Mercury retrograde gets a lot of attention, and often a lot of fear! What if retrogrades could actually be an invitation to slow down, take stock, and become more conscious of where we’re headed?

In this episode of The Aliveness Revolution, Val and Charlie explore the deeper meaning of retrogrades through astrology and Human Design, and how these periods can support greater awareness, adaptability, and personal growth.

In this conversation, we explore:

💬 Mercury Retrograde: Revisiting communication, decisions, plans, and how we respond when things change.

💕 Venus Retrograde: Reassessing relationships, self-worth, finances, and what we truly value.

🪨 Saturn Retrograde: Reviewing our structures, responsibilities, boundaries, and the foundations we’re building our lives upon.

⚡ Uranus Retrograde: Questioning old patterns, welcoming internal breakthroughs, and creating space for personal liberation.

🌫️ Neptune Retrograde: Lifting the veil on illusions, habits, and situations we’re ready to see more clearly.

🩹 Chiron Retrograde: Revisiting old wounds with greater awareness, compassion, and opportunities for healing.

🔑 Human Design Transits: Exploring Gates 44, 1, and 43, and their themes of releasing old patterns, authentic expression, intuition, and trusting our individuality.

We also share personal experiences around changing routines, clearing out what no longer serves us, self-forgiveness, and giving ourselves permission to evolve.

Some questions to sit with:

• Where in my life would slowing down and reassessing be supportive right now?
  
  
• What am I continuing to do out of habit that may no longer reflect who I am?
  
  
• Are my relationships, commitments, and daily routines aligned with what I truly value?
  
  
• Where am I resisting change, and what might become possible if I allowed myself to be more adaptable?
  
  
• What old stories or patterns am I ready to release with greater compassion?
  
  
• Where am I being invited to trust my intuition and express more of my authentic self?
  
  

You don’t need to understand astrology or Human Design to explore these questions. Our invitation is simply to get curious about your own life and what might be ready for a little review.

We’d love to hear from you:
What are you currently reassessing, releasing, or choosing to do differently?

Subscribe and join us each week as we continue exploring what it means to live with more awareness, connection, joy, and aliveness.

Explore Val’s work:
https://www.sacredpathlifestyle.com

Connect with Charlie:
https://www.charliegarnham.com

Join us for The Next Chapter 16th, 18th and 20th September: http://sacredpathlifestyle.com/the-next-chapter

Your friend is late. Again. Do you sit there stewing, or do you look up and start noticing the magic of the environment you're in, instead?

This week Val and Charlie go deep on one value that shapes every relationship you have: flexibility. When your values line up with the people around you, whether that’s a partner, a friend or a business collaborator, things flow with more ease. When they don’t, tension creeps in.

Val shares what happened when she came home from six weeks of travel and asked a friend staying in her space to find somewhere else for a few days. Her friend said she was easy either way; Val knew she wasn’t. Holding that boundary was the most loving choice for both of them.

Charlie shares the three little words she’s lived by long before Human Design or astrology came into her life... assume good intent.

In this episode

• The high road and the low road of flexibility: open and adaptable on one side, boundaryless and airy fairy on the other
• Why Charlie surrounds herself with people she can always assume good intent with
• How to look at where you’re inflexible from the witness perspective, without shame or judgement
• Val’s twenties, swinging between no boundaries at all and total rigidity, and what that taught her about balance
• Cardinal, fixed and mutable energy in astrology, and how Val’s spark meets Charlie’s fixed energy so ideas actually take form
• Human Design: defined centres as your brick wall, open centres as places of receptivity, and why the white space in your chart is where your wisdom lives

Watch on YouTube here https://www.youtube.com/@sacredpathlifestyle to see the charts Charlie shares during the episode.

Your reflection this week: Where are you flexible? Where are you inflexible? And where do the people closest to you sit on each?

Next time, we’re planning to explore expansiveness. Subscribe so you don’t miss it, and tell us what came up for you.

Find out the dates of the next cohort here: https://www.sacredpathlifestyle.com/the-next-chapter

Connect with Charlie Garnham
Website: charliegarnham.com
YouTube: www.youtube.com/@charliegarnham/videos

Connect with Val D’Ambrosio
Website: https://www.sacredpathlifestyle.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sacredpathlifestyle/

Join us for The Next Chapter 16th, 18th and 20th September: http://sacredpathlifestyle.com/the-next-chapter

This one started as an off air chat that got too good not to record. Charlie Garnham (the Human Design expert) and Val D'Ambrosio (the astrology expert) explore a simple question: if you already know who you are, why do these systems still land so deeply?

Charlie shares how years of doubting her place in marketing dissolved the moment she discovered the channel of the PR and marketing person in her BG5 chart. Val talks about a lifetime of bringing people together, speaking up and being judged for it... until her Gemini midheaven, her Mars in the eleventh house and her 3/5 profile showed her she'd been doing exactly what she came here to do.

Together they unpack the pedestal effect of the fifth line, what really happens in the body when the penny drops, and why the goal is never to fix yourself. Val also pulls up Charlie's astrology chart live to reveal just how much leadership energy is hiding in plain sight.

In this episode:

00:01 Welcome to the Aliveness Revolution: evolving consciously with less resistance
02:22 Why Human Design matters even when you think you know yourself
04:40 Val's story: communication, community and being wronged for her gifts
07:45 The 3/5 profile: the experimenter and the heretic
10:38 Why your profile lines hold the biggest penny drop moments
12:00 What acceptance looks like in the body: the exhale, the yawn, the shift
14:14 Catch, challenge and change: using language to reclaim your power
16:33 Two tendencies after a breakthrough: push harder or give up
19:15 Feeling safe and supported from the inside out
20:30 "Charlie, you're a leader": how one repeated reflection changed everything
22:00 Val reads Charlie's chart: four planets in Capricorn and an Aquarius sun
24:20 What is Human Design? Two very different explanations
30:00 How Charlie works with business owners through their design
33:00 Val's Soul Blueprint Deep Dive and the power of a steady handrail
35:45 Healthy relating, knowing each other's manual... and Georgia font

Your invitation: When has something in your chart made you breathe out and say "thank goodness for that"? Share it in the comments; your penny drop might be the one someone else needs to hear.

Join us: The Next Chapter has moved to October and now runs over three consecutive Sundays, making it easier to join once the school routine has settled.

Find out the dates of the next cohort here: https://www.sacredpathlifestyle.com/the-next-chapter

Connect with Charlie Garnham
Website: charliegarnham.com
YouTube: Charlie Garnham

Connect with Val D'Ambrosio
Website: https://www.sacredpathlifestyle.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sacredpathlifestyle/

Join us for The Next Chapter 16th, 18th and 20th September: http://sacredpathlifestyle.com/the-next-chapter

"Regulate your nervous system" is everywhere right now... but what does it actually mean for you? In this episode, Charlie Garnham and Val D'Ambrosio share their own very different journeys with dysregulation, rest and safety, and why there's no single right way to come home to your body.

Charlie opens up about believing her nervous system was "fine" until fatigue, adrenal burnout and a chance moment at her mum's bodywork appointment showed her otherwise. Val reflects on decades of living "always on" as a high performer, and the tools she's gathered through yoga, breathwork, meditation and ecstatic dance that she now weaves into ordinary moments, from washing the dishes to a tense conversation with a friend.

Together they explore why rest looks different for a Projector and a Manifesting Generator, why scrolling on the sofa might not count as rest at all, and how you can feel unsafe even when life looks perfect on paper.

In this episode:

00:01 What is a regulated nervous system, and why is everyone talking about it?
01:54 Charlie's story: "I thought my nervous system was fine"
04:10 What dysregulation looked like: fatigue, exhaustion and the go, go, go
06:10 Val on living in a body that was tight, wound and always on
10:11 The bodywork session that changed everything for Charlie
13:59 Val's toolbox: yoga, breathwork, sound baths and ecstatic dance
17:59 Catching the moment before the ego mind overrides the insight
21:58 Not all rest is equal: Human Design, Projectors and quality rest
27:48 Nature, walking and letting the goodness of life in
30:02 "Why didn't you feel safe?" Trauma behind a privileged life
33:11 Curiosity without judgment: taking the wheel of your life
35:33 Bringing regulation out of the yoga studio and into everyday life
38:40 Co regulation and why support matters

Your invitation: What does regulation mean to you? How does dysregulation show up in your body, and what helps you come back to yourself? Share in the comments... you might inspire someone else to begin their own journey.

Coming up next week: Co regulation, what it is and why we need each other to feel safe.

Join us live: The Next Chapter is a three day live experience with Charlie and Val, held every other day so you have space to integrate. Expect breathwork, superconscious activation, movement and deep reflective questions in a safe container with people on the same path.

Find out the dates of the next cohort here: https://www.sacredpathlifestyle.com/the-next-chapter

Connect with Charlie Garnham
Website: charliegarnham.com
YouTube: Charlie Garnham

Connect with Val D'Ambrosio
Website: https://www.sacredpathlifestyle.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sacredpathlifestyle/

Join us for The Next Chapter 16th, 18th and 20th September: http://sacredpathlifestyle.com/the-next-chapter

Belonging isn't about fitting in... it's about being fully seen while being fully yourself.

In this episode of The Aliveness Revolution, Charlie Garnham and Val D'Ambrosio open up about what belonging has actually meant in their own lives... the years spent shapeshifting to be accepted, and the slow, deliberate work of coming home to themselves instead.

They talk about:

Why the "outliers" and "black sheep" often carry the biggest gifts
How Human Design (hello, Projectors and Manifesting Generators) can reveal why certain connections feel effortless and others feel draining
The body signals that tell you when you truly belong somewhere... and when you don't
Why chasing approval from everyone keeps you from the few people who'll actually choose you
How to stop making yourself wrong when a connection doesn't land

If you've ever felt like you don't belong anywhere, this conversation is an invitation to stop shrinking and start discerning.

Join us live every Wednesday for The Aliveness Revolution, where we explore what it means to wake up and come alive in every part of life.

Ready to go deeper? The Next Chapter is a three day live experience with Charlie and Val, running September 9th, 11th and 13th. Prices go up September 1st, so grab your spot before then. Link in the description.

Join us for The Next Chapter 16th, 18th and 20th September: http://sacredpathlifestyle.com/the-next-chapter

This week on The Aliveness Revolution, Val and Charlie scrap the plan and follow what's actually alive for them: menopause, perimenopause, and the strange, disorienting experience of a body that's changing faster than the world has given us language for.

They talk about the missing piece in most menopause conversations — not the protein targets or the supplement stacks, but the relationship with the body underneath all of it. Charlie shares what it's been like turning 52 and living inside the uncertainty of it, choosing who she wants to be rather than fighting the process. Val opens up about her own hormone journey — the trial and error, the doctor she's chosen to trust, and the practice of checking in with her own body before handing authority to anyone else.

In this episode:

Why "battle" language around menopause keeps women stuck, and what shifts when you drop it
Moving from controlling the body to being in partnership with it
How to know when an outer expert (doctor, herbalist, practitioner) is the right one to trust
Rest as strategy, not indulgence — and why capitalism has us all a little sick
The mirror moment: catching the unkind thought and choosing a kinder one, on repeat
What it means to grieve an earlier version of yourself while still becoming someone new

A question to sit with: What might your body be asking for now that it wasn't asking for ten years ago?

If this conversation stirred something, come sit with it further with Val and Charlie at The Next Chapter — three days (September 9, 11 & 13, with integration days between) devoted to exactly this kind of deep, honest inquiry. Early bird pricing ends September 1st. Sign up here: https://www.sacredpathlifestyle.com/the-next-chapter

We run this ever 2 months so check the link for the next cohort.

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**The Aliveness Revolution** is a weekly conversation between **Val and Charlie** about desire, embodiment, consciousness, spirituality, and what it really means to feel alive in your own life.

If this conversation resonates join us for the next episode: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/5vARRLtuTqmpR3giiG_V8w#/registration

Connect with Charlie here:
https://www.instagram.com/thecharliegarnham/

Connect with Val here:
https://www.instagram.com/sacredpathlifestyle/

If you'd like to do business from frequency, energy and the truth of who you are, not more templates and tactics, start with a Business Breakthrough reading: https://www.charliegarnham.com/human-design

If you'd like to move into aliveness with Val as your spiritual personal trainer, check out this 5 week programme here: https://www.sacredpathlifestyle.com/move-into-aliveness

Join us for The Next Chapter 16th, 18th and 20th September: http://sacredpathlifestyle.com/the-next-chapter

Have you ever wanted something *so badly*… and then, just as you start moving towards it, you suddenly find yourself pulling back?

You procrastinate. You overthink. You find reasons why it won't work. You start questioning whether you really want it at all.

In this episode of **The Aliveness Revolution**, Val and Charlie explore what actually happens when we move towards a desire — and why resistance can show up right at the moment we're getting close.

We talk about:

✨ Why we can feel both **excited and terrified** about the same desire
✨ What happens when your nervous system encounters more than it's used to holding
✨ Why resistance isn't necessarily a sign that you're on the wrong path
✨ How to tell the difference between a desire that's genuinely yours and one you've absorbed from other people
✨ Why you don't have to make your current life “wrong” in order to want something new
✨ How to stay grateful for what you have while still allowing yourself to desire more
✨ The importance of listening to your body rather than trying to think your way into certainty
✨ How to become more comfortable with the tension between *where you are* and *where you're going*
✨ Why desire and gratitude aren't opposites — they can actually work together

Because sometimes the problem isn't that you don't know what you want.

**It's that a part of you doesn't yet know how to let yourself have it.**

And that's where the real work — and the aliveness — begins.

💫 **Questions to sit with after this episode:**

What is a desire you've been sitting with that you haven't fully gone after yet?

Where have you noticed yourself getting close to something you want… and then pulling back?

And can you love where you are right now while still being deeply excited about what's coming next?

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**The Aliveness Revolution** is a weekly conversation between **Val and Charlie** about desire, embodiment, consciousness, spirituality, and what it really means to feel alive in your own life.

If this conversation resonates join us for the next episode: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/5vARRLtuTqmpR3giiG_V8w#/registration

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The Next Chapter is a 3 day live experience where you get to meet who you are now and release the parts of you that no longer serve, and create the next identity to step into your next chapter with. Check out the details here: https://www.sacredpathlifestyle.com/the-next-chapter

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Connect with Charlie here:
https://www.instagram.com/thecharliegarnham/

Connect with Val here:
https://www.instagram.com/sacredpathlifestyle/

If you'd like to do business from frequency, energy and the truth of who you are, not more templates and tactics, start with a Business Breakthrough reading: https://www.charliegarnham.com/human-design

If you'd like to move into aliveness with Val as your spiritual personal trainer, check out this 5 week programme here: https://www.sacredpathlifestyle.com/move-into-aliveness

Join us for The Next Chapter 16th, 18th and 20th September: http://sacredpathlifestyle.com/the-next-chapter

Welcome to the Aliveness Revolution podcast, where the conversations about how real aliveness isn't found, it's integrated, from our inner world and outer world, together.

If this is your first episode, welcome, and for those of you returning, thank you for being part of this conscious revolution. Each week we gather to talk honestly about what it actually takes to feel good in your life, your body, and your sense of self.

In this episode, we dive into what it actually feels like to start expanding before your environment does. Before your relationships catch up. Before you're ready to lovingly leave certain people, or certain identities, behind. We talk about the boxes and labels we didn't even realize we were living inside of, and why staying open and receptive to what's next matters, even when you think you already know it all.

This is a path of consciousness, not a destination we've already arrived at. We don't have all the answers. We're finding our own way through it, and sharing what's actually working for us along the way.

The Next Chapter is back in September, the 9th, 11th and 13th, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. All the details are below.

Come sit with us in this one. 🤍

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Join The Next Chapter (we run this every 2 months so the next dates will be displayed here) https://www.sacredpathlifestyle.com/the-next-chapter

Connect with Charlie here:
https://www.instagram.com/thecharliegarnham/

Connect with Val here:
https://www.instagram.com/sacredpathlifestyle/

If you'd like to do business from frequency, energy and the truth of who you are, not more templates and tactics, start with a Business Breakthrough reading: https://www.charliegarnham.com/human-design

If you'd like to move into aliveness with Val as your spiritual personal trainer, check out this 5 week programme here: https://www.sacredpathlifestyle.com/move-into-aliveness

Join us for The Next Chapter 16th, 18th and 20th September: http://sacredpathlifestyle.com/the-next-chapter