In the first episode of 2026, Laura and Bridget take a lovingly skeptical look at the idea of “coping skills”...what we’re taught they should look like, why so many of them fail us, and what actually helps when life feels tender, overwhelming, or just plain unmanageable. Set in that disorienting space between Christmas and New Year’s, coping skills are on the top of their minds.

They unpack how coping skills can morph into another form of self-pressure, especially in therapy culture and productivity culture, where “doing the right thing” can override what our bodies are actually asking for. From sensory regulation to the radical permission to do nothing, they explore the difference between caring for ourselves and controlling ourselves (and how often we confuse the two).

Warm, honest, and subversive, this episode is for anyone who’s ever felt like they were “failing” at coping. It offers a gentler reframe: that the skills that actually work aren’t always pretty, impressive, or Instagrammable. Instead, they’re the ones that help you stay with yourself when everything else feels like too much.

In this episode of Transitional Objects, Laura and Bridget do what they do best...gently dismantle a culturally accepted idea and see what actually resonates. This time, it’s New Year’s resolutions (and yes, they dislike them).

Using the end of 2025 as a reflective pause rather than a self-improvement launchpad, the conversation moves through what this past year held, what it demanded, and what it reshaped. Instead of goal-setting or productivity theater, they talk about noticing. About patterns that revealed themselves slowly. About the difference between forcing change and allowing clarity to arrive on its own timeline.

Together, they explore why the language of “resolutions” often feels disruptive to the nervous system - rigid, moralized, and disconnected from how humans actually grow. In its place, they experiment with something softer for 2026; intentions rooted in capacity, curiosity, and truth-telling rather than performance.

There’s humor, skepticism, tenderness, and a shared rebellion to the notion that January 1st has magical powers. This one is for anyone who feels allergic to “new year, new you” energy.

In this episode of Transitional Objects, Laura and Bridget welcome their first-ever guest, psychic medium and energy healer Ashley Rosales. Together, they step into the space between what we can explain and what we feel but don’t always have language for, exploring intuition and the ways those we’ve loved can come through after death. Later in the episode, Ashley gives a medium reading to Bridget.

Together, they explore what it means to stay connected to the people (and animals) who have died, how grief can open doors we didn’t know existed, and why some relationships don’t end so much as they change form. Ashley shares her own path into mediumship, what shaped it, and how learning to listen (to energy, to spirit, to the body) altered her forever.

The conversation is tender, curious, and deeply human. There’s laughter, skepticism, awe, and a live reading that invites reflection on ancestry, care, and the unseen ways we’re supported.

Ashley Rosales is a spirit communicator and energy healer. Her practices are based in curanderismo, or traditional Latino Indigenous medicine and healing. She has been using her gifts to intentionally guide and bring healing to my life since 2011 and to help others since 2022.
She offers intro-level classes to help you develop your own intuition and monthly subscriptions for personal and collective card readings.
If you want to work with her directly, she offers 60-minute mediumship sessions on Zoom and limited in-person energy healing sessions in Bellingham, WA. You can find out more about Ashley at ashdelasrosas.square.site/