Yo, what’s good my friend?!

I have not written since before my birthday on July 25th and it is now August 25th. It feels like so much has happened and at the same time, nothing at all!

If you’re a creative and/or an entrepreneur, I can tell you NOTHING went wrong because I didn’t force myself to write for over 5 weeks.

I didn’t fall behind. I didn’t lose momentum. I didn’t fail at consistency. I simply wasn’t in the space to write.

I sure did a lot of gabbing tho! DECODE / DISRUPT is going live with Episode 16 this Sunday at 2pm EST welcoming back a very special guest…Keda Shea!!

And grateful to the support of a dear friend Marlana of The Inner Room and our current team Calibrated Chaos, DECODE / DISRUPT is now on all major streaming platforms, hurrah!

Ok. So this piece is a journal entry, a letter from your pen-pal, and an invitation to see what naturally resonates. As always take what serves and leave the rest.

You may or may not know, I started this publication I believe around December 2024 as an experiment:

What happens when I create without turning my creativity into another system I must obey?

• No content drip schedule

• No algorithm to unlock and appease

• No optimizing myself into oblivion

• No fixation on likes and subscribers

• No publishing schedule just because someone somewhere said consistency is the key to success.

PSA: I write when I want to write.

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And today, I craved it.

Well, I am guessing for you, life has been lif-ing eh?

Since my last entry:

I turned 47.

I kinda dated and discovered what connection, intimacy, friendship, desire, and sovereignty actually mean to me (and a lot of it wasn’t pretty…sniff sniff).

I met an online friend (since January 2026) IRL at a gorgeous lake about an hour and a half drive one way for a cute late-summer picnic, 5 hours in the water and paddle boarding. I did not prune! My mermaid-@ss missed the water that much. And I drove home in a scary thunderstorm after. Go me!

My house became home to another cat who flew bravely cross-country and now I get to be custodian to multiple sensitive nervous systems.

I rested when I need to rest with less of a jury in my head.

I moved when I wanted to move, in the way I wanted.

I had conversations that both activated me and nourished me and as you can guess everything in between.

I watched relationships that used to be my anchors change dramatic shape and I still get to ride those grief waves.

I let people surprise me.

I let myself change my mind.

I made things.

I recorded 15 episodes of DECODE / DISRUPT.

I got overwhelmed.

I came back to myself; over and over again.

Basically—I lived ya’ll.

There are probably 20 things I am forgetting. And maybe that’s the actual point. I don’t need to document every moment to prove that I was here.

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So, maybe this is a reintroduction.

Hi there,

I am Nicolette. I am really grateful you are here.

Over a year and a half into this little online-journal experiment, I think I understand its purpose more clearly then I did when I began.

I’ve always known, I am not here to teach you how to become anything.

I want you to become increasingly unmistakably you.

My work comes from my direct experience, my professional expertise, my curiosity, my mistakes, my experiments, my contradictions, and everything I have learned from living inside this particular human life.

Again a friendly reminder and invitation: take what resonates and leave what doesn’t.

Because trusting my own path has not always been easy. In fact, far from it.

There have been plenty of moments when I’ve looked outside myself for evidence that I am doing ‘it’ correctly.

Should I be working more? Should I have this figured out already? Should my career look different? Should relationships look different? Should I be publishing more?

Should there be more external evidence by now?

Can we stop should-ing on ourselves?

Again and again, life brings me back to the same place:

There is no external blueprint for my life.

There isn’t one for yours either.

Why? Because we are the authors of our own lives…well if you remember that and choose to live that way.

You can listen to my podcast. You can read every manifestation book. You can learn psychology and neuroscience.

You can meditate, pray, journal, make vision boards, study your patterns, learn your astrology, pull cards, understand your nervous system, and gather every tool on God’s green Earth.

And yet eventually, you still have to live your own life.

You still have to trust yourself. Or at least I believe if you do; it makes life a whole lot sweeter and possibly easier.

And something feels different for me now.

Not because the outside world suddenly rearranged itself and handed me proof.

Oh hell nah it didn’t.

I am simply ready.

Ready to be seen by the people who recognize me.

Ready for my collaborators.

My clients.

My team.

My inner circle.

Ready for friendships that fit.

For romance and intimacy in whatever forms genuinely belong in my life.

For conversations I don’t even know that are coming yet.

I am not interested in wasting energy convincing anyone to come with me.

My people.

And maybe that’s what this next chapter is all about.

Not becoming more palatable.

Not more optimized.

Not becoming more consistent for consistency’s sake.

But rather, becoming more available for what already feels right and true.

I’m writing this from inside the eclipse corridor, approaching the end of this portal with the Pisces Full Moon.

Even though I’ve been obsessed since I was a wee lil’ girl and am a professionally trained astrologist—I certainly don’t need the astrology to promise me a damn thing.

But I appreciate and love a threshold moment when I sense one.

So consider this a little timestamp from mine.

August 25, 2026.

Forty-seven years young.

Over a year and a half into this peculiar little Substack experiment.

Multiple cats in my home.

A life that looks nothing like the blueprints I once inherited.

And increasingly less interested in asking whether I’m doing any of it correctly.

I am here.

You are here.

I am ready to meet whomever is meant to meet me here.

Welcome back.

Or, if you are new:

Welcome.

So happy we are all here together in this roller coaster called life.

Love and blessings,

Nic

As always, it would give me great pleasure to hear from you. Share how this piece landed in any way you wish.

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It’s amazing how much energy we spend trying to understand people or situations that may never explain themselves or make any sense to us.

Maybe you have experienced this too.

• replaying conversations

• reading between the lines

• wondering if silence warrants the pain you feel

• agonizing uncertainty

• avoidance

• overwhelm

• incompatibility

• rejection

• filling in the blanks that were never ours to fill

Have you ever wanted answers so bad? The letdowns, the ghosting?

For a few days, my nervous system felt beyond desperate for an answer. For a win.

Not because I needed someone to choose me or prove my worth to me.

It just felt like I have been doing all the ‘inner work’ and yet the most human part of me is screaming, “but where are all the rewards?”

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Perhaps peace begins the moment we stop making someone else’s ambiguity our responsibility.

Recently, I found myself in one of those modern situations where nothing dramatic may have happened.

There wasn’t a betrayal.

There wasn’t a fight.

What hurts me the most is there wasn’t a clear ending.

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My sensitive nervous system despises open tabs. It hates the mixed signals I constantly received. It makes my mind want to solve a puzzle my body had thankfully finished long ago.

I am not in the business of forcing things. Their actions told me everything. This isn’t a time to spiritualize everything (hello bypassing.) My feelings and reactions are valid. It’s what I do with them, and how I soothe myself that matters.

That’s my belief. I cannot control things and I certainly don’t want to armor up.

So here we are. In the aftermath. Each time I try something new, it gets a little bit easier.

When you are neurodivergent, my nervous system kept asking what happened?

When clarity doesn’t come, old patterns, wounds and my brain want to create a story.

Does this story protect me? Villainize me or the other person?

Well, the one thing I can say is, my body did not feel nourished in that dynamic.

And as we always say on DECODE/DISRUPT—the body never lies. We say a lot of good stuff, so I welcome you to come check us out ;) Live 2pm Eastern Sundays and catch up on replays.

Back to the topic at hand, yeah my brain is saying one thing and my body another.

For years, I believed closure was something another person gave me, or at the very least we co-created like grown folks.

• Let’s have a conversation.

• Let’s receive apologies.

• Let’s hear clear explanations.

• Maybe one final text?

What I have come to innerstand is that closure isn’t always an event.

Sometimes it’s a decision.

Sometimes it sounds like:

That one sentence gave me way more peace than any explanation ever could.

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What surprised me most wasn’t the disappointment.

It was how quickly I began questioning myself.

Not because I didn’t know who I was.

When someone sends us mixed signals, many of us unconsciously assume it’s our job to decode them.

We become detectives.

Therapists.

Mind readers.

We study their childhood.

Their attachment styles.

We explain away their inconsistency.

We become experts in everyone except ourselves.

Meanwhile, our own body has been quietly whispering the entire time.

“This doesn’t feel good.”

I don’t think we’re asked to become less compassionate.

I think we’re invited to become more honest.

Here’s what I learned.

Life isn’t a straight line.

It’s a dance.

Sometimes someone walks toward you and asks you onto the dance floor.

Sometimes you’re the one extending your hand.

Sometimes you dance alone in your kitchen because the music is too beautiful not to.

Sometimes you’re surrounded by people at a wedding.

Sometimes nobody asks you to dance.

Sometimes you lovingly decline.

The point was never to dance every dance.

The point is to learn your own rhythm.

Misalignment isn’t failure.

It’s choreography.

Not every partner is meant to finish the song with you.

Some only teach you a step you’ll need later.

I want a softer nervous system and clearer boundaries, not the protective walls my tender heart needed in the past.

Those are not the same thing.

Walls keep everyone out.

Boundaries let the right people in.

One hardens.

The other trusts itself.

That’s a very different way of living.

This week, instead of trying to solve another person’s behavior, I started asking myself different questions.

• What wants to settle today?

• What doesn’t need fixing?

• Who gets to lead today?

And a real good one—how is life quietly supporting me?

The answers surprised me.

Birdsong.

A long walk.

A dance in my living room.

Looking out the window without feeling guilty for ‘doing nothing.’

Friends who know exactly which ridiculous meme will make me laugh.

An investment account quietly growing while I both sometimes question the monthly investment instead of immediate spend to the excitement and hope as it quietly accrues.

The cats reminding me that the more I stopped gripping, the more life naturally softened around me.

Support has been here all along.

I just couldn’t hear it over the noise of trying to make sense of someone else’s behavior.

One of the greatest gifts of this experience was realizing I don’t need to become cynical to protect myself.

I can stay soft.

I can stay open.

I can keep caring deeply.

I simply don’t have to keep investing in dynamics that consistently leave me confused.

That’s not hardness.

That’s self-respect.

If you’re in your own season of ambiguity, I hope you don’t rush and become jaded.

I also hope you don’t abandon yourself to try to earn clarity from someone who simply cannot offer it.

Choose to stay soft.

Discerning.

Life will always continue to ask you to dance.

Remember; some dances last one song.

Some become lifelong partnerships.

Some reveal that your body already knew the music wasn’t yours.

Trust that.

And if no one asks you to dance for awhile…

Dance anyway.

Dance in your kitchen.

With your friends.

In the grocery store aisle because chips get you excited like me.

Dance because your alive.

Not because you need someone to dance with.

Author’s Note

I am a Human Design 1/3 Profile which means my life has always felt like equal parts laboratory and love letter.

I don’t write because I have mastered life.

I write because I am willing to live it. Sometimes beautifully, sometimes messily, but always honestly and will come back to share my findings with you.

This week, what I found was simple:

I don’t need to understand everyone else or be understood in order to trust myself.

And that feels like coming home.

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I was joking with my bestie recently about people being “asshats.”

And yes, before someone takes that literally and writes me a think piece…

I know people are human.

I know life is hard.

I know everyone is carrying something.

I also know some people are exhausting.

Not because they’re imperfect, struggling, or wounded.

But because they move through the world unconsciously and expect everyone around them to absorb the impact.

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That’s different.

As someone with an absurd amount of Virgo energy, I’ve spent years wrestling with discernment.

Virgo gets stereotyped as perfectionistic, critical, and impossible to please.

Sure, that can happen.

But honestly?

Most of my perfectionism was aimed inward.

At my own nervous system.

My own body.

My own worth.

My own humanity.

If you enjoy astrology, Virgo’s opposite sign is Pisces. Their highest expressions aren’t enemies—they’re partners. Discernment without compassion becomes judgment. Compassion without discernment becomes self-abandonment. The invitation is to let both mature together.

And back to the point…

I’m realizing that discernment is not elitism.

Wanting accountability isn’t cruelty.

Wanting reciprocity isn’t selfishness.

Wanting people to take responsibility for themselves isn’t oppression.

So can we collectively raise the baseline?

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And no, I don’t mean:

• Become perfect robots.

• Never make mistakes.

• Never disappoint anyone.

• Never struggle.

I mean, can we normalize saying:

• “I’m sorry.”

• “I was wrong.”

• “I dropped the ball.”

• “I projected onto you.”

• “I actually don’t have capacity.”

• “I need help.”

• “I handled that poorly.”

No one dies from accountability.

In fact, accountability creates safety.

What exhausts me isn’t humanity itself.

I actually love humanity deeply.

What exhausts me is chronic unconsciousness.

Externalizing everything.

Weaponizing incompetence.

Expecting applause for baseline responsibility.

Making unmanaged emotions everyone else’s burden.

Systems rewarding performance over integrity.

Workplaces normalizing toxicity because someone technically “shows up.”

I opted out of a lot of that a long time ago.

For years, I secretly thought that meant I had failed.

That I was behind.

Maybe I didn’t fail.

Maybe my organism simply refused.

It was painful as hell.

That doesn’t make me better than anyone.

It also doesn’t make me wrong.

Honestly…

I understand masking more than most.

Ask the 20- to 45-year-old versions of me.

She performed capability constantly.

Overcompensated.

Smiled through discomfort.

Adapted to survive.

She wanted to be liked.

To belong.

To feel safe.

So she constantly proved herself at her own expense.

There was innocence in that.

And grief.

A tremendous amount of grief.

So if you’re in that phase right now…

I’m certainly not judging you.

The difference now is that many of us finally have language for what we’re experiencing.

Maybe too much language.

Too much discourse.

Too much optimization.

Too much self-awareness without embodiment.

(If this resonates, catch latest episode of Decode/Disrupt, where we explore the cavernous gap between awareness and embodiment—and why so many of us keep falling back into old patterns.)

Because somewhere underneath all of this, I think many of us are trying to learn something much simpler:

• How to exist without abandoning ourselves.

• How to participate without carrying everyone.

• How to care without over-functioning.

• How to stop making assumptions about what everyone else is thinking and feeling.

• How to stop bracing for rejection before it even arrives.

That’s the real work for me now.

Not understanding the pattern.

Embodying a different one.

Coming back to my center over and over again, no matter what life throws at me.

It isn’t about becoming colder.

Or superior.

Or detached.

It’s about becoming cleaner.

More honest.

More direct.

More discerning.

Less willing to abandon myself just to keep emotionally chaotic people, systems, or relationships comfortable.

I don’t want perfection from people.

God knows I’m deeply human.

I just want more people to be able to say:

“Yeah… that was mine.”

I honestly think we’d all suffer a little less.

Imagine how much energy we’d get back if accountability became ordinary.

Tip Nic

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• other people can just do life

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After decades…

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