The Healing Power of Heart Energy with Kristin Taylor

In this episode we get curious about:

• How self-compassion supports our growth and resilience
• The lessons and healing needed from growing up in a dysfunctional family
• The Challenges of being a Highly Sensitive Person
• What is your body trying to tell you when you have pain, autoimmune issues, and more?
• Mother issues and the gift of healing that can result from those relationships
• The power of heart energy...and so much more!

To learn more about our guest:

Kristin Taylor, M.A. is a Life and Executive Coach. She brings over 20 years of counseling and coaching experience and blends elements of neuroscience, nervous system and emotional regulation, mindfulness and psychology into her approach, relying heavily on teaching self-compassion. She specializes in working with leaders who are experiencing unwelcome levels of stress, anxiety and imposterism (the experience of unwarranted self-doubt and feeling "not good enough"). Kristin also hosts the podcast How I Made It Through which is premised on the immortal words of Robert Frost who said, “The best way out is always through”. Stories of making it through are offered as a survival guide — both as inspiration and encouragement while normalizing the mental health struggles so many of us navigate.Website:

Podcast: How I Made it Through

LI: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristintaylorconsulting/

Credits

Audio Engineer: Sam Wittig

Music: Where the Light Is by Lemon Music Studio

Photography & Design: Asha McLaughlin

To learn more about Laurin Wittig and her work: HeartLightJoy.com

Copyright 2024 Laurin Wittig

The Healing Power of Heart Energy with Kristin Taylor

And back to your point, register and recognize there is no actual threat. When I see her expression or I hear her words, I am not in danger.

Kristen Taylor, MA, is a life and executive coach. She brings over 20 years of counseling and coaching experience and blends, elements of neuroscience, nervous system and emotional regulation, mindfulness, and psychology into her approach, relying heavily on teaching self-compassion. And I know we're going to talk about self-compassion today.

She specializes in working with leaders who are experiencing unwelcome levels of stress, anxiety, and imposterism. There's another word that I want to talk about. Which is the experience of unwarranted self-doubt and feeling not good enough.

Welcome to Curiously Wise, Kristen. I'm looking so forward to this conversation.

Kristin: Oh my goodness. Thank you so much, Laurin. I'm really excited to be here and have a conversation with you.

Laurin: I'm not sure where to start because there's so many things that I want to talk about. But let's start with this idea of self-compassion because that's something I think we don't get taught in our culture and we all need badly.

Kristin: Exactly. Well, it's no accident. I mean, as I'm listening to you read my bio, everything that you said are things that I am working on. I chose these things because they're deeply personal to me, and they're places where I have needed to invest the most work and have had the greatest most profound areas of growth.

Laurin: Yeah. Don't you find it's easier? I know I find it's easier, to teach people something I have had to struggle to learn.

Kristin: 100% because the depth of my empathy and patience and care, right? Again, like the soul's contract part of it. Like I just feel so deeply connected to it.

Laurin: Mm-hmm.

Kristin: And see how meaningful it is. So yes, that's where my interests already lies.

Laurin: So describe what you mean by self-compassion for somebody who may not understand the term.

So, it's not just about boosting the ego. It's about truly coming from a place of unconditional love so that we can see our flaws. Know our flaws. Not excuse our flaws, but embrace them. Embrace who we are, so that it reminds me of like an internal locus of control, if people have heard that term, versus an external.

Laurin: Yeah. Yeah. That's, it's such a skill and it, it is. It's hard. Well, It was hard for me certainly to, to start giving myself some slack, you know? And like you said, not in letting me off the hook for responsibilities, but in going okay, I didn't do that very well, but I did the best I could in the moment.

Kristin: Yes.

Laurin: And I’m learning from it. And I often say to my clients that when we have pain, we have whatever we're working on. When we, when we can let go of the, of the pain of it, we get to keep the wisdom.

Kristin: Mm. I love that Laurin.

But when I first realized it was fear, it allowed me to go, oh hmm. So what's triggering that? What am I feeling fear about? Is it real?

Kristin: Yeah.

Laurin: And that's where I needed a lot of help. I've worked with a lot of healers over the years. Is it real fear? I mean, is it, is it a real thing to be afraid of, or is it that story that you keep telling yourself?

Kristin: Right. Is it, I hear you saying, is it an actual threat or is it, and this is the neuroscience, like is it a, a loop I have just been going through so repeatedly at different chapters of my life that just, my brain just goes there?

Laurin: Yep.

Kristin: and then the nervous system goes there.

Laurin: Right.

Kristin: Cascading of all those hormones and the experience of fear can really hijack us.

So, one thing, I mean, we have to learn to soothe the nervous system so that we can get to our prefrontal cortex and actually ask the question, is this real? Is it not?

Laurin: Yeah. And that, I know for me, that's always been… I, I was, had a hair trigger to fear.

Kristin: Yes, me too.

Laurin: years. I grew up in a family that was very dysfunctional and didn't feel safe to me. So, I was always jumping to fear because I was always afraid something was going to happen, even though usually it was just loud yelling.

and it was a lot. Yeah. Especially when you're a little kid. , you know.

Laurin: Yeah.

Kristin: It like conditions, how we respond to stress.

Laurin: Right, right. Yeah, absolutely. And I didn't figure that out until my fifties, you know, so it was a lot of life feeling very afraid of a lot of things. But one of the things I had to learn is that I didn't know I was afraid of things. I just reacted in my normal way.

Kristin: Hmm.

Laurin: It was normal, right.

Kristin: Yes.

Laurin: It was, it was, the environment I grew up in that was normal.

I didn't know that wasn't normal. And so I was lucky to marry a man who's very good at normal…

Kristin: Oh,

Laurin: to help me learn what that was. So,

Kristin: Yeah. Yeah. A different normal.

Laurin: Yeah. Yeah.

Kristin: Different normal. But did you know, that's so curious to me. Did you know that you were in distress?

Kristin: Mm-hmm.

Laurin: I knew that I cried at the drop of a hat.

Kristin: Mm-hmm.

Laurin: I knew that it was holding me back, because I couldn't say what I needed to say. So there was a part of me that knew, but I also thought it was something wrong with me.

Kristin: Well, that is exactly where I meet clients.

Laurin: Mm-hmm.

Kristin: And that’s the crux of so much, the work that I've been doing, that these beliefs, these stories, these narratives, this organizing principle of our sense of who we are,

Laurin: Yeah.

Kristin: it's associated with a sense of brokenness. Like if I'm feeling these feelings, if I'm uncomfortable, if I’m crying at the drop of a hat, or whatever it is that we say is different or distressing, that it becomes like a character assassination.

It becomes part of our identity, rather than symptoms we're experiencing.

Laurin: Yeah. Yeah. I was the crier.

Kristin: Exactly. Listen to that. I was the crier.

Kristin: so,

Laurin: I have that tool now, so,

Kristin: And even the language to say, you know, “sometimes I cry” versus “I am a crier.”

Laurin: Mm-hmm.

Kristin: Right.

Laurin: That's why I didn't even catch that at

Kristin: Yeah. Yeah. And what an important message, you know, that the tears are such an important message. The body is continually giving us messages.

Laurin: Yes. Yeah. And that's, that's a place where I really work with clients is what messages, why, why are you in pain? Why do you have this issue going on? What's the message of the body?

Kristin: huh? Yeah, it's so interesting. So this last year, and I'm almost finally healed, I got frozen shoulder.

Laurin: Hmm

Laurin: Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. . So can I just ask, because the healer in me is curious, was it the left arm or the right arm?

Kristin: Left.

Laurin: Okay.

Kristin: Tell me where you go with that. Because I certainly went lots of places with that.

Laurin: Where I go with that is in a, in a big picture way, the energy of the right side of the body is our moving out into the world. The doing, doing, doing. So it's a more masculine.

Kristin: Mm-hmm.

Laurin: Energy. The left side of the body is more taking in what we need, so more nurturing energy. It's a much more female energy. And so that's one of the first things I ask, is it left or right?

Because it's like,

Kristin: Mm-hmm.

Kristin: Yeah. Yeah. And what's so interesting about that and the work that I was doing around this as the body being a messenger in the frozen shoulder is I'm a caregiver for my mother who has Alzheimer's, and it's the beginning stages. And she and I have always had a challenging relationship, and I have been working with my own energy healer.

And it was like, you know, when you even think of the metaphor of the shoulder, the weight of the world on your shoulders. I was holding the weight of my mother on my shoulders and almost holding up a shield, to protect myself from what historically would've been difficult places between us. So whenever something comes up in the body, I love that too.

Laurin: I have walked that exact path. Yeah. My mother didn't have Alzheimer's, but she had dementia, so it was a, it was a. You know, you don't get as many physical changes with just regular dementia, but a narcissist with dementia. I seem to attract people who have, you know, who I have the experience to share and be empathetic.

Kristin: Oh my goodness.

Laurin: Yeah, I'm your girl if you need some, some, somebody to, you know, bounce things off of or just to say, yeah, honey, I know.

Kristin: God bless you. It's

Laurin: There's so many people out there. Yeah. Yeah. Super challenging. I learned so much and so much of my healing happened because of the, the, the, I don't want to call it combat, but sometimes it felt like that.

Kristin: Yeah,

Yeah. So it's

Kristin: It’s a really difficult balance to walk. Yeah. And I, you know, I'm in my fifties and you get 50 and older, and that's just the chapter you're in for many of us. And

Laurin: Yes. That's where I was too. Yeah. So, yeah. So I got to Girl.

Kristin: Oh, thank you. I'm not happy that that was something that you have gone through. But it is nice to know other people understand.

Laurin: Oh yeah. And so much of my own personal growth came out of that. So it was not something I would ever wish on anybody. I would not have chosen to do it on purpose. But I'm able to do what I do now because of the healing I had to work on for myself in that process. And we got to a beautiful place of peace just a few months before she passed.

Kristin: That just gave me chills

Laurin: Yeah. So yeah. So it's a, it's

Kristin: They're, they're still with me.

Kristin: No, no,

Laurin: going on, you know, and

Kristin: How that finally chiseled you become finely.

Laurin: Finely chiseled. Yeah. That I like that.

Kristin: Yeah, I said that one time to a client and he, he's in his sixties and he is like, are you referring to my wrinkles? Like

Laurin: Oh,

Kristin: No, no, no, no, no. I mean, the best way possible like that is the beauty of, of age, is that it wisdom. Should you truly slow down

Laurin: Right,

Kristin: take stock?

Yeah.

Laurin: Yeah. And you know, hindsight is 20-20. When you're in the midst of it, it's really hard to tell which way is up.

Laurin: Yeah.

Kristin: Yeah.

Laurin: You reached out for help. That's when I was really finding a lot of healers myself, so, yeah.

Kristin: Yeah. And it's so funny because it's all like, you know, the humility of this work, of being a coach and being supportive of others is, again, I, I started with this is the work I'm doing and have been doing for myself, and I love your mirroring of like, you know, that makes it so meaningful to offer it to others and so much when the timing is right because these words can come across as glib or insensitive.

Laurin: Yes. And that was one of the biggest lessons I learned because I, I had lived in the victim mode for pretty much my whole life. You know, I had alcoholic father, narcissistic mother, I, you know, I was neglected emotionally. I was just all of these things. And I finally had to step up and the dementia was, this is going to sound really weird, but the dementia was a gift to me.

Because it forced me to step back and go, she is no longer capable of changing into the mother I want her to be. Right. And at that point, I had to step back and go, all right, the only person that can change here and se, I'm getting teary here. The only person that can change here is me, which is a massive lesson.

The minute I stepped back and went, you know, she's an old lady with dementia and she did the best she could, and all I can do is just be here for her. She softened. She even told me she was proud of me, which I had never heard of from her before. So that was magical too, because it was a big lesson for me that I can change the way I look at things.

You know, I don't, I try not to look at myself as a victim anymore. I do exactly what you said. What's in this for me, and looking back at my journey with my mom, Jane Watkins, so much of that has ended up being for me, even though it was so difficult to go through, but I'm a better person. I'm more able to help other people.

Kristin: Yes. Yeah. Well, frozen shoulder, there's So, number one, I'm so happy for you that you arrived at that place, and that comes with such work. And the word that stands out to me as you tell that story is forgiveness when you are able to forgive her.

Laurin: Mm-hmm.

Kristin: for not being the mom you wanted her to be? I was just having a conversation with my husband this morning.

As happens, you know, my mother and I had a difficult interaction and my husband loves me so much and he comes to my defense when I recount it. And sometimes I choose not to recount it because I know he will come to my defense and then it looks like my mom's a bad guy. I'm the good one. There's, it's so much more gray

Laurin: Yeah.

Kristin: and understanding and seeing her.

Laurin: Yeah.

Kristin: Her behavior and her ability to self-reflect, which she's always struggled with, will just diminish further and further and further.

She is not growing up. She will be growing down and that right, which is so very challenging. And I feel like I am in the depth of the forgiveness. I think I've forgiven her and then she does something. I realize, Ooh, more work to be done, think that I've forgiven her. Oh, you know, and that's compassion because I can beat myself up because of the frustration or anger or wounding pain I feel.

And I, this is the judgment that comes in that makes self-compassion so difficult for me. And I know for others as well.

Laurin: yeah. Yeah.

Laurin: Oh, I love that.

Kristin: Isn't that so good? I'm like, is it ever like, I'm continually, like so many parts of me want to forgive, but that goes back to the body work. Where is it not integrated?

Laurin: Mm-hmm.

Kristin: Where is it a construct or a thought? But where am I holding it in my body?

Laurin: Right. Right. And that's, that's where, you know, my work really comes in. You're working with somebody, so I'm sure you're experiencing that because it's energetic.

Kristin: Energetic. We are all good energy. Yes.

Laurin: Yep. So,

Kristin: for me to think that and aspire towards it, but my body holds different

Laurin: that's right.

Kristin: relationship to it energetically. And being

Laurin: And we love to stuff, difficult things in our body and not deal with it. Mm-hmm.

Kristin: I’m pointing to my shoulder. Yes, we do. Yes, we,

Laurin: Yeah.

Laurin: All right. See, this is what I love. You never know where these conversations are going to go.

Kristin: I didn't think I'd be talking about my mom.

Laurin: I know, but how awesome is that? Because I know I get so many clients who come to me with mother issues. They don't even know that I have mother issues. But that just seems to be what I attract. And by talking about it here, then we can help other people know that it's okay. It's okay. You can have a hard time.

You're doing, you know, being the dutiful daughter, you're trying your best, she's your mother, you know. But it can be really hard, and that's okay to admit and to talk about and to work through and to learn from

Kristin: and to learn from

Laurin: Yeah.

Kristin: and to learn from.

Laurin: Yeah.

Laurin: Yes. Yeah. That was a big part of mine. It was like, okay, I gotta give this up. I gotta, I gotta forgive her for not being the person, but that means I gotta forgive myself for putting myself through all the victimhood too, you know? So yeah, it's, it go, it's both sides. You can't do one or the other. It's, it's both.

It's forgiving yourself and forgiving the other person. And that's, again, that's not something we're taught how to do in this culture.

Kristin: Yeah.

Laurin: We're taught to hold the grudge, you know what justice, you know, it's like,

Kristin: this and right or wrong, that there's always a judgment. And that's, to me, when I go back to a spiritual perspective, when I look at, and this is again, this is, and I feel like I can speak to this on your show in a way that I can't speak to other people's show, but I like, okay, so I believe we made some sort of agreement to come into this lifetime.

Laurin: Mm-hmm.

Kristin: Signed up for that. I signed up for that. And what difficult contracts we signed up for

Laurin: Mm-hmm.

Kristin: Very difficult contracts. And so to take it into this sort of flat dimensional black and white, who's the bad guy?

Who's the good guy? Who did someone wrong? Who did? It's like my ego wants to go there. My sense of identity as a victim wants to go there, but it is failing to when I stay there. It's perpetuating, both of our suffering.

Laurin: Mm-hmm.

Kristin: It's making us more sick.

Laurin: Mm.

Kristin: And to have that perspective helps me to show compassion for myself and for her.

Laurin: Mm-hmm.

And back to your point, register and recognize there is no actual threat. When I see her expression or I hear her words, I am not in danger.

Laurin: Mm-hmm.

Kristin: And how can I get out of my limbic system, get out of sympathetic activation, and go to the expansive part of my brain that helps support love?

Laurin: Right, right. It's actually a lot of getting out of your head and into your heart.

Kristin: Yes.

I mean, that's its primary purpose. But it's also, it's just a, it just a, is a feel good if you can kind. And I, I find myself putting my hand on my heart a lot when I need to calm myself or it, it's just, it's like reminding my body, it's okay. Heart's got this.

Kristin: Yes,

Laurin: We can, we can relax. The heart's not in trouble.

We are not in trouble. It's okay. You know, obviously there's times you need to learn to run, right?

Kristin: we're

Laurin: You don't want to do away with that system at all. But just when I'm, you know, and I did this a lot with my mom, when she would wind me up, oh, when I would allow myself to get wound up.

Kristin: Good, good catch.

Laurin: I would find myself in the car going home.

Kristin: Yes,

Laurin: to bring that to me. To help me receive that.

Kristin: yes, yes. I love that. So I do the same. I do the same. And it's funny, I say, so when I work with people, it's elements of neuroscience. It is, but it's also just energy. Neuroscience is just energy.

Laurin: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Kristin: fields in our body. And there is, there are data around simply the physiological impact of placing a hand on your heart?

Yeah, I would say heart chakra, or heart meridian, or heart space, but it does have a soothing effect. And then using, I will use my name because I've learned this helps. And just in terms of my own experience, it does help when I say Kristen or sweetheart talk to myself kindly just to register.

Laurin: Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm.

Kristin: I know this is hard.

Laurin: Mm-hmm.

Kristin: I'm breathing.

Laurin: Yeah. That breath is important.

Kristin: Mm-hmm.

Laurin: Yeah. That's lovely.

Kristin: all very humbling.

Laurin: It is, it is. It's also, it's, I find it very magical.

Kristin: Hmm.

Laurin: Again, in our culture, we're not taught to tune into our bodies. I mean, maybe if you're an athlete, but then it's really just the physical part. It's not the spiritual, emotional, thinking internally kind of part. But when you start to realize what your body is capable of, both in terms of holding things for us, but also in creating wellness and health and pain-freeness very quickly.

Once you get that story out of the way, and I know

Kristin: my God. I wanna interview you now,

Laurin: you what?

Laurin: Yeah, I ha I have several experiences with that story being a thing. And the one that I, I like to tell the most often is and I don't know that I've told it on my own podcast but when I was in my fifties mom's dementia was in the early stages still, and I had asthma. I didn't know I'd had asthma till I had a kid who had the asthma and went, oh, that's what my problem is.

And I had been taking more and more medication for that over the years, and it just wasn't working anymore. And a friend of mine put me in touch with a very talented, intuitive healer and who lived 300 miles away from me. So over the phone, I had an appointment with her, and in the course of an hour, she released the story of my asthma.

Kristin: Yes.

Laurin: I was protecting my heart. It's right here on top of my chest, , you know,

Kristin: Uhhuh.

Laurin: but I couldn't breathe.

Kristin: Yes.

Laurin: literally in one hour she found this story over the phone. I like to let tell the story cuz I worked at a distance a lot and it totally works, but I trust it because it happened to me. But over the phone, over an hour and, you know, she was working on things and she'd tell me to blow out or cough or something to help the energy move.

But she told me that my mother was sitting on my chest and the minute she said it, I burst into tears. There was a part of me that understood it,

Kristin: Yeah.

Laurin: and recognized it, and, and I have not had asthma since that day.

Kristin: Wow.

Kristin: that is such a powerful story that I will never forget. My hope is that one day, and it may not be in our lifetimes, that this is just more commonplace.

Laurin: Yeah.

Kristin: Because people have hit so many impasses medically.

Laurin: Mm-hmm.

Kristin: ...and experience. It can feel like gaslighting of going to doctor, after doctor, after doctor told no, there's nothing wrong with the blood work.

There's nothing going on here. Or you have this, take this medication when this source is infinitely different than the symptoms that are being addressed.

Laurin: right, right. They're not getting at the source, they're getting at the symptom.

Kristin: Exactly.

Kristin: Well, it's so fascinating. It's, and this is, I hope, what people really need to hear.

Laurin: Yeah. Yeah. I'm sure it is because that's what comes up on these. But by getting to the stories, I, I call it revealing or bringing into the light the stories because I find them in weird places. Women like to stick them in our hips a lot, but joints for some reason are a place where we, we, yeah, exactly. Like the shoulders, the elbows, those are all about flexibility and you know, and I will find a story and I won't even know what the story is.

I will say to my client, you know, I'm getting this weird lyric, you know, it's this lyric from a song that I haven't heard in 40 years. You know, the client knows exactly what it is. It triggers some memory, some story in her, usually her. I do have a few guys. And that story begins to bubble up and it's something that that person has stuffed and forgotten, for whatever reason.

But I find stories so often, and sometimes it's past life stories. Sometimes it's childhood stories from before conscious memory. You know, I've had a few of those for myself, come up with other healers. So there's just, there's stories all over our bodies, you know.

Kristin: There are stories. Yeah, and, and I'd want to add on because it is, it's these stories and beneath stories, really the ground of the story is belief.

Laurin: Mm-hmm.

Kristin: what are we believing to be true? And again, about who we are and what is possible in the world.

Laurin: Mm-hmm.

Kristin: Right?

Laurin: Yep.

Laurin: Great.

Kristin: Quiet one. I was the hidden one. Right.

Laurin: Send me to my room. I'll be happy.

Kristin: Exactly. Exactly, exactly. But what I'm also, I just had an experience with the gentleman that I see who is an intuitive healer.

And it's the stories, it's also the emotions.

Laurin: Mm-hmm.

Kristin: And so I have referenced now a couple of times in this interview that I am a Highly Sensitive Person, an H S P.

Laurin: Mm-hmm.

Kristin: Which if people don't know what that is, I encourage them. It's a term by Elaine Aaronson about how I am wired, about how highly sensitive people are wired.

It's not a pathology. It's not a diagnosis. It is just a temperament, so to

Laurin: right? Yeah.

For the first time I had, what to me was such a groundbreaking experience that I'd wished I'd known years ago, but he did a clearing.

And really he was able to identify, let's say we took, and we did, we took gluten and dairy, which I haven't been able to eat for six years, which is not to say I don't eat them sometimes, but I'm not supposed to be

Laurin: Right.

Laurin: Huh?

Kristin: Right. And so for me, for me it was Despair and I internalized like self-hatred and I was attempting to self-sooth, but my body, because we are energy, they just take this physical form of gluten, of wheat and then they couple it with this association of despair and self-hatred and it becomes like toxic.

Like that food is the enemy. And so moving the energy around that to open up that I can create a new relationship to gluten and you know, maybe have to be very judicious in how I eat it, but it just absolutely to me was mind blowing. To recognize back to the energy, the stories, the emotion, the belief, and how they even couple with food or any other things in our life.

Laurin: Yeah.

Laurin: I've, I've had a very similar situation, same healer I went back to about three years later, and in another hour's session, my allergies, which had gotten terrible, I'd ended up in the ICU after getting allergy shot tests. Not shots.

Kristin: Oh gosh,

Laurin: just tests. So just overnight. t was okay.

It was, you know, because I went into anaphylaxis, which I had never done. I have a son who has severe food allergies, so I knew what was happening to me. So I was telling them, okay, here's what's going on, you know,

Kristin: Oh my gosh.

Laurin: But, I could, I could not eat eggs. I would have a, what they, what is termed a cerebral allergic reaction to eggs.

And she, she, she asked me, what's your belief system? When I started, I, I didn't know what to answer, you know? I said, I literally said, well, I was raised the Episcopal church, but I don't really go to church anymore,

Kristin: Yeah.

Laurin: She said, okay, we'll, we'll just start working. And so partway through, she said, your belief system is that everything that you have to be afraid of, everything. And I, I started to go, no, I don't. Oh my God. You know, it was that revealing it. Just bring it up into the light. Let me look at it. Oh, you're right. You know, and she helped me get rid of it. She got rid of it. I helped, I assisted, she gave me some, some visualizations to use and, and I can, I eat eggs every day now.

Never have any situation with it. I can eat shrimp as much as I want to. I can eat scallops. None of it's a problem anymore.

Kristin: Oh God. I

There may be a lot of stuff that's got to be cleared out first, which I also had been doing, you know, continuing to work between those three that I think it was about three years between the, the asthma and the allergies.

Kristin: But what a, what a payoff. I mean, I'm willing to do that work. I'm absolutely willing to do that work.

Laurin: Right, right.

Kristin: Those are such, I don't have the right superlative or adjective because it just doesn't match how exciting those stories are.

Laurin: Uhhuh

Kristin: Right. Because to me, it's just the promised, promise of hope. And I think so many of us who live with autoimmunity, or blocked emotions that show up in our body it we, there's just hope is really, really hard.

Laurin: Especially when you're in pain. It's really hard to be hopeful when you're in pain.

Kristin: Exactly right.

Kristin: I've lived with that for years.

Laurin: Yes, yes.

Kristin: Uhhuh,

Laurin: And women particularly are, are sort of, you know, pushed to the side with that kind of thing.

Oh, it's all in your head, honey, you know?

Kristin: Or take this, which then will lead to these side, those side effects

Laurin: something else for the side effects. Yeah, yeah.

Kristin: Just madness. It's absolute madness.

Laurin: Yeah. It's, it's the wisdom of, you know, the the way things used to be where you used herbs, they're, they're milder and easier on your body. You did the work with a, with a shaman or with a, a medicine woman or, you know, too, to clear out whatever needed to be cleared out.

And you were more in touch with your body cuz we were living in a world where you had to be, you know?

Kristin: I am hoping we're returning to that, you

Laurin: Yeah,

Kristin: knowing that sacred wisdom.

Laurin: yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. All right. We could go on for a long time,

Kristin: we certainly could.

We're sharing a lot of the same stories. All right, so the first question is, who is or was the wisest person in your life?

Kristin: Okay. The person that came to mind her name was Gloria Simino, and she started what is called, was called Drawbridge. It was an arts program for homeless children in San Francisco where I was raised, and I met her in graduate school, and she just had this joyful, loving heart, particularly towards joy.

Laurin: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Kristin: a wacky, wild, wise woman.

Laurin: Mm-hmm. Those are the best.

Kristin: Yes. Yes.

Kristin: Hugging a tree.

Laurin: Oh, okay. I'm right there with you.

Kristin: yeah,

Laurin: We are kindred spirits.

Kristin: We are!

Laurin: What lights you up when you're feeling down?

Kristin: my dog.

Laurin: Oh yeah. What kind of dog do you have?

Kristin: He's a Cavalier King Charles spaniel.

Laurin: we have a lot of those in the neighborhood.

Kristin: Oh God. He's, he's deaf and, yeah, and just so, he snores really loudly. Anyway, don't get me started on my dog. I love my dog and he lights me up.

Laurin: Mine is in the chair right next to me here.

Kristin: I wanted to have him in the room, but he'd be snoring too loudly.

Laurin: yeah. Well, she's only two. She hasn't started snoring yet.

Kristin: What, what kind is she?

Laurin: She’s a mini schnauzer.

Kristin: Oh, sweet.

Laurin: Yeah. Zoe is her name.

Kristin: Zoe. Oh. Had a dog named Zoe.

Laurin: Yeah. She's brought a lot of light into the house during the pandemic, so, That was nice.

Kristin: I believe it.

Laurin: All right. The last one is, do you have a favorite mantra or affirmation?

Laurin: Yeah. That's beautiful. That's beautiful. I like that a lot.

Kristin: Yeah.

Laurin: All right. Can you tell our listeners where to find you?

Kristin: Yes, listeners, you can find me on the podcast -- it's available on Spotify, apple, all the major places -- How I Made it Through. And we're actually, I'll tell you as a sneak peek, it's, I was not brave enough in the beginning to do what I actually wanted to do. We've been through season one, which is about people going through challenging things that change them.

Laurin: Yes. Okay.

Kristin: Yes, yes, yes, yes. So people who um, do hypnosis, life between lives, and help us really understand the impermanence of our current Earthly incarnations to really identify how to live with greater heart and joy and purpose for why we are here.

Laurin: Beautiful. Beautiful. Oh, I love it. Yeah, that's, yes, we're definitely kindred spirits.

Kristin: We're kindred spirit. And in terms of my coaching business, you can go to KristinTaylorConsulting.com. And Kristin is with an I in, not an Ian, and I can be found on LinkedIn.

Kristin: Oh.

Because we were talking about things that are really heart-centered and, and, and heart painful. And I know that there's so many people out there that have a similar situation, whether it's a mom or a dad or just, you know, something dysfunctional that you're trying to, trying to rise above or make your way through.

I like, yeah, let's call it that. Make your way through because you really do have to go through, but remember, you get to keep the wisdom. You don't have to hang on to the beliefs and the pain. And I, I would encourage you if you are going through something like this to find somebody to help you, because it's hard to do on your own, and there's lots of us out there.

Kristin: Thank you for having me. This was lovely meeting you. Wonderful.

Laurin: I feel the same way. So thank you for being here. I look forward to being on your podcast.

Kristin: Good.

Laurin: Right. Bye all. Be curious.

Thank you so much for joining us today on curiously wise If you enjoyed this episode, Please be sure to subscribe so you don't miss future fabulous conversations. And if you had any ahas, please share them in a review on apple podcasts so we can continue to pay forward the unique wisdom we all have. If you want to know more about me or my intuitive energy healing practice Heartlight wellness.

I'm Laurin Wittig. Please join me again next week. For another episode of Curiously Wise. From my heart to yours, may your life be filled with love, light joy, and of course, curiosity.