TW: This episode mentions experiences of sexual violence, child abuse, and psychological trauma.
TW: This episode mentions experiences of sexual violence, child abuse, and psychological trauma.
Hi, welcome to the show. Clearly I have lost the use of my full voice, so this is a short introduction. I really am excited to introduce you to Kirsten Parsons-Hathcock. She is an intuitive medium, but her story doesn't start there, and her memoir Little Voices was so interesting and inspiring to me at the same time about how a person could be traversing so many difficulties while also walking between two worlds in some ways, that I reached out to her and, wonderfully, she responded and I was able to interview her last week. I very much hope you enjoy this episode. My voice sounds much better in the interview than it does right now. Thank you very much for listening and stay tuned.
Speaker 2:You're listening to the Inner Light with Ellen podcast. I'm your host, ellen Wyoming Deloy. I'm a coach in Portland, oregon, who works with people across the US and, occasionally, the world. I help people to transition from where they are to where they want to be, removing limiting beliefs, barriers and imposter syndrome along the way. On this show, I bring you conversations with leaders in wellness, spirituality, healing, mindfulness and more. We also dive into themes around intuition, equity, racial justice and what it means to be living here in the 21st century.
Speaker 2:I'm excited to bring you each episode. Thanks for listening. Be sure to subscribe wherever you listen and, if you love the show, leave a five-star review so others can find us. If you want to learn more about my work and what I do, go to ellenwayomingdeloycom. Thanks, enjoy the episode. Hi, kirsten, welcome to the show. I'm super excited to have you here today on Inner Light with Ellen. To my audience. I am interviewing Kirsten Parsons-Hethcock. She is the author of Little Voices. We're going to dive into the book and her background, which is so interesting and fascinating, and I think that you're really going to enjoy this conversation today, kirsten welcome, hi, ellen.
Speaker 3:Thank you so much for having me. This is a treat to be here today.
Speaker 2:Thank you, before we dive into the book, your memoir and some of your work, I'm always inspired a little bit by, I want to say, terri Gross for interviewing, but I'm actually thinking right now of Krista Tippett from On being, and she always asks a question about our earliest origins, philosophies for upbringing around spirituality and religion, and I kind of feel like that might actually be an interesting point to start with, because you talk about a little bit of your early childhood in your book and some things you remembered and didn't remember in all those pieces. But also it's very clear that you had supportive parents and people who loved you while you were growing up. So I'm just curious, because your life has taken some interesting turns what was the environment like growing up for you? How did your parents view, how were you raised in religion or spirituality and what was that like for you?
Speaker 3:I feel, actually I feel very blessed, honestly, that my parents didn't push religion on me. We actually grew up if we go back in time my grandparents, their grandparents in the Baptist faith. I grew up in Ohio, so I would go to church with my grandmothers on certain occasions. Truth be told, it was kind of terrifying for me as a very shy child because I was sitting in the Sunday school class and they were saying OK, kirsten, read mark blah, blah, blah. And I had no idea how to get there in the Bible, had no idea how to read it. So my first experiences with church were actually just feeling a little bit overwhelmed from understanding that there is something that's bigger than us. But I didn't get into the weeds of it and that is. I really truly feel like that's such a gift now because it let me. I didn't come into this and then awaken at the age of 36 with a whole bunch of stuff from my childhood that would have made me not believe what was happening to me or feel shame about it. So I feel, it.
Speaker 2:Yes, that resonates really strongly with me. I always joke that my dad was a recovering Catholic or an anti-Catholic and that was it. My mom didn't. I wasn't raised in any particular faith. Occasionally I would go to a church if a friend invited me and experience it, but also felt very able to have a connection with something greater than myself. My parents were not prohibitive about that. They were certainly not atheists. They were very vocal about my dad especially, I think, because it was so rigid in the doctrine that he grew up in was that, ellen, you can find God anywhere in nature, in yourself, and that's what we believe, and I was like that's great. So I've always kind of had that presence.
Speaker 2:So I really understand and appreciate that from you, particularly since we share some things together that the audience doesn't yet know about, but about being able to accept some things that happen to you later when they arrive. So can you? You've sort of started to bridge to it. Let's clue them in. What happened when you were 36?
Speaker 3:So I went through the strangest awakening and I will back up a little bit, because you know, as a child, right, I'm going to church when I need to go to church with my grandmothers. My parents had gone to church as children but decided at that point as adults they weren't really fans of some of the hypocrisy that they saw. So I pretty much went from being a child going to church on occasion to an adult who believed there was a bigger picture, a larger power, but didn't really know kind of where to look. And so I actually married a man whose father was a Baptist minister. So I was baptized by Big Daddy is what we call them. I was like, yeah, I'll be baptized, absolutely, I want to marry this man, right?
Speaker 3:So I remember taking it very seriously but also being like, sure, were there two by two animals going into a boat? So my scientific mind was there not always trying to figure things out? So at the age of 36, as someone who really relies on empirical research, has always been very, very grounded in all of that in science I suddenly started seeing and hearing, mostly children in spirit, and those kids were playing in our house, or I would be in the garage building furniture, because I'm a carpenter and I would hear mom. And then I would realize well, my kids are at school. I was thinking that and so I really kind of got hit over the head with it at 36 and struggled initially to understand that it was real. My first thought was this is the polyurethane.
Speaker 3:I've been breathing for way too long in this garage, so I put my sanity first.
Speaker 2:Yeah, to be hearing the voices of children who you could not see physically, but you could hear them. And I remember something that was actually really poignant and I kind of was so happy for you in the book when I read it, that your husband at some point could see something once in a while and you and go. Do you see the child in the corner staring at us? Is that?
Speaker 3:right? Yes, he did so. You know, for me, the first thing that came to me I was hearing. Then it came very quickly to seeing, and there was sort of a combination of both and also feelings. So I would have chills, I'd kind of be unnoticed that someone was around me and then everything would come in so pretty far into probably a year into this, which I kept pretty quiet in the beginning for the last few reasons.
Speaker 3:Yes, scott and I were in bed and we were going to sleep and you know he was a believer because of the things that I had been sharing. You know, he knew that I couldn't possibly know those things and there was a lot of validation. But he looked in the corner and he said do you, is there a girl in the corner? Do you see her? And I did see her. I knew who she was, I communicated with her earlier in the day, but he described what she looked like. So I knew he was seeing her. And it really was that moment of oh, thank God, yeah, no matter how much I was believing and how much validation was coming, there was still this feeling of I don't know, maybe I am still. You know, maybe this is crazy, maybe this is the beginning stage of crazy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like, maybe I'm just imagining it and it's incredibly, I'm finding like confirmation bias everywhere. Like to help me with that. Yeah, it's very, very helpful that you had someone who could see it and that he was so supportive in this especially right, I was just raised by a Baptist minister to have the breadth of openness towards other experiences. What I love and I think I shared this with you when I emailed initially about your book what I loved about your book is that it's really a couple of stories in one and it's really difficult.
Speaker 2:You could, and I could, see why it would be difficult to write a book like this, and we'll kind of get into that.
Speaker 2:Because there's this part of you that's a spiritual intuitive or a medium who communicates with kids who have passed, and I know that usually the kids that you communicate with are ones who have passed dramatically, and so there is that. But then there's this whole part of your own memoir and your own sort of I almost want to call it unraveling and then weaving together is what it sort of feels like. And so you're reading this book with this like amazing story, right, like I'm always interested in stories about people who can communicate with people who are in spirit, and then to go, oh my gosh, that was this doorway into reading the story about this woman who also had so much to unpack that she wasn't even aware of yet, go through something pretty heinous, and then kind of come back again, like to look at you I know this is an audio podcast, folks can't see you necessarily but to see a woman who is so grounded and put together and in herself today, in the span of time that this novel takes place, so as we move forward.
Speaker 2:I know you don't want to like narrate the entire book, because I'm like no, that's yeah, that's okay, that would be a lot, but can you tell me about, actually my first question was when you did start to be more vocal about what your gifts were and what you were seeing and experiencing in your day to day. I know this is overlapped with an overlay in like that big picture sense, with a lot of personal life stuff that's going on. What were some of the tensions that you felt? What were some of the ways that you started to grapple with this practical furniture making carpentry business that you had you make, say, the name of your company. It's.
Speaker 3:ModMom Furniture. So it's kids, basically modern kids furniture. I don't build anymore, which is why I still have all my fingers. Yes, but it is farmed out.
Speaker 2:Yes, so you've been able to grow, but you make really cute toy chests and things like that and that's what you were building in your garage at the time, kind of like getting the family moving forward people with some, your husband with some, on and off, job instability and kind of carrying forward and then also, at the same time, this whole other part of your life opening up in a very unpredicted, uncharted territory, kind of way. How did you wrestle with walking in those two worlds and what supported you? What was?
Speaker 3:there, for that's a great question. Thank you for asking that. I think that because it came upon me. It wasn't like I suddenly had an interest in spirituality and started studying it, because it literally hit me over the head. I felt as if I really had no choice. So I had to fit this in. I had to do this. I had to still, of course, make money and take care of the family and do all of those things that I was doing just normally, but I also had to trust that this was happening for a reason and they were coming to me for a reason, and so I had to have the courage to actually go through with it.
Speaker 3:Now I remember talking to a medium a couple of years into this, because, of course, I started seeking people out and asking what the heck is going on, and I remember her saying well, you've got a choice in this, you don't have to. And that felt really odd to me. I was like how do I not do this? How do I not help these kids who are desperately wanting to get their messages to their parents or to law enforcement? So I think it was truly. I have a very deep sense of justice, always have, and I think a lot of the reason I was able to integrate both worlds is because of that, because I felt like I needed to.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I hear you saying that just the internal compass point was a rounding point for you and it was possible to organize around that kind of regardless of how uncommon or common it might have been to people.
Speaker 3:Right, right, it wasn't easy. I will tell you that I think that I look back at who I was then. I just turned 50 this year and I look back at who I was at 36. And I felt like there was a lot I didn't know about myself. There was so much growing I was doing as a person. I'm proud of myself for actually reaching out to people and sharing this information it's given me. The beautiful part of this is in sharing this information and really truly getting a grasp on the fact that we live on after our bodies die. It gave me a different outlook on life and I think that's been amazing to have as a human being to know that. Oh okay, this isn't the end and I can still. I know that I will still be able to help, guide and comfort my loved ones and my kids when I pass on.
Speaker 2:That's really powerful and I know that some people are listening right now and they still may be in the skeptical camp and like that's okay, like we're not here to force this conversation into anyone's belief. But I think that there are a lot of people who listen, who are also looking for those signs or signals and may not have the sort of gift that you have of being able to kind of proceed through the veil right Of what's going on, that there's some affirmation there that it is possible, so I think that's really supportive. Let's move in a little bit to some of the deeper parts of the story, where it starts to get really maybe just juicy nuggets. Right, I wanna encourage people to check it out for themselves. But there's a point where it stopped being so much about as I'm reading the memoir right, it stopped being so much about the experiences you were having with these children in spirit and started to be more about how these children were trying to save you.
Speaker 3:Yes, and that happened. I was hoping that, as I was writing it and working with my editors, that I was writing it so that it was unveiling itself the way it happened in my own life, because I think that's key for a couple of reasons. One, I feel like intuition can be very subtle, and so for us to recognize I believe we all have this gift to communicate with those on the other side the more open you are, the more signs that you are recognizing, the more patterns you're putting together, the more you'll get. But going into that really hard period of my life, I didn't understand why they were coming to me, these children, and, like you said before, a lot of them had been killed in tragic ways.
Speaker 3:Many of them had endured sexual abuse in their lifetime and or were killed by predators, and so I just kept thinking well, maybe it's because I'm a mom and I'm kind of silly and I have a kid's furniture company, my life is sort of all wrapped around children Not understanding that there was something hidden in my own life, about my own childhood, that was actually the glue, and so that piece of it that was really interesting to kind of understand at the age of 40 was when I started to understand abuse that occurred when I was a child that I had completely blocked out, and it was my faith and my intuition and all the validation I had been getting for the last four years that actually led me to have faith in Knowing that what happened to me and what I was starting to recover was actually real. So without those two that's what's so interesting about this my I you know when I was trying sorry things are falling over in here.
Speaker 3:This happens. Yeah, when I was, you know, when I was talking to my agent about this book, I went through 43 rejections and on the 44th which happens to be a number, I see all the time my kids were born four years and four days apart, like it's an act. It's a number for me.
Speaker 2:I have to tell you really quickly my kids were born three years and three days apart and I always saw 333, so much around the time of my daughter's the second child's birth, and also 111, and that ended up being her birth date. So it was Just like I've never heard anyone else that number parallel with their child before and such the same way. Anyway, keep going.
Speaker 3:I have chills just even hearing you talk about that. Yeah, you know there's there. These are things that we dismiss right as regular human beings who you know are into the woo-woo, as I call it.
Speaker 3:Oh, yeah, I call it that too, I love that, but I, you know, as I was shopping it 43 rejections, 44th finally got it. The 44th was like, yeah, this is totally what it needs to be, like this was your entire journey. You can't tell one story without the other and I purposely, honestly, told this story for the childhood abuse survivors out there, for the Folks who have been through any kind of domestic violence, because the link between what you especially if you don't remember the abuse, like I didn't remember the abuse my subconscious still did, so I'm still Recreating or drawn to people even in my life that would recreate that type of trauma because I hadn't healed it yet and you know. So for me, just though intuitive awakening was sort of happening Right before I was able to really trust that, oh okay, now I understand what happened to me. Now A lot of things make sense in my life. And then, unfortunately, to go down the rabbit hole with, you know, with a man who was horribly abusive, was, you know there was that.
Speaker 2:That was not a coincidence, none of this, was you know and that's actually the next question I wanted to talk about, because I think for people who are In recovery or healing or have experienced something like this or maybe they're listening to this and it's on the, it's at the very edge of their Consciousness that this piece and opening into it this beautiful part of you, sharing so openly the chaos that that came into your marriage yes, that turned into a different relationship with somebody else, and you are so forthcoming about the rawness of it.
Speaker 2:And as I finished the book and I kind of marinated in it and thought about it like even a week ago, I thought about it like even a week or two later I Realized that was part of that, that incredible pain and I don't want to say that anyone's pain is like has to be the thing that cures us, right, but it was, oh, it was so a part of kind of like the, the antidote or the prescription or the cure or the healing for Everything to truly be Incorporated from you and you had sort of this like cheerleading section of children. Then I know you mentioned in the book they kind of ebbed and flowed during this time period, not as strong as they were.
Speaker 3:They did right, yeah, supporting you, and so can you say a little bit more about about that and like your view on what that Dress was like so you know, Basically, to kind of give a nutshell and of course there's a lot of detail in the book, so it takes you through what it is like to be in a relationship with a sociopath is basically what happened.
Speaker 3:I fell in love with a sociopath, blew up, my marriage ended up. You know, obviously I wish that I wouldn't have done that I have, you know, I will regret it forever. But then, on on the other side, I'm telling the story because I know, I Know what contributed to it, which was little Kirsten, who was so wounded and didn't, you know, basically just felt like this guy feels a lot like Love to me. But so as I'm going through this, you know, my, the first part of the book is all is quite a bit like you said, about my journey with the kids, how they were coming to me, how I'm, you know, making partnerships and creating partnerships with law and theft enforcement across the country. When I get to the part where all of this happens, whether this man enters the picture, what I thought was really interesting is I had full head-to-toe chills when I met him.
Speaker 3:I felt like I'd known him from another life. I there was this comfortability there that you can't make up and and of course, that was also one of those things that pulled me in. The children who were, who had been coming to me, then started dropping hints, but they did not actually full on, say this guy is a predator, he's a sociopath. Do you see the picture here? They Quietly would start to interject things. This is not what it seems, kirsten, things like that. And I would think, well, no, I'm finally. I'm finally, you know, gonna be happy and and and there was so much that was buried in my marriage and that we had never dealt with and I was sort of holding up the world While we went through, you know, financial chaos, all of that. Right, my husband who, spoiler alert, we are back together.
Speaker 2:Yes, I was like that, it's why it's such a journey in the circle, oh yeah, so you know he.
Speaker 3:It was so interesting because you know he admits now like, oh my gosh, I was a total what did he call that? Peter Pan syndrome? Right, so he was. He was running around having a lot of fun and and I was kind of holding up the world, but I was always a caretaker, always a doer. You know a lot of kids who go through abuse. They tend to do that. But what was so interesting about it is the kids were coming in quietly but they weren't hitting me over the head with it, because I do believe to some degree I had to go through that. You know, I had to endure that and understand what that felt like In order to stand up to him eventually. Right, yeah, by doing that I healed little Kirsten, because you stood up for her on the inside.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes.
Speaker 3:Which I hadn't been able to do before, because I was still even understanding what happened to me and I thought I could just check a box, go to therapy. Okay, I'm going to therapy. I'm talking about this now, not understanding the deeper layers of the subconscious and how it works.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and what I really appreciate about this to me, when you tell that story, there feels like a two-fold approach of the benefit to you having written it out, and also the way that you are in in your Presence today. I hear you say, for number one, that you regret it, like there is regret right, because it impacted your children, it impacted your family, absolutely. There have been an easier way to have gone about this learning journey, I'm sure, but what I do not hear from you is shame.
Speaker 3:I, yeah, you know, I think that that is, um, that's one of the reasons I wrote the book. I felt like, you know, there was a, there was a point at which I had to just come completely clean, um, and if you have been in a situation with a narcissist or sociopath and you're in a relationship like that, shame is what hold you down, right in that, it's what keeps you from moving forward, keeps you from going, and I had all of that. You know, I remember saying to Scott at one point, who was seeing the big picture, understanding that, you know, there were things he needed to change in his own life as well If we were going to get back together. But he loved me, he knew who I was. You know, he was trying to figure out like this has to do with her healing and, um, and he, you know, had, I remember saying to him I made my bed, I had, no, I am so like.
Speaker 3:I made my bed, I have to just live with this. And he was the one saying to me no, no, he's killing you. This is not okay. Like, even if it's not me, is what he said to me Please, you have to break free for the 11th time. However, many times, I kept trying to get out.
Speaker 2:Yes, and so you're really naming so many things that people will understand who have been experiencing or in cycles of domestic abuse, verbal abuse, emotional abuse, physical abuse. There's a cycle. It's very hard to leave. Shame keeps one trapped and in coming clean it feels like you're like the shame is not mine to hold anymore.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 3:I can tell a story.
Speaker 2:And this gets me to the I'm getting chills to the twofold part of why I think it was so interesting and I appreciated reading it is because it's almost like there's permission to be as messy as you're going to messily be as you heal, cause it is. There is no prescription I know I said that word earlier, but there really isn't one. There's a journey and you meet it with what you have where you're at, and that may not always be skillful. We would love to be skillful in every moment. I mean, we like to pretend we can, sometimes, maybe in our jobs. But I hear and I read so much permission to like be the disaster. If you had to be the disaster and then slowly right your husband, now Scott, giving you that support. And there is a young man who I know, who was passed, who I remember is in the book, who also was like, very like. He kept showing up. He's like the son of a woman you actually know.
Speaker 3:Yes, yes, it works too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, can you talk about both of those young?
Speaker 3:people, absolutely so Jason and Nate are who you're talking about. Jason was actually in his early 20s when he died of a heroin overdose. And what was interesting about Jason is he I used to volunteer with grieving parent groups and that's actually how I met his mom, and this was before I went down the rabbit hole of abuse with this man for three years. So, jason, what I didn't know was that part of his journey and part of his death had to do with this relationship that he was in in his early 20s. That was like a drug, and that's how these relationships feel. You feel like you're addicted to them. You're addicted to the cycle, the ups and downs. You don't really understand why, but, and so I remember him coming in at one point and saying, kirsten, he's your drug. Don't let him be your drug. She was my drug, and it just so happened that, you know, he overdosed. But there was a lot of, there was a lot of up and down in their relationship before he died, you know. So it was interesting to know that he was also a childhood sexual abuse survivor, which I found out later, you know, I didn't find that out right away, so we had actually had a lot in common.
Speaker 3:Nate is the son of two people that I went to high school with, but they were a little bit older than me. I didn't know them very well. So you can imagine, I'm in California, they're back in Defiance, ohio, and he was one of the first kids to come to me. I was reading Facebook post and started to just understand that they A had a child and that that child had died suddenly. So Nate came to me, gave me a bunch of messages, said please pass these to my parents. I sat on it for a little bit because I didn't want to hurt them. You know, that's the last thing I want to do, but I also thought I don't want to. I don't want this to reflect badly on my parents, who still live in Defiance. You know what if I'm not right? What if none of this is real? I finally got the courage to do it, and then what's been so cool is I pass messages back and forth as much as I can whenever he comes in, so I'm still sharing messages.
Speaker 3:They were at the book launch. They're just amazing people. They've been able to notice more signs that he's around. He shuds opens and shuts doors. I mean, he's like the energy that it takes. Yeah, nate is a powerhouse. He was also saying to me pick yourself up. You know this isn't right for you. So you know there was the point at which they were kind of hitting me over the head. But it took. You know, it took a lot. I would liken it to be conditioned in a cult. Is really how I see it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that kind of circling back to the point about that I'm trying to make and I'm making it very slowly is that there's no one way and that you did have help coming to you in many cases, but it took multiple repetitions, it took time and I see you now having this grace for going.
Speaker 2:That was that time period and I don't I just feel if I were reading this with like a different lens and going, wow, she did this and I know what this is and this is so hard. And she had help. And it doesn't have to be spiritual help from those who have passed, cause that's not a skill we all have, but often there are people who are saying something in their lives right, a family member, a neighbor, a relative, a child's teacher. There are interfaces because we do still live in a community and so hopefully that that is an accessible thing. So I just really appreciate and that had to have been, I would imagine, quite scary to be as vulnerable and open as you were, to get that out, there to be, to be kind of, want to say like a mile post just down the road for somebody who might need to go. That is a place I can aim and it's really hard today and I might try it again tomorrow.
Speaker 3:Yes, no, I thank you. I appreciate that and thank you for your. I don't know, grace, and in talking about all this I have been skewered. I have you know, I've dealt with a lot of judgment and I understand especially. You know, if you were sitting there and you're listening to this and you've been cheated on, you have gone through something you know in a tourable and that's where you're sitting. I understand why you would say I don't like this woman at all.
Speaker 3:But what was interesting about it is I kept feeling and I kept hearing from my own personal guides and also the children, that this was a story that needed to be told. And since it's been in the world, it's been out for about a year now. It's incredible. I mean, I'm getting messages from all over the world and there are so many people saying the exact same thing. I did the exact same thing. I was abused, I didn't remember it. I, you know, fell into. Why do I keep falling into this relationship with this type, same type of abusive person? I can't figure it out. I even get a message from a couple, a lesbian couple, and she was writing to me saying thank you so much for giving me hope. I'm the Scott in this story. Oh wow, yeah, my wife is the one who was going down this rabbit hole and she just discovered that she was sexually abused.
Speaker 3:Two and five so that you know I have to hang on to that because you know that is truly why I wrote it. I also wrote it because I know that so many survivors of domestic violence when they if it's a relationship that you can get out of right Not a parental relationship but if you meet someone, I had intuitive hits about him. I had that kick in the gut feeling. I ignored it and so every single person that talks to me about their abuse journey they always say I knew it, there was something off, like I just knew it but I didn't listen. So in my case, my intuition, I ignored it in the beginning, but then it ultimately saved me in the end.
Speaker 2:Yeah, wow. So there are two things that I find so interesting about this. The first one I wanna go back to just a little bit is and that we're having this conversation and yet you have also received some vitriol and anger or punishment kind of feelings from people who are in non-agreement, and what it makes me think of is how I don't wanna speak for those individuals, Clearly.
Speaker 1:I don't know them.
Speaker 2:I can't see them, I don't know what their story or their backstory is, but my gut sense is that there's a lack of permission for them to also do this, and so how dare you say something, how dare you say that it's this doable?
Speaker 2:Because it's not doable for me and maybe it's not doable for them in the way that it happened for you, and that's 100% there, right, and there's this, the resistance and the anger that can crop up feels to me coming from helplessness, vulnerability, anger and not having permission, and so I just hope for those who are responding that way that there's some space eventually to find their way into what is healing.
Speaker 2:And it makes me also think in terms of, like macro, energetic perspective stuff. We're in a culture and there's a global culture, and we know that there is an ongoing millennia of roles of men and women, and it's not in the interest of oppressors, abusers, people who hold power and I mean the whole Me Too movement, correct, there's a lot of interest in keeping this down, and the way that they lead has seeped into the cultural soup that we all grew up in, and so that might also be what's speaking out when people are being kind of angry or abusive towards you. I'm not trying to explain it to you to make you feel better. I'm just thinking about what I think this is. No, I love that.
Speaker 3:I love that, Thank you, I agree with you. I think there's a multitude of reasons personal reasons. I also think it's been an interesting journey because I remember doing a podcast where I actually felt like she had me in her hands, like she was going to be very supportive when the podcast was edited and marketed. It was basically all about what you cheated oh, wow, yeah, and it was so hurtful and it actually felt a little bit like how I had always felt. You know, I always gave everyone the benefit of the doubt. As a child, I was wide open and you know I thought, oh, I got hurt again. You know I got hurt again.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's sort of the machine of the system came in and did the thing that it does to us yes, exactly. I don't want to remove complete responsibility from that individual, but I think that it goes through us and we have to be very mindful and aware when it starts to go into Harm as opposed to non-harm.
Speaker 3:Yes, thank you. I mean, I agree and, like I said, you know I take full responsibility. I am completely accountable for my actions. I will regret it till the day I die. With that said, my husband and I also talk about. We've been back together since 2017 and our marriage is better than ever. He has healed and grown so much. I have healed and grown so much and it really truly is that. You know, we wouldn't Going through what we went through in such an intense period of time Helped us get back together and I don't know if we would be together had that not happened. Yeah, we were growing apart so much for for a lot of years and it's I don't know. That's the beautiful. That's the beautiful part. You know, that's my favorite part of the book.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, it's, it's, it's just, it's, it's a testament and yeah, and I know I said I had two points to make earlier no, it's, no, you're not, you're not. I'm just realizing a couple things. Like I can't remember the second point. So if I do, audience who is remembering me, say two and I only did one, I don't remember right now. And on the second end in this. In this moment I don't edit my podcast very much, so it's pretty much gonna be this conversation.
Speaker 3:Authentic and real, and I love that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, um, and so I want to really encourage people to get the book. It's called little voices, because it really is a journey and I know that this conversation has touched on some really interesting points and, like I Keep wanting, like the places where things rubbed together kind of uncomfortably and but if this, if this is interesting to you, if you think this could help you, I would. I would check it out because it may not be the same story, but there were some universal themes here that I found to be very helpful for, like the human spiritual journey, the personal healing journey. It inspired me actually. So I will bridge just really briefly, because this is how I got in touch with Kirsten. I read her book. I'm trying to remember how I found it even, oh, I heard a podcast with you. It wasn't the bad one, oh, it was someone else podcast. Someone else had interviewed you on I don't remember which one. Oh, two lives, I think it was. They did not cut you into any weird shape, it sounded very. I was like, oh, I'm so interested in reading about this woman, so I went and bought your memoir after I listened to the podcast and I got so many. Okay, so, and so most of my audience has listened to this before a nose.
Speaker 2:But I also am an intuitive reader. I give I call it like intuitive energy readings more, but like the stories of what people are carrying. I don't do medium ship work, which is what what Kirsten does, which is the discussion, talking, meeting with spirits. I do see them sometimes and sometimes they will show up for me in a reading. Often I very much will see loving ancestors when someone is going through something very hard. Just surround them and I'm always like, oh god, hold on, I'm crying. I got it back out of this to like See the picture and tell you what's happening, because you don't need my emotional interpretation of it, right, um, and and so that's a part of my story.
Speaker 2:But as I was reading your book, I was like getting really hit because there are some parallels. I'm not saying we're the same person at all, right, but there were some parallels of like places you lived in particular that were hitting me really hard. So I used to live in Flagstaff. There's a part of the book where you're living in Flagstaff and there's so much that's just been going on in my own life, like I'm also. I'm I just turned 42 this year and my husband and I have been married since 2011 I think, but together since 2006. So lots of growing and learning together and the rubs in the marriage and the awkwardness and like the childhood stuff that comes up to where it's like what am I remembering and not remembering? And I'll be like I don't think that I had as extreme of a situation as a child, but there was a lot of emotional abuse, a lot of emotional neglect, despite the best of their abilities and intentions. I also know that I was deeply loved. It was like both Right and it can be both.
Speaker 2:It's very complicated, but it's like somehow and there's a whole study about this women in their 40s who have gone through some forms of early life trauma. Now is the decade where it really starts to show up. And so I've just been like I wrote Kristen out of this deep sense to share the similarities and things I'm getting from her book, and then also so almost like I was like can you just tell me what to do?
Speaker 3:And I was so touched that you wrote. So thank you, you know, I really, and I hope that what I shared helped in some manner.
Speaker 2:I, oh yes and I, like did not expect you to have any of my answers for me, but to just kind of feel validated by someone who does have such a unique experience Right in these kind of walking in a couple different worlds. Um to go, yeah, like, and you just said you should investigate a little further. This might be. You told me like I got chills when I read you talking about more deeply exploring what may have happened before to understand or integrate it. Oh, I remember the other thing I was going to say.
Speaker 3:Oh good, okay word integration.
Speaker 2:So, um, I, when you were talking about uh I'm going to bridge briefly for the audience back to kind of like the traumatic relationship, moving into the good relationship and little, standing up for a little kirsten and, uh, bringing her in, I almost see like two parts of you that were so disjointed and separated, like a body self and a spiritual self, that were really far removed from one another. During that time, and when you could integrate, it was when you could start to speak for a little kirsten and say no, and it like brought you into a wholeness where you could see with clear eyes again. Yes, so, of course, if you're that separated and like a mental, emotional or a spiritual body level, how could it be anything but tumultuous for a while? Right, how could it be?
Speaker 2:And so I say that if it makes sense for anyone going through something really hard right now that maybe there's just more space, then we're supposed to be, which means our body and our spirit, or a lived experience, and what our spirit wants for us, our higher self, however you want to interpret that, and it's looking for the breadcrumbs, looking for the signs, looking for the hints, looking for the feeling of a sense of relief, looking for, uh, and it's hard to discern what that is, because sometimes relief is just not being punished right now and sometimes relief is like going. Oh, that gut feeling At the beginning that said, no, that would be relief if I had gone this way instead, and kind of like, how can I work my way back around that? Because it's such a felt sense experience sometimes that, or integration, can occur and happen.
Speaker 3:Right? No, for me it was interesting because, um, so much of what I, when I channel, it's very physical. I get chills on my left side. For those who are on the other side already, um, those who maybe have passed but are scared to walk into the light, I have chills on my right side. So I was already pretty well versed in that. But when I was so Unintegrated and little kirsten was basically screaming at me Don't let him do this, don't let him continue to do this, uh, I would get this buzzing sensation on my right hip. Yes, I forgot about that part of the book.
Speaker 3:Yes, yeah, and so it was. That was actually one of the cues for me. Again, being sort of a scientist in in my head, I look for patterns quite a bit. So I started to notice that every time he was yelling at me, putting me down, you know, anytime I felt fear, uh, that buzzing sensation would reappear and it went completely away once I finally stood up to him and got away from him. I haven't felt it since and uh, you know. So look for those intuitive hits, whether it's your, you know, your sympathetic, pure sympathetic nervous system operating. You know, all of that is connected because it's electrical impulses and, um, in spirit, obviously, is energy, which is why you get phone calls, why, things you know, lights go on and off, why, you're telling, my television goes on and off all the time, because it's very easy to manipulate electronic. You know, electricity, um, that was the electricity in my body, that, yeah, I was feeling.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and this backs up with like the body keeps the score Right, where, like, trauma gets stored in certain areas of the body and so, traumatized kirsten, was stuck in your hip. I'm trying to diagnose it, but that's what it sounds like exactly. I mean, it's about muscle release through the action that you took. Yes, I love this, and so I just kind of want to say it once more for the listeners like building um, starting to notice, right, it's really starting to notice where the sensations coming from, what shows up for us when we're feeling stressed out or in duress, or something really negative is happening at us or to us. Right, and then what would it take to? I don't even know what the next step is. What's the next step, kirsten? What's the next step with noticing after that, how do people build that?
Speaker 3:I think that the next step for once I started to notice was then actually to take action. It wasn't just with Tony with the abusive ban. Afterwards I started to notice the same type of people would come into my world, whether it was in business or what. I would pay attention to how I felt when I was around them. Did I feel anxious? Was I not breathing very deeply? Did I feel relaxed? Did I feel like I just needed to get out of the room?
Speaker 3:Then I systematically started to say, okay, I don't really feel all that comfortable around that person, I'm not going to do business with them or I'm not going to try and get into their friendship group or whatnot. I really started to pay a lot of attention. I noticed that when I started to do that, other people would come into my life that felt so warm and wonderful. I felt like we were on the same plane. Prior to that we weren't. For me, it was really not only paying attention and putting it together, but actually taking the next step of if it doesn't feel comfortable, then do everything you can to not be around that person or that activity or whatnot.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's interesting because what you're saying is the next step is no, yeah, no.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it is yeah.
Speaker 2:This is the harder question. Do you have any advice or support or your own experience around starting to say no when it feels so scary?
Speaker 3:Oh man, I think again, it really comes down to listening to your body and how it feels. When I finally had faith in that and understood that I was supported from my loved ones on the other side, I was supported by my higher self. That's what gave me the courage to say no. It's been an interesting journey. I've been in a lot of different places within my career as well, where I don't fit. I was a self-taught carpenter in a male-dominated industry. I felt like I was always pushing against the grain. Same thing with my publishing house. They mostly published Christian conservative books, yet they wanted mine. I kept thinking, well, why am I here? This is strange. I think it's a weird mix of being able to have courage enough to trust what you're feeling and say no, but then also, even if something doesn't seem like it's the right thing, maybe it is. You never know what the purpose is for you to be in a place that actually, on paper, doesn't fit.
Speaker 2:So now that off-bidding is different than saying no, though. Like noticing that when you say no to the thing, that is probably habitual, that probably feels familiar, just perpetuating the cycle. Saying no may put you into the uncomfortable spot of landing somewhere that is new and foreign and itchy feeling, but you can trust yourself because you know what the no is and then you can let the rest of it start to unfold. For you and for those who maybe don't understand, people on the other side, helping them. But higher self is a very onion and common concept, the support of your own higher self guiding you.
Speaker 2:I like to think of it sometimes as my future self. I can see here almost the 60-year-old me is like OK, gone, come on, girl, you can do this, it's totally doable. I know you're super scared right now, but believe me, when you're 60, this is going to look like kindergarten. So just do it, you're going to be OK. And I find comfort in thinking of the older version of myself having gone through this, already going. You can still do it now. So that whole part of timelessness and whatever, yes, it can be yes, absolutely yeah.
Speaker 3:I'm happy to report that I'm no longer a people pleaser. It took a long time for me to get there and understand, but that's part of what came out of this was knowing that I had everything within me to decide what felt right to me and what didn't, and that I didn't have to always think about what everyone else was feeling and thinking. It wasn't my job to manage that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's an important lesson for so many of us to hear, regardless of our experiences, because I think I work also with many organizations and teams, lots of women running lots of things and sometimes taking on too much. Yes, I have been.
Speaker 3:Yes, I have done that too. Yeah, and when I have you know, I know when too much is too much, so yeah.
Speaker 2:Kirsten, thank you so much for joining me today on the show. It's been a pleasure to converse and interview you on your work. I'm going to link your book and information in the show notes so people know where to find you. Do you have anything else as we depart?
Speaker 3:I just wanted to say thank you. This was such a joy. I really enjoy talking to you. Thank you for giving me space to just share my journey and I'm really hopeful that you know, if anyone does pick up the book or learns more about my journey, that maybe it'll help them in their own.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you. Thank you for creating a piece of healing literature out there in the world. It's amazing. Thanks so much for tuning in today and listening to the show. Be sure to subscribe wherever you listen and, if you love the show, leave a five star review so others can find us. To learn more about my work and what I do, go to ellenwiyomingdolloycom. Thanks. See you next time.