The Authentic Creative: expanding our capacity to feel good

Where do you feel most deeply at home? We can be surrounded by people who love us, needed by everyone around us, and still long to feel truly known.

In this minisode of The Authentic Creative, we explore authentic belonging, self-acceptance, and the experience of staying connected to yourself in relationship with others. Building on September’s theme of coming home to yourself and October’s exploration of receiving, this episode invites you to experience your presence as enough.

Drawing on Brené Brown’s distinction between fitting in and belonging, Gay Hendricks’ The Big Leap, and Derek Walcott’s poem Love After Love, we reflect on people-pleasing, earning approval through usefulness, and opening to love and support without having to earn them.

Through gentle breathwork, grounding, energy visualization, and a guided meditation for belonging, you can create an inner sanctuary where your needs matter and your authentic expression is welcome.

In this episode, we explore:

• Authentic belonging and the difference between being needed and being known.
• How people-pleasing can draw us away from ourselves.
• Connection, nervous system safety, and feeling supported.
• Healthy boundaries and remaining yourself in relationships.
• Self-compassion, receiving support, and creative expression.
• Affirmations for belonging, including “I belong to myself” and “My presence is enough.”

This experience offers space to rest and reconnect, especially for women caring for families, supporting others, or navigating loneliness and the emotional demands of the holiday season.

Listen somewhere you can comfortably rest. Save the guided meditation for a quiet moment if you’re driving or doing something that requires your attention.

Discover The Authentic Creative Sanctuary, a living archive of women’s wisdom, at sageandblushwellness.com.

Follow The Authentic Creative and share this minisode with someone who deserves to feel deeply welcomed, exactly as they are.

Continue this experience with me

If this episode speaks to you, I invite you to explore my private breathwork + Reiki sessions and community breathwork, Reiki, and sound bath experiences. Together, we create space for you to feel supported, reconnect with yourself, and deepen your capacity to receive.

Visit sageandblushwellness.com to explore my offerings and book your next experience.

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What does it truly mean to receive? Love, support, abundance, rest, and even the parts of ourselves we've spent a lifetime protecting?

For the past month, we've been walking with the theme of Receiving, exploring our relationship with self-worth, nervous system regulation, surrender, and the spaciousness required to welcome something new.

In this second gathering of The Authentic Creative Sanctuary, eight extraordinary women come together for transformational breathwork infused with Reiki, followed by an intimate, unscripted conversation about creativity, motherhood, entrepreneurship, relationships, healing, and the courage to be fully seen.

Together, we explore the patterns of overgiving and overachieving, the vulnerability of letting ourselves be loved, releasing perfectionism, trusting our intuition, and discovering that our worth exists beyond what we produce.

As Sanctuary guest Cora Poage shares: “Protection will not work for me at the expense of my authentic expression and truth.”

From attachment patterns and somatic healing to creative reinvention, feminine energy, and the practice of enoughness, this conversation is an invitation to expand your capacity to receive.

We invite you to walk with this theme alongside us.

In This Episode

• Receiving love, support, abundance, and our authentic selves
• Nervous system regulation, transformational breathwork, and Reiki
• Releasing perfectionism, people-pleasing, and the pressure to produce
• Creating spaciousness for creativity, intuition, and new possibilities
• Healing attachment patterns and allowing ourselves to be fully seen
• Trusting the unknown and discovering the freedom of enoughness

Featured Sanctuary Guests

Dr. Alicia Newsome — Functional medicine practitioner and entrepreneur @dr.alicianewsome

Amanda Malarkey — Farm-based entrepreneur and wellness enthusiast @lyvwellness

Karaleigh Garrison — Creative entrepreneur, actor, theater director @karaleigh.garrison

Simbiat Hall — Writer, director, producer, and author coach @simibihall

Cora Poage — Heart whisperer and Inner life coach@coachcoco

Jodi Kahn — Breathwork and somatic practitioner @jodikahn_health

Lola Kristine — Singer, songwriter, and recording artist @musicoflola

About The Authentic Creative Sanctuary: A monthly virtual mini retreat and recorded conversation bringing together extraordinary women for transformational breathwork infused with Reiki, authentic connection, and meaningful dialogue. A living archive of women's wisdom, created through the power of shared experience.

Next month's Sanctuary theme: Belonging: Explore The Authentic Creative Sanctuary, follow The Authentic Creative podcast, and share this episode with someone who would benefit from this conversation.

If you’re ready to experience this work more deeply, I offer Transformational Breathwork + Reiki, Akashic Records, private coaching, sound baths, Reiki healing, and community experiences. Visit sageandblushwellness.com to explore upcoming offerings and ways to work with me.

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What Are You Ready to Receive?

What if receiving could feel as natural as giving?

In this guided minisode of The Authentic Creative, I’m inviting you to walk with the October theme inside The Authentic Creative Sanctuary: Receiving.

So many of us have become incredibly capable at caring for others, holding families, building businesses, creating, leading and making things happen. In the process, receiving support, love, care, rest, abundance or help can sometimes feel far less familiar.

In this episode, I’ll guide you through gentle breath, embodied reflection and an original poem as we explore what it means to open ourselves to receiving. Together, we’ll consider where we learned to do everything ourselves, what we may be ready to put down, and what could become possible when we allow ourselves to be supported.

You’ll leave with questions and practices you can carry into your everyday life, helping you notice where support is already available, become more aware of what you truly want and need, and practice allowing goodness to reach you.

Our central questions for October are:

What if receiving could feel as natural as giving?
Where have I learned to do everything myself?
What might become possible if I allowed myself to be supported?
What am I ready to receive?

This minisode is part of The Authentic Creative Sanctuary: A Living Archive of Women’s Wisdom, where I bring women together for Transformational Breathwork infused with Reiki, embodied reflection and honest conversation. These gatherings become podcast transmissions so the wisdom shared inside the Sanctuary can continue traveling outward.

Walk this journey with us. Listen now, live with these questions in the weeks ahead, journal with them, notice what begins to shift, and then return for our October Sanctuary episode to hear what Receiving opened in the lives and hearts of the women gathered in our circle.

If this practice supports you, follow The Authentic Creative so you don’t miss the October Sanctuary conversation, share this minisode with a woman you’d love to walk alongside, and explore my Transformational Breathwork, Reiki, sound healing and women’s wellness offerings at sageandblushwellness.com.

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Where do I feel most like myself right now? Where have I moved away from myself? And what would it feel like to come home?

What does it mean to truly come home to yourself, especially when motherhood, work, relationships, caregiving, and the expectations of others have pulled you away from your own voice?

Welcome to the first gathering of The Authentic Creative Sanctuary, a year-long journey unfolding monthly from September through July. Each month, I gather a changing circle of extraordinary women for Transformational Breathwork + Reiki followed by an intimate, unfiltered conversation around a new theme.

The Authentic Creative Sanctuary is a living archive of women’s wisdom. Rather than polished conversations about what we already know, we take off the masks and speak from where we actually are — our transitions, grief, creativity, relationships, motherhood, breakthroughs, questions, and becoming.

And you’re invited to come along for the journey.

Over the coming year, you’ll get to know these women and their evolving stories while exploring your own alongside us. My hope is that our experiences become mirrors for yours: that we grow, remember, heal, and transform together as the year unfolds.

Our first theme is Coming Home to Yourself. If you’ve been feeling disconnected from yourself, questioning your instincts, carrying too much for everyone around you, or simply longing to feel more like you again, this conversation is for you.

Together, we explore:

• Rebuilding self-trust after criticism, grief, betrayal, or change
• Motherhood and caregiving without losing yourself
• Releasing emotions your body may be carrying
• Learning to receive when you’re accustomed to being the strong one
• Creating and expressing yourself from truth
• Returning to your body, intuition, power, and own knowing
• The courage to take up space and live more fully as yourself

In this Sanctuary:

• Dr. Saidie Rodriguez — a doctor working with children in intensive care who brings a deeply embodied perspective on aliveness, courage, power, compassion, and the human experience @soulshine_global

• Amanda Malarkey — a designer, creative, mother of three, space creator, and entrepreneur exploring sanctuary, nature, reinvention, and creating spaces that help people come home to themselves @Amanda.wildfernproject

• Simbi Hall — a writer, producer, creative, and Buddhist practitioner exploring authentic expression, creativity, spirituality, self-reflection, and trusting our own voice @simbihall

• Jeni Dodd — an attorney, voting-rights advocate, tea educator, and storyteller exploring tea ceremony, women’s history, civic voice, presence, and the power of gathering @jenidoddtea

• Karaleigh Garrison — a performer, musician, music director, and mother of three neurodivergent children exploring confidence, creativity, caregiving, health, and stepping into a role she has dreamed of for years @karaleigh.garrison

• Kimberly Leemans — a mother, home-birth advocate, and emerging member of her local birth team exploring instinct, informed choice, surrender, motherhood, and trusting the wisdom of the body @kimieabreak

• Dr. Ianthe Marini — an actress, singer, conductor, and creative leader exploring the difference between performance and authentic expression, women’s voices, embodiment, music, and the power of creation @iantheoneliamarini

As Dr. Saidie shares, “The capacity of my remembering coming home to myself is only to the extent of the capacity of my forgetting myself.”

If you’re ready to experience this work more deeply, I offer Transformational Breathwork + Reiki, Akashic Records, private coaching, sound baths, Reiki healing, and community experiences. Visit sageandblushwellness.com to explore upcoming offerings and ways to work with me.

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If you've been feeling overwhelmed, disconnected from yourself, or unsure of what you need in this changing season, this 10 minute guided meditation and grounding breathwork practice will help you slow down, regulate your nervous system, and reconnect with your body’s wisdom.

The transition from summer to fall can bring changing routines, competing responsibilities, and the challenge of finding your rhythm again. This may feel especially familiar if you are a mother, entrepreneur, or creative trying to care for the people you love while making space for your own needs, work, and inner life.

Through personal reflection, grounding breathwork, a guided meditation, and an original closing poem, I invite you to ask yourself: What am I needing? You will have space to call your energy back, listen for the answer, and identify one small way to give yourself what you need today.

When you meet yourself with care, you create more room for nervous system regulation, creativity, alignment, manifestation, flow, and synchronicities.

Created during Virgo season and the days leading toward the September new moon, this minisode offers a gentle practice for coming home to yourself, trusting your body, navigating life transitions, and creating a more grounded beginning.

This is also the theme of our first Authentic Creative Sanctuary on September 11th, Coming Home to Yourself, an intimate gathering centered around Transformational Breathwork infused with Reiki, reflection, poetry, and honest conversation.

Give yourself the deepest breath you have given yourself all day, and come home.

Explore upcoming gatherings, private healing sessions, Transformational Breathwork, Reiki, and more through sage + blush wellness at https://sageandblushwellness.com

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What becomes possible when we stop gripping so tightly and begin receiving what life is offering us?

This month's women's panel became something none of us could have planned. What began as a conversation about endless possibility unfolded into a profound exploration of grief, intuition, trust, receiving, purpose, leadership, and the unseen ways life continues to guide us through both joy and loss.

Following a transformational Breathwork infused with Reiki session, an extraordinary group of women shared stories that were deeply personal and universally relatable. Together we explored how the greatest expansion often comes through surrender rather than striving, and how our deepest challenges can become portals into our greatest purpose.

Inside this episode, we explore:

• Why endless possibilities begin with the willingness to receive.
• How breathwork helps release limiting beliefs, grief, fear, and old identities.
• The surprising connection between intuition, nature, and authentic decision-making.
• Navigating profound loss while remaining connected to those we love.
• The role of trust in creating a life that feels aligned rather than forced.
• How women leaders can move from constant doing into embodied receiving.
• Why your desires may actually be pointing toward your purpose.
• The difference between living from fear and living from oneness.
• How feminine leadership invites relationship, intuition, and spaciousness instead of hustle.
• Remembering that every breath offers a chance to begin again.

Throughout the conversation, our panelists share remarkable stories of resilience, advocacy, motherhood, entrepreneurship, spirituality, medicine, creativity, Human Design, Buddhism, healing, and the courage to keep saying yes to life, even after heartbreak.

Whether you're navigating a transition, questioning your next step, grieving someone you love, or simply longing to remember what's already alive within you, this conversation offers a gentle invitation back to yourself.

As Mary Oliver asks,

"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?"

May this conversation remind you that the possibilities you're searching for may be much closer than you think.

Celeste Moore is a Certified Master Image Coach who turns image into strategy for high-achieving women, getting them recognized faster, invited onto more stages, and paid at the level they have already earned, with work featured in Forbes, on a Times Square billboard, and at New York and Paris Fashion Week.

Dr. Saidie Rodriguez is a physician, coach, and creator of soulSHINE, where science backed transformation meets soul led living. Through her coaching, podcast, and writing, she helps high achieving women reconnect with their intuition, expand beyond survival mode, and create lives rooted in purpose, fulfillment, and self trust.

Amanda Malarkey is the visionary founder of The Wild Fern Project, a designer, yoga instructor, permaculture advocate, and mother of three based in the Lake Tahoe region.

Janelle Fitzpatrick is a leadership coach, strategic partner and dedicated mom. She helps people bridge the wisdom of their personal journeys with their professional lives, unlocking more authentic leadership, deeper connection, and a greater sense of possibility in both.

Janine Wolf is a Conscious Connected Breath Coach and Sound Healer trained in the foundations of rebirthing. She has breathed hundreds of children and adults in private and group sessions. Along with the breath, she combines sound healing, reiki, and spiritual coaching to guide the practitioner to release whatever no longer serves, giving them the opportunity to let go of the past and experience the here and now.

Dana Hunter Fradella hosts the top 5% Her Next Level podcast and serves as an executive leadership coach and business mentor for women leaders focused on expanding their income and impact in the world. 

Simbiat Hall is an award-winning filmmaker, writer, director, and founder of Athena Films, a production company dedicated to spreading enlightenment through entertainment. A graduate of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and an alumna of AFI’s Directing Workshop for Women, her work has screened at festivals including AFI Fest and SXSW. She continues to develop film and television projects while serving on the boards of the Blackbird Alliance and the Almanack Screenwriters Alumni Council.

Robyn Cohen holds a BFA from The Juilliard School and an MFA from The Shakespeare Theatre Company in D.C. She’s been acting professionally for 33 years - in theatre, film, and television - opposite such artists as Bill Murray, Cate Blanchette, and Jeff Goldblum. She’s been training actors for 20 years and is the founder of THE COHEN ACTING STUDIO where she coaches artists and public speakers across all mediums. Robyn is the happy host of “Thriving Artists: The Daily Joyride with Robyn Cohen” Podcast.

Incredible panelists: @simbihall @breathewithjanine @robyncohenactingstudio @danahunterfradella @janellefitzpatrickcoaching @celestemooreimage @soulshine_global @amanda.wildfernproject

If this episode resonates with you, we'd love for you to:

• Follow or subscribe to The Authentic Creative Podcast.
• Leave a review on Apple Podcasts.
• Share this episode with someone who could use this reminder today.

To learn more about Siri Baruc Thornton, Breathwork • Reiki, The Authentic Creative Sanctuary, retreats, Reiki certification, or upcoming events, visit:

https://sageandblushwellness.com

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After our Let It Be Easier women's panel, Amanda Folkestad sent me a voice note.

Listening to it brought me back to something I witness again and again. We spend so much of our lives wondering whether this is the right time, the right place, or the right way to share what's really happening inside of us. Holding it all together can become such a familiar way of being that we forget what it feels like to simply exhale.

Amanda describes what shifted for her that morning in a way I couldn't say better than she does herself. She talks about feeling free, finding the courage to share authentically, and discovering what becomes possible when we're surrounded by people who meet us with compassion instead of judgment.

Her words are a beautiful reminder that healing isn't always loud or dramatic. A single conversation, one deep breath, or an hour spent feeling truly seen can change the way we relate to ourselves.

I'm so grateful she trusted me with her experience and gave me permission to share it with you.

If something in Amanda's share speaks to your heart, I'd love to welcome you into one of these spaces. Whether it's a class, a private session, a sound bath healing, or a First and Second Degree Reiki Certification retreat, my intention is always the same: to create extraordinary spaces where people feel deeply seen, tell the truth, and remember who they are.

You can learn more at www.sageandblushwellness.com.

Thank you for listening, and thank you for being here.

Keep expanding your capacity to feel good, one breath at a time.

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When we arrive in our bodies first, through breakthwork and reiki, we tell a different kind of truth. That's exactly what happened here. What unfolded was a group of women showing up honestly, allowing themselves to be seen, and trusting that whatever wanted to emerge would be enough.

Our theme was Let It Be Easier, we realized that ease isn't the absence of hardship. It's the willingness to soften instead of forcing, to trust instead of gripping, and to let ourselves be fully present with whatever season we're living through. As each woman shared her own story, we found ourselves talking about grief, parenting, caregiving, relationships, purpose, self-trust, and the ways we slowly find our way back to ourselves.

Here's some of what we explored together:

• How Breathwork infused with Reiki helps us arrive differently every single time, meeting us exactly where we are.
• Grief, divorce, motherhood, caregiving, and navigating seasons that ask more of us than we feel ready to give.
• The difference between feeling an emotion, getting caught in the story around it, and learning to move through both with greater compassion.
• Releasing perfectionism, productivity, people pleasing, and the pressure to carry everything on our own.
• Trusting our bodies, our intuition, our own timing, and the unfolding of life, even when we can't yet see where it's leading.
• Why authentic community can become one of the most powerful forms of healing.

There were so many moments I'll continue carrying with me, especially this simple question: "What if letting go was as easy as taking a breath?"

I hope this conversation reminds you that you don't have to figure everything out before taking your next step. I hope it gives you permission to trust your own rhythm a little more, receive support a little more freely, and remember that healing often happens in the presence of people who are willing to tell the truth.

I was honored to stand in conversation with Amanda Folkestad @portlandpink Michelle Rios @michelle.rios.official Robyn Cohen @robyncohenactingstudio Dana Shalit @danashalit Anna K. Morris  @iamannakmorris Cora Poage @coachcoco and Claudia Noriega-Bernstein. @claudia_noriega_bernstein

If you'd like to experience Breathwork infused with Reiki for yourself, I'd love to welcome you into one of my classes, private sessions, sound bath healings, or First and Second Degree Reiki Certification retreats.

You can learn more at www.sageandblushwellness.com.

Keep expanding your capacity to feel good, one breath at a time.

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What if the thing you're longing for isn't success, certainty, or control?

What if it's safety?

Today I'm in conversation with Mike Elliott, a relationship coach, breathwork facilitator, and guide for men who are longing for deeper connection, emotional presence, and more meaningful relationships.

Mike's work was deeply shaped by being separated from his biological mother at birth and adopted twice before the age of 14 months, experiences that later revealed deep patterns around abandonment, performance, and the fear of rejection. After years of pursuing external success, the collapse of his marriage became a catalyst for a profound healing journey into attachment, nervous system regulation, somatics, intimacy, and emotional embodiment.

In this conversation, Mike shares openly about adoption, addiction, a shotgun held to his chest, heartbreak, suicidal ideation, nervous system healing, and the relationships that ultimately helped him reconnect with himself and transform his life.

Together, we explore functional freeze, emotional safety, intimacy, attachment, sensitivity, and why so many people who appear successful on the outside still feel disconnected on the inside.

More than anything, this conversation is about safety.

The kind of safety that allows us to feel, connect, heal, and fully be ourselves.

It's a reminder that no matter how disconnected, numb, or alone we may feel, healing remains possible.

In this conversation, we explore:

• Why our deepest wounds often become our greatest medicine

• How trauma shapes our relationships

• Why sensitivity is a strength

• The role of safety in healing and connection

• Simple practices for creating more presence in everyday life

Favorite Quote:

"The longest journey any of us will ever take is from our head to our heart."

Resources & Links:

Mike Elliott: @mikeelliott.relating | itsmikeelliott.com | The Sacred We podcast

Song Mentioned: "In My Blood" by Shawn Mendes
https://open.spotify.com/track/6Pce5yn5oOSDB6hZm8Ou2U?si=61a6111141374bd8

Connect with Me: @siribaructhornton | sageandblushwellness.com | [email protected]

If this conversation resonated with you, I offer private Transformational Breathwork infused with Reiki sessions online and in person, as well as immersive retreats and Reiki Certification Retreats designed to help you reconnect with yourself, regulate your nervous system, release old patterns, and create greater safety, connection, and freedom in your life.

Learn more at sageandblushwellness.com

Keep expanding your capacity to feel good, one breath at a time.

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Anxiety. Burnout. Overwhelm. So many of us are living in a constant state of doing, giving, striving, and holding it all together.

What if healing isn't about pushing harder?

What if healing begins when we finally allow ourselves to receive?

I'm resharing this powerful Reiki panel conversation because enrollment is now open for my upcoming First and Second Degree Reiki Certification Retreat, September 27 through 30, 2026, in beautiful Depoe Bay, Oregon.

In this episode, 3 former Reiki students share what changed after receiving their Reiki attunements.

Together, we explore Reiki supported nervous system regulation, emotional healing, greater self trust, sobriety, grief, parenting, spiritual connection and a deeper sense of peace.

If you've ever wondered what Reiki attunements actually feel like or how Reiki can impact daily life, these stories offer an honest, heartfelt glimpse into the experience.

In this episode, you'll hear:

• What it feels like to receive Reiki attunements

• How Reiki supports nervous system regulation

• Stories of transformation, healing, and remembrance

• Why giving Reiki often becomes a healing experience for the practitioner as well

• A simple grounding practice you can use anytime

Some favorite moments from the conversation:

"When we give Reiki, we also receive."

"Presence is enough. Reiki teaches us to stop efforting and start allowing."

"It was always me. This moment was always meant to happen."

"My nervous system was fried. Reiki gave me a way to regulate again."

"The lineage is behind you. You are never alone."

If you've been curious about Reiki, feeling called to deepen your practice, or simply longing for more peace, trust, and connection in your life, I hope this conversation serves you.

First and Second Degree Reiki Certification Retreat
September 27 to 30, 2026
Depoe Bay, Oregon

3 to 6 spots available.

For details or to reserve your spot:

sageandblushwellness.com

Instagram: @SiriBarucThornton

Email: [email protected]

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