[00:00:00] Foreign.
[00:00:08] Welcome back to Untamed Ember, the podcast where we stop performing for healing algorithms and start listening to our beautifully chaotic bodies instead. I'm Dr. Misty, sex therapist, pleasure renegade, trauma nerd, and your favorite inner voice. Screaming, can we not do breath work right now? I just need to rage cry under a weighted blanket with a bag of Cheetos. This week's episode is a juicy one. We're talking about something that's been chewing on my soul lately. The way healing gets turned into a performance. Like you're not just supposed to feel better, you're supposed to look like you're feeling better. You're supposed to be calm, grateful, radiant, ideally glowing under fairy lights in a yoga pose with a crystal between your boobs. And I'm just gonna say it. Fuck that. Today we're going to get real about what your nervous system actually wants. Not aesthetics, not spiritual checklists, not affirmation scripts. It wants honesty, permission, rage, slowness, unfiltered humanity. We're going to talk about polyvagal theory. Don't worry, I'll make it sexy. And what actually happens when you try to calm down, but your nervous system is like, bitch, I'm not done panicking yet. We'll explore why some popular healing tools like breathwork and meditation, sometimes they don't work, and why that's not a personal failure. And I'll answer a listener question from Jay, who said something that I think a lot of us can relate to. Why do I sometimes feel worse after breathwork? If your healing has ever felt like a performance review you're failing at, this one's for you. Let's pull the plug on performative healing. Reconnect with what your body's actually asking for, and build something way more honest, inclusive, and fuck it. Yes, freeing. Sound good? Let's do this.
[00:02:02] Okay, story time. A few years ago, I went to one of those transformational healing retreats. You know the kind yoga at sunrise, journaling prompts at every meal, silent eye contact with strangers meant to break down emotional barriers while also making your mascara run in the most photogenic way possible. There were singing bowls. There were affirmations. There were people crying softly under cozy blankets while facilitators whispered about holding space. And then there was me, sitting cross legged on a mat, trying really hard to look like I belonged there while my nervous system was screaming, this is not safe. You are not okay. I was dissociating so hard, I probably could have seen the astral plane if I hadn't been so busy pretending I was Centered. At one point, a facilitator came over, placed a hand gently on my shoulder and said, you seem so grounded. And I smiled. I smiled while my body was in full shutdown. My jaw was clenched, my throat was tight, my brain was fogged out, and I was completely disconnected from my own internal signals. But I looked calm, so everyone assumed I was thriving. That's performance healing. Performance healing is what happens when healing becomes a role you play instead of a relationship you build with your body. It's when you look regulated, but you're actually just masking, like a pro. It's when you can recite your attachment style, your triggers, your trauma history, but you still flinch every time someone gets emotionally close and then spiral in shame. Because I should be past this by now. It's doing breathwork because you think you should, not because it actually feels good. It's dressing your pain up in pretty language and packaging it for Instagram like some kind of spiritual brand deal. Here's me crying gracefully, but don't worry, I'm still glowing and my outfit matches the room. Performance healing is sneaky because it's not just about aesthetics. It's about survival. Let's get real for a second. Most of us learned pretty early that it wasn't always safe to show our pain. So we learned to mask it, dress it up, minimize it, make it smaller, quieter, more acceptable. We learned that rage makes people uncomfortable, that grief is indulgent, that being too much gets you pushed out of a circle. That breakdowns are only okay if they're poetic, short lived and followed by a breakthrough montage with gentle piano music. So instead of healing honestly, we heal politely. We heal in ways that make others comfortable. We regulate not for ourselves, but so we don't scare anyone else. That's not healing. That's emotional fawning. And here's the worst part. When performance healing starts to fail us, when the breath work doesn't fix the panic, when the rituals feel hollow, when the yoga class makes you want to cry and not in a cathartic way, we blame ourselves. Not the system, not the commodified, whitewashed, one size fits no one wellness culture that we've been sold. Nope. We assume we're broken, that we must not be healing correctly, that our nervous system is defective, that we're behind or too damaged or not trying hard enough. I've heard this from clients, from students, friends. Hell, I've said it to myself. I'm doing everything right, but I still feel anxious. I meditated and journaled, but I still shut down. Why do I still feel numb if I'm healing? Your body is telling the truth. The performance is what's lying. Let's name what this actually emotional bypassing. It's when we try to skip the uncomfortable feelings and jump straight into peace, love and enlightenment. It's when we slap gratitude over grief, affirmations over rage and lavender oil over the fact that our nervous system is stuck and freeze because the world is still fucking scary. And listen, I'm not anti breathwork or anti affirmation, but I am against using those things as a mask to hide our truth from ourselves. Because your nervous system doesn't need you to be calm, it needs you to be honest. Maybe your healing doesn't look like quiet stillness and subtle growth. Maybe it looks like rage, like ugly crying. Like saying no more when you've been saying I'm fine for years. Maybe it looks like finally falling apart in a way that isn't instagrammable. Maybe it looks like not attending the cacao ceremony because your body says hell no. Maybe it looks like building a ritual that includes screaming and snacks and laying on the floor in a bathrobe muttering healing is a scam while you emotionally decompose. That still counts. In fact, that might be the most honest healing of all.
[00:06:28] Alright babe, it's time we talk about your vagus nerve. Yes, it sounds like a rejected Harry Potter spell, but this long winding nerve is one of the most badass, misunderstood and life altering parts of your entire nervous system. Polyvagal theory basically says your nervous system has three main states that it flips between depending on how safe or threatened you feel. These states are hierarchical. Your system chooses them based on what feels survivable in the moment. Ventral Vagal State the I'm safe ish vibe. This is your social engagement system. When you're here, your body feels safe. You're connected, curious, open, playful, sexually receptive, and maybe even a little flirty. Your digestion is working, your voice is expressive, your brain is online. Here's some real world examples of what that might look Laughing with a friend and actually feeling it. Being fully present during sex. Not just acting like it, having a hard conversation and staying in your body the whole time. It's not about being Zen, it's about felt safety. Ventral is where creativity, joy and connection live. Sympathetic State this is the fight or flight vibe. This kicks in when your body senses a threat. Your heart rate spike, your pupils dilate, your digestion slows and you're ready to go. You either want to punch something that's the fight or peace the hell out. That's the flight. Here's some real world examples of that. Snapping at your partner when they ask a gentle question and you're already overwhelmed. Feeling panicky in a yoga class and wanting to bolt, but instead just clenching your teeth for 45 minutes. Scrolling your phone obsessively while doom spiraling about a text you haven't answered. This is mobilization. Your body trying to protect you through action. Dorsal vagal state. The shut it down vibe. When fight or flight won't work, your system throws the emergency brake. You freeze, collapse, disconnect. Emotionally flatlined. Numbness, dissociation, exhaustion. Welcome to dorsal. Here's some real world examples of that. Suddenly feeling sleepy during an argument or triggering convo. Lying in bed, feeling nothing and judging yourself for not being able to cry. Getting touched during intimacy but not feeling any sensation. Just blank. This is protection through disconnection. Your system is trying to preserve you by going offline. Here's the thing. None of these states are bad. They're adaptive. Your nervous system isn't broken. It's brilliant. It's keeping you alive in the best way it knows how. But the problem is we don't live in a world that honors nervous system wisdom. We live in a world that says stay calm. Just breathe through it. Smile, let it go. Get over it. Which brings me to regulation as a weapon. Let's talk about how emotional regulation has been weaponized. Now don't get me wrong, I love me some co regulation and nervous system tools. But there's a difference between healing support and performance expectations. The second we start using regulated as a synonym for emotionally appropriate, we're back to performance. We're saying if you were really healing, you'd be calm right now. And that's where it gets toxic. Because guess who gets policed the most? People in black and brown bodies. Fat folks, disabled folks, Neurodivergent folks, femme folks. You know, the people who are already getting told their reactions are too much. Their tone is aggressive, their needs are inconvenient. Regulation is not obedience. It's not silence. It's not stillness. It's the capacity to return to yourself after activation. Even if that return is messy, even if it's loud, even if it takes a week.
[00:10:06] Why might you freeze in yoga or panic during breathwork? Let's get real about this for a second. You ever been in a yoga class and suddenly feel like you were floating outside of your body or you wanted to cry for no reason? Ever tried breath work and felt a wave of panic? Or rage so big that it made you want to scream, but you didn't know why. Yeah, that's not failure. That's biology. Here's what might be happening. If your body is carrying unprocessed trauma or sensory overwhelm and you suddenly drop into stillness, your system might go straight to dorsal. If you're in freeze and someone tells you to just breathe, you might snap up into sympathetic. That's the fight or flight without the tools to manage it. If you have a trauma history that involved control, stillness, silence, you might associate calming down with danger or powerlessness in breath work. It can be amazing. And it can also be too much for a system that isn't ready. Same with yoga. Same with eye contact. Same with touch. Same with long meditations. These aren't neutral practices. They're tools. And like any tool, they can be healing or they can re traumatize. If you're spiraling, dissociating, or freezing in healing spaces, it's not a sign that you're broken. It's a sign that your nervous system is doing its damn job. So let's flip the why am I like this? Shame on its head. When you feel yourself shut down in the middle of an intimate moment, or snap at your kid for asking a simple question, or ghost your entire friend group for three weeks, not because you don't care, but because your body just can't, it's not a failure. That's information. That's your system. Saying something here does not feel safe. And your job isn't to shame it into silence. It's to listen.
[00:11:54] Let's pause for a moment right now and check in. Where's your breath? Are your shoulders creeping up to your ears? Are you clenching your jaw? Do you feel like your brain is floating above your body a little? That's data, not diagnosis. Just information that your body is giving you. Let it speak. In the next segment, I'm going to share the rebellious rituals and tools that help me stop performing calm and start creating actual nervous system safety on my terms. So if you're ready to stop shaming your shutdowns, stop calling your rage a problem, and start building a healing practice that doesn't make your body feel like it's being tricked. Stick around.
[00:12:37] So let's talk about rage. Not the kind that flares up and fades. I mean the deep, holy visceral rage. The kind that lives in the bones of people who have been told their truth is too much since they were children. Rage is not dysfunction. Rage is data. It's your nervous System saying, I'm not safe here. It's your body calling bullshit on the mask you've been forced to wear. It's the fight response, waking up after years of being told to smile, breathe, and let it go. Rage is a nervous system state. It's not a moral failure. It's not a sign that you're regressing. It's not proof that you're unevolved or unhealed. It's intelligence. Let me say that louder for the folks in the back. Your rage is intelligent. It knows when you've been silenced too long. It knows when the boundary was crossed, how, before you even had the language to name it. It knows when someone's apology is just performance. It knows when you're being asked to be regulated for someone else's comfort and not for your own safety. And yet, most healing spaces treat rage like it's a liability. We're taught to manage it, to tone it down, to be quiet, to spiritualize it into sadness or mask it with a gratitude list and a smile that makes your molars ache. But here's the thing. Rage is sacred. Especially for the folks who have never been allowed to show it. Let me tell you about a time when rage saved me. I was in a therapy session once, not as a therapist, but as a client. And I was trying so hard to stay regulated. You know the drill. Breathing deeply, speaking calmly, using all the right therapeutic language. I wanted to prove I was a good client, someone who had done the work, someone who was healing correctly. And then the therapist said something that hit a nerve so deep I couldn't breathe. She asked, but do you think that reaction might be your inner child being dramatic? Oh, no, she didn't. I don't even remember what I said next. But it wasn't pretty. It wasn't calm. It wasn't palatable. It was raw, loud, defensive, and, honestly, fucking glorious. Because in that moment, my nervous system chose me. It chose truth over performance. It chose fire over fawning. It chose to stop pretending I was okay. And yes, it was messy, but it was real. And it was mine.
[00:15:02] And now we have to talk about the flip side. For a lot of us, especially neurodivergent folks, trauma survivors, people socialized into being agreeable or easy or nice. Rage isn't always accessible. It's not safe. It's not allowed. So instead, we shut down. We dissociate. We go still. We fall asleep in the middle of hard conversations. We lose access to words. We nod and smile when we want to scream. And again, that's not failure. That's your nervous system doing what it was built to do. Protect you. In polyvagal terms, it's dorsal vagal shutdown. In real world terms, it's survival. And it's important that we say this out loud. Shutting down is not weakness. It's a boundary. It's the body saying, this is too much, too fast, too soon. You know what? Sometimes that's the wisest response there is. Let's dismantle another myth while we're here. Calm is not the goal. Let me repeat that with my whole chest. Calm is not the goal. We've been taught that calm means healed, but that's not always true. Sometimes calm means suppressed. Sometimes calm is just dissociation in a flattering outfit. Sometimes calm is just the silence before the scream. Because calm isn't always safety, and safety doesn't always look calm. Sometimes safety is sweaty. Sometimes it's loud. Sometimes it's pacing around the kitchen, talking to yourself in a ragey whisper while your nervous system unclenches for the first time in weeks. So what is the goal? Truth. Agency. Capacity. Connection with your body, not control over it. I don't care how many times you breathe deeply. I care if your breath actually feels like it's yours. I care if you can cry without shaming yourself, if you can let yourself shake, if you can scream or say, no, not today. That's healing. So here's your invitation, love. This week, I want you to notice. When do you feel like you have to perform calm instead of telling the truth? When does your rage show up and how does it speak? Does it whisper, scream, freeze? When you do shut down, what does that feel like in your body? What would it mean to trust those signals instead of override them? If you're in a season of shutdown, that's not a problem to solve. It's a pattern to understand. If you're in a season of rage, you're not too much. You're waking up. And if you're just now realizing that calm has been your costume and not your truth, you're not alone and you're not behind. You are arriving next. I'm going to give you some tools. Not clean, pretty tools, but real, gritty, rebellious ones. Rage tools, Nervous system Rebellion menus. Practice that works in unfiltered bodies like yours and mine. Because healing doesn't start with fixing yourself. It starts with trusting that you were never broken to begin with. So here's your rebellion rituals and what you can try instead. Let's be honest. Most of the self care recommendations out there are about as useful as a glitter bomb in a bathtub. Take a bubble bath, do some deep breathing, repeat your affirmations, and for the love of God, don't forget to be grateful. Meanwhile, your nervous system is over here screaming like it just found a raccoon in a crawl space. Let's stop pretending that healing has to be solved. Because sometimes healing is wild. It's gritty, it's loud, it's uncomfortable and it's not calm. It's cathartic. When we talk about reclaiming healing, we're not just talking about rejecting aesthetics. We're talking about building practices that work for your actual body. Not the fantasy body, not the after therapy ideal version of you who wakes up regulated and drinks dandelion tea in a sunbeam like a delicate forest Fae. I'm talking about the real you. The you who gets overwhelmed at Trader Joe's. The you who doesn't know how to cry without apologizing for it. So let's build rituals for her, for them, for you. The rebellion starts in your body. First, let's throw out the idea that a healing practice has to be spiritual or even structured. A ritual is anything that you return to on purpose. That's it. That's the whole definition. So here's a menu of rebel rituals, AKA things that you can try that are low, demand, sensory, aware, neurodivergent, friendly, shame resistant and free of cultural appropriation and perfection. None of these require you to be calm. None of them require you to process your trauma on a schedule. And all of them are designed to help you reconnect with your body, not perform healing at it. These are for the fight flight days. The days you're vibrating with adrenaline, tight with tension or ready to emotionally suplex the patriarchy. Try these. The Rage Playlist Smash. Make a playlist that makes you feel feral. Scream the lyrics. Drum. Dance like a pissed off witch. Do it barefoot on a hard surface and feel the vibration. The pillow punch. Set a timer for three minutes. Kneel on your bed or couch and punch the ever loving hell out of a pillow. Let your breath be as wild as it wants. No form, no filter, just fury. The fuck it mantra. Walk. Walk in a safe space, repeating one phrase that captures your rage. I'm not the problem. I said no. I'm done being small. Let your pace match your mood. Speed, walk, stomp, march. This is spellwork, babe. Growl, breathing. Exhale with sound. Growl, moan, hum like an angry animal. Vagus nerve loves vibration. These are for the days you're numb, disconnected or floating outside of your body. When you feel like you're watching yourself from a far away place and can't seem to land, try these. Sink and sigh. Sit or lay on the floor with your back against something solid. Let gravity do the work. Feel the weight of your body. Sigh loudly and then sigh again. Let your body deflate. Barefoot on the earth or tile or carpet. You don't need a forest. Just take your socks off. Stand or sit with bare feet on something textured. Rub your feet back and forth. Wiggle your toes. Say I'm here out loud. Hands on heart, belly or neck. Place one hand on your chest and one on your belly or both on your cheeks or cradle in your neck. Let your own touch anchor you. Micro movement. Wiggle your fingers. Shift your jaw. Shrug your shoulder. Don't try to wake up the whole system. Just invite it gently to return. Sometimes what you need isn't catharsis or connection. Sometimes you need to opt out. Rest is not laziness. It's refusal. Refusal to hustle, to perform, to force. Try these. Stare at the ceiling with no agenda. No music, no journaling, no deep thoughts. Just lay down and let your body do nothing. The fuck off. Blanket burrito. Wrap yourself in something soft. Put on a TV show that requires zero emotional investment. Eat snacks. Do not unpack. Your feelings just exist. Noise canceling as sacred space. Mute the world and rest in the quiet. Let your brain stop processing sound for a while. Timed isolation. Put your phone on. Do not disturb for 20 minutes. Lay down. Don't talk, don't think and just be. These are for when you felt something. Rage, grief, clarity. And you want to give it a little home in your nervous system. Cold water on the wrists or neck helps you come back into your body without shock. Great after a big cry or a rage storm. Freeform journaling, not reflection. Just download. Here's what I just felt. No analysis, no conclusion. Transitional objects. Light a candle, hold a stone, wrap up in a row. Give your body a signal that the experience has shifted. A ritual closing phrase. Try something like this is where I leave it. It's okay now. Or I survived again. If you feel stuck and numb, wiggle one toe. Say your name out loud. Drink something with texture, carbonated or pulpy. If you're anxious but trapped in place, push your hands into a wall, shake your arms, breathe out harder than you breathe in. If you're spiraling and over processing, sing the chorus of a ridiculous song. Jump in place five times, slap your thighs gently and say, okay, babe, we're here. If you're shut down and silent, whisper a swear word, even just to yourself, wake the fire back up with irreverence. These rituals aren't magic. They're interruptions. They're nervous system nudges. They're invitations to choose presence over performance, even if it's just for a second. They're also not linear, consistent, or predictable, and neither are you. That's not a problem. That's evidence of aliveness.
[00:23:59] In the next and final segment, I'm answering a listener question that will be deeply validating if you've ever tried to do healing right and then felt worse, we'll talk about breathwork, backlash, freeze states, and how to stop using healing tools as weapons against yourself. We're almost there, babe, and you're doing sacred work. Let's go finish it together.
[00:24:25] All right, it's time for our listener question of the week. And, oh, baby, this one's cracked my heart wide open when I read it. Jay wrote in and asked, why do I sometimes feel worse after breath work? I thought it was supposed to help me regulate, but sometimes it makes me panic, dissociate, and feel completely overwhelmed. Am I doing it wrong? First of all, Jay, thank you for asking the question so many people are scared to say out loud. You are absolutely not alone in this. I've been there. A lot of my clients have been there. And the fact that you're noticing this pattern means that your nervous system is working. It's not failing. Let's unpack it together. So why does breathwork sometimes feel like an emotional ambush? Breathwork gets sold like it's the universal remote for your nervous system. Feeling anxious. Breathe. Feeling numb. Breathe. Feeling ragey, spirally, fawny, frozen, fried, or ghostly. Just breathe. And don't get me wrong. Breathwork can be amazing, but it's a tool. It's not a magic spell. And like any tool, if you use it at the wrong moment or without consent from your nervous system, you might accidentally do harm. Here's what might be happening. When breathwork backfires, the freeze fawn response is still a survival strategy. If your body is in a freeze state, dorsal vagal shutdown, it's conserving energy. You might feel numb, collapsed, dissociated, or emotionally distant. Your system is like, let's play dead so we don't get eaten. When you try to activate breath work in that state, it can feel like you're trying to floor the gas on a car. With the emergency brake on, the system might spike, surging into sympathetic activation. That's the fight or flight too fast, and that can feel awful. This is also where the fawn response lives that people pleasing boundary dissolving. I'm fine. Energy. It's not regulation. It's survival. If you're fawning and then you try to relax with breathwork, your system might interpret stillness as powerlessness, especially if trauma taught you that still equals danger. And suddenly you're lying on a mat, hyperventilating in a dim room full of Palo Santo smoke, wondering why your body feels like it's about to implode. Your body is not malfunctioning when this happens. It's screaming that the tool you used skipped some crucial steps. You didn't fail. You didn't do it wrong. You just bypassed the part of your body that wasn't ready to engage. This is the same reason why meditation can trigger panic. Yoga can cause emotional flooding. Even journaling can sometimes feel like ripping off a scab. Your body wants to go slow. Your nervous system needs context. And breath work, while powerful, can feel like emotional gaslighting if it's introduced without safety, grounding or choice. So what do you do instead? I've got you. Here are some nervous system alternatives you can try instead of or in preparation for breath work Move before you breathe. If you're in freeze, start with movement. Shake your arms or hands. Roll your shoulders or ankles. Bounce in place. Sway side to side While standing or seated, walk in a circle and narrate what you see out loud. You're inviting your body into mobilization gently, like knocking on a door. Instead of kicking it in, ground your body before you go inward. If you dissociate during breathwork, try grounding tools. First. Sit with your back against a wall. Literal support hold something textured like an ice cube, a fuzzy blanket, or a rough stone. Clap. Stomp or tap your fingers together rhythmically. Look around the room and name five blue things you're telling your nervous system. We're here. It's now. We're not in danger. Co regulate if possible. You don't always have to do it alone. Text a trusted friend and ask them to witness you breathing. Slowly hold a weighted object or pet a cat or dog, which is honestly elite nervous system regulation. Breathe to the sound of someone else's voice or your own. If necessary, record yourself saying, you're okay, we're safe, you don't have to perform and play it back. CO regulation is not weakness, it's how humans are wired. Choose your breath intentionally. Not all breath work is created equal. If you're Overwhelmed. Don't, don't go. For rapid fire or forced breathing. Try box breathing where you inhale four, hold four, exhale four and hold four. Sighing on the exhale. An audible release equals vagus nerve stimulation. Extended exhale, inhale for three, exhale for six. Let the breath be a suggestion, not a command, and then end with regulation anchors. Always offer your body a landing pad. When you finish any nervous system work, place your hands over your heart and say I'm here. Name one thing you can see, one thing you can hear, one thing you can touch. Gently press your feet into the floor and wiggle your toes. Say we're done now, out loud to mark the closure. This gives your system a chance to reorient, not just ricochet into collapse. The T.L. doctor. You're not broken. You're responding. If breathwork makes you spiral, freeze, rage or dissociate, you're not failing. You're responding. And that response is wisdom. It's protection. It's the history of your nervous system doing its best. The work isn't to suppress that response. It's to meet it with respect, with curiosity, with tools that don't punish your truth. Your nervous system doesn't want a performance. It wants presence. It wants pacing. It wants choice. And if what you need today isn't breathwork, but instead a rage playlist and a scream into a blanket that counts. It all counts.
[00:30:01] Alright, love. Deep breath. Not the kind that bypasses your rage, but the kind that says, holy shit, I've been holding all of this for so long. Here's your official permission slip. You don't have to be calm to be whole. You don't have to be pretty to be valid. You don't have to regulate for other people's comfort. You don't have to perform peace to prove your worth. You get to be messy. You get to be loud. You get to shut down. You get to want nothing but stillness and soup for three days straight. You get to be dysregulated and deserving. Because the goal of healing was never to become more palatable. It's to become more free. And that freedom starts by trusting your nervous system, not gaslighting it. If this episode hit you deep, if you find yourself nodding, tearing up, clenching your fist in a yes this kind of way, there's more where this came from. The worksheet for this episode is now live in the embervault. It's called Messy, Angry and a Nervous System Reclamation Map. And it's not your average self help worksheet. No checkboxes. No timelines, just space to name what you've been performing, track your body's honest responses, and create rituals that actually work for you. Whether you're in shutdown spiraling, avoiding every emotion like it's a group project, or finally letting the fire come through, this worksheet is built to meet you exactly where you're at. Go grab
[email protected] you don't need to be in a good place to start. You just need to be curious and a little bit done with the bullshit. Next episode we're going full blown Feral priestess and tackling the Healing aesthetic industrial complex. Yep, we're dragging spiritual elitism, whitewashed rituals, fatphobia and wellness and the pressure to make your grief look cute. We'll talk about how to build your own healing practice one that's messy, body honoring and rooted in consent. We're not just healing, we're unlearning the lie that healing has to look a certain way. So make sure you're subscribed. Share this episode with someone who needs to hear that their rage is sacred and their shutdowns are not shameful. And now, before you go back to the noise of the world, let's take a second. Put your hand on your heart, feel your breath, no matter how shallow, ragged or wild it is, and repeat after me. Go be messy. Go be sacred. Go be real. I'll see you next week. You're not too much, you're just getting honest.
