CHOOSING YOURSELF

A 6-Week Embodied Live Programme For WomenTo Break the Pattern of Self-Abandonment and Begin Choosing Yourself - In Real Time, In Your Body.

Starting Autumn 2026

I’m Catherine Hale

And if you've found your way here, you’re in the right place.

The women who arrive here tend to give more than they have. They say yes when something in them hesitates. They're the one who holds it all - in relationships, in rooms, in conversations - while something in themselves goes quietly unmet.

You might have been carrying this for a long time without a name for it. You may have tried to change it, and noticed that understanding it hasn't quite shifted it.

You're not the only woman here who knows this pattern from the inside. It has a name: self-abandonment. And it runs deeper than people-pleasing.

This isn't who you are - it's what many of us learn

You might recognise something in this.

What you've perhaps been calling people-pleasing - or being too sensitive, or just how you are - may actually be something more specific. A pattern of self-abandonment that has been running in you for a very long time. 

In most cases it starts early. Long before you had words for it, your nervous system made a quiet discovery: When I make myself smaller, things go better. When I don't ask for too much, I stay connected. When I manage how other people feel, things feel safer.

These strategies aren't a choice - they're your system finding the way to keep you fitting in. And they work. That's the difficulty. Not that you found them. But that they may have worked so well, for so long, that they stopped being something you do - and became something you believe you are.

Why you may have struggled to change this

You might have already tried to change this, most self-aware women have.

Perhaps you've read the books. Done therapy. Understood, like really understood what's happening and why. Maybe you've had the conversations with yourself where you decide: this time it's going to be different.

And then the moment arrives where you’re asked to give more than you have capacity for, where it feels like the other person’s needs are greater than yours, or that you need to smooth things out so someone else feels ok.

And often what happens in this moment is faster than thought. Faster than intention and faster than everything you know about yourself.

And you fold and say yes, sure, of course, before you even realise it's happening.

And then comes the familiar aftermath. The frustration. The resentment. The exhaustion. And the quiet wondering why this keeps happening.

If that resonates then I want to

offer you something that I hope lands as relief.

The real reason you keep finding yourself back in that place where the yes comes out before your body gets a chance to speak is usually….

because you may have been trying to shift something at the level of the mind, by practising affirmations, by intending to set clear boundaries, or saying no without your body backing you. The problem is the pattern doesn’t have its roots in the mind.

It lives in the half-second before conscious thought arrives, in the nervous system response that is faster than any decision you could make.

And you can't think your way out of a nervous system response.

"I have studied the nervous system and attachment patterning in theory and done a lot of IFS. I wasn't sure whether this course would actually create change for me as opposed to more theory or simply more self-understanding. But I am staying closer to myself now and making decisions differently and acting more confidently around boundaries personally and professionally. So things are changing and I am delighted."

— Karen | Belonging to Yourself

What becomes possible in your body, your relationships, and your sense of yourself

There is a moment just before you fold. Just before the yes forms. Just before your body overrides itself again.

Most of us move through that moment so fast we don't know it's there.

But it is there.

I call it The Pause. And when we stay there we learn to come back to ourselves - in the body, in real time just long enough to feel what's actually here, something starts to shift.

The Shift

You begin to recognise your strategies as they happen: the smile that wasn't real, the yes that came too fast. Something in your body starts to feel like yours again.

Your relationships may begin to shift - because you're more present inside them.

And the exhaustion. The anxiety. The chronic health issue nobody has quite explained. They begin to be recognised for what they really are - symptoms of your unspoken no.

You won't leave these six weeks fixed. But what you’ll probably leave with is something way more real - an embodied practice that gives you choice - and a clear sense of what's possible beyond it.

What happens across the six week programme

01 — The Map and ‘The Pause’

You begin to see the pattern clearly in your life, how it feels in your body, and you learn to track the moment just before it takes over. You’ll have your first embodied experience of The Pause- this is where change begins.

02 — Finding ‘The Pause’ in real time

You bring your week into the room and ask ‘was I able to locate ‘The Pause’ in the moment?’ We start to identify the mechanism of shame in the pattern and unpack how it works to silence you and make you small.

03 —  Reading the strategy

We’ll find your go to strategy: the smile, the quick yes, the freeze, the over-explanation.

So that you can begin to see your strategy as it's happening, in real time not just afterwards, and what you’ve learned to do to abandon yourself.

04 — What closes The Pause down

We go deeper in the mechanism of both shame and fear and how they activate the strategy.

You learn to practise staying with yourself while they're present, witnessed and celebrated by other women in the room.

05 —  Inhabiting your no

We’ll find the no that lives below the mind but inside your body. This is a way to become coherent through your words, body posture and energy so that your no is felt, has impact and creates change.

Then you’ll apply this in real situations and in the relationships that matter most.

06 —  What's becoming possible

This is about integration and deepening - supporting what you have learned to land deeper in your body and with more confidence so you can feel what has actually shifted.

And you leave knowing what's next.

Details Of The Journey

You will receive

  • A live weekly class of 1.5 hours over six weeks. All classes are recorded.

  • Direct live coaching + embodied practices which form the heart of our journey

  • Telegram group for extra support - and group connection

Calls are on Tuesdays from 6- 7.30pm British Summer Time (BST)

Between the calls we allow for both practice and integration through the moments that arrive in your life, where you track the yes that forms too fast, the signal in the body, and growing the pause that becomes possible where there wasn't one before.

This is where life starts to change because the nervous system actually builds something new at the speed it can actually stay with.

"Catherine's sessions are led with deep knowing and sensitivity. Her clear explanation of nervous system responses to triggers and ways to identify unconscious actions so they can be rewired for healthier boundary setting and greater self-love were meaningful and valuable. Highly recommended for anyone who feels they give too much of themselves to others — as mums, family members, employees or partners"

— Esme | Belonging to Yourself

Is This For You?

You might recognise yourself in some of what you have read so far.

You've probably been aware of the pattern for a while. Maybe you've named it - people pleasing, fawning, self-abandonment. Maybe you've read about it, talked about it, understood it more clearly than most people ever will.

Yet something still isn't quite shifting…..

This Is For You If

  • You know the yes that forms before you've checked in. And you're tired of it.

  • You're the one who holds it — in relationships, in rooms, in conversations — and part of you is wondering what it would feel like to put some of that down.

  • You've tried to change this. Therapy. Understanding. Deciding to be different. And understanding alone hasn't been enough.

  • Something in your body isn't quite right — the exhaustion, the anxiety, maybe a health issue no one has explained — and part of you suspects it's connected.

  • You may be in perimenopause, and something that used to feel manageable suddenly isn't. You're wondering if that's information rather than something going wrong.

  • You want to do this with other women who get it, without performing being okay. And you're ready to work at the level where this actually lives — in your body.

This Is Not For You If

  • What you need right now is trauma processing then this isn’t going to be the right space. I'd gently encourage you to seek that first - you deserve the right container for it.

  • You want to understand the pattern more deeply without committing to embodied practice - this programme asks you to show up and do the work, not just observe it.

  • You're hoping this will tell you what to do about a specific relationship - we're not here to analyse others or make decisions. We're here to build your capacity to stay with yourself.

This is a women-only space.

Not because men can't benefit from this work. But because women need a space to do this without performing, softening, or disappearing.

That's rather the point.

My Story

I know this pattern from the inside — the yes before you've checked in, the holding it in every room, the understanding it completely and still feeling it run. That's not something I read about. It's something I lived.

Over the past decade I've worked with hundreds of women on exactly this — through nervous system training, somatic practice, and trauma-informed work. Not just insight or more understanding. But embodied practice, with the right conditions. My writing on these patterns has reached over a million readers.

Choosing Yourself is where that knowledge meets practice — where the pattern that has been running your relationships, your body, and your sense of yourself begins to shift. A different experience of yourself in the rooms where you used to disappear.

If you're ready for that — I know how to guide you there.

Investment

Choosing Yourself begins

Autum 2026

Early Bird

Pay in Full: £297

Payment Plan: £160 X 2

Full Price

Pay in Full: £497

Payment Plan: £260 X 2

If something in you already knows — this is the moment to act on that. You've probably already waited long enough.

You've understood this pattern. You've tried to change it. You've carried it carefully for a very long time.

This is where you begin to put some of it down, alongside women who are choosing themselves too.

Your Questions, Answered

  • This work may be different from what you've tried before.

    Many women who find their way here have done significant work on themselves. They understand the pattern deeply. They can name it, track it, explain it to others.

    And something still isn't quite shifting in the way they hoped.

    Because the pattern lives in the body - in the half-second before thought arrives. And that's exactly where this work meets it.

    If anything, the self-awareness you've already built may make this work land more quickly.

  • Every call is recorded and available in Thinkific within 24 hours. You won't lose the content if you miss a session.

    That said the live calls are where the embodied practice and breakout rooms happen. That's where the real work tends to occur. So if you can make it live, even occasionally, that's worth prioritising.

  • No. And it's important to say that clearly.

    This is an embodied learning space that’s precise, practice-based, and held carefully. We won't be doing trauma processing or deep emotional excavation here.

    If significant material surfaces during the six weeks, I'll point you gently toward appropriate support. What we're doing here is foundational, its building the capacity to notice and stay with yourself in the moments that matter.

  • That can happen and it makes sense that it would. When something that has been invisible starts to become visible, it can feel like a lot.

    If that happens, the first invitation is always to slow down. To resource. To bring it to the call rather than carry it alone.

    This programme is designed to stay below overwhelm - deliberately, structurally. We move at the speed the nervous system can actually stay with. If you find yourself needing more support than the container offers, I'll help you find it.

  • This is perhaps the question underneath many of the other questions.

    And I want to answer it honestly.

    This work doesn't ask you to blow up your relationships. It doesn't ask you to have the big conversations before you're ready, or to make decisions you're not yet standing on solid ground for.

    What it asks - at first - is much quieter than that.

    To feel your own signal. To pause. To notice. To choose yourself in moments small enough that your system can actually stay with the choice.

    Some relationships will deepen when you do this because the version of you that shows up will be more real. And real tends to invite real back.

    Some dynamics may shift - and that shifting can feel uncomfortable. But discomfort and loss are not the same thing.

    And you won't be navigating any of it alone.

  • Choosing Yourself completes something and opens something simultaneously.

    The six weeks gives you The Pause and other embodied practices. A signal you can feel. A different relationship with the moment before you disappear.

    And for many women, the six weeks also shows them, from the inside, that there is a layer beneath the pattern that this level of work can point to but not fully resolve.

    The deeper work exists. And there will be a place for it.

    For now this is enough to begin.

  • You're welcome to get in touch. I read everything.

What Clients Say

"I didn't think of myself as someone who people-pleases, but I can see now how much I was overgiving — and then quietly feeling resentful afterwards. I didn't realise how automatic it was. This work helped me start noticing that pattern as it was happening, and for the first time, I could actually pause instead of just going along with it."

— Chloe | Belonging to Yourself

“Thank you for staying so very focused on just this one thing — and for being so very adamant that we do belong to ourselves and do not have to sit in that shame. Thank you for strengthening and repeating that message over eight sessions rather than bouncing between topics. So much flows from just that one moment."

— Becks | Belonging to Yourself

“I always thought I was just 'good in relationships' — easy, flexible, low maintenance. But actually I was constantly adjusting myself so nothing would get uncomfortable. I didn't really clock the cost of that until this. Now I'm starting to notice it while it's happening, which feels... new."

— Rachel | Belonging to Yourself

"Since then I've started to notice how much this habit is ingrained in me, even when I'm in the presence of strangers. It's so habitual. But I'm definitely starting to use tools that mean I can rely on myself and trust myself to hold the shame and be okay with it, and then interrupt it."

— Cathy | Belonging to Yourself

"Catherine's sessions are led with deep knowing and sensitivity. Her clear explanation of nervous system responses to triggers and ways to identify unconscious actions so they can be rewired for healthier boundary setting and greater self-love were meaningful and valuable. Highly recommended for anyone who feels they give too much of themselves to others — as mums, family members, employees or partners."

— Esme | Belonging to Yourself

"I have studied the nervous system and attachment patterning in theory and done a lot of IFS. I wasn't sure whether this course would actually create change for me as opposed to more theory or simply more self-understanding. But I am staying closer to myself now and making decisions differently and acting more confidently around boundaries personally and professionally. So things are changing and I am delighted."

— Karen | Belonging to Yourself