Change Won't Stick Until You Feel Safe. Here's How, with Dr. Clare Emma Wild

In this episode of the Changeology podcast, I chat with Dr. Clare Emma Wild, a trauma-informed somatic coach (and veterinarian!). She's an expert in helping Quiet Leaders stop people pleasing and overcome imposter syndrome so they can lead with confidence and clarity.

Dr. Clare brings deep experience to our conversation, created through her academic training and work with senior leaders, as well as her own lived experiences of burnout, self-silencing, and finding her way back to self-trust. In our conversation, we explore how internalized oppression, early socialization, and trauma can all live in the nervous system…and how that impacts our ability to make changes in our lives, relationships, and leadership.

This episode is about more than mindset. It’s about embodied change, the kind that doesn’t just shift your thinking, but restores your sense of power. We talk about how noticing without judgment can open the door to transformation, why rest is often the bravest act of rebellion, and how healing creates the capacity to choose differently.

If you’ve ever felt like you had to become someone else to be successful or struggled to make a change because something deeper kept pulling you back, this episode will definitely resonate with you.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

• Why change isn’t just about action, but about what your nervous system believes is safe 
• Why healing isn’t about fixing yourself, but about returning to the truth of who we are 
• How trauma-informed coaching helps create the safety needed for real transformation
• The difference between intellectual insight and embodied self-trust
• Why self-abandonment is the cost of performing success, and how to reclaim your own definition of it
• Why healing isn’t about fixing yourself, but about returning to the truth of who we are

🎙️ Tune in to the full episode via the link in the comments below!

Connect with Dr. Clare here:

https://clareemmawild.com/ 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-clare-emma-wild-mrcvs-4b9a47244/ 

If you want Meg's support during your significant change, you can apply to work with her here.

Want to learn more about the art, science, philosophy, and psychology of making significant life changes? Sign up HERE for my weekly newsletter and have the Changeology podcast delivered straight into your inbox!

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Transcript

@2:01 - Meg Trucano

Welcome to the Changeology Podcast. Today we're joined by Dr. Emma Wilde, a certified and accredited coach for quiet leaders who helps her clients often introverts than HSPs to stop people pleasing and overcome imposter syndrome so they can take action and enjoy success they deserve.

Welcome, Dr.

@2:26 - Clare Emma Wild

Claire. Thanks so much, Meg, for having me.

@2:30 - Meg Trucano

It's just great to chat to you. Oh, I completely agree. so excited. But before we dive in, can you briefly define what semantics is for our listeners who may not be super familiar with the term and this will help kind of ground our conversation and give context to why semantics is so impactful?

@2:51 - Clare Emma Wild

Yeah, sure. So I'll talk about it in the context of coaching, but in the world that I'm in, but even there.

the definition is a bit, you know, people have different definitions for it. Sematics essentially means soma which means the body, so it's about, for me, I'll give, there are quite a number of definitions, what is somatic coaching?

What does it mean for you? it just, you know, is it one thing or is there another? And there's some amazing work going on out there to work as to how to draw the body in.

But for me, it is as simple as you're bringing your body to the party. So when you're thinking about change, when you're thinking about coaching, to bring about change, when you're thinking about changing habits, you're not just in your thinking, so you're not just in your brain.

So for me, it's about that whole body wisdom. So there's loads of talk, isn't there, about the gut brain axis and how important you're getting.

and all the nervous system that's there and how that feedback to your brain, well, there's, there's a whole body also feeding into that.

So, there's two aspects called interception and proprioception. So, interception is what's going right on the inside. Most of that you don't really, you know, it's usually within the unconscious, you're not aware of that normally.

Properception is where your body is in space. So, sometimes you'll notice that other times it's just how bits you get on with it.

So, there's so much feedback going on. What's happening in your body? What are the sensations? Where are you? How are we reacting to things?

So, and within your history, you will have, throughout all the experiences of your life, reacted in certain ways and had your billion certain positions, which means you have a, what is, a broader condition tendency.

when you respond to a situation that's maybe stressful or bit, scary, maybe you put your book, maybe your body moves in a similar way, so I might hunch my shoulders if I'm a little bit scared, know, make myself quite small.

As opposed to, and it might be a situation where actually it's not that scary, you know, someone's, it's maybe situation in work when I'm giving a presentation or something, but I'm telling my body is telling me actually this is a problem, whereas if I could open up my body, maybe it isn't so much of a problem.

So, so for me there's just a touch in there about what might mean day to day, how are you carrying yourself, where's your body, when things are a bit difficult, so when you're going through the challenge of change, what are you feeling that you're not acknowledging, where are you putting your body that you're not aware of, and how is that impacting your ability to change, to grow, how is it getting in your way, because

It's most often not just about what's going on in your brain because if you could outthink it, you'd have thought it by now and you'd be off with whatever it is that you wanted to do or wanted to change.

@6:12 - Meg Trucano

Is there an example that you can give us the about you coming up against a block and you can't seem to get past it.

What might be going on in your physical body? mentioned before about emotions sort of being stored up in your body or manifesting physically in the body.

@6:32 - Clare Emma Wild

Can you talk a little bit about that? Yeah, sure. I can give a couple of... So the first one would be Dead Easy because it's when I noticed it myself and I love it around people pleasing.

So it's dead simple. In the world that we're in post-COVID, a lot of us are now interacting on screen as you and I are.

And I find and I've seen it in my clients. where you've forgotten to think about what you're capable of, your needs are, what you've got on your plate, what your team have got on your plate, and you're there, and you're just about to say, yes, we can do that.

I find I lean into the screen and I'm leaning in onto my desk and my shoulders are forward. And what I would, and I haven't thought I'm so keen to help, and that's one of the things I know it's a driver for me, I want to help, so I'm leaning in, I'm like, yes, help.

But then I would ask my client and myself, okay, same situation, if you lean back in your seat, imagine that situation you're playing when you said yes, and you wish you said no, so you said, yes, I'll do that thing, I don't know, I'll bake those cookies, whatever.

If a ferret is maybe, or yes, I'll do that project for work and I'll get it delivered by first thing to

or oh and oh my god it's ten past five um okay so that situation lean back in your chair open up your shoulders and just ask yourself a question what changes nothing but maybe something maybe you think actually a little bit more about oh I actually want I actually am a bit tired and I need to rest or hang on I last two weeks to this and oh no I'd rather go out with my I don't know with the kids tonight or cook for my husband or just go and sit and read whatever it is maybe that starts to happen because that condition tendency for me is yeah please let me help and then you step back and so that's one example another might be and this is a mix of neuro-linguistic programming in somatic

but it can be about when emotions come up in your body and you're not actually noticing them so and that need to process them and I will just caveat I am not a therapist.

I'm absolutely not a therapist and I also have input and if we're stepping in that direction things are really hard or there's a potential for trauma to come up, this is one to watch and in its conversations I would potentially have with a client about before we even start working together and during it.

So it can be really intense but for example I've had a client who's really working on her anger so using it intelligently and appropriately rather than we've all done this.

Okay, no, it's fine, it's fine, I'll just keep saying yes, and then it explode in the most stupid way about the thing it really wasn't anything about.

And you've just bitten somebody's head off, some email that was just, you should have put in your draft box and then sent tomorrow.

But your anger was just exploded because you'd have been pushing it down, every overstepped, either you and yourself or somebody else.

And we were working on that because, yeah, it, you know, and you feel so awful, don't you, when you've done that, when you've exploded or something, whatever it is, you've just, oh, just makes it work.

And you're like, what have I done? And I'm really sorry, and I feel awful. So we were working on that.

And often when I went to her about it, no, at the beginning always, she'd go to her head. So it asked about what

What is it? What's the emotion you're feeling? How does that feel in your body? And she just was unable at that point to access her body.

So it was really working. We worked really slowly with accessing. Where is it in your body? Where do you feel it?

In your body, it's in her chest. Okay. What does that look like? Is it got a colour? It's a red colour.

How does it feel? Is it hot? Yes, it's hot. What's it feeling? Is it moving? Is it getting bigger?

It's about identifying that emotion and giving it some attention so that it doesn't feel like it just is all of you.

So is it hot? Is it moving? What is it Is it spicy? is it getting bigger? it getting smaller?

And then working through about can you move it somewhere else? Do you want to move it? Are you ready to move it?

she can move it onto the desk and look at it. How is it changing what's happening? It sounds weird when you're not doing it yourself, but that kind of thing, working through that and working through that a number of times with her is giving her that ability to actually feel something that she didn't want to feel or process at all.

As I say, with her, it wasn't associated with any trauma, it was simply getting that unconscious conscious, moving it around.

And then she knows, hang on, I have control over this. I know where it is, it's not taking all of me.

can become aware of it, I can sit with it by focusing on it and then with a bit of time it dissipates.

It changes to something that's smaller or it's outside your body, something of that. So that's kind of a mix.

@13:22 - Meg Trucano

there's a couple of examples. Yeah, so I'm curious about a couple of things. So I think there's something around anger specifically.

And I'll share a personal example here. Growing up was not permitted to feel anger or show anger.

@13:43 - Clare Emma Wild

It was a calm down.

@13:46 - Meg Trucano

Go to your room until you can correct. so I learned that anger was something that I would briefly acknowledge in my head and then it was just I would just mush it down.

And it wasn't necessarily that I didn't or couldn't feel the physical sensations that accompanied anger. It was just that I was kind of conditioned to squash it down.

So I'm in my, you know, mid 30s and in this middle of my federal research career, right? And I was angry.

It was so angry. There were a lot of things out of my control that were going awry. And somehow I always was the one left holding all the pieces and having to try to fix things.

And I started to resent it. And I will never forget that I, around this time frame, I was attending a virtual like call-in meeting for management.

And it was all like all the managers and the leaders of my smallest research company, but it's still like 50.

20 people and I put my phone on the counter and I click mute and I'm going around and I'm like muttering to myself like how dare you like you know like I'm always the one I'm like going you know I'm like really trying to process my anger and and then I hear this like very quiet voice of of my supervisor who I'm still close with um she goes Meg you're not on mute so I had just completely unloaded on you know senior VPs you know oh my god I was so mortified but it taught me a really important lesson about how to deal with and and move through difficult emotions in in a better way than I had been which is to completely ignore them so that's kind of a personal story but do you notice that there are specific kinds of

emotions that people just don't like to feel, don't like to let kind of process, like, process through them.

@16:15 - Clare Emma Wild

Yeah, I think Angus is a really good one. But the other one that's come up from for my, just, it's just come up for clients and it reminds me is Greece in the last few weeks.

And yeah, I think anger is really good. And I think interestingly, anger and women, I have done any research on this.

I don't have figures for you but to hand, but I do find anger, you know, it's bad. So we don't get to work out how to use it intelligently.

What's it telling us asking it questions? What are you here for? What are you trying to town? had the rug pulled from under the door just on from a high level and neither of them had thought about they needed to be sad and angry and let it go because they were trying to reason it in their head about oh but this is much better but this has happened and it's sorry they're being one was still rubbish the other one was what was good about the job that you were leaving behind well they're going to leave a team behind that their friends with they're going to not work in the same office and they quite like that office and there's always something because if we say yes or something we say no to something else and i think we make the mistake of saying of not allowing ourselves to say goodbye to whatever it is we're moving

away from, because even if it's an inverted comma, all bad, there was some comfort of voice. wouldn't have stayed there.

Even if it's just because we used to it. Yeah. Yeah.

@19:11 - Meg Trucano

Find the same kind of grief. And I love the way you framed that. It's so important because when we're making a change, whether we wanted to or not, there's also grief for a former identity possibly or a dream possibly that you had since you were 20 years ago, you were working towards the stream.

have seen so many people who make promises to themselves when they're right out of college and they go into grad school and they follow this law school train or listen train and they get get to where they're going and you know five years into their practice, they're like oh my gosh.

I can't I can't anymore and there is an identity death that has to happen and grief must occur before you can move on.

Otherwise there's no space. There's no space to lean into your new life, into your new identity. There's no space for growth and there's certainly no space for happiness and joy and and all the good things that come from making that necessary change.

@20:28 - Clare Emma Wild

Absolutely totally. I think identity change is a huge thing, you know, especially when the thing has been a huge achievement and maybe it's something that like you say you've worked, you know, you've decided, I decided at 14 I wanted to be a veterinarian, you know, people you decide this and you're the kid that's going to be a vet, you're going to be a doctor, you're going to be whatever it is you want to be, you've been that, going to be that, studying for that or that.

So I don't know how much of your I've got proportion and then, like you say, oh, God, actually, I want something else now.

And it is, it's, yeah, I totally relate to that in terms of change. And yeah, without that, you can come to all the logical stuff about the benefits and that afterwards.

But it's like, we take it upside down. We're trying to think it before we felt it and we need to feel it.

Then you can think it. But in the reverse, you don't get that space, like you say, to enjoy it.

You know, that client was not enjoying the prospect of this wonderful opportunity and she couldn't work out why.

@21:43 - Meg Trucano

Yeah. Okay. So is there some, is there some way for, I can talk a lot about getting curious with emotions and sensations in your body, but what role do you think curious plays like in your client?

when they come with a problem like I can't seem to really enjoy this new awesome opportunity. What role does curiosity play and how can listeners kind of lean into curiosity to help them kind of suss some of these things out?

@22:17 - Clare Emma Wild

Okay, that's a really, really good question because you know we can't change what we don't see and I'd add what we don't see or feel.

So the first step is always curiosity and being okay with whatever comes but maybe it's nothing. But being okay with that, it does help to have a partner be that therapist, coach, it is whatever circumstance you're in at that time it can help even you know mindfulness training that in my, I don't know, mindfulness coach.

I don't know there must be some mindfulness practitioner, teacher, whatever that is, or yoga, know, meditation, teacher, whatever that is, about the awareness.

And I think it is, we all start from where we start, and I think just being curious, what is coming up for me right now?

Where do I feel it? What is it? Um, ask yourself that, that kind of thing. Is it, is it hot?

Is it cold? Is it, you know, all the things? it hot? Is it cold? Is it moving? it still?

What's it look like? I draw it? Just ask all these questions. Could you draw whatever it is that you're feeling?

Is it a knot? You know, could you draw it like a knot? Is it a ball? Is it a star?

Is it spiky? Maybe it looks like a stick. Whatever they are. What colour is it? What's a jig? Is it moving?

Is it still? You know, you could use those kind of visual kinesthetic things, or you can just- simply sit and wonder what is going on just now.

How does grief fit from me? Maybe if you know your emotions a bit better and you can name them, how does grief feel for me?

You know, how does sadness feel for me? You know, for me, it feels like a heaviness around my circle of plexus.

Anger feels like something's rising out of my chest and it's hot. You know, something is coming out and if and yeah, it's coming out, it's expanding and it's hot and it's rising and it'll feel completely different for maybe some will be similar but maybe some will be different.

And I think also asking questions, what is that telling me? is it telling me? emotions have messages, you know, we're not, our bodies are really smart, all these connections we have between our body and our brain.

in all of these nervous connections, our emotions are all telling us something. And I think some of those questions, if you can feel it, what is it that you're telling me?

What is the, what are you saying? And again, curiosity, maybe there's nothing, maybe today there's nothing, maybe tomorrow there's something.

And I think that curiosity is really key that it's like a a continuum. So, you know, it's with all of this work, it's small steps.

You know, it's like, well, I don't know, nothing's coming up today. Well, maybe tomorrow you feel bit more comfortable.

And you're like, well, actually that thing happened where that person said something to me and after that, I had this feeling in my chest.

What was that? I don't know. But maybe tomorrow, something similar happens to me or something, or you get that piece of work.

And you're like, oh, I really know it's anger. Oh, that feeling again, you know, just that step by small step of curiosity, I think is absolutely key.

@26:09 - Meg Trucano

Yeah, that's such an interesting framework to think about. And as a mom of small children, I'm finding that, you know, we name emotions for them, right?

and there's a lot of different perspectives in the developmental literature about how old they need to be before you start naming feelings for them, right?

are you angry? Right? But you can just watch a toddler and the wave of rage come up, you know, it's, it's such a body, a total body experience for them.

And that's what they have to learn how to regulate. And at this age, my job as a caregiver to like, help them co-regulate, you know, um, their emotions.

But it's a great reminder of that connection between emotion and what we call it, anger, frustration, overwhelm, whatever it is, and the actual physical sensation of that feeling.

And how when we're so young, that's what we've got to work with, right? don't have that connection between this sensation and that name for whatever the emotion is.

So, I do find that to be a really interesting illustration of what you're talking about. And what do you think it is that divorces us from this physical knowing?

As a toddler, it overtakes us, right? That's how emotions begin. How do we begin to get so head-heavy?

@27:54 - Clare Emma Wild

Yeah, it's really interesting, and it's such an individual thing, I think. I mean, society has that as a role and how, what our experience has been in the social networks that we're in, what is normal, what is seen to be normal, how should somebody act.

You that is kind of social norms in the culture that you're in, because they can be quite, as we know, because of stereotypes, how culturally across the world they can be very different.

And I'm using stereotypes in that, in the broadest sense, because we think, oh, well, it's, it's, you know, I'm going to be really, you know, some people in certain countries, they can be really flamboyant.

And, you know, they're really loud. And, you know, you can be somewhere where you think that. having an argument, having a huge argument because I don't understand language, but actually they're just talking about the price of coffee or something like that.

That's okay, know, but maybe in our society, it's not okay. And, you know, kids, children that are having, and I don't have children, so I don't want comment on that.

You know, how young is it that you're told it's not okay to have a touch and it's not okay to cry?

It's not okay to, well, however else you, you know, express your emotion physically as a child. How soon is it before you like, stop crying?

Don't do that. That's not okay to do that. I'm not saying that it's acceptable to do that, but if, you know, I'm probably not the best thing for me too, the middle of a work office.

have a total of tension in the middle of the but, you know, to be, Probably not going to go down that well, but I think when you get taught and you're growing up that that thing is wrong, so that feeling is wrong, then you start divorcing it and if you don't get that ability to process it and understand it as you're growing up and I'm talking very personally here because I didn't get that opportunity to understand I'm angry.

What does anger mean? What do I do with anger? I'm still loved if I'm angry, you know, all that ability to understand that and my parents feel angerless is what they do and seeing people that are happy and grieving and explaining I'm sad because, you know, all that experience I think is quite different, so I think there's just huge amounts of social culturally, personally, and I mean some people are just amazing I don't, you know.

just incredible at it. But also I think really importantly there are different levels of sensitivity around and diversity and how we feel.

So I'm someone that's introverted, highly sensitive and empathic. So my personal experience of emotions and sensation are very different from someone who none of those.

of course there's a neurodiversity of yeah there's neurodiversity per se as well as you know that increased sensitivity and I think we can experience things differently to others and not understand until we find a framework for that or our community that actually it's okay I experience this more intensely it's about me not that I'm wrong.

@31:56 - Meg Trucano

Yeah yeah so you alluded to it a little bit that you, um, growing up, you had a very specific way that emotion could be conveyed or felt.

Can you walk us through kind of your, your life before you found somatic work and, um, how maybe that transformed how you process emotions?

@32:19 - Clare Emma Wild

Yeah, sure. So, um, yeah, absolutely. So before I, um, worked on somatics, I didn't process emotions if I could possibly help it.

And I think, um, other people would identify this, what happened is a nummy. And, um, so not only did I not feel the bad in inverted commas and missions of, you know, anger and, um, and, um, irritation.

And I didn't feel the happiness and joy. separate according to my approach to life. This bit thought that bit was annoying because it didn't do what I said and I'm pointing at my body.

Like you, I worked in a very cerebral place, I qualified as a veterinarian, things should be logical, unable to work them out and there were obvious answers and emotions frankly were irrelevant, completely irrelevant.

So that was kind of how I did it and all kinds of things around anxiety and depression and my body not functioning well, you know, stress-related conditions and so I didn't, I had a language for emotions but they weren't I didn't have a language for what I was feeling because I couldn't feel it so I could talk, talk but I wasn't

actually feeling it. But that did, you know, huge changes around using somatics. And I use yoga a lot to process.

I did a lot of exercises. I've always run running yoga. and yeah that that ability and coaching around somatics as well as also the support of the therapist for some of that when natural medists come up have really changed the way I approach process, understand my emotions now.

I'm not afraid. And who the heck is he? know, yeah, there's still some surprises around, but but it took a

long a lot of um work for me and it's a lot of it isn't comfortable it's worth it on the other side.

@36:14 - Meg Trucano

Yeah was there a excuse me was there a moment or a like an epiphany or was it sort of a gradual understanding that like oh I maybe need to attend to this part of my human existence um when you finally kind of met that need to um process emotion and and really start to feel your feelings.

@36:44 - Clare Emma Wild

Yeah the you know the weird thing that came up was um so I had two periods of burnout I mean big so the big and so big things are two periods burnout.

I have to do something that's and I tried You know, I tried therapy, I tried, God name it, I tried it, I just needed to get better and tried all kinds of things and it wasn't working, it was two periods of burnout and something big had to change.

And there was a part of it that knew it wasn't about me trying harder, doing better because I think we can put that on ourselves, I just need to do this differently, this better, do this, it's my fault, work harder, understand things better.

it wasn't about that at all. And I knew something really big had to change because I could not go on having two big periods, I think it was four and six months or the reverse of burnout and maintain a role, a job.

not happy I was so exhausted and exhausted and miserable but the little thing and this is weird when you said that and I couldn't have named that when I was sitting I remember sitting in the garden and in a chair and I was just exhausted it was the beginning of burning and my dog I have my dog was on my lap and I remember just stroking my dog and I said to my husband I can't feel my dog I obviously could on a conscious level but I said I can't feel it you know all this I couldn't connect with my dog and that was something has to change because I could consciously feel the sensation but there was no connection yeah and I love my dog and he's just blaming but

So I can't feel it. I can't feel that sensation, that comfort, that connection, that soothing, but we all know we get from contact with animals and stroking animals and touch.

So I can't, I remember looking at my hand, go, I can't feel it. I can't. And so yeah, a small, huge thing.

@39:21 - Meg Trucano

Yeah. Oh, that's, that's so visceral. I, I've been burned out. I know the feeling and I know that feeling of the absence of connection.

But yeah, that was one place I could always go. I, my soul kitty passed away a couple of years ago, but I could always go to him and that was my connection.

If I could do nothing else, I could connect with him and to have that not be available either. I just yeah, that is so, so huge.

So you, you began to work with some people that could help you kind of get in touch with your feelings, like your actual feeling feelings.

So how did that process unfold? And when did it start to like quote unquote work, right? when did you notice a perceptible difference in how you approach emotions, how you approach, you know, identifying emotions, feeling them?

@40:26 - Clare Emma Wild

So there was, there was a lot, so I needed to feed my brain as well as my body because my brain, my brain needed to calm down.

So I did a lot of reading. I love, so to suit, so to calm things down, I needed, I did a lot of reading.

@40:42 - Meg Trucano

Renee Brown's work is amazing.

@40:45 - Clare Emma Wild

There's some amazing work around emotions, which I've got some books down there as well. So I needed to feed my brain as well as my body.

So I could understand it. And for me, that's another thing about curiosity. What plus. This thing that's ruled me forever needs to trust.

I did a lot of reading around emotions. The body keeps the skull was really important. There's a book here, The Body and the Brain, you know, a lot of reading around, okay, so this is important.

And then for me it was it was very gradual because at the start it was very scary because I had some and to be clear most people do not have this experience but I had some trauma mixed up in there.

So this is why there is a degree of care needed when you start stepping into you feeling what's going on in your body when you haven't done that before.

Because you may not know the trauma is there. So to start with I had a couple of where it was just too hard and too overwhelming.

And then I needed support of a therapist for that. And I got that therapist wrong twice. The third time I got the therapist spot on.

And she's just been brilliant with that. And it actually started with mindfulness.

@42:20 - Meg Trucano

And that's when I realized this is too hard to I can't look.

@42:24 - Clare Emma Wild

Yeah, it was just too difficult. So it is it's always warning around that. But I think it started to change.

I think it probably started to change immediately. You know, with this bunch you once you realize that you need to make the change.

There's something of a knowing that this is the way, I guess. Yeah. my body needs this. I'm be resisting it with everything I've got because I've never known this before and frankly it's quite frightening but there's something about knowing that this is the way forward and that it might be scary but but I'm going to do it and I think I also had a couple of coaches to help as well and there was something really around connection there.

So for me coaching is looking forward and therapy is looking very much backwards but what's gone before. So I'm trying to think of a point but I that when things started when I really knew that it was working when did that happen when I really knew

I think it just happened gradually. I think that's the thing.

@44:05 - Meg Trucano

I think it just happened gradually. Okay.

@44:08 - Clare Emma Wild

on bit in very small steps. Very small steps of progress and I think that is potentially the most a mistake to make is always looking forward and never looking back at how far you've come because without looking at how things were before, I think it can still seem so insurmountable and I think what was incredible to me was that the way things in my world changed in terms of my energy and my resilience alongside a big shift in my body.

So maybe I would do something really brave around, so I was coaching and I would say no to something perhaps, and then I've noticed that something would start releasing in my shoulder.

@45:16 - Meg Trucano

Oh wow.

@45:17 - Clare Emma Wild

So I knew something was happening there and then I found through my yoga practice I could then move my shoulder more, maybe I had a bit more flexibility in it, and it was kind of that parallel, which started to work for me, so maybe that was when, so I hang on there or some, there's big things going on.

But before that it was small steps and face and looking back, you know, that kind of picture you are walking up the mountain, and if all you're doing is looking up, it always looks a long way.

But if you look down, you can see how far you've come. So I think for me that's was that was huge and I think my somatic coaching training was perhaps not for me personally but for my client was just that was huge the understanding of conditioned tendencies for my clients you and your body were reacting the same way because I think huge so yeah sorry that was um I didn't have a point but I didn't know I didn't I don't there isn't an absolute but maybe there isn't and maybe that's okay maybe that's curiosity maybe it'll come to me tomorrow yeah send me message yeah definitely and we can we can have an update um so for someone who is for the listener who is perhaps interested in dipping a toe into the world of of of somatics and you've noted that not everybody is ready to go kind of like full lower on this like you might

@47:00 - Meg Trucano

need. You might really need some additional assistance like a coach or a therapist possibly. But what are some places to start for our listeners when they're trying to tune into their body, are there exercises, any simple kind of steps?

You know that you mentioned earlier about the leaning forward and then the kind of opening your shoulders, but anything else that you could recommend for our listeners.

@47:27 - Clare Emma Wild

Okay, so I think in the context of this podcast, which is all about change, I think one of the things that would be really good to be curious about is when you're doing the thing that you want to change.

What's happening? Are you folding your, know, what's happening with your body at that point? So don't start, so I'd suggest thinking about where your body is.

So if I'm noticing my clients, perhaps we're talking about the, so maybe I'm, if you're my client, as it were, and we're talking about that change, that thing you want to change, where you want to go, maybe you fold your arms.

And I'd say to you, okay, Meg, I've just noticed that you folded your arms. What went on for you when you did that?

Or maybe you're holding your ear, maybe you are leaning forward, maybe your shoulders are just slumped, maybe they haven't.

So I think that would be a really good step. You're looking to change that thing, that behavior, you want to not do that anymore.

What's happening with your body then? Maybe your legs crossed, maybe you're leaning on something, maybe you're leaning toward the side, what's happening?

And then the next question, what happens if you, what happens if it unfolds by arms? What happens if I let go of my ear?

What happens if I uncross my legs and I'm being really curious and I think as a step that's quite amazing because that is giving you, you're not going immediately into those emotions, you're saying well what is going to happen, what happens differently if I do that thing, if I approach that situation with a different body position, what changes for me.

An imagination, because your brain is brilliant, if you have a situation you're like well look at this sake, it only happens once a fortnight or I don't know, once a month but it's really stressful because I don't want to try and start being aware right in the middle of that thing and the boss has given me, I don't know, given me how, your brain work brilliantly in that your imagination, you can't, if you imagine it and really, really imagine it and step into it.

but it's the same as if you're already there, as if you're there, sorry. So you could, and I would suggest don't go like full throttle, don't go into that, you know, when you're just like, I have to get out of here or I have to punch the birds and whatever it is.

Something that you want to change, but it isn't the worst, you know, not the worst thing. Picture that, really get into it, that situation, really imagine it, step into it, close your eyes, maybe.

Where are you, what are you thinking, what are you feeling, who's there, what are they saying, what can you see, what are you thinking, what are you feeling, and then where's your body, what's happening, then change it.

So you don't have to do it right in the moment, but that's really powerful. know, you're thinking about that thing and you've got your arms, and again, you know, you've got your arms folded, or your shoulders

slumping forwards or the legs are vibrating, whatever it is, what happens if you stop, what happens if you change, what happens if you stand up and you're sitting down, what happens if you move towards the door, how does that change thing?

it's all about moving your body in a different way.

@51:19 - Meg Trucano

so what happens when you're just, it sucks, what happens when it's like, it's not too much, but it's just, oh, I don't want to.

Like, I just, it's so uncomfortable. How, but what advice would you give for people to, you know, again, going back to the fact that I don't think many of that, many of us are taught how to okay, it's discomfort, but we just got to get through to the other side of it versus.

Oh , this is discomfort, but it's bordering on trauma and something that I really need support with.

@52:07 - Clare Emma Wild

Yeah, I think so oceans pass, I think is it 40 seconds?

@52:17 - Meg Trucano

I've heard 90 seconds, but that could be like a full kind of wave.

@52:23 - Clare Emma Wild

Yeah, so they do pass. That's the thing. If they're not said, so you're not thinking, and another thing, and another thing, and another thing, so you're feeding it, so you're not, so if you're sitting with it, they do pass.

My experience of trauma is I get carried away, so I get carried away with that, but that's not the same for everyone.

So I would suggest if you're in any doubt, get some help and support, but I think going back to that, I think it's

intensity if it's one to ten and ten is the worst start low start at one or two and get worse don't start at your worst start if you're in doubt step right back step right back off it because you can always increase the intensity but if you go into far what you don't want to do is put yourself in a hugely stressful situation and then you're in fight flight or freeze because your body is panicking you know it's in survival mode and you don't want to put yourself there so start really easy yeah just start really easy and another trick that i had if you're kind of a visual person is you've got that emotion that thing in front of you don't look at it straight on just take a peek at it and then look away you're just taking the peek so you're not pulling to it you're just having a look you know and then you can if

and turn away and turn back again have a look at it no I don't want to go there today and then come back again and that's the thing the other thing is I guess another tip some days aren't good you know some days you are knackers and to be honest you've had a rubbish day everyone's been on at you you didn't sleep well last night the kids were up it's not the day to have a go at something that's that challenging so maybe the curiosity is it's not today mm-hmm I can come back to it tomorrow yeah you know be kind to yourself about what emotional energy you've actually got today to do that because it's yeah that's such a huge piece I've noticed for myself after our first conversation mapping out this episode I started to do a little bit more research and started to kind of play around with my own

@55:00 - Meg Trucano

life and what I would do when I was trying to process emotions and what patterns, what do you call them, condition tendencies that I have?

And yeah, that was something that just became very apparent is that like some days I just don't have the capacity for that and to really let myself feel compassion for myself in those moments.

Because like you, my patterns are like I'm going to bulldoze through this. I'm going to summon all the energy I have and I'm going to make this work and it's a forcing energy.

It's not a permission energy, right? It's not a let's move through this. It's stopping it and boxing it up and making it more a problem that you deal with later.

But I've started to really respect those rhythms because some days you do have capacity for it. Some days you don't.

And that is okay, and that is part of this whole learning process, and that's part of using your curiosity to kind of really just kind of explore your own tendencies.

And so I think that's a hugely important factor here to take it, take yourself, it gently, right, take, yeah, give yourself a break, I guess.

@56:24 - Clare Emma Wild

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely, and something came up for me, I think then when you were saying about that, but you do, and it is so easy.

My tendency absolutely was to just keep busy, ignore it, keep busy, keep going, keep powering through, I can do this, and that's not the space or energy to be in to do it, and it is totally take it gently.

Because it's new, you know, and I'm going to go to our brains now. Our brains don't like change, it takes a huge, you know, habits are there for a reason.

It saves energy, it saves glucose, we're all, you know, brains are about survival, so it's like, you know, let's save energy, do the same thing, do it over and over again, even if you don't actually want to do it, at least it's familiar.

@57:22 - Meg Trucano

So it takes a lot, it does take a lot of energy and that's why you resist it, so yeah, go easy on because you have a human brain and a human body, doesn't actually want to change because it takes a lot of energy, so And that's, I find that a lot too is, but when we get in there and we explore, it's your brains, job is to keep you alive and keep you safe, but it very often conflates or confuses comfort with safety, right, and so we have to be really careful in there, like, are you just comfortable with this situation because it's

you know and it's it's saving your brain energy on having to you know come up with a solution or is it really actually keeping you safe in there is some sort of risk or threat on the other end of things um but it's a really interesting again back to that curiosity is like am I really at risk here or is my brain just really holding on to that comfort of the strategy?

@58:26 - Clare Emma Wild

Yeah and does it serve me anymore? Yep because that's the thing you can stay because it's familiar and stuff which is frankly doing you harm but it feels less threatening than the other thing which is new and unexpected and you don't know how you're going to respond to it or how you need to respond to it or what needs what needs to happen so yeah we can totally stay on all of these patterns that that I've moved through and my clients have moved through they're not serving me at one point they may have kept me safe from something

But not anymore But I don't know what to do with it and now I'm an adult with an adult brain.

I'm an adult brain goes without it's quite hard I want to do that Thank you very much, which is where the small steps come in and they take it easy and You know because you can always up the pace, but if you go too hard And it's too scary and it's like that You know the zones we're in the middle those your comfort zone will call it that and then there's just outside that stretch zone We're making things a little bit uncomfortable, but then outside that there's a zone which is light flight Or freeze and you don't want to push yourself straight into that zone because as you push your comfort zone out Stretch zone goes out and things are less scary, but if you dump straight into it Not good.

@59:56 - Meg Trucano

Yeah counter productive for sure.

@59:59 - Clare Emma Wild

Yeah, you won't There we go.

@1:00:01 - Meg Trucano

Yeah.

@1:00:01 - Clare Emma Wild

Yeah.

@1:00:04 - Meg Trucano

Well, Dr. Claire, this is a super fascinating conversation and thank you so much for sharing your expertise and wisdom with us.

And of course, we'll have all of your details and how people can get in touch with you below in the show notes.

But for people who might be out walking the dog or something, where can folks reach you if they want to learn more?

@1:00:27 - Clare Emma Wild

Yeah. Sure. Well, so LinkedIn is the best place or on my website, and I know you're going to share both of those.

But yeah, LinkedIn, and you can just search for Dr. Clare Emma Wild and it'll come up.

@1:00:40 - Meg Trucano

Perfect. Perfect. Thank you so much for guesting here on genealogy and thank you for listening. I will talk to you next time.