Reality Check My Life | Bonus Snack | E68: When Others Want Your Fire but Not Your Burn

Some people love your fire — your confidence, clarity,intuition, and strength — but they want absolutely nothing to do with the partsof your life that forged it.
They want the glow, but not the origin story.They want the flame, but not the burn.In this Bonus Snack, we explore:Why people are drawn to your energy but avoid the work it took to create it

• The difference between admiring your fire and respecting your history
• Why imitators copy your actions but can’t replicate yourdepth
• The psychology behind fire-takers and emotional extraction
• How your nervous system reacts to people who minimize your lived experience
• How to guard your fire without dimming your light
• Why your burn is sacred — and why not everyone deserves access to it

If you’ve ever felt used, copied, minimized, orenergetically drained by people who want your essence but not your effort… thisepisode is your clarity.

Your fire is earned.
Your burn is holy.

Reality Check My Life | Bonus Snack | E67: The Initiator’s Loneliness

In this Bonus Snack, we explore the unique, often unspoken loneliness of the Initiator — the one who always goes first. The one who steps into truth before the room is ready, who breaks cycles before others see the pattern, who senses what’s coming long before anyone else understands.

Together we unpack:

• The three layers of loneliness: intellectual, emotional, andspiritual
• The burden of seeing and knowing too early
• Why you’ve always felt “ahead” of the people around you
• What makes this loneliness so somatically heavy
• How being the first shapes your relationships, identity, andnervous system
• And the truth that eases the ache: you are not lonelybecause you are unworthy — you are lonely because you are early

If you’ve ever carried the weight of being the one who leads, heals, senses, or transforms before anyone else is ready… this episode will feel like a deep exhale.

You’re not alone — you’re ahead.

Reality Check My Life | Snack Pack | S14E2: Bear at the Bend

Animals appear in sacred stories for a reason.

They sense what we overlook.
They register what we’re not ready to name.
And sometimes, they stand at the threshold long before we realize we’ve arrived.

In this episode of The Bend Between What Was and What Will Be, I’m reflecting back on a moment from last summer—when my dog Bear stopped mid-walk, barked upward into an unseen presence, and held his ground with unmistakable clarity.

This isn’t a story about superstition or projection.
It’s a story about embodied discernment.
About the quiet intelligence of animals.
And about what happens when a non-human witness sees something before we do—and waits for us to catch up.

Bear wasn’t scared.
He wasn’t reactive.
He was instructing.

If you’ve ever felt a dog pause at nothing…
A cat stare into empty space…
A horse refuse someone’s touch…
Then you already understand.

This episode is an invitation to remember that creation still speaks—just not always in words—and that sometimes the clearest guidance comes through a body that doesn’t doubt itself.

Trusting what you feel doesn’t always come easily.

Bear did.
I’m still learning.

We leave the Enlightenment on for you…
and the Shadows have snacks.