'Life Happens' with Esmee Gummer

'Life Happens' is the podcast that helps you build mental fitness, speaking to inspirational people about life’s ups and downs, how they’ve overcome setbacks and what it means to them to be mentally fit.

From paralysis to running marathons and taking on the brutal Channel 4 show SAS: Who Dares Wins, Esmee Gummer’s story is one of true inspiration. The personal trainer has gone from being told she would never walk again to taking on extreme endurance challenges and has recently been appointed to the position of Head of Exercise Wellness at Virgin Active.

In the latest episode of ‘Life Happens’, 87%’s Marketing Director, James Gwinnett, caught up with Esmee to chat about her incredible story of overcoming the odds, the links between exercise and wellbeing and her tips on improving your mood and building positive mental health.

Click on the video below for the full interview and we promise you will be blown away by Esmee’s energy.

Sport and movement have always been a part of Esmee’s life and she had aspirations to be a dancer as a youngster. Dance school beckoned but at 18 years old, a bad reaction to an anaesthetic, as part of a routine hernia operation, caused her to have seizures and left her paralysed from the waist down.

Her dreams of dancing dashed, she embarked on a long and arduous journey of recovery. The doctors told her she’d never walk again but her dogged determination allowed her to make positive progress towards proving them wrong. Esmee talks about finding the motivation and mental toughness to continually make those improvements on a daily basis over a period of many months.

On leaving left the hospital, she vividly remembers a doctor telling her, “If you hadn’t wanted to walk again, you wouldn’t have,” proving the reinforcing power of the mind.

Multiple fitness and personal training qualifications later, and Esmee is now a highly respected fitness instructor, with a passion for helping others improve their wellbeing and use fitness to mould and shape their lives.

Along the way she has climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro, run marathons and ultra-marathons, was one of the first female recruits to take on SAS: Who Dares Wins and her expertise has led her to a senior role at Virgin Active.

We can all take something from Esmee’s positivity and her tips on using our mindset to thrive, exercising to improve our mental health, learning to check in with ourselves and much, much more.

We hope you enjoy the interview. Subscribe to our YouTube channel to keep up-to-date with new episodes of ‘Life Happens’ as they are released.