What Is a Darkness Retreat Like? Fear, Rest and Surrender

Nikkiey: I spent three days and four nights in complete darkness. I instantly started crying. I felt so scared. I felt so alone. And my mind started spiraling. What did I sign up for? There's no way I can do this. I need to get the f*** out of here. I was in full-body panic mode.

Hey, guys. Welcome back to The WarriorBabe Show. Today's episode, my friends, is going to be unlike anything I've ever shared before. I tried to do the opening multiple times, the mindset, methodologies and tactics, and rolling from that into this type of episode just felt off. I couldn't do it. So we're just going to dive in. Today I'm sharing the experience I had spending three days and four nights in complete darkness, about three or four weeks ago.

It's going to be vulnerable. It's going to be real. It's going to be raw. I just want to be open and share this experience with you guys. It's on a very personal level. Maybe at some points things will resonate with you. But if this is your first time tuning in to The WarriorBabe Show, this is not going to be about fitness and nutrition. If you don't want to hear this personal journey, I'd recommend finding another episode to chime in on. But for many of you, I shared this on my Instagram and did a whole Q&A on it.

So many of you leaned in with me on this experience and were so curious, and I appreciated that so much, because this is very different from anything I've shared with you before. But you know I like to keep it real and honest. So, a few weeks ago, I spent three days and four nights in complete darkness. No light, no phone, no distractions. Just me, my mind, my body, my fears, and most importantly, God.

For some of you who may be hearing about my relationship with God for the first time, let me elaborate, because there's a lot in this episode I'm going to touch on in that respect. I haven't really been sharing that on social media. Growing up, I went to Catholic school from sixth grade all the way through college. I grew up Catholic, and faith was always around me.

I've always believed in a higher power. I've always said the universe, or something greater than me. But in the past six or seven months, I've recognized that this is God, and that this is Him doing His work in my past, in my present and in my future. So you're going to hear me touch on this a little in this episode. I just want you to know that's where I stand and where my relationship with God is going.

Today I want to take you with me into this whole experience. Before I get into it: this was just an idea, just a thought in my mind. I'm going to share the where and why and all the things. But actually getting there is where it turned into an experience. It wasn't just a retreat, as it's known to be called. It was a death. It was a rebirth. And it was a journey entirely back to myself.

For a little context, and I'll drop this in the episode too, for a couple of years I felt really disconnected from me, from my truth, from who I really am. I've gone through periods of that. Back in my early 20s, when I was in the relationship where I was engaged, there was a calling inside me to get back to who I really, truly felt I was. I felt that again, and that was one of the reasons I felt I needed to go on this retreat.

It was entirely a journey back to me, to my truth, and to remembering who I am. This was a darkness retreat at a place called Sky Cave in Oregon. What originally drew me to it: I was talking with friends, I believe early in 2024, about all these different retreats and things we wanted to try. One of my friends brought up a darkness retreat, and then they brought up Aaron Rodgers.

Aaron Rodgers did this thing and it looked really cool. So I reached out to Sky Cave, because it's the same retreat Aaron Rodgers did. But let me preface this: I've heard rumors that Aaron Rodgers was on drugs when he did this retreat at this location. I don't know how true that is, but there were no drugs involved for me in this experience. Okay. I first reached out in August of last year, 2024.

They got back to me. These people are amazing. The owners, the co-founders, all the people who do their work there are incredible, and I highly recommend this experience if you feel it's calling to you. But the waitlist was three years long. I shared what I wanted and why I wanted to do it, because they wanted to know why. And they said, okay, cool, we don't have a spot until September of 2027. And I was like, okay, cool.

Maybe someday I'll do this. I put myself on the waitlist and figured I'd wait it out. I put it on my calendar and blocked out the weeks. Then less than a year later, earlier this year, 2025, I think it was February, I got an email that a spot had opened up in three weeks. This was the end of February. And I was like, oh shoot, I can't do that week. But holy cow, that's so cool that a spot opened up this early. I thought I was going to wait three years.

He said, okay, if you can't do that week, I have a couple of other weeks. So I looked at my calendar. I had a lot of travel coming up in March. If you follow me on social media, I did a trip every freaking weekend in March. Really cool, and I feel very grateful I can do that, but that was a lot. I wanted to do this experience so badly, and there was an opening at the end of March I could make happen. And this wasn't just someday anymore.

It was now. And I felt like it was divine timing. Three years from now, my life is going to be so different. I might forget the tenderness and the feelings I have now about why I want to do this. It probably would have faded a little, and it wouldn't be as close to home, if that makes sense, or as felt. I'm experiencing these things now. I wanted to go on this retreat and be able to nurture whatever I needed to, or get to those depths, now.

I didn't want to wait three years. So when he said, here are a couple more dates, can you make it work, I said yeah. This is divine timing. This is God saying, all right, this is your time, girl, let's go. And the truth is, I've been feeling this nudge for something deeper for a while. As I touched on when I was opening up the podcast, life has been shifting in some big ways for me. Some big, uncomfortable ways. And I know this is His work right now for me to let go of control, surrender, try to be in the moment and trust the path He's paving for me.

As crooked as it feels right now. When I say He, I'm referring to God. As crooked as it feels right now, I know He's got the straight path forward, and I just need to trust and surrender. That's really hard for me sometimes, because I like control, and I'm sure many of you feel the same way. It's hard to just let go and let God. That's been my motto over the last couple of months. And if I stutter, it's because this is vulnerable stuff I'm sharing with you.

I want to get to these depths and levels with you because I love you guys, and I want you to know that we're human and we all go through the same things. But it's also very uncomfortable for me. One of the big ways things have been shifting: around September or October, I walked through the ending of a relationship that had been part of my life for over four years. While we had so much love and respect for each other,

it had naturally run its course. It had a natural conclusion. We were closing doors, and it was mutually the right thing for both of us. And that ending came with an opening, an opening into parts of myself I hadn't fully explored and had kind of been ignoring. It felt like an invitation to lean more inward, to listen more closely, to rediscover who I was when everything familiar fell away.

If that makes sense. My day-to-day WarriorBabe, the team, content, this relationship. I had an opportunity to really lean in and explore the depths of myself, which is really hard to do with your normal day-to-day, society, hustle culture, all of those things. I felt I needed to get to depths that had never been explored, because there were parts of me showing up in this relationship that I didn't like, or didn't understand.

Not that I didn't like. I just didn't understand. I don't want to place any judgment, because that's what I learned in this experience: have curiosity. Don't have judgment or shame. Ask why you're feeling this way instead of telling yourself you shouldn't feel this way. So there were some things I was curious about, why I was showing up in certain ways or handling things certain ways. I knew I'm in a death season. And not at a surface level,

oh-things-are-changing kind of death. It's the kind where you shed layers you didn't even realize you were carrying. When this opportunity came, when he kept offering more dates, it felt like exactly the right place to let parts of me die. It could have been anything. My friends and family were joking about this: why can't you just go to the Caribbean, to the beach, where you still have cell service, and do this exploration for yourself? And I was like, I don't know, man.

There were so many things leading up to this experience that it felt like this is what you're supposed to do. You're supposed to go into the dark. You're supposed to go off-grid, with no cell service, away from society and away from things, with no opportunity for distractions. That was the calling, and I had to lean into it. What I've realized is that the things that have always led me to new openings, new possibilities, new experiences

are doing things that aren't comfortable. And the same applies to fitness. It can apply to nutrition. It can apply to going to work out. When you get out of your comfort zone, you realize how capable you are. I knew this experience was going to be entirely uncomfortable. At first it was just an idea, and the idea was so uncomfortable. When the experience happened, it was really uncomfortable, and I'm going to get into that. And I knew this was an experience where something more could really be born

within myself. When I arrived at Sky Cave, or really when I got to the airport and some random person was picking me up to drive an hour to the Sky Cave location, that's where everything kicked in: your fight-or-flight response, your need for control, your need for safety, and the mind warping reality to try to figure things out. It's crazy how my mind tries to be in control of things,

when really it's these assumptions or illusions that aren't even true. I thought, I'm getting in a car with a guy I don't even know. I'm going to die. Literally, that was my mindset. And that mindset carried on through parts of the beginning of the journey. You spend an hour with the person driving you there, and then they drop you off at your cave. And I'm by myself, guys. There are two other people

in two other caves doing their experience, but you don't see them. They have an operation where you weave in and out of your cave and don't run into other people. This is a 300-square-foot cave in the middle of the Oregon mountains, at about 3,000 feet of elevation. I asked them that question. There's a national park that backs up to the land. If you look at a map of Oregon,

it's south, all the way south, where it's all green. It's in the middle of nowhere. The drive was an hour from the airport, and then the driveway was a five-mile driveway. So my mind is going, this is going to be really hard to leave if I want to leave. It's not like I can call an Uber. I wanted to give that context so you can be with me as I continue to share this journey.

They give you the option to weave in and out of the darkness for the first 24 hours to help you acclimate: step in, feel it out, step back out into the light if you need to. The first time I stepped into complete darkness, I broke. I broke. You can go to my Instagram, where there's a highlight of this entire journey, so you can see pictures of what the room looked like and paint the picture even more. I walked in and shut off all the lights.

They give you a towel, because there's still a little beam of light that comes through the bottom of the door. Actually, let me back up. The cave has two doors. You walk in the main door and down a couple of steps, and that's where the fire pit is, because they make fires for you. Then you walk into another room, the 300-square-foot room, and you close that door, turn off all the lights, and it's complete darkness.

I locked that door. It made me feel safer. But I couldn't lock the front door, so anybody could get in. Anyway, at the second door, where I was, you have to put a towel down because some light gets in underneath. It's not entirely closed off. I hadn't even put the towel down yet. I could still see a little beam of light. And I broke. I instantly started crying.

No joke. In that moment, I felt so scared. I felt so alone. And my mind started spiraling. What did I sign up for? There's no way I can do this. I need to get the f*** out of here.

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I was in full-body panic mode. Even when I came back into the light, my mind was already gone, because I'd gone in there and seen how dark it was.

I couldn't-see-my-hand-in-front-of-my-face kind of dark. Beforehand, this was an idea, guys. I brought some books. I thought I'd be able to see my way around. People I'd talked to said, no, Nikkiey. I had a feeling it was complete darkness, but I didn't really know it until I was there. And this is an aspect of me I kind of love and hate: I'll put myself into a situation, into a room, and then try to figure it out. Does that make sense?

I won't fully grasp what I'm signing up for until I'm there, and then I figure it out. That's kind of good and bad. So yeah, I was in full panic mode. When I came out, I was mentally packing my bags. I had my assistant on speed dial. I was thinking, she can get my flights out tomorrow.

I'll figure out how to get out of here on this five-mile driveway. I was in full survival mode. These thoughts were controlling my every action. And truthfully, that's a pattern I've carried for a long, long time. When things get uncomfortable, the majority of the time I will figure it out, but at the same time I'm scared. And in those moments, when I'm in survival mode,

I move fast. I control. And I armor up. This started at a very young age. While I was in the darkness, I was able to meet my younger self, nurture her, hold her, be there for her, listen to what she needed and hear where she felt scared. My nervous system has been programmed for that kind of survival mode from a very young age. I had to grow up very fast. My parents were divorced.

I had a mom where I didn't know what kind of character I was going to get from her on a daily basis. She wasn't a nurturing, let-me-hold-you, let-me-be-there-for-your-big-emotions kind of mom. It was a very distant relationship, woven in and out through my whole childhood, into my later teenage years, and even now. My stepmom came into my life when I was seven years old, and I'm so grateful for her coming into my life at that point.

What I realized coming out of this is that if I didn't have that nurturing presence in my life at seven, I don't think I would have been able to do this experience fully. Because of the nurturing she gave me growing up, which I didn't get from my real mom, I was able to soften into this experience. I don't think I could have done that if it weren't for her motherly instincts at that age.

I'm so grateful for that. But there are still aspects of me, the nervous system out of control, the survival mode, that say you need to armor up, you need to move fast and think about what you're going to do. Because that's what I had to do at a young age.

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So I'm still freaking out. Before you go fully into the darkness, you get to meet with a somatic healer for two hours. She met me exactly where I was, and I am so grateful for her. She said, I'm going to shoot it to you straight. You're on the dramatic end of the spectrum.

And I want you to know there's no failure here. We don't define success here at Sky Cave as you going in for the full three days and four nights. You can make this retreat how you need to and how you want to, in a way that feels safe for you. If you need to weave in and out the entire experience, do so. She met me where I was panicked. She met me where I was scared. She met me where I was wide open. I was cracked open. She reminded me I don't have to fight the fear. I don't have to muscle through this.

To backtrack: before I met her, I went back into the darkness and said, I f***ing got this. I can do this, no problem. Again, it was more of an enduring thing. I'm just going to muscle through this experience, as I've done most of my life. But she said, you don't have to muscle through this. If you do, it's going to be a hell of a lot harder. You're going to meet a lot of resistance, and you're not going to get the full experience. And I said, okay.

I know I'm a really good student. You tell me something that resonates with me, that hits my core, and I'm going to take that learning and apply it to my life, my reality, the experience. The things she was saying resonated with me. So I knew I could soften into this. I could let the fear be there, and I could stay.

After that session with her, I still felt afraid. I was still thinking about how I could leave. But I didn't want to run anymore. I didn't want to figure out my exit. I wanted to feel scared, but be there with it and understand it. I wanted to learn how to be with the scared. Why am I scared? Instead of placing judgment: Nikkiey, you shouldn't be scared, you can do this, you can muscle through it, you can totally get through it.

Instead: why am I scared? That's what I mean by judgment and shame. It's, no, why am I scared? And that softened everything. Through this experience, I started to see how deeply my old identity, my younger self, was tied to muscling through hard things. Powering past discomfort. Surviving, not feeling. I built so much of my life around strength, and I suppressed a lot of things. My life was built around

strength equaling suppression. Strength equaling control. Strength equaling being tough. Strength equaling this hard exterior layer, armor. And this is the masculine, right? This is masculine energy. And I'm so sick of feeling that way, because I know there are so many feminine qualities in who I am and how I operate

day to day, and I've just been like, nope, suppressed, suppressed, suppressed. But in the darkness, everything was stripped away. There are no lights. There's no distraction. There's no armor. And I realized: wow, true strength is very soft. This is a really hard experience, and I can do really hard things by softening into them. True strength is the courage to sit with the fear without trying to fix it. I'm somebody who feels like I need to fix everything.

Me sitting with being afraid, being scared and staying anyway. Crying. Not judging it. Surrendering. I had to surrender in that experience, but I still felt very strong. And that old version of me, the one who survived by shutting down, started to die there. Something more alive started to be born in that experience. I felt my true self coming through: I can be soft, but I can be stern.

The marrying of the feminine and the masculine together. The calming of my nervous system and also the protection of the masculine, if that makes sense. In there, I had all of these emotions. I wove in and out. The first day, my nervous system was so shot. And by the way, to backtrack, the way you initiate the darkness is you light a candle, turn off the lights, and blow out the candle. When I initiated it, in that moment I didn't feel scared.

I felt all the things I just said. I felt very soft. I don't know if it was because my nervous system was so shot and I was so tired, or if it was, I'm here and I'm going to experience this with a different type of energy. Some of you have asked me how I slept. Did you sleep a lot? The first day, I slept a lot. But as the days went on, sleep got harder, because you're not really doing anything in the cave.

At most I had maybe 800 steps on my Oura ring. And there were some things I still kept control of. My phone was in the room, but you have no cell service, so you can't do anything with it. It's just a clock at that point. So I was still able to tell what time it was. It was a form of control. I see and understand that now. But it didn't take away from my experience. I made the experience what I needed it to be so that I'd get the most out of it.

They also check in on you in the morning and at night. There were some points where I told myself, no, Nikkiey, don't check it, just be with it. But I knew he'd come around nine and around six o'clock at night, so that was still a form of knowing what time it was. Sleep-wise, I crashed. The first night and the first day I was so tired, and that was a sign that I felt safe in that spot.

Nothing felt scary to me in the darkness. They asked me that a couple of times when they came to check in: does any part of the room feel scary? And I said no, I feel fine. That was good to hear, because I felt I could keep going. And I did the full experience. I didn't weave in or out. I did the full three days and four nights. Now a few of the biggest lessons I learned, and I feel like a lot of you are going to resonate with this. On the second day, it rained the entire day.

And guys, the silence. It was so silent. You could hear every single one of your thoughts. The silence was either a hum, a ringing or static. On that second day, with the rain, I could hear the raindrops on the ground. You could hear little animals running by. Wild turkeys gobbling. You could hear everything. I had slept a lot

the first day, and on this day I was bored. Again, the emotions would weave in and out. I was just pacing back and forth. I wasn't really moving my body. I didn't work out in there other than some yoga, maybe some squats and some push-ups. But I was bored. During the check-in, one of the biggest things he told me was to just be honest with everything I'm feeling. Because if you can be honest,

you're accepting it, and you can feel, learn, or be curious about where in your body you're feeling it. Then just be with it and sit with it. Let it pass, but be with what remains. And I was like, oh, that hits. So during one of the check-ins, I told him, I am bored. Each time they did little somatic sessions with you, and he asked, okay, if boredom had a voice,

what would it say? And I said, I've got to be doing something. I've got to be doing something. He said, what if it's just okay to do nothing? What if it's just okay to be bored? And I was like, oh shit. That hit me. Once I accepted it, once I talked it out and said it, what was under that boredom was so much guilt. Guilt for resting.

Guilt for not doing something. Guilt for not producing. Guilt for not doing enough. Guilt for not working on something. Guilt for not putting my mind into some kind of project. But in the darkness, there's nothing to do. You just have to be. You just have to feel. And I realized stillness is sacred. Rest doesn't mean laziness. Presence isn't wasting time. Stillness is where I get to just be, meet myself, experience whatever emotion I'm feeling, understand it and be curious about why I'm feeling it. Oh, you're feeling this because you're guilty that you're not doing something.

Where does that come from? That comes from hustle culture, my friends. The grind. Be busy. Wake up at 5 a.m. Go crush your day. Drink tons of energy drinks. Produce, produce, produce. Seek, seek, seek. I've done that more in the last seven years than ever before in my life. And let me just say, there are some great-ass qualities to that. But there's got to be a balance.

Or you're going to drive yourself through a freaking wall. You're going to be met with emptiness if you're constantly seeking, seeking, seeking. Material things, hustle, grind, putting the grit in. Great qualities. You can learn from them. But can you balance them with softness, stillness, nurturing, relaxing, time off, vacationing? Mix those things together, because the masculine and the feminine,

at least personally, I'm learning that the two need to thrive together. You can't just be one or the other. I've done a really good job with my masculine. I'm really trying my best to learn the feminine, and that's the journey I'm on right now. So that was one experience. Another amazing experience: before I walked into the cave, I stood at the door and invited God into the room with me. And I invited my younger self into the room with me. I asked God to give me clarity, peace and understanding about what this experience was

here to give me, and for His wisdom, His courage and His strength to find the words, the strength and the courage to do this experience with Him by my side. And I knew my younger self was so scared. So I said, hey girl, I'm here. I got you. I'm going to keep you safe on this journey. I'm going to check in with you, and anything you need, I'm holding your hand along the way. And we walked in. Periodically I would check in with my younger self, and the majority of the time I was talking a lot to God.

There was one part where I was talking to Him and I saw a future vision. I see as clear as day how He's done work in the past, in the present and in the future. And by being in there and nurturing my younger self, something she didn't have at a young age, one of the deepest moments was the vision of my future children. It was so warm. It was so soft. It was so wholesome. It was so loving.

It brought me to tears. There were a lot of times I cried, because growing up I didn't get to experience nurturing in the way my heart needed it. My real mom didn't give me the things I needed, and again, I didn't know what character I'd get. Thank God I had my stepmom. But most of the time I was in split 50-50 custody with my mom and my dad, so I would go in and out of nurture, not nurture, nurture, not nurture.

Not knowing what I was getting from one person, but getting it from the other. And I say this with so much love. I don't want to shed a bad light on my mom. In this experience, I was able to understand that she didn't have the tools or the resources growing up. I see her humanity now. And I forgive her for not showing up the way she could have for me, because she didn't have the tools and the resources to give her the ability to be that.

In that moment, I realized, damn. One of the biggest things for me here on this earth is being part of generational change. Generational change for the wealth of my family, but also for the emotional trauma that was in me from the womb, from being with her. And I get to be the cycle breaker. I get to create the environment I craved so much as a younger child.

I get to give the nurturing that I missed. That's what the vision was: a little girl running to me with all of these big emotions, and me holding her and nurturing her and saying, it is okay to feel what you are feeling. I'm here to hold you and keep you safe. That was such a beautiful moment for me. That right there was generational healing, not just for me, but for those who come after me. For her, for her kids, and her kids' kids.

That was the most beautiful aspect of this journey for me. While I was in the cave, there were moments of being scared, and there were moments like that amazing experience and that amazing vision. And then it came back down to the nights, which were the hardest for me. I was scared. The small noises, probably just a little ground squirrel, felt so big. I'd think, somebody's breaking in. I'm going to die.

I would weave in and out, but I'd ask, well, why am I scared? And that brought me back to a younger time when I didn't get nurtured, when I lived in this scary-ass house next to a graveyard and thought ghosts were going to get me. If you can just be still and experience the raw emotions, and not judge them or shame them but be curious about them, you can get to where they're coming from, sit with them, be with them and then let them go. While I was in there, I also kept asking, God, when I come out, can you just show me your glory?

Show me your work. I know He's always with us, don't get me wrong. But in there I was like, let's have a grand finale. Let's go out big. I didn't know exactly what I was asking for. I just knew I wanted to feel Him when I walked out. Again, this was three days and four nights. I went in on a Friday and came out on a Tuesday morning. And when I walked out and emerged from the darkness, it was snowing.

It was snowing. What was so cool is the owner said they hadn't seen much snow this season, because it had been rainy and wet and muddy. That had been the vibe. And he said, it's snowing, there's already an inch on the ground, the hillsides are all covered and it's very bright. And I was like, whoa. In a place that barely got snow all winter, it was as if God Himself whispered, you're not alone.

You never were. Here I am. I'm showing you that I'm by your side. And I was immersed in so much gratitude. When I came out, it was so bright, especially with the snow. You can see on my Instagram there's a full video of me emerging and taking off the blindfold, if you're interested in checking it out. It was a really cool experience. I know some of you wanted to hear that aspect, but you also wanted to know, how did you eat? Did you work out?

I did a whole Q&A on my Instagram. Food-wise, I didn't know the menu going into it, but it was very clean food. Egg whites or hard-boiled eggs, chia seed pudding, peanut butter and jellies, which I've kept eating to this day because I freaking love them and felt like a kid eating them again. Salad, soup, tea, no caffeine the entire time. Carrots, celery, nuts, olives, which I came to like in there and have continued to eat since the retreat.

Just very healthy. They live entirely off the grid and make a lot of their own food, though I asked, and a majority of the food also comes from grocery stores. Remember the two doors? They give you the food through a double-sided door. Where the fireplace is, there's another door. It's like being in prison, essentially, if you want to think about it like that. He closes the door, I open my side and take all the food. When I'm done, I put the Tupperware back in the door and close my side. He comes, opens the door on his side and refreshes it.

That's how that works. I ate in complete darkness. I peed in complete darkness. I bathed in complete darkness. I walked around in complete darkness. There was a lot of feeling around to figure out where I was. At some points I thought I was in one spot, but I was a little disoriented and was actually somewhere else. I ran into the bedpost a couple of times and it hurt like a mofo. How I'd spend my days: I'd wake up and sit and meditate for I don't know how long, because I wasn't really paying attention to the time.

I'd check the time periodically, as I said, but I didn't know how long I was actually sitting there. It wasn't, starting at this time and ending at that time. Then I'd move my body with some light squats, maybe 10 or 20, and some stretching. It wasn't much. I'd lie on the bed and take a little nap, then go bathe, and then I'd sit in a zero-gravity chair for most of the day with my thoughts, having the kinds of experiences I just shared with you.

The nights were definitely the hardest, when I couldn't sleep anymore. There were animals on the roof. There were sounds outside the cave. At one point I swore something was trying to get into the chimney, and my heart rate spiked. I shared that on Instagram. And instead of fighting it, I grounded myself in the tools I had. I just breathed and felt and stayed. And I realized I can do hard things without muscling through them. I can stay present with fear without letting it control me. And I can stay soft and allow the feminine to be, even in the face of all these survival instincts.

That was the coolest thing I took away from it. Walking out of the cave felt like a total rebirth. Not a new-me kind of rebirth. It felt like coming home to me. Knowing that I have strength, I'm strong, and I can be soft. Those parts of me have always been there, beneath the armor, beneath the survival. The part that's strong because I'm soft.

As I said, there were things at the depths that I felt so far removed from, and in there I was able to get close to them and be exposed to them. That's where I learned I can trust myself deeply. Getting to those depths, I know I can trust myself. I hear my knowing. I understand my strengths, my weaknesses, my characteristics, my value, all of it. I know I can do hard things, and I can also do them this way, by softening.

I also know I can do hard things and stay open. I can trust my body and my heart to guide me. I don't have to fight anymore. I don't have to have this armor up around me. I can surrender. I can let go. I know God is walking this path with me, always. He's already got the plan written. He always has, and I've trusted it. I can see as clear as day where I've trusted it in the past. One example is leaving nursing with no idea what I was going to do, and then fitness fell on my plate. He drips these little drops along the way.

There's one I'm actively living out right now, and I can't wait to share that chapter with you guys. It will come soon. Overall, this wasn't just a reset. It was a return. A return to myself, to God, to knowing the higher power is Him, and to the life I'm meant to live. It was a really cool experience. Would I do it again? I don't know. I'd never say never, but I don't know if I would. First, thank you guys. This is a long episode. Thank you for being here with me through this story, and for letting me share it with you,

this transformation through this death period and the big shifts happening. I can't wait to see what His work in this new chapter is about to bring. If this spoke to you, please share it with someone who might need the reminder, or someone you know is going through something. Sometimes you find the deepest light by first stepping into the dark, which is crazy to think about. I'm so grateful I did the experience, and I'm so grateful I listened to the calling

to do it. Until next time, thank you again for leaning in. If you want to know more about this experience, my Instagram highlight has a ton of Q&As from it. Thank you for leaning in with me. Love you guys so much. I'll see you in the next episode.

Real quick, if this episode resonated with you or gave you the push you needed, I'd love for you to pay it forward. Drop a quick rating and review, share the podcast with someone who might need it, and help me keep spreading the word. Your feedback not only helps the show grow, but it might be the nudge someone else needs to kickstart their transformation. Thank you so, so, so much for your support.