The Wisdom Gym: Sunday Service with Claire Anstey

In this episode, Claire Anstey addresses one of the most widespread and least discussed sources of spiritual exhaustion in the modern wellness world. The confusion between God and the Universe. Between the system we align with and the being we are in relationship with. Between technique and genuine encounter with the divine. This episode offers clarity, practical distinction and a direct invitation into the relationship that has always been available.

Three things to take into the week. Try a different name for your Higher Power this week and notice what opens. Write a letter directly to your Higher Power. Not a request. A conversation. Notice where you are reaching for technique and where you are reaching for relationship.

Affirmations from this episode.

I choose to build an intimate relationship with my God, my Creator, my Source 

I do not have to earn love and support from my creator; it is always available to me

I align with the laws of life through my relationship with God.

If you’d like to go deeper, you can join us inside The Wisdom Gym App.

A modern space for spiritual practice and personal growth. Here, you build a real relationship with your Higher Power, regulate your nervous system and develop the awareness to move through life with clarity and trust.

Through guided sessions with Claire Anstey, weekly teachings and practical tools, you learn how to:

• Connect to something greater than yourself
• Understand and work with your emotions
• Shift your patterns and responses
• Live in alignment with who you truly are

This is not about getting it right.

It’s about learning how to relate, respond and grow in a way that feels real, grounded and sustainable.

Download the app for free at www.thewisdomgym.com

Executive Producer & Host: Claire Anstey

Produced by: The Wisdom Gym Ltd

Hosted on: Acast

Website: www.thewisdomgym.com

Like what you hear?

Follow The Wisdom Gym on your favourite podcast app so you never miss an episode.

Want to do the work, not just listen to it?

Head to www.thewisdomgym.com to access our on-demand workout studio — packed with therapy, coaching and wellness sessions to help you sort out your life.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to the very first Sunday Service.

This week we are beginning at the beginning — with the question that sits underneath so much spiritual seeking.

How do I have a real relationship with God, Source, the Universe, without joining a religion? Without doctrine. Without dogma. Without the conditional God so many of us were introduced to in childhood and quietly walked away from.

In this episode Claire explores the difference between religion and relationship. Why so many spiritually sincere people still feel hollow despite doing all the right things. And what it actually looks like to build a direct, daily, personal connection with the intelligence that created you and loves you unconditionally.

You will hear two readings — Psalm 139 and Thomas Merton — each chosen to illuminate one simple truth. The relationship you are looking for has never been absent. You have simply not yet been shown how to turn toward it.

This episode includes teaching, affirmations and The Wisdom Gym Seven — our closing prayer — to anchor everything in your body and send you into your week genuinely held.

If you have ever felt spiritually homeless. If you left a religion but not the longing. If you have been seeking and still feel like something is missing — this episode is for you.

You are guided. You are loved. You are already whole. Welcome home.

If you'd like to go deeper, we invite you to join us inside The Wisdom Gym app — your home for spiritual personal training. Work directly with Claire Anstey and our guest teachers to train your consciousness, regulate your emotions, and live in alignment with your truth.

Executive Producer and Host: Claire Anstey 

Produced by: The Wisdom Gym Ltd 

Hosted on: Acast 

Website: www.thewisdomgym.com

SHOW NOTES — Episode 1: Finding God Without Religion

This week's affirmations

Say these daily this week. Speak them out loud if you can. Notice the one that catches something — that is the one to return to most.

I do not need to earn the love of God. I am already loved completely, unconditionally, exactly as I am.

My relationship with God is direct, personal and mine. No institution, no religion, no doctrine stands between me and the love that created me.

I am willing to return daily, honestly, imperfectly. That willingness is all that is required.

I am known by the intelligence that created all things. Every part of me, including the parts I have hidden, is seen and received with love.

I am not spiritually homeless. I am coming home. And home has always been within me.

This week's readings

Psalm 139, verses 1 to 10 — Hebrew Scriptures

Thomas Merton — Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. That is not our business and, in fact, it is nobody's business. What we are asked to do is to love, and this love itself will render both ourselves and our neighbours worthy.

Three invitations for this week

Speak to God today. Honestly. About what is actually happening. Not the cleaned-up version. The real one.

Notice. Over the next seven days, begin to notice the moments when something shifts unexpectedly. A thought that arrives from nowhere. A sense of being held. A coincidence that feels too precise. This is the relationship communicating.

Begin a morning practice. Even two minutes. Even just — I am here. I am willing. I am open. That is enough to begin.

Mentioned in this episode

The Wisdom Gym Seven — our closing prayer, prayed at the end of every Sunday Service

Conscious contact — the Twelve Step tradition's understanding of daily, deliberate connection with your Higher Power

Like what you hear?

Follow The Wisdom Gym on your favourite podcast app so you never miss an episode.

Want to do the work, not just listen to it?

Head to www.thewisdomgym.com to access our on-demand workout studio — packed with therapy, coaching and wellness sessions to help you sort out your life.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this first Sunday Service, Claire Anstey opens the doors to The Wisdom Gym and shares why she created this weekly space — a moment to breathe, realign, and remember who you really are.

Together, you’ll explore the creative power of the universe — the intelligent energy that moves through everything, including you. Claire explains how your thoughts, emotions, and beliefs interact with this power, and how real creation happens through alignment, not force.

She also introduces the four pillars that guide every episode — Spiritual Science, Neuroscience, Somatic Practice, and Manifestation — blending ancient wisdom with modern psychology to help you live in balance and truth.

You’ll be guided through a calming Invocation and a full Spiritual Mind Treatment — a spoken practice that unites thought, feeling, and vibration to reconnect you with divine intelligence.

By the end of the episode, you’ll feel more grounded in your body and clearer in your mind.

You’ll understand that:

• You are not separate from the creative power of the universe — you are it in form.
• Creation flows through alignment, not striving.
• When you calm your body and regulate your nervous system, you come back into harmony with life itself.

Claire closes by inviting you to use this week’s Spiritual Mind Treatment as your daily ritual — a few moments each morning to reconnect, centre yourself, and trust the creative force that lives within you.

If you’d like to revisit today’s Spiritual Mind Treatment or read it in full, you can find the written version on our website. It’s there for you to use as a daily practice — a few quiet moments each morning to align your mind, calm your body, and reconnect with the creative Power that moves through you.

👉 Read the Spiritual Mind Treatment on The Wisdom Gym

Executive Producer & Host: Claire Anstey

Produced by: The Wisdom Gym Ltd

Hosted on: Acast

Website: www.thewisdomgym.com

Like what you hear?

Follow The Wisdom Gym on your favourite podcast app so you never miss an episode.

Want to do the work, not just listen to it?

Head to www.thewisdomgym.com to access our on-demand workout studio — packed with therapy, coaching and wellness sessions to help you sort out your life.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of The Wisdom Gym, host Claire Anstey dives into one of the most powerful and paralysing emotions we carry: shame.

You’ll explore:

• The difference between guilt and shame — and why it matters
• How shame shows up in the body (including nervous system freeze)
• The ways shame blocks your voice, creativity, and connection
• Why your nervous system learns to link shame with safety — especially in childhood
• How chronic shame keeps you frozen, disconnected, and feeling “not enough”

Claire shares:

• The South London playground chant that first showed her what shame felt like
• How shame blocks every core emotion — from joy and anger to trust and desire
• Simple yet powerful practices to start releasing shame, including a private mirror exercise if you’re not ready to share with others
• Insights from shame researcher Brené Brown on why secrecy, silence, and judgement allow shame to grow — and how empathy dissolves it

You can also access free classes and exercises in The Wisdom Gym Online Studio via our website. With your free membership, you can search for shame (or any other feeling you want to work out) and choose from a range of therapies, practices, and tools to support your healing.

If you’re ready to stop carrying shame and reconnect with your authentic self, this episode gives you the knowledge and practices to begin.

Exec Producer & Host: Claire Anstey

Produced by: The Wisdom Gym Ltd

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information

Website: www.thewisdomgym.com

Like what you hear?

Follow The Wisdom Gym on your favourite podcast app so you never miss an episode.

Want to do the work, not just listen to it?

Head to www.thewisdomgym.com to access our on-demand workout studio — packed with therapy, coaching and wellness sessions to help you sort out your life.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the very first mini-episode of The Wisdom Gym, host Claire Anstey — broadcaster, therapist, and founder of The Kambo Clinic — introduces Series One: Understanding Feelings & Emotions.

This episode explores:

• The difference between emotions and feelings
• Why so many people confuse the two (and how it blocks healing)
• The layered structure of emotional experience: core, secondary, inhibitory emotions and defences
• How unprocessed emotions get stuck in the body and create patterns of suffering
• What it means to reconnect with your authentic self

You will gain:

• A clear framework for understanding emotions vs feelings
• Practical insight into how your body holds emotions
• Tools to start reconnecting with your emotional wisdom

You’ll also get free access to The Wisdom Gym Online Studio via our website. With your free membership, you can look up the exact feeling or emotion you want to work on and choose from a wide range of classes, therapies, and exercises designed to help you process and strengthen your emotional fitness.

This first episode sets the foundation for the whole series. From here, you’ll go layer by layer — exploring each core emotion in depth and building your emotional strength.

Exec Producer & Host: Claire Anstey

Produced by: The Wisdom Gym Ltd

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information

Website: www.thewisdomgym.com

You’re not broken. You’re just in training.

Like what you hear?

Follow The Wisdom Gym on your favourite podcast app so you never miss an episode.

Want to do the work, not just listen to it?

Head to www.thewisdomgym.com to access our on-demand workout studio — packed with therapy, coaching and wellness sessions to help you sort out your life.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to the launch episode of The Wisdom Gym.

Claire Anstey kicks off Series 1 by guiding you through the emotional foundations of your inner world — and helping you finally understand the real difference between emotions and feelings.

In this episode, we break down:

• What emotions really are (and why they’re not “too much”)
• How feelings are mental stories — not the truth of your body
• The 4 key layers of emotional experience: core, secondary, inhibitory, and defence
• Why most of us live in our head — and how that disconnects us from healing
• How getting clear on your core emotions leads to confidence, clarity, and inner freedom

Claire also shares:

• A raw story of emotional suppression labelled as an “episode” by her family
• What happens when clients reconnect with emotions after years of numbness
• How she recognises her own defences — and what that teaches us about self-awareness

🎧 Ready to work out your emotions?

Become a member of The Wisdom Gym — the podcast’s free online mental and emotional workout studio, where you can actually practise what you’re learning.

You’ll get:

• Free therapy-inspired emotional workouts
• Tools to reconnect with your body and build resilience
• A growing community of people working out their inner world — just like you

Join now at www.thewisdomgym.com and start your journey back to your authentic self — one emotional workout at a time.

Subscribe to the podcast

Share this episode with someone who’s ready to feel again

And remember:

You’re not broken.

You’re just ready to heal.

Got a question or emotional dilemma you'd love Claire to unpack?

DM us on Instagram @thewisdomgym or email [email protected].

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Like what you hear?

Follow The Wisdom Gym on your favourite podcast app so you never miss an episode.

Want to do the work, not just listen to it?

Head to www.thewisdomgym.com to access our on-demand workout studio — packed with therapy, coaching and wellness sessions to help you sort out your life.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Discover The Wisdom Gym Podcast — the only gym where you show up a hot mess before the class even starts.

Hosted by therapist and broadcaster Claire Anstey, this short trailer introduces a space where personal growth gets real.

No fluff. No filters. Just honest conversations, emotional workouts, and real tools to help you understand your life and actually do the work.

From emotions and behaviours to beliefs and healing practices — this is your space to grow with grit, humour and heart.

Hit play and discover how to work out this hot mess called life — together.

Like what you hear?

Follow The Wisdom Gym on your favourite podcast app so you never miss an episode.

Want to do the work, not just listen to it?

Head to www.thewisdomgym.com to access our on-demand workout studio — packed with therapy, coaching and wellness sessions to help you sort out your life.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.