anxiety and shame in medicine

An online workshop for women doctors

Two GPs. Two stories. One honest conversation and a space for yours.

Thursday April 23rd 2026

7pm - 8.30pm

Online - via Zoom

“Alison is amazing - she brings an abundance of empathy, ease and joy to her work and is incredibly talented at creating spaces where people can flourish. Words that come to mind in describing Alison’s approach to her work are thoughtful, sensitive, creative, generous, and filled with integrity. She is deeply committed to her workshop participants and works hard to ensure that they have a richly rewarding experience.
What makes Alison particularly wonderful is the breadth of her skillset and the way she blends her previous professional experiences in order to offer such unique and high quality gatherings.
”
— Dr Susy Stirling, Coach, Facilitator, Supervisor, Associate Dean NHSE Yorkshire & Humber
“The workshop is incredibly useful both as an introduction to or a refresher on the topic of shame. Dr. Connie is very warm and generous in sharing her story and experiences to demonstrate different ways shame can show up and impact your life. I would recommend this workshop to anyone who feels silenced by shame and wants to live better and more peacefully. ”
— Workshop attendee 2025
“What a gift to witness the connection, calm, and courage shared here. The way you hold space for women in medicine, is nothing short of sacred”
— Emma
“Shame is a soul eating emotion ”
— Carl Jung

Your Investment £85

book for april 23rd 2026

Anxiety and shame are two of the most universal experiences in medicine — and two of the most isolating, precisely because they go unspoken.

If you have ever felt like you were not quite enough, worried that others might find you out, or carried a quiet sense of dread into a clinical shift - you are far from alone. Most doctors have felt this.

Very few have ever had a space to say so.

This workshop was born from a conversation between two GPs who found each other through shared experience. In their podcast episode together, Alison and Connie spoke openly about how anxiety and shame had shaped their lives in medicine - the perfectionism, the isolation, the weight of expectations from others and from themselves.

The response told them this conversation needed to go further.

This is that next step.

“If we can share our story with someone who responds with empathy and understanding, shame can’t survive. ”
— Brené Brown

WHAT TO EXPECT

A different kind of workshop

This is a small, carefully held online gathering where you can think, reflect, and speak — if and when you feel ready to.

Expect warmth, honesty, and room to breathe.

What the session includes:

 •  An open conversation between Alison and Connie about their own experiences of anxiety and shame in medicine

•  Guided reflection on your own relationship with anxiety and shame

•  Space to share in a small group — as much or as little as feels right for you

•  Practical tools to begin building shame resilience

•  Time to connect with other doctors who understand

Numbers will be kept small deliberately. A space to be human, held with care.

How the space is held

Everything that is shared in the session stays within the group. What is said here, stays here.

There is no pressure to share, and no expectation that you will.

When someone does speak, they will be listened to fully and without interruption. We ask that everyone holds back from offering advice or solutions - this is a space for being heard, not fixed.

Alison and Connie will expertly hold the session with warmth and compassion throughout, creating the conditions for honest, gentle conversation.

HOW THIS BEGAN

The conversation that started it all

Alison appeared as a guest on Connie’s podcast, Speak Shame, to talk about how anxiety and shame had shaped her life as a doctor - from her earliest years in medicine to her work today as a coach.

That episode struck a chord. Doctors got in touch to say they had heard themselves in the conversation. That it was the first time they had heard these things said out loud by another doctor.

If you would like a sense of who Alison and Connie are before the workshop, and the spirit in which they hold these conversations, you can listen here:

WHO THIS IS FOR

You might find this workshop useful if…

  • You have experienced anxiety - in your clinical work, your career, or your personal life -and have rarely had a chance to explore it within a group setting

  • You have felt silenced, diminished or held back by a sense of not being enough

  • You carry the pressure of perfectionism and find it hard to admit when things feel difficult

  • You want to connect with other doctors who get it, without having to explain the whole context of medicine first

  • You are curious about how shame operates in our profession, and what it might look like to relate to it differently

All specialties and career stages welcome.

Come as you are — all that is needed is a willingness to show up.

Dr Alison Smith

GP · Coach · Facilitator and Founder, Earth and Bloom

Alison spent close to 20 years in medicine. Through her own coaching journey, and through hundreds of hours working with other doctors, she came to understand just how much anxiety and shame shape the experience of medicine — and how rarely they are spoken about. She founded Earth and Bloom to create space for exactly these conversations.

Alison has also written about her own experience of anxiety and shame in medicine in an article for the Shame and Medicine project at the University of Exeter. You can read it here:

The Hidden Struggle: How Anxiety and Shame Shape Doctors’ Lives

Dr Connie Kerali

GP · Storyteller · Founder, Speak Shame

Connie is a GP with over 15 years of experience who was silenced by shame for three years after surviving rape. Hearing one courageous woman share her story led Connie on her own healing journey, and she now creates spaces - through story, creativity and connection -where others can rediscover their voice and their worth.

Find out more about Connie and her podcast, blog and mission here

Is this space right for you?

This workshop offers something that medicine rarely makes room for - the chance to slow down, speak honestly, and feel genuinely heard alongside others who understand. It is designed to be a therapeutic experience, held with warmth and care. It is not, however, therapy, and Alison and Connie are not acting in a therapeutic or clinical capacity within it.

This space works best when you are well enough to:

  • Sit with your own feelings and those of others

  • Reflect on your experience without becoming overwhelmed

  • Hold what arises with some degree of steadiness and perspective

A facilitated peer space cannot offer what a therapeutic or clinical relationship can - and you deserve the right level of support for where you are right now.

If things feel too raw, too fragile, or too much at the moment - please be kind to yourself. Seek the support you deserve, and know this space will be here when the time is right.

If you are unsure whether this is right for you, you are welcome to reach out to Alison or Connie before booking. We would rather have that conversation with you than have you arrive feeling unsupported.

If you need support right now: