Chelsea had a full-body panic attack on a Chicago bus commute home. Not because something was wrong — because everything was fine. Stable job, great coworkers, paycheck, health insurance. And that's what terrified her. This was going to be the rest of her life. Ten days of PTO a year. Forever.

Until she couldn't anymore.

She quit the job, moved to Australia, started living like the movie credits were about to roll. She started asking: “if I'm going to die someday and watch my life flash before my eyes, is this movie good enough?” And more importantly: “What will people say about me when I'm an angel flying around?”

Now, Chelsea Riffe is a cultural philosopher, pitch coach, and host of In My Non-Expert Opinion, a Top 1% podcast obsessed with the bigger questions: what's this all FOR? She lives like the movie credits are about to roll. She asks "what will they say about me when I'm an angel flying around?" And she recently decided she might become an actress because why the fuck not.

This conversation is about reclaiming the parts of yourself you've been told are "too much." It's about the deathbed practice — living like you're watching your life flash before your eyes and asking if the movie is good enough. It's about manufacturing luck, shooting your shot, and finally admitting: you want to be the main character. And you're allowed.

We dive into:

• The bus breakdown that changed everything — realizing "this is my life forever" and deciding it absolutely could not be
• How Chelsea was supposed to be a twin (and what the psychic told her mom about why he chose to go back)
• The deathbed practice: living like you're watching your life flash before your eyes and asking "is this movie good enough?"
• Love, safety, and belonging as the three core human needs — and why we conform to get them (even when it kills us)
• The lighthouse metaphor and why Ashley was told to never jump in the water
• "Curiosity might be what kills the cat, but curiosity is also the reason it has nine lives"
• How Heated Rivalry (yes, the book) gave Chelsea permission to be enthusiastically, intensely herself again
• Friends as books on a bookshelf — some you're reading right now, some live in the top corner you haven't touched in years

Connect with Chelsea Riffe:

Instagram: @chelseariffeWebsite: chelseariffe.com

Listen to Chelsea:

• Notes From the New World Podcast
• The Art of the Ask Podcast

Work with Chelsea:

• SUPERNOVA: The room to develop your school of thought through philosophical conversation, synthesis, and making meaning of everything that interests you
• Pitch Perfect (Spring 2026 | Doors open through May 8th): The Visibility Glow-Up for Deep Thinkers, Creators, and Multi-Hyphenates readyto enter new rooms, stand on bigger stages and shape culture through their message.

About Chelsea:

Chelsea Riffe is the host of the hit podcast In My Non-Expert Opinion, a Top 1% show known for asking the bigger questions around the cultural zeitgeist, our inner worlds, and what's this all FOR? She's a Cultural Philosopher, obsessed with understanding how we think, and how seemingly unrelated things relate HARD (her favorite threads to pull are how reality TV is the ultimate mirror for our psyches—don't get her started).

She closed her books for the first time in nine years. Not because she had to, but because her Higher Self was screaming that it was time. Full availability suddenly gone, just space to write and dissolve and rebuild. This is what it looks like when you Feng Shui your entire life so the next version of you has room to breathe.

Kate Van Horn is a tarot reader, spiritual mentor, Feng Shui consultant, and author of The Inner Tarot. She's in her cocoon phase right now — that primordial goo moment where you dissolve everything you've been so something truer can emerge. And in this conversation with Ashley, she's sharing what it actually means to create a home that matches the frequency of who you're becoming.

This isn't about minimalism or perfection. It's about curating a space where your Higher Self feels so at home that she can guide you to paths you don't even see yet. It's about turning your apartment into a sanctuary, your routine into ritual, and your stuff into a conversation with the life you're calling in.

We dive into:

• Why Kate intentionally closed her books for readings for the first time in 9 years (and what emerged in that space)
• Feng Shui as energy architecture: making sure your manifestations can move through your space as easily as your body can
• "Would your higher self still own this?" as the decluttering filter that changes everything
• The waffle maker story and why Sunday rituals become sacred without you even trying
• Belonging as being in a state of longing — you know something belongs to you when you yearn for it
• Finding your signatures: the same cleanser for 7 years, the red dress you bought before you were ready, expired pantry goods feeding you less life force
• Creating a home that holds both your hunger for more and your need for sanctuary — how to nest when you're someone who always wants the next thing

This episode is for:

• The ones ready to Feng Shui their entire life so their higher self has room to move
• The ones who've been in the same chapter for years and can feel the expiration date approaching (and are ready to honor it)
• The ones living in temporary spaces but ready to make them feel like home anyway
• The ones whose higher self keeps whispering "slow down" and are finally ready to listen
• The ones who find meaning in everything and want to learn how to love fewer things more intentionally
• The ones ready to turn their space into a reflection of who they're becoming, not who they've been
• The ones who know they're ready to nest, to claim sanctuary, to build a home their future self will walk into and say "thank god I'm here"

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Connect with Kate Van Horn:

Instagram: @kate.van.hornTikTok: @kate.vanhornSubstack: Intuitive Living

Work with Kate:

• Book a Reading
• Home Energy Blueprint

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About Kate:

Kate Van Horn is an intuitive reader, author, and sacred space consultant focused on the relationship between people and the spaces they inhabit. Her work sits at the intersection of intuition, creativity, and the home as a living, responsive system. She's moved more than twenty times as an adult, and those transitions deeply shaped her understanding of space as something that mirrors, supports, and sometimes challenges us. Alongside that, she's been practicing intuitive work for over a decade, blending psychic perception with grounded tools like Feng Shui, ritual, and somatic awareness. Writing has always been part of her path — she's the author of The Inner Tarot and currently working on her second book, which explores the home as a healing and co-creative force.

I used to think I was broken.

Not in a dramatic way — more in a quiet, maddening way. Like, why do I keep ending up here? Different year, different person, different city — same feeling. Same pattern. Same crash out.

And then I heard a quote by Carl Jung that changed everything: "Until you make your unconscious conscious, it will rule your life and you will call it fate."

That was the moment I stopped calling it fate and started calling it what it actually was — a cycle I didn't know I was in.

The Cycle of Transformation is a framework I discovered three years ago when my neurodivergent pattern-matching brain started seeing the same four stages echoed literally everywhere — in the phases of the moon, the seasons, the butterfly's metamorphosis, the menstrual cycle, ancient archetypes, numerology. When something shows up that many times across that many different systems, that's not coincidence. That's truth.

And when you know which stage you're in? You stop white-knuckling through your life and start actually living it.

Go with the flow? Duh, bestie. You've got your intuition, the tool you need to navigate it.

We're diving into:

• The four stages of the Cycle of Transformation — the Void, the Growth, the Peak, and the Learning — and what each one actually feels like from the inside
• Why the ancient Greek word for butterfly is psyche — which also means soul — and what that tells us about why we're here
• The difference between looping and spiraling, and how intention and intuition are what turn one into the other
• Where I am right now in my own cycle across love, money, business, and my move to New York — and how I'm using this framework to break patterns I've been stuck in for years
• How to figure out what stage you're in and what to do once you know
• Why surrender actually speeds everything up

This episode is for you if:

You're tired of feeling like life is happening to you. You keep ending up in the same situation with different people and different circumstances and you cannot figure out why. You want a framework that gives you clarity without taking away the mystery. You're ready to stop calling it fate and start calling it what it is — a cycle you can finally work with.

The next cohort of Metamorphosis — the six-step process to go from being your own #1 hater to your very best friend in just 12-weeks— begins March 17th. DM me or email me at ashley@ashleybjones.com if you want in.