Bill: Hello everyone and welcome again to the True You Podcast. I'm here with, uh, my co-host, Dr. Martin Kettle Hut, who is an author and a leadership coach. My name is Bill Tierney. I'm a certified IFS practitioner and a compassionate results coach. And we have with us today Katie LaCelle, our special guest. Welcome, Katie.

Katie: Thank you.

Bill: I'm gonna read your, your bio here so people can begin to know who you are. Katie LaCelle is a somatic IFS practitioner and leadership coach who is passionate about helping people uncover their own internal wise leaders and reconnect with their deepest embodied intuition. Katie regularly assists the IFS Institute in training therapist and practitioners, and she's currently pursuing her SEP Somatic Experiencing Practitioner certification. Fun fact, Katie has worked part-time in the circus for eight years coaching and performing on the flying trapeze. We, we have to start there, don't we?

Katie: I think it's the most fun place to start, but I'm obviously biased.

Bill: Sure. I'd love to hear about it. I.

Katie: so I got into circus arts about 10 years ago, actually at my bachelorette party. Um, believe it or not, friends kinda knew it would be something that I, that I'd wanted to try. And we did a flying trapeze class together and I, I kind of just never left. Uh, eventually ended up getting trained to coach flying trapeze and, um. I've done, I don't know, maybe seven or eight performances at this point. I did one in November, actually pretty recently. That was really fun.

Marty: Huh?

Bill: Flying trapeze at the circus.

Marty: Yeah, that's.

Bill: What made you want to do that?

Katie: Hmm. There's a lot of, honestly, there's a lot of parallels, um, with probably some other things that we'll get into. But there's this real sense of freedom and kind of playing on the edge, understanding where your risk tolerance is, um, where your boundaries are, how that intersects with other people's boundaries because you, you work on a team um. Really, it's just that, that freedom for me of kind of soaring through the air. Um, fact that at the time I was pretty, when I first started, I had a pretty active achieving part who really liked kind of like going through chick tricks and checking them off like That kind of got me in, but I, but I stayed for the soaring and for the freedom.

Bill: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I can just imagine the rush. Marty, I interrupted you. Go ahead.

Marty: No, not at all. Um, I just, I'm curious like, does it require, uh, like certain kinds of strength or coordination or even like on the physical, because it's very physical. just wondering what the physical de demands are of doing that.

Katie: Yeah. it depends on what you wanna get out of it. So we have a lot of folks who come to the school who do it as, you know, kind of a one-time thing, like you might go skydiving or something like that. And I. There aren't really actually too many special strength or other requirements, especially 'cause you're in a safety belt, um, for quite a long time until you've practiced enough that you can handle safely getting to the net. Um, so it's really where, where do you wanna take it at, at the level if you're, you know, performing and especially if you're performing without safety lines, then yeah, there, there's a lot of strength and, um. Aerial awareness. Where am I in the air and how, how, where is the ground and how do I get myself into a safe position so that I can land safely in the net?

Marty: Uh, uh, very interesting. So what are the parallels then? Two, two. And I, what I'm thinking when I ask it is to, um, discovering that part of you that be, that turned out to be an entrepreneur instead of working in a corporate setting. And that, uh, it, it used somatic awareness and intuition to get there.

Katie: I mean, you're, you're hitting on a lot of it, right? It, it really links together a lot of the things that I now do. Um, and there is a process really when you're learning anything, especially if it involves adrenaline. Um, where you're, you're figuring out, okay, you know, where, where's my comfortable, where's my too much and where's that zone in the middle? And that might change depending on a given day. Walking into practice, I'm not necessarily gonna have the same, you know, nervous system capacity every single time I walk in. So there's that importance of self-awareness. Um, you know, where am I at today? I. The ability to at least kind of do enough regulation to know, Hmm, I don't have it today. Right. I'm not gonna do something that's on the more dangerous end today. I see a huge parallel to that in all sorts of things. I work with leadership clients on, um, doing IFS work as well, really. Supporting clients into understanding where am I at, what resources do I have, and what does that mean about what's like productive pushing, if that kind of makes sense.

Marty: Uh huh. Um, and well, how about your personal journey? Like what did you personally discover get you from there to here?

Katie: Yeah. From, from corporate world to, to what I do now.

Marty: Yeah, I.

Katie: Oh my gosh, so many things. Um, so I in the corporate world for about 13 years and was pretty dominated by, you know, achieving parts, perfectionistic parts. I. Climb the ladder. There was a lot of caretaking happening and I had gotten myself into a position where I was, um, co-running a startup practice we took it from two people, uh, to about 110 people in seven years.

Bill: Wow.

Katie: it was an environment I think, that I both thrived in and profoundly struggled in. Because it was something that's, you know, reinforcing of the importance of all the things that achievers and perfectionist perfectionistic parts believe.

Marty: Right.

Katie: this is how I stay safe, this is how I, get my needs met, is by doing all these things. But of course I didn't have awareness of that at the time. I just knew that sometimes it felt really, really good and sometimes I would crash and it would feel really, really bad.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Katie: And, um. I also didn't have an understanding of kind of nervous system patterns. I didn't realize I was kind of going back and forth between this, you know, being all the way up here and hyper arousal and then crashing and then kind of getting pulled back into it and kind of following that classic, pattern. And what really disrupted that honestly was actually covid so. It really just made it so all of my protectors could no longer the, the way they had been doing their jobs just wasn't enough anymore.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: What, what was it about covid? The, was it isolation? Uh, was, did it create a breakdown in that corporate structure so that you couldn't for show up the way that you were before? What happened?

Katie: Yeah, so it, I think was such a, it was a huge disruption in how we were working. Actually, a lot of my parts liked that though because I'm fairly introverted and my job some respects, I was able to be a little bit more introverted. I was on Zoom all day with people, but I didn't have to be, you know, in the same space, which could be sensory overwhelming. but it was, it was the anxiety about. having any idea what was going to happen if we were all gonna die, if we could control anything. It was, it was this, uh, it was the helplessness, honestly, which is a, a lot of what those protectors are trying to, for me, were trying to keep me from feeling was that helplessness and that powerlessness, and there was really no,

Bill: it's, it's hitting me pretty hard just right now in this moment that I just haven't had hardly any conversations about the impact of Covid with anybody, uh uh, in terms of just. Just the way you, that you said that just now, are we all going to die? That, that kind of hit my system pretty hard. Like, that's right. We were all scared we were gonna, everybody was gonna die. I forgot that once we got through it, speaking of circuses, you know, the, the people that we were hoping to guide us through that we're putting on a circus force and it was just insane where we'll be getting all this. Con conflicted information, and one voice is saying, we're all gonna die. Another voice is saying, oh, it's all gonna go away. It's no big deal. And then we're seeing numbers coming out of, uh, or institutions and organizations that we've always trusted, and now they're being brought into question like, maybe we shouldn't trust them. Yeah. That, wow. I, I haven't really thought about that. And, and it has me wanting to drop to my knees in gratitude that we're not experiencing that right now.

Marty: Oh God,

Bill: Sorry for that interrupt, but I just wanted to jump into, 'cause that's what hap what what just now happened in my system as I heard you say that. And it changed a lot for a lot of people. It certainly changed. It changed the trajectory of my career. All for the good. Definitely. And it sounds like for you as well. So what happened? How did Covid help you?

Marty: Yeah. How do you get from powerlessness to empowerment?

Katie: You know, those moments sometimes, you know, I refer to them as like the invitation that you didn't really want.

Bill: Right.

Katie: Um, yeah. So first, let me preface like, it, it took years. It wasn't, it wasn't a fast process. I'd say It's still a process that I'm, I'm going through, although I feel.

Marty: could take.

Katie: I know, you know, my fixer part agrees. Um. Yeah, so it got worse before it got better for sure. Um, there had always been something in me that wanted to do more movement oriented, more kind of one-on-one work, more work that felt more freeing to me. There had been fits and starts of that throughout my career. I, I had gone to yoga teacher training, I'd gotten a personal training certification. There was always something in me that wanted to do something else.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Katie: And so when kind of covid hit and I started feeling like, Ooh, things are really changing and I feel really bad, and, you know, okay, may, maybe it's time. and I started thinking about it more and, and what that would mean, um, because of Covid and all that anxiety, that breaking point of, of not having the coping to. Handle it anymore. I, I had gone back to therapy, so I was seeing a therapist weekly for the first time in a while, and eventually came to the decision that I was going to request, um, part-time work. I. my job because I, I kind of thought, okay, I'm real. I'm really like this burnout's really escalating. I know part of it is everything that's going on. I know part of it is, this has been a message I've been getting for a while anyway. Maybe there's kind of almost like a halfway or an in-between where I can get more information without like fully taken off the safety lines. Right. To go back to my trapeze metaphor. So I worked part-time for about eight months, in kind of doing parts of my old role, and it just kind of solidified the certainty that I didn't wanna be doing that anymore, which was, you know, when you get clarity and it's like a, kind of like a mixed blessing because you're so clear, but it means you're gonna have to do something really difficult.

Bill: Yeah, you're gonna have to let go of some things. You're gonna have to take on some new things that you're not comfortable around yet. You talked about that, that that's, that plays in between comfortable and too much. I think we're talking about that right now, aren't we?

Katie: Yeah, absolutely. Um, so I did. Uh, resign and I, I started my company and this was the beginning of, it was January 22, so it was just over three years ago. Um, and then about three days after I'd put my notice in, actually found out I needed back surgery,

Marty: Oh.

Katie: and I went through just a whole period, which we can get into as, as much as it. As much as you'd like or not like this whole process of just really being chronically ill with all of the results of kinda what was going on in my back, um, what was going on, I, I started to get chronic migraines and it was, it really limited my ability to do anything for about a year.

Marty: Goodness. Thanks Katie. Wow.

Katie: Yeah.

Marty: I, I.

Bill: Mm-hmm.

Katie: It was, again, I think an invitation. I didn't want to really learn how to slow down and to rest. Because that was really not something I ever did. You know, I had my full-time plus job. I worked part-time in the circus. I, I just never stopped for a really long time. There's a lot of great reasons for that. I mean, that in itself was a very strong protection

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: I just have this voice in my head saying, what is it that was being protected? And maybe this invites you to get back into the trauma. What is it that you were recovering from?

Katie: sure. Yeah. So it was a, a couple of different things. I mean, one was. I had protectors driving protectors, who determined when I was very young that the best way for me to be safe was to get out of the situation that I was in. And that the way that my system adapted to that was, well, I'm gonna get out through work. I'm gonna get out through, you know, making enough money that I can have my own space. You know, that, that it, that no one can. A sale or you know, that's not, can't be trespassed. that was such a strong driver for so long that it took something like Covid to kind of stop me in my tracks and make me reevaluate and be like, wait a minute, what's actually happening in the present? Like, did I do it? Did I get safe?

Bill: Yeah.

Katie: And then another, you know. Three, three years to help my body feel that safety. You know, and spoiler alert, right? That's, that's where all the, the pains were coming from is my body had held it for so long and I was so far away from it. Um, coming back was a painful process.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: Your body kept the score

Katie: Oh yeah,

Bill: and it showed up in your back. Three days after you gave notice, found out that you had to have, you needed surgery in your back

Katie: yeah. I'd

Bill: and that

Katie: my whole life,

Bill: Yeah.

Katie: you know, degrees of ignoring and dissociating. 'cause it wasn't. It was a survival thing, right? Like, or it, it

Bill: Mm-hmm.

Katie: a survival thing of objectively for a while, and then it was a pattern which I yet realized I no longer needed.

Bill: Right, exactly. Yeah.

Marty: even take any further, probably. Right. Not only did you not need it, but you needed to get somewhere else,

Katie: Yeah.

Marty: sounds like.

Katie: I, I don't know. It's a, that's a great question. I think you're right. I mean, I think, I, I think my body pretty much hit its

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Katie: and said, Hey, you're safe enough now. I, I, I, I carried you here need you to take care of me now.

Marty: Yeah. Yeah.

Bill: And I think you just reported before we hit record today, that you're in recovery from Covid again now.

Katie: Yeah. Uh, yeah, that's, uh, purely coincidental. I did, I did get Covid last week. Um, well, it's, it's funny, despite all of my. Fears and anxieties around covid. I didn't get Covid at all until, um, after I'd been vaccinated and boosted and it was extremely mild. That was like back in, I think it was 22 and then this is the second time that I got it last week. And again, I'm luckily it was quite mild, but

Bill: Yeah. Yeah. I, I, same here, although I didn't get it until late last year. Same with my wife. We, we went through the entire years of it, um, until, yeah, late last year. And, and for both of us, it was pretty mild. Let's get back into, so, so what a transition it must have been for you, uh, to go from quitting your corporate job that you'd been doing, I think you said for seven years, going from a staff of two to, so you and a partner to over a hundred, uh, employees and

Katie: I'd been at that job for that long. My whole career in the corporate world was about 13 years, so I'd had a couple

Bill: I see.

Katie: I did before

Bill: Yeah. So corporate world, the world, 13 years burnout. Uh, um, what, how did you know you were burnt out?

Katie: There were signs throughout. Um, there was a particularly difficult project I was on in 2018 and I would literally come home and just lie on my floor and cry.

Bill: Hmm.

Marty: A.

Katie: Yep. It's a pretty strong sign. know, things like snapping at people, um, feeling, uh. Totally numb. Um,

Bill: Emotionally, is that what you mean?

Katie: Yeah, emotionally numb and not knowing, you know, why, why am I doing this right? Like, losing any sort of passion I might have had for what I was doing. Although, to be honest, I wasn't ever really that passionate about what I was doing. Um. It's just that, again, those protectors were kind of in place. They were like, this is a really efficient way to make money and stay safe.

Bill: Exactly. Well, there's, there's a certain amount of passion in survival, but I, but the sur But the passion that you're talking about is not that.

Katie: Right. And I did really love my team. Um, so, you know, that definitely helped. That's part of what kept me there as long as I was there. But that was also mixed in with a whole lot of, I had a big self-like caretaking part. So there was a lot of just said, without judgment, codependency happening. And again, it was that good, bad, right? It was that this is intense and this is familiar. and I don't necessarily know anything else. But also it, it's, it's not, it doesn't purely feel good.

Bill: For our listener. Uh, many, many of our listeners I believe, know quite a bit about IFS already, but some don't. Some might just be learning about it and you just used a term. That someone that doesn't understand IFS may not understand. You said self-like caretaking part.

Katie: Yeah.

Bill: Can you explain what is self-like and what made you label this part a caretaking part?

Katie: Yeah. So I would love to explain, and I'd love to invite both of you to just add anything that you think your listeners would benefit from. So. With IFS, we talk about different parts of us that have different roles or are holding on to different things for us, and this particular part a role, a very strong role to take care of others as a way to make sure that I would be okay. Um. To earn worth to, you know, as a hope to kind of get my needs met there. There were different reasons why that part picked up that job. And when I say self-like what I mean by that is. All of us have kind of an energy in us that isn't a part and we call itself in IFS and I went from a nervous system perspective. I think about it as like kind of coming from a really grounded, supported place and a self-like part would be a part of you that some of these aspects of self. So it can be really tricky to distinguish, um, between kind of. Being in that more grounded state and being in like a more blended state. And in this particular part's case, um, my caretaker is extremely compassionate. Compassionate is one of kind of the identifying qualities of self-energy. so you know that that can be really tricky sometimes. And it's, it also means that part had been really important in my system and really front and center and just felt like a really integral part of, oh no, this is just who I am.

Bill: So I want to, I want to, uh, tell you when I think of self-like how that occurs to me and, and have you measure that against, uh, what you just described to see if it matches. First of all, I wanna say that when I heard reference to self-like parts, uh, it was in my level one training. I'd never heard that before and I, I missed the part where they explained what that meant. I. So I was just, it was left to me to make up what it meant. Uh, it didn't occur to me that I could ask someone, and that's probably, that's one of my parts. But don't ask anybody, don't ask questions. Don't, don't give away that you're stupid. Uh, so, uh, but over time I've come to understand that when I now think of self-like parts, what I think of is a part that is burdened. That recognizes the mileage that, that we get out of being self energized or self-led, and then tries, tries to emulate that so that the eight Cs and the five Ps now become something to perform rather than something to experience. Okay.

Katie: I love that

Bill: How does that match when you say a self-like com, com uh, caretaking part, does that fit for, for this part that you're describing? I.

Katie: I think so, yeah. I also, and this gets really philosophical, I wonder sometimes about the self energy in each of us, if there is this aspect of, you know, we talk about like nature versus nurture. Is there an inherent aspect where like some people are maybe heavier in one of the CS than the other by nature. Does that kind of make sense? I don't, I don't know if that's something that I actually believe, but it's something I'm curious about.

Marty: Makes sense.

Bill: Here, here's how I understand what you just said, Katie, in terms of, you know, how I'd I'd answer that Sub burden parts develop their burdens according to the wounds that they're organized around. And if the wound, for example, is it's not okay for me to be vulnerable because that appears to be weak. That's a belief, let's say, or a rule that I try to live by because, because by living in that way, I protect myself from being hurt if I am vulnerable or show myself to be weak. If that's the burden, then I'm certainly not gonna show any kinds of self type qualities that would reveal. An interpretation that would provide an interpretation of weakness or, or vulnerability. So I might be willing or able, I would, I might be, if I'm one of those burdened parts, I might be able to allow myself to experience, for example, courage, education, and, and I'm not talking about bravery, but actually, actually being courageous. Um, whereas I can't really allow myself to, to experience. Compassion or what might look like love because that, that was so ridiculed, so dangerous maybe when I was growing up. So I think in the same way when parts become unburdened, they've already, they've, they've already done a, a million reps of courage, for example, and the one, the example I just gave, but are really an experience of what it's like to feel comfortable with compassion to allow that. That's just, that's the way I understand how that could be.

Katie: That makes a lot of sense to me. My deeper curiosity is if our, if we all have a different kind of signature. If that makes sense.

Bill: Yes it does. And if we, if we just go back two guests, actually the, our last two guests talked about this

Katie: Oh, okay.

Bill: in fact. Yeah. Uh, violet Eden talked about that. Her take on self is so interesting. She, she, I, I, I don't want to, uh, misquote her so I won't try to quote her, but my understanding what I took away from what she shared is that there's a relationship between the soul and self. And she says and believe that she believes that the soul comes with a personality signature. And I think that we're getting close to what you're talking about now.

Katie: Yeah, absolutely. And it to, to tie it back 'cause I could easily go down a bunny trail 'cause all this is fascinating. But to tie it back to the self-like caretaking part, reason I have that curiosity is I, I am curious if my kind of self-energy signature is just in general heavier in compassion than it is in maybe some of the other Cs. Um, making that a natural. Compassion as protection for that self-like part to kind of pick up.

Bill: Mm-hmm. Yes. That makes sense to me. Yeah. And here's, here's another thing, two things up, I guess maybe the two sides of the same coin are, I'm aware as, as we're having this level of conversation and I'm throwing out my theories about this, that I have a figuring out part. There's, there's a part that's kind of sitting in the corner during every one of the sessions that I facilitate for my coaching clients that's also sitting in that same corner when I'm the client that's sitting in that same corner right now, as we're having this conversation and figuring it all out, there's also, uh, that this reality that in the IFS model, when we hear directly from our parts, there's no need to figure anything out. We now just understand. And that's what I love about the IFS model is that everything makes sense if we have the patience and the interest in, in learning from the parts, how it makes sense.

Marty: makes sense. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Katie: and the reason I don't know the answer to this question about my system is 'cause I haven't asked.

Bill: I love that. Yeah. Yeah. If you were to ask, what would the question be?

Katie: Hmm. I think I would probably ask my caretaking part if she has an awareness of when, when this was picked up, like, like around that. Um, she was so young, she was like two, so I, I don't really know that. would be much of a like, oh, this is exactly what happened, and I decided, right, like how much real agency there is at that point. But I, I, I would just get curious about it. I don't know that there'd be a specific question. Maybe it'd be more like, is there anything you know about this that you wanna share? You know,

Bill: Yes.

Katie: if it's just I've gotten so much. So into the somatic experiencing side, especially when we're kind of dealing with younger parts. sometimes it's really more sensation based or, or movement pattern or, or body, uh, body oriented. So it might even just be like, you know, what was it like in your body then?

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: That's, you just answered the question I was about to ask. So how do you use, how do you combine. Somatic work with IFS and, and I think you, you've just started talking about it now, haven't you?

Katie: there's a part of me that just wants to make sure that, like, I acknowledge I am hardly a, a pioneer when it comes to this and there, you know, standing on the, the shoulders of, of giants. Um, but my personal way of doing it is pretty freeform. Um. Where and when it makes sense to either sprinkle it in or ask, you know, do I have this exercise that I think might really support you here? You know, how, how do you feel about trying something different? A lot of what we already do in IFS, right? When we're asking parts or we're asking people, how do you feel about trying this out? And just seeing how it goes Depending on how it goes, I might be more inclined to kind of lean a little bit more toward us. E or, or we might come back and live more in the IFS world. And, and again, they do overlap, especially when you get into somatic IFS, but it depends on where the system is at. Um, you know, being in my body felt very unsafe to me for a very long time. And the, the lovely thing about IFS for me. Is that it can enable you to do trauma work in a way that still feels cognitive, cognitive enough to feel safe to somebody who's really scared of going in their body.

Bill: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Katie: Just

Bill: Yes,

Katie: from my own experience.

Bill: me too. I, that's, that's also my, been, my experience. I have several clients who, uh. Enjoy great benefit from IFS without ever connecting with their bodies and vice versa. Clients who, who get the most benefit by just really noticing where is it landing, where is it occurring in their body? How does it, what, what happens from that place that they're aware of already expanding that awareness of what's happening physically, and then insights just begin popping and showing up. It's incredible.

Katie: Yeah, I think that the danger of the body for some of our protectors is that there's really, when you're really connected with the body, there's really no denying what you want and need. for so many of us with complex trauma, we earned conditional safety, temporary safety by disconnecting from our wants and our needs.

Bill: Yeah. Wasn't safe. It was too dangerous. How you doing over there, Marty? I've been kind of dominating the, the questions here.

Marty: That's, fine. Um. I'm, I would, I would be curious though, if you want to go back to the story of your journey and, 'cause I'm sure we have some listeners are going, well, how did entrepreneur work out better than corporate? That for me, that, you know, might for some people might be the other way around. Like, I'd rather have a boss telling me what to do and show up on time and just be a good girl. And you know, seems like being an entrepreneur would just. Throw my parts in a tizzy. What are you talking about?

Katie: Yeah, it's, it's so personal. Um, entrepreneurship is really not for everybody because of course there's the idealized version, right? Oh, I, I'm gonna have my laptop on a beach and work from anywhere and make my own hours. And, but it's, it's, you know, there's, there's more to it than that. And it certainly does not suit everybody. And, um, so far it does suit me, I have come to a very different appreciation for maybe some of the things I previously took for granted about being in the corporate world,

Marty: Like

Katie: more clearly defined paths, um, working on a team rather than primarily working in an environment where you are, um, holding space. love holding space and it's different than working on a project with a team and kind of having that collaboration even with leadership clients where I'm a little bit freer with allowing a little bit more of my parts to show up. Um, you know, it's still rightly so about the client and their experience and their journey. And even if you love doing that, if it's all you do, um, I. It gets lonely. I never had to worry about getting my own work when I worked in the corporate world. I mean, sure I did some sales stuff, but it, you know, I just, I, I was salaried.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Katie: It's very different.

Marty: So those, those, uh, parts, I forget their names exactly. That were competitive and striving and, and, and, um, you know, winning people's approval that way. Um, how do they get fulfilled now? Or are they, do they have completely other jobs now?

Katie: Yeah, so it was never really about winning approval for me. Um, it was more about earning safety and security. Um. And part of it is learning to feel safe inside my own skin.

Marty: I think that would be harder as an entrepreneur.

Katie: well, being realistic, part of it is the privilege of having worked and saved and lived below my means for a really long time, and being partnered and my partner has health insurance,

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Katie: right? If we're gonna be quite frank, that's part of it.

Marty: Got it. Yep.

Katie: You know, logistical realities. and it's also understanding and, and developing. So I, this saying that I love, that I did not make up, cannot take credit for is, you know, the opposite of anxiety isn't calm, it's self-trust. So developing, I've done so much around really developing trust in not just my current self, but also my future self. So if everything does hit the fan, trusting that the, the self that it hits, the fan four will have the right information and the skillset to handle it then rather than trying to pre handle it now.

Bill: That sounds like the perspective of a self energized part, uh, manager.

Marty: Yes, very much so.

Bill: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Trust. That's wonderful.

Marty: Yeah. Yeah. Well that, I mean, that's really also I think, um, something that I. Somebody who is sort of in between, like, where should I be, in the corporate world or, uh, you know, and being an entrepreneur. Uh, when you say that, when you point out the importance of self trust in the moment, meeting the moment and trusting yourself to do so, um, uh, that that's crucial.

Katie: It really is. And again, I, I wanna be clear that I think there are also certain, like financial and logistical realities to contend with. Like, how much of a risk are you taking and how does it feel to your system to take risk? my system is extremely risk avoidant, it had to be at the point where it didn't. It didn't feel like this insurmountable risk, right? It wasn't like, okay, if I don't make enough money next month, I'm gonna be kicked outta my house, or I'm not gonna eat like that. That would be too high of a risk for my system to tolerate that. That's about knowing yourself and, and, and your own kind of personal. Situation, risk tolerance. And my leadership coach said this to me once, and I, I love it. I quote him all the time too. it's not about not having problems, it's ideally you're choosing the problems that you have.

Marty: Yeah, so, and I see how this now relates to trapeze artistry. You didn't, you didn't just go from zero to 60. You, you had a strap on it first. You got, you did small things first, and you worked it.

Katie: Yeah, that's a great parallel to draw. I mean, you're, you're totally right. I, my system really needs, uh, risk to be bounded.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Katie: Like, I like playing. I just leave it at playing. I, you know, I want it to feel like play. I.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Katie: And there is like almost a little risk to play. There's that moment where it's like, hmm, how is this gonna be received? Because it's kind of maybe new or different, but it's still within a safe container. And I think what you're pointing out is just that parallel of those journeys of like, yes, I'm, I'm pushing myself, I'm taking risk, but it's kind of within what my system is willing and able to handle.

Marty: Mm-hmm. Like the, the boundary between the somatic experience and the more. Cognitive experience too, right? That probably also, I'm, I mean, I, I mostly coach people in the corporate world and There isn't that much, you know, that they, they, they're not willing in the context of a quick coaching call before they get back to work to go too deep into their bodies. I notice, right? We do, we do it a little bit usually it's, they, they have a low tolerance for it. Right. So, um, I, I could see that, you know, that some people like just don't go there and other people like, oh, that was kind of nice. Let, let's do more of that. They'll say, you know, so there's another one of those. Um, try a little, see if it works, then go deeper if you can.

Bill: I remember learning how to ride a bicycle and how scary that was.

Marty: Right.

Bill: How do you stay upright on two wheels? What in the world? And, and of course you can at first, but after a while you used the word soaring in your trapeze work. That's, I remember as a kid feeling that that wind in my face once I'd mastered the bicycle, at least mastered it enough where I trusted myself. And then the day that I took my hands off the handlebars and rode for two feet without them, put my hand back on again then, and then there was a time that I could do it for blocks and blocks and blocks. It just gets comfortable. It's built right into the muscle memory and, and now it feels safe. It isn't a risk at all. Yeah.

Marty: would imagine also that I, I believe this is totally unfounded, but I believe that we're all compassionate. So that's just part of being human. But when, asking like, is this compassion self-driven or is this driven by some other part that, um, that could, we could play with that in a similar way. Like, well, let me see. You know, how if I, if I. Give this much compassion, you know, is, is it, is it feeding me or is it, um, just feeding them? Or is it something all encompassing? You know, like, does it, does it rhyme? Does it. Really work for of us, or you know, or is it on one side of the or the other? And that would be, whereas, you know, just I'm making up what it, what it this inquiry would look like. It might feel totally different, but it's a similar sort of like, well, let's go, let's, let's try it a little bit and see, you know, am am I really being compassionate here, or is this driven by something else?

Katie: Yeah, I think with any self-like part, at least again, for, for my own experience, you're right, it is that process of inquiry. is there an agenda here? If so, how much energy is there behind it and what is it?

Marty: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Right, right.

Bill: I am gonna have to jump in and begin to wrap up Now. We, uh, we've only got a few minutes left. And Katie, I wonder if, if you're open for business, I wonder if you're looking, if, if you're open to work with clients, and if so, who, who would they be? And, and then how would, how might you help them? I'll, I'll stop the questions there. I have more, but I'll stop with those two.

Katie: Yeah, so I, um. I have a wait list at the moment for one-on-one IFS. I do have a couple slots for leadership clients, um, and I do on the IFS side. I work a lot with, um, since that was part of, unfortunately part of my experience. Also do a lot with insomnia and. If there is anyone listening who's interested in IFS for insomnia and, you know, knowing that I'm, I am on a wait list right now. I actually do have a course IFS for insomnia course, on my website. So that's definitely a possibility. And um, on the leadership side, I generally work with. Folks who are kind of open to some of the integration, um, you know, who might be curious about, okay, what would it mean to, to be embodied at work, right? And, and to really kind of partner with my body to understand I'm at and, and how I'm responding. So that's really kind of what I, what I. Look for to, to make a kind of a strong client connection on that side is someone who sees that as a real accelerator in the leadership space.

Bill: I see that your website is, is it ana llc.com and,

Katie: Mm-hmm.

Bill: and is there, what does Ana mean? Is that, is that a word that I should know and understand?

Katie: No, it's a word I made up.

Bill: Oh, what does it mean?

Katie: I don't often get asked this. There's a part of me that's delighted that you're asking.

Bill: Yeah.

Katie: so

Marty: Just.

Katie: something that I've always kind of liked and also something that has some symbolism around healing and kinda serving. Um, some historical symbolism there and then sauna the, the Latin, uh, root word, uh, to heal.

Bill: That's beautiful. Wow. I'm so glad that I,

Katie: I liked how it sounded, you know, like I think there's a little blog post or there's something on my website about it buried somewhere, but yeah, I

Bill: mm-hmm.

Katie: get asked that, so thank you.

Bill: I like being unique. You're welcome. So cna l uh, C-R-E-S-S-A-N-A-L-L c.com. That's where someone could find the course that you referred to for IFS for, uh, uh, sleep disorders or what did you call it? Or

Katie: for insomnia.

Bill: Insomnia.

Katie: Mm-hmm.

Bill: Yeah. And, uh, what else? Anything else you want people to know about you before we close here?

Katie: If there was anything that resonated, please feel free to reach out. I've got a contact form on my site. Um, my Instagram's the same as the website. It's just at resana, llc. Feel free to direct message me. I really like hearing from people like it, it really feeds me. If you just message me and you say, Hey, I heard you, and like, this really resonated. Um, so I, I just, anyone out there who feels like there's a connection, I'd just love to make a connection.

Bill: As you're listening, uh, just go to show notes if you'd like to follow up and, and connect. And, uh, Katie, what a pleasure. It's been talking with you today and getting to know you a little bit better. You and I, I failed to mention that you and I met, has it been two years ago now? Two and a half years, maybe since, or maybe a year, maybe it's just a year and a half since we met in Denver at the IFS conference. And we got to spend about an hour or so together. And, and then, uh, you ran across my name and said, I wonder if that's the guy that I met at, at the conference. I'm so glad you reached out. Thanks for joining us.

Katie: Thank you so much for having me.

Marty: good to meet you.