The Miracle Zone

018 Spiritual Leadership in Chaotic Times

• Catarina Andrade • Season 1 • Episode 18

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Welcome ✨

Hello and welcome to another episode of The Miracle Zone Podcast, where business leadership and frequency align. Today I  tune into solstice energies for a powerful conversation about spiritual leadership in a chaotic world, and what this looks like as empathic heart warriors tuned into the sacred who refuse to spiritual bypass. 

Episode Summary 🌞

There is so much going on in the world. Call it prophetic, scary, or evolutionary, the energy is intensifying and it can be confusing to find our role as leaders in this rising tide of change. What does it look like to be a spiritually tuned-in multidimensional leader, yet still be able to keep our heart open without looking away, bypassing or pretending human suffering does not exist? 

I explore how I bridge spiritual leadership and real-world changemaking in the 3D, and how I engage with collective liberation both spiritually and “on the ground.” I share my journey as a child from war-torn Mozambique to the U.S. and how this contrast shaped my understanding of inequality, suffering and leadership - balancing both spiritual leadership and engagement in human rights activism. I share resources and frameworks that have shaped my approach, plus a special channeled solstice message from the Great Mother to support you navigate this in your life and business with an open heart. 

Key Takeaways 💡

  • Spiritual leadership means staying open-hearted and leading with love, and we can choose to embody this regardless of external circumstances
  • Feeling deeply is essential for compassionate leadership that cares, and as leaders creating space to feel and process emotions is vital
  • Our role as leaders stewarding change evolves over time and is unique to us
  • Joy and pain can coexist, we’re here to experience both, and we are very capable of doing so (we came here to guide others through this)
  • The divide between spirituality and on-the-ground activism is false, and this becomes clear as we root more and more deeply into our heart

Resources & Links 📚

Thank you for joining me for this Solstice edition. I hope this helps you reflect on your own leadership, your role in these times, and your heart. We are here to feel, to lead, and to love, no matter what.  

Thank you for tuning in, and I will see you in the next episode.














[00:00:00] Catarina Andrade: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Miracle Zone Podcast where business leadership and frequency align. And today we're going to use these beautiful solstice energies to have a powerful conversation. So it's a really powerful day for manifestation and all the magic and invitation to you, is to

[00:00:25] Catarina Andrade: Join me so that we can. not just focus on [00:00:30] our personal magic that we want to weave in our own lives and in our own businesses, and in our own bank accounts, But also focus on what vision we are weaving for the collective. So let's use this big solstice energy to have a bigger conversation, to have some bigger explorations around what we are co-creating for the collective, for the [00:01:00] world so i invite you to grab a tea and jump in. And were going to

[00:01:06] Catarina Andrade: Talk about something that's been coming up so much in my circles over the past week because there has been a lot going on in the world. Some might call this prophetic times, some might call this transitional time. Some might call this scary times. Some might call this fill in the blank times, but there is a lot going on in the world [00:01:30] and it's intense, regardless of what we call it.

[00:01:33] Catarina Andrade: Even if we call it evolutionary times, right? It's times of big change. It's times of a lot of questioning around what's going to happen, who's going to do what? Different parts of the world have been on fire, right? And. If you follow astrology and a lot of what the astrologers have shared, it's very much in line with what has been happening in the [00:02:00] cosmos as well.

[00:02:01] Catarina Andrade: So it's like a little fire, not a little fire. It's like a huge fire that we have been navigating through and it's brought up some really powerful themes related to power related to. Our role as leaders in this particular space and time that we are living through in this moment and this conversation that's been coming up with [00:02:30] friends, with clients all over the place.

[00:02:33] Catarina Andrade: Also internally within myself, is this conversation of what is my role here As somebody who is. Very tuned in spiritually and connected to the multidimensional reality, and also somebody who notices suffering, who sees suffering, and who [00:03:00] doesn't necessarily feel comfortable.

[00:03:02] Catarina Andrade: Or like it's necessarily my path to look away from that suffering and pretend it doesn't exist because there is so much spiritual bypassing that can happen in the spirituality space in the new age space. And those of us who don't quite feel comfortable with that, find ourselves a little bit. Lost in the middle.

[00:03:29] Catarina Andrade: And [00:03:30] so I really want to have that conversation because I've been having some amazing conversations again in my world over the past week on this topic. And it's not the first time that I have these conversations. When I started this business 10 years ago, it was actually front and center what we focused on, because a lot of.

[00:03:49] Catarina Andrade: The coaching and mentorship that I did was specifically for leadership for change makers, and so many of my clients were in the social justice space. Some of them were in the nonprofit [00:04:00] space, which is where my former career was, and some of them were more getting into the personal development space and the business development and the wellness space as well.

[00:04:11] Catarina Andrade: But there was a broad range of them, and now a lot of the people that I work with are. Operating somewhere in the middle where all of these things are true. And what we found in speaking with each other and connecting with each other is that it's a space that doesn't get a lot [00:04:30] of voice in the mainstream of even the alternative of dialogues that we have.

[00:04:38] Catarina Andrade: And it can feel really uncomfortable when you feel like, okay, I'm not fitting perfectly into this box of. Activist or change maker by the normal definition of it, but also not fitting into this box of, just a spiritual being living a spiritual existence in a human [00:05:00] body but disconnected from what's actually happening in the 3D.

[00:05:04] Catarina Andrade: And so there's this. Really important space to explore how we can bridge those two within ourselves and how we reconcile that also within our businesses. So in the Miracle Business Framework, which you can actually download one of the elements that I discuss in there. So I discussed seven different elements of the Miracle Business framework.

[00:05:28] Catarina Andrade: One of the elements is [00:05:30] culture and ethos and Values in your business. And so it's really relevant, right? Because these are the things that as leaders who speak to communities and influence opinion and are putting out content in these times are really big things to explore. And it's things that. Aren't really discussed very much when you're doing the, build a business or, make seven figures or eight figures or whatever.[00:06:00]

[00:06:00] Catarina Andrade: These deeper conversations of how do I reconcile these values that I have and these understandings of what my role is with this vehicle of change that I have right now, which is a business. If I am leading a business, which most of you if you're watching are doing that, and how do I reconcile those two so that there is coherence there?

[00:06:25] Catarina Andrade: And so that what I am sharing and the frequency that I'm putting out is [00:06:30] resonance with myself and with my people, and I'm having the right conversations with the right people and not getting pulled into conversations that maybe aren't mine to have, but also not looking away from conversations that maybe are mine to have.

[00:06:47] Catarina Andrade: And so that's what I want to explore a little bit today is how I bridge these two worlds myself and how I see this work for my clients. I'm gonna share also some [00:07:00]practical recommendations for how to do this as well as just some bigger picture perspectives around this as well.

[00:07:08] Catarina Andrade: So I want to share that upfront so that you can really situate yourself and be like, is this the conversation that I want to be part of and continue listening to? Or maybe you're very much decided that you're on one end of the spectrum or the under other end of the spectrum and this schism that exists between these change making activists and, [00:07:30] these spiritual activists, if you will, they're still activists but are doing it from a very different perspective that doesn't necessarily see the need to engage with that. If you're curious about this conversation in the middle ground and how we can be with both, because for those of us who do feel that it is something that really affects us and that we really spend a lot of time thinking about, then I'm excited to dive into this with you.

[00:07:59] Catarina Andrade: And [00:08:00] so before I jump into that, I wanted to share a little bit about me and my background in case you are new to this space, or maybe you're not new, but I don't talk about it all the time, and I do share a lot about it in the first episode of The Miracles Zone Podcast. So you can go back and check that out.

[00:08:18] Catarina Andrade: But just in a nutshell, so when it comes to. Topics such as war and atrocities and things like that. I [00:08:30] feel very comfortable exploring these topics and here's why. So I myself am a child of war. So I am from originally Mozambique, which is at the time when I was born, it was a war torn country. And so there were times when there was so much bombing.

[00:08:53] Catarina Andrade: And violence and warfare happening outside of the city where I was living or my family was living, [00:09:00] that we didn't leave in the Capitol in Matu, and so we could hear bombs in the distance and there was rationing happening, and so my parents and everybody else had to wait in line to get their food rations

[00:09:12] Catarina Andrade: so kind of the origin of the world that I grew up into, and then eventually my parents moved to the United States, and I experienced this big contrast of coming from this war torn [00:09:30] society and country and background into the US, which was a hundred light years of a difference. I don't even know what a hundred light years are, but to me that seems like a very stark difference.

[00:09:48] Catarina Andrade: And so I remember. Walking into, the grocery store and there being like 20 different types of milk, can you imagine going from a place where somebody has to wait in line for a ration of milk to [00:10:00] another place where there's 20 types of milk super conveniently available, and there's a bunch of shops with them around?

[00:10:07] Catarina Andrade: And so as I was growing up, I would be between this world and Mozambique. We would go back every once in a while. And so I experienced the stark contrast. So I didn't have the luxury of looking away and not seeing, I didn't grow up in a super privileged bubble. There was still privilege, obviously because I am a white person and I [00:10:30] was in Africa, I the time and I continue to be a white person and still be very privileged.

[00:10:35] Catarina Andrade: So I'm not saying that there was no privilege, but I'm saying I didn't have. The privilege of not even knowing what war is, what poverty is, what suffering is. And in fact, I got slammed with both the contrast of the two, and that really affected me. So from the beginning, [00:11:00] I've been an activist. Even my parents were very much activist as well and revolutionaries, and so it was in my blood anyways, but from my own life in this particular life, I was born into that. And my teenage years, I was very much an activist. I was very. Involved in a lot of protests, not just in my teen years, but since then involved in protests, involved in different causes.

[00:11:26] Catarina Andrade: I spent my summer working on human rights things, volunteering for human rights [00:11:30] organizations even leading activist movements, all of that. So I feel very comfortable. In that space, having these conversations, which might not be true for everyone, but this is why it's important to me and it's why it's important to me also when I work with people, that it's something that there is resonance there as well, that it's something that they care about too.

[00:11:53] Catarina Andrade: I am very comfortable in that space and I worked in the nonprofit world afterwards. I also worked with [00:12:00] foundations, helping to direct huge sums of funds for development projects and women and children projects. And all of that goodness. So that was my first career before I experienced burnout and found myself in a place where that did not work out for me.

[00:12:22] Catarina Andrade: And I went back to, okay, what does leadership look like and how can I support other leaders to continue [00:12:30] to be change makers in the world without themselves burning out? And then that eventually led to me starting my coaching and mentorship business. Supporting other women leaders and women identifying leaders in doing the work of change making in the world.

[00:12:47] Catarina Andrade: And some of them are very much boots on the ground kind of chain makers, and some of them are very much, eyes in the skies, change makers and there's nothing is [00:13:00] better or worse than the other. There's a time and a place and a role for everyone, but there's still this concern with the state of affairs and the role that we came here to play in these times, and this feeling of responsibility as leaders in these times.

[00:13:19] Catarina Andrade: So beginning with a broader perspective, one thing I know for sure is that you did not come here to [00:13:30] escape feeling or to escape what it feels like to be human right. Because otherwise, if you don't really need to feel or if you don't need to have the human experience, then why are you even incarnated?

[00:13:47] Catarina Andrade: You can just be there at one with source, right? So part of being here in this human experience is the feeling. It is the humaning. [00:14:00] And so looking away from that, because of how it makes us. Feel doesn't quite make sense because we came here to feel, we came here to do the heart work. The work of opening the heart and keeping the heart open.

[00:14:19] Catarina Andrade: No matter what. No matter what. Not conditionally, but something beyond [00:14:30] transactionally of, oh, I can keep my heart open.

[00:14:33] Catarina Andrade: Keeping it open no matter what. This is what it looks like to be a living embodiment of love with a capital L, not a conditional or transactional love. I can be loving if I am in a perfectly peaceful environment, undisturbed but to be a living embodiment of love with a capital L, which is no matter what is happening around [00:15:00] me, no matter.

[00:15:01] Catarina Andrade: What atrocities I am noticing in the world, no matter what, I can keep my heart open. And not only that, as somebody who identifies as a leader, who's here in these very specific times, who chose to be here in these specific times, who trained to be here in these very specific times, I can lead with an open heart no matter what.

[00:15:29] Catarina Andrade: Is [00:15:30] part of my work and my mission, and my movement and my message here in this world.

[00:15:35] Catarina Andrade: And in doing this, we're remembering love is where we came from, and love is where we're going to return to. And so in doing so, in the in-between periods of where we came from and where we're going to, in embodying that, then we are embodying our truth and we are showing up. In coherence with our truth and who we are at the soul [00:16:00] level, at the core level is showing up as this love.

[00:16:03] Catarina Andrade: This love doesn't need to look away. This love can feel. It can still exist. It can still lead in this way. And I have met some people in this world who have gone through so much suffering. So much suffering that you, we cannot fathom. And nevertheless, their hearts are open and they're the most loving people.

[00:16:26] Catarina Andrade: And those are the most spiritual [00:16:30] people, not spiritual isn't dressing all spiritual and having a huge following on Instagram, right? But in terms of actually being a living embodiment of love on this earth. And so how can we aspire to be that in how we lead? And how does that then translate into our business and what we're doing and what we're talking about and how we're showing up, right?

[00:16:55] Catarina Andrade: And that's where we can get a bit more into the details of the how. But I think it's really [00:17:00] important to just have this broader perspective of, oh wait, yeah, I'm here to feel right because. The more range that I can feel, the more range that I can feel right. To be able to be with that deepest rage allows me to be with the deepest rapture.

[00:17:21] Catarina Andrade: To be able to be with that deepest grief allows me to be with that deepest gratitude. And so [00:17:30] this is part of just recognizing that it's. The work that we're here to do, right? And as empaths, figuring out how we can function in this world with this system, which can be highly sensitive to energies and to emotions, and to picking things up from other people, picking things up from the collective.

[00:17:55] Catarina Andrade: How do we function? In our particular vehicle, what is important for [00:18:00] us to remain functional, still feeling, but not being flooded with something that will incapacitate us. And it's of no service to our communities and to ourselves, right? And so I wanted to begin with that again. Because I feel like that broader perspective is really important for setting the context of, okay, I understand.

[00:18:29] Catarina Andrade: [00:18:30] I need to feel, because a lot of the challenges that come up when we're thinking about spiritual bypassing is this avoidance of feeling like it's going to be a negative, low vibe or bring my frequency down to feel the things. It's no, the frequency isn't like up, down like this. We have our core frequency that we cultivate, and yes, over time we're working on that and we're working on that, but we're anchoring it in, we're embodying it, we're cultivating it.

[00:18:59] Catarina Andrade: And [00:19:00] that's the core frequency. The feelings can go up and down, right? They're like the top of the ocean waves. We can go up. We can go down, we can sad, be happy, i'm like giggling part of my day and I'm crying part of my day, that happens often. Sometimes within an hour of each other. The waves come and go.

[00:19:19] Catarina Andrade: It's also part of our feminine nature, right? And we're not suppressing. We're letting ourselves ride these waves and they look different for each person. For some people it's like tsunami waves. For [00:19:30] others in smaller ways, but there's still the surface level waves, the feeling that are happening. But then there's a depth of the ocean, which is more still, and which is our frequency, right?

[00:19:41] Catarina Andrade: And so I talk a lot about operating at the miracle frequency. It's that it's oh, I can anchor into this no matter what is happening on the surface level of the feelings. I'm anchored into the miracle frequency, and I do the work to do that more and [00:20:00] more, and it comes more and more naturally, and then I don't even think about it.

[00:20:02] Catarina Andrade: That's just the baseline of how I operate, right? But the feelings can still happen, and they're not gonna turn everything upside down, or not everything will go awry because I'm letting myself feel these feelings. Okay, I want to get into, okay, but how, what does that actually look like?

[00:20:25] Catarina Andrade: So the first area that I want to talk about is [00:20:30] recognizing that you have a choice. Most of the time there's people who don't have a choice. They are in it. It's affecting them immediately, directly. It's affecting their families. It's affecting their countries. That's true for some of my clients. So if that's you, then the choice is less difficult to have because it's in your face.

[00:20:55] Catarina Andrade: But most of the people have a choice that are [00:21:00] listening to this podcast right now. Most people have a choice of the degree to which they want to engage. And that's why some people choose to just look away and exercise their privilege of looking away, whereas other people choose to look at. And either way it's a choice.

[00:21:21] Catarina Andrade: And I say that because. Many people in the world don't realize that it's a choice, right? They're constantly checking the news. They're [00:21:30] constantly engaged and looking without realizing that they can choose to switch it off or to choose how much they can engage with it, right? Or what sources they're engaging with in the first place.

[00:21:44] Catarina Andrade: And so this first area is really about bringing consciousness to this choice that you have of how you want to engage. And bringing some discernment to that, bringing some boundaries to that, bringing some intentionality to that, and not just letting yourself [00:22:00] getting pulled by the current, whichever one it is.

[00:22:03] Catarina Andrade: Even for the ones who are really engaged on the ground. And I've had clients who are very much at the forefront of big movements and influencing big thaw leadership around certain movements. There still can be a point where they feel like they've been pulled too far and they've lost themselves and their leadership in that, and they need to come back and reengage with, okay, what's my role and how am I engaging?

[00:22:28] Catarina Andrade: What are the conversations that I'm [00:22:30] having? What is the intention for what I am communicating? So it's easy to get pulled. And so that first piece is really this discernment, intentionality. Consciousness, bringing conscious awareness to it. So what can this look like? It can look like, as I mentioned before, deciding what you're consuming and how much of it you're consuming and what is right for you.

[00:22:55] Catarina Andrade: It can be different for every person. Some people can just. Check what's [00:23:00] going on in the world and watch the news and be less affected by it. Some are more empathic and it will drive them into the ground and they won't be able to function right, and so a lot of it is about knowing your nervous system and your nervous system capacity, and being really in tune with your body and what your body can handle.

[00:23:21] Catarina Andrade: Again, this is a privilege because people who are in it. Don't have that choice. They are in it. They can't just pull [00:23:30] themselves out of this. And I have been in situations where I have been very close to the forefront, very much in it. In terms of humanitarian work, it's really difficult to pull yourself out.

[00:23:42] Catarina Andrade: There's still. If you're lucky, some sort of boundaries or safe haven or something that you can turn to if you are in a leadership and change-making role, but it's a lot more narrow what the options are. But as somebody who isn't directly [00:24:00] affected there, is that okay. Knowing myself in my nervous system and what's happening right now and how I can engage, and also knowing intentionally, again, knowing that it might feel uncomfortable to engage, but it's important to me to feel something, , I don't want to pretend that suffering doesn't exist and I don't want to be overwhelmed by it.

[00:24:26] Catarina Andrade: But I have a a desire to be [00:24:30] part of that conversation because in seeing the darkness, I am better able to see where my life is best placed and who I am bringing along in my community of care that I'm stewarding through these transitional times. So it's getting really clear on what that looks like for you.

[00:24:48] Catarina Andrade: What is the right amount of engagement or disengagement? What are the sources and how do I want to, can something just be coming up into my awareness or is it only if I'm choosing to actually go [00:25:00] and look things up? Who are people that I'm in conversation with where I can have these conversations in a way that feels.

[00:25:08] Catarina Andrade: That I'm still in my power instead of completely losing myself. What support do I need from mentors or from others who are in a similar place as me to have these conversations so that I'm not just receiving inputs without. Feeling like I have nowhere to process that [00:25:30] or have those conversations. And that's a lot of the conversations that I have with my clients as well, is whenever something big happens in the world that directly affects 'em, or they, we get in this conversation of, okay, how are we interacting with this?

[00:25:42] Catarina Andrade: What is the messaging that we're putting out? Things like that. It's a place for them to come and digest that and for us together to help find a way forward. Again, awareness of the body and the nervous system and your capacity, and this is obviously the result of the deep inner [00:26:00] work which you've done.

[00:26:01] Catarina Andrade: If you're here, you've done that, you've been doing that, and you continue to do that as well as the consciousness of the choice, and it can change at different points in your life. And figuring out what is it right now, just coming into the present moment, what feels true right now in terms of how I want to engage with this?

[00:26:21] Catarina Andrade: And then noticing when, what you thought was right, wasn't, for me last week on Friday, I got a [00:26:30] little too over engaged and became a little non-functional for a while and had to really bring myself back because I could feel in my body, the anxiety building up that was keeping me from being able to actually engage constructively with it.

[00:26:48] Catarina Andrade: And if I'm in that state, then it's hard for me to support my clients who are coming to me to have these conversations, to make big decisions for their businesses and [00:27:00]for their communities and for events that they want to do. And the leadership role that they want to take. So that's the first step, is really just bringing conscious awareness to that because we know that we are here to create a beautiful, amazing lives for ourselves and to experience that in this human form, to experience those types of feelings.

[00:27:20] Catarina Andrade: And we also know, if you're following me and you're in this space, and we are having this conversation right here in this podcast, is that you're also here to be a [00:27:30]leader in stewarding the dawn of a new way, right? There's crumbling happening and we know it's creating way for the new, and we have a role to play in that,

[00:27:43] Catarina Andrade: and how can we be with both? How can I do that without over sacrificing myself? But how can I do that without forgetting this role that I came here to play and that I'm feeling really called to step into leadership in.

[00:27:55] Catarina Andrade: Secondly, it's really important to create [00:28:00] pockets for feeling Because a lot of times as leaders, we are the rocks, right? We are the ones keeping it together. We are the common chaos, and we're good at that. It's one of the reasons that we are leaders, right? And that means that in those instances, we're having to set aside what might come up as feelings.

[00:28:26] Catarina Andrade: Be it extreme sadness or grief, be it extreme [00:28:30] rage, we need to play with those a little bit so that we can show up in a way that we want to, again, intentionally to lead our communities or steward our movements or make decisions for our business, right? But we still need to come back to them and process them.

[00:28:49] Catarina Andrade: And still have space to feel them so that they're not just sitting there unprocessed, unacknowledged, because that can really have a big impact on you both [00:29:00]mentally, spiritually, energetically. Physically, in all of the ways. And I have experienced this myself when I was working in the nonprofit world.

[00:29:07] Catarina Andrade: It was before I was doing any of this personal development work, any of this emotional intelligence work, any of this work of being with my feelings. And so I was. Surrounded by things that were very challenging to process, especially when I was working around pediatric HIV. It was babies dying [00:29:30] everywhere.

[00:29:30] Catarina Andrade: Statistics of babies dying, visiting facilities, being with mothers, with babies dying. It was a lot emotionally, but I didn't have any space to do the feeling work of that. It took a huge toll on me because I didn't have the awareness that I needed to create spaces to actually be with that, to get support, to be able to talk through that, to be able to process that so that I wasn't just an unfeeling person doing this work, which was [00:30:00] important and beautiful, but also there's all of this stuff that.

[00:30:07] Catarina Andrade: Was accumulating and accumulating, right? And so it's something that, again, it can look really different for each person, but for me, again, I'm so good at keeping it together and staying calm and all of those things. I will intentionally create pockets of time where I'm like, okay, let's feel, and I'm laughing because I need do [00:30:30] this way more often than I already do, but, times to actually let the tears flow. Let the rage roar, right? Creating pockets of these in, it might be daily for you, it might be once a week, it might be once a month, depending on what's going on. It can look really different for you, but how are you creating these? Pockets for feeling, for letting all of that move that you haven't let move in the moment [00:31:00] because you are leading.

[00:31:02] Catarina Andrade: So that's the second piece that I think is super important because it needs to move. Because if we are engaging in it and we're looking and we're seeing right families being torn apart, for example, in really heartbreaking ways, and we have our hearts open. And we're open to feel, then we need to be open to feel.

[00:31:24] Catarina Andrade: Otherwise, it's not gonna work. It's gonna be overwhelming, it's [00:31:30] going to be counterproductive. And that's a reason why it's so much easier to just choose to look away because we don't know how to be with it. And again, that might be private spaces, it might be group spaces. There is. Groups that come together to process grief.

[00:31:47] Catarina Andrade: That's something that in many cultures, there were grieving circles, where people would actually come to grieve together and there would be grief rituals for the whole community. And those don't exist [00:32:00] now. But it was exactly this. Creating spaces for these things to move, these feelings to move and to be felt so that we can still continue to function while still acknowledging that they exist.

[00:32:12] Catarina Andrade: The third thing that I want to mention is knowing your role and really reflecting on what your role is. Again, this will depend on the issue or the topic or the cause at hand. Or just in general for how you lead in the [00:32:30] world in general. Because our role, some of us have a very similar role throughout our lives.

[00:32:36] Catarina Andrade: For some of us, it also changes and evolves over time. So it's something like, for example, evolves over time. So one resource that I really love to use here is Deepa, i's social change ecosystem map, and it's this amazing map and I'll link to her Instagram account below. It's an amazing map that maps out different [00:33:00] roles that different people can play in bringing about social change, right?

[00:33:06] Catarina Andrade: Ideally, yes, we have as many people out there protesting, for example, but maybe that's not your role in this particular moment in time. For example, sometimes that's more appropriate for able-bodied individuals, right? Or for example. When I had my son, that's when I stopped doing that because I was a new mother with a small [00:33:30] child and I remember I was so frustrated that I couldn't actually go out and do the protesting and the activism that I used to do before because 

[00:33:40] Catarina Andrade: I was with a little baby, and so in that moment, my role was different, so over the course of your life, your role may change, and it's always good to go back to and reflect on what is my role in this moment, right? Also, as you rise in different levels of leadership, I started getting more into an organizing [00:34:00] role, into more of an advisory role.

[00:34:02] Catarina Andrade: And so now a lot of what I do is advise those who are leading the movements. On the ground, on the strategy, on the messaging, on how, what path they want to take, whether it's a social change movement or whether it's something in their business that's totally different, but obviously related. It's more of an advisory capacity.

[00:34:25] Catarina Andrade: And it's my role to have spaciousness and capacity in [00:34:30] my body, in my nervous system to be able to receive those who are coming to me for guidance on these issues who are in the thick of it and don't have that capacity necessarily because they need a safe. Calm space to be able to pull back and actually look at, okay, this is what we're doing.

[00:34:49] Catarina Andrade: Okay, what is the next step? And have those conversations,

[00:34:53] Catarina Andrade: And so our roles evolve over time. So on the map, if you look at it, and you definitely should, you'll see there's [00:35:00] different roles, right? There's disruptors, there's caregivers, there's healers, there's many other, so oftentimes we see change making.

[00:35:11] Catarina Andrade: Or social activism as looking as one thing, looking like one thing, and we're either that or not that as opposed to asking, oh, what is my role in this change making process that feels aligned and what does that mean for my business? Does it mean anything for my business? Is there overlap [00:35:30] there? And so for me, it's important for me to talk about these things every once in a while and share where I stand and what my thoughts are and what my values are.

[00:35:39] Catarina Andrade: Because it's important for me to be clear about who I resonate with and who I love to support and the work that they're doing in the world. And if it's just about. You know this, the spirituality where you're blissed out all the time, there's nothing wrong with that. You do you. But I'm here to work with the leaders [00:36:00] who are stewarding in a new world, right?

[00:36:02] Catarina Andrade: And so we can't look away from what's happening in the 3D completely because that informs the work that we're doing in the other dimensions, we need to be with the both. We need to see what the evolution is. We need to look at the interconnection points. We need to look at, okay, how are we shaping this,

[00:36:18] Catarina Andrade: we need to have those conversations. So that's the third area.

[00:36:22] Catarina Andrade: The fourth area I really want to touch on today is around joy. So it's [00:36:30] really challenging to figure out what to do with our joy when we are surrounded by suffering and sorrow and heartbreak everywhere we turn. And in the news and also. In our life sometimes, right? And it can be easy to discount it or feel guilty for feeling that.

[00:36:50] Catarina Andrade: And I think it's really important to remember that and. Pain and joy and suffering can coexist, and that [00:37:00] is perfectly normal and is perfectly healthy. And that in this context of a world where we are trying to be pushed more and more into a space of fear instead of a space of love and joy and elation, that these acts of joy are revolutionary in and of themselves.

[00:37:20] Catarina Andrade: Just like beauty. We can still allow beauty in. Even just getting ready for this, I'm like, oh, I'm gonna be talking about, these topics and, I still [00:37:30] want to put on the little necklace. I still want some roses here, because beauty is the sustenance that allows us to take a little bit of that edge off. From all of the harshness of the world. And so to not make it wrong or to not feel guilty about it, but to let it coexist with everything else again, because we are experiencing the full range of human emotion and human feeling. And so as part of this I [00:38:00] wanted to share one of the books that I really love, which is See No Stranger.

[00:38:05] Catarina Andrade: A memoir and manifesto, A revolutionary love by Valerie Carr. And she has another amazing book too, that's more recent. But she has a section in here where she talks about joy specifically, that I want to read to you and just encourage you to check out this book and just follow her and her work because she is, when the poop hits the fan.

[00:38:29] Catarina Andrade: On the global [00:38:30] stage, I always turn to her to help me navigate this spiritual warrior or sage warrior, as she talks about in her latest book. So she says, joy is possible, even amid great labors. The labor of dying, the labor of birthing, and the labors between, we cannot force it. But when we create moments to breathe between labor pains and surrender our senses to the present moment, notice the colors and light and [00:39:00] feeling of being alive here together.

[00:39:03] Catarina Andrade: Joy comes more easily. There's a felt sense in our bodies, in the face of horrors visited upon our world daily in the struggle to protect our loved ones. Choosing to let joy in is a revolutionary act. Joy returns us to everything good and beautiful and worth fighting for. It gives us energy for the long labor.

[00:39:26] Catarina Andrade: Letting in joy, therefore, is the 10th practice of [00:39:30] revolutionary love, the core practice that sustains all others. Joy is the gift of love. It makes the labor an end in itself. I believe laboring and joy is the of. Maybe look up at the night sky, maybe let Joy in for we will be someone's ancestors one day, and if we do this right, they will inherit not our fear, but bravery, born of joy.

[00:39:58] Catarina Andrade: So [00:40:00] that's on page 3 0 7 if you want to look that up. It really is a beautiful book, booking resource that I recommend.

[00:40:07] Catarina Andrade: And the fifth area that I want to mention, is

[00:40:11] Catarina Andrade: Noticing that the schism between spirituality and changemaking is a false schism in the first place, right? Because when we are doing the sacred work, it gives us strength to show up for the [00:40:30] changemaking work. And when we are doing the change making work, it's giving us the juice. That then allows us to deepen in our spiritual work, because it is challenging to show up with an open heart and keep our heart open in this world, right?

[00:40:46] Catarina Andrade: And that's gonna allow us to deepen spiritually, right? Because we're not just ascending up into the ethers of bliss, but we're also ascending and more so ascending into the heart, into the [00:41:00] depths of the heart, depths of the heart. And so I want to mention that because I think it's a false dichotomy. I think it's something that is unfortunate that happens, that we feel like we need to pick one camp or pick the other camp, or if we're somewhere in the middle we don't really fit in or feel, we feel weird talking about spirituality in the context of change making, you're talking about change making and activism in the context of [00:41:30] spirituality is.

[00:41:31] Catarina Andrade: They compliment each other, right? We came here both for our internal elevation and for the elevation of the collective. And sometimes internally that looks like bliss, and sometimes it looks like a crumbling, right? And that's true for the external world too. Sometimes externally it looks like wow, miracles, and sometimes it looks like the crumbling and there are mirrors of each other too.

[00:41:55] Catarina Andrade: We get to experience them internally as a microcosm of the [00:42:00]external. And so I wanted to share this because one of my most vivid. Past life memories that I have is, I remember being one of the ones who would do some sort of blessing or consecration for soldiers before they would go out to war. And so I can see them lining up there and then coming up to me and me doing some kind of holy [00:42:30] ritual to bless them before off again. I think we forget that we are spiritual warriors. We are sacred warriors, and so in many ways we do this ourselves too. We can bless ourselves. We do our rituals, we do our ceremonies, and any of these times it becomes even more important to lean in on those blessings that we tap into [00:43:00] on the daily.

[00:43:02] Catarina Andrade: To bring holiness to this whole experience, to bring protection to this whole experience and to fuel us as we then go off to be a stand for whatever it is that we are a stand for in this world. Whatever we are putting our arms up for whatever we are fighting for from a place of love in this world. It doesn't make sense to think about one as being [00:43:30] completely separate from the other, right?

[00:43:33] Catarina Andrade: Because we lean on these beautiful rituals and ceremonies and practices that we have to give us the strength, the fortitude, the clarity, the nurturance to actually show up and do the work.

[00:43:49] Catarina Andrade: So I've just given you a lot of food for thought. Thank you for joining me on this Solstice Reflection. Really using. [00:44:00] The powerful, amplified energies to look and to have these bigger conversations, to have these bigger reflections of what our role is. And I wanted to complete today just by tuning in and feeling into if there's any message or transmission from the Great Mother related to this topic or just to these times in general.

[00:44:23] Catarina Andrade: Just to complete this in a.

[00:44:27] Catarina Andrade: I'm more grounded in the heart [00:44:30] space. I feel like I've been sharing lots of ideas and what works and practicalities, but then there's just the quality of working with the mother, the great mother and the respect for all of life and all of beings where of course there is no separation there.

[00:44:52] Catarina Andrade: Of course, we are connected. Of course we look, of course we nurture, [00:45:00] of course we protect because that's the nature of us as an extension of the mother herself.

[00:45:09] Catarina Andrade: As I tune in, what I'm hearing is our hearts are strong. Our hearts are strong. Just a reminder that we can be with it. We can be with the suffering, we can be with the [00:45:30] pain, we can be with the fear, even if we know. That much of it is an illusion. We can be with it. We can still look at it because we're here to take people with us on this bridge from point A to point B.

[00:45:52] Catarina Andrade: Moving from this 3D space. Into a more five D reality, which is connected to the heart space and [00:46:00] beyond, into other dimensional realities. But we can't get to point B without looking at and residing in point A right. The whole point is we can be with it all, and we do that work of. Becoming more and more practiced in being with it all.

[00:46:22] Catarina Andrade: We have our whole lifetime to practice this, right? And as we rise into our [00:46:30] leadership, as we rise into our eldership, we get to be able to do this better and better and better. But we can only do that when we continue to practice in this lifetime as we have. In previous lifetimes, it doesn't stop.

[00:46:47] Catarina Andrade: We don't get to just turn and say, whoop, that's not relevant anymore because I'm now operating at this level. Again, knowing your role in this space [00:47:00] and also knowing that your role here is to help to shepherd people from here to there, right? That is the shift that we're here to make. And so we cannot take people from point A to point B by denying that point A is real and saying that it's just an illusion and that we don't need to look at it and it's not relevant to us

[00:47:25] Catarina Andrade: Some people can do that, but not you in the role of [00:47:30]leadership that you came here to take in these times in the legacy that you came here to leave. And so it's figuring out what is your dance? What is your dance in this space, and knowing that you do have the capacity in your heart to hold it all. And to know that you also are not holding it all by yourself.

[00:47:52] Catarina Andrade: There are others. There are councils and councils of others. There have been councils and councils of others. And [00:48:00] as things continue to progress and they will in the coming years, more and more, we will be reconvening in these councils together, having these conversations together. But unless we're able to do the both, we're not gonna be able to find each other.

[00:48:20] Catarina Andrade: Because in doing the both, we will find who we resonate with, who we respect their opinions with, who we want to sit around the table and [00:48:30] around the fire with, to have these conversations of how are we stewarding in this new age, this new era. Earth given what's happening in the 3D realms, given what's happening with AI, given what's happening in other things that we can't even imagine yet, but that are just around the corner.

[00:48:52] Catarina Andrade: We're going to need to be able to come around the table and have these conversations, but we can't have these conversations without [00:49:00] the context of what actually is happening on the ground, even if it is in many ways a grand illusion. So that's the message that I was getting.

[00:49:24] Catarina Andrade: It's just the, to continue to work with the heart space. [00:49:30] That is the number one thing. And it's the thing that's gonna contribute both to the change making work and the capacity to do that work as well as to the spiritual work of evolution and ascension that you're doing. It's all rooted in the heart, and when we do that work, we can be with the both and not feel like we need to choose between one or the other.

[00:49:53] Catarina Andrade: Or that one or the other does not belong to us.

[00:49:57] Catarina Andrade: Thank you for joining me [00:50:00] today for this special Solstice edition on the Miracle Zone Podcast, and I look forward to seeing you next time. 

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Catarina Andrade

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