SPODA: Kate Nienhauser, Poet, Musician, LGBTQIA+ Advocate

In this episode, Kate Nienhauser gets really raw about her journey into sobreity, coming out as gay, and how her spirituality deepens the more she gets to know herself.

Beautiful music by Doug Harvey

Hosted by Ari Hader and Olivia Spirz. Follow us on IG @spodapod !

Transcript

0:11

Hey friends. Hello there. And welcome to the Spiritual Practices of the Disgruntled Artist, where we interview a new artist each episode to learn how they are keeping themselves sane and spiritually healthy during this epically challenging time to be an artist. What's up y'all? What's up? Uh, before we get into our guest, we're gonna talk about our homework from the last episode. Professor Grant Jossy, who made a sweat every sweat d. Day, sweat. Sort of sweat. Yeah. Sort of. I had a difficult time, but here's what I learned. Okay. Okay. Here's what one, if you are a busy mom or a person, just a busy person who can't leave their house for some reason. Mm-hmm. The answer is a dance video. If you wanna sweat Yes. 15 minutes a day. Yes. But you can't leave your house because running also helps. But I hate running, but I, some of my walks with my little one mm-hmm. I would do the first 15 minutes running. Immediate sweat also hate it. Just gen, genuinely. Mm-hmm. Worst thing I but my sweat always hated running since. You know what? I used to make myself run and then after Fiona with the birth from actual hell, I was like, I'm not gonna make my body do this anymore. I hate this. And I also was like, I'm gonna give you a donut a week body. And I do that. Aww, that's another spiritual practice. Why didn't the heck I, where's Myy Cream? What? That's what this is what I also learned. Okay. Rest days are important. And when I went back and listened to Grant's episode, he says he doesn't do it on the weekends. And we didn't do that in our homework. We said we're gonna do two weeks, 14 days every single day. And I think when I add mine up, I probably missed about four days, but then I felt kind of bad about it. But, but the point is, I've learned this, I've heard this before, that you need rest STAs both for your body to recuperate, but also for your mind to not. To like, wanna do that again, you know, right. To want to sweat again. Yeah. So I already, I mean, it also was very close to me, close to what I'm already doing.'cause I do like warm yoga three days a week. You're already very active. I already, I go for like three mile walks, three days a week. So it was like filling in the gaps and I think maybe I rely on those gaps in a little bit. A little bit. And that's okay though. You Right, right. How about you? How, how was it for you? It was pretty good. Um, I maybe wasn't as consistent as you were. But I did mostly dance. Dance. We danced and, and I realized like, if I'm gonna sweat, I have to trick myself. Hmm. Into, because you don't wanna sweat. Uh, well, and not really sweat. Uh, I'm not someone who I, I have gone to the gym and stuff like that. I, like I said, I've always hated running. Mm-hmm. I just, I, I, I just never will like running. I, I, I've accepted that. That's okay. You never know. Someone's gonna come on here and be like. You have only running. It's only running. We're gonna be like, what are your spiritual practices? They're gonna be like running. I'll be like, what else? And they'll be like, listen, it's just running. I've done a 5K once in my life. That's, that's it. Sorry, donut. When I was a kid, when we had to do the mile run. Did you have to do that from school? I would find out what's the, what's the minimum time just to pass and didn't make that, I didn't care how fast I went. But anyways, love to dance. And I think too, what I learned. Is that I, I think maybe'cause'cause I just, I love to dance in general. It, it's the expression too, you know, to me running is just, I'm just, uh, it just hurts and I'm not into it. And I can't think with, with dancing, with dance videos, it's fun'cause it's like, oh, I'm learning new moves or whatever. But there was actually a couple times where I didn't feel like doing a video and I just put on. Music and just like danced around. Oh, I see. I should, I should have done that. I would like that more. Plus the girls would like it. Yeah, and I also, I included, I don't know if this counts, but I, I included it. Okay. I was like. You know what can make me sweat is if I clean really hard. Hard. Yeah, that counts. That absolutely counts. Yes. So I tried to incorporate like things I needed to do. Yeah. But sweat while I was doing it, I was like, imagining you frantically cleaning, you have like a handkerchief in your hair in my mind, and you're just like running around. It was actually kind of hard to sweat for 15 minutes. It took a while to get to that sweat. I'm also not a, I don't naturally sweat. Oh, I do very easily, especially my feet. I have an actual problem, really, my hands. Oh, really? Wow. We're soulmates. We are. I, I think, uh, as far as getting up a sweat, I, to me, I also, I didn't really think about sweating as much as I thought of my, of your, at my heart. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Okay. And, and then at the end I definitely was like, oh, I'm a little sweaty. Mm-hmm. And that to me, was it. And I was like, that feels good. I feel like I exerted myself a little bit more, you know? Not like, just like yoga we talked about like, oh, that's not quite. Well definitely yoga videos are not it for me. I mean, it's just not it for me If I need to relax, but it's not gonna be a workout for me. But at my studio, Satori, I send Monica, it's warm yoga. Yeah. So I sweat a lot there. But Will you do this again? Will you take anything from this? Yes. I think I, I think movement is just, it makes you happy. Mm-hmm. And I love to dance and I think of anything, I just was like, God, this is an easy win for me. Yeah, totally. Yeah. I will take away like the times when the week's really busy or the kids are sick or whatever. There's a lot of auditions. I can't get to yoga. I can do a dance video for 15 minutes a day. Yeah. And my children tolerated it. They didn't love me doing that. Oh, really? Yeah. Fiona was like, kind of into it. Ellie was like, I, I go and sit on a couch. I was like, yeah, girl. She's the donut for, she's, yes. Where's your donut? Where's, yeah. I love that. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Good job. High five. Bye. Welcome to August. Yay. The day Kate Anhauser. She's a poet. She's a musician. She's taken some classes in the community. She's a creator. We met through improv. Yes, we've all been friends for a very long time. We have Welcome. Yes, thanks. Hello. Thanks for coming on, sda. Thank you. Thanks. So what's the, what's, what's in your brain at this time? Um, well, I'm always writing poetry. This is so intense. So sorry. I, sorry. No, I love it. I love it. Um, for the listeners at home, Ari and Olivia are just. Really cutely really close to me and staring at me with very cute heart eyes. Um, I, I'm always writing poetry. I'm sometimes take out my guitar, have a go through phases and sing and write songs. I record a lot of voice notes of songs, actually. Mm-hmm. Actually, you did send me one that I thought. That I really enjoyed. Oh, or maybe you put it on TikTok. Oh, yeah. I have lots of like, why did I think that this was good? But I actually thought about, but Oh, oh, it was, um, it was o it was, I sang it into a voicemail in the middle of the night. Yeah. What was it? Yeah, it was about Can you sing it? Yeah. It was like, it was about being gay and being a cowboy. It was like queers and cowboys, some and upright steers, dykes and lassos, and it's literally. Me singing, but it, I sound asleep. Yeah. Like, and really? Yeah. That was good. It was good. I, I recently was looking at one and it said one from a long time ago and it said, oof, this is good. That was the title That should always remain the title. That was the title. And I'm like, wow. I really liked it. And I listened to it and I was like, this is not good. It's funny. It's like actually comical. Anyway, I do that. Okay, I'm doing a thing. I am trying to do a piece or I'm gonna go, I'm moving to New Jersey in April. We're sad about it. Don't talk about it too much. It's very sad. And um, and I am gonna go to all the places I used to live and film and take some photographs. And, um, write a poem and kind of try to edit it in a cool way. Maybe sing a little acapella. California. Do you wanna, you don't wanna sing queers and cowboys unless you finds a perfect and the bra steers, upright steers, I don't actually know what a steer is. Uh, isn't in a horse, just a cow. Oh shit. Well, none, none of us know. See, see what's this here and why is it upright down? I, is it upright? It's on all, it's in two. It's on its back legs and its one legs are up. Oh my God. Upright. Okay. Yep. Alright. That's what I'm working on here. I have a side question for you. Mm-hmm. Do how when you write something, do you know if it's a poem or a song? Yes. Oh, really? Always. Is it because you have do and do, is it intention based, like you're like, I'm gonna write a poem, or I'm gonna write a song, or no. Well, when I say, well, well, I don't think my poetry lends itself to, to. Music period. Oh, oh. So I don't think, like, when I sit down to write a poem, I sit down to write a poem, and then songs usually pop in my head more than poems do. Hmm. Sometimes poetry will pop in my head and I'll do like a quick, you know, write it on my phone. But, but I usually sit down and very intentionally I'm like, I'm gonna write poetry. Music is more, um, I guess organic. Mm-hmm. But my po, most of my poetry is, is so, um. Casual. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And kind of just sounds like journaling, which some people do write as songs, but I don't, I, I've never tried. I could try, I guess. Mm-hmm. It's hard for me to write a song without making a rhyme. Which I try to work on that sometimes. Do you, when you write a song, when you say it comes naturally, is there like already like a tune in your head or is it mostly the words or just the idea? I would say they both come at the same time, which is frustrating because I'm not an, a good enough guitarist. Mm-hmm. Which is why I, I will, I try to start taking guitar lessons, but I do have it in my head and then I have to change it a little bit when I like, pull out the guitar'cause it doesn't match what's in my head. That's all right. Okay. I have questions. I have questions. I mean, I, I feel like we need to. Okay. Okay. We have the question of the podcast, which we'll get to. Yes. We'll get to that eventually. And I also have a question too, after. Okay. Me too. Okay. Okay, great. So four hours? Yes. Seven minutes. Okay. You were a performer. Mm-hmm. For a very long time. What changed for you spiritually when you gave that up? When I gave up acting. Yeah. Um, I mean, it all happened around the sim the same time I got sober. Mm. So, like me stopping acting was pretty soon, like after I got sober, I kind of realized it kind of, I realized a lot of things when I got sober and that was one of them. Um, and it actually felt extremely freeing and I actually felt like it freed up a lot of my brain space to feel more creative with poetry. With, um, singing, with like, doing whatever freed up me to feel less constraint about improv. Mm-hmm. Um, which we've talked a lot about. Yeah. Um, and is that because you felt like it was part of your identity and, and therefore you couldn't be a poet and a musician and an improviser or anything else because you. It was part of your identity or just freed up time and energy? I think just, yeah, I think just freed me up creatively, period just freed me up from feeling like I had to only work on something that was gonna help my career. Mm-hmm. Like I have to take an acting class. I can't take a guitar class, I can't take a workshop on, you know, poetry. I can't spend time sitting writing poetry. I should be looking at some script and filming it into the camera. Or choosing a scene for a class or, yeah, I think that's, was there any sort of confession you had to make to like your parents and your friend? Like was that hard to do, to be like, I'm not pursuing this thing anymore? No. I think because everyone in this town understands. Yeah, yeah. I think everyone in this town understands that it's really hard and it's really tiring. And I think I also had a lot of friends who around the same time, or very soon after me, or very right before me, who, um, also realized that they didn't actually like acting that much and they just was something that they were kind of good at. And they, it was like, not too. It wasn't like it, it didn't feel free. It didn't feel like expression. It just felt like this is what I'm supposed to do. And so I think I had peers that felt that way, which really helped. I mean, my parents were ecstatic. Really? Oh, yeah. And it wasn't a fun journey though, because stopping acting was like in the midst of me also like going more into producing, which I really hated. Yes. Right. And was really upsetting and really difficult and way too stressful and just like not enough, like not enough bang for your buck. Not an emotional, not in a, um, in a financial way. In an emotional way, yeah. Like it's just way too stressful to be. To be like anything that I would ever do. Did you feel like your addiction to alcohol, like was there a tie? Were you addicted to the high of performing and getting validation, getting attention? Mm, no, but there is a very strong connection between. My, you know, using and artistry in that. A really big fear of mine when I got sober was that I was going to be bad at performing, bad at poetry, bad at acting bad on stage. Because, I believed that like, art comes from pain. Mm. And that, that was a way to connect. I also was like, you know, you're not scared to go on stage when you're drunk. Right. You're not scared to dry stand up, you're not scared to whatever it is mm-hmm. When you're drinking or using. So there was definitely a fear around what, what is my, what am I gonna look like as an artist when I'm not drinking? Do you still think that art comes from pain? No. No, I think that a, a lot of good art, a lot of good stuff is written at all times, but like, I mean, I think about this, like, I think about musicians. I think a lot of people write heartfelt, upsetting music. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. But I also think they don't finish it when they're in that place. You know what I mean? Same with my poetry. Like I wrote some, my, my poetry book that is now feels so ancient, but I wrote it when I was like, really in my alcoholism really like, felt really sorry for myself. Mm-hmm. And um, was like, you know, like in Italy, like I can't even go outside because I just need to drink wine in this apartment and like, make art and, um. And I never finished it until I was sober. You know, like I didn't publish it. I was more brave, sober, mm-hmm. Than not, which I, I thought was, would be the opposite. Yeah. Well I guess that makes sense'cause they say the thing about bravery, how there's no bravery without fear. Hmm. Right. Oh, I love that. Is that really deep of me? That's just, should I say it again? So where this was supposed to start, but I'm glad we had all this. Yes. What are your spiritual practices that you do now? Okay. To keep yourself mentally sane. Yeah. There's a lot of'em. Um, I was thinking about this because I was like, I think two of these you guys can't really do Okay. But other ones you can do. Okay. Okay. We still wanna hear about'em. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll see. I want you to actually live a week in my shoes. I got bunions. So do I. Oh, good. Okay. Look at that honey. Look at that. Um, okay, so, well we gotta choose, okay. For people who aren't here, they both have little yellow notebooks and a pen and they're so primed and ready. You, because you said I have a lot of them. You're giving us options we get to choose. The only note I have for this session right now is upright steer to look it up and see what it means. Um, okay. Uh, surf, be in the water. Okay. Um, you know, air airing. You can do that. Will you do it? No. It's too cold. No, that's immediately crossed up. I should have run that down. Absolutely. Um, surf, be in the water. The water is my higher power. My God. Um, like water, sun, moon are all my higher power. So connecting anyway to like the sun being outside, absorbing sunlight in max capacity. Um, those are all spiritual or like basking in moonlight. Um, any of those, um, a big one for me is movement. Any sort of movement, like for me specifically, it's like weightlifting or right now yoga. Um, another one is, uh, this is a second one you guys can't really do. I mean, I won't tell you what to do, but, um, like being gay and like. Like being queer and being, being, being, being gay, gay and being queer, being in my community, being around people I love is a very spiritual experience for me. I think what it comes down to, honestly, and this is something that anyone can do, is just being myself. And being, you know, like feeling truly myself, surrounded by people I love who, um, understand me and can validate me and, and I can validate them. That's a very spiritual thing for me. Um, and then I also do a lot of the classics, meditation and prayer. Mm-hmm. So I meditate every single day. Um, usually only for five minutes, but I try to do it every day. I think that is honestly more spiritual like to me than the amount of time right now. Mm-hmm. Uhhuh, like just the fact of doing it every single day and then I pray a lot. I talk to God, you know, to my higher power or a lot. So when you say, okay, so you believe in, do you, you believe in God? Yeah. And then, my God. Yeah. Do you feel that, you said like you believe in the water, sun, moon. Mm-hmm. Is that all a part of God? Is it all one thing, or do you feel like there are different entities that you believe in? Oh, um, I, I don't, I don't know because I don't think about it that hard. Okay. I find that if I like, think about it too hard, then I, I make it too complicated and I just need to keep it really simple. Because I know that there is something bigger than me, greater than myself. And you know, like water, sun, moon, those all just feel like so out of my control and they feel safe and they feel like love. And that's, I leave it at that. Mm-hmm. So, I, I don't know. I Do you believe in spirit guides? Yeah. I believe in spirit guides. I don't know who mine are. Mm-hmm. But yeah, absolutely. I maybe the moon's my spirit guide. When my spirit guides, you know? Mm-hmm. But when you talk to God, you feel like you're talking to an entity or to a person or just, or not any of that. Not any of that. Okay. Yeah. Just talking out loud and I know something is listening. Mm-hmm. I mean, when I'm in the water, I talk a lot to the ocean. Ooh, interesting. A lot. I like, um, I have the psychic I adore and I will plug her right now because I think everyone should go. Chrissy Tulley. Oh, yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. She helped me figure out a, how to channel a little bit, like from my spirit guides, which I do from time to time, but it still really scares me, um, for some reason. But she also taught me, I was having like this really crazy, intrusive thought and, um, I like could not let it go and it was giving me. An extreme amount of anxiety. And one of her suggestions and something that we figured out through me channeling as well, was like, to go to nature, go to the earth, or you know, even a plant and ask it to take your self hatred. And, um, because like the earth is a composter, like, it, it, it takes trash and, and makes it into, into flowers and plants and, and beautiful and air, you know, so. Um, and have you done that? And like, do you feel that immediately? Oh yeah. Is it like a, when she said that, I was like, next morning I'm going out, I'm surfing, getting in the water, and I just like sat in the water and I just was like, God, ocean, please take myself hatred from me. And I literally, that intrusive thought. I still get it like from time to time occasionally, but it does not plague me. It like happens once and then it passes, and if I feel like I need to again, I just go. And I, that's my prayer towards God all the time, is please release me from X. Oh, okay. Release me from anxiety, release me from my self hatred, release me from my self pity. I like that. It's a release. Yeah. Yeah, it's a release. It's because I feel like, I always thought of prayer as asking for something. Hmm. Yeah. And so I really like that this is a release. Yeah. I tend to try to not ask for anything unless it's for someone else or unless it would help someone else. Right. Yeah. So like that's why release, I feel like releasing my, and that's not, I did not come up with that. That's stolen from many, many people, but I like. I ask for release from anxiety and, you know, whatever it may be because it will help someone, right? I can be of service to somebody. Mm-hmm. I will be able to be present and not like in my own self obsession if I, um, can have some relief. Mm-hmm. Did you feel like you were a spiritual person before you came out? Yes. Oh yeah. Did it change when you came out? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I just felt like I could be, I, I just felt like myself. I mean, I felt connected to myself. I think the deeper I. Get to know myself the, the more I am like unabashedly connected to God. You know, like I, um, the more I am myself, the more I can connect with my higher power. It's kind of interesting. Like I feel like when I, I think I talk to my spirit guides the most, I would say. Mm. And the more I take their, their nudges, the more nudges I feel like are given to me. Mm-hmm. And it's kind of interesting how you're saying the more you feel like yourself, the more connected to God you feel. Mm-hmm. Is what I took away from Yeah. Yeah. That's exactly it. Yeah. I agree with that. Yeah. The more I let my higher power know. That I listen to my intuition, that I listen to my gut, you know, gut is God in a way. The more I hear myself. And I mean, that was like the biggest thing my gut has probably ever told me is You're gay. Mm-hmm. This audio book I keep listening to, it's called Code of the Extraordinary Mind. I keep talking about it'cause no, it's just on my brain a lot. But they, they did a study about. It was like poker players. There was one player who was like, lying or something. Mm. And they, they had some sort of sensor on their hands and before they even knew that, like this was the situation, that there was a player that was lying, their hands were sweating He was saying your body knows before your mind does. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Your intuition is so strong. Yeah. In a way that like is somehow not even connected to you registering what's happening. Yeah. Yeah. That like your body just knows something. Your brain also apparently knows what it's about to say. Do. Act out on seven seconds before you do it. Yeah, I read, I read that. Oh really? Yeah. Yeah. It's crazy. It's really trippy. You can't think about it too much or else you just wanna say,'cause then you start thinking about, like, my brain knows what I'm about to say in seven seconds, but I don't know what I'm about to say in seven seconds. What am I gonna say? Was it this that I'm about to say in seven seconds? I was just gonna comment on. Just, I was just thinking about specifically water, sun, and moon and it, I think it, to me, if the idea of intuition had a symbol, it would be the moon or the ocean, the sun. Like it just, and, and, and also like you're surfing. I've only done it once, but that is, I can imagine the most intuitive. Because you're listening so much to the water into yourself. I don't know. Just like I thought I found that really interesting that, that there's something so connected to listening. I like that. That's really beautiful. Yeah. Were you raised, I mean, I know you were raised Jewish. Yeah. But were you raised. Spiritual praying? No. What was that like? I think I was raised like agnostic Jewish. I think a lot of people were. Culturally, I feel like that's, yeah. Yeah. Culturally Jewish. But there was never like a discussion of like, I mean, I went to Hebrew school. So we talked about God, but my child's brain understood or thought or perceived, I don't know if this is actually true, but my child, brain perceived that my parents didn't really care about God or believe in God. Atheism was discussed in our household, like okay. Um, we were very open to having discussions. So have you talked to your parents about it now? Well, my dad is sober, so he's extremely spiritual guy. Like actually when he got sober and I was, um, 16, 17, whenever he would talk about God, it was so annoying. Mm-hmm. Because I'd be like, shut up. Like there's no God. You never believed in God before this, and now all of a sudden you believe in God. Like, what does that, you know, and then eventually that happened to me, which is funny, and I hated the word God. I hated when people say, you should pray. I hated when people were like, I get to all my muse to pray. I was like, wow, you guys are such losers. And now I do all of that myself, but I, I really struggled with the concept of God. Um, my mom, I, I don't know. I think she is this generally spiritual person. She really connects to nature, but I actually dunno. I should ask her. Mm-hmm. Thanks for the prompt. Yeah. Has there been a time in your, it doesn't have to be your artistic life, any part of your life where you feel like your spirituality is what you leaned on to take you out of it? And if so, what did you do? Not to bring it all back, always to being queer. No, but you know, when I came out, so I, y'all both know this, but, um, I was with someone for two years and I like. Kind of woke up one day and I was like, whoa, I'm gay. I mean, there was things that led up to that, but it was kind of a light bulb moment. And, um, it was so extremely hard. I mean, it was like grieving who I was, grieving this relationship, grieving the future I thought I was gonna have, right? Like, if I don't get married to cis man, it's a very different process to have children. It's a very different process to get married. It's a very different process of where we can live and be accepted and yada, yada, yada. So it was, it was a lot of. Grief. So yeah, I absolutely had to rely on my spirituality. I prayed a lot. I screamed at God a lot. I screamed, cried at God a lot. Um, I don't think I was really meditating at that time, to be honest, but I was, I did do a lot of prayer and leaned on my community, you know, leaned on. I didn't have a queer community at the time, but I've, you know, sober community and leaned on them. I think community is extremely spiritual, extremely. Do you feel that you have sought a partner who is, is spiritually similar to you at all? Mm, no. Really? Yeah. My, I, I've actually always had partners with a religious trauma. Really every partner I've ever had. Yeah. I didn't know that. Yeah. So my, my current partner has a lot of religious trauma Jay grew up Southern Baptist, which is very different from how I grew up, so. Mm-hmm. And they're gay, they're queer. Do they have any resistance to you praying to God at all? No. No. Like does, okay. No, no, no. They have zero. They don't have any qualms. And I pray at night, like I pray, like before. Not always, but I'll just sit in bed and whisper. Like while we're both laying there, like with our eyes closed and I'm like, God, thank you for, and my, my prayer to God at night is always like a, just a gratitude list. Mm-hmm. Oh, just like a thank you. Is it always out loud? Yes. It is always out loud. Okay. Always out loud. I realized recently that I have, I mean I feel like for all of it, for me can really easily become a form of control and prayer can be because then it's like I say the same prayer at the same time and I feel like if I don't say it, something bad might happen. It almost feels like. Superstitious. Mm-hmm. Um, but yeah, I've recently been trying to, instead of praying the same prayer, just like kind of have a conversation with my spirit guides. But yeah, I don't know. I don't know why I feel that pressure. I mean, I'm sure it's some sort of learned ingrained system in me. I, I'm very curious and, and I think this question for both of you, is there a formality to it in any way I think it's elusive for me now. I mean, I think it's interesting you said that you kind of try not to think about it too hard because for me, I feel like I believe in God, I believe in the universe. I believe in spirit gods. I think they're all probably the same thing. I don't really quite know the particulars about. Mm-hmm. What is happening when or with who or who I'm talking to more You know, like it feels like if you're talking to one thing, you're talking to all of it., I think I would probably say that it's all the same thing. Like all the religions, all the spirit, like it's all about just making our lives better. But yeah, I think it's starting to feel less formal, but I think there's part of it, like we were talking about with the cards, the Oracle cards, that there was part of me that felt like. Some sort of voodoo witchcraft, like our evil spirit's gonna come in, we ingest all this information, from the media and our families and our lives and our partners and whatever that, I think it's like you don't even quite know why you believe the things you believe until you really like take a look at them. So I've never had formality to it. Okay. Because I had never prayed. Mm-hmm. Um, I mean, I say the Serenity Prayer because, which is. God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and wisdom to know the difference. Mm-hmm. But that's like a sober thing. Um, and so I just say it because it's something I memorized and now it's just easy to say out loud. Yeah, yeah. But I, I, it's never, yeah, it's no formality whatsoever. Yeah. I guess, yeah, I think this came up when you said you were like screaming at God. Yeah. And I was like, oh, I wonder how Yeah. That's changed in like, is that considered prayer still? Oh, absolutely. You know what I mean? So that's, that was just curious about that. Yeah. I only started praying when I got sober. Because they, everyone was like, you have to pray. And I was like, that's dumb. Yes. Right. But I just like still did it because I really needed and wanted to be sober. And they were like, this is one of the ways you stay sober. And I was like, okay. And the, the, what I learned was Anything, you can say anything. It could be a prayer, like just talk to God. Just open this line of communication. And like meditation. I like to think of it as, meditation is listening to God and prayer is talking to God. Um, oh, but I, but I also, I don't think about it that strict. Yeah. I just started talking to God and then like, you know. Yeah. So of course, yeah. It's evolved. Yeah. When you meditate, you said you do five minute meditations? Mostly. Mostly, yeah. Is it guided or silent? Um, usually silent. Okay. Usually silent. Yeah. I'll do guided sometimes if I really feel like I'm feeling sticky or kinda mm-hmm. In a difficult spot, but usually silent. And part of my meditation practice right now is just like. Anything Is meditation similar to like anything is prayer, Anything that comes up is still meditation. So like, yes, I sit, I sit still. Sometimes I like stretch a little. I like move my neck around and I'm like, yeah, that's fine. That's still meditation. Sometimes I think about an entire list of what I have to do for the day and I'm like, that's fine. That's still meditation. Sometimes I like amazing and feel zen and breathe, but I don't think, um, I tried to bring as little judgment to it. Mm. Chew it as possible. Do you feel like God speaks to you during that with the meditation is for listening? Mm. Um, sometimes, but not nothing like quite always clear. I mean, if it is, it's like slow down, breathe, it's okay. Mm-hmm. That kind of stuff. But I never hear like a, you know, Moses voice come down and. Tell'em, or, or spirit guide I should say. Have you ever slipped into like a really deep meditation? Um, no, because I fall asleep. That is the form. The highest. Yeah. That's the highest, yeah. Whenever like Ari and I will go to yoga or do something air's like sound baths, sound bath air's. Like, I think you should think about this specific thing while you're in meditation. Yeah. I'm like, okay, I'm good. Give it a go. And then I, I don't think about it or I fall asleep. Yeah. Or I forget to. I think that's fine. I mean, I think part of it's just like, I think my life has to be compartmentalized in some ways with this phase of my life with two little kids. You know what I mean? Yeah. So like the time for me to think about those things is. That makes sense. Oh, yeah. But yeah, the sound bath, I slipped into a deep meditation. It's only happened a couple times, but it's, it feels like there's, I guess it's like the conscious and the subconscious, it feels like I am underneath myself, but I'm still awake. Cool. Oh, underneath, not above. Yeah. Cool. It feels like my, like I am not sleeping. But like I can kind of feel myself here, laying down and then I'm like underneath receiving the information. Cool. That's cool. Yeah. I think we should try'cause we have to choose one of your practices. I mean for, I, we can discuss, but I feel like meditating in silence, I never do, I like the five minutes of it all because I feel like that is not too impeding on my life with two small children. But what, right now, what I've been doing is meditating with like this kind of meditated music, just so I cannot hear the children in the background. But I would like to try meditating in absolute silence for ness to see. If that changes things. What do you think? I, I, I've done that a lot in silence. Yeah. Yeah. And the five minute bit. So if you wanna take that. Okay. Do you wanna take something else or? I think I wanna take the water. Going to the water. I've been craving the water since you said water. Okay. I was like. How often do you surf? Yeah. How often do you go to the water? Uh, I try to go once or twice a week. Okay. Twice a week. Okay. So for two weeks you'll go twice a week to the water. Okay. And I will meditate in silence for five minutes Oh, I'm so excited. Good. Is there anything you wanna plug or. Any cause that you feel called to tell us about, that you donate your time or money or volunteer at support trans youth. Okay. Yes. Love that. I love that. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Trans and, and everyone who's trans. Yeah. Just give'em trans people. Yeah. Give them your money. Give'em your time. Give'em your, your love. You know, stand up for them. Mm-hmm. Um. Amen. Listen to them. Well, thank you so much for being here. Yay. I love you. I love you guys. This was really nice. You guys are so smart. Thank you for listening. Yes, we call it boda. Thanks for listening in Toda boda Spiritual Practices of the Disgruntled Artist. We'll see you next time and we'll inform you how our, our practices of the water. Yes, I'm excited to listen. Silent meditation. Go. Cool. Yay. Thanks Kate. We love you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Love you guys. Spoa forever.