My Year One Initiation: Stop Doing It the Old Way

Nicole shares a raw, spirit-led reflection on how her “team” redirected her from planning mode into true co-creation—starting with the 2026 Activation Portal. She breaks down what happened when she stopped trying to control the how, made space for flow, and received major downloads (including the evolution of her Mastermind into The Circle and a clearer, more expansive direction for her offerings). She also calls herself out for slipping back into old habits once routine returned—and offers a Year 1 challenge: Are your current patterns aligned with your next self, or just comfortable for your nervous system?

In this episode:

• Why repeated “flubs” can be a sign you’re off-topic
• Co-creating with Spirit vs. leading with logic/control
• The Activation Portal: closing loops from Year 9 before Year 1
• Why rigid planning can backfire (and what Spirit had her do instead)
• Flow pockets, family life, and receiving downloads without forcing it
• Nervous system cues: freeze patterns, overload, and the “nap reflex”
• The Year 1 prompt: choose habits that match the future you

Call to action: Nicole is creating a non-Facebook space to discuss episodes, share questions, and explore new topics + live sessions (including “living mediumship”).

Current Group Classes:

• Revive Your Sacral Power: A 6-month embodied activation to reconnect with desire, creativity, and life-force
• The Circle: A multi-modal spirit communication development space for  growth, experimentation, and expansion
• Intuition Development: Learn how intuition works, how to trust it, and how to use it
• Learn more: https://mediumnicole.com/classes

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Join the Unity Code collective to participate in experiments: https://mediumnicole.com/podcast

Nicole Pope is an internationally-trained Evidential Medium and Soul Integration Guide dedicated to helping others reconnect with their higher self, awaken their gifts, and remember who they truly are.

To connect with Nicole, book a reading, or access her social media accounts: http://mediumnicole.com/links

Chapters

• 2:21 A Spirit-Led Pivot
• 3:56 Closing A Nine Year, Opening One
• 6:32 Co-Creating The Activation Portal
• 8:32 Flipping Planning On Its Head
• 11:54 Ancestors, Not Achievement Lists
• 13:45 One Thing At A Time Strategy
• 17:21 Flow During Family Chaos
• 21:04 Redesigning Offerings Into The Circle
• 23:51 Beyond Evidential Mediumship
• 26:53 Losing Flow When Routine Returns
• 29:36 Choosing Trust Over Old Habits
• 32:55 Nervous System Clues And Changes

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 1:11

I want to talk today about. Oh, hi, I'm Nicole. Can you see? I'm excited to talk today. I welcome to the Unity Code. It's interesting. I've tried to record a couple podcast episodes as always. And when I flub it up a few times in a row, I know it's not what I'm supposed to be talking about. And as I'm talking, I can feel the energy starting to surge through me. So here we go. Giddy up, everybody. This is going to definitely be a spirit-led podcast channeled episode for all of you because I'm not listening to my team. And they want me to talk about how I'm not listening to my team on this podcast episode. So maybe for those of you that are looking for a little bit of constructive help, um, this will be the how-to episode of what not to do. Because even those of us that can tap in all the time, it doesn't mean that we are effective in doing so. And it also means that we don't listen to our teams as much as we should. And I am the first person that will raise my hand and call myself out on that. So I'm going to bring you back story time back into 2025, back into December 2025, and talk about how I really let my team lead me into 2026. So in the month of December, as I was starting to shift gears, formulate, get ready for 2026, you know, my business brain had always told me the time for planning for the next year is the month before, right? So I need to start planning 2026 in the month of December. And that includes service offerings and programs and et cetera. So I, using my logical brain, sat down with my team and I started to draft out what I wanted to do next year. And they said, uh-uh-uh-uh-uh, not quite yet. We want you to really think about how this is the closing of a nine year, moving into a one year, and we want to make sure that you are tying up those lessons that you've learned this year and not continuing them forward into the new year. And hence how the 2026 activation portal was created so that I could really look back at the year nine, 2025, assess what worked, what didn't work, how am I doing before and closing those energetic loops of a nine year before I moved into the energy of 2026? So, what magic happened with that is I created this program that essentially I needed myself and I walked through it with all of you. Now, was it really difficult for me? Absolutely, yes, because I like to plan out my classes. Those of you that are in my spirit communication class, I have planned out nine months of classes for all of you, right? In terms of the mediumship mastermind, now, now labeled as the circle. You know, I want to plan things out. I want you to know what to expect, you know, making sure that you're getting your money's worth. So planning is the name of my game, 24-7. And so for my team to ask me to stand up this activation portal, not really knowing, having a general guideline of what we're going to talk about, but not really knowing how I'm going to fill the 60 minutes over four classes, was a little unnerving. My nervous system did not like that. My lack of control of the situation was deeply unsettling. And yet I worked through it. I sat with my team. I think most of it flowed out pretty seamlessly. One did not. Um what was so interesting about this is it allowed me and my team to almost work together and grow together for the first time ever in a program. And this is me processing live. So this will not look or feel perfect for all of you, but it is really interesting because just like my clients that come to me, I go to my team and I say, What do you want me to do? Like, what do you want? I'll do whatever you want. I'll be whoever you want me to be. You know my goals. What do you want me to do to help me get there? And I would say this is the first, that was the first program that I co-created with my team to say, I need this. And they said, All right, let's do this together. Okay, let's talk about it this way. And they said, no, we're gonna talk about it this way instead. So it was really interesting because they step by step throughout the month of December allowed me to reassess. This is the mirrors I keep seeing. Reassess, I'll explain that in a second. Um, everything that I would traditionally do, but flip it on its head and do it a completely different way. Do it a soul-led way instead of a mind slash masculine energy-led way. And so that's why that program was so interestingly difficult for me, is because not only did I not know what the plan was, but everything that I thought was the plan, they re-jiggered, flipped on its head, and had me teach it and approach it from a different way. Isn't that interesting? Because instead of, let's go through a few examples, instead of um talking about the first one, it was probably more me. The second one was about highlighting your strengths and what are you proud of for the year. And instead of like me having you list all of the amazing things that you did, they were like, Nope, we're gonna call on your ancestors, and your ancestors are gonna tell you how you did. They're gonna show you your blind spots. So even though you had this bowl of all these amazing things that you've accomplished in the last year or nine years or whatever time frame you chose, your ancestors came in and said, I didn't even do anything with that bowl. That I and the bowl was my idea, of course, right? And spirit literally in the middle of the session was like, We're not using the bowl. Right. Um, and then in the third class, when I would typically say, let's plan out our year, let's get all our tasks down that we want to do, let's put them in order, let's project manage the shit out of them and figure out what are you gonna do when and put them, you know, in the order based on dependencies and time frame. They were like, no, no, no, no, you're gonna work on one thing at a time. No, no, we're just gonna get a list because if you start assigning that list two months, inevitably things will shift, things will move, you will fail, you'll get mad at yourself, your nervous system will reflect that. And they said, nope, you want I want you to work on one thing at a time. I want you to get that list of things, that's fine. But every time you have time to do the next thing, you're gonna look at the list in its entirety and let us show you and tell you which one to do next. And by the way, I'm not doing that, so I need to go do that. And so it was just such an interesting exercise to co-create that class with my team to be like, I want to do it this way. And they said, Okay, we can do it, but we're gonna do it our way. And so it was such a beautiful way for me to experience my autonomy combined with best practices from my team, I guess is the way that I'd put it. And I don't know if I see that ending anytime soon because what we did produce in that program was fucking magical. For those of you that were in it, like it was fucking magical. If you are in it and you haven't watched the videos, you need to go back and watch these videos because the meditations and activations they had me do, I've never done those. But I mean, I've done them in the pockets before, but I haven't done them with a group before. And the energy by the end of the first episode of first class, I had to intentionally separate my energy from the group because it was too strong. Because I could not even focus the first session at all, which is why I ended up like missing recording it and I had to record that one separately, is because the energy was so strong coming off of everybody that it made me unable to stay in my own grounded energy. Like that's how powerful these fucking sessions were. And so after those were done, and as I'm moving into 2026, what happened next was no short of a miracle. And I think this is the wonderful way that I tend to work with my team. I tend to know that something's coming, know that change, something is changing, and knowing exactly what's changing, but not necessarily knowing the outcome yet. And sometimes I'll know what the outcome is and I will feel the energy. This is as clear as mud for all of you. I'm so sorry. But essentially, I'll know when my team gives me direction. I will know um if I'm supposed to take that action now or later. Um, my ego likes to pop in and do a lot of things now. So they've learned at least to like give me a really good indicator that it's not time yet. Um, and then they will also show me something is ready to change, but not necessarily give me the direction on it. So it's really interesting because they drop stuff in my mind all the time. And I've learned to kind of put them in these little compartments for now, to be like, I'm gonna store that for later. I'm gonna store that for when the time is right, I'm gonna store that for when I get more pieces to this puzzle. And they've been doing that with me for my mediumship mastermind for quite a while. I'm like, I know the energy is changing. I can feel the energies changing. I know it's gonna change and come into this different place of alignment for me, but I don't know what it is yet. And so I ended up shutting down that as a service offering for everybody because I didn't know what it was gonna be and I didn't want people to find sign up under false pretenses because that's who I am. I don't, I'm of high integrity. I don't want people to sign up if the program is changing. And so, in the midst of after the activation portal and before my kids were going back to school, they gave me download after download after download for all of these things I have been waiting for, which is different than how I normally spend the last week of the year. And those of you know, you know, when your kids are home, when you maybe you're doing a little bit of work here and there, your spouse is home, it's a little chaotic. It's very chaotic in my house when my kids are here, which is why I don't do a lot of readings on nights and weekends, because when they're here, like they've already barged in on me recording this podcast episode and I've had to cut it out, right? Like that's what they are. They um they are free spirits, they have big energy, and and me as a mom are always tuned into their free-spirited big energy. So it always impacts me when they're here. I could probably get better emote energetic boundaries with them, but I'm mom, and this is my job at this time in my life. And so normally in that week, I do nothing. Normally in the week between Christmas and New Year's, I do absolutely nothing because I know I am not going to be able to give myself enough grounded energetic space to get things done. And so I would rather just lock my calendar down than just be eternally upset and frustrated that I couldn't get done the things that I wanted to get done. But what was so interesting is this year, for the first time in years, I just let it flow. No, I didn't take clients, but I did say, team, I'm open to doing things. I'm gonna work when you want me to work this week. And so they found these beautiful pockets of time where I could be focused on doing things for my business. It felt like free time. And they found me free time by having my husband take my kids skiing, right? When I did I got sick twice over the past of the two weeks. So my husband had to take the kids out of the house for you know two to four days over this vacation. And when I was not feeling well, and they gave me space to get some of these things done. And it was lovely because I didn't have the guilt of not participating because I didn't feel great. And I was like, I'm I'm not gonna go and spread my germs. So so there was no guilt associated with not being present in the big family moments. Um, I was able to take the time that I had when I was feeling good and double down and have fun and take my kids out and do great things and take the husband out and do great things, right? And so, like I had this perfect, beautiful balance of family time, me time, business development time, all in that last week. And none of it was planned, and it all just happened through flow. I mean, it was magical, it was magical, and because I had no expectations, because I had no schedule, spirit was able to shift things, move things, make things work, and also give me downloads in those free times because I had space to receive them. Downloads I had been waiting months for. The redesign of the mastermind into the circle, which is going to be an expanded space to do all sorts of spirit communication modalities, not just mediumship, because everything I'm gonna teach likely applies to every single spirit communication modality. Because I'm gonna be talking about the foundation, the energetics behind it in experimenting with O's, right? And then I'll also have more targeted classes, but really expanding this into a really fun playground where we can learn and innovate and explore spirit communication differently than we had been before. So they gave me the name of this, they gave me the picture of this, they gave me the content, and I was able to rebrand and bring everything over onto my new platform by the year end, which was part of the goal that I wanted to do. I also felt the same with my mediumship offering and my soul offering. I'm gonna say it that way because I think it's a combination of spirit guides, Akashic Records, Galactic, right? Um, but it's all of those are a reading about you and your soul and your journey. And so what was so beautiful is they gave me the shifted direction, the shifted way to talk. And I'm I'm gonna say the word market. It's not really marketing because if you want it, you want it. If you don't, you don't, but the shifted way to approach my service offerings that are simpler, easier to understand, feel more aligned to me and what I want to offer out there and what makes me different and unique in the spiritual space, which was fucking beautiful. It was beautiful for them to give me this different direction. And it's so interesting because it wasn't that different to what I thought it would be. But when the energy landed and when they showed me and like I felt the energy of it, it was totally different. And so I'm so excited again. Like I'm so like I love my clients, I love my readings, but sometimes they feel stale, right? Sometimes after a while, after you've been doing the same thing over and over again for years, your service offerings can feel a little stale. They because what happens is you outgrow some of these modalities, not in a not in a I'm too good for them, but mediumship has never felt expansive enough for me. Um, because it is beautiful that we can connect, for example, to our departed loved ones and we can talk about wanting to prove life after death. And that's amazing, and that's transformative on its own. But I want to help people be on their best life. I don't want to just prove life after death. I want to make sure you know they're with you and hear all the amazing advice and feedback and love they have for you so that you can be your best self in this life, so that you can overcome not just the grief obstacle, but many obstacles. And so they gave me a way to think about my service offerings differently, to talk about them differently, right? And market them differently so that it does feel expansive. So people do know when they meet with me, we aren't just gonna be talking evidential mediumship. We are gonna be talking about you and your connection with them and your soul and maybe past lives, and we're gonna be really going deep into the content of advice, of love, of feedback that's gonna help you be on your path, be on your journey, help you with this life. Because who doesn't need a little help right now? Right? Who doesn't need that? Everyone needs that right now. Everybody, everyone. And so I'm just really excited about this new direction. I I I'm I can't believe how when I made space for spirit, there they were. Didn't even have to ask. It just boom came came flying in my head, right? It just kept flying in, and I'm just like, okay, fantastic. And then they gave me more direction. So let's scoot into um as I move my microphone just because my sun is now blaring in and it's starting to blind me. So I'm gonna shift in my seat for a moment. And now as I've gotten back to the routine, right? Going back from this magical space of having having space, being in flow, getting these downloads, updating all my content on my website, updating how I'm thinking and and talking about my business. And then the routine comes back in. And then my kids go back to school on January 5th, and I go back to what's the podcast I'm gonna record? What are um, what are the uh social media posts I'm gonna make? What are the programs I'm gonna release? Like getting back into full fucking ass business mode again. And do you know what happened this last week? Number one, it was crazy. This this first week in January was the longest month of my life so far. I can't believe all the shit that happened this first week in January. But what happened was I went back to the old ways of doing things. Can you read my energy? What's my what's my inspiration level at? It's like a two right now because I went back into the doing. I went back into the how, I went back into the what, right? And not letting my team lead and not giving my team space to lead me because I'm back into doing all the things all the time, right? Back into, you know, waking up and working out, taking my kids to the soccer and the music theater, and now I just signed up for which class too, like like staying ultimately busy. So I don't like those of you that have been in this space, the spiritual space, and like built spiritual businesses while your kids are young. How the fuck did You do it? Did you do it? Did you wait till they were out of the house? I I wouldn't blame you. Um, so it's so interesting because I'm realizing I can't do things the same way I used to. Isn't that fucking interesting? Like, no shit, Nicole. Like, wow, it took you that long to say that took 11 days into the new year for you to fucking figure that out. Yes, it did. And so I'm realizing personally how I need to shift my life, my habits, my energetic space to the life that I want to live, not necessarily the behaviors that I think are going to get me to where I want to go. And this is where I'm seeing in my head the giant word of trust. This will be a program. This will be a program. I don't know when, but this will be a program. Letting spirit lead and show me everything I need to do to get to my destination, which they know what it is. They're gonna bring me there. It's gonna be better than ever, right? But I cannot get there. I cannot get to this new version of me, this new destination that I want if I keep being the old me, if I keep doing the old things. And so I love how they gave me space in this little sandbox for the first week of the year to be like, we'll see if she learned her lesson yet. Newsflash did not, but I got the lesson now. I understand it now. I understand that in order for me to be the new me, I have to let go of the old things that don't serve. And so I'm gonna be really looking at all of these things that are going on in my life. All of these things that I do, the way that I stay up late working after the kids go to bed, because I think that I need that space, that quiet time to really allow myself to like be quiet and connect. And I think I I think I need to really do this 180 for a week or two and see what happens and see what sprouts, what starts growing as a result of new ways of being. Because this is the fun that we all need to do in a year one, right? We all need to assess the return on investment, the value of the things that we're doing. And just like in the fucking 2026 activation portal, is it part of the new version of me? It does it help me be a better person. Because a lot of what I'm doing right now, I'm doing because I've done them for years. Because it has allowed me to get to this current place, which is incredible. There's zero complaints from my perspective, but I am not stopping here. I want to be on stages. I want to be a best-selling author, right? I want to do a TED talk, right? A TEDx talk, and I'm in the works on that. I want to be a leader in this space. I want to help people, but it's not for me. It's because I want to fucking help people live their best lives. I want people to be healed and whole. And I want to show people there's a different and better way in that we don't always have to roll the boulder uphill to be successful. We can flow with that. And if I'm not fucking doing that myself, how the hell am I going to teach that to other people? Message received, spirit, message received. So there you go. Um, so this is my initiation into 2026. And if you have had a similar start to the year, I want to challenge you to say, are you continuing the old habits too? Are you doing things the same way that you have done them? Because it your nervous system loves it, because it's comfortable, because it's easy, because you know what to expect, right? But also, does that version of you, do those behaviors and thoughts and patterns do those represent the future version of you? Yes or no? Because we can love that version of us. We can love those tasks that we did. Like, can I be honest with you? The the Sunday card pulls, they have been so hard for me to create the last few weeks. And I have to, I'm like this, the podcast episodes, right? Um, social media, I need to find a new way with them because I don't, I don't know if they're worth my effort. And I love them and I love that you love them, but I don't know if they're representative of the newest version of me that's coming down the pipeline. And so I'm gonna take my take my energy next week. I'm gonna sit with my team later today. I'm gonna meditate with my team and ask them, how do you want me to run this next week? What do you want me to do? And I'm actually really fucking excited to try some new things because I'm already seeing some old patterns start to break. And again, it takes a little time, it takes discomfort, it takes frustration, but also it's always having that bigger picture of the why that leads me to being like, I don't think I should do that anymore. I don't think I should lay in bed for an hour scrolling social media on the weekends. I should probably get up and like go for a hike, go for a walk, take my dog out, connect with Mother Earth, start the day with grounding. God, get up and drink something other than three cups of coffee, you know? How much better is my energy gonna be? And I think the most telling thing is some nervous system training that I've been taking lately. And I don't have enough to be dangerous, and I don't have enough to necessarily teach it yet yet. But some of the things I've learned about me are the things that are caused by me. So my need to take a nap in the middle of the day is a nervous system response. It's a freeze fucking response that I can't handle. I have gone so far out of my energetic rabbit hole, out of my energetic vibration, probably with kids. I went to the mall yesterday, I was very busy, right? Let's so I had to come home and take a nap yesterday. And I'm like, I'm doing that because my nervous system is now overloaded and going to sleep is the only thing that is gonna help me. That's that's what I tell myself. Again, I could go for a walk, I could go for a hike, right? I could um do some meditation. There's other ways to solve the problems, but I am not even allowing myself the space to process it differently. But thank God recognizing it is the number one step. Recognizing the defective patterns that allow me to stay in my nervous system comfort bubble, the old version of me bubble, being able to recognize those is step one. And then I can choose differently. So stay tuned, everybody. I can give you certainly an update on how I'm doing. There will probably be a program that comes out of this at some point. But in the meantime, I want to ask all of you, how is your 2026 going so far? Are you feeling the same way? Do you feel like you've been hit by a bus like me? Have you embraced the year one and started to do things differently? I would love, love, love to have this conversation with all of you. I am setting up, I'm saying this right now, and I'm gonna go do it. I'm gonna do it today. I'm gonna go set up a just general chat out on my new platform for anyone who wants to talk about the podcast. So if you want to come and engage me and have a conversation with me, I'm staying off Facebook. No offense, everybody. Fucking hate Facebook. Um, so I'm not doing a Facebook group. I'm so sorry. But if you want to engage with me, um, head over to my website. I will put it on my Unity Code podcast page. And I would love to get you on there, engage with dialogue, asking questions, asking me for podcast topics that you'd like me to explore. I am all about all of that. Um, in addition, I am gonna start doing some live sessions um that I would love for you all to be on. Um, one that keeps popping in my mind is living mediumship. I want to prove that all to you. I know it's real. I want to prove that to all of you and do some cool live sessions. So stay tuned. Um, so great to have you here in the new year in 2026. And um, I'm so excited for some of these podcast episodes that are coming up that I recorded before uh the year end. So stay tuned. It's gonna be fucking incredible. All right. I love you all. I hope you have a wonderful, wonderful day. Take care.