The Authentic Creative: expanding our capacity to feel good

If you've been feeling overwhelmed, disconnected from yourself, or unsure of what you need in this changing season, this 10 minute guided meditation and grounding breathwork practice will help you slow down, regulate your nervous system, and reconnect with your body’s wisdom.

The transition from summer to fall can bring changing routines, competing responsibilities, and the challenge of finding your rhythm again. This may feel especially familiar if you are a mother, entrepreneur, or creative trying to care for the people you love while making space for your own needs, work, and inner life.

Through pe...

What becomes possible when we stop gripping so tightly and begin receiving what life is offering us?

This month's women's panel became something none of us could have planned. What began as a conversation about endless possibility unfolded into a profound exploration of grief, intuition, trust, receiving, purpose, leadership, and the unseen ways life continues to guide us through both joy and loss.

Following a transformational Breathwork infused with Reiki session, an extraordinary group of women shared stories that were deeply personal and universally relatable. Together we explored how the greatest expansion often comes through...

After our Let It Be Easier women's panel, Amanda Folkestad sent me a voice note.

Listening to it brought me back to something I witness again and again. We spend so much of our lives wondering whether this is the right time, the right place, or the right way to share what's really happening inside of us. Holding it all together can become such a familiar way of being that we forget what it feels like to simply exhale.

Amanda describes what shifted for her that morning in a way I couldn't say better than...

When we arrive in our bodies first, through breakthwork and reiki, we tell a different kind of truth. That's exactly what happened here. What unfolded was a group of women showing up honestly, allowing themselves to be seen, and trusting that whatever wanted to emerge would be enough.

Our theme was Let It Be Easier, we realized that ease isn't the absence of hardship. It's the willingness to soften instead of forcing, to trust instead of gripping, and to let ourselves be fully present with whatever season we're living through. As each woman shared her own story...

What if the thing you're longing for isn't success, certainty, or control?

What if it's safety?

Today I'm in conversation with Mike Elliott, a relationship coach, breathwork facilitator, and guide for men who are longing for deeper connection, emotional presence, and more meaningful relationships.

Mike's work was deeply shaped by being separated from his biological mother at birth and adopted twice before the age of 14 months, experiences that later revealed deep patterns around abandonment, performance, and the fear of rejection. After years of pursuing external success, the collapse of his marriage became a...

Anxiety. Burnout. Overwhelm. So many of us are living in a constant state of doing, giving, striving, and holding it all together.

What if healing isn't about pushing harder?

What if healing begins when we finally allow ourselves to receive?

I'm resharing this powerful Reiki panel conversation because enrollment is now open for my upcoming First and Second Degree Reiki Certification Retreat, September 27 through 30, 2026, in beautiful Depoe Bay, Oregon.

In this episode, 3 former Reiki students share what changed after receiving their Reiki attunements.

Together, we explore Reiki...

After our recent Edge of Expansion panel, Dr. Saidie sent me a voice note that moved me so deeply.

With her wholehearted permission, I'm sharing it with you today because it beautifully captures something I witness again and again in this work.

What becomes possible when we feel safe enough to soften?

What becomes possible when we are truly seen, heard, and held?

What becomes possible when we give ourselves permission to slow down, breathe, and reconnect with ourselves?

In this heartfelt voice note, Dr. Saidie reflects on her...

What does expansion actually look like in real life?

In this powerful panel conversation, I sit down with an extraordinary group of women to explore what it means to live at the edge of expansion.

Together, we share stories about visibility, sobriety, relationships, entrepreneurship, creativity, self trust, reinvention, desire, healing, and the courage to keep growing even when fear is present.

This conversation is a reminder that expansion doesn't always arrive as a dramatic leap. Sometimes it arrives as a difficult conversation. A new boundary. A creative risk. A quieter life. A bigger...

In this Reiki minisode, I guide you through the 5 Reiki Principles, the spiritual foundation of the traditional Usui Reiki practice.

These simple teachings have supported practitioners around the world for generations because they invite us back to presence, gratitude, integrity, trust, and compassion.

Together we'll move through a gentle meditation connecting each Reiki principle with the body's energy centers, offering space to soften stress, release worry, reconnect with your intuition, and remember the healing wisdom already within you.

Whether you are a Reiki practitioner, Reiki curious, or simply looking for a few moments...

In this guided Reiki meditation, I invite you to slow down, soften, and reconnect with the light already living within you.

Together we'll journey through breath, presence, energetic boundaries, self healing, intuition, and ancestral connection, creating space to release what you've been carrying and return to a deeper sense of steadiness, clarity, and inner peace.

Whether you're a Reiki practitioner, Reiki curious, or simply looking for a moment of restoration, this meditation offers a gentle place to land.

This is a beautiful episode to listen to before bed, during a quiet morning, after...

In this Reiki minisode, I open the binders, teachings, notes, quotes, lineage stories, and reflections that have traveled with me through more than 30 years of Reiki practice and teaching.

This episode is a deeper dive into the philosophy, energetics, healing principles, spiritual foundations, and real world applications of Reiki, including the attunement process, the Reiki principles, energy healing, nervous system support, intuition, healing relationships, and the role of the practitioner in holding space for transformation.

I also share excerpts and teachings from my lineage, stories from clients, scientific and medical perspectives on Reiki, and reflections...

In this guided chakra meditation, I lead you on a gentle journey through the 7 energy centers of the body, inviting grounding, emotional healing, nervous system regulation, empowerment, intuition, heart opening, expression, and deeper connection to yourself.

This minisode is an invitation to slow down, soften, breathe, and reconnect to the wisdom already living within you.

Through visualization, breath, affirmations, and energetic awareness, we move from root to crown, awakening each chakra and allowing the body to settle into greater balance, presence, clarity, and peace.

I especially recommend listening lying down, before sleep, after...

In this guided storytelling minisode, I share the history and lineage of Reiki beginning with Dr. Mikao Usui’s awakening on Mount Kurama and tracing the path of Reiki through generations of teachers until it eventually reached my hands.

This episode is a meditation, a remembering, and an invitation into the deeper heart of Reiki as a living lineage of healing, intuition, presence, and unconditional love.

In this episode:
• the origin story of Reiki
• Dr. Usui’s awakening and the sacred symbols
• the Reiki lineage through Hayashi, Takata, John Harvey Gray, Libby Barnett, K...

In this episode, I share the story of how Reiki first entered my life through my mother’s healing journey and how the practice quietly transformed the course of my life and work over the past 30+ years.

This conversation explores:
• what Reiki actually is
• how Reiki supports nervous system regulation, intuition, grounding, and emotional wellbeing
• the bridge between science, healing, and energetic awareness
• why Reiki is far more practical and accessible than many people realize
• how Reiki can support everyday life, caregiving, creativity, relationships, and self trust

Whether you are completely n...

In this expansive and deeply honest conversation on The Authentic Creative: Expanding Our Capacity to Feel Good, I dialogue with an incredible group of women about entrepreneurship, caretaking, creativity, nervous system regulation, motherhood, perimenopause, ambition, sisterhood, and what it means to build a life that actually feels aligned.

We began together in live breathwork, releasing grief, pressure, exhaustion, overwhelm, and expectation before moving into a vulnerable and powerful conversation about the realities of holding so much as women.

This episode is an invitation to soften, to reconnect with yourself, and to remember that you do...

In this episode, I dialogue with Olga Naiman, a designer, author, and visionary whose work lives at the intersection of psychology, embodiment, and the spaces we inhabit.

From her early life as a child refugee to becoming the voice behind spatial alchemy, Olga brings a deeply personal lens to transformation. We explore how our environments hold our patterns, reflect our inner world, and can become active participants in our healing and expansion.

This conversation moves beyond aesthetics into something much deeper: how your home can become a living extension of your nervous system, your desires...

This morning’s minisode is completely unscripted and unedited. I followed what was alive for me in the moment, and what came through was a conversation I didn’t plan but clearly needed to have with you.

It began with something simple. A note on my to do list. A message from my son. Love yourself. And it opened into something much deeper.

I explore what self love actually means beyond the phrase we hear so often. I share honestly about where it still feels challenging, even after decades of working with Reiki and spiritual prac...

In this conversation, I dialogue with Sarah McCrum, author of Love Money Money Loves You, and what unfolds is a deep and unexpected exploration of money as energy, as relationship, and as something that is actually responding to us.

Sarah shares how, in the aftermath of a devastating business collapse, she began receiving what can only be described as a transmission. What started as journaling turned into a body of work that has now impacted thousands of people’s relationship with money, generosity, and value.

We explore what it means to be in relationship with mo...

“I just let myself feel the ecstatic grief of all of that in the moment.” - Amber Lilyestrom

In this deeply moving and expansive conversation, I dialogue with Amber Lileystrom about what it means to build a life and business that actually reflects who you are now, not who you’ve been conditioned to be.

Amber shares how her work has evolved into something more intimate, more precise, and more truth led. We explore the shift away from constant scaling into what she calls “right sized business,” where your life, your values, and your actual capacity g...

For 30 years I have been working with energy, breath, and the body, and this conversation meets that same level of truth through the lens of making, creating, and earning mastery.

In this episode, I dialogue with Amy Foster, songwriter, novelist, and maker, in a conversation that is bold, honest, and deeply grounding.

Amy names it clearly
“If you can’t handle the fact that you’re going to suck, then get out.”
“The universe has its own clock. Sit down. Be humble.”

This is a conversation about what it actually takes to make some...

This conversation unfolds right on the threshold of the spring equinox, in those first hours where something begins to shift.

We begin just after a live breathwork session, with the panelists sharing what they experienced and what moved through them before we open into the wider conversation.

I was standing in dialogue with an extraordinary group of women, each of us speaking from lived experience, from our bodies, from what we are actively navigating right now.

We explored what it means to come out of winter without abandoning ourselves. To trust timing. To...

In this episode, I dialogue with Jessie Larson, co creator of Five Minute Meditations for Kids, about how simple, intentional moments can shift the entire energy of a home. 

I share the story of playing her meditation in the ER while Bodhi’s arm was being reset, and how everything changed. What could have been chaos became calm, connected, and deeply held.

We explore co regulation, how our nervous systems shape our children’s, and why even 2 to 5 minutes can interrupt anxiety and create real emotional shifts.

This is a conversation about motherhood, overw...

Some mornings feel calm and connected.

Other mornings… everyone is triggered.

In this minisode, I share 10 practical tools for regulating the nervous system in the moments when parenting, partnership, and life all collide at once.

These are simple practices I use and teach when emotions are high, time is short, and everyone’s nervous system needs support.

Because the goal isn’t perfection.

The goal is connection, regulation, and repair.

In this short episode I talk about tools that help when:

• a child...

In this episode of The Authentic Creative: Expanding Our Capacity to Feel Good, I dialogue with my neighbor and new friend Stephanie Fodor MacDonald for a deeply honest conversation about motherhood, entrepreneurship, creativity, and resilience.

Stephanie grew up in Hawaii and began acting as a child, eventually building a career across theater, film, television, and digital media. Her life and work have taken her around the world before eventually landing in the Pacific Northwest.

Today she is also the co founder of Authenticity50, an American made bedding company she...

In this spontaneous minisode, I’m sharing a tender, frightening, and deeply spiritual experience that unfolded for my family in Maui when Bodhi broke his arm.

I take you into the moment it happened on the beach, what moved through my body as a mother, what it was like to watch his arm be reset in the ER while playing 5 Minute Meditations for Kids podcast, and how breath, Reiki, prayer, and presence changed the energy in that room.

I share what it has been like to nurse him through recovery, navigate travel home, regulate my ow...

This panel began with an intention to explore friendship patterns.

What unfolded became something deeper.

We gathered in circle and asked the question many women quietly carry:

How do we stop betraying ourselves and still remain in relationship?

Through breathwork and honest dialogue, we explored the sisterhood wound and the mother as our first relationship with women. We looked at the ways many of us learned to choose attachment over authenticity. The ways we fawned, overfunctioned, shrank, competed, or contorted ourselves to stay connected.

We spoke about...

In Episode 12, the final installment of this 12 part minisode devotional, embodied companion to The Artist’s Way, I explore what it means to recover a sense of faith and reconnect with trust as a creative, emotional, and spiritual practice.

In this episode, I reflect on how faith evolves throughout our lives and how being human inevitably includes disappointment, loss, uncertainty, and transformation. I share how faith is not about certainty or perfection, but about the courage to begin again, to try again, and to remain open to life even after we have been hurt.

I sh...

In Episode 11 of this 12 part minisode devotional, embodied companion to The Artist’s Way, I explore what it means to recover a sense of autonomy and reconnect with inner authority as a creative and emotional practice.

I reflect on the paradox many of us experience between independence and support. I share personal reflections about having a naturally sovereign spirit while also deeply valuing connection, family support, and collaboration, and how autonomy expands when support is chosen consciously while staying rooted in self trust.

I share how this season of my life has invited me to be...

In Episode 10 of this 12 part minisode devotional, embodied companion to The Artist’s Way, I explore what it means to recover a sense of self protection and reconnect with boundaries as a loving and creative practice.

In this episode, I reflect on how many of us learned to care for others long before learning how to protect our own energy, time, and creative life. I share how motherhood, entrepreneurship, healing work, and leading retreats have taught me that protecting our energy allows creativity, presence, and authenticity to remain sustainable.

I explore how creativity is naturally vu...

In Episode 9 of this 12 part minisode devotional, embodied companion to The Artist’s Way, I explore what it means to recover a sense of compassion and reconnect with kindness as a powerful creative and emotional practice.

In this episode, I reflect on how many of us learned to offer patience, forgiveness, and understanding to others long before learning how to extend that same gentleness toward ourselves. I share how motherhood, healing work, breathwork, and creative life have shown me that transformation often unfolds through safety, permission, and emotional honesty rather than force or perfection.

I ex...

In Episode 8 of this 12 part minisode devotional, embodied companion to The Artist’s Way, I explore what it means to recover a sense of strength and reconnect with strength as something sustainable, supported, and deeply embodied.

In this episode, I reflect on how my understanding of strength has evolved from endurance and over functioning into a more grounded, relational, and nervous system centered experience of strength.

I share how motherhood and caregiving shaped my early ideas of strength, and how creative practice, breathwork, and healing work helped me redefine strength as consistency, presence, and self tr...

In Episode 7 of this 12 part minisode devotional, I explore what it means to recover a sense of connection and reconnect with creativity as something relational, guided, and alive inside community, nature, and shared witnessing.

I share how connection has shaped my creative and spiritual life over more than 2 decades of healing work, motherhood, entrepreneurship, and practice. For me, connection is not only social. It is nervous system co regulation. It is feeling seen without performing. It is remembering I am not meant to create or carry my inner world alone. It is the way inspiration returns when...

In Episode 6 of this 12 part minisode devotional, I explore what it means to recover a sense of abundance and reconnect with creativity as something supported, relational, and renewable.

I share my personal relationship with abundance and how it has evolved over more than 2 decades of creative work, motherhood, entrepreneurship, and spiritual practice. For me, abundance is not only financial. It is nervous system safety, freedom with my schedule and choices, meaningful creative work, and relationships that nourish and inspire me.

I reflect on how creative deprivation can form through cultural messages around productivity, worth, and...

In Episode 5 of this 12 part minisode devotional series, I explore what it means to recover a sense of possibility and gently reopen imagination, curiosity, and creative expansion.

I share personal reflections from a quiet moment of stillness after a season of family illness, caregiving, and responsibility, and how possibility often returns through relief, support, and subtle forward movement rather than dramatic change.

Inspired by Chapter 5 of The Artist’s Way, this episode explores how possibility can live alongside real life, motherhood, partnership, creative work, and responsibility.

I also share how experiences that soften id...

In Episode 4 of this 12 part minisode devotional series, I explore what it means to recover a sense of integrity and reconnect with wholeness inside creativity, family life, responsibility, and devotion.

I share personal reflections about recording this series while caring for my 2 boys, my husband, our dogs, our home, and navigating a head cold, and how integrity has been teaching me that creativity and caregiving can belong inside the same life.

I also reflect on my relationship with perfectionism and how perfection can sometimes disguise itself as integrity, while true integrity invites alignment with values...

In Episode 3 of this 12 part minisode devotional series, I explore what it means to recover a sense of creative power and reconnect with the part of you that has choice, agency, and voice, even when doubt, fear, or past experiences have made that feel distant.

I reflect on how power is often misunderstood and how many sensitive and creative people learn to distance themselves from power because it has been modeled as control, dominance, or perfection. This episode explores how creative power lives in presence, small choices, and the willingness to begin before certainty arrives.

...

In Episode 2 of this 12 part minisode devotional series, I explore what it means to recover a sense of identity and reconnect with the creative self underneath roles, labels, and expectations.

I reflect on growing up as the eldest daughter and being labeled as difficult or too much, and how reclaiming early identities can become part of creative and emotional liberation.

I also share realizations from guided ceremonial mushroom journeys that revealed how fluid identity can be and how freedom can be remembered through breath, creativity, and presence.

This episode includes a gentle breathwork...

Welcome to Episode 1 of a 12 part devotional, embodied companion to The Artist’s Way.

This series is an invitation to walk chapter by chapter through one of the most enduring creative and spiritual texts of our time as a lived, embodied experience.

In this opening episode, we begin where the book begins: with safety.

I share a bit about how The Artist’s Way entered my life at 19 through an acting teacher, and how it became a gateway into creativity, spirituality, and returning to myself again and again across the years.

We e...

I dialogue with Zoe Kelsey, founder of We Shine Well, a community marketing strategist and natural dot connector devoted to helping women in wellness grow through authentic connection and collaboration.

In this episode, Zoe shares her simple framework of presence, priorities, pleasure and how it supports finding your people, building real community, and becoming more visible in a way that still feels grounded and true. Together, Zoe and I explore belonging, Human Design, breathwork as somatic release, and why Zoe believes true community is reciprocal, like a potluck.

In...

In this episode, I am in dialogue with international consciousness guide and soul astrologer Danielle Paige about destiny, free will, and soul contracts, and what it really means to rise above the stars. Danielle shares her age 30 awakening, why real astrology is not about predictions, and how discernment and nervous system safety support embodied intuition. She also offers a mini reading from my chart, highlighting New Moon initiation energy and the Pisces to Virgo path of intuition evolving into clarity.

In this episode

• Destiny, vocation, and soul contracts, plus where choice lives inside the transits