Mastering Change | The trauma, mental health & wellbeing podcast

Therapists, clinicians and helpers often tell themselves they’re “fine” – even as the work wears down their nervous system. 
In this conversation, palliative care doctor Dr. Rosie Weir offers a compassionate guide to trauma stewardship: the practice of staying present to other people’s pain without losing yourself in it. 
Drawing from her years on the frontline of end-of-life care, Rosie explains how practitioners can unconsciously carry the emotional burden of others long after a session ends. 
‘If you're a painter and you're painting all day, you come home covered in paint. And that's what it's like doing this kind of work – you come home covered in other people’s emotional material.’ 
Rosie shares the practices that help her stay grounded and slow down, while challenging the belief that self-care must always be ‘active’ or fast paced to be effective. 
We discuss 
The emotional residue practitioners carry and how to recognise it 
Why slowing down is often more regulating than speeding up 
Building a relationship with yourself as a foundation for resilience 
How hobbies and joy act as protective factors 
Why healing work must include the wellbeing of those who deliver it 
A reflective, grounding episode for anyone doing work that asks you to hold other people’s pain. 
Moment of Care: This episode discusses sensitive episodes related to trauma, mental health and potential distressing experiences. If you feel triggered at any point, please take a moment to check in with yourself and seek support. 
Watch this episode on Youtube: https://tinyurl.com/masteringchangepodcast
Follow us on instagram: www.instagram.com/masterseventsltd
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For people who have spent years in survival mode, joy can feel uncomfortable.  
Here, Melita Stancil explains why (as well as how we can experience joy more readily). She is the creator of Anthelum, a framework designed to help people move out of survival mode by looking at families, schools, workplaces and communities as interconnected parts of healing. 
A central theme in her work is joy. She shares how hypervigilance and stress can make exposure to joy difficult, and why practicing joy becomes essential for long-term wellbeing. She explains that many people, especially those with trauma histories, spend more time scanning for what’s wrong – not because they’re pessimistic, but because their brain is still trying to keep them safe. 
She also describes why healing must include families and systems, not just individuals. Joy, she argues, grows through connection – and the environments around us play a crucial role in whether recovery is sustained. 
We explore 
The Anthelum framework and how systems shape healing 
How hypervigilance restricts access to joy 
Why joy is a skill we must practice and protect 
The role of connection in helping people thrive 
Why healing happens in systems, not silos 
Moment of Care: This episode discusses sensitive episodes related to trauma, mental health and potential distressing experiences. If you feel triggered at any point, please take a moment to check in with yourself and seek support. 
Watch this episode on Youtube: https://tinyurl.com/masteringchangepodcast
Follow us on instagram: www.instagram.com/masterseventsltd
Visit mastersevents.com/oxford-2026 for more details.

Have you ever noticed how some stress seems to not just dictate your mood, but your whole sense of presence? That’s because, according to craniosacral therapist Lulu Ferrand, we’re operating on a spectrum of vibrational frequency. 
On this week’s episode, Lulu speaks to us about how what we engage with, moment to moment, can raise or lower our sense of freedom, safety and connection. 
She explains how she understands craniosacral therapy (CST) as working not only with the nervous system but also with the body’s subtle energetic field – helping people access states where old emotional and physical patterns can release. She emphasises that CST isn’t about ignoring or dismissing the difficult, lower-frequency experiences people may be living with; rather, it helps clients recognise that the more time they spend in lighter, more regulated states, the more they can be gently ‘pulled up and out’. 
She also shares how even the smallest moments of beauty or presence – like ‘noticing that a particular flower is looking beautiful’ – can create meaningful shifts in the system. 
We discuss 
How engaging with ‘higher’ or ‘lighter’ experiences can support emotional and energetic regulation 
Why highly sensitive people and empaths may feel drained or overwhelmed by others 
How CST supports the body’s natural capacity to let go of held patterns 
How sensitivity can show up early in life – and why attuned support makes a difference 
Practical ways to ground and protect your own energy 
How small, everyday moments can shift how we feel in profound ways 
Moment of Care: This episode discusses sensitive episodes related to trauma, mental health and potential distressing experiences. If you feel triggered at any point, please take a moment to check in with yourself and seek support. 
Watch this episode on Youtube: https://tinyurl.com/masteringchangepodcast
Follow us on instagram: www.instagram.com/masterseventsltd
Visit mastersevents.com/oxford-2026 for more details.

Sometimes, talking therapy isn’t enough. 
This week on Mastering Change, we speak with neurofeedback specialist Stuart Black, whose work focuses on trauma, PTSD and the patterns the nervous system can’t shift through traditional talking therapy alone. 
Stuart explains how neurofeedback helps a dysregulated nervous system re-regulate, especially when trauma has left people stuck in survival mode. He describes how it can support the processing of traumatic memories stored in the emotional brain that otherwise couldn’t be accessed. 
 
“We can enable you to process any traumatic memories which are stuck in your emotional brain… so you're controlling those memories rather than those memories controlling you.”  
We explore 
Why a dysregulated nervous system can block therapeutic progress 
How neurofeedback helps the brain access and process traumatic memories 
Why trying to “fix brain chemistry” misses the root cause 
Why there is no such thing as an average brain 
The importance of the therapeutic relationship – and why neurofeedback isn’t “just a machine” 
Why educating people about neurofeedback could drastically speed up the therapy process 
Moment of Care: This episode discusses sensitive episodes related to trauma, mental health and potential distressing experiences. If you feel triggered at any point, please take a moment to check in with yourself and seek support. 
Watch this episode on Youtube: https://tinyurl.com/masteringchangepodcast
Follow us on instagram: www.instagram.com/masterseventsltd
Visit mastersevents.com/oxford-2026 for more details.

Christmas can intensify grief. Familiar rituals, memories and traditions can exacerbate the feelings of absence and bring more emotional pain to the surface. 
In this episode of Mastering Change, psychotherapist Julia Samuel shares what years of supporting grieving individuals have taught her about love, loss and the support people need most. She explains how grief is held in the body, how the brain struggles to catch up with the reality of loss, and why “pain is the agent of change” in helping us adjust. 
Julia describes the dual process of grieving – moving between feeling the pain and intentionally taking breaks from it – and why slowing down is key for staying grounded during overwhelming moments. She offers concrete guidance for navigating the festive season: having honest conversations with family, creating rituals that acknowledge the person who has died, taking sensory breaks to regulate, and setting aside time to remember so the person “doesn’t die twice.” 
She also introduces the Griefworks app, with practical tools, meditations and reflective exercises to help people meet their grief with compassion. 
We explore
Why grief is so physical 
How slowing down supports emotional regulation 
Practical steps for coping with grief at Christmas 
The importance of continuing bonds and remembering 
How guided tools like Griefworks offer support when it's most needed 
Moment of Care: This episode discusses sensitive episodes related to trauma, mental health and potential distressing experiences. If you feel triggered at any point, please take a moment to check in with yourself and seek support. 
Watch this episode on Youtube: https://tinyurl.com/masteringchangepodcast
Follow us on instagram: www.instagram.com/masterseventsltd
Visit mastersevents.com/oxford-2026 for more details.