The Crucible:Conversations for the Curious

Hamish Niven (00:01)
Welcome to The Crucible, Conversations for the Curious. I am Hamish, your host. This podcast is for anyone going through awakenings, trying to make sense of life. Whether dark nights are the soul, needing to make life -changing decisions, struggling with addiction or critical illness, or simply realizing that their life as they know it is not aligned to values and purpose. You are not alone. You can get through this, promise you. Life is far more beautiful on the other side.

Hamish (00:29)
Hi everybody. Today we are talking with Kate. Kate and I first met about a year ago on a shamanic practitioners course in the middle of Ireland. It was the most incredible experience and yeah, we got to know each other. We got chatting and over the four months that we were doing that, we had an incredible time learning about new ways of living and being and tapping into what was really important to us. So Kate, thank you so much for being here today.

Kate (00:57)
Thanks for having

Hamish (00:59)
And can you tell me a little bit about your journey that got you to where you are now?

Kate (01:05)
So yeah I was very pleased to meet you Hamish on the shamanic course because that was a real turning point in my life and it was the point where I went from having worked psychically for nearly 30 years

And so really the whole awakening and the whole point of me talking today is just coming to that point of being proud of my sensitivity, proud of my intuitive ability, delight in finding the shamanic world. And kind of it's my spiritual coming out on this podcast, you know, and it's the first time that I would have talked.

publicly about all the things that I've experienced in my

I grew up seeing spirits travelling through my dreams, remembering past lives, all kinds of crazy stuff and my mum's dad, my grandfather, he was schizophrenic, he died before I was born and I didn't know him.

but my mum would have heard all the crazy stuff that came out of my mouth and thought, my god, she's just like her granddad. So from an early age, I really had a fear that I was just bananas. so I learnt just to keep everything quiet, all the stuff about spirits and past lives and...

travelling through space and dreams. I've kept all my sensitive

as quiet as possible, all my psychic stuff is quiet as possible and I've been ashamed of it most of my life. I'm a really curious person, I love science, really into science and all the people that I really respect in the scientific world, you know, wouldn't respect anything about my life now and it's really upsetting and has been really upsetting.

I've worked with spirits since I was 19. I was really lucky to meet a doctor, she was a medical doctor and she had given up

her medical practice because she observed that some people got better even if their diagnosis was awful and then other people that weren't so ill went rapidly downhill and got very bad and died and she was really curious to how that happened. So

went completely left of centre and did an aura diagnosis, which is work healing spirits of the dead, to feel through the layers of your aura to see what the core issues were of that illness. And so from the age of 19, I learnt from her. So from 19, that's what I've done.

I feel through the layers of people's auras, go right deep into people's true core natures and work with spirits of the dead to help them cross over. Now, I'm a really curious person, I love learning, I love science, so that idea of them really being spirits, it just didn't.

wash of me at all and it was really helpful. really liked it but I just couldn't accept the fact that they were spirits. Finding shamanism and you know that the course with Martin Duffy was really amazing. It really helped me land in the life of a shamanic way.

which is a totally decolonised way of thinking. It is not the way of thinking in a Western mind. It's an animistic, so the philosophy of animism where everything is alive, every rock, every stone, every, the stars, the sun, the... everything, everything, everything is...

alive and has a spirit and now living in that world from that way has changed everything for me and so from there I decided to sell my business, start a new life and just completely devote myself to the shamanic healing and me doing my

readings.

Hamish (06:42)
So it was that recent. Talk to me about this concept of guiding people over, so people who've died and moving on, because I know that is an integral part of shamanism,

Kate (06:45)
Yep.

Yeah so it wouldn't be for somebody that is in the process of dying to leave them be for a while because we are all met by a completely loving force. Now if we live our lives

mostly not aware of that and feeling very alone and isolated as a lot of people do. Sometimes when you die it's really hard, sometimes people don't even know they're dead, especially if it's a shock or in a tragic way, and two, if you don't have that connection

spirit you can just stay in the mode that you were in life so if you were you know constantly busy and you're completely disconnected you can still remain like that after you're dying so when so when i'm working with the spirits of the dead that doesn't have to be any family member or a person in transition it's it's never like that it's always

either people having spirits attached to them or spirits attached to a place. you know, we're

So our natural state of being is to be radiant. So our life force comes up, flows through us, flows out. That's our natural state. Most of us forget that because we're just in life mode and we have our defensive behaviour patterns and we just go along life on whichever automatic pilot we've got going

So then parts of our energy is out and full, but a lot of our energy through a lot of the day is depressed in certain areas or we have holes or we have gaps where we're not very robust and we're not very free flowing. And so it just creates vacuum space. So any...

that's around and there's lots of spirits that are around and the lust don't know that there's help. A lot of us in life don't know that there's help, we don't know that we're supported and we're totally supported all the time. But we don't feel, we don't feel it. So we can get spirits attached to us and attached to the land. So what I would do is if you had a spirit attached to you

we would just, I can either do it remotely or all I would do is just hold your hand and I'd wait for my feeling to change into another feeling and then I would talk as the spirit and then I would talk through one, letting the person know that they've died. That's always a good starting point.

A lot of them don't know. And you make them aware. It's the same as how I would work with a living person. You feel through their feelings until you get to their true core nature. And from our true core natures we know that we are connected. We have access to spirit, we have access to support and then there can be a good transition.

So it's a healing. It's a healing, but the clients are dead and they don't pay very well.

Hamish (11:11)
Okay. So your belief structure is we are spiritual, So what are your, what's your comprehension around who we are as humans or what we are as humans? Because we're not just a sack of meat.

Kate (11:26)
No we're not and this is the whole knub of the matter and the whole knub of my awakening is that we're not just a meat suit. So Buddhists would say that suffering is a belief in separation and

you just believe in the meat suit, which it's very easy to do and even so even from me being able to see spirits, being able to travel distances from when I was a very small child and having experiences that are exactly the same as ancient shamans that have been recorded for centuries of millennia. There's really, there's

the same experiences go round and around again you see it in different cultures, different histories, different parts of the world. It's just amazing there's so many similar journeys and similar experiences. So from a child without being exposed to any of that and you know there'll be a lot of people listening that would have had those experiences too. You're not alone, find shamanism. Go check it out.

So if even having all those experiences and being aware of spirit, still I couldn't believe, still I couldn't accept any of the idea of talking to spirits. just, know, Eastern West mind just didn't meet anywhere. But now having the experience, I can really truly understand

the Buddhists are talking about when they say that suffering is a belief in separation because if we are just the meat suit and it is just you as a meat suit with a horrible environment then it's really easy to have defensive behaviour patterns to have to put on all this armour to

you know, go for the material all the time. But if we're not just a meat suit, if we are connected into this spirit world, all of a sudden you feel the people around you, you feel your ancestors, you feel the love, you feel the oneness, and it's not just you as a meat suit and the world,

you as a flow of everything. You are totally part of the infinity of existence. You you're vast. And through the shamanic journeys I just kept getting a sense of that oneness, that belonging, being part of a family because being part of a family

The real world is quite difficult, most people's families are quite difficult. It's a challenge and a half. to find that working ancestrally, which is also part of Shamanism, that I'm entirely surrounded by a loving family that goes back to the beginning, to pre -human.

and that's some feeling of belonging.

Hamish (15:17)
Now I'm curious, how did you manage to make sense? Because there was a big disconnect, as you said, there was this spiritual aspect which you just couldn't bring together and you put so much shame into it. How did you manage to eradicate that shame?

Kate (15:36)
The answer to question is a lot of damn fucking hard work and finding very safe places repeatedly because you can't do any healing work without finding safe spaces and like you said you found that your superpower was creating safe spaces and that is such a huge gift and a huge contribution to the world.

because you can't, like finding a safe space, that is job number one. Because you can talk to family, can talk to friends, but they can't really hold a true safe space. You really need professionals that are, that it is their gift to hold safe spaces. Because you do need, you need a safe space, need a cushion of love around. From there,

you can go in and you can look at shame but you can only look at shame if you're held. So it's finding a wonderfully held safe space. So I've done lots of different work in lots of different aspects and I've been very lucky to work with people that are really good at holding safe spaces and then relentlessly going in and going

and the more, as you know, the more you can unearth shame. Shame is hidden, shame survives, shame is out in the open. It doesn't exist anymore because once it's unearthed and you're feeling the shame but you're also feeling loved and held, shame disappears and you just have to do that again and again and again and again and again. So yeah, it's a

It's a long journey, but feeling loved and held, not judged, that's the work. and nature,

nature has that safe space intrinsically in it. So again it just comes back to the same thing with the animistic way of living because if you're in nature, you're respecting nature, you're feeling part of nature, you've got the flow going out of you, flowing, come back in, that's the safe space. But also it's all

relationships so you have a relationship with the element of earth, have a relationship with the element of fire, with air, you know have a relationship now with the directions you know east now feels like you know each each direction feels like a friend so you know east is has is new beginnings is fresh you know has the element wind

It's the friend that you'd ask for greater perspective. It brings in a freshness, brings a newness. It's like one of those friends that would open all the doors and windows in your house and goes, right, come on then, let's go. I love South. South is a great friend. South is a friend I'd go to element of fire. It could be that warm, gentle push to remind you of your passions.

or it can be a total burning transformation where all the old shit just gets burnt up and it can be intense but you know that it's... you're just getting rid of all the crap. West I work with a lot. West is like... I've been in love with West. It's endings, it's healing,

death but the beautiful aspect of death where you can just let things go. It's the element of water where all connected, it's that purity, that cleansing, it's that sparkly pure. And then north, God love north, that solid rock, that earth

or the practical, I love earthy practical things and so that's north, so north would have your back. And then so that's the way my life goes now, having the connection with the ancestors, having the connection with the elements, with the directions, with nature. So then my life now feels totally held and there's always

sense of oneness and working with. So that's them.

It's a total 180 on the more scientific rational way that I used to think.

Hamish (20:51)
Nothing like having your life turned around is there? I was really nothing like like shake and then yeah, I Love that and I I love how you describe the the four directions

Kate (20:54)
I know it's great.

Hamish (21:03)
absolutely agree that groundedness, that sense of purpose and nothing is going to stop you when you're looking north. That just resilience and all the other ones. think it's, yeah, I really like that. think you've allowed me to look at it slightly differently and I think that's fabulous. Let's wind back probably quite a lot

How has going through that transition, going through being highly attuned and seeing spirits and all this kind of stuff, which obviously was distressing and peculiar and all that, how did that affect relationships? How did people, did you tell people about things like that? Was it, know, you'd confined with people? What was people's senses around that when you dared to share?

Kate (21:57)
Yeah I had a split life really so I had the life where I had all the friends that you know like so you go to a shamanic course and you have friends or you meet people there and it's like yeah you see spirits, we all see spirits.

and know, ugh, boring, you and everyone else. And so there was one group of people where spirits were just so normal, it was really boring. And then that would be a small group of people. And then there'd be the rest of everybody else in the whole world who I just wouldn't mention it to whatsoever. So I've lived in a small town now in Ireland for 21 years.

and there's people that I've done readings for, you know, 20 years ago and then there's people I've known for 20 years that wouldn't have a clue of the work that I do because I would never mention it, I would largely not mention it. Yeah, so, you know, when I was little and I was seeing all the fairies and spirits and travelling through my dreams and my mum was just getting concerned and thinking that I was like her dad who was schizophrenic.

and I didn't end too well for him so I always had a belief that I was totally crackers and I was really worried, was afraid my whole life of just going that bit too far and not ever being able to come back and get a grasp on reality. So still my family don't really know, they largely don't know what I...

do and it's becoming a bigger bigger part of my life. So yeah, so relationships would have definitely had a separation and just it would be that secret part of me and then the part that would get everything done, be practical, you know run the show and yeah nobody would know. But it leaves...

if you live like that it makes you, it leaves you feeling very lonely and isolated so I would always have felt very alone and then of course if nobody can see you nobody can love you so you, I've spent most of my life feeling ashamed of the way I think the way I behave in the world

feel very alone, know, yeah, it's a lonely, shameful existence largely,

Hamish (24:56)
I think it's remarkable. It shows that resilience of humans as well, doesn't it? That we can, we can wear that mask of shame. And yet when we actually decide it's enough, we can just take it off and then become true to ourselves. And it's never too late to do that.

Kate (25:10)
Yep. Never too late, never. Because shame, most people have it and it really is, I think, the deepest and hardest to get to. Because you hide it, you can become identified with it.

so much and it's hard to separate yourself from that feeling of shame from who you are. It gets really ingrained as part of your personality. it's remarkable work when you feel it lifting. And then it opens up the space for all the love.

Hamish (25:53)
Amen.

Doesn't it? Yeah, absolutely. And it's, you know, I've not seen you since September, October, September when we finished the course. But I mean, everything about your demeanor is so much more grounded, so much more peaceful, so much stronger. And it's, you know, obviously, it's a joy to see a friend change so much. But it's also peaceful, isn't it? You know, you've you've able to take that mask off and go.

This is me. And yeah, there is, you do lose people. When I left Cape Town after the drinking, I lost all sorts of people. As you said, it makes space for love. It makes space for new people, new opportunities. And who knows what's gonna happen next? It's also uncertain, but it's a kind of excited and not a scary excitement, isn't it?

Kate (26:51)
absolutely yeah because the way I would have you know most of my relationships before were you know I'm a very I'm a very loving person but for me love translated into doing. I had to do, do, cater to everybody, make sure you know that everybody felt loved, you had to anticipate everybody's desire before they even knew that they they had

and always concerned with other people. That's so exhausting, my god. That's just energy out the whole time. So I just sold my business, I had a busy shop and I looked after everybody in the shop and it was just busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, doing, yeah, you lead to burnout and codependent relationships that just go.

one way and since you know leaving the shop I feel like I've taken off a weight a lead jacket and like I said with the shame gone feeling the love come in I don't feel like I have to do for other people anymore I feel that I can be loved I can let that love flow out

and hopefully it's just nice to be around a person that feels warm and loved and relaxed and hopefully that comes out to other people you know then other people can feel in a safe space around me.

Hamish (28:35)
Yep. Yep. I think you've I love that. I think you've you've nailed that on the head. Which is you've actually done that really nicely because you've also started again. That makes complete sense. And I love the way that you've you've realized that you were that codependent. You were putting everyone else needs first. You mentioned at the beginning of the chat where you were frightened about being

you know, this attachment to spirituality. you put that mask on to become what other people you thought other people were. Explain codependency because obviously that is a huge part of it. Not everyone understands it. I mean, I had no idea what it was until I was diagnosed and had to make sense of it in rehab. But explain to me what your thought process as a child to be liked then became that codependency.

Kate (29:19)
Mm -hmm.

Yeah well I mean codependency can often go along with addiction or addictive addictive parents so you know I would have had that experience growing up but for me codependency

The way it presents in me is that the belief is I am not loved as I am. I am only loved if I am useful or I am only loved if I am loving another person.

not to have intrinsic worth, but to only have worth if you're doing what the other person wants of you. then, you know, and like I said, I'm a very loving person and if that gets translated into a codependent way, you've kind of gone off the rails in the whole wrong direction. So I spent a lot of my life thinking that

that it's good not to have any boundaries, that it's good not to reference what I want, that it's good to always feel out and see what the other person wants first. And so I would have been very close to my mom, very close to my dad, but I would have known them so well. I would have anticipated all my mom's needs and just done whatever she wanted, then anticipated my dad's needs, just done exactly what he wanted,

then there's a fear that if you're not anticipating everybody's needs and then you're not being loving, you're not worth anything, you're a terrible person, back to the shame. So any thought of being myself or referencing inwards automatically led to shame.

and the loving of the other person seemed nice, but it comes with anxiety and fear that you have to love, have to be, that's the only way you're gonna be wanted. So really what you're emitting in that instance is that we're not loved, we're not loved, panic, panic, find how you can be loved. And

even though you're doing a loving act, really what you're doing is just filling the world out with more panic and more panic panic panic panic. So now, like I said, the difference with then feeling connected to spirit is that I always feel loved, always feel connected and therefore love and connection comes

Emitting love, emitting safety, it's the complete opposite. I wish I'd have gotten that sooner.

Hamish (32:43)
it just takes a minor life crisis or two, doesn't it? First of all, you realize these things. I love that. I experienced it slightly differently and like you, I've been making sense of it. For me, very much it was that I need to be what other people want me to be, so I'm liked. That's the attachment side of it. I was attached myself to them, whereas from the other side

Kate (32:46)
Yeah.

Hamish (33:09)
I can still be loving and kind and supportive and this, that and the other, but I'm doing that from authenticity, from you. I'm doing it from inside. Because for a while as I made sense of it, I was a bit of a shit. I wasn't nice because I thought I used to be loving and kind and that was co -dependent. So I'm not going to be loving and kind. And I wasn't, and it was horrible because I wasn't being true to myself and I was being unkind. But when I sort of like you, I've did that work and realized

Kate (33:12)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

Hamish (33:38)
I can still be loving and kind and all those things which I am, but I just do it from authenticity rather than from need or from fear or looking for love from other people, from spirit, from source, from, and what a difference. I can still be nice, but I'm not requiring anything from anybody else. And there's a boundary.

Kate (33:42)
Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Yeah, I know it is good. So it is that thing of really, even if it's a nice action, what is the feeling that's coming off? And if it's fear, if it's fear, can feel it, you know, it goes like that. And everybody can pick it up, you know, I mean, everybody is psychic, everybody is intuitive, everybody can feel all these things. And it's just much better if

totally clear and aware aware of that you know we can always feel it you know it doesn't feel it doesn't feel comfortable when you know you can feel somebody's you know panic or need or you know and it yeah it doesn't doesn't feel good doesn't feel good to anybody you can smell it a mile

Hamish (34:42)
Absolutely.

Kate (34:43)
Yeah, yeah, and there again, when you're genuine, when you're authentic, that also can be felt. you know, then people will want to be, you know, it's a pleasurable feeling, it's a pleasurable feeling to be around.

Yeah, so yeah, makes all relationships completely different.

Hamish (35:05)
doesn't it? Because you're just, you're just experiencing things differently and living things differently. But it does mean you've, but, but it does mean you've got to have boundaries, you know, you no longer want, I'm to start that again.

It is so much nicer when we are authentic and living like that. What I've noticed though, you've got to have boundaries and you've got to better protect yourself because otherwise you're going to be loving and giving and people are going to exploit that. So how do you then put yourself in a place where you're going to still be authentic, but you're not going to get walked over. You're not going to be manipulated or bullied or coerced by other people because that seems to be a common problem with people who

Kate (35:29)
Okay.

Hamish (35:53)
kind, certainly empathic, they're easily manipulated if they're not sensible or clever.

Kate (35:59)
Yeah, absolutely. yeah. I mean, boundaries is the key issue. Even just the thought that you can have boundaries. I mean, for me, as I was growing up, if I had boundaries, again, that was seen as a non -loving act to have boundaries.

just the idea of having a boundary for me was unthinkable and when I was married I had zero boundaries and could never figure out what was my part in the relationship not working and as you know which is often the the case is well I'll just give more and I'll just

keep giving and I'll try extra hard but that was not the way to... I was giving too much. What was my part in the relationship was that I didn't have boundaries and if you don't have boundaries you do things that you don't want to do you end up getting resentful, you get very passive aggressive, you know never clear communicating. It is not a good way to be you know and that is a huge

part of the relationship that you have to become aware and responsible of. It was only when I realised that that was my part in the relationship dynamic did things start to change for me because I thought boundaries were bad and giving was good. So if I wanted to be good and do my part in a relationship I just had to give more. That is not the way, you know, the thing.

do is in a relationship is I mean it's really good to there's a great exercise to do where you just you you close your eyes and you scan around and you imagine what your boundary looks like you know do you have a brick wall as a boundary do you have spikes as a boundary or do you have giant gaping holes because sometimes you know if you're if you're like you're saying you've been a bit of a shit you might have a bit of

brick wall or you might have spikes then you might know okay got too much of a boundary need to soften it up there. So for me, mine, I just have big gaping holes in the in the front of me like right well that needs that needs stitching up so first it's good to just do close your eyes and just check around yourself and see what kind of boundaries you have because if they're too much you need to soften them up if they're

weak you need to strengthen them so it's just good to know where you personally are at and then boundaries then are loving a good boundary is loving because

when I am too loving I am taking the responsibility of the other person that is very insulting that is not a loving act so good boundaries is loving so that's that's that's that's how I would see boundaries and it's that's really it's a great place to start any work

with yourself if you're just exploring things for the first time, looking at your own boundaries and starting there and exploring from there you'll get a lot of insight from yourself. You can change a lot of relationship dynamics that way too.

Hamish (40:00)
I think that's interesting because obviously the codependent male, his would be fairly different. I mean, I'm looking at mine and looking at them ruefully. Yeah, I'll do that for you. I'll do that. I'll do that. I'll do that. I'll do that. I'll do that. Disempower, disempower, disempower, disempower. And it was that and then I wouldn't do them anyway. yeah, the best will in the intention, you know, I'll do it, don't worry. And it was horrendously disempowering.

Kate (40:15)
Yeah, disempower.

Yeah and if you look behind that again, fear, I'll do that then I'll be great, I'll be a good boy, you'll love me. No? It's just so, so basically it's going fear, fear, fear, you're not responsible, you're not responsible. So, so yeah it's then we wonder why it all goes wrong.

Hamish (40:33)
Exactly. Yeah, absolutely.

I was awful.

Yeah. And it's the other person's fault because they did it. They didn't love me. They didn't respect me. It's like, Yeah, it's a minefield. It really is. And then the shame comes in and then you suddenly realize that I was doing the best I could. I didn't know better. And now.

Kate (40:52)
Yep.

Yeah.

Exactly, bring it back, bring it back, bring it back to the safe place. Bring it back to the safe place. You just know, like you're saying, you're doing your best. Bring it back to the safe place. You start to build up again. Then you're not coming from that fear, you're coming from that loved part. You just try again. Sure, we're gonna fuck it up straight away, we're gonna fuck it up. But you know, maybe a bit longer each time it'll

Hamish (41:30)
Yeah, I think I think so. yeah, you know, and we try and change our behavior. And some days we do some days we don't. That's just part of the human experience, isn't it? We don't always get it right. But we can learn from it, we can go, hmm, that doesn't work. So I will put that down as a brick, I can stand on and I can look over it a bit more and see what happens.

Kate (41:44)
note.

I mean for me I love information, love feeling through, like I always do readings on myself and I feel through what's behind that defence or what's behind that collapse or what's behind that feeling and I love getting the information and going all the way back. But then really the work that has actually been transformative is more of

sensing work and like I said I found it through shamanism but it doesn't have to be shamanism you know if praying is your thing and you feel a connection with God great go there if meditation is your thing and you connect to the one that's brilliant if you love swimming or walking or whatever your thing is where you feel if you're out in nature and you feel totally connected do that do all the time do it every day because

It's really in those moments when that shame is actually met with love, is met with connection, that is where the healing happens. know, awakenings are great and you know, having those bursts of revelation, know, I love my information, that's all fantastic, but really that deep healing comes from being repeatedly held and repeatedly.

and yeah sorry

Hamish (43:18)
Yep. It's like buying a house. It's a bit like buying a house. That's the easy bit, isn't it? I mean, yes, it's expensive, but that's easy bit. Then you've got to live there, pay the bills, do the renovation. Yeah, I've heard about that one.

Kate (43:28)
Yeah, you gotta keep it clean every day. Yeah, it happens sometimes.

Yeah, it's the everyday work, but not just the work, it's the everyday connection. If you can have some kind of beautiful connection every day with that reminder that you're part of this big wide oneness, that you have a part in it, you have a belonging in it, that's...

That's the consistent healing, that's the everyday healing. So in whichever way, anybody has to get there. You get there, you're away.

Hamish (44:20)
What would be some good ways to get there? Let's say I'm listening to this and I've had my brain blown with all sorts of things. like, well, I want some of that. I want that sense of peace. What could I start to do to...

spot, spot where I can do what I'm doing, what can I find out around my environment and me, how can I sort of start to tap into that change that I want.

Kate (44:42)
Well, first step always, find a safe place. I mean that is the biggest, hugest thing. We're, you know, we're, you know, humans that are around other humans that are mostly just in a state and we're around these other humans and our heads are wrecked and we often just don't feel safe ever and maybe...

your childhood you didn't feel safe. So maybe you've gone through childhood, didn't feel safe, became an adult, still didn't feel safe, made relationships that you don't feel safe in, in a work environment that's stressful, you don't feel safe in. I mean, we live in busy places that are anxiety ridden and it's a chronic state. We also feel chronically lonely. So chronically stressed, chronically lonely, largely in a Western society.

So the first thing to do is find some quiet and find, seek out a safe space and I would suggest a professional safe space, whether that's a really good yoga teacher, meditation teacher, whether that's counselling, whether that is I really love somatic experiencing, I'm going to be training in that next year. Things that make your body feel safe

place that you can begin to relax in because once you relax you just naturally come out. So the work mostly is finding safe spaces and somebody to hold that safe space in a really loving way and just do that repeatedly. So whichever way that is like I said if praying does it for you, if meditating does it for you, walking, swimming, being in nature, if cooking does it for

you do that thing but it's good to find somebody that can hold a group well or hold a one -to -one session really well but somebody that you feel entirely comfortable and safe with and just do that on a regular basis and that would be that would be a starting point because you need the pressure to be taken off we just were in defence mode most of the time we're kind of looking around

Yeah, we just need somebody just to hold that safety and be reminded that, you know, somebody does have our back.

Hamish (47:14)
Yep, that makes a lot of sense, doesn't it? Yeah. And what about things like journaling and gratitude? Are those part of your toolkit?

Kate (47:22)
Not so much journaling, you know, you can get too thinky and I'm quite thinky. I mean when I do a reading for myself I always write it down and like I said I love information but really the healing has come more from those deeper more somatic experiences and

try shamanic journey because getting a relationship with... so your spirits they're real they're here guys there is if you want if you want help there's an abundance back there and nobody can tell you which way to do it shamanism is really good for finding your own way your own connection it is the path of direct revelation so find a good shamanic teacher

a good shamanic practitioner and find your own guides, get to know your ancestors, you've got whole line of buddies back there, you know they're around all the time, you know I find it much better having a good you know being part of a team instead of going solo the whole time and yeah then you know get to know your directions even the directions can be your buddies, everything.

everything ends up being your body. so yeah shamanic journeying that's definitely that would be a huge toolkit. Meditation, yoga, some kind of body movement. Yeah all those.

Hamish (49:04)
So it is movement. Okay, I'm not gonna go there for a second. There was something I really wanted to pick up, but I can't remember what it was.

It's obviously gone for a

This is brilliant, by the way. I'm loving this. is, yeah. Yeah. Good. That's just the way it should be. That's right. I know what it was. you've, Kate, you've talked about, sorry, Kate, you've talked about ancestors. Talk to me about that because there's a lot of stuff.

Kate (49:18)
thank you yeah it's good because now it feels more like a chat and it's great and I get all excited

Hamish (49:45)
certainly in the new age and around like, you know, the ancestors, your parents taught you this, your grandparents taught you this. And there's a lot of negativity around ancestors, ancestral healing, ancestral belief. But it's not all negative, is

Kate (49:58)
It's totally not, it's not negative at all. Your ancestors, they're the ones that hold you. They're completely held by your ancestors. Now, if you have a tricky family, which has got to be like 99 .99 % of people, you might balk at the idea of contacting your ancestors because they might not have been very nice in life. But what you do is you...

contact. You go as far back as it takes until you find an ancestor. So you don't have to do this cognitively, you can do it in a kind of a dream or a shamanic journey or just in a letting your mind wander. And you go back as far as it takes to find an ancestor that is wise and well. So those are the ancestors that you're talking to is the wise and well ancestors, not the ancestors that are still trying to figure it all out because they can still be a mess.

So you go all the way back, all the way, all the way, all the way. And there's loads, there's a whole heap of information and love and support and abilities and qualities and strengths. Every bit that you have in your body is all thanks to your ancestors. So we just live in immense gratitude of the gifts our ancestors gave us. So you go all the way back.

find a really good egg, contact them. If you're doing the ancestral healing then you work from the good egg back towards you and you start cleaning the line. And then can do that for the different, say your mother's mother's mother's and your father's father's father's. And I've found that really beneficial. And in the readings, the way I came to ancestral healing,

was through some of the readings, always I see the person's parents and then in some cases I started to see their parents and their parents' parents and their parents' parents' parents' parents and I could see that there was an issue along that line. And I had a client and I was not aware of ancestral healing at the time and so I was explaining this and I was like, I don't know what the story is.

and she said, yeah, I've just started doing ancestral healing and there's an issue going back in that direction and I was really curious so looked into that myself and now it's largely ancestors that I work with and yeah, they have all the knowledge, they've been there, they've done that, they've got several t -shirts and yeah, it's all good.

all positive and again it would be something I'd recommend to everybody because we all have ancestors.

Hamish (53:00)
I suppose, well, I don't suppose. And I suppose that all the ancestors that we have have all grown up, had children, obviously, passed on their genetic material, passed on their stories, their beliefs, their healthy traits, and some of the unhealthy ones. So, you know, they've all, they're all survivors. They've all gone through their life, made sense of it, and have come out the other side and then passed

Kate (53:21)
Mm -hmm.

Hamish (53:29)
Talk to me about this cleaning bit, you can simplistically, because I don't understand what that means.

Kate (53:34)
Okay so like you said we inherit everything obviously from our ancestors, our skills and our gifts but also traumas so there's an experiment that people talk about with the rats and they give the rat

smell of cherry blossom and then give it a lovely electric shock. It's not lovely, it's horrible. So that rat has children and they give the children the smell of cherry blossom without the electric shock but they still react as if they've had the electric shock because they've inherited that fear from the parent rat. But that can go on for seven generations of rats.

So here I am, I had a relatively nice childhood but both myself and particularly my brother have huge PTSD symptoms. Now there's nothing traumatic, hugely traumatic that happened to us but in both my parents' lives they would have had

huge traumatic childhoods and their reactions and fears just get passed down. They get passed down implicitly and explicitly. Some are just in a felt sense. But the next generation, like the next generation of rat doesn't know why it's freaking out at the smell of cherry blossom, it just knows that cherry blossom is anxiety -provoking.

So this is what happens in humans too, that we have lots of fears or trauma responses that don't come from anything in our direct experience, but they would have come from parents and sometimes the parents' parents. And then that can carry on all the way down so you can have a long lineage of a particular type of defensive behaviour pattern or relationship dynamic or addiction.

infinite varieties but it can be passed down. Now those parents or those grandparents they could be living and you might be able to work with them directly or they might be deceased and your only way to work with them then is in an energetic capacity. So like I said you wouldn't want to just go straight to the traumatised parent or grandparent you'd want to

all the way back till you find your good egg, to find your wise and well ancestor. And then you help bring in the authentic true qualities and abilities to meet the traumas of the present. So it's a bit similar to what you do in counselling or any kind of therapy. You would have the anchor of your authentic true self,

the part that feels supported and loved and you'd bring that up against the trauma, your fear response, your defensive behaviour patterns and you just slowly introduce them again and again and again so that the trauma meets the love and the support and then eventually it's calmed down until they can go together and the trauma can be supported by the love or

authentic true qualities. So it's the same with the ancestors, you bring in your wise and well ancestors to come and meet your trauma ancestors and they meet and healing can take place. And then you can kind of clean the line from all the way back into the future. And then you find big things release in yourself, relationship dynamics change.

Yeah, it's quite amazing actually when I was I was doing that myself, you know, I worked I don't talk to my family about this and and my I just done a huge healing on my mother's dad's line and My aunt rang me up. She said I saw my brother today. He just gave me a hug He's never given me a hug in my whole life, and then he started telling me all these things

about his about the childhood and I didn't realise all these different things and telling me about things about about his dad and I was just on the phone and it worked so yeah and that's often the

Hamish (58:37)
And for anyone who thinks that's completely woo woo, our cells, our DNA does pass down all this stuff. know, science has proved this. This is not crazy. Science proves it. And then I think that's what remarkable. And if science doesn't have to prove it, it's your aunt who's out of the blue. You know, if there's no proof, it's that.

Kate (58:46)
Absolutely.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Hamish (59:04)
And as you were describing that, it's almost like that story that my dad beat me. You know, it's the same as that. That's not actually true, but that's the story I've carried. And so then the old ancestor can actually say, no, that's not true. And then I can go, yeah, I'm lying. So that's the kind of healing. It's taking that trauma, that story, whatever it is, actually just giving it truth, giving it love.

Kate (59:14)
Mm -hmm.

Yeah, or if your dad actually did beat you, you know, the feeling that he had, you know, he, I mean, and it's different in each line, you know, he might have felt terrified to be himself and saw something in you and that be passed down from generations. And then if he can get rid of that,

or if you can begin to heal that fear, if you can begin to heal that shame in him, that then sends the healing all the way down the line and frees you up too.

Hamish (1:00:07)
It's definitely a complicated... Is it complicated? It's definitely a subject that needs a bit more understanding from my side.

Kate (1:00:11)
No.

Yeah, no, I don't see it as complicated. It's just because, you know, we inherit stuff, you know, our parents held it in their bodies, then we held it in our bodies. If we can begin to release it from our bodies and connect backwards, we can get that ripple effect of relief where everybody then gets to take off the lead weight. The person behind you takes off their lead weight. The person behind them takes off their lead weight.

and you can, instead of inheriting all the trauma, you can do your healing and pass the healing

and you can go any which way. You can either bring the healing from back and have it yourself or you do your healing, pass it backwards. And that's the good thing. Again, being in that connected way, your healing is my healing, my healing is your healing, my healing is the person next to me healing, it's the ancestor behind me, their healing, my ancestor's healing is my healing. We all get healed. It's the better way. And it's shared.

Hamish (1:01:23)
It is shared, isn't it? And the whole experience, just that positive energy, just... Yeah. Wow.

Kate (1:01:29)
Yeah, and it's not just positive energy. There's real changes in your body. Genes can get turned off and on. You can make physical changes. You can see that the life circumstances change. The ripple effect is huge. Which is why now I just want to devote my life that way because...

it's the thing that feels best and has had the best results.

Hamish (1:02:07)
Kate, thank you. I think this has been a fantastic conversation. Now, where can people find out more about

Kate (1:02:14)
You can visit my website which is lifemanualreadings .com or on Instagram at life manual readings. My work is described more in depth on the website but there's also nice pictures on Instagram.

Hamish (1:02:31)
and there's some lovely pictures on your website and tell me who drew those pictures?

Kate (1:02:35)
yeah, I drew those pictures because I just love art and all things creative I'm always at something.

Hamish (1:02:45)
Brilliant, thank you. Now I think you've got a special gift for my listeners, haven't you as well?

Kate (1:02:50)
Yep, there's a free downloadable PDF that you can get on the website. You can also email me, but it's on the website and it's a PDF for an exercise that you can tune into your true self at the start of every day and meet the energy of the day so that you can consistently be yourself throughout the day.

Hamish (1:03:13)
I love that. think that is great. I'm looking forward to download that off your website as well. Thank you. And then one last question, Kate. What is your superpower that you have gained from your awakening?

Kate (1:03:28)
my superpower is the thing that I was always ashamed of which is my sensitivity and it's the sensitivity that make me aware of all the beautiful things that exist in the in the world and help to navigate them and that's what it's all about.

Hamish (1:03:50)
I Think that is lovely and what as you said that what I really felt was that is the biggest piece of self -forgiveness that you can do you've forgiven yourself for that shame for

being unable to make sense of your life. So I think that is really, really precious. So thank you ever so much.

Kate (1:04:05)
Yeah, thank you. Thank you. It's been lovely talking to you, Hamish.

Hamish Niven (1:04:11)
Thank you for listening to this episode of The Crucible: Conversations for the Curious. If these powerful stories of transformation resonated with you, be sure to like, subscribe and share this show with anyone who you think could do with a dose of inspiration for their own journey. I would really appreciate it if you could make any comments on your favourite podcast platform as well, that helps me reach more people. All the important links and information are in the show notes below. Thank you very much for listening and catch up with you soon.