Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Foreign hey wild thing. Welcome back to Untamed Ember, the podcast where we unlearn the healing scripts that were never written for us and burn the wellness aesthetic to the Damn Ground. I'm Dr. Misty, your favorite sex therapist, shame slayer and soft hearted chaos goblin who's just about done with cacao. Ceremonies that feed feel like cult auditions and yoga classes that assume we're all bendy gazelles with generational wealth. This week's episode is a sacred roast of the healing industrial complex, the part of the wellness world that's less about helping people feel safe in their bodies and more about selling calmness as a brand. We're talking the weaponization of good vibes only. Why your rage might actually be the most honest ritual you've got. The ways healing spaces exclude and silence people who aren't white, thin, wealthy, flexible or willing to perform emotional palatability and how to start building rituals that are messy, permission based, body inclusive, and actually yours. Plus, I've got a juicy listener question from someone who said I don't feel safe or included in most healing spaces. How do I find something that actually fits me? We're going to unpack that question hard. Because the truth is, for a lot of us, healing isn't something we find. It's something we build from scraps, from rage, from whatever we've got left after capitalism, trauma and 90s diet culture tried to make us disappear. So grab a snack, light a candle or scream into a throw pillow and settle in. Let's say no to healing that hurts and yes to rituals that make you feel whole.
[00:01:55] Let's talk about the unspoken dress code of modern wellness culture. You know what I mean. The linen pants, the pastel filtered content, the slow motion yoga reels where someone sips tea on a balcony overlooking the sea. Like they didn't just have a nervous breakdown in the shower five minutes ago. Somewhere along the way, healing became an aesthetic. And not just any aesthetic. A deeply exclusive whitewashed commodified one that centers good vibes, soft femininity and absolute obedience to the vibe. The vibe apparently must be calm always, even if your nervous system is internally setting off fireworks and screaming for help. Smile softly, breathe deeper, light some sage and look healed. We've all seen it. The Healing Influencer post with perfectly staged altar candles, an open journal page filled with looping gratitude statements, and a caption that says you get to choose your reality. If you're not vibing high, you're choosing pain. Um, excuse me. Let's be clear. Healing is not a performance it's not a product and it sure as hell isn't always pretty. But when wellness is filtered through capitalism and white supremacy, it becomes a commodity, a vibe you can buy, a lifestyle you can fail at. And that failure becomes your fault, not the systems Looking healed versus Being whole. There is so much social and visual pressure to look like you're healing, even when your body is carrying the weight of grief, trauma, burnout or generational exhaustion. It sounds like don't be negative, you're attracting bad energy. Don't lash out, stay in your heart space. Have you tried eft tapping mushroom tea and getting your aura polished? It looks like being told to stay high vibe when you're actually in survival mode, being praised for doing the work only when you're calm, composed and thin, being subtly or overtly excluded if your pain is inconvenient, loud, or embodied in a body that doesn't fit the brand. This is spiritual respectability politics. It's saying you're welcome here, but only if you don't make us uncomfortable. So who gets to heal in these spaces? The esthetic version of healing was built with a narrow lens and that lens leaves so many people out. Black and brown folks are often tokenized or erased entirely from spiritual leadership roles while their ancestral practices are appropriated and sold back to them at $200 per session. Fat folks are either invisibilized or pressured to lose weight as a precondition for wellness. Yoga for all bodies is often code for all sizes of flexible non disabled bodies. In Lululemon, disabled folks are excluded from movement practices that don't account for mobility devices, chronic pain or fluctuating energy. Neurodivergent folks are shamed for not sitting still, not calming down, not processing the way everyone else does. Like sorry, I stim when I'm overwhelmed. Didn't realize I needed to vibe check my dopamine first. And let's be real. Queer, trans and gender non conforming folks are often completely left out of the healing aesthetic unless they fit into the soft, non threatening white coated version of queerness that makes the CIS world feel safe. The message is loud. This healing space is only for certain kinds of bodies, certain kinds of energy, certain kinds of grief, and the weaponization of high vibes only. Let's drag this one out for a sec. Spiritual elitism shows up when we turn healing into a hierarchy. You're vibrating too low. That's a 3D emotion, babe. You need to ascend. If you're still dealing with rage, you haven't done the shadow work. This Kind of language doesn't invite people in. It exiles them. It tells them their nervous system's truth is a problem to fix, that their dysregulation is a character flaw, not a trauma response. And guess what? This doesn't just silence people. It actively retraumatizes them. Because when someone has been shut down, silenced or invalidated their whole life and then they come into a space that claims to be healing but immediately shames them for being dysregulated, loud, confused or numb, that's not healing. That's a second betrayal. Here's another myth. Calm equals safe. Calm equals healed. Let's stop conflating calmness with progress because you can be calm and dissociated. You can be calm and deeply unsafe. You can be calm because you fawn your way into acceptability. Calm is a nervous system state, not a moral achievement. Let's stop praising people for how well they hide their symptoms. Let's start honoring the rage, the grief, the messy mourning, the awkward unlearning, the glitchy re entry into the body after years of spiritual detachment. Because that is actual healing. So what do we do when healing has been hijacked by branding? We rebel. We build rituals that don't give a damn about aesthetics. We scream into our steering wheels. We cry into tupperware lids at 2am and call it a release ceremony. We light a candle and don't post about it. We stop apologizing when our grief ruins the group vibe. We reclaim sacredness without needing to perform palatable spirituality. We let healing look like unshaved legs and sensory meltdown blankets, saying no to yoga and yes to laying down on the cold floor, cursing out our inner critics like they're exes who owe us money, lighting ancestral candles with rage and reverence and snack crumbs on our shirt. We reclaim our whole ass bodies, our full emotional range, our sacred resistance. And we do it without pretending we've got it all together. In this next segment, we're talking about consent in healing spaces. What does it mean to participate because your body says yes, not because the room expects it? What if you're allowed to say no thanks to sound baths, Reiki touch chanting, or literally any spiritual ritual that feels off? We're going to break down how to reclaim autonomy inside your healing, and why that might be the most radical ritual of all.
[00:08:15] Let's talk about one of the sneakiest, most uncomfortable truths in modern healing spaces. A whole lot of healing is happening without consent, and I don't mean sexual boundary violations or physical touch without asking. I mean emotional pressure, energetic overreach, rituals you never agreed to, spiritual spaces that push past your nervous system's clear. Hell no. In the name of breakthrough healing without consent looks like a facilitator handing you a sacred object, inspecting you to share your trauma story on the spot. A yoga teacher telling you this is where the pain lives. As they push your body deeper into a stretch. You never ask for a breathwork leader, insisting everyone lie down, close their eyes, and surrender. Even when some bodies in the room are visibly shutting down or panicking, being told, this is how we hold space here. When you express that, something feels off, getting love bombed into group vulnerability. Because the circle thrives on exposure, not safety. This is spiritual coercion dressed up in good intentions and handmade macrame. It's the healing version of just trust me. But your nervous system knows better. It flinches. It freezes. It dissociates. And if you're neurodivergent, trauma impacted, or just deeply intuitive, your body has probably been screaming no while your mouth says thank you. So what happens when rituals feel like emotional ambushes? Let's name it. Not all ritual is healing. Ritual without consent is emotional theater. It's built for the group vibe, not your personal safety. And it often comes with these microaggressions. Just try it. You'll love it. Even if I visibly don't open your heart chakra. Why? Who's in there? Let the medicine guide you. What if I don't want to be guided? We're taught to go along, to be open, to trust the process. But consent means you get to choose what enters your body. That includes breath patterns, sound movement, energy exchange, emotional disclosure, intention setting. If it's bypassing your nervous system to serve someone else's healing model, it's not a ritual. It's a performance at your expense. So here's the deal. You don't have to justify your no. You don't have to be not ready. You don't have to have trauma. You don't have to be in shutdown or panic. You can just not want to not feel aligned, not feel safe, not feel anything. And still your no is sacred. If a ritual or a space pushes you to override that no, that's not a healing space. That's a compliance test with a vegan snack break. Saying, I didn't consent to this cacao circle, Karen, is more than a meme. It's a nervous system boundary. It's what autonomy sounds like when the room is trying to vibe over your truth so next time you're in a spiritual space, a retreat or a workshop, and they want you to participate in something, pause. Try this. Ask your body, do I want to? If your breath gets shallow, your jaw clenches, or you feel fuzzy, pause. If your stomach flips or your throat tightens, that's a clue. Ask your nervous system, does this feel like a choice? Are you feeling guilted into it? Are people around you all saying yes and you feel pressure not to be that one person? Is your no being treated as resistance to be worked through instead of truth to be respected? Ask yourself what would feel more honest? Skipping the ritual entirely, modifying it to suit your body. Observing instead of participating, saying, no, thanks, but I'm good just being present, getting up and leaving. You deserve healing that respects your entire system, not just your willingness to be polite. Consent based healing looks like these Being told you don't have to participate in this part. Being invited to check in with your body before beginning a breath pattern. Being allowed to leave, modify, or observe a ritual without shame. Being met with thank you for listening to yourself instead of are you sure? It looks like building your healing on a foundation of choice. And let me be clear, choice isn't the absence of force. It's the presence of permission. So what if you've overridden yourself before? First of all, same I've stayed in spaces that felt icky because I didn't want to offend the healer. I've held space for people who were spiritually bypassing me into submission. I've smiled through rituals that made my body scream. But here's the thing. You didn't fail. You responded the way you were wired to. Fawn, freeze, endure. That's not weakness. It's survival. Now that you know, you get to respond differently. You get to build healing containers that feel like yes, where your nervous system exhales instead of bracing. In the next segment, I'll walk you through how to start building rituals that actually belong to you. Not borrowed, not pressured, not aesthetic, just yours. Messy, accessible, weird and true. Let's build it from the ground up with rage, ritual and radical self trust.
[00:13:14] Okay, we've dragged the aesthetic we've named the coercion. Now it's time to get honest and build something better. Because if you've ever felt like healing was something you had to buy, borrow, or earn, I want you to hear me. You already have everything you need to create rituals that work for you. You don't need spiritual permission. You don't need a certification. You don't need to be in the mood. You just need to be willing to listen to your body, your grief, your rage, your joy, your breath, or lack of it. Your stories and your silence. So what is a ritual? Let's strip it all the way down. A ritual is anything you do with intention, repetition and meaning. That's it. That's the whole definition. A ritual can be brushing your teeth while humming to regulate your breath. Crying in the same chair every time you hit a wave of grief. Lighting a candle while saying I survived today. Eating spicy chips while listening to angry music and yelling affirmations at your cat. Rituals don't have to be spiritual. They don't have to be traditional. They just have to be yours. So what makes a ritual yours? Lets make this really clear sensory connection. If it doesn't land in your body, it's not a ritual. It's a performance. Ask what sensory cues make me feel alive? Safe, Grounded. Sound. Drumming. Humming. Screaming into a pillow. Smell. Cinnamon Sage. Your ex's hoodie. Touch. Weighted blanket. Bare feet on tile. Ice on your wrist. Movement. Rocking. Dancing. Curling up like a tight cinnamon roll. Stimming. You don't need to follow anyone else's script. Your nervous system already has the recipe. Cultural respect. This is big. If you're using a ritual or symbol from a culture that's not your own, ask yourself why. Is it because it resonates? Beautiful. Learn with depth and care. Is it because it's trendy? Pause. Redirect. Reimagine. You don't need to steal from someone else's lineage to find the sacred. Your rage is sacred. Your tears are sacred. Your kitchen floor is sacred. Start there. Neuro accessibility. If you're neurodivergent, healing rituals that require focus, stillness or even consistent energy can feel like psychological sandpaper. So try this. Use timers instead of mantras. Ritualize. Fidgeting, stimming and pacing. Build in options like do one minute or stop. Let your ritual be movement based, music based or sound only. Replace journaling with voice notes. Your ritual should work with your brain, not against it.
[00:15:55] Let's build your rebel toolkit. These are healing practices I love because they're weird, messy, queer, imperfect and absolutely real. Rage rights. Put on a song that makes you feel dangerous and shout your story over it. Write a breakup letter to a shame script and set it on fire or flush it. Very dramatic. Very satisfying. Slam a towel on the ground until your arms are tired and then lie down like you just gave birth to your own anger. Grief alters. Set up a corner of your room with objects that hold Your sadness. Pictures, poems, broken things, expired candles. Make it ugly. If it needs to be. Visit it when you miss who you used to be. Let the space hold your ache so you don't have to carry it everywhere. Floor time. Lie flat on your back and let your body spill like it's melting into the earth. No expectations, no insights, just existence. And then whisper. I'm not dead. I'm just horizontal to any intrusive thoughts. Loud silence. Sit in silence. And every time a thought comes up, say out loud, that's not urgent. Let silence be filled with muttering, snorting, crying, cussing, or throat clearing. Silence doesn't have to be peaceful. It just has to be yours. Queering sacred space. Reclaim ritual from rigidity. Add glitter, add profanity, add your ancestors, even if they're your chosen family. Make an altar out of your favorite hoodie, your grandmother's recipe card, and your vibrator. Play with gender, form, expectation. Let your spirituality be weird and non binary and deliciously wrong by someone else's standards. So the first time I created a ritual that felt like mine, I wasn't wearing white. I wasn't at an altar. I wasn't even calm. I was in my car, parked behind a grocery store, crying so hard I couldn't breathe. And I just started talking. Not journaling, not praying, just talking to my past self, my future self, to my body, to the part of me that was still frozen in time from a trauma I hadn't dared to look at. And then I screamed. Loud, like ugly Snotfield primal screaming. And I banged my fist on the steering wheel. That was the first time I ever felt a release that didn't feel like performance. It wasn't pretty. It wasn't planned. It wasn't safe for Instagram, but it was sacred. And after that day, I kept returning to my car. I called it Driveway Rituals for the Chronically Unregulated. You don't have to be still to be spiritual. You don't have to feel good to be grounded. You don't have to be graceful to be sacred. You can rage, stutter, stim, nap, freeze, laugh, scream, and eat chips on the floor in your underwear. And that still counts. So whatever healing looks like for you today, make it yours. Choose a ritual that feels like consent. Build it from sensation, not expectation. Let it evolve. Let it be incomplete. Let it be weird. Let it be you. Up next, I'm answering a listener question that I know a lot of you are holding in your bones. What if I don't feel safe or included in most healing spaces. And how do you find or build something that's actually yours and actually fits? Spoiler. The answer might involve saying fuck it and creating it yourself. Foreign let's dive into this week's listener question, which honestly could have been pulled straight from my own journal or the group chat where we all scream about capitalism and cry over memes. Here's what our listener wrote. I don't feel safe or included in most healing spaces. How do I find something that actually fits? Oof, this one lands deep. Because same if you've ever walked into a yoga class, a spiritual circle, a therapy group, or even a TikTok healing space and thought this wasn't made for me, I want to say something very clearly. You are not broken. You were just never the target audience. Most mainstream healing spaces were built around a very narrow image of who deserves support. White, thin, cis, calm, able bodied, financially resourced, emotionally palatable. If that's not you, you're not excluded because you're wrong. You're excluded because the system wasn't designed with you in mind and that's not your shame to carry. So what do you do when none of it fits? You start small. You start honest. You start with your body. Not with what looks good. Not with what your therapist recommended. Not with what's trending in the spiritual mlm world. You start with what feels real. Start with your breath if it's safe to notice. Your tension, your pacing, your silence, your need for noise. Your rituals that no one taught you but you instinctively created. Start with your rage, your grief, your giggle that shows up at wildly inappropriate times. Start with your refusal to sit cross legged in a room full of people pretending they're not afraid. That's where your healing begins. And from there build. Build a space that doesn't require you to shrink or perform. Here's a few ideas to get you started. Build for your actual body. If you need to stim, pace, lie down, wear sunglasses indoors, or bring a comfort object, build a pace where that's not just tolerated but normalized. Ask what do I wish existed? And prototype it. You don't have to create a full retreat. Maybe you start with a zoom room, a text thread, or a playlist. Exchange with one trusted friend. Keep it intimate. Keep it real. If you can't find community, try shared practice. Put your energy into creating a container where your self trust is the core ritual. A grief alter, a rage walk, a quiet half hour on your bathroom floor. Call it sacred because it is. Don't underestimate microconnections. The comment section of a podcast, a group DM with other weirdos, the co worker who rolls their eyes when someone says positive vibes. Only these people are your kind. Know that belonging doesn't always start in groups. Sometimes it starts in mirrors, in music, in muttering, in mourning. In one breath that says I'm here. And this gets to count. There is no one size fits all healing path because there is no one size fits all person. So if you've been trying to force yourself into healing spaces that don't make your nervous system feel like home, you get to stop. You get to walk out. You get to build your own damn temple out of snacks, softness, truth, trauma, tenderness, and duct tape if needed. You are not too much. You are not behind. You're just becoming something the system didn't plan for. And babe, that's your power.
[00:22:47] All right love, let's take a moment to exhale together, not the center yourself and become a glowing orb of stillness. Kind of exhale, but the sigh so loud it shakes the table kind. You've made it through an episode that called out the commodified, filtered, culturally appropriate circus that healing has become. And I'm so damn glad that you did. Because you deserve healing that doesn't erase you. You deserve rituals that don't require your silence. You deserve spaces that don't ask you to mask your grief in pastels and gratitude before you're ready. So here's your soft rage blessing for the week. May your no be loud, may your rituals be messy. May your breath come wild, shallow, ragged, or not at all and still be worthy. May your sacredness not require aesthetics, and may you never again feel like you have to earn healing by being polite. You don't owe anyone composure. You don't owe stillness to strangers, and you don't owe healing to the algorithm. You owe it to your truth. This week's worksheet in the Ember vault is called Healing is an a shame detox for the spiritually over it. It's for anyone who's ever sat through a healing session wondering if they were the problem. Spoiler. You're not. This worksheet will help you deconstruct your own healing should look like this. Scripts explore what feels consensual in your body. Build micro rituals that are actually for you and not the feed and name the sacred things you already do without calling them healing. Spoiler again. These totally count. It's cheeky. It's real. It's radically self honoring. Go download it when you're ready to stop outsourcing your spirituality to people who call themselves light workers but can't handle grief. Go to the Ember vault@untamed ember.com until next week. Go be messy. Go be sacred. And go be real. You are the ritual. You are the reclamation. You are the fucking vibe. See you next week.
