Because it is the most visible. The most raw. And right now, it is back. Not going to brush over it, it’s hard. Alopecia areata has visited me three times over three decades. The first time I didn't understand what was happening. Put it down to pregnancy hormones. The second time, grief, I lost 90%, my sister shaving off th…

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Truthfully, I almost didn't write about it. Because when you're in the thick of something heavy, you don't write about it. You live it. You feel it. You let the body do what it needs to do.

But here I am. Sharing.

We were back in hospital a…

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I’ve been watching the online coaching and healing space, which I’ve been part of for seventeen years, coaching for 3, and I genuinely don’t know whether to laugh or to feel quietly alarmed.

Is it just me or is it that everyone is a trauma-informed expert now?

I want to be careful here, because this isn’t the snobby version of that observation. I have seen people with walls of credentials cause real damage. As a family we have been in the middle of this for some time. When my intuition was dismissed over my own child. I have seen women with no formal training, hold space with more integrity and intelligence than most. A certificate is not the point. I am meaning something more specific.

What I’m noticing is the speed.

Someone completes a weekend course and opens their practice the following Monday. A coaching certification arrives and suddenly the language shifts, shadow work, parts work, somatic, nervous system regulation, inner child, borrowed wholesale, handed out like vocabulary that has been separated from the actual methodology beneath it. The words are real. The frameworks they came from are real. But the words, alone, are not the work.

And I want to say something about this carefully, because it matters.

Nervous systems are not metaphors.

They are real, biological systems, subcortical structures that have been shaped by every experience a person has lived, often from before they had the language. When you work with someone’s nervous system, you are working with the most ancient, protective, and sensitive architecture of who they are. And when that is done carelessly, with borrowed language, false promises of healing their nervous system, quantum leaps, energy clearings, and instant activations from a weekend of training and genuine possibly with good intention, it can cause harm.

Not always. Not inevitably. But the risk is real, and the field is largely unregulated, and I think the women navigating it deserve to know that.

Here is my context, because I think it matters in this conversation.

I have been in this space for seventeen years. (well, to be honest my whole life as I learned many things very early on in childhood) however, I trained in many ancient modalities, and long before the 2020 wake-up, (excuse the pun) I sat in circles and attended retreats, some of which my body was clearly communicating this was not the space for me. I did the courses long before any of this became a content category. I am currently completing an MSc in Psychology and Neuroscience, writing my research thesis on something that lives at the exact intersection of where science and the body meet. I am an Advanced Accredited Master Intuitive Psychology Coach and a Trauma-Informed Practitioner. I have been a qualified teacher. I have studied the nervous system not just academically but through my own body, through decades of living in dysregulation, in functional freeze, in the kind of survival that looks competent from the outside and is quietly collapsing underneath. I carried the shame around the language I used too on those women over the years. Learned, borrowed, not my own. Not authentic.

I say none of this to perform my credentials.

I say it because I think there’s a difference between someone who has trained in this work and someone who has lived it. And that difference, though not always visible on a website, is something you can feel I want to offer you one question. Not a checklist. Not a credential-verification system. Just this:

Have they actually been to the place they’re guiding you toward?

Not read about it. Not trained in the map of it. Not developed an intellectual fluency with the territory.

Been there. Gone down. Come back. And know, in their body, not just their notes, what that journey actually takes.

Because here is what I’ve learned, both from the neuroscience and from my own lived experience: transmission is different from information. You can receive information from anyone. But transmission, the kind of held space that actually creates the conditions for your nervous system to heal, shift, requires someone who has done the excavation themselves. Not around the wound. Through it.

Your body knows the difference. This is not woo. This is interoception, your nervous system’s capacity to sense safety or its absence in a relational field. You have felt it. The container that felt real versus the one that felt performed. The facilitator who was with you versus the one who was demonstrating techniques. Or clearing YOUR field. You already have this discernment. The question is whether you trust it.

And if this piece triggered something inside of you, about the space, about your own navigation of it, about discernment,

Share

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I’d genuinely love to hear your thoughts. That’s what this space is for.

Claire x

To think I used the take this for granted. That is what surviving does. It narrows your window. Keeps your system scanning for threat that the beauty of this right here in front of you barely registers. 💛

And I’ve learned, the hard way, the only way, that when you’re deep in it you don’t write about it from the inside. You live it. You feel it. You let the body do what the body does.

And then, when you’re through it, you come back.

So. Here I am.

This past year has been one of the most intense of my life.

In March I launched my podcast, quietly, no big posts, just dipping my toe into a very deep ocean let’s say and maybe that younger part of me just didnt want to be “too much” “too seen” anyway, she is here, and the Healing and Becoming Human Pod which to be honest felt enormous. Not just logistically. Energetically. Putting my voice and my truth into the world in that way activates things. Trust me.

It was scary.

And almost immediately the noise started. Someone said to me “everyone is launching a podcast.” and yes, I felt it. That little sting. The part of me that learned long ago that taking up space was dangerous. That my voice was too much. That I should probably just... not.

But I kept going.

Those first few episodes I was finding my feet. Sharing my knowledge, my experience, my work. Not quite settled into myself yet. Figuring out how my voice sits in that space. I couldn’t even go back and listen. And then last week something shifted.

I felt it. In my body. Something clicked into place.

I can’t fully explain it in words, only that something settled. Like a frequency finding its signal. Like I stopped wondering whether I should be doing this and just... started doing it. From a different place entirely. An experience i had led to that last recording and boy did it land!

That is what this work does when you actually do it. It doesn’t happen in a breakthrough session. It doesn’t happen in a journal prompt. It happens slowly, underneath, while you keep showing up imperfectly and the nervous system slowly learns this is safe.

I completed the most demanding year of my MSc in Psychology and Neuroscience too. Thank gosh that parts over. Now I am in the thick of building my research dissertation. Coding data. Writing. Living inside my own thesis in a way that is simultaneously the most alive I have felt intellectually and absolutely relentless. I actually think my brain can’t possibly take in anymore haha!

On the surface... growth. Expansion. All the things.

But here’s what the surface never tells you. I went into a spiral not so long ago.

Old parts came home. Loudly.

The inner critic, the one I know so well, the one I can name and trace and understand, she showed up again. Watching. Measuring. Comparing.

Are you doing enough? Are you visible enough? Is this even working?

And underneath her, that familiar hum. The part that learned very early that existing took up too much space. That learned to earn her place. I wonder if this sounds familiar?

I want to be honest about this because I think there is a version of this work, the polished version, the version you see a lot of online right now, that implies once you have healed enough those parts stop showing up.

They don’t. Thats truth!

They especially show up when you are expanding. When the stakes feel real. Because that is exactly when the old survival system says... wait. Is this safe? Last time we were this visible it hurt. Remember?

And the nervous system does not care that this time is different. It just knows the pattern. It is doing its job.

What got me through was not knowing the theory. I already know the theory. I teach the theory. What got me through was returning to my own practice. Slowly. Imperfectly. Meeting the parts that showed up without trying to fix them or argue with them. Just sitting with them. Feeling all the emotions.

Letting the inner critic know. I see you. I know what you are protecting. You do not have to work this hard anymore.

And slowly, not dramatically, not overnight, something began to settle. I can only describe this as a ball of elastic bands all tied on top of each other, one slowly coming off at a time.

So here I am… doing what I love from a place of safety within.

Claire x

But, this morning Monday felt different.

I woke at 6am, stepping into the stillness of the darkness yet somehow within I felt lighter, different. Instead of the pressure to rush or perform, there was this feeling of wowness. I allowed myself to feel into it, hold it, anchor it. Something in my body felt unmistakably different.

I stepped outside, grounded, and welcomed the cold wet morning, feeling all of it. Unsure what but I had this overwhelming feeling of love. Gratitude.

Are you feeling this too?

Could it finally be that…

The shedding is complete?

We are standing right on the edge of the Lunar New Year. Tomorrow, Feb 17th, we move into the year of the Fire Horse.

Many of us would have felt like we crawled through 2025 and the last few weeks. For me, the “9 Year” in Chinese astrology has been a descent. Everything I thought I had faced, worked on, healed, well it came back full throttle.

Why?

Because the rejection wound, the abandoned child, the armour I’ve worn for over four decades to survive… all of it has been slowly, relentlessly removed.

I spent years in fight‑flight, and the last twenty pre 2020 in functional freeze. My nervous system was so dysregulated that pulling back became my default. Every time I was ready to move forward, I would unconsciously retreat. It was so bloody frustrating. So why did was I still holding myself back? Keeping safe?

Yes, I held the credentials, the lived experience, the intuitive depth, but I was still dimming my own light to stay safe. I carried everything alone. I became the perfectionist, the people pleaser. I burned out twice in my 30s which almost saw me admitted to a mental health unit, but instead with 3 young children at home then I spent 5 years on antidepressants trying to “fix” myself. Little did I know it would be a further decade before I would face all parts of myself. I put everyone else’s oxygen mask on before my own, even while suffocating. Sound familiar?

The last year showed me exactly where I was still hiding. It forced me to face my own truth.

The snake is finally shedding. Those old identities are going with it. It’s time to step into the fire with self trust and belief, and own who I AM.

Triple Fire

I love astrology, numerology, human design, tarot, all of it. I love depth. I love looking at my clients’ charts. I’m absolutely not an astrologer, but I’m a lifelong learner.

Looking at my own chart, I see I was born a triple fire;

Leo Sun. Aries Moon. Sagittarius Rising.

People assume that means I’m full of fire, energy, and take up space.

Far from my truth. Because my childhood trauma doesn’t care about placements right?!

When you grow up being told you’re “too much,” “unwanted,” and you navigate the care system where survival literally depends on being useful or invisible, that fire doesn’t burn bright. It turns inward. It becomes pain, anger, rage, shame.

I carried those emotions in my body for decades. They showed up in my marriage, friendships, parenting. I had no self‑love, no boundaries, no safety.

Today I feel amazing within. I feel safe. I have been to the depths. But still I was playing small. 2025 reminded me exactly of what was happening, what I needed to see within and externally.

That little girl inside me right now, she’s with me always. She was never too much. Never not enough. She is my everything.

Today, going forward, I’m bringing all of her into the light, into the Fire Horse energy.

This isn’t about galloping.

It’s about moving forward with ease. Trust. Belief.

Astrology

There is a lot happening astrologically, so many astrologers sharing their thughts. We see a lot of what is happening playing out in the world before our very eyes. This does concern me. The re-traumatisation this has brought for many. Fear, anger, rage, disgust. With Saturn and Neptune going conjunct on the 20th, we’re being called home to ourselves. We must trust our inner voice. There will continue to be periods of heightened fear. I feel it’s deliberate. There will be a lot of noise. Masks will fall and the truths will unfold.

We will begin to see this in many areas. I already see this in my own space, especially with the rise of AI. It is going to get even noisier, none of us know how this will play out but we need to TRUST in ourselves. Our truth. Our intuition.

I absolutely know why I am here on this earth. I know why my soul returned.

What part do you want to play in the healing of our planet?

Dreaming isn’t enough.

Your soul came here for a reason at this time. Please remember that.

When your mind goes into overdrive, when the noise gets loud, recognise it. Come home to yourself. Those who abuse power want you to feel helpless. Think back to 2020 and what we know now.

With Saturn at 13° Cancer in my 7th house and Neptune at 6° Sagittarius in my 12th, this is the year I anchor deeply into who I AM.

So, as everyone talks and shares their thoughts excitedly of the Fire Horse energy, we must remember, fire must be used intentionally. What we don’t burn up, we will burn down!

I’m definitely not running blindly.

I’m walking into this year with my armour off, choosing freedom and depth over performance and hustle.

I feel the fear. It’s real. It’s visceral.

But I’m turning my fear into the fuel I need to own who I AM and why I’m here in this lifetime.

This last year has simply been a REMEMBERING.

I finally feel home.

​I opened an email, scanned many a post, and find myself scrolling through the feed, and within a few sentences, I felt it, in my body, that sterile, robotic hum of a copy paste job. Yet again no pulse. No grit, and definitely not from soul.

​Lately, I’ve been up to my eyes in Qualitative coding for my MSc assignment and literally deconstructing human language, transcripts, from lived experiences of participants involved in the research studies. Maybe that’s why the AI generated “wisdom” feels particularly off to me right now. While the academic world debates the ethics of AI in research, (which is not difficult to spot) the coaching and healing world has seemingly decided that automation is the new “intuition.” Wait hold on, you speak about intuition, divinity, truth, and what incredible transformations you help to create but you have chat spitting out all of your words and quite possibly creating programmes to sell for thousands of pounds that you claim is authentic.

STOP! I NEED OFF!

​So when I was advised recently to “just pop your thoughts into ChatGPT and ask it to be your copywriter It will create organise delete etc what you need and don’t need”…. Hold on…

​Really?

Think about the irony of that for a second Claire I thought.

So, we guide our clients to do the work, we hold space. We talk about healing the wounds carried epigenetically through generations and this lifetime, we talk about the somatic bravery needed to speak our “truth” after a lifetime of being silenced. We speak passionately about the importance of the throat chakra our voices and trusting the nervous system, safety etc but we ask chat to write for us, posts, emails, sell an AI chat tool for £££ which is “programmed with your brain, your expertise and it will give you all the answers you need to be successful in business, to write your posts etc to call in your ideal client”

Wait…

​so the moment we have something to say, we hand our voice to a robot. FS! Years of healing, unraveling, de-conditioning and we use a robot.

Using AI as a productivity tool is one thing. (I have had to use it in statistics) But using it to replace heart is a bypass if you ask me.

When you voice note or pop in your “soul’s mission” into a machine and ask it to “make it sound professional,” you aren’t just saving time. You are filtering out the very frequency that makes you a an incredible human, you are outsourcing, you do not trust your own inner intelligence, and you are a teacher, guide, therapist whatever. You are stripping away the raw, the real, and the truth in favour of something that looks polished, palatable, and profoundly empty, right?!

My question, how can we look a client in the eye and tell them to “trust their intuition” when we don’t even trust our own words enough to let them land on the page unedited by an algorithm?

As a practitioner, energy healer, coach, researcher, student, I know that no amount of Reiki or crystal therapy or any healing modality replaces the work of showing up. The same applies to our message. If we are a coach, a healer, therapist or a leader, our “brand” isn’t our logo it’s an extension of our souls frequency.

What I know to be absolute truth is that chatgpt has no nervous system. It has no shadow. It has no lived experience. It certainly is not a coach, therapist, healer and has no Intuition.

It cannot feel the weight of the words it’s stringing together.

But you do have all of this. Your intuition is your guide. Your inner compass.

Speak from that place, from heart, because right now your voice matters. Your words, even the messy or the odd grammatical error is needed.

Your light is needed.

Your voice is needed. ❤️

I have been circling this space for almost a year now, writing a post, deleting it and convincing myself substack was a space for very creative writers. So why now?

Well here we are, AGAIN 🧐. My post I shared last year was really just a snippet of my life, my childhood, my why I do what I do. I didn’t remove it through fear, but maybe I did have moments of thought where I would reflect in my journal was it “too much” was I being “too much” Bloody hell, that old wound, many of us carry even to this day. Yes, it was just that. The one our lineage have carried for centuries and we are where to heal.

Recently, in all honesty, I thought f@ck it! I am not “too much” and even though the on-line space right now feels “too much” in the sense of noise, aesthetic chaos, performance I thought this space felt a bit more safer. So maybe that’s a hint, please be kind 🤣

When I say safer, I am hoping to actually just write without experiencing any harshness, although I feel in this space my throat chakra will be lighting up 😍

We absolutely all feel and know that the world is unbearably loud right now. Part of what pushed me over the edge with the on-line space recently was observing many coaches/therapist/healers and their dogs disect Brooklyn Beckham’s post like it was a case study they suddenly had the authority to diagnose. People slapping labels onto an entire family system, analysing their dynamics, and speaking as if they had access to the intimate inner workings of this family. I was put off! Some of it felt insensitive. Morally off. It reminded me how quickly the internet forgets humanity when there’s content to be made and a desperation for likes and shares. Just my observation!

So yes, I do feel the on-line space is incredibly loud. It’s triggering and not from an unmet wound needing healed (trust me I’ve been to the depths over the last 6 years) but in that full body way where my internal system is saying “Nope. This is not truth” especially as we see all the “Fire Horse” energy kicking off. Of course completely westernised hype, yes fire horse energy is potent, but it’s definitely not a hustle portal. I didn’t heal for the generations before me just to fight for a place in the sand. Zero interest. Don’t get me wrong, I love astrology, human design etc I’m here for it. 16 years ago I trained in many healing modalities before it’s became what it is today. But as I sit here sipping my ceremonial cacao feeling at this point cacao has become an unofficial passport to modern sisterhood. Surely I’m not the only one??

Funny but also not. Because, what I am really seeing is a fear of the rise of the feminine being mistaken for aesthetics, stages and performance. Competition. Pick me culture. Not judgement. Just my own observation that’s getting louder in my body.

So IV had some wobbles. January wasnt the moth of smashing goals etc, not me, I am one with nature, no rushing, and definitely too much procrastinating, and yes I know this is a behaviour as I am avoiding something personally and yes I have sat with it, all of it, but what I truly know in my soul is that each and every one of us is feeling what is happening on the earth right now, systems are shaking, structures collapsing and many masks slipping.

So I’m grounding deeply, anchoring in on my daily practices and reminding myself that what I see and feel is not to trigger me, but remind me of why my soul returned here to the earth at this time. She desperately needs our light. ❤️

So here I am and if like me you are heart led, deeply empathic, intuitive and love all things science with a whole lot of woo then I’d love to follow you