2025-2026 Ritual Threshold: Part 3 - The Mystery, Honoring Ancestors, & the Power of Receiving

This third installment of the 2025–2026 Ritual Threshold is a year-end winter ritual centered in the mystery. This is the inward season—the season where you soften your grip and allow what has been moving unseen to arrive. Through reflection, dreamtime, and ritual, you prepare the inner ground for a more aligned 2026. This is also an excellent episode for those looking for solstice rituals & bringing more intention to their solstice work.

Here’s the episode outline:

1. What receiving is—and what it means to be in a receptive state
2. Awareness of your current level of receptivity and choosing to receive
3. A blood-and-bones ritual: gratitude for your ancestors
4. The mystery of surrendered hands ritual
5. Dreamtime, rest, and sleep rituals for integration
6. 📖 Ritual Accompaniment For This Episode

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Transcript

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SPEAKER_01 0:02

Welcome to the Delicious Dignity Podcast. Let's settle in securely and ever so nicely into the brilliance of our own dignity. Hello, lovelies. Welcome back to the third part of a four-part series where we will end your 2025 with clarity so that we can step into your 2026 with potency.

SPEAKER_00 0:34

In the first episode, we took stock and built your joyous kind of stamina. In the second episode, we integrated your lessons and released the, shall we say, the stuck energy, if you will. And in the third episode, which is this episode, we are now going into the magic and the mystery. Now, as with every episode, I'll first introduce the concept that we're working with, the theory, the hypothesis that we're working with, and I'll give you a story around it, and then we'll get into the actual ritual and the practical magic of it all. We want to start with the theory or concept because we need to prime our brain and therefore even our soul for what's to come. We don't ever just want to dive in without handrails. It's a little bit disrespectful. So I really recommend that you start with part one of this series because that lays the foundation and every ritual builds on that foundation. Do you absolutely need to do that? No, but it is my recommendation. And that's what part one does. It lays that beautiful, perfect foundation. So in this part three, we are going into the mystery. We are going into, you could call it your hibernation or your dream time. This is the winter episode of the four-part episode. So we went through summer, we went through fall, now we're in winter. This is your baking time. There is so much happening internally, but it's not obvious, languageable, or even figure-outable or visible or clear on the surface of it all. It's all happening in a realm that is more subconscious and in on the more internal side of the house rather than on the external. And the concept or the skill that we're working with is the concept of the receptive state and the skill of receiving. And let me back up a bit. Let me give you a visual of this. Okay, have you ever seen the Sistine Chapel painting by Michelangelo? It's basically, uh I invite you to look it up while I'm talking to you right now. It's this image of this man who's casually laying back and casually stretching out an arm to meet this elderly, godlike figure who is overstretching, reaching, trying to get to this very casual sitting on his own little place kind of dude. Okay. Now, is this the correct interpretation of the painting? I don't know. And quite frankly, I don't care. My point is that when I first saw this image, what I saw is how much the universe wants to meet us, how much the universe tries to meet us, how much spirit, beauty, wonder, magic is trying to meet us. Meanwhile, we're just casual and passive about it all. And we're lazily stretching out our hand every now and then to meet it, but not really. That passivity. Um, let's talk about that for a second. You see, a lot of people, when you ask them, what is the opposite of passive? They will say the opposite of passive is active. Now I don't care if in language terms that is correct, but in energy terms that is 100% wrong. To me, the opposite of passive is aggressive. And the opposite of active is actually receptive. You see, a true opposite always contains the seed of its other polarity. And when I think of that statement, I think of the image of yin and yang, where the true opposite will contain a small portion of its polarity. The yin contains some of the yang, the yang contains some of the yin. And that is what true balance really is. When you have a true opposite, it's actually a pretty balanced equation. So when we are being receptive, we still have a little bit of active in us, and when we're being passive, we still have a little bit of aggressive in us. That's why we say passive aggressive, right? And so now when we go to this concept of, I'm talking to you about the concept of receptive, I'm not talking to you about the concept of passive. Because a lot of times when we use the word the skill of receiving, receptivity, we imagine someone who is that lazy, sort of condescending kind of attitude that we see in that male figure in the Sistine Chapel, lazily putting their hand out. We think that's what receptivity is, and it's not, because it is an active state, just not the kind that we are rewarded by society to be. So I'm not talking about passive, I'm talking about receptive. Okay. And the skill of receiving, we need to define that a little bit so that you can understand the energy of it and you can understand that it is in fact not a passive state. Because when you are receiving, you are trading as equals. Life starts taking the tone of a gift that keeps on giving. And the price you're paying for this gift, if you want to call it a price, is simply your attention. In other words, you're not going numb or passive or inactive or checked out. You're tapped in, tuned in, and turned on. It's a form of respect, an active form of respect where you're respecting life as it is. So I'm going to borrow from Amanda Owen's work from her book, The Power of Receiving, and I'm going to give you words to help you language the difference between the receptive state and the active state. So let's start with something you're used to, which is the active states. This is all the things that you are rewarded for in society that makes you a lot of money in most places in society that people praise you for, and that's likely to get you results in a way that you can measurably say that this action led to this result. Okay, so this is the active state: analyzing, influencing, defining, pushing, building, going after, talking, promoting, judging, holding, doing, hiding, investigating, multitasking, exploring, thinking, acting, forcing, controlling, persuading, shaping, informing, performing, evaluating. Okay. If you need to go back and re-listen to that, I purposely said it fast so that you can feel that energy and what the difference is. So some of this is a more, you could say, to borrow a Yungian term, this could be some of the words that I mentioned are more on the shadow side of the active state. But that doesn't matter. It's all still the active state. Okay, so now let's talk about the receptive state. Here are some words to describe it meditating, allowing, noticing, including, appreciating, listening, watching, revealing, yielding, hearing, observing, opening, embracing, relaxing, welcoming, contemplating, revealing, accepting, letting be, being, attracting, feeling, letting go, grateful, acknowledging. So right there immediately, we can see how most of the cultures that we live and work in are very much all the way in one extreme of being active, right? And we're not rewarded for the receptive states. So for this part three, we are going to learn and we're gonna work with the principle of receptivity because that is how that is how you get truth and wisdom, and that is how you can receive the partnership of the universe. Now, of course, you can be in an active state and go at it alone and push and struggle and win, win, win. If that's how you want to do it, that's fine. Personally, I have seen that it that takes a huge amount of effort, a huge amount of time, and also it takes a toll on my health. Okay. If I go into the extreme of the active state. So all I'm saying is that for this one episode, one episode out of all the others, we practice receptivity. And this is how we see the mystery. We're dreaming ourselves into being. It requires very little effort. We're not pushing or struggling, we're receiving the gifts of the universe. We're receiving the magic that is constantly speaking to us. But magic that's constantly speaking to us is almost always subtle. It never bonks you on the head. Sometimes it does, but it's very rare, right? So we have to prepare our ears for listening. And so that's what we're doing in this episode. Now please remember everything, all the rituals that I give you in any episode throughout this podcast is attached to a ritual guide for that episode. And that ritual guide will be linked in the description for each episode. And don't worry, there's no sign-up. You don't have to put in your email, you just click and you see it. Okay? Okay. These first 10 minutes of this episode, I just wanted to prepare and prime your brain for the state of receptivity and receiving. In this ritual, we're gonna start. Again, there are four different rituals. You can pick and choose from each one, or you can do all four. I of course recommend you do all four. Because I'm a ritual girly, but you don't have to if you don't want to, okay? And again, they will be in the ritual description if you want to read and consume it that okay. Part one, we'll start with something, as we do with every ritual, we'll start with journaling or writing down things so that we can prime your brain for deeper ritual. So it always goes in steps, right? We enter the water slowly, toe by toe, foot by foot, and we go into the we go into the mystery. Okay, so this first part, surprise. You already did some of it in the first two episodes, right? Where you took stock of your good, you released, you were already getting into a receptive state. Now we're just gonna look more in a more like uh analytical sense into how you already do your receiving. Okay, we're taking stock of how you already receive. In order to do that, we're gonna walk through 10 different ways for three questions. Okay, the first question is 10 ways that you are already comfortable receiving. The second question is 10 ways that you're a little uncomfortable receiving. And the third question is, or the third statement, is 10 ways that you are very uncomfortable receiving. Okay. And there's a reason why we do this. Now, you might have to go back to earlier in this episode and read the list of states that I mentioned. And again, those states will be in the ritual description. And you might have to hear it again to see what ways are you comfortable with, what ways you're not comfortable with. So let me give you some examples. So list of ways I'm already very comfortable receiving, okay? Intuition, intuitive work. Everything from just sitting and talking to my guides and channeling to tarot cards, oracle cards, pendulums, energy work. I'm comfortable with all that stuff. I love receiving through that avenue. I'm already pretty comfortable receiving through my dreams, through podcasts. There are some podcasts I listen to that I just sit there and I just receive what they're saying. And it's a beautiful thing. I'm also comfortable receiving through certain movies and documentaries because you're just sitting there and receiving the content being put at you. I'm also very comfortable through listening to music. My favorite way to receive, that's funny, is lifting my shirt up a little bit where the back of my heart and my rib cage is touching a rock. So skin to rock contact. I love laying on a rock with my skin touching the rock, and it's just, it just feels so good. And I can lay there forever. So I'm very comfortable receiving whatever that is, my interaction with a beautiful rock. The other way that I'm really comfortable receiving is by looking at the night sky, especially because I live in Sedona, it's a dark sky, so I can see all the stars. Or just staring at nature in general. I can sit there and stare at a tree going back and forth in the wind. I can stare at plants or roses or anything, anything that's nature-based, I can stare at it forever. And that sort of observing, watching this trance-like state is a form of receiving that I'm very comfortable with. And of course, I'm really, I'm really, there's something very healing about receiving massages or craniosacral work. Those are my favorite. And one day I'll do an in-depth episode about that. But again, it's somebody's touching my body and working with it in a very beautiful way. And by the way, just top tip, if you ever are someone who likes to look at the night sky like me, and that's how you're comfortable receiving, you can use this app called Skyview Light. And again, it'll be linked in the description in the ritual guide. And that app is completely free and it helps you identify the different stars and the different celestial objects. It's a beautiful app. Absolutely love it. I've been using it for I think maybe 10 years, maybe less, maybe more, I don't know, but at least 10 years. So those are all examples to give you about how I'm comfortable receiving. So list out 10 ways of your own that you're comfortable receiving. And again, there's a reason why we're listing these out, right? But just stay with it for now. So the second list is list of ways I'm a little uncomfortable receiving. So one of the ways, just to give you an example, is I compliments sometimes make me a little bit uncomfortable because for a long time I didn't know whether to trust them, not to trust them, and I would get all in my head about them. So compliments are a little bit uncomfortable. And of course, in the past there have been instances when someone has given me a compliment, and almost always means that they want something from me. But compliments are, I have felt a little bit uncomfortable receiving them. Sometimes I take myself out on coffee shop dates, and instead of just sitting there and taking my time to sip the coffee and take it all in, I rush to start working at the coffee shop. I almost treat it like I arrive and then I open up my laptop and I start working. And I'm really uncomfortable just receiving it all when I sit there. Even though I'm going there to work, I notice that I'm a little bit uncomfortable just sitting there and just receiving it all before I start my work. The other funny thing is sometimes I am a little bit uncomfortable receiving when I'm waiting for someone to finish talking because I already know what they're gonna say. This is the downfall of being a psychic. You already know what they're gonna say, you already know how they're feeling, and you just want to tell them and mirror to them and hold them. And sometimes it's uncomfortable receiving their words because it almost makes an impression on you. Instead, but instead, how do I want to say this? So it when someone is talking and you're receiving it, you're allowing it to make an impression on you, not in any negative way, but it's like you're receiving an impression. And sometimes I don't want to receive the impression, I just want to say what I am seeing and feeling and talking, and even though over the years I've gotten so much better at it, but there's still like a slight discomfort there. And so sometimes receiving somebody's energy and allowing it to wash over me or make an impression is actually a beautiful thing because there's so much more insight you can get and so much more depth you can get. And that's that was part of my training to be an intuitive or a coach, is to allow that to happen instead of resisting it or being uncomfortable with it. So write down 10 ways that you are a little uncomfortable receiving. And now the third avenue to explore is 10 ways that you are very uncomfortable receiving. This is almost when it happens, you just resist it. There's so much resistance. You put up a big no or a big stop sign. So that's the energy we're going for when we say very uncomfortable receiving. The top one that I am uncomfortable receiving from anybody is gifts, drinks at a bar, favors or help, especially when I have trouble lifting things. I'm very uncomfortable if people come help me because I'm just like, oh no, I can do this on my own. I'm a strong, independent woman. And oh, I'm also very uncomfortable receiving money. So if somebody wants to give me a gift of money, that really bothers me. And so now write down 10 ways in which you are very uncomfortable receiving. And when you're done with these three lists, I want you to look at all of them. And there are two ways to approach it. Number one, the ways that you're most comfortable receiving, practice those. Pick one or two and just practice those every day for the next week until the next ritual episode. And that's one way you can do this. Or you can choose a way that you're very uncomfortable receiving and practice receiving those things. Neither method is wrong. Whether you challenge yourself or whether you just do things as you always have done them, either way, you're setting an intention of wanting to receive. And that intention of wanting to receive, let me tell you, it is the most powerful thing. Okay. So I'll give you an example. I set this intention because as I'm doing these rituals with you, I'm also doing them for myself. So I set the intention of receiving, and I cannot even tell you how many things have started to happen because of that intention to receive, the sort of insistence that I want to receive. Number one, people out of nowhere have been giving me gifts, which, like I said, I'm very uncomfortable receiving. But this time around, when someone has given me a gift, I'm like, thank you so much. This is a lovely gift. Thank you for considering me. And people have just been giving me gifts out of nowhere. And it's just been beautiful to receive it. The other day, my massage therapist gave me a gift, and she gave me this little care. Package and it was so sweet. And she had built it herself and she had made it herself. And it was just the most gorgeous thing. The other way, one way in which I'm very comfortable receiving, like I said, is staring at the sky. And the other day I was looking at the sky and I'm like, yes, I'm receiving, I'm receiving this beautiful sky. And I'm looking at the sky, and all of a sudden, the word Cassiopeia popped into my head. I believe that's how you pronounce it. Cassiopeia, Cassiopeia. And I moved my gaze to the direction in which I know that constellation is in the night sky. And the only reason I know this is because I've looked at it so many times, so I know where it is. And as I turned my face to see the constellation, this massive shooting star just passed right over that constellation. And I'm like, wow, you cannot make this up. It is such a beautiful thing. And I love this little the sweet little girl attitude I have to shooting stars, which is whenever I see one, I have to make a wish. And I made a wish. And do you see how beautiful that whole exchange is? All I had to do was look. And I received. I just had to look. I just had to pay attention. And then the next two days, as I'm comfortable looking at the night sky and looking at the nights at the stars, the next two days, every single day, there were these massive showers of meteors all across the sky, huge ones, little ones. And I just sat there for about half an hour each night, just staring at the sky and making one wish after another on each shooting star. It was a beautiful experience. So do you see what I mean? If I hadn't said that intention of receiving, I would never have looked up at the night sky to that degree. And I wouldn't, I would have missed this beautiful thing that happened. Sometimes you get these messages through the things that you're receiving. And it teaches you things about yourself that you can't really language or put into words, but you will in the next episode that we will do part four. But we're allowing ourselves to bake a little bit before we do the action. Okay? All right. So pick one or two things or ways you'd like to receive this week and do them every day for a week. And so that was part one. Part two, this is where so many of us have ignored our spiritual work. Okay. And that is our blood and our bones. We have these bodies, and these bodies have come from many people. Many people have contributed to your DNA, the way your body is shaped, the way your body is built. Many people have contributed to it. And that blood and bones, what we are doing, part of receiving is to receive the gifts of your ancestry. No matter what your family was like, no matter what has happened in your family, there is always some good, some positivity that we can accept and respect as part of our psychic inheritance. We all have gotten some not so great stuff, but we all have gotten some pretty great stuff too. And a lot of people either ignore ancestry as part of their spiritual work entirely, or they reduce their ancestry to things that they need to fix. Something that was passed down to them that they that doesn't suit them or were really bad. And so now we have to fix our ancestry. And neither approach is very nice. You don't want to reduce somebody's entire life to things that just don't suit you. Think of how disrespectful that is. And remember, a lot of things that were appropriate or traditional for their time can seem like inappropriate to you, but for them, for the time in which they were in, it was a great source of empowerment. Was it all the empowerment? No. But that's what they had. We're trying to honor our ancestors, honor the gifts that we are given. And this too is part of your ancestry, is part of your mystery. And going into that mysterious, soupy place where all your all the memories of everyone that lived in your bloodline, all their gifts, all their inheritances, all their hopes and joys and wishes and dreams are all in you. And that is the mystery of you. You know, it's like that phrase. I let me remember it now. It's you are the dream of your ancestors. Can you feel that? Oh, I'm just reminded now. Last Halloween, I dressed up, I just dressed up in my normal dress and I put a sign across my chest that said, My ancestors dream. Because that's what you are your ancestors' dream come true, whether or not you see yourself that way. Just think about all the women in your family, how they would have so appreciated even one-fourth the privileges that you have as a man or as a woman or however you identify today. You're living the dream. And so, for this part two of the ritual, I will encourage you to build an ancestor gratitude altar. And you live with this altar for at least a month into 2026. And on this gratitude altar are all the ancestors that you can thank for the life you have today. So these can be ancestors you have pictures of, or ancestors you can just write their name on the altar and keep it there. So it's pictures of all these ancestors, and maybe keep like an active plant on the altar, or like flowers on the altar, and maybe a candle that you light every now and then to honor them whenever you pass by the altar. Or you light a bit of incense whenever you pass by the altar or when you want to work with the altar. So basically, you all the ancestors that you can thank for the life that you have are on this altar, and you're basically saying, I honor you, I thank you, I accept your gifts, thank you so much. For me, when I build this altar, it's all my female ancestors in my entire bloodline, both that I can name and that I can't name. Because their lives, whether or not directly or indirectly, they contributed to mine, their lived life led to me being born during a time when I have so many more rights than they could have ever dreamed of. So just by virtue of them living their life, I have been born into this time. And that does deserve an honoring. And some of them have definitely passed down artistic talents to me that I benefit from today because I love working with it. I love having that artistic bent, and I definitely get that from my ancestors. And so I will put the names of some of my female ancestors on there and pictures that I do have, and then other ones I don't have their names and I don't know who they are. So I just say all the women that birthed me. And there's a little like piece of paper that says that all the women that birthed me. And that's the stand-in for all my female ancestors. Another ancestor that I will thank is my grandfather on my mother's side. He left my parents a few things that I now am considering using for myself. He left them as gifts for my parents. And now those are being passed down to me, and it makes my life a little bit easier. And the fact that I'm even considering that, even that whether or not I actually use it, the fact that I'm even considering that I have that option, I can thank my grandfather for that. The other person I will thank is the woman I'm named after, Dul Shad. She was my dad's sister. She died when she was in her early 20s in a plane crash. And I am her namesake. And I see a lot of similarities between us, the desire to paint and make art, and this incredible woman who tried to make a living for herself at that time. And I really relate to her strength in a lot of ways. I want to thank her. Whether or not I get it from her, I still want to thank her. And I want to honor her and the life she did lead. You might also choose to put an ancestor on your altar that's living. So there are a couple of living ancestors of mine that I want to thank for certain things. And I don't want to mention them on the podcast because they didn't consent to be on this podcast and what they did for me. So I'll remain, I'll make them nameless, but they've done things for me that have positively impacted my life. And I will put them on my ancestor altar too. So it doesn't always have to be dead ancestors. So that is ritual two of going into the mystery. Ritual three are sleep rituals. This is where you pay attention to your dreams for the next week. And set the intention that your dreams at night will show you what you value, what your 2026 is going to be about, or just simply what you need to pay attention to and let your dreams do the heavy lifting of communicating that to you. And you'll see a pattern in them over the next week, provided you set that clear intention and have a genuine desire to understand and see and know the wisdom through your dreams. The other thing you can do is that if dreams are not your thing, but you still want to work with this energy of sleep and hibernation and dream time, what you can do is have incorporate some before-bed rituals. Like you might have a little lamp, a little candle that's burning in a safe place while you sleep. You might have, you might take a magnesium supplement to get a deeper sleep. You might anoint your body with the oil that you made from episode one or part one of the series where we made the anointing oil from all the good of your 2025. You might just ritually apply lotion on your body that means something to you. And as you're applying the lotion, you're setting the intention to receive because I'm receiving the lotion, I'm receiving whatever needs to come to me. So these are all the ways in which you can make your nighttime ritual more potent for this receiving time. And part four that I can offer you for this ritualistic mystery time is the energy of receptivity, but taken up a few notches, which is the energy of letting go and surrender. And how do you work with that energy of surrender? This is one way, and it's a fairly easy way. That's why I'm giving it to you in this context of ending 2025, beginning 2026. And that is the energy of opening and closing your hands. So ball your hands into a tight fist, as I'm talking to you right now. So ball it into a really tight fist, like really clench your fists and then hold it, and then gently open it and open it all the way out where your fingers are spread out. So do it again, maybe two more times. And then the fourth time that you do this, you're imagining all the things that you've been grasping onto, holding on to for dear life. Lord of the Rings, the Gollum guy, the or whatever he's called, the guy who goes, My precious, and he's is that even Lord of the Rings? I don't even know. But it's the guy that goes, My precious, to the ring that he has, and he's like holding on to it, and it's become this, it's made him into this really nasty-looking creature, and nasty on the inside and outside. And this grasping energy has turned him into that. That's the energy of holding on. Like, what has made you into a golem, into this my precious kind of energy that you have, or what has made you ball your fists up really tight? I want you to imagine that. What are you grasping on to? What are you grabbing onto? And then I just want you to imagine opening your hands and letting it go, or just still keeping it in your hands, but not grasping onto it. So, whatever the situation is, imagine that's what's in your balled-up fists. And then just release your hands and open them. Maybe let the thing still sit in your hands, or maybe just let it slip through your fingers. But that's a way in which you are surrendering and you are setting the intention in an embodied way to let go of the thing that might make you less than what you are simply because you've been grasping onto it too tightly. The thing that I have been grasping on to very tightly has been this strong independent woman archetype. I feel like I've been grasping onto that for too long. And I am now letting it go because it has not served me. It served me until it didn't serve me. And now it's time to shift into a different type of woman. And I'm setting that intention as I'm balling up my fists and I'm letting it go. I'm like, I don't know what's going to come in its place, but I do know this has, I need to stop grasping onto this so tightly. I need to stop grasping onto the other thing I was letting go is this hyper sense of individualism and Americana individualism that again served me when it needed to serve me, but it no longer serves me. And all of this is, by the way, stuff I'll go into more detail in 2026 and explain what's going on behind the scenes. But ritually, what I am letting fall through my fingers, what I am letting slip through my fingers, what I am no longer grasping and gripping onto for dear life are those two things. There are many more, but I'm just giving you these two as an example. Ah, can you feel how potent these four rituals are? I just, I'm so excited for you to try them, for you to benefit from them. I'm so excited to hear your stories. I am so excited. Welcome to the mystery, my lovelies. Welcome. And so until the next and last episode of this series, may you see the dignity of your 2025. May you deepen it, may you learn from it, and may you turn it into fertilizer for all your years to come. Much love to you. Bye.