Yesterday I started writing this blog, I was headed to the zoo with my daughter, granddaughter and my father. What I was expecting to write about was “how hard it is to manage each of these roles” in one situation. 

As someone who, due to life circumstance, does not often find myself playing all of these roles in the same moment, and who in the past has not navigated or managed my emotions and experiences well with what I used to call these “pressures,” for yesterday I would give myself a gold star. 

Although I did not know it at the time, 2012 was the beginning of my spiritual awakening. Toria and I moved from Cincinnati to live with Glenn and his children in Columbus, Ohio. At the same time, my anxiety spiked. 

Did I always have anxiety? I’m not sure, but all of a sudden when I was walking the dogs I would have to stop just to breathe. I couldn’t get air into the tightness that felt deep in my lungs. There was also this strange squeezing in my shoulder, arm, or neck, like someone was clenching my muscles from the inside. It scared me. 

We only have eleven customers left in our car business. Crazy as it may sound, the last one won’t be paid off until the end of 2026. Eleven accounts may not sound like much, but the daily and monthly banking entries haven’t shrunk one bit. Phone bills, banking fees, checks, it all still has to be entered into our accounting software for tax and business reporting. 

Several years ago, I let an employee go. Someone I worked with for about four years. Our families were close and involved, often I treated her like another daughter. Getting as many would say “too close,” and as her friends told her, “she could do anything she wanted” at her job. 

Until the day when, after numerous disciplinary conversations, I made the decision to let her go. 

I’m starting to feel like everything I write needs a disclaimer.
This is about me, not about you.
I can’t control your reaction to it, and I mean no offense.
I’m just learning about myself—and sometimes, the people around me become teachers whether they know it or not. 

I’d been doing the work for years, spiritual growth, meditation, mindset coaching, Human Design, journaling, the whole thing. I’d grown so much, but I still couldn’t move forward. I couldn’t get myself to believe I could write my book. I couldn’t stay consistent in launching the workshops I wanted to teach. The same stuckness kept showing up, a feeling in my chest that I could not move past. 

So tired of trying to move past this, I asked ChatGPT “what’s a shortcut to break through being stuck?” It gave me a few ways to achieve a breakthrough, and one of them was ketamine. Ketamine, I had heard of it on Andrew Huberman’s podcast but did not know how it would help ME? Nonetheless, it was a full body yes. I just knew it was the way, and I never doubted the decision for a moment.  

One of our employees came back from lunch, waved his hand through the air, and asked, “Are you doing some of your juju stuff?” I gave him a confused look. “You know,” he said, “clearing the energy or something.”
“Oh—smudging?” I asked.
“Yeah, yeah, that!” 

But I hadn’t been smudging. So I started wondering—what smell? 

The Shift Begins I’m not done with worrying. But I’m starting to see how it’s not the same as loving. And how it’s not actually helping. And how maybe—just maybe—I can still care just as much without all the tension and anxiety in my chest. 

Sometimes it makes more sense to start at the end. 

When I made the decision to stop drinking about four years ago, I commemorated it by getting the word “free” tattooed on my left arm. It was small, just for me, and it felt like a declaration. I was a little nervous Glenn would say, “Oops, another tattoo,” but this one wasn’t about anyone else. It was about me. 

It happened during the annual NIADA convention in Austin, TX. Getting a tattoo in a strange place just felt right—no one knew me, and I didn’t know anyone at the shop. I didn’t tell anyone I was getting it. My husband had sort of drawn a line after my third tattoo: “You shouldn’t get any more.”

This is a familiar pain—friends past and present, even family members—people I long to feel deeply connected to. A history of unanswered Voxer messages and text messages. My desire or need for connection just left… sitting there. 

I find myself wondering, what is wrong with me? 

We talk a lot these days about nervous system regulation, childhood development, and how to cope with stress. But what if some of the answers are simpler than we think? This week, something as small as a teddy bear—and watching my granddaughter go through a transition—brought up some big questions about comfort, regulation, and the things we hold onto when life feels too big. 

I am 56 years old and still sleep with a teddy bear. 

In 1995, I was living in Cincinnati, Ohio. I was married, pregnant, and working full time. We needed two incomes to survive. As women, we were expected to do it all—and told we could have it all. We worked 9 to 5, cared for our kids and husbands, and although we were being told to start conversations about sharing household chores, those conversations weren’t going very well.

A few weeks ago, I noticed I was yawning during the day—which is not like me. I give my body plenty of sleep and rest. But by 2 p.m., I was tired—deep in my bones, in a hard-to-describe way. I wanted to fall asleep, and by 4:30 p.m., I found myself dozing, watching TV. Something was off. I went to bed crazy early, giving my body what it was asking for. 

Then my heart rate started climbing. I could feel my blood pulsing in my veins. The overnight stats on my Oura Ringtold me my resting heart rate was about 10 points higher than average. My HRV (heart rate variability—see definition below) was dipping well below my baseline. One morning it even asked, “How are you feeling today?” and suggested I take it easy. 

There are things we think about doing and then talk ourselves out of. But ever since I said yes to ketamine, it’s been a full-on hell yes. No doubts. No second-guessing. No “shouldn’t spend the money” narrative. No fear.

Just clarity. Which, to me, is the clearest sign: this is what I need. This is what’s going to change everything.

Yes, ketamine is a psychedelic. And yes, it’s legal through a doctor here in Ohio.

A year ago, I started drinking cacao every day—not just as a wellness trend, but as a spiritual path. Plant medicines have power. I believe that. Many would agree. Cacao helped me begin to reconnect with the version of myself I had lost somewhere along the way—the real me, the expressive me, the one who had been conditioned out of existence by family expectations, peer pressure, and the need to belong. And amazingly, got me off my anxiety meds FOREVER. 

“I am the master of my time.” 

That sentence arrived like a whisper from Source the other day. Out of nowhere—but also not. I was feeling off, I had asked for help, guidance, a little light. And that mantra came through. So, I wrote it down fast in my planner, knowing how quickly my flashes of clarity can vanish if I don’t capture them. 

The thing is, my mind had been full. And not in a “productive, creative energy” way—more like a crowded hallway of nagging voices, looping thoughts, and background noise that wouldn’t quit. 

In 39 days, I’m supposed to go to Minnesota with my daughter, Toria, and my granddaughter, Zoe. Zoe is going to be the flower girl in a friend’s wedding, and I agreed to come along to help with her so Toria could enjoy the wedding.

Again and again, you’ll hear me talk about this truth: thoughts become things. I even have a Celtic knot on my left wrist to remind me. Am I perfect? Hardly. I let my thoughts run wild sometimes, heading straight for the negative. 

When I was younger, I practiced what I now call reverse manifestation. That’s my own term, but you’ll see what I mean. 

You’ve probably heard the saying, “Where attention goes, energy flows.” That includes positive and negative energy. Here's how I’ve manifested things in both directions. 

Well, this morning, I broke one of my own rules—and it did not go well. 

As I sat down to drink my cacao and meditate, my phone screen flashed. A Facebook message. “Don’t check your phone,” I heard clearly in my head. But Facebook messages are usually light and breezy, so what was the harm? 

The message was from the wife of one of my husband's employees. As I skimmed through her three-screen-long message, the best way I can describe her tone and attitude is low vibration. And that’s me being very kind. 

Always one to seek confirmation of who I am, I remember taking a quiz in Glamour Magazine in the late ‘80s or early ‘90s titled “How Resilient Are You?”

At the time, I had gone through a rough breakup, my parents’ messy divorce, and yet, I felt like I had come out of it all pretty well. The quiz results confirmed it—I scored high on resilience. Back then, I took comfort in sayings like “God never gives you more than you can handle” and “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” I had a pretty healthy outlook on life—or so I thought.