An Irish woman has opened up about the highs and lows of moving back home from Australia.
Caroline McKenna moved there to teach and never thought that seven year's later she'd be back home in Co Down with a huge online following.
The 31-year-old embarked on a social media journey after becoming a teacher, wanting to be someone "real" that her students could look up to.
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In an interview with Belfast Live, Caroline explained how a 15 minute podcast completely changed her life, catapulting her into avenues in life she'd never have dreamed of.
She said: "For the last seven years I have been living in Australia working as a full time teacher and really enjoying my life out there.
"I felt like my students were really looking up to people on Instagram as their role models, and a lot of what they were doing was photoshopped or they were showing just the best parts of life.
"They weren't really showing the highs and lows of life. I felt like there was a lot of people my age doing the same. I decided to record a 15 minute podcast, just on the realities of living abroad and how things can be really hard. And I done that in the hope that I could inspire my students to look up to more real people. Those 15 minutes changed my life.
"I now have a podcast and a social media page with a following of over 200,000 and I am trying to promote positive mental health throughout the world. Recently I moved back to Ireland, to show that happiness is not a postcode."
Caroline, who owns the A County Down Under podcast, travelled to Poland last month, on her own, to take part in an intense experience with Wim Hof.
Having some experience in ice, being a keen ice bath enthusiast, she admitted that her two minute stints in an ice bath, was nothing compared to what she went through in Poland.
She continued: "About eight months ago, on Bondi Beach, they were doing ice baths at sunrise. Throughout the years I have been very honest on my podcast about the struggles that I have gone through. I've had to go to counselling, and struggle with anxiety.
"Whenever I went into those ice baths, it was like an instant change in my mindset, whereas at counselling, it was a long haul to get get that same impact. I realised that there was something in it, so started to look into the science behind it and that's when I came across Wim Hof and all of the work that he has done.
"One of the things that I love about him is that he is able to back everything he does up with science. He has proven that cold water therapy can absolutely help to look after your mental health, and boost your immune system.
"It has really helped me make some huge decisions in my life. I am very honest, two minutes in an ice bath is not going to cure you. I always say your mental health is like a kitchen floor, you have to constantly keep sweeping.
"With the Wim Hof Experience, I applied online myself. I had decided that I wanted to leave Australia, I was missing my family and had been a way for a long time. I wanted to go on this journey of self discovery. I didn't tell anyone about it for a long time, including my parents.
"I went to Poland, by myself, and was absolutely terrified. There were about 60 men and only a couple of girls, and I felt out of my depth. We were taken through a week of something I can only describe as training for the marines.
"It was very intense, physically and mentally. One of the first things they made us do was to get into a below-zero lake, and tread water for seven minutes.
"Now, I had been doing my little ice baths for Instagram, for two minutes, thinking I was great - then I realised that this was the real stuff. It is in those moments of being in those really harsh conditions that you have to focus your mindset on surviving.
"We are trained and very well equipped to do these things, and I recommend not to try it at home, but throughout we then trained to go into ten minutes of ice baths. Then we had to stay outside in the cold after that for a good 20 minutes to warm up, with no layers other than our bikinis.
"By the end of the week, we did a five-hour hike up the mountain in just a bikini top, shorts, and a good mindset and mentality. It has given me the opportunity to know that your mind is so powerful, that you can self-destruct but you can also get through the most difficult times.
"When I was climbing up that mountain, with every step that I took, I thought 'I am going to die here. If I don't focus, there is nobody coming to save me'. It was the most intense experience and if I let my mind wander too much, I would have started to feel the cold.
"I know now that no matter how difficult life can get and how at times you can struggle, you just have to keep breathing."
Her next ambition is to climb Kilimanjaro in September, to raise money and awareness for mental health, through the charity PIPS.
Through her podcast, Caroline has given a raw insight into how she has battled depression and anxiety, with her personal experience driving her, even more, to take on the epic mountain challenge.
She said: "I had no intentions of climbing Kilimanjaro until I went to Wim Hof. It is a very intense mountain to climb, and after going on that extreme expedition, I realised that I could do absolutely anything and that the world is my oyster.
"Now that I have moved home from Australia, I really want to live life to the full. I decided a week ago that I am going to climb Kilimanjaro. I can do this. I am going to try to raise thousands for PIPS Charity and that will be in September. I am going to select 15 people to come and hike with me, to raise a lot of awareness for mental health.
"I have always ran away from Ireland and think that's what we do, try and see if the grass is greener somewhere else. As time has moved on, post-pandemic too, it's put life into perspective for me. It hasn't been easy, and I have documented that on Instagram.
"I've had to train my mindset being home. In the first four weeks I slipped into bad habits, sleeping in, thinking 'poor me' because I had left my life in Australia.
"I snapped out of it quickly because I realised that I wasn't just impacting myself, but my family too, who were so excited to have me home. I was afraid of coming home, I didn't think I would be happy - but happiness is an inside job."
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