What does it feel like to live without support – not emotionally, but physically, in your body? This week on Mastering Change, Betsy Polatin, somatic educator and breathwork specialist, explores how trauma takes away our sense of being supported – and how to reconnect with the forces that hold us. “Trauma takes away our universal support. When we feel ourselves be supported, we don’t need to hold ourselves up on our own.” Betsy explains how clients often describe the absence...

Imagine if fear wasn’t something we needed to manage – but something we could unlearn? This week on Mastering Change, we speak with Matt Hudson, creator of Split-Second Unlearning, about fear, hypnotic states, and how to interrupt patterns held in the body and mind. He explains why he aims to spark curiosity rather than reinforce fear, and how state shifts open the door to different choices. He also challenges the way we talk about stress – arguing that it isn’t the cause, but the sympt...

When we talk about mental health, we often forget one major ingredient – sugar. In this episode of Mastering Change, neuroscientist Sophie Hascher joins us to explore how sugar addiction affects emotional wellbeing – and what happens when we start reconnecting to the body. Sophie shares research showing that people higher on the sugar addiction scale are much more likely to experience anxiety, depression and chronic stress. She explains how sugar impacts the brain’s reward system ...

The traditional model of therapy tends to be one hour, once a week. But how effective is this? This week on Mastering Change, we speak with psychotherapist Priscilla Short, who’s challenging the way we think about relationship and trauma therapy. She introduces us to the world of intensive therapy – where months of work are condensed into a few focused days. It’s immersive, honest and allows both clients and therapists to stay with what’s uncomfortable long enough for real change ...

What happens when silence becomes a survival strategy – and healing means finding your voice again? This week on Mastering Change, we speak with therapist, author and founder of the Washington Therapy Fund Foundation Ashley McGirt about the impact of racial and intergenerational trauma. Ashley shares how trauma rooted in racism and injustice can echo through generations, shaping families, relationships and self-worth – and how healing begins when we start to name what was once...

What if healing meant slowing down, softening, and coming back to your body? This week on Mastering Change, we speak with Chen Lizra – somatic practitioner and founder of The Power of Somatic Intelligence – about how trauma pulls us away from ourselves and how presence, movement, and pleasure can guide us back. Chen explains why safety is the foundation for any healing process, how to recognise when we’re overriding our nervous system and why slowing down can be the most coura...

What if healing meant slowing down, softening, and coming home to your body This week on Mastering Change, we speak with Chen Lizra – somatic practitioner and founder of The Power of Somatic Intelligence – about how trauma disconnects us from ourselves, and how movement, pleasure, and presence can guide us back. Chen explains how working with the nervous system, rather than overriding it, creates the conditions for safety and lasting change. She shares how slowing down can be an act of co...

How do we stop working at “the wrong end of the spectrum” – only intervening when it’s too late? This week on Mastering Change, clinical psychologist and Innovating Minds founder Dr. Asha Patel shares her journey from working in forensic services to building trauma-informed systems for schools and community-based organisations. Asha explains how behaviour is always a form of communication, why exclusion punishes pain instead of addressing it, and how compassion, regulated adu...

What happens when silence becomes survival? This week on Mastering Change, sisters Cipriana and TK Quann share their journey of surviving over a decade of childhood abuse – and what it has meant to finally speak the unspeakable. They discuss the long shadow of shame, the healing impact of psychedelic plant medicines, and why sisterhood has been their most powerful form of therapy. With honesty and vulnerability, the Quann sisters open a window into how trauma shapes identity – and how exp...

What does it take to heal after abuse, assault or complex PTSD? This week on Mastering Change, trauma therapist, speaker and author Shari Botwin joins us for a candid conversation about dismantling shame and speaking the unspeakable. She draws on her own journey as a survivor as well as 25 years of clinical work, sharing how shame takes hold and how to recognise and move through it. Compassion and safe relationships are, she says, essential in recovery and she explains w...

We know about the five stages of grief – but did you know there’s a sixth? David Kessler speaks to us in this episode about how finding meaning can become one of the most powerful steps in healing after loss. Kessler is one of the world’s leading grief experts and author of On Grief and Grieving and Finding Meaning: The Sixth Stage of Grief. Drawing on decades of experience and his own personal journey with loss, David shares why all trauma carries grief, and why healing requires more t...

Why do we keep falling into the same family roles – even as adults? This week we speak with systems therapist and family recovery coach Jerry Wise about how to break free from emotional enmeshment, codependency and the unspoken rules that keep us stuck. Drawing on decades of clinical and coaching experience, Jerry introduces the concept of self-differentiation – the process of becoming your own person while staying connected to others. He explains why physical distance doesn’t...

Could just a few minutes of intention, presence and energy work change everything? This week on Mastering Change, we speak with Poppy Delbridge – energy psychologist, rapid tapping practitioner and author of TAP – to explore how energy-based practices like EFT (emotional freedom technique) can shift trauma and regulate the nervous system. Poppy explains how belief systems are stored in the body, why affirmations alone don’t work and how trauma can wire us into patterns of fear and...

Before we can speak our pain, our bodies have already carried it – which means, often, talking through trauma isn’t enough. This week on Mastering Change, we sit down with Erica Hornthal, licensed clinical professional counselor, board-certified dance/movement therapist, and author of Body Aware and the brand-new BodyTalk. Known as “The Therapist Who Moves You,” Erica explores how trauma lives not just in memory, but in muscle tone, breath, posture – even stillness. Drawing on yea...

Romance novels aren’t just escapism – they can help process trauma too. Academic, writer and trauma theorist Dr. Alicia Kindleysides invites us to think differently about healing – examining how reading and writing can offer safe spaces for processing pain. Her PhD research explores trauma responses through the world of romance fiction. She has found that romance fiction gives people a place to safely rehearse emotional experiences – connection, desire, safety – that may have been disr...

What if healing didn’t start with words – but simply with presence? This week on the Mastering Change podcast, we speak with Rianne Sibma-de Vries, a trauma-informed counsellor and equine therapist based in the Netherlands. Rianne’s work combines Internal Family Systems (IFS), systemic constellations, somatic techniques and equine-assisted therapy to help people reconnect with themselves in profound, body-based ways. Horses, Rianne explains, are instinctive, non-judgemental and de...

Is traditional talk therapy enough to heal trauma? This week on Mastering Change, we speak with Rathika Marsh – a spiritual psychologist who’s spent over 15 years in clinical psychology and now helps people connect with something deeper: their inner voice, their bodies, and their soul. “The body doesn’t just hold trauma – it holds wisdom and resilience.” Growing tired of the limitations placed upon her as a psychologist, Rathika developed the Freedom and Expansion Method: a ...

Often what keeps us stuck isn’t the trauma itself but the shame it leaves behind. This week on Mastering Change, we sit down with Annalie Howling – EMDR therapist, performance coach, and author of Unapologetic – to explore shame as one of trauma’s most corrosive legacies. Annalie speaks openly about her own history of violence, self-harm, and the masks she wore to stay hidden. She shares why she refuses to offer a step-by-step guide to healing – and how pulling shame “out by the r...

In Part III of our three-part series with psychology researcher and technology executive Steve Siddals, we explore perhaps the most important and challenging question yet: What happens when people in crisis turn to AI for help – and it gets it wrong? Joined by AI ethicist Catherine Mooney, we dig into the unintended consequences and ethical grey areas emerging as more and more people turn to chatbots for emotional support. In this final episode, we explore: The alarmin...

It’s Part II of our conversation with psychology researcher and technology executive Steve Siddals. Last week, we uncovered surprising insights into how people are using AI chatbots for emotional support. Now in Part II of this three-part series, Steve unpacks the ethical complexities, unintended consequences and extraordinary potential of using AI in therapeutic contexts. We explore the paradox: how something that isn’t human can help us relate more deeply to other humans. And w...