Revisiting the Spiritual Buffet

(Transcribed by TurboScribe. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) I have a hard time when people ask

me what I do, actually explaining what it

is that I do.

I'm a wild spirit storyteller, I'm a yoga

instructor, a meditation instructor, I'm a Reiki master,

I am currently in training to become an

animal chaplain, I run an eco-spiritual church,

I do a lot of different things, and

they all go hand in hand.

And the reason why I offer so many

things and I talk about so many things

on this show is because my communities, whether

you're neurodivergent, whether you're queer, whether you have

a chronic illness or disability, or consider yourself

disabled because of your neurodivergent brain or your

chronic illness or another medical condition or mental

health condition, no matter kind of where you

fall on that Venn diagram, I feel like

because we bring such different life experiences to

our own selves, to discovering our true selves,

to connecting with the wild world around us,

our animality, the fact that we connect with

animals, sometimes we connect very deeply with pets,

for example, or with wildlife, the fact that

all of this kind of is part of

the magnificent kaleidoscope that makes up our lives

and our lived experiences means that push button

or turnkey or one answer type work really

doesn't work for us.

And so that's what I want to dive

into on this episode of the Feathermane Soul

Wisdom Show.

You're listening to Feathermane Soul Wisdom, a podcast

for those looking to rediscover their wild spirit

in spite of life's challenges.

If you're living with a chronic illness or

neurodivergent or consider yourself disabled and you're looking

to connect with your own inner untamed essence,

then this show is for you.

Your host is Kit Kaelstow, wild spirit storyteller.

Thanks for listening and now on to the

episode.

I've actually been thinking about this topic a

lot.

Hi, I'm Kit Kaelstow, wild spirit storyteller and

host of the Feathermane Soul Wisdom Show.

If you could, while you're listening to this

podcast, just take a moment and leave us

a five star review or share this podcast

with somebody who you think you might enjoy

it.

I really want to grow my audience and

I really want to get the word out

about the work that I do here at

Feathermane Soul.

I've been thinking about how I have several

different modalities, if you want to use a

technical term, several different things that I do

and ways that I help people.

I've been thinking about this for a couple

of different reasons.

One of which is the more that I

actually go deeper into the work that I

do, deeper into wild spirit storytelling, deeper into

my training to become an animal chaplain, the

more I'm realizing that even though somebody could

look at what I'm doing and say, hey,

that's like five separate things.

What are you talking about?

The truth is that those things actually do

connect and go hand in hand in the

work that I do and in the lives

of the people that I help.

The other thing is, and I admit this

has been prompted by a social media post

I saw recently, the social media post that

I saw, and I see this periodically, it's

not just one post, so please don't think

I'm trying to call somebody out or something.

But it's amazing that somebody will post that

they finally were able to get a medication

or treatment that they needed.

Especially in terms of mental health, that they

were able to get the treatment that they

needed.

And all of a sudden that made it

so much easier to actually use the tools

that they had been working on with their

mental health professionals.

And this is very common and not limited

to mental health.

I've talked a bit about my alpha-gal

diagnosis, but I have been absolutely amazed at

how different I feel now that I know

that I have alpha-gal and avoiding animal

products.

And I've also talked about how it was

a gift because I wanted to eat more

passionately, more environmentally friendly as well.

And I was struggling because of my neurodivergence

and safe foods as I was just simply

being burnout and exhausted and not having the

executive function to plan anything usual than what

I put on the menu.

And I think that is one of the

reasons why I have so many modalities that

I work with.

And that is because our connection with ourselves,

our connection with the wider world, really is

not a one-size-fit-all situation.

Like I could tell you to go outside

and touch grass, but if you have a

mobility issue, if you live in an extremely

urban environment where the only grass you might

see are the weeds that poke up between

the cracks in the sidewalk, where maybe you

don't have access to a local park or

the local park isn't safe.

Maybe you have to work two jobs and

you literally leave the house before the sun

comes up, get home when the sun goes

down and you're just too exhausted to touch

grass.

There are a million reasons why a phrase

like, hey, touch grass, it'll help your mental

health really doesn't work for a lot of

people.

And what I have found as I have

understood myself better, as I've understood my brain

better, as I have learned more about what

it means to be AUDHD, what it means

to have alpha-gal or what it means

to basically have this fibromyalgia diagnosis that I

have had for like 20 plus years that

doctors really haven't wanted to touch or do

anything for.

And then understanding all the bits and pieces

of my life that goes into all of

that.

When I start putting all of that together,

well, it totally makes sense why it took

me over 20 years to find a therapist

who totally understood or at least can empathize

with, if not under completely understanding my lived

experience and why a lot of the soundbite

or social media friendly mental health advice really

doesn't work for me.

And again, it has to do with that

Venn diagram, being neurodivergent, being ADHD that, and

for those that don't know, that means that's

autism and ADHD, that creates a tug of

war in my brain.

And I'm probably going to talk about that

in more detail because it's a tug of

war that even though I intellectually understood, I

did not emotionally understand for a very long

time.

But having that tug of war in my

brain, understanding my complex PTSD that came from

living without having that knowledge of myself, all

of that really understands that in any given

moment, I may need something different.

So I may need to actually get away

from the computer sometimes.

I know, shocking.

But I could be working and writing and

feeling really good and then all of a

sudden my brain just checks out.

And usually that tells me that I've overwhelmed

my autistic side of my brain or I

have bumped up against one of my prickly

points as far as my mental health, as

far as worrying about what people will think,

whether I can be my true self, all

that stuff that we deal with.

And it's time for a change.

So in that moment, going outside, spending time

with the horses, doing yoga, even if it's

just a couple of poses or some stretches,

doing that can be good.

In other moments, I may need to take

some deep breaths.

I may need to do meditation.

I may need to give myself a Reiki

treatment.

Only I know what I need in those

moments.

And so I've talked before about offering a

spiritual buffet or spiritual care buffet, because you

may not know what you need until somebody

says, well, here's all the options.

What feels good to you?

Where do we want to start?

And at that point, you can choose what

works best for you.

The purpose of this podcast episode this week

is not to tell you all about me

and my problems.

The purpose is to basically tell you that

there are options and give you permission to

try different things.

Now, I want to be very clear.

There is a place for licensed mental health

practitioners.

There is a place for therapy.

There is a place for psychology.

And if you are currently thinking that you

may need that kind of help, or you're

currently experiencing some benefits from that type of

help, if you currently are on a medication

that is helping you, I want to encourage

you to continue to do that and seek

the help that you need from practitioners.

Nothing that I am talking about will ever

replace that type of help.

What I do certainly compliments that type of

help.

Or if you are in a situation where

that type of help is unavailable to you,

especially here in America, where our insurance and

our medical system as far as payments and

Costco is kind of shit.

I mean, let's be honest, I'm kind of

navigating that a bit myself right now.

And it is shit.

So if you are in a case where

you can't afford mental health care, where mental

health care seems out of reach, or if

you were in the situation that I've been

in for a while, where you tried to

seek help, and you just don't feel like

they get it, or it's just not connecting

with you.

I want to encourage you that while you

are trying to find a practitioner that is

complimentary and works well with you, that you

also try other things.

Everything that I talk about is a yes

and, not a replacement for.

To connect this with our animal cells or

animalality, I can't even say that word, animalality.

I think it's important to look at the

animals in our lives, whether that's companion animal,

whether you have an outside animal like a

horse or goats, whether you are interacting or

watching wildlife, from the squirrel in your yard

or the deer in your yard, to something

on a documentary.

If you think about the way that these

animals live their lives, they tend to their

needs first, sleep, natural drives that are driven

by their hormones, and food, water, shelter.

Once those needs are met, and a good

example of that would be like a house

cat.

I'm surrounded by cats here.

They're sleeping at the moment.

So like the cats, the cats have shelter.

They have a heated or air-conditioned house,

depending on the season.

They are well-fed.

They have water.

They have attention.

They have food, water, sleep, shelter.

They're fixed, so the biological urges kind of

aren't there.

But again, I took care of all that.

They got medical treatment when they're not feeling

well.

Medicine is necessary.

All of those base needs are met.

So if we think about our cats, and

this would apply, I think, to some extent

to big cats as well.

Well, they do spend a large portion of

their day sleeping or resting.

So they do take that time to refill

their energy reserves, but they also play.

And they might, you know, stretch on a

scratching post.

They might play with a dangly toy.

They might use different scratchers throughout the day.

If you've got like the cardboard scratchers, or

a scratching post, or a cat tree.

They have, you know, hopefully they have different

types of toys to keep them entertained.

Some would say ours have too many toys.

And sometimes they just get the zoomies and

run around.

And of course, like with our our biggest

cat, it's always kind of funny to see,

you know, this 17-pound cat just racing

around the house.

Because it's like, you know, this bowling ball

basically going through the house.

And likewise, we've got a couple of older

cats.

Don't know their ages.

They came to us with litters of kittens,

or gave us litters of kittens shortly after

they arrived.

So I know that they're older than the

vast majority of our cats.

And like one of them, she just, you

know, every evening it's pretty much like clockwork.

She sleeps on the end of the bed.

I have some of my pillows I use.

I put them on the end of the

bed during the day.

So I can sit on the bed, or

read, or something without, you know, dealing with

this mound of pillows.

And there's little strings on the corner.

And she will play with those strings every

evening without fail.

One of the other old mama kitties, she

will still pick up toys and walk around

the house, you know, meow, meow, meowing, like

she is trying to feed her kittens food.

Her kittens are now 10 years old.

They are also very well fed.

And so usually she meows, and they just

look at her, like, what, we were sleeping.

But the truth is, they do what they

feel they need to do in the moment.

If their body tells them to move, they

move.

If their body tells them to sleep, they

sleep.

If their body tells them to just kind

of curl up next to their favorite person,

or maybe their favorite fellow cat, and just

spend some companionship, they do that as well.

They don't really think about trying to force

themselves into a routine.

And in fact, some would argue that when

we force them into a routine, that is

when we cause problems with the animals that

we care for.

So if we think about wildlife, well, wildlife

does have to worry more about food, about

shelter, about water, especially during, it's still so

hot here in the Ozarks.

So during the heat here, these are all

very much concerns for wild animals.

Additionally, wild animals do have those natural hormonal

seasonal urges that they deal with.

We're in the fall right now.

So now is actually the time when bucks

in the deer population, bucks are searching out

mates, or maybe fighting one another for the

right to mate.

So, you know, all of that happens in

the wild, but we still have animals that

take time to rest when possible.

We still have animals that will play.

We still have animals that will enjoy the

company of other animals when that's as part

of their nature.

And the animals still kind of operate on

their natural cycle.

So like it's been so hot, I haven't

seen a lot of animals out when I'm

out during the day doing farm chores or

watering or whatever.

But the evenings, you know, when it starts

to get a little bit cooler, maybe six

or seven o'clock, I start to see

the armadillos.

I start to see the opossums.

I, you know, you start to see the

animals kind of come out of their shelter

and start to do their things.

And so they don't have one thing that

they do.

They may go to different parts of the

yard.

They may have different territories that I don't

even see because they move beyond the boundaries

of our property and I stick pretty close

to home.

The point I'm trying to get across here

is that by offering a buffet, a spiritual

care buffet, and the truth is the work

I am doing to help you connect with

yourselves, to help you connect with your wild

spirit, to help you be your authentic self,

that is spiritual care.

Because that is helping you realize things, helping

you come into self-realization, that is possibly

helping you connect with something larger than yourself.

Again, whether that's the universe in general, whether

that is being a part of an ecosystem,

whether that's your community, whether local or online,

it is helping you with all of that

and that is spiritual care.

And having several different things to choose from

in the spiritual care mean that I am

not limited by a specific narrow range of

tools.

It does mean that obviously, as I said

before, I do have to understand scope of

practice and not step into a realm that

might be more medicinal in a traditional sense

or a more psychology-based level.

I can share what I know about psychology

with you.

I can share as a peer, as a

mentor, as a coach, but there are things

that I'm not licensed to do and I

need to be aware of that.

But within those boundaries, within those boundaries, there

are plenty of options and I would almost

argue that the options that I have are

far broader and far more interesting than the

mental health options that are often provided by

specific practitioners because they're usually trained in a

few different methods and for the most part,

they are tied to those methods.

In fact, I'm working on a podcast right

now talking about dogma in the wild and

I'm thinking now as I'm explaining this to

you that in many ways, psychology can be

too dogmatic.

If you encounter practitioners that say, well, this

is what I know.

This is what's supposed to change it.

This is what's supposed to fix your condition.

If you are, for example, neurodivergent, then things

like cognitive behavioral therapy may not resonate with

you.

They may not work well for you.

They may not feel good for you.

And so it's a matter of finding the

different therapies that may work better for you.

You know, I personally, I prefer dialectic therapies

or internal family systems for the practitioner that

I work with.

You know, those seem to work better for

me.

But it's a matter of you may be

limited when you go seek help that person,

you may have a limited buffet.

And like in my case, if I go

to somebody locally, that's pretty much all that's

offered is just kind of the basic bread

and butter cognitive behavioral therapy.

And that just does not work with my

brain.

And that does not really feel good because

it feels very dismissive of my lived experience.

And so by offering this large spiritual buffet,

by working on different levels on an energetic

level, looking at the energy body, how is

energy flowing through your body?

How is energy feeling, you know, does it

feel stuck?

You know, if you scan your body right

now, is there a part of your body

that just kind of feels tight and hard,

and just feels like there's stuff stuck there.

I know I've got one of those parts

of my body right now that I'm working

on.

But, but the truth is, to resolve that

issue, I can do energy work.

But I can also do yoga.

I can also do meditation.

I can also do just plain general physical

activity by going outside, doing some chores, spending

some time walking around, spending some time with

my animals.

There's many different things that I can do

to move that energy through and to feel

better.

And that's what I want to share with

you.

That's what I want to invite you to

think about.

So I know this was kind of a

general podcast this week.

It's just something I felt like I had

to share.

I felt like I had to say at

this point in time.

I hope that you have found this helpful.

I hope that this is at least made

you curious about your own care about your

own spiritual care about the ways you care

for yourself or maybe ways others have cared

for you.

And I hope you are curious enough about

that to maybe think about that and think

about ways that you can actually improve that.

So that's where I'm going to leave it

for today.

If you do like my work and you

want to work with me, please visit feathermanesoul

.com.

You can sign up for a free call.

Let's connect.

Let's talk and see how I can help

you.

If you go to feathermanesoul.com slash tip,

then if what I've said here has helped

you, feel free to drop me a few

dollars.

That actually helps keep this podcast on the

air.

That helps keep my work going.

And again, I want to encourage you to

please like, subscribe or follow wherever you're hearing

my voice.

Check out Muse Charmer Radio Network where this

podcast airs.

Thank you so much for listening and I

will talk with you next week.

You've been listening to the Feathermane Soul Wisdom

Podcast hosted by Kit Kaelstow.

Learn more about Feathermane Soul at feathermanesoul.com.

As a wild spirit storyteller, Kit is passionate

about helping those who are neurodivergent, disabled or

living with chronic illness rediscover their own inner

wild spirit.

Visit feathermanesoul.com to receive free gifts or

book a free call with Kit to discuss

how wild spirit storytelling can help you.

Music is Running with the Horses by Purple

Planet Music.

This podcast is hosted on the Muse Charmer

Media Network.

Find out more by visiting feathermanesoul.com slash

so and following the links to the Muse

Charmer Network.

Please don't forget to like, subscribe or follow

wherever you're hearing my voice or tell a

friend who may be interested.

Thank you.