Let’s Start the Interview:
The Worlds Times: Explain your background and your Company in detail.
Caroline Purvey: From a young age, I was always interested in business and not at all work-shy. As a mum with three children, I went to university in my late 30s. After graduating with a BA Hons in Business and Education Studies, I decided to close my retail business and complete a PGCE so that I could teach Business to teenagers. Before my third year of teaching, I completed a master’s degree in education management.
The last 12 years of a 17-year teaching career were spent as Head of Business in a Boarding School for children from military families. It was a rich experience. After my MA I pursued further studies to stay challenged. It was a complete switch. I qualified as a Yoga teacher and in several alternative therapies.
On leaving the education system, I continued to teach Yoga in the community and after a year fulfilled my dream to have a well-being center. Just before opening, by not-so-strange coincidence, I was led to South Africa where not only was I there at a time I needed to be for my daughter due to having her first baby, but the event I attended just happened to be in a venue only five minutes from where she lived. The training was on body energy work. I made a vow that day that on my return I would share it in the UK. I was a woman with a vision and mission.
As I opened my centre I set up TRE UK® and created the Total Release Experience® programme which has evolved over the years from all my rich experiences. I continued to teach yoga but soon gave up my other physical therapies, as the impact on healing was nowhere as profound as the process I was sharing.
I soon realized it was experiential, no two people released their tension in the same way. I recorded everything – questions and client experiences and taught myself so much more than what I ever learned in my early training.
To put into context and clarify for the reader:
- From the day you were born the ‘startle response’ was your natural response to your first trauma.
- Tension is drawn into the core of the body – the Psoas muscle. It is your fight/flight center and where you hold fears and emotions.
- Every stressful, overwhelming, or traumatic life experience draws tension into the body and changes your physiology.
- When faced with stress and trauma, we all go into the body’s natural survival mode. Initial tonic freeze then fight/fight to survive.
- Unlike animals we do not release the tension, hence it remains stored in the body’s muscle memory. Suppression creates physical, mental, and emotional problems.
- Teaching the TAP process (Thoughtfully Activate the Psoas) educates and supports those looking for optimum health.
- Releasing tension heals the past and builds resilience. It is a life tool and a tool for life.
- The process works with the highest level of energy frequency we can access.
In 2015 my son Daniel started to work with me. His passion grew when the practice enabled him to turn his own life around after an acrimonious divorce. He is integral to the development of technology essential for delivering online courses which were our only option to survive during the Covid lockdown. It was pivotal for my business. We now have a global reach.
The Worlds Times: What are your goals?
Caroline Purvey: Our goals are to.
- Raise awareness to enlighten and educate as many as possible to know they have another choice to heal from the impact of stress, overwhelm, and trauma, by learning to master their well-being.
- Through a new Community Interest Company working with Charities and organizations over the next two years to train 200 school facilitators to empower 1 million children to learn the process so they do not take their childhood trauma into their adult life.
- Make a documented difference in the reduction of people struggling with mental health and suicidal thoughts.
The Worlds Times: What do you feel is the biggest strength of the TRE UK® Total Release Experience® Programme right now?
Caroline Purvey: Our biggest strength is that, unlike traditional and familiar therapies from talking to massage or medications, all healing comes from the outside in. At TRE UK® we empower clients to heal from the inside out. We teach the TAP process (Thoughtfully Activate the Psoas), so like animals (which we all are) human beings can reconnect with their body’s natural ability to recover from stress and trauma. Our unique programme is scalable, sustainable, accessible globally, and cost-effective. Backed by validated data I bring a wealth of experience and passion which is another strength.
The Worlds Times: What was the path you took to get to where you are today?
Caroline Purvey: In short, not an easy one. Since my return to the UK over a decade ago after initial training, I met with scepticism, criticism, ignorance, and more. However, every person that came to me and trusted me to learn what I had to share, made transformational differences in their life. Their feedback shared stories and testimonials would be the driver from which I drew my strength to ensure I kept going. As a believer in synchronicity, I have had an extraordinary journey that has bought me to where I am today. Having worked with clients from all walks of life, and with my belief, that our body is more powerful than most would understand or believe, I gained so much experience and expertise. An experiential practice because all humans are unique and have their history and so how the body chooses to heal is unique too. My learning never stops.
Throughout the years the right people came into my life, giving me the support and credibility I wanted when I needed it. One of the early introductions was to Professor Gordon Turnbull, a world-leading trauma clinical psychologist. Not only did he believe in what I was doing but trusted me with some of his highly traumatized clients and nine years later wrote the Foreword of my book ‘Feel It To Heal It.’. My journey continues and is far from over.
The Worlds Times: Why did you start TRE UK®?
Caroline Purvey: I set up TRE UK® on my return from South Africa with a vision and mission. All humans need to know there is something they can do to take responsibility for their health and well-being and live their best life. I never envisaged years ago I would be in this amazing and unique field of work, trailblazing what I know and believe in to transform so many lives.
The Worlds Times: What have been the biggest challenges you’ve had to overcome during the journey of your leadership?
Caroline Purvey: I have endured many challenges on my journey. However, one of the biggest was to win over Fire and Rescue, Police, Military, and Prison Services, to take on my program. Getting passed from one to the other, cutting through the bureaucracy and red tape, but my perseverance and passion opened the doors. The best thing was walking into prison and having that first encounter teaching inmates. It made all the effort and stumbling blocks worth the effort.
Covid lockdown also presented a very big challenge. At a time when stress levels were rising, we had to find a way to move forward if we were not going to close down. Together we created a program for people to do in their own homes and learn how to heal from their trauma feeling safe and supported by following instructions was something I never thought possible. I was able to draw on all my years of face-to-face work, giving me the confidence to drive forward. It really was a case of stepping up or giving up. We have never looked back.
The Worlds Times: Give us one word that describes you the best.
Caroline Purvey: Inspirational
What do you value the most about TRE UK® vision?
Caroline Purvey: What I value most is that I have never stopped believing in the vision I had over a decade ago. I have stayed focused, and it has remained constant There is so much unnecessary suffering from stress and trauma, in this world, to campaign and trailblaze to reduce the suffering is and will remain at the heart of my vision.
The Worlds Times: What are the strategies of TRE UK® and how do you stand unique from your competitors?
Caroline Purvey: Our strategy is dedicated to increasing visibility creating collaborations with other professionals and building teams of Facilitators to deliver the process to grow our global reach.
Every effort has gone into creating a unique program that can be accessed wherever one is in the world. What makes us unique is that we have a sustainable, cost-effective, scalable solution that can be tailored to organisations, schools, Charities, and individual needs. We offer expert education and support services as well as providing comparison reports detailing a client’s progress and the improvements to their physical, mental, and emotional status at any point in time. We offer a tool for life and a life tool. We also have systems to gather collective data that show the impact that the process we teach has on participants after as little as four weeks.
The Worlds Times: What are the key values which helped you to overcome the challenges in your path? Tell us something about your memorable incident in your leadership.
Caroline Purvey: My key values are Integrity, Personal Growth, Empowerment, and Freedom. Everything we do is with integrity, when a client may pin their hopes on finally healing from their past they also put their trust in what we do. The other three values follow through for that is what we deliver. I will never compromise the way we deliver and educate for we respect our client’s needs.
The most memorable incident in my leadership was launching my book and seeing it achieve best-seller status. In publishing my book, I was putting my message out to the world. I stand bold to fly in the face of what we currently understand about health and healing and encourage a mindset change, that it is not someone else’s responsibility to heal us but our own. It takes the reader out of their comfort zone.
The Worlds Times: How do you see the company changing in two years, and how do you see yourself creating that change?
Caroline Purvey: Over the next two years, I see the company growing exponentially. As we can tailor what we have to embrace so many niches and client needs be that the condition they suffer from back pain to Parkinson’s or enable them to recover from the cause of their trauma from abuse to grief. I also see myself involved in far more speaking engagements and training of others to grow the face-to-face opportunities not just in schools and universities working with the young but to support Charities in niche areas including abuse, addictions, and relationships.
I have always been the one to implement and drive changes as the business has been growing. Leading from the front and building relationships with those looking to engage with or share our work through collaboration is for the next year going to be primarily driven by me. Word of mouth is also doing the job for me. As we grow, I plan to build teams to add to the client support we offer, and train others to take a lead and in sharing the process.
Working with Daniel we are developing our Wellbeing membership platform to enhance services and enrich our client’s healing journey. This will include not least coaching, exercise, and nutrition. I adapt and change with the needs of society so undoubtedly the next two years will also bring new opportunities and changes I would be excited to investigate. Having visited the US only last year and making some wonderful connections, more of that will happen.
The Worlds Times: What benefits are your clients getting from the TRE UK® Programme in this competitive world?
Caroline Purvey: The way we have implemented the programme, every day I am following the journey of clients. Through their session Journals, feedback, testimonials, emails, and stories, they share their progress between sessions and beyond. Changes occur on every level physically, mentally, and emotionally.
I share feedback from two clients following another of their regularly weekly sessions:
‘I have been on a magical self-healing journey. My body will never feel the pain and twist and tension that it had before, it’s gone, as if it never was there, and wouldn’t know how to get it back even if I tried’
‘For the first time in my life, I feel calm and at peace. It’s as if all the tormenting and anger that was trapped in my body finally left. I have never felt better, and I know it’s thanks to this process that allowed my body finally let go of 35 years of being physically, mentally, and emotionally abused by my family. My body said no more, enough and it finally let it all go and now for the first time in my life I feel like I can actually move on. Thank you, Caroline. This process saved me. I don’t know how I would have coped over the years without it.’
This sharing highlights the diversity of healing as all are unique and all have their own back story. Such sharing is what drives me to do what I do.
The Worlds Times: Would you like to say anything else to our viewers?
Caroline Purvey: Prevention is better than cure, a cliche for sure but so true. When it comes to health, get curious to see what your body is capable of, not wait for your Bucket to fill. Healing from the past and building much-needed resilience in a challenging world have never been easier or so important.
Thank you for reading.
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