Becoming the Expert in Yourself and Rethinking Wellbeing – Exclusive Interview with Charlotte Phelps

Charlotte Phelps is the founder of The Alchemy of Being, a self-led wellness platform built to support self-expertise, discernment, and conscious choice. Her work sits at the intersection of lived experience, structured thinking, and a deep curiosity about how humans heal, adapt, and thrive.

Her path into this work was shaped by years of complex health challenges alongside a successful corporate career in financial services. When mainstream routes failed to provide answers, a life-altering diagnosis became a turning point, prompting her to question not only how she was living, but how wellbeing is understood and pursued more broadly.

In exploring alternative ways to regain her health, Charlotte challenged long-held beliefs and developed an insatiable desire to understand the physiology and neuroscience of being human. As she shared her lived experience and the way it reshaped how she approached health and life, people often asked if she’d created anything they could learn from.

The Alchemy of Being emerged in response. Rather than offering a prescribed path, the platform provides a curated space for exploration across body, mind, and soul, supporting the development of discernment and the building of a personal Toolbelt For Life.

Through her writing and platform, Charlotte invites readers to Be The Expert In You, and to rethink their relationship with wellbeing, agency, and choice. That is The Alchemy Of Being.

Charlotte Phelps, Founder of The Alchemy of Being

Who is Charlotte Phelps? Introduce yourself, your hobbies, your favourites, you at home and in business. Tell us something interesting about yourself.

I’m Charlotte, a 47-year-old woman who simply wants to share what she’s learned, for the benefit of others.

Life has given me more than my fair share of challenges across body, mind, and soul, and those experiences have taught me one very clear thing: the only sustainable way to heal and thrive is to become an expert in yourself. That’s why I’m here, and why I do what I do.

Outside of work, I’m deeply curious about the world. I love to travel. We live on an extraordinary planet, and I want to experience as much of it as I can. In recent years that’s taken me to the Arctic, the high desert of Sedona, and Iceland, as well as closer to home exploring the sacred sites of the UK. I’m also a huge fan of comedy. Laughter really is one of the best medicines we have.

I’m always learning. Neuroscience fascinates me, particularly how the mind, beliefs, and body interact, and I’m constantly researching and exploring new ideas. I also love photographing the moon, it’s something I find grounding and quietly magical. Spending time with friends is essential to me too, whether that’s a long dog walk followed by a pub lunch, a musical and dinner, or a night on the sofa with a takeaway. For me, it’s always about who you’re with, not where you are.

If we’re talking favourites, I’m equally happy with a good gin and tonic or a glass of water. Food-wise, anything involving cheese will do nicely. I love films that play with perception and illusion, Now You See Me being a firm favourite. Sundays are best spent walking my dog Luna and finishing up in a pub with friends. My favourite colour is purple, my favourite season is autumn for the colours alone, and one book that has deeply influenced me is The Biology of Belief. A daily gratitude practice is non-negotiable for me, and simple pleasures like a bubble bath, reality TV, and a quiet evening at home are genuinely restorative.

At home, I live in St Albans with my dog Luna and my cat Moon, there’s clearly a theme. I’m very much a homebody. I work from home and treat my space as a sanctuary, something friends often comment on when they visit.

Professionally, I’ve spent many years working in change. I spent over a decade in financial services with Barclays, followed by life as a freelance consultant, helping organisations make the most of both technology and their people. There’s a clear thread there. My background is in psychology, and my real passion has always been people, understanding how we work and helping create environments where both individuals and organisations can thrive.

For the past 18 months, alongside that work, I’ve been building my wellness platform, The Alchemy of Being. It’s my way of sharing what I’ve learned with people who feel frustrated, confused, or stuck, and who want to understand themselves better so they can move forward in a way that actually fits them.

What inspired you to create The Alchemy of Being, and what does that name truly represent?

The Alchemy of Being came directly out of my own health journey.

Over many years I lived with a long list of physical and emotional challenges, Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, autoimmune issues, chronic fatigue, parasites, neurological events, depression, and at one point being given six weeks to live due to a perforated bowel. I spent a long time being told I was fine when I clearly wasn’t and later found myself just as overwhelmed by the alternative space, where well-meaning advice often came in the form of “do what I did”.

The only thing that truly changed my life was learning how to become an expert in myself. Understanding how my body responded, how my mind worked, what supported me, and what didn’t. Not following one path but learning how to discern my own.

For years, I found myself sharing what I’d learned informally. Friends, friends of friends, colleagues, people who were frustrated, confused, or stuck. Over time, more and more people said the same thing to me: “I wish this kind of information existed in one place.” Eventually, I realised that what people were asking for was access, not answers. I took a year out of consulting and built it.

The Alchemy of Being isn’t designed to be the answer for anyone. As we say on the site, we don’t offer a path. We offer the map, and the materials, to make your own.

The platform exists to support self-discovery. To help people get to know themselves better and then explore options from a place of self-expertise rather than confusion or comparison. That’s why we’ve created a Wellness Wiki with over 250 approaches, therapies, treatments, and modalities across mind, body, and soul. Alongside that, there’s a resource centre full of podcasts, talks, courses, playlists, and websites we personally recommend, an affiliate store of products the team genuinely use, and a blog where I write to provoke reflection and reconnect people with their own journey.

We only share what we know, and why we use it. Not to tell people what to do, but to give them context they can use in their own discernment. Occasionally, people want a one-off conversation as a sounding board, someone outside their immediate situation, and I offer that too. But we don’t do coaching or group programmes.

There are already so many wonderful tools and approaches in the world. We don’t need to add more. What I wanted to create was a trusted space where Wellness Seekers can self-explore a curated set of options and build, or iterate, their own Toolbelt for Life.

That, to me, is the real alchemy.

Who do you feel most called to help, and what are they usually struggling with when they find you?

I feel most called to support people we refer to as Wellness Seekers.

They’re usually people who care about their health and their lives, but are quietly, or sometimes not so quietly, frustrated. Most of them are dealing with some kind of niggling, chronic, or irritating health issue they just can’t seem to shift. It might not be dramatic or life-threatening, but it’s persistent enough to affect how they feel day to day. Enough to know something isn’t quite right.

Many have felt dismissed by mainstream approaches, told they’re fine, that it’s stress, or that nothing obvious is wrong, even when their lived experience tells them otherwise. Others have gone searching for something else in the alternative and complementary space, only to find themselves just as confused. Instead of clarity, they’ve encountered an overwhelming number of options, opinions, and often contradictory advice.

What really frustrates me, and what I hear reflected back again and again, is how competitive and hierarchical the wellness space has become. It’s no longer just do you meditate, practise yoga, or do breathwork, it’s which meditation, which style of yoga, which type of breathwork, and whether you’re doing the “right” or more advanced version. There’s a subtle sense that some practices are better than others, and that if something doesn’t work for you, you’re somehow doing it wrong.

When you layer modern culture on top of that, the pressure for instant fixes, the constant comparison created by social media highlight reels, and the sheer volume of information available, it’s no wonder people feel disconnected. We’re encouraged to diagnose ourselves, optimise ourselves, and fix ourselves as quickly as possible. You can even type your symptoms into AI and get answers in seconds. But more information doesn’t automatically lead to more understanding.

By the time people arrive at my work, they’re often overwhelmed, second-guessing themselves, and unsure what to trust, including their own experience. They want to feel better, but they don’t know where to start, or they’re exhausted from starting again and again.

The people I feel most called to support are those who are ready to step out of urgency and comparison, and into a more personal, grounded process. People who want to understand how they work, rebuild trust in themselves, and make choices that genuinely fit their body, their life, and their values.

That’s who The Alchemy of Being is for.

How would you describe the core problem your work helps people solve?

The core problem isn’t a lack of information, effort, or even options.

It’s the lack of self-knowledge needed to interpret and apply everything we’re exposed to in a way that actually fits who we are.

We are all profoundly unique. Our microbiome, our nervous system, our subconscious beliefs, our emotional resilience, how we respond to stress, what we want from life, and what our bodies can tolerate are all different. Yet most wellness advice, both mainstream and alternative, is shared as if those differences don’t matter.

Without self-expertise, people are left trying to apply generic advice to a very individual system. That’s when frustration sets in. Something works brilliantly for someone else but makes you feel worse. A diet, a routine, or a modality is praised as the gold standard, and when it doesn’t suit you, you assume you’re the problem.

I’ve lived this myself. With Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, my body processes things differently. Histamine affects me more, I need certain minerals in higher amounts, and hydration works very differently for me. Diets like keto, no matter how popular or “successful” they are for others, are genuinely dangerous for my system. With a history of adrenal fatigue, pushing myself to get up at 5 am because that’s what successful people supposedly do would undo years of healing. And because EDS is an inflammatory condition, modalities like acupuncture, which many people swear by, simply don’t work for me and can make things worse.

The only way I learned this was by getting to know myself deeply enough to notice patterns, test things intentionally, and trust my own experience over trends, judgement, or comparison.

That’s the gap my work addresses. Not by telling people what to do, but by helping them develop the self-knowledge and discernment needed to choose what supports them and confidently dismiss what doesn’t. There is always some trial and error, but it can be informed, intentional, and far less punishing when you understand your own uniqueness.

That’s where sustainable wellbeing actually begins.

What makes your approach to transformation different from others in your field?

What makes my approach different is that I don’t position myself as the authority on anyone else’s life.

I don’t offer a single method, path, or system to follow, and I’m not interested in creating dependency. Instead, my work is rooted in the belief that sustainable transformation only happens when people reclaim authority over their own experience.

Rather than telling people what to do, I focus on supporting discernment. That means helping people learn how to think about wellbeing, how to notice patterns, interpret feedback, and make informed choices based on their own body, life, and values. It’s a shift away from instruction and towards self-trust.

I’ve also chosen to build infrastructure rather than programmes. The Alchemy of Being isn’t designed as an intervention or a process to complete. It’s a reference space, a map, and a set of materials people can return to as they evolve. Something that supports exploration over time, rather than offering a promise of arrival.

Finally, my approach honours slowness and integration. In a culture that pushes instant fixes and visible results, I believe real change is often gradual, quiet, and deeply unglamorous. It involves trial and error, letting go of what doesn’t work, and giving what does enough time to actually land. Transformation, as I see it, isn’t something you achieve. It’s something you live.

That stance shapes everything I create.

What shifts do your clients experience when they begin working with you?

I don’t work with clients in the traditional sense, and I don’t claim specific outcomes. What I offer is a platform people use to work with themselves, at their own pace.

When people first arrive at The Alchemy of Being, the amount of information can feel overwhelming. That’s why we created a Getting Started Guide to help people slow things down and reconnect with where they actually are, rather than jumping straight into solutions.

The first shift, then, isn’t emotional or transformational. It’s practical. People are encouraged to establish a baseline. To look at foundational areas like sleep, gut health, daily rhythms, beliefs, and gratitude. This helps them start noticing their own patterns and signals again, often for the first time in a while.

From there, the shift is in orientation. Instead of searching for the next answer or fix, people begin to use the platform as a reference point. They explore the Wellness Wiki, resources, and tools with more context, asking not “What’s best?” but “What might be relevant for me?”.

Over time, this supports the development of discernment. People become better at noticing what resonates, what doesn’t, and why. They can choose to try something, set it aside, or ignore it altogether without feeling they’re missing out or doing it wrong.

The shift I’m most interested in isn’t a specific result, but a change in relationship. Moving from urgency to curiosity, from comparison to self-observation, and from outsourcing authority to rebuilding self-knowledge. What people do with that is entirely individual, which is exactly the point.

How do you help clients move from feeling stuck or disconnected into clarity and alignment?

I don’t move people out of feeling stuck or disconnected directly. What I focus on instead is removing the conditions that tend to keep people there.

The first thing we do is slow everything down. When someone feels stuck, they’re often overwhelmed, overthinking, or searching for answers too quickly. That’s why we created the Getting Started Guide. It’s designed to bring people back to basics and help them establish a sense of where they actually are, rather than jumping straight into solutions.

From there, the emphasis is on reconnecting with lived experience across Body, Mind, and Soul. The Getting Started Guide introduces nine foundational areas within those three domains, designed to help people orient themselves and establish a baseline. The intention isn’t to fix anything, but to start noticing patterns, signals, and responses again. That process alone can begin to reduce the sense of disconnection.

Another key shift is in the questions people are encouraged to ask. Instead of “What should I be doing?” or “What’s wrong with me?”, the focus becomes “What am I noticing?” and “What changes when I do this?”. That subtle change moves people out of judgement and into observation, which is where self-knowledge starts to build.

Clarity and alignment aren’t defined or imposed. They emerge over time as people become more familiar with themselves and more confident in interpreting their own experience. The platform is there to support that process, not to lead it. When people understand themselves better, they tend to make choices that feel more aligned naturally, without needing to chase or force it.

That’s the approach. Create space, restore connection, and let understanding develop from the inside out.

What is the biggest misconception people have about personal transformation or inner work?

One of the biggest misconceptions is that personal transformation can be standardised, optimised, or reduced to a formula.

I’ve already spoken about the importance of our individual uniqueness, and that really matters even more in the context of where modern wellness has ended up. At the moment, it’s being pulled in two opposing directions at the same time. On one side, it’s been oversimplified into slogans, hacks, and quick fixes. On the other, it’s become increasingly complex and hierarchical, with layers of techniques, protocols, and ideas about doing things the “right” or more advanced way.

Both approaches miss the point in different ways. When wellbeing is oversimplified, it ignores the complexity of real human lives. When it becomes overly complicated, it often pulls attention away from lived experience and into performance, comparison, or constant optimisation.

Another misconception is that learning more automatically leads to change. We live in a culture that rewards novelty, explanation, and information, so it’s easy to confuse researching, tracking, and refining with actually doing the work. In reality, transformation rarely comes from adding more. It comes from paying attention, staying with simple practices long enough for them to work, and noticing how you respond.

Inner work isn’t about finding the best method or following someone else’s path. It’s about understanding yourself well enough to choose what fits you and having the confidence to let the rest pass you by.

Can you explain how your work supports both emotional healing and real-life change?

I don’t see emotional healing and real-life change as separate processes. When people have a deeper understanding of themselves, the way they feel internally and the choices they make externally start to inform each other naturally.

At the heart of my work is self-expertise. When someone understands their own patterns, limits, needs, and responses more clearly, emotional insight doesn’t stay abstract. It begins to shape how they live, how they make decisions, and how they respond to their own life. There’s no gap to bridge because the same awareness guides both inner reflection and outward action.

This is where the idea of a Toolbelt for Life comes in. Rather than being given a set of tools to follow, people are encouraged to build, test, and refine their own toolbelt over time. Tools are chosen with intention, tried in real life, kept if they help, and let go of if they don’t. That process allows emotional awareness to translate into practical change without forcing anything.

Discernment and curation are the skills that make this possible. Discernment is learning to notice what supports you and what doesn’t. Curation is having the confidence to keep what works for you and release what doesn’t, even when something is popular, recommended, or seen as the “right” thing to do.

In practice, this might look like choosing not to follow a routine that others swear by because it doesn’t suit your energy or circumstances. It might mean stopping a practice that technically makes sense but doesn’t feel supportive in your body. Or it might be as simple as pacing life differently, setting boundaries earlier, or making decisions with less self-judgement and urgency.

I don’t provide emotional healing or real-life change to people. What I offer is a framework that helps people understand themselves well enough to make those shifts for themselves. When self-trust grows, insight and action stop competing with each other. They start working together, and change becomes something that’s lived, not pursued.

What kind of person benefits most from working with you?

The people who benefit most from The Alchemy of Being platform are those who are comfortable engaging in a self-led way.

It tends to suit people who want agency rather than answers. People who aren’t looking to be told what to do, or to follow someone else’s formula, but who want to understand themselves well enough to make informed choices. Many are also tired of the “do what I do” approach that dominates modern wellness, where one person’s solution is presented as universal.

The platform also works best for people who are curious rather than desperate. They may still feel unsettled or frustrated, but they’re open to slowing down, reflecting, and exploring without needing immediate certainty. They’re willing to sit with questions for a while, rather than rushing to fix themselves.

Another important fit is an appreciation for discernment over certainty. The Alchemy of Being supports people who are willing to test things gently, notice patterns, and accept nuance. There are no guarantees, timelines, or promises, just space to learn what works for you and what doesn’t.

Finally, it’s most useful for people who understand that this isn’t a passive experience. The platform doesn’t do anything to you. It supports those who are willing to engage, reflect, and take responsibility for their own choices.

For the right person, that kind of autonomy isn’t intimidating. It’s relieving.

What is one powerful insight you wish more people understood about themselves?

I wish more people understood that they are the sum of their experiences, choices, and patterns, and that this is neither a judgement nor a life sentence.

Everything we do shapes us. The food we eat influences our microbiome and chemistry. Our life experiences affect our subconscious beliefs, stress responses, and emotional regulation. The environments we’ve lived in, the relationships we’ve had, and the challenges we’ve faced all contribute to the unique human we are today.

Recognising that means taking accountability for where we are, the good, the bad, and the uncomfortable. Not to blame ourselves, but to be honest. Because without that honesty, there’s no real leverage for change.

But this is also where possibility lives. If we are shaped by what we repeatedly think, do, and experience, then we are not fixed. We can influence our chemistry by changing our thoughts. We can soften stress responses by changing how we relate to ourselves. Over time, we can become someone different by making different choices.

One of the guiding ideas I’ve carried with me, and the inspiration behind my first tattoo, is a line I’ve adapted from Zig Ziglar: you have to make the choice, to take a chance, or nothing in your life will change.

That idea mattered deeply to me when I was given six weeks to live. I made the choice to live, and then I took many chances to try things that weren’t guaranteed, familiar, or comfortable. Over time, my life changed.

For me, that’s the heart of it. Change doesn’t start with certainty. It starts with choice.

For someone reading this who feels a pull toward your work, what is the best next step to connect with you?

The first step isn’t to do anything with me, it’s to pause and be honest with yourself.

If something in this conversation resonates, I’d encourage people to take a moment to reflect on where they are right now, how they actually feel in their body and their life, and whether they’ve been giving themselves space to listen rather than pushing for answers.

From there, the most practical place to start is the Getting Started Guide on The Alchemy of Being website. It’s designed to help people slow down, reconnect with themselves, and begin building self-awareness across Body, Mind, and Soul, without feeling overwhelmed or told what to do.

If people want to stay connected beyond that, our newsletter is a gentle way to do so. It’s where I share reflections, articles, and ideas that support self-expertise and discernment, without pressure or expectation.

There’s no rush, and no right way to engage. The platform is there to be explored when it feels useful. The most important step is simply choosing to begin paying attention to yourself again.

Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info!

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