From Massage to Mindfulness: A Therapist's Journey

What if your mental health journey could be transformed by integrating mind, body, and spirit? Join us this week on the Everyday Shaman as we sit down with Karre Kern, a remarkable therapist and mindfulness coach whose diverse career paths have beautifully converged into a holistic approach to healing. From her roots in massage therapy and theater to advanced clinical social work, Karre uniquely combines these experiences to offer deep, multifaceted care. We'll also learn about her lesser-known aspiration to officiate weddings in Maine, adding another heartfelt layer to her story.

Karre's personal narrative takes a touching turn as she shares the journey of her daughter, a nurturing and compassionate soul who balances motherhood with her role as a nanny. This chapter of Karre's life highlights the profound impact of early influences, including a pivotal encounter with a hospice social worker that set her on the path to clinical social work. Now residing in Sweden, Karre continues her mission, providing remote support and demonstrating the power of telehealth in bridging distances to offer care and support.

Throughout our conversation, we'll uncover the significant rise in client needs during the COVID-19 pandemic and the increasingly vital role of mindfulness in today's divided society. Karre sheds light on the challenges and benefits of diagnosing mental health conditions in a digital landscape, advocating for a balanced approach combining medication and natural remedies. Discover how practices like breathwork, mindfulness, and tapping are seamlessly integrated into her social work, offering flexible and accessible healing modalities for clients worldwide. Don’t miss this episode packed with insights and inspiration for a more mindful and balanced life.

Transcript

Healing Journey Through Various Practices

Jeffrey Brunk 1:21

Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of the Everyday Shaman. I'm your host, jeffrey Brunk, and today I have with me guest Kari Kern. She is a therapist and mindfulness coach. She has a bachelor's in theater, bachelor's in social work, a master's in clinical social work. She's a licensed clinical social worker, a licensed massage therapist and, if that's not enough, she's also a notary public.

Jeffrey Brunk 1:45

Kari has more than 20 years of experience helping facilitate positive change with a diverse clientele. Through her massage therapy practice, she discovered the healing that is possible for both herself and her clients and was inspired by the many years of personal narratives shared with her during the bodywork sessions. Through her massage therapy practice, she discovered the healing that is possible for both herself and her clients. Inspired by the many years of personal narratives, she continued her journey into mental health.

Jeffrey Brunk 2:14

Healing of the whole person mind, body, spirit is central to her clinical practice. Through her varied life and work experiences and travels in diverse communities around the world, she developed a creative, industrious and culturally sensitive approach to her practice. She also has lived experience with many of her areas that she focuses on in her practice and therefore has a deep understanding of how difficult they can be. She brings into her practice an incredibly strong desire to provide the best possible therapeutic approach to those currently working on processing through. She's passionate about being a helper in the healing world. Those closest to her know her as an Arctic mom, wife and nana, a traveler and an arts-inspired social equity loving creator. So, kari, welcome, it's great to have you here.

Karre Kern 3:02

Thank you, I'm happy to be here.

Jeffrey Brunk 3:04

I know it's several hours ahead, so thanks for being patient with me as I was a little bit late coming in. In reading your bio, you and I have known each other for quite a number of years. In that first sentence alone I knew about the massage therapist. I knew a little bit about the theater, being from a lineage of other people in entertainment, so not really knowing where to start with a question, kind of tell me a little bit about how, what, what brought you to the place where you were. You go from theater to social work, to massage therapy, and then you know to end it up with being a notary public.

Karre Kern 3:42

Why not One more thing? So started in massage and I hadn't really even experienced that much massage in my life at that point. But I was drawn to the healing power and the connection that can happen with touch, Gain perspective on how touch really can affect your senses and your mood.

Jeffrey Brunk 4:09

Yeah, when you were doing massage or when you are doing. Do you still practice that?

Karre Kern 4:13

COVID kind of closed the doors on my practice of it, so I just family friends at this point.

Jeffrey Brunk 4:19

So when you were doing massage, it's sort of like, I guess, doing Reiki, in a way, you have a positive intention for bringing betterment to someone. It's sort of like, I guess, doing Reiki, in a way you have a positive intention for bringing betterment to someone. It's not just they, of course, will, I guess would tell you my back hurts or whatever it may be. But the way you approach it, did you go about approaching it with an intention of I'm really wanting to help and you saw a difference in that, aside from just someone coming in and going to one of the local spas or local massage therapists and getting beaten down to death with, like a deep tissue massage. I know what that feels like.

Karre Kern 4:54

Yeah, in school the certification is about 10 months long and we did practice on each other as part of certification and you know there were different people, personalities, lifestyles as part of the school and that helped me further. I had a greater I guess you could say drive based on how I interacted with other classmates and when we're sharing our hopes and dreams about what we wanted for this to become, to, just as you said, make a difference in someone's day and hopefully do some healing at different levels.

Jeffrey Brunk 5:31

Yeah, even in looking at whether it's theater, social work, I guess, in a way, a notary too, everything that you've done provides a form of healing, like with theater and entertainment, whether it's bringing someone to laugh, which is one of the greatest forms. I mean, I try that all the time. Or, you know, I look at you, I see humor and everything. So that helps bring people to another place when they might be, say, down in a low trough of negativity or despair, whatever it may be. And, of course, social work is definitely helping people. So you have a healing quality or a healing drive within you, even with a notary.

Karre Kern 6:07

People need that, people need that and I was hoping that I'd get some unions. That's what I was really hoping for. That didn't happen yet.

Jeffrey Brunk 6:16

To get some what out of.

Karre Kern 6:17

To get some wedded unions, because in the state of Maine you can provide, you can be the person to marry people if you're a notary, really, yeah. So I was kind of hoping that would happen. I would love to be that person.

Jeffrey Brunk 6:33

I've had that asked of me a couple of times because I'm ordained non-denominationally and circumstances prevented it. But I wasn't aware of that in Maine.

Karre Kern 6:41

Yeah, that was my original reason for becoming the notary.

Jeffrey Brunk 6:48

But it was massage that started before.

Karre Kern 6:49

Massage was the one that kind of kicked things off. And then I practiced massage therapy out of my home and of course I did subcontracting in a salon here and there and worked for a chiropractor subcontracting at one point, but I always saw people. I had a space in my home, a healing space, for a long time before I moved from that town and then I just set up a table in my living room, had people only people that I knew come over at that point.

Jeffrey Brunk 7:17

Yeah, since we've lived here five and a half years, I've maybe had three, four people because we're out in the middle of the woods, so I do most of my say, 99% of things I do distance. I've maybe had three, four people because we're out in the middle of the woods, so I do most of my say, 99% of things I do distance. I'm wondering if you would be able to actually, because the intention is being at the root of everything, with with massage as well. It should be, but that's a whole other thing. It started with massage. So the bachelors and the masters, they came after that because it seems like massage wasn't that long ago. Maybe that's just me and I'm getting older, so things go faster. So you know I've got one foot in the grave the bachelor's and the master's if they came after massage, because to get those degrees, especially a master's, that takes several years, doesn't it?

Karre Kern 8:05

Yeah, it was a long journey to get from there to here. I started massage was 2002. I've been practicing massage therapy since 2003. Well, 2002 I started, and then I had to pause because I was pregnant with my son, and that's hard to do when you have a ginormous belly in front of you. So, and then I was also going to school for theater that I graduated in 2007.

Jeffrey Brunk 8:33

Do you feel like that was naturally within you, based upon it? Was your father right? He was in show business. I'm a comedian.

Karre Kern 9:11

Yes, he was.

Jeffrey Brunk 9:12

You think you have that gene, you know, that kind of propels you towards that.

Karre Kern 9:16

Yeah, absolutely yeah, one of my, you know okay, we'll call it proof. My sister and I were estranged for many years because we have different mothers. Dad divorced her mom and lost touch with my sister, and she was about eight when that happened. And after my dad passed away, I lost touch with her. He passed away when I was 17. So that was just within a few years of them getting a divorce. So my poor sister, she had the whim of her parents divorcing and then she had the whim of father passing away and the whim of me kind of disappearing from her life for a while while.

Jeffrey Brunk 10:00

Because I was trying to find my own way. After all that, yeah, did you end up? End up reconciling in a way, or no?

Karre Kern 10:04

we did. Yeah, I found her. I decided, okay, when she turns 18 I'm gonna find her if if it hasn't happened by then. So I did find her and it turned out that she had gotten her degree in theater. Wow, she was in school for theater and was graduating, and that was my pursuit as well.

Jeffrey Brunk 10:28

And now your son, who I've watched grow up via Facebook, is sort of a prodigy in his own right with artistic talents such as music and things like that. So I guess it runs in the family.

Karre Kern 10:42

Yeah, I would say so.

Jeffrey Brunk 10:44

And he seems to be for his age, even at a young age, very open and aware and sort of an old soul.

Karre Kern 10:51

Yeah, yep, and I think he was even one of his first well-child checks. I can remember the nurse practitioner saying he's an old soul. Saw it in his eyes.

Jeffrey Brunk 11:00

How old is he now? He's in college now too, right he's in college.

Karre Kern 11:04

He's 21. He's pursuing a degree in directing. So yeah, he has the bug he wants to write a novel. He was gifted and talented, you know, in middle school for his writing and he's an artsy guy.

Jeffrey Brunk 11:18

So does he also have the empathy gene or empathy within him. Like you, want to help others. Oh yeah, definitely Is that part of his reasoning for going into the arts.

Karre Kern 11:29

I think so. I think he wants to create some stuff that kind of pushes the envelope and gets people thinking, not just to make money on a big blockbuster, which I'm sure he's not opposed to. To create some stuff that kind of pushes the envelope and gets people thinking, yeah, just to make money on a big blockbuster, which I'm sure he's not opposed to.

Jeffrey Brunk 11:41

But he's for a long time. I guess he kind of knew what he wanted to do in one way or another.

Karre Kern 11:47

So when he was in high school he really liked mock trial. You go through in a real courtroom setting. You get to play out being in a trial situation. You get to play the person on trial, you get to play the lawyers and all that stuff and he really liked it and so I thought okay, he's got his life planned out, he's going to become a lawyer, I don't have to worry about him. And then I realized he liked mock trial because it was pretend it was creative. It wasn't.

Jeffrey Brunk 12:18

It's really rare for someone so young to kind of know what they want to do from such an early age. They may not know exactly, and that's OK, yeah, because it's OK to take different paths and look for that. I think it's it's very, I think it's very healthy actually to do that. I think it's very healthy actually to do that. But it's really rare for someone to know at an early age what they want to do and to pursue it. And even with your son he's pursued it, but in different avenues, to get to where he is now. So he's learned different things along the way. It's like having different careers. It's like starting thinking we want to be a lawyer, but liking the acting part.

Karre Kern 12:53

Yeah, but he's definitely in his element where he is.

Jeffrey Brunk 12:56

I was 44 at the time and still I'd had so many jobs and so many careers and not knowing. I always knew I wanted to help people somehow. I liked working with people and everything I did, but you never know where it's going to lead you. But it's Quincy, right he's. He's also very musically talented.

Karre Kern 13:15

He is. Yeah, he's kind of. He played the viola. He chose that instrument in elementary school and you can do that and he ended up in a rock orchestra.

Jeffrey Brunk 13:26

That was pretty fun that he had to play tommy, right, yeah it was no small feat to get into the rock orchestra.

Daughter's Heart and Career Journey

Karre Kern 13:35

When he got into it that was saying something about how he was doing with his instrument, for sure, and also just with himself. He can't conduct a bunch of kids who are kind of with this particular conductor and what he wanted his vision for his orchestra, you know, was pretty tight. There wasn't a lot of shenanigans that went on. If any, it was really professional. And yeah, there was a process and I can remember this part was funny. I can remember giving him the sheet music being there when he was practicing for the audition and he says to me it's kind of boring, mom, the sheet music was kind of boring to him and I'm like okay, and then I look at the sheet music that he was given and I'm like that's not boring, that's Prince.

Karre Kern 14:28

And then I played him the song.

Jeffrey Brunk 14:33

So he can play a lot of different instruments right.

Karre Kern 14:35

But it's just. Yeah. He taught himself keyboard. He messes around with the guitar. His grandfather also taught himself guitar.

Jeffrey Brunk 14:46

So on the Prince scale. Prince taught himself 27 different instruments In his first album. I believe he played every instrument on the album as well as the vocals. So how many instruments away is your son? A couple, oh man, that's just wonderful. I played clarinet when I was in elementary school and got accepted to the North Carolina School of the Arts when I was in fifth grade. Didn't go because my parents gave me a little too much latitude. I would rather be jumping bikes over ditches at that age, knowing that it had to be difficult for them at times because they knew I was going to fall on my face. But if you don't fall and you don't get back up which is the most important part you don't learn. So did you approach it the same way with him or with your daughter?

Karre Kern 15:38

more so I. My daughter is an anomaly. I never had to. She was. I say that in a proud way. She never had to worry about her as far as school goes. She was doing her schoolwork. She's always had a heart of gold Like I can remember her making bracelets to sell at a little table at a festival and giving the money to the animal shelter and not expecting anything in return for that at all.

Jeffrey Brunk 16:09

So she's got a warm heart.

Karre Kern 16:11

She definitely has a warm heart.

Jeffrey Brunk 16:13

What is she doing now?

Karre Kern 16:15

She's a mom, she's doing the hard job.

Jeffrey Brunk 16:19

Yeah, no kidding.

Karre Kern 16:23

She's doing mom and she's also doing nanny now.

Jeffrey Brunk 16:29

She too is doing things. That, whether it's a mom, which is sort of ingrained that you're going to be caring for, yeah. But even being a nanny is caring for other people and their children yeah. That's another trait that looks like it's been sort of branched out.

Karre Kern 16:48

Yeah, I might not. I'm not sure beyond that where her journey continues, and I don't know if she is either.

Jeffrey Brunk 16:57

Well, she's only how old now.

Karre Kern 16:58

Well, she's going to be 31. I'm doing math in my head as we speak to see if I got it wrong.

Jeffrey Brunk 17:06

Yeah, but you're not trying to push her in any one direction.

Karre Kern 17:10

No, no, no, no, no, no. Plus, if I tried, that's not going to work.

Jeffrey Brunk 17:17

No, yeah, and sorry ladies out there listening for women. No, you can't push them anywhere. They can't go where they want to go.

Karre Kern 17:24

I hope I raise a strong daughter. That is for sure she will make up her mind. Thank you very much.

Jeffrey Brunk 17:32

Yeah, when did you come around, especially with the master's in social work, starting with the bachelor's?

Karre Kern 17:39

During massage. So I got the social work and then the massage first, and then the bachelor's in theater and then the social work. While I was on the job I had a hospice client for massage in our neighborhood. So I would go to their home and at first I would bring my table and the client. She could get on the table. She was in her late nineties. She could still get on the table. Her daughter was very. You know, we're talking about the woods of Maine, which you might stereotype as a bunch of farmers and maybe they don't do anything else.

Jeffrey Brunk 18:19

And Stephen King.

Karre Kern 18:21

And Stephen King. And that's what they know. That's all they know, and some of that is true. There are farmers in Maine, yes, and this family, the kind woman who hired me to come and see her mother for massage she did Tai Chi.

Jeffrey Brunk 18:41

Yeah, tai, chi Tai.

Karre Kern 18:43

Chi.

Jeffrey Brunk 18:43

Energetic movements.

Karre Kern 18:44

Yeah, she was doing Tai Chi herself, and one of the times that I came to the home there was a social worker there. The social worker was there because this client's son-in-law was passing away. He had cancer, and so it was a hospice social worker who was at the home for him. They were talking about how everybody was, how they're handling all this, and the interaction that I felt between them just was really heartwarming and I left that day going. Whatever job that was, I want to do that.

Jeffrey Brunk 19:20

Just another step in your.

Karre Kern 19:21

That's where. And then I looked it up and it was oh, you just need a master's degree in social work. No problem, I quit showing off.

Jeffrey Brunk 19:33

No problem, quit showing off. What's the difference between social work and clinical social work?

Karre Kern 19:41

Social work bachelor level you can do all kinds of good things. Social work master's clinical level you can hang your own shingle and do your own therapy.

Jeffrey Brunk 19:54

Is that what?

Karre Kern 19:55

you do now. That's what I do now. So you were able.

Jeffrey Brunk 19:57

You did that in Maine.

Karre Kern 19:59

I did that all in Maine, yep.

Jeffrey Brunk 20:00

And now you're in Sweden.

Karre Kern 20:02

Now I'm in Sweden, whoops.

Jeffrey Brunk 20:05

Yeah, yeah, I want to ask you about that too, how that all came about. Um, when you went to Sweden, did you find the transition from the US to another country and doing the same work, sort of the same, you know, as far as practice goes, or was there a difference culturally that you had to adjust to with doing that type of work?

Karre Kern 20:27

No adjustment necessary, because I only see people in the US on the computer.

Jeffrey Brunk 20:34

Oh, really, only telehealth, yeah, so you're sort of like on a true work. I won't say vacation, but yeah, it sort of is.

Karre Kern 20:43

It is because I'm not even in Sweden all year long, cause we're also, as you probably can tell, all over the world over the place. Yeah, I've been a lot of times over the place, yeah.

Jeffrey Brunk 20:52

And I'm a little bit jealous of that Sorry.

Karre Kern 20:56

Sorry, not sorry, yeah, I'm still I still.

Jeffrey Brunk 21:03

I'm not sure how that I managed to have that be my life, but you can still. Since you do everything online with people, you can go anywhere in the world and still be able to do your work.

Karre Kern 21:11

Still be able to do my work. Yeah, the only thing I got to worry about do I have internet and I got to keep track of time differences.

Jeffrey Brunk 21:19

Yeah, so the transition from each of these professions or each of these things that you've done, it seems sort of natural. But you'd mentioned that you have experiences that kind of in your own life that have led you, I imagine, to wanting to really help people. So can you share some of those or some of the reasons throughout your life that caused that?

Karre Kern 21:38

Yeah, I really feel like. Honestly, I think the whole helper thing started because when I was very young early like it could be I might've been between five and seven years old my father, I think he, was an ed tech. I think that was his role at a school for kids who had mental limitations or disabilities or abilities. There were kids that had difficulty functioning in the society as we know it, either physically or mentally or both. Mostly it was a combination that I can recall as a young, young kid. So we're talking, I can remember him taking me there and this probably never happened in public school today, or school that was only for this purpose today. I don't know, but we're talking like it is. It's the 70s is when that was happening and things were a little different then, with laws and regulations and people following policies.

Jeffrey Brunk 22:42

Yeah, and at that time too, people with any kind of emotional and this has. It was the same way, I think, up until the 70s or maybe 80s, where people with emotional or psychological issues, they weren't quite understood.

Karre Kern 22:56

Oh yeah, I mean, I tell my clients often. You know I get a lot of times I'll get somebody who will want to be diagnosed with. They want to know if they have autism or not. You know adult diagnosis of autism. They think they might have autism and I'm like I can absolutely diagnose you. I'm just saying our diagnostic manual is in its fifth edition, so that's not very old. There's a lot we don't know.

Jeffrey Brunk 23:25

Yeah, it's, that's true.

Karre Kern 23:27

Very early in the game when it comes to mental health.

Jeffrey Brunk 23:31

There are so many psychiatrists, psychologists out there that they'll just go straight to the book. And when I was diagnosed bipolar he was a physician's assistant grabbed the book and looked at a paragraph, I think, in there. No doctor ever saw me, no tests were ever done, and this was back in early 2000s.

Karre Kern 23:51

And so that began my journey down the road to, I think, 16 different types before I had a break I mean a literal break- yeah, I think that happens a lot because of the stigma attached to mental health that people don't go to see a therapist to check these things out. They're more comfortable with their medical provider, which is unfortunately. The stigma is there, so I think that creates a barrier often.

Jeffrey Brunk 24:16

And it creates a lot more problems, because a lot of times these people, if it's not a physical issue but more of an emotional or psychological issue, it's not necessarily a problem. It could be people that are just more open and aware of things and just to say, oh well, you hear voices in your head, that's not necessarily a bad thing, because I do Right. If they're telling you to do bad things to yourself or to other people, that's one thing, but if they're affirming that's another. But just to say, oh well, I'm having voices, and especially in younger people, and that scares younger people and that scares younger people. It scares anyone. Yeah, yeah Because, oh, am I crazy because I'm talking to myself or I'm hearing these voices? But if they're affirming you're on the right path, you're doing the right things, that's not a bad thing. But then to be given a bunch of medication for it a lot of times quells an awareness or an understanding about yourself that may be surfacing.

Karre Kern 25:15

Yeah, absolutely. I agree. I always tell people that I see in therapy I'm not pro and I'm not against medication, I'm pro what is going to work best. Being from a massage therapy side of the fence I always lean towards. If something more holistic and natural will help, can we try that first, if it's possible to try that first without somebody being in an unsafe situation. If safety is a thing, then that's different.

Jeffrey Brunk 25:42

And you're a rarity, because most of the medical community and psychological community do not look at it that way. They kind of shun the holistic side of things or the alternative side of things. And I think there's a couple of reasons for that. One, there's such a belief within themselves that that is the way to go or that's the way they're taught. And two, there's a monetary aspect to it.

Karre Kern 26:04

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Jeffrey Brunk 26:06

I remember seeing drug reps in the waiting room while I was waiting for it. It's good to hear that that's the way you look at it, because massage therapy is a form of energy work.

Karre Kern 26:15

Oh yeah, I totally believe that. Yeah, I use aspects of energy work in my therapy sessions when I can nudge Sometimes the EFT and tapping where you go around the acupuncture points. Yes, I do that often with clients. I make scripts. The theater degree comes in handy. I make scripts like a theater degree comes in handy. We write a script out for their own difficulty in session and then we tweak it as we go. Does that feel like, does that sound like? Does that word that I used resonate with you? Does it make sense? Do you feel that in your body making sense that that is a helpful thing?

Jeffrey Brunk 26:50

So that's talk therapy. It's another form of energy work. It's a little bit difficult to grasp for a lot of people. You're going to think this is going to sound crazy. Now, when you do the tapping because doing it online you're unable to do that Do you have other ways?

Karre Kern 27:08

Oh, we do it, they follow me and they do it to themselves.

Jeffrey Brunk 27:09

Okay, that makes sense If they know the intention of it. And words are energy, and if it's done with intention and you're showing them with intention and they're doing it with the same intention, then yeah, it's therapeutic.

Karre Kern 27:19

There's a great documentary on emotional freedom technique. I've saved it on my YouTube channel on a public playlist If people want to control group of veterans using EFT in an intensive format. They were all together in some facility somewhere going through therapy utilizing clinical skills and using emotional freedom technique and tapping, and I think they were in this facility all together doing probably group therapy, I think, as well as individual. We're talking some intense PTSD. There was a 60% rescission rate of PTSD symptoms over time. That's a pretty big number.

Jeffrey Brunk 28:03

We carry so much and people with PTSD can overcome a lot of their issues. I'm not saying they don't need therapy in some way, because everyone needs someone to talk to and to let things out to, because taking those things and just internalizing them causes a lot more problems, exacerbates any issues and then can manifest into any number of physical conditions. Had you found, had you worked with people that hadn't held onto things that long, you know again, the stigma, I think, gets in the way sometimes.

Jeffrey Brunk 28:33

And you have to have find you have to have some level of. It goes a little further than empathy, but it's an understanding of having been not necessarily in the same circumstances and situations that the person had been in, but something that you could relate to them, relate to them with on some level that gets them to open up.

Karre Kern 28:51

I think that it definitely helps. Sure, gets them to open up. I think that it definitely helps. Sure, I think that you know, absolutely, and in situations like you know, some self-help groups for substance use. It helps because everybody understands they've been there and you feel comfortable sharing in a group like that. People understand without and they're not judging you, and I think that's like a big part of helping people heal trauma is building that trust.

Jeffrey Brunk 29:19

Yeah, my mom had a. She had a plethora one of my favorite words of physical issues and had to go to the doctor for any number of them, from COPD to degenerative joint disease and there were so many. But she would always say, no matter how bad her issues were, she would see people and she would tell us my sister and I but there's always someone else out there that has something as bad or worse, and sometimes I guess being in a group therapy situation is really another good reason for that is to see that I'm not in a good place but I'm not where this person is and that could also help the person that's realizing that, say, maybe I can help this person. It's sort of that ripple effect again.

Karre Kern 30:15

Yeah, group therapy. They often end up helping each other and you just sit back as a therapist and watch. You know they're all doing the work for each other.

Jeffrey Brunk 30:26

Moving to Sweden? Has it caused you to learn new I'm sure new customs? It has, but things that are just maybe a little difficult.

Karre Kern 30:36

Midsummer is the only time that I've seen people do. There's this thing. You can find it on YouTube. It's Midsummer for Dummies, you can YouTube that and they have this frog hopping.

Jeffrey Brunk 30:51

It's like you're frog hopping around the pole, midsummer Pole, sort of like we would do, I guess, 4th of July celebrations Now is that a holiday over there? Oh yeah, it's a national holiday. It's a pagan practice.

Karre Kern 31:02

It goes back to pagan practices.

Jeffrey Brunk 31:04

Yeah.

Karre Kern 31:04

Yeah.

Jeffrey Brunk 31:05

Just like Christmas.

Karre Kern 31:06

Yeah, exactly.

Jeffrey Brunk 31:07

I just pissed a lot of people off who are going to listen to this.

Karre Kern 31:10

I mean there's no way to please everyone all the time. No, I mean there's no way to please everyone all the time, no, they can be upset about it.

Jeffrey Brunk 31:16

It's an example of when you are listening. Stressingness to people is. I do it all the time. It frustrates me when people don't listen to themselves and I know every country had lockdowns and quarantines. It seems like you're out in a place where you live that's sort of a little more remote. You're not in an urban setting. Of course, nature is healing, but were you there during the quarantine period?

Navigating Mindfulness in a Divisive Society

Karre Kern 31:40

yes, so for the world to suddenly stop allowing people to cross borders was like, well, you might, as that's it. Yeah, absolutely, you know, we community of family and friends is very close here. So Sweden did a different, they had a different approach to COVID. They did social distancing. They didn't really close down things like we did in the US and there was some of that, of course, because the border was closed, but they didn't implement masks either. Really, uh, understanding how some places, like you were saying earlier, there were places that had it worse, like the U S okay, at least we're not them, we don't have it as bad, like how that was kind of viewed, the things that we have gone through and just this pandemic time Wow.

Jeffrey Brunk 32:34

Yeah, we could do a whole other talk on COVID, cause I have my own for the U S least not conspiratorial, but my own ideas of COVID and quarantines and things like that. But let me circle back around a minute to the social work. As far as the healing, the traumas that you've worked with people, that are the type of traumas that you've helped people with, can you give me kind of a little bit of a range of what or what sticks out in your mind?

Karre Kern 33:04

The majority of the people that find me and that I end up working with have experienced significant trauma of some one kind or another. The buzz words tend to be big T trauma and small T trauma. I have a little bit of a different take. I feel like trauma is trauma. If your experience with that was traumatic, then that's your experience.

Jeffrey Brunk 33:28

Yeah, something small to us could be something really life-altering or very difficult for someone else. So it's.

Karre Kern 33:34

Yeah, so I don't tend to go. Big T, little T, it's trauma.

Jeffrey Brunk 33:39

Did you see that your practice you were doing online at the time during COVID? Did you see it increase during this time?

Karre Kern 33:46

Definitely an increase in clients who it wasn't necessarily because of COVID. It was. Covid reignited something there and then COVID made it worse.

Jeffrey Brunk 33:59

But it was them being taken out of everyday life, static of the job and the traffic and everything, and then being quarantined without all of that stuff coming in.

Karre Kern 34:10

They started becoming aware of other things and it scared a lot of them and then you know, from that point to the things that changed in how humans are relating to each other at least in the US in my experience brought out some pretty nasty things in some people and kind of allowed them to sort of you know, you can say whatever you want to say on a Facebook post, for example and have no sense of accountability for it.

Jeffrey Brunk 34:40

Yeah, and that's only gotten worse. There's so much divisiveness now. Yeah, I know that there's divisiveness worldwide, but here it's reaching a tipping point very, very quickly Once things kind of came back to normal, if you want to call it that. One thing I hate about social media even though it's sort of a necessary evil for us is that, like you said, people can just spout off whatever they want to without repercussions, and these people think that they're always right. Their opinion's the only one that matters. I never get into back and forth online because it's pointless. Anymore you can't speak to someone's comments without repercussions of having them come back at you in a hateful way.

Karre Kern 35:28

Yeah.

Jeffrey Brunk 35:28

It's sad to see, but it's really difficult to watch it continue to spiral that way.

Karre Kern 35:33

Yeah, and I try to go. Okay, they know not what they do, that kind of thing.

Jeffrey Brunk 35:37

Yeah.

Karre Kern 35:38

Sometimes I think they do know, but I think I hold out hope that they often don't.

Jeffrey Brunk 35:44

I think most all do, but it's so much easier to take the low road, the easy way, you know.

Karre Kern 35:51

Yeah To react.

Jeffrey Brunk 35:53

Living a life of self-awareness is not necessarily easy, and it's not that, it's not that it's not Well, no, it's not easy to do. There have been times where I've gone oh man, I wish I was the same guy that I used to be, but life was difficult. It was more difficult then. It's a lot easier for people to just go no, I don't want to deal with that and push it away and just go along with the masses. Oh yeah, Even with the divisiveness, you've got the ones that are on the fringe edges of both sides of any issue, and neither one is better than the other as far as the way they treat each other. They can go just as fundamentally off the rails as the ones on the other side can.

Jeffrey Brunk 36:35

Sure, and neither you know, on that level they're both equals and it's sad to see.

Karre Kern 36:41

And I think that the pandemic kind of brought that out even more intensely in people.

Jeffrey Brunk 36:47

You mentioned mindfulness in your bio. Do you practice mindfulness or do you help others practice mindfulness, or have you studied it?

Karre Kern 36:57

Yeah, both of those things you know. In fact, when, for example, you're doing a clinical note from your session you had with a client, when you're a therapist, mindfulness meditation is a drop down choice. It'll say what did you do today with the client? And there's like this long list of things you can choose from, and mindfulness slash meditation tends to be on that list because it works.

Jeffrey Brunk 37:23

But mindfulness is sort of being in the moment.

Karre Kern 37:27

Yeah, be here now. How do I explain be here now? Well, I talk about the whole thing, about if you got one foot in the past and one foot in the future. What's happening to the present?

Jeffrey Brunk 37:38

Yeah, because all we have is this moment future what's? Happening to the present. Yeah, because all we have is this moment. Yeah, it's our choices that we make in that moment that decide, or help decide, what happens in the next 10 minutes or the next month, day, month, year.

Karre Kern 37:50

Absolutely. We have some things against us. We're creatures that like to avoid things that are hard. Why would we want to run towards things that are hard? It makes logical sense Anything that's work or seems hard. We like to run away from that and go the easier, softer way.

Jeffrey Brunk 38:09

Because everything's handed to us.

Karre Kern 38:11

We're in a very instant, instant, instant world. Yeah.

Jeffrey Brunk 38:14

Instant gratification and having to work for anything, especially for yourself.

Karre Kern 38:18

Self-work is work.

Jeffrey Brunk 38:21

Yeah, but if you don't do it for yourself, you can't be of really any help to anyone else.

Karre Kern 38:27

That's the thing, yeah. So you know, people come to me with oh I want to get along with my sister, or I want to get along with my spouse better, or I'm so worried about this or that, or I'm so scared of this or that, and I kind of go okay, you don't have a magic crystal ball, so you can't see in the future how this is going to play out exactly. You can know a lot, that knowing thing, but you can't predict in situations where we're talking about being worried about getting a new job, for example, and the whole job application process and interviewing.

Jeffrey Brunk 39:08

Baby steps, one step at a time.

Karre Kern 39:11

Yeah, that's the thing. It's like there are baby steps to it, but that's the slow down part is sometimes the hardest part of it, which is counterintuitive, really, because we're trying to avoid hard work all the time, but yet we can't slow down.

Jeffrey Brunk 39:27

Yeah, I've had a few people come to me that have told me that since they were young they've had this image of having a husband and then having children and having money and a nice house. It's such a broad vision that they have for themselves that it freezes them from taking the first step. The first step may seem insignificant, but doing one thing at a time instead of looking at, I need to have all of this at once.

Karre Kern 39:54

Yeah, yeah, breaking down into smaller pieces.

Jeffrey Brunk 39:57

And that's the way mindfulness can help.

Healing Modalities in Social Work

Jeffrey Brunk 39:59

Absolutely into smaller pieces. And that's the way mindfulness can help Absolutely. But having expectations in everyday life of how things are going to turn out, you're going to be disappointed more times than not. It's just taking the steps and if you fall or you fail or you take it on a different path, if you stop trying to put again, trying to push it and make things happen, you'll go the right way. It may take you different routes, but one will lead to another. But it's sort of like with you, with moving from massage to theater, to social work and notary I can bring up notary as a joke. I'm sorry, but they expected by age 30 to have this or this or this and it not be there. And then age 40 and age 50, and it's like, oh, I'm just not. It creates an enormous amount of stress and a sense of a really an unrealistic sense of failure. They're not in the moment of realizing what have they done where? What has brought them to where they are? Where can they go with what they already have?

Karre Kern 40:56

You know, on this whole rush society thing, oftentimes we want the end of the healing journey before we even took a step. We want to be right on and we don't want to be worried about stuff anymore or be sad about stuff or be angry about stuff or be scared about stuff. We want that over right now, before we even did any of the work. And sometimes people try for a long time and they still are stuck. And I always say how much of your life have you been feeling like this? And it's usually a pretty long time and how long have you been working towards feeling differently? And that's usually a really significantly shorter period of time and I'm like it took you this long to get to here. You can't just snap your fingers. There's a path to take a path. The path has changed. Now You're on a healing journey and then we start building more bricks in the path from there.

Jeffrey Brunk 41:54

It's one thing to hold on to those things and another to just accept them for what they are, especially things in the past, and then let them go and move forward.

Karre Kern 42:04

One of the things that I talk about in session with people is towards and away moves in terms of action. You know, you have this emotion or thought in your mind that's like, oh, I'm really angry at my spouse, but in a session, for example, somebody is angry with their spouse about something we talk about. Okay, the angry at my spouse, but in a session, for example, somebody is angry with their spouse about something we talk about. Okay, the internal feeling of anger. That's what you're feeling inside and where do you feel it in your body. Let's talk about that Now.

Karre Kern 42:31

An away move is something that is moving you away from what it is you value, which is your husband, that you're angry, what is something that you might do on the outside? We just talked about what's on the inside. What's something you might do on the outside? That's an away move. I might yell back at him or I might threaten to leave him, or I might go get drunk. Those are all away moves, moving you in the direction, away from what it is you truly value. And then, okay, now, what is a towards move that will move you in the direction, away from what it is you truly value? And then, okay, now, what is a towards move that will move you in that direction of what it is you do value in your life.

Jeffrey Brunk 43:06

That takes being in the moment.

Karre Kern 43:08

Yes.

Jeffrey Brunk 43:09

To do that.

Karre Kern 43:10

Yeah, you got to slow down. Which breath is awesome for?

Jeffrey Brunk 43:14

You incorporate breath work into any of the practices that you do within social work?

Karre Kern 43:19

Yep absolutely.

Jeffrey Brunk 43:20

Yeah, really helps you clear your mind, helps you quiet your mind a little bit, and it takes such a small amount of time and no effort, because we all breathe, it's just.

Karre Kern 43:30

Gotta breathe.

Jeffrey Brunk 43:31

Yeah.

Karre Kern 43:31

So often, we'll just, okay, notice your breath and you don't have to get into do your breath this way, right away you can just notice it.

Jeffrey Brunk 43:42

That's great. So you're incorporating a lot of healing modalities within your social work. Do you realize that?

Karre Kern 43:49

I don't really think about it. What else should I call myself? Notary public was the last one. Now ultimately I mean I just have been able to experience for myself going through the lowest of your lows and such painful times in my life and having come through that to experience the complete polar opposite, and I want other people to have that experience too.

Jeffrey Brunk 44:14

And yours is coming out in such subtle ways. They're so connected. I don't know if you see it. I see it as you've spoken and they come out in such subtle ways. You're so connected. I don't know if you see it. I see it as you've spoken and they come out in such subtle ways. You're helping people. You've helped them energetically with their massage. You help them with breathwork as a modality within itself. Mindfulness is a modality within itself. The tapping is a modality within itself.

Jeffrey Brunk 44:35

The talk therapy. As a social worker, you incorporate so many that a lot of people just do with singular therapies for people. So I don't know if you realized how these are all tied together, even with the theater. So it's wonderful. Yeah, so before we go here, I just wanted to ask you if you had anything else you wanted to contribute or to say and to let people know how they can get in touch with you if they'd like to get in touch with you, Because I think being online, doing your practice online with your social work, your clinical social work, is a huge, huge advantage for people to be able to reach you.

Karre Kern 45:13

Honestly, when COVID happened and I had to go online with it, I didn't like it at first because I was a massage therapist. I was physically touching people for hours at a time, so it was. I was not used to this thing and I was hoping it would go away. Now I'm like I came to find the power in the healing that can happen with one of the devices that I am not best friends with computers we're not best friends but it's. It's definitely a gateway to helping people. So that's the, that's what matters the most. There's people that would never get to therapy or get to a session with me unless it was online.

Jeffrey Brunk 45:55

And you're not limited to one area. You're, you're available worldwide.

Karre Kern 45:59

Truth, we get it done and I am blessed to be able to work with people that I get to work with. They picked me out of all the people.

Jeffrey Brunk 46:11

And working for people in different areas of the world. Do you accept insurance of any type? Because I'm sure someone's going to ask that. They've asked me that.

Karre Kern 46:23

I do two different things. I do a platform that accepts insurance that I subcontract with, and then I do private pay. And when it's private pay I can create for the client a receipt that is worthy of reimbursement, you know, has all the right numbers and data that they can submit to their insurance company, but it's, you know, kind of on them to find out how much they're going to get reimbursed. And I do a different kind of sliding scale. It's called the green bottle method that I did not come up with that and I do list it on my website the creator of that method and it's more like a way of creating agency for people to understand what my private pay rate is and choose for themselves which financial category they fall into and let me know that so that I can adjust their rate according to that.

Jeffrey Brunk 47:20

It's not a stopgap there. I mean it is an option for people.

Karre Kern 47:24

Both ends of the spectrum. I have people say, no, I can pay the full rate, and so I'm going to. And I have people say, I can pay the half of the rate what's that? And then we talk about it and then they're like yeah, I can pay half the rate.

Jeffrey Brunk 47:35

You don't turn people away. No, excellent, that's good to hear, that's good. So are you really doing this for the betterment of others Again?

Karre Kern 47:45

it's not the norm. I'm a little off. Not the norm, I suppose.

Jeffrey Brunk 47:49

Yeah, what is your website and how can people contact you if they like?

Karre Kern 47:55

Okay, website is journey-therapeutic-solutions-therapeutic-solutions-LLC. They can find me on Facebook Journey T Solutions Journey Therapeutic Solutions. They can find me on Instagram. I started doing that. I am just trying to put up videos. Oh, I'm on YouTube too. Really, if you Google my name, kari Kern, k-a-r-r-e-k-e-r-n-l-c-s-w. There I am With an awkward look on my face because that's my YouTube video, my intro YouTube video intro YouTube video Okay, so there's a lot of ways that people can reach you. They can find you on YouTube, instagram, facebook, your website, okay.

Jeffrey Brunk 48:47

Okay, okay, people that are out there and would like to contact Kari. She's a wonderful person and she's I would trust her with. I would definitely trust her with anything I had going on, and there's very few people out there that I do. Nice to know that there is a kindred spirit and I think a lot of people would benefit from contacting her, no matter what issues Like she said, the smaller traumas, the larger traumas, they're all traumas and whatever issues that you believe she could help with, please, please, reach out to her.

Karre Kern 49:17

And if you don't want to schedule a session, you can check out the YouTube channel. I screen videos and just put them up as public so that I take some of that work out.

Jeffrey Brunk 49:26

And that's great to do that without getting to a place within the video that I guess you would say if you'd like to know more 1995.

Karre Kern 49:34

Yeah, no, those are out. Those are not in my playlists.

Jeffrey Brunk 49:41

So please reach out to her and Kari. I guess we'll wrap this up. So I want to thank Kari Kern for being my guest here today. A lot of interesting information. Please reach out to her and I want to thank you again for being here and thank everyone for joining me and until next time, peace.