S2 E1: Safety, Survival, Self-Worth with Gemma Donnelly

"What do you want though? As opposed to what's the smartest move? What are your values? What do you care about? How do you want to live your life?"

That's my guest this week, Gemma Donnelly - Wellbeing & Performance Coach for busy professionals and business owners to turn stress & anxiety into Calm Confidence & Clarity by retraining the mind & nervous system.

On The Money Story Project, she brings both her professional expertise and her own money story — growing up working class, experiencing burnout, walking away from a successful consultancy career & building a business from the ground up. We talk about how our relationship with money, security and uncertainty can hold you back.

In this episode, Gemma explores what happens when financial stress or perceived risk and uncertainty meets the nervous system:

• Growing up in a working class family and attaching money to security — and how that held her back from taking career risks for years.
• Why your net worth is not your self-worth — and how hard it is to positively negotiate a salary or charge your worth in business if you don't see your own value.
• The thing nobody talks about when you leave a well-paid job to start a business — the identity shift, the uncertainty, and how the people around you might not understand.
• Why some people spend money as fast as they get it — not because they're bad with money, but because having it doesn't feel familiar.
• What financial stress actually does to the body — jaw tension, grinding your teeth, lower back pain, chest tightness — and why you get ill on holiday.
• Why "just rest" is rubbish advice when your nervous system doesn't feel safe to stop.
• How attachment styles — show up in your relationship with money, not just with people. 
• The difference between making decisions from survival and making decisions from choice.

We also explore why the prefrontal cortex goes offline under financial stress (meaning you literally cannot think straight), why pushing through isn't the badge of honour we've been told it is, and what it means to resource yourself through uncertainty rather than just white-knuckling it.

It's a conversation about money, yes. But also about safety, bodies, and what happens when you finally feel secure enough to ask yourself what you actually want.

Connect with Gemma:

• Website: coachingwithgemma.co.uk
• Instagram: @iamgemmadonnelly
• 1:1 Coaching - Gemma coaches within businesses and one-to-one on turning stress & anxiety into calm confidence, with spaces opening this month
• Breathwork - Gemma provides Breathwork Manchester for individuals to switch off and businesses committed to wellbeing fuelled performance
• New Group Programme - Gemma is currently creating a new group programme for anxiety, working with both the mind and the nervous system (coming soon)

Read the accompanying article with Gemma Donnelly

Connect with host Harriet Formby: LinkedIn | Instagram | Website

Learn more about The Money Story Project and how to share your own story.

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