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Introduction to the Play Big Queen Podcast...
Welcome to the Play Big Queen podcast.
This is for the woman ready to lead with power, move with confidence, and own your Play Big self.
For my newly minted or late blooming, neurospicy visionary babes who are waking up to your power and unmasking your brilliance.
For the sovereign leader building success on your own terms.
I am your host, Kate Bailey.
I am the Play Big Queen.
My name is my title and a command for all women, Play Big Queen.
I invite you to claim this title for yourself and coronate your Play Big Self too, so it can serve you.
This is a space for bold embodiment, radical reclamation, unapologetic leadership, and a business that works with your wiring, not against it.
Your voice is meant to be bold and heard and your brilliance is here to be claimed.
You are already powerful.
I am in service of everyone fucking tired of the people pleasing grind.
We go deep, we get real, and we play big.
It's a new era for women on the Play Big path.
Long may we reign.
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Episode 49: The Power of Ritual: Dopamine, Behavior, and Why Meaning Creates Consistency
Welcome back. As we move through the rest of the holiday season, and while we are just a couple of weeks away from a whole new year, I want to talk about rituals. Not like in the productivity hack or performative way, but in a very real, lived, embodied way. This episode came together over the weekend in one of those moments where real life layers meaning on top of itself.
and the result is feeling like life is just so beautiful, so fun, poetic, funny. And like the universe is really in on it with us all the time as our sidekick, as our assistant, taking the orders we place and finding fun ways to surprise and delight us with how the universe delivers. And I have a story about this.
So I was hanging at my friend Sammy's house over the weekend on Saturday and my friend Megan was there as well. I got to see Megan's new baby and like smell the newborn's head and we were sitting on the couch when Sammy got a last minute call to officiate a wedding in Alamogordo, New Mexico. That's what Sammy does. She does weddings and like
makes a beautiful ritual out of them. And Ala magordo is like two and a half hours from where we live. And Sammy said that she had placed an order with the universe that she wanted to make more money around the holiday season she wanted to travel and that she was like energetically open to receiving more invitations to work. So she was committed to picking up the phone for any unknown numbers and
fully being in action around being available for the thing that she said she wants. So it's Saturday at like 5pm. We're sitting on the couch, we're chilling, just watching TV, talking, and she gets the call. And the job is last minute. It's hours away in Alamogordo. And she hangs up the phone saying that she doesn't want to do it, that it's too far, it's not that much money.
She doesn't like to drive at night and listen, I'm with her because my eyes are all messed up now and driving at night in the pitch black desert of New Mexico and then into the winding mountains on skinny roads is not the same thing as driving through a lit up New York City street. Like if something happens out there in the desert, chances are greater that you could die alone in a ditch. And so like I really get where she's coming from. So like,
I asked her, was like, how much do you charge for like officiating weddings? And it was something like $300 for a quick local thing. And after she hung up, I was like, you could totally increase the price for an emergency last minute wedding where you have to travel. And if you want, I'll go with you for the ride because we were just going to hang out at the house anyways. And I wanted to like,
dye my roots on a Saturday and just like do girl spa relaxation stuff, like dying my hair is never an emergency. And I wanted my friend to get what she wanted and to stack her paper and handle her business and go get this opportunity because it is exactly what she told the universe she wanted. Like if she was willing to do the work of receiving, she would have what she asked for. And I think this is common with a lot of us, right?
manifesting, putting what you want out in the universe. Sometimes we forget that like the universe meets you halfway and you have to do the work to open the door, to walk through it, to be ready to be, have or do whatever it is, whatever order you're placing with the universe. And that receiving, it's not a lot of work, it's a different kind of work, but it's work you have to show up for if you want the thing you say you want, right? And so I love her.
She is so real and she is so courageous and she texted the guy back and she said, yeah, I could do it, but it would cost a lot more. And he would have to leave a deposit for us to even leave our town and travel there. And he said, done. He sent the deposit and the address and Sammy and I start getting ready for a last minute road trip. I go to my house and throw my red heels in a backpack. I throw
a wedding outfit in there. I'm like dressed in jeans and a button down white collar shirt and my new Tarantate sneakers that I prototyped this week, which is now available for purchase if you want at tarantate.com. Get it while you can. It's a limited edition run. But like now I have this backpack with a wedding outfit in it in my bag just in case I need to look like an official witness for a wedding. So we get in the car.
And we talk the whole way and we have good conversation flow. like every moment just felt like sisters lit up with ideas about life and creation and relationships and all the things. And somewhere on the drive, she told me that she actually would love it if I got ordained as a minister to do weddings too. Because if she had a last minute wedding that she couldn't do, she would love it if I could do it for her since I have experience speaking and coaching and
life advising and all those things and she trusts me. So I pulled out my phone. I went where she told me to go. I got ordained online and then I spent a half hour before we got into like a dead cell zone SOS area just like researching to make sure all of the things from online ordination were like legit and legal and it was. It's all legal and it's all by the book and now I can legally officiate weddings and I just have to like.
double check if I go outside the state or try to marry anybody in another state that I can do it with the credentials that I got because some states don't accept it. There are like a few, but in New Mexico, as of the 13th of December, 2025, I am officially legally allowed to do a wedding like as of today.
And, you know, add it to my ADHD list of credentials, jobs, expertise, and experiences that I have in love. I just have to make sure I think that I register with the county clerk's office at some point and show them my credentials. since my friend worked at the clerk's office at some point, she's like a pro and can advise me if there are any ⁓ paperwork loose ends that I need to tie up before actually performing a wedding.
Sammy and I take this long drive, right? And it's starting to get cold and the guy on the phone said, you know, the wedding's casual. ⁓ So when we stopped at a gas station, I decided I was not gonna change into my heels and like this wedding outfit. ⁓ And thank God I didn't because we arrive at the address and Sammy texts the guy and she asks him, we're here. Is this right? Where do we go?
And he said, yes, we're inside the IHOP. And listen, I got nothing against IHOP. My mom used to work there as a waitress when I was younger. I know people can engage in legal commitments or rituals anytime, anywhere, and I don't judge. I think everyone's story is just so beautiful and fun and unique. But we go into this IHOP and sitting in a booth is this young couple, literally just old enough to marry, cute, calm.
with the groom handling business like a grown up and making sure his bride was taken care of and making sure she had a big stack of strawberry pancakes in front of her. They literally just needed the I do, the kiss, the paperwork signed and the balance paid to my friend. And then they were good to file the final paperwork and be legally married. My friend looked gorgeous. She was in a dress with a little crop black blazer.
The bride and groom had two friends there that were dressed up and like business casual and they even brought a wedding gift. There was like this big toaster sitting in the booth. It happened so fast and I took like a little video clip and I just managed to get the camera on in time to catch the part where they kiss. And when it was done, we went into the parking lot and my friend and I laughed about how, yes, we did have to travel and take a little road trip.
but it felt so pleasurable to do that because we were in great company. And she basically got five hundo for four minutes of her time and her signature. Yes, universe. More of that for my sister, please. Because that is what she desires and that is what she deserves. And here's the thing. If I had tried to explain Saturday night in a linear way, it would just sound like a series of random events.
a phone call, a drive, a diner, some paperwork, pancakes, a marriage. But in my body, in our bodies, it didn't land as random at all. It landed like a rhythm, as synchronicity, as someone placing an order with the universe, staying available to receive it, saying yes when it arrived in an inconvenient form, and then letting the moment become bigger
than your original plan and letting yourself be willing to surrender to the moment and to the adventure on the path to getting what you said you wanted. And that entire night moved like one ritual flowing into the next ritual and the next. Even though at the time we didn't really name it that way or say that's what it was, there was like a threshold that we crossed.
when Sammy answered the phone, and then another one when we got in the car, another when I got ordained on the drive, then another when we walked into that IHOP, and then another when two people said yes to each other and signed their names. Nothing about it was staged, and it worked. And that's what rituals actually do.
They move us through transitions without our nervous system fighting the change. And this is important, especially for anybody who knows what it's like to spend years manifesting or thinking about or planning for a wedding and the ritual of this kind of rite of passage. Even though I started this episode with a story from my weekend, I want to use it as a jumping off point for
where I really wanted to go in the meat of this episode. Because once you start seeing ritual in this way, you realize it's really not just about tradition. It's definitely not about performance. It's about how the brain and body create community, meaning, and follow through. What I've been noticing is that ritual gives the body something to lean into. When there is a sequence, a container, a rhythm,
The body doesn't have to fight the transition. It knows where it's going. It knows when something is beginning and when something is complete. And that is where dopamine comes in. Dopamine isn't just excitement. It's not just about like having to have novelty in order to get motivation. It is orientation. It is the part of the brain that orientates to and tracks what matters.
and what to return to. It's what helps us anticipate what comes next and stay engaged with it. And sometimes with ADHD, our dopamine dysregulation can be challenging, but when an action has meaning attached to it, the brain starts like predicting it before it happens. That prediction creates ease. It creates follow through without having to force anything.
And you can see this in really ordinary moments that become more than just like a daily habit, but like a daily ritual. Like for example, I have a daily ritual where after I walk my dog Foxy, she gets a cookie. It goes like this. I come in the front door, I remove her walking harness and her leash. I walk into the kitchen. She follows behind me. I look at her and I ask in sign language, do you want a cookie?
She wags her tail and looks at me, and then I rustle around in the box for a cookie. And then I take one out and I put it in her little mouth and she pauses for a moment with her head down, holding the cookie, wagging her tail as if to say thank you. And then she suddenly darts off with excitement to go off and have her own little ritual of savoring her cookie in her favorite spot. It is so adorable.
And you can definitely see her moment of pause and then the way she just comes out of it and like goes in another direction. And I kind of started to realize like it's really in those little moments of devotion and ritual where they just feel so good. And that pause that Foxy even had is like the end of the energy segment. It's her little puppy body.
that knows that the walk is done, the sequence or energy segment is complete, and Foxy's already expecting that before we get inside. That is dopamine doing its job in her little body, right? And humans work the same way. Ritual, much more than habit, can place us in time. It helps the nervous system settle.
And it makes transitions, something that we can struggle with with ADHD, feel coherent instead of abrupt. And I see this everywhere in life. I see it in how I connect with my husband, my friends, or my family members, how we open the energy segment of time we are going to spend together, or we close the energy segment when our time being present with each other is complete. Sometimes I even have a ritual of saying to myself, okay,
new energy segment, what is my intention here? And I think I got that actually from a practice that I learned about from Gabby Bernstein a long time ago. But those patterns actually create safety when you kind of like bookend the different energy segments throughout your day, throughout your life with these rituals. They let the body relax into relationships.
And they create a life that is more intentional and more connected to the moment through presence. And adornment works in the same way, right? So when you put something on your body with intention, whether it's a piece of clothing, adorning yourself with jewelry or makeup or flowers in your hair, when you take a moment to make a ritual out of getting ready, you feel the care for yourself, register.
in your body, your posture changes, your breath changes. You even move differently and embody your essence differently and more fully. And that response happens in body language. It happens in the language of the senses between you and your spirit before you can have any thoughts in your mind about it. Ritual allows us to
frequent, intentional states of being more regularly. States where you are being. States where you're intentional about how you are being, why you are being, where you are being. These are all things that we discover through ritual, and that is why ritual shows up across cultures, especially around milestones or big moments of transition.
The body understands symbolism faster than spoken language. Personally, I experienced this in the ritual of learning too. Like when I decide to learn something, I give it time, I let it sink in. Right now that looks like learning how to sew. I wanna get a sewing machine and I want to learn to repair things. I have like a lot of vintage coats that...
just need a little repair and they get to be fabulous all over again and I want to understand construction. I know that to be a creative director in fashion that other people can sew for me and that I don't necessarily need to acquire that skill but it does help to know the process so you know the limitations and then can figure out creative ways to overcome them. That was a lesson I learned from graphic design and how the process in
design can be limiting for the vision and to know where those limits are in like the process of creating a design gives you power to overcome them. And I want to know how to technically stretch what people think is possible. And then also my mother was an Italian seamstress before she owned her bridal shop so there's like lineage in Italian sewing for me too and I want to see what's there doing anything that was done
in your culture or what the women did before you is a whole journey that can be healing and open up access to new parts of your identity and history. And that kind of learning really settles into the body and becomes a newly activated part of your DNA, a newly activated part of your very nature. And it becomes intuitive. It becomes like this remembering.
of who you are in your lineage for centuries. I'm also returning to journaling and doing journaling as a ritual in the same way. I am intentionally choosing the journals and shopping around. I'm starting like the ritual of kind of curating my space for that because like,
when I start the ritual of journaling, doesn't mean that I just grab a pen and I write. There will be days like that for sure, but I want to hand write and document my Tarantate journey. So I'm like getting a box of custom journals that have like these red linings on it with a Tarantati stamp embossed because I'm that type of custom bougie bitch. That's what I like. ⁓
And I'm making sure it's in like the style of journal that I like to write in and I have very specific requests around those. And I'm thinking, where am I gonna start housing and saving all these journals in a way that like really stores them with respect and where will I mostly sit so I can feel connected the most to my intuition and the voice of my spirit and my ancestors.
What kind of candles and drinks will I have as I write? And the whole reality of my ritual of writing is being intentionally crafted for the things that I want to create and how I want myself and the universe to show up in the process of journaling. And it sounds like it because I want a lot of creative control for my experience of journaling, right? But it really is not about doing it perfect or right.
It's about doing what feels right for me. And it's about getting creative and creating a space that my body actually wants to return to when it struggles with habits or transitioning. The brain follows what feels meaningful. Dopamine will reinforce what feels intentional. And ritual doesn't have to be elaborate, right? Just like I said with Foxy, like it doesn't have to look
like even anything to anyone else. It just has to feel real to you. It could be as simple as like taking a breath every time you get in your car. If consistency has felt hard for you, it's often because the action hasn't been given a container yet. Ritual is how meaning lands in your body. And when the body knows what to expect,
Consistency stops feeling like this big effort. It becomes something that you naturally come back to over and over again with pleasure. And consistency actually doesn't come from effort or discipline alone. It emerges when an action carries meaning and the body can recognize that and trust that. When something feels intentional,
The nervous system stays engaged. Anticipation replaces resistance and repetition becomes natural instead of forced. Meaning gives behavior a sense of orientation, like I said before, allowing the body to return to an experience because it feels coherent and it feels alive instead of feeling compelled to avoid it because it was assigned or it feels
blah commercial or pedestrian or it's been over optimized, right? Before I close, I wanna leave you with something to help you craft your own rituals. As you've been listening, take a moment to notice where did your attention keep drifting back to as you listen to this episode? Not the part that you thought you should care about.
but the part that actually lingered in your body.
That is the place, usually, where ritual wants to be created. Pay attention to moments in your day that feel rushed, disjointed, or oddly draining, even when they aren't objectively hard. Pay particular attention to the moments that feel unfinished, like your body never quite fully landed, or never quite closed.
the energetic loop or segment.
Now just think about one of those moments. Just one.
And instead of trying to like go hard or dedicate yourself to like saying, I'm gonna do it every day. I'm just gonna be disciplined and do it. Instead of trying to fix it, ask yourself, what would help you feel held in those type of moments?
What would help your body recognize that this moment has a beginning?
and what would help your body recognize when it's complete.
That might be something sensory. It might be a sound, a movement, a change of clothes, an intentional pause, a question you ask about yourself. It might be something so small that you almost dismiss it. Let it be small. A ritual doesn't come from adding more effort. It doesn't come from pushing harder. It comes from adding meaning.
If you were to design this moment in a way that felt supportive instead of obligatory, what would you include?
What would you remove?
and what would you slow down?
And then notice how would you know what would be the signal in your body to let you know if the ritual worked. Not because you completed the ritual like a habit and did it perfectly or because you stayed consistent like forever, showed up every day, but because your body felt more settled afterward, because your body felt more orientated, more present.
and more like it felt drawn to return to this moment again and again and again. That is the signal. This could be applied to any experience that would benefit from ritual, from the ritual of sex to the ritual of doing homework or having people over for the holidays. Like if the holidays tend to arrive for you with so much pressure on your back, like maybe you're the one that needs the house clean, food to prep.
people to host, maybe the ritual isn't doing everything yourself until you're depleted. Maybe the ritual is naming that moment of pressure out loud and asking for help before you're already fried. Maybe it could be like turning prep into something that's shared with the music on and all of your hands moving and working together with some laughter mixed in and a little bit of mess.
And it could be about deciding what actually matters and just letting the rest go. The ritual might not change the task, but it changes how your body moves through it. And that is the point, because we cannot be moving through life completely stressed out, not tapped into the meaning of things, not present in our bodies. I mean, we could, but it's a very different experience. And a lot of experiences
experience that way in life are from a place of survival mode. And that's not the point of life. If something evolves over time, let it. Your rituals don't have to be rigid, they can move and evolve with you. The point isn't to build a flawless practice, it's to build a relationship with your own rhythm and how you do things and how your process is.
If you take nothing else from this episode, take this. Your body already responds to meaning. You don't have to convince it. You just have to listen and hear it.
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Outro 1
That's it for today, Queen.
Take what lit you up, leave what didn't.
You know what serves.
If you want to stay in this Play Big Queen orbit, get the rituals, resources, and real talk that fuels your Play Big self, go to xxxkatebailey.com, scroll to the bottom, and join this community.
This is where bold women gather. Neurodivergent visionaries, disability warriors, sacred disruptors.
If this episode spoke to you, leave a review on Spotify, Apple, or YouTube.
Leave comments, give me all the stars, share it.
That's how we create change that ripples, and how this podcast gets out to more people who need it.
If you're ready to work together to make your play big self not just a vision, but a reality that you embody, then head to xxxkatebailey.com, go to the work with Kate section, and join in on a program
that feels right for you.
Or tag me on socials and tell me a moment that truly served you from this episode.
Until next time, remember to honor your own timing, value your own unique way.
And most of all, when you come face to face with your boldest desires, trust your brilliance and Play Big Queen.
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Outro 2
Hey, queen, are you still here?
Good.
That means you're not just curious.
You are being called and want more.
I am here for the ones who want more than party trick mindset hacks.
The ones who need nervous system rooted, neurodiverse affirming space held by someone who is trauma trained, so they can rise on their terms.
My work is designed to center folks navigating ADHD, autism, disability, trauma, or mental health challenges and their brilliance all at once.
You do not need to be someone who identifies as neurodivergent or someone who has a disability to benefit from this work.
If you're feeling called, you belong here.
I believe in and support queer and trans rights, Black Lives Matter, sex worker rights, Palestinian, Ukrainian, and global self-liberation, religious autonomy, and dismantling abusive systems.
If that's too much for you, then babe, this isn't your podcast and you know where the unfollow is.
But if that lights a fire within you and you are inspired to learn more, then my Play Big Queen, you are home.
You can also head over to xxxkatebailey.com/about to learn more about me, my company,
qualifications, methodology, values, worldviews, philosophies, and my mission.
My mission is to activate 10,000 women with invisible disabilities to lead, create, speak up, and claim the spaces that they were told to shrink inside.
Because their leadership, your leadership, will change the world.
If you know that's you, declare it.
Put your energetic line in the sand and tell me.
Email me at [email protected] and tell me why this work is so important for you and we can explore opportunities to work together and make your Play Big dreams a reality.
