Michelle on Grief

In this week’s episode, I talk about surviving the boogeyman, not just the situation itself, but what it brought up in me and what it revealed.

I share how my friends showed up for me in the ways I actually needed, including simply being there at the rink, and why that kind of grounded support matters more than people often realize. I also explore the relationship between perspective and perception, how what we have lived through shapes what we see, what we fear, and how we make meaning out of what is happening.

This episode is about survival, support, and the quiet power of being witnessed in the right way.

Show Notes:

Song of the Week: The Boxer Rebellion - Perception

MC Somatics Playlist

In this week’s episode, I talk about the self-imposed prisons we can end up living in, mortgages, relationships, responsibilities, and other choices made in survival mode that later leave us feeling stuck and trapped.

I also share more about my PTSD symptoms and how a recent situation with a past partner activated those familiar feelings of constriction, helplessness, and being unable to breathe inside my own life.

This episode is about the cost of survival-based decisions, the reality of trauma, and what it means to begin seeing the bars of the cage clearly.

Show Notes:

Song of the Week: Folsom Prison Blues by Johnny Cash

MC Somatics Playlist

In this episode, I talk about the pits, which is depression, anxiety, and grief—and the difficult wisdom they carry. These are the places most people try to escape, numb, fix, or spiritually bypass, but I explore what they can teach us if we stay with them long enough to truly listen.

I also talk about emotional bypassing, how quick reassurance, forced positivity, and people’s discomfort with pain can become another way of abandoning what is real. And I share why I no longer tolerate that. Some experiences are not meant to be rushed past. Some feelings need witness, honesty, and space.

This episode is about what these hard places reveal: truth, loss, longing, fear, and the deeper messages underneath our suffering. It is about staying with what hurts long enough to hear what it has to say.

Show Notes:

Song of the Week: You Belong Here by Leagues

MC Somatics Playlist

The Kid by Thad Cockrell - Album Purchase

What Is Love?

What is love after disillusionment? In this episode, I explore love as a choice, one we make with clearer eyes, stronger inner boundaries, and a deeper respect for what we know we can and cannot live with.

I talk about the real stuck points that matter in relationships: money, taxes, step-parenting, everyday habits, and the misalignments that may seem small at first but can become fatal over time. I also share the idea of creating a kind of contract with ourselves, something we know, name, and return to before dating, so we stay rooted in our non-negotiables instead of abandoning ourselves for connection. Because often the nice guy is not enough, because he lacks depth. Just saying.

This episode is about discernment, self-respect, and choosing love in a way that does not betray your peace.

Show Notes:

Song of the Week: Love is a Battlefield by Pat Beneath

Book of the Week: Thank You, More Please by Lily Womble

What if the songs that move you the most are actually reflecting something your soul already knows?

In this episode, I explore a deeply personal realization: music has always been the language through which my inner world speaks. Certain songs have followed me through different chapters of my life, sometimes long before I understood what they were showing me. Looking back, I can see how music mirrored truths my body sensed but my mind wasn’t ready to face yet.

From the haunting clarity of The Boxer Rebellion’s album Ocean to Ocean, to songs that seemed to whisper “let it go” long before I could, this episode dives into how music can act as a bridge between intuition, memory, and emotional truth. I share how certain songs became markers of pivotal moments in my life, revealing patterns, surfacing hidden feelings, and helping me listen to the deeper signals within myself.

If you’ve ever had a song give you chills, stop you in your tracks, or feel like it was written just for you, this conversation is for you.

Together we explore how music can become a mirror for the soul, helping us slow down, listen more closely, and trust the quiet wisdom that’s always been there beneath the noise.

Because sometimes the messages we need most are already playing in the background… we just have to learn how to listen.

Some songs that don’t just play in the background of our lives, they hold us.

In this episode, I talk about the music that carried me through different chapters of my life. The anthems that steadied me during heartbreak. The lyrics that named what I couldn’t yet say. The melodies that helped me metabolize grief, anger, freedom, longing, and becoming.

Music has been more than entertainment for me. It’s been regulation. Memory. Permission. A mirror. A companion.

Certain songs marked turning points such as divorce, reinvention, falling in love, walking away, and reclaiming myself. When I hear them now, I don’t just remember the moment. I remember who I was, and who I was becoming.

Show Notes:

MC Somatics Playlist

Are You Lonely?

It’s a question people tend to ask when they see someone who spends a lot of time alone. But what if aloneness isn’t emptiness?

In this episode, I talk about what it’s like to live as an introverted intuitive whose internal world is vivid, layered, relational, and deeply alive. My solitude isn’t a waiting room for connection; it is connection. Conversations are conversations happening inside me. Parts. Memory. Meaning-making. Imagination. Reflection. A whole ecosystem of depth.

I explore how some of us experience companionship internally through ideas, creativity, spirituality, parts work, story, and embodied awareness in ways that feel full rather than lacking.

Show Notes:

Song of the Week: The Boxer Rebellion - Hidden Meanings

MC Somatics Playlist

We all learn how to shrink. We shrink our voices to keep the peace. We shrink our needs so we don’t seem “too much.”

We shrink our bodies, our dreams, our opinions, our boundaries, and sometimes our entire lives, just to fit into spaces that were never built for us.

In this episode, I explore the many subtle and not-so-subtle ways we make ourselves small: fawning, over-explaining, apologizing for taking up space, staying quiet when something feels wrong, and saying yes when our body is screaming no. I talk about the habits that keep us contained and the stories that convince us that shrinking is safer than being seen.

And then I introduce a different path, the unshrinking way.

Unshrinking isn’t about becoming louder or harder. It’s about becoming truer. It’s the slow, brave practice of returning to your actual size: reclaiming your voice, your instincts, your limits, and your right to exist without constant self-editing.

This conversation is part reflection, part gentle rebellion, a reminder that you were never meant to fold yourself into a smaller version just to make other people comfortable.

If you’ve ever felt like you’ve disappeared inside your own life, this episode is an invitation to take up space again, one honest breath at a time.

Show Notes:

Song of the Week: Bre Kennedy - Grassroots

MC Somatics Playlist

In this episode of Soul Notes, I explore what happens when we begin to truly listen to the quiet wisdom of our own soul. I talk openly about boundary violations, how they show up, how easily we minimize them, and how often our bodies and intuition are already trying to tell us the truth long before our minds catch up.

This is a conversation about learning to trust those inner signals: the discomfort, the hesitation, the subtle knowing that something isn’t aligned. I reflect on personal experiences, patterns I’ve had to unlearn, and the courage it takes to choose ourselves when it would be easier to stay silent.

Show Notes:

Song of the Week: Giving Up Air - The Temper Trap

MC Somatics Playlist

Dear Padre Podcast

Einstein and Rabbi by Naom Levy

This episode lives in the desert phase of individuation—the stretch where familiar identities fall away, external validation dries up, and the only thing left is your willingness to stay. Ride or Die Radio is for the moments when you’re not seen, not mirrored, not celebrated, and you choose yourself anyway.

Show Notes:

Individuation Process Overview

Song of the Week: Ride or Die Radio by Kassi Ashton

MC Somatics Playlist