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We all want to change. We read the books, do the courses, sit in the meditation. And yet somehow, we keep circling back to the same patterns, the same reactions, the same version of ourselves we swore we had outgrown. So what if the problem was never a lack of willpower or awareness? What if the part of your mind that is supposed to protect you is quietly protecting a version of you that no longer exists? In this episode, hypno-coaching pioneer Jim Curtis sits down with Catherine to unpack the hidden architecture of identity, the subconscious programmes running beneath our conscious desires, and the simple but profound framework that has helped thousands of people step into lasting transformation. The Illness That Changed Everything Jim’s journey didn’t begin in a classroom or a coaching certification. It began in crisis. At 20 years old, he developed lesions on his spinal cord that stripped away his ability to walk. He travelled the world meeting with healers and medical institutions, searching for answers. A diagnosis never came. And it was precisely that absence of certainty that became his greatest teacher. Sitting in the unknown, Jim discovered that if he could learn to communicate with the subconscious mind, and perhaps tap into something even greater, he could create real, lasting change from the inside out. That discovery led him to pioneer hypno-coaching, a method that fuses traditional coaching with hypnosis to access deeper brainwave states where genuine reprogramming becomes possible. The Two Most Powerful Words You Say Every Day One of the most striking threads in the conversation is the power of two simple words: “I am.” Jim explains that every time we attach a belief to those words, we are not just describing ourselves. We are programming ourselves. “I am not smart enough.” “I am just that kind of person.” “I am someone who struggles with love.” These statements become instructions to the subconscious mind, and the subconscious follows them faithfully, even when our conscious mind has long since outgrown them. But Jim takes this further, into territory that bridges psychology and spirituality. Drawing on the 33 I Am Discourses, Buddhist philosophy, and quantum science, he reveals that “I am” is not only a psychological programme. It is, across traditions, the very first way that source, consciousness, the divine, identified itself. When we speak those two words, we are creating reality at the deepest level, whether we realise it or not. Manifestation Is Not What You Think Perhaps the most powerful reframe in the episode is Jim’s take on manifestation. It is not about attracting something external. It is about becoming unavailable for the old version of yourself that keeps choosing what no longer serves you. When you release the subconscious belief that was keeping you safe in the wrong life, your outer reality shifts naturally. Not because you forced it, but because you finally stopped blocking it. Pre-Gaming: The Practice That Changes Your Reactions Jim also shares one of his most practical tools: pre-gaming, or pre-visualisation with intention. Rather than hoping you will react differently the next time you are triggered, you mentally rehearse the scenario in advance, visualising yourself responding with calm, love, or even humour instead of your usual pattern. He shares a striking example of a client with a severe spider phobia who, after this process, ended up holding a tarantula with a smile on his face. The mind, Jim explains, does not distinguish between a vividly imagined experience and a real one, and that is exactly what makes this practice so powerful. Key Takeaway Your subconscious mind is not your enemy. It is a deeply loyal protector that is still guarding a version of you that you have already outgrown. The work is not about fighting it. It is about releasing the old programme, aligning with what you truly want, and becoming the person your conscious mind already knows you can be. When you do that, change stops being a battle and starts becoming a natural unfolding. Watch the full conversation on YouTube. Find Out More About Jim Curtis Website: www.jimcurtiscoaching.com Facebook: Jim Curtis Instagram: @jimcurtis1 YouTube: @Jimcurtis1 Book: The Book of Possibility

For most of us, the mind feels like the most trustworthy part of who we are. It’s the voice that plans, decides, judges, remembers, and tells us who we are. But what if that voice isn’t quite the friend we thought it was? What if the very organ we rely on to solve our problems is the same one quietly creating most of them? In this powerful episode, world-renowned psychologist Dr Steven C. Hayes, the founder of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), shares 50 years of research distilled into one life-changing conversation. What emerges is nothing short of a new way to relate to your thoughts, your pain, and your life. The Misery That Started It All Dr Hayes didn’t come to this work through theory. He lived it. Growing up, he watched two loving parents trapped in their own suffering, his father struggling with alcoholism, his mother with OCD and depression. As a child, he had thoughts like “I’m not going to make it out of here alive.” That experience sparked a lifelong question: what is the smallest set of things that does the most good for the most people? Fifty years and nearly 1,500 randomised trials later, he has an answer. The One Sentence That Took 50 Years to Write “Life is asking you to learn how to be more open, aware, and actively engaged in a meaningful life while scaling that to your relationships and your body.” That’s it. One sentence that, according to Dr Hayes, summarises the entire world’s literature on psychological change. Open means emotionally and cognitively flexible. Aware means able to direct your attention with intention rather than being hijacked by every passing thought. Actively engaged means connecting to what genuinely matters and building habits around it. Why You Need to Put Your Mind on a Leash Here’s where it gets fascinating. Dr Hayes explains that the human mind can relate anything to anything else in infinite ways. The mathematical potential of your thoughts exceeds the number of molecules in the universe. And yet most of us fall into the same narrow ruts: “I’m not good enough.” “It’ll never work out.” “I’m unlovable.” “We better learn to put your mind on a leash,” he says. “If you have a mind with infinite capacity, that’s wonderful. But if you’re going to learn to use it without having it use you, you better learn how to put it on a leash.” Pain Is Not Your Enemy One of the most powerful threads of the conversation is Dr Hayes’ distinction between pain and suffering. Pain, he explains, is not optional. Love and loss are one thing, not two. But suffering is different. It comes from the act of carrying pain rather than letting it walk alongside you. And the more we try to avoid pain, the heavier the suffering becomes. “You had the pain, but you’re not having pain about the pain,” he says. “So much of human pain is pain about the pain, added by a problem-solving mind trying to turn your life into a problem to be solved instead of a process to be experienced. Once you’re there, you’re doomed, because you’re more like a sunset than you are a maths problem.” You Are More Unique Than Your Fingerprint Dr Hayes also offers a beautiful reframe on your own uniqueness. Your fingerprint alone is so distinct that if every grain of sand on Earth were a fingerprint, it would take more than a million Earths to find a match. Now multiply that by your memories, your experiences, your emotions, your genetics. You are, in his words, precious to the universe. There is only one person like you. Key Takeaway The reason your mind feels like it’s running your life is because, unchecked, it will. But your thoughts are not the truth, pain is not the enemy, and healing doesn’t mean erasing what hurts. It means becoming whole enough to carry it lightly. When you learn to put your mind on a leash, feel what’s real, and engage with what actually matters, you finally stop living as a problem to be solved and start living as a life to be experienced. Watch the full conversation on YouTube. Find Out More About Dr Steven C. Hayes Website: www.stevenchayes.com Facebook: @drstevenchayes Instagram: @drstevenchayes YouTube: @StevenCHayes LinkedIn: Steven C. Hayes

What if the reason you can’t stick to your habits has nothing to do with willpower, motivation, or discipline? What if the methods you’ve been handed were never designed for the life you’re actually living? For so many of us, habit advice arrives in the same shape: wake at five, follow the routine, repeat daily, never miss. And when it inevitably falls apart, we blame ourselves rather than the model. In this powerful episode, habits and identity coach Monica Packer reveals what’s actually getting in the way: the invisible labour you carry, the perfectionism dressed up as ambition, and the shame voice quietly running the show. The Recovering Perfectionist Monica didn’t arrive at her work through theory. She lived it. At 20, she was the stereotypical overachiever: scholarship kid, full-ride tuition, straight As, every honour society. From the outside, her life looked perfectly assembled. From the inside, she was quietly breaking down through suicidal ideation, multiple eating disorders, panic attacks, and silent nervous breakdowns. Nobody around her knew. “Because I had so long held on to that shame voice inside me,” she shares. A decade later, on the brink of turning 30, she realised she’d spent the previous ten years on the sidelines of her own life, paralysed by the same shame that once drove her achievements. That moment changed everything. Why Habit Advice Was Never Built for You “A lot of the books and the bestsellers written out there are by men,” Monica points out. “Very few of the examples use women, and very little of the research is done on women.” The issue isn’t that those methods are bad. It’s that they ignore the invisible load so many people carry: the mental gymnastics of running households, anticipating everyone’s needs, remembering everything for everyone. That load steals the time, energy, and headspace required to follow rigid habit prescriptions. Trying to fit your habits into a model designed for someone with none of that weight is, in Monica’s words, like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. The Three Shifts That Change Everything Monica’s framework rests on three powerful reframes. Habits are not requirements; they’re supportive. Their only job is to serve you, not to score you. That gives you permission to choose how a habit fits your season, not the other way around. Habits are not routines; they’re small and simple. Most “habits” people set are actually eight habits stacked together. Instead, start with a baseline: the smallest, simplest version of the habit you could do on your worst day. One paragraph of journaling. Five minutes of movement. Baselines build toward the ideal, and sometimes the baseline is all you need. Habits are not rigid; they’re flexible. Redefine consistency as doing your best most of the time over time. Flexibility isn’t the enemy of consistency. It’s what makes consistency possible. Meet Sharon: The Voice in Your Head For one of Monica’s clients, the inner shame voice had become so loud that they decided to name it. They called her Sharon, a blend of “shame” and “Karen.” The act of naming created separation. Suddenly, there was the client, and there was Sharon, and they were not the same person. “Shame does not lead to sustainable change,” Monica says. “It simply does not work.” Compassion does. The work begins with awareness, then labelling, then learning to speak back to that voice as your wisest, most compassionate self. It feels foreign at first. It changes everything. The Do Something List Six months before turning 30, Monica wrote a list of 30 things she wanted to do before her birthday. Not a bucket list. Not goals. Just things she’d long wanted to try, with one rule: do them poorly. “I want to do 30 things really poorly,” she remembers. That permission to be mediocre is what cracked her life open. Writing, painting, reading and even the podcast that didn’t make the original list. It all began with one small, badly done thing. About Monica Packer Monica Packer is a writer, podcaster, and certified habits and identity coach. She hosts the top-rated About Progress podcast and has guided thousands of women toward sustainable growth through her progress-over-perfection philosophy. She’s a mum of five, a former middle school teacher, and a sourdough obsessor. Key Takeaway The reason your habits keep falling apart isn’t a character flaw. It’s a system mismatch. When you stop forcing yourself into rigid prescriptions and start designing habits that flex around your real life, consistency becomes possible. When you name the shame voice instead of obeying it, you reclaim the driver’s seat. And when you give yourself permission to do things poorly, you finally start doing them at all. Watch the full conversation on YouTube Find Out More About Monica Packer Website: aboutprogress.com Follow on Instagram: @aboutprogress YouTube Channel @aboutprogress

Have you ever woken from a vivid dream and thought, what on earth was that about? Maybe you were flying, falling, or running through places you’ve never been that somehow felt strangely familiar. What if those wild dreamscapes aren’t random nonsense at all, but your brain speaking its most honest language? In this Moment of Awe, we step into the mysterious space where neuroscience meets psychology, where the science of sleep collides with the poetry of the soul. While most of us dismiss our dreams the moment we reach for our morning coffee, something far more extraordinary is happening beneath the surface. Your dreams aren’t noise. They’re sacred conversations between your brain, your heart, and your soul. This episode reveals three transformative insights about the science and meaning behind your dreams, and how to start working with them. Your Brain’s Night Shift: The Science of Dreaming When you fall asleep, your brain doesn’t shut down. It lights up. During REM sleep, the stage where most vivid dreams occur, your brain becomes almost as active as when you’re awake. Neural imaging shows surges of activity in areas tied to emotion, memory, and imagination, while logic and self-control take a back seat. That’s why dreams feel so real and so irrational at the same time. Neuroscientists now understand that dreaming serves a powerful purpose: it’s your brain’s way of processing emotions, problem-solving, and storing memories. Think of it as an overnight therapy session, sorting through what you didn’t have time to feel during the day. Your mind is filing emotional data, connecting dots, and sometimes rewriting stories that were too heavy to carry while you were awake. So the next time you wake from a dream that makes no sense, remember: your brain was just doing deep maintenance on your soul. The Fear Factor: Messages from the Subconscious Freud called dreams the “royal road to the unconscious.” Jung believed they were messages from the deeper self, symbols trying to guide us toward wholeness. In modern psychology, dreams are seen as the bridge between your conscious desires and your unconscious truths. That nightmare where you’re being chased? It’s not about danger. It’s about avoidance. That recurring dream about missing a flight? It’s your mind saying, “You’re afraid of missing out on something bigger.” And those dreams about people from your past? They’re not about them. They’re reflections of the parts of yourself still seeking closure. Dreams are the theatre of the psyche, where unspoken fears and forgotten hopes take the spotlight. The key is not to decode them like riddles, but to feel into them. Ask yourself: what emotion was I carrying in that dream? What part of me was trying to be seen? Because the language of dreams is not logic. It’s symbolism. Turning Night Into Insight: Working with Your Dreams Here’s where the magic meets the practical. You can train yourself to remember and even work with your dreams. Keep a journal by your bed. The moment you wake, write down whatever you can recall, even fragments. Colours, feelings, symbols. Over time, you’ll start to see patterns, emotional fingerprints of your inner world. Before sleep, set an intention: “Show me what I need to understand.” Your subconscious listens. Dream researchers say this simple practice can enhance creativity, emotional regulation, and even decision-making, because you’re learning to dialogue with the deeper parts of yourself. And for the truly adventurous, lucid dreaming allows you to become aware inside the dream. Imagine exploring your own consciousness while you sleep. The truth is, your dream world isn’t separate from your waking life. It’s the same mind, just speaking in symbols instead of sentences. This isn’t just an episode. It’s an invitation to stop dismissing your dreams and start listening to what they’re trying to show you. Your dreams are your mind saying something here needs attention, something here is seeking resolution, something here wants to be understood. When you listen with curiosity, the mystery dissolves, and meaning begins to emerge. The goal isn’t to decode every dream. It’s to honour the conversation. And once you start listening, you’ll never sleep the same way again. You can watch the video of this episode on YouTube. Newsletter: https://catherineplano.com for transformation. Instagram: @catherineplano for inspiration.

Most of us grow up believing that when something hurts, you go to a professional, they tell you what’s wrong, and you get on with your life. But what happens when the pain keeps coming back? When no practitioner, no pill, and no treatment can make it stick? What if the body isn’t broken at all, but desperately trying to communicate something you haven’t been willing to hear? In this deeply revealing episode, bestselling author and energy medicine pioneer Inna Segal shares how she discovered that every symptom, every tension, and every chronic condition carries an emotional and energetic truth. After 25 years of working with thousands of people around the world, her message is both confronting and liberating: your body has its own language, and learning to read it is the key to transformation that actually lasts. The Chiropractor Who Changed Everything At 20 years old, Inna Segal was seeing health practitioners between three and five times a week. Debilitating back pain, psoriasis covering her skin, chronic anxiety, digestive issues. Nothing was working, and she was approaching every appointment with the same passive mindset: fix me. Then one day, her chiropractor did something unexpected. He stood in front of her and said, “Your body wants to be stuck. Go home. There’s nothing I can do for you.” She was furious. But on the drive home, something shifted. Drawing on her background in linguistics, Inna began asking a question no one had ever posed to her: does the body have its own language? She went home, placed her hands on her back, and for the first time, tried to listen. What followed was a flood of golden light, an unwinding of tension, and a series of visions connecting her physical pain to childhood bullying, family conflict, and intergenerational trauma stretching back to her grandmother’s survival during the war. Within weeks, her psoriasis disappeared completely and never returned. Her back pain dissolved. Her anxiety dropped dramatically. And a gift she never expected began to emerge: the ability to see into other people’s bodies and help them understand what their pain was truly about. Your Body as a Roadmap What makes Inna’s approach so compelling is how logical it is. She breaks the body down by function and asks the simplest of questions. Eyes are for seeing, so what are you refusing to see? The throat is for communication, so what are you not saying? The digestive system processes what comes in, so what experiences in your life are you unable to digest? She explains that the left ear reflects your relationship with yourself and the feminine, while the right connects to achievement and the masculine. The shoulders carry burdens. The hips hold family dynamics. The spine is your deepest foundation. And all of it is already embedded in the language we use every day: “he’s a pain in the neck,” “my heart is broken,” “I carry the weight on my shoulders.” Why Spiritual Bypassing Is Dangerous Inna is refreshingly direct about what she calls the most dangerous trend in the wellness space: spiritual bypassing. She challenges the culture of “love and light” that avoids the real, specific, detailed inner work that lasting transformation demands. As she puts it, band-aids don’t work. No one can do the deep inner work for you. Practitioners can support you, but the journey of truly knowing yourself requires your own willingness to slow down, get curious, and stop skipping steps. Three Golden Nuggets Inna leaves listeners with three practical steps to begin. First, make the decision to befriend your body. Second, start asking it questions and listen for the answers. Third, journal every insight that arises. And above all, work on one issue at a time, because one genuine breakthrough builds the self-belief needed to tackle the next. About Inna Segal Inna Segal is a pioneer in energy medicine and human consciousness, and the bestselling author of The Secret Language of Your Body, translated into 27 languages with over a million copies sold worldwide. For over 25 years, she has helped thousands of people transform pain into freedom through the wisdom of the body and soul. Watch the full conversation on YouTube Find Out More About Inna Segal Website: innasegal.com Follow on Instagram: @innasegalauthor Follow on Facebook: Inna Segal Author YouTube: @InnaSegalAuthor

What if the career you worked so hard to build, the identity you constructed piece by piece, was never really yours to begin with? What if the version of you that shows up every day, doing the job, earning the title, ticking the boxes, is simply the most convincing role you have ever played? For most of us, the idea of walking away from success feels reckless. We are taught to chase it, protect it, and measure our worth by it. But what happens when success starts to feel like a costume? And what happens when something deeper, quieter, and far more real begins to call you away from it all? That is exactly the question at the heart of this conversation with Frank Elaridi: four-time Emmy Award-winning journalist, former producer at Good Morning America, energy healer, and one of the most quietly radical thinkers you will encounter in this space. The Moment the Career Ended Frank spent 12 years covering the biggest stories in the world. Hurricanes. Mass shootings. The Oscars. Interviews with popes, presidents, kings, and queens. By any measure, it was the career most people spend a lifetime chasing. Then one afternoon in Austin, Texas, he was pulled off a romantic holiday to produce a last-minute interview. Standing in the middle of a frantic, frustrating production, a single thought arrived with complete clarity: This is not my life. It was the last thing he ever did for ABC. What followed was not a crisis. It was, in Frank’s words, simply the next unfolding. His Vedic astrology chart had predicted the transition. Multiple healers across different countries had been telling him for years that he was a healer. A Curandera in Mexico had pointed to his heart and laughed when he insisted he was a journalist. None of it had landed until it was meant to. You Are Not the Body. You Are Not the Mind. Frank’s work as a claircognizant energy healer is built on a single, radical idea that sits beneath everything he teaches. You are not the body. You are not the mind. And the moment you truly understand that, not as a concept but as a lived experience, everything changes. This is not a philosophy to admire from a distance. It is a daily practice of turning attention back to the one who is watching, asking the question that collapses all others: Who is it that is seeking? Frank describes three distinct paths people take toward liberation. The left-hand path moves through darkness and shadow. The right-hand path is the way of love, sainthood, and service. And then there is the direct path: self-inquiry. Not processing trauma layer by layer. Not accumulating spiritual practices. Simply finding out who you are from the source of where all of this arose. Three Practices to Carry With You Today Frank closes the conversation with three grounded, accessible practices drawn directly from his teaching: 1. The A Course in Miracles Affirmation. Anytime you feel wronged, dismissed, or hurt today, try this: It is not this I would look upon. I trust my brothers who are one with me. This is forgiveness at its deepest level. Not grace. Not tolerance. Complete detachment from the idea that anything real was ever done to you. 2. The Self-Love Body Practice. Place your left hand palm-up in your lap. Move your right hand to your heart and say: My heart, I love you. Then your eyes. Then your head. Repeat the cycle. Frank shares that people in his community regularly begin to cry during this practice. Consciousness, he says, is self-love. This is how you worship that. 3. The Pre-Sleep Self-Inquiry. Before you fall asleep tonight, ask yourself: Who was I before birth? Who will I be a hundred years from now? Meditate on death as though sleep itself were dying. Little by little, the grip of fear and false identity begins to loosen. Frank Elaridi is the co-author of the Modern Nirvana Oracle Deck, published by Chronicle Books, a TEDx speaker, and the founder of Awaken The Healer Within, his online course and community helping holistic practitioners build thriving healing businesses. You can watch the video of the full conversation on YouTube Find Out More About Frank Elaridi Work with Frank one-on-one: frankelaridi.com/energy-healing Join Awaken The Healer Within on Skool: skool.com/awakenedhealers YouTube: youtube.com/frankelaridi Instagram: @felaridi

Have you ever walked into a room and instantly felt calmer, more energised, or strangely unsettled, without being able to explain why? What if the colours surrounding you right now aren’t just decoration, but a silent language speaking directly to your nervous system, shaping how you feel, what you choose, and even how you behave? In this eye-opening episode, we decode the hidden world of colour psychology and reveal something most people never consider: colour isn’t just something you see. It’s something you feel. While we spend hours choosing what to wear, what to paint our walls, and what brands to trust, we rarely stop to ask why certain shades pull us in and others push us away. The answer lies in your brain, and once you understand it, you’ll never look at colour the same way again. This episode reveals four transformative insights about how colour quietly architects your emotional world and how to use that knowledge to your advantage. The Hidden Language of Hues: Every colour you encounter is whispering directly to your nervous system. Neuroscience shows that when light hits your eyes, it sends signals straight to the hypothalamus, the part of your brain that governs emotion, energy, and even hormones. Bright yellows and oranges activate dopamine and serotonin, your brain’s happiness chemicals. Soft blues and greens lower cortisol, helping you relax and focus. That calm you feel in your doctor’s waiting room? That’s blue doing its job. The hunger that hits you in a fast-food restaurant? That’s red and yellow working in tandem. Your environment is constantly priming your mood, and colour is the quiet architect of your entire emotional landscape. The question is: are you choosing your palette, or is it choosing you? Red, the Power and the Passion: Red is primal. It’s the colour of fire, blood, and survival, and it grabs your focus faster than any other hue. That’s why it dominates stop signs, sale banners, and even lipstick. It signals energy, urgency, and desire. In marketing, red is known to increase heart rate and stimulate action. Think of fast-food logos with their bold reds paired with yellow, designed to make you hungry and decisive. But red isn’t just a tool for advertisers. In your personal world, it can be a powerful ally when used intentionally. A touch of red in your workspace can fuel motivation. Red in your wardrobe can help you exude confidence and passion. The key is remembering that red is powerful, and a little goes a long way. Blue and Green, Calm, Trust, and Growth: If red is fire, blue is water. Blue evokes trust, stability, and calm, which is exactly why it dominates the corporate world. From tech companies to healthcare brands, blue says “you can trust me.” It slows the heart rate, clears the mind, and invites focus. Then there’s green, the colour of life itself. It represents balance, renewal, and growth. Studies show that even brief exposure to green, like plants or nature scenes, can lower stress and enhance creativity. If you want peace in your bedroom, think ocean. If you want productivity in your office, think forest. These aren’t just aesthetic choices. They’re neurological ones. The Surprising Influence on Your Decisions: Colour doesn’t just influence how you feel. It shapes what you choose. Marketers have known this for decades. The colour of a “Buy Now” button can increase clicks by 30%. Restaurants use warm tones to make you order faster, while luxury brands use black, gold, and deep navy to evoke sophistication and control. Even social media platforms deploy colour psychology, with blue encouraging trust and engagement, red grabbing attention, and green signalling success. But here’s the empowering part: you can use this same psychology consciously. Want to feel confident during a presentation? Wear navy or emerald. Need focus while studying? Surround yourself with cool tones that calm the nervous system. When you understand colour, you stop being influenced by it unconsciously and start using it to design your emotional reality. This isn’t just an episode about colour. It’s an invitation to stop reacting to your environment and start creating it. What if your mood wasn’t random? What if the colours in your life were shaping your energy, your focus, and your happiness every single day? Science tells us they are. And the beauty is that you can choose your palette. Start small. Add a plant to your desk. Paint one wall a colour that lifts your mood. Wear a shade that makes you feel unstoppable. Then notice what shifts. Because every hue has a heartbeat, and once you start listening, your world begins to change from the inside out. You can watch the video of this episode on YouTube. Newsletter: https://catherineplano.com for transformation. Instagram: @catherineplano for inspiration.

What if the version of you that you’ve been trying to fix was already whole this entire time? What if the endless journaling, the shadow work, the inner child workshops, the breathwork retreats, and the constant quest to “do the work” have actually become the very thing keeping you from stepping into your true power? What if the real breakthrough isn’t another modality, but a remembrance of what was always there? In this deeply activating episode, intuitive energy worker and quantum philosopher Gabi Kovalenko reveals why so many intelligent, self-aware people remain stuck in the same loops no matter how much work they do on themselves. She explains why coherence across every dimension of your being matters more than raising your vibration, why the feminine energy rising on the planet right now cannot be ignored, and why wholeness was never something you had to earn. It was your birthright all along. This is a conversation for anyone who has been on a spiritual path for years and still feels like something is missing, for anyone who senses they are meant for more but cannot seem to break through. Because the answer was never outside of you. It lives in the space between the notes, in the stillness between breaths, and in the quiet knowing you have been trying to think your way back to. The Woman Who Never Needed a Script Gabi Kovalenko didn’t choose this path. It chose her. From a young age, she found herself writing about themes of intuition, self-awareness, and the deeper questions of existence, channelling wisdom that seemed to flow through her rather than from her. She never uses a teleprompter. She never scripts a video. When people ask whether she is using AI or reading from notes, the answer is always the same: the wisdom comes from embodiment, not preparation. “It more flowed from a place of not getting in the way of this energy and consciousness that’s trying to come through me,” Gabi explains. Originally drawn to traditional medicine, she quickly grew disillusioned with the limitations of conventional approaches and discovered that true transformation operates through subtle energy and the deeper root causes that mainstream systems often overlook. The Trap Nobody Talks About Gabi names a pattern that millions of people are caught in without realising it: the glamourisation of the healing journey. Shadow work, she says, is necessary. Looking into the eyes of the pain body and understanding your roots is part of the process. But staying lodged in those layers is where people stagnate. “It’s kind of like an obsession with going through the healing or relating to the pain body and sometimes even glamourising that part of the spiritual journey, which can keep somebody in victim consciousness and slow down the ignition of their true purpose.” Her alternative is coherence: aligning not just mentally, not just physically, not just spiritually, but across every dimension of your conscious experience simultaneously. When even one layer is excluded, the subconscious manifests circumstances to bring attention to whatever remains unresolved. The Fire That Cannot Be Contained The conversation turns to the collective shift taking place right now, particularly for women. With Saturn and Neptune moving into Aries and the energy of the fire horse year igniting action, Gabi believes this is a juncture point where women who have been dwelling, stagnating, and feeling suppressed are being called to reclaim their power. “You can’t wait for permission anymore from anybody else. You can’t wait for people to apologise that inflicted the pain. You can’t hope for partners to change. And you can’t wait for anybody to do this work for you.” She also offers essential guidance for empaths, introducing the concept of a semi-permeable field. Rather than being energetically wide open and vulnerable to depletion, empaths can learn to maintain deep compassion while preserving their own energetic sovereignty through radical self-empathy and intentional boundary setting. About Gabi Kovalenko Gabi Kovalenko is a transformational thought leader, modern philosopher, and author of Falling Up. She integrates principles of noetic science, quantum physics, and positive psychology to reveal the power of consciousness and potentiality within all of life. Trained as a holistic healthcare practitioner and currently pursuing a Ph.D. in natural medicine, Gabi’s passion lies in inspiring a fresh awareness of life by disarming limiting beliefs and igniting a paradigm shift towards joy, abundance, and freedom. Key Takeaway You were never broken. The healing journey was never meant to become your identity. When you stop treating yourself as a project to fix and start generating coherence across every layer of your being, something extraordinary happens. The pendulum stops swinging. Peace sets in. And the version of you that was always whole begins to remember itself. Not through another course, another book, or another retreat, but through the radical act of trusting what already lives inside you. Watch the full conversation on YouTube Find Out More About Gabi Kovalenko Website: https://www.gabikovalenko.com/ Book: Falling Up Follow on Instagram: @gabikovalenko Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqsoVP1OCzHV_6kKggRDlsA Follow on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/gabkovalenko/

Your Children Aren’t Here to Be Fixed, They’re Here to Wake You Up What if every argument with your child, every slammed door, every moment of frustration has nothing to do with them and everything to do with a wound you never healed? It’s a confronting question. And for most parents, the instinct is to reject it immediately. But in this powerful conversation with Dr. Shefali, the founder of the Conscious Parenting movement, she reveals a truth that could transform not just the way you parent, but the way you understand every relationship in your life: your children are not the problem. They are the mirror. The Zombie Epidemic in Modern Parenting “Most people are so-called zombie-like, moving through life in reactivity,” Dr. Shefali explains. “Not aware that they can get into the driver’s seat and begin to mandate their reactions.” As a clinical psychologist with a doctorate from Columbia University and three New York Times bestselling books, Dr. Shefali has spent decades studying a pattern that plays out in homes across the world. Parents unconsciously project their unresolved pain, unmet needs, and unfulfilled dreams onto their children without ever realising it. And that unchecked authority goes completely unsupervised. The result? We cast our children into roles they never chose. We write the movie, direct the scenes, and expect everyone to follow the script. Then when our children resist, we label them as difficult. When they defy us, we feel rejected. But they’re not rejecting us. They’re rejecting the role we assigned them. Your Triggers Are the Gift Dr. Shefali offers a framework that flips everything on its head. Rather than assuming your reaction to your child’s behaviour is justified, start with the presumption that you have projected your own wounds onto the situation. Then prove to yourself that you haven’t. She uses the example of a child hiding a C grade from their parent. The instinct is anger, disappointment, even betrayal. But when you pause and trace that reaction to its root, you often discover an old wound around shame, unworthiness, or fear of failure that was planted decades ago during your own childhood. “The triggers are the gifts that help you turn around and look within,” she says. “They show you where you’re not yet free.” This is the essential inner work. And it doesn’t just transform parenting. It breaks the cycle of generational trauma that quietly passes from one family to the next. Social Media: The Red Flag Parents Can’t Ignore The conversation takes an urgent turn when Dr. Shefali addresses social media’s impact on young people. She doesn’t soften her words, comparing unrestricted access for children to handing them drugs or alcohol. She highlights the alarming rise in anxiety, self-harm, eating disorders, and isolation among teenagers, driven by a digital world built on comparison, perfectionism, and curated reality. She applauds Australia’s legislation restricting social media for children under 16, and urges parents to treat screen time as a red flag behaviour that demands firm, non-negotiable boundaries. Three Truths Every Parent Needs to Hear Dr. Shefali closes with three uncomfortable truths. First, your children are here to show you where you haven’t healed. Second, every moment of reactivity towards your child is a wake-up call to unresolved pain within you. And third, your child is not here to fulfil your expectations. They are here to live their own life and their own destiny. See Dr. Shefali Live in Australia, March 2026 Dr. Shefali is bringing her transformative teachings to Australia for two powerful live events. Hailed by Oprah as “revolutionary” and the “best child expert,” she is a 3-time New York Times bestselling author, clinical psychologist, and pioneer of the Conscious Parenting movement who has trained over 1,200 coaches worldwide. This event is for everyone, not just parents. Whether you’re a mother, father, leader, teacher, or simply someone seeking healing and direction, this experience will help you reconnect with your true self and break free from outdated patterns, expectations, and emotional pain. Melbourne | Palais Theatre | Wednesday, 11 March 2026 Sydney | State Theatre | Thursday, 12 March 2026 Tickets are limited. Book now at events.drshefali.com/australia Watch the full conversation on YouTube. Find Out More About Dr. Shefali Website: drshefali.com Follow on Instagram: @doctorshefali Book: The Parenting Map

When Your Identity Shatters: A Therapist’s Journey Through Suffering What if the moment your entire identity falls apart isn’t a breakdown but a sacred initiation? What if the culture that taught you to pathologise your pain has stolen your capacity to transform through it? For over 28,000 hours, Dr. John W. Price has sat knee to knee with people in their most debilitating shatterings. As a Jungian psychotherapist with a doctorate in depth psychology, he doesn’t just understand suffering intellectually. He has walked through the fire himself, and it’s that lived experience that makes him one of the most compelling guides for anyone navigating identity crisis, spiritual awakening, or the terrifying process of becoming who you actually are. In this profound conversation, Dr Price reveals why tying your self-worth to your net worth creates a dangerous trap, how “sacred refusal” becomes an act of devotion, and why the moments when everything crumbles are actually the gateways to transformation our modern world has forgotten how to honour. The Man Who Lost Everything to Find His Calling Dr. Price’s path to the therapist’s chair began on stage. From age six, music was his calling. He was self-motivated, wild, rebellious, smoking in the boys’ room while dreaming of guitars and record deals. By his mid-twenties, he had signed that deal and was touring nationally, living the dream he had fantasised about since childhood. Then everything came crashing down. The birth of his son, the collapse of an unhealthy relationship, and the sudden weight of single fatherhood shattered every identity he had built. He weighed 35 pounds less from stress, found himself in court battles, and sat in a therapist’s office feeling completely lost. “I had a shattering of an identity,” he recalls. “My whole life dream was disrupted.” But in that therapist’s chair, working with a brilliant woman named Charlene who introduced him to Buddhist meditation, something shifted. Dr. Price realised he didn’t just want healing. He wanted to offer it. That moment of recognition sent him back to school, this time as a ravenous student pursuing a master’s in clinical psychology and eventually a doctorate in Jungian depth psychology. Why We Pathologise Our Own Initiations One of Dr. Price’s most powerful insights centres on how our culture has lost the capacity to recognise transformation for what it is. “Because our culture doesn’t really have an orientation to initiate us into this kind of process, we pathologise it, and we think that something is wrong,” he explains. When your identity crumbles, when the life that looked good on paper suddenly feels unbearable, when you can no longer perform the role everyone expects of you, our society tells you something is broken. But Dr. Price sees these moments differently. They are sacred shatterings, initiations that ancient cultures would have honoured with ritual and community support. The problem for so many high achievers is that they have tied their sense of self-worth entirely to their net worth, their title, their role. When that foundation shifts, they don’t just lose a job or a relationship. They lose themselves. “How do you actually trust the fall rather than resist it?” becomes the central question. Sacred Refusal and Living Mythically Drawing on wisdom from his mentor Richard Rohr and Jungian analyst James Hollis, Dr. Price introduces the concept of “sacred refusal.” This is the practice of stopping performance, of refusing to comply with systems that don’t serve your soul. “Any win for the self, or the soul, is experienced as a death by the socialised ego,” he teaches, quoting Hollis. This is why leaving family systems feels so terrifying. Why creating your own journey requires walking into the wilderness of the unknown. Why individuation always costs something. But the alternative is living according to control-based systems, whether religious, political, economic, or corporate, that keep you performing and compliant rather than transforming and free. Dr. Price’s vision is one of resurrection. Not just personal healing, but remembering that life is a sacred text, not a self-improvement plan. We are stories within a story, and transformation isn’t about getting better. It’s about experiencing life more completely and fully. Three Golden Nuggets Every Emotion Is a Teacher – Stay with what hurts long enough to hear its wisdom. Refusal Is Devotion – What you stop performing becomes sacred space. Live Mythically – See life as a sacred text, not a self-improvement plan. About Dr. John W. Price Dr. John W. Price is a licensed psychotherapist, Jungian scholar, and host of The Sacred Speaks podcast. He holds a Master’s in Clinical Psychology and a Doctorate in Jungian Psychology, and serves as President of the Board at the Jung Center of Houston. With over 28,000 clinical hours and 800,000 podcast downloads, he guides people through grief, identity collapse, and spiritual awakening. You can watch the video of the conversation on YouTube Find Out More About Dr. John W. Price Website: www.drjohnwprice.com Instagram: @thesacredspeaks YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheSacredSpeaks

What if the reason you’re exhausted, frustrated, and stuck isn’t because you’re not working hard enough, but because you’re forcing your life instead of flowing with it? In this transformative episode, nationally recognised executive coach Brett Baughman shares 25 years of wisdom about discovering the critical difference between forcing and flowing, and why most people are unknowingly hiring the wrong version of themselves for the life they’re trying to build. The Man Who Lives His Calling Brett Baughman didn’t stumble into peak performance coaching. From a young age, he possessed an innate ability to see people for who they truly are, helping them feel seen, heard, and understood. This gift evolved into his life’s work: helping others discover their passion so they can live with purpose and make a meaningful impact. “I have so much abundance in my life that not only is it a calling, but it pours out of me,” Brett shares. “I have to, right? It’s kind of like my responsibility for giving back for the blessings I’ve had in my life.” The Flow State Formula One of Brett’s most powerful frameworks is recognising when you’re flowing versus when you’re forcing. When you’re in flow, doors open effortlessly. You wake up inspired. Good ideas come naturally. You meet the right people at the right time. Gratitude becomes your default state. Forcing looks completely different. Frustration replaces gratitude. Time feels scarce. You’re pushing against closed doors repeatedly. Your mental, physical, and spiritual wellness starts declining. “When something’s not going the way you want, stop and say, am I forcing things?” Brett advises. “You’re going to be putting too much energy into something and realise like, this is not what I should do. And you have to let go and flow. And as soon as you let go, you’ll start to get clarity and things will start to line up.” The Take Five Method: Transform Emotional Chaos Into Clarity Brett’s signature practice is “Take Five and Come Back Better.” Whether you’re arguing with your partner or spiralling in negative self-talk, this technique will change your life within days. When you notice you’re not being the person you want to be, stop and excuse yourself. Take two to three minutes and do breathwork using the 4-2-6 technique: inhale through your nose for 4 seconds, hold for 2 seconds, slowly exhale for 6 seconds. Repeat for two minutes. “If you really breathe and just slow the breathing down, you turn off that emotional thinking,” Brett explains. “The anger, the sadness, the fear, the guilt goes away. You become objective.” Once calm, ask yourself two critical questions: “How is that emotion helping me?” and “What am I supposed to learn from this experience?” These questions transform emotional reactions into growth opportunities. Are You Hiring the Right Person for the Job? Every morning, Brett wants you to ask: Am I the right person for this job I’ve assigned myself today? If you wake up in a terrible mood, lacking confidence, feeling defeated, then you’re not the person to do the job. That version of you will never produce the results you want. “It doesn’t mean don’t do the job,” Brett clarifies. “It means go get aligned first.” Because as Brett powerfully states: “As you build it, so shall it live.” There’s No Such Thing as Failure, Only Feedback Brett calls this philosophy “failing forward.” When something doesn’t work, ask what you learned and what you’ll do differently next time. This removes the fear of mistakes and replaces it with curiosity about growth. About Brett Baughman Brett Baughman is a nationally recognised executive coach, voted Top Business Coach to Work With by Apple News. With over 25 years of experience guiding high-performing executives, CEOs, and leadership teams, Brett is a trusted expert in helping people break through to their next level of success. As the creator of The Ideal You framework, Action Mastery Retreats, and the immersive Breath House Experience, Brett has helped clients launch new ventures, scale companies, and achieve outstanding financial success while becoming healthier, happier, and more fulfilled humans. Key Takeaway You are designed for flow, not force. Real transformation happens when you recognise the difference between pushing against closed doors and riding the river of your calling. Stop fighting against your own nature and start aligning with it. Coming home to yourself means releasing the belief that success requires suffering and claiming your right to live in grateful, inspired flow. Watch the Full Conversation on YouTube Find Out More About Brett Baughman Website: https://www.brettbaughman.com/ Follow on Instagram: @bybrettbaughman Follow on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brettbaughman YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/iempoweryou

Have you ever stared at your to-do list, felt that familiar dread, and suddenly decided that reorganising your sock drawer was the most important task in the world? What if that delay you keep shaming yourself for isn’t laziness at all—but your mind trying to protect you from something it perceives as threatening? In this powerful episode, we shatter the myth that procrastination is a character flaw or lack of discipline. The truth is far more revealing: procrastination isn’t the enemy—it’s a messenger. It’s a mirror reflecting how we manage emotion, fear, and self-worth. While the world tells you to push harder and discipline yourself into action, something far more transformative happens when you stop fighting the delay and start understanding it. This episode reveals three transformative insights about the psychology behind procrastination and how to turn delay into self-awareness. The Comfort of Future Self-Deception: Every time you tell yourself “I’ll do it tomorrow,” your brain is playing its favourite trick. We imagine a future version of ourselves who is infinitely capable—a superhero who will have more energy, more focus, more time. Psychologists call this temporal discounting: we prioritise immediate comfort over future benefit. And here’s the trap—every time we delay, we get a tiny hit of relief. Dopamine whispers that we escaped discomfort, and that relief reinforces the habit. We don’t procrastinate to waste time. We procrastinate to avoid pain. The next time you catch yourself scrolling instead of starting, pause and ask: what am I trying not to feel? It’s rarely laziness. It’s emotional protection. The Fear Factor—Perfectionism in Disguise: Behind every chronic procrastinator, there’s usually a perfectionist hiding. We delay not because we don’t care, but because we care too much. The thought of doing something imperfectly triggers fear of judgment, rejection, and even success itself. So we wait. We polish. We overthink. Because as long as the task isn’t done, it can’t be wrong. “If I never finish, I never fail”—that’s the quiet logic of procrastination. Safety disguised as strategy. But here’s the paradox: by avoiding the discomfort of imperfection, we create the pain of paralysis. Progress doesn’t come from perfection. It comes from movement. Rewriting Your Procrastination Story: Once you understand procrastination, you can begin to rewire it. The key is not to fight it, but to get curious about it. Start small—break overwhelming goals into tiny doable steps. The brain loves completion, and even micro-successes release dopamine that fuels momentum. Reframe the task: instead of “I have to finish,” try “I’ll just begin.” Beginning is often the hardest part, and once you start, inertia works for you instead of against you. Most importantly, replace self-criticism with self-compassion. Research shows that people who forgive themselves for procrastinating are far less likely to repeat the pattern. When you remove the shame, you remove the resistance. This isn’t just an episode—it’s permission to stop shaming yourself and start listening to what your delays are trying to tell you. Procrastination is your mind saying something here feels too heavy, too uncertain, or too much. When you listen with compassion, the delay dissolves and action feels natural again. The goal isn’t to conquer procrastination. It’s to understand it. And once you understand it, you are free. You can watch the video of this episode on YouTube. Newsletter: https://catherineplano.com for transformation. Instagram: @catherineplano for inspiration.

What if the reason you feel like a stranger to yourself isn’t that you’re lost, but because you’ve been performing for so long, you forgot what authenticity looks like? From childhood, so many of us learned that success meant following the script: get the degree, climb the ladder, earn the title, achieve the milestones. But somewhere along the way, that external validation became internal disconnection. In this powerful episode, bestselling author and mindfulness expert Case Kenny reveals the truth about modern identity: it’s not about finding yourself once and being done. It’s about constant reinvention through reflection. He explains why “just being yourself” might be the worst advice you’ve ever received, and how the traits you think make you too much are actually what attract the right people to you. This is a conversation for anyone who’s tired of feeling like one person at work and a stranger at home, for anyone questioning whether the life that looks good on paper actually feels good in reality. Because real fulfilment doesn’t come from collecting achievements. It begins the moment you become the same person inside the conference room and outside. The Man Who Walked Away Case Kenny didn’t just study personal development; he lived the crisis that demanded it. At 28, he was the Regional Vice President of Sales at an advertising agency, crushing quotas and living what looked like the professional dream. He knew exactly who he was supposed to be in the office: confident, successful, the man with all the answers. Then he’d go home. “I would go to my job and feel like one person, and then I leave and I don’t know who I am,” Case recalls. “I’m like, I don’t know who I am on a human level, or a boyfriend level, or a partner level, or a son level, or a brother level. And I was like, that’s problematic for me.” This acute disconnect sparked a radical experiment. In 2018, he launched a podcast not to build an audience, but to force himself into self-reflection. Each episode became a laboratory where he’d unpack an emotion, desire, or expectation and “beat it up with mindfulness and logic.” Eight years later, he’s left corporate life entirely and built a career around what he jokingly calls “sharing my feelings for a living.” Why “Just Be Yourself” Is Terrible Advice “I’m really not a big fan of advice that’s like, just be yourself,” Case explains, “because if you decide that when you’re 20, you should not be the same person at 25, 30, 35, 40.” The popular wisdom tells us to discover ourselves and commit to that identity. But Case argues this is a dangerous fallacy. Real wisdom doesn’t come from experience alone; it comes from reflecting on experience. Without constant reflection, we risk living according to outdated beliefs and values that no longer serve us. “We don’t get wisdom from life experience. We get wisdom from reflecting on life experience,” he says, paraphrasing John Dewey. The things that happen to you shape who you are, but it’s reflecting on those experiences that should have the final say in who you become. His background in languages (he double majored in Chinese and Arabic at Notre Dame) resurfaces in his work. Case views personal development through a linguistic lens, believing that the words we use to describe our experiences fundamentally shape our reality. Out-of-Town Confidence: The Framework That Changes Everything One of Case’s most powerful concepts is “out-of-town confidence,” a mental model that reframes how we approach relationships and life goals. Imagine you’re visiting Miami for the first time. You’d probably be more extroverted, more confident, more open to new experiences. Why? Because you’re not fixated on any single person or outcome. The focus is on the experience itself, and if you happen to meet someone amazing along the way, that’s a bonus. “Get the most out of life as possible, not in a crazy, selfish, narcissistic way, but just as the human endeavour,” Case explains. “And then you use that as the lens to say, is this person right for me?” This philosophy challenges the traditional narrative that finding “the one” is life’s ultimate mission. Instead, he argues we should extract maximum value from being human rather than outsourcing our happiness to external validators. The Liking Gap and Your Weird Wealth Research proves something counterintuitive: you’re more likable than you think you are. It’s called the “liking gap,” and it operates across cultures and languages. After interactions, we consistently underestimate how much the other person enjoyed our company. “You and I interact. I leave the conversation thinking, I don’t think she really liked me that much,” Case describes. “Overwhelmingly so, you are more likely to say, no, I liked Case. He seemed like a cool guy.” Even more powerful: the traits you consider “too much,” weird, or outside normal are actually nonconforming traits that research shows are more attractive than conventional ones. “Double down on the things that you think make you weird,” Case advises. “Your passion is a magnet for the right people and a filter for the wrong people.” Having It All Together Means Nothing When asked about “having it all together,” Case reframes the entire concept. We imagine perfection as possessing everything simultaneously: the career, partner, body, happiness, and friendships all at once. That’s fantasy. “I’ve had the career but not the partner, the partner but not the career, the career but not the money,” he explains. Reality is transitional, and the binary thinking of “everything or nothing” sets us up for perpetual disappointment. His alternative is simple: ask yourself one question as often as possible. “In this moment, with what I’m doing, with my habits, with my partner, with my diet, with my friends, with my city, do I feel like my most honest self?” Then adjust, pivot, and move accordingly. About Case Kenny Case Kenny is a bestselling author, podcast host, and creator who left his role as Regional VP of Sales in advertising to pursue full-time work in mindfulness, language, and personal development. With a background in Chinese and Arabic from the University of Notre Dame, he brings a unique linguistic lens to self-discovery. He’s been podcasting twice a week for eight years, helping people find clarity, kindness, and optimism in their lives. Key Takeaway You are not destined to remain the person you were at 20, 25, or even last year. The identity crisis you experience isn’t a problem to solve but an invitation to evolve. When you stop performing and start reflecting, when you bring out-of-town confidence to everyday life, and when you embrace the transitional nature of having it all, you become the same person inside the conference room and outside. Coming home to yourself means releasing the belief that there’s one right way to live and claiming your right to constant reinvention. Watch the full conversation on YouTube Find Out More About Case Kenny Website: https://casekenny.com Follow on Instagram: @case.kenny

What if everything you’ve been told about aging is a lie? What if your 50s and 60s aren’t about fading into irrelevance, but about finally becoming who you were always meant to be? In this transformative episode, bestselling author and spiritual teacher Marianne Williamson dismantles the cultural narrative that treats midlife as a slow decline. Instead, she reveals it as the most powerful awakening of your life—a time when the wisdom you’ve accumulated can no longer stay silent, when you stop caring what others think, and when you finally have the courage to say what needs to be said. This is a conversation for anyone who’s been conditioned to fear aging, who’s carrying shadow figures from their past into their present, or who’s ready to claim the grandeur that only comes with lived experience. The Accidental Calling Marianne Williamson didn’t set out to become one of the most influential spiritual teachers of our time. In her 20s, she discovered A Course in Miracles and was captivated by its psychological mind training on forgiveness—dismantling a thought system based on fear and accepting one based on love instead. “At first it was just what it was doing for me,” she explains. “The career niche that I inhabit today didn’t even exist at that point.” She started with a small study group in a bookstore. Then she moved to Los Angeles, and the AIDS crisis burst onto the scene. Gay men flocked to her lectures because “in the middle of this horror, there was this then young woman talking about a God who loves you no matter what and about miracles.” One thing led to another. She published a book. Oprah Winfrey loved it. A Return to Love became a mega-bestseller, and a quote from it—”Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure”—became an anthem for seekers worldwide. But Marianne’s journey wasn’t always smooth. She ventured into politics, running for the Democratic nomination for President in both 2020 and 2024, and encountered a level of public scrutiny and mean-spiritedness she’d never faced in the spiritual world. “We all made mistakes in our 20s, but they weren’t written into the ethers of the internet to be with us forever,” she reflects, lamenting how young people today are denied the freedom to grow without permanent records of their missteps. The Shadow Figures We Carry One of the most powerful teachings Marianne shares is about forgiveness—not as a platitude, but as a practice of liberation. “A Course in Miracles says that if you bring the shadow figures of your past into the present, then you are programming the future to be just like the past,” she explains. Many of us replay painful memories, trying to forgive by reliving them. But this approach backfires. “Every time I brought it in and thought about it, it was almost like visceral, like it was reenacting what took place,” Catherine shares. Marianne’s response? Accept that it happened. Know that the love was real, the love you gave and received was eternal, and “the rest was literally a kind of shared illusion or nightmare, a kind of hallucination of consciousness, and you don’t have to carry it with you.” The ego, however, wants to keep bludgeoning you with it. What they did, what you did, what you didn’t do. But healing doesn’t come from endlessly analyzing where the wounds came from. “Knowing where you got this has done me no good,” Marianne admits. “Knowing you are this way, Marianne, and be willing not to be, and ask God’s help. That’s the miracle.” The Moment-by-Moment Practice Spiritual practice isn’t theoretical. It’s what you do when you wake up at 3 a.m. with your thoughts spiralling. It’s choosing whether to grab your phone and scroll through chaos or to ground yourself in meditation and prayer. “If you wake up in the morning and you go directly to the news, you go directly to social media, it’s like you’re saying to the chaos, come on, eat me alive, I’m open and available for that,” Marianne warns. But if you ground yourself in spiritual practice first, “it makes all the difference because it’s kind of like the yoga of consciousness. You get yourself in the correct position of alignment with the ever-unfolding thoughts of love.” The Course in Miracles teaches that there is no such thing as a neutral thought. Every thought either takes you toward greater oneness and peace or into anxiety, depression, and separation. “Every single moment is a moment of choice,” Marianne emphasises. “We either make that choice consciously or we make it unconsciously to either open the heart or to constrict.” When you constrict, you deflect the miracle. But here’s the beautiful part: “It’ll come back around again. It’ll be held in trust for you until you’re ready to receive it.” The Awakening to Power Midlife grief is real. You have to move through the loss of what you no longer have to receive what is only yours now. “I have found myself saying to younger women, you have things I don’t have anymore, but I have some things you don’t have yet,” Marianne shares. “And that’s what we’re awakening to.” At 50, she stopped caring what other people thought. But at 60? “I felt this level of power that is almost like not only do you not care what other people say, you have to. It’s like when a woman is breastfeeding, the milk has to express itself. The wisdom you have in you can’t not say it.” This isn’t about arrogance. It’s about recognising that we live in a culture where the undertow constantly whispers: you’re over the hill, you’re invisible, you’re all used up. “So we have to counter that undertow,” Marianne insists, “because it’s a new dawn for us. And the new dawn for us, we know can be of help in bringing a new dawn to the world.” When Catherine mentions people asking about retirement, Marianne’s response is instant: “I’m just getting started, honey.” The Evolutionary Moment Marianne sees humanity at a critical crossroads. “We’re living at this moment of parallel phenomenon, one world crumbling, another world struggling to be born. And we are called on to be death doulas and birth doulas.” This is not a time for the wounded bird, the ditzy female, or woundology. “It’s a time to really call ourselves and each other into the highest place.” The human race has reached a point where our collective behavioural patterns are no longer sustainable. We either take an evolutionary leap forward or face extinction. That leap begins with individual transformation. “Wake up every morning and ask, where would you have me go? What would you have me do? What would you have me say and to whom?” Marianne teaches. “Love, use me. Use my hands, use my feet.” You might be assigned to talk about personal transformation through a podcast. You might work on the environment, peace, food systems, or healing. But whatever your assignment, “everything else is ultimately meaningless.” Three Golden Nuggets for Your Journey Golden Nugget #1: Ask Who You’re Not Forgiving Identify who you haven’t forgiven and be willing to realise that the love they gave you was real, the love you gave them was real, and everything else was just a shared illusion. Put it in the hands of God and refuse to bring those shadow figures into your present. Golden Nugget #2: Be a Spiritual Athlete This is not a moment to indulge in moderate drinking, moderate drug use, or junk food. This is a moment to truly be in shape—physically, mentally, and spiritually. Your spiritual discipline and practice matter now more than ever. Golden Nugget #3: Reach Out to Someone Who Needs Help Think of someone in your life who could use support. Reach out. That simple act of extending love creates the field in which miracles occur naturally. About Marianne Williamson For more than four decades, Marianne Williamson has been a leader of spiritually progressive circles. She is the author of 16 books, four of which have been #1 New York Times bestsellers. A quote from the mega-bestseller A Return to Love, “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure…” is considered an anthem for a contemporary generation of seekers. Her other bestsellers include A Woman’s Worth, The Law of Divine Compensation, Tears to Triumph, The Gift of Change, Everyday Grace, and The Mystic Jesus: The Mind of Love. With her books and online classes, she has taught millions of people universal spiritual themes at the heart of all the great religions of the world. Williamson founded Project Angel Food, a non-profit organisation that has delivered more than 19 million meals to ill and dying homebound patients in the Los Angeles area since 1989. She has also worked throughout her career on poverty, anti-hunger, and racial reconciliation issues. In 2004, she co-founded The Peace Alliance and supported the creation of a U.S. Department of Peace. She ran for the Democratic nomination for President in both 2020 and 2024. Key Takeaway Midlife is not an ending. It’s the moment you finally have enough experience, enough failures, enough humility, and enough fire to become who you were always meant to be. The grief you move through unlocks access to a power you’ve never known. The wisdom inside you can no longer stay silent. And when you stop abandoning yourself to avoid being abandoned by others, you discover that real peace comes from alignment with love, moment by moment, choice by choice. You’re not over the hill. You’re just getting started. Watch the Full Conversation on YouTube SEE MARIANNE LIVE IN AUSTRALIA: Brisbane – February 22, 2025 Get Tickets Melbourne – February 25, 2025 Get Tickets Sydney – February 26, 2025 Get Tickets Find Out More About Marianne Williamson Website: Marianne.com S

Have you ever felt like everything in your life was quietly unravelling, and you couldn’t tell if you were transforming or falling apart? What if that restlessness you felt all through 2025 wasn’t you breaking—it was you shedding what no longer fit? In this powerful episode, we explore why 2025 left so many of us feeling raw, done, and ready to walk away from versions of ourselves we’d outgrown. This wasn’t random discomfort—this was a Number 9 year combined with Snake energy, and it arrived to make you honest, not comfortable. While everyone around you was forcing momentum, you were doing something far more powerful: listening to truth you’d been avoiding. Now 2026 has begun as a Number 10 year—new identity with infinite potential—and it’s demanding something completely different from you. This episode reveals three transformative insights about what 2025 revealed and what 2026 actually demands from you now. Honour What the Shedding Revealed: The most important growth of 2025 was completely invisible. It didn’t come with applause or external validation. It came in the middle of the night when you finally admitted the truth you’d been avoiding. It came when you stopped explaining yourself to people who were never going to understand. It came when you let the friendship fade without forcing a dramatic ending. The Snake doesn’t shed loudly—it sheds in private, quietly, completely. You released jobs that drained you, beliefs that limited you, versions of yourself you’d outgrown. And you did it without fanfare, without needing validation, without turning your healing into performance. That wasn’t weakness—that was mastery. Internal work feels like nothing is happening, but it’s everything, because you cannot build a new life on a foundation you’ve outgrown. You Are Standing in Infinite Potential Right Now: Here’s what changes everything about 2026: most people see it as a Number 1 year and think “fresh starts,” but they’re missing the zero. And the zero is where the power lives. Zero represents Source, the unseen, the infinite field of possibility. This isn’t a year where you grind your way to success through willpower alone. This is a year of co-creation. The 1 is you—your vision, your clarity, your choice. The 0 is Source—the universe, the mysterious force that opens doors you didn’t even know existed. Together, they create something neither could accomplish alone. You’re not starting from scratch. You’re starting from clarity, from truth, from the solid ground of knowing who you are and what you will no longer tolerate. Stop carrying the weight of outcomes. Your job is to move, to choose, to act. The rest? That’s where the zero does its work. The Horse Demands You Run: Starting in February, everything shifts again. Horse energy arrives, and the Horse doesn’t tiptoe—the Horse runs. Where the Snake revealed truth, the Horse demands movement, courage, forward motion. Here’s the uncomfortable truth: clarity without action is just comfortable confusion. You know what you know now. 2025 gave you that gift. You see the patterns, understand the lies you believed about yourself, know what needs to change. But knowledge without embodiment is just intellectual entertainment. This year is asking you a different question—not “What do you know?” but “What will you do?” The Horse doesn’t wait for perfect conditions. It runs because running is its nature. And courage isn’t the absence of fear. Courage is moving while afraid, choosing freedom over familiarity every single day. Your assignment: identify one truth that 2025 revealed and take one action toward embodying it this week. Not next month. Not when you feel ready. This week. This isn’t just an episode—it’s an invitation to stop rehearsing your life and start living it. The shedding is done. 2025 cleared the way. 2026 is where you run. If you’re standing at the edge of your own expansion, afraid to jump, this one’s for you. You can watch the video of this episode on YouTube. Newsletter: https://catherineplano.com for transformation. Instagram: @catherineplano for inspiration.