September 17, 2025 • 45 mins
The space between knowing something and embodying it is where transformation happens. In this conversation, Catherine and Brenda explore what it takes to move from intellectual understanding to living change as second nature.
Catherine shares her 20-year journey of opening her heart and building healthy boundaries. What began as a desire for deeper relationships required years of therapy, confronting judgment, untangling codependence, and resisting the urge to rescue others. She reflects on moments of doubt and pain, and how her commitment to meaningful connection kept her moving forward.
Brenda reflects on her daily yoga and dance practice, now as natural as brushing her teeth but built through years of steady effort. Together, they emphasize that embodiment cannot be rushed or handed off to someone else. It is a deeply personal upgrade that requires patience, practice, and persistence.
This episode will especially resonate with those who understand growth concepts yet struggle to live them out. Catherine and Brenda challenge the quick-fix promises in personal development and speak honestly about the discomfort, uncertainty, and unexpected challenges that real transformation brings.
They invite listeners to ask: What desire is calling you into embodiment, and are you willing to walk through the messy middle to honor it?
Episode Highlights
• Morning practices as examples of embodied desires that become second nature
• How listening well requires noticing patterns and practicing consistently
• Catherine's 20-year journey to open her heart and create boundaries
• Moving beyond judgment, codependence, and rescuing others
• The new challenges that appear after transformation
• Why intellectuals often struggle to embody what they know
• Pain and difficulty as necessary catalysts for growth
• Embodiment as a personal upgrade only you can create
What's your invitation? What desire is calling you from within, and do you have the courage to follow it? Rate, Review, and Share this episode. We'd love to hear from you.
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Click the links below for 1:1 support.
Email Us:
desireasmedicine@gmail.com
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catherine@catherinenavarro.com
Connect on Instagram:
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@Brenda_Fredericks
@CoachCatherineN
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome to Desire is Medicine.
We are two very different womenliving a life led by desire,
inviting you into our world.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
I'm Brenda.
I'm a devoted practitioner tobeing my fully expressed true
self in my daily life.
Motherhood relationships and mybusiness Desire has taken me on
quite a ride and every day Ipractice listening to and
following the voice within.
I'm a middle school teacherturned coach and guide of the
feminine.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
And I'm Catherine, devoted to living my life as the
truest and hopefully thehighest version of me.
I don't have children, I'venever been married.
I've spent equal parts of mylife in corporate as in some
down and low shady spaces.
I was the epitome of tired andwired and my path led me to
explore desire.
I'm a coach, guide, energyworker and a forever student.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Even after decades of inner work, we are humble
beginners on the mat, stillexploring, always curious.
We believe that listening toand following the nudge of
desire is a deep spiritualpractice that helps us grow.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
On the Desires Medicine podcast.
We talk to each other, weinterview people we know and
love about the practice ofdesire, bringing in a very
important piece that is oftenoverlooked being responsible for
our desire, piece that is oftenoverlooked being responsible
for our desire.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Welcome back to the Desire as Medicine podcast.
We are so excited to be herewith you all today.
This is Brenda and I am with myamazing, beautiful co-host,
catherine, and this is veryexciting because usually
Catherine opens.
So if you're like, whose voiceis that opening?
Well then you're in for a treat, because I am opening today.
(01:51):
It just worked out that way andI'm really excited about it.
So Catherine brought up thisamazing topic in our last
episode, which is the differencebetween knowing and embodying.
How do we actually embodysomething?
There's something that we want,but how do we actually have it
(02:15):
and walk around with it in theworld where it's just part of
our being, where it's justnatural to who we are, where
it's just natural to who we are?
There's some gap in the middlethat we need to be willing to
sit with and walk through andmove through.
Some desire, something that wewant, that we have to be willing
(02:36):
to listen to and follow, andmaybe fall and fail and mess up
or completely forget and thencome back to.
And what does that look like?
So we gave a bunch of examplesin our last episode and I just
didn't feel done with it becauseI think there's so much more to
(02:57):
talk about and we hear aboutthis all the time Three steps to
loving yourself, five steps tolosing weight, 20 days to having
a profitable Instagram.
There's a lot more to it andI'll give you an example.
This morning I woke up and I'mat my lake right now for the
(03:20):
summer and I was down by thelake and I'm doing yoga and I
have a new part of my morningyoga practice where I'm dancing.
I love to dance and I don'tdance every morning.
I usually do dance every dayactually but this new practice
kind of emerged inside, whereI'm doing my yoga and my dancing
(03:44):
together and I'm dancing in themorning and I thought to myself
as the sun was shining down wow, this is pretty amazing.
This is just my natural part ofthe day.
I do this every single day andit's not like, oh, I'm so great
or anything.
It's not that it's just that Iwanted that, oh, I'm so great,
(04:05):
or anything.
It's not that it's just that Iwanted that.
I wanted a morning practice.
I need a morning practice sothat I can feel good about my
day.
It's actually a time for me towake up, get into my body,
stretch my body.
I do my yoga and I could feelmy body like creaking and
cracking and moving and opening,and I just feel like I'm
(04:28):
opening myself up for the day.
And I was just sitting theregoing, wow, I'm so proud of
myself.
This isn't typical for peopleLike I do know a lot of people
who have a really great morningpractice and who do yoga or
running or whatever it is thatthey do every morning, but most
people that I talk to most of myclients that I've had don't and
(04:53):
they want it, and I'm like, wow, I've really done this.
I've really done this, I'vereally given this to myself,
where this isn't something thatI have to want anymore, it's not
something that I have to figureout how to have, I just have it
.
And how do we do that with morethings in our life?
(05:14):
There's certainly things in mylife that I want that I don't
quite have yet, and so how do wego about that?
Catherine, what comes up foryou around this?
Speaker 1 (05:27):
Well, I think that we also have to have a delineation
Some things that we want tohave that we are the sole
creators of, like your morningpractice.
You are the sole creator ofthat morning practice.
Nobody can really do it for you.
It's not something that can beoutsourced versus something else
(05:51):
that you may want that'soutside of you.
That would require differentthings.
So I think that when we'retalking about for today's
conversation, we're thinkingabout desires and creation,
moving from, or providingexamples of moving from
knowledge to embodiment inthings that cannot be outsourced
(06:14):
, that can only be done by us.
One of the sparks or theignition to this is wanting it.
I don't really have a morningpractice, other than I don't
know how to describe this butit's less about what I do.
It's more about what I don't do, the things that I just do not
(06:34):
do in the morning.
But I think you would do thismorning practice even if you
were away on vacation.
You would still do yoga,potentially dance, every day.
Like these are things that havebecome part of you, who you are
, no matter what, and they can'tnecessarily be outsourced and
the circumstances don't changethe outcome.
(06:58):
So that's the biggest thoughtthat I have when you were
describing your morning practiceand the things that you do.
I'm like, oh, whether Brenda'shome, staying at a friend's, or
on vacation or traveling likewhen you were traveling the
United States not that long ago,you probably still had this
practice.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
Yeah, totally, and I think that's exactly the point
that we're getting to here.
That I would love to flesh outmore is it just is part of my
day.
It is like brushing my teethwhen I talk to people about it,
but it wasn't always that way.
I didn't always do this.
Part of it was I started doingyoga 20 years ago and I was like
, oh, this is really cool, Icould do some of these poses.
(07:38):
Then I had some body pain and Ilearned a specific yoga pose
pigeon.
That actually helped with thatpain, and so I started doing
that every day and then it builtup over time and I can say, no
matter what happens in my day,whether I'm on vacation I was on
a retreat last week.
Even if I'm bringing someone tothe airport at five in the
(08:00):
morning, I will do a few of myyoga poses to just get myself
going for the day, and I thinkit's a great example of truly
embodying something and thisisn't about a morning practice,
but it's like anything that wewant.
How do we embody it?
And like another example ofsomething that I wanted that I
(08:20):
really had to work for was yearsago, when I became part of a
community that was really allabout connection and learning
how to put attention out onother people, and it started to
become into my awareness that Ireally wasn't that great at that
, that I was very much likeeveryone else walking around,
(08:44):
where I would just be in aconversation and then quickly
turn it back to myself, which istypically how people are
walking around the world too.
(09:09):
About this assembly that I wentto when I was teaching, where
the speaker, after he gave hisspeech and his whole thing, he
listened to people in a way thattouched me so deeply and I
thought to myself that was thefirst spark of this particular
desire.
I want to be able to listen topeople this much and I saw how
he did not ever turn it towardshimself.
(09:30):
So many years later, when I wasin this community, I had the
opportunity to practice it and Isaw all these people who were
really good at asking highquality questions that would
kind of have someone open andlike really be willing to share
about themselves with this highquality attention.
And I didn't have that skill atall.
(09:51):
I was always just turning itback to myself.
It took me a long time to learnthat, a lot of practicing and a
lot of noticing with myself,like, oh wow, when people are
talking, I very much just turnit back to myself, and this was
something that I really wantedto learn and it took me a really
long time to learn it.
(10:12):
A lot of practice, a lot ofpractice of being in
conversations with people, whereI would notice myself, turn it
back to myself, and I didn'tlike that.
So, okay, we're going to tryagain tomorrow.
We're going to ask questions,be in a conversation, see if I
can put attention on otherpeople.
And then I hit another part ofthe practice, which was this is
(10:35):
so funny when you're learningsomething new, noticing other
people and how they don't do it,and I was like, oh wow, look at
him and look at her, how theyjust constantly bring the
attention back to themselvesinstead of being a good listener
.
So I had to go through that partof being like kind of judgy
about it with other people toget to the point of saying, oh,
you know, we're all at differentskill levels and maybe some
(10:58):
people just don't actually careabout this, but it was something
that I really cared about andit's taken me a long time to
know how to do that and thenalso to be patient when other
people aren't doing that.
So it's like, how do we learnand truly embody something?
You know, if we're talkingabout what we want in our life,
(11:19):
how do we become the person whocan have it?
Any thoughts you have?
Speaker 1 (11:23):
Yeah, I would go even slower.
I think so.
Even this is a great examplelearning how to be a good
listener and learning how to bein conversation and all the
thoughts I think with school.
I'm thinking about teachers,I'm thinking about public
speaking or even being on, let'ssay, like a debate team.
You're listening to someone andyou're listening for what
(11:45):
you're going to argue, whetherfor or against.
You're not really in theconversation.
You're sort of trying to anchoryour response before it's even
time for you to respond.
You're sort of like one foot'son the gas already.
This is a great example forthis.
When we're thinking aboutembodiment, what I continue to
see in this conversation isknowing the person that we want
(12:09):
to be and knowing the qualitiesthat we need to have in order to
be this person, and it notbeing so easy to follow through
on the qualities that we need tobe doing in order to be that
person, that we need to be doingin order to be that person.
(12:30):
So, if we want to havemeaningful connections and
meaningful conversations, one ofthe qualities is being a good
listener and asking goodquestions, and then you slowly
start to notice well, I don'treally enjoy having this level
of attention on someone whenthey either never ask me a
question, they don't show up tothe conversation in the same way
that I do.
It is all about them.
(12:50):
Wow, this person really took 40minutes to tell me this story.
And how do you stay with?
I want to have deeperconnections with people.
It will require me to put myattention out onto someone else,
and this may not be somethingthat this person is practicing
(13:10):
or that it's even in theirawareness, and it's not my
business to tell them.
And so what I'm hearing is usdescribing how we have these
qualities currently that arecompletely work, unconsciously,
competent in them, and it tookus time to get here Some trials,
(13:32):
some errors, some judgments,some other things.
Creating this is very differentthan creating.
I'm living in my dream home.
Because I'm living in my dreamhome requires so many other
steps than I'm going to be agood listener.
I'm going to be a good listener.
There's usually desire there,the desire being I want to have
(13:54):
more meaningful conversations,potentially, or I want to feel
more connected when I talk topeople.
And how do we embody that?
The example that I'm thinkingof right now with myself I know
this isn't the first time thatI'm going to talk about it on
the podcast is I didn't reallyhave full access to the full
range of emotions up until maybein my 30s or somewhere between
(14:15):
30 and 33 or something of thatnature.
It was very limited.
And touching that and openingthat for me to feel emotions my
goal wasn't oh, I want to feelemotion.
That wasn't the goal.
The goal was, or the noticingwas, I am in conversation with
people and they're going throughsomething that, for them, is
really big and I can't touch itLike I in no way, shape or form
(14:40):
can identify with whateverthey're going through, and so it
has me be really disconnectedand really detached.
It's going to require somethingfrom me and me being able to
open up my own heart.
To be in conversation withsomeone took years and it didn't
(15:02):
start at I'm going to do thisin conversation Like the
practice in order for me to getthere was like a thousand steps
back for me to begin to feel andgrieve and feel other things
that I had suppressed for verylong time in order to get to
that location, to become closerand get closer to becoming the
(15:24):
kind of person that can andwants to feel into another human
so that I can be connected tothem.
I had a.
I guess even still now to acertain extent.
I can feel deeply, but I'm nota bleeding heart.
I'm very boundaried in that way.
I don't just live in somebody'senergy field.
On the contrary, I keep myenergy very tight and it could
(15:50):
be because I'm an energy worker.
But for the most part I'm notlike spreading myself into other
people's spaces.
I'm very intentional with whereI'm going and where I'm
investing my time and energy.
For sure, and when I say energy, I just I really mean I don't
mean to bring in this othercomponent of myself, but I'm
(16:11):
very mindful of what is in mytoroidal field, what is in my
auric space, I.
But even that took years todevelop and years of practice.
I didn't, at five, know how todo this.
I did not, at 10, know how todo this.
I didn't even know that.
I didn't know how to do it.
I just didn't know what Ididn't know.
(16:33):
Then, when I became aware of it,I said oh, I really want to
practice and learn how to dothis, for my own sanity and then
for my own connection.
My own sanity was I don't wantto be connected with just
anything.
And then my own discernmentbecame oh, but in the places
that I do want to be connected,how do I connect if I've made
sure that my energy is pristineand tight and nobody can get in?
(16:56):
Oh, that was my first lesson inlearning.
You can't close your heart justto some things and not others.
If you're closing your heart,it's all things Like.
That location of your heart isjust closed.
You can't voluntarily open andclose to something.
If it's closed, it's closed.
It's closed even to the thingsyou want and that took some, yes
(17:22):
, did I go too far out.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
No, it was absolutely gorgeous, and I think that
you're talking about somethingthat people want and they're
curious about, and I love howyou just talked about this from
such a deep expertise point ofview, because you have this, you
have this piece, you embodythis, and what I hear you saying
(17:46):
is that you weren't always thisway.
She's shaking her head, rollingher eyes, going oh no, folks,
she didn't always have thispeace and that's the beauty of
it is that you are a living,walking embodiment of it, just
like I am with my morningpractice.
But it wasn't always that way.
How do we get there?
And I really do think that wehave a particular soul's journey
(18:08):
.
We all have these things tolearn in our life, and the
things that we're interested inand kind of called towards,
pulled to, are part of that.
I would love to hear more ifyou're willing to expand on this
open heart that you've learnedto have, because you wanted to
be connected to people, becauseyou felt disconnected and you've
(18:32):
become really aware of what'sin your space.
You've had sanity anddiscernment you've talked about,
and you also are reallyintentional and you have
boundaries, but can you?
Speaker 1 (18:49):
slow it down a little bit and maybe give us an
example of what it looked likein the middle and how you got
there.
It might require me to go alittle further back.
So for me, I was good.
I was walking through the world, I was connecting with people
and it was at my comfort level.
Clearly, I was closed off, so Iwas totally cool.
I'm like we can commingle likethis.
But I was having conversationswith loved ones that would say
(19:11):
to me things like I know whatyou're thinking, I can see it on
your face, and potentially theyfelt like I had disapproval,
disapproval, and I didn't reallyfeel like I was outwardly
showing my disapproval.
And I didn't really feel like Iwas outwardly showing my
disapproval, but clearly it musthave been there.
(19:34):
It happened enough times that Ithought, oh, I need to work on
my judgment.
So much so that just the otherday, one of my family members
said to me well, what do youcare about?
Because I just don't.
When something's not mine, itis just not mine.
I have taken that gift and beenlike, oh, this job here that I
see, I see the problem and thesolution is not mine, it's zero,
(20:00):
my lane.
And so my response to my familymember was like, oh, I really
care about what's mine.
Like, really, if something ismy responsibility, I care a shit
ton about that, because of whatI've learned in this
discernment is that nobody canhandle that but me can handle
(20:28):
that.
But me, what is mine cannot beoutsourced.
So if I have to become a betterversion of myself, if I have to
insert whatever upgrade thereis, the only person that can
create that upgrade is me.
So I care a lot about that.
So that was the first part.
Okay, I started to notice andhave people tell me that they
felt like I had judgment and Ialso had tons of opinions and I
(20:49):
would feel inside of me like Ihave got to tell this person
what I'm thinking.
It felt like if I didn't tellthem, I was going to die, I was
going to burst.
It had this sense of urgency,like I need to tell them.
They need to know because Iknow I am urgency.
Like I need to tell them theyneed to know because I know I am
right and I need to tell them,I need to warn them.
I felt like you know I'm anoracle, I need to warn you.
(21:13):
And the truth is that I did not.
I did not need to warn themabout shit.
It was not my problem.
Can you imagine like thestressor, the sense of urgency,
all that adrenaline in my bodyfor no reason?
It was not mine to have, it wasnot mine to own.
Was it painful?
(21:35):
It used to feel like I couldwatch, like I was watching a
train crash in slow motion and Iwanted to tell the person to
get out of the way.
Watching a train crash in slowmotion and I wanted to tell the
person to get out of the way.
And what I've learned is if I'mwatching a train crash in slow
motion like it's not my crash,I'm literally watching it and
(21:57):
I'm only watching it because I'mnot the person that's going to
get hit.
It's literally not mine.
That took a long time.
That took a lot of faith.
I've also had a different familymember say to me how are you so
spiritual, so knowledgeable andstill believe in god?
(22:18):
I have a lot of family memberswho have really exercised their
knowledge, muscle and God is nota God.
It is like evolution andscience takes such a front seat.
And I said I don't know if Iwould have the peace that I have
(22:40):
in walking through the world IfI didn't think that all the
things that I've let go of, thatI thought I had to control,
were not in God's hands.
I know I've talked about thisbefore.
I'm slightly choked up now, butI honestly believe, with
everything that is me, thatthere is something bigger than
(23:03):
me that is at work and that thethings that I used to nitpick
about are not mine and it'sGod's business.
And I think that really grew myfaith.
I think part of what had mewant to control so many things
was that I was lacking faith andreally thought that my action
(23:28):
was imminent, like I had to jumpin.
And now I know that that iscompletely untrue.
I do not have to jump in.
It's either me.
Someone else, like God, has itcovered.
So I've talked about, I'veslowed down.
I talked about the judgment,non-judgment.
I've talked about how peopledidn't feel seen by me or felt
judged by me.
Then I would hear a feedbackthat I would get, and you know
(23:49):
they say you don't have to takeeverybody's opinion and
criticism.
I just heard it a lot, so Iheard it enough that I said okay
, there must be some truth aboutwhat people are saying.
And the other thing was.
I could see people haveconnections, but I wouldn't feel
so connected Like I wasinvested, but not like them
(24:12):
invested, and maybe I waslooking at enmeshment or
codependence.
It's very possible I don't havethat much sight for that long
ago, but I can say that I didn'thave really any of it.
I was so avoidant, to use liketherapeutic language so avoidant
, I was like, oh, that lookslike chaos, I don't want any of
that.
Or that looks sticky or tricky,I don't want any of that.
(24:35):
But I did want to feelconnected.
So there was a disconnect.
Right, I want to feel connectedbut I'm avoidant.
You can't be avoided andconnected.
That's not one of the ways thatyou get there.
So it required for me to see andstart working with, well, what
are all the things that have meavoid?
(24:55):
Right, that was one thing hadto work on that.
Also, my desire to jump in, mycodependence, my need to fix
things had to deal with that.
My desire to rescue had to dealwith that.
My seeing people as incapablehad to deal with that.
I mean, there are so many stepsyou, brenda, you told me to
(25:18):
back up, but there's like tonsof stuff, tons of things that I
had to work through in order tobe able to accept life, as is
Like to really truly embody.
What I have now isn't threesteps to freedom, it's like tons
of tons of steps.
(25:39):
So I'm trying to recall what Istated, but avoidant, and how to
be present, not codependent,not enmeshed, not have to rescue
people, not see people asvictims.
I used to do that a lot, likeif I saw someone being talked
down to or like there was abully.
(25:59):
I needed to let that personknow no, you don't do that.
But it wasn't my lesson.
I was able to say don't do that.
So that wasn't my lesson.
It was up to the person to sayyou can't do that to me.
So all of these steps weresteps that had to be taken in
order for me to become the kindof person that's like, oh,
(26:21):
there's my lane, there's God'slane and there's this other
person's lane and God createdall of it and we're all sparks
of God and it's fine.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
Thank you for that.
That was a beautiful, generousexplanation, and I have a little
logistical question before wego on, just for the purpose of
this conversation how long wouldyou say it took you to learn
this lesson?
Because we're talking aboutthese.
(26:52):
Things take a long time.
How many years about, would yousay?
Speaker 1 (26:57):
Maya, I would say that it's a stacking thing.
Right, I worked on emotionsthemselves, for I mean, at first
I thought I was going cuckoofor Cocoa Puffs, like legit.
I was in therapy then and Iwould ask my therapist.
So I always forget why I'm here.
(27:18):
My life was working just fine.
I need you to remind me of mydesire.
Why am I even here?
Because what I'm going throughis extremely painful, and so my
therapist would say you're herebecause you want a deeper
relationship.
So I'm like okay, thanks, likewhy am I doing this again?
(27:39):
Why am I torturing myself inthis way?
And the reason was one of thebiggest things.
I haven't even talked aboutthis yet.
When I started to feel it becamereally hard to decide because I
had never taken emotions intoaccount.
I was very black and white.
I either wanted it or didn'twant it.
Hands down, and people used tosay, well, but how do you feel
(28:01):
about it?
I used to say, but well, how Ifeel about it doesn't matter, it
was a complete.
It was a complete non-issue,like it did not matter.
So once I started to reallywork on my heart space and
started to feel everything sodeeply well, I felt schizo, like
what is happening to my mind.
I could not.
It was there was so much noiseLike I feel like this, I feel
(28:24):
like that, I feel like, and Iwas like, oh my goodness, how
does anybody decide?
And that took some time.
Maybe I started to feel like Icould feel and think and decide.
It took maybe six years to getto that place.
By that point, I would say, Iwas able to stay in my lane, I
(28:44):
was able to feel and decide.
The things I had not gotten toyet was I still had tons of
codependence to work on Tons ofplaces where I was enmeshed,
tons of places where I wasgetting involved in shit that
was not my business.
I was still in other people'slanes.
Yeah, is there anything, anyparticular part or attribute?
Because I feel like maybe thepast five years I felt the most
(29:07):
free in this arena, and so thatwould mean 20, 15, 15 years, and
God bless my clients.
I have clients that ask me thisquestion and I would be lying
if I said this happenedovernight.
I used to see my therapist andgo to group therapy, so I saw
him twice a week for six yearsand for three of those I was
(29:31):
asking him to remind me why Iwas in the room.
Once I opened that Pandora's boxof emotions, I realized why I
pushed everything down and wasavoidant for sure, and I felt so
at the mercy of, and I didn'twant that for the rest of my
(30:01):
life.
I wanted to embody that I wasnot at the mercy of, and we
teach.
A big part of our work you andI is teaching victim
consciousness, and that didn'tcome into my realm of of.
It wasn't even that.
Those teachings weren't evenpresent for me until like 2017.
It hasn't even been 10 years,and that was that teaching
(30:22):
really helped a lot like so much.
It put so many things inperspective in 2017, when I
decided, oh, everything isrelationship.
I want to dive deeper intorelationship dynamics
relationship dynamics withmyself, with others, because by
that point, I already had thesoil right.
I had worked on my avoidant, Ihad worked on my judgment, I had
(30:43):
worked on my openness.
There were so many other piecesthat I had worked on in that
twin body, like the level ofdiscernment and confidence that
I have now.
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (30:55):
So basically you're saying 20 years is what I hear
you saying, and I wanted tobreak that down because I think
this is a really important piecewhen we're talking about going
from knowing something in yourbrain or, even before that,
(31:15):
wanting something to knowing it.
Reading books you can read alot of books to learn something,
but you don't actually do it.
You can talk to people aboutboundaries, but if you don't
have boundaries, it's justnothing to fully embodying it.
Where you are walking aroundthe world embodying something,
(31:37):
it takes folks 20 years andthere's all these doorways that
open and what I heard you say Igot to some soil.
So it's like almost like youhad to work through all of these
pieces so many pieces and eachpiece could take years and you
(32:01):
didn't even know those pieceswere there To get to soil where
you could actually startplanting things and see things
growing and see change.
It's like you have to clean outthe basement before you can set
up a new living room down there.
You have to be willing to dothe work and to walk into your
(32:25):
therapist's office and say whyam I here?
Remind me why I'm here, and bewilling to do that and not just
walk out the door because itdoesn't make any sense.
There was something deeper thatyou wanted and it's just
absolutely beautiful and I thinkit's really important.
When we're talking aboutlearning how to embody something
, this isn't something that youcan learn overnight.
(32:47):
We're not teaching that and Ithink that's false when you see
it in the world.
It's false.
If you take a program that's,you know, eight weeks to XYZ,
yeah, you'll learn something,but you're not going to fully
embody it.
You know when it takesCatherine 20 years to get this
piece.
Speaker 1 (33:04):
I think there's two things of what you've that
you've mentioned that I want tolike put my finger on.
Which is you can learn.
I could have learned oh, myheart's not open.
I could have learned oh, I'moperating from my avoidant, but
it took a certain amount ofhandholding and somebody being
(33:26):
with me, walking me through forme to get to the other side, and
I don't know any other way todo it.
So it's possible thatGeneration Z won't have to.
I think Xers are doing a lot ofthe work, right.
Maybe millennials and peoplewill learn from our example.
So I think people who are maybeBrenda, when your daughter has
(33:51):
kids, has kids right, like we'retalking about two generations
of healing that child willpotentially have certain things
that are completely like what'swhat I'm looking for?
Speaker 2 (34:04):
unheard of or no thought.
They'll be natural to thatchild where I've had to crawl
through the dirt with like wormsin my mouth to learn these
things and then, two generationslater, it's just more natural
and this is how we evolve andit's worth it, and we are in a
(34:25):
big healing period right now.
Speaker 1 (34:29):
What do you mean when you say we are in a big healing
period?
The world, earth people.
Speaker 2 (34:34):
There's just a growing consciousness.
That's around you.
Just see it everywhere.
There is a desire for morehealing and for consciousness
that I see, that feels new.
Speaker 1 (34:47):
I feel like the words are around, like I see lots of
people that talk to me and theyhave the verbiage and they can
speak the therapy piece ortherapy talk or coachy talk, and
this is even why we're havingthis podcast episode.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
I don't see as much embodiment 100%, and there are
people who are embodying thisand there's people that are
talking about it, and it's allwelcome.
You know, I don't recommendteaching something that you
don't embody.
I don't think it works reallygreat.
I don't think that you canreally teach something if you're
(35:31):
not really embodying it, andwe're seeing a lot of that in
the world.
Speaker 1 (35:34):
I didn't mean it from that perspective.
I meant it from the perspectivethat sometimes I'll have
students that are like I knowall of this, but they don't see
the translation, and it's almostlike there's no conversation
about the embodied piece,because we're talking to each
other from a place of knowledge,like did you, do you know that
you need to have more self-love,or do you know that you need to
(35:56):
have boundaries, or do you knowthat you have to stand up for
yourself?
Well, yeah, everybody knowsthat.
Right, that part is understood.
The implementation piece is thedifficult part.
It's like I know how to drive acar.
That's all put together.
But if you give it to me inpieces, like I don't know how to
put it together, like I don'tknow that part.
And that's more of what I meanwhen I say embodiment.
(36:19):
I feel like I am seeing adifferent level of frustration,
especially around intellectuals.
But I have not had the words todescribe other than what I'm
using right now and I'm hopingthat this becomes even better
and more fluid for me andsomething that we can talk about
as we're hashing it out righthere.
It's really frustrating forindividuals that are
(36:44):
intellectual, because they knowwhat they're supposed to be
doing and they don't understandwhy they're not doing it and
they're like what is somebodygoing to teach me that I don't
already know?
I'm just not doing it and theone thing for sure that I know
is a culprit of this is thatthere's not enough pain.
There is not enough pain towant to do it differently.
(37:06):
So there's no reason to do itdifferently.
Like if you're just walkingaround like a jerk to everyone
but you still have whatever youwant, well, there's no reason to
change you.
Being a jerk, you get to justbe the jerk that has everything.
Like that's a possibility,there's no pain around it.
Or I have friends who have donereally well for themselves and
(37:28):
they have children and they'lltell me this kid does not have
grit.
I'm like, of course they don't.
They didn't have to fight toothand nail to get what they
needed the way that you did.
Your children don't have that.
They're a different generationbecause you made it easy for
them.
We think about some of thehardships that we've gone
through and we don't tend topause and say, wow, what that
(37:54):
gave me.
So for me, it took me 20 yearsto get here and that was so hard
and I could have quit.
But wow, look what I have.
If I had children which I don't, but if I did, maybe my
children wouldn't have to fighttooth and nail to get what I
(38:15):
have.
Maybe they'd be able to modelit or learn through modeling,
but they also won't have thereward of having gone through it
.
That is something that I don'tthink passes through modeling it
can't.
Speaker 2 (38:34):
Yeah, that's a really great point and thank you for
bringing that in.
I really wanted to talk aboutand show and I think you did
that really beautifully how longit actually takes and what you
have to be willing to sit withto make a change, to really
embody something, to own it andembody it and then potentially
(38:58):
pass it on.
And even though you don't haveyour own children, you have
nieces and nephews, there'sfuture generations, you have
clients that you work with, thatyou are teaching this thing
because you embody it.
And I think that's a reallyimportant piece that I wanted to
bring in was you know, you saidat the beginning that these are
things that can only be donewith yourself.
You can't outsource it.
That's what's so beautiful aboutdesire is that desire comes to
us right, it lands in our body.
(39:21):
It comes to us like a spark ora wave or however it lands for
you.
There's something that you want, whatever it is.
Maybe it's a morning practice,or maybe it's to have an open
heart or better relationships,or to be a better listener, or
to own a home.
Whatever the thing is, there'ssomething that we're called to,
that's particular for us andonly we can do it and we're not
(39:46):
going to maybe do all the thingsin our life, right, maybe we
will, but we're called tosomething that's particular for
us.
It's like it's prescribed andcoded just for us, for our own
evolution, and that's what's sobeautiful about it.
And we see people in the worldour teachers, you know our
(40:10):
spiritual teachers, or even justyour college professors.
They know something.
We're like wow, how do you knowall of that?
How do you sit up and teachthis thing To some of my
spiritual teachers?
Wow, how do you know how towork with people in that way?
I would be amazed at that.
And the beautiful thing is thatthey've worked at it.
(40:35):
They've somehow were called tosomething and they had the
gumption to follow it.
And, like you said, it can bepainful, it can be time
consuming, it can feel liketorture.
The voices are noisy and loud,there's uncertainty, it's messy,
(41:06):
it brings you new problems.
It's like, oh, I didn't havethis problem before.
I was really happy, walkingaround, closed in the world, and
now I have all these newproblems.
One of my teachers used to sayoh, you have your desire, great.
Now you have new problems.
And are you willing to sit withthat?
(41:26):
Or are you just saying well, Iwanted the three-step process.
Well, that's not what we'reteaching here.
Anything that you would like toadd into this, catherine?
Speaker 1 (41:37):
You just touched on something that's so important.
Yes, we're talking today aboutthings that are ours, that only
we can do, that we cannotoutsource.
We don't think about theproblems that we will have when
we're that version of us thatwe're striving to become so.
For example, like I mentionedearlier, one of my family
(41:59):
members saying to me well, whatdo you care about?
Because they can see that I'mso detached, they can see that
I'm not in the judgment arena,they can see that I'm not like
pushing my opinions all the time, probably with my family, is
the times that they can see thatI'm not like pushing my
opinions all the time, probablywith my family, is the times
that I most will cross that line, potentially that I'll feel
like really compelled to sharesomething.
(42:21):
I didn't think I would ever havea problem with people telling
me that they're upset that I'mnot giving my opinion Because I
was completely on the other side.
Right, I had tons of opinionsand tons of judgments.
How could I foresee that in thefuture, when I don't have that,
people will be like but if youdid have an opinion, what would
(42:41):
it be?
But if you did have a judgment,what would you be thinking?
Okay, I understand you're notjudging right now, but if you
did, if you had to like peoplereally want to know and I didn't
see it as a problem.
I could not foresee that thatwould be a problem or that some
people will feel potentiallylike I have to be, with the
discomfort in my body of howsome people may feel not loved
(43:06):
because I don't have an opinion,may feel unseen because I don't
have an opinion, may feel thatI'm avoidant because I don't
have an opinion, or may haveother like there is something
else that's happening on thatside that I could not foresee.
We think that when we get tothe place where we get to be the
person that we want to be, wehave that identity shift or we
(43:28):
have a desire and we become thisdifferent version of us that
that version doesn't haveproblems.
And it's not true.
I see you smiling.
Speaker 2 (43:40):
It's just so great and it's a whole other journey
to learn the skills to be withthat.
It's a beautiful evolution,it's a beautiful invitation and
it is an up level, it's anupgrade and there's so much more
.
I feel like we can just keepgoing forever and that's why
we're in season three here, andI want to close with this quote
(44:03):
that you said, catherine, whichis so beautiful that you're the
only person who can create theupgrade, that you're the only
person who can create theupgrade.
You said the only person whocan create the upgrade is me.
You have an invitation, and sowe're asking you, listeners,
what is your invitation?
What's your desire, what's theinvitation that you feel coming
(44:26):
from the universe, coming frominside of you, and do you have
the gumption to follow it?
Let us know.
Thank you so much for beingwith us today.
Like share, give a review.
(44:46):
We so so appreciate it.
Until next time.
Thank you for joining us on theDesire is Medicine podcast.
Speaker 1 (44:54):
Desire invites us to be honest, loving and deeply
intimate with ourselves andothers.
You can find our handles in theshow notes.
Speaker 2 (45:03):
We'd love to hear from you.
Welcome to Desire is Medicine.
We are two very different womenliving a life led by desire,
inviting you into our world.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
I'm Brenda.
I'm a devoted practitioner tobeing my fully expressed true
self in my daily life.
Motherhood relationships and mybusiness Desire has taken me on
quite a ride and every day Ipractice listening to and
following the voice within.
I'm a middle school teacherturned coach and guide of the
feminine.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
And I'm Catherine, devoted to living my life as the
truest and hopefully thehighest version of me.
I don't have children, I'venever been married.
I've spent equal parts of mylife in corporate as in some
down and low shady spaces.
I was the epitome of tired andwired and my path led me to
explore desire.
I'm a coach, guide, energyworker and a forever student.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Even after decades of inner work, we are humble
beginners on the mat, stillexploring, always curious.
We believe that listening toand following the nudge of
desire is a deep spiritualpractice that helps us grow.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
On the Desires Medicine podcast.
We talk to each other, weinterview people we know and
love about the practice ofdesire, bringing in a very
important piece that is oftenoverlooked being responsible for
our desire, piece that is oftenoverlooked being responsible
for our desire.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Welcome back to the Desire as Medicine podcast.
We are so excited to be herewith you all today.
This is Brenda and I am with myamazing, beautiful co-host,
catherine, and this is veryexciting because usually
Catherine opens.
So if you're like, whose voiceis that opening?
Well then you're in for a treat, because I am opening today.
(01:51):
It just worked out that way andI'm really excited about it.
So Catherine brought up thisamazing topic in our last
episode, which is the differencebetween knowing and embodying.
How do we actually embodysomething?
There's something that we want,but how do we actually have it
(02:15):
and walk around with it in theworld where it's just part of
our being, where it's justnatural to who we are, where
it's just natural to who we are?
There's some gap in the middlethat we need to be willing to
sit with and walk through andmove through.
Some desire, something that wewant, that we have to be willing
(02:36):
to listen to and follow, andmaybe fall and fail and mess up
or completely forget and thencome back to.
And what does that look like?
So we gave a bunch of examplesin our last episode and I just
didn't feel done with it becauseI think there's so much more to
(02:57):
talk about and we hear aboutthis all the time Three steps to
loving yourself, five steps tolosing weight, 20 days to having
a profitable Instagram.
There's a lot more to it andI'll give you an example.
This morning I woke up and I'mat my lake right now for the
(03:20):
summer and I was down by thelake and I'm doing yoga and I
have a new part of my morningyoga practice where I'm dancing.
I love to dance and I don'tdance every morning.
I usually do dance every dayactually but this new practice
kind of emerged inside, whereI'm doing my yoga and my dancing
(03:44):
together and I'm dancing in themorning and I thought to myself
as the sun was shining down wow, this is pretty amazing.
This is just my natural part ofthe day.
I do this every single day andit's not like, oh, I'm so great
or anything.
It's not that it's just that Iwanted that, oh, I'm so great,
(04:05):
or anything.
It's not that it's just that Iwanted that.
I wanted a morning practice.
I need a morning practice sothat I can feel good about my
day.
It's actually a time for me towake up, get into my body,
stretch my body.
I do my yoga and I could feelmy body like creaking and
cracking and moving and opening,and I just feel like I'm
(04:28):
opening myself up for the day.
And I was just sitting theregoing, wow, I'm so proud of
myself.
This isn't typical for peopleLike I do know a lot of people
who have a really great morningpractice and who do yoga or
running or whatever it is thatthey do every morning, but most
people that I talk to most of myclients that I've had don't and
(04:53):
they want it, and I'm like, wow, I've really done this.
I've really done this, I'vereally given this to myself,
where this isn't something thatI have to want anymore, it's not
something that I have to figureout how to have, I just have it
.
And how do we do that with morethings in our life?
(05:14):
There's certainly things in mylife that I want that I don't
quite have yet, and so how do wego about that?
Catherine, what comes up foryou around this?
Speaker 1 (05:27):
Well, I think that we also have to have a delineation
Some things that we want tohave that we are the sole
creators of, like your morningpractice.
You are the sole creator ofthat morning practice.
Nobody can really do it for you.
It's not something that can beoutsourced versus something else
(05:51):
that you may want that'soutside of you.
That would require differentthings.
So I think that when we'retalking about for today's
conversation, we're thinkingabout desires and creation,
moving from, or providingexamples of moving from
knowledge to embodiment inthings that cannot be outsourced
(06:14):
, that can only be done by us.
One of the sparks or theignition to this is wanting it.
I don't really have a morningpractice, other than I don't
know how to describe this butit's less about what I do.
It's more about what I don't do, the things that I just do not
(06:34):
do in the morning.
But I think you would do thismorning practice even if you
were away on vacation.
You would still do yoga,potentially dance, every day.
Like these are things that havebecome part of you, who you are
, no matter what, and they can'tnecessarily be outsourced and
the circumstances don't changethe outcome.
(06:58):
So that's the biggest thoughtthat I have when you were
describing your morning practiceand the things that you do.
I'm like, oh, whether Brenda'shome, staying at a friend's, or
on vacation or traveling likewhen you were traveling the
United States not that long ago,you probably still had this
practice.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
Yeah, totally, and I think that's exactly the point
that we're getting to here.
That I would love to flesh outmore is it just is part of my
day.
It is like brushing my teethwhen I talk to people about it,
but it wasn't always that way.
I didn't always do this.
Part of it was I started doingyoga 20 years ago and I was like
, oh, this is really cool, Icould do some of these poses.
(07:38):
Then I had some body pain and Ilearned a specific yoga pose
pigeon.
That actually helped with thatpain, and so I started doing
that every day and then it builtup over time and I can say, no
matter what happens in my day,whether I'm on vacation I was on
a retreat last week.
Even if I'm bringing someone tothe airport at five in the
(08:00):
morning, I will do a few of myyoga poses to just get myself
going for the day, and I thinkit's a great example of truly
embodying something and thisisn't about a morning practice,
but it's like anything that wewant.
How do we embody it?
And like another example ofsomething that I wanted that I
(08:20):
really had to work for was yearsago, when I became part of a
community that was really allabout connection and learning
how to put attention out onother people, and it started to
become into my awareness that Ireally wasn't that great at that
, that I was very much likeeveryone else walking around,
(08:44):
where I would just be in aconversation and then quickly
turn it back to myself, which istypically how people are
walking around the world too.
(09:09):
About this assembly that I wentto when I was teaching, where
the speaker, after he gave hisspeech and his whole thing, he
listened to people in a way thattouched me so deeply and I
thought to myself that was thefirst spark of this particular
desire.
I want to be able to listen topeople this much and I saw how
he did not ever turn it towardshimself.
(09:30):
So many years later, when I wasin this community, I had the
opportunity to practice it and Isaw all these people who were
really good at asking highquality questions that would
kind of have someone open andlike really be willing to share
about themselves with this highquality attention.
And I didn't have that skill atall.
(09:51):
I was always just turning itback to myself.
It took me a long time to learnthat, a lot of practicing and a
lot of noticing with myself,like, oh wow, when people are
talking, I very much just turnit back to myself, and this was
something that I really wantedto learn and it took me a really
long time to learn it.
(10:12):
A lot of practice, a lot ofpractice of being in
conversations with people, whereI would notice myself, turn it
back to myself, and I didn'tlike that.
So, okay, we're going to tryagain tomorrow.
We're going to ask questions,be in a conversation, see if I
can put attention on otherpeople.
And then I hit another part ofthe practice, which was this is
(10:35):
so funny when you're learningsomething new, noticing other
people and how they don't do it,and I was like, oh wow, look at
him and look at her, how theyjust constantly bring the
attention back to themselvesinstead of being a good listener
.
So I had to go through that partof being like kind of judgy
about it with other people toget to the point of saying, oh,
you know, we're all at differentskill levels and maybe some
(10:58):
people just don't actually careabout this, but it was something
that I really cared about andit's taken me a long time to
know how to do that and thenalso to be patient when other
people aren't doing that.
So it's like, how do we learnand truly embody something?
You know, if we're talkingabout what we want in our life,
(11:19):
how do we become the person whocan have it?
Any thoughts you have?
Speaker 1 (11:23):
Yeah, I would go even slower.
I think so.
Even this is a great examplelearning how to be a good
listener and learning how to bein conversation and all the
thoughts I think with school.
I'm thinking about teachers,I'm thinking about public
speaking or even being on, let'ssay, like a debate team.
You're listening to someone andyou're listening for what
(11:45):
you're going to argue, whetherfor or against.
You're not really in theconversation.
You're sort of trying to anchoryour response before it's even
time for you to respond.
You're sort of like one foot'son the gas already.
This is a great example forthis.
When we're thinking aboutembodiment, what I continue to
see in this conversation isknowing the person that we want
(12:09):
to be and knowing the qualitiesthat we need to have in order to
be this person, and it notbeing so easy to follow through
on the qualities that we need tobe doing in order to be that
person, that we need to be doingin order to be that person.
(12:30):
So, if we want to havemeaningful connections and
meaningful conversations, one ofthe qualities is being a good
listener and asking goodquestions, and then you slowly
start to notice well, I don'treally enjoy having this level
of attention on someone whenthey either never ask me a
question, they don't show up tothe conversation in the same way
that I do.
It is all about them.
(12:50):
Wow, this person really took 40minutes to tell me this story.
And how do you stay with?
I want to have deeperconnections with people.
It will require me to put myattention out onto someone else,
and this may not be somethingthat this person is practicing
(13:10):
or that it's even in theirawareness, and it's not my
business to tell them.
And so what I'm hearing is usdescribing how we have these
qualities currently that arecompletely work, unconsciously,
competent in them, and it tookus time to get here Some trials,
(13:32):
some errors, some judgments,some other things.
Creating this is very differentthan creating.
I'm living in my dream home.
Because I'm living in my dreamhome requires so many other
steps than I'm going to be agood listener.
I'm going to be a good listener.
There's usually desire there,the desire being I want to have
(13:54):
more meaningful conversations,potentially, or I want to feel
more connected when I talk topeople.
And how do we embody that?
The example that I'm thinkingof right now with myself I know
this isn't the first time thatI'm going to talk about it on
the podcast is I didn't reallyhave full access to the full
range of emotions up until maybein my 30s or somewhere between
(14:15):
30 and 33 or something of thatnature.
It was very limited.
And touching that and openingthat for me to feel emotions my
goal wasn't oh, I want to feelemotion.
That wasn't the goal.
The goal was, or the noticingwas, I am in conversation with
people and they're going throughsomething that, for them, is
really big and I can't touch itLike I in no way, shape or form
(14:40):
can identify with whateverthey're going through, and so it
has me be really disconnectedand really detached.
It's going to require somethingfrom me and me being able to
open up my own heart.
To be in conversation withsomeone took years and it didn't
(15:02):
start at I'm going to do thisin conversation Like the
practice in order for me to getthere was like a thousand steps
back for me to begin to feel andgrieve and feel other things
that I had suppressed for verylong time in order to get to
that location, to become closerand get closer to becoming the
(15:24):
kind of person that can andwants to feel into another human
so that I can be connected tothem.
I had a.
I guess even still now to acertain extent.
I can feel deeply, but I'm nota bleeding heart.
I'm very boundaried in that way.
I don't just live in somebody'senergy field.
On the contrary, I keep myenergy very tight and it could
(15:50):
be because I'm an energy worker.
But for the most part I'm notlike spreading myself into other
people's spaces.
I'm very intentional with whereI'm going and where I'm
investing my time and energy.
For sure, and when I say energy, I just I really mean I don't
mean to bring in this othercomponent of myself, but I'm
(16:11):
very mindful of what is in mytoroidal field, what is in my
auric space, I.
But even that took years todevelop and years of practice.
I didn't, at five, know how todo this.
I did not, at 10, know how todo this.
I didn't even know that.
I didn't know how to do it.
I just didn't know what Ididn't know.
(16:33):
Then, when I became aware of it,I said oh, I really want to
practice and learn how to dothis, for my own sanity and then
for my own connection.
My own sanity was I don't wantto be connected with just
anything.
And then my own discernmentbecame oh, but in the places
that I do want to be connected,how do I connect if I've made
sure that my energy is pristineand tight and nobody can get in?
(16:56):
Oh, that was my first lesson inlearning.
You can't close your heart justto some things and not others.
If you're closing your heart,it's all things Like.
That location of your heart isjust closed.
You can't voluntarily open andclose to something.
If it's closed, it's closed.
It's closed even to the thingsyou want and that took some, yes
(17:22):
, did I go too far out.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
No, it was absolutely gorgeous, and I think that
you're talking about somethingthat people want and they're
curious about, and I love howyou just talked about this from
such a deep expertise point ofview, because you have this, you
have this piece, you embodythis, and what I hear you saying
(17:46):
is that you weren't always thisway.
She's shaking her head, rollingher eyes, going oh no, folks,
she didn't always have thispeace and that's the beauty of
it is that you are a living,walking embodiment of it, just
like I am with my morningpractice.
But it wasn't always that way.
How do we get there?
And I really do think that wehave a particular soul's journey
(18:08):
.
We all have these things tolearn in our life, and the
things that we're interested inand kind of called towards,
pulled to, are part of that.
I would love to hear more ifyou're willing to expand on this
open heart that you've learnedto have, because you wanted to
be connected to people, becauseyou felt disconnected and you've
(18:32):
become really aware of what'sin your space.
You've had sanity anddiscernment you've talked about,
and you also are reallyintentional and you have
boundaries, but can you?
Speaker 1 (18:49):
slow it down a little bit and maybe give us an
example of what it looked likein the middle and how you got
there.
It might require me to go alittle further back.
So for me, I was good.
I was walking through the world, I was connecting with people
and it was at my comfort level.
Clearly, I was closed off, so Iwas totally cool.
I'm like we can commingle likethis.
But I was having conversationswith loved ones that would say
(19:11):
to me things like I know whatyou're thinking, I can see it on
your face, and potentially theyfelt like I had disapproval,
disapproval, and I didn't reallyfeel like I was outwardly
showing my disapproval.
And I didn't really feel like Iwas outwardly showing my
disapproval, but clearly it musthave been there.
(19:34):
It happened enough times that Ithought, oh, I need to work on
my judgment.
So much so that just the otherday, one of my family members
said to me well, what do youcare about?
Because I just don't.
When something's not mine, itis just not mine.
I have taken that gift and beenlike, oh, this job here that I
see, I see the problem and thesolution is not mine, it's zero,
(20:00):
my lane.
And so my response to my familymember was like, oh, I really
care about what's mine.
Like, really, if something ismy responsibility, I care a shit
ton about that, because of whatI've learned in this
discernment is that nobody canhandle that but me can handle
(20:28):
that.
But me, what is mine cannot beoutsourced.
So if I have to become a betterversion of myself, if I have to
insert whatever upgrade thereis, the only person that can
create that upgrade is me.
So I care a lot about that.
So that was the first part.
Okay, I started to notice andhave people tell me that they
felt like I had judgment and Ialso had tons of opinions and I
(20:49):
would feel inside of me like Ihave got to tell this person
what I'm thinking.
It felt like if I didn't tellthem, I was going to die, I was
going to burst.
It had this sense of urgency,like I need to tell them.
They need to know because Iknow I am urgency.
Like I need to tell them theyneed to know because I know I am
right and I need to tell them,I need to warn them.
I felt like you know I'm anoracle, I need to warn you.
(21:13):
And the truth is that I did not.
I did not need to warn themabout shit.
It was not my problem.
Can you imagine like thestressor, the sense of urgency,
all that adrenaline in my bodyfor no reason?
It was not mine to have, it wasnot mine to own.
Was it painful?
(21:35):
It used to feel like I couldwatch, like I was watching a
train crash in slow motion and Iwanted to tell the person to
get out of the way.
Watching a train crash in slowmotion and I wanted to tell the
person to get out of the way.
And what I've learned is if I'mwatching a train crash in slow
motion like it's not my crash,I'm literally watching it and
(21:57):
I'm only watching it because I'mnot the person that's going to
get hit.
It's literally not mine.
That took a long time.
That took a lot of faith.
I've also had a different familymember say to me how are you so
spiritual, so knowledgeable andstill believe in god?
(22:18):
I have a lot of family memberswho have really exercised their
knowledge, muscle and God is nota God.
It is like evolution andscience takes such a front seat.
And I said I don't know if Iwould have the peace that I have
(22:40):
in walking through the world IfI didn't think that all the
things that I've let go of, thatI thought I had to control,
were not in God's hands.
I know I've talked about thisbefore.
I'm slightly choked up now, butI honestly believe, with
everything that is me, thatthere is something bigger than
(23:03):
me that is at work and that thethings that I used to nitpick
about are not mine and it'sGod's business.
And I think that really grew myfaith.
I think part of what had mewant to control so many things
was that I was lacking faith andreally thought that my action
(23:28):
was imminent, like I had to jumpin.
And now I know that that iscompletely untrue.
I do not have to jump in.
It's either me.
Someone else, like God, has itcovered.
So I've talked about, I'veslowed down.
I talked about the judgment,non-judgment.
I've talked about how peopledidn't feel seen by me or felt
judged by me.
Then I would hear a feedbackthat I would get, and you know
(23:49):
they say you don't have to takeeverybody's opinion and
criticism.
I just heard it a lot, so Iheard it enough that I said okay
, there must be some truth aboutwhat people are saying.
And the other thing was.
I could see people haveconnections, but I wouldn't feel
so connected Like I wasinvested, but not like them
(24:12):
invested, and maybe I waslooking at enmeshment or
codependence.
It's very possible I don't havethat much sight for that long
ago, but I can say that I didn'thave really any of it.
I was so avoidant, to use liketherapeutic language so avoidant
, I was like, oh, that lookslike chaos, I don't want any of
that.
Or that looks sticky or tricky,I don't want any of that.
(24:35):
But I did want to feelconnected.
So there was a disconnect.
Right, I want to feel connectedbut I'm avoidant.
You can't be avoided andconnected.
That's not one of the ways thatyou get there.
So it required for me to see andstart working with, well, what
are all the things that have meavoid?
(24:55):
Right, that was one thing hadto work on that.
Also, my desire to jump in, mycodependence, my need to fix
things had to deal with that.
My desire to rescue had to dealwith that.
My seeing people as incapablehad to deal with that.
I mean, there are so many stepsyou, brenda, you told me to
(25:18):
back up, but there's like tonsof stuff, tons of things that I
had to work through in order tobe able to accept life, as is
Like to really truly embody.
What I have now isn't threesteps to freedom, it's like tons
of tons of steps.
(25:39):
So I'm trying to recall what Istated, but avoidant, and how to
be present, not codependent,not enmeshed, not have to rescue
people, not see people asvictims.
I used to do that a lot, likeif I saw someone being talked
down to or like there was abully.
(25:59):
I needed to let that personknow no, you don't do that.
But it wasn't my lesson.
I was able to say don't do that.
So that wasn't my lesson.
It was up to the person to sayyou can't do that to me.
So all of these steps weresteps that had to be taken in
order for me to become the kindof person that's like, oh,
(26:21):
there's my lane, there's God'slane and there's this other
person's lane and God createdall of it and we're all sparks
of God and it's fine.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
Thank you for that.
That was a beautiful, generousexplanation, and I have a little
logistical question before wego on, just for the purpose of
this conversation how long wouldyou say it took you to learn
this lesson?
Because we're talking aboutthese.
(26:52):
Things take a long time.
How many years about, would yousay?
Speaker 1 (26:57):
Maya, I would say that it's a stacking thing.
Right, I worked on emotionsthemselves, for I mean, at first
I thought I was going cuckoofor Cocoa Puffs, like legit.
I was in therapy then and Iwould ask my therapist.
So I always forget why I'm here.
(27:18):
My life was working just fine.
I need you to remind me of mydesire.
Why am I even here?
Because what I'm going throughis extremely painful, and so my
therapist would say you're herebecause you want a deeper
relationship.
So I'm like okay, thanks, likewhy am I doing this again?
(27:39):
Why am I torturing myself inthis way?
And the reason was one of thebiggest things.
I haven't even talked aboutthis yet.
When I started to feel it becamereally hard to decide because I
had never taken emotions intoaccount.
I was very black and white.
I either wanted it or didn'twant it.
Hands down, and people used tosay, well, but how do you feel
(28:01):
about it?
I used to say, but well, how Ifeel about it doesn't matter, it
was a complete.
It was a complete non-issue,like it did not matter.
So once I started to reallywork on my heart space and
started to feel everything sodeeply well, I felt schizo, like
what is happening to my mind.
I could not.
It was there was so much noiseLike I feel like this, I feel
(28:24):
like that, I feel like, and Iwas like, oh my goodness, how
does anybody decide?
And that took some time.
Maybe I started to feel like Icould feel and think and decide.
It took maybe six years to getto that place.
By that point, I would say, Iwas able to stay in my lane, I
(28:44):
was able to feel and decide.
The things I had not gotten toyet was I still had tons of
codependence to work on Tons ofplaces where I was enmeshed,
tons of places where I wasgetting involved in shit that
was not my business.
I was still in other people'slanes.
Yeah, is there anything, anyparticular part or attribute?
Because I feel like maybe thepast five years I felt the most
(29:07):
free in this arena, and so thatwould mean 20, 15, 15 years, and
God bless my clients.
I have clients that ask me thisquestion and I would be lying
if I said this happenedovernight.
I used to see my therapist andgo to group therapy, so I saw
him twice a week for six yearsand for three of those I was
(29:31):
asking him to remind me why Iwas in the room.
Once I opened that Pandora's boxof emotions, I realized why I
pushed everything down and wasavoidant for sure, and I felt so
at the mercy of, and I didn'twant that for the rest of my
(30:01):
life.
I wanted to embody that I wasnot at the mercy of, and we
teach.
A big part of our work you andI is teaching victim
consciousness, and that didn'tcome into my realm of of.
It wasn't even that.
Those teachings weren't evenpresent for me until like 2017.
It hasn't even been 10 years,and that was that teaching
(30:22):
really helped a lot like so much.
It put so many things inperspective in 2017, when I
decided, oh, everything isrelationship.
I want to dive deeper intorelationship dynamics
relationship dynamics withmyself, with others, because by
that point, I already had thesoil right.
I had worked on my avoidant, Ihad worked on my judgment, I had
(30:43):
worked on my openness.
There were so many other piecesthat I had worked on in that
twin body, like the level ofdiscernment and confidence that
I have now.
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (30:55):
So basically you're saying 20 years is what I hear
you saying, and I wanted tobreak that down because I think
this is a really important piecewhen we're talking about going
from knowing something in yourbrain or, even before that,
(31:15):
wanting something to knowing it.
Reading books you can read alot of books to learn something,
but you don't actually do it.
You can talk to people aboutboundaries, but if you don't
have boundaries, it's justnothing to fully embodying it.
Where you are walking aroundthe world embodying something,
(31:37):
it takes folks 20 years andthere's all these doorways that
open and what I heard you say Igot to some soil.
So it's like almost like youhad to work through all of these
pieces so many pieces and eachpiece could take years and you
(32:01):
didn't even know those pieceswere there To get to soil where
you could actually startplanting things and see things
growing and see change.
It's like you have to clean outthe basement before you can set
up a new living room down there.
You have to be willing to dothe work and to walk into your
(32:25):
therapist's office and say whyam I here?
Remind me why I'm here, and bewilling to do that and not just
walk out the door because itdoesn't make any sense.
There was something deeper thatyou wanted and it's just
absolutely beautiful and I thinkit's really important.
When we're talking aboutlearning how to embody something
, this isn't something that youcan learn overnight.
(32:47):
We're not teaching that and Ithink that's false when you see
it in the world.
It's false.
If you take a program that's,you know, eight weeks to XYZ,
yeah, you'll learn something,but you're not going to fully
embody it.
You know when it takesCatherine 20 years to get this
piece.
Speaker 1 (33:04):
I think there's two things of what you've that
you've mentioned that I want tolike put my finger on.
Which is you can learn.
I could have learned oh, myheart's not open.
I could have learned oh, I'moperating from my avoidant, but
it took a certain amount ofhandholding and somebody being
(33:26):
with me, walking me through forme to get to the other side, and
I don't know any other way todo it.
So it's possible thatGeneration Z won't have to.
I think Xers are doing a lot ofthe work, right.
Maybe millennials and peoplewill learn from our example.
So I think people who are maybeBrenda, when your daughter has
(33:51):
kids, has kids right, like we'retalking about two generations
of healing that child willpotentially have certain things
that are completely like what'swhat I'm looking for?
Speaker 2 (34:04):
unheard of or no thought.
They'll be natural to thatchild where I've had to crawl
through the dirt with like wormsin my mouth to learn these
things and then, two generationslater, it's just more natural
and this is how we evolve andit's worth it, and we are in a
(34:25):
big healing period right now.
Speaker 1 (34:29):
What do you mean when you say we are in a big healing
period?
The world, earth people.
Speaker 2 (34:34):
There's just a growing consciousness.
That's around you.
Just see it everywhere.
There is a desire for morehealing and for consciousness
that I see, that feels new.
Speaker 1 (34:47):
I feel like the words are around, like I see lots of
people that talk to me and theyhave the verbiage and they can
speak the therapy piece ortherapy talk or coachy talk, and
this is even why we're havingthis podcast episode.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
I don't see as much embodiment 100%, and there are
people who are embodying thisand there's people that are
talking about it, and it's allwelcome.
You know, I don't recommendteaching something that you
don't embody.
I don't think it works reallygreat.
I don't think that you canreally teach something if you're
(35:31):
not really embodying it, andwe're seeing a lot of that in
the world.
Speaker 1 (35:34):
I didn't mean it from that perspective.
I meant it from the perspectivethat sometimes I'll have
students that are like I knowall of this, but they don't see
the translation, and it's almostlike there's no conversation
about the embodied piece,because we're talking to each
other from a place of knowledge,like did you, do you know that
you need to have more self-love,or do you know that you need to
(35:56):
have boundaries, or do you knowthat you have to stand up for
yourself?
Well, yeah, everybody knowsthat.
Right, that part is understood.
The implementation piece is thedifficult part.
It's like I know how to drive acar.
That's all put together.
But if you give it to me inpieces, like I don't know how to
put it together, like I don'tknow that part.
And that's more of what I meanwhen I say embodiment.
(36:19):
I feel like I am seeing adifferent level of frustration,
especially around intellectuals.
But I have not had the words todescribe other than what I'm
using right now and I'm hopingthat this becomes even better
and more fluid for me andsomething that we can talk about
as we're hashing it out righthere.
It's really frustrating forindividuals that are
(36:44):
intellectual, because they knowwhat they're supposed to be
doing and they don't understandwhy they're not doing it and
they're like what is somebodygoing to teach me that I don't
already know?
I'm just not doing it and theone thing for sure that I know
is a culprit of this is thatthere's not enough pain.
There is not enough pain towant to do it differently.
(37:06):
So there's no reason to do itdifferently.
Like if you're just walkingaround like a jerk to everyone
but you still have whatever youwant, well, there's no reason to
change you.
Being a jerk, you get to justbe the jerk that has everything.
Like that's a possibility,there's no pain around it.
Or I have friends who have donereally well for themselves and
(37:28):
they have children and they'lltell me this kid does not have
grit.
I'm like, of course they don't.
They didn't have to fight toothand nail to get what they
needed the way that you did.
Your children don't have that.
They're a different generationbecause you made it easy for
them.
We think about some of thehardships that we've gone
through and we don't tend topause and say, wow, what that
(37:54):
gave me.
So for me, it took me 20 yearsto get here and that was so hard
and I could have quit.
But wow, look what I have.
If I had children which I don't, but if I did, maybe my
children wouldn't have to fighttooth and nail to get what I
(38:15):
have.
Maybe they'd be able to modelit or learn through modeling,
but they also won't have thereward of having gone through it
.
That is something that I don'tthink passes through modeling it
can't.
Speaker 2 (38:34):
Yeah, that's a really great point and thank you for
bringing that in.
I really wanted to talk aboutand show and I think you did
that really beautifully how longit actually takes and what you
have to be willing to sit withto make a change, to really
embody something, to own it andembody it and then potentially
(38:58):
pass it on.
And even though you don't haveyour own children, you have
nieces and nephews, there'sfuture generations, you have
clients that you work with, thatyou are teaching this thing
because you embody it.
And I think that's a reallyimportant piece that I wanted to
bring in was you know, you saidat the beginning that these are
things that can only be donewith yourself.
You can't outsource it.
That's what's so beautiful aboutdesire is that desire comes to
us right, it lands in our body.
(39:21):
It comes to us like a spark ora wave or however it lands for
you.
There's something that you want, whatever it is.
Maybe it's a morning practice,or maybe it's to have an open
heart or better relationships,or to be a better listener, or
to own a home.
Whatever the thing is, there'ssomething that we're called to,
that's particular for us andonly we can do it and we're not
(39:46):
going to maybe do all the thingsin our life, right, maybe we
will, but we're called tosomething that's particular for
us.
It's like it's prescribed andcoded just for us, for our own
evolution, and that's what's sobeautiful about it.
And we see people in the worldour teachers, you know our
(40:10):
spiritual teachers, or even justyour college professors.
They know something.
We're like wow, how do you knowall of that?
How do you sit up and teachthis thing To some of my
spiritual teachers?
Wow, how do you know how towork with people in that way?
I would be amazed at that.
And the beautiful thing is thatthey've worked at it.
(40:35):
They've somehow were called tosomething and they had the
gumption to follow it.
And, like you said, it can bepainful, it can be time
consuming, it can feel liketorture.
The voices are noisy and loud,there's uncertainty, it's messy,
(41:06):
it brings you new problems.
It's like, oh, I didn't havethis problem before.
I was really happy, walkingaround, closed in the world, and
now I have all these newproblems.
One of my teachers used to sayoh, you have your desire, great.
Now you have new problems.
And are you willing to sit withthat?
(41:26):
Or are you just saying well, Iwanted the three-step process.
Well, that's not what we'reteaching here.
Anything that you would like toadd into this, catherine?
Speaker 1 (41:37):
You just touched on something that's so important.
Yes, we're talking today aboutthings that are ours, that only
we can do, that we cannotoutsource.
We don't think about theproblems that we will have when
we're that version of us thatwe're striving to become so.
For example, like I mentionedearlier, one of my family
(41:59):
members saying to me well, whatdo you care about?
Because they can see that I'mso detached, they can see that
I'm not in the judgment arena,they can see that I'm not like
pushing my opinions all the time, probably with my family, is
the times that they can see thatI'm not like pushing my
opinions all the time, probablywith my family, is the times
that I most will cross that line, potentially that I'll feel
like really compelled to sharesomething.
(42:21):
I didn't think I would ever havea problem with people telling
me that they're upset that I'mnot giving my opinion Because I
was completely on the other side.
Right, I had tons of opinionsand tons of judgments.
How could I foresee that in thefuture, when I don't have that,
people will be like but if youdid have an opinion, what would
(42:41):
it be?
But if you did have a judgment,what would you be thinking?
Okay, I understand you're notjudging right now, but if you
did, if you had to like peoplereally want to know and I didn't
see it as a problem.
I could not foresee that thatwould be a problem or that some
people will feel potentiallylike I have to be, with the
discomfort in my body of howsome people may feel not loved
(43:06):
because I don't have an opinion,may feel unseen because I don't
have an opinion, may feel thatI'm avoidant because I don't
have an opinion, or may haveother like there is something
else that's happening on thatside that I could not foresee.
We think that when we get tothe place where we get to be the
person that we want to be, wehave that identity shift or we
(43:28):
have a desire and we become thisdifferent version of us that
that version doesn't haveproblems.
And it's not true.
I see you smiling.
Speaker 2 (43:40):
It's just so great and it's a whole other journey
to learn the skills to be withthat.
It's a beautiful evolution,it's a beautiful invitation and
it is an up level, it's anupgrade and there's so much more
.
I feel like we can just keepgoing forever and that's why
we're in season three here, andI want to close with this quote
(44:03):
that you said, catherine, whichis so beautiful that you're the
only person who can create theupgrade, that you're the only
person who can create theupgrade.
You said the only person whocan create the upgrade is me.
You have an invitation, and sowe're asking you, listeners,
what is your invitation?
What's your desire, what's theinvitation that you feel coming
(44:26):
from the universe, coming frominside of you, and do you have
the gumption to follow it?
Let us know.
Thank you so much for beingwith us today.
Like share, give a review.
(44:46):
We so so appreciate it.
Until next time.
Thank you for joining us on theDesire is Medicine podcast.
Speaker 1 (44:54):
Desire invites us to be honest, loving and deeply
intimate with ourselves andothers.
You can find our handles in theshow notes.
Speaker 2 (45:03):
We'd love to hear from you.
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