Nat's Podcast

Shortly after my ex-husband moved out, texted me from ALDI. I had locked his keys in his truck and needed me to help. By the time I got there he had called a friend who was coming to help. But for 10 minutes he sat in my car in the rain reminding me why I had asked him to leave. Once his friend got there, I went into the store to do my own shopping, since I was there. I figured I should get some… what was it called? Oh god, it’s so easy, why can’t I remember? It’s the red stuff the kids put on their food because I’m a terrible cook and everything tastes bland. They tease me about it. Come on, I know what it is. It’s a staple. I’ll look in the sauces, I know it’s a sauce of some kind. I wandered around the store in a fog, unable to remember anything from my list. My list was still on the fridge because I forgot about it when I saw my husband’s text. The red stuff? Who knows. Wait. I know what the bottle looks like! It has to be here. I finally found it next to the mustard. Ketchup. This is the energy I found myself in again last night. I wandered the grocery store looking for stuff to make enchiladas. I had a sudden craving for them earlier when coming home from a day out with the kids. They’re 18 now, so I dropped them off and told them I was going to the store. Aldi is about a mile from my house, so not a lot can happen between my house and the store. But half a mile from the store, there was a woman sitting in the grass in a small field next to the storage place. Dozens of cars drove by her. I turned around and doubled back to see if she needed help. A gold jeep had stopped and someone was talking to her. I was at the stop sign waiting for my turn to turn when they pulled away. She had turned them away. Her hair was a mess, and from the opposite corner of the street I could see her face was swollen. She had no coat and I knew she was in serious trouble. My car told me it was 45 degrees out. She would be very cold soon if she wasn’t already freezing. It looked like she hadn’t been there long, but it wouldn’t take long in this weather. I turned and pulled up into the grass and parked. Walking cautiously to her, I sat down in the grass with her and offered, “I don’t want to bother you, but do you need anything? It’s cold out here.” I treated her like she knew what she was doing and in total control of the situation. I noticed her right ear, speckled with blood wanting to surface (I looked this up later, it’s called Petechiae). Someone had hit her, hard. I acted as if she was waiting for a friend to pick her up. Her car had broken down somewhere and this was a meeting spot. She told me she was fine, in that voice that says of course she’s not okay but she wants me to go away. “OK, good, I just wanted to make sure.” She noticed a police car at the stop sign and panicked. She grabbed my hands and begged me not to say anything to him. She made me swear not to tip him off. I nodded with the best smile I could find, “Of course, we’re just friends having a chat in the grass, not weird at all.” A slight wink to put her at ease and I turned to the officer.He got out of the car and came over to ask if she was okay. I stayed quiet other than to tell him, “My butt’s cold, but that’s all.” I kicked myself for that one later. He was compassionate, and understanding. If she didn’t want the help, he wasn’t going to force it. He mentioned a passerby had called them. He said he was only doing his job, but should she change her mind and decide she wanted help, he would come right back. When he left, I got up and went back to my car. I grabbed a blanket from the backseat I had put there for winter, for the kids, and for emergencies. Then swiping the box of tissues from the front, I went back to her. I wrapped the blanket around her and set the tissues in front of her. I sat down again, “Here, take this, it’s so cold out here and you can use this while you wait for whoever left you here.” I acknowledged the reality of her situation hoping it would bring her out of her shell to tell me more.It was getting colder, and I was beginning to see her situation unfolding. I took a deep breath and made myself comfortable. Whatever cold I felt was nothing next to what she was up against if she didn’t get out of here before dark. I asked her name. She told me, saying, “I’m an attorney. I know what to do.”“Of course you do, wow, I never got so far in life, a lawyer… that’s impressive! You must be so smart and disciplined.” She looked up and into my eyes, stunned. It was like no one had said anything kind to her in decades. She burst into tears. I touched her knee softly, asking if it was okay that I do it. She cried harder and asked for a hug.“Oh gosh of course, that I can do.” I held her tight until she was ready to let go. She smelled like she had just come from the salon. I noticed her nails recently done, in different colors, but missing a couple on each hand. She had fought back. Her toes too, each painted a different color and scuffed badly. She had no shoes. I asked her about this. “He has my car. He has my phone, and my shoes. They’re Uggs, you know, they’re like boots.” I asked her what kind of car, cautious of the fact that whoever had done this to her could be back. I kept a peripheral eye on the road, visible for about 15-20 seconds in each direction. I mentally assured myself I could get back to my car before he was a threat to me, if I had to. For now I was focused on her. She asked me to call her phone. He would have it. He would come back for her if I called. I tried. He didn’t pick it up. She asked me to send a text. I asked her every step of the way to tell me what she wanted me to say. I knew it was important for her to make as many decisions as possible. I couldn’t do this for her. I offered her the phone to try again herself. Someone answered, but insisted she had the wrong number. She began to get angry (she needed to be angry), “This is my phone! I’ve had this number for 15 years, it’s my number, I should know it!” She recited her phone number while reading it on the screen, gasping at the one wrong digit. She quickly ended the call, embarrassed. I did my best to comfort her as she tapped in the correct number. But again, no answer, no response to text. Defeated, she wiped her eyes and I decided I needed to take a break myself and regroup. I’m taking a break writing this because comments are pouring in on TikTok and instagram right now. So many other women are telling similar stories. I need to rest my heart and come back to this. For those who’ve had this kind of nervous system upset, there are emotional flashbacks here. It’s PTSD. Sitting there with her, talking about it afterward, it all brings back what happened to me and I need a break. And because I have done so much work to heal, I knew I needed to take a break from her too. I wasn’t going to be able to help her any more if I didn’t take care of myself. So I told her I was going to go do my grocery shopping and come back to check on her. “If he comes back before I do, keep the blanket. You have my number now, you can give it back to me tomorrow.” Still treating this like a friend who’s cold and nothing more, I got up and went to the store. The same thing happened again that happened five years ago with the ketchup. I couldn’t think of what to get. Despite having a shopping list in my phone now, I hadn’t noted anything on it. This trip had been an impulsive one. I wandered around for a few minutes, but recognizing my dissociative state, I decided to head back to the car. I rested in the car for a few minutes, assessing my own mental state, deciding I could handle this. I drove back toward the storage place. When I pulled up, I saw nothing but the box of tissues sitting in the grass. I thought he must have come back for her, but pulled around the corner and parked to make sure. As I made a move to get the box of tissues, I saw the colorful Mexican blanket of mine off to the side behind a small haystack. She was lying down against the mound, wrapped up like she was going to sleep there. My heart broke and I rushed to her side. “Oh, honey, you can’t sleep here, it’s too cold, and it’s getting dark.”She shivered and began crying again, “I just want to go home, I want my bed, I want to go home.” I fought back tears and sat down with her again, as close as possible without infringing on her autonomy. “I’m so tired of being beat. I just want to be at home. I want to go home.”I can’t be sure she said this out loud. In the moment, it felt like a little girl telling me all of this, nothing like the woman I had left a few minutes before. This voice was filled with fear and defeat. I was losing her. I decided to offer her my phone again. She sat up and tried to call and text again, but again with no response. It was at this point she began to shiver harder and in her body for the first time since we met, she was feeling cold. I tried again, “Why don’t you come sit in my car for a minute. We don’t have to go anywhere, I’ll wait with you and you can get warm while you wait.”She finally agreed to this help and came alive in the car. She gushed at how warm it was. I had cranked up the heat and turned on the heated seats I thought had been such a luxury when I picked out the car. In the warmth she began to get clearer in her mind. She told me a little more about what she was up against. I understood why she didn’t want the officer to get involved. I asked her if she would like me to take her home. “I don’t live here, I live in [that other town],” about 20 miles away. How had she ended up in this little field 20 miles from home, beaten and barefoot? She worked not far from where we were, so she knew the area well enough. She agreed to let me take her to someone she knew in her town. Darkness fell just as we left the city and we spend the next 20 minutes talking about life and kids. She’s my age, has a kid the same age as mine. She’s in college hours away. She moved here recently, doesn’t know anyone but this man, and people who know him. I don’t know if she was safe there, but it was all I could do. And it was safer than below freezing temperatures in a field overnight. I was so grateful she finally let me do something for her. I called a TikTok friend who’s been through this too and she let me tell her the whole story on the way home. I’m grateful for her friendship too. I hugged my kids and looked around at my warm safe home, grateful again. I was able to get us out of that toxic situation of ours five years ago. No one called the police or insisted I go to a shelter. They listened to me and let me process what was happening in my own time. I have a safe home because I made it that way. If you ever find yourself in a position to help a woman in this situation, go slow. Take your time, stay quiet, and let her lead. Pay attention to your own triggers and take care of yourself while you listen for her to tell you what she needs. Don’t listen to her words alone, but listen to her body language. Listen to what she’s not saying, and listen to your intuition as your subconscious will tell you what to do next. Trust yourself, and let her trust herself. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit natlajune.substack.com/subscribe

“Emotional manipulators often say they have a ‘bad memory’ to avoid taking responsibility.”On threads, I’m confronted again by my own “bad memory” and now I’m talking about it again. I don’t like to talk about it publicly. It’s a level of vulnerability that I’m still not healed from and might never be. I’ll always be vulnerable to people who need me to accept their truth instead of mine. I’m working on holding my mind with grace in moments when I can’t remember or when my memory contradicts someone else’s. But there’s something healing in sharing these things. I don’t know the science behind it, but I can point to a feeling in my body when it’s happening. When I share something that gives someone clarity they didn’t have before, I can feel my shoulders relax. A warmth runs through my chest and arms that feels like laying down in a hot bath. I feel seen and embraced by an unseen part of myself. Internal validation swells to push me forward to keep on speaking or writing. There are three parts to my experiences with my memory: * Memory Loss* Memory Replacement* Premonitions (stay with me for that one)Memory LossLast year I met up with an old friend on Marco Polo. It’s an app for leaving video messages back and forth, “Marco Polo” style. I was excited to see him. I had only good memories of him. He was a TikTok mutual who was part of a group of friends who all came to know each other through our content. We exchanged a few pleasantries in a handful of videos, when he brought up a story of us that I didn’t remember. He talked about a particularly spicy moment between us, but didn’t go into detail. He seemed nervous, but also protecting us both in the event these videos ever made it public. I appreciated his discretion. What little he did say didn’t spark a memory for me. He gave more detail to the event, but I still couldn’t remember. I apologized for my bad memory, but I told him I believed him and I likely lost it with other memories over the years. He didn’t reach out again, and when he didn’t respond to my video, I knew I had hurt him. I felt terrible. This memory meant something to him and from his perspective it meant nothing to me. If it had been important to me I would have remembered. I couldn’t join him in a shared moment of nostalgia. I felt like an outsider in my own life. I imagine he felt rejected. On top of memory issues, I’m also healing a wound that causes me to feel shame when I reject someone I care about. This is a case of memory loss because the memory isn’t there. This shows up in all kinds of situations. My kids will often refer to something from the past and hard as I try, I can’t pull it up. If memories are filed away in file folders, the file is missing. Sometimes I can see the file folder, but it’s empty. I can recognize that something was there, I just can’t see it. There are no pictures or video, no sounds or smells, nothing to remember. I honor their experience by affirming that I believe their story, but I don’t have the picture of it. I can’t remember it, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. There’s one difference now though. I no longer assume your reality is the ONLY one. I stopped telling myself I’m wrong about a situation. Instead, I assure myself I’m only missing information. In most cases I can trust this person not to lie to me. In rare cases when I believe someone could be manipulating me, I can release their truth as theirs. I can hold that what they believe is valid, even if it’s not my experience. From there I can move forward with love. If one of my kids tells me I said or did something hurtful in the past, I can apologize even if I don’t remember. I can confirm their experience and encourage my own self-reflection later to make sure I don’t say or do that again. If I suspect someone may be manipulating me, I would play investigator. Rather than accept their memory of events as I would have in the past, I would inquire to know more. I would invite them to tell me everything. If I care about this person, I want them to feel heard. In the course of their story telling I can pick up on the truth of the situation and call their attention to it. From there, we can either talk about why they tried to manipulate the situation, or I can walk away. If I can’t trust a person to be truthful with me and own it when they’re not, that’s not a relationship I feel safe in. Memory ReplacementBut what do I do if I have a completely different memory of the event? This happens only rarely, but when it does, it can be scary. One of my more memorable experiences was right after dropping out of college. I was working as a store manager and my boss was writing me up for leaving the safe open when I closed the night before. The thing is, I had a crystal clear memory of closing the safe. I had a ritual of patting my palm on the door of the safe after turning the dial. This is how I was able to sleep each night, seeing that image in my mind of closing the safe, turning the dial, and patting the door. But here was my boss, whom I had no reason to disbelieve, telling me I hadn’t done that. He was just as sure as I was, that he had arrived in the office that morning with it wide open. What to do now? I accepted his memory as more recent and more valid. I took the write-up and vowed never to let it happen again. But I took that memory with me. I could no longer trust my memory to tell me the truth. I could never be sure I had closed the safe. In this situation, I opened the file for that memory to find something different inside it. Something else was in place of the files I was told should be there. And now I couldn’t trust my files, my memories, to be real.I began to study memory and I read about how the brain can replace memories with others that feel better. I concluded that my mind must have replaced the open door with a closed one. My subconscious was aware of the consequences of my mistake and protected me from it. It didn’t start with that incident though. Somewhere in childhood, something traumatic had happened, maybe several things. My mind formed a habit of creating replacement memories to protect me from the real ones. Over the last few years I’ve been uncovering some of those real ones. It’s been painful, but healing. I’m hopeful that with more healing, my mind won’t need to protect me from anything anymore. Premonitions as MemoriesNow what about when a memory is different from the reality in front of me, but later becomes true? I open a file in the cabinet marked “Past” to find something that not hasn’t happened—yet. It appears to have been taken from the cabinet marked “Future”, when a few days to years later, the “memory” enters my reality. I’ve talked about this a few times on TikTok. It’s an odd phenomenon I picked up on shortly after I got married. It’s when I remember seeing something that doesn’t exist, or an event that hasn’t happened. A newscaster passed away? I remember seeing his funeral on the news a few months ago. I swear, there used to be a Best Buy on that corner. A month later, there’s a sign saying a Best Buy is under construction and coming soon. This one throws me still because I’m just getting used to it. It’s not to be confused with Déjà Vu, which is a feeling of having experienced something before. This is a very clear memory of it, including imagery, sound, smells, just as you would see with a legitimate memory. I don’t feel like it happened before—I know it did. All my life I assumed I just had a “bad memory” as I’ve been talking about, but this shows up differently. Unfortunately, it’s not until after the event happens that I’m able to recognize it as a premonition. I never know in the moment that it’s not a memory but a vision. I came across a comment that resonates with me. Sue Frantz describes how this happens for her partner in Memories of the Future (Association for Psychological Science). My partner and I have coined the term “anticipatory nostalgia” to refer to her tendency to project herself into the future to a time when she is experiencing nostalgia for the current moment. So not only is she imagining a future time, but she’s imagining what the current moment will mean in that future time. My visions usually have no time attached to them at all. Time is a conscious thing. My subconscious doesn’t understand time. It’s why trauma affects everything decades later. It’s still fresh and new. It still hurts just like the day it happened. My nervous system doesn’t care whether a thing happened yesterday or when I was little. So this is sort of a wrench in the cog of my mind that I’m learning to pay closer attention to. I’m watching for moments when I remember an event someone else doesn’t. If my friend swears there was never a Best Buy on that corner, I believe them. Then I get curious about the possibility there may be one to come. Back to ThreadsThe “emotional manipulator” described in that thread is still important. It does happen that people use memory issues to trick people into a reality they prefer. And here’s the important part for me. The memories don’t actually matter. What matters is how we treat each other. People around me are allowed to remember things I don’t. I’m allowed to remember things they don’t. There will be contradictions and we’re allowed to have them. It’s natural to have them. What’s not natural is telling someone they’re wrong. What’s not okay is accusing someone of manipulating when they don’t remember something. It’s not the memory. It’s the accusation and the declaration that their memory isn’t real. “I believe you” is a powerful phrase. I prefer to lean into a reality in which we both mean well, we both have each other’s best interests at heart. I work from the assumption that we’re both telling the truth as we know it. And my priorities, in order, are individual autonomy, and then connection.Individual autonomy looks like accepting your truth as yours and very real to you. It also means holding my truth as mine and equally valid. Connection looks like finding common ground where we’re both right. And where we’re “wrong” it’s a matter of finding the relevance. Does it matter who’s right or wrong about this? How important is it in terms of our relationship? Can we move forward in love if we’re both right about some things and both wrong about others? For further reading, there are some links below to help you understand your memory.* Memory Distortion for Traumatic Events: The Role of Mental Imagery* Dissociative Amnesia (Cleveland Clinic)* 📚Unchained Memories, Lenore Terr* Reddit thread about “memories as premonitions”* Memories of the Future (Association for Psychological Science)If you made it to the end of this post, thank you for being a paid subscriber. I and my family appreciate your support more than you can ever know. If you don’t mind, I’d love for you to share this with anyone you think might benefit from it. Music I’m listening to This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit natlajune.substack.com/subscribe

“How are you so warm?” His cheek resting on my chest, he marveled at my softness as I listened to him share a childhood memory about his Dad and a Brooks & Dunn song. I had my phone out and was playing songs in the candlelight and I had just put on the Kacey Musgraves version of Neon Moon. We were in and out of the sheets all night, me relishing being relished with consent for the first time in decades, and he clinging to something I couldn’t see. I could feel a wave of buried pain trying to surface there in the dark, but I tried not to probe and just let it come naturally. It never did. He always caught himself before it started to rise too high and he’d start kissing me again to push it back down. This was half of our relationship, these long Saturday nights that turned into long Sunday mornings, diving into each other, coming up for air to talk, and then getting lost in each other again and again and again until it was time to go back to our separate lives. The other half was long nightly phone calls about everything we could think to talk about until one of us fell asleep. It was his bedroom half that was most authentic though. It was in the dark, when he was physically vulnerable that he became emotionally vulnerable. He poured his heart into mine for hours every other weekend and pulled back in daylight as if it never happened. When we broke up, I asked him about it. I told him how differently I saw him in bed, how raw and real. “It’s a disconnect,” he said, “I don’t know if it’s healthy or not.” I felt for him. I had been practicing authenticity myself after a full life of autistic masking. I never wanted to go back to holding it all in and pretending to be something I’m not. I knew what he was feeling, and I also knew I couldn’t do anything to help him but be my most authentic self as a model. Reflecting on our time together in the following months, it occurred to me my ex-husband had likely experienced something similar, as did many of the angry men in my comments. They all talked about this “need” of theirs to have an “emotional connection” during sex. For five years I’ve had men telling me how important their emotional connection is and how “sex is the primary way” they get this need met. I’ve had fun with them over the years, teasing, “How in the world then, do you connect with your mother??” Unfortunately, this incestuous implication isn’t enough to stop them. They’ve been conditioned to believe this so strongly, they literally take it to their graves. A man will die alone, believing his wife never loved him because her libido dropped off and he was never able to get her back. It’s no help when psychologists agree with them because they’ve experienced the same patriarchal brainwashing that sets the desires of men on a pedestal above the needs of women to feel safe and connected outside the bedroom. Psychology only sees the surface. It sees a hurting man, identifies his self worth issues, and determines that his wife is failing to perform sexually. But the real problem is deeper than that. The real problem is men being taught to stifle themselves emotionally, making intercourse the only way they can safely release emotion. So although science does seem to say men primarily connect emotionally with sex, science has yet to say this is natural or normal. In fact, many men are not conditioned in this same way. Many men are fully capable of connecting with all kinds of people emotionally without ever touching them. They’ve been taught to hold their emotions. They’ve built emotional stamina and sex only enhances the experience. I’ve experienced this myself in a dream state. You can read more about this in my post entitled “Channeling Men” from March of this year.When I’m enjoying sex with someone, I’m enjoying the whole person. I’m feeling their feelings and holding their energy intertwined with mine. If a man is experiencing this with me, it’s going to be doubly overwhelming for him if he’s not well practiced in feeling his own. If he can’t hold himself, he’s not going to be able to hold me in that experience. It will elate him for a moment, but he won’t be able to sustain that feeling without repeating the experience because I’m the one who gave it to him. My ex was over the moon after sex. For 24-48 hours I had a joyful loving husband. His whole personality shifted, literally overnight. He became the man I married, the one I was promised on our wedding day. But he would slowly decline over the next few days. Like a kettle, the bubbles rolled and I knew I needed to get him in bed again before it whistled. He wasn’t getting that release of his emotions if he wasn’t f*****g me. I tried to connect with him emotionally over the years, but Christianity repeatedly taught me that men don’t “do” emotions like women do. Men are more logical, critically thinking creatures and need women to help them feel emotion through sex. I believed I was the one stifling his emotions every time I went to bed without sex. That’s a lot of f*****g pressure!With Navy Guy I had healed all of that, so I was able to lie there in the dark with him, feeling empathy, but without any sense of urgency to help him release anything with my body. I gave him the space to say anything he wanted to, and he opened up to me more than any other man had. But it wore on him after a while. I got the feeling he had never exposed himself to a woman like that before and he felt shame for letting himself get too close to me. He lamented afterward that he felt like he was clinging to me and he needed to stand on his own. I agreed. Men have been leaning on women for so long that women are in two camps now: those who fully believe it’s their responsibility to keep men afloat, and those who see men as an enemy who is barely tolerated. A big part of what I do here is to bring women to the center, and men too, when they’re receptive. This Substack is reader-supported. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.If this resonates with you, subscribe to my newsletter. It’s a podcast too!Social images for sharing This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit natlajune.substack.com/subscribe

Leading up to the election last year, I listened to black women talk about sitting out of protests. They said it wasn’t safe. It was the first time I’d heard them talk about this. They reminded me of my privilege as a white woman. Working through my emotions around it, I felt shame for never having protested before. I also had grace for myself because no one had shown me how or why it was important. And, I felt sadness, empathy, because I had in my lifetime nothing to protest. Growing up, I had nothing to stand up for. I had none of the systemic struggles non-white people did. But I had immediate struggles within my home. In moments when I began to stand up to the world around me, adults shot me down. My needs were selfish, they said. They were minor inconveniences compared to “starving children in Africa”.The church too, confirmed my needs as selfish—sinful, in fact. The only one worthy of my fight was Jesus, or a fellow Christian if they found themselves in hot water. For instance, if one of my peers was being called racist, I had a duty to stand up for them. I needed to stop people from “overreacting” to something as well-meaning as “I don’t see color.” What was only punishment for our behavior Christians saw as persecution for our beliefs.Within marriage, the story continued. The church at large placed significant value on a man’s comfort within marriage. They deemed my needs selfish and sinful again. I was married now. My priorities had to change. I was not a woman, I was a wife. When I began to speak up on TikTok in 2020, I was a 43-year-old little girl who had been conditioned to let everyone else make decisions for me. They decided what I wore, what I believed, the news I listened to, and the way I raised my kids. But as I began to awaken, I expanded my news to NPR, and PBS when the kids had a show on. I pulled back at church on Sundays, sitting while others stood. I planned groceries in my head instead of listening to another sermon. Then I made excuses not to go, and I paid closer attention to rainbow flags and people who identified with them. I compared their love to mine and started to see patterns. The so-called liberals were intent on helping people exist safely in the world. They sacrificed themselves for their community, even when it wouldn’t benefit them. It was similar to the mission trip my church took to build a church in Mexico, but without the tourism and the proselytizing. The only hate I saw was anger and frustration with people like me trying to stop them. They hated the way Christianity wanted to control everything. Christians loved Jesus and hated suppression. Liberals loved people and hated oppression. But it would be a few more years before I could articulate that. In 2020, I was beginning to stand up for myself. I was learning about boundaries for the sake of my kids who were struggling. Their dad was growing angrier and his entitlement was harder to hide as I became more aware of it all. I couldn’t stand up for my kids back then because I couldn’t stand up for myself yet. My head was in such a fog, I couldn’t see them. I didn’t see how they were suffering because I was suffering too. I honed in on survival and had no peripheral vision. Abuse and oppression cause trauma—and micro traumas—which cause PTSD and C-PTSD. I believe it’s a large majority of the country experiencing generational trauma. This causes them to fight each other. And because they’re suffering, they can’t see their neighbors suffering too. It’s difficult to experience empathy when it’s not extended to you. It’s hard to walk in someone else’s shoes when yours are worn to shreds. When we can’t hold our own pain, it’s pushed out onto others. There is freedom in self-acceptance. It affords us the freedom to fight for causes not our own. In right wing circles, it’s a bleak cult mentality. We fight for each other or Jesus, but it ends there. My fight consisted of posting a cross to facebook and thanking Jesus for making me white again today. I didn’t actually say that, but it would have been as cringey. Adam & EveIn the early days of my awakening, while I was still married, I wrote a blog post about Adam and Eve. I talked about how Eve didn’t exist yet when God told Adam not to eat the fruit. It was Adam’s responsibility to make sure Eve received God’s message—and that she could trust it. God’s message and Eve’s obedience to it was dependent on the relationship Adam had with his wife. Could Eve trust his word? I wrote that Satan didn’t ask, “Did God really SAY that?” What he said was, “Did GOD himself say that (or was it Adam who said it)?”I began my protest by standing up for Eve. In the middle of a small Pentecostal church with my husband, I made my written protest vocal. After a sermon about Adam and Eve, the pastor calling for discussion, I raised my hand. I told them everything I had written. Chairs scooted and people murmured. The pastor twisted his brow and looked at my mortified husband. This was the beginning of a million more small protests that led me out of that life. Once out, a fire was lit, and I made my protest my platform. I wrote and spoke and cried and joked, and somehow changed hearts and minds. Men and women who hated my protest in 2020 started following me and protesting to people around them. These men and women don’t all hold signs on street corners though. Their protest won’t make it to social media or the evening news. They correct people in comments and share informative links. They tell their story—or mine—to friends and family who find themselves in a similar position. They push the system in their unique ways, using their unique voices. Posting and reposting is a form of protest. Singing and dancing is protest. Wearing a T-shirt is protest, as is serving at a restaurant that’s feeding protesters. Every small voice is a voice and every small act is action. Voices make a chorus and action makes a movement. Other No Kings Protesters* You protested if you drove by and honked* You protested even if you couldn’t risk your job to be there* You protested if you were sick or disabled and wanted to be there* You protested if you provided childcare for a protester* You protested when you reposted the videos of protests* You protested if you left MAGA behind but were afraid to join the crowd you used to shame* You protested when you cheered for people in costumes* You protested if you refused service to an antagonizer or ICE agent* You protested if you’re black or brown and it wasn’t safe* You protested if you donated to organizers or other community groups* You’re protesting when you put signs in your yard* You protest even when you have social anxiety and can’t handle crowds* You protest when you have an abusive parent or spouse who won’t let you go* You protested if you’re a single mom with kids and no other adults to care for them* You protest when you make sure protest content is being seen and pushed by the algorithm. Every like, comment, and share counts!Do your best protest in the moment, as you’re able. There was a time when my protest consisted of hiding the remote to get my husband to spend more time with the kids. But it became divorce, therapy for the kids, and a whole new life helping other women do the same. And I have a long way to go still. There is a lot more we can do. But there’s no need to shame yourself for what you’re not doing yet. If someone is telling you that what you’re doing isn’t enough, try not to be offended. Understand that they’ve just been at it longer and they may resent people who are just getting started. You can’t jump right in at their level, but you can heal the wounds that have held you back and keep going forward in that direction. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit natlajune.substack.com/subscribe

The accusation of “weaponizing sex” loomed over me my entire marriage. Every headache, backache, or just not in the mood, I worried I’d be accused. Every cold, flu, and pregnancy, I feared I would be called abusive for “using sex as a weapon” against my husband. And then I discovered “excuses” as in, “oh well if you’re actually sick, that’s a valid excuse.” But this meant I had better make sure I was sick and not just feeling sick because otherwise I would be “withholding” sex. But when I got to TikTok and started talking about sexual coercion as abuse, I had what I now understand was a claircognitive knowing about all of this. I knew, without reason or research, that this accusation was a form of sexual coercion. I couldn’t explain it yet, but it would later come to me through thousands of conversations with people about this so-called weaponizing of sex.What do people mean when they say this? So far, I can count on one hand the number of people who use this term who can give me a real world example. Very few respond at all when I probe them, “Give me an example, tell me exactly what weaponizing sex looks like.”* Refusing Sex - most often people will describe someone who is not willing to perform sexually, someone not turned on, not aroused, not consenting. They use words like refuse and deny to describe this “behavior”. It’s bad behavior. Abuse, even. To this I’ll ask…* Why do you feel abused when you don’t have sex? * Have you talked to a professional about why you feel this way?* Who taught you that sex validates you and your relationship?* Do you think this worldview makes your partner more attracted to you or less?* False Promises - When challenged on this point they’ll change to something like, “Well, they promise me sex in exchange for chores,” to which I ask…* Why do they need to promise sexual favors to get you to perform basic life skills?* Why do you withhold chores until they have sex with you?* Punishment - Some will call it punishment when a woman is angry with her husband and is very naturally turned off to sex now. Men will say, “You can’t just withhold because you’re mad.” They fully expect a woman to still “give” him sex despite being mad and if she doesn’t do it, she’s punishing him. She’s weaponizing sex “against” him. The same questions from above apply, and also… * Do you know that it’s normal for someone not to desire someone sexually when they’re angry with them?* Do you really want her to “do it anyway” even though she’s not feeling intimate?* Are you able to enjoy sex when you know she doesn’t want it? What experts meanFrom Clear Vision Psychotherapy:* Withholding sex as punishment: One partner refuses intimacy to manipulate or punish the other, creating a power imbalance.* Using sex as a bargaining chip: Sex becomes conditional, offered only in exchange for favors, gifts, or certain behaviors, which reduces intimacy to a transactional act.* Manipulating emotions through sex: Using intimacy to smooth over conflicts or avoid addressing deeper issues can leave the partner on the receiving end feeling confused and emotionally manipulated.Notice how they’re saying the same thing but from the other perspective. In the other perspective sex is the default and not having sex means something is wrong. We have a long history of prioritizing the person who wants sex and scolding or pathologizing the person who doesn’t.How we blame ourselvesWe’re so conditioned to believe sex is something we do to show love and not share love, we gaslight ourselves to believe we’re weaponizing sex. The CHADIE foundation posted an anonymous story from a woman who “weaponized sex” in her marriage and she describes “putting conditions” on their sex life. If I wasn’t happy, we weren’t going to be intimate or have sex.She was hurting her husband by pushing him to perform at work because she was unhappy in the marriage, but sex was genuinely something she didn’t want to do. She wasn’t weaponizing it. She simply didn’t want it.This is where people believe sex is being weaponized—but it’s not. She doesn’t know she’s allowed to not have sex when she doesn’t want to. She promises sex because it’s what women are told to do. She’s told to offer sex another time if she’s not in the mood now. So she extends sexual olive branches in moments when she hopes it will make things better. Society doesn’t allow her to address the fact that she’s not happy in the marriage and even tells her more sex will make it better. When it doesn’t, she acts out in other ways. Sex has been weaponized against her, and in the end, she turns on everyone around her in self defense. What’s really happening?Very few women are deliberately trying to hurt their partner and using sex to do it. Most often, “punishment” is only anger and frustration killing her desire. Even if she was previously in the mood, she can no longer be aroused now that there’s a hindrance like an argument or other libido killer at play. Women aren’t “using” sex to get things from men. They’re making a bid for attention knowing sex is the only way to reach him. When sex is repeatedly made to be a thing she has to do for him, she learns—much like Pavlov’s dog—that to get that sweet affectionate man back, she has to perform sexual favors for him.She learns that his mood is determined by her sexual generosity. The more often she does it, the less angry he is and the more pleasant her home. The more sexually satisfied he is, the less often he yells at her and the kids. If she just gives him a quick b******b, maybe he won’t be in a bad mood tonight. Men encourage thisDespite their complaints, men are not actually against women performing sexual favors in exchange for other things. Men tell women, wake your man up with sex and he’ll do whatever you want for that day. Here you can see me calling this out on Threads. This isn’t coming from women. They’re doing what they think men want. The trouble comes when she changes her mind and decides she doesn’t actually want to have sex. Many women don’t understand their own libido, so they don’t know this manipulative behavior from their husband is the very thing turning them off. They feel guilty when he accuses her of “weaponizing” sex. How to talk about this responsiblyHaving talked about this since 2020, I’ve moved through different phases of healing to arrive at a healthy place to discuss this, so here are some tips as you move in these conversations. * Remove gender - I try to use they/them pronouns as much as possible to keep the conversation neutral. Most often, it is husband against wife, but wherever it makes sense, I remove he and she from the conversation. * Focus on a non-sexual outcome - This seems counterintuitive, but as we talk about sex, there’s a much bigger issue at play. Sex is only a small part of our intimate connection with another person. Ultimately, we’re not talking about two people having more sex. We’re talking about two people who once didn’t need sex to enjoy each other. They did once enjoy their partner’s laugh, and long talks on the phone. Try to get back there. If someone is continuously pushing for sex, this is likely someone abusive, for whom sex was in fact the reason they got married.* Err on the side of good intent - Unless I’m talking to men who are toxic and abusive, I assume everyone means well. No one is actively trying to weaponize sex and the accusation will make it worse. Healing starts with stopping the accusation and getting curious about WHY someone doesn’t want sex. * Talk about sexual health - Talk about what actually drives libido in the first place? What makes you turned on? Do you even know? Has sex ever been pleasurable or has it always been something you did for someone else? In the reverse, has sex ever been something you enjoy mutually with someone, or is it something you get from someone? And what is sex? How do you know it’s sex and that you’ve had it? It may seem silly, but you can’t have a conversation about it if you don’t know how it all works. Come As You Are, Emily NagoskiWhat weaponizing sex really looks likeSex can’t be a weapon if a person can still consent to it. If something is hindering consent, then sex is a weapon. Sexual coercion is weaponizing sex, and here’s how that happens: * Using guilt trips to make your partner give in to sex they don’t want* Offering gifts or trips or even chores as payment for sex* Threatening to cheat or end the relationship if you don’t get more sex* Holding the mortgage, rent, grocery money or other financial favor over them to get sex* Making fun of your partner to friends and family for being “frigid”* Keeping track of how often you have sex to guilt them into doing it more often* Getting angry and withdrawing affection because they said noThese are just a few examples, but you see the point. Trying to “get” sex in any way that’s not genuinely trying to form real connection and instead uses consequences to coerce sex is not just weaponizing, but it’s actually the thing killing their libido. Final QuestionAnd one final question that almost always stops a conversation dead: Why do you want to sleep with someone you believe is abusing you by weaponizing sex? There is no good reason for wanting to engage sexually with someone you think is abusing you. So if you believe someone is weaponizing sex, the best thing you can do for yourself—and your relationship—is to JUST SAY NO.Get my one sheet on marital coercion…This is a PDF you can download for FREE and share with anyone you like. If you or someone you know is experiencing sexual coercion, check out maritalcoercion.com and thehotline.org for more information. You may also want to seek out a trauma informed therapist who will better understand sexual assault and its affects on your body and mind. The Girl You WantedThe girl you wanted wanted you The slender skin that carried a soul just born And the lips that widened when you touched them Were offered to you for the price of your thoughts And the promise of who knows when The heart that believed you when you said you were good for it Pushed the girl to dive Head first into the water With a hand on her head you begged her to swim And sun beat down upon you So she parted her legs and kicked While the pool was getting hotter As the bubbles rolled Breath became a far off dream Her legs stopped moving And you shouted for her to pick up the pace But she couldn’t even scream Get my book 📕 at lovemakeslifelisten.com This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit natlajune.substack.com/subscribe

Before you start reading this, did you know you can listen to it on Spotify and iTunes? Click over and subscribe and save time by listening in the car or while doing the laundry. This week we saw a CEO Andy Byron caught cheating at a Coldplay concert, and then we saw the internet blow up with memes and jokes making further spectacle of him. My teens even got it on their feeds and asked me if I had seen it. Day 1-2, I watched video after video replaying the clip of the pair quickly splitting from an embrace as they realized their cozy moment was now being witnessed by the entire stadium—and beyond. But I doubt they knew in the moment how far that footage would reach and what would be made of it. The next few days I saw more commentary, parody, and memes, including several AI generated videos, one depicting Byron threatening to sue because he’d been outed without consent, and others depicting fictional characters and brand mascots “cheating” with each other in the same way. But yesterday, only a few days into this saga, I saw the first discussion of putting a lid on it all. It started with a facebook post from one of my old colleagues, a white Christian man, who said, “Can we please be done with the Coldplay thing now?” And then a white woman on TikTok made a plea to drop the jokes because public shame was “chaos” and we need to stay focused on not letting America become the Soviet Union. The concern is valid in general, the country is in trouble, but it’s a stretch to apply it here, to say our political climate is threatened by a cheating CEO being publicly shamed. If anything, the public reaction to this is the result of a people on the edge of real revolution. We’re not holding back anymore and it’s a really good thing. Shining a light on the world around us and not pretending these things aren’t happening is how we make real change.We’re not protecting a CEO anymore. We’re not sweeping him under a rug so he can get back to his big open office overlooking all the people he’s cheated (surely his wife is not the first). But this is what white America does. They tamp down events like this that involve prominent white men. Christians in particular will want to start keeping things hush in the name of “family values” because, as several comments on Facebook said, his wife and children are suffering the backlash. But they’re not suffering backlash from the public. They’re suffering abuse, the abuse of a father and husband who destroyed his family. It’s blame shifting to put it on the public. It’s further removing the focus and accountability from this man to everyone else who is holding a mirror to him and what he did. And this is where we do injustice to women and children in these situations. For the last few days, beneath the public cheers and jeers all over social media, have been quiet comments from women who’ve been cheated on. These women have been telling their stories. Stories about being discarded, not being believed, and never allowed the chance to really grieve the loss of their marriage properly. In most cases, these women weren’t allowed to acknowledge it was cheating because by the time they’re ready to talk about it, their husband has already told everyone, “We just grew apart.” This becomes the narrative. He didn’t do anything wrong, and in fact, she was actually a nag who controlled him, withheld sex, etc., and he had to find comfort elsewhere. Women are forced to stuff their feelings away and never publicly acknowledge the damage their husband did. But this time, this woman doesn’t have to do that. This woman is going to be devastated for a long time no matter what the public says or does, but she has something a lot of other women never have. She has public support from millions of people who are on her side. So I say we let it play out. Let this woman have a few minutes of vindication from the world, to validate her and strengthen her through this traumatic betrayal. Let Christians sit in the discomfort of yet another white man being atrocious and having to face himself publicly. As we say often in DV circles, “If he didn’t want people to talk about what he did, he shouldn’t have done it.”Follow me on TikTok or Instagram for more, and subscribe here for more in-depth writing based on conversations from social media. Music I’ve been listening to this weekFor newcomers, I hope you enjoyed this post! At the end I’ll often include music I’ve been listening to or songs I’ve used in TikTok videos, and sometimes a poem from my book if it’s applicable. There’s also a chat room for each post if you’d like to engage in further conversation on these topics. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit natlajune.substack.com/subscribe

Getting my wisdom teeth pulled was one of my more traumatic experiences from childhood. Although I’ve mostly healed from what happened that day, there’s one part that sticks with me—a reminder that who I am is different from who people say I am. After my mouth had been gutted by the dentist with minimal novocain, and he left 1-1/2 teeth in the crook of my jaw, my mom rushed me to an oral surgeon in the city to finish the job. This time they put me under. I remember three things: the coldness of the room and the people in it, counting backward from 10 to 8, and the doctor’s hand between my thighs. I woke up to someone telling me my dad would be taking me home. I’m not sure why, but my parents had traded places. In the car I told him about the doctor’s hand. I’m autistic, so there was little emotion in it, just a matter of fact tone telling him I’d been touched inappropriately. He went back inside and then returned to the car, saying, “I talked to the doctor. He said you have a vivid imagination. It never happened.”Vivid imagination. I stewed on that awhile. For years, in fact, I gaslit myself, believing I must be wrong about the doctor’s hand between my thighs, and probably too, the boy who felt me up while I slept. I just had a vivid imagination. Until I started to talk about things on TikTok and people believed me. For the first time, I believed myself. At 43 years old, I thought, “My imagination is vivid, but this isn’t that. This isn’t my imagination. This is very very real.” For the first time in my life, I began to feel confident in what I was experiencing. My husband had been angry with me for saying no to sex. I did experience rape. I had in fact developed C-PTSD from 20 years of sexual coercion and a lifetime of objectification. Believing myself changed everything. I finally accepted that the doctor had touched me inappropriately. I knew this because I remembered my grandfather stroking me there the same way a few years before. I knew what I had experienced. It was real and I was right. AwakeningBy the time I met Navy Guy (his name is Bryan), I had worked through all of it, everything from the past that I had been gaslit about, every truth I doubted, I knew confidently. And I had healed the codependence that made me depend on the truth of others. I was firm in my reality apart from their perception. So when I began to awaken with him, I was sure of what was happening to me. Maybe not why it was happening, or what it meant, but I knew what I was seeing, hearing, and feeling was real. A month or so after we broke up, when I began having wild dreams, I was ready to explore what this all meant. In one of the early dreams that kicked off my spiritual awakening, I had a vision of me as a little girl and her name was Melanie. I wrote about it a little at the time, but didn’t say much. I was still processing by putting it to poetry. The poem, Melanie’s Wish, tells the story of this little girl, about 8 years old, with a boy (I’ll come back to him later). Melanie was magic, and in this dream, she made a wish that turned a cafeteria full of adults in the 90’s into children in the 50s. I didn’t know it yet, but I now believe this dream was pointing me to a part of my calling. As my for you page on TikTok was showing me “break up content” like tarot card love readings and attachment style stuff, I also came across videos about limerence and autistic rumination. I bristled at all of it, none of it felt relevant to me, but I had a platform and an audience full of women going through the same things. Many of my followers were post-divorce dating, and some of them were going through a tough break up like I was. I wanted to learn about what they were going through so I could help them, because helping other people heal heals me. So I stayed and listened to the tarot readers, the attachment theory creators, and the psychologists and autistic people talking about limerence and rumination. Limerence is an experience in which a person becomes fixated on another person in a way that objectifies them romantically. It’s very similar to how people objectify someone sexually. They see this person as an object of affection without any real concern for who the person is and their needs and wants. Rumination is a particular persistence of thought, dwelling on things, usually negative. This is especially common for autistic people to experience after a breakup, when we go over and over details of the breakup and the relationship, but it’s not inherently unproductive. I experienced rumination during the 15 months I was separated from my ex-husband before the divorce was final. My entire platform is the result rumination, but I believe it was my intuition leading me toward a productive use of this ability. And I consider it an ability, not a disability. A disability is considered so because it hinders us in some way, but it’s not rumination that hindered me. What had always stood in my way was the perception of those around me causing me to feel like I wasn’t allowed to think my thoughts. I had been told I was “overthinking” to which I said in a TikTok video once, “Am I really overthinking, or are you underthinking?” Psychic Intuitive StorytellingI believe there’s something else happening here that’s being mistaken for negative rumination and limerence, which is a more psychic intuitive tool we just need to learn how to use properly. Before awakening, I had natural patterns of deep thought that others called overthinking and thinking too much. Post-awakening, I discovered something else. I didn’t get caught in a loop of repetitive thought because I was ruminating, I got caught because I didn’t know I was doing it and what to do about it. In the months following my breakup with Bryan, I became fully aware of it and figured it out. Storytelling through poetry was the product of deep thought. I thought deeply about my connection with him even while I was in it. I was becoming aware of a lot of the things he was bringing to the surface in our time together, things I needed to work on healing in myself. Melanie was a symbol of my inner child. When she cast her spell to change everyone into children, this was a sign pointing to the work I was just beginning to do in my content. I was healing my inner children (several at different stages) and helping my following do the same. What people called limerence was not an obsession with a man, but an obsession with healing. What people in the comments on TikTok called rumination was me thinking deeply about my own healing journey and how being with Bryan had affected me. So much about him mirrored me that I was able to unlock things about myself I might have taken another decade or two to discover without him. What people called limerence was not an obsession with a man, but an obsession with healing. I was not hoping to get back together with him, though I did hope we could hang onto a friendship. I loved him and knew he needed for us to be apart in order to heal, and intuitively, I knew I needed it too. Every other week for a couple of years, I continued to have revelations about my childhood, relationships with other men, and assorted pain points that made me who I am. When I talk about him on social media or write about him here, it’s not because I’m waiting for him to come back to me. I’m using stories about him to heal things in me, and to help others heal themselves by awakening them to parts of them that mirror us. What makes this psychic? Storytelling comes naturally to me, as it does to a lot of other psychic intuitive people, but these stories aren’t just limerent ruminative thought. Many of these stories come through psychic visions, dreams, and knowings. And, again, post-awakening, there’s an awareness of it that isn’t present prior to an awakening. I believe many people who experience this unique train of thought are experiencing psychic, intuitive thought. You can say subconscious thought, if that feels better. Wherever these ideas come from, there’s a shift when we become aware that it’s happening. Assuming it’s a vision, does a few things for me:* I am fully aware that it’s not real, it’s just a story* I retain an open curiosity, to find out WHY this story is coming to mind* I then use the story to play detective and find a wound of mine (or someone else’s) that needs healing* I work through the pain in the story and heal the wound—or help another do so—and the story fadesRemember I mentioned a particular boy in the dream with Melanie. The boy was Bryan. Well, not really him. It was him visually, his face, his beard, his smile. And as a boy, he looked the same as in the photos I’d seen of him as a boy. But I discovered later that he was there as a representation of a childhood friend I had lost. When Bryan and I were together, there was a particular moment with him that was slightly embarrassing. We were in my bedroom coming down from the high of sex, getting dressed, when I was suddenly overcome with a childlike excitement and I got a big grin on my face. He tilted his head to say, “What is it,” and I sighed, “It’s like you’re my best friend.”I was aghast at myself for being so vulnerable. What a ridiculous thing to say like that out of nowhere. I had successfully swept it under a rug when I was reading my poem about Melanie again in late May 2023. Bryan and I had a phone call in which we got spicy and in this sexual energy again, I recalled what I had said to him in my bedroom. I put that together with the story about the boy in the cafeteria with Melanie, and I knew. It wasn’t about Bryan—it was about Jeff. Although I did absolutely feel like he was a great friend, and I still feel deeply for him, there was a deeper wound there that he was bringing to the surface. You can read more about Jeff in my post called Love Makes Life Listen from July that year. Jeff had been a childhood friend who died and I never got to grieve him properly. The story about Melanie and the feeling of friendship with Bryan helped me access old feelings I’d forgotten about. I ended up writing a poem about Jeff to transmute that old hurt, and Bryan and I talked about it when we talked again in June. Because of that ruminating and storytelling, I was able to get at the real story about my friend I’d lost, and heal that old hurt. This in turn healed some of the hurt of losing my friend Bryan too. If you’re experiencing some creative ideas during a painful time, don’t judge yourself for it. If someone accuses you of ruminating or being in limerence, don’t let their pathologizing define you. They don’t know you like you know you. Say that again. They don’t know me like I know me.Don’t let anyone else tell you who you are. Explore the stories. Take those rabbit trails, awakened. Keep a peripheral eye on what you know to be true and let the stories play out. See where they take you. Run through parallels in your past, moments that felt the same way, and see what you can discover. Use these stories as a map to find those old things to heal. While you do that, use whatever creative gifts you have (even if you think it’s not that creative) to move that pain through you and make something new of it. Whether you’re a writer like me or a restorer of vintage cars like Bryan, channel it all into something beautiful you can feel proud of. There’s far less damage in overthinking than in not allowing thoughts to exist, less pain in emotions themselves as in stuffing them away for a later time. The key is knowing yourself and believing yourself.Thanks for reading! This post is public so feel free to share it.You and Me (for Jeff)I want to ride bikes with you I want to steal candy bars with you I want to create mischief with you I want to do all the things that kids like us do. I want you to jump rope with me I want you to draw pictures on the sidewalk with me I want you to play checkers and beat me Stop trying to prove you’re faster than I will ever be I want to live in the books we read Tom and Huck, we tumble in the reeds I want to build things from things they don’t need And squirm when you pretend to eat a centipede I want to jump that creek without fear I want to tell you what’s in that tin can I hear I want to not tell about tasting your daddy’s beer And I want to live in a world in which you’re still here This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit natlajune.substack.com/subscribe

What does it mean for something to "resonate" with you? If a tarot card reader says, "Take what resonates, leave what doesn't," what are they really saying? Let’s take a look at what it means for something to resonate, and how you can take it or leave it. On TikTok, the psychic community commonly uses the term download to describe psychic information coming to them. If I have a claircognizant knowing, I'm receiving a download that comes in the form of knowledge. If it’s clairvoyant, it’s usually a photograph or video in my mind’s eye. I cringed at the word download until one day last fall, I had a download of my own about how to describe this for people. This is what my messages are mostly, information to help people process their experiences. My mission in this life seems to be helping people understand things from a different perspective. I use vocabulary to reach the nuance of a situation and come to a different conclusion people may not have seen before. Where people say download, premonition, or channeled message, I expand on what these things mean to give people a better understanding of the experience. Where people say "men need sex" I explain what this actually looks like within a relationship, describing the pressure this puts on women to meet this so-called need.To better understand downloads, I was given a picture of a computer operating system in our minds. I saw a desktop or hard drive with a million folders filled with files. Everything you need to know for this life is already built into you. You have a series of folders and files in your body, in your mind, and so-called "psychic" abilities are just the way you access this information. A psychic may sometimes have information that’s relevant to a “collective” of people who are on a similar journey in life. It’s your job to discern what information is for you and what is for someone else.When you learn something new, one of three things is likely happening:* If you're in tune with your intuition, you're comparing this new information against your files to judge whether this information is good. You're listening to your body to feel whether or not it resonates with you. You're matching it against the files you have to see if it's true for you. * If you aren't yet good at listening to your intuition, you're likely going to accept this information as true and file it away with everything else.* Or, you may blow off information that is true for you because your worldview—your conditioning—is rejecting it. If you live at surface level, following the crowd, not listening to yourself, your files may be corrupt because you've accepted something that might not be true for you. This is where I was within Christianity. On some level I knew when things weren't true for me, but two things were going against me at the time: * I was taught that psychic things weren't real, or they were demonic influence.* At the same time, a lot of Christian teaching does resonate for me. The fruits of the spirit, for instance, unconditional love, forgiveness, all the things Jesus taught. This all matched my files.Without spiritual discernment yet, I was accepting things that didn't resonate with me because of the things that did. I mixed bad files in with mine because the other files matched. Discernment is about learning how your computer works, how to discern where these files are located, and how to compare them against the new ones coming in. You can think of other psychics as the IT guy who helps you access those files. How to feel when it resonatesIntuition interprets information coming in and compares it against information already there. When the information matches, that's resonance. It resonates because what someone is telling you lines up with—or aligns with—information your mind and body already contain. An analogy I use on TikTok is trying on clothes. Imagine you're in a fitting room in a store, trying on several outfits. When it fits, it feels good, it looks good, and you just know you want it. When it doesn't fit, it feels uncomfortable or it looks unflattering, and you know you don't want it. Resonance is when something just fits and you know it's right for you. But if you don't have a solid connection to your intuition, you may find yourself wearing things that don't fit for a number or reasons. Maybe the changing room doesn't have a mirror so you can't see what it looks like. Or you may fall in love with how something looks on the hanger but it doesn't fit. You want it to fit but it doesn't. You might still take it home even though it doesn't fit properly and force yourself to wear it, or leave it sitting in your closet for years because you wanted it to fit so badly. When something doesn't resonate, you may still want to make it fit. You want it to be true even though your intuition is trying to tell you it's not for you. This can happen when you're looking at someone else's files too. I regularly tell people on TikTok, "Don't listen to me, listen to yourself," and this is what I'm getting at. When I talk on TikTok or write here and on Threads, I'm sharing information I have in my files. It's not always going to match yours, so it's important for you to pay attention to how what I’m saying feels for you so you're not accepting my truth as yours. It's important for you to learn how to listen to yourself and learn what it feels like when something resonates. When you go to a friend's house and she offers you something from her closet, you need to know yourself well enough to know when something of hers doesn't fit. You don't want to be walking around in her clothing if it doesn't fit you. Just because it looks good on her, doesn't mean it will be comfortable for you. Discernment is learning how your body feels, your nervous system specifically. It's listening for butterflies, a headache, or tension in your shoulders, all kinds of feelings that can tell you when something isn't right, or when something feels good. I often feel a warm cheerful feeling when something resonates. When it really resonates, I feel a chill. My body tingles. And extreme resonance for me feels like a shiver. This is very rare, but when I feel it, I know whatever is happening is in perfect alignment with me. This might look different for you. It's up to you to pay attention to your own responses to things you're experiencing. The important thing is that you're not taking in information that belongs to someone else and adopting this truth as yours own. If you're not listening to yourself, if you don't trust yourself, you will accept what others tell you even when it doesn't feel quite right. This can cause problems in your life as you end up living a life meant for someone else and you're not designed for it. If you feel like you're failing at life, it's likely not failure at all. It may be that you're trying to open files that don’t belong to you, trying to wear a life that doesn't fit you.If this resonated with you, and you’re not a paid subscriber already, would you consider supporting the work I do. It’s just extra money right now, but I would very much like to be able to do more of this full time. If you have a minute…My oldest kid has just come home this weekend for the last time after getting a head start at JobCorps this year. This program gave them the confidence to pursue a career as an electrician, along with all the training they would need to do the job. They were well taken care of for awhile, with free room and board, and even medical care covered. But as I type this, there are kids being dismissed from the program because the current administration is defunding the program. Kids like mine, many of whom have nowhere else to go, are without this lifeline if the program goes away. If you would, please take a few clicks to the link below and send an email to your elected officials to save JobCorps for these kids.Thank you for your support! If you were familiar with my website before, alwaysmending.com, I’ve moved it. It’s now natlajune.com. I still have most of the information that was there, it’s just a little more streamlined now, combined with my shop, where you can buy my book!I also have merch, including my fake coffee shop, Grounds for Divorce! The back features a menu full of coercive themes to have a little fun while healing. If you’re not there yet, that’s okay. This was healing for me at the time, to be able to joke about how ridiculous it is to say and do the things they do. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit natlajune.substack.com/subscribe

After a breakup, a lot of women spend weeks and even months questioning the reality of their relationship. When I went through a breakup a couple of years ago, people in my comments were quick to tell me “He just wasn’t that into you.”And what I tell women today is the same thing I said in a video response back then: It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter if he loved me. It doesn’t matter if he snowed me, manipulated and lied to me. It doesn’t matter if the whole thing was a sham. I enjoyed it. I enjoyed him. I told him and said it on TikTok, “I’m going to enjoy you as long as you’re enjoyable.”I always knew it was going to end. Neither of us were ready for a commitment. But I wasn’t guarded either. My heart was and is open. I don’t want to close myself off and miss out on these beautiful experiences.This Substack is reader-supported. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.But what if?What if he really was lying and none of it was real for him? What if he was lying about his feelings for me? What if his tears weren’t real and he was pretending to be distraught over our breakup and wanting to see us through? What if all the love and compassion he showed me, all the beautiful restraint in moments other men would have proven unsafe, what if it was all pretend?* Either he didn’t know who he was and he was mirroring me, in which case I actually fell in love with me, not him. Sad.* Or he was so unattractive to me, he thought he needed to be someone else to be with me, in which case, I never loved him. I loved a fake version of him who doesn’t exist. Doubly sad.It’s not a character flaw to trust. It’s not a deficit to believe in someone. It’s a strength to trust people and believe in them. The deficit is his for thinking he had to lie. The flaw is putting on a mask to manipulate a woman. If he lied, he dishonored himself, not me.I was authentic and true, except for a couple of times I’ll admit, I was a little insecure and said or did something cringey. I’m sure he had those moments too, but I believe he was as authentic as he knew how to be. In moments he wasn’t being himself, I don’t have any reason to believe it was deliberately manipulative.I believe he was sincere, at least as much as he was aware. I believe him when he said in a phone call after we broke up, “I don’t know who I am when I’m with you.” I believe he has suffered so much criticism in his life that he genuinely doesn’t know who he is and what he wants. He goes along to get along. He wants to be wanted, needs to be needed. I’ll never forget the way he flinched at the sushi place when I said I wanted a man who would dance with me. “It’s kind of a dealbreaker,” I said with a wink. I only meant someone to hold me and sway to a slow song, but I think he thought I meant a seasoned Merengue dancer who would sweep me off my feet. He winced, loudly, as though his chances with me had just dropped off a cliff. I saw the same face when we met last November and he asked me clumsily if I was seeing “Dope Dad” from TikTok. Sam and I had been friends, and sure, I had a bit of a TikTok crush on him, but it was never serious. I was stunned by the question. He must have been watching my content last summer when I defended Sam after his breakup. He’s a good man, a good friend, but not a romantic interest in the least. Still, there was that wince on his face, like he was bracing himself for my response. I understand the insecurity. I’ve been there. I’ve sat across from someone, hoping they would return my affection and see no flaws in me. I’ve even shaped myself to be what they want, though it made my stomach turn and the truth quickly righted itself. But being on this side of it now is strange. I feel nothing but compassion for B now. I get it. I can see his conflict. But I need someone who’s sure of me, who believes me when I tell him how much I adore him. Who doesn’t need me to prove it a hundred different ways because he’s so caught up in his own head he can’t see it. Where have we gone wrong? Women have been conditioned to place importance on a man’s feelings for her. She has been taught to value his love more than hers. She’s been made to feel her experience is less valuable than his. Her worth depends on his feelings. She is only worthy of love if he loves her. But what happens when we take away his experience and focus only on hers?When I was with B, I experienced love. I adored him, and came to love him. At first, it was a platonic love. I just thought he was fun, funny, smart, and we clicked. Bigger things like family values and life goals weren’t on the table yet and we were just enjoying each other platonically.Despite sexual chemistry, I just loved him as a friend at first. I would have hung out with him every day and not felt like it was too much. It was just fun. But then of course the chemistry was there and it started to feel like more. As we began a sexual relationship, the friendship deepened for me. I began to feel a connection between the platonic and the sexual and it was beautiful.In the moment I didn’t know it, but that friend connection actually enhanced the sexual connection and vice versa. The whole experience became a bit more spiritual for me with that gap bridged. And as he poured out his heart to me about his life and other experiences in love, my heart swelled and I fell deeper in love.It was in the last few weeks together that I started to think about a future with him. I could feel him doing the same, but it was different for him. For him, I imagine it was like skydiving would be for me. Like, yeah, it sounds fun on paper, but I don’t care how good the view is, I’m not jumping out of a plane with only a piece of fabric to keep me from death.But for me the idea of enmeshing our lives a little more was less dramatic. It felt more like moving to a new country. I’m still getting on a plane, but to me, there’s certainty in landing and unpacking on another shore. I may not know the language, but I can learn. I might not know exactly what our life would be like, but I know him and I can do anything with him.He’d tell me I romanticize things too much and I’d tell him to tighten his chute get me a coffee.We’re different people with different lives and different experiences. His is valid, but so is mine. His experience scared him. Mine made my heart—and courage—grow. I loved. I laughed. I felt safe. I felt connected. And I was ready for a future. All of that is mine. He can’t take it from me. Even if none of it was real for him and he was lying, he can’t take away that love. That love is mine.So as you navigate a breakup, or revisit an old relationship that was hard to let go, remember who you are and how you loved. Let them have their reality as they saw and hang onto yours. Yours is what matters. Love them. Love you. And then spread that love around. Thanks for reading! This post is public so feel free to share it.OfferingI didn't show you my scars to get your sympathy I only wanted you to know I had them too I didn't open my heart to scare you with it It wasn't an ambush, it was a proffering There was no agenda to make you fall in love with me It was you I wanted to fall into I thought you deserved to know how deep love can go When love is not debt, but offeringI’ve updated my website this week — take a look! Visit natlajune.com for more about me and the work I do, including my books, more poetry, and community resources for healing from sexual coercion. I’m working on moving everything from alwaysmending.com to this website for a more permanent location as the mending name is being retired. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit natlajune.substack.com/subscribe

Psychics don’t always know what they know. Last summer I was getting new tires on my car and I signed up for a Goodyear card before I went in for my appointment. I had the money, but there were rewards so I planned to pay it off as soon as the charge was posted to the card. When the day of the appointment came, I was sure I had the card in my wallet. I remembered putting it in there, so I didn’t check. But at the counter when I tried to pay, I couldn’t find it. I was confused because I so clearly had an image of the card sitting on my desk. I had set it on my phone stand while I went to the website to activate it. I remembered the blue card with the yellow Goodyear logo, and even the envelope it came in, sitting on the desk next to me. But there I was without it. I assumed I must have left it on my desk and forgot to put it in my wallet. I paid with my debit as usual and went home, still very confused. It was worse when I got home and couldn’t find the card anywhere. I looked in every drawer, every purse, every wallet. Any place I could have stashed it, I turned upside down. Frustrated, I put it aside and figured I’d just order a new one.A couple of hours later, I went to check the mail and saw the envelope—in the mailbox, with all the rest of the mail, unopened. It was obviously a credit card inside. The return address was the same as the one I had seen in my mind. It was only as I opened it and set the card on my phone stand that it dawned on me. I had had a vision of the card when I was at the shop. I had seen the card and the envelope before I received it. But I didn’t know that’s what it was in the moment. I didn’t know I didn’t actually have the card yet. It felt like a memory. I’ve talked about this before, that visions don’t have time stamps. There is no time really in terms of spiritual data. In a channeled message last fall I heard, “Time is constructed through our perception of it.” As a “baby psychic” relatively new to my gifts, my only perception of time has been present moments and memories. I have no experience with receiving future information. So when I have a vision, it feels like something I’m remembering. There’s no way for me to know it’s not a memory until I hit something I know hasn’t happened, like when I had a vision of Navy Guy with gray hair, or seeing an ad for a movie I know was never made. Without confirmation a thing isn’t real, my mind files it away as something that has already happened. When I saw the street sign last September leading me to an old hotel, I didn’t know that highway didn’t exist. I didn’t know I was seeing a vision until I looked for it on a map later and couldn’t find it. This Substack is reader-supported. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.This doesn’t just affect me in my private time, but within relationships too. There are moments when people look at me funny when I seem to know something I shouldn’t, or when I respond to something they haven’t said. Sometimes I’ll answer a question you haven’t asked because there’s a message you need and neither of us know it. I don’t know it’s happening until someone tells me about it. But in learning how to read energy the last couple of years, I’m beginning to feel into reactions people have when something like this happens. There’s an awkward flinch in someone’s energy when I’ve seen them too clearly and they feel exposed. I try to pull back in these moments and drop a joke or a smile to change the mood. Or, I might just stay quiet and offer them the silence to fill if they want to talk and I have the capacity to hold them in that moment. I don’t know why we have these gifts, but I believe everyone has them. I believe they’re a standard form of communication for us that’s long been forgotten, or stifled. We’ve been taught to ignore signs and signals in our body, or we’ve been told they’re evil, or a mental illness. Humanity has a way of dismissing what we don’t understand. I’m coming at it with more curiosity. I’m curious to learn more, and curious to hear and see more, balancing consent and privacy of those around me. So far, my curiosity has led me to discovering that many times the things I receive and share with others are often only meant for one or two people to hear. But for those people, it’s as life changing as it has been for me when psychics have messages that resonate with me. And I think this is the point. We’re meant to communicate on a deeper level. There’s information we have for each other that isn’t accessible through the usual channels, so we open spiritual channels to access it. I believe the door to this channel is accessed through the heart. We open our hearts and we become open to everything the world has wanted us to ignore for so long. Trump & The Stone WomanI was going to end this right here. I had this saved as a draft and was planning to publish it today but I had a vision this weekend and now I need to add to this. I was meditating late Friday night, and as I do, I asked a couple of questions and saw flashes of pictures in my mind as answers to my questions. They’re always so random and rarely hold meaning for me in the moment, so I see it as practice. I’m just honing my abilities. But right in the middle of these images I had a short video clip appear that seemed to be coming from a different source. The visions and messages I receive are generally only related to me and they feel like they’re coming from a higher version of me or possibly souls close to me who’ve passed on. I recognize my grandmother now and then. But this was from farther away, if that makes sense. It was outside of me and my immediate internal world. It was Trump.I saw what I describe as a tangible halo. It was objects of red, white, and blue surrounding his form, like an aura might but it wasn’t so ethereal. It was 3D, opaque, with hard edges. Behind him, a woman made of stone, much larger than him, stood with a beautiful feminine authority. She was entirely made of cement gray stone, and interestingly, her hair looked like mine, with the same part. She grabbed him by his shoulders and snapped him forward and back quickly, like you’d snap a blanket up in the air to straighten it out. People in the comments on TikTok thought “lady liberty” but she had no crown and her hair was down. Reflecting on the image this morning I think it was me. BUT NOT ME. Visions aren’t usually literal. So I don’t think it was about Trump either, not specifically. I think both images were a representation of something bigger. Visions also hold meaning specific to the seer, that only the seer understands. We’re meant to translate this for others in a way they would understand. It wouldn’t make sense to show me something that only others would understand. All I could do is repeat what I saw and hope someone gets it. I believe it’s meant to mean something to me that I then share with others. I think the woman represents the divine feminine at her most powerful, and Trump represents the toxic breakdown of masculine energy in the world right now. The motion of her snapping him feels like a reset of the masculine to bring it back into balance with the feminine. I believe those of us who are learning to balance our masculine and feminine energies are doing this work. I believe one day soon there will be a “snap” and things will begin to straighten out. Bumble BeeInterestingly, as I was thinking of what this sentence should be, I looked down at my phone and noticed the title of the song Spotify had playing was Red, White, Blue, and Gold by Alice O’Donovan. Sometimes psychic s**t is just those little coincidences we blow off as everyday s**t with no meaning. We’re told to “stop reading into things” and sometimes I can agree. We can take it too far when everything is a sign, but sometimes it is.I don’t see every bee in the springtime as a sign because there are a lot of bees around in the spring, but every so often it’s timed in such a way that the meaning of it is obvious and it helps me. Yesterday, after my vision, I was in the kitchen with my youngest kid, who is a lot like him. They were expressing some frustration with me at the way I handled them the night before. I’m often trying to fix things and make them feel better. Sometimes I don’t catch myself soon enough. I let them express their feelings and told them they were absolutely right. When they left, I turned to do the dishes, and suddenly B popped into my mind. I remembered a similar conversation with him. I was sitting on my kitchen table and he had his hands on my hips, telling me I couldn’t help him and he needed to figure some things out for himself. I smiled and looked up to see a bumble bee on the window sill in front of me. It was bigger than my thumb and appeared to have a broken leg. This wasn’t just any springtime bee. This was a symbol of the moment right in front of me, confirmation of the lesson I was grounding in again. The best way for me to help the people I love is to give them freedom to take care of their own needs. So I grabbed a jar, put it over the bee, slid a piece of paper under the jar, and took it outside to a safe corner of the yard. I balled up a wet paper towel and let the bee drink from it, and went back into the house having done my part. I’m grateful for these messages, the synchronicities. As I have learned to really hear my intuition, I’m more confident in the signs being actual signs and not just my mind looking for something meaningful. But this takes practice, lots and lots of practice. Don’t overthink yourself, just trust. Your intuition wants to talk to you if you have the courage to listen. Thanks for reading! This post is public so feel free to share it. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit natlajune.substack.com/subscribe

In 1999 I was in the nosebleed seats of an LA stadium getting ready to watch Greg Laurie speak at the Harvest Crusade. He was a prominent pastor who held events that were a sort of religious pep rally for God. People would travel from all over to go to these things, so when a new church friend invited me, I felt special. It was a guy friend, and this was the equivalent of a date for young college age Christians. I hated the crowd, but the energy was overflowing with excitement and it felt good. I had never belonged to anything before. During the worship portion of the show, with music as the background, they passed around KFC buckets to collect tithes in. I had planned for this. I didn’t have much back then, could barely make rent most days, but I was ready. I had $25 left until my next paycheck. I stuck a $20 bill in one pocket, and I put the $5 bill in the other. That would be my tithe, and the twenty would be for food and other expenses. When the bucket came around to me, I joyfully tossed my $5 into it and continued singing along with the worship band. A little while later, I checked on my twenty just to be sure I had it. When I pulled it out of my pocket, it was a five. Wait. No. Had I given them my twenty? No, I needed that. Five dollars wasn’t going to be enough for the rest of the night! I started to get butterflies and I couldn’t concentrate on the music anymore. I stuffed the five back in my pocket and began to pray. God, what am I going to do? I don’t really know this guy that well, I can’t ask him to cover me, I need that twenty! I heard a voice from inside me asking me for my trust. I had a shaky relationship to money already. My emotional safety depended on that money. Again, I heard a call to trust, so I took a long deep breath and decided to trust that my generous tithe of $20, about 3 hours of work at TJ Maxx, would reap some reward later and not get me into a heap of trouble tonight. I began to trust that somehow it would do good for someone who needed it more than I did. Somehow, God would get me through with my last five dollars. In trusting, I started to relax and even feel good that I was doing good. I started to think about what a big deal it was for me, to give so much. At 21 years old, trying to survive on three part time jobs, I didn’t have much to spare. But I wanted to give what I could.Just as I was settling into the thought and resigned to the money being gone, I heard, “Check again.”Shaking my head in confusion, I protested. I had just looked at it. Why look again? But I felt the call, so I carefully pulled the bill out of my pocket again. It was the twenty. There was now $20 in my pocket where I had been sure I’d seen $5 just moments ago. What??The music was coming to an end and they were moving on to announcements and sermons. People were sitting down and it was getting quiet. What had just happened? Was I seeing things? I felt crazy. But that voice kept saying, “Trust.”I hardly paid attention to the rest of the service or the 2-hour drive back to San Diego, the money swap was the only thing on my mind. I was so sure I had accidentally given away the larger bill. I had been frantic about it. It hit me as I was staring out the window at the city lights along the freeway. It wasn’t about the money. It was about my ability to trust that inner voice. At the time I thought it was God—today I call it intuition—but the message was to trust. In what, I still don’t know. Something higher than me, who knows more than me, was asking me to give more than I wanted to, and to trust that it would all work out. My capacity to give was dependent on my capacity to trust that everything would be okay if I gave all I had. I had been genuinely afraid of losing that $20, but ultimately decided it was a good thing. I was feeling really good about it, proud of myself, even. Our capacity to love is the same. We can only love as freely as we can trust that things will work out if we do. And my capacity to love is practiced in how well I love myself. I can love unconditionally because I love myself unconditionally. But I wasn’t always capable of love at this level. I didn’t always have a high capacity for love.Before I began to see and embrace my shadows—the parts of me I don’t like—I couldn’t hold the shadows of others. I held myself to a particular standard of perfection, so I did the same with others. I was highly critical of myself, so I judged and criticized others. I didn’t trust myself, so I was suspicious of people around me too. When I began to look at these things one at a time, and forgive myself for them, I was able to get to the bottom of why I was that way. I still find shadows I didn’t know about before or had been ignoring because it was too much at the time. I’ve developed a habit now of saying to myself, “It’s okay, this is just where you’re at right now. You can’t be further ahead than now. Take your time getting through this one and you’ll be ahead of it soon.”I give myself time to explore old wounds without pressure to heal faster. I allow myself breaks when it hurts too much. I give myself everything I can in every moment, and give myself grace when it may seem not enough to someone else—or to an older more critical version of me. I don’t get impatient with myself. I just love who I am in the capacity I have right now. This is now how I approach others. Because I’ve practiced on myself, learned to love myself, I can more easily branch out to do the same with everyone else. I’ve been able to see this capacity in others and give them the same grace. I meet myself where I’m at from one day to the next, so I can do this with others too. I did it with B. When we broke up a couple of years ago, women asked me why not just block him, why still speak well of him. In their eyes he had “love bombed” and “discarded” me. But I saw it differently. I saw a man who loved to the fullest of his capacity. He was deeply wounded, more than he let on initially. It came out in conversations in the months following the breakup. I sensed it when we were together, but when he broke it off in April, I could see him on the edge of a breakdown. He was erratic, inconsistent, and spiraling, but there was nothing I could do for him. Still, he loved. He had been right—it wasn’t enough to sustain a relationship, but it was everything he could give. The Widow’s OfferingMark 12: 41–4441 Jesus sat down opposite the place where the offerings were put and watched the crowd putting their money into the temple treasury. Many rich people threw in large amounts.42 But a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins, worth only a few cents.43 Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. 44 They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything—all she had to live on.”He was the widow with an offering and it was more than most men had offered me. He had very little to give, but he gave all he had, and I loved him for it. I didn’t need more. I do now, but I didn’t then. He was enough. What he gave me was more than enough—it was everything I needed at that time. Being slightly ahead of him in healing my own wounds, I had a little more to give, and I’m sure this is what made him feel like he wasn’t enough. He thought his offering was too small. What he couldn’t understand back then was that no offering is too small when it’s genuine. We were mismatched in this, but neither better or worse. We both gave to our fullest capacity. About a year ago, someone in the comments asked me if I ever thought about getting back together with him. Of course I had. I still think about it now and then, and the answer changes all the time. Although love is unconditional, a relationship is not. A relationship requires this equity in love, each of us giving to our capacity, but it also requires trust from both of us. I have to trust that a man can sustain his capacity for love because he’s giving authentically. He has to trust me to do the same. And we have to trust each other to remain committed to our own personal growth first, and then to fostering a healthy connection between us. I don’t currently know a man like this, but I have a good feeling about men in general these days. I’m watching them learn and grow alongside me and I know it won’t be long before my path crosses one of theirs. For now, I continue to grow my capacity for love, for myself first, and then to my family and friends. I’m digging a well so deep within me, I’ll never run out of love. Conduit You are a conduit for love Love flows into you And then out of you And into those around you You are not the source of love But the source of love has found you The love that you share with others increases in potency The longer it resides within you Your heart is racing to give of itself Before your mind can begin to If in fear you keep love at bay Because you think you don’t deserve it The love you give is an empty tray About to fall as you serve it Though If in haste and anxiety, You rush to push love out to others In the hopes of getting some of it back That love has very little chance To pass through you And will highlight the love you lack And so what you receive of love Will be just as watered down But the deeper the well inside you The more powerful your love is When you spread that love around This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit natlajune.substack.com/subscribe

The cafe is bustling after the first real week of sunshine we’ve had this Spring. It’s more crowded than usual, so I’ve taken a smaller table in the corner to leave the bigger ones for larger parties. As I’m writing, I feel eyes on me. I can’t tell you how I know they’re looking my way, other than to say there’s energy pointed at me. It’s louder than the energy from all the others, with their minds elsewhere. Do you know the feeling of someone talking to you over a crowd? There are dozens of conversations happening at once, you can’t see them and they don’t say your name, but you know it’s you they’re talking to. It’s because their energy is pointed at you. Before they even speak, you can feel their energy. Energy is loud when you know what it feels like and you’re listening for it. This morning I felt it. I felt two women directing their energy at me. I don’t always pick up on it, but when I do, I rarely doubt it anymore. I looked up from my coffee and omelet, and yep. Both women, blonde, unsmiling, looking right at me. Brief eye contact and a smile, and I went back to my coffee. I’m still new to reading energy. I don’t always know what I’m feeling or where it’s coming from, but I know when it’s not mine. I recognize the feeling it gives me, the emotion behind it. Sometimes it’s sad, or judging, and sometimes it’s overflowing with joy and excitement. This is the loudest energy. You’ll always know this energy when you feel it. You’ve probably been in someone’s energy before and felt that their excitement was contagious. I believe we can all read energy, but we don’t always understand that’s what we’re doing. I was reminded of this again this morning when I had a vision of a text message pop into my mind. It was one of the early messages I received from B when we were just getting to know each other. We had just had our first date and he was going to be at my house for the first time. He texted, “I am excited to be around your energy again tomorrow!!” Maybe it was the two exclamation points or my intuition, but I felt something strange when I read it. I took a screenshot of it and circled that part. Then I filed it away in a folder I had for him. I keep notes about moments which I feel intuitively will be significant and I want to remember these details. After so many years of gaslighting, I struggle with memory, so I record the smallest things so I don’t forget them. I kept this, but told myself it was probably nothing. In the moment, it was just a slight cringe. I didn’t understand energy yet, it just felt odd. But today, with this vision bringing it back to my mind, I posted it to Threads with the note, “The red flag I won’t miss again.”I didn’t mean it as a negative thing, as in B was a terrible person. I meant only that it had been something to watch for. I felt my intuition tugging at me that day to pay attention to what he said. It wasn’t that I thought he was manipulative or toxic at all, but that energy would be important. And it was. I was reading his energy the whole time we were together. In the same way I could feel those two women looking at me this morning, I could feel him each time he was leaning in or pulling back—even when we weren’t together. I have a photo of me sitting outside the fitting room at Target. We had a habit of texting each other selfies now and then because we were long distance and it felt like we were closer to see each other. Just a photo and a quick note about what we were doing and how’s your day. When I look at that photo, I’m pulled back into that energy, his energy of panic and fear. I had intense butterflies and was distracted as my kid was shopping for who knows what. I didn’t understand in the moment that I was feeling his energy, not until he texted back. He confirmed his energy was apprehensive about us. He was starting to have doubts. He didn’t say it outright, but I felt in his words that he was overwhelmed with school and kids and life and he wasn’t in a position to have a relationship. And a few days later he ended it. We had talked about his avoidant side though, so I asked him if he just needed more space, and we agreed to pull back on the daily texting and phone calls. We were good for another couple of months. I’d pull back when I felt his energy getting nervous again and then he’d come toward me. It was a dance. I wrote a poem about it. I was getting to know his energy and learning to lean in when he wanted me and hang back when he was overwhelmed. I didn’t mind it, letting him lead. But eventually it got to be too much for him and he ended it for good. I say his comment in that early text is a red flag now because it points to a common scenario for a lot of people that I didn’t understand back then. I’ve even done this to people myself. We meet people all the time who are on different energetic levels from us and we either bristle at their energy, or we’re energized by it—or in some cases we’re a match and it’s easy, calm, and relaxing. When we meet people whose energy makes us feel good, we naturally want to be around them. But we also naturally want to return their energy. We want to remain in their company so we try to emulate them to some degree. But what happens when there’s a mismatch and one of you can’t keep up with that energy? Very often one will drain the other. If you’ve been drained, you’ll feel it when you separate. You feel depleted, like you need a break from them. If their energy overwhelms you and you feel like you can’t reciprocate you may start to feel unworthy of them. I’ve had times when I feel really great after being around someone and I’ve started to self check, to make sure I was reciprocating authentically. It could be that they were giving me more of their energy than I was returning to them. It can be small things like getting their opinion about something, but then tuning out when they have something to share with you. Or it’s soaking up their praise without offering any in return, or offering false praise you don’t actually believe but feel obligated to give. People pleasers beware, your inauthenticity is felt if not known. This is the trap of the insecure. There’s an obvious need to give back to this person whose energy is so magnetic, but if you’re not really feeling it and you’re faking it, you’re still draining their energy and neither of you may know it. You may just feel weighted afterward and not know why. Some people think this simple statement is a compliment, and that’s what I told myself in the moment. Even as I tucked away the screenshot, I told myself I was being silly, he’s just a great guy being nice. He likes me. I like him. No big deal. But as I’ve been learning more about energy the last couple of years, I’ve come to understand how important it is to find people who are a match. I use an analogy of money. If someone said, “I am excited to be around your money again tomorrow,” would that make you feel something? If they were excited about the things you can buy them, would that feel like a compliment? I don’t think it would. I would wonder about their financial state. Can they take care of themselves? Will they be leaning on me to pay for everything? Are we equals energetically? Can they replenish me when I share my energy with them? B was right in the end, hard as I tried not to see it then. He couldn’t give me what I needed. He couldn’t replenish me. He would always be taking. He meant well. I know he never wanted to hurt me, and I think that’s why he ended it. But he knew he didn’t have it in him to give back all that I was giving him. I had so much surplus overflowing from my heart space, and he was barely hanging on within himself. He had very little to give and what he did have wasn’t always authentic. Most of the time, people who drain you of your energy don’t realize they’re doing it. It’s a general state of being in which they look externally for others to meet a need of theirs. Most of us have done this at some point, so it’s good to talk about it. And a red flag doesn’t mean it’s pointing to danger, but maybe a trigger, something to heal so we can be better. How people drain energy* consistently negative, complains a lot* always a victim, they don’t seem to want to change their situation* dependent on others emotionally but offer little emotional support* inauthentic, trying to be something or someone they’re not* overflowing with praise in a way that feels fake* makes you feel guilty or insecure about yourselfHow to prevent energy drain* remain compassionate, they’re always trying to get a need met* set boundaries for yourself* put your own emotional well-being before theirs to protect your energy* limit your time with people who drain you* encourage authenticity, be a safe place for them to be real with you* own your own flaws (when someone complains about another, I’ll say, “I’ve done that too,” or “I’ve been there, I get it.”)The last few years, I’ve had to learn how to protect my energy and it has a lot to do with not engaging with certain types of communication. For example, I know I have a history of people pleasing, and there are pressure points that get my energy. Gossip is one of them. When a friend of mine wants to talk about someone else, I often will go along to get along. I’ll listen to her complain and then nod and go along because I don’t want to upset her. But this is inauthentic, so it drains me. So to counter this, I’ve had to develop the strength to stand up to it gently, by guiding the conversation back to a place of empathy and care for this other person who isn’t in the room and can’t defend themselves. It can be as simple as saying, “That’s really none of my business.”Setting boundaries for myself preserves my energy and reminds people who interact with me to do the same. If you have experience reading energy or feeling depleted from an energy drain, tell me about it in the comments.Love is in the danceThe gap between usClosing fastMake it lastTake aChanceHolding onTo me andNot what'sPassedp66, 📕 Love Makes Life Listen This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit natlajune.substack.com/subscribe

When I began talking about sexual coercion, the most common argument from men was that “a man has needs.” The second most common was, “Well, maybe his love language is physical touch.” At the time, I would cringe when they said it. My stomach would churn and it was the first time I had begun to allow myself to feel anger.They were referring to the book, The Five Love Languages, by Gary Chapman.“They’re about as real as your horoscope, and there’s no evidence linking love languages to happier relationships.” —NPR’s 1A podcastPhysical touch had been at the forefront of my marriage for 20 years, I knew it was his “need”. I even understood the origin of love languages, if only intuitively at the time. I knew it was coming from a place of lack in childhood. It was soothing a wound left by his family. If I had a love language, it was words of affirmation. I experienced ridicule, shame, and teasing most of my life.I understood where this was coming from for both of us. But I believed it was the function of a relationship to ease these old hurts for each other. I also believed sex was the primary way men get this wound soothed by their wives. And, as men like to tell me often, the wife is the only one who can morally ease this pain for him.Intuitively, I knew this was hogwash. I knew this wasn’t how we were designed. Women were not meant to experience trauma to heal a man’s childhood wounds. So I began making videos denouncing the love languages. I didn’t google it or cite sources—I’ve never even read Gary Chapman’s book. I just knew this wasn’t right and I said so.A year or so later I finally looked into it a little. I knew Gary Chapman was a Baptist pastor and counselor. It’s how I knew about his book in the first place. I’d seen it in the Christian book stores and heard about it from his fans in the church. But researchers outside the church were calling it oversimplified. They explained that there are many other ways of connecting with our partner love languages don’t cover.“Love is not akin to a language one needs to learn to speak but can be more appropriately understood as a balanced diet in which people need a full range of essential nutrients to cultivate lasting love.”— Psychology professor, Emily ImpettSTUDY: Popular Psychology Through a Scientific Lens: Evaluating Love Languages From a Relationship Science PerspectiveI doubled down, explaining in more videos that I'm multilingual, and I’m not attracted to a man who's limited to a single love language. One aspect of love languages that bothered me was that you had to choose one. If you love words of affirmation and physical touch, you can’t have both. And if you do, you can’t then also say that quality time is your love language. This never felt right for me. I felt that humans are far more complex than this, that we do experience love in a multitude of ways, far more than five.And I was hearing men every day, in my comments, in conversations about dating, and on dating apps, using love languages to “get” sex from women.* My love language is physical touch—sexual touch* My love language is quality time—in the bedroom* My love language is words of affirmation—in the bedroom* My love language is gifts—like when you give me your body* My love language is acts of service—so you can do it, for meFor a little while I was completely against the entire idea of love languages, but I’ve since discovered my own. In a healthy relationship after my divorce, I started to come up with my own list of love languages. I started with a dozen or so and kept going. Every time my heart opens to a man, I add to my list.I currently have 27 love languages, and the list is always growing.* Smiling at me when I’m not looking* Coffee I didn’t make* Telling me secrets* Consensual touch* Sexy whispers in my ear* Prolonged eye contact* Looking my way when talking to someone else* That catch in your voice that says you’re nervous* Watching you do something you love* Making you a meal you don’t have to pretend you liked* Being spontaneously aroused by you* Walking the dog together* Hiking at my pace* Feeding you roasted marshmallows* Talking at 3am, naked in candlelight* F*****g on clean white sheets* Kissing me after your shower* Asking permission to touch me* Holding on over the phone so we finish together* Driving with your hand in my lap* Closing your eyes when I touch the back of your neck* Sending me a song* Playing songs I’ve sent you* Sending me things you saw on social media you know I’d like* Reading to me and letting me read to you* Writing letters or short notes* Getting caught in the rainI’m in no hurry to rush into another connection with a man. But if I meet someone who has a list like this of his own, it will be a pleasure to explore it with him. Because the ultimate love language, if there is ONE, is to be known. To be seen and understood by another is what leads to the safety and freedom to explore everything on our paired lists of love languages. And if we're doing it right, our lists will change and grow with us.Let Your Heart Break OpenIf you only get one chance at love I hope you find a love that hurtsThe kind of love that splits you in twoAnd proves to you there will never be worseLet a hurricane toss you across the oceanAnd spiders cover you for a decade or twoLet your heart break so hard it breaks openAnd shows you what love is when it erupts from within youLet Peace & Quiet know nothing of this loveThis love that made you wish you never held their handThe love that beat you upon the farthest shoreTo shred the last of you into bits of scattered sand Let this love be the love that ruins youAnd makes you finally see who you areUnderneath the pain that's been building up all these yearsFrom cuts you've kept hidden away in your heartOpen those wounds again and let them breatheExpose the truth of yourself and never look awayBe your own savior this one last timeAnd ignore what everyone else has to sayThey've only had safe love that never made them lookThey've never known love the pirate, the siren, the terroristDon't listen to the ones who've made it out in one pieceTheir love is loaded and never pointed at themselvesIf you only get one chance at love Let it be a love that cracks you open and exposes your soulLet it be a love that never leaves you againBecause everything that stood in its way is now in your controlNoteTikTok may still be banned, so if you’re not following me elsewhere, check out Instagram as a backup. And coming soon, Patreon. I let go of my Facebook group in January when I deleted my Facebook accounts. So I’m working on a new way to chat with other women on the same journey. And for the guys, I’ll have a more public chat available too. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit natlajune.substack.com/subscribe

The first F&G story was completely channeled, coming to me quickly. I think it was meant to get a ball rolling, like it was a story I was meant to tell but I was dragging my feet and something was picking me up, dusting me off, and handing me the words to write. Part two came in bits and pieces and I filled in the rest over coffee. This one has been trickling out over the last few months, mostly while on walks in the woods. I know the fairy’s story better than anything, but I wanted to tell it well, and in good time. Today it was time. The Fairy & The Gargoyle III: The Fairy’s MirrorShe turns to the right to catch another glance As a wing appears in the mirror behind her She turns to the left to see the other one And it shimmers in the light as a reminder The filament ripples in the sun when she smiles And she remembers what it was like without them She remembers when she first noticed them Hardly visible at all if not for the boy who found them — Two years ago she was buried in her bed Her dress still tangled up in the sheets with her Her cottage was in disarray And she abandoned the world Content to lay there and wither It seemed only right after her prince had turned on her And fled to the sky Everyone said he would do it That he would show her who he was And she’d see it was all a lie “Not this one,” she defended, “You’ve seen too many gargoyles to know when you’ve got a prince.” She knew they were wrong, but couldn’t say how She only knew he left her And she hadn’t been happy since But after several weeks of wallowing and pining and dread She found a note slipped under her door To pull her out of her head “Your true love longs for you and calls for you even now. Go quickly but don’t miss it. What’s in the glass will show you how.” She jumped back and dropped the note Afraid to believe it could be true Her inner voice told her that night this was meant to be And she must see it through But she heard that voice again in the note And felt compelled to move She dressed herself quickly and raced down the hall Having everything to prove Just as she turned to open the front door She caught herself in the gilded mirror That rested against the wall It’d been there all her life But somehow it seemed brand new She remembered the note She remembered the call Suddenly the girl in the mirror smiled at her It was a gentle but devious smile Like a happy sprite hiding a pot of gold Just as our fairy realized she herself was not smiling The girl stepped toward her And her skin turned cold With a flinch and a gasp The fairy stepped back Surprised But unafraid She didn’t know how this was happening But she took a deep breath And stepped forward again To meet the girl in faith In the glass the girl lifted a hand toward her In the hall the fairy reached back Their hands touched and the fairy was renewed with hope The girl in the glass stepped back Resting her movement to match the fairy Who looked down at her hand to find another note “My darling fairy I know how you long for love I can hear your cries in the night What happens below happens also above Fear not for what you think you’ve lost What’s been taken from you Is only to show you what you’re made of Because what is inside you can never be lost When you are made of love” She read the last line again And looked up to the mirror Searching for the girl To see her response There was none It was only her now And something behind her Something shiny and translucent Like copper or bronze Confused, she grimaced Wondering if there was something wrong with her mirror And then from behind her, something wiggled Enlarging as it wriggled She didn’t think this could happen here Oh she knew what this was But could hardly believe it It didn’t play out like old stories had told She thought fairies were born and not made They didn’t just grow wings Out of the blue And pink and chartreuse and marigold — It was the boy two years ago who saw them first The boy inside a prince Who thought he was a gargoyle This was why he had flown away And why to this day She remains so loyal What he saw in himself was flawed But what he saw of her was not She has eyes to see now What happened between them And his sorrow when he left her She never forgot She tugs one last time to straighten the bow On the mirror she wrapped for her friend Word of his engagement had reached he And she foresaw the prince’s end His family too Was with him she knew All of them asleep and entwined She waves to the courier Who’s been trying not to hurry her And hopes it will reach him in timeThank you for reading and listening. I hope this story enriches you as much as it does me when I read it again. See below for parts one and two. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit natlajune.substack.com/subscribe

When I was putting my book together, I found a poem I had written shortly after Navy Guy broke up with me. I was talking to a number of avoidant men and feeling all kinds of sympathy for him when I read my own words and saw avoidance in me too. Nothing But NowWhen I first saw you I dropped my phone Something in your eyes said trouble I was afraid you would break my heart But I didn’t know how hard you’d fumble If I’m really honest with myself I was afraid that I would break yours Because hard as I love, everything above Said it’s me who’s always at war I never really know what I want This moment right here is all I’ve got There’s nothing I can promise but now So nothing you were Could have ever been sure I wouldn’t have left you anyhowI knew it was going to be unhealthy for us to try to force something back then. I didn’t want it to be that way, but I knew we would hurt each other if we didn’t both get some more healing done. It wasn’t just him. I had issues of my own I didn’t know were dormant and waiting to be triggered. He may have felt it. He might be the only person whose intuition I trust as much as my own. Back then I didn’t want a relationship. I wanted “spicy friends”, someone to help me feel safe in the bedroom again, and if I was lucky, someone to be an actual friend too. It became so much more than that, so quickly, it scared me. The chemistry wasn’t just physical—it was almost childlike. The energy between us was playful and fun, and at times, like we may have actually been kids together in some other life. I felt intuitively that his soul was significant to me but the idea of soulmates was off my radar after leaving Christianity and growing more cynical about spiritual ideas. It still makes me cringe to think I’m actually attached to someone on that level. It’s too weird. I know, woo woo Nat is saying soulmates are weird. Honestly, I feel like this is another subtle sign of avoidance. I don’t want to believe in that sort of thing because I don’t want to be attached to someone. All I know for sure is that I saw myself in him and that’s why I was drawn to him. He matched my energy and he showed me who I am. What I couldn’t see in myself I saw in him. Things I didn’t know about myself I discovered through him. In my desire to learn about him and what makes him who he is, I ended up learning about my own childhood and things that had been driving my own behavior in relationships in my past. I was a runnerAnother poem I wrote that did make it into my book is Mattress Mike (at the end of this post). I told the story about how I was starting to fall for him, but I was too young still for the kind of relationship he was perfect for. He was on his way to being a family man. He was in college, had a good job, lots of family and friends for support, and I was a party girl with party friends, several odd jobs, and no career prospects. I was sure I would hold him back. I left him abruptly and never saw him again. When I was in high school and even more in my post-college-dropout years, I had a habit of coming on strong and then backing off just as quickly when he got excited about me. I remember going to see Runaway Bride and having a lot of mixed feelings about it. I completely related to her, but I also wanted her to finally do it right. I hoped I could too one day. I had a desperate need to be loved, but often it was just a need to be seen and heard. I had spent most of my childhood suppressing the parts of me that were uncomfortable for others and I wanted someone to see me and want all of me. I would cling to someone for awhile, right up until he started to get serious and then I’d panic. It wasn’t fun anymore. I would lose my independence. I would be forced to grow up too soon. I would miss out on fun with my friends. He would eventually see me the way everyone else does and he would change his mind. Buyer’s remorse was my real fear. I wanted to stayI had a bit of a wake up call last year when I saw an avoidant woman talk about a moment she had in which she knew she wanted to heal for good. She had finally met someone who made her want to stay. She genuinely didn’t want to run this time and I resonated with her. That’s what I felt. I was terrified of what I was feeling for B. I knew he didn’t want a relationship either, but something about him made me want to face that fear. I wanted to fight my fear to be with him. But he didn’t want that. So I had to pivot and start working on healing the loss of him. I shared the whole thing here and on TikTok in April through the summer of 2023. I managed not to run this time. I stayed and felt all of my feelings. It almost destroyed me. I was easy going and aloof on TikTok (I had wallowed over my ex-husband, no one wanted to see me do that again), but I cried myself to sleep for months after the last time we talked in June. I had headaches from crying so much. I felt like I was losing a part of myself, and in a way I was. I was losing the version of me that was full of fear, the part of me that was just like him. I think that was my real fear back then, that I would lose the me that connected with him. Although I had “moved on” from our relationship, I still had feelings for him. I still do, though they’ve moved slowly into a more platonic space. It’s interesting as I’ve developed a few other platonic friendships this past year. It’s an even deeper love than romantic love. There’s a loyalty to it that crosses space and time and is wholly unconditional. My friends are my friends, no matter where they live or when I last saw them. We’ll pick up where we left off with no expectation, no pressure. I like him in this space. Feeling all those feelings that year was so important for healing, not just from a breakup, but from all the s**t that caused me to get attached and then run. Every time I cried over B, I would write a poem or have a dream—or even get a vision—that would point to something in my childhood that was tied to the feelings. The pain was a compass, showing me the way toward old wounds. One at a time, I opened Schrödinger's box to find my heart both alive and dead depending on what day it was and whether I was running or fighting. A tarot card reading that summer put me on my path, telling me “You are love.” I was still thinking about him every day, but it wasn’t wishing, hoping or pining anymore. It was more curiosity, “I wonder what he’s doing right now.” And sometimes it was, “S**t, I can’t send him this meme, I’m sure he could use the laugh.” And then, “I hope someone is making him laugh.”In letting go of him in my 3D, I was sharing who he was with TikTok and other people were able to learn from us. Avoidants and those who love them have told me what a difference it has made for them to hear about our story, to know we can still have a beautiful loving experience with someone even if it’s not forever. Sharing him with others helped me heal the part of me that had a hard time letting go. I was able to hold onto a part of him awhile longer—the part of him that was me too. And some of the parts of him that are so much better than me. So as I navigate love today, I’m learning to stay grounded in my body and not stay in my head for too long. When I start to feel the urge to cut ties with a man, I’m checking my body for information. Is this feeling fear or am I genuinely annoyed by this guy? Is he really not good for me or am I just afraid he could be? I’ve met a lot of men and haven’t found one I really like, so I often doubt myself. Is this me running before I even have a chance to get close to someone? I don’t know. I know I don’t want to waste a man’s time if I’m not interested, but how interested do I need to be? Does it need to feel like fireworks or can a fire burn slowly? I’m comfortable with my independence, but I wouldn’t mind another spicy friend. But can I really do that again? I don’t know. I’m still figuring myself out. Mattress MikeI never wanted to leave you You were everything I knew I needed You checked every box My family would have had on their list And that night at the Cheesecake Factory I didn’t care if we ever got a table It was your stories, not the meal I would have missed Long walks on the beach were the dream My friends all said you might be the one Our bodies fit together like two vessels Crafted by the maker as a set I told my friends you were just okay And maybe I just wanted to have some fun But I knew it was more And I needed to make you someone I’d forget I wasn’t ready for the kind of man you were to become I was scared and hadn’t lived enough yet So when I saw a vision of our little girl Tugging on your pants that night Standing in the light of the fridge My mind told my heart it was time to get I don’t know why I couldn’t just say goodbye Cheating made it more final I guess I’d rather you hate me Than permeate me So I left you in a way you couldn’t protestLetter to the Fearful AvoidantIn writing this and talking about it on TikTok, I decided to write a letter to my old self, what I would have wanted to hear, and to all the people I’ve met the past couple of years who are in these shoes. Dear Fearful,Thank you for sharing yourself with me. I’m grateful for the time I get to experience you. All of you. Not the you who’s always on their game, who knows what to do, and who’s steady and sure, but the one who gets confused and insecure. Not just the you who’s happy and smiling, but the one who gets angry, who cries, and has really awful days. I love the you who feels like they need to run, and wishes they didn’t. The you who puts pressure on themselves to be everything everyone wants. The you who lives in fear they will one day be found out, that people will decide they aren’t enough. I love the you who wants to be more, but wants to be loved for who you are now. I love the you who feels the heavy weight of expectation and puts walls up to keep you safe. I’m not afraid of those walls. I don’t need to get past them. When you need to take space, when you need time apart, I have it to give. I don’t need you to be more than you are. I need you to be all that you are, as authentically as you know how to be. When you feel the need to be something you’re not, I hope you’ll tell me. I hope you’ll give me the chance to love you as you are and not who you think I want you to be. When you start to worry I’ll leave, I hope you’ll stay and let me show you I won’t. When you feel like you’re too much, I hope you’ll give me every chance to prove you’re not. When you’re unsure about my commitment, I hope you’ll let me show you what it looks like when love is loyal.On days when you need to pull away, I’ll still love you. When you don’t respond because you don’t know what to say, I’ll still love you. When your anxiety gets the best of you and you shut down, I’ll still love you. When shame makes you retreat from conflict, I’ll still love you. When you don’t know who you are and what you want, and you wish you could be more clear, I’ll still love you. And when you’re sure it’s really over this time, I’ll still love you. Yours always, and without condition. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit natlajune.substack.com/subscribe

Last night I was a man. It’s not the first time I’ve had a dream in which I found myself in a man’s body. I’ve channeled masculine energy before, but it’s different in a dream. It’s more three-dimensional, more human. Masculine and feminine energies are just energy. It’s not directly related to gender because we all contain both, but cis men and women in particular are conditioned to lean one way or the other. I believe healing work is always done from the perspective of a healer, so my conditioning comes into play when I’m channeling. Things that come to me are relevant to other cis men and women who resonate with me, so this is why it presents as binary for me. I’ve talked a lot over the years about how I won’t talk about something I don’t know about. People ask me to speak on things sometimes, other elements of abuse they’re experiencing, but the best I can do is point to things other people have said who have experienced these things. The same is true of channeling. I believe I’m given what I need to know based on how I was raised in the world, for the purpose of healing myself first, and then sharing the information I learn so others like me can heal themselves. I’m not given information outside of my area of expertise because it’s not my place to speak on something I don’t know. So if you’re not a cishet man or woman, the information I receive might not resonate with you and that’s okay. Please know I never want to exclude anyone. It’s a balance between talking about what I know and honoring what I don’t. Spicy DreamA few months ago was the first time I appeared in a dream as a man. In this one I was right in the middle of pleasuring a woman and feeling my body come alive with the experience. At first I thought it was a lesbian thing. I’ve been with a woman before, positions reversed, so it wasn’t particularly jarring or uncomfortable for me, until I felt myself becoming aroused by her and realized I was not in a woman’s body. She tasted incredible, and her moans were timed perfectly, almost with the beating of my heart, which was increasing in tempo. I was hungry and wanting more. Every time she moved I feared she would stop and I would have to stop. I wanted her like I’ve never wanted anything. And I was feeling all of this as a man. It was the strangest feeling. Somehow I still had the awareness that this wasn’t actually me and that I was in someone else’s body having this experience. I knew I wasn’t a man and this made it even more exciting. I understood how rare this was for me and I cherished it even more. The thing that stood out for me the most when I woke up was the intense feeling of pleasure that didn’t come from my own pleasure. No one was touching me. I wasn’t being pleasured. She was. And her pleasure was everything to me. I was aroused and ready to explode by the end because I was receiving her energy. I was directly feeling her pleasure as if it was my own. I’ve been grateful for this experience ever since. I hope this is how men really feel, and if they don’t I want them to. I want men to know this kind of pleasure, transferred from the woman they love. Channeled PoetryIn poetry, channeling is different. Rather than the full bodily experience while I sleep, it’s an energetic exchange while I’m awake. The first time it happened was with the poem Vanilla Fields (page 109 in my book). I was sitting at my desk at work, clocking out to take a break for lunch. I started to feel aroused but couldn’t pinpoint what was turning me on. There was no real stimulus in the room in that moment. This is how channeling works for me. It comes on spontaneously, like a gust of wind at a coffee shop when the air was previously still, blowing my cup and napkin off the cafe table.Vanilla FieldsI want to commit sins with you Create new abominations from scratch I want to tear at the skin of love with you And light a fire to vanilla fields I want angels to look away And demons to take notes There should be shaking and quaking In the face of the weapons we wield I want passion that forgets And bruises to remember That soft spot on your neck Should tell your friends the shape of my mouth I want the clutching of pearls When you tell them how I taste And I want to know how deep I can go Before your scream will lose its sound Tell me you want this too That you also wake to the sound of my voice Tell me you want me to rip you open Press into you until you're gasping for breath Make me believe there's a reason to come That there's not too much time that could pass Give me sign that you're still mine And I'll leave her before I'm dressedI gathered myself and “listened” for something more to come. I heard, “I want to commit sins with you,” and then, “new abominations from scratch,” and a poem began to form. I quickly opened my writing app and started to type. About 10 minutes later the last line was out. “And I’ll leave her before I’m dressed.”I didn’t yet understand that I was a man right now, and I had the urge to change her to here, thinking it was a typo. “I’ll leave here before I’m dressed.” But as I read over the poem for the first time, I read, “I want to know how deep I can go before your scream will lose its sound.” I blushed. Like old school, school girl, blushed. The energy had felt more urgent than I would normally write. It was definitely a stronger, more passionate feeling and less romantic than I was used to writing at the time. In fact, it was this poem that made me add a chapter to the book called Lust. But I hadn’t registered the masculine energy until I read the words and felt the opposing gender to mine. Whoever this man was, he had me on the edge of my seat. It happened another time in the poem His Last Word to God (page 95), which is an angry f**k off to God for making him fall in love only to rip love away from him. This was a new experience for me, to feel anger over the top of deep pain. I don’t experience anger very easily. It just doesn’t come to me often, so this was unusual. I wanted to hold this man and take away all that pain so he could feel love again. This is how I transmute energy for others. I’ve been doing it all my life but didn’t know what it was. In high school I was a black man holding his dying baby in front of a hospital where he was being turned away. I thought it was just a story I came up with in the moment. I now understand I’m picking up on the energy of others and moving their emotions through me and out into something creative. I don’t know who or if it’s helping them, but it helps me grow in empathy for everyone whose energy aligns with the ones channeled through me. ProtectorThis latest dream last night was a husband, father, lover, friend, and protector. I was him, this man who was tasked with protecting women around him and found himself failing. I don’t remember details this morning as I’m typing this, but I can feel the feeling. I was moving through various “scenes” in this dream and watching women around me experience things upsetting to them. None were physically threatening, but all were threatening emotionally or spiritually, and there was nothing I could do for them. I was prepared to save them physically, but totally unequipped to do anything else for them. I woke up to the sound of my teenage daughter’s cries echoing from the farthest end of the house, and a deep helplessness in my chest. I was physically present, but she was alone. I’m grateful for these experiences. It’s a privilege to have a glimpse into the hearts and minds of other people. I don’t know them, I don’t know where they live or the time period they’re in, but it’s always an enlightening experience for me. It’s one thing to have the knowledge of a man’s feelings for a woman, but to actually feel it is really something else. It has opened my eyes to how men move in the world and when I talk to them, I’m hearing something different in their words, things they’re not saying. I still wouldn’t dare speak for them, but I have more compassion for men, having these small windows in which to peek in on them. If you have any experience with something like this, I’d love to know I’m not alone. And if you have any other thoughts about this one, drop a comment. There are no trolls over here. ;)His Last Word to GodWhen the deepest parts of me yearned to be seen and heard You were preparing an ear and eyes to meet me When everyone said this life was all there was And everything in me begged them to be wrong You had love on the bench ready to defeat me I didn't need to beg for it Hunt for it, earn it Or compete for it All I had to do was receive it Grab it, hold it Rise up to meet it But I had seen this game play out already I was promised all of this and more You watched me burn You let me fight and cry and yearn And I was buried deeper than the last time More alone than every time before How could you expect me to trust it? What kind of evil would tease the heart of men? I'll take my chances And give up romances To keep you from fooling me again A Little NewsI’ve been rebranding this year to just use my name now instead of the mending me/always mending titles. With that came a change to the website. I now have my website and shop combined. This is where I have information about me, my books, and the other work I do. And I’m primarily using “bio links” now for the information you would have gotten from my website before. These are mobile friendly and single page to make things simpler. You can reach these from any of my social media. Check them out if you like and let me know if there are resources you think would be helpful to add to the marital coercion page. https://natlajune.com/https://bio.site/natlajunehttps://bio.site/maritalcoercion This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit natlajune.substack.com/subscribe

As I’ve been unmasking the last few years I’ve been paying attention the ways I "spend" energy. I'm also learning about ways I "earn" or renew energy. It costs me less energy to be myself than to be what other people expect of me. When I’m living for the expectations of others, I never seem to have enough.When I’m being myself I'm in energetic abundance. When I’m thinking for myself and acting from a place of the most authenticity, it requires a lot less energy from me. If I start to think about what people want from me, that takes energy. When I shape myself to be what’s comfortable for them, more energy. As I change my tone, my hair, my clothes, or even curb my laughter, that takes energy.If energy exchange is a currency exchange, I’m poorer when I’m not me. I’m depleted, overspent, and in energetic poverty. But it costs me nothing when I’m free to wear what I want and smile only when it feels right.In fact, living authentically replenishes my energy! I renew my energy when I’m grounded in who I am and not trying to be something else. I can also store up energy through the consumption of art and music, and other things that make me happy. My energy amplifies when I’m in nature, and with enough grounding, I’m rich with energy.If energy were money, I could buy a mansion on an island when I’m being true to myself. But if I’m busy about being what others want, all of my energy is given to them. I’m handing over my wealth to the people around me.So if I’m always giving to other people, people pleasing, I will end up with an empty wallet from which to give. But if I reserve my energy for myself first I can store up more energy and give from my surplus. When I invest in ensuring a surplus of energy from which to give, I’m never poor and I’m more free to give to others.Tell me about some ways that deplete your energetic bank account. How do you recharge? This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit natlajune.substack.com/subscribe

Before the TikTok ban I had a saved collection of videos depicting loving moments entitled “Love in the Wild”. I intended to share these but an election, inauguration, and an ice storm in my town put it on hold. I’d like to get back to it. A couple’s pole dance shows the art of balance and collaboration, with trust, strength, and intimacy—and they’re barefoot in the snow. (@cediyaelarts)This week I saw people in Florida laughing and squealing in the middle of a downtown city street having a snowball fight. (@savedbyduhbelle)Pamela Hemphill, a 71-year-old capital rioter, declined a presidential pardon saying, “It’s an insult to Capitol Police, to the rule of law and to the nation. If I accept a pardon, I’m continuing their propaganda, their gaslighting, and all their falsehoods they’re putting out there about January 6th.” (@couriernewsroom)A woman was struggling with depression and her husband set up an elaborate cozy bed on the couch, with snacks and blankets and pillows so she wouldn’t have to suffer alone in her room. (@nikadiwa)Another woman cries happy tears listening to her partner brag about her video views “after a lifetime of settling for people who hated to see you shine”. (@fallinginsociety)The Dream Center in CA was wide open to volunteers and donations to help people in the Pasadena fires when others were turning away volunteers. (@the.free.press)If you see something that sparks love in you (joy, inspiration, creativity, community, etc), send me a link, a photo, or a story. It can be something online or offline, anything that you think would inspire others. More than anything right now, Americans need hope. [email protected] This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit natlajune.substack.com/subscribe

Sunday mornings are my “church” as I drive across town to a favorite local coffee shop to write. Last Sunday was a little more urgent as I had thoughts about the TikTok ban that happened the night before. I spent two hours writing about “How to Survive a TikTok Ban (from a creator who was banned 8 times)” only to find it moot before I could get home to make final edits and post it. The app came back online around lunchtime. So I’m pivoting again. When I started up the app and saw the message thanking “President Tr***” who is not yet president, I knew the app I loved was gone and something else was in its place. The atmosphere was different. The energy was not how we left it the day before. This is not our app. There’s no sweeping it under a rug to keep a positive spin on things. I was encouraged to see so many of my friends and following echoing my intuition, but equally disheartened to see a surprising number of my spiritual collective cheering and back to flipping tarot cards like nothing just happened. What struck me about the night TikTok went dark, though, was that I was not very emotional over it myself. In the moment, I figured it was because I had been banned so many times I was used to it. I was mostly sad for everyone else going through this for the first time. There was collective heartbreak over the loss of what was for many our last place of freedom on the internet. But it hasn't always been great. Although we've been free of censorship from the US government up to now, we have seen a fair bit of suppression.Over the course of 4 years, TikTok has banned my accounts a total of 7 times. It was usually men reporting my content for "hate speech against a protected class" for talking about sexual coercion. I've also seen my videos suppressed when I have a lot of negative activity in the comments on a more viral video. And women have seen a pattern in what we're allowed to say versus what men can say to us. A man can threaten to rape me, but I can't tell him to f**k off when he does it. We've all come to learn how to code our speech to avoid getting flagged. For several years I referred to these men as "dingbat" until a few months ago that word finally got a violation.My existence on this app has been tenuous for a long time already, so by the time the app got banned, I had already detached. And practicing detachment in relationships, it wasn't all that difficult a task to let go. TikTok is a video app. There are other video apps. I've had to move apps before. I moved from Twitter, to Threads, and now to BlueSky. There's a learning curve and a mourning of features lost, but it's not the end of the world.TikTok is technically still banned. Apple’s app store no longer has it available. And though we can all still post, we are definitely seeing changes. There’s a lot more AI and right wing content, and the real raw videos from users “on the ground” have been pushed down in favor of media outlets. I’m seeing news far more often than I used to, and I’m not near as many humans sharing their personal vantage point. My news is currently coming from Substack and BlueSky, so that’s where I’m spending my online consumption. But I am still posting to TikTok for the crowd there who doesn’t want to leave. I’m sharing love and inspiration as much as I can before it’s gone and encouraging my other creator friends to do the same, with discretion. We’re all aware of invisible constraints and how to get around them. And we all feel a call to reach people before it’s too late. On any app that will allow us to. In the meantime, I’ve felt a renewed call to speak to MAGA voters, particularly Christians and women. I made the attached video after the app was back online, knowing it’s technically still banned and we may only have a short window to reach people. It was a call to my fellow creators in the abuse community to go back to 2020 TikTok and talk about abuse again, to show the world what it looks like. A lot of Trump supporters don’t know they’re under the spell of a controlling narcissist. They’re trauma bonded to a man who has made them promises he never intended to keep. They’ve been gaslit and brainwashed to stand by him and defend him the same way I defended and stood by my ex-husband. They need to see what abuse looks like so they can get themselves out of it. And this is key. They have to get themselves out. We can’t do much to help them. All we can do is share what we know. But as I said in the video, we’re stronger now than we were in 2020. We’ve healed and we’re in a better position to lead people to the truth of what’s happening to them. I’m excited to use what time we have left to share more. In fact, I’m doubly excited because I’ve decided to repost my old videos from the beginning. It just so happens I got my old account back a couple of months ago, my original mending.me account. It will take awhile to get through them, so hopefully the app will not be banned and I can get the main story back up. This will also pair with my book, which I’ve just posted more to today, go check it out (with paid subscription).Some posts that may help you * Detached - Right now is the time to learn the art of detachment. The world is changing fast and we all need to be on our toes, ready to move with it. * Fear & Love - Recognizing the differences in how fear and love appear in us can help stave off panic.* Transmuting Pain - How I’ve learned to move through pain and turn it into something else. * Changing the World from the Inside - How the healing we do within us can change everything around us for the better.* Authentistic - Autism and living authentically can help us confidently stand up against things that may try to hold us down.More from TikTok this weekAbout Forgiveness for the AbuserHealing in RelationshipHow to Listen to Yourself This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit natlajune.substack.com/subscribe

To make it all worse, I’m the type to hide from people who are inclined to offer me money when I don’t have it, so I tend to ghost my parents when things are tight so I don’t accidentally let on something is wrong. Imagine someone who feels this way about love. If you give them a hard time for pulling away, how much worse will they feel? Give Grace, give space. Love can’t always be on our terms. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit natlajune.substack.com/subscribe