Is it Intuition... or Fear ?

Have you ever wondered if that voice in your head is your intuition… or just fear trying to keep you safe?

If you’ve ever felt stuck, second-guessed yourself, overthought a decision, or found yourself choosing comfort over the life your heart truly desires, this episode is for you.

In today’s conversation, Rachael is exploring the fascinating intersection of neuroscience, trauma, spirituality, and nervous system healing to answer one powerful question:

How do you know when it’s your intuition speaking… and when it’s your survival instincts taking over?

You’ll learn why your brain is wired to prioritize safety over happiness, how childhood experiences and trauma shape the decisions you make as an adult, why your ego isn’t the enemy, and how chronic stress can make it difficult to hear your inner wisdom.

We’ll also explore how manifestation is about more than positive thinking—it’s about creating enough safety within your body to receive the life you’ve been dreaming of. Together we’ll weave science with soul, exploring intuition, the nervous system, astrology, feminine energy, ceremony, and what it truly means to choose love over fear.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• Why your brain is designed for survival—not fulfillment
• The neuroscience behind fear, trauma, and self-sabotage
• The difference between intuition, anxiety, and the ego
• How trauma impacts your body, energy, and decision-making
• Why nervous system regulation changes what feels possible
• The role of manifestation, faith, and self-trust in creating your dream life
• Why women heal so powerfully in community and ceremony
• Practical journal prompts to help you start choosing love over fear

If you’ve been waiting until you feel confident enough, healed enough, or “ready” enough to pursue your dreams, this episode is your reminder that healing isn’t about eliminating fear. It’s about teaching your nervous system that it’s finally safe to become the woman you were always meant to be.

Because trauma teaches your nervous system to survive.

But intuition teaches your soul what it means to truly live.

Find Rachael on Instagram @highvibeyogii

Find Gaby on Instagram @rising.monarca and @gabrielafverdusco on Tik Tok 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:24

So I want to ask you something. Have you ever prayed for something? Maybe even mana tried manifesting it, journaled about it, asked the universe for a sign, prayed for it. And then when the opportunity finally arrived, you panicked. You wanted the relationship until someone healthy actually showed up and you weren't as attracted to them. You wanted to start the business until it was time to actually post your first video or market it or have to deal with no one showing up. You wanted abundance until it required investing in yourself and taking a leap of faith. You dreamed about traveling until it was time to book the flight and it felt too overwhelming. So I guess my question is, is this intuition telling you no? Or was that actually just your fear and your comfort and your body and mind trying to keep you safe? Maybe it's the ego, right, trying to protect you. I think one of the biggest questions we ask ourselves on our soul path and journey is how do I know if it's my intuition or if it's just fear pretending to keep me safe? And today I want to answer that question through neuroscience, through trauma, through spirituality, astrology, and manifestation. So welcome back, y'all, to Relentlessly Authentic, coming at you for another solo episode. Me and Gabby have both been traveling. You've heard about our journeys. So over the summer, it might be a little, you know, messy. Uh, and that's okay because it's just a part of our human experience. So I might be coming at you with solo episodes. Gab might be coming with at you with solo episodes as I'm traveling with the vibe tribe through Greece. And I'm also going on my own retreat to Paris for an astrology retreat, actually, after Greece. So it's gonna be August of September, a busy time in our lives. And I'm so excited to fill you guys in on everything as it transpires. I know there's gonna be so much juiciness and so much goodness to share and reflect, and you'll be lucky enough to get the wisdom of all of it. So on today's episode, I want to get into a little bit more of the spiritual, of the hippie, of the woo-woo. I feel like we, you know, that's such a big part of who I am, and I'm excited to share more about that. So I also really want to go into this concept of faith over fear. You know, fear being what if and all those like what if thoughts that come into play, and faith being even if. I'm gonna circle this back to, you know, the that first solo episode I did really about nervous system regulation. That was really kind of the foundation of what we're gonna talk about today. But this is gonna be more in terms of using and why you need those tools in order to create a life of intuition, of abundance, of soul alignment, of purpose, of walking that path and really manifesting, you know, that life for yourself and that higher calling and that higher self and allowing all of that to come through. And like I said in kind of the opening of this, is I think we often can get confused with fear of and like overwhelming our nervous system and thinking that that is, you know, why we're not doing something, like that fear, that douse, that insecurity, that comparison. Or, you know, are we still following our intuition when we have those fears and those doubts come up? So I'm really excited to kind of get into all of this because, you know, how are we going to go into our highest potential, answer our soul's calling if we're operating from a very dysregulated nervous system, from a frequency of fear, of lack, of not enoughness, of programming and conditioning that is not serving us, but is also very ingrained into our society. And on top of that, then we have our own traumatic experiences that play a role. We have our own, you know, epigenetics that's been passed down to us, you know, in a big cauldron of our internal world that we are operating from. So with I can see a lot of this coming up from myself, and maybe I can start with these examples because I'm in the midst of retreat planning for Greece and I've had a few people cancel. I've had that be a moment of I could either choose to see that as I'm not meant to do this, or I can see that as it wasn't meant to be for those two people. And I can still focus on the women who have said yes and still train my mind and my body into trust. Because there were definitely times and days where like that hit me hard and I got fearful and I got nervous and I got like these senses of like, maybe I'm not meant to do this, maybe this isn't gonna work out, right? The sense of lack. Um, maybe I'm doing something wrong. A little, you know, that resurfaced. That felt very strongly and very overwhelming at times. That is a bit of my own past conditioning, and I can say right now that I'm no longer in that place. Doesn't mean certain things don't trigger me sometimes. They absolutely do. I had a situation come up last night with the villa owner where I was like, oh no, but it all worked out. And so I think when we think of these things, it's that we're not that we're never gonna feel a trigger or overwhelm or stress or anxiety, right? Like these things are going to come up, but it's kind of like we were able to work through them a lot faster when we do, when we know how to get ourselves back regulated and we do have neural pathways in the brain of where we have started to put in the work of creating more safety and trust and faith and knowing that we are operating from that, I think, and bringing ourselves back to our deepest intentions. Um, and also realizing that a lot of this is going to come up based on so much, you know, fear that like lives in our system, but also lives in our society, right? So as within, so without. So that really started to kind of come up, you know, for me. Um, and I think when it comes to soul alignment and purpose, and this is something that I feel very strongly about and I truly believe in from all the way back in my first, you know, losing my job um right after college and finding yoga and getting into soul alignment. Sometimes soul alignment feels like things are breaking down, but sometimes we have to break down in order to break through. And I just like that our podcast really speaks into the realities of that and that it's not always comfortable. And so why we have today's topic. Because I think until we train ourselves, we're operating from more of like a negativity bias, right? Operating from the ego, from our mind, from our logical, from fear, from not enoughness, from scarcity. We get stuck, we get stagnant, we get negative. And this is really perpetuated, I even think, through like social media too, because it's easy to compare ourselves to where someone else is in the journey. And we actually really need to create a found, a strong fucking foundation in ourselves of self-trust, of love, of enoughness, of talking and coaching ourselves up because failure and is is going to happen if you are craving and on a journey of soul alignment and of purpose and of fulfillment from a heart-censored place. And you're choosing to live from that frequency and trying to get out of a bit of the matrix, you know, the corporate, the nine to five, the doing things as everyone else has done them, but from the script, you know, you have to really have a strong sense of self, of a foundation of these things. And I think some people feel this more than others. You know, some people don't have as much barrier to entry, some people don't have as much, you know, past experience that might be holding them back. You know, some people might have trauma, some people might have illness, some, you know, everyone's gonna have a little bit of a different spice, like in their cauldron of things that are working in their favor and things that are there to help them grow and to help their soul evolve and to get them on the right path. So I love that I have I've been on this journey and I can reflect it back to you. You know, I think the cool thing is, and as I'm leaning into this retreat that I'm going on in Paris, like I I've always believed that I have to practice what I preach, right? And I've been sharing about this on social media too, of like, I'm just starting this series, like these love letters from Greece, because Greece really came into my life when I needed it. And I've gotten so much expansion from travel and from Greece and from trust. Um, and it really led me back into this strong sense of spirituality. And I think each person can find a different doorway into that. But with my astrology retreat in Paris, I'm so excited. It's with um, she sees the stars. I I have done a lot of her astrology workshops. I'm really excited for this, but sh in my own self-study, right? 2026 is like really supporting like this bit of soul alignment and purpose and kind of asking us, not even asking. It's not asking, it's not nudging, it's not requesting. It's like you have no longer have a choice but to change. Yeah. It's like the gods, the universe is no longer nudging you. It's like you don't have a choice that this year, 2026, is the year of change, no matter whether you want it, whether you're ready for it, or you know, it's happening. So 2025 was like the year of the snake, the shedding. It was quite a difficult year. A lot of old triggers that were brought to the surface, a lot of things that were not serving you were made more clear. You had to kind of see what was out of alignment or what wasn't actually working. And that can be a very spiritual type of time, actually. Um, you know, that's I I would consider that to be spiritual to reflect on those things, to realize those things, but it's not always easy. And the reality too is that it can be quite exhausting. Healing can be really quite exhausting when you're in like the mucky muckness of it. That's doesn't mean anything's inherently wrong. It just means that that's like the season that you're in. And I think when we have enough of those experiences, we can see it for what it is on the other side. But when we're in the midst of it, it's very uncomfortable. But it needs to happen, right? Because sometimes as human beings, we actually need to get really uncomfortable before we will make actually a change because we're essentially creatures of comfort and of safety. And like I said, I think we live in a society that is so, you know, really encourages us to play safe, to find security, you know, to follow the normal path, to keep in line. And therefore, a lot of us don't expand and we don't grow and we don't evolve into our highest calling or our highest purpose because we're making decisions out of fear, over love, over faith, over trust, over our hearts knowing, over our like we override our intuition. So when you have a lot of faith and trust in the universe, you're willing to put yourself more out there, you're willing to have the courage to go for new experiences, to actually invest in yourself, to travel, to meet new people, to start a new career. When you come from love and faith and trust, aka soul alignment, aka being more, you know, in tune with, you know, God energy, you're able to walk the path. And maybe it won't look exactly as you perceive it will in your mind, and it's not all gonna go to plan, but you're gonna find your wings and your next steps as you go. And for me, I really feel that's how living from love actually feels and it carries you into alignment. When we come from fear, it's this sense of what if it doesn't work out? You know, what if I don't have enough money? What if I lose all my money? What if I lose my house? What if I lose my car? What if I lose my job? That really weighs on us, you know. And so I think a lot of us stay stuck, stay where we are. And then we in that we block our own alignment and our own energy because we're not allowing ourselves to have that full expansion into life. To take make those leaps and make those choice choices. We just allow ourselves to stay in the contraction instead of leaping into the expansion, knowing that we've got us, that the universe has got us, regardless if it fails, at least we learn something. So when we're contracting, we're living from fear, worried, overwhelmed, worried about money, worried about our health, worried about what other people might think. And in this, you know, you stay stuck and your life feels like there's something missing. And that is a brutal hamster wheel of a place to be. Where living from love is simply just when you allow things to kind of be in full motion because you're in surrender, which is when you get and you're open, right? Because you're trusting. So when we're trusting, we're living from heart center. When we're living from our heart center, our heart is usually open. Then we're able to hear those really oftentimes very quiet intuitive nudges. You know, I think fear is very loud, it's very present. And I feel intuition is much more subtle, it's much more soft, it's much more quiet, right? Kind of like this feminine warm energy, right? Because we think of the masculine, it's the mind, the ego, and the feminine is more of the heart. So yeah, when we're in more of that kind of loving place, we're going to be more able to listen and trust intuition to make the leap, to go to a different country, to sign up for an event, or go to a retreat, or to study and do a new course, or um, you know, go on a date and put ourselves out there. Now, life is going to carry you in these instances. And it's really as simple as that, but often it does not feel that simple. And this is where I kind of will say, are we living from this place of love, right? Of heart, or are we living from fear? And the problem really becomes is that society, especially more in Western culture, I believe, we have like a collective energy of fear. It's like the collective vibration. And that's hard. Like that is really hard to kind of take yourself out of. And this is where like ego has become a lot louder than soul. And it's all based around kind of comparison of like keeping up with your neighbor in the Jonges and not ruffling too many feathers and a lot of programming and conditioning that is intended is meant to make you feel not good enough as you are, that you need to be younger or hotter or skinnier, richer, you know, insert whatever blank for, you know, essentially needing to be more loved. And I think we're all kind of drowning in that conditioning and that programming. And that's why we always wait. We wait for the more money. We put our lives on hold until that thing that we're missing comes, until we lose the 20 pounds, until we get the Botox, until we have the money. And God, right now in 2026, is like, no, like it's time. Go now, start now because you're gonna figure it out as you go, right? You don't get your wings from instantly knowing, you get them from taking the leaps and knowing that your wings are gonna open up and catch you. Because we all have this internal compass, right? This internal intuition, this higher consciousness, this higher power that AI can't fucking control or touch. And whether we say yes to it or whether we say no is really whether we're making decisions from love or fear. And those decisions are inherited from our family, from our mother, our father, our line lineage. Mercury retro vibes, guys. So tech issues are a very normal thing during a Mercury retrograde and definitely experiencing those. So coming back at you. Now, what I love about 2026 is that change is a non-negotiable here. Life's not gonna allow you to stay stuck, and that's actually really, really beautiful. And I've got goosebumps along my skin. You know, it doesn't mean that we're not gonna have challenges, but we're also gonna be pretty much thrusted into new realities. But it's always like doing, you know, the universe has always got you back. It's always doing you a solid. You know, you're gonna find your wings even through the chaos, even in the new realities. Because when you take the leap, you know, that's when you truly like trust that the wings are gonna be there to catch you, right? That's where the trust comes into play. And I think this year of 2026, like the planetary like alignment is not like it's just gonna like push you off a cliff. And you know, it's scary, but finding your wings as you go is is is I think where the power lies, right? It's like being like, oh, I've got me. The universe has got me. You know, and in in that way, it's that practice of faith over fear. And that's really what I want to like name this podcast, or like have you write down from this podcast, or if you take anything from this episode, is trusting and and really maybe writing down, sticking a note, a sticky note like on your mirror, this idea of faith over fear. Put this as your screensaver on your phone, uh, put on your refrigerator journal about this. Let it seep into your consciousness because truly this is the year for faith over fear, for training yourself for faith over fear, for taking those leaps, knowing you are being supported, because it is the year that things are going to change. But in that, it's also like we get to have fun with it, I think. You know, as humans, you know, we get to experience joy as well. We've been really in this energy of like spiritual reflectiveness. And now we get to make decisions from love over fear. Um, if we've, I think, done a lot of that work. And I think a lot of us are making those decisions. You know, I think it's gonna be from a place of, you know, like finally feeling like, yeah, I'm gonna hop on a plane. Yes, I want to go dancing. Yes, I want to go to the event. Yes, I want to go to the concert. Let's go have a picnic on the park, let's go on that date. Like it's just gonna be a lot of, I think, forward momentum. Obviously, the year of the fire horse. I think really July is gonna be that big turning point once we get through Mercury retrograde. You know, the full moon in Capricorn, I think really illuminated a lot of this to us. But I think from this point forward, I think we're gonna have a lot of that forward positive momentum, especially now that Jupiter's going into Leo, where expansion is just gonna come from like a joyful place. And I think if we're taking those leaps of faith based on love, based on being what our soul is is guiding us to do, we are gonna be essentially rewarded and be further down that path. So, what I want to like tie this loop with is something to leave you with is like, where are you making decisions from love? And where may you making may be making decisions from fear in your life? And if you loved yourself and had love and faith and trust, what would your next step be? So if you were operating from this highest self, from this place of love and faith and trust, gosh, it lights me up. What would your next step be? What would you go do right now? Like lean into that. So yeah, I think that's what I want to leave you with in that regard. And I want to also talk about your brain. If you haven't primed it for this, I think it can be really hard, right? Like, what is how how do we know when we're tapped into love? How do we know when we're tapped into intuition? What if we, you know, we still feel fear, right? We still feel stress, we still feel have anxiety at those times, but we don't stay in that dysregulation forever. And I think we do the healing work, right? Ultimately, so that we can trust ourselves and trust the universe and operate from love and get into soul alignment and take risks. Be, but the work is so that we can do that because our brain's first priority, especially if there's like also trauma involved, right, is survival. It's not the purpose, it's not the alignment. We have to actively work on rewiring a lot of those subconscious beliefs and that social conditioning, you know, from when we were a child. You know, again, we were in a essentially a state of hypnosis from one to seven. And then everything that was conditioned into us at that point, we are now carrying with us into who we are right now, unless we've done a lot of work to rewire it, to rewrite our story, to rewrite our beliefs for something positive to regulate our nervous systems so that way we can be in this place of leading from love and not always making decisions based on fear. Now, the brain always asks one question, right? It's am I safe? Am I safe? It's not asking like, Am I happy? Am I fulfilled? Am I living my purpose? So this is the introduction of like negativity bias. Our brain naturally remembers criticism more than compliments because missing a threat used to be far more dangerous than missing an opportunity, right? So from our survival instincts point of view, missing a threat used to be far more dangerous than missing an opportunity. So through evolution, right, we have evolved, we have gained this skill. But we also then, it's our responsibility to actually train ourselves for the opposite. So you could receive 10 compliments and the one negative comment, like which one are you gonna remember, which one's gonna keep replaying in your head? That's your negativity bias. Not because you're broken, not because you're, you know, deeply insecure, even though that might play a part, right? But it's because you're human and you have a human brain. Okay. And that's how it tends to work until we've done a lot of work to rewire it. And this also brings into play that, you know, I think one of the coolest parts of neuroscience for me is like your brain isn't just reacting to life, it's also actually predicting it. The brain's constantly asking and, you know, and surveying based on everything that's happened before. So, you know, what has happened in your past, because then your brain's gonna start to predict again because of that survival mechanism of missing a threat. So now your brain is in hypervigilance, thinking like, hey, what was gonna happen next? So, like if you've had like heartbreak, right? If you've had stress around money, if you've had criticism, you know, based on what you Look like, you know, if you felt pressured to succeed, you know, your soul is dreaming about expansion, your system is prepping you for survival. That is brings into play this idea of neuroception. Our nervous system scans for safety or danger before we are actually consciously aware of it. So it's going on behind your conscious mind. So have you ever, you know, like walked into a room and instantly felt tense, even though nothing has happened yet, or met someone and immediately felt calm. Your body noticed something before your mind even caught up to it. Sometimes your body isn't acting, reacting though, to actual reality, okay? Because it's actually priming you based on the things you've already experienced. I have felt this a lot in my life and I've really had to kind of coach myself through those moments. You know, your body is reacting to what it predicts reality will become. So for me, I feel like this associates with like a self-fulfilling prophecy. Because your brain is telling you this, it's feeding that loop to your body, then your body is reinforcing it, and then the thing that you're scared of becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy because you're priming yourself, your mind and body, for it. So you're not surprised that it happens because you're essentially like making it happen. So, you know, again, so how do we have all this going on and listen to our intuition? That's gonna be really hard. But I don't necessarily think that these things mean any part of ourselves is the enemy. It's not. I think your nervous system acts kind of as like a bodyguard for you. The ego part of ourself wants certainty, predictability, familiarity, control, approval. And so then, because that's what it wants for safety, it's going to say, you know, stay where it's safe. You know, don't outgrow people, don't risk rejection, don't change too much, don't be too big, don't be too loud, don't stand out, don't ruffle any feathers, do what everyone else does because that's what was modeled to you in terms of love and affection and success. The job of the ego is to protect the identity that you've built. Even if that identity is unhappy, right? Like I talked about in that previous podcast about nervous system work, so much of our sense of self is based on an i an identity and who we identify ourselves to be, but that's based on our own programming and conditioning. And intuition acts in a very different way. It rarely shouts because it actually is very quiet and it whispers. It's soft. Fear says, what if everything goes wrong? Our mind, right? Our ego. And intuition quietly asks, what if this is exactly where you're meant to be to grow? To actually get to the thing that you say you want, to be able to hold the thing that you say you want, to give you the experience in order to learn something. So that way down the line, when you do get you want what you want, you know actually how to work with it, how to hold it. You have experience around it. You know, fear feels very intense. It feels very loud. It's very urgent. It's like, my God, it looks like you're so it triggered. You're it's like a catastrophe, right? You're contracting, you're feeling icky, you're feeling small, it keeps looping. Where intuition and heart and trust, right? Even in how I explain it to you, you you you you feel a different sense in my voice. Even talking about it feels relaxing in my body. Intuition feels grounded, intuition feels clear, intuition feels peaceful, expansive, and almost like simple. And I guess what I've noticed is fear always talks, right? Your ego is always kind of yapping, yapping away. Um, intuition is okay with things being slow, is okay with patiently waiting. Now, this is where trauma comes into play because when your stress response and your brain experiences danger, right? Or senses danger, your body essentially and your brain are gonna take over. So your cortisol is gonna increase, your adrenaline is gonna increase, your breathing becomes really shallow and from like the chest instead of from your belly. And then because of that, your digestion is gonna slow down, muscles are gonna tighten, heart rate is gonna increase, your body isn't like preparing for creativity, right? For love, for expansion, it's bracing for survival. Now we have when this happens, right? Usually we go into four different types of responses when we're in more of a stressed out state. And, you know, again, when we're burnout is when we're in a stressful state for a significant amount of time. So when we're in these survival responses, a fight, flight, freeze, or fawn, you know, how are we have to learn how to kind of regulate ourselves out of them, you know? So this can come up around dating, right? Where our survival, survival mechanisms and our survival coping strategies come into play, right? So if we've had past trauma around love and relationships and dating, right? When you go on a date, are you already bracing? Are you already thinking of how it's gonna be awful? You know, the are you like frozen and you can't say yes or no to this person, or you can't figure out if this is the right choice to make, right? If we've always, if we've kind of grown up around scarcity and how, you know, there was never enough money. Nowadays, maybe that's the same story you live by and you live in a state of lack and you live in a state of fear around money never being there or being able to feel safe with even the money that you have. You know, maybe it's around health issues and, you know, feeling like you're uh can never fully take care of yourself or your digestion is always off, or you have IBS or other like really big gut issues. Gut issues are a huge sign of a dysregulated nervous system. So imagine like your intuition trying to speak to you. How are you gonna hear it when you have all of these other things at play? And this is where healing comes into play. Okay, y'all. Like in order for that voice of your intuition to get louder and to trust it, we have to be in a state of open to hearing it. And when we're dysregulated for a very long amount of time, and that fear is such a felt sense of danger in your body, you can't just like willpower yourself out of it, right? And at some point, we're always gonna stay stuck in that fear loop because it's the main driver. It's the main, it's always gonna kind of get in your way. And this is why nervous system regulation is so important. And it in in survival mode, like these things get so loud, it's it's hard to hear our actual sense of kind of creativity. You know, the prefrontal cortex and the part of us that is responsible for our, you know, emotional regulation, um, our planning, our perspective, our wise decision making, creativity, right? That under constant stress becomes less active. And if you're amygdala, your feel of center of the brain is become much more active. And so the smoke detector of yourself is going to take over. So if you ever have like a lot of internal dialogue or a lot of thoughts of I know what I should do, but I can't seem to get myself to do it, that doesn't mean you're necessarily lazy. You know, procrastination is an actual sign of your body being in a survival response. Most of the time, at least for me, this was very in the frozen response, right? Because your body's trying to keep you safe and trying to contain or conserve your energy. And that isn't something, again, that you're just like, oh, I want to be able to do these things. You know, you're not able to even think of that again because your prefrontal cortex is shut down in a survival response. It's less active. The fear side of the brain is more active. So creating moments of pause or knowing we and we are dysregulated and having a toolbox to be able to open up and even have like start to even have the awareness of being like, oh, okay, like I'm in a state of fear, I'm dysregulated. What can I do? Will start to help disrupt that pattern to give the body a chance to create a new response. And as the body and brain create a new response, you create more distance between that neural pathway and rewriting some of those stories that your internal mind has been telling you based on the fear and the emotion that you're feeling in the body. Because, you know, and circling this back to like manifestation and astrology and intuition and spirituality, you know, I think manifestation has become a little too oversimplified. It's not just like thinking positive, it's about your capacity for safety to actually receive what you're asking for. And I think we again make make it seem like it's so easy. And for some people, right, it may be very easy because they're in more of a regulated nervous system. I think when it comes to a lot of us, again, myself included, you know, I left my one yoga studio in 2021 and had all of these dreams of creating my business and getting coaching and starting to make, you know, 10K months for my coaching business. And what? That was five years ago. And I didn't hit any of those points until like more recently, right? And so I had to heal in order to be able to hold those dreams because I did not have a nervous system that had the capacity to do all the things that I say that I wanted. I did not have the energy. I did not have the capacity. I saw everything kind of through the lens of like, oh, this means I wasn't meant to do it. This means this is a result of meaning that this isn't the right path. This isn't gonna work out, right? And you have to train yourself to see things in a different way. And that will allow you to help get to where you to become the person who has the things that you say that you want, to become the person, to have the identity of the things that you say you want. So this kind of brings up the RAS, the RAS. This is your reticular activating system. The RAS is like your brain's filter. Okay. It decides what you notice, if your nervous system believes there's opportunities for you or it doesn't. And if you don't believe you have opportunities coming to you, you won't see them. Not because they don't exist, but because your brain literally filters them out. So if we're speaking into like intuitions, synchronicities, opportunities, you know, seeing this through people, through dreams, the question isn't is the universe speaking? Right. It the question is, is my nervous system quiet enough to hear it? Right. So our brain is filtering things out because we don't actually have the belief that the opportunity is there for us. That's wild. So again, it's not about the opportunities not being there. It's that we actually don't even see them as opportunity. And I think this is also why I love travel, because it allows you to break up our patterns, change our brainwave state, come out of these survival states. Again, right? It's this huge, the biggest, the biggest pattern interrupter. The biggest pattern interrupter because you're plucking yourself out of your day-to-day life and you're putting yourself in a completely new environment with new experiences where we can start to prime the mind, the body, and the nervous system to see the opportunity, to see the beauty, to see the awe, to see the wonder, to see the magic, to see the ideas, to have the creativity. Because you're in a different, calm, regulated state where you actually get those downloads. It's so important. It is so vital. I literally, that is the best tool. That is literally, I think, the best tool. Now okay, y'all. I'm interrupting this episode for something really exciting because I'm officially opening the applications for the abundance activation retreat in Greece. And honestly, this is gonna be such a fucking vibe. I'm so excited. I'm so excited about the women who are already joining. Uh, so if you are a soul who has been craving expansion, softness, adventure, sisterhood, healing, abundance, and a deeper connection to your feminine energy, this is your sign to join the vibe tribe in Greece. This is a seven-day yoga, Pilates, feminine embodiment retreat through the Greek islands for the woman who's tired of holding her entire life together through stress, pressure, overthinking, and survival mode, and is ready to step into a completely different energy. Because abundance isn't something you hustle for, it's something you open yourself up to receive. We'll move our bodies overlooking the sea, regulate our nervous system, dance under the stars, and have bougie boat days, deep conversations, incredible freaking Greek food, beach clubs, sunsets, healing, laughter, and the kind of experiences that generally change you forever. Because sometimes you don't need another tool, technique, or strategy, you need a new environment, you need a moment to pause, a new frequency, a new energy to help remind you of who you really are. After my first time in Greece, everything really shifted for me, not just externally, but internally. I trusted myself more, I trusted the universe more, I stopped forcing life so hard. I felt supported, guided, and deeply connected to creation, possibility, and magic. And that's exactly the energy, the vibe of this retreat. So you've been waiting for a sign to stop playing small, to start going after what you truly want, to start saying yes to your next big level, then this is it. You can apply or reach out to me via Instagram for more information. I seriously cannot wait for this experience and to experience this magic with you. I don't see also like astrology as something that predicts our lives. I see it as something that reminds us that everything moves in seasons. Okay. And like life has a cyclical nature to it. So, you know, we have these logical ways that the brain works. And it's understandable that our survival mechanisms and everything I've spoken into plays a part into our own personal makeup. But then there's also the soul. And I, again, healing for me, I used to have a series on Instagram called Healing is the Vibe, because the vibe is the more you can heal, the more you can get in alignment with your fucking soul, your fucking purpose. And your purpose is you. So yeah, that's some of the things I talk about, they're investments. And again, I think sometimes we kind of let the fear of the investment hold us back when we say we want X, Y, or Z thing, but you literally are making a decision between staying where you are now or choosing an investment into doing something differently because what you're doing right now is obviously not working, or you'd have the results that you wanted. And I think I love that this, you know, bringing all of this full circle and together is because we need all these different seasons. I know. You know, without the other things that led me on that path. So there's also the, again, the spiritual trust that comes into play, right? That everything has a season and a purpose. So it's not that the nervous system regulation or or, you know, the healing is that you're weak. You're not weak. And I think there has been that stereotype, that disposition that, like, if we're struggling, if we have mental health illness or emotional or trauma, you know, that we're weak. No, it just means that the trauma literally changed your fucking brain. Literally, trauma changes your brain, right? Your amygdala gets bigger, which means that prefrontal cortex is less active, which means the emotional part of the brain is much more louder, which means that we're more on edge. That means that we're in PTSD. We're always looking for are we safe or are we not? When you understand these things, I think from the logical, I don't know, physiological point of view of how these people are functioning because of brain and nervous system states, that they're not actively purposefully choosing it, that our behaviors are running from these states of our brain and our nervous system. I think we can realize that we have a lot more compassion for people and that healing is the way. Because I truly do believe each of us has a has a purpose. We're all this like spiritual energy. We all have a purpose. We all make our our have a purpose in our lives, in other people's lives. And I love that like my mission or my soul gets to be on a path of helping others find their own mission and their own purpose and their fulfillment and their highest potential. But sometimes we gotta work through the mucky muck to get there, to be able to listen. But I do believe every person can live up to whatever potential is out there for them. And that's where I believe the abundance comes into play. Because I do think that there is an abundance of love. And we just have to train our minds and our body to see it and to open to it. And that's why I'm really excited for the Grease Retreat. That's why I'm excited for the podcast. That's why I'm excited to be growing a little bit more on social media because there are a ton of people in the fucking world. And the marketing and the conditioning and the fear keeps you fucking small. And I choose to no longer play small based on some fucking lack conditioning. That's not who I am. Doesn't mean that I don't know what my fullest potential may be. And I'm excited and curious to fucking find out. And I hope you are too. I hope you give yourself that you're able to regulate, to radiate into your fullest potential. And that's what I want to help people do. If you're not able to make those soul alignments, to make the leaps, to do the jumps, there's work that you can do to help get yourself there, truly, because we're all a part of nature. And I think we forget to honor our own seasons. And I think this year, like 2026, is like this huge invitation to find your wings, to let those old lack identities fall away, for choosing your faith over what's been familiar for decades. And I know that's a big ask. It does require work. But God, on the other side of that, what would you give for that sense of fulfillment, for that sense of joy, for that sense of peace, for that sense of wonder, for that sense of aliveness, of truly being alive in your own life, like you're in co-creation with the universe. Not that everything's just coming at you and you just need to brace for all of it. So whether you believe that it's written in the stars or you simply reflect on each season of your life, you know, this invitation I'm kind of leaving you with is that change is no longer optional, right? Things change all the time. I think we need to get into the flow. And I think regulation is the thing that gets us there, into that sense of trust and love and faith. And growth is asking of that, asking that of us, of all of us. If we want to see the change, like see the world change, we have to change our own world. And I hope and truly believe that we can also change the world for one other person. And then that person can change the world for one other person, or at least be there to support another person. And I believe that's why ceremony and podcasts and retreats and classes and experiences matter so much. Ceremony matters. Like our ancestors gathered under the moon, under the solstice, under the eclipses. They reflected, they gave gratitude, they acknowledged the moon, its magic, the season and its magic, its lessons. They understood these rhythms because they slowed down enough to listen. You know, again, like life in the material world has has really burnt us the fuck out. We all have these sides of our internal compass, our soul that we can get in alignment with. That doesn't, no one's negated from that. Everyone's a human spiritual being. No one's no one's left out of that party. But we do have to acknowledge the things that we've been through, how our body and our mind works, and give ourselves what we need in order to support ourselves, you know, and allowing almost like something that can kind of almost be driven from ego, that it's like about me and it is about you, your purpose is about you, but also like when you align your purpose with the bigger picture, you get even more momentum underneath your wings. Because yeah, it's about you, but it's also like everyone who could be affected by your light, by your love, by your openness, by your regulation, by your teaching, by your service. Like how much bigger that becomes than just you. You know, I always say, like, I can't be everyone's fucking best friend who comes to my class. But there are so many people who are close friends because they met at my class, my retreat, my yoga teacher training, my whatever. Not even, you know, again, it's not all about me. It's that I provide the space for that connection to happen, for that community to happen because I value that. I want more of that in my life and in the world. We all need these spaces to slow down, to create intentional time to do this kind of work. Because buried under productivity and the performance performance and life and material and money is the sacredness of life, of just being alive, of just being human, of just being here in this moment in time. I think we've lost that sacredness, that truth, that honor. And I just try to align and and and follow my heart and and help others find their magic to do the same. Whatever capacity that looks like for them to create spaces for the sacredness, for the love, for the trust. And I I do believe that when women gather in emotionally safe spaces, you know, our nervous systems start to co-regulate. And I can't wait for those moments to happen on the retreat because it feels fucking amazing. When you can tap into that state of being and feel that energy in Greece, it's fucking incredible. Because we need spaces for the humanness, for the sacredness, for the reality of life, for the high highs and the low fucking lows. And sometimes that's through celebration and integration, and sometimes it's It can be through, you know, people who need to grieve certain things for hugging, for breathing together, for shared laughter, for moving movement, for singing, you know, for moving together, for dancing, for shared joy and happiness. These experiences, you know, actually lower our stress level, help us regulate, increase oxytocin, and help us to feel more connected, which ultimately help us feel more safe in the world, that we're not in and alone, that we've got us, but also other people do. And I guess I know I keep harping on this, but maybe that's why I feel like retreats are so transformational, right? It's not like a vacation. I had someone say that to me, like, oh, I've never been on that of an expensive vacation. Well, it's not a vacation. It's a fucking transformation. It's not an escape from life. It's not like, oh, I just need a vacation to, you know, have a good time. It's a fucking celebration and recalibration into a different state and different identity of who you've believed yourself to be and to trust and to love on a new frequency. Yes. And on that new frequency, things are going to be fucking magnetized to you. But it's like becoming that version of you in the being, in the here and the now. Because I don't think like healing just means like you're completely fearless. I think it's that like in this experience, that it's that like teaching your nervous system that the future isn't actually a threat, right? That it's actually what if it's even better than you could have expected? Instead of doom and gloom and like everything's going wrong. What if everything's going right? Like, where do we have space for fucking that? You know, I think a lot of us can live from this kind of like, I feel like maybe a lot of women listen to this, like you're like scared little girl inside, like, and she's like always kind of in the backseat. That's how I kind of figured about like fear. It's like it's like that little version of me that feels really unsafe and is really scared. Like, what if all these things happen? Right. And it's not that we like isolate her, we like kick her, kick her out of the car, right? She gets to come with. She deserves love and compassion and understanding. But she also, you know, doesn't need to drive our car anymore because the woman I'm becoming is driving the car. The woman I I am right now is driving the car. And I, for me, that's how it feels to choose kind of love over that fear. So take a big breath. I didn't start with a breath this week. I should have, damn. But maybe we just close our eyes and take it now. It feels really fucking good and really present. I've got some thunder rolling outside. I don't know if you guys can hear it. But close down your eyes if that feels safe. Start to notice where you're breathing from, if it's from your chest, from your belly. Maybe notice what sensations you're feeling. I have my hands on my chest in like a butterfly kind of position. So one hand is over the other. My thumbs are crisscrossed. And right now I'm gonna tap on my chest using my right hand first and then my left, tapping back and forth. A little bilateral movement helps calm the nervous system. One tool you can put in your toolbox, starting to take some deeper breaths, inhaling through your nose, exhaling through your mouth or your nose, inhaling for four, three, two, one, exhaling for four, three, two, one. Keeping the tapping going, inhaling for four, three, two, exhaling for four, three, two, one. Doing this two more times, counting in your mind's eye. Maybe allowing your hands to pause now and just sitting in a little bit more calmer energy, holding your heart, holding that little girl, while envisioning this woman that you're becoming, who's soft, open, connected, and convicted in her trust, in her faith. Maybe there's a vision of that woman who knows what her heart and soul is calling her towards. Or maybe we just sit in like what's lit up for us right now. Maybe we've had a dream and maybe now something else lights us up. Something new we want to move towards. Sitting in this little magic of a moment, knowing, yeah, these tools don't have to be complicated, but when do we actually make space to do them? When do we have the awareness to pause and do them? When do we not put pressure on doing them, but we just know that they're here for us? Part of doing the work is for this to really just start to regulate in a lot of your dreams, you start to move towards more naturally. It's just ease and flow and love. Love is that feeling of being in motion and following your heart wherever it wants to go. That voice in your head that says, what if it gets quieter? But that little girl or little version of you is always inside. And we get to hold her and understand her and love her, and also trust those little softness of intuition and heart center, regardless of what the world tells us our path is. So stay here or open your eyes with me. I want to thank you guys for being here, for doing that for yourself. It's amazing how we can bring all these things together, right? The science, the neuroscience, the logic, the mind, the body experience, and then the spirit, the soul, the energy. That isn't meant to, I think, always be understood on a logical level. It's meant to be felt, and I think it's truly meant to be trusted. So a few kind of journal questions that maybe I'll put in the show notes if you're keen is where am I choosing f familiarity over fulfillment? Whose voice do I hear when I doubt myself? Maybe just even like listening to me right now, something pops in your head. Is this fear protecting my life or just protecting my ego and identity? Is my nervous system felt, if my nervous system felt completely safe and held, what would I choose? How would I leap? What would I do? Where would I go? And what dream keeps knocking on the heart, on the door of my heart, of your heart? You put a hand to your heart and just feel into that. So this year truly feels like there is winds underneath your wings. Okay, there's momentum. And so I invite you to try to spread your wings a little further to become also a little more fearless and the things that set your soul on fire, your heart open, knowing that I like this little analogy: birds don't learn to fly by waiting until they aren't afraid. They learn because they trust what they were created to do. And maybe that's us too. Like your intuition has never maybe it's just been very quiet beneath all of the noise beneath the fear, the conditioning, the trauma. Because the fear and the trauma teaches your nervous system and your brain to survive. But intuition teaches your soul to live. Wonder if you guys heard that thunder. Healing is creating enough safety in your body that you can finally hear the wisdom of your soul, what it's been whispering all along. So if you're left with making a decision, can we ask ourselves not what feels familiar or the easiest, but if you knew you were completely supported by God, the universe, your own inner wisdom, what would you choose? Because fear protects the past and love creates the future. And I just want to leave you that maybe, just maybe, this was the year you finally trust in your heart more than your fear, and the year that you learn to take a leap, spread your wings, and go towards your dreams and your soul. And if we don't have the trust, love, belief, confidence in that, there's always training, nervous system regulation, things that you can do to help yourself, to truly thrive and not just survive, to truly live and feel alive and not in a constant stress or overwhelm. So I want to thank you guys for listening, for being here. Please share this episode with someone who needs it. And I hope I've encouraged you to follow your fucking dreams. Thanks, y'all. What up, y'all? We are so thankful and excited that you're here. If you're loving the show, feeling the show, please think about sharing it with a friend who could also get something out of it. We're also asking for your help. If you could rate the show or write a review, that way we can grow and expand together. Reach the right people who need and are meant to hear this message. I know it's super easy not to do it, but every single rating and review helps this show grow so much. We appreciate it more than you know. Thanks so much for supporting Relentlessly Authentic. This is raw, unfiltered conversations on healing, identity shifts, nervous system regulation, and the messy middles that crack you open and change everything. New episodes every Wednesday.