I Thought I Was Done Discovering New Dreams. Then I Started Kneading Dough.
What if the dreams you think you've outgrown are actually just waiting for your nervous system to quiet down enough to hear them again? That's what happened to me. At 70. With a king cake and a memory
One Thing Coherence Took Away That I Do Not Miss At All
I used to be in love with feeling clever.
If I came up with an idea and it felt clever in my head, I was already halfway in. It did not matter if it was sustainable or sensible, if it fit my life or matched my nervous system. If it felt like I had found a workaround, I was all in.
Clever was my drug.
Look how smart I am. Look how I cheated the system. Look how I found the back door.
You know what I have noticed, looking back from where I am now?
Every single clever idea that I chased because it felt clever did not work the way I thought it would. Some fizzled. Some backfired. Some cost more energy than they ever returned.
There is a reason for that.
Clever was my nervous system trying to outthink reality.
Coherence does not work that way.
The Note That Showed Me My Old Self
This realization came back to me because of a note I saw on Substack.
A younger creator, hugely successful by numbers, was gleefully sharing how she had found a way to run three newsletters from one account. She had a little diagram, arrows, labels, the whole thing. The energy of it was basically: “I gamed it. I cracked it. I beat the system.”
And my first thought was not about her at all.
It was: “Oh God, I know that feeling. I used to live off that feeling.”
The rush of “I hacked it.” The thrill of “I outsmarted them.” The high of “I found a shortcut.”
That used to be what turned me on.
Now it does not land the same way in my body.
It feels sharp, not deep. It feels buzzy, not grounded. It feels like ego, not soul.
That shift is one of the biggest, quietest benefits of coherence that nobody talks about.
Two Kinds Of Clever
Coherence did not make me stupid. I still love good ideas. I still like smart structures. I still enjoy playing with systems.
What changed is my ability to feel the difference between two kinds of clever.
There is playful intelligence. And there is ego clever.
Playful intelligence feels like: “Of course. That fits. That supports what is already true.”
Ego clever feels like: “I am ahead. I beat it. I got one over on the system.”
Playful intelligence is collaborative. Ego clever is adversarial.
One works with how life actually moves. The other tries to bend life around a workaround.
Before coherence, my nervous system could not tell the difference. It just heard “this is clever” and off we went.
Now, because I live more regulated, I can feel which one is operating. My body will tell me long before my brain does.
Tight chest, buzzing head, fast thoughts? That is ego clever.
Soft chest, steady breath, quiet “yes” in the gut? That is soul-aligned intelligence.
Same brain. Different engine.
The Dream I Forgot For 30 Years
Here’s where it gets interesting.
A few weeks ago, I was talking about Mardi Gras. About king cakes. About how much I love them because I’m 100% Cajun and it’s in my blood.
And I may have talked a little too enthusiastically.
Because the next thing I know, I’m being very politely cornered into actually making one.
A dare, really. Or maybe a challenge. Either way, I said fine. Let’s do this.
But here’s what I didn’t expect:
The moment I started kneading the dough, something unlocked
.
A memory. A dream. Something I’d set down about 30 years ago and completely forgotten.
I used to say—back when I was still married, still performing, still living everyone else’s life—“I would love to learn how to bake. Real baking. Bread. Pastry. The kind that takes time.”
And then life happened. Marriages. Moves. Survival. Caregiving. Performing.
And that quiet little dream just... sat there. Waiting.
Until a king cake reminded me it existed.
Here’s What Coherence Actually Did
I don’t think I would have remembered that dream if I hadn’t spent the last year building coherence.
Because here’s the thing about ego clever:
Ego clever is LOUD. It’s always looking for the next hack, the next workaround, the next way to prove you’re smart enough to win.
And when your nervous system is running on that frequency, you can’t hear the quiet things.
The soul doesn’t shout. It whispers.
And I spent decades unable to hear it because I was too busy being clever.
But coherence? Coherence quiets the noise.
It regulates your system enough that the quiet things can finally reach you.
So when I was kneading that dough—hands covered in flour, kitchen smelling like something sacred—I didn’t just remember the dream.
I felt it.
The joy. The pleasure. The deep, soul-level rightness of doing something I’d forgotten I wanted.
Not because it would make me money. Not because it would impress anyone. Not because it was clever.
Because it was true.
The Bread Fairy
A neighbor asked me what I was going to do with all the baked goods.
I said, “I’ll just pop them in a baggie and leave them at people’s doors with a little note.”
She laughed and said, “You’re going to be the Bread Fairy.”
And I thought: Yes. That’s exactly what I want to be.
Not because it’s a brand. Not because it’s a strategy. Not because it’s clever.
Because 30 years ago, I had another dream I’d completely forgotten:
To be loving and nurturing for the pleasure of it. Not for the monetizing.
That dream got buried under decades of needing to be useful, needing to perform, needing to prove I was worth keeping around.
But coherence brought it back.
Not with fanfare. Not with a business plan.
Just with flour on my hands and the quiet recognition:
Oh. This is what I wanted all along.
You Cannot Hack What Your Soul Is Asking You To Live
Here is what I know now, and I wish I had known it years ago:
You cannot short-circuit how the universe works in your life.
You can hack a platform. You can game an algorithm. You can find a loophole in a policy.
But you cannot hack your own becoming.
You cannot hack grief. You cannot hack nervous system healing. You cannot hack learning to trust yourself again. You cannot hack repairing the relationship with your own soul.
And you cannot hack into dreams you’ve forgotten you ever had.
Every time I tried to build a “clever” life move on top of an incoherent inner life, it fell apart. Not because God was punishing me or the universe was “testing” me, but because the foundation was wrong.
I was trying to game the system instead of be in relationship with myself.
Coherence changed that.
What Coherence Actually Gave Me
People keep asking me what coherence “does,” so let me put it this way:
Coherence took away my appetite for clever schemes.
It gave me:
A nervous system that is not braced all day
The ability to feel when something is a true nudge versus a shiny distraction
A lot less interest in gaming anything
A lot more interest in being in relationship with my own soul
The ability to remember dreams I’d forgotten for 30 years
When you are coherent, you do not need hacks.
You have a direct line.
You do not need to game the universe. You talk to it. You listen. You respond.
That is what all that 4-4-6 breathing did for me, long before I had language for it. It regulated my system enough that I could feel when an idea was coming from the deep well of me, or from my ego yelling: “Come on, let’s be clever, that will show them.”
Coherence turned the volume down on that voice.
And in the quiet that followed, I found flour. And dough. And a 30-year-old dream that had been waiting all along.
The Pleasure I Didn’t Expect
Here’s the part that surprised me most:
Baking brings me a kind of joy I don’t get from painting or writing.
I love painting. I love writing. They’re how I make my living. They’re how I connect with my soul and my readers.
But baking?
Baking is pure pleasure.
No output required. No audience needed. No monetization plan.
Just me, the dough, and the rhythm of something slow and sacred.
That’s what coherence gave me access to.
Not the “smart” move. Not the “strategic” pivot.
Just the quiet recognition that some dreams aren’t meant to be hustled.
Some dreams are just meant to be lived.
How To Test This In Your Own Life
If you want a practical benefit of coherence, here it is:
You stop wasting your life force on things that only feel good because they feel clever.
Next time a “brilliant” idea hits you, pause long enough to ask:
Do I love this because it is aligned with who I am becoming—or because it makes me feel a little superior?
Am I trying to support what is already true in my life—or avoid doing the slower work that actually needs to be done?
If nobody noticed, if this did not grow my numbers or impress a soul, would I still want to live this way?
If you need adrenaline and applause for it to feel worth it, that is ego clever.
If you would still do it quietly because it feels like truth, that is soul.
Coherence is what lets you feel the difference.
And that might be my favorite part:
I no longer have to figure out how to be clever enough to win.
I get to be clear enough to listen.
And in the listening, I found bread.
And the Bread Fairy.
And a dream I thought I’d lost forever.
If you just recognized yourself in this—if you’ve been chasing clever instead of listening to your soul—you’re ready for what I write about every day.
I help women stop performing their lives and start actually living them.
Not with hacks. Not with shortcuts. Not with clever workarounds.
With coherence.
With the kind of nervous system regulation that quiets the noise enough for you to hear what’s been waiting all along.
Right now through February 23rd, I’m offering 20% off annual subscriptions to The Daily RE-WIRE.
When you subscribe, you get immediate access to:
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This isn’t about becoming more productive.
It’s about becoming more you.
The version who remembers what she wanted before the world told her what she should want.
The version who can feel the difference between a shiny distraction and a soul nudge.
The version who might just discover a 30-year-old dream waiting in the quiet.
You don’t need to be clever enough to win.
You just need to be clear enough to listen.
And coherence is what makes that possible.
Beautiful. Just beautiful.
Thank you for pointing out the curse of clever.
This, what you’re building here is building…
Coherent Crones!
Monica, I love how specific and grounded your revelations are. It is so important to be in our bodies and not dissociated, to learn what it feels like when we’re coherent instead of agitated. When I was young, I had the same relationship to “clever.” and as you discovered, it never worked out well for me. In fact, it created great suffering for me. It was a good reminder of how I learned that the process itself is important. When they say, the journey is the point, not the destination there’s a reason. Life is so much more peaceful now that I’m living with that insight. Thanks, girlfriend.