The Nourished Woman with Keri Marino

From Sexual Trauma to Self-Trust: Reclaim Your Body and Find Confidence with Kat Beck

• Keri Marino • Episode 29

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In this episode, Kat Beck and I speak honestly about healing from body image issues, sexual trauma, chronic health concerns, and the long road back to feeling at home in your own body. We share what it actually took for us to become women who embody real self-confidence — not the loud, performative kind, but the grounded kind that comes from honoring your intuition, leaning on community, and learning to feel safe inside yourself again.

If you’ve ever longed for the seemingly effortless confidence another woman has while feeling disconnected from your body and doubting your intuition — this conversation offers an illuminating and deep take on how to get there.

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Come Home to Your Body - free somatic yoga practice for women

->https://kerimarino.eo.page/comehome

Daily Devotion - 21 day therapeutic home yoga practice 

-> https://www.kerimarino.com/daily-devotion-21-day-program.html

The Nourished Woman Sanctuary - on-demand and live somatic yoga for women ready to feel wildly whole & free

-> https://www.kerimarino.com/the-nourished-woman-sanctuary.html

If this episode resonated, share it with a woman who needs it and leave a review on Apple Podcasts. 

Connect with Keri at https://www.kerimarino.com/ and @the_nourished_woman

Connect with Kat at https://www.mysticmedicineschool.com/ or on YouTube @mysticmedicinewithkatbeck.

SPEAKER_01

So,

Setting The Table For Real Talk

SPEAKER_01

welcome back to the Nourished Woman podcast. I'm really excited to share Kat back with you all. Kat is somebody that I heard about a couple years ago and just kind of casually followed you on Instagram and just really, I've always resonated with how you show up as yourself. Like you are just you and unapologetically you, but you also you're somebody that represents like realness and groundedness and a high level of knowledge all in one like sweet, beautiful package. And you're a mama, which is cool to see. Like you rock both sides of that world. You are an energy worker, a somatic healer or a somatic guide, and a healing arts teacher. And you're the founder of Mystic Medicine. You lead experiences locally, you do trainings online, and you I feel like you are kind of like playing in a lot of areas in your business, in your world. Thanks for being here today.

SPEAKER_03

Thank you for having me, Carrie. This is awesome.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I'm so excited for us to have this conversation. And before we dive in, I want to let our listeners know that we're gonna get into some woo-woo topics today. We're gonna talk about some sexual things. We're gonna talk about topics that if you're not in the right headspace or you're like, no, girl, that's not for me, you might want to pick a different episode. But if you're feeling intuitively led to explore these kind of topics, the woo-woo, the mystical, the spiritual, the embodied, the healing, the real world that we live in with everything going on in it, and you want to hear two women who are really empowered and have done a lot of work on themselves talk about it in a way that might uplift you and clarify you, then keep listening. I want to start out by asking what is so nourishing for you right now? Like could be anything in your life that just feels like it's pouring into you on so many levels.

SPEAKER_03

So the juxtaposition of being with my kid and my nieces and watching them play and tackle me and be loved. Just like oh, soaking in all that, and

What Nourishes: Motherhood And Alone Time

SPEAKER_03

then time away. Like two hours at sauna house, rejuvenate the entire system. Sauna house and doing polarity therapy with cold plunge, and sauna has been deeply nourishing for my body in this season. And so it's for me, it's like the alone time where I can just like exist without any questions, without any snack request. Yeah, and then also like fully immersed in the motherhood and the auntie life and like watching these precious little beings just exist.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, and I hear the level of presence that you're giving to both of those things, right? Like when you're in motherhood and aunt time, you're really there, and you're there for the wrestling, and you're there for the questions, and you're there for the snack making, and you're trying to just really be in the moment for that and to say yes to the opportunity that comes with that. And then I also hear you saying that when you get that time to go to sauna house or to have some time and space that's just for you, or to to dig your body into the cold plunge, or to sit and sweat in the sauna, that you're really just allowing and you've made space to just be fully in that too.

SPEAKER_03

Yes, absolutely. Yeah, because I mean, essentially it's just like being present where I am without resisting what's happening right now.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

But also like I'm designing a lifestyle where I love everything I'm choosing to put my responsibility into. And then all of my self-care, sauna housing, seeing an insanely awesome massage therapist on the regular and doing all these things. Like, I think we used to like, or I used to think of things as an indulgence or like a thing you do, like the icing on the cake. I'm like, nah, this is the root of why I keep feeling so good in my body and why I can keep dancing like a maniac. Like I, these are like my root core practices and it's my lifestyle. It's not an icing on the cake.

SPEAKER_01

Sure, they're actually an essential ingredient, it sounds like this is not like a bonus. If I have time, I'll do these things. It's like this actually enables me to be the kind of mother that I want to be and the professional that you want to be and steward the work. Yeah. Exactly.

Heat, Cold, And Expanding Capacity

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. So I'm curious, like, what about cold plunging and sauna in particular feel so good to you?

SPEAKER_03

I think that initially it was like challenging. I start I've started doing this like about cold plunging, adding that in like 10 years ago. But when I found saunas, I found like a Korean Korean sauna and spa when I lived in Dallas, Texas. And I just I love the culture. I love that they do this regularly all together. I love in Korean spas that the women and men are separate and you're completely nude. I find that to be one of the most healing experiences to be around bodies just being bodies. Yeah. It's just incredible. Now, here, sauna house is not that design, it's like Nordic spa and you're in bathing suits, but I still you still get the experience of like, it's kind of hard to sit in a sauna for 15 minutes. And I like that subtle challenge of like, how deep can I drop into this discomfort? Because it expands my capacity every time to have more coherence and discomfort.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

And I taught a class in a sauna two weeks ago, which expanded my capacity. Like, whoa, I like walked in. I was like, I am about to lead like a little fashion limp flow in a really hot space with like 40 other people. And I walked in, I was like, I was like, I'm straight up, I'm nervous, y'all. And it just immediately they giggled, it all dissipated. And I was able to drop into to that through that discomfort and lead them through a little flow.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. So it's in many ways, it kind of reminds me of like a yoga practice or even like any sort of somatic experiences that we might do and how we familiarize ourselves with discomfort. And then it's like, how do I stay present in that? How do I actually stay true in that? Even saying, I mean, how disarming could it be for you to be like, I'm nervous and I'm supposed to you guys, right? But that's real. Like, we do get nervous, and especially like you're gonna be extra sweaty, you know, because you're like when we're leading something, I am so glad for deodorant, right? Because when I'm leading, like, oh, that deodorant is working double time for me.

SPEAKER_03

I mean, I mean, like sometimes I'm like, I might have to pull out the real stuff because I get so hot teaching and like seeing people one-on-one. I'm just like the amount of energy pulsing through me and coming out of my hands. Even now, I'm like, I am nearly sweating palm because I just feel so much energy moving.

SPEAKER_01

Yes, absolutely. 100%. I love that you have found these ways to nourish yourself, both in the midst of like the messy beauty of motherhood and then also in the reality of like these are essential aspects of how I tend to myself. Because I think a lot of women can relate to wanting to make space for ourselves, but then feeling maybe mom guilt or feeling like we don't have the resources, whether it be time or money or whatever it is or support, especially if you're a mom and you're looking for childcare, right? But then also, what would it be like to just simply value something as really and truly important and then to step audaciously into aligning with that rather than that energy of waiting and waiting and waiting and wanting?

SPEAKER_03

I absolutely agree. And I feel like those of us who, I mean, part of if I didn't embody this ability to choose myself, to take time to take care of myself, I would be a complete hypocrite in the work that I'm doing, honestly, you know? And so I teach almost women to choose themselves through just doing it without ever saying it. And through continually, I typically share when I am away from my kid because I don't want to post pictures of him on the internet. And so that's just a moment where I I just feel a lot of creative energy moving through me and I want to share those moments and experiences. And I realize, like, oh, I'm always doing like some wellness thing because this is what I love and it's genuine. But the mom guilt thing is I see it. I I

Naming Nerves, Leading In Discomfort

SPEAKER_03

I've experienced flips of it for sure, but I realize that it's a cage to keep us from really evolving. What do you mean? I think it keeps women cycling in the stories that they're not worth it. I think of guilt, I think guilt sometimes can be a good thing. I think shame is more like a solidified structure. Like energetically, the way I see shame in people's energy fields and in their consciousness is as plastic around. It's inorganic, it's not a real part of you. It's like a societal structure that entraps us and doesn't allow our energy to flow.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

And it can also freeze it. So that's how it also like keeps us in major traumatic experiences. When shame is around it, it's very difficult to allow that cycle to complete itself.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, for sure. Shame makes us hide, shame makes us shut down, shame makes us be still and like stagnant. And I find that it's I I coach women through or mentor women a lot on the topic of shame because it's such an important conversation. Because really, like shame is do I belong? Like if I show that I value this, will I belong? Or will you question my identity as a mother if I'm a good enough mother, or whatever it is? And it's like there's just so much room for women to sort of fucking cut the cellophane off, like cut the past off and be like, actually, I'm gonna let myself be seen and I'm gonna tell someone my story, and I'm gonna hear them believe me, and I'm gonna do, you know, I'm gonna do this, or I'm gonna choose that. And it can be something as big as going to a place like Sauna House, and it can be something as small as like, I am not gonna answer your question until I've drink my water, you know?

unknown

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02

For sure.

SPEAKER_01

Well, I know that you do really multidimensional work, and I also know that the work that you do is really your own signature method. And it I feel like a kindred soul when I talk to you because I too am embodying that kind of choice and that kind of work. And I'd love for to give people a little bit of context around what it means to be an energy worker and a somatic guide and a healing arts teacher so that they kind of know like, where are you coming from? What does that mean when you say that you do this work?

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, so I address the body as an instrument and in that as a sacred instrument, I should say, so that we approach ourselves instead of needing to be fixed or as something that is broken, but as something that we need to learn to tune and how to play it. And I basically teach people how to play the instrument that is their body. And our body is multidimensional, it's beyond what we can see with our eyes. We're only perceiving a very small fraction of reality through our literal eyes. And I am someone who's always been very much in tune with the other world. And that doesn't mean I believed it or understood it at all because I spent the majority of my existence completely dismissing it, not understanding it, and having no idea what this clairvoyance was. So energy work is working with the unseen, with the subtle fields of energy. I work with the elements from Chinese medicine, and they paint a picture of what's going on subconsciously for people. So these deep-seated patterns are usually ingrained right around the time your subconscious sets in at seven years old, and these incredible ways in which our ego decided to distort reality to protect ourselves and to create a really safe way of going forward.

Self-Care As A Non-Negotiable

SPEAKER_03

And by safe, I mean your body and your brain thinks it's predictable, so it'll keep creating that. I see these patterns clairvoyantly, and I communicate with them in conversation with clients. In a way, I'm like, I'm always like, I don't use my psychic skills to show you your future, but I do use them to take you into your past and show you the root of where these things started. A lot of times it is from this lifetime and from this body, and quite a bit is from other journeys you've had as a soul, but also through your epigenetics, through through your bloodline, and these things we keep carrying on and carrying with us. And I'm able to take people through the journey with these elements to see themselves and to paint the picture in a symbolic way for things to click, to understand, and ultimately for them to unhook from.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Because I don't we don't want these patterns to continue to orchestrate our lives now. Because what I care about is people having all of the consciousness here and now rooted in your body. Soul embodiment for me is having your consciousness from all these other lifetimes and places, whether you recognize that that exists or not, your consciousness can be in multiple different tangents, anchoring it back in to the spine, to the central channel, so that full awareness is there, so that conscious choice can be made here and now, so that you can create that beautiful future that you want and all your dreams. But if we don't bring you back from the past into the very moment and into your body, into your cells, then your future you're creating is created actually by some subconscious tangent.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Yeah, and that sounds so powerful. And I want to ask some questions about it because I know our listeners are gonna have like, you know, some light bulbs going off and some curiosities. And so one of the first curiosities that I have is how did you know that you're clairvoyant and how does that show up for you as a gift?

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, I didn't know and recognize it until I went to massage therapy school. And I you know, you're continually laying your hands on people. And I never I'm I'm very I was trying so much to not be intrusive with these strangers, but I could like feel their whole story. Now I didn't in those scenarios communicate anything because that would be lacking integrity. But I started feel things then you practicing with your friends in massage school, which is like such a gift to receive and give. And most of us were there because we wanted to work more so in the energy world. And so we played with each other. We were able to practice with each other, able to do so with intention and integrity. And we kind of just kept having light bulb moments. We're like, whoa, why did you know, why did I see that? Why did that come up? Why did I have an entire knowing of what to say to you in this moment?

Shame, Guilt, And Cutting The Cellophane

SPEAKER_03

And it's really about developing this deep trust that this wisdom isn't yours, but you're connected into the field of awareness and able to communicate clearly. So for me, that comes through clairvoyance, which is seeing through the inner eye, what a lot of people refer to as the third eye. It's you know, the pituitary pineal gland. I think so many different things working together to produce like basically the DMT molecule in your brain and have an inside movie. It's your imagination. Like that's like it's the poignant use of your imagination cleared of the filters that distort our perception. Because if you have a lot of filters distorting how you see reality, then when you go into the field as a person who has the ability to use their imagination, a psychic, it's not going to be a clear picture. Yeah. Which is why people have to do so much inner work if you choose to use this gift to do readings and to hold space. You gotta clear up yourself and continue to do it.

SPEAKER_01

Yes.

SPEAKER_03

Forever. Never done. It's never done. And not like like there's more to be solved. It's just like it's a continual process. We are, you know, we're just we're 40 years old. We got hopefully another 40 years of it of exploring ourselves and existence and our relationship to other people and our relationship to all the things that we do in our life.

SPEAKER_01

Like, yeah. And we heal in layers. And so part of the perspective that I have is that all of us have intuitive gifts and psychic gifts, really. And I think that just kind of framing that up for our listeners that no one is outside of this possibility. Like, we all have these gifts. So when you hear somebody like Kat saying that she channels these gifts in her work, spoiler alert, I channel them in my work too. I just don't talk about them, right? But it's like every single one of us has access to these possibilities because we all have these gifts and they they can manifest in different ways. Like some people like see it, like you're talking about, but some people sense it. And like there's just different ways that intuitive or psychic gifts can manifest. But there is this sort of underlying belief that I believe both of us are coming from where we want, I want you all to know that this is in your wheelhouse and it's probably already happening for you. You just may not recognize, oh, that's part of my intuitive gifts.

SPEAKER_03

Absolutely. And that's almost one of the entire points of like why I do my work. I believe we have to anchor in the body first. We have to come home into ourselves, into ourselves, so that we can trust that we're already super intuitive. Like all these things we have access to, and you've had access to since you were probably a child. And a lot of times when things happen when we're really young, we shut down those parts of ourselves to stay safe. And a lot of what I do is unboxing these patterns that protected you from trusting yourself. And I say this as someone who developed an autoimmune disorder and the like Louise Hayes, you know, like her like like diagnosis of like why emotionally. And this immune disorder was about lack of trust in life. So, like, I experienced this like very tangibly. It showed up in my body as an entire pattern of scar tissue forming without any actual physical harm having happened to my body. Yeah, it was emotional, it was emotional disturbance. But we we all have this, and it's about evolving our relationship with first our body and then these gifts, because there's a lot of worked perceptions around just the word psychic. I don't use the word psychic because it scares people. Yeah. And it's not a clear picture of really the whole thing, and so which can be confusing.

SPEAKER_01

It can be. And I think that another, so another topic of what you shared that I kind of want to steer us towards is this idea that through your gifts, you can help people to see and identify those places where basically like something got stuck or something that I'm like visualizing, like something got unplugged in a way. Exactly. And I'm curious because sometimes I meet people, because I obviously help women with a lot of trauma healing as well, and a lot of like really looking for how do we build in the present moment. I oftentimes describe my work. Have you ever seen those old houses in Charleston, South Carolina that are being renovated? Like I love to walk through the streets of Charleston because I describe my one-to-one mentoring work that I do with clients as like your house is already beautiful and it's been standing for so long and it's it's it's like thriving on so many levels. But like maybe we need to update the plumbing, or maybe the practical is a little questionable in certain parts of this, or maybe the windows are not very energy efficient. And it's like, how can we upgrade upgrade this beautiful standing thing that's already sacred

What Energy Work Really Means

SPEAKER_01

and wonderful and everyone loves the people that are meant to love it, including you? How do we bring that up to the standard of what you want for yourself and what you feel intuitively that you can embody and exist in, right?

SPEAKER_03

I love that.

SPEAKER_01

I also hear women on occasion that are like on the periphery of my world say things like they're it's almost like I want to call them the trauma hunters. And they're like, I want to dig through the whole thing and like find the one thing that's it. And I meet a lot of women on the other side who are immersed in the work with me and they know that it's just not that simple. Like we're not looking for one precise thing. We're looking for like a whole, it's like a rubber band ball. You know, you can't just be like, it's the green rubber band that formed the ball. It's like, no, baby.

SPEAKER_03

That's the one.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Yeah. So I'm curious how you would speak to somebody that's curious about having experienced some trauma, something in their past that's informing how they are today, and how you view that sort of like looking for the pieces, finding what's there, and then helping them address the pr the places that actually need addressing. Because just going trauma hunting, I believe, is quite harmful and dangerous territory.

SPEAKER_03

I totally agree. And that's been a big thing I'm realizing a lot of us who've been in this world for a while. Or really speaking to and calling out the hamster wheel of healing and how it actually is a hook into that one of the core patterns of covert control, of like having a secret way of trying to manipulate your emotions and your reality and your reactions so that you can keep things predictable. And so I find the trauma hunters, they they they have control very convert issues. And so it's about bringing them into a space where they can see that they're already whole or begin to plant that seed of recognizing that and to really help them break that loop when they find themselves and helping them feel it very somatically. Feel what it feels like right when your brain starts to go into that pattern. Catch yourself somatically. What is that pull? What is the diaphragm doing? What are your shoulders doing? Oh, you've caught yourself in the pattern. Now, what are you going to choose to do with that? Because it still takes conscious choice for us to choose another way and to collapse that perception that made you think, I need to control this so I can stay safe here. I help people expand their capacity for discomfort, but also to expand their perception by taking away all the things that distorted it. And that means like taking responsibility for your shit.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

And that's what a lot of people don't want to do. They want to bitch about their partner. They and like, listen, all these things are all the things are necessary, right? But I want to have people take responsibility back. You're not totally responsible for your healing. We live in a society that is designed to keep us stuck and disconnected. And so you're working against a whole lot. So it's not all on you. Your trauma isn't your fault. It is not your burden to carry, it is your responsibility to hold. So my work is through the shifting of the relationship with ourselves and with our identities and all these constructs our subconscious created. And in that I help people off the hamster wheel because they can start to realize that they really are a conscious being and they have choice. A lot of us had choice taken away as a kid a lot. So we we really didn't build that capacity to like understand that we do have a choice, and that comes initially through your perception.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Absolutely. And I want to name for our listeners that that really like you don't have to go looking for trauma healing. Like it comes through you intuitively at the right time and when you feel safe enough and you have the right kind of support. So if you're ever like, I need to do the, like, I need to look for it, I would caution you here because you have two women who really work in this arena in very alternative ways and have been doing it for a while, showing you that like these things do happen in layers and when you're ready and when the support and the safety and the embodiment is there. These are not things that you force, and they are also things that you choose to say yes to working through. So we're not like trying to, you know, like dig all the mud up, all the clay, if you will, out of the bottom of the lake. But we are trying to be like, I'm gonna walk across this to get where I want to go, and I'm gonna deal with how this has impacted me and where I want to go for myself and what needs to be like what like that old house in Charleston, like what needs to be updated or renovated to help me get where I want to be.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, I love that you use that analogy because that's almost precisely how I see it. Because I I I speak to my energy work in the realm that I work as restoring our architecture. Yes. Like that's I it's and so I see it. And you know, I love old houses and buildings. So I'm like, but I'll I believe we eat it, it needs to be restored, it needs to be renovated, and we need to reconnect to it to feel ourselves in this home of a body.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. You and I both really value body-based healing and returning to the body and connection to the body, but also this idea that we're more than our bodies. And so I'm curious about your own journey with your body. I know that you you mentioned autoimmune. You've had some things go on with your body. What has it been like for you to form what I'm gonna call a love story with your body? I'd love to hear a little bit of like where that

Clairvoyance, Integrity, And Practice

SPEAKER_01

started for you. What has really helped you along the way? What are some of the ways that you're different now in how you show up for yourself?

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. Well, in my 20s, I realized I'd been battling my body my whole life. And it took that wake-up call to realize like, wow, I've I'm at war with myself. Um, I, you know, I was in a cycle at that point of preparing to get married. So I was taking illegal diet pills from China and body wraps all the time and excel spreadsheets of every morsel of food in my body and extreme workouts and using all these things as a form of self-punishment to shrink myself in every way. Because when you're approaching trying to make yourself smaller from that perspective of the image, you shrink everything about yourself with it. Yeah. And I had an interesting experience of being molested during a massage a month before I got married. So it's already in this place of a lot of control and then planning a big event, and then having this incidence of having my body violated in a very shocking way.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

And so that was a major turning point in my life because what it also did, and I couldn't understand at the time, was awaken a dormant memory that my body had been holding since I was a very, very young child. And it kind of the cool thing was that during this time, I was marrying my husband, he was in grad school for psychology, I was surrounded by all these psychological students. And I got to immediately have the gift of being heard and speaking about these things. And that's where the power of community, of connection, of of just having people hear you immediately is one of the most shame-shedding things you can do. So while this experience right before I got married with the massage didn't solidify me in the same way because I called out the person, I I immediately took action. I I didn't stay in the shrink of the shame. I did have a whole lot to process from that because my body still had a whole lot of memories attached to the physical experience. And but I got to immediately be held by community and be believed. And that provided this like safe ground to start diving into what it brought up. I immediately went into alternative healing where I went into acupuncture, was what I was drawn to initially. I was always very drawn to traditional Chinese medicine, TCM. It's just, I think my soul has carried this a little bit of its wisdom. It's so broad and expansive. I will never pretend to be. I don't talk about it much because I'm like, I'm not an expert in it. I just communicate with the elements because I studied it so much. And they started showing me things about myself. And that's how I see others now and help them through these sticky places of ourselves and these stagnancies. So I grew up a perfectionist ballerina. So I was always that covert control. And I find it really interesting for those of us who grew up in dance studios because we were constantly looking at ourselves, constantly analyzing, constantly seeking perfect physical alignment. And just always had this feedback loop of what you look like, and you know what you look like, and you're trying to look like a certain thing. And I think growing up in the dance world, a lot of us experience a whole lot of comments about our body. And what these things did is they like uh made me put on masks. And so I like built up through I mean dancing from three to 20 hours a week, all these masks that I got to know and to use really well. I think a lot of people think highly sensitive is put those on in order to manipulate how others perceive them. But from the inside out, it's more sort of like I'm just trying to not be spotted as different. I'm trying to not be obvious in my awkwardness. I'm trying to go under the radar and to blend in so that you don't actually see what's behind these masks because I experienced ridicule, rejection, being bullied quite a bit in elementary school. Yeah. My relationship with my body, like growing up, was just I was very much aware of what it looked like, but I didn't know what it felt like to be inside of it. So that's when my body started, you know, at 17, diagnosed with a rare autoimmune disorder that made me have to stop doing point. I was had to stop my like 12-year training of competing for this certificate in ballet that we were doing. Yeah, all my dreams just stopped, and I let myself stop dreaming. I let everything drop. I go to college, I get into excessive amounts of drinking and taking Adderall when I'm not ADHD at all. And I just went through this period of complete self-abandonment. And so the wake-up call came in a way that I would not choose for anyone, but it came in a way that I needed so that I could really start to return. I think of sometimes our consciousness being a little bit outside of ourselves. Sometimes people's consciousness is almost in a different realm,

Patterns, Past Lives, And Soul Embodiment

SPEAKER_03

if you will. And I think through all the experiences of disconnect and of violation to my body, I think I learned a very intuitive way of re-anchoring that consciousness back into your cells, into your spine, into that central channel. Yeah. And that came through, excuse me. That came through yoga initially, you know, like I was so yoga was like the first process that I found to anchor me back and to slow down.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I mean, for sure. I needed to be people. Yoga is like that first place of a sense of feeling what it feels like to be in the body and also to be in a pretty safe environment where it's not a performance.

SPEAKER_03

Ding, ding, ding. Not a performance. Yeah. Yeah. That's everything. Yeah. I dance for me, it's part of my class, movement medicine. It has been an integral part of my entire existence. And the way I dance now is completely opposite of the choreography and the, you know, the performance-based dancing, which is so fun and is an incredible thing. But the way I relate to my body, even through it, and the way I am like no mirrors through this practice. Like we are dancing in a way that is for this like guttural experience of letting yourself be as feral and as odd and contorting your body into shapes and making sounds that you know, basically I undomesticate people through that process because that is how I undomesticated myself to get back into my body to access my intuitive gifts. It had to be through the body first, because I had a feeling that if I went into these spiritual realms without first fully bringing my consciousness back, that it was gonna be not so easy to discern what is what is good for one and what is what is not so good.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. So I want to go back to this conversation about your body and about the the wake-up call. Because I want to recognize that you, me, everyone listening to this podcast, we've all had experiences of violation in our body to different degrees and in different forms. And those experiences of violation in the body, like when they happen, they're like trauma can land a little bit differently. And so what I hear you saying is you took action to call out the person that did it. You communicated and shared your story, other people heard and believed you, and then you went on a healing journey as a result of that. And you found a healing journey that actually worked for you individually, not just somebody else's prescriptive idea of what that healing journey needed to look like. You were willing to be a seeker in that environment and to explore over here and to explore over there, and then to check in with yourself and say, like, huh, if I really just go full into the spiritual realm and I don't ground that in my body and I don't actually know what it feels like to be in my body, then that's not going to serve me. And so I want our listeners to kind of see that as a blueprint in a way. And also if you did not, like, let's say that violation happened and you did not call out the person who did it and you did not tell your story, or maybe you did and you weren't believed and you did not use it as a healing journey, that it is not too late. You are net it is never too late for someone to choose that healing journey. Like you can do that at any time, even if something happened when you were like six months old. Like you can still go in and work with these same sorts of qualities and practices and find your own expression. Now, I firmly believe that we can heal from the past in the present and we can lay the groundwork for the future. And so I want to use your story as a reflection point for that. And I'd also love to hear about like the shifts that you made and the beliefs that were there and then where you are with your body now. Cause I want to show women like your expression of what has become possible for you as a mirror for anyone else who resonates with your story.

SPEAKER_03

So I want to add on to that story because I was like, well, physically I still held some of the a lot of the experience. Um, I was because there's so many, of course, layers and levels of what we experience in that one incidence. And I believe one, not being believed and not feeling safe enough to tell someone an experience has its own tangent of trauma that creates shame basically. And then there's just the physical experience of being violated. And that is what I held for a while. And that affected my relationship with my husband. I was freshly married and we had premarital in, of course, of course, of course. So I had a relationship with them like before we were married, and then I had a sexual relationship with them afterwards. That was completely different because my body did not feel like my own for a long time. Yeah. And I'm very thankful he was in school studying psychology and had a peripheral like kind of understanding. But it's still like when you're going through that with someone, it's very difficult. And he was so patient and so kind with me. I would say my sexuality before that experience was kind of all over the place and almost like too open in a not a refined way, you know. I didn't, I wasn't respectful of my body because I didn't have that respect.

SPEAKER_01

Like I didn't or you didn't have that kind of reverence with your body yet.

SPEAKER_03

Absolutely not. That's not how I was taught to perceive the body. I was taught it from an outsider's perspective. And so he was just so patient with me through that experience of reclaiming my sexuality, of reclaiming my sensuality, which is the sensory experience of being in your body, of your skin, of pleasure. Yeah. And I would say it was very many years of working with different variations of trauma therapist and energy workers, is what

Trauma Hunting Vs True Healing

SPEAKER_03

really shifted that. When I initially also like spiraled in the story for a bit, I wanted to resolve it through the mind, which is why I really understand that pattern of covert control that keeps us in the loops that of our protective personality, the ego, because I did that and I amplified the story so big in my head that it shut me down, where I was not able to have sex at all with my husband for like some times. And so truly breaking that identity when I built enough coherence in the body, because you you can't push things, it goes at the rate that you can truly receive. Yeah. When I was able to let those identities crumble and collapse, and I will tell you like the the it feels like the experience of giving birth was like it pulled out the last little strings of trauma that have been attached from that experience because I felt so powerful in that moment of having a human emerge out of my body.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

That like anything that was residual like came back because it's also not just a process of shedding, it's a reclaiming your power. Your power is already there, it's just caught up in these stagnant patterns. Like once you release it, poo, it's gonna start to flow through your system again. And giving birth was like this like victorious moment of feeling all my power return back and feeling that for like womankind, you know? And so now that's like when I also started Embody Mystics, my virtual studio. Like right after I gave birth, I had this so much creativity. I was like, oh, I don't have the time. Like I really chose to be a stay-at-home mom, and I was like, I literally don't have time, but I know for my soul's sake, I need to be teaching movement medicine very regularly. I'm gonna make it accessible online for people who are not ready to come to in-person classes, which is a very big thing, especially for women who have a history of SA, but also just for people who feel insecure in their body, they don't want to go move around in another room with people. Yeah. So being able to have that accessible from your own living room, from your bedroom, and guiding women through the core medicine that I found of movement. I don't even love using the word dance because people associate it with like needing rhythm and like performance. But it's just like flailing around in your kitchen like you would with your besties. Yeah. But you you don't need the wine.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. I hear that. It's more ecstatic, it's more fluid. Precisely. So you've come to a place now where you feel so connected and so grounded in your body, and you've had these powerful experiences of like the cognitive processing being helpful as part of your story, but also seeing that there's this whole other embodied and somatic and energetic place that you needed to go and was so essential for your journey. That you can now, let's just call it what it is. You can now lead women through very weird things to do with your body in public form, both online and in person. And I think this is part of like what magnetizes women to you is like you embody that so well. Like it's very clear that you feel very self-assured in that environment. And I think women also see that in me. And I just want to like I want to name that behind women like you and women like me is a whole healing journey of which you do not know all of what we like walked through to get there. So if you're sitting there, like I used to look at myself and be like, why can't I be more self-confident? Why can't I dance at the party unless I've like drank some some alcohol before? Like, why can't I do this? Like, why can't I do that? Why can't I feel good in my body when I look in the mirror? Like a fucking course you can't feel good when you look in the mirror. Like a fucking course you don't feel free to dance in your body. Like there's all these different nervous system patterns and all this stuff that's like unplugged and not connected and needs like to just be renovated in order for you to feel free. And so I really do believe that this work is actually about like embodied liberation, but for the purpose of like aligning with soul and spirit and whatever we want to call the infinite. And I just want to paint the picture again for like all of our listeners that if you're stuck in some of these patterns, it's not because there's something wrong with you. It's not because you're broken. It's likely because there's work that you get to have the power to take agency over doing in order to feel this kind of freedom. I want to tell just a little bit of my own story here too. But before I do, anything you wanted to add on, because I know you were that was landing for you.

SPEAKER_03

No, I think what you said was just so eloquent, and it's it's yeah, it's about taking authority back. And so a lot of what we're doing in our work is helping people not just release the past, but build the muscles of confidence, of creativity, of consciousness. We are actively building these things, just like you would work out your muscles. We're working out our nervous system, our fascia, our consciousness to build these things in us. They're already there. We have to strengthen them.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. And it comes through repetition and practice. Like if when I think back to like when I first started teaching. Yoga. Like that was so scary for me. And now me, I combine in my one-to-one sessions, we do dance as part of that process if the client wants to, because sometimes it's a really important part of the healing journey just to learn how to let loose. Like yoga can be so structured. Somatic yoga is more about honoring the body wisdom and intuition. But sometimes dance gives us an important outlet. And sometimes my clients are like, I'll suggest that we do like something more somatic and like body-led, and that it might be more primal or like uncomfortable. And sometimes that's too much. So if you're listening and you're like, I'm not ready for Cabec or Carrie's work of this kind, then that's okay, babe. Like it's okay for you to not be ready to do that. Just start with what you can. Okay. So absolutely.

SPEAKER_03

Tell me about your story.

SPEAKER_01

So my story, I grew up in a very like Southern Baptist puritanical culture. It was all about like controlling the body to be worthy. And so I grew up in that where it was like, you know, don't be sexual. I witnessed my mother doing a lot of promiscuous activities that caused my family a lot of harm. And so I grew up in this like culture where it felt like everybody just really wanted to control me. But then also like a lot of trauma was happening, a lot of lack of support, a lot of adults who love me fiercely and were present, my dad, very present, but not emotionally able to help me with what was going on. And so my first relationship, I ended up with a very abusive boy, 14 years old, and I'm sexually abused and pressured and coerced. And I did not tell my story. I hid that shit from everyone. And it did a lot of harm to me for many, many years. And so fast forward into the birth of my daughter, and that became, and I had already had a child for people that don't know me. So I had a son and then a daughter. When my daughter was born, it

Body Love Story And Reclaiming Sensuality

SPEAKER_01

was like everything in the universe was like, it is time to heal all this sexual trauma that you've experienced. And so I want to name, like in your story, you kind of went immediately into that healing journey. But for me, I didn't. I waited a long time to heal that stuff. I mean, more than a decade for me to heal the sexual trauma that I went through. And so I just want to like paint that possibility too.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, absolutely. Everything happens in the time your body is ready for and in in the life that you're currently living, because you need space.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. And we're just we're meant to wake up at the pace that we're meant to wake up. Like I had to do so much healing to be ready for that. You know?

SPEAKER_03

Oh, yes. Yes.

SPEAKER_01

And I want to name that journey for women because some of the women that are in my world have had very complex trauma, very, very intense trauma over the course of many, many years of their lives. And so we see you. We see you, we get you. Absolutely. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. So can I ask you a question? Yeah. Did the process of like what do they call it? Like um realizing how religion affected you and then also this experience in your body of violation, like, did those go hand in hand? Did you start questioning things and having to break down the deconstruction?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. I think my first healing journey was giving myself permission to not believe the religion that I grew up in. Because it just never like I was that kid that would like go to church with my family and then go home and lay in bed super anxious because I didn't feel good about what I was hearing. And for our my listeners that are a Christian and it feels good to you, I am in no way suggesting that there's anything wrong with the path of Christianity if it is your access point and your relationship up the mountain to God or goddess. Go all in. But for me, I am a spiritual misfit. I will find God anywhere. And I don't love any particular religious dogma, but I love all expressions of the divine. And so I needed this much more fluid approach. So I untangled from religion pretty early on, like right when I went to college, I was like, oh, I don't have to keep like, you know, I have to pretend that I'm still there when I'm with my family, but like I can just be free when I'm at school. And then very soon after is when I found yoga. And that really blew the lid off the doors because I was like, oh my gosh, like I I don't need to go to a chiropractor to get help with my body. Like I can help my body and I know what it feels like to be in my body. And wait, there's all these spiritual teachings that actually feel so good to me. And so that happened, I would say, a lot earlier on. And I do think that building the relationship of safety in my body and working through, like I had a miscarriage after the birth of my son, and it was super traumatic. And so going through trauma healing around that with somebody that helped me with somatic pieces, it all sort of paved the way for me to then be ready after the birth of my daughter to realize like, whole wait, wait, I'm responsible for a woman, a girl who will become a woman in the world now. And that is very different than helping a boy become a man. And so it just felt like it's time to do that. And honestly, I had so much fun with it. Like I learned all about orgasms, I learned about G spots, I learned about all the things. Like I am having so much better sex and so much more fun now. But also, like I just want to name that we heal these layers at just the right time. And we're sort of unraveling the story all the all the long. If we're choosing to consciously show up in that, and you can trust your journey, like like I trusted my journey and you trusted your own. Own that it's leading you these beautiful places.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, absolutely. If if we're forcing it, if we're stepping on the hamster wheel of healing, that that is a clear sign your ego is still trying to dictate. And and that's okay too. That's identifying that identity is part of the process. And it's I think I I don't know. I think the spiritual wellness, everything world can tend to complicate the process of healing because it's become something else because of Instagram, to be quite honest. Um and I think that's shifting for the best. But I think it made people think, oh, I'm not quite there yet. There's something wrong with me. Oh, oh, that person, you know, how we're perceiving how people are projecting themselves out into the world to be received and shared is sometimes creating lack or oh, I don't, you know, I'm not quite there. Oh, I'm not that healed. I'm not this yet. And um to just remind her that we're, you know, we're receiving so much information about people that are essentially strangers in real time that it's like your brain is not designed to interpret that much. And and in all capacities of all the information that's at our fingertips and moving through our consciousness and really affecting our perception of reality and thus our choices.

SPEAKER_01

It feels like a good time just to anchor back into that. This is your own journey intuitively. And so, like, you don't need to question, like like I laugh, but sometimes people are like, am I healing right? Am I like doing the work right? And it's like, are you doing it the way that you feel intuitively called? And you're like it, you're getting the results that you want to see. Okay, then yeah, you're doing it just fine. Yeah, you're doing it right. So I love to talk about I well, I gosh, I I'm like trying to figure out which way I want to take it.

SPEAKER_00

Where am I gonna go?

SPEAKER_01

I know. So, yeah, let's go into some insight that you've learned by working with your clients because we've kind of circled around a lot of different topics here.

Movement Medicine And Undomesticated Dance

SPEAKER_01

And so I'd love to ground this back into reality for our listeners. Like, how do you see some of this playing out in some of your clients' experiences in real time? Can you give us some examples of some of the work that you've done that might be relevant to the topics that we've already covered?

SPEAKER_03

I can see people's metamorphosis when you could like it's like the dropping of the mask. A lot of the people I work with are mystics or they're people who are highly sensitive, it would be the best group, highly sensitive, very self-aware, very in tune, but they've kind of always experienced like a little bit of rejection from their own family or a little ri ridicule and tend to gaslight themselves, not to not believe their own emotional experiences. Because maybe they were told they were wrong a couple of times when they were three years old. And then, you know, then this whole pattern forms around that. And so for me, it's in this lightening of load is what I see in my clients. It's this lightness where they're not carrying around all these burdens, all all these this I see societal programming as shackles, literally. I call them the shackles of society, these chains that go on our wrists and legs, and they make everything heavy, they make resistance come up. They and it's really about how we are relating initially with ourselves. It's what I work with is your relationship with yourself. But that is going to naturally mirror into every relationship in your life with your kids, with your mom, with your besties, with people you don't know online. And so I return people to that relationship with self, and I'm watching them just feel free to express themselves. And that's really a big core of my work is freedom to express yourself without hindrance, without holding back, but also without with refinement.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Which is what how I didn't express myself well as a kid. I was always a drama queen, and all these things are heard, these things like you're so much, you're just so much to handle, you're too sensitive. And now I'm owning all those things as gifts and I've refined them into wisdom so that I can fully be me and express myself without fear of being outcast by society. Now I'm not going to say that that doesn't still come up. That absolutely comes up. I choose to put myself out there. I choose to be quite raw and real on the internet in a world where, you know, most people aren't showing up in that way. And so you choose to also then realize I cannot do anything about these projections of other people. And that is so liberating when you actively move through it. And that's what I'm seeing in my clients is this level of liberation to exist fully as a being that's always been there as their soul self in every avenue and aspect of life, where they're they're not carrying this load of the past anymore. But they understand it and they've distilled it, but it doesn't define them.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. That's just sounds so freeing, right? That idea that we can just express, but also not like expression for the sake of just surface level catharsis or release. I was working with a client the other day and something big came up during the session, and she really wanted to work on it privately. And so we were talking through, like, okay, like talk me through your process. And what she realized through our conversation was that really she was great at the somatic release and the emotional release part, but she wasn't doing the integration work. And it's like that refinement piece is really important too. It's part of the inner skills that you and I help our clients build. It's like, how do we like get it out? And then also, like, how do you lay the groundwork for integration and assimilation of that so that you complete the cycle?

SPEAKER_03

Yes. Yes. We want the cycle to be complete. Yes. And sometimes catharsis can be a hook for people. Some people are addicted to like redigging into that and they like the feeling. And that's unfortunately only strengthening that loop. And I think that's what a lot of people think somatic healing is, unfortunately. I think they think it's just like, oh, I just need to feel this feeling and I'm like, yeah, without the identity, without the the hook into like, oh, I kind of feel good here, but that's my ego feeling good here. But it's also expression, like outside of just like screaming and yelling and thrashing, which is a huge part of everything that I do. And it means of like just existing on earth right now. I need to scream and thrash, and just being tackled by a four-year-old every five minutes, like my body literally thinks this in like under attack sometimes, even though I'm like brain, brain knows, brain's totally aware. Um, this precious being cannot hurt you. Like, and he needs this, so toughen up. Um, but it's also expression of like I dress now how I've wanted to dress my entire life, and it's so fun to just like not give a shit about being 40 and dressing how some people maybe perceive 25-year-olds dress at times, or just like adorning my house and things that like are just so beautiful, and it's not about what's in trend.

SPEAKER_01

Like, fuck that.

SPEAKER_03

Like, I just want to have me splattered everywhere in my environment. And I want that to encourage me to express how I'm feeling with my partner at any given time and with with my mom, and uh really letting honesty lead. Yeah, and sometimes that's really not taken well in this world. And then developing the capacity to be okay with other people's discomfort and their perception of you, which is a whole lot.

SPEAKER_01

It is. So I'd love to talk about self-confidence because a lot of women that come into my world, they are seeking more self-confidence. And I think that there's illusion, a lot of illusions that come with pursuing more self-confidence.

Integration Over Catharsis

SPEAKER_01

And a lot of it's like future tripping, like when I do this, when I look like this, when I have reached this level of healing, or when I like it's all this stuff about when something shifts or becomes different than it is now, that then they'll feel self-confident. And I think that that so much of the conversation that you and I have explored today is really about what has led you and I both to a place of self-confidence. And I would say that it's really it's much more than waiting for it. So can you speak to that?

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, I mean, it's I do think there's this element of like play that I've always done. So, like, I'm literally wearing red lipstick now because I'm like, this is relevant. I used to, like 15 years ago, I was like, I want to be, I want to wear a red lipstick, but I'm like scared to leave the house and red lipstick, it's so bold. It's so you know, oh, yeah, these ideas about it. So I just wear it around the house. And I just got used to seeing myself in it, and so I'd start stepping out the door, and that became a regular thing for me, like a signature thing. I wanted to wear crop tops forever, and I was like, Oh, you you can't wear crop tops, you're in your 30s. Like, you can't. Whereas I just wore them around the house and I was like, Yep, we're wearing them everywhere now. I I built confidence through play, and that's how I built the confidence to like teach movement medicine. Like I was doing that for myself for five years before I ever led a class. It was just, and I wasn't doing it with intention of like one day I'm gonna teach this. It was just like this is what I was doing. I got so used to moving like that, to being like completely feral in my expression, that then hosting a class felt like the most natural thing to do because I actually embodied the fruits of the work.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

So for me, it's a lot about like I play. I play dress up at home all the time. I love clothes, I love styling myself, I like finding and putting together things. And I it's a hobby that I spend time cultivating this. And for me, like really dressing myself in a way that feels like precisely like the frequency that I am at in any given moment is helps me step into the world with that confidence because I feel like I look like how I feel.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

That's always shifting day to day. Uh but I feel that there's this congruency with uh how I'm presenting myself and how I feel inside. And I I and that's such a great thing to experience. I feel like that's what really confidence is. I feel like true confidence is when you inspire other people to step into their power. And then there's the perceived confidence of you know, people who are manipulating how they uh look, their image to look in a certain perfect way so that they can be confident, you know? Yeah, there's a slight switch. There's some con like some people that you could perceive, like, oh, that's a very confident person, but it makes me shrink or you know, whatever it is in them. Or it makes me like, hmm. And then there's people who walk with confidence that like lights you up, and you're like, Yeah, that can be my power. I don't need to lose 10 pounds to strut my stuff. Like I can embody that now. And a lot of confidence really, I think, like as a bodyworker comes through the way people walk.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_03

A lot and how you walk. See if you can like shift the pattern of how you walk, like open up the shoulders, drop in, use your yoga and how you walk and bring with that stride you into it.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

See what happens.

SPEAKER_01

So I hear you saying that a lot of it's about playing and it's about knowing yourself and what you're interested in, and then exploring that. And maybe you explore it first, like in the safety of your home, where you feel insulated from judgment or opinion or other people's reactions, and then letting that sort of expand out as you build that sense of safety in yourself, and then also that like paying attention to how things make you feel and people make you feel. For example, I used to watch The Hills. Did you ever watch like that? Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01

On MTV. And I this was like very much in a time where I had a lot of body image issues, and I would notice, like, I would watch that show, and then I would just feel awful about myself. And so I think we live in a world where there's a lot of like smoke and mirrors in on Instagram and TikTok. I'm not on TikTok, but I hear people are really into TikTok. And like noticing how these

Confidence, Play, And Everyday Choice

SPEAKER_01

people make you feel, and do they actually inspire you to feel uplifted and elevated or not? So there's you've given people some good things to think about there. And also, confidence is a choice that you make. It's a daily, just small choice. And I believe that confidence is really about am I gonna love myself in this situation? Am I gonna love myself enough to choose myself? Am I gonna love myself even if I like look a wear the crop top? Or am I gonna love myself? Like one of my clients was talking about how she's a really hard time picking out a movie because she's worried her husband won't like it. And it's like, can you love yourself even if you pick out a movie and it bombs hard?

SPEAKER_03

You know, like yeah, yeah. It's not being afraid to make mistakes, yeah. And or to be perceived as imperfect or to to to be say stupid shit, like yes, or change like you're gonna say stupid things and change your mind, right? You're gonna be wrong about things, and it's not about like again, but the identity thing, like having identity wrapped around that, then the if you if you do, then you're just gonna shame spiral, you're gonna like shrink. And women, we're we're bred to do that, unfortunately, in this society, but a whole new breed of women are being raised right now. And I'm watching it, and I'm like, these girls, these unhindered little children are I mean, they're terrifying for the older generations. They're like, wow, wow, we're not reeling this in. Oh no, we are amplifying it. We're watching these little girls like not have to go through the decades of healing we went through for just being themselves.

SPEAKER_01

Like, you know, I will say, like, I'm a mother of a daughter, and I still think there's so much. Like, I see, yes, like we are we have come so far, and I really think like people like us will have less business to whatever, like they're they're the ones that are just reaching out, right? But also, like, I can tell you, like, it is still such an issue. Like, I'm watching my little girl struggle with her self-image, and she's seven. And it, but like, I think the difference is like she has language to communicate it and a safe place for it to land, and we can explore it together. And I had this illusion that just because I am confident and I love my body and I do all of these things, that she was gonna absorb all of that. And I've realized through like mirror neuron concepts that I need to be healing out loud in front of her. I need to be showing her these things in real time. And so for Mothers of daughters that are out there and boys too. Like, obviously, our boys need to hear this as well. But I think, especially as women, there's just more programming on us. That I think that one of the greatest gifts that we can do for them is to embody ourselves, but to also tell our stories to our girls so that then they know, like, okay, mom struggles with this sometimes even today. Because self-confidence is not something that we're just like, we're done with. Like it's a conscious, like you're choosing that every day. And I'm choosing that every day. And so are all the other women that are feeling more self-confident. It's this, it's this like ever choice to come back to. And to not make meaning about when you feel your insecurity come up. It doesn't mean anything. You're choosing it's gonna happen.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, we it's still yeah, exactly. It still happens. It's a matter of like, I'm gonna choose to not believe that.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Again and again and again. And yeah, oh, these little this generation has something we didn't have, which is the internet and social media at a level that young. Yeah, they have a whole other journey than we do.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. And I don't know that it's always easier. Like, I like to think that, like, oh, we've paved the way, but then I'm like, shit, like, okay, wait, they have all these different things that we didn't have to think about.

SPEAKER_03

Truly. I feel for them. And I yeah, I love all the mommies that are just out there raising babies with self-awareness.

SPEAKER_01

Yes, absolutely. Well, one thing we did not talk about very much is we talked earlier about intuition and psychic abilities. But I'm curious for anyone, any women that are on the line with us today and want to use a more intuitive approach to heal your relationship to your body, to recover from past experiences, to feel more self-confident. What are some ways that you would tell them to be accessing their intuition as part of that process or strengthening bonds with intuition?

SPEAKER_03

Yes, yeah. So as a healing arts teacher, it is like oh, it's my favorite thing is to teach women how to access these gifts. And it's so much easier than people would like to make it. Dropping into a meditative space and using your imagination to ask questions. Ask questions. Ask questions. And your imagination, your soul is likely going to communicate in symbols. And so not taking anything literally, one don't take things literally.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

This is your subconscious painting a picture through some interesting things. Similar to how I described shame as like a saran wrap and the shackles of society as literal chains. Those are ways in which my intuition has communicated with me and showed me patterns that show up very consistently in people. Um, and so I the same way I communicate with the element, it is through imagination. Your imagination is the doorway, learning to trust it and learning to ask questions, ask questions, ask clarifying questions, ask for more. Yeah. And let your subconscious, that's what you're communicating with. Your subconscious is your soul self. Let it show you what's there. And so that's why like dream realm is for some people who are getting regular good sleep. Like you get an REM, awesome. That's a really good space for people to start to like see some of these patterns and stuff in yourself.

Intuition, Symbols, And Trust

SPEAKER_03

I don't get regular REM. I'm working on it. And yeah, you know, just like being in the motherhood journey is like, yeah, it's Tinder. And but you can access that at any point in time. But also just those knowings. It's just the main way I receive info. It's just like a knowing. Um your intuition will keep communicating with you the more that you show it that you trust what you received, that you you don't question it, that you're not like, you know, and that doesn't mean you know things about other people. I I really think it really has to hone in on the relationship with self and using your intuition, your imagination, your sensory perception that you are beyond this body. And even though you can't see it, your field, the meridians, I see them as these lines that like keep extending out beyond your body and all around you.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

You're a multidimensional being. There's so much more to you than you're able to perceive. And so explore tapping into that imaginative state and explore the symbols, but don't take it too literally. Don't attach to those stories. See it, let it go, let it bring you wisdom. Yeah, people use oracle cards and pendulums and all these things. And I've gone, I've done all that, but you don't need any physical tool at all. Like none of it. A pendulum can be helpful for people learning to trust their own yes and no and getting answers. But at some point, you need to drop that and you need to go back into what does yes and no feel like in your body?

SPEAKER_01

Absolutely. Well, I have two final questions for you. And the first one is how has yoga been a part of your growth and healing journey? Obviously, you alluded to some of that earlier, but I'd love to hear how it has been in the past and how it continues to be part of your growth and healing.

SPEAKER_03

It was really the foundation. It was the doorway into mindfulness initially, just slowing down. I studied Iyengar at first. I was like in a traditional Iyengar class, which is very different from any type of flow that you've ever done. No workshop style. No flow. But I love, I love that coming off of being a dancer, which you know, because it kind of was very disciplined and very structure and alignment based. And my brain liked that. And then I found power yoga, as most of us do at some little point in our life, and got like endorphined hooked and approached yoga from a workout space for a couple of years, as it can be, but it would also doorway me into my first YTT. And then after that, I just kind of kept going. Yoga for me is a consistent on the mat, a disciplined practice of tuning into every tissue. And that helped me then translate my love for dance and somatic movement through this lens of yoga. So all of all that I bring into movement medicine my class is through the lens of yoga still, which is why I only train you have to have a 200 RIT to learn the method. Um, it is it is the glue of the class. Yin has really been like my passion.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

And I was trained by someone who is an acupuncturist, so he approached it from traditional Chinese medicine and the meridians, and I was just like, ooh. And so that's what I teach consistently in movement medicine, because I want people to slow down and to be present with discomfort to keep building that capacity. Because yen, yeah, sometimes I do restorative, it fills into like where we're at, who's in the room. Sometimes we need more restorative just to melt. And yen asks us to kind of push a bit into discomfort and then soften into it. And the way I see it is we're opening up the fascia, the these connective tissues to create new patterns.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Slowly. You cannot force fascia, you cannot make it do anything, it will only retract. And so Yen gives us that refinement practice of I can't force this.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. It sounds like it's something that you you can like it's it's the way you view things, it's the glue, it's this place to return to. It's all these things for you that you continue to weave into your daily life and into your work.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, definitely. It's definitely my yoga is mostly off the mat. Um, when you were asking me to reflect on that for this podcast, I was like, it's interesting because I'm always like, yeah, I get to yoga like once a month now. And then I was like, but you know what? I'm living it off the mat. And I love those once a month classes where I feel like the reinfusement of like, oh, I love yoga every single time. It's like rare now, but it's like a gift to be able to like be led. I love being guided, I love being held just as much as I love holding space. It's my happy space. It's important,

Yoga As Foundation And Yin Wisdom

SPEAKER_03

it really is the foundation. And I live, I live my yoga off the mat.

SPEAKER_01

That's so powerful. So, Kat, how can people find you on the internet?

SPEAKER_03

On the internet. On Instagram, I'm Kat Beck, K-A-T-B-E-C-K. My YouTube channel is Mystic Medicine with Kat Beck. I had a this from like I'm thinking it was almost a decade ago, this collection of meditations, which is what I started my YouTube with. And I'm now revamping it, those are all still there with weekly collective intuitive healings where I'm tapping into the current frequency of the collective. I'm here to serve and assist, and doing some energetic and somatic exploration to move that energy and to restore your blueprint. So you it every week it's like a little, they've just been like 10-minute little readings and intuitive healing work. So that's a nice way to like sample my flavor and my frequency and see if it kind of like hmm. But Instagram is definitely my main space for being loud on the internet.

SPEAKER_01

Well, everyone, those details of how you can learn more about cat are down in the show notes. Kat, thank you so much for your honesty today. Thank you for sharing more about the work that you do in the world, both for yourself and for the people that you work with. It's been such a joy to have you.

SPEAKER_03

Thank you, Carrie.

SPEAKER_01

Thank you so much for having me. Thank you so much for listening to the Nourished Woman podcast. I would love to hear what resonated with you and what you're carrying with you out into your life. Send me a message on Instagram at the Nourished Woman or even in my email. Your messages really mean the world to me, so don't be shy. The beautiful music that you're hearing is by Sean Johnson and the Wild Lotus Band. You can find them on all streaming platforms. I'll see you next week for another episode. Welcome to the Nourished Woman Podcast, a space for women who've been doing the work to grow and heal and are ready to feel good again, body, mind, and soul. I'm your host, Carrie Marino, somatic yoga therapist of over 16 years, mentor and mama of three. I help women like you fall in love with how yoga makes you feel. Alchemi the hard things you've been through, and experience more pleasure and aliveness in your body and relationships. I'm so glad you're here. Let's dive in.

SPEAKER_02

I just know I can't survive without mystery.