The intentional leader podcast

In the Northern Hemisphere, Winter can be a trying period in the year where our energy levels are low. They are low due to the lack of sunshine and subsequent drop in vitamin D, but also because there is a tendency to stay indoor. Nature shows us we need to slow down.

In that context, Christmas arrives and uses up a ton of our energy, not just from the Planet's point of view, but our personal reserves of energy. It is not surprising that we can finish the year completely drained. However, the biggest drain of all is the energy vampires in our lives that hide in plain sight, often times in our families or bigger circle of relatives.

The reason I am so excited to dedicate an episode to helping you getting your energy back is that Energy is the first pillar of my EPIC framework. And I am running a free five day challenge by the same name starting on the 26th of January that I am inviting you to sign up for with this link.

I have done episodes about energy vampires previously on the podcast so I am going to list them if you want to go back to them:

• EP 08: Ghosts, Energy Vampires and Graveyards
• EP 104: How to deal with Energy Vampires

I grew up surrounded by energy vampires, starting with my Mum and my Grandmother. I am a bit of an expert on the topic because of that. I wish I wasn't, but I am.

In this episode I explain why people turn into energy vampires and describe the main four types of vampires you can come across so you can spot them. And during my five day challenge I will teach you how to spot them but also how to remove what they use to drain you.

Please share this episode with anyone you know who might benefit from listening to it.

Barbara With has been with us in a previous episode where she talked about world peace. Click here to check it out.

She comes back this December 2025 to give us predictions for 2026 from the collective of spirit guides that she calls the Party.

First of all, I asked Barbara is her collective would give us a word for the year, and they said "Authenticity".

I also asked what would be the biggest change that happens in 2026. I don't want to spoil it so you will have to listen to the episode. We then explored month by month what to expect.

I asked her how it all started and she said it was when a British tabloid newspaper wanted her to channel Princess Diana in the 90s. She shares how the twelve guides that are in the Party came one by one, although they worked with her under the guise of angels for many years. She also shares how Hitler is one of the 12. I found that particularly interesting because something similar happened to me. For years, my guides were anonymous angels. And one day, one came to the forefront. Maybe I needed to be ready to hear their name. Barbara feels the same. Hearing the names of our guides can take our egos for a ride.

Barbara shares a message from Jesus after I asked what is the one thing he wished everybody knew about his message.

Last, I asked Barbara how we can best prepare for 2026.

She is offering her 1-hour reading at 40% off. Go to https://barbarawith.com/readings/ pick a 1-hour reading and use the coupon code READING40.

To buy Barbara''s books, click here.

We have a returning guest: Chantal Vanhagen, who came to the podcast in EP 24 to talk about toxic positivity and spiritual bypassing.

Chantal's Mum died earlier this year as did a very dear friend of hers and I thought having a discussion with her around how grief can be exacerbated around Christmas would be a good idea. The first Christmas (if you celebrate Christmas obviously - feel free to use any other family gatherings in your own tradition) after a loved one has died can be the hardest time because you cannot help remembering that last Christmas that person was with you.

Christmas can magnify feelings like no other celebration. If you are happy, then you are probably likely to feel happier as you are surrounded by loved ones, but if you are not, particularly if you are dealing with the messy process of grief, then it's going to be a challenge.

But it's not just for people who have lost loved ones, you could be grieving not having had children and insensitive relatives might rub it in your face. Or, like Bridget Jones, you could be single in your thirties and feel like the odd one.

Grief hit me unexpectedly this Christmas as I witnessed the staff of a restaurant decorating a Christmas tree and unprocessed grief around the fact that my ex-husband never allowed me to decorate our Christmas tree in the twenty years we were together, depriving me of the joy of doing that with our two children when they were little. The grief was real and I sat and journaled on it.

Whatever your reason for grieving, Chantal and I offer lived experience, share stories and tips on how to cope with it. We also give tips for people who know people who are grieving and who might not know how to best support them.

To find out more about Chantal, find her on Facebook at Soothing conversations with Chantal.

In today's episode, I want to share six ways you can be kinder to the planet this Christmas. As with everything, what matters is progress not perfection. This was emphasised to me as I felt like an imposter joining the Green party in October as I am not vegan, not even vegetarian and I drive my son to college every day. Sometimes we don't do anything because we are not doing it perfectly and we think it's not going to make any difference. That is not true. Every small thing we do can make a huge difference, especially if everyone did.

There are six areas where you can make changes that will be kinder to the planet over Christmas:

1. Christmas tree
2. Presents
3. Wrapping
4. Lights (electricity)
5. Cards
6. Food

I encourage you to listen to the podcast for inspiration over what can be easily done to massively reduce your carbon footprint over Christmas, which is, for the average UK person, twenty two times bigger. We are talking a footprint of 500 Kg of CO2e per person whereas it is only 22 Kg on a regular day. Christmas sadly increases our waste massively through packaging, unwanted gifts and food waste. A staggering 5 million meals are wasted over Christmas.

The title of this episode is also a nudge to the fact I joined the UK Green party in October so it will definitely be the Greenest Christmas Ever for me. It is not the first time I talk about politics on the podcast. I have done so already in EP 43 Should you be involved in politics as a spiritual seeker. The reason it's important for me to mention this on a spiritual podcast is that I feel angelic energy around the leader of the Green party, Jack Polanski. So if you live in the UK and have not had a chance to hear this man talk, I encourage you to watch this YouTube video to get stared. He has restored my faith in politicians which says a lot given I had been disengaged from politics for nearly 45 years.

I have done an episode before on Spirituality and Politics that I encourage you to watch.

At the end of the episode I shared my three newsletters:

1. My business newsletter is for anyone who is an entrepreneur or works in a managerial position in corporate or for experts. If you sign up for it, you will receive a link to join my free one card readings in zoom. The next one is on the 18th of December at 1:30 pm UK time. I also do a weekly energy reading that you can find on Youtube where I pull a card from my Healing Burnout with the Angels brand new oracle deck. You can sign up with this link.
2. My author newsletter is for anyone who wants to know when my next book is out, learn about the behind the scenes of an author but also get notified when podcast episodes are released. When you sign up, you receive a free ebook called the Simple way to ask the Universe for help. You can sign up with this link.
3. My brand new energy newsletter will see you receiving energy tips every week as well as the link to join my free five-day challenge in January called Get Your Energy Back. You can sign up with this link.

I was in London the weekend of the 22nd of November and I went to see the Christmas lights on Regent Street. This made me wonder if people believe that angels only come to visit around Christmas time. This episode is the result of that thought.

Is it a yes or a no? In the episode I answer that question in depth. The short answer is yes and no.

Yes the angels definitely visit us around Christmas because that is when we think of them the most. It is our thoughts that call angels in. As we talk about angels, sing about them and feature them on cards, wrapping paper, etc, they are going to draw closer. The same is true of dark entities, so there is your warning.

In the episode, I list the top five Christmas films that feature angels but also talk about the series called Supernatural because coincidently, a few days before I decided to do this episode, an angel appeared for the first time in the series.

I also mention how hard Christmas can be when we don't feel jolly and especially when we have lost a loved one the year leading up to Christmas. Sometimes it can be hard for many years. Grief doesn't have a set deadline.

I also answered no to the question because they are not around us only around Christmas and I invite you to think about them often.

Previous episodes that talk about angels:

EP 18: Can lawyers be angels in disguise?

EP 47: How to work with angels?

EP 78: Five obstacles between you and your angels

EP 93: Angel numbers

If you would like to work with me and the angels, why not book a discovery call to see what we can do for you.

In today's episode, my guest and I explore the connection between high performance sports and spirituality. I have to admit that I didn't quite see the link when we discussed having her on the podcast but now that the episode is done, there was so much gold in it.

Stephanie Kakris is a High Performance Coach with a background in sports psychology, coaching but she brings a unique angle to her practice by integrating spiritual practices to help athletes be in the present moment and detach their self worth from the win. Her work with clients has highlighted that the most successful athletes are able to detach from the outcome and focus purely on the joy and the pursuit of perfection in their game or event.

She also points out that the spiritual world does not focus enough on the body and the physical aspect of our experience, which is a mistake. Over coming our physical limitations by thriving to be the best athlete we can is a path of self mastery just as much as other spiritual pursuits.

It is not healthy to have so much emphasis on the mind only and to live in our heads and everyone can benefit from moving more.

But we also had a conversation about achievement, goals and the meaning of life. Some athletes make the mistake of thinking that they life will end if they don't win a race or an event. And this can actually trip them up on their pursuit of success. Stephanie teaches these individuals how to get in the flow state. The only sustainable state that can help us break through the limits of our minds and often bodies too.

Join us in a conversation that turned out to be fascinating where even spirit guides were discussed.

To find out more about Stephanie, check her website. You can also reach her through Facebook.

Announcement: Sign up for my brand new challenge that starts on the 26th of January 2026 called Get Your Energy Back and received weekly tips on how to increase your energy levels in small and doable ways.

I have just been interviewed by a journalist of Metro, who told me that it felt very refreshing writing an article about me because it was so positive and a great change from the doom and gloom. She interviewed me about my journey of going from being a lawyer to a modern mystic who talks to the angels every day - a journey that I have retraced in my second memoir called Spiritual Lawyer, which is available on Amazon.

This got me thinking about how the media, the news and politics have a very heavy and often dark energy and what we should be doing about it.

A study by a Scottish University (sorry I don't know which one) has revealed that in the 70s, the British media had a radio of 3 positive stories to 1. By the year 2000, the ratio as of 1 to 18. I am sure this has got worse since plus we have the echo chambers of social media. On top of that, these bad news generate thousands of negative comments on social media posts with a level of nastiness that has frankly reached levels that I find unimaginable. Where is all the nastiness coming from?

Because of this, I wanted to do an episode today about the energy of the news and politics and show you the effect it is bound to have on your mental health but also your energy field, that bubble of energy that surrounds our bodies to protect us. The most effective cleanser for all that negativity is nature, in particular the sun. But even the sun has been portrayed now as toxic, and I want you to know, friends, that it is not. Yes, precautions have to be taken during heat waves during the middle of the day, but for the most part, the sun is a wonderful to clear your energy. So are the wind, the rain, forests, ocean air and more.

My invitation is to go on a news detox but also to vote with your clicks and stop feeding the negative news monster so that you can balance out the input of negativity in your life. Your nervous system was never designed to cope with so much negativity in the first place.

Last week I received a birthday card from my mother after six years of silence. My first reaction was fear and anxiety.

In this episode I discuss the concept of forgiveness and spirituality as applied to my personal situation with my mother. I use my example to explore several topics that link in to forgiveness after giving some context of why I didn't realise I had been abused as a child. Mostly it was because I believed that abuse was hitting a child, malnourishing them or sexually abusing them. I did not know about the concept of gaslighting. This came way later in life.

Should I forgive my mother? She is going to be 90 years old next year and has been going to all my relatives telling them how heart broken she is about the wall I built between us. Am I being the cruel person by not allowing her back in my life? This is actually a different topic altogether than the topic of forgiveness.

In order to record today's episode without fear of repercussion, I have had to change my name, record it in a different language (although my mother speaks well enough English that she could listen to it - If she decides to though she will have been forewarned) and moved to another country. BeforeI did these three things I had constant ear throat and mouth infections from not being able to speak my truth that led to a sort of piece de resistance, so to speak, which was a cyst that grew on my thyroid and that led to emergency surgery as it was suffocating me. The truth I wasn't speaking was literally killing me.

Should I forgive my mother? Let's look at the word "should" and say that no one should be pressured into forgiving, whether it's the right to do or not. Forgiveness is an internal process that has to happen organically. Sometimes, time is a great healer but more often than not, it is not and we need an intervention such as therapy to help with the process.

In the words of Nelson Mandela "Resentment is like drinking poison and then hoping it will kill your enemies."

There is a benefit in forgiving someone or at the very least letting go of resentment (they can be two different things) but only if this does not involve gaslighting yourself.

I also wanted to add that there are things that I believe cannot be forgiven which involve intentionally causing harm to another.

One thing is for sure no one should tell you what to do when it comes to forgiveness because no one walks in your shoes.

At the end of the episode I offer a process that can help you let go of the negative feelings you may feel around what someone has done to you. If you need further help, though, particularly if this is contributing to your burnout, do book a discovery call with me by clicking this link. As a sustainable success coach, I would love to support you in letting go of relationships that cause you to be exhausted or at least to create some healthy boundaries around them.

In this week's episode, I explore the idea of the veil that separates the spirit world from us, where the idea comes from, why some people think it thins around Halloween and where I think the veil actually resides.

For as long as I have explored the New Age, I have heard people say that the veil thins around Halloween. At first, I was flattered. For once, the time of my birthday felt special rather than a time of the year where the weather was horrible and the clocks went backwards. This year, I finally decided to stand by what I believe, which is that this whole veil is thinning around Halloween is superstition and I am tired of people rehashing it without questioning where it comes from and whether it is true.

So I did a bit of research and found that the idea of a veil between the spirit world and our world comes from Celtic folk lure. It seems that druids and pagans use incantations to pierce that veil in order to communicate with the spirit world. This still does not explain why it would happen particularly around Halloween. A bit more digging revealed that symbolically, the Autumn is a time where death enters everyone's mind (provided they live in the Northern Hemisphere though - so let's be aware of culture centricity here) due to the fact that the leaves are falling off trees and nature seems to be dying.

Unsurprisingly, that would lead to people thinking of the dead more often at that time of year. That's all.

This does not prove that the veil is thinning.

In the second part of the episode, I talk about where I believe the veil truly resides, how to lift the veil and discuss whether lifting the veil should be pursued and how.

If you would like to book an aura and energy field balancing and repair session, click here to buy. The investment at the time of this episode is £98 for a session.

If you would like to discuss how I can help you open your third eye in a safe manner with the right guidance and support, why not book a discovery call with this link.

Dean James is the host of the Used To Be Do Count (U2BDC) podcast, which explores what his guests used to be because who we used to be an important contribution to who we are today and we should not abandon a part of ourselves.

Dean grew up in a religious environment, not because of his parents but because of school as most primary school in England are denomination schools under the umbrella of the Church of England. However, Dean has an interesting background as his father is a Turkish Cypriot, so he grew up influenced by Muslim values. His mother is Irish Catholic. And Dean feels that, having been exposed to both religions, they share common values.

At one point in his youth, Dean went to Church and identified as Christian but one day, he heard the Priest that he admired and who was a mentor to him, do a homophobic sermon. And at that moment, even though Dean didn't know he was gay, his body froze. And that put him off church. It felt like milk turned sour.

Since then Dean has dabbed into meditation and Buddhism.

Dean used to be a professional dancer and he definitely feels that dancing is part of his spirituality. Sadly however, he stopped his career as a dancer when his brother died. And has recently taken up dancing again, though not professionally. He believes that dance can unlock our sixth sense because it unlocks energy in our bodies.

He stopped dancing at the time of the death of his brother because something got blocked by grief in his body and he felt "Who am I to feel joy through dance when my brother is dead?"

So Dean founded a charity for the following seven years.

To hear the full interview, click here.

To listen to Dean's podcast click here. To follow the podcast on IG, click here. To follow the podcast on Facebook, click here.