Using science of the brain to make your life easier
Using science of the brain to make your life easier
Hi, I’m Shantala — founder of Retrain Your Brain.
I'm married with two daughters and a solicitor/partner in a law firm (dealing with serious and catastrophic injuries - both physical and mental). I have two horses who I started competing in 2025.
Throughout my personal life, my career and now my competition hobby, I have felt anxious or nervous about various situations, have felt imposter syndrome and have been scared of failing and embarrassing myself. I would prepare for situations and when it came to the situation in question, my nerves would get the better of me. I would be able to rationalise why I don't need to be nervous in my brain ("it's ok to be nervous", "you've done your preparation", "nobody will judge you", "what does it matter what people think about you") but my feelings wouldn't follow my logic - feelings of nerves, nausea and my brain going blank would suddenly take over and I wouldn't perform at my best. Then I'd be disappointed with myself and feel like I'd let myself (and others) down.
I'd tried traditional forms of self-help - CBT, positive thinking and some counselling but none of it really helped. Sometimes I worked out by myself why I was feeling the way I was feeling, I could tell myself to think positively and that it's normal to feel nervous. I could rationalise all of this in my brain but ultimately, when it came down to wanting to be in certain situations or then being in those situations, it was like my feelings overpowered my thinking.
It all came to a head when I wanted to learn to horseride and then wanted to start competing. The nerves would simply get the better of me. For years I managed to muddle through for the sake of my career but now I wanted to do something I enjoyed doing as a hobby and my nerves were stopping me. So something had to change. I decided to sign up for mindset coaching/neuro-linguistic programming (NLP). Well, it changed my life. I went from being a nervous wreck wanting to ride my horse around the block to having completed affiliated eventing competitions last year (dressage, showjumping and cross country). Personally seeing (and feeling!) the benefits of these techniques made me want to learn more about the science behind how it all works, become accredited in coaching these mindset and NLP techniques and help others.
So Retrain Your Brain was born.
