Retreats brought me to Kenya. I fell in love the

second day I was here, I was like, I think I want to live

here. And that made no sense at the time. And now, a year later,

I followed my heart and I'm here kind of indefinitely. I have

rented a cottage for six months, but I told the owner today. I'm

like, probably I'll just stay here forever. It's just I am so

alive and happy here, and that's living free is like really,

truly living from the pulse of my heart and the nudges and the

deep desires and my soul. Hello, my loves. Before you get into

this week's episode, I wanted just to share a little context

with you about it, as it's a little bit different. This

week's episode is a conversation and interview that I had on my

dear soul sister and beautiful friend Leah brathwaite's

podcast. It's her new podcast. She's been teaching women work

very similar to mine. Her method is called the live free

lifestyle, and she's an author, a soul advisor, a Kundalini

instructor, Human Design Guide. She kind of weaves all of her

soul magic together into her work, and she invited me on her

podcast called The live free lifestyle. And she has these

incredibly powerful conversations with many

different teachers and healers and coaches on how they actually

broke free and started to live freely. So this conversation is

really her interviewing me, and I thought I would share it here

too, because it was a really fun, beautiful conversation. Of

course, we both share our wisdom and just have a really deep chat

about what it really means to be liberated and free of the

scripted life of, you know, being the women we've been

conditioned to be and how to really go your own way. So I

hope you enjoy this episode, and as always, share it with all the

women in your life who need a little liberation, who need to

live free, and I'll see you soon. Enjoy.

Welcome back to another episode of The Live,

free Lifestyle Podcast. I am your host, Leah Brathwaite, and

today I have a very special guest to welcome to the show.

She is a love and relationship coach, host of the new truth

podcast, founder of the expanded love method, and one of my

nearest and dearest soul sister friends. Kate Harlow, welcome to

the show.

Kate, thanks. Whoa. It feels good to be here. I was

on part of the like crew of initiating you into doing this

podcast.

You've been doing yours for like five years.

Five years now, I think, yeah, yeah. I've been hearing over and

over, you should do a podcast. It's the best thing ever. And

you were so right. But you know, we do things when we are ready

to do things. So, so happy to be having this conversation with

you today, because I mean not just the fact that you're one of

my favorite people, but our stories have this cool,

interwoven kind of synchronicity to them that I think is really

fun to explore on this episode, and also you just have so much

wisdom to share. So I'm excited to just hear what comes up

through this conversation. But I want to kind of kick things off

with the way that I kick off every one of these episodes and

ask the question, what does it mean to you to live free? This

is such a good question. It's so yummy. I have

to go back and listen to all the interviews, all the

conversations with people's answers. What does it mean for

me to live free? Well, I've been on a journey for 20 years of

untethering from the scripted version of who I was taught to

be, and liberating my heart and soul to live a life that's for

me, and so I'd say that's it like living an unscripted,

unapologetic life that is fully from my own body, my own soul,

my own heart, that's not for anyone else, not asking

permission or even opinions of other people, but making choices

based on what is so true for me. And I just made a big one. So I

think like I'm in the land of the free, the true land of the

free. I'm I just moved to Kenya after my heart, brought me here

in 20 life. Brought me here in 2024 and as you know, made this

huge transition. I've been living I've been living abroad

for a while, been living in Greece for almost four years,

and retreats brought me to Greece. I fell in love with

Greek culture, fell in love with Greek people, and moved there on

a whim, as you know, like total spontaneous covid reaction to an

airplane I couldn't get on and move there in a moment. And the

A similar thing happened with Kenya, where I retreats, brought

me to Kenya. I fell in love the second day I was here, I was

like, I think I want to live here. And that made no sense at

the time. And now, a year later, I followed my heart, and I'm

here kind of indefinitely. I have rented a cottage for. Six

months, but I told the owner today, I'm like, probably I'll

just stay here forever. It's just I am so alive and happy

here. And that's living free is like really, truly living from

the pulse of my heart and the nudges and the deep desires in

my soul. Yes,

so beautiful. And I think that's one of the

things that we connected on so deeply. So when we met, I had

just moved to Vancouver, covid time. We just entered lockdown

right when I got there. And I had been traveling in Thailand,

I lived in Toronto, and that sort of thing. On my own journey

of living free, as I call it, or yields in your language, it's

like living that unscripted life of following the calling of your

soul to allow what is moving in you to be the thing that guides

your way. So my deepest core belief is that when you follow

your soul, it will lead you to a life beyond your wildest dreams.

And the relationships that I found in Vancouver, you being

one of them were like soul mate relationships with women that I

had never had before, and that was one of the things that we

really connected on this idea of what it means to live free. We

were both doing work around the same theme, but in very

different ways. And you had mentioned that to you like at

the beginning, when you were saying what it means to you to

live free. It was this untethering of all of the

confines, all of the constructs, all of the conditioning that you

were brought up with. And it's not to say that it was all bad,

like we know our parents are trying the best with what

they've got, and society is what it is. But I'm curious if you

can share a little bit about what that experience of

untethering was like for you. So in most of my conversations with

others, there's this, what I call the oh shit moment where

you realize, like, oh shit, I have the opportunity to make a

different choice here, maybe in the past, not knowing what I

didn't know. I kept repeating the same patterns. But right

here, right now. This is a moment where my soul, my heart,

my being, is telling me that there is another way for me to

do this. There is a more liberated and free way for me to

be. So I'm curious if you have an oh shit moment that comes to

mind, or if you can share a little bit about what that

untethering or unwinding process has been like for you

that is so funny, because when we were talking

before we hit record, we were joking about you introducing me

as my my legal name, my OG name, and I was like, don't really do

that. And then I was like, unless it comes up organically.

But of course, this is the first place where I started to walk

away from the script because I so my for those of you who don't

know me, my legal name is Andrea, Kathleen Irwin, and I

had a grandfather that called me Kathleen. My whole life.

Everyone else called me Andrea, and no one understood why he

called me Kathleen, but we you know, I was very close with him,

and I didn't understand either, but I always responded to it.

And I changed my name, as you know, when I was 25 I'm 44 now,

so almost 20 years ago, I've almost been, you know, Kate

Harlow, longer than I was my other name, it's like almost at

the tipping point. But I changed my name from Andrea to my middle

name, Kate. Kate, short for like Kathleen, but Kate, but

actually, Katie was the first iteration of it, and that at 25

years old was the most hardest confronting fucking thing I'd

ever done in my life. Like so confronting because I was

ultimate good girl, ultimate people pleaser, oh, like

following the script to a T fantasy, love addict, like

everything I teach women to no longer be I was at the time, and

my whole world. Every decision I made was based on other people's

opinions, and everyone judged me for this one all of my closest

friends, the only person who allowed me to even play with the

idea of changing my name was my boyfriend at the time, Charlie,

and he was an actor. So he had multiple names because he was an

actor. And like, he'd go by his middle name at home and his

first name in Vancouver and and so he encouraged it, because I

had, he had found out that I hated my name, and he was like,

You're 25 years old. Like, are you seriously gonna go by a name

you hate for another like, what if you lived to be 175 years?

And I was like, Well, yeah, yeah, because people will judge

me. Like that was actually torture to imagine not being

having everyone disown me and and the worst case scenario kind

of happened. I went through the like, we started to play with it

at home. He started calling me Katie, and that was he

introduced me as Katie. And it started to feel like, Oh my God.

I think this is me. I think like, because I never felt like,

Andrea my whole life was just like, this coat doesn't fit.

This coat doesn't fit even when I was a kid. And so I started to

resonate more and more with it. And I finally came to the

decision, I'm like, okay, the internal does. Desire for me to

be in alignment with who I really am is stronger. This is

really important than the caring what other people think about

me. So I was willing to walk through the fire for the first

time that I think that was actually my biggest initiation.

I sent an email to everyone I knew. It's kind of like pre

social media. So I was like, I'm officially changing my name.

This comes from my middle name. Here's why, here's the

reasoning. And the people who got on board were my family. I

talked to my parents about it before sending the email, but my

family were so supportive. All my cousins, all my aunts and

uncles, didn't skip a beat. Never called me Andrea again. My

grandparents, even when they had dementia at the end of their

lives, never went back like they always called me Katie, and then

eventually I became Kate. And then a year before, I started my

business, so over 10 years ago, I decided, like, I just had this

feeling, I'm going to be known one day, and I didn't want to be

known as Kate Irwin. And then I had this epiphany in the bath,

and was like, Harlow is my great grandfather's name, and he was a

preacher and very impactful Australian guy, very inspiring

man. And so that's where Harlow came from. So they all were

pieces of me, but but claiming them the first time, once I got

to Harlow, you know, 10 years ago, I didn't care what people

thought. It didn't matter anymore. I was like, no. What

matters is how I feel. But at the time, in the beginning, the

first several initiations, or the first several years of the

journey of becoming who you really are, you have to be

willing to burn everything down to the ground and walk through

the fire. And I literally lost all my friends. Like everyone I

was close with at that time no longer stayed close with me.

They never told me why, but it was so obvious. But it was

because energetically, you know this, they could they weren't

aligned to come with me. They couldn't come with me because

they weren't they were devoted to the script, to the to the

predetermined, pre ordered life, not the unscripted, like

unknown, mystical, mysterious, magical life that unfolds when

we follow our souls. Totally.

Yeah. So there's so many things in that

sharing that are so important, like nuggets that I kind of want

to touch on. So one of the first things is like, there comes a

moment, and like I said at the outset of this, like, you've

been telling me you should do a podcast, like, ever since we

met, basically, and that was like, in 2020 and you can only

do something when you get to the point of being ready to do

something. And it's like the the not for another second moment. I

had that in my kitchen where I was like, I've been doing all

the things being the good girl. This is my dream house, but I

cannot live this life for another second. So there's this

point that there's probably whispers over and over, like you

said you were hearing like, I hate my name. I've hated my name

for 25 years. There were like little whispers over and over,

until you get to that I'm done moment where you're like, I

can't do this anymore. And that's where you kind of enter

the second phase of your life, where you are living for

yourself, where you are reclaiming who you're actually

meant to be and how you actually want to live your life, but

that's the really important thing that you mentioned. Once

you walk through that threshold and you're like, Okay, I'm no

longer going to be the good girl, I'm no longer going to be

the people pleaser, I'm no longer going to worry about

making everybody around me happy. I'm going to actually

decide what makes me happy. That's when you get to see the

truth of the relationships that you've been in and beautiful,

that your family was like, super supportive, and that you had

kind of that backing, and Charlie was really supportive,

so you had, like, a bit of a foundation. But we get to see

when we are our true selves, and we're no longer bending over

backwards and like breaking our own boundaries and abandoning

ourselves who's left. And I think that's the reason why so

many people don't make the changes that they feel are

stirring within them. I know for myself, it was the reason why I

didn't leave my religion until I was 30, because I was like, If I

leave, I lose everything that feels really scary, and it's

like, there's no turning back. It feels like But truly, on the

other side of that is your authentic self. Is your your

soul expression. It's the life that you are actually here to

live. And there's growth, and there's pain, and there's grief,

and there's all these human things that the uncomfortable

bits that we try to avoid, but when we're able to be with those

things, I love, the the way that you speak to it, it's like this

expanded love that is available to us. So my question for you

is, if you're throwing away the script and you're creating a

life that lights up your soul, for a woman who spent her entire

life following everybody else's rules, what would you say is the

first step to unscripting her her life? Like, how, how would

you suggest taking the first step from that for us, like, we

kind of did it on our own, not knowing, but for somebody who's,

like, I would really love a pathway. So I

don't, yes, you know. And I was thinking what

you said about, like, what we lose when we follow our truth in

our heart and who we lose along the way. You know, the the the

big thing that we lose is anxiety and incongruency. We

lose like the reality is, you think you want everyone's

approval, but that's what's creating your anxiety every day,

because you're living your life for everybody but yourself. But

once you get on board with your own truth and your own

congruency and getting into alignment with who you really

are. You You don't need anyone's approval, nor do you give a

shit. Like when I moved to Kenya, not for one second did I

ask permission. Did I ask people's opinions? I was like,

Oh, my God, my heart and soul, and nobody questioned it

directly. I mean, maybe indirectly. But you know, I

Canadian girl from Vancouver, moves to Africa, like I'm sure

lots of people, I have friends who moved here, and everyone

challenged them about moving here, all their family members,

all their friends. And for me, it's like, Absolutely, I'm going

and it's, it's, it's, my life is my own. And at this point,

people are so used to, yeah, my life being my own, that they

know we know, challenge me. Yeah, in the beginning, it's

like in the beginning of our journey, we it's like all the

people in our scripted life, they've been hired to keep us

there so that they'll call you back. Oh, no, no. What are you

doing? That's crazy. Don't be silly. What are you gonna like?

They'll challenge you because they're looking through the lens

of their limitations, and they're going to project them

onto you, because if you leave, then that's going to shake

things up, and they're going to have to look at themselves in in

some way, and they're going to risk losing you, or they're

going to have to grow and change. So it's their opinions

aren't about you anyways, but know that those people that are

are living from that script itself. I call it your saboteur,

your conditioned self. It's not who you really are when, when

you step out of that, everybody in your life will challenge you.

And when you get to my plate, like the place where I'm at and

you're at where we've been doing this for 1520, years, people

don't they don't challenge you anymore, because you your life

is your own. You're no longer available for that, so you no

longer attract that. But it's kind of part of the initiation.

In the beginning, it's like, Nope, I'm changing my name no

matter what. And like, everything burns to the ground,

and that willingness to keep moving your feet forward, even

though it feels uncomfortable and horrible and like you're

doing something wrong, and all of the the emotions that come

up. But to answer your question about the first step, you know,

when I'm working with women, I have them first get really

intimate with their saboteur, their conditioned self. So

actually, have a mini course that I'll give you, that we can

link below the episode of saboteur. It's called the

expanded love. I don't even know what it's called, anyways, it

helps you identify the five saboteur archetypes. It's on my

Instagram as well, but the five saboteur archetypes that are

playing out for you that your conditioned self is operating

in. So the first step, I believe, before we can just burn

the script and like, become something else, we have to get

intimate with the character we've been playing and, like,

really get to know her and all her nuances and all her sneaky,

manipulative ways that she keeps you, quote, unquote, safe and

comfortable, but actually she keeps you anxious and miserable

and never feeling safe. But she'll convince you that she's

keeping you feeling safe, because the reality is, when you

were a child, that part did keep you safe, like you, we don't

have choices. Children, we don't have choices. Teenagers, other

people are dictating what we do, who we who we surround ourselves

with, where we go. You know, school teachers like we're in so

many situations when we're young that we don't want to be in, and

so that's when we develop these protective mechanisms, the

saboteur, conditioned self, the persona that has you surviving

whatever you're going through in your childhood, whatever you

know ways that you're who you truly are, is being repressed,

and so we needed that adaptive part of ourselves as a kid, but

as an adult, that is the part that stops you from being all of

who you are. It stops you from living a life that's fully for

you and aligned with you. So step one is getting intimate

with your saboteur, getting to know her, getting to know this

persona that you've developed. My clients name that part like,

one of the most popular names there's been is Monica. Any

clients that are super type A and super Control E, like Monica

on friends and like super clean. So that's been the saboteur name

a few times, but they name that part and get to know that part,

because there's something so incredibly powerful when you

externalize the part of you that is your conditioned self, and

she's just protecting a Wounded Little girl, and as long as

she's making the decisions, really a little girl is at the

helm of your life. And choosing your life and and so you'll

never feel safe, you'll never feel secure, you'll never feel

confident, powerful, like anxiety will always be

underneath and so and then, from that place, once you you you

have a clear picture of who you've been behaving as to

survive your childhood, self sacrifice or control or

isolator, Shape Shifter, fantasy addict, these are the five

archetypes. But once you start to really get to know that part

of you, then you can see all the beautiful parts that have been

shut down because she's been leading your life. And then you

start to get to know your desire and get to know those heart

pulses and those things you've been repressing, those truths

you've been repressing, or those desires or those feelings.

Yeah, it's so powerful, and I love what you

said about when we're children, we're we're manifesting through

our parents. We don't have full control over ourselves. We have,

like, this tether to this superior being that has

authority and that has dictatorship over what we can

and can't do. So not only does it shape who we think we are in

the world, it also dictates what we think is available to us. So

if our parents are like, we can't afford that, or that's not

for us, or people like us don't do that, we grow up with these

beliefs and these programs that that continue to run. So like

you said, it's like a seven year old driving a Mercedes. You have

like the power or like a Ferrari, you have this infinite

power that is available to you, but it's the wrong part that is

driving the ship. So that reorientation to the authentic

version of yourself, I call it your soul. You You call it your

heroine. I think it is has to come from first becoming aware

of what's not working. And I think that's a really important

thing to acknowledge, like our feelings, and I say this, I feel

like in every episode, but our feelings of dissatisfaction, our

feelings of frustration, our feelings of depression, even,

and anxiety. I thought I was diagnosed with depression and

anxiety because my doctors just thought that's who I was, but I

was living so in opposition to my truth that that's just a

natural reaction. It's like this continuous battle within

yourself. You're constantly repressing yourself that leads

to a feeling of being depressed, and then you're constantly

second guessing yourself and not trusting yourself and doubting

yourself, that creates so much internal anxiety. And so what

becomes available to us on the other side of that, when we're

like, okay, I can now separate these two parts. I have this

conditioned version that I love because she got me to this

place. Like this is not about shaming any parts. It's about

saying, Okay, this adaptive strategy is no longer working.

Like it was an adaptation that got me to this point, but I

gotta let it go. That's when the higher self and not like higher,

as in better, because I truly believe that both parts are

necessary, but the part that's connected to your infinite

nature, your Divine Self, your deepest desires, your deepest

truth, your mission, your purpose, all of that fulfillment

that we're all seeking. That's when that version of you gets to

come online, and when she's the one driving the Ferrari, it

becomes the most beautiful experience, but the part that I

think most people aren't not that they're not prepared for,

but the part that continues to evolve. And that's why in the

work that you do, and in the work that I do, the live, free

method is something that you do over and over again. It's not

like, Oh, I'm healed, I'm fixed. I know who my saboteur is, or I

understand my patterns. It's the continual evolution of that.

It's the upward spiral of unwinding more of that, so that

more and more of your truth gets to be expressed. And that

creates this need to find certainty within yourself,

because you are constantly pressing up against the unknown

when you throw away the script and you're no longer following

what I call the checklist, where I'm like, Okay, I've got college

degree, I've got husband, I've got house, I've like, we're no

longer doing the get the nine to five. Retire at 65 and hopefully

enjoy your life. You are creating it, constantly

manifesting it, constantly co creating it, and it takes you to

places that you will never imagine, like you probably never

imagined that you would be living in Kenya, like, even when

we met, I don't think that was on your radar. So I

didn't even know anything about Africa at the

time, nothing other than like, Oh, I'll go there when I'm 70

and do a safari. Like, yeah,

that would be nice. It's a bucket list that

we'll get to maybe. Like, the things that become available to

you are incredible, like, the fact that I live here in Malibu

with this most incredible man is not anything that was on my

radar even two years ago. So it. Becomes the you become the

author of it. You recognize that even though at one point you

were manifesting through your parents and there was limitation

and maybe there was lack, and there was all of these

circumstances that felt that they were outside of your

control, you start to realize that you are so much more

powerful than you ever imagined. And the more that you're in this

work and like revealing more parts of yourself and really

connecting to something greater than yourself, the more you get

to see just how much magic is available to you. So I know you

work with a lot of women when it comes to their relationships,

and I know like the category is relationships, but it touches

all parts of their lives, but I would love to know what is the

connection that you see between a woman's relationship with

herself and the quality of romantic partners that she

attracts and and when does that kind of shift become apparent to

her When she's doing this type of work.

Well, it's always an inside job. I have over 300

podcast episodes that have like, you know, every every title is

like something. Not every title we've done episodes outside of

relationships and dating and love, but like, most of them,

have been that, and every title is like, you know the truth

about ghostinger, like, why he didn't call you back, or

whatever. It's like some top of mind problem, and then they open

the door and that to the episode, and every episode is

like, it's an inside job, everything. The majority of

women who I've worked with over the years have been women who

checked all the boxes, who are divorced, not all, but I'd say,

like, probably 90% of my clients are divorced women who have

kids, who have an ex husband, who have, you know, gone through

all that journey, many of them divorced to narcissists. That's

been a common thread as well, but they land on my doorstep.

Then it was so sweet. I actually had a call with a woman who was

interested in joining the journey, and she's like, I don't

know if it's right for me, though, because I haven't

finished checking the boxes yet, like as if she's not a fit

because she hasn't checked all the boxes. I'm like, No, you're

lucky. That's a good thing, because all the women who did

check the boxes, you know, just got to get a husband, just got

to get a you know, got to get married, got to have kids, got

to get the house, got to get the thing, got to get the thing.

They wake up one day like Elizabeth Gilbert and Eat, Pray,

Love, and feel like I'm dead inside. I don't want to be

married anymore. I don't want this life anymore. And she had a

pretty great on paper life. That is the most common story I see.

And the reason I attract mostly women like that is because

they're ready, because they the ones who are younger I do work

with. You know, 10% of them that are younger, that haven't

checked the boxes yet, and just their souls are hungry and ready

earlier. But the reason a woman post divorce posts like just

like you, post the perfect scripted on paper Instagram life

is ready for, for this is because she she sees how empty

those things are. Because it's not about those things, you

know, and we've been fed messages our whole entire lives

that, you know, especially as women, that if we are not in a

romantic relationship, people are constantly questioning it,

so that has us feel insecure and in discord. I think about myself

like, I'm single, quote, unquote, right now, I don't

identify with that word. I'm just me. I'm like me when I'm in

a relationship, I'm me when I'm single, I'm the exact same. I

don't feel different. I'm not like, Oh no, I'm single. Gotta

go do something to get something like, I'm just living my life,

and things come to me. So the fear that women have when they

start the journey of falling in love with their own soul and

their own life is that they're going to not need a relationship

anymore, and therefore not have one. That's the opposite. It's

like when just like your story, when we live from the truth of

who we are, when we follow our hearts and souls desire, and we

walk through the threshold of fear, because there's always

fear. I had it before, you know, before I came to Kenya, and I'm

on the other side like, oh my god, this is home. Like I could

cry. I've never felt more at home than I do right now, in my

little cottage in on the land I'm living in, with the friends

I'm surrounded by, with the community I'm building, like

it's so aligned and love, like my life is love. I am love. I'm

in a loving, deep, deep, deep, reverent relationship with

myself. When my stuff kicks up and my little me is there and my

saboteur is loud, which, you know, the further along I've

gone on the journey, the deeper I've gone into myself, the less

often that happens. But when the hijacks happen, I know how to

love myself through it. I know how to be with myself through

the contracted feeling, and then I come back to that expanded

feeling. And my life is love, all my sisterhood relationships,

like I always say on the podcast and to my clients, there's not

one woman in my life who doesn't have an epic life like I do, who

doesn't have who isn't so expanded take responsibility for

everything she's feeling. You know, inspiring, doing epic

things in the world, making an impact, having great love

stories, but like deep, meaningful. Real Love, where

it's not just a fantasy painted onto someone, and then we just

like, fit them into our script, and we're like, Oh, there's the

guy, there's the kids, there's whatever, stick them in the

storyline. And then you're like, wondering why you ache every

night when you're laying in bed beside this person. It's not

about the person, but it's about the part of you that chose the

relationship. It's about the part of you that chose to get

married. It's not about the thing itself. I'm not saying

I'll never. I'm 44 I've never chosen to marry. Will I never? I

don't know me. I'm not close to anything, but I'm I'm so

grateful I learned to live from my fullest, most expansive part

of me, from my soul, for my heroine, so that when I do make

the choices, they're my truth in the moment. They're not some

idea of what I'm supposed to be. And so when I work with women

and they separate from their saboteur, she's your roommate

always going to be there, you learn to love her. You learn to

sit with her when she needs attention and love, but learn to

put her in the backseat, not let her drive the Ferrari. She, if

there's room in the back seat, I don't know if they have back

seats. Never been in a Ferrari, but she, you know, when you

learn to not have that Wounded Little Girl and that that her

sidekick lead and you let the heroine of your story lead your

life, you build a life of love. And then even when the right

love, romantic love, comes along. You're not needing it.

You're not siphoning. You're not it's not a vampire relationship

where you're expecting them to behave in a certain way so you

feel better about yourself. That's just the wound at the

wheel. When you're actually in alignment with all of who you

are, you call forward someone who also is. And then when your

shit does come up, which it will, because relationships

mirror all of our stuff. We like it's it's there for your next

level of growth. You know how to tend to your own heart through

it, and how to bring your vulnerability to the

relationship so you can deepen together, as opposed to project

your shit all over each other and then blame them and then go

somewhere else or whatever other pattern.

Totally, totally. Totally. I love that

response so much. And the thing that I love about you, I mean,

it's hilarious. Like, every time we catch up, you're like, Oh my

God, my new best friend, or oh my god, I love this person, or

oh my god, I met this other person. You have so many soul

mate relationships in your life, and I think women are often

looking for like, the one person that is gonna be the thing. And

I'm not discounting that at all. It is a beautiful thing to be in

a like an aligned relationship, if that's what you desire. But I

love what you said that my life is love, that you become a

magnet to all of these beautiful opportunities and relationships,

and the fact that everybody in your circle is somebody who is a

soulmate, somebody who is like on their journey, on their path,

living their life in the same aligned way. I think that is so

powerful and so beautiful, and it brings so much more meaning

and fulfillment to our lives. Instead of like, I'm going to

put all of my effort on one person, and they have to satisfy

all parts of my life, otherwise, I'm I'm not okay. I think it

really is important for us to and I teach the same thing, to

really have a solid relationship with ourselves, because then we

can consciously choose what is in alignment with us. I just did

a podcast with our friend Mark groves, and he said something

beautiful. He's like, if you're not free to leave a

relationship, you're not free to choose that relationship. So if

you need this person to complete you, then you're not free to be

in that relationship. There's like a codependency, there's

like a tether that doesn't actually let you experience

liberated and expanded love. And I think it's so important to

take time to do the work, even if you are in a relationship,

doing the work. I mean, some people like you said, are afraid

to do it, because they're like, I'm not going to need anybody.

And if I'm in a relationship, like, what's that going to mean

for my relationship? But like you said, some of the women that

come to you, they've come after all of these decisions that

they've been making from their seven year old driving the

Ferrari, and they're like, wait, I just crashed into a wall, and

I have all the things, but I don't want any of this. Yeah,

but I think for myself, I realized this obviously later,

not making decisions maliciously. But the more you

build your life out of alignment and out of integrity with the

truth of your soul, the more there is to kind of, like, sift

through and sort through and uncreate so that you can start

rebuilding in this new aligned way. And so if you're at a point

where you're like, you said, like, wanting a person, or you

haven't, like, checked all of the boxes yet, or you're like, I

don't feel like I can do this type of work, because I still

have to do this type of work, like, quote, unquote, the

checklist to complete. It's often the perfect time to start

doing things, when you're in a place of transition, or when

you're in a place of like, having a big decision to make,

if you can come. Come to a place of truth within yourself, it'll

be so much easier for you to make that decision in a way that

is going to build something sustainable for the future,

instead of something that's just going to need to be kind of

undone later on in life. And the final thing that I wanted to

kind of touch on, on what you said, is, like the fear is, is,

I want to say the fear is real. It's not real, it's not real,

but it is real. It's like the story that we tell ourselves.

Because I think it's Pema Chodron that says, I can't

remember if it's the book when things fall apart, or the other

book that I can't remember the name of it, but she says

something, not these exact words, but like, fear is a sign

that you are getting closer to the truth. So when you come up

to that point where you're like, oh gosh, my heart is calling me

to Africa, like, I'm gonna move to Kenya. This is kind of crazy.

I already moved to Greece. I already did something scary. But

the deeper truth is, like, there's more. There's like,

always more to discover about yourself. There's always more to

uncover, to experience. And when you are leaving the thing that

you're comfortable with to go to the thing that is unknown but

that you're feeling called towards, there will always be

fear. There will always be like a part of you that's like, what

does it mean for me? Am I going to die? Am I going to be okay?

Like I've never been there before, so I have no idea. So

what would you say to somebody who is feeling that fear? I know

both you and I, we have conversations when we're about

to level up and we know, like our saboteur is kicking up, or

our ego is really loud. Like, what are some of the things that

you do to move through that, like fear barrier, that fear

threshold, so that you can feel the freedom and the expansion

and the truth on the other side

of it. I love that. And, you know, I just, I think,

celebrate that the fear is there, because it's an indicator

that you're on the right path. It's your mind is constantly

going to this, the controller archetype, fantasy controller,

I'd say, is the biggest hybrid that has us believe that our

lives are supposed to look a certain way. And it's like the

per, I think of, you know, wild flowers, a white like, wild

nature that I'm experiencing here in Kenya, versus, like,

fucking manicured gardens, like your mind is going to want the

manicured garden. Your mind is like, no, the grass needs to be

cut perfectly and the bushes need to be in perfect squares,

and it wants it to be, to look a certain way based on what it

knows from the past, from from all the tapes, all the programs,

all the movies, all the stories, all the other people's lives.

You witness people who've influenced you. It that is all

there. And when the fear is there, as you're moving towards

something that your body feels yes to that. You feel that. Like

every time I talked about Kenya, I would get turned on and my I'd

feel tingly all over, and I just like, oh my god, it's such a

strong feeling in my body. And your body knows your your body

is your compass. It's your no your nose and your yeses are so

clear in your body. And the more you slow down in your life and

create space like if you don't meditate, if you don't go for

walks, if you don't have time without your phone, if you don't

create space from technology, create space from busyness for

yourself, you won't hear clearly the messages. They'll be there,

and like you talked about earlier, that is anxiety I have.

I cannot tell you how many clients I've worked with who

have told me, Kate, I have anxiety disorder. I'm on

medication for depression, whatever. I am not a doctor. I

don't tell them to go off anything. But guess what? Three

months into our journey together, they all go off it,

and they're like, holy shit. I was repressed. I was anxious

because I was an out of my body, was an out of tune guitar

because I kept saying yes when it was a no and no one it was a

yes. So first thing is create space in your life, in your

practices and your day to day life that allows you to feel

your body, your own feelings and what, what your compass, your

heart yes is, your gut knows, and then when the fear is there,

thank you. Thank you for showing me like I knew, laying in bed

and hearing, like the odd, it wasn't la it wasn't really loud,

but like, every few nights, Regina, my saboteur, would wake

me up and be like, What are you doing? Like, Kenya is dangerous,

like, because of the news in Canada, I'm like, pretty sure

America is more dangerous than Kenya. But like you're crazy,

like your life is so good in Greece, blah, blah, blah, like,

as if I could never go back to Greece again. And she would say

these things, and I sit with my saboteur, because saboteur is

kind of like the teenage babysitter of the child, of the

wounded child. So I sit with her, and I'm like, when she gets

really loud, and I just let her vent in my journal, but it's

like Regina, regina's thoughts. You know, it's not me get

externalizing it, that that's a game changer. So you just

externalize it, regina's thoughts. You know, this is the

story. Blah, blah, blah, blah, what am I feeling underneath?

Fear, anxiety, nervousness, what? What's that caused by?

Because I'm going into a new experience. Experience, okay.

Thank you so much. You know, let myself fully feel the feeling

without feeding the story. The story needs to be vented. It

needs to be expressed once, but then I let it go. I don't go

tell the story to other people. It's just like, it's just okay,

it's there, but it is literally fear is the indicator that you

you start to distinguish the difference. The more you have

space and slow down and get to know the nuances of your your

inner guidance system, you start to know the difference between

fear and a no in your body, right? Some I get asked that a

lot, how do you know the difference fear? I always feel

it like outside it's like resistance. It's like, all of a

sudden there's like, thick fog, and I can't walk through the fog

because it's like, oh god, what's out there? I can't see

it. I don't know it. Versus not getting in a car with someone

because you have a gut feeling that something bad is going to

happen. That's like in the body. So you start to pay attention to

those differences. But when you have fearful thoughts that are

creating feelings in your body, those are just stories. That's

the program, the program, every system we've ever been a part of

has taught us to be afraid, has taught us to not be brave, to

not be courageous, to not take big steps, to not take risks, to

not do things against the grain, because we're much more easily

controlled when we're in fear. And we saw that with covid play

out like a perfect orchestration of fear mongering, so And yet,

you can live inside of this world and these systems, and you

can walk differently, and you can walk towards the door that

has fear. I like to think of it as like the door that has fear

graffitied all over it, fearful stories. And you're like, cool,

this must be something big. And you open the door, and you walk

through that threshold like the moment I couldn't get on the

airplane. I was in Greece, and I was 2021, I planned to go to

Costa Rica for the summer or for the winter, and then I was going

to go back to Vancouver, but I always wanted to live in Europe.

I couldn't get on the plane going from Greece to California

to visit my parents and then on to Costa Rica. And the woman's

like, no, Greece is a red zone. I'm sorry. It was like 430 in

the morning, and I was like, and I was like, crying. Like, what

do you mean? I haven't seen my parents in like, four months,

and I'm going away to Costa Rica. Like, I have to see nope,

Greece is red zone. You can't go to America right now unless you

have a green card or a passport, American passport. And i Tears

are streaming down my face, and I was like, oh my god, something

big is about to happen. Like, I'm being redirected. I just

knew I had a feeling. It wasn't a fantasy, it wasn't a story.

Was just a feeling, like, cool. I was like, allowing myself to

feel it, but also like, cool, something's happening. I went to

my friend's house to rebook my flight and jig and not go

through America and go, you know, directly from Europe to

Costa Rica, and my friend says, Kate, why don't you move to

Greece? And I was like, what? And something lit up inside my

body. Is like, move to Greece. And I'm like, it's a great idea.

He's like, You love it here. How do you move here? And so I just

booked a round trip ticket, because I still it was kind of

cold in Greece at the time, and I wanted to go to Costa Rica

still for a few months. And I was visiting Andy. I had plans

there, so I booked a round trip ticket, and then I moved to

Greece, not even knowing. People are like, Kate, how are you

staying in Greece? Like, you don't have a European passport?

And I'm like, Oh, I don't know. I'm sure, like, I've been re

orchestrated, so I'm sure it'll work out. And then I get to

Greece, and, like, two weeks in, find out there's this new visa

called the digital nomad visa, which I was qualified for. I

didn't know that before, so, like, but this is the life. I

mean, every freaking facet of my my work in the world, I've been

doing coaching for like, 17 years, but my specifically, my

business for almost 10, and my podcast for five. And every

single my coaching method, everything that has come through

me. None of it was my mind. None of it was like, why should be a

loving relationship. Literally, it was all divinely guided,

because I surrender to that guidance and then walk through

the threshold of fear, because that is the next level of

yourself

so powerful. I love that so much. It's what I

teach. Like the first lesson in the live, free method is listen

for the whispers. Like, how do you listen for those nudges that

your soul is kind of like whispering for you, and they

start as whispers until you ignore them, ignore them and

ignore them, and then they have to come louder and louder. And

usually the loud revelations are some kind of like diabolical

situation in your life that you wish you didn't have to deal

with, that you're like, oh shit, I kind of saw that coming. Like,

there's a party that's like, I knew, like, I kind of saw that

coming. Yeah, it was a whisper, and then it was like a shout,

and then it was like a bang on the head, and then it was, I

think it's mark that calls it the cosmic dump truck, where

you're like, oh shit. Now my life is messed up, whether it's

like a betrayal in your relationship, a job loss, an

illness that was one of my early wake up calls, like my body just

revolting against me, and all of a sudden I develop a nerve

condition lose function of my hand, not knowing that it was

because I was not listening to those whispers over and over

again. So I loved what you said at the beginning of what does it

feel like in your. Body like, how do you how do you feel like?

What is you feel like without all of the the noise and the

chaos, slowing down is so important, and I know for the

Type A the high achievers, those are usually the clients that

come to me. They're like, I am like a high powered

professional, like, I can't slow down. I've got so much going on,

but all of that stuff going on is like a mechanism to keep them

from feeling what's actually going on on the inside. So

differentiating the difference between your fear and your

intuition, or your anxiety and your intuition, between like

your your soul, your ego, your saboteur, your heroine, all of

those things, the understanding, the you that is you is is really

the key to anything, of of being able to accomplish anything, and

especially if you want to live a life that blows your mind, that

allows you to have experiences that were once on your bucket

list, that you're experiencing now at 40 instead of 75 the

African safaris are all of those things like, I truly believe

that our desires are divine direction. They are there to

wake us up, to let us know that not only is it possible, it is

meant for you to experience, but it requires you to surrender the

mind and like the perfect, manicured plan that you think

you need to have, and allow those whispers to guide you,

allow yourself to recognize like the redirection or the

rejection, whatever you want to call it, is guiding you. And in

every single moment of your life there is wisdom, there is

guidance that is available for you, but you have to learn how

to listen, and then you have to learn how to follow that and

have the courage to be able to do that. Both of us have

methodologies that embolden women to be able to honor that

part of themselves and truly live free and or in expanded

love. However, however we say it, it's kind of the same thing.

It's like connecting to your Divine Self and letting that

part be what moves you through the world? Oh my gosh. I feel

like we could talk for so many, like, hours or so many things

that I want to talk to you about Africa and your journey to

Greece. But for me, I just wanted to say, like, it was so

beautiful to watch you on this path, like from when I met you

in Vancouver and we had, like, our first interaction. We had,

like, our first friend date was like, what, eight hours or

something ridiculous, like that. We met, like, and did a workout

together that we were like, Oh my God. We just had so much in

common. And we were like, talking and talking, and it was

the most beautiful friendship, but seeing your evolution, even

from then, and knowing how much you loved Greece, and then when

all of that kind of rigmarole happened, and you're like, I'm

moving to Greece, guys. Again, it was one of those things

where, at a time in the world where everything was like topsy

turvy, a lot of people probably would have been like, you should

just come home and stay home and I'm like, like, calm down. Like,

why do you need to do that? But it was such a soul dream of

yours coming true in the most magical way that kind of looked

like a bit of a train wreck, like, oh my god, I can't get I

can't get to where I need to go. But it was like divine

orchestration. And then seeing how it unfolded you moving to

Kenya, it's beautiful to see the way that you are living your

work and continuing to show up. And not only like, show women

how to do this, but show yourself how to do this as well,

because I believe so deeply that we teach best what we've most

needed to learn you needed to learn how to stand in your

sovereignty. So did I in our own individual ways, and now it's

what we do in the world so and it's it's just been such a

beautiful thing to be in this soul sister relationship with

you and and walk similar but different paths, and it's just

been wonderful. So I wanted to just acknowledge that, because I

just love you so much, but

and witnessing your journey too, it's crazy that

it's only been five years. I know because it was 2020 it's 25

we met in June. It's only been five years that you've been in

my life in five year, and yet you are a totally different

woman, and I'm a totally different woman, and we've

walked through so many initiations, and as you're

talking, I was thinking like your saboteur will always want

to know the future, and that is the very thing that robs you of

the life that will make you feel alive, is knowing what the

future what's coming. You cannot know what's coming, and we're

not supposed to know. And it's in the sitting with the right

now, like, oh, is Greece your forever place? I'm like, What is

is Kenya for forever? I'm I made a joke that'll be here forever,

but that's how I feel in this moment. It's like, let's see if

you can hold your hands open to life and receive like, what

lights you up right now knowing your saboteur is gonna kick in

immediately after. I think of the time I got invited to be in

a musical Jesus Christ Superstar, and I was such a Yes,

and I was so excited. This is like, 15 years ago, and it was

like, Oh my God. And then, literally, two seconds later,

no, no, you're too busy. You're too this, you're too that.

There's no way you travel. And I almost said no, because my

saboteur tried to shut it down immediately. She thinks it's

dangerous to be expanded, right? That's what she was hired for

originally. So just knowing that that's going to happen, but the

more you can just like, say yes to the things and make those

brave decisions, like even you packing up your car and driving

to America, like, there's just been so many poignant moments

where we've said yes to something, not knowing what's

coming, but just like, holding your palms open and being like,

okay, yes, to this right now, let's see what it has in store

for me, rather than like, Okay, I'm gonna move to Kenya, and

then I better meet a guy, and then I better did. And then, or

like, I'm I'm getting into this, I'm moving to California for

this guy, and it better go this way, like all the fear based

stuff that's trying to push us into some sort of false sense of

security in the future, when your real sense of security

comes from you being present in the moment and trusting the

unfolding of your life.

Amen, sister, amen. And I mean, that's the

reason why, like, the final lesson in the methodology and

the live, free method, is embrace the unknown, learning

how to do that, learning how to be okay with not knowing.

Because not only is it our saboteur that's been hired to do

that job, it's our nervous system that is like we have to

combine the two aspects of our soul, which is, like expansive,

always going to be pushing the edge of more and what's

possible. It's infinite. So of course, it's always going to be

moving towards the next thing. But our human is finite. It's

very limited, and it's got this nervous system that's coded for

survival. So it's our biology as well that we need to learn how

to regulate understand the cues of our nervous system, which is

why it's such a big part of the work that I do, too, and I know

you do a lot of somatic stuff as well, but getting your body on

board and understanding that feelings are not final, they're

information, and that if you can learn to distinguish the

language of your soul, which is what your feelings are, then

you're able to use that information to move through the

unknown, to move through all these things, and of course,

there's steps. It's not just like I understand my patterns. I

know that I hold myself back now I should be living free, like

there's, there's an effort that's required to undo those

patterns, to reprogram the subconscious parts of yourself

that have really been running the show this entire time. But

when you do like you said, it's it's expanded. You get to live

this life of beautiful surprises, of magic. It doesn't

mean that it's always butterflies and rainbows. It

doesn't mean that it's always easy. It's always simple. It's

literally like, follow your soul. It knows the way I say

that all the time. It's simple and it's almost irritating,

because when you're in the dark and you're like, in a transition

period, it's like, okay, well, what the hell do I do now?

Because I feel really uncomfortable in this. So I know

you actually have something. We were talking a little bit about

this before we started recording. I know you have

something that's coming up to help women through that, but

before we well, I guess we can get into that now. But what I

would love to know from you now is, what are you most excited

about, or what are you working on that you're excited about?

What do you have to offer that you're excited about? What's

something that your soul is feeling really alive and

fulfilled with right now I'm most

excited about my life right now, my new life

here, and all the like. It's crazy that the people that Kenya

and that Nairobi Africa, I think, and also Nairobi attracts

like every person I've met is So expanding, expanded and creative

and up to really big things. I'm currently writing a book called

The unscripted woman. So excited about that, but it's still in

progress. And books take time, but I'm just starting to get

back into it. I wrote, worked on lots of it in the last year, and

kind of have taken a long break. So very excited about that. And

I have a, I have a course coming up called starting over, and,

you know, relevant to anyone. It's, I mean, originally it was

for women going through breakup, divorce. Like big change, big

endings, moving, like what you know me right now, like big

change in your life, and really allowing yourself to begin

again, and allowing yourself to take this time and instead of

use it, use whatever transition you're going through to wallow

or to to re to stay stuck in the victim's story or the fantasy of

how your life should be different. It's all it's a three

day course all about helping you really take this time to reclaim

yourself and your life and your sovereignty and and to rewrite

your story and become the heroine of your own journey. So

that's November 7 through ninth. It's just mornings each day,

eight till 1030 Pacific. So three mornings, and I'll share a

link below. It's $88 and so that's new, a new course coming

up, but I'm excited. Excited about everything. Like, I have,

like, so many like, show ideas, like, just wanting to take this

work I've done for 10 years that has transformed hundreds of

women's lives, and like, take, well, no, hundreds of 1000s, if

we count the podcast, but like, take it out to the world in a

bigger way and impact young girls and so, yeah, I'm just,

like, in this creative vortex right now, but in terms of what

you can do with me starting over and of course, the new truth

podcast is always a great place. There's a million episodes. You

can go back and listen, and it's a great place to hear this

message over and over again in new ways. I

love it so much. Okay, you already kind of

answered that, that last part of the question that I was going to

ask, which is, where can people find you for more? Kate Harlow,

the unscripted woman.com is my website. Kate

Harlow, the unscripted woman on Instagram, that's my brand, the

unscripted woman and my book and Facebook. Kate Harlow, I don't

know if people still hang out on Facebook. I think that's it.

Yes. Of course, the new truth podcast is on everything except

YouTube, but YouTube's coming very soon,

amazing. And I have a couple of episodes, I

think a couple of episodes, yeah, you know for

sure, at least two times, maybe three. Yeah,

we will have to go back in the archive. Yeah,

it's an incredible podcast. So definitely check it out. Kate. I

love you so much. I have loved this conversation, I know that

we could definitely go way longer, but we're gonna have to

wrap it up, because I've got to go to the DMV. But thank you so

much for being on this show. Thank you for being you, the

work that you do in the world, and I'm just so grateful to have

been able to have this chat with you today. So thanks me

too. Thank you for having me my love, and I'm

freaking proud of you celebrating. You for saying yes,

when it was the time, and yeah, this is amazing, and it suits

you so much. So I'm so happy you're sharing your gifts with

the world in a bigger way.

Thank you love. Thank you love and to everybody

watching or listening. Thank you so much for joining us on

another episode of The Live, free Lifestyle podcast. If you

enjoyed this episode, or if you know somebody that would

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know your biggest takeaways in the comments below. Subscribe

and I will see you in the next episode. Bye.