The Awakened Heart: A Podcast for Healing Women

End of Year Reflections

• Autumn Moran • Season 1 • Episode 39

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0:00 | 46:32

I reflect on a messy, beautiful year of parenting adult children, emergency surgery, sleep apnea, quitting social media, and rebuilding life with rest at the center. I share lessons on boundaries, money, creative capacity, and the new series coming in 2026.

• parenting young adults with boundaries and repair
• mom guilt, grief and honest love
• emergency gallbladder surgery and GLP-1 side effects
• sleep apnea diagnosis and CPAP as a game changer
• quitting social media and ending one-sided friendships
• letting go of beach yoga to honor capacity
• rest as a non-negotiable and nervous system care
• financial boundaries, cutting subscriptions and saving
• no-contact family and choosing healthy distance
• pride in client work and growing a real community
• late-diagnosis series and sexual trauma healing season in 2026
• moving plans, renewed energy and softer living

Here is the link to my episode on NOT making New Year’s Resolutions; DEAR JANUARY: OPTING OUT OF NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTION PRESSURE

https://www.buzzsprout.com/2467345/episodes/18379290-bonus-epi-dear-january-opting-out-of-new-year-s-resolution-pressure-for-neurodivergent-and-trauma-surviving-women


About Me:

I’m Autumn Moran, a Licensed Professional Counselor and Life Coach specializing in trauma-informed care for neurodivergent women and trauma survivors.

Therapy (Texas residents only):

I provide individual therapy in my private practice for women working through trauma, late diagnosis processing, relationship challenges, and healing from narcissistic abuse or toxic family systems. My approach is neurodivergent-affirming and focuses on helping you understand your patterns while building practical tools for nervous system regulation and authentic living.

Life Coaching (available anywhere):

For women outside Texas or those wanting support alongside therapy, I offer:

•Somatic Healing Coaching: Bridges the gap between cognitive understanding and embodied healing through nervous system work, movement practices, and practical integration tools. Perfect as a complement to talk therapy or for those ready to work directly with their body’s wisdom.

•Unmasking Journey Coaching: Specialized support for late-diagnosed neurodivergent women learning to reconnect with their authentic selves after decades of masking. We work on identifying your real needs, rebuilding your sense of self, and creating a life that fits who you actually are.

Whether you’re healing trauma, discovering yourself after late diagnosis, or both, my goal is to help you not just understand your story, but feel genuinely safe and at home in your own body.

Subscribe & Share:

New episodes drop every Wednesday and Friday. If today’s episode resonated, please share it with someone who needs to hear it or leave a comment—it helps other women find this space and know they’re not alone. Check me out on Apple Podcasts and many other platforms.

Work With Me:

Ready to start your healing journey?

Book a free 15-minute consultation: (http://linktr.ee/EmpoweringWellnessHub)

Listen to my DIVINE WOMAN Playlist (Apple & Spotify): Empowering songs for women healing through softness and strength - links are on the linktree link! 

Connect with me about this episode!

SPEAKER_00:

Welcome to the Awaken Heart, a podcast for healing women, a place where your voice matters, your body is sacred, and your journey home to yourself is honored no matter how winding the road. I'm Audda Moran, and I'm passionate about supporting you, yes, you, women, on their healing journeys. As a licensed professional counselor, a life coach, I provide trauma-informed therapy for clients in my private practice, and I help those looking for additional support alongside their therapy with my life coaching. So therapy is for neurodivergent women and trauma survivors. A life coaching program is about helping you through your unmasking journey for late-diagnosed neurodivergent women. And I have a somatic coaching that is designed as a complement to traditional talk therapy to help you bridge the gap between cognitive understanding and embodied healing through nervous system work, body movement, breath work, and practical integration tools. Whether you're working through trauma, discovering your authentic self after years of masking or both, my goal is to help you not just understand your story, but to feel genuinely safe and at home in your own body. Okay, new episodes drop every Wednesday and Friday. So be sure to subscribe so you never miss one. And if today's episode resonates with you, I would be so, so grateful if you'd share it with someone who needs to hear this or leave a comment because it will help other women find the space and know they're not alone in their journey. Because right now in my journey, I am off all of social media and just doing this by word of mouth. So to help me grow, to help me reach all the women in the world if I can that need healing, please share or leave a comment. All right. This is the last bonus episode of 2025. And I wanted to do, I guess, something different, but kind of typical of what other people are doing. I mean, think about Spotify's year-in wrap. I got my Finch app, got a year-in wrap. This Buzz Sprout platform that I do podcast on, I got a year-in wrap. So, like, why not just do a year review? Because this is the first year that I started this podcast. So instead of teaching or diving into a clinical topic, I just want to sit with you and reflect on this year, the hardest parts, the growth, the losses, the lessons, the messy, beautiful, devastating, hopeful reality this year has been for me. I mean, if you've listened to my podcast, you know I don't do polished, I don't do surface level, and I don't pretend everything is fine when it's not. And this year, this year has been a lot. So today I'm gonna share what 2025 has been like for me. Not as your therapist, but as a human who's also navigating healing, loneliness, chronic exhaustion, grief, and trying to figure out what comes next. And then, of course, I'm gonna talk about what's coming in 2026. And I'm a huge believer, I've had an episode on it about not setting resolutions at the beginning of the new year. Like we're in the dead of winter. Spring is when spring spring is when things spring up. That's when life comes to life. So I'm not here to say these are my resolutions, but just what I'm looking forward to, what I've got planned over the next quarter. So grab your coffee, your tea, get comfy, whatever you want to be doing now. And let's talk about this year. First up, I'm gonna start with the hard stuff. I kind of talk about hard stuff. So, I mean, that's where I've been living most of my year. Parenting, my kiddos are in their 20s, and I understand that people may hear that and be like, what are you talking about? Like, that should be the easiest time. They're done. But I've never had a parental blueprint on parenting a young adult, and I'm learning as I go. And sometimes I do write by them, and sometimes I fail them. My oldest son has had difficult times finding his footing this year, and it has been a lot of ups and downs. And while my youngest has had his own strial, his own trials and tribulations, and there have been countless moments where I have watched it happen and felt completely powerless to fix any of their situations because I can't control their choices. All I can do is set boundaries and love them from a place that honors their developmental stages and honors my capacity. I, as hard as it is, I can't always save them. But oh my God, the guilt, let's talk about the guilt of being 45, having my kids now adults, and just, you know, if they're not getting their footing, if they're having a hard time, the guilt of what did I do wrong as a mother? If I had parented parented differently, would they be different? The sleepless nights worrying about both of them, waking up in the middle of the night, panic that something horrible is going to happen to them. The fear that he'll end up in a situation I can't help him out of. I did the best I could with what I had at the moment, each and every step along the way. But knowing that intellectually doesn't stop the mom guilt from eating me up inside. But right now, we're in a good place. We're getting closer. There have been repairs, there have been honest conversations. It's not perfect, but it's better. And I'm learning to hold both. The grief over past mistakes and the hope of what we're building now. I have I have faith in our future to be solid units of me and my children with love and understanding, patience and compassion. It's not going to happen overnight, but like we're working on it. We're close. We talk often about hard things, about good things, more than surface level things. And then I had gallbladder surgery. Like I had to have my gallbladder out this year in emergency surgery, like no time to process what was happening until it had already happened. And that was its own thing: the pain, the recovery, the surgery itself. That was my first surgery. I was so terrified. But during that surgery, something went wrong. I don't have all the details, but they told me afterwards that I needed to get tested for sleep apnea because of what happened while I was under. And that was frustrating because it was another medical thing to deal with. But that surgery potentially saved my life because it led to discovering the sleep apnea. And I am going to go into that in a minute. But the gallbladder, I learned it was because I took GLP1s, Ozimpic. I learned a lot about the side effects from using them after surgery. I learned that there are so many lawsuits against these manufacturers for various reasons that they knew that these were living side effects, actual side effects, maybe not living side effects. And I am so tired. My only social medias I have is YouTube and Pinterest. And I'm so at the verge of giving up Pinterest because I'm so tired of seeing famous women advertising GLP1s, weight loss injections when they're actual professional athletes. Like make that programming make sense. That is so predatory. It's like even professional athlete that has all the training, all the food, all the nutritionists can't lose weight without this shot. You gotta be, you're fucking kidding me. That's a lie. It's gross. I want to scream about it. The advertising alone is so manipulative and so gross that I just fucking hate it. I'm not knocking anyone who takes the shot. I did it. I'm not knocking it. I'm just saying the marketing, the push for it is nefarious and I don't like it. I mean, and also it wrecked my gut. I was always uncomfortable. I threw up constantly, talking about nearly shitting your pants so many times. I can't even count. The nausea, the digestive, digestive issues, the feeling like absolute garbage, all to lose 20 measly pounds. And then guess what happened when I stopped taking them? The rebound weight came back two to three fold, more than I lost, more than I've ever been. So now I'm heavier than when I started. My gut is still recovering, and I don't feel like shit about my body, but it's hard to be in a body that I've never been in before and try to love it, even though it doesn't feel like what my what I like my body to feel like. So it just made a whole layer of just like having to work with my self-love. And there's the shame spiral when I feel bad. I should have been more disciplined, I should eat better, I should work out more, all the shoulds that make it worse. I'm trying to have compassion for my body, for what it's been through, for the fact that my exhaustion makes it even harder. But it's a process. And some days I'm kinder to myself than others. It's a difficult path. But I mean, I love my body, I talk to my body, I oil my body, I massage my body, I get massages. Like I really work to love my body at every stage because this is my home. This is what gets me around. Without this, I couldn't be mobile, I couldn't be vocal. But I've bounced back beautifully from gallbladder surgery. I eat normally with no issues, which isn't the norm, which I hear I have had women share their experiences with me. And boy, post-surgery can be hellacious. So I'm very grateful for my bounce back. I know that's not everyone's experience. And then before gallbladder surgery, I've dealt with injuries this year that kept me from working out the way I wanted to. Heel spurs, knee pain, shoulder pain. I tried a hit style strength training gym that really hurt me because of the form not being right and the and and like having to go so fast and not have time for form. The hill spur also took me out for months. I'm still scared to walk too much, and that was just from walking. But I mean, I was walking barefoot on hard sand. So, you know, it happens. After the injuries, after the gallbladder, I deleted everyone from my socials. I deleted my socials except for Pinterest and YouTube. I looked at my followers, my friends list, and realized most of these people don't actually care about me. They're just there watching, performing their own lives while I perform mine. And I'm I'm done performing, I'm done pretending, I'm done posting for people who don't actually know me or care about me beyond what I can offer them or how entertaining my life is. So I deleted it all, almost everyone. And it felt like real relief and grief. So my first stage was I deleted everything off my socials and I kept them and I thought, okay, I'm gonna be safe. And then after that, it was more of the onslaught of the politics and just the highlight of how bad people can be in the world. And I just can't have several existential crises a day. Like I'm a therapist, I've got to have my shit together. So so I deleted everything. I let it go. And with that, around Thanksgiving came a moment where I had to let a person go who I kept trying to make care about me. I kept reaching out, I kept trying, kept hoping it would eventually they would eventually show up the way I showed up for them. And they didn't, and they won't. And this year I finally accepted that. And that's that's grief. It's acceptance that some people will never be who they n who I need them to be. That some relationships are one-sided and always will be. I fucking had someone reach out to me this year because they saw a vehicle that looked like one I used to drive, an old small pickup truck that was gifted to me. So during some of my hardest times as a single mom. But instead of asking me how I was or celebrating my growth, this person simply lied and said, sorry for misspelling in the text I'm driving. Just wanted to pop in and say, I saw your car, and then immediately sent what seemed like a pasted text of a list of their current accomplishments. I'm sorry, what? Like it was a list, a literal list of all the like a little mini text resume. So I'm like, are you reaching out to brag? Like, girl, I do less and have more. Stop trying to brag to someone you assume isn't doing as well or better than you. I'm so fucking tired of women comparing themselves to their friends and trying to be better than their friends. Like, please stop being this way. We can all succeed and be our best and lift each other up and love one another and be happy for someone else's growth. So from there, I've stopped trying to force connections that aren't there. I didn't respond. I didn't give a performative, nice text, way to go, do-do-do. I saw what it was and immediately decided I no longer had that person to consider as a friend or even an acquaintance. And that's so sad. But I'm not surprised. The loneliness sets in. But at least it's honest loneliness now. At least I'm not pretending I have support I don't have. At least I'm not exhausting myself to try to earn love from people who aren't capable of getting it. And then in December, I got tested for sleep apnea. And they diagnosed me with moderate sleep apnea. I was experiencing 21 episodes per hour. I was seriously dying 21 times an hour every single night, hundreds of times a night. And here's what I want to say. I have been exhausted for years, years, bone-tired, but you would never catch me taking a nap. Can barely function tired, but I'm not napping. And I thought it was depression, I thought it was lack of dopamine, I thought it was burnout, I thought it was just trauma. I thought it was just me. But it was sleep apnea. My body hasn't been getting oxygen properly while I while I sleep. I have had hundreds of traumas a night for years. I haven't been sleeping well in who knows how freaking long. And that's why I was so fucking tired all the time. That's why one task was all I could do, and then I had to rest. It was either work or rest. It was either work or do something fun. I couldn't do those two things in the same day. I'm about three weeks into using my CPAP machine, and I have to tell you, wowzers, what amazing difference. Everyone everywhere needs to get tested for sleep apnea. Why wouldn't you want to know if you're literally dying every night over and over and over again? And who wouldn't want that to be treated? And it's not just snoring because guess what? I'm not a snorer. I don't have years of waking up gasping for hair. I have years of tossing and turning, years of getting up a couple of times at night to go pee, years of being irritable and unable to handle like small noises, excesses, excessive movements. I've I've slept 10 hours for years and still felt like I could sleep more. And I keep thinking, like, what if I had known sooner? What if I'd been diagnosed years ago? Right back to where I was being late diagnosed. How different my life would have been if I was not sleep deprived this whole time. What a mix. What a mix of grief. And then when I thought this was like pre-Thanksgiving, maybe October time frame. I'm all over the place. I'm not an I'm not a chronological timeliner, but I decided, hey, I'm doing fine. I don't need my meds. I made the decision to go off my meds and not because I think medication is bad. I'm a therapist. I think medication has its place. I prescribe referrals for medications all the time. I give referrals for medication all the time. But because I thought I didn't need them, I was curious. And that was hard. Won't do that again. I am who I am, and the meds are part of my self-care. No question about it. Full freaking stop. Something I let go early in November, I let go of beach yoga. I used to teach beach yoga once a week on the beach. It was one of my favorite things, but I had to let it go. The logistics, the energy it required, the capacity I just didn't have because of the sleep apnea. I had to let it go. I wanted to create a safe space to make friends and practice yoga together. And it turned out more of just a teaching position with no solid friendships made. I was really hoping it would grow and be something for local women. And again, that's grief too, letting go of something I love because I don't have the bandwidth for it anymore. I am accepting my limits even when they're disappointing. It was hard. I miss beach yoga. I wish I had someone just to go out there and do beach yoga with, whether I'm getting paid or not. Just sit, talk, stretch, have a good time. And I'm working through a lot of this guilt, a lot of this grief. I've been working through a massive amount of guilt this year. Guilt about my past parenting mistakes. Guilt about choices I made at younger versions of myself. Guilt about relationships that didn't work out. Guilt about not being better sooner. Guilt is its own kind of hell. It keeps you stuck in the past, punishing yourself for things you can't change, holding yourself to standards you never could have met with what you knew at the time. I'm working on forgiving myself. I'm working on accepting that I did the best I could. I'm working on recognizing that growth means I'm different now. Not that I was wrong then. But some days the guilt, the self-doubt, the fears, they crush me. They crush me to my core. And that's not even considering existential crises that I have about the way of the world. So it's been a lot this year. And when I thought that layers, no more layers could be unlayered. I got a text message from someone that I've wanted to meet for 31 years. And I imagine there's gonna be more to come about this story. But right now I have to say that man, it brought me back. It opened up some wounds, some shame, some guilt that I've tucked away for 31 years. It's gonna be a hell of a year in 2026. I don't know what's happening. I don't know what's unfolding. But I I I'm hoping for good things. All right. So what am I proud of? That's my hard stuff. What am I proud of? Because there's a lot. One, I got through everything. First and foremost, I did the dang thing. I did not give up, I did not quit. I have kept showing up for my clients, for this podcast, for my kids, and for myself as much as I could. And this might not sound like much, but when you're dealing with chronic exhaustion, grief, loneliness, financial stress, health issues, family chaos, just surviving is an accomplishment. Just getting through each day is enough. So I'm proud of myself for getting through it, for not giving up even when I wanted to so badly. There have been so many days where I wish I could just dig a hole and just hide in it. Let me go sit in the closet and act like I don't exist. I'm proud that I can still show up for my clients, that I can hold space for their pain while I'm navigating my own. I'm proud that I'm a good therapist even when my personal life is a bit messy. I'm proud that women trust me with their stories, their trauma, their healing, that I get to witness their growth, that I get to be part of their journey. And before I go into the podcast about how proud I am of this endeavor, I want to honor the women I've worked with this year because they deserve recognition, gratitude, and they deserve to know what they've given me. To every woman who has trusted me with her story this year, thank you. It is an absolute honor to walk alongside you and help you see and honor your power and your beauty. It fills my soul's cup daily, hourly, moment by moment. You inspire me constantly. You teach me as much as I'm teaching you, sometimes maybe more. You keep me grounded. When my own life feels chaotic, holding space for your healing reminds me what matters, reminds me why I do this work. I'm not afraid to ask hard questions or to be fooly myself in sessions. You've taught me that showing up authentically is what creates real healing. Not performing perfect therapist, but being real human who struggles and heals. To the women who let me into their darkest moments, I see you, I love you, I believe in you. You are never alone. I'll always be a text or an appointment away. Thank you for trusting me. You've helped me more than you know. All right. And this podcast, I started this podcast this year, and I'm so proud of it. I have created so many programs to try to sell, to try to help people heal, to try to help people grow, especially women. I'm not going to say people. It's always geared toward women. And I never knew which direction to go, whether it was just teaching yoga, whether it was having workshops, whether it was creating programs. And then I started listening to a podcast that I thought was very good. It inspired me to feel that I could too, could, I too can share my story, that what I have as far as education, experience, and lived experience is shareable, needs to be heard, needs to be shared. I'm proud that I took the risk. I'm proud that I put myself out there. I'm proud of the content I've created. I'm proud of the community I'm building, we're building, even though it's small, it's real. I am proud that I can share my passions, my clinical knowledge, and my own journey. I am so happy that I can be genuine and real and raw and messy, and people respond to that. This podcast has been one of the best things I've done this year. It's given me a purpose alongside of my purpose of therapy. This is my own little section of the world where I can just really be myself and really just share what I know. It lets me be creative and authentic in a way my regular therapy practice doesn't always allow. I I celebrate every milestone. I'm very proud. I have big dreams, not like not like armchair expert Mel Robbins, big, but enough to help a group of women so that this can grow into a community, so that we can have maybe a virtual community group, maybe monthly meetings, quarterly newsletters, and also maybe a retreat once to twice a year. I would really like to get into hosting retreats based on healing women. I've done one retreat before and it was fun. I have a lot of notes and a lot of things I would do differently. And I'd like to start that. I have a goal to just be a wellness hub. I want to empower women and I want to offer all the things I can offer to help you heal and not feel alone. All right. What I've learned this year. What I learned after getting diagnosed with sleep apnea that I wasn't at my best when I thought I was at my best. I mean, this is big. This realization has been sitting with me. Like for a long time, I thought I was doing well. I thought I was managing. I thought I was at my best, working hard, showing up, getting things done, being productive. But I honestly was running on fumes. I was chronically exhausted. I was pushing myself through a sh through on sheer willpower. I was ignoring my body's signals that something was wrong. I I found out about the sleep apnea, and that made me realize I wasn't at my best. I was functioning maybe at a 30, 40% capacity, just white knuckling my way through life. I don't even know, right? I learned that sleep is necessary and that if you feel tired even though you've had enough sleep, if you are doing all the things that you can be doing and still you just feel exhausted, get a sleep apnea test. Most of them are covered by insurance. What's the harm in knowing if you're dying a hundred times or not? Right? I've continued to learn this year that rest is non-negotiable, not optional, not something I do when everything else is done, but the actual priority. Because when I rest, I can function. When I don't rest, everything falls apart. It's that simple. So rest is my number one priority for myself. Not productivity, not achievement, not getting things done, but rest. And that's radical in a culture that tells us rest is lazy. But rest is how I survive. That's that's what I'm learning. I set a financial, a financial boundary this year, not spending money on dumb shit. And that's been huge because boundaries aren't just about saying no to people, they're also about saying no to impulses, to patterns that don't serve you, and to behaviors that keep you stuck. Financial discipline is a boundary. Protecting my energy is a boundary. Boundaries are everywhere, and they're all about honoring what you actually need instead of what you think you should do or want in the moment. My youngest son has come along with me on my financial journey as far as like saving money so that we can travel, so that we can move. We've got goals this year. And we've given up some stupid shit. Like I honestly can say I have not Ubered or DoorDashed in months. If we get anything out to eat, we go and pick it up. And if I really am doing on a good day, I will go to the grocery store, pick out something, either nice, freshly prepared, or something I can prepare and then come home. So I've really changed my eating habits. I've really changed how I'm spending money on eating out. I've gotten rid of a lot of platforms, a lot of subscriptions. I called my cell phone company and got my cell phone bill deducted by at least$100. Like I really sat down one day and just went through everything and deleted everything that's non-essential. I said goodbye to Netflix and Hulu. I'm saying hello to DVDs and VHS tapes. So we go to Goodwills, we go to secondhand shops, our Facebook Marketplace. My son's the Facebook Marketplace. I am not on Facebook. But he finds some goodies and he'll go pick them up. And all my safe shows, I got box set DVDs for them. And I can watch them as many times as I want. And I don't have to pay any more fee but the one I paid initially. So I like it. It's a little old school, it's a little catawonky, but it saves money. And the more money I save, the more fun I can have. And I want to have fun this year. I am no contact with my family. It's hard, it's lonely, and it brings up grief. And I used to think if it's the right choice, it should feel good, but that's not true. Sometimes the right choice still hurts. Sometimes the healthy thing is also the hard thing. No contact is both necessary and painful for me. And I am now holding both of those truths. I would much rather be alone by myself than feel hollow and sad and rejected and alone around people that quote unquote love me. This year I have been faced with my deepest fear as a mother that my sons would leave me because I'm a horrible mother, that they decide I've damaged them too much, that the mistakes I've made were unforgivable, that they'd cut me off and I'd be like I've cut off my own family. And I've been sitting with that fear, and it has been some of the hardest work I've done this year. But I'm learning my sons are choosing to stay in a relationship with me. We're doing repair work, we're having honest conversations, we're building something healthier than what I had with my parents. And I'm not saying I was a horrible mom. I didn't abuse them or beat them. I just have been in survival mode for years. So I was not the softest person. I wasn't the most gentlest mom. I was very hard on them. Like I was hard on myself to succeed and be something and prove to everyone else that you are somebody. That was my bad. I was a little unhealed. That was my bad. But all in all, there's hope. There's repair. I didn't destroy them. They love me. We have a loving relationship. Whether maybe they forgive me for my mistakes, but at the very least, they understand me for my mistakes. Starting this podcast taught me something about myself. I am creative to a point, and then I need someone to help me put my thoughts into flowing dialogue and scripts. I can have ideas, I can have passion, I can have clinical knowledge, but turning that into a cohesive structure content, it takes time. It takes a lot of spoons. So it has kind of been helpful to let go of some things, to let go of social media and creating content, to let go of beach yoga and creating sequences and marketing for that and advertising and all that. All that energy now goes to me creating my podcast episodes. They have been much longer. I think they have more substance. I'm able to show up more. I really like where I'm at with my creative process. And the pop the podcast has continued to grow. People keep finding it, episodes keep resonating, the community keeps expanding. And that's happening while I'm exhausted, lonely, grieving, and struggling. I don't have to be at 100% for growth to happen. I don't even have to have it all together to make an impact. And that's been a good reminder. You don't have to be completely healed to help others heal. I don't have to be perfect to do a good job. I just have to show up honestly. I found a therapist. Yay, yay, yay. I have only a few sessions with her so far, but I am excited about the direction we're going. I'm excited to meet with her this week. All right. Looking forward. Let's talk about what's happening 2026. I'm planning a move this year. I'm in Corpus Christi, Texas, right now. But I'm looking for something else. I don't know where I'll go. I've got a couple of places in mind. But I'm excited about the adventure. I'm going to spend some time exploring the early part of the year, places I want to go, and get get ready for a change of scenery mid-year. I have energy. I wake up between the hours of four and six now, depending on how much sleep I have, like the quality sleep I have. I don't wake up and go to the bathroom. I don't wake up and toss and turn. I I wake up and I'm like, holy shit, there was a whole world existing and I was just out. I can do more than one thing a day. I can get up and not be irritable. I can go, I just game changer. What will become possible in the next couple of months when my hormones and nervous system should be better regulated? I am so excited for my future self. I have faith that it's going to be amazing. So, what about the podcast? Starting in January, I'm launching a series on late diagnosis. Friday's episode, which will be the first of 2026, will be ADHD versus autism versus odd HD. And I'm going to talk about what they all are, how they all look in real life. And during the late diagnose series, we're going to die there, we're going to cover everything from grief, the identity crisis, telling your family, navigating work, building accommodations, the first year after diagnosis, RSD, sensory issues, all the good things. This is content I'm so passionate about because I live it. I work with women that are late diagnosed neurodivergent every day, and it's just such a huge topic that I want to give you the right information. And then after that, I'm going to have a healing season where it is about sexual trauma recovery series. So after the late diagnosis series, we're going to dive into a series on sexual trauma recovery. There will be three arcs. First will be the numb season, second will be the rage season, and the third will be the rebirth season. This is going to be deep work. This is going to be vulnerable and raw and probably hard to create, but it's needed. And I want to hold that space for women so you don't feel shame or guilt for sexual assaults, whether it was small, whether it was big, whether anyone knew or not. And the bonus episodes during the sexual trauma healing series is going to be about highlighting goddesses, their energy, maybe how to work with them, how to hone in their energy or just honor it. I want to keep growing the show. I want more women to find it. I want to reach the people who need this content. I'm working on getting featured on Apple Podcast. I'm on my second round of applying. I'm going to keep applying until I get it right. I'm thinking about discoverability and what that looks like with my journey of not being on social media. Maybe I hire somebody to have a social media presence. Maybe I don't. I'm not quite sure. But I will work on this throughout the year to try to grow, to have the community that we deserve. I'm on YouTube now with a static image for video. I'm not quite ready to video record myself. I'm very sporadic where I record, how I record, what I look like when I record. Sometimes I just lay down depending on the day. So I'm not there yet, but I'll get there. I'm sure of it. But honestly, mostly I just wanna keep creating honest, valuable content. That helps you heal. I want to prioritize time with my boys this year to keep building those relationships, to keep doing the repair work, and to create good memories instead of just managing crises. They're adults now, which means I don't have built-in time with them anymore. I have to be intentional. So that's what I'm going to do. I'm focusing on financial stability this year, saving money, cutting down expenses. I want to feel secure and I want to have a cushion and I want to not be stressed about money. And that is a goal. And I am doing pretty good on that so far. I had a dream last night that I was sitting somewhere. Mind you, my mom has passed away. I don't have a mom, stepmom, or anything like that. But I was somewhere and they had a little kid and we were kind of finagling around and they were like, look at you, Autumn. Look how good you're doing with money. Like you're doing so well. How are you doing that? And I woke up and I was like, oh, I hope this is a future premonition. I hope this is me in a couple of months, next year, end of the year. And for myself, I don't want to be so raw and traumatized and angry anymore. I want to be softer, calmer, more regulated, less reactive. I've done so much of, I've spent so much of this year, and honestly, so much of my life in survival mode, fight mode, angry mode. And I'm I'm ready to set it down. I want to soften. Not to be nice and people pleasy, but in a my nervous system is regulated and I can be present way. I want to let go of hate and anger and judgment I'm carrying. Not because those feelings aren't valid, because they are, but because they're heavy. And present me is just tired of heavy. So I'm giving myself permission to save money without guilt, eat out less and cook more, rest as much as I need, take my time finding the right place to live, building this community continually and slowly, be in process, not in final form. And here's what's true for me. I think it's going to be a good year. I think things are going to shift. I think the CPAP machine is already helping and will help. I know moving will help. And I think having energy will change everything. Am I fearful? Kinda not really. I hope everything continues to work out for my oldest son, but I'm open to 2026. I'm open to seeing life unfold. I'm open for the ups and downs. Honestly, my biggest fear is losing my kids. I don't ever want that to happen. I hope that I go naturally and at a very old spicy age. That not coming true scares me, but that's for me and my therapist to work out. So I'm holding both the hope and the fear, the excitement and the terror, the belief that it will be good and the fear and the fear that it won't. And that's okay. I can hold both. I can be quite dialectical. So that's my year. The hard parts, the growth, the lessons, the grief, the hope. If you've been with me for any part of this journey, if you've listened to even one of my episodes, thank you. Really thank you. Thank you for being here. Thank you for letting me be real and messy and imperfect. And thank you for trusting me with your time and your attention. I don't know where 2026 will take us, but I know we're building something real here. I know we're building a space where women can be honest about how hard healing is. A space where we can talk about the things nobody else talks about. A space where you don't have to be polished or perfect to belong. I'm excited for the late diagnosis series. I'm really excited for the sexual trauma healing series. I'm excited to keep creating content that helps. But most of all, I am just grateful you are here. So here's to 2026: to rest, to healing, to energy, to softness, to building lives that actually fit who we are, to letting go of what doesn't serve us, to being honest about how hard it is, and to hoping it gets better even when we're scared it won't. I'd love to hear from you. Got a question, message me. Want to help more women hear this episode and supporting me by helping my podcast grow? Comment, leave a review, help a girl out. Want to work with me? I'm in my private practice. I work with clients on their healing journey through evidence-based therapy. I also offer life coaching programs for women, including unmasking and somatic healing to complement your existing talk therapy. If you're working with a therapist or a trauma recovery specialist already, my coaching can help you integrate that work into your body through movement, breath work, and nervous system regulation. Because healing isn't just about understanding your story, it's about feeling safe in your body. So if you're interested, click on the link tree in the show notes. Once you're at the link tree, it says work one-on-one with me. Click there and fill out a form, and I will get back to you and we will have a free chit chat. If you just want to listen to some good music, some good healing, go to the Apple Music. There's a link on my Link Tree where you can listen to Divine Woman. That is a playlist of nothing but empowering, good-hearted music. Until next year, my dears, take the gentlest possible care of your awakened heart. You made it through 2025. That's enough. You're enough. I'll see you in 2026 every Wednesday and Friday. May you be happy and free. May our healing ripple outward to bless the world with happiness and freedom. Take care of you, and I'll see you soon.

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Autumn Moran

Host