128 ~ Closing the Nine Year Cycle with Alee Reina Hoffman

Ever feel like you were brave, did the “right” things, and still hit bottom? We dive into the anatomy of a nine year cycle—2016 to 2025—and why so many of us are feeling the urge to complete, cleanly. With author and Akashic Records guide Alee Reina Hoffman, we unpack how to receive a cycle instead of chasing the next milestone: honoring what really happened, metabolizing grief and disappointment, and allowing endings to end so you can start without residue.

Alee shares an unflinching personal story—career peaks, sudden illness from mold exposure, the death of her grandmother, and the shocking loss of her brother—and what decades of inner work are actually for when life doesn't go as planned. Control seeks outcomes; devotion builds capacity. That reframe changes how we meet desire, success, and connection when the world feels unprecedented. We also get practical: reflective writing that helps you “have” your life, touching artifacts and revisiting places to unlock memory, creating art so lessons can leave the body, and even short trips that reset perspective and show you what’s ready to be rearranged.

If you’re wondering where you are in a cycle, start with your body: Are you yearning, resting, or ready? Do trusted mirrors reflect a beginning, a middle, or an end? We talk about clarity before movement, why winter is for downloading the blueprint, and how forced change tends to dissolve while embodied change travels with you. One powerful sign of completion is neutrality—the moment your system no longer spikes, and the story becomes wisdom instead of a wound. From there, desire becomes clean again: the next right home, a partner who fits, a season centered on love.

Listen for grounded tools, honest stories, and a compassionate map for closing loops so you don’t repeat them. 

We explore how to consciously close the 2016–2025 nine‑year cycle by receiving endings, reclaiming wisdom, and letting new desire take the lead. Alee Reina Hoffman shares hard-won insights on loss, timing, and how neutrality signals completion.

Get Alee’s book, Dark Times Catering, and follow her on Instagram.

Here are Alee's links: 

https://linktr.ee/aleereina?utm_source=linktree_profile_share&ltsid=ea722ab6-ada3-48b9-929a-2d4318c6b5b4

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:07

Welcome to Desire is Medicine. We are two very different women living a life led by desire, inviting you into our world.

SPEAKER_01 0:16

I'm Brenda. I'm a devoted practitioner to being my fully expressed true self in my daily life, motherhood, relationships, and my business. Desire has taken me on quite a ride, and every day I practice listening to and following the voice within. I'm a middle school teacher, turned coach and guide of the feminine.

SPEAKER_02 0:36

And I'm Catherine, devoted to living my life as the truest and hopefully the highest version of me. I don't have children, I've never been married, I've spent equal parts of my life in corporate as in some down and low shady spaces. I was the epitome of Tired and Wired, and my path led me to explore desire. I'm a coach, guide, energy worker, and a forever student.

SPEAKER_01 0:58

Even after decades of inner work, we are humble beginners, on the mat, still exploring, always curious. We believe that listening to and following the nudge of desire is a deep spiritual practice that helps us grow.

SPEAKER_02 1:12

On the Desire as Medicine podcast, we talk to each other, we interview people we know and love about the practice of desire, bringing in a very important piece that is often overlooked: being responsible for our desire.

What The Nine-Year Cycle Means;

SPEAKER_01 1:26

Welcome, listeners and friends, to the Desire as Medicine podcast. So happy to be here with you today. Of course, joined by my amazing co-host, Catherine Navarro. And we have a very special guest today, my dear friend Allie Raina Hoffman. So excited to have her. But before we let her speak, I'm going to do a little edification of Allie, which is something that we love to do here on the Desires Medicine podcast. So Allie and I have walked together inside powerful transformative community. We track desire, truth, and we had much change over many years. We've really walked together in beautiful ways. She is wise, she is funny, and she is deeply brilliant. Allie is an Akashic Records guide, a healing artist, and transformational transformational mentor with nearly two decades of professional practice. She works with people around the world to uncover core themes that are shaping their lives and to find beauty inside what has unfolded. She's the author of the newly published Dark Times Catering, which is a memoir about rebuilding a body, a family, and a life after profound loss. I am reading it, and it is very hard to put down, really loving this book. So in today's episode, we're going to talk to Allie as we explore life as a cycle, the closing of a collective nine-year arc, and how desire reshapes when we locate ourselves honestly and allow what is ready to complete. So, welcome, Allie. So happy to have you today.

SPEAKER_00 3:29

Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_01 3:30

It's so good to be here. You're welcome. It's just really great to have you. So let's just start with what everyone seems to be obsessed with right now. And there's a really good reason, as you will tell you will tell, this collective nine-year cycle that is ending from 2016 to the end of 2025. And even though it's 2026, that's still happening and it will continue to unfold. So can you share about that what that means? What does that mean to have this collective nine-year cycle close and why is everyone obsessed with it, including myself?

SPEAKER_00 4:06

Yeah, and like that is really how we connected about doing this episode is that is something I've been talking about so much. It's a big part of the book. My, you know, the book was written in and is about this nine-year cycle. And um, so there's been a lot of work I've been doing in my own practice and in sharing the book. Um, and so many people I was talking to are really connected to this cycle. And first of all, we keep saying unprecedented, we use that word a lot. I mean, we are truly in an unprecedented time. It is now not just a word we use uh maybe in spiritual community as we've been training towards these evolving times, but it's a word you hear constantly in every sort of community and organization. And I think this last nine-year cycle, it has been the unprecedented. There is not one person who can say uh they didn't totally lose control inside in inside of the last nine years. This has been a cycle about knowing who you are when you don't get what you want. Um yeah, right? Knowing who you are when you don't get what you want, which is um what a great, I don't know. I just feel like that's how you really become your own best friend. You've got to know your who you are in all your different spaces and locations. And um I think this has also been a time where we've had to become really adaptable, where we've had to um really change what relationship has meant, what connection has meant, what success means. Um, and so yeah, I think it's just there's been this fixation that you and I have been laughing about because we already were very fixated on this around really going back. And I think the media is presenting it almost as nostalgia, like, oh, 2016 was before everything felt so crazy or harsh or divisive. And yes, that could be true. And it's also like I think speaking to a deeper reckoning and desire, really, that we all have to really track and understand the story we just lived through. Because if we don't track and receive, and that's been a big message that was for the podcast today from the Akasha, is really letting yourself receive the cycle you're completing. Because if we don't fully receive it, we can't move forward. We end up reliving these cycles over and over. And so it's really important to understand the journey we're in. And as we keep going into more and more unprecedented collective experiences, we need to know where we are in our own journey, right? And then we can, and then we can feel connected to the greater journey. And the way we know where we are is by like actually really tracking where we just came from and the bigger story. And, you know, everything in our life tries to let us know that it's a cycle and that nothing is permanent, and that what good or bad, it's just a part of the whole. That's why we have seasons, that's why our body has all these different cycles of aging, and for women, obviously menstruation and all these different things, right? And different types of development that happen at different ages and stages of life. And so we are life has tried to tell us in every type of way possible that it's all a cycle. And um, and yet we still can feel like we're doing something wrong if we're in a part of the cycle that doesn't look good or feel good. And so I think for many people, they're coming, especially 2025, was a cycle for many people that that maybe didn't look good or feel good. Like I just know a lot of people have been shedding and having to see some really hard things. And I think it's manageable and sustainable when you begin to understand it's a part of it's a part of a longer story.

SPEAKER_01 8:12

Thank you for that. In true alley fashion, you just dropped pounds of gold for us here. Yeah, thank you for laying that out so beautifully. And I want to go back to something you said because this was a really big cycle, this 2016. Like there's a reason that it's huge on the internet and it's gone, you know, so wild and maybe people losing touch with the actual nugget of what it is that we're gonna hopefully get to here today. But you said receiving the cycle. And I would love for you to share what does that mean to receive the cycle and what does that look like and how does that benefit us?

Receiving A Cycle Versus Accumulating;

SPEAKER_00 8:51

Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, I think something all of us on our paths of study, you know, something I learned in the on one of the paths I was on with you, Brenda, is really understanding what it looks like to have something versus accumulate it. And um that was one of the most life-changing understandings for me is to realize how many, how, how often we're looking around at people who have, who, who don't actually have what they've accumulated. And we're really seeing that in the cultural story right now, people who have become obsessed with accumulation because they don't know how to actually receive and experience on an emotional and physical level and on a relational level, like how to actually stop and open and have what's around them. Oftentimes we're looking for things that are actually already in our life, but we haven't given permission to receive it because it looks different than we thought it was going to look like to receive this thing. Or it's vulnerable. We felt betrayed by other times we've received. And so there's ways we close ourselves off. We pretend something's not happening when it is. Uh, we pretend something is happening when it's not, right? And then we also kind of uh yeah, can just stay very fixated on one section of our life, waiting for the thing to be visible there when it's actually in a different part of our life right now. A different part of our life is requiring our attention so that we can receive. So that's what I mean in one way by having how to receive. It's like being open and vulnerable and actually being willing to see what's here so that we can receive it. Another way I mean receive is by actually slowing down to either appreciate something we couldn't appreciate at the time, more mourn or grieve something we couldn't really, we didn't have the capacity for at the time to really go back and look at these different points, whether you're looking at this nine-year arc or a specific year in your life or a specific season, and really letting yourself slow down and acknowledge things that in the moment of living them, maybe you didn't have the compassion or the information or the capacity to do at the time. So when we go back in that way, you know, so there's often this like emphasis on like just keep looking, don't look backwards. And it's like, but if we don't look backwards, we won't receive. That's so sometimes we have to go backwards to receive. And then the third way I really am talking about receiving is to allow something to end. You know, we oftentimes are just hanging on. We don't we don't want something to end. We've really associated endings with punishment and with failure. And so sometimes we don't want something to end because we didn't want it to end like this. Or um we feel like we've done too much. I was just thinking to what working with a client yesterday that, you know, they may be, they, their relationship may end. And they're doing all this work right now that needs to happen either, you know, either way. And it and and he they were speaking to the fact of like, will this feel like delaying the inevitable if I do if we do all this work together and the relationship still ends? But it's like the relationship can't end unless you do this work anyway, right? Like this way, you the two of you get to complete whatever these patterns are, whatever you've been working through. And then you get to truly end the relationship and move on to have like new, new lives with the gifts. You know, if we don't let something end, we don't get to receive the gift. And so there's a lot of things in our life that we feel like were a thankless experience or a delayal, a delaying of the inevitable. When it's actually like, no, you just didn't let it end yet. So you haven't received the the gold yet. But you still have the opportunity. We could always end something that that already ended and finally get current with the ending. So those are some of what I mean when I mean receive and uh, you know, the value of receiving a cycle, celebrating what there is to celebrate, having compassion and gratitude where we can, being honest with what was disappointing with that ending, because disappointment gives us so much too and really helps us understand our values and what's really important to us. And so that is another great thing we can do to really receive this last nine-year arc. There was a lot of abrupt endings for people, a lot of disappointing endings, and obviously a lot of liberating endings for people too, right? Everyone has been in a different cycle. But as we look at this arc, we want to give ourselves opportunities to look at some of the big endings that happened and finally let ourselves receive what what we got from that. Because there's something to receive even in the abrupt and the disappointing ones, of course.

SPEAKER_01 14:00

Thank you for that. So, can you talk a little bit more about maybe how you have received your own personal nine-year cycle? Because I know that's really huge and it has to do with your book.

Personal Story Of Loss And Reframing Control;

SPEAKER_00 14:11

This la 2016 for me was uh so because I guess we are really talking about that cycle. Um, 2016 was like a really courageous year for me. I had let allowed myself to get to a new level of like success in my career and in my my work. And I really was getting to have the experience of many things I had worked a long time a long time to experience and in my practice. And I ended up moving. I had been living in Chicago for a long time and I kind of took this courageous leap to leave a relationship and a very established life there and move to California. And um, you know, if I really understood what that cycle, what I thought that cycle was going to be about was like, wow, I'm in my early 30s and I've finally hit the pinnacle of like success in the way I've wanted to experience it professionally and spiritually and you know, emotionally and physically. And it was actually moving there to start training and preparation for the worst years of my life. And that is not what I expected that cycle to be. I thought I was like in a peak, and a lot of what I was immediately doing was like really um, you know, learning how to have more and receive more and expand my capacity and, you know, and I and but I also found myself doing a lot of like kundalini and breath work and um martial arts and you know, there was just this like intensity right away to my life there. And I remember my brother at the time being like, it feels like you're in this goddess warrior training. And I really was. It was because actually the cycle that was starting was going to be the hardest one of my life. So for me, um what ended up happening inside of the last nine-year cycle was becoming really ill from mold poisoning from this like great beach house that I had moved to that completely changed like my body and my neurology. Um, and then at that time, we had this big loss in my family of my my grandmother passing, which felt like the end of a big karmic cycle in the start of 2019, because um my grandfather had died in his 30s, and my grandmother ended up and it really had a ripple effect on the on the generations afterwards. And my grandmother died on the same day as his anniversary, but like 65 years later. And so at the time, my brother and I and my mom, we were so conscious to like, wow, this is the closing of this big cycle in the family, and not realizing that uh my brother had an undiagnosed heart condition or a misdiagnosed heart condition, and he would unexpectedly die a couple months later. So it that was in 2019. So there was like this big cycle I thought I was starting, this big cycle we thought we were ending. And then just the humbling experience of, oh wow, like this cycle is not at all what I thought it was it was about. And it's totally what I thought it was about at the same time. And the realization of I've been in this training of doing spiritual work and and persevering in this way my entire adult life, not to control the moment. And when this cycle started, I was in this peak of like, I'm controlling the moment, you know, and to like, and you know, because my brother and I got into this work because him and my dad had had cancer, and my when my dad died, I went on this path professionally, you know, like my since my early 20s. So I had to really look back to the whole cycle from 20 age 20 when my dad died to 35 when my brother died, and realized, like, oh, so much of this has been about trying to control the moment and trying to make up for not having known enough to save our dad. And and if we couldn't save our dad, at least we're gonna be able to save Gabe, my brother, because we've learned all there is. My brother was this incredible functional medicine practitioner. So for him to die of medical malpractice was like, what? And um, you know, so I I thought I was in these cycles in a totally different way than I actually was. So I had to, when my brother died, I had to really revisit these cycles. I had to um really understand what had been taking place, and I had to really understand the cycle I was in now, which was like, uh yeah, I'm still on the path and it it looks different. Like the actual work I'm here to do is gonna look different than what I thought this cycle was gonna be about. So it was very humbling to go from such a peak into such a a deep collapse. Um, and also, you know, that feeling which I think pretty much everyone has on the spiritual path. At some point, you feel brokenhearted or betrayed by a teacher or a path or something you pedestalized or something you understood as the thing that keeps everything going the right way. And I think we're kind of all in that experience right now because life is really the greatest teacher. And I think life has broken a lot of people's hearts and has felt like a betrayal to a lot of people, especially in this cycle that um we've been going through collectively. So um yeah, so my life completely changed and I had to move home and cr and be part of a karmic cycle in a exactly the way I would not have wanted to. I was very actively in a karmic cycle with my brother and I thinking like, we did it, we healed all this family karma, and we're we're these amazing practitioners, and it was like so shocking to have to understand you are in the cycle and not in the way that will be in your preference. And in some ways, my life for the rest of the day. Of my life will be out of my preference because you know, because of some sometimes you have a loss where it's like the rest of your life as this person will now be out of your preferences, and that's just kind of the experience of certain types of grief. But yeah, so I had to go home and kind of and and that was the same time of COVID. So I know a lot of people went through an experience of this is not the cycle I expected, or this is not how I planned that my retirement years or my college years, you know, just everyone was in a certain moment in their chronological cycle where the COVID experience felt like it completely changed what that cycle was supposed to be, or how other people got to have it. So, you know, I was experiencing that as was everybody in their own way. And then um, around 2021 is when I started to write the book about that experience, that 2016 to 2019 uh, you know, journey of going of having to like really let go of everything and have to revisit the past and really receive what the cycle had been about. And then um, yeah, and then the book kind of goes into 2020 and 2021 and kind of like the journey of those years. Um, and I just knew I had to write a book in order to complete this cycle. Like I think we go through certain cycles where they will not get out of our body, out of our tissues, whether it's the mold or the trauma or the disappointment. They're not going to get out of our system until we alchemize and create something with them. So um, that was really for me how I received the last nine-year cycle was to write a book. And I took four years to create it and publish it. And um, and then at the opening ceremony for the book is when we did that nine-year cycle revisiting. And I just wanted to give people the opportunity to revisit like some of the hardest years of our lives, but with a new, a new level of compassion and wisdom that we have now that we couldn't have had then. Um, and yeah, so that's been the biggest way I've received the last nine-year arc was like, and I think for many people, like we've got to create art with it. Um, you know, like sometimes there's no moving out of the cycle until we actually create something with it physically.

Courage, Bottoms, And Feeling Punished;

SPEAKER_01 22:27

Yeah, thank you for that. And you created something really beautiful with something that was the most difficult thing that you've been through. And on top of losing your grandmother and your father, you lost your beloved brother, someone who you mentioned in the book. How do you how do you live with something you thought you could never live without, which was really moving? And I really related to your story, Allie. You brought up something that I don't know that I even thought about myself about 2016, that time period, that early time period, about some of the choices that we made that were very courageous. I know I made some very courageous choices and changes in my life in 2016 to 2018. Wow. Those were quite disappointing the way they landed. And those years of COVID, which I was really grateful for those years of COVID, because that actually matched where I was at the time. I just needed time and space to be at the bottom and just space to kind of work some of these things out, was a real big bottom for me. So I'm grateful for that sacred pause. Um, but it was disappointing and difficult. And then to match that coming out of the cycle now has been extremely rewarding. Because only now can I look back with a perspective and see the gifts and appreciate how difficult those times were and how I really learned to be with myself and love myself in some of the most difficult moments and positions that I never thought I would find myself in, especially when I thought I was making really big, courageous decisions. You don't really expect to fall on your face.

SPEAKER_00 24:13

Ah, absolutely. And I mean, I've been so moved by what you've been sharing online. Uh something you're bringing here that I want to address too is like I think for a lot of people who maybe relate to, oh, 2016 was a courageous try, you know, like trying different things or letting myself have new experiences, it can really feel like a punishment to have a bottom after that. You know, like it can feel like, oh wow, I was punished for wanting too much. And, you know, I definitely was in that after that big peak, and then to have not been able to have so many things suddenly be out of my control and to feel like, oh, this is like a punishment. And then there's all of these people who are not punished for being create uh courageous or maybe even being selfish in certain decisions or trying something on, you know, that um they really wanted. And I think like in those moments when we're feeling punished is a is a great moment to realize that wait, we're still in the cycle. Because I think you're really speaking to that. Like you were in 2020, you were in a certain part of the cycle of receiving the courageous. That's why they were courageous, because these are what this is one of the things that could and probably would happen. You know, the this you were living in the outcomes that made those decisions so courageous in the first place. Otherwise, they wouldn't have been courageous if it just was like, oh, I do that, and then everything's cool. It's like that's actually what's courageous is decisions that may leave you in discomfort or grief, but still were true to do. And now you know how true they are because you got through the cycle and you're in a totally different place with so much more uh trust and compassion. And I just feel like what you've started sharing about this cycle like is just so important for so many people. And like that's also such an exciting part to receive when you let yourself receive the bottom and come out, and then that fulfilling experience of being able to like really receive um the utility through how it how it impacts other people.

How To Receive And Close A Cycle;

SPEAKER_01 26:31

Thank you so much. I appreciate that. I'm just gonna use the word obsessed again, but I've been really dedicated and devoted to this nine-year cycle closing. And I think a lot of people are, which is why I'm so excited to talk to you about this today. And I want to just preface what you're saying about how important it is to allow a cycle to end. And when you mentioned this to me in it was probably November, December 2025, that this nine-year collective cycle was closing. It landed in my body as such truth. And I was able to see it for the first time. I was able to see the arc. And I could feel in my body for the first time since I made some of those courageous changes in 2016 and even before the setup for that, how oh, this is a cycle that's closing. And it was such a difficult cycle, and I definitely felt punished and victimized. And it was some of the hardest times that I've personally ever lived with, lived through. And now it's time for it to end. Like I claimed that. That felt like a very powerful move to allow myself for it to end. Like that is so powerful because or else you're just stuck in the loop. Can you talk about that a little bit and how the book tied in for you with that concept?

SPEAKER_00 27:55

Yeah, absolutely. So, right. So if we don't, if it never ends, then we never have the wisdom to share, right? And so I think that's that's part of it is you were ready to start sharing this as wisdom. Like it's almost a simultaneous experience. You realized it was ending, and then it was like, oh, I don't have to hold my breath or pretend or deny or repress it. Like there's a total liberation, uh, like a personal liberation, but a liberation of the wisdom that you accrued when you finally allow for the idea that it could be ending. And, you know, I think it's scary. Um, it's scary to admit something might end. A business might end, a relationship might end, you know, like it's it can really be frightening because it's like, you know, as we know, for a lot of us, it's like we would rather have the chaos we know. Like our nervous system wants the chaos and the hardships we know versus uh a new level where we don't know what it's gonna be like. And so it's actually very courageous to start something and it's very courageous to end something. And it's kind of the same thing because to start or to end is to embrace the unknown, really. And so I think it's like we're in a period of time in the world that is about embracing the unknown. And I think it's interesting that it's also suddenly a time where everyone collectively wants to end something. Like we all want to acknowledge what has already happened and end it and recognize. Like the other thing, even with kind of the Instagram glossy version of this, a lot of what people are sharing was hey, this is me in 2016, and I couldn't have known this, or I wouldn't have never I would have never expected this is where I would end up. Like there's a way people are wanting to receive for themselves and to share publicly what took place for them, whether or not it was what they wanted, you know? And I I do feel like we're all realizing it's time to understand the endings that are taking place because the beginning has already happened. Like we're already in the unknown. So we better button up and recognize the wisdom we do have, you know? Button up. I love that.

SPEAKER_01 30:25

I want to ask you a question, and I do want to go back to the book as well. So you wrote your book as a way to digest and gleam and share the lessons of your collective nine-year cycle. I've been doing a lot of writing as well. What are some other ways that people can receive and close out the cycle who maybe aren't writers? You and I both happen to do it in that particular way.

SPEAKER_00 30:49

Yeah. Well, I think one way, obviously, yeah. So what writing, and even if you haven't thought of yourself as a writer, I just feel like everyone benefits for from some sort of writing practice if you're trying to end or receive a cycle. I also think like touching things from that time, like maybe clearing out a box, looking back at pictures. An amazing thing is that so many of us have been creating these like anthologies almost through our phones. So we are living in a time where it's much easier to go back and receive and re remember and reconnect with the past through pictures or through physical items you maybe put away. Um, and I also another one that I feel like is really great if you're trying to receive and close a cycle is travel. I feel like leaving your normal location and going on a little bit of a trip, or maybe going to a location that was important in that last cycle is so healing. For for me personally, that was like one of the most healing thing I did during healing so much trauma physically and psychologically and spiritually. There was just like a lot of trauma to heal in this last cycle. And one of the most important things I did that really helped my brain was going on trips. Like it's helpful to the brain to store sort of um organize a small amount of items. It's helpful to go back to a place and remember things. It's interesting to see how it feels now and who you are now. It's really helpful to visit people from that time period or timeline. Um, so I I think one of the most important ways, like if you're listening to this, maybe there's a physical location. Maybe you're starting to percolate, like, oh, this is a cycle I'm actually completing. What was one of the most important cities for you in that time? If if you're not living there now, go visit it. You know, if you are living in a place where a lot of this cycle has taken place, go somewhere else for even like a weekend and and come back and notice. You're gonna be able to see what needs to be reorganized or rearranged in your life if you if you take a if you take a break from it.

SPEAKER_01 33:05

Wow, that's the best idea ever. I feel like I need to get in my car and go to my old school where I used to teach and go to go visit my old house. Like I've I don't know that I've even back been back to my old school where I taught and resigned from during this time period. But that's a great idea. And I'm thinking people could even do art or whatever your medium of expression is could be really powerful as well.

SPEAKER_00 33:29

That's a great idea. The art and even scrapbooking, drawing, painting. You know, I think sometimes it's powerful to create a Pinterest board. Like I've have a friend who does that a lot to um help you figure out like what, you know, what you're trying to create. And it could be interesting to say, all right, I'm feeling 2018. That's like the year I need to close up and just go on Pinterest and notice what you want to search for, like what images feel like the flavor of that year. Um, so you're right, like that's another great thing you could do is like create your own physical art or create digital art.

Locating Yourself In Any Cycle;

SPEAKER_01 34:05

I really appreciate the slowing down of this piece. It's easy to say, oh yeah, digest and close out the nine-year cycle, but how? How do you do that? So thank you for sharing those pieces. And I want to invite Catherine if she has any thoughts at this point.

SPEAKER_03 34:22

I do have something to add and share. I just for our listeners want to kind of give a little bit of um a tie-in as to where we're at, because Brenda and Ali have definitely brought in a lot of things around the nine-year cycle, around cycles themselves. And the umbrella here is how do we fully receive? Whether you're receiving a cycle or an ending or an event or a lesson or a karmic lesson or something of that nature. And the parts that they have really been talking about is in order to fully receive, we need to alchemize or reflect in some way. They've offered some reflection, I guess, tools, whether it's writing, journaling, Pinteresting. And Ali said something specific where she said, you know, it won't get out of our system. And that is the lesson or the cycle or the closing, the ending, until we create art with it, creating something in 3D. And I'm also hearing now, based on what they just talked about when they talked about traveling or seeing things with your eyes, I think it's that coupled with pausing. It's almost like you're creating a physical snapshot in time without the actual picture, but like just having that picture in your mind's eye of what has occurred. And what I'm also hearing is really allowing yourself the time, giving yourself some time to dedicate to the ending, whether it's a cycle ending or something uh between you, person, place, or thing ending, to allow yourself the time to pause and be with and feel into what does this mean? Something that Ali also spoke about is that often we have had in these endings one of the rubs is that we're pushing up against something that we have pedestalized. And that's a really interesting word because often we can pedestalize a person, place, or thing, or when I get over there, or oh, this per what this person was to me. And basically, I want to add to that that when we're thinking of pedal pedestalization, we want to remember that there is nothing better or worse, and there is something better or worse. So it's both. I will there will always be somebody who's smarter than me, prettier than me, somebody who's not as smart as me, not as pretty as me. There will be always a better time, a worse time, and there's nothing like the beauty that I hold in this moment because I'm alive in this moment and I'm present in this moment. So I wanted to kind of ground that that part for listeners. And at the same time, I'd love to sort of point the dial to how do we locate where we are in a cycle? All this talk, yes, around the importance of 2016, the importance of 2026, the importance of nine years, a nine-year-tenyear cycle, the year of the snake, and going into the year of the horse. But let's say for myself, I've had many, many cycles, and I always feel like there's an up and a down of some kind. I can't specifically say that there's this one piece for me that I've been working on in that in that way. I've had many years that if I were to think back 1990 was a courageous year. 1999 was a courageous year, 2015 was a courageous year, 2004 was a courageous year, 2007 was a crazy courageous year, 2008, oh my god, what a bottom. 2009, oh my goodness. Like I could so with that in mind, how would we, other than h walking somebody through that meditative cycle of looking back, how do we, how else do we know and how do we locate where we are in a cycle?

SPEAKER_00 38:13

Yeah, I love that. Well, I think first it's like actually feeling your body. You know, I think there's first taking a moment to just pay attention. It's like, how am I feeling these days? Like, how have I been feeling physically? How am I feeling emotionally? Like, what have I, what am I noticing I'm drawn to do? What am I am I needing more rest? Have I been feeling like I wish I had more excitement? Is there something I'm yearning for? Is there something I'm, you know, like I I know I'm saying a lot of prompts, but I feel like that's sort of how we can start to know where we are is like we ask, we ask ourselves some questions and we allow ourselves to receive the answers of that. Um, I think we can know we're in a big cycle when we feel like we don't know what's going on, you know, because typically a cycle is going to include a lot of surrender, right? Like all of our big cycles. So sometimes if we feel like we don't know where we are right now, that's a good cue that like we're actually in a part of the cycle that like we actually don't feel control over. Like we are not just reading a script. Like, so there's probably a powerful cycle that's underway if we're not feeling like we know where we are. So I think if we want to start to locate it, we start to pay attention to how we're feeling. We start to pay attention to like the interactions we're having in life and what we're feeling drawn to. Um, and I also do think kind of like we're having right now, like having great conversations with people you trust is a really great way to know where you are. I think like. Like I really rely on the allies in my life to help me, to help reflect the location I'm in. And I feel like that's kind of the most important thing I do with people who work with me. And it's the most important thing I hire people I hire do for me is like I'm not quite sure where I am in the cycle. I'm asking myself these questions. I'm paying attention to what seems like a priority. I'm noticing what's felt disappointing. I'm noticing what has felt like a win. Like, and then it's just like sometimes getting reflections from other people and then noticing what really lands as true. Because it's not like everything everyone tells you has to be like, oh yeah, that must be it. But we can feel when someone like got us. And so I think putting yourself in environments with people you trust where you can ask their reflections of like, where do you feel like I am right now? Like, that's, you know, you have to decide you really trust the people you're asking that. But I feel like having great digestive conversations and then um getting reflections is another really important way to know where we are, um, in addition to the dialogue we're having uh with ourselves. And I also feel like speaking to older people is helpful. You know, like speaking to the elders in our society and in our life, really, who have lived out most of the cycles they're gonna live out. I I find that really helps you locate where you are too.

SPEAKER_03 41:37

Thank you. I love these steps that you spoke about as far as really helping us lean towards clarity as to where we are in a nine-year cycle and or ten-year cycle or beginning or an end. And when you were talking about is are we feeling like we need rest or excitement? Are we yearning? Are we drawn to something and asking ourselves these questions? I love that you're sort of asking these questions to get to a place of am I in the beginning of something? Am I am I at the end of something? Am I ready to close something? How surrendered am I? I love those questions. It's sort of real flags and markers to locate where we are in the storm. Like, are we clear for takeoff or are we ready to land? Was sort of the image that I had in my mind. And I think this is a great place to ask you as we're getting gaining this clarity as to where we are on the map of any cycle or ending or beginning. Why does clarity come before movement?

Clarity Before Movement;

SPEAKER_00 42:46

So clarity comes before movement because we're receiving the frequency so that we actually like know where we're headed. And so, you know, I'm noticing a lot of people, that's also why the winter comes before spring. So it's like we're in the resting and the gestation, but also we're down, we're downloading. We're like receiving the energy, we're getting clarity from what's already happened, and then we know how to move. Now, certainly some people can act. You can also act and receive clarity from the movement and the action. Um, but when we really want to be in a cycle consciously, it's like you're right. A big theme here is like we have to slow down so that we can pay attention, so that we can receive. And then from what we receive, we know how we want to move. And that is actually what creates the ending in the beginning. So if we don't receive the clarity and then move, we are basically just re-reactivating cycles that already happened because we haven't received the clarity and ended and opened to the new way based on the wisdom from that time.

SPEAKER_03 44:01

It almost sounds like you are bringing in a definition of actively learning or actively gleaming the lessons from something. Is that what you're saying? Because d I look at lessons like, oh, when it's complete, it's complete, like you learned the piece, and you're saying, oh, you don't have to leave it to chance. Like jump in there, get in the mud, take stock.

SPEAKER_00 44:22

Yeah, both are options. I think some people like to move, and I that probably goes into like people's human designs and constitutions and also like what you inherited as far as vigilance, you know. Some people need to feel like they're super clear before they make decisions. And some people come from a system that that doesn't mind um learning as they go, or you know, like having to make the mistakes to get the clarity. So I think like different different people enact cycles differently. But I would say like right now we're in the winter, we're actually getting the download for the year right now. Like this is a time to rest and let things settle in and let it be a little unknown. And actually what's happening is we're receiving the clarity. It doesn't just come into us in the spring. It's been slowly moving through our whole body and through our psyche that through the winter. Side wrench.

SPEAKER_03 45:25

What happens for people that don't have seasons?

SPEAKER_00 45:28

Well, I think like every every place has a season. It's interesting you say that because I I lived in California and Florida. So uh in the during this whole time of all these different cycles, I was living in places without seasons. And I think it's like you actually just have to pay attention because they're more subtle. And when you live in places with a with a quieter season, you have to have a louder permission because it is harder to feel like you can winter and get cozy if it's sunny and 80 degrees. But like your system still needs that cycle, you know? And so I think it's just like you either need a place where the seasons give you the permission, or you can live someplace without seasons, but you have to give yourself the permission. I think it's interesting when you think about different locations and where people maybe don't know how to relax, or don't know how to stop performing, or don't know how to confront things. Like there's different areas of the country that are kind of ha known for different sort of shadow behaviors and the personalities, and it it really may have something to do also with where we have to override ourselves or where we don't feel permission to be in a down, you know? Thank you.

SPEAKER_03 46:47

This might be a great time to ask you the question of the difference between forcing change and receiving timing. Like when are you receiving? When are you forcing it? When is it just happening?

Forcing Change Versus Right Timing;

SPEAKER_00 47:02

Yeah, well, I think you know that it's personal to people's lives, but I think it's like you can't outrun what's yours to receive. That pretty much is the big learning I've had. And I've had to really respect that for other people too. That like, especially as a, you know, someone in the personal growth type of world for 20 years. And I think most of us were catalyzed into being interested in this sort of work because of trauma that made us feel out of control. And so we want to feel like we create the change. And, you know, as I get older and as I've, you know, having the experience of having the worst things in my life happen after I was doing all the right things was so powerful because I think there's a lot of living in before and after in the world of healing and spirituality, and there's a lot of villain villainizing the past self. And it's like, actually, the worst things in my life happened after I had put uh put in all the hours at the mat. And that's how I'm here with a book and not like, you know, out of my mind in a shell of myself somewhere. Like, you know, so it's just like I think it's real, like that, that's something that I think comes over time. And I feel like you realize you can't force change when you find yourself unable to hold the thing. Like it somehow dissolves. The change, you know, the change will dissolve and bring you back to where you actually are if it's not actually been received and it's been forced. So I almost feel like you don't have to worry about it, you know, because it's like if you're not actually there, life will bring you where you really are. And and maybe that's part of this conversation about cycles is like realizing that, like, yeah, you can't pretend you're not where you you are. Like you have to, you have to be where you really are in a cycle. And you can't override it. And it is so hard because we have we don't have a lot of approval for certain parts of the cycle, like the bottom, right? And I think that's why a lot of people embraced COVID once it was happening, or maybe have had a hard time coming back out. Cause it's like that actually was a cycle that our world had no space for. There, you know, and so like I think a lot of us were catching up on a down that there was no place in the schedule for. Um, and then we just collectively manifested that, I guess, because we really needed that cycle. So that's I think that's what I would say about it is just you'll know you fully received it when actually it's just with you in all conditions, and you don't need the external world to reflect everything to know you made the change, like when it's actually an internal experience rather than just an external experience. Because as we see, there's lots of people with an external experience of change where behind the scenes they're like really struggling with the same stuff and they can't really feel it. They have it and they don't feel it.

SPEAKER_03 50:14

Thank you. That answers that question so beautifully. It reminds me of lottery winners, that most lottery winners will lose their millions, billions, whatever it is. And it's such a great testament. I always looked at that from the perspective, oh, that you don't really know how to manage that money. That's one angle of looking at the same evidence, but this is a completely different angle, which is oh, you know that you've changed when the change is with you, when it hasn't dissolved. And another way of saying that is you know you've changed when it's just who you are. There is no more like, I was this, I it's like this is who I am. That was so beautifully stated. Thank you. I'm gonna say thank you to Brenda and I'm gonna toss it back to her.

SPEAKER_01 51:00

I want to add to that is for me personally, I could feel the completion. And I opened the door and walked through it and said, I am complete with this cycle. And there's a neutrality that I feel with some of the lessons and some of the most difficult times that I've experienced in this last nine-year cycle that actually it just feels neutral in a way that it's never felt before. It's always felt very sensational, or I was underneath it for a long time. And even there was many years where I was learning the lessons from it and coming above board, but they weren't metabolized yet in my body. And it's almost hard to find the words for it, but I could feel it in my body. There's just a completion, almost like the food has digested. And I'm also claiming that. Like there's a way to claim that. Like you feel it, and then you walk through the door and you say, This is for me. I am complete with this. And it feels a little bit more neutral. And the way I'm sharing about my closure, which I've been doing on Instagram, because there's so many pieces and it's so rich. So thank you both for all of that. Something you wanted to add, Allie?

SPEAKER_00 52:07

Well, just that, yeah, I think it's like what now having the relationship to your body, that's why it's so it's so helpful to knowing where you are. Because that's exactly it. Like it probably would have taken you if you weren't really complete, sharing what you've been sharing might have really taken you out, you know? And uh I feel that way with the book. Like I felt a lot of pressure for the book to be done in a year or two. I did not expect it to be a four-year process. And um, and now I realize like that was the only way to be an accurate narrator. There was so much I needed to process, but to be ready with the final. I actually published the book three times. And now this has been the final publication. And it was like the first publication was just for me. The second one was like a layer of family and close friends. And that allowed my nervous system, and honestly, my mother's nervous system, like she needed the feedback that we got from family, honestly. I think for her to feel open for me to like now take it and run with it for the greater collective, whoever's meant to read the book. So I just feel like there's also stages to things, and you can't fake the stage. Like you couldn't have been neutral. You know, you couldn't have faked neutrality. I couldn't have faked that that either, right? Like, I this is a very private personal book, and just kind of anybody's reading it now. And I also did edit it for it to be of utility for other people and not be this like just cathartic release for me. Earlier versions of the book were a cathartic release for me. But yeah, I think it's like when you really have a relationship with feeling your body and your nervous system, that really helps you know where you are too. Like you, it's not just declaring. It's like you declared something that you were feeling, not I want to feel this, so I'm declaring it. You were like, I feel this, and therefore I will now declare it's complete. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 54:01

Thank you for that. And I highly recommend Allie's book, by the way, Dark Times Catering. We're gonna put the link so people could buy it in the show notes. And it's all over her social media. It's quite good, and there's themes for everybody in it. Is there anything that you want to say about the book?

Neutrality As A Sign Of Completion;

SPEAKER_00 54:18

Yeah, well, it's just I'm I'm getting to have an experience now of um lots of different people reading the book. And I'm I'm running, I run a like a book club actually for every season. So I'm in the winter book club right now, but we're gonna do one for spring, summer, and fall and really work with the different cycles that are talked about in the book. And so what I've really seen is like it's just it's a book for people who have had loss. It's a book for people who are like worried how they're gonna handle eventual loss or maybe fear of losing something they think they can't live without. And I also feel like it's actually been um helpful for people who have complicated family dynamics and um don't know how they get to be themselves while their family is still here. That's been a big one. Is like I, you know, my brother was my partner in this realm of understanding. And so it was very vulnerable to have him not here and have to navigate family dynamics. And it's just been a very profound thing to be able to share and like have my family receive it. And then I've gotten that feedback from a lot of people. Like it's felt really powerful to see the possibility of getting to be fully expressed and an accurate narrator of their version of the family story and be around their family. So I feel like it's it seems like it's been helpful for people in those dynamics and also just like everything can be a little bit funny. So, like, I really wanted this to not just be a heavy, there's some really heavy material in it. And I really ask people's consent to your point, Catherine. Like, my letter to the reader is really about consent to go on the journey and be impacted. And I really take that seriously, and I really have a lot of gratitude for people willing to be impacted by the story. But I also think like that's just the human experience, is like we're here to be impacted by each other. And I've also just found like it's been a book where people enjoy those little slice of life, like funny moments that happen in the really sad, you know, dark times. Like that's why the book is called Dark Times Catering, because my mom and I have held so many different memorials and dinner parties memorializing the people who have died. And someone told us, like my mom, that we should we should do it professionally. And she said, Oh yeah, we'll be the dark times caterers. And so it's kind of like all these little dark times catering moments. And really what that's about too is we're all gonna go through really hard times and we're not meant to go without. While we're going through, and it's kind of the I'm thinking of the receiving thread here. It's like while we're going through the cycle, we don't have to go without. We are, we actually have what we need for every stage of a cycle, not just the great ones. And so Dark Times catering is also finding the nourishment, literal and spiritual, to get you through the cycle. That that's really why I kept that title. And yeah, in the book, I I really I'm not told my brother's gonna die. But the last day I was with him, I opened the records and I was told you're about to go something go through something beyond anything you've ever experienced. And I, and it was like, but you will also be provided for as you all to go through the experience, as you always have been, as you always will be. And I asked, like, how do I stop this and control the moment with my superpowers? And, you know, there's a longer story, but the message was just like, this is not yours to control. It's, it's, you, it's yours to accept and you will be taken care of. And that was the reality. I wasn't my abilities and were not meant to try to, we're not here to change my brother's destiny. I have to respect his journey and his life cycle and what was true for him, even though it's beyond all of my preferences, you know, it's an understatement to say it's out of my preferences, but and probably out of his too. But, you know, this was the cycle he was in. And so, you know, that's that's the title of the book. So it's really, if that appeals to you, that's who I wrote this for, is people who like want to know how to be nourished and alive and connected during times that feel like all is lost. That's really beautiful, Allie.

SPEAKER_01 58:32

Thank you so much. Thank you. I have a final question for you. What is a desire that Allie, the woman, has in her life?

SPEAKER_00 58:42

Well, what let me, yeah. I mean, I'm really been work building the desire. My desire last year was to find the next right home. And for my birthday, that's kind of like was my birthday desire. My birthday desire this year is to have a home that feels amazing. And I've been working on that all month. And I feel like the next desire is to have a man that feels really great in my life. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 59:07

Well, so shall it be. And may it be even better than you can even possibly imagine. Oh, thank you. Yeah. We like to see everyone's desires come to fruition on the Desire as Medicine podcast.

SPEAKER_00 59:21

Yeah. Like the next cycle. I'm ready for the next cycle to be about love and romance. Amen.

SPEAKER_01 59:26

Yeah.

unknown 59:27

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 59:28

You could take all the lessons and put it into that. I love that. Let's do it. Let's do it. Thank you so much, Allie. You have given us so much wisdom today on cycles and how to receive the lessons. You've been so generous. And I know that this episode is going to go far and wide, and people are going to be digesting this for a long time to come because it was so chockful. I'm sure Catherine joins me in a deep gratitude for all that you shared today and highly recommend. To our listeners, to get Allie's book, Dark Times Catering, and follow her on Instagram because she's pretty amazing. So thank you all for joining us today. Until next time. Thank you for joining us on the Desire as Medicine podcast.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:22

Desire invites us to be honest, loving, and deeply intimate with ourselves and others. You can find our handles in the show notes. We'd love to hear from you.