123: Healing Worthiness: Christine Gutierrez on Addiction, Power & Pleasure as Medicine

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Christine Gutierrez (00:00):
If you are in a toxic abusive relationship,

(00:02):
what's gonna get you out isgonna be therapy and you're
gonna need supportive resourcesto get you out. If you are sick,
talking about when we weretalking about the situation with
my daughter's father, money. Allof these resources really ground
you into realizing money helpsyou. It can give so much
freedom.

Kate Northrup (00:17):
There's a topic that comes up constantly
whenever I speak with womenabout money and that is
worthiness. So today we haveChristine Gutierrez who is a
psychotherapist and a mentor anda facilitator. She's the author
of I am Diosa and her brand newbook is out, it is called I am

(00:41):
Worthy. Christine is an absolutetrailblazer in the field of
women's spiritualtransformation. Her ability to,
tell the story of how we canturn any experience and any

(01:02):
background into fodder for ourgreatest aliveness is absolutely
gorgeous and inspiring.
And in this conversation, wetalk about her journey of
becoming sober and her own moneyhealing journey, how we conflate

(01:23):
consumerism and toxic capitalismwith abundance and how we can
stop doing that, how we arerewarded for over functioning,
and also often rewarded for ourstruggle and how we can find the
sweet spot in between and somuch more. Christine's work has
been featured by Oprah Daily,The Kelly Clarkson Show, Latina

(01:46):
Magazine, Ebony, and more. And Ithink you are just going to fall
in love with her. Enjoy theepisode. Welcome to Plenty.
I'm your host Kate Northrup, andtogether we are going on a
journey to help you have anincredible relationship with
money, time, and energy, and tohave abundance on every possible

(02:10):
level. Every week, we're gonnadive in with experts and
insights to help you unlock alife of plenty. Let's go fill
our cups. Please note that theopinions and perspectives of the
guests on the Plenty podcast arenot necessarily reflective of
the opinions and perspectives ofKate Northrup or anyone who

(02:31):
works within the Kate Northrupbrand. Hi.
Welcome. Hi. Thank you for beinghere, Christine. This is so much
fun. You and I have beencircling each other for probably
fifteen years, if not more.
Wow. Like, in the samecommunities from, you know, baby
days in New York.

That's right. Baby days in New York.

So I was so happy to hear from you, and I was
like, yes. Let's do it. Let's doit. Your new book is out. Like,
I am worthy.
So my show is called Plenty, andI literally, the topic of all
money work is worthiness.Absolutely. Especially for
women, which is, you know, 98%of our community. And there was

(03:09):
something in your book that Ireally loved, and I wanna start
there. We'll see where we go.
Yeah. But it is how we conflatecapitalism with abundance and
how it creates cognitivedissonance. Can you talk about
how we our tendency to conflatecapitalism with abundance keeps

(03:32):
us limited and and and andkinked up in terms of our flow
of abundance of all kinds,financial and otherwise.

Yeah, so for me when you know really the
inspiration behind this book andall of the work that I do is
around how can we return back tothat state of knowing that we
are worthy inherently deeplyworthy beyond anything, right?
Like going back to that core ofI am worthy because. And what
happens is that so often we lookfor things on the outside to
make us feel worthy. And in thiscase, if it's money, right,

(04:02):
we're saying, Okay, well if Ihave x, y, and z, then I will
feel good enough, then I willfeel abundant. And the truth is
is that the overflow of knowingthat we are in our connection to
our deep inherent worth is thefirst place of our overflow, is
the first place of ourworthiness.
From that place then we can havethose outside things flow. So if

(04:24):
it's you know I desire to havemore money that can be a great
goal but if you're not feelingthat first then we are
misunderstanding what trueabundance is, right? True
abundance is not having thatonly. And I think a lot of times
people get stuck on that and endup feeling really empty and
lonely because their target isin

the wrong place. What's the piece around problems
that you see with ourcapitalistic culture and how
they get us confused around ourrelationship with money?

Yeah. I mean, I think that in our
society

Just the way we do capitalism, I guess, would
say.

Yeah. Because we do live in this
world. Right? Right. And we, youknow, we have to pay the bills.
We can't pay, you know, thebills with, confetti, right?
Like we have to pay it withmoney, we have

to do what we have

to do. But and also, right, like there's
always like this simultaneousworld going on, this spiritual
world and the mundane world. Ithink that we live in a culture
that's very obsessed with lifeforce energy, is very scared of
death energy, that's very scaredof cycles, that is terrified of
things ending. And so we live inthis culture which is give me

(05:32):
more, more, more, let's go outand get it and we stay stuck
there. And when that happens, weare not really remembering our
true purpose here as spiritualbeings on this earth.
So I mean, we see it everywhere.We see it in magazines. We see
it in work. We see it in justthe way we talk about money. You

(05:52):
know I'm very aware even with mydaughter of like talking to her
about like this energy ofabundance, how we can feel
grateful for things, how we canfeel expansive and yes we use
this tool called money but it'smake believe, right?
And we assign the value to itand in this world we're not
taught that. We're not taughtthat it's this make believe
thing that we you know givepower to. I actually remember

(06:15):
being a little girl and tellingmy mom and taking a piece of
loose leaf paper and being like,mom, isn't it weird that people
think that money is real? Andshe was like, money is real. I'm
like, no, but mom, hear me out.
I'm like, it's a loose leafpiece of paper and someone said
it's a dollar. And now we'reobsessed and children are dying

(06:35):
because of it. I was I felt likeI had discovered something like
I was like, woah. People aredying over a make believe
concept? And I was mind blown.
And I was I remember being inlike second grade and ripping
the piece of paper and beinglike, it's make believe. And so
that has always stayed with me,this concept of, like, being in
both worlds knowing thatsomething is make believe, but

(06:56):
yet it's not because we'veassigned value to it. And so how
do we navigate those two worldsand and come back to our true
state. I do believe that we havefar more people believing in the
world of the mundane and less inthe world of spirit which is why
I do encourage people to go backto we've assigned the value to
it. How can we rescript what itmeans to us in this world?

Yeah. And for you, what was one of the most
pivotal moments where yourealized you were operating in
the paradigm of unworthiness?And how did you begin to repair
that or remember?

I'm like girl, my whole life

story, but which one do you want to tell today?

Let's see. You know, I grew up in Bushwick
in Brooklyn to a family with alot of love and also a lot of
abuse. And for me that was thefirst moment where I realized
this is not right. Like I knew,I was very aware, I knew
something was not right. I knewthat the way that they were
acting was from a place ofwoundedness.
I knew that that's not how youare supposed to treat a child. I

(08:02):
knew that they were placingtheir fears onto me, their
burdens onto me, theiraddictions onto me and so that
was the first core wound of thatI realized and then playing out
that wound, right. So for methat looked like drinking and
respecting myself when I drank,you know, going to places where
I shouldn't have been going,staying out far too late,
hanging out with the worstpeople. Like I could have closed

(08:24):
my eyes and at the time like, myper I could walk into a club. I
would close my eyes and be like,who is the biggest, baddest drug
dealer here?
Where are you? You are for me. Icould, like, smell him. I was
like, perfect. Like, I knew theworst one was gonna be the one
that I wanted, you know, andthat was from my wound.

(08:44):
It was like the bloody woundgoing out there and choosing for
me. And when I started torealize over and over again
because I had this other part ofme, this spiritual part of me,
this very very connected psychicintuitive part of me, this
loving part of me, this part ofme that wanted to help people,
but I was battling those twoworlds for a long time And I was

(09:06):
in this war, and I rememberseeing myself, like, drinking
and acting out sexually andfeeling like I don't love
myself. And if I see thisversion of myself, which I did
see that I want to walk into,what will I choose? Will I
choose to keep replaying thispattern or will I choose
something different? UltimatelyI chose something different,
right?
Like I went on the path ofhealing, got sober, but that

(09:29):
role play of that wound with notloving myself as it relates to
acting out and addiction was soit was one of my biggest
teachers by far.

How did you get sober? So many different paths.

Me, my and past I and I like to tell people
there's so many different pathsto get sober. If you're
listening to this and you wannachange your relationship to
alcohol, let it be your ownpath. I am not a black and white
person. I don't think that thereis one way to do things. This is
just my story.
I remember writing down in thenotes section of my phone, God
bless the notes section of myphone. I have so much shit

(10:05):
there. Like everything. And I'mlike It's

the archive. Right? It's the archive of

like the deepest parts of my spirit. And
I'm like I wrote down, you know,I think that I have a problem.
Every time I drink, I do thingsthat I regret, and I don't love
myself when I do those things.Mhmm. And I remember starting
by, you know, maybe I won'tdrink when I'm sad.
Maybe I will just drink withfriends, and maybe I'll just
drink wine. And I started to doall those, like, little rules

(10:33):
and it didn't work. Ultimately,when I had one, I would have
more. And so I wasn't like thistypical drinker that was
drinking every day, and I wouldhave a moment and I wouldn't be
able to stop. And so this ideaof this alcoholic didn't fit
what I was doing.
And so I was like, well, maybeit's not that bad. Right? We
have a culture that also isenables bad behavior and says
it's totally fine. This isnormal. It's fine.

(10:54):
You're just living in the world.

Well, also because so much of the world is
funded by big alcohol. Mean,we're back to capitalism.

Absolutely. Or the

toxic capitalism.

Absolutely. Right. And so I then walked into
a room of AA. I raised my hand.It was this Upper East Side, you
know, late meeting.
And I raised my hand and I said,hi. My name is Christina. I'm an
alcoholic. I didn't reallyresonate with the language, but
I knew it was a willingness toto say that something's wrong.
And in any moment in our livesthere is a choice and there is a

(11:25):
humbleness that needs to befound which says this is the way
that I am living.
I don't like it. Something'swrong. And can I surrender? Can
I let this go and can I beguided by something bigger than
me? And when I said that, day byday things started shifting and
I started doing the work and Istarted, you know, realizing
that there was another way tolive.
And so for me personally, it'snot like I feel like I have to

(11:46):
go to meetings to stay sober,Like, my sobriety is deeply
rooted in myself. However, Iwill say that those meetings and
all of that program helped me.It was a moment of saying I want
another life. Mhmm. Like, will Ichoose a life based on my
woundedness or will I choose alife based on my worthiness?
Worthiness is always going tolead you to better, brighter,
shinier doors. Totally.

Always. My husband was a problematic
drinker before I met him, and healso had, you know, his own path
where he just one day, hedecided to stop and eat it. Yep.
And so I love that you're justreally inviting. There can be
you know, our culture lovesdogma.
Right? In a in traumatizedculture and a traumatizing

(12:29):
culture, we really go to blackand white thinking. And we were
talking before we reported aboutthe beauty of nuance and really
being able to see all the shadesof gray.

That's right.

So I I I love that invitation to just see,
like, most people only knowabout recovery through AA, and I
love that it was part of yourjourney, not the whole journey.
That's right. There's so manydifferent ways to go.

Yeah. As long as you are honoring what
your spirit is telling you tolook at. Uh-huh. You know, if
your spirit is telling you tolook at something, heed the
warning Yeah.

In any area of our life. So you work at you
know, I know with all sorts ofpeople, but often they're really
high functioning. Right? Youwouldn't look at them and be
like, wow. She really has aproblem from the outside.
Yep. And so what are some of thesigns that you know, because a
woman who is listening to thisshow and probably coming into

(13:27):
your spaces is probably not on adaily basis thinking to herself,
I don't feel worthy. Like,that's probably not actually the
language. What are some of themore sneaky ways that show up in
high functioning or as our dearfriend Terry Cole says, over
functioning women that actuallyat the root are a lack of worth,

(13:50):
but they might not know that.And maybe they've normalized and
it's just like, well, no.
This is just how life is.

Absolutely. Yeah. In the book, I talk about
certain masks that we put on,and I think that, you know, one
of them is people pleasing.Right? Like, this mask of being
a people pleaser and feelinglike, you know, if I do more,
then I'll be worthy.
If I say yes more, then I'll beworthy. Especially in as a
mother, as we take on theseroles where we are giving so

(14:19):
much of ourselves and realizing,like, how is this actually
serving me? Am I over giving atthe cost of myself and my
spirit? One of my favoriteauthors and one of my dear
mentors, doctor Clarissa PinkolaEstes, I had the honor of
studying with her in person.

Wow.

And, you know, we talk about there's this
beautiful story in women who runwith the wolves about this seal
woman, and she has to returnunderneath the water to the
underworld in order to get herpelt back. And her pelt
represents her soul skin and itwas taken from her. She was in
this partnership for seven yearsand she must return to the
underworld to go get her peltback that was stolen so she can

(14:59):
put back on her soul skin. Andthis is what we call soul theft
and there are many moments inour life where we have soul
theft where we will over giveand it's like you're giving away
pieces of your soul, your peltis gone, or you are overworking,
over functioning and not givingyourself permission to really
feel your feelings, a piece ofyour soul leaves your body.

(15:23):
Being the the kind of personthat is only in the role of like
this like virgin mother but nothonoring your whore, you know,
wild sexual primal self.
Another way where you aredenying your worthiness, right,
to be this com completemultidimensional woman. There's
so many ways that we put on thismask whether it's people
pleasing, over giving, know,playing this role of good girl.

(15:46):
These are just some of the masksthat we play but in all those
ways when we put on masks wegive up a piece of our soul self
and you feel more brittle, youfeel more dry, you feel less
plump, you feel less alive, andyou feel spiritually dead. And a
lot of times women are notnaming it as such because
they're like, am working hardand I am doing this and I am

(16:09):
such a great mom and I'm such agreat and it's like, but are you
alive?

Mhmm.

So aliveness to me is a good
prompt. Oftentimes I will asklike how alive do you feel? You
know, what are the masks andwhat are the roles that you're
playing? And when those goodgirl qualities come up, when the
overgiving, when the peoplepleaser comes up, how can we
notice? Because those are theways that it comes up more
easily.
Maybe they're not, like,actively saying, I don't feel
worthy. Right. But they don'tfeel worthy of the spaciousness

(16:37):
to really not overgive and seehow will I be met. Yeah. You
know, and I felt that way somany times.
I I felt like this hyperindependence where it was like,
you know, I grew up in Bushwick,you know, kind of like, you
know, a little bit like thugwhere it was like, I got this. I
can do this by myself. I'm gonnarise. I'm gonna do this. And
then you realize you're like,well, no.

(16:57):
I'm not self made. I need to becommunity made. No. I do need
help. So a lot of times I see itmore in those ways, this hyper
strong woman Yes.
That has lost the ability to benurtured.

Yeah. And what about the split? Because I know
part of your story is, you know,you were getting a master's to
be a therapist. You were, like,a really incredible student
student, incredibly smart, sortof type a. And then also, there
was this other part that whichwe all have

Mhmm.

At all times, but it was, like, kind of like this
split. Do you see that I mean,how did that show up for
yourself, and then how do yousee that show up for women who
are really good at looking likethey have it together and really
good at playing the game?

Yeah. I mean, well, the split is so
important. I think that as wemature and as we are stepping
more into the mature feminine,we really wanna be the most
authentically ourselves as wecan be, and that takes a lot of
being like a spiritualarchaeologist and looking up
like the bones of our past andreally looking at what is me
today in this season because whoI was last month might be dead.

(18:09):
Am I giving permission to dieand be reborn? Right?
And so for me that looked likesimilarly what I shared earlier
of having this double life whereI was doing the masters and
doing the thing and that I dobelieve is part of that spirit
led life where you know yoursoul is like this is who you are
meant to be, this is your worthywoman self. And then you have

(18:31):
the shadow side that's like thewounded one, the one that's like
am I deserving of those things?And that's choosing choices,
thoughts, and behaviors that aremore aligned to pain than to the
higher self. Right? For me, thatlooked like many things
drinking, acting out sexually,not loving myself, not choosing
myself, codependency, and stillsimultaneously doing an amazing

(18:53):
job in the world.
Because it wasn't likeeverything was a shit show. It
was not. And that is the problemis that women get caught up on,
well, things are not that bad.They're this is not that bad.
What?
Like, I have a relationship.It's not that bad. And that line
for me is like the killer. It'snot that bad. I don't want to
just have this not that bad.
I want incredible. I wantradiant. I want solo line. I

(19:16):
didn't go through so much shitin my life to live a mediocre
life. I did not.
Right? Like, it's like if you'vegone through shit in your life,
you better work your buns off inorder to be able to be like, you
know what? Like, I deserve thebest. Now if you have a split
life, whether that means you areliving you're you're working a
nine to five and you know thatyou're meant to do some weird
spiritual job. It doesn't haveto just be you know maybe you're

(19:38):
hiding behind a corporate joband you're not letting your like
witchy weird side out, right?
Maybe you are you know tired ofasking for less money and you
want to own your worth and yourwealth more. Whatever it is
where you are playing small,that is an invitation for us to
look at who do I really want tobe and this is where that worthy

(19:58):
woman self comes in or thatworthy self where it's like how
can I envision this part of meand what does she move like,
what does she smell like, whatdoes she act like, what is the
swag that she carries, what isthe values that she carries, how
does she believe, what does shethink, how does she move in the
world, how does she respectherself and love herself, and
what does she want? And then thebiggest part of it is how do I

(20:19):
walk? I I call it like walking.In Puerto Rico, we have a
machete, but it can be a swordwhere you're like chopping
through the shit and being like,is bullshit here?

Yeah. What are the fears?

What are the lies? What are the
identities and the parts of methat no longer need to exist for
this next version of me in thisseason to rise? Because if you
do not let things die, you willstay stagnant. And the new life
cannot be born with the old lifestill holding on, and that's
what people try to do. They'relike, no.
No. No. Let me go with my deadskin from the old life into the

(20:51):
new life, please. You know?Yeah.
But you can't. You have to letit all go. And in that process,

there are times when we won't have it together.
And you said something soprofound in your book, and I'm
not gonna quote it perfectly,but it was basically like
society only celebrates us forthriving. Yep. I was like,

oh, man. Like, it

was so profound. Mhmm. You know? And so in and
and so that can keep up thefacade of like Absolutely. I'm
gonna stay in the split becausefor a time when we are letting
things die, shit falls apart.

That's right. And you

can't keep it all together. And like, then we're
not actually fine.

Yep.

Yeah. For a while. Yeah. And it's hard to
show up at like the preschooldrop off or That's right. Not
that you have to like lay outyour baggage at preschool drop
off, but I'm just saying.
Right? It's Joseph, wherever, atthe potluck or the family dinner
or your college, you know,reunion or graduation. Nope. I
mean, maybe, but, like right?Yeah.
Like or reunion, whatever, like,all the places. Because to just

(21:59):
say, like, things are actuallyreally hard right now, you know,
I was talking to a woman theother day who has a six week old
and a, you know, toddler with anear infection and and and her
husband just had a surgery, andI just was so well having a
brand new baby, having a toddlerwho was having a really hard
time, and then having a husbandwho was really sick. And I was

(22:21):
talking to this woman, and I waslike, I am talking to me seven
years ago. And she is rockingit, and I do not know her well
enough to know what how she'sactually doing. I was actually
drowning, but I had no idea.

Yeah. We have that in common because we
you didn't know fully, but apart of your body did. Yeah. The
part of you that probably didn'tfully accept it was the over
functioning part. Totally.
The part that was like, you knowwhat? This is just life. I have
to just carry on. I have to bestrong. I have to be superwoman
because in some ways you had to.
Right? Like you had to for yourchild, right? And I similarly

(22:57):
had a sick husband at the timewho was unwell and postpartum
and I know that pain, and Iremember actually speaking to
another one of our good friendsNisha and we talked about like
giving yourself permission toask for help, giving yourself
permission to break down, andgoing back to what I said in the
book about we live in a culturethat celebrates only. Only

(23:19):
thriving. Only thriving.
So what does it look like tothrive from a soul led way? So
for me thriving is being inalignment with your soul. For me
thriving is listening to yoursoul when it says let something
die. When it says let yourselfbe in the breakdown. That is
true thriving.
We've been lied to. Our societyhas lied to us, spiritual

(23:41):
concepts have lied to us. Youare not thriving when you are
just listening to thecelebration moments or when
you're just that's not it. Truethriving on a spiritual level is
being in that threshold betweenthe old life and the new life
and letting it be, letting itbreak down, letting the old
skins die, letting yourself beuncomfortable, letting it be

(24:02):
messy. And what would happen,right, if you were given a
medal?
Every single time that you weregoing through a threshold from
the old life to the new life, wegot like the angels came down
from the heavens, they werelike, congratulations, you
figured it out. Here's a medal.You get a medal for being in the
messy in between. We would feelproud. We would feel like holy

(24:23):
shit, I'm doing this shit right.
But we've been taught thatthat's not doing things right as
a good human. We are not doingthings right, and so we put on
the facade and we wear the oldskin longer and you go to the
preschool drop off and youpretend everything's okay and
your husband's sick and you'reholding it down and you're
paying for bills and you'relike, no, no, no, everything's
fine, when you're literallydying. But if we live in a
culture, which is what my goalis, with this book, with I Am

(24:46):
Worthy, with all of the workthat I do, is to say, how can I
be more honest with that part ofus? How can I say like actually
you know what, I'm not okay, I'min the messy in between, I'm
letting things break down and Iknow that I need support so that
my new life can be born? Yeah.
Then the worthy self can rise.We cannot be in our soul led

(25:09):
place on a bed of lies, we justcan't. So I think that it's a
really big thing for us aswomen, especially for women that
are used to holding it down somuch and holding so much because
women we hold so much, we holdso much. We need to let spirit
hold us more. We need to let goand there's going be different
seasons.
Some are going to be harder thanothers. Some are going to have

(25:30):
messier in betweens. Some aregoing to have more blissful in
betweens. Like I'm in a blissfulin between, like I can feel that
there's more honey in thisseason, but there's some where
you just have the machete andthe sword and there's just
blood. Those are the ones thatpeople are like damn I don't
want to be here.

So something else came up. I just did a really big
enrollment period, was to, youknow, thousands and thousands of
people that I'd never metbefore. And a theme came up, and
I want to know what you thinkabout it as, like, as a
therapist, you know, with allthe people that you work with.

(26:06):
And that was, to some degree, onthe one hand, our culture only
celebrates thriving. However,many of us this is actually not
my example.
This has not been true for me inmy life. In my life, I've gotten
love through achievement

Yes.

And thriving and having it together. Yes. So
that's been my pattern that issometimes toxic. I see for some
folks, they actually have onlyreceived love and connection by
always being on the strugglebus, And so their patterning is
like, I'm always getting sick, Ican never quite lift myself up,

(26:49):
and because all my communityconnection, love, and tending
patterning was around struggle,so I'm stuck there. What do you

think about that? So important. For me, I
work predominantly with Latinawomen, women of color, but all
women. And I've seen thispattern happen and what I often
say is it's important to go tothe depths and to the shadows
but you don't want to livethere. And what happens is when
you overstay your placeanywhere, it's bad.

(27:21):
Yeah. And so what happens is isthat we are not in cyclical
rhythm with life death lifedeath rebirth patterns that we
overstay in many places. Sowhether you overstay in the
obsession with success or youoverstay in the obsession with
the wound work and the pattern.So this is very important is to
notice where are you on thisspectrum? Are you the kind of

(27:42):
person that feels like you areonly getting your worthiness
through success or validation orare you the kind of person
that's only getting it throughpain?
You deserve pleasure, youdeserve rest, we talk about this
in this book too, you deserverest, you deserve pleasure and a
lot of times sometimes it's eveneasier especially for people
like where I've grown up whereor people that have gone through

(28:02):
profound traumas which is verysimilar is to say Oh, let's keep
going here. It's like life ismeant to be fun. You're meant to
have pleasure, you're meant tohave fun, you're meant to laugh,
you're meant to enjoy. What'sthe point of doing this work if
you're just staying in the muck?So absolutely very important and
noticing I call it likeawakening that primal in you

(28:26):
whether it's your wolf sense orwhatever you want to call it,
smelling in your life where haveI overstayed?
Where have I overstayed? Have Ibeen doing this work for too
much in the shadows? Can I letmyself have more fun? Can I let
myself have more pleasure? Or ifit's about earning more and
believing that it's like, no,you get to have that experience

(28:46):
too.
So I remind my clients often andI've seen this so much with my
community of being like it'syour time to thrive. This is not
the way. There's not just oneway. You don't have to just keep
doing the hard work. You get tothrive.
And recently I had aconversation with one of my good
friends about this point betweenthe old life and the new life
when you're walking toward thislike highest version of your

(29:09):
self worthy woman where it'slike there's a new brand of fear
which is like yes you get tohave fear but it's the kind of
fear that dances in more closeunion with pleasure. And so it's
like yeah I'm scared but I'vealready gone through this
initiation so many times beforethat I can dance with pleasure
more. You don't have to grievefor as long. Sometimes you can

(29:29):
go through changes and it can beeasier. You get to make changes
be easier.
So I think people are alsoobsessed with hardship in some
ways, giving the invitation topeople to not be obsessed with
hardship. Like if you've gonethrough enough initiations in
your life, use them girl, likethat's the whole point. If
you've walked through the valleyof the shadow of death and
you've risen with gems, usethose gems as fuel so when you

(29:50):
go through the next time of achallenging situation, you're
like, oh this can be easy breezybecause I got me, spirit got me,
I'm okay. This is where I invitepeople to have the honey. So I
mentioned that image of themachete or the sword and my
perfect visual for how I work islike honey, like you get to have
honey too and you get to movethrough these seasons with more
grace and grit.

(30:11):
So absolutely to more pleasure.

It's so funny that you use the the word honey
because I don't know if you havestudied at all shamanic
astrology, but in shamanicastrology because you are a
Scorpio Yes. The Scorpio seeksthe honey. Mhmm. Did you know,
like, you know that framework?Yes.
So I just love that. I'm like,this is so spot on for you, so
keep going

with this.

Yes. Okay. So you were raised Catholic.

Yes.

And I'm curious if you can talk about any
connection you see betweenreligious programming around
suffering and our feeling thatwe are not worthy of pleasure.

Yeah, the removal of pleasure and the
obsession with sin has reallydone a number on us and it has
made us really talk about blackand white, right? You're either
the version of the whore. I havevivid memories of just this deep
process of thought that myfamily carried as like you know

(31:12):
these Puerto Rican Catholicpeople of oh this is you are
bad. If you do this and you'reactually chokers and all these
kinds of things where like youknow this is you're a slut or
you're a good girl. And in theBible you have this obsession
with renouncing the body,renouncing pleasure and pain and

(31:32):
suffering and suffering is theway to enlightenment.
I also study Tantra surprisesurprise Scorpio, right? And
there is a pleasure as a pathwayto enlightenment too. There are
many different paths toawakening. So with religion we
are dealing with a lot of deep,deep programming that is taking

(31:54):
us away from the body andespecially as women like we need
to be connected to the love ofour body, we need to be
connected to that the goddesslives within our body, that we
deserve to have pleasure. But ifwe're told that we're bad for
that we will take that theme outof religion and put it
everywhere so I will suffermore.
If I stay and suffer more inthis marriage then I'm good. I

(32:15):
will receive God that way. Iwill be worthy then. If I suffer
in my job and not ask for moremoney then I'm a good girl. I've
sacrificed for my sins.
And we need to rewrite that tobeing like how can I be in
devotion to my soul? And I'm allabout bringing us back into the
body. For me one of the deepestways that I've remembered my

(32:36):
worthiness has been thereintegration of the feminine
back into the religion orspirituality right because I
love spirituality, I loved allthe ways of connecting with God
but I knew that there was thefeminine that was missing. And
this is a very wounded versionof the masculine in our
Catholicism. It's the woundedmasculine that is speaking and

(32:58):
we've removed so many texts thatwould have provided us with
peace like the Gospel of Maryand so many different types of
spiritually relevant, realresearch texts that remind women
that there is no sin.
You know in the Gospel of Maryit literally says there is no

(33:19):
sin. There's no sin. What wouldhappen if little girls read
that? But they were scared andso they tried to control. And so
I think that a lot of this isundoing the brainwashing, I call
it like undoing the lies ofunworthiness and that comes from
our deep programming andreligion is one of the deepest
ways that we program.
So asking ourselves thesequestions, what were the beliefs

(33:42):
that I was raised with? How didthat impact me? How did that
impact my belief, my worthinessin my body to receive pleasure?
How does this impact my beliefof my deservingness to have to
suffer more in order to havesomething? Is there another way?
My invitation is to invite youto say yes there is another way,
there has to be another way, amuch more healthier way, much
more grounded way, and anintegrated version of the

(34:04):
feminine and the masculinetogether.

I'm so curious, what do people come after you
for the most? Like what do youdo or say that people take issue
with? I don't know why thatquestion occurred

to me, but I'm Just in general, I'm so
curious. I think that

And it may be that you don't actually attract
much of that. Like, don't get alot of

I don't. I will say. I don't

Quote unquote haters or people taking issues.
It's just not like part of myexperience.

But They don't really

I know totally. They're like, I'm gonna fuck
with her. Yeah. I'm not

gonna the Bushwick, they're like, this
bitch doesn't seem like someoneto say something much to.

I'm not gonna get up in her DMs.

Yeah. So But I'm curious. Honestly,
genuinely, I'm gonna say in thefifteen years

Yeah.

Probably, like, three comments on a post.
Like literally. Like none. Likevery low. And the the thing that
would happen would be nottalking about issues enough, you
know, in the world.

Yes. I'm familiar with that one.

And that is People

something love to tell us what to do I with our

do talk about issues.

What you do? I My god, if you've read your books,
like Yeah. I Hello.

Yeah. I'm like, hello. Welcome to my life.
And I live it. But the thing isis that I'm very big on living
it and I am the kind of personthat I am a little bit more
private about donations andabout things that I do in the
world and there are moments andthere are moments and what I
also have realized is that andthis has grounded me a lot, I
have a family.
You know, when my daughter'sfather got sick and when I was

(35:35):
breastfeeding, I breastfed tillthree and a half years old, so I
was that mom. You know?Breastfeeding, writing

a So many calories.

You know what mean? Like, all the things.
Right? And I was like, you can'ttell me shit.

Totally.

Like, literally, like, I was just
like, I am overcapacity. Youdon't get to tell me shit
because you don't know how hardmy life is right now, and
everyone has a hard life intheir own way, and we must have
deep compassion for people. Weare not equipped, literally
energetically equipped. Likeimagine someone, like not in my
case, but imagine someone thatis being pressured and like

(36:09):
you're telling someone to dosomething and they're struggling
with mental health illness athome, To do that to someone is
so cruel And so my view on it isthat I do believe we have a
responsibility to be the voiceof the mother as I call it la
madre, right? I am a mother forall children.
I believe in equality for allpeople. I want peace on earth. I
am that person. That is why I dothis work. I want peace on

(36:30):
earth.
I want love. I want compassion.I believe that doing this work
can save the planet. I am thatperson. That is not something I
can take away.
That idealistic part of mewhether it happens now or twenty
years from now, that is the goalof why I do what I do. I want
more love and I want more peaceperiod. And that means that you
have to speak up for things.Also I deeply believe that
everyone has a unique song tosing in the world and everyone

(36:52):
has a unique medicine to give.If I stay focused on my dharma
and my purpose I'm bringing thelight to the world that God
would have me bring to theworld.
I'm being used as a vessel. Ibelieve that the people that are
fighting the good fight andfighting in a way that's more
aggressive, they are doing thegood work. And I've been that
person too, but there areseasons and there are seasons.
So that would be the onlymoment, and I always usually

(37:13):
respond, but if they'redisrespectful, I block. I'm
like, it's my page, my house.
Joe Manduaki. I tell you who'sin charge here.

So

that's about it, and try to lead with
love, and I try to remind peoplelike, hey listen, I do. You
don't know what I do behindclosed doors. Thank you.

Thank you.

I appreciate you. I deeply care
about all issues, and I careabout all people's perspectives,
and I try my best to be rootedin the heart in what I do. And
I've had moments where I'vemessed up, and I've had moments
where I've lived into the hypeof separation culture, and I've
had moments where you know and Ispeak on big things, you know
that I speak I on things all thetalk about like I'm like oh my
god this white spiritual culturewe need more diversity. But I'm

(37:53):
nuanced, I love my girls as longas you all people if you're
respectful to me I like you. Andso I think it's hard for people
to hold the nuance that I carrybecause they're like oh but
you're saying like you need morediversity, how can you be cool
with these white girls inspirituality?
I'm like because they're peopleand they're nice to me. It's not
or, it's and. Inviting in deeperconversation and and. So this

(38:16):
has been my area and I love toremind people to listen to their
spirit. The person that's incharge of them is God, ain't
nobody else can tell me what todo.

It's so true.

Yeah. And I live to learn, so I like to
learn and do things and alwaysgrow, but not from a place of
pressure, from a place of truesovereignty or my own spirit of
what is right and wrong. Andit's worked out. People get it.
If you're listening to thispodcast, you know.

Yeah. Like, that's a pretty pretty powerful
protective force field. Yeah.And because it it is an energy
that emanates and would wouldnot make you a match for a lot
of bullshit.

Yeah. And I'm I'm a I'm a true mama bear.
Yeah. I am. And I love toprotect people in my spaces, and
so I'm very protective of theenergy that I bring into my
space, especially because I dosuch deep trauma work and
holding people with deephistories.
Really like to keep the energyclean.

A 100%. Yeah. A 100%. I'm super curious, and
feel free, we can edit this out.But what was going on with your
husband?

He had a weird neurological response to
I'm

so sorry,

that's really Stop walking, stop
talking, breastfeeding,hospitals. And he still gets
waves of weird whatever. Andthat was actually a moment that
I realized, like, don't talkshit because you don't know
nothing. You don't know nothing.Vaccines and no vaccine.
Don't talk shit about nothing.

A 100%.

Know nothing about nothing. No.
Blacks and mad nothing.Literally, don't know anything
about anything because the worldis so much more cruel than you
think. And I think it invited inbecause I am grounded.
I'm like spiritual, but I'm verygrounded. I was like, oh my god.
You don't know anything. Peopleare so manipulative and cruel
that you just don't know. Sothat's what happened to him.
He's still yeah. And he's muchbetter now. He can walk and

(39:49):
talk.

So glad to hear that.

Yeah. We'll cut that out. We'll cut it out.

But yeah. I just was curious. Yeah. Because we
walked through a I really hardknow,

and the health thing is like I'm glad we
mentioned that here We'll bendover there because it'll bring
you to your knees.

I'd love to hear a little bit more about your
relationship with money and theways in which if you had any
particular moments where youcame up against that edge of
expansion financially foryourself and how your own work
with your worthiness helped youand in what ways.

This is such a big part of my work too
because in addition to the deeplike spiritual healing and
trauma work and rites of passagework that I do, a lot of it is
also Latina spiritual women,women of color that are
therapists, nurses, or peoplethat are wanting to start their
businesses. And for me, I dohold the code of this like I am

(40:42):
a Latina that believes that mygood work is deserving of being
compensated. And that was reallyhard to carry at first because I
felt guilty. I was like you knowI'm a sellout or like you know I
can't be this girl fromBushwick. This identity had me
trapped and I had to do a lot ofwork, a lot of tapping, a lot of
somatic movement, a lot ofaffirmation work to really be

(41:05):
like if my work is doing good inthe world I deserve to be
nourished.
I cannot be nourished in theworld that we work in and not be
paid. I need to be highly paidfor the good work that I do in
the world. And so there weremany times I remember when I was
first starting out and I waslike, my god, I'm going to
charge for this. And meanwhile,I had my masters and I also on a

(41:25):
very practical level had a lotof training. I wasn't just doing
this spiritual work out ofnowhere.

Had a

lot of years of training and education
in this, and I was still scared.And I was still scared to be
like, oh my god, I'm going tocharge. I'm going to charge. And
I remember when I first startedcharging, was like, my god, this
feels good. It feels like anequal exchange.
I like getting paid. I was like,oh, I like getting paid. And
even saying that was very taboo.I like money. I like being paid.
And especially with my familythat they were like, oh, these

(41:54):
are quieter things. Don't talkabout this out loud. And I love
taboo. Sex and money, give it tome all. Scorpio.
Scorpio underworld, give it tome baby. And I'm like I can't
not talk about it. I'm like Godis making me. I need to talk
about this. If you are in atoxic abusive relationship,
what's going to get you out isgoing to be therapy and you're
going to need supportiveresources to get you out.
If you are sick, talking aboutwhen we were talking about the

(42:16):
situation with my daughter'sfather, money. All of these
resources really ground you intorealizing money helps you. It
can give so much freedom. And mybelief, more importantly that I
was worthy of it, I wanted thatfor my lineage. I wanted that
for me.
And so I started playing withthat concept. I started doing
all the hippie things, lightingcandles, doing ceremony,

(42:39):
imagining the people walking. Icould feel her. Knew her name. I
knew what she did for work, andI was just connecting to my soul
mate clients and I was like,they love paying me.
They're obsessed with paying me.They feel so much joy in it. And
my clients now they'll be like,Girl, I'm on a forever payment
plan for you. Anything you want,I'm signed up for. And it was
that mental spiritual work.
And a lot of times people thinklike, Oh, this is like so out

(43:02):
there. And it's like, Actuallythat is the work that helped me
make money. It was all thespiritual energetic work. It was
not the practical for me. Thepractical is now helping to
support this next phase for me,that's where I'm at now, but a
lot of it was I'm deserving ofgetting paid.
I like money.

And to feel that. Feel it Not just to say it.

To feel it matter to tap on it, to welcome
it in and being able toconstantly increase it. And then
when the numbers started gettingbigger and bigger and bigger I
was like oh I felt a hitting. Iwas like oh no wait, woah that's
too much and especially myidentity as a Latina woman I was
like oh no that's too much andlike who am I to? And then I had
to be like who are you not to?And also what can you do in your

(43:44):
nervous system to help you feelthat you have so much good work
to do, you're helping otherwomen, especially women of
color, Latino women that arelike if she could do it, I can
do it.
If she can write a book, I canwrite a book. And that gave me a
lot of inspiration to be like Iget to be a template in ways and
share those codes with people tobe like you can do it, and I've
seen it. And I've seen it evenin Puerto Rico where I've helped

(44:06):
women that were doulas that weremaking $2,000 a month to going
to making $10,000 a month. Andjust seeing the power of the
empowerment of that reminded methat like, oh, this is important
and everyone's number is goingto look different. More and more
and more is not better but it'slike what is your true version
of what helps you be nourishedbecause the world is expensive

(44:26):
and if you are doing retreats atthe level that I do retreats
those venues cost a lot ofmoney.
Seriously.

So That's a tricky business model, my Yeah.

Who Doing knows to retreats, doing books,
doing online courses, like theonline courses are the bread and
butter, right, because you don'thave the overhead.

The margins are great. Amazing. But events?

Events are much trickier.

I know, and but they really move the needle

for They move the needle for people, and
so you keep both because of thatand because I love it. Love Of
course. Yeah. And so you have tobe practical, and that was
another thing I reminded myselfof. If you are making more, you
will be investing more.
Be rooted in that. Be knowing ofthat. And so that means you need
more. And my dharma is to havethat, right? So not everyone's

(45:10):
code want that abundance.
For me, I knew that it was animportant part of my worthiness.
And so me playing with myworthiness wounds and converting
them to worthy affirmations andreally working with them allowed
me to tap into that and gettingthe big book deals and doing all
those things. And it's a gift.It's so fun. It's a game now.
Like, I get play this game. Getto play this game, and I get to

(45:33):
keep working on my worthiness.And every time you work on your
worthiness in every area,everything gets better.

I know. It's amazing. And I love how tapped
in you were as a little girl to,like, money is pretend, this is
make believe. With a

loose stitch.

And that now, you know, and that it's it's a game
because it is. It's game. And Isay these things all the time,
but I really love having guestson who say them also unprompted
because I'm like, that meansit's true. Yeah. You and I come
from really differentbackgrounds with really
different educational histories,like we've had really different
experiences, and if we have bothcome to the same conclusion, it
is true.

It is.

Yeah.

And you know what, like I'm not saying
that it's not harder, and I talkabout that in the book for some
people to achieve and have, butI don't think that that means
that you can't have differentaccess points of worthiness.
Like maybe that means that itwon't look a certain way, but
does not no one can take awayyour inherent worth. And so it
will look very different if youare in a war torn country, if

(46:28):
you are living it with anabusive partner it's going look
different. But ultimately what Iknow to be certain for sure is
the moment you work on yourworthiness period there is a
sense of peace and a sense ofcalm that you can have in the
storm. And that to me is themost important.
The outside things are the bonusbut the inside feeling of that

(46:48):
connection is going to save yourlife.

It's everything. Yeah. It is absolutely
everything. Thank you so muchfor being here today. This was
such a good conversation.
Everybody listening, getyourself a copy of I Am Worthy.
Is there a special place youwant them to go to get the book?

Yeah. But I don't know that

We don't know it today, and so we'll add that in
the show notes later. Perfect.Yes. That's fine. Called I am
worthy, break the spell ofunworthiness, reclaim your
divinity, and unearth your truepower by Christine Gutierrez.
Her other book is I am Diosa.Yes. And where should people
come find you to connect andlearn more?

You can connect with me on Instagram at
Cosmic Christine and my website,christineg.tv. Amazing. Thanks
for coming. So happy to be here.

Thanks for listening to this episode of
Plenty. If you enjoyed it, makesure you subscribe, leave a
rating, leave a review. That'sone of the best ways that you
can ensure to spread theabundance of Plenty with others.
You can even text it to a friendand tell them to listen in. And
if you want even more support toexpand your abundance, head over

(47:54):
tokatenorthrup.com/breakthroughs
where you can grab my free moneybreakthrough guide that details
the biggest money breakthroughsfrom some of the top earning
women I know, plus a mini lessonaccompanying it with my own
biggest money breakthroughs anda nervous system healing tool

(48:16):
for you to expand yourabundance.
Again, that's over atkatenorthward.com/breakthroughs.
See you next time.

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist

Crime Junkie

Stuff You Should Know

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}123: Healing Worthiness: Christine Gutierrez on Addiction, Power & Pleasure as Medicine

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist

Crime Junkie

Stuff You Should Know

All Episodes

123: Healing Worthiness: Christine Gutierrez on Addiction, Power & Pleasure as Medicine

CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist