Episode SummaryIn this episode, I’m exploring why linear growth is one of the most persistent and misleading myths shaping how we plan, work, and care for ourselves in today's modern world. This conversation aligns with where we are collectively right now in mid-winter, a seasonal threshold where the pressure to push forward often clashes with what our bodies and energy systems are actually asking for.

I’m joined by Dr. Molly Sandeep, whose work in the body and Traditional Chinese Medicine offers a grounded, lived perspective on cycles within cycles. Together, we explore personal seasons, external seasons, and what happens when those rhythms are slightly out of sync. We invite you to embody growth as a cyclical process rather than a straight line so that you can feel how that distinction changes the way you make decisions.

Your body already knows your timing, and learning to listen to it reduces pressure, clarifies direction, and creates space for innovation to emerge naturally.

In this episode, you’ll hear about:

• How linear growth is a modern construct rather than a natural rhythm

• How personal seasons and collective seasons can overlap or diverge

• The five-season framework from Traditional Chinese Medicine and its elements

• Mid-winter as a window of clarity

• Innovation employed as adaptation rather than constant output as is often the case through a Western lens

• Listening first, then effort, as a body-led approach to planning and healing

• The mountain summit and in-between space as a metaphor for seasonal thresholds

Key takeaways:

• Growth happens in cycles, even when culture expects consistency

• Feeling out of sync can be an invitation to return to your own timing

• Reflection is not a pause from progress, it is part of it

• Mid-winter supports surveying, clarifying, and gathering insight

• Reducing pressure creates more sustainable and aligned momentum

Call to ActionNotice where you are feeling pressure to move linearly right now. Ask yourself what your body or energy is actually asking for instead.LinksCharting Your Course System

Charting Your Course Companion Journal

Dr. Molly Sandeep and Aluma Wellness Studio

In Person Workshop in Chicago Feb 7, 2026

Episode SummaryIn Episode 8, I’m reflecting on mid-winter as a threshold moment of adaptation and innovation. Fresh off a powerful in-person Life Alignment experience with the Mingle! Learning Collaborative, I share what it means to create environments that support growth, celebration, and real human connection. This episode weaves together community, embodiment, timing, and a powerful metaphor from the Chicago Botanic Garden that illustrates exactly what mid-winter is asking of us right now.What We Explore in This Episode

• Why mid-winter is a season of innovation, not acceleration

• The guiding mid-winter question: Where am I inspired to adapt?

• How community and celebration align with winter energy

• What embodied, playful transformation looks like in personal development spaces

• The difference between forcing action and responding to clarity

• A century plant story that reveals how growth requires space and structural adaptation

• Why aligned leadership is responsive rather than performative

Key Takeaways

• Innovation begins by recognizing what is now true

• Growth asks for space, not pressure

• Aligned action emerges from clarity, not urgency

• Environments matter. They either support blossoming or restrict it

• You do not need to rush your development to honor your becoming

About This EpisodeThis episode sits at the heart of the mid-winter sojourn in the Charting Your Course seasonal cycle. Mid-winter represents the summit, a moment of perspective where insight crystallizes before movement begins. Episode 8 bridges inner innovation with the embodied action that will unfold as we move toward the next phase of our collective annual cycle.Applicable Links

• Charting Your Course resources

• Mingle Learning Collaborative

• Episode 3: Foreplay for Your Day with Monica Henderson

Episode SummaryIn Episode 7, we enter Mid-Winter, the sojourn of Innovation, and I challenge one of the most persistent January narratives: that this month is meant for follow-through, discipline, and immediate execution. I share why “Quitters Day” isn’t a failure of commitment, but a symptom of a misaligned timeline. Using the metaphor of standing at the summit of a mountain, this episode explores why January is meant for spaciousness, perspective, and clarity, and why documenting what you can see from here matters more than rushing into action.What We Explore in This Episode

• Why January is not a follow-through on new goals season, but a space-making season

• How “Quitters Day” reveals a problem with cultural timing, not personal discipline

• Mid-Winter as the summit point in the annual cycle of development

• What becomes visible when you can finally see the full path behind you

• Why clarity is highest now, but memory is short-lived

• The importance of documenting insights before spring amnesia sets in

• Innovation as a response to space, curiosity, and perspective

• The guiding Mid-Winter question: Where am I inspired to adapt?

Key Takeaways

• Gracious spaciousness is productive. It creates the conditions innovation needs to emerge.

• If goals collapse early in January, the issue is often the pressure to act too soon.

• Mid-Winter offers a rare vantage point where you can clearly see how you got here and what it revealed.

• What feels obvious now will fade once momentum returns. Capture it while you can.

• Innovation doesn’t thrive under urgency. It responds to room, reflection, and honest assessment.

• This moment is a threshold, not a launch pad.

About This EpisodeThis episode marks our transition from Early Winter (Reputation) into Mid-Winter (Innovation) within the Charting Your Course annual cycle. In the metaphorical expedition of individual development, this is the summit, the place where perspective becomes available, and future direction quietly takes shape. If the world is urging you to push forward when that is not what aligns for you, this conversation invites you to pause, create space, and let clarity do its work.Listener Invitation

Stay with this question throughout the week:
Where am I inspired to adapt?

Return to it in multiple ways. Write it. Speak it. Move with it. Let it live in your awareness rather than rushing to finalize an answer.

Applicable Links

• Charting Your Course Companion Journal: https://a.co/d/7uNaPsP

• Create Your Personal Seasons Calendar: https://www.atmaitri.com/chartingyourcourse

• Soul Wisdom Leaders Lounge: https://www.atmaitri.com/soul-wisdom-leaders-lounge

About This Episode

In this episode, I’m joined by Doreen, a bookkeeper, accountant, and founder of the Sacred Numbers community, for a grounded, honest conversation about money, energy, and aligned leadership.

We’re continuing to explore the Early Winter sojourn of Reputation and the question, How do I want to be known? through the lens of sacred numbers. Together, we talk about how your numbers tell the story of where you’ve been, what you’ve prioritized, and where you’re being invited to adjust or lead differently.

Doreen shares her perspective on why numbers are sacred, how fear around money and taxes disconnects us from our power, and what it looks like to build a respectful, nonjudgmental relationship with your finances. We also explore how Charting Your Course can support business owners in honoring their energy cycles while still meeting real-world responsibilities like deadlines, bookkeeping, and taxes.

This is a conversation about befriending your numbers rather than avoiding them, using clarity instead of fear, and letting your financial story support the reputation you’re building as an aligned leader.

What We Cover

• What “sacred numbers” are and why every number tells a story

• Why so many entrepreneurs fear their finances and how that impacts leadership

• Early Winter energy, reputation, and being known for integrity and clarity

• How to honor your personal seasons while still meeting financial deadlines

• Using tools, time, and technology as allies instead of sources of stress

• The emotional and energetic side of bookkeeping and money management

• How your spending patterns reflect your values and priorities

• Why confidence, care, and patience matter just as much as strategy

• Tracking financial cycles alongside energy cycles to reveal patterns

• Relating to money as an ally in aligned leadership

Key Takeaway

Your numbers are not here to shame you.
They’re here to inform you.

When you understand what your numbers are showing you, you gain clarity, confidence, and the ability to lead yourself with integrity. Alignment grows when energy, timing, and resources are working together.

Mentioned in This Episode

• Charting Your Course and the Personal Seasons Calendar

• Sacred Numbers Community

• Touchstones: Time, Tools, Techniques, and Technology

• Energy cycles, financial cycles, and pattern tracking

Connect with Doreen

Learn more about Doreen, her work, and upcoming events by visiting her website:
https://www.bkkgbydoreen.com/

Check out events like Get Your Ducks in a Row and explore new ways to build a supportive, respectful relationship with your numbers.

Next Steps

If this episode resonated with you:

• Create your Personal Seasons Calendar and start Charting Your Course: https://www.atmaitri.com/chartingyourcourse

• Notice what numbers, dates, or patterns keep showing up for you

• Get curious instead of judgmental

• Use your tools, don’t avoid them

Alignment comes from knowing where you are and responding with intention.

Episode SummaryIn this episode, I talk about what alignment actually looks like when external timing and internal energy don’t match. I explore why the pressure to move forward at the start of the calendar year can feel disorienting, especially for visionary, cyclical thinkers. We look at the difference between personal, professional, and business development, and why understanding those distinctions matters. This conversation is an invitation to trust your timing rather than override it.

What We Explore in This Episode

• The distinction between personal, professional, and business development

• Why January often creates pressure and self-judgment

• How collective calendars influence expectations

• The difference between influence and authority when it comes to timing

• What it means to practice alignment in real time

• Early winter energy and its role in reflection and discernment

Key Takeaways

• Alignment comes from knowing where you are, not forcing what’s next

• Collective timing can be useful without being directive

• Discernment is a core leadership skill

• Your internal knowing matters more than external pressure

• Being present supports clearer, more sustainable forward movement

About This EpisodeThis episode continues the orientation phase of the podcast, grounding listeners in how alignment works beneath the surface of goal setting and productivity culture. It sets the foundation for understanding timing, energy, and leadership as cyclical rather than linear, especially at moments when the world feels loud about what should happen next.

LinksCharting Your Course Charting Your Course Book

In this episode, I invite you into a more embodied conversation about legacy, integrity, and how your reputation forms in your moments of stillness.

This conversation was shaped in real time during my personal Winter Solstice, while visiting Driftwood Beach. Standing among the driftwood, surrounded by trees stripped down to their essence and frozen in time, I had a visceral realization about reputation as echo, as a residue. What continues to live on and move through the world long after a moment has passed.

I explore how reputation is formed through alignment and integrated through lived experience. How your work meets people exactly when they are ready for it. And why Early Winter is not asking you to rush forward in action, but to embody what you have already become.

In This Episode, I Talk About:

• Reputation as resonance rather than perception

• The Early Winter sojourn and why it is connected to legacy and embodiment

• The difference between external seasonal energy and your personal cycle of development

• Why Early Winter is not designed for urgency or forced momentum, like the "New Year, New You" conversations, will try to convince you to rush into

• How wisdom, influence, and reputation are shaped through integration

• What it means to work smarter, not harder, in winter

• How your work continues to live on and evolve beyond you

A Question to Live WithAs you move through Early Winter, I invite you to return to this question daily:

What do I want to be known for?

Not just publicly.Not just professionally.
But by yourself, in your own integrity, when everything is quiet.

Each time you ask it, you may see a different facet of the answer. Together, those reflections shape the life of your work beyond you.

Mentioned in This Episode

• Driftwood Beach on Jekyll Island

• Early Winter and the sojourn of Reputation

• Personal Seasons Calendar

• Touchstones and support systems for navigating energetic environments

Create Your Personal Seasons CalendarIf you want to understand where you are in your own cycle of development and what season you are personally navigating right now, you can create your Personal Seasons Calendar at: atmaitri.com/chartingyourcourse

As we step into a new calendar year, I encourage you to resist the pressure to rush or reinvent yourself. Instead, listen for what is integrating, what is settling, and what is becoming part of who you are.

Chart your own course.
Stay aligned with what is true for you.
And trust the life of your work beyond you.

Episode Description

In this episode, I sit down with Monica M. Henderson to explore what it really means to chart your course in everyday life. Monica shares her daily practice of “chart before you start,” which she lovingly calls her foreplay for the day, and how working with her personal seasons and sojourns helps her focus without forcing productivity.

We talk about internal versus external timelines, why many personality systems feel too static for dynamic people, and how honoring your natural rhythm supports clearer decision making, better leadership, and more enjoyable work. We close with Monica’s definition of aligned leadership, a simple practice you can try today, and an invitation to her upcoming Life Alignment Immersive Experience.

We Talk About

• What it means to chart before you start your day

• Why your personal “month” does not always begin on the 1st

• How personal seasons and sojourns support focus and clarity

• The difference between being unmotivated and being in a restorative phase

• Parenting, permission, and becoming a Charting Your Course household

• Why dynamic people need dynamic tools

• Self-advocacy as a foundation for aligned leadership

• A simple starting point called the “just statement”

About Today’s Guest

Monica M. Henderson is a genius activator, coach, and collaborative partner who helps people lead from energetic alignment rather than pressure or performance. Her work blends humor, deep insight, and real world application to support sustainable growth and self leadership.

What’s Next with Monica

Monica invites you to join her Life Alignment Immersive Experience, a seven hour interactive experience designed to help you realign your life, clarify your intentions, and leave with practical next steps. Expect laughter, movement, insight, and meaningful connection.

Thank you for being here. Whether this is the first time we are meeting, or you’ve been walking this path with me for a while, I’m glad you’re here. Until we meet again, keep charting your own course. And don’t forget, just be you, boo!

Episode SummaryIn Episode 2, I’m bringing the Charting Your Course framework into real life. I want you to understand what it is, what makes it different, and how to start using it in a practical way. We talk about the difference between information, knowledge, and wisdom, and why this framework keeps pointing you back to yourself. I’ll also share the simplest way to “chart your course” by creating your Personal Seasons Calendar, plus a big-picture walkthrough of the seasonal cycle using my annual expedition and mountain-climb metaphor. Most importantly, we ground it in a truth that changes everything: your energy is always shifting, and your strategy can work with that.In this episode, you’ll hear about:

• Why Charting Your Course is practical and usable

• Information vs knowledge vs wisdom, and why lived experience matters

• How the framework becomes “yours” the more you use it

• What it means to “chart your course” (Personal Seasons Calendar)

• How astrology is used for the date calculation only

• Why “New Year, New You” and quarterly planning can feel misaligned

• Motivation as an energy that waxes and wanes

• The seasonal map: Emergence, Expansion, Examination, Integration (Embodiment)

• The mountain metaphor and why integration comes before action

Key takeaways:

• This framework is reflective, not prescriptive

• Your unique timing matters, and your energy will keep shifting

• Planning gets easier when it matches your actual rhythm

• Document your insights when clarity is high so you can use them later

• There is an integration phase between clarity and action

If you have questions you want me to answer on the podcast, please send them my way. Your curiosity helps shape future episodes.Chart Your Course (Personal Seasons Calendar): https://www.atmaitri.com/chartingyourcourse/personalseasonscalendar

Submit a question: regyna@atmaitri.com