This is The Inner Work with Rose Gaudion, a podcast for women who are exhausted. Not just tired. Exhausted from performing, from keeping the peace, from giving everything to everyone and having nothing left for themselves. I'm Rose Gaudion — RTT therapist, women's coach, and someone who spent the better part of fifty years making herself small so that nobody would leave. Every episode we go a little deeper, into the inner judge, grief, anger, the wounds planted in childhood that are still running your life today. Real stories, no polished version. I'm still healing. And I'm doing this anyway. Subscribe so you don't miss an episode, the first one is coming very soon."Come and find me at rise-into-your-light.beehiiv.com — I'd love to stay connected."

Have you ever noticed a voice inside you that criticises, doubts, and keeps you small, and assumed it was just you?

In this very first episode of The Inner Work, I want to gently offer you a different possibility: what if that voice was never yours to begin with?

I almost didn't press record on this podcast. The voice told me nobody would want to listen. That I wasn't interesting enough, credible enough, ready enough. And I nearly believed it.

In this episode I share what finally made me hit the button anyway, and the insight that changed everything: that the harshest voices we carry inside us were almost never our own. They were borrowed. Absorbed. Handed to us by people and experiences from our past.

And here's what I've learned, both through my own healing journey and through my work as a therapist: understanding where a belief came from is one of the most powerful things you can do. The moment you see it clearly, really see it, it begins to lose its grip on you.

This episode is for every woman who has ever shrunk herself to fit. Who has edited her words before speaking. Who has wondered whether she's too much, or perhaps not quite enough.

You are listening to the right podcast. 💛

https://rise-into-your-light.beehiiv.com/

There is a moment in my own healing that I will never forget.

I was journaling, working through a prompt about recognition, about what I had needed to do to earn love, when something cracked open.

I realised I had been living inside a room full of eyes. Watching me. Judging me. Finding me lacking. The same eyes that had watched me in the school corridors. The same voices that had told me I was nobody.

And when I finally looked closely, every single one of those eyes was my own.

I had taken the voices and the eyes of the children who bullied me, carried them inside, and let them narrate my entire adult life.

In this episode I share the breakthrough that became the foundation of everything I teach — the moment I realised the harshest judge in my life had never been someone else. She had always been me. Wearing borrowed eyes.

This is the episode that changes things. 💛

https://rise-into-your-light.beehiiv.com/

Are you always the one who shows up? The one who helps, listens, gives, supports, and then wonders why you feel so empty?

I was that woman. For most of my life.

I gave from the moment I woke up to the moment I went to sleep. And I told myself it was because I was caring. Generous. A good person.

What I didn't see was the quiet, desperate fear underneath: if I stop being useful, I will stop being wanted.

In this episode I share where that pattern comes from — often much earlier than we realise, and the difference between giving from love and giving from fear. Because one fills you up. And the other slowly drains you dry.

This one is for the women who have given everything to everyone and are wondering why there is nothing left for themselves.

https://rise-into-your-light.beehiiv.com/

When did you last let yourself be truly angry?

Not the polite frustration you allow yourself. Not the irritation you immediately apologise for. The real thing.

Most of us, especially women who grew up learning to be good, quiet, and easy, were never taught that anger was allowed. So we stuffed it down. Lid firmly on.

But unfelt anger doesn't disappear. It waits. It turns inward. It comes out sideways, in resentment, in exhaustion, in that low hum of bitterness we can never quite explain.

In this episode we talk about the emotions we were taught to hide, and I introduce the feelings wheel, a simple, powerful tool for finally naming what's really underneath the surface.

Because anger is almost never just anger. And the moment you can name what's beneath it, something begins to shift.

https://rise-into-your-light.beehiiv.com/

Welcome to The Inner Work Sunday series, where every week I share one of Marisa Peer’s Rules of the Mind. Simple. Powerful. And once you understand it, you will never un see it.

Today’s rule: the mind cannot hold conflicting beliefs. They cancel each other out.

Have you ever wanted something deeply, and at the same time believed you couldn’t have it? Have you worked hard towards a goal and found yourself quietly pulling in the opposite direction?

That’s not weakness. That’s not a lack of willpower. That is two beliefs pulling in opposite directions at the same time, and your mind, caught between them, unable to move forward.

When I did my own shadow work, I found my conflicting beliefs written on paper for the first time:

I need to be seen — but I believe I am not worthy of being seen.

I need to rest — but I don’t deserve it.

I need money — but I believe money is bad.

The moment I saw them clearly, something shifted. The pull between them began to lose its power.

That is the work. Not pushing harder. Understanding more clearly. 💛

https://www.riseintoyourlight.co.uk/rise-into-your-light

Most of us think grief is only for death.

But there is so much else to grieve, and nobody ever gives us permission to.

The childhood you deserved but didn't get. The mother who was physically there but emotionally absent. The marriage that ended. The years spent trying to be enough for people who couldn't see you.

This grief is real. It is valid. And for most women, it has never been named, let alone honoured.

In this episode I want to give you that permission. To grieve what wasn't given to you. To mourn what you lost, even if nobody else thinks you have a right to mourn it. To finally say: that mattered. What happened to me mattered.

Because grief that isn't felt doesn't go anywhere. It just finds other ways to make itself known.

Take your time with this one. 💛

riseintoyourlight.co.uk/rise-into-your-light

Somebody offers to help you and something inside immediately says: no, no, I'm fine.

A friend pays you a compliment and you deflect it before it can land.

Someone does something kind for you and you feel... uncomfortable. Almost wrong.

If you recognise this, you are not alone. And it is not a quirk of your personality. It is a pattern, and it started much earlier than you think.

In this episode I explore why so many women who give endlessly to others find it almost impossible to receive. Where it comes from. And what it has cost us.

I also share something I've come to understand about the connection between giving and control, because when the inner world feels chaotic, making ourselves indispensable in the outer world can feel like the only way to stay safe.

This episode might be an uncomfortable listen. That's usually a sign it's exactly what you need.

https://www.riseintoyourlight.co.uk/rise-into-your-light

Have you ever had the same critical thought return again and again, even when you know it isn’t true?

In this episode of The Inner Work, Rose explores the Rule of Repetition: the mind learns through what it hears repeatedly. A single unkind comment may hurt, but repeated messages from childhood can slowly become the inner voice we mistake for our own.

Rose shares how the voices of childhood bullying became part of her self-talk, and the realisation that changed everything: if you can hear the critical voice, you are not the voice. You are the one listening to it.

Together, we look at why familiar thoughts can feel true, why one affirmation rarely undoes years of criticism, and how gentle, consistent practice can help create a new inner pathway.

You’ll be invited to notice one repeated sentence about yourself, ask where you learned it and whose voice it sounds like, then choose a truer and kinder sentence to practise throughout the week.

If you have ever felt not good enough, too much, invisible or afraid to be seen, this episode is for you.

https://www.riseintoyourlight.co.uk/rise-into-your-light

This episode contains references to childhood bullying. Please be gentle with yourself as you listen.

There is a voice that many of us carry that we have mistaken for our own.

It criticises us before anyone else can. It points out everything we're doing wrong. It reminds us, just as we're about to try something brave, that we're not ready. Not interesting enough. Not quite enough.

We call it our inner critic. Our inner judge.

But where did she come from?

In this episode I share one of the most profound insights from my own healing: that the harshest judge inside me was not my voice at all. It was a twelve-year-old bully's voice, that I had absorbed, internalised, and carried ever since.

Because the moment you know that voice doesn't belong to you, you can finally start to question it. And choose a different one instead.

https://www.riseintoyourlight.co.uk/rise-into-your-light

⚠️ Trigger warning: This episode contains references to loving someone with alcohol addiction and domestic violence, including physical assault. Please take gentle care of yourself as you listen. 💛

At some point in childhood, most of us made a decision, without knowing we were making it.

We decided what we needed to do or be to earn love. To belong. To be safe.

Maybe you became the helpful one. The easy one. The one who never asked for anything. Maybe you made yourself so small you took up almost no space at all.

It worked, after a fashion. You got through. You survived.

But at some point, the strategy stopped working. The exhaustion caught up. The resentment crept in. And underneath it all, a quiet voice asked: does anyone actually love me, or just what I do for them?

In this episode I explore the strategies we build to earn love, and what it takes to start believing, for the first time, that we might deserve it simply for existing.

If anything in this episode feels close to home, please know you don't have to carry it alone. Here is where you can find support. 💛

🇬🇧 UK

• National Domestic Abuse Helpline (Refuge) — 0808 2000 247, free & confidential, 24/7
• Men's Advice Line (for male survivors) — 0808 801 0327, Mon–Fri
• Galop (LGBT+ Domestic Abuse Helpline) — 0800 999 5428
• Karma Nirvana (forced marriage & honour-based abuse) — 0800 5999 247
• Samaritans (24/7 emotional support) — 116 123
• In immediate danger — call 999

🇺🇸 US

• National Domestic Violence Hotline — 1-800-799-SAFE (7233), or text START to 88788, or chat at TheHotline.org, 24/7
• StrongHearts Native Helpline — 1-844-7NATIVE (762-8483), 24/7
• National Deaf Hotline — 855-812-1001, thedeafhotline.org, 24/7
• In immediate danger — call 911

https://www.riseintoyourlight.co.uk/rise-into-your-light

Before we begin, a gentle content note. Today’s episode touches on emotional abuse, addiction, and the experience of staying in a relationship that is hurting you. Please listen with care, and give yourself permission to pause if this brings anything up for you.

Why do we sometimes stay with what hurts us, even when we know it is not right?

In this Sunday edition of The Inner Work, Rose explores Rule Number Ten: the mind wants to stay with what is familiar while avoiding what is unfamiliar.

Rose shares the personal story behind a relationship she stayed in for too long, and why leaving felt more frightening than remaining with the pain she already knew. When your mind has no map for a new life, the unknown can feel unsafe, even when the familiar is hurting you.

This episode looks at the difference between danger and discomfort, and why anxiety does not always mean you are making the wrong choice. Sometimes it is simply the feeling of learning a new way.

You’ll also be invited to notice where you may be choosing familiar pain over unknown possibility, and to identify one small step towards something different that would be uncomfortable, but not dangerous.

Healing does not always begin with a dramatic leap. Sometimes it begins with one small step towards a life where peace, respect, and being seen can become familiar too.

https://www.riseintoyourlight.co.uk/rise-into-your-light

You understand your patterns. You can name them. You can trace them back to childhood. And yet you still find yourself saying yes when you mean no, panicking when someone's tone changes, and feeling guilty when you rest.

If therapy has helped you understand but not change, this episode is for you.

In this honest, reflective solo episode of The Inner Work, Rose Gaudion explores why knowing your story in your mind is not always enough to feel safe living differently. She shares her own experience of understanding people-pleasing perfectly and still doing it automatically — and what shifted when she began working with the body as well as the words.

This is a gentle invitation to stop blaming yourself for not healing fast enough, and to consider that you may simply need a different door.

The Inner Work is a podcast for women who have learned to disappear for other people and are ready to recognise the patterns beneath their pain, reclaim their voice, and begin rising into their own light.

https://www.riseintoyourlight.co.uk/rise-into-your-light

For many women the emotional vocabulary we were given was very small: fine. Stressed. Tired. Overwhelmed. Maybe angry if it became too large to hide.

In this reflective solo episode of The Inner Work, Rose Gaudion explores what happens when we never learned the words for what we actually feel, and how that small vocabulary keeps us stuck in "I'm fine" long after we have stopped being fine.

Using the feelings wheel as a starting point (not a tool to memorise), Rose shares how learning to name emotions more precisely changed her inner world: how it softened her inner judge, helped her stop translating every feeling into self-criticism or blame toward others, and gave her a way to meet herself with more compassion.

This is an invitation to slow down with what you feel rather than rushing past it, and to notice that naming an emotion is often the first step toward being able to hold it.

The Inner Work is a podcast for women who have learned to disappear for other people and are ready to recognise the patterns beneath their pain, reclaim their voice, and begin rising into their own light.

The Feel Wheel

https://www.riseintoyourlight.co.uk/rise-into-your-light

You can know all the right things and still live inside the wrong story.

You can know you are worthy and still feel small. You can know you are safe and still brace for impact. You can know the facts of your own life and still hear the old warning playing underneath everything.

That is because imagination is more powerful than knowledge.

The mind does not run on facts. It runs on the pictures it has been shown, the scenes it has imagined, the futures it has practised. And for many women, the pictures were never kind. They were shaped by childhood rooms, by overheard arguments, by faces that taught you love could disappear in a moment.

In this reflective solo episode of The Inner Work, Rose Gaudion explores why the mind will always follow the picture before it follows the proof, and how learning to imagine a different ending is not denial, but one of the most powerful tools you have for change.

This is an invitation to stop rehearsing the worst-case story and begin practising the one you actually want to live.

The Inner Work is a podcast for women who have learned to disappear for other people and are ready to recognise the patterns beneath their pain, reclaim their voice, and begin rising into their own light.

https://www.riseintoyourlight.co.uk/rise-into-your-light

Some of us apologise before we have even done anything wrong.

Sorry for asking. Sorry for being emotional. Sorry for needing help. Sorry for taking too long. Sorry for having an opinion.

And sometimes, sorry is not really an apology at all. It is a request for permission to be human.

In this reflective solo episode of The Inner Work, Rose Gaudion explores what it means to live inside automatic sorry, to read every room, soften every sentence, and edit every feeling before it has even been felt. She shares her own experience of becoming so good at making space for everyone else that she forgot she was allowed to have a place too.

This is a gentle invitation to notice your next sorry and ask: what am I actually apologising for? And to discover that replacing automatic apologies with honest sentences like "thank you for waiting," "I need more time," or simply nothing at all when you have done nothing wrong can feel rude at first, but only because you have spent years without a boundary.

You are not becoming selfish by including yourself in the circle of people you care for.

The Inner Work is a podcast for women who have learned to disappear for other people and are ready to recognise the patterns beneath their pain, reclaim their voice, and begin rising into their own light.

https://www.riseintoyourlight.co.uk/rise-into-your-light

Some of us are not only tired from doing too much. We are tired from being constantly available, constantly alert, and constantly aware of everybody else's needs.

And when you have learned that your value comes from what you do for people, rest can feel strangely threatening.

In this reflective solo episode of The Inner Work, Rose Gaudion explores the difference between collapsing because there is nothing left of you, and the gradual experience of genuine restoration. She shares what she noticed when she began to sit down without immediately scanning for the next task, and how old guilt can rise up the moment she stopped, like an alarm trying to keep her in her place.

This is a gentle invitation to ask: what would rest look like if I didn't have to prove I deserved it? And to discover that your needs do not become valid only when they become emergencies.

The Inner Work is a podcast for women who have learned to disappear for other people and are ready to recognise the patterns beneath their pain, reclaim their voice, and begin rising into their own light.

https://www.riseintoyourlight.co.uk/rise-into-your-light

Logic builds the case. Emotion decides what you do with it.

You can know, in your head, that you are safe, and still feel afraid. You can know, intellectually, that the email is fine, and still feel your stomach drop. You can know, rationally, that you are enough, and still feel the old doubt open like a door inside you.

That is because emotion always wins the battle. It is faster, older, and louder than logic. It runs through the body before the mind has time to speak.

In this reflective solo episode of The Inner Work, Rose Gaudion explores why arguing yourself out of a feeling almost never works, and what does. She shares what she noticed when she stopped trying to win the battle with logic and began listening to what the emotion was actually carrying.

This is an invitation to stop fighting your feelings. And to discover that emotion is not the enemy of clarity, it is information that the body has been waiting for you to hear.

The Inner Work is a podcast for women who have learned to disappear for other people and are ready to recognise the patterns beneath their pain, reclaim their voice, and begin rising into their own light.

https://www.riseintoyourlight.co.uk/rise-into-your-light

From the outside, giving from love and giving from fear can look exactly the same.Both may involve helping, listening, supporting, forgiving, and showing up.

The difference is what is happening inside you while you give.

In this reflective solo episode of The Inner Work, Rose Gaudion explores the quiet question underneath so much of what women offer the people they love: if I stopped being useful, would people still want me? She shares her own experience of being the person everyone came to, and the slow discovery that being needed is not the same as being loved.

This is an invitation to bring choice back into the moment of giving. To ask: do I want to, or am I afraid not to? And to discover that generosity without self-betrayal is not selfishness, it is the foundation of a fuller life.

The Inner Work is a podcast for women who have learned to disappear for other people and are ready to recognise the patterns beneath their pain, reclaim their voice,and begin rising into their own light.

https://www.riseintoyourlight.co.uk/rise-into-your-light