The Third Thing

Ever wondered what actually happens in a tarot reading? Not the vague, Instagram-caption version, but a real one, with real questions, real doubt, and cards that don't let you off easy.

In this bonus episode, Danyelle gives Michelle a live reading using the Crow Tarot deck, right as Michelle is heading into a trip during a stretch of financial uncertainty. What comes up is the Five of Pentacles, King of Wands reversed, and the Hierophant, plus a Saturn retrograde transit landing directly on Michelle's natal moon. Together they work through the difference between real scarcity and inherited scarcity, why this moment is asking for stillness instead of action, and what it looks like to finally give an old protective part of yourself permission to rest.

In This Episode:

• How the Crow became part of TTT lore
• Setting intentions for a reading: focusing on the question, not the outcome 
• The pull: Five of Pentacles, King of Wands (reversed), the Hierophant
• Five of Pentacles and reframing scarcity as a moment, not an identity
• King of Wands reversed and why rest can be its own kind of unwavering
• The infinity symbol and tarot's take on cyclical lessons
• The Hierophant and questioning inherited beliefs about safety
• Saturn retrograde on the natal moon and what the next six months are asking
• Reassigning the scarcity part a new job...

Reflection Questions:

• Where in your life are you focused on what's missing instead of what's already there?
• What old story about money or safety are you still carrying that no longer matches your reality?
• If your scarcity or fear had a new job, what would you want it to protect instead?

Resources Mentioned:
Book a reading with Danyelle: hello @ thethirdthingpod.com
The Crow Tarot deck by MJ Cullinane

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We finished Season 1. Ten episodes, recorded and released, exactly the way we said we would. In this bonus episode, we're pulling back the curtain on what that actually took to pull it off.

This isn't our typical episode, it's a real-time check-in between two best friends navigating what it means to build something new together. We talk about the shadow work that recording a podcast together has surfaced in our friendship, the wild ride of going viral (and what it was like to face that kind of attention together), the perfectionism and fear that come with being visible on social media for the first time, and what we've learned about taking care of each other in the middle of it all.

In This Episode:

• What it's really been like recording Season 1 together as best friends
• The shadow work our friendship has surfaced through this process
• Going viral: the numbers, the backlash, and how we got through it
• Facing perfectionism and fear around building a public platform from scratch
• What's coming in Season 2 — starting August 27

Reflection Questions:

• Where in your own friendships do you avoid the harder conversations by putting distance between you instead?
• What would it look like to let yourself be new at something, without needing to be great at it right away?
• Who in your life makes you feel safe enough to grow, even when it's uncomfortable?

FYI:

• Season 2 launches August 27
• Got a friendship story or dilemma? Send it to [email protected]

Connect With Us:
Follow along @thethirdthingpod on Instagram, and join us on Patreon for early access, community tarot readings, and more.

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You know that friend you keep meaning to text back? The one where you scroll up in the thread and realize it's been six months, then a year, then you've lost track? There was no fight or blowup, just the silence that crept in until one day you looked up and they weren't in your circle anymore. That's drifting.

This week, Michelle and Danyelle unpack the quiet ending nobody talks about: friendships that fade without a villain, a fight, or closure. They walk through the difference between structural drift (geography, life stages) and relational drift (just growing apart), and Michelle reads a real, unsent letter she wrote to a friend she's drifted from, a decade-plus friendship that dissolved into unanswered texts. They get into what it means to take accountability for your part in a drift without turning it into self-blame, and close out Season One with a two-card tarot pull on new beginnings and the foundation they've built together.

In This Episode

• The difference between structural drift and relational drift
• Why drifting can hurt more than a breakup because there's no closure
• Danyelle's story of a friendship that quietly faded over years
• Michelle reads the unsent letter she wrote to a drifted friend
• Using letter-writing as a grief tool, and how to decide whether to send it
• Taking accountability for your part in a drift without self-blame
• A Season One wrap-up and a two-card pull: Page of Swords and Page of Pentacles

Resources

Sign up for our guides: The Letter You'll Never Send and A Guide to Your Cut & Clear Ceremony

Reflection Questions

• Which of your friendships has quietly faded without a clear reason why?
• Have you ever grieved a friendship you never officially "lost"?
• What would it take to reach back out, or to finally let it go?

Connect With Us
📸 Instagram: @thethirdthingpod
🌐 Website: TheThirdThingPod.com
🎧 Join our Patreon community for monthly events, deeper conversations, early access, workbooks, and more.
If this episode resonated with you, share it with a friend and leave a rating or review. It helps more people find the show and keeps the conversation going about friendship, growth, and what it means to show up for each other.

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You've never told your best friend what you actually make. Or you have, and you watched their face change. Money might be the last real taboo in friendship, more off-limits than sex, more off-limits than politics, and it's quietly shaping who feels safe going to who for what.

Michelle and Danyelle trace their own money stories back to childhood, growing up feeling scarcity in a wealthy area, absorbing very different lessons about what success and entrepreneurship meant, and carrying those wounds into 26 years of friendship. They get honest about the years their incomes have flip-flopped in both directions, the shame underneath "I can't afford that," and what it means to keep showing up for each other when one person can pay for dinner and the other can't.

In This Episode

• Our first memories of money, scarcity, and what success looked like growing up
• Why money is treated as more taboo than almost anything else in friendship
• The years our incomes flip-flopped, and what that brought up
• The shame behind "I can't afford that" and learning to say it out loud
• Race, privilege, and who gets the runway to build wealth
• Redefining "value" in a friendship beyond who's picking up the check
• The Page of Cups tarot pull on curiosity and bringing lightness to hard conversations

Resources

• Sign up for all TTT workbooks and guides here
• Feel-Good Finance by Aja Evans - Financial therapist, focuses on the psychology and mindset behind money habits, not just budgeting math.
• The Financial Diet by Chelsea Fagan - more mainstream but solid on the emotional-relationship-with-money angle, good crossover pick for a broader audience.
• Unicorn Millionaire Podcast  - hosted by Charly Stoever (nonbinary Latinx money coach), explicitly for LGBTQ+, BIPOC, and first-gen folks. Frames wealth-building as identity and grief work, not just numbers. Very on-brand for your audience.
• SAGECents (via SAGE) - free financial literacy platform, originally built for LGBTQ+ elders but genuinely useful material on anyone navigating financial precarity later in life.

Reflection Questions

• Have you ever told a friend what you actually make?
• What would it take to have that conversation?
• Is there an imbalance in one of your friendships that's never been named out loud?

Connect With Us
 📸 Instagram: @thethirdthingpod
 🌐 Website: TheThirdThingPod.com
🎧 Join our Patreon community for monthly events, deeper conversations, early access, workbooks, and more.

If this episode resonated with you, share it with a friend and leave a rating or review. It helps more people find the show and keeps the conversation going about friendship, growth, and what it means to show up for each other.

Support the show

📍 Content warning. This episode includes a discussion of a suicide attempt starting at 6:09 and running through 8:42. Please take care of yourself while listening. Skip ahead if you need to. If you or somebody you know is struggling, the 988 suicide and crisis line is available 24-7 by call or text.📍 

You left the friend group chat on read for six months and it wasn't a fight, it was just life. School. A new city. A relationship. A marriage. A baby. If you've ever wondered whether going quiet on your best friend means the friendship is over, this episode is for you.

Michelle and Danyelle trace the full arc of their own friendship, from splitting up at 15 when Danyelle left their high school, through different cities, different relationships, and into marriage and parenthood, to make the case that drifting apart isn't a verdict on a friendship. It's what happens when two people are actually out there living. The real work isn't preventing the distance. It's choosing, deliberately, to find your way back.

In This Episode

• Why leaving high school became the first of many life-stage divergences
• Moving to different cities, and what it costs a friendship when proximity disappears
• The couch conversation where one of them finally said "I feel abandoned"
• How attachment styles and nonviolent communication changed how they show up for each other now
• Becoming a "third parent" and what it means to rebuild closeness after marriage and kids
• A two-card tarot pull (Knight of Swords and The Fool) on trust, journey, and taking the leap

Reflection Questions

• Which of your friendships is in a quiet chapter right now?
• What life stage pulled you away from someone you love?
• What would it take to check in, and what's stopping you?

Connect With Us
📸 Instagram: @thethirdthingpod
🌐 Website: TheThirdThingPod.com
🎧 Join our Patreon community for monthly events, deeper conversations, early access, workbooks, and more.

If this episode resonated with you, share it with a friend and leave a rating or review. It helps more people find the show and keeps the conversation going about friendship, growth, and what it means to show up for each other.

Support the show

Boundaries are everywhere in conversation right now, but almost no one talks about how tangled up they are with shame, especially in friendship. This week Michelle and Danyelle get into it: where their earliest boundary memories come from, why setting one can feel like a rejection, and how they've actually negotiated real boundaries with each other over the years.

They introduce the BEAT framework for knowing when it's time to set a boundary, break down what a boundary actually is, and walk through two real examples from their own friendship including what it looked like to ask for what they needed and where they met in the middle.

In this episode:

• The BEAT framework: Body, Effect, Alignment, Thanks - a check-in tool for knowing when it's time to set a boundary
• Why a boundary is "the promise we keep to ourselves," not a wall against someone else
• The four things boundaries can protect: behavior, attention, bandwidth, and inner child work
• Why boundaries can feel violent or shameful, and what's happening in the nervous system when they do
• A real story about a birthday boundary, and what it took to actually hear it
• Negotiating a boundary around timeliness, and why it isn't a black-and-white issue
• People-pleasing, fawning, and how socialization (especially as women) shapes our relationship to boundaries
• Generational differences in boundary-setting, and what it's like watching Gen Z do it differently
• A Lovers tarot pull on choosing yourself first

Reflection Questions

• Using the BEAT framework, is there a boundary you've been putting off setting?
• Is there a boundary that was set with you that, looking back, you can now understand differently?
• Where did you first learn (or not learn) how to set a boundary?
• Is there a relationship where you've gone quiet instead of naming what you actually needed?

Connect With Us
📸 Instagram: @thethirdthingpod
🌐 Website: TheThirdThingPod.com
🎧 Join our Patreon community for monthly events, deeper conversations, early access, workbooks, and more.

If this episode resonated with you, share it with a friend and leave a rating or review. It helps more people find the show and keeps the conversation going about friendship, growth, and what it means to show up for each other.

Support the show

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Attachment style usually gets talked about in the context of dating and romance. Rarely do we turn that same lens on friendship, even though it shapes those relationships just as much.

In this episode, Michelle and Danyelle break down the four attachment styles, secure, anxious, avoidant, and disorganized, and where they come from developmentally. Then they turn the framework on themselves, getting honest about which styles they've each brought to their friendship, including a moment from that very week when one of them wanted to retreat instead of saying "I'm not okay."

This isn't a diagnosis of who's the anxious friend and who's the avoidant one. It's a look at how the earliest relationships in our lives help to script the ones we're in now, and what it takes to write a new ending.

In This Episode

• What secure, anxious, avoidant, and disorganized attachment actually look like in friendship
• Why attachment style forms in early childhood, and why it's not a life sentence
• The overlap (and difference) between anxious attachment and generalized anxiety
• Danyelle on disorganized attachment, avoidance, and how birth order shaped her patterns
• Michelle on the anxious-secure overlap and the practice of asking "is this true, or is this a story?"
• How enmeshed or overly independent caregiving in childhood shows up as attachment style in adulthood
• A real-time example of moving from avoidance into secure attachment, mid-friendship
• The role of Nonviolent Communication in shifting attachment patterns
• A judgment tarot pull on self-forgiveness for the ways we've shown up imperfectly

Reflection Questions

• Which of the four attachment styles do you resonate with most, and does it shift depending on the relationship?
• Is there a friendship where you notice yourself pulling away when things get close? What do you think that protects you from?
• When you feel that anxious pull to seek reassurance, is it rooted in this relationship or in an old pattern?
• What did your caregivers model for you about closeness, independence, and asking for what you need?
• Is there a conversation you've been avoiding with a friend the way Danyelle almost avoided one this week?

Resources

• Take the attachment style quiz at theattachmentproject.com
• Nonviolent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg (recurring framework; workbooks available by subscribing to our newsletter)
• What It Takes to Heal by Prentis Hemphill
• I Hope We Choose Love: A Trans Girl’s Notes from the End of the World by Kai Cheng Thom
• Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment by Amir Levine & Rachel Heller
• Wired for Love by Stan Tatkin
• Queerly Attached Podcast with Kyleigh Weathers
• Essays and writing on relational accountability by Adrienne Maree Brown
  
  

Connect With Us
📸 Instagram: @thethirdthingpod
🌐 Website: TheThirdThingPod.com
🎧 Join our Patreon community for monthly events, deeper conversations, early access, workbooks, and more.

If this episode resonated with you, share it with a friend and leave a rating or review. It helps more people find the show and keeps the conversation going about friendship, growth, and what it means to show up for each other.

Support the show

Friendship breakups are one of the most painful experiences we can go through and one of the least talked about. There's no ceremony, no bereavement leave, no socially agreed-upon way to grieve someone who is still out there, still living their life, but no longer in yours.

In this episode, Michelle and Danyelle give friendship endings the space they almost never get. From the slow, quiet outgrowing to the abrupt and unexplained rupture, they share personal stories from both sides: Danyelle on stepping into more of herself and leaving a friend group behind, and Michelle on a sudden rejection at 16. Together they explore what disenfranchised grief looks like in friendship, why avoidance is so common and sometimes even kind, and what it takes to move through loss in your body rather than around it.

This isn't a guide to ending friendships. It's an invitation to stop pretending the ones that end didn't matter.

In This Episode

• The difference between the "quiet outgrowing" and the "clean cut" and why one doesn't necessarily hurt less
• Why friendship grief is disenfranchised: the loss society doesn't make room for
• Avoidance as a trauma response and why it can sometimes be the kindest thing two people do
• The ways childhood shapes how we handle conflict, rejection, and letting go
• How lockdown quietly accelerated friendships that were already ending
• Unsent letters as a grief and release practice
• Somatic healing and why the only way out is through
• Water rituals for releasing grief and creating space
• Danyelle's cut-and-clear candle ritual: what it is, how to do it, and why it works energetically
• Inner child work and re-parenting in the context of letting go
• How to know when a friendship is worth repairing, and when walking away is the most loving thing
• Trusting your body's yeses and nos as a North Star in relationships

Reflection Questions

• Is there a friendship ending you've never fully grieved? What would it mean to give it space now?
• Which side of the friendship breakup do you more often find yourself on — the one who drifts, or the one who gets drifted from?
• Is there a relationship in your life right now where your body is giving you information your mind hasn't caught up to yet?
• What would a closing ritual look like for a friendship that ended without one?
• Where in your life are you treating yourself the way your caregivers taught you to — ignoring your own needs, staying past your yes?

Resources Mentioned

• We mentioned The Body Keeps the Score in the episode by Bessel van der Kolk, but also want to share this article (content note: discusses sexual assault), which discusses the reality that, among other things, some of van der Kolks methodologies "could make survivors feel like they are irrevocably harmed." Instead we'd like to point you to Somatic Abolitionism by Dr. Resmaa Menakem and What My Bones Know by Stephanie Foo.
• The Bullet Journal Method by Ryder Carroll (referenced by Michelle)
• Nonviolent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg (recurring framework; workbooks available by subscribing to our newsletter)
• Jessica Lanyadoo (referenced by Danyelle; source of "meat suit" concept)
• Cut-and-clear candle ritual (folk magic/hoodoo tradition) - Workbook coming soon!

Connect With Us
📸 Instagram: @thethirdthingpod
🌐 Website: TheThirdThingPod.com
🎧 Join our Patreon community for monthly events, deeper conversations, early access, workbooks, and more.

If this episode resonated with you, share it with a friend and leave a rating or review. It helps more people find the show and keeps the conversation about friendship, growth, and what it means to show up for each other going.

Support the show

Race is something every interracial friendship encounters, but most of us were never given the tools or the language to talk about it honestly.

In this episode, Michelle and Danyelle go somewhere they've been circling for 26 years: a real, unfiltered conversation about race as it has lived inside their friendship. From growing up in Marin County, one of the most racially disparate counties in California, to navigating colorblindness, respectability politics, internalized anti-Blackness, and the slow, ongoing work of unlearning, they trace how their racial identities shaped them individually and what it has taken to show up for each other across difference.

This isn't a race 101. It's their story, and an invitation to look honestly at your own.

In This Episode

• Growing up in Marin County and what the data actually shows about race and inequality there
• Colorblindness as a dominant framework in the 1990s and why it fell short
• Respectability politics and internalized anti-Blackness
• Conflating race and class and what that cost both of them
• The difference between performative allyship and genuine solidarity
• Psychological safety, microaggressions, and overt racism in "safe" spaces
• How 2020 opened the door to conversations they hadn't been having in real time
• The birthday party story: a moment of harm, hard feelings, and real repair
• What it looks like to warn a partner before walking into a predominantly white space
• Making agreements inside a friendship to share information and honor each other's safety
• How cross-racial friendship requires ongoing labor, and why that labor is a form of love
• Healing that reaches backward and forward across lineages

Reflection Questions

• What does your friend circle actually look like, and what does that tell you?
• Have you ever confused class with race in your own understanding of the world?
• Is there a moment in a cross-racial relationship where harm was caused and never named?
• What would it look like to move from performative allyship to genuine solidarity?
• What agreements could you make with someone you love to help them feel safer in shared spaces?

Resources Mentioned

• Mahogany Tarot deck
• Nonviolent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg (referenced framework for repair conversation, workbooks available by subscribing to our newsletter)
• Rest is Resistance by Tricia Hersey, founder of Nap Ministry
• Me and White Supremacy by Layla Saad
• My Grandmother's Hands by Resmaa Menakem
• All About Love by Bell Hooks
• Peggy McIntosh, "White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack"
• Tema Okun, "White Supremacy Culture"
• Code Switch (NPR)
• Seeing White (Scene on Radio)

Connect With Us

📸 Instagram: @thethirdthingpod
 🌐 Website: TheThirdThingPod.com
 🎧 Join our Patreon community for monthly events, deeper conversations, early access, workbooks, and more.

If this episode resonated with you, share it with a friend and leave a rating or review. It helps more people find the show and join the conversation about friendship, growth, and what it means to show up for each other across difference.

Support the show

Conflict is something every relationship encounters, but most of us were never taught how to navigate it well.

In this episode, Michelle and Danyelle explore the ways they learned conflict growing up, how those early experiences shaped their friendships and relationships, and the communication tools they've adopted to create more connection and less defensiveness.

Together, they break down the framework of Nonviolent Communication (NVC) developed by Marshall Rosenberg and discuss how it has transformed the way they approach difficult conversations, emotional triggers, repair, and accountability.

They also share personal stories from their own friendship, including moments of jealousy, misunderstanding, postpartum vulnerability, and the ways learning new communication skills has helped strengthen their connection over time.

In This Episode

•  How childhood experiences shape our conflict styles 
•  Loud conflict, avoidance, and people-pleasing 
•  The impact of shame, martyrdom, and the need to be right 
•  An introduction to Nonviolent Communication (NVC) 
•  Observation vs. judgment 
•  Identifying feelings beneath reactions 
•  Understanding and communicating needs 
•  Making clear, actionable requests 
•  Conflict, nervous system regulation, and the Window of Tolerance 
•  Internal Family Systems (IFS) and protective parts 
•  Friendship repair and relational accountability 
•  Why conflict can become an opportunity for deeper connection 

The NVC Framework

1. Observation — What happened without judgment or evaluation 
2. Feeling — Identifying the primary emotion underneath the reaction 
3. Need — Understanding the unmet need driving the emotion 
4. Request — Making a clear and actionable request 

Resources Mentioned

• Nonviolent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg
•  Internal Family Systems (IFS) 
•  Window of Tolerance framework 
•  The Ethical Slut by Dossie Easton and Janet Hardy

Reflection Questions

•  How did you learn conflict growing up? 
•  What role do you typically play during disagreements? 
•  What feelings tend to sit underneath your frustration or anger? 
•  What need might be asking for attention? 
•  Is there a request you haven't made because you've hoped someone would simply know? 

Connect With Us

📸 Instagram: @thethirdthingpod

🌐 Website: TheThirdThingPod.com

🎧 Join our Patreon community for monthly events, deeper conversations, early access, workbooks, and more.

If this episode resonated with you, share it with a friend and leave a rating or review. It helps more people discover the show and join the conversation around friendship, growth, and modern relationships.

Support the show