🌪️ Season 2: “We Regret to Inform You, Your Aura Is Leaking”🧃 Episode 1: I Drank My Chakras and Now I’m Emotionally Carbonated

Carl, my monocled cactus roommate-slash-unlicensed spiritual technician, has officially entered his Beverage Era. After last season’s emotional detox via sentient candles, dream subpoenas, and musical toads, I should’ve seen it coming. But nothing—and I mean nothing—could’ve prepared me for the moment he appeared in the kitchen wearing a tie-dye lab coat, holding a mason jar filled with what I can only describe as bioluminescent tea that looked like it had emotional opinions.

“This is kombucha,” he said, “infused with fermented inner light. I call it The Chakra Spritz. Drink it, and you’ll finally unclog your soul's sink.”

There are things one should question. Like whether your cactus is qualified to ferment anything. Or why the kombucha glowed softly like a fairy in therapy. But instead, I drank it. Because it was Tuesday, and I was bored, and frankly, healing sounded like a decent hobby.

The first sip was fizzy. Innocent, even. Floral notes, a hint of something citrusy—mango, maybe? Carl leaned in and whispered, “That’s your heart chakra. It’s overripe with regret.”

That’s when I burped. Loudly. Like a tiny earthquake escaped my chest cavity. And then it happened.

I remembered sixth grade. Specifically, the moment I told Melissa Hodges her glitter scrunchie was “trying too hard.” A wave of shame so potent swept over me that I had to sit down. The table briefly turned into a stage. I was 12 again. The scrunchie sparkled mockingly.

“Ah,” said Carl, scribbling something in his Emotional Weather Log. “That’s trauma effervescence.”

The second sip tasted like metal and resentment. “Root chakra,” Carl explained. “Probably childhood stuff.”

I burped again. Violently. And suddenly recalled the time I got lost in a mall and decided to live in a department store because I figured no one was coming for me. I named a mannequin Linda and declared her my new mother. I was five. I didn’t see my biological family for 30 minutes, but the abandonment felt eternal.

The room shimmered with unresolved feelings. The blender began humming a lullaby from the early 2000s. The fridge buzzed in sympathetic vibration. My emotions weren’t just surfacing—they were carbonating.

By the third sip, I could feel my sacral chakra—somewhere between my creativity and my lower intestines—tapping out a Morse code of suppressed artistic ambitions and unresolved relationship debris. It tasted like a papaya that had seen things.

Carl, meanwhile, was now wearing a shamanic fanny pack and consulting a mood ring on his thorn. “You’re officially entering stage three,” he said. “That’s the bubbling.”

“What bubbling?”

Carl pointed. My aura was leaking. Literally. Rainbow-colored steam hissed from my ears like a pastel teakettle. I looked in the mirror—my skin had taken on the texture of cosmic soda. I burped again, and out came a memory I hadn’t accessed since 2004: the time I fake-cried during a group project so I wouldn’t have to present. I had convinced myself I was “emotionally fragile.” In reality, I just hadn’t read the material.

Each belch became a ghost. Not metaphorically—actual specters of my own psyche began pacing the apartment. Guilt wore an ankle-length cardigan and judged my pantry. Longing had a clipboard and checked off “unfulfilled dreams” while humming Sade. Fear hovered in the doorway wearing Crocs and carrying a bag of expired coupons.

“I think you’ve got chakra indigestion,” Carl announced. “You didn’t chew your affirmations before swallowing.”

“Carl,” I wheezed, “I’m having an emotional gas leak.”

“No,” he corrected. “You’re releasing pressure. You’re sparkling. That’s growth.”

At this point, the kitchen clock melted. The walls rippled with holographic affirmations. The kombucha jar vibrated with the frequency of a forgotten apology. My cat, Denise, whom I do not own and who simply appears during these episodes, perched on the sink and meowed in Sanskrit.

In the corner, a vision of my third-grade self played with LEGO and whispered, “You promised you’d write a book one day.” The air smelled like mango and poor decisions.

I tried to ground myself. I put on socks. I ate a bagel. I stared at a neutral-colored wall and recited the multiplication table. But with each breath, more carbonation bloomed inside me—each molecule a memory, each bubble a monologue from the version of me I left behind.

Finally, Carl pulled out a cork.

“Aura pressure release valve,” he explained, and gently plugged it into my navel.

I deflated like a tired balloon. My chakra fog dispersed into the ceiling like ceiling popcorn with feelings. The specters bowed politely and faded into the floor. Carl poured the rest of the kombucha into a plant. The plant sneezed.

“That was intense,” I said, my voice returning to its usual octave of existential uncertainty.

Carl nodded. “You’re lucky. Most people take years to burp out their abandonment issues.”

I lay on the couch for three hours while Carl read aloud from his new zine titled Fizzy Soul, Flat Planet: The Science of Sparkling Spirituality. I tried to take a nap but the lemongrass incense kept telling me I wasn’t ready for inner peace.

By the end of the day, I felt lighter. Clearer. Slightly fermented, but in a good way.

It turns out healing isn’t always linear. Sometimes it’s carbonated. Sometimes it escapes your body in puffs of glowing regret. And sometimes your cactus roommate makes you drink your own chakras because apparently, that’s just what growth tastes like.

Carl now sells chakra kombucha at the local co-op under the brand name “Soul Fizz™.”

His tagline? “Drink your feelings. Then burp out your baggage.”

I don’t know if I’m enlightened. But I do know this: the heart chakra tastes like mango and heartbreak, and I’ll never burp the same way again.

Namaste, or whatever.