00:00:00 Preview

00:00:35 Opening

00:01:10 Introduction

00:03:18 Interview with Maude White Begins!

00:08:42 Being Comfortable with the Uncomfortable

00:11:21 Creating Alchemy from the Past

00:14:15 Why is It Hard to Forgive Others?

00:15:50 How Can We Be Friends With This Big Lion Within Ourselves?

00:17:11 Asking the Right Questions

00:23:34 Moving from a Bigger House to a Smaller Apartment

00:34:47 AD – Download the Mystic Mondays App

00:35:45 The Feeling of Safety

00:43:17 What is the Balance Between Boundaries and Compassion?

00:47:27 What is Strength?

00:51:09 What Makes You Feel Safe?

01:01:40 Collective Card Reading from the Resilience Alchemy Deck

01:07:37 Collective Card Reading from the Pleasure Alchemy Deck

01:11:06 What are Maude’s Astrology Signs?

01:11:42 What Advice Would You Give to Your Younger Self?

01:11:57 What are Your Favorite Rituals?

01:12:11 End of Episode – Remember to Leave a Podcast Review on Apple Podcasts!

01:13:48 End Screen

Welcome to the GRACED Podcast! A space for everyday magic for your everyday life. We do this through rituals, aligning yourself to your soul’s purpose, and creating Alchemy to heal our mind, body, and spirits so that you can bring in more love and joy, manifest your desires, and believe in your dreams. Listen and watch over at grace.com/podcast and on YouTube, Apple Podcast, Spotify, Instagram, TikTok and all the places you can find me on social media. Now let’s dive into today’s episode.

💖 Introduction

Grace: Welcome to The GRACED Podcast, a space for everyday magic for your everyday life.

Today we have guest Maude White, who is the author and artist behind the Resilience Alchemy Deck and the Pleasure Alchemy Deck.

And in this episode, we talk about themes of the Strength Tarot card. Strength is a card all about inner strength, vulnerability, and the courage to be your authentic self. It isn’t just about outside strength, because I think when we typically think about strength, we think about physical force, and brute strength, and using our muscles to activate this strength, vulnerability, and But actually, we can use strength to honor our inner selves and to cultivate that vulnerability to be able to share that with other people, as well as opening ourselves up to share that within ourselves. It’s also about resilience, which is the ability to recover and persevere throughout challenges.

Because what is life without a challenge or two or a million? It’s about how you react when things get tough. Often when we are faced with life’s challenges, we can create alchemy, which is a magical process of transformation and creation.

Also, I do want to mention that we do have the Strength Collection available on mysticmondays.com, if you happen to be watching the video, you can see the Strength card poster over here, hung up behind me on the wall, in case you want reminders of the Strength card in your everyday life.

And we are doing a giveaway of Maude’s deck, the Resilience Alchemy on Instagram. So check out the @grace.duong and @mysticmondays Instagram accounts for more details on how to enter this giveaway and add this deck to your deck collection.

Now let’s dive in to today’s episode.

✨ Interview with Maude White Begins!

Grace: Hi, Maude. Thanks for being on the GRACED Podcast.

Maude: Thank you so much for having me. This is such an honor.

Grace: Yeah, definitely.

So today we’re talking about the Strength card, and what really drew me to ask you to be a guest on this specific episode was that you created the Resilience Alchemy, which is a deck all about cultivating empowerment, creativity, and healing from within.

You’ve also created the Pleasure Alchemy, which just came out, so these two are very complementary to each other, and I’m excited to dive into how Resilience and Pleasure are interrelated with one another. On the back of the Resilience Alchemy, you wrote, Resilience is the ability to recover and persevere.

And I would love to hear more about resilience and how you would define it, and also some moments in which you’ve had to embody resilience in your life.

Maude: Thank you. Yeah, and first off, I think what ties kind of Resilience and Pleasure together is the accompanying word, that alchemy word, that I’m really interested in the idea of alchemy, especially in the modern world, because we tie it to the past and to people from the Middle Ages who were trying to make gold or find eternal life, but if you really think about the definition of alchemy, it’s a seemingly magical, process of transformation, creation, or combination.

And so, when you think of it that way, that’s really what resilience is. Finding ways to recombine, rethink, or look at in new ways. Things in your life in order for you to get through things that you’re struggling with. Resilience to me is thinking about a tree. So if you think about a tree that is hit by a wind, or a snowstorm, or a rain shower, and how it bends and moves, but it doesn’t break.

So that’s really what resilience is for me. And with Resilience Alchemy, and with Pleasure Alchemy, I’m really fascinated by the idea of alchemy as a tool or an ally for both resilience and for pleasure. So with resilience specifically, I think of alchemy as a way to enhance and explore resilience through seemingly magical avenues because that’s what alchemy is by definition.

It’s a seemingly magical combination, transformation, or creation. So, Resilience and Alchemy together create this kind of beautiful, I think of it as the Lemniscate or the Infinity Symbol, and the Magician card, and the Strength card. That it’s this kind of never ending dance between, you need to transform something in order to feel resilient.

It’s your resilience that fuels your ability to transform something, so it’s this never ending dance back and forth. And to answer your question about times when I’ve needed resilience in my life or when it felt really important or relevant, I’ll say that both of the decks I’ve made, I’m making them because they’re things I’m trying to understand and trying to work through.

So I won’t say I know more about resilience or definitely not more about pleasure than anyone else, but they’re things I want to explore and I’m always interested in expanding. And I know that there are many times when I’ve struggled, And I have found this unknown ability to bend and not break, and it’s felt really useful to remember that and to bring it with me always.

So I don’t know if that answers the question, but, yes, resilience is definitely, I think of a tree, and if anyone out there is, if that’s a relevant analogy, I encourage you to think of that as just like yourself as a tree. that every time you’re hit with something or something unexpected happens. Remember how much strength is needed for that, and yet it’s not a brute strength, it’s a delicate strength. It’s a bending and then returning to your core, to your center.

Grace: Yeah, I would say strength to me and how that’s tied to resilience is also about challenges, and often we’re not necessarily aware of how much we can withstand if we’re not put into these situations where we’re tested, where we have to see if we can make it through, and most of the time we can and admitting when you need help, admitting when there is a quote unquote weakness or whatnot is also a strength in that there’s courage in being vulnerable, there’s courage in sharing flaws and not having to put on a bravado to seem like you are something that you’re not, and something about the Strength card, and especially with Leos that I meet, they’re very authentic and I would say that’s like the main aspect of a person that I notice, especially with charts that have a strong Leo aspect to them. I feel like, have that authenticity and the courage to show their authentic selves. But there’s something about inner strength that is really highlighted in the Strength card in being able to share the things that are not so comfortable. And I think that goes along with resilience.

✨ Being Comfortable with the Uncomfortable

Grace: When you are put into a situation that is uncomfortable, how comfortable are you with the uncomfortable and trusting yourself that you have everything you need in the moment to get through to the next?

Maude: Yeah, I was thinking about the Strength card recently and looking at it. And also doing some reading from some really amazing authors, I don’t know if you’re familiar with Jessica Dore, she wrote Tarot for Change, and then a bunch of other ones, and just looking at how is everyone approaching this card, and what can we gain, and it was fascinating thinking about the question that we don’t know whether the woman Who is so gently holding the lion’s head in the Pamela Coleman Smith image, whether she’s shutting the mouth or opening it.

And I think we always assume that she’s shutting it, that she’s gently curbing this beastly impulse but there could also be this element, oh, well, she’s actually inviting us to open it, to trust ourselves, and to just say the thing, the vulnerable, terrifying, scary thing, or like, let ourselves be completely true to ourselves, and that really struck me, just this aspect that we don’t know, and it could be either thing, and also, The only way to really be strong sometimes is to be really compassionate for ourselves and to just face and embrace fear.

Because I think a lot of times, the lion in that image is our fears, everything we’re scared of. And the only way to really be strong is to love. The things that we’re scared of. And that’s the only way really to be completely true to ourselves, which is that we can’t expect to be strong if we’re hiding from ourselves or from the world.

And yeah there’s so many elements to the Strength card that I find beautiful and also puzzling and always a revelation.

Grace: Yeah, that is such a beautiful way of looking at the lion in the Strength card and how the woman can either be gently taming this beast, this animal, but also there’s so much within us. Like, how many times as a child have people have been told to quiet down or to lower their voice or to be a good child by not speaking up and being quiet. And so I think there are a lot of repressed emotions from just not being able to express what you want to express in that moment. that just build up over time.

✨ Creating Alchemy from the Past

Grace: You mentioned something about creating alchemy from the past, although I think you meant it in more of a historical kind of context. There is something about creating alchemy from what you think you know, from the gifts and skill sets that you were probably validated or For when you were a kid, like, when I was a kid, I always knew I was good at art, so that’s like the thing that I wanted to do as an adult, and now as an adult, I’m discovering other passions that I like to do, like music, and other things, and I think there’s a sort of strength in also allowing yourself to Explore different facets of yourself and not necessarily having to be good at them.

And I think with the different moments of whether we know or not know if the lion is being gently tamed or being encouraged to express in that moment, I feel like that is a snapshot in time. That can be relevant to whatever you need to really elevate your sense of strength, whether it’s, okay, I’m acknowledging that I’m triggered in this moment what can I do to soothe my soul, to soothe whatever is going on internally?

Or, I really need to scream right now. I need to get out, this thing inside of me because I am so freaking mad. Like, otherwise I’m gonna blow up in another situation that would be totally inappropriate in that moment. And there’s just so many ways to look at the Strength card, but I feel like there is certainly an honoring of who you are.

The different aspects, the light and the dark, that come with being a human. Being able to honor the truth of who you are in the moment, but also not holding any attachment to it, not holding any attachment to what it can mean and letting yourself transform into the next version of yourself that you want to be, which I think relates to alchemy too.

Maude: Oh, yeah, absolutely. And I love what you said there, because there is so much that we’re always going to be discovering and that To attach ourselves, like we can’t become attached too much to any version of ourselves because we’re not meant to stay the same. We’re always evolving, and there’s always something new to learn, and there’s always something to also forgive too something that maybe we were told as a child, on the opposite side that we need to really think about and realize, I’m more than this or I can be this and something else, there’s always alchemy occurring and I think that’s what strength is, that recognition of our ability to, make change and to recognize change and to alchemize what doesn’t serve us, like we’re all alchemists and we’re all discovering strength.

Grace: Yeah.

✨ How Can We Be Friends With This Big Lion Within Ourselves?

Grace: How can we be friends with this big lion within ourselves and I think sometimes we can be afraid of the big lion inside of ourselves and maybe with all the distractions going on it’s just designed that way because people are so uncomfortable with feeling things.

Maude: Yeah, or we feel things and we just don’t know what to do with the feelings. So we just push it aside. Or we feel things, and we know we need to do something, but we’re not sure how, because we can’t solve all the problems. It’s not possible. In psychology, the way humans evolved. We can’t tell the difference between a problem that needs concrete action, like, the house is burning down, we need to get out of it, and an idea that’s scary to us.

Our brains are going to try and solve the problem the same way, and so, of course we’re going to struggle, and of course we’re going to have a hard time finding solutions for, Things that are brain invented like obsessive thoughts, or fears, or anxiety. So, like, how do we work with that?

Like, and I think Tarot cards and any deck is a really beautiful way of introducing an ally or a tool to help us work through, because our brains might not find the answer on their own, but if they just have a little help, a little ally or a tool, We can sometimes find the answer that was there and we just couldn’t see it.

✨ Asking the Right Questions

Grace: And I feel like our ancestors through different traumas that they’ve experienced our DNA sometimes can have survival mode just naturally activated and, have these fear indicators, whether or not you’re actually in a situation where you’re in actual danger in the same way that our ancestors were, and so we might feel the same way when you’re waiting for a text from someone you like or something, that’s not nearly as dangerous as being attacked by a wild animal or anything like that, but I think that just puts into context of fear.

We can’t control fear, but something about Tarot and your deck, your Oracle decks, there’s something about building awareness around what makes you feel those feelings, what is triggering those feelings, and something I noticed in your deck, I believe you wrote it in one of your guidebooks is you put a big emphasis on asking questions.

Yeah. And I’d love to hear more about why that is for you.

Maude: Yes. I think questions are incredible. They’re beautiful. They can tell us so much on the questions themselves can sometimes be the answers, because as soon as you articulate something, as soon as you write it down, you see it, and it leaves your body, so it’s not circling in your head.

You can look at it, and there’s this element of distance introduced, which helps you to really examine it and see, what it might be saying to you. And also, I’ve, found that sometimes articulating a question is sometimes the hardest thing. And then once we actually know the question we’re asking, that, we might know the answer.

It’s just being able to articulate it, and I think asking a question is, such an incredible gift, and also, a really beautiful challenge, but, that’s what’s so beautiful about, Tarot, or any deck system, is this, invitation to asking questions, and I remember Reading one of Rachel Pollock’s books, I think it was A Walk Through the Forest of Souls, where she referenced the idea that it was the first time I ever realized or recognized that you can create your own tarot spreads.

You don’t need to go by what a guidebook says. You ask the questions that you want the answers to, and then shuffle your deck and pull the cards. And it was so empowering to me just being like, I have the questions and I can also find the answers. And that was just really empowering and special. And so I think that any question is meaningful.

And, but there’s also the element that you have to know how to ask a question. And that’s a lot of the challenge is that a lot of the questions we might ask aren’t set up in empowering or helpful ways. Like, why can’t I, isn’t a helpful question. Like instead, how can I, or what might help me, or why is this difficult for me, or what might be an underlying root cause of this, or what can be a tool or an ally?

These are all more empowering questions. So I think that’s one aspect of question asking that might at first be difficult is just like figuring out, well, how am I phrasing it? And am I being kind in my question asking of myself or others? Am I doing it from a genuine place of curiosity, or am I doing it because I’m desperate?

I just need an answer. Like I think those, there’s this compassionate attention versus kind of frantic, hopeless attention, which is sometimes how we come to questions, like as a last resort. So yeah, no, I’m a big fan of asking questions and I feel like, even the creation of both my decks, they were, they stemmed from asking questions.

What is resilience? And can I learn resilience? Can I find resilience? Or what is pleasure? And I don’t know. And I’m still asking these questions. And every time I pull a card, I get a different facet of the answer. Because that’s the other element of asking questions, is that the question, is like one spoke on a wheel.

And like, any card you get, or any answer you get, It’s going to give you a different perspective, so it’s just this beautiful mosaic, and the answer is always going to be changing, just like your question might always be changing, but that doesn’t make it any less useful or relevant. It’s just this constant, a different section of the painting or the mosaic.

It’s just they’re all working together to make us stronger and help us, feel more strong and capable and really empowered.

Grace: Wow, I love that. There are so many amazing nuggets in there.

First, I feel like, societally we are trained to look externally for approval or have someone else give us permission to do something or affirm that we’re on the right path and so having that practice of coming back to the tarot cards or Oracle cards, or any type of, system that allows you to gain access to a sense of empowerment is really great because then you’re asking yourself those questions instead of looking it, looking for it from somebody else, which I feel like that creates a lot of the suffering that people are feeling nowadays because they’re feeling like they’re not totally right, whatever that means.

The other thing is, there is strength in solitude. There is strength in getting to know yourself, and when you take that time to have a ritual or a practice where you are asking yourself those questions that you may not ask in your typical day to day, it’s building that relationship with yourself so that you do have the strength to face challenges and know that you have the resilience to get through them because I think a lot of times when people don’t know themselves and haven’t really created that relationship with oneself, that’s where the misalignment can come in because then you’re chasing things that aren’t or taking action towards things that aren’t fully in alignment with what you want.

But if you don’t know what you want, then you’re like just going in circles, chasing things that you think you want, but don’t actually want.

✨ Moving from a Bigger House to a Smaller Apartment

Grace: So something, if you don’t mind sharing this, you actually spoke about this before we hopped on, in which you had a house, but now you found that you actually like living in a smaller apartment. And so, would you like to speak about that experience?

Maude: There were lots of elements involved. I bought the house to house my mother and myself, and then she ended up living elsewhere, so I was alone in the large, empty house. But, when I moved into my current space, which is a very small apartment, I recognized That, and also the idea that I wanted to own a house at all.

I felt like that was, a part of a checklist that I, as an adult, was supposed to check off. But, I realized that maybe I’m not someone who should own a house. And maybe I feel more comfortable in a small space. And maybe that time away was really preparing me to be where I am now. And so, I think, yes, absolutely, to be able to speak with yourself is so important and to quiet those outside influences.

And also recognize that there’s no right answer. That’s going to last forever, because if I hadn’t moved into that house, I wouldn’t have had beautiful experiences there, but I wouldn’t also be appreciating here as much. And that, I think it’s important to always remember that we don’t have to be completely right, and our questions or our answers don’t have to always be completely right.

That’s like a false binary. We can only do it if it’s the right thing. That’s something that I’m super guilty of, but like I’m always hesitant to act or to make decisions because I worry about what if it’s the wrong thing, but I don’t necessarily think that’s a true thing. I don’t think that there is ever completely right or completely wrong, but that the idea stops us from doing so much.

So I think that ability to ask questions And to always be willing at every stage in your life and in your journey to ask more questions or to go back to earlier questions and be like, wait, do I still feel that way? And it’s okay if I don’t. It is completely healthy and right for me to reassess things I believed in the past.

That’s actually very much strength, I think, like that ability to just keep coming to that lion. With that mouth open, keep coming to it, and even if you’ve been burned in the past, even if you’ve been bitten, even if, it’s been a scary experience to still come with that openness of, I am willing to face the lion, I am willing to either open or close these jaws, from a beginner’s mind, from this, openness, That’s where the magic happens.

Just like to not carry everything else with you and to start new every time, knowing yourself and knowing that you are always present with yourself.

Grace: Yeah, I believe it was Tony Robbins that said something along the lines of the quality of your life is defined by the quality of questions that you ask.

And I think that when you get into a practice of asking yourself questions, and sometimes we might ask it in a different, in a way that isn’t. beneficial to us. Sometimes you ask the questions looking for certain answers that just reaffirm what you want to hear and it is a perspective shift when you learn how to ask yourself questions that would better benefit you and I find that the quality of a reading, a tarot reading, or anything, really, the intention behind it, it affects the answers that you get.

So, the energy that you put into the question that you’re asking, the intention that you’re putting into a reading, and what you’re truly seeking from it, really affects, what is revealed to you in that moment. And sometimes you’re not meant to know. Sometimes I think that’s also strength, being comfortable with uncertainty and being present in the moment, which I think, I’ll admittedly, that’s like, I think why I got into tarot.

I just wanted to know what was going to happen all the time. And after a while, you just have to get comfortable with I am here in this moment. And I can’t do anything to change anything in the future unless I am fully present where I am right now. And that’s part of, being super aware of where you’re at and going back to what you said before of actually being in your body.

Not being in the past or the future, but being here in this moment right now, which is where actual change can happen.

Maude: Yeah, and also I have in front of me Kim Krans’s Strength from the Wild Unknown deck, and I’m just looking at it and thinking, wow, that’s a really soft-looking, the fur on that lion looks so soft, and to just be able to touch that fur that tactile aspect of being in the moment of that’s powerful, just being, like, If I wasn’t here now, I wouldn’t feel these things now. I wouldn’t be present for all of the sensations.

Grace: Yeah.

Maude: Just that, that’s like strength, is that ability to just like wrap yourself in like the feelings and like the textures of your life.

Grace: Right. Do you want to show us the card? I think you have it.

Maude: Yes.

Grace: Gorgeous.

Maude: Just that, yeah, I mean, just thinking of yourself just wrapped in that, and that gaze, too. That unflinching gaze. And it’s different than most decks, but your deck as well, has a tiger.

Grace: Yes.

Maude: A tiger, not a lion, a tiger. That being present aspect. Which strength is that embracing of the body as strength, not brute force, not what you do with the body, but the body itself is the strength.

Grace: Yeah.

Maude: And it’s funny because I struggle with being in my body, and that’s possibly why I feel drawn to these things. Like the Strength card, or the Pleasure, with My Deck Pleasure Alchemy, one of the suits is all about the body, different things, like listening, dancing, savoring, reclining, like these things, like I really struggle with being present in my body, and so that’s, maybe that’s why I’m drawn to them, it’s just… it’s, difficult for people to really be present in their bodies. For us to be present in our bodies and it takes a lot of courage.

Grace: Absolutely, that is something I’ve struggled with as well and something I feel like I’ve gotten to know myself more in the messages of whatever’s coming through my body. And I think it’s easy to step into avoidance, avoidance of feeling things, avoidance of pain, especially if you’ve had trauma in your life, which I think most people have experienced, whether that’s in this lifetime or past lives or generational trauma.

There’s just so much that is being thrown at us within our personal lives. And then culturally and societally, there’s things going off in the news, we’re constantly bombarded with things being thrown at us, whether it’s like being stuck in traffic, or a person yelling at you from across the street, or there’s just all of these things going on, and sometimes it can just be a lot for. The system, and I think life just requires a lot of strength just to get through it day to day, and I think sometimes it’s easier to numb it all out because there’s a lot going on, there’s a lot activating the senses all the time, and if you’re not consciously choosing to have that alone time to recharge, then you are put into a state where you’re constantly hypervigilant, and you’re not able to relax, and you’re like always looking for the rug to be pulled under you or because that’s what your body is expecting and feeling.

And speaking of taming the beast or taming the lion within, I feel like a part of healing is very much about allowing your body to feel what it feels like to be relaxed and to feel safe. Because I know for me and the way that I grew up and my parents were both immigrants and I think the whole thing was like, don’t trust anybody.

Don’t trust anything outside of our family unit. And then within the family unit, there was a lot of dysfunction and a lot of trauma there. And so I think I felt it’s just not safe anywhere, even with family, even with myself, right? And so I think a lot of the learning with my relationship to my body is just what does it feel like to feel safe in my body?

And can I allow my body to feel safe in this moment? Because in this moment, you and I are chatting about the Strength card and our bodies and really beautiful things that I think a lot of people need to hear to help themselves in their own journeys. And if I didn’t take the time out to care for myself, to nurture myself, in this moment, a past version of me could be all over the place.

Could be like, oh my God, I have to check an email. I have to do this. I have to do that and not be able to be present because I haven’t almost trained myself to be at peace.

Maude: Yeah, and also, it’s so difficult to feel safe sometimes, and sometimes there’s no reason that we can point to and safety is like such a foundational aspect of any life, and yet it’s for so many people, the least understood, like, why don’t I feel safe? Or why do I feel safe? It’s so hard to sometimes figure that out, or even understand what does safety feel like, exactly? That might be a question that, talk about questions. That might be a question that and I probably have asked this question in one of my work in designing the deck.

What does safety mean to me? What does it mean for me to feel safe? And that’s where I think decks are so beautiful and magical in every sense of the word. Magical in every way we can think of it. Not only metaphysical, but just, even the totally mundane sense of magical that you might think, oh, that flower is so magical.

Just any sense of magical. I think decks are magical because They open up a doorway, like any card is going to open up a doorway for you, and it’s your choice whether you go through it or not, and it’s also your choice how you interpret it, and how you interact with the doorway. So, the beautiful thing is we could ask the question, what does it mean for me to feel safe, and pull a card, and get an answer that we would have never occurred to us, and yet our brain is gonna find a way to make it make sense.

That’s the magic. And it is what we needed, because our brain is going to create something out of it and that’s alchemy. And that’s our innate ability to take care of ourselves at work. And to find safety, because I think our bodies do want us to be. At home, and to feel safe. Yeah, I think it’s beautiful, just, and I wish that everyone could feel safe, and it’s such a difficult thing that so many of us don’t, and we don’t know why, or we do know why, and we can’t find the answers for how to feel better.

✨ The Feeling of Safety

Grace: So what does it feel like to be safe for you?

Maude: I am still learning that. And I think the thing is that it changes all the time, and that we’re always going to be discovering new things, but what makes me feel safe is walking. I like to walk. Birds. Birds really make me feel safe. Listening to records. Holding things, like crystals, or a cat, or a hot cup of tea.

So, for me, and I would think probably for a lot of people, safety is Physical, like grounding exercises, either literally physically walking. Sensation, like warmth or cold. Breath, having companionship, having something to do with our hands.

Whenever I do resilience readings with people, I always encourage them to have something they can worry in their hands, like a worry stone or any object. You know, it could be a button something like that they can play with because I think oftentimes we think better and we problem solve better when our hands are busy.

Grace: And I feel like there’s a link between feeling safe and allowing yourself to feel pleasure because the things that you mentioned are very pleasurable, like taking a nice leisurely walk that’s very soothing to go out in nature and do that for yourself rather than, let’s say, sit all day at the computer. Allowing yourself to take the break or noticing the sounds of birds chirping and really letting that be a pleasurable message from the birds to harmonize your environment.

Those things are very pleasurable. Enjoying a hot cup of tea to warm your soul. Those things I feel like it’s very much grounded in your body. And something that I’ve been lately coming to is I’ve always felt very spiritual, even from a young age, and then as an adult, coming back into my body and realizing that spirituality and your spiritual self is very much linked to your body as well, because I think sometimes we can separate them, but we have a human vessel and we are inhabiting our bodies for a reason to really ground ourselves and bring divinity into our bodies. And allow that divinity to express through our bodies.

And something that I’m hearing from you, well, this is how I’m interpreting it, is that to allow yourself to feel this pleasure, and to feel these different sensations, there has to be a level of safety in your body as well, so that you can then experience these sensations.

Maude: Yeah, and, or a willingness to be open to things. I struggle with openness, and I think a lot of people do, just this instinctive kind of defensiveness, close yourself off, and I think openness is so difficult, but, and I think that’s again where the Strength card comes in, just this openness.

Yeah. This willingness to be open, to wait, to gently hold your fear, or hold what is unknown, and to see what happens. I think of one of the affirmations I say to myself a lot, and it’s actually my tattoo, refers to it, The mountains with the Sun or the Moon. And it’s this the idea is just wait and see.

See what happens. Cause, and it’s an analogy. Mountains take a long time to grow. They see what we can’t see yet because they’re higher up. Light hits them before it hits us. It’s just this idea of, let’s wait. If we can, wait and see what happens. Don’t panic yet, because for a lot of people, safety might not be possible right now.

But just that suspension, the waiting aspect, well, let’s wait and see. If you can just wait a little longer while we start the process, while we start working with the cards, or start asking the questions. You can just wait. By the time we’re finished, will we have realized that we are safe, at least in this moment, kind of thing.

So that’s, yeah, feeling safe I think is so important to so much, and it’s actually in both decks, the first cards of the decks, or the first cards of specific sections, have to do with being at home in the body, or the feeling of safety. So, it’s foundational, but I recognize that for so many of us it’s an impossible ask that we feel safe, and that is, A, something to grieve, you should feel safe, and it’s okay to be grieving that you don’t feel safe, that is modern patriarchal world that we live in a westernized culture this colonial mentality, these are all things that make it really hard, especially for women, and people of color and minorities to feel safe.

And so, it takes so much strength to really face that and to ask yourself or ask anyone to wait and see, can I be safe? Can I be open to safety, even if it feels impossible? That’s such a huge ask and there’s a lot of grief people are going to feel and I’m sure do feel all the time with the understanding that they can’t feel safe.

And I have no answers. Unfortunately, no answers, but with both decks I’ve made, I will say that I made them with the intention for people to feel safe. That is my greatest wish, that people can feel safe in their bodies, in their lives, and that they find places where they feel they can express themselves.

And I hope that the decks can help with that I’m hopeful, I’m ever hopeful for that.

Grace: Yeah, yeah, with your decks, I just feel a sense of going within myself, like really taking the time to get to know myself and the guidebooks are quite lengthy in a good way. Meaning that there’s a lot of information in these guidebooks.

There’s a lot of questions to get to know yourself. There’s a lot of information in here, and I feel like this could very much be a part of your ritual. For anyone who just wants to get to know themselves. Speaking of trauma, one of the last spreads in here is recovering from trauma spread.

So, I think there’s just a lot to uncover about oneself. And we’re always shifting, transforming. And learning more and more about ourselves, we’re not the same that we once were, especially when you do this type of work, when you allow yourself to alchemize yourself, and allow yourself to transform, allow yourself to uncover more layers of who you are, Of who you truly are, not what someone is telling you who you are.

And a lot of that does take time in asking questions, of answering your own questions, and sometimes when you don’t have the right questions to ask yourself, you can look at decks like this that have really great guidebooks and companions or other sources, there are many resources out there to get to know oneself, including these decks.

Something you said earlier about opening up as a strength, and it’s interesting because strength can be viewed in a lot of different ways, because when you said that, I immediately thought of protection. And protection is a sort of strength, too, in where people have to put their defenses up, you might have a house with a gate to protect your property, things of that nature, and really put up your boundaries.

✨ What is the Balance of Boundaries and Compassion?

Grace: And while looking through your guidebook, there was a spread or a question about boundaries and compassion. And I was wondering what you thought the balance between having boundaries and yet being soft and open with having compassion, because they do feel very on opposite spectrums, but they’re also interrelated.

Maude: Yeah, that’s an interesting question, because boundaries are so important, but there’s also that aspect of openness, like in the Pleasure Alchemy deck, the card I actually pulled today, Speaking of the guidebooks, I have a habit of making things incredibly complicated. More complicated than they need to be.

So, things can be used as simply or as in depth as they want, as someone wants them to be. But in this deck, there’s analogous to the Major Arcana, there’s a section called the Pleasure Seekers, which are, like, archetypes. And one of the archetypes in the Pleasure Alchemy deck is the Hedgekeeper, and her little affirmation is she sets and respects boundaries. And so the question with that is, well, what does hedge keeping, what does boundaries, what does that have to do with pleasure? How can that bring us pleasure? And I think that’s like a super important aspect to taking care of ourselves is like that balance between having a boundary, knowing where you begin and where others begin, where you run into each other.

I think so many people, myself included, have a really hard time knowing my own body, knowing how far I extend, and that’s not even taking into energy, and to account energy or anything, or auras or anything, this is just physically, like, where do I end? And knowing our own borders is incredibly difficult sometimes, but also super rewarding, because then you can recognize when you’re coming up against someone else.

And like, when that can be a pleasurable experience, like touching, or also exchanging ideas, where dialogue isn’t contentious or angering, where it’s actually stimulating, when two people come together and start talking about things and actually learn from each other. So boundaries are kind of essential to learning about yourself and caring for yourself and also recognizing how to find pleasure or how to feel resilient or be strong and kind of think I forgot what the question was.

I went off on a tangent, but what was the question?

Grace: I actually don’t remember either.

I was getting lost in what you were saying.

Maude: I know it’s a good question.

Grace: Oh, I know. It was about what is the balance between boundaries and compassion?

Maude: Oh, yes. Well, then I really did go off on a tangent. But yeah, so I think that knowing yourself and knowing what you’re capable of makes you that much more able to understand others and also know what you can give them or what you might need to ask for.

And I think that’s where I think compassion comes in. The word compassion means to suffer with that’s what the compounds are, suffer with, and I think that’s always a good reminder for us that when we have compassion, it means we’re suffering with someone, we’re not suffering for them, we’re not taking on their sadness, their grief, their anger, their suffering, we are empathizing with it, we are saying, I’m with you with this, but it’s not mine, and I think that’s where that kind of balance between having boundaries and compassion, you have to know yourself, know what’s yours, In order to be able to help others, and also in order for you to be able to ask, I need help with something, and recognizing where they can help you.

So, I think that did actually answer the question.

Grace: I think it absolutely answered the question. There’s so many ways in which we can approach strength, but I think most of all, knowing yourself, knowing your limits, knowing what your boundaries are, and sometimes we don’t know what that is until we’re tested.

And then through challenge, through each situation, we might have stronger boundaries, or we might let go of some of the boundaries that we had before that perhaps were protecting us, but maybe no longer serve the next version of yourself that you want to become.

✨ What is Strength?

Grace: There are different ways of exuding strength. Traditionally, I think strength is thought of as exerting force, of muscles, and building mass, and being bigger in a physical sense. However, I think with strength, and especially with the Strength Tarot card, there is certainly a soft strength. There’s something about not necessarily having to exert force to be strong, and knowing the difference of when to take action and when to wait, as you were saying, with the mountain, and standing strong, Within yourself, even with the sun and the moon, that are in the mountain tattoo that you have on your finger, there is something along the phases of time that you build strength with time.

It’s not like you come out of the gate, you might actually, you might come out of the gate super strong, you’re fresh from source, and life is throwing all these things at you and it’s making you build different muscles, making you build a different version of strength. And then you come back to yourself when you shed all those layers, and every version of yourself, you’re prepared for the next version of yourself, and that reminded me of something you said before of how, when you were living in the bigger house, if you didn’t have that experience, you wouldn’t appreciate where you are now, and I do truly believe that Life prepares you for the next moment that you’re about to experience.

an example of that in my life, I went to college for graphic design, and I didn’t think I would be making tarot cards or oracle decks or anything like that, but it obviously prepared me for what I was to do next, and I still use my graphic design skills. With marketing, emails, etc, so, that has proved useful.

However, it doesn’t mean that as a profession, I’m like, exclusively just doing graphic design work. It’s evolved into different avenues and different ways of how I choose to express myself. And, I do feel like I had to learn certain skills before I could do The next thing, or the skills that you gather at a certain part of your life, you then take with you to the next part of your life.

So, for example, let’s say you take an improv class, and then you’re put into a situation where you have to think on your feet. And the skills that you learned during the improv class really helped you in that moment. And had you not taken that class, you wouldn’t have learned those skills.

I do feel like you’re presented with those moments in life, just in general, it could be a lesson for you when you’re in traffic, like that example again and there could be a situation where, in the past, you might have gotten really mad, would have gotten really frustrated sitting in traffic, And then just noticing the shift.

Noticing the shift if the present version of yourself is like, hey, I’m in traffic. There’s nothing I can do about that right now except be present in my body, be here in the moment. I’ll just put on my favorite podcast, the GRACED Podcast, and try to enjoy this moment as best as I can. And I feel like that’s also moments of strength when you are able to recognize how much you’ve grown in those moments.

Maude: Like that strength is so often just the ability to be patient.

Grace: Totally agree.

Maude: And again with that wait and see. Just see what happens. And also just the willingness to not know yet.

Grace: Yeah.

✨ What Makes You Feel Safe?

Maude: But also, I want to go back and ask you because I feel like everyone’s gonna also would love to know what makes you feel safe?

Grace: Ooh, that’s a really good question. What makes me feel safe? So lately I’ve been doing a lot of unconditional love meditations. And I’ve been doing a lot of healing around generational trauma, past life trauma. I know I brought that up a little bit earlier. But helping me bring in the energy of unconditional love in my body has actually transformed my life in so many ways in that I feel more confident in myself and I feel more sure of myself, which I suppose means confident too.

But I think that if we’re not used to feeling certain sensations like that, meaning, I didn’t feel like I grew up with unconditional love. So, at some point in my life I was like, okay, I need to give that to myself. I need to create the things that I felt like were missing from my life. And I think Unconditional Love is such a amazing truth bomb, in that when you come back to love, you realize that was the truth.

And what I mean by that is, I think truth in your body is what feels good, and not in an avoidance way, in more of a wow, this sensation of me feeling unconditional love in my body, feeling that within every cell of my body, I know that is my truth. I know it is not my truth when someone is judging me, or when I feel judged, or when I feel like I’m being shamed for something, or when I’m feeling guilty about something, because I feel bad about it.

So that can’t be my truth, because there’s something misaligned in my body when I’m feeling those sensations. And so I feel like that’s actually a really simple barometer for anybody that’s like, I don’t know who I am. Which I think for me, because I grew up with I was like, oh my god, should I be doing this and that, and I was very confused because I didn’t know who I was.

And it took a lot of solitude and a lot of my own healing to come back to myself. And most of the time, nobody else is gonna give it to you nobody else is gonna do the meditation for you, nobody else, it’s that saying, it’s like, no one’s going to the gym for you, no one’s going to do those type of exercises that help better yourself, and by feeling safe, because I was and still doing those meditations for myself, I am then able to show up in a different way for myself because I feel safe in my body.

And this is an ever evolving journey for me as well, but something new that I’m working on has to do with healing my journey with my body. And I feel like because I gave myself the unconditional love and allowed myself to feel safe in those moments, it then created a shift. And how I felt about myself, and because I felt different about myself, I could show up differently and choose different avenues, meaning when you feel safe, you also feel safe enough to make different decisions.

Maude: Yes. I love that. Yeah. That’s like really beautiful alchemy there, that you’ve performed.

Grace: Yeah! I’m getting chills, because, yeah, it’s a lot of stuff, and I think a lot of people tend to hide. pain and to hide things that can actually be like connection points and not in a way where you’re just spewing out your trauma to somebody else because nobody likes that.

Meaning like you got you have to take responsibility for yourself and you can’t just spew off your stuff and expect someone else to handle that. That’s still not taking personal accountability for where you’re at. You are given these certain things because The universe believed you could handle it, and it is up to you if you choose to get out of victim mindset, to acknowledge if there is any blaming going on, acknowledge the part that you played in it.

That takes real strength, too, to acknowledge that you played a part in whatever thing is going on in your life, you have a part in it, maybe a part of you chose that, maybe a part of you manifested the situation that is not going well, for whatever reason! Not that you deserve bad things or whatever, but there are certain lessons that are to be learned in that moment.

For you to then prepare yourself for the next step, whether it’s the next chapter of your life, or maybe the next lifetime that you’re about to approach. Or, I do feel like you accumulate these skills for a reason, and that it’s not an accident. And you have choices all the time. So, to wrap that up, is that you have a choice.

You have a choice to heal yourself, and I know that in the past, my unhealed self will look at other people, and I would be like, why can’t they change? Why can’t they do X and X to make me more comfortable? Because this is what I want. So that I was giving away my power and my control. Or I was giving away my power by trying to control how I thought I should be treated by other people.

And I think that is part of strength as well. Like, you can’t really put your power outside of yourself and expect a different outcome because that is never within something that you can control. But what you can control is how you show up for yourself and I think that’s the shift in, I think, victim mindset and scarcity mindset and all that stuff is just like, when you take the power back and you’re giving yourself the things that you believe you deserve, and I think everyone deserves unconditional love, especially from themselves.

So, if you start giving yourself those things that you felt like you were lacking in your life, things start to change because you’re taking responsibility for your own actions and you’re not putting control in someone else’s hands to change your life.

Maude: Yeah, and that’s hard. That takes so much strength to recognize, what you can do and to recognize that sometimes there will never be perfect solutions, like that sometimes bad things that happened can’t be fixed, like that you have to go from here, like that you can’t change the past.

There was never a way to change the past. But, moving forward, how can you move from here? And also, going from an imperfect place, recognizing that there’s no such thing as being perfect, or perfectly good, or perfectly healed. Like, that’s never going to happen, because I don’t actually believe that there is such a thing as wellness.

As in this thing that we are all going towards, I think that we are, that’s kind of a false destination, that we are all just learning, and we’re always going to be learning, and that gives us grace, that gives us the ability to forgive as we go along, ourselves, others, and also to recognize boundaries, and to make mistakes.

Grace: Yeah, and I think that’s such a beautiful way of looking at life in that we’re constantly growing, we’re constantly learning. There’s a lot of, I think, blame, especially with social media and all the things that are going on in the world. I think people want to be right, and there’s such a huge, what’s the word, black or white thinking. You have to be right or wrong, and I know earlier you mentioned there’s shades of gray in there. There’s different perspectives to take into account and I think part of that strength, too, is just like being open to listening to what that other person has to say and being open to having a different perspective or a different way of looking at things or a different way of showing up in the world because who are you to say that this is completely right and honestly, I think that Keeps people sheltered in a way of thinking that doesn’t allow growth.

If you think this is the right way, this is the only way. Meanwhile, there’s I don’t know what that saying is, but there’s probably like a million different ways to come up with a solution or how many ways can you come up with a number four, like two plus two equals four, eight divided by two is four or whatever, you know?

Maude: Yeah. Well, and there’s never gonna be a perfect solution to anything, because there’s so many different perspectives in the world, but the diversity of the world, and the diversity of all of the people you’re going to run into, and their ideas, and how they feel, and how they feel safe, that’s what makes the world beautiful, is all of the differences.

And I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently, it’s just this idea that what could we look for instead, instead of rightness, instead of being right, because I think that’s what stops so many of us from doing things. Is this idea, well, we need to do it right, it needs to be perfect, or what if I’m wrong, what if I do it and I end up being wrong or bad, but again, they’re false binaries, like there’s no such thing, so what instead, what do we look for instead, if we’re not looking for The right thing.

Grace: Yeah, and I feel like when you approach it from that, or when people approach it from being right, it also prevents them from actually trying things, because then you’re like, oh, it has to look this way. I think actually when I started doing hot yoga, Years ago, I think I was really hard on myself on like, how it looked, and then I actually injured myself because I was trying to make it look the way other people were looking.

To be honest, at the time, I was still pretty new to hot yoga, so like, why would I expect that from myself. And I think when we, and I think that’s an example also of not necessarily being in the body and like trying to make it look a certain way because you think that’s what happiness is or whatever or enlightenment or like reaching the goal, but perhaps success for me in that moment, if I were to go back, would be, wow, my back feels amazing.

I don’t need to stretch beyond this point. And because I injured myself, I didn’t go back to yoga for I think many months, because I was like, ow, I really hurt myself. I don’t want to hurt myself again.

Maude: Yeah, and then the fear comes in, and then the all or nothing. Yeah, it’s so hard.

✨ Collective Card Reading from the Resilience Alchemy Deck

Grace: Well, this is such a beautiful conversation and I’d love to wrap it up with some rapid fire questions, which sometimes don’t end up being so rapid fire, but we’ll try.

And also, would it be all right if you gave us a reading from your decks?

Maude: Absolutely. I could pull a card from each deck and we could just see what’s coming up for everybody for whenever it is viewed. Should we do that first or the questions?

Grace: Yeah, actually, let’s do that first. Good idea.

Maude: Alright, we’ll do our Resilience card first. And they’re big honkin decks. As someone with small hands, I certainly chose a lot of cards.

Grace: How many cards are in your deck?

Maude: Resilience Alchemy has 83 cards. Pleasure Alchemy has 78.

Grace: Wow, amazing.

Maude: So they’re nice, big cards. And they feature artwork I made. I’m also a cut paper artist, so this is artwork that I cut, but yeah, so let’s relax our shoulders and take some deep breaths. Anyone who’s watching this, just be in your body, let’s think about resilience.

Interesting. So we got a sister. So the sisters in the deck are the mentors and the teachers of the deck, so whenever we pull them, they are inviting us to learn lessons from them and to basically be apprentices.

So this is the Mourner. And she lights our candles as her subtitle. So I like to think of it as, if she was wearing a name tag. If you’re at a job fair or something and someone has a name tag, the Mourner is her job title and this little subtitle is what she’s teaching us. So I think this is an interesting card, and I don’t know what’s going on in your life, but currently when we’re recording this, there’s a lot of really difficult things happening in the world.

And I think especially in the western world, we’ve forgotten how to mourn. And how to take a pause and recognize what it means to grieve. So this card is a reminder that if you are holding something close that you’ve lost or that you feared you’ve lost, that it might be time to give it light and to give voice to it and to just let yourself mourn for something.

Either for the world, which is the inclination I’m feeling, just kind of mourning for people. Any, you know, this kind of, like, your unconditional love, like, just unconditional feeling of, like, I recognize all of the grief in the world right now feeling, but also, personally, there’s something that needs to be mourned that we often hold things close and keep them secret, and it’s time to give it light.

So light a candle today if you can. I have a candle lit for me right here. I’ve been lighting a lot of candles recently, actually. Just so this card is inviting us to mourn, and to light some candles. So it’s a bit of a downer card, but also not to be neglected. Because, again, I think in the West especially, we have a habit of hiding.

Mourning, and being embarrassed when we show emotion, and when we’re upset, and I think it’s important to recognize that it is natural and normal to mourn, because we care about things, and sometimes things are lost, and it does no one any service to ignore that, or to push that aside. So, I don’t know how, do you have anything you’d like to add?

And when I do readings with this, it’s, I also usually offer, what brings, what comes up for you? Is there anything you’d like to share about this card or any wisdom that you’d like to offer?

Grace: Yeah, I just thought it was interesting that you had mentioned grief earlier in our conversation, and I think that grief is such an uncomfortable emotion that people don’t like to admit when they’re grieving, but also when someone is grieving, I don’t think people are usually comfortable Being around a grieving person, because that can be a lot of emotion for someone else to be around that type of energy.

And so I think the process of grief also takes a lot of strength in that. And I think it’s interesting that the saying is, she lights the candles, is that what it says?

Maude: Yeah, she lights our candles.

Grace: She lights our candles, and so how I’m interpreting that is, when you’re mourning and when you’re grieving, there is a light at the end of the tunnel, and sometimes we need to clear some of that emotional baggage for you to even see what the hope is, or see what the, I think, lighter moments are.

That can happen when you allow yourself to grieve, and then sometimes we’re holding on to grief for a really long time, and I think there’s no set time for how long you could grieve, because that’s different for everybody, and the amount of grief you might have for a certain situation can be different versus something else. And so, I think that really speaks to how, time isn’t linear, and healing isn’t linear, because an experience you might have as a child that, as an adult, you finally feel safe enough to release and have grief around, could have happened when you were very young. It’s not like you’re over it, you know, in a second.

Or, you could be carrying that for the rest of your life if you don’t allow yourself to express those feelings. Deeper, darker emotions. So, I think grieving is really important, and possibly not talked about enough because it is uncomfortable, and it can be pretty dark sometimes.

Maude: Yeah, and I think that’s the beautiful aspect of the card, and the reminder is that what in your life, Might need some light.

Can you, what, if you could, or if you had the opportunity to light a candle for something in your life, what would it be? And would you say a prayer? Would you release something? What needs light? I love what you said about sometimes you can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel, so this is the invitation to make the light. So you can see.

Grace: Absolutely.

Maude: So that was our resilience, our resilience reminder, just to remember. And then, yeah,

✨ Collective Card Reading from the Pleasure Alchemy Deck

Maude: Pleasure Alchemy. So this is all about how to find pleasure, what pleasure is, and I’m still struggling with this, which is why I made the deck. I make decks on things that I’m trying to figure out, so…

Grace: Well, it’s interesting because I always feel like, as deck creators, we always learn the lessons of our cards.

Maude: Yeah, and are still learning, and still do not know the answers, but slightly closer.

Grace: Will we ever know the answers?

Maude: No, or the answers will always keep changing every time we ask the question, and that’s what’s kind of awesome and beautiful.

Oh, interesting. So, in this one, we have a suggestion card, which is Coterie, and for this one, since it’s a new deck, I actually pull it, what the guidebook says out, so I can give a little bit of, you can have both, you can have the ad hoc version and then the actual guidebook version. So, the suggestion card. The Suggestions in Pleasure Alchemy invite you to take action. Much of the wisdom in this deck comes from thinking, feeling, meditating, and observing. Yet sometimes direct, in the moment action may be needed as well. The Suggestions give you ideas for making concrete use of the other cards in the deck. The Suggestions are about what to do in different situations you may be facing. What specific, in the moment action might help lead you toward pleasure right now? What specific, in the moment action might help you make use of the other cards we’ve pulled? And the Coterie card. Which is the third suggestion.

Coterie (noun) a small group of people with shared interests, affections, or tastes. Message: alchemist, today calls for all your people. Gather your friends around you. Can they offer support and encouragement? Let your actions be informed by the wisdom and experience your coterie offers. Yes, there are some things that must be faced alone. Yet this card comes to tell you that today, solitude is not the answer.

Do not try to do it all yourself, except help. Welcome loving support, and if your decision must truly be solitary, allow yourself the relief of shared laughter and refreshment with your friends afterward. Take a break and relax when the difficult work is done. May your people encourage and support you when the going gets tough.

And then for each one of the cards, there’s ideas for how to use the card, and then a card spread. So the ideas.

Who are your people? Make a list. Give your coterie a special name to make it official. Plan weekly or monthly gatherings to strengthen bonds and share laughter or tears. If a coterie feels elusive, think of your houseplants as your coterie. Think of your favorite books as your coterie. Think of your crystal collection or tarot decks as your coterie. How do these unconventional companions offer support and encouragement? Gather your friends and get advice before making any big decisions.

Then the Coterie card spread.

How does my coterie help me find pleasure in my life? Why might it feel difficult for me to find connection with others? What can help me overcome this barrier? How can I strengthen bonds with those I care about? In what unexpected or unusual direction might I find an unconventional sort of helpful coterie? What aspect of this specific situation requires the support of my coterie?

And the card spreads can always be adjusted. I always encourage people to take out questions that are not relevant or put in their own questions to replace them. I’m always surprised by what cards come up when these kind of collective readings show up. And these are two that I don’t think I’ve ever gotten doing readings.

✨ What are Maude’s Astrology Signs?

Grace: So what’s your Sun, Moon, and Rising?

Maude: My Sun and Moon are both Scorpio and my Rising is Virgo.

Grace: How do you feel about that?

Maude: I feel like they make sense in that, and I’m not as knowledgeable about astrology as I could be. I have this weird mind block. Tarot came to me. Astrology it’s like, I’m not supposed to know yet, but from what I’ve learned about it, I think they make sense because I do feel that I’m very intense. Pretty obsessive, very, and watery, but also incredibly detail oriented, which I think is my Rising Virgo aspect, love the details.

✨ What Advice Would You Give to Your Younger Self?

Grace: Amazing. And what advice would you give to your younger self?

Maude: Wait and see. Just wait and see. Also, yeah, it’s not as awful as you think it is. Like whatever the thing is that you’re really worried about, wait and see what happens. I would say that.

✨ What are Your Favorite Rituals?

Grace: And what are some of your favorite rituals?

Maude: Tea every morning, lighting a candle in the evening, going on a walk. Those are things I do take very seriously. I don’t know if I would call them rituals as much, but like my version of rituals.

✨ End of Episode – Remember to Leave a Podcast Review on Apple Podcasts!

Grace: Amazing. Love that. Well, thank you so much for your time, Maude, and this delightful conversation.

I feel like there are so many nuggets in there for people to really understand their relationship with themselves, but also develop their own version of strength, whatever that means, and that. There’s a wide variety of how people can show up in their most powerful sense of selves, whether that’s by exerting strength, exerting force, or by waiting and seeing and having patience and endurance and just allowing yourself to wait, and to trust in the divine unfoldment.

I think there’s strength in all of it, and that the version of yourself that wants to show up in that moment is exactly how it’s meant to be. So thank you so much for sharing yourself, your decks, and If you want to get the Resilience Alchemy and the Pleasure Alchemy, they are available for you to dive into, for you to learn more about your resilient yourself, what gives you pleasure, and I think they’re really great ways to understand your own sense of awareness and develop that awareness and it’s a whole journey of learning who you are, so these are great companions for that.

Maude: Well, thank you so much and thank you for having me. It’s been lovely talking to you and learning from you. Just, I don’t give myself enough unconditional love or share it with the world, so that was a good reminder. So, thank you for that.

Grace: Thanks.

Maude: I really appreciate that. Thanks for having me.

Grace: Until next time.

Maude: Bye.

Grace: Thanks so much for tuning in to today’s episode with Maude White. Maude’s introspection clearly lends itself to the decks that she’s created, filled with wisdom on how to pursue your pleasure and also how to acknowledge and activate your resilience.

Strength doesn’t always need to be defined by physical force or brute strength, but more about that power that we can cultivate within ourselves. That inner strength that we can only see when we are faced with challenges and when we overcome them.

And don’t forget, we will be doing a giveaway of the Resilience Alchemy deck over on Instagram, so go over there to check out all the details on how you can enter to win this deck and add this deck to your deck collection.

Until next time, friends. Remember you got this and keep on going. Sending you grace today and every day.

Thanks for tuning in to this episode. Remember to subscribe and check out more GRACED Podcast episodes for how to apply everyday magic to your everyday life. See you next time.

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