A PERSONALISED EMBODIED PRACTICE FOR CHRONIC STRESS, NERVOUS SYSTEM REGULATION AND SELF-LEADERSHIP
40 DAYS TO MEET YOURSELF DIFFERENTLY
ENGINEER STILLNESS® 40-DAY PRACTICE PROGRAMME
WHEN YOUR SYSTEM NEVER QUITE ‘SWITCHES OFF’
You may be managing a lot — work, family, exercise, travel — and functioning ‘well’, while in truth, you’re finding it increasingly difficult to really switch off.
Chronic stress doesn’t necessarily mean falling apart. Sometimes it looks more like becoming very good at staying busy: a mind that keeps running, difficulty resting without feeling you should be doing something, disrupted sleep, physical tension, increased reactivity, or feeling exhausted but somehow still ‘on’.
It may also be showing up in your relationships - at home, at work, everywhere. You may have less patience, react too quickly, withdraw or find it hard to be fully present — even with the people you love. When so much of your capacity is being used simply to keep going, there can be less available for connection, curiosity and allowing space between what happens and how you respond.
In time, living this way can start to feel normal. We can become so accustomed to operating at a certain level of activation that we only notice how much effort it takes when our usual ways of coping stop working as well as they once did.
Leadership under pressure
Leadership places particular demands on our capacity to stay present and make considered choices under pressure. I experienced this myself during my time in broadcasting, leading a team in a fast-paced, high-pressure working environment: the way we manage our own stress inevitably affects how we communicate, make decisions and relate to the people around us.
When stress becomes chronic, it can narrow attention, increase reactivity and make it harder to pause, listen, think clearly and creatively or respond in the way we intended.
Embodied self-leadership
Engineer Stillness® is a structured, bespoke 40-day guided programme that that helps you develop greater capacity for nervous system regulation through a personalised body-based practice, so that steadiness, clarity and resilience become qualities you can increasingly cultivate for yourself, rather than being states you seek from something or someone outside of you.
The programme offers a practical way to change your relationship with stress through your body, rather than reading more books, watching more podcasts or ‘trying harder’ to relax.
This isn't about ‘optimising’ yourself.
And the aim isn't to remain strangely calm all the time, but to build greater capacity for pressure — to learn practices that are restorative, to recover sustainably, to respond with greater choice, and to remain connected to yourself and the people around you when the demands are high.
WHY 40 DAYS?
Repetition is central to how embodied learning happens. The 40-day structure has its roots in the yoga tradition, where sustained repetition has long been understood as a way of establishing new patterns of practice. Contemporary neuroscience offers another lens: through neuroplasticity, repeated experiences can strengthen neural pathways, making particular patterns of thought, behaviour and response increasingly familiar and accessible.
There is no scientifically fixed number of days in which a new habit forms — this varies considerably between people and behaviours — but sustained repetition over time is central to both habit formation and embodied learning.
Forty days isn’t a magic number or a promise that your brain will be ‘rewired’ by Day 40. It provides a meaningful, time-limited container for returning to an experience often enough for something old to begin to loosen and something new to begin taking root.
What makes Engineer Stillness® different?
Instead of relying on weekly appointments, temporary motivation or another app to remember to use, Engineer Stillness® is designed to help you learn a personalised embodied practice by heart, without needing hours a day, a subscription or a guru.
The practice becomes something that can be by your side for life, that you can carry anywhere — helping you to enduringly meet what is here now, less burdened by the conditioning of your past.
The aim is not dependence on me. It is increasing trust in yourself.
CLIENT TESTIMONIAL
“I found I was more calm and more relaxed through the little things that didn't work out day to day. I found the program well-structured and paced. I'm still practicing almost daily.”
STELI, CEO, USA
THE PROGRAMME STEP BY STEP
Over 40 days, we move from understanding your individual patterns and needs, to building and learning your personalised practice, to making it something you can use independently in everyday life.
UNDERSTAND
1. WE START WITH A CONVERSATION
During a free initial call, you tell me what’s going on, what you’ve tried, and what you’re hoping for. I’ll explain how I work and answer your questions so you can decide if it feels like the right fit.
2. I DESIGN A BESPOKE PLAN
Based on your needs, your schedule, and your goals, I create a personalised embodied practice incorporating a toolkit of techniques, with the trauma-sensitive aspect dialled up or down. These tools are practical, portable, and adaptable, able to be built into a routine.
LEARN
3. WE GO THROUGH THE PLAN & WORKSHOP THE PRACTICE
I familiarise you with the framework I’ve created and my reasons for doing so and listen to your feedback. We meet - online or in person - to workshop the physical postures and breath techniques together and adjust them for your body. My approach is collaborative. You know your body best.
4. WE DO YOUR PRACTICE TOGETHER
We meet twice — in person or online — to do the whole practice together with me guiding you. This is where you become more familiar with the techniques, structure and rhythm of your practice. There’s opportunity to feed back again and make any further adjustments.
5. YOU RECEIVE BESPOKE PRACTICE RECORDINGS
After the initial two practices together, you receive professionally edited recordings of your practice of varying lengths (to support those busy days).
integrate
6. DAILY PRACTICE BEGINS
You continue with your practice every day for the next 40 days, eventually learning your practice by heart.
7. WE HAVE WEEKLY CHECK-INS
These calls can be fitted around your schedule and offer an opportunity to share your experiences as you integrate practice into your life. It’s also a space for me to listen, reflect back and offer supportive insights. I may also suggest practical adjustments as you progress.
8. DAY 40 REVIEW
You may have guessed by now that our 40 days together are just the beginning. The beginning of integrating a new way of being - self-led wellbeing, using tools you are walking around with every minute of every day. Our day 40 review is a chance to reflect on the journey so far and help you to make a plan moving forward.
BY THE END OF THE 40 DAYS YOU’LL HAVE:
a personalised practice you'll know by heart
recordings you can return to whenever you need them
practical tools to support nervous system regulation
greater confidence responding to stress and adapting to challenge
a framework you can continue using long after the programme ends
a lifelong toolkit, if you continue to commit to practice
“When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.”
— From Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl, Austrian neurologist, psychologist, author & Holocaust survivor
THE COST
INITIAL ‘HELLO’ CALL
£0
The call takes place online via Zoom. You don’t need to download the Zoom app. If you wanted to move forward with me by the end of this call, I’d email you my intake form to read and fill in.
40-DAY PERSONALISED PROGRAMME
£2,000 (including tax)
Your programme includes::
Your initial intake /onboarding and practice design
All live practice sessions and all weekly check-in / coaching sessions
A personalised embodied practice
Bespoke recordings
As needed support via email & messaging throughout the 40-day programme
Final review and recommendations for ongoing practice
FLEXIBLE PAYMENT PLANS
I am very open to payment plans, for example, £500 per month over four months, or £400 over five months.
Why Work With Me?
People often find me after realising that knowing what they need to do and actually being able to embody it are two different things. They may have tried therapy, exercise, meditation, retreats, apps or other approaches — yet still find themselves returning to familiar patterns of reactivity and coping, whether overwork, avoidance, short cuts, hacks and seeking solutions outside of themselves.
Engineer Stillness® approaches this differently: rather than continually seeking another solution outside yourself, we build something you learn to carry with you. Here’s what I offer:
A grounded, evidence-informed approach. I’m a certified TCTSY facilitator and experienced somatic practitioner, combining contemporary understanding of trauma, chronic stress and the nervous system with more than 25 years of embodied practice. My qualifications and experience.
I understand high-pressure working environments. Before moving into this work, I spent 15 years in UK broadcasting, including at the BBC. I know the pace, pressure and culture of demanding professional environments — and how easy it is to become high-functioning under stress without recognising what that functioning is costing you.
Bespoke support. Nothing I do is off-the-shelf. Everything we do together is tailored to you, your schedule and your goals.
Embodied, practical tools. This isn’t just more talking or thinking. I help you develop practices you can actually use — in real time, anywhere — and that build resilience for the long term.
I respect your time, your intelligence and your autonomy. My role is to help you take back ownership of your wellbeing in a way that actually works for you.
TESTIMONIAL
“TO SAY CHARLOTTE'S PRACTICE CHANGED MY LIFE IS AN UNDERSTATEMENT. IT HAS BECOME AN INTEGRAL TOOL FOR TRANSFORMING MYSELF AND MY ENTIRE LIFE FROM THE INSIDE OUT. CHARLOTTE'S GUIDANCE, ADVICE, AND LOVING SUPPORT IS TRULY ONE OF A KIND.”
— Ryan, Founder & Author, USA
TESTIMONIAL
“Charlotte has unique expertise in her field which draws on the challenges she faced in the corporate world as well as developmental trauma in her own life. But above all she has a warm, natural, down to earth style of guidance, intuitively reads your energy, and tailors the practice to support you uniquely.””
— Lara, Sales & Business Strategy Consultant, S. Africa
QUESTIONS YOU MAY HAVE
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Engineer Stillness is designed for people who want to develop a sustainable, independent way of working with chronic stress, nervous system dysregulation and patterns of reactivity. You may be functioning well in many areas of life while finding it difficult to switch off, rest deeply, manage stress or feel consistently grounded in yourself. You don’t need previous experience of yoga, meditation or somatic practice. Everything is designed around you.
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I work with you to create up to 3 different versions of your practice of different lengths to fit in with your lifestyle. For example, a 1 hour full version, a 30 minute version and a 10-15 minute breath and meditation practice.
In addition, there are always elements of the practice that take just a few minutes and can be done anywhere, even when travelling.
However, it is also true that a part of this program is exploring and committing to finding some time for a self-regulatory practice, and then observing the impacts of this. What is it like to prioritise yourself in this way?
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That’s a fair question, and one I hear often. The difference here is that you’re learning to work with your own nervous system, rather than outsourcing your wellbeing to someone or something else. What we do together serves as a starting point to equip you with practical, lifelong tools — not just a temporary escape. Moreover, unlike coaching or psychotherapy, this process is concerned not with cognitively processing your past, but managing how your past (wounds, habits, conditioning) is showing up in your present. All of which happens in your nervous system, without words, creating unhelpful patterns of thought and behaviour. Your new tools are designed to help you adapt better to living in the present, on an ongoing basis, without needing to rely an intervention from outside of yourself.
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Physical fitness is very important and absolutely needs to be a part of all our lives. However (and I speak from my own past experience), many of my clients are very fit yet still feel stressed, disconnected or unfulfilled. Lots of people live fast-paced, high-intensity lifestyles and often they adopt the same approach to improving their physical health. In other words, they feel as though it’s not working if they’re not sweating and aching.
But being busy, on the move constantly and navigating work stress is already up-regulating your nervous system; adding intense workouts on top of that, without any counter-balance, only pumps out more stress hormones and exhausts your system more, until you may be at risk of, for example, burnout. It’s important to balance movement with stillness, learning how to down-regulate your nervous system too, such that processes including digestion, repair of damaged tissues, rest and bonding with partners, friends and family - capacities that are suppressed during sustained nervous system activation - can come back online. Moreover, a better relationship with slowing down and stillness facilitates embodied awareness, including a capacity to listen and respond to the internal signals of your body and meet your needs, something called ‘interoception’ in neuroscience. What I teach addresses the parts of you that a workout can’t reach.
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Not at all. I work in a way that’s completely grounded, trauma-aware and free of jargon or dogma. I’ll provide some information about the origins of some of the tools you will work with, as well as the science of how and why they work, but what you decide to do with that information is up to you. You won’t need to chant, memorise Sanskrit names for postures or adopt a particular belief system — unless you choose to.
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That’s completely fine. This work doesn’t require you to share or relive difficult stories. You are free to share as much or as little as you like. It’s not about analysing your past — it’s about working with what’s happening in your body and mind here and now, and that doesn’t always require words.
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Yes. The practices are portable and flexible, and I build your toolkit around your lifestyle. You don’t need to be in the same place or keep the same schedule week after week.