Tomorrow is Not Today

podcast (00:00.898)
Welcome to the Tomorrow Is Not Today podcast. Today I have from the Sunshine Coast remotely, Caroline Clark. Caroline, I'm very excited about this podcast, like we were just talking about off air. It's a little bit like I think in this podcast is going to be one of those ones where we hit on topics that, you can't talk about that sort of subject. You can't talk about that sort of thing. Because whether it's a shameful thing or whatever it is, it's...

It's like, I'm pretty sure it's Netflix has got a TV show called You Can't Ask That. My daughter put me onto it. And it's where interviewers ask people from all sorts of different scenarios where you don't talk to people like that, like people who have accidentally killed people and they talk to them about the scenario and what happened or nudists and talking to them or talking to disabled people and asking all the questions that I think go through all of our minds, but

we're afraid to ask people. And I think from talking to you, we're going to hit on some of those subjects, which is you're very passionate about and I love. So can you tell us a little bit about who you are, what you do, how you help people?

Caroline Clarke (01:13.24)
Yeah, beautiful, yes. So I'm Caroline Clark. I'm an ex-police officer. I've worked in child protection, juvenile justice, and I also work in trauma therapy at the moment. So I predominantly work with women all over the world who know that something's wrong either in their relationship, in their life, but they don't have the language or the words for it. So they've spent their lives just being quiet, people pleasing, palatable. I'm wondering why they keep ending up in...

abusive relationships or relationships that make them feel small and insignificant. So I'm writing a book about breaking the good girl code and that's these codes that have been written and stitched into us long before we met the partner who abused us. Nervous system patterns that mistake familiarity for love. We were never taught about this. So I talk about a code and a vault and how the

abusers know the code and know the vault system to get inside before you even know it yourself.

podcast (02:19.969)
Wow, you go straight into the deep area, don't you? There's no sugarcoating that, we're right in there. That's awesome, I love it. So, now I know you've got a bit of a story to tell yourself, which is fantastic and where obviously this has all come from. So take us back a little bit, because one of the things you just said there is how things are encoded into us that sort of determine the rest of our relationships and lives to a large degree.

Caroline Clarke (02:23.898)
Yeah.

podcast (02:49.303)
Tell us a little bit about where does that come from you.

Caroline Clarke (02:52.889)
Yes, so...

I guess I didn't realise the home that I grew up in was as volatile as what it was until I started doing the deeper work quite recently. So between the ages of 0 and 7, that's when our brains are in a suggestive state. So it's like hypnotherapy. So the first several years of our life is when the blueprint is, I call it a code, is coded into our systems. I don't know if you've heard of the saying, show me a boy aged seven and I'll show you the map.

So that talks about the first several years, the blueprint, the times when our belief systems, who we think we are as a person, how we show up is coded in. So for me, growing up in a very volatile home, I became the caretaker for my mom. So really I was robbed of my childhood, but what I didn't realize is...

podcast (03:24.949)
Mmm. Yep.

Caroline Clarke (03:46.242)
I sacrificed myself for my mom. I just wanted mom to be happy and the way that I felt safe as a child was to self abandon and look after her and everyone around me. So that became my blueprint. So a self abandonment, a people pleaser, making sure that the heartbeat of every room is in, is in, you know, synchronized and

it was always at the expense of myself. So then when you enter a relationship, they know the code, they know the people pleaser, they know that you're going to put them first, that you're not going to have a voice, you're going to play small. And this is how we end up in abusive relationships because

they know the blueprint. So you often meet someone who is quite controlling and you've already learned in controlling environment to submit, to suppress, to stay quiet. So it's like a match made in heaven. And that's the journey that I followed. So basically I was meeting men who represented my father, but they were different, look a different flavor, but essentially they made me feel the same about myself.

podcast (04:53.229)
So Caroline, can you take me back, because that's really, really interesting. And I very strongly believe that this is a common thing that's happening at the moment. Can you take me back there to that place, like when you were a child growing up and you learned that's what you had to do, give me an example or two of what does that actually look like practically growing up that way?

Caroline Clarke (05:16.943)
Well, I'll give you the first memory I had as a child and I must have been woken up by noise arguing fighting mom and dad had been drinking and I can Vividly remember I don't know how I got there, but I'm standing on my mom and dad's double bed now My dad's probably 5'9 and the bed was quite raised, but I was his height So I would imagine I was probably about three years old He was trying to attack mom. He was sort of foaming at the mouth

There was a strong smell of alcohol and I came in like this little supergirl ended up on the bed Him facing me and I'm screaming stop leave mom alone and I must have grabbed his shirt and ripped his shirt at the chest and I remember seeing buttons pinging in every direction from his shirt Now when I look back I think the courage it would have taken that little girl to go in and confront her father to protect her mom now imagine as a three-year

In that moment, I would have learned that my father wasn't safe.

My father appeared like a monster in that moment. So from that day onwards, I was hyper vigilant. Is dad gonna suddenly go from naught to 10 in a split second? And I was always shielding mom. So I became the parent figure. Now that's one of two or three really vivid memories I have, but there would have been many more. But the issue is our mind wants to forget the trauma, the visualizations, because it is so terrifying and so painful.

but our body remembers so our mind tries to forget

podcast (06:55.191)
So from that one instance, is that what sets the blueprint? Does it take a number of these instances to happen, or can it be set from one instance, and that instantly puts a blueprint in this?

Caroline Clarke (07:10.115)
completely from one incident and it could be something that was pretty major like abuse or it could be something quite small but the nervous system stores it and then it forms a belief system so my belief system in that moment if my father's not safe and I'm there now I took on a role

in that moment which was to protect mum. So I already know that mum can't protect herself but I did something that day that was like a little superhero and it worked because it stopped the violence so then I have this full responsibility every time I go to sleep at night as a little girl the minute I hear a pop put down or a noise or a raised voice you can imagine that little girl would probably have never slept fully listening out.

podcast (07:55.18)
Yeah, wow. Wow. So you're then

Caroline Clarke (07:58.199)
So imagine what that would have robbed me of. That would have robbed me of the ability to sleep a full night as a three year old girl.

podcast (08:06.445)
And so like you said before, became hypervigilant just from that. does that hypervigilance, does that become a protection for your mother from your father or does that then overflow into people in general?

Caroline Clarke (08:24.714)
I think I was primarily protecting mum at the sacrifice of myself.

If there's a person in the home that you deem as dangerous I was never thinking about myself I even remember saying I want to tell mum this but no I won't because I don't want to bother her because she is in a domestic violence or in a domestic violence home and I don't want to burden her with anything extra I mean that in itself that's been the blueprint of my life I won't share that because that person's already suffering I'll swallow my words because

they don't really need to hear that because they've got enough going on. So I think that shaped me to be silent and voiceless and not fully ask for what I needed or ask for help, which is a trauma response.

podcast (09:16.237)
So that so as a as a little girl, you're trying to deal with scenarios, things in your own mind, fears that you might have, and the people that you're supposed to be able to run to, you can't go to them.

Caroline Clarke (09:36.694)
Correct. So I couldn't go to mum because I didn't want to trouble her and I couldn't go to dad because in that split second moment he wasn't safe to me anymore.

podcast (09:49.002)
Does that, when you say he's not safe, is that an ongoing not safe or is that when he's in this certain mode or mood or whatever you would like to call it?

Caroline Clarke (10:02.168)
Yeah, I he generally wasn't safe. He was very righteous. So if you ever had an opinion, he would always shut you down. was, used to say it's my way or the highway. And they do say about narcissists that they...

And I think there's a lot of truth in this is a narcissist, particularly father to daughter. They always want to view you as the little girl. And I used to say, this was the, feel like when I was a child, when he had control over me, I was in his home, had to abide by his rules. Whereas when I became an adult, he would still refer to me, the trouble with you children. That was his exact words. And I said, no dad, the trouble is I'm not a child anymore. So narcissists love you when you're children because they've got dominance

control over you because you need them otherwise how would a child survive so a child has to learn to contort and put herself into a little box because the truth is a three-year-old girl without those parent figures you would never ever be able to clothe yourself have a roof over your head so you have to contort and work out how can I survive this home with this mother and this father and the best way that I learned to survive was to look at the emotional temperature

of those adults and to keep myself safe was to people please just to play small to be quiet these are say to me you're such a good girl good girl you're such a good girl because she polite and you don't make any trouble well no I'd actually learn that that's the best way to stay safe naturally you know children are you know you know we push buttons but I'd learned not to do that because that wasn't safe for me to fully express

podcast (11:46.893)
It's interesting how at that age, the logic and the common sense and the thought process even at that age operates to make sure that we're doing the right thing to not ruffle any feathers or to keep the peace so much.

Caroline Clarke (12:05.91)
Completely. I mean, it's very when you think about the body It's got such an innate intelligence but sadly we are trained and conditioned to move away from the body move away from the intuition and go into the mind and override when in fact the body knows the body knows immediately, but we've just been swayed away from from trusting and We have all these maladaptive behaviors that came from those first several years how

can I survive this home, this environment as best I can. But then we have to unlearn all the things that we learned to survive in those first few years and that's the journey.

podcast (12:47.148)
I know Dr. Gabor Amate, I'm sure you've heard of him, probably studied a bit of his stuff. He like a genius when it comes to all this trauma side of things. And it's interesting you mentioned about talking about how the body learns and the body knows and holds it. And he talks very in depth about this whole side of things and what the body actually does hold.

Can you, especially for people listening and watching, go into a little more depth about, because obviously there's a nervous system in the mind and the memories and emotions and things like that, but I think to a large degree, like you said, we forget about how the body actually holds things as well. Can you go into a little bit more about that? So maybe people understand about maybe what's happening inside of them that they're not aware of, or why are these certain things going on?

Caroline Clarke (13:28.245)
Mm. Mm.

Caroline Clarke (13:39.427)
Yeah, well firstly I want to say Gabor Mati is amazing. He was one of my idols and I did study 300 hours of his compassionate inquiry. So I'm very aligned with his work and I do use his processes with clients. Look, I think I'll lead with a story because I think that's probably the best way that I can describe how the body holds onto the trauma in the nervous system. So let's rewind. I'm about 26 years old. I'm in the police force. I've been...

podcast (13:48.193)
Wow.

Caroline Clarke (14:08.224)
an officer for about six years. You know, I was trained to take men down. You know, I didn't have any fear walking into any situation, domestic violence, hostage scenarios. And this one particular day we had a call to a hostage situation and it was a woman that was being held at Knife Point by her son. Now, to me that was a normal day in the area in which we worked. It was a lot of domestic violence, a lot of crime.

On the way to this call I was passenger holding the map because back then we didn't have phones we just had little map books and my mail counterpart was driving. Now if I was to close my eyes I can even remember exactly where I was when this happened to my body. I remember the houses I was passing at high speed, blue lights, sirens.

In a split second, my whole body had a reaction. My throat started to tighten. I couldn't swallow. My heart felt like it was about to be out of my chest. You know that do-doom, do-doom? You can actually hear it, like it's vibrating. And then my body started to shake, like my hands, my arms. First and foremost, the good girl had been trained, remember, to self-sacrifice. My first thought was, how can I hide this from him?

podcast (15:09.782)
Mmm.

Caroline Clarke (15:28.016)
So I kind of like put my hands down so you couldn't see them shaking and I'm confused thinking what the heck is happening to my body? I've never experienced anything quite like this and if he knows that I'm actually scared because that was the first it was fear it was terror if he knows I'm scared his first thought is well she's not safe how can we go to a situation when she's saying I'm afraid?

And remember that almost looking up and going, I can't be in this job anymore as a frightened police officer. Anyway, we went to the scene. Obviously, I've very much learned to push it aside and just brush it off. And we dealt with the situation. Let's now fast forward 31 years. And I go into deep therapy and I have a memory of my father with a knife in the kitchen.

holding on to my mom who was almost sort of like well she was disassociated she was out of a body she was compliant in that moment the dots connected so i as a little girl had witnessed a situation in my house that was like a hostage situation that i'd obviously the mind wanted to forget the body had held the score of it

So the reenactment of that was this blue light call to a hostage situation. My body remembered. My mind couldn't. So that trauma response, I mean it was a violent shake, the heartbeat, was my younger self, three, four years old, thinking I was going into a situation with my father as a little girl.

So I became in that seat in the police car, I probably became three or four years old and I couldn't make any sense of it. But the issue is when we can't make sense of it, we shame ourselves. my God, I'm scared. I feel humiliated. So the best thing to do in that situation was to suppress it even more.

Caroline Clarke (17:26.274)
How can you then as a police officer, you know, keep calm and carry on and say to my colleague, or do you know my body started shaking, I was scared. They weren't equipped to deal with that back in the early 2000s. Nobody said I'm scared. It's like you wear the uniform and you show up no matter what. So the moral of this story is when your body starts to respond in such a traumatized way, it's often never about the moment that you're facing. In reality, it's a transportation back to the past.

to a cellular memory that's already coded inside the body. And the only way that we can start to heal that is by asking, I wonder where this began? Because it certainly began here.

podcast (18:01.279)
Wow, that's...

podcast (18:08.459)
So that's, that's, it blows my mind that it really, really does how, how that actually works. And so when you're in that situation, what, and obviously, you know, now back then you wouldn't have known, now what can somebody do if they're in that situation and something crops up, their mind not, may not even know what's going on, but their body has whatever effects is going on.

what can you actually do to sort of push through that?

Caroline Clarke (18:43.221)
Yeah, well, I mean, firstly, it's breathing. So when you're in that situation, you're almost sort of having a panic attack and you're almost sort of hypervigilating, hypertension. what you need to do in that moment is breathe. Now, had I known there was a process, and one of the major things that if I would have understood about trauma would be to ask myself in that moment, how old am I? How old am I?

because I wasn't 26 years old, I was four. So any situations where your heart's racing, it's to ask yourself firstly, what's happening for me? Mine was fear. Start to breathe. Start to allow the body to regulate and ask the questions. How old am I? And when did this first begin? Become curious. Because I see it happening in domestic violence relationships. They suddenly, their partner morphs into their father or their

mother and they're no longer seeing the reality who who's in front of them they're seeing a mirror effect and a ghost from the past and when you see it goes from the past you shrink to the age you were when that first trauma took place and you're no longer in your body you've literally left your body you're probably as I say not to seven years old and you can't make sense of a situation when you're back in your trauma response

podcast (20:10.737)
So breathing's a way to get through that. And then can you, is your mind able to sort of catch up a little bit and you can actually come back to being present and moving forward in a logical way or what happens there?

Caroline Clarke (20:25.068)
Well

When you think about trauma, you go back to there's a video on YouTube that shows an impala in the African plains and it's so beautiful how it describes the nervous system and you know the line comes and sort of nibbles at the impala. The impala realizes it's under threat so it drops to the floor. Now in order to make itself smaller and less of a threat it starts to slow down its breathing and this is what happens.

biological response which it's the freeze response so it starts to slow down its breathing its chest doesn't move it looks dead because it wants to it wants to let the tiger or the lion know that I'm not a threat anymore because I'm actually dead so it slows it down and then when the when the threat moves away what happens is it'll start to go into a violent shake to shake the energy out of its nervous system and it'll start doing this tremble

which is kind of what we should do when we start to feel threatened, there's fear raging through our body but what we do is we actually then suppress it, we feel it, we suppress it and we push it down. That fear doesn't disappear, it just gets lodged. So the next time you're in a situation, it'll start to rise. So we've probably got multiple versions of fear and shame and guilt that's sitting inside of us waiting for an opportunity for something to come along to bring it to the surface.

So when it comes to the surface we want to take responsibility and say I wonder how old this fear is, how old this shame is, this is an opportunity for me to heal something that's ancient.

Caroline Clarke (22:08.653)
because the person in front of me is just a mirror to what's already within me. So biologically, we're supposed to shake it out, get the energy of it out of our body, but we don't do that. We're not trained. We're to be quiet, shut up, stop crying. You don't get angry. Little girls don't get angry. Little boys don't cry. Shh. And it just gets pushed all the way down. And then a volcano comes up and there's an explosion.

podcast (22:37.215)
Hmm. Interesting because you hear quite a bit of like, they were just such a nice person, then all of a sudden, boom, they just exploded. Nobody knows where that come from or why that was like. I think you've just explained that very, very well what's happened.

Caroline Clarke (22:37.493)
And there it is.

Caroline Clarke (22:54.091)
Because I say to my clients, nobody makes you feel angry.

Nobody makes us feel angry. No one makes us feel shame, guilt. It's something that's in us that we feel that's already there. So you could make a comment to me and I could feel some form of humiliation. But the humiliation, the shame is there. It's just rid its ugly head. I'll give you another situation. I was in the Telstra shop in Noosa and this guy walked in and he asked for a refund and the manager said no. And I just started to watch in the

I could see the escalation which is beautiful because she just asked that very question and I started to watch this customer because he wasn't getting his refund He wasn't getting what he wanted his face started to go red his chest started to puff out and he was getting angry now in that situation the manager who

had an opportunity to de-escalate he then got triggered I watched it play out it was incredible so then the manager got triggered and started to puff out his chest and before I knew it was almost like a fight going on so I went over and I just sort of tried to separate them the guy actually pushed me the customer now I had my three boys with me in that moment and I thought this is a beautiful learning opportunity to talk to them about anger and how we can literally just be out of our body in a split second

and I said the same analogy to the boys I said what do you think about what went on and they're like that guy was such a jerk I said well I wonder if it could come from a really compassionate perspective because what I saw in that moment was that man the customer who didn't get what he wanted he was extremely disappointed but he shrunk back down to being a little boy who was almost having a tantrum and the manager probably could have been the father figure the mother figure somebody who we'd had an altercation with and he didn't get what

Caroline Clarke (24:52.495)
want and it's still inside his body so he went to violence he went to escalating because that's how he thought he would have been able to get his needs met so I said to my boys he was probably seven years old in that shop and actually the manager probably became about the same age because you could see what was happening so I think rather than judge if you can just compassionately ask I wonder how old that person is right now because there might not be 51 or 30 there might be seven and you

ask a seven-year-old to speak to a manager in a shop and get a refund without you know losing the plot

podcast (25:28.65)
That is a brilliant analogy, a brilliant analogy. So I'm going to ask you to go back there. And what did you do to help de-escalate that a little bit? So what I'm looking for is practical steps, practical things that we can do, whether we're in a scenario ourselves or maybe in another scenario that needs to be just chill, guys. Let's sort this out properly.

Caroline Clarke (25:47.478)
Yeah.

Caroline Clarke (25:56.299)
Yeah, well guess for me, I, let's go back to when you first asked me about my childhood home and then I became a police officer, so do you see how I naturally go into situations like that and I don't think twice? That was the training in childhood. That could have been my father, remember, on the bed, so I'm all in a situation like that. I'm probably reacting my own trauma and seeing my father, so there could have been a trauma triangle here. So, what I did in that situation, I just sort of put my hand

podcast (26:08.702)
Mmm.

Caroline Clarke (26:26.312)
I said boy like you know just back off which is why he then pushed me But what you've got to understand is when someone's in that situation. It's almost like they've left their body They cannot rationalize. They're not in their logic mind So it's very hard to de-escalate when someone's in a heightened state because their nervous system is in either fight flight or freeze and those two men were in fight and This is why when people intervene they often get in

themselves.

podcast (26:58.312)
right, yeah, because there's no logic, there's no thinking happening.

Caroline Clarke (27:01.962)
there's no logic and this is why people say to us my god I wish I would have said that often people say I I couldn't find the words I wish I would have said this other ones in phrase that happens to a lot of women in abusive relationships

then you've got the fight and you've got the flight but when fight and flight are not available the body will automatically freeze to keep you safe and alive in that moment so this is a really good teaching point particularly for people who cannot understand why they react the way they react and then they shame themselves afterwards my goodness I fought and I wish I wouldn't have fought back

or I ran and I should have stayed. So the more that we educate around the nervous system, which is a biological response to keep us safe, the body takes over.

podcast (27:58.089)
Yeah, it's, it's, it's a whole being is really involved in this, isn't it? It's not just one thing. It's not just a mind. It's not just emotions. It's everything's involved in here. so it, it, looks like going back to your original scenario as a child, as a three year old girl, and then you look at your career focus of where you've gone and what you naturally do and whether that comes from a

Caroline Clarke (28:20.992)
Mm.

podcast (28:26.344)
trauma scenario or a learned scenario. To me, I think whatever happens to us, we can turn it around for good, which is what this podcast is all about. And what you've actually done with your life now and actually going out and helping other people. It's almost like you didn't choose a career. Your career chose you because of who you became as a person.

Caroline Clarke (28:39.596)
Mm.

Caroline Clarke (28:50.57)
I mean if you...

look at it from a soul perspective, I think my soul came here in service, to be in service, of service. Now, in that, I believe I chose the parents. I chose the parents to transition me into a career as a police officer and then go on to help to heal women. So I'm not a victim of my circumstances at all. I'm a victor of that and the wisdom that I've gained from why

podcast (29:19.562)
Hmm.

Caroline Clarke (29:21.646)
this little soul came in and chose those parents. But what's really interesting is I was a really good police officer. I I had commendations for bravery. I remember getting a judge's commendation, but I've never asked myself why was I so good in dangerous situations? Why was I able to go in and...

Mediate. mean, this is quite fascinating. We had a lot of domestic violence in the division that I worked in and after going to multiple homes and reenacting the Telstra shop where the police officer would go and take the man first, which is natural. We're always male and female. You were paired up. Then I realized over a series of months that this is not working. When the male goes to the male, it

creates a fight masculine on masculine like the Telstra shop I wonder if I could go in and take the male and get my male colleague to speak to the female now when that first happened the protective male officer said no why am I putting you in that room with him because we take them into separate rooms and I said trust me I had no idea that I practiced that as a three or four year old girl no idea but I just knew that I could do it so from that moment onwards I realized that I was able to do

deescalate the males are like sorry love sorry love I'm sorry you've just beaten up your wife but it stopped that you know pushing out the chest and the aggression because the feminine energy was the safe feminine energy was able to deescalate the masculine rage not in every situation but mostly where they were able to communicate they got to the point where they could communicate now and they weren't literally fighting by the time we got there so I was

podcast (30:50.282)
you

podcast (30:55.636)
Yeah.

Caroline Clarke (31:16.834)
starting to understand then about human behavior and how we can see danger de-escalate it and then when I left the police force I was fascinated to go where did this all come from no one is born a predator an aggressor it's like I wanted to understand so in order to go back to my own childhood and how did I become the Savior I realized well it's the opposite for them what environment have they grown up that they've seen aggression

that they've been beaten up or they've like it's we're a product of our environment as well as genetics so I think it's allowed me to see more about human behavior trauma that the trauma is in us and we've got every opportunity to heal it with every situation that we are faced with daily

podcast (31:51.678)
Hmm.

podcast (32:06.833)
It's really interesting because the things that we grow up with our traumas or whatever it is, whatever scenario it is that we're in as a kid can have a couple of different effects. And now I would imagine that like, and pretty much opposite effects. and I would imagine that there's a decision that you had to make to turn that into a positive thing rather than.

walking into like a Telstra shop and starting a fight, the opposite happening of going, you know what, I've got this, I can help make this better. You know what mean? There's like two opposite scenarios going on from highly likely similar, similar sort of backgrounds to a degree. How does that work?

Caroline Clarke (32:53.248)
Yeah.

That's a really interesting question and I can speak on behalf of myself and all my female clients who were in volatile situations. I was trained to submit, suppress and be compliant. Yes, I had moments when I went in to protect my mum, but the rest of the time in that family home, I froze and I just was the good girl and did it as I was told. So in every relationship,

I've actually have the same response which is to freeze. So let's look at a child who maybe grew up in a home where they learned that fighting was the only way they could survive, right? They might have seen a father beating up the mom and the father may have come and harmed them and they fought their way out of it. So when you're under threat, you've got two different systems operating.

One learns the only way that I can stay alive is to shrink and be quiet and become invisible. So that was me, predominantly most of my childhood with my father, where you got the other half that goes, I survived by fighting back. Now you imagine that's the code.

So no wonder these two people come together, yin and yang, know, in the relationship. So one's learned, when I'm under threat and I feel disempowered, fight gets me out of it. And the other one learns that when I'm under threat and disempowered, the only way I can get myself out of it is to shrink down and not fight back. So.

Caroline Clarke (34:38.219)
that's been my understanding because every single woman, the hundreds of women that I work with have taken my route out. I just, people please, I go quiet, it's not worth it. Because they learnt with their father or their mother or whoever that that's the only way. There was no other way. They might have tried to fight and they might have been beaten.

podcast (35:04.071)
Is it fairly, and I know you work with women, so this may be a little bit of a difficult question to answer, but is it fairly typical that that's the way that it goes, males and females?

Caroline Clarke (35:08.426)
Yeah.

Caroline Clarke (35:13.515)
No, not necessarily. I think...

Because I work with lot of women, I have to also be really clear that I love men. I'm raising four sons. So this is definitely not just, you know, males are aggressors and females are the submissive. No, but predominantly women have been trained right back to the Victorian era to be compliant, to be the one who's in the house. You know, she prepares the food for the husband. She just stays quiet. So we've been trained.

our generational lineage. But with

When you think about childhood trauma, if we start to think back about asking ourselves the hard questions, what home did I grow up in? What did it teach me about love? How did mum and dad argue? Was there violence? Was there addiction? Because the patterns continue until we interrupt them. So we live a life of patterns until we interrupt. So myself included and also my clients, when they leave the relationship,

kind of go, phew, thank goodness I'm out of it. Never again will I meet someone like that. No, that's not the case. Often we're out the door, but we're not out of the pattern. So we're still wearing the same clothing stitched together, which is stitched to our past. So women will say, my God, I'm on my fourth narcissist and how, know, blaming the person.

Caroline Clarke (36:49.265)
My response to that is the common denominator in all of those relationships is you. It's not coincidence that you end up narcissist to narcissist to narcissists to the point where you come out of your victim. And when I say that with love, when we step out of our victim mindset and not poor me is ending up in all of these abusive and toxic relationship. It's like, I wonder what part I'm playing. And when I say part is what pattern and code am I running from my past? That means the

podcast (36:49.513)
Hmm.

Caroline Clarke (37:19.229)
people are just gravitating towards me and when we start to unpick the pattern and decode the system our energy changes our frequency changes like tuning into a radio the frequency is different and they don't find you

podcast (37:33.949)
Yeah.

podcast (37:38.545)
It's actually fascinating how we, we do attract that. We don't try to, we don't think about it. We don't consciously do it. It's just what is attracted to us and our, obviously our nervous system, our mindset, our thought patterns, all of these things have a lot to do with that. And you mentioned, and then we'll go into this place where, cause I know this is a big lot of work where you're doing at the moment where what's taught to us as kids and who we're meant to be and what happens. It's not.

It's like you talk about a blueprint that's put inside of us. That's us then. You attract those sorts of relationships and those sorts of people. Can you go into a little bit about your personal self in this way, in this area, and how that's impacted you and how you've had to learn through that and grow through that?

Caroline Clarke (38:29.419)
you

Yeah, beautiful. as I mentioned before, was meeting versions of my dad, but my dad was violent. So bearing in mind, I would have had a standard. So if they're not violent, then they're a whole lot better than my dad. But what I was, what was happening was they were still showing up in very similar ways, manipulative, cohesive. But sadly, back then we didn't understand cohesive control. It's only been quite recent COVID.

narcissism, manipulation.

I didn't understand all I was trained to see was violence and without violence then it's a healthy relationship. So I was quite blindsided and even in the police force we knew nothing about emotional abuse. It was if you don't have a bruise then you must be okay which is why I feel for a lot of women in a situation where they are being cohesively controlled it's most will say I just wish I had a bruise and I could prove to you that I'm being harmed. So that was my life.

It was being in relationships where I was playing the same role. I was learning that I didn't matter The more I asked for my needs to be met the more I'm kind of disempowered and helpless and the more I get taken advantage of Begging pleading just love me treat me well So it was almost like being just dropped little breadcrumbs But these breadcrumbs were way more tasty than my childhood home because there was no violence. I'm like, okay

Caroline Clarke (40:02.2)
Ahem.

And I use the analogy of the fridge. So imagine I've got my blueprint from my past, but then I meet these beautiful men who tell me how amazing I am and they're flattering and I'm going to give you a beautiful life and I'm like, wow, that's all this little girl ever wanted. She never had a safe man who saw me, chose me, wanted me. Now someone in front of me is going to give me everything that I never had as a little girl. So my fridge is empty, but their fridge is full.

flattery, you know, I've never met anyone like like you before and I'm like, wow So I go to their fridge and I start to forage and then after a while their fridge starts to empty which is the flattery stops and the promises and you're like, This isn't the person who first presented themselves to me So you ask for them to top up their fridge because you're starting to get a little bit malnourished and they don't you go This is a bit weird, you know, you were full of all of these beauties

beautiful, affectionate words and behaviors and now your fridge looks empty. Now I'm not going to go back to my fridge because my fridge is devoid of anything. I'm going to stay inside his fridge and say, I really wish you could just, you know, show me what you showed me from the start. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll fill up my fridge for you. It never happens. So that analogy is when you come from void, which is where I was coming from in every relationship, there was a void. So I was going outside of myself to someone else's fridge to fill it.

to the point where I realised I'm seeking everything outside of myself. I'm going to relationships that are exactly the same. A wolf in sheep's clothing, different person, different location. But if I'm coming from an empty fridge and I expect them to keep me nourished, then actually I'm already giving my power away to them.

podcast (41:55.613)
Yeah. Yeah, totally. Can you give us, and I know this could get a little bit ugly and personal, but can you give us an example? Cause some people may be in a scenario and then it hasn't clicked yet what's going on. They're not really seeing what's happening. Can you give us a couple of scenarios of what that can actually look like or what, what it looked like for you?

Caroline Clarke (42:16.841)
Yeah.

And I love how you've said what it looked like. And I think the healing journey is what it feels like.

podcast (42:27.227)
Hmm.

Caroline Clarke (42:27.9)
So if I can give a message out to anyone in a situation, we can sometimes be blindsided by what it looks like and we ignore what it feels like. Because particularly when you're in a toxic cycle, you will have moments when it's dreadful and you're going, I'm out the door and you one foot out the door, the bags are packed, but one foot in. And then suddenly they feel they're losing control of you. So then they'll be full of niceties again. So they'll stock up the fridge and you go, wow, I don't, I'm not going to leave now because

the fridge is full and you stay and then it's a cycle and what we need to understand is how does it make us feel? Do you feel loved, cherished or are you constantly seeking these breadcrumbs?

with my ex, one form of abuse I didn't even realise was false promises and always playing the victim and that's another code that I had inscripted within me that when someone's a victim like my mum, actually got a feeling in my heart when I say this, this is a truth bomb when someone shows up as a victim even though they've hurt me my automatically, my saviour comes in and feels sorry for them so this is abuse

beautiful Vision of where most people are stuck in toxic relationships They'll go to step out the door and then the person will come as the victim. I'm really sorry I'll treat you better and then it appeals to that good girl It appeals to the coding and you drop your gun you say well I'll give them another chance and then you're back on that hamster wheel again So false promises I had no idea that that was a form of control because it was always gift wrapped in I'm really sorry I'm useless

I'll change but nothing ever changed. So we have to look at actions and not words. Particularly when you're an empath and you've got a beautiful heart. You take people on their word but it's the action. How does their actions show up? And if someone's going to make a promise, if they don't deliver and they're out of integrity, we use that as information. Particularly when you're dating after abuse and it's really hard to trust again.

Caroline Clarke (44:47.518)
to look at your boundaries which we never taught. If someone's not a man of their word then is this someone who's going to be there for you in five years time?

podcast (44:58.223)
And I imagine, because in a scenario like that and listening to you, it comes across as a very nice, beautiful, genuine, loving type of thing, but wrapped in manipulation.

Caroline Clarke (45:14.41)
Yeah, and I think we just need to educate, which is kind of the mission that I am putting out to the world right now is education.

We need to teach this in schools. We need to teach what gaslighting looks like. We need to teach consent. What's consent? And it isn't someone who pressures and persuades and gaslights you and manipulates you into giving them what they want. That's not consent. So education is key and by sharing stories so people can say, now I understand. Now I get that.

like the false promises when I was talking about that recently people are like my goodness that was happening to me all the time if someone promises something ten times and doesn't deliver that's not just a mistake and I I've got a bad memory

podcast (46:09.263)
It's interesting because it seems like...

people in that scenario, you try and look for the good in them. You believe the best in them. So even if it happens, you still want to believe them because you love them. You believe they are a good person. That is that person about them. How do you come to terms with the fact that maybe they're not who I actually think they are? And that obviously is because of their own issues that they've had to deal with.

because I, I personally believe everyone intrinsically is a good person, but obviously life's happened. that completely changes a lot of things for them. And as you've said, when life happens to you, that then trains who you are as a person. So someone in a scenario like that, how do you pull yourself out almost and have a look at what is going on in this scenario to find the real thing above the emotions, above the intentions.

above the what looks good.

Caroline Clarke (47:15.133)
Yeah, that's a really good question and I've been watching a lot of crime shows recently which I love just to get into the psyche. Now, the common denominator with most women who end up in those relationships is when you ask what state of mind they were in when they met the person and most would say I was lonely. I was lonely. And I will speak on behalf of myself. When I've met people in the past and there have been red flags...

podcast (47:20.007)
Of course you do.

Caroline Clarke (47:42.376)
I've chosen to ignore them because I've convinced my friends that this is the one and I'm like now how do I go back to my friends and tell them I got it all wrong. So there's a bit of pride there too. Now so you think you'd be coming from a place of loneliness but you're also coming from an empty fridge and for beautiful hearts and people pleases you want to see the good but often we're buying into a project because here's the thing the savior the one who's in divine service wants to help him

fix and you're gonna attract the people who need helping and fixing so most will say I just I believe they've got potential well that in itself they could be a good person women will say they don't dress very nice but you know can help to change their wardrobe and so the minute you meet someone and you wanting to change them or you believe there's potential or you've noticed something doesn't feel right and you've overridden it's to pause and ask yourself

podcast (48:23.27)
You

Caroline Clarke (48:42.499)
Am I coming from a place of truth here or am I coming from a wound? Because I've run a lot of domestic violence circles and I've asked every single woman the same question which was did you see the red flags from the start? Everyone said yes. So my next question was why did we all ignore them?

podcast (49:03.121)
Mm.

Caroline Clarke (49:04.219)
So it wasn't that the red flags weren't there, there was a feeling and every single one of us can go back to a situation when the first red flag appeared. We will all remember it. The older historian said, I remember this. Now it is the condition, the train and the girl that then says, well, if I ignore that, you know, maybe it was a mistake because that's the forgiving part. The forgiving part comes over and says, I'm just going to give them another chance. And then before you know it, knee deep in it.

you know some of theirs we have children or and then you're like how the hell do I now rewind and get myself out of this situation when I'm already knee-deep in it

podcast (49:44.892)
And I guess if you've come out, if that's what you've trained since you were a kid and you've come out of a scenario like that as well, then you've still dealing with those issues internally and in the body. So to be able to recognise yourself wouldn't be an easy thing to do, would it?

Caroline Clarke (50:03.817)
No.

but you're only going to recognize yourself through the mirror of the outside world. It's your world teacher. You know, often clients will say to me, I don't trust a man. I'm never going into a relationship again. And I said, you know what? It's not about, you trust them? The question we have to ask ourselves is do we trust ourselves enough to keep ourselves safe and choose the right person? It's like when we talked about the anger being inside of us, the anger. So the question isn't, don't trust anyone. It's I don't trust myself to make the

podcast (50:26.331)
Wow.

Yeah.

Caroline Clarke (50:34.795)
right decision and to judge someone's character. So then that's where I work with our clients is the trust piece because if you give your power away and say I don't trust anyone how you ever gonna learn to trust yourself if you're saying it's them and it's not me because it's with me. So this is where the work becomes so transformational is to rewind back and see where our trust was lost, how our trust has been constantly exploited.

podcast (50:52.379)
That's huge.

Caroline Clarke (51:05.536)
Because let's be honest here most narcissists will go for a strong woman someone who is independent social but everything There's everything in you that they want to be But then it becomes a threat so they'll start to slowly siphon it out of you to the point where you don't have your confidence You're less independent, but you had all of that, but someone sucked it out of you So it's a case of how do I get everything back that was taken away from me either in childhood?

in this relationship. It is in there. It's just literally layered with all of these doubts, fears. Shame. Shame's a big one.

podcast (51:43.847)
How do you learn to trust yourself again? Because obviously that's something that's been eroded over time, a long time and a lot of issues and things that have happened. So how do you get that trust of yourself?

Caroline Clarke (52:01.213)
beautiful question. It's like how do you train a bicep in the gym? You don't just look at the machine and think it can just give me a big bicep. You have to go to the gym and train it. Yeah. So what I believe is you have to keep going out into the world and going into relationships and having these micro moments where you're checking in with yourself. And I've gone from, you know, five month relationships down to working out within two weeks. And I think that that is incredible because I'm

podcast (52:09.638)
That'd be nice.

Caroline Clarke (52:31.236)
longer being blindsided and seeing the person as a project or potential when you know Maya Angelou one of my favorite quotes when someone shows you who they are the first time believe them not the second the fifth the tenth the twentieth so what I'm looking at now is safety so I had a situation recently where I want to date with a man and I said like you know please don't touch me in a sense that you know early dating holding my hand

podcast (52:44.646)
Hmm.

Caroline Clarke (53:01.307)
or you know these are my boundaries.

If you want to touch me ask my permission and this was me testing it out for the very first time you know when people suddenly grab you or plant their lips on you and I'm like I don't want that I want someone to say would you mind if I kissed you would you mind if I held your hand so I was being very courageous testing this out and then this person grabbed my hand on the beach but in the moment this is what's so interesting about trauma I knew what he was doing but I went into freeze because in that moment he was then a reflection of my father what if I speak up and

now what's going to happen? So I remember thinking, my God, my God, he's got my hand and I've already set a boundary and he's overridden it, now what do I do? So a memory from the past will come up when a boundary has been overridden and I've tried to speak it and I either got punished, so I'm now in this freeze moment of what do I do? I'm no longer 51 again, I'm transported back. So, you know, healing's linear, it's going to keep on happening, but I had the awareness and eventually pulled my hand around and I said to him afterwards, why did you do that?

His response was, you didn't say no.

and I said but I set a boundary so these are really that was information for me I'd already set a boundary he chose to ignore it in fact when he got my hand he said I know you don't want me to touch your hand but I want to do it anyway that's information and it might be something so tiny as a handheld but in six months time it might be something much more severe an escalation so what I want people to understand is when someone crosses a boundary even if it's a micro boundary it's giving you

Caroline Clarke (54:39.786)
information about that person's respect for you, respect for themselves, about safety, trust. So we have to keep testing it out. You're in the gym, you keep doing your bicep curls.

podcast (54:53.83)
It's almost like you're saying that learning to trust yourself is teaching yourself to be able to read and understand people and situations. So the trust that you're giving is in your ability to do that almost.

Caroline Clarke (55:13.84)
Yeah, absolutely. So you're looking at the other person but you have to look at you. And what I believe is the more intimately I've got to do myself, the more I can spot things in other people.

podcast (55:27.014)
Mmm.

Caroline Clarke (55:27.416)
So you are constantly reading but you're also feeling we can't miss that feeling piece the drop of the stomach the tightness in the throat they're going to speak and the words won't come out if you're in a situation where you can't speak to somebody you want to ask yourself what's happening now in this dynamic when I don't feel safe enough to use my voice or my hands are trembling what's this person remind and you know what that could be quite an innocent person but it might be a reminder from the past so again it's this discern

of is this my past that's coming forward or is it really this person it's a dance between the two because you oscillate between child and adult child and adult and I use another beautiful analogy when you when you face a person who makes you feel under threat so let's use the hand holding on the beach as a situation it's like driving a car so he went to hold my hand I was driving the car and in the moment he took my hand my

adult self got thrown into the boot and the boot got locked and my four year old she sat in the seat and she froze right because she it's her father now but she's reckless she's got a foot on the gas and she's like I'm driving this show I'm gonna freeze because it's the only way now that I can feel safe in this hand-holding situation so she's got a foot on the gas she's reckless she's heading towards a brick wall so every time these situations happen where you go into a trauma response or you shrink or you freeze your younger self has come forward and she's

taken the steering wheel. Now the healing journey is so we can heal every part of our younger self that was traumatized so then we can take over and we can say sweetheart I've got this now I'm going to speak for you you're not that little girl anymore with your father so if I would have been in a situation where they're in the handhold in that moment I'd have gone darling it's okay it's safe for me to speak now and speak up for us we're not with dad you're not going to get hurt my darling girl let me

take your hand and say no thank you I don't want you to hold my hand I'd already set a boundary but no we're not going to be punished we're not going to be chastised we're not going to be hurt or judged or abandoned I mean you fear is abandonment so I would love to spread this message out to the world if we could just reparent the younger self that didn't have the mum and the dad and there's no judgment on our parents they did the best they could with the tools that

podcast (57:31.526)
I love that.

Caroline Clarke (57:56.878)
they had from their generational trauma but if we want to make a change we have to firstly reparent our younger self and then we can be the best conscious parents to our children because this work has changed the way I show up for my children my goodness the way I look at them I'm not coming from a wound I'm coming to see them through eyes of unconditional love not trauma and it's funny because my I have to tell

this story my my two boys were wrestling and you can imagine as a traumatized little girl growing up in DV and I know this happens with a lot of women when your children start to escalate again your trauma comes up you remember and I'm I always jumped in before because it always ended in tears and my 13 year old said to me hey mom I just want to speak to you about you helicopter parenting us he said and it's beautiful because I've

been open in a way that said please speak your truth to me I'll always take it on the chin he said I know this is your childhood trauma that's coming forward while you jump in before you see an escalation I know it's your little girl who feels afraid

Caroline Clarke (59:12.622)
So what's beautiful in that moment is if we can show our children our own childhood trauma in a way that, my goodness, that was my little girl in that moment. my goodness, I'm sorry, I was six in that. If we can educate our children, then they can say, hey mom, know, back off, let us play. You're not five years old in a loving way. How beautiful.

podcast (59:34.149)
That's fantastic. Because as parents, it's, you do try and, I think the protection mechanism, I know as a dad definitely goes in the whole protection side of thing goes in there. And so to stop yourself, I remember when, when my, especially my two girls who were 13 months old and they're good friends now, but they went and they usually were, but there was a period for about two, two and a half years where it's like,

what happened to you guys? They would just add each other constantly. And it was really hard for me to actually let them deal with it themselves. Because you're right, they need to, I needed to pull back and go, hey, you know what, they've got it. Don't worry about, because there was a bit of what you're talking about growing up in my background and as a child as well. And so the idea is then you want to stop it, you want to protect it, you just want to look after it.

But at the same time, you got your kids there and it's like, you don't want them hurting each other, but sometimes you've got to let them go and just do that and deal with it because they're going to be better off themselves and learn how to deal with things themselves anyway.

Caroline Clarke (01:00:44.239)
Absolutely. And if you with your 13 month old, they're twins, right? They're 13 months apart. So let's use this situation. So imagine you've got your two daughters 13 months apart and they're starting to rough and tumble.

podcast (01:00:50.137)
that's 13 months apart. Sorry. Yeah.

Caroline Clarke (01:01:03.183)
In that situation, once you feel a feeling that you want to jump on in, something's happened inside your body for you to go into protective mode. The question as a parent to ask themselves in that moment, am I protecting my girls or am I protecting my little boy?

podcast (01:01:18.512)
Hmm.

Caroline Clarke (01:01:20.871)
I feel that. Am I protecting, I actually feel the emotion, am I protecting the little boy who didn't get protected? And that's the feeling. Because yes, as a mother and a father, we do want to protect our children, but we've got to ask ourselves, is this overwhelming feeling of protection relevant to the moment, relevant to what's happening in front of me? Or is it a memory from the past and I want to go in and save him? And when you're saving your girls, you're actually saving your younger self.

podcast (01:01:21.318)
Good question.

podcast (01:01:48.166)
It's an interesting thing to look back at, isn't it? Or look at in the moment and work out what's actually going on. Caroline, this...

Caroline Clarke (01:01:53.517)
Yeah.

I mean if we'd have had that, if we'd have had that, if we'd have known that as a parent when our kids were younger I think it would, it would change how we parent our children because we're parenting ourselves completely yeah

podcast (01:02:07.433)
I would have been so much better a dad without a dad, so much better dad than I was. Caroline, this has been absolutely fascinating and we could keep going on and on and on about this. And I love the work that you're doing at the moment. Tell us a little bit more about what you're doing, how you're helping, obviously women in particular. think it's no more silence. Yes, tell us a little bit more about that.

Caroline Clarke (01:02:31.566)
Yes. So my...

Yeah, so my foundation is No More Silence, that's the movement and the message behind that is I broke my silence so that others can break theirs. So what we want to do is we want women to break their silence on their childhood, if they were in childhood sexual abuse, family situations. There are so many women that are walking around with secrets. They've either felt that the secret is safer to keep inside the

or they've been told to keep the secret. Now the secret just doesn't stay there and happily live inside you. It rots, it erases you, it affects your relationships, the way you parent. So no more silence is breaking that silence. And it's a two-way street. It's not just with the victim and the survivor, it's with the bystanders, victim shaming, the justice system, where every step of the way was silenced even more. The conviction

rates for sexual assault are at 6%, we need to get those numbers higher and we have to ask ourselves why conviction rates are so low, what's happening, why are women not coming forward and when they do why is it not going to the point where people are being made accountable. So and I'm also writing a book called Breaking the Good Girl Code which is all of my story and all of my learnings and teachings from how we coded, why we end up in our relationships where we're abused.

and how to decode so that we can be free and we don't pass that generational trauma onto our children like a family heirloom, one generation to the next. So we have to be the ones to step forward and break that. So I have a big mission to go globally. I'm a national finalist for Miss Australia Legacy International in August and I'm going to take this mission onto the stage to help other women who feel less alone.

Caroline Clarke (01:04:34.857)
Thank

podcast (01:04:36.581)
Caroline, that is fantastic. What you're doing is exactly what this podcast is all about. Helping people where they've been gone through life, the issues of life, stuff that happens to people. And you'll turn that around. You've healed, you've gotten a place now where you're actually going out to help other people to prevent it happening or to actually be able to help other people heal and move on and live their life better. I absolutely applaud you. I think it's fantastic what you're doing.

Thank you for coming onto this podcast. It's been an honor to have you. I do want to, a question I always ask everyone before we finish here. How can we create the life that we want and leave a legacy that we're proud of?

Caroline Clarke (01:05:24.359)
think we can create a life that we want by knowing that we deserve it and it's achievable and having that belief that anything is possible and when you've got a dream, picture yourself living that dream. So when I go into my ice bath every day I picture myself with that crown on stage and the sash that says Miss Australia 2026. So imagine you've already got it, it's yours, you're living and you're breathing it and then you'll manifest it.

podcast (01:05:53.177)
love it. And how do you leave a legacy you're proud of?

Caroline Clarke (01:05:58.12)
I think by knowing that your story can help hundreds of thousands if not millions of other people and

by sitting in your home going, do I really matter? Is anyone going to listen to me? Just go out there and tell your story because your story is often hundreds of thousands of other people's And someone's waiting for you to go first. Someone's waiting for you to speak up. It's no different to the Me Too movement. And then someone says, Me Too and Me Too. It's like throwing a stone into a pond and it becomes a ripple effect. And that's how we heal. I believe just voicing your stories.

first step to healing.

podcast (01:06:41.615)
That is so cool. I love that so much. Caroline, thank you again so very much. Where can people get a hold of you if people want to go, hey, you know what, I could do with a bit of that help that you're offering people. How can they find you?

Caroline Clarke (01:06:54.151)
Yep.

So Facebook is probably my main platform under Caroline Clark. I've also got a website which I can give you details. It's www.carolineclark.com.au. And also people can vote for me to get into the top three. So if you start to follow me on Facebook, that's where all of my mission and my stories and everything that I'm, talks that I'm doing, podcasts, everything goes into there.

So people can vote me into the top three which is really amazing and then hopefully within the next few months the book will be out.

podcast (01:07:34.049)
fantastic. And we'll put those details on the YouTube channel as well and on the podcast so people can go and find you and connect there. And if you are there, you some of this has resonated, because I know this resonates with a lot of people, jump on, connect with Caroline and see what you can do. Maybe there can be some help there for you, or maybe you can jump on board with the whole movement and help a whole bunch of other people as well. So Caroline, thank you so much. Have a fantastic day. I really appreciate you being here.

Caroline Clarke (01:08:03.346)
Thank you for having me.