In this episode of Your Dream Business Podcast, I’m joined by the amazing Claire Thorpe, a somatic practitioner, yoga teacher, and embodiment coach. We explore the powerful connection between body awareness and business success. We talk about how somatic coaching can help you strengthen your nervous system, make clearer decisions, and grow your business from the inside out. If you’ve ever felt like mindset work and strategy aren’t quite enough, this conversation offers a fresh perspective on why tuning into your body can be the missing link. Clair shares her own journey, and we dive into practical ways to bring somatic practices into your daily routine. Whether you’re new to this or already curious about embodiment work, this episode is full of insights you won’t want to miss.
KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST
- Somatic awareness is a powerful tool for business growth. –Tuning into your body helps you make clearer, more grounded decisions beyond just mindset and strategy.
- The nervous system plays a big role in your business clarity and confidence. – Strengthening it through somatic practices can reduce stress and improve focus.
- Integrating embodiment techniques can unlock new levels of creativity and leadership. – It’s about connecting mind and body to lead your business in a more aligned and authentic way.
If you enjoyed this episode then please feel free to go and share it on your social media or head over to Apple podcasts or Spotify and give me a review, I would be so very grateful.
LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY’S EPISODE
Connect with Claire on Website, LinkedIn, Instagram
Connect with Teresa on Website, (Grow, Launch, Sell), Sign up to Teresa’s email list, Instagram, LinkedIn, or Facebook
Transcript
Teresa: What if I told you that the key to your next business breakthrough isn’t another mindset, technique or marketing strategy, but lies within your own body. In today’s episode, the guest and I explore the transformative power of somatic coaching and how developing your nervous systems capacity could be the missing piece to your business.
Growth puzzle. Whether you’re feeling stuck, overwhelmed, or simply curious about the difference approach to business growth. This conversation reveals how somatic awareness might be the most powerful business tool that you’re not yet using. Welcome to the Your Dream Business Podcast. I’m your host Teresa Heath Wareing.
An international bestselling author, award-winning speaker, TEDx speaker, certified coach, and the host of this number one ranked podcast. I am so excited to guide you on the journey of creating a business and life that you not only love, but one that perfectly aligns with you and the season of life that you are in.
In each episode, I’ll share with you easy, actionable, [00:01:00] and insightful strategies to grow your online business. Plus we’ll be diving into some mindset, tools and strategies that keep you focused, motivated. And gonna stop you from getting in your own way. So if you’re a course creator, membership owner, or coach, you’re in the right place.
Let’s get started. Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Your Dream Business Podcast. As always, I’m your host, Teresa Heath Wareing, and as always, thank you so much for spending time with me, for listening to this episode for hanging out. I greatly, greatly appreciate it, which. Can I start by asking a favor?
There is a huge percentage of you who listen to the podcast, who don’t actually subscribe to the podcast, and I would love it if you could do me a favor and hit that subscribe button wherever you are listening, because what happens when you subscribe is more people see it, especially if you review more people see it.
I get to help more people, and by doing that I get to [00:02:00] have more amazing guests. On the podcast because sometimes when I pitch to someone to be on the podcast, I get asked how many downloads I have, and the more downloads I have, the more amazing people I can bring and get their brilliant ideas for you.
So we’ll make a deal. You subscribe. Do me a review and I will make sure that I bring on the best people who can help you accelerate your business. Okay, on with today’s episode. Today I am interviewing Claire Thorpe, who is a somatic practitioner yoga teacher and embodiment coach, and she supports female founders who are yearning for deeper nervous system stability.
That’s easy for me to say. And. Resilience as they grow and scale their business. And she offers a body led nature inspired approach to inner healing and growth. Now, I just wanna say something before I continue with this episode. If you’ve been listening a long time, you will know that I. [00:03:00] Certified as a coach a few years back.
You’ll also probably know if you’ve been listening a long time, that I went through a real journey of getting sober, which once I had gone through the worst of the journey, I shared a teeny tiny bit on this podcast, and then I actually went and did another podcast all about that. But what happened was I needed the mindset stuff in my world, and therefore I bought it into my business, and I’m not sorry.
I bought it in. But it was a distraction that I didn’t need, and now I’m really glad to being back and doing strategy and marketing and stuff that I really do excel in and the stuff that I am brilliant at. And I say that with all intention. I think we should be getting more comfortable with saying we’re brilliant at things if we are anyway.
I’ve kind of come away from all the mindset stuff. Not personally, I still do a lot of mindset stuff, but I didn’t want it on the podcast. And the other reason I’ve kind of come away from it is ’cause I actually interviewed a couple of people who were a bit more [00:04:00] on the Woo side and. The episodes weren’t great, like, and I didn’t put the episodes out because when I came to do the hook, which is the bit at the very beginning of every episode before we start the intro, I couldn’t think of what to say.
I couldn’t give you a good reason why to listen to that episode. And if I can’t give you a good reason in a one minute hook, then it really isn’t a good episode. And it kind of put me off having mindset slightly woo steff on, even though it’s still very much in my world. Anyway. Someone mentioned Claire to me and said, you should have her on.
I didn’t say you should have her on, ’cause I’m never really a big fan when people say that, but they said she’s awesome. Yeah, I think you’ll like her. And she could possibly be a guest of the podcast. I listened to her staff. I really enjoyed what she said and thought, actually no, this could be really good.
And then as weirdness, woo. Universe, whatever you wanna call it, would have it. So I interviewed Claire ages ago, when am I looking? Actually, back in April and beginning of April. And because as you know, I batch [00:05:00] ahead and, and we’re always a good number of episodes ahead in terms of the interviews. More than a good number’s, probably a good few months ahead.
Anyway, I’d done this episode, really enjoyed it, and then I found a guy called Joe Hudson and I found Joe Hudson through Ali Abdul’s YouTube channel. I watched the YouTube channel and I watch a lot of YouTube at night. It’s all gardening stuff in the day. It’s all works up. Joe is a coach for Silicon Valley CEOs, like I’m talking Apple OpenAI, who has chat GPT, and you would think so.
He’s obviously coaching some hugely successful, very serious business people. I’m assuming the most of the men. And I was kind of watching him thinking he’d be more of like a masculine energy of coaching and he talks all about body emotions and the importance of us understanding our body and emotions in business and as business owners.[00:06:00]
And it’s just so interesting that I’ve been watching that and really engaging in that and actually. At the same time have this episode coming out, and it kind of just proved to me that it’s the right thing to have on the podcast because actually, as much as I love doing the strategy and I love people talking strategy, I also can’t forget that we are human and,
Some of these things, even more of the mindset stuff is really, really powerful in terms of growing us and our business. So like I said, it was kind of really interesting that I found Joe and was like really love his stuff. And actually he talks a lot about what we’re gonna be talking about today.
Today we’re gonna be talking all about how your body can really keep hold of stuff, how it can hold us back, how it can make us not in alignment. And obviously there’s the book, the Body Keeps the score. Sometimes things cannot be like slotting into place or things cannot be feeling right and we don’t know why.
’cause on paper or in our brains, it feels right, but something just isn’t right in our [00:07:00] body. So we talk about what somatic means and we talk about how we can get in our bodies. Now this sounds wild that we’re even, and I say this on the the podcast like that we are even having this conversation. But honestly, when was the last time were that you were in your body?
And what do I even mean by that? This conversation talks about how getting on our bodies can help us make better decisions, gain greater clarity, and ultimately grow more comfortably in our business. It’s fairly honest and sometimes a little bit vulnerable because I talk about things, I always like it when I can connect it to me and what’s happening in my world.
Maybe that’s because half of it is I get free coaching and maybe the other half of it is I genuinely think that it helps you when I’m asking questions or when I’m relating it to me. We also talk about how you bring some of it in, how you do some of the work yourself and how do you know if you need it.
And the other thing that we talk about, which you know, I love is nature and growing plants, right? But don’t be [00:08:00] put off by that. It literally is just a little bit at the end. Anyway, I know you’re gonna get a lot from this episode. Claire was absolutely lovely. So without further ado, here is the lovely Claire.
Claire, welcome to the podcast.
Claire: Thank you So much, Teresa lovely to be here.
Teresa: I am very much looking forward to this conversation I had before we got on. I was telling you that I actually, I’ll go into it briefly, that my own personal journey went from marketing strategy into mindset and I’ve come back out the other side because I really needed the mindset stuff in my world at the time.
And since then. I’ve not really, since I’ve kind of come back out into strategy, I’ve not really had many people on talking about things that are not business strategy. And today we’re going to talk about that and we’re going to talk about the word somatic. So let’s just start by even explaining, not that I can, you can explain what we even mean by the word somatic.
Claire: Yeah, sure. So [00:09:00] Soma is the Greek word for the body. Somatics simply means relating to the body. And I think a lot of people, I think we sort of mistake that as well for just meaning the physical body. So you’ll see things on social media, like people jumping around, shaking movement like generally if I ask people like, what do you think somatics is like, they’ll say movement, they’ll say breath work, and, and this is all, this absolutely is all somatics, like somatic practices, I would say.
I am a yoga teacher as well as a somatic coach, and I can dig into a little bit more about that as well. But yeah, there’s a difference between what I would call somatic practices, IE the breath work and, and like the, I call them, like the, the layers on top, if you will. What I do as a somatic coach is it’s very much rooted in the work of Dr. Peter Levine and around somatic experiencing. We’re going, we’re going straight in there Teresa
Teresa: no, that’s fine. Let’s like my work, there’s no warmup we’re in.
Claire: Yeah, like, so I’m gonna just say [00:10:00] like, the easiest way, this is my like elevator pitch. I’m like, I am like a hypnotist for your body. So, you know, like if you go to a hypnotist and they’re like rewiring your neural system and your neural pathways, I am basically helping predominantly women do that.
But on a body level. And how we do that is very simple, which is lovely. Which is like very much slowing down a tune into your whole body, which is sensation, images, memories, thoughts, emotions. So a session with me. Looks a bit meditative, I guess, but it’s actually being very present, creating a lot of stability in the nervous system and just letting the body lead and really the body will show when we, when we actually, it’s like, oh, okay, you’re listening.
You know? And like it’s just a process of letting your soma, your being like, reveal what needs to be healed. I mean, I’m not a massive fan of the word healing, like I don’t think anyone needs [00:11:00] to be healed or fixed, but it is like. The layers that can be unraveled in your body that are just stuck from things that we hold, experiences that we hold in our body. So it’s very much yet a body led process.
Teresa: So, stupid question. Why is that important? Why does it matter? Because I was very good and I have to watch myself sometimes. I live my life on a screen and I’m very good at con focusing on me from the chest out. Almost the point where I don’t even realize I’ve got a body and I know someone’s gonna listen to this and go, don’t be ridiculous, Teresa
But honestly like it. It really was that bad at points like, so why is it important that I even need to tap in to my body and that type of thing.
Claire: Yeah, absolutely. Well, why is it important? What do we see around us everywhere so much? Anxiety, so much depression, so much. You know, again, I hesitate to talk about trauma.
I don’t think like we have to go and meet all our trauma, but [00:12:00] you know, these ways of being these disassociated states that we can find ourselves in. Especially when we’re on screens and we’re like, you know, we get locked in, don’t we? And I think a lot of us are. And sort of operating from this state of what’s called like functional freeze, like where we’re all just like, oh, like you know, this underlying tension that can sit there.
And that can be from, you know, like actual, you know, capital T trauma that happens in our lives, or just the underlying stresses. We have so many don’t we in our lives.
So we’re holding all this tension, all these patterns, and I think a lot of the time we approach this from a very neuro centric.
Approach in our society. We, and I’m not to say like it is all needed, you know what I mean? Like the mental health awareness we have these days. I mean, you know, talking a little bit about my story, I was, you know, I, I come from a corporate background like you, Teresa, and you know, in my early twenties I was experiencing anxiety attacks, panic attacks.
I haven’t experienced anything particularly [00:13:00] traumatic in my life, but it was just that, you know, I started to climb the corporate ladder, the layers of people pleasing, the layers of masking of like. Not really being true to myself. And this, yeah, this materialized. This manifested as very uncomfortable physical sensations in my body.
And then, you know, that continued for two decades almost. You know, and then, and I think as well when you say when we’re working and I shifted during, you know, that time five years ago, I was still in the corporate life then and yeah, like just seemed to get even worse obviously with everything going on in the world.
And that’s when I started actually, you know, I was meditating with saying about the mindset, you know, I wasn’t in business at the time, but I was. Meditating and I was looking after. I was looking for ways to soothe my body. I got into yoga. Therefore, then I got really passionate about yoga. I realized how much it helped with my anxiety and I did my yoga teacher training, but I was still like experiencing some level of.
[00:14:00] Yeah, like just this tension in my own body. I actually started my business two years ago, over two years ago. Now I’m left the corporate marketing world and started as a freelance marketer. And I thought, yes, this is freedom. Now I’m gonna have, oh, all this tension’s gonna go away, and this is the dream life.
This is the dream business that we’re talking about now. Like I loved it and I obviously had. I was living the dream, like I was creating this business. I actually started going into more business mentorship and coaching because I loved, like, I was a, I was a head of marketing. I loved the, the development side and the coaching side with people.
So I started doing that, but I was still like, Hmm. I was doing my yoga as well on the, on the side, and I was like. Still, like I am still feeling like shit when I sit at my desk. Like how, you know, like it was very, you know, it didn’t, even though I loved what I was doing and I do love what I’m doing, like this pattern held within my body.
Remained, and it wasn’t to do with more mindset [00:15:00] work or like affirmations. I was like, something needs to shift. And then it was only about a year ago that I actually stumbled into, as we do sometimes, you know, a training on somatic coaching. And I was like, Hmm, that sounds interesting. ’cause I’d just trained, I’d just qualified as a yoga teacher in Somatics.
And again, somatics is more about how it feels, not about how it looks or alignment or anything. So I was already familiar with this phrase, this term. I did this training with a wonderful woman, Dr. Sarah Coxin, and I just, I blindly found that, that sense of relief that I’d been looking for and I was like, I don’t know what this is.
This is like, it just really grounded me and we can get into a little bit more about the hows and the whats, but yeah, like doing that training was like, wow, like. This is, this is what I’ve been sort of looking for, and I started weaving it into my business Anyway, I’ve always done a bit of, you know, like coaches do, like some of the, the inner work first and then the outer work.
And I just started weaving this into my meditations and things like, let’s [00:16:00] have a somatic session. Let’s go in your bud, let’s like, let’s attune to what’s here right now. And yeah, it was like, I think it was summer last year, I was like. I actually don’t wanna do business coaching anymore. So I made the pivot of just being the somatic coach for coaches, if you will.
You know, ’cause it was like, oh my God, this is so fundamental to, you know, we can focus so much on what we’re doing, but if you know it’s how we’re being, isn’t it as well? Like, if we’re not feeling and being and experiencing what we wanna feel, you know, the results can be. Yeah. Those, those con, those constant states of overwhelm that we can experience in life.
Teresa: How do you, it is obviously your background’s marketing, which is great. How do you market that? Right. Because one of the things that I have in and, and actually something that I’ve really understood more of and gone through is the whole transformation thing. Like people need a transformation.
One thing. My business was built on people liking me, which I love. However, people who liked me would then go and [00:17:00] buy from someone else. And I was like, why is that happening? Because I wasn’t giving them the, or, I wasn’t showing and demonstrating, here’s the transformation. And in my, what I do now, it’s really simple.
Like, I can teach you how to launch, I can teach you how to do this, and this is the kind of launches people get with me. . How do you, and I think generally coaching is a really hard one to market anyway. But coaching with something like. Okay. We are all used to. Not all used to, but we are more used to, you know, meditating and mindset stuff and all of that.
And now someone’s gonna come along and go, you need to get in your body. Like how do you market that and how do you, how do you market the transformation? What is the transformation?
Claire: Yeah. So that’s a, that’s a really interesting question. So I tend to, so the people, I mean, again, it’s like, you know, I don’t wanna go into marketing speed, but like the niche stuff, like, I’m not a big niche fan, but I tend to attract.
The women that are already doing a lot of inner work, they’ve done it all. They’ve tried it all, just like I had, and [00:18:00] they’re still experiencing those levels of overwhelm and anxiety and, and like you say, somatics is becoming a bit of a buzzword. People have heard of it. I tend to, so I tend to start where they are.
Yeah. So like I basically do a lot of nervous system talk as well, like as we know a bit more about the nervous system now and. You hear these phrases like fight, flight, freeze, and all this stuff. So there is a bit of language around, I’m not gonna say it’s easy, but I, you know, I use those phrases like, you know, like the hypnotist for the body and why it’s important because that nervous system, like it doesn’t actually start in our brain.
So I’m trying to get this message across of like, you know, bring in this body brain coherence for that deeper stability and resiliency. For me, it’s much like. More as well about in terms of where, where women are at in their business. Like if they’re growing and scaling, yet they’re feeling this disconnect between, you know, they’re going this way in the business, but then, behind the scenes, I call it like the behind the [00:19:00] scenes feels of the business.
Right? You know, like you might look a certain way or we might want to be again, like presenting a certain image identity, but there, there’s a come a point where they’re like, I am just getting to the point of. Yeah, like whether it’s anxiety or overwhelm or, you know, just indecision, even like decision fatigue, like all these things that we think are in our brains.
It’s deeper, it’s deeper than just mindset work because our brain, like our emotions actually start, like I. In our bodies and then feed up to the brain. So I know I’m going on the tangent and I’m not really answer your question, but there’s, yeah, there’s a lot around like the brain and the nervous system and helping like open up that conversation.
Teresa: And I think that’s step number one, isn’t it? Because even understanding, and for someone like me who literally had like a block, you know, it was if that the rest of me didn’t belong to me. It’s even slowing down enough. And often in therapy, [00:20:00] one of the things that my therapist will say is, where do you feel that in your body?
And there are many times where I go, I don’t know. Like, ’cause I’ve done such a good job of blocking any feelings or any kind of thoughts of like anywhere else. Yes. So it’s even step one, knowing that that’s the case.
Claire: Yeah. And, and I’m just gonna say Teresa, this is like, this is not a given. Like, you know, I know I’m a yoga teacher and like this is not a given for anyone.
This is not like, I haven’t got this cracked. You know what I mean? It’s not like, oh, I’m in my body all the time. You know? No, like, disassociation is totally normal. I’m just gonna normalize that if you’re like, I don’t know. That is generally where I start with clients, but not all clients. ’cause usually I try, like the yoga teachers are maybe like people who have explored a little bit.
But it is, yeah, it is that slowing down and, and really being present to it and it takes time, it takes slowness. Like the nervous system really slows. With. Presence and slowness, and we need to create that space that we’re not [00:21:00] giving ourselves. I wanted to touch on, actually, you mentioned therapy, and to give you a little explanation maybe of the difference, guessing, like why would you, why would you work with a somatic?
Like, what do I do? So, yeah, like we say, typical journey might be, you know, like, oh. The neuro centric path of like, I’m struggling with something, I’m gonna go to therapy, which I have done as well. You know, so generally talk based therapy, C-B-T-N-L-P, like these kind of more neuro centric approaches and a yeah, some therapists might have some somatic, you know, they will have some somatic tools or things in their tool belt.
Would hope. I would hope. That they’re not all just like, what, what happened to you? Like, you know, it’s not like there are obviously people who have experienced things that they might want to tackle. Sometimes we don’t wanna talk about it. Sometimes I get people who coming to me who are like, I’m tired of talking that I’m tired of going over this.
Don’t I know, I know. What’s like, we with a lot of people have a lot of self-awareness and that is one of the problems actually. Is like we, we are not [00:22:00] getting into. So, yeah, so sorry. So the therapy, like that’s where you might go to therapy and that is generally, I’m gonna say generally like past based, you’re going into the past, you’re talking about things.
Then we look at coaching like, so just general coaches or life coaching. And that’s generally more about the future. And what goals do you have and how do we move towards that? And somatic coaching starts here, starts. In the present, it’s like, it’s about becoming really present with what’s here.
What’s your experience now, We don’t need to dig into the roots of trauma. We let the body lead that process. So it’s, we’re sort of, clients are sharing with me what’s happening, but we’re not necessarily, I’m guiding them like a story might come up and that is absolutely part of our expression. But I’m not focused on, you know, I’m bringing them back, I’m guiding them back and you can see me doing it.
Now, I dunno if this is recurrent, like on video, but like we, it’s this oscillation and this pendulation process of from [00:23:00] story back to sensation and it’s doing it in a very titrated way, which means just a little bit. So we’re not forcing, we’re not going into, I’ve gotta go back to that traumatic memory.
I’ve gotta dig in. We create a lot of stability, a lot of safety, which is what our nerve, the love language of our nervous system is safety that we’re lacking a lot of. So yeah, that’s, that’s where the coach, the somatic, at least my version there will be other, yeah. Somatic trainers and coaches, but mine is embodied in this very felt sense experience and letting that body, the present moment experience, lead the sessions, which, you know,
Teresa: I guess, in the world we’re in, we want either to be fixed or we want in the future, and actually stopping and going, no, it’s right now. And feeling it right now can is a really hard thing to do. I wrote down a couple of questions. You, as you were talking before. Like when you said, I’m a yoga teacher, instantly, and this is me by the way, not anything [00:24:00] you said, but this is me going, oh yeah, no, no.
Because that means movement and I don’t like movement, right? How do you. Do somatic stuff with someone, and I’m being very honest here, and this is me that doesn’t like movement, struggles with movement for whatever reason. Like I said, I’m really good at kind of blocking off anything under my, under my chest, and we are not seeing on this screen right now because instantly the word somatic to me. Attaches to body, which attaches to movement, and therefore I’m like, Nope, I’m done. I’m out.
Claire: Yeah, totally. And that’s my, that is my mission, isn’t it? That is my task to explain the difference in that I am not gonna get you jumping around on the screen, like the, the version, so as a yoga tip. Okay. Let me try to explain a different, so if I work with someone.
A somatic coaching level. It is about this more present moment. I’m saying felt sense, a lot like felt sense is that whole. You know, it’s your [00:25:00] physical sensation, it’s your emotions, it’s images, it might be memories, you know, so we’re actually attuned into that. And then out of that, there might even come like a movement or a touch or something again, where like I’m looking more for what state your nervous system is in. So you’ve just mentioned that you don’t like movement. Now, again, I’m not prescribed, like this is also not for me to prescribe either, because I don’t know, I’m not in your body.
Teresa: I’m just basically having a free session here.
Claire: Yeah. Why not? So we’ll explore, again, I can’t, you know, go into the ins and out of, but like, we’ll explore these states and like why like movement might be, you know, like what kind of movement or me not even like.
We have to look at it. It will generally come up in the session anyway ’cause something might happen. Or then like after like somatic coaching sessions, I might suggest that, okay, I’m actually a yin yoga teacher now. Yin is a still practice. It’s like holding shapes for three. I’m very yin girl. I am not like. You know, like massive dynamic flows or anything in yoga. ’cause I think we do, we all just [00:26:00] need to slow the earth down like a lot. So yeah, my approach to yoga, I get it. We have these. Perceptions of yoga and somatics. But yeah, like that’s what I’m on a mission to do is actually, yeah, it’s not all about movement.
It’s slowing down. It’s listening to your nervous system, to your body, and then it’s what I call like this bottom up approach. So I. A typical somatic session might look like, oh, you’ve got overwhelmed. Let’s try this practice, dah, dah, dah. Is that great? Yeah. Go off and try it for two weeks. I don’t do it that way.
Okay. I again, like a chew, like we go on this little journey, on this little felt sense journey in a session and out of that. There might be a movement that felt good, like you can see me doing it now like I have my own automatic coach. And recently it’s been a very much about this sort of figure of eight infinity sign, and even just doing these little patterns or movement that feels good and you will naturally start to just become more present.
More alive and like, this is [00:27:00] what it’s about for me as well. It’s not about, oh, let’s keep calm and carry on. Like NIST regulation is another term I’m not a fan of. Yeah, we’re not all here to be regulated and calm. Like for me, this is aliveness. So actually what starts to happen in sessions is movement might start to happen and that is very medicinal in itself.
And then after the session we might agree like, you know, a little bit of homework of. It might be breasts that come up that were supportive. It might be movement, it might be more stillness. So yeah, like I said, it depends, doesn’t it? Like what step, really I’m looking for what, what is that over Like what is that default state nervous system state that you might be experiencing, and how do we work with that?
Teresa: Okay, so another thing I wrote down that you talked about is, obviously you’ve talked about the nervous system. And I might be adding two things together here, and you’re like, they’re not connected at all. Cortisol, is that to do with the nervous system?
Claire: Oh, you’re getting right. I’m not a scientist. But yeah, basically these are all bi biochemical [00:28:00] reactions going on in our bodies, aren’t they? So cortisol is that hormone that gets us going, that drives us, and yeah, like nowadays, we experience a load of. Cortisol in our systems. ’cause we live in the lives that we do. Like we’re running on this adrenaline.
It’s cortisol. ’cause we think we’ve got, you know, the nervous system and the body doesn’t know the difference. I’m sure you’ve heard phrases like this before I still thinks that lion’s there. Now it’s like bloody 10 emails or something that you’ve gotta get back to. So this is this hypervigilant, you know, and again you’ve hit it right on the head actually, Theresa, that our.
Like, if you think about anxiety or anything, you’re experiencing that you think is at that, level of your brain. ’cause we are operating so much from the neck off. Yeah. It’s like, oh actually it is happening on the periphery. Like it’s in like our nervous system runs through like the caught the spine and the brain is a big part.
But we’ve got all these nerves and all these nerve endings and they’re picking up signals, and then that cortisol and all that chemical stuff [00:29:00] starts happening. So it’s actually, our senses are picking it up first, and then it’s being fed into the brainstem. So, our thoughts don’t start there.
They do start down here in the body, like, you know, and obviously it’s all interlinked. I’m not saying. The brain is part and the body, you know what I mean? I’m just trying to get the point that like, it’s not all to do with the mind and the more we bring this coherence in to the whole of us, the whole of our being, that is where, like I say, I have experienced my clients experience this more settling this, not so much on alert.
Yeah. And, and I can share with you like practical things as well, how to do that, but yeah, it’s just this, the more we can actually attune to that nervous system state and how we’re feeling. We can take that pause, we can naturally start to slow down more and go, yeah, we can make better business decisions.
We can feel more sovereign, more discerning in our decision making ’cause we actually feel more embodied. We like call this like embodied leadership of like, [00:30:00] yeah, I started this new pattern, this way of being that isn’t so overridden by the cortisol, by the adrenaline, and then puts pumps in, you know, the overriding mind.
Teresa: Because that’s what I get served a lot of adverts about cortisol regulation and, and some somatic stuff as well. Like yeah. You know, do this move and you’ll be crying and literally I’ve seen an ad for that. Yeah. So, and, and it is something that like, because on the very rare moments, predominantly in therapy or if I manage to some I do it myself, stop.
And I’m in my body, like it hurts a lot, like. Or I’m moving in a way, like I often, so when you were talking about the flow that you do, as you were doing that, I was doing this with my thumbs, like moving them wrong around the other. Yeah. And I’m constantly doing something like that. I’m either jumping my foot Yeah.
As I get in bed, I stroke my own feet with my other foot. Like it’s funny, but I, I have no idea I’m doing it because I’m not paying any [00:31:00] attention to it. And then when you’re like, and it’s funny again, obviously I must have a very good therapist, but she, even though we’re on screen, she’ll go, what are you doing?
I can see you doing something. Yeah. Like you’re either moving or something’s like happening. And it’s like, oh yeah, no, I didn’t even realize I’m doing that thing. So, but I would really love to because basically this is really good for us. This is really good that we, this is the, this is the kind of brief summary.
I’m giving you what you’ve said. This is good. We should do more of this. So what do we actually do to do some of this work? Because like I said, I get served dads all the time and basically there’s some woman in a like child pose crying and I’m like, no, I’m alright. Thanks. So yeah. What are some of the things that we should be doing if we’re trying to bring some of this in?
Claire: Yeah, so this is where I get a bit like. I don’t wanna give like, oh, it depends. ’cause it is obviously so dependent on, on the individual client in front of me. This is like therapy. We can’t just do this self-serve version of therapy and go, right, okay, [00:32:00] look, gimme this affirmation. This is gonna solve, you know, so it’s very much the one-to-one.
Relationship. And I love the fact that I do tend to work with a lot of people that are already in therapy, which is great because you’ve got therapist who might be doing some somatics, but then we can spend that time in the exploration. So you’ve just given that example of your thumbs of some movement.
And we won’t start with that, but yeah, like, we’ll start by just really grounding and some what’s called like the nervous system, like we really start with the nervous system 1 0 1, which is rooting in more safety, helping your body to pick up on more levels of safety, and this can be very simple.
I know I’m on a screen. Obviously anybody listening, it is just, you might hear it. It’s called mindfulness, but it comes from this somatic of somatic experience of slowing down, taking a look in your external environment, and then noticing gently like how your body’s responding to slowness. So we’ll do a lot of [00:33:00] orienting both external in the environment.
And then going internal. ’cause often it doesn’t feel safe to go internal, straight away. There’s there feelings, the sensations. So we do a lot of what I call stabilizing the field, creating this. I’m very nature inspired in my approaches, all that. This more nutrient dense soil, we’re cultivating this soil.
It’s like, like soil doesn’t look like it’s doing anything, does it? Underneath is all this aliveness. So where we’re spending lots of time creating lots of stability with orienting, with resourcing and what I mean by resourcing, that could be somewhere that just feels really comforting in your body to connect to.
And we’ll connect to that throughout the session if things get a little bit charged. Or it could be, I’ve always got a, I am woo, like I’ve got a crystal one, but don’t, it could be a crystal. It could be a person, it could be anything that you feel is comforting or even just neutral. And the more we can resource [00:34:00] ourselves brings on again, this safety, this stability.
So then as I say, you know, like through that, what we will end up doing is going on this felt sense adventure. And one of the things as well is also you’ve mentioned it, like tracking is a big thing in what I do. So really encouraging. My client’s to slow movement down. So, you know, say something like, okay, I’m noticing I’ve got this flutter in my chest, and there might be some movement starting.
So these patterns can be quite habitual. Yeah. Like we’ve got stuck in a pattern or you’ve got stuck in that, you know?
Doing that with, with your, your thumbs. So we might just actually like, how does it feel like slow it down to like 25%? Which feels really slow, so we’re like in the body, like really gently tracking what it is.
And then in that slow, slow state, it can then start to, oh, okay, you’re listening to me. You know what I mean? Ah, okay. And then let’s come back to some stability. So yeah, [00:35:00] it is just, like I say, we’re not, and then, you know, an an image or a memory or something might come up and it’s like, okay, let’s, you know, we can explore that.
We can, ’cause there’s medicine in that of course, as well. As a coach, obviously I’m not a therapist, like there are somatic therapists as well that will, that will guide you very much towards that, but I’m not about that. It’s about more like moving towards as well, more of what you do want by letting these layers, that building a lot of stability and safety first.
Before we move towards that new embodiment. So I hope that’s helpful. I’m not gonna give like do this three minute practice. , Because like there’s loads of stuff. Obviously as a yoga teacher I could give you a breath and all that, but I hope this is helping in understand like it’s. Similar to therapy and that we’re not just doing a very prescriptive, a prescriptive practice and then you don’t, you know.
That’s gotta fix you. Yeah. No, it’s very personal. It’s very tender work. It’s very vulnerable. Yeah. It’s very courageous to get to that state. And when we do that with someone, as we know in [00:36:00] therapy, this co-regulation happens, this healing like we need. Community, we need connection with others. So I just find it like a huge privilege for someone to put their trust in me to, to guide them in that way.
Teresa: Yeah, I bet. So how would I know if I needed it? Because like I said, one of the things that, I guess me and lots of other people are good at is just ignoring it. Like not even realizing it was funny. I can’t remember what had happened, but something had happened and I was in a lot of pain and my husband said to me, I think you are just used to being in pain.
I think you have a really high pain threshold. ’cause I don’t think you realize how much pain you are normally in and therefore when something happened, and I can’t remember what it was now, but, and it was such a weird thing for him to say, ’cause he’s not normally that mindful about stuff. For that considerate, I love him dearly, but that’s not his forte.
But it was interesting. And so how, what would someone be doing now to know that this will help them [00:37:00] or this is something they should look at?
Claire: Really good question. Like I say, I tend to get, yeah, like I say, women in business who are already probably looking after themselves pretty well or, or try to, you know what I mean?
So you’re doing something like, just like I was, like I say, as you know, getting into meditation, maybe doing breath work, and it will generally be like, actually I’m doing all this stuff, but it’s just, I’m still not feeling that. That sense of ease, that long term sense of ease, like I know is typically someone who has.
An underlying sensation that’s just always there. Or like you say, if you’re numb to it or disassociated, it’s probably not gonna be like the thing that you’re searching for. You might end up staying in mindset work, but it’s generally people who are going to yoga or realizing they’ve got a pain or, or their therapist is set, like, has like, oh, what’s this body thing?
And you know, like, so it’s, it’s probably it’s people who are already on that journey of self-inquiry of, [00:38:00] yeah, like. Maybe breath and, and looking into it. So yeah, it’s not something that I tend to just, yeah, attract someone who, you know, who just finds me in that way. They’re already along that journey and it’s like I, you know, I’ll get someone just dropping into my, but I got someone the other day of like, you know, I need to work with someone this year.
I know it’s not mindset. I’ve got all that done. I’ve got the strategy. I know it’s in my body. So they’ve already got that awareness of like, I know there’s something stuck in me and it’s not in my mind. So they’re, for me, that’s already that, that deep inner knowing coming online and they just wanna explore.
They’re curious. They’re like, how does this work Then? So yeah, then like that’s, that’s where we start. And then, yeah, that’s what I’m on a mission for is like bringing more this body layer, this bottom up approach, because we actually would save. A load of time. By starting there rather than thinking it’s in, in our mind, or we’ve got to keep doing all these practices to get any kind of sanity or like presence [00:39:00] in our lives.
Teresa: One of the things I was gonna ask you is about, you know, what are the results? What can, what can change people when they’ve done this work? But as before, I say that like one of the things that strikes me is how weird it is that we’re having a conversation that is telling people to pay attention to the thing that carries them around.
Like, what a weird world that we live in now where we can disassociate from. 80% of our body and, and have to be told it. And like I said, even having this conversation out loud, it is like, really, is this a thing? But it’s so is a thing like.
Claire: You know, we don’t, we shouldn’t need people like me, you know what I mean? My, but my job, like a lot of jobs these days, and again, it is, it is society. It is the world we live in. It is just not the way we are doing life, is it? And I think we are much more aware now. We’re much more aware of, of a lot of things. We know that we need to slow down. But having that time, having that space [00:40:00] really difficult, really challenging.
So that’s where I do feel like, like I say, this is all I want to do because like very selfishly as well, Teresa, I get the benefits. So yeah, talking about that transformation, it is like, you know, that deeper essence, aliveness. Just being more aware of like not being so sucked in to, you know, the distractions.
The disassociations. It’s like actually going, you know what? Actually listening to that need, like, so you’ll be more achi, you’ll be more like, Hmm, you’ll just get a natural instinct. To move or like, actually, yeah, I do need to take a break. But you’re not overriding it as well. You know, you’re actually what I call in, in the work I do, we call them blueprints and imprints.
So we’re bringing online the think of a blueprint. You know, like, and again, I’m very nature led in this way, like we’re. Trying to like repl ourselves back into the nervous system of nature, you know, of like acting more in our primal ways. And we’re like, you know, we’re, we’re actually stopping long enough to [00:41:00] reconnect to that more primal instinct.
Now, you know, there are pockets of of community around the world that still live like that, but there are very little, you know what I mean? So it’s like actually being able to come from a place of your inner knowing of. Your instinct of tending to what you need. So the blueprint is like this original seed before all these what imprints of conditioning Of, experiences, of life, you know, all these imprints think about, you know, like we’ve got all these just layers on top of us. But the blueprint is that that within us, that like that nourishment that we’re craving, like just actually. I know it sounds a bit like esoteric, doesn’t it? I know I’m not trying not to go there, but it’s like we’re actually just making room for more like, like if you are like actually quite someone who neglects your needs a lot, like we tend to override, especially as women, as well as caretakers, we will focus on the blueprint of nourishment. I got a whole mini course [00:42:00] on this plug.
Teresa: Perfect. Perfect.
Claire: A little mini course on nourishing the nervous system and what that actually means, but yeah, like it will be tending to what you need in that way. And then once we actually learn how to nourish, we’re just able to, again, I work with a lot of women in business who are like.
Want that stability, want that ease. When they’re working, when they’re with their clients. Better decision making. ’cause they’re able to slow down. Yeah. But also more alive, more self-expression. You know, standing up on that stage, doing that podcast, being more self-expressive. You know, who doesn’t need that?
You know, like we need women and leaders, like leaders, women in, in leadership roles like. To, to let go of all those imprints that are still there, even if we can to a certain extent, mask and get on the stage and fake it till whatever you wanna call it. But it’s that, that deeper trust and aliveness and stability capacity within themselves.
[00:43:00] Even if it’s like, just not even to do with business, but if you, you struggle having a difficult conversation or there’s something going on in your life behind the scenes as I like experienced a lot of last year grief, these things that go through our lives that we can’t avoid. But we’re able to access more capacity in ourselves as well, to nurture ourselves more through that.
Teresa: Yeah. I love everything you’re saying and like. There’s a few things that have come up as you were talking. The first one is the getting back to nature thing. I, for people who listen to this podcast and follow me, know that I grow my own vegetables and I, my dream and actually on the day we record this, my house is going on the market and I have found a house with. Over an acre of land.
Claire: Oh, stop it. That was my dream.
Teresa: That’s as much as I’m saying about it because I don’t wanna jinx anything. But like, it’s so funny ’cause I have never been so sure steadfast in something in all my life and like, I don’t care. I don’t care what anybody else [00:44:00] thinks because this makes my soul so freaking happy and. And it was funny, I was watching at the point of recording this, there’s a TV program, adolescence, I think it’s called, on Netflix.
Claire: Yes, I’ve seen it. Yeah.
Teresa: See, I won’t, because I live in anxiety 24 7, pretty much. And I don’t need anything to, I, I don’t watch anything that will get my anxiety out.
I get it. And. I was in a group where they were like, oh my God, have you seen this? Have you done this? And they mentioned adolescents and they were talking about some other stuff in the online space. Mm-hmm. And I messaged going, I’m just watching a video on YouTube about Ed Key Pigs. Right.
Claire: Perfect. You are attending to your needs…
that is all I wanna do. And then I was having this conversation with someone the other day
Teresa: about bees, ’cause I’m also gonna keep bees. So I was watching YouTube videos. I had to keep, these are these videos right. I, it was like two hours long and I was getting ready and I was watching it and I was, oh, that’s really interesting.
Like, I didn’t need any drama. I didn’t need like, you know, exciting things to happen. [00:45:00] Like, and someone said to me, apparently when you keep bees. The vibration of which they move does something to humans.
Claire: Oh yeah. I mean, it’ll be, oh, I love the fact that this is coming into Teresa ’cause this is the thing that I, like, I’ve talked a lot about nervous system and cinematics and trauma, but like, this is the bit that I, I always forget to talk about is like.
The nature connection like is beautiful and yeah, like we can go to the natural world and it annoys me that we even call it the natural world ’cause we are nature, you know what I mean? We’re not really separate and the stuff that you are doing, and that is my dream as well. Like I am just by hearing you say that, I’m taking that as a massive sign for myself. But that’s,
Teresa: I would think so because
Claire: where like in a similar thing of like. Do it. But yeah, like I love it because all these things that I’ve mentioned, like about the orienting, obviously taking that out in nature is beautiful and even sounds really silly, but like this crystal I’ve got on my desk, like, we can [00:46:00] spend 10 minutes in the somatic session experiencing the crystal.
Like, because they, you know, animals we’ve just talked about, you know, like the, the natural world, even if it’s been shaped by us, is. It’s this animist lens I have of like, actually there is a reciprocal relationship here, and the more. We can do that. It might seem really stupid. It might seem like, oh, the tree can’t talk to me.
You know what I mean? And no, they can’t talk in words, but they’re absolutely, totally alive. And we are more like a tree than you would ever imagine. So yeah, I do weave this in a lot and there’s a lot of fun, I guess like embodiment experiences I do is like tree embodiment and nervous system rewilding.
So that’s a huge part of my work as well in terms of actually attuning back to our. Our own nature and with nature around us, and
Teresa: that’s how we’re meant to live. Like, and this is something that I’m so passionate about, like, and I think it’s so weird that I literally have two ends of the [00:47:00] spectrum. So I live in a very modern house and I’m on screen all the time.
I have these fake lights on me. I. Look and do a certain way. I’m constantly on my phone, I’m on social media. I’m, you know, my whole business is online and yet, and it’s fast, right? This industry is fast. We have to move fast. We do things for like constant, like, you know, levels of cord, soul and anxiety and all those things.
And then I love nothing more than watching a seed grow. Right. I have no control over it. I can’t make it go faster. I can’t like change anything. I just have to do the thing and then wait and see. And honestly, like it was so funny, I was talking to someone the other day and they were like, your whole face when you talk about this stuff, literally lights stuff and it’s like, and the other thing that’s so funny, I’m now go down my little rabbit hole of gardening.
I don’t like movement. As I said, I don’t like moving my body. I don’t like exercise. I don’t like any of those things. [00:48:00] However, I will be in the garden for hours and I’d have done. 10,000 steps before I know it, right? Yes. Because I’m not moving. I’m not, yeah. I’m not going right. I’ve gotta be in a gym.
I’ve gotta do this. Like I will lift things and move things and like move my entire body. Without even giving it a second thought, because I am just loving being in nature doing those things. And like I said, experiencing it, which just feels. Amazing.
Claire: That is perfect. And that is what we need, isn’t it? Just more of that pottering and movement, like just general movement and slow. Absolutely.
Teresa: And Slow. Like, you know, watching this video on keeping bees like, you know, it’s like a good year until they really start to deliver, you know? And again, great, fine. That’s a year. Like, you know, and already I was thinking of, what did I watch yesterday? I was watching something. Oh, about raspberry bushes.
Claire: Oh, I love it. I love it.
Teresa: My life is wild. Right? People like, uh, I have changed. Like I was literally, [00:49:00] you know, oh, with obviously I am sone, but I was champagne, first class flights, like that was me. Parties, all the expensive things in life. My birthday just recently happened and my husband’s like, what do you want? And I asked for. This utensil that helps mash up mince, which is funny. I don’t even cook mince that much, but it was a very clever utensil. It was like a few pounds. I asked for some more gardening gloves. I asked for a recipe book.
I asked for a zester like, and it’s like years ago that would’ve been, oh, I want diamonds, or I want a first class flight somewhere. And I am so flipping different. It’s. Wild.
Claire: yeah, we are. I think we are in like that slow, we are learning that, yeah. That slow era. And just to talk to, just quickly to say about that whole, you mentioned about like.
The Business, you know, just getting back to business in terms of like the highs and the adrenaline, and then you’ve got that low, and I’m here like on the screen, but like, you know, this, this rollercoaster, we can have the highs and the lows. Yeah. And all we’re doing again, in, in this like [00:50:00] presence and attunement is actually creating.
A deeper level of stability, so we’re not as throw, like we don’t have to really spend two hours watching big video. Honestly, don’t. Please don’t.
Teresa: If you want, you know, lemme know. I can hook you up with some good ones,
Claire: please. But yeah, like actually having this. This beautiful baseline that you’ve already clearly got like in that beautiful experience.
But yeah, it’s about being thrown around less from the, the time with the screen and having to then, okay, I just need to not move and I need to do nothing. It’s like actually, yeah, like having this sort of new baseline within ourselves as well to, to, to feel like we can experience anything, whether it’s, is that a aliveness or joy or. That, that challenging time? It’s being present to it. ’cause it is life. It’s life happening now, isn’t it? It is here. We’ve only got one,
Teresa: I think a hundred percent. And I think for me like. And I, I’m always, I don’t talk about being sober very often and I try not to sound smug about it, but like for me, [00:51:00] I thought I was getting that balance through drinking.
So when I needed to relax, I drank, which was every day. And I thought that that was giving me the lower regulating bit, but it absolutely wasn’t. So even when we think we are doing something that, you know, hey, do we relax? And I had to basically relearn all of it. Like, and luckily I’d already started to find gardening at that point, but like.
I had to relearn what would relax me. ’cause it wasn’t really relaxing me. I mean, it kind of was, but it wasn’t healthy by any sense.
Claire: It’s, yeah, it’s suppress suppressant, isn’t it really? You know, suppressing our system.
Teresa: So having to relearn that, because I kind of had no choice, it forced my hand into going, well, what do I do for fun? And how do I like to spend my time? And what is it that I enjoy to do that isn’t just drinking and working, which is what it was, which kind of forced me into it, but. I think anybody else listening to this, just even just stopping and thinking [00:52:00] like, when was the last time you slowed down? When was the last time you thought, when was the last time you felt your body?
Which sounds like a wild thing, and it sounds weird coming outta my mouth. Obviously I don’t do what Claire does, but it is massive. It’s huge.
Claire, this has been such a great conversation. I’ve really, really enjoyed it. And finished on a high ’cause we talked about, I’m talking about bees and things like that is, you know, made me feel very happy. So I appreciate that. Claire, where can people come and find you if they wanna find out more?
Claire: So, yeah, so they can give to my website, clive sophia.com Online, I usually am on, I’m on LinkedIn and I’m on Instagram.
Teresa: Awesome. Thank you so much, Claire. It’s been a pleasure to have you on the podcast.
Claire: Thank you so much.
