Testimonials

I've lost count how many people I've recommended Alice's practice to. Having MBR coaching has been life-giving in the most literal sense! After experienced bouts of fatigue at various points in my life, lasting anywhere between 1 month to 1.5 years, it was a godsend to have been introduced to Alice's work, and have got my life back in only 9 sessions together! Learning how a mind-body disconnection can manifest as illness, and how to reconnect to my authentic self to heal it was game-changing. I couldn't believe how quickly my symptoms started to reduce even after the first session. 

MBR coaching with Alice has been deeply transformative, rabble rousing, liberating and healing. It gave me so much more than I ever imagined would be possible in a coaching experience! Not only did I gain the confidence, awareness and tools to listen to and eliminate my symptoms, but I left coaching with a new way of relating to life, others and myself with more compassion. I feel more trusting of myself, better able to tune into to my emotions in the moment, as well as communicate healthier boundaries. This was something I'd struggled with for a long time, and it was revelation to learn how this was connected to my physical health. 

I'd wholeheartedly recommend MBR coaching with Alice to anyone battling with fatigue or chronic illness. I always felt completely safe, seen and listened to. Her coaching style is so restorative, supportive and rich in wisdom, insight, knowledge and experience. Thank you SO much Alice, MBR (Claire Caldwell and Gabor Mate) for all the transformative teachings you bring to the world. It is the biggest gift, and has changed my life in countless ways!

Alice's MBR sessions have helped me tremendously in my healing journey from Long Covid and I cannot thank her enough. Having undergone multiple medical tests and tried countless supplements, medications and alternative therapy treatments over the past year and a half, I started reading and watching videos about the role of the mind in healing from physical symptoms and although I was quite sceptical at the beginning, I thought I had nothing to lose and told myself I should give it a try.

Finding Alice has been a true gift and I have learnt and made so much progress in the months that I have worked with her. She has taught me so much about my body, the mind and emotions, and provided me with extremely helpful and valuable tools and resources that I know I will keep applying to other life moments and circumstances beyond Long Covid or other chronic illness. Thanks to Alice and her MBR therapy sessions, I have learnt to reconnect with and to listen to my body, understand what it needs at various moments (which is not always so obvious or intuitive, especially dealing with fatigue!), and how to overcome fear or worry of symptoms. Although I was quite ahead in my Long Covid journey and I did not feel as unwell as I did a year and a half ago when symptoms started, I still felt trapped by them on a daily basis, especially as I woke up feeling fatigue in the morning. After a few sessions with Alice, I have felt so much improvement and it has allowed me to not notice symptoms or prevent them from appearing altogether. The sessions have also helped me to learn how to be more self-compassionate, authentic and in tune with myself and my emotions.

Alice is extremely compassionate, supportive and empathetic, a great listener and mentor and I cannot recommend her enough. Her MBR therapy sessions are life-changing for anyone healing from chronic illness and beyond and they provide a lifelong resource that will make you rethink how you continue healing and living moving forward.

A friend recommended me Alice’s coaching and I decided to give it a go after my health issues had become a massive hindrance to my daily and social life. I was suffering from acid reflux symptoms, IBS and digestive issues, palpitations and fatigue. After booking the first session, I already noticed a difference in my symptoms. Alice’s explanation of MBR practice and the underlying theory behind were very clear and spoke to me immediately. It took me a while, though, to fully integrate the coaching exercises I was given - my ‘control brain’ was somehow resisting it and making me feel doubtful about the process. After a few sessions, I noticed a shift and started to see some change.

Overall the method made me realise how much, and for how long, I had been carrying my life in denial of my own needs. Alice’s specific understanding of activists’ burnout was also particularly helpful in my recovery, as I felt truly understood. She made me realise how much I was denying myself to feel joy as a justification for the guilt I felt for all the ills of the world. I started to resist the urge to overwork and guilt-trip myself about everything and, slowly, allowed some joy back into my life. Alice’s coaching was the impetus for my booking of a long summer holiday which gave me the break my body and mind were desperately in need of. 

I have since been speaking to many friends and family about MBR and how truly transformative the approach is to heal chronic health and mental health issues. Thanks to Alice’s coaching I am now approaching my health symptoms with a curious and welcome outlook, enquiring my body what it wants to tell me, in awe of that source of information I have right at my fingertips. I cannot recall the last time I felt such at peace with my mind and body - and everyday I now cherish that trust I have regained with myself, which feels like a true gift and force.

I am ever so grateful for Alice’s brilliant coaching and MBR and wish that everyone could have access to this practice’s transformative tools.

Alice's coaching sessions have been a game-changer on my healing journey. I have been suffering from Long Covid (POTS, PPPD and ME/CFS like symptoms) for a couple of years, was bed-bound for about a year, then house-bound for quite some time. The tools Alice taught me enabled me to see the symptoms in a different light, to accept them, and to calm down the resistance and fear responses.

The most important lesson I learned is that these symptoms do not behave like acute or structural illness symptoms. For example, when fatigue kicks in, I know now that it is not necessarily rest that my body needs. On the contrary, often, doing a joyful activity and moving my body has been much more helpful. While pacing (or better, trying to pace) and the fear of overdoing it made my symptoms worse, the MBR approach helped me to get out of my house again. When I first met Alice, I could barely walk 500 steps a day; now, on good days, it’s more than 10.000 steps. I can spend time with family and friends again, I can work again, I feel alive again, and I can actually enjoy my life again.

I am still on my journey, but as healing continues, I am confident that things will get better and better. If you ask yourself if you should try this approach and coaching with Alice, I can only recommend doing so. Alice is competent, knowledgeable, and compassionate. She is a wonderful person, and I don’t have the words to express my immense gratitude to her.

13 years ago I was diagnosed with adrenal burn out, which was eventually downgraded to adrenal fatigue. Despite having an absolutely amazing endocrinologist, I could not heal. My two children grew up, never knowing if I was going to be capable of going on vacation with them, driving them to school, or playing with them.

By the grace of the universe, I learned about the mind-body reconnect and reached out to Alice to find out more. I remember the first time I spoke with her, I asked her how many of her clients healed.  When she told me that pretty much every one did if they engaged in the process, I could not wait to start. After so many years of people really not understanding what was going on with me and more importantly, how to help me, having someone like Alice, be so positive she could help me heal, was earth-shattering.

After working with her for five weeks I was symptom-free. And it was really her calm presence, her lived experience with MBR, and her insights into my process that helped steady me in this dramatic healing process.

Before starting MBR, I experienced frequent tension headaches, migraines, bouts of IBS, fatigue and anxiety. I felt out of control of my health and my mood and generally felt a lack of confidence and self worth.

I found MBR therapy extremely helpful and insightful. I love that it is more of an action based therapy and each session we built up the MBR tools at my own pace, which I can still refer back to now when I need to. The exercises and tools really helped me go inwards and realise my own needs and triggers, which was uncomfortable at times but absolutely worthwhile. Alice was extremely supportive and helpful whenever I had any questions or doubts about how to go about using the tools of MBR or practising it in my everyday life. I have recommended MBR therapy to so many of my friends and family!

Alice is such a kind, open and compassionate person. I felt like I clicked with her straight away and felt immediately felt safe to be vulnerable and honest with her. She is a great listener and never told me what to do but instead helped me to understand what it was that I wanted and needed. I feel incredibly lucky to have worked with her! 

Since practising MBR, my symptoms do not come up as frequently as they did before starting this therapy. When any symptoms do come up, I have more of a curious approach to figuring out what is triggering them and seeing them more as a reminder that I need to reconnect with myself instead of them being something to overthink and stress about.

I would absolutely recommend MBR therapy and Alice as a practitioner, it has completely changed the way I live my life and helped me to reconnect with myself and my needs.

I started MBR because it offered a plausible way of understanding my Long Covid. When you are chronically ill, you have hundreds of treatment options and no idea if any of them will work. In this situation I think it’s important to commit to something that speaks to you and instinctively makes sense.

It was immediately helpful to be instructed to find things to do that I could enjoy. I hadn’t enjoyed anything for a year. I had spent all of my time searching for solutions, ‘doing the right things’ and ‘getting better’. This was draining and ineffective and left me feeling hopeless and exhausted. I needed this permission to put enjoyment first and it changed the direction I was going in. I had been living in a kind of slow chaos, but suddenly I had a plan.

My progress in the beginning was a bit stop-start as I sometimes lost confidence in the method. When I was honest with Alice about this she told me I didn’t have to believe it would work, but I had to believe it could and give it a proper go. I refocused at this point and from then on I got steadily better. I found I could actually influence my mood and my energy levels much more than I thought.

Alice helped me to consider what in my personal history causes my symptoms and what I can do about it now. This combination is very empowering. In my experience, therapy usually focuses on one or the other. MBR gave me accountability, encouragement and support, because its a long-term relationship and a structure.

I consider myself almost fully recovered and MBR is the most important reason why I am where I am. I have had support from family, friends and doctors, but Alice understood my situation way better than anyone else. She was the only person who could convincingly say to me: I know what it’s like, and I know what you can do about it. It was a relief to talk to her. It gave me the confidence to make the changes I really needed to make​.

Alice worked with me after I'd experienced panic attacks and related symptoms, probably arising from the menopause and Covid. 

Initially, Alice was clear about the purpose and approaches used in MBR and was welcoming and reassuring from the first online meeting. She gauged my needs quickly so that I felt seen, understood and confident to speak openly. Every session included lots of time for me to talk about my symptoms and feelings. Alice then suggested actions and techniques that helped me to understand my experiences and feel more in control of life and work. This built up gradually over time but I could see progress very quickly. Alice provided reading material that meant I could remind myself of what she had taught me during the sessions. This was particularly helpful to re-read when I experienced symptoms and meant that I was able to feel like I was taking constructive action to get better.

Over 4 months I went from being almost housebound to being able to manage and enjoy social situations, regular running and yoga and travelling and attending face to face meetings for work. My confidence is steadily increasing and brain fog is lifting. I'm able to enjoy life more fully and life is getting back to normal after over a year. There have been clear physical, emotional and intellectual benefits to the support that Alice provided.

I can't thank Alice enough. I enjoyed sessions, even when they were quite demanding, and really appreciated her sense of humour, direct and clear communication and openness about her own experiences.

I booked in to see Alice as I knew something was holding me back from recovering from chronic illnesses.  

My main symptoms were chronic fatigue and brain fog. It felt like my nervous system was dysregulated.  I had tried many other techniques, herbs and medicine, but nothing worked. I’d spend all night sleeping and most of my day, too. 

I came across Alice on YouTube talking to Raelan Agle. I instantly felt by the things she was saying that she could help me move forward.  Alice shared some tools with me. I was a bit sceptical at first. However, slowly but surely, my fatigue and brain fog lifted! I was able to start working again and stay awake during the day.   

I am so glad that I reached out to Alice. One of the main benefits of working with Alice was that she had been through this herself, so she totally understood me.   I would highly recommend her to anyone going through similar issues. The sessions were reassuring, relaxed and compassionate.

When I first stumbled across mind body connection in a Long Covid group, I was desperate for help. It had been months and weeks of fighting post viral symptoms – mainly weakness, fatigue, flu like symptoms, insomnia and very severe anxiety by the end of it. I was completely bedridden for the first couple of months and over time I had begun to lose absolute trust in my body.

Finding Alice and MBR was like the last piece to the puzzle of my recovery journey. She was warm, empathetic and put me at ease very quickly. Through our sessions, she helped me feel deeply connected to my emotions, a thing I had never given much thought to in the past. The tools she shared helped me get a better understanding of what’s essential for our well-being, how important it is to connect ourselves with joy and the true meaning of self-care.

I noticed my health improve just after a few sessions. I gradually started regaining trust in my body as she gently helped me to get myself back to living life again. Slowly but surely, the improvements kept continuing after each session. Along with this, my anxiety started easing.

Now I can go about my daily life symptom free. I am sleeping better and back to working full time. I have tools I can turn to when I am mindful of my emotions.

I highly recommend Alice to anyone who’s going through a similar journey, there is certainly light at the end of the tunnel. She has the ability to help identify the root of the problem besides being supportive, encouraging and a great listener. Thank you Alice for giving me the skills to live a more happier and relaxed life, this has been a total game changer!

At the beginning of my journey with MBR, I was experiencing Long Covid / symptoms similar to ME. My symptoms included fatigue, headaches, flu like symptoms (sore throat/ sore glands/ temperature changes/ aches), brain fog, shortness of breath and severe anxiety. I was signed off sick by my doctor and I felt like I was at rock bottom and had nothing to lose by trying MBR. 

At the beginning I was slightly sceptical and it took some time to unpick those doubts and begin trusting my body again. My symptoms fluctuated through the time period I was working with my practitioner and I began seeing extremely positive changes within myself and so did my friends and family around me. I am now virtually symptom free, especially with regard to the long Covid symptoms and now I’m using the tools I learnt with my practitioner to work through anxiety that has risen to the surface after being suppressed for so long.

I can’t speak highly enough of both my practitioner Alice Bowley and MBR. I feel like I’ve got my life back and no longer feel as if I’m living life from the outside looking in, unable to engage. I feel more equipped to meet my needs now and compassionately communicate those needs to others. I’ve been able to slowly increase my workload through the MBR process and I’m looking forward to going back into a work environment supported by myself and the tools I’ve learnt. I am so relieved to be out of bed and feel excited about life again and not feel trapped by my symptoms. Thank you Alice and thank you MBR for coming into my life!

Since my early childhood I have suffered from multiple symptoms- chronic fatigue, migraines, various pains in different body parts. It is not an exaggeration to say Alice has changed my life; I now have very few symptoms and when I do I have all the coping tools that I need to quickly dissolve them.

I have learned so much about myself, being expertly guided through the MBR sessions by Alice, who was so compassionate and knowledgeable, and it has given me a new understanding of myself which has led to a much happier symptom free life.

I've had issues with fatigue for many years.  There have been lengthy periods when I haven't worked.  At its worst I would spent most of the day in bed - I was convinced that resting was the way out of it.  I used up most of my limited energy on searching the Internet for cures.  I tried every supplement recommended on Reddit (including LDN) and had many blood tests (all fine).

At some point I read many CFS recovery stories that had a similar theme around the Mind-Body connection and how your mind can keep symptoms going (or even make them worse) after the cause of the fatigue (long term stress/Covid/infection/etc) has passed.  It's a bit counter-intuitive to think that fatigue, pain and other symptoms can be generated by the mind and not some sort of illness or something else wrong with your body.  But that doesn't mean the symptoms are any less real.

My energy levels improved slowly.  What helped was to stop reading the CFS forums on Reddit so I could focus on reading recovery stories around the Mind-Body connection.  I saw an interview with Alice on the Raelan Agle channel on YouTube and her story resonated with me so I reached out to her.  Alice helped me understand how I was suppressing the very emotions that were there to help me.  By pushing myself too hard and not meeting my true needs my mind felt fundamentally unsafe and it was generating fatigue to keep me away from the dangerous world.  She gave me practical advice and exercises to be able to address the underlying causes.  I was particularly impressed by the way she was eager to discuss my actual experiences rather than just going through the theory.  

Alice has not only fixed my fatigue but also taught me how to look after myself and lead a more fulfilling life.  It has been transformative for me and I am eternally grateful.  I thoroughly recommend Alice to anyone with CFS.

Prior to doing MBR, I had IBS symptoms over a period of 16 years, though childhood, adolescence and into adulthood. My symptoms ranged from mild to severe, sometimes with weeks, months or years with no symptoms. However, for the past 6 years I have had symptoms weekly. At times I was unable to live a normal fulfilling life due to the impact IBS had on me. My IBS was chronic for the past 4 years and affected all aspects of my life and often caused me to feel extremely low and bleak about the future- that I would be living a life of regular debilitating pain and exhaustion from fatigue, forever. I have tried many approaches; conventional medicine, nutritional therapy and I have been following the FODMAP diet for 5 years. I have also tried to avoid scenarios in which I understood my symptoms would arise, though this did not prove to be a realistic way to live.

My symptoms always arose in correlation to stress, anxiety, feeling dominated or out of control and emotional triggers. Through MBR therapy I have learnt to understand why my symptoms were being triggered, how to identify the causes and ultimately how to intercept my body’s response from my brain to my gut. I have found it very challenging to catch myself from automatically slipping into engrained responses, though with Alice’s support and guidance I have learnt the MBR tools which I now use regularly in my life.

I have found MBR very empowering and accessible, it is a gradual approach so I did not feel overwhelmed or over burdened by techniques at any point. I struggle to make changes generally so for me MBR will be a continual practice until I am symptom free, currently my symptoms are around 80% less than what they were before I started the therapy.

I found Alice as a practitioner to be very insightful and empathetic, she could always look at an experience I had or was having though MBR glasses and give me kind, practical feedback and a tool from the MBR toolbox to apply. I felt very listened to by Alice and the reflections that she would give me enabled me to further process the underlying causes of my IBS and learn how to take control of my health through the use of MBR techniques. MBR has equipped me to prevent my symptoms from arising most of the time. When I have symptoms, I can understand why, what the triggers were and what I can do to try to prevent it in a future scenario of a similar kind.

I have recommended MBR to a friend already and will continue to do so.