The Victoria Penfold Podcast

Mirror Neurons – How Your Environment Shapes You In this podcast I explore mirror neurons and how the people and environments around us influence the way we think, feel, and behave. Mirror neurons are brain cells that activate when we perform an action and when we observe someone else performing the same action.

For example: • If someone smiles, we often find ourselves smiling back. • If someone yawns, we may yawn too. • If we spend time around calm and grounded people, we often begin to feel calmer ourselves. • If we spend time around anxious or stressed people, we can start to absorb aspects of that state.

This is one of the reasons human beings learn so much through observation and connection. When we spend time with someone who is regulated, emotionally present, and grounded, our nervous system begins to mirror aspects of their state. This is known as co-regulation.

It is why children learn so much from their parents and caregivers, not just through words, but through what they consistently experience. In this episode I talk about: • what mirror neurons are • how they influence our thoughts, feelings, and behaviours • why our environment has such a powerful impact on us • how co-regulation shapes emotional wellbeing • how we unconsciously mirror and adapt to what we repeatedly experience.

With this awareness, we can begin to ask ourselves: What is the landscape of my mirrors? Who are my role models? What energy am I absorbing every day? If you are feeling stuck, anxious, self-critical, or negative, it can be helpful to look beyond yourself and explore the environments and relationships around you.

Mirror neurons are not simply about copying behaviour. They play a powerful role in how we learn, connect, and grow.

4 steps to create change:

Pause and take an honest look at your environment.

Get clear on how you want to think, feel, and behave.

Intentionally choose environments, relationships, and experiences that reflect who you want to become.

Reduce time with people and environments that are not supporting your growth, and increase time with those that are.

Remember, we are designed for connection and co-regulation. We naturally influence one another. And we always have a choice.

Subscribe to Wholeyfit – The Soul’s Compass Method™ for more conversations on healing, self-awareness, and emotional wellbeing.

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Living with Borderline Personality Disorder – A Personal Conversation (with Thomas)

In this week’s podcast I’m joined by someone very close to me—my younger brother, Thomas. This conversation is a deeply personal one. Together, we speak openly about Thomas’s experience of living with Borderline Personality Disorder—from his diagnosis, to how he experiences the world, and what daily life can look like navigating the intensity that can come with it.

Thomas shares his story honestly—reflecting on childhood, the impact of growing up in a domestically abusive environment, and how those early experiences may have shaped his emotional world.

What unfolds is not just a conversation about diagnosis, but about understanding, compassion, and learning how to support both ourselves and the people we love. In this episode we talk about:

• Thomas’s story and what led to his diagnosis

• what living with borderline personality disorder feels like from the inside

• how diagnosis can impact identity and relationships

• the role of childhood and early environment

• navigating day-to-day life and what helps

• how to support someone you love with BPD

• breaking stigma and opening up the conversation.

One of the key takeaways from this conversation is: Understanding begins with listening. When we take the time to hear someone’s experience—without judgement, without assumption—we create space for compassion, connection, and real change.

This conversation is about honesty, healing, and seeing beyond labels.

Support & Resources If you or someone you know is affected by anything discussed in this episode, support is available:

• Mind – https://www.mind.org.uk

• Samaritans – Call 116 123 or https://www.samaritans.org

• NHS – https://www.nhs.uk/mental-health

Subscribe to Wholeyfit – The Soul’s Compass Method™ for more conversations on healing, mental health, and living with awareness, compassion, and connection.

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Family Systems

Today I am talking about family systems and how understanding your family system can help you identify and understand your own personal patterns.

What is a family system?

A connected group where each person affects and is affected by everyone else. It sees the family as a whole system, like a network, with patterns, roles, and relationships.

Roles:

Each person usually takes on a role, which we discussed in the previous podcast episode, Roles Within the Family.

Patterns:

Families develop repeated ways of interacting, communicating, and responding to conflict.

Balance:

Family systems tend to resist change and try to keep things stable, even if the patterns are unhealthy.

For example, if a child starts acting out, a family systems perspective would not only ask, “What is wrong with the child?” It would also ask, “What is happening within the family that may be contributing to this behaviour?”.

Understanding patterns within the family system.

When we begin to identify patterns within our family system, we can better understand where our beliefs, emotional responses, coping mechanisms, and behaviours come from.

Who influenced you? How did you learn to respond, slow down, communicate, or be honest? Who modelled the behaviours that you are currently displaying?

Our family systems can shape us unconsciously. When we become conscious of these patterns, we then have the opportunity to take action and create change.

One exercise you can do is

1. draw a family tree and map out your family system.
2. Whatever you are struggling with, identify where you may have learned it.

You may begin to see how patterns have been passed down through generations, and why change can sometimes feel difficult because it is embedded at a deeper level.

Lasting change often requires awareness of the family system itself — the roles, communication patterns, and boundaries within it.

Once we become aware, there is an opportunity to create healthier ways of relating, both within ourselves and within the system around us.

Subscribe to Wholeyfit – The Soul’s Compass Method™ for more conversations on healing, self-awareness, and emotional wellbeing.

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Circadian Rhythms – How to Work With Your Body, Not Against It

In this episode, we explore circadian rhythms—what they are, and how they quietly shape your energy, sleep, mood, and overall wellbeing.As a therapist, my work focuses on the body—how to stay in it, regulate it, and truly listen to it.

Alongside talking therapy, I integrate nutrition and movement, because healing isn’t just mental—it’s physical, emotional, and deeply connected to how we live day to day.I also work from the understanding that we are a microcosm of the macro—that the rhythms of the Earth, the seasons, and even the wider cosmos influence our internal world.Circadian rhythms are not random.

They are natural cycles that exist both across the year—spring, summer, autumn, winter—and within each day, through light and dark, guiding a 24-hour cycle within the body.

A time to rise.

A time to act.

A time to slow down.

A time to rest.

These rhythms influence your hormones, digestion, sleep, energy levels, and mood. When you begin to work with them, the body naturally finds more balance.When you work against them—through late nights, artificial light, or irregular routines—it can create stress in the system, even if you don’t immediately feel it.

In this episode we explore:

• what circadian rhythms are

• how the seasons mirror your day (morning, day, evening, night)

• how your body is designed to follow natural cycles

• how to build simple daily routines using these rhythms

• the connection between nature, the body, and your internal world

• how nutrition and exercise can align with these phases

• the balance between nature and conditioning (nurture)

• learning flexibility through nature’s rhythms

This is not about perfection.Nature isn’t rigid—and you don’t have to be either. Sometimes it rains in summer. Sometimes it’s sunny in winter. Learn how to listen, adapt, when you need to, just as mother nature does. This is a starting point—a simple, way to begin Listening to and being with and in your body, using nature as your guide.

Subscribe to Wholeyfit – The Soul’s Compass Method™ for more conversations on healing, the body, and living in alignment with your natural self.

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Patterns, Blueprints & Healing the Unconscious - Are We Pre-Programmed? In this episode, we explore patterns and blueprints—how they shape the way we think, feel, and behave, often without us even realising. Are we pre-programmed for the life we’re here to live? Or can we change our path?

Using the analogy of the acorn and the oak tree, this conversation looks at the idea that we each carry an original blueprint within us—and that through awareness, therapy, and intuition, we can begin to uncover it.

We also explore:

• how unconscious patterns are formed

• how early experiences shape behaviour

• the role of therapy in uncovering root causes

• bifocal vision in psychosynthesis (seeing both surface and deeper self)

• ancestral patterns and generational trauma

• how to break patterns that no longer serve you This is a conversation about self-awareness, healing, and returning to who you truly are.

Subscribe for more conversations on mental health, healing, and personal growth - Follow — Victoria & Wholeyfit:

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Building a Sustainable Life & Business – Leading with Vision (with Samantha Phillips)

In this week’s podcast I’m joined by Samantha Phillips, founder of How to Arcanum, a serial entrepreneur, and a mentor supporting visionary women.

Samantha’s work sits at the intersection of leadership development and business architecture, helping women build sustainable, long-term success. Through her signature method, Path woven, she guides women to restructure how they lead, build, and create wealth — integrating AI, investment strategies, and intentional life design.

In this conversation, Samantha shares her personal journey — from a difficult childhood and early ambitions to become a veterinary nurse, to navigating financial limitations and stepping into entrepreneurship.

What emerges is a grounded and honest exploration of what it really takes to build something that lasts.

In this episode we talk about:

• Samantha’s journey into entrepreneurship and what shaped her path

• what it takes to build a sustainable and aligned business

• how women can create something that supports independence and long-term growth

• why leadership must include the whole person — not just business, but body, nervous system, and lifestyle

• real-life examples of women restructuring their work to align with who they truly are

One of the key takeaways from this conversation is simple, but powerful:

Go within.

Take the time to understand whether what you are building is truly yours —

or something shaped by expectation, pressure, or external influence.

This is a conversation about alignment, sustainability, and creating a life that reflects who you are.

Find and connect with Samantha at

Web - https://arcanum-ethos.com/

Instagram - @thehouseof.arcanum

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Roles Within the Family – The Patterns We Learn & How to Transform Them

In this podcast I explore family roles — the patterns of behaviour and responsibility that we adopt within our family systems, often without even realising.

These roles are not who we truly are.

They are adaptations — ways we learned to survive, belong, and protect the system we grew up in.

When a family experiences stress — whether through trauma, addiction, emotional immaturity, mental illness, or unspoken grief — children naturally adjust.

Over time, these adjustments can become fixed roles that we carry into adulthood.

In this episode I talk about:

• what family roles are and how they form

• why these roles develop in response to stress and environment

• how they continue to show up in adult life

• how awareness creates the opportunity for change

• how we can begin to transform these roles into something more aligned

I introduce seven core family roles:

• The Caretaker – takes responsibility for others’ emotional needs, often at the expense of their own

• The Hero – strives to achieve and succeed to bring stability or pride to the family

• The Scapegoat – expresses or carries the family’s unspoken pain, often through rebellion or being blamed

• The Clown – uses humour to diffuse tension and avoid deeper emotional discomfort

• The Lost Child – withdraws and stays unnoticed to avoid conflict or overwhelm

• The Golden Child – is idealised and expected to maintain a certain image or standard

• The Identified Patient – expresses distress through physical or emotional symptoms, reflecting the system’s imbalance

Just like with feelings, the first step is awareness.

As you begin to recognise these roles, you may notice how they have shaped your behaviour, your relationships, and the way you move through life.

You may also see that some aspects of these roles have supported you — and may still serve you in positive ways.

For example:

• The Caretaker may evolve into a healer, nurse, or therapist

• The Hero may become someone who builds, leads, or creates meaningful change

• The Clown may bring lightness, connection, and humour into the world

• The Identified Patient may become the one who initiates healing within the family system

The work is not always about removing the role —

but about transforming it.

Sometimes it may be time to gently retire the role you have been playing, and begin to reconnect with who you are beneath it.

Like an acorn already contains everything it needs to become an oak tree,

you already hold within you the potential to grow beyond these patterns.

With awareness comes choice.

And with choice comes the possibility for deeper healing, freedom, and authenticity.

Subscribe to Wholeyfit – The Soul’s Compass Method™ for more on trauma-informed healing, family systems, and living with greater awareness and connection.

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Private vs State Education – What Parents Need to Know (with Ben James)

In this week’s podcast I’m joined by Ben James, a teacher with over 10 years’ experience across both state and private education.

Ben is currently teaching history and politics in a leading North London school, and in this conversation we explore the realities of the education system — from both a teacher’s and a parent’s perspective.

This is an honest and important discussion for anyone navigating decisions around education.

In this episode we talk about:

• the key differences between private and state schools

• the pros and cons of each, and why both systems can have strong and weak environments

• how parents can decide what is best for their child

• the challenges teachers face within the current system

• why success is not always reflected in exam results and how study can continue in this instance

• the pressure teachers experience, including self-doubt and questioning if they are doing enough

Ben also shares his personal journey into teaching, shaped by his own experience of an unkind teacher — and how that influenced the way he now shows up for his students.

We explore how AI is beginning to impact education, including:

• how it is being used by students

• the risks of over-reliance and its impact on learning

• how it may affect communication, confidence, and anxiety

• what both parents and students need to be aware of moving forward

This conversation is a reminder that education is not just about outcomes — it is about supporting the child as a whole person.

One of the most important takeaways:

Include your children in the conversation. Listen to them. Let them have a voice in their own education.

Thank you for being here.

If this resonates, feel free to share with someone who may find it helpful.

Subscribe to Wholeyfit – The Soul’s Compass Method™ for more conversations on wellbeing, development, and living with greater awareness and understanding.

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Feelings – How to Understand, Identify & Express Your Feelings and Emotions

In this podcast I explore feelings — what they are, why they matter, and how learning to understand them can support deeper healing, self-awareness, and emotional freedom.

Feelings are messages from within.

They guide us towards what needs to be seen, understood, and healed.

They are essential for both self-regulation and co-regulation, and although we may share the same situation, we will each experience feelings differently based on our own personal history and lived experience.

In this episode I talk about:

• what feelings are and how they act as internal guidance

• why feelings are essential for emotional intelligence and healing

• how to begin identifying and working with your emotions

• how feelings show up in the body

• how we may currently manage them

• healthier ways to express and process emotions safely

I introduce eight core feelings to help simplify emotional awareness:

• Happiness

• Sadness

• Embarrassment

• Jealousy

• Disgust

• Joy

• Anger

• Grief

Each feeling is given a colour, helping you to recognise and connect with it more easily:

• Happiness – Yellow

• Sadness – Blue

• Embarrassment – Pink

• Jealousy – Orange

• Disgust – Green

• Joy – White

• Anger – Red

• Grief – Purple

From here, I guide you to:

• notice where each feeling shows up in your body

• rate its intensity on a scale from 1–10

• begin recognising feelings early (between 1–3) before they become overwhelming

• use imagery to help understand what each feeling may be asking of you - Ie if orange - a lion - courage maybe needed.

When feelings are not acknowledged, they can build and begin to leak out in unconscious ways.

When we learn to notice them early, we can respond rather than react to them.

I also explore how you may currently be managing your feelings — both in healthy and unhealthy ways — and how awareness allows you to make new choices.

Examples include:

• Joy — learning to share it safely with others rather than holding it back

• Anger — expressing it physically and safely rather than ignoring it or acting out

• Grief — allowing space for loss through crying, rest, support, or personal rituals

There are many emotional labels in the world, which can feel overwhelming.

By focusing on these eight core feelings, you can begin to understand yourself more clearly, while recognising that other emotions may sit within or alongside them.

Your awareness creates choice.

And when you begin to meet your feelings with compassion rather than avoidance, you create the space for deeper healing and a more connected way of living.

Subscribe to Wholeyfit – The Soul’s Compass Method™ for more on trauma-informed healing, embodied therapy, and living with greater emotional clarity, safety, and connection.

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Climate Calm – Healing the Nervous System in a Changing World (with Helen Draper)

In this week’s podcast I’m joined by Helen Draper — a climate and sustainability leader, neuroscience coach, yoga teacher, and author.

Together we explore the connection between the nervous system, personal wellbeing, and the wider world we are living in.

Helen shares her personal story of becoming unwell, where her nervous system reached a point of collapse. Through this experience, she was guided into a deeper understanding of the body, stress, and the impact of both internal and external environments on our health.

From this place, she began to bring together her professional expertise and lived experience to create Climate Calm — an approach that supports people in regulating their nervous system while staying engaged with the realities of the world around them.

In this episode we talk about:

• Helen’s personal journey and recovery

• what happens when the nervous system becomes overwhelmed

• the link between climate awareness and emotional wellbeing

• how Climate Calm was created and how it works in practice

• the real-life impact of this work on individuals applying the method

• why nervous system regulation is essential for sustainable change

This conversation is a gentle reminder that we cannot separate our inner world from the outer world — and that caring for our nervous system is a vital part of how we live, respond, and contribute.

You can find more of Helen’s work here:

https://www.helendraper.com/

Subscribe to Wholeyfit – The Soul’s Compass Method™ for more conversations on trauma-informed healing, embodied wellbeing, and living with greater awareness, balance, and connection.

Follow — Victoria & Wholeyfit:

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