In this episode, we're going to be diving into how massage therapists can use meditation to reignite your passion and even prevent burnout. Welcome to The Conscious Practitioner, the podcast helping massage therapists align with purpose, create deeper client transformation, and evolve your practice. Even if you feel stuck. I'm your host, Dr. Jess, and each week we address your biggest practice challenges, everything from burnout to boundaries and everything in between. And together we uncover the inner blind spots behind these outer struggles that when mastered transforming from a skilled practitioner to a truly impactful one. Now, today I'm chatting with Katie, founder of the Women's Meditation Network, and we're going to explore how meditation can become your most powerful tool, both for professional and personal renewal. So in today's episode, you will learn how meditation can help you reconnect with your deeper why and reignite your passion for your work. Practical ways to use meditation and combat burnout and restore your energy after a demanding day. and the surprising link between self awareness through meditation and creating a sustainable career. Katie shares her journey and expertise in meditation and finding alignment and clarity, and we can use this to improve our own practice and business. This was a truly inspiring conversation, and I really hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. So with that, let's jump into this amazing conversation with Katie. Well, Katie, welcome, and thank you for taking the time to chat with me today. Uh, when I was going through some of the content that you've produced in the past, I, I was reflecting on how valuable it actually is, and here's why. I've listened to a nighttime meditation, Nidra, something like that, every single night for the past like, Gosh, I bet you I'm on seven years by now.

my gosh. You

right. It's been a while. And I was reflecting on, you know, this is, this is something that I think

Okay.

can you explain to everybody exactly what it is that you do?

Oh, Jess, that's so sweet. I'm going to hire you as my salesperson, as my hype man. Um, thank you so much. That means a lot. Um, so I am the founder of the Women's Meditation Network. Um, And that was started back in 2018. And really what it is, is a whole family of podcasts that, uh, we now have 20 podcasts that are part of the whole network, um, that are all podcasts, but you can, you know, listen to them wherever you need to listen to them. um, they're really geared towards women during either different seasons of our lives or different times of the day that we want to meditate or for different reasons that we want to meditate or different types of meditations that we want. And also kids, our last, uh, our more, our last five that we launched last year are all dedicated to kids, meditation for kids, sleep meditation for kids. So, um, yeah, my desire. Really through the women's meditation network is to create that are easily accessible, that are, um, not intimidating that are approachable that any woman can reach for at any time during any part of her life that she might need it either, you know, to start a morning habit or to deal with a particularly really, really like hard moment, um, or it's sleep at, at nighttime if they, if they need, you know, help falling asleep. So, uh, that's what I really want to be able to bring to the world through these meditations.

Um, Transcription by CastingWords Thank you. When, when I start conversations on the podcast, uh, during the introduction, I'm, I'm always looking for like entry points. Like where, where are we going to take this conversation? Cause as you know, it's like this meandering, lovely chit chat, nothing

Yes.

nothing planned. And you just like laid in a moose bush of possible threads to tug

Yeah. Go Jess.

There's, uh, there's lots of things that we could dig into, but I think, I think the place that I would like to start before we take any of these other tangents is to simply talk about what exactly is meditation, part one, and part two, uh, aside from the, you know, we've been doing it for a thousand years and everybody says you should do it. What do you think the real value is for your niche and demographic?

Yes. Um, okay. So meditation to me, this is totally my definition, a pause. It's a tool that we use to pause. It's a tool that we use to get out of the, you know, hamster wheel of life, of our minds to come into presence. Um, that is a very basic tool. There are a lot of types of meditation, that can take us to different places that can help us use breath to, to expand our minds and to expand, um, you know, our, our deep sense of consciousness and awareness about ourselves. there are types of meditations that, you know, are specifically designed to help relax our body. Um, there, there's just all types, but I think in its most basic level, it really is a pause. Now, you know, what do I think is the special, kind of the special sauce to, uh, and the, the special beauty of meditation for my niche of women, which is a massive niche, you know, for women and for kids. I really believe that at the heart of what I do is this belief that meditation, yes, it's going to help you sleep. Yes, it's going to help lower your blood pressure and, you know, calm your nervous system. yes, it's going to help you manage stress, deal with even the most stressful moments, like a panic, panic attack, for example. Um, I actually think that there's something much deeper that I am proactively wanting to speak and, and push into and through each of these meditations, which is awareness. Meditation is such a powerful tool for us knowing ourselves. the reason that I think that that is vitally important. It's because I feel like every one of us who uses this tool, and there are plenty of other tools out there, you know, walking in nature, journaling, what, what have you, but using meditation as a tool to be able to really know yourself, allows you to live as the most loving self expressed version of yourself in this world. And I really believe that when you do that. Choices and decisions are a lot easier to make because things are very clear on what to do. So instead of searching for answers outside of you, you already know what the answer is inside of you. You become extremely brave. Um, at least that's what others would call it. I would call it is, You become one with the path and the journey that you are constantly building and creating, and become very unapologetic about that. so I just feel like there's such power in us knowing ourselves and living authentically from the space of self awareness. And that's why I do meditation.

Beautiful. I agree wholeheartedly it comes to the, the core of the root of it all. I think, I think there's, there's a lot of different, Techniques that one can do in order to do their inner work and self improvement and I call these these techniques architecture techniques we build structures and systems that help us like do pan attacks and help us make it through a day when life is tough because Lord knows it gets tough sometimes but fundamentally regardless of which technique a person chooses At the root of it all lies self awareness. And I think you, you nailed it right on the head in my experience and opinion as well, that in order to truly access the capacity for self awareness, there needs to be a pause. There needs to be that space. And, and that space is kind of naturally going to be filled with all sorts of stuff that comes up. And that stuff that comes up, is part of the process of self awareness. Will that track? Is that kind of how you, you would

A hundred percent. Yeah, exactly. You know, I've sort of, I describe it this way. Taking the time to meditate helps us distinguish between the noise, that's out here, the noise of the world, the noise in our head, and the voice. And when you really start to understand what your voice sounds like, and what the noise sounds like, you can start, can start navigating this world pretty darn easily, actually. Because, you'll see when. What the voice sounds like for, example, my noise is, and this is typical for a lot of people is very loud it's very like, go, go, go, go, go, go. I have to do this. I have to do this. Like I should do this. I need to look like this. I need to, you know, hurry up and get this part of my business figured out so that I can get out of the weeds or whatever. It sounds really hurried. There's a lot of anxiousness to it. Um, A lot of scarcity in there, but when you, when you really can tune in and hear the voice, my voice sounds like a whisper. Not a weak, silent, quiet, but it's like a very like, boom, walk through that door, Katie. You know, this is right for you. It's, it's my voice. It's that's pretty silent. There's not a lot of stuff going on around that voice it always leads me to exactly where I need to be. Always it has never failed me and I feel like I'll give you a very practical example because I feel like the more that we use this practice to hear our voice to get to know our own inner voice the more that we. Are brave enough to take actions on that voice, but easier it becomes to just live our lives our way. again, an example, um, I was, oh boy, 18 years old. I grew up in a teeny tiny town, um, on the border in Arizona, moved up to the Phoenix area to go to Arizona state. And I was a total athlete my whole life growing up, but I went to Arizona state on an academic scholarship. So, um, my whole college for four plus years was completely paid for as long as I maintained a GPA and all that jazz. So I go to college. About a month into college, I'm like, man, I really, softball was kind of my main sport, although I played all the sports. like, man, I really miss softball. Like I really miss playing. So I find out that they have walk on tryouts. so I go and walk on and see if I can make the team. make a very long story short, I did not make the team, it to the last cut, but did not make the final cut. And so I was still there, 18 years old, like I still, like I've got this feeling, like I still really want to play, like it's bothering me. So, uh, if anything, I'm resourceful. So I was like, well, how can I still play? I'm here, but how can I still play? I didn't make that team, but how? So I found out that I could, uh, try out, try out for the local community college. It was like a 10 minute drive away. So I went, I tried out, made the team. But the hiccup was, is that in order to play for that team, in order to be eligible, I needed to be a full time student over there. in order to maintain all my scholarships, I needed to be a full time student at the university. Well, 24 credits and, uh, and an athlete didn't seem very smart or wise or doable to me at that time. So I knew I had a decision to make. And so I remember talking to my mom and my dad and I'm like, what do I do? Here's the pros and cons. I don't know. one hand, if I choose softball, I'm giving up probably 60 worth of scholarship. Right. Um, on the other hand, um, if I don't choose it, well, I always wonder why, I don't know. What's the move. What's the move My mom was so wise. She was like, trust it. Whatever decision you're going to make, you're going to be fine. So kudos to my mom for not like telling me what to do. Right. So at 18 years old, I had to do what I now know. I didn't know this language at the time was I needed to come inside and really like find that voice and say, what does she want? What, what do I really want? And what I heard was go play softball. So I went and played softball. I discovered that I actually, I lost all my scholarships in the first semester, lost all my scholarships. Um, but I did want to stay at the university. So I realized I only needed to have one class at university in order to live on campus and sort of still have the university life that I had become accustomed to. And for two years, that's what I did. And I loved it. I love that I scratched that itch. I loved that I, that I, gave it a chance. And I love that. I didn't let fear stop me from doing what I felt like I was supposed to do. you would think that the story ends there that, Oh, yay. She played softball. Good job. I was very serious about softball. I wanted to be like a full time softball player. You could be a professional softball. That was like the early years of professional softball playing. So, um, know, I had like plans to go on to university, another university, get a scholarship, do all that sort of stuff. Well, at the end of two years, I was done. I was so burnt out with softball. I was like, I could never pick up a softball again and I could be totally fine. I'm done. And so you would think like, Oh, that was a mistake. I shouldn't have, I shouldn't have made that decision, but it wasn't instead. I just asked myself like, okay, now what do I want? And how do I get it? I wanted to go back full time to the university, so I ended up becoming like a resident assistant where room and board are paid for, and now I just had to work a kind of a small part time job in order to pay for my tuition. So my point in saying all of that is that a very early age, I was learning to flex that muscle of listening to my inner voice to make some decisions. And, and seeing that it all worked out and seeing that there was purpose behind every path that I put myself on and, and every time I listened to the voice and it becomes easier and easier to say like, okay, yes, like these days, I don't even question. I'm like, I hear the voice boom. Okay, that's actually how I started the women's meditation network. I heard the voice tell me, like, you're done with what you're doing. Now go this other direction. And I was like, ah, shoot. Okay. I just. I really believe it's so powerful and it's practical to use this to come into ourselves and to listen to that voice.

That is a story. Thank you for sharing.

Yeah.

uh, there were, there were a lot of moments in there that I think, I think are noteworthy. Um, and foremost, to be that young and to have the awareness regardless of where it came from, but the simple self awareness at that point in time to realize there's, there's this voice, there's this thing that's telling me to do this. And perhaps I should listen. I mean, that that's remarkable. I think a lot of people have that voice all throughout their entire life, but very early on through the process of acculturation, learn to ignore it. So kudos to you for, for having the, I'm going to use your word. And I want to dig into this word that you use because you stood a number of times. You said

Um,

to me is, it's a story of bravery. It's going against, perhaps, convention. It's going against, um, logic, quite frankly. You know, like,

Yeah.

bravery. Um, and I want to, I want to unpack that. However, I also want to address a very interesting thing, and it's, the description you give to, well, the voice. You call it a voice. And I love it. I love it. I also have like kind of a narrative type voice, often for myself, the voice is accompanied by bodily sensations.

Yes. I'm so glad you said that. Yes.

Yeah, let's dig into that a little bit because I don't think everybody's going to hear the voice. I think some people are going to have their own inner advocate speak to them through language other than the verbal.

Yes.

with that or any thoughts on that?

Oh my gosh. Yes. Um, there are clues all around us, you know, and within us. And sometimes it comes out through our body. Sometimes we might see visuals. I have friends who don't identify with the voice per se, but they're like, I see, like, I'll get a flash of a vision in my head of, of what I'm supposed to do or Going down that path looks like. So all have different ways of, of accessing that, of, of seeing that, hearing that, of experiencing that. I'll tell you a very specific story. Um, it was a couple of years into the women's meditation network journey. And I finally, you know, I took out a second mortgage in order to like get this company started. Like it was no joke, like bootstrapped, like, let's figure this out. Um, was coming from a more of a, you know, you call it in the massage world, you call it a wellness practitioner world, you call it like a hands on time. I was a business strategist at the time, so I, it was like butts in the seats, like that's how I'm doing my time, time for dollars, right? so, into the Women's Meditation Network was my way, one of, one of the reasons why I transitioned there, because I knew I could get out of that, and we could speak to that a little later, but, um, anyway, so, I'm a couple years into it, I finally have sort of like, crested over, and gotten out of the red, and I'm starting to make a little bit of a profit, Um, I start talking one of the main ways that, that my company produces revenue is, uh, through advertising. So we have a lot of listeners and you know, I get to partner with advertisers and brands that I think my listeners would really benefit from. So I've been doing that since the beginning. And um, and so for many, many years I worked with, let's just say like half a dozen advertising agencies, these matchmakers who would bring advertisers to me. And so for a couple of years I was working with many, many of them. And at some point I, I don't know why, but I got it in my head, like, Oh, I need to go exclusive with just one. Like that's what successful podcasters do. They have one, you know, advertising, uh, you know, marketing team working for them. Um, and so I started interviewing probably two or three different companies to do that. All of them I had already had a relationship with because they were amongst that half a dozen that I had worked with. And one. Was this easy peasy meeting, 10, 15 minutes felt really good. Guys were amazing. were super clear on just how simple and how amazing this would be. Right. The second meeting, again, great relationship with these people already, very established. And my body started sweating. I was like, I was shaking. I was physically shaking. And by the time I hung up, I was like, Oh, that was a no. That was a total no, which I knew consciously at the time. let's talk about how we live. Let's, let's talk about what it looks like when we don't listen to those messages, because that's the story. So, so when you have the awareness, like, Oh, that was a no, right? Or that's a yes, a big yes. still, there were a couple crazy things that happened, but eventually The company that I was shaking with ended up giving me like a, a great deal comparatively to the other one. And this is where my ego came into play. Like, Oh, like, Oh, they're giving me a better deal and da da da da da. And instead of me, just my true nature, just knowing that that is a no, it doesn't matter what they put on paper. It was a no, no, I was like, yes, I'm going with that company. And It was horrible. It was a horrible, horrible experience. three months we, they had brought me zero sponsors, obviously because I was exclusive with them. I had to now cut off all my other relationships with all the other advertising agencies. So I probably, it probably cost me about a hundred thousand dollars in revenue. and thank God over the course of three months, by the end of three months, it was very obvious that it was not working. They couldn't sell me for some reason. Uh, it doesn't even matter why. So we both parted very peacefully. I, uh, I did ads with them afterwards. Like, you know, once I kind of got back on track with like all the other sponsors, but that's what it looks like. That's what it looks like to not listen to that. But yes, the physical, like, like we are constantly, there's, there's so many signs. There are so many messages of our higher self, our true self. Speaking to us, talking to us, communicating with us. And it can look like a lot of different things. Our job is to pay attention. And our job is to, to just become so aware of ourselves. So knowledgeable about ourselves that we now know like, Oh, I know when that comes around, like, Nope, I'm done. You know, and you can experiment with this, even with people like, you know, so many of the massage therapists that I have had the privilege of meeting are so many people in wellness are incredibly intuitive, incredibly empathetic, right? So typically. You can feel somebody's energy, right? So you probably, this is a micro version of this, but there are people that you've met that your body immediately has a reaction that you're like, Nope, no, no, no. And that's all you need to know. Like, not that they're a bad person, but like, you're not going to jive. You don't even need to try something like just no. So, you know, like we all already practice this already. It's just a matter of like paying attention to it, especially in big decision moments.

Yeah, yeah, it strikes me that that, um, What you're essentially discussing here is one's capacity to, uh, pay attention and understand the language of their intuition. Uh, what, what some would call a whole body yes, a whole body no. It's, you're going to be provided by very clear answers from your higher self, your wise inner advocate, from whatever you want to call it. But the real trick is, there's actually two tricks, I think, based on the story. Trick number one is. how to hear it, and I believe that comes through meditation, because that's the whole process of self awareness. And then the second part, which in my experience is the harder part. To actually listen.

Yeah. Yeah. And let's just, let's just have some compassion for ourselves for all those times that we have not. And, and I, you know, and then let's also speak to those moments when the answer doesn't seem so obvious. There are many of us, myself included, that are stuck or have been stuck in moments where we're like, ah, I don't know, like I legit, I'm not too sure. And that can keep us frozen. so my advice always in those moments are like, take the next best step. Like take the next best step because you can always shift. You can always change you. I tell my girls this all the time. Like you can all, you're never stuck. You can always change. You can always make a new decision and things can, and maybe that was part of your path. You know, maybe that was part of what you needed, the cobblestone on that, that part of your path that you needed to have. So you need to trust that.

And I think that, that feeling of being, being stuck or being unsure, I'm really grateful that you brought it up because I think, I think that's, that's a spot that many people find themselves in. I know in the world I'm in, So many practitioners get into whichever area they are. Maybe they start as a massage therapist or a nutritionist. What? Maybe they start as a meditation teacher, but they start as something they invest all this time and energy and effort, and then they get to this point where it's like, maybe, maybe I want to transition to something else. Maybe I want to add something else. But then there's this feeling of like, I just don't know. There's a lot of fear,

Yes.

back to that whole, you know, Self-awareness really does enhance one's bravery and therefore courage.

Yeah. So, uh, let me tell you a story about that too. It's a good one to just bring it all home. So I actually never started out as a meditation teacher. I never had the time for dollars exchange as in the space of meditation. What I did have that in was in business. So my very first podcast back in 2014, I launched a podcast called biz women rock. I'm, I'm an entrepreneur. Like I've been an entrepreneur for 15 years. I fell in love with this. I don't come from a family of entrepreneurs, so it was a really like, Oh my God, I can make money doing something I love and providing my gifts in a way that people really respond to, right? Like that's awesome. So I really fell in love with this life as an entrepreneur, out about podcasting and it was like, I need to talk to business women. I need to talk to women entrepreneurs, started that podcast. I'm doing amazing interviews like this and, um, and over, it took me a while, but over years I finally. figured out like what that business was, right? Um, I was a business strategist. I had a lot of one on one clients that I helped women grow their companies very, uh, intentionally and with heart and with wisdom. Um, I did masterminds, I had courses, I had memberships, um, I had live retreats. I mean, you name it, that was my game. Like that I was, was a brand. I was showing up. I was doing the work to help these women. Now, fast forward, um, 2018. By that point, I had had one of my daughters. She was a couple of years old at that time. 2018 comes. I am looking ahead at the year. It's about, you know, January, January of 2018. I'm like finalizing. The kind of like big plan that I have and have all these ideas. And I'm like, yes, I'm going to triple business. I'm going to triple my reach. It's going to be great. Fast forward. Q1 passes. I'm on it. I'm like on point. And April comes and we find out we're pregnant with our second daughter. And immediately the whisper came in and said, you're done with that business. Which is very terrifying because that was, seemed very sudden and I was loving it. Like, what do you mean I'm done with this? I'm like, I feel like I finally clicked. Like, come on. But I, I have had many, you know, that muscle of, of my intuition is very strong at this point. So I was like, okay, I'm going to listen. Now I had been struggling and playing with how can I scale myself and my business in a way where I'm not just meeting with people one on one. I had done that and that's why I had a lot of different offerings because I was trying to experiment with that. Right. So, you know, fast forward, here we are. I decide I'm just going to pause for a little bit. I'm going to, I'm going to not launch anything that I had on the docket to launch. I'm just going to stick doing my, with my clients, stick with my podcast. And I just need to like have the space for a while. So I would go on walks with my husband every day. One day I'd be like, I could do this. Oh my gosh, here's what it could be. It'd be, it'd be amazing. And I could do this with two kids. the next day I'd be like, I'm going to be a stay at home mom. I am done with this whole thing. I I'm not even touching business anymore. And everything in between a couple of weeks pass, we're talking and walking. I just have finished sort of like, You know, getting everything out. And he looks at me and he says, what about that meditation idea? I said, well, what about it? What he was referring to is back in January when I was, you know, planning for the year, I kind of had a random idea of like, let me create a meditation podcast for women, but I didn't do anything with it. Cause it wasn't really, didn't really fit into the business model at the time, but he knew what it was. And he's wise enough about podcasting and business where he was like, Oh my gosh, what are you going to do with that meditation idea? So there we were. With a big giant question mark over this new idea and that was enough to plant the seed and one the end of the walk. I knew I was gonna do it and Because immediately what I saw was the vision of the network like it's not just one podcast It's a lot and it's a huge audience. Like I know that's a niche, but it's not really an itch It's huge right like some percent of people searching for meditations Are searching for one for them. And you went in 2018 into your podcast app to type in meditation and women, one podcast existed. So I was like, there, there's, yeah. One. So I'm like, I have something to contribute here. Right. And there's, um, an enormous space that's missing. So, um. what I knew right away was that it would be big, but I also knew that it would get me out of the, the, the, feeling of stuckness that I felt doing my, my trade, if you will, like, I wanted a more massive way to live into my gifts. Um, but I couldn't figure that out in this other business I had been trying to figure out and, and experiment and I was like, Oh my God, this is the next evolution of my work. No one understood it. You want to talk about things not looking logical? Like no one understood it. I, no one knew me for meditation. I was not a meditation teacher. Like I, I had said, I was just a practitioner, a private practitioner. I loved it. I loved meditating on my own. I've done it in a lot of different ways, very imperfectly for so many years. Um, I'm a writer, so I knew I could write something really special and I knew I could sort of like put music on it and I could package it in. Something special that could really make an impact and speak to the woman's soul. So, but I knew it could, it could be that next transition for me. It could be the next evolution of my work. And I knew that so clearly I had an enormous amount of people like, what are you doing? Like you, no one knows you for this. I don't even recognize your voice on this show because I, you know, on my business show, I'm talking like this and meditations, I'm nice and I'm calm and it sounds completely different. So, um, I didn't hear anything that they said, they didn't need to believe in my vision. I needed to believe in it. And that's all it took. And, um, so I say that because, know, in this, in the work that we do as technicians, there is a, there is a dance that we're constantly doing with love for the work, love for the impact the work has, and, and, and, A deep desire to be as fully expressed as we possibly can. And it's okay that that changes. And it's okay. It's supposed to evolve. And it's okay that we experiment with how to do that. And it's okay if your next evolution of that shaky and scary. And it, but it's still okay that you step into it and try it and see. And it's okay if other people poo poo it and don't understand it. They don't need to understand it. You need to understand it. So, um, there's just, think that that's why it becomes so important, bringing it all back home, know thyself. And to, to be able to sort of trust that voice, even if you can't see more than two steps ahead. Like, even if you can't see the big, giant picture, if you're like, I'm just gonna trust that this next step is gonna take me where I need to go.

Yeah. I, I appreciate the, the idea, well, mult of it is what I appreciate, but if I were to pick out a specific spot, it's, it's this idea that. Let's assume one has, has developed the capacity to hear their intuition, and they've made the decision to listen to their intuition, which, anybody who wanted to do that, just go and listen to some of Katie's meditations, you'll be good to go. What I mean is, there's also this interesting balance. Now, my background is Chinese medicine, so I'm like, Taoist principles is baked into how I think to the core of my being, right? So when I think of the intuition is it can speak loudly, but it rarely heeds reality. And the reality is bills and the reality is commitments. And like, so the intuition is like, don't do this thing anymore. It's destroying your soul. Do this thing over here. It's going to fulfill you. Which is great. And then you listen to it. You're like, I want to do that. And also reality. Right? That's it. And then it's, it's kind of like balancing this. Like, I will listen and also let's negotiate their

Yes.

inner advocate. Let's have a back and forth and figure out how we can make this a reality. That's not going to completely explode my current life.

I'm so glad that you mentioned that Jess, because that's not often what people want to focus on. And that, that behind the scenes shit is real. Like

Oh,

I, I, I mentioned earlier, like, so, you know, my, my business, my, um, my business podcast business was paying our bills at the time. My husband and I are both entrepreneurs. So both of us, you know, when one of us is established, the other one's doing a startup and vice versa. our, my business at that point was paying bills. So it's not like I just stopped that business. I mean, I had, we had a kid, we had another one on the way, like, we had a mortgage, like, these are, you know, there are beautiful, sexy stories of like, I'm giving it all up and I'm going all in. But that, to me, doesn't give voice to the very real. like responsible person that I want to be. Right. Um, so that's why I said like, I, there was about a year and a half. I, I consciously scaled down that other business over a year and a half. My husband and I had a financial plan ish. I say that cause it doesn't need to be that big of a intricate plan, but like we at least had an understanding, like, Hey, At this point, my company will no longer, I will no longer be able to pay bills. And the hope is, is that the meditation thing takes off before then. But if it doesn't, here's kind of our backup plan and we'll figure it out along the way. But that's why I said, like, we took out like, you know, the second mortgage or the mortgage, you know, you take out cash out of the mortgage, um, fund it because I and I put in put in the money right away so that it could grow a lot faster right away but like these were all dancing with reality quote unquote like this is like me like dancing with the real life of adulting while i'm stepping into the dream so i say that because. It doesn't all have to happen overnight. actually not going to happen overnight. So it's up to you to decide how you want it to happen over time in a way that you can give life to your dream and what's pulling you and still take care of business and still take care of what needs to be taken care of in a responsible way that feels good to you and does it because I'm not saying you have to quote unquote be responsible. What I'm saying is that should I have been Stop the business. It would have caused so much anxiety in me and it would have caused so much stress that I would not have been able to be fully present for what I was building or for my kids. So to me, that wasn't that was more of like, I need to, I need to find homeostasis with what I've got at any given moment and what feels good to me. So I'm going to work out those details. So. You know, but your story is your story. That was my story, but your story is your story and however you want to manage it.

And I suspect that throughout this process, we can make another assumption that the assumption would be one maintains self awareness throughout. And if you do so, like you, you get this intuitive thing that says, the thing you're doing is beautiful. You said three things. You, you love the fact that you're, you love the work, you love helping people and you said the more, more love, but you love a lot of things about what you're doing. You just know there's a change and as you go through the process of changing so long as that foundation of self awareness is there then there's this little voice that's like hey listen I'm really excited about this new direction but I'm actually feeling quite a bit of anxiety about it. If you're paying attention and you're listening you can honor that voice and make little shifts in the direction every single day instead of getting three months into the process, ignoring the thing that inspired you to start that in the first place, your intuition, and then finding yourself in trouble. So I think that foundation of daily practice would be essential through this.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Like all the time, practice, like just constantly, my favorite question to always ask myself is like, what do I need right now? What do I need right now? What do I need right now? And I think if you become. If that becomes a habitual question for yourself, like sort of like, you will, okay, I need this. And you can practice it in your daily life of like, even what do I, what am I going to eat for breakfast? Like, what do I need right now? Because it's not, what do I want to eat? It's what does my body need right now? And that actually makes the decision for me, whether I'm having this, this, or this, you know? So I think that's so important.

That, that, what do I need right now? It's so funny you bring that up because there's no such thing as coincidence. I'm confident. yesterday, I finished recording a solo episode in which I was telling the story about when I first discovered those exact words. What do I need right now? Because so often in the helping industry, all focused on how can I help you? What do you need right now?

Yeah,

I be of service to you and to others? Amazing. Love it. Nothing wrong with that. But I think, I think it needs to start with the question, what do I need right now? Fulfill that. And then the capacity. to do that for others is infinite.

exactly.

So as you've gone through this process of, of like, like shifting and making these big decisions, I want to circle back to this idea of bravery and courage. I think, I think that's a capacity well worth fostering, because if one doesn't have that, then they can have the intuition, they can have these big, brilliant ideas, but without the to follow through with it. then it just doesn't really happen. So what would you say to an individual who's kind of in those phases of like, I want to do more, or maybe I want to do something else, but I'm feeling a little scared.

I'm going to give some non traditional advice here, actually, but it's something that works for me every single time. When you are feeling the opposite of brave, or feeling like maybe I don't, I don't, I don't know, what's there is always fear, right, that's what's, to me it's not bravery, it's you doing you, like, you, you doing your life, like, other people might call that brave, but it's you just Doing you what gets in the way of that and then therefore what makes it seem brave is There's this giant mountain of fear. ifs all the what ifs,

Mm

but if it doesn't work out, what if I go broke? What if I do a B and C? What if people hate it? What if people hate me? What if no one signs up what if blah blah blah all the what ifs? actually a practice that I have is to go down that road Like face the flippin fears, like really face them. So I do this, I still do this, but you know, it might look like, for example, um, uh, okay, I am a massage therapist. I want to, um, I want to do an online course so that I can Um, you know, bring in extra revenue. What if people don't sign up? What if I don't understand the tech? What if it's too hard? And what if it's going to take too long? What if I put more money in than I actually make? all that could be, right? What if it, you know, sidetracks me? So I'm not making business anymore, like all that stuff. So I actually go down the path of like. Great. Bring them on. What is the worst that can happen? I will look those things in the eyes. Okay. Worst thing that can happen. Like I did this when I first launched the meditation network. Great. What's the first, what's the worst thing that can happen? People laugh at me and they think I'm so dumb. They listen to my meditations and they're like, Oh my gosh, who is this woman? Right. Um, I get embarrassed. I get shamed like, okay, there's all of that forward facing stuff, but, but kind of personally, then what's the worst that can happen? I'm. completely lose, you know, I'm losing all this money. I'm not making any more money. Okay. Really? A lot of the fear has to come from like not enough money. Right? So, um, so then it's down that path. Okay. Well, what happens if I can't, if I lose money? Well, okay. Now I can't pay my mortgage. I can't do it. Okay. Then what? And eventually what I always get to and The worst could happen to me. could lose my home. could, because I can't pay my mortgage. I could lose all, all the things, right? But I know I will always have dinner on the table, if that's at a friend's house or a family member's house, who will happily bring me into their home while we're down.

Mm

And honestly, is that ever going to happen? No. But guess what? If I were that low and all the shit that could have happened to me did happen to me, the worst case scenarios, I'm still alive. I'm still with the people I love. And I am held up by people that I love. And to me, that is a giant safety net. To me, that is what ultimately, especially when I'm feeling very big fear. That's the big safety net, like, It's going to be okay. Take the fucking leap. Like go over that mountain that process shows you how ridiculous most of those fears are and how unlikely any of them are. Um, then it also gives me comfort knowing like, if they all happen, I would be fine. I'd be okay.

Right.

So that's my advice to anyone who's feeling that.

I really appreciate that advice. It, it, uh, reminds me of, of stoic ideas of, uh, or negative visualization because so oftentimes when we set goals and we visualize, is important. I want to be clear on that. You set a goal of the thing you want to accomplish and you visualize it with as much clarity as possible you visualize success i think there's real value in doing the opposite as you just described and really think it through like okay and also to be fully prepared. What happens if this fails? Not manifest that as a reality, but go down that road as you just described, you follow that road of failure far enough. You're going to end up with your loved ones. So a bad place to end up. I love that. That's so brilliant. And as you were describing this, you were saying that, um, maybe it's bravery, maybe it's not, but you described it as it's just you doing you. And that's fascinating, because you doing you, to me, sounds like behaving authentically. It's not bravery, it's being authentic. It's just being you, the truest version of yourself. And

Yeah.

fascinating, because, for me, That's scary to be fully me, like, particularly like the more public facing I get, the more I'm like, Oh man, being fully

Yeah.

So how do you, how do you suggest people start to move into this natural embodiment of just like, this is me, this is who I am. This is my authentic self.

Yes. Oh, that's such a good question. I really appreciate you being really open about that. Um, it's a process and it is a constant evolution. You know, if you were anyone looking at me from the outside could see that even as a young kid, I'm very confident. I know who I am. Right. But there's a whole hell of a lot of. yuck inside of here, like a whole hell of a lot of self doubt whole hell of a lot of, um, you know, unworthiness. Like there's some, there's some yuck in here that I have had to excavate over time and continue to in order to, you ever heard that, that, uh, story about how, uh, Michelangelo didn't carve date, uh, the David, like he just revealed him, but he just chipped in. The pieces of way that were not him. That is very much, that is very much how I feel about the process of becoming me. I've always, I'm always me. I've always been me. What I'm doing constantly is chipping away at the pieces that maybe used to be true, but are no longer true

Thank you for that.

yeah, or, um, been, Uh, are a story that I've told myself that don't actually lend, lend themselves to me authentically to that, to that David, to that masterpiece of David. And that's the truth. Like we're all this beautiful masterpiece. And so the more I chip away at that stuff, again, through meditation, through journaling, through being in nature, through really deep self discovery, I, I peel away more and more of those layers. I chip away more and more of this. and it gives me, I don't have any other choice than to be myself. I don't have any other like, what am I going to do? I'm going to sit here and pretend, you know, like, Oh, look, we're so successful. No, I'm still in my closet. I'm covering up my clothes right there. My dirty clothes are over there. Like, this is so, there's no way I'm ever going to pretend. I'm anything other than me. Um, does that mean that I? expose all of me all of the time. No, like, but it does mean that I am a hundred percent me and the more me I am in myself with myself, the more me I can bring to every conversation I have, the more me I can be with every post on social media. I'm making the more me I can be with, you know, family who you have a history with friends that you've just met. Like. It's the practice of all of that. Um, so, you know, I, I too have had a hard time cause I'm, I'm relative, like there are parts of me ever since I've become a mom, I feel like I've become more introverted over time. So they're definitely like, I've had seasons of this business recently where I'm like, I don't want to, I think I'm good. I don't need to be on social media anymore. I don't want, you know, like, I don't want to be out there. Not that it's not like I'm incapable of being. out in the public, but like for a long time, it wasn't sitting well with me. And, you know, last year was a pretty transformative year for me in many ways. And one of the things that came about was like, Oh no, like, no, like I'm me. There's, I'm letting go of any stories of fear that were preventing me from showing up in the, in the best way that I want to show up. You know what I mean? So it's real. Like, it is real, the friction that you feel, whether it's with another person or with another experience where you don't feel like you can be truly yourself, but it is

Uh,

that, that allows us to then show up to our lives and to the people in our lives and to the experiences in our lives as the best version of us, you know?

Yeah, yeah, I appreciate the analogy you gave of the the statue of David being revealed and as you're describing it I was a kind of very visual thinker. So I get this image of this this perfect Version of yourself of oneself. as kind of alluded to throughout life, things happen. We tell stories to ourselves. Other people tell stories to us about ourselves. We go through the process as Carl Jung calls it acculturation, right? Is we learn how to behave in the culture. So it seems like this process in which we are that beautiful statue, but little by little marble is added. And added and added. And then there comes this point in life when it's like, wait a second, there's a statue under there. And then we have to remove all of the marble to re reveal what was always there to begin with. Right?

Mm hmm.

But as I heard you describe your story, it sounds so freeing simply be able to be yourself. Like the amount of mental energy that goes into being somebody else's is staggering. it earlier at the beginning of the conversation that, that it's, it's, uh, freeing, it's energizing to, to

Yes.

Mm hmm.

Yeah. And, you know, you are you, you give others permission to be themselves, which I think is the beautiful, it's, one of the most beautiful things in the world. And I feel like, you know, going back to why I'm doing all of this, like using meditation as a tool for self discovery and self awareness. If I can, if I can truly, I'm doing that because I'm authentically me, I'm fully expressing myself in this way and the way that I want to do it. And if I can have that impact on someone listening who then starts to unlayer and chip away and fully authentically live themselves, seeing me model it. other people in their lives see her model it there. So it's, it's just has such a beautiful ripple effect. And it's, you know, you've seen those people walk in the room who like light up the room and they're so majestic. I'm not talking about like the, I'm not talking about like the movie star quality. I'm talking about like the part, like I'm imagining in my mind, like the woman in the gold dress. Right. she just walks into the room and she just, She's just so rooted in herself that she is shining. Like, when you see her, you, you step up to the plate for yourself. You're like, yes, I got it. I got it. I'm gonna, it gives me more permission to just be my shining self. So, I just, I love the ripple effect of it. I love, That, that it does, it does the world good. It does everyone good, you know? So,

Yeah. Yeah, it's kind of a core thesis of mine when it comes to practitioners, is ultimately we, if we intend on having the greatest impact we can possibly have, then that presence, therapeutic presence is the term I give to it, walking into a room with a client simply having the presence. To bring stillness and peace and calm to them through your aura, your vibe, your coherence, whatever you want to call it. I think that's one of the best things. No, I don't think I'm 100 percent confident. This is like, an essential skill that practitioners need to develop. I want to emphasize, and I'm very grateful for the work you do, as we know, an overwhelming percentage of manual therapists in in the world of massage, osteopathy, yoga, all of it, they're women. So to have a resource like that which you offer, which is very specifically targeted to women, to help them facilitate these things within themselves. Not just for themselves, but genuinely so they can show up with greater capacity for their clients. I'm so grateful for what you do, so thank you.

uh, thank you so much, Jess. I, I love what I do and I feel so grateful every day that I get to do it. And even more grateful, it's like a bonus gratitude that people really get something from it. And they, they're really taking it, it, feeling it, experiencing it, and letting it shine in their world.

Now I'm aware you got some kiddos that need to be picked up, so we'll tie a lovely bow on this conversation. Um, but before we do, of course, I'm going to put all of your contact info in the show notes, and I'm going to link to a couple key episodes that might highlight some of the topics that we've discussed within this if you've got those available as well, so it'll all be in the show notes. is there anything else you would like to add before we, uh, we tie a bow or a chat?

Oh, man, this has been so lovely. Um, I would say if you're listening to this and you feel really like to do something like inspired, you feel something within you that is trying to speak to you, trying to show you something, I just encourage you to try. I really take life as one giant experiment. You know, we're playing a, we're playing a big game here. It's just a big game. And so. You can't lose. You really can't lose. It's your game. You're the main character of your life. Experiment. Take some chances. You might call them chances, but they're really just like, let's experiment with this thing that's going on. I use that language a lot in my business, in my life. Like, let's try this, this marketing thing. Let's experiment with this over here. Let's see how it goes. So, um, yourself permission to experiment, to fall out of the perfect box that you think you should be in, because you never know where that's going to take you.

Mm hmm. That's beautiful. What a great way to close. Thank you so much for your time. And again, thank you for all that you do. And it's been a lovely chat.

Oh, it's been an honor. Thank you so much.

Well, thank you so much for spending your time with us today. But before you go here are three key insights from this conversation with Katie. Number one is I'd encourage you to treat meditation as a non negotiable. It really does make a big difference. Number two is it can be simple and these simple meditation practices such as those that Katie delivers in her meditation Are very easy to implement and have an outsize effect and the number three maybe most importantly is Understanding that your inner voice it has something to say and when we learn to listen to that wise inner advocate Suddenly life gets a lot easier Easier and here's a quick question for you to consider How could daily meditation help you create the career and life that you've always envisioned? So very special Thank you to katie for sharing her experiences with us today You can find all of katie's resources and links to the women's meditation network in these show notes And if these insights resonated with you, be sure to follow and subscribe to The Conscious Practitioner wherever you get your podcasts. It helps more than you know. You'll get weekly guidance on bridging the gap between traditional bodywork and transformational healing. Thank you so much for listening to The Conscious Practitioner, and until next time, be well my friend.