Introduction to Kate and Jeanette
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Jeanette: [00:00:00] And you know, I think ultimately that these ancient practices have led me into the deepest worlds of healing, of healing, trauma of connecting with the truth of any experience, which is that we are whole and complete, no matter what has felt like it's fragmented us. And somatics are really practices for the future.
Kate: This is the place of community connection,
Jeanette: where we honor and celebrate each individual's unique gifts and passions
Kate: share rituals for all the seasons and cycles of life
Jeanette: and bring light to both ancient and modern practices
Kate: that transform communities to the new earth paradigm.
Jeanette: One that is more loving, compassionate, and life affirming.
Kate: This is the nourish collective.
Jeanette: I'm Jeanette Sealy
Kate: and I'm Kate Strakosch. [00:01:00] We are so grateful that you are here with us,
and we'd like to acknowledge that we're coming to you from Lenape land, right along the Metedeconk river on the Jersey shore.
Jeanette: We bow to our teachers, our teachers' teachers,
our mentors, our ancestors, our guides past present, and.
Our intention is to offer an inclusive trauma sensitive space.
Kate: We will be mindful about cultivating this, and we'd also like to acknowledge that we are both CIS able bodied white women,
Jeanette: and we are committed to being open to doing better.
Kate: Thank you so much for taking this journey with us.
Jeanette: So this is our first official episode, and I would love to take this time to share a little bit about what led us both on these individual journeys, towards the work that we [00:02:00] do, and to also offer insight and connection. For those of you listening, would you mind sharing Kate? How did you, how did you start this journey?
Kate: So many threads together, but I have had, I think back to when I was a young teenager in such an interest in food and how food affected my energy, my connection to my body, that led me to studying nutrition at a natural medicine school out in Seattle. And it was probably one of the most potent and loneliness and vulnerable times in my life because I was so invested in learning the science behind nutrition and explore.
All sorts of different paths of spirituality. I moved across the country from my family, didn't know anyone, and at the same time was so disconnected from what my body really needed. [00:03:00] And so fast forward to going deeper into movement through yoga. I studied more about how the mind body connection brings us back together.
Hit some really low points in my hormonal balance in my body. And that was really where the raw awakening began of. Okay. Regardless of how much I know in my mind and how much I can learn from books and tools, it's really tuning back into my intuition to honor what phase I am in. And so. This is basically sharing about 25 years of an experience, but led me deeper into doing more of the work that I do now tuning into my Yoni health, getting deeper into Yoni, steaming, and the wisdom, and also all of the emotional and the energetic embodiment that is there.
So, um, I really, I took hold of what my body was asking for. [00:04:00] Switch gears, kind of fine tuned. When deeper into the shadows, which taught me so much about the treasures of my own life and reclaimed the wisdom that my body carries fast forward to the current day, where I've gotten deeper into intimacy work and to really honoring that our bodies, regardless woman's body man's body had their own time, has their own time to.
Celebrate and vitality has their own time being winter and to grieve and to really recognize. The resources that we can cultivate from within and so that's the shortest version I can come up with within this moment. There've been so many different chapters that's in that, but it really, it started for me on, on such a physical level, but asked me to go much deeper into the deepest energetic.
And the deepest outward energetic to really connect me into [00:05:00] the bigger scheme of the universe. So thank you for, oh, that was so
beautiful. I really felt when you said that, like, no matter how much your mind knew that you had to learn to listen to the intuition of your body. Um, and I think that's a journey for all of us that.
Jeanette: We, we live in this kind of top mind society where our brain drives our thought processes, our choices. But when we have that ability to dive in and listen to the wisdom of the body, we really are able to make the right choices for us. The discernment lies within the body, not within the mind.
Yeah.
Kate: What an opportunity to honor that piece because we can be really stubborn to some degree and really heady to just outsource so much information, which information is beautiful. And it [00:06:00] is such a, a gift to, to go into that. But until we really soften and tune that listening back within, we don't recognize what it is that we really need solution.
And collectively we are so overstimulated in our world that it's easy to just operate on that trajectory rather than to slow down and to tune, tune back with it. Yeah.
Jeanette: The wisdom library of the body is, is powerful tool that practices can get us in touch with. Do you have a favorite practice for beginning that journey?
If you've been in the top mind for a long time,
Kate: For me
personally. And one that is most accessible is to soften into placing my palms on my body, wherever they are called to in the moment, let's say. I often find [00:07:00] if I'm not focusing on my breath, my heart races, or I feel so many speedy thoughts running through my mind. So even if it means bringing my palms onto my head and just taking a deep inhale and exhale and just watching and just noticing where's my energy questioning.
And even that pause in asking that question is a reset to, to shift from everything being pulled outwardto what's happening right now, without judgment, just observing. And I feel that's maybe one of the reasons why you and I align so deeply and so beautifully because you were so attuned to the energy body.
And I mean, you are tuned to everybody, but just watching you over the years and your evolution of your journey. So I'd love to hear more about where you are now and where you've come from.
Jeanette: It is very similar. I started as a teenager as well in yoga [00:08:00] and found that it was the first time that I was able to find this really deep.
Compassionate stillness that existed within. And I had just never found the tools to really access it. You know, it's with us inherently and this ability to be soft and to feel safe and to feel steady and balanced. But the practice of yoga for me, facilitated my connection with that experience. And I discovered something about myself and it led me on this long journey.
Of study and practice yoga and Thai massage and Ayurveda that continuously just opens up the beauty of life.
And you know, I think ultimately that these practices, these ancient practices have led me into the deepest worlds of healing, of healing, trauma of connecting with the truth of [00:09:00] any experience, which is that we are whole and complete, no matter what has felt like it's fragmented us. And somatics are really practices for the future.
I think that if we are going to create the kind of earth that we want, we need to first and foremost, be in touch with the wisdom of our body. We needed to be able to find that place of inner stillness and abiding, and to really have a sense of what's going on energetically and emotionally. So that we don't externalize it so that we can come home and find a place of peace and balance that helps us thrive in our career and our relationships in our wellbeing.
So I'm in love with these practices and it's just such a gift to be able to study them and share them.
What would you say your favorite practices are right now, as you say, coming back home, coming back within,
you know, what you are sharing Kate , [00:10:00] of touching your own body. This is a huge practice. , the work of Peter Levine of somatic experiencing is very close to my heart and it's kind of like.
Place of permission to self-sooth, you know, , when we have babies, we have children. One of the goals is to encourage them to self-sooth. But somehow we forget that as adults, we forget that we need that too. And sometimes that pause and that self compassionate touch can be enough just to notice the warmth of your palm.
There are so many ways of coming into the body and when we're feeling stressed, that help us regulate our heart rate, activate the parasympathetic response so that we enter into the rest and repair phase. We live in such high stress times that we are honestly always in a fight or flight response.
If you notice your breath in any moment while you're driving or while you're working, [00:11:00] you may notice that it might be. Shallow and quick, rather than slow and deep. And so that loving awareness and attention on the breath, this connection with the body can really create a space where. Create safety within ourselves.
And again, from that place, it gives us so much freedom to accomplish what we want to accomplish, to do what we want to do to create the kind of health and longevity that we desire and that we have the technology for.
Kate: I love how you used the word freedom because there is such a connection with safety and freedom and.
By each individual, finding that way to come back within ourselves. It does spill over into the collective way of slowing down because on the other hand of that, when we are all so [00:12:00] over conditioned into racing through life, we just follow the speed. And keep up with that. But if in the overall collective community, we could slow down how much more freedom that would give to find a slower pace and to really be more in the body, rather than so much in the head or even out of the body.
Hmm, how often we go through our days and just operating on autopilot, multitasking, but not truly. Resourcing and being present moment to moment.
Jeanette: Yeah. I mean, how many times have you driven somewhere and then arrived and then thought to yourself, wow, how did I get here? I wasn't paying attention the whole time, but it's that autopilot existence that is so common, but also it really doesn't access the full potential of human being because [00:13:00] our.
brains have neuro-plasticity and if we're looking for longevity and a healthy brain as we're aging, the key is variety, diversity, doing things in new ways, doing new things. And somatics gives us that potential. And I feel like noting as well is it's not always possible.
To feel safe. The external circumstances are often out of our control and we may be in a situation that truly isn't safe and maybe feel a little bit of powerlessness around that. But these somatic practices, these tools are good for especially good for those times, because if a war is going on around us, The biggest gift that we can give ourselves is peace on the inside.
And so even if it's for moments, you know, even it's, if it's that five minutes or that [00:14:00] 45 minutes that you take to devote to yourself, to being still connecting with your breath, connecting with movement, connecting with. a higher source, whatever it is that really makes you feel connected and not alone that will build and cultivate an inner experience that is steady no matter what is happening around.
Kate: That gave me chills. You were saying that because as we are having this conversation and where we find ourselves in this current day, we are living in such contrast of times with war going on in the world, which there's always something. Of dark and light, but just the heaviness that we are moving through and just knowing how much human suffering is is happening.
And although. Always help firsthand. What you just [00:15:00] shared is such a reminder of how we can offer that safety moment to moment in our own bodies to begin our day, that way, and to just share that breadth of, of prayer and gratitude that we pray, we arising into a more conscious realm, more peaceful realm, and then also.
To close down our wake state before going into the dream state, because if we're not resting properly, how much is being processed through our subconscious, but to really nourish ourselves and tend to ourselves and to hold that as a way to carry, carry all of us through this time. And as heavy as that may feel, just really being.
Transparent with what we can take on and what we can feel in our conscious and subconscious minds.
Jeanette: Yeah. It's powerful that we are in these times of dragons and that [00:16:00] we're creating community and we are creating gathering spaces, whether virtual or in-person that promote this sense of community safety.
That give us the opportunity to take action when action is able to be taken. And if there is no action to be taken that we can cultivate peace and acceptance and. This overall coming home to this place of loving kindness, and we can generate that. And it literally does change the world. There's the Maharishi effect and studies that have shown that simply by meditating in a group, we can impact the crime around us.
And I'm getting the chills. Just thinking about it though. Right now that, you know, there are thousands and thousands of Buddhist monks meditating for your peace and happiness. There are [00:17:00] so many opportunities to come home to this experience of love as the core of who we are. Yeah.
And to trust in that.
Kate: Yes. And that's part of our, our intention and our mission being here in these conversations is to return. To invite that invitation to return back home within ourselves to find that that beam of light, that torch of light that can carry us through and ignite this radiance that we can, we can share wherever we find ourselves in the world
Jeanette: and then extend it outward so that it reaches our families, our neighborhoods, our communities, our countries.
Our neighboring countries and beyond this ever expanding field of love and kindness and peacefulness that does reverberate and encircles the world. [00:18:00] So yes.
Kate: So on this day. Yeah. That's where we find ourselves seated together in the circle, envisioning everyone coming together in circle to, to illuminate and to connect and unite.
So we thank you for, for being with us on this journey.
We look forward to more time together to hearing from you. And please do leave a response. Go ahead and take some time to let us know how this landed with you and how you feel about somatic practices for the future. And cultivating a world filled with love and peace and safety for all.
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