On April, 25th author and confidence coach Kate Heartsong and I spoke to some of the ins, outs and hows of healing and interrelating.
Kate Heartsong is the empowering and life-enhancing author of two books, Humanity’s Cry for Change – Actions You Can Take to Create a New Earth and Deeply We Are One. She is also the “Confidence Coach”, a workshop facilitator, coauthor, public speaker and Reiki Master/Teacher.
For over 20 years, Kate has been receiving profound insights while meditating. She is passionate about supporting her clients, audiences and readers with these insights, along with the wisdom from her vast life experiences and education.
Kate also empowers people to realize that as they do their own inner work, they also contribute to creating peace worldwide. Her quote says it best: “Peace within, peace on earth.”
We also discuss:
- encouragement and empowerment
- acknowledging greatness
- what’s most important now and/or long term individually and collectively?
- healing
- calmness and holding space
- Kate’s massive release while grieving the loss of her mother
- physical effects of emotional healing
- acknowledging pain as compassion
- my past confusion of confidence with egotism
- two confidence training practices
- goodness
- worth
- honor and respect
- kindness and compassion
- various real life examples of interconnectivity
- the energetic nature of all things and phenomena
- the vibratory nature of the heart
- how speech and emotions affect our reality
- mindfulness, consciousness and awareness
- we’re all doing the best we can, if we could do better we would
- drilling more deeply into and unfolding (loving-)kindness and compassion
- ways for businesses to create sustainable, collaborative and holistic systems for the well-being of all
- generosity
Check out, follow and reach out to Kate online via her:
Facebook ~ LinkedIn ~ Twitter ~ Instagram and website JoyfulRadiance.com
Audio: How To Confidently Change Our World With Kate Heartsong
Experimental and unedited transcript (attempt) of this podcast via assemblyai.com:
“Easiest way. Hold us. Welcome. This is Josh Dippold, and this is another Integrating Presence Podcast. And today, Kate Hartsang is going to join me. Kate, how are you today? I’m great. I’m fantastic, thanks. And so wonderful to be here with you, Josh. The feeling is likewise mutual. So Kate and I talked a while back and we really connected on mutual interest and just kind of outlooks and exploring things in life. And before we start off, I would just like to throw it to Kate and have her introduce herself and a little bit about your work and what you do and kind of things you’re interested in. And maybe also the way you help people. If anything comes up with examples of the way you’ve helped people, or examples in real life, those might be interested, be interesting to be worked in, and those might come up later as we chat too. Awesome, thank you. Well, it’s a delight to be here. I think I would describe myself to start with. I’m so passionate and just very honored to be of service to people. I’m very grateful. I went through a really difficult childhood and was able to transcend that. And because of that experience, it just gave me a wonderful depth of passion and compassion as a coach. So I call myself the confidence coach as well as a life coach. And I’m also, by the way, a financial coach. So I love working directly with people, and I’m also an author. About maybe 20 years ago, I started getting to realizing I had the gift of receiving powerful insights while meditating. And as I did, I started writing down word for word. And in a nutshell, it’s become two of my books, my two books that I’ve published. My most recent one, Humanities Cry for Change. So, being an author, I’m again very passionate just to support others in knowing what we can do for ourselves and others. I’m also a speaker and I co authored, so there’s just been a lot of things I’ve done. My main interest is rippling out to supporting others. And I would say my clients really benefit from my you know, I don’t like to be bragging, that’s not my intention, but I will say many people have commented on my calming energy and it helps them feel really safe during coaching. And I also have a depth of insight and intuition that I can support my clients that they’ve benefited. So, of course, as you know, with coaching and being a teacher, it’s just basically supporting others in recognizing their own strength. And that reminds me of one other thing I’m really passionate about, is I love helping people realize their greatness. Each one of us have incredible depth of gifts and insights. And I myself experienced overcoming shyness and shame. So I know what it’s like. When I used to be there, I remember it. And now I’m in a place of confidence where I can support my clients. So I hope that shed some light on my background and the passion and why I do the work I do. It’s beautiful. Yes. And one of the things from our last conversation that just kind of became so apparent as we went along is the calming nature and the space holding that Kate does and just provides this environment for all these beautiful things she mentioned too. And before I forget, I don’t believe we talked last time much about empowerment, but this is something that really I find important. Encouragement and empowerment. With all our negativity bias, how we’re so hardwired, it seems still we’ve succeeded so well at finding what’s negative about things in life and I find myself falling into that. And sometimes I will even justify it with righteousness right and forget to offer solutions and empowerments and uplifting ways instead of just being bogged down in all the things that are easy to see negatively. So I guess I might be or I am curious and if there’s any kind of general advice or tips and tricks, or how you teach and coach empowerment, either generally or specific examples of how you go about it. Oh, that’s an excellent question, Josh. Yes, it’s a big question. And I know it stems mainly from how do we feel about ourselves? And that in itself is a topic of ours. But I’ll be succinct. Essentially, empowerment means we need to recognize the greatness of who we are. And I know that’s a lot easier said than done, but we can take little steps. For example, and this is what I’ve done and I still do sometimes, is I will just make it a daily practice of writing down three things that I can acknowledge myself for. So my suggestion for your audience is to recognize the little things that they’ve done. It could be as simple as making a delicious meal or showing up for a friend, or offering your skills as whatever work you do. It could mean really acknowledging yourself by realizing the good that you do for others and that you’re always doing the best you can. As we use this every day. Three acknowledgements it really has a cumulative effect and it can help us feel better and better about ourselves. And when we feel better about ourselves, we become more empowered. And I’d like to remind people to realize that when we’re in our empowerment and our own authenticity and our power, it is not egotistical. In fact, it’s very necessary because as we show up more in our power, we’re better able to give to others and we’re feeling better about ourselves. We brought up earlier, Josh, about the feelings of negativity or if we feel too good about ourselves, we’re maybe feeling egotistical. And that is true. If we feel like we’re better than someone else, yes, then that would be egotistical. But most people, when they can be in their true authenticity and power, they recognize that others are on the same level as they are. And I could go on and on again with this topic, but that one tip of three acknowledgments a day. And then, if you’d like, I can offer another tip and oh, gosh, I can share an example of this was many years ago. Like when I was in my 20s, someone gave me the incredible advice to build up my empowerment and confidence by doing this exercise, and I did this and it really helped. And I do this still today, looking in the mirror and look right into your own eyes and just acknowledge yourself or appreciate yourself. And I will say, I did that and it really helped. But you know, Josh, I can remember distinctly when I was 41 years old. I don’t know why it sticks in my mind, but when I was at the age of 41 and I won’t tell you how long ago that was, I don’t want to reveal my age, but that’s okay. That’s not a secret, though. But anyway, I’m kind of diverting. But when I was 41, I could not look into my own eyes in the mirror. I was ashamed. But when I forced myself to do this in a loving way, looking in the mirror, it helped me to feel better about myself. And now I can look in my own eyes for several minutes. So it’s a very powerful exercise. I would encourage your audience to do that and to do it with love and compassion towards themselves. Yes. And sometimes it even means just being honest with yourself, right? Especially when starting off, if there is a lot of shame saying, oh, I really don’t like myself, I’m not worthy, or I feel guilty in just that brutal honesty of not lying to ourselves anymore, too. It is really so important. I did an Insight Timer Live thing where we did eye gazing, so it was interesting. But that’s the next level. I feel a different level is doing it with ourselves, too. And I hear these stories, too, with people on Zoom, how they don’t want to see themselves on the screen, right? They want to hide their own image. I’ve heard this a couple of times, right. I haven’t really delved into that. It is really important and just a simple acknowledgment that’s my definition of compassion, too, is acknowledging pain. Simply acknowledging pain. Because that’s what a lot of times people are crying out just to have their pain acknowledged, because they can’t acknowledge it for themselves. Now, to comment on your three things that we appreciate about ourselves and my goodness, and this is such a great reminder how even in meditation practice, formal meditation practice, one of the things, suggestions I heard of about unifying and gathering, collecting the mind is doing this, reflecting on our goodness and also how we’re supported too. And it just helps gather and unify collect the mind very naturally. Yes, it sounds beautifully said. Thanks, Kate. Now, the question I started off when Kate and I spoke last time was I just kind of get right to the point and the big picture, but also in a practical method with asking what is the most important thing right now and for the future or long term, however you want to put it, for ourselves on the individual level and on the collective level. From my perspective, Josh, the most important thing is that we are kind and loving to ourselves. Some people may need to get to the point of just liking themselves and hopefully coming to a point of loving themselves. And I know this is so much easier said than done, and that’s why, like the two tips I offered here and there’s so many other ways that we can build the self love or the self acknowledgment recognizing we are worthy for when we’re in a place of love or confidence or at least liking ourselves. For some people, that may be a big jump. Some people may not like themselves, so if they can start raising the bar a little bit to a place where they like themselves and acknowledge themselves and by the way, I also love what you said. It’s a great reminder to be honest with ourselves and honor where we’re at and to please do the best we can not to beat ourselves up, to be in a place if we feel we’re not where we want to be. Don’t beat yourself up. The best thing you can do is really just self love and compassion and kindness, because truly, all of us are doing the best we can. So when we have that foundation of the self love or selflike and compassion and kindness, that builds up. And the beautiful thing, Josh, is it ripples out. The more we feel better about ourselves, the more we can give to others. And in that, we are also adding higher vibrations to the collective consciousness. And what I like to think about and imagine is what would it be like if 500 million people individually were doing their work, or a billion people doing their work and their consciousness and their vibration increases? That all adds to the collective consciousness called humanity, right? Yes. And in that this is what I am passionate about. Each one of us are powerful in a good way, so don’t think that you’re not important. All of us added together make a really big positive difference to the planet. Absolutely. And there’s a few things I would like to pick up on there. And people have a hard time thinking about what Kate’s collective idea of like, well, that’s all some people might say, well, that’s really kind of, I don’t know, Pollyannish or something like that. But no, it’s really not. And I’ll tell you why. Starting just at the level of, hey, I didn’t kill anyone today, it sounds so absurd, right? But just think if the whole world just for one day would not take another human life. How just revolutionary that would be. Something that simple, something we take for granted every day. Right. But it can say that. And it starts there. We start where we’re at too. Right. And then it goes beyond that. Like the beautiful things Kate was saying now, I wanted to go back to the confidence thing and share something in my journey about that is when I really had a lack of confidence at a certain point, and I was confusing confidence with superior ego. So the examples that I was looking for for confidence are the examples I saw of confidence also seem to be linked with a superior ego. And they’re completely different things. I mean, it seems so obvious now, right, that somebody that really doesn’t care or just service the self all the way will do anything possible to get what they need, and just nothing really else matters, anything at all. But obviously it’s not the same thing, right, because you could have such great strength and confidence now. It goes to the other end now where more energetically, sensitive people that we encounter have the inferior ego. That’s an ego, too, though, thinking I’m not good enough and that I will never be as good and I’m not worthy. Especially the feminine right, where the masculine tends to be more chasing after honor and respect. Yes. So this is very important. I feel, too, is healthy confidence that Kate is talking about. Yeah. Maybe we can dive more into the mechanics or how this actually ripples out. Maybe more specific, our expansion. Unpacking. Unfolding. How when we do these simple things, especially the self honesty. Right. Because when I heard these first practices of love myself, love my own heart, I was like, Oh, that I saw potential benefit. But I was like, this just feels so sugary and it doesn’t fit. But then that was honest, being honest with myself. And that opened the door to start seeing, okay, this feels awkward. I don’t know about this. Really? People do this kind of thing. And then more and more, it just felt more natural. And then I felt the healing, how it kind of just healed and melted away so much. And I want to get Kate’s take on this, too. Thank you. Yes. Very important topic. Generally speaking, the reason all of this works is because everything is energy on a most basic level. Everything, the most elemental basis of life is energy. So even thoughts and words and emotions and our actions, how we show up, all of it is energy. So if you think about Josh, the emotions we might have towards ourselves, that’s energy. And it’s natural to understand that. Yeah, we’ve been conditioned to having a certain viewpoint towards ourselves. Or culture will say, don’t like yourself too much. It’s all about giving to others. Well, yes, it is about giving to others. And we can give better when we have that within ourselves. But again, it’s energy. So as I do my own personal work and I’m actually, oh, I should mention, energy is vibration. Energy vibrates at a certain level, a certain frequency. So the emotions of love and collaboration and kindness and respect are all of a higher vibration. And so that higher vibration will ripple out to those around us and to the collective. And the lower vibrations do the same thing. It’s just the nature of the universe. So when we’re in a place of upset or worry, frustration or hate or not feeling good about ourselves, that vibrates out as well. And so this is why I’m actually very helpful when people do their individual work, we can shift the collective. And that’s why confidence building is important. And again, coming from a place of knowing we’re all the same, rather than I am superior. And it’s that self awareness, like you mentioned, Josh, how important that self awareness is. And it takes time, but it can happen to develop that higher sense of worthiness and confidence. I would also add, oh, there’s so much I could share on this, but I want to be succinct. In essence, it’s all energy. So if we can release the old wounds within ourselves, do our own personal healing in that the energy of the old trauma, the challenges, there’s actual energy in our physical body. So as we heal, that energy can actually physically release. It releases from our own business. I don’t know if this is the right term, but I call it a massive release that I’m sure all of us have experienced from one time to another. And if I made a little story when my mom passed away about 13 years ago, of course I went through the grieving and about I can remember two weeks later after her passing, I woke up in the morning and I felt I had like a thorn on my side and just agitated. Didn’t know why until a few minutes later I realized I actually knew there was old stuff that needed to be coming to the surface. And I called this the massive release. And it was almost like a dark night of the soul. I had emotions coming up and thankfully I was home alone and I started screaming and yelling, I was so angry and I had emotions I couldn’t even name all this stuff and actually ended up being very, very helpful. Anytime this happens when you were in a safe place to do this is actually very healing. So what was energetically happening is old emotions and wounds were had the opportunity to surface and I just went dived right in to the emotions, feeling them, and it was so painful. And yet I knew how healing it is because as we’re in the depth of the emotion and we’re feeling it, this is what releases it. This is what helps energetically, because everything is energy. Coming to the surface and it actually releases from my physical being and it lasted about an hour and a half or 2 hours. Oh, you should have seen me. I was angry and it was a healthy way to release. And then I kind of started calming down. I was exhausted. But the next day, you know what, I had this incredible lightness and I knew it was the energy had been released, the old that needed to be gotten rid of. So I would just suggest again that awareness of ourselves. And they say that grieving is actually an opening to incredible spiritual healing. It’s like that phrase, the rising of the phoenix from the ashes. So as a result, I had a lot of healing and was able to transform in some ways. That’s a long answer. No, it’s a beautiful answer and it rings so true in my own experience too. And when grief, we don’t judge or blame or have any ideas of how it should or shouldn’t happen and just let the process go and take advantage of the benefits of that process when we’re in it. Right? And for me, I know I’ve shared this before about my own journey. Early on in my meditation practice, I experienced similar things I’ve had a few times too, where all these emotions out of that I had never experienced before, they’re all kind of happening at one time. It’s really hard for me to describe unless actually experiencing it. I will say though, yes, when it was appropriate, when I was alone too, maybe in the first year or so of my meditation, I wept pretty much many days. But since I wasn’t around other people or mentioning it or having to, I don’t know, involve other people with this process, although it was very healthy if I needed to do that, to do that. But it was so healing like that release, I mean, it was just letting those tears water the heart. And this goes to the general sense of healing too, with the heartfelt, the vibratory energy of the heart. And it is really measurable. This last podcast I did with Anne Hints called Feeling Feelings is what we ended up naming it. And she actually has x rays that would show how these releases had allowed her spine to correct. Wow. Yes. It was really amazing, this thing on the physical level too. And I won’t go into details, but I even had a shoulder release, a shoulder that I couldn’t raise above my arm when I was doing yoga. And after someone pointed out something to me and then I looked more into it and then that released, I was able to do that too. Okay, so the grander thing that you started off at the beginning with this is when we heal, it has a ripple effect, right? Because we all are interconnected. And now for me, this word interconnected, it rings even truer than oneness because I can see the benefits in oneness. Sometimes it conjures up the sense of like this gray hive mind kind of thing where there’s no diversity or individuality. That’s not necessarily what the one this means. But when this word interconnectivity comes up, it brightens up more for me and really becomes more alive. It’s such a great reminder of the feminine unity principle, kind of like this unity consciousness. And the masculine tends to be more diversified. But this interconnectedness, like, we can’t exist in a vacuum, right? Yeah. I can’t just live by myself in a vacuum. No, we’re interdependent on everything in our environment. And even space is there because there can’t be any objects without space either in our relationship to that. And even just going out to. Some people think, well, a simple meal at a restaurant. Some people are like hesitant to do that sometimes or whatnot? But you’re supporting the livelihood of the waiters and waitresses, everyone that has brought the food there, the truck drivers, the farmers, even nature itself with the nurturing conditions of sunlight and rain. Kind of mystery of how our food even grows. Right. And how the body digests it, all the different things that make up the body. They’re all interconnected work together as a whole, but they’re separate in one sense. But they all are interconnected. So, yeah, if you’d like to just expound on the beauty of interconnectedness too, I would love to hear your take on it. Oh, thank you. I will share. But I want to comment. I love your beautiful reminder of yes, where is the food coming from? It comes from nature and then all what it requires to be prepared and then nurturing our body. And our body being a physical yeah, interconnectedness is so powerful to realize. And many of us have experience interconnectedness, for example, when we might have a friend pop into our head suddenly and then sure enough, they call us. Or we may see a flock of birds in the air. They’re just moving. So in such fluidity, how is it that happens? Or like you mentioned, how did the body digest food? What’s involved with that? Well, there’s like a matrix or a web that helps all of this happen at once. And some of us know this as God or the universe or source or the Creator. But there is a term I like to use, is like an interconnected glue. It does hold everything together. And yet, like you said, Josh, there’s this individuality and yet there is the connectiveness interconnectedness at the same time. And again, what helps me think about or understand it is knowing at a most basic level, everything is energy. And we may think that things are solid, but in fact they’re not. And it’s kind of hard for our 3D brain to wrap our heads around it, but it is in fact, all energy. And we can experience this every single day. All of us do. For example, how we show up with someone. If we’re having a really flowing, resonant type conversation, you can feel that. And on the other side of the coin, if there’s some discord or upset between conversations, you can feel that. And if one person is upset and the other person is upset, that adds to the field and more upset and more of that energy gets exaggerated. And the same is true with when there’s many people who gather, for example, for meditation, for world peace. There is a positive impact because of the interconnectedness. For example, I recently, several times have been in a group meditation for the Ukraine Russia war. And I know that the collective prayer adds to it. You mentioned a field too, and I was ready to say unified field is what some folks call this too. Especially for people into physics. I guess maybe the more the masculine who could think about kind of the physics teachings they know of. And like on the quantum level too, I know that’s really popular right now is quantum mechanics, quantum physics. And just the simple things too, of like actions will have what cause and effect as well. So if you throw a ball in the air, more than likely it’s going to be interplayed in this unified field due to certain causes and conditions. It’s going to actions will have an effect and it just doesn’t operate by itself. And the emotional thing, I mean, everybody can connect with that, right? We know how we feel when we’re going into a place or when interaction starts. Right? Exactly. Just complex and just wonderful social and psychological dynamics that go in with interaction. And now the group meditation, this is a really powerful thing. If people haven’t experienced this or think it’s just wishy washy or maybe kind of thing, I feel it’s based on intent, right? A group intent. And so someone might have a really powerful individual intent, or a very kind of not as powerful individual intent. But when we start gathering together in groups and that becomes amplified what we focus on, we give energy. And so when there’s that much collective intent focused on the same thing right. It amplifies it even more. Absolutely. That’s so true. Absolutely. There’s a lot of power to that. Yes. To be experienced for ourselves too. Right. Don’t just take our word for it. Try it out. Right. You know, Josh, you just read my mind. Actually, I was going to say we all can experience it. Truly, what we focus on gets bigger. And please recognize that what we focus on is our consciousness. And our consciousness is at a certain level, so it may be a higher vibration of positive collectivity, respect, kindness, love, peace, or our consciousness may be neutral. Our consciousness may be of the lower vibration of worry and anxiety or fear. So there’s a full spectrum that we can be at any time. And I also want to remind your audience that wherever you’re at is okay. If you’re in a place of awareness, know that there are things you can do to raise your consciousness even just a little bit. It’s really powerful. And let’s get into that in just a few moments here about I’m fascinated to hear about because consciousness exploration is one of my I love it and there’s way healthier ways to do it than other ways. I’m not necessarily going against psychedelics and things like that. If people are called to that, you definitely have to do a lot of research and be sure you’re in the care and trust of a skilled practitioner with those kinds of things. But there are other ways to do it besides that. I wanted to pick up though, on this notion of yes, what we pay attention to, we give energy and we have that choice too. We can choose what to pay attention to and how powerful that is. And the other brief point that I wanted to make is the high vibration. Yes, it’s so lovely. And at the same time, I’ve seen this trap some folks can fall into is being down on themselves for having a low vibration. Right. And actually that will just lower the vibration. Kate’s point about starting where we’re at too, right? Yes. So I’ll toss it back to you with those. Yeah, all those are very important points to consider to recognize it is possible to have choice and what that means is then you can choose to make a shift in your consciousness. So there’s really many points they’re all interconnected here. Yes, awareness is key. Awareness is number one. Awareness is key because then you know where you’re at and you are better able to make choice. When you’re better able to make choice and you have the consciousness and awareness, then you may say, hey, this is where I want to be, but this is where I’m at. What can I do to get where I want to be again, please. I know this cannot be overemphasized. It’s critical that we do honor where we’re at and not to beat ourselves up. And I know we’ve mentioned that and you mentioned that so beautifully, Josh. And at the same time, yes, honor where you’re at and you can make choice. It doesn’t mean that you’re a bad person if you’re in a funk for a while. It’s so important not to stuff your emotions. It’s essential to be aware and to be compassionate and kind. That’s key because then when you are in that place, you are better able to make choice and you always can make a better choice. A choice might be well, I’m tired, like I went through this when I was younger. I’m tired of being anxious and scared all the time. So I took a bull by the horns and I decided I’m going to make a change in my life. So what I did is I’ve had the choice to take several powerful workshops. Little by little, one goes far. So I took the workshops and over time, I felt better about myself. So that’s a choice. It’s key. Mindfulness is key as well. That kind of goes right in the alignment with the word awareness. How can we make choice unless we’re aware? Like, I know I’m repeating myself, but it is so essential to know this. And please not to beat yourself up if you’re beating yourself up. I’ve been there, done that. I used to do that all the time, and sure, it didn’t make me feel better. So, yeah, what else? There’s so much to be said about choice and shifting and making change in your life, raising your consciousness in a way that feels right, but know that I’m not saying and I know you’re not saying this, Josh, know that we’re not expected to stay at a high vibration at all times. We are spiritual beings, but we are human, and we have human emotions, so it’s okay to have upsets and to acknowledge them. There’s an incredible book that helps people to work through this called The Untethered Soul by Michael Singer. And one main point he talks about is to recognize our emotions like a cloud. Imagine a cloud in the sky and you just see it come, and then it goes, let’s do the same with our emotions. Let’s be aware of I’m upset because this person triggered me and now I’m honoring it. I recognize it. And I know myself well enough to know that the reason this person triggered me is because he reminds me of my old boyfriend who devastated me 20 years ago. Now I recognize it. I feel the emotion, but then I release it like that cloud. So it’s really powerful anyway. It really is, too. And that can work with thoughts, too, sometimes when the people are more identified with the thinking mind and the emotions just clouds, right? Like just the weather passing instead of being so identified and entangled in them. And yeah, it’s fascinating how things work like that with emotions, how just something can remind us of something in the past and how that can trigger us, too. The kindness and compassion. I think these are really important to maybe define more because we hear those words so much now, I guess, and maybe more of a definition of those, and then I can maybe give mine, but I’m sure Case will be well enough. And I don’t know if we have enough time to go into these words. I’m always fascinated by that are so key. And yes, mindfulness there can never, ever, as far as I know right now, ever be enough mindfulness. So we can pour that on as much as we want. And so the distinction between mindfulness, consciousness and awareness, because these are all fairly similar topics as well now we kind of get a sense of what each one means, but I don’t know if there’s enough time we can possibly go into that. But more important than that, even I feel, is this notion of, and I like to use loving kindness as well. Kurt Vonnegut once said, I think it was from him that said, the only rule in life is kindness, says my religion is kindness. And yes, even the next level is loving kindness. And before Kate picks up on that, yes, it really can’t be emphasized enough that it’s okay not to be okay all the time. Right. If we allow ourselves to not be okay, well, then there’s not that much pressure to be in an internal conflict when we’re not okay and giving ourselves that allowance to not be okay. Right, exactly. It’s really important that we do recognize that because, well, when we get back to the concept of energy, if we can be kind to ourselves or mindful, we are actually at a higher vibration. And that again, builds up on itself. There’s just a lot that could be said about how does one get to that place of kindness. It really starts with ourselves individually. And so many of us have been brought up to think that maybe we’re not okay or we’re not worthy, or what I do is not enough. So again, the basis, the foundation of everything, I think, and others will say this as well, is how do we feel about ourselves and to recognize that who we are truly, truly is a precious, precious life on the planet, and that all of us are here to learn things. Our journey on this Earth plane is to experience certain things. And I guess I’m going off on a tangent, but it’s really important for us to know each one of us are here on a journey, and that we experience our emotions and that we are in a place of mindfulness to realize, well, how can I change if I’m not in a place I want to be? What can I do to get where I want to be? Sometimes we need help. And getting help is so important because it’s our very nature to be in union, in unity with others. And it’s also important to recognize that we make mistakes, and mistakes are actually be okay. I used to make mistakes. I was going to say I used to beat myself up all the time for making a mistake because I thought I had to be perfect. That was the days when I had no self confidence. But now I know, and I know from many people I’ve worked with, they realize it is okay to make a mistake and that they are okay. Yeah, it’s just so many things to be said about this topic. It can’t be stressed enough to just offer an awareness of yourself that you really are doing the best you can. And through that, can you offer yourself the consideration that you would a stranger or your best friend? Can you do that to yourself as you do again, you will build up that empowerment. You will build up a higher sense of confidence and that you are okay and in that, be more authentic. And then you can better offer to others your specific gifts and talents that you were brought here to share. And then you feel better. And then it kind of all interconnects with other people. And again, it goes back to energy. Yes, we’re all doing the best we can. If we could do better, we would. That applies not only to ourselves, right? But when we see some behaviors of others too. Some of the people in my life will be, me included, will be quick to point out someone else’s what they’re doing wrong and to remember that, oh, they’re doing the best they can. If they could do better, they would. And also, some of us that had challenging upbringings too, our folks were doing the best they could. If they could do better, they would. Now, that doesn’t excuse any kind of abusive behavior at all. It’s just realizing that that’s all they had available at the time and they were doing the best they could. If they could do better, they would have. And it really seems some people get it right away, right? But some people just don’t see that. I don’t know if it’s due to what all kinds of things, but they’re like, no, they should do better. They could do better. But a lot of times it comes back to and I still resonate with the perfectionism thing at one point in my life. And I appreciate pointing the link between the perfectionism and not allowing ourselves to make mistakes. It’s a beautiful insight and great connection there to see that now. Yeah. And really, there is no failure either, as long as we learn from our stakes too. And some of us will even be at the point where we’ve learned so many life lessons that now we’re getting to the point or sometimes we’re being tested right on this. And so life puts us in these situations where things come up and we’re being tested now. And it’s a beautiful thing too, right? And one other brief thing is the practice of loving kindness. So in Buddhism, there’s this formal practice of loving kindness. And I’ll just mention it real quick. You can do it you start with yourself. You can do it towards a neutral person where there’s not much emotional charge towards a challenging person. And then you can even do it towards all beings everywhere. And you bring up an image for each of those. And you can do formal phrases. And then you notice the feeling in the body when you’re doing this and the emotions. And it’s a well wishing so. The phrases I have my own specific phrases that I won’t I’ve mentioned those so much in the past. But it’s basically wishing well a lot of times it’s kindness. That’s what it is. So it’s joy wishing happiness for the other person and then being in safety or for ourselves and others and also for ease, right. That cadence bodies so well. And what happens for me, when I first started this, the exact opposite came up. Or things that are like here I’m trying to wish this person well or myself well and you have all these nasty, horrible things come up and that’s what can happen. That’s a purification. All these things surfacing to be seen and released. Yeah, very true. Absolutely. Well, Kate, now to switch topics here, maybe transition here without much of a segue, if that’s any segue at all. I am fascinated in the business side and bringing this into businesses as well, conscious businesses. Sustainability is a really big buzzword, like right now. And I even like regenerative, but that will apply to only kind of certain areas, especially in food. But how do we apply some of this stuff, I guess in general to businesses? And yes, maybe I’ll have a more specific question here, but I think that’s good enough for now, right? Oh, yes, thank you. And it’s an excellent question. Yes. Everything we’re talking about is so applicable to the business world. Imagine a company, a large corporation having loving kindness. What would it be like if they recognize and truly know and some do many more need to learn this. But what if they recognize and know that there really is an interconnectedness? So what I do to another actually comes back to me as a business. If I’m treating all of my employees well and I get their feedback plus as a business, what if I consider all components like the environment or my customers and not only think about the bottom line of profit there would be an incredible synergy of higher vibration for that organization. So a large corporation, a small business, whatever it is, what if we were in a place of understanding that whatever decision we make, let’s say with a process or a new system that’s being created or there’s a huge plant, let’s a plan to create, let’s say a water plant in a big city and they want to put this in an adjacent to a swamp and this swamp is home to very many precious living animals and fish. What is that corporation? Maybe it’s the government. They consider the animals and the fish and the plants of the swamp when they are designing the water plants. I have this example actually in my book. And so if we can consider all components, not just providing water for the bigger city, but how can we do it in a way that honors and that beautiful word loving kindness towards the plant, towards the water, towards the animals? That would be a big difference. And if millions of businesses worldwide would be this way, just like the individual, those businesses are adding to a higher vibration of kindness. And collaboration. So I think it really, in a nutshell, boils down to to be socially conscious as a business, recognize that everything is interconnected and any decision or any new process or product, it’s best to consider all components, all aspects, and to do it in a way that really supports those who are affected. So important, so well put. And to expand on that, this is why it’s so important to do this in our work on an individual level. Because if this starts becoming another popular trend where people are just giving window dressing and being mouthpieces to look popular and it’s not authentic, and you’re not getting this loving kindness, you’re getting this fake niceness that we see sometimes. It’s kind of like the inverted version of loving kindness that they’re just really kind of distorted, reverse things. This is why I feel it’s so important for us to do this individually first, so it just doesn’t turn into another kind of surface level competition where either they’re doing it to add to their marketing, to make themselves kind of green washed or whitewashed in one way, or that becomes distorted, or people take advantage. So this is where the higher level of consciousness comes in, to be able to discern what’s being authentic here and what’s not, and to amplify what’s really wholesome and skillful and what’s really being done, that is adding more goodness in the world. And those who will just come along and try to distort and twist take advantage of these things as well. And standing in our light and power and speaking up to these things when it’s appropriate, and setting a role model like Kate so beautifully well put on the potential and possibility of this revolutionizing our world. Thank you. Yes. So, Kate, is there anything you’d like to leave the audience with? Maybe events you’re doing, how people can get in touch with you, anything else you’d like to leave them with? Oh, thank you. Yes. It’s such a delight to be here. And my true passion and desire is to empower your audience, to truly know their greatness and to truly embrace it. It may take time. Some of them may not be there yet, and that’s okay. Others will be. But to know that there’s so many resources. And so my website is a great resource for lots of great confidencebuilding and other information so I can be reached@joyfulradiance.com again. Joyfulradiance.com. And if you decide to opt in, I do have monthly enews letters that are very uplifting and you’ll get two heartwarming meditations. And also I would like to offer a complimentary coaching session to anyone who reaches out to me, if you’re interested, just to explore what it’s like and to also experience the benefit of coaching. Because I am a life coach and it’s just a wonderful way to experience. And I’d like to do that, give back to community that way. And I also love to get comments from people so again, they’re welcome to check that out. I also have my book that I published recently called Humanities Cry for Change that we touched upon many of the topics from the whole concept of interconnectedness and other key concepts. So if you’re interested in learning about this, it’s also on my website, Humanities Cry for Change, and it’s also on Amazon. So thank you. You’re welcome. And thanks for such a generous offer to the folks listening and watching here too. Generosity is just such a beautiful quality. It’s one of the pyramids in Buddhism too, one of the perfections and what kind of ripple effects that has and how just by offering that people come in contact, how that will boost their generosity as well. Yeah. Thanks again, Kate, for joining and I wish you and all who were watching or viewing this ideal and optimal energy and consciousness, thank you and it’s been such a joy to be here to support your audience. And thanks again for having me.”
Integrating Presence 