Enlightened Empaths

Welcome to another Share Your Light episode, where we showcase people who are following their heart and passion in order to be of service to others.  Today’s guest, Kiersten, is an intuitive healer specializing in distance healing.  She incorporates energy work, crystals, sacred drumming, moon cycles, pendulum, and the crystal grid in her practice. Drawing on her gifts, to identify troubled areas, and sending out healing energy.

In addition to her online practice supporting human healing journeys, Kiersten also practices equine energy work and facilitates tailored group programs.

You can connect with Kiersten and schedule distance healing appointments on her website: innerknowinghealing.com

As empaths, we’ve learned to recognize gaslighting, manipulation, and other nefarious techniques people use to dim our light. But what about when that is happening in the workplace or in friendship groups?  Today we’re talking about manipulation — the everyday kind that shows up at your desk, in your group chat, at your best friend’s dinner party. We’re going to talk about what it looks like, why groups are actually easier to manipulate than one-on-one relationships, and — most importantly — how to spot it before you’re three months deep into a dynamic that’s quietly rearranging your sense of reality

Recognizing what is happening is the first step in breaking free!

For more information about Samantha and her offerings: samanthafey.com

To connect with Denise and her services: thegratefulmessenger.com

In this Share You Light episode, we welcome Nicole Harp! Nicole is an author, award-winning abstract artist, professional interspecies animal communicator, and graduate of Virginia Commonwealth University with a degree in design.  Her work explores the intersection of art, energy, consciousness, and the profound connection between humans, animals, and the natural world. Through her soul paintings, Nicole intuitively translates the essence and energy of people, animals and spirit into visual form, creating artwork that invites deeper reflection and connection.

Nicole has felt a lifelong calling to understand and advocate for animals. As a professional animal communicator, she connects with animals of many species, both living and in spirit, sharing their perspectives, emotions, wisdom, and messages to help people see animals as sentient beings with their own thoughts, feelings and sovereignty. Her work is rooted in the belief that by deepening our understanding of animals, we ultimately deepen our understanding of ourselves and our relationship with the natural world.

She is the author of colors of Consciousness; Twenty-Five Soul Paintings, Volume 1 and the creator the Animal Truth Oracle, a 54-card deck written from the animals’ perspective. Nicole also teaches soul painting and animal communication, helping others move beyond the analytical mind and into intuitive, heart-centered connection. 

Please contact Nicole at her website Harpspace.org or [email protected]

For information about the upcoming Kickstarter for the Animal Truth Oracle Deck  

And please follow her at Instagram@harpspace, on Facebook @Harpspace as well as on Substack

It’s time to take a peek and explore the astrological influences for October 2026, filled with retrogrades, new moons, and planetary shifts! Samantha and Denise share and discuss how these influences may impact personal growth, relationships, and self-care.

The Venus retrograde beginning in Scorpio on October 3rd and later returning to Libra, gives us the opportunity to look at issues around trust and emotional safety, reciprocity in relationships, potentially unfinished romantic and friendship issues. A good question for empaths: Am I taking care of other people at my own expense?

Communication may need a little more care and finesse. You may want to wait before sending emotionally charged messages, ask direct questions rather than assuming, and allowing conversations to unfold over time. The full moon in Taurus on October 26th emphasizes the body and physical stability. Regular meals and sleep, spending time outdoors, being aware of overstimulation, practicing breathwork and gentle movement could all be beneficial and help you self-regulate.

Please remember these are potential energies, you always have choice and free will. Hope you have a wonderful month of October!

Please join us in welcoming Amelia for this Share Your Light episode. Amelia shares her transformative journey through dreams, internal family systems, and creative expression, offering insights into healing childhood wounds and navigating midlife transitions with grace and self-awareness.

Through Artsy Partswork, Amelia offers IFS-informed peer support and dreamwork while focusing on the identity shifts that come with midlife. She believes our dreams and inner parts can invite us to become curious about who we are beneath the roles we’ve carried for years, while supportive friendships can give us the courage and companionship to discover who we’re becoming.

After spending much of her life keeping parts of herself hidden, Amelia is now exploring what it means to be more visible, trust her own inner wisdom, and create spaces where women can say, “Me too.” Her approach isn’t about telling people what to believe. It’s about creating a safe, curious space to explore what they already sense within themselves.

For more information about Amelia and her offerings, please visit: artsypartswork.com

It’s our monthly episode featuring stories, questions and comments from listeners in our Enlightened Empaths community! Please join us as we explore insights on intuition, dreams, environmental concerns, and personal growth.

If you would like to submit a question or story for a Community Connections episode, please email us: [email protected]

For more information on Samantha’s services and upcoming events: samanthafey.com

Denise and her offerings are at: thegratefulmessenger.com

Melissa Ann Lester is an integrative healer, author, mentor, and teacher whose work weaves
transpersonal psychology, somatic practices, energy medicine, and earth-based wisdom.
Rooted in a holistic, trauma-informed approach, she supports others navigating moments of
unraveling, awakening, and deep transition as they reconnect with their inner wisdom and
return home to themselves.

Her own healing journey began with therapy as her entryway, and eventually she felt called to
be a witness and guide for others, serving as a Licensed Professional Counselor for more than
ten years. A series of spiritual initiations profoundly deepened her work, ultimately leading her
to answer a soul-led calling: releasing her clinical license to offer healing that integrates the full
spectrum of the human experience — mind, body, and spirit.

Melissa holds a Master of Science in Mental Health Counseling, is certified in Complementary
and Alternative Medicine, is an Usui Reiki Master, and draws from her studies in somatics and
earth-based wisdom. For now she walks alongside individuals in one-on-one work, with
seasonal programs and group offerings beginning to take shape. She lives in Decatur, Georgia,
with her husband and two cats, where she is happily surrounded by trees.

You can follow her writing in her monthly musings newsletter and find her at
www.melissaannlester.com and on Instagram at @melissaannlester.

Have you ever wondered if there was a way you could connect more fully with your own inner thoughts and programming in order to enhance your life? We all can by becoming more aware of the power of our subconscious mind!

The subconscious mind is the silent architect of our reality; it interprets symbols, stores every experience, and shapes our decisions long before our conscious mind catches up. When we have a clearer understanding of how it works, it gives us the ability to reprogram our inner world so we can make the life shifts we are ready to manifest.

Exercises to retrain the subconscious: 

Mirror Exercise – speak to yourself in the second person. Your subconscious receives this as an instruction, a task to complete, rather than a wish. “You are successful” or “You are healthy, wealthy and happy.” 

Gratitude Letter – Write a letter to yourself as though your goal has already happened. Use the present tense.

Symbolic Visualization Ritual

The more you get to know your inner world, the more you are able to shine your own light more brightly!

For more information about Samantha and her offerings:samanthafey.com

Denise and her services can be found at: thegratefulmessenger.com

Please join us in welcoming Kristen O’Meara to the show today. Kristen is the mother of Austin, an adult on the autism spectrum. She has a master’s degree in counseling psychology and advanced certifications in mindfulness and intuitive development as well as extensive training in spiritual healing modalities. With raw honesty, Kristen shares her profound journey of healing and spiritual connection through channeling her son’s higher self, offering practical tools and insights for parents of children with autism and the reality of her journey.

Kristen began channeling her son Austin’s higher self in 2013 because Austin could not speak with her. Channeling became an integral part of her healing journey, redirecting her back to her soul and heart, and teaching her that we are all powerful souls embodied. Bridging her experiences with complex parenting, counseling work, and a sophisticated toolbox of healing techniques, her first book, The Healing Way, is the culmination of her life’s work.

The Healing Way by Kristen O’Meara

For more information about Kristen and her work, please visit: thespiritualcaregiver.com

Kristen can also be found on Substack under thespiriualcaregiver.substack.

 Here’s the shape of September, in one sentence: it’s a month of turning inward while the world asks you to engage outward.

There’s a cluster of retrograde planets active pretty much all month — Saturn, Neptune, and Pluto are already retrograde, and partway through the month, Uranus joins them. Four planets moving backward, astrologically, at the same time.

For an empath, this actually can be a relief, if you let it. So much of what exhausts us is the forward momentum of the world — the constant doing, deciding, producing, responding. A month with this many retrogrades is a month where the cosmic permission slip says: it’s okay to slow down. It’s okay to revisit. It’s okay to not have the answer yet.

But — and here’s the nuance — the inner planets, the fast-moving personal ones: the Sun, Mercury, Venus, and Mars, are all direct and quite active this month. So you’re going to feel this tug-of-war: parts of you wanting to reflect, rest, and go inward, while other parts of your life — conversations, relationships, decisions — are moving forward whether you’re ready or not.

If you take one thing from this whole episode, let it be this: you’re allowed to let your inner world move at retrograde speed even while your outer world moves at direct speed!