Season 2 Finale: Flowing Between Physiology, Spirit, and Self

Something big changed between recording season two and sitting down to close it out. When I hit record for this behind-the-scenes season finale of Squats and Séances, I’m not trying to tie life up in a bow. I’m telling the truth about transition: the kind that rearranges your identity, your work, your relationships, and what you believe about spirit, energy, and the messy middle between “what was” and “what’s next”.

I share why season two unexpectedly leaned so hard into spirituality and consciousness, even though I thought this podcast would stay more rooted in physiology. Then I walk you through one of the hardest choices I’ve made: leaving a gym community I served for 10 years. If you’ve ever asked yourself “Who am I without the role I built my life around?” or “Do I still matter if I step away?”, you’ll recognize the questions that surfaced for me and the relief that came with finally listening.

On the practical side, I talk about AI automation in my IT work and what it feels like when tasks that used to take a week get compressed into hours. That shift opened space at home, where I supported my young son on the autism spectrum through months of regression and hard, scary challenges, and I reflect on what “stability for now” really means. From there, we move into boundaries with social media and the return of skinny culture in health and wellness, plus why I’m choosing body respect, strength, rest, and self-love over restriction and perfection.

If you want a season finale that blends fitness coaching reality, mental health, body positivity, mindful living, and the intersection of science and spirit, press play. Subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave a review so more people can find the show.

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Transcript

Season Two Farewell And Thanks

Venessa 0:20

Hi everyone. If you are listening to this or watching my video, I want to offer my deepest gratitude. The Squats and Seances podcast is what it is today because of listeners like you. Thank you for coming on this journey with me. And today we are officially at the close of season two, which has been exclusively composed of interviews. I hope that you got to listen to each of them. There were so many different topics that we covered, a lot of really fascinating people with a lot of really interesting viewpoints. If you missed it, definitely go back. At the close, I was encouraged by friends and listeners and a few mentors of mine to record an episode with a sort of behind the scenes update. There were a lot of different directions that I could go with this, and I'm going to share today what feels relevant and real. All right, here goes.

Why Spirit Took Center Stage

Venessa 1:40

So you've probably noticed that there's been a strong theme with season two, and that theme has been the intangible spaces of spirit, energy, consciousness. This was honestly not an expected direction for me. I thought initially the emphasis for this podcast was going to be more on the physiology. Um, but life has really pushed me in this direction, like a strong, steady current. I had a few choices. I could swim against it or I could choose to flow. And for season two, I chose to flow and see where I landed. So everything that you've enjoyed watching and listening to since season two launched at the beginning of February was recorded and produced in late 2025. It's now June of 2026, when I'm recording this today. I literally feel like I am a different person entirely. I have been through a period of great transition and spent a lot of time in the liminal grounds between what was and what is next. I've explored these places and really sat with things that came up and how it relates to who I am and what I am doing with my time here. And I realize that sounds very vague and very mysterious. It's neither of those things, and I will break it

Leaving A Gym Community Of 10 Years

Venessa 3:25

down. Um, the best way that I can start is by telling a little story. And I will do that by sharing that I left my gym community of 10 years after a long, increasingly challenging relationship with the entity itself and serving under many different management groups. This was a really difficult and very necessary decision that I made for my mental health and my personal and professional growth. I will always love the individual people who made up the greater good of that community. And the overall product there was something that I was proud to be a part of for many years in coaching and leadership service, right up until the moment I realized it wasn't for me anymore. It was clear, not initially, but eventually, that what the space once was had been sort of watered down over years and several different ownership changes to something that wasn't recognizable to me anymore. And because I'm stubborn and tenacious and all of these things, it was really hard for me to see that. I did a lot of trying to fix things that probably weren't broken, but it was my effort to be the change that I wanted to see. And when my final sort of Hail Mary to address those changes that I was hoping to facilitate failed, I finally listened to the universe's strong message that my time there was respectively done. One of the most difficult things, probably I've ever done was fully and completely closing that chapter of my life. There was a lot of pain in this growth process, and I learned a lot about who I am, and probably even more importantly, who I am not. Emotional freedom sometimes doesn't look like we might expect it to.

Identity Loss And What Comes Next

Venessa 6:25

Big existential crisis type questions. Like, who am I if I'm not coaching? Where are my people, my community, if not there? How am I serving my highest purpose if I'm not doing this through teaching? And was teaching, fitness, coaching never intended to be my highest expression of self? Who sees me now? Do I still matter? And what about the decade of work I put in to get where I was in that moment? What was all of that for? And of course, what is next? And I think the latter is where my energy and intention will flow. And so alongside this major shift in my personal life, my actual professional work is also sort of creeping to a crawl. Most of what I do in my role in my company has been AI automated and optimized for productivity without human error margins. And I'm not necessarily upset or surprised by this as

AI Automation Shifts Work And Time

Venessa 7:50

I work in IT. I mean, the ethics of AI aside, it is here for better or worse, in much the same way the internet was never going away once it was publicly accessible. What used to take me a week now takes a few hours. I am part terrified, part amused, part grateful, part anxious, and definitely part excited to see what's next. The work automation and the cessation of my recreational service in the gym with coaching opened up these wide spaces for extra

Supporting A Son On The Spectrum

Venessa 8:35

support for my young son on the spectrum. He went through a hard time of regression with some big, scary challenges that lasted several months. We rode the ref sees together with his clinical team, and all the ancillary support that we could find was called in. Eventually the waters settled, and he is back to a current place of stability for now. I am realizing that we're learning rather that this really is life on the spectrum. And it is such a gift to be here supporting him through it, even when, and especially when it feels like anything but that.

Letting Go Of Control And Time

Venessa 10:19

Like our self-imposed timelines are our attempts to give structure to the vastness of existence. Time is everything and nothing at all. And seasons pass, and the only thing that remains the same is change. But we strive and cycle and toil and anguish over an incessant need to grip control of the uncontainable. And we do this through perfectionist fantasies, restrictions, tomorrow thinking, being anywhere but here in the present. Because the present is too raw, too flawed, too real. And yet, right now it is the only reality we actually have. And I'm learning that if there's anything that I can be certain of, it's that I would rather be here now. Lastly, in a time of incessant material feedback, welcomed or not, it often feels like our collective consumption seems to have consumed us.

Boundaries With News And Social Media

Venessa 12:00

From the time I wake up to the minutes before I fall asleep, the world and all of its opinions, the good, bad, and often horrific, are pressed upon me. All I have to do is open my phone and swipe. I work daily to set boundaries for myself around what, when, and how much I consume. Because not all of the it out there is true. Not all of it is real. And certainly not all of it is for

Skinny Culture Returns In Wellness

Venessa 12:40

me. One of the most disturbing things that I have witnessed in the health and fitness and health and wellness industries lately is the return of what's been coined skinny culture. Now, there are many theories about why there's been such a resurgence or push in this direction, and there's probably a little bit of truth in all of them, and just as much falsehood, too. Everything is shades of gray. Whyver it reared its ugly head, though, it's back, and I, for one, would have been happy to have buried it in 1990, along with skinny jeans. So I'm really not thrilled about it. But I feel like we should address it. As this is my particular industry, here's what I feel called to share about where I stand.

Choosing Body Respect Over Perfection

Venessa 13:47

We are more than our bodies. I think of our bodies as containment vessels for material representation in this lifetime. But there is so much more to who we are than that. We should respect our body and love it and be filled with gratitude for the thousands of miraculous little cellular happenings each day that keep you and I going every day, day after day, with everything that we do and everything we push our bodies through. Our bodies carry us without needing anything from us other than just permission to take up space and fuel to keep going. If we listen to all of the bullshit out there, it would be easy to spend a lifetime trying to control our bodies, to manipulate them, to whittle them down, to recompose nature's intended shape and form for us. We can diet and restrict and overtrain and optimize our way into our own personal health. I've been there. Perfection or happiness. I feel like I finally understand my choice. And you have one too. We can make a conscious choice to love the vessel we've been gifted, to take up space, to create memories by lived experiences that sometimes leave us with slightly tighter jeans and bellies that jiggle, to build strength in and out of the gym by training our muscles, learning to quiet our minds, resting our bodies, and freeing our hearts. I've been really exploring this concept and making sure that my day-to-day intake and consumption, especially on social media, is full of body positive, self-love warriors and a whole lot less of want to be health and wellness influencers spouting skinny culture, toxic bullshit. None of us, not one, escapes father time. But we buy into this cultural identity that tells us to keep trying because in 10 fewer pounds, or one more frozen wrinkle, or this extra supplement stack, we'll find peace. And the truth is that the real biohack to a healthy, meaningful life isn't found in the bottom of a vial or even in the gym. Our bodies are full of memories, emotions, and experiences. What if we loved this? What if we embraced this and honored this instead of trying to erase it? That's the real work. And it's hard. And I share this not because I have shit figured out, but because I am trying,

Science And Spirit As Twin Pillars

Venessa 17:50

just like you. In closing, I do feel like things are shifting for me, but also for you, and for all of us. Like spirit, hear me out, in all of its different forms, is coming back online because we really desperately need it in the same way that we need science. One of my all-time favorite bumper stickers reads, science, you don't have to believe it for it to be true. I think this is also the case of spirit, source, energy, life force, God, flow, qi, the unnamed divine in all of us. Take it, leave it, believe it, don't. It's still there. And it seems like more people are waking up to this, realizing that the answers are not always found in a Google search, but in mindfulness and meditation, practicing stillness, listening to our intuition, our bodies, our ancestors' wisdom, rediscovering the old ways, the rituals, the things we were persecuted for knowing and taught to forget. Least we become too powerful and realize that we're all connected to the same source. This information that exists underneath the layers of what we call the tamed soul. And the more people I interview, the more people I talk to, the more the same through lines surface again and again, like a spider web. And we are all on the same path on this web, and yet differentiated by our intersections. And what moves one part moves the whole web. So physiology, psychology, and spirituality are the foundational pillars that birth the squats and seances podcast. I'll keep digging, exploring, and cultivating a path where these intersections meet and exist in harmony. And if you stay tuned in, I'll share it all here with you.

Season Three Promise And Goodbye

Venessa 20:28

Thank you for another great season, and I'll see you again soon for season three. Bye, friends.