Hey, friends, it's me Megan Divine, host of Hereafter with Megan Divine. Season two is coming up soon. It'll be here before you know it. But in the meantime, while you're waiting, I wanted to introduce you to a couple of shows I think you're gonna like. You might even get some new favorite podcasts out of it. So give these episodes a listen and stay tuned for the announcement of the launch of season two coming soon. See you soon, friends, m and know it will be all right, even when times Guthart and you feel you're in the d Cutesye, just how beautiful if can be. When you sph in your heart you can findly start to your toe. See It's life. Welcome back to the Truthiest Life. Today's guest is Kate Hurley. If you don't follow, you must follow immediately. She's the creator of Move and Meditate. She's a meditation teacher, but really so much more than that, and she's helping people discover their magic. Does that sound right, Kate? Yeah? I love it. Hi, Lisa, I'm so happy to be here on your show. Thanks for having me. I'm so excited to have you. We met in real life, maybe like three four years ago. Now, Yeah, in New York I got to come to your cute little apartment. You gave me very fancy teas and snacks. It was actually my office in New York City, but yes, it was an apartment technically. But you like came onto the wellness sing kind of out of the blue for me. A lot of people kind of like rise into it, and you were kind of just like, Okay, I'm Kate Hurley and I'm here and this is what I'm offering to the world. And I remember hearing your name and the buzz and then meeting you, and the best part part of it being that you really lived up to some of that hype that was kind of circulating about you. Oh well, you're very sweet. I felt like a woman on a mission. I had been teaching fitness and just really passionate about movement, being an athlete my whole life, and once I decided to branch out on my own and start integrating meditation and starting my own business, I was just like, I'm I'm ready to do this. I just felt very fired up and purpose driven. Well, I guess that's the best way to be because I'll say it here, But I don't say this really a lot of places, but in the in the wellness world, but really any world. Like I'm sure it's the same thing if you meet a celebrity that you you know, think really highly of, or an author or you know, somebody just that has a lot of cloud for me. A lot of times I've been really disheartened by meeting them in person to find that like they don't walk their walk or talk their talk whatever. You know. I don't know if you've found that in the wellness industry a bit. Yeah, absolutely, And that's why I feel more comfortable in New York. I just feel like there's more of a you know, of course, I'm I'm just coming in and out and visiting. But the women that I've met and the interactions that I've had in the city have been so magical. And since here and the group of women that you're friends with, and you know that I've become friends with two, it's just like they're very like what you see is what you get, and they're working really hard, and they also are honest about like, hey, I don't have it all figured out, that's for sure. So you were a Division one athlete in college, right, Yes, I ran across country and track. It was a big time distance runner. I'm very passionate, not necessarily the star of the show. I would qualify for the big races, but then not do much when I got there, which was fine with me. And then that kind of transitioned into finding fitness after college. Yes, so I just was so passionate about sports. I tried working in the athletic space, like I thought, oh, maybe my dream job is going to be with Puma or Nike or some athletic brand. But then when I actually got into doing that, I realized I'm not that passionate about stuff. I'm passionate about people and helping them to feel good. And in my twenties I kind of carried over a lot of the habits that I learned as a competitive distance runner, and not necessarily in a good way. Like a lot of that stuff is about ignoring your body. How hard can you push yourself? It's a lot of just doing more and constantly feeling like what you're doing isn't enough. I'm just speaking from my own experience. I'm sure there are distance runners out there who are more grounded than I am, but I really had a hard time thriving in that environment, and that had a trickle effect to the rest of my life. You know, once I stopped being a competitive distance runner, I can tinued to take that mindset into my workouts, into my professional career, and I burned myself out. I found myself with horrible anxiety. I didn't even know that I was anxious. I just thought this was what it was like to be alive, and it really wasn't until I started taking some anti anxiety medication and I started meditating that I realized, oh my gosh, there's another way. And once I did that, I felt so good. I had to share it with other people. Just teaching fitness and just teaching exercise no longer felt authentic to me. That's really interesting, and I think that a lot of people can probably relate to, whether they're a college athlete or not, just really being propelled into the idea that exercise should be intense, that you should push yourself, that it should hurt, and then also at the same time, if people are being really honest, also feeling like it's never enough. You know, you finish your first workout and you've got to kind of just think about when your next one is and finding themselves burnt out. And I think a lot of people have heard that meditation can be helpful, but when you're in such a fast pace, mindset of discipline willpower harder, faster, stronger, all of that too. Then suggest a meditation which is, you know, the opposite. You're going from the opposite of stillness into the scariest place, which is now stillness. A lot of people really struggle to make their way there, So how did you make your way there? Or how do you help people make their way there? That's a great question, and I definitely resonate with how you describe meditation. For me personally, meditation was a threat because a part of me really liked that I could do this, like I liked running so much, Like I liked that I could push hard and sit at my desk for you know, ten hours and pump out all of these things and just get it done. So for me, you know, I had a therapist when I was like nineteen or twenty, and she said, oh, you need to meditate, and you need to run less and really focus on your health. And I just told her that she didn't understand and that she was ridiculous, and I literally thought she was just weak. I'm like, oh, you don't see me, Like, I don't have time for this. You know. I stuck with this woman. She's an amazing therapist. Um. I continued to see her throughout my whole twenties, but eventually I tried everything else. Nothing else worked, So meditation literally was my last resort. Like I was on a medical leave from my job and I didn't have another option. It was the only thing that I had hadn't done ye yet, So you were forced to surrender to stillness even though your body still wanted to be going full speed exactly. And I think a lot of people struggle with meditation, and there are a lot of misconceptions about it because of course, there's so much power in the stillness, and that is an incredibly important, critical part of the practice. To just sit, be present, Like you're gonna have a lot more clarity, a lot more insight if you're actually sitting. But that's not the only way. So you can run, you can do high intensity exercise, you can move fast and still kind of hone these uh the stability to be more mindful. So in our classes that are on the move, and meditate app and website awareness training is woven into the movement portion, so we're really trying to point people towards, you know, how does your breath feel, what sensations in the body are present, you know, notice the emotions, the thoughts that are here. And even just by noticing that and opening up to that, you're going to get an incredible benefit and you'll enjoy more stability of attend shin and get some insight and start to know yourself deeper. I find it so fascinating how exercise the same thing, right you said, let's just take high intensity training what you mentioned, or running which you mentioned. Both what you said are parts of move and meditate can be a way to run from ourselves, to run further from ourselves, to hate ourselves. And yet these same exact behavior can also be a way to learn more about ourselves and gather the information and the awareness. And I think that that is such a critical distinction when people are scared to leave the high intensity exercise and movement are really mindset and to to really know that once you are able to find stillness, you can bring stillness to movement. Yes, yes, that's exactly what you nailed it, and and finding those little moments of pause, like even just being aware of the breath, or even if you're jumping, like if you can just like find that little moment of pause when your feet are off the ground, you know, those tiny moments of of stillness or of just awareness is going to help you refine your relationship to momentum and help you work with the energies of life in a more skillful way. Something that my teacher, Kimberly Carson taught me that her teacher told her is, you know, we're always meditating. We just aren't aware of it. We just don't know what we're meditating on. And so literally every single moment is an opportunity to practice. So to back up for a moment. Kate is the founder of the Move and Meditate app, and it's a what do you call it? A fitness app, a meditation app? How do you describe it? Honestly, it depends who I'm talking to and what they're interested in, but yeah, it's a It's an app that combines movement with meditation and all of the exercises in the app range from high intensity sweatfest to guided runs to more restorative options. Um, there's some yoga in there. We have an amazing eight week program called Meditation one oh one that's led by my teacher, Kimberly Carson. There's so many things depending on where your interests is, there's there's something for every mood you're in. So you recently did a rebrand. It was called the Kate Hurley app Right, it was your name. Now it's Move and Meditate. Yes, I wanted people to feel like I was jumping out of the screen and doing this with them. And honestly, just as a new entrepreneur, it felt a little overwhelming to like have a whole brand, but it's clearly something that's much bigger than me, and so it's been really amazing to to rebrand and change the name and just continue to serve our growing community. Well, it's really clear that you know, you do the ego work too, because leaving the name behind really says that I'm one of you, not I'm here to teach you. I think it really says a lot. Oh well, what's so wild is literally what I am teaching and learning and practicing, you know, with with my teacher in my life. That is what I'm sharing. So it's a pretty authentic like, hey, this is what I'm working on. I definitely don't have all the answers. But that's what's so amazing about meditation is so many of the things that we've been conditioned to value as important, like knowing everything certainty. I mean, those are the kinds of things in meditation and in the wisdom traditions that the opposite is valued. It's like the wisest people don't know. You know, none of us ever have certainty. What helps us work more skillfully and respond to stress better is like recognizing that we don't have the control, that things are uncertain. How are we going to show up knowing that? So earlier, you mentioned meditation can happen while you're running, and it can happen at any second. What is your definition of meditation? At the most basic level, The first phase of really learning how to meditate, you've got to stabilize attention. So meditation is about first just training your attention, noticing how often it wanders, and then as you continue to practice it really is this profound journey of self discovery where I feel like I'm just getting insights about myself and how I'm connected to the world like every day. But that is that is not why I started meditating. You know. I started meditating because I felt like I was bleeding all over the place. I was desperate for my panic attacks to stop, and so I joke with with my teacher. Now I'm just like, oh, wow, you know this is this is definitely not what I signed up for. It's way more magical. It's way more rich, more mysterious, more wonderful than I ever could have imagined. So for me, it's been just a really important part of my life. But I realized you can still get huge benefits from meditation, even if for you it doesn't become that whole, big, important part of your life. What it really amazes me is the kinds of insights that people can have in such a short amount of time. For example, I got an email a few weeks ago from a woman who said that she was in the middle of a high intensity sweat session and she was busting out a ton of squats and she had this moment where she realized that she had spent her whole life hating her thighs because she didn't like how they looked, and in that moment, she felt like she made peace with her body. She's like, Okay, Well, if my thighs never change shape, can I still be okay? And the answer to that question is yes. So my hope is that people just to feel more connected to their fundamental sense of okayness right now. And it's amazing how movement can kind of be the vehicle to help shift the mind out of I hate my thighs into these are my thighs, you know, like that's what it is. It's not it might not take you from these are thighs that I want to walk down a runway with, or that I feel confident wearing shorts in every single day, but it's these are my thighs, period, which is just critically different from I hate my thighs exactly. And what I've noticed for me and for the people that are part of this community is those negative thoughts don't necessarily stop altogether, but what happens is the emotional sting behind them is no longer there. So when you're not feeding that current, when you're not throwing more you know, gasoline on the fire, then there's less suffering. I remember once you and I had a really well for me, it was a really profound conversation because I walked away with a completely different point of view. I don't remember if it was an Instagram live we did together or just an offline convo, but it was about the inner critic, which you're bringing up right now. What is your take with the inner critic, that voice that says you're not enough? And you know, how do we tackle that? And how does meditation help us to tackle that. I don't think that that voice will ever go away, but I think we can learn to work with it more skillfully. So in the training that I've been through and in my own experience, really pushing the inner critic away or trying to like not see it doesn't help that. Actually, in many ways stirs things up even more. Like think about it, when we're hanging out or we go to a party and somebody doesn't say hi to us, it makes you feel terrible. Well this think about your inner critic like a friend at a party. It walks in, you wanna say hello to it, pour a drink or whatever, and make friends with it. Because there's no way that we can ever get rid of it. So from a mindfulness and meditation perspective, what is so critical is that we see it. We can't become more free, we can't heal unless we're aware that something's there. So see it, become aware of it, get to know it. It's fine if you're thinking mind doesn't like it. Just notice all of that commentary and judgment too that the thinking mind has. But as best you can, you know, welcome your your inner critic in a little bit. And it doesn't have to be like a total love fest where you feel like at peace with your inner critic. Maybe you just stay present with the inner critic for one cycle of breath or two cycles of breath. The more you practice that, the less power it will have over you. And it's such a different approach. And you know, just being positive, right, We've been told just put on a happy face, ignore it, try and stuff it down. And what I have found from your teachings is that by allowing the critic to exist, I can gain information from it. I can learn what it's really scared of. And you think that you will just fall apart if you listen to it or hear what it has to say. But I've found that I soften as a result, because underneath that nasty language, feeling anxiety, producing conversation that that's happening within me because of that voice in my head is a source of pain. And if I could dive a little bit deeper and get to that source of pain, I find compassion for myself exactly. And at the route you know, in the in the meditation teacher training that I've been a part of, like my teachers have done so much work around emotions, and and really at the heart of every single emotion is love, hatred for yourself, like or discontent. You know, you're trying to protect something that you love or something that you value, and so the fact that you can feel that in your own practice, in your own life is huge. And then also, you know, just sometimes when the inner critic comes up and you start to have these negative thoughts, it can be really skillful to just notice the thoughts and let them come and go. But it can also be skillful to get curious and ask yourself, Okay, the negative thought about myself is here. I'm going to drop the story, not push the thought away, but drop the story that I have about the thought and just sink into my body and see what the felt sensations are here. Like, for example, is there a tingling in my chest? Is there an aliveness in the feet or kind of a drop in the pit of the stomach, Like think about the felt sensations that are here or feel into it, and that is another way to help that energy move. What I think is so genius about your method is that you're getting people who are too afraid to be still, and you're saying, okay, so don't be still just yet. Let's move and meditate together and transform what's happening in your mind. And i'd imagine, but I'm curious, do you find that your students are users, then find that they're able to have time off the mat, off their workout in stillness because they've kind of had their hand held through movement. Yes. I feel like the move and meditate classes, well, they can serve a few purposes. I feel like they're a gateway. It's like, Okay, you're curious your meditation curious. Here's a little couple of tasty bites and let's see what you think. Um And then if people want to go deeper, then they can jump into the meditation one oh one eight week program with Kimberly and really get to know what that practice is. Like I remember my life before meditation, before stillness, and the scariest thing you could have asked me to do would be to sit across like it on the floor with my thoughts, doing nothing, and then you know, just learning now. For me, movement is a huge way that I established mind body connection every day. It's a huge part of how I embody who I want to be, you know. But I can also take what's happening in my mind during the movement and and make it happen without the movement. Like the last few days, my body is not working and I've had to find stillness, and I could still use the techniques to access my mind and the deeper parts of me without it. So it's great that we could use it to help us get there, and sometimes we need to do that first and then take it off the map. I'm so glad that you brought that up, and I've had very similar experiences. Really something that I've been working with the past few months in terms of what movement is and how it adds value for me, and how I think, you know, it might add value for all of us. I think it's just an opportunity to move energy that might feel stuck or you know, just the body wants to move, so it's a it's a really wonderful way to just get everything moving. It's an invitation to be more present, to be embodied, and then it makes it easier to sit in the quiet. I've also heard, though, from people who have been meditating for years that they've discovered, you know, new things from these move and meditate classes, and a lot of those people have told me, you know, oh, I never thought about meditation like this, or I've never thought about how to integrate it into the other parts of my day in this way. So it's really so personal for everyone, and everyone's path and journey is going to look a little bit different. This past year has been particularly hard for a lot of people with the pandemic. So much has changed for just about everybody. And I know that people say that their bodies have changed, that they're heavier, or that they've lost strength because they've used food to soothe. I believe you shared this with me. Those are things you hear from your community. And you've also heard from people that have abused exercise because it was their stress reliever and it's the only way they knew to help with their mental health. Or I put that in quote to help with their mental health? Can you help both people show up to move and meditate and find that deep place within that they need to go well for the people who feel like they've gained weight or they're just not as fit as they were last year, it's like, congratulations, you're human. Your whatever coping skills that you developed over the pandemic to get you through this insanely hard time have also protected you. They have also served a purpose. You know, everything that we're experiencing is going to show up on our bodies, in our bodies. Sometimes it's visible in the mirror, sometimes it's not. But I just really want to normalize this and validate it and assure you that that isn't a problem. Bodies are changing all the time, and if you feel like, yeah, I want to get back into things, I need to have healthier habits or I want to change my habits, I don't even want to say healthier because that has a subtle tone of judgment. Your exercise practice is there for you whenever you want to come back. So the problem isn't that you did something different. The question for me that's most compelling. It's like, Okay, well, all of these things are here for you. Can you be curious? Think of that as an experiment. What do you want to do now? Like, how do you want to show up and how can you show up with ridiculous amounts of kindness for everything that your whole system has been through and everybody's system has certainly been through a lot. I know these last six months for you, Kate, have been particularly challenging going through loss. Is there? I don't as much as you want to share here, but how has your grief journey really shaped your relationship to moving and meditating? Yeah? Well, my brother died unexpectedly in January and we were very close. It was completely shocking, very devastating, totally out of the blue. And I thought that I knew discomfort and pain and grief before then. You know, I've lost like dear friends, I've lost family members in my extended family. Um, but this absolutely shook me to my core and the waves of grief have been ridiculous and it has forced me to simplify in a way that I never thought I would have to simplify, Like very simple things like eating three meals a day, taking care of myself like that became more challenging. So I have completely scaled back a lot on movement because simple things make me feel out of breath or they make me feel a little tapped out. I'm just starting to find my feet again almost five months later. But I just feel for everybody going through a hard time, and I feel like this, this collective grief that we're experiencing. Maybe maybe you guys listening haven't lost like a sibling or somebody in your immediate family unexpectedly, but I think everybody listening knows grief and knows you know, knows loss from this past year, and that is something to honor. And we can't just pretend it didn't happen. We can't gloss over it like we have to work with what is here now, How is our body feeling now? I'm so sorry for your loss. And you know, to be going through the process of grief which is just so not linear and especially unexpectedly to just be thrown into it as an entrepreneur, you know, you already have so much on your plate to also manage the entire grief process is just really difficult. When you talk about collective grief, it's fascinating to me because you so quickly answered that question with compassion for everyone who's hurting. But when we're hurting, our first response is i'm hurting. You know, when we cut our finger, it's I need a band aid to stop my bleeding. Not there are all these other people in this world who are also bleeding. We need to get band aids. You know, that's kind of your Your approach was your first reaction to my question was very collective. Would you say that in the early days, weeks, months of your grieving process you were able to expand your heart in that way or did you have what most people I assume have, which is a why me, why did this happen? This is unfair, this sucks type of mindset. I definitely was just feeling a lot of feelings I don't want to say, like what is typical I did. I did not have any kind of like why me stuff. I just thought, oh my god, this is unimaginable pain. You know, I felt it so physically in my body. There's no way I would have been able to get through it without really great support. I've been seeing a therapists who specializes in E M d R, which has been very helpful. I have a total goddess of a teacher and a mentor who has been very helpful and supportive. My parents, my sister, my brother, they're also close. Um, So I guess maybe I'm not really answering your question, but I guess I just feel really relieved that I have a lot of support. And the something that helped me to feel comforted was the fact that I'm not the only one who's ever felt this. And actually, something that keeps coming up in my thoughts and my practice in my dream space is like, oh, this feeling of grief, this amount of pain, it's ancient and people have been dealing with this since, you know, the beginning of time when when there were people. So I hated feeling that way. I felt at points afraid of how intense the emotional pain was. I felt nervous because I could see how it was showing up in my body physically. One example is, like my ribs they keep moving and I keep having like ribs that a place I feel very fatigued in my body, you know, So I'm like, wow, I'm and I'm watching how when the mind doesn't know what to do with it, the body takes over. And so I'm grateful to see the process, and a part of me almost feels grateful to know this level of discomfort because it's like, wow, welcome to being human. You're thirty five years old. This is what some people live with all the time. And I hope, I hope, I hope that this helps me to be a better teacher, that it helps me to be in service to the community, and that one day my brother's passing can help other people. I think it already has, even just sharing that. It seems to be the norm for people who are grieving to find a little bit of breath. Let's call it to know that other people will have been going through this for years, that other people are going through it every day, and it's only when we talk about it like you so beautifully did. That's why I meant by your already helping people? Did somebody else really come out of what I think a lot of people are stuck in? Which is the why me mindset? You know, you didn't weren't really ever there. It doesn't sound like even though there was tremendous suffering, is there a stage of denial in some way? I think I'm shocked, you know, just even yesterday I just so badly wanted to call him, and you know, I picked up my phone and I went to to try to do it, and I was just like, oh, man, there's nobody to call. Of course there are people to call, you know, but that it's that that phrase like oh there's nobody to call that has come up so many times in my life when I've struggled with anxiety, I'm like, who can I? Who can I outsource this discomfort to? You know, what? What therapist? What healer? What green juice can I drink to just make this crap go away? Because I don't want to feel it. This is too hard. It's interesting because with my brother's passing, I am accessing deeper layers that I didn't necessarily know we're there. And one of the things that was really helpful for me when his name is Matt. When my brother Matt died, my teacher Kimberly came over and you know, we were just hanging out and she like wore these silly crow pants to try to cheer me up a little bit and make me laugh, and she was just telling me how when we die and the wisdom traditions that we help to wake each other up and that can look really different. And for me, I've really been trying to be aware of okay, like how can I use this experience of horror, this nightmare to deepen my relationship with myself, to strengthen my relationships with my loved ones, to deepen my spiritual practices. And that's been like so freeing, and it's allowed me to see so much magic and reveal that there's something bigger that I don't totally understand and I never will because it's just a giant mystery. Well, it sounds like you're all of yourself work really set you up to experience this in a really profound way. Like you mentioned that Kimberly had said, when we die, we helped to wake each other up. The waking up part I think for a lot of people happens a lot farther down the grief road than perhaps it happened for you, because of your ability to honor discomfort, to say ouch, this hurts, this hurts, this hurts, this hurts, but not run from it. I think a lot of people go through a run from it phase. Naturally. Like I said, you're an entrepreneur. A lot of people are have their own jobs, their kids, their lives. They have so much to man age that running from it feels like the only option because dealing with it is too scary totally, and I and I do want to just respect that that running is okay. It's a gesture of protection. If you're running from something, your system might not be ready to feel it. You know, when I was having panic attacks, I was running from something and that was really important. You know, my coping mechanisms that I had put in place of just exercising and not feeling things in my twenties like that actually helped me to function. And then when that didn't work anymore, my body's like, hey, I'm not down for this. I'm going to give you panic attacks because there's something else that you really need to put your attention in care towards. So if you're running, that's fine, but you you will know when it's time to do something different. Your body will tell you, or your behavior will tell you, or something in your life just won't feel like it's working as well. You mentioned doing E M. D R therapy. What is that? Honestly, I'm I'm not totally sure. I've been doing it for like six years on and off when I've needed to. And it's a therapy that I'm not sure what it stands for, but it's a therapy that rewires your neural pathways in the brain. It's specifically for PTSD. Got it, And and this is with your same therapist who you've worked with for a long time. I haven't been actively in therapy for a long time. I was seeing a therapist for my anxiety in generalized anxiety disorder, and then she would shoot me over to this other e M d R specialist when I needed to, And so I had not worked with this e M d R specialist for many years until until more recently. So it sounds like, from what I'm quickly googling, it's a method to safely access stored trauma and process it together exactly. That's totally what it is. And you there's different ways to do it. You can do it with tapping, you can do it with little busters that you hold in your hands. You can have headphones on and the sounds go back from you know, the left side of your body to the right and the left and right ear and then basically the the therapist walks you through. In my experience, you know, uh, it almost feels like a meditation. It's not, but they'll just ask you questions, bring up something that is upsetting, and then it creates a safe space. It creates a pathway for me and my experience for the sadness, for the wound, whatever is there to move and for me, it's a very energetic experience. You know, I'm a big time feeler. So if somebody else processes things in a different way, maybe someone else sees colors, or maybe they're more cerebral, you know, they'll have a different experience, and that's not wrong or a problem. But I'm just such a feeler that that's how I that's why I process everything. Everything for me is more of energy moving physically in the body. You mentioned that support has been one of the best things to help you through the grieving process. For those people who aren't your family you know, who are grieving right next to you. What are some of the best ways that your community or friends, maybe not closest of friends, can support you during this time. Because I think on the other side, I want to help you, but I also don't know's texting too much? Is? You know? I want to give you space to go through your process. Yeah, that's a good question, and I think it's different for everybody. One thing that I have learned is that grief is expensive, you know, like going through all of this, like getting the body work appointment, I'm like, oh man, I've got more ribs out of place, or going to E. M. D R or seeing this, you know, I just want to acknowledge that that's not accessible for everybody. There are other things that are free that are great, Like most hospitals and hospice centers have grief support groups that are wonderful. I'm actually gonna join one and just see how that goes. But I've heard really really good things about them, and then from a friend and community perspective, Like I think that's what's so hard about right now. Even though we're getting vaccinated and the country is starting to open up and we're able to see maybe some more people, for me here in Oregon, it's still been fairly isolating, and so texts are huge, calls are huge, Like there are days when I hope to God or behind me because I've been eating and and you know, taking good care of myself, like it's my job and that's getting easier. But for the first like two and a half months, Like I couldn't make dinner for myself. All of these little tasks are very, very hard. So just not waiting for a friend to tell you what they need, texting them and saying, hey, I'm going to bring dinner and I'm going to drop it off, or can I come over and just hang out with you? And literally my friends who would come over while I was just losing my mind crying. I didn't want to be alone, and that was the biggest gift, like somebody who could hold space for that. But I also know that that's really tough for many people too. I've seen many people that I care about who are absolutely wonderful human beings with the best hearts, and they're totally freaked out by this. You know, they see me and they're like, uh hi, you know, they don't know what to say or what to do, and and I think it's totally fine to just say I have no words, like this is awful, I'm so sorry for your loss. I love you, you know, saying that is enormous, Even writing a note in the mail, that's huge, knowing that people are thinking of you because the pain is so intense and you don't know when it's going to hit, and you know, the person who's grieving might just need to dramatically simplify their life. UM. For me, that has meant wiping my social calendar pretty clean. Not that I was you know, doing much before, because the pandemic has been something that I've been you know, taking very seriously. But but just honoring everything is different. And then for the person going through the grief, like cut yourself a break. You know, if you're eating three meals a day, if you're drinking water, if you're sleeping or trying to sleep, you know, that is great. Um, focus on the absolute bare minimum basics and just know that wherever you are is fine. We talked about waves of grief al lot. It comes and then you have your moments, and then it comes and newer moments. But it sounds like it's like a tsunami of waves, like it just overpowers you and then maybe get a little relief, and then you can be overpowered again totally. And that might also just be because that's my own personal experience and sometimes I can I feel things a little more dramatically. But you know, of course the waves are quiet too, just the constant level of fatigue. You know, it shows up in all of these unexpected ways, so there is no one size fits all, but people just honoring it saying I'm so sorry for your loss. Those people who have reached out to my mom, you know that means everything to me. It means everything to her. You know, we've experienced a lot of kindness and love from the community. And you know the people who who just go ahead and say I'm going to do this or I'm checking in on you, what's going on, how are you feeling today? That goes so much farther than you know, that make the difference between me being able to, you know, get out of bed and not getting out of bed for an afternoon. So don't underestimate your power. I think that's incredible permission to kind of know, even just to say I don't have the words, but I'm thinking of you. To know that that could be quote unquote enough to really help somebody going through something hard is really helpful and a tool that we could all use because that's that's how we help each other through the hard stuff. So if somebody wants to try and move and meditate, what's the best way to access your genius work. Well, they can just visit move and meditate dot com and we have a fourteen day trial, so that is a wonderful way that you can sign up and try classes. Something that's really cool about our offerings is that every week there's a brand new class, and if you're somebody who prefers more structure and guidance, I pick three classes for you to do that week to help you. Sometimes we just don't want to think about what to do. We just want to sign in and press play, for sure, So you gotta move in Meditate dot com and you can get that free trial and then do it directly on your phone right, yes, and you can also download the app. We have an app for Android and for iPhone. Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Kate for sharing your entire story with us, and well not your entire story, but sharing so much of how you really learned to find stillness, what movement means to you, what meditation means for you, and how you've really sifted through grief, because all of us have gone through some sort of grief, maybe not on the level of which you're experiencing it, but having the conversation, like you said, is what's really going to change the world. So thank you for being here. Well, thanks for having me, Lisa. I'm such a fan of your work and I love you. I love you. I'll see you soon.

Hey, friends, it's me Megan Divine, host of Hereafter with Megan Divine. Season two is coming up soon. It'll be here before you know it. But in the meantime, while you're waiting, I wanted to introduce you to a couple of shows I think you're gonna like. You might even get some new favorite podcasts out of it. So give these episodes a listen and stay tuned for the announcement of the launch of season two coming soon. See you soon, friends, m and know it will be all right, even when times Guthart and you feel you're in the d Cutesye, just how beautiful if can be. When you sph in your heart you can findly start to your toe. See It's life. Welcome back to the Truthiest Life. Today's guest is Kate Hurley. If you don't follow, you must follow immediately. She's the creator of Move and Meditate. She's a meditation teacher, but really so much more than that, and she's helping people discover their magic. Does that sound right, Kate? Yeah? I love it. Hi, Lisa, I'm so happy to be here on your show. Thanks for having me. I'm so excited to have you. We met in real life, maybe like three four years ago. Now, Yeah, in New York I got to come to your cute little apartment. You gave me very fancy teas and snacks. It was actually my office in New York City, but yes, it was an apartment technically. But you like came onto the wellness sing kind of out of the blue for me. A lot of people kind of like rise into it, and you were kind of just like, Okay, I'm Kate Hurley and I'm here and this is what I'm offering to the world. And I remember hearing your name and the buzz and then meeting you, and the best part part of it being that you really lived up to some of that hype that was kind of circulating about you. Oh well, you're very sweet. I felt like a woman on a mission. I had been teaching fitness and just really passionate about movement, being an athlete my whole life, and once I decided to branch out on my own and start integrating meditation and starting my own business, I was just like, I'm I'm ready to do this. I just felt very fired up and purpose driven. Well, I guess that's the best way to be because I'll say it here, But I don't say this really a lot of places, but in the in the wellness world, but really any world. Like I'm sure it's the same thing if you meet a celebrity that you you know, think really highly of, or an author or you know, somebody just that has a lot of cloud for me. A lot of times I've been really disheartened by meeting them in person to find that like they don't walk their walk or talk their talk whatever. You know. I don't know if you've found that in the wellness industry a bit. Yeah, absolutely, And that's why I feel more comfortable in New York. I just feel like there's more of a you know, of course, I'm I'm just coming in and out and visiting. But the women that I've met and the interactions that I've had in the city have been so magical. And since here and the group of women that you're friends with, and you know that I've become friends with two, it's just like they're very like what you see is what you get, and they're working really hard, and they also are honest about like, hey, I don't have it all figured out, that's for sure. So you were a Division one athlete in college, right, Yes, I ran across country and track. It was a big time distance runner. I'm very passionate, not necessarily the star of the show. I would qualify for the big races, but then not do much when I got there, which was fine with me. And then that kind of transitioned into finding fitness after college. Yes, so I just was so passionate about sports. I tried working in the athletic space, like I thought, oh, maybe my dream job is going to be with Puma or Nike or some athletic brand. But then when I actually got into doing that, I realized I'm not that passionate about stuff. I'm passionate about people and helping them to feel good. And in my twenties I kind of carried over a lot of the habits that I learned as a competitive distance runner, and not necessarily in a good way. Like a lot of that stuff is about ignoring your body. How hard can you push yourself? It's a lot of just doing more and constantly feeling like what you're doing isn't enough. I'm just speaking from my own experience. I'm sure there are distance runners out there who are more grounded than I am, but I really had a hard time thriving in that environment, and that had a trickle effect to the rest of my life. You know, once I stopped being a competitive distance runner, I can tinued to take that mindset into my workouts, into my professional career, and I burned myself out. I found myself with horrible anxiety. I didn't even know that I was anxious. I just thought this was what it was like to be alive, and it really wasn't until I started taking some anti anxiety medication and I started meditating that I realized, oh my gosh, there's another way. And once I did that, I felt so good. I had to share it with other people. Just teaching fitness and just teaching exercise no longer felt authentic to me. That's really interesting, and I think that a lot of people can probably relate to, whether they're a college athlete or not, just really being propelled into the idea that exercise should be intense, that you should push yourself, that it should hurt, and then also at the same time, if people are being really honest, also feeling like it's never enough. You know, you finish your first workout and you've got to kind of just think about when your next one is and finding themselves burnt out. And I think a lot of people have heard that meditation can be helpful, but when you're in such a fast pace, mindset of discipline willpower harder, faster, stronger, all of that too. Then suggest a meditation which is, you know, the opposite. You're going from the opposite of stillness into the scariest place, which is now stillness. A lot of people really struggle to make their way there, So how did you make your way there? Or how do you help people make their way there? That's a great question, and I definitely resonate with how you describe meditation. For me personally, meditation was a threat because a part of me really liked that I could do this, like I liked running so much, Like I liked that I could push hard and sit at my desk for you know, ten hours and pump out all of these things and just get it done. So for me, you know, I had a therapist when I was like nineteen or twenty, and she said, oh, you need to meditate, and you need to run less and really focus on your health. And I just told her that she didn't understand and that she was ridiculous, and I literally thought she was just weak. I'm like, oh, you don't see me, Like, I don't have time for this. You know. I stuck with this woman. She's an amazing therapist. Um. I continued to see her throughout my whole twenties, but eventually I tried everything else. Nothing else worked, So meditation literally was my last resort. Like I was on a medical leave from my job and I didn't have another option. It was the only thing that I had hadn't done ye yet, So you were forced to surrender to stillness even though your body still wanted to be going full speed exactly. And I think a lot of people struggle with meditation, and there are a lot of misconceptions about it because of course, there's so much power in the stillness, and that is an incredibly important, critical part of the practice. To just sit, be present, Like you're gonna have a lot more clarity, a lot more insight if you're actually sitting. But that's not the only way. So you can run, you can do high intensity exercise, you can move fast and still kind of hone these uh the stability to be more mindful. So in our classes that are on the move, and meditate app and website awareness training is woven into the movement portion, so we're really trying to point people towards, you know, how does your breath feel, what sensations in the body are present, you know, notice the emotions, the thoughts that are here. And even just by noticing that and opening up to that, you're going to get an incredible benefit and you'll enjoy more stability of attend shin and get some insight and start to know yourself deeper. I find it so fascinating how exercise the same thing, right you said, let's just take high intensity training what you mentioned, or running which you mentioned. Both what you said are parts of move and meditate can be a way to run from ourselves, to run further from ourselves, to hate ourselves. And yet these same exact behavior can also be a way to learn more about ourselves and gather the information and the awareness. And I think that that is such a critical distinction when people are scared to leave the high intensity exercise and movement are really mindset and to to really know that once you are able to find stillness, you can bring stillness to movement. Yes, yes, that's exactly what you nailed it, and and finding those little moments of pause, like even just being aware of the breath, or even if you're jumping, like if you can just like find that little moment of pause when your feet are off the ground, you know, those tiny moments of of stillness or of just awareness is going to help you refine your relationship to momentum and help you work with the energies of life in a more skillful way. Something that my teacher, Kimberly Carson taught me that her teacher told her is, you know, we're always meditating. We just aren't aware of it. We just don't know what we're meditating on. And so literally every single moment is an opportunity to practice. So to back up for a moment. Kate is the founder of the Move and Meditate app, and it's a what do you call it? A fitness app, a meditation app? How do you describe it? Honestly, it depends who I'm talking to and what they're interested in, but yeah, it's a It's an app that combines movement with meditation and all of the exercises in the app range from high intensity sweatfest to guided runs to more restorative options. Um, there's some yoga in there. We have an amazing eight week program called Meditation one oh one that's led by my teacher, Kimberly Carson. There's so many things depending on where your interests is, there's there's something for every mood you're in. So you recently did a rebrand. It was called the Kate Hurley app Right, it was your name. Now it's Move and Meditate. Yes, I wanted people to feel like I was jumping out of the screen and doing this with them. And honestly, just as a new entrepreneur, it felt a little overwhelming to like have a whole brand, but it's clearly something that's much bigger than me, and so it's been really amazing to to rebrand and change the name and just continue to serve our growing community. Well, it's really clear that you know, you do the ego work too, because leaving the name behind really says that I'm one of you, not I'm here to teach you. I think it really says a lot. Oh well, what's so wild is literally what I am teaching and learning and practicing, you know, with with my teacher in my life. That is what I'm sharing. So it's a pretty authentic like, hey, this is what I'm working on. I definitely don't have all the answers. But that's what's so amazing about meditation is so many of the things that we've been conditioned to value as important, like knowing everything certainty. I mean, those are the kinds of things in meditation and in the wisdom traditions that the opposite is valued. It's like the wisest people don't know. You know, none of us ever have certainty. What helps us work more skillfully and respond to stress better is like recognizing that we don't have the control, that things are uncertain. How are we going to show up knowing that? So earlier, you mentioned meditation can happen while you're running, and it can happen at any second. What is your definition of meditation? At the most basic level, The first phase of really learning how to meditate, you've got to stabilize attention. So meditation is about first just training your attention, noticing how often it wanders, and then as you continue to practice it really is this profound journey of self discovery where I feel like I'm just getting insights about myself and how I'm connected to the world like every day. But that is that is not why I started meditating. You know. I started meditating because I felt like I was bleeding all over the place. I was desperate for my panic attacks to stop, and so I joke with with my teacher. Now I'm just like, oh, wow, you know this is this is definitely not what I signed up for. It's way more magical. It's way more rich, more mysterious, more wonderful than I ever could have imagined. So for me, it's been just a really important part of my life. But I realized you can still get huge benefits from meditation, even if for you it doesn't become that whole, big, important part of your life. What it really amazes me is the kinds of insights that people can have in such a short amount of time. For example, I got an email a few weeks ago from a woman who said that she was in the middle of a high intensity sweat session and she was busting out a ton of squats and she had this moment where she realized that she had spent her whole life hating her thighs because she didn't like how they looked, and in that moment, she felt like she made peace with her body. She's like, Okay, Well, if my thighs never change shape, can I still be okay? And the answer to that question is yes. So my hope is that people just to feel more connected to their fundamental sense of okayness right now. And it's amazing how movement can kind of be the vehicle to help shift the mind out of I hate my thighs into these are my thighs, you know, like that's what it is. It's not it might not take you from these are thighs that I want to walk down a runway with, or that I feel confident wearing shorts in every single day, but it's these are my thighs, period, which is just critically different from I hate my thighs exactly. And what I've noticed for me and for the people that are part of this community is those negative thoughts don't necessarily stop altogether, but what happens is the emotional sting behind them is no longer there. So when you're not feeding that current, when you're not throwing more you know, gasoline on the fire, then there's less suffering. I remember once you and I had a really well for me, it was a really profound conversation because I walked away with a completely different point of view. I don't remember if it was an Instagram live we did together or just an offline convo, but it was about the inner critic, which you're bringing up right now. What is your take with the inner critic, that voice that says you're not enough? And you know, how do we tackle that? And how does meditation help us to tackle that. I don't think that that voice will ever go away, but I think we can learn to work with it more skillfully. So in the training that I've been through and in my own experience, really pushing the inner critic away or trying to like not see it doesn't help that. Actually, in many ways stirs things up even more. Like think about it, when we're hanging out or we go to a party and somebody doesn't say hi to us, it makes you feel terrible. Well this think about your inner critic like a friend at a party. It walks in, you wanna say hello to it, pour a drink or whatever, and make friends with it. Because there's no way that we can ever get rid of it. So from a mindfulness and meditation perspective, what is so critical is that we see it. We can't become more free, we can't heal unless we're aware that something's there. So see it, become aware of it, get to know it. It's fine if you're thinking mind doesn't like it. Just notice all of that commentary and judgment too that the thinking mind has. But as best you can, you know, welcome your your inner critic in a little bit. And it doesn't have to be like a total love fest where you feel like at peace with your inner critic. Maybe you just stay present with the inner critic for one cycle of breath or two cycles of breath. The more you practice that, the less power it will have over you. And it's such a different approach. And you know, just being positive, right, We've been told just put on a happy face, ignore it, try and stuff it down. And what I have found from your teachings is that by allowing the critic to exist, I can gain information from it. I can learn what it's really scared of. And you think that you will just fall apart if you listen to it or hear what it has to say. But I've found that I soften as a result, because underneath that nasty language, feeling anxiety, producing conversation that that's happening within me because of that voice in my head is a source of pain. And if I could dive a little bit deeper and get to that source of pain, I find compassion for myself exactly. And at the route you know, in the in the meditation teacher training that I've been a part of, like my teachers have done so much work around emotions, and and really at the heart of every single emotion is love, hatred for yourself, like or discontent. You know, you're trying to protect something that you love or something that you value, and so the fact that you can feel that in your own practice, in your own life is huge. And then also, you know, just sometimes when the inner critic comes up and you start to have these negative thoughts, it can be really skillful to just notice the thoughts and let them come and go. But it can also be skillful to get curious and ask yourself, Okay, the negative thought about myself is here. I'm going to drop the story, not push the thought away, but drop the story that I have about the thought and just sink into my body and see what the felt sensations are here. Like, for example, is there a tingling in my chest? Is there an aliveness in the feet or kind of a drop in the pit of the stomach, Like think about the felt sensations that are here or feel into it, and that is another way to help that energy move. What I think is so genius about your method is that you're getting people who are too afraid to be still, and you're saying, okay, so don't be still just yet. Let's move and meditate together and transform what's happening in your mind. And i'd imagine, but I'm curious, do you find that your students are users, then find that they're able to have time off the mat, off their workout in stillness because they've kind of had their hand held through movement. Yes. I feel like the move and meditate classes, well, they can serve a few purposes. I feel like they're a gateway. It's like, Okay, you're curious your meditation curious. Here's a little couple of tasty bites and let's see what you think. Um And then if people want to go deeper, then they can jump into the meditation one oh one eight week program with Kimberly and really get to know what that practice is. Like I remember my life before meditation, before stillness, and the scariest thing you could have asked me to do would be to sit across like it on the floor with my thoughts, doing nothing, and then you know, just learning now. For me, movement is a huge way that I established mind body connection every day. It's a huge part of how I embody who I want to be, you know. But I can also take what's happening in my mind during the movement and and make it happen without the movement. Like the last few days, my body is not working and I've had to find stillness, and I could still use the techniques to access my mind and the deeper parts of me without it. So it's great that we could use it to help us get there, and sometimes we need to do that first and then take it off the map. I'm so glad that you brought that up, and I've had very similar experiences. Really something that I've been working with the past few months in terms of what movement is and how it adds value for me, and how I think, you know, it might add value for all of us. I think it's just an opportunity to move energy that might feel stuck or you know, just the body wants to move, so it's a it's a really wonderful way to just get everything moving. It's an invitation to be more present, to be embodied, and then it makes it easier to sit in the quiet. I've also heard, though, from people who have been meditating for years that they've discovered, you know, new things from these move and meditate classes, and a lot of those people have told me, you know, oh, I never thought about meditation like this, or I've never thought about how to integrate it into the other parts of my day in this way. So it's really so personal for everyone, and everyone's path and journey is going to look a little bit different. This past year has been particularly hard for a lot of people with the pandemic. So much has changed for just about everybody. And I know that people say that their bodies have changed, that they're heavier, or that they've lost strength because they've used food to soothe. I believe you shared this with me. Those are things you hear from your community. And you've also heard from people that have abused exercise because it was their stress reliever and it's the only way they knew to help with their mental health. Or I put that in quote to help with their mental health? Can you help both people show up to move and meditate and find that deep place within that they need to go well for the people who feel like they've gained weight or they're just not as fit as they were last year, it's like, congratulations, you're human. Your whatever coping skills that you developed over the pandemic to get you through this insanely hard time have also protected you. They have also served a purpose. You know, everything that we're experiencing is going to show up on our bodies, in our bodies. Sometimes it's visible in the mirror, sometimes it's not. But I just really want to normalize this and validate it and assure you that that isn't a problem. Bodies are changing all the time, and if you feel like, yeah, I want to get back into things, I need to have healthier habits or I want to change my habits, I don't even want to say healthier because that has a subtle tone of judgment. Your exercise practice is there for you whenever you want to come back. So the problem isn't that you did something different. The question for me that's most compelling. It's like, Okay, well, all of these things are here for you. Can you be curious? Think of that as an experiment. What do you want to do now? Like, how do you want to show up and how can you show up with ridiculous amounts of kindness for everything that your whole system has been through and everybody's system has certainly been through a lot. I know these last six months for you, Kate, have been particularly challenging going through loss. Is there? I don't as much as you want to share here, but how has your grief journey really shaped your relationship to moving and meditating? Yeah? Well, my brother died unexpectedly in January and we were very close. It was completely shocking, very devastating, totally out of the blue. And I thought that I knew discomfort and pain and grief before then. You know, I've lost like dear friends, I've lost family members in my extended family. Um, but this absolutely shook me to my core and the waves of grief have been ridiculous and it has forced me to simplify in a way that I never thought I would have to simplify, Like very simple things like eating three meals a day, taking care of myself like that became more challenging. So I have completely scaled back a lot on movement because simple things make me feel out of breath or they make me feel a little tapped out. I'm just starting to find my feet again almost five months later. But I just feel for everybody going through a hard time, and I feel like this, this collective grief that we're experiencing. Maybe maybe you guys listening haven't lost like a sibling or somebody in your immediate family unexpectedly, but I think everybody listening knows grief and knows you know, knows loss from this past year, and that is something to honor. And we can't just pretend it didn't happen. We can't gloss over it like we have to work with what is here now, How is our body feeling now? I'm so sorry for your loss. And you know, to be going through the process of grief which is just so not linear and especially unexpectedly to just be thrown into it as an entrepreneur, you know, you already have so much on your plate to also manage the entire grief process is just really difficult. When you talk about collective grief, it's fascinating to me because you so quickly answered that question with compassion for everyone who's hurting. But when we're hurting, our first response is i'm hurting. You know, when we cut our finger, it's I need a band aid to stop my bleeding. Not there are all these other people in this world who are also bleeding. We need to get band aids. You know, that's kind of your Your approach was your first reaction to my question was very collective. Would you say that in the early days, weeks, months of your grieving process you were able to expand your heart in that way or did you have what most people I assume have, which is a why me, why did this happen? This is unfair, this sucks type of mindset. I definitely was just feeling a lot of feelings I don't want to say, like what is typical I did. I did not have any kind of like why me stuff. I just thought, oh my god, this is unimaginable pain. You know, I felt it so physically in my body. There's no way I would have been able to get through it without really great support. I've been seeing a therapists who specializes in E M d R, which has been very helpful. I have a total goddess of a teacher and a mentor who has been very helpful and supportive. My parents, my sister, my brother, they're also close. Um, So I guess maybe I'm not really answering your question, but I guess I just feel really relieved that I have a lot of support. And the something that helped me to feel comforted was the fact that I'm not the only one who's ever felt this. And actually, something that keeps coming up in my thoughts and my practice in my dream space is like, oh, this feeling of grief, this amount of pain, it's ancient and people have been dealing with this since, you know, the beginning of time when when there were people. So I hated feeling that way. I felt at points afraid of how intense the emotional pain was. I felt nervous because I could see how it was showing up in my body physically. One example is, like my ribs they keep moving and I keep having like ribs that a place I feel very fatigued in my body, you know, So I'm like, wow, I'm and I'm watching how when the mind doesn't know what to do with it, the body takes over. And so I'm grateful to see the process, and a part of me almost feels grateful to know this level of discomfort because it's like, wow, welcome to being human. You're thirty five years old. This is what some people live with all the time. And I hope, I hope, I hope that this helps me to be a better teacher, that it helps me to be in service to the community, and that one day my brother's passing can help other people. I think it already has, even just sharing that. It seems to be the norm for people who are grieving to find a little bit of breath. Let's call it to know that other people will have been going through this for years, that other people are going through it every day, and it's only when we talk about it like you so beautifully did. That's why I meant by your already helping people? Did somebody else really come out of what I think a lot of people are stuck in? Which is the why me mindset? You know, you didn't weren't really ever there. It doesn't sound like even though there was tremendous suffering, is there a stage of denial in some way? I think I'm shocked, you know, just even yesterday I just so badly wanted to call him, and you know, I picked up my phone and I went to to try to do it, and I was just like, oh, man, there's nobody to call. Of course there are people to call, you know, but that it's that that phrase like oh there's nobody to call that has come up so many times in my life when I've struggled with anxiety, I'm like, who can I? Who can I outsource this discomfort to? You know, what? What therapist? What healer? What green juice can I drink to just make this crap go away? Because I don't want to feel it. This is too hard. It's interesting because with my brother's passing, I am accessing deeper layers that I didn't necessarily know we're there. And one of the things that was really helpful for me when his name is Matt. When my brother Matt died, my teacher Kimberly came over and you know, we were just hanging out and she like wore these silly crow pants to try to cheer me up a little bit and make me laugh, and she was just telling me how when we die and the wisdom traditions that we help to wake each other up and that can look really different. And for me, I've really been trying to be aware of okay, like how can I use this experience of horror, this nightmare to deepen my relationship with myself, to strengthen my relationships with my loved ones, to deepen my spiritual practices. And that's been like so freeing, and it's allowed me to see so much magic and reveal that there's something bigger that I don't totally understand and I never will because it's just a giant mystery. Well, it sounds like you're all of yourself work really set you up to experience this in a really profound way. Like you mentioned that Kimberly had said, when we die, we helped to wake each other up. The waking up part I think for a lot of people happens a lot farther down the grief road than perhaps it happened for you, because of your ability to honor discomfort, to say ouch, this hurts, this hurts, this hurts, this hurts, but not run from it. I think a lot of people go through a run from it phase. Naturally. Like I said, you're an entrepreneur. A lot of people are have their own jobs, their kids, their lives. They have so much to man age that running from it feels like the only option because dealing with it is too scary totally, and I and I do want to just respect that that running is okay. It's a gesture of protection. If you're running from something, your system might not be ready to feel it. You know, when I was having panic attacks, I was running from something and that was really important. You know, my coping mechanisms that I had put in place of just exercising and not feeling things in my twenties like that actually helped me to function. And then when that didn't work anymore, my body's like, hey, I'm not down for this. I'm going to give you panic attacks because there's something else that you really need to put your attention in care towards. So if you're running, that's fine, but you you will know when it's time to do something different. Your body will tell you, or your behavior will tell you, or something in your life just won't feel like it's working as well. You mentioned doing E M. D R therapy. What is that? Honestly, I'm I'm not totally sure. I've been doing it for like six years on and off when I've needed to. And it's a therapy that I'm not sure what it stands for, but it's a therapy that rewires your neural pathways in the brain. It's specifically for PTSD. Got it, And and this is with your same therapist who you've worked with for a long time. I haven't been actively in therapy for a long time. I was seeing a therapist for my anxiety in generalized anxiety disorder, and then she would shoot me over to this other e M d R specialist when I needed to, And so I had not worked with this e M d R specialist for many years until until more recently. So it sounds like, from what I'm quickly googling, it's a method to safely access stored trauma and process it together exactly. That's totally what it is. And you there's different ways to do it. You can do it with tapping, you can do it with little busters that you hold in your hands. You can have headphones on and the sounds go back from you know, the left side of your body to the right and the left and right ear and then basically the the therapist walks you through. In my experience, you know, uh, it almost feels like a meditation. It's not, but they'll just ask you questions, bring up something that is upsetting, and then it creates a safe space. It creates a pathway for me and my experience for the sadness, for the wound, whatever is there to move and for me, it's a very energetic experience. You know, I'm a big time feeler. So if somebody else processes things in a different way, maybe someone else sees colors, or maybe they're more cerebral, you know, they'll have a different experience, and that's not wrong or a problem. But I'm just such a feeler that that's how I that's why I process everything. Everything for me is more of energy moving physically in the body. You mentioned that support has been one of the best things to help you through the grieving process. For those people who aren't your family you know, who are grieving right next to you. What are some of the best ways that your community or friends, maybe not closest of friends, can support you during this time. Because I think on the other side, I want to help you, but I also don't know's texting too much? Is? You know? I want to give you space to go through your process. Yeah, that's a good question, and I think it's different for everybody. One thing that I have learned is that grief is expensive, you know, like going through all of this, like getting the body work appointment, I'm like, oh man, I've got more ribs out of place, or going to E. M. D R or seeing this, you know, I just want to acknowledge that that's not accessible for everybody. There are other things that are free that are great, Like most hospitals and hospice centers have grief support groups that are wonderful. I'm actually gonna join one and just see how that goes. But I've heard really really good things about them, and then from a friend and community perspective, Like I think that's what's so hard about right now. Even though we're getting vaccinated and the country is starting to open up and we're able to see maybe some more people, for me here in Oregon, it's still been fairly isolating, and so texts are huge, calls are huge, Like there are days when I hope to God or behind me because I've been eating and and you know, taking good care of myself, like it's my job and that's getting easier. But for the first like two and a half months, Like I couldn't make dinner for myself. All of these little tasks are very, very hard. So just not waiting for a friend to tell you what they need, texting them and saying, hey, I'm going to bring dinner and I'm going to drop it off, or can I come over and just hang out with you? And literally my friends who would come over while I was just losing my mind crying. I didn't want to be alone, and that was the biggest gift, like somebody who could hold space for that. But I also know that that's really tough for many people too. I've seen many people that I care about who are absolutely wonderful human beings with the best hearts, and they're totally freaked out by this. You know, they see me and they're like, uh hi, you know, they don't know what to say or what to do, and and I think it's totally fine to just say I have no words, like this is awful, I'm so sorry for your loss. I love you, you know, saying that is enormous, Even writing a note in the mail, that's huge, knowing that people are thinking of you because the pain is so intense and you don't know when it's going to hit, and you know, the person who's grieving might just need to dramatically simplify their life. UM. For me, that has meant wiping my social calendar pretty clean. Not that I was you know, doing much before, because the pandemic has been something that I've been you know, taking very seriously. But but just honoring everything is different. And then for the person going through the grief, like cut yourself a break. You know, if you're eating three meals a day, if you're drinking water, if you're sleeping or trying to sleep, you know, that is great. Um, focus on the absolute bare minimum basics and just know that wherever you are is fine. We talked about waves of grief al lot. It comes and then you have your moments, and then it comes and newer moments. But it sounds like it's like a tsunami of waves, like it just overpowers you and then maybe get a little relief, and then you can be overpowered again totally. And that might also just be because that's my own personal experience and sometimes I can I feel things a little more dramatically. But you know, of course the waves are quiet too, just the constant level of fatigue. You know, it shows up in all of these unexpected ways, so there is no one size fits all, but people just honoring it saying I'm so sorry for your loss. Those people who have reached out to my mom, you know that means everything to me. It means everything to her. You know, we've experienced a lot of kindness and love from the community. And you know the people who who just go ahead and say I'm going to do this or I'm checking in on you, what's going on, how are you feeling today? That goes so much farther than you know, that make the difference between me being able to, you know, get out of bed and not getting out of bed for an afternoon. So don't underestimate your power. I think that's incredible permission to kind of know, even just to say I don't have the words, but I'm thinking of you. To know that that could be quote unquote enough to really help somebody going through something hard is really helpful and a tool that we could all use because that's that's how we help each other through the hard stuff. So if somebody wants to try and move and meditate, what's the best way to access your genius work. Well, they can just visit move and meditate dot com and we have a fourteen day trial, so that is a wonderful way that you can sign up and try classes. Something that's really cool about our offerings is that every week there's a brand new class, and if you're somebody who prefers more structure and guidance, I pick three classes for you to do that week to help you. Sometimes we just don't want to think about what to do. We just want to sign in and press play, for sure, So you gotta move in Meditate dot com and you can get that free trial and then do it directly on your phone right, yes, and you can also download the app. We have an app for Android and for iPhone. Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Kate for sharing your entire story with us, and well not your entire story, but sharing so much of how you really learned to find stillness, what movement means to you, what meditation means for you, and how you've really sifted through grief, because all of us have gone through some sort of grief, maybe not on the level of which you're experiencing it, but having the conversation, like you said, is what's really going to change the world. So thank you for being here. Well, thanks for having me, Lisa. I'm such a fan of your work and I love you. I love you. I'll see you soon.