad. We don’t mean to, but we cannot always predict how others will react. We are not always 100% switched on to our own emotional state, our tone of voice, and the small or big traumas that we suffered……
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E39 - Welcome to the Human Race
Have you considered that some of your responses are not part of being a survivor of abuse, but simply the result of being part of the human race? - Everybody gets stressed, anxious or worried sometimes - Your lizard brain responds with the Flight, Fight or Freeze response - Talk to friends about...
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E37 - Celebrate Your Progress
Healing is a learning curve, and it takes time and practice to get better at it. *** We repeat what we don't repair – Christine Langley – Obaugh *** - STOP kicking yourself - See and celebrate your progress - Learning takes practice (unfortunately)
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E36 - Overthinking
We were discussing the habit of overthinking in the SwanWaters Facebook Group. I wanted to give you my perspective and share some tools on how to deal with this. - Figure out who the voice belongs to - Let go of voices that no longer serve you - Use meditation to become more aware of your…
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E35 - Mindfulness and Healing with Bob Brotchie; part 2
Bob Brotchie and I have both benefited from mindfulness while overcoming the effects of childhood trauma. We share our experiences in this podcast and give you the basics of starting a mindfulness practice of your own. This podcast is a little longer than you are used to and consists of 2 parts.…
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
Welcome to The Ugly Duckling Diary (formerly SwanWaters Healing Podcast) where I, Mags Thomson, will be reading to you from my book!The Ugly Duckling Diary invites you to explore emotional abuse as I recount my own experiences and help you make sense of this power dynamic. This book is a potent combination of powerful storytelling and practical resources and although this may feel like a heavy topic, there will be plenty of giggles along the way because I am here to uplift my fellow survivors and help them find life beyond abuse
HOSTED BY
Mags Thomson
CATEGORIES
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does The Ugly Duckling Diary have?
The Ugly Duckling Diary currently has 84 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is The Ugly Duckling Diary about?
Welcome to The Ugly Duckling Diary (formerly SwanWaters Healing Podcast) where I, Mags Thomson, will be reading to you from my book!The Ugly Duckling Diary invites you to explore emotional abuse as I recount my own experiences and help you make sense of this power dynamic. This book is a potent...
How often does The Ugly Duckling Diary release new episodes?
The Ugly Duckling Diary has 84 episodes. Check the episode list to see recent publication dates and frequency.
Where can I listen to The Ugly Duckling Diary?
You can listen to The Ugly Duckling Diary on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts The Ugly Duckling Diary?
The Ugly Duckling Diary is created and hosted by Mags Thomson.
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