Hello and welcome to another episode of the Awaken Together podcast.
I'm Kat.
I'm Jen.
And today we're talking about coming out of the spiritual closet.
What does that mean?
We're going to tell you a little bit about what it looks like, one, for us and two, what
it might look like for you to have your own spiritual journey and then step out into the
world and integrate these inner and outer experiences.
So well said and yes.
So I feel on social media in the spiritual community and world, I've seen a lot of content
being put out about what a spiritual awakening is going to look and feel like.
And I really truly believe it's going to look and feel different for everyone.
I've seen a lot of content on having the dark night of the soul, having this deep isolation
and like loneliness period.
And I don't feel like that is a requirement to have your spiritual awakening, but I'm
going to share a little bit about why I think that context kind of gets put out there.
So I think when you have created a life that is, you know, that came from an authentic
place, there is definitely a grieving process when you have to kind of deconstruct an entire
life that maybe was built when you didn't like yourself, when you were people pleasing,
when you were maybe giving in to systems and ways of thinking that you're no longer resonating
with.
And I do think there's a little pain with that because sometimes your external world
is full of people that don't even actually know you on an authentic level.
And so there can be a form of isolation when you pull away from a group of people and just
a life that was built in a different context.
So I just wanted to paint the picture because I think in your spiritual journey, when you
are kind of shedding these layers of yourself to kind of return to a more authentic and
pure version of who you think you are and what you have to do again and again and again,
I think that, yeah, there might be periods when you need to reach out for help.
And if you feel like it's supposed to be this extremely isolating process, I get a little
worried when I see that context shared because you really might need others at certain pieces.
And so staying in the closet, leaving yourself trapped in there and feeling like you have
to kind of stay in and isolate until you get to this certain level of perfection or this
certain view, I think is a bunch of bullshit.
And I think there's a lot of moments when you are going to need some time to reflect
by yourself, but also lots of moments when rebuilding with connection to people that
are understanding this shift in yourself and people that are more maybe sharing the spiritual
journey, it could be nice to like plug in with them and not feel like it has to happen
alone.
That's right.
It's a bunch of bullshit.
So yeah, for me, thinking about before I even stepped into the spiritual room, let alone
the closet where I started to do all my deep work, I had a lot of things that I think were
taught to me that I wanted, right?
I think we're all taught from a young age that we should follow the American dream,
at least in this country, but I think everywhere.
Like here's what you want.
You are going to go to college so that you can make a lot of money so that you can buy
nice things, then you get married, then you have babies, and then you work and then you
retire and then you die.
And that was really what I knew.
That's what I learned and that's what I subscribed to.
I think there were a couple little like breadcrumbs that I followed in my life that taught me,
maybe there's a little bit more to this.
I remember specifically after I graduated college, when I started working my first job,
which you know, getting that first job is a celebration in itself.
It's like, okay, I made it.
Someone validated me in my experience and here I'm beginning this new chapter.
But for me, after like maybe three months of that, I was quickly like, wait, this is
what the rest of my life has to be like?
And I had a big problem with that.
And I think that was one of my very first moments where I started questioning reality
and everything that we were taught.
I mean, I questioned other things before, but in terms of like my path and what I wanted
going forward, that was a big aha moment.
And I remember finding yoga around that same time and it became a reprieve for me, so much
so that I really leaned into it, became obsessed.
You know, I think I've said on other episodes of how I started taking like two classes during
the week, and then that escalated to five days to seven days for a little while because
I felt like it was a little glimmer of hope in my life.
I was able to see this possibility and this sense of peace that I had never really experienced
before.
Thanks.
Yeah.
And so that caused me to sign up for teacher training.
And Jen, we were just talking about our journeys in teacher training and how that has changed
so much from before we really were out of the spiritual closet to now when we're just
no shame of anything.
Yeah.
So share yours too.
When you first did teacher training, how was stepping into the world and starting to share
these like personal epiphanies you were having on your yoga mat?
Yeah, it was super interesting.
I didn't feel like I had any friends at the time who were there with me.
It was really isolating.
I didn't know, like I talk about what I was experiencing, but no one really got it.
Kyle was happy for me because he was there with me then.
And I would share my dreams of wanting to open a community center and a studio where
everyone could get together and experience this work.
But there, especially, I don't know if it was a Boston thing where I was, but it just
did not feel like anyone in my circle was into yoga at the time.
They'd done it, they practiced it before the workout, hadn't necessarily shared the profound
shifts that I had experienced.
So then I went and I started teaching.
And I remember when I first started teaching being so nervous about like, how did they
like that class?
Because that's one of my core wounds is people pleasing that I've come to notice.
And it still triggers me to this day, but I'm now able to notice it.
But for years, I'd say two, three years of yoga teaching in Boston, I was kind of a wreck
after class and it didn't leave me feeling peace, which had me feeling all confused inside
because here was this gift of yoga that I loved so much and I was sharing it.
But then there was an internal struggle for me because I wasn't rooted in my spiritual
confidence and I was still very early on my path.
So it's just that like a little rockiness.
Yeah, and what comes to mind as you're sharing that too is even when you go through trainings
for something, so we'll use yoga teacher training as an example, you can even start to add a
label and a pressure on yourself for that of I'm a yoga teacher now.
This is what that lifestyle has to look like.
This is what I need to do.
I need to be doing this many classes or I need to be, you know, every single new step
on our journey poses a potential other label that we can attach to and then add all this
pressure to ourselves.
So I think it brings us back to the drawing board of having to then release and shake
away these expectations that we've applied to ourselves.
Do you feel like that happened a bit?
Totally and Jen, you've shared some awesome content on this on TikTok about like ego death.
You think you've evolved and surpassed that thing and then it's like circles back in another
way.
Here I am.
I just look a little different now.
Absolutely.
Yeah, so to share like a piece of mind, I feel like I had multiple.
I mean, I think we all go through multiple awakenings.
I don't think it looks like one thing because I think awakening just means that you're constantly
being aware of where you're over attaching what labels you're starting to try to cling
to, to control your life.
And it's a constant evolving, constant shifting thing.
You don't get to a state where all of a sudden you don't have to deal with any of this.
Unfortunately, I don't believe that is the reality.
But yeah, I had my first one, obviously, I've shared after my DUI, like having to really
give up this like kind of partying, escapism mode.
And I remember I had a lot of isolation in that time.
I basically spent like a year in the mountains of West Virginia by myself, having lots of
crying, lots of remember a lot of my tears being about how lonely I felt.
But I also just didn't know how to be my own company like at all.
And so I think that period for me actually was really needed because I was the type that
got terrified to spend any second by myself.
But then as I went into yoga teacher training, that was one of my first things that I signed
up for because just like you Kat, the yoga practice was something that was letting me
reflect on myself a lot.
And it was helping me to have a lot of release and a lot of peace that I had never felt.
But when I started yoga teacher training, I put all this pressure on myself, I watched
like the same habits that had developed some of the toxic identities I was clinging to
and my what do we want to call it last version of myself that I had subscribed to and I saw
it kind of creeping into the yoga world.
And I remember early on being like, I'm going to teach yoga, but I'm not going to make it
like too spiritual because I think you know, I was just still so scared of my religion
trauma like in those early yoga years.
And I had my parents whispering to me like all the time on phone calls, like remember
yoga is going to start you down a really dark path.
And I was like, I know that's not true, but it was like a whisper in my head.
So yeah, I remember starting off yoga teacher training, like being so scared to make it
too woohoo to make sure it was really practical to make sure it was very physical therapy
and body focused and that obviously shifted a lot from my beginnings.
And yeah, this kind of creeped up like it was moments of I think, yeah, probably two
years into teaching yoga, I had kind of a second back to the drawing board back in my
closet where I had to really review how I was holding on to some of those religious
values and I was letting it shape my experience out of fear.
I think I had to go back to the drawing board and shed another list of layers that I had
not delved into.
And another thing to share is as you kind of start on a spiritual journey, I think this
is something that I've seen happen again and again, it's definitely happened for me.
But when you start thinking you have the answers to life and our existence and what it looks
like your ego can come in and get so frustrated that no one is getting it.
You can put a lot of pressure on your close relationships of like, why aren't you doing
any of these spiritual practices with me?
Why can't you just meditate with me?
Why can't you just do yoga?
And it starts to create another ego identity that I have it right, they have it wrong,
if they just did this, they would be different.
It's painting another picture that is not trusting and it's clenching and holding value
into spaces that are, yeah, not a guarantee.
Maybe that person's not supposed to find yoga on their journey.
Maybe their journey is going to look completely different.
So trying to force context on what you think something should look like, I think is where
you start getting the problem of, yeah, strong ego ties.
And then yeah, you'll probably have to put yourself back in the closet, reevaluate, restrip
away.
And I think it's this constant process of coming out and going back in.
I so agree.
And on that note too, it's like, if you are in that point right now, or you have been
in the past where you're feeling a little frustrated with other people for not being
where you are on your spiritual journey, please just be kind to yourself because we have all
been there.
And so don't beat yourself down if you're listening to this being like, oh shit, like
that's me.
Like, yeah, that was me too.
I remember talking to my mom and being like, mom, like all of your problems can be solved
with yoga.
Like literally saying that because that's what it felt like for me at the time, but
it wasn't yoga healing me.
It was, yoga is like a container in which you heal yourself.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
And yeah, I think with not being hard on yourself, I also think that if you start believing that
awakening is going to look one way and stay that way forever, there can be moments that
maybe potentially look like setbacks that in reality is still growth and still evolving.
I don't think all this work is to never have a problem again.
I think that's a huge misconception.
It really is knowing how to catch when something is happening, being aware of it quicker.
So to where you can move through and you're not pushing pain onto other people, you're
not deflecting, you're not numbing and escaping, you're staying in tune to the constant needs
of your mind and body and spirit.
And going back to the drawing board as many times as it takes, instead of latching on
so tightly that you end up causing immense amounts of suffering for yourself and the
immediate people around you.
A hundred percent.
I have a really real life example of this right now because I think I shared in our
last episode that I recently got off the birth control pill and I have been feeling just
so not like myself hormonally, emotionally, and it's been really scary.
There's this song that I put in my yoga playlist this week called There She Is and I have cried
to this song so many times this week, like more times than I'd like to admit because
I think it's scary to not feel like yourself and that can happen so many different times
in our lives, but again, it's kind of ego sneaking in.
Yeah, and what's yourself?
Right.
What is yourself?
It's a construct.
Right.
And I've kind of self-identified as light cat right now, whereas in the past in high
school I was dark cat.
And so whenever I'm not light cat, I judge myself.
I'm being real honest.
I'm like, what's going on?
And this has been happening a lot more recently because of my hormonal changes.
And at least I am able to kind of point to that, but I'm still having those moments of
like, God, I haven't been in a bad mood and not known why since I was like a teenager.
And just for that foreign concept to be existing now, having done so much work on myself, it
feels like a disconnect.
Yeah.
But I'm really just coming back to all my self-care.
I've been meditating once or twice a day, not just numbing out with TV or alcohol or
weed.
And I've dipped my toe in there, but then I've quickly realized this is making my anxiety
worse.
And so I'm stepping away from those things.
So I think it's not or, it's and.
Yeah.
Right.
And so like you said, it's not reverting.
It's still giving yourself the space to feel like shit sometimes, knowing that's okay and
that you're there for yourself and you've always gotten yourself through it and you
will continue to and that you're going to be stronger because of it.
Thanks for sharing that.
And yeah, I think it's an illusion to think that all of these practices are to develop
this concrete version of ourselves.
And I really do believe that there's a universal energy that the second we start really believing
something is adamantly true, the universe slams a bunch of tests and patterns just to
like see, like, do you know how to see this multi-perspective?
Do you know how to step outside of the eye behind things like again and again?
The second I start to get too prideful, too absolute, I feel like my life automatically
gets turned on its side.
And it's just to keep me humble and knowing that, you know, this is a, this is a cyclical
journey.
It's not so linear.
It's not so absolute.
So we wanted to share to what it looks like kind of coming out of the closet, what it
looks like taking these integrations where you have to go back and kind of do deep reflection,
deep self or going back to your self care and self love practices, what it looks like
to step back out into the world, like what that shift is, and a few things I want to
say on that.
So I think on social media, especially since that is one of the main ways I think we share
our journey outward, you know, at least in a more public eye these days.
I think you can kind of miss the context of how many things each person has been through
behind the scenes.
It's not always fully, you take things a lot of things out of context, right?
When you see on social media, and I just like have reflected back, I was talking to Danny
about this yesterday about how the things that once seemed so impossible, like I remember
when I made my first TikTok, I was like shaking and I made so many mistakes.
It took like 20 times to get like one TikTok down.
And I was like, I don't think TikTok is for me.
Like this is super uncomfortable.
And I just like can't do it.
I remember even saying like, I just don't feel like I have good things to say.
Like I don't feel like my voice matters, like all these wounds coming out the second I got
myself uncomfortable.
And I just think it's really important to know that when you first take that journey
of sharing really personal insights that you've like learned, and you want to share and reach
out and start adding connection off of those insights, it's going to be uncomfortable before
it feels comfortable.
There is this, I think there's this process of having to learn how to sit with the pain
and sit with the discomfort and know that that doesn't mean it's because it's not for
you or that it's a bad direction or that it's because you've done something wrong, which
I think can, yeah, there's like definitely this undercurrent of guilt, I think that can
come in where you think that once you've done all this spiritual work, you're going to come
out and everything's going to make perfect sense and be really easy.
And that's just really not the case, I think for most.
Well, as Leva opened, but yeah, I think for me, I had to learn to trust that that discomfort
was a part of my growth too.
And that moving and sitting with that discomfort was going to change things.
And because I was willing to do that, I'm now doing what I would have once thought was
absolutely impossible.
TikToks are like a second nature to me.
Teaching yoga classes are a second nature when I literally used to throw up before I taught
class.
Like it happened probably over 50 times.
Like that's how nervous I was getting to teach.
Like I was so scared that I just like didn't have like what I needed.
And maybe, maybe I should have said yoga teacher training for my own learning.
Like I was just terrified to get uncomfortable.
And that was really my control issues, like peering in and trying to come through.
And yeah, I learned to befriend my discomfort.
And since then, it's constant new discomforts.
But I also know now I think I have enough of relationship to discomfort to know that
I can't always believe what that initial feeling is, if that makes some sense.
It does.
Yeah.
And I think we're taught a lot to listen to discomfort and to run in the other way of
it because it's often a sign that something's not right.
However, I think fine tuning your intuition, listening to your gut can help you understand
when it is dangerous and when it's something that actually feels uncomfortable because
it's growth.
Yeah.
And because it's what you need.
And one of my favorite quotes is the whole idea of like finding comfort and getting out
of your comfort zone.
And to me, that says that's like a big part of spiritual evolution for me and my journey.
And yeah, I resonate with your story a lot too.
I shared like with teacher training for me in the past or yoga teaching for me in the
past what that was like and how that felt just so icky.
And I've been teaching yoga now for like eight years.
And I'd say maybe like four years ago.
After four years of teaching.
So like sorry new teachers, it does take a while to find your voice and get comfortable.
But know that you're not alone.
And that's all of us.
But yeah, like four years in is when I started to really be like, okay, like I've been teaching
for four years.
That ego comes in.
Yeah, I know what I'm doing.
Like that's a long time.
And that's also now I have so much fun teaching and I don't ever go into that same head of
space.
It's just foreign to me of like how I used to feel now.
And I'm so grateful for that because I have this confidence in in my teaching experience
in my authentic expression of how I teach.
I always like no, I remind myself often of like, okay, well, if I don't have many people
signed up for class one day that maybe it's just an off day, you know, maybe people are
working later, just the weather or something like that, and just not taking it personally.
Or if the energy was just not feeling super united or like on fire for a class, like I
would have in the past and like, oh, that was all on me.
Like I did something wrong.
Like, no, maybe I was just holding space for a lot of people who are collectively going
through something.
Or it was just a lower energy class and it's not always a me thing.
And yeah, now I like shake my butt listening to bass music in my own classes and just have
so much fun teaching.
So stick with it.
Yeah.
And I think it's also important to share that one of the perspectives I've taken is you
don't know if you've already done something like just you living your own authenticity
could be exactly what someone else is needing.
And sometimes like when I make tech talks, for example, it might be one person that was
needing that message and it doesn't matter how little or how much engagement it gets.
It doesn't even matter in person what someone's initial responses.
We are just constantly planting little seeds for each other.
There is a deeper connection, I think, than we can see.
And sometimes the word someone said to you, I'm sure you can reflect in your own journey
about something someone said that maybe they don't even know is so significant, but you
can reflect back on those words being like a big game changer for you.
That happens again and again on the spiritual journey.
And I really try when I put content out, I know that there was an energy that helped
me put it out into the world.
I had the energy to create that message and it doesn't really matter how it's received.
I know it went out and I'm sure that there was someone that needed to hear that exact
thing or I probably wouldn't have been able to create it so smoothly and so efficiently.
So that's a perspective I take when I am voicing things out that I don't always get the validation
in the moment, but maybe that was exactly what someone needed to be like a bookmark
or a filler for a later time.
Yeah.
And that makes me want to talk about magnetism because that's what that is.
It's being magnetic and also understanding that just like magnets, we will repel people.
And I am not for everyone.
My yoga classes are not for everyone, just like not everyone is for me.
We intuitively know when someone feels really good to be around and when someone doesn't.
And it's not to say that that's bad, that someone doesn't want to be around you or vice
versa, but it's knowing that you are going to attract the people who love your energy.
The people who love my classes are going to keep coming back to my classes.
And that's that whole idea of being magnetic and just being confident in that knowing.
Yeah.
And there might be pieces where you're at the right place in the right time for just
a very brief moment and maybe that person, you never interact with them again, but we
are just like constantly at play with each other.
I think it's just so much more complex.
And to share like a little bit more of coming out of the closet, integrating into the world,
I think your energy starts to speak louder than words when you've done a lot of this
like spiritual and healing work.
I think for the people that have been in that space, I feel like you can be around them
and you can notice when someone's not trying to manipulate the outcome, when there is like
a real release of however it goes, because there's like a deeper sense and trust.
And that doesn't mean that person's stuck in that mode forever.
It just means that I think on this journey, we can really get to a place where we can
move through the outside world and create kind of like a ripple effect of light and
change around us.
And I think that's what this journey is really for and a big part of it.
And that's where you go from the individual journey to more of a collective shifting mindset.
Yes.
So a couple other things that we had some fun compiling into a list of what it might
look like.
It might want to emphasize the might look like when you come out of the spiritual closet
or so you can look out for others who might be on that path with you.
These are kind of silly, but it's also true.
Using spiritual buzzwords.
We, how often have you heard alignment, alchemy, transmutation, healing, chakras, and light
work?
Right?
I mean, it's our vocabulary.
And I think when you hear people use those words, you also kind of know like, okay, they're
kin.
When I hear someone compliment me and say, I love your energy, I'm like, oh, hey, like
I know.
Hey, did we just become best friends?
I'm like an energy compliment over a body compliment, abso-freakin-lutely.
All day.
Another thing is not being afraid to take up space and not worrying what others think
of your woo-woo-ness or talking this way, not being bothered by anyone who doesn't get
it or who might judge you because you know that this is you and that's worth taking up
space for.
Yes.
Every time I see a fellow person at the gym dancing to their music while they're working
out, I'm like, hey, you know, just owning your uniqueness, owning that it doesn't have
to like look a certain way out in the outside world.
It truly does not matter how you move and shift through when you start feeling like
your body has to be certain ways or held certain ways.
Like you can see the people that are willing to just like take up the space and yeah, not
move in a way that has so many set rules behind it.
There's a rigidness, I think, when people are close off to themselves.
I can feel it off of people versus ones that have a much more open aura and I can sense
that deeply.
Me too.
Yes.
The way they dress, the way they care themselves, the color they paint their hair, whatever,
right?
Another thing we've kind of touched on is acting on your intuition, not just like focusing
on logic and what you think is the right thing to do, but understanding how something feels
and taking action on that instead.
Leading with your vulnerability, sharing how an interaction made you feel and also being
very open to sharing when something has made you uncomfortable.
The people that are very willing to talk to me about something I said not sitting well,
like that screams a huge openness too when you're able to communicate something fully
through instead of being offended or closed off or refusing to actually navigate that
on a communication level.
I think that shows a real openness difference too.
I so agree.
Yeah.
And on that note too, it's like feeling this desire to lift others up, to amplify voices
that you believe in versus starting drama or staying in your pain body or talking shit
just because you're feeling this jealousy or something like that.
Jealousy is such a low vibrational energy and the more that we can pay attention to
that at first and be able to, here's the word, transmute it into love and to lifting others
up.
I think it takes practice for sure, but don't ignore it and see what you can do with it.
And yeah, final thing I will share.
I have definitely looked back at old photos of myself from before I had any sort of spiritual
lean into that journey of self love, healing, spirituality in general.
And I can just see a difference in my eyes.
I can see a heaviness and a darkness in my eyes before.
And then where I'm at now, you can just feel a lighter.
I can see it in my own eyes and photos.
And that's really wild to do a side by side and see.
But I think there's a kind of glow up that can happen when you just start to radically
love yourself and yeah, you're living just from an authentic place.
And that does not mean that it's not messy and doesn't shift and change all the time.
But even being able to ride the waves of highs and lows, yeah, there's a difference there
than when you're resisting and trying to avoid and ignore these little hints that you're
needing a change.
You're needing to let go of something.
I think there's a big difference there.
Yeah, they say the eyes are the windows to the soul.
So that makes sense.
Yeah, similarly, I remember after I think I moved out to Colorado for like a year at
this point, I visited Massachusetts, met with some high school friends who I hadn't seen
in years ever since I started my spiritual journey and teaching yoga and had the confidence
to move out here, which that was a big sign of progression on my spiritual journey to
me too of having the confidence to leave the nest.
But I remember her saying, Kat, you seem so different.
You're talking different.
You're holding yourself different.
What happened?
What's going on?
I was like, wow, really?
I never noticed that.
But yeah, I feel different.
I feel just happier and lighter and more connected with myself.
And that is the gift of this work.
Beautiful.
And just to say, we deeply need more people coming out of the closet, sharing the work
that you've been doing with the world, even if it's messy at first, it's uncomfortable,
it requires you to go back and make corrections and talk about things in a deeper, more complex
way.
We need more voices out that deeply care about the world evolving to something that looks
safer and more beautiful, not just for individuals, but for the collective.
And so come out of the closet.
We want to see you.
Join us.
And with that, thank you all so much for being our family, for just supporting us here.
And if you haven't already, please go ahead and hit follow on the podcast so you can be
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We love you.
Love you so much.
We'll talk soon.
Bye.