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I don't think I like this person. ➡️ We were barely 6 minutes into this call and I'm already getting bad vibes.

And it's not like there was one huge, glaring red flag per se. But there was a host of seemingly inane things that set off a silent tripwire inside my gut.

The context: this is a connection call I'm having with a fellow coach, literally just for shits & giggles. She seemed cool, she thought I had good energy -- we agree to get to know each other more. Boom bada-bing, right?

🚩 So, we get on the call and I notice she has her AI notetaker present (totally fine, this is fairly commonplace these days in business). I, however, have pen and paper.

To be clear, I also have an AI notetaker that follows me around but unlike others, I choose to take notes. I like it.

Also? I have an ADHD brain, I have to take notes. I have to give this 🧠 hunk of gray matter SO MUCH INFORMATION in order to stay engaged so my brain has enough things to interact with. It helps that having a pen in my hand gives me something to fidget with.

I comment as such to give her a heads up that if she sees me taking notes, it's just how I process information and stay present. She's adamant, though, that I not take notes. Don't worry about it, my notetaker has us covered! We can both just be present for this call!

But like....this is how I do that?? Whatevs, okay. Getting into an ADHD educational seminar is not the purpose of the call, SURE -- but she made it weird for me to be myself, othered me for needing to take my own notes (aka making accommodations for myself), and gave me brain shame in the space of a few awkward minutes when she was unwilling to hear me out.

(Like...why is this such a big deal, woman?! Let me write my scribbles in peace! 😭)

This is the first strike.

🚩 I can TELL when someone is sizing me up. Maybe it's a lifetime of being the short, quiet underestimated one in the room but I can feel when it's happening.

Honestly, I feel like everyone has this ability (it's just a matter if they trust their own gut or gaslight themselves against it).

I felt that hair-on-the-back-of-my-neck feeling the entire call. Girlfriend was constantly analyzing me.

Not that analysis is necessarily wrong, either. I love to analyze people (hello Virgo sun + mercury). The difference is that I'm analyzing from a place of empathy, trying to understand you as a person in order to find connections.

This was analyzing to exploit, to extract. To see if she could use me in some way or boil me down to my parts and decide what was valuable enough to keep around.

I don't have any hard facts to back this up other than the sharp intuition of what she was doing.

Every time she would ask me a question, I would answer genuinely. But every time I turn that question around, or ask her one of my own, it's like I was getting a canned response. She was full of polished mini one-liners.

Which like, I'm a sucker for epigraphs and wisdom-packed one liners myself. But this wasn't that. This was contrived and felt scripted.

I thought this was supposed to be a connection call?? Like, wtf is happening right now?? Why does this feel like a sales call??

This was the second strike.

We did have one cool point of connection: we were both in the military. So we got talking about how it's really hard to be a woman, specifically in the Army, because in that arena your strength as a woman is not measured in femininity, intuition, social wisdom, or community (all forms of feminine strength)... but in how closely you can compete with a man.

Which is not actual feminine strength at all, to be clear.

Then we start riffing on the importance of rhythms as women and I'm lighting up because this is my zone!!!

She's starts jamming out on how masculine hormones work on a 24-hour cycle and how our whole society is structured for men and not for women who work on 28-day cycles (and I'm nodding ferociously with her, like yassss go off, queen)!

I start telling her about what sets me apart as an astrologer is the fact that I focus on all of the different rhythms that are around us and how to use astrology as a map for understanding the heartbeat of your own life and how that uniquely is going to show up for you.

And she's adding to that saying how her whole thing with business coaching is about helping women to use rhythms, too.

Part of me is like finally!! We're getting somewhere together! We found common ground!

She goes on to say that if women just paid more attention to their rhythms, they'd be able to........

I'm already filling in the blanks here:

• "Change the world!"
• "Trust themselves and their own timing!"
• "Lead humanity into matriarchy!"

'Cos naturally I'm thinking of the psycho-social ripple effects of this work and I'm constantly reminded that not everyone is thinking this way.

Which became apparent when she finished her sentence with "...to make more money!"

(And listen — I get it. We live in a world where money can mean freedom, safety, power. I’m not here to demonize the desire to earn. But when that’s the entire endpoint for something so sacred? That’s where I feel the disconnect.)

I need you to know that I did my damnest to fight the shudder of disgust I felt rise up my spine and freeze in my shoulders because GIRL...WHAT.

Rhythm is the heartbeat of the universe, the song of the blood in our veins and power of our wombs.
✨ You can use rhythm to deeply connect with yourself amid the most chaotic shitshow life could possibly throw at you.
✨ You could use rhythm to tap into your most uncopyable gifts.
✨ You could use rhythm to heal the deepest, most tender parts of you -- and then use rhythm to bring your unique brilliance to the collective, who desperately need your genius.

But sure, I guess you can also boil down this ancient, sacred framework into making more money for a made-up system of decimal points and paper money. Sure. Great.

That's like being gifted a Ferrari and when they ask you where you'd most like to drive it -- across the desert or on a racetrack -- you say you just want to drive it to the fucking grocery store.

That was strike number three.

​

From Ash's Corner

So yeah. When she said her whole thing with rhythms was just to “help women make more money,” that was strike three for me.

Not because money is evil. But because she took something sacred — something ancient, tender, and powerful — and flattened it into a sales pitch. It wasn’t about helping women reclaim themselves. It was about helping women monetize themselves.

And that's not what spirituality is for.

What got under my skin most wasn’t even the pitch (though yes, she did end the call by pitching me — and when I said no, she asked if I’d refer my friends 😵‍💫). It was the realization that she wasn’t just selling a service — she was trying to sell me my own power.

That’s the thing. There’s a whole industry out here repackaging wild femininity, Indigenous wisdom, and sacred practices — dressing them up in glittery branding, $11k offers, and Bali retreats and selling them back to you as if you didn’t already hold the key. As if you weren’t already the magic.

And I just…can’t do that. I won’t.

Does that mean I’ll probably never run a high-ticket funnel that promises to “10x your magnetism and income”? Yeah, probably.

(And just to be clear — I’m not saying rhythm and money don’t go together. I actually do believe that when women live in congruence with their own timing, cycles, and sacred truth...money flows easier.

But that’s a byproduct — not the point.

That’s the difference.

Rhythm isn’t a marketing tactic. It’s a remembering. A return. A rewilding.)

So you know what I do instead?

🫶 I show up (most the time, very much in the mess of my own journey).

🫶 I teach you how to understand your rhythms and your chart in a way that’s practical, REAL, and jargon-free -- from my soul to yours.

🫶 I create tools that give you permission to be yourself, not tools that ask you to become something you're not or perform someone else’s version of success.

Because your rhythm isn’t here to make you rich.

It’s here to make you real.

And that? That’s the kind of wealth I care about.
​

In cosmic camaraderie,

​

P.O. Box 532, Cedar Springs, MI 49319
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