This episode is a real-time, behind-the-scenes look at what it actually means to live the what I teach.

Recently I had a moment where, in the past, that’s exactly where I would have disappeared. But this time I didn’t.

Listen to l what's changed

• How desire can meet internal “scaffolding” and create friction
• Why that friction is often the moment we abandon ourselves
• The nervous system experience of anxiety, shutdown, and self-doubt
• How external permission quietly shapes our sense of what we’re “allowed” to want
• The role of curiosity in interrupting survival patterns
• And the real, messy process of staying in relationship with what matters

I also explore:

• Why desire is not random (and why it deserves your attention)
• How fear shows up when you expand into something meaningful
• The difference between slowing down and disappearing
• The importance of self-devotion over self-abandonment
• And what it looks like to build trust with yourself in real time

This isn’t a polished teaching. It’s a lived experience.

An honest look at what it takes to keep showing up when your body is telling you to retreat.

Because, you don’t need to eliminate fear to move forward.

What you need is to build a relationship with yourself that is strong enough that you don’t abandon what you desire when your nervous system spins you out.

This episode started as a check-in.

A reflection on where I've been spending my energy. Why the podcast slowed down a little. What’s been shifting behind the scenes.

But very quickly it became something else.

Underneath everything I’m building right now, the podcast, my new publication on Substack, and the work I’m doing with my clients. There is one question that continues to sit at the center of it all.

Do you love yourself?

I'm not asking about the surface-level, “treat yourself” kind of way. My inquiry concerns the deeper, more confronting, more transformational.

What does it actually mean to be in relationship with yourself?

This episode is about.

• The evolution of my visibility and why it no longer feels the same
• Why I’m expanding my work onto Substack and what’s calling me there
• What “intimacy-based living” really means (and why it’s becoming the umbrella for everything I do)
• The moment that changed everything for me. When I realized I had never truly asked if I loved myself
• Why self-love is not a feeling, but a practice, a devotion, a way of relating
• How self-love shapes our relationships with others, our communities, and even how we show up in the world politically
• The difference between surface-level self-care and deep, intimate self-relationship
• The real, ongoing work of examining the stories we tell ourselves
• And, the question I am actively sitting with right now: where am I still giving my permission away?

This is not a polished teaching.

It’s a real-time exploration.

A living, breathing look at what it means to build a relationship with yourself… while you’re still in the process of becoming.

If you take anything from this episode, let it be this:

What does it mean to actually be in relationship with myself?

Because everything changes from there.

Find me on Substack: Intimacy-Based Living

Woo hoo! Episode 50.

Be the Fly-on-the-Wall while my friend and fellow coach, Janellea Macbeth, talk about coaching, growth, and support

Fifty marks something quietly significant for me. Less waiting for perfection. Less negotiating with myself over the place of my voice in the world.

More willingness to let what IS alive, be heard

So for this milestone, I chose something different. A real conversation.

Together we explore:

• what coaching actually is
• why coaching and therapy are not the same thing
• support, growth, nervous systems, and personal responsibility
• the beauty and complexity of an industry that is still evolving
• why growth often asks more of us than comfort wants to give

This is not a interview. It is thought unfolding in real time.

Gift from Janellea:

Go grab your copy of Get Out of Your Head and Into the Creative Life