How to Combat and Heal Anxiety for Good

Have you been feeling stuck, anxious, and disconnected from yourself? Anxiety is a real challenge that many women grapple with, impacting both their emotional and physical well-being. It can show up as a constant feeling of fear, worry, and restlessness or even manifest physically through symptoms like headaches, muscle tension, or difficulty breathing. This overwhelming sense of unease can make it hard to focus, enjoy the present moment, or feel at peace. But recognizing these feelings is the first step toward healing. By addressing anxiety with mindful practices, positive thinking, and self-compassion, it’s possible to regain control, find balance, and reconnect with your inner strength.

In this episode, we talk about anxiety, panic attacks, how to mitigate anxious feelings and moments of panic, and tactical things that you can start doing to trust yourself and the universe with a returning guest, Katie Wee. Katie is a mindset coach, keynote speaker, actress, survivor, writer, and the founder of Happy Camp. Katie has appeared on TV shows such as Modern Family, Hawaii Five-0, New Girl, and General Hospital, and her writing has been featured on Newsweek and The Huffington Post. At Happy Camp, she teaches others how to love themselves on the deepest level and use manifestation to create what they want in their lives, all while blissing out in paradise.

What You Will Learn:

• [00:01] Intro and a bit about our guest today, Katie Wee
• [05:35] What mindset coaching is and why people reach out to Katie
• [07:03] Recognizing anxious feelings and how they manifest in daily life
• [09:37] Katie’s personal journey with anxiety and the changes she made
• [17:46] How childhood experiences shape how we show up in the world
• [21:13] Client success story: Overcoming anxiety and finding clarity
• [26:46] How to disassemble limiting beliefs and trust yourself and the universe
• [33:10] Embracing healing and understanding that life is always working for you
• [50:27] Three tactical things you can start trusting yourself and the universe
• [54:09] Wrap up and end of the show

Standout Quotes:

• “If you don’t work on your anxiety, that fear will keep you playing small forever, but if we manage it, love it and work with it, there are no limits to what we can create, become, and have.” [08:44]
• “We all came here with a purpose, and our purpose is not complicated, it’s to be who we really are, and who we really are at our core is love.” [39:18]
• “The thoughts you are thinking creates the feeling you are feeling, the feeling you are feeling creates an energetic frequency.” [44:56]
• “Choose faith over fear; both faith and fear require you to believe in something you cannot see; you choose.” [54:04]

Resources Mentioned  

Anxiety Rx by Russell Kennedy: https://www.amazon.com/Anxiety-Rx-Prescription-Relief-Created/dp/1734426543
The Body Keeps The Score by Bessel van der Kolk: https://www.amazon.com/Body-Keeps-Score-Healing-Trauma/dp/0143127748.
Get $300 off Katie’s 2025 Happy Camp Retreat: https://www.katiewee.com/happycamp  Code: HEALINGHEROES.

Let’s Connect
Katie Wee
Website: https://www.katiewee.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/itskatiewee/
Chandler Stroud
Website: https://healingheroespodcast.com/
Mixing, editing, and show notes provided by Next Day Podcast.

Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey guys, it's Chandler and welcome to The Healing Heroes. I promise you. I'm Chandler Stroud, an executive wife and busy mom of two who after years of living with anxiety health struggles and an unshakeable feeling like I should be happier, made a profound discovery that changed everything. Join me on a journey where unexpected paths lead to healing and more happiness. On this show, we will explore unconventional ways to unlock more joy in your own life. Own with the help of my very own healers and trusted advisors, the healing heroes. Hey everyone. I am so thrilled to be back today with Hero and Mindset Coach Katie. And today's episode is dedicated to anyone out there who might be struggling with anxiety. Yes, anxiety. It is a term we hear all the time and that I feel like is used casually in so many conversations with friends, coworkers, family, but anyone who has truly experienced real anxious feelings or worse, a panic attack as I have in the past knows how incredibly awful these anxious moments can make us feel.
(01:26)
In my experience, anxiety typically appears for me from a deep fear of uncertainty, whether about an event or a conversation that already occurred in the past, usually in the form of questioning or regret, but more often than not, I find it usually is tied to something in the future that I have pretty mixed feelings about. Other times, I would say my anxiety would hit me out of nowhere, and those moments are usually the worst because I didn't expect to feel that way in that moment. I think a really good example of this is something I shared on an earlier episode with Lizzie as we were talking about the stressors of becoming a new mom, and I was on a girls' trip a few years back with really close friends thinking it would be so great to escape work and my kids for a few days only to find that once I got there, I had a full-blown panic attack about my family's safety once I arrived.
(02:29)
And again, something that I hadn't expected to feel on that trip, but a really good example of how I let my anxiety get the better of me to the point where I even booked an early ticket home in the middle of the night because I was so panicked about what was happening without my ability to control my circumstances back in Connecticut. So long story short, really excited to dive into this very meaningful topic today. I think so many women out there grapple with this, everyone, and this is a spectrum, right? All of this is to say anxiety is a real thing and it affects not just your emotional state, but your physical state as well. And I thankfully have made huge strides in keeping my anxiety at bay with the help of my healers and due to all of the work that I've done over the course of the last year to heal my traumas.
(03:25)
But that doesn't mean that it still doesn't get the better of me. So just know that you are not alone in feeling this way. And again, I think so many women struggle with managing anxiety to different degrees, and Katie today is here and I am so thrilled that she is here to talk about all of the different ways that we can start to think about mitigating these anxious feelings and moments of panic, and she'll share the three tactical things that you can start doing to improve your ability to trust yourself, to trust in the universe, and know that all is well. So with that, before I hand it over to Katie, I have to do a quick refresher on how awesome she is. So here is Katie's background. Before we dive in, Katie is a mindset coach, speaker, writer, actress, survivor, and the founder of Happy Camp. You may have seen Katie on TV shows such as Modern Family, Hawaii, five oh New Girl or General Hospital, or have read her writing in Newsweek or the Huffington Post at Happy Camp. She teaches others how to love themselves on the deepest level and use manifestation to create what they want in their lives all while Blissing out in Paradise. Katie, so glad you're back with us today. Thank you for being here. Speaker 2 (04:45):

My pleasure. I love being here with you, Chandler. This is so much fun. Speaker 1 (04:49):

I always have a blast with you and I'm so excited to dive into today's topic because I think it affects so many women on a variety of levels, and I know you and I have personal experience with this that I'm excited to get into and hear more from you about today. But to kick us off, and I know we always do this at the beginning of every episode, just to ground the conversation in case we have any new listeners joining who missed our first few conversations, we went deep into mindset coaching the last couple times we chatted, but I do think, again, understanding the fundamentals of mindset coaching will be important in grounding today's conversation. Can you share a quick overview of what mindset coaching is and why somebody would reach out to you for help? Speaker 2 (05:35):

Yes. Mindset coaching is becoming aware of the way we think and the belief systems that we hold and our belief systems are always shaping our reality. So when we are willing to look a little bit deeper with the help of a coach at our belief systems, the ones that are helping us in our life and maybe some of the ones that are not helping us in our life belief systems that we might've just picked up over the years like, I'm not good enough or things don't work out for me, things that you don't even realize are playing in your consciousness, things that you don't realize you've still been holding onto. When you start to look at those beliefs and start to clean them out, question them, choose new beliefs to start living by and then implement the action that someone that believes those new beliefs like I am good enough and things do work out for me, implement action in that way, you start to change your life. So mindset coaching is becoming aware of the way you think and utilizing the way you think to improve your life and improve your wellbeing. Speaker 1 (06:27):

That was an incredibly succinct and impactful answer. Thank you. I think that's really clear and gives everyone a kind of unified jumping off point as we start getting into the mechanics of anxiety and trusting in something bigger today. So shifting gears a bit, let's just hop right in and get to the meat of this conversation. So Katie, first off, to really explain anxiety and bring it to life for our listeners, how might you describe what anxious feelings are or how they show up in somebody's life? Speaker 2 (07:03):

I've dealt with this so much so I can speak firsthand about anxiety, but anxiety is persistent, excessive worry about the future worry or stress or fear. And often, like you were saying earlier, when you have unknown, we have uncertainty. It activates anxiety. For a lot of people that unknown is scary for everyone and how we relate to the unknown is a choice. It doesn't feel like a choice because your body will just kind of go into its natural reaction of how it's used to perceiving the unknown. When you start to realize that your brain is thinking certain thoughts that are creating anxiety and producing the chemicals of anxiety in the body of fear, cortisol pumping through the system, adrenaline pumping through the system, and then you're living in that state, you realize that if you start to think different thoughts consciously start to choose different thoughts in those moments, you can start to create different feelings in your body and change your state of being.
(08:01)
It's certainly not easy to just flip a switch, but with conscious effort and conscious practice, that's kind of like going to the gym or going to Pilates. You're just gently building the muscle in that direction. And for someone like me who's had a lot of anxiety for most of my life, I would say that building that muscle has been one of the most worthwhile things that I've ever done because it's allowed me to step into greater levels of expansion in my life. I could never have a business the way I do. I could never have trusted that it was okay to get married again and to trust love again after getting divorced and having a really rough experience with love, I could have never taken the jumps in my life that I really wanted to take if I didn't have some of this foundational work with my anxiety because that fear will keep you small, that fear of what's going to happen? Am I going to be okay? I can't do it. That will keep us playing small forever if we don't manage it and if we manage it, if we do love it and work with it, work with that anxiety. There's no limit in our life to what we can create to who we can be to what we can have. And I love helping my clients discover more in their life if they're just willing to change the way that they're thinking a little bit. Speaker 1 (09:12):

Wow, Katie, I mean, I think that's so powerful the way you describe it and resonates on a very deep level for me personally, and I know you as well and you referenced this in your answer. Can you share a little bit more about your own journey, kind of navigating anxiety and how you started to make measurable changes in how you show up and feel better in the world? Speaker 2 (09:37):

Yes. So as you know, and if anybody else has read my story or seen it on my Instagram, I was sexually abused as a child starting when I was 12, and it was something that I couldn't process at the time. I just couldn't. I look at a 12-year-old now and I'm like, oh, I get it. You're a kid. So at the time, I just kind of stored it away, put it in a locked cavern down deep within me, and I didn't start processing it until it kind of forced me to start processing it. When it really came up for me when I was like 27, a lot of what I realized driving me crazy in my life and making my life intolerable for me at the time that I finally started to address all this was just the constant worry about the future and the constant worry about how I'm coming off to people and the constant worry about appearance management and will I make more money?
(10:27)
Will I have this, will I get to this place in my career? Well, all of the what ifs, what ifs, and I was so stressed and so anxious to the point where I just couldn't go on. I was just break down. And I realized that a lot of that fear in my body came from my abuse as a child. And whether you've been through something like that or your anxiety comes from having parents that always picked you up late and you didn't know if they were coming or because you always wondered if it was going to be safe at home or if your bedtime was always all over the place and sometimes you didn't get dropped off at the right time where you needed to go, whatever creates those experiences. Or maybe it's just this constant fear of being picked on. Maybe you get bullied or you just get kind of a little bit isolated at school and you're always anxious about is it me, is it me, is it me?
(11:18)
We all have experiences that create that anxiety, that kind of create the seeds of that anxiety, that create the seeds of that fear in our body because at a baseline level, we all need to feel safe. We all need to feel safe and we want to feel safe. But if you don't feel safe in the world, your body is going to keep that memory. Your body's going to keep that belief that I got to keep myself safe somewhere in there and it's going to manifest as trying to be perfect in all these different ways or to rehash a conversation to wonder if I came off weird, like you were saying, totally do the same thing or to go, let me go out into the future and try to move all these pieces around and try to manufacture this perfect future so I can control the outcomes so I don't have to stress about it.
(12:03)
But as we all know, you can't control outcomes. So trying to control outcomes ends up making you just more stressed because it's not possible. So all the things that we do to try to mitigate our anxiety often end up causing more anxiety, and then we end up in this spiral. And I found myself in that place very much so. I realized that more planning, more perfecting, more managing, more perfect looking posts on Instagram, these things were not going to make the anxiety go away. The anxiety needed to be talked to, needed to be dealt with itself. And something that really helped me was just sort of being able to speak to that piece of myself that was scared because we all have it, right? If you were a little bit bullied or just nervous in high school all the time that you weren't getting iced out of your friend group, which is almost every woman I know is in high school going through, am I okay? Am I okay? Am I okay? Are people talking bad about me? I'm fine. It's the most or middle school, that's two times are the worst, Speaker 1 (13:08):

Worst. Speaker 2 (13:09):

And if you just always in times long ago, if you were isolated from your tribe, that meant you would die. So we have this deep need to feel accepted. So if that's your fear or if my fear was just that I'm not safe in the world, I didn't totally understand that I felt that way until I did some processing around that, but I just didn't really feel safe in my body and I didn't really feel safe in the world. And something that really helped me was being able to talk to that part of myself and to just say, Hey, I'm here with you. It's okay. I know you feel a little scared right now, but this is going to be okay. I got you. I'm always going to be with you. I love you. We can leave anytime we want. If we want to leave early, it's no big deal.
(13:52)
Just being able to be kind to that part of myself that really, really helped me and then to watching my thoughts, really paying attention to my thoughts and not believing every thought I think, right? So kind of like you were talking about with that vacation scenario of being in a high intensity workout class with really loud music and all of a sudden I'm going, I got to get out of here and I'm literally about to pack up my stuff and run out after five minutes the class because something in my body's just like, I can't do this. Even though I later ended up starting to teach classes like that at the time, I remember being like, oh, I got to go. I got to go. I got to go having a stress response or a panic attack, I've had those too. And just noticing the thoughts in my head of the thoughts in my head where I'm not safe, I'm not safe, I'm not safe.
(14:39)
And then being able to talk back to myself and be like, you're in a Pilates class in Santa Monica. You're going to be okay. You're safe. Everything's okay, you're okay. And really just not every thought, I think and choosing the ones like being my own bouncer being like, no, thank you. No thank you, no thank you. And then to thoughts like You're okay, all is well. Yes, please, yes, please. Just really practicing that discrimination of what is helpful for me right now and what is not, and using my own inner space as a sanctuary that I allow thoughts that are helpful to me into, and those fear-based thoughts. I can acknowledge them. I can love the part of me that has them, but I'm not going to let them come in and saturate the whole environment. Speaker 1 (15:25):

That is so much to unpack there. I love so many of the different things you touched on. Specifically I have to ask, have you ever read Anxiety Rx by Dr. Russell Kennedy? Speaker 3 (15:35):

No, Speaker 1 (15:36):

Katie, I'm recommending this book to you and our listeners because he takes the same approach to curing anxiety. He's a medical doctor who takes a non-medical approach, and I have loved his work because he does the same thing. It's very kind of younger self-based where you go inward and you are kind to that part of yourself that maybe didn't get what he or she needed growing up, and you as an adult can give yourself that. So I love what you're saying because it is very consistent with a lot of the things I've read on how to truly heal anxiety versus just navigate the world with it still inhabiting your body as that stress response. The other thing you said that I loved, which goes back to a lot of what we talk about on the show, is that you can see anxiety manifest itself in your life from maybe events or circumstances that happened when you were little that are not these massive big T traumas.
(16:36)
It could have been not knowing when your parents were picking you up from school, if they were inconsistent with when they showed up, that feeling of maybe being abandoned or not safe in the world for whatever reason. And I think that's really important because people may not make that connection back, and that's why we say you kind of have to go back and unearth your past and really think about get curious when those feelings arise. Where is this coming from? What does this remind me of? When did I last feel that way in my body? And you may be surprised where it takes you. I think there's so many things that happen when we're younger that we may not read into, but that are impacting how we show up in the world today. And I just love that you touched on that because I think it can be so many different things serving as a trigger for these types of really distressing moments of anxiety, and I just wanted to highlight that because I think that's important work for anyone to go and do and think about if they find they tense up or have this type of anxious reaction present day. Speaker 2 (17:45):

I completely agree, and something that really helped me, there's a book called The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel Vander Cook. Speaker 1 (17:52):

We love that book on the show. Speaker 2 (17:54):

Yes,
(17:54)
Yes. Oh yeah. And I went to a seminar, a workshop with Bezel for a week at Essel N and learned from him directly. And it was so interesting to understand that the subconscious mind doesn't really know the difference between the past and the present. So if you're feeling a feeling that feels like an old feeling, the body actually doesn't know that it's not in the past. So maybe that little feeling of feeling a little bit like, did I say something weird at a cocktail party when you're 35, it reminds you of the time that your friends dropped you, your whole friend group dropped you over some rumor or something that happened in high school or middle school and you had to go to school every day and eat alone, and it was traumatic and it was hard, and your body doesn't know the difference and your palms are sweating and your're freaking out and you're in the bathroom stall not knowing why you're so freaked out over just your appearance management in that moment, for lack of a better word, but your subconscious mind, which is where a lot of your behavior and your thoughts come from, over 80% of your thoughts are coming from your subconscious mind every day.
(19:02)
It goes back to that place. So it's really in going back to those places and healing those parts of ourself and just saying, Hey, little me, I see you. I see that this is hard for you right now. That's okay. That's okay. But not being the child only, but being the adult now with the child and being able to say, I'm here with you. I get this is hard for you. I know this might not seem like a hard paper or a hard situation on paper, but this is hard for you right now and that's okay. And having compassion for yourself rather than What's wrong with me? Why am I feeling this way? Just being able to love yourself when you're having a hard moment. Speaker 1 (19:38):

I think that's such an important takeaway. If you don't remember anything else from this entire conversation, just be kind to yourself and have that compassion in those moments. I think it's a really powerful piece of advice. So thank you, Katie. I love that. I Speaker 3 (19:57):

Promise you Speaker 1 (20:04):

The timing of this conversation with Katie today couldn't be better because I'm just coming off an incredible weekend with her in Sedona, Arizona at her recent Happy Camp retreat and would recommend it to any of you feeling stuck or anxious and wanting to really get in touch with yourself again. We hiked to energy vortexes relaxed to a soothing sound. Bath bonded during mindset coaching sessions painted under the stars and so much more. And now our listeners are getting $300 off Katie's 2025 camps in both Mexico and Sedona with Code Healing Heroes. That's Code Healing Heroes, all one word. Simply visit Katie we.com/happy camp to learn more. That's Code Healing Heroes for $300 off to join Katie and Bliss out in Paradise. Have you had experiences with clients who suffer from anxiety, and if so, can you share a little bit more about some of their experiences navigating it? Speaker 2 (21:14):

Yes, yes. Thinking about one client in particular who is a powerhouse, an absolute powerhouse, but was kind of stuck in thoughts of comparison, I'm not good enough comparing herself and other ways to other people she worked with and finding little pieces of ways to kind of go like, well, maybe I'm not as good as them. And she really locked into her confidence by understanding that what you tell yourself matters. Your brain believes what you tell it, and repetition is how the subconscious mind gets installed with new software. So if you think of your mindset as a computer program and the thoughts that you've been thinking over and over and over again eventually become beliefs. So a belief is just a thought that you take to be true. So you think something a lot of times like, I'm not as good as everyone else here. I'm not as smart as everyone else here.
(22:06)
And then eventually becomes a belief, and what happens with the belief is that it automates. So your brain stops thinking, well, this, I guess here's the conclusion. It goes, oh, we've got the conclusion. It just goes straight to that filter. So your brain filters things to you and you filter thoughts outward through the lens of I'm not as smart as everybody here. So you start to see it everywhere and you start to interpret everything that way. And that's how we create our own reality is that your belief system is creating the filter, the lens through which you see the world, and that's not just an outward filter going from the inside out. It's an inward filter perceiving external reality inward. So what you believe to be true, the thoughts you've been thinking are affecting how you see a situation. And so a meeting, that's how everyone else in the meeting might've gone like, no big deal, not a problem.
(22:55)
She might've left that meeting feeling like, oh my gosh, I did such a terrible job when nobody else was thinking that. And I know we've all been there, right? All of us have that anxiety of, I looked so bad at that event, or I said something so stupid, and that conversation and everyone else is like, what are you? We're in our own way created this story and that story creates so much anxiety for us, so unfair to us. So when we have thoughts like she did that are unfair to us, I'm not as smart as everyone here, we started to unpack that. Do you actually think that where you went to school is a measure of how smart you are? Is that an absolute? These two things are directly correlated always. She was like, no. Okay. And do you think that people who go to the school that you went to, some of them produce incredible results with their life?
(23:45)
Yes. Is that possible? And is it possible that other people who went to schools that are better than yours don't necessarily do that much with their career in their life? Yes, that happens sometimes too. So all of these things are true. So it's not just true that higher education, the higher ranked school equals smarter person that's not, it's tit for tat. We go in with the logical brain, we start asking the questions of like, let's disassemble this belief a little bit because if you go to work every day thinking everyone's smarter than you, you're going to be in for a panic attack every day. You're going to feel anxiety all the time. We started to just work with this. Let's unpack that logically and then once you started to realize that you started to come into this, oh yeah, I'm really smart, and we started to look for evidence.
(24:26)
Let's find evidence in your life that you're really smart, and it's like, oh, she could actually pull out 20 things that she hadn't really been thinking about top of mind. That belief was so strong of I'm not as smart as everybody. So that's all you see when that's your belief, that's all you see and that's all you perceive. When you start to actually look for evidence of the opposite being true in your life, you're like, oh, wow. Yeah, there's a lot here. Started to see that more. And then it was about creating mantras to tell yourself, so what do you need to remind yourself? What do you need to hear? Because every one of us knows what do you need to hear right now? If I ask any client that they can generally close their eyes, get quiet and spit out the answer of, I deserve to be here just as much as everyone else, or my worth is not something I need to prove every day, my worth is inherent starting to get to just asking yourself, what do you need to hear? And then she started using her time, getting to work every morning, listening to music that she loves and telling herself her own things that she needs to hear and visualizing the day going really well because anxiety sees worst case scenarios everywhere. Speaker 1 (25:33):

So anxiety Speaker 2 (25:34):

Is like, oh God, and then this could happen. This is going to happen. A really good antidote to anxiety is just visualizing the way you want things to go. And it can be on the way to a dinner, picture yourself having a drink, looking at something beautiful, enjoying the conversation, loving your food, having a good time leaving feeling like, I wish we could do this more and let's do this more. And not leaving feeling like, oh God, I can't wait for this to be over visualizing how you want the day to go, how the event to go. And it's much easier to actually land in that reality. That really helps with anxiety too, is just creating a vision so you can actually fall right into it. Speaker 1 (26:08):

These are such great tips, Katie, because they're all things people can start doing on their own in a whole variety of situations and scenarios where they might be a little bit scared of the uncertainty. It's like this is just such a clear roadmap for how to start tackling that, and I love it. So thank you for sharing that. That's very helpful. Speaker 3 (26:30):

Absolutely. Speaker 1 (26:31):

Just to build on that, Katie, I'm curious, you talked a little bit about disabling our belief system as we go out into the world each day, do you think anxiety is about our relationship with the world around us or with ourselves? Speaker 2 (26:47):

Love that question. I think it's about both. I absolutely think it's about both. And there's two things I really want to focus on. One is trusting the universe and one is trusting ourselves. So if we think first to trusting the universe, trusting the universe means believing that things are going to work out for us, that the universe has got our back, that whether you believe in God or the universe or energy or just life, whatever you want to call it, that great unknown, that thing that we create our life with, it's on your side. It wants what you want for you, it's working on your behalf all the time. It's like the personal assistant that never quits. It's like your best friend, your sugar daddy. It wants to give you money, it wants to give you outcomes that you'd like. It wants to give you love, it wants to give you happiness, it wants to give you freedom.
(27:33)
It wants to bring you what you are wanting to bring yourself, trusting that you have a collaborative partner in the universe. And I think so often when it comes to our worries about things like, will I find the right partner or will I be able to pay my bills? Those very real fears that people live in on a daily basis. If we think the universe is not on our side and it's all on us, oh my God, it's so much anxiety. But no let go of that anxiety. It is not just you. It is you and the universe and your team of guides and spirits and angels that are there to help you think about every single person in your life who has passed, who's on the other side going, I'm just putting all my good energy into you now. You've got so much support that is only there if you know and believe it's there.
(28:19)
So if you think it's not there, it's not working for you. This is a free will universe. So if you are not asking the universe for support and you're not believing it's there for you, it's like, okay, okay, no problem. You do your thing. And if you're like, Hey, thank you so much for everything you're already doing to bring all my manifestations into full flourishing, thank you so much for all the blessings in my life and I'm so excited to be experiencing the future reality that we're creating together where what I want is happening or better that you've got that for me. I'm going to trust you that you've got that. Oh, that's such a relaxed feeling. That's such a nice feeling to go. I'm working with source and what is source, infinite intelligence, infinite creativity, infinite abundance, all the things. It's like the best supercomputer, all the things that could possibly make my life 100% better.
(29:12)
I've got the best partner. So trusting that whether you are someone who goes to church and prays to God or you just are a fan of the universe or you are just agnostic, atheist, whatever, it doesn't matter if you believe in God, you just have to believe that the universe or life is on your side. That is so important. And I think that when you encounter something really hard in life, it's easy. I know this from personal experience to just kind of subconsciously take on the view that the world is against me and I have to make everything happen myself. That was something that I started to believe like, oh, okay, I didn't tell anyone when I was abused. I didn't tell anyone until I was 27. So from 12 to 27, I was just like, life is really hard. Life is really gnarly. It's scary out here and nothing's looking out for me and I have to make everything good in my life happen by myself.
(30:08)
And that produced this perfectionism, this constant striving, this working my ass off all the time, hitting my head against a wall, so much stress and striving and struggling. I didn't believe there was any support for me. And then as I shifted my mindset to be like, okay, I'm going to try this whole trusting universe thing. I'm going to be grateful every day. I'm going to believe that this collaborative partner that I'm working with has got me and is going to help me sell out my happy camps, which just happened and I'm so excited and is going to help me, thank you. Find my soulmate in this big billions of people world. I'm going to find my soulmate and is going to help me find happiness and wholeness within myself, which was not where I was spending most of my life. I've been able to find those things and it's so deeply gratifying for me to be able to live in that place. But it started with doing the big jump of trusting the universe, which is really hard for some of us. So if you're out there and you're listening and you're like, yeah, it's really hard for me to believe the universe is on my side, I feel you. I get it, I get it. But you know what? Your best shifts in life, you allowing the universe to give you everything it really wants to give you is on the other side of you making that jump and trusting the universe. So that's the first piece. Speaker 1 (31:28):

Katie, I have to pause you there quickly. I'm getting emotional listening to you talk because you just articulated so well how I have felt my entire life, and it almost is like we were living the same life. Honestly, it's so freeing in some way to hear that you went through such a similar experience. And I want to tell you that was probably the biggest unlock for me learning that now I go to church, I rediscovered my spirituality in the church with God, that God was working for me and that my life wasn't happening to me all of those years, and that the universe does have my back and is trying to bring incredible things into my life. But I want to thank you because it was in a session together. You said that to me and it was an incredible unlock. And what it did was it planted the seed of a brand new belief that I have been able to water and grow over the last many, many months and strengthen, and it has completely changed my life. And yes, I mean, of course everything that I do day in and day out, somatically emotionally to heal, everything has been so powerful. But that in itself has really taught me to trust and has mitigated and reduced my anxiety in such incredible ways. And I just thank you so much for giving me that gift and I am so glad you found it for yourself. Speaker 2 (33:11):

Thank you so much for saying that. And something you said that I think is so important to explain for listeners is that life has been working for you this whole time. That belief of the universe has actually always been on my side. And I think when I was a little girl trying to process that kind of abuse, I felt like, no, the universe is not on my side. It just isn't. That's just what my brain had decided. And that was a limiting belief that became my reality, and that's what I saw everywhere. So every time something didn't work out for me, it was confirmation. And every time I had to work really hard to create something and then I got it, it was confirmation that I have to do it all myself, see everything confirmed, my belief. But what I've started to realize is that life is not happening to us.
(33:57)
It's happening for us. And if you're listening right now, you might be like, how the heck is that possible that sexual abuse could be happening for you? How could that be possible? And I look at my life and I realize, well, if I'd never been through, this will make me emotional. If I'd never been through what I'd been through, I would've never needed to go on the healing journey that I went on because it got too loud inside. It got too untenable. I had to start healing. And boy was it a beautiful, and it's not over. It'll never be fully over. But my healing journey was really hard at so times, but also so beautiful at so times. And I realized that every time I unlocked kind of a new belief shift within myself of like, oh, I'm not a bad person. Something that I also kind of took on from my abuse, or, oh, the world is not against me, or, oh, I deserve good things.
(34:50)
Every time I unlocked a new belief, my whole life got better because my whole lens shifted and I started to see that proof of that everywhere. And somebody's like, oh, we made an extra matcha today. Do you want it for free? You're like, oh, my favorite drink for free. You start to see the things with the lens. Things are always working out for me or Billy, my fiance reaching out to me on a hinge, the dating app we met on totally plugging hinge hinge, why don't you a sponsor reaching out to me? And I see his beautiful face and I have this feeling of just like I love this face. Like, oh, maybe I do deserve good things. This good person likes me and I'm a good person. Maybe I do deserve good things. Every time I shifted my beliefs, my whole reality got better, my life got lighter, I got happier, more good things came in, like actual results of love, my business, money, personal freedom inside my body feeling better. So I realized that healing was addictive to me. Every time I healed more, everything got better. I was like, oh, this is magic. Why is not everybody doing this? This is the magical elixir. That's why I created happy camp. I was like, let's make healing cool. Let's make healing Speaker 1 (35:58):

Normal. Mic drop on that. I mean, yes, yes, a thousand percent. Yes, it is cool. It is fun. It can be so fun. Yes, it's hard and messy, but it can be so fun and you do become addicted to it. I'm just going to lay it out there. I totally agree. Speaker 2 (36:12):

Oh, it's the best thing to get addicted to because you just keep raising your vibration in your body and then your life gets better and better. And so if I hadn't gone on this whole healing journey, I wouldn't have gotten to the point where I thought, I have to share this. I feel like I unlocked the keys to the universe. I feel like I discovered some stuff that I have to teach people because so many people are miserable and we don't have to be that miserable suffering. The suffering is optional, not all of it, right? We're going to suffer to some extent no matter what, but can we utilize our suffering? Can we learn from our suffering and actually heal from it and make ourselves happier as a result? Make our lives more whole, ourselves more whole as a result of that healing? And so that healing journey brought me to create happy camp.
(36:49)
Happy camp is what brought me to have my private clients that I coach, including you. I have this life now where I get to do what I love all the time, and I became the version of me who's the most true me because healing is also just shedding all the parts of ourselves that are not actually us. And the part of me that's the true me is the best me and this version of me that's the best me attracted the perfect partner who's the match for the best me rather than the people I was with in the past that were the match to the version of me I was at the time that was not very healed. So long story short, I love my life now and I wouldn't be here if it weren't for what happened. So you can't hate the situations, the circumstances that shaped you and love who you are at the same time. And I love who I am, so therefore I accept and I appreciate and understand that those circumstances shaped me into being exactly who I was meant to be. Speaker 1 (37:45):

I mean, yes, I love that you're able to articulate that now and share that with listeners, and it resonates so deeply. I mean, I feel similarly. Being able to wake up to my life in the middle of it is such a gift versus being at the very end of my life on my deathbed, wishing that I had healed these things and the joy that I get to access now is so just transformative. It's just so different. And even going back, I love, we went through this exercise in our first conversation together on this topic, going back and thinking about where again, for me it was God, where God did show up in those really hard times. He got me out of the situation into an amazing academic community where I found another family and he put me in the right places and introduced the right people at the right times. And there's always something to go back and be grateful for. And I think it's so powerful to think about it that way. And yeah, I love everything you're saying and thank you for sharing. I know all of this. It can feel so personal and it is still very emotional as someone who also had that type of abuse growing up. And I think the journey is just why we're here, right? It's why we're here. Speaker 2 (39:12):

Yeah. I think that everyone who gets born into earth, we have amnesia about why we came, but we all came here with a purpose. And our purpose is not super complicated to be who we really are and who we really are at our core is love. And what you do as an expression of love in your life that might be your career purpose, which I think a lot of people conflate with their whole purpose. But you just loving your family, you just loving your life. You just loving the people around you. You loving what you do, that is you fulfilling your purpose. And for some people, mindset coaching and happy camp, for me, that's me doing what I love for some people making necklaces. For some people it's being a lawyer. Everyone has a different thing that they love doing. But when we connect to where our passion in life overlaps with what we're good at and what helps other people that we put that into the world, that's us stepping into our dharma.
(40:09)
That's us stepping into our path. And I'm so grateful to be so fully on my dharma on my path, and I know you are too. And there's this ease and this flow that comes with like, ah, I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be. And I didn't feel that before. And that's been the high level mitigation of a lot of anxiety is feeling like I'm not where I'm supposed to be. I'm not where I'm supposed to be. I'm not where I'm supposed to be. That used to always play in my head. And now I feel this feeling of like I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be and there will be more that unfolds in the future. I can't wait for more acting jobs, children one day. There's more adventures, some that I know about, some that I don't know about, but I'm trusting the universe that like, Hey, we're doing this together and you know what I want and I know what I want.
(40:52)
I'm going to believe in myself. And that's the other piece is you trust the universe and you trust yourself. And so often we are so quick to doubt and second guess ourself and to just degrade ourself inside our head, we can take a presentation we did that was so good and go back in our brain and go, I should have done this. I should have done this. I should have worn this. I shouldn't have said that. I should have asked this question. We can take away our own accomplishments so quickly. And having three brothers and a dad and a fiance, a lot of time around men, I've noticed that's something that I've really taken from my brothers and my dad and my fiance that they don't tend to do that. I've noticed as much none of these men that I'm around, I can't speak for all men, but they're just like, it was good. It was great. I'm like, oh, cool. And I really try to take that on sometimes of just let it be good enough when we sign off from this podcast, I'm going to go, great. I did a great job and I'm moving on for the rest of my day. I'm not going to good
(41:49)
Ask you to send me the video and edit it and take this out and take that. Just going to let it be. And I think as women, you have to remember to just trust yourself. You have to remember that everything you do is good enough. What you've got today is good enough. You might not be showing up firing on all cylinders. You might not be doing everything they tell you to do in your Pilates class. That was me this morning. I was like, no, I don't want to do that. You might not be me too in yoga. Yeah, perhaps you just like, actually, no, that's okay. However you are today is okay, is enough. Just accepting that for yourself rather than being in a constant cycle of nagging yourself and watching your brain when it does that, noticing your mind when you start to do that and just going, oh, okay, I notice I'm doing that. I'm going to choose a new thought and just choose a new thought and go in that direction. Just say the same thing over and over again. I'm good enough for myself, I'm good enough for myself. I'm good enough in general, whatever that thought is, just train your brain in that direction until it naturally starts thinking about something else. Speaker 1 (42:52):

No, I love that. Katie, thank you for breaking that down for us. I think it's very clear now having had this conversation that it is a combination of both the universe and ourselves. And I think if listeners can really take that to heart and tap into some of the ways that you have done this in your own life to mitigate your anxiety and what you're recommending, I think it'll go a long way. Sometimes it's just being aware that that's what you're feeling and again, getting curious and then starting to put some of these things to practice into practice in ways that feel authentic to you. So I really appreciate you breaking that down. I think it is a lot more digestible and just easier to understand in those terms versus this big scary cloud of anxiety. Speaker 2 (43:44):

And I think that sometimes if you've ever gotten a diagnosis with anxiety, people just go, well, I have anxiety, so this is going to be how it is. I have anxiety, so I need to do this. I have anxiety, so I can't do that. And I was like that for a while. I went to a tennis tournament with my parents and I remember being like, I need this. I need to leave. After everybody clears out, everybody was leaving at the same time, thousands of people. And I was like, I can't walk through all these people. And it's like, yeah, it's not preferable. It is challenging for my anxiety, but it's not. I can't. And using that language of I can't is really disempowering to ourselves in that moment. I wanted to wait it out and that's okay. I am have no shame about that choice.
(44:21)
I wanted to wait it out, and then I walked out when a lot of people had left and it was really chill and relaxed and that's a fine choice, but just knowing that you can just have to choose where you're at that day. And now I'm in the place where I can go to big events like that and be body to body with people walking out and I can know that I'm okay. And something that's really helped me with that is just managing, imagining that you have a ball of energy around you. You are in a ball. We all are. Every one of us, our ORIC field, and the energy within that ball is yours to maintain. And the way you maintain that energy is by the thoughts you're thinking because the thoughts you're thinking create the feelings you're feeling, the feelings that you're feeling create an energetic frequency.
(45:02)
So there's low vibrational feelings like fear, worry, doubt, despair. There's kind of mid boredom, a little higher than that acceptance, that little higher than that. Gratitude, compassion, high vibrational feeling, satisfaction, appreciation, contentment, joy. So sometimes I can't get all the way to joy, but in that moment, if I was going to do that again today, I have recently a music festival with my brother. I remember thinking, okay, acceptance. I accept that people are closer to me than I'm usually comfortable with, but I accept that I'm also okay right now. I accept that I'm okay. I'm choosing to know that I'm safe. I have gratitude that my shoes are comfortable. I have gratitude that I'm with people I love and I feel okay in this moment. And then being able to have compassionate thoughts towards that party that might be going, ah, it's too close, it's too hot.
(45:58)
I hear you, I see you. I love you. But compassion's a very high frequency too. So what are you doing? You're filling that bubble with high frequency energy and what does high frequency energy feel like to you as you're bathing in it? It feels like chill. Cool, fine, I'm relaxed. And there might be a little bit of in it, but you're like, okay, hey, it's all right. You can be with it. You don't have to get it out. You don't have to shun it away. You can just be with it and know that you're not your thoughts. You can be aware of your thoughts. So if you can be aware of your thoughts, you are not your thoughts and you don't have to believe every thought you think. And a couple little somatic practices that have really helped me, the simplest one that I like is breathing in through the nose to a account of six and then out through the mouth like you're blowing out a straw to a count of seven. So we'll just do one together. Let's do two. Speaker 1 (46:47):

Okay. Speaker 2 (46:48):

Okay. Breathing in through the nose first, Speaker 3 (46:49):

6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 out through the mouth first, 7, 6, 5, 4, letting it go. Three, getting empty, two, one, breathing in first, six out for seven. Speaker 2 (47:19):

One more. Why not? Inhale through the nose. Let's go Speaker 3 (47:26):

Out through the mouth feeling that presence in your body. You're here, you're safe. Speaker 2 (47:37):

That is the simplest way to just ground yourself and bring yourself back into the present moment. And sometimes I imagine the energy, the thoughts that I'm feeling that bubble with that really helps me a lot. That's one of my favorites. Another simple favorite is just shaking. You can just shake out your hand, really helps. You can do both hands or I love laying on the ground, putting my arms and legs in the air and just shaking everything. Speaker 1 (48:00):

Oh, Nicole does that in her classes actually. Speaker 2 (48:03):

I love it. You think animals do this. If you ever see your dog get stressed out and they're like, Speaker 1 (48:08):

Yes, Speaker 2 (48:09):

It's a natural way to relieve stress, to get it out of the body to shake, but we usually go through stress over and over and over again with not a physical outlet. And that's why going and working out is so helpful. But also if you don't have time to go take a workout class in this moment, just shake out your hands. Just let it out. Shake out your feet, get on the ground if you can and shake it all out. I feel so different after I do that. So those are two of my favorite easy somatic practices that really help. Speaker 1 (48:35):

Love those. Thank you for giving such applicable advice and tips and tricks to listeners who may want to try these things anywhere. That's the beauty of them. You can literally do it anywhere. And breathing has been huge for me. Huge, huge, huge for me. I actually just listened to another podcast where the expert guest was saying, the way we're supposed to breathe is through our nose, and if I breathe through my mouth all day long and I've really made a conscious effort when I'm walking outside in the morning to start breathing through my nose and I automatically feel my body relax, it's so amazing what can happen when you're aware of that. And I don't always remember, but when I do and I turn that switch, I feel somatically. My whole body just go into a completely different state of peace just with one deep breath through my nose. And so that I think is a really, breathwork is obviously something we talk about on the show, but that is a very easy practice that you just introduced to listeners, so thank you for sharing that one. Speaker 2 (49:40):

My pleasure. It puts us into a parasympathetic state. So when we're sleeping, we generally breathe through our nose and we breathe into our low belly. And when we breathe like that in our low belly, in this slow calm place, that's the kind of breath that's like rest, relaxed, digest. Our bodies signaled that we're okay. So when you breathe through your nose, when you're not doing those special breaths, when you're doing just daily breathing and when you're working out breathing like this too is helpful. You're sending the message to your body that we're okay, we're okay, we're okay. And that can be super helpful. Speaker 1 (50:12):

I love that. Thank you for sharing that. Katie. How do you teach people to trust both the universe and themselves? Once again, if you were going to break this down for listeners in a way that they might be able to recall and remember, Speaker 2 (50:27):

Yes, these are the three things that I think about on a daily basis that really helped me and have helped a lot of my clients. Number one, expect the best. So it can be easy to doom, like expect, right? Expect the worst, and it can be a habit of thought and every habit of thought can be changed. It's just a habit. And so expecting the best consciously, imagining the best way every outcome can go. Maybe visualizing your whole day in the morning, just closing your eyes for a minute and visualizing the whole day going the best possible way it could go. Start to expect the best just in every given situation. Try that on and see what happens. Number two, choose faith over fear. Both faith and fear require you to believe in something that you cannot see. You choose. That's not a quote that I made up.
(51:13)
I've seen that quote all over the internet, and I'm sure you have too, but really we are dealing with the unknown here, like you were talking about in the beginning. That's life, the unknown. It's never going to go away and we can't make it less. Our actions are important and the manifestation actions we take in alignment with what we want. Very important. You can learn more about how to do that in our last episode, how to align your action and your thoughts with what you want. But ultimately, we are dealing with uncertainty no matter what. So choose faith. Choose faith. Have faith in the universe, trust it, expect that it's got your back, and just make that a practice simple. Don't go like, should I do fear in this winter faith and this and fear in this winter faith just be Speaker 3 (51:50):

Like Speaker 2 (51:51):

Faith in all of them that the dress is going to come and it's going to fit that. I'm going to give a speech at that event and it's going to go great. My brother's wedding is next week, so Speaker 1 (51:58):

You're going to be great. Speaker 2 (51:59):

Thank you that everything I'm worried about with my wedding is actually going to go great. I don't need to worry about it. It's going to go great. Just have faith. And number three, let go of attachment to the outcome. Because if we need a specific outcome in life, we're like hanging on trying to make it happen. We need this specific outcome, but the universe is often giving us something better than what we even expected. It's just ready there for something better. Every time you think about something that you want in life, you send the signals to the universe of, I want this. It goes, okay, got it. It's collecting it. It knows what you want. Every time you send something to the universe of like, I don't like this. It's like, okay, got it. You don't like that? No problem. Universe is holding all of the things that you want, ready for you, waiting for you to raise to the level of vibrational frequency where you match all of that waiting for you to get into your highest frequency.
(52:55)
Your highest frequency comes with your most self-compassionate, self kind, self-loving thoughts. When your energy bubble starts to be full of that, you align to those things you want and they start filtering into your life just flowing right in. So expect the best faith over fear and let go of attack miss the outcome because maybe the universe has something better for you. So if you don't need a specific outcome, there's no anxiety, you can trust that whatever happens is going to be fine. If the name cards that I am ordering for my wedding don't come and we write them on paper the night before in our handwritten, that would be great. That would actually be more personal. That'd be fine. Worst case scenario, great memory is fine too. Just allowing yourself to be like, I'm cool with whatever happens. Because as you know from your own life, and I know from my own life and I know every person listening can know this, you can handle hard things. You already have. You can figure it out always. You always do. Good things are waiting for you. You can trust yourself that you'll be able to handle whatever comes and you can trust the universe that it's got your back because it does. Speaker 1 (54:06):

Mic drop. That's perfect. Now, Katie, that's incredible. I think that's just a beautiful way to wrap. Enough said. Let's just standing out. Thank you for sharing that. Speaker 2 (54:20):

Thank you for having me. This has been so fun. I love talking to you and I just love thinking that we can get this information to people who need it too. Speaker 1 (54:29):

Yeah, I mean, that's why we're doing this and I'm so grateful for your time and for you being here and being so open with your own struggles and your own journey. And I know I say this at the end of all our episodes together, but truly, I am so grateful for you and everything that you have taught me over the last many months. So thank you. I would not be where I am without your help, and I am so excited to make sure I am tapping into my highest frequency in a couple weeks in Sedona at your next happy camp. So thrilled for that. Excited. Speaker 2 (55:03):

Excited. Speaker 1 (55:03):

Can't wait. Excited. Excited. Speaker 2 (55:04):

Yeah. And if anyone wants to come to the next one, it'll be January 9th through 12th in Mexico at the resort we were at last year, which was amazing. I know Speaker 1 (55:13):

Guys, house of IA is beautiful. It's beautiful. Thanks, Katie. Speaker 3 (55:19):

You're so welcome. Speaker 1 (55:21):

And to those tuning in, if you enjoyed today's episode, please share it with friends and don't forget to subscribe. You can also visit healing heroes podcast.com to get resources, meet the heroes, and share your ideas for future episodes. Thanks for listening everyone, and until next time, remember, be curious, be courageous, and be kind to yourselves. You've got this.