Are you interested in having deeper personal relationships and being in a high-functioning and vibrant workplace? Who isn't?
In this episode I dive deep with Kaitie Brinston, founder of Culture Academy Coaching, about how we can lean into our values, cultivate the courage to be vulnerable, and live our most authentic lives.
A few key topics include:
The importance of workplace culture in the success of an organization
Raising children with solid values and the power of leading by example
Commanding authority from fear as opposed to from respect
The power of vulnerability
I hope you enjoy!
Connect with Kaitie Brinston
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Stu Murray: Katie, been looking forward to chatting for a while. We've crossed paths for an ongoing amount of time over many years, and I've always appreciated your [00:01:00] rootedness, you know, somebody being in the spiritual community, but always being somebody who really made it pragmatic. And you've always, to me, practiced what you preached, and that's something that I've got a pretty strong bullshit meter and you've always navigated that radar in a way that I've really respected.
So I'm stoked to chat more about the things you've been up to and the ways you've been transforming businesses and people's lives. And as we get started, I'm curious, like few years back you started something called Yoga Shift and this was a new and exciting project and mm-hmm. , you open to sharing a little bit about what you were doing there, what your intentions were as you kind of kicked into that, maybe why you started doing it.
Yeah, definitely
Katie Brinston: my intentions haven't changed. Just the really the catalyst to how I can deliver that has changed. So after taking my yoga [00:02:00] training would've been about five years ago, six years ago. I felt really good. Like I felt really good for the first time, maybe whole and aligned, even though that isn't always a steady state.
I was feeling it and it was pretty high. Mm-hmm. And first thing I noticed was that not a lot of other people, and that kind of broke me a little bit and made me sad that so many people that I loved, that I cared for, people that I didn't even know or love or care for, were just suffering and struggling.
And there was so much suffering and struggling in our culture surrounding us. It was just like a big dark cloud over our city. Which is obviously where I was seeing it, because that's where I live. So, you know, trying to heal the world with my idealistic view, I started teaching a lot of yoga and realizing that was so healing for people and that it wasn't me giving them healing, but it [00:03:00] was me giving them tools that were given to me.
I was just passing things along. I really see myself more as like a messenger than as somebody who's transforming things or guiding things or anything. I'm just sharing information, sharing tools and coaching on those tools and information that I've been given. and I noticed it was really helping a lot of people.
And one thing that bugged me was, you know, here comes my impatient side. It just wasn't enough. I wanted to do it on a bigger scale. Everybody that was coming to yoga, that's great. These people were ready for healing in their lives and they were seeking it and probably would've found it, whether it was with me or somebody else, but they were already starting that journey for themselves.
They had to come to me for it, but I wanted to go to the people that weren't knowing that this was a tool or method they could use that really needed it, and how was I going to do that? So that was kind of where that brought me to.[00:04:00] Taking a look at workplaces, this is where we spend typically more than half of our frigging life.
So in that, area in that little mini culture because typically the four walls make up different little cultures all over the world. There was so much, struggling and suffering and, stress and burnout and depression, and it seemed to be right where it was all happening. People would go home completely fucked from their day and need to, soothe themselves with an access of food or substances or whatever it would do to give them some good feeling before they went to bed at the end of the day and do it all over again.
So I realized that would be a great place to start. Here are a bunch of people, and if I can convince their boss to hire me to teach them yoga and and tools and methods, then you know, now my [00:05:00] message is gonna spread far and wide quickly, which was the goal. , but it didn't work at all.
No. Maybe like a
Stu Murray: little bit . I wanna get into why it didn't work and how you pivoted from there. But you said something as you were going, talking about, you know, this intention of sharing a message and not really telling people that. The thing that came up for me there is showing people where to look, but not telling them what to see.
And I think we have this culture where we're conditioned to look for a dogmatic response in a dogmatic way and outsource our power. But from what I've heard, you're really mm-hmm. wanting people to step into their own power and what's your take on that versus like, where we get into this place where like, oh, I found this feature, I found this thing, and that's, and we tend to ped something and put it up.
ourselves. What's your take on that? It sounds like that was really not [00:06:00] your intention or aspirations when you were working with people.
Katie Brinston: Not at all. No. I think the word empowerment is yucky, so. Mm-hmm. , empowerment insinuates that somebody doesn't have power and you have to give it to them.
Mm-hmm. , which is the opposite. They had power, you took it away. Hmm. Typically when you walk in the doors, and this isn't even to point a finger at people who are running companies or, you know, leaders or managers or whoever it is, that's unknowingly taking power away from people. This is the way that our business has evolved over centuries to avoid making mistakes and avoid losing money.
They put so many rules and regulations on human beings that are quite capable, that it makes them feel incapable. Which takes away their personal power. So you don't have to tell me to sign in and out to do all of these stupid duties that I'm going to do, because I'm here to do my job.
Please don't make me, [00:07:00] you know, check off this list because it's making me feel really stupid. It's making me feel like a child, and I'm a grown ass adult. I have children. I drive a car, I pay my bills. I'm an adult. I don't need to be babysat. But that's what we're doing. And instead of firing people who aren't good at their job or aren't doing their job for whatever reason, and you know, again, not saying they're bad, they're just obviously not in it for the right reasons or for a thousand other reasons aren't doing their job.
You fire those people and you keep the ones that are doing their job. And really, when you take away all the rules and regulations and the empowerment and engagement techniques and you just. allow people to be grown as adults and have their own power and add their value. A lot of magical stuff happens and business growth will happen and retention will happen and happiness will happen. That is the result of that. And then anybody who's not doing their job, it's gonna be outed pretty damn quick because now you're not holding [00:08:00] them accountable and they're gonna show their true colors very fast. And you can just be like, Hey, well clearly this isn't the place for you say, good day. I went off on a little trail, like of empowerment versus power. But I think your original question with, you know, how delivering this message and these tools, Is allowing people to have their own power. The way I see it is I am not adding layers with tools and methods to a person.
I'm actually getting them to let go of layers. Mm-hmm. so that they can remember. It's really about more of a remembering. When you were a child you had beautiful values and you had aspirations and dreams and parts of you that were not bound or put in a box. And it's just to remember that, it's to remember what drives you.
I don't have that information. I can't show you where to look cuz I don't know where you're supposed to look. I'm just gonna show you things that I learned on [00:09:00] how to get there and that's it. Mm-hmm. you always have the, you always have the answers and that's not like a, that's such a cle cliche thing to say, but it's cuz it's.
Right.
Stu Murray: Yeah. And it can get pretty woowoo when it's not grounded in any practice or, using some of the tools that we need to actually get there. And I like what you were saying too about the idea of empowering somebody in this concept that we could actually go about and be that source of that. The best we can do is be a mirror and be the cleanest mirror possible to, to reflect somebody's true nature and help them remember. But what about like in a workforce, you started talking about the workplace and the devil's advocate argument to some of what you're saying. It's like, well, listen, these people are going into work.
They got eight hours, they need to sit their ass down in that chair and they've got these boxes to check off, and that's their job. Why the hell would I be doing any kind. , personal transformation, any kind of [00:10:00] self-development stuff, like why is that my role as an employer to help facilitate any of this stuff that's their work.
What would you say to that?
Katie Brinston: Well, I would say that if you want to be successful in business, then the people that work for you need to be successful human beings with themselves first. And if you have a bunch of people who are completely unaware of who they are or what they wanna do, or unaware of how you want people to show up and call them into your vision, because that's what is happening.
When you create a company, you have a vision to solve a problem. And unless you share that vision passionately on a regular basis, it's gonna be really hard to get what you want done, done. Hmm. And to enjoy it. Just in case you're not aware, you're supposed to gain more energy from work than have energy taken from you.
When you come home, from your day, you're supposed to be buzzing because you solved [00:11:00] problems with a bunch of amazing people and you faced challenges that you loved and you get energy from that creativity and that enjoyment not have it sucked out of you.
Stu Murray: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Well, that's right. But it, there's like a paradigm that we've been stuck in, right? Like a paradigm paralysis of 200 years ago. Mm-hmm. , it's like the idea of being an employee is being a good line worker. And so it's been traditionally to sit there and do your job, and I'm gonna tell you exactly what to do.
And, you know, micromanaging has been the status quo. And, all you have to do is just really make sure and force this person in as if like, well, the only reason why they're coming here is the paycheck alone. And that seems to be just being shattered with this quiet quitting and the great resignation that we're seeing.
And obviously, money's not enough to keep people in it alone. And there's, there seems to be a deeper search for meaning and belonging in the [00:12:00] workplace, and actually valuing our sense of contribution as a part of a team, as a, as individuals. And I really love what you said about leaving the workplace actually being more fired up than being drained, which is again, seems to be the status quo of most people.
I
Katie Brinston: would have to agree with you a hundred percent. And I think that it's a great shift that we're in because our parents were taught to basically push through whatever things they didn't enjoy because that's, you don't quit. You stay in marriages that make you miserable, that are abusive. You stay in jobs that you hate, that suck the life out of you.
That probably cause you to have a bunch of disease in the body. It was like joy and pleasure were a. and self-love and self-care we're [00:13:00] a sin. And it's this really toxic way of thinking that is finally being eradicated from our generation. So it's not the great resignation, it's the great joy.
Really, people are now demanding that this isn't the way that it's gonna be anymore, because I actually realize that I have this life to live and I should enjoy all of it, and that's possible. And that's not making me greedy or bad. So no, I'm not gonna work here when you treat me like shit, or when this culture is shitty and you're not putting any effort into it.
I don't even know what value I'm adding today, like a human being. One of the innate things that we must do is know how we are leaving a legacy or adding value in some small, medium, or grand way all the time. , if I'm told to do a job and that it's not valuable, and it's not even pushing the needle in any way, shape or form in this entire universe, that is fucking [00:14:00] depressing.
Is that not depressing? So you have all these people doing all these little tasks and jobs that are not being told regularly, that they're adding value and in what way they're adding value and how that they're feeding into this beautiful vision. Then they're going to experience stress and burnout and low engagement and low performance and all the little stupid symptoms that workplaces are trying to fix as the symptomatic issue, but they're not looking at the root cause.
You're not. Mm-hmm. getting people, people excited to be you need to wake up, open your eyes, be pumped to go back to work, and work with the amazing people you work with to solve more problems and more challenges, and that should be exciting. The best quote that I have ever found that just. Completely embodies everything that I'm trying to share with these organizations is if you want to build a ship, [00:15:00] you don't gather a bunch of people and give them tools and tell them what to do.
You gather a bunch of people and teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea. I just got chills. Every time I say that, I get chills, . That is purpose, that's value, that's meaning, that's vision. That's all the beautiful things that I love sharing with organizations, and not only does this impact and affect the people that work for them, it impacts them.
99.9% of the time when I'm working with executives and owners and we. They're so overly emotional and inspired and motivated because they forgot what they were doing because it also got sucked outta them. Cause even though their heart is telling them that the way that they're managing is wrong, they don't know another way.
This is what they've been taught. They're not a bad person. They're probably a great person. They probably have this grand vision of having this joyful, happy [00:16:00] workplace when they started their company. And somewhere along the way with all these shitty rules and regulations, it got lost. And they don't even wanna wake up and go to work.
So it's just really fun and exciting. But taking yoga shift and trying to implement movement and mindfulness and breath work and meditation, yes, those are great tools. They are tools that I do teach all of my clients and participants to use, but they're also trying to solve symptoms. . I thought that making sure that people knew how to eat well and exercise was going to solve this suffering and struggling, but it didn't do it Aggravated.
It people are, there's a gigantic disgusting amount of information out there on how to eat well and how to move your body. People don't need to know more. They need to know less. They need the layers to be let go of all the things that we've told them to do that [00:17:00] are now taking their power and joy away from them.
And I've realized the root cause was really a lack of love, safety, and belonging in the workplace, all working towards the vision together. Unstoppable teams are made when every single member knows where they're going and will do anything to get. I always use the analogy of a sports team. They wanna win the playoffs. Companies want to win the year the decade, whatever it is. And each one of them have a ton of problems to solve to get there, and a ton of challenges. And they're gonna work hard together. If the quarterback knows that this year is not their year, they don't wanna stay in that position cuz they want the team to win.
They're gonna figure it out. They might even bench themselves. It's like they're taught regularly and reminded regularly why they're there, what their value is and what the purpose is [00:18:00] and where they're going. What are the things that I. Groups of people or whoever it is that I'm coaching, to understand the messages that need to be sent out on a consistent basis with love, safety, and belonging, which are the three basic human needs, if in case that wasn't understood need to be consistent.
If you are married to someone, we're in a relationship or even your child, you don't just tell them once that you love them and then think now they're good. You tell them all the time. Mm-hmm. , and you show them and you find a million different tiny little ways to send those signals and to let them know that you're safe, you're loved, you belong.
And our purpose is to love each other and to grow together. And it's beautiful, but that same message in a different formula needs to be sent in the work culture on a regular basis. And then all of those people, Are gonna take that benefit home to [00:19:00] their family. And this ends up being a massive wave that's sent across our culture as a whole, as a huge shift of how we act, how we behave, how we love, how we love ourselves, how we operate.
It's like a shift in growth for all human beings and culture. And it's just kind of keep expanding and trickling that out. So I don't really care about organizations. I care about human beings. It's just a great way to meet a bunch of human beings who would not otherwise find that information on the room.
Stu Murray: Totally. And like you said, that's where we're spending so much of our time, so it seems like a totally logical place to dive into. Right. And as an educator for me mm-hmm. , what kept coming up too is the parallel to schooling. And I love that you're talking about. Culture because that was so much of the work that I was doing in the education system was creating these cultures and well, what do we stand for?
[00:20:00] What do we value? I don't need a, well, this is the rule. You can't wear your hat or do these things because these things change and they're flexible and they change in different environments. But if I value respect, if I value honesty, if I value compassion, well then I can apply these values in all the shifting context and the ways they change.
And if you want to think about an organization being nimble and effective, it's not, this is how we always do it. You've gotta print and repeat and be able to modify. You actually need people who can take the values and take the aspirations and take the mission and the vision of this company and be able to adapt it to a change in context.
Because often actually success and the thing that propels a company to do well at one point in time, if we get stuck in doing that same rut, we start to stagnate and all of a sudden we get stuck and. Past successes can actually be the hindrance to the innovation and the next evolutions that we could bring within the business place and within the workforce.
[00:21:00] And so it's actually creating cultural environment where we're willing to take risks. Is that something we value? Are we willing to be honest and be accountable and bring these things up? And for me in education and what I'm hearing with you is it was like bringing the values, bringing meaning, bringing a sense of belonging and where belonging can be found and providing access and ways to build the soft and hard skills to navigate these things like communication and critical thought and self-regulation, and build people's emotional intelligence so that we can navigate the hard times together.
And marrying those two allows us to be so much more nimble and reactive and able to adjust the sales whenever that needs because the environment's always changing.
Katie Brinston: definitely. And not only like it should change, we are human race. We evolve. That is our mission to evolve and to continue to evolve.
And I always tell companies to be aware of nostalgia. If you feel like, oh, that's the way we always [00:22:00] did it, that is the most terrifying sentence ever. That is wrong. And also another thing that I love shaking up is communication. Because we don't do it. Everybody is so scared of insulting someone or hurting their feelings to give them pieces of their growth.
To me, it's actually hurtful to withhold information from someone that can help them feel better and be better as a human being. Because I'm scared that it's gonna be uncomfortable. That's terrible. You're doing that person a massive injustice and yourself, because now you're withholding information.
So the feedback loop is one of the first things that I always usually have to implement. which is really just telling the truth when you have it in real time with a positive intention. It's not to be malicious or for your own gain, it's for the person to gain, and you can give them examples.
Anonymous feedback is literally a trust killer in companies, and I think it's hilarious that they're still doing it, [00:23:00] but I don't know why nobody's figured that out. Also when you talk about education, that is a very tender point for me because you know, I owned and operated a licensed daycare for eight years, and the reason that I owned my own is because I couldn't stand what was happening to our amazing little humans in most of these four walls that all this stuff was going on.
Everybody just too, just again, layered with all of these silly restrictions and things like, I am such a why asker, but why, why? But why am I gonna do this? If this stops us from growing or if it stops them from learning or if it stops them from loving during covid, they're like, you can't hug kids, too damn bad.
I am going to hug them and I'm probably gonna kiss them and I'm gonna tell them I love them. It was a fight to try to go outside and not wear masks as much as we possibly could because it hurt my heart [00:24:00] to see these kids not having the beauty of body language from the face. I knew that all of their immune systems were strong. I had a hard time swallowing a lot of the stuff that we were fed, but not to go down another complete rabbit hole.
Cause I think that we could do a whole other podcast session on that. We could. We created our own little culture of my daycare and those children, and I know that them and all of their parents can attest to this, had some strong values at the end of our. Our lifespan with Grow With Me Daycare, we talked about values a lot.
Mm-hmm. , we studied growth mindset together. I didn't teach them, we studied it together. We found ways to use it all the time. We turned each other into teachers. They taught me more than I ever taught them. A hundred percent. There's no group of human beings that are gonna show you what a relationship should look like other [00:25:00] than children and how you should be as a human being other than children living so freaking awesome and free, not found by the ego and all the silly little things we pick up along the way.
Yeah. They were my greatest teacher for sure. They're a big piece of what I do in Culture Academy and I loved telling people after, you know, who taught me how to do this was my. A group of eight year olds. but it
Stu Murray: applies everywhere. Yeah. It's amazing. I had a wonderful experience with the grade five, six class at a rural school.
And I had them all morning, just myself. And it was actually during the year, COVID came on and I said, you know what? Screw it. I am just going to, at the risk of me getting my wrist slapped, cause I was getting it slapped anyways, I'm gonna throw at the curriculum and I need to offer these kids what they need most right now.
And it's connection, it's security, it's grounding. Yeah. We need to start there. And [00:26:00] my students, I'd break into tears often because we'd lay out and we'd talk, we'd have circle time on a regular basis. We'd take pause to move our bodies and breathe and self-regulate and talk to about the values that we wanted to see and.
These kids would have conflicts and they would work things out and they would navigate challenging situations, and they wanted to go out into the community and clean up and make a difference, and knew that they could, and just seeing them embody these values, these altruistic things. Well, we need to mandate and force people into wanting to care about the environment and we need to force people into, you know, being a certain way to, to live a good life.
That's a load of horse shit. Like you said, I think it, we have to go down to the root and really say, why is this person so hurt that they don't care about the people around them and the, that the planet that they live on. What kind of pain and trauma and suffering are they carrying that makes them so insensitive and so unable [00:27:00] to wanna be able to lift up those around them and be able to show up in their best self?
Because I genuinely believe that every single human is doing the best they can with what they have and where they're at. And exactly like you said, I've never seen anything enforce that point better than being around children who are just so honest. Mm-hmm. and so raw and willing to take risks before they get that curiosity beat outta them.
Katie Brinston: Yes. Basically. Right. It's like one of the, one of my favorite workshops that I do with companies that are struggling with honest, feedback and honest conversation is something that my kids taught me. So we we're a low-key daycare, we didn't have a huge budget, so we would take old campuses that were already painted on.
Maybe we painted a picture on them five years ago or maybe I picked it up at a secondhand store and we would paint over them. And because there's 10 kids, I don't have one for each of them. They have to share it and they'd [00:28:00] be like, get outta my way. No, that doesn't look good. Or da da da da.
And they would make this art piece of art together and they were short, quick bursts of energy exchange to create it. Nobody's feelings got hurt. It just happened. And that's what we need to do, that people are so like, we need to sandwich feedback. Just tell them, for fox sakes, just fucking tell them that they did something wrong and that they shouldn't do it again.
And that it made you feel this way. Because if you don't tell them right then and there, then the emotion from the scenario is gone and the lesson is gone. Because if the emotion is gone, then you're just saying a bunch of words that it's gonna make them pissed off. Get them in the moment right there.
This is what kids do. When you watch them do that, it's like that's a lesson when you wait three hours later to tell them in private, the lesson's completely gone. The experience is gone. Everything is toast. And they lost definitely a very special [00:29:00] person when you left education. I think that is ridiculous.
You can't force anybody to do anything. And as you said, everybody is doing the best they can. But when you look at children, they're completely helpless in that situation, which is probably why people like you and I have such a soft spot for them because I know that if there's a kid who's kind of an asshole, that it's not him who's an asshole, it's probably his mom or dad.
And if mom or dad are not really assholes either, , it's probably because their boss is an asshole and then their boss isn't really an asshole either. It's probably cuz he had a shitty childhood. So it's really about just allowing everybody, the space to heal instead of punishing them. And we do that. And this doesn't disappear when we become grown adults.
We still shouldn't punish people. We should give them the space to heal cuz this is what's really happening. And it's just, it's stupid. I agree.
Stu Murray: It makes me think too of our justice [00:30:00] system, you know, as. children become adults. Hundred percent. We have a retributive justice system, a punitive justice system that seeks mm-hmm.
to punish people who've done wrong, rather than restore the wrongdoing that was caused between the parties and actually bring about healing at the root. And that's why we, even in Canada alone, we have a reincarceration rate of one out of every four people are going back in just like a revolving door, right?
What are we really trying to do here? Do we think we're actually achieving something? Just simply punishing people? Maybe there's a place for that and it requires more nuance and more dialogue around these things, but, Just bringing a top down punishment idea to something and not understanding that that's actually coming from somebody's pain and it's far bigger than that person.
And that if we were in that person's circumstances and all of the, their life situations that led to that point, we very well could have done the exact same thing. And if we ever wanna stop this never ending treadmill of [00:31:00] pain and this nasty cycle of trauma inflicting more trauma, then we need to actually pause and remember that people are doing the best they can and try and get people to help that they need.
Because as a child, you know what I understood at working with these groups and these challenging children in many cases is that these behaviors that I don't like that might be causing disruptions or can be quite egregious in some moments and be like, whoa, dude, like you got, we gotta chill this out.
It's often an expression of an unmet need. And so if I can get my ego out of the way and my own pain body that that triggers and want that kid to pay for what he did, then I can realize, well, this kid's got an unmet need. And if I'm gonna be the adult here, yes. How the hell am I gonna go about listening to what the actual needs are?
And you know, I'm talking about kids, but full grown humans act like kids a lot of the time.[00:32:00] . It's like people
Katie Brinston: have this funny, like cutoff, oh well we don't punish, we don't treat people until they turn 13. It doesn't fucking change. It doesn't go away. You're not like now a complete, you're not now resilient to punishment and now you deserve to be shit on because you're older.
It's the same thing. It's store trauma and stress. coming out in a way that is really a cry for help. Mm-hmm. and we are just not listening. And when you look at some of the cultures that are doing it right, cuz there are some that are doing it so good. So, so good. They, if they have someone in their community that does something wrong, steals, hurt somebody, whatever, they actually bring them into a healing circle.
Mm. It's the most beautiful thing in the world. And they try to figure out what it is that they're missing or what it is that they need because they know that that is a symptom of a greater problem. It's not the problem. They're not a thief. Totally. [00:33:00] They're broken and they need some healing. It's so backwards really.
That's like a big part of my hairy, audacious vision is to help people that are struggling and suffering, that are not being helped in the way that they
Stu Murray: need to be Helped. Love that. I love that so much. And, I think that. That example, from what I remember comes from some tribes or some places in Africa, but I think even more in the western context.
We could take, like Norway for example, who has largely pivoted to a restorative justice system where they actually, in some even high security prisons, the inmates have access and keys to their own doors and have a lot of space to roam and access to kitchens and ability to do these things. And that it's really focused on rehabilitation, building relationships, healing trauma.
And I think instead of looking at how much our prisons are filling up with human beings and building more prisons and advancing the prison industrial complex and [00:34:00] stacking the pockets of these private organizations that are building prisons, why don't we look at how much we can reduce our reincarceration rate?
What about turning around and having a 0%. Turnaround that these people are just not reentering in, they're leaving with the mental health supports they need, and they're no longer struggling with the addictions, or they at least have a long-term plan to be able to roll through with that. What if that was where we wanted to shift our metrics and our visions.
And I know this is a tangent, but I think it's all interrelated about going down and getting to the root of healing, right? Mm-hmm. ,
Katie Brinston: The topic of the conversation is human beings not suffering and struggling, whether that's in the workplace or in whatever way, shape and form that manifests for any scenario.
And it's the same approach for all of it. It's just packaged differently.
Stu Murray: Mm-hmm. Absolutely. I wanted to go back to, [00:35:00] as you were into Yoga Shift and you were helping people become empowered through movement, through breath, coaching, working through these things, you realized that it wasn't necessarily bringing that deeper change that you wanted.
The change that we're talking about, that deep-rooted healing, that real shift in behavior in individuals, and you had mentioned actually a conversation with a person in, out in Colonna and that kind of challenged you to expand beyond and then has led you to shift to really addressing that deeper route.
Would, can you share a little bit about how that shift took place and what it led you to?
Katie Brinston: Yeah, definitely. I like that we're using the word shift a lot too, obviously. I like that word. I had gone out there thinking that this was the healing that our culture needed and this was the delivery that it needed in. And thinking that I was really targeting the root cause of pain and suffering and that this was just gonna be beautiful. And I had a conversation [00:36:00] with someone out there that completely changed the path. I was explaining to him what I did, and he just looked so perplexed. He was from France.
So I don't know much about the culture there, but I'm thinking either this one person has it right, or maybe they're doing something well. And as I was explaining it to him, and he was just baffled and he's like, well, no, some of these techniques are causing more pain and suffering.
You can't just butter everybody up and pretend that every, and that's so fake. Like it's not a family, it's a team. And it's true. Your family's your family, your work. is yes, people you spend a lot of time with, but they're not your family, they're your team. And he changed my perspective on everything and sent me down a rabbit hole of learning about culture and what the underlying pains were from it. And I was putting band-aids on symptoms. I was not at the root cause and it's just like [00:37:00] addiction. So to go back to looking at addiction, cuz it's the same scenario. Anybody who is drinking or doing drugs or more acceptable forms, eating too much food, eating too excess, or over indulgence or even people that are filling their schedules up to the point where they can't even pee or breathe.
These are all solutions to problems that they're trying to solve and they're solving it in the best way they know how, usually a way they've been taught or shown. But they have a problem that isn't the problem, that's the solution to their problem. Hmm. I am a recovering, binge eating addict, or however you want to put that.
I guess if that's not something you're familiar with, that it manifests very different in men and women. So for women, typically, that causes them to eat an insane amount of food, almost compulsively in private, mostly at night. Until [00:38:00] they either vomit, feel so sick they can't take to the right.
And then the reaction from that is either they throw up or they overexercise the next day and start themselves, which is where I fell into, or they take diuretics. So I punished my body the next day with very little food and a lot like three hours of intense exercise. So I was never, I never looked like somebody who had an eating disorder, but I definitely, it was consuming my life and affecting everything.
and I was trying to solve a problem. I had a bunch of built up emotions of shame and guilt from choices I had made in my twenties that did not align with my values, which were choices that were also trying to solve a bigger problem, which were that I was not getting the emotional needs that I had met by my family and my friends and my surroundings.
Cause I wasn't asking for, I didn't know how. So in our culture, we're just, we're kind of screwed in the sense that basically as soon as we can listen, marketing to sell you something is [00:39:00] telling you that you're not enough, you don't have enough, and you don't do enough now by our product. So in other cultures, they're really not fed this information as much.
I take a look at some of these places that we label third world countries and think like they haven't made. Nobody's interfering with their psyche. On an extreme level. and they are really kind of drilled with messages of love, safety, and belonging all their life. They, if you talk to some of the children in some of these labeled third world countries, they are so confident and not just fake confidence that comes from our culture, but like confident.
They think that they can do anything and they believe it and they have so much love and support. There's no depression there. Depression is a luxury. It's so different. But we have a lot of healing to do as a culture as a whole. And I guess that was really where he pointed me was that this isn't, an [00:40:00] individual problem.
This isn't a work problem, this is a culture problem. Hmm. Shift your focus. And I sure did. I learned a lot. And now I get to share that message again with, along with the tools that I use to treat those symptoms. Because it's all maintenance too. Maintenance and practice.
Stu Murray: So what did that shift look like? As you started to shift your focus, shift your intention, really get to the root, rather than addressing these symptoms, obviously, you know, still bringing in movement, breath, all of these kind of tools. Yeah. But as you started to redevelop and create the Culture Academy, like what does that shift look like now?
What are you really working with?
Katie Brinston: So, to give you an example, one brave organization that had signed on with me when I was Yoga Shift stuck with me throughout the shift and the change into ca the Culture Academy. So our sessions went from, and sessions are once a week and this really [00:41:00] doesn't look like this platform anymore.
But we stuck with it with them because that's what they were used to. We're once a week and we were doing, like breath work, yoga, stretching, we would do mindfulness practices. We were looking at different areas of their wellbeing to see where they were lacking, and trying to fix it. Like I said, it was honestly probably more aggravating and depressing and stressful for them than it was healing.
So when this new information started to come into my life, I shared it immediately in any way that I could, and we started creating company values and personal values. This is probably my favorite process to do. We would get, I would get people to choose a few people that they truly admire that give them like that feeling on the inside, and they would write down all their characteristics and then boil them down to a handful that really, really sum for them.
Then they hold these values while they create their 10 year vision for themselves and for the company. Immediately we see people [00:42:00] changing behavior, actions, moods, like attitudes. It was beautiful. They now are painting this insane, beautiful, dreamy vision that's full of feelings, not material things. It's full of feeling.
And we work more with the feeling side of the brain than the thinking side of the brain, because we stopped feeling a long time ago, which is big part of the problem. So it really, it looks a lot different when you, instead of talking about wins, we actually talk about failures. I do what I call a failure wall or a vulnerability wall.
And instead of people coming up and putting up things that they did great or little egotistical wins, they put up their failures and their vulnerabilities. I need help. I'm stuck on this project, or, I fucked this up big time. I was late. Or I did it wrong cause I didn't ask for help or I lost this client because I didn't follow the script [00:43:00] and whatever.
You learn more from people's mistakes and vulnerabilities and failures than you ever will from their whims. You don't even hear their wins. You're just waiting to share yours. When someone talks about their vulnerabilities and their failures, you're listening and you're not gonna do that because you saw how painful it was for them.
And this isn't focusing on the negative, it's actually focusing on being vulnerable and creating a safe space to be able to ask for help or say you screwed up so that you can learn as a team how to not do that again, or how to do it again and learn from that one. It's a beautiful process. So these are some of the things that I'm doing with companies, but right now, when I am going through the beginning stages of a client, I'm really diving deep into interviewing a lot of their team.
I just wanna talk to everybody to get a true state and feel on where the culture has the greatest opportunities to. Heal and grow. Mm. And then we just start [00:44:00] creating a bunch of magic with tons of playbooks that we've created together with my team. And yeah, it's so much fun. I have a ridiculous amount of energy at the end of the day.
I should probably go for a run at the end of my day so that I can shake some of all the vibes off and be able to wind down for my.
Stu Murray: Oh man, I believe it. I believe it. Again that's very similar roles as to what I was playing in education, trying to create value-based culture and symbolic culture and knowing that's like, oh, well I'm, I'm not like,
I'm gonna relegate the behavior metric to two hour presentation on the first day of school. And these are the rules you can do. And these are the don't. And that's what we expect all the time. It's like, what a load of what? A load of horse shit. What am I trying to do to create a robot? Yeah.
Serious. I wanna create somebody. You're not creating anything.
Katie Brinston: No, that's not a state of creation. Right? When you're creating, you're [00:45:00] calm. Your head and your heart are very coherent and they're interacting together very well. And that's a state of love, safety, and belonging. If someone doesn't feel safe, what happens?
Stress hormones. What happens when the stress hormones turn on? , your brain is shit, it's mine. You might as well put it in the garbage. And also your heart is now causing your body a bunch of turmoil. You can't digest your food properly, you can't do anything properly. You're like just wasting your whole system.
So we need to create safety. We need to create love and belonging, and now we can actually create on top of that. And that's not done by telling, it's done by collaboration. That's why I collaborated with my kids. I would never say, don't climb that tree. I'm like, I don't know, man. That's high. How do you feel up there? Is that good? I don't know. I'm not climbing trees a whole bunch lately. Let me know how you feel up there. Do you feel safe? Okay. Yeah. Well, I hope you don't break anything today. Your parents are gonna be pissed, but , it's [00:46:00] like you've gotta collaborate. You don't tell
Stu Murray: Totally. Yeah, totally. And on that note, I, a thing I've been riffing on and saw and disgusted me, In education, and you know, I don't fault anybody, but it's been an unchecked modus operandi of the education system probably since its inception.
And when we think about authority I've been, I've considered myself a rebel the vast majority of my life, right? And so we've got the rebel on one side and a conformist on the other. And I think there's aspects where we're rebelling at times and conforming at others because we want authentic expression and we want to feel like we can be a part of a team and collaborate.
But when we start to look at a figure of authority, so that could be the teacher, but it could also be the person in our employment, whatever that person who's next up on the ladder. So rather than tearing down hierarchy entirely, obviously we want to create a [00:47:00] circular system and a system that's not entirely hierarchal, but as an educator, there was times where it's like, I am stronger than this individual. I have more knowledge, I'm more equipped in many settings. And so by default, that makes me in a position of authority. I am responsible because I am able to offer these people a significant amount, but it's how we command authority that I think is extremely important.
And so it's not bitching authority, but it's actually looking, okay, well there's two ways to command authority. We can either command that through fear and create a really top down fear-based approach. And you do this or else and risk some punishment or humiliation or whatever shit we're gonna layer on somebody and shame them into being and doing a certain thing.
Or we can command authority through respect. By em embodying what we believe by showing up at the [00:48:00] table by living into our values and holding others accountable to the values that we stand. Not because we're preaching that, but because we do the same. Right. And I'm curious to hear your take on authority and commanding that versus fear and respect and how we can go about doing so.
Katie Brinston: I think respect is gained by being a real human being. So one of the things that seems to get lost in translation a lot, and you said it actually, it's funny cuz you said at the beginning that I seem to be someone who practices what I preach, but I don't all the time I fall outta my practice often.
I don't use the tools that I teach. Sometimes I just do the shitty thing. I yell at my kid and then I'm like, ah, why did I do that? Why did I do that? It's just old programming that you're slowly getting rid of, but it's the, you have to be real around kids and around other people.
I can't wait to tell them [00:49:00] that I screwed up. I'm sure that you can admit that you've been there too, where you've just had those days where maybe something happened the night before with your romantic partner or whatever happened in your life that causes you to show up as a little bit of a shittier person the next day, and then you know that awesome sweet kid does something that just hits that right chord with you and you yell at them, or you punish them in a way that you know is not serving anybody.
I'm the first to be like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I apologize for that. That actually wasn't the right thing to do. As soon as I am aware of it it. because now you have the respect because you're not pretending You have it all together. You're not fooling them. You're not fooling anybody. They know you screwed up.
They know you know you screwed up and now you're not admitting it. So you lost the respect. You lost the trust. You lost their love. You lost the feeling of belonging. Honestly, just being vulnerable is authority for me, knowing that I [00:50:00] do possibly have some guidance to offer you because I've been on the earth a little bit longer and I've screwed up longer than you have.
It's really just about the accumulation of mistakes that I've made that has made me smarter. It's not about the fact that I did things well, it's cuz I did them bad and now I'm here to teach you, hopefully to not do them again. But I also know that making mistakes and having to screw up on your own, even though I told you not to do it is part of the process.
And I'll be here for a conversation with you after, so that I can hold those feelings for you. It really about being vulnerable. Trust, letting them know that they're loved and they're safe. That's authority. That's how my parents parented. They rocked at it.
They were like, oh, dude, I know you stayed out drinking all night last night. We didn't know where you were. And they talked to me about how that made them feel. Mm-hmm. , they didn't try to punish me. They, they just were open. They're like, we didn't know what to do. We don't know what [00:51:00] to do. Like, do I go looking for you?
Do I hack your phone? What do I do? And I'm like, I don't know. And then I just, I felt really bad because these people I love, they love me and they trust me, and I trust them to be there for me when I need them. And I don't wanna hurt them again. Although I did multiple times, but I didn't want to and I feel bad about.
I would've done it one way or another. I probably would've done it a hell of a lot worse and a hell of a lot more if they had tried to punish me or do anything like that. They really taught me how to be human being in a vulnerable, beautiful, authentic way.
Stu Murray: I've got goosebumps hearing that, and I think that's part of what it means to be vulnerable.
And there's that paradox of vulnerability where when I see vulnerability expressed outside in somebody else, it looks like strength and it looks like courage. Yeah. But when I feel my own vulnerability and I have to express my own mistakes, feels like weakness. And that's scary as shit. And it's, yeah, it's [00:52:00] gross. It's a really sad place. Maybe I can look back later and see that, but when I'm. even now. And knowing that and acknowledging it, it still feels like weakness and it's, there's that part of shame that gets uncovered. But in doing so each time, yes, as I allow myself to be seen for who I am and know that people aren't running away, you know, and know that they're still showing up with love and leaning in, man, what an antidote.
it's so healing,
Katie Brinston: well, that's the cycle that I wanted to show you. But I guess nobody else can see this, so I'll try to verbalize it. There's the cycle of, and vulnerabilities at the heart of all of this. Okay. So let's just talk about vulnerability for a quick second.
To be vulnerable, you first have to suck up and breathe in a lot of courage, a lot of bravery. So you breathe in courage, outcomes of vulnerability. What comes back to you is love and trust and belonging and acceptance. I just got [00:53:00] chills. It's this beautiful cycle of how a relationship, every relationship that you have, every connection you have with human being is supposed to work Always.
Mm people. My partner always says, how, why didn't people tell you such personal things within five minutes? Because they know it's safe. I've already sent them a ton of signals. Didn't you see that ? I'm vulnerable first. Usually I'll talk about anything. I have nothing to hide because the more I hide, the less we love.
The less we know, the less we belong, the less I'm accepted. Nothing to hide. It's just it's a beautiful circle of communication relationship and signals that you send out to the people that you care about or that you know, I don't wanna say that you don't care about. Cause I care about all human beings, even the ones I don't know yet.
Mm. Mm-hmm. , it's a really pretty circle. I love that.
Stu Murray: It is a really pretty circle. But, you know, again, to play a bit of a devil's advocate this time actually perhaps, actually believing more of this is that there are times that we're vulnerable and we [00:54:00] get trampled on, and when we're vulnerable and we make a mistake and get crushed, if that's not fully expressed and moved through because we might be around the wrong person or in the wrong setting, that can lead to trauma and it can lead to hard experiences, which then leads us to close off and armor up and protect ourselves.
And so I would perhaps, yeah, and maybe, I'm curious to hear your take on this. I like Brene Brown's take on it around that, the marble jar moments where vulnerability, our vulnerability is something that people can earn as well, where. , obviously there's a level of vulnerability that I want to show up in as a human being and be able to create that space and show up authentically.
But I'm not gonna spew my entire life story to everybody immediately and then share all the deepest, darkest parts. I think trust is also something that is earned, and trust is something that happens as part of that circle where I am vulnerable and I take off a layer of my [00:55:00] armor and okay, that person receives it.
Because if I take off a piece of armor and I'm treated like shit because somebody's stuck in their own pain body and they're stuck there, it's not encouraging me for me to want to go off and take more armor off in that setting. Maybe we'll revisit that maybe that person's in a not a good state in that moment, and it's just we gotta take some space and step back.
Or maybe that's not a person I want in my inner circle anyways, but I would maybe, yeah, challenge that. I think for me, vulnerability is an incremental process, and there's layers of vulnerability that we can lean into as we create trust in our relationships, as we create those containers for us to be able to take more armor off and allow ourselves to be seen as we really are, which is what we really crave.
Katie Brinston: I have a really I think passionate, or I guess I don't know how you would describe that. I have a very bold opinion on what you just shared because of course I've [00:56:00] experienced being vulnerable and then having that vulnerability thrown back on my face. with a lot of pain, and that's happened a lot in my life.
It doesn't happen anymore. And that's not to say that I don't share vulnerability and somebody doesn't poke at it or treat me shitty because of it. It's that I don't see it that way anymore. So if I am sharing with someone something very vulnerable with myself, typically I mean very, very seldomly.
Does somebody use that information to cause me pain? Because I'm sharing it in a such a genuine way. You might want to look at the way that you're sharing your vulnerability. Maybe it's still with some armor. If it's truly vulnerable. Any human being that has a fully functioning brain, like they're not a psychotic is going to hold that for you.
So it might be interesting to take a peak or ask people that are really close. When I think I'm being vulnerable, am I really [00:57:00] being vulnerable? Like, how does that feel to you? What do you feel? And just please, I need this feedback to be a better person. Be honest with me. Mm-hmm. Because when I just, I let it come out without anything holding on, without trying to grip onto anything or any piece of integrity or e that feels painful.
No. Like really, I can't think of any scenario in my adulthood that somebody has used that to cause me pain, but it has happened in the past. And if it did happen again, I would feel that it just really gives me a piece of them. It has nothing to do with me. I know that I'm pure and I'm good, and my intentions are good.
Even if they don't come out that way, sometimes I will apologize them for them immediately or as soon as I'm aware of it anyway. But when they've used it to hurt you, it's really just them passing you over some of their pain and saying, Hey, like, I need help. I'm really hurting if I took the information you just gave me to use against you.
I'm in a lot of pain if I'm trying to cause you pain. So I don't [00:58:00] see it, I guess, as something against me ever. Mm-hmm. It's more like, oh, that was very revealing on your behalf that you just used that information against me. I'm sorry to see that you're in such a ridiculous amount of pain that you felt the need to do that.
Let's talk about that.
Stu Murray: I love it. I'm wondering what strategies you use to be able to, you know, do you have any pragmatic offerings for people? So I'm somebody, and I know a lot of people would be able to relate, like taking on other people's energies, having a harder time distinguishing between what's ours and what's not.
You know, like, does this emotion really belong to me? Is this something that is actually something for me to reflect? Or are they just stuck in their own pain body? Like, do you have any pragmatic tools or offerings for people listening so that they can be able to kind of catch that, whether they're being vulnerable or whatever the situation is and something comes up and [00:59:00] somebody's projecting their own insecurities or putting out their own pain body and their own traumas that are playing out and we're getting caught in the crosshairs.
How do you find space between that and your own experience so that you don't fully take that on?
Katie Brinston: I don't know. So do you mean that if somebody is, intentionally trying to cause me pain in some way. How do I not take that on
Stu Murray: intentionally or not, if they're acting from a traumatized place, a reactive place, really,
Katie Brinston: the only the ones that can do that are the ones that are closest to me.
My romantic partner, my child, his children, my mom and my dad and my brother and my sister-in-law, I would say are my circle of people who could cause the pain outside of that. That's just not, no, that's not gonna happen. Were not close enough for me to be blind in a sense.
So I can see [01:00:00] so easily when people are hurting. and they're trying to cause other people hurt because they're hurting. But when it's people that are so close to me that hold my confidence in their hands, that hold my worth in their hands, they can screw me up pretty good. I'm not completely immune to that like that hurts.
But it's also a practice of awareness too, that the people in my life that are, that close to me are pretty aware of the stuff that I work with and what I do, and they're the first people I share things with so that we can use it together. So I think all of us are at a level of awareness that we catch ourself being shitty to one another if that's happening and we apologize and we love each other for it.
But really it's practice. It's just practicing just a bunch of practice and screw up and practice and screw up and practice, and then you'll screw up less and you'll practice more and you just keep being aware. But I guess one of the mantras I've held pretty near and dear to me since childhood was if I think it and I feel it, it can't be wrong.[01:01:00]
So when somebody tells me that what I'm thinking or what I'm feeling, if it has to do with me is wrong, I don't feel that. I'm like, nah, I don't think so. I felt it. Mm-hmm. , I thought it, so, I mean, I guess it's just your perspective. Everybody's really only seeing who they are, not what the situation
Stu Murray: is.
That's right. Sounds like you've had some really secure attachments as you've grown up to be able to build that trust with yourself and know what's alive in you. And I'm curious, to go back to conflict even whether that's with your intimate partner, your child, your parents, any tips on how we can navigate conflict in the most graceful ways possible. And obviously that's not always going to happen, but just ways that we can really figure out what's alive in the other person and bring as much resolve as possible with as little pain as possible. Oh, be
Katie Brinston: [01:02:00] vulnerable. Like the moment that I realized that I did something or said something because of past programming that showed up in a shitty way.
And that's really all it is. It's just your old belief system or programming that is no longer serving you or aligning with who you wanna show up as today. I catch myself in judgment a lot. So we all have different things. I hold people that I love away from me by judging them, by saying, this is the way you should be.
And if you were like this, it would be better. I would love you more. This isn't really what I'm saying to myself, but that's really the process. . So I have to catch myself doing that often and realize that they're actually exactly who I love just the way they are, and that they could do anything, and I will still love them.
That doesn't go away. I'm just judging them to protect myself because I feel self-judgment at that time. I'm probably judging myself harshly. So there's a bunch of different ways that we damage our relationships, and it's all [01:03:00] from past programming before the age of 12. And our parents gifted us a nice little package of damaging shit, and we'll do it to our kids and so on.
And that's just the way it goes, but it's really about learning about that. So just read, learn, read about relationship styles, read about attachment styles, read about everything. Ask your partner what hurts you? What does, what do I do that hurts you? And then try not to do that anymore and apologize for it. There's no winning. There's, cuz the only win is to love each other, not to win an argument that's losing. So really as soon as I realize I've screwed up, I am sucking in that courage breath. Definitely much more needed when it comes to the people that are close to me, . And I'm saying, oh my God, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry.
I did not mean that when I said that to you. I don't know where that came from. I don't know why, but I didn't mean it. And I love you so much. And can we talk about a way to avoid doing that [01:04:00] again? How can we make that play out differently next time? And I do this with my kid, I yelled at her Ooh.
Like, all the time, , but one time was harsh. And it's like a practice of trying not to yell at her less and less and less. I yelled at her one morning when she was getting ready for school. and when she came home from school, I sat down, we were having a snack together and I was like, how? Like, I don't know why I did that.
I didn't wanna yell at you. You never deserved to be yelled at. I, why did I do that? Do you know why I did that? Did you see anything? No. I don't know, mom. I didn't feel good. And I'm like, I know that couldn't, it didn't feel good for me. I can't imagine it felt good for you either. But I really don't wanna do that again.
Can we troubleshoot this? Let's look at what happened. Okay. Maybe I think that it was when I asked you to do something and you didn't do it. She's like, well, you asked me so much in the morning, you just told me to do something else and it was so overwhelming. Shit. I do do that. Okay. So it's [01:05:00] just bringing more awareness into your life, talking to these people and trying to be aware of the ways that you're crappy and stop being so crappy and vice versa.
Just being ready and willing to admit that you're not perfect and you never will be in, there's always a practice. Always
Stu Murray: dump the word on, follow it what it is. Katie , follow it. What it is. I love that ethos of just being able to recognize, it's like, okay, well what is the goal here?
I want to nurture this relationship. And if winning is putting somebody down at their own expense so that I can elevate myself here and boost my ego, well, that's not winning. And holding that at the root and then building tools around that to communicate better so that we can share what's alive in us with without projecting all of our bullshit onto somebody else and going in.
There's always layers and tools that we can build upon, but if we don't have that foundation of really remembering well, if somebody else is being hurt here [01:06:00] at my expense, that's not winning and nobody's winning, I love that so much. .
Katie Brinston: Mm-hmm. . Yeah. Yeah. It's just, you know, what's the point of living? It's to love and be loved.
That's it. Mm mm There's no big deep meaning. There's no huge purpose. It's just to give love and to receive love and to live your life. That's it.
Stu Murray: Yeah. It doesn't need to be any more complicated than that. The human mind wants to make it so, but really, there's sometimes, there's nothing sweeter than a beautiful, authentic hug.
Katie Brinston: Yes. I had. So I'm a huge Joe Dispenza fan. I will suck up, drink up, soak up any of his information any way that I possibly can. And I found a really amazing video. I'll share it with you after, cause I know you're gonna want it on his understanding of cause and effect and what's the result of.
Of abundance and how you manifest that. One of the lines that he said in this [01:07:00] video was, what is the result of any experience or any outcome? It's not materialistic, it's not a boat or money or winning a gold medal. It's an emotion. That is the end product. That's the result. That's what you're looking for and that's what you have at the end.
You don't actually have anything else. So if that's, if we know that, how do you wanna feel at the end of the day? How do you wanna feel when you're with your partner? How do you wanna feel when you're with your child? Stop thinking about winning and losing all this stupid material things and fights and anything else.
Nothing else matters. How do you want to feel? How do you want them to feel? That's it. It's all that matters. Hmm.
Stu Murray: Yeah. I think that's a great aspiration and a tool to use when we're visioning and planning and putting all this stuff out there as well. It's just bringing it back to that feeling beyond the material and reconnecting to that space as [01:08:00] I'm noticing our time.
So I'm just like, as people are listening to this Yeah. Clearly you have I mean, we could turn this into a three, four hour episode easy and go on all different kind of conversations, but we'll park some of that for part two. And as people are listening like perfect, they're curious part of a workplace or personally just very moved by what you're saying and how you're really going down and wanting to address the root and shift things at a deep level, which I have tremendous respect for.
If somebody wants to get in touch with you, and we'll link all of this information in the show notes, what's the best way to get in touch and check in, reach out and find out what you're doing.
Katie Brinston: Any social media avenue, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn would probably be the best. Or just send me a text, give me a call, or shoot me an email. I think you have most of my contact information, but any avenue, [01:09:00] I will never want anything that I do to be yucky and official in the sense that I'm gonna hand you over a business card and you're gonna contact me later.
That's not the way I roll. So just find me, I will help you in the best way
Stu Murray: that I can. Amazing. And you are, you're helping a lot of people and shifting a lot of things, and it's just getting better every day. .
Katie Brinston: It's pretty exciting stuff.
Stu Murray: it. It really is. It really is. Like you said, we need to heal.
We need to heal as a culture and we need to go in and really sit with our shit and deal with our shit and be able to actually activate that and bring that into our workspaces. Bring that into our family lives. Bring that into how we show up as individuals.
Katie Brinston: Businesses will benefit, revenue will benefit, everybody will benefit. And it's not healing once It's a healing practice. Inviting the practice into our lives [01:10:00] forever. So you're gonna need more healing. You don't just heal in then you, you know, brush your hands off and you're good to go.
There will be more pain. , there will be more God . Yeah. Say before you let me go. Cause this is one of the coolest analogies that I've ever been given or not analogy. This is like a fact when a gazelle is chased by a lie in our tiger or whatever, and it outruns it at the end, it shakes its body to let go of the stress and trauma, and then it goes on about its day fine dandy not holding onto any of that.
We need to learn how to shake. We need to learn how to literally, physically shake it off and to hold that space for other people. That's one of our practices that I think we should invite back in just whole huge tribal circles of chanting and shaking .
Stu Murray: Oh yeah, I [01:11:00] resonate with that. Mm-hmm. so much.
That's what trauma is. It's the uncompleted response that the nervous system and the adaptive mechanism of the body is looking to complete. And so it's the human brain that overrides that last response. And the socialized creature that we are, instead of playing out the cry or the scream or the rage or whatever, you know, the fear, the deep fear that we have, we override it.
Swallow your emotions or don't put that out there. And that is the trauma response that we carry into our bodies. And it's like literally the trauma is looking to play itself out in every situation. And so anytime our nervous system gets sent into that same state, yeah, it's going to play the same automated response out until we can complete the adaptive response.
Katie Brinston: Yeah. Layers carry around these layers. Layers the trauma that now are joining you in everything you do. [01:12:00] They're joining you in your relationship. They're joining you in your work, they're joining you everywhere. You don't want them to join you. They're not doing you well. But it's like holding onto those screams that you wanna let out.
That's, that actually should happen. Like, scream it out. Your neighbors might call the cops that you're being murdered, but you'll still gain. The loss is not doing it. So, Hmm.
Stu Murray: I hope the world starts that screaming a little bit more. start hearing the rumbles come, bring it.
Bring it. Yeah. You're right. And all wild animals do this. There's countless amounts of animals caught on tape. Yes. Following those things that show these traumatic responses. And we are, mm-hmm. You know, our wild self has this intuitive knowledge and it's such an important thing to come back to. And there's so many ways to.
Lean into those adaptive responses and so many tools that are at our reach be it somatic experiencing and breath work and shaking and movement or plant medicines or [01:13:00] conversations and therapy like it goes on. But it, we do need to tap into these tools so that mm-hmm. , we can be little bit less shitty of a human and a little bit less reactive and a lot more responsive in our relationships and in our day-to-day and in, in the workplace.
And not screaming at our children at breakfast time and just catching these things so that we are not playing out these cycles. I love that so much, Katie. Mm-hmm. . We need
Katie Brinston: to start to release and not suppress, we're a very suppressed culture. Suppress all the stuff. Yeah. We think and not feel, and we need to switch that.
We need to turn it the other way.
Stu Murray: Totally. Yeah. And what, whatever's suppressed. Mm-hmm. is repressed and whatever is repressed is depression. You know, it's inevitably leading to depression, . And so we gotta, unpack that shit. Yes, yes, yes. That's a beautiful nugget. And is there any last little bits of,[01:14:00] wisdom or insights or thoughts that you'd like to share with listeners as we sign off for round one?
I think
Katie Brinston: I
Stu Murray: poured it all out. Yeah. , I love
Katie Brinston: it. I think I gave it all guys probably more. Nothing that, nothing. Take it off. Literally Shake it off. Shake it off.
I
Stu Murray: dunno.
Katie Brinston: I think there's a song about that.
Stu Murray: Shake it, shake. Thank you for taking the time, Katie. You're an inspiration. I love the work you're doing.
You're real, you're rooted. You are going to places that a lot of people aren't, and I love your courage. I love your authenticity. I think you're a fucking amazing human. And look forward to continuing our chats and flows and yeah, keep it up.
Katie Brinston: Awesome. Thank you so much, Sue, and right back at you honestly.
Stu Murray: Thank you.
[01:15:00]
