Bah Humbug! When the nurse becomes the patient

This episode was recorded in the middle of stress, exhaustion, and December chaos while I was preparing for my doctoral defense. It turned into a real conversation about nurse burnout, nervous system overload, and what it looks like when the nurse finally needs care too.

The moment the brain turns to static is the moment the body asks to be heard. I found myself there, slides blurring, coffee failing, and a doctoral defense looming...realizing I’d never send a patient into a high-stakes moment the way I was sending myself. So I pulled the brake and walked through a rapid, sub‑60‑second reset I call RISE: breathe once, orient to the room, drop into the body, and yield to the moment. That tiny sequence flipped my physiology from fight-or-flight into just-enough safety to choose the next right action. 

From there, we get practical and personal. We talk about why December is a special kind of exhausting for nurses and healthcare workers, how chronic stress narrows reasoning and scrambles memory, and why you can’t think your way out of nervous system overload. I share how analog rituals: leather crafting, traveler’s notebooks, and pen-on-paper; gave me a tactile, rhythmic way to calm my system. I also reimagined The List (Yes, Next, Pass, Goodbye) into journal-friendly inserts that close mental tabs and reduce that 2 a.m. anxiety spiral. If you’re neurodivergent or just maxed out, you’ll get a tool that’s fast, portable, and rewarding enough to finish before stress hijacks your focus. 

We lean into soothing tea rituals, talk about choosing decaf when your nerves are cooked, and pull crystal and tarot cards that land squarely on intuition, voice, and leading your own recovery. This isn’t performative self-care; it’s nervous system medicine you can feel in under a minute. If your holiday spirit is MIA, or if you’re working while everyone else celebrates, consider this your permission slip to pause, ask for help, and protect your peace. Take a breath, pick one regulating action, and start again with kindness. 

If this resonates, subscribe, share with a nurse who needs it, and leave a review to help more caregivers find a way back to themselves.

Love your faces. I’ll see you in the next episode.

Transcript

Stress Hits Hard And Brains Glitch

SPEAKER_02 0:11

Welcome back to the Ritual Nurse. I am your host, Reva. And by the time you are listening to this, I might be sitting in my doctoral defense, or I might be on the other side of it, wondering what actually happened in there. Or hopefully I survived it and somewhere eating celebratory tacos. We shall see. All right, spoiler alert. Yeah. So stress does weird things to the best of intentions, and a green button labeled publish on my podcast platform. So listen to the end to find out what happened, or you can head over to my TikTok and see the moments in real time. Now back to the episode. But what I can tell you is that the stress leading up to this moment has been real. My brain has been bouncing between panic, exhaustion, and the kind of academic delirium where you stare at a paragraph and just wonder if it even makes sense. I've been editing PowerPoint slides, like I am performing emotional surgery, not sure what to cut, not sure what to include, almost losing sight of the message at times. So if you are also overwhelmed right now, especially in this December chaos, pull up a chair because this one is for you. And today we are talking about what happens when the nurse becomes the patient, not the dramatic version, the everyday truth that nurses forget their own humanity until something inside them yanks the emergency break. So let's get into it.

SPEAKER_01 1:51

A few days ago, I hit a wall. Fully hit it.

Nurses Forget Their Own Humanity

The RISE Body Skill Explained

SPEAKER_02 1:56

My brain just shut down. It was the kind of stress where your nervous system decides to just do its own thing, and you momentarily lose the ability to form coherent thoughts, really. And in the middle of that spiral, I had a very real moment of clarity. Oh, I think I am the one who needs care right now. And let me be honest with you, I had no episode planned for today. None. My brain has been in full crisis mode, prepping for this defense. My desk honestly looks like a raccoon tried to write my dissertation. The amount of coffee I've consumed could kickstart a small generator. And while I was spiraling in that very oh so charming academic meltdown kind of way, I realized something important. Nurses treat everyone else like a patient and treat ourselves like afterthoughts. You would never let a patient head into a high-stakes moment, dehydrated, sleep deprived, and unsure of what day it is. You would be checking vitals, you would be making sure they had support. You would slow everything down and say, let me make sure that you are safe. But when it's us, we pretend that we can white knuckle our way through anything, even when our bodies are begging us to sit down for five minutes. And this is exactly where the Rise body skill came in. This is the skill you use when you do not have time, you do not have space, and you barely have emotional bandwidth. It's the skill that brings you back into yourself in less than 60 seconds. And let me tell you, over the past few weeks, I've used it multiple times. I don't just create these skills to come up with things to do or cliche things to throw out there. These are actual things that I've created from looking at and studying tools over the past several years. I've been researching nursing mental health for five years, and I've been doing doctoral level work on nursing mental health and resilience for the past two. So let me walk you through exactly how I use it. I breathe. It's one inhale and one exhale.

SPEAKER_01 4:17

They're both four counts. That's it. My brain will stop for a second.

Why Quick Embodiment Works Under Pressure

December’s Weight On Healthcare Workers

SPEAKER_02 4:26

It clicks back online just long enough for me to notice the room or the space that I'm in for a moment. And I orient. I look around, I name things that I can see. Whether it's light coming in, whether it's my computer screen, whether it's a snack, whether it's my office, my pet, one of my kids if they're downstairs and I'm downstairs working or something in the multimedia studio. Just name things that I can see. Sometimes I try for colors and textures to really force my brain to stop. And it reminds me that I'm physically safe, even if my brain is trying to tell me this is a code blue situation, this is a threat situation. And I recognize we don't consciously have these thoughts. Like cognitively in your head, you're not saying I'm in a threat situation. This is a code, like you're not saying these things. I'm not saying that we are consciously or cognitively thinking these thoughts in these exact words. Our brain and our nervous system, however, are reacting as if it's a code situation, a threat situation, a danger situation, something like that. So then I drop in. And what that means is I actually feel my body. I start at the crown of my head and I slowly work my way down. Sometimes I envision water pouring from the crown of my head gently over my body. Sometimes it's light. And as it passes over various parts of my body on the way, all the way to my feet, I feel what my body is doing. Whether my jaw is tight, whether my shoulders are up by my ears, or whether I haven't taken an actual full breath, like I've been hunched over something working on it, or studying or concentrating, and I'm shrimp-shaped, focusing on something, you can't breathe fully and expand your diaphragm. And that awareness gradually softens everything. You drop your shoulders, you unclench your jaw, you sit up straight and allow your diaphragm to take a full breath, to let your lungs expand. You really kind of give your body a vote for what's going on and you put it in a safe position. You put it in a safe condition. And I yield. This isn't surrender. I'm not collapsing. I yield. I allow the moment to be what it is instead of fighting it. And then when you stop fighting, you're able to listen to what you actually need. What does your body need in the moment? And for me, many times over the past few weeks, I needed to step away from the defense. I needed to step away from the manuscript, from the PowerPoint, from the project itself because I was losing vision. I was losing connection to it. I was losing perspective. I was so stressed that I was losing common sense. I needed to regulate through something embodied, through something tangible. My body needed to drop the sympathetic nervous system response, and I needed to regulate both emotionally and physically. And this is quite a few times over the past few weeks. I'm not just talking about one time the night before. I'm talking about quite a few times over the past few weeks being able to recognize the stress levels that I'm at and going through this skill set. I do this skill set because it's fast, because it's quick. And for my neurodivergence, it catches my attention and it's fast enough and provides enough dopamine and physical response that I can go from start to finish through the skill and reap the benefits of it before my impulsivity or stress-laden brain gets distracted and veers off course. And so that's this is exactly what I did. Before I tell you how, like what the thing was that I did to embody that emotional regulation, the skill set, the body skill set, is what allowed me to step away from the stress and move to an activity that was emotionally regulating. In order to do that, you have to get off the ride. You have to get off the emotional roller coaster. What happens if you don't do that is you go to stop and move to an emotionally regulating or calming activity, and your body is still humming at such a high level of stress, and cognitively you're still on that fight or flight response. You can't plug in. It's frustrating, you can't engage with it, you just disengage and move on to another activity, or aren't even able to separate from the stressful environment that you're in for a moment. And it's really important that you're able to do so. So the body skill allows you to full pause yourself and change the context that you're moving in, or change the environment that you're moving in, and actually engage with it enough, latch on to it enough that you can get into it and bring that parasympathetic nervous system back online and emotionally regulate. But on top of all of this stuff going on for me in the past few weeks, it's also now December, which is already a marathon type area of the year for pretty much all people trying to either outrun the holiday nonsense or keep up with the holiday nonsense. It's it's kind of like right after Halloween. I swear to God, it's every year. It's earlier and earlier and earlier. People are rushing to put their Christmas trees up in August. And I don't think some of these people realize that forcing this holiday spirit earlier and earlier and earlier doesn't make it more holiday, doesn't make it more relaxing. It's really like anxious avoidance for them. The faster that they can get their holiday stuff up and just be in the holiday spirit, it eclipses anything else that they may be avoiding, focusing on or stressing about. But for a lot of other people, it's just stress, period. The holidays are not always a happy, joyful holiday time. Even if you don't celebrate Christmas and you celebrate solstice or Yule or Hanukkah or Kwanzaa, any of those other things. This time of year is really stressful for people and also for some people, very depressing and sad. They may have lost loved ones, they may not have loved ones, they may be dealing with really just epically hard things in life at this time. And it is not a twinkling, snowfalling, Christmas caroling time of year for people. So this is a special kind of exhausting. And for nurses and other healthcare professionals, I feel like this is really a special kind of exhausting. I mean, some of you are working through Christmas and New Year's. I remember years where, you know, the holidays didn't really mean anything to me. And I was, as a single mom, I was creating alternate holidays or alternate ways to celebrate them with my children and making make it meaningful for my children because I worked every Christmas, I worked every New Year's, I worked every Thanksgiving. And it just, it just didn't look like everybody else's. You know, some of you are giving total care at 0300, or you're heading into an early shift while your family is at home trying to celebrate without you. Some of you have been assigned mandatory shifts. We had a hospital that had mandatory overtime. And I know, I know there's quite a few of you out there that are like, that's not legal. And I, we all just chuckle. Some of you are sitting with other people's loved ones while your own are eating dinner without you. And some of you were so burned out that even the idea of quote unquote holiday magic feels like emotional glitter that somebody threw in your eyes. This time of year can be really heavy. It can be heavy in good emotional ways as well. Just because something is happy doesn't mean that it's also not stressful and not overwhelming and not exhausting. So even for those of you who love the holiday season, who do have your Christmas tree up September 1st, it doesn't mean that it's not stressing you out. And it doesn't mean that all of this extra emotion on top of everything else you're dealing with isn't overwhelming. Okay. So this isn't just for people for whom this type this time of year is hard. Emotion, point blank, whether it's good or whether it's negative, can be overwhelming and can add to stress in both directions. There's always so much noise about how this time of year is supposed to be meaningful and joyful. Nurses end up carrying a lot of the emotional weight of everyone else's season on top of their own. All of our patients that are stuck in hospitals or care facilities or in stages of illness that they can't escape, we're holding that emotional workload for them as well. And, you know, for many people, uh this just isn't a happy time of year for so many reasons, like we said. So if your holiday spirit is currently missing in action, or if you're just trying to make it through December without crying daily, I see you. You are not alone. And there's nothing wrong with you for feeling the way that you feel. This job in healthcare oftentimes asks way too much of people who are already giving too much already. So earlier I was talking about how I used the body skill to disconnect from the intense stress of what I was doing and redirect myself into something where I could emotionally regulate and physically regulate. And so, what did I do? I stopped myself, I made myself do something to embody regulation, a calm environment, an actual mental break. So, for context, I have to give you some context here. Earlier this fall, I fell down the Traveler's Notebook rabbit hole so flippin' fast, I really should have worn a seatbelt. I mean, we're talking whiplash. I made one for my husband's birthday. I hadn't ever worked with leather crafting like that. And I found that the physical act of shaping the leather and making it into something functional, it still activated all the creative centers of my brain, but it also involved physical movement. And for me, right now, that was really the level of embodiment that I needed to disconnect from the massive amount of stress that I was dealing with, and both emotionally regulate and physically regulate while giving myself the kind of mental break that engaged other centers of my brain and allowed the stressed-out ones to just rest. So fast forward a few weeks from when I made his, and again, I started crafting. I spent my tiny pockets of free time stitching covers, cutting inserts, touching textures, choosing colors. I made two traveler's notebooks for myself and the inserts, and really kind of sat with an analog form of journaling and existing without the digital noise. And it worked. My brain calmed down, my nervous system dropped out of emergency mode. The act of making something with my hands grounded me in a way that just thinking or meditating really wasn't going to at that time.

SPEAKER_01 17:40

And I also had a thought.

SPEAKER_02 17:48

Nurses who journal, nurses who craft, nurses who find peace and putting pen to paper or creating something small and beautiful. Journaling in this analog way really made me stay in my lane. I couldn't just flip to another app or get distracted by 50, 1100 digital stickers. And like I already have my list at the bedside, but I can't have too many items all over, or that just also stresses me out. So while I was journaling and really kind of setting up my journal inserts for how I wanted to use them on a daily basis, one for more of a work portable aspect, one for more of a home personal aspect, I was really trying to think how do I make this work for me and be a healing thing complete, though, with my tools and productivity. So I sat down and I looked at my options. And this inspired a totally new format of the list: a bullet point journal, like Traveler's Notebook, Hobonichi Ready format. The list, if you don't know, if if you weren't around for last season's podcasts or aren't on my socials or the website, the list is my yes, next, past and goodbye system. It is an anxiety management system, a productivity tool that is really designed to close all of the extra open browser windows in your head that you keep open because you're afraid something's gonna fall through the cracks, because you're trying to track things. And yes, I mean, there's bullet point journal and you know, systems like that. But when we go to lay down and sleep and shut our brain off for the day, or, you know, we set our plan of action up at the start of our day, we still have these tabs open because that's what we use to fill out the bullet journal. Like we have to keep them open so that they don't disappear, so that we don't let them slide. And the longer they're open, the more anxiety they're generating. That is just a constant source of kind of cognitive engagement on your mental desktop. And what the list does is it allows you to take the browser. Browser tab and put it in categories. Whether it's yes and it's something you have to get done within the next 24 to 48 hours, whether it's next, you can do it in you know 72 hours to 96 hours. Whether it's something that you can pass, that means you can ask for help for it, you can completely delegate it. But it's something that you, it's in those one of those weird in-between categories, but you still can't forget it and you don't want it to fall through the cracks. Or it's goodbye. Something that's been bouncing around forever, that really isn't worth asking somebody else to do. And you've realized that it's been taking up space in your brain for no damn reason, and you don't actually need to do it. You don't even want to do it. You put it in the goodbye list and it closes the tab. So I redesigned this entirely for my journaling bullet planning nurses, for me, for myself, to be able to put in my journal and have it with me in a portable format that I could just use. I didn't have to carry another notepad with me. And it just works. I still have the notepad versions for those of you that like to keep them at the bedside, that don't bullet plan or bullet journal things like that. But you do love list making, you do love the analog paper, pen to paper type list making. Of course, we still have it in the notepad format. But for my other nurses that do love journaling, that do love bullet planning, that do love junk journaling and commonplace journaling instead of a notepad that you have to carry around with you. It is also now a sheet of sticker inserts that fit directly into any journal or traveler's notebook. No extra pad, no extra bulk, just blends in perfectly with whatever system you already use. But crafting this became part of my regulation. This was self-care in motion. I was taking a tool that I had already created and altering it for something that I needed in order to remain consistent with it and stay engaged with it. And it was quiet. This was grounded, this was restorative. And today I want to normalize this kind of self-care as another aspect. We spent a lot of time talking about meditation, about grounding rituals, about, you know, carving out time to have that cup of tea or cup of coffee, which I still want you to do. Those are important moments. But there's a whole other aspect of tools and productivity that we as people use, that I'm sure there's tons of nurses out there that use. And that's part of self-care too. Sitting down and working in your Hobonichi, in your techo, sitting down and filling out your traveler's notebook insert or your personal journal system, however you bullet journal. Those are all forms of self-care. This doesn't have to be some polished version. We're talking about the human version. It's the kind where you're sitting at your kitchen table cutting paper for junk journaling or ephemera or writing in a journal because you're trying to stay connected to yourself. You deserve this kind of care, especially during this time of year.

SPEAKER_01 23:33

So I want you to take a breath with me in and out.

SPEAKER_02 23:40

And stand up if you can, because we are at the midpoint dance break. If you're new to our podcast, the midpoint dance break is something that we do every time. And it allows us to just shake it out, shake it off, and stand up, roll your shoulders, shake out your hands, move however your body wants to move. Even if it's barely a sway, even if all you do is just stretch your neck a little, just let your body remember that it exists. Let your nervous system know that you are here.

SPEAKER_00 24:13

And we might be able to do it.

Crafting And Analog Journaling As Medicine

SPEAKER_02 25:07

Now, let me be real for a minute. My stress levels these past several weeks have been off the charts, like we were talking about. And I've been so deep in this doctoral project and preparing for my defense that my brain really feels like scrambled eggs, forgetting things, functional freezing, fatigue. I've stared at paragraphs that I wrote and thought, who wrote this? Who is she? Well, spoiler. It was me, unfortunately. So if you're running around in a fog right now, welcome to the club. There's snacks in the back. They're probably stale, but they're there. We don't need perfection, okay, in this club. What we need is honesty. And we need to remember that nurses do not become superheroes because they ignore their stress. Nurses become superheroes because they learn how to take care of themselves in the middle of it and protect their mental peace and put themselves first. When nurses are under chronic stress, the brain shifts into that survival mode. The amygdala gets louder, your memory gets glitchy, your reasoning gets narrower, your body stays tense because it's trying to prepare for a crisis it thinks already happened. Your system does not know how to power back down when the stress never stops. And when you add holiday work schedules, being away from family, pressure from leadership, holiday expectations, all the extra emotional labor and exhaustion, your nervous system becomes wildly overloaded. Regulation requires embodiment. You cannot think your way out of these levels of stress. You have to move your body back into safety. This is why even something small like journaling or crafting works. It gives your mind something predictable and your body something rhythmic. It pulls you back into yourself. It slows the noise down enough for you to breathe again. These practices matter. They're not just hobbies. They're really at this point nervous system medicine. I want you to do something that you can feel. Something tactile, something calming, something engaging in a regulating way. Not something that requires stressful planning or timing, just a quiet, calming activity. Speaking of tactile rituals, oh, you know what time it is. Coffee, crystals, and divination. So if you are new to the podcast, this is a segment that we do every single podcast where I pull a crystal prescription and I pull divination cards, and we also talk about our sweet treat, our comforting drink, our coffee or tea of the week or the season, really to focus on the ritual of crafting that five to 10 minutes for ourselves while we make our special drink or while we enjoy it. So, this segment, we're gonna talk about our coffee or our drink of the week. And really, I've just been leaning into teas and kind of, I know you're the earthquake is gonna hit when I say this, but really kind of looking into more decaffeinated options because I'm finding that the soothing warm drink, the act of sipping on the warm drink, is really physically calming to me. But at the rate at which I'm needing that physical soothing and regulation, it's just way too much caffeine. So I went to World Market and found some seasonal kind of holiday, I guess you could say, teas that have peppermint. The lemon zinger is a tea from my childhood that I used to absolutely love sipping on. I loved the ruby red color of it. I loved the flavor of it, I loved the scent of it. So just kind of a hodgepodge of different herbal teas that are not caffeinated, that I can really kind of feel, okay, what mood am I in? And grab that. And I'm not worried about over-caffeinating my system and adding to my anxiety response and my sympathetic nervous system response. And just leaning into that, you know, I have a kettle at the studio, I have an electric kettle at home, and just constantly having the kettle on and able to make a cup of steaming hot tea. I've made medicine ball tea a few times in the past few weeks. Our family got hit by some kind of bizarre, you know, as usual, virus floating around that was really heavy into the upper respiratory infection, like viral URI area, and just felt gross and a lot of fatigue, a lot of sinus pressure. So making my own medicine ball tea has been something that I leaned into with the herbal teas that I got. And I think knowing how to utilize that as a tool is really important. It's not just about making sure that you set aside the time to do that. It's also making sure that you know, hey, this is something that helps my body. It helps me emotionally regulate, physically regulate, allows me to have a few moments of peace and just kind of focus on that. The scent of the tea, the warmth of the tea, grounds you physically and kind of reminds you, hey, the purpose of this is to slow down. The purpose of this is to focus on something less stressful. And I find that that really works. But being mindful enough to know that I also need to look at what's in the tea or the hot drink that I'm having. You know, is it sugar loaded? Is it caffeine loaded? Sometimes we need both, and sometimes that's epic. And depending on, you know, if I'm having it 20 times a day, maybe I don't need the sugar or the caffeine. And I can find herbal teas in flavors and scents that are just as pleasing that I can have 20 times a day. And I'm not going to be shooting myself in the foot, really. All right. So I want you to take a sip of whatever you're drinking. I hope it's something warm, something grounding, something that reminds you that you deserve to taste comfort. So let's do our crystal poll today and see what we have in store for the next little bit. Those of you that are new, what you're hearing is my cards shuffling. I do this live on every episode. And I'm always amazed at how really wildly accurate and in tune with the message these polls are, both the crystal prescription and the divination. I use the crystal portal oracle guidebook and I use uh from Moonstruck Crystals, and I use the crystal struck tarot from Moonstruck Crystals. They are matching sets, really. Absolutely stunningly gorgeous cards. You can see them on my socials for the ritual nurse. Whoa, there we go. Wow. Okay. Big message for right now. Six of them jumped out. And you know what? Normally I only do like one or two. We're gonna, we're gonna do this. We're gonna do, we're gonna do all these. The first one is aura quartz and it's euphoria. Now we've had aqua or quartz in the past, but I don't think we've had aura quartz. So let's see what we got here. Oura quartz, peace, positivity, and spirituality. The euphoria card symbolizes a moment of pure bliss, peace, and positivity. Just like aura quartz, which carries a spectrum of colors and high vibrations, this card encourages you to embrace the beauty of life in all its facets and find peace within the diversity of experiences. Allow this moment to uplift your spirit, fill your heart with positivity, and remind you of the inherent joy that exists within and around you. Harness the euphoric energy of aura quartz to cultivate a deep sense of harmony, gratitude, and contentment, guiding you towards a state of inner peace and euphoria. Ugh, these are stunning. Oh my goodness. All right, the next one, prosperity and adventuring. Oh. So good luck, optimism, and career success. When one door closes, another one opens. This card signifies a moment of abundance, opportunity, and perhaps a moolah. The key symbolizes unlocking new doors to success, while the dragonfly represents change, adaptability, and the realization of dreams. Allow the energy of Aventurine to attract wealth and prosperity into your life. Trust the universe and be open to new opportunities that come your way. Use this key to unlock the door to your desires and let the dragonfly guide you towards a future filled with abundance, success, and fulfillment in all areas of your life.

SPEAKER_01 34:21

Another beauty. Communication and Kayanite. Oh wow. Okay. Let me find Kayanite quickly here.

The List System Reimagined For Journals

SPEAKER_02 34:32

Communication and Kayanite. Honesty, self-expression, and perseverance. This card demands unfiltered honesty as you amplify your voice and express yourself fearlessly. It's time to ditch the filters, speak your mind unapologetically, and let your truth and authenticity shine. Shout through your megaphone, communicate how you truly feel, and express yourself with confidence. Wow. I'm definitely seeing that these are highly on brand and on theme with today's message. And also with my impending defense as well. So feeling a theme here. Let's see what the next group is. Huh? Fluorite, focus. Those of you that know me in real life know that I hoard fluorite. I absolutely adore it. I collect the green and blue, the deep ocean colors of fluorite. And I'm constantly surrounded by it or I'm wearing it. Fluorite also has a lot to do with leadership and voice. Let's see, focus and fluorite. So this is mental clarity, intellect, and concentration. Snap out of that daydream, honey, because the focus card is here to whip your scattered mind into shape. Time to clear out the brain fog and ditch the endless doom scrolling and zoom in on what truly matters. No distractions allowed. This is your moment to put your head down and focus on what you know you should be doing right now. And I want to add a little perspective to this. I don't think this just means you should have to do your responsibility list, your tasks, or your job. I think this also refers to no distractions and focusing on that emotionally and physically regulating grounding activity as well. Not just your responsibilities and your have to. Especially the part about ditching the endless doom scrolling and zooming in on what truly matters. I I think this is really on point. The next one is ethereal vision, Azurite. Interesting. Yeah, I don't think we've had any of these.

SPEAKER_01 36:52

Ethereal vision, Azerite. Spiritual guidance, intuition, focus.

SPEAKER_02 37:01

Step into the realm of ethereal vision with Azerite, where your mind and body's connection is activated. Let the Azure depths of Azerite awaken your intuition and focus, guiding you through the fog of uncertainty, with clarity to make better decisions. Azerite encourages you to enhance your self-awareness and recognize your influence on others, and to gain control over your own spiritual development. Trust in your instincts and the subtle nudges of the universe as you begin a journey of self-discovery and spiritual growth, knowing that you are consistently guided by forces unseen but deeply felt.

SPEAKER_01 37:39

That's another amazing one. Directively speaking. And the last one is vocalize or sodelite.

SPEAKER_02 37:48

How interesting. We definitely have not had most of these.

SPEAKER_01 37:53

If any of these so far in the podcast. So vocalize, sodalite.

SPEAKER_02 38:01

Self-expression, truth, and rational thought. Put a pause on the emojis and bring back the art of real conversation. With Soda Light as your phone to logic and authenticity, dial into your inner truth and let your voice be heard with crystal clear clarity. Soda light clears a cloudy mind and helps you articulate your thoughts and feelings so you don't have to hide your truth behind those silly emojis. This opens a line for logical thinking and problem solving without the interference of negative emotions. This card encourages you to speak your mind and use the power of your voice to spark genuine connections. So pick up the receiver of self-expression and speak up, speak out, and let your truth ring loud and clear. Okay. This crystal prescription is wildly accurate and incredible. I'm sensing a real theme here, and I am hoping that this bodes very well for my defense. This was a lot more than we normally do. So I'm actually thinking I'm gonna put these up on the blog. And it just occurred to me that that might be a really cool resource for you guys after the episodes to have these little divination snippets on the blog itself. So if you find that useful and you like it, let me know in the comments. Let me know in the text feedback. On Spotify and Apple, there's a link at the very top of the show notes that you can click, especially if you're on your phone, and it opens up a text to me. It is anonymous on your part. I don't get your phone number. I don't see anything at all. It just sends me the message that you type in. So it's a great way to send me feedback that, especially if it's feedback on, hey, you know, maybe you should do this better, or even personal feedback that, you know, you like what you're hearing, but you want to share personal feedback and you don't want it to be a public comment, but you just really want to share the feedback. That's an amazing way to send me that. You can also comment on socials and let me know hey, I want more of the divination stuff as a blog. And you can refer back to it. So if it's something that you like, let me know. Because it just occurred to me that that might be a good thing. All right, on to our last part here, divination. Let's see what the cards have in store for us. I wonder if it's gonna be as you know, wildly involved as the crystals were with the six-stone prescription here.

SPEAKER_01 40:41

Wow, that actually flew off my desk. Okay. Oh my. I don't know if I'm supposed to draw a bit more or let's just shuffle for just a second longer. Oh, okay. All right. Let's see what we've got here. So the one that flew off my desk out of my hand was the high priestess. That's pink amethyst.

SPEAKER_02 41:17

And then I had the seven of swords, which is Rhodonite. And then I had the King of Wands, which is Amber. So we're gonna. They actually came out in that order. So that's the order that we're gonna read them in. Okay, so intuition, wisdom, and thirst for knowledge. And the pink amethyst is intuition, clarity, and acceptance. The high priestess is all about trusting your instincts. Pulling this card can indicate that now is the time to look within yourself and connect to your intuition. The answers you're seeking can come from within.

SPEAKER_01 41:50

My goodness. If that's not apropos. All right, let's look at the Seven of Swords.

SPEAKER_02 42:00

Seven of Swords, deceit, stealth, dishonesty, rodinite, stabilizing, compassion, and forgiveness. There may be someone in your life, including yourself, who is acting with tricky or betraying intentions. Think this through. What will these actions achieve? It's time to have a sit-down with yourself and evaluate such circumstances, but center yourself in compassion and forgiveness as aggression will gain you nothing. Okay, I think that this is really, really clearly pointing at self-sabotage and pointing at a refusal to lean into doing this kind of work with ourselves and just continuing the lie of, well, I'm fine. I don't have time. This is nonsense, anyways. I can't stop to do that because if I do, everything will fall apart. I have to hold everything. All these lies that we tell ourselves to keep ourselves in that fight or flight moment, in that stress response, your brain does that to you to keep you in fight or flight as a protective motion because it's still responding to some kind of invisible crisis that it thinks is happening. You have to take control and emotionally and physically regulate yourself and ground yourself and put yourself back in a safe space. I think, I think that card is really blatantly calling out self-sabotage and the need to confront ourselves when we try to do it.

SPEAKER_01 43:42

Okay, wands is next, and we're looking at the King of Wands.

SPEAKER_02 43:48

The King of Wands, leadership, passion, and vision, and amber is the stone, and its empowerment, wisdom, and renewal. The King of Wands is the master of passion and energy. The king is all about making things happen. This card is encouraging you to step into the role of a leader and use your wisdom, vision, and charisma to take control of any situation to make it into one that works best for you. You can create any outcome you wish. You hold the power. I literally, are you serious right now? These are amazing. And so wildly accurate and fitting. I think the messages dovetail together perfectly. I will add those to the blog post as well. Man, I just love this. So I this what you're hearing is the cards flipping and shuffling and things like that. And I know I've talked in the past about doing it on YouTube, but I want to challenge you. I want to challenge you to pick any episode, any episode, and listen to it, or if you've already listened to it, skim through it, you know, just refresh yourself on the concepts, the ideas, the actual message, and then look at the crystal pole and the divination. Every single time we do this, it is so on point, it is so accurate, and it's done live. And I just right now really feel like that's cool and I'm geeking out on it, kind of. So I challenge you to pick any episode, any random episode and check it out. And yes, I'm working on a podcasting corner in the studio where I can get cozy and actually film these on YouTube talking to you. So if you're the kind of person that likes to watch podcast videos, that might be a thing that's uh coming up in 2026. So here are our closing thoughts for the day. If no one has asked you how you're doing, I am asking. If no one has told you to sit down for a minute, I am telling you. If no one has handed you permission to take care of yourself, this is it. And in the future, know that you do not need permission to put yourself first. You get to breathe, you get to ask for what you need, you get to stop pretending you are invincible, you get to be human. And by the time you hear this, I might be in my defense or on the other side of it. Either way, we will keep going together. So, spoiler alert again, you are hearing this after the fact. And yes, your girl passed her doctoral defense. I have some big plans coming up in 2026, and this achievement was just the launch point. So make sure you share the podcast, find me on TikTok or other socials, and stay connected. So take a breath, drink your water.

SPEAKER_01 46:44

I love your faces, and I'll see you in the next episode.