Infinite Love with Kate
Infinite Love with Kate
S4: Ep: 63 "What the What- Answering In-depth questions"
What if the key to true healing is embracing both your light and your darkness? Join me on Infinite Love with Kate as we navigate the transformative journey of healing, authenticity, and self-reflection. Together, we'll tackle the pitfalls of "faking it till you make it" and explore the profound benefits of living an authentic and accountable life. Vulnerability takes center stage as we learn to trust ourselves and balance positivity with the power to transmute darkness into light.
We'll also delve into the intricate role of the ego, examining its dual nature as both a tool and hindrance. Discover how self-awareness and emotional accountability can help manage our triggers and project insecurities in a healthy manner. This episode emphasizes the importance of teaching children to openly express their feelings and finding beauty in life's simple joys and personal growth. Reflecting on my experiences with work stress, I'll reveal how self-validation and evolving core values like honesty, respect, and empathy have redefined my understanding of success. Tune in and embrace the power of honesty, respect, empathy, and adaptability on your path to personal healing and growth.
Hey, this is Kate. Welcome back to another episode of Infinite Love with Kate. Today I want to do things a little differently. Today I want to just bring up questions, questions I've asked myself along this journey, questions people have asked me, or simply questions I've overheard other people in conversations ask that have stayed with me, resonated with me or simply just sat with my soul. The first question is is it all worth it? Is this healing, this journey, worth it?
Speaker 1:And honestly, if you would have asked me years ago, I would have struggled with the response. But that's in part because I was struggling, struggling with my thoughts, struggling with the pain, the heartache, the trauma. Thoughts struggling with the pain, the heartache, the trauma, struggling with the good versus evil, the light versus darkness. Rather than embracing it all or understanding it all, I wanted to know everything right then and there I wanted to put all the pieces to the puzzle back together at once, without really ever enjoying the process, the journey or the view. So you see, I couldn't answer that a couple years ago because I was already knee-deep into the healing. I was also very uncomfortable with sitting in the uncomfortable, the irrational, the insecurities, the accountability that I had to take for my life, it was so far different than it is now. So you see, now, is it all worth it? My answer is simply and very quickly yes, it is worth it because I'm worth it. My life, my happiness, my accountability, my light and my darkness, embracing everything, it's all worth it. Feeling love again, within as well as without. Understanding the process, understanding myself, embracing my insecurities, because I can do that and everybody should do that. We're not perfect, but if we embrace our insecurities as much as we embrace ourselves, then we are perfectly imperfect. Which brings me to my next question Can you fake it till you make it? Well, most of my life I was.
Speaker 1:But there comes a point in your life you have to ask yourself do I align? And what's the purpose of faking it till I make it? Who am I trying to impress? Who am I trying to convince? I'm struggling, and it's obvious. So why would I hide that? Why would I deny that? Why would I lie to the world when it wasn't working most of my life?
Speaker 1:You see, there's a funny way the universe comes back at you, brings you back full circle, reminds you of why faking it till you make it isn't quite working. What's the point? Because let's just say I continue to fake it till I make it. What am I embodying? What am I attracting? Who am I attracting? Don't you see the energy you put out there is the energy you receive.
Speaker 1:So ask yourself if you are one of those people that fakes it till they make it. Assess your life, assess your friendships, your relationships. Assess your life, assess your friendships, your relationships, assess all your connections. No-transcript. Do they embody the same energy of faking it till they make it, relying on your lies and deception? Don't you see that's what it is Lying, deception, all the things I don't ever want to be anymore. So, no, no, I can't fake it till I make it. In fact, I won't fake it till I make it.
Speaker 1:I have no problem telling you I am broken. If I feel broken, I have no problem saying to anyone can I be vulnerable with you? Of course I'm going to ask first. I'm going to understand and know and respect my boundaries and if someone cannot handle it, then I respect that, I respect their answer, but I will ask. I won't shy away from using my voice anymore, like I did in the past. I went from faking it till I make it to just becoming silent as I was doing the work.
Speaker 1:But you see, you have to open yourself up, you have to trust. Even when the world wasn't trusting you, you still have to learn to trust, because that is something that lies within your own self. It's not so much what others have done to you, it's what you've allowed for others to do to you, don't you see? Flip the script, change the narrative, identify with your accountability. Therefore, you don't have to fake it till you make it anymore. You can just accept what is this healing journey isn't perfect.
Speaker 1:It wasn't easy, nor is it easy. I have amazing days Hell. My amazing days turn into weeks, but sometimes months. But sporadically or momentarily, something just happens where I feel something a little bit deeper and it kind of knocks me off my ass for a while. That's okay, and if I assess myself and know that it's too much, it weighs too heavily upon my soul, then I reach out to somebody. But if it's something that I just need to sit with quietly, I do that. I just won't fake it till I make it.
Speaker 1:Now the next question is at least I don't think it was a question so much as I was told this that I don't have to live in this positivity all the time, true. However, that's where their judgment is wrong. You see, I enjoy the positivity because I feel the positivity, and that's where it's different. I'm not offended by their remarks, as I see their judgment is something that they haven't experienced yet. My positivity, my joy, is real. I feel that Majority of my days, majority of my time, I feel that positivity. I am able to go within and transmute that darkness into light that quickly. I don't sit in it for too long, I process it and understand what's mine is mine and then what isn't. I let that go, I release and flow. I'm able to understand and decipher that that quickly and that's my gift from doing the work.
Speaker 1:So I won't shame myself for the positivity I live in. It's who I am and I'm grateful for it. In fact, I love it. But again, I'm not perfect. But I won't flip off my positivity to balance your negativity.
Speaker 1:It's your journey that you have to experience for yourself and figure out what it is that my light is shining so bright and it's driving you nuts. Ask yourself why. What is it within yourself that you desire? It's not about jealousy. It's not about comparing and contrasting. It's about going with it and asking yourself what is it I'm desiring, that I can't stand from the other person and what they're shining through. There's a way around everything. If you so choose to do that work, if you so choose to believe, you have the strength, the authenticity to go within and truly ask yourself these questions and let the ego go.
Speaker 1:The ego is our greatest battle, our biggest demise. Let the ego go. The ego is our greatest battle, our biggest demise. It could be our most helpful tool or our biggest hindrance if we allow it. And majority of my life I allowed my ego to shame me, to hang out in the darkness and not utilize my gifts, and my world has transformed tremendously over the past few years. I love it, I love this journey, but there are demons, there are battles, there are lessons and there's also free will. So what am I going to choose? What are you going to choose the next time you're triggered? What are you going to do? Are you going to go within? Or are you going to mask those pains, those irritabilities, those insecurities and you're going to project them onto other people and not take any accountability for your projections, for what you truly feel? Because it is okay to feel those things, but it's not okay to project those feelings onto other people. You can change all that and I think if the world understood that, if each person could understand that, starting at such a young age, if we can teach our children that to love ourselves, embrace the good and the bad, embrace the fact that we are having a rough moment, understand and communicate those feelings, be allowed openly to express those feelings and not be shamed to have those feelings, our world would already be different for the better.
Speaker 1:I honestly was not expecting these questions to take me to such levels, but here we are. But to soften it up a little bit, the next question I was asked recently was what makes you feel alive? And it kind of ties it into a conversation I had with my life coach, aka my sister, and she had asked because I described a moment, feeling euphoric. And so to me, euphoric is feeling alive, and I always simply say the moments that make me feel alive are the moments that I find myself standing still, without thought, without concentration, without intention, just naturally standing still, enjoying the moment, feeling the vibrations, the energy, the soul, the love, the emotions all around me. Everything feels aligned, which then raises the vibrations, and that could be people, it could be places. It could be situations that arise. Circumstances, oh god. What else Surprises? The element of surprise, without ever seeing it coming.
Speaker 1:I was just on a vacation and I was able to do an amazing water adventure for the day, and it wasn't just the adventures I took that made me feel alive, but it was the timing. My tourist guide took me to an off spot, somebody he knew, which then I had the luxury of being the only one there, which then elevated it to something even greater, where I was on my own private boat doing my own private tours. Something even greater where I was on my own private boat doing my own private tours. I felt that special, that alive, that unique. In the moment, I felt so blessed to have the opportunities where I didn't have to battle with the crowds or get in all those different lines and wait, and not that I wouldn't be patient for it, but it's because of all my patience, it's because of all my work I'm doing, that I was gifted such an opportunity like that.
Speaker 1:So not only my intentions were to go snorkeling, but because it was just me. The owner brought out this packet of all these different activities and immediately what was on that activity was baby, sea turtles, adoption and conservatory. So, yes, of course, I've been dying to do this for years. So then I'm looking around and I'm thinking, well, I'm here for the day that's only about an hour and a half, and I spotted this other unique activity of underwater. It's not scuba diving, but you get to place your head into the old old, original scuba gear, the tank, while you freely walk around on the seafloor. So, yes, it terrified me because I have such horrible ear pressure, which is why I can't go scuba diving. However, this provided me the opportunity to be able to pop my ears underwater, so I took it, I took advantage of the moment of the gift and I went for it. And again, I was all on my own. I had my own private guide and he was amazing and the energy was amazing and just, I felt elevated.
Speaker 1:So those are the moments I feel alive. And does it have to cost money to feel alive? No, I could tell you so many different times where I felt alive, just being on the phone with a best friend of mine and we could talk for hours and hours and it felt like only minutes. Those moments I feel alive. I could be watching my Special Olympic athletes make their first basket and I feel alive because they're alive, they're living their dream and their excitement, and I get to be a part of that just by watching. What an honor. So it's those. Those are the kinds of moments that I love, because I feel more alive than ever. And I feel more alive now, in the present tense, because of all the work, of all the healing I've done. I've missed so many moments and I'm not regretting it. But I've missed so many moments because I've masked most of my sight, most of my living, by masking it, by hiding from it or running from it. So I was constantly in this battle, in this loop of running and going and going and going, missing these opportunities, these moments that could have made me feel more alive with it. That was a really good question. I love being asked that question.
Speaker 1:The next question is what do you love about yourself physically and characteristically? And I'll start off with physically. I love my smile. There's something about my smile and the fact that I smile more now says a lot about my smile. There's something about my smile and the fact that I smile more now says a lot about my journey. And characteristically, I'm going to go with, at least from how I'm taking the question is the way I'm able to listen as well as love within, energetically. I love that I can take anything that's placed in front of me or handed to me physically, energetically, emotionally and I can peel back the layers without even knowing that I'm doing it for myself or for others, and I'm able to provide that safe space filled with love. Again. Another great question and the next question is how do I deal with challenges? Well, currently I shared my biggest challenge of not feeling aligned with my body and finding out that I had some massive uterine fibroids going on and that my uterus was 20 times the size it should be. Therefore, now I'm scheduled to have a hysterectomy in a month. That's my biggest challenge right now, but there are options, there are results, there are answers, which makes these challenges feel less challenging. I don't know if that's really a word, but we're going to go with it.
Speaker 1:So, in that moment, when I was told or given a rundown of everything that I was going to, that was going to transpire with my surgery, I processed it, I listened. It was a lot and I was inundated with a lot of information, but I was also reflecting upon something of a past memory shared with my best friend, who allowed me to experience her first pregnancy, my first nephew, and because of this memory I was filled with all these beautiful emotions so as well as filled with overwhelming emotions too. So I sat in my car and I called her up because I knew I was going to have kind of a breakdown, I was going to become very vulnerable and I had asked her can I express my vulnerability with you? And then I just poured out buckets of tears. But it's these moments now that I'm able to communicate, in those moments, what I'm feeling or that I need assistance, or can I be vulnerable with you? I express that, and I may not always have the response of sure, yes, of course I may have people that might say I don't have time right now, you know, and that rejection will come up. But I won't feel rejected anymore because I respect boundaries and I also respect the universe's way of telling me right person, wrong time or wrong time, wrong person to share what I need to share with you know, and I always feel very protected by universe. So I look at it, I'm able to transmute everything into a beautiful, positive blessing, and that's what I love about challenges is because my gift has become greater because of challenges, because I've done so much inner work, shadow work, that challenges, when they do arise, I handle them so far different, so far better, greater, that I'm so proud of myself for how I handle things, which alleviates the anxiety, the stress, the emotions, the fear, and allows for continued growth and love and positivity to come through. So that's pretty much how I handle my challenges. I sit with it.
Speaker 1:And when I am overwhelmed because don't get me twisted there are times though I mean unfortunately there are times that we get caught up in a moment or something happens abruptly that kind of takes us out of our element, right Fight or flight. So there are moments that can happen, especially for me it would. So there are moments that that could happen, especially for me. It would happen more so when I'm at work. You know, in your mind's thinking of a thousand things like my students are always my priority. My students, my staff, the whereabouts, everything. You have to think about everything and it has to be thought of over and over and over again until you go home and you're able to just decompress. So in those situations I may get caught up and I may have a reaction instead of a response, and then I have to process that moment because there's something in that moment that I have to learn for myself. So that's pretty much how I handle it. I sit with those emotions, I sit with whatever it is I'm given and I honestly I do well under stress, as shocking as that can sound or seem. For some reason, depending on the situation and scenario not always.
Speaker 1:I've had moments in my past way in my past, when a very unhealed version of me, where I would just shut down inside crocodile tears would come out and my voice would become high pitched and I'd be very snappy with whatever porcelain was in my way. That was how I used to handle it way back in the day. So now I don't really tend to do that. I may snap here and there if I'm pushed to a boiling point, but that rarely happens. I don't even know. If it does. I'd like to say it doesn't happen anymore. But I'm human, so I'm not going to put myself on this pedestal of perfection.
Speaker 1:Ooh, and then this goes into the next question of how do you define success? Success is when you feel aligned with it and without. To me, success is not the accolades, not you feeding my ego, not the validations. Success for me is I validate my success. I am proud of myself. It could be for the most minute, tiniest little thing to the grander scale of things. My success is the validation I give myself in those moments when I feel pride, when I feel euphoric, when I feel the abundance of love within not from others but from my own self for the success I have given myself. That, to me, is what success is. That's a really good question.
Speaker 1:Moving along to what core values guide your actions? That's a very, very in-depth question. I'm going to keep this answer somewhat basic only because we can peel back so many layers to this question, as there are so many core values that are instilled within you that you follow or that you've learned along the way. Would I say that my core values have changed over the years? Most definitely Would I have thought I aligned with the core values I had instilled in me growing up? Yes, but somewhere along the way, when I lost myself, I also lost alignment with those core values. So my top core values I would say I've followed along, utilized and instilled within me along this healing journey, is honesty, respect, accountability, empathy, trust and adaptability. Now I'm going to peel back a little bit on each one, but most likely you'll get the gist of it just by what I've shared.
Speaker 1:Honesty is key for me. If I can't be honest with myself, then I definitely can't be honest with all of you. And that was a tough battle to learn which draws in accountability. I have to take accountability for my lies and my deception along the way, coming from a very unhealed, insecure place which then goes into respect. Along the way I stopped respecting myself, which, in fact, when I started realizing this is also the time I learned that I was gay I was disrespecting my body, self, the more I was open to receiving new lessons in healing, allowing healing to come in within me. So that was its own great awakening in itself.
Speaker 1:Empathy I've carried empathy this entire way. I did not carry empathy for myself as much as I could hold empathy for others, and sometimes I lack the boundaries to then release all this emotion I was carrying with me from other people that I allowed into my life, and this goes into trust, which they all tie together in a way. You know I am very trusting of other people with my heart and soul to an extent that it also causes damage to myself, because sometimes I'm very trusting to people who, unfortunately, are so unhealed that they can't trust you. And there's nothing worse of a pain than when you feel that energy of someone that can't trust you because they can't even trust in their own selves. So that becomes its own battle and journey which then separates you from your relationships, from your connections, from your friendships. Because when you feel that the other person can't trust you and there's nothing you can do or say about it, it's something they have to learn on their own within their own healing journey. And again free will comes into play. You have to simply let go, otherwise it becomes very toxic. That connection To the last thing, which is adaptability and this ties along with just me being a special ed teacher.
Speaker 1:It's a gift I've always carried along with me silently had I not known this gift until later in life that I am very adaptable to the environment, to the circumstance, and this is because of my upbringing and living in and out of a hospital, to the circumstances around me and the people that are thrusted into my life and out of my life. I've had to become very adaptable to these situations. However, it has also shown me that I also have to heal these emotions that I hang on to, that I hung on to for so long. It carried that pain with me, which is kind of what stalled my healing in the first place. It's because of my adaptability.
Speaker 1:I would become too adaptable to everything and not release anything. See, when you walk away from a situation, you let it go. So when you leave work, you leave that work behind you. You don't take it home with you. That is not healthy for you, or for your spouse, or for loved ones, or for friendships, for yourself. If an environment is toxic, you have to remove yourself from that environment, otherwise you're bringing that energy with you wherever you go and then that energy pours onto somebody else. You see the mad cycle that we create. It's all right there. Within our own hands, our own selves, we carry these tools and resources and knowledge, but sometimes for instance me I mask everything in my past. Therefore, I was blinded by any of this knowledge. So this would be my core values. There are still so many more, but I would say that these are truly my core values that I carry with me to this day.
Speaker 1:I just want to share that. I'm having a divine intervention moment, because I just realized that my episode was going a little bit longer and there's still so many more questions to answer, but I'm going to have to make a part two. So stay tuned for next week's part two of these amazing, in-depth, soul-searching questions I've been asked or have recently come across that have kind of lingered within my soul to respond to. But before I go, the divine intervention was this I received a text from my Xfinity letting me know that they're going to cut off the Wi-Fi and do some work. Just as I was realizing I was going over my minutes, I had looked outside and there was this whole crew outside my window ready to clearly take apart and destroy the Wi-Fi and the cable throughout our neighborhood. So divine timing is in play, which means I get to go ahead and go pick up my car because I got brand new tires. So I feel safe for the winter and I'm ready to go.
Speaker 1:But with that being said, I want to thank you so much for sitting with me and asking me these questions, whether it's because we were out and about and we decided to just have a great conversation, or whether it's something that you shared across social media and I just happened to really find your questions intriguing. These are the kinds of things, the kinds of conversations I love to have with people is when you can peel back the layers and really dive deep within your own self and get to know somebody else. So, before I share anything else or anything more, I want to thank you and tell you to go ahead and ask yourself these questions that I shared with you out loud today. Dive deep, write in a journal, express it out loud, communicate it to somebody, but find that moment within time to sit with yourself and do some beautiful reflection. Until next week, have an amazing day.