Mind Over Magic: How Folklore, Intuition & Quantum Science Intertwine
What if your intuition, déjà vu moments, and strange little “knowings” weren’t random at all - but clues to how connected and powerful you really are?
In this episode, I sit down with folklorist, creator, and author Tracy Nichols, whose work lives at the crossroads of folklore, mindful living, practical magic, and grounded science. Together, we explore why so many spiritually-curious people sense something deeper but hesitate to trust it… and the surprising science that explains why your gifts might be far more real than you think.
We dive into:
✨ How folklore reveals universal patterns about intuition, spirits, fairies, and unseen forces
✨ The science of energy, quantum entanglement, and why “cutting cords” actually makes sense
✨ Why your intuitive hits aren't imagination - and how to start recognizing them
✨ The role of ritual, symbolism, and attention in activating your own magic
✨ Stories of shapeshifting, ghosts, and real-life moments that defy explanation
✨ How Tracy blends psychology, folklore, and quantum theory in her book Mind Over Magic
This conversation will stretch your mind, validate your gifts, and remind you that the magical and the mundane were never meant to be separate.
If you’re a coach or conscious entrepreneur learning to trust your intuition, strengthen your gifts, and step into the fullest expression of your voice — this one will land deeply.
The book, Mind Over Magick
https://www.crossedcrowbooks.com/shop-crossed-crow-books/p/mindovermagick
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Transcript
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: There's a point where people start to sense that their intuition, creativity, and weird little knowings aren't random at all, but they have no idea how to trust them, let alone use them. Today's guest discovered something most folks never realize, and we'll circle back to that
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: exactly what that is by the end of our conversation. Hi, and welcome to the You World Order Showcase Podcast, where we feature life, health, transformational coaches, and spiritual entrepreneurs stepping up to be the change they seek in the world.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I'm your host, Jill Hart, the Coach's Alchemist, on a mission to help coaches and entrepreneurs amplify their voice, monetize their mission, and get visible. If you're ready to start attracting premium clients without chasing algorithms or hunting people down like a banshee on a mission, head over to Coachsalchemist.com and schedule your free client acquisition audit. It's the first step to building a business where your clients seek you out rather than you
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: having to hunt them down. Today, we are chatting with Tracy Nichols. Tracy works where folklore, mindful living, and creativity meet. As an animist and lifelong student of practical magic, her work explores how ancient stories, nature wisdom, and modern life intertwine. She hosts the podcast Folkloring, serves as the theater and film correspondent for the Folklore Podcast.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: and designs immersive escape room-style games rooted in story and symbolism. With a background in stage management from Columbia.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: college and a master's in learning and organizational change from Northwestern University. She brings both intuition and science into the conversation. She's also the author of Mind Over Magic and lives on Chicago's North Shore under the watchful eye of her feline supervisor, Pat. Welcome to the show, Tracy.
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::Tracy Nicholas: Thank you, thank you for having me.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: So, let's get this party started, shall we?
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::Tracy Nicholas: Yes.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: What's the most significant thing, in your opinion, as individuals, we can do to make an impact on how the world is going?
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::Tracy Nicholas: Well, I think that… it's
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::Tracy Nicholas: getting involved, really. And, of course, we can only do so much, and you have to know your limits, and focus on what you can do. And maybe that's political for you, maybe that's energy work for you, maybe that's connecting with nature in a positive way.
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::Tracy Nicholas: I think that it's just a matter of not continuing to mindlessly consume and find ways to connect to the world around you, whether that's people, or animals, or nature in general. I mean, go hug that tree.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I love trees.
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::Tracy Nicholas: I'm.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I'm growing a forest in my backyard. When I moved there, there was one tree. It was very lonely.
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::Tracy Nicholas: No.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: So it invited its friends over, and I planted some, and we've got almost 100 trees in various stages of growth in 5 years.
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::Tracy Nicholas: I loved finding out that one of the ways that trees communicate with each other is through, like, an underground network of mycelium.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Right? Okay.
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::Tracy Nicholas: And so, just that sort of, you know, symbiotic relationship. And so, I always think of it every time I see trees, and I see them often, because I live across the street from an arboretum. And so… so yeah, that was just the coolest thing to find out.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And we're gonna talk a little bit about magic, and how magic shows up in our lives, and I think trees are a perfect place to start with that, because trees are magical.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: They… they generate energy, and they move water around in our systems, and…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: In my worldview, magic is just science that hasn't been explained properly.
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::Tracy Nicholas: Of course.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: it's not…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: It is magic, but it… it's not, like, a mystery. It's… it is now a mystery. Someday, it probably won't be. But trees… trees are so powerful.
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::Tracy Nicholas: And we just look at them and think, oh, yeah, that's a tree.
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::Tracy Nicholas: Yeah, I find it really interesting that there used to be a theory, so you know how… do you know the term crown shyness?
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::Tracy Nicholas: So, if trees are all about the same size, they tend to not overlap their branches when they're near each other, right? Oh, yeah. There's, like, you can look up, and there's, like, a little, you know, space around.
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::Tracy Nicholas: And they used to think that it was because the trees, like, somehow, like, figured out they didn't like the rubbing the branches.
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::Tracy Nicholas: But then they came up, I heard recently, that it's more like they're being polite to each other. Like, you know, I don't want to take your son. So I thought that that was really fascinating. I don't know how they determined that, but I heard that recently, that now the theory has changed.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: It's interesting, because trees will move, and trees… we were talking about, you know, they talk to each other, they do talk to each other, and they nourish each other underground. There's a place in Utah that has…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Quaking aspens, and it's the largest living organism on the planet.
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::Tracy Nicholas: Oh.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Because it's one organism, lots of trees, thousands of trees on this… on… in this organism, that they're all connected.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: you get that going… I have it going in my yard. I have poplar trees, and there's a mama tree that's in my neighbor's yard, and then all the babies are showing up in my yard, and they do, they give themselves enough space to be a big tree, so they don't…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: there's not, like, 9,000 of them sprouting up right next to each other. They space themselves out. And if you plant another tree over there with them.
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::Tracy Nicholas: It's kind of like they say, oh, come on in! I had this one tree that I brought from my son's house.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And it was a good-sized tree. It's maybe 14 feet tall, and I… I was afraid that it wasn't going to live, and I planted it, and I talked to it, and I encouraged it, and I stuck it right next to this other group of trees, and .
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::Tracy Nicholas: Then I waited a few weeks, and all the leaves turned brown, and it was just like…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I was like, oh no, and I put my hand on it, I was gonna pull it out, and my husband, who was mowing the lawn, he points at it, and I looked really close, and there's all these baby green leaves!
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::Tracy Nicholas: -
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: It took… And now it's… it's super happy, and…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Living next to his buddies, and…
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::Tracy Nicholas: Yeah, they say that even if a tree is cut down, if it's around other trees, they will continue to nourish the roots, and just, you know, keep it going.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And that's how baby trees get going, under those big canopies, because they don't get light, so they have to be nourished from the roots up.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: So… and that's where the fairies live.
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::Tracy Nicholas: So we established that trees are magical.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And, and home for fairies. Who are also magical.
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::Tracy Nicholas: Yes.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And, and not necessarily…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: always, like, having your best interest at heart. This is something I just learned this weekend!
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::Tracy Nicholas: Oh, no, no, not at all. Like, that's why people say things like the good folk, because they don't want to…
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::Tracy Nicholas: anger the fairies, and why you leave out offerings for them that they're going to, like, want. Because they… it's not that they're, you know.
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::Tracy Nicholas: dark or evil or anything like that. They just live by a completely different code of ethics.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And so, you know, some things, like.
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::Tracy Nicholas: they'll see an attack as, like, hey, you did something bad to me, you know? And of course, you hear, like, don't step in a fairy circle, and so, you know, which ferry circles are cool in and of themselves, but
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::Tracy Nicholas: They say, oh, you'll be whisked off to the land of the fae, and then they'll make you, you know, dance all night. Don't ever eat any food if you get into the land of the fae.
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::Tracy Nicholas: And, yeah, be careful, put out those offerings, because they will come for you.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And don't… don't do them in your house.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Because if they get in your house, you can't get them out.
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::Tracy Nicholas: Well, you know, there are some good, like, house spirits, which I would consider to be part of, like, the world of Fae, you know? There's house spirits that clean up overnight, there's house spirits that repair things, so…
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::Tracy Nicholas: You know, there's some… some good…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Pacific boundaries.
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::Tracy Nicholas: But again, you have to leave out offerings for them, you can't,
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::Tracy Nicholas: thank them, or it'll offend them, and then they'll leave, and you won't have your house fairy anymore. And so there's lots of rules to that, too, so you gotta be careful there.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And do you cover all these rules in your book?
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::Tracy Nicholas: I… no, I don't, because really what I'm looking at is what can we prove today? I talk about fairies, and I talk about the belief systems behind them.
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::Tracy Nicholas: But, in my opinion, at this point, we cannot prove that. And I tend to focus in the book on things that scientifically, we can
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::Tracy Nicholas: prove, or that have what the psychological basis is. But, you know, when you're talking about magic.
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::Tracy Nicholas: there's just as many people that believe in magic as don't believe in magic, right? And so you can't just say because people believe it or don't, you know? People who don't believe in it tend to use examples like, oh, you're gonna wave your wand and a bag of money will appear. No, it doesn't work that way.
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::Tracy Nicholas: But if it's, like, we can't just say, because these people don't believe in it, it's not real, because, you know, these other people do believe in it. And I think that…
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::Tracy Nicholas: there have… they have experiences. Like, they believe it because they have had experiences that say to them, yeah, spirit is real. I've talked to a ghost. You know, magic is real. Fairies are real. I work with them. And…
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::Tracy Nicholas: As a folklorist, to me, it doesn't matter if
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::Tracy Nicholas: those stories are true or not, right? It matters that people believe them.
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::Tracy Nicholas: And why they believe them. Maybe they're talking… this is, you know, some sort of, like, metaphor, or maybe it's just symbolism, or maybe they're talking about, you know, going into a trance, and then they visualize something.
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::Tracy Nicholas: It doesn't matter. If you say fairies are real, I'm gonna say, hey, that's interesting, why do you think that?
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I've seen shape-shifting before, so I… that's like…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And I question it myself, but I know what I saw.
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::Tracy Nicholas: Yeah, I've seen… I saw Shapeshifting for the first time back in August of this year.
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::Tracy Nicholas: 2025. And, it was wild. And, like, I know what I know. That happened, right? And I've met a ghost, on a couple of occasions, and honestly, it's like most ghost stories I hear from people who actually have, are saying they know ghosts.
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::Tracy Nicholas: It was completely mundane, totally boring, normal conversation, didn't know anything was up until after it was over.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Yeah.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Because that's just how it works!
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::Tracy Nicholas: Yeah, I mean, it's not…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: it's not, like, the super… there's no music playing in the background, and I think that's what…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Makes us have these weird feelings when we're… we're thinking that.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Well, there should be the spooky music, so we know how we're supposed to feel when we're talking to this person, and anticipation of what's going to happen next?
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::Tracy Nicholas: Yep, it was in a well-lit lobby that I happened to be, you know, by myself in, with a locked door, and there was a knock on the door, and I let him in, and he asked to use the bathroom, and I said, sure.
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::Tracy Nicholas: And he goes and uses the bathroom, and then the actors started coming out, and I said to the last couple of actors, like, hey, don't leave, I don't want to be here alone with this dude, he's been in there a long time.
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::Tracy Nicholas: I was sitting about 3 feet from the door to the men's room, and…
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::Tracy Nicholas: one of the guys, I finally said, look, maybe he's sick. Like, can you go in and check on this dude? And he goes in, he comes out, and he's like, there's nobody in there.
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::Tracy Nicholas: And I was like, what? And then I remembered what he said was specifically at the door. He said, I was here earlier.
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::Tracy Nicholas: Can I use the restroom.
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::Tracy Nicholas: And I said, sure. And so then, you know, I searched the theater, and there was nobody there. I got into work the next day, and I said to the woman who actually worked for the building, I said, hey, a weird thing happened last night. She just looks at me and said, oh, you saw the ghost.
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::Tracy Nicholas: And then she told me the whole story about how he died and all this. But yeah, it was…
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::Tracy Nicholas: Like, completely normal encounter until it wasn't.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Yeah, I would… We don't…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Rarely do things come out of whole cloth. I won't say never, but it's very rare. And there's all these stories about encounters with ghosts, relationships with ghosts.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I mean, we're talking about fairies, dragons, all of these things that are…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: that people have experiences with, and we both experience shapeshifting. I'm not even sure that the person I saw shapeshift knows he's a shapeshifter.
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::Tracy Nicholas: The guy that I saw shapeshift had no idea it had happened.
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::Tracy Nicholas: Because we talked about it after, yeah.
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::Tracy Nicholas: And there's also, you know, the stories are worldwide, right? And that would be… if there wasn't something happening, it would be very unusual to see those stories all over the world, but you do, but people speculate because, you know, people want to understand death and all, so, okay, maybe it's that.
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::Tracy Nicholas: But… There are such specific
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::Tracy Nicholas: types of ghosts. You know, there are interactive ghosts, there are ghosts that are, like, in a place, and they're caught in a loop, there… you know, so… and those stories tend to be worldwide as well. And so, you know, then again, back to, you know, put my folkloring hat on.
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::Tracy Nicholas: Why those stories? Why, you know, why believe it? Why are some places haunted and other places are not?
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::Tracy Nicholas: And, you know, so you start to ask those questions. Now, I don't think we're in a place where we can prove or disprove spirit, because we don't truly understand how consciousness works at this point. Like, we know we can, like, put people under if they're gonna have surgery, right? We don't know why that works.
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::Tracy Nicholas: Like, we know what works, but we don't really understand it, and so… you know.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Or where they go.
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::Tracy Nicholas: What?
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Or where they go when they're under surgery, and you can't ask them because they don't know.
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::Tracy Nicholas: No, no, it's a complete blank after. And so…
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::Tracy Nicholas: It… it's… it's like, we don't understand enough.
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::Tracy Nicholas: to understand if consciousness can go on past life, because that's what a spirit is, right? It's your consciousness in the state that it was when you were alive, or sometimes when you were younger for dementia patients and stuff like that, but
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::Tracy Nicholas: We… we can't… like, they're saying, oh, you know, a body's 2 ounces lighter, and that's the soul leaving.
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::Tracy Nicholas: Is it? I don't know. You know, I mean, sometimes bodily fluids are released, maybe that's it. Who knows? But we… until we understand consciousness, we can't truly define whether or not consciousness lives on past life.
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::Tracy Nicholas: And that's… that would be what would prove that, yeah, spirit is real.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And you can't even ask… you know, I know there's lots of near-death experiences out there, but…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Because it was just near death, Even if you… We're clinically dead.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And came back, you still can't definitively say
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: yes, that was the experience you… well, it was the experience you had, but it's not definitive that it's an afterlife, because you apparently weren't dead, because you're back.
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::Tracy Nicholas: Right.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: It's the comic!
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::Tracy Nicholas: And there's a lot of theories on that. It's like, oh, you know, your electrical, you know, pulses in your brain are starting to die down, so weird stuff happens in your brain. And one of those things is seeing the light. And, you know, so there are other potential
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::Tracy Nicholas: explanations for it. So, you know, again, we…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: We can prove that.
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::Tracy Nicholas: like…
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::Tracy Nicholas: People are experiencing this, we just can't prove why at this point, because we don't understand enough about the brain right now.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Yeah, and it's so fascinating. I mean, just all of these bits and pieces. We can't even just, you know.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Bigfoot's a good example, or the Loch Ness Monster. You know, there…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: There's some evidence that they exist.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: But nobody's really seen definitively, oh yeah, this is it.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: But…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: and mermaids. But you've got all this old architecture and anthropological… archaeological sites out there that point to, you know, chimeras existing at some point,
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: if you watch Ancient Aliens, they're gonna be like, we suggest that this is what it is, and I don't.
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::Tracy Nicholas: Right.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Could be. Could be not.
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::Tracy Nicholas: Yeah, I have a guy that I interviewed once, and he went on this big, long description of how one of his good friends is a selkie.
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::Tracy Nicholas: And so… and I'm like, have you ever seen her with her seal skin on, or just, like, straight-up human form? And he was like, human form. I was like, okay.
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::Tracy Nicholas: That's… you know… I have not met a selkie, but, you know, I haven't been to Scotland, so…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Yeah.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Is it possible?
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Yeah, in my worldview, anything is possible.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I've seen and experienced things that are just, like, I can't explain them.
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::Tracy Nicholas: And…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: like, I've seen dark entities… I had a dark entity throw me across the room once.
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::Tracy Nicholas: Wow!
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And… it was… It was in, I'm…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I thought it was a dream.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: But then I… I was in my bed. It was, like, awake, a dream, that one. The other time, I saw it go across the room.
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::Tracy Nicholas: And…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I know what I saw.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: That freaked me out. But I was awake for that one. But… I don't know.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Yeah? Is my mind playing tricks on me?
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::Tracy Nicholas: Yeah, I… it's funny, I saw dark… I've seen dark entities before, and it's… it's a lot of times, like, then you look at it and it's gone, right? I remember I was in the middle of a divorce, this was years ago, and I…
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::Tracy Nicholas: woke up, and my husband often worked overnight, because he was… he was a rigger for concerts, and so he would have to stay for the concert and take the stuff down. And I woke up, and there was this dark figure standing over me.
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::Tracy Nicholas: And I looked right at him, and he was there, and then I, like, blinked, and he was gone. And I was like… and it felt very, you know, ominous. It felt very.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Yeah.
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::Tracy Nicholas: And so, I…
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::Tracy Nicholas: you know, it was gone, so I didn't, you know, think anything of it. And after I moved out of that house and into my own house, I ended up… I can't believe I'm gonna admit this… I ended up reading Eat, Pray, Love.
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::Tracy Nicholas: And in the prey part of it, there was a shaman or something that she was studying with, right? And she,
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::Tracy Nicholas: The shaman describes these, like, three brothers.
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::Tracy Nicholas: And they're supposed to be protective spirits, and one of them would be exactly, like, like, protecting from, like, it was…
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::Tracy Nicholas: like, I was on the right side of the bed, and it was right next to me, and, you know, my husband's side of the bed was the left side, and so it was, like, sort of aiming that energy at his side of the bed.
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::Tracy Nicholas: was my later interpretation, you know? Was that really it? I don't know.
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::Tracy Nicholas: I'm not one to get sleep paralysis. I've only had it once or twice in my life.
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::Tracy Nicholas: Although, sleep demons are very interesting.
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::Tracy Nicholas: But… but yeah, I… that's not… What happens to me?
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Absolute paralysis, and, and…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: the dark entities are different than sleep paralysis. Sleep paralysis generally happens, I'm… I am asleep, and I'm trying to, like.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: talk, or… screen, usually. Right.
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::Tracy Nicholas: Right.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: You can't, because you're… paralyzed.
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::Tracy Nicholas: Well, a lot of people have described it as feeling like a heavy weight on the chest. It has been described as, like, an old witch is sitting on you. There's a lot of diff… or a demon is, you know, sitting on you, but…
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::Tracy Nicholas: Yeah, like I said, it's happened… for me, the couple of times it happened, it was exactly like that, and it was…
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::Tracy Nicholas: triggered by an unusual noise happening, and I assume it was, like, I was just waking up, or just, you know, like, getting, like, my lighter sleep cycle, and so, you know, it sounded like something was coming up the stairs, and that triggered it.
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::Tracy Nicholas: To, like, to wake up. I… if I have nightmares, yeah, I sometimes start to scream, and it wakes me up before I really start.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I get trapped in it?
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::Tracy Nicholas: Oof That's gotta be terrifying.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: It is, it's like… Can't move. Can't… Tell anybody… Thank you.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: You can feel it coming, coming out.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: So…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Your approach blends folklore, science, and magic in a grounded way. How do you explain that intersection to somebody who's curious but skeptical?
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::Tracy Nicholas: Well, I think that we have to turn back to what we know.
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::Tracy Nicholas: what we don't know, and what we can't ever possibly know. And I think that
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::Tracy Nicholas: Things that people have described in the past as magic are… there's scientific proof behind them.
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::Tracy Nicholas: And so, I talk about things, like, when people are like, oh, I'm sending you energy, right?
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::Tracy Nicholas: And The example I give there is a really common sense one. When you go to a concert.
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::Tracy Nicholas: you can tell if it's a good energy, right? And if, like, the… and the energy goes back and forth between…
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::Tracy Nicholas: you know, the people and the musicians, or actors, or whatever it is. So we know we exchange energy, right? And so if I'm thinking, oh, I'm going to send you healing energy, right? Well.
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::Tracy Nicholas: Can we heal ourselves?
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::Tracy Nicholas: And for that, I look to the placebo effect.
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::Tracy Nicholas: Right? And, you know, when I think about the placebo effect, that is… well, when I… let me stop there. When I think about magic, magic is…
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::Tracy Nicholas: changing something within yourself or the world around you in a way that doesn't involve mechanical intervention as we understand it, right? So, placebo effect. I take a pill.
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::Tracy Nicholas: It doesn't have any, you know, ingredients in it that are going to do anything. And my brain says, oh, there's medicine.
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::Tracy Nicholas: And so whatever condition I have, or illness I have, I get better.
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::Tracy Nicholas: So basically, nothing happened to make me better. The brain just decides, and then heals me. Like, how is that not magical?
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::Tracy Nicholas: And so… so we know we can heal, we know we can exchange energy.
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::Tracy Nicholas: But those things are up close.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Right?
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::Tracy Nicholas: So… Then we turn to quantum physics.
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::Tracy Nicholas: Right? And… This is science that we've known about for 100 years, more. And when I look at entanglement.
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::Tracy Nicholas: Right? And so, quantum entanglement is the theory that people do, when they have interactions, they have physical ties on the quantum level, right? And we…
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::Tracy Nicholas: maintain those connections, no matter how far we are from each other. That's real. Einstein was talking about this, right? He called it spooky action at a distance.
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::Tracy Nicholas: So… To prove that, we look toward quantum game theory.
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::Tracy Nicholas: And quantum game theory is… About, we're… about…
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::Tracy Nicholas: how the quantum level affects us. So, if you take
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::Tracy Nicholas: what's known as a Bayesian game, which is a logic game in which the players don't have enough information to play without guessing, essentially.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And so…
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::Tracy Nicholas: A very simple example would be, like, envision a grid with 3 squares across and 3 squares down.
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::Tracy Nicholas: And two people will be playing this game. And one person can only fill in, you know, a circle on the rows, and one person can only fill in, you know, a square or an X on the columns. And so, they each choose where they're gonna put their symbol, right?
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And…
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::Tracy Nicholas: If they both put the symbol on the same square, they lose the game.
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::Tracy Nicholas: If they do different squares, they win the game. And so, it just keeps going until they get the same square. Now, for people who have connected with each other, if they had a conversation, they've talked, whatever.
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::Tracy Nicholas: they will do statistically better than they should if they were just guessing, right? And this is, you know, a provable phenomenon, it's been tested over and over, it has… even in more complex games. And so…
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::Tracy Nicholas: And even if they don't talk to each other, see each other, look at each other during the game, they do better than they should. And that is because of that quantum entanglement.
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::Tracy Nicholas: And so, when people are talking about cutting cords, that's a real thing.
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::Tracy Nicholas: Right? You are still, you know, connected physically to your ex. Right? So…
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::Tracy Nicholas: what do you do about that? Well, the answer is not visualizing, you know, scissors cutting a cord. That's not it, right? The answer is that you lose some of your older entanglements when you create new ones.
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::Tracy Nicholas: So, this is like what we were talking about earlier. Go create an entanglement with the trees in your backyard. Go hug them, go hug them. But, you know.
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::Tracy Nicholas: Get a pet. Talk to your friends. Go on a walk and listen to the birds. Like, anything that you can do, even if you pick up beloved objects in your house.
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::Tracy Nicholas: All of those things are a strong current entanglement, and they weaken other entanglements. Now, should you also think about, you know, visualizing it? Yeah, that's a great ritual.
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::Tracy Nicholas: Right? It is a good way to say, I'm in control of this, I am not just helplessly attached to this person, and that lets you
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::Tracy Nicholas: reclaim your power, which brings you more to your present moment, and gets you not obsessing about an ex, or, you know, whatever, some…
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::Tracy Nicholas: you know, somebody's said something rude to you earlier, and you want to say, no, this is my power. So, I think that ritual, in general, is great for that kind of thing, because it frames your thinking around what you want, and
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::Tracy Nicholas: That's where I think, you know, manifestation. Sort of the right idea, I don't think it goes far enough.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Right? Because…
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::Tracy Nicholas: the magical and the mundane are not two separate things. We keep them in separate boxes, but it's not like that. The mundane IS the magic, and so…
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::Tracy Nicholas: part of that is creating the right mindset around practicing the kinds of magic that we know to be real. And I'm not talking about, like, pseudoscience stuff and all of that, I just think that
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::Tracy Nicholas: part of what we need to do is make sure we're using all the tools that we have available to us, because you need to do it all, you know? And you need to, like, meditate regularly, so your emotions are, you know, better under your control.
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::Tracy Nicholas: And you're doing that purposefully, so all of the things that you do, you wouldn't expect to
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::Tracy Nicholas: go to the gym after not having gone for years, and be lifting as much as, you know, people who go every day for years, right? You have to practice those things, and so that's what you can do for yourself to make your life more magical, really.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: So earlier we talked about that moment when people realize their gifts aren't really random. What is the deeper understanding they're actually tapping into, and how can listeners begin to recognize it in themselves?
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::Tracy Nicholas: Well, I think that…
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::Tracy Nicholas: you know, part of it is what we just talked about. When you're talking, you know,
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::Tracy Nicholas: clairvoyancy, right? So, a lot of that is…
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::Tracy Nicholas: Again, explained by what these connections are between us.
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::Tracy Nicholas: I think that everybody, you know, when you're talking about clairaudience and all of the different claire senses.
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::Tracy Nicholas: it is important to pay attention, because I think all too often, we say, no, I'm imagining that, or no, I'm, you know… and for me.
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::Tracy Nicholas: what happens for me is I get…
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::Tracy Nicholas: an earworm, right? Some random song will suddenly start,
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::Tracy Nicholas: just running through my head, and I can't figure it out. Within a day or so, I'm like, oh, that's what that was about.
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::Tracy Nicholas: Because I paid attention.
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::Tracy Nicholas: if I just…
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::Tracy Nicholas: thought, oh, this is so annoying, I don't want to think about it, and I pushed it out, then I wouldn't make the connection.
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::Tracy Nicholas: Right? And I think… a funny thing happened to me not too long ago. I kept hearing these dogs barking. And that's not unusual for my neighborhood, because everybody has dogs. And…
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::Tracy Nicholas: But what would happen, it was all day long, which is really strange for around here. And I'm like, are these dogs outside? Are they locked out of the house? And so I'd go to listen to hear where it was coming from, and as soon as I'd step out onto my porch, it would stop.
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::Tracy Nicholas: I'm like, okay, well, that's weird. And so… but I didn't think… and it was bugging me for days and days and days.
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::Tracy Nicholas: And then I was talking to a guy who is a channeler.
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::Tracy Nicholas: And one of the goddesses he works with is Hecate.
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::Tracy Nicholas: And I was relaying this story to him, because he had been telling me, like, oh, one of Hecate's symbols are dogs, right? She always has a couple dogs with her. And I start to tell him this story, and he basically starts channeling Hecate, and says, oh yeah, that was me.
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::Tracy Nicholas: And I was like, okay, alright, that's fine. So then…
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::Tracy Nicholas: The next day, I'm at home, and the neighbors had guests visiting, and the guests had this yippy little dog, right?
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::Tracy Nicholas: And it was outside, and it was just bugging me, it was yipping and yipping and yipping, right? And I was like, oh, I wonder, you know, maybe I should set up some representation of Hecate on my altar or something. And, like, into my head pops the phrase, no, that's not me.
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::Tracy Nicholas: And so…
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::Tracy Nicholas: again, is it real? Is it just me thinking of that? It doesn't matter. It just matters what I do with the information, and I think that that's true. And everybody thinks to themselves, like, everybody's got…
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::Tracy Nicholas: spiritual, psychic, magical imposter syndrome. We all have it, and we all… am I crazy? Am I really? You know, and…
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::Tracy Nicholas: Again, it's the practice. It's the practice, practice, practice that will help you
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::Tracy Nicholas: identify. You can identify what energy is yours and is not. And so, if you suddenly are angry when you stop in the coffee shop, like, look around you.
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::Tracy Nicholas: You know? And…
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::Tracy Nicholas: If you say something bad happens, and you need help, and you go in a store, and there's a bunch of people around, and you go ask a specific person for help, right? That is their energy.
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::Tracy Nicholas: That is, like, maybe everyone is a fantastic human being, right? But maybe they're late for work, or maybe they're, you know, not in a place emotionally where they can help you, whatever it is. But you find someone who helps you, right? You're honing in to that person's energy in the moment.
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::Tracy Nicholas: But you can only do that kind of stuff if you're practicing it.
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::Tracy Nicholas: So, you know, Feel the energy around you when it's low stakes.
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::Tracy Nicholas: You know, when you don't know anybody around you, when… all of those kinds of things. So, that's a very long-winded answer for do your work.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And it's not hard work, but it's… it's an awareness.
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::Tracy Nicholas: Yeah.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: practice. It's like, I've driven through towns, Where I'm just like… Oh, that was so weird.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Because it felt… At that particular time, it felt really bad.
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::Tracy Nicholas: But…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: you can go through other places that feel just, like, really good. Like, I… I…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I live in the house that I live in now, because when I first walked in, and I was gonna be buying it for my father-in-law.
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::Tracy Nicholas: But when I first walked in, it's like, no, this is just my home.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I just knew.
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::Tracy Nicholas: Yep.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And if you pay attention to those… those inklings, and we all get them, we do know,
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Kind of magical things will happen to you in those spaces.
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::Tracy Nicholas: Yeah, you know, when people are like, oh, I had a hunch, or, oh, you know, I had this intuition, right? Or, oh, I had deja vu.
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::Tracy Nicholas: We accept that. So, on a certain level, we're already accepting that there are magical things afoot.
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::Tracy Nicholas: Because we treat those as if they are mundane.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: You know? It's like, it's okay if it's mundane, but if we call it magic.
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::Tracy Nicholas: Yeah.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Suddenly, we're in the crazy zone.
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::Tracy Nicholas: Right. And that's because, again, people exaggerate, and they end up acting like it's all, you know, like.
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::Tracy Nicholas: pretend magic, like, fantasy fiction kind of magic. And if that's what you're, you know, looking for, that's easy to make fun of. I would make fun of that, you know? I have a wand, but I'm not waving it around expecting, you know, for somebody to appear, or… it just… it doesn't…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And who knows, it might work.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Under the right circumstances?
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::Tracy Nicholas: It's the full moon tonight, so maybe I'll give it a shot later.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Yeah, there you go. You've written the book, Mind Over Magic. You want to talk about that for a minute?
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::Tracy Nicholas: Yeah, a lot of the concepts that I've been talking about are included in the book. And, again, I…
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::Tracy Nicholas: Start out talking about the science that we know, and how it relates to
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::Tracy Nicholas: What used to be considered magical thinking.
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::Tracy Nicholas: And, you know, it's like energetic ties. We, you know, we talked about how that just is something that's physically real.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And…
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::Tracy Nicholas: I talk about things that we can't
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::Tracy Nicholas: poss… that we don't know, right? Like, I talked about the spirits.
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::Tracy Nicholas: we can't prove that or disprove it, and I'm not going to pretend like we can, right? And maybe in, you know, 10 years, there'll be some new breakthrough, and we go, yes, of course, we've been telling you all along that spirits are real, and now you believe it. But there's a lot of
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::Tracy Nicholas: hoaxes and things like that. You know, when they used to have seances, and they would pull the…
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::Tracy Nicholas: like, cheesecloth, or whatever, muslin… muslin, or whatever it is, and it would be this, you know, entity, and they would have different ways to shake the table. So, I think that…
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::Tracy Nicholas: People are right, in some ways, to be skeptical, because we have been…
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::Tracy Nicholas: Scammed throughout history with magical kind of stuff.
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::Tracy Nicholas: And, you know, the psychics today. I have had some
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::Tracy Nicholas: very impressive readings with stuff that I didn't even know myself, and found out later to be true. And it's stuff that they couldn't have possibly researched me on, because it was super specific, super weird, and sometimes it was just…
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::Tracy Nicholas: goofy and weird. I was getting a reading once, and…
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::Tracy Nicholas: she said, oh, your cat, which I had just gotten this cat, it was during lockdown, so of course I did, your cat doesn't get along with your old cat. And I'm like, I don't have another cat. And she's like, oh, okay, well, you know, and she said, well.
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::Tracy Nicholas: you're gonna wanna go check, because the cat has kicked some poop, like, out of the litter box. And I was like, okay, that's weirdly specific, but alright. So I go, and I look, and there was nothing there. And I was like, you know, whatever.
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::Tracy Nicholas: I get up the next morning, there's poop outside the litter box.
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::Tracy Nicholas: I'm like, come on! Like, that was so specific, and like, why would someone make that up in the first place? You know, it's just not a normal thing you would hear in a reading.
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::Tracy Nicholas: So, yeah. So the book isn't going to go down a path where I say, here's how we know cryptids are real, because we don't.
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::Tracy Nicholas: Right? And…
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::Tracy Nicholas: But, you know, it's like, let's explore why people believe it. And then the book kind of wraps up with some of the stuff I was talking about, about, you know, engaging, practicing, and it gives a lot of different
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::Tracy Nicholas: Techniques that you can try, things that you can work on, and a lot of those come from kind of my, my corporate, days of
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::Tracy Nicholas: working on strategic planning, because I read a lot of business books then. And so, business improvement books are a lot of psychology. And so that's kind of where I'm drawing from the psychology of what you need to do in order to keep focusing
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::Tracy Nicholas: Whatever practice you want. Even if all you want to do is make your life more folklorical.
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::Tracy Nicholas: There are ways to get out of your own way.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Yeah, and to let the magic in.
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::Tracy Nicholas: Yeah, exactly.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And to just allow yourself to believe.
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::Tracy Nicholas: Yes.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Suspend your… your skepticism and just…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Like, you know, we were talking about shapeshifters.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I should have just said, that was just my imagination, and…
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::Tracy Nicholas: Exactly, and that's what most people do.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Yeah, but it doesn't mean that it didn't actually happen.
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::Tracy Nicholas: Or doesn't exist.
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::Tracy Nicholas: Right, right. And it doesn't…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: It doesn't have to mean anything beyond that.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: That's true. It can just be that it happened.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: The end.
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::Tracy Nicholas: I think that one of the important parts is, like, when you're talking divination.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Right?
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::Tracy Nicholas: It, like, people are like, oh, that's not real, whatever.
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::Tracy Nicholas: I think that the important part is the way we interpret it.
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::Tracy Nicholas: Because, you know, I'm in a different place in my life than I'm gonna be 5 years from now, right? I'm in a different circumstance this moment than I was 5 hours ago. And so…
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::Tracy Nicholas: I think of divination as, like, a door into your subconscious, like a back door into your subconscious, right? Because what matters is how we take it.
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::Tracy Nicholas: And how we apply it to our circumstances. So…
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::Tracy Nicholas: you know, I think divination is great. I've got a pendulum, I pull cards all the time, I'm studying the runes right now, because it… again, practice, practice, practice.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And it doesn't have to…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: It doesn't have to mean something in any particular way, but it does allow us… these tools allow us to…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: pull back a minute from… from the everyday 3D world, where it's rush, rush, rush, consume, consume, consume, do all these things that we're supposed to do, to just, like.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Allow the experience to unfold and to examine it.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Right. And to think about what we want to think about those things, and not have to have them mean something specific because somebody said, this is what it is.
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::Tracy Nicholas: Right. Or we can make choices, you know? If you're cooking, and you decide, I'm gonna stir this food clockwise, because the symbolism for me is this food is going to feed and nourish my family in the future.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And you… you want to use that symbolism, you…
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::Tracy Nicholas: that's great, you know? Make your own symbolic things that you do, and it can be just as easy as what I described. It can be, you know, walking through a doorway, and you think about liminal spaces, right? There's so many ways
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::Tracy Nicholas: That you can incorporate magical thinking into your life.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I love that.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Thank you so much for joining me today, Tracy. This is an amazing conversation.
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::Tracy Nicholas: Yeah, I really enjoyed it. Thank you for having me on, I really appreciate it.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: To learn more about Tracy, and to get her Mind Over Magic book, please visit folkloringlife.com, and I think you can also access her podcast there, is that correct?
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::Tracy Nicholas: Yes, there's a link to my podcast, there's a link to the book, and I do a bunch of film and, not film, well, yeah, I guess I did put my film reviews on there. Film and book reviews.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Perfect.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Thanks for tuning in with us today to the UWorld Order Showcase Podcast. If you're ready to amplify your voice, monetize your mission, and start attracting premium clients, your next step is simple. Head to thecoachsalchemist.com.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And schedule your free client acquisition audit. Be sure to join us for our next episode as we share what others are doing to raise the global frequency. And remember, change begins with you. You have all the power to change the world. Start today, and get visible.
