The Healing In Sharing
Welcome to The Healing in Sharing podcast. THIS is a space for brave, honest conversations about resilience, restoration, and the life-changing power of telling the truth about your story. Through heartfelt storytelling and meaningful dialogue, each episode opens the door for women to gently unpack their past, rebuild trust where it was broken, and rediscover the strength that has always lived within them.
This is a welcoming space where vulnerability is honored, growth is intentional, and healing is not rushed but respected. Together, we explore what it means to rise, to rebuild, and to step fully into the woman you were always meant to become.
Formerly I Need Blue.
The Healing In Sharing
Postpartum Depression and the Healing That Followed - Katherine
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Katherine Connors had just returned from her honeymoon when a family health crisis was followed by the shocking discovery of a secret that changed everything.
Years later, unresolved pain followed her into motherhood as she struggled with postpartum depression, feeling unheard, overwhelmed, and unsure where to turn. In this honest conversation, Catherine shares her journey through family betrayal, forgiveness, boundaries, and the healing that began when someone finally listened.
She also opens up about discovering polarity therapy, exploring generational patterns, and finding a new sense of purpose through the very experiences that once caused so much pain.
Connect with Katherine Connors:
Website: https://polarityenergyhealing.com/
Free Intro Session: Catherine offers a free 15-minute introductory session for anyone who would like to learn more and see what may be a good fit.
Location: Vero Beach, Florida, with virtual sessions also available.
Connect with Jen:
Welcome And Trigger Warning
SPEAKER_03I'm grateful you're here today. I'm Jennifer Lee, and this is the Healing and Sharing podcast. If parts of your past still feel close, childhood wounds, loss, or moments that continue to shape you as you unpack them, this space was created for you. The Healing and Sharing is where women tell their stories honestly, connect through shared experience, and take steps towards healing together, letting others know they are not alone. Here, survival becomes strength. Before we begin, a gentle trigger warning, this podcast includes discussions of domestic violence, childhood trauma, and other sensitive topics. Please take care of yourself and ask for help if needed. You always come first. Thank you to Melissa Turrey for composing the beautiful opening melody. To learn more, visit thehealing sharing.com. And let's begin today's journey.
Honeymoon Ends With Heart Attack
SPEAKER_03Today's guest is Catherine Connors, and her story begins in a place you might not expect just after her honeymoon. Catherine had spent 20 years in New York City as an actress and entertainer before building her own successful talent agency and helping others pursue their dreams. But shortly after getting married, she learned that while she had been on her honeymoon, her father had suffered a heart attack. That devastating news became the beginning of something much bigger. Family secrets began to surface, including the discovery of her father's affair. Catherine found herself carrying anger, hurt, bitterness, and questions she didn't know how to resolve. She eventually became pregnant with her son, but those emotions followed her into motherhood where she experienced postpartum depression. Friends intervened, medication was tried, and counseling followed. Eventually, though, Catherine discovered polarity, a practice she describes as restoring balance to her life and helping her become what she calls Mom two point zero. Today we're discussing postpartum depression, forgiveness, boundaries, polarity, and the moment Catherine discovered her life purpose, shifting from the performing arts to the healing arts. And I'm really excited that towards the end of the conversation, I had a session with Catherine yesterday. And I want to share my experience with you. But Catherine, thank you for being my guest today. Thank you for being my friend, and welcome to the Healing in Sharing podcast.
SPEAKER_02Thank you. I'm so honored. And um over here with tears my eyes, just from that beautiful introduction. You couldn't have told my story better. That's hard to hear, even though I lived through it. So I feel like we're already healing in this process right here, right now.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, absolutely. And you know, it hits a little different when you hear somebody tell you about your story versus when you tell your story. Well, thank you for coming here and sharing your courage and your vulnerability uh with the audience. If we may take us back to that time and suddenly learning that your father has had a heart attack.
SPEAKER_02Um, there's a lot of confusion, you know. I was worried about him because we knew he wasn't very healthy and doing so good before the wedding. And I was like, is he gonna be able to walk me down the aisle? Like that was like my biggest thing. I just remember being like, I need him to be well enough and okay to be able to do this for me that day. And I wasn't thinking, you know, all of the consequences that were gonna happen after, right? Like a bride is just focused on her wedding day.
SPEAKER_03If we may take us back to that time, uh, you're coming off your honeymoon. What do you remember feeling before you even knew how much your life was about to change?
SPEAKER_02Um, so when we got home and uh had this bomb drop on us, uh, that was the last thing I thought my family would say. I changed everything. I was just, you know, now back being concerned about my family that raised me, when I finally thought I was going to be, you know, out and starting my own family. There's a big um rude awakening. Um, there were lots of tears, lots of uh sleepless nights, lots of going back and forth and uh trying to figure out who should I take care of, you know, my own father or my new husband or, you know, our new kitty cat that we just got to. I was just like, I don't know where to go. They lived in New Jersey, we lived in Queens, and it was not as close as it sounds when there's bridges and tunnels and traffics and cities in between. Um, so I remember the nurse laughing at me at the hospital because I would set up my work from there and I was running my talent agency from the hospital room for 30 days because they just kept him there forever. Uh and then, you know, every once in a while, Christian would come and visit. That's my husband's name, and bring us some lunch that wasn't hospital food. But he got it. He he patiently, you know, stood by my side through it all and still is uh 10 years later. So I'm very blessed
The Caretaker Moves Into The Basement
SPEAKER_02to have him. And my dad's still with us, too. So I'm very blessed to still have him alive and healthy as well. It'll all work out okay. But in the moment, you never think it's gonna be okay. You never know why it's happening, and you just do what you've got to do.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. So you took on the role of a wife, right? And now all of a sudden, a caretaker.
SPEAKER_02Yes, yes. But I knew that I couldn't be the person to take care of my father, that he was going to need a full-time caretaker because I had to get back to the city. I had to get back to work, I had to get back to my home and start something up there. Um, and my mother was working full-time still. She she's still is, she hasn't retired, even though she could and should. She wasn't going to be able to do it. And at the time, my brother was still living at home, but uh he was, you know, figuring him his own self out and wasn't really, you know, stepping up to the plate to be the caretaker. And this random woman who uh worked with my father happened to lose her job at the same exact time that my father happened to not be able to work anymore, volunteered herself into our lives.
SPEAKER_03Wow, what did that what did that introduction look like?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, she she wasn't even a caretaker. She just needed uh a place to stay and needed, you know, something to do. And, you know, we didn't grow up with a lot of money, so we really didn't have uh the funds to pay for a caretaker. So at first it was like, okay, well, this could kind of be an ideal solution, but it turned out to be a nightmare because she only, you know, worked her way into a house, but also her way into my father's heart. And uh that was not cool.
SPEAKER_03No.
SPEAKER_02Now, your first introduction to this lady, did she come to the hospital or had you been well, I wasn't there when this happened, but she did come to the hospital uh when it was just my dad uh on his own. And apparently my mom got there shortly after and saw this woman in the hospital massaging her husband's feet and started yelling for security to come and remove who is this woman, why is she here, um, and get her out of there. And apparently it was a lot of drama. My dad thought my mom was being very dramatic. And needless to say, she had a gut reaction response and knew uh-uh, something is wrong here. And um, I think the friction between my mother and this woman has been there ever since. You know, that was the moment where she's just like a light bulb went off, like, uh, what's happening?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I would probably feel the same way.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, for sure. But you're probably like, well, then how the heck did she end up in her house taking care of my dad? Uh, my mom found out shortly after that that this woman, because she lost her job, was now living out of her car with her two boys. Um, she had two young boys um at this point in her life. And my mother, being the Irish Catholic woman that she is, said, Well, you cannot live that way. You can stay in our basement, and offered them a place to stay. Um, but she does her work. She's she's very good at helping others and was finding them solutions, you know, find trying to get her paperwork fixed so she could get back to work and get a job here, uh, trying to find them a woman shelter that they could stay at so they're not forever in our home, right? Trying to find uh help for the boys. So then this way they're not running amok and just being stuck in our basement for so long or trapped in their car for so long. So that's how this lady uh ended up coming into our lives a little bit more invasively than planned. Your mom has a very generous heart. She does and still does, and you know, she's everyone calls her an angel, a saint. Um, I just didn't see it that way at the time. I was more mad at my mother for allowing this situation to arise than I was at my father. I kind of understood his position. Like in walks, you know, this young, cute Latino woman, my dad's from Colombia, and now she's like making all the Spanish foods and making him feel better. Like I kind of understood the situation as a grown woman myself. But then I was just mad at my mom, like, how could you let this happen? What is wrong with you? Why are you turning a blind eye? Like you can't be that dumb. Like, and she just uh she doesn't think worldly that ways, you know, like her eye is set on heaven and what she's gotta do to get there, right? So she's thinking like just forgiveness and and love and um, you know, taking care of family
The Affair Revealed Through A Child
SPEAKER_02and other people. I didn't get that mindset until I was handed a book shortly after by a friend called Radical Forgiveness. Then I could finally tell my mother that I was sorry for not taking her side when she's been through so much. You know, forgive her, forgive him, forgive my family, and just know, you know, this is not my story. This is this is you guys' journey. And I'm gonna take a step back here and go back to taking care of my family now.
SPEAKER_03That is huge. And because you had said earlier that she took his heart. Did he give his heart to her too? Apparently not.
SPEAKER_02Um again, I was not there for this, so I could only imagine what have gone down. Um, but the reason why we found out that uh uh this affair came about is because a child came from it. And so that was an even bigger bomb that was dropped on us, is that now I have a brother that's 35 years younger than me. And that my mother and father talked it out and they decided that what's best for this little boy is for them to stay together and to give this child a fair chance at life uh by raising him as their own and helping this woman any way that they can, you know, without my father leaving and starting again at the age of 64 after just surviving a heart attack who, you know, should be retiring. He had to go back to work and be able to provide for this new family now. But my mother stayed. She stayed through it all, and this woman is kind of like in and out of the picture, of course, whenever she needs help for her son. But uh Anthony, my little brother, is uh now a big part of our lives, which is kind of crazy. But that's what happened.
SPEAKER_03Wow. So when you say forgiveness, it goes it goes deep. It's like there's a lot of tentacles attached to that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and I mean he was really cute. You can't blame it on him. He did not have a choice in this matter. He just came into this world, like, what's happening around me? This doesn't seem right. Uh, you know, and now he's seven, so I'm sure at some point he's gonna start asking questions and gonna try to figure it out, and then his healing and forgiveness can begin because I don't even know if he realizes that he he came in uh with all of this trauma to begin with. So I'm gonna help him through that healing process as best I could. And I feel like that's my role to play for him later in life when he's ready.
SPEAKER_03Did you recognize that that is your role when you started to get into your forgiveness process? No, no, no.
SPEAKER_02I it was like stages of grieving, honestly. Like when you're mad, you go through all of that too. Like first you're mad, then you're sad, and then you just don't care. And then you're like, okay, I'm ready. Who wants to talk about this? But because of our religious upbringing, we were not allowed to talk about this, and everything just got swept under the carpet, and I was not feeling like I was being heard and that I had an opinion or a voice in the matter. Uh, whenever I would try to bring it up, they would say it would just lead to things left unsaid. There's no reason to discuss it. It is what it is, God has a plan, and
Silence In The Family And Writing
SPEAKER_02that's it. So, what uh I had to do in order to, you know, feel like I had a space to uh get this off my chest is start writing. And I wrote and wrote and wrote the best uh screenplay I could possibly put out there because I came from an entertainment world. And uh they tell you as an actor, if you want to make it, you got to write your own work these days, right? So I figured I write myself a little Hallmark lifetime movie that people will get to see, you know, based on this wacky, crazy Latino, Irish, Catholic uh family, uh and everything that they've been through. Apparently, you know, lots of families go through this, but no one ever shared that or told me until I started sharing my story. And they're like, oh yeah, my dad too. That's uh that's how I became a writer.
SPEAKER_03But you know what? That is great therapy, isn't it? Because you have to get it out one way or another. And it's kind of like even though the pages don't talk back to us, it's like they still hear us.
SPEAKER_02Oh, yeah, I love that. That's really cool. And I didn't know how to write. Um, so at the time it was COVID, and I had plenty of free time to figure out what I'm gonna do while everything is shut down. So I took master classes and I started working with an Emmy Award-winning writer on her Zoom classes, and we would work with other writers who had their own screenplays and we'd all play each other's parts and read back and give uh, you know, advice on how we could make it more for Hollywood and make it more dramatic, right? So now it's inspired by a true story, but not technically the same uh pathways that it all transcribed, right?
SPEAKER_03Now, you also just got married. Yeah. That yeah, that is um a whole shift in itself.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and for the longest time I was I was so upset because I was like, you ruined my honeymoon phase. I'm supposed to be happy, right? And meanwhile, I'm crying myself to sleep. And I was just devastated over this entire thing. And like, how are we supposed to start our own family now? Like, that's just gonna be weird if I have like a child the same age as my father's child, and like the uncle and the baby are like, you know, a year apart. Like, this makes no sense. So our lives kind of got put on hold. You know, I knew I needed to work on me. I knew that there needed to be like a gap here so um my father can have the chance to go back to being a grandfather too. Um, because I know that's all he wanted when he was sick in his hospital bed. He even mentioned to me, like, I wanted to be able to be strong enough to become a grandfather. You know, I was the first person to get married, the first person to have a child. Um, and he didn't get to see that yet. So it was important to me that I I got that for him, especially since he recovered and was healthy enough uh to bounce back. So now I was like, well, now what? You know, especially it was uh again a time period where there was nothing better to do than yeah, start a family. There's a huge baby boom. So eventually Caden did come along. Um, but it was about um three years later when we felt like we were ready and I was in a better place. And our family, I I didn't talk to them for a while because of the hurt. I thought it was best I just cut it off and just focus on me and my husband and my marriage and try to find happiness there instead. Um, but once my son came along and I realized how hard it was and that I needed my parents, uh, it worked out okay in a very strange way because they just had hands-on first experience with this brand new child in their lives and had everything that they needed in their home for babies because it's already all set up. So I didn't realize I was like, oh, okay, yeah, well, maybe they needed that practice round. So now I'm not lugging all of my stuff to New Jersey and we could just stay there whenever we needed it. And my father was
New Marriage On Hold
SPEAKER_02really good about coming and helping me too whenever I needed it. And uh I knew it was probably not easy for him because he had another person to take care of. Um, but he did. He he dropped what he had to do and he got out there and he he helped with Caden every once in a while. Because I just remember calling them crying, like, this is so impossible. How does anybody do this? I need help, please. Not only because the baby was hard, but because I was suffering from postpartum depression and didn't even realize that.
SPEAKER_03Was it hard to ask for help?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, because I'm misindependent. I moved out the day I turned 18 and graduated high school and was on my own. And I never moved back home. I never asked for help, I never asked for a penny. I just figured it out and did it myself. So for me having to break the silence of not talking to them for over a year and call them and tell them, like, okay, now I need you. Let's get back to talking here. I need Kate and Ep grandparent in his life. I need your help. Um, it was really hard. And then I just remember every time that they had to leave and get back in their car and get back to Jersey before traffic builds up again. I remember it was just such a small window. By the time they could get there after traffic, and then by the time they have to get back before traffic, um, it was never enough time. And I just remember like sitting there like pop, pop, pop, pop, but you can't leave. Like, I need you to stay. Like, where are you going? Um, and that was really hard, you know, because now I finally got the help, and the help is walking out the door. Oh man.
SPEAKER_03What did those days look like for you then? Before you realized you were going through this postpartum depression.
SPEAKER_02I feel like it was like a seven-year cycle of tears. I know I mentioned before that I was nonstop crying from, you know, the sadness of my father's news, but it was also nonstop crying because now I have this little child in my life and I don't know how to take care of him on my own. And I was kind of still sad from all of that that happened before he came into my world. And uh I was still just crying. I put on a show though, because I was an actress and I knew how to do that. So a lot of people did not see my tears. These were all behind closed doors, behind pulled shower curtains, wherever I could possibly break down and cry, I would, you know, go for hikes in the woods and wherever I could find trails and queens. There apparently were some, which were great. Um, and I would just, you know, go out there and and walk and cry and scream and cry or do whatever I could while pushing a stroller, having my son strapped to me. Um, we lived in like a three-story walk-up, and every day I'd have to go like with all of that, the laundry, the groceries, the the all of his baby supplies up and down these steps, like with him strapped to me and all the other bags on my back. And I just remember just crying all the time, like, get me out of this hellhole. Like, this is pure hell on earth. How does anybody like this? Right. And everyone's calling me up
Postpartum Depression Behind The Smile
SPEAKER_02and asking me, like, how are you doing? And I'm like, I am not good. And everyone's like, What? Why? Like, this is supposed to be the happiest time of your life. And I was like, but I it's not like this is pure misery to me. I don't, I don't understand. And how does anybody get through this? Because I want to run away. And it was a lot of me trying to read self-help books, reaching out to counselors, therapists, doctors, friends. And it was just making it worse, uh, joining moms groups and reading these postpartum depression books, because now I'm like welling in their stories, and I'm just like, no, this is not getting it any better. And apparently the friends and family who were calling and checking in were all happy with their children because there was about eight of us uh out of my friends and family that all had kids at the same exact time. Because, you know, that's uh what you were doing at that point in 20 uh 22. They were all doing great and thinking about baby number two. And I'm just like, how? How could you do that to yourself after knowing what you have to go through the first round? What is making you think about baby number two? And they would all just laugh, you know, like everybody thought me being so realistic and honest about how I felt was funny. And so I would laugh it off too and be like, yeah, I guess I guess I don't really mean that. But in my head, I was like, but I do. Why doesn't anybody get this? Why isn't anybody on my side? Uh so that was that was really hard for me to not find anybody who believed me, including doctors. Um, so I never really found anything that worked.
SPEAKER_03And you know, you found yourself in another situation like growing up where you were not being heard.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, like Zen, again, right? So now I'm just being like more and more collapsed into this tiny little like rock. I just felt like I was cornered and there were big shadows coming over me, and I just couldn't get away from them. I would even I remember recurring nightmares of that same exact position, just me and a ball in a corner and just like these demons coming at me.
SPEAKER_03And what was this like then for your husband?
SPEAKER_02He was very strong and stood by my side and helped out with the baby a lot, and I'm forever grateful for him because he knew what I was going through. He saw it firsthand and he understood and he wanted me to get help. You know, he'd send me for spa days and you know, allow me to go and do girls' nights or whatever it is that I needed for me. But for him, those were all things that like worked for him, like going to the gym and going out with the guys, you know. So even though I appreciated it and I was doing them, they weren't it wasn't it. That wasn't what I needed. So he wasn't sure what to do either. I guess just hold space and wait it out.
SPEAKER_03I have friends that have gone through this. I I did not, I don't at least I don't recall going through this. So somebody who is navigating this, you did share a few feelings and what it was like. Can you take us a little deeper so that when somebody has a friend that they go to and say, I I don't I don't feel good, I don't, you know, whatever. Explain a little bit deeper so that that friend who is maybe trying to figure out how to help kind of has an idea of really where you are.
When Advice And Meds Backfire
SPEAKER_02The best thing for that friend to do is listen. Sometimes we just want to feel heard, right? And everybody I talked to would try to find a solution, would give me advice, and that's what worked for them. It was not working for me, and I tried it all, and it just made things worse. Like they put me on uh this pill called Lexapro, and I just felt numbed the world, and medication was definitely not the solution for me, but it worked for my friends, and they said, you know, this will make you happy, and you know, I I don't know why it took so long to get on this pill. Um, but for me, I'm like, get me off of this thing. I feel like a zombie. I had no response button whatsoever, no reactions to anything that Caden was doing. And he started walking really young. He was nine months when he started walking. And we had a community pool that we would go to, and he walked himself right into that pool. And I remember just hearing all the other moms jump up and yell and like try to grab him and save him. And I was just still sitting there on the lounge chair saying, Oh, well, at least I tried. And that's when I knew that something was really wrong, and that I couldn't listen to my friends anymore. I needed to find what worked for me. So had I had that person that just listened and just allowed me to talk without any advice, uh without any, you know, of their own opinions, I think I would have healed a little bit faster.
Polarity Therapy And Reflective Listening
SPEAKER_02Um, I finally found a therapy called polarity therapy, um, that the main form of it is talk therapy, is how you just start off, and it's just reflective listening. You don't say anything back, you don't give any advice, you just listen and repeat back the story in their own words. And it allows you to finally hear your own story like you were saying in the very beginning, right? Uh and it's not just something that you're replaying your mind over and over again. Because when you have a normal conversation in real life, your friend's not repeating back the same things that you said to them, right? They're giving you their opinion as to what they tried and what they did. Uh, I remember when I finally found polarity therapy and I finally felt heard, and I finally got these things off my chest, and everyone just listened because I went to a weekend retreat. It was like a group healing session, and we all shared our stories, and we all just sat there and listened. And nobody said anything back to anyone. All they said was, oh, and gave us a few moments of silence to really hear what we just said. And that was it. I was like, whoa, magically this is working. I feel so much better. Like, what did you just do? And how do I do this for other people? Teach me everything you know. And I just kept going to every single workshop, every single class I followed this teacher for the past four years. And because of the amount of hours and dedication that I put in, I got certification after certification to so many advanced levels to be able to do this for other people now myself. So if I have not been through that journey that I needed to heal from something so traumatic, I never would have found my life calling, never would have found my passion, never would have discovered that this was what I was meant to do.
SPEAKER_03Yes. Absolutely. Every step we've been through brings us to where we are today. And I am thankful that you found where somebody listened to you, right? Speaking of listening.
SPEAKER_02Found my people. Even if we were all paying to be there, they were still the right people. Sometimes it needs to just be a stranger.
SPEAKER_03Yes. You know, you just said something reflective listening. I never heard it put that way, but it is so true. And um, just talking about a chunk of my experience with you yesterday, because I was still thinking about it this morning, is in the beginning, I did. I just sat there with you and just talked, and you would repeat it back to me. And I noticed that, and I was like, wow, she's just like, she's listening, and now she's telling me everything I just said. What a gift. I I always say I'm a really good listener, but you took it to a different level.
SPEAKER_02Thank you. I think that's why I had to be an actress first. So I could know how to memorize scripts and be able to repeat those stories back of whatever the brand or the show of what I was doing. Uh, that really trained me because that part of the classes when we were learning this course was hard for people. And I was like, oh, I've got this. I just gotta, I've gotta sit in the same manner that they're sitting. I've got to use those same hand movements that they're using when they explain those words and just like memorize those lines that they're saying and repeat them back. Like, this is all me right here. So it was great that you know I had those other little tools that I was trained first. And and again, it really helped through the postpartum depression too, because my son had no idea that his mama was sad. I was the happiest little mama around him, always smiling and laughing. I remember a little boy at that pool, not that same day, but another day said to me, Do you ever frown? I said, What? What do you mean, do I ever frown? He's like, You're always smiling from ear to ear. I was just wondering if you ever are sad. And I was so sad inside. And that's how I knew that I was doing a really good job of putting on that happy face for other people around me because this little boy was so honest with his question. He he reflected something in me that I didn't even see. I didn't see that I was happy externally. I just felt like somebody, uh, I didn't want anybody to know.
SPEAKER_03Now take us into a little bit more on how you help people with your polarity
Leaving New York For Florida
SPEAKER_03therapy. And also uh you and I, we had a horse, so the equestrian therapy. And that was something new for me as well. I loved it.
SPEAKER_02So once I finally graduated my program, I felt like it was time to live back down on the earth. I lived in the sky for 20 years in Manhattan, and I needed to ground myself again. It wasn't it for me anymore. I knew getting out of that place was going to be so much better for me and my family. And I wanted to find paradise again. After living through hell, I knew that there was going to be heaven on earth somewhere, right? And that uh took us down to Florida where there was sunshine and palm trees, and that we were flying away to escape to on vacation all the time anyway. And we would always joke around about it, like, yeah, one day we'll live here. And then we were just like, well, why not now? We needed to really get away from family anyway, and just like focus on us. And you weren't ever going to be able to do that if you're in the direct proximity to them. So we just told them goodbye. And we came down to Vero Beach on vacation, and we've never been to this part of Florida. We were always just going and partying in Miami. Uh, we didn't know that there was this little magical place just two hours north of that. Um, but we saw a commercial during my son's uh little iPads. He was watching like Miss Rachel or Blippy or something, and it was a commercial for Breeze Airways, and it flew directly from New York to Florida. And we're like, where is Vero Beach and what is Breeze Airline? So we Googled it, went down a rabbit hole, and kept Googling things about Vero Beach and like where to stay, what to do, and we booked those flights. We got on Breeze, we came down. Uh, we stayed for two days before we looked up the realtor that was showing us houses on these other YouTube videos that we kept going through where we were searching, and they were called Wow Homes, and you could build your dream home for less than $400,000. And we knew with the market the way it was during COVID, we could easily sell our apartment for that. And we got a brand new house built from scratch down here for the same price.
SPEAKER_03Wow.
SPEAKER_02And it was incredible. And so we we met with that realtor. He showed us around at the time it was dirt lots, but they had like the model homes and you know, visions of what the neighborhood was going to look like. And we told him, we'll take it right there on the spot. Because in New York it was a bidding war. And you know, ever since I found out, I was expecting, we were trying to get out of an apartment and into a house, but we couldn't find anything in Long Island or New Jersey, even remotely close to our families. So when we found that, you know, no one else was trying to outbid us by $100,000 cash and we wouldn't have to gut it and remodel it, it would be brand new. We're like done. Like people will come and visit us, you know. We'll have a guest room, right? When the apartment we were living in, we had to turn our one and only little eating place uh into a nursery and put up a wall where our table used to be in our kitchen. Uh, so my son would have a place to eat. I mean, a place to sleep, and we would just eat wherever. So we had to get out of there. Um, and I figured I could just do this for people on the beach. So um I had to say goodbye to my talent agency and the actors and my my career that I did for 20 years up there, that actually wasn't working as a mom anymore either. I was like, can't do theater, it takes up your entire life and doesn't really pay much money uh anymore. So I needed to figure out something else. And this was it. I wanted to be able to do polarity from the beach for people who were on vacation. And I've just been setting up my table wherever, whenever, ever since. And really, everyone loves it. They're like, oh, the energy healer is back, and we'll like just jump into my chair. And the lifeguards love it. They're like, oh, this is great. I just find little gazebos uh to sit out by the beach and do it under and charge a dollar a minute as I'm growing my practice and getting people to know who I am and what the heck polarity is, and just uh establishing uh home base here in Vera Beach.
SPEAKER_03And I love it, and I am so glad that we connected as well.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, right. I never would have met you. I never would have met the horses, nothing if uh if I was living in the city still. So it's meant to be. I listened to my calling and I followed it. Good for you, and good for my husband for being so supportive of that. Luckily, it was because of his job that we were able to make this move because they relocated him. They said, Yeah, you know what, Florida's a really booming state too. He was in construction sales. They're like, let's get our New York guy down there. So I'm very grateful for him and his company too, for giving our family this opportunity.
SPEAKER_03Everything aligned.
SPEAKER_02It did, it really did. And he was all gun-ho about it, like, yeah, I live in Florida. Let's go.
SPEAKER_03I love it too. And I'm fortunate that I have a a husband, I call us gypsies. I don't know. We're just like, we go wherever, it's just kind of fun. But once COVID hit, then he ended up working remote and he stayed working remote. So then all of a sudden it opened up. Oh, that's kind of why we moved to Vero Beach part of it as well. So yeah, it's interesting things that you never would have imagined come into play in our future decisions. So, aside from the polarity, tell me, where are you today?
Forgiveness Progress Plus New Boundaries
SPEAKER_03Family and forgiveness.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's a that's a great question for sure. Um, I feel like this is always going to be a journey. I committed to this for life now, right? So there's always going to be deeper stuff that I could work on. Now that I know that I forgive my family and we're cool, we got a great relationship. They come down, they come on vacation, they hang out with Caden, and that's my son's name. And uh, we have a great time uh now together, which is different than any of the uh times that I ever would see them up there. You know, it's just easy down here. When you when we do go back home, it's stressful. Even just going back, like my shoulders go up to my ears, like I'm clinging my jaw again. I'm just like, what is this feeling in my heart? It's just beating like crazy. I'm like, get me out of here. I want I want my palm trees in sunshine again. Like, so um, they've just come here now, which is great. Um, so family's all cool. Thank goodness, everything's good. Uh, my son loves playing with his uncle Anthony. They're like two little buddies. They ask for each other all the time and FaceTime, which is really, really nice. That wound has closed, I think. But then I started going deeper, of course, because that's what we do. Like, what else can we fix? Um, and started, you know, realizing that, you know, maybe my childhood wasn't as perfect as I thought it was. Like maybe this has been going on a long time. Uh, and I was just always uh sheltered from it, right? And didn't realize that that's what was exactly what was happening. And so I ended up going and trying a bunch of different healing modalities, which I didn't even know what existed until I became an energy healer. I didn't even know what one was, right? And now I've tried maybe 60 of them, but there's so many different kinds out there, and I really wanted to try them all. Um, and that's what I love about polarity is that it blends a lot of them, right? Because we do meditation, we do breath work, we do therapeutic touch work, I leave people with guidance and nutrition, exercise. There's a bunch of different factors that go into finding the fine balance that it needs to be polarized before we're done with our sessions. I thought I was like, wow, I hit the jackpot when I decided to learn this therapy because it does it all. But I didn't realize that all the other therapies you could get certified after like a weekend workshop. I dedicated thousands of dollars and hours uh to be able to do this years later. So I guess I did pick the hardest one because I didn't know that there were other options out there.
SPEAKER_03And I got to walk with a horse, which you know, I loved that as well, too. So that was great. And I so I kept thinking about this because you went back to your parents and you know, you had a forgiveness, I'm sorry, you know, moment. Did they ever have an I'm sorry moment to you?
SPEAKER_02My father did. He he broke down in tears when I first found out about you know the new baby. I've never seen him. He's a strong man. Like he'll tear up, but he won't like sob like the way he did that day. And he's like, I'm so sorry. I never meant for this to happen. You know, we don't believe in divorce, we don't believe in abortion, we didn't know what to do, I didn't know how to tell you, please forgive me. I never meant to hurt you. I never meant to do this to our family. And because he said that to me right away, I forgave him right away. And I was never mad at my father throughout this entire thing. But because I never got that from my mother, instead I got no, there's no talking about this, you know. This is how it is, this is what we decided. I was mad at her because there was never that. I'm sorry, you know. And I don't feel like she feels like she needs to say that. I feel like those other words to her are more important because it's about keeping the family together and doing what we need to do to survive, to get, you know, through this faithfully. Two years later, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. And at that point, because I knew so much more than I did before, I said, Mom, don't you see that you did this to yourself? That the breast tissue is so soft and absorbent, and it took on everything that you held inside, and you gave yourself cancer. And she said, Yeah, I know I'm not gonna let myself do that anymore, and I'm now going to speak up going forward. And I said, Great, good for you. But then she started speaking up about all these things that I didn't want to hear. And so I had to write her a letter and say, Mom, I'm really glad that you're opening up and that you're sharing these stories, but I cannot be that person you share them with because at the end of the day, he's still my father. And I need to be able to have that relationship with him that I once always knew because he was always, you know, the love of my life. I was always daddy's little girl. And I said, You need help. You need a therapist, you need somebody that you're gonna talk to. She just does what she does, her big okay. And nothing was ever said again. And I felt like, well, maybe now I caused a little bit more damage because now she's not speaking up anymore. She was finally breaking out of her shell and speaking, but it's couldn't be her therapist. And then that other woman started coming to me and telling me all of her stories. I didn't even plan on speaking to her at all in my life, but there was a small window between when our house was done being built here and our apartment was sold in Queens, and we had to go somewhere. So we stayed with them. And when she would come and drop off her son and go about her day and do her thing, she would start blah blah blah blah blah blah blah to me about everything between her and my father. And I was like, I cannot be this person for you. I'm sorry. I can't have these conversations.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, then that brings in boundaries.
SPEAKER_02Uh yes, yeah. I had to learn those very quickly. There's a a really big part of the course in polarity about boundaries and being able to put those up because apparently I never had any that was not taught in my household, and I didn't realize that. So boundaries was big for me and not easy to do. I didn't learn how to say no. I was just always that, okay, sure, yes person, you know. I'll listen. I'll be that person for you, but I just I can't I can't do it anymore.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I learned that too.
SPEAKER_02So I appreciate and recognize what my mother did because one of the modalities I tried was called womb surround. And this guy was able to
Generational Trauma And Healing Modalities
SPEAKER_02bring me back to the time where I was in my mother's womb. And we were able to see that she was protecting me even then. And that it was her mission to shelter me from this lifestyle that she chose because now she's bringing a baby into this world that was going to be in that environment all the time. And so she chose to just hide and neglect and keep me safe and keep me happy in this little bubble and you know stay together, even though she knew what she got herself into. And I didn't know that any of this was going on. So then I realized that I've been carrying this from the moment that I was born and that it wasn't all of mine, it was my mother's.
SPEAKER_03It's so fascinating. I love learning more and more. Like I'm like you. It's like, oh, I figured this out now. Let's go deeper and see.
SPEAKER_02I know. I know. There aren't enough uh self-help books out there for me to dive deep in. I just keep reading right through them and grabbing the next one and learning more and watching all these YouTube videos and listening to all these wonderful podcasts like yours. You've got these inquisitive minds. There's never enough information that you could absorb.
SPEAKER_03I think my favorite is talking with people. I think that I've been led to different people and we've been led to each other. You know, that's why I've learned to like, okay, I'm not alone. Like, oh, that's what we name that. Oh, my behavior is because of this and not because I'm a really bad person. It's pretty fascinating. And that's why we need each other. And that's why you coming on and sharing your experience and your hope and your forgiveness journey and your honesty of where you are today. And and we both know that the healing always continues. It it is. It's women like you that come and share that your message will make a difference because whoever is supposed to hear this, I believe it will find them.
SPEAKER_02For sure. Yeah. Through my son's birth, I feel reborn. Like I was now finally able to break that chain that started probably many generations ago. Another modality I tried was called emotional code, and she was able to release this heart wall that I've had from my grandmother from six generations back. And when I looked back at that, I was like, oh, that was the mother that sent all of her children on a boat from Ireland to America to start again. Like, how does a mother do that? And I realized that I was carrying that emotion and grief and sadness for from her that my great-great-grandmother carried, then my great-grandmother, then my grandmother, then my mother, and then myself. And I was like, oh, this post-perm depression wasn't all mine. I needed to go through the darkness to see the light. So this does not happen to other women in our family or other women in the world ever again, now that I have this global platform to be able to tell everyone out there that there is hope, there is a holistic solution, and that I'm capable of doing this for them.
SPEAKER_03I was gonna ask you if you had one more thought or something you want the audience to take away, but wow, what you just said is pretty amazing. I mean, if there's anything you want to add to it, but that was that was beautiful.
Horses And Finding A Practitioner
SPEAKER_02Well, there's a lot of us out there. You don't have to come to Vera Beach, Florida. This can be done virtually. Um, this can be done with or without the horses. I came across the horses because I moved next door to a horse ranch and I didn't even realize that they were there. And I just started going over and practicing everything I practiced on the humans, on the animals there, and I was like, oh my gosh, this works so much better on animals than it does humans because they just let go. Us were like, okay, yeah, I feel better, but I'm not ready to forgive. Or I can't quite release that yet because I'm not over it, you know. The horses just gallop away, right? And so I was like, this is gonna be amazing. I'm gonna start doing this on animals now, too, instead. Um, so you know, pet polarity, pony polarity, it all just unraveled and unfolded. And I was like, oh, there's not nothing else in the world I'd rather be doing than this. So I'm so grateful that I could do it. Um I think I'm probably the only one in the world that's doing polarity with horses, but there are other quine therapists out there everywhere at a local ranch near you. Um, and there's also polarity therapists all over the world as well. I just joined the American Polarity Association and the European one as well. So um you could always go to those websites to find somebody who's near you or reach out to me on my website, Polarity Energy Healing.com, and I will connect you to the right person, the right healer if uh you feel in person is gonna be a better fit for you at the time. But I have free 15-minute intro sessions for anybody who'd like to learn more and talk one-on-one, and then we'll decide a game plan from there of what's gonna work right for you. Everything is at Polarity Energy Healing as well.
SPEAKER_03So it's very easy to find.
Closing Message And Outro Music
SPEAKER_03And I will put all of those um links in the show notes as well so people can just click and be taken right to you. Yeah, that'll be great. Thank you. Catherine, thank you for being my guest today on the Healing and Sharing podcast.
SPEAKER_02Yes, and thank you so much for putting this out there for the world to hear. It is my mission. I want to be on every platform, every stage, everywhere possible. So if there's anybody else out there who would like me to publicly speak for them, as you can tell, this is my jam. I'd love to be able to do this again anytime. So thank you. Thank you, thank you.
SPEAKER_03Thank you, and thank you for listening. This is Jen, uh, host of the Healing and Sharing podcast. Thank you for listening today. And remember, you are stronger than you know. Until next time.
SPEAKER_00Life you led before, putting everything on the line. Not sure if you would make it home, leaving it all open, God's hand. Just happy to see the sun rise again. Baby, let's do it on my shoulders. It will always be okay. You might be in the heart when you wanna lost in the face. That's nothing but starlight. Stars, let me be a spill, take it new. It's time the bruises of the old blow away the wind. Be replaced with all the new but until then. Everything I'll keep you safe from all the harm, I'll heal you from the war, the thoughts that keep you up at night. Baby, little birds on my shoulders. It will always be okay. You a little old. Listen to the silence in the dark, let it do it.
