Expand with Whitney Jean Buck
Be a fly on the wall as Whitney holds conversation with some incredible humans around how you can expand your life physically, emotionally, spiritually, and financially! This podcast is all about the different ways you can heal, grow, and evolve in your life!
Expand with Whitney Jean Buck
87. Embracing Shadows and Authenticity: Kat's Journey to Healing and Empowerment
What happens when you embrace both the light and shadow aspects of yourself? Join us as we reconnect with Kat, an extraordinary women's group facilitator from Denver, whose journey from a Catholic upbringing to a life dedicated to healing and empowerment offers potent insights. Kat's expertise in body-based practices for nervous system regulation and her commitment to breaking toxic patterns have made her a beacon of transformation for many women. Listen as Kat recounts her spiritual awakening and how it led her to the impactful work she does today.
Authentic expression is more than just a buzzword—it's a life-changing practice. In this episode, we discuss the importance of embodying our true selves and how doing so can inspire others to follow suit. Kat and I share techniques for acknowledging and integrating disintegrated parts of ourselves, emphasizing the power of recognizing both the positive and challenging moments in our lives. This conversation is a treasure trove of wisdom on how to move toward a more expansive, authentic self by owning our truths and continually bringing more authenticity into our spaces.
Kat's journey hasn't been without its dark periods. She opens up about navigating a profound personal experience through a medical abortion, highlighting the necessity of deep shadow work to truly embrace love and joy. We explore universal laws like polarity and cause and effect, and discuss the bravery required to face deep, shadowy experiences. Through the lens of ancestral healing and personal empowerment, Kat shows us how moving through personal shame and fear can lead to collective healing and a higher frequency of living. This episode is a heartfelt testament to the transformative power of embracing our shadows and living with authentic integrity.
https://www.instagram.com/iamkattovar/
https://www.katietovar.com/Illume-leadership-academy
https://www.katietovar.com/
Join us in Spokane Washington for an epic 2 day somatic event where we will dive into the past, the stories, and every way in which you are limiting yourself from creating the most epic life!
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Hello, hello, hello, oh my gosh. You guys, it has been a minute since I've put an episode out. We were putting them out so quickly there for a minute and multiple a week that I needed a break. And what's really fascinating and, of course, to find timing is during that break I went to Denver and went to the Living Brave Live event by Shoshana Rabin and it was so life-giving to be in community space with so many powerful women and individuals who truly want community, who truly want to celebrate those around them, who truly want to not only find success for themselves and whatever they decide success means, but really see it for other people. It really felt like the space of like I want to win, but I really want to see you win as well, which, if you're like me, that has not been a space that I've been in, that's not been a space that is natural to where I live, the groups that I've been in, the friend space, family space, Like it's a whole nother level. When you find community in people who truly want to see you succeed and truly want to see and experience the best version of you, to be in a space where people call you up. Instead of calling you out. They call you up to be the best version of you and they want to see that. And that's really what I felt from this Living, Brave live event and the connections that I made with the most powerful human beings.
Speaker 1:Today we have Kat, who is incredible, and I'm going to include her Instagram below because I truly believe that every single person who finds this episode needs to connect with her.
Speaker 1:Kat is a master women's group facilitator and trainer that specializes in body-based practices to regulate the nervous system, which we have talked about is so freaking valuable heal toxic patterns and create new pathways to thrive.
Speaker 1:She runs Colorado's leading women's group Becoming Her with close to 100 members. Group Becoming Her with close to 100 members, leads leadership retreats yummy and trains women to become expert group facilitators inside the Alum Leadership Academy. She has served thousands of female leaders and her community expands daily, which, once you experience Kat in this episode, you are going to totally understand why people are flocking to her, because her energy is not only expansive, it's not only this like Ooh, I want to be a part of this because she expands me, but it's also this grounded anchored in her body, trusting her body, leaning into her body, balance, like this harmonization between the both, which I am a huge fan of, living in the expansion but also bringing that back into the body, which is part of what we're going to chat about today with the shadow. But, Kat, I would love if you'd give your story, let people experience you, and we'll dive into some conversation.
Speaker 2:Yes, whitney, thank you so much for this beautiful introduction and it feels so good to hear. Of course, this is something that I wrote myself my bio but I just I think part of this work the somatic integration piece is really allowing yourself to receive, and so when you're in spaces where people are just sharing your magic and really championing you and how incredible you are, notice how it feels to just relax and soften your body and nourish and be poured into by every single word that is spoken about you. And so thank you for that introduction. And, yeah, my name is Kat. I'm based here in Denver, so, as Whitney mentioned, we just met at this incredibly expansive live event here that my coach put on, and I have been in this work for almost a decade and really working more one-to-one and with women's groups for about six years, and I started this path. You know the spiritual path.
Speaker 2:I was raised Catholic, so I was raised with some exposure to God and the church and more organized religion, and I, through my early 20s, experienced my first spiritual awakening. It was when I was moving back from Sevilla, spain, to Elon, north Carolina, which is where I got my undergraduate degrees, and I experienced reverse culture shock for the first time and that was really kind of my first. Well, maybe I had a couple of other little episodes of shadow work and depression prior to that, but as an adult, that was really like my first intro and experience into the shadow and realizing that there are these parts of myself that really needed to be more integrated and tended to, and at that time I had immense social anxiety. I was part of what would you know at that time was one of the best quote unquote best sororities on campus and I, on the external, had everything going for me. I um, yeah, I was getting these two amazing degrees from a really incredible university and I had worked at Pepsi and Exelon Energy Company out of Baltimore, and so I had everything that one quote unquote should have in order to be happy.
Speaker 2:But my heart was so yearning for more. It was yearning for more authentic connection. It was yearning for more purpose and at this time I knew that I didn't want to follow the path that was written for me and I am a black sheep. I am here to embrace that I'm a cycle breaker. I am here to embrace that I am highly sensitive, empathic, intuitive, and I'm here to create a new earth and really live in a different paradigm and shift the paradigm and live purposefully and help others do the same purposefully and help others do the same. And, yeah, through my early twenties, kind of explored what it would be like to create a different pathway for me, versus going down the what was expected of me path, and I went into the Peace Corps, which is where I experienced yet another spiritual upgrade and awakening. I fell sick with celiac disease in a bout of anxiety that I had never felt before.
Speaker 2:Key moments and pieces and what one would perceive as heart-wrenching, heartbreaking manifestations in the physical realm were actually some of my greatest and they are my greatest keys to freedom, to liberation, which is really what I walk women through today is helping you first realize that the programs, the systems, the disembodied and disempowered patriarchy has created belief systems that aren't true to you, and helping women realize the truth of who you are, beyond those projections of who you thought you needed to be in order to be successful.
Speaker 2:So that's one of my missions. And then I'm also I'm just embracing the fact these days that I am a trauma healer and I am an energy alchemist and I am a shadow seeker. I love the shadow, I love grief. Grief has been one of my greatest teachers. I love death. We, as women, go through death portals every single month, every single day. Who are you kidding to think that that's not a part, a part of life? Actually, your soul chose death the minute that you were incarnated and the minute that your soul came into this physical reality in the in the 3d.
Speaker 1:So, um, yeah, I'm just embracing now that, like I love it all, I love the shadow because it's such a teacher, uh, and I can go on and on and I know we'll dive into that more, but I love hearing this from your perspective and because we can talk about very similar things, but your energy is different than anybody else's and so when you are expressing your love of the death and rebirth cycle, when you are expressing that you're a trauma healer, that you're the alchemist, that you are one who walks within the space, I see so much of myself and, at the same time, there's so much love and honor for how unique and individualized and how magical you truly are.
Speaker 1:There's this quote that goes along the lines of like there's magic about you that is unrepeatable and unique to only you, and I really feel this in this space, because I see so much of my own journey in you.
Speaker 1:I see so much of like my story, my work, and I see how unique it is to you and how powerful it is to you and how it has this like coding within it that is unique to you, and that's just one of those things that I would really love to highlight is you can be doing the same similar things to someone else, but your magic is so your own, your journey is so your own. The magic and the people that you're. You're meant to impact the people. You're meant to connect with the people that you're meant to work with, walk with, et cetera, are going to be so unique to you because your messaging, your energetic imprint or blueprint, your energetic presence is so unique to you. And I just really see that in you, in you sharing your story, that there are so many people that you are so undoubtedly meant to connect with because of the energetic frequency that you hold.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and that goes for anyone and everybody listening.
Speaker 2:So the more that you can really embody the truth of who you are which is the work that I do is help you remember the truth of who you are before the programs, the systems and the patriarchy told you you had to be anything different the more that you embody that, the more permission that you give to others to do the same and you actually become a really familiar presence because you know yourself so well and I think you know I know a lot of people like I'm definitely a community and a connector girl and so often I think at least like two to three times a week people will tell me wow, have we met somewhere?
Speaker 2:Like you have such a familiar presence. I feel like I know you, like you remind me of somebody and that's because I'm so embodied in my truth and my expression and, granted, like I'm also human and I'm here to own my imperfections too, for sure, because that's just part of this experience. And the more that you just allow and own the truth of who you are, the more resonant your energy is, the more magnetic your energy is. And I'm going to be super curious, those that are listening that are like I want to try this on and try your truth on, sign into my DMs and let me know like the people are recognizing it, because I think that's a really beautiful piece too is like receiving that little bit of external validation that people are meeting you, they feel you, they get you and that feels so juicy, of course.
Speaker 1:I love this because, for me, a theme that has been really playing out is that authenticity piece, is that embodying of your authentic self, the embodiment of that, and what I found because everything's a projection, like we know this, we live in a holographic universe where everything is a projection of your internal experience.
Speaker 1:You experience it on the external. So knowing that it makes sense that I'm coming in contact with all of these people who authentic expression is so important is a big part of, like, the season that they're in. Um, and what I'm finding is I don't know if it's because it's a projection of, like, my internal environment, but I'm finding that there are a lot of people who are walking through the season, like specifically right now, around authentic expression, around integrating the shadow, around showing up as the embodied version of them, of both the shadow and the light, and and allowing themselves to be recognized that both aspects are so beautiful, both aspects are so needed and both you are beautiful, you are expansive, you are magic because of those things, not despite those things, and so really embodying that authentic expression of that has really been a theme within my reality and within my clients reality recently, and even like just watching people on social media. I'm really feeling like it's a theme. Have you noticed that? Is that your?
Speaker 2:experience. Yeah, yeah, I think it's definitely like the more you that you are right, the more permission that you give to others. And personally, for me, I think it's definitely like the more you that you are right, the more permission that you give to others. And personally, for me, I'm like how can I bring more of me into this space? How can I bring more of me online? How can I like, embody and really share the more of the truth of who I am? Because I actually get quite often like people perceive me as one way on the internet and then they meet me in person and they're like oh, you're so different, like you're so grounded, you're so this, you're so. I'm like I don't know like I thought I was doing. I thought I was like like in my authentic expression, but I guess I need to be more of it like. So there's like this invitation to just continually like bring more of you online. And yeah, that's going to be my work. My work this upcoming season is really like to bring more of my heart.
Speaker 1:And what a beautiful permission slip. Like here you are, you're like I thought I was bringing all myself and they're like there's like this disconnect or there's this space of like wow, you're so different. And what a beautiful permission slip to be more of you Like. What a beautiful permission slip to be like, oh here, I thought I was being all of me. But there's another level, maybe another 10 levels of embodiment of expression that I can tap into that I haven't tapped into. How can we play with this? Yeah, I love that. So, when it comes to integrating the shadow to be your most expansive self, your most authentic self, where do you begin with that? What does that look like?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's such a good question. I am like going back to right now in my timeline, like the first moment that I started to realize that there are these disintegrated which is funny when you say that disintegrated, there's parts of you that are falling apart, that are falling away. Um, and yeah, the and that's what it feels like, I think, when you haven't you haven't achieved or like haven't explored what it means to be intact or whole, is kind of that disintegration and that sense of losing ground and there's not a solid foundation underneath of you. And sometimes it can feel like you're grasping or reaching and the earth is kind of slipping away from from your feet or maybe even like what's coming to mind is like this feeling of quicksand, like being sucked into this hole or vortex and this downward spiral. And I think, like number one is just to acknowledge, just to recognize, like where you're at, like and really start to own your truth of your reality now. And yeah, I think that acknowledgement piece is definitely number one taking inventory. I always start my clients off by just taking inventory of where they are, of kind of what the patterns have been up until now, and then maybe that gets to be like. Part two is start to take inventory of where you are now, acknowledge where you're at, and then maybe take some time to look back onto the past and um, yeah, notice maybe parts of yourself or moments in your, in your life, in your timeline, that you felt less connected or more depressed or you know, uh, more dissonance right within your reality, more disconnect, and um, just start to to acknowledge maybe what some of those points were in the past and then also to acknowledge like points where you felt were really good and really connected.
Speaker 2:And I do anchoring. So I have studied nlp, I'm a master practitioner of neurolinguistic programming and a modality that I teach and use within illum is anchoring. So what you do is go back to these moments in your timeline and when I say timeline, like you kind of think of your, your reality, linearly. People have kind of this linear perception of time, and so there's, you can travel into the past, into the future, you can start to play with these different timelines and you'll go back to a previous moment in your timeline maybe where you felt really connected, really purposeful, really joyful.
Speaker 2:For me, there's a moment in my timeline there I felt so at peace, I felt so in love in my life and it was this moment and I have a clear picture in my head of me sitting in a hammock in Costa Rica when I was in the Peace Corps and just felt so carefree, I felt so supported and start to identify um where life has really been nourishing and pouring into you, where it's felt really good, and then also maybe where life did you wrong a little bit, and um, take inventory a little bit of your life and um a little bit of your life and from there, yeah, I would say ownership is a big piece of this work. So, okay, when life was doing you wrong, where can you actually own the fact that maybe you weren't in your highest, where you were a little bit disembodied, where you could have done better and I love this practice too, and this is something that I do almost daily. At night is I go over my day and I ask like, where could I been better? Where could I have brought my 10x self? Like how does my exponential, highest, most integrated version of me show up to everything that I do in every way and invite the highest version of me? And is there some room for growth? Is there something that maybe was lacking that, um, yeah, like harmony or wholeness, and that I can make some tweaks too. So it's like taking inventory, acknowledging, uh, taking ownership of where you get to grow.
Speaker 2:This is radical personal responsibility, um, in trauma healing spaces, I know, like I mean, depending on where people are in their own evolutionary process, like for some individuals being, you know, yeah, just depending on where you are in your own evolutionary process, um, to take responsibility for the trauma that you've lived can be really difficult or it can be really empowering, and it just depends on perspective and it depends on the level of consciousness one has access to and holds and is experiencing in the now. And I mean, some people have horrible, horrifying stories and I feel like it's just an invitation for evolution, for love, for acceptance, to own the fact that, like, maybe there are some parts of you that need to be tended to right. And that's not a bad thing. I'm not shaming you for it, it's an invitation. It's like, hey, this is triggering for you.
Speaker 2:Hey, you're feeling a type of way you're feeling in panic, or you're feeling overwhelmed, or you're feeling you, you're feeling, you know, guilt or shame or anxiety around this life experience. Well, what inside of you is ashamed? That that's part of your story. And then you get to work on that shame piece, right, you get to work on that anxiety and really start to tend to those, the grief. And I read a book recently, amazing book, it's called the Flowering War. It's on ancestral healing. I've been really deepening my studies in ancestral healing work and it's like a Toltec tradition, yeah, and the author talks about grief bearer versus a grief tender.
Speaker 2:And the grief bearer is the one that, basically, is still responding, reacting to life through the lens of trauma, that hasn't alchemized the shadow yet and you're still, yeah, like, really acting unconsciously through life and everything is everybody else's fault. One's never, you know, ready to take responsibility. Here they're all victim mentality and the grief bearer. And then you shift into, like being the grief tender, which is the one that, like, really nourishes and nurtures the trauma, the shame, the grief that have been passed down through generations, maybe even in your lineage, mean. You're listening to this.
Speaker 2:So, whoever is listening to this, I truly feel like you are a grief tender. This is your work and maybe this is an invitation to go from that victim mentality of being a grief bearer. Life is happening to you and you know shame on you to tending to these parts of you that make up your, your being at a cellular level, um, and you, through this process, get to break unconscious patterns and, um, traumas and belief systems that had been passed down. Uh, for true liberation. For true liberation, which is why we're here.
Speaker 1:That is so good. Oh my gosh, you just changed my whole life with that. Like your way of expressing that and bring an image of the image to mind, and the way you voiced that and brought words to that whole experience was so valuable to me and I know that everyone listened, that there are going to be people listening who are in the same boat, where they see themselves in the story that you're sharing and the way in which you're expressing that shift from it happening to you and to for you, one of the things that I'm such an advocate for. Like getting one sentence out of something and it like changing my whole life, so like going to Living Brave Live. There could be one thing Shoshana says, or Reese says or somebody says that like I'm totally available for that, shifting my whole energetic frequency, my whole being, my whole business. Like one sentence. And one of those sentences that shifted my whole being was trauma's only trauma. While you, when you and Shoshana said this, trauma's only trauma, when you're still thinking it happened to you instead of for you, which, to someone who is still in that space, that can be really triggering, really triggering. And there's also that space of invitation where it's like, if this is triggering and you want to move from that space of the trauma bearer to the trauma tender tenderer.
Speaker 1:I think that shift, that softening, that surrendering, that reclaiming of your power in. Yes, I may not have had complete control over what has happened to me, but what I do have control over, what I do have a say in, is whether or not I continue to live that trauma over and over and over again every day, whether or not I allow whether that is someone that did it to you allow them to have that power over me every single day and allow that to continue to live in my current reality, in my current body, in my current experience, in my current existence, in my current energetic frequency that I hold. I could choose to allow that to continue to live with me. Or another option is to alkalimize that. Another option is to soften. Another option is to be that tenderer, to be the one who's tending to those wounds, sitting with them, sitting with that shadow, sitting with those feelings and recognizing that.
Speaker 1:What if this experience, that you went through that, as horrific as it may be, what if part of that was part of your journey, so that you could speak to those who have also gone through that, that haven't had someone like you to see them in that wound, to see them through that lens, to see them through their experience and actually be able to see them actually, because that is a complete gift. I don't know about you, but when someone actually sees me actually like when Shoshana was advertised in the Living Brave event and she did that reel of her still wearing the tag on the back of her shirt and getting her suitcase and was like, oh, we're going to this event, ok, I'm in. I booked my tickets like I'm ready to go, I'm that fast. I felt so seen in that moment because that's who I am. Like I am, I'm fast.
Speaker 1:If something feels right, my sacral is activated, I'm fast.
Speaker 1:If something feels right, my sacral is activated, I'm like, yes, I'm in, like I don't even have to think about it and so for, in this space, if I, well, in that space, I felt really seen. I felt like, oh, my gosh, I'm not the only person in the world who is like, oh, yes, I'm all in and I'm all in right now, and that's not a wrongness. In the same space, when it space, when it comes to trauma, the trauma that you experienced, the trauma that you went through, alkalizing that, shifting that, moving into the space of embodiment and in this reclaiming of all of you, reclaiming all of you, in this, you are actually becoming the invitation to someone to feel so fucking seen because maybe, just maybe, you living your expression in that, you living that embodiment of this happened to me and I'm willing to see things differently and I'm willing to to tend to this and I'm willing to reclaim my power, is the invitation to somebody else to do the same, because you may be the first person who's truly seen them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, so good, yeah, yes, so good, yeah, and I mean that's why it's so important for you to be able to do the work on yourself right. So you have I like to call it like a reference point and, um, you've experienced that frequency in your body, like you. For me, um, you know, I hold really just incredible portals, healing spaces and women's circles, and people are going through a somatic experience with within these spaces and they'll shake, they'llulse, their bodies will move in uncontrollable, nonlinear ways, and the reason that I, as a facilitator, am able to hold that is because I've gone through it, because I know it, I know what it's like and that's a really big piece of this work too is, as you're stepping into being that grief tender. And when you think about that word, tender and I'm thinking about, like, tending to that garden, tending to that inner garden right Versus the bear is the one that, like, carries the weight of the world, the heaviness it feels dense on your shoulders. And for me, an incredible grief portal that I entered into was back in the beginning of 2022.
Speaker 2:I found out I was pregnant by a man that was not going to be my baby daddy. I was in a relationship, but I knew it wasn't a forever thing. Yet I entered into that relationship feeling like there was something there for me and it was a soul contract. And 10 days after the new year I had a medical abortion and I went into the darkest, darkest portal I've ever experienced and one could say it was. It got scary at times but I've studied, like I mentioned, uh, quantum energetics within the umbrella of NLP, and I was deep in my master certification at that point in time as well, and part of that ability to hold the shadow is, and I was really able to surrender into the void, into the nothingness, into the absolute pitch black of consciousness, because I knew that the more depth I allow myself to experience and the more depth that you allow yourself to experience, you're only going to have the equal and opposite reaction. You'll only experience, you'll only get to know the equal and opposite amount of light right and this is a concept that I also teach in a loom, it's part of the 12 universal laws is like the laws of polarity, the laws of cause and effect, of masculine and feminine is really allowing yourself to go deep into the shadow, because you will only ever experience the equal and opposite if you let yourself.
Speaker 2:And so for me, exploring that really tragic, shadowy, scary part of my consciousness, I just allowed because I knew that I would also experience the equal and opposite amount of love, connection, purposeful living, joy, ecstasy, whichasy, which is like, of course, I also want to know that.
Speaker 2:But we, as humans, like, if you're afraid to experience the shadow, if you don't let yourself go into that space, like you're never going to know the love that this universe holds for you, and so it's really just an invitation. If you desire to and you yearn for deep love, you also have to go into deep places of fear and pain as well, and pain is inevitable, but suffering is a choice, and so it's like how do you perceive the inevitable pain that we, as humans that chose to be here, incarnated in these bodies, surrender into, and are you allowing the pain or do you choose suffering, right? So, yeah, that was a really actually a painful portal, yet such a beautiful portal, and I had a few more learning lessons after that, and I'm not going to stop learning until the day I die, because that's just how the humanity, that's how our life goes.
Speaker 1:Well, and I think that, too, you have this unique ability, and I say unique because there are people that don't choose this, but those that are listening often are going to be the ones who are choosing the healing journey. Everything in life is the opportunity, is the opportunity to expand and grow and evolve and become the student of life, whereas there are a lot of people who see it as the superficial thing of like life is what it is. I am being impacted and affected by life, but I have no say in it, I have no control over it, I have no ability to change what's happening to me, and I think that there's this big shift that happens when you move from the space of like co-creating with the universe and taking these really deep soul contract lessons that, yes, you signed up for prior to coming into this world, and they may be really fucking big, and you don't know how you're going to even begin to process it. That's okay. You don't even know how you're going to begin to move through it. That's okay. You don't even know how deep you're going to have to go, and that's scary. That is scary, and it's okay if it's scary.
Speaker 1:But being willing to walk through that, being willing to be like I don't know where the fuck I'm going or how long this is going to take or how deep I have to go, but I'm willing to go through it.
Speaker 1:I'm willing to navigate this, I'm willing to keep pushing forward, leaning forward, surrendering deeper. Surrendering forward into this is going to allow you to move into the space where you get to actually co-create with life. Rather than life happening to you, life is happening for you. So, in this really beautiful, vulnerable share that you had, thank you for your vulnerability, thank you for being willing to be seen on here, thank you for giving voice to many who are listening to this that likely have very similar experiences to you and don't know how to express it, don't know how to vocalize that, because there's shame, there's guilt, there's fear fear of what people will say, shame around the decisions and choices that they made for themselves, shame around the feelings and what they're experiencing. Like all of that, you just gave voice to so many people who have such similar stories and my true belief is that that vulnerability is gonna set so many people free because they see themselves through you.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Yeah, I think like the last, most liberating piece of this part of my story was when I got to tell my father and there was a lot of shame there that I was feeling and a lot of fear that I was feeling before. I shared that part and you know, I realized through this process too it's actually not my shame, it's that projection of shame of going through an experience like this that I was holding onto, and so it was more the shame of the collective that I was able to move through.
Speaker 1:And you're alchemizing on not only just an individual level, but a collective level.
Speaker 2:You are alchemizing that yeah, yeah, and that's so powerful, it's so, it's so powerful. So to be able I mean, the interesting thing about this work too, is like we think that it's a personal thing, but it's actually not. It's so much bigger, yeah, yeah, yeah. I just ran a master class, uh, called liberate your lineage on some ancestral healing work.
Speaker 2:Um, I always invite my women into this work, knowing wholeheartedly, like, that when you do this work on yourself, you are liberating generations of those that didn't have the tools, the resources, the wherewithal, the access, the privilege, the, the, the bravery to do it themselves. And, um, by you being here, you, you know, pouring your heart out, bearing your heart on your sleeve for others to witness, like it's not for you, it's for you, you're doing it for you, but you actually are doing it for something so much greater than you, because I believe in the one, the collective consciousness, that is one that is love. And when you come back to love, when you come back to right, from fear to love, when you return to love through the one consciousness that we all experiencing, it's creating more wholeness for the one, for the whole that we're all experiencing in a collective space.
Speaker 1:So I'm getting pretty far out there, I'm getting a little bit heady right now a little existential, but I love it because it's us physically moving through these things. Us physically moving through these things it's 1111 right now, at least here in North Idaho. It's really interesting because, as we physically take ourselves through these experiences and return to love, as you're speaking, what's so fascinating to me is it does require us to move through the shadow with it. That's how we raise the frequency, that's how we hold a higher frequency, that's how we hold more space is bringing that shadow back to love.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah. Somebody in my life recently went through a pretty traumatic and shadowy experience himself and there was some domestic violence involved in this case and he felt so deeply disconnected from his heart, from love, from acceptance, and there was a lot of shame there. And I told him in conversation, I was like you know, this is actually. This is a beautiful, beautiful thing to be able to experience and it's actually an invitation for you to create more acceptance and go deeper into yourself and discover, you know, because obviously, like, if domestic violence is involved, then that's a pretty shadowy place to be in and then, um, you know, leaving somebody that you love behind is can, it's earth-shattering.
Speaker 2:And and I told him, I was like this is such a beautiful gift and such an invitation. And if you get through this, if you get through this, if you let yourself go there, if you let yourself experience the depth of the darkness that you are facing right now, then you will know a love that you've never experienced before. And what a fantastic, what a beautiful gift, what a beautiful invitation to be able to be invited into a deeper sense of self-knowing and a more intimate, more accepting, more radical, revolutionary love than a love that you've ever known in 50, 60, 80 years of your life. It's never too late and you know, I think that takes a brave heart and it takes, takes you know a lot of freaking courage yeah, a lot of courage, and it takes the individual.
Speaker 2:That's ready, right. It's like are you living through the lens that life is happening for you or to you? Are you living through victimhood? Are you living through a lens of empowered being? And, um, you know that's. I can help people to shift into states of empowerment, for sure, but it's also not really up to me. And as a leader, you can only lead by example, really in a lot of this work. And so it's like that's why it's so important to be embodied in an integrity with how you lead, how you guide, how you move through your life.
Speaker 2:And I think one of the greatest invitations to integrity within my life was like would my clients be proud of the woman that I am behind closed doors If they were on the wall like a fly right now? Would I be proud of how I'm showing up, of how I'm conducting myself? Who do I be in the moments to moment, choices and interacting in everyday life? Because that's who you are right Is those small moments that make up. You know, we could have infinite amount of small moments that make up the one whole right, and it's like a pie you can smash it to as many little tiny pieces and granulars as you want. We can keep going, and the level of integrity and the frequency that you choose to embody through those granular and micro moments are really what impacts the quality of life that you live.
Speaker 2:And, yeah, so I think, through the lens of leadership, that's really our greatest piece of work, and integrity is one of my top values, if not my greatest value, is being an integrity, and that matters how I am being and living and breathing in the moment to moment.
Speaker 1:Yes, and for me, that integrity piece really, truly reciprocates the energy of authenticity, of like truly to be. An integrity for me and I have a feeling this applies to you as well means living authentically. Living being what I'm expressing, who I'm being, what I'm doing, all being very cohesive, all being congruent with one another, all being in alignment with one another, which is ultimately in alignment with who I really am. And to really bring this full circle with your share on allowing yourself to walk through the shadow and recognize where you're experiencing shame and fear and doubt and worry and judgment. Where is that even you? And where is that actually something that you've learned? Where is that ancestral? Where is that patriarchal? Where is that? Where is that? Coming from a place that is not even you, because nine times out of 10, if not 10 times out of 10, it's not even you. It's not even your story. It's something that you adopted, it's something that you bought as yours. It's something that you bought as right or, on the other side of that, you bought something as wrong, and so the opposite is this must be the right answer, and so it's like where are you creating? Where are you living? Where are you experiencing life through the lens of your ancestors, through the lens of the patriarchy, through the lens of what they've decided is right or wrong, instead of really embodying who you are.
Speaker 1:And a piece that it almost felt like you were going to go into earlier and we kind of went alongside is like who are you from the beginning? Who are you before you were taught what was right and wrong, what was good and bad, what was the right way to handle something or the wrong way to handle something, or the right way to be or the wrong way to be. And who are you before that? Because, for me personally, I, even as a young girl, I was very charismatic, I was very magnetic, I was very, dare I say, sexual, like I was very much so, like without. It was just this energy of magnetism, it was this openness, it was this life force was moving through me, it was this connectedness.
Speaker 1:And where are all the ways that I have been made wrong? For that You're too big, you're too expressive. You make sure that you cross your legs, make sure you're doing this, make sure you're doing that, make sure you're not saying anything because you can. You can't take that back. You have to really think about what you're going to say before you say it, because there's no taking those words back. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Those were all beliefs and points of views and ways of being that I adopted from the people around me who were, who were loving me and teaching me from the place of love and what they knew, their quote, unquote wisdom, their experience. But where have you turned off who you are in order to operate from a place that is not of you at all?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and that's really the work is is coming home to the truth of who you are and, I think, one realization that I've come to in the last few weeks.
Speaker 2:I so, this past February, I went through yet another spiritual awakening portal and I I was actually at a play party on, uh, a BDSM masters kink table in lingerie, witnessed by a room of probably 10 or 15 that were sitting there um just connecting with one another and he was rubbing my body with I don't know what it was, like a glove of rabbit fur or something and, um, he asked me a few kind of uh topics or things that I was working on in that moment. And worthiness was a big piece. And in that moment, while I was laying there on the kink table, my body was soft and I had been channeling like all night long and just clearing a lot of energy that had been in my body, but also like collective energy that was in this space. And something that he asked me was about my tattoos and what they have. What do they have to do with being worthy?
Speaker 2:And in this moment I realized and this was something that I had been kind of tussling with back and forth is the understanding of innate worthiness, and I think a lot of women will really, will really resonate with the challenge that one might feel to feel innately worthy. What does that mean? Our society is programmed into us that you need to have a house, that you need to have the success, that you need to have the money in the bank, that you need to have the success, that you need to have the money in the bank, that you need to have the job title in order to be worthy. Right and sadly. But truth is, our society really validates that narrative. This is what our society has been built off of and for me, from an early age at least, like 10 or 15 years, I've had a different measure of success. I've had a different measure of success and in that moment I realized what it means to be innately worthy is just by that tattoo's existence, of being on my body, is it worthy of being here? Just by existing means, that it's worthy of being here, of taking up space. And that was a huge download, that I finally am embodied in that wisdom and that knowledge in my energetic aura and frequency of like. Just because you're here, babe, you're worthy and I can. You know, people can intellectualize that, but it's different when you embody that right, because I was intellectualizing it for months, trying to understand what it means to be innately worthy, but really until you feel that mind-body connection and that embodied knowledge of innate worthiness and that was a really big gift.
Speaker 2:And five days later, and I was actually engaging and I connected with a man at that party and five days later he came back to Colorado and we had fun and I went on this crazy adventure and he has this cool, sexy, you know camper van and I said, fuck it, why not, I'll get in your van and let's drive to Utah. Like, yeah, girl, I'm a wild woman, but through this process and I'm super empathic, I'm super sensitive the man is sleeping next to me for five days and I'm on fire, like my energy is just like I can't sleep. I'm like so stimulated by this man. His like energy is just penetrating me, I can like feel it and it's so intense. And that night that we got to his house in Utah, I actually got an ocular migraine and I lost my vision for five days because and I'm very, my third eye is very open, I'm clairvoyant, clairsentient, like I have a lot of gifts and um, yeah, spirit said if you don't want to see, then we'll take your vision away. No problem, I got you and so that's what happened. I, I'm, I lost my vision for five days and um, yeah, it was really a difficult time as one could imagine. Um and uh, yeah, which is a crazy story.
Speaker 2:I've had vision correction since I was a young child and I've been farsighted. I've been wearing contacts and glasses my whole life. And after this experience I put my glasses on and I didn't work anymore and I went to the ophthalmologist and I had them test my vision again and he said, no, you have 20, 20 vision. You don't have astigmatism. And I was like, excuse me, I had to ask the man five times. I was like, are you sure? Are you sure? Like you must be doing this wrong. He was like, no, you're? You literally don't have you, you don't wear your glasses, like just, please don't. And I was like what the F is going on?
Speaker 2:And since then, due to a few other things, I've been. I cut all substances out, I have been celibate, and all of this has been bringing me back to again like that innate worthiness and that joy that I experienced, that unbound, unbridled, unadulterated joy that I have felt, that I used to feel when I was a kid and so like bringing it full circle. Now I'm more sober and celibate than I've been in the last 15 or 16 years of my life, because I started young, like I was drinking and fucking when I was 15, 14 years old, and so I was a crazy girl and I, yeah, like this is the clearest, cleanest I've been in years and this is the most deeply satisfied and joyful I've felt in my entire life since before, the impact and the influence of substances of sexuality, of you know, um, yeah, just like feeling Well and you're not finding that outside of yourself at all.
Speaker 1:Like that is creating this clear channel of truly finding all of those things within you, instead of finding them through the substances, through even like sex. That's such a drug, like that flirtation, like that space is such a drugs to find that within yourself and completely disconnected from the substances, completely disconnected from what previously was preconceived as the reward or preconceived as the worthiness. Now you're just finding that within yourself and then what do you get to create from there? Because now you're going to be creating everything from the foundation of I'm fucking worthy, because I just fucking am, and creating from that space.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:That is 10 times. You talked about living that 10 times version of you. Like, what are the interactions that I'm going to have? How am I going to hold myself? Who am I going to be if I'm operating from this 10 times place? You're operating from that 10 times place.
Speaker 1:You're operating from that right here and now because you're fucking worthy, because you are, and it doesn't require anything outside of you yeah, yeah, yeah, it's been definitely quantum playing in the quantum field these last few months but that also like on the other side of that like, viewing that from that lens of like this is your 10 times self, finding that worthiness within you, like you can look at it from this, this big picture, zoomed out, perspective of like, holy fuck, I'm finding that 10 times version of myself. I'm living there. But there's also still that shadow aspect that you're integrating on in that too.
Speaker 1:Every moment of like, I want a substance to like neutralize this feeling of discomfort that I'm having within my body. I want to have sex because there's this discomfort that I'm having within my body. I want to have a drink to take off the edge, because there's this discomfort in the stretch that I'm feeling within my body. I want to have a drink to take off the edge because there's this discomfort in the stretch that I'm feeling within my body. You're navigating that shadow instantaneously by saying, no, I am celibate. No, I am sober. No, I am not using any substances to dilute any of these feelings, to neutralize any of these feelings. I am the alchemist and I can do that because I am worthy. I can do that because I can, and I can do that without any external factor, any external substance.
Speaker 2:Amen, amen. Yeah, it's been really fun and I'm looking forward to the rest of the year. For sure I'm going to be doing a 10 day Vipassana. I'm taking some time for myself, pouring back into the well and looking forward to welcoming more beautiful, magnetic, incredible leaders and change makers and alchemists into my world. So I'm just so grateful to be here and have this conversation. It feels yeah, it feels like a pivotal and significant moment. So I agree, I so agree.
Speaker 1:Thank you for having this conversation with me. Thank you for the vulnerability and the love and being seen and the way in which you express yourself and your energy and frequency being here in this space. I know that people listening to this are. Their life is going to be forever different. Even if there isn't that tangible piece of like, this is what shifted me You're, the energetic frequency in which you showed up in today. The level of vulnerability, the level of openness, the level of softness that you expressed and expressed through today was such an invitation for more for others, and they're energetically going to feel it, whether they recognize it or not, and so I'm so grateful that you were willing to bring this to this space, like I am so deeply grateful for your presence and you being here. So thank you. Where is the best place for people to connect with you when they are like fuck, yes, kat's my person. I want to be in her tribe, I want to be in her space, I want to be in her energy. Where can they find you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you. It's such a pleasure and I would say definitely. The gram is a really incredible place to plug in and play and find me, I am enrolling 10 incredible, magnetic, change-making women out in the world into my academy right now. So calling in the next cohort of beautiful, beautiful facilitators and change makers, ones that are desiring to create transformational spaces that are trauma-informed that also may not be necessarily the most trauma-sensitive, because I always tell my clients I'm like I'm trauma-informed, but I tell you I'm not always trauma sensitive because we're here to alchemize some shit and that takes going into the discomfort yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So, um, I lead really potent and transformational spaces here in Colorado as well. So if you're local to the Rocky mountains, definitely send me a DM. I've got one last event that I'm hosting for the rest of the year, which feels exciting. It's going to be on the equinox evening on the equinox. Look forward to that. And then, yeah, I've got a couple of spaces in my one-to-one mentorship. So I've got two more spaces in my one-to-one for the rest of the year and those are for some women that are just like ready to soar. It takes a really unique individual that's. I mean here for the alchemy, here for the Phoenix rising moment, and I'm here to call you up and I'm here to call you forward and, like you mentioned too, like, feel the energy and calibrate to that frequency. Like that's what I absolutely promise to do for you is be the pole in a lot of this alchemy and energy work and this upgrade that you're going to experience. So thank you so much, whitney, thank you.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, this episode truly changed my life. I'm so grateful, thank you.
Speaker 2:I'm so grateful for you and I realized. I didn't even say what my Instagram was.
Speaker 1:It's just I'll put it below too, but what is your Instagram?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's, I am Kat Tovar. So yeah, whitney will link it.
Speaker 1:But I'm so grateful She'll be so accessible and so easy to find. You won't even have to worry about it. All the people will find you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thanks, love it's such a pleasure.
