Cacao Conversations: Sip. Connect. Awaken.

Julietta Wenzel and Dorice Ross
  • 5.0 (23)
  • Self-Improvement
  • Updated Weekly

You can have a full life, be capable, successful, and deeply committed to your growth—and still feel like something is missing. Cacao Conversations is for people who are tired of living on autopilot, questioning their own truth, giving their power away, and carrying more than anyone realizes. Each week, Julietta Wenzel and Dorice Ross pour a cup of ceremonial cacao and have honest, grounded conversations about self-trust, people-pleasing, boundaries, spiritual growth, nervous system regulation, relationships, personal power, and what it takes to live as your authentic self. We question the beliefs we have inherited, challenge some of the messages repeated in spiritual and personal-growth spaces, and talk openly about the places where knowing better has not yet become living differently. If you have done the healing, read the books, listened to the experts, and still find yourself shrinking, settling, overgiving, or waiting for permission, these conversations are for you. You do not need to drink cacao to join us. Bring your coffee, tea, water, or simply yourself. New episodes are released weekly. Sip. Connect. Awaken. Learn more about Body & Soul Ministries, our community, events, programs, and retreats at bodyandsoulevents.love.

  1. 1d ago

    I’m Tired: What Healers Aren’t Supposed to Say

    What happens when the healer gets tired?  We talk a lot about burnout.  We talk about boundaries, self-care, protecting your energy, and not becoming attached to other people's outcomes. But we don't talk enough about what it's actually like to spend your life caring deeply about other people's healing.  In this episode of Cacao Conversations, Julietta Wenzel and Dorice Ross have a raw conversation about something healers aren't always supposed to admit: sometimes we're tired.  We're tired of being expected to serve while being judged for charging enough to support ourselves. We're tired of watching gifted healers take second jobs, work endless hours, or undercharge because making money from spiritual or healing work is somehow considered less pure.  We're tired of healthcare practitioners being blamed for failing patients while they're working inside systems that leave little room for them to actually care for people. And sometimes we're tired because we care deeply about people who continually refuse to show up for themselves.  That doesn't mean we've stopped loving humanity. It means we're human too.  We talk about money and spirituality, healer burnout, Western medicine, the difference between service and sacrifice, attachment to outcomes, personal responsibility, and what happens when you care deeply about someone's healing while knowing you cannot heal them for them.  Because healers can teach you, guide you, challenge you, love you, and walk beside you. But we cannot spend our lives feeding your fire with pieces of ourselves.  At some point, your fire is yours to tend. Hey! Thanks for listening! If you liked this episode, please send us a message. We'd love to hear from you! Follow Cacao Conversations in your podcast app so each new episode is waiting for you when it drops. Explore Body & Soul Ministries, upcoming gatherings, programs, and retreats: https://www.bodyandsoulevents.love/cacaoconversations Julietta Wenzel  Founder of Body & Soul Ministries  Instagram: @bodyandsoulministries Dorice Ross  Elder of Body & Soul Ministries  Instagram: @rossdorice Sip. Connect. Awaken.

  2. Oct 1

    Why Does Doing Nothing Feel So Wrong?

    Why does sitting down to rest sometimes make us feel guilty, restless, or convinced we should be doing something more useful?  We live in a culture that celebrates being busy. Productivity is treated as responsibility. Exhaustion becomes proof that we’re needed. Even rest is often justified by how much more productive it will make us later.  In this episode of Cacao Conversations, Julietta Wenzel and Dorice Ross explore our discomfort with doing nothing. Why is it so difficult to rest without earning it? Who are we when we aren’t producing, solving problems, helping others, or checking something off a list? And how often do we stay busy because pausing might allow us to hear something we’ve been avoiding?  We talk about productivity guilt, the pressure to be useful, filling every empty moment with our phones, and the difference between physically stopping and actually resting. We also explore the sacred pause—the conscious space where we can step out of automatic momentum, hear ourselves, and choose what happens next. Does every pause need to produce an answer, insight, or breakthrough? Or can we allow ourselves to simply experience our lives without asking the moment—or ourselves—to accomplish anything?  Pour yourself a cup and join the conversation.  Cacao Conversations: Sip. Connect. Awaken.  Hey! Thanks for listening! If you liked this episode, please send us a message. We'd love to hear from you! Follow Cacao Conversations in your podcast app so each new episode is waiting for you when it drops. Explore Body & Soul Ministries, upcoming gatherings, programs, and retreats: https://www.bodyandsoulevents.love/cacaoconversations Julietta Wenzel  Founder of Body & Soul Ministries  Instagram: @bodyandsoulministries Dorice Ross  Elder of Body & Soul Ministries  Instagram: @rossdorice Sip. Connect. Awaken.

  3. Sep 23

    Is Gratitude Keeping You Stuck?

    Have you ever thought, “I have so much to be grateful for…so why am I still unhappy?” Gratitude can be powerful. But “just be grateful” can also become a way of ignoring what we actually feel, want, and know. In this episode of Cacao Conversations, Julietta Wenzel and Dorice Ross question the way gratitude is often taught in spirituality and personal growth. When does gratitude deepen our experience of life—and when does it become toxic positivity, spiritual bypassing, or another reason to silence ourselves? We talk about: The pressure to be grateful when something still feels wrongWhether gratitude journals create meaningful changeComparing our struggles to people who “have it worse”Being expected to appreciate painful experiences because they taught us somethingWanting more without dismissing what we already haveAllowing gratitude, anger, grief, and dissatisfaction to exist togetherCan you grow from an experience without being grateful it happened? And what if the part of you that isn’t satisfied isn’t ungrateful at all—but is trying to tell you something? Hey! Thanks for listening! If you liked this episode, please send us a message. We'd love to hear from you! Follow Cacao Conversations in your podcast app so each new episode is waiting for you when it drops. Explore Body & Soul Ministries, upcoming gatherings, programs, and retreats: https://www.bodyandsoulevents.love/cacaoconversations Julietta Wenzel  Founder of Body & Soul Ministries  Instagram: @bodyandsoulministries Dorice Ross  Elder of Body & Soul Ministries  Instagram: @rossdorice Sip. Connect. Awaken.

  4. Sep 16

    What Would Love Do? Reclaiming Our Power to Choose

    Why do we keep looking outside ourselves for permission, answers, safety, and even a sense of what's right? Have we become so accustomed to rules, experts, institutions, and other people telling us what to do that we've slowly stopped trusting ourselves?  This conversation started with Julietta trying to bring her own life into greater alignment with her truth—and realizing how complicated it can be to figure out what you're actually allowed to do.  That frustration opened up a much bigger question: Have we outsourced our personal power?  We create rules and regulations to protect people and keep them safe. Many of them serve an important purpose. But at what point does external protection begin replacing personal responsibility, discernment, and self-trust? When did we stop asking, "Is this right?" and start asking, "Am I allowed?" And if we didn't rely so heavily on external rules to tell us how to behave, what would guide us instead?  For Julietta, there is one question she continually comes back to:  **What would love do?**  Not: What do I want?  Not: What can I get away with?  But what would love do—and am I willing to take responsibility for what that choice creates?  In this episode of Cacao Conversations, we explore personal sovereignty, self-trust, morality, rules and regulations, freedom, responsibility, our relationship with safety, and what it might mean to become more consciously self-governing. Because reclaiming our power isn't simply about having more freedom. It's becoming responsible enough to use that freedom consciously.  And maybe the question isn't how we get rid of all the rules. Maybe it's:  **Who would we have to become to need fewer of them?**  Our discernment? Our responsibility? Our personal power?  We have created countless rules designed to protect people and keep society functioning. And some of those protections absolutely matter.  But we think it's worth asking what happens when we become so dependent on external authority that we stop developing our own internal compass.  Because there's a profound difference between asking:  **"Am I allowed to do this?"**  and asking: **"Is this the right thing to do?"**  For Julietta, there's another question she uses to guide her choices:  **What would love do?**  And love doesn't always mean doing what's comfortable or making everyone happy.  Love can require boundaries.  Love can require truth.  Love can require saying no.  Love can require allowing someone to experience the consequences of their choices.  And love requires us to recognize that our sovereignty exists alongside everyone else's.  In this episode of Cacao Conversations, we're exploring the relationship between freedom, personal responsibility, self-trust, morality, safety, and sovereignty.  Because sovereignty can't simply mean, "Nobody gets to tell me what to do." Real personal power asks more of us.  **I get to choose. And I am responsible for what my choices create.**  So what kind of people would we have to become to need fewer rules governing our behavior? We don't know. But maybe a good place to start is asking:  **What would love do?**  Hey! Thanks for listening! If you liked this episode, please send us a message. We'd love to hear from you! Follow Cacao Conversations in your podcast app so each new episode is waiting for you when it drops. Explore Body & Soul Ministries, upcoming gatherings, programs, and retreats: https://www.bodyandsoulevents.love/cacaoconversations Julietta Wenzel  Founder of Body & Soul Ministries  Instagram: @bodyandsoulministries Dorice Ross  Elder of Body & Soul Ministries  Instagram: @rossdorice Sip. Connect. Awaken.

  5. Sep 9

    Women, We Have More Power Than We Are Using

    This conversation may trigger some people—and that is intentional.  When toxic masculinity shows up, it is easy to point at men as the problem. But men did not create our current reality alone. Women and men co-created these patterns over generations, often doing the best we could with what we knew. Now we know better. It is time to do better.  In this episode of Cacao Conversations, we talk about the ways distorted power continues to be protected in corporate culture, healthcare education, healing spaces, and spiritual communities. We explore why women sometimes remain silent, excuse inappropriate behavior, or protect powerful men—and how we can take responsibility for our participation without blaming women for the harm done to them.  We also talk about the message Julietta received from Isis at the Temple of Philae: It is up to women to restore the balance of the sacred feminine and divine masculine. This is not a call to conquer, punish, or overpower men. It is an invitation for women to remember the power we already hold, support one another in speaking the truth, and create change alongside the men who are ready to help heal humanity. Because we are not meant to do this alone.  The question is no longer whether we have power. The question is whether we are willing to use it. What would love do?  Sip. Connect. Awaken  Hey! Thanks for listening! If you liked this episode, please send us a message. We'd love to hear from you! Follow Cacao Conversations in your podcast app so each new episode is waiting for you when it drops. Explore Body & Soul Ministries, upcoming gatherings, programs, and retreats: https://www.bodyandsoulevents.love/cacaoconversations Julietta Wenzel  Founder of Body & Soul Ministries  Instagram: @bodyandsoulministries Dorice Ross  Elder of Body & Soul Ministries  Instagram: @rossdorice Sip. Connect. Awaken.

  6. Sep 2

    Why Do We Settle?

    Have you ever looked around at your life and thought: "This can't be it."  Not because your life is bad. Not because you're ungrateful. But because somewhere deep inside, you know you're meant for more. More joy. More connection. More peace. More authenticity. More aliveness.  Many women spend years settling for situations they've outgrown. Not because they don't know better, but because settling happens slowly. We adapt. We tolerate. We convince ourselves things are "fine" while quietly feeling disconnected from ourselves.  In this episode of Cacao Conversations, we're exploring why we settle, what it costs us, and how to recognize the places in our lives where we've accepted less than what truly nourishes us.  We talk about:  the subtle ways we settle what we're tolerating that no longer fits why fear keeps us stuck comfort zones and hidden costs self-worth and self-trust the difference between gratitude and settling remembering what's possible choosing a life that feels aligned instead of merely acceptable Because the goal isn't perfection. The goal is a life that feels true. And sometimes the first step toward creating something new is being honest about what is no longer enough.  New episodes of Cacao Conversations drop weekly.  Sip. Connect. Awaken.  Hey! Thanks for listening! If you liked this episode, please send us a message. We'd love to hear from you! Follow Cacao Conversations in your podcast app so each new episode is waiting for you when it drops. Explore Body & Soul Ministries, upcoming gatherings, programs, and retreats: https://www.bodyandsoulevents.love/cacaoconversations Julietta Wenzel  Founder of Body & Soul Ministries  Instagram: @bodyandsoulministries Dorice Ross  Elder of Body & Soul Ministries  Instagram: @rossdorice Sip. Connect. Awaken.

  7. Aug 26

    The Promises We Keep Breaking to Ourselves

    Have you ever stopped to think about how many promises you've made to yourself... and then broken?  "I'll start next week."  "I'll take better care of myself."  "I'll set the boundary."  "I'll stop settling."  "I'll make time for what matters."  Most of us think our biggest challenge is confidence, motivation, or discipline. But what if the real issue is trust? Because every time we ignore our own needs, dismiss our own knowing, or break a promise we've made to ourselves, we weaken the relationship we have with ourselves.  In this episode of Cacao Conversations, we're exploring self-trust, why so many women struggle with it, and how we unknowingly undermine ourselves every day.  We talk about:  why self-trust matters more than confidence the small promises we break without realizing it how people-pleasing erodes trust in ourselves ignoring our intuition and inner knowing the relationship between boundaries and self-respect rebuilding trust one choice at a time learning to become someone you can rely on Because the goal isn't to become perfect. The goal is to become someone who honors her own truth. And every time you keep your word to yourself, you take another step toward becoming that person.  New episodes of Cacao Conversations drop weekly.  Sip. Connect. Awaken.  Hey! Thanks for listening! If you liked this episode, please send us a message. We'd love to hear from you! Follow Cacao Conversations in your podcast app so each new episode is waiting for you when it drops. Explore Body & Soul Ministries, upcoming gatherings, programs, and retreats: https://www.bodyandsoulevents.love/cacaoconversations Julietta Wenzel  Founder of Body & Soul Ministries  Instagram: @bodyandsoulministries Dorice Ross  Elder of Body & Soul Ministries  Instagram: @rossdorice Sip. Connect. Awaken.

  8. Aug 20

    When Everything Feels Heavy: You Are Not Alone

    These past few weeks have felt heavy. Everywhere we turn, people are going through something—grief, uncertainty, relationship struggles, health concerns, family challenges, big changes, and moments when life simply feels like a lot. And sometimes the hardest part is believing you're the only one struggling.  In this episode of *Cacao Conversations*, Julietta and Dorice talk honestly about what it feels like to move through these heavier seasons, including what happens when you're the healer, leader, caregiver, guide, or space holder who is usually supporting everyone else while carrying your own shit at the same time.  Having tools doesn't mean we don't struggle. Knowing how to hold space doesn't mean we don't need someone to hold space for us. Sometimes we need to remember to use the very things we offer everyone else.  We talk about coming back to the breath, reaching for community, asking for support, listening to what you actually need, and allowing other people to show up for you. Most of all, this conversation is a reminder that whatever you're moving through right now, you are not alone.  **You are worthy. You are loved. You matter.**  Hey! Thanks for listening! If you liked this episode, please send us a message. We'd love to hear from you! Follow Cacao Conversations in your podcast app so each new episode is waiting for you when it drops. Explore Body & Soul Ministries, upcoming gatherings, programs, and retreats: https://www.bodyandsoulevents.love/cacaoconversations Julietta Wenzel  Founder of Body & Soul Ministries  Instagram: @bodyandsoulministries Dorice Ross  Elder of Body & Soul Ministries  Instagram: @rossdorice Sip. Connect. Awaken.

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You can have a full life, be capable, successful, and deeply committed to your growth—and still feel like something is missing. Cacao Conversations is for people who are tired of living on autopilot, questioning their own truth, giving their power away, and carrying more than anyone realizes. Each week, Julietta Wenzel and Dorice Ross pour a cup of ceremonial cacao and have honest, grounded conversations about self-trust, people-pleasing, boundaries, spiritual growth, nervous system regulation, relationships, personal power, and what it takes to live as your authentic self. We question the beliefs we have inherited, challenge some of the messages repeated in spiritual and personal-growth spaces, and talk openly about the places where knowing better has not yet become living differently. If you have done the healing, read the books, listened to the experts, and still find yourself shrinking, settling, overgiving, or waiting for permission, these conversations are for you. You do not need to drink cacao to join us. Bring your coffee, tea, water, or simply yourself. New episodes are released weekly. Sip. Connect. Awaken. Learn more about Body & Soul Ministries, our community, events, programs, and retreats at bodyandsoulevents.love.

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