Hey everybody and welcome back to the second episode of the Awaken Together podcast.
I'm Kat.
I'm Jenn.
And today we wanted to share with you guys our spiritual awakening stories, what that
kind of looked like for each of us, and yeah, what that journey ended up leading to to kind
of get us on the trajectory that we are currently at.
So Kat is going to start us off and just share a piece of her story and then I'll get into
some of mine.
So enjoy.
Go Kat.
Buckle up everyone.
This is going to be a heavy day.
We're getting extra deep today.
We're diving right in because hopefully you'll take a piece of our stories and be like, okay,
interesting.
I can resonate with some of that.
Yes, exactly.
To the point we're all in this together.
So for my story, we're going to take it all the way back to 2007.
I was in high school and I had a dark, dark phase of my life.
If you follow me on Instagram, I'm no stranger to sharing how messy it was.
But to give you just a high level synopsis of this, I was in with a crowd that partying
was really, really the thing to do.
Small town America, not much to do in general, so we turned to parties a lot.
And it was the cool thing to do.
And of course, when you're in high school, that's the goal, right?
It was for me anyway.
I came from a private school and in the public school immediately just got into that crowd.
And I had a really toxic ex-boyfriend at that time.
Very manipulative, a lot of gaslighting, just not a good time.
Wouldn't recommend it if I could do it all over again.
I would not date in high school.
We all got to have that one toxic one where you look back and you're like, oh my.
Everyone's allowed at least one, hopefully just one.
Yes, yes, yes.
So in the midst of that, at its worst, I was struggling with an eating disorder.
I was being treated for bipolar disorder because I didn't really know what to do with me.
My moods were all over the place.
But now I know it was hormones and my setting, the whole environment was really not serving
me.
And I was anxious.
I had depression, all of the things on all sorts of medication, starving myself.
My relationships weren't really serving me.
Of course, I had some best friends who really helped me along through it all as well as
my family.
Thank goodness for them or I don't know what would have come of all of that.
But yeah, so really my darkest hour was one night where I'd had a lot to drink.
I'd snuck out.
My parents didn't know where I was and started calling me and I was out with that boyfriend
and wasn't answering the calls because I didn't know what to say, quite frankly, and didn't
want them to come find me.
Oh yeah, so they called the police and went looking for me and found me and I'd had a
lot to drink and ended up taking me into the hospital and they just didn't know what to
do with me.
So I remember laying in that hospital bed drunk.
I think I was probably high as well.
Just like my mom was crying and I just remember thinking, this is not the kind of life I want
to live.
This isn't me.
And right now my future does not look bright.
So the next day, as you can imagine living with your parents in high school, having that
experience, the next day is not fun.
Yeah.
Not pretty.
Probably some unsaid.
Yes.
Yeah.
There's lots going on there.
And so I just made that conscious decision.
I kind of had a heart to heart with my parents and made the decision that I needed to visualize
what I wanted my future to look like because staying in that messy place that I was in
mentally, emotionally, physically, it was not aligned with where I wanted to be.
And so I started thinking about college and where I wanted to go and just dreaming about
the future and planning for that because my present wasn't what I wanted.
So all of those little steps got me to UMass where I felt like it was a fresh start.
It was two hours away from where I lived.
First time living outside of my hometown and felt like I could take a deeper breath.
There was more oxygen out there and my breath could go all the way down to my belly when
before that it was only in my chest, really, really shallow.
So I have my hands on my heart right now because I'm just feeling that difference for the
first time was really, really intense and made some new friends, kept the old good ones.
That relationship ended before I graduated.
So that stayed in my hometown and it was a new me coming into college.
I kind of reinvented myself and then sophomore year met my now husband, Kyle.
We were next door neighbors in the dorms and things just started to feel a bit brighter.
And then I graduated in 2013 and moved back in with my parents because what do you do
after college when you're broke?
That's one of the only options, right?
And so yeah, I was kind of back in that space of where everything happened and I needed
to learn how I wanted to move forward being back in that space, having changed over four
years myself, but also knowing that I had graduated, I started working.
Is this what life is all about now?
So I kind of got into it.
Such a weird time happens between that college, I did the thing.
Now what is this life?
Such a weird awakening, kind of a semi awakening happens I feel like for everyone in that college
into adulthood.
It's like one of the most awkward phases.
Yes, exactly.
Any times of transition, whether it's after school, marriage, having a child, starting
a business, any big life changes are just like breeding ground for hard times.
Or you can see where you've really grown.
Yeah, it goes one way or the other.
It's either complete chaos or it either triggers you for your next thing it seems or you can
really see what's wrong.
Yes, exactly.
It's like very good or very bad.
And so I was just feeling lost and I, in college, had taken a few yoga classes that I liked,
went to it for the workout, but decided to try another one back in my hometown at a gym.
And I remember walking in and laying out my mat and the teacher's name was Sagarika Ghost.
She's my original guru, my OG.
And she's from India and she just had this way of commanding the room.
Such a little woman.
And there were people in their 40s and 50s balancing on their heads and balancing on
one hand and extending their bodies in these positions, contorting them in ways that I
was like, I want what they're having.
So I just kept coming back to that class.
And in a time where I was feeling lost myself of, is this what life is all about?
Just working and money and just doing what I think I'm supposed to be doing.
I found a lot of myself in my yoga practice with Sagarika and I became obsessed.
I was doing that twice a week and then quickly turned to five days a week because on the
days where I wasn't with her, I felt like I needed to return to myself in that same
way and yoga was my space in which I could do that.
So it became a place for me to come home to myself and it just propelled me on this path
of thinking about things differently, really sitting with my emotions, questioning the
choices I make and deciding if they are the ones that's going to really get me to where
I want to be.
Being able to focus on my breath, my movements, the present moment really alleviated a lot
of my anxiety and got me just so passionate about learning about yogic philosophy, what
the gurus have been teaching about for centuries, this ancient wisdom that I could then take
into my day to day and see how really the magic could infiltrate into my joy, into my
work, into how I touched other people and yeah, I'm so grateful to be able to share
that with others now with teaching yoga too.
And when did you do teacher training, Kat?
I did that in 2014 so I'd actually been practicing yoga seriously for just one year before I
decided this is for me, this is my thing, I need to do this.
I love it.
Love it.
Such a thank you for sharing all of that and one of the things I just want to say about
your journey too, it's really incredible that that all happened so young.
You got such an intense early on track, for some people that can happen so much later
so you really had all of that waking up start so young.
Yes, it's such a good point and I'm really grateful for that now and my mom and I have
talked about that and she's my best friend, we talk every single day.
Really rocky start but we always say now how grateful we are that that happened then under
their roof when they could support me and make me see a therapist and encourage me to
do good things for myself because if I didn't have that, I don't know how I would have
turned out and so yeah, just every step gets us to where we are, right?
Yeah, wow.
I can't wait for everybody to hear your story because it is such a beautiful one so would
you like to share?
Yes, yes.
Yeah, once again, it's another deep track but we'll go back a little bit so I would
say just to preface, as I said last episode, I grew up in a conservative Christian household
so for me, my life was going to church a lot on Wednesdays and Sundays.
I was very active in that whole scene.
I will say as a kid, I really do think I was a questioner all the time.
I really didn't take things that I learned and just like, okay, that's the reality.
So I had a little bit of a rebellious edge already to start.
We can word it like that.
But yeah, as I went through high school, probably starting more like junior year, I think I
didn't go to a Christian school but because I was so involved in church, that usually
was my closer circle.
But I do think as I got into high school, I started noticing more people partying, got
involved in partying, very similar to Katz.
I think we all go through this kind of like exploration side of ourselves where we take
what we were given growing up for a lot of us that maybe had certain set beliefs and
then you kind of just look at what's around you and explore a little bit.
I ended up partying.
I was drinking a lot but I also ended up being engaged really young thinking like, yeah,
that my trajectory was I found my person and all was good.
But as I got deeper into like the partying, I started as I finished high school and got
into college, I think, yeah, my church boyfriend, our fiance rather started seeming like a worse
choice.
I think from then I was like, you know, I still think I have a lot to learn.
I'm really getting to know more perspectives.
So partying felt like a huge freeing thing at first because it was experimenting with
completely different people than the circle I was originally a part of.
But at that same time, one of my biggest goals was to move out on my own.
I remember in high school that was like I was thinking of that all the time.
So I started college in high school.
So I graduated high school with an associate's degree.
I had done college throughout.
And then I went right into physical therapy school.
So here I am, like really busting my butt trying to get my physical therapy degree and
then also trying to like explore this like college party scene that was like so foreign
to me.
And I think the way I really got through intense working in school was I really was told by
my parents that they would not support some of my college if I went to if I didn't go
to a Christian school.
So for me, I had this kind of like ego, arrogance of like I'll prove everyone wrong.
Like watch me.
I cannot even believe what I physically used to do.
Like working like 40 hours a week, going to school 40 hours a week and trying to keep
up with a party scene.
It was just yeah, it's a lot for anyone.
It's exhausting to think about.
I really just wanted to like figure it out.
But anyway, well, fast forward.
I was in I had finished physical therapy school.
I was working.
I was living with a bunch of roommates, really still into going out, partying.
And I had a night that I had gone out and I had planned for someone to come pick me
up.
So I was trying to be responsible in that moment.
But I ended up drinking way too much and I blacked out, which is the first time I had
like a straight up blackout.
And you fast forward to when I come to I'm handcuffed to a hospital bed.
I literally have no idea what happened from the point of the bar to being in this hospital.
I have cops around me yet not answering any of my questions.
I was so scared in that moment.
Just like you in the hospital.
I remember it with such clarity.
I was terrified.
This is just a setting I had never even been close to being in.
I go into jail.
I still have no idea why I was even in there.
I couldn't piece it together.
So many jail stories.
I was in there 36 hours.
We'll do an episode.
Yeah.
36 hours though.
And then finally people are able to figure out like where I was.
But I had I had driven.
I found out from my police report like 40 miles on the interstate ended up getting off
in an exit and crashing into like three parked cars at a marina.
Just a random random thing.
But with that the moment that I had to walk out of jail my parents were picking me up.
I remember this sense of almost kind of relief and surrender because it was like no longer
did I have to have this facade of being so strong being so independent.
Like in that moment I was helpless.
I had literally nothing I could control.
And so for me yeah I had to admit that I needed help in a way you know because I needed someone
to take me home.
I needed like all sorts of stuff came about with that DUI.
I ended up losing twenty six thousand dollars.
I had to sell my dog because I just couldn't keep up with taking care of him without a
car.
Yeah.
And I lost one of my jobs at that time.
I had just like so many series of events.
So I lost everything that I had thought was me.
And the only thing I had was a yoga practice which I had just like you Kat gone to a few
yoga classes like you know like them wasn't obsessed with it but I had a yoga mat and
I just remember I couldn't control anything at that moment.
It was like every day a new phone call was coming in something to figure out.
And so I just started rolling my mat out every day.
I was having so many panic attacks like up to six a day and it was like wearing my body
out because I just had so many unknowns.
And I realized in that moment what a false sense of control that I really had believed
was you know I thought I had it all together and that I was you know on top of everything
which control is such an illusion anyway you know.
Yeah.
In that moment everything I literally lost so many categories across the board and I
just realized like the only thing I can control right now is showing up on this mat and breathing
to try to calm myself down to know that I am still here and it's going to be OK.
So I remember doing yoga like every single day sometimes twice a day because I was so
panicked.
And so with that started I ended up leaving Florida that environment like this happened
really fast actually.
I just left Florida I moved to a little apartment in the middle of the hills of West Virginia
and decided from that point on that I needed to rebuild who I even was because when that
facade all left that sense of control I was like well what is left.
Like I've just lost everything that I've been hustling for for so long.
Who even am I.
And so I knew at that point like I needed to figure all of that out and that's what
really catapulted the entire spiritual journey along with like a way more developed yoga
practice as well.
So so wild both of our stories like kind of like started on the yoga mat in a way and
in like the party scene you know but even the correlations there are so interesting.
Like yeah red thread between both of our stories is we found yoga or yoga found us in moments
of helplessness.
That's what I really need.
Right.
Yeah and oh my goodness that identity shift for you too.
I mean pre car accident to post it really seems like it stripped you of a lot of things
and I'm just so impressed and amazed by the way that you've rebuilt your life in a way
that actually seems to be a lot more aligned than how it was before.
Would you agree.
And same for you.
Yes literally same for you.
And so yeah that's the interesting part of the spiritual journey.
You know we can go into a lot of like theories on this but for some they can consciously
choose the spiritual journey and you know start start kind of dabbling into it.
But I do think a lot of people you really have this like pivotal moment.
It's like a moment where yeah it's like something more divine is telling you like this is not
this is not where you're supposed to be.
Here is like a bigger soul journey for you.
Let's redirect your attention to something else.
And I mean yeah here I've heard so many stories of people having these like big kind of like
moments that started.
And so for both of us like we didn't really have an active role in choosing it so much
as like it just kind of found us.
And that is what is so interesting about this journey is there are some conscious choices
for sure always there's always choices that that will direct like what's going to be the
next thing.
But there is you know we this is the whole thing but there is this energy that is taking
care of us.
And I do think when we get into this like stripping away of what elements we think we
are identity wise when all of those get either stripped away by choice or kind of by circumstances
that lead to that you realize that beneath all of it you don't have like you know there's
not like a sense of control sense of control is so such a false belief because there's
always going to be things without it with you know not within your control.
And so yeah when you start having these little baby steps just leading to a totally different
track or you have one big thing like catapulting you to the next track is just so interesting.
I so agree so beautifully said and it kind of I just got this visualization of a forest
fire and how even after forest fire the roots underground stay alive and it's the time
for them to really just grow underground and sprout new life and it's going to look different
than it did before but it's no less beautiful it can even be more beautiful and if there's
one thing that we all are it's resilient and tear us down we'll get back up and we'll
come back tenfold.
So if we can do it you can too.
Yes I love it.
So yeah that was pieces of our story with The Awakening.
We will definitely go into kind of what you know what what spirituality even means I think
that would be a really good topic to hone in on because there is definitely like different
ways to view all of this.
I like to think of it as a baseline as being a divine energy that comes in and is just
here to work with you when you strip all that stuff away.
So I think next week our next episode rather talking about how to even identify what parts
of you are personality versus what parts of you are your soul you know and kind of that
like more intuitive side of yourself is a really great place to start because even when
you have these shifts so perhaps for some of you 2020 was that like oh crap moment where
you couldn't control anything and you knew like you know your normal things couldn't
work I think for some maybe this happened before but for 2020 it was probably the biggest
collective awakening.
But I think after that point you know that work has to be done and you feel kind of more
guided but I think a huge part of for me next step was figuring out that difference of like
what what I what I have actually created as my identities versus yeah like which of these
things are not actually me like why am I even fighting to prove that I'm some of these things
you know.
So yeah what do you yeah.
Getting to choose what parts of you you want to keep and what parts you aren't actually
you right that identity of the human experience separating that from your soul and what you've
carried into this life maybe from past lives.
Yeah we did in the past lives too.
Yeah so tune in for our next episode we will go into that kind of personality versus soul
and I thank you Kat for sharing your story.
It feels so good to kind of review and talk about it all.
So happy to be on this journey with you.
Oh same so grateful.
Okay talk later.
Okay bye.