JD's Journal

Breaking Free: A Woman's Journey Beyond Trauma

• John 'jd' Dwyer • Season 2 • Episode 8

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Caroline Clarke's remarkable journey from surviving domestic violence to becoming a transformative trauma coach unfolds in this deeply moving conversation about breaking cycles of generational trauma. With raw honesty, Caroline shares how watching her father attack her mother at age three shaped her into a caretaker, setting patterns that would follow her into adulthood and her career as a police officer.

The turning point in Caroline's life came through her eleven-year-old son's devastating words: "I don't want to be here anymore." Recognizing that he was mirroring her own unexpressed feelings about her marriage, Caroline made the courageous decision to leave, becoming the first woman in her family to ever end a marriage. This pivotal choice not only saved her son but transformed her entire family's trajectory.

At the heart of Caroline's work is what she calls "The Good Girl Code"—the subconscious programming that teaches women to be compliant, people-pleasing, and to silence their intuition. She explains how these codes become our operating system, affecting everything from our relationships to our careers, until we consciously examine and rewrite them. Through powerful examples, she demonstrates how seemingly innocent childhood experiences—like forcing children to hug relatives when they don't want to—can teach dangerous lessons about consent and boundaries that follow them into adulthood.

Perhaps most profound is Caroline's perspective on healing as a multi-generational gift: "What we are doing now in our life, we are gifting the next seven generations." By doing our inner work, we provide our children and their descendants with the freedom to live authentically rather than carrying the burden of unresolved family trauma. Her message is one of empowerment—we aren't broken, we're simply coded, and we have the power to change our programming.

Whether you're struggling with people-pleasing tendencies, trying to break free from unhealthy relationships, or wanting to create a healthier legacy for your children, Caroline's compassionate wisdom offers practical guidance for reconnecting with yourself and reclaiming your authentic voice. Follow her journey through social media as she completes her book on The Good Girl Code and continues her mission to help women worldwide break free from limiting narratives and heal generational trauma.

Caroline's Contact Details:

Other Resources Referenced in this Episode:


And your quote "What other people think of you is none of your business" 

JD:

Hi listeners and welcome to the JD's Journal podcast where, every week or two, my guests and I share some of our life's journey, our successes and failures and the valuable lessons and resources that we've gathered along the way. This podcast is being recorded on the traditional lands of the Dharug and Gundungurra people who pay our deep respect to Elders, past, present and emerging. This land always was and always will be Aboriginal land. The content shared on this podcast is intended to inform and entertain and it should be applied with your own good judgment. As always, your feedback good and constructive is always appreciated. The podcast is produced by me, so please forgive the occasional glitches from time to time. Anyway, enough of the formalities, let's get on with this episode. Hi, folks, and welcome back to the JD's Journal podcast. It's always great to have you here. I'm so excited about today's episode.

JD:

We're going to introduce Caroline Clarke. I literally met Caroline last week. Caroline was an introduction from my very first guest on this podcast, aidan Grimes still, by the way, the most popular episode that we've had and Aidan reached out to me a while ago and said you need to meet Caroline. She's a remarkable person. I guess I'm going to try and give you my overview of Caroline, then I'm going to hand her to kind of fill in the blanks. But you know, Caroline has come through her own trauma and has really taken that as a foundation to establish herself as a coach, a trauma therapist and a seasoned speaker who brings that kind of lived experience along with the expertise that she's developed, the skills that she's developed to really help women break free from their situations, from their limiting narratives and thoughts and the unhealthy circumstances that they're in with the wounds that they carry and so forth.

JD:

And she has an interesting background in policing and child protection and working with juveniles and so forth in the UK and here in Australia A fascinating background we'll talk more about. But I'm in awe of the work that she's doing in terms of supporting women out there. She's written a book. We'll talk about her book as well. But look, enough from me, Caroline. How did I go introducing you and correct me? Tell me what I haven't said about you that I should have said. Go introducing you and correct me.

Caroline:

Tell me what I haven't said about you that I should have said. No, that's a beautiful introduction. It very much summarizes 51 years into a few seconds. So that was a perfect introduction. Thank you, john fantastic.

JD:

Good, well, I'm glad I got that right. I'll tick that box. Um, I as I always ask this question first off of my guests. So I we've talked about what you do. I think inherent with what've talked about what you do, I think inherent with what we described about what you do, the kind of mission is is pretty clear, but I'd love to hear in your words you know what is the purpose? You know when, when caroline finishes doing what you're doing, what's the legacy that you leave behind and what does success look like in terms of your life?

Caroline:

Yeah, well, I think my legacy would be to definitely leave the world in a better place in which I found it and to break generational trauma and to bring more understanding around what generational trauma does and how it impacts each and every family. It's in every home. So to really bring some understanding around the generational trauma and how we can actually break it and there is, you know, I think with the book that I'm writing and the stories that I tell is making it more simple. You know, if you talk to people about generational trauma, a lot don't really understand.

JD:

But if you can really break it down into simple patterns and codes that we arrive here with and really our journey is to decode so that our children ultimately have the freedom that they came here for too, and not to carry our baggage, it's interesting that you say generational trauma and I know you and I touched on this a little bit, I suppose the first time but it always intrigues me that I see one of two patterns in terms of trauma and also circumstances in general, is that generationally, we either do the same thing that we saw our parents do and you'll see, you know, alcoholism and violence and and so forth flow through generations or we see the pendulum flick completely the other way and and people reject, or they actively take that as a learning to reject the behaviors of the previous generation and go the other way. But often what you're describing is completely true. Do you have any thoughts on why that's the case or what? Have you discovered anything as you've been working through this yourself, in terms of why we get to this generational situation?

Caroline:

well, I think what I've noticed is you have to go through your own experience and, as you say, we can either have the opinion that I will not follow the same patterns as my parents. Or it's after we've followed them that we've awakened to the opinion that I will not follow the same patterns as my parents, or it's after we've followed them that we've awakened to the fact that we have actually been conditioned and we are the same as mum and dad. So I think we're all on our own journey. At some point we'll start to ask questions. So when we ask the questions, it's then what we do with that information. Do we choose to continue? Because then that's actually probably an easier road than actually going down the pain and the excavation and the change. So I think, as as as the journey unfolds, we will naturally follow the same patterns as our parents, because it's that's our blueprint, until we start to say is this working for me? Is this the way?

Caroline:

And often it's when you become a parent and you catch yourself saying oh my goodness, I sound like my mom. Oh, my goodness, my dad did that and you know, and I swore that I would never do the same with my children. It's at that moment that you've got a sense of awareness. And then what do you do with it? You either go oh, I'm laughing off, I'm just like my mom and dad or you go. Actually, no, I didn't like the way that I was parented, so maybe I'm the one to make the change. So we all have the chance to do that. But it just depends how it comes up, whether it's in major trauma, whether it's in just little moments of awakening. But they say that with trauma, with generational trauma, what we are doing now in our life, we are gifting the next seven generations I mean let's talk about legacy here.

Caroline:

What a legacy. If it can, if we can say ends with us and we start to make a change, we're gifting like a inheritance. I would say it's like inheritance is the freedom to the next seven generations that's amazing seven generations.

JD:

I've never, I've never heard that before. That's incredible. Uh, I can picture it, I can see it. Uh, and and we see it in many areas I did some work some time ago around, uh, western sydney, where you know, there's a also a generational situation there of dependence on social security and unemployment and so forth, and we were breaking a cycle there obviously not to the same level of trauma and challenge that you're talking about and that we'll talk about here, but same situation. It's literally giving people a sense of possibility that they can have a different life than their parents had and their grandparents had, and so forth. So I think that's fantastic.

Caroline:

So I have a legacy. You know you think about. I look at it as inheritance. So you know we often families like I want to pass on a house I want to pass on. My son said to me the other day hey, mom, when you're old I'm going to really take care of you. And I said I wonder if we could reframe that. I don't need you to take care of me. What if you could pay it forward and do your internal work and pass it on to the next generation, your children and beyond? So, teaching the children, you don't need to take care of me, that's my work, that's my inside job. Your work and your legacy is to pay it forward.

JD:

I love that. That's fantastic, Caroline. I really love that message too, because the impact of that is so much broader, the opportunity there is so much broader than yeah. I think that's a fantastic message. So I want to come back to your mission then and kind of think about, like when did you work it out, Like when did you understand that this was your mission and what was the catalyst for that?

Caroline:

well, I think unconsciously, it's always been my mission when I think about why I chose to be a police officer. So I think there was an undercurrent of always wanting to serve humanity, always wanting to make a change. But I guess I didn't really understand my bigger mission of wanting to help other women. Having navigated through my own trauma and understand that there is a way out, there is freedom, it's almost like I will be doing a disservice to humanity if I don't share my story, because there are many people who are stuck and don't think, as you say, even if it's just breaking generational patterns, I think this is just how it's done or this is how life is. But we only know what we know until we don't we know something different.

Caroline:

So I think there's been a lot of traumatic experience which were the catalyst for me to start to become more curious. Okay, what if I could start to look at this as being a message, rather than me being the victim of it? And then, once I came out the other side as the hero of it, I was like I have to teach this, I have to teach this to other people, like I'm no different to any other woman, I haven't got any superpowers. So if I'm just a normal human being and I can manage to escape from dysfunction and heal myself, then there's possibility for every other woman out there.

JD:

Again, that's a great message, probably a good time for us to kind of step back and have you tell us a little bit more about your story, about your journey to where you are today. Do you want to kind of take the helm and kind of give us a walk through this journey that you've been on?

Caroline:

Yeah, well, I grew up in Yorkshire in the north of England in a mining town, so it was very. There was a lot of lack and scarcity, money was short working class and I grew up in quite a domestic violence home. Albeit I haven't I didn't really understand to what degree until I've actually done the work later on in life, but there was domestic violence, there was a lot of alcohol and there was one particular incident when my dad went to attack my mum that I intervened. I think I was probably about three or four at the time and I think that was the moment that Caroline became the caretaker for mom, because this father figure, who turned into a monster in a split second, terrified me. It's like who's going to look after mom? So I became mom's caretaker and, like a lot of children in that situation, you put your own needs aside and it's as long as mum I remember even my voice. I can hear it now saying on repeat as long as mum's happy, I'm okay.

Caroline:

So there was self-abandonment from a very young age and as the years progressed, I stayed home until I was probably 27, because I think now I was afraid to leave mum. What would happen if I left mum, having been around for so long looking after her, and then I became a police officer and, interestingly enough, I look back now and I think every single domestic violence situation I went to I went and took the man on and I smile now. You know, this little petite 20 year old would take on the men. I think what I was trying to do was rewrite history. Every man I stood up to was a version of my father that I was trying to heal. So I became a police officer and then went through a traumatic event on duty, looked up to the heavens and said I don't think I can do this anymore. I'm actually scared. Unbeknownst to me, I'd actually been through a traumatic experience in the police force that was a reflection of my childhood. So I said I can't do this job anymore. And then I had a car accident a few weeks later, so I'd obviously brought that in.

Caroline:

So I left the police force and then traveled the world as most people do. I just want to escape. I'd lost a whole family. I didn't know where next for me, because I loved my job as a police officer. I fell into depression so I was like my only way out now is just to escape, and then I had to leave mum behind. She fell into depression and there was a huge burden here of what do I now do with my life? Do I go back and look after mum or do I choose me Fast forward. I ended up meeting my ex-husband. We had four sons, came here to Australia, travelled the world with the children.

Caroline:

So there was lots of running, john. Lots of running which I didn't realise. Let's build a home, let's do another project, and I think Caroline was just escaping from herself. And then COVID hit and, like most families, we were all in one place together and I think that was my realisation there's no more running. I'm now here, yes, in this beautiful home. I have everything that anyone would dream of, but I've got such a void inside and there's deep suffering, so I think there's a time to go. There's no more running, the world's closed down. I need to come back home to myself. So that was really the start of the journey. And then, very quickly after that, mum passed away, which opened up Pandora's box, I think, for me to look at mom's life and mom's suffering and her early dementia, and there was a wake-up call to go. There's some part of me that's actually following her journey, even though I said I would never, ever become my mother. But, as we know, we do.

JD:

yeah yeah, it's interesting, it's very true. Um, you know, when I look at your story, you talked about some of the trauma that you faced in your own marriage and then the fact that you were able to escape that. Um, what, what enabled that and what gave you the ability to break free of that situation?

Caroline:

look there's. There's a quote that says when the uncertainty of the future feels more comfortable than the certainty of where you are. So I think that could really just describe I was dying on the inside. I mean. I look back at photographs and it's unrecognizable. I realize that whatever's on the outside, however scary it is, it has to be, it has to be better than where I am right now. And it was the then.

Caroline:

I started to ask with curiosity what am I teaching my children Now as a mother, if you constantly self-abandon over and over and over? But you see it as I'm doing this for my children, I'm doing this for the family, you think it's coming from a place of martyrdom. It actually isn't. Because you're teaching your children that if I constantly self-sacrifice for the sake of others, then this is the end result. That's exactly what my mother did, and also I was following that caretaker role that I'd done with my mum.

Caroline:

But the catalyst for leaving the relationship was my 11 year old son said to me one day mum, I don't want to be here anymore, I want to end my life. It was the sentence that no parent ever wants to hear. But I was faced with that. Now, because of my police training. I knew the questions to ask him to see how far he got with his planning. And I said to him what's got you to this moment, sweetheart? And he's no word of a lie.

Caroline:

He literally listed off every single feeling I had in the marriage. It was like he had jumped inside of my body and was speaking on behalf of me and it was almost like his soul was saying if you don't wake up, mom, I know how to wake you up by saying I don't want to be here anymore. So I decided I go two ways. I either take him down the route of he needs to be fixed and I do the same thing and just ignore me, or I pack him and do my own work. And I did my own work.

Caroline:

I left the marriage marriage. That boy now is 16. He's the most beautiful wife. Soul Never mentioned that ever again. It's never been on the radar. So it was almost like he was my wake up call Again. I can do, I can do with it what I please, but how's it going to affect him? He was screaming I'm suffering as a result of you, you, mom. So I took the high road and I watched it all play out with the family to see how the knock-on effect when mom chooses herself how the rest of the family actually benefit, they don't suffer.

JD:

Isn't it remarkable? So there's a bunch of things in there, caroline. Thank you so much for sharing that, but it really is. There's a bunch of things that come to my mind immediately, and the first one's kind of a humorous one, but you know, that's the old thing on the planes where they say put your own face mask on before you look after the kids.

JD:

And I think it's such a good metaphor is as a parent by the way, as a leader as well, you've got to be in a good place before you can do the right thing by your people, your children and so forth. And thank goodness for your son in speaking so plainly to you and thank goodness for you in terms of hearing it the right way. It has always fascinated me and this was true in my own family as well how sadly often people will stay in a marriage for the sake of the children and in fact, it's not really serving the children at all. The environment's not serving the children and it's a hard epiphany to make. I think it's a really easy story to tell yourself that we need to keep the marriage together for the sake of the kids, and when the kids have grown up well, then we'll work it out, but the harm that can be done through that period is quite remarkable.

JD:

And, to the point you made earlier, while you can do multi-generational good, you can do multi-generational bad too, and I think you know what you described. There is a situation where for your son and for your kids in general, I suspect there could have been multi-generational flow on impact of that. So thank goodness that happened. I think maybe you know for the listeners who may be in similar circumstances, who may be starting to relate to what you're talking about, you know what have, what have you learned that you share today, and what advice do you give people in that situation?

Caroline:

again. It's to really understand with curiosity. Everyone's a mirror. People who come to us are really just a mirror, reflecting the parts of ourselves that we haven't haven't met, that we don't want to see, that we refuse to acknowledge and I say this with love, because we've all got parts of us that we're afraid to see. Your children are your greatest teachers and I think the the thing that I would say to the listeners is we, we've been taught that we are, we're, the teacher to our child, but it's not by saying, it's by being. So. How are you showing up in your family home? Not by doing or saying, but just how you show up as a human being.

Caroline:

So when we look at how I chose to cut that generational trauma, which was to look at me and not try and fix my son, look at what my mum taught me you stay, no matter what she was beaten over and over again. What I would have witnessed, you know what I would have witnessed. You know I've seen some of it in visions, but not all of it. But she sacrificed our own safety because she felt that she needed to stay. So to the listeners, I will actually quote what one of my sons says to me on repeat. He said, mom, I'm so glad you left the marriage. Most children can't understand why I'm actually happy. Most say they're devastated. He said, but I say I get to see the mom. Oh, I feel emotional. I get to see the mom and meet the mom now who stands before me, who I would never have seen had she stayed in that marriage. For me, what an epiphany for each other.

Caroline:

That's breaking generational trauma, that's breaking cycles. When they say I see the woman before me now and I would never have got to meet her if you just stayed. So how can I be desperately unhappy that you are not with dad anymore?

JD:

what an incredible gift from your son. Absolutely, I think you know that. Um, does he know he's a coach? Um, that's a.

Caroline:

That's a phenomenal gift, yeah and he was the one who didn't want to be here at age 11. He's saying I want to end my life, mom. So what a turnaround for so for me, as I say, I'm no different to any other woman. But look at my journey. I've. I've gone inside and said how is this affecting my children? What am I teaching them? What are they going to copy if I actually don't stand up and make a change? This has gone on for generations in my family. I'm the first woman to ever leave a marriage and all the women they either stayed, they were beaten, they were betrayed. I'm the only one to stand up and say this ends with me.

JD:

So that leads to a question that is on my mind, and that is that when you left, how did the important people in your life around?

Caroline:

you respond to that. It was a lonely journey.

JD:

Yeah, okay.

Caroline:

That is one of the aspects that many women are afraid to leave because of that particularly. As you know, it's going to break up families, it's going to break up friendships. But I think, when I looked at that vision of me and my children, that drive was so much more important than the people that stood beside me. Drive was so much more important than the people that stood beside me. And whenever I've noticed I elevate or I grow, you know, it's like little ants some stay, some go and I think, understanding that you have to lose people along the way for you to step into that next version of yourself, because a lot of people love the version that you are.

Caroline:

So if I was the victim to my circumstance of my marriage, look at my friendships. They were all in dysfunctional relationships. We were all vibrating and meeting up and everyone's like. My husband did this and you know we we met on the same level. So in order to grow, you have to leave those people behind. That's the nature of self-development work and being okay with that and understanding that my children come first and, as I've just said, if he can benefit, that's way more important than carrying the friends along. But it's tough, it's, it's, it is.

JD:

You have to go into your cocoon and walk back home to you in all of this and I have to admit, my question was a little bit loaded because I kind of knew how you'd answer that question.

JD:

I had, I certainly had a sense of how you'd answer that question.

JD:

Um, and, and I think it's true that when you make that significant change in your life, particularly as it relates to family, there will be people who who handle that and there'll be people who don't handle that well, um, but interestingly, you know, they say you are the some of the five closest people to you, um, and when you talk about those folks are all in broken situations as well. Um, maybe one of the one of the benefits of the change as well is the fact that you start to connect with people who are in in more positive, more productive circumstances, and that supports you as well. And and I think it's an important question to ask because I agree with you, I think a lot of people who are stuck in those situations are afraid of what's my social group, what's my community gonna think about me if I make this change, and it's an excuse that can be used to keep you in that situation that you're in, but I'm confident that you've got a circle of people around you today who support you as well.

Caroline:

Right, yeah, absolutely, and you're always finding your tribe. As you grow and evolve, more people come in but, as you say, there's some of you people you surround yourself with and again, that is stepping away from that. Is you saying this version of me in this friendship group is not serving me? But it's, when we talk about the good girl code, what you know. As humans we're wired to belong. So if there's any form of rejection wound or abandonment wound from childhood, leaving that friendship group or them rejecting the version of you that you now are, is going to bring up some pain that we don't want to feel. So we stay in relationships, in friendships, because we know that the mere stepping out of that dynamic into the unknown is there's going to be a lot of feelings that come up about who are you outside of that. But I love to say that I didn't divorce my ex. I divorced the version of myself in that relationship and that's what we're doing continually. Who's that version of me and whom I walk in towards each and every day?

JD:

I love that phrase because that's so empowering. You know it's about. It's about you and it's about making changes in you, not about trying to change somebody else or or trying to take control of somebody else. It's all within your scope of influence and control. When you do that, it's also within your scope of accountability. So you choose to change you or you choose not to change you, but ultimately you own that and there's no question about it. I know you just mentioned the good girl code. We are going to talk about the good girl code because that's the foundation of the good work that you're doing right now. We'll come to that shortly and we'll expand on that a lot. I did want to touch on, like you did, seven years as a police officer you mentioned in Yorkshire. That must have been an incredible experience. I'm curious how does that influence you now? Like that experience of being on the beat or doing whatever it was in the police force in Yorkshire? How does that affect you today in terms of your perspectives and your skill sets?

Caroline:

I remember leaving the police force and saying there's not any situation that I don't think I could deal with effectively and efficiently, and I think that's the truth. Being on the front line every single day and being facing so many horrific situations and having to think on your feet, I think it shaped me into a woman who really now understands what goes on behind closed doors, like the suffering that goes on and the the masks that we put on to the world. We never really know what's going on behind someone's front door. So I have a lot of empathy. I have a lot of a lot of compassion because again it comes down to generational trauma.

Caroline:

You see the families who are addicted to drugs and alcohol and their children introduced at a young age, and it just rinse and repeat. But there's also a sense of helplessness in the force for me that I wanted to help everybody because I could see. But, as we know, you have to be at the stage in life where you're ready. So, look, I think I've got a lot of empathy. I feel that it's allowed me to step into my bigger mission and it still goes back full circle from my youth work, from my juvenile, justice and police, to generational trauma. I've just had this beautiful picture of the world at large unless we do the work. How damaging it is when we just constantly keep passing on to the children and the grandchildren, unless we're prepared to make a change.

JD:

So I know that a word that you and I share a passion for, because from our first conversation, is curiosity, and I think what I just heard you talk about just then is some of that, is the seeing people who are behaving in a certain way or in certain circumstances. The ability to differentiate judgment from curiosity like why, why the behavior, why that, why, what's that going on? Did I get that right? Is that? Is that where you come from in terms of what you've learned there?

Caroline:

Yeah, I think self curiosity allows us to get a deeper understanding of ourselves and how we operate. And I always say to my clients unless you can fully master yourself and understand you, it's very hard to understand another person because you're only going to understand them to the depth that you've understood yourself. So the work isn't meeting and understanding others so much. It's if I understand myself so deeply, so intricately, then perhaps I might get to understand another person. So it's the same with responsibility. If I take full responsibility and want to come on in and learn more about me and my behaviors, my belief systems, and I have compassion for other people because I have compassion for myself.

Caroline:

So it is the so within. So, without you know, I say to my children oh, if you're judging, tell me, let's look at where are you judging yourself. So the curiosity is always to bring it back to self. Everything that we externalize and project which is beautiful to say, to teach the next generation, young, to ask the questions. Oh, I've noticed that I've just judged that person. I wonder if there's a part of myself that I'm also judging, that I'm projecting that's so powerful.

JD:

Uh, it's incredibly. I'm sure that you went through like I did, as you're going through, your learning to be a coach. Um, you went through that process of discovery of yourself and at times it's quite confronting actually, uh, to work out who you are and and how you. But that was one of the things that really came for me as well was kind of two parts there, and that is, you know, perception is projection. What I think is what I project, and often it's a complete projection of what I'm dealing with in myself. And so it's a clue, I think, for anybody who's a parent or a leader or a coach or a mentor whatever. If you're seeing a behavior that's outward, look inward and and try to understand what's going on there. Um, and then again that curiosity piece. So, if you see somebody who is hostile to you at the checkout, instead of being angry, be curious why?

Caroline:

why, what's going on for them, what, what's going on in their life that's making them be this way, because it's not how we are generally as humans no, I remember when I was in, um beautifully said I mean, you couldn't have probably said it any better than what I could have um, I was once in telstra and I had my children with me three of the boys and this guy walked in and he was angry so he'd obviously come to exchange something and they didn't give him what he wanted. I mean, this guy was probably six foot three and he was sort of pushing up against the manager because he was demanding either his money back or whatever. And I watched this escalate and me being an ex police officer, my kids are there. It's in the shopping center, you know, you can see that things are going to erupt very quickly. So I walked over and stood between the two men and said, hey, come on, particularly to the manager, because I don't think he was really behaving, you know, professionally. And this guy pushed me, this angry man, and afterwards we had a bit of a debrief with my children.

Caroline:

Well, the manager said to me did I do well? Did I do well? And I was, wow, that is just a little boy who's facing his mother saying, are you proud of me, are you proud? And I said actually no, you didn't, I said you actually escalated that situation and then I said to my boys afterwards let's just look at this from an outside perspective.

Caroline:

There were two seven-year-old boys there trying to reconcile something from their past and it. They just happen to be in two adult bodies. So how beautiful. Rather than saying oh, judging them and um, saying what horrible people they are, what if we could literally teach the next generation to say, hey, there are just two very wounded men there, one didn't get what he wanted, the other one wouldn't back down and it's just an old scene playing out. That's the curiosity. That's the opportunity to see the humanness of people that were all walking wounded and it's going to come out in ugly places. But if we can see the humanity in it and and walk people back home and say, hey, I wonder if there's a little boy in you there that's still alive, that didn't get what he wanted and he's still fighting for it in a Telstra shop, that's the curiosity.

JD:

I love it and we carry so much of that and the seven-year-old boys is a perfect description of what goes on for us. I'm thinking about Marshall Rosenberg's nonviolent communications and a lot of what he talks about is you know, what do both parties need? What's the core need for them to be able to reconcile and kind of come to an agreement and so forth. And I think stepping in the middle of that situation is brave, but I think it makes a ton of sense in terms of circumstances. But what a great lesson for your kids as well, in terms of thinking differently about. He's not a jerk, he's carrying something and how can we address what he's carrying or how can we address his needs and calm that situation down. De-escalation is a learned skill, but I think it's an art too and I see it work well sometimes and I see it not. But I have to assume as a police officer, de-escalation is a core skill that you would be practicing every day, I guess.

Caroline:

It's interesting. You asked me how it's paved my way forward and I think it's always within you. You know I'm always still looking around in situations and if anything happens I'd very quickly jump in. So that de-escalation. And again, how interesting when I said to you at the start, in DV situations I always took the man. There were two men and often what I found as a police officer, you put a masculine against a masculine and it tends to be a volcano on the verge of eruption because there's two. You know males, the ego, the testosterone and they're you know they're going to fight. You put a female in there. It often de-escalates a situation. It's very rare. I never had a man hit me in the police force. People tussle to get away but no man. I got hit by a woman but no men ever hit me.

JD:

Interesting. Well, and the gender thing is interesting, right, because we know that men are generally taught both in the parental situation, but also television and everything else. You know, vulnerability is a weakness. That ability to compromise actually shows that you're weak, you're not strong. You need to win, and it's such a flawed mindset. It's a horrendously flawed mindset and it's the same reason that we have, I think, the major issues we have with male suicide is the fact that I can't possibly be vulnerable and share that. I have a weakness. I have to cover that up and then carry the burden of it all. So I'm not at all surprised with the behavior that you see, but I'm also not at all surprised that a woman can stand between two men in that state and bring them back, bring them through the de-escalation process. Again, I think it's incredibly brave of you to step in the middle of that, but you have the skills, thankfully, and the experience to do that, which is awesome.

Caroline:

And I'd love to just touch on the word vulnerability, because I've been studying under Gamal Mate for over a year. What a beautiful man he is and I've learned a lot from him. But the word vulnerability actually comes. It's a Latin word and it's actually the word vulnerability means to be wounded. So when we're vulnerable, we're opening ourselves up as we know to. There may be a chance that we could be wounded by opening ourselves up. The vulnerability is I'm going to actually open my heart now and share or whatever it may be Now.

Caroline:

There's an what happens after that and that's often the fear. It's not opening up, it's how will I be received by this person when my heart is on the table? And, as we know, as children, when we did share our vulnerability, we often didn't get heard or seen or understood. So the reason we're afraid to be vulnerable as adults, because there's a memory of the past when we were that there was something painful. We were shut down, we weren't received, we were told that we were too dramatic. So again, the inner work is to go in and say how can I parent myself through that? I haven't got my mum and dad anymore, but I've got me to say, hey, I've got you in this most raw, vulnerable state and I believe you and I see you, no matter how that person who, as we know, has only got the capacity to meet you as to where they've met themselves.

JD:

I think there's a. I agree with you 100% and I'm a.

JD:

I'm a Brene Brown fan and I her work on shame and vulnerability has been incredible as well, and I do recall you know, she focused pretty much exclusively on women initially in her research and, um, she had a conversation with a, with a man who who called her out on it and said that you know that the thing I can never do is you show my vulnerability to my wife and my children.

JD:

I have to be the guy, um, and and. So I think there's a direct correlation between the ability to be vulnerable and courage, and it's interesting when I look at people today who are the most obnoxious people that you could work with, I tie it back to insecurity. These days that's my mental model is why do they feel so insecure? They need to be that way Because the people I observe who have courage, courage who have self-confidence can be vulnerable. They that, to your point, they are willing and and able to cope with the wound because they have, they had the courage to do that, whereas the folks who aren't, who put that brick wall up in front of them, are afraid of of that truly and I and I love that.

Caroline:

I think, when you talk about these people who are, you know, in their ego, again, let's look at this from a place of compassion. So let's imagine the one who needs to have the ego needs to wear a mask. It's no different to the good girl code. Let's look at it from a male perspective. That person is needing to have this persona because there's something within him that if he wants to open up or back down, it's painful, like what happened to him in his past, in his childhood. So I love that the curiosity is actually married up with the compassion which is what gabor that's gabor mate's work. We always look from a place of compassion. So we all wear masks. And when you think about authenticity, we can't be fully authentic if we're not vulnerable, because we're hiding a huge part of ourselves, which is really sad. There's no humanness when you're having a shield up and not really allowing people to see who you are all aspects of you.

JD:

Totally, and I think the point you made earlier on I can't remember the word you used, but I always rationalise that we all have our stuff, everybody has their stuff and so you know, I think, just that the recognition that it doesn't matter what their title is, how firm they look, how confident they look or not, everybody has their stuff, they're dealing with stuff and I think that, again, tying that back to compassion and the ability to empathize and be curious, is powerful. You mentioned the Good Girl Code again and I'd love to open that up now. So for the listeners, what's the Good Girl Code? What's it all about?

Caroline:

So it's the ability to understand your patterns. So the reason I use codes is because it's probably quite user-friendly. When we say that we're coded and I always use the analogy we update our phones every few years. You wouldn't have a computer from the 1960s and still expect it to be up to speed. You would exchange it, you would upgrade it. That's no different to our blueprint. What started off as an infant is not going to work for you unless you make a change when you're 60, 70, 80.

Caroline:

So it's about again understanding and asking the questions about the codes. For instance, many young girls were trained to be compliant obedient people, please. So there are multiple codes that we're living according to. And again it comes back to understanding and asking oneself the question oh, I've just noticed that I was unable to say no to that person. I just felt myself saying yes. So come in with an insight. I wonder where I was coded to say yes when I meant no, the curiosity of oneself, but tying it to a code, because people often say to me Karen, I have no idea why I just run through life like a robot.

Caroline:

You know, as we think, how many hundreds of thousands of thoughts go through our mind each day we are literally on repeat the subconscious mind. Just cleanse and repeat how many people drive from A to B and say and repeat how many people drive from A to B and say I don't know how I got here. So, if you think of day to day, we are living according to many patterns and codes that we are completely unaware of. But we wonder why our life's not working out for us, why we keep attracting the same toxic partners, why we're at war with our children, why you know your career is not working out, why we're at war with our children, why you know your career is not working out. There's a reason for that. But unless you excavate and look at the underlying code that's running under the surface that will affect every aspect of your life, your love life, your career then unless you decode it and rewrite it, nothing's going to change. So and what a beautiful place of empowerment.

Caroline:

Because people, because people say, oh, I can't change. Yes, you can, because if you know the secret to your code, you can unlock it. Look at it and go oh, that's not the truth, I've been living a lie and rewrite it. That's when your life will change. So the book is 15 codes and it's spelling out the code. There's some history of why we were coded that way, and then there's a truth. I wonder if that's not the way it is, but I've just been told it is, and I wonder if I've got the power to change it. And when you change the code, you change the code for the next generation, because you show up differently.

JD:

So very early in that piece and I again I want to dig a little bit deeper into this, but very in that piece you you said something that somewhat triggered me because, uh, particularly talk about young girls and you talk about compliance, um, and I I was, I'm a social media nut. I shouldn't be. It's wasting half my life, but I follow threads and so forth, and there was a thread that happened that I saw this week earlier, which was about a situation where a child was being told to hug their uncle and they said no, and it blew up and so forth, and there was all these people commenting on it saying, well, if my child refused to hug their uncle or their grandparents or whatever, I'd smack them or I'd be angry with them or whatever. And I was horrified by this and I think it is a code.

JD:

I think we set this expectation within families, for instance, that you will put yourself in those situations. But we also know with that within families, for instance, that you will, you know, put yourself in those situations. But we also know with that within families, so often the horrific things that happen to young girls often happen within family, with known people and family and friends and so forth and so, like I know, I don't know whether that fits into the 15 codes you're talking about or not, but I look at that notion of compliance with our young girls in particular and our boys, and what we do as parents and the harm that we can do by creating that sense that I don't want to do this but I have to because my parents say I have to beautiful and I love that you've used that uncle quote because I use that a lot.

Caroline:

And it's the same with father Christmas. How many children do you hear screaming being plonked on Father Christmas's knee because the family want pictures to send to grandma? How traumatizing it for a young child to be put on a stranger's knee and made to sit there despite the fact that they don't want to. So we can use both situations and it does fit into my book. I have a chapter on she who dared to say no, because often when we dared to say no, there would have been many consequences. Now let's just look at the uncle situation. Whether it's a girl or a boy, when they've been asked to sit on that person's knee, their body would have had a response before the mind catches up. So the body response was oh, that doesn't feel nice, I don't want to do that. And then the child says no. Now the parent at that moment in time is thinking about the effect on them as an adult if their child's not obedient. What does it look like from the parents? It's never about the child. It's like what do I look like as a bad parent? So, in order to preserve, to preserve their ego, it's like no, you do what you're told to do. An uncle gets a cuddle. So let's just imagine that this is a three-year-old girl. What then happens when she's six and someone says come and sit on my knee, and she gets a feeling and she sits anyway, and then she gets touched inappropriately. Now you think about the impact on her. She's already been trained, she's already said your no doesn't mean no when the adults know best. So she's left her body and she's not been able to have the ability to say how she feels. And little girls and boys as well.

Caroline:

What were we told about? No, it was defiant. How dare you? How dare you say no? So it was this authoritarian figure saying you're younger and smaller than me, you get to do as I say, you get to do as you're told. So the reason I talk into this a lot about what are we raising? We're raising children who do not then listen to their intuition, because the minute they want to say no, they've got a reminder of what no means punishment, humiliation, you have to do it anyway.

Caroline:

How does that then affect the adult woman? And I was that woman. I was the woman who was then in a situation, in a professional setting where I was sexually abused. And I asked myself where did I learn to go quiet, to appease somebody else, to say nothing? I've been trained. How many women and men are walking around in the world who have not been allowed to say no? Your child's no is sacred and if we stop seeing it as disobedience and defiance then we're going to start to change that generational cycle and allow them to have autonomy and choice. And again, let's ask with curiosity what would happen if I didn't get the father christmas photo like what this is about me? What would happen if I said to the uncle no, sorry, she doesn't want to sit on your lap, she doesn't like. That's the curious part with the adult. I've got to go on in now and feel my own disappointment or shame or humiliation. But that's the inner work, rather than projecting it on your child to be obedient to save your face yeah, I, you know.

JD:

It's interesting because, as a parent, uh, of three girls and a and a boy all adults now, of course, but as a parent, I'm, you know, I'm top of mind for me is how do I protect my kids from being molested? How do I protect them from being vulnerable? Um, and yet, it might be just as fundamental as respecting their no and empowering them to really own consent from childhood, from early childhood, to understand what consent is and to feel like they are empowered and authorised to give consent or not have consent. And you are correct, it's about saving face. It's not about the child at all.

JD:

When they're putting those predicaments, whether it be the hugs with relatives or the clothing they wear or the behavior that they have when there's guests in the house or whatever, it's almost always about how I look in front of those people, the guests and so forth, not about how the child feels or how the child looks. It's such a gosh. It's such an important message, I think, for any parent, particularly of young children, to really recognise the no, to believe your children have intuition, because I do believe little children have great intuition. I think they sense things. I think we lose the intuition as we get older, I think the children are much more aware of of the vibe of a situation or the or the unspoken situation. But to listen to that and respect that and treat it with, uh, with the authority of the child first I think it's interesting.

Caroline:

You say we lose it. We never lose it because that's our survival mechanism. What we do do is we stop listening to it. So we've layered it up with all of these beliefs and these codes, so it's always there. As I say, it's the first go-to and most of us are completely disconnected from our bodies. So it's not that it's not there. We don't feel it because of the disconnection.

JD:

Yeah.

Caroline:

I think a beautiful message that I would love to put out to the world is become curious with your child's. No, so, rather than seeing it as, um, as I say, defiance, what if you could say to the child oh only if we could just sit and chat about how you feel about that, because what you're going to do then is you're going to invite them into their body. You can invite them into going. Okay, my, my body is a signal and I'm going to trust that. So what is it about not wanting to sit on uncle's knee? And the child might just say, well, I just feel a bit weird around him, or I feel he might have a bit of a weird vibe. Okay, sweetheart, I guess what I used to do with my child I love the fact that you can trust your body.

Caroline:

I love, so celebrate it yeah and you know, here's a thing for the parent. Maybe it's not just saving face. What happened when they said no as a child? There could be a trigger as to the fallout for them. That's coming back up when they said no. But what a beautiful invitation to heal that and go okay. Now I'm triggered because when I said no, I may have got slapped that and go okay. Now I'm triggered because when I said no, I may have got slapped whatever. But, darling, what is it about your no? Let's, let's, let's, let's get more deeply into this and allow that child to have their own authority. Because we're going to raise children who are walking, wounded, vulnerable adults who just pray because, as we know, predators can read, they know which ones have got no boundaries, they've abandoned themselves. We can tell. Even it's down to you know, a little comment, a little inappropriate comments. The one who hasn't got a boundary will just laugh it off and go.

JD:

Meanwhile, on their inside they're thinking that's deeply inappropriate, whereas the one who's had boundaries will say, hey, they'll call it out yes, you can see very clearly one who's in self-abandonment and one who's been taught boundaries yeah, I love that, and and uh, I was just talking to somebody about allyship earlier today, in fact, and and the distinction between you know, allyship isn't the person who has a set of beliefs, that allyship is the person who will vocalize those beliefs. And what you're doing, in what you're describing there, is that you are again empowering, uh, the child to to stand up for themselves, which is great. It's good that they've got the ability to say no for themselves, but it's also going to give them the ability to speak up for others where the others won't. That had the courage to be able to call out the bad behavior or step in.

JD:

In that situation where a friend is vulnerable, it horrifies me. I've read enough stories about young women, you know, who were victimized in hotel environments, for instance, who were there with girlfriends who did nothing to step in and support them. And I think it's it's this notion of compliance and conformity that makes people uncomfortable to to step in, um, even with their own gang, basically their own group of people. There's this fear that I'm going to look like an idiot if I get myself involved in this. Well, gosh, you better be comfortable feeling like an idiot. Stepping into that. That's not idiocy.

Caroline:

That's doing the right thing completely and you let's use that situation where there's a group, a peer group, and then something inappropriate happens and nobody has that person's back. Well, let's say that's the code of silence yeah where have you all learned that stepping forward and having a voice and having someone's back is going to cost you something? So let's, when I come from a place of compassion is what if we could all be curious?

Caroline:

yeah around our behavior. I wonder why I didn't have the courage to step in and have my friends back. I mean, we talk about, you know, the blokes down at the pub and the mate says he's having an affair, and it was like, oh, hang on a minute here. At what point do we all stop for a moment and say this is actually inappropriate and is our friend and if we love him enough as a friend, loving someone is actually also challenging their behavior. And it's just. It could be something simple as hey, mate, what's going on for you? Because that's not appropriate behavior, whereas no, it's just. It could be something simple as hey, mate, what's going on for you? Because that's not appropriate behavior, whereas no, it's like oh no, that's not what blokes do, blokes don't. Let's just go along with each other. In order to change the collective, we all need to start taking personal responsibility for ourselves and for what we're seeing on the outside of us that we feel is deeply inappropriate 100.

JD:

Yeah, it's such a great message. So the good girl code, um, how can our listeners learn more about it? You know, how do you, how do you present that and and make it available?

Caroline:

well, I'm still writing the book, but I my work that I do is very much according to breaking down these codes. So there's lots of my social media. I post daily on my Facebook and Instagram and I'll just put little snippets out there, little tasters of stories, for people to read it and feel like that's part of them and understand it so they can go okay, well, maybe that's how I'm living my life, and then how do I rewrite it? So I do a? Okay, well, maybe that's how I'm living my life, and then how do I rewrite it? So I do a lot on social media. I do a lot of videos and stories. As I say, I'm writing the book. I am planning on setting up a YouTube channel. That is on the list of things to do.

JD:

But, yeah, this for me is it's generationally and I think, if we can just come from a place of curiosity and that's what my messages are on social media is just allowing you to go oh, I wonder, I wonder, okay well, I've been following you on social media for about a week now, since we had our first conversation, and I love your posts and I will include the links to your Facebook and Instagram accounts, as well as your, your own website, for the listeners there in our notes for today's show. But follow Caroline. There's some really, really great messages there and some really wholesome stuff and so forth. There's a concept that you talk about which is beyond the trauma understanding why we stay and how to set yourself free. We've kind of touched on some of that, but I think that's an area that you focus on specifically as an offering or or as a topic within your coaching programs. You want to elaborate on that for us, caroline?

Caroline:

yeah, well, I think it's sort of giving a framework to the language and lived experiences. Again, it's around inherited rules and codes to please, to prove, to achieve. So in the coaching I do, I do packages. So what we do is we go through a step-by-step to look at okay, we're actually going through an unlearning process and coming back to a place of belonging. So that's really that's the nature of my work, is to look at the invisible glue of trauma bonds that keeps us in unsafe relationships.

Caroline:

And you know, I said to a client yesterday you're not broken and she sort of collapsed into tears. I was like you've just been coded. When we look at it from that perspective, there's nothing wrong with us. It's like getting mad at your computer. That's just not working for you. Well, you'd go and do something about it, you'd go and get it fixed or you'd go and buy a new one. But with ourselves we just sit there and say, well, there's something wrong with me, there's not anything wrong with this. So the work that I do, it's really heartfelt, it comes from a place of love and compassion that you are perfect as you are. You just coded. And as the beautiful peter crone, one of my favorite quotes says people and circumstances come to show you why you're not free. So we're all walking around shackled to our past and my work is an invitation to undo the shackles and take a step towards freedom for yourself and for your children.

JD:

So I love the framing there. At the very beginning of my coaching journey, way back in 2014, as I said in the base camp session, one of the phrases that I came away from on that very, very first day was that all people are magnificent. Away from on that very, very first day, um was that all people are magnificent, and and it. It was obviously the beginning of a far more elaborate set of learning about people and so forth, but the inherent message there was you know, we all have magnificence as humans. There's no question about it, and courtesy of neuroplasticity or whatever you want to call it, all those things that we think are holding us back can change. Our ability to adapt and evolve and learn and reset our thinking patterns, our codes, is incredible. The human mind is remarkably able to change, and so I think it's such a strong message, and I certainly have similar conversations with people in my world as well. He'll say you know, I'm flawed because I can't do this or whatever, and I'm like. Yet you know or no, it's absolutely something that you can unlearn, reframe, you know, redefine about yourself. There's no question whatsoever. You have the capacity and the capability to unshackle yourself or remove those limiting beliefs and thoughts and be a different person tomorrow. Literally, quite quickly, you can change. It's incredible how much you can change. So that's great. I will again.

JD:

I'll share your website. I know that I'm following too to hear about your book when it releases. Maybe we'll have a follow-up episode once it's released and we can kind of go through it in more detail. I'd love to do that. Um, I guess I'm curious. You know, and I'm always curious about this, particularly, uh, with you focusing so much on women, and typically women who are in un, you know unthinkable circumstances that relate to men in particular. How do you stay balanced in terms of how you think about men? And you know, for the men listening to this episode, you know what's the message for them.

Caroline:

Well, firstly, I would like to say I'm raising four boys, so these boys that I'm raising are going to be the change in the cycle men who respect women. They know their mothers know, and I'll go on to in a second more about men, but I just want to add this in because it's a really appropriate time if you, as a woman, don't have boundaries around your children and your partner, how do your boys, when they're older, know what a woman's no is? This is really significant. It's only, as I've been unpicking recently again, more than what we're teaching. So it's important to say that this is not men versus women. Men are not the problem. To say that this is not men versus women, men are not the problem. We just need to understand that we're all part of some old conditioning, and I know that my four sons are essential to the change moving forward. So we need to unite, we need to come together and say how are we all going to change? How are we all going to work together as a team and not have a divide?

Caroline:

And I think if I was to give advice to a man, I would say get curious. Get curious with your woman and ask her what makes her feel safe. It's all about safety and honour her answer Same with the children. Honour her, no, and get curious. Get curious about why she feels unsafe and not making it about you, because if she feels unsafe in a dynamic with you, she's reliving something from her past. That's why she's chosen you. So it's an ability for two people to come together and heal what am I doing as a man that doesn't make you feel safe and what are you reminded of your past with me? So we can come together and we can heal this. So, respecting boundaries, men, be accountable. Own your mistakes. It doesn't mean to say that you are flawed Again. You're just coded. You've got an option here to make a change and I would say emotional safety is huge for a woman. Partnership and it's teamwork and when men come forward and join the women in breaking silence and breaking these codes we all win.

JD:

That's so powerful for me and and I'm going to share transparently a little bit here um, when, when the me too thing happened again, as a parent of three girls, you know, I think I try to be a good man, but I was one of those not all men people I definitely reacted badly to the Me Too thing and mostly because the way it was received by me, perceived by me and by many men, was you've painted us all with the same brush. We're all evil, uh, and and I I had conversations with my wife and my daughters about, like you know, why do I have to feel guilty for the behavior of some other guy? Um, you know what? Why is this my problem? And so I, I I definitely was in that racket of, of defensiveness and so forth. I got over it and I think the learning for me goes back to allyship and the point that you've already made, which is, well, I am part of that wicket. If I'm not speaking up, if I'm, even, if I'm not doing evil things as a man, if I'm observing and not speaking up and defending and correcting and teaching by my behavior, then I'm complicit in the situation.

JD:

But I do recall during that period, you know, being in the working environment that I was in, you know, if I was in an elevator full of women, I felt like the evil person in the elevator.

JD:

There was a period of time there where the Me Too thing was quite vibrant. As a man you felt quite attacked and going back to, I guess, the vulnerability thing, it was then that ability to have the wisdom to go like stop that, stop thinking that way, recognize that it is your responsibility to be curious and to be vocal and I think if I was going to give a message to men, that'd be my message is that when you see women who speak out about how they're treated by men, don't be defensive like really be curious about the circumstances there and then think about what you can say and do, how you can be the person um in in the groups that you hang around with. That is providing value, is providing uh, support, so that women don't feel that way, so that women don't feel like you are the threat and absolutely I love that and I love your honesty in stepping forward and saying that there was a lot of triggers.

Caroline:

But the thing is, we want people to be triggered because that's where we can bathe that in curiosity and say, actually, I noticed that I'm affected here and, as you say, if you're a bystander to what's going on, then you're part of it too, you know. You know if anyone committed a crime and used to buy and watched it, you know, you're a bystander. So let's not be bystanders, let's we can all break the silence. Because I actually want to ask, in breaking the silence we're there are so many people who are harbouring secrets, harbouring secrets from their past whether it be down to abuse. What if it's a time to lift the lid on those secrets and step into our pure vulnerability, into our humanity, and bring these secrets to the surface and let's collectively come together, men and women, and say you know what? We can't do this separate. We need each other. We know that, I think that's the.

JD:

That's the real power of your message, though, and that's the thing I think, that that I'm I'm gravitating to is I? What I think I felt at the at the time of the me too campaign, was it was very, it was justified, but it was quite divisive. It became very much us and them, and I love the motion of the, the, that when you feel that reaction, when you feel that that spark in you that is triggered by the message, then the question is how do I become part of the team? You know, how do I actively become a participant in the process of making things better, as opposed to just defending myself, like park the defense, and think about how do I contribute? And I love that.

JD:

I think at times, men don't know how, and that was the question I asked a number of women at the time was like well, what do I do? Like what you know, if I want to do the right thing, what do I do? And what I learned from that? Well, what do I do? Like what you know, if I want to do the right thing, what do I do? And I, what I learned from that was what do I do is I speak and I act and I teach, and so, again, my message to men would be that's, that's what you want to be motivated to do is to behave in a way, to speak in a way and to, by your behavior and your speech, influence others.

Caroline:

And I love what you said about sort of almost not being on that the side that's been attacked. Maybe that's more of it. It's like I'm a good human being but I've also been now compartmentalized into a group of individuals that I'm not one of them, but I'm a part of them as a result of this movement. Yeah, so I can understand completely compassion, that like, oh like. I feel like I'm being now attacked by everybody.

Caroline:

But the thing is when, when it comes to having a movement, when cages need to be rattled in order for change to occur, and sadly, when I was sexually assaulted in november, my eldest son at the time would have been 18. And he said to me his head was hung low and he said you know what mom makes me embarrassed to be a man in the world at this time? I was mortified. So it's a similar conversation is my son saw me going through a sexual assault by someone who had no access to those parts of my body, no consent, but he was taking on the responsibility that how ashamed I am to be a man, that other men are doing this and I'm part of that group.

JD:

And so relatable, by the way. I have walked in his moccasins again, mostly on social media, because I see things that men say and and do on social media and I'm like I just don't want to be a part of that gang. It's just like it's. It's an embarrassment to be a part of that that group. Again, I think there is positive progress in many areas there, but we've got a long way to go and it's courtesy of the good work that people like yourself are doing that we're going to get there. So with that, I wanted to give you a chance to tell us about the, the business that you've established now, what you've made, um, your, your enterprise and and uh, what you do and how people can take advantage of all the good wisdom and experience that you've got yeah, well, I, I mean my writing is a big part of my offering to the world.

Caroline:

I've, I've I've done a lot of blog, posting a lot of stories. The intention is to obviously release the book, but for me it's, it's the message around generational trauma and consent. That is where my passion lies and the little micro changes we can make. So my bigger goal is to do more public speaking, um, to to just to get the message as far and wide as I can, um, and just to encourage people to delve into the work on themselves. And even if it's just coming along and listening to a free masterclass I run a lot of free masterclasses to reach out, to start to read my work. It's those micro movements forward. And I say to clients, rather than looking six to 12 months ahead and wanting certainty, what's the next right move for you moving forward? So for anyone out there who is on the precipice of change, who is just wanting to dip their toes into the work just to see what it's like then, reach out Starts with just one phone call, one connection, one message, and that could change the rest of your life fabulous.

JD:

No, I love that and and, as I said, I will include ways to contact caroline in the notes for the show um, there's a set of questions I go through with all of my uh, my guests and I want to go through those with you now that, um, if you could go back to kind of the beginning of this journey, with all the wisdom and experience you have today and all the learning that you've had, what's the conversation you're having with yourself?

Caroline:

I think I would speak to the younger version of myself and saying you don't have to prove yourself, you don't need to go through life proving your worth. You're already enough. Go through life proving your worth, you're already enough. And reminding her that the voice that she's silenced for 50 years will one day become her greatest gift.

JD:

I love that, I love that and you're doing it. I mean, that's the fantastic thing you're, you're changing lives today, um, and so that's I'm so glad. You found your voice and your mission. That goes with that. Who's been the most influential person on your way? Who do you model?

Caroline:

I love the work of Dr Shefali. I've done one of her courses, the Conscious Parenting, which ties into breaking the generational trauma. Peter Crone I love his work. He's extremely articulate and it's very simple and again he's got such a huge heart. And Dr Gabor Mate. So I've studied under him for a year and I think his work is phenomenal. I know he's again, it's all about generational trauma and compassion. So they've all shaped my mission in some way.

JD:

Yeah, I'll make sure I include some links there in terms of those folks as well. Maybe an odd question, but it's one I'm asking all of my guests now because it's so topical Artificial intelligence how does that play into your world? Or does it play into your world, or do you see it playing into your world?

Caroline:

Yeah, well, I think for me, ai has probably speeded a lot of things up in the sense that you can very quickly create um. You can, you know, you can put in um your voice, your messages and get a framework put together very quickly. But what I would say with ai is it doesn't replace face-to-face connection. So, interestingly enough, a lot of people say I don't need to go and see a coach, I've got AI, I just type it all in. Well, let's think about AI. It is here to please you, so it's always going to give you what you need to hear right, so you're not going to have that other person challenging you. It's going to want to love upon you and make you feel special. So I think ai is a great tool to reach more people, but I would say it's not a substitute for human connection, for coaching, for therapy, moving forward I.

JD:

I couldn't agree more on it. There's so much information coming out right now. I think people forget the fact that AI is algorithms. It's just algorithms. It's really all it is right now. It's intelligent algorithms, but it's algorithms and information, and I think the human aspect is always going to be essential, particularly when we're dealing with well-being and growth and development. It's going to be a critical thing. Yeah, it's going to be interesting to see how it plays out. I'm with you.

JD:

You know AI is my personal assistant and so a lot of the fiddly stuff and the research stuff and so forth I kind of outsource to AI tools, but it is garbage in, garbage out. You kind of see, in the data that you get back through, ai is reliable and so you do have to do the legwork to vet it and so forth. It'll be interesting. I think you know, as I talk to coaches and my own coaching experience, so many of the coaches that I've learned with and worked with suck at the admin. They suck at the marketing. What they really want to do is work with people, and so, from my perspective, if AI can take over that laborious stuff, let me focus on on working and collaborating.

Caroline:

That will make me very happy, so it sounds like you're probably in the same mindset yeah, for sure, I think you can ask it advice, but just be aware the advice it's giving you in return, particularly it comes to diagnosis of things. So, just do your like you say you can use it for a PA, but take it with a grain of salt, but also know that that's not. You know it's, it's. It's not always correct. It's going to give you what you want to hear and it might feel soothing at the time. But, yeah, do your. You do diligence, I think with with ai, but great time saving. It does allow us then to spend the time where we are most gifted, which is in this, in this space, and not so much with admin yeah, makes sense.

JD:

If you could only read one book for the rest of your life, or listen to one book, what would it be?

Caroline:

I think one of my favorite books was, um, the courage to be disliked. I picked up that book, I think, when I was going overseas to Dubai for my 50th birthday, and I loved the, how the book was written, with the philosopher and the boy, and I think it ties very much into my mission about freedom to live authentically and also the courage to be disliked. We walk around really searching for validation and acceptance, whereas this book flips that. How can you be authentic and have freedom and also understand that you're not always going to be liked by everyone?

JD:

It ties back so perfectly to so much of the conversation we've had today. I've not read it. It's on my list now. I listen to most of my books don't read. I can't keep awake at night now, but I listen to books in the car and it'll be one I'm going to add to my list, I'm sure.

Caroline:

Well, there's a beautiful quote that I heard many years ago that really changed my life, and it said it's none of your business what other people think of you. So it's a beautiful reminder. When you can ruminate over what somebody said, it's like, oh my God, they don't like me. And then you just pause for a moment and say it's actually none of my business, because there could be hundreds of people in the world talking about you. If you don't know about it, that it won't bother you. But the minute you find out, you go oh no, but it's none of my business, and then we can just let it go because we're always enough I love that.

JD:

I love that and, by the way, sometimes knowing what people think about you is the worst thing in the world, anyway. Um, yeah, I could do it. Do without it. Yeah, um, is there a ritual or a hack or a habit that you've adopted that's had a significant impact for you, particularly, you know, on your effectiveness or whatever, something that you do every day or every week?

Caroline:

Oh for sure. So I've got a sauna, an ice bath, and I do that daily. I've just moved house so I've gone a bit out of my ice bath in, but for me that's a self-care routine. And when you think of a single mother, again, it's a message to my children mum's going to go and have her little ritual now, showing them the importance of self-care for me. So I saw her in ice bath and it's a beautiful way to come back into that homeostasis and really allow the nervous system to recalibrate. It's beautiful. And what's so interesting about the ice bath is when you're getting in, listening to the thoughts that you tell yourself I can't do this, I'm gonna die. This is horrible. I was like, wow, when we are quiet enough to actually hear the piercing screams of the voice that goes on inside our head, I was like, oh my goodness, that's on all the time, but I can actually hear it very loudly.

JD:

I physically shuddered when you said that I've not done it. It may be an experience. I have to try.

Caroline:

Yeah, well, I mean, it's a challenge as well. I hate the cold again, but that's a belief system, isn't it? I've got a belief system that I hate the cold. It's not going to kill me. So when we talk about challenging ourselves, it's just something else that I can throw out there and have the courage to move through it and come out the other side and I'm alive.

JD:

Look and have the courage to move through it and come out the other side and I'm alive. Look, there's something powerful about putting yourself in a position where you don't have control, and I think it's part of that right, that whole meditative state that comes out of breaking your comfort, getting out of your comfort, and I think there are different ways to achieve that, but I can imagine the ice bath is a perfect way to do that, and I've also got to think that the transition from the ice bath to the sauna has to feel so damn good to be warm again it's amazing.

Caroline:

Yes, it's beautiful and I think if we have a ritual each day I do a lot of yoga because we need to get it back inside our body. We're often in our mind, we're chasing external things, that instant gratification, social media, so this gives you a break to actually feel. Feel your feelings, sit with yourself and not need to keep escaping, which is we have a society of very disconnected people who are outsourcing because they don't want to go inside or they're not being shown it's safe in there.

Caroline:

So we'll externalise, so that ritual gives me that opportunity beautifully.

JD:

And the fact that you do it every day, I think, is that consistency is powerful as well. It's interesting we are all escaping. Every time I see an ad for Gogglebox, I'm like people are watching other people's lounge rooms. It's kind of the worst possible example of escapism when I've got to watch somebody else watching television. It always cracks me up, it winds me up that way. I've got two questions that kind of go back to back and one of them is you know, where do you get your superpowers If you know that you have a particularly challenging situation or a conversation you have to have or a decision you have to make and you need that extra courage, extra strength, extra vitality? Where do you get that?

Caroline:

yeah, well, I think it's just coming again back into the body, because if we're facing a challenging situation and we feel that we can't do it, then I just ask myself oh's interesting, I'm just running another code. Breathwork is beautiful. I do a lot of breathwork. I'm a trained breathwork facilitator. So just sitting with self and clearing and breathing and connecting back into the body, there's no other place to be. There's nothing outside of me that is going to calm me down when I'm feeling stressed or nervous. It's knowing that in here is my safety net, is my safe place, and then just doing some little affirmations and self-talk, mothering myself.

JD:

I love that you mentioned breathing. I'm 100% with you and I'm an inconsistent meditator but I do. But early in my coaching journey I learned Harkalau, which is basically balanced breathing, so six in, six out, and then focusing on a point in the wall and then looking at peripheral vision. It's very simple but I gravitate to it to teach people because it's something you can do in 30 seconds and nobody can see you doing it. And I have found that, you know, early in my coaching days, when I was about to go on a call with a client and I was less confident as a coach, I would literally do a minute of that kind of Harkalau prep for the call. And it was game changing in terms of my mental state as I began those calls and it kind of acted as a clearinghouse.

JD:

But where I used it heavily with people it was quite effective was people have to speak in front of crowds and for some people, speaking in front of a crowd's worse than having a root canal it's like they're so and I found that by teaching them again breathing, balanced breathing and focus, I could finally change their state as they walked on stage. It's quite remarkable the impact it can have. So I saw that you have your qualifications in in the breathing space and that you use it and I think it's it's incredibly powerful. It's really useful to have that um as a strength. Where can people learn more about? About breathing? Where would you send people?

Caroline:

well, before I give you, um, my opinion on that, I'd love to just show you something that I created which was really simple, which actually brings in breath, work and curiosity, and it's a grounding exercise that just takes a few seconds. So when you're feeling, if you say, a mother and their child's acting out, and you can feel yourself escalating rather than react, it's called feet, breath truth. So you ground your feet and you're like, I feel your feet on the ground. What's the texture? You know, feeling that you're held by mother earth. And then you come to your breath and it might be the box breathing. It might just be inhale and exhale five or six times and then ask yourself the truth, what is happening for me right now, in this moment? So I thought I'd just introduce that because it's a beautiful little recalibration exercise rather than reacting. Because it's a beautiful little recalibration exercise, rather than reacting, as we know, is coming from a place of not taking responsibility to then we go into reactive mode. So that's a great little hack for anyone who just wants to reconnect.

Caroline:

Look, I think, when it comes to breathing, I mean, look, I followed a lot of Wim Hof. There's heaps of stuff on YouTube, I feel, when you want to try something new. We are just saturated with places to go and most of us just breathe. Especially when we're in survival mode, we don't the breath. I remember my breathwork teacher saying to me Caroline, you hold your breath, but your breath is your abundance. And I was like wow. So he said imagine you hold your breath but your breath is your abundance. And I was like wow. So he said, imagine if you're just holding on, it's not flowing, nothing's flowing through your body. So noticing again, becoming curious do I breathe properly? Do I hold my breath a lot? Where did I learn to hold my breath? As a little girl when things got stressful? I've done learn to hold my breath as a little girl when things got stressful. The doorway to curiosity is always open. We've just got to step through it the breathing thing's interesting too.

JD:

I I'm in a musical theater family and and as part of that, I'm a singer myself, and one of the things that you fundamentally learn there is a complete change of breathing, and it's stomach breathing, or whatever you want to call it, but you're breathing down and low in the diaphragm, which is, I think, what you're talking about, is that notion of getting away from shallow breathing and actually going full breath, and it's incredibly powerful how that changes your state. I'm a part of a rainbow choir Now. We get together every Wednesday night and we start by breathing, and it's just the breathing part makes you feel better in yourself. So it is incredibly powerful. I love that gift you just gave us too, and I think back to that scenario you were talking about with your two angry men. Um, in that situation. If each of them had just taken a moment and had a breath, um in that, in that way, how different that conversation might have been remarkable and imagine if every parent can teach this to their children.

Caroline:

They're in a situation in the playground. They can just know it's a self-healing tool. It's a self-soothing technique that maybe we didn't have parents to soothe as a child. So once we create our own rituals, we can actually walk out into the world a different person. We're not reacting, we're not looking for places to find that we're not good enough. We're actually going out there and knowing that my state of being can affect someone else's state of being yeah, exactly, it's remarkable.

JD:

Um, and you want to get to a point where it becomes instinctual that it's a situation. You just naturally do it. So let me flip things on their head. Um, what's your kryptonite? You know? What is it that will take the energy out of you? Um, and and what do you do about it?

Caroline:

I think my yeah. I think falling back into self-abandonment and people-pleasing is a big one for me, particularly working in this area. Caroline, I need you to help me. Caroline, I've got need some advice so really recognizing when I'm falling into that self-abandonment and wanting to rescue everybody. I think my fuel is my freedom. It's my children and getting feedback from women who say you changed my life, and I would say every single and I have worked with men. I can work with men, it's not necessarily just work with women but when people say to you a man said to me in particular, I've had 35 years of a nightmare every night going to bed and waking up, and he said working with you, I don't wake up anymore, having that nightmare when you're changing people's lives and what could be just one session and giving them the freedom.

Caroline:

That's my fuel to keep going and that fuels the mission. And then the mission gets bigger and wider and stronger. And then, before we know it, the children are not carrying your baggage. It's not the next generation who are having to come into the psychologist appointment in 30 years time telling the same story that you've been telling your psychologist. That's what I say. If you don't do anything about it, your children are just going to come and say the same story to you. You're going to go. Oh my goodness, if only I would have taken the plunge 30 years ago. That's the fuel to see these little beautiful beans who don't have to carry the stuff that was never meant for them that's absolutely beautiful.

JD:

I love that. Um, you've had used a couple of quotes good quotes in the in the session, um, but is there another quote or is there a quote that you think you'd like to share with the listeners?

Caroline:

that's had an impact on you well, definitely the one for peter cry when he said the people and circumstances show you when you're not free. I think a mayo angelo quote is a one that stuck with me for many years. When someone shows you who they are the first time, believe them.

JD:

Yeah, yeah, I think that's an awesome one. Yeah, I love it. Well, look, this has been a great conversation. I knew it was going to be.

JD:

When I first met you, I was blown away and, as I said, aidan Grimes, who had recommended that we talk, just spoke so highly of you. But the work that you're doing is important work and it's good work and I'm so glad we had an opportunity to talk, and I'm quite serious about the fact that I'd love to get you back once your book's out and talk through the codes. I think we could probably dedicate a whole episode to walking through the codes and talking about those as well, but it's been tremendous. I will include the links that I've talked about here as well for the listeners, so that you've got those, but I wish you every success with your mission. I think it's such an incredibly valuable mission and I will continue to stalk you and learn from you and really take the inspiration that you give every day. I think it's quite remarkable. Listeners, if you do nothing else, follow Caroline on Instagram or Facebook, because her posts are incredible and meaningful and relevant and so forth, so get involved in those.

Caroline:

Thank you so much, John. I appreciate your time. It's been a pleasure.

JD:

Thank you listeners Again. I appreciate your time. It's been a pleasure. Thank you, listeners Again. I appreciate you joining. I welcome any questions or feedback that you've got on the podcast and I look forward to sharing with you again next week. Wherever you are, I hope you're living your best life. Please be good to each other, thank you.

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