\n Paula Gardner, 42, from Norwich faced her fears in a white-collar boxing match, raising more than \u00a3400 for charity in the process.\n<\/p>\n
\n Having battled with low confidence and mental health challenges in recent years, she credited the experience with helping her rebuild self-belief.\n<\/p>\n
\n Ms Gardner said: “It almost seems laughable now, to look back and think that I had been suffering such debilitating low confidence and poor mental health \u2013 but then I would say yes to the huge challenge of a white-collar match.”\n<\/p>\n
\n A team leader at Ormiston Families based at the HMP Wayland Visitor Centre, she said the focus and accountability of training gave her a renewed sense of purpose and self-worth.\n<\/p>\n
\n She said: “I knew I needed something to focus on, to give me a goal and to encourage me to keep showing up at the gym, getting stronger and ignoring all my demons about self-doubt and not being good enough.”\n<\/p>\n
\n Paula Gardner, 42, had been plagued by low confidence and periods of poor mental health throughout recent years (Image: Supplied)\n<\/p>\n
\n She trained for eight weeks at Assassins Gym in Norwich through the Ultra White Collar Boxing programme, using the event to raise funds for the charity.\n<\/p>\n
\n Her match, held earlier this month, ended in a draw but raised more than \u00a3400 for Ormiston Families.\n<\/p>\n
\n Bruce Leeke, CEO of Ormiston Families, praised Ms Gardner\u2019s bravery and commitment.\n<\/p>\n
\n Mr Leeke said: “Paula deserves huge recognition for having seen through this incredible personal challenge.\n<\/p>\n
\n “She is so passionate about the work we do as a charity for families and young people, so we\u2019re enormously grateful that she wanted to make us the beneficiary of the event itself.\n<\/p>\n
\n “We\u2019re glad to have such a determined and inspirational person among our team.”\n<\/p>\n
\n Ms Gardner now plans to take part in another boxing event later this year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Paula Gardner, 42, from Norwich faced her fears in a white-collar boxing match, raising more than \u00a3400 for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":494779,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-494778","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494778","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=494778"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494778\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/494779"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=494778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=494778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=494778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}