A Mind, Body, Soul Rest for 2025
Navigate the demands of the new year with greater ease, intention, and authenticity. In this week’s grounding episode, Gervase invites you to reflect, reset, and reconnect with the cycles of nature around (and within) you. She explores the effect of the Winter Solstice, our changing assignments for this season, and discusses how aligning with nature’s rhythm can help us navigate the demands of modern life with ease. Gervase shares her insights on living as a “modern woman on an ancient Earth,” and how tapping into the wisdom of your body and soul can unlock a new sense of clarity and coherence. Listen in as she guides you through a grounding exercise, sharing tools to help you slow down, refuel, and return to your life feeling aligned, resourced, and ready to create magic.
What You’ll Learn in This Episode:
The power of seasonal awareness and its impact on your body and mind.
Why slowing down and resourcing as you go is essential for sustainable energy.
How to reset your nervous system in the midst of life’s chaos with a simple grounding exercise.
The role of natural intelligence in guiding your decisions and aligning your inner and outer worlds.
Why your worthiness is never tied to productivity or societal expectations.
New! Special Rate: drop into your own unique body wisdom with a Somatic Soul Session:
For the first time ever, current, past and new clients can enjoy a 60-minute session with Gervase to set intentions for the New Year, get clear and focused when you feel stuck and overwhelmed, or address any persistent problems that keep recurring.
Get unstuck and tap into your body wisdom. On sale through January. Buy it now, use it any time this year: https://gervasekolmos.podia.com/f1c7c21a-5772-4222-bf65-7bac78672c33/buy
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A Mind, Body, Soul Rest for 2025
Episode Full Transcript
Do you feel what I feel? This podcast is airing on December 30th, I believe. The winter solstice—the longest night of the year—is when the earth in the Northern Hemisphere is the darkest for the longest. It’s December 21st. The earth is getting quiet. It’s getting cold. The animals are resting. The leaves are shedding. Things are dying.
And it would be super off-brand as the Modern Phoenix podcast to not give you a moment to pause and consider this as a human being who lives and operates amidst all of these natural elements. As a human, you are nature. You are part of nature. You are an animal body with a human brain.
I’m wondering if, like me, you have started to notice, as it has gotten colder—if it is getting colder where you live—this animal instinct to slow down, to maybe eat more, to change the way that you eat, to eat warmer foods perhaps. I’ve shared that’s what’s going on for me. To rest, to gather, to be indoors, to be cozy, to be with loved ones. And if you have felt that way, I just want to validate for you: that is because that is the earth’s assignment right now. And if you have not felt that way, that’s okay too. This podcast is for you.
Most of us in the modern world have very few messages telling us to slow down and rest this time of year, very few messages encouraging us to look out the window and notice what is happening to the earth. Instead, we have a lot of messages to buy a bunch of stuff, go out, be social, celebrate, gather. Everything seems to ramp up.
For me, my modern life—especially as a mother—this time of year, I have two birthdays this month in my family. I feel this dissonance. In the past I’ve felt a little like: what am I supposed to do? When I first started understanding this idea that we are cyclical beings, just like the phoenix is a symbol and representation of a cyclical life cycle, I found it really difficult to get out of my mind’s idea that I was just a human doing and into this concept that I was a human being, part of everything, part of nature, with a body that is attuning to things I may not even understand.
I didn’t really understand how to reconcile those two things—how to weave these two things together. I’m a modern woman on an ancient earth. How do we weave these things together?
Today on the podcast, I want to share some practical tips and also give you a reset for the new year. While I often feel like my new-year energy comes in the spring—as flowers start blooming, it gets warmer and brighter outside, and I feel more energy to go outside, do things, have a new beginning—I also think there’s something really beautiful about taking a moment post-holiday to pause and assess: how am I really? What’s working? What’s not working? Have I taken a moment to resource, to ground myself mind, body, and soul? Am I checking in with my mind, body, and soul—especially the body and soul—because a lot of us, in order to keep up with the increased pace of gathering and doing that accompanies modern life in December, just operate exclusively in the mind during this month.
That’s understandable. And also, you’re here to live a more integrated life, to live a more embodied life, to find ways to safely and comfortably and realistically drop out of the mind into the body and soul as often as possible.
That actually reminds me: if you haven’t seen already, I’m doing Somatic Soul Sessions for $2.99 through January. If you want a felt experience of what this could look like, I decided to run a little promo. If you book one of those through the end of January, you can redeem it anytime, and I will guide you out of your mind into your body and soul. We’ll do a little exercise.
But today I want to give you a taste of that for free. I want you to have a resource and a tool to use if you, like so many women, are feeling like: oh my gosh, that was cray-cray. December was bananas. I blinked and it was over. I was holding so many responsibilities in my nervous system. There were so many to-dos. And, you know, if you’re Santa or whatever you celebrate, I just find for myself—especially as a modern mother—I hold a lot of that invisible mental load in my nervous system and don’t even realize I’m holding it.
Even as somebody who has the tools, who is constantly holding herself accountable—and also not even accountable, it’s not like work, but just giving herself permission to pause and resource as I go, which if you are not doing that, reminder: you can—even if you’re not slowing down entirely, you can pause as you go and resource and then get back up. Pause, resource, get back up.
It’s also very helpful to have a tangible tool to use if you’re having trouble with that. If you’re like, okay, it’s cray-cray, I hear what you’re saying, I’m kind of curious about what it could look like to be a cyclical phoenix in my modern life, and also give me some tips—this is for you.
I thought it might be nice to lead you through a short grounding visualization, a focalizing exercise. Just a little something for you to listen to. If you’re driving, do not close your eyes. But if you have some space—as soon as you decide that pausing and resourcing yourself is a priority, it becomes a priority and you find space to do it.
I find my own inner voice, when it has been the most difficult for me to pause and make time for myself and stop spinning my wheels and give my nervous system a reset, the loudest voice is my own. The story I tell myself is that there’s no time and it won’t make that much of a difference.
What I find time and time again—and I have really been experimenting with this so far through December—is there is always time to do the things you believe are a priority. When something is important to me, I make it happen. It’s just about getting our mindset in place. It’s about having the education about the body and the brain and the nervous system that reminds us past the mind stories. It makes it easier to connect to the truth, which is: this is the only way to navigate the most chaotic of times.
Resourcing as you go—tapping into pleasure, peace, and a calmer, more safe feeling in your body and in your nervous system—is the most efficient, effective way to get more done, ironically. If you find that story of: I have to do more, faster, better, or if I haven’t done it all, if I’m not meeting my deadlines, if I’m having to say no more than yes, I want to challenge the idea that it’s because you’re not doing enough fast enough well enough. I offer you an alternative perspective: what if it’s just because you’re not refilling the tank often enough?
What if it’s because you got the wrong message from our culture, that internalized capitalism that tells us do more, faster, more productivity equals more money—and also that sneaky belief tied to it, which is that creates your inherent value, your worth, shows if you’re a good contributing member of society, tells us if you have it all, if you look like you have it all together and you’re doing the most, that is the key to success.
If you hear that and think, that doesn’t feel like me, that doesn’t resonate—I love that. Yes, celebrate that. And also, I invite you to dig a little deeper and check. As somebody who’s been doing this work for 20 years on herself and professionally for 11, I notice even when I think a sneaky seed of the culture hasn’t been planted in my system, I find little roots from time to time, and that’s okay. Some weeds.
For example, I had so much resistance to rescheduling my women’s circle that was supposed to be today—literally right now. I paused and felt this urge to keep momentum, keep going forward, keep achieving my goals, creating more opportunities to connect in business, balancing and doing the birthday party for my son, the holidays, gathering family, keeping the house together, being on in my business all the time.
That is a lie. It’s just not true. And what I am always reminding myself of, which is what I want to remind you of, is that your value is not up for debate. It has nothing to do with your output. The gifts you carry in your soul, what you offer up to your loved ones, has less to do with what you do for them and more to do with who you inherently are—who you are being, who you feel safe enough and comfortable enough to be.
If that is the formula, if that is the metric, it makes it more efficient to lean out of doing more faster better into resourcing, resetting, grounding, connecting, checking in with mind, body, and soul, making sure those things are working together in collaboration, that you feel like you. Your intuition is turned on. You can feel in your felt sense what it is like to be you and how you are connected to the earth and the people that you love and those dreams and things you are building and putting out into the world.
The only thing that has kept me at this podcast game in the entrepreneur world is not making money and being the best. It is just a deep devotion and love in my heart and soul for sharing and doing this work and guiding and coaching. If I turn off my connection to those parts of me and live in my mind doing more, better, faster, I am losing the soul connection—which is where my gifts operate, which allows me to channel wisdom from lived experience versus tons of data and information you can get anywhere.
But guess what? You can only get Gervase and her unique wisdom and her lived experience and her grounded offerings to you—this resetting podcast here. And I can only offer that to you if I have done the work first, if I go first.
In your life, you have your own gifts to share. You don’t have to be in the field of transformation like me. I would argue all of us are in the field of transformation. We came here to create the life our soul wants to live. If you feel that hamster-wheel energy of just doing, it’s a sign—a flag, not necessarily red or scary—that you’ve lost touch with the body and soul. It’s an opportunity to pause and resource and water the plant that is your body and your spirit and ask yourself: how am I really, what do I really need, and am I bold enough to give myself permission to have that, to do that, to pour into myself, to do the thing I really feel to do before I get back on that hamster wheel and continue doing?
Because you will always get back on the horse, back in the saddle, and have at it. That’s what humans do. It’s one of the most exciting things of being alive: creating, achieving, accomplishing, building. We love to do those things. Those things are not bad or wrong. Living from the mind, also not bad or wrong. We just don’t want to do them fragmented from the neck up, disconnected from that motor in our soul that’s like: this way. This is who you are. This is what it feels like to be you. This is where your value and worthiness lie. This is your unique blueprint on planet earth, this one time in history that you will be here as you.
What’s your legacy? What does it feel like for other people to be around you? Not how many presents did you get them, did you dress them in matching outfits, how much money did you make, how skinny are you, what do you look like, how clean is your house—and on and on. How many friends do you have? What is your party like? These things are not inherently bad or wrong. But when those are the only things, it’s just not enough. It feels a little flat.
This is your loving reminder from a very human modern woman to another: when you feel those symptoms of our internalized capitalism, those symptoms of living from the neck up, those symptoms of being disconnected from our beingness and focused on doing more, better, faster—if you feel like you absolutely cannot slow down, that it would cost you way too much to pause, cancel, reschedule, create space—then it is probably you that needs this resetting moment the most, and so many more after it.
It’s not just that you need it. You deserve it. You deserve to feel connected to who you truly are and offer that medicine and wisdom and energy to your loved ones. It is the thing that is going to fill you up and give you so much sustainable energy to go build and love and do and create magic in the world.
When you do more, better, faster from this energetic place where you’re filled from the soul and body up to the mind—like from the roots to the crown—you can create true magic in the world and in your life as you, as the you you’re here to be. With this full cup, with a clear sense of who you are and what your value is, with clear boundaries, clear communication, with a generous open heart instead of a resentful or self-righteous heart or a blaming or shaming or guilty heart or feeling like you have to, or “this is the only way I can show someone”—that is a very normal symptom.
This is another way. If that feels like you, and it feels like a little grounding would support you in your journey of being a modern woman on a Phoenix path—which is confusing, confronting, and changing all the time, every day you will feel and look and be different—then this is for you.
Okay. So let's do a little grounding. Let's do a little reset for 2025 with the intention to care for ourselves and take a deep breath from whatever the pace was of whatever holiday you are coming out of or whatever season December was like for you. And to kind of explore this intention of finding creative, collaborative ways to align our inner worlds with nature's outer world, even for a few minutes to see what it feels like.
So if you're ready and you're not driving and you have some space or if you're walking or something and you want to do this, pause and come back for a short visualization. So just allow your eyes to softly close or you can lower your gaze gently. And just noticing how you are breathing. There is no right or wrong. Just noticing what your breath is doing. And kind of noticing what it feels like. Even just to lower your gaze or shut your eyes. When you turn off one sense or dim it, notice how it heightens all the other senses of hearing, whatever your hands are touching, tasting, smelling. It's almost as if we're turning up the volume on our inner worlds and turning down the volume on the outside world.
And let's just start by observing the mind. Maybe you can just, in your mind's eye, imagine you are encircling your mind, getting a bird's eye view, checking it out, noticing your thoughts. Maybe your mind is going really fast. There's a lot of, this is very uncomfortable. You're distracted. You're not sure if this is worth your time. Or maybe it's clear skies. Blue oceans. Maybe taking in your mind like a topography. Like a weather map. Or a place you love. Just noticing the weather of your mind. No right or wrong. No right or wrong. Just allowing it to be whatever it wants to be. Knowing this is part of the human experience. These busy, wonderful, brilliant brains are always solving problems for us.
And maybe just imagining the mind. And maybe just imagining the mind gently floating up out of your head so that it's just floating above your head. And then inviting it to gently drift across the room. Floating away from the body like a balloon. Taking your time. Just watching that beautiful brain gently float away. And when it's nice and tucked away in a corner somewhere, coming back to the body, curiously, just noticing what it feels like to be you right now.
Maybe feeling your feet and whatever they're touching. Socks or slippers. Hardwood floor. Or rug. Then connecting with your seat, whatever you're sitting on. Maybe even tuning in and feeling what it feels like to have your sits bones sitting in your muscles and tissues, in your skin. Allowing your imagination and your body to work together to complete this picture. All the bones in your body perfectly positioned among tissues, organs, blood, veins, resting perfectly inside your skin.
Taking a moment to just really marvel at all the millions of tiny little adjustments that have to happen for you to have this body operating in harmony with the world that you orient in. Then maybe bringing awareness to your lungs. Noticing the air gently going in and out of the center of your chest. Notice how you're being breathed. Effortlessly. Nature is breathing you.
And then offering a bit of gentle touch by placing your hand on your heart. I just want to invite you to notice what your hand is doing for you. What is it like for you to have your hand holding your heart space? Do you notice any felt sensations in the body? Any colors? Any images? Totally fine if not. And you may begin to notice that some images begin to come into your mind's eye. And we just want to signal the soul here and let her know that you're listening. You know that nothing is an accident when the soul shows you something. Everything is a metaphor or a symbol or a message from the deepest part of yourself.
So what does she want you to know? Is it a feeling? Is it a memory? Is it maybe noticing that there's a part of your body that just feels so weary or tired? Maybe there's tension or pain. None of it could ever be bad or wrong. It's all just data. It's all just messaging from your system. From the roots up to the stems. And just noticing what you're being shown or what you're feeling in your felt sense.
And then we're just going to move our awareness to the top of our heads, to our crown chakras. And imagine opening up the crown of our head, our energetic crown to the cosmos, the heavens, the divine, the sky, the moon, the stars. Maybe any angels or guides or well ancestors. Whatever speaks to you. Whatever language feels most true for you and your spiritual beliefs. Just exploring, opening up the crown of your head to this natural intelligence.
There is a natural intelligence that moves through your body. Guiding your breath. Guiding every single part into place. Connecting you to the natural world. And focalizing. And focalizing. We call this source energy. And whether you call it God or spirit or energy, just explore opening up the crown of your head to this natural intelligence. Maybe visualizing it as a beautiful golden light that is pouring into the top of your head and filling your entire body with this replenishing, cleansing energy, with whatever it is that you have lost over the past couple months or weeks.
Just imagine this natural intelligence just pooling and pouring in through the crown of your head. Dripping and flowing through all the parts of your body that are weary, or depleted, or empty, or confused, or lonely, or overwhelmed, or stressed. And just soothing them. Filling them with safety and calming, loving energy. Nourishing you down from your head, down your throat, into each shoulder and arm. Flowing into your fingertips. And back up. Flowing and circulating this beautiful golden energy.
This resourcing. This resourcing. Replenishing energy into your heart space, your lungs. Allowing it to pool in your belly. Especially dropping into your womb space. Filling your female organs with so much light and care. And care. And tenderness. This beautiful natural intelligence just nourishing you, just nourishing you down, down, down into your legs, your feet, your toes. And circulating back up into your body so that you are filled to the brim with a feeling that feels like your authentic self.
Your soul's highest frequency. Maybe you look at this version of you. You feel what it feels like to be her. And you glow. You radiate. With optimism. With optimism. And hope. And peace. And knowing. In this place you have a deep, deep knowing of who you are, really, on the inside, and how important it is for you to bring her to the outside when you come back to your life.
So before we bring this to a landing, just spend the last couple moments feeling what it feels like to be you. To be connected from the inside out. To your soul. To your body. Working together with your beautiful brain. And all your allies on the outside. Everything in your system just humming and purring and circulating with this beautiful golden energy. This resourcing, replenishing, golden intelligence. Available to you at any time.
And when we come back, we're going to bring this energy, this perspective, this vibration to everything that we do. So you can gently begin to come back to the space. Maybe wiggling fingers and toes. Slowly blinking your eyes open. And letting them land on something that feels really calming to look at. Really grounding. And just noticing what it feels like to be you now.
Notice if there's any difference. And if there's no difference at all, that's okay too. Really congratulate yourself. And pat yourself on the back for trying something new. And even if it's not new, give yourself a big high five for deciding this was a worthwhile way to spend some time today.
Whether it took you a long time to get to it or you did it right away, there is a soul part of you who knew that something was missing from your modern life. That not all parts of your system were online. And that if they were, you would be that much more powerful. That much more magnetic. Every choice that you made would be that much more clear and aligned. Every yes you gave would feel that much more generous, and it would be received that way on the other side. Who you were being on the outside would match how you were feeling on the inside.
And that coherence is, oh, that is the high that I think we're all after. And I really want to thank you for giving me a chance to offer that to you today. I know sometimes it can feel like everything goes so fast and there's no time, and nobody else is going to slow down. And if you slow down, you're going to be lost in the fray. And the more we can notice that, that is part of our brainwashing that separates us from our true essence, from the natural intelligence that operates within and around us, that lets us know, you're going to be okay. Just a couple breaths. Just a couple moments.
There's more here to consult. There's wisdom here. There's a felt sense of peace and calm and resource and nourishment available to me. Oh, I don't feel that. Okay. That just reminds me it's time to go inward. And part of being human is forgetting all the time. And part of being a phoenix is reinventing yourself and exploring what it feels like to be you now in this season.
I know for me, this December is very different from my last December. And also I know there are ancestral patterns in my nervous system that resurface every winter. And so we're always tending to all these parts of us and noticing what are these old ancestral patterns or trauma patterns or maladaptive patterns of being in a modern society that I'm ready to just let go of just a little bit more this season.
And so if you're going to let go of it, let's replace it with something really nourishing, really wise, really lasting, that is more you. That stems from this deep, deep knowing of what it feels like to be you on the inside. Of who you truly are. Of the gifts and medicine you have to offer your life, your vision, your loved ones, every choice you make. And let's see how much better it can feel each season. Every time we circle around the Gregorian calendar. Every time we circle around nature's cycles.
I'm always just noticing the shifts in me every winter and going, oh, interesting. So cool. I feel like I'm more me. And also haven't arrived yet. I'm still experimenting and experiencing what it is to be a phoenix in a human body. What a cool earth assignment. Yes please. More please.
Okay. That's it for today. Don't forget to grab your 299 Somatic and Soul Session at the link in the show notes. It's on sale through January because I just like literally love a good sale. And I am like really excited to offer these 60 minute one-on-ones with me. It's a new way of working with me that I'm trying out. And we will do a little bit of what I just gave you, but the intention is to just clarify your vision for the future, connect to your soul, notice what the body is holding, offer some resource, some clarity, some energy, a deeper connection to who you truly are.
So if you want to work with me in that way, would love to connect with you in one of those sessions. And also, like, thank you so much for being here, for being in this community. I would love it if you know another phoenix who could use a post-holiday reset and you would share this with her. We need to make this new paradigm normal, mainstream. We need to make this way of womaning, the phoenix way. We need to make it more acceptable so women everywhere remember who they truly are, their missions, and that they get to feel good.
The pleasure available to us when we live this way, the phoenix way, even when it is crazy, even when we forget, even if we're the only ones. If more of us wake up and remember what it feels like to connect to the soul and the body and become integrated in mind, body and soul, just imagine how much more beautiful we can make the world, our families, our circles that we orient in.
I love you so much. Thank you for being here. And I will see you in two weeks. We'll see you in the next week.