My guest for this episode of the Creative Spirits Unleashed Podcast is Kathy Taylor of HerdWise Leadership Coaching. We started this conversation with a quote, which launched a very interesting conversation about what it means to be true to ourselves. The quote was behind her and it said “Be full of yourself.” I was pretty sure there was a double meaning, so we started our conversation there.

We came around to an interesting question. Kathy said, "What does it mean to be a safe person to ourselves?" Now, if that's intriguing for you, it got even more interesting because she likened what we were talking about to filling a little honey bear jar with all kinds of nooks and crannies.

What she does is help people find all the nooks and crannies inside their bodies and their mindsets that keep them from being who they were born to be. We're talking about balancing acts, we're talking about how we can be more true to ourselves, and we're talking about the steps it takes to get there. I will never see a honey bear jar the same way again!

She gave us some of those steps in this conversation along with lots of ideas on how we can learn and grow.

Here's a little bit more about Kathy.

Kathy Taylor is an Embodiment & Nervous System coach who also incorporates horses and nature in her practice. She works with highly successful women who don't want to believe "this is all there is," but just can't quite seem to get where they want to go and are exhausted from trying.

Kathy was aware her people-pleasing, perfectionism, and proving were holding her back, but she didn't know what else to do. The latest self-help book, new strategies and "trying really hard" had gotten her only so far. She put a lot of pressure on herself to succeed like everyone else had and nearly gave up. When she discovered it was her own well practiced stress and trauma responses getting in the way, she knew that more head knowledge couldn't take her where she wanted to go. By learning how to work with her own body and nervous system she was finally able to acknowledge her needs, show up as her *real* self and take meaningful action. With her intellect and intuition working together at last, Kathy shares with others how to access the wisdom of the body.

Topics: 

• What does it mean to be true to ourselves? (0:02 )
• Be full of yourself and take up space. (2:49 )
• Taking responsibility for your life. (8:32 )
• The importance of coming back to center of safety. (13:47 )
• Cold baths and ice baths. (17:31 )
• Physical assessment of the nervous system. (22:31 )
• Pushing through the fear. (26:53 )
• How did you come to this point of consent? (31:36 )
• Why horses are so valuable? (36:46 )
• Horses have better sensors than we do. (40:51 )
• The importance of air traffic control. (45:22 )
• Trying to change the mistakes in our bodies. (50:09 )
• Leaving yourself behind creates a little hole. (56:29 )
• What can you do to make connections in your body? (1:01:57 )
• Boundaries between what's mine and what's not mine. (1:06:52 )
• How we invite the injury. (1:11:04 )
• The sway test and its power. (1:17:27 )
• How to get in touch with her. (1:22:54 )
• The journey to the self. (1:29:11 )