Season 1 Episode 1 - I’m starting a podcast!
Hey, it's Katy, and I'm here to help you befriend your mind, body, and soul. If you stick around with me long enough, you might find that you're a mindful soul too. Hello and welcome to episode one.I'm starting a podcast. Yay! I know everybody starts a podcast. I've seen all the jokes out there, all the memes ‘who's listening to all these podcasts’. But you know what? I'm starting a podcast because it simply sounds fun. It's actually something I've been thinking about for probably over a year now. And yeah, I just see it as a creative outlet. I really like to talk and share and connect with people. So even if like two people get something from this, great. And if not, it's still going to be fun for me to do. So one reason why I wanted to start a podcast is I think it's a little more digestible than a blog. A lot of these episodes are going to be short and sweet. Some might be longer, but just depending on what we talk about. I'm a big fan of more big talk, less small talk. I like going deep andI like exploring different issues. So the topics on this podcast are really going to range. I'm not going to box myself in. There's going to be talk about women's issues, cultural issues, mental health. Obviously, I am a licensed mental health therapist by trade. I worked in that industry for about 15 years and recently Pivoted in the last couple of years into my online business and the coaching world. And partly I don't actually want to be representing the field of mental health here. Obviously, that's my background and a lot of my knowledge and a huge part of what my purpose is in my work. But I just want to be a human here andsharing from my heart, sharing things that I know.So yeah, if you've been around my world for awhile, one thing that I talk about is soul alignment.I actually have a blog post that I wrote about itI can link in the show notes, but soul alignment isa big part of my mission in my work with women.It's also been a lifelong mission for myself.Soul alignment is when we align with who we trulyare, when we befriend our mind, body, and soul.We let go of judgment.We follow our true north.We don't let outside factors sway us.And so part of my personal journey in starting this podcast is also for me to practice my own soul alignment andfreedom of expression is a huge part of who I am.I want to be able to share ina way that feels unrestricted and yeah, not put any pressure on this podcast to serve a specific purpose or accomplish anything or whatever.I want it to be a space that feels reallyfree and fun for me because that's when it's going to feel really fun and hopefully interesting for you.Here's the thing, though.This podcast is not going to be for everyone.And one thing that I've loved abouttransitioning into self employment is that Idon't have to be for everyone.If you work a nine to five or you've everworked in corporate or for an agency or business, youknow, there's a lot of conformity that kind of happenswhen you're employed, of course, sometimes for very good reasons.There's like certain rules and stuff.But I'm really in this process of shedding things like professionalism, where you have to behave in a certain way.That's probably a whole notherpodcast we could talk about.And don't get me wrong, professionalism has a place like we do need some standards of behavior in a workplace.We don't want sexual harassment, we don't want discriminationand those sorts of things to be happening.But a big part of my personal journey towards soulalignment is just freedom to be who I am, talkhow I am and work how I am.And the people who love that can stick around and the people who it's not for them.They don't have to stick around.And that's all good.So my first disclaimer will be that if you don't like cussing, this podcast will not be for you.I love to cuss.I love dropping F bombs in my regular life.I cuss all the time.It's just fun. I enjoy it.It's how I talk.And yeah.So if you don't like cussing, this is not going to be the space for you.And you might be wondering, Katie, ify ou're teaching mindfulness and more peaceful, present conscious living, shouldn't you not be cussing?Isn't that like a bad thing to do?And a huge part of my mission ismaking mindfulness more accessible to more people.And the truth is, mindfulness is inclusive as fuck.And there are so many self care, self healingpersonal development practices out there that end up justbeing almost more self damaging because you're like judgingyourself and trying to fix yourself and being critical of yourself and trying to whip yourself into shape to be better this or better that.And that just does more harm than good.And this is maybe where my history and mentalhealth work comes in and differentiates me from alot of the coaching industry that I see reallypolarizing into what can be like positive vibes only.Right?And one thing that you also will not enjoy this podcast if you are someone who wants positive vibes only,if you only want to focus on the light and the positive and all of that, this is not going to be the space for that.Because again, when we ignore the flip side of life, which is the pain and the challenges and the difficulties, ignoring those things, pushing them away, pretending they don't exist, that actually doesn't solve anything.So we have to be willing to look at the difficult, uncomfortable, painful experiences that really do happen in this life in order to move through, work on things and feel more joy, peace and make the world a better place, if that makes sense.One reason why I really love personal development and obviously I'm in mental health and personal development field is that when we do it holistically, when we do it with a mindfulness perspective which is nonjudgmental, curious, nonreactive personal development leads to less suffering and I am here for that.I want to suffer less, I want to help you suffer less.I want to see less suffering in the world.But when we approach personal development from this positive vibes only mentality where we judge certain things as bad, like, OOH, you have bad thoughts, don't think bad thoughts, or don't have those bad negative feelings like anger or anxiety, when we come from that judgmental perspective of, OOH, we better get rid of those things and fix these things, it just creates more internal struggle, and it can actually lead to a lot of self hatred.I really like to look at where things come from and how things develop in our psyche and what brings us to certain mindsets or approaches.And I often look at the collective cultural social issues that come down through generations.And so where this positive vibes only stuff comes from is things like Puritanism, which is a religiousI mean, you see it in many religions over the millennia where the goal is to be good and pure and salvation or enlightenment or whatever.To get there you have to only think the positive thoughts, only do the good behaviors and it just kind of rejects and cuts out the other part of our humanity in existence.So even when you see more New Age spirituality or self help practices that are a little more holistic and they're not based in religion, they're based in, like, Law of Attraction manifestation, that sort of thing, which I'm super down for, by the way.Law of Attraction is a thing, but it brings in the puritan mindset into these practices and that's where it starts to corrode a little bit and become very almost like gaslighty, right?Like I'm in a lot of different forums online andI'll see people pop in a comment and say I'mreally struggling, I can't seem to think positive, I can't seem to get myself out of this mess.Like maybe there's something going on in their life or whatever and a manifestation coach will comment and say something like well, you just are not focusing on the positive enough, right?Or you're not opening yourself up enough to the possibility and sort of gaslights that person,blames that person for their suffering and their circumstances rather than acknowledging maybe there's a very good reason that that person is feeling stuck and afraid or discouraged or frustrated and we have to start with acknowledgment of those things.So that we can work through them before we move over into the positive thinking or some of the more like the feel good focused practices, right? We're going to be talking a lot about things like shadow work.How do we look at our unconscious patterns, our ineffective, unhelpful patterns that we like to repress and push aside.Because when we can actually look at those things and shine light on them with compassion and lovingkindness,that's when we can actually transform those things.So one phrase that I think is really at the heart of the work that I do with people comes from yoga.It's a yogic term called root to rise,where when you rise into a standing posture,you're reaching up into the sky.Before you do that, you have to root down into the earth.And I think that is so applicable to our own health and wellness that we can't just be reaching for the sky.Happiness, positivity, enlightenment, right?Like success and all these bright shiny things at the top.Unless we are also rooting down into the earth and looking at the darkness and where we're getting stuck and where we're struggling.And none of those things make us wrong or bad, they just make us human.And so it really kind of comes down to that yin and yang symbol that we all know life includes light, life includes dark.And we have to learn to embrace and work with the wholeness of our human experience rather than bypass some of the more difficult, uncomfortable things and only want to experience the positive and the pleasurable, right?So those are my precautions.If you don't like cussing, this won't be the place for you.And if you want positive vibes only, this also won't be the place for you.We're going to talk about some uncomfortable subjects.And it's funny, in my social circle throughout my career, I've noticed I am so comfortable having uncomfortable conversations and I know it's because I'm a therapist.Like when you're sitting in the therapy room all day long having very difficult,uncomfortable conversations that people don't talk about with anybody else in their life, right?That's why they're coming to a therapist.You just get kind of used to it, right?I'm like, I'm down to go deep, I'm down to get uncomfortable and it doesn't faze me.Whereas a lot of other people like, oh myGod, are you really going to talk about that?Are you really going to bring that up?Like, whoa, is that taboo?So, yeah, that's what we're looking at here on this podcast.I hope you stick around.I'm really excited for this.Probably going to try to do episodesweekly, probably going to do seasons.So won't be doing this year round becauseI am working on building a regenerative business that ebbs and flows in cycles.That works with my natural energy and rhythm as well.So happy to have you and talk to you next time.
