Naked Insights Podcast - musing all things health, relationships and trauma
The Naked Insights Podcast explores the powerful connection between mind and body in navigating trauma, health, and relationships. Each episode examines how our perceptions and behaviours shape mental health, our relationships with others, and the delicate balance with physical well-being.
From managing trauma, workplace stress, and major life transitions to cultivating healthy, nourishing relationships, Naked Insights offers tools, tips, and real stories to help you and your loved ones become more resilient and adaptable to change. Through an integrative and evidence-based lens, you’ll learn how to maintain balance and well-being in today’s increasingly chaotic world.
Hosted by Adele Theron, each season features a different expert as she deep-dives into the intersections between trauma, health, and relationships.
Season 1 features Sam McSorley, a functional medicine specialist and together Adele and Sam bridge the gap between holistic health and psychological resilience, guiding you towards a more balanced, empowered, and successful life.
Season 2 features Dr Lindsay Aikman, a consultant clinical psychologist and together they bring a clinically grounded lens to mental health, trauma, and relationships, cutting through myths, challenging oversimplified narratives, and exploring what truly supports lasting change.
About the Host:
Adele Theron (CCTP, CFTP, CFFTP, PGDipTraumaticStudies, MPsych) is a trauma therapist and specialist in trauma and transition recovery. She is the founder of Naked Recovery, which offers structured programmes to help clients transform trauma related to bereavement, redundancy, birth trauma, separation, divorce, infidelity, midlife crises, family estrangement, and health-related challenges. Her evidence-based recovery programmes have supported thousands of clients across more than 90 countries. Adele is currently completing her doctorate in Health Psychology at the University of Auckland, where her research focuses on developing clinically applicable treatments for clinician-delivered trauma-informed care for patients with chronic illness. Her integrative, science-based methods draw from somatic psychology, coaching psychology, psychodynamic psychotherapy, and trauma-informed practice.
About the Season 1 Expert:
Sam McSorley (MHealSc, PGHlthSci, DipClinHerbMed, BHSc (Complementary Medicine)) is a naturopath and functional medicine practitioner passionate about empowering people with choice in healthcare. As the founder of Sam McSorley Connecting Wellness, she helps clients recover from complex health conditions through holistic programmes that unite body and mind. Sam’s approach integrates nutrition, herbal medicine, genetic testing, nutritional psychiatry, and somatic psychotherapy, guided by the emerging science of psychoneuroimmunology - the study of how psychological processes influence immune and nervous system function.
About the Season 2 Expert:
Dr Lindsay Aikman is a Consultant Clinical Psychologist and Associate Professor in Clinical Psychology in the UK (BA BSc PGCert DClinPsy AFHEA) registered with The Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC). Lindsay brings a rich blend of clinical, academic, and leadership experience to conversations about how trauma, relationships, and physical health are intricately connected. Her work is rooted in the understanding that psychological distress is embodied, relational, and shaped by lived experience across the lifespan. Lindsay supports people with complex presentations where physical health, identity, attachment, and trauma are deeply intertwined. Alongside clinical practice, Lindsay is an Associate Professor at a UK university, where she trains future generations of psychologists.
Naked Insights Podcast - musing all things health, relationships and trauma
Season 2 - Episode 5 - Toxic Positivity : When Optimism Becomes Emotional Avoidance
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"Everything happens for a reason." "Just look on the bright side." We’ve all heard it, and we’ve all said it, but when does optimism become harmful?
In this episode, Adele and Lindsay explore the phenomenon of Toxic Positivity: the minimization and invalidation of real human emotions in the name of "staying positive."
We unpack:
🧠 Intention vs. Impact: Why well-meaning advice can feel like a shut-down.
⚖️ The Cost of Suppression: How pushing down "negative" emotions drives stress deeper into the body.
💥 Emotional Bypassing: Recognizing when we use optimism to avoid difficult truths.
🔍 Stoicism vs. Silence: The difference between healthy resilience and harmful emotional masking.
🚩 The Power of Being Seen: How to create a space where difficult emotions are bearable, not intolerable.
This episode is a vital look at why we need to embrace the full spectrum of the human experience to truly heal.
🎧 Tune in to discover why it’s okay, and necessary, to not be okay.
