What if your fear of being seen as lazy is wasting your fire and contributing to your burnout?

And what if what we’ve been taught to consider as laziness is our body and brain trying to recalibrate back to more sustainable cycles of efforting and rest?

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Your desire to contribute and make a difference is a genuine and beautiful thing… and when it gets entangled with (often unconscious and unexamined) societal conditioning around the evils of laziness and the glories of productivity… we end up primed for burnout.

But we need our fire. In these times, perhaps, more than ever.

We need to be able to face challenges in less exhausting, more pleasurable ways. We need to work rest into our cycles of efforting so we can keep going.

Tune in to hear me share these thoughts and some exercises I’ve found to be helpful. Try them with me and let me know how it goes?

I’d love to hear.

Here’s to climbing our mountains,

Kate

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You can find Kate:

Website: www.wildsacredjourney.com

Email – kate@wildsacredjourney.com

Instagram: @wildsacredjourney_kp

Last weekend I made a hat. I took a pile of wool fibers and turned them into something functional and beautiful for my head.

And since then, how wool fulls and felts has been popping to mind as a metaphor for relationship and community building. In the wake of the US elections, I felt drawn to share some of these musings with you and go a little deeper into why I believe these ancestral skills practices, alongside more animist and ancestral wisdom and healing traditions, make for a potent store house for our individual and collective humanity.

So which relationships make up the threads in the fabric of you?

Which do you not feel so full without?

Which frictions and differences are actually serving to make you stronger and more resilient? Which are too much and risk tearing or damaging the cloth of you? Which are not enough to encourage the bonding needed for us all to become?

Where can you turn to be reminded of your humanity? How are you passing humanity down to the ones who will come after?

I’d love to hear.

Here’s to being stronger together. Here’s to staying human and staying alive.

With love,

Kate

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You can find Kate:

Website: www.wildsacredjourney.com

Email – kate@wildsacredjourney.com

Instagram: @wildsacredjourney_kp

What distinguishes a pilgrimage from everyday life?

Did our long-ago ancestors suffer from burnout or purpose anxiety? And, if not, why?

These are two main questions I’m exploring at the one month mark of being back in Scotland after my epic ancestral pilgrimage here (and in Ireland) last year.

You’ll hear me muse about:

• what being on pilgrimage means and whether we can practice it even if we can’t leave home;
• connecting with our ancestral tapestries through food, language, song, and story;
• what might be possible if we brought more wonder, magic, and vulnerability back to the small moments of life;
• why I suspect our ancestors didn’t struggle with purpose anxiety;
• if worrying about purpose is actually a way of seeking validation;
• a basic definition of ‘integration’;

… and more.

Do you have ways of practicing pilgrimage (whether through travel or at home)? What is your way of being curious about the universe?

I’d love to hear.

Here’s to wonder and questions and the magic of aliveness,

Kate

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You can find Kate:

Website: www.wildsacredjourney.com

Email – kate@wildsacredjourney.com

Instagram: @wildsacredjourney_kp

Have you heard the expression: “the veil is thin”?

And do you have an experience of what that means?

This bonus episode is in honor of what the celtic culture would call Samhain (though plenty of cultures around the world have other celebrations at this time of year honoring the ancestors and marking this moment of the thinning veil).

In this episode, you’ll hear me muse on

what I think a “thin veil” means;

where this particular season fits into the larger seasonal cycles and rhythms of aliveness;

how working with the season might support us in burnout recovery or keep us from entering into burnout…

and more.

I also offer some self-inquiry prompts to perhaps hold lightly as you attend to the seasonal themes of clearing space and harvest.

Although most of the episode is geared towards the Northern Hemisphere, I offer some brief thoughts for those in the Southern Hemisphere at this point of your Imbolc, too.

Many blessings for our journey into the cave,

Kate

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You can find Kate:

Website: www.wildsacredjourney.com

Email – kate@wildsacredjourney.com

Instagram: @wildsacredjourney_kp

Have you experienced the grief of wondering whether your life, whether YOU, have any purpose? Only to try thing after thing while seeking your purpose; ultimately ending up more uncertain and confused? And burned out now on top of it?

You’re not alone.

This episode is in response to a listener who wrote to me after listening to my Episode 49 on Wellness World Pitfalls if we’re not including shadow work. She was drawing some connection between what she heard in my episode and an interview she heard with Elizabeth Gilbert which touched on purpose anxiety. She found herself curious about this connection and the practice and process of integration. She wondered if I had any thoughts.

Turns out, I do. Enough that there will be more than one episode on this subject.

This first one focuses on my perspective on Purpose Anxiety - what it is; why we seem to struggle with it; and a redefinition of ‘purpose’ which might be helpful (and undermine the idea that you need more trainings, more approaches).

Now, it's the first time I’ve tried to articulate some of these thoughts out loud, so they may not be their most coherent and easily digestible yet. They’re still fairly web-y.

But I have tears come twice in this episode, so there’s something juicy here.

Tune if you’re curious:

• What, even, is our ‘purpose’… and why do we seem to find ourselves anxious about it?
• What do late-stage capitalism and empire have to do with why we find it hard to feel like we have purpose?
• What’s the role of ‘individuality’ in a “we’re all one” world?
• Why can’t I seem to find my purpose by myself?

(and more)

What do you think about ‘purpose’ as being relational? Or what stood out to you most in this episode?

I’d love to hear. Your wonderings and impressions just might spawn a whole ‘nother series of episodes!

We can also engage in beautiful back and forth, oral and collective wisdom-making, together through conversations at a Wisdom Wednesday call. First Wednesdays of the month. You can find more info or register for the next one here: https://www.wildsacredjourney.com/wisdom-wednesdays

With so much passion for your truest expression,

Kate

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You can find Kate:

Website: www.wildsacredjourney.com

Email – kate@wildsacredjourney.com

Instagram: @wildsacredjourney_kp

Holding feet to fire here. With compassion, of course...

This episode is in response to many of the pitfalls I see on social media and in real life spiritual/ wellness circles.

Things like:

• how much harm still gets perpetuated in spiritual spaces;
• how much burnout and long-term ineffectiveness is still prevalent;
• finding a space or group which seems to be doing things differently, only to realize it’s the same ol’ better-than, power-over shit… just with more incense and crystals;
• being burned by teachers and practitioners who turned out to be on an ego trip - wanting you to somehow validate them and their insecurities by being just like them;
• Or, being that practitioner who has a sneaking suspicion, in spite of your best intentions, you’re using your clients/ students to soothe your wounds?

And these outcomes seem inevitable, given the cultures that we’ve been raised in and the lack of elders we have to show us a different way. It’s how we wield the tools of ancestral wisdom traditions and spiritual practices, just like any other tool, which determines the outcome of its use - help or hurt?

This is where I see perspective and mirroring, shadow work and nervous system maintenance as being key, often missed and usually unglamorous, steps in our growth process.

So tune if you’re curious:

• What happens to our spiritual practices, our healing journey, if we’re all light and no shadow work?
• What happens if we do certification after certification or ceremony after ceremony and don’t integrate?
• What might be the outcome of prioritizing the flashy over the unglamorous maintenance work?

I believe our answers to these questions matter deeply if we want a world which looks more humane, more just, more loving, and more balanced and harmonious. These questions might help point the way back to some sort of right relationship.

In fact, these questions might help point the way back to some sort of right relationship with these ancient wayfinding practices; a relationship with them where they’re the compass leading us through inexperience and cultural immaturity, and out into deeper wisdom and more intactness.

What stood out to you most in this episode? Did any of it leave you feeling uncomfortable?

If so, I’d love to hear.

And if you’d like to explore 1:1 work, I’m in the process of updating that page on my website so best right now is to email me and we can discern if we’re a fit.

We can also keep this conversation going on a Wisdom Wednesday call. First Wednesdays of the month. You cna find more info or register for the next one here: https://www.wildsacredjourney.com/wisdom-wednesdays

With so much fierce compassion,

Kate

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You can find Kate:

Website: www.wildsacredjourney.com

Email – kate@wildsacredjourney.com

Instagram: @wildsacredjourney_kp

Happy Autumn Equinox!

Our modern cultures often view things like progress as being very linear. One of the side effects of this is swinging between extremes like a pendulum - in the case of cycles of burnout, we swing between being full on and being shut down… with very little space in between.

But our long-ago ancestors understood cycles very differently, in part because they observed the seasons - they practiced noticing the subtle shifts and transitions. And they viewed cycles as spiral or more circular. This allows us to be in a rhythm, rather than feeling ourselves at the mercy of extremes.

If we can reclaim these practices and seasonal celebrations, perhaps we can notice the seasons of our own lives with more richness and complexity… and catch the signs it’s time to rest before burnout has to take us out completely.

This episode uses the story of The Descent of Persephone, to muse about shifting from linear pendulum arcs to spiral cycles. I also offer some self-inquiry prompts to perhaps hold lightly as you attend to the seasonal themes of clearing space and harvest.

Although most of the episode is geared towards the Northern Hemisphere, I offer some brief thoughts for those in the Southern Hemisphere at this point of your Spring Equinox, too.

Many blessings for this harvest season and the shadow of the eclipses,

Kate

P.S. If you’d like more info in working with me 1:1, you can email me - that webpage is under construction. And if considering joining Sanctuary, you can find that info: www.wildsarecjourney.com/sanctuary.

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You can find Kate:

Website: www.wildsacredjourney.com

Email – kate@wildsacredjourney.com

Instagram: @wildsacredjourney_kp

As a shadow moves across the moon today, I offer you my perspective on shadow work - what it is and how it connects to burnout.

The term shadow work is getting thrown around a lot these days, so if you’re someone who:

• is curious to hear how I understand it;
• struggles with feeling hijacked by younger versions of you seemingly out of the blue;
• can’t quite seem to bridge the gap between knowing better and doing better;
• wants to know how soul retrievals and codependency are linked;
• or feels deeply empty and can’t figure out why a few days of rest don’t seem to be enough to bring you back from burnout…

this is an episode you may want to tune in to.

What stood out to you most in this episode? Did any of it “ping”?

If so, I’d love to hear.

And if you’d like to explore 1:1 work, I’m in the process of updating that page on my website so best right now is to email me and we can discern if we’re a fit.

If you think you’d like to join Sanctuary, we start Sun Sep 29th and you can find more info: https://www.wildsacredjourney.com/sanctuary

Blessings for this time of change,

Kate

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You can find Kate:

Website: www.wildsacredjourney.com

Email – kate@wildsacredjourney.com

Instagram: @wildsacredjourney_kp