Sense of Soul - Create a Conscious Life with New Traditions

Episode Date: December 29, 2023

Today on Sense of Soul podcast we have, Catori Vi Casary, she is a wellness advocate/mentor and is passionate about helping her clients create their healing plans through education and empowerment. Catori is a mom, partner, dog mom, reiki practitioner, fierce personal growth junkie, co-creator of The Healing Studio Parker, core envisioner and creator of Camp Catori, and educational travel blogger. She has dedicated herself to her wellness practice and her extensive training includes degrees in Ethnic Studies specializing in indigenous practice, History, and Communications with continued education and training in mindfulness psychology and collective trauma healing. She also works with plant medicine and is eager to share her knowledge and experiences with you and help you find the healing and spiritual harmony you deserve. In recent years Catori has been gifted with divine realizations and has become in tune with the collective consciousness/awakening of the divine feminine. Ridding herself of social media for 4 years and diving into indigenous education and wellness practices she was able to go inward and eliminate many unhealthy patterns, programmed ways of thinking and alter unserving relationships. This created empowerment and space to receive insights into her indigenous background which led to a full legal name change in April of 2023 that honors her rich and spiritual indigenous roots, the divine feminine, and her matrilineal line that includes the most incredible women and role models in her world. Catori Vi views her name change as an act of self-determination and cultural survivance in a system that continues to actively bury a genocidal HIS-tory and take away our ancestry to maintain the colonizer's narrative. She is eager to lend her services, educational tools, an ear, or mentorship to anyone who is on their spiritual ascension and needs support. Please contact her at any of the websites below. www.catorivi.com www.thehealingstudioparker.com www.campcatori.com

Hello, my soul-seeking friends. It's Shanna. Thank you so much for listening to Sense of Soul Podcast. Enlightening conversations with like-minded souls from around the world. Sharing their journey of finding their light within, turning pain into purpose, and awakening to their true sense of soul. If you like what you hear, show me some love and rate, like, and subscribe. And consider becoming a Sense of Soul Patreon member, where you will get ad-free episodes,

monthly circles, and much more. Now go grab your coffee, open your mind, heart, and soul. It's time to awaken. Today on Sense of Soul, I have my good friend Katori Vikasari. She is a wellness advocate mentor and is passionate about helping her clients create their healing plans through education and empowerment. Katori is a mom, a partner, a dog mom, a Reiki practitioner, a fierce personal growth junkie, and the co-creator of the healing studio Parker.

She is the core envisioner and creator of Camp Gatori, and she's an educational travel blogger. She has dedicated herself to her wellness practice and her extensive training, which includes degrees in ethnic studies specializing in indigenous practice, history and communication with continued education and training in mindfulness, psychology, and collective trauma healing. Katori works with plant medicine and is eager to share her knowledge and experiences with you and help you find the healing and spiritual harmony that you deserve. She's a dear friend of mine, and I can't wait to give her the space to share her journey with all of you. So please welcome Katori. Thank you so dear friend of mine, and I can't wait to give her the space to share her journey with all of you. So please welcome Katori. Thank you so much, Katori, for being with me.

I'm super excited. You know, I'm looking forward to 2024. And you and I had talked about, you know, how we're making new traditions in our lives with our new eyes, right? Yeah. And when I think about that, I think about you because you and I have talked so much about how some of the traditional holidays and stuff are no longer really serving a person who is aware of their true meaning and how it's really important to make your own traditions now and your own beliefs, you know, kind of off of what you experienced to be your truth. Yeah. And starting with that, your name wasn't always Katori. So how about we just start off, you know, and you can tell us a little bit about your story and a little bit about your background. Yeah, absolutely. And you're right. My name was not always Katori. Up until last year, I was referred to, my given name was Jennifer Lee Fuentes. I had a legal name change in 2023. So

going into 2024 will be new for me with my new name, but a little bit of my background. So I was born in Texas, Latino family, Latino background, raised in a very extreme religious organization, very fear-based doomsday organization. So you see a lot of depression, anxiety in the organization. So there was a lot of trauma happening around there for my parents as well, whether they realized it or not, my mom suffered from depression and looking back now, based on what I know, I believe that to be situational. When you are in a fear-based organization, things like depression and anxiety will be heightened. So that was part of my upbringing. Both of my parents were farm workers and their youth. And as they got older, they did well for themselves, kind of adhered to the American dream, worked hard, did well in their Christian faith.

Another thing is that I wasn't taught Spanish. I was very much brought up Latino, but in an assimilation kind of way where you adopt Christianity and you adopt the dominant narrative of the country that we live in. So with that, I wasn't taught Spanish for assimilation purposes. There was a lot of pressure to fit in, especially when they were young. And I think they were born like in the fifties. And so there was a lot happening as far as, you know, Mexican farm workers and just trying to fit in and get by and do better as, you know, Mexican farm workers and just trying to fit in and get by and do better for, you know, their children, which a lot of families in America are doing. So with that, there was already out of the gate, a disconnection for my heritage.

And that's just my, my Mexican Spanish heritage, not to even mention my indigenous heritage, which for those that don't know, so Latino is a mix of Spanish and indigenous. So mestizo, mixed blood, but in our country, more, more people adopt the Hispanic narrative that, Oh, I'm Hispanic. I'm from Spain because we live in a very Eurocentric country. I never knew that. Yeah. Mestizo, mestizaje, whether people of Latino descent know that or not, the majority of it is, oh, we're from Mexican descent. But what Mexican descent is, is the mixing of Spanish blood and indigenous blood. So if you go to Europe, you go to Spain,

very light skin. Everybody's very light skin. But if you go to Europe, you go to Spain, very light skin, everybody's very light skin. But if you go to Mexico and there's, you know, darker skin, that's the indigenous side. So you can see me now I have beautiful toasted, you know, darker skin. So that's my indigenous side. And so when you look at a Latinos, as we know about genetics, it can pop up, you know, differently with everybody. One sibling could be a little bit darker. One could be very light. But yeah, that's what that is. Wow.

So not only was I, I guess, kind of taken from my Latino side. Yeah. Language. That means that even the generations before that were taken from their indigenous side, their Native American side, which is intentional as we learn American history. So I felt a disconnect from my ancestors, my family. Just doing some of my own research, Mexico, when they were taken over by Spain, they were brought Catholicism. So not only were you not given the opportunity to learn the language, you probably weren't taught any of the indigenous beliefs they were trying to get rid of.

Yeah. I mean, we can go as far as using the term genocide when we talk about our indigenous Native American culture here. And I know your story as well, that when your ancestors came from Europe, they were forced to get baptized into the new Catholic Christian religion. So it was enforced. Mm-hmm. So going back to my name change and my spiritual journey, journey got a lot of education, a lot of insights and learned about my indigenous heritage. And I had been considering a name change for years, just because I never really identified with Jennifer, a beautiful name, sure. And I'm very grateful for it and this life that my parents gave me, but I just never really identified with it. And, you know,

when you think about it, I was born in 1980. It was the most popular, you know, name that year. So I had been thinking about it for a long time. And once I received this education, I also had some spiritual insights. The name Katori was, I think, kind of gifted to me and resonated. And I sat with it for a while before I went the legal route, but I finally did in 2023. So I went with Katori, my middle name, V, V-I, and my last name, Kasari. I mean, if I'm going to change my name,

I might as well change it all. So I went along with that. And there's meaning to each of those names as well. But Katori is indigenous for, it's Native American for spirit, which also just represents my spiritual journey that I've been gifted. There are extreme parts of all religions. Every religion has this radical group, right? And it is extremely hard to get out. I'm helping someone with their ancestry and I just happened to fall into the

different very extreme cults. But when you're born into something, and I think that my listeners know this about me, I talk about this a lot. There's like this religious trauma syndrome that I have been experiencing in letting go and really wrapping my head around the fact that a lot of the things that I believed in, like deeply believed in, even brought people in, made my children have this religion before they were even born, before they even had a choice. I think in my case, it was, and like you said, it was a sect that is just a little bit more extreme than some of the other sects but I for me it was a blessing and a curse because first of all the curse of course was in this extreme religion if you decide to leave then you're ousted you're you're done you

might as well be dead to these people and that's including like family. So everybody that I grew up with were no longer in contact because I'm the bad seed. I'm the one that maybe could, I don't know, potentially put ideas in people's head. Not that I'd be the one putting the ideas, but just, you know, using the freedom of thought and our critical thinking and being like, Hey, this doesn't feel right. Maybe this isn't right. You know, asking those questions. And so because of that, I didn't have a middle ground. Okay. Well I can adopt this. Some people did. And luckily in my family, and again, like I said, blessing cursed, it's not luckily, I guess, because I don't necessarily have parents in my life. Like people do they're alive, they're healthy, they're well, but they, in their heart and their faith cannot be in contact with me because of

my beliefs or non-beliefs. I don't adopt what they do. How did you, how did you escape? There might be a lot of people out there that you think that they can't and that the other side is very lonely and scary and they'll never be happy. Well, and that's the thing too, in our organization, we were trained that it is scary out there. That is, if you're not in the organization, you are not going to do well. You're going to get diseased. You're going to like, you know, just the fear is instilled in you that I had nightmares, Armageddon nightmares until my early twenties.

But I got out. I was lucky enough to have extended family, you know, cousins, mostly women on my mom's side of the family that were always there for me, even though growing up, we didn't associate with them much because again, they weren't part of the organization or the religion. So I had that support, but being in the part now of my journey, I genuinely feel like I have some ancestors out there and it's indigenous ancestors that somehow gifted me with my conscious and my consciousness to be like, Hey, this doesn't feel right. It's not right. I always say that, that I feel like my ancestors,

like I almost imagine like their hand, like going through the lineages and just grabbing me and saying, you're going to be awake. You're going to do this for all of us. And I think it's true because I know you and I have talked a lot about epigenetics and, you know, if we know that trauma can stay in a bloodline for 15 to 20 generations, so can everything else. So can the good things, you know, so can those gifts. And so I think that that's exactly what it was. Yeah. How did you break those patterns, though, on your own with, you know, so little? I didn't break all of them.

So, I mean, there was still working. We're, we're a constant, you know, journey. So we're all a work in progress, but you know, and that's what it is. It's a process. It might not even be done in this lifetime for me. I don't know, but I know that I'm in a much better place. I know that I've had support. I know that I've always been a big reader. Like before my journey became very spiritual, it was very psychological and very sociological. It started with like, okay, I got to cure myself. Let me, let me get the details. Let me get the methods and the theories. You're very intelligent. Thank you. And that's what led to the spiritual part, you know, and as I feel like I've evolved You're very intelligent. And I feel really grateful that I'm at a point where, you know, we were raised in the Western world. We're like, okay, well, we have to do this. You got to go to A to B to C and you have to have this to Jesus. God take the wheel, whatever. But however you put it, just making the space. And once I made that space, I was introduced like, boom, one after the other. And we've talked about synchronicities. And when you just let go, then you're not thinking about the next step and what you have to do. You're just opening your eyes and being aware. And that's when people like you came into my life or my partner came into my life or even my son came into my life. And they all have served. Everybody in my life right now serves a very special, meaningful, fulfilling, and spiritual purpose.

That's amazing. Because you know what? Some people spend their whole lives trying to live up to their parents' dreams. Yeah. We did not come into this earth, right, to live anybody else's dreams or live up to anybody's expectations. Yeah. It's a trap. It's a trap.

In my son's room, I always had it. It's like, don't grow up. It's a trap. Was there any major shift for you that occurred? Because a lot of times people have these aha moments or something really that just, you know, expanded their mind to the point where they were like, holy crap. Yeah. Like I have a purpose.

Yeah. You know, I'm here for a reason. Yeah. I want to say that I've had a couple, one, the birth of my son. He is, I'm pretty sure we were together in past lives. We're connected. That's my, that's my heart. Obviously, anybody that's become a parent stating that there are spirit guides, not the other way around. Granted, we're here to guide them in this life, but not control them, not tell them this is your religion, this is your faith, this is who you are, what you do, blah, blah, but giving them those options. And in turn, we find our own liberation. And so that was a huge one for me. More recently in 2019,

my partner and I were getting married. We had a wedding and I had a huge awakening during that process. It was a wedding in New Orleans and it was very traditional. Where was it at? Do you remember? It was in New Orleans. So it was at an airport. Oh, okay. It was, I can't even remember. It was at an airport? Yeah. Well, of course we're both in aviation. So that makes sense. But it was at the small private airport by the lake. I think it was Lakeside airport. Oh, Lakeside. Yeah. And it's a beautiful place, beautiful venue, great fun. But

we did the second line and did the things, but it got a little too traditional when him and some friends decided to go to a strip club, which I wasn't okay with. But not just that, it was that I never really romanticized about a wedding. As a girl, sometimes you're always like, oh, I'm going to get married. This is going to be my song. I think that was probably the extent for me. And as I believe I grew up and got more knowledgeable about marriage as an institution and not exactly liberating for women in its history, I just had a lot of triggers. First of all, my parents are not in my

life, so they weren't there and that was something, but I had a relative give me away and I look back on it now and I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Again, that was just traditional. That's what you do. Think about it. Think about it. Think about it. What are you talking about? I mean, I know it sounds ridiculous, but I felt like a prized cow. You know what I mean? Like I was going to be traded for two goats and a chicken or something, you know, that's just, and I, it might've been something in my ancestral lineage that was just very like, Whoa, you know, stop the breaks. And so that was a big wake up call and not just what was going on with my partner and I, because I was kind of disappointed in some of that behavior, but who am I? How did I get myself in this situation? Because this is my

life, right? I made decisions at some point I needed to put my foot down and say, I don't feel comfortable with this, but I didn't. And so I had to deep dive into why I didn't. What is it about my maybe not enoughness that I needed to work on? And so there was a ceremony, but we never legally got married. We never filed the paperwork. And in reality, I just wasn't ready. I wasn't okay with the institution of marriage and I still am not for what it represents mostly today, a partnership. Absolutely. But yes, that was a big one. And after that, I went deep diving into my process of like, okay, what's what, how did I get to this point? And there's certain people in our lives that were in our lives that, you know, weren't really there for us. You know, it was, there's just, there was a lot of unhealthiness

happening and that was just the big blow up for me, but which, which was great because like I said, I, I started deep diving into my spiritual journey, trim fat. There was a lot of people, we got off of social media immediately, my partner and I, and we are still not on social media. I'm dragging my feet. I know I'm going to have to get back on at some point, but I think that was an essential part of it. Just not getting involved in the chaos and the nonsense and the most traditions. The brainwashing. Yeah. I mean, and the thing is, is that mindless traditions are so ignorant to many of the things that we're doing. And I had this moment with Thanksgiving years ago, and it was that same feeling. It was like, am I really going to pretend now that I'm aware of this?

It just didn't feel right. I always talk about that discernment and I think that's kind of what you were experiencing you know getting married and thinking wait a minute like this doesn't feel right in my body you know but a lot of this is kept from us you know and we're we're going through all these motions I mean my kids have even brought to my awareness and I love that part of social media that they can actually get out this information to the mass. But my kids have told me about story rhymes that we've sang our whole lives that are based on racist innuendo. Here's the thing. Of course, if we turn our cheeks to history because it's too painful to see, that energy just remains stagnant.

Yeah. It doesn't go away. It's not healed. It's just there. And not only that, it's in your subconscious mind. You are actually playing it out every day of your life unknowingly. Yep. Because of ignorance.

You're accepting it. You're adhering to it. You're part of the problem. There's no gray area. There's no gray area. You're part of the problem or you're going to speak up, which gets uncomfortable. It does. Right. So when you're faced with that discernment of how your body feels, if you choose to ignore it, I mean, good luck. I mean, that shit turns into pain, ulcers, cancer, God knows what. Oh, exactly. You're right. It does. It sits.

It stays. Like you said, it turns and manifests into not pretty things in the body and in the world. Right. It is breaking those patterns that shoot off that we have no idea that is actually living in us. And then when you actually become conscious to it, and then you actually make a change in your life. I mean, you don't have to change your name. I know, mine's a bit extreme. Mine was pretty literal.

Yeah, right. But what other traditions or what other things in your life do you feel like it's important for you to bring your full consciousness to and decide to do different? So I know we talked about this one, this past Thanksgiving, we didn't celebrate quotations Thanksgiving. We're pretty grateful every day. And when you think about what, oh, oh no, I just like the holiday because we get to be with family and be grateful. Well, what the hell are you doing for the other 364 days out of the year? You know?

Yeah. And I get it. Like the extended family, you get to see them. But if you're not living a life of gratitude and you got to wait for one day and it's based on a false narrative, then I don't know what. Anyhow, so we've been transitioning away from that for a while. And this year we officially honored the National Day of Mourning, which is among indigenous peoples. And for that, we kind of like Day of the Dead, we got some photos and candles and just honored the ancestors that we know, but mostly the ones that we don't, especially like,

for example, myself and with my indigenous background that I have pretty much very little knowledge about. Challenge me. I'm serious. I will. I will. Please. I want to. But you have to understand when it comes to like indigenous history, it's only most of it's only going to go so far, you know, because it was very intentional erasing that.

I've done this one girl's ancestry where none of them had last names. They all had like Heather, less or cloud, you know, I mean, all had just their indigenous name. I think that says a lot as to it being non-matriarchal or patriarchal you know how the term it takes the village indigenous culture like there was aunties and uncles were were neighbors that you know it wasn't by name or lineage it wasn't like game drones kind of stuff you know you know i did learn also that i think it was in norway is where i learned, but at one point they didn't have last names. And so the rest of the world were like, all right, well,

if we're going to work with you, like we have to be able to, to separate them. So we need last names. So they're like, oh, okay, well, we'll just say this is Thompson. This is Tom's son farm. And this is John's son's farm. And sometimes they put daughter at the end of it in matriarchal societies prior to patriarchal societies prior to biblical history or whatever matriarchal societies everything was held in the woman's name the land everything even marriages weren't like for life it was an understanding like here we are going to create this child we're going

to intentionally make this family and then there wasn't anything like like here, we're going to create this child. We're going to intentionally make this family. And then there wasn't anything like, oh, well now we're getting divorced and it's ugly. Like, oh, this ran its course. And then it's natural thing is in matriarchal societies. A lot of times they didn't know who the father was because of the freedom of autonomy of your body, especially in women, which doesn't happen in patriarchal societies. But the point is, is that when we went to patriarchal societies, then they wanted to know whose son that was. And so that's when they started taking the man's name instead of the woman's. And in many Hispanic, I mean, I don't know if I'm saying the right word. Is it Hispanic? Am I saying that? Or is that Latina? I think it's most cultures. Many are Costa Rica.

They all have two names and they always take the mother's maiden name and then the father's. So the difference is, so another thing is there's a lot of ways as we know how people identify nowadays. I identify as ex-Icana, which is Icana as female, but ex is representative of my indigenous roots. Okay. That were, yeah, I do. And then Hispanic is a term that I'm not comfortable with. Okay. Why? So because, and then a lot of people don't know this. Yeah. I just learned it recently too. And once I learned that I started to feel uncomfortable about it. Right. Because as we know in the United States of America, that we are very Eurocentric, you know, we're very, you know, French, British, Dutch, Spanish. And so when you're identifying with Hispanic, Hispanic Spain, you're saying, oh, I'm going to adhere to the

Eurocentricity instead of my indigenous roots or my mestizo, my half Spanish, half indigenous. Thank you for that. Ethnicity is tricky in this country and so i i felt tricked for sure it is and i still have yet to find anybody who has a colorful tree wheel of dna like mine does so i'm like feeling like i'm connected to everything you know one thing that they categorized that at was just mulatto. And some people really take offense to that word and I get it, but literally that was one of the races. And it was, this was for like probably over a hundred years. So it was a real thing. And, you know, at one

point there were more of mixed race than there was not. Understand. So during, you know, the late 1800s, early 1900s, after the Treaty of Guadalupe, a little history lesson, after the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in the mid 1800s, there was starting to become a very negative connotation of Mexican Americans. And so like, oh, Mexican. Oh, that's that it's a negative connotation. So by adopting the Hispanic, you're almost abandoning the Mexican by the assimilation purposes. So that was another reason. So there you go. Like we don't know these things. And so we're going around connecting ourselves to countries that maybe we don't know these things and so we're going around connecting ourselves to countries that maybe we don't even really align with yeah and latino is pretty easy latino latina latinx includes

you know everybody um is basically you're of latin descent you know so you know some of those little smaller countries that we hear of that you know united states is still very connected with like puerto rico and um you know one i get one in my in my um journey i discovered was saint domine which is now you know haiti and we you know at that time was owned by france and actually there was a revolution and they won um isn't this oh but but it's not common history you know isn't that so it's really sad though if you look that up today now today do you know that haiti pays france still today wow this is a poor country that has suffered and children that are starving. There are so many children.

Being punished for winning all these years ago. Exactly. They're still paying France. This is why they're not thriving because they've been paying France off for all of these years. So when we think like, oh, enslavement, that was so long ago, we're so past it. No, we're not. It wasn't that long ago at all. That's an enslavement. And when you're paying, that's an enslavement. And it shows in the society. And there's so many orphans because of all of the natural disasters that they've had.

They've never been able to catch up. I'm sure that there's a, and I don't know the whole history of Haiti, but I would be very interested to learn more as to why. It breaks my heart. Because it's not, I'm positive, it's not like, oh, they're in debt, they can just get out. Nope. It was over protection. Like, I mean, they could have went back and fought them again, you know? The systems are in place to keep the poor, poor and the rich, rich.

That's what we do now. And so. It doesn't sit right with me. See, this is what I'm talking about. This discernment we're talking about it and I could feel it rising in me. Right. And it's a fire. Yeah. Fire. And that fire, I can't ignore that fire. Like I want to see change in the world. Yeah. Right. And I know that I can't make the world change. So the only person I can work on is me and in doing that in me,

in my house. And that's what you're doing. And that's where you start, right? You have to start with you. And for me, it was education. So after that wedding debacle, what a big, big party, a lot of fun had. But after that, I decided to go back to school. I went for psychology, but I took an ethnic studies class and I just fell in love with learning. So ethnic studies, for those that don't know, I consider it more of a marginalized American history. So we have our history, right? Our American history, dominant narrative history. And then we have our hyphenated, our Native Americans, our Asian Americans, our African Americans. That's still legitimately history that is politically kept out of mainstream, you know, basic public schools today.

Girl, it's shocking, right? Yep. Yeah. Well, but the thing is, it is and it's not because it explains a lot of how we live today and how the structures are at play. And what the school systems are totally structured around and why. Yeah. I mean, we've talked about this at length. Yeah. But what was interesting for me and what helped on my journey, my spiritual journey is not only did I obviously learn about American history and marginalized people's American history and also gender, of course, is what we say. But I got to learn about me. That's how I found out about me.

But I had to pay thousands of dollars to learn my own history, which is part of my spiritual journey, a huge part of my spiritual journey. So that's also something that's kept from us. And then we don't know who we are we can't heal ourselves we can't help ourselves you know to the highest extent and you know it keeps us stuck and what do we do when we're stuck we're just going to be part of the same cycle that's set up for us by default and so that's when we don't ask the questions so last night kinsley she missed a few days of school because she's sick again. This child has been so sick.

She was like, I have to catch up for the last two days on some homework. She's like, you want to help me? So she puts on her laptop from school and she connects it to what she has to do. And it's CNN, like 10 minute clips. So it's like their morning news that they listen to. I was, I was like, you watch this.

What was it? Exactly. I guess what everyone else is watching a lot on the news. I mean, it's like the last one I can remember specifically was like talking about Biden going to Ukraine. And then they were talking about like something with the environment and then it went back to you know will Biden be you know give Zelensky the money and I'm like you watch this every day at school like I don't watch the news

because it's toxic well Shanna that's what's. And brainwashing. But that's me. Yeah, you have to be so careful of what you put in your brain. We both know that. We know this. But especially for kids that are so susceptible to everything. And then they have to write about it. So they really have to let it sink in because they have to pay attention. And so they have to write three different things about it. So they have to write something that they never heard before, something that connects them

with it, like something that's in common with their life. What the heck? It's so scary to me that even, you know, people our age and older and younger, they will watch this day, hours a day. And it's like, they, many people consider it being informed. There is a line of knowing what's going on in the world and ingesting it to where it's, there's no middle ground either. You have one network that's going this way and the other one that way, and there's no neutral ground. And so you're only getting one perspective really on everything, no matter which way you're going. And it is, I mean, just like the history that's been told, it's selective and intentional. Yes, exactly. And that's one, i think with you too and part of the journey and being awakened is that you start to see that they're the same they're not you're mongering they're the same they're

fear-based they're fear-based and they divide us and what is like one of the number one things of war divide and conquer there it's actively dividing us. So we cannot consciously come together and make better decisions. And they're literally feeding this to children. Yeah. And it's part of the system. That's part of it. But when you think about it, you and I were raised the same way. Totally. But our parents were not aware. Now that I'm aware, it doesn't feel right in my body. I know. I talked to Easton all the time. He came home. I can't remember what it was, but it was something about this scientist saying that he firmly believes that there's no intelligent life outside of this planet in the universe and universes. And I'm like, Oh my God. I was like,

sweetheart, it's not even up for debate anymore. Like it is so common knowledge, but anyhow, I can't remember what it was. We were talking about that and it led him to something else. He's like, mom, I get it. They talk about Christopher Columbus, but they don't say good things about him. I was like, okay, well, tell me what you've learned about Mount Blue Sky or Miami or Chief Seattle. And he was quiet. I was like, exactly. Just because they're saying he didn't do right, they're still talking about him. That means that everybody else, the other narratives are still outside. And you have to go search for those. Yeah.

I mean, I do see some things that they're improving. I do. I have seen some things and I've been, that's good. You know, and there are more people in our generation that are teaching. And so they're awakening as well. And they have children that they probably are concerned about too. And these children are not conditioned like we were. They're asking questions. They're more curious. They're seeking and they are not just going to lay down and take it. They came into this world, I think, to change it.

And a beautiful time too. You know, we're passing into the age of consciousness. They're just a product of that. And that's the thing I tell Easton, I was like, critical thinking, they're not going to teach you that you question everything, including me, including your father, every doctor, every authority you do, you know, and figure it out. But that is how we are conditioned here, you know? And that's why to become awakened and to use a voice, especially in a patriarchal world as a woman, it makes you the oddball. It makes you unpopular. Agent Smith effect from The Matrix. It's like when everybody's there hanging out talking about, I don't know, football or whatever. And then you come in like, Hey, but what about this important topic? Should

we consider this? Oh no, we don't need to talk about that. They're like gatekeepers, you know, from change. And that's what I feel like the system is creating gatekeepers for change and consciousness and from an early age. Well, and I know this, and that was another blessing from being raised in this extremist organization religion is that we were intentionally taught to essentially not critically think like, here's the truth. That's considered the truth. You go outside of that. You're wrong. That's it. You can only question so much and then call it faith. To not trust that intuition, that discernment inside of you. And so from an early age, because of that, maybe being a rebel deep down, I was like,

no, I'm going to question everything. So that was the blessing. Who knows? Maybe you're an ancestor reincarnated. Yeah. I've thought that. Who's like, oh, hell no. I'm not doing the marriage thing. I'm not doing this. I'm not doing that. I'm just going to be free. I'm going to go out there and teach people and change my life, change my lineage for the future. Going into this next year, you have so many new things to embrace with the energy of your name, which that's what it is. I mean, it's the energy. It's time to do different. These old stories, these old narratives no longer serve us. Nope. We forget that we get to choose to adopt them.

Like I was hanging out with Easton and luckily Easton, my son and I have a good relationship. So his friends will come over and we're talking about something, the school. And I was like, how exciting is it that when you guys are older, you get to choose your career, your faith, your religion, your partner, your car. And they're like, wait, what? We get to choose a religion? And I'm like, oh, crap. Well, your parents might not want me to tell you that.

But yeah, when you're older, you choose all the things. You're going to be primed and prepped for whatever, depending on the household, what they want you to do. But you get a choice and choose wisely. And I think that was a huge thing about changing my name. It's just, I changed my, my vibration, my life. I adhered to something that, that set well with me. It was an act of self-determination, like this is me and cultural survivance because especially for Latinos most of us don't see the indigenous in us and and I did and I do and my ancestors gave that to me and so for me that was cultural survivance and in a country that's trying to take, you know, indigeneity away, which is also very interesting because as we evolve in our healing practices, a lot of those are going towards indigenous healing. We have acupuncture, you have people doing ayahuasca ceremonies because

Western medicine isn't cutting it, you know Meditation, that's an indigenous ritual. And talk about reclaiming your own power. Yeah. I think I told you last year I went to Lima. And then this year, like I said, we just got back from Japan. And everywhere we go, I try to do research on the indigenous cultures. And so in Lima and in Japan, both of them are oppressed as they are here in the United States and endangered and in some areas, as far as like the language and the culture and the traditions. And it's almost as if the powers that be are

trying to eliminate that indigenous wisdom because they're paying power in it yeah it doesn't it doesn't it's not financially you know paying into their system exactly if anything it's helping people you know but i thought i just thought that was interesting because there is a power and a wisdom to all of that because it empowers the individual and connects with that spiritual source and you don't need the in-between man. There's the sovereignty where you find that wisdom that says, holy shit, I have a choice. Yeah.

That's self-sovereignty. You know, to the body and the body's like, no, this is not right. It's a global issue too. But again, it's really inspiring and to get the education and see it, you know, like as you become awakened, you see the bigger picture, like, oh my gosh, and all the little ways the power is trying to be taken from us when we had it all along, when we still do. Every person does, you know, from us. So tell me about, you know, I, I, I haven't been out to visit your land yet and your little,

your little place, but I can't wait. Tell the listeners about this and, you know, why it's important to you and what was your, really your desire, you know, that you were seeking with this place. So I had a dream of having a little tiny home for years now. And for those that are no tiny home, I mean, it's seriously a tiny home. It's on a trailer. It's 160 square feet. The one that we have, we just got built at sleep six. So we did really well with this space, but it's on six acres of land in South Colorado, right outside of Fort Garland. And by next summer, I want to be hosting wellness retreats that will include Reiki and yoga and meditation spots. There's so much to do in the area.

We have the Great Sand Dunes. We have hiking falls. And this land was really sacred for the original Diné, Navajo Nation. And it was also part of Oot Nation. Unfortunately, Fort Garland was created to keep the indigenous peoples out of the areas with the help of Sally the Buffalo Sold soldiers, which is also another interesting American conundrum. But yeah, but the land itself, I was looking for years for land years and stumbled upon this by I think synchronicity, it was just timing and everything lined up and it has sage all over and courts and mountain views. And you can just escape. You can hear the vibration, like in the middle of the night on a full moon, even when it's not a full moon, you, if you're just silent, you can hear the, like the little crackling of the energy. I feel like it's just, it's really special and spiritual with me. And I

feel really rejuvenated when I'm out there. And I'm sure you could have a lot of UFO hunting going on there. So for those that are interested, we also have a UFO watchtower not far from there. That's a known vortex too. Yes, it is. It is a known vortex. We're in a dark sky zone. So you can see the Milky Way, everything. But there's a lot of anomaly activity out there, which is pretty juicy. I just met on Diana Pasuka. She's the author of American Cosmic, the one that went to the Vatican that I'm always talking about. And she wrote a new book called Encounters. Oh, my God. Did you read the new book?

I did. I read it twice, and I've already interviewed her yesterday. And she changed my perspective on a lot of things that book did. Because basically what she did is she interviewed many, many people in their encounters. And they all had a lot of spirituality going on around it. It wasn't just someone that went out and saw a UFO or had an experience with an extraterrestrial. There was knowings going on, synchronicity going on. There was the spiritual aspect.

Especially with the Vatican stuff you were telling me about. Because I went to the Vatican, what was it, like two months ago? Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot of symbolism floating around there. So I mentioned this to my daughter last night. I was like, she really makes this connect. I was telling her about my interview and I said, she really makes this connection for me that all paranormal

may not just be spirits of humans. This paranormal could be extraterrestrial like very much so the the synchronicity that's leading you may not be from some spiritual god it could be from some extraterrestrial and my daughter was like well yeah i i agree with that and i was like you do well when you add the element of logic i mean yes i mean i know as soon as she said it, I totally was like, yeah, of course. But we're so conditioned to believe one way. It's so hard to shed that. It really is. And well, I know.

So both of us, we've studied like ancient civilization, you know, stuff. And I think it's so interesting because that's the next place my spiritual journey is taking me. It takes me. It took me to my indigeneity and learn about your indigeneity, uh, worldwide cultures in the, the cliff dwellings and the hieroglyphs with these images that are pretty consistent around the ancient civilizations around the world lead to non-earthly beings oh absolutely i mean it's very clear i mean just look at their walls i mean they're obviously not from here they're hybrid people you know if you don't want to say half alien they're they definitely

depicted that they were half animal yeah exactly you know i mean just just look at it you know look at it read it do the research you know why would we make it anything else and then now you know reading some of those ancient texts like the sumerian texts you know during that time i mean it aligns with the bible which gives the bible a little bit of credibility but except for the fact how the story was told but you know some of those events you know I mean, even in the Popovu, you know, is there the Great Flood? I mean, there's all of these texts that actually hold some history, you know, when it comes to the destruction of Earth and its cycles.

Yeah. It's exciting to me. It is to me too. I totally geek out. But, you know, do you think that we're just evolving to the point to where once we do awaken and become conscious, we start to remember these things? I go along with the theory and our DNA, we can hold so much information as much as the universe can hold all within one body and DNA. There you go.

So before lighting that up, we're tapping into that. We have all of the knowledge within us. We feel like what we have to do is break away that conditioning, that programming, and let the rest come forth. Right. And having to do with the subconscious and how people can see certain things. There was that experiment or study that they did where they would just have somebody go walk around the block, ask them questions like, what time was it? What did it say on this board?

Blah, blah, blah, blah. They couldn't answer. They just answered little things. But then they put them under hypnosis and they can give the most minute details of the things that they saw. So that tells you a lot about what we're conscious about and what our subconscious is capable of doing. Isn't that so interesting? That's crazy. Yeah. Okay. Did you know that Jennifer Mitchell is so sweet? I love her dearly. She is gifting one of my listeners a free QHHT session with her. That's awesome. I just think it's remarkable. I mean, because you go under into hypnosis, you know, to visit your past lives. But one of the things I thought was so cool is you ask

questions to your higher self and you pre-make these questions. Yeah. That sounds awesome. And yeah. And all you have to do, you know, in order to have a chance to win this is you can either review on Apple podcast or you can go to YouTube and like comment underneath her episode, take a snapshot and then tag me sense of soul SOS on Instagram. And then I'm going to put you in a drawing. Nice. Yeah. Yeah. But a free session with her,

I mean, priceless. I know that's been on my list too. Okay. We'll put yourself in there. Yeah. Just reaching these areas are not easy. So, you know, getting a little guided help and Jennifer Mitchell holds a very great space for you. So I definitely would recommend. And she

just has such great intentions behind it. Like she really just wants to see people raise their consciousness and find out who they are and why. And it's for the collective. So when you taught me Reiki, I'm like, who needs it? If I can help. I know. Tell everybody about your new little place that you got that you're going to start doing sessions locally. Yeah.

So I have a place. I have a partner. We both have a place called the healing studio Parker here in Parker, Colorado, small little studio. We do Reiki try to make it affordable for everybody reasonable. We have package deals. So that's something else we have in, in the works. We are moving studios and we'll have an open house on January 31st. So for any practitioners, it's also a small space that, you know, the business is just kind of up and running, just helping who we can. But also if there's any massage therapists out there, other, other Reiki practitioners that

are interested in subletting the space for the day or a few hours, feel free to come in, introduce yourself. I'd love to chat with you and see if you would like to use the space as well. Oh, yes. I love it. Yeah. And what is the website? Of course. So you can go to the healing studio, parker.com.

You can also go to camp tori.com to get some more information about the retreat. We are renting out the tiny home, you know, to anybody that's interested as well as like I said, next summer, we'll be hosting a couple of retreats to get that in order. Also, you can go to my personal website. That's Katori V.com and C-A-T-O-R-I-V-I.com. And there I'm going to be focusing a lot more on my educational travel blog, possibly podcasting a little bit next year. Once I keep everything else I have going on in order. But also just like Shanna's made a great community. If you happen to be on your spiritual

journey, sometimes it can get lonely because you start being awake and not everybody understands. Shanna, I know you and I have talked a lot about that, that, you know, sometimes we're talking about something and other people are like, what are you talking about? You've gone off the deep end. So if you just need somebody to reach out to you, also feel free to contact me on my website and we can set up a chat and know that you're not alone out there in your journey. I love you so much. I'm so blessed that you came into my life.

I know. It was synchronicity. Yes, it was through my prayer guest, Dixie. Yeah, she's actually led me to many amazing souls. Yeah. Well, you've created such a community. Honestly, I don't know how I would be where I'm at without like all of your guests and modalities that you've introduced. It's just incredible.

So we're all super grateful for you. I know I am. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Divinely put here at the same time to help each other along the journey. That's right. Yep.

Thanks so much for joining me. Thank you. All right. Happy New Year too. Happy New Year. Thanks for listening to Sense of Soul Podcast. And thanks to our special guests for joining me. If you want more of Sense of Soul,

check out my website at www.mysenseofsoul.com where you can work with me one-on-one or help support Sense of Soul Podcast by donating to my coffee fund. Thanks for listening.