animist and ancestral guidance for when "being everyone’s rock" leaves you cracking from the pressure of operating as a consistent, super-human, productivity-no-matter-what-you’re-feeling machine and you want to try loving yourself and your humanness instead

Your whole life you yearned for stability, support, and love and you tried to get it by giving it.

You became everyone’s rock - the one they turn to in a crisis, holding it all together. It’s become your identity that you’re consistent, reliable, perfect… almost superhuman.

And neither you nor they know what to do with you when you’re snapping, spiraling, exhausted, overwhelmed, falling apart, and, well, just plain human.

But now we’re being hit by wave after wave of crisis, personally and collectively. What worries you most is that your usual go-to strategies, routines and tools that held you steady in the past don't work any more, and you don't know what to do do about it. Whatever you do, you seem to end up getting the opposite of what you want.

Instead of feeling things like: supported, loved, connected, trusting, and free to express yourself… it’s just more walls, more self-reliance, and more self-hatred. Ouch.

And so here you are - hiding out, crying alone. Again.

Only this time you’re fucking tired of it.

Tired of your own bullshit. Tired of these stupid patterns that just seem to keep looping.

You’re actually even tired of hating yourself.

You’re finally ready to risk letting it all - the strength, steadfastness, and composure - crumble.

Only… it’s a bit terrifying isn't it? To not know who or what you’ll be on the other side? To not have a map or role models?

Yeah, dear one, it is. But as Rumi said: “Very little grows on jagged rock.[…] You have been stoney for too many years. Try something different. Surrender.”

In this introductory workshop we’ll explore how living as a machine is showing up in our lives - what it gives us and what it costs us; and begin remembering the animist and ancestral wisdom and practices which can help us: 

• ground into our bodies and live more in rhythm with the seasons and the natural world; 

• relate from our hearts and nervous systems, not our heads, so we feel deeper, truer connection;

• and remember the gifts of our ancestors, not just their wounds, so we experience more meaning and belonging in this wondrous world.

We won’t solve everything in one workshop. But we’ll take some solid first steps into understanding your human self - your body, your nervous system, your need for connection and a deeper sense of spiritual meaning. And this just might help give you enough courage to let the superhuman you crumble and surrender to your own wild, sacred journey.

(if you would like Kate to offer this workshop for your community, either in-person or online, please get in touch)

(and if you would like to explore or attend Kate’s ore immersive 3hr Ceremony offerings, you can check those out here)

Upcoming Workshops:

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** a quick note on my use of the term “shamanism”: as a term it’s a tricky one - it’s both erasive and appropriative and either comes with a lot of preconceived notions, or, what it means or is so vague it’s almost meaningless. It’s a term indigenous to Siberian indigenous wisdom practitioners and used by western anthropologists to invoke any indigenous or ancestral wisdom tradition practitioner and medicine person, regardless of the land they live on and what those people would’ve called themselves in their own language. I acknowledge the harm within that. Now, it’s often used as a pan-tradition, new-agey catch-all for almost anything mystical and akin to “indigenous”. There’s potential for harm in that, too. I’ve gone back and forth on whether to use it or not and you’ll see me often say “animist” and “ancestral” more than, or alongside, “shamanic”. When and where I do use it, I use it to invoke the role and practices of bridging this world with the Others which run parallel to this one; standing for greater harmony and aliveness within and between individuals, communities, and between us and our beyond-human kin, including those whose souls live in the Otherworld. For me, “shamanic” also implies a marrying of the journey of being human and spirit - not to transcend, but to be more deeply human and here. Shamanic practices come from and operate on behalf of the land, as much as anything else.

Shamanic practices do not need to supersede or supplant other religious beliefs or lineages you ascribe to or practice. However, you will feel more comfortable with my work if your beliefs allow for a sense that all life (including the natural world) is sacred kin and conscious elder, and that to be here and engage with the pains and ecstasies of being human is one of the greatest responsibilities and most precious gifts we could ever receive.