When a Migraine Forces a Spiritual Reset......In Other Words...Surrender After The Breakdown

Your body knows when you’re done pretending you can carry it all. I’m Justina, and I’m sharing a raw, vulnerable story that starts with a brutal migraine and turns into a full energetic dismantling, the kind that strips away your ability to white knuckle your way through life. If you’ve been stuck in survival mode, gripping tighter with every new demand, this message is for you.

The stress that built up before the crash will sound familiar: unexpected expenses, insurance refusing coverage, business pressure, and that relentless “what if” loop that fuels a scarcity mindset. I talk through what it feels like when fear contracts the body, when your jaw and shoulders lock up, and when your nervous system stops reading uncertainty as neutral and starts reading it as danger. We get honest about responsibility, entrepreneurship, and the quiet shame that can creep in when you’re the one everyone counts on.

Then something unexpected happens in the dark. I meet a powerful presence I call Anika, and the message lands like truth you can feel in your cells: the obstacle is not proof you’re abandoned, it’s often proof you’re expanding. I also share the moment I heard, “We have now removed your choice to not surrender,” and what changed afterward, including why trust, alignment, and nervous system regulation create real safety in a way fear never can. Along the way, I mention upcoming Usui Holy Fire Reiki Level 1 and 2 certification options online (July 24 to 25, 2026) and in person (August 22 to 23, 2026).

If you needed permission to soften, receive support, and stop carrying life alone, press play. Subscribe, share this with someone who’s spiraling, and please leave a review so this healing ripple reaches more hearts.

Transcript

Welcome To Season Two

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Hello, welcome to season two of the Sacred Soul Sisters Podcast. Oh my goodness, we are in 2026, and I have never been more ready for this year. Oh my gosh, the year of the fire horse. Well, welcome before we get too far ahead. Welcome to the Sacred Soul Sisters Podcast, a sacred space created for awesome souls who have spent years caring, giving, leading, and holding it all together, and are now feeling the quiet call to return to themselves. However, that call may be just getting a little louder this year. I'm Justina. I'm a Reiki master teacher, healer, nurse for over 20 years, transformational speaker, retreat leader, uh workshop leader, and this podcast is an invitation to you to allow your inner soul to slow down, soften, receive, and remember who you are beneath those roles and responsibilities and expectations that you've been carrying, but also to ignite the fire within you, to remind you how awesome you are. I'm so happy you're here. So here we talk about real healing, not the bypassing kind, but the kind that meets you exactly where you are. We explore energy, spirituality, emotional release, nervous system regulation, divine support, and what it truly means to live in alignment with your soul while navigating this crazy real life, right? So you'll hear heartfelt conversations, intuitive teachings, gentle practices, and soul-led interviews. They're all designed to help you clear energetic blocks, reconnect with your inner wisdom, and reclaim your vitality without guilt or burnout, right? Like we are done. We are done messing around. I am so fired up about this year of 2026, and I cannot wait to hang with you this year. So thank you so much for being here. This is the place where you don't have to have it all figured out, but it is the place where your strength is remembered, your light is reawakened. And if this resonates with you, I would love for you to follow the show. Please leave a review. It helps the message reach so many more individuals that need it at this time. You can also visit my website at angelrekyjourney.com, scroll to the bottom, sign up for the newsletter to receive soulful updates, upcoming offers, gentle reminders that you are never alone in this path. Come connect with me on Instagram at Angel Reiki Journey and join the conversation, or you can find me on LinkedIn where I share reflections, teachings, and ways to bring this work into your life and leadership. You are never meant to leave this alone. You belong here. And I'm so glad you are here. So take a breath and welcome to the Sacred Soul Sisters podcast. Disclaimer, you should always check in with your physician, your psychiatrist, your counselor, or anyone else assisting in your care prior to deciding that you would like to take any of the recommendations, the suggestions, and our thoughts on any of the subjects that we discuss in the podcast. Thank you so much.

Why Surrender Feels So Brutal

SPEAKER_00 3:20

Hello, hello, hello. Welcome back, everybody, to Sacred Soul Sisters, the podcast where we explore healing, consciousness, spirituality, energy, intuition, and the beautiful unfolding journey back to our authentic selves. I am your host, Justina, and today's episode is a little raw, a little vulnerable, and uh a transformational experience I've had that I'd like to share with you. So this episode's about surrender. Uh, it seems to be a lesson I need to learn repeatedly. So I'm hoping I make some progress this time. So it's not really pretty, right? Uh that whole surrender thing. I mean, the kind of surrender that happens when life strips you down so completely that your soul has no option but to let go. So last week I experienced what I can only describe as a physical collapse, an energetic dismantling, and a profound spiritual awakening all at once. And it started with a migraine. However, what unfolded became something so much bigger than physical pain. And somewhere in the middle of that darkness, I met someone or something, a guide, a messenger, a presence. And her name is Anika. So wherever you are right now, if you can pause for a moment, take a deep breath into your nose. Long exhale. Do that one more time, and this time let your shoulders drop. Let your head move side to side. Really try to loosen that area between your neck and shoulders. That if you're anything like me, get super tight and super uncomfortable quite often. And allow yourself to receive whatever this message does for your soul. I hope it does something. I hope you understand that you're not alone in this world. And I hope that you also feel my love and gratitude for you as I continue to tell my

Migraine Collapse And Dark Night

SPEAKER_00 5:34

story. So last Thursday night, I developed one of the worst migraines I have had in a really, really, really long time. At first, I thought maybe it was just stress or exhaustion, but throughout the night it continued to intensify more and more until I became violently sick by Friday. I was vomiting constantly, unable to keep anything down, completely depleted, completely miserable, and honestly, uh, I'd reached the point of breaking down emotionally. Although I didn't have a lot of tears with it because I was so dehydrated. I I know it sounds really dramatic, but there's no other way to describe it because it really was like a dark night of the soul. And I hadn't felt one like this in a while. It was when I rate the pain of this migraine, you guys like on a scale of one to ten, ten being the worst type of pain, like you're on fire. Like, this was like a 16. This was it was brutal. And I am not a baby, like I will work through, push through everything. I've I've worked sick as crap before. Like, there's anyway, you get my point. Okay, so there's a point in deep suffering where your mind becomes exhausted from trying to manage everything, and I reached that point. I remember laying there thinking, I don't really want to do this anymore. Not really in the dramatic way or dangerous way, but in the way that my soul was freaking exhausted. I was so freaking tired of trying to hold everything together at all times. I was so tired of carrying responsibility, so tired of worrying, so tired of trying to force life into making sense. And what Spirit showed me next changed everything.

Financial Stress And Scarcity Spiral

SPEAKER_00 7:46

So a few days before this migraine hit, I had gotten flooded with financial stress. Insurance suddenly refusing to cover major expenses, orthodontic bills, dental bills, my daughter's car needing repairs, um, payments had come due for other things that we had going on. I mean, like, shit was just going crappy, one thing right after the other. Like, to the amount of several thousand dollars that I didn't have just hanging out in my bank account. Because to um everyone's dismay, there's a lot of people I run into that assume when you have your own business that you're just rolling in the dough. Truth is, no, no rolling in the dough here. No, no, no. Uh, quite the opposite most of the time. Um, don't get me wrong, there are good months and things like that, but especially when you're starting out, don't don't beat yourself up too bad because it is just part of the game. But oftentimes you are putting way more into it than you may be getting in return, or you may be building yourself up to understand that it is okay to charge your worth, that it is okay to do, you know, to ask for help. It's it there's a whole thing. Anyway, not trying to go down that road, sorry. But my point is, with all this coming in, I could feel myself starting to spiral. You know, the spiral where your head is just like going round and round and round, and the only thing you can hear in your head is like, but what if, oh my gosh, what if, like, what if I can't come up with the money for this and pay for this? Then what if? Like, then we're gonna get 900 phone calls, then we're gonna this, and then we're gonna that, and then, oh my gosh. I could physically feel my body hardening. My neck was so freaking tight, my shoulders were tight, my jaw was tight, my nervous system was gripping onto fear with everything it had, like complete survival. I had stopped trusting. Something that I do so good at on a daily basis is reminding myself to trust. However, the freaking human in me, there are times I get so wrapped up and busy with what I'm doing that now a week goes by and I I have not made that conscious effort to ensure that I'm trusting spirit and that I'm trusting the universe. And it doesn't serve me well when I don't. Hello, hello,

Reiki Training Dates And Invitation

SPEAKER_00 10:28

hello. Can you believe we are almost halfway through 2026? Oh my gosh, this year has just been flying by. Guess what? I have something exciting to tell you. So I have been asked multiple times if I would teach Reiki online. And I will be officially teaching my first online time in July of this year. So July 24th and 25th. If you are interested in getting certified in Usui Holy Fire level one and two, please look into this. My link will be in the show notes. It should also be in my Instagram bio and then on my website. I cannot wait to meet you. It will be amazing. It's two whole days. We get to go through some deep, deep healing as we get these amazing certifications and you get to feel the Reiki energy within you around you. Oh my gosh, it's so amazing. And if you prefer to do the traditional route of in-person, that's still available as well. I will be teaching another in-person level one and two in August. So August 22nd and 23rd. So, real quick again, if you want to do the online course, it's July 24th and 25th, 2026. If you want to do in-person, August 22nd and 23rd, 2026. All right. I look forward to hearing from you. Okay, now back to the episode.

Meeting Anika In The Darkness

SPEAKER_00 11:50

Even though I teach healing and even though I teach surrender, even though I help others reconnect to their light and help them turn back to their authentic self, even all of that, I'd fallen into scarcity. Like I was freaking out. So much fear came in. I started questioning myself, what if I can't do this? What if I fail? What if being an entrepreneur is just not responsible? Like maybe, and that's a tough statement to make, stuff, a tough question to ask with my Virgo self, right? Because I've always got like a backup plan. I'm always trying to make sure that everything is taken care of for everybody, and da-da-da-da-da-da-da. But what if all this stuff is going through my head? I'm like, what if it is? Maybe, maybe I'm being irresponsible. I I don't know. What if I'm not supported? What if all this is just too much? And this is the thing Spirit showed me so clearly. Fear contracts the body, right? Because you can feel it. You can feel it in your physical body. You can feel your neck, your head, your shoulders, you can feel your whole freaking body contracting. And then scarcity constricts the soul. So where do you think my frequency and vibration had got at this point? Oh my gosh. I was energetically trying to control an outcome because I was terrified of uncertainty. I was completely out of trust. And then she appeared. This woman came into my awareness so vividly. She was absolutely stunning. Her skin was the deepest, most radiant black I've ever seen, almost shimmering with light. She was enormous compared to human form, tall, powerful, divine. She had magenta hair that felt both playful and otherworldly. And her energy was fascinating because she was loving, but absolutely no nonsense. Like the kind of being that walks into chaos and says, enough. I remember looking at her and thinking, who are you? Pardon me, honestly thought I was hallucinating at this point, uh, because I was so freaking dehydrated and sick. But deep in my soul, I knew this was different. I truly believe she's one of my spirit guides. I feel like my soul probably screamed out to her at some point. And she told me her name was Anika. The moment she said it, I felt something activate inside me. The name itself seemed to carry so much frequency, strength, wisdom, ancient feminine energy. And she basically looked at me straight in the face and said, What are you doing? She wasn't being judgmental, really. There was no like emotion attached to it, but she was being very direct and very clear. Like someone waking you up from your own illusion. She then showed me that my soul already knew I was supported. That when we are aligned with our mission, when we are genuinely following our soul's path, there will still be obstacles. There will still be resistance. And there will still be many moments where everything looks freaking impossible. Because we live in a world of duality. As light rises, the darkness does too. But she made something incredibly clear to me. The obstacle is not proof that you're abandoned. It was gonna make me cry because I had pulled myself so much away from spirit in these moments. I was in so much freaking pain. I couldn't stop vomiting. Probably like 13 hours straight. I mean, like of vomiting. Like it was insane. And like three days worth of this freaking migraine. When she impressed on me that the obstacle is not proof you're abandoned, because even though part of me knew that I pulled back from spirit in these moments because I was so freaking mad that I couldn't control everything, she then impressed on me that the obstacle is often proof you're expanding. What the freak was my response. I sat in that and m every cell in my body instantly knew she was speaking the truth. But then she said something I will never ever forget. The impact of the feeling as her words came across, and the words itself. She looked right through my soul. But oh my gosh, right through my eyes, through my body, through my soul. I feel like she even went into past lives. It was insane.

When The Universe Removes The Choice

SPEAKER_00 17:55

And she said, Justina? We have now removed your choice to not surrender. What the I remember thinking, what is what does that even mean? You removed my choice not to surrender. But now I understand. Sometimes the universe allows us to become so freaking uncomfortable that control is no longer possible. Sometimes surrender is not invited gently, and maybe sometimes that is because they tried gently multiple times. But my thick head didn't respond. So I'll repeat that. Sometimes the universe allows us to become so uncomfortable that control is no longer possible. Sometimes surrender is not invited gently. Sometimes surrender arrives through freaking collapse. And honestly, I think that's exactly what happened to me. My body finally said, no more. No more. No more overriding your nervous system, Justina. No more carrying fear as if it's preparation. No more gripping so freaking tightly to survival that you forget how to receive. Oh my goodness, you guys. Saturday I finally went and got IV fluids and medication because I truly needed help physically at this point. And honestly, they didn't know for sure if they were going to do be able to do it. The nurse trying to start an IV was like, you were so freaking dry. Like, I don't I don't know if I don't know if we're gonna be able to get access, all of these kinds of things. But thankfully they were and improved things significantly. But energetically, something massive had already shifted. Because after this, I noticed something strange.

IV Support And Fear Pathway Breaks

SPEAKER_00 20:22

The fear I would normally grab onto, right? Like, because I had a couple moments uh that had presented themselves after, and the fear that I would normally grab onto wasn't accessible anymore. Like I I couldn't reach it. So in this moment where the financial anxiety had started to come back in because another bill popped up, because they always do, my financial anxiety started trying to rise back up, right? And normally I would have been able to latch on to it instantly. Most of the time, after a ton of work, I would be able to release it, but sometimes it would send me into the spiral, right? I would obsess, overthink, spiral. But this time I couldn't reach it. I could not reach it to grasp it. My mind was freaking blown. It was almost like the energetic pathway that I had so fiercely created, probably over multiple life forms lifetimes, had dissolved. Like the path was gone. Not rerouted, gone. I know how strange that sounds, but it feels like. Spirit had literally removed my ability to attach the fear to the fear the same way. It's not because I'm becoming irresponsible. And it's not because life suddenly became perfect. But it's because something inside of me is finally beginning to understand. That fear doesn't create safety. Somewhere along the line, I got that message all jacked up, and I feel like I'm probably not the only one in that. But you know what does? Alignment creates safety. Trust creates safety. Surrender. Practiced. Surrender, trust me, I hear you. Create safety.

Being Held Instead Of Holding

SPEAKER_00 22:58

And maybe this episode is reaching you today because you're gripping tightly too. Maybe your nervous system is just as freaking exhausted as mine got from carrying uncertainty. Maybe your body has been whispering to you for months and you haven't slowed down enough to hear it. Maybe your soul has been begging you to trust yourself again. And maybe surrender is not losing. Maybe we can change the narrative around all this. Maybe surrender is finally allowing yourself to be held. Even saying that out loud, I can feel that so strongly in my solar plexus and my sacral chakra. Spirit saying to repeat it, maybe surrender is finally allowing yourself to be held. So many of us healers want to be out there and we want to hold everybody. We want to hold people through their pain. Sometimes we want to hold their pain for them. But maybe we need to understand that it's okay for us to be held as well. Not for us to be held by the world or by some external validation, but for ourselves to be held by God, Spirit, the universe, by our own souls. You know, after a ton of reflecting on this, I I really believe that maybe sometimes our breakdowns are sacred recalibrations. Not because we're being punished, but these are invitations back into alignment, back into softness, back into trust, back into remembering who we truly are beneath the fear and all the other crap that comes on us in this life. And for me, Anika became that reminder for me. A reminder that I seem to have to hear often. That I don't have to white knuckle my way through life. None of us do. You guys, it's not easy to share these vulnerable pieces of myself. It's it's becoming more easy. But I don't even know if easy is the word because I can feel my insides twisting up and trying to cling to that old identity of myself. Nobody can see that I have moments of weakness. Nobody, you gotta stay strong. Keep keep a game face. Always come on, you have to be the strong one. You have to be the strong one. But things are changing. It's not really about that anymore. You guys, we've gotta connect back to who we truly are, and who we truly are is a soul that is in need of give and take. We don't have to always be the giver a hundred percent of the time. We gotta figure out how to receive, or we won't be able to prosper very long. Thank you guys for sitting

Share The Message And Closing Blessing

SPEAKER_00 26:38

with me in this and listening to my reflection on it. And thank you for allowing me to be vulnerable. Thank you for allowing me to feel safe enough to share this with you. I'm so grateful you're here and that you're listening. I'm so grateful. If this resonated with you today, I invite you to share this episode with someone who may need the reminder that they're supported too. Even in the moments where life feels impossibly heavy. Even in the moments where one freaking bill comes in after the other, and next thing you know, you have several thousand dollars of need sitting in front of you. I need to remind you, you're not alone. And if you're moving through your own season of surrender, I want you to know this. You're not falling apart. You're not worthless, you're not irresponsible. You, my friend, are being transformed, and sometimes the soul dismantles what no longer aligns, so something far more authentic for you can emerge. Until next time, beautiful souls, please make sure you drink your water, rest when your body asks you to soften your grip, relax your neck and your shoulders, trust your path. And remember, your light was never meant to survive because it was meant to shine. I love you all so, so, so, so, so much. And I'll see you in the next episode of Sacred Soul Sisters. Bye-bye. Hi, before you go, hey, I just want to say thank you again. I'm so grateful you're here. Thank you for sharing this space with me today, and I hope that you can feel the sense of community. Every time you listen to one of these episodes, you're in community with not only me, but everybody else that's listening to you. And in that beautiful frequency that's created, we get to have our hearts infused with the love and peace and the hope that we have for each other. So thank you so much for that. So as you move back into your day, I invite you to take a moment, just soften your shoulders, breathe into your heart, and notice what shifted for you in this conversation. How do you feel? I hope amazing. And if this episode resonated, please follow the Sacred Soul Sisters podcast. Take a minute to leave a review. Your words help this healing ripple reach other beautiful souls who are quietly longing for support, remembrance, and community. And stay connected. You can visit my website, angelreikijourney.com. You can book an Angel Reiki session there. You can see some of the other events that we have going on. And if you scroll to the bottom, sign up for the newsletter where I share soulful reflections, upcoming offers, and gentle invitations to reconnect with yourself. You can also find me on Instagram at AngelReikiJourney for inspiration. Connect with me on LinkedIn. I'm over there too. And remember, you don't have to have it all figured out. You don't have to carry all this alone. You are deeply supported, you are divinely guided, and you are worthy of ease and joy and magnetizing moments in your life. And I'm so excited for that. Until we meet again, take care of your beautiful heart and know that it's okay to choose yourself. It's okay to offer self love to yourself, and it's okay to receive the love and abundance this universe wants to give you. So I will see you next week. Take care, bye bye.