What happens when your body starts screaming what your mind refuses to hear?

This episode is one of the most personal ones yet. Lesley opens with the season she rarely talks about — her first solo summer as a mother of two, an overwhelmed nervous system, coping mechanisms she didn't yet have words for, and the moment a bag of spilled rice brought her to her knees.

From there she moves into the wide spectrum of dissociation — what it looks like to live entirely from the neck up, why high-functioning numbness is still numbness, and why the coping mechanisms you're most ashamed of were once the most brilliant parts of you.

She also tells the story of the camping trip — anxiety crashing in the middle of the wilderness, the place that was supposed to feel like sanctuary, being dismissed by the people she loved most, and the quiet shift that happened when she got home.

This episode closes with a guided somatic grounding practice. She is not sending you away with information. She is bringing you back into your body before you go.

In this episode:

· Operating from the neck up and the cost of disconnection

· The spectrum of dissociation — from dramatic to high-functioning

· Coping mechanisms as survival strategies — brilliant, not broken

· The body keeps score — trauma stored in tissue, not just memory

· The camping trip and the particular loneliness of being dismissed

· Talk therapy vs. somatic healing

· The July 19th breadcrumb — following the nudge that changed everything

· A guided grounding practice to bring you home

Something to sit with:

What breadcrumb have you been ignoring? What is your body trying to tell you that you haven't been willing to hear yet?

Come find me:

📩 hello@thekindredjourney.com

📖 Substack — thekindredjourney.substack.com

🎙 Spotify — The Kindred Journey

🎙 Apple Podcasts — The Kindred Journey

▶️ YouTube — youtube.com/@lesleyalberts-i7p

📷 Instagram — @lesley_the_kindred_journey

Interested in working together? Book a connection call:

tidycal.com/kindredjourney/connection

LEAVE A REVIEW

If this episode met you somewhere real, leaving a five star review helps more women find their way to this space — and that is part of the healing too.

Share this with the one woman in your life who has been pushing through, numbing out, or wondering why she feels anxious in places that should feel safe. Her body is not broken. It is just waiting for her to come home to it. 🤍

A NOTE ON THIS WORK

The Kindred Journey offers coaching, somatic practices, and educational content for personal growth and healing. Everything shared here is based on personal experience and is for informational and educational purposes only.

This is not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Please consult a qualified healthcare provider for any medical concerns. You are responsible for your own wellbeing — and you are capable of it.

The Kindred Journey

New episodes every Thursday.

Follow or subscribe wherever you listen so you never miss one.

Remember — you are not alone. You are seen. Heard. Understood. Loved.

What if religion was never meant to be the destination?

This episode goes somewhere tender. And somewhere true.

Lesley opens with the wound so many women carry quietly — the fracture that forms when the container meant to hold God becomes the thing standing between you and Him. When religion shifts from a doorway into relationship to a system of control, fear, guilt, and shame, it doesn't just hurt — it separates. And that separation can feel like losing God entirely.

But what if you never actually lost Him? What if the divide you've been carrying was never a crisis of faith — but an invitation to go deeper than the container and find the relationship that was always waiting underneath it?

This episode holds space for diversity. It is not a takedown of religion — it is an invitation beyond performance and into the kind of heart-to-heart relationship with God that no system can manufacture and no wound can permanently sever.

WHAT WE EXPLORE

· How religion can create distance from God rather than closeness — and why that is not your fault

· The difference between religion as a gift and religion as a cage

· Why the focus on behavior, fear, guilt, and shame is not the heart of the gospel

· What it looks like to move from religious performance into genuine relational intimacy with God

· Why spirituality is your birthright — and no wound, deconstruction, or distance can remove it

· The YHWH breath — the Hebrew name of God hidden in every breath you have ever taken

· A somatic visualization prayer to help you encounter divine love in your own body

SOMETHING TO SIT WITH

Where have you been hiding in your pain, carrying something you think disqualifies you from being seen? He already knows. And He came to find you there anyway.

THE YHWH BREATH

YHWH — the Hebrew name of God — is the sound of breath.

Yah on the inhale. Weh on the exhale.

Every breath you have ever taken has been the name of God. You have never once been outside His presence.

EPISODE CHAPTERS

00:00 When Religion Creates Distance from God

00:16 Respecting Diverse Beliefs — This Space Holds All of You

00:30 Control Versus Relationship — When Religion Becomes a Cage

00:55 Fear, Guilt, and Shame — and the Relational Intimacy We Were Made For

RESOURCES MENTIONED

Called to Courage — Lesley's book, being written in real time on Substack

FOLLOW THE BOOK IN REAL TIME

Called to Courage — on Substack

Five years. The seasons that broke me open. The breadcrumbs I almost missed. What I found on the other side of surrender. Free to follow. Most unfiltered version of this work.

thekindredjourney.substack.com · I saved you a seat.

COME FIND ME

Let's stay connected.

📩 hello@thekindredjourney.com

📖 Substack — thekindredjourney.substack.com

🎙 Spotify — The Kindred Journey Podcast

🎙 Apple Podcasts — The Kindred Journey Podcast

▶️ YouTube — The Kindred Journey

📷 Instagram — @lesley_the_kindred_journey

LEAVE A REVIEW

If this episode met you somewhere real, leaving a five star review helps more women find their way to this space — and that is part of the healing too.

Share this with the one woman in your life who has been hiding at the edges of faith — who hasn't found a space that felt safe enough to bring all of herself. That is exactly who this is for. 🤍

A NOTE ON THIS WORK

The Kindred Journey offers coaching, somatic practices, and educational content for personal growth and healing. Everything shared here is based on personal experience and is for informational and educational purposes only.

This is not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Please consult a qualified healthcare provider for any medical concerns. You are responsible for your own wellbeing — and you are capable of it.

The Kindred Journey

New episodes every Thursday.

Follow or subscribe wherever you listen so you never miss one.

Remember — you are not alone. You are seen. Heard. Understood. Loved.