Live: At the Edge of Readiness - A Conversation About Retreats & Choosing YourselfLive: At the Edge of Readiness - A Conversation About Retreats & Choosing Yourself
Courage Dear Heart
Charli Wall shares a live conversation about her Wild Awakening retreats, what “readiness” truly means for women, and how shame, grief and old beliefs shape their choices. She talks about feminine energetics, the female nervous system and the power of women gathering to soften, heal and finally choose themselves.
1:12:17•27 Mar 2026
Choosing Yourself at the Edge of Readiness with Charli Wall
Episode Overview
- Readiness is often less about time or money and more about what a woman’s body has learned is safe, allowed and possible.
- Shame (“I am wrong”) and guilt (“I have done something wrong”) sit differently in the body and quietly shape decisions, relationships and self-worth.
- Many women live in an unseen undercurrent of beliefs like “I have to hold everything together”, leading to over-giving, numbing and eventual burnout.
- Retreats and women’s circles offer co-created spaces to soften, feel nourished, be witnessed, and start building a kinder relationship with the body and nervous system.
- Choosing yourself can feel frightening and selfish, yet even a small yes to your own needs can open the door to a different way of living and healing.
“Guilt is, ‘I have done something wrong.’ Shame is, ‘I am wrong.’ And they are two very different energetic frequencies in the female body.”
This conversation with Charli Wall offers a gentle yet uncompromising look at what it means for women to stand at the edge of change and wonder, "Am I ready?" Rather than selling a retreat, Charli talks honestly about the quiet threshold many women reach when life looks fine on the outside, but inside they feel flat, lost, or like that “swan who looks calm on the surface but is paddling like crazy underneath.” Drawing on her decades of work in mental health, addictions, and women’s wellbeing, Charli shares how her Wild Awakening retreats grow from a deeper commitment: helping women come back into relationship with their bodies, their cycles, their nervous systems and their truth.
What are the common struggles and victories in addiction recovery? She talks about feminine energetics, the difference between male‑based nervous system models and new research on the female nervous system, and how so many women live in performance mode—over-giving, over-working, numbing and overriding their own signals.
You’ll hear real comments from women in her community about shame, grief, midlife transitions, and feeling invisible after motherhood, alongside Charli’s own stories of burnout, using substances and over-exercising to cope, and slowly learning to soften instead of push. She uses myth, like the goddess Inanna’s descent, to help women name the “masks” they wear to feel safe.
This episode is especially suited to women who have “done the work” yet still feel something is missing, and to anyone wondering whether investing in time away for themselves is selfish or allowed. Charli keeps it practical too, talking through her Crete, Spain and Norfolk retreats, WhatsApp support, and why she never forces participation or phone restrictions.
If you’ve been hiding under a metaphorical duvet, quietly wondering whether you’re allowed to choose yourself, this conversation might be the nudge to ask: what would it look like if life met you where you are?

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