This week, we're joined by Kurt Anderson, an international trainer, healthcare veteran, and an ordained minister who reveals the transformative power of recreational therapy in reconnecting youth with disabilities to society. Through his vivid storytelling, Kurt paints a picture of his journey from England to Japan, integrating therapy into community recreation programs, and serving in the healthcare sector.
Listen in as Kurt shares his wisdom on conflict resolution, cultivated in the demanding world of healthcare. Drawing from his diverse experiences, he illustrates the essence of building trust and the intricacies of emotional leadership. Furthermore, Kurt delves into the realm of conscious dance and movement, highlighting its therapeutic potential and its ability to pave the way to deeper self-understanding and communication. He also highlights his special relationship with whales.
This episode is a must-listen for anyone seeking balance and meaning in life. Be prepared to be moved and inspired.
Contact Kurt at the two links below:
Pod Travelers Facebook group
whaleguides@gmail.com
**The information provided on this podcast does not, and is not intended to, constitute legal advice; instead, all information, content and materials available on this site are for general informational purposes only. Information on this podcast may not constitute the most up-to-date legal or other information. This podcast contains links to other third party websites. Such links are only for the convenience of the reader, user or browser.
This week, we're joined by Kurt Anderson, an international trainer, healthcare veteran, and an ordained minister who reveals the transformative power of recreational therapy in reconnecting youth with disabilities to society. Through his vivid storytelling, Kurt paints a picture of his journey from England to Japan, integrating therapy into community recreation programs, and serving in the healthcare sector.
Listen in as Kurt shares his wisdom on conflict resolution, cultivated in the demanding world of healthcare. Drawing from his diverse experiences, he illustrates the essence of building trust and the intricacies of emotional leadership. Furthermore, Kurt delves into the realm of conscious dance and movement, highlighting its therapeutic potential and its ability to pave the way to deeper self-understanding and communication. He also highlights his special relationship with whales.
This episode is a must-listen for anyone seeking balance and meaning in life. Be prepared to be moved and inspired.
Contact Kurt at the two links below:
Pod Travelers Facebook group
whaleguides@gmail.com
**The information provided on this podcast does not, and is not intended to, constitute legal advice; instead, all information, content and materials available on this site are for general informational purposes only. Information on this podcast may not constitute the most up-to-date legal or other information. This podcast contains links to other third party websites. Such links are only for the convenience of the reader, user or browser.
So are you looking for more inspiration and possibility in midlife and beyond? Join me, leslie Maloney, proud wife, mom, author, teacher and podcast host, as I talk with people finding meaning in moxie in their life after 50. Interviews that will energize you and give you some ideas to implement in your own life. I so appreciate you being here Now. Let's get started. All right, welcome back. Everybody meaning in moxie after 50, I got another special one for you today Meet Mr Kurt Anderson.
Speaker 1:Let me give you a little bit of background on him and boy. There's so much to talk about in this, in this background. So he began his career as a recreational therapist, health educator in England and Japan, so there's a lot of stuff in there I'm to talk about. He became an international trainer in integrating youth with disabilities into community recreation programs, things like dance, art and outdoor adventure. He then advanced into hospital operations, specializing in areas of psychiatry, chemical dependency, rehab, medicine, and in his retirement he is an ordained minister, a dance facilitator, compassionate listener and, I'm suspecting, so much more than that. He is a life student of alchemy. He's very, very connected to nature, which is something we very much relate to, or I relate to and are on ground with and, in particular, he has a very special relationship with whales that he's going to talk about today too. So welcome, kurt, and I just want to give everybody a little background.
Speaker 1:So Kurt and I met maybe a month ago at a gathering of a mutual friend and I was just telling him earlier. We started chatting and just right away, just there was a lot where there were a lot of things in common and in that moment I wanted to ask you. Right then there were you a guest on my podcast, and then I was like, just relax, they'll be the right time. And there was down the road. And so here we are, so welcome, welcome. So you are in Florida right now, but just kind of give our listeners an idea about what you were telling me earlier about how you travel and spend your time in terms of the different places you go to.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thanks, leslie. I really appreciate the opportunity to share the stories. I'm fortunate that my wife and children aren't really children anymore. Young adults live in Oakland, california, where I spend the majority of my time. My daughter is in Seattle and then my brothers are all here in Florida, and so I'm just very fortunate that I get to now kind of spend time with the family, with my daughter, who's in a new budding career and in healthcare, surprisingly enough, and then being in Miami with my brother. My older brother took care of my parents for seven years, which allowed them to age at home and to pass away at home, which I feel is such a huge gift that he gave to my parents. So I try to spend as much time as I can here to just support him, be with him and to just hang and enjoy the benefits of Florida while I'm here. It's just such a beautiful state.
Speaker 1:So Florida, california and Washington, three pretty cool states, not a bad gig, not a bad gig.
Speaker 2:Not a bad gig.
Speaker 1:So let's go back. I was so intrigued by your background here that I just read so recreational therapist slash health educator. So that's a pretty unique degree. Not something you hear of, especially way back then, I would imagine. So how did you fall into that? And then, how did you end up in England and Japan?
Speaker 2:Well, it's grace, I think I had a lot to do with it. I was fortunate that at an early age and it's probably about 15 or 16, I basically fell into the scope of adult with developmental disabilities and was able to just find a new source of love in many respects within that population. I never really had experienced that group before and I was very, very fortunate to have just such a positive experience. And with that I decided doing summer camp and just a variety of different things in that place. I decided to get my education in therapeutic recreation and special education. I got my health education masters later on but also realized that that was really what I was doing was health education, as I was putting it all together, looking at the various adult learning theories that came along with experiential education. So I felt it was a great combo at the time. So when I was in college I did my internship on a federal grant on mainstreaming handicapped children and youth in community recreation services, and so I learned a lot and was actually able to be trained in becoming a train the trainer program, and this was back in the early 80s, in the International Year of Disabled Persons' Time and when mainstreaming and integration and the laws of 94-142 and 504, the Rehabilitation Act, were sort of in full bloom and how are we going to do this? How is this going to work? And so I was very, very fortunate to sort of be in the cutting edge of how that was going to work and was a trainer with the Dean's Grant for about a year. And then a colleague of the project director of the Dean's Grant was from England and he was wondering if I would be willing to come to England to do the same thing, which ended up being my first job out of college, which isn't a bad way to go. So I worked with the Greater Manchester Youth Association in Mosside in Manchester not necessarily your best neighborhood to be in, but nevertheless was a perfect place for me to begin and looking at how integration and recreation programs really serves as such an important pivot point in helping the person with disability understand the able-bodied as well as the able-bodied helping to really understand the person with disabilities.
Speaker 2:The skill set that I had picked up along the way was adapting ropes courses and adventure programming. I don't know if you're familiar with a ropes course, but generally these elements are about 20, 30 feet in the air and it really allows you to really push yourself beyond some of your fears as well as looking at what that might be like when you're really given good support around that. So I was sort of in a group that was adapting these exercises, activities, challenges for, you know, I kind of want to say almost every range of disability, from, you know, developmentally disabled, autism, to deafblind, to people with epilepsy, to spinal cord injury and quadriplegia. And in that role and in that work I was at Boston University at the time doing that up in Peterborough, new Hampshire, at the Human Environment Institute, and along the way one of the groups that came in was the Handicap Sportsman Association. And now this was occurring after my time in England, I went from England to Boston University and then while I was at Boston University I met a man by the name of Ed Long, who's you know one of those great influencers of my life, and at the time he was the oldest living individual with muscater dystrophy and he was a quadriplegic and he had come to our adventure day and I got him up into a tree for the first time in his life and it was just so ecstatic that he just was able to do some things that he always had dreamed about doing as a child and we became good friends afterwards. I would visit him when I would come down to Boston and we built a good relationship.
Speaker 2:And during that time and this was in the early 80s, I think, mid-80s, early 81, I think and he was invited to go to Japan to basically introduce independent living to Japan at the time, which was quite a deal, and there was an exchange.
Speaker 2:A woman from Japan was coming here and Ed was going there, but Ed needed a personal care attendant. And so he goes, gert, you got me up into a tree and back and down. Can you get me to Japan and back? And so it's like, well, you know, I'm on a career path, you know, I don't know if I, you know, is this. And then, like you know, spirit resonates. It's like, you know, if you can work and travel at the same time, go for it. And I was young enough to enjoy that. So we ended up being in Japan. One of our sponsors was the Tokyo Independent Living Center, as well as a strong Christian network. We were involved with the International Christian Youth Exchange as well as the YMCA. So it was kind of in that little niche that we were able to basically operate and it was an awesome experience, you know.
Speaker 1:Oh man, I can just imagine that doing that kind of work with somebody with all different ranges of disabilities, you must have had some incredibly magical moments with people. I mean, I can only imagine how that must have felt to help facilitate that. Are there some in particular that you think of?
Speaker 2:There are hundreds. I guess I haven't really thought about a lot of that in a while, but I remember when I was working at Boston University we had put together a holiday vacation program for individuals working in the shelter workshop setting, and so we wanted to give them an adventure week. We had a little mountain. It was about what 1,400 feet. It wasn't very big. I could run up and down within 40 minutes, 50 minutes kind of a thing, but to those guys it was a mountain. It took us two days to get up that mountain. And it's just the story I really love to tell, because you're able to create an experience that for one person it's like this is a no brainer, what's a big deal about this experience? And then, on the other hand, it's like the greatest, biggest, most amazing experience they've ever had in their life. So as a facilitator, we really had to step into understanding that sort of phenomena early on.
Speaker 2:And I think that is probably one of my biggest takeaways in working with that population, especially within the adventure realm.
Speaker 2:I think the other takeaway is there aren't too many things that can surprise me anymore, because when you're working with a challenging population, unfortunately, unfortunately, but as I had to get into more of a career professional way, I was as a male in that field I got to pretty much spend most of my time with very challenging adolescents and adolescent behavior.
Speaker 2:So I got out of the wonderful warm fuzziness of people with different disabilities and kind of got into the hard core of really hard, challenging, aggressive disabilities. So I can't really name any one individual experience. They all just kind of blend together. But I would just, you know, I think the overall sense is boy did they ever teach me a lot, and about love and about just seeing things always from a kind of a backdoor perspective that you're never really going to. You can't put the filter of a normalized world into this work. It's just there's always the stance of adapting and trying to find what works best, and I think that's a skill set that I think can only really come about by being engaged in this type of work where people even understand it and kind of relate to it.
Speaker 1:And really what an exercise in having to step outside yourself on a regular basis and see something from somebody else's point of view. You know, I mean you were getting a daily dose of that to really be effective in your job. So that's yeah and you, and really just that was the era when inclusion and a lot of these programs were really getting off the ground, so a lot of this was pretty new in terms of people's thinking and I wonder what it was like in England and then going to Japan and you're bringing these ideas over especially you said Japan was quite different and being with your friend over there, what were your? What were some of the things you encountered with these new ideas?
Speaker 2:Well, I had to put the new idea behind me, as there is a part of you know, oh yes, look what I can bring. But I had to put all that to sleep and be a part of more of what I can bring with what I may know in working within their world. And I think the best example of that in Japan, you know, and things are, you know, considerably different now because this was several years ago, but you had, you know, like Tatami Matt is not conducive for independent living, and so, you know, I had to cradle, carry Ed into every little place we went to and you'd have to, like, you know, you have to step down, take your shoes off. You know, going backwards, and so I just had to learn how to sort of adapt to a world where independent living, first of all, is defined very differently than the way we would look at independent living, and I think that's changed a little bit. But there were, there are, significant barriers, cultural barriers to how we would, how we would have defined independent living at the time.
Speaker 2:But what I find, you know, countless experiences, but like, for example, folks that were blind, they were destined to be a shiatsu therapist If you're blind, you're a shiatsu therapist. It's like so. So it's like oh, so how? So the question is well, how can you make them a better shiatsu therapist, or what can we do?
Speaker 1:So explain to everybody what a shiatsu therapist is.
Speaker 2:Well, it's a shiatsu massage, it's a pressure point massage. I remember one time I was invited into you know, because they knew I could, you know, do activities. Oh, we got a little group here, you know, and so I walk into an auditorium and there's 200 folks in wheelchairs and it's like, oh, what am I going to do? I went to 100 people in wheelchairs and so I got everyone out of their chairs and they all lay on the floor and we disco danced.
Speaker 2:And it turned out to be one of the coolest things that just really happened. And it's like, you know, did they teach me or did I teach them, you know, and that's kind of how that was. It's just more of, well, let's just play out of the box here and see what can happen, and that, yeah, yeah. So those are what those experiences were like the most in Japan. And you know, we toured almost every institution in Japan, as well as the vocational institutions. People at the time, you were pretty much destined for an institution If you did not have a family that was going to have the ability to accommodate you. And you know it's interesting. And Honshu, the lower island, there is a town called an area called Sun Industries, and that's where a lot of high functioning people with disabilities were still put into a segregated environment and they worked for all these big corporations doing it, but it was still very, very segregated environment. I'm hoping that's changed. I don't really know, but it really struck me as a whole new level of segregation that occurred around people with disability.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I mean things have come a long way since the 80s, for sure, I mean, I'm hoping across the world, certainly, you know, hopefully in those, in those cultures. But you were really laying some interesting foundation for yourself. I think that really, as we get in talking about what you're up to today I mean these it all kind of seems to connect and just learning that empathy and sort of doing things on the fly because you don't always know right. You got to go with the moment and so you went from there into more of hospital operations. You got into some psychiatric operations and chemical dependency and things like that. So how, building on the foundation that you're standing on today, how did that fit in and what did you learn there?
Speaker 2:When I was in Japan I met my first wife, who was Japanese, and she came back to America with me and so she did not want. I was living in Missouri at the time and had a really good career path if I would have stayed in Missouri, but she really wanted to be in California. So I basically had to step out of the career path connection world and just sort of start off like brand new looking for a job. And so one of the first jobs I found was at Kingsview Hospital outside of Fresno and Reedley, california, and that's where I kind of first stepped into the whole psychiatric world and again, because I was a male, I pretty much was with the adolescents that needed a male around, I guess, and that's kind of how that started. Where it was a very nice facility and I think they had seven recreation therapists, which was unheard of. I mean, generally you're lucky to have one at an institution at seven. So it was a very, very well developed program which was great.
Speaker 2:Unfortunately, you know, reedley wasn't California and my wife's mine, so we had to like find something in the city of San Francisco.
Speaker 2:So again I had to kind of strike out, looking for something where I can get my skillset over and make money, and so I then found a job working with Comprehensive Care Corporation, which was a, at the time, a contractual service that rented out different floors in the hospital that would provide chemical dependency treatment services, and again I was in the adolescent realm.
Speaker 2:In there, I you know, though, I just was able to pick up some great skills. They needed the activity leader, but they also needed someone to jump in and do interventions and they needed someone to jump in and do case management, and they hey, can you meet these people and tour them around? So here I was doing marketing, and so in that role I actually had to learn all of the all of the jobs within within that structure. And then that led me to get my first marketing sort of position in healthcare within a psychiatric facility where I wasn't in the direct care really anymore, and so I was into direct, keeping the beds full with, with good insured people. I had to shift around a little bit and you know and learn about payer mix and insurance verification and length of stay and all of those things, yeah, which doesn't strike me as something that is comes easy for you.
Speaker 2:No, it was. It was tough, but you know it's just. You know I had, you know I now had a daughter on the way and you know you just have to kind of go where the job is and make as much money as you can at the time and it was good it allowed me to build. It allowed me to build administrative skills that I never thought I could really think about or do. I wasn't really wired for that, and but I found myself in it and found myself really good at it actually.
Speaker 2:So okay it worked out well. The empathy skills you know dealing with challenging situations. You plan something out and doesn't go as expected, and on and on.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I learned. I learned the, the, the emotional capacity for getting these jobs to really move forward and, more importantly, ensuring that everyone's needs were being met. And that's what I, that's what I was able to bring in to probably all of the decisions.
Speaker 1:So you it seems like that also in the in the chemical dependency rehabilitation world, that was also a fairly new thing. So in terms of being an industry, if you want to think of it as an industry and that certainly has become very commonplace now and you use the word emotional capacity in your position there Can you tell us a little bit more about the emotion, like when you say the emotional capacity it took, because that's, that's, that's can be some challenging work. How did you grow into that and how did you deal with, keep yourself in balance, I guess, with that kind of challenging work?
Speaker 2:I don't really think about it at the time.
Speaker 1:I would say you know.
Speaker 2:You know there's one job that in particular I. I was laid off out of the health care industry back when managed care kind of had its its birthright and and that kind of kicked me out. I got laid off and I was just like, what am I going to do? And then it turned out one of my colleagues that I worked with husband was the executive director, and so I was hired as the executive director for a organization that housed and educated emotionally disturbed adolescents and and so I was hired as the program director there and we had four group homes and a special ed school and about 40 staff serving about 22 male kids under the 18, between ages of 14 and 18.
Speaker 2:And before my first day I came in on a Sunday because they were doing community service project, just to kind of see, see what the place is like. And you know that and one of the kids that come up to me and said you're the new program director, I just want to let you know that this staff over here has been molesting me for several years. I'm leaving in two weeks but I'm really worried about the kids behind me and it's like I'm not even on the payroll yet. I'm on the payroll tomorrow, the next day, and so I'm like whoa. So I immediately, you know immediately, all the staff were around their star employee and they're you know you don't know this group and they're going to try to manipulate you and blah, blah, blah, blah blah.
Speaker 2:First thing I did was read his personnel record and realized there were three other complaints made like that. So I did what you do. You know you suspend and you investigate and you spent 11 years in jail. They found weapons in his closet and the staff hated me.
Speaker 1:Oh, wow.
Speaker 2:And so that kind of I had to align myself with the folks we were serving and realize at that point in time that the staff were more dysfunctional than the actual client. And so that was a huge kind of shift for me and I think that that really came from my background of being able to read the water, see what's really going on here, doing what's right, and when you're in these sort of captured environments where anything goes. I mean, this guy was the classic, you know, he was all the Red Cross certification, trained all the houseparents was the houseparent Extra, you know, the person that would go in when the house parents needed to take a break, and it's like there, it is, you know, just plain as day right there in my face.
Speaker 2:So that has really helped. And then my last job in healthcare I was, you know, senior analyst at UCSF University of California San Francisco Medical Center, which is a top rank hospital in the country, and I was in their patient relations department and what we handled were all the high level grievances and sort of was an arm of risk management, and so complaints and grievances would come in and the ones that came into the CEO and the chancellor would generally end up on my desk and we would get people walking in that are just absolutely disgruntled, unhappy with care, unhappy with the amount of money they're paying, and you know, when Karen pocketbook come together it's, it's explosive. And so I had that. That was my job for the next six years was being basically that person that had to hear and resolve a complaint, and I believe that that's where that emotional capacity really came in to clear view.
Speaker 2:For me it's like if I hadn't had all these other experiences, I really don't think I would have been able to handle one day in that job, quite frankly. But I was able to, to just see the rope and understand the boundaries of what, what's going on, and I think dance really, really helped me with that, because in dance you learn how to attune to people without speaking. There's there's a way of connecting and and and moving into their energy field without words being spoken. And so as a mantra that I learned from the kids and what I brought into that world was it's my duty for them to earn, to, for them to earn trust from me. I don't need to trust them. They have to know that they can trust me. So how do I really create a situation where they can learn to trust me? And that, I think, was the biggest. That was sort of one of the biggest takeaways I got from that.
Speaker 2:And I was able to get on their side of the table and deal with conflict, and you know, 85% of the time or so, I never really counted, but you know, at end with love and say thank you for listening, thank you for just understanding our, our place, whereas a lot of times these conflicts are just met with more resistance and conflict. Well, you don't understand our system. And blah, blah, blah. You know it gets to be a nightmare.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the institution, the institutional speak. So yeah, yeah, so that's really. It sounds like you were really good at it. You know, what comes to mind as I'm listening to you is you know it's not, it's one of my favorite quotes. You know, it's not what you say, it's how you make people feel. I'm paraphrasing, but people don't remember what you say. They remember how you made them feel, and so it sounds to me like you were in a position there that people felt heard and they felt seen, and what they were and what they were trying to address, which is so especially in the healthcare industry, is kind of unusual. You know, there's a lot of dysfunction, and so you were holding, you were holding that down in your corner of the world, of that system. So so you mentioned the dance, so talk about that a little bit. Is that when you started to get into dance as and I don't you go ahead you describe what that is for you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, thanks, thanks and and I really appreciate you, you, you connecting that, that dot it's. You know the empathy, you know in lead, leading with empathy, that that you know from experiences of how folks with limiting conditions whether it be an intellectual, emotional, physical the feeling is where the success lies. It's not necessarily going to be saying the right thing, so I'm often misunderstood because I kind of lead with empathy. I don't I don't lead linearly or intellectually, I just kind of lead into the where people are going or where they have been, and it's just very different. But you know, getting back to the dance question, when I was in my, my high pressure, it was probably the most stressful job I've ever had my last six years at UCSF and on.
Speaker 2:I first was introduced to conscious dance during that time and it was just beautiful because, wow, there's a group I don't have to worry about leading, I can just fall into it and it was a lot of fun and it's like, wow, I'm gonna do, you know. And I started doing that once a week and just enjoyed it from a recreational, feel-good standpoint, and then I realized, wow, I'm gonna do this twice a week. And then I did three times a week and realized, oh, my day is just going so much better. It's like it's just everything. It just blows off me. I can be, be a little improvisational and crack a quick joke or do something to kind of de-escalate the issue with ease, and and and found that when I danced three to four times a week my week went great. And I think that's where I really became a fan and realizing the, the hidden benefits to, to that work, that the conscious dance that came about with five rhythms and soul motion.
Speaker 1:So explain to our listeners, who might not be familiar with that, exactly what that is.
Speaker 2:I don't know if I can do its service around, around that, but I'll take a shot at that. Oftentimes, for me personally, I was very intimidated by dance. Dance was, oh, you know, I don't feel good about my body. What are other people gonna laugh at me? Am I doing the move, right, you know? Something I want to add into this is that I'm, I'm, I'm dyslexic. I have a severe learning disability, so, with things go around me too fast, I just really don't understand what's going on, and I I'm always been challenged in that arena, and and so what I found with, with, let's see where I was going. I can't remember where I was, just going the dance.
Speaker 1:The dance, conscious dance, and what it is and how. Your explanation.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what I found, what I found with with the conscious dance is, is that I don't you know the the consciousness I had about my body and not ever really feeling safe around that, and it's either, like you know, high school auditorium for the high school dance or the prom, or we go to a bar. I mean, those are pretty much the choices of where dance kind of happened, and and so one of the things that is that I've realized have come, have come come to understand is that our movement and our motion is, is, is another sense we have. It's, it's just, it's a part of our world, it's a part of our body, and so stepping into an understanding of conscious dance is I know where my hand is going, I know where my foot might land, I am becoming more centered in my body, I'm going to become more attuned to what's going on around me and I'm going to now sit back and trust and allow the music to take my body, to take my, my, my soul to where it might need to go, without the fear or the mistrust of not being in a safe environment, that someone's going to laugh, make fun. I can move my body any way I want, without a fear, and so the safety of the floor really becomes a significant factor to to really allowing, I think, the full benefits of conscious, of conscious dance. And I think our body holds so much trauma, it holds so much that we don't even know it's there and, and that's the unconscious part, we, we don't even know that. Oh, you know, I, I limped on my right foot, you know for three years and what's going on there, and and being able to play and really explore that, emily Conrad Daud, who created a dance movement called continuum, is kind of where I first stepped into this work, where she she would, in one of her classes and workshop, you would spend an hour just exploring your fingers in your hands on where it could go and what it could do, and what that motion would be, and and like what memory just came up for you and how you can explore that and in some ways that's that's the essence of conscious dance, where you're basically exercising your soul, not necessary and and the and the body gets to come along good description.
Speaker 2:I like that exercising your soul and the body gets to come and and and because you're able to like, oh, look, look what that person's doing, I'm gonna try that out, but I don't necessarily have to dance with them, you know, and and it's just really, really great. And and when you see people now dancing and they can, they have that expressiveness that doesn't follow the the, you know, you go to a regular, you know everything's pretty much up and down back and forth and that's it. Yeah, that's the box we dance in, and and so the freedom of knowing that, you know, the box is the whole darn floor and we can just dance with the floor, that, yes, that is such great permission, it's just such great permission. Dances if the eyes are in the back of your head, you know, is another kind of you know suggestion that might, that might come along and conscious dance yeah, and those environments for those of you who are listening that may have not participated in this there's no talking and you can dance with.
Speaker 1:Most people are dancing by themselves. You can kind of interact with somebody, but it's not a long interaction, you're kind of just freezing by. There's a huge level of acceptance, so it's kind of like anything goes. You know, it's sort of you know, maybe you've danced in your living room to a good song and you've kind of let it all hang out. But you're in your living room, well, this is just everybody in one room together, letting it all hang out and not worried about what it looks like, just kind of following what, what the body is asking for in that moment, in that piece of music. Would that be a? Would that be?
Speaker 2:well, absolutely, and you know, and I think a caveat to that is when you're dancing regularly and you're, you're, you're actually a part of a larger dance community, you're building relationship, so so there's an ease of how we might dance with someone else, and so so it like I might have, you know, 20 seconds with someone over here where I have a great kind of connection and we're moving together, we have an attunement, and then it shifts and I'm over here to the next person and no one cares about that. Oh, he's not dancing with me. Oh, what do I need?
Speaker 2:to do you know? None of that really really is going on. I don't want to say none of that's going on because I don't know what goes on with other people, but that really doesn't happen with me so much. And the idea of dancing with the floor, wherever that is, versus dancing every person on the floor is a part of the floor, so you're dancing with the energy of the floor and it's just such a significant difference with a larger group.
Speaker 1:In California you have a regular Saturday where you have 75-80 people on a regular basis from 9.30 to 11.30, and it's just amazing, yeah and so you're getting wonderful exercise and yet you're also just moving stuck energy, and I mean there's so much happening at different levels, like I said, so much happening, and these things are occurring all over the country, all over the world, and small groups, larger groups, and it really, to me, it's just another way in, it's another way to find flow, to find connection. All those things that we're looking, you know, connection with ourselves, connection with others, connection with spirit. It's just another way in beautiful way in. So you go around, so that became a regular practice for you, while you and you began to really see a big difference in your job and how you were relating in your job. Yeah, yeah. So tell us more about your. You're an ordained minister and you I you have a lot of connections to some very earth-based organizations. Tell us a little bit about that work.
Speaker 2:Well, I wanted to bring in my little whale, my little whale work.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes my whale work, I would say about 13, 14 years ago, it was suggested to me that I have a connection to Grandmother Whale and to Yashua, Yashua, Ben Joseph, through channeling, which is, and so I started playing around with that. I was given a chant, I was given a way to kind of feel into that and and and realize that there was this voice coming through me that I was able to write out and I continued basically channeling the wisdom of Grandmother Whale and put that, you know, in journals and wondering, well, well, and each channel would start off, was you know, they called me by Earth Whale. I was called Earth Whale, it's Earth Whale, we need your voice. Almost every time I would go in and and and open up a channel, it would be Earth Whale, we need your voice. So it's like, well, what does that mean? What does that mean? So in retirement, I really wanted to dive into that question. That was like a burning question for me, and still is to some respect.
Speaker 2:And so I learned about the Center of Sacred Studies in in California, Gernville, California, right at the edge of the Russian River and the Pacific Ocean. It's a very cool spot, and so they were doing their, their introduction, you know, is this the right kind of thing for you? And so I have one question I raised my hand and it goes. You know, I feel I want to sort of be a minister for the whales. Am I in the right spot? And they all just started laughing and they said you couldn't find a better spot. And so that was just like okay, here it is. And so by stepping into that work has has been life changing and I think with any interpersonal growth or self-awareness work, you know, learning how we can love ourselves more deeply.
Speaker 1:You know is where we start.
Speaker 2:How, how can I be a more loving, greater person in the world if I'm not really putting the time into working and loving myself? And in that process, that two-year process, I have really gained a greater understanding of my connection to grandmother whale, as well as to tree and frog and cloud and air and water and everything else around us, where, where, where I have learned how to step into that place of oneness and and and and really catch myself when I'm acting in a way of separating myself from that Our language. You know, when I objectify everything. You know everything's got this place.
Speaker 2:You know, water is just such a great example. We don't treat water like a like our mother, like our father, like where would we be without water? But yet we just treat it, we objectify it as a resource. Oh, this is what we have, this is your allotment, this is how much it is. No, no, no, no, no. This is ours, it belongs to everybody. Why, why are we so so?
Speaker 2:That really opened up the understanding of original teaching and helped me understand how our original people of the lands see the world and I had never really understood that so much as I do now and and that has basically created my, my path of bringing forward, you know where it's, a minister of the walking prayer, and what that pretty much means is that every day, every step, every breath, every thought that we create for ourselves is a prayer. Is that the prayer you want to really be putting out to the world, and and so that then created a whole new practice of mindfulness and and understanding that place of oneness and how we are in the world and and and that you know, in that understanding and and and, for me, I think that the big, the big growth, the big aha moment was, and I think, like many people, how we, how we still look for that external validation for self-esteem.
Speaker 2:You know it's like ah someone you know something out there to you know, let me know I'm doing good, you know where I, you know, like you know, and so a lot of times we, we kind of our behavior sometimes, is based on trying to get that external validation. And what I found in this process and I would say my one of my biggest wonderful growth experiences, is when I, when I really saw myself as one with the tree and the cloud and the grass and the frog and the lizards and the whale and everything else in between, I had, I had all the external validation I needed, because there there was an interplay, because I was able to go up to the tree and say thank you for the joy you've brought me today. I was able to attune to that tree's energy field and I could feel it and I think that was kind of the training from from being with individuals with disability, you know. You know it kind of honed that skill. So I kind of knew what that was. I just didn't think it'd be coming from a tree.
Speaker 1:Indigenous wisdom. Indigenous wisdom.
Speaker 2:And and I and so the the path of this ministry work is is is really the path of, of understanding and attuning with our, our, our spirit world, our earth spirituality and how the? Earth holds, holds, holds it all, it holds it all.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, and that we're, you know we're all connected, everything is connected. And yeah, I mean and living in harmony, within that right, I mean that's the and not a. You mentioned objectifying everything you know. No, to just living in harmony.
Speaker 1:I just had a conversation this morning with my eye doctor. I was rushing here to do this interview and she's very holistic and it comes to mind, so I'm just going to say it. I think it relates to what we're talking about, and we were talking about overuse of sunglasses, and she was talking about that our eyes think that we're inside when we're. You know what the sun is trying to get and give us energy for our eyes, and we put these glasses on and we're blocking that energy. And she said there are studies that have been done that when we are outside without sunglasses on, there is a, the rays come into our eyes and our eyes send a message to our brain that we are now outside and there's sun shining on us and it creates melon in our skin that protects us from sunburns. And so when we block our eyes with sunglasses too much, we don't get that connection through and so, therefore, sunburns. And so it was just like an amazing thing and I, you know, I feel like I'm pretty well read on a lot, of, a lot of things holistically in terms of health, but I had never heard that and it made so much sense.
Speaker 1:And this is coming from my eye doctor, and she said, oh yeah, we would never talk about this. That you know the school and her, you know she would want to have side conversations with professors about these kinds of things, and you know that was kind of like no, no, no, no, and so it's, it's that, that basic knowledge. I mean, I'm sure if I had an, a conversation with somebody, indigenous though, they would go, of course, and it's all these little pieces that we've lost along the way. So I think the work that you're doing is just, is just really, really important, and to try to not only remind yourself, because it starts with you, right, it starts with each of us but then spreading that message and helping people regain that connection, because we had it at one time. So do you do you? So do you work with groups within this? Yeah, we got a little.
Speaker 2:I got a little airplane flying by.
Speaker 1:That's okay. So do you work with groups in this, in this knowledge, or how and how does it? How does the whale wisdom come in?
Speaker 2:Well, I'm still trying to figure that out a little bit.
Speaker 2:I I don't know yet, in terms of the whale wisdom, I'm looking at putting together two, two writings. One is just, you know, kind of like the conversations with God, but conversations with grandmother whale, and so that's in the makings. And then I'm also working on a story about a young adolescent whale whose father had died suddenly from, from hunters, and, and he, he then begins his journey of initiation around the globe, meeting all of his relative and clan of the other whale, like, and and, and learning what is the wisdom, what is what is the wisdom to, to be offered to this, to this young adolescent whale, as he now is becoming a guardian of humanity. And so I, you know, in terms of end of you know work, I'm still working on that. I, I'm, you know, kind of new into the whole world of retirement.
Speaker 2:You know what is our identity? What do I do? How do I reframe? Am I looking at it? Do I want to monetize that? Do I? You know all that and I can get all excited about all aspects of that and I, but I've been not wanting to go there, I've been wanting to just stay with my own practices right now, and and and allowing the invitations to come through, like the one you offered me, leslie.
Speaker 2:So so that's kind of my approach right now is is to really sort of be trusting the work I've done, trusting the path I've been on and, more importantly, just trusting the divine timing of of all things and hollowing the vessel. How do we hollow our bone? How? How can I keep my practices so I can really be that vessel, or Hope to be a vessel, of spirit coming through, so I can hear and and pay attention to, to the whispers of the willow or the cloud or the water, on what they might want through me? And so that's, I think, where I'm at right now. I'm not, I'm not really looking at putting anything out to the world in any grand scale or doing anything in any any important. You know, I would say it's important but any sort of official sort of business like way so um.
Speaker 1:I love it.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I think that's kind of Beautiful. Yeah yeah, I, I think that's a beautiful way to end this interview, because I I think you just summed it up you know where you're at and and um, you're, you know you're allowing things to simmer and and uh, paying attention to the synchronicities and going from there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I just want to add, add another caveat to this, which, which is the summary of it, is that you know, I've also stepped into a storytelling practice where I'm on track to become a a storyteller, and and I think that, to me, is the work For all of us we all are carrying stories and we're all we all have original teachings, we all have original stories to tell, and and we're carrying that story with us right now and at the same time, we're also witnessing stories from others around the world unraveling, and so we're holding that and feeling into that right now, which is affecting us, and then we also want to be looking at what is the stories that need to be told, what are the stories that really need to be coming through us, and and that's that's the essence of where I'm at- oh, so good, so good.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the yeah, and that's one of the reasons why I started this podcast, was I just? I just want to talk to people and hear their cool stories and hear their journeys and what they've learned along the way, because I so agree, it's, it's all about, you know, the storytelling and and uh, and that's going back to indigenous wisdom, right, the oral tradition. Um, so I looked forward to hearing more about what you do with that along the way, because I think that you know combining all those things together your ministry and the dance and the storytelling I think could really really be powerful for a lot of people. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I agree.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so is there. If somebody wanted to contact you, do you have I don't know if you, you know, have a website or Um, an email? Um, I can. I can also put that in the show notes.
Speaker 2:Sure, um, you know my, um, my email address, uh, and that would be great, it's whaleguides at gmailcom. And then I also have a facebook page called pod travelers, and that's primarily for story, for people who have had stories with whales.
Speaker 1:Okay, so pod travelers will look for that at facebook group.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, all right. Well, kurt, I knew that this would be a wonderful interview and it has proven so, and I really do appreciate your time today and I just feel like, uh, I feel like maybe there's more conversations down the road. So, um, I hope so. Yes, thank you, thank you. Thank you, all right everybody.
Speaker 1:So you can look in the show notes for kurt's uh facebook page and also his um Email and any other things we might throw in there. Um, that's where you can find all things related to him. So thank you so much. Oh, one more thing, one more thing we almost forgot. So what does a meaningful and moxie filled life Feel like or look like to you? Just in a few words.
Speaker 2:For me, that, in to me, is is is what I think walking prayer is all about. Is all about each step, each breath, each thought, having joy and balance. What are we sending out to the world and and being able to just being being aware of that consciously, what we're sending out to the world and what do we want to be sending? We want to be sending joy, balance. That's, that's it. Those are the two things that come out of gratitude joy, balance and gratitude.
Speaker 1:There we go. There we go. As the kids would say mic drop, mic drop. All right, well, thank you everybody for listening and, uh, we'll talk to you soon, take care. Thank you, if this podcast was valuable to you, it would mean so much if you could take 30 seconds to do one or all of these three things Follow or subscribe to the podcast and, while there need a review, and then maybe share this with a friend if you think they'd like it. In a world full of lots of distractions, I so appreciate you taking the time to listen in. Until next time, be well and take care.