Courage Dear Heart

Many high-functioning women carry a hidden belief that something is wrong with them. They appear capable, resilient and successful on the outside, whilst quietly living with anxiety, self-doubt and the persistent feeling that they are never quite enough. In this deeply personal episode of Courage, Dear Heart, I'm joined by my client, Lynne Sutherland, to reflect on the two-year journey that took her from chronic anxiety, people-pleasing and self-abandonment to a place of greater self-trust, courage and aliveness. We begin where I begin every podcast, with one simple question: What does courage mean to you? Lynne's answer is both simple and profound: "To stay with myself." From there, we explore what self-abandonment looked like in her life. Being highly attuned to everyone else's needs. People-pleasing. High-functioning anxiety. Living in a constant state of doing. Searching outside herself for reassurance, certainty and the feeling that she would finally be okay. As our conversation unfolds, Lynne shares how understanding her female nervous system changed everything. She began recognising old patterns as they surfaced, staying with difficult sensations rather than immediately trying to fix them, and discovering a steadier relationship with herself. One of the most moving parts of our conversation is Lynne's experience at my Wild Awakening Crete Retreat. She travelled abroad alone for the first time in her life, arrived without the familiar identities of mum, physiotherapist, or coach, and discovered what it felt like to just be herself in a circle of women. We also explore what it means to receive. Receiving support. Receiving care. Receiving love. Receiving guidance. For a woman who had spent decades caring for everyone else, allowing herself to be held became one of the most courageous parts of her journey. Towards the end of our work together, Lynne experienced a profound realisation: beneath so many of the questions she had wrestled with throughout her life was a quiet thread of shame: the feeling that something was missing; she thought that she needed to become someone else; and that life would finally settle once she had solved the next problem - seeing that thread changed everything for her.  We also speak about Eros—the life force that calls us towards joy, creativity, connection and aliveness—and how learning to trust those gentle inner nudges has shaped the next chapter of Lynne's life. This conversation is an invitation to any woman who has spent years believing she needs to fix herself before she can fully live. There is another way, and it begins with the courage to stay with yourself. About Lynne: Lynne Sutherland is a Chartered Physiotherapist and Mind-Body Practitioner with over 30 years' experience in the NHS. Her own journey through chronic anxiety and persistent back pain led her to explore the profound relationship between the nervous system, emotions, stress and physical symptoms. Through mind-body healing approaches, nervous system education, self-compassion and a deeper understanding of neuroplastic symptoms, Lynne gradually found freedom from the cycles of fear, tension and pain that had shaped so much of her life. Her healing became about far more than reducing symptoms; it became a journey of reconnecting with herself in a more authentic, grounded and compassionate way. Today, Lynne combines her decades of clinical experience with a gentle, intuitive and holistic approach, supporting people living with chronic pain, anxiety and persistent symptoms to better understand the mind-body connection, reconnect with themselves and create lasting change in their lives.  Website: www.lynnesutherlandcoaching.co.uk  Instagram & Facebook: @LynneSutherlandMindBodyCoach Wild Awakening Circle  Community Membership: Join our LIVE monthly feminine: transmission, plus 2 group calls per month. £24.99 per month (Plus replays available).  https://iamcharliwall.com/wildawakeni...   WILD AWAKENING RETREATS:  Spain: https://leads.iamcharliewall.com/wild-awakening-retreats-in-spain-2026 Crete: https://app.gohighlevel.com/v2/preview/ui7Ke23yy9FQ8mXwCW5A?notrack=true Book a call to talk about the Wild Awakening Retreats here: https://api.leadconnectorhq.com/widge... JOIN MY WILD AWAKENING COMMUNITY: Wild Awakening Facebook Community:   / understandingyourfemininenature   Courage Dear Heart Podcast: https://iamcharliwall.com/courage-dea... 🌺 FREE PROGRAMMES HERE:  https://leads.iamcharliewall.com/your-wild-awakening-begins-here  

In this episode, Charli spontaneously joins her Facebook community live to speak about something she's been seeing come up again and again: with clients, in her Circle community, and, most recently, on her Wild Awakening Crete retreat. Feminine shame. This isn't a polished, prepared talk. It's honest, personal, and real, which is exactly why it resonates. Charli covers the difference between guilt and shame, why shame lives in the body and not just the mind, what feminine shame actually is and how our culture programs it into us from birth, how it shows up physically — in our health, our hormones, our nervous system — and what it actually takes to begin healing it. Not affirmations or positive thinking, something much more honest than that. Charli also shares her own experience of living in chronic shame and anxiety, and why she no longer sees PTSD as a disorder but as a nervous system response to chronic stress. If you've ever felt like there's something fundamentally wrong with you, this episode is for you. Mentioned in this episode: 🍃 Wild Awakening free Facebook group  🍃 The Circle — online membership (£24.99/month)  🍃 Feminine Shame & the Female Nervous System mini programme (coming soon, ~£33) 🍃 Charli's coaching video from 2018 🍃 Wild Awakening retreats: book a free call with Charli    Wild Awakening Circle  Community Membership: Join our LIVE monthly feminine: transmission, plus 2 group calls per month. £24.99 per month (Plus replays available).  https://iamcharliwall.com/wildawakeni...   WILD AWAKENING RETREATS:  Spain: https://leads.iamcharliewall.com/wild-awakening-retreats-in-spain-2026 UK (Norfolk): https://leads.iamcharliewall.com/wild-awakening-retreats-in-norfolk-2026 Crete: https://app.gohighlevel.com/v2/preview/ui7Ke23yy9FQ8mXwCW5A?notrack=true Book a call to talk about the Wild Awakening Retreats here: https://api.leadconnectorhq.com/widge... JOIN MY WILD AWAKENING COMMUNITY: Wild Awakening Facebook Community:   / understandingyourfemininenature   Courage Dear Heart Podcast: https://iamcharliwall.com/courage-dea... 🌺 FREE PROGRAMMES HERE:  https://leads.iamcharliewall.com/your-wild-awakening-begins-here

This is a transmission originally shared inside Charli's Circle, now released more widely following a recent live conversation. Grief and Grace explores grief through a feminine lens… not as something to fix or move through quickly, but as a cyclical, embodied experience that asks to be honoured. Shared in the midst of personal loss, this transmission speaks to the weight of grief… and the quiet intelligence within it. 🌿 In this episode, we explore: Grief as "making heavy"—the embodied experience in the body The cyclical nature of grief, reflected in seasons, moon phases, and the feminine body The cultural conditioning that encourages suppression ("keep going", "hold it together") Trauma looping and the cost of unexpressed emotion Grief as a universal experience: personal, collective, and global The connection between grief and the metal element (Chinese medicine), lungs, and letting go The importance of honouring the "winter phase" or dark descent The relationship between grief, renewal, and quiet rebirth The myth of Demeter and Persephone as a mirror for loss and return 🌿 This work & the retreats The themes explored in this transmission are deeply woven into Charli's retreat spaces. Within Wild Awakening Retreats, women are supported to: Safely feel and process emotion held in the body Move beyond suppression and disconnection Honour their own cycles, including grief, rest, and descent Be witnessed in their truth without judgement or fixing These spaces are not about bypassing pain…but about meeting it with presence, capacity, and support. 🌿 Continue the journey If this transmission resonates, you may wish to explore: Wild Awakening Retreats (Crete, Spain, Norfolk) The Circle⭕Charli's online space for ongoing support, teachings, and shared experience 🌿 Reflection As you listen, you might gently consider: What have I been taught about grief? Where do I suppress or avoid feeling? What would it feel like to allow the weight… without rushing it away? Wild Awakening Circle  Community Membership: Join our LIVE monthly feminine: transmission, plus 2 group calls per month. £24.99 per month (Plus replays available).  https://iamcharliwall.com/wildawakeni...   WILD AWAKENING RETREATS:  Spain: https://leads.iamcharliewall.com/wild-awakening-retreats-in-spain-2026 UK (Norfolk): https://leads.iamcharliewall.com/wild-awakening-retreats-in-norfolk-2026 Crete: https://app.gohighlevel.com/v2/preview/ui7Ke23yy9FQ8mXwCW5A?notrack=true Book a call to talk about the Wild Awakening Retreats here: https://api.leadconnectorhq.com/widge... JOIN MY WILD AWAKENING COMMUNITY: Wild Awakening Facebook Community:   / understandingyourfemininenature   Courage Dear Heart Podcast: https://iamcharliwall.com/courage-dea... 🌺 FREE PROGRAMMES HERE:  https://leads.iamcharliewall.com/your-wild-awakening-begins-here

In this live transmission, Charli opens a space to speak about her Wild Awakening Retreats…but as often happens, the conversation moves far beyond logistics. This episode explores the deeper terrain beneath "readiness"—the quiet threshold many women find themselves standing at when something in life no longer fits. Drawing on her work in feminine energetics and the female nervous system, Charli speaks into the patterns so many women live inside… holding everything together, overriding their bodies, and feeling disconnected from themselves despite appearing to cope. This is not a conversation about fixing or becoming someone new…but about coming back into relationship with what is already there. 🌿 In this episode, we explore: What readiness really looks like (and why it rarely feels like certainty) The unseen beliefs shaping your choices and life experience "The water we are swimming in", unconscious conditioning and inherited patterns The nervous system's role in what feels safe, allowed, or possible The masks women wear to feel safe (people-pleasing, over-functioning, the "good girl") The Inanna myth and the descent into the underworld as a feminine threshold Why it's not really about time or money… but capacity, safety, and self-permission The difference between guilt ("I have done something wrong") and shame ("I am wrong") The quiet inner voice beneath the noise—and how to begin listening 🌿 About the retreats Charli hosts Wild Awakening Retreats in Crete, Spain, and Norfolk. These are not simply retreats to relax or escape…they are immersive spaces where women can: Reconnect with their bodies and nervous systems Explore the deeper patterns shaping their lives Be witnessed in a non-judgemental, female-led space Soften out of chronic doing, holding, and performance Begin building capacity to feel, receive, and choose differently Each retreat is co-created with the women inside it, with ongoing connection through a private WhatsApp group before and after the experience. 🌿 Ongoing support For women who want to continue this work beyond the retreats, Charli offers her online community: The Circle ⭕ is a space for continued exploration, shared experience, and deeper integration through feminine-led teaching, transmissions, and community. 🌿 A note If you find yourself listening and feeling a pull…but also hesitation… resistance… or uncertainty…This episode invites you to gently explore what sits beneath that, because to be in relationship with something…we have to know what the thing is. Wild Awakening Circle  Community Membership: Join our LIVE monthly feminine: transmission, plus 2 group calls per month. £24.99 per month (Plus replays available).  https://iamcharliwall.com/wildawakeni...   WILD AWAKENING RETREATS:  Spain: https://leads.iamcharliewall.com/wild-awakening-retreats-in-spain-2026 UK (Norfolk): https://leads.iamcharliewall.com/wild-awakening-retreats-in-norfolk-2026 Crete: https://app.gohighlevel.com/v2/preview/ui7Ke23yy9FQ8mXwCW5A?notrack=true Book a call to talk about the Wild Awakening Retreats here: https://api.leadconnectorhq.com/widge... JOIN MY WILD AWAKENING COMMUNITY: Wild Awakening Facebook Community:   / understandingyourfemininenature   Courage Dear Heart Podcast: https://iamcharliwall.com/courage-dea... 🌺 FREE PROGRAMMES HERE:  https://leads.iamcharliewall.com/your-wild-awakening-begins-here

In this episode of Courage, Dear Heart, I'm joined by the wonderful Rachel Corby — personal rewilding coach, plant whisperer, author, and guide into a deeper, more reciprocal relationship with the living world. I first found Rachel's work through her book Rewild Yourself, at a time in my own life when I was beginning to come back to nature in a much more conscious way. This conversation felt like such a special one. Together, we explore Rachel's early awakening to plant communication during her geography degree, and how that experience opened her to a completely different way of relating to the world — one rooted not in separation, but in connection, listening, and trust. We speak about what courage really means, the importance of inner trust, and how our relationship with plants, trees, breath, and the natural world can help us remember something many of us have forgotten: that we are not separate from nature — we are nature. We also talk about: what "plant whispering" actually is how to begin tuning in, even in the middle of a busy life the healing power of slowing down and paying attention the reciprocal relationship between humans and the more-than-human world why disconnection from nature may sit beneath so much modern stress, anxiety, and emptiness indigenous plants, native plant ceremonies, and the wisdom of the land we live on kincentrism, and what becomes possible when we begin to see all beings as relations rather than resources This is a rich, thoughtful, and deeply grounding conversation about belonging, reverence, and remembering the wider family we are part of. If you've been feeling disconnected, overwhelmed, or hungry for a more rooted way of being, I think this episode will speak to you. In this episode, Rachel shares: how her connection with plants began in a remote Scottish valley in the 1990s Why courage, for her, means trust Simple ways to begin reconnecting with nature wherever you are Why rewilding is about relationship, not just survival skills How plants can become access points into awe, wonder, and deeper listening Why asking permission, giving thanks, and reciprocity matter What kincentrism means, and why it could change how we live on this earth Explore Rachel's work further: 🌿 Kincentric Leadership Handbook (free + book formats available): https://www.kincentricleadership.org/handbook A beautiful and expansive body of work exploring how we move beyond a mind-led, human-centred way of living into a more reciprocal, relational way of being with the wild. 🌿 Rachel's upcoming retreat – The Art of Plant Whispering (April): https://www.wildgaiansoul.com/art-of-plant-whispering If this conversation stirred something in you, this is a chance to experience Rachel's work more deeply. A gentle invitation from this conversation: Go outside when you can. Take your shoes off. Pause. Breath. Listen. Say thank you. Connect with Rachel Website: https://www.wildgaiansoul.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mugwortdreamer/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mugwortdreamer Wild Awakening Circle  Community Membership: Join our LIVE monthly feminine: transmission, plus 2 group calls per month. £24.99 per month (Plus replays available).  https://iamcharliwall.com/wildawakeni...   WILD AWAKENING RETREATS:  Spain: https://leads.iamcharliewall.com/wild-awakening-retreats-in-spain-2026 UK (Norfolk): https://leads.iamcharliewall.com/wild-awakening-retreats-in-norfolk-2026 Crete: https://app.gohighlevel.com/v2/preview/ui7Ke23yy9FQ8mXwCW5A?notrack=true Book a call to talk about the Wild Awakening Retreats here: https://api.leadconnectorhq.com/widge... JOIN MY WILD AWAKENING COMMUNITY: Wild Awakening Facebook Community:   / understandingyourfemininenature   Courage Dear Heart Podcast: https://iamcharliwall.com/courage-dea... 🌺 FREE PROGRAMMES HERE:  https://leads.iamcharliewall.com/your-wild-awakening-begins-here