The most popular Sunday Soothers of the year

Here's some good browsing material for you in the last two weeks of 2024

Hey Soothers! I remember back when I worked office jobs, I often didn’t take off any time around the winter holidays. I’ve never lived that far from my family and so figured my PTO was better saved for vacations during the rest of the year.

What it did mean is I was often “performing” work — I’d have to come into the office in the last two weeks of the year even though most of the time, there was absolutely literally nothing to do.

Sometimes that was infuriating, and sometimes it was kind of fun, and I would just mess around on the internet, reading interesting articles and pieces I normally didn’t have time to consume.

If you’re in a similar place, I thought I would round up a few of the most popular posts from The Sunday Soother this year, either for a fresh look or a re-read if you’re looking for content to inspire and entertain you as you wind down your year.

So below, are the top 5 most popular posts according to Substack open rate stats, as well as the 5 most popular podcast episodes from the Sunday Soother podcast, too.

I’ll be back in the New Year with my new series on Surviving The Portal.

Drumroll, please…

The top 5 most popular posts of the Sunday Soother are…

1. Far and away, the most popular were the emails in my series on How to Live a Surrendered, Intuitive Life that I ran from May to July in 2023:
   
   I know that many of you desire to release control and fear, trust the unfolding of your life, feel more deeply into your intuition, and follow the flow of what comes your way knowing it's all working out for your greatest good. But this can, reasonably so, be very hard and challenging.
   

   First off, today's world doesn't make it simple to trust the unfolding of our lives. We have all been dominated into smithereens by colonialism, patriarchy, capitalism and white supremacy, all systems that operate on right and wrong, black and white, punishment and reward, hierarchy and control, scarcity and not-enoughness, shame and fear. We have also been separated, cleaved, from our natural world and natural belonging, and gaslit into not trusting ourselves and our intuition, especially those of us that identify as women.

   Reclaiming and relearning this process is a difficult path, and also sometimes an isolating one, that requires a lot of courage, because it goes against the grain of how we've been raised and how most of the current world operates.
   

   Secondly, the concept of alignment, surrender, being intuitive, etc., is not easy to express in words and not necessarily easy to teach cognizantly and clearly, as it's more a knowing state, an embodied state, a way of being you feel into, rather than an intellectual, rational undertaking.
   

   That said: I am going to do my damndest to try to break it into a doable, step-by-step process in this series.

You can read all 8 posts in this order:

Part I: Beginning to live a surrendered, intuitive life

Part II: How you can begin to claim your desires

Part III: Listening to and seeing signs all around us

Part IV: Creating more space in your life for alignment

Part V: Asking for help, and taking action, over and over

Part VI: To surrender, regulate your nervous system

Part VII: How to stop forcing and flow

Part VIII: What’s the next step in the surrendered life?

2 - Never taking more than half: Musings on sufficiency and regenerative living. “How can we begin, even if in extremely small ways, practicing, the tenets of not taking more than half? Of trusting abundance? Of believing in enoughness, sufficiency?"

3 - 10 ways to move through transformation + uncertainty: Steadying yourself through liminal change. “Since I'm in this period of identity-shifting, and the eclipse is bringing it forth too, I thought I might give you a few offerings on how to hold yourself through this liminal change stage, where everything might feel goopy and wobbly and uncertain and gross.”

4 - A 3-step plan to move through fear: It's all about the define, prepare, and repair

5 - Small is the skill we'll need for the future: Don't expand, hone in. “The people who are going to be able to adjust more easily for the shifts that are coming in the future aren't necessarily the ones with a Tesla, more money, huge savings accounts, or 100k followers on social media (though let's be real, the money will always help). It's the folks who are learning principles of sufficiency and resiliency, self-worth as an inherent right no matter your status, community building, knowing how to work with the land and nature, non-attachment, being able to hold outcomes lightly, regulate emotions and nervous systems, and generally be resourceful, present, and able to see the enoughness in every moment. Small skills.”

And here are the most popular Sunday Soother podcast episode from 2023!

1. The nervous system crash circuit that may be running your life: “I've been teaching nervous system education to HSPs for over three years now and in that time it's been revealed to me there is a very specific nervous system cycle we can get caught it: flight to crash, and the circuit loops over and over, leaving us exhausted and hopeless. Today I talk about how I noticed this circuit happening in my clients, what it might look for you, what can trigger it, and how we can gently begin shifting out of it to spend more time in the nervous system state of safety and social engagement.”

2. Buying my nature witch cottage, the money, magic and manifestation behind it: Part 1: "In today's podcast, I delve into the behind-the-scenes of the purchase of, as I like to call it, my "nature witch cottage" — a 250-year-old home in a town of 100 people in western Virginia. This was a dream many years in the making and there's a lot behind it and I detail it all. I share the financial details, how I got the money for the down payment, the aspects of generational wealth that contributed to the process, purchasing a home as a self-employed person, and more. This week is all about the money and the process; stay tuned for next week where I'll detail the magic/manifestation/energetic tactics that went into it."

3. Why clarity in intention-setting is so important and how to do it: “I talk a lot about intention-setting in life, but intention-setting will get you nowhere if your intentions are not crystal clear. The universe responds to specificity. So if your intention is "get a new job," that's about as clear to mud to the universe, which might deliver you a new job, but not necessarily one that would match the specifics that your soul needs. Tune in today to a short and sweet episode that hopefully will help you understand, through one of my patented tortured metaphors, this time involving party-planning, about why your intentions need to be crystal clear and specific — and how and why, when they are, the universe will surely deliver.”

4. Buying my nature witch cottage, the money, magic and manifestation behind it: Part 2: “Following up on last week's podcast episode where I shared the financials and practical how's of how I bought my 250-year-old nature witch cottage, this week I dive into the magical and energetic aspects behind the process. Tune in for how I tapped into intuition, magic, energetic techniques and manifesting processes that brought this magical house into my life. I learned so much about magic, manifestation and universal energetic properties from the process of this house unfolding that I can't wait to tell you about. I also share techniques you can begin using for co-creation with the universe, too!”

5. How to increase nervous system capacity so you get triggered less: “Triggers: we all got 'em, and we all want to have less of them! I think people believe or experience triggers as mental experiences, where we lash out at a person or take action we regret, but I'm here to tell you that triggers have everything to do with your nervous system and its capacity. If you can rewire your nervous system to be more grounded, hold more emotions, and not tip over quite as easily, you will get triggered less, and it's a beautiful thing. We can increase this capacity in a number of different ways, from diet to physical care to creating more spaciousness in our lives. So that's what I'm here to offer today, tips on increasing your capacity so you don't get triggered as often.”

Many, many thanks for being here in the Sunday Soother community in whatever capacity. I’m grateful for your attention and engagement.

If you’d like to leave me a simple gift, a review on iTunes on the podcast would be great, or forwarding the Sunday Soother to somebody you think might like it would be so appreciated.

Many blessings and good wishes as we head into 2024.

All my love,

Catherine