Today I thought I was having a panic attack. I’ve never had one before, so I don’t know if that’s what it was. I just knew my body was overwhelmed. A friend came over and we talked. Then he said something I haven’t stopped thinking about. “What if the sensation you’re feeling isn’t something to fear? What if it’s your capacity expanding to handle difficult situations?” I don’t know if that’s true. But I noticed something shift the moment I stopped trying to label what was happening and got curious instead. I’ve spent years exploring emotions, and even with all that work, it’s easy to jump straight to the story. Maybe the invitation isn’t to figure it out as quickly as possible. Maybe the invitation is to stay with the sensation a little longer before deciding what it means. Maybe it’s anxiety.
Maybe it’s stress.
Maybe it’s grief.
Maybe it’s a nervous system stretched to its edge. Or maybe it’s capacity growing. I don’t know. What I do know is that curiosity created more space than fear did. That felt worth sharing.

I’ve been traveling but happy to say I’ve landed home in Panamá. I understand there are a few glitches going into the second and third section. If you have experienced any difficulty, please let me know so I can try to make all the fixes at once. I will also be posting a call in a couple of weeks to check in and see where you’re at what you need. The interest is growing in this framework and I’m super excited to be able to share it widely. Thank you for your participation.

Getting through the chaos of a journey—whether in life or in ceremony—has been one of my greatest challenges. During a private Aya ceremony, the shaman and I spent hours talking through that process. Out of those conversations, the Alchemy of Chaos Wheel began to emerge. I’m still embodying what was given to me during those two days. It’s one thing to understand something with your mind. It’s another to embody it. And beyond that, to actually live it. That’s the part I’m still practicing. I haven’t had the opportunity to fully weave this into my facilitation work yet, but I have shared it with other facilitators as a tool they might find helpful. Now I’d like to share it with all of you. During that ceremony, the shaman read passages from my book, An Invitation to Shine: From Invisible to Invincible. The conversations we had, together with the interactive Emotions Wheel I had already created, inspired what eventually became this Alchemy of Chaos Wheel. I don’t see it as something to master. I see it as something to return to, again and again, whenever life feels uncertain. It’s my gift to you. Use it. Share it. If it helps you navigate your own moments of chaos with a little more awareness and a little more grace, then it has already done what it was created to do.. You can find the link to both the alchemy of chaos wheel and the emotions wheel here. https://kimberhardick.netlify.app/tools We are almost halfway through the beta testing of the Riding, the waves of emotions framework, and I soon will be sharing it and making it available more broadly. Stay tuned.

Last night we watched In Waves and War. I sat there thinking, this is why I’m so excited about what is happening in the psychedelic movement. Not because I think it’s a cure all. But because I’ve seen what can happen when these medicines are approached with intention, respect, and integration. For some people, especially those living with the exhaustion of trauma, they aren’t just another treatment to try. They become the first thing that helps them reconnect with themselves after years, sometimes decades, of simply surviving. That gives me so much hope. The medicine isn’t the whole story. Intention matters. The space matters. The people walking beside you matter. And what happens after… that’s where life begins to change. I recently learned about a place just outside Tulsa that’s doing this kind of work, and I’m going to go see it for myself. I’ve had so many of you ask when I’m going to host a retreat, and I’ve kept saying I’m waiting until I find the right place. I don’t know yet… But I have a feeling this might be it. I’ll let you know what I discover. Because if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that healing isn’t about finding someone to fix you. It’s about creating the right conditions to remember who you were before the world convinced you that you had to become someone else. That is the movement I’m excited to be part of. Not just psychedelic medicine, but the growing understanding that healing is possible, even for people who had almost given up hope. Go to my website KimberHardick . Com and signup for my newsletter to be the first to know!

Today I had an unexpected moment during a bodywork session. A memory surfaced of being held by my mother, and emotion came up with it. What caught my attention wasn’t the emotion itself. It was how quickly shame appeared alongside it. Not shame about anything I had done. Shame about being seen feeling something. I sat with it instead of shutting it down. And after a few minutes, the shame faded while the emotion remained. It made me wonder how often the feeling isn’t actually the hard part. Maybe the hard part is the story we learned about having feelings in the first place. Today was a reminder that emotions tend to move when we let them. Shame is often what keeps them stuck. This is what we’ve been working on in the first wave and places I’m still navigating.