Tina 00:00:02 Hello everyone! Today I have a special guest on. Her name is Kathy Harmon Luber. She is a certified Sound therapy and sound healing practitioner, a Reiki master, a shamanic practitioner, classically trained flutist, and an award winning fine art photographer. What doesn't she do? She's an inspiring author whose passion is helping people navigate the challenging terrain of the healing journey. She helps others find their compass and chart a course for navigating illness, injury and loss. Learning how not only to cope but to become more resilient, joyful and thriving. She is also the author of a best selling book, Suffering to Thriving Your Toolkit for Navigating Your Healing Journey. So let's get into it. You're listening to the Soul Online Self-care podcast. I'm your host, Tina Stinson, and I had a stroke at the age of 39 from stress and burnout that shook my world. Now I'm laying it all out. The deep level self-care practices and mindset shifts that I needed that kept me healthy, balanced, and thriving. Join me in this intimate space as we explore healing, resilience, and the soul's journey to alignment.
Tina 00:01:25 This is where real conversations about deep level self-care happen. Let's get into it. Hello and welcome Kathy to the Soul Align Self-care podcast. Thanks for coming on today.
Kathie 00:01:45 Oh, I'm so happy to be here, Tina. Thanks for having me.
Tina 00:01:49 Oh yeah. I'm so excited about our conversation and interested in what you do. So if you could start off by just telling everybody a little bit about yourself and your journey to how you got to where you are today.
Kathie 00:02:02 Yeah, it's a great question, I love it. The work that I do now is sound and energy healing. I'm I'm a certified sound healer and Reiki master, and while I have always been interested in like music, I started with with music as a little girl. I started playing piano when I was three and then got into flute and other instruments. over many, many years. I began to take a deeper dive into that through my healing journey, and that has been, an ongoing thing. You know, I began having incredibly serious back problems when I was 20, and doctors told me, it's really young, but it's it's hereditary.
Kathie 00:02:48 I've got like seven hereditary spinal diseases on my dad's side. And, and doctors said to me, you're going to be in a wheelchair by the time you're in your mid 30s. And I was like, I don't think so. I don't want to own that. Right. And so I, I began on this healing path of taking better care of myself. And I was very athletic. I was always a runner. I was into gymnastics. I played all the sports, you know, volleyball, swimming, the whole thing. I loved hiking and biking and all the stuff, but it was doing a lot of damage to my spine. And doctors at that point didn't realize that. So I just kept doing stuff, you know, fast forward until about 20 years ago. I started having just incredible, disc ruptures, several of them that left me bedridden for like three months, you know, but I was still doing my job. I at that point, I was executive director of a foundation in Los Angeles that that helped people with developmental disabilities.
Kathie 00:03:51 And I thought, I can work from bed, no problem. And I did The disk ruptures kept happening. Fast forward to 2016 and the fourth disc rupture happened, and I had just been visiting a client. It was a three hour drive each way, spent overnight a couple of days there, and I knew it was too much. Everything. That year my intuition was saying, you really should slow down. You've got too much of a client load, you're traveling too much. My husband and I did a lot of travel that year. I did a lot of international travel, and I knew it was taking a toll on me, but I wasn't listening to my my inner wisdom. And and so the next day I got I got home, I was making coffee. I was telling my husband about the the the business trip, horrendous pain in my lower back, and I recognized it. Oh, this is a disrupter. So he helped me to bed and I laid down flat and I thought, all right, this is it.
Kathie 00:04:51 It's going to be another couple of months, maybe a couple of weeks, maybe a couple of months. Except that it wasn't. It was five years. Five years bedridden. And it's a long time. And I would say after the first six months, I really got depressed. I was like doctors said to me this, you may be like this the rest of your life. And I'm like, what? How can that be? And I made a decision that moment. You know, it was like, you know, I could I could become a bitter old woman one day because I've spent my entire life bedridden. Right. Or that that part of my life forward, bedridden. Or I could find something different. I could choose a different way. And so my laptop laying on my stomach, I was I was flat in bed. I just started looking for inspiring quotes and wisdom. And I realized at that point, you know, the suffering, not so much the physical, but the mental Suffering.
Kathie 00:05:53 The emotional suffering is a choice. Every day I have a choice. I could just wallow in self-pity. Or I could say, I'm going to find a new way forward. How do I do that? And so that's the road I chose, and I don't want to sugarcoat it. There were there were bad days in there where I just thought, you know, oh my God, I don't know if I can continue doing this. But at the same time, at some point, there was this big transition and it was like, all right, I can't do any of the things. Like I was even performing classical flute every weekend with my, my performing partner. I couldn't hold my flute, you know, I'd never ride a horse again. I didn't know if I'd ever go hiking again. And so I made a list of, like, I decided not to look at inability, but ability. What can I do? I thought, obviously I can still work from bed. And as things got got better, I did.
Kathie 00:06:51 I started working more, from home, in bed. this was before Covid, before everybody was working from home, right?
Tina 00:06:59 Yeah, yeah.
Kathie 00:07:00 But I, I decided, okay, I can't play my classical flute because it's out to the side and it hurts my back. My, I said, my husband bring me a Native American flute from my studio. I started doing that. Couldn't ride horses, started started sketching horses. You know, just little. They sound so ridiculous now, but just little things that gave me hope actually, at that point and finding a different way for it, I started taking more classes. I took a deeper dive into sound healing. I had been doing sound healing and and Reiki up until that point. But but during this period, I took classes online. I got certified in all of this. And then at some point when I was well enough, I began actually, you know, giving sessions again. So it was a gift that that's the amazing thing. I can look at it now and I see the silver lining in all of it, and I'm so grateful for it.
Kathie 00:07:58 It was such a wonderful turning point in my life. Was it horrendously painful and awful? Yes. Yeah, yeah. It was. It was tremendously difficult and sad and depressing and all the emotions you go through of loss you know. Yeah. Loss of ability to go out and see my friends. But they came to me, we just started finding workarounds and that is the most important thing. But I love sharing this message Tina because every one of us, if we live long enough we go through us something. It doesn't have to be a physical disaster. People have accidents. They have divorces, loss. We lose jobs. We lose loved ones. we lose entire careers. You know, there is a lot of of this that is a huge Disruption in our lives. Right. And so the the point here is, is I love this this quote, I saved it for us to so I can say it today. Alain de Botton, he said very wisely, we should not feel embarrassed by our difficulties, only our failure to grow anything beautiful from them.
Tina 00:09:10 Oh that's beautiful. I do love that, and I, I love, when you reach that point where you had to make a decision because it's always that point when you make the decision, you have the choice which way to go. And I love that point you make. A lot of people don't like to hear that. They get stuck in that victim mode, and they don't like to hear that. But as soon as you make that decision that you're going to move forward and you're going to move forward in the best way possible, that becomes your new path. And you.
Kathie 00:09:40 Everything shifts.
Tina 00:09:41 Yeah, everything shifts as soon as you make that decision. That's what it starts with, and I, I, I love sharing that with people and I love that you made a point to say that, because as soon as you made that decision, then you you automatically started looking for things to draw you on to that new path that you were headed for. You decided not to be the victim. You decided to move forward in a more positive way, and then you created a whole new, a whole new life you created.
Tina 00:10:11 Yeah, yeah. And I love that.
Kathie 00:10:13 About the victim mentality, because that is exactly what it is. We can sit there and suffer and say, you know, poor me, this stuff happens to me. It always happens to me. I'm always the victim. Or we can choose something better. And what I say to my clients is every moment is a choice. And there was a time when I was flat on my back. But, you know, I thought about that because I've always said that to people choose happy, choose joy. And I'm like, no, I can't do that. That, that, that is not possible. That is not going to happen in this situation. I can't do that. But it's true, right?
Tina 00:10:46 It is true.
Kathie 00:10:47 The moment we have a choice and clients will say to me, nope, you don't understand. You don't understand where I'm at. And they go through the whole litany of things. It's like, but you have a choice. It might be really hard.
Kathie 00:10:59 It was a hard choice. It is hard to do it. It's simple, but it's really hard. Really hard. You have to make the commitment. But like you said, once you make it, the entire energy shifts and suddenly, you know, there's the other thing I say. Take one step on the path. On the path of a new life. There is a wonderful quote, and I think it's attributed to my favorite poet, David White. He says something like, do something today that your future self will be grateful for. Yeah, and I love that. Think of yourself in five years. What would your future self be really happy. You decided right now in this moment when you do have this choice and take one step, one step today, take one step tomorrow. And basically that's what it was. Every day I took a step and then suddenly I'm in this whole new life and it's wonderful. Like it's funny. Before that rupture in 2016, I would have said I was living the life of my dreams.
Kathie 00:12:04 I was it was a magnificent life. But I would say that same thing now. This is the life of my dreams. Do I have challenges? Sure. Can I can I hike five miles? No, I can't, but I can. I can walk, I can swim, I can do other things. You're not in.
Tina 00:12:18 Bed. Yeah.
Kathie 00:12:19 Yeah. And you and you lean in on that and be grateful for it. It's the gratitude practice. You know, every day, like there was a time for many, many months I couldn't walk. I don't know, maybe, maybe 20 steps or so, 15 to 20 steps to the bedroom door for months and months and months. And then came the day when I could walk to the kitchen and make a cup of tea for myself. And it was like, I am so grateful for this moment. You know, I was totally overjoyed. It's not thinking, oh my God, it took me five months to get here and you know.
Kathie 00:12:56 Cursing that all this happened. But being empowered that you are at this place and being grateful. Right. So it's gratitude practice for sure.
Tina 00:13:06 Yeah. And as soon as you take that step as you said you just one step forward every day. As soon as you take that step everything shifts. So like everything shifts in your world, in the universe to accommodate to that step. And so that's how these these changes are made because you're making these little small changes and everything else shuffles around around you and changes. So your path. Yeah. And so it's, it's even if you're taking really small steps because consistently just creates these big changes over time. And then when you stop one day and acknowledge and look. Which I encourage people to do, because a lot of times we don't acknowledge all the changes we've made. Just like looking behind you for a second and being like, wow, like, look where I started and look where I am today. And there's a butterfly at my window.
Kathie 00:13:59 Oh, I love that.
Kathie 00:14:00 It's a sign. The butterfly of the butterfly of transformation. Butterflies are transformation. They go from a caterpillar. I write about this in my book. You know, going from the caterpillar in the chrysalis to to spreading your wings and flying. It's exactly what you said it is. It is taking the step on that path and just making that commitment to yourself that is so beautiful. And the universe sends us opportunities, then yeah, that's when more and more exactly started coming. And so. So I started writing flat on my back the day it happened, I, I always kept a paper journal, but it was another room. And so I just started keeping a journal. I start keeping inspiring quotes that journal after like, I don't know, maybe a year or so became my book. There's another one step at a time. Day by day. Everything is incremental, and what came out of it is I could share this journey with other people who are really suffering and, and and don't see the path.
Kathie 00:15:03 They need a guide to take them on that path. But it became the book. I never set out to write a book. That was another opportunity that came out of this. I never would have written a book before then. Yeah. New opportunities, new doors open, right? Yeah.
Tina 00:15:18 But you have to be willing to take the first step.
Kathie 00:15:21 And so that's.
Tina 00:15:22 That's a big point. So your book is called I know I wrote it down here suffering to thriving.
Kathie 00:15:27 Yes I love.
Tina 00:15:28 That.
Kathie 00:15:29 Tell me it's a toolkit.
Tina 00:15:31 So just tell everyone a little bit about that. what they can expect if they read your book.
Kathie 00:15:37 Yeah. It it is literally a toolkit, and I call it your toolkit for navigating your healing journey. Because and again, it doesn't have to be the physical journey. It could be a mental or emotional or spiritual journey as well. it has like 36 short chapters. Each one is a tool and it's everything like dealing with loss, acceptance, surrender, and letting go.
Kathie 00:16:03 Self-care. Robust self-care is a big chapter in the book. Finding your Medicine what is your medicine? Mine was music and sound and and energy and you know a lot of things. Nature. What is your medicine? I ask that question and I give little exercises in the book, a questions for people to think about and journal about, like, what is your medicine? What makes you joyful and happy? That's your medicine. Lean into that. Right. And so there are lots and lots of chapters in the book. And I've had friends who have read the book, who who have never been sick, who've never had anything major happen like an accident or some kind of a loss. And one guy said to me, you know, I read your book and, I read it through, but I, I picked out chapters just spontaneously. Whatever call to me, it can be read that way. But he also said, I got so much out of it and I'm not even sick. And so it's, it's it's that kind of a book that wherever it meets you, wherever you are in your journey, I think.
Kathie 00:17:13 Yeah, I.
Tina 00:17:13 Love that and I.
Kathie 00:17:14 Love.
Tina 00:17:15 I love books that are presented that way and little short chapters with little action steps I really love I love that, get into, tell me a little bit about like, the sound therapy and, and exactly what you do when you do maybe a sound healing therapy session.
Kathie 00:17:34 Yeah, I love that question. Okay. So I, I began going to sound baths, probably about 20 years ago. And I did it because I've always had these high pressure, high stress jobs. And I found, I went to a, you know, a drum circle on the beach in Santa Monica, and then somebody announced that they had a sound bath, and I thought, what's a sound bath? I don't know what it's all about is. And so I went out of curiosity. And a sound bath is simply an immersion in vibrations, in sounds. And, it could be anything from the crystal and Tibetan bowls to Native American flutes and drums and rattles and things called kalimba and chimes, which are really beautiful.
Kathie 00:18:19 And the gong one of the most healing instruments. So every sound bath is different. And the way I work is I target one on one. You can go to a public sound bath, but when you go to a sound healer that works with you one on one, they say, what is your issue today? Like? What is troubling you most. And then they work with your chakras, which are energy centers and pairing sounds and and modalities with what is troubling you. And so like I said, I started doing it for for stress and anxiety. I had anxiety order really bad many years ago and and the sound has really helped. So I got myself a Tibetan Bowl and I played at home. So when I was down for the count, the universal smackdown, as I sometimes call it, I said to my husband, bring my bring my Tibetan bowl and bring my chimes. And I kept them right at my bedside within arm's reach. Every now and then I would just take like a five minute break and just do it.
Kathie 00:19:18 I felt so much better. I felt it didn't relieve the pain, but it loosened the muscles that were held so tight because I was so stressed out by just being unable to do anything that I thought I was great. I don't know why that works. So I really, really started researching that. And then I started taking more classes and getting certified. But the way sound healing works is our bodies are like at least 60 to 65% water. Sound resonates better in water than it does in the air. And there's some fascinating research by a guy named James Jimson at UCLA, who discovered that every type of cell in our body sings a frequency. Heart cells have a frequency, brain cells have a frequency, and so on. And then, my teacher, John Stuart Reed, began doing research with medical doctors to, to to see that if we apply that vibration to the brain, let's say, I think it's 40Hz, we apply that vibration to the brain, those cells begin to reactivate and heal. And so that is that is the promise of it.
Kathie 00:20:36 And that's why so many hospitals across the country and throughout Europe are using sound healing as well as Reiki energy, which is just energy healing. In their departments of Integrative medicine, my mom went into the hospital last year and it was in Charlotte, North Carolina, and I said, do they have a sound healing department. My sister said yes. And they, they went and they did sound and, and and Reiki for her. so major hospitals around the country and world are beginning to adopt this because when integrated with Western medicine, they see more expedited healing. Yeah, we can apply this in our own lives. There are so many things that we can do at home. wind chimes. If people have wind chimes or even if you have, like, a crystal wine glass, you can tap on that or go around it like we did as kids, you know, to create a sound, tapping, percussive on our bodies or on a table on our book stimulates the heartbeat. It reminds us of our mother's heartbeat.
Kathie 00:21:46 When we're in the womb, singing and humming stimulate the vagus nerve that wanders through our entire body and regulates all the things that we do not think about, or our blood pressure. All the stuff we don't think about. Yeah. So there are things that we can incorporate into every day. And basically that's what I began doing, just while I was down. And it really did help. And yeah, it still took me five years to get out of bed. Right. But but, here I am, and I'm, I'm not in a wheelchair these years later, and I'm living a very active and happy and joyful life. And so I always urge my clients find one thing that you can do. It might be humming or singing. It's especially great if you go out in nature. But, you know, do that for 3 minutes or 4 minutes. Four minutes is the magic number because that's when we come. Our bodies come into coherence with sound. But 4 or 5 minutes or more listen to music you love.
Kathie 00:22:48 That's another great thing. For four minutes and on the hour, as a break from work or as a break from parenting or whatever you do. And that is deeply healing. It's a reset for our bodies. And I have this little ritual. I've got a tiny little, Tibetan bull. I ring it at night three times and it signals to me, okay, now's the time. We go to bed and relax and dream. Yeah. And it works. I fall asleep instantly, but it's, you know, I've developed it as a practice. It didn't start that way, but it's like an anchor. It is an anchor?
Tina 00:23:22 Yeah, that's really cool. So how do you create those those, those specific tones or vibrations. for the different body parts, like how do you create? what do you use?
Kathie 00:23:36 Okay. All right. That's a great question. Yeah. I'm going to say I've got a free offering for our listeners, and I'll mention that right now really quickly because, my friend and partner, Doctor Charles Davis, she is a doctor of functional medicine.
Kathie 00:23:51 Last year, she and I teamed up in December to create a multi module free offering, which our listeners will find at the top of my website on the homepage. It's called Healing the Heart Chakra. And she talks about the heart chakra. And that's the as you know, that is it is key to our bodies when we think about all of the meridians, the, the, chakras in our body, which again, are the energy centers for those who don't know, the heart chakra is kind of in the middle. It joins our lower chakras, which are about our creative fire, if you will, and keeping us rooted stability in the world to our upper chakras, which are more airy and imaginative and. And our throat chakra, which speaks our truth right to the heart chakra is key. I call our heart chakra our inner healer. It is our we. We say, listen, you know, I'm going to listen to my heart, listen to my inner wisdom, listen to my inner healer.
Kathie 00:24:51 So it's vitally important. So we started with the heart chakra. Normally people start with the root chakra. We started with the heart chakra. So we open our hearts. And then I took it from, from the, the energy perspective of, of and she's also a Reiki master, but but Reiki and sound and I did a free sound bath offering that that our listeners can listen to and it's, it's I chose the instruments to answer your question, for the heart chakra and, and when we think of the crystal balls, it's the note is f okay. And it's that resonance, but I chose other instruments as well. I use a Native American flute that is in F. I chose, severe chimes that are in the key of F, because those are the vibrations that stimulate the heart, muscles and cells and help us to open. And we lead a meditation during the sound bath and we both give Reiki energy. So it's a really powerful session. I encourage our listeners to go there and show you kind of how we do it.
Kathie 00:25:57 the gong is one of the most healing instruments because it has the lowest lows and the highest highs of vibrations, even those that are beyond our ears. But our cellular, our cells can recognize, right, and heal. So the gong is part of the practice. But in a nutshell, that's how I do it. if a person comes to me, oh, a woman who was, a healer, also Reiki and sound healing and other modalities. She came to me. She was rushing around, getting ready for a sound healing. person, practitioner, helping a client of hers. And she jammed her foot into the doorjamb and broke it. And it was immensely painful for a long period of time. So I did something because, you know, this is the thing with any of our listeners who are healers like us, we tend to reside in our upper chakras, you know, and we forget that the most important part of being a healer is being grounded. And so she was running around. She had meditated before, but she didn't ground herself.
Kathie 00:27:12 So I started with grounding and then I balanced all the chakras. But but a deep grounding and centering, burst. And that's a powerful thing to remember. I went through this myself. When I first started getting certified and stuff, I was just all in that beautiful space of meditating and, and, you know, journeying and the imaginal realm and dreaming. And I was like, I was not grounded. And that brings a whole set of issues if we're not so so the, the balancing of all the chakras, but especially starting with the grounding. So every person is different. But I, I focused on on those that all of the, all of the instruments that that that resonate and balance the, the root chakra first before going on. So it's a little bit into what's behind it. And I also sing and play frame drum and that's very resonant, but singing, I have a number of songs in my repertoire that, that, that are Healing Circle songs, and some of them are indigenous, This, like, listening to nature and and pulling in the sounds of nature, those kinds of things that are very, very powerful.
Kathie 00:28:30 So I never do the same thing twice. It's never the same thing twice. Every healing session is different depending on and if I'm working with more than one person, it's I work with an ancestral healing group, and it's like that energy is very different from a public sound baths, you know, they're they're more advanced on the path and, and are opening, ancestral healing realms that bring like sometimes reopening of trauma. And really, you know, our hearts tend to close with that. And it's about really balancing and and and grounding and steadying and supporting that. So every session is quite different. Yeah, I would imagine so. Just because everybody's.
Tina 00:29:18 All people are so different. So that's really thank you for sharing that. It was, just a beautiful description of what you do, I love that. I was, I was scrolling along your website, and I saw that you, wrote quite a few articles, and one of them piqued my interest. It said instead of resolutions, try soul pathing.
Tina 00:29:40 And I was like, soul pathing. I was like, what is that? I was like, that sounds really cool. So what is soul pathing? What do you mean by that?
Kathie 00:29:47 I love it, yeah, I wrote that article for Best Holistic Life magazine a while back. I also want to just use the juncture to say to our listeners, I have a lot of free articles, as you saw for yoga magazine on intuition and and sound healing. So there there's a deeper, way deeper dive on sound healing for anybody who's listening and says, I'm interested in that. Oh, good. That's a soul pathing thing. I found that on my own journey. I've been on the spiritual journey since I was in my 20s, and all these things started happening with my body and I, and it led me to meditation and things at a pretty young age basically. but but it took what happened in 2016 for me to realize, realize that that this healing journey, like any journey like again, losing a job, a divorce, anything, grief, loss, this journey can be a portal, a doorway to finding your soul's purpose.
Kathie 00:30:50 And it was for me. I had that dark night of the soul where I was like, I don't know why I'm here. I'd been working at nonprofit organizations that make the world a better place, and so when this happened, I was like, okay, I did my service to the world. That was it. I'm good now what? Now what? But then as I started really journaling and thinking about this and and diving into the sound and energy healing and then realizing there was a book in the mix that could share the wisdom. Then, thinking, my publisher said to me, you need a podcast on this stuff. And that's why I'm here with you today. That's why I'm writing articles, the sharing of it, getting the word out. If I, I said when I wrote the book, I said to my husband, if I help one person who's going through this terrible thing, that book would have been enough that that was exactly. Yeah. But it's helped many, many thousands of people and I'm thrilled.
Kathie 00:31:49 And the one on one work does too. But but again, it's what you said. It's like taking a step, making the commitment, taking a step on that path one step by one step by one step. When my publisher said do podcasts and articles, I was like, I'm a writer, I'll do the articles. I'm not doing podcasts. That is way out of my comfort zone. I don't like public speaking. No thank you. But then I did it and I love it. And it's like my favorite thing, you know. Yeah. So but but anyway, what I'm saying is the soul pathing thing is, is broken down into steps in the article. So I encourage people to read it. And then on best Holistic Life, there's a, there's a podcast that I, that I go through the steps and say even more, but basically it is about the deep listening. It's about asking yourself questions, the right questions. You know, we ask the wrong questions. When things are disrupted in our lives, we say things like, why did this happen to me? why me? Poor me.
Kathie 00:32:49 what is going to happen to me? Is it going to be like this forever? We ask all the the rabbit hole of wrong questions. the right questions are what if something wonderful is happening right now and I just don't see it yet? I need to take a higher, more expansive, perspective on my website. There's also a free meditation. It's about getting to that higher perspective. Yeah. Of and so I encourage people who are in this, this boat right now to, to to really take that dive, look, read the articles, listen to the meditation and, and the meditation takes you like on this journey. It's like, what do I want to be if, if I didn't have what I have right now, what would I want to do then? Look at it from inability to ability and say, well, that and that don't work. Oh, but wait, this other thing I can do from bed. So, you know, I started podcasting when I was still bedridden. And so like, that was something I could do.
Kathie 00:33:56 Yeah. Now it's from my studio office, but it's like, I could do that. And I'm like, okay, I should try that. So, so it's it's looking at things. The other thing I like to say to people is there, I met I have another meditation on imagine yourself out in the universe, up with the stars is someplace, or sitting on the moon, looking down at Earth, and think of all the wonder of Earth and how it all works. And it's our life support system, and it's hurtling through the universe, you know, and there's breakneck speed and rotating around our sun, and it's like, that's pretty magical. It's, it's it's or it's wonder. And then here you are, this little speck on earth having this problem in this magical universe. Where can you find the magic in your life? What makes you feel like there's magic in your life? Is it being out in nature? Is it playing music? Is it making art? There's a whole section, a whole chapter in my book on how art saved me.
Kathie 00:35:01 I could not I'm a I'm a fine art photographer. I've, I've, you know, exhibited in galleries and museums around the world. And it's like I couldn't hold my, my camera. Yeah, for five years. So my husband set it up that all I had to do was stand up for ten minutes, frame the shot, take ten minutes to make everything right, and I published a whole new body of work called Dream Blossoms. Dreams Blossom, and it's meant as, yeah, dreams do blossom. It's a beautiful thing. But I only had ten minutes out of bed a day, and that's what I chose to do. Again, it's a choice. It's a step on the path. So it's. It's like blowing this little box up that we live in when we're in that dark place and saying. If anything were possible, what would that be? And then if that was the the thing that would light up my life, what one step would take me closer? Maybe I'll never get exactly there, but how do I get closer to that light? Right? Yeah.
Kathie 00:36:07 And then do that exercise every day. And so it happened. I shot that one photograph. I was one step closer. I didn't intend to make a whole series of it, but I'm like, I am having so much fun. And my friends and my husband brought me flowers. I'm like, I'm just going to keep taking these blossom photographs in this very soft focus, one part of its focus, the rest of it's very, very ethereal. And I like almost like impressionist art, you know? But I loved it. And it was it lit me up so much. It got me through a really bad day. And I thought, okay, the next flower, please. Yeah. I just kept doing it. And I was so excited and happy. And my husband said, I've never seen you with that much joy since this happened. And it's like, okay, there's the signal, follow that, follow that. I started it and everything. It's follow. I like to say follow curiosity, curiosity will lead you to your soul's purpose.
Kathie 00:37:07 Your heart's desire to our soul is guiding us, I believe. And and we hear that inner wisdom through our hearts and intuition. And I love this quote. I hope I get it right. I didn't I didn't pull it up for us, but it's something it's from Wayne Dyer. And he said something like, if, if, if, if, if, if we speak to God, I'm going to get this totally wrong. If we speak to God through prayer, God speaks to us through intuition or something like that. I got the gist of it. Yeah. And the intuition is in our hearts or wherever you believe in your body, it is for me. It's in my heart listening to our hearts. That is the message from God the Goddess spirit universe source. the creator, our higher self. Whatever works for you. Yeah, that's what we need to listen to. And we close off our hearts. Bad stuff happens. We like. Yep I got I got hurt and I'm closing off my heart.
Kathie 00:38:13 That's why the heart we started with the heart. Charlie. Doctor Charlie's and I.
Tina 00:38:17 Yeah, yeah. It's very it's very true. And I love that. And it's. And throughout this whole conversation, there was just this one point that keeps repeating and that is just taking that first step, that next step, not worrying. You don't need to know all the steps. You don't need to know how you're going to get there. Also, as you said, you might not ever get there and it might change as you go along. As you take the steps, different things happen, and the goal or the end point, so to speak, might change because you change along the way. It's more about just taking that next step. It's not about knowing. And I feel like a lot of people get overwhelmed with the magnitude of where they want to go and they think, oh, they can't even imagine what the steps are and they don't know how to get there. And they then they never take that first step.
Tina 00:39:06 And it's just, it's so, it's so disappointing. I'm like, so disappointed with them because I know how much progress they could just make. If they just take that one first tiny little step and they get the ball rolling, and then they get a few wins under their belt, and then they gain some momentum and create happiness. And I do find that, anything creative, anything when we're in creation mode is so magical for all of us. Even if you don't think of yourself as creative, just being in that creative mode and that creation mode, it doesn't have to be a painting. It doesn't have to be, you know, anything extremely artistic. It could be something really simple. Even when I'm creating stuff for my business, you know, and creating a new program or creating a meditation, which is something I really love to do, creating meditations. And so, it just it just makes me so happy. So it's and if you told me three years ago that I was going to be creating meditations, I would have giggled a little bit because I wasn't even meditating at that point.
Tina 00:40:14 So that's that's how that's how far you can get by just taking one small little step. And it takes you on a path that you didn't even expect.
Kathie 00:40:24 So true.
Tina 00:40:25 Yeah.
Kathie 00:40:26 You said something earlier that I meant to follow up on that. That ties in directly to this. You said how looking back like you. Like you did. You look back three years ago. That is a vital part of the soul pathing. It's like I look at where I was five years ago, four years ago, three years ago, six months ago. And it's like I pat myself on the back and say, you go, girl.
Tina 00:40:51 Yeah, we need to do that.
Kathie 00:40:53 Sweetheart, you did this. And same as you. If I, if I like where I am today, I would say three years ago I didn't see myself being here. And it is so wonderful and magical. I have just such an amazing life like you. And. But. But three years ago, I didn't still. And then I didn't know what I was doing.
Kathie 00:41:15 Like, I was launching this book and I was completely overwhelmed with that. And and still not my, my, I was I was out of bed and doing stuff, but I was still really struggling and I did not know the next step. I just kept doing things one by one article by article, podcasts by podcasts, artwork by artwork, meditation by meditation, sound bath by sound bath. One little step and it gets back to that thing I said, follow curiosity. Take one step and it takes us down the rabbit hole. It really does. And we tend to think of that kind of daydreaming. I think I wrote this in that in that Soul Path article, we tend to be told our whole lives, like from when were kids in school. Stop daydreaming. Yeah. Daydreaming. Cathy. right? And, but but there's a vital part to soul pathing that is allowing yourself space for daydreaming. That that what would what would I like to do? You love creating meditations. You know, you probably sit and say, let's, let's let's think about that for a minute.
Kathie 00:42:26 What would be a great offering? Right. So that's a kind of daydreaming. It's a creative daydreaming. And as you said, like I have lists and lists of ideas, not doing them all is not a bad thing. I have a list of things. And I look at them and I go, oh my God, I never got half of those done. But these, these ones at the end that I didn't do, I don't want to do those anymore. I'm going to take those off the list. I'm at a different place now. I want to go over there and and that is the step by step nature of it. Everything is incremental. And you take a step in this slightly. You know, you revise your path, you course correct. You know and sailing its course correcting. Right. You know, you don't get there by sailing a straight line. You tack and you tack and you tack and you follow the wind. And the wind blows you way off course. And you got to go a different direction, right? Yeah.
Kathie 00:43:18 Yeah. So, so it's very much like that analogy. Life things smack us down. Things continue to happen into my life, in my life. And you go like, you know, my mom died a year ago. My dad died a few weeks ago. That has caused me to not accelerate on my path. I have to deal with grief and loss and, you know, helping my sister and just all the things that we have to do when life smacks us down, we can't beat ourselves up and say, oh, I didn't achieve that thing this month. You got to take that thing off the list, move it to next month. And a lot of times that is what what people get bogged down in. I found with my clients, it's like they're doing great. They're taking baby steps, you know, everything's incremental. They're taking a couple baby steps, and then life happens and something terrible happens to them. A car accident, a job loss. And they say that path wasn't for me.
Kathie 00:44:12 No. If that path is still calling you in your heart, that is your path. We're going to learn something new through grief and loss. You're going to learn something new from job loss or sickness or accident or injury. God knows I've had enough sports injuries and everyone was a lesson. It taught me something right.
Tina 00:44:33 Oh yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. And I always say there's no such thing as failures or or blocks. These are just things. These are just places where we're supposed to either shift or learn something. So it's it's it's almost like a guidance and I, I think, the word failure, the, the, the way we feel failure, maybe the definition is correct. I'm not really sure what the actual definition is, but I think the way we think of failure is incorrect because we think of it as a bad thing. But if we really look at everybody on the face of this planet that has had any success, they've all had failures. And I would say the people that are the most successful have had the most failures.
Tina 00:45:16 And it's really about what what you do with those failures and how to move forward. And when we when we're, we're moving along towards a goal. it's more I mean, everybody knows the saying it's more about the journey than the destination. And that's really true. It's because because the destination constantly changes. And as you're going along this journey, as long as you're feeling into it and paying attention to all of the things you're supposed to learn and the shifts you're supposed to make, you realize that it's more about this journey than it is about getting to that goal. And what's meant for you is going to be there for you what's you know.
Kathie 00:45:57 So I love that. And what we said about the Alain de Botton quote. You know, you could you could substitute the word failure. And many people are out there saying fail often. You're right, the most successful people. But I have a different definition of success. You know, it used to be, okay, I had these jobs in fundraising and my department had to raise X millions of dollars, and that was my goal for the job, right? Yeah, very goal oriented.
Kathie 00:46:22 My goal for life is to live a joyful, peaceful life in resonance with my authentic self that fulfills my life purpose and sole purpose and is of service. I've never said that out loud before, but. But in essence, that's what it is. So when we stop putting sort of these measurable goals right, I've got to make $1 million by the time I'm whatever, you know, and focus on. My goal is to be happy, joyful, out, peace. You know, with myself, in alignment, everything I do is in in alignment with my authentic self. When we live from that place, I do, you do. That's where the magic is. And absolutely that goal is where we can say, I have these gifts in my heart, and I want to bring them to the world, and that's what we're doing. Right? People tend to think I get my clients say this a lot, you know, I'm not like you, I, I will never be helping or being of service to millions of people.
Kathie 00:47:37 That just happens to be what I'm doing rather effortlessly at this point. It's happened. Right. But it I also have the view that if we just stand in our light and radiate light and peace and kindness to the world at this tremendously difficult time when the world needs the light of every person who is a good, positive person, right? Yeah. stand there and be in your light and do good deeds for your next door neighbor or your family, your community. Person one person. That is enough.
Tina 00:48:17 That is enough.
Kathie 00:48:18 Life of service. Right? You don't have to be out there teaching courses and doing podcasts and the whole thing. Yeah, it.
Tina 00:48:24 Doesn't have to be this huge big thing. It has to. It has to be what feels aligned with you, you know. And I think that people I feel like a lot of people that's I get from a lot of my clients, how do I, how do I learn what my purpose is. And they're, they're so focused on learning some very specific, tangible purpose that they're missing, that they're living in their own purpose right in that moment.
Tina 00:48:53 Like they're not even aware that they're they're doing all the things that they love. Their, their they are at service in some ways. Sometimes it's, it's a mom taking care of their their kids. That's up. You know, that's of service. It's like so it's like it's about really seeing what feels good in your body. And like you said, the there's a the goal of making $1 million or whatever. And then there's a goal of being joyful, happiness at peace and aligned. So basically when when you want the million dollars, basically what you want is how you're going to feel when you get there. And precisely the goal of the goal of having the joy and the peace is basically how you want to feel, probably. And so it's the same thing. It's the same thing. Why not focus on the feeling, which is something you could have actually. Right, right now, in that moment, you could choose to feel those things and be that way in that moment, instead of waiting for that moment when you have the million dollars and then not knowing what you really want it for.
Tina 00:49:57 You know, we all.
Kathie 00:49:58 Know there are so many unhappy gazillion errors, right? You hear these stories and we know some. But the other thing is, you know, as you say, like we can make that choice right now just to be happy. And and happiness is an inside job. Like, you just have to say I'm going to be happy today. Would be happy. I'm going to take this in a, I'm going to say kind of a far out thing about also about finding purpose. We talked about kind of daydreaming and and manifesting and all of that, everything. I'm going to say two things. The first is intention matters and intention. When we say, I want to be happy or I want to meet the right person in my life, you have to not only stay at or journal it, you got to feel that feeling in your heart. How am I going to feel? And so you said the million dollar thing. How am I going to feel when I, when I make that million dollars.
Speaker 3 00:50:53 You know.
Kathie 00:50:54 That. But like feel that every moment. Yeah. And that's not going to happen every moment. Like we know it's not going to happen every moment. But like if you could ground that feeling every day. You're going to be over time you're going to be really happy. Maybe it takes two weeks or a month, but if you make it a practice every day, you're going to suddenly be walking around smiling and feeling good and people are going to notice. The other thing, the far out thing is, a lot of times our sole purpose, especially when we're on a healing journey of some kind. My dreams. I've always kept dream journals, night dream journals. My dreams became phenomenal when this happened. Not in a scary way. In the most magical way. I started having dreams where I heard songs, where I. Where where people were standing there singing to me or playing an instrument. And those were subtle clues in the dream world. Oh, yeah. Ask my husband to get my Tibetan bowl and bring it within arm's reach of me.
Kathie 00:52:00 You know, little tiny things. I had dreams of colorful paintings. It's like, maybe I can't. I can't do watercolors in bed, flat on my back, but I can. I can sketch and use colored pencils. You know, you start thinking about, like, how do I follow that dream? How do I honor that dream is what I like to say to my clients. How do I honor that dream with one small step? And I started doing that. And then more and more doors just opened on the sound healing front. I started getting emails about sound healing teachers and them, you know, reading their articles. I'm like, that came out of the blue. I don't subscribe to them. How did I even get that? It was wonderful. And I started following that thread of curiosity. But a lot of it came. And again, dreams are tied to the imaginal realm. Our intuition picks up on them. Listen and see what resonates with your heart. Obviously lots of dreams are day to day stress, dreams and just all the usual crazy stuff of dreams.
Kathie 00:52:57 But but every now and then you have a dream that has a big charge to it. Like. Like when you do something that lights you up, that dream lights you up. Yeah, but what is it saying to you? And like. Yeah, like really, really Journal that, write it down immediately and begin to work with that. If it has an image, draw it or paint it. if you don't draw or paint, just write it out and.
Tina 00:53:18 Even talk it out. So I always tell my clients who don't want to do any of that stuff. Some people like, I love journaling and I use that a lot in my business. And like, you don't want to draw this, like talk it out and you might sound crazy, but who cares? Just just some of my best.
Kathie 00:53:32 Business ideas have come out of my night dreams. And like, we tend to think of ourselves as business people and very, you know, we just, we just we just thinking strategies and goals and getting stuff done.
Kathie 00:53:48 but our dreams can really illuminate direction in a business. I mean, I have all the time, like maybe you do too. But the important thing is to set the intention when you when you fall asleep. Like I always just say, what do I need to know next? What is the next best step for me that's another favorite. Like, yeah, the next best step for me. Does it come that night? Usually not. Sometimes a week later, sometimes a month later. But it comes.
Tina 00:54:16 And it's about paying attention to.
Kathie 00:54:19 Paying attention so often. Don't pay attention. Or we say, yeah, oh, that was just a dream.
Tina 00:54:24 That was just what was that? What was that?
Kathie 00:54:27 And sometimes it's far out.
Tina 00:54:29 Yeah. So you're like, what was that? What did that come from? You know, like when.
Kathie 00:54:32 The song started coming to me in the dreams, these, these, these people would bring me songs and I'd wake up in the morning, I on my phone, I would hit my record button and I'd, I'd sing the song into it and none.
Kathie 00:54:43 There were not words. They were just nonsense. And at first I was like, that is such a nonsense. That's when I realized they were songs, that I would play them again and again and again, and I get a certain feeling of either being energized or being relaxed and calm. And I thought, maybe I need to explore building song into my sound bath that I do for other people. That's how that came about. It was in a dream. Yeah. And so, you know, I play frame drum maybe, maybe seven years ago I had dreams of drumming and like when I was a child, I wanted to play drums and my parents wouldn't let me because it's so noisy, you know? they didn't want to be disrupted. But anyway, I thought I should look into drumming, and I started, you know, scrolling drumming. And I found my drum teacher, and I've been studying with her for, for three years. And it's that amazing thing that happens when you just pay attention to the dream.
Kathie 00:55:40 Yeah, because it lit me up in such a way that I was like, this is something to pay attention to, because now I'm really in tune with it. but this is something to pay attention to and write it down and take one step. Follow the curiosity.
Tina 00:55:53 Oh my God, yes, write it down. I, I second that because so so a lot of times when I get my ideas, it's not always from my dreams. And I think everybody should start paying attention to the way they get these messages or these days downloads or these, these intuitive hits, because sometimes it can come in a dream. Like for me, I don't know why. Like in the shower and the bath. Oh yeah. Me too. Yeah. When I'm running, a lot of times when I'm outside running, it's when I'm kind of like in that zone sometimes when I do like. So every day I do like a yoga, practice. And then afterwards I do like ten minutes of breath. Breathwork.
Tina 00:56:31 Yes. And a lot of times at the end of that session, I'll get like hit. I feel like I have to get up and start like writing stuff down, you know, because I'm like, I get downloads too. Yeah, yeah. So it's like paying attention to the things that are popping up. And then, as you said, being curious and then taking that.
Kathie 00:56:49 And honoring it. Yes. Honor it. What is that first step you can take? Honor the dream. Honor? Like when I was writing the book, I would be I'd be doing dishes or making a cup of tea. And I get these, I get fully formed chapter downloads. I was like, stop what you're doing. Yeah. And go grab the journal and write it down. And I did, and that is how the book came about. It came like in fully formed downloads. Did it get edited? Did it get edited by me and my editor? Yes, of course it got rewritten. But you know, but but the idea, the kernel of the idea was a download that came when I was doing something completely random in the shower, in the bath, washing dishes, whatever it happened to be.
Kathie 00:57:30 Yes, it's important. And it was like I was saying about, what is your medicine? Right? Like me, it's nature and art and music and stuff. What is your way of receiving, divine guidance, Like for me it is I do. I do some shamanic journeying. I do dream work. Then sometimes these random downloads for other people. It's very different things, very different things. They hear.
Tina 00:57:57 Voices, everybody's.
Kathie 00:57:58 Different. My husband hears voices in in his waking from his dreams. He hears actual voices telling him a certain sentence fully formed. I mean, it's all the Claire's, right? The Claire audience, the clairvoyance. Some people see visions. It's like we had this as children. we had it as children. But we go to school and, you know, society and all the family stuff, you know, we we, we get it gets dampened down. And now as adults, we have to rediscover that. So the question is, what is yours? What is what is your form of of intuitive hits or divine guidance.
Kathie 00:58:38 Call it what you will. How do you get that and pay even more attention? Yeah. Don't ignore the other stuff. But, like, really pay attention to that because that is your superpower right there. Yeah.
Tina 00:58:51 Yeah I really once I started paying attention and honoring and I cannot stress the fact of writing things down, you might say to yourself like when I'm running I'm like oh remember that.
Kathie 00:59:02 No no don't it's gone. Don't it's gone.
Tina 00:59:06 So yeah, I have to say to the audience, write it down. Do it on your notes app. Text it to yourself.
Kathie 00:59:12 Yeah. Or put it or put it notes app is great for that too. But but put it you know on on your your voice record on your phone because this happens to me I'll be out walking around in our yards. Beautiful day. And I hear a song fully formed, you know, A and B part, the whole thing. And I go, oh, I remember that buy I get back, but we have a small yard, but I don't make it back to my house and I don't, I can't remember a thing.
Kathie 00:59:37 So I just, just pull out the phone, take it with me on every walk. Hit the record button. Do it. Because I swear to you, five minutes later. Ten minutes later, we don't remember. Yeah, we don't remember the.
Tina 00:59:48 Whole wind that comes in and then you don't grab it. It's just going to go. It's going to keep going.
Kathie 00:59:54 I think it was Natalie Goldberg or Annie Lamont who said something about about poems, you know. Oh I think it was somebody else. But anyway, the gist of it is poems fly through the air, waiting for the next, waiting for the poets. And if you don't have your pencil and paper ready, they go in search of the next poet who will write it down. I love that. That's so.
Tina 01:00:18 True.
Kathie 01:00:18 I love that that's true with with all wisdom that we get all of these these hits that we get like, anything. And and if we don't, I've had this happen with, with ideas for paintings.
Kathie 01:00:31 If I don't sketch it out and, and write the colors that I saw in my journal, my painting journal, they're gone. They're completely gone. I don't remember it. And it goes in search of another artist, right? Yeah. Yeah.
Tina 01:00:45 That's so true. Oh, that's a perfect note to end on. But before we go, I have I have one more question.
Kathie 01:00:52 Yes.
Tina 01:00:53 And off topic, but, could you tell me something about yourself that most people don't know? Could you share something? Is there anything?
Kathie 01:01:03 There is something. Yes, there is something I don't I don't, I don't talk about very much just because people think it's weird. Okay. I love how that how that. How's that for a teaser? Yeah. for about the past 20 years, I have been a shamanic practitioner of. And a lot of people think of shamans as devils or, you know, but but I mean, some religions do, but but shamans are people who have, like, really reverence for taking care of Mother Earth.
Kathie 01:01:35 And a lot of the things we've been talking about, hearing Wisdom. working with spirit animals. I do my work. I mean, there's a million kinds of shamanism, but my work is in sending peace and love and light into the world. That's my shamanic practice. I light a candle every day. That is part of, you know, I, I do my, my yoga and I do my meditation, and then I do my shamanic practice, which is just radiating light and love and peace out into the world. I do something every day to help the planet, you know, and it's very, very nature based and, and, and and just spreading all of that goodness to, to all of the plants and animals as well as human beings the entire world over, and creating a net of light. That's my shamanic practice. And and I don't I don't speak about that very much because people hear the word shaman and they get all weirded out about it. But but right now it's really interesting.
Kathie 01:02:36 The shift network, which I've stayed with a couple of their shamanic teachers. You know, they'll do, a shamanic wisdom summit and they'll have 100,000 people attend. You know, it's it's really gaining a lot of traction because it's nature based. And at this time on Earth, with all of the environmental just disasters and, and the disasters of, of climate change and, and everything, we all need to be helping our planet in some way. And it could be the most simple things that we all do, like recycling and, you know, just not not trashing the land. Yeah, but it goes beyond that. It goes it goes back to what we started talking about, which is intention and, and and having an intention of helping the planet. And I ask every day for guidance, what can I do to help our planet? What can I do next? That's part of my practice. That's my shamanic practice. Okay, so there you go. There's something that I love that you know about me.
Tina 01:03:37 I don't think it's weird. I think it's beautiful, by the way. I think.
Kathie 01:03:40 That's. I think it's a I think it's a magical, beautiful, enchanting way. And I build it into every moment of my life. Like I make a cup of tea. I thank the water. I think I'm grateful that we have water and I thank the water, you know, for the blessing of nourishment for my body. It's just little subtle things like that that, that are a shamanic, ceremony, if you will.
Tina 01:04:05 Yeah, yeah. And I think the world would be a different place if everybody did that, honestly. I mean to that here.
Kathie 01:04:10 Yeah.
Speaker 3 01:04:11 Yeah.
Tina 01:04:12 So the best place to find you would that be your website? It is.
Kathie 01:04:15 My website. Suffering to thriving.com. And as I mentioned there they can get the free heal the heart chakra modules and the free baths. There's also a tab my my book is obviously there. The art, the free articles, other podcasts that are on different topics than you and I talked about today.
Kathie 01:04:37 There are some real deep dives on only sound healing. and then the, free meditation. It's, it's a dandelion meditation where we are puffs of dandelion seeds going to dandelions, distant land high above all of our problems and landing where we would ultimately love to be in the world and, and planting that seed there. so it's, it's really it's really a beautiful manifestation. Yeah.
Speaker 3 01:05:06 Perfect.
Tina 01:05:07 All right. Well, that all that will be in the show notes. And I want to thank you for sharing your wisdom and your light with us. And thank you for coming on the Salt Online Self-care podcast. It's been a pleasure chatting with you.
Kathie 01:05:21 It's been an honor. And I've I enjoyed every moment of our of our chat. Tina and I love your podcast and what you're doing to bring your gifts to the world. It's beautiful.
Speaker 3 01:05:30 Thank you.
Tina 01:05:31 Thank you so much.
