Season 2 – Episode 7: Overcoming Barriers to Lead From Being with Karen Gray
In today's episode, I dive deep into the essence of living and leading from our soul's purpose with my client and friend Karen Gray. Together, we explore the intersection of spirituality and leadership, the importance of being over doing, and how personal evolution and overcoming barriers can guide us towards our soul's calling.
Karen shares her journey of spiritual awakening, the lessons from her unique upbringing, and the transformational power of our past astrology reading together. We also discuss the deep connections between inner work and effective leadership, and how every experience, including trauma, can be a tool for growth. This episode is a rich conversation on self-love, self-healing, and consciously leading from a place of purpose. Tune in and get inspired to live in alignment with your true self.
*Astrology Readings: yourpathandpurpose.com/astrologyreadings
*Soul Purpose Collective (SPC): yourpathandpurpose.com/spc
Karen Gray’s Website: www.CoachKarenGray.com
Karen Gray’s Instagram: @CoachKarenGray
–
Discover the path to your soul's purpose at https://www.yourpathandpurpose.com
Episode Transcript:
Cameron: Welcome to the Path and Purpose podcast, where we explore the journey of living and leading from your soul's purpose. I'm your host, Dr. Cameron Martin. As a spiritual coach and leader, I've dedicated my life to helping change makers, creatives, and conscious leaders align with their soul's calling. In each episode, We dive deep into the stories of those who are paving the way for a more conscious and compassionate world.
My purpose is to explore the intersection of spirituality and leadership, offering you practical insights and inspiration to live and lead with authenticity. Join me as we discover how to embrace our soul gifts, overcome barriers, and learn to lead from being. This podcast will inspire you to live in alignment with your soul's purpose and create a lasting impact one conversation at a time.
Well, welcome, Karen. I'm so excited to have you on the show today. It's good to see you.
Karen: It's so good to see you be here again and this wonderful, beautiful, safe space. Thank you, Cameron.
Cameron: You're very welcome. I'm really excited to share this space. I've actually been on your podcast. So we had an episode together, but Karen and I have also worked together.
So Karen, you've had an astrology reading with me, which. Uh, I'll let you share whatever you want to about that experience, but in this season of the show, I am reading my guests, um, birth charts for a few minutes. So I'm going to start by doing that. You'll get a second read over. I suppose it'll be perfect.
It'll be perfect. So taking a look at your birth chart. Your son is in Pisces, which is an energy that's very much connected to, uh, wisdom is the word I have right now, but, uh, transcendence of spirituality of the subconscious mind of creativity of all things that are really kind of beyond this world. And in particular, that shows up mostly in your career in your work.
So, uh, you have a strong ability to use, uh, your own spiritual gifts to connect with people's belief systems, their subconscious minds, of course, helping people to really understand maybe some of the deeper aspects of their own being that's really important to you. You're deeply empathetic, and you have an ability to feel things.
that perhaps are not even yours, so learning, um, boundaries for that is really important. But you're very grounded when it comes to your spiritual inclinations, I guess I could say, or the way that you approach spirituality. And you actually have quite a few spiritual gifts. Learning, of course, to unlock them for yourself, uh, is really important.
Um, And it's really kind of your path. Learning lessons of self and showing up as you are your unique. Being in the world is really why you're here. You are someone who has strong communication skills, which you absolutely use in your work. You have a lot of creative ideas, different perspectives on things.
So I'm excited to have this opportunity that you'll be able to do that and to share your ideas with me on the show. So how do we do?
Karen: I love that it was almost like a, it was a, a revisit, but you said things in a different way than even our session. And I feel like we all need this reminder. Like I could literally talk to you every day and you could be like, Karen, remember who you are.
Remember who you are. Um, because it's so easy to get caught up in life and forget. So thank you for that. It was spot on and I feel like even more relevant than the last time we spoke.
Cameron: Well, this is why I talk to clients too when I say, sometimes they'll be like, Oh, do you remember when you said this in the reading?
And I'm like, no, I don't. Because when I'm looking at somebody's chart, uh, it's super present moment. What is right there for me right now. And as I'm channeling whatever words come out that are apparently for you in that moment. So no, I don't usually remember my readings very much, which is probably why you had a different experience this time.
Karen: Yeah. Last time was more about self-healing and self-worth. And this time was you added in the component of my spiritual gifts, which is something that has been on my heart, is how do I be more present, the things that I've been given
Cameron: Mm-Hmm. .
Karen: And use those to help others because I, I am a coach and so I also serve and help people, as you know, um, and feel such a drawing, which is why I sought you out.
That there's so much more that I'm not tapping into and I don't know exactly what those things are. Um, but using those gifts to love and lead and serve is such an aligned calling for me. So that was like, ah, yes, just a reminder that this is what I'm supposed to do and I want to grow those gifts.
Absolutely.
Cameron: Well, that's the conversation. Let's do it. That's right. Yeah. So let's do it. So let's start, um, for the audience. If you can maybe begin with Your spiritual awakening, or really what your spiritual path has looked like in your life.
Karen: Yeah. So I grew up in Northwestern New Mexico. My dad worked for the gas company and we lived on the reservation and the church that we attended Was a little small community church.
And so one weekend we would have Protestant, um, preacher. One week weekend we would have a Catholic preacher. So we had visiting, um, reverends, pastors, preachers, um, all kinds of people. So we got exposed to a lot of different things. My parents were traditional Southern Baptists. And so sometimes they were very uncomfortable having, you know, You know, other things being taught, but it was such a great lesson for me to grow up seeing there were other perspectives, other viewpoints, and I grew up on the Navajo reservation.
So I was exposed to the native faith. And how they honored and loved the earth and how that was such an integral part of their faith. Um, so growing up, I learned to ask a lot of questions that maybe others don't, which caused me to really question when things felt out of alignment with what I was feeling and experiencing in my body.
Um, fast forward to being an adult, I attended, um, really, really rigid, restrictive Christian, um, churches that gave no room for independent thought, and it kind of pushed me away from organized religion. And I really just began to seek like this connection. What, what am I feeling? Cause I'm drawn to what I believe is my creator.
But what does that look like? And then when I started my coaching journey and, and becoming a coach and that just opened up doors that now opened up rabbit holes that opened up all of these other things. Because once you learn something, you can't unlearn it. And then I just would be ravenous for information because, Oh, that explains so much.
And then I would just open up the next thing. And that led me to really question everything I knew. Um, so really what I've learned for all of that is to keep questioning, to keep seeking, because the more I seek, the more I feel and learn and hear, and it exposes me. To people like you who have taught me so much about myself and, and just really affirmed that's where my answers have come from is from others who have affirmed that everything I'm feeling, hearing, seeing within my own relationship with, with God is right.
Not necessarily the things that, you know, were in this little box that had to fit us a certain way. demographic, like you had to look and act and talk a certain way or dress a certain way. So, long story short, I really have resisted organized religion and really leaned into the relationship side of my faith.
And that has been my spiritual journey. And that has been so freeing to know that I can tap into the God that's with me all the time. I don't have to, go to a church or go to a building. I really feel him more when I'm at our family's ranch or when I'm in my private time or when I'm talking with someone of like minds that really loves and believes the way I do.
So that has been a very, um, hero's journey of the traumas and the dramas and the coming back in the healing and back home to, um, What, um, what has been within me all the time.
Cameron: We've talked about religion with a few of my guests on the show and listeners probably do know at this point, unless you're new to the show, which welcome if you are, um, but I grew up in the Catholic church and for me, Being Catholic was central to my identity.
Um, I was a choir boy for years, then I was the choir director. I taught religious education. I thought I would be a Catholic priest in 2021, whatever. But also I was hiding my identity and, um, and I had issues with the church, many of them, but I understood later in life now, well, a few years ago, but I understood later after I left the church that really my connection to the church had a lot to do with the person of Christ, the being that Jesus was when he walked on this planet and shared the message of love and forgiveness and understanding.
Um, But it's interesting that you grew up with multiple perspectives around religion, around spiritual practice, um, because it got you into that place of questioning. I mean, I was always questioning for sure, but I've also found when I'm around other religious beliefs, I also question and I'm really interested.
This past year I went to, um, The Passover Seder, uh, with a good friend of mine and her family. So I got to experience the Jewish holiday. I was just in Istanbul last month and I was around majority Muslim. This is the first time I'd ever actually been around or been in a majority Muslim city. I don't know much about Islam, but I was able to feel it and experience it in a really interesting way.
And what I felt was love. Really love unity connection openness is what I actually felt. Um, but it's interesting because a lot of times religion can be that tool that people use to divide and to separate when Truly, they're all trying to point to something. And what is that something? Well, they're all trying to point to the Creator, to God, to Source, to Allah, to Oneness, to Adonai.
Whatever term works for you. But we're all pointing. It's as if, you know, We're pointing to something that from this perspective looks different than this perspective or this perspective, um, we're pointing toward truth. We can't fully understand it until I think, as you said, beautifully, we start to turn that reflection inward upon ourselves because we are source creator beings, we came from source God.
And we are a creation, an extension, an expression of that. And it's not until we start to actually look within ourselves that we realize, Oh, this is what the creation is about. And our religions can help us to point in that direction. But when they turn us away from self, in my opinion, they're turning us away from the creator.
Karen: Yeah, I agree. I think we experience life through a lens. And when we only choose to see it through that one lens, We miss so many other perspectives and it's only when we see it through, through his eyes, through the, through the eyes that, that God chooses to give us through knowledge and wisdom and insight, um, that we can really begin to see others the way he would see them.
And when I can love you the way that Christ loved me and love others and not judge them Wear something different or look something different. There's a whole nother level of energy that just comes with that and a whole nother level of love and acceptance and forgiveness and when we see that everything that happens to me happens to them and vice versa it changes how you see the world and how you see your purpose in this.
When you see, when you see that you're so removed from it that this is just happening to me It's different, but when this happens to us as a collective, then there's purpose behind it in a different way. So that has been the gift that I've received I think in the last two years primarily, but In this journey and evolving.
Cameron: Well, this is something too, that humanity as a collective is evolving toward, by the way, what you were just describing was totally your Mercury and Aquarius, which, um, which has to do with these themes of oneness and unity and connection and the true deep understanding of. That we are all connected. No matter how you want to cut it and separate, that's just egoic.
I'm this. You're that. I'm right. You're wrong. You're this religion. I'm that thing. That's all just a mind construction because the reality is everything is connected. The wind, the trees, your breath, all the same.
Karen: Right. Yeah. When, when you did my reading, that was one thing that came out of it. And. Diving into that, so taking everything you taught me, and then making sense of that in a way that I can digest and learn was so, because I got, he gives you the recording, so if you do this, you have the recording to go back and watch a thousand times, which I have, and it has been like, oh, I didn't catch that the first five times, I wasn't ready to learn that.
So catching those little comments, those little things, that has been one of the biggest that I've taken away is that I am not alone in this and that everything is so intertwined and when you look at the DNA it proves it. Like my blood isn't white. My blood is red. Like it's DNA. So is yours. So is theirs.
Like it's just so connected and the epigenetics of that is just so A whole nother level of interesting, but go ahead. Totally another
Cameron: level of interesting. Um, I can geek out on this. I know. I was like, okay, epigenetics, we're going there. We're going to talk trauma now. Okay. Um, yeah, but really, truly this understanding that we are all connected is the lesson of unconditional love.
It's when we believe in separation, we create. Suffering for ourselves and humanity is moving toward this understanding that we are all connected. And so we can't throw trash on the ground and think that that doesn't affect somebody else or pollute our water that doesn't affect somebody else or, you know, grow monocrop monocrops on some land that it won't affect the soil.
We're understanding and humanity is moving toward this, which is why the conversation of a more conscious leadership, because when we start to connect with our true being. our true knowing of our beingness, then we can show up differently in a more conscious way. I don't want to jump over epigenetics because I kind of love that.
So this idea, first of all, that we are beings, light beings that come into physical bodies, and guess what? We inherit our genetics from our parents, and thankfully, or gracefully, or whatever, we also inherit all of their traumas and their issues, and things of past life nature, and the energetic signatures of their own lives, traumas they've moved through, challenges, fears, insecurities, whatever, and that those things can express within us.
So when you talk about generational trauma, Uh, or even the question of nature versus nurture, our genetics are a very important component of our spiritual journeys. And so here's your space. Go ahead.
Karen: Oh, so add into that the dynamics of an adoptee, which is my story. And so I have learned behaviors and learned traits and I have the inherited behaviors and traits and traumas.
I am a literal walking science experiment in that there are things about me that I do exactly like my mother, my grandmother, and my great grandmother that I did not know until I was 24. But those were already habits, the way I hold a fork, the way I chose men, how I, um, perpetuated getting pregnant at seven, at 16, having a baby at 17, um, without being married.
And this cycle of choices and cycle of, of seeking validation and seeking, um, atonement and worthiness through. Sexual confirmation, like this, whatever this was, that was handed down generation after generation, um, was something that I inherited and did not pass on to my daughter because, thank you epigenetics, I have a choice.
And I made a conscious decision to break the chain. And so my daughter has traveled a whole different path. She didn't follow in that. So for people that are struggling with this, yes. And you can do both. You can have that and you can break those chains. You can have those inherited traits and you can capture them and change them.
So you can literally change. The cell cellular structure, um, everything of your body. It is a cognitive ability that you have to control your future and you can no longer live. In this, um, slavery, personal slavery to your DNA. It was something I didn't even know the science behind and I still did it.
Cameron: Yes.
And really what you're talking about here is evolution. It's spiritual evolution. It's totally connected to that oneness that we were just mentioning before. So science is showing us, for those of you who are very scientifically minded, I'm sure there's a few of you listening. Um, We've had the conversation around genetics and epigenetics and how genetics, our genes are expressed in life.
Um, all that science is doing is starting to show us. Spirituality or what we've known about spirituality, people have said this too, if you take science far enough down, uh, its path, you're going to reach spirituality and when we think about what's happening on planet earth, that we're moving through this period of great evolution and a lot of our traumas, a lot of our issues, a lot of our, you know, familial patterns, all these things are being sort of triggered up at this particular point.
But when we are souls coming into bodies, we want to have certain programs so that we can have an experience of life. But as we shift spiritually, we shift in our understanding of self, as we shift our frequency, as we release old patterns, subconscious beliefs, et cetera, et cetera. These energies that are stuck in the body, in your genetics, They get released.
They literally change. And so your genetics change. This is how evolution happens. And you pass it on to another, to offspring. And then that sort of thing. Humanity is evolving spiritually and physically. They're one in the same because the spirit is actually creating the body. Your consciousness creates your body.
If you have illness or disease or something going on in your body, it has first been created in your consciousness and in the mind. If you shift that, then you can shift. Your space yourself into a space of health. This is the work I do with QHHT. Um, and I've talked about this ad nauseum at other, other shows as well, but the conversation of evolution, literally our human evolution and our spiritual growth, they're one in the same, because as we grow spiritually, we literally shift our genetics.
We literally shift our bodies. I was just talking about this last night to a friend of mine about how, you know, For many, many years, I mean, I've always wanted to be a father and as a gay man, it was like, Oh, well, maybe I'll never really birth, but I'm not going to birth it because I'm not a woman, but I'm not going to like make a child.
Can
Karen: you clarify now?
Cameron: That's not happening, but, um.
Karen: He's powerful, but maybe not quite that powerful.
Cameron: Not quite, um, but, I thought for a long time, um, that adoption would be the path for me. Most recently, I have thought about this. In terms of, well, I spend literally my entire life, all of my life professionally and personally, I got friends that tell me I need to have a bit more fun, but everything I do is about personal growth, development, developing myself, shifting my belief patterns.
I've shifted my frequency so many times. The person I am today is vastly different than who I was growing up. And I've started to recognize that, you know what, maybe actually I want to share this with a being. With, uh, high frequency light being a soul that wants to come in and experience a life down here.
I've been doing this work for something. I've been breaking these patterns for something. Like, maybe I should give this a leg up to a child or something. I've been working with my familial traumas. I've been dealing with my own limitations. You know, my genetics have shifted, maybe I should pass these along.
So this idea has actually been shifting in my mind, um, and I've never said that on my show, definitely not. I haven't said it to very many people, so thanks for that opportunity. Um, but yeah, understanding that as we do our spiritual work, our literal genetics change and the energetics that we have connected to our ancestry of the past and whatever we're calling in the future, that shifts as well.
Karen: Yeah. So I am. Completely a different person than I was. Let's, let's just go with 55. So let's say when I was 15, so 40 years ago and 40 years, um, I'm pretty sure that I did not expect to be where I'm at at 15. Um, but I internally am completely unrecognizable as a, as a human, like I'm not, I don't have the same conversations.
I don't have the same desires. I don't have the same interests, except. The fact that I love, love is the core, the center. Of it all, everything else within me has changed,
Cameron: which really is a story of evolution. Hey there. If you enjoyed the astrology reading at the start of today's episode, imagine how insightful a personalized reading could be for you and my one on one astrology sessions.
We dive deep into your unique birth chart to uncover your soul's blueprint and gain clarity on your soul's journey. Whether you're seeking guidance in your personal growth, exploring your soul's gifts, Peace. Or wanting to understand more about your life's direction, an intuitive astrology reading with me can offer profound insights for your journey.
If you're ready to discover what the stars have to say about your soul's path, head over to yourpathandpurpose. com slash astrology readings to book your session today. I want to mention something that we were talking about slightly before uh, recording. We were talking about this a little bit. If Where we were both admitting to moving through transitions that are interesting and difficult for me ever since I got back from my trip to Romania and Istanbul, I have been moving through yet another ego death.
Um, another experience of dying to old versions of self. This is not new for me, and this is why I can help everybody through their own because I've been through many, many of my own, but it's been really interesting and intense for me. My mind has been exceptionally busy, kind of fragmented, having a hard time focusing on particular tasks, not feeling the ease that I usually do in meditation or my other spiritual practices.
Feeling a sense of running away or wanting to run away from things. Um, it's been really intense and I think you've had a similar experience as well. Yeah. Lately.
Karen: Yeah, I have, which is one of the reasons why I reached out to you to begin with. Cause I saw you on another podcast, you were talking about things and like, maybe he has all the answers because I am just, I, I can't, I'm not going to say I can't.
That, that word is struck from my vocabulary. Um, I am having a difficult time quieting my mind to do meditation, to do journaling, to do anything that isn't intentionally focused on someone or something else. So if it's focused internally. Um, I will find every other excuse and reason to not do that, knowing that that is exactly the thing I need to be doing at the time.
So, um, when we met, you gave me this kind of 30, 000 foot view of what to anticipate over the next 18 months. And, um, I was not really excited about what I'm facing. And you can feel free to talk about what that is and why that's relevant if you want. But basically I'm going through an identity evolution is what it feels like.
So everything I thought I was going to be doing is now shifting. And I'm in a place where I'm not supposed to be doing. So this masculine energy. That I have embraced that has been a security blanket for me for so many years, um, being stripped off of me. So I'm just like in the being phase of being present and that internal being is hard.
It's so hard. Um, cause I want to serve. I want to do, I want to take action. I'm a, I'm a go a doer person. I want to fix it. I want to fix everything and make it all great. And I just have to pee. And so. Looking inward and, and doing the work there, um, even though I need to do it, is the last thing I'm really focused on, because I'm trying to avoid it so desperately.
Why do we do that?
Cameron: Well, thank you for your openness. Why do we do that? And for your transparency, because, you know, people listening, they are leaders, or moving through changes in their own lives, where they're being asked to step away from this space. This doing, uh, way of being, well, this, this doing.
Toward being, yeah, this doing way of being, toward a being way of being. Well, we try to
Karen: make ourselves do things to be something, right? That like, that's how we get to the being is by doing.
Cameron: Yeah.
Karen: No, we just have to be.
Cameron: Right. And the reality of physical reality is we do have to do things. I have to at least speak something or say something or write something.
I have to, that is the experience down here. But when our doing comes from pain, trauma, sadness. programming for better or worse. And it's not a true expression of our being. That's where we get into all kinds of unhappiness and actually where we can get really separated from our soul's purpose and our world effectively programs us to be that way, to work, to achieve, to do this external, that thing, external, that thing, external.
Most people in the world, especially in the Western world, don't have an eye gazed inward, but even when you do, like myself, who I spend all of my time doing this, there are times where you might be moving through big changes. I mentioned the term ego death. You also mentioned the same thing. experience, essentially, of a shift in identity, even when, like, don't kid yourself, if you're listening as a very spiritually evolved person, going to yoga all the time, meditating for two hours a day, that's all wonderful, it's all great, but what spiritual evolution can look like, and what it really looks like when the rubber hits the road, is this.
How do I respond to Those shifts internally, and even for myself, the last couple of weeks, yeah, I know I have tons of tools. I teach people all the time. I know what I need to do to shift myself energetically. But just this past weekend, I just wasn't, I didn't want to do yoga. I didn't want to meditate. It was like this little boy inside of me who was pouting.
I don't want to do that. I'd rather just be miserable right now for a second. And I'm not sure when it clicked, but there was a moment of. Me realizing you're being very hard on yourself and I was being asked to rest like truly just rest, stop working, just rest and stopping. And what I recognize is I'm being really hard on myself for all kinds of things, for work, for relationships, for things in the past.
So many things have come up since my retreat that I'm still processing and I recognized, Oh, I need to forgive myself. So I grabbed my journal and I wrote on the top, I forgive myself for.
And just listed it for being mean to myself for being hypercritical for thinking I have to control everything for, you know, whatever. And I just let that list rip. And then I lit some candles and I ended up burning it. And mind you that evening, I also, well, I knew I was moving energy through my body and I didn't really want to meditate.
That wasn't getting me anywhere. So I was like, I'm going to watch a sad movie that I know will make me cry. And, uh, that movie was, you know, Blackbird with Susan Sarandon. I love it. You haven't seen it. I do. I never put plugs for movies on this show, but I love it. The cinematography is beautiful. The story is really very touching.
Um, anyway, Before I was even done, I was bawling my eyes out, out of really, like, loudly, in my house. My stomach was a total mess, I was heeled over in a ball. Um, I was moving a lot of energy, I had to go to the bathroom and take care of that. But, so much moved through me so quickly, and all I needed to do was be with it.
You know, sometimes, on this weather we're on a spiritual journey, actively doing all the things, right? You can be doing that. I could do all the yoga, all the meditation, all of the somatic work, but we have to just leave space to be with ourselves and to observe. I was fully aware this past weekend that it was my ego, not me, not my true essence, but my ego going wild, that the thoughts in my head were like, Not nice and not kind, but I could just observe them when I observed that inside of my body, I felt the need to cry.
There's sadness or anger or something inside of me that hasn't been moved. Even when things are itchy and like, Oh my God, I don't know what to do with this. Bringing the conscious awareness to, Oh, this is what is happening in my internal experience. And I'm not going to judge it. I'm going to allow it to be, I mean, allow it to move through me.
When we learn to do that, that's when there's a lot of spiritual Acceleration, quite frankly, when we're really able to do that. And this is something that I teach my clients, but especially those who are leaders, if we can understand what's happening within ourselves and just hold space for that and to be with it, then we can operate from higher states of our consciousness.
We're not always operating from the lower mind, from fear, from worry, from programming. Not that that's bad. That's part of our nature, but we don't always want to be operating from those plays.
Karen: Yeah. And I don't know your experience, but I always see that anytime I've done that, that's my ego, my whatever, my subconscious really trying to protect me.
So it's like, okay, thank you for protecting me. Now you can have a seat. Let me feel all of this and be done with it. Um, cause really sometimes we just need to do that because thoughts create emotions and feelings and. Sometimes they just need a place to go.
Cameron: Absolutely. And our emotions, I mean, they're meant to be felt.
And our emotions are always showing us something. Uh, they are literally our internal communicators. And if we're experiencing emotions that we feel are expansive, like joy, love, bliss, ease, whatever. Then we know that we're aligned, at least our thinking, is aligned with our higher self. We're in agreement, so that's why it feels so great.
And when our emotions are in what we claim as negative, I'll say contracting, fear, worry, concern, anger, guilt, doesn't feel good because quite literally we're kinking our hose. Our higher self isn't agreeing with us. That's not really what universal truth is telling us. And so to recognize that too, oh, I'm having an emotional experience, can I just be with it?
Does it feel expansive? And I know, okay, my thinking is super good. Or does it feel contracting? Like, nope, something's got to shift, I don't have this totally right. It's literally that simple, but most people have no clue that that's what their emotions are telling them.
Karen: Yeah. So I, I like to refer to it as catabolic and anabolic.
Cameron: Yeah, it sounds scientific.
Karen: Well catabolic, you know, you think about the like tearing apart, right? It's catabolic, it's destructive, but it also serves because there are times when we need to go to that low vibing energy to heal, to withdraw, to Think about things and so sometimes it's not a judgment. It's really just this serves me This is how I heal this is how I move through it This is how I'm processing or we get angry and process it and move through sometimes It's righteous anger and that's needed in the moment And then the anabolic energy is think of you know, the the happy endorphins and there's things there So catabolic and anabolic they still have a purpose.
Everything has a purpose first It's just, is this serving? Is it serving me right now? Is it serving a purpose, helping me, you know, am I in conflict or am I really needing to be here? Because sometimes, for example, if you've had a loss in your grieving, you can go to that lower catabolic energy and feel it.
There's a reason you're grieving, whether that's a job, a lost opportunity, a lost person, um, whatever it is you're grieving, we grieve over different things. This has been four years of grieving for many people and the world is going through a huge grieving shift and now we're coming into a place of, okay, that's been a time and a season and now we're shedding all that and I feel like we're moving into this more anabolic Serving and loving and like letting all that go.
That's what I feel like I'm going through right now, even though it's difficult and I'm avoiding some of the, the process. I still know it's serving me very much, but thanks to you, now I know it's going on and I can make a choice.
Cameron: Hey there, if you're enjoying what we're diving into here on the podcast and want to go deeper, I want to invite you to check out the Soul Purpose Collective.
The Soul Purpose Collective is my online community where like minded change makers, creatives, and leaders come together to explore what it takes to align and lead from their soul's purpose. Head over to your path and purpose. com slash S P C for more details. We'd love to have you join us. So I'm curious, uh, your work with your clients or even just how you see yourself in your position of leadership, really, what do you see the connection between all of this, our spiritual understanding, our being with ourselves?
How does this impact leadership? How do you see that connection?
Karen: Oh my gosh. I feel like if you are in a position of authority or a leadership position, every relationship you have is either a mirror, a lesson, or a tool and a resource that you are supposed to be using for something else. Um, because we're, we're always learning.
We either learn what to do or what not to do as leaders. And sometimes we want to resist that. Um, and we say, Oh, you know, I'm, I, I don't want the spotlight. This is, this is me. Let me clarify this. I don't want to be the spotlight. I want to serve from behind. Um, I loved being behind the scenes and that was also an ego thing because I wanted the credit without the responsibility.
And when I saw that and saw that that's what it was, I knew, um, things were going to shift for me and they did. I came into a presidential position for an organization before my time was ready, when I was supposed to take over. Um, the president before me had a heart attack and I had to step in. Um, and these things helped me prepare to be the leader that I can be now today.
Ready to not just be the impact and the person behind the scenes, but be the one up front leading with empathy, with love, um, leading isn't about me. So when you are a leader, it really isn't about you. And the best leaders know that in my opinion, they know that it's not about you. It's about how you can impact others.
To rise so that we rise together. We go together or you push people. Sometimes you lead from the front. Sometimes you're pushing from behind But you're always there as the point person where if anything goes south I'm the one that's responsible and leaders can take that and so I feel like the the process that I'm going through is really helping me shed my ego so that I can lead from a centric place of A purpose, where it's a greater purpose, not a mean purpose.
Cameron: I teach about leadership as really being an act of creating space for being, right? For allowing people to be themselves as a soul, you a soul, with a purpose on this planet. And that in order to do that, in order to really, Lead from that space, you have to understand your being, right? You need the tools spiritually to understand who you are and why you're really here.
But I know that you teach your clients about value awareness. I wanted to share, give a little space here for this and the connection that you see between that inner work and really leading.
Karen: I think one of the reasons I struggled To be a leader was because I didn't see that I had anything valuable to give and it took Doing the work to finally see that it wasn't about what I did And this is I feel like the lesson here It wasn't about anything.
I did the masculine side of my doing that made me valuable as a leader It wasn't about what I was doing. It was about who I was being so once I realized That just by being born, just by following my purpose, and just by showing up, that made me qualified, that made me valuable, that made me enough. I could step into those places and lead detached from being.
So here's, here's an example story. Can I do, do we have time for this? Absolutely.
Cameron: Please.
Karen: Okay. So as president of this women's organization, um, I had a conference recently and I felt like this is the lesson I came away from and, and what I've learned going forward that I needed to help with the door. I needed to help with the this, and I help with the, so I was doing all the work rather than being the president.
And because I wasn't being the president, I missed the opportunity to be available for a lot of women because I was in the weeds doing the work. So. As I left the conference and looked at all the pictures, I wasn't in a bunch of them. Guess where I was? Behind the scenes, working. So not that this is about me and I needed to be in the pictures, but I wasn't present in the middle of the activities and being present to cheer these women on as they were finishing these activities or showing up in the room for the speakers, because I was worried.
That the lunch didn't get done or, you know, it, this control, think of a control freak. I had to make sure everything got done. The being part, um, so the, sorry, the doing part. Yes. I apologize. I said that backwards. I was worried about the doing part, right? The opportunities were missed because I just wasn't present.
You can apply that to a team. If you're present for your team. And you hear what they're saying, you're not worried about micromanaging. Are they doing all these little things? You're present to who they are being. They can grow. They can do the things that you're asking them to do. Trust them to do them, but help them be the person that can do them.
That's how, how you can lead from this place. As a parent, you can micromanage your kids. You can helicopter them and you could do a disservice because you're not trusting them to be the humans. That we're entrusted to you so we can apply this to so many aspects of our life, our relationships, our, our teams, our jobs, our careers, um, volunteer opportunities, but the opportunity that we truly have is to be the human that's qualified for the opportunities that are coming your way to just be, be that, does that mean sometimes we have to do the work?
Absolutely. Not in spite of the being. Correct.
Cameron: Remembering always that first, we are human beings and that our beingness, our essence, our soul, our consciousness, our awareness. Mm hmm. That's first and primary.
Karen: Yeah, absolutely. And, and that's where my, um, the, the value, so when You choose to put your value in what you can achieve, what you can earn, what your bank account looks like, what someone else says about you, what your social media followers are.
That's all subjective. Maybe today that's enough. Maybe tomorrow that's not because someone else has said, you know, Oh, you have to have 10 million followers instead of a million. Well, great. Now I'm not valuable anymore. If I'm just valuable because I'm here following my purpose, serving, showing up and loving and showing people that, that I'm who I'm supposed to be.
Everyone else's opinions about that are irrelevant. And then I begin now the law of attraction can apply. The law of reciprocity applies, like begin to apply all of the laws of the universe when we can be that person.
Cameron: Yeah, absolutely. Because in essence, that's the only thing we even have. We come down here, we play a game, we grab some identities, and some jobs, and some family, and we get all wrapped up in it, and we learn lessons, of course, and then eventually you die, but death is only just a change in physical form.
Your being, your essence, your consciousness, the awareness of energy that is you persists. It goes somewhere. We know it goes somewhere after you die, when it leaves the body. And so that's always there.
Karen: Yeah, and so the gift is if all of this stuff doesn't matter, who could I be? And that's a gift that we get to give ourselves each day.
And this is my reminder to myself, so I'm talking to me here, um, to quiet myself and just be. And except, Everything else will come.
Cameron: Yeah. And you know, I share with many people that I think that's the ultimate expression of leadership. I mean, we ultimately need to ask ourselves why lead? Why are we here?
What are we doing? Whether we're leading ourselves right? Which of course we're all doing, or whether you're always every day, or whether you're in a position of. authority, or maybe you're influencing others without authority, actually. Either way, the question of why are we doing it? What are we doing here and why are we doing it?
And if not to discover who we really are, or to help others to do the same, to help understand our being, what else is there?
Karen: There isn't anything else. And think about who are the people that you really like to follow? Like, who would you, um, What leaders would you like to follow? Are they just out there doing all the work, or are they actually being someone that you admire?
And I bet if you really ask yourself that, it's about who they're being, who they show up as, how they show up, maybe goes in alignment with that, the things that they do, but it's truly who they, you know, who they are at their being essence that attracts you to them. To begin with, um, I could think of, you know, a dozen great leaders right now.
And yes, they did great things, but they just showed up and had a presence. Like think about that. They just have a presence about them. And what is that? You know, that's truly their. human essence of their spirit coming through.
Cameron: Yeah. And that beingness has an impact in many people's lives or sometimes just one person's life, but either way, it's extremely important.
Sometimes it only takes one. Yeah, exactly. Um, well, what do you think it means to live with purpose?
Karen: Wow. Um, I feel like that is the reason why I reached out to you is I wanted to know my purpose. And to live with purposes for me personally is to identify what, if I accomplish only one thing on this planet, what is that?
So that I have a destination to aim for. And when I found out that my, my purpose was to truly Be an example of self love and self healing for others Like the gift that that was back to me. I just get to love. I just get to be I just get holy smokes, so It's a gift of full acceptance and for an adoptee that sought acceptance my entire life 55 years because I think I talked to you right around my birthday You
Purpose was everything for me. And so finding that my purpose, finding out what my purpose is, and I've sent several people to you for this exact reason, when you, you know, you're here. But when you know why you're here, it changes the game. Totally
Cameron: does, because then you can just be it. And it doesn't mean that all of the things we've talked about before, the ego, the debts, the beliefs, the programming, doesn't mean that that just goes away, but it does put into perspective what it is we're actually doing.
And to not have to Yeah, it
Karen: gives you an intention.
Cameron: Absolutely. And to not be seeking necessarily, even though we're always seeking, but not seeking something external, not seeking the validation from the job, the partner, the kids, right? But to recognize that it was always coming from within to begin with, and the more that we connect with that, which is our own being, then we just express it in the world.
Our purpose becomes literally an expression of our being.
Karen: Yeah, so obviously you've done hundreds of readings, um, so you know that people have varied purposes. Is there one common theme? So I'm going to flip this interview back on you. Is there one common theme in people's purpose? Or is it so unique and different that it's hard to tell?
Unique to each person,
Cameron: I want to say the ways in which I love that you asked me this question. Nobody's ever asked me a question on my podcast. At least like that. I would say the ways in which people express their purpose is unique as every single person. So everyone's chart, for example, for thinking about that is A unique combination of cosmic energy is a unique expression of their own past, their belief systems, their programming from their parents, the experiences that they grew up with, and by the way, their own level of achieved consciousness, because sometimes we don't know things about ourselves.
So that kind of colors the, the how. Right? How would you express your purpose? But in essence, I guess the one thing that is present is we're always moving away from something and moving towards something else. We're moving away from what is comfortable or what is known to the soul, moving towards something that is generally unknown.
And so, the, that's a pretty common theme, if I can call it that. It sounds pretty general. But everyone is moving, is here to evolve and is, and to grow. So if there's something that your soul knows really, really well, there's a good chance you're going to use that. As fuel for your evolution, but what you're moving toward is generally not something you're comfortable with.
Um, that's a theme I can say the ways in which they show up, whether it be, um, in this lifetime, I have a lot of experience of self and I'm moving toward partnership or in this lifetime, I. I have a lot of success in past lives related to career and external validation, but in this life, I'm learning more about my past and my roots and my family and creating a family wherever it is.
There's a polarity. Um, that's true within each of us from something that our soul knows towards something it doesn't. And that is the opportunity in evolution. Um, I love that you asked the question. I've never. Answered that before, but it's, I'm glad you did.
Karen: Well, I just think that there's as humans, right?
We have this drive to accomplish something, which we can identify as a why. We can call it our purpose. Um, but it's always about. As you just shared so beautifully, it's always about moving from where we are to where we feel like we are called to be
Cameron: correct. And what I would say is that at the soul level, the soul wants to experience.
energy, essentially, which is a state of being. So when we're really focused on the external, that I must achieve this in order to be something, that's not actually what the soul, some souls, by the way, that's exactly what they want. In fact, some people come to this planet specifically to learn lessons of achievement, of power, of authority.
That's true. But for a lot of people, this this paradigm of that somehow your purpose must be something big and accomplishing and if you don't do anything that is worthwhile that they couldn't put your name on a plaque when you die that somehow you missed your your calling and that's not really true um because for a lot of souls there's all kinds of reasons why we're here as I mentioned your purpose is as innumerable as All of the people on this planet and how you want to express it is unique, though, having said that, I do think a lot of people move through life without connecting, not my listeners, of course, but move through life without connecting with their purpose, without asking why, and thus do miss it.
Um, and they miss opportunities and they miss reasons why their souls evolve and grow. And so this is why I believe we're having this conversation and it's why I'm committed to the work that I'm doing because when we can turn that. Spotlight consciously toward ourselves as a soul, then we can be conscious participants in that process, right?
For you to say, now I have, I have some clarity around what I'm really here to do and it resonates for me. I didn't just tell you, here you go. Um, because nobody can tell you this is exactly the specific thing you have to do. Like, first of all, you're being a free will. So, and I'm not God, so I don't know what the creator or what you as an expression of the creator chose for yourself.
And so when we are, when we are conscious of that, then we can be a participant in that journey. I'm not a victim. This isn't. Oh my God, what's happening to me, or if I don't go to Harvard, I'm failed. Or if I don't do this in my life, I'm failed. No, that's not even true. I think if you don't ask the question, what is my purpose?
If you don't seek to understand the deeper aspects of you, then that is a life unfulfilled.
Karen: I love that. The other thing, the other gift that you gave me was helping me see that things I Had perhaps perceived as happening to me were actually things that I chose to Help me be the person that I am today.
The people in my life were playing a part in this game. So my biological mom had a part in that. My adopted mom had a part in that.
Husbands, plural, yes, I said plural. You know, abusers. Things that have happened in my path have created this being that is this empathetic person who can now fulfill her destiny. Had I not had those traumas, had I not had those lessons, I would not be prepared to live and surrender fully to what is clearly my calling.
I wouldn't have chosen this path. It would not have happened in this way. I Um, when you look at all of the roadblocks and all of the things that happened, it's so clear to see it looking back, looking forward. There's no way. Um, but that I believe is the beautiful gift of leadership because you get to use all of those things.
that felt like tests and horrible mistakes and failures and all of these things that you want to just shove under the carpet. Those are the beautiful battle scars that you get to use as lessons for anyone else that comes in your path. You needed those to see those as gifts in your toolbox and tools that you get to use.
Um, my show is called Rock Movers, so I say, you know, let go of the rocks, the heaviness, and carry the lessons, the tools, that you get to use for this purpose that you now know you have. And so that is the beautiful gift, beautiful gift of leadership, when you see it from the point of purpose.
Cameron: And with that, we'll close the episode.
Thank you so much, Karen, for sharing this space today and sharing your wisdom with the audience.
Karen: Thank you. It's such a gift. I love it. And, uh, I love this conversation. And I love you. You are a beautiful human. Thank you for all you do for this planet. Thank
Cameron: you very much. A heartfelt thanks to you for tuning into this episode.
I'm Dr. Cameron Martin, and it's been an honor to support you on your path to self discovery. As you reflect on today's conversation, remember that the journey toward living and leading from your soul's purpose is ongoing.
You're never alone in it.
Until next time.