In this episode, we sit with Kate King, a seasoned Licensed Professional Counselor and Board-Certified Art Therapist, to explore the transformative journey of healing trauma. Kate shares her unique approach to mental health, combining therapy, art, and personal growth strategies to help individuals overcome trauma and discover their true selves.
This month, we’re thrilled to be sponsored by X-Sense Smoke Alarms! Keep your home and loved ones safe with X-SenX-Sense smoke alarms. These advanced alarms connect directly to your mobile phone, providing real-time alerts and peace of mind no matter where you are. Plus, you can enjoy a 20% discount with the code XSENSESD. Click here to purchase and secure your home today!
Episode Highlights:- Understanding Trauma: Kate breaks down the different types of trauma and their impact on mental health.
- The Role of Art in Healing: Learn how art therapy can be a powerful tool for processing emotions and fostering personal growth.
- Practical Healing Strategies: Kate provides actionable advice for setting boundaries, practicing self-care, and cultivating resilience.
- Integrating Spirituality: Discover how incorporating spirituality into therapy can enhance healing.
- Personal Growth Journey: Kate shares personal stories and insights from her journey, offering inspiration and guidance for listeners.
- Over 17 years of experience as a Licensed Professional Counselor and Board-Certified Art Therapist.
- Founder of The Radiant Life Project, empowering others through books, retreats, workshops, and coaching.
- Author of The Radiant Life Project and The Authentic Mother.
- Creator of the Ink & Wings Oracle Deck, a tool for personal exploration and intuitive growth.
- Website: The Radiant Life Project
- Instagram: @theradiantlifeproject
- Facebook: The Radiant Life Project
- YouTube: The Radiant Life Project Channel
- LinkedIn: Kate King on LinkedIn
If you or someone you know is struggling with mental health issues, reach out to the crisis hotline in your area. It's ok to not be ok. Just make sure you are talking to someone; help is always available!
- United States: 988 Crisis Lifeline
- Canada: 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline
- Worldwide: Find a Helpline
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Audio Editing: By NJz Audio.
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00:00:07
Hey there, listeners. Welcome to Shit That Goes On In Our Heads,
00:00:11
the podcast where we normalize conversations around mental health.
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That's right. I'm Dirty Skittles, and alongside my amazing co-host,
00:00:18
you, Rex, we are here to share real stories and tips from our incredible guests.
00:00:23
Each episode, we deep dive into struggles and triumphs of mental health,
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offering practical advice and heartfelt support.
00:00:30
Because no one should feel alone in their journey. Join us as we break the stigma
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and build a community of understanding and compassion.
00:00:38
Tune in and let's start talking about the shit that goes on in our heads.
00:00:43
Three, two, one. Welcome back to another episode of shit that goes on in our heads.
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I'm Dirty Skittles and I'm joined here today with my co-host, V-Rex, and Kate.
00:00:57
Hi, Kate. Hi. Nice to be here with you.
00:01:01
Yes. Where are you located? I am outside of Denver. If you've ever heard of
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the Red Rocks Amphitheater, that's my neighborhood.
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Very cool. I have, that's when they do like a really cool concert, right? Yeah. Yeah.
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I know. I only get to see it on like social media. I haven't been there in person,
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but I'm like, oh, it's really cool. Pretty cool.
00:01:21
Yeah. Yeah. Have you gone to see any shows there? To be honest with you,
00:01:25
I'm a total introvert and my nervous system is touch and go.
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So I don't do concerts because they're really overstimulating for me.
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But I do a lot of hikes around the amphitheater.
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And it's this incredible piece of nature where the plates have just jutted out
00:01:42
of the earth in this incredible arrangement.
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So I hear the concerts are incredible. I can see the lights from my house,
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but I have to protect my nervous system sometimes. times.
00:01:52
Wow. Very cool. When did you learn that about yourself? That,
00:01:56
It was a bit much. I mean, it was certainly in my college years,
00:02:00
I just did all the things I thought I was supposed to do and got myself into
00:02:05
all kinds of really weird internal experiences of burnout and exhaustion.
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And then I went through grad school and I learned a little more about therapy and art therapy.
00:02:16
And it wasn't until after grad school that I pursued other forms of my own healing and trainings.
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And the more, probably in the last...
00:02:26
I don't know, 10 years or so, I've really gotten clear on the gifts of introversion
00:02:32
and some of the needs of being an introvert.
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I read the book Quiet, which I just love so much.
00:02:38
It's so validating and affirming of introversion without being shaming or pathologizing at all.
00:02:45
And then more recently, Stephen Porges' polyvagal theory has been really helpful for me.
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I've gotten trained in it. And now I work with my clients with that and just
00:02:55
understanding the nervous system at that level and really honoring it and thinking
00:02:59
about nourishing from that level has been very life-changing.
00:03:03
Yeah. That's something I picked up. The reason why I asked was because when
00:03:06
you said it, I heard it and I was like, wow.
00:03:10
Unapologetic. This is just what it is. And I'm going to do this because,
00:03:13
and like, I feel like I'm the only introverted Leo.
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I like to, you know, be with friends and stuff, but I oftentimes will come back
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and I say it almost as a joke because I'm afraid she'd be like,
00:03:25
you know, I actually don't like doing those things.
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And I oftentimes will tell my husband, I'm like, I'm just overstimulated. Like it's too much.
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I can have it maybe in small doses, but like what you just said,
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that I'm struggling internally to just take it in the small dose.
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It's like, I'm like, I just want to be inside. I want to read a good book.
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I want like to light a candle and just sort of be alone in that moment.
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Yeah. A lot of people get it. It's really hard to shrug off all of society's
00:03:53
expectations for what fun looks like and what socializing looks like.
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And I can relate to the Leo thing because I'm an Aries and, you know,
00:04:01
another fire sign. And I would love nothing more than to just be like on my
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front porch with a good book and watching all the other people go to Red Rock for the concert.
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Yeah, I'm on this journey. And I really, I feel like I realized that maybe yesterday
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in the shower, where right now we are visiting my parents and we're in Orlando.
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And while I love my family and
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I love being around them and all of the personalities, it's so loud here.
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And I was in the shower and I'm trying to think like, Like, what is bothering
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me? Like, what is really bugging me? Because I'm not my same person.
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And I realized it was because I have been working without really consciously
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thinking about it and making my safe space our home in Georgia.
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And what that means for me, that I have like those little nooks where I can
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just be quiet and be alone and fully embrace what that means for me.
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And now, you know, I'm not in that element. I'm not sad, you're not sad.
00:04:59
I'm like i started gardening i'm like there's something outside and like
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here are the birds and look at my tomatoes and like that's my
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idea of fun so sounds lovely to me right
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what about you g-rex so i am the direct opposite of both of you i am a huge
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extrovert and to answer your question about the concert at red rocks i've seen
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several so i saw the doobie brothers there i I saw Journey there. I saw you too.
00:05:26
Yeah. Dude, I'm old. I am a boomer.
00:05:30
I am a boomer, okay?
00:05:33
I saw a ton of concerts there. I am going to make a PSA.
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If you do go to Red Rocks and you go to see a concert, don't go drunk.
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The steps are very sharp, okay?
00:05:45
Wow. Good PSA. That is my PSA.
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But, you know, I may have a little introversion in me, Even though I'm a huge
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extrovert, I will tell you COVID, I thought was punishment to me. It truly was.
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But I find that even like living up here in upstate New York,
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there are days I just want to be by myself.
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But, you know, I get to go out to my beautiful backyard. I have tons of nature around me.
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And it may be an age thing for me, too.
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You know, my dynamics are different now. I don't live in a big city.
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I don't go into an office every day.
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But I'm okay with it. because I get a lot of writing done or journaling done
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or just a little bit of introspection done.
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You know, I'm interested to find out, and I'll probably go ask ChatGPT this
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later on, but like, is there a change that kind of triggers in you as you get older, right?
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That you may have been this huge extrovert and now all you want to do is be left alone.
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I could probably speculate into why that might be. there might be a few reasons.
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I mean, I think we know, especially in female anatomy, the way that our hormones
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change, unlike the male anatomy, that's pretty steady and changes a little towards end of life.
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But I think female anatomy is so cyclical and seasonal and there's certainly some there,
00:07:09
but I wonder too, if it's hand in hand with your healing process,
00:07:14
like if somehow the The extroversion can sometimes mask your authentic self
00:07:20
and act as a trauma response.
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And the more you heal, the less you're using that mask and the more honest you
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can be with coming close to yourself and feeling your true feelings.
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Wow you like hit the nail
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on the head i learned something i'm gonna i'm telling
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you when i do the transcript for this i'm gonna just take that one
00:07:42
little transcript i'm gonna put it on my wall that is
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like so spot on because like with
00:07:48
my healing one you know when i had my breakdown nobody knew
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how terrified or how depressed i
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was i i had a really good mask and once
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i shed that have skin and let people see what was on
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the inside they were terrified right and I'm now
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just you know getting used to shedding my old skin
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and embracing this new skin that I have and I'm in a really good place I'm so
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thankful to be alive so thankful that you know I get to do this I get to you
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know have this podcast with my best friend that I get to see my true self at
00:08:23
60 I'm I'm going to be 61 in like a month. How that happened, I have no idea.
00:08:29
That's incredible. Grace of God. Yeah, it's incredible.
00:08:33
I think it's really interesting to see how we shape shift and change and grow as we heal.
00:08:39
Sometimes we become versions of ourselves that we couldn't even imagine before
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when we were stuck in survival mode or in trauma response.
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Response so I think we have to always be open to
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who our future selves might be and try not
00:08:53
to anticipate them like just approach them with curiosity because they could
00:08:58
be wildly different than our past selves this is I feel like what I learned
00:09:03
in therapy the most because I had you know I had gone to therapy on and off
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and then I found this therapist that like I owe her so much gratitude because it took book.
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That session and that year and a half long with her
00:09:16
to realize what I had considered who I was
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and like my normal state of being
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was a fight or flight mode that
00:09:25
I had carried with me since childhood trauma so like it just was all I knew
00:09:30
and then being challenged to not only learn you know what it is that was triggering
00:09:36
me and all those things but learn that there's more to me that's just what I
00:09:41
had considered this normal state of being and that there are other facets.
00:09:44
And I think every day I'm still... And I think humans just in general,
00:09:50
every day you're still evolving and learning and becoming maybe a different
00:09:54
version of yourself or just expanding more of who you are.
00:09:58
And so yeah, learning to embrace those new parts of yourself once you take that
00:10:04
mask off and realize there's more to me than that version.
00:10:08
Like I like to be inside and read books and like just those little things have
00:10:13
been, I think that's beautiful.
00:10:14
Like that's the beauty of life. It's sticking around to figure that out.
00:10:18
Absolutely. And I don't know that those layers can shed without feeling really
00:10:23
safe inside your own skin.
00:10:25
And I think safety also happens in layers where, you know, you start to feel
00:10:30
a little bit more comfortable with
00:10:31
the exposure to your trauma or to your experiences, maybe your patterns.
00:10:36
And as you start to explore yourself and
00:10:39
you increase your threshold of safety then you feel a little safer to go deeper
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and you feel a little safer to reach out and make friends in alignment with
00:10:47
that intention and share what you've learned like you're both doing on this
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awesome podcast and so the it's like the more expansive you get the deeper you
00:10:56
go and the safer you feel and the.
00:11:01
How did you start your journey to where you are now? Like you seem very like
00:11:05
God, like I'm like, yes, everything just so like centered and aligned.
00:11:09
And how did that start for you? Well, first of all, I'm certainly not like at any destination.
00:11:14
You know, I see myself as a fellow traveler on this journey and I have a lot
00:11:20
to learn still and a lot of healing to do.
00:11:22
So I just want to put that out there that, you know, by no means am I a guru.
00:11:26
And I don't really know that there is a such thing as a guru.
00:11:28
If you ever find one, like run, because it's probably not true.
00:11:34
Probably wants to sell you a cold. Find one, it might be a cold.
00:11:38
Yeah. So like finding guides who are also doing the work and who admit that
00:11:43
they're not there yet is probably, that's what I look for when I choose therapists and healers.
00:11:48
So to answer your question, it has been a long winding meandering road for me.
00:11:55
It's, I don't know if when you were both kiddos, if you ever drew treasure maps,
00:11:58
feels that there have been times where it feels like crossing a desert without
00:12:03
water and times where it feels like rocky chasm that I might fall down and other
00:12:07
times where it's okay and there might be like a little glimmer.
00:12:10
So I think for me, I was a very sensitive child, very curious.
00:12:17
Creative, and exposed to a ton of relational trauma.
00:12:22
So I didn't even realize that's what was going on until I left the nest and went to college.
00:12:28
And then I went into this tailspin of like, holy moly, I'm not okay.
00:12:34
I don't really know how to get okay.
00:12:35
And that's when I found my very first therapist and sort of started to do a
00:12:40
little bit of introspective work and paid out of pocket.
00:12:44
My family didn't really want to support me in the healing because people are
00:12:48
harder to control when they're healing and healthy.
00:12:51
I had to really walk this journey by myself.
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And every layer of it just got, you know, more clarity, stronger community,
00:13:00
a lot of healing and layers.
00:13:03
And then there was a point in college where.
00:13:06
I found myself studying psychology and art as a double major.
00:13:09
What do I do with this? And this is when Google was like this exciting new tool.
00:13:14
So I plugged that question into Google and Google introduced me to art therapy.
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I had never heard of it before. And so I went to a master's program for art
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therapy and it was really cool.
00:13:25
The program I went to in Boulder, Colorado called Naropa University requires
00:13:29
that you do your own therapy as you're moving through that program.
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And it was an incredible opportunity to just keep doing the work and keep facing
00:13:41
the layers that were coming up and presenting.
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And after that, I sort of delved into private practice.
00:13:48
I worked in different populations, learned a lot, saw a lot of mirrors,
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you know, myself and reflected by other people's diagnoses and issues and counter-transference.
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And so it was always, you know, a really nice opportunity to see what was coming
00:14:05
up in me in response to my work and my environment.
00:14:08
And I think the most profound growth spurt I ever had was in 2017.
00:14:15
I found my way into a really cool retreat community that did women's retreats
00:14:23
with these two incredible facilitators.
00:14:25
One of whom is Japanese woman is my, still my therapist to this day. She's just incredible.
00:14:31
And another was a woman in DC who is just really skillful at deep dive inner work.
00:14:36
And I did several retreats, built some really incredible connections within
00:14:41
in this community that these two healers had created.
00:14:44
And I feel like that expanded me to a point that I'm still really benefiting
00:14:49
from and have grown from, like it became my new baseline.
00:14:54
And from that point, I was able to make some pretty radical changes in my life
00:14:58
to draw me back into alignment in terms of who's in my life,
00:15:03
who has access to me, who doesn't, what my career looks like,
00:15:07
how I share my story with integrity, integrity what integrity even is and how
00:15:12
it shows up how it melds together with authenticity,
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so it's really been a lot of
00:15:18
growth and healing since the get-go and I wonder if it'll always be that way
00:15:24
if that's just part of my personality and who I am or if at some point I'll
00:15:29
just be like all right we can coast for a while there's really been a lot of
00:15:34
work that felt like I I have to drudge through to get to this point.
00:15:37
And I'm hopeful at some point for just a season of peace where I can enjoy a lot of this.
00:15:43
Right now it's all, you know, still integrating. And sometimes the integration
00:15:46
process takes decades to take a lifetime.
00:15:51
Yeah. What, did you have like a friend, like when you went to see your very
00:15:55
first therapist, how did that get introduced in your life?
00:15:58
Like how did you, I guess, seek out help?
00:16:02
Like was somebody like, Hey, maybe you should see a therapist or was it something new?
00:16:07
It was something I came to on my own because I, so I like to go for walks.
00:16:13
That's how I do my meditative process.
00:16:17
It's, I just love being in nature. And even then I like to go for walks when
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I was like 18, just getting into college.
00:16:24
But I found myself walking around the streets of Denver late at night at dark
00:16:31
hours that weren't safe.
00:16:32
And I'm like, why am I doing this?
00:16:37
Like I would feel so dysregulated at 9, 10 PM that I would go for a walk.
00:16:43
And then I'd be like, oh no, I got to get home. This doesn't feel safe.
00:16:46
And I was disembodied to the point where I almost didn't realize I was unsafe until it was dangerous.
00:16:51
And so at that point I was.
00:16:58
Like, it's a really cool experience that students have to be able to go to their
00:17:03
school counseling as a starting point.
00:17:05
And so, yeah, so it was really just like my inner compass that was like,
00:17:09
Like, oh, this is probably not headed in the right direction.
00:17:12
Okay, cool. Yeah, I was curious because I, again, relating and thinking like,
00:17:18
I remember for me, I knew I needed it.
00:17:22
Like I knew I needed to do the work on myself and to be better about it and
00:17:26
to seek professional help.
00:17:28
But I remember almost like not telling everybody right away because I was just
00:17:33
like, it just was one of those things. I think my parents, well,
00:17:36
my mom would, it was like, you got to figure it out on your own.
00:17:40
You just figure it out and just suck it out, walk it off, rub some dirt on it.
00:17:45
You're going to be fine kind of mentality.
00:17:47
But I knew that there was more to
00:17:49
it than that. It wasn't just something I could walk off or be okay with.
00:17:53
I needed to dive into it a little bit more and figure out what it was that was
00:17:58
causing me so much stress and anxiety and stuff.
00:18:00
So that was why I asked. I was curious if your story would be similar or a friend
00:18:06
or somebody kind of introducing you to that idea. Jurex, what about you?
00:18:11
So for me, I probably needed therapy my entire life, but because I'm a boomer, right?
00:18:19
We did not talk about mental health at all.
00:18:22
I wasn't brought up in school. It wasn't brought up in our households.
00:18:26
Carried it through with me, you know, my entire life until the last quarter
00:18:30
of 2022 when literally everything in the world that could go wrong did.
00:18:36
And I just didn't have, as a true empath, you know, I'm used to taking on everybody
00:18:42
else's stuff and not dealing with my own.
00:18:44
Did a really good job of that until I woke up on Christmas day and I was like, I can't do this anymore.
00:18:50
And literally, I was just terrified.
00:18:53
And I didn't know what to do because I couldn't find my voice and I couldn't find my footing.
00:18:58
And I couldn't even, I couldn't tell my wife. I couldn't tell anybody what was
00:19:01
going on because I didn't understand what I was feeling.
00:19:04
But all I knew in the inside is that I was just done.
00:19:08
So I picked up the phone and I called like 988. And the lady on the other side of the line was amazing.
00:19:15
She was calm. She was patient. She walked me off that ledge because I literally was right on the ledge.
00:19:21
The very next day, you know, I started therapy. is not the same therapist I'm with right now.
00:19:26
I, you know, I had to do like what you call it, dirty skittles is speed date your therapist.
00:19:31
I had to speed date my therapist because I really needed somebody that can help
00:19:36
me find out what was going on.
00:19:38
But therapies helped me immensely. Like now I know all about boundaries.
00:19:42
I have, I preach self-care and self-love because those are all the things I
00:19:48
didn't do for myself. I did it for everybody else.
00:19:50
But once I learned to do it for myself, self, I'm way happier.
00:19:55
My wife said this is the happiest she's seen me in 20 years because I got to shed a lot of that.
00:20:00
I got to start shedding my old skin.
00:20:03
Yeah. I mean, learning the boundaries was huge. First of all,
00:20:08
I don't think I totally understood what that would mean.
00:20:12
And then I think once I realized that I did have certain boundaries that needed
00:20:16
to be set, I remember almost being a little afraid to set it,
00:20:20
especially with family, right like there's some people that just I think I'm
00:20:24
becoming okay knowing that I didn't have,
00:20:26
to please somebody else right like I have boundaries and if you can abide by
00:20:31
them great if not I don't have to deal with you like these things are not a
00:20:35
part of my everyday life sadly that sounds really sad and mean but was Kate
00:20:41
for you setting boundaries something that was hard to do.
00:20:45
I think, like you said, it's harder with certain people than others.
00:20:49
It was interesting when I learned the difference between boundaries and requests,
00:20:54
because I think that setting a boundary was asking for what you needed from someone.
00:20:58
But now I understand them to be, you know, a request is something you can ask for someone.
00:21:03
But a boundary is a declaration of what you will do when your edges are pressed
00:21:11
that requires no participation from the other person. They don't have to do anything.
00:21:17
It's, if you speak to me this way, I will hang up the phone.
00:21:21
That's all. You can choose to do what you want. This is what I will do.
00:21:25
And I found that just having that clarity really made a difference.
00:21:28
For me, the semantics of things, like having the right word to match the experience helps.
00:21:35
It's helpful. But I think there are a lot of cultural narratives around family and partnership,
00:21:42
certain relationships that we believe we're supposed to be boundaryless in order
00:21:48
to have love and that love should be unconditional when I think we should have
00:21:55
some conditions, even with our closest people.
00:21:58
Like, you know, my, my truest love in my life right now is definitely my husband.
00:22:03
And if he's not nice to me,
00:22:06
if he's abusive to me, i'm out like those
00:22:09
are my conditions and i think that
00:22:12
whether you have conditions on that basic level or
00:22:15
if the conditions you know are a little more stringent a
00:22:18
little more specific for other types of you know more volatile relationships
00:22:23
we got to have them and so those might be in the category of boundaries too
00:22:28
and boundaries it's like a muscle i think that you learn to grow at first it's
00:22:32
really hard and then you practice with safe people you get a positive result or
00:22:37
you lose certain people who were never meant to stay,
00:22:40
and the muscle gets stronger, and setting boundaries becomes almost an automatic
00:22:43
behavior that you're really comfortable with because it feels like self-love.
00:22:48
Yeah, I like going back to what you said, like the difference between a request
00:22:53
and then setting a firm boundary.
00:22:56
I remember literally the very first time I set a firm boundary with somebody
00:23:01
that was a family member.
00:23:04
I, as the words left my mouth and I was setting this boundary,
00:23:08
I remember feeling so free because I think unknowingly I had been holding this,
00:23:16
like the stress of it all.
00:23:18
And then finally setting that boundary and being able to release that.
00:23:22
And it was no longer my burden to carry. Like I'm telling you, this is my boundary.
00:23:25
And I remember telling my therapist, I was like, I felt like I was almost having
00:23:28
an anxiety attack, but I could breathe and I wasn't crying.
00:23:32
And I was like, Like it was euphoric. Essentially, it was euphoria.
00:23:35
I was like, oh shit. Like I finally broke that chain, set the boundary.
00:23:40
And that person tried to test it once.
00:23:42
It's like, I gotta go. And they never tested it again. And I was like, that worked.
00:23:48
Full time. That's the interesting piece is like, you have to stick with your boundary too.
00:23:54
If once it's tested, when pressure is applied, it's really important not to
00:23:59
collapse because that just defeats the purpose of a boundary.
00:24:01
Boundary so if you feel the strength within
00:24:05
you that a boundary needs to be set then you also have to
00:24:08
abide by that same strength to keep it for yourself that
00:24:11
is an honoring process for yourself and for the other person because you're
00:24:16
showing them what you're willing to tolerate and how you're willing to be treated
00:24:20
and if you collapse on that it's confusing the message that you're giving them
00:24:24
too so it's ultimately kind to be honest with you all about this right yeah
00:24:30
it's It's like, oh, go ahead.
00:24:31
I was just going to say, like, boundaries have been so important.
00:24:35
So my boundary is like no drama, right?
00:24:38
And yes, I've lost friends since I've come through this healing, my own healing.
00:24:44
But it is so freeing. Oh, my God.
00:24:47
Like, just a huge weight came off my shoulder because now I just do not get involved with drama.
00:24:53
If it smells like drama, it doesn't come in the box.
00:24:56
I just don't have time for it.
00:25:00
Like, is this going to benefit me? Probably not. Is it going to drag me down
00:25:04
the rabbit hole? Probably yes.
00:25:06
I choose which things I want to get involved in.
00:25:10
And that's really hard as an empath because as empaths, we want to help everybody.
00:25:15
No. See, now it's my time and I'm going to take care of me.
00:25:19
And not everybody, not a lot of my friends can understand that. So, yeah.
00:25:26
That ties what I was going to say is that I feel like the people that want to
00:25:32
be a part of your life will respect your boundaries.
00:25:35
And those are the people that are worth keeping around. If you have somebody
00:25:38
who doesn't respect it, then you gotta let them go.
00:25:41
You know, like they're, I would never cross somebody else's boundary.
00:25:45
And so that's all I expect in return is that people don't have the same one.
00:25:49
I think you grow to love boundaries when you do this work and hope that the
00:25:56
other people in your life have them too and can express them to you.
00:26:00
So that you can be respectful of them.
00:26:02
Because if you know where their edges are, then you can respect them.
00:26:06
And if they know where yours are, then you can have a dynamic where you're both having your needs met.
00:26:10
You both feel comfortable with boundaries, with saying no, with expressing needs.
00:26:15
So I've come to love boundaries and it's sort of a requirement for me.
00:26:20
When I meet new friends, it's like one of the things that I say,
00:26:23
this is important to me and this is how it might show up with us. Are you good with that?
00:26:28
It's funny, I interview people now This is what it's like to be friends with Kate. Do you want this?
00:26:33
Right. But that's such a healthy way, I think, of handling it versus just taking
00:26:40
it to yourself and then hoping that they don't do something that is going to
00:26:42
be offensive or make you feel unsafe or uncomfortable.
00:26:45
So I think it's a good philosophy and a good practice is to put that out there
00:26:50
and let people know what they can expect and let them choose if they want to be a part of it or not.
00:26:56
Absolutely. It's having relationships that have dignity and respect for one another.
00:27:00
And I think from the get-go, if you can be honest with someone and they receive
00:27:05
it well, it's a really good sign.
00:27:06
It's a green light. Right. I know.
00:27:10
I think boundaries are the ultimate self-love self-care.
00:27:14
It is the best thing you can ever do for yourself. Yeah, I think it comes a
00:27:20
lot to in knowing yourself first and knowing what your boundaries are,
00:27:25
because there's not like a book of like boundaries to try, right?
00:27:29
Like, I think you have to, can you imagine?
00:27:32
But I think you have to find who you are.
00:27:35
And that was part of my journey is figuring out who I was.
00:27:41
And then realizing I don't like it when they do this.
00:27:44
And then setting that boundary. so it's hard it's hard especially if you lose
00:27:49
yourself and like like I was infamous for dedicating every waking moment of
00:27:55
my life to like my significant other or relationships I was in and then you
00:27:59
forget who you are and then part of like that breakup and recovery is figuring out,
00:28:04
who you are again without that other person or without being what they need
00:28:08
right now you have to be with you and Asa. So food for thought.
00:28:13
Absolutely. So I have a question for you.
00:28:16
I know that like part of your self-love is hiking and getting out in nature.
00:28:20
What are some of your other self-care and self-love tips and tricks?
00:28:26
So focused on that these days. It was really important after I went through
00:28:31
a really profound period of burnout in the peak of the pandemic.
00:28:35
It became important for me to receive from other people, which is sort of counter
00:28:41
to what I want, because I'd like to just do it all myself and not need other
00:28:44
people. And I do get overstimulated.
00:28:47
So finding ways to receive energy work or body work or going for a walk with
00:28:53
someone that does feel like a aligned connection and sharing something with them about myself,
00:28:59
that has actually been a paradoxical kind of self-care that that has surprised me for the positive.
00:29:06
I think asking for help and learning how to receive it is really loving to the
00:29:11
self to rewire some of those narratives that might be based on.
00:29:15
Perfectionism or relationships being unsafe and always feeling like I need to
00:29:19
protect myself that, you know,
00:29:21
these are old narratives that I operated from for a really long time.
00:29:24
So aligned connection certainly is one.
00:29:27
Also being really intentional about how I treat the physical body.
00:29:32
So really making sure that I drink all the water I need.
00:29:36
I have, I've chosen for my body to stop drinking alcohol.
00:29:40
I found that what I thought, you know, is a fun way to participate in things
00:29:45
or end a hard day actually was poisonous and it was interfering with sleep.
00:29:50
And so listening to things like that, that are countercultural,
00:29:54
but that are still really important for me has been another piece of self-care.
00:29:59
And I think the countercultural aspect itself is self-care, being willing to
00:30:05
answer the call of what you truly need, even if society doesn't love it.
00:30:09
And even if you might feel like the only one on earth who on a Saturday night
00:30:13
is drinking tea and reading a book, I think that's a really important form of
00:30:19
self-care that connects with authenticity.
00:30:21
And the other one I have to pitch just because I'm an art therapist is being
00:30:26
creative is probably one of my most favorite forms of self-care.
00:30:30
I was actually working on an image today that's based on grounding and helping me remember that.
00:30:36
I do a lot of creative writing. I think people who are musical can explore with
00:30:41
this, with songwriting or just playing with different tunes.
00:30:44
So creativity is an incredible form of self-care. And we have had it for as
00:30:49
long as our ancestors have existed.
00:30:51
They were drawing on the walls of caves because it does something for us.
00:30:56
It moves energy through our bodies and it heals us from the inside out.
00:31:00
So those are a few of the things I do. I love them all. Love them all. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:31:09
That's very interesting. Being creative. That's where my mind is.
00:31:13
I guess I never thought of it as being self-care.
00:31:16
Like I just, I'm on this journey of being self-employed in a year,
00:31:20
right? So part of it is coming up with like designs and being creative.
00:31:23
And I guess I never thought of that.
00:31:25
It's like, that really is, you're truly taking time out of your day to do something
00:31:29
that you enjoy and that feeds the soul a little bit, you know?
00:31:34
So that's really interesting. I never thought of that.
00:31:36
Well, and from the system perspective, creating art is really regulating because
00:31:41
it allows for a process called sublimation where things can move through you
00:31:47
and sort of transform into something else.
00:31:49
So your anxiety that feels like it's stuck and buzzing around in your body,
00:31:53
once you put it to paper or canvas, it can start to create an external image
00:31:58
that holds that and can reflect a lot of meaning to you. So it no longer has to live inside.
00:32:03
It can still exist and share its lessons, but outside of you where you can breathe
00:32:08
into it, you can process it at your own time.
00:32:11
So it's really regulating and it can be like a friend, you know,
00:32:14
you have all these images that you're like, oh, wow, I learned this from that
00:32:18
one, or I shared this with that person.
00:32:20
And I like to where now I'm actually like, yes, this is therapeutic.
00:32:25
And I, a lot of the images that I've been making lately are from songs or music that I love.
00:32:32
And I'm huge on lyrics. Like I love lyrics, but I'm not going to make shorts with lyrics on them.
00:32:36
Like the lyrics to me, like you said it earlier on, finding a word to identify a feeling.
00:32:43
So like I'm hearing the word and how it makes me feel, making the art that reflects perfectly,
00:32:48
you know, saying to me what it is I'm seeing when I hear this song and putting
00:32:53
it out in art, seeing like I have this, I made a design that when I printed
00:32:58
it out and it was now real. It's not in my mind.
00:33:03
And it is something that I heard in a song that made me think of this image.
00:33:06
And then seeing it, I was like, this is the coolest day ever.
00:33:10
Like, I remember being like, holy shit, I can't believe I did this thing.
00:33:15
And that has been a lot of fun for me. So now I get really excited when I hear
00:33:18
good music and like see an image of my mind.
00:33:21
I'm like, oh, I have to make that because that's going to be great. So that's cool.
00:33:25
So both of you will laugh. So my art therapy is actually the podcast, right? Right.
00:33:30
Because I get to use that side of my brain that I don't typically use at work
00:33:35
and I can get so creative and, you know, listening through every episode and,
00:33:40
you know, writing the show notes and doing the newsletter and the blogs.
00:33:44
I get so much out of this, right, that I can do a little bit of introspection
00:33:49
when I've done it or people that have listened to certain episodes and have
00:33:53
said, man, that really helped me get over this hump.
00:33:56
And so to me my our little podcast is like is my passion project and i love doing it so much and,
00:34:06
i i get to learn and grow at the same time and at 60 yes you can still learn and grow you really can,
00:34:13
like i'm i find so much joy out of it it's funny though my wife's like i've
00:34:18
never seen you work so hard on something you don't get paid for but to me it's
00:34:22
not work it's something i enjoy doing so much.
00:34:25
And so I found my joy.
00:34:30
Sweet. In other ways, you know?
00:34:34
Well, and I think that's why people who create things on social media or anywhere
00:34:40
else for technology, they've come to become called creators because it is a creative process.
00:34:46
So it's really important to do as you're saying and think outside the box in
00:34:52
terms of what creativity is that it doesn't always have to be with art materials.
00:34:56
It doesn't always have to be in the traditional creative formats that we may
00:35:00
have experienced in elementary school.
00:35:02
It can be creating a podcast. It can be designing an algorithm or even designing
00:35:07
a staycation. It could be applying new makeup.
00:35:09
It could be any number of things playing with your kids in the dirt can be very creative.
00:35:15
So just like the process of creativity is creative.
00:35:19
Just thinking up all of this yeah this has
00:35:22
been great i'm so happy this was like food
00:35:25
for my soul it was are you gonna ask your actor studio question today the actor
00:35:32
studio question yes two questions question number one kate okay question number
00:35:40
one voice i don't know what the voice is but i will do be my best. Okay.
00:35:44
What has been the hardest lesson you have learned to date?
00:35:49
Lesson I've learned. This is one I've learned this year, actually.
00:35:53
Sometimes it's better to feel the peacefulness of not having someone in your
00:36:00
life that was important to you than it is to tolerate the distress that they bring into it.
00:36:07
Oh, wow.
00:36:11
Wow.
00:36:12
That's great. That hits hard. Wow. I'm speechless.
00:36:19
That is taking a word down my mouth that is amazing okay second
00:36:24
question if you could go back in time to
00:36:27
a younger version of yourself and give
00:36:30
yourself a piece of advice what would you tell yourself and how old are you
00:36:35
well as you're talking i'm imagining my maybe three and a half year old self
00:36:40
i've done a lot of work with that inner child and i envision her you know Little
00:36:45
yellow pigtails overalls playing in the willows outside of her house.
00:36:50
Just a lot of creativity. And I actually have done this in visualization with her many times.
00:36:56
I go visit her. I sit with her.
00:36:58
I invite her to sit on my lap. And I just let her know that at the end of it
00:37:03
all, I'll be with her. I'll always be with her. And she's not alone.
00:37:08
Well, that's really sweet.
00:37:11
Don't cry. Suck it up and get it together. It's not good at all.
00:37:16
I've been very good all day today. I haven't cried once. So I almost cried this morning.
00:37:22
That, that answer really quick actually is very, so I go back to a four-year-old
00:37:27
version of myself, but I've never actually visualized like having that interaction with myself.
00:37:33
I just know that it would be my four-year-old self because of the whole video
00:37:36
I saw of that inner child at four.
00:37:40
And I'm like, that is the time I would, you know, if I can time to travel back
00:37:44
as myself, that would be the age.
00:37:46
So I'm going to try that. I'll try that on my own time where I'm not crying
00:37:49
on a podcast like four-year-old.
00:37:51
Honestly, I invite you to do it because I think when you incorporate a visual
00:37:56
experience, it allows that healing, that inner child work to be embodied and
00:38:01
experiential instead of just cognitive and theoretical.
00:38:04
So when we feel it and we're using our senses, our visual sense,
00:38:09
even in our imagination, our brain doesn't know the difference between an imagined
00:38:13
imagery or something that comes through our eyes.
00:38:18
It's Imagine interacting with your inner child lovingly. Your brain thinks it's
00:38:24
actually happening and it produces a cascade of neurohormones and neurotransmitters
00:38:30
that are aligned with what's happening.
00:38:32
So you'll actually have more love and more support flowing through your system,
00:38:38
even though it's visualization.
00:38:40
That's so cool. Thank you. That is so cool. I'm going to do that.
00:38:44
So Ms. Kate, where can everybody find you?
00:38:47
My hub is theradiantlifeproject.com. That's where you can find out about me
00:38:53
and my events. You can get my new book.
00:38:56
You can also get it on Amazon. It's called The Radiant Life Project.
00:39:00
And I'm also on all the social media platforms at The Radiant Life Project.
00:39:05
I like to drop little free tidbits for healing and little ideas there.
00:39:10
So yeah, find me, theradiantlifeproject.com.
00:39:14
Thank you so, so much. This has been such, this was a perfect way to end the day. I know, right?
00:39:21
Yeah, I know. I agree. Thank you, Kate.
00:39:24
I appreciate you taking the time to talk with us, be vulnerable,
00:39:28
share your life experiences.
00:39:30
Yes, I have been patiently waiting for this date in my calendar.
00:39:35
I've been so excited to talk to both of you. So thank you for allowing me space
00:39:39
on your show and connect with you both. It's been such a joy. Of course.
00:39:44
You're now part of the family. Yes, that's what I was going to say.
00:39:46
You're part of the family.
00:39:47
We get invested in every guest, but also we got to have her back, right? Yeah. So yeah.
00:39:54
We would love to have you back.
00:39:57
Won't be till 2025 because we are now completely booked for 2024.
00:40:02
Yay, congratulations. How any of this happened is completely beyond the two
00:40:07
of us, but I'm so excited and I'm so proud of you.
00:40:10
And we are going to be interviewing hearing another art therapist from Australia next month.
00:40:17
I'm going to connect the two of you because you guys really have the same mission
00:40:20
and the same heart and soul. And I think that you guys would really connect.
00:40:24
Oh, thanks. I love being connected with people who are aligned. I appreciate that.
00:40:29
And I would love to come back on your show anytime you want.
00:40:32
Talking to the two of you is fantastic.
00:40:34
I feel like we could talk all day. I know, right? We could, you know,
00:40:38
who knows, Maybe by the next time we meet, we'll be like making money.
00:40:45
You hope so. Well, thank you so much. I hope you have an amazing weekend.
00:40:49
Yeah, enjoy your weekend. Hi, all. Thank you so much for listening to this episode.
00:40:53
I'm G-Rex. And I'm Dirty Skittles.
00:40:56
Don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review this podcast. We'd love to listen
00:41:00
to your feedback. We can't do this without you guys.
00:41:05
It's okay to be not okay. Just make sure you're talking.
00:41:08
Music.
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