Kate Harlow: So to me, anxiety is a barometer. It is. It is a barometer guiding you and telling you when something is out of alignment down to the subtle nuances of even your thoughts, right? If I'm having a thought, that's fear based, that's judgmental, that's projecting into the future or worrying about the past that's hurting me, I'm going to it's going to build the feeling of anxiety in my body. Why? Because those thoughts are actually out of alignment with the truth of who I am, with my beingness, with my divinity, with my innocence, with my purity, with my heart, right? So whenever, whenever we're going against the heart, and it's often the mind that leads. I call it your saboteur mind, right? The saboteur condition mind is leading, whether it's telling you harmful things or having you say yes to something when it's actually a no, or having you say no to something when it's actually a yes, your body is speaking to you. Hello, beautiful.
Welcome back to the new truth podcast, Kate, here I am so happy you're here. I hope this episode brings you some relief. If you are experiencing anxiety in your life right now, or if it's something that you experience on a regular basis. I know that the world is a little upside down right now, and most women who I speak to, who are in North America and are highly sensitive, are just feeling so out of sorts these days. And even if nothing's going on in their own lives, they're still feeling so out of sorts. And I think that stems from women being so attuned, we're in touch with our feelings. We feel so deeply, and, you know, have been taught to shut it off and repress it and all those things. And of course, with anxiety, we're
I was just thinking back to anxiety and my relationship to anxiety. I used to have chronic anxiety in my 20s, probably earlier than that. But when I was 20 years old, I'm 43 now, when I was 20 years old, I did not know what anxiety was. I didn't know it was a thing. There was no marketing around it. There was no messaging. We didn't have social media. We didn't have, you know, all these places to learn about these things. It wasn't trending on, you know? Well, there wasn't anywhere for it to trend, so maybe that's why. But I remember my best friend went on medication when we were, like, 21 and she's like, I have an anxiety disorder. And I was like, What's anxiety? I didn't even know what it was. And nowadays, kids are getting prescribed with anxiety disorders when they're so young. And you know, of course, we're bombarded with messaging around, if you have anxiety, take this pill. It'll numb that that pain, but it'll give you 10 other symptoms. And you know, the messaging around, like, oh, just take a pill, and that will make you feel better. But unfortunately, taking a pill, while it might be helpful in, you know, certain extreme circumstances, for a short period of time. It's not a long term solution, and yet that's most of our education in the western in western medicine and pharmaceutical industry, and the advertising we see around medication is that that's the answer, but there's no answer there, because that's actually just keeping you numb and repressed, and it's not a long term solution. So when I first learned this term anxiety, I remember at the time thinking, Well, I gotta go to the doctor too. I think I have the same thing, because when my friend described it, it was a feeling that I had every single day, but I just didn't know what it was. I didn't know that it wasn't supposed to be there. I kind of just thought it was normal, and so once I started to get to know that feeling and learn about that feeling, I had a really strong intuition to not go on medication. I kind of knew back then, even before any of my training and any of my understanding of being a sovereign woman and a heroine of my life and all of those things, I I always had felt weird about taking medication. I had like a weird maybe because my mom was a nurse, and she always advised me to not take medication unless I absolutely had to. But I I didn't take it. And I remember the anxiety was, it was, it was like a low level, constant feeling of, like unsafety, and if I, if I'm looking through the lens now, of my awareness around the nervous system, it was a dysregulated nervous system. I was constantly in fight or flight. I was very ungrounded. I was not present in my body and all of my life choices were based on other people's opinion of me, what I thought other people thought I should do or say or want or wear, even down to what I wore, everything was about people's perception of me. So when I was living my life from that. Place, of course, I had anxiety. So the thing that I want to talk about today is the tremendous gift that anxiety is, and has been in my old life. Because to me, anxiety is a barometer. It is, it is a barometer guiding you and telling you when something is out of alignment, down to the subtle nuances of even your thoughts, right? If I'm having a thought that's fear based, that's judgmental, that's projecting into the future or worrying about the past, that's hurting me, I'm going to it's going to build the feeling of anxiety in my body. Why? Because those thoughts are actually out of alignment with the truth of who I am, with my beingness, with my divinity, with my innocence, with my purity, with my heart, right? So whenever, whenever we're going against the heart, and it's often the mind that leads, I call it your saboteur mind, right? The saboteur conditioned mind is leading whether it's telling you harmful things or having you say yes to something when it's actually a no, or having you say no to something when it's actually a yes, your body is speaking to you, and if you think of your body as a musical instrument, this is my favorite metaphor. So I actually had a beautiful conversation with a woman last night, and it was about, we were talking about this word resonance. She said, when I when I heard you on your podcast, when I saw you on Facebook, I just felt this resonance in my body, and that's also one of my favorite words. And the reason this is my favorite metaphor is because when we are living a life that is aligned with who we really are, when we are making choices that are from our truth, from the deepest, most honest place, the choices that you know to our minds make no sense. That's usually the case, but when we are so devoted to following that and to honoring ourselves and speaking kindly to ourselves and taking care of ourselves and living in alignment with the true value of who we are, with the true gift of who we are, with the true gift of this life experience that's when we experience resonance in the body, when something's actually right for you, your mind's gonna freak out, for sure. That's almost always the case, but your body will feel resonant. So let's come back to the musical instrument metaphor, if my body is a cello, and my cello is out of tune. It hasn't been played in a really long time. It is all the the what are they called strings. I don't play the cello. All the strings are tight and out of out of tune. And I go and try and play that cello, what's it going to sound like, and how am I going to feel in my own body, let alone everyone in the audience, if I just get on in front of people on a stage and play an attitude cello that hasn't been picked up in years, what's going to happen? Everybody is going to be cringing. Probably a lot of people in that room will have anxiety. Right? To me, that's anxiety. That is what anxiety is. It's an indicator. So if your body is a beautiful cello and you are tuning it, aka taking care of it, loving it, nurturing it, every single day, you're moving your body in ways that feel pleasurable, not just going to the gym because you think you're fat and you're trying to lose 10 pounds, but actually moving your body in ways that feel pleasurable, that's tuning your instrument, eating food that feel nourishing to your body, not just while you're eating it right. If pizza feels nourishing to my body, but then I'd get a tummy ache and eczema, after which that's what happens to me now. And I ate pizza, I went to Italy for four days, and I had eczema for like, six months after, on my eye.
If that's how I feel after, is that a loving, nourishing thing? Am I tuning my instrument? No, I'm okay. I did it. I was in Italy, whatever. I won't do it again, right? Because that's what happens when I eat pizza, gluten, dairy, and so in order to be in harmony with my body, in order to love my body, in order to take care of my instrument, right? And to actually be tuning my instrument every single day, I have to be paying attention. I have to be listening to how I feel before, during and after I eat. I have to be listening to how I feel when I'm doing exercise, right I go to Pilates every day, and right now I'm going to this amazing studio called pineapple studios. It's so adorable. It's right by my place here in Athens, and it's a boutique studio. I love the teachers. It's small, it's intimate, it's amazing. And whenever I'm home, obviously I would. Traveling a lot, but when I'm home, I go there and it feels so nourishing to do Pilates. And then every Saturday, I do this amazing vinyasa flow yoga class that I also absolutely love. I love the teacher, I love the room, I love the people. I love the energy. I love the vibes. My body loves it. I love to walk. I love to hike. When I was in Kenya, I was hiking every day up these wild hills. It's like hills and nails everywhere you go. And so I would do that because that felt so nourishing. And I would do yoga on my deck, and I would do headstands on my deck. And just do it because it felt good. Same with meditation, right? I'll sit in Kenya, I sat outside my tent every morning for least 30 minutes, and I just listened to the birds with my eyes closed, and I felt my heart opening, and all the layers and layers and layers of sounds of birds. They got a lot of birds in Kenya, but there's like they sounded like like some sounded like car alarms. Some sounded like they were city, city sounds. It was really interesting. But I would just listen to the layers and layers and layers of all the different types of bird sounds and be so deeply connected to my heart resonance, right? That's tuning my instrument. So what are you doing every single day a to take care of your instrument? Right? Because if you're not taking care of your instrument and tuning your instrument, you're not going to hear the messages, right? Anxiety is a gift because it is. It is directly your anxious feelings are a correlation with you go living your life out of alignment. And here's the thing, my loves, I've worked with a lot of women who've had who when they started working with me. They had depression, they had anxiety, they were on medication. All of them go off it after a few months, not because I tell them to, but because it feels like the natural thing to do. Why? Because all of a sudden they start to get really honest when, when a woman comes on a journey with me to come back home to the truth of who she is, part of the process is getting really, really honest with what's not aligned with you anymore. And if you heard my last solo episode, I talk all about, or maybe it was a couple ago, about leaving your comfort zone. And then there was another one about, should I stay, or should I go when we finally have the courage to leave situations or change environments or change friendships or change circumstances that don't feel alive. The more that you do that, the less anxious you will feel. So even if you're someone, I had a client who was like, Yeah, I have an anxiety disorder. It's I got prescribed, you know, or just, I don't know, whatever it's called by a doctor, when I was 12. So I'm pretty sure that'll always be there. But you know, of course, we'll still go on this journey. So we go on the journey together. Sure enough, like two, three months later, completely gone. Never had anxiety again, like absolutely gone, because she learned how to live her life honestly, not honest to everyone else, not loyal to everyone else, at the expense of herself. But she learned to get really honest with her choices. Every choice, like, what do I want? What do I actually want? When you have anxiety and your body is screaming at you, especially when it's really loud, it's because you're going the wrong way, you might think in your mind, no, this is the right way. It's what it's what the church told me to do, it's what my parents told me to do, it's what my friends think I should do, it's what my therapist thinks I should do, it's what somebody else thinks I should do. If you are going in the opposite direction to what your heart truly desires, you will have discord in your body, right? Your guitar will be at a tune and it will be screaming. So there's two parts to this, if you can feel it. The first part is taking care of your instrument, right? If you do not take care of your instrument with reverence and love and presence and connection, and you don't start listening to what your body wants and needs and nourishing in her in ways that feel so good, right? So many women are just like victims of their bodies, and it just is what it is. And there's like, I got this disorder and that disorder and but this is an opportunity for you to actually look at your instrument. What does she need? Right? Instead of filling yourself up with Botox and injections and chemicals and numbing yourself and starving yourself, and although I totally agree with fasting, as long as it's for health purposes, but intermittent fasting, but it's like, what are you doing and where's it coming from? So not just what actions are you taking to take care of your body, because you might think going to the gym is taking care of your body, but if you don't like the gym, like, this was me back in the day. I used to hate going to the gym, but I would go because that's what you do. You go to the gym. I hated the feeling, I hated the smell, I hated the the ego in the room. I hated the gyms, like I could still feel it in my body. I'm like, little cringe my whole body hated it, but I went because that's what you do. And I'd go with my boyfriend, and I'd be like, This is what you do. You work out. And I'd get cute clothes to try and motivate myself, and I would be on the wagon, off the. Get on the wagon, off the wagon. Now, if I hate being at the gym, even if I'm motivated and forcing myself to go, is that actually good for me? Do you think that's actually good for you? You know, or someone who motivates themselves to run every day, but their body is aching and they're getting arthritis from it, and they hate it, but they're doing it still. Do you think it's actually serving you. I don't. I read a book once called the slow down diet by Mark David, phenomenal book, and he talks about how you know the state you're in when you're eating and the state you're in when you're exercising is everything. If it's not pleasurable for you, it's actually not healthy for you, right? What's healthy for you is, is what feels good to your body. Your body is your instrument, and your instrument will tell you, because when you have that feeling of resonance, like that woman said to me last night, that's how you know every woman who works with me has this feeling of resonance when I talk and when I share and when they listen to episodes, they just feel like Yes. It's a yes in my body. That is how you know when something is aligned for you or not. So every facet of your life, your your practice right now is, is to take care of your vehicle, slow down, create more space for her, more space to be present with her, to listen to her, to
participate or practice doing things that light her up, that excite her, that challenge her, but in a way, that's fun. You know, I've shared before those dance classes I used to go to, I was horrible, and I was like, the worst. I was the worst person in the class. I was super challenged by it, but because I went in, just allowing myself to be new, allowing myself to suck, not expecting myself to be good, or not comparing myself to anyone in the room, but just going and letting myself play. I got to I got better and better and better at dance, and I had the best time every single time, every time my mind would be like, don't go to dance. It's raining, it's dark out, it's, you know, yet a long day, and every single time I drag my ass there, not because I was forcing myself like the gym, but because I knew how I felt when I was there, and how I felt after every single week, my body loved it. It was fun, it was playful, it was exercise, but in the most ridiculous way, twerking, doing hair flips, it was so much fun. So let your get to know your body, get to know your instrument. What is your instrument need to tune like? How can you tune your instrument? What does it need, right? How can you take care of your instrument with pristine care, so that your instrument is crystal clear, right? The more you take care of your instrument and are connected to your instrument, AKA your body, the more you're going to feel your yeses and nos, right, if you are, if you are, where I was at in my 20s. So there's a lot of like, collective anxiety in the air right now. And so be really mindful what you consume. That is, like, everything is that, taking care of your instrument, watching Tiktok videos about, you know, the state of the world and the everything going to shit and all the like, if you're if you're always in conversations about arguing with reality, if you're hearing fear based messages all day long, if you're comparing yourself on social media to people's profiles that have filters and fake shit, or you're comparing them your yourself to other people's fantasy life that you're seeing on social media, right? Like be mindful with what you're consuming, so not just your food. Abraham Hicks talks about like television and movies, and she said, never watch anything that doesn't bring you absolute joy and inspiration. If it doesn't bring you joy and inspiration, do not watch it because that even if you are enjoying it in the moment, it's kind of like gossip, right? You're enjoying it in the moment. Feels great. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It feels good. Talking about my friend, talking shit is another thing to clean up. These are all the things to clean up so you stop having anxiety. But watching shows that are dramatic and chaotic and intense is like gossiping. It feels great. And it's like eating McDonald's, right? Feels great in the moment, and then you deeply regret it later because you can't sleep, or you deeply regret it later because you're having weird nightmares, or you deeply regret it later because you just feel like shit the next day. Maybe you don't regret it at all because maybe you don't know that you feel like shit because the McDonald's or because you watch The Bachelor again without watching it from a from a conscious place, right? If you're just passively letting these messages be program you more and more and more. Trust me, that's where a lot of your anxiety comes from. I have two phones now. I'm barely on Instagram. Whenever I go on Instagram, I only go if I've posted, like, a reel or something about my my Africa trips, or my Greece things. And I like, watch my own reels, because I'm like. We this is so fun. I get to relive my memories, but I'm not on there scrolling and watching other people and and, you know, get numbing out on there, I have two phones so that I can leave my social media phone. It's my work phone. I call it and I leave it at home, because I still have to use social media for the podcast and for sharing a little bit, but I don't want to be attached to it in any way. I don't want to consume everybody else's life in there. I don't want to like it doesn't make me feel good, right? So get really honest with yourself, and this is what women do when they're working with me. It's like we're seeing all the places which you might have convinced yourself is right for you, right? The relationship, the job, the the location, the apartment, the whatever it may be, it's like you have so many leaks, most likely, right? There's like holes in your instrument, and the energy is leaking out, so there's no resonance. So you gotta, you gotta take care of your instrument. Clean up what you're inputting into it, right? Clean up the your own energy. Because, of course, a cello wouldn't be a cello without the cello player. Right? A cello player is phenomenal when they're present, when they're connected, when they're alive, and they're cello, and they're in harmony and resonance with their cello, right? You can't, we can't just go to a orchestra and watch a cello play itself. It's not going to play itself. So you have to be so mindful with your your your instrument and your choices, what you are doing in your life, right? Your anxiety is connected to your own inner guidance system. We all have one right every time. And I guarantee you have at least one story, probably more, where your body was screaming No, and your mind was like, do it anyways. Take the job, get in the car, go on that date, your mind convinced you to go against that screaming, no, right? That was the anxiety, that was the out of tune guitar. That's your your body leading you. It's like you want to make decisions where your body feels resonant. Your mind is going to most likely have fear based thoughts and be loud, but where your body feels that resonance, right where you first are, like, Oh, this feels amazing. And then right away, your mind is going to kick in with fear based thoughts of all the reasons why you shouldn't do that thing that you want, or you should do that thing that you don't want. That is what the mind's job is. The mind is designed to keep you small, right? When you were little, you had to be small, you had to not take up space, you had to calm down, you had to settle down, you had to be a good girl, right? So your mind is always going to look at No, no, no. I can't make that big bold choice, because that big bold choice is not what everyone else wants me to do. It's also not what everyone else where everyone else is going, and if I do that, I'll stand out and I'll be too bright. No, no, I used to get in trouble for being bright. So no, no, no. And then we listen to the mind, and then that creates the discord in the body, the out of tune cello, the out of tune guitar. It's like, that's what anxiety is. It's an indicator. So, you know, it's so wild, because the the work that I do with women on unscripting, untethering from who they've been taught to be, and really unlocking and awakening who they really are is it's, it's about learning how to live from your truth. And everyone's anxiety goes away like mine went away when I started living from the truth of who I was, and I net, knock on wood, never have anxiety anymore, and if I do, it's circumstantial for you know, an hour or a day because I got some news that's like, you know, painful to the heart or whatever, but, but it doesn't stay, you know, like I I've shared this story a long time ago about when I got bit in the face by a dog when I was in Greece. And it was my first year here. If you haven't heard this story, it was my first month here. Actually, I moved to Greece in 2022 2022 Yeah, 2022 my first month here. And I was at Greek Easter, which is actually in two weeks, a week and a half.
It was Greek Easter, and it was actually the same weekend as it is this year. Interesting. It was around the 24th of April, and I was at my friend's family party, and I was playing with her family dog that was so cute. It was a lab mixed with a sheep dog, and at one point it was playful, playful. And then at one point I was playing with his ears, and he just turned on me, and he jumped at my face, and nobody saw it, and I was standing in the corner of the room, blood gushing down my face, swelling up. I didn't know if I lost my eye. I was in so much pain, but I was in so much shock, I didn't know what was happening. Blood was gushing down my arms, and then her family slowly started to notice, and all these cute Greek people were like, okay, oh my gosh, and they're all trying to help me, and I'm like, crying and and it was crazy, but that whole experience, right old me would have been freaking out of my head. Would have been like, I want my parents here. I want to go home like little kid inside would have been activated. And it would have taken this situation and got really anxious, right old me would have taken that story and then been fearful of dogs. And every time I saw a dog, I'd be afraid they were going to bite me in the face. But what I did instead was, when I was at the hospital, I was talking to myself, I love you. I've got you. You are safe. It was COVID time. My friend couldn't even come in the hospital room with me. I found out I had to have plastic surgery on my face, which I'm not really into plastic surgery, but it was to save my tear duct function and my cheek function right under my eye. And I was so loving during the surgery. It was local anesthetic, so I was awake, and I was like, I love you, buddy. Thank you for being open and receptive. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So I was, I was in my sovereign woman, right? I could have easily been arguing with reality, feeding the fearful story, making myself anxious, making myself stressed out, right? That's what most of us do when anything happens, little or big. We make it way worse. Like you think it's the situation, it's not the situation, it's all the stories, all the meaning making, all the everything that's going on in your mind about the situation that's making it feel like a dumpster fire inside of you. So I did that, and then the healing. It healed so fast, but I didn't just talk lovingly to myself the whole process, but also the next weekend, I had my friend's dog come stay with me for a weekend. She was going out of town, and she was going to take her dog, and I was like, I just need to recalibrate my system to a dog. And I know your dog's very loving and a good dog, and so I just need to be around a big dog this weekend. And so her dog came and stayed with me, and we had a great weekend, and it was really beautiful, and it was really healing. And there, and I have developed, like, I'm in Kenya, there's like, wild dogs, and I'm like, Hi, I'm like, going up to them like my friends are joking, like you're gonna get bit in the face. But it's like, I don't have any anxiety in my body, right? Instead of that becoming a trauma, it didn't, because of how I handled it. So this is something that is always available to you. How so what are what are you telling yourself internally? Start to change that dialog, right? Build the voice of your heroin. I call it with my clients. Build the voice of your heroin. Start to treat yourself with love. Ask yourself what you need. When something happens and you feel anxious, notice like, let's say, you get broken up with, or some guy ghosts you, or whatever. It's like, if you are just telling the story of heartbreak over and over and over again, and you're talking about how you've been ghosted and you're you're milking the victim story of what happened to you. Guess what's going to happen to your anxiety? It's going to get bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger, and then you're just going to be living with anxiety every single day. But if you rewrite that story right, acknowledge the little girl that feels hurt and that's taking it personally and that's devastated and heartbroken and all those things, you love her up, you take care of her, you give her what she needs to feel nourished and loved and supported, and then you look through the lens of the sovereign woman, how can I see this situation in a more powerful way? Thank you to that relationship for teaching me how to care for myself more deeply. Thank you to that relationship for for wrapping itself up, because clearly it's no longer aligned with the woman I'm I'm becoming. Thank you for the gifts of this, that and the other right, the sovereign woman can say thank you to the experience. It doesn't okay you. If you have some fuck you energy you need to process, process that first right? Feel that. Move it through your body, dance it. I do this with my clients like this is part of the work we do in in the expanded love method is getting to the bottom of all the stuff that needs to be felt and moved. This is what happens at the immersion, a lot of stuff that's in there that's repressed. Because if you're not feeling the fuck, you the anger, and you're just repressing it, and you're just putting the positive spin over top of it that is going to impact you later. It's also directly connected to your power. Anger is directly connected to your power, so being able to feel your anger without feeding the story, those are two very different things. Feeding your anger doesn't look like keeping the story alive about what a jerk that guy was for doing X, Y and Z, maybe that's for the first week. You need to vent the story like that. And then week two, like, Okay, I'm no longer a victim of the story. This happened, and I played a part. What was my part? What can I clean up? We talked about this on the breakup episode. And then what do I need to feel fully and now I can come into my sovereignty and see the situation differently, right? So cleaning up your thinking, your thoughts, and starting to build that voice of love and celebration, it's like breaking the old punishment model that keeps us in anxiety and guilt and shame, that punishment model we learned so beautifully in the school system and our family. Systems and all these other places where we learned that we were wrong and bad and we should feel guilt and shame and embarrassment and all those things, we end up doing it to ourselves. So you get to practice stopping the punishment model, starting to build the celebration model, celebrating yourself for noticing that you were punishing yourself. Don't beat yourself up for punishing yourself, but actually notice, oh, I was in the punishment model. Okay, I'm gonna press pause on that tape and I'm gonna put a new tape in. What am I proud of? What am I celebrating? How can I take care of myself right now? What do I need right now? How can I love myself more right now, instead of beat the shit out of myself after I just went through something hard, right? So clean up your thinking, how you're talking to yourself internally, your internal dialog. Clean up your actions. What are you saying? Yes to that, actually, and no. Who are you surrounding yourself with? I've been talking with lots of my clients lately about friendships, and about how many friendships they have that are saboteur based, and they start to realize, like, Wait, why am I in this friendship? And it doesn't mean you have to completely break up, but change that your part. If you're bitter and resentful because you have friends who take up all the space and you take up none, well, that means you have the isolator present. I am doing a master class coming up in June, so I'll let you know about that soon, so you can learn about your saboteur. But that's the isolator, right? The isolator is the one who's like the most amazing support person ever, but doesn't ever take up space. And who does the isolator attract? As friends, narcissists, people that love to talk about themselves, people that loves to take up all the space and don't even notice that you haven't talked about yourself for the last five hours. That's who isolators attract, because they're a perfect match, right? So you see how you can clean up your side of the street. You don't have to necessarily blow up all your friendships. However, where are you? You know, hanging out with friends out of obligation or hanging out with anyone out of doing anything, out of obligation or out of loyalty to someone or something else, over yourself. Your body's talking to you. All you have to do is get quiet and actually let yourself feel every single day, and the messages will be there, the guidance will be there. But we're so used to listening to the fear based thoughts and and forcing ourselves to do things that don't feel good. Think about I mean, really, we're taught to do that, like think about school. How many times were you forced to go to school, even if your teacher was mean to you, like I had emotionally abusive teachers, for sure, they were off the handle like crazy. And I mean, hopefully they've cleaned that up in the school system nowadays. But when I was a kid like you just suck it up. You go to school. And if your teacher is an asshole, you just deal with it. So, like, I had an asshole that was super creepy, this old man. He was, like, really creepy in grade seven. And you just suck it up and go to school and you have a creepy teacher who smells bad and who's like, mean and who's controlling and who's an asshole. And I actually haven't really processed this.
I'm like, wow, that's an energy here, but, you know, and I was taught that, so you don't even get to really talk about it. You just go to school. He's your teacher. You do not have a choice. You can't just change classes. You just go to school, right? So think about that. That's what you've been so programmed to do your whole life. You were programmed to sit in rooms you don't want to be and this is why we have our saboteurs. This is why we've developed adaptive strategies. Because you are taught to sit in rooms you don't want to be in, to be to be taught by teachers that don't feel good, like now you get to choose if you're meant to work with me. Work with me because you feel resonance in your body, not because you're like, oh, I have to work with Kate in order to meet my heroin. Otherwise, I'm never gonna be in my heroin like It's like we're used to making choices out of because my mom wants me to work with Kate, right? It's like you choose. Every woman who's ever worked with me chose because her heart was a Yes, her body was a yes. But that's the first thing I say to a woman after we do an exploration call, I say, do not make this decision from your mind. Listen to your heart. Close your eyes. Let your heart lead this decision. Because we are so used to forcing ourselves to do things that actually don't feel aligned, to learn from people that we don't feel good, to learn from to be around friends that we don't feel good being around to. You know, live in cities. I felt horrible. In Vancouver, I stayed for so long, and I did everything in my power to I had to work really hard to feel good. When I lived there, I had to work really hard to like, fill my days with dance classes and meditations and so much stuff. When I'm in Greece and even more so in Kenya, I just feel good. I don't even need like, I still meditate, I still write, I still do all the things, but not because I have to, because I love to. I don't need to anymore, because I feel so aligned living here. So let your body be your compass, and you will watch anxiety melt away the more you honor your temple. You care for your temple. Okay, I'm mixing metaphors. It's a temple, but it's. Also an instrument. It's a cello and a temple, but it is. It's a home of your goddess, right? It's the home of your heroine. It's the home of your soul, your body, and you only get one. Isn't that crazy to think about? Let's just ponder on that for a sec. We get one body, one, and we are not taught to honor, listen to it or love it in any way. We're taught to punish it. We're taught to force it, force feed it. We're taught like when you're a kid, you're taught to force feed you're not finished your plate, you don't get dessert to finish your meal, or you can't leave the table until you finish your meal. Right? We're we're taught to force feed our bodies. We're taught to sit in rooms we don't want to be in. We're taught to sit on Santa's lap, even if it's a hell no, right? We're taught to go against our inner guidance, but your inner guidance never stops communicating to you. So circling back to what I said earlier about that feeling when something was a hell no in your body, but you did it anyways, not your fault. That's because you were taught to go against your own inner guidance and to do what other people say over what you say right to listen to the authority or listen to the adult in the room, as opposed to listen to your own compass. So get to know your own compass. Anxiety is an indicator that something's out of alignment. That is amazing. So what situations Am I in that feel out of alignment? And let's say it's work. This is a fun one. Let's say you hate your job, you hate the company work for, and you hate everything about you. Have 10 million stories as to why this is the wrong job for you. Try bringing your heroine to work. I have my clients do this. It's so fun. Bring your heroine to work, aka, notice, how do you show up at work? Why do you hate work? Like, if you were to own your side of the street. Well, I hate work because I'm not myself, not vulnerable, I'm dim down. I don't get a say. I whatever the story may be, okay. Bring the sovereign woman to work. Bring your heroine. Bring this woman who you don't even know yet. And you're like, I'm gonna play a persona tomorrow. Maybe you choose like an alter ego. Choose a character from the movie. I'm going to be Samantha from Sex and the City. She's bold, she's confident, she's crazy. I'm going to bring her to work tomorrow and see what happens, right? And see what happens truly. So instead of just blowing up your life and quitting everything, First, bring your heroines. Start to own how your saboteur is showing up at work, and we'll talk about the saboteur again soon. I have a saboteur mini course on my Instagram, if you haven't seen it. Kate Harlow, the unscripted woman with no E, no E, and the unscripted woman, but you can find the saboteur mini course there. It's also my website, the unscripted woman.com, so find the saboteur mini course. Go through it so you can understand your saboteur if you haven't already done my master class and and I'll, I'll share more about the master class soon, because that'd be happening in June. But get to know your saboteur. Figure out what part you're bringing to work like my client, that used to be like Kane. I'm invisible at work. I'm invisible. And she was invisible because she had a fucking invisibility cloak on, like she was covering her light. She was hiding. She was not showing up fully expressed. She was not sharing her truth. She was not being herself at work. She was compartmentalizing. She was shape shifting, which we've also been taught to do. Put your professional hat on. No Just be you everywhere you go. You do not need to change hats anytime. You don't not need to be like mom hat, wife hat, work hat. That's what makes you bitter and resentful, because you're wearing masks everywhere you go. So take the masks off and take off your saboteur cloak that you're wearing to work and bring your alter ego heroin to work. How does she show up? How does she shine? How does she express herself? How does she share? How does she own her side of the street? Like she doesn't gossip, she doesn't feed all the work politics. She sees solutions, not problems, right? Like, how does your heroin show up at work? So that's a practice, too. But anxiety is a gift, right? We've been taught to fear it. We've been taught to be afraid of it and then go to the doctor and take a pill and numb it, or we become our own doctors, and we find other ways to numb it, right with food or with alcohol or with obsessive scrolling on social media, which, of course, none of those things actually numb your anxiety. They numb it temporarily, and then they make it way, way, way, way worse, because our blood sugar levels are spiked because our like it, the Alcohol is a depressant. So is the phone, like all of those things we use to numb anxiety, aren't really numbing our anxiety. They're making it worse. So your job is to become fascinated by it. Get to know your body. Get to know your instrument. What is she saying? What is she communicating? Where am I not listening? Where can I be more honest with myself and my choices and my life? What do I desire? Right? Not having, not living from anxiety is really just anxiety is a byproduct from living a life that's not your own. It is the byproduct of living a life that's in devotion to the script to what you've been told. You're supposed to want to even like, Oh, I'm supposed to have a hot, rich man by my side. And then you get one, and you're like, you feel empty and disconnected, and you're trying to get love from someone, but you can't, because it's like you've chosen the partner based on the societal conditioning of what you're supposed to want, rather than based on a soul connection and how someone's behaving with you, right? So your anxiety is just a messenger. Get fascinated about her. Get curious, get to know her. She's your guide, right? She's helping you, actually. And then, and then we're taught, we go to the doctor, and they tell us to just numb it. It's like, numb the thing that's actually trying to help you and to talk to you that is so backwards, right? And then you don't get to hear it, and it just takes all your power away. Your anxiety is an indicator, love her, hold her whenever I'm anxious, like if I have circumstantial anxiety. Now, I put my hands on my heart, like I did when I had the dog bite, and I'm like, Honey, I've got you. I love you. And I talk to my anxiety, like it's a kid, because it is right. It's a young part of you. So I talked to her, I love her. I'm like, sweetie, you are safe. I've got you, I promise. I know things feel uncertain right now. I know it seems scary right now. I'm gonna stop watching the news. I'm gonna stop watching Tiktok videos about Donald Trump or whatever is happening in the world. I'm gonna put our energy into things that actually feel nourishing and feel like I'm contributing to the world in some way, right? Are you contributing to the world by gossiping and complaining and feeding fear based stories like everyone else? Or are you loving yourself up and taking care of yourself so well that you actually feel good, even when everyone around you feels bad, that you actually feel solid in yourself. Imagine this and and aligned with your heart and grounded in you and living a life that feel fills you up. Imagine what's possible from that place, right? If I was still living the fear based gossip, self sacrificing, what else was I doing, shape shifting, people pleasing, fantasy addict life, if that was still me, think about all of the lives I wouldn't have impacted right? Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of 1000s of women have heard this podcast, and then I've personally coached 1000s and like think about all the women whose lives and men, there's men that listen to and I even think of people I've just connected with on airplanes or in Kenya or wherever, like all of the lives that wouldn't have been impacted because I was so busy living the script, performing my life, making sure everyone else approves of me, trying to be perfect for the world, trying to sacrifice myself for my own true for everyone else's truth, instead of my own, putting other people's selfness above my own selfishness. Imagine I was still living that way. I mean, that's just crazy to think about. So you have a purpose too, right? You have impact that you're meant to bring to the world too. It doesn't mean it's going to be in the through the the avenue of your career. Your career might be totally separate, but you just being like even let's say you're an interior designer, which is a great job. Let's say your interior designer, you like to make people's homes feel beautiful and feel relaxing and feel aligned with who they are. If you're an anxious interior designer who's constantly in fear, versus one whose heart is open, who's relaxed, who's happy, who's feel feels good in her life. Which one do you think people will choose right? And which one do you think has a bigger impact on people's lives? It doesn't matter what your job is, but if you can be your heroine, right, be that sovereign woman who takes full responsibility for her feelings and who feeds who fills the world with more love, not fear. That's making a massive impact, too. Doesn't have to be a podcast, right? But that's what the world needs more of. Is not more people, not more little soldiers, spreading more fear. We need people who no longer are subscribing to the fear based model, who are not taking the bait. That is a trap. It is a trap. Fear feeds fear. Feeds fear feeds fear. I've said this a million times. I'll say it a million more fear feeds fear, feeds fear feeds fear. So much more is possible for you when you are honest with yourself, and you care for yourself, and you reverently love yourself, and you choose your own truth above everyone else's. Even if everyone around you is awake, you're selfish, you're gonna say, Yeah, I am going to choose my own selfishness over your selfishness. Because if someone else is telling you what to do, they're just wanting you to choose their selfishness over yours, right? You're living your life, and it is your own, and you are the only one responsible for it. And I promise you, when you live a life that's more honest with what you truly desire, even if you don't even know your big desires, but start with the little ones, and you care for yourself, and you treat yourself like the queen that you want to be treated in relationship, and you start to have reverence for yourself.
Anxiety falls away. It cannot. Exist when your instrument is tuned, right? When your instrument is tuned, and you practice your instrument every single day, and you devote yourself to learning and studying and getting to know your instrument, what happens? You become masterful at playing that instrument, and you move people all over the world, right? You move people. You get opportunities and experiences to play your instrument on big stages. You make more money. You get more more more experiences, more travel, more opportunities, because you've taken care of your instrument, because you've shown up every day for it, because you've practiced it, because you've played it, because you've become a master at it. Do that with your body, learn how to live a life and make choices based on resonance, not based on the fear based thoughts, but based on the actual resonance in your body, and your anxiety will melt away. I promise you that. I can't guarantee it, but I have seen it. I've witnessed it for the last 10 years in my coaching. Actually, I've witnessed it for the last 17 years, because I witnessed in business coaching too. It's incredible. And the system around you will tell you, otherwise, the system around you will tell you, Oh, you just have a disorder here. Take a pill, right? But that's not actually getting to the root. So get to the root. You've got this I believe in you. Clean up your life. Clean up the messaging that you're consuming, clean up the energy you're around. And join communities where you are around people who see the world in an expansive way. Join communities where people are not feeding each other's fear, but they're fanning each other's flames. They're celebrating each other's light. There. They're holding space for vulnerability and honesty and openness, right where you surround yourself with matters who you surround yourself with matters, sisterhood matters. Okay? I could keep going on and on and on. You've heard this all before. I love you. Hope you enjoyed this episode. Spread the word to all your sisters who are struggling right now, who are experiencing anxiety or going through hard times. I hope this episode served you. Send me a message. Would love to hear from you. What do you want to hear about on the podcast, and how are you liking it? Would love some five star reviews on the different Apple iTunes, Spotify the different platforms, and I will see you next week. Lots of love.