Who Heals the Healer?: Kristin on Voice, Identity & Self-Discovery

Beyond achievements, Kristin describes herself as a poetess, healer, and “girlosopher.” A fellow master's student in Columbia University's Spirit Mind Body Psychology program, she reflects on identity, voice, and the process of unmasking who we are beneath labels others place on us. 

Kristin shares how writing and poetry became a bridge between her rich inner world and a public self that often felt masked. She opens up about moving from Texas to Louisiana at a young age, navigating rigid cultural expectations, the pressure to adapt herself to fit in, and the experience of being judged for her ethnically ambiguous appearance.

Together, we explore the many forms of voice, from breath and language to movement and self-expression, and discuss the challenges that can come with being labeled “strong” or a “leader.” Kristin also reflects on changing her path from pre-med to creative arts therapy, caring for her mother through a breast cancer diagnosis, and the question: who heals the healer?

This conversation is an invitation to look beyond labels, reconnect with your authentic voice, and embrace the gifts you are meant to share with the world.

Transcript

Kristin & Rach 0:00

Hello everyone, and welcome to Unmasked. Glad that you're here listening. Per usual, take a few deep breaths with me, whether you're walking, driving, sitting, wherever you are Notice this moment And then you can tune in with us Welcome, Kristen Hey, my sweet friend How are you doing today? I am excellent. Thank you for being here. I feel so honored to be here. This is such a treat. It's so fun. I find so much joy in chatting with friends with a microphone and headphones. Yeah. Yeah. And I still get nervous. No, I think conversation's, like, the best art form, honestly. Mm-hmm. I was like, it's a, it's definitely a creative process in and of itself, It is. Let's kick it off with your three words. Poetess- Nicely done which I thought I was gonna butcher. I think that was okay. Poetess, was okay. Poetess, healer, and girl ossifer. Yeah. incredible. Yeah. Tell us more. Okay, so it was super hard to come up with words. One, because of having a background in creative writing, this was, it's, the worst question ever. Like, pick out of all the, the universe of words, pluck out, just three stars. But the fir- you know, the hardest part was actually... And I was thinking about the purpose of the podcast and this concept of unmasking, which is also a word that I definitely have a history with. masking is, definitely something that maybe we'll circle back to at some point. We'll see if it bubbles up in the conversation. But- Having to give myself permission to put down, all of the words that came to my mind immediately, but that came from other people. It was like hearing them in someone else's voice or hearing them in the voices of the people who had given them to me and thinking like, "Oh, is it that one? Is it that one? Is it that one? Is it, is this who I am?" And so I use it as a spiritual practice to get really quiet and start to pay attention to if the words that were coming to my mind were coming from outside of myself or if they were coming from inside of myself. And again, like really using them as a way to tune in deeper and deeper, like layer by layer, and then see what kind of came out. And all kinds of stuff like bubbled to the surface. But these three kinda seem to represent major chapters in my life that I felt, strangely enough, like the most like authentically tied to, but also I think really represented the gem of that time. And so it was really kind of like these little pearls that were coming out of the depths, one by one. And, but it did not come easy. It was definitely like shucking a tough oyster- let me tell you. there was a lot of, there was a lot that had to come off first before, before that revealed itself. You're not the only one who has had a challenging time with this question. Yeah. It is a tough question. Yeah. It sounds so simple, right? And, But it's not. I think if you take it honestly, it's like it's not. it's really easy to find or use those labels that you've heard most often, but that typically come from someone else or other people, and you've just learned to identify with them, and you've learned how to, Internalize them in a way where you adopt an identity rather than taking the time to ask yourself the question, "Is this true for me now? Is this true for me still? Is this something I want to continue to carry around?" So actually, it's it was such a great experience, and thank you. I'm so grateful actually for you asking the question. Aw, I'm so glad. And I wanna ask you so many questions about the voices that came through that weren't your own and those labels first. I would love to know more about these three words specifically- Yeah and how they shine through in your life currently. Oh, yeah. So like I said, they kind of represent different chapters of my life. So the poetess part is, I've always been a writer. That's like the inside voice, and I think the writing... I always felt more comfortable writing rather than speaking, ironically, even though I did like theater growing up and used to be a very outgoing young child. But then some things happened that maybe changed the way that I started to interact with the world, and I noticed that my authenticity became something that I felt like I needed to mask. And writing was a way of me bridging that space between the internal self and the part of myself that I started to create to be able to interact with the world around me. So this program at SMB is actually my third master's program, and it's like, again, all the degrees I have have come at different like life chapters. Life is long and the road is winding, let me tell you. and you definitely can't predict it no matter how much you try. But the poet piece, helped me to recognize that, art, art are the stories that we tell other people, but... and psychology are the stories that we tell ourselves. So I actually started out with a psychology degree, and then, 10 years later got a master's in creative arts and, or pardon me, English and creative writing, and my thesis was poetry. So whereas like I was giving myself permission to like really like unbox this voice and like really claim it as a authentic part of myself. But yeah, the poetry was a way of me healing myself and of, c- claiming, my own narrative and giving myself agency in a way I think before I even knew what these words were, before I was actually even, making it a conscious effort. It was authentically unfurling in its own way piece by piece, so it was a very important step in the path, even though it's not something that I do professionally. I've never made money off of writing, but it's definitely something that if I'm honest, it's, integral to who I am. I always have a pen in my hand. I have to write something. Even in class, I have to take notes. it's how I process and interact with the world is, through words, through language, and it's such a living archive, like a living memory, that we get to work with every single moment. And, when I got into teaching yoga and getting into yoga, there's a huge emphasis, in Sanskrit put on the words that you use. they're not random, and so, when you use a word in yoga, it... or in Sanskrit, I should say, it's like the meaning of the words. People ask, what does that mean in Sanskrit?" It's actually, it's a, it's like a seed that holds, like, all of the memory of how that word has been used throughout the entire past. And so when you're using it in the present moment, it's b- it's bringing all of that with you, so you have to think really carefully of, what you choose to say or put in that space. It's like if you're gonna, you know, if you're gonna be teaching or using in Sanskrit. So it's, I think it's such a precious thing to, to think about. And then, you know, language also, even writing, is, like... it's a way of, of using your voice, and then the concept of, using our voice. I think that, we live in a society, especially in the West and the States, of, who gets to speak? What do you speak about? how can you say it? What can you say? What can you not say? And there's even more anxiety, I think, now than at any other point in my life of being able to use your voice. So also, kudos to you, it's for setting it free by- having a space that people can come into and use it and just talk authentically about their experience. But yeah, the poetry was a way of me bringing this very quiet, very hidden, internalized part of myself into the light, into the sun, and then just letting her exist, without having to make her perform or do something. Like I said, I've never made money off of writing in that way, although it's definitely, a key aspect of my being. If I have a nickel for every time someone has said, "You need to write a book," one of these days it'll, it will come. It will come. You just mentioned feeling as though using your voice brings on more anxiety than ever. Oh, yeah. Could you say more about that? Yeah. I think we have so many avenues now for being able to use our voice. So many. whether it's social, whether now it's podcasts, whether it's like, it's YouTube even. But like we were saying at the very beginning, like conversation is an art form. It's like it can be an art in and of itself, and I feel like that's something that I notice is very quietly trying to make a resurgence. every so often I'll come across a post or, or just hear on the street, or talk with a friend about just missing the need for, a very overused phrase, authentic connection. But I think what we're really talking about is being in real conversation and like in, in yoga we call that, satsang, like being in communion with one another is like where you're really, where you're unmasking, where you're really opening up your heart space to another person. Like having a true heart to heart, or a tête-à-tête. Like phrases that we... used to be so common I think when I was growing up that I almost, I don't hear them anymore. Like I don't hear people say "Oh, we need to have a tête-à-tête," which is like a head to head in French. Or we need to have a heart to heart conversation. And I think because things have gotten so fast, they've gotten so technical, there's just things that we've forgotten. But again, like why I love and practice yoga so much is this concept of remembering, of, coming back into union with something that you might have left behind. In fact, actually my very first yoga teacher training program, I, I did a Bhakti oriented program, and that was my very first school of yoga where I started in. And my teacher, Sean Johnson, his passion project, his mission really in the world is to set the voice free, and that was a very, like it was a, like a declared sentence. "I am here," it's to, to use this vehicle of yoga, this methodology and help to bring you into the conversation as teachers into setting the voice free in whatever way that means for different people. Because for some it's, it's speaking, it's verbal, but it could also be, it could be writing, it could be through your body, it could be through dance as it could be, um, through athletics. I mean everything, it can be an art. Everything is a conversation. your voice really can never be silenced because it's always in play. It's always- Yeah as long as you have breath in your body, you're using your voice in some way. And I think may- and we even talked about that as part of like in the history of yoga is that it all starts with the breath. So yeah, if you have breath, you have voice. Incredible. I love that you define voice by so many things. I actually have never h- heard it described that way, and it's really beautiful to think that people can use their voice without always speaking Rewinding to a few minutes ago, you said when you were younger, you were really outgoing, you were using your voice, and then something shifted and you went towards writing as a way of using your voice. If you feel comfortable, would you share about that shift? Yeah, absolutely. It was a physical move. So I was born in Texas, although my family is, really spread apart across the country. So my mother's side of the family is from New England, and my father's side of the family, at the time, was mostly in Texas and, and then further down the East Coast, like in Virginia. So I didn't really have, necessarily a centralized idea of home, but at the... Like, when I was very young, it was where you're born. so Texas at the time was, like, where I felt like my home was. And then we, we moved around a lot when I was a small child, and so it was kinda was, being on the move as a normal experience. And so it came time for us to move again, and we were moving from Texas to Louisiana, just outside New Orleans. And I remember having a really strange sensation in my body, but thinking, "Oh, this is just another, another adventure. we'll see what unfolds." And I was about eight years old. I was turning eight years old at the time. And I had some very negative experiences, and that really, made me immediately start to recognize that this new space was not a safe space. And I recognized it's very challenging moving into a culture, that needed very well-defined lines to describe and understand people and relationships. they needed to know, like, where your family is from and what religion you are, and, And those, and those definitions, had to have very specific answers to them. there was, like, a right answer and there was a wrong answer. And I was very much outside all of those lines. I'm extremely, non-traditional in so many ways and very unconventional whether I, whether I like it or not. Not by desi- Well, I should say, I guess by divine design, but not necessarily by human design. And having to try to figure out how to merge, the innate freedom that I felt as a child into this new space, was a very difficult process. And, I look back actually with a lot of pride and kindness for my younger self. She was very wise. I'm like, "Look at you, little one." "You did good, kid." I went in very hopeful, thinking like, "Okay." I was like, "Well, you know, this is a little bit challenging, but we'll, we'll see." We'll have... It didn't, it didn't feel natural. it wasn't a very natural transition, whereas I feel like the moves prior to that, that had mostly been all around different as- different parts of Texas felt like an easier translation, but this was suddenly going from one language to another. And, and a little bit literally because I grew up with a lot of Spanish around me. and then all of a sudden I was moving into English, but with a little bit of French. they like to claim French, but, if you're French and you go to Louisiana, you will be, sadly mistaken. But but, so I literally switched languages that I was studying at the time. Everything was a transition. and at first it was kinda fun. You're like, "Oh, this is new and different." And then all of a sudden You started recognizing, things were getting a little meaner in a way. and they weren't quite fitting, and it was becoming like more and more effort, to overlook the asynchrony or the discord that was taking place. And so I think in order to try to create the harmony, I think I started to quiet down parts of myself that felt unsafe and that felt out of sync with the environment. Although the funny thing is, is that, you can't... So the biggest one is you can't hide the way that you look. So I have a very, ethnic look, a very, ethnically ambiguous look because I'm extremely mixed, and I have a very rich tapestry of ancestry. but in a world that, in the Deep South, that required specific categories and there were right and wrong answers to that. It was hard. It was hard trying to navigate that as a small child. I mean, it's hard any time that you have to move. There's always some kind of part of you that has to make an adjustment and, you know, like new parts of yourself th- that come out and grow and flourish, and then parts of yourself that maybe you don't need anymore and, you can release that were more connected to the last place that you lived or like the last neighborhood or your old friends or whatnot. It's just part of the natural process of growth and change. But this was something like entirely different, where, it was like trying to put a round peg through a square hole, where you were gonna have to literally change shape in order to move through the process. And so that just wasn't possible. And I didn't really want to do it, but at the same time you have to have some kind of functional harmony. So I found myself, in order, I think, to maintain balance or any kind of integrity, I think intuitively was like, "Oh, I'll just, I'll hold onto this in a deep space." It was like, like Ariel's cave. I just started to bury things like deep, like my little cave of treasures on the inside. And so a lot of things that I used to have on the outside now are in, on the inside. Like spiritual practices was a big one, And, and my creativity became something where I would engage my inner world and maybe less so my outside. Also, I'm an only child, so that kind of came a little bit more naturally as well, where I learned very early on how to have a foot in two canoes I knew how to be alone and entertain myself, but I also like, you had to learn how to engage with other people. Mm-hmm. You know, like for instance, if you go on vacation and like it's just you and your parents, like you have to make friends with the kids on the beach or whatever like you learn real quick how to, how to in- interact. And then when I moved to the Deep South, like that interaction became code switching, where I realized "Okay, this is the language I have to use for them to understand." Became, I suddenly became like orienting myself to everybody else- rather than to myself. And then there were some other family dynamics that kind of contribute to that too. So- Were you aware of this at the time? Yes. Wow. Yeah. As an eight-year-old? Yeah. I grew up very quickly, which I think is also a kind of a byproduct of being an only child. But if I were to answer like in our SMB way, if I were like talking to, to like Dr. Lisa- Yes, please and then she was like, "Were you a spiritual child?" I would say, "I don't think that there's ever been a time where I wasn't." It's such a rich part of my sense of self, and I think it's been the thing that helped me to navigate those spaces in a survivable way. I wouldn't say I always thrived. that's definitely up for debate. But it's helped me to survive, like to get through the most difficult, darkest of moments. Because definitely that discord, that asynchrony became darker over time. especially during like adolescence I think was probably like the hardest part. I mean, I know everybody's "Oh, damn." damn." Yeah. And I don't think anybody wants to go back to their like teen years. It's like taking a gut punch. Well, and I was actually writing something before this about our innate spirituality coming through in adolescence. At least that's- Yeah a crucial time in which- One could tap into spirituality- or one could completely disconnect from their selves. Yeah. It's scary. Yeah. And I'm grateful to have grown up when I did, because I can't imagine what it's like now growing up and trying to foster some kind of spirituality, connection with yourself, connection with nature when so many forces are driving us in the other direction. It's so funny to hear you say that, 'cause I actually think it's... I would wonder if it's easier now because the walls and the doors on the categories have now been, really blown open where... 'Cause I'm 39, so as like when I was younger, it's like there was still a lot of the carryover of, previous generations. So I feel like there was much stronger boundaries or barriers to having more freedom of thought, where I feel like now it's almost, taboo to try to tell somebody, "I think that's, I think that's out of line" or "I think that's too much," That's a good point. Pros and cons. But I see what you're saying. there's, there are definitely ways... Sometimes having ultimate freedom can also be kind of a trap in and of itself. the authenticity question is very real, ironically. You know, we have all this freedom, and yet we're, afraid to be unmasked and real and authentic. Mm-hmm. And, you know, what if people see all of me? What if I let that freedom be on the outside, too? Yeah, I think there's external freedom, and we manage to confine our internal freedom and ball it up inside to show up in a certain way. Would you tell us some of the labels that you adopted when you were younger throughout this time- to change yourself in order to fit the mold? Yeah. Well, something that I think that happened that I really took a very long time to work through was the physical aspect. what I've come to call the eroticism of exoticism. Like, when you, have what they would call, an exotic look, there's, a lot of very early erotic themes that will start to, emerge from that, which can be very uncomfortable to bear, especially, as a young female. that was really challenging, and trying to figure out how to hold something so heavy. And so that, that has been a tricky thing to try to navigate. So I've, uh, in many ways have had to reclaim that narrative. in a lot of ways, that's been something, I think, that's been an asset, is having to bear that has become, a gift in and of itself in terms of how it's guided me to reclaim and redefine and rename and, re-own as my own experience. It's so it helped me actually to ask questions that I didn't know that I had, really, learning about all of the different aspects. So f- for instance, part of my ancestry is being Assyrian, and that's a very small, ethnic group, and we went through a big genocide at the turn of the last century, which is how, my family came into the country. It's a culture that still speaks Aramaic, but I don't know that language. It's like there's so much that I've been disconnected from about my ancestry, so it will, show on the outside, but I don't necessarily have those connections on the inside. And so it can feel really jarring when people are, very violently judging you on the, like from your- your phenotype. And, you don't have the support, like the physical support in your life, of that ancestral bond to be able to back you up. I had to create that for myself over time and, take back the, the power that I clearly had, that I was emanating, through my physical body, through what you look like to other people and what that represents to them. But again, it became a really powerful teaching tool for me. It gave me a lot of maturity at a very young age, because I had to, learn like that Rorschach effect that when people are having those reactions and responses, that it's theirs. It's like that's their perception, and what, what perception is and the difference between someone else's perception and my perception. And so having that experience, really brought me into that conversation of investigating perception really early. And like I said, it wasn't exactly a choice, so that was the hard part about it. But the gift of it is that it gave me maturity, and it's like it gave me a very special kind of vision at a really young age that, that I've been able to bring with me the entire time on this journey, and has been able to, help me and guide me and support me and encourage me at many different steps along the path so that I could continue to move and grow and just flow with the river of life. 'Cause it will definitely take you in some places you don't expect. it's a wide, crazy landscape- that we get to navigate through life. but that was one. Like the, or that, the navigating the exotic look was one. Uh, another challenging one was strength and leadership. I constantly being called, a leader, or how strong you are, which is interesting because in a way it was kind of trauma response. It's like all of those things are natural traits, but I had to lean on them in a way that kind of, It's kinda like when we talk about our character strength in, in positive psychology. It's like you can over-rely on a character strength, and it became something that, wasn't always a liberating experience. I had to learn how to master those things to be able to use them as true character strengths rather than obstacles or letting them become, bridges, I think, rather than blocks. What was negative about people referring to you as being strong and a leader in your mind at that time? It often came from adults, and I think it was almost like congratulating you for being able to carry a burden that they couldn't. Mm-hmm. You know, like, "Oh, Kristen's so strong, she can handle it." And, "Oh, you're so strong, you got this." Or, a big one was when I was really young and, I grew up in the gifted program and, there was a lot of pressure to perform. But I l- I love learning. that's also a character strength of mine. I, I really enjoy it. And, I enjoyed the process so much that I really flourished in those spaces. academics and creativity and the arts, I really, I loved. I think it was a place where I found liberation. So whenever, as a child, I found those moments, or even as an adolescent, I would really expand. it's almost like my soul, it couldn't help itself, and it would just, like, burst into those spaces. And then you create, really amazing and beautiful things, and you do really well. and a label got put on me, especially by adolescents, of you're the s- you're the girl that wins everything." "You're the girl that, everything always works out for you. You always get A's." As and you would, get like the s- school awards and stuff. Or it's like, or you would always be looked to for responsibility. so whenever there was a leadership role or there was some kind of responsibility that was to be had, it was always put on my shoulders. But I started to recognize in adulthood, especially when I had to work through, my own pain and healing, Because a question started to emerge, especially into, like into my 20s, which was who heals the healer? was it when... who, who leads the leader? who helps the helper? it's always on your own back. What happens when it becomes, too heavy a burden to bear? And that was a huge moment, for me, having to face like that moment head-on. And healer was one of your words for today. Yes. So at one time, did you have a hard time seeing yourself and embodying- a healer? Yeah. So I always had these two aspects of self. I definitely am a creative at heart, but a healer by trade. So I always had the, the artist on the inside and the healer on the outside. I think the healer also came from living a life that had a lot of responsibility, and it became very familiar. Again, a role that sometimes we adopt and then you integrate as being part of yourself. definitely I've had moments where I've asked myself, and we can maybe... This might actually bubble up, too- where I had a lot of conflict trying to figure out, which path in life to go down. professionally, I mean. Like, do you go down the professional creative path, or do you go down the professional healer path? do you wanna be a doctor? Do you wanna be a writer? And, Interesting, like the creative part of myself never felt like she had permission. Like, "Oh, that's not a real job. you need a real job." So I went into, into pre-med. I went to Louisiana State University at the time, which was also challenging, staying in the Deep South at a time when I really wanted to be set free. But there were a lot of economic challenges, Again, I was listening to other people and allowing other people's decisions to influence and become my decisions, perhaps rather than giving myself the authority to take more of a risk at a time when I probably really could have weathered it. Because now, again, like being older and being a non-traditional student and having to come back to graduate school, it puts a new spin on things. I constantly find myself, like reviewing moments of the past, and it can be a real, time trip sometimes. I bet. But yes, When I was at LSU, I graduated in three years, and it's mostly because I was so uncomfortable there that I wanted to get out as fast as possible. But I had, I had a professor who taught my African American lit class, and she pulled me out of class one day and got right up in my face. She was really short, but she got right up in my face, and she was like, "I looked you up." She was like, "Why are you not an English major?" And I was like, I was so caught off guard. I was like, "Because I'm a psychology major?" And she was like, "You really should reconsider that." But it, at the time, I was like, "Yeah, okay." And so she actually brought me after that class to go meet a wonderful writer named Olympia Vernon, who was coming to campus. she had gotten her master's degree from LSU, but she was a runner-up for the Pulitzer Prize, and so, with her very first book. she's such a cool woman, and her books are fantastic. And when I met her, she wrote in my copies of her books, "Go shake the storm." And it planted this like seed in my mind. the seed got planted and I was like, "Yeah, okay, I've already committed to this path of, I'm gonna, I'm gonna become a doctor." But by the end of this three-year journey I think I had pushed myself too far in trying to tolerate the discord between, my authentic self, the difficulty of living in the Deep South at the time, and family dynamics and cultural dynamics. And it kinda came to a breaking point where every- everything fell apart. So instead of going to a doctorate program, I went to a master's program in creative arts and therapy, in dance movement therapy in, in Philadelphia, and it just really, brought everything to a head. Because it was a field that was dying, and it's, ironic that I went into this dying space, and I think because there was a part of me that needed to go undergo a massive transformation. And so ironically, I got attracted to a field that, was shrinking. but, the, universe always gives you little gifts, and there was, again, new seeds had gotten planted there. I got introduced to the concept of yoga therapy all the way... And this was in 2007 and '08, way back when. And that was also a time when economics were changing, so we had the huge financial crisis at the time, so all of our clinical placements dried up. And so I end up having to leave school at the end of my first year, which Was also a personal choice as well 'cause I could see that this wasn't jiving with me. I had a lot of conflict with, with the field and where I authentically felt the conversation lied and, and I was starting to not be able to hide what a difficult time I was having, and it was showing up in my body, it was showing up in my energy, it was showing up in my work. The darkness was just, erupting. I was, like, going through, a massive, black hole moment. But I think, like black holes, they're birth canals to new galaxies. and so right on the other... it wasn't right on the other side. but it was definitely, like, this period of time was definitely like a weird black hole process. So when I came home, my mom got diagnosed with breast cancer, and and I became her primary caregiver, and my life rocketed onto a very different trajectory. Which was ironic, because on the inside, one of the questions that I was right next to, the who heals the healer, was also, this question of, am I ready to be the person that can hold this space? And my authentic answer to that was no. I was like, there were things that I needed to heal within me. I had questions just about life in general. I'm still really young. I think I was 21 when I left Philadelphia. I think I was 22 by the time, somewhere between 22 and 24, when my mom got diagnosed, and having to, start that process, So I went from, a almost like a soul death period to having to face the concept of having a very real one in my face, with such a primary figure. And my mom has-- it was a three-year process, and she is, she's alive and well. Things have gone very well. So again, it was a huge transformation process for both of us. But, What an interesting age to have to weather that, for sure. definitely talk about asynchrony. I mean, like everybody else is like out being wild, doing their thing, and you're like going to chemo and sleeping on the couch for six weeks while she has her drains in and, bathing or helping them, hold the decisions of, what kind of treatments to take and this, that, and the other thing, and yeah. To care and mother for your own mother at that age- Yes must have been really tough. It was. But, and enlightening. And again, like everything has a, it's there's always a pearl in the oyster. And I remember also too that something that got my attention at the time was every time we'd go to chemo, like her little next-door partner, on the same chemo schedule, was a girl that was, around my age. And she had, stage four kidney cancer, and it came out of the blue. Like her story was, intense. Oh. And like where she had just gotten misdiagnosed, from like her having like low back pain like during her periods, and her OBGYN was like, "Oh, you're fine," but never gave her a sonogram until she started having more symptoms, and then all of a sudden they realized like, "Oh, you have tumors everywhere." And so she went straight into, oncological treatment. And, so hearing her story next to mine, next to my mother's, as we're like, meeting each other and really communing, being in very authentic conversation. Because, when you're in those spaces, it's no holds barred. there's no masking in those spaces whatsoever. first of all, everybody's too tired. Mm-hmm. And I think there's an opportunity there to really be able to talk to people on a soul level, to use your real voice. and she was like, her brother would drive down like two hours to bring her to treatment, and when he couldn't, the oncologist would ride his bike over to her apartment. Like it was such a cool story and a cool narrative to watch unfold and again, like what a, a gift to be given. it was also like a powerful mirror, to ask questions of myself, but also to, to see and to wit- have the, the privilege of witnessing someone else's courage going through a tough narrative of her own. I think also reauthorized me to be able to reacquaint myself with my strength in a different way again, So it was interesting. With a few minutes left- Oh, yeah. How are we here so fast? It comes so fast. I wanna know where you are now. Oh, interesting. Where you are today in terms of authenti- authenticity, being fully yourself, carrying your own chosen labels- Yeah and moving through life with so much of the past that frequently comes up. Yeah. Well, I think the word I almost used, but I used girlosopher instead, and which is a reference to Anthea Paul's books, is the word woman. Like, what a powerful word the word woman is, and I'm at a threshold age. It's like where I'm moving from my 30s about to turn into my 40s. Oh my God. And th- it's such a... It's, again, another s- powerful seed word, is like where there's so much held in that space. what a rich tapestry of wisdom and experience. but it's also an accumulation of energy. and there's so much, so many stories, so much that has accumulated within me, so much knowledge that I'm ready to give it, like the seeds need to disperse. And, the books that Anthea Paul wrote are called Girlosophy, and I think she probably was around my age when she wrote them. And they were these really beautiful, very, artistic, creative books that merge, her spiritual wisdom with photography and art. And, and it's not just her, like her narrative, like all of the things that she's learned, but how she gives them to other people. And so I recognize I'm in a space where I'm ready to give from all that I've received, and that's where we've landed is it's time to take all those little treasures from Ariel's cave and bring them out into the world. Thank you for sharing your tapestry and for sowing new seeds. Oh, this has been a, this has been a gift, so thank you, my friend. It's been really fun. And I've learned so much more about you that I didn't know before, and I have no doubt that those listening have taken so much from your voice, so thank you again. Kristen is poetess, a healer, girlosopher, and so many more things. This is Unmasked. My name's Rachel Peck. Thanks for being here.