Episode 1 

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Welcome to the Practical Mystic podcast where universal wisdom meets modern life. I'm Nicki Kuurman and this is a space for thoughtful conversations around intuition, meaning, and our lived experiences where awareness doesn't always make things easier, but it does make things clearer. These conversations about how we live spiritually in our everyday lives. This is about the patterns that we keep returning to and letting go of what no longer serves us.

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This is a new way of being in the modern world. This is practical mysticism.

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Do you feel like you're, like, on edge for no real reason? That something's got you hyper alert? You're waiting for the next ball to drop. You're out in the future going. What if, what if, what if, what if, what if? And your mind's trying to control all of these variables and all of these different outcomes that kind of makes you feel like you're, tense or rigid on the inside.

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And there's this upward and forward energy, like you're just dancing on the tip of your toes and racing and trying to move forward all the time.

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And it feels really hard to just slow down and be in your body and be present or still. And in fact, when you do stop, often it's even worse because you can't expend that extra energy with something physical.

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It's just all in your mind. It's going around, around, around and around.

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we sometimes know this is an anxious feeling, or we call it an anxiety or my anxiety. This my anxiety that. You tell yourself to calm down, but you just can't. Your mind won't.

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And often it strikes the minute you wake up and open your eyes. Or worse still, at three in the morning and you can't get back to sleep.

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And this constant feeling of anxiety and that there's something wrong. It's like a dreaming and you are internalizing it as if there's something wrong with you.

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These feelings are really common among my clients. The things that I've experienced throughout my life, and sometimes extreme ends of that scale, and sometimes some milder case of that.

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But what's really going on in this moment?

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I had a client a couple of weeks ago who said to me, I'm just so anxious all the time,

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it's stopping me from leaving the house. I'm getting on with things, playing with the kids.

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Other clients say to me, oh, isn't this normal? Isn't what it's supposed to feel like? And what happens when I stop?

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And a really big moment happened a while ago, and I was watching a friend of mine just tell me everything that was going on in her life at warp speed for about, I don't know, five minutes. She just rattled off all of these different worries and anxieties that she had about something that was coming up.

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And I looked at her and I could feel the anger and frustration rising in her as she was telling me all of these things that were going around in her head.

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And as I witnessed this, I could see so much fear. And I asked her, what is this is an anxiety? What do you actually afraid of?

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And she rattled on a bit more about all the issues and all the things, and I could see that it was her anger that she was suppressing in this and I. So, I simply looked at her and I said.

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What is it about anger that scares you? And we opened a Pandora's box.

And all of these suppressed anger, all of this stress and anxiety that she'd been holding down through her whole life, being a good girl, people pleasing, doing the right thing, trying to be a great mom. Trying to be the perfect wife, the perfect employee, working her butt off in her job, waking her, but also at home, leaving herself exhausted, ragged, with very little energy for her relationships.

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And when we started to tap into that anger, what's sitting in there? What? What is this anger? And she's like, I'm afraid that if I

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don't keep worrying, that that lead will rise off the top of that anger and all hell breaks loose.

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It hasn't been safe to be angry. She said to me, it's not safe to show anger.

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And I was like, yeah. We think of anger as violence, and we hold it back so that we're not seen as disruptive as violent sometimes, or aggressive or too much.

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Sometimes just comes out in other ways, like being told to be quiet. Quite a few of my clients with ADHD symptoms say to me, oh, my whole life I've been told them too much and just need to quieten down, and they keep stuffing themselves into a box, trying to be so good that it hurts.

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What if I didn't need to be like that?

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What if the anxiety is really telling you what you're actually afraid of?

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It might not be anger, might be something completely different for you.

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But there's a fear. Anxiety is fear. Fear the future. Fear of uncertainty.

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But I can tell you this. We are never certain. And we are certainly never certain of the future. I'm a psychic, and I can't tell you what's going to happen tomorrow. We're not supposed to know in that final minute detail. We hate to live our life, to create, to explore, to manifest everything that we desire.

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And yet many women I know are spending their entire existence dumbing down their creativity in their fire.

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And watering themselves down, me included, to be more pleasant. To be likable.

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What would happen if we unplugged or unleashed a true potential?

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One of my beautiful, wise women friends has this fabulous saying. She said, oh, if only we knew how powerful we were.

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And isn't that the truth?

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And I think that's what keeps us scared. I think that's what keeps us anxious. I think society has told us to stay anxious, to stay small, to stay contained because they're scared of our power to.

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What would be different in your life if you tapped into the fear and unlocked it? What would be different if you unleashed some of that anger?

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What if he heard? We'll listen to that part of yourself, that screaming at you for a deeper knowing, a deeper listening, deeper understanding of what is going on inside of our minds, our hearts and our souls.

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To be awakened to me means that we are uncovering all these things that have caged us in family beliefs, societal beliefs, cultural beliefs. What is it that's no longer serving you?

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I know for me, this idea of being boxed in has been a feeling that's been with me my entire life.

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And I, I want out. I don't know what it is I want out of, but I want out of something. And it's left me with this low-level hum of fear, not panic. It's not dramatic fear.

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But it comes out in the anxiety. It comes out in the worry thoughts.

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And this wreaks havoc on our adrenal systems and our chemical load in our body. Hormones as we're going starting to age through perimenopause and menopause. I've got all of this thing going on, but what I think it really is telling us is that we are awakening to our true self.

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I think society, and not to be unfair to men, but men are often scared of that power because for them, power is power over. Power too. But the feminine is power with power with compassion. Power with grace. Power with our voice. Justice.

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Is not trying to take over. It's trying to enrich and empower us to be more creative. Live our lives from the truest sense of why we came here to create. What do you want to see? What do you want to have? What do you want to manifest? What do you want to grow?

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That is why you're here.

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To be in life energy. To live it. To breathe it. To use it. To bring it through your entire body. And as you bring that energy down through your entire body, it manifests into the physical world.

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What I've come to understand is that when an anxiety arises, it's a nervous systems way of staying alert. It perceives a threat.

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How? I always explain adrenal fatigue to a client is that we, the only animal species that can create the same fear response as being chased by a lion from our thoughts alone, without actually being chased by the lion.

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So, if you imagine you're a deer, you're being chased by a lion. After about 20 minutes, the lions I've given up. He's found another prey or he's got away. You've escaped, and you go back to just eating grass and calming down. And the energy drops and the cortisol and the chemicals in your body start to disperse. And you, go back to being in a calm state.

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But what we've done now is. But what about the next thing? Oh, I can't relax.

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Because what about this? And what if this happens? And what if that happens? And we're so distracted by fear, each in every single thing that we touch and listen to outside of ourselves during the day.

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Marketing. Trying to sell you the Diet Coke so that you'll be thinner and more beautiful or have this product. It's going to change your life or make you lose weight or do the thing. If you don't buy this, you're going to be stuck in this pattern forever.

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We're surrounded by being sold to marketed to every day.

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What if we strip that back into.

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Do I really need that? What am I actually trying to achieve here? Is this actually going to calm my nervous system? Is this something that is going to help me detach from that threat, or is this something that's going to add to my anxiety? Another worry, another thing that I'm not good enough at or, that I can achieve. I'm a victim to it.

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I've bought the makeup in the middle of the night and the skincare product at two in the morning when I can't sleep, and I'm doomscrolling. That feeling of not enough often drives the anxiety in myself and many, many women that I work with.

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And so, when anxiety comes into your life, it's vigilance. It's looking for the lion.

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It's telling you that something's not safe here.

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And I want you to ask yourself, is it true? Am I not safe? Really?

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And if you are seriously not safe in a violent relationship or a dangerous situation, then you can take action steps to get out of there.

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Or ask for help and support to get out of there.

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But often I find it's not even the real truth. Most of the anxiety that I see in clients and myself comes from our thoughts of perceived threat, perceived worry.

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It's not even real. And so, I ask you, is this true? Is this true for me? Is this true on every level of my existence?

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And if it's not, then I want you to name the fear.

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So let me give you an example.

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I'm not good enough to go out with somebody that I admire right?

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So, if you think about that, of all the people that you've ever admired, most of them were probably in your inner circle or people that you've come across. You might have a few that are just celebrities or outside of you, but people that you actually admire being in their energy and presence form.

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And could you be.

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Have you been?

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And who admires you?

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Often family or friends? Are you in their presence of them, admiring you and you admiring them?

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So, it gets grey, right? But we have to. We have to sort through that grain as we have to sift through the murky elements. Is this really true? Can I be good enough to hang with somebody I admire? Can I be good enough to be in a relationship that there's someone that I admire?

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And I chose that because it's often a lofty ideal, that it's something that we put on a pedestal, we feel is our trainable.

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But that goes to exactly the same thing as the most simple, mundane thing or, can I have what I want?

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Can I have this thing? Am I good enough to have my desire? Am I good enough to have the house? I want the job. I want the relationship. I want.

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And if somebody has told you that you're not 

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If a teacher spoke words to you that made you believe that you weren't enough, something happened in your childhood that made you believe, oh, I can never strive for those things.

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You know, ask yourself, is it true?

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Is it true today, in this version of you 

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And even if you acknowledge that some parts may be true, what would you like to do to change it?

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If your body is showing you some anxiety, some what ifs. It's this vigilance, this what's going to happen next? Energy. You're not fully in your body. You're in your mind.

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And the mind is fickle. The mind thinks it knows everything. Until it gets a lovely new piece of information. And decides that that thing is way better than what it believed before.

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And it will change its mind. And a new belief system starts to emerge.

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It's how we decide if we like one colour blue over another. We are judging. We're looking at it. The mind's trying to make up a decision. But it's all here in the mind, right? We don't really know how we feel about it yet because it's here. And so little. We're anxious. We're up here. We're forward. We're on alert. Eyes are open.

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What's next? What's next? We're moving and moving from a place of busyness.

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We come back into the body. This energy needs to turn its eyes inward and downward into the heart. How do I feel about this? Is it true? Is it really true?

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And then from here, we enter the solar plexus. I have a choice. I can choose again.

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What am I going to choose differently today?

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I'm going to choose to believe this fear or not 

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Name your fear. I'm scared of disappointing people. I'm scared I'm not enough. I'm scared I'm too much. I'm scared I'm too fat. Too thin to ugly. Too pretty to this too that. Whatever name you fear.

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Is it true?

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Is it true? You hear in your heart space 100% true.

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And what do I do with it now? And as your mind starts to say. Oh, hang on a minute, there's an opportunity to change is an opportunity to choose again. What do I want to choose? When your heart comes online. Desire starts to step in. How do I really want to feel about this? What would I like to have happen next?

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I don't know why I'm anxious. Nothing bad happening.

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You. It. Am I creating story?

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What could you shift? What could you choose again to shift your story?

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Fear doesn't respond to logic in the moment.

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It doesn't. Anxiety does not respond to logic. You can't think your way out of anxiety.

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But you can feel what's driving it when you stop and listen.

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And so, ask yourself, what am I afraid of? What am I scared of? Name the fear.

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Fear lives in the body and the mind. Right. We can store fear in our body from trauma. Responses from old habits, old ways of being. All sorts of patterning can keep our shells in a state of fear. The only thing to combat fear, the polar opposite of fear is love.

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Can you love yourself enough to acknowledge the fear?

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And even believe? Can you laugh at it? One of my early spiritual teachers said to me, what is fear? Nick? She said, paint me a picture. And of course, I told her all the things I was scared of. And she said, no, no, no. What is fear exactly? I said, I don't know, I. She said, is it a feeling?

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Is it a colour? Is it a threat? Is it a sense? Is it a physical thing? And I was saying, no. She said that fear is only fear itself. It's a fantastic coping mechanism. When it's working in right order. Keeps us safe, keeps us away from danger. But sometimes it gets a little bit jacked up on Red bull and it's overactive.

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We need to tone it back down again. She said the greatest defeat of fear is laughter. And she said that every time you feel the fear, you laugh and go, ha ha ha. That's just fear. She said that you'll feel ridiculous, right? You'll feel ridiculous laughing at it to be ridiculous.

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And it reminds me of the Harry Potter movie when they are, practicing defending a boggart.

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I think it's in the third movie, and laughter finishes off the fear. Laughter finishes off fear.

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As we change the fear into something funny. We can laugh at ourselves. We can find some humour in it. And even if we can't yet, we just go, ha ha ha ha! Just change the energy. Shift the state of awareness.

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What happens?

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For me, what happens is I immediately bring that heavy, dark feeling to the light. And as soon as it comes to the light, I have a different way of being able to perceive it. And I get to choose again. How do I want to feel? What do I want to be afraid of? What do I want to move forward to?

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What do I want to let go of?

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And no amount of reassuring myself in the moment, distracting myself in the moment, ignoring the fear in the moment helps. The anxiety, feeling going away.

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You can't combat it in the same energy in which it's created.

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We can't heal in the same environment that we are wounded in.

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You have to change state. And laughter is a great way to combat the fear. Just notice how I'm scared of that. Isn't that weird? I'm scared of spiders. I don't know why I'm scared of snakes. I don't know why I'm scared of whatever. Ask yourself, why do I know why? I know? And the not knowing helps you not touch it anymore.

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Step back. Don't touch it.

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Because when the fear is allowed.

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The anxiety doesn't have to shout at us to get our attention. When we allow the fear. When we allow the anger. When we allow the what if I'm too much? What if I'm not enough to come up? The anxiety doesn't have to keep screaming at you. Pay attention. Pay attention to me. This is what I'm feeling.

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I'm so busy doing.

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Notice when your anxiety escalates, Notice what feels when your attention.

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Anxiety often happens when fear isn't given a voice.

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When it's met with ignoring. Avoiding. Shoving down into a box. Not being allowed to express.

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We come up to resistance instead of release. That resistance creates more anxiety; more stress on the body.

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When you realize that the anxiety is telling you about your fear, you can also realize that you're not broken. There's nothing wrong with you. You're scared.

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And as you acknowledge the fear, something softens inside of us.

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You stop fighting yourself so hard.

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You allow the fear and the thoughts around the fear to arise. Instead of trying to avoid it. You have an opportunity to understand it.

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And from that place of understanding and acknowledging, we can choose the next right step.

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In either leaving it behind. Changing direction. Doing something about the fear. Getting some support. Whatever the case may be, the right answer will arise.

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You get to choose again.

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The one thing that brings me back from this over angst. Anxious mind or busy mind. A moment of alignment. Moments of coming back into myself and pausing and asking myself these questions. How do I feel? What's going on for me? What am I scared of? What am I avoiding?

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What do I need to hear?

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These sorts of questions, these practices of alignment, don't really come naturally. We're not taught them in school. Although I wish we were. And how to come back into alignment. How to find our centre. Because from our centre comes our power. Our energy rises. Our creativity starts to manifest. What do we want to do with this beautiful, precious life?

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The practice of alignment is what we do every week in the quick shift. Every week I share tips on how to stay in alignment, how to come back into the moment and as you practice coming back into the moment. At first weekly and then perhaps daily, or maybe several times a day. If you're feeling really anxious, the more you bring your energy back into alignment, the more you stay in your body.

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The more opportunity you have. What do I feel? What do I want to choose? What do I want to create? How do I want to live?

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If you're listening to this and recognize yourself in any of it and would love some support in helping yourself become aligned to connect to your power and what's really going on for you 

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Then join me for the quick shift. Thursday evenings every week where we come into alignment, we shift our state and we change our story.

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You're not anxious. You're scared. And that makes sense.

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There's nothing wrong with you. It's normal.

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And how we overcome that fear is to not have to go deep and dive into all the stories about why it came to be in the first place. But we acknowledge the feelings that arise around that fear.

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And from acknowledging that we can take it into our hearts, we can feel it. We can move it through our body, into our solar plexus, to the side, and choose again how we want to feel. We move it into the sacral, and we empower ourselves to take right action or the next step. And then as we step into physicality, we change.

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That one small shift and create massive change. When we acknowledge what it is that we're running from.