Grow Yourself Up

In this rich and wide ranging episode Cath is joined by Dr Arielle Schwartz. We discussed Arielle's path to motherhood, mother wounds in her matrilineal line and how this impacted her childhood, ambivalence in motherhood, complex trauma, nervous system healing, vagal toning and much much more. This episode is woven with rich storytelling crossing multiple generations and offers so much hope to all of us on our own healing journeys.

Dr. Arielle Schwartz is a clinical psychologist and leading voice in the healing of trauma. She is an internationally sought-out teacher and author of seven books including The Complex PTSD Workbook, The Post-Traumatic Growth Guidebook, EMDR Therapy and Somatic Psychology, and Applied Polyvagal Theory in Yoga. As the founder of the Center for Resilience Informed Therapy, she offers a mind-body approach to therapy for trauma and informational mental health and wellness updates through her writing, public speaking, social media presence, and blog. She believes that the journey of trauma recovery is an awakening of the spiritual heart.

Learn more at www.drarielleschwartz.com. 

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In this loving and practical episode Cath responds to a listener question about how to manage generational clashes around the approach to dealing with emotions and how to start conversations around this. She reads the listener's letter and looks at the query from multiple points of view.

Cath addresses common contexts in terms of generational patterns/clashes, points out how much new information we have these days, she addresses perfectionism, anxiety and control, different approaches we might take to addressing this, and she makes some practical suggestions to support intergenerational relationships.

Cath speaks about parenting as gardening and uses this analogy to provide comfort and a useful framework to hold in mind as we work on shifting/breaking cycles in our families.

The book Cath reads from is called 'The Gardener and the Carpenter' by Alison Gopnik.

The 'Brene Brown' TED talk can be found here: https://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_the_power_of_vulnerability

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To sign up for the journal prompts and Nurture.Heal.Grow (on Substack) please head to www.cathcounihan.com or @cathcounihan on Instagram. 

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In this episode Cath speaks more about earned secure attachment, infant attachment and its relationship to adult attachment and how we can shift our patterns. There is always hope to shift our attachment patterns and internal working models is relating and Cath speaks about therapy and important ideas to keep in mind when hoping to shift to a more secure way of operating.

If you're enjoying this podcast. Please leave a review and rate the podcast, this really helps others to find it.

To sign up for the journal prompts and Nurture.Heal.Grow (on Substack) please head to www.cathcounihan.com or @cathcounihan on Instagram. 

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In this episode Cath starts to speak about some of the key points of attachment theory, why this is important for us as adults and starting to cultivate a sense of being fully self supporting of ourselves. With Reparenting we are working to cultivate a relationship with all our selves and to tend gently to these parts. She uses an example of a boundary from her own life to demonstrate self protection (even if others disagree).

If you're enjoying this podcast. Please leave a review and rate the podcast, this really helps others to find it.

To sign up for the journal prompts and Nurture.Heal.Grow (on Substack) please head to www.cathcounihan.com or @cathcounihan on Instagram. 

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In this episode Cath talks about how many of us go into peak fantasy at this time of year and set ourselves up to have a tricky time. She talks about getting clear about what your fantasy is and to notice that and stop comparing to it.

Cath talks about planning ahead to set your family up for success in the holiday time and what that might look like. She also talks about stress responses, recognising these and how you might support the various stress responses. 

We will be back on Tuesday 6th Jan 2026.

The workshop mentioned in the podcast both last week and this week, can be found here: www.cathcounihan.com/triggers-workshop

If you're enjoying this podcast. Please leave a review and rate the podcast, this really helps others to find it.

To sign up for the journal prompts and Nurture.Heal.Grow (on Substack) please head to www.cathcounihan.com or @cathcounihan on Instagram. 

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In this episode Cath reflects on how rage may be one of the most common experiences in motherhood (particularly if we have had childhood trauma). She speaks about getting to know our own rage, the shame we might feel and how that might derail us and trying to understand what our rage might be protecting us from. She uses one of the books she talked about last week to springboard into this conversation and highlights psychological patterns by telling a couple of anecdotes.

The workshop mentioned in the podcast, can be found here: www.cathcounihan.com/triggers-workshop

If you're enjoying this podcast. Please leave a review and rate the podcast, this really helps others to find it.

To sign up for the journal prompts and Nurture.Heal.Grow (on Substack) please head to www.cathcounihan.com or @cathcounihan on Instagram. 

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Therapy is necessary for many of us as we heal from childhood trauma and therapy is typically 1 hour a week. That leaves 167 other hours where we may be depressed, anxious, spinning out, criticising ourselves, living in fear or stressed about our own emotions. In this episode Cath shares some of the books that have helped her move from living in fear, books that have helped dealing with grief, despair, relationship patterns and books that have helped with compassion, understanding addiction and more. This episode contains personal stories from Cath to illustrate these points.

Cath also talks about mirroring and containment and how many of us have to learn to do this for ourselves when we have not had this sufficiently done in childhood. Let us know if you would like more episodes like this.

If you're enjoying this podcast. Please leave a review and rate the podcast, this really helps others to find it.

To sign up for the journal prompts and Nurture.Heal.Grow (on Substack) please head to www.cathcounihan.com or @cathcounihan on Instagram. 

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In episode 151 Cath was joined by Kimberley Olliff-Cooper. They talked about progressive education, neurodivergence, realising how this impacted our own school experience, the possibility for changing schools and making them more fit for children, healing and growing in motherhood and understanding emotional unavailability, trauma and addiction. We also talked about changing educational systems and the exciting work ThriveNow is doing. 

Kimberley is a teacher, education consultant, speaker, and co-founder of ThriveNow, a not-for-profit organisation opening a progressive secondary school in September 2026, alongside a Learning Hub designed to share all the assets of the ThriveNow Framework.

With a Master’s in Education and over 25 years’ experience in student-centred learning, Kimberley believes that schools should be places of wellbeing, creativity, and deep human and planetary connection.

Through ThriveNow, she collaborates with schools and organisations around the world to co-create inclusive, inquiry-led, and climate-conscious learning environments. Her work centres on four key pillars: thriving communities, inquiry-led pedagogy, transdisciplinary curriculum, and multi-modal formative assessment.

Website: https://thrive-now-org.webflow.io/

Substack: https://thrivenowedu.substack.com/

Meta handles: @thrivenoweducation

Linkedin (personal), Kimberley Olliff Cooper: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kocooper/

Linkedin (ThriveNow): https://www.linkedin.com/company/thrivenoweducation 

If you're enjoying this podcast. Please leave a review and rate the podcast, this really helps others to find it.

To sign up for the journal prompts and Nurture.Heal.Grow (on Substack) please head to www.cathcounihan.com or @cathcounihan on Instagram. 

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Cath was joined by art psychotherapist Gerardine Boyle in this episode. Cath and Gerardine talked about how generational trauma impacts families, the legacy of emotional neglect, what is unspoken, shame and the complexity of unwinding functional freeze in the system. Gerardine generously shared her own stories of generational trauma and what she believes has impacted her on her journey. We talked briefly about primitive reflexes and how the retention of these can be extremely impactful for nervous system and mental health. 

Gerardine Boyle is an Art Psychotherapist who has worked for over twenty years in Adult Psychiatry in the HSE (health service in Ireland) and in private practice. She is also trained in the Diamond Approach, the Hearing Voices Approach and she was part of a specialised HSE team delivering Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) for seven years, supporting individuals with high levels of emotional dysregulation. Gerardine trained as a Transforming Touch Practitioner with Dr Stephen Terrell world expert in working with developmental trauma at the first training workshop in Ireland (in Cork in 2019) and this training has been life-changing for her and her clients. She continues to marvel at how supporting the nervous system powerfully lends itself to healing on all levels. Supporting the nervous system means the client, over time gets to know and trust their own nervous system better and shame is addressed on a somatic level. 

Gerardine's website is https://morninglighttherapy.ie/

She works in person and offers intensives, which is multiple therapy sessions over a number of days (with client staying locally in east Cork, Ireland). She also delivers the therapy on line via zoom as well.

The link to the training in Dublin with Dr Stephen Terrell is, https://www.austinattach.com/transforming-the-experience-based-brain/dublin-ireland/ and this training welcomes parents, therapists and individuals on their own healing journey.

If you're enjoying this podcast. Please leave a review and rate the podcast, this really helps others to find it.

To sign up for the journal prompts and Nurture.Heal.Grow (on Substack) please head to www.cathcounihan.com or @cathcounihan on Instagram. 

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In episode 149 Cath was joined by Suzy Reading. Cath and Suzy talked about tending to ourselves in winter, making the most of the seasons while holding onto sanity, people pleasing, what Suzy means when she talks about being selfish and all about self advocacy. Suzy talks about her 7 steps to taking back your power and peace and you can find much more detail about this in Suzy's newest book 'How to be Selfish' which releases on the 20th of November 2025.

Suzy Reading is a Chartered Psychologist and one of the UK’s leading self-care and self-advocacy experts. She has three decades of experience in the health and wellbeing industry, drawing on her qualifications in yoga and personal training, together with psychology, to empower people with sustainable healthy lifestyle habits. Suzy has a special interest in helping people heal their relationship with ‘self’. She is a monthly columnist for Top Sante Magazine; the Psychology Expert for Neom Organics; the Wellbeing Ambassador for BABTAC and is a founding member of the ‘Nourish’ app. She is the author of The Little Book of Self-Care, The Self-Care Revolution, Stand Tall Like a Mountain, Self-care for Tough Times, This Book Will (Help) Make You Happy, And Breathe, Sit to Get Fit, Rest to Reset and Self-care for Winter. How to Be Selfish is hot of the press.

If you wish to follow Suzy, she's on Instagram @suzyreading

If you're enjoying this podcast. Please leave a review and rate the podcast, this really helps others to find it.

To sign up for the journal prompts and Nurture.Heal.Grow (on Substack) please head to www.cathcounihan.com or @cathcounihan on Instagram. 

Follow Cath on social media here:

Instagram: @cathcounihan

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