Navigating Spiritual Awakenings

0:00 Hello and welcome to Real Men Feel. This is your host, author, coach, and healer, Andy Grant. You can learn more about me by visiting the andygrant.com. Real Men Feel reminds men that they're human beings and they have the right to experience and express all of their emotions. We have conversations that most men are not having, but that all men can benefit from. My guest today is Katie Turner. Katie is a registered psychologist, speaker, and the author of Fuck Toxic Spirituality, Avoiding Red Flags, and Navigating the Spiritual Path with Integrity. She has studied a wide range of Western psychological approaches and Eastern healing techniques. Katie's mission is to bring together the science of psychology and the practice of spirituality. We discussed the challenges along the spiritual journey, red flags to be wary of, and the power of lived experiences. Katie shares her views on spirituality, awakenings, intuition, toxic positivity, and much more. Stick around to the end for access to Katie's quiz. Discover your dominant intuitive superpower. Sounds cool, Let's do it.

1:05 Hello Katie, and welcome to Real Men Feel. Thanks so much for having me here. So your book, Fuck Toxic Spirituality, Avoiding red flags and navigating the spiritual path of integrity as it's intended got my attention. OK. So one of the first questions we have about that is did you have a very spiritual upbringing is. The spiritual journey. Part of you? No, no, not. Really at all, like I think little, little bit of religion here and there, but nothing, nothing strong, not strong background my my spiritual awakening. I kind of stumbled into it completely unknowingly, unintentionally. I mean, in hindsight now I know I was engaging in practices that do actually open that up more for a lot of people like meditation, energy works, other pieces like exploring. But I didn't, I already went kind of science scientific path. I have a masters of science in in psychology. It was all like research based, numbers based. I did a bit of dipping toes into kind of spirituality work, but I thought it would more around the power of like people's belief system almost more of like well, if you believe this, there is very strong evidence like placebo effect of like a sugar pillar Shan surgery.

2:22 I kind of thought that was the extent of it. And then when I started going my own awakening started happening and I started experiencing non ordinary states of consciousness, intuitive information. It really shook like my sense of reality of and I found a lot of the like quantum physics type research was actually help more helpful and being how do you kind of ground what this might be? So how would you define a spiritual awakening? Yeah, I think it can look so differently for so many different people. There's no kind of 1 clear cut like this is the way it always shows up. But often times it is more of an experience of kind of an expanded state of consciousness where whether it's you call it like a God, a higher source, nature flow, higher self, like whatever language people use.

3:06 It's more of the experience of like a connection to something bigger than yourself and a knowing you're connected to that. It could be kind of like receiving communication from something bigger, reassurance, science, synchronicities. There's many different ways it can come through, but I think the key difference is more like it's very experiential and it changes how people are in the world. It's not an exercise of like, well, here's the rationale or the reasons for believing this could be happening. It's because I get it too. If for people who aren't spiritual initially or don't believe, like aren't really connected in that way, I get the skepticism because I was there before and if someone just told me like the reasons to believe in it, it wouldn't have really changed my mind. But it's like the experiences that I've had, I'm like there is something more.

3:55 Yeah, Yeah, Everyone said that all the time. And yeah, for me, even as a child that's like eight or nine years old, I called myself an atheist. So I wasn't raised with anything. And I thought, you know, science was the only thing. And and if anyone mentioned religion, I thought, well, God is an old man on the throne in the sky. That's ridiculous. So it never appealed to me and until I had lived experiences that made me go, whoa, something else is going on besides just this, this flesh and bone suit I'm wearing. Yes, so in, in, in writing the book. Fuck toxic spirituality. That implies to me that you, you had a let's see, an up and down journey in your spiritual. Awakening on like up and down journey and then I also I've come to try to specialize as intuitive, like spiritual awakenings is part of my practice within psychology. So I've I've explored more than non traditional as well as like what are ways to bring this in on on the mental health side of things.

4:49 So I think there's value in both, but I found there's there were things I went gotta just kind of trouble or uncertainty within my own journey with that. And there's just so many themes that I kept seeing over and over again. Like I've worked with hundreds of thousands of different people at this point and there's so many conversations. I was having one-on-one with people that I'm like, there needs to be more information to help people navigate this. Like it's not AI have all the answers in any way at all, but I just found that, you know, when you're going through like having kind of psychic intuitive experiences, non ordinary stage of consciousness, there's not a lot of places where like our DSM diagnostics, statistical manual, mental health disorders can put that. I think it's starting to change in terms of more Western approaches.

5:36 There is more and more people being open, having their own experiences, but it's not like something that's traditionally taught in grad schools. And there's many psychologists, psychiatrists, medical providers where you might want to be a little bit careful what you're like, how much you share. And again, there's some people who will get that and can understand and help tease out like what if this may be mental health and what if it actually is like healthy, helpful, like psychic ability actually happening? Not necessarily any symptom of any mental health concern. But I get why people are kind of concerned about who to talk to you about that. And many, there's a lot, there is research that say many like academics, professionals, like often there are a large percentage of people in the general population who've had significant spiritual experiences that change the course of their life, their work, their research. But it is one of the things that is so not talked about publicly because people are very afraid of being like stigmatized, like people not taking them seriously, losing credibility. I was in the spiritual closet for a long time. And I just think when people are going through stuff and looking for guidance, it's one of those things. If you Google stuff, you get such a Wild West of answers online.

6:48 And they're I in the book, I talk about different spectrums. Like the title is kind of controversial. The book isn't really that tone. It's really more it's, it's more kind of grounded to say like here's pieces around like our nervous system, we're still in a human body, even as a spiritual being, there's still elements we, we that doesn't bypass the physical and like the nervous system, it can be helpful, but it doesn't just erase that right away and and from kind of well meaning spiritual stuff. It's a lot of it I think is unintentional, but we're not really thinking it through on a like deep enough human enough level of, you know, even mindset work manifesting of like, oh, just think positively.

7:31 Like it can be really harmful for people or even gaslighting and not hold the whole human experience. There's a lot of manifesting kind of teachings that like, if you really look at it closely, it's so infused with this like capitalistic consumeristic, like culture piece that has been like kind of taken from these traditional cultures where it comes from where it's like this isn't just about having more money. And like it's not about giving our ego tools to like force life to be the way we we think we wanted to, which is often very consumer based in terms of what these workshops, of course, that they're trying to like manifest for people like soul level stuff is like, you know, sometimes that can be part of it. I'm not discounting that the material is important, but it's like soul evolution is like, it often guides us to things that our ego doesn't even want to do.

8:20 Like it's like really I have to do like I'm going to let everything go scary. There's no guarantee of any financial like potential financial reward. It's not all about money. It's more about like connection, like service, our own journey. And then with that like whole spectrum too. It's like, I think there's a lot of well, many people in spiritual spaces, but it's like we're still people. So it's like, how do people know who can be helpful? Have people done enough of their own shadow work? Like there can be harmful even like difficult personality dynamics or even suspected, like there might be people who are harmful in those spiritual spaces who are. And I've seen that in my office too many times to like the aftermath of that.

9:03 People being open, trusting people like, well, they have all the psychic ability, they're saying all the right things, but they're like, actually there's some very harmful exploitive dynamics happening that can really traumatize people. Opening up to the wrong person can shut down your awakening. Well, not just shut down, like people can get financially abused, like there can be sexual abuse that happens, exploitation, like people can unintentionally or intentionally. There's like a can be a power dynamic or a vulnerability if you're going to someone as a teacher or a space holder and they're not kind of clean in their ability to hold that space. Yeah. This reminds me of I think this line comes from Doctor Stanislav Grof.

9:45 He created holotropic breath work, done a lot of study of consciousness and psychedelic research and things. And he said the difference between a Yogi and a lunatic is all who you tell. And about 14 years ago, I had someone referred to me from their psychiatrist because they thought they were losing their mind, and they referred them to me. And that's all I knew. Like, what? So yeah, she was having a spiritual awakening. She was starting to receive messages and having hits of intuition and psychic experiences and mediumship experiences. And I was just calmed her down. It's like, no, like there a lot of the world is chasing this. People are spending a lot of money to try to have the experience that you're just naturally having. So, you know, breathe into it, relax. There's nothing out to damage you. You're not in some sort of a karmic trouble. These aren't evil spirits.

10:33 Just just listen just and she did, she finally just stopped resisting and went on to have a, you know, a wonderful life and and opening her own consciousness to it. So it's that's why it's so great that you are in both worlds. And have have you always been operating in both or did did it take? A while no, it was apology first. Like it was the just the straight up like traditional kind of psychology 1st. But I, I, I was having my own kind of disillusionment with just conscious mind approaches alone. Like I felt like there's gotta be more than just that. And I even found from my own kind of healing journey, like understanding different layers of like, yeah, this probably comes from childhood. Like maybe I shouldn't react this way. I should probably do this instead. If I tell myself this, I might believe something else. It's just like I found that that didn't really shift a lot of the patterns for me.

11:20 I could just analyze them and understand them better and like know what I should do better. But it didn't change like the automatic reaction. So that was where I kind of started exploring other other modalities, got more into meditation. I also did more like trauma work deeper, like inner ways to work with like these, the the nervous system as a whole to move energy through like not so much just about the story, but how do you actually like shift these patterns? And yeah. And so then the spiritual I, I and I didn't combine both for a while because it was a long path. It was a quite a long path for me to figure out how to do both. And I, I wouldn't recommend people, if they're even as a practitioner, when you're first going through that awakening, you need to figure that out and get more grounded in that first.

12:05 So you know more of like, what is intuition? What's your ego like? What is, how do you bring this in? And I also needed, I did a lot more training, like it was years and years more of training to be like, what are the modalities I can use within psychology that are accepted that are evidence based? So I can bring this within because regulated professions often have guidelines around like what you can do and what you can't do, you can't. Just like if you just brought in like shamanism, like that isn't really necessarily like accepted in all colleges. So you could open yourself up to trouble. You refer yourself as a as a highly sensitive person and an empath could. Could you define those terms? Yeah, highly sensitive is really well defined. So if you believe in just Google highly sensitive person, Doctor Elaine Aaron, there is a self test online. It's it's been research validated. She's done many different versions of it. A lot of research has gone into it. It's not a diagnosis, but it's really, it seems to be about 15 to 20% of the population has a nervous system that's kind of like hold back, like take things in before jumping in. So it seems to be a nervous system difference of like processing sensory information more deeply. And so that can also make the nervous system more prone to overwhelm as well.

13:24 And so there's a number of traits that kind of come with that. It's not like good or bad, it's just it's kind of like there's benefits to it and there's downsides to it as well. And understanding and working with our nervous system can really help it. I often compare it to almost like maybe like a spider plant in an orchid. It's like they're both great plants, but some need different conditions and can like do some really cool things. They look really cool. Like they have different traits, positives and drawbacks, but like, like there's more care and fine tuning with the orchid where the spider plant is like more hearty, which is great, but pros and cons. And then the impacted piece is for that spiritual awakening piece for people who really want to actually, they want to open that up.

14:09 And the side note I will say with that too, is I do also have like a bit of a screening piece for people. It's not a substitute for your own advice, but one of the hard parts of spiritual awakening piece is like some spiritual communities are like, oh, any of these symptoms means it's just a spiritual awakening. Like don't worry about it. Just go into it where sometimes they're there's some mental health conditions that can overlap where it's like this may not actually be safe or a good idea to keep opening it at all. Like this is going to destabilize your life even more and can put someone in a dangerous position. So for me, I'm more of a, that's not my area of expertise. Like I would want someone else connected with other things. I'll work with people when they're like stabilized and I can help them kind of sort out like, are these things going on?

14:55 Is it safe for us to work together? If not you, I want you to get like have some other support here kind of first, because it's not always a good idea to just open up. But if it if it is safe, it's stable, if people are kind of able to function in their roles, their routines, then I think when, if you're wanting to consciously open up, it's it is like a muscle or a skill where the more you pay attention to like the way intuitive information comes to you, the more it'll open up in different ways and evolve. And my dominant sense initially was more empathic, which is more like a feeling, feeling emotional energy or like physical sensations in my own body. So yeah.

15:36 Yeah, So when when I was a kid, the first empathic experience I can recall, I still recall it very clearly. It was like the first day of school 3rd grade going to the same school I've been going to for the last two years. And as we arrive, we just being in the 3rd grade May just we got dropped in a different section of the school now and I started bawling on the bus. I'm like, what's? And then my mom, like I'm sitting with my next friend. I'm going to school. I like school. Why the hell am I crying? And it was like all the energy of the bus. Everyone else's anxiety came out through me, but I just thought I was losing my freaking mind and I didn't tell anyone. And I was just like, I was crying like off and on that day I was like, so looking forward to get home. And then the, the bus home dropped me off like a block from my house and I didn't recognize and I'm like, where am I? I'm, you know, like I'm just freaking out. And that's those sort of experiences kept happening. And I'd never heard a term of empath until it was like in my early 20s probably.

16:26 But you know, I've, I'm a survivor of multiple suicide attempts. I just thought, I thought it was broken, thought it was flawed. I thought, you know, I'm picking up like no one else does this. Why? I'm like, like I thought like I didn't have depression. I thought I was depression. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm so glad that not just being, yeah, not not empathy, but being empathic is more talked about now. And and is that kind of like I, yeah, I felt like a conduit for other people's emotions. Yeah, I almost referred to it as like it's like a energetic sponge versus like a Teflon pan. Like some people. It's like you can when you're not, we don't have that level of sensitivity that you're like processing it through your own body. And again, I think it like now, I think it's for a long time now that I've worked with it and know how to work with it. It's such a gift.

17:11 I wouldn't change it, but initially I'm like, this one sucks like this humility in our culture and time period is not it's not the one I choose. If you had a choice, good news is we can work with it and it definitely can get better. It also we can, I found ways for myself. It's not dominant for me anymore, but I've done a lot of work with it and what like with belief systems and early childhood stuffs because I was like, I don't want the intuitive information to come through in this, this level of intensity because it's, it was very similar for me and it's and I didn't know it was happening until I was already in psychology. I was in my mid 20s. I did some intuitive exercise and it was just mind blowing. Like I still remember it very clearly too, that I was like, oh, like what with this exercise, when I'm paired with different people, I don't know and I'm explaining what I'm feeling and what's shifting inside of me, I'm like, it's exactly what's happening for them and I don't know them.

18:02 So I was like, how long and how much has this actually been going on? So many people who are empathic do not realize, You may not even realize that they are because. And I think that's one of the limitations with like Western psychology kind of treats people like they're individual and that we're not connected, that we're not part of this bigger field. Whether it's like any approach that's too much just on our conscious mind and rational thoughts. Like isn't taking into account almost like the nesting doll approach of like we have our own inner child, our family system and stuff, our ancestors or maybe in Diesel history, we have like collective field stuff. And different people take on different levels of that. But it's like you need different tools and not just conscious mind approaches when you're actually absorbing other people's energy.

18:47 Yeah, something you mentioned earlier about being spiritual and physical still, because that's and it, and I went through this myself, but a, a, a common misstep when someone's really having their first spiritual awakening is that I'm just going to be spiritual and the body doesn't matter. They're like, no, we're, we're what? Regardless of your belief, we are all spiritual beings having a physical experience. And but I, when I discovered meditation, I was like, Oh my God, I feel so good doing this. I would try to meditate for six hours a day. Like I didn't want to live my life. I just wanted to be in this meditative state that felt good. And it, it doesn't work. That made my life worse, not. Better Well, they work for some people, but it's like not everyone has the like privilege or access to be like it's like it. Do you have the funds, the ability, the like support? Yeah, the the demands of meditation can be a pause from the demands of life, but they're still there when you stop meditating.

19:41 Yeah. What are some other common red flags that you see in spiritual teachers or healers or even wider communities? Yeah, I think there's like the, the wider community level, I I think there's some stuff of like and it, this is kind of, it's not just spiritual communities. There's other people who talk about this around many like Western views or North American and other places can kind of go. And I'm not, I'm not dismissing mindset work at all. Like I do think I'd, I'd have him trained in positive psychology. There's a time and place for like mindset work and being like our thoughts are powerful, like what we envision, what we focus on and is important too. But culturally we've almost swung too far in some areas where it's almost like toxic positivity or it's like any specific gets into this manifestation of like, oh, like don't say anything bad or don't express this.

20:31 Don't live in that reality or you're going to bring more of this to you. And and it can almost be this piece of like we're not allowed to have any human emotions of like anger, despair, rage, Like it's like we always got to go to like the spiritual peace right away or this like other part. And I don't think that really serves us as a as as communities and our relationships. There is I'm more a believer of like there's a time and place for both and there's sometimes like our emotions are an evolutionary, like they're part of our species heritage. They're still here, like we all experience them. And if there is a stage of enlightenment where you like just naturally don't feel that anymore, I'm not there. But I don't believe we get there by like shoving stuff down and bypassing.

21:16 So it I still think we have to be. It's more when we can actually have safe spaces to feel those emotions, to move through them. It's like that we canmore naturally come to the spiritual ability and again, there's almost these like different layers of reality of like we are like we have our human body, our nervous system, our brain, our emotions. We have our spiritual self we can connect to too, but it doesn't mean like it's, we still have to like work with that and feel, feel some of those things and, and almost like both can be true. Like our mind almost wants like, oh, well, if it happens for a reason or your soul signed up for this, like I shouldn't feel these things. And it's like, Nah, you can feel all this. It'd be super pissed off too and angry, upset, like have these emotions to work through.

22:00 And also some people still don't get those messages have that knowing, have that belief for themselves. But like there's a spiritual message here. There's like a soul journey and the human self can be like, oh man, like, why did I sign up for this? Like this still really sucks. Like there's still stuff that's not OK. So I think it's, and again, that bypassing piece because some of that can be like, OK, let's not look at anything hard and let's not look at anything collectively that's hard. That may be part of our call as a species to be evolving, growing, awakening, like developing these deeper skills together or not being like, oh, well, just they create the reality. So we're not going to look at any of these systems of oppression, privilege, like historical influences at all. Like they created the reality. And it's like, no, I think sometimes our evolution and I've had my own, my own work or even client work sometimes where messages come through around, like sometimes part of the soul lesson is part of a collective piece of like everybody's learning something so we can all do better and like all evolve as well.

22:57 And so I think that's some of the like, those are a few of the community things. And in terms of like individual people, a lot of it is like, you know, are they aware? Do they have enough awareness of their own shadow work pieces? Like sometimes there can be spiritual elements. I know not every this can be controversial for some people there too because I don't think Western psychology on its own is the only answer. Like I get there's systemic issues, there's privilege issues. Like there's room for community support, other people doing like holding space. But sometimes what people, it does concern me as someone who's like highly trained and like treating depression, trauma, other areas of like if someone who's just had some life experience, some coaching pieces starts to pivot into saying they're treating that or being like, oh, it's trauma informed. They're like, we're going to do this transformation with peace. And it's like, OK, are you aware enough of like who this is for, who it can help, who it may not help or be destabilizing? Is there some kind of screening process in place? Like does someone know like like the limits of their zone of competency or not?

24:08 And some of some spiritual spaces. I get worried because it doesn't there doesn't seem to be a lot of that there or any of like any of them. Have you had personal experience with a red flag or a dangerous healer or teacher in your journey? Yeah, I've had, I had someone I worked with and I I won't say any names at all. Like I'm not associated with them in any way. But early on I just a mentorship stuff with someone and it was just like there was a lot of like emotionally mature personality dynamic stuff and even like just no accountability like would change stuff. People would bring up concerns with Gaslight would like, would like, oh, well, everybody else. It was like they were not honoring like the contract they laid out in terms of like taking payment and what they were supposed to offer.

24:52 And then it was like, oh, well, you're not spiritual if you're like upset about this or this. And it's like, you just basically stole money from everybody and are not delivering and like, and then not wanting anyone to talk about it. And, and I was like, I would not refer people to you. I don't want to be associated with you. And they're pretty, they're pretty well known. Like they have an international following and pieces. And then I I also see it with clients coming in too, where I've seen people be like abused by people they've trusted or like financially extorted or other like just get because they going in a vulnerable position. I mean, I mean, it was a mistake I made, but I think it happens too because sometimes you see people with these like they, there can be people with really high spiritual abilities, like they might be able to channel.

25:36 And I kind of like initially I naively was like, oh, like that means you're more evolved. You're more like more. No, not necessarily. So it's, I think there it's important to know not just in spiritual circles, but anywhere in the, in the world. It's like knowing like emotional maturity and like what are concerning personality dynamics that are going on. Anytime we're entering an important relationship with someone, we want to be able to, if we can better screen for those, we can better protect ourselves. Like whether it's a business partner, a romantic partner, a boss, like people who don't have a lot of maturity or accountability or even personality disorder type dynamics.

26:17 It's like they can cause so much harm and chaos around them that it's it's a different, it's a small percentage of the population, but they can do a lot of damage. Yeah, yeah, IA common mistake in my journey was seeing that any teacher or mentor, I thought like, I'm so flawed and broken. They are perfect. And then when they had their own life challenges like a divorce or a downturn in business of like it knocked, it'd shake the pedestal that had them on and it would just really confuse me. But I'm like, but you're so enlightened, you know, you're you're supposed to be perfect. And again, they never said this. It was just my projection on them that they should have. And yeah, that brought a lot of a lot of pain and discomfort and like, boy, I think everyone I've ever followed, I've had times been knocked off the path and get back on and oh, here's the good.

27:05 Oh, I don't have to like, yeah, it's not I want to follow you as a the be all and end all, but I can still take you had a lot of valuable gifts and lessons that that served me. And it like for sure differentiating that was the big deal for me. Yeah, it's still humans, right? And it's like there's nobody's going to be perfect or fully healed, but it's like, are they aware enough? Do they have the supports in place? Like are they looking at their own shadow stuff? Like do they know where they can hold space cleanly or not? And it's like, I, the other side for me too, is like when someone gets into a place of like, they're your answer for you or like the piece of like they start using fear or manipulation and like using psychic abilities to be like, Oh, if you don't do this, it's like, there's a difference between like, I would really recommend this. I think it's in your best interest, but you don't have to work with me.

27:50 But my recommendation is seek support somewhere versus like, if you don't pay me, like terrible things are going to happen or like I overriding other people's intuition for them because I think we all have the ability to connect with that. And I, I, I'm more a fan of teachers, healers, guides who they may be, they may help you connect with that within yourself and they may have guidance and wisdom. You can run through something for you, but they're not seeking to like be that for you or getting overinvested and getting upset if you don't choose what they want you to do. Right. Yeah, one, one of the things I do is a Akashic record readings. Oh yeah. I've had people come to me so often and I like no stop, like live your life, make your choices. Don't just come and ask and check in on time or learn to open your records and get your own guidance. Like I, I've had to cut people off from that because, you know, I was concerned that they were, it was putting, you know, a crutch as opposed to a tool of support. Yeah.

28:47 Like a dependency or going outside one else versus like developing some of this? Yeah, yeah. But again, that doing that has been an amazing thing for for myself, the information that I get for myself, for for clients. Been doing that for 14 years, I think. But anyway. But yeah, that's one of the most powerful tools that again, when I first heard of it, Oh, that's nonsense. Like almost everything I do on a daily basis is something I used to make fun of. I just want to get that like let that, let that be OK and. Oh yeah, if I someone told me what I'd be doing, I'd I would have laughed. There's no way I would have believed them at all. Like. And I've taken missteps too. I spent a year as a card carrying Scientologist. You truly get a little ID card and a number that says you're a Scientologist.

29:29 And they were one of the my early experiences of a red flag that I now recognize. But they're like we're the only way. So anytime someone, some class, some program teacher is like, I'm the only way to what you want. Like that's the, that's the big warning to me now. Yeah, I I agree. It's like there's many different paths. There's no one path for everyone. It's like this is a path if it resonates for you. And sometimes it's reason, season, lifetime, like you might be drawn to something for a while and it might feel like this is because I think again, that's our intuitive like that connection we have for ourself will is like our little compass that will guide us to different things. And sometimes there's something important, like I do think the work I did with that one teacher mentor, it was like there was soul history between us. There was important stuff for me to get there. But like some of the lessons for me was again, like not putting someone on a pedestal, not being like, oh, they're so gifted. They're so well known that they know better than I do. Like it really, it was a dark teacher, but that's like it changed.

30:26 It was an important. I'm like, I do feel like it was part of a soul path. I was like guided to work with them for a reason, but not forever. Right. Yeah. And that, that's, that's important too. Like I, I find time and time again in my life and with clients, our soul's journey, our soul connection, all of that can be temporary and and that there's always more like I've, I've our souls love newness. Our souls are made to expand, and they expand by us having more lived experiences, as we talked about earlier. Yeah, yeah, it's always evolving. Yeah, I used to think that made life suck, but I've come to realize, yes, I used to hate change, dread change. You know, now I can, I might not celebrate every change in the moment, but I can embrace it and and have the faith that, you know, this is going to serve me in the end if I embrace it, if I dive into it, if I go with it.

31:20 But I think it's it's Katie Byron says. Yeah, every time I resist life, I lose. What I think it's like at sometimes it is that dark night of the soul piece where it's like, I, I agree to you, where before I kind of developed the trust in my intuition and connected with that part. It was like, and again, our society kind of teaches us that from such a young age. We asked like kindergarten kids, like, what do you want to be when you grow up? And then when you're like getting close to graduation, we're like, what are you going to do with the rest of your life? And it's like, oh God, that's a lot. That's a lot of pressure. So we're kind of taught to reverse engineer, like figure out what you want and then reverse engineer it, take the steps and make it happen where and that's, that can be an anxious place to because you're trying to control like there's some things that there's value in that, but there's this whole mystery of life that there's stuff that we so can't control. And I found I'm more open to change now because I can trust more in that process.

32:11 And I'm like, Hey, there's something here for me. And I, it's like when the times where I haven't listed or hold on tight or resisted, it's like this. It's like you want to do this the easier way or the harder way. Like there's going to be some processing either way, but if you hold on tight, it's not going to be, I've learned. Like that's not the way I want to do it. Yeah, you've mentioned intuition a lot, so I want to back up a bit and give you the chance to kind of, again, give a definition and help people, you know, if someone is concerned, like in my experience, my intuition. Or do I need to go on psych meds? You know, like what? So what? What's intuition? Yeah, I would say intuition is, I mean, it can come in so many different ways, but it's almost that like prayer is our we're putting out something to the universe, God, higher self, source again, whatever you want to call it.

32:56 I'm more spiritual than religious. I work with people from all different faith backgrounds. But I think the intuition piece is like that higher source answering. It's like it could be signs or synchronicities. It might be something that keeps repeating and getting your attention. It could be just this. It could be a knowing, it could be like a dream. It could be a gut feeling like it's this, it's the subtle ways. And there there's a really interesting book called the Awakened Brain where forget if she's a neuroscientist or a psychiatrist, but she stumbled on research of spirituality and like resilient brains. And she does such a good job of talking about the neuroscience of like our brain seems to be designed to, to communicate with this like larger web of consciousness.

33:41 And like when we have that connection, we, our brains are more resilient. They're more protected from depression and anxiety. Like we are more connected to meaning and purpose. Like our brains are happier and healthier than when we're just in the achievement oriented brain. And and so I think that's really like, it's a fascinating way that the science supports some of the spiritual experience. But I think that intuition it like it is our personal compass or our line to like our soul or that bigger part of us like that higher the the wider universe or again, whatever you want to call it. In your experience and in in your clients experiences, is there you know, one particular practice or program or technique that that you wish more people knew about?

34:24 I think it's more couple things like it's one of it is slowing down and getting out of our rational minds. If we're always busy, busy, busy going, it's hard for any of that to kind of come in or land. So it might be, is it meditation? Could be a really strong one, like taking time to meditate to like walk in nature, have a long bath. Like have places where you can just be in the moment. For some people, it might be cleaning or focus on something that's more vigorous to get their mind to shut off for a minute that you're so focused in the present. It's like we're more likely to get that kind of information there. And then I also like created a free quiz on my website too. It's not scientifically validated.

35:04 It's more for people on like fun, but it's when you, when you start noticing like how does intuition come for me? Then you can intentionally kind of meditate on that sense and that'll help the other ones open up. I. Was going to ask what's the best way for people to get in touch with you and learn more? So let's first. First, where can people get this quiz? It's at Katy Turner, psychology.com. And is that your main website? Is that that the best place to go? OK, it's the new one. Yeah, great. I know you especially active on any of the socials. I go on social here and there, like I'm kind of up and down with it. So, but I am there. I think my, my website's one. I have a newsletter list. So I kind of just as a thank you to newsletter community, anything first announcements always go there.

35:48 So when I have new things coming out, it's always there first and then I'm on most of the socials as well. So we're we're closing in on the end of 2024. What are you looking forward to? Yeah, well, I feel like even just the book, the quiz, like speaking to you now I'm I'm in the middle of an unknown calling myself over the last few years, like intuition really guided me opening up my practice that in the way I do and having bringing spirituality as such a foundation within it. And so I am looking forward to see kind of what unfolds. I don't like, I'm not here pitching anything really because it is a coke. I do feel the callings I've been getting are more of like, how do I get some of this information and help people on a who resonate who want some of these resources on a bigger scale that's kind of beyond one to one therapy.

36:40 So I'm looking forward to seeing what evolves and what people kind of want to see and how how I can be of service in that way. Cool. Yeah. And one thing like a surprise, something I wasn't taught as a kid, but as I grew up and developed myself and wanted to live a more joyous life, how important service is to that? And being of service really helps me to continue my own healing. Is that something that you see? I do as well, like I think there's sometimes in in spiritual communities of like getting rid of the the like. I'm also it's like of service, but also sustainability because I think there's pieces of like sometimes there can be pieces of like if you want to be a healer or helper, like you should be doing this completely for free. And it's just like that's just not sustainable to re exist in the 3D World.

37:24 Like I'm also a single parent like I have to there's a bottom line I need to kind of make. So I think there's, there's that there's like self-care and service. But again, like I've had many different kind of like past lifetime saying, saying stuff. So I'm also not as attached to the material world. I never really, it's never been my dominant piece. So I think there's a piece of like soul level. It's like I want to help, like help more people in a way that's sustainable but has a bigger impact as well. And is your book available everywhere people might find books? Yeah, it's like on the website there's a page with it too, I think. I don't know if it's everywhere. I know it's on. I think you get on Amazon, Kobo, there's a few different places you can grab it.

38:09 I have a free like a workshop right now that'll go out for free with that for not sure how long, but probably for the next three months or more, yeah. Well, Katie, I really appreciate you joining us today. You know, as someone that was diagnosed with a different label every time I saw a psychiatrist as a, as a teenager, I'm so glad that the spiritual and the medical world's are, are working more In Sync than ever before. So I, I think your book is important. Your work is important and your willingness to come out and, and you know, as you said, come out of your own spiritual closet is very important and needed. So I appreciate you and, and that and for everyone listening, wherever you're finding Real Men Feel, please give a like share this with someone that will get value from it. Comment or review subscription.

38:51 All those things are good for us. If you're not yet in the Real Men Feel private Facebook group, you can visit realmenfeel.org/group. You can always reach out to me at Real Real Read. You can always reach out to me at realmenfeel@gmail.com. And until next time, be good to yourself.