Welcome to the Delicious Dignity Podcast. Let's settle in securely and ever so nicely into the brilliance of our own dignity. Hello, beautiful people. Welcome back to the fourth part and the fourth and final part of the series where we end your 2025 with crystalline clarity so we can step into your 2026 with potency. Just grounded, beautiful potency. Now, if my voice sounds a little bit funny, it's because I have had the worst allergies this season. I am not someone who gets allergies, period. So for me, this has been a really interesting time. And as I've been going through it, I've been using this thing called the neti pot. And when I first saw it years and years ago, I said, there is absolutely no way I'm gonna stick this thing in my nose and irrigate my nose. That is the worst thing I can possibly think of. It's that's like torture. And now guess who does it at least once or twice a day? Me. All the things we said we would never do, and now we do them, huh? By the way, I'm a big fan of the neti pot, especially if you have allergies or even if you just have a cold or a cough, it works beautifully. It's awkward at first, but after a while it actually does wonders for you. Okay, so back to the series. In the first episode of this series, we took stock of all the good in 2025 and we build a stamina for good and for joy. In the second episode, we released. In the third episode, we went into the mystery, we welcomed the mystery. And now in this episode, we're gonna draw, we're gonna draw down the mystery, meaning we're going to take whatever we learned in the mystery, whatever we want from pure potential, and want to ground it and we're gonna make it real. So the concept that I want to work with you today on is the concept of manifesting. We've heard a lot about manifesting and just studying how the universe works in different formats, right? So manifestation is one of the many philosophies you could say that exists on how the universe works and basically the science of getting what you want. But now, after 15 or I don't even know, maybe 20 years of really looking into this work and really seeing what it's about, I've found that manifestation is so much more than just about getting what you want. It's so much more than just wish fulfillment. Manifestation is about this beautiful co-creation where, you know, that phrase, what you want is also seeking you, and or what you're seeking is also seeking you, or that phrase, and I forget the phrase now, but basically what I have noticed is that a true desire or a true want ends up changing you, ends up being a gift to you in the process of you acquiring it or seeking it and then living it. So just as you manifest things into your life, so do those things manifest you and co-create you. And that to me is the most beautiful thing about manifestation. And I have to say, like in all my studies of manifestation, what I've noticed actually works is first you gotta appreciate, notice the good, and just go to a different vibrational state. Then you release, or you can release before or after, it doesn't really matter. But these are the core components of manifestation. It's not about directly getting to the part where you're trying to manifest something, it's about all the things that you have to do before you even get to that part. And so releasing is such a big component because a lot of people will try to manifest without releasing first. And what that does is ends up, I don't know if you've ever had this happen, but you'll end up manifesting the exact opposite of what it is that you want, because there's something in you that's working against what it is you say you want. And this is the part of you that we transform and we manifest just as we are manifesting the thing that you want. And the third part is building a receiving skill or learning how to receive. These are all essential steps before you even touch manifesting work or pure manifesting work. You might even say this is all manifesting, but that's what I have learned in the last few years. And so I'm so glad we did those steps in the last three weeks before we go into these pure manifesting, what do I want, what do I desire exercises today. So if you need a formula, that's it. Appreciation, releasing, receiving, manifesting. That's the formula. So naturally, this episode is all about the spring season. So it's the first buds, the first shoots that are breaking the soil underneath it to bloom. This is about growth. It is about nurturance and nurturing the growth that is come that is happening. This is about maybe you plant seeds during this time, maybe you don't, but it's about getting the nutrients of all the things that have happened before that you're now drawing in from and now creating new growth. And so this is a spring-inspired ritual. And so now we're gonna get directly into the ritual. Because I feel like we've gone through so many concepts and theories in the last three episodes. I feel like you guys are well prepared for what we're doing now. Okay, so there are going to be, as usual, many parts to this ritual. More specifically, there are four parts to this ritual. So the first three parts is about awareness, it's about journaling, it's about getting clarity. And then the fourth part is about actually doing the ritually ritual part of the ritual. Because I feel like a lot of people, when they when you say the word ritual, they think it's more about a performance of some kind, but it's really an attitude. It's not so much a performance. And so the more, if you want to call it that, performative part of the ritual is the fourth piece that we'll talk about. The first three are about the steps to get there. As with everything in the last four episodes, if you've noticed, we go step by step. We don't skip steps. And when we go step by step, even though it might be a little bit cumbersome to some people, it's actually the way you get that potency that you're looking for. Okay, so let's start with the first ritual part. Okay, so this is where you grab your pen and paper, or you, like I've said before, have a permanent record of what you're doing by typing it online in a diary or in a Word document, whatever you prefer. And as I've mentioned many times before, just reminding you, all the questions, all the rituals are outlined in the ritual description that is attached to every episode in this podcast. So they're an outline form. So they just give you the outline of everything. They're just meant to be there in case you want to copy-paste them into your own Word document or something. Okay. So part one, I'm gonna ask you seven questions. Okay. And then once I've talked to you about the seven questions, I'll then give you examples from my own life. So, question number one What is one thing? Okay, actually, let me pause there first. You know, when somebody's talking to you with the questions, very often there will be like a ping that goes off in your mind, you know, that first thought, that first idea. And may it maybe it makes sense, maybe it doesn't make sense in the moment. But the point is that you record it, it must be written down, okay? That is why I talk to you with these questions so that you can sit back and receive the question so that you can receive the answer. Okay, so have everything ready and then maybe pause the episode and then start it when you're ready. Okay. Question one What is one thing you would love to happen next year? Just one thing you would love to happen next year. Notice I didn't say want to happen. I'm saying would love to happen. The reason I'm not using the word want is because want has a grasping energy to that. And like I told you in I think episode three of the series, the third part of the series, we don't want that grasping energy. So that's why I'm using the words one thing you would love. What would I love to happen next year? What would just be lovely to happen next year? Now, some of us don't have a thing that we want, we just have a feeling that we want. That is perfectly reasonable, okay? And I use the word want. No me. Like bad me. No. What is a feeling that you would love to feel next year for most of next year, or for all of next year? What is a feeling you'd love to feel? That is also a perfectly valid alternative to this question. Okay. Question two. Now remember you can pause between questions, okay, and write things down. You don't have to go at my pace. That's the beauty of having a podcast. You can pause, you can stop, you can start, you can speed up, doesn't matter. Okay. Question two. What do I need to believe in order for this thing that I would love to have happen happen next year? What do I need to believe? Question three, who do I need to become in order for what I would love to happen next year actually happen? Who do I need to become? Question four, who can help me? Who or what can help me so that the thing that I would love to happen happens next year? Question five, what can I plan for to support these dreams? Is there anything that I can plan for? Question six, what's the challenge I throw down to myself about the thing that I would love to happen next year? Question seven, what are two more nice things that would be lovely? Let me say that again. What are two more lovely things that could happen next year that I would love to happen? Okay, so those were the questions. Now let me give you an example of my life and what I would love to have happen next year. So question one was what would what is the one thing I would love to happen? When I identified that one thing, for me, it was like two things that came together. So I tried to prioritize what was the one thing. And so for me, I would like to move to India permanently next year. And I've been planning for that for a while, by a while in the last two months. And the second thing that I said I would love to happen is have my podcast reach a wide, aligned audience. That's what I would love to happen next year. And the third thing that I said I would love to happen is to have more money on top of the already enough money that I have, because I'm basically taking all my money with me to India and I'm going to retire. And that's a huge process and a huge undertaking and a huge shift in my consciousness that I will talk about in season two of this podcast. But for now, those are the things I would love to happen next year. They are things that would just bring me a lot of joy. Now, what do I need to believe for this thing to happen? So, specifically with my move to India, I need to believe that even though I know this is the right decision, I need to believe it. I do this funny thing, and I don't know if you guys do this too, where I am very skeptical of myself. You call it an inner critic, call it whatever you want, but I know this is the right decision. I just need to believe that I know this is the right decision. And that's such a funny place to be. That's what I need to believe. And when it comes to the actual move to India, I also need to believe in my dog. Believe that my dog is strong enough to handle the journey because I sometimes treat him like he's fragile because I feel very protective towards him because he's a little bit of an anxious doggo. And so I'm always trying to protect him from things and from other people. And I just have to believe that he is a strong dog, and he really is, and I've seen it so many times, and I need to believe that it's okay for the for him to make the journey with me. Because so far I've been a little bit terrified of what will happen to him. Who do I need to become? I need to become a woman who is not afraid to promote herself, who loves advertising and marketing, who's marketing savvy, and who is who loves marketing and does it in a way that feels like love. This is, of course, about my podcast. And, you know, it's funny because I have a marketing degree, marketing and finance degree, but I just stepped away from that a little bit. And I love the creativity of marketing. So I've been sitting with all the things I love about marketing. So one of them is the creativity, the collaboration, the sort of showing your work when the teacher would say in school, hey, show your work. And I would always skip steps to get to the answer in math class, and she'd be like, show your work. And sometimes when I would write down how I got to something, I'd be like, Wow, I actually did all these steps in my head, and that was so amazing. And so when I would write it down, I'd know what I did in the same way. That's how I want to market. And so I'm trying out different ways in which I can become this person who loves to do marketing. And also I need to become a woman who is softer and who can sink into the softness that's already there. Because so far, most of my life I've avoided it, especially when it came to earning money in my corporate job. And that's what I'm retiring from. When I think of who I need to become, I'm entering into the softer version of me as I'm going into this retirement journey in order to enjoy it more. Because this whole attitude of work hard, play hard that I talked about so much in the beginning of this podcast, that is leaving me. And as it's leaving me, I'd like to create space for that softness for me to sink into. By the way, everything I talk about today are going to be like separate episodes in season two, so I can talk more about it. Right now, I'm just telling you about what I have decided. So, question four is who can help me? People who have really flown pets across the country before. So there are organizations that do that. I'm going to be working with them. I'm going to be working with a couple of my close friends just so that they can help me with maybe co-regulating my nervous system with me because there's a lot I need to take care of. And of course, people in India, especially my parents, I know they can help me. And so when we ask this question, we're acknowledging that we are not these independent islands that we think we are. We're acknowledging that many people come to create our dreams with us. And we're acknowledging the community, the co-creation, and the fact that we're all interdependent. So it can be a beautiful question to help you get out of ego and grasping. That's why I included it here. Question five, what can I plan for to support these dreams? Basically, it's for me, it's just making sure that I'm selling off my furniture a little bit at a time, starting at the beginning of next year. And then, of course, finding different ways to do marketing in a way that pleases me. And what's the challenge I throw down to myself? I challenge myself to really enjoy my last year in the US. How much can I enjoy myself in this last year? So when I say this question, what's the challenge you throw down to yourself? It's it's more like a teasy, like a teasing energy rather than an aggressive energy. That's what I mean. Like, how can I tease myself to rise a little bit more? That's the energy of that question. And then question seven is two more nice things that I would love to happen. I told you it was my podcast, it was more money to set me up for retirement, and it was moving to India. Okay, so hopefully that gave you an idea of how to do these questions. So ritual two. So ritual one was just about getting some awareness on what your 2026 is going to look and feel like and how you would want it to be, how you would love it to be. Ritual two is about writing to your current self from your future self's perspective. It's like a reverse time capsule. So you're sending a letter from the future into the past, into the present. And it can feel like a little bit of a wonky thing to do. So you might take a few days to really be able to write a full letter, and that's perfectly normal and completely fine. Just really take your time with this. So throw yourself into the future, into December 30th, 2026. It's the end of 2026. That person that you are then needs to write a letter to the person you are now. What advice would you give this person you are now? What would you say to them? What would you encourage them to do? What would you encourage them to not do? What attitudes, what beliefs? Basically, everything that you wrote in Ritual One, you can ask yourself the same question, but now embodying your future self. So for me, as an example, I wrote, I would like you to slow down and really enjoy yourself and be in the present. I would love for you to have more rest. I would love for you to start moving at a slower pace so that you can sink into India easier because India is a slower pace, even though it's such a busy country, it's a much slower pace than the US. I don't know why, but they just move slower. Well, slower compared to the US. I also wrote, take care of things earlier than you think, make a list of things to sell first and then start donating. Take one issue at a time and make a plan before you start doing it so you can see it through. Because I do have a habit of thinking about too many things without actually planning them out and then having them crowd my mind space. And so this is all really practical, tactical advice. I was not expecting to get tactical advice, but that's what I got. And this letter will still be open for the next few days, and I'll come back and write things down in the letter as I as I go through this ritual. And I'm giving myself about a week to go through it, just like I'm giving you a week. Everything that this letter said that you could do or should do, I would invite you to make a plan to do those things within the first three months of next year, if that's possible. If not, just have it stretched for most of the year. And then also, what I would love for you to do is keep it, keep the letter and then have yourself read it in on December 31st, 2026. Okay, that's the second ritual. The third ritual, now we're coming into a little bit more concretized awareness. So we started off with some questions, we went into a letter, now we're going into naming your 2026. So in the second or the third part of this. Series, we named our 2025 so that we could let it go more easily. We had a way to let it go. Yeah, I think it was part two. Now, in part four, we're naming 2026 so we can welcome it in. So of all the things you've written in the last four episodes, including this one, I want you to really sink into the energy of everything that you're feeling, everything that you wrote down, everything that you would love to happen, and find that energy first. Once you've found that energy and you've sat in it for maybe a few seconds, maybe give yourself 30 seconds to just sit in it, then give it a name. And it doesn't have to be just one word. It can be a phrase, it can be a quote, it can be anything, but it just needs to be short and catchy so that your mind can grasp it. I'll give you an example. For me, my 2026, the only word that made sense to me was love. Just love. And the aspects of love, loving, being in love, doing with love, love or bust, love first, action second. That's what I want to really sink into. I really want to sink into love as a form of power, as love being the supreme power. I want to know what that feels like. Because that's what I'm stepping into in every aspect of my life in 2026. This is my guiding word for everything. And it's so short and it's so sweet and it's perfect. If I wanted a quote, it would be that quote from Mary Oliver's poem, Wild Geese. You don't have to walk on your knees through the desert for a thousand miles repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. So that would be my quote if I had to choose a quote, love what you love in 2026. But that doesn't quite fit the energy. I'm just giving you an example. So for me, it's just love. You could pick a whole poem, but I would encourage you to pick just a few words first as your guiding principle, and then the whole poem can be something that you have for the rest of 2026, and you can read it like a prayer before you go to bed every night. Just an idea. Now, when you found the word, and maybe it takes you some time to get there, that's okay. Make sure that it's visible and it's placed somewhere that you can see it. You might choose to put it on the wall, you might choose to just have it as a card on your desk, you might choose to draw it on your hand, I don't know, whatever you want. But have it visible somewhere. Okay. Now, the fourth and the final part of this ritual. I've given it a beautiful name that just the name itself makes me so happy to say. It's called holding vigil for your dreams. Oh my god, you're holding vigil for your dreams. So basically, the mechanics of it is, the logistics of it is that all you need is a candle and you need all the things that you wrote down about what you want to call in 2026, including the name of your year, and you want to put that under the candle and light the candle and hold vigil for your dreams for as long as you possibly want to or can. For me, I will be holding vigil starting the middle of next week until the end of the year and possibly the entire first week of January. So basically, you're letting the candle be lit for the entire time. Now, obviously, if you leave the house or you leave your apartment, whatever, you might want to blow out the flame. I'm not recommending that you keep the flame burning continuously. But when you come back into your house, the first thing you can do is light the flame and have like this ritual way of reconnecting to your intentions every time you light the flame. So that itself can be a part of the ritual. You could also take the anointing oil that you made from part one, the sacred anointing oil from all your good in 2025, and you can rub the candle with it a little bit. So rub the oil on your candle so you're literally energizing the candle with your good from 2025. Can you feel how beautiful this ritual is, by the way? Can you really feel it? Now, obviously, if your candle is a free-form candle and it doesn't have like a tin thing underneath it or a glass underneath it, what you could do is just put it in a steel or a fire safe bowl and then place the bowl on top of the papers or on top of the journaling work that you did. It does have to be a paper that you put underneath it so that that energy of whatever you asked for is being supported by this candle. Now you can choose whatever color of candle you want that matches your intention. So for me, it would be something like pink or white or red, because those colors make sense for me. It doesn't have to be a color. If you don't want it to be, it can be any candle. You don't have to over-architect this. If you are someone who is trained and has experience using an oil lamp, so like a dia, if you're someone who's used that, you can use the anointing oil from your part one and put a little bit of that anointing oil in the oil lamp when you burn it as you're doing the ritual. If you've never done an oil lamp before, please do not try it because you need guidance. If you haven't grown up with that, it's difficult to understand. So if you know what an oil lamp is and you're using it safely, then my idea would be to pour some of that anointing oil in your oil lamp as well. Just a little bit, a few drops. And this candle or this oil lamp that you have, I would recommend placing it on your ancestor altar that we built in part three. Because not only then is the candle holding vigil for your dreams, but also your ancestors are holding vigil. All your helpful ancestors that you identified in part three are also part of this because they are also co-creating your dreams. You are the dream that they used to have when they were young. And now you are holding space for a new dream. And so they are part of it as well. It's just, can you feel how beautiful this ritual is? Oh my God. Ah, okay. So yeah, if you guys have any questions about this, you can always message me on Delicious Dignity on Instagram or Dilshadmetta.com and you can ask me questions. I totally open for that. But yeah, I think these are beautiful rituals. Every single ritual in the last four episodes that I've given you are beautiful. And not only are they beautiful, they are potent. You might have gathered that by now, or you might not have, but when you actually do these rituals, I promise you, you will see a change. You will see a big change. Like I said, I've been doing these rituals for now five years, and this is all coming from me to you. I haven't taken it from anywhere. It's just, I know it works. I'm so excited for you, I think is what I'm trying to say. Yeah. Okay, my lovelies. This was the last episode of 2025. I will see you on the third or maybe fourth week of January 2026 because what I'm about to share with you in season two is just gonna be so deep, so profound, and so filled with dignity. Like I don't know how else to say that. And isn't it perfect that we're ending season one on episode 33? It's such a numerologically numerology, okay. Numerologically powerful number. Oh my god, it's a powerful number numerology-wise, and 3-3. I couldn't have planned it better myself. And we also have new cover art for season two. I'm so excited. And just remember, by the way, you can do this four-part series anytime. You are not time-bound. So just because you can't do all the rituals all at once doesn't mean you failed at it. It's always here for you. You can repeat it multiple times if you wish. And by if you wish, I mean please do repeat it multiple times. I promise you, this ritual breeds with you. It is not a static thing. It can never go stale. It's built to withstand the test of time, the test of circumstances, the test of culture, the test of race, gender, whatever. It does not matter. That's the beauty of deep ritual work. I hope you will use this throughout your 2026 and beyond. And every year I plan on doing these end-of-year rituals. So I'm so happy to share this with you. So use it. Share your stories with me, share it with everyone else. I promise you, you're just gonna love these. Anyway, this is the final blessing for this 2025. May you see the dignity of your 2025. May you deepen it, may you learn from it, and may you turn it into beautiful, potent fertilizer for all your years to come. See you in twenty twenty-six. Bye, lovelies.