Are you drowning in conflicting health advice, trends and opinions?

In this episode, Carly explores what it really means to trust yourself more than any plan, programme, or process, inspired by a powerful post from a former client, the Barbie movie, and and Indigo Girls song.

She also explores how strength training and Breathwork are doorways to self-knowledge, and why midlife (and perimenopause especially) is a profound invitation to finally stop looking outside yourself for answers.

This one is for every woman who's followed all the rules and still felt like something was missing.

🎧 Listen now and discover the Embodied Strength Profile at carlykillen.com

Rooted in Presence is hosted by Carly Killen, Breathwork facilitator, strength coach and menopause coach based in Hull, East Yorkshire, and founder of Still Space Hull.

The song I referenced: Closer to Fine, Indigo Girls

Thanks for listening to Rooted In Presence

If you’d like to get in touch with a question about today’s episode or find out how I can support you with coaching, here’s how to reach me:
📧 Email: [email protected]
📱 Instagram: @thestrongbonescoach

Do you crave unshakable confidence in your strength from midlife and beyond? Would you love to achieve your goals without sacrificing family time or self-care?

Ready to take your strength to the next level? Start building a stronger body and healthier bones with my Strong Bones Starter Kit; your step-by-step guide to safe and effective strength training at home.
👉 Click here to learn more and access today

🌟 Stay connected and inspired with daily wellness tips on Instagram @thestrongbonescoach.
🌟 For tailored advice or personal queries, email me at [email protected]

Thank you for being here, and I look forward to supporting you on your journey to strength, health, and confidence! 💪🦴✨

Are you losing bone when you can’t do as much? 

It’s the question Carly left hanging at the end of part two and this week she answers it. 

In the final episode of the Lead With Your Bones series, Carly goes wider. 

Nutrition, stress, sleep, breath, circulation, and the emotional landscape that either nourishes or depletes your skeleton over time. 

Because bone health isn’t just about what you lift. It’s how you live.

She explains why cortisol, the stress hormone so many midlife women are swimming in, directly suppresses bone building and why sleep is a bone health intervention. Why breathwork lowers cortisol. And why the things we do to manage stress are also, quietly, things we do for our bones.

Topics covered:

→ The honest answer to ‘am I losing bone during a hard season’  and why it’s more hopeful than you think

→ Cortisol and bone loss, the direct, evidence-based connection most women have never been told

→ Why sleep is a bone health intervention

→ How breathwork supports your skeleton; the science, not just the experience

→ Nutrition for bone health beyond calcium

→ The bare minimum for your bones when life is hard

Series finale. Find Carly at Still Space Hull  book a free breathwork discovery call or an Embodied Strength Profile Assessment, online or in person carlykillen.com

Thanks for listening to Rooted In Presence

If you’d like to get in touch with a question about today’s episode or find out how I can support you with coaching, here’s how to reach me:
📧 Email: [email protected]
📱 Instagram: @thestrongbonescoach

Do you crave unshakable confidence in your strength from midlife and beyond? Would you love to achieve your goals without sacrificing family time or self-care?

Ready to take your strength to the next level? Start building a stronger body and healthier bones with my Strong Bones Starter Kit; your step-by-step guide to safe and effective strength training at home.
👉 Click here to learn more and access today

🌟 Stay connected and inspired with daily wellness tips on Instagram @thestrongbonescoach.
🌟 For tailored advice or personal queries, email me at [email protected]

Thank you for being here, and I look forward to supporting you on your journey to strength, health, and confidence! 💪🦴✨

What does a decade working in an NHS hospital have to do with why you should be lifting weights?

In part two of the Lead With Your Bones series, Carly draws on ten years as a clinical dietitian to explain why the patients who came in with more muscle on their bodies consistently did better.

Because building bone and muscle isn’t about aesthetics. It’s about reserves. It’s about having a foundation to fall back on when life throws something at you, illness, surgery, grief, burnout, the relentlessness of midlife. Your bone bank and your muscle bank are the most practical investments in your future self you can make right now.

In this episode Carly explains exactly why mechanical load drives bone building, introduces the fascinating muscle-bone communication system including myokines, makes a clear case for why strength training is particularly important during and after menopause, and gives practical guidance on what actually counts, and how to begin.

Topics covered:

→ What Carly witnessed in a decade as an NHS dietitian and what it means for how you train now

→ Why mechanical load is the most important signal for bone building

→ The muscle-bone relationship, myokines, communication and why you can’t have one without the other

→ What counts as bone-loading exercise and what doesn’t

→ Why frequency matters more than intensity when you’re starting out

→ Why it is never too late to begin

Part 2 of the Lead With Your Bones series. Find Carly and book an Embodied Strength Profile Assessment at Still Space Hull  online and in person.

Thanks for listening to Rooted In Presence

If you’d like to get in touch with a question about today’s episode or find out how I can support you with coaching, here’s how to reach me:
📧 Email: [email protected]
📱 Instagram: @thestrongbonescoach

Do you crave unshakable confidence in your strength from midlife and beyond? Would you love to achieve your goals without sacrificing family time or self-care?

Ready to take your strength to the next level? Start building a stronger body and healthier bones with my Strong Bones Starter Kit; your step-by-step guide to safe and effective strength training at home.
👉 Click here to learn more and access today

🌟 Stay connected and inspired with daily wellness tips on Instagram @thestrongbonescoach.
🌟 For tailored advice or personal queries, email me at [email protected]

Thank you for being here, and I look forward to supporting you on your journey to strength, health, and confidence! 💪🦴✨

When you picture your bones, what do you see? Most of us imagine something rigid and inert, a coat hanger, a Halloween skeleton. Something that just hangs there in the dark while the rest of us gets on with living.

But that picture is wrong. 

And in this episode,the first of a three-part series called Lead With Your Bones, Carly is here to change it.

In this episode Carly explains the science of living bone in plain, language, including why oestrogen matters so much to bone health, what changes during perimenopause and menopause, and why one in two women over fifty in the UK will be affected by osteoporosis. 

She also shares a brief story of a client who went from spinal fractures and walking with two sticks to living freely and a beautiful, mythic moment drawn from Clarissa Pinkola Estés that captures the deeper philosophy of this work.

This is episode one of three. Come back next week for part two Lead With Your Bones — where we get practical about movement, strength and load.

Topics covered:

→ Why bones are living tissue, not inert scaffolding

→ Your bone’s maintenance crew explained simply

→ How oestrogen regulates bone remodelling and what changes at menopause

→ Emerging ideas around bones and your fascia

Thanks for listening to Rooted In Presence

If you’d like to get in touch with a question about today’s episode or find out how I can support you with coaching, here’s how to reach me:
📧 Email: [email protected]
📱 Instagram: @thestrongbonescoach

Do you crave unshakable confidence in your strength from midlife and beyond? Would you love to achieve your goals without sacrificing family time or self-care?

Ready to take your strength to the next level? Start building a stronger body and healthier bones with my Strong Bones Starter Kit; your step-by-step guide to safe and effective strength training at home.
👉 Click here to learn more and access today

🌟 Stay connected and inspired with daily wellness tips on Instagram @thestrongbonescoach.
🌟 For tailored advice or personal queries, email me at [email protected]

Thank you for being here, and I look forward to supporting you on your journey to strength, health, and confidence! 💪🦴✨

The clocks went forward last weekend. And the night before, Carly did something she does every year without thinking, she left her kitchen clock on the old time. Just as a quiet check. A way to hold both times at once while the world shifted overnight.

She couldn't help thinking... isn't that exactly what menopause feels like?

In this episode, Carly explores what it means to stay rooted in yourself when your body, your hormones, your sleep, your emotions and your sense of self are all quietly (or not so quietly) shifting. 

She talks about the two traps midlife women often fall into around identity and change, why the breath has been her most reliable constant through multiple hard seasons, and what it means to meet yourself with compassion when the version in the mirror feels unfamiliar.

This one is gentle and honest and grounded... for anyone who has ever woken up and thought: who am I now?

Thanks for listening to Rooted In Presence

If you’d like to get in touch with a question about today’s episode or find out how I can support you with coaching, here’s how to reach me:
📧 Email: [email protected]
📱 Instagram: @thestrongbonescoach

Do you crave unshakable confidence in your strength from midlife and beyond? Would you love to achieve your goals without sacrificing family time or self-care?

Ready to take your strength to the next level? Start building a stronger body and healthier bones with my Strong Bones Starter Kit; your step-by-step guide to safe and effective strength training at home.
👉 Click here to learn more and access today

🌟 Stay connected and inspired with daily wellness tips on Instagram @thestrongbonescoach.
🌟 For tailored advice or personal queries, email me at [email protected]

Thank you for being here, and I look forward to supporting you on your journey to strength, health, and confidence! 💪🦴✨

What if the small things you're already doing are quietly setting you up for the moments that matter most?

In this episode, Carly shares a client story that stopped her in her tracks this week and gets personal about  hospital, how a bare-bones approach to fitness kept her in the game through years of hospital visits and what happened when life gave her a bit of breathing space.

This episode is for you if you've ever looked at what you're managing and thought: is this even enough? Spoiler: it is. You're raising your floor.

Topics covered:

→ Why fitness should be about capacity for YOUR life, not someone else's standard

→ The bare minimum that kept Carly going through the hardest season of her life

→ The floor/ceiling reframe and why your consistent effort doesn't disappear

→ Finding your own 'big moment' and making it enough

If you'd like Carly's support creating a life on your own terms for those big moments, get in touch here: https://carlykillen.com/home

Thanks for listening to Rooted In Presence

If you’d like to get in touch with a question about today’s episode or find out how I can support you with coaching, here’s how to reach me:
📧 Email: [email protected]
📱 Instagram: @thestrongbonescoach

Do you crave unshakable confidence in your strength from midlife and beyond? Would you love to achieve your goals without sacrificing family time or self-care?

Ready to take your strength to the next level? Start building a stronger body and healthier bones with my Strong Bones Starter Kit; your step-by-step guide to safe and effective strength training at home.
👉 Click here to learn more and access today

🌟 Stay connected and inspired with daily wellness tips on Instagram @thestrongbonescoach.
🌟 For tailored advice or personal queries, email me at [email protected]

Thank you for being here, and I look forward to supporting you on your journey to strength, health, and confidence! 💪🦴✨

This week I did something a little outside my usual world I went to an aerial silks and hoop class. And what I didn't expect was how much it would bring up.

Body stuff. Beginner feelings. And for the first time in a long time... an unexpected thought about my age.

In this short personal episode I'm sharing what the experience taught me about showing up as a beginner and why I think it matters so much, especially when it comes to walking into any new space that asks you to be vulnerable. Whether that's an aerial class, a yoga studio, or a Breathwork session for the first time.

If you've ever hesitated at the door of something new this one's for you.

Curious about Breathwork... visit Still Space Hull to discover more

And shout out to Millie, Claire and Anna at Pole & Aerial for Fitness for supporting me in my first session.

Thanks for listening to Rooted In Presence

If you’d like to get in touch with a question about today’s episode or find out how I can support you with coaching, here’s how to reach me:
📧 Email: [email protected]
📱 Instagram: @thestrongbonescoach

Do you crave unshakable confidence in your strength from midlife and beyond? Would you love to achieve your goals without sacrificing family time or self-care?

Ready to take your strength to the next level? Start building a stronger body and healthier bones with my Strong Bones Starter Kit; your step-by-step guide to safe and effective strength training at home.
👉 Click here to learn more and access today

🌟 Stay connected and inspired with daily wellness tips on Instagram @thestrongbonescoach.
🌟 For tailored advice or personal queries, email me at [email protected]

Thank you for being here, and I look forward to supporting you on your journey to strength, health, and confidence! 💪🦴✨

In this episode, I'm exploring a shift in language that I think matters more than it might first appear... the difference between nervous system regulation and nervous system care.

We've all heard 'regulate your nervous system.' But what if that framing is quietly telling us that activated states are problems to fix... even when they're actually appropriate?

In this episode:

→ Why 'regulation' language can become a sophisticated form of suppression

→ When your activation is actually your body doing its job correctly

→ What nervous system care looks like instead

→ How this changes the way I use breathwork in practice

→ Three questions to help you know what you actually need right now

This one is close to my heart. I hope it gives you permission to stop pathologising your own responses, and start caring for yourself instead.

If you'd like to explore some Breathwork demonstrations, you can find them on my Youtube channel here >> https://www.youtube.com/@carlykillencoaching

Thanks for listening to Rooted In Presence

If you’d like to get in touch with a question about today’s episode or find out how I can support you with coaching, here’s how to reach me:
📧 Email: [email protected]
📱 Instagram: @thestrongbonescoach

Do you crave unshakable confidence in your strength from midlife and beyond? Would you love to achieve your goals without sacrificing family time or self-care?

Ready to take your strength to the next level? Start building a stronger body and healthier bones with my Strong Bones Starter Kit; your step-by-step guide to safe and effective strength training at home.
👉 Click here to learn more and access today

🌟 Stay connected and inspired with daily wellness tips on Instagram @thestrongbonescoach.
🌟 For tailored advice or personal queries, email me at [email protected]

Thank you for being here, and I look forward to supporting you on your journey to strength, health, and confidence! 💪🦴✨

TW: Fawn response, trauma response discussion.

It's International Women's Day week, and this year's theme is "Give to Gain." But what if you're already depleted? What if you're already giving everything you have?

In this episode of Rooted in Presence, we explore the complicated tension in this year's IWD theme and what sustainable generosity actually requires.

Host Carly Killen breaks down the difference between generous giving (from overflow) and obligatory giving (from depletion), and why knowing the difference matters for your capacity, your boundaries, and your wellbeing.

You'll discover:

• Why "give to gain" might land differently for women already stretched thin
• The difference between generous giving and fawn response
• What capacity actually means (and how to build it)
• Boundaries as living, breathing practice - not rigid rules
• Why receiving is part of sustainable generosity
• How to know if you're giving from overflow or obligation
• Practical questions to ask before you say yes to one more thing
• Carly's personal journey from over-giving to sustainable generosity

This episode includes a compassionate exploration of the fawn response (coined by Pete Walker), with appropriate context about complex trauma and clear signposting for deeper support.

Perfect for anyone who tends to over-give, struggles with boundaries, feels guilty saying no, or is exhausted from trying to keep everyone else happy. If you're navigating midlife with less capacity but the same demands, this conversation offers a different path.

Not about doing more. About building capacity so giving feels joyful rather than depleting

Thanks for listening to Rooted In Presence

If you’d like to get in touch with a question about today’s episode or find out how I can support you with coaching, here’s how to reach me:
📧 Email: [email protected]
📱 Instagram: @thestrongbonescoach

Do you crave unshakable confidence in your strength from midlife and beyond? Would you love to achieve your goals without sacrificing family time or self-care?

Ready to take your strength to the next level? Start building a stronger body and healthier bones with my Strong Bones Starter Kit; your step-by-step guide to safe and effective strength training at home.
👉 Click here to learn more and access today

🌟 Stay connected and inspired with daily wellness tips on Instagram @thestrongbonescoach.
🌟 For tailored advice or personal queries, email me at [email protected]

Thank you for being here, and I look forward to supporting you on your journey to strength, health, and confidence! 💪🦴✨

This week’s episode is a little different.

I was invited onto Matt Robinson’s podcast Fitness Business Insights to talk about my journey, from NHS dietitian… to commercial gym PT… to burnout… to building Still Space Hull.

We explore:

• Why I left a secure 10-year career
• The identity shift from “health professional” to personal trainer
• Burnout, overworking, and forcing growth
• Why “success” isn’t always a full diary and bigger numbers
• The messy, nonlinear path of building a business that actually fits who you are

This conversation isn’t just about business.

It’s about alignment.
 It’s about being brave enough to step out of the box.
 It’s about learning when to slow down instead of push harder.

If you’ve ever felt boxed in; by a job, a title, an industry, or even your own expectations, I hope this episode feels like permission to grow in your own way.

Thanks for listening to Rooted In Presence

If you’d like to get in touch with a question about today’s episode or find out how I can support you with coaching, here’s how to reach me:
📧 Email: [email protected]
📱 Instagram: @thestrongbonescoach

Do you crave unshakable confidence in your strength from midlife and beyond? Would you love to achieve your goals without sacrificing family time or self-care?

Ready to take your strength to the next level? Start building a stronger body and healthier bones with my Strong Bones Starter Kit; your step-by-step guide to safe and effective strength training at home.
👉 Click here to learn more and access today

🌟 Stay connected and inspired with daily wellness tips on Instagram @thestrongbonescoach.
🌟 For tailored advice or personal queries, email me at [email protected]

Thank you for being here, and I look forward to supporting you on your journey to strength, health, and confidence! 💪🦴✨