Tender Revolution

In this conversation episode, Catherine talks with award-winning writer and book coach, Joelle Hann, about the intimate and challenging process of birthing our creative expressions into the world. As sensitive people who often struggle with mental health and self-doubt, putting our heart creations in front of the public or gate-keepers like agents can feel insurmountable. Alongside the inspirational stories of several clients, Joelle shares her own path to cultivating creative courage and resilience, and the practices that help her stay rooted in her own worth. (The conversation gets particularly juicy near the end.) You can learn more about Joelle's program that Catherine's took, Book Proposal Academy, at https://brooklynbookdoctor.com/bpa. And about Catherine's program, Becoming Bold, at https://catherineliggett.com/becomingbold. Original music by Jamiel Conlon.

In this raw and intimate episode, Catherine shares a powerful realization about the origins of her anxiety and what truly helps. In relating to her anxiety as childhood feelings projected onto present-moment situations, Catherine discovers (with the help of her therapist and IFS) a beautiful and highly effective way to return to center. She also offers a guided practice for listeners to gently help their own anxious child parts back into the adult present. Original music by Jamiel Conlon.

In this episode, Catherine shares how we make the shift internally from toxic hyperindividualism to healthy interdependence. In order to create sustainable and lasting change in our outer world, we must first seed it within ourselves. With this in mind, Catherine guides two gentle practices to help you soften toward your own needs and open to receiving loving support from others, paving the way for true interdependence. Original music for practices by Jamiel Conlon.

In this extra special conversation episode, Catherine and her husband, Carlos, share how they uphold boundaries in their marriage, and feel even closer because of it. Like many highly sensitive people, Catherine has struggled with finding self-definition while in intimate partnerships. Meeting Carlos was a game-changer. A cheerleader of her boundaries, Carlos has always encouraged Catherine to keep expressing her own authentic feelings, needs, and desires, especially when they differ from his. Catherine and Carlos also (tearfully) read their wedding vows, anchoring their deep commitment to being differentiated, and all the more intimate for it.

In this talk and practice, Catherine shares why we tend to brace against that which we most need, and guides a gentle Empathic Witnessing exploration into the roots of your frozenness toward receiving. We as an American / americanized Western culture experience great shame around needing one another. However, it is the warmth of each other's hearts that we most desperately crave. This episode hints at how we can soften within to begin shifting our cultural dysfunction.

In this conversation episode, Catherine speaks with Catherine Gray, creator of the acclaimed Unsilenced Woman blog, where she writes about modern motherhood, sexuality, and healing after trauma. As the two mothers share intimate and powerful stories of their own personal initiations into motherhood, a portal to a new way of being is opened for mothers and all those on the healing path. Where desire, the voice of our undivided heart, beckons us to wholeness amidst the deepest of struggles. You can find Catherine Gray's writings on Facebook under Unsilenced Woman, and Catherine Liggett's poetic chronicling of her early motherhood experience under the Facebook page Resplendent Mother.

We find ourselves in a time of cultural and personal death. On every level, what has masked the truth is dissolving before our eyes. In this episode, Catherine shares the importance of grief in this time, and how it is the only portal to rebirth, both as a collective and as individuals. To grow into our fullness, we must stand face to face with the Unknown, and surrender to it. Catherine leads a practice in radical presence with the Unknown, allowing that release of certainty to open us to what is truly ours.

Saying "no" when we genuinely feel a "no" in our bodies is the greatest act of self-love we can give ourselves. So why is it so excruciatingly guilt-inducing? In this episode, Catherine shares a few of her most pivotal "no's," and explains the reasons why we face barriers to self-differentiation in our relationships, especially as sensitives and empaths. She then guides a powerful shadow work exploration that identifies where you most need to say "no," and gently heals the roots of your resistance to expressing it.

Long ago, each and every one of us built walls within to protect our most tender parts. Many of us feel pressure to "open" these walls in order to grow spiritually and emotionally, and we tend to judge ourselves if we feel "closed" despite our efforts at healing. In this episode, Catherine shares a new perspective on inner walls that reveals their true purpose, and even their great beauty. She then leads a gentle exploration into the ways that you brace against life, and guides you in loving acceptance of those places.

In this gentle and powerful experience, Catherine guides you into intimacy with yourself in relation to racism. So often as people in white bodies, we are blocked by paralysis and defensiveness when it comes to showing up as antiracist in the world. One way to begin unfreezing ourselves is to connect sincerely to the vulnerability behind these reactions. Offered with gratitude to the Somatic Abolitionism work of Resmaa Menakem for inspiring much of what is shared here. (Note: This shadow work experience is intended for people with white bodies, though all are welcome to listen and practice.)

“The more I heal myself, the less empathic I become” said a close friend of mine, who is a professional intuitive. Being an empath is both a gift- and a disability. We’re so attuned to others, and so conditioned to act based on what we perceive others needing from us, that we often abandon our own deepest needs and feelings. In other words, we are not truly safe with ourselves. We are not the protectors we long for. This episode is about becoming that for ourselves. In the exploration, you'll encounter the aspect of you that feels helpless to stand up for yourself, and bring powerful healing and integration to help you become bolder.

Ancestral trauma impacts our personal lives in ways that we rarely think about. In our highly individualistic culture, we tend to think of our problems as belonging to us alone. However, when a destructive pattern just doesn't seem to heal, there's a good chance it has roots in a family shadow. When we realize that it didn't start with us, healing can be complete at last. In this episode, Catherine shares a beautiful example of ancestral healing from a client session, and guides you in uncovering the unseen pain in your lineage that may have shaped your present-day struggle.

Trust is a certainty that someone will consistently act in our best interests. For many of us, real trust is rare, because we experienced long ago that intimate others in our lives did not do this. We project this learned blueprint onto our lives in the present, and the result is a wary heart. In this episode, we dig deep to reveal and heal the roots of mistrust in our own psyche. Through somatic exploration, Catherine guides you in uncovering the truth of how easily you trust those in your life, and facilitates a gentle integration of the mistrusting aspect of you.

We all want to leave much of 2020 behind. Yet if you really take a moment to reflect on who you are now in the wake of so much radical change, who do you see? In this episode, Catherine shares a beautiful transformation that she noticed in herself, which 2020 has given her quietly and without effort. She then guides you into a gentle encounter with an elder version of you, to discover what unexpected and profound gift 2020 has bestowed upon you.

Sometimes we hit a wall when "feel it to heal it" is the approach of choice on our journey of personal growth. When we encounter the same cycles of emotional intensity again and again, it's likely that these emotions themselves are the patterns from our childhood that keep us stuck. This episode describes how to identify when this has happened, and how we can awaken the energy of a kind yet firm parent within who takes our hand and leads us away from the harmful emotional cycle towards our expansion.

As Carl Jung taught us, what we resist, persists, and what we allow transforms. The things within us that we deny will continue to control our lives from the unconscious. It is only in releasing resistance that we free emotional energy to change. In this episode, Catherine guides you in a simple and powerful technique- the magic yes- that has personally helped her hold and shift the most difficult of emotions.

"This is a journey of great potency. It’s an invitation to call all of your power home to you now. To amplify your energy, and take up all the space that you are meant to occupy. All your power from lifetimes past. All your power that has been fragmented from trauma. All your power that others unconsciously took from you. It’s time." In this episode, Catherine shares the reasons why so many of us sensitives have difficulty taking up space and owning all that we are, and guides you in a journey of reclaiming and expanding your power through a memory in which you felt contracted and in hiding.

In this episode, Catherine shares her process for healing wounds around the voice, including her own, and how it relates to the creation of this podcast. She then leads a powerful personal experiment in connecting to your own authentic voice, and any resistance you may have around it. Your voice is the movement of energy through the instrument of your body, and healing our voice means allowing our soul to have expression on the planet.

Our animal heart is original innocence. It is what our blood and bones know as our birthright- the state of flow with life itself, where we open to each moment without holding back. This is the ecstatic state, free from shame and resistance to what is. In this episode, Catherine guides you in an exploration that expands your capacity for sensation and gives you a taste for what it means to live from an open, ecstatic heart space in all moments of life.

"If the mission is to break into a thousand pieces, then what is brokenness, but fulfillment? ... To become so worn from experience that God shines through your skin, and you become a mirror of Love itself." This episode leads you into a heartbreakingly intimate healing journey- an encounter with an aspect of yourself that believes that there is something wrong with you- and brings that aspect into beautiful integration.