Episode 22
Living in the Flow of Wakefulness with Katherine Jansen-Byrkit
Living in the Flow of Wakefulness with Katherine Jansen-Byrkit
In this episode we get curious about:
- Embodying wakefulness
- Set internal boundaries
- Be yourself and be resilient
- Do not engage in conflict
- Dream: Have a conviction to make it happen
To learn more about our guest:
Website: www.harborglowholistic.com
FB: https://www.facebook.com/harborglowpublishing https://www.facebook.com/innergycounseling
Books: https://amzn.to/3oaQony
To learn more about Laurin Wittig and her work: https://HeartLightJoy.com
Copyright 2024 Laurin Wittig
Transcript
Interview Episode with Katherine Jansen-Byrkit
[:And, and if there is, how do we navigate it?
[:And so we're gonna talk about that today. I'm gonna let her pretty much introduce herself but she has written a book which we'll talk about towards the end and Katherine, welcome.
[: [: [: [:And I guess I should say you're a psychotherapist. And you use it in that work.
[:We grow up. We have a childhood. We have a name. We have a history. We have thoughts and dreams and a way of being, and that is all good. And some of those ways of being over time begin to kind of keep us from living as our true self. They're really sourced by whether it's trauma, modeling, even cultural pieces.
So to me, being awake is every day waking up in a literal way too. With the intention to live is my most conscious and loving self. Free from conditioning forces that keep me from those two things, my most conscious and loving self.
[: [:So. Those things have served me well over the years. And I am finding a return to some of those same kinds of basic practices critically necessary for me to be able to remain buoyant and hopeful and not overly anxious or needing to distract myself from the anxieties that my body carries.
There are powerful and difficult things happening in the world. There are incredible things always happening in the world of course. So my work as a psychotherapist is to help people not disassociate from their inner whatever's happening going on inside or the outer world, but that means we have to kind of keep our head above water.
So it is very much about personal practice and I do a mindfulness piece every morning. I exercise regularly. I'm really strong self-care on my days off. I'm passionate about my work, but I try to keep it very much a balance. So yeah.
[: [: [: [:So again, it's, I love your words, Laurin. It's not about denial. But it is about the secretness of that and the preciousness of that and not taking that for granted. And so we have that brain that can kind of look for problems, have that negativity bias. We need to be very much kind of the master of our inner existence, not just our outer existence.
And one little tool in the toolkit is called internal boundaries, and a lot of people think of boundaries as outer boundaries. You don't get to say that to me or I need to have a boundary that I can't always help you move. Or, you know, those kinds of relational ones.
Well, internal boundary is where I don't carry anybody else's pain. I feel it like there's empathy. That's actually very important, but I fashion it almost like a cylinder inside of me. And it's how I've been able to do my 20 years of clinical practice with some pretty intense suffering and pain of my clients and my kids and my own is that it is not mine, so I care, but I don't carry it.
So I think those internal boundaries have become very, very important these days.
[: [: [:I don't get to do it every day, but that for me, that's my set place cuz I can just really make sure I'm okay before I move into the rest of the world.
[:And I say this with, you know, a broken heart at times. There is for some of us both personally, and you know, this is a sad analogy, but it took animals being abused for there to be laws. You couldn't abuse animals. It took child abuse for there to be laws that you. So how we as a species get to where we need to get to as painful and messy and imperfect.
And there is that movement toward consciousness and the suffering is not for nothing. And again, that's just an important frame sometimes not to understand why am I having this hard day? Why is this tragedy happening to me, but to have a kind of trust in it as you're working with it at the same time.
But to your point, you just made also the beginning of my book and really my work is to help people with their relationship to themselves. Not to help them become narcissistic, but actually the idea that their relationship to themselves is part of what is problematic in their lives. But they might not know that they're just depressed and anxious, but they don't know that they don't actually have intrinsic worth.
And that's because they had some kind of trauma or message or something happened along the way that I had them feeling unlovable or not good enough. So I really promote that idea of restoring the sense of self, the human even sense of self, challenging old belief systems, so that we, those do not encumber us from again, being our most conscious and loving kind of true self.
[:And I didn't know it. I didn't know that those were just beliefs I had formed at a time when they helped to protect me, perhaps.
[:And so it is a really sophisticated human system that actually does disassociate when it needs to. That just tragic thing is whatever your traumas were, mine were the father that left at 14. I did take it personally, cuz that's what kids do. My brain and your brain, brains organize around circumstances.
And then there's this thing you may be aware of it called confirmation bias. So if I have a belief, I frighteningly do not see evidence to the contrary. And actually create evidence even if it means my suffering to reinforce a belief. So I do not see where I'm lovable. I see where I'm unlovable or not enough, or don't belong, or some of those key key beliefs that really are the backbone, really the foundation of a healthy sense of self.
So it's so important to connect that dot that, oh, this is my eight year old brain. Oh, this is the trauma brain having this story about myself or this other person or what's happening right now. And then have some practices in order to have that internal healing.
[: [: [: [: [: [:Well, who are we on the Monday getting to work and maybe tailgating somebody, right? It's like the way that I personally, and then that's what I offer. I have to live this and so if I'm gonna coach couples and I do a lot of couples work, I have to be that person to my partner.
Like, that's just my kind of again, standard. And so it's really helping people have these ideas that are lovely. But apply them, internalize them and be a reflection. So embodied wakefulness to me is a reflection and a wakefulness, that my choices, my relationships, my own physical body reflects my most conscious and loving self.
So it's not about perfectionism, but it is about not being a hypocrite in a certain way and not just kind of hanging back and learning about these ideas, but not having accountability almost in terms of practicing them and living them. So to me, relationships are a huge part of that, because again, we can be in certain ways really loving, but then if we're gossiping about somebody and we're not having a direct conversation, and practicing judgment.
That's a problem. That's a problem. What I did in my work, I tried to give people like, let's have an idea, but let's think about how to put this into practice because ultimately it's about neural development. Ultimately, if we wanna be different, we have to grow partially a new brain, thankfully there's neuroplasticity.
So we know that that's possible. When I started my practice even 20 years ago, they did not know that. Just kind of like, you might feel better, but your brain is a static kind of thing. So it's very hopeful and very exciting, but it still takes time and a dedication to, again, embodying kind of where do I want to be wakeful, but the really big question is where am I asleep?
Where am I not? where am I caught in a different version of myself? A smaller version of myself or an injured version myself. Yeah.
[: [: [: [:How can you not be anxious as every day we have to please? We have to be performative. We have to prove our worth. So people look at me and kind of are stunned. And it's like, of course you're depressed. Of course you're anxious. We do something so much about that. And authenticity is again one of those brown words like vulnerability, it sounds really good, but it is hard.
It is scary for people. And so my mindfulness practice in my teachings are also about helping people work with their scared part that you can intellectually know this is good and important and the right thing to do, but there's a part of us that is in new territory. And to your point of being shy and working with anxieties testing the waters of being your authentic self and seeing do those friendships remain is there a fallout?
And, and if there is, how do we navigate it? Often that's protective, but sometimes our authentic self is not something that somebody can actually meet. Those are more rare realities, but we can even handle that. It's kind of like holding people capable, including ourselves, at handling all of the outcomes, having that resilience.
[: [:So, I came from an alcoholic family too. And so hero child or all the things children do around the pain body that's not healing and the trouble that's happening. But then again, then all of a sudden that's my personality. I don't know how to be in a room if I'm not funny. Would you really like me if I just quiet or not a high achiever?
[: [: [: [: [: [:It is about assertiveness. It is about voice. It's also about collaboration and attunement to the others' experience. And so teaching people that there is this other way that is safe for everyone, and that they can remain like not wanting to put their boxing gloves on is a way to kind of have a sense of self.
[: [: [: [:It was just a really intense time. So when I went back to school, left my small town in Oregon. Roseburg went to San Francisco, which was very healing for me at 17 years old. Got a G E D. I knew I'd go on to college, but I thought I'd be an attorney at that point. But once I got back into the school system and realized that you could get a bachelor's in anything and become an attorney, it became about health because.
I was beginning to come back in terms of my body and not being bulimic anymore, not overeating anymore, beginning to heal the physical part of me that had really been compromised. And so then it just took me over. It was like, I loved health. I worked in community health. I wasn't a teacher, but then in public health worked for health department, a couple of them.
So I was on this retreat and they said, okay, we're in a small group, it was a large retreat, but a small group. And they said, so just close your eyes and just see if a dream is trying to happen. And it popped in, you're gonna be a therapist. My dad was a therapist. I was like, what? Yeah. I knew that would be like going back to school.
I have six children, two of them were elementary school living with us. How was I going to do that? And so, in this retreat, which was really intense. The small group was supposed to you'd think they would be a group. Okay. Once somebody names a dream, tell them yes, you can do it. Believe in yourself.
Laurin, they did the opposite. Their directive was to tell me how I didn't deserve it. It was ridiculous, but what it did in me, I mean, it was a very intense retreat. It created this conviction of like, yes, I can. I dunno how I'm gonna afford it. People can get to master's degrees. When I came home from California to kind of announce to my husband of like guess what. Anything he would say was nothing compared to what I kind of faced they were my inner demons and I faced and transcended that and got to the other side. So went to school and decided to do private practice because I never been in business for myself. And I thought that would be cool.
Didn't know if I would like it just trusted the calling. And then about 10 years in about 12 years ago, same thing with the book. I just have done a lot of personal work and seen a lot of spiritual teachers. And I felt like for people that can't afford therapy that are scared of therapy for my children who I can't be their therapist before I die, I just wanted to do a piece that just offered kind of a handbook.
The first part of the book is kind of the inner world. So it's relationship to self, cherishing the body, mindfulness, embracing death and dying freedom from the mind that big peace around working with beliefs and confirmation bias. And then the outer world is the second half of the book where it's living in a troubled world.
It is about relationships. It's about nature. It's about forging one's own spiritual path. And that's just it kind of reflects what ended up being my human journey of embodied wakefulness of I had to deal with every single one of those pieces and still do because I'm human and it's all part of the journey.
[: [: [: [: [: [: [: [: [: [: [: [:Understandably. So, with the humility of sometimes white privilege or the fact that we live in a country that's not at war. In certain ways, at least to be able to manifest those dreams and get back on track with fighting any fear and fear is often a thought, that's an illusion.
Sometimes it's about safety and it's very helpful to have that emotion, but so often it's an illusion just trying to inspire people to get through those glass ceilings and see what's actually trying to manifest. Living in Costa Rica, which is my next adventure. I don't know if that's gonna be something that I stay with long term or do we have even more of a presence there, but it's more like my career or the book it's just saying yes to those inner stirs.
And I think that’s part of wakefulness and if we're just lost in our trans states or just surviving or disassociated we're numb. And we can't get these years back this day back.
[:And I definitely I'm embracing that.
[: [:I was gonna write a little short book about something that I knew and a novel, based it on my own life and all this stuff, but it wasn't what I read. It wasn't what I enjoyed reading as a reader. What I really loved to read was historical romance. And the sheer thought of having to do the research was overwhelming to me cuz I'm not a particularly academic person anymore.
I used to be, but not anymore, but there's a book called The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron. And one of the exercises in it was to write about something you wanted to do as if you had whatever money you needed, you had whatever education you needed, you had whatever resources you needed. Whatever you might use as an excuse for why you couldn't just pretend like you have all of that and write about your dream.
And about 30 minutes later, I had the outline of my first historical romance novel, which went on to be an award-winning book. you know.
[: [: [:It's not a memoir, but I do tell a bit of my story. I have a lot of other people's stories but it was this like embodied wakefulness. Like if you are gonna do this, Katherine, this isn't about whether you sell books. This isn't about pleasing some, this is about this coming through you.
Just get out of the way. And that's what I said in this email to people of. Don't sweat the details. That's when our mind gets really bogged down and or some other pieces we might not be aware of. And I love your story, how it just clicked. And so quickly it downloaded.
[: [: [: [: [: [:Yeah, we need to, I don't know, cell phones are kind of an old news thing, but when I think that my daughter lived in Australia or me being away and out of country and that I can still co-travel with people that I love, that technology is amazing.
Even though again, this whole social media world and what's happening. And what it does to people is concerning. And we have to keep such an eye on that. So podcasts 20 years ago, this kind of thing wasn't happening.
[: [: [: [: [:I don't have that many women in my life, so I created it with a circle and now I'm creating it with a podcast. So
[: [: [: [: [: [: [: [: [: [: [: [: [: [: [: [: [: [: [: [: [: [: [:And so I've been doing polyvagal work and there's a thing in it called savoring practice. And savoring practice is to stay 30 seconds or longer, without any, distractability so savoring is deeply taken in it. And then something happens neurologically it's called an anchor when we stay that long or longer with something.
So I've especially been trying to do savoring practice with Nola every morning
[: [:And just be there and it's actually it changes our neural system. That's the thing about polyvagal work is actually about shaping the nervous system into a vetri vagal state existing more and more of the time. So we have to find those good things. Like you say, the things that light us up.
[: [: [: [:I am a form of that living energy as are many things and people and being, and so I am that perhaps.
[: [:And the only thing we could, and of course at that point, she's 10, she knew about the tooth fairy. But she, it was like, oh my gosh, Elizabeth, it you may actually, this was serious. Like you may be allergic to chocolate. And she got, she looked at me with alligator tears, like mommy, will my eyes stay brown?
I bet you knew. It's like, oh sweetie. I'm so sorry. Yes. Scully chocolate every day. So chocolate and pizza.
[: [: [: [: [: [: [: [:People are interested in the book. I can send them a book with an autographed copy and yeah.
[: [: [:Thank you so much for joining us today on Curiously Wise. If you enjoyed this episode, Please be sure to subscribe so you don't miss future fabulous conversations. And if you had any ahas, please share them in a review on apple podcasts so we can continue to pay forward the unique wisdom we all have. If you want to know more about me or my intuitive energy healing practice, Heartlight wellness.
Please head over to my website. www.heartlightjoy.com. Curiously Wise is a team effort. I am grateful for the skill and enthusiasm. Arlene Membrot, our producer, and Sam Wittig, our audio engineer, bring to this collaboration. Our music is Where the Light Is by Lemon Music Studio.
I'm Laurin Wittig. Please join me again next week for another episode of Curiously Wise. From my heart to yours, may your life be filled with love, light, joy, and of course, curiosity.
