Messy Can't Stop Her

Pain is a Great Teacher: Kit Livingston on healing from the twin trauma of divorce and breast cancer

August 04, 2022 Judith Kambia Obatusa (JKO)/Kit Livingston Season 2 Episode 16
Messy Can't Stop Her
Pain is a Great Teacher: Kit Livingston on healing from the twin trauma of divorce and breast cancer
Show Notes Transcript

What do you do when you’re hit with two heartrending experiences at the same time? Do you break down or breakthrough? Kit experienced the twin traumas of divorce and the big C diagnosis and made it through. She shares how literally grounding herself on the land healed her heart and her body.

Nuggets of Wisdom in this Episode 

  •  What's considered praiseworthy and acceptable is often not reflective of what we're here for and what our gifts are
  • What's considered praiseworthy and acceptable is often not reflective of what we're here for and what our gifts are
  • By deconstructing the things that tell us we’re not enough or that we’re different from who we are, we step into our whole selves
  • You have to do the things that won't leave you alone
  • The baby that's waiting to be able to run 100 meters in 80 seconds will never walk. 
  • The world needs us like the ocean needs all raindrops to stay the ocean
  • Sharing what you've learned makes sense of what you've been through
  • And many more….

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Music Credit: https://indiefy.me/wanted-carter

JKO:       Today we have Kit Livingstone, a woman of many parts. She's a medical professional. She is also a writer. She has dealt into many parts of her person and has been able to bring our nuggets that will inspire you. Keith, we're so glad to have you here in Messy Can’t Stop Her.

Kit:         Wow. Thank you so much, Judith. I would like to meet that Kit Livingston. She sounds kind of amazing. You just never know how people are going to see you and react to you. You've certainly seen the best in me and I appreciate that. So wonderful. I'm very happy to be here this morning. Thank you so much for inviting me to your broadcast. Messy can't stop her. And I am proof that it can't. Because if it could, and it has in the past, I wouldn't be here today. 

JKO:       I'm glad Kit, I said, is a woman of many parts. She's a survivor of breast cancer and toxic relationships. So, Kit, we are going to delve into the messy past and please could you tell us a little bit about that messy part of you that changed your perspective and made you change the way you were living life? This person I've described to become this person I've described that experience or experiences that messy part,

Kit:         I can. I would kind of like to ground our conversation and I use the word ground literally here on a land, acknowledgement, if I may, if that's okay, because all of my stories are playing out on Turtle Island. Everything that is happening in my life is happening on First Nations land and I always am bringing that to the forefront of my life. My children have taught me so much about the issues that Indigenous people are continuing to struggle with. And so I would just like to acknowledge that I live on Syilx territory which was signed treaty number seven in 1877, about 45 miles west of here on southern Alberta Prairie. And so when you talk about the messy past, this is the past that all Canadians and Indigenous people are dealing with. And as I've become to acknowledge that and become aware of it, there's been transformations happening at every level in my relationships. And I think that that is probably the challenge of our age in many ways, really, is to reconcile this horrific past of the colonial settlership with what's happening right now in our community. So anyway, thank you for that, Judith. And that's at the back of my mind all the time, sometimes more in the forefront, but it's, I think, really important for us settlers to acknowledge that. Now, the big question that you had asked what's my past and my story? A little bit. So I grew up on ranch land. I was born in Montana. My parents came to southern Alberta, and I grew up in a quite, I would say traditional family. We had chores and we lived on a ranch and we had cattle and horses. And in many ways, it looked idyllic from the outside. My experiences were not idyllic. I was raised in a quite patriarchal home, and I was subject to a lot of the experiences that a lot of little girls have just trying to find my way, really in a home that it felt to me that valued men and their contributions a lot more than they did women. Our place was very obvious to me, which was in the home, and I, for whatever reason, rejected that and was quite rebellious about it, honestly. I also went through a series of molestations as a little girl by different people that were close to my family's circle. And that has really shaped my life as well and helped me understand the challenges that women face. Many years later, I grew up and got married and started my own family and just watched my own struggles sort of unfold against this philosophical background that I ingested without even realizing what I was taking into me. And I think a lot of us do that. That's our unconscious bias. All of us want to be good. We want to live with acceptance and praise. And unfortunately, what's considered praiseworthy and acceptable, especially for women, and I think for men as well, is often not true to ourselves. It often is not reflective of what we're here for and what our gifts are. So that's been my process, is trying to pick apart those pieces, the pieces of my belief system that don't actually serve me or my community. 

JKO:       Well, it's the pieces of your belief system that don't actually serve you, of your community. You're picking them apart. But your belief system came from something. So I want us to delve into some of those experiences that have impacted your life in a way that you had to take some drastic steps. 

Kit:         You know, some things I can recognize, Judith, and some things I think are probably encoded in my DNA. They're gifts from my past. How does a tulip know it's a tulip? It doesn't. It just tries to be the best tulip it can. All of us are born with certain gifts and certain traumas, inherited traumas. Sometimes we end up in situations that make it, that support are unfolding and are manifesting of our gifts. And sometimes we don't. Sometimes it takes a long time for those gifts to become apparent. And for me, it's funny, I say apparent because in my experience, honestly, being a mother was probably the most fundamentally healing experience of my life. And looking into the eyes of my children, especially that first experience with your first child, I don't know, I felt linked to my ancestors in a way that I never had before. I was now a part of this chain of the people that brought me into being. And I felt a responsibility to make sure that what came after me honored the gifts that I had been given. And what's really interesting I'm going to tie this back into my cancer journey. When I was diagnosed with cancer, I had just moved 8 hours from my home community where I'd been for 25 years. I had come back to southern Alberta where I was raised myself, and I was here for less than a year when I was diagnosed, I was newly single. I had my two young teenage daughters with me. And that time was one of the darker times in my life for sure I was physically incapacitated. I was looking at my own immortality. Even though my cancer was caught very early, I did have a complete mastectomy. I had lots of pain and issues afterwards with adhesions and with neurological damage, and I became really depressed. I expected to be off work for maybe three months, and I ended up being off work for two years. At that time, my children just rallied around me, and I felt so held by a safety net. And it was such a powerful experience for me to know that I was going to be okay because my kids had me, like they were going to make sure I was okay. And regardless of what happened, regardless of the outcome, my life was going to be supported however it unfolded. And that was a really powerful realization for me, is that I'm not the only one pulling this force of my life forward. And so that's kind of come full circle, and it took a relatively catastrophic event. I mean, for me, it was relatively catastrophic to realize just how taken care of, really, I am and the investment of my time and my struggles against my own understandings of what it meant to be a woman, to transform that and to transcend that had big consequences. Big pay off, I guess, is a way to say it. 

JKO:       Wow. I'm just thinking about the twin traumatic events that occurred in your life almost around the same time. The diagnosis and the divorce. I remember reading where your husband told you after 28 years or so that he wanted to be separated from you and then to go and then have the diagnosis again of breast cancer, almost about the same period. So how did you live through? How did you cope with that? I can imagine it. So I would like you to paint the picture for us to understand the thoughts, because you write about it so beautifully. 

Kit:         The word that comes to mind really, Judith, was shame. I felt so much shame through that time. I had beliefs about marriage, I had beliefs about cancer. I had beliefs about how to be a healthy woman, how to be a mother and how to be a wife. And those events coincided like an atom bomb. They just blew up so much of what I thought was important in my life and the ways that I've been living. And I felt great shame. I wasn't able to sleep. I was terribly uncomfortable in my body, and I felt like a huge failure. Absolutely. How could my body betray me like this? How could I have cancer in my breast? I nurtured my children with my breasts. How could it try to kill me? How could it turn around like that? How could I lose my breast, which I had? I liked my breast, Judith, I really did. And I was not reconstructed. It later was reconstructed for various reasons. That's a whole other story. But it was really a tremendous loss of my womanhood as I understood it through my body and through my relationship with my husband. I felt I was disappointing my children. When I had to tell my parents that I was getting divorced and that I had cancer, I just felt like a huge disappointment. And so I didn't sleep a lot through those first several months. I know everybody's been through this. You're between three and 04:00 a.m. Waking and you wrestle with your demons during that time. And you're lucky if you get two or three or 4 hours of sleep and you wake up and the nightmare is still there. I said that in one of the poems that I sent you, that waking doesn't end the dream. And it really is this sense of unreality that my life had changed so drastically in such a short period of time. My life, my body, my relationships. And what got me through that, I have to say I spent as much time outside as I could. I walked. I was living on a little creek and I would walk and walk and walk with my dogs and I would look at the sunsets and I would look at the sunrises and I would feel. My surgery was in January and I went outside as soon as I could and I would just walk and walk. There's something about being in contact with the Earth for me, that is very healing. And I don't know really how healing came to pass. Sometimes we deliberately seek things out and other times we just try to come to a deeper understanding or a different understanding. But eventually my body healed. It took years for my body to heal and eventually I began to understand. Sometimes it comes like an AHA moment. Honestly, for me, Judith, I'll think about something, it'll be bothering me at the back of my brain. I'll have a quiet moment and I'll just understand things differently. And that's actually my experience of healing. And then I let that new understanding shape my decisions, my language, my action. And I do believe that we are made whole. We are made as intact. I won't say perfect because that has such a loaded meaning for lots of people. But I think we come into this world with everything that we need. Sometimes we find a place we land in a place that will help us grow, and sometimes we don't. Sometimes we are in places where we're not allowed to be ourselves, but our job is to become ourselves bit by bit. And I do feel that those little places push out against us. The limbs of this beautiful tree want to grow, and so we feel resistance. I felt huge resistance to joining the Ignite conference. My sister wanted me to do that so bad. She pestered me. She made me commit. I was horrified. What story can I say? How can I do this? What do I have to offer? This is a few, couple of months, two months ago, but it needed to come out. It's pushing out against me. It wants to manifest in the world. And I can't explain what that is. Everybody's got an idea what it is. I think different spiritual traditions talk about it in different ways. I just think that we're all meant to be contributing to this beautiful body of humanity, and we have to show up as who we are. And a lot of that means deconstructing the things that told us we were somebody other than who we are


JKO:       Yeah. So during that period where you have these two things happening at the same time and all these emotions, all these negatives of shame, blame, guilt, failure, failing, and just wanting to stay away from people, you took the step to take a walk. You began to take walks because prior to that time, you've always found work to be therapeutic for you, and they really helped you. So taking a walk would be if someone were to ask you, I'm going through this stuff, you would say, take a walk because in my experience,

Kit:         …go outside. We build these houses and we pour cements and we build walls to keep out the elements. But we are the elements, and we feel this morning when I was thinking about talking with you, my visual was the raindrops falling into the ocean. Think of that little raindrop right before it hits the ocean. Oh, I'm going to lose my dropness, my little round shape. But you're falling into the ocean. We are each rain drops and we come from the ocean, and we're going back to the ocean. We are made of elements. We are made of earth. And when we go outside, we're in communion with that, and we remove the barriers that separate us from well, I mean, how do you explain it from the planet? We are made of the minerals that our planet is made of. And when we're outside, we're really at home. And I've worked with seniors a lot. I'm a registered nurse, and I spent some time working in a senior facility. And as much as we could, we would take our seniors outside. There's a lot of research that shows for people with dementia, for people with well, actually, all of us children need to spend a significant portion of the day outside. Seniors, people with health issues, they need to go outside. It's a healing place.I don't know how else to say that. It's one of our basic human rights, is to have access to our mother. We have to spend time there. Mother. 

JKO:       Yeah, mother Earth. So I really like that description of being raindrops and falling into the ocean. I think it's the same thing, like when we feel that we are made for more, there's more towards this situation that we found ourselves, yet we are scared to step out. And that description of being a raindrop scared, but you're actually falling into abundance by giving yourself.

Kit:         The rain drop is a gift. Yes. And as it comes down, it's falling into an abundance of other drops like itself. So when we step outside of our discomfort, steps from out of our discomfort, even while scared, we are actually moving from where we are isolated, alone into a place of abundance. But all we need is we need to take that step. 

This is my gift from my settler grandparents. All four of my grandparents were homesteaders in southern Alberta, and they all felt the need to be resilient and be strong and be independent and make something of themselves, which they did. Absolutely. But we all came from people that left their families behind. Everybody that's an immigrant to North America has left something behind. They've left their people behind. They've left their villages behind. They've left their communities, maybe their religion. They've left everything and come trusting in their own resources. And this gift of independence is really a double edged sword. And when it's taken to its extreme, we're isolated. We're cut off from each other. We don't find support, we don't carry each other through these hard times. And that's been one of my big challenges, is to get over my shame of needing others. Because really, we're social beings. We're made to have interactions, we're made to have relationships. And this is one of the things that I really am needing to work on, is because I often feel cut off from my social connections. Not so much my family, but my greater community. And I'm having to learn that that's one of my next phases is how to be vulnerable. The ocean doesn't just give water, it also receives water. The rain goes up and it comes down. Imagine how ridiculous it would be if the ocean decided that's it, we're full, we're not taking any more water. And that's been my one of my challenges is to give. I meant to receive. I mean, I'm all about giving. That's a woman's job. It's to give. But how do I receive? And how do I receive the kindness of friends like Judith that say, you see you. I want to hang out with you? I think that's been also one of the really healing experiences for me is to hear what my friends have had to say to me about me through that time of transformation. When I was getting divorced, I was talking to one of my friends about how my ex-partner saw me, and she just looked at me and said, wait a minute. That is not who you are. I've worked with you for several months and that's not who I see at all. And it was the first time I went, oh, really? You mean maybe there's something wrong with his vision or maybe from a different perspective? And that was such a gift to me. She probably doesn't even remember that conversation, but it was like life transforming for me because I just agreed with what I'd been told about myself. Wow. So you have to be careful who gets to decide who you are. 

JKO:       So cool. So with that, one of the things you have had to let go of is the shame of needing others. But then you have to confirm that when you have the twin situation of the diagnosis and the divorce, the two DS, how are you able to let go of that shame? How did you handle that shame in that period where you could not do without needing people? So how did you go about getting the support you needed in that time when, as the person that you are, it's so hard for you to actually say, I need help? 

Kit:         You know, Judith, I don't think I did it as well as I would now. Honestly, I think I really struggle with it. I had friends reach out and come to me and I was still in resistance in many ways to being supported and carried with my family, not so much my kids showed up and I allowed them in to see my pains and my shames, but it was much harder with especially my work colleagues. And it's taken me a long time and I think it's still a struggle for me, if I'm honest. Do I have the reciprocal relationships that I think are really healthy for me across the board? I would say not yet. 

JKO:       I'm going to take you back to your topic of Busting limiting belief, because that is the bedrock of many of our challenges, the beliefs that hold us bound. And we many times we are not even aware that we hold those beliefs. So talk to us a little bit about how you have surmounted that. I know that there have been so many growing up in a patriarchal system where boys were treated like they were more valuable than girls. 

Kit:         That's the hard part, isn't it? Because we love our family and they also grew up in a system that created limiting beliefs for them. I hope you don't hear it as blame. I hear it as because I'm not I'm trying to relate my experiences of what shaped me. He actually told me when I was a little girl that I couldn't play basketball because it would jiggle around my insides and I wouldn't be able to have babies. That's what he did, right? Yeah, that's his belief. And so, yes, that came to me. I never did believe that. That sounded like a little bit of baloney to me, but I had to prove him wrong. So five babies later, I did prove that women can play basketball, volleyball, baseball, ski, ride horses, whatever, and still have babies. But anyway, that's something that he grew up with, so he's also a product of his time. Anyway, how do we work through these? I remember very distinctly one time when my children were I think they were probably seven, four and one, my first three. And I was out in the garden and I was managing my day, and I don't know what I was doing, pulling weeds or something. And I was dumbfounded by this thought that came into my mind that if I went into Safeway right now with my three hungry children and said, I've been doing this today. I did laundry, I pulled weeds, I read to my children. I made them a nutritious dinner. I need some food for my kids. They wouldn't give me anything. Just here. Oh, thank you. You did a good service today. Take some food for your children. And that was kind of the birth of me as a feminist, honestly, because I thought, look at the work that I've done today and I have earned nothing in terms of dollar value. Everything that I've done today cannot further me fiscally. Like, I haven't earned a penny today, even though my work has been good and it's been important work. Raising happy children is important work, but it doesn't contribute anything to the GDP. Is that what it is? So little insights like that kind of I mean, I don't know, there's probably been conversations that people have said things like that to me for years. But until I was actually able to think it and relate it to my own life and I was like close to 30 at that point when I really started to think about the system. And so it's systems that we perpetuate the systems, but they also create our experiences. I think that women should be able to work hard and be given bread for their work, even if it's unpaid. Unpaid labor is actually what makes most of the world I don't want to say go round because that sounds so trite, but the world could not afford the labor of women. Honestly, if somebody was trying to put a dollar value on it. Yeah, I'm so happy to hear that. The world cannot afford the value of women if they have to pay for it. You're right. Raising happy children, I think is the highest and most important work. And yet it's not valued in this culture and in this system, and it's not got a monetary value. If a country success is measured by how many widgets and gadgets it can produce, the act of caring for children and seniors, they're not even calculated. They don't even make it into the equation. And yet that's how we know that we have a healthy community, is because our children and our people that are ill and our seniors are looked after. And who does that? 

JKO:       So one of the things that your experiences have made you this person who is so empathetic to others and who wants to help them be better. And that's why that's your talk about Busting limits and beliefs are so impactful. So can you just share with us? Because we want people that want our listeners to understand how those they have limiting beliefs, though they might have a diagnosis, though they might have a relationship that's going down the drain. And you said your friend told you that your ex, what he was describing you as is not who you are. There are people like that who have all this stuff going on in their lives and they've heard these negatives, these lies about who they are. Apart from the fact that your friend made you see it, is there a way that you have applied to help yourself, to see yourself differently? Are there things, strategies that you employed? Because I know that you told me that you went back to square at the age of 40. (Kit: I did.) So there are steps that you took? 

Kit:         Yes, Judith, you have to do the things that won't leave you alone. And I don't know what those things are. They're different for all of us because we all have different gifts, we all have different purpose, we all have different abilities. But I do think when we talk about limiting beliefs, that's exactly what it is. It's thought patterns because we're sort of in charge of ourselves. It's thought patterns that limit our growth and development. But I believe that we are stronger than our beliefs. I really do. I think that this need to manifest the glorious individual that you are, is stronger than the beliefs that keep you small. And so it's going to bug you. It's going to push at you, it's going to tickle at the back of your mind. You're going to feel something. When you see a beautiful painting and you're an artist that's not allowing yourself to paint, you're going to feel something. And it's probably going to be something similar to pain when you walk past something that triggers you. I do believe that pain is a great teacher. I believe we are able to feel pain because it gets our attention and it tells us something isn't quite right, something's not working for us in this current situation. Some people learn other ways. I don't know. I learned through pain. And it's unfortunate, I guess, because it sounds kind of morbid. I don't think we're made to feel pain. I don't think that's our natural state. I think it's an unnatural state when something is out of whack. And so if you're experiencing emotional pain, if you're experiencing yearning and loss, grief is a different thing. Grief is the price we pay for loving someone or loving a situation that we've lost. Grief goes hand in hand with love, honestly. And that does have its own particular pain. And that's a whole nother conversation. But I think that when we are experiencing the loss of something that we didn't give ourselves, that we didn't allow ourselves to experience, that can be very painful. But sometimes we actually seek to numb out that pain with distractions and small talk and small games and inconsequential things, but it's still there. I believe each of us has this need to express our gifts because that's what it means to live in community. Even a rainbow … you'll like this one. Even a rainbow has to have seven colors. A rainbow is not just made of blue. Blue by itself is not the rainbow. We need all the colors. It's like music. We need all the notes. A single note tune is lovely. One voice singing is lovely. But when you put those harmonies together, there's a reason that that stirs our soul. And it's because we're made to be together and to bring out the best in each other. We have limiting beliefs about what we have to offer. And how do you know? Like, if I decided I was supposed to be a ballet artist and I've got this mental picture of myself as a ballet artist, it's probably not going to happen because that's just not my skills. But where I'm emotionally drawn to, the things that move me, they are just as important as the things that move you and they might be very different. I don't know, Judith. Obviously you have a strong commitment to your community and you're bringing people and their stories together because you believe in healing and you believe in, especially women being able to live their lives as they're meant to. And you probably didn't always do this. You probably had to overcome a lot of hurdles. And who am I to do this? Well, who are you not to do that? That was why I went back to school. I had to go to school. I had waited for nearly 20 years to go to school and it was just something that I had to make arrangements to make it work for my life. I don't know. What is it that drives that that? What makes a baby that's crawling stand up and walk and have faith and trust in itself? It doesn't even know what's having faith and trust in itself. It's just being true to something that's telling it to get up. And your family is there and they're encouraging and they're smiling and they're saying, Come on. And they're giving you good, positive feedback. And that's what we do for each other. That's what you're doing for me right now. You're saying, Come on, Kit, you can do this, you can do this. And I'm taking gentle, baby, tentative steps towards being able to find my voice. And it feels really good for me. This is the path I should be on. How did I know that? I don't know.

JKO:       Any listener out there who is going through whatever you're going through, but there are things that are calling you. As Kit will say, you feel it in the way that it hurts you when you see those things. Like, I can give an example of this experience. I was a music minister when I was in university. Music, singing, worshiping, God, drawing people. It makes me happy. So when I go for choir, also, I'm so happy. No matter what's going on around my life, once I'm in that space, I'm happy. Now I'm not in any choir. Sadly, I'm not. I used to be in a community choir before I moved to BC. But when I go to church, you see me dancing and singing like I'm crazy. Because for me, that moment, that space is just my opportunity. I would love to think all the time, I would love to be on the stage singing and leading people in worship, but I haven't been able to do that. That's that pain she's talking about. Whenever I see other people doing it. There's a pain in me that I should be doing this. So I don't know if you feel that pain. That's what Kit is talking about. I couldn't be on the stage worshipping, so I joined a community choir. So if you're feeling the pain, you know, when you're feeling that pain, like, she talked about an artist, even a painting, it calls to you. No matter what you're going through, no matter how hard and dark and everything is, everything seems to look you. Listen to your heart, you will know what you need to be doing. No one can. What people do, people outside of you, what they do is to confirm what you already think of that joy that you have. 

Kit:         Judith like, joy is an emotion. All of our emotions are signals to us, right? Our emotions are the stories that our body is telling us about ourselves. So when you feel joy, when you experience joy, the story is, yes, please, more of this. More of this. And what brings one person joy would not be joyful for somebody else. So our emotional rainbow is unique to each one of us, and all we can do is try to become aware of what that is, what brings us joy. So for me, singing on a stage would cause trauma. If I had to be up on a stage and everybody listening to me sing, I would be mortified. It's not my thing. I have sang in a choir. I sing alto. I consider myself a zucchini voice. I'm just there for filler. I just kind of add more to the stew, a little more volume, but it's certainly not anything. I'm not a solo artist, but I do love to sing as well. But for me, it would be a nightmare to be up on a stage, that does not bring me joy. So it's exactly the same experience, but it feels very different to us because we're different people. And nobody can tell you what is the right thing for you. I mean, the people that love you, that trust you, that see, you can say, oh, when you did that, wow. It really reached out to me. Judith I was so surprised at the response that I got from the Ignite conference. I was so surprised. People reaching out to me and talking to me and saying, your story touched me. I don't know, I'm just doing my thing. And it was okay. I was a little nervous about it, but somehow our experiences can be helpful for other people. And that's the whole point of this, is if I'm a little bit further down the path. It's my job to reach back and show somebody how I made those steps. Even though your steps are going to be different, just the fact that there are steps out of this situation that's so painful right now. You can do it. And not you, but the people, our listeners, our friends, all of us, even I. Yes. Like, we are made for joy. If we couldn't experience joy, if we didn't have things that made us resonate and feel like all is right in the world, then we wouldn't have the capacity to feel that. But because we do have the capacity to feel that, to me, it says, I believe that we're supposed to feel that. Now, don't feel shame because you're not feeling joy. That's not what I'm saying. But it's important to bring joy and completeness and your gifts and your talents and abilities to the world because the world needs us. That's the thing. They need all of us. The ocean needs all of those raindrops to stay the ocean. It's bigger than you and it's bigger than me. I don't know. Before I did the Ignite conference, I was quite nervous, and I spoke with a lady friend that runs online programs, and she said to me that sharing what you've learned makes sense of what you've been through. And I said, okay, then I can do it. Then it's not about me anymore. Then it's not about me on that path. Right? It's about being on the path and being connected in this web of how we support each other. Because dollars to dimes, the things I've experienced and been through, they're not unique. There's a lot of people that have lived through exactly the same things, maybe different characters, different physical arrangements. But there's a lot of people that have dealt with childhood sexual abuse, end of marriages that were really important to them, life threatening illnesses. And I acknowledge Judith, I have to say this too. I know I'm coming from a place of a lot of privilege. I know that. And I've had access to support, and I've had access to education and access to work, and I've had my struggles. But I acknowledge that there's a lot of people that have struggles that I can't even begin to imagine, but I learned from them as well. And the stories that I do here are that it's through connection, it's through community advocacy, it's through finding your purpose that we start to heal and become whole

JKO:       Thank you. Thank you for saying that, because that is what it's all about. She said community connections. So there's something about challenges of life. It's meant to keep us down. Okay, let me tell you something. We don't do it with confidence. All of us do it scared. Not sure if the person I'm telling, I'm sharing my heart with is not going to betray me and go share it with other people. But I'm in this situation and when I share my situation, maybe they'll be able to help me. You may go there and they end up breaking your heart even more. But don't stop until you find the place where you get your help. Because there are people out there. There are people, yes, who will betray your trust. People who will mistreat you because they feel that you are vulnerable. But there are also people who are there to help you. People who will take your matter as if it were theres. People who will encourage you, people who will support you. And that's what this podcast is about. For us to support ourselves. Because we can't journey through life alone. Life wasn't meant to be lived in isolation. No. Myself and Kit, we had a conversation outside this space. And I was telling her, I said, look, your challenge is just another color of my own. It's like going to buy an item. They have it in blue, purple, white, cream, different colors. Our challenges are not unique to us. But how will we know that if we don't share it? How will we know that if we stay in the space? Scared and afraid. So I just want to thank you, Kit, today, because I am just so grateful. When I met Kit at Ignite, I didn't know we were coming up. We didn't know where the journey was going to take us. But I just knew I loved her. I loved her vulnerability, I loved her transparency. And she just shared with us that vulnerability is still a very much a work in progress. She also shared that even being on that conference was not something she had done before. That’s something I just, I wanted to bring that out. In this space of pain where you are, there will be opportunities too. Somebody's going to ask you to do something you've never done before. And you think that you are not worthy. You don't have what it takes. But I want to encourage you. When that time comes. Do it scared. Yes, she did it scared. She didn't know how many lives she was gonna impact. She didn't know that today she would be on this podcast talking about it. It was because I was at Ignite. And my being at Ignite was a gift from a young lady who just loves me. She gave me the ticket the day before the conference. She gave it to me on Friday. The conference was Saturday-Sunday. So this is it. And I took the ticket to honor her. I felt so privileged and also to appreciate her for honoring me. So in that way, why will you just do this for me? And she did it for me. Of all the women she knew and all she has known, she chose me.

Kit:         Judith, who knows how and why, but her actions are affecting my life. She lives 1200 km from me. I've never met her. I don't know who she is. She gifted you with a ticket. You attended Ignite. We connected through that. And here I am sitting in my living room in Duchess, Alberta because of whoever it was that gifted you. Do not underestimate the power of our connection. Do not underestimate how we mysteriously work together to make something better than any of us can imagine by ourselves

JKO:       I'm so happy. This is a fitting finale to this conversation. I just want to thank you, Kit, for saying yes. 

Kit:         Thank you for asking. Thank you. I have a little bit of growth. I feel a little few leaves coming out. 

JKO:       So I just want you to give us I feel that the last thing you said was so awesome, but I feel that you could say one more awesome parting word. 

Kit:         Me, Now you want me to say something on command just to those women who are listening. You've got to bring your stuff from here out into the world. Your impulses are there for a reason and it's up to you to show what they are. You show the world who you are by what you do. The feelings can squirrel around in there and they don't go anywhere. You're absorbing all of that energy that wants to be manifest out in the world. So just do something. Don't wait to make it perfect. That baby that's waiting to be able to run 100 meters in 80 seconds will never walk. You can't do it perfectly. Just do it.And this is Judith's broadcast. Do it messy. You have no idea how much that speaks to me. I have a messy house. I have a messy life. I don't even brush my teeth every night. Not everybody knows that. I try to because I feel better if I do. But I still can have a good day even if I didn't brush my teeth last night. We don't have perfection is poison. Perfection is poison. There's my line, Judith. You pulled it out of me. Perfection is poison. And it kills all those baby impulses that want to be born into your life. So get rid of it. And the way to do it is just love your little baby impulses. Love what you do. Love what you write. Love the muffins that you bake. Love the spreadsheet that you make. I don't know. Everybody does all sorts of amazing things. Love your friends, love your conversations, who you reach out to. Pour all your juicy love syrup on what you do as a gift to your community and it will keep coming back to you. The path is what you're doing. That's the path. I'm having this conversation with Judith right now. I'm going to remember this for years. It's going to be a stellar moment in my life. Even though I came to it, this was my notes. There it is. My whole notes. And I like to write things out first. It doesn't matter. The interactions are there. It's rich. Trust that the ocean will feed you. Wow, Judith. Where did that come from? 

JKO:       My goodness. You're just amazing. I love it, I love it, I love it. This is what messy can’t stop her is about. It's about bringing out those things, those nuggets of sweet wisdom that is in us. Just digging it out as we just relax. No tension. Doing it easy. As Cathy Heller would say, do it easy. 

Kit:         Do it easy because it's there. It's there and it wants to come out and it needs to be seen. We all deserve your awesomeness, right? Yes, we do. Thank you so much, Kit Livingston, we love you so much. Thank you so much for your presence, for being all in and sharing, asking in your love. Don't be a stranger. So nice to see you. I will not. Thank you so much. And I just want to say thank you for listening to the Mexican staffer podcast. if you love this episode, please give us a comment. Tell us what you loved, what you like to see and looking forward to seeing you again or connecting with you again in our next episode of Messy Candy. Have a good day. Bye. Boom.