SoulStirred: Stories of Growth And The Human Experience

Emily Garcia (00:03)
Welcome lovely listeners to SoulStirred Stories of Growth and the Human Experience. I'm Emily Garcia. And I'm Kasey Clark. We will be your guides on this journey. We are so glad you are here. Each week, we'll come together, sometimes with other incredible thinkers, creators, and adventurers, to generously share stories of self-discovery, recovery, triumph, and what it means to live a life on purpose. No matter where you are in your own journey,

connection is here for you at SoulStirred Settle in, take a deep breath in, and let's inspire each other. Welcome to SoulStirred

Emily (00:49)
Welcome back, SoulStard listeners. We are so glad you were here to join us today.

Kasey (00:53)
Today is a really exciting day, universally speaking. On the date of this recording, April 8th, it is the day of the solar eclipse. And if you're alive in an America and tuned into any sort of radio or television today, there's no way you miss that today is the day of the solar eclipse. It's an exciting time. And I personally have always felt like a person who's really connected to the universe, you know?

We had a really big windstorm last weekend and I said to the people that I live with, I can feel those winds blowing inside my own body. And so there's lots of folks, including a client of mine who traveled to Dallas to be in the pathway so that he could see the entire eclipse, which I just think is so cool.

They covered the eclipse this weekend on the Sunday morning show, which I watch every Sunday. And one of the journalists had said, if you're standing there in the pathway, you will be able to feel the vibration from the universe as the sun and moon cross totally in front of each other. So the point here is that it's a big day, universally speaking, and it has a lot of spiritual and religious meaning. In fact, in the Navajo tradition,

the sun is considered a father figure and its disappearance during the eclipse is regarded as a sacred period that calls for rest and reflection and prayer. this can be thought of as a really serious time, an ominous time, even a dangerous time, but it's also a time for renewal. And so Emily and I thought,

what a great opportunity the eclipse has brought for us to talk about the importance of renewal and rest and reflection and prayer and what sometimes can get in the way of our manifesting the life of our dreams. So that's the conversation we want to have here together today. Emily, tell me about what it means for you to rest.

Emily (03:04)
Yeah, it's an amazing question that I don't honestly, I don't think about rest all of the time. I do think about how I'm a pro sleeper, but rest is different. Rest is giving myself a chance to stop and slow down and just be because rest doesn't require a lot. And so there are lots of things that I think of.

Kasey (03:14)
Yeah.

Emily (03:32)
for myself that are useful with rest and that I can and will do right now, you know, after we're done today and before I go to bed tonight. One is breath work. It's breath to calm my nervous system and just help me feel centered. Another is I am going to be intentional about taking a break from any technology.

for a while today.

because having my phone in front of me or having the radio on in the car or having my computer on are all things that keep me thinking and not resting. So they're very simple things, but really helpful. What is rest for you?

Kasey (04:12)
Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Yeah, I love where you pointed the focus that rest really means resting your mind and your body and your spirit and your breath. I can even feel my whole body sort of rest as I repeat those words to you. And it is so important that.

You know, in life so often we get busy in the doing and there's more to do and to do and to do. And we forget that doing always needs to be leveraged with being. And I noticed that even when I try to bring myself into a being space for the sake of my own restoration, I often have to battle through some noise in my head first that, you know, the voices that want to tell me there's more things to get done and these things really need to be done or you're being lazy.

I want to just right now take this moment to dispel all of that noise and say these are lies we've been conditioned to tell ourselves. That truly rest and recovery is as essential if not more as activity and production if you want to stay on purpose and connected in your life.

And I think we can probably all notice the signals that our bodies throw, right? Like my body has its very own, like your engine light is on. Seek service and maintenance now. To pay attention to those signals when we get too much into the doing and the productivity to the neglect of our own space for just being and breathing and feeling.

So yeah, I too am guilty of being on the busy bus. And I like how it feels when I breathe into this word rest. And for me too, it means putting down the technology, shutting the top on the computer, moving far away from my phone, turn off the television.

Emily (06:09)
Hmm, that's awesome.

Kasey (06:21)
And my actual favorite way to rest includes movement. I like to walk and have no technological devices around me or with me and just listen to the sound of the trees. Hear the crackling of the rocks underneath my hiking boots. Sometimes even the wind will blow in a way that you can listen when you're really tuned in.

And even though I enjoy moving my body, it still feels like a restorative practice to be in that space.

Emily (06:54)
Yeah.

There's something so special about getting out into nature. And it doesn't mean that you have to drive an hour or two hours away from your house. It is getting outside and just looking at the clouds or feeling the sun on your skin or listening to the trees as they're blowing in the breeze. There's something really transformative in our body when we do that and actually just

Kasey (07:00)
Yeah.

Mm -hmm.

Emily (07:24)
allow ourselves to be as nature is. Nature is just being.

Kasey (07:27)
Yeah. Yes, nature reminds us every day how to just stand and be and let go and surrender, right? And it's there for us all of the time for when the human parts of us forget that that needs to happen and how it happens. Yeah. So what about reflection for you? Do you have a reflection practice or how does that happen in your inner or outer world?

Emily (07:36)
Yeah.

The one thing that I do consistently is write in my gratitude journal. And it's not every day, but I was given a gratitude journal from a friend. And even though for a long time, I thought, oh, I should, I should have gratitude practice. I started writing in it and every day it asks me for three things I'm grateful for. And then throughout the week, it will ask me to reflect on something. So.

Kasey (08:04)
Mm -hmm.

Emily (08:24)
What is something that brought you joy today? Or what is a memory that you have that feels really special? Or what is something you ate that when you think about it, you're really excited? And so the combination of the gratitude and the reflection on what is going on. And then the last element is it asks me to write four affirmations each week. And so each day I write my gratitude and I read my affirmations.

and say them out loud to myself and it gives me time to feel it and reflect on how I feel in order to create what it is that I want.

Kasey (09:02)
I love that. I think I need one of those journals. I'm not doing any of those important, powerful questions. Actually, I do every day have a gratitude practice. In fact, when I wake up in the morning before my feet even hit the floor, I say thank you. I'm grateful that I woke up this morning. I'm grateful that I'm able to breathe air into my lungs.

Emily (09:05)
Uh, yeah, maybe I need to get you one.

Kasey (09:28)
I'm grateful that my legs are able to move and come off the bed and touch the floor with my feet. And it really does help. I notice that if sometimes I have feelings that are, you know, of a stressful nature, like I'm anxious about something in my day or my heart hurts because of some pain in my life, that gratefulness moves me in a way that makes me face my day more positively.

Emily (09:58)
I love that.

Kasey (09:58)
So I would call that reflection time. And I also hear how much I could expand reflection time with some of what you've got going on in that journal. I'd love to remember. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I find it's really important and really changes sort of the tenor of the whole day. Because for me,

Emily (10:07)
But what a good way to start your day.

Kasey (10:26)
I think it feels sort of impossible to be grateful and sad at the same time. Yeah. Yeah.

Emily (10:33)
Yeah, that's, I've heard it said that you can't be in a space or in a feeling of gratitude and feel anxious at the same time.

Kasey (10:45)
Yeah, I've heard that too. I think that's true also. Yeah. Gratefulness is just one of those, can we call it an emotion? I believe that it is an emotion. That it moves other things. Like it sort of supersedes, you know, everything else that I guess some of those feelings, anxiousness, you know, sadness, depression, anger.

Emily (10:48)
Yeah, I think so.

Kasey (11:13)
could be described as largely ego driven. While gratefulness somehow enhances my relationship with my higher power, the universe. While I can be sad because, you know, I have a broken heart or an empty bank account, gratefulness reminds me that, you know, I'm happy to be alive.

and that not everyone gets to have that. Yeah.

Emily (11:39)
Right? I'm recalling when I was a single mom and my kids were little, I went to a friend's house and she had this beautiful home in a really beautiful neighborhood. And I lived in my little tiny ranch home in not the best neighborhood. And I remember feeling envious and like, wow, it's so nice here. And

Kasey (11:46)
Mm.

Emily (12:06)
also having this like, I'll never have that kind of thought. And then a week later, I went to a different friend's house, same kind of thing. She had worked very hard and had a beautiful home and a really cool neighborhood and had the same thought. And I went home and I was reflecting on it and thinking, why, where is this coming from? And it was coming from me, me wanting something and.

in the coming weeks after that, I didn't want to feel that way. I didn't want to feel envious and not appreciative of what I had. And so I really had to stop and go, wait a minute, look where I am. I own this home I get to live in with my children. It has kept us safe. This is the home where I brought my children to when they were born. There's so many beautiful memories here. I can have friends over and have.

barbecues in my backyard and I started really focusing on the things I loved and I'll tell you what by the time I moved out of that house I was actually really sad to leave it because it had felt like such a special place but I needed to reflect and have a change in perspective in order to love where I was and I didn't need what other people had and I'm glad they had it but it wasn't what I needed at that point.

Kasey (13:12)
No.

Yeah, yeah, because it held so many special and sacred memories for you. It's as you're describing that story, I can hear what I was trying to say a minute ago about the emotions. But it's like when we come from this belief that we're not enough or that we don't have enough that can really pull us into that downside and then remembering everything that it is versus what it isn't.

Emily (13:33)
Right.

Kasey (13:57)
is what can make something feel what was previously too small or not safe enough or not pretty enough in your mind became something really special. This is the home where my babies were born, where we made the memories of their early life and early childhood. Yeah, yeah, that's the power of gratitude right there, dear.

Emily (14:16)
You know, we...

power of gratitude and the choice in perspective. Because whatever we decide is true, is true.

Kasey (14:23)
Yeah.

Yeah, exactly. And that we can change how we feel by changing the lens we're looking through. That's so important to me today. And again, feels like it could be a lesson from the sun and the moon. There will always be like darkness and light, those go together, right? They're a polarity. One cannot exist without the other. And.

Emily (14:43)
Yeah.

Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

Kasey (14:54)
Of course, we need to spend time in our own inner world, in the dark and in the light, and to know that we each have the power to decide how to move between the two and not stay stuck in either one by changing how we're looking at ourselves in our life. Yeah, that feels like a really important thing for me to say out loud today for myself and maybe also for our audience.

Emily (15:15)
Mm -hmm.

Yeah.

Your higher self and wise self is saying what needs to be heard. And we don't see stars without darkness.

Kasey (15:30)
Yeah, exactly, exactly. Yes, right, right. I once went to a, it was called the Workshop for Creatives down in Santa Fe, and it was an incredible event where I got to meet some really incredible people, mostly of the artistic orientation. And one of the art teachers was having us paint.

And one of the first things that she did was have us turn our whole canvas black, the last color that most artists would ever reach for, darkness. And yet she said, because this will make the jewel tones shimmer even brighter and the bolds come out with even more clarity, the fact that you're putting them on top of your own darkness. I think there's a metaphor to life here for me about that.

Emily (16:24)
It's so true. And all of the things that are most important about who I am in the world have come out of darkness. They've come out of the trauma and the pain that I've experienced. Because when you're in a really dark place and you don't want to stay there, you actually change things. You have the chance. It's the opportunity to say, okay, this is where I live or to say,

Kasey (16:32)
Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Yeah.

Emily (16:54)
I'm going to change it and that's when you make real change. We don't make change when everything is good.

Kasey (17:00)
No, that's how we like staying the same. Yeah. It's like life, the universe needed to get you uncomfortable enough that seeking change was your only choice. Yeah. And then I could say that all over again with eyes instead of use. The universe made me uncomfortable enough that the only choice was to seek change. Yeah. Here we are.

Emily (17:02)
Yeah, yeah.

Exactly.

Mm -hmm.

Yep, that's why we're here.

Kasey (17:28)
So that's interesting because it takes us over to another spiritual guru offering is that in the space of today's solar eclipse, the question we really ought to be asking ourselves is what blocks are in the way of manifesting your dream life?

Emily (17:46)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

Kasey (17:49)
what comes up for you.

Emily (17:51)
my own inner critic which provides me with self -doubt.

Kasey (17:53)
Mm -hmm.

Emily (17:56)
that critic inside of me that says, oh, you're not enough or someone else could do it better or even more than that as I'm saying it, I realize it's the critic that wants me to focus on other people's opinions of me. I don't wanna disappoint other people and so hold back. That's what the inner critic is telling me.

Kasey (18:13)
Mm -hmm.

Emily (18:22)
Just, you know, don't upset them. So don't say that thing. Don't do that thing. That's the biggest thing holding me back.

Kasey (18:30)
Yeah. So how do you want to be with that part of yourself? Does your higher self or higher power have any response to your inner critic for you?

Emily (18:39)
My Higher Self says, trust your intuition, live in your light, make your decisions out of light and not out of fear.

Kasey (18:43)
Mm.

Yeah.

Emily (18:48)
and I am getting better at listening to my higher self. But sometimes that inner critic is really loud and it takes a whole lot of intentional practice to...

listen and actually hear my higher self.

Kasey (19:05)
Yeah, yeah, I can relate.

Emily (19:08)
Yeah, tell me about that.

Kasey (19:11)
Oh, well, I too know, you know, really, the most familiar inside voice is an inner critic and judge. And, wow, she's hard on me. She doesn't speak to me in ways that are very kind or loving. She's harsh and sort of shaming. And that is...

has been difficult to be with and difficult to work out of, like to reconstruct. It's almost like I now feel I have volume buttons, you know, inside where I can turn the volume down on her and turn up the volume on something that feels like it's serving me and what the universe wants with me and why God intended me and why me now alive here on purpose, you know.

Emily (19:54)
Yeah.

Kasey (20:03)
So I like to turn the volume up on that wisdom and down on the harsh inner critic and what I was relating to as you were talking is that it's hard. The inner critic is familiar. It likes, I think, to hold me small and hidden and unseen when that's not at all what I know I'm for.

Emily (20:31)
Yeah.

Kasey (20:33)
Yeah. So to the question we're responding to right now about the blocks that are in the way of manifesting our dream life, I think from that voice, I developed some habits in life to survive, I think. But that I recognize now as I'm turning up the volume on the wisdom voice no longer serve me.

Emily (20:59)
Mm.

Kasey (21:00)
And so I'm noticing how to change the story on the inside in order to change the habit. Which has been a really interesting thing. I'm talking about things like I abuse caffeine and nicotine and stimulants and Grey's Anatomy. You know, the things I do to like numb and hide and avoid my life.

Emily (21:21)
Yeah.

Kasey (21:26)
And I say my life really what I'm probably talking about is to numb and hide and avoid my feelings. And as I've started to embrace and feel the truth of my feelings, I also am aware I no longer need those hiding and numbing agents. And so now it's really just about changing behavior.

Emily (21:50)
Mm -hmm.

Kasey (21:51)
And it's been very interesting. One of the things that's been difficult for me, anybody in my close inner circles know that I am a Dr. Pepper Zero addict.

I drink it all day long. I drink way too much of it and I know that it's not healthy or good for me. And so one who claims to be conscious and enlightened must ask oneself a question, why is this happening? Right? If you know that it's not good for you, what has you continuing to do it? When you know that your mission is to love yourself more.

Emily (22:16)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

Kasey (22:26)
And so I've started having to have these little conversations with myself when I reach to get a drink. Like, is this what you want? Is this really what you want? Have you checked in with your body to see what it really desires? And I've discovered I'm actual thirsty and what my body really actually wants is water. And so for about three days now, I've had no soda.

Emily (22:52)
Whoa, that's huge!

Kasey (22:55)
only water and it's been from this process. I have been telling myself a lie for years that I don't know how to change, that I can't live without this caffeine, that I you know things that have kept me stuck. Well so you know what occurs to me now that I want to share is I think it's also true that we get addicted to our stories.

Emily (23:18)
Mm hmm. Yeah.

Kasey (23:21)
And so what's occurred to me is I am addicted to the stories that this small, unkind inner critic voice has for me.

And to create change, I needed to turn down its volume and turn up the volume of my wise self that wants to say, how about we check in on what do you really want? What is the need you are trying to satisfy right now? And how do you want to go about getting that satisfied? And then to the body, right? The body that stores all of the intelligence for us.

Emily (23:58)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

Kasey (24:00)
It remembers everything that's ever happened to us. And it's the relationship that for me up until now, I have neglected the most. And now by turning towards and listening to what my body is saying it desires, it turns out I'm reaching for things it actually needs and giving it to them. So I feel like I'm right. I have been blocked.

Emily (24:23)
How does that feel? How does it feel when you reach toward it? Yeah.

Kasey (24:27)
And it feels like maybe I'm becoming unblocked. And that's very interesting to me. And for me personally, the solar eclipse feels like it has a part in my story. Like that big of a shift in the universe and this big of a shift in me cannot be a coincidence happening at the same time. Yeah.

Emily (24:49)
Yeah, yeah. And you know, I just, I want to point out that even though this episode is going to air much after the solar eclipse and who knows when the next one is, all of these things are not, they don't require some earth changing event or a once in 157 year event. I don't know what the timeline is. I made up that number.

Kasey (25:13)
You

Emily (25:15)
We can do all of this at any point, but it is about like, really? I like what you said. I had to ask myself, is that what I really need? And we can ask ourselves at any point, am I doing this because it's what I really need? For me, am I holding back because it's what I really need or am I doing it because I'm worried about what other people are going to think for you? Am I reaching for that Dr. Pepper?

the zero Dr. Pepper because it's what I really need or is it because I'm thirsty? Like we get to stop and reflect and ask.

Kasey (25:50)
And it requires, we're kind of back to the beginning, right, about rest and reflection, because it requires a slowing down to even become conscious enough of yourself and the voices inside your own head and the desire that might be coming from your body. We have to tune into those things to listen to them before we can serve them, right?

Emily (25:56)
Hmm.

Yeah.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Kasey (26:19)
So if we're always busy, busy, busy doing, there's no way you can hear.

Emily (26:25)
Yeah, there's no way for you to tune what's going on for me right now. And this is what I actually need because we're not stopping to ask. So we're definitely not stopping to

Kasey (26:27)
cough