Claire Sankey - Mindfulness + Somatic Therapy, Hypnotherapy & Yoga

23/07/2025

I’ve been feeling a lot of despair at the images and videos of the killings and starvation in Gaza…..

& some sort of shame about the way my body wants to shut it all down & scroll past. Not post. Not speak. What’s the point? What can I do?

This is the first post I’ve shared on the horror we are seeing in Gaza and I had to ask myself why? What am I afraid of? Is it judgment, or getting it wrong? Or that my voice won’t do enough or anything at all?

The images that make me feel sick, angry, heartbroken; they’re meant to evoke that.

My body is working exactly as it should by communicating this meaningful feelings to me. They are the body’s way of saying:

“Something is deeply, devastatingly wrong.”

We’ve got to listen to our bodies.
Dont look away.
Be MOVED by our feelings, not shut them down. Because it is when too many people shut down their feelings that atrocities are able to happen. We have anger, disgust and compassion for a reason; guides sent to us from millions of years of evolution and ancestors.

Whether you’re another therapist, yoga teacher, a client or a friend, I hope this might encourage you to listen to and allow your anger at what Israel is doing, and to our complacent governments, and let your feelings move you towards doing something, anything 🙏🏽

With love, and anger,
Claire 🌷

⸻

01/07/2025

This is something I see so often “nervous system reset”…🤨

The truth is there is no such thing as a reset, and if you’re chasing after this then you might be doing more harm than good… 😢

I know I did during my recovery process; I was always on the look out for the next thing that promised to wipe my slate clean & reset my nervous system back to a calm state. The truth is; my nervous system was never just a calm state…it was never meant to be, and neither is yours.

We are designed to adapt and use survival states when our nervous system feels unsafe - that does not need resetting! It’s not a malfunction - it’s an intelligent adaptation.

You don’t need resetting…

Can we stop saying this now please? 🙏🏽

As always, with love 💓

Claire x🌷x

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20/06/2025

Your body is a home and every emotion is a room inside it 🏡
⠀
Joy might dance in the kitchen. Love rests in the bedroom. Curiosity looks out from the windows.
⠀
But in the basement? Grief. Shame. Fear.
The rooms we may have locked up long ago, & pretend aren’t even there…
⠀
But when we stop going to a certain room, when trauma teaches us to avoid or exile parts of ourselves, we don’t just shut the door on pain, we shut the door on living in the whole house…wholeness, to being fully alive and experiencing the fullness of ourselves.

It’s much harder to freely dance in the kitchen when you get a sense there is something dark and dangerous lingering beneath you in the basement…
⠀
The home of the body longs to be lived in, fully.
Not just the light and comfy corners, but the forgotten spaces too. Healing doesn’t mean forcing yourself to love every room but slowly and gently turning the handle on a door you were once too afraid to open and letting your nervous system know: “It’s safe now. We’re home. We can feel this.”

& the more we open those doors, the bigger our space becomes, and the more the house becomes a place where all of you belongs….& all of you can dance in the kitchen 💃🏼

With love, Claire 🌷 x

___________

17/06/2025

⭐️Save this one for later ⭐️

It has one of those nuggets in it that everyone I’ve shared it with has written down or asked “can you WhatsApp that to me” ⚡️✨

(I’m talking about the “how to discern a trauma response” question on slide number 8 ☺️)

It’s a question that can transport us out of a trauma response back into the here and now ⏰
It can shift us away from thinking we’re unsafe back into safety 🤗
& it can reconnect us after disconnection 🥰

It will help you to work out if this anxiety/anger/shut down is a trauma response..?! Or if it is simply a response?!

If you’ve lost trust with your body and lost touch with your intuition this can feel really confusing. I know I’ve sat with anxiety freaking out about whether this was something I should act on or not - my body is telling me to run - should I run? 🏃‍♀️Or is running just re-enacting out past trauma?

This is a roadblock I think we all come up against at some point in the healing journey
& when you get skilled in finding the answer to this question for yourself, you are well on the way to healing 🙏🏽

Spoiler: I didn’t run.

So I hope this is as useful for you as it was for me, and is for my clients.

Let me know in the comments, and don’t forget to get out your journal and write this down, save this post, or screen shot it into your phone or notes - etch this in your memory because this discernment question will change everything 🤗🙌🏼

With love, Claire 🌷 x

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09/04/2025

On the healing journey, there will come a time when your body begins to speak…
�Not through words—but through tears, shaking, anger, grief.

These are not signs you’re breaking down…
�They’re signs your nervous system finally feels safe enough to let go 🍃

What was once too much, too soon, is now able to be felt—bit by bit.

In somatic therapy, when we work with nervous system regulation, the goal isn’t to stop anger, anxiety or emotion.
�It’s to grow trust, capacity, and safety—so that these feelings can move through us, rather than getting stuck inside 🌀

& when I say bit by bit, this is where regulation helps us feel the feels - so we can move in and out of the grief, anger, sadness in a titrated way, bit by bit, instead of being flooded.

Sending my love to anyone who’s feeling some big, raw, or messy feelings right now…♥️�
It means something in you feels safe enough to feel it now…
�That’s no small thing 🤗

Love, Claire 🌷x

___________

04/04/2025

There’s nothing mysterious about healing ❤️‍🩹

The clue to what we need to heal is always in what needs were not met for us back then:

•you didn’t feel safe
•you didn’t feel seen
•you didn’t feel heard
•you didn’t have a choice

You can start or continue right now by giving yourself what you didn’t get at trauma time.

When your symptoms arise try saying to yourself “I see you” “I’m listening” “What do you need from me?” ♥️

Healing is meeting yourself now how you weren’t met by then. Start with one little kind gesture, and then another…and another 🤗

Healing is possible - you’ve got this 🌟

Love, Claire 🌷

__________

28/03/2025

🌟Do you know your window of tolerance? 🌟

Your window of tolerance (a model for understanding nervous system arousal) is adaptable. 🪟

People who experience C-PTSD, anxiety, dissociation, depression, chronic stress may have a narrower window of tolerance - but that is not your fault! Your window has narrowed as your nervous system has adapted to protect you. 💪🏼 🦸

Healing is widening your window! 👐🏼

Your nervous system is flexible. 🍃

Just as if adapted to stress, it can adapt to safety 🤗

Healing is possible ✨

You can widen your window of tolerance, build resilience, and navigate life with greater ease 🤗💕

Please share this post so other folk can feel the hope of available healing, and learn about widening our window of tolerance 🙏🏽

with love, Claire 🌷

—————

04/03/2025

Your nervous system has a secret... 🤫
It sees things you don’t see. 👁️
It’s making decisions for you before you even realise ⚡️
It’s your in-built guardian angel 😇

N e u r o c e p t i o n
is one of the incredible processes carried out by your autonomous nervous system to keep you safe 🙏🏽

How does it feel to learn your body is doing this for you all the time?? Thank you body 🥲🥹

👉🏼 You’re invited to join my Nervous System Nourishment monthly workshop where we learn about cool stuff like this 🤓, practice techniques to activate and tone our vagus nerve, hone our neuroception, and nourish our nervous system for connection resilience.

👉🏼 The next session is on 18th March. Info and tickets here: https://www.clairesankey.com/nervous-system-workshop

Please share this post so other folk can learn about our in-built guardian angel too 🙏🏽

with love, Claire 🌷

—————

16/01/2025

Sending love to anyone feeling shame today 💕♥️ It is tough, I know.

Please save this for later if you can’t read it now 🏷️

& send it to someone who needs to know they aren’t alone if they are struggling with feeling shame 🥲

I lived with years of shame when I was bulimic… it felt like I had a big hole inside of me that sucked my light away.

It made my thoughts bully me into believing I was broken, wrong, disgusting.

It made my body want to curl up into a hole and hide away from the world...

& this is a big clue as to why we have shame.

Shame emerges in childhood to protect us, around age 2 when we are naturally exploring the world and ourselves. After being scolded, shame makes our body recoil and shrink away…

It’s how we learn from adults what is safe and what is not.

if our adult doesn’t then help us repair the shame by modeling compassion: “It’s ok darling, you didn’t know it was unsafe”, & emotional regulation by holding those feelings with us…

& instead, leaves the child alone with the shame… there is no repair. The child learns there is something wrong them (which is not true) …& shame becomes a familiar pattern.

When shame is not repaired our little nervous systems learn to rely on shame as our protector from danger and from our own feelings 🦸

Remember this:
Shame ≠ something wrong with you.
Shame = no shame repair in childhood.

This isn’t about parent blaming, heck those poor folk had it too!

This is about awareness, compassion, and reparenting ourselves 🥰

So, if you want to, hug your arms around your body, take a deep breath in and a long slow exhale whilst gently whispering to your inner child: “I know you’re here to protect me. There’s nothing wrong with you” ♥️

Does this help you feel differently about shame? I’d love to hear either way in the comments 👇🏼

Love Claire x🌷x

15/01/2025

Here we are! 🤩

This is the ITV News feature which went out on the regional news across the country on Monday evening. ✨

I missed it (I didn't know it was going to be on Monday and I was busy teaching my mindfulness course!) but I managed to see it on catch up and this is a copy I have put on my YouTube channel.

Thank you again for everyone who came along, I hope you enjoy seeing yourself on screen! 📺✨

This really was a very exciting start to the year for me, and such a great opportunity and privilege to share mindfulness with a wider audience. I didn't hesitate to say yes to this, and that makes me feel very proud of myself 🥹. It really is a testimony to the impact mindfulness has had on my life that I can confidently be me, in my body, with you all, and on screen.

I shared my story at the session of how mindfulness helped me in recovery from an eating disorder, and I am so grateful for the health and inner-peace my mindfulness practice and training has helped me discover, which is why I am so passionate about sharing this, and why I didn't hesitate to jump on board with the filming ✨

I hope this has inspired people all across the country to practice! 🙏

Thank you St John’s Place for letting us show off your beautiful venue to the world! ❤️

If you would like to practice mindfulness with me, please go to my website: https://www.clairesankey.com/all-events or message me to be on the waiting list for my next mindfulness course in Salisbury 🙏

On Monday 13th January 2025 I was featured in an ITV News piece about mindfulness teaching a session and a short interview. This was filmed at the beautiful ...

10/01/2025

On Tuesday, I had the somewhat daunting task of teaching a mindfulness session which was being filmed for ITV News! 🎥

I was so grateful for the interest, support and willingness of the 19 people who came along to learn about and practice mindfulness - thank you so much 🌟🫶

& to St John’s Place for the beautiful venue and generous help organising the event 🙏✨

This was such an unexpected and amazing opportunity for me to share what I am so passionate about with so many people - so thank you everyone for your support ❤️

I'm told the piece will be aired some time later in January - watch this space! 📺✨

Love, Claire 🌷