The Monet Noctaris Podcast

 A little life update, beloveds. This week has held both something really hard and something really good: my sweet, special needs kitty Pom Pom is in the hospital, and I’ve started a new full-time remote job after a long and frustrating search.

I’m sharing what I've been up to, what this new chapter means for me and my family, and how financial stability will give this platform room to evolve without the pressure for it to provide.

For this week, I’m taking a breather to focus on what's immediately in front of me. Thank you for being here. Much love. 💜

Who do you get to become when you no longer have to ask permission to be yourself?

This episode takes the scenic route through Halloween nostalgia, Spice Girls, Sailor Moon, and a few personal ghost stories—including a chatty party guest named Edward and a resident “Grandpa” who apparently has opinions about my television choices. Somewhere between the ghosts and the costumes, we get into what it means to start enjoying life again after spending so long just trying to survive it.

I share how I’m rediscovering play, friendship, and self-expression while rebuilding my life—and the question I’m using to make more honest choices: “How would I feel about this if I were not lying to myself?”

From relationships to job opportunities, we explore the subtle ways we talk ourselves into things we already know feel wrong, the discomfort of honoring our own answers, and why being able to tolerate something doesn’t mean we have to choose it.

A little spooky, a little spicy, and a conversation about becoming more yourself—and finding people who celebrate you for it.

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Being desired can feel like validation. But when you’ve learned to organize your life around being chosen, it can also feel like an obligation. Where, in all of that, do you get to ask what you actually want?

In this episode, I share my own messy, sometimes funny journey through sexual shame, religious control, dating after leaving my marriage, and the realization that having sexual knowledge and experience didn’t mean I knew how to stay loyal to myself.

We explore erotic sovereignty, inner consent, and what changes when you can express a preference, decline an invitation, or change your mind without sacrificing yourself to keep someone interested. From a year of celibacy to experiencing intimacy where my boundaries are respected, this is a conversation about making room for your own yes, no, and maybe—and allowing them to matter.

Your body belongs to you. Someone else’s desire doesn’t create a debt.

Content note: Includes discussion of sexual trauma, coercion, religious shame, and personal sexual experiences, without graphic, violent, or heavy detail. I tried to keep things light.

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What do you do when you love someone, but the relationship is hurting you?

In this episode, I talk about one of the hardest parts of leaving: accepting that the loving version of someone you’ve seen may not be the version they can consistently be. I share how I spent years trying to explain my needs, teach my ex-husband how to treat me, and solve a relationship I couldn’t fix on my own.

We’ll talk about the pull of someone’s potential, the grief that comes with accepting what they’ve shown you, and why setting a boundary or walking away doesn’t require you to stop loving them first. Sometimes choosing yourself begins with letting reality be true.

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What if your nervous system isn’t malfunctioning? What if it’s responding appropriately to an environment that isn't safe?

In this episode, I talk about what happened when nervous system regulation became one more way I was taught to blame myself for the effects of living in a psychologically abusive relationship. I was constantly walking on eggshells, anticipating anger, making myself smaller, and trying to regulate my way into tolerating an environment that was actively harming me.

Then I left—and the anxiety disorder I thought I had largely disappeared.

We’ll talk about how therapy language, attachment theory, and somatic tools can be weaponized by unsafe people; why regulation practices cannot compensate for chronic exposure to harm; and how the body begins to change when it finally experiences safety.

I also share what it has been like to have new experiences with a safe person—and to realize that I don’t have to brace for traffic, a disappointing meal, or someone else’s emotional reaction. Sometimes healing happens through tools. Sometimes it happens because you leave. And sometimes it happens when your body is finally shown that something else is possible.

Plus, a personal update on reclaiming the title of life coach, refining the direction of this platform, and helping women rebuild lives that truly belong to them.

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What happens when your life begins to change, but you’re still carrying beliefs built for an earlier version of you? 

In this episode, I’m reflecting on the anniversary of a painful ending, the radical acceptance that finally allowed me to seal that door, and the life that became possible once I stopped yearning for a ghost. I also share the self-concept work I’ve returned to as I approach a new professional threshold—and why entering a new relationship, opportunity, or chapter often requires us to update what we believe about ourselves.

We’ll talk about learning to observe your thoughts instead of automatically treating them as truth, identifying the voices and conditioning beneath your beliefs, and becoming someone who can actually receive the love, respect, success, and possibility she says she wants. Because sovereignty isn’t only about what you choose externally. It begins with recognizing that your beliefs about yourself are optional.

I’ll leave you with a practical exercise for turning the lights on inside your own house: What do you currently believe about yourself? Where did those beliefs come from? And are they still creating the life you want?

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What would our relationships look like if they were built on choice rather than obligation?

In this episode, I explore relational sovereignty: the practice of belonging to yourself while remaining deeply connected to the people you love. I talk about the invisible agreements that keep us sacrificing, rescuing, over-functioning, and abandoning ourselves—and how relationships become distorted when care is treated as a debt that must eventually be repaid.

Drawing from my experiences with marriage, divorce, family, and lifelong friendship, I explore what happens when one person is committed to self-awareness while the other is committed to preserving their self-image. We talk about releasing the responsibility to regulate or rescue other adults, choosing how much access someone receives to you, and allowing people to be disappointed—or even misunderstand you—without surrendering your truth to correct their version of the story.

Sovereign relationships don’t require us to merge, keep score, or continually prove our love. They allow us to say: I am me. You are you. We are both free—and we choose.

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Who decided that a workweek should look the way it does? That productivity matters more than being alive? That employment should require access to nearly every hour of our lives—or that love, commitment, ceremony, and a legal contract must all mean the same thing? 

As I reenter the job market in pursuit of greater financial sovereignty, I’m becoming increasingly aware of how many of the rules governing modern life were inherited rather than consciously chosen. We treat them as fixed realities, but they were created by people—and what was decided by people can also be questioned, revised, and eventually replaced.

In this episode, I explore what it means to participate in systems that are clearly breaking down without abandoning ourselves to them. I talk about burnout, late-stage capitalism, the human cost of treating people like productivity machines, and the shift from a win-lose paradigm toward structures in which people can genuinely thrive together. I also bring this questioning into the personal realm, examining the assumptions we inherit about marriage, commitment, and what a meaningful partnership is supposed to look like.

We may not be able to change every circumstance immediately. But we can recognize what is false. We can stop confusing what is customary with what is inevitable. And we can give ourselves permission to imagine—and eventually build—a world that supports human life rather than consuming it. Sovereignty begins when we ask: Who decided this was normal, and what would I choose if I knew I was allowed to choose?

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What does it mean to be sovereign when the circumstances of your life are not completely within your control? 

After returning from California with my children, I found myself facing a truth I hadn’t expected: the kind of sovereignty I need most in this season may be financial sovereignty. After ten years of working for myself—and after a deeply damaging experience with my last employer—considering traditional employment again has brought me face-to-face with everything I once believed a job would require me to surrender.

In this episode, I explore the difference between external freedom and internal sovereignty, why choosing stability does not necessarily mean abandoning yourself or your dreams, and how our choices change when we finally understand that we belong to ourselves before we belong to the world.

Sovereignty doesn’t require perfect circumstances. Sometimes it looks like asking what you need, honoring your non-negotiables, listening to the wisdom of your body, and refusing to remove yourself from the equation—even while living within systems you cannot yet escape. And sometimes, the most sovereign choice is the one that gives your dreams room to breathe.

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At some point, healing has to become living.

In this episode, I’m exploring the final stage of the Sovereign Human Pathway: participation. After years of learning how to survive alone, trust myself, and stop depending on anyone else to save me, I’ve found myself facing a different kind of challenge—allowing myself to come back down from the tower and participate in my own life again.

With my birthday approaching, I’ve been reflecting on the last several years: leaving my marriage, rebuilding my life, grieving what I thought my future would be, and becoming so hyper-independent that not needing anyone began to feel safer than being seen. This year, celebrating my birthday—and simply allowing the people I love to celebrate me—feels like a radical act of allowing myself to be loved.

Participation doesn’t always look like a grand mission or public contribution. Sometimes it means re-entering the village after coming back to yourself. It means allowing the person you have become to be witnessed, loved, and affected by other people—and trusting that your coherence has a ripple effect.

There is life on the other side of collapse. Sometimes our contribution is simply becoming living proof of that.

Join me for The Reclamation Circle on August 16 2026 at 7 pm CST. Learn more and reserve your spot here.