Alive & Alone
Episode notes
On my 40th birthday, I jumped out of a plane 13,000 feet above the Pacific Ocean, alone. But the story doesn't start at the jump. It starts a week earlier, having a total breakdown at home because I felt forgotten, unchosen and lonely.
On Friday, September 25th, 2026, I turned 40 and went skydiving for the very first time in Oceanside, California. Solo. And the strangest part? I wasn't scared.
In this first episode of Ripples in the Matrix, I take you from the airplane door to the free fall, the moment I finally let go of the harness and opened my arms, and the words that kept pouring out of me: I am so alive.
Then we go back to where this story really begins: the week before my birthday, when I felt alone, discarded and not chosen. I share the emotional purge I'd been resisting for months, the friend who held space for me, the unexpected invitation that showed up in the middle of it, and the moment I realized no one was coming to create my birthday for me. I had to choose myself.
We also get into:
- Why I wasn't craving adrenaline. I was craving feeling alive.
- How life turns into a to-do list instead of a to-feel list when we disconnect from our practices
- Living as God in body, and what Kobe Bryant and Kanye West taught me about delusional self-belief
- The limits I'd been treating as facts, and which ones are actually mine
- Fear vs. faith, and why I'm more afraid of not fully living than of dying
- Why integration matters as much as the experience itself
- Why this podcast exists
This isn't an invitation to jump out of a plane (unless you've been feeling that nudge, then go!). It's an invitation to ask: Where have you stopped feeling fully alive? Where are you waiting to be chosen? And what limit have you agreed to that was never yours?
Chapters
00:00 – Turning 40 and my first skydive
00:56 – Waiting for the fear that never came
03:01 – An unexpected connection: skydiving over the pyramids
03:58 – The door opens
06:04 – The jump and the free fall
09:44 – "I am so alive"
10:48 – Where this story really starts
13:42 – Feeling unseen, unchosen and lonely
15:04 – The emotional purge I'd been resisting
18:17 – An invitation in the middle of it all
21:06 – Finding evidence of support
22:03 – Choosing myself
23:35 – Craving aliveness, not adrenaline
24:24 – A to-do list instead of a to-feel list
25:19 – God in body: Kobe, Kanye and delusional self-belief
29:00 – The limits I'd been treating as facts
30:47 – Let go and let God: what if you fly?
31:54 – Life is a game, and I'm not afraid of dying
34:51 – The beach: why integration matters
37:23 – The old Simone and year 40
39:03 – Why this podcast exists
41:07 – Your invitation