How To Find Your Community

As we shift, change, and grow into our authentic selves, how can we find new friends and community? Maybe we seek spiritual discussion, confidantes, or just folks to have fun with? It's easy to wonder if they even exist... Yet they do. Let's explore how to find them.

Transcript

So today we're talking about how to find community.

And sometimes we're specifically asking for spiritual community,

Or community that's interested in the things we're interested in.

And the reason we want to talk about it is one,

We talk about this a lot in our classes.

The question comes up a lot,

How do we find community?

Especially as we shift and change.

A lot of us were raised in a very old paradigm,

Where fighting is normal,

Sarcasm is normal,

You are together because of obligation and expectation.

And then as we learn and grow and as we dive into spiritual ideas,

And not necessarily spirituality,

But spiritual ideas,

Even seeing the world differently.

Like I remember the first book I think that really blew my mind on this topic,

That was specifically about this,

Was Your Erroneous Zones by Wayne Dyer back in the 80s.

You wouldn't have necessarily called it a spiritual book,

But it was a book that started saying,

No there's more to being human than these programs were running,

Than these games were playing,

Than these dramas were playing out.

There's more.

And so often times as we start to sort of break out of those patterns it's really hard to relate.

Sometimes to the community we grew up in,

Our family,

Even our siblings even our old friends,

And we realize that wow,

We don't really see the world the same.

And it's not that we need to see the world the same I have,

If you gathered all my friends in a room you would meet the most insane hodgepodge of people you've ever met.

We do not see the world the same we do not have the same interests even sometimes,

But there is a common thread of something.

A curiosity about the world,

A curiosity about ourselves,

A curiosity of why would that happen,

Why did I do that?

Is this a pattern?

There's like an introspective something that links us,

Even though we have very diverse lives.

So often times you see stuff like this online,

Where they say things like people just put up these sayings,

And one of the big sayings is you have to be willing to lose your friends and family in order to step into the next part of your life.

And I believe that they say this because that's the fear.

That if I change if I change out of the patterns I was raised in,

Then I'll be alone.

Then no one will understand me.

So if we have this fear,

We easily will stay in very dysfunctional relationships,

Because we're so afraid that there's nothing else.

And this is really common It's like being in a romantic relationship and you can be in this relationship for decades you can be in this relationship for five years,

And somehow our focus,

Our eyes become so focused on this one other human,

That even if it's dysfunctional and brings us only unhappiness somehow the other 8 billion people on the planet disappear from view.

And this person is the only person that would ever love me.

It's a very curious thing about the human mind.

I don't know why that happens.

I don't have anything interesting to say about that.

All I know is that it does.

And we become so laser focused on this human and again,

Maybe we're meant to be laser focused so that we make changes and we dig deep and we sort things out.

I don't know,

Maybe that's why.

But as long as we are doing the sorting and we are making the changes and we are staying in the arena to battle it out,

I don't mean like forcefully,

I just mean go deep into whatever it is.

But we have the same experience often with our peer group,

Whether it's friends or family or colleagues.

We really think that if we stop relating with these people that there's no one else in the whole universe.

That there's not this other 8 billion people.

8 billion people is a lot of people.

So it's an interesting thing that we have this fear of losing these people because we become authentically ourselves.

And this is really different than we lose them because now we're lecturing them on the life of being a spiritual person.

We don't want to do that.

I remember when I first started studying Kundalini Yoga.

I began studying it in my living room.

I just did DVDs that I got from Amazon.

I was blown away by this yoga.

So I thought,

You know what,

I need to go and study with real people because I lived in a very remote area.

I had relatives that used to make fun of me that I didn't just live in a small town,

I lived outside of a small town.

I was remote.

And so obviously there was no yoga,

Let alone Kundalini Yoga.

And so I went down into the States to study and do my teacher training because that was the only way to actually study it.

And I remember about the second or third month that I had traveled down for the training and we're all sitting in a circle and someone turns to me and I can't even remember anymore.

Someone either turned to me and asked me personally or was asked in the group.

But the question was,

Does your family support your training?

And I remember thinking,

What are you talking about?

I don't understand your question.

Why wouldn't they support my studying yoga?

And why do I need their support in studying yoga?

Like I didn't understand any part of this question.

And so I just sort of looked at them and said,

Well of course they do.

I don't need their support but they're not arguing with me.

Like I had no idea how to answer this question.

Then as the months went on in the training I started to understand what they meant.

Because you don't just learn about yoga,

You learn about philosophy and even the psychology of being human and how we interact with people and all these kind of things.

These people would study for the weekend and then go home and lecture everybody about,

Oh you shouldn't be eating this and you shouldn't be acting like this and you should be meditating ten minutes a day and you should be doing Kriya and you should be doing this and what's wrong with you.

And it was almost like,

And I had a lot of issues with the way I was trained in Kundalini Yoga,

Which is why I have my own teacher training,

Because I love the technology of the yoga but there was this weird oppressive something that said,

If you don't practice two and a half hours every morning,

You're not even a real spiritual person.

Like there was a lot of weird guilt in the training that I really,

It actually made me rebel big time inside the training.

And then I had to go home and my poor family and friends had to hear me just bitch about what they were teaching and oh,

It was,

Anyway.

It was a long ten months for my family and friends,

I'll tell you that.

But I felt so called to it and I knew this was meant to be part of my life.

So it's really important that if we are alienating the people around us because they're not supporting us in our new ventures,

We have to really look at our new ventures.

To me,

If we are studying spirituality and it's alienating us from the people in our lives,

There might be some ego wrapped up in that.

Because spirituality is meant to bring us to the oneness,

The oneness of all things.

And that includes everybody.

That includes angry people,

It includes cruel people,

It includes codependent people,

It includes everybody.

It doesn't mean we have to hang out with them,

But our love has to encompass all of them.

Our understanding has to encompass all of them.

We may act differently,

We may not play in the expectations and the drama triangles and all that.

It shouldn't alienate us from them.

They may think we're weird and we may not choose to go to all the gatherings.

But do you know what I mean?

In our hearts it actually,

Whatever we're studying should bring us a deeper understanding of their struggles and why they lash out.

That's just a thing I think is really important in the spiritual world.

So,

The first thing is if we are seeking spiritual community we have to ask ourselves what spiritual means.

Because,

It's a funny thing,

Spiritual doesn't mean that we study spirituality.

It might.

If your interest is diving deep into Buddhist studies then you should join groups of Buddhist meditation groups and find Sangha and find people where you can go and gather and study Buddhism.

If you want to study yoga,

Then take a teacher training or start attending yoga classes or join a yoga studio.

If you actually want to study various aspects of a spiritual practice,

Then there's your answer.

There's your community.

Go and find that community that studies that particular,

If you want to study astrology,

Go and join an astrology group.

But that doesn't necessarily mean you're going to find spiritual people there.

If you join a yoga studio,

You might find all kinds of people that aren't actually what I would define as being spiritual.

Spiritual people,

And this is just the world according to Katrina,

You have to find your own definition of spirituality because in the land of things we can't define,

This is one of them.

There's a reason that you're never supposed to name God.

I am the great I am.

If you see the Buddha on the path,

Kill him.

The Tao that can be named is not the real Tao.

All that kind of thing.

So this comes with everything we're going to talk about today.

This is just how I understand spirituality.

And maybe you resonate with it or maybe you're like,

Nah,

Katrina,

You're crazy.

But to me,

A truly spiritual person is a person who has all of their chakras active and blended and playing together.

As grounded as they are in the first chakra,

Doing things,

Creating things,

Connected to nature,

Connected to the village,

They are just as connected in the seventh chakra,

Understanding that perhaps there's a greater purpose.

Maybe I can always just close my eyes and ask for guidance no matter what.

Maybe they listen within and they trust their hunches and they trust them so deeply their life becomes very interesting.

Because they're always following these little hunches inside and then some new avenue opens up in their life.

Maybe their voice they love expressing themselves,

Maybe through dance,

Maybe through song,

Maybe through interesting conversation.

Maybe they're just so loving.

Maybe they've never even heard of Hinduism or yoga or Tantra or anything else but they are such loving people.

You just love being around them.

Maybe their third chakra is super strong like they know exactly who they are and what they're here to do and just simply hearing about their journey makes for fantastic coffee.

Maybe they have a fully activated second chakra where they just flow with people going to a party with these people,

You don't have to do anything you just get to flow along with them because they are just so fun.

Or maybe they're really in touch with their emotions and you can really process and enjoy life that way with them.

This is what I define as a truly spiritual person.

That does not mean they study spirituality or do yoga.

It's the same thing as seeking a lover partner,

Marital partner,

Girlfriend,

Boyfriend,

Whatever you want to call them a romantic partner.

So often people say to me,

I just wish I could find someone who is interested in spirituality to be with and for me every so often I might date someone who actually is also interested in spirituality or Tantra and that kind of thing but very often the deep relationships aren't with people like that and sometimes I'm more than spiritual enough in that way for both of us.

The other person brings way different things to the table I don't want to sit and get all caught up in our heads and talking about things and analyzing things to death and navel gazing together.

I need someone that actually wants to go out and do fun things because sometimes I need to get out of my head.

It's very interesting when we think about what compliments us.

What is our complimentary opposite?

Not someone just like us.

Sometimes the very act of wanting to find spiritual community or a spiritual partner or a spiritual friend.

We just have to be really clear what we're asking for.

For me I love hanging out with people who love life.

Don't really care what you do.

I don't care what you read about or what you think about.

I'm interested in people who think there's more going on in the world than just what's on the surface.

But this can be anybody anybody at all.

And the other big thing obviously is that we have common interests.

So one of the reasons I wanted to talk about this was one that comes up a lot in the conversation here.

But somebody asked me recently about how I found the community that I have because I have huge community.

I just,

I know almost everyone in this town.

I have huge community when it comes to intimate friends,

Lovers,

Even lovers.

I don't think I ever break up with anybody.

I could call up anybody and say,

Hey how's it going?

I don't really break up with people.

That's not a thing.

You just shift and change and change where you're spending time or whatever.

And I started thinking back to my life socially kind of thing.

And when I was young,

When I was very young,

I easily had friends.

I'm a really actually quite a straight-laced person.

Whatever that means.

I'm kind of an innocent and I was when I was a child too.

I really loved being a girl guide.

I loved doing things and getting badges.

In the land of the 80s,

Which unfortunately I was a teenager in,

I was a geek,

Dork,

Nerd,

Right to my bones.

Which was fine until I turned about 12 or 13.

And this is about say 1982 1983 and Hollywood started presenting people like me as being outcasts.

Revenge of the nerds.

Every movie there was a nerdy kid and nerdy girl who had glasses and all this stuff,

Right?

And that was me.

And I just tanked in high school.

Because I decided that who I was wasn't okay.

I wanted to be cool.

I wanted to be popular.

I wanted to smoke drugs and drink and do all these things.

I wanted to be cool.

I wanted to have boyfriends.

I didn't want to be covered in acne and flat chested and you know,

I just didn't want to be me.

And those high school years were the darkest years of my life.

Because I wasn't even me.

Because I was so desperately trying to be other people.

And then I went away to university which was a little bit better because at least I was studying math so I was sort of getting to,

I was getting to be that dork because I went to University of Waterloo math like that's what I studied.

And that was literally the gathering of all the nerds all over North America and the world.

Because it's one of the only schools in the world that gives you a bachelor of mathematics.

So I felt a little bit cooler there because this was important for some reason.

And then I got married.

And I married a friend of mine there,

Her brother,

And he was a farmer.

And I was a computer programmer from Toronto.

And I moved to the farm.

For the first couple years that I was on the farm,

I wasn't lonely.

I wasn't needing community.

Because I was a full time computer programmer.

So I was travelling a lot around the farm kind of thing.

But I would meet people all the time in my work.

And my mum was dying at the time.

And so I was travelling from the farm,

Which was about three hours to Toronto I would be travelling to Toronto every weekend to be with my mum and family.

So I wasn't lonely at all.

But then mum died I had my first child.

I stopped working outside of the home.

And it was just me and my husband and my children.

And we lived in the middle of nowhere on a dairy farm.

And wow,

Like loneliness started kicking in.

Big time.

And it wasn't easy.

I mean I've gone through all kinds of things.

I had difficult times having the children.

And it was hard.

And then when my kids were two and four I became sick.

That's when I had the breast lumps.

That's when the story from my book,

What If You Could Skip the Cancer,

Came out.

And I was really depressed.

I was beyond depressed.

I was way into despair like,

Despair is when you really actually don't see any way out.

You've gone past depression.

You're now no,

My hands are tied.

There's nothing.

I am here for life.

I'll just make the best of it.

Like you just,

It's almost like you've given up all hope.

So of course that's when I got sick.

And the breast lumps came and things looked pretty bleak.

Of course as serendipity would have it,

I met a man named Jim,

Who was to help me heal and have a miraculous healing in the end.

But really dive into these deep programs.

Not only that I had accumulated in my lifetime about my own self worth and all that kind of thing,

But stuff that had been coming down my mom's line as well,

Which is why all the women had died of cancer,

Breast cancer.

But one thing that he said that really struck me that's important for our talk,

Is he said,

What do you love to do Katrina?

Like what are your interests?

What makes you happy?

What brings you joy?

And I had no idea.

I knew what my husband liked.

I knew what my children liked.

I knew what my in-laws liked.

I knew what my family liked.

I knew what my dad liked.

But what did I like?

No idea.

And he was like,

Well you had better figure it out because that's the point of living.

So I went through all kinds of dark nights of the soul.

Not just about that obviously,

But about all kinds of things.

And when it was all over,

I only came up with two things.

I love to read and I love to dance.

So of course I ordered a million books from Amazon and chapters or whatever bookstores I could find.

And I read and read and read and read.

But of course I lived in the middle of nowhere.

So where am I going to dance?

And we have a busy dairy farm and children.

But the lumps,

The whole experience scared me enough that said Katrina,

You have got to get out.

And I remember,

You know the other funny thing about trying to find community when you haven't had community for a while,

It also can be a little scary.

It can be a little daunting to put yourself out there.

I remember lots of you guys met Nelda.

She was on here a couple weeks ago.

And Nelda was my health care practitioner then.

And I was really,

I was really suffering.

Like I was really in a bad way.

And she looked at me one day and she said,

Katrina you need to find friends.

You need to get out.

She said there's a bunch of women who gather every other week.

She says they're very interesting people.

I can hook you up with them.

You should go and have coffee with them or whatever they're going to do.

And all I know is the idea was terrifying to me.

The idea of just dropping into a group of people I didn't know.

It's almost like I had been alone in some way for so long.

I mean it's not like I was alone.

I had children and in-laws and a farm and a husband.

My family all lived a long way away but I didn't have anyone locally that I hung out with.

But I didn't,

I never went.

I never actually took this invitation to go and talk to people because I didn't admit it to myself but I was actually really nervous.

Like it was really very overwhelming and would they like me and what if they don't like me and what if they find out that I'm actually a big loser and they find out that I'm actually really boring and I don't even know.

The problem with fear is it has all these fears that they don't necessarily even finish their thoughts but they still have power over us to stop us from stepping out.

Actually it's funny,

Now that I think of that,

I think she said that to me before I had the breast lumps.

Just when I think of where she said it that was before the breast lumps.

So of course after the breast lumps I was a lot more worried about my life.

I was a lot more worried that maybe I really needed to find my own way and one of the things,

Jim taught me these energy grids that I do with people and when he did my energy grid he looked at me and he said,

Katrina you are so far off your path.

Like what are you doing?

And I took that very seriously.

So I decided I had to find people who danced.

Well I danced every kind of dance that you could find within the county.

I took Irish step dance when it came to town.

I took,

And I mean this is me and a pile of children and maybe one other adult.

I wasn't dancing with adults.

I was dancing because I just knew I had to dance for my soul's sake.

And what's interesting about that is that other adult that was there we became friends and she ended up taking my yoga classes for 12 years and then she brought her husband to dance classes later.

I took clogging which is kind of like something in between tap dance and line dancing and you have these little extra little funny little tappers on your feet and I clogged every Wednesday night.

I took line dancing.

I did everything,

Every kind of dance.

I took children's ballet classes.

I did anything because I just knew that I had to dance.

And the wild thing is,

Is at the time I don't know if I really met many people but I was out in the world again.

I was out practicing being me out in the world.

I took belly dance.

One of my neighbors on the farm she and I would chit chat sometimes and a belly dancer came to town and started teaching classes so she and I went and took belly dances belly dancing with her.

That was super fun.

And then I was like,

I don't know,

I was just desperate so I thought you know I'll join the YMCA and I'll do like aerobics type things because in the 80's when I was a teenager,

Aerobics were a big thing right?

And I loved doing aerobics and 20 minute workout and all that for anyone that was into that.

So I found myself at the YMCA in town and taking this sort of exercise class.

We were like boxing and punching you know when we're boxing and they're like yeah!

And they were like so angry.

I didn't want to be angry.

I wanted to have fun.

This wasn't fun and I was really sad because I was out I was with people my age but we were angry punching to music and this isn't what I wanted.

So I went downstairs and I was talking to the lady at the front desk at the Y and I said I don't want angry classes.

I probably said it with that sad voice.

And she said you know there's a new guy coming into town and he's going to be teaching these classes called Dance for Life which is like ballroom and Latin line dancing.

So Taylor,

My daughter,

Was 6 years old then and she and I would come out and we would do this ballroom line dancing at the YMCA.

And then he started teaching ballroom couples classes so I dragged my husband there.

And then eventually he and I,

The teacher and I opened a dance studio together.

That is when community exploded for me.

Because not only was I stepping into a very different role.

You know because what was really interesting is I was really shy then.

I had huge body issues and stuff like that but my dance partner,

He had issues and so he all of a sudden would have enterofasciitis or he would have a migraine or some reason he couldn't dance.

It was so weird.

So I had to start teaching the dance classes.

So I actually had to come out of the shadows and actually stand and teach in front of full length mirrors and I had to teach dance.

And then I really started meeting people.

I really started making friends.

And because he kind of flaked out,

I had to start teaching belly dance.

I had to start teaching half the dances I had learned over the years all over the place.

And suddenly all these weird disconnected things all started sort of landing in this new business.

And then that business for me ended because of a longer,

Much longer story.

And I was back at the farm kind of lost.

And then I discovered Kundalini Yoga.

And I started doing that.

And then I traveled to train.

And I started teaching Kundalini Yoga in our town.

And then my community exploded again.

And then I started teaching meditation in hospitals and shelters and businesses.

And every place I went,

It's like I would meet one person.

I didn't meet five people.

I met one person.

One nurse at the hospital.

One person over here that would stay for tea after and we got chatting and realized,

Wow,

We really like chatting together.

There is really something about following our interests.

Sometimes we imagine friends,

We kind of imagine friends like money.

Well I want to have more friends.

Well what do you want to do with them?

Well I don't know.

I just want to have friends.

I want to have someone I can talk to.

It's like we want to have friends so we can use them.

We want to use this person as a sounding board.

We want to use this person so I have someone to watch a movie with.

I want to use this person so I have someone to go to Cuba with.

It's like they're just money.

Friends aren't money.

They're people we do things with.

They're people that we have common interests with.

They're people who we enjoy having conversations with.

But again,

This all comes back to us.

What do I love to do?

If you sat and talked to any of my friends,

They are very multi faceted,

Fascinating people.

You know,

When we sit down for coffee,

Whether it's once a month or once a week and we sit down,

Hey,

What's new?

There's so much to talk about.

And it's nothing to do with each other.

We have to redefine why we're even alive.

We aren't here to work and make money.

We're here to expand who we are in the land of finding spiritual friends.

What are we here for?

Are we here to go deep inside and be inspired?

And then when we go out in the world,

We'll find other people who are also inspired.

But the problem isn't that we can't find friends.

The problem is we don't know what we love to do.

We don't know what our interests are.

We don't know what fires us up.

We don't know what we'd even want to do with a group of people.

That's the beginning.

And then the cool thing is we go out and we go and we just dance.

We don't even care who's there,

Because at least I'm dancing or I'm painting or I'm drawing or I'm playing soccer or pickleball or playing pool or playing cards or acting or singing or learning the guitar.

It doesn't matter.

Because we're so excited to be doing what we're doing it's almost like that magnetism of our excitement about doing what we're doing is literally a natural attractor for other people.

Not that that's our intention,

Because our intention is the passion of what we're doing.

That literally creates a magnetism towards us.

People can't stop kind of wow,

She's having fun.

Wow.

She's really excited.

And it's really,

Really,

Really important that we don't have to be good at what we're doing.

Sometimes it's better if we suck,

Because then we don't have all our ego attached into it and thinking that oh well I can only do this if I'm going to make money at it or if I'm going to perform and my friends are going to hear me and all this nonsense.

Just to do what we love to do it's a huge question.

It's a stopper.

And we only have to find one thing.

We don't have to find five things.

One thing to pour ourselves into.

And then the crazy thing is,

There's this weird ripple effect.

I would never have known about this dude teaching ballroom line dancing at the YMCA if I hadn't gone to the Dumb Aerobics class where people were punching the air.

And then I never would have opened the dance studio.

I would never have done all these things.

And sometimes,

Depending on where you live you might have to create what you love.

This is my experience a lot.

Because I live in a town of 8,

000 people.

If I want to do yoga I have to go away and study yoga and teach yoga and create communities so I can do yoga.

If I want to dance,

I have to own a dance studio.

If I want to do fun hula dancing,

I've got to study hot hula fitness and study it so I can teach it so I can create communities so I can have people to dance with.

And maybe you think well I'm not really like that.

I'm way more introverted than that or whatever.

Well,

Then you don't do it.

But I would have called myself introverted.

Again,

It comes down to that,

What are we here for?

I have created more classes that have failed than ran.

Especially when you're starting out and you don't know anybody and nobody knows you.

You plan all kinds of things.

One person shows up or it doesn't happen.

Whatever.

We are so attached to things succeeding that that's the only reason we did it.

All those things I've done that didn't work out all somehow feed into everything I do now.

Everything.

I don't think there's a single thing I've tried that didn't work out that hasn't somehow come into everything we do.

Like even say something like Tantra.

I was so intrigued by Tantra for years,

Way before I really dove into it.

And so I was in Toronto one time and I started Googling it.

I found this one woman who was teaching,

She had a place where she taught Tantra every Tuesday night.

So I went to a class there.

I didn't know anything about it.

And the class was being taught by a woman named Sherry Winston who wrote a beautiful book called Women's Anatomy of Arousal.

I highly recommend this book for all women and people who love women.

And she gave this brilliant talk.

I just fell in love with this woman.

She was just so alive and literally orgasmic being.

I just was like,

You are an amazing person.

And so I went up to her and I said,

This was fantastic.

You're an amazing person.

I said,

I have a train station about three hours west of here that I teach out of and I have classes in.

I would love if you would come and teach a workshop or two there.

And she lived down in the States,

Like she lived,

I don't know,

20 hours away or something.

And we chit-chatted and it was really cool and she was like,

Yeah,

I'd love to.

So of course she went home and I went home and whatever.

And maybe six months later we had planned a workshop.

And it was so much fun because by this time I had divorced and I was living in this tiny little apartment with my daughter.

And we only had,

We didn't have a bedroom.

So we used to roll out Japanese futons and sleep in the living room.

Then we would roll them up at night,

Put them in the closet and then have the living room back.

So Sherry comes up and she brings some friends that kind of would help her with the workshop and her travel friends and stuff.

And they all stayed with us in this tiny little apartment.

And literally it was the funnest sleepover you could ever imagine.

Like it was absolutely genius.

We stayed up all night laughing and giggling and just losing our minds.

And we became really good friends.

Well anyway,

There was one woman who came to help her.

And she was sort of her right-hand man kind of thing,

Right?

Well years later so that all ends.

I sold my train station maybe,

I don't know,

Six years later.

I move to Toronto.

And again I don't know anyone.

I have no community.

Zero.

But then I was still friends on Facebook with this woman,

This friend of Sherry Winston who happened to live in Toronto.

So I messaged her and I said,

Hey I've moved to Toronto,

You know,

If you ever want to get together for coffee I'd love to get together.

Which is a big deal for me because again deep down I'm quite shy.

So it was a big deal for me to reach out like that to someone who I really don't know.

And she says,

Well you know we're having a full moon circle here on Sunday.

Do you want to come and hang out?

So I go there and I met the most amazing women.

And some of you guys who are part of Raising Vibrations,

My other community,

Have met my friend Aria.

That's where I met Aria.

Because she was at that full moon circle.

And there was something about her and we got chatting.

And actually I stayed friends with everybody I met there that night.

And they became my Toronto friends.

So we just don't know where the breadcrumbs lead.

But in my experience,

When we do that we meet people.

But all that we have to do is just be out in the world.

We don't even necessarily have to have that intention.

So then after I lived in Toronto at that point for two years while I wrote Tantric Intimacy,

And then I really wanted to move out of the city.

So I moved to this little town Stratford.

Again,

No community.

I didn't know anybody.

But I mean I was working online and I was kind of in the midst.

I kind of knew I was going to be traveling soon.

I had a little gut feeling that I was going to be getting rid of everything and traveling and this was just sort of a stop over.

So I wasn't really interested in making deep roots in Stratford.

But,

And my kids were all gone.

Like my son was in Thunder Bay way north.

My daughter was in Ireland.

I just,

I don't know,

I wasn't calling for roots or anything.

So I decided,

I thought,

Well what do I love to do?

And at that time I really loved listening to classical music while I work.

That's my favorite.

Like while I write and stuff like that I love having classical music playing in the background.

I don't know anything about classical music really.

So I decided to volunteer for the local symphony.

And I just wanted to get out.

I just wanted to stand at performances and tell people where the bathrooms were.

I just needed to,

I don't know,

Be around the mojo of interested people.

Again,

It's all about being around interested,

Curious,

Artistic,

Deep people.

And I ended up making friends there.

You meet people when you volunteer.

You meet each other.

And were they spiritual people?

Not really.

But they were interesting.

And they had other interests.

And they had fascinating things that they did.

And some of them were great musicians.

It was so,

So interesting.

So I'm going to put my glasses on.

And if you have any questions,

Please retype them.

And I'd love to answer you.

How do I suggest dealing with social anxiety?

You know what's really interesting?

When we go out and do things that we love to do,

Again,

When we go inside and we find those things,

What's really interesting is we often find people who are similar to us.

So example,

One of my sisters loves animals.

Loves animals.

I'm quite sure she likes animals much more than humans.

She just loves animals so much.

And she kind of has a hard time dealing with small talk and stuff like that.

And she's just like,

I don't want to bother with,

You know,

People drive me crazy.

So she volunteers at a dog rescue or an animal rescue,

Actually.

They rescue all kinds of animals north of Toronto called Dog Tales.

They have like YouTube channels and everything.

They're actually quite famous.

Very interesting place.

Well,

Of course,

Who does she meet at Dog Tales?

Other people who love animals.

Maybe more than humans.

If you deeply want to paint and you join a painting class and you tend to be quite introverted,

You know who else might be there?

Other introverted people who love to paint.

Who you don't need to put on airs for because they actually just want to paint.

There's something so important about really diving deep into what do I love to do?

Maybe you love hiking.

You know who hikers love to commune with?

Nature.

Birds.

That's who hikers love to commune with.

So if they go hiking with other people,

You don't have to be social.

It's really interesting to find your tribe through really knowing what you love to do.

If you love fishing,

Guess what the other people who love fishing don't want to do?

Talk.

Or maybe they do and maybe you want to have a little chit chat.

The world has sort of presented being social as having to be extroverted.

But that's not true.

Extroverted people.

And if you're really extroverted,

Then you'll go out and you'll do fun extroverted things.

It's a fascinating thing.

And you know what also is really crazy?

And I know it's hilarious that I'm just about to apologize for what I'm going to say,

Talking about finding spiritual community.

But the world is a magical place.

And if we choose to do something,

If we want to dance,

If we want to paint,

If we want to give cooking classes,

If we want to do things like that,

And we really think about it,

And we start googling it,

And we start looking at it,

And we start researching it,

It will not be long before it appears.

And maybe it appears right in your back door,

Or maybe it appears at a distance.

Lately I've been really wanting to learn West Coast Swing.

It's one of the dance forms I've never learned,

But I'm really really drawn to it.

And I've been saying this for a while.

I want to learn West Coast Swing.

I want to learn West Coast Swing,

And I watch videos of people doing West Coast Swing.

And lo and behold,

Luckily,

You know,

Sometimes the algorithms on the internet really do help us find what we want.

If you keep saying West Coast Swing 500 times a day,

Guess what's going to appear on your Facebook feed?

Local West Coast Swing.

West Coast Swing,

Like it's all going to show up.

Like we can use what's happening in the world around us to our advantage.

We can use it for our own magic.

So now,

In two weeks from now,

In a town about an hour and a bit away,

They're having a West Coast Swing night.

And apparently there's a whole community of people there who West Coast Swing.

So,

We're going to go and rent a hotel room and spend the weekend in another town and go dancing.

It will appear.

We just have to focus on it.

You know,

It's like they always talk about this power of attraction thing.

It's literally that simple.

We just have to actually desire it.

Not with our heads,

Kind of like Chaya was saying.

Like it's not just something we want in our heads because the world says we should want it.

We actually really want to dance.

Really want to paint.

I want to learn how to sketch.

Whatever.

Whatever it is.

Struggling with becoming housebound when I only ever loved painting,

Working with animals.

And now I need to shift to something more static like painting.

But it's still frustrating.

It's an interesting thing,

You know,

What's possible even if we can't physically do the things we once did.

I don't know.

The world is becoming very helpful for people who can't get around.

And sometimes that's part of the journey.

It's getting out there even though it's harder.

And maybe sometimes we meet people who we need help.

There was a woman that used to come to my yoga classes all the time and she was in a wheelchair.

Her whole lower body was atrophied.

And so a friend brought her and helped her in and out of the building and out of her wheelchair and onto the floor and all that.

So it's an interesting thing.

Sometimes the help we need is also part of it.

Thank you so much for being here.

And I hope you have a wonderful day.

Reviews

I recently started attending a women's drum circle only to find out that it's way more than "drumming" that I needed.

Your talk is so interesting lots of things to learn with a little touch of humor. Like French say « Qui ne tente rien n a rien »
Continue exploring the world. ❤️❤️

Touching and such a fun, refreshing perspective on holding space for what lights us! This is especially helpful for the phase of parenting I’m in now, while my kids are becoming more independent and I am newly more available to pursue what speaks to my heart and stay in relationships held by love while I grow!

I love this. I think everyone can benefit from this talk. You always make learning so much fun. As always, thank you Katrina 🙏💗🙏💗🙏💗

Terrific flow of ideas and inspiration! Love hearing about your journey! 🥰🪬💫🌀👣