Today I’m talking with Tina Clarke, who is 43 years old. Whilst age is not something I usually mention, you’ll understand why when you listen to this episode, because Tina was born with the genetic disease cystic fibrosis and received a double lung transplant in 2014. 

Along with talking about how the meaning surrounding her diagnosis has changed, how the very information and prognosis surrounding her diagnosis has changed in her lifetime, and how that relates so much to how many of us experience chronic illness, we also talk about Tina’s work and passion in body-mind health and wellness, a field she’s worked in for over 20 years helping hundreds of people with various conditions. 

She specialises now in Somatic Movement and Embodiment for trauma, anxiety and stress due to living with chronic illness, cancer or organ transplant, which is something we go on to talk about in detail.

Through her work, Tina empowers individuals to understand how their body-mind is affected by their health and medical experiences, and how they can improve their resilience, emotional balance, anxiety and traumatic stress symptoms through a body based approach, whilst incrementally improving their relationship with their body, whatever their physical condition.

Be sure to check her out on Instagram and Facebook @tinaclarkewellness - or her website www.tinaclarkewellness.com and keep an eye out for her online courses.

Speaking of which, the enrolment window for Your Chronic Illness Ally opens to the waitlist next week, so that’s November 21st. It’ll be open to those not on the waitlist from the 25th-30th November. It’s so worth you joining the waitlist, as you get a 5-day early access period, which is great because there are only 20 spaces available AND it gives you 10% off.  Details and waitlist sign up can be found here.

EPISODE NOTES:

3:00 - Tina’s story with Cystic Fibrosis and how the understanding of CF has changed over the years she’s lived with it as the symptoms of her CF changed throughout her lifetime.

8:15 - What led Tina to start looking outside of allopathic treatment, which started with nutrition for healing and led to looking at the wider aspect of health.

11:45 - The wider picture of chronic illness including trauma, stress and anxiety, and how Tina works with that both personally and with her clients.

13:45 - End stage lung disease and double lung transplant, undergoing that as a single parent, and transforming her yoga practice to support her body in a more aligned way.

16:30 - Depression after transplant and how that ‘went against’ the positive physical recovery from transplant.  SSRI prescribed but that didn’t get rid of all the symptoms.  How Tina went on to understand that trauma was being held within her body.

19:15 - Exploring that deeper and coming across the somatic approach, the nervous system and what she was experiencing.

20:00 - Where does all this knowledge about what it’s really like, what really happens within the body when living with chronic illness - take us, both with Self and the medical treatment of chronic illness.

27:15 - Seeing the change in the chronic illness world, working within the communities that we are a part of; sharing, learning and co-regulation.

29:30 - The disconnection and separation of your body when in the mainstream medical system.

32:30 - Integration of the chronic illness experience and being ‘ready’ to hear what you need to hear.

45:05 - Somatic work and how it allows discovery and exploration into who you are, what your truth is for you and what your unique lived experience is.

47:00 - Allowing the rational brain to step back and tuning back into the senses, knowing, intuitive voice, and how that expresses itself.  Exploring the body freely and exploring it with curiosity.

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