Living The Red Life - Turning Pain Into Power Through Homesteading

Episode Date: September 29, 2025

Cait Casey, an inspiring woman of power and the CEO of Urban Homesteadings. Listen in as Cait shares her profound journey from military service to motherhood, revealing how she turned personal trauma into triumph through entrepreneurship. This episode offers a compelling narrative of self-discovery, healing, and empowerment for women from all walks of life.The conversation delves into Cait's military background and her subsequent struggle with severe birth trauma following the birth of her twins. Keywords like "resilience," "transformation," and "community" weave through the discussion as Cait recounts how she discovered her passion for baking and sustainable food practices. Cait emerged from adversity to build Urban Homesteadings, an enterprise that emphasizes community support and a return to basics through local farming and healthier food choices. Her emphasis on forging new paths and advocating for women's empowerment forms the backbone of this insightful episode.Key Takeaways:Resilience and Renewal: Cait Casey's journey from a military career to overcoming birth trauma highlights the power of resilience and the possibility of renewal in the face of adversity.Empowering Women: Cait is a vocal advocate for women's empowerment, urging women to reclaim their personal power and challenge societal norms.Community and Sustainability: Urban Homesteadings embodies Casey's mission to promote community support and sustainable living through locally-sourced, healthy foods.The Value of Self-Advocacy: Cait emphasizes the importance of self-advocacy, particularly for first-time mothers navigating complex healthcare systems.Balancing Career and Family: Cait’s story is a testament to successfully balancing professional ambitions with family life, redefining traditional roles and expectations.Notable Quotes:"The human experience can be very confusing. On one side of it, you're blessed with children, life, new love, and then on the other side, you're tested again.""You can't be anything for anybody until you show up for yourself.""I can be successful without holding myself to society's standards.""There's a power that comes from being a woman that no one can give you. It is organic.""We all have power. I think we just. It's taken, and then this shift happens where we start giving it up."Connect with Cait Casey:WebsiteConnect with Rudy Mawer:LinkedInInstagramFacebookTwitter

The human experience can be very confusing. In one side of it, you're blessed with children life and you love. And then on the other side, you're tested again. It was both the most amazing blessing and the hardest thing in the world to watch another woman carry a baby that I fully intended to carry. Being an entrepreneur or CEO is quite a lonely path. You have to make sacrifices. You have to figure out what's in here. here and when you start tapping in your own power and taking it back unapologetically things just

change the way that they function change you're militarized or weaponized you're a baker you've been through some hard shit and here you are so many women feel the mom gilds of you know they have to be everything for everybody and the truth is my name's rudy moore host of living the red life podcast and i'm here to change the way you see your life in your earpiece every single week. If you're ready to start living the red life, ditch the blue pill, take the red pill, join me in Wonderland and change your life. Welcome back to another episode of the Living the Red Life podcast for Insight Success. This is Ray Gutierrez. Today, we are focused in powerful women. We're actually on the verge of filming Kate Casey's episode. She's the founder and CEO of

Urban Homesteadings. Kate Casey, welcome to the show. How are you? Hi, welcome, Ray. Thanks for having me. Gosh, we are, you're going to film with Lauren your episode. Lauren is running studio two. We have quite the operation here. What are we going to learn about you today in your Woman of Power episode? So, Ray, I enlisted in the Air Force in 2008, and I have a really unique situation where I spent all of my time overseas. So I actually didn't live in the U.S. until 2018.

Wow. And when I came back to the States, I got really sick. and I couldn't figure out why. So the docs had recommended being gluten-free, but I had just left Italy, right? So I wasn't breaking up with pizza and pasta. And so fast forward... Sorry.

Yeah, exactly. And so fast-forward, my husband and I got pregnant with twins, and we did... I agree with beautiful. My pregnancy, I was very fortunate. Oh, I've met your husband. Oh, he's not bad either. Sorry, I had a tease, because we say, we are pregnant.

I immediately thought of your husband. I'm like, wow, he must have looked beautiful. God, he, yeah, he would have loved all the free snacks and extra attention. I love it. But, no, so my pregnancy was phenomenal. Towards the end of it, I was treated for preeclampsia, and I was given a medication that made it to where my body could not clot. Oh, boy.

And so when you're pregnant with multiples, you get tested for clotting markers, because there's usually complications. And so I didn't have an issue, but after they got the boys out, I internally hemorrhaged, and then I woke up in the middle of it. So, yeah, in recovery with five people in my abdomen trying to save my life, my husband in the room, and I lost my ability to have any more kids. but we still had another embryo from IVF. And so that really rocked me. Being prior service, the thought of not coming home one day is really not foreign. We have a will.

We get prepared for those things. But almost losing my life, having my kids in America in a hospital with a NICU was just not something that I was prepared to deal with. And so I hit a level of like rock bottom that I didn't even know existed. Wow. I know it's the human experience can be very confusing. In one side of it, you're blessed with children, life, and you love. And then on the other side, you're tested again. Uh-huh.

How do you think you passed the test while still ascending into your new life with your children? To be honest, I was waiting for someone to give me permission to. get up off the floor and at the same time or shortly after my doula from the birth with my twins offered to carry our third son um who's cedric james and i just it was both the most amazing blessing and the hardest thing in the world to um to watch another woman carry a baby that like I fully intended to carry. People talk about birth trauma, you know, in a way where it's common. And sadly, it is way too common.

But there's so much shame surrounding it that women don't outwardly talk about it. So it wasn't until I started talking about it that I realized there were so many women in my life that had similar stories I don't want to pivot to to being a misogynist and a male here how I've myself have experienced trauma at that level clearly I wasn't carrying the child but I was with a partner that was what advice would you give to to partners that are helping but also suffering in those tough times so for us it was hard we're a military family we didn't have our village and being stateside it's not the same as when you're overseas because you become really close. I wish that someone had supported

my husband so that even though he was struggling to support himself and me and my trauma so that I still had someone. Do you know what I mean? Like there were days where me and the kids didn't get out of bed. Like I had nine blood transfusions. I had an emergency hysterectomy. I wasn't supposed to be carrying anything. And I got set home with two NICU babies. And I don't mean to sound cocky, but right, I've never felt unequipped in my life. And I did. I just, all I had was what was in front of me. And the days blurred and the bottles blurred. And I guess my biggest hope is that other women realize that's okay. You know, there's so much. outside pressure for us to just get it together, you know, snap back once the baby's done.

Like who, you know, be grateful. You lived. Be grateful. You had a surrogate. And the word selfish is really, that's one that I really struggled with, was feeling like I was being selfish. And I wish someone had told me that that was okay. It's a part of the process, really. Yeah. What are you doing now to educate folks to avoid the trauma that you suffered? What is your goal today? What is your why? I mean, I hope that women advocate for themselves. It's really easy, especially as a first time mom, to get swept up in what you're being told. And that kind of lends to my sourdose specialty shop, right? When I was at my lowest point, I just needed something to get a hold of. And to be clear, I drove semis and tow trucks in the Air Force. I was not a baby.

her um inside joke yeah not even close but um and it sounds corny but it saved me well like being intentional with what i was making and the and how i was feeding myself and my family sure was like all of a sudden the lights came back on and i don't know i think every woman has that or just you end up in shock and you're like a deer in headlights and you can't move and then society's like well aren't you put back together yet yeah what took you so long like yeah where's your six pack why aren't you in the gym especially with social media now it's like well according to this you're you're just fine i'm like i took that 10 years ago exactly so now my platform is like going back to basics i make things the way my grandmother would have made them amen and as far as like

family goes i'm the anti-hustle i don't work sundays i don't work holidays i don't work holidays i spend them with my kids. Most bakers, their lives are miserable over the holidays. And they're always available in this instant gratification. But when you live overseas, it's a totally different vibe and lifestyle. And I spent a lot of time in Italy and Hawaii. And when I got back to the U.S., I was like, oh, my God, no wonder everybody's on Xanax. Because it's just constant, like, all the time. And I just don't want to set that example for my kids, not for my daughter, not for my sons. and it's a constant struggle every day to be like, I can be successful

without holding myself to society's standards. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, it's your own vortex field that folks call it a delusion or distortion field, but it's your own bubble. It's your own hemisphere. It's your own world. A lot of folks that ascend or watching this,

they understand that they have basically an energy force field around them and their energy basically extracts from them and they attract and interact with anything that answers into this hemisphere. So what you're feeling is quite, quite confirmed and affirmed, which is what brought you here. What are we going to learn in your Women in Power episode? Give us a preview. So part of it is my story before I got pregnant.

There was a lot of adversity that I faced while I was in the service. There was only ever one or two other females in my shop. And so I feel like that primed me to have a lot of grit. not as much grace as I would have liked to have learned to have with myself. And then the transition into motherhood was just completely opposite of anything that I had been prepared to do. You really have to step into a different energy when raising kids. And I waited until I was out of the service to do so. And I'm really glad that I did because when you have competing forces and they are competing,

you end up missing out. Oh, for sure. And so one thing that I had spoke to a couple of women at the Mastermind Conference about was, you know, when men want to have a family, not only is their life expectancy and their quality of life made better, but no one asks them. Like, do you want a career or do you want a family? And so my biggest message is not only am I coming for both, but I'm going to do it. apologetically and on my terms. Good for you. What do you, which one do you think I chose? I'm 42. Which one? A fan, well, a career. Yeah. That's what I'm like, which one do you think I chose? Yeah. I have any children. Yeah. But I own a house and I run five studios, but I don't own little

kids. So it's, I've got those happy days and then I've got those, what am I doing with my life days? You know what I mean? So like I, I, I, I'm assuming you heard me because that's, it's, it's, it's not troubling, but it is an experience. Like being an entrepreneur or CEO, as It's quite a lonely path. Like, you're not, you're, just because you're divine and you're, and you're destined to, like, do great things to feed hundreds of folks, hopefully, the good, good CEOs, you have to make sacrifices, like normal human sacrifices that were blessed to you since the day of the Garden of Eden.

You have to go a different path. And there's a much more different podcast for that, that theory. But back to you, I'd like to know, how, how are you now using that pain? and transforming it into a positivity. What is the name of your company? What is the name of your brand? How did you turn pain into progression? So our brand is urban homesteadings.

When I got back to the U.S., I went to California. Right on. And we have a lot of farming, a lot of agriculture, but I couldn't figure out how to tap into it to bring that into my home. Like when you go to the grocery store, everything doesn't say, you know, farmed or made in California.

Sure. And so when you think of homesteading, I thought I had to have 20 acres and cows and chickens and all these things when really when you take it back to urban everybody can do something as far as homesteading whether it's supporting your local farmers market or someone who we have egg dealers you know that we that we um our our egg dealers are some of our favorite ladies but it's so cool and so it's all about like rebuilding that community and that focus and so when you live overseas, right? The government mostly is responsible for people's health care. And so the

investment then into their food is different because they don't want to be floating the bill for type 2 diabetes and cancer, right? But then when you come to the U.S., it's very different and quite the opposite. But most people don't know. They've never lived anywhere else. And my thing is, my kids still have McDonald's once in a while, but I know, I'm informed, right, of what the payoff is, of what the tradeoff may be down the road. And so while our sourdough specialty shop is really about bringing real food back to real people, it's a huge piece of our food education. And my, Baker after all. Yeah. Well, and then, you know, dealing with birth trauma. Because so many of us women just walk around with it, and you really wouldn't know unless you walk up to a woman

and say, well, I had an emergency hysterectomy and almost died. And then they're like, oh, yeah, me too. I had a partner that almost out of an emergency hystericitor. We lost one because of that. Well, so where's the village? Like when women used to have babies, right, all the other women in the village would come together. The phone calls were like, oh, my God, you're expecting. And then no one called.

Yeah. When we broke the news. Yeah. No one called. No. People don't know how to handle trauma and they don't know how to support people with trauma. And I think there's such, there's such a vibe when you bring other women who are tapped into their internal power. But it gets taken from us at a very young age.

Around like six, we start separating the boys and the girls, right? And all of a sudden, the girls are supposed to be. Now you're speaking military. Yeah. Well, they're supposed to be polite and quiet and obedient. There is it structured to the world, ladies and gentlemen. There is a math and an equation to how this works. That's why the fact that you're militarized is just like amazing.

Continue, please. Yeah. I'm gassing you up. Yeah. Well, I appreciate it. But no, so it really is like we all have power. Oh, yeah. It's taken and we, and then this shift happens where we start giving it up because we want

to blend in. We want to be successful. And it's just, you have to figure out what's in here. And when you start tapping in your own power and taking it back unapologetically, you, things just change. The way that they function change. I mean, the women that I've met and I've connected with, I never, I just never thought I'd even be in a room with those types of women. You start partying season talking to breeding bushes. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it's amazing. Like when women come together, there's just, there's this power. Yeah. but we're so often separated and pitted against each other. I'll be honest, most of my toughest critics have been other women in my life.

Absolutely. Like, you had to start a bakery now. You have three small kids. How do you make the time? Oh, my God. That's if they sip on their wine. How do you make the time? Exactly.

Exactly. Or, okay, so I, ironically enough, took my LSAT. Now there's anything wrong with that. Day drinking is completely okay. Within recent. But no, I had taken my LSAT to go to law school at the same time that I started baking food for my family. Yeah, literally breaking bread. Exactly.

Breaking bread. Yeah. And rising, right? Rising is a big thing for us. But so what had happened was I passed my, or not passed, but I did well enough on my Elsa to go to law school. Hell yeah. I had my heart set on Gonzaga, so I went up to visit my sister Christina. Hi, Christina.

And we went and we went. walked the grounds of Gonzaga, and I just didn't, there was something missing. And I really struggled with imposter syndrome of like, who, who am I to run a bakery? Who am I to be a stay-at-home mom and become a CEO and, you know, employ my husband, right? Isn't that nuts? Like. And the children. Are you employed the children yet? Eventually. I know. You should I eat 12 yet? Went through 12. Get to work. You're a task break. Not. We're getting there. But a lot of people were like, well, who's going to take care of the kids? And it's like their whole other parent.

But there's no, I mean, and my husband has really stepped into his role as being a dad and a caretaker. But that wasn't the example that was set for him. Gosh, no. Right? And then when I turned down law school, I really struggled and felt like, who was I to turn down law school? Like, I should be so grateful, right, that I did well enough to go. But then it was just, do I want to spend, you know, 12, 13 hours in class? Do I want to miss out on this time with my kids?

To defend someone else's story, not your own. Exactly. I mean, come on. Exactly. But choosing what we want, I feel like it's something that women struggle with. Sure. When someone else is telling us what to do, like I was always told. I'd make a great lawyer.

And then when I joined the service, right, it's everything from hair to fingernails to makeup, you name it. And then I was surrounded by men, mostly men, all the time. So then I made this shift into coming up. Most of men that are having a hard time figuring out how to man, by the way. And they're just standing there out of attention figuring out.

Is this how you do it? Because this is the way I was thought or I get beaten, by the way. That's what's happening in my brain as a man. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it can be, yeah, it can be really complex.

Sure. And so then you're sitting there, like, transitioning into the civilian sector as a woman and trying to connect with other women. And then you get pregnant and come into motherhood at the same time. And it was just like, holy, like, holy, hell. Where was the, nobody warned me of this. You know what I mean? I know how to deal with a chem warfare attack. I know how to deal with an active shooter.

But I can't go to, like, mom's playgroup and have something constructive. to add to the conversation. For some odd reason, I just saw that Terminator 2 scene for Linda Hamilton. I'm fired. Like, you can handle that, but you can't handle

the Rugrat children running around the entire time. It's a lot. It is a lot. And some of them do it with more poised than others. And that's another thing. Like, being the perfect mom.

The perfect mom. Oh, my gosh. That's not possible. I mean, I love arts and crafts. I love cooking with my kids. But there are also times where it's like if I hear mom, One more time.

When I'm just trying to go to the bathroom with the Georgia, it's like, and that's okay, too. So many women feel the mom guilt of, you know, they have to be everything for everybody. And the truth is, you can't be anything for anybody until you show up for yourself. Amen to that. Let's, let's, we're going to end that with that strong exclamation mark. But I want you to look at this camera. And I want you to encourage or educate women that are in need of someone like you. How do they find you?

How do you become part of their journey? Well, you can always reach out to us at the website. It's urban homesteadings.com. You can send us a message. And please, even if it's something not having to do with the bakery, please reach out. I mean, if it ends up that we connect on some level or something that I'm saying resonates, please don't hesitate to reach out the village that you build ends up being so much stronger sometimes than the village that you're given and it's not worth waiting to find out that you

didn't build the support that you needed you know what I mean because when that moment comes the village is there you just got to build it yeah it's becoming less and less lonely thank you for doing that thank you for your time and energy I really appreciate the chat This is quite the way to wrap up my Friday. Kay Casey, thank you so much for being such an amazing woman of power, of in power. Actually, you know what? What defines you, the power or the woman? I always like to ask this.

Are you more women? Are you more power? Because you're militarized, you're weaponized. You're a baker. You've been through some hard shit. And here you are. I would say a woman because there is a power that comes from being a, woman that no one can give you. They can't instill in you. They can't provide it for you.

You have that is organic. Hell yeah. And that I mean, it's forged in the fire, right? And I want women to know like you, you don't come into that power without going through hell first. Do you lead in fire? Yes. Yes. Both. Always. Always. In that concludes our women in power episode, a red life edition. For Insight Success, I'm Ray Gutierrez.