Kate A. Bares - Soul Integration Method

This unnerves me:
I read an article about a woman with over 500k followers who lost both her social media accounts with no warning or explanation - she just woke up and they were GONE.

Talk about a wake up call! She had no way to reach her people. 500k people y'all. 😩

Social media is borrowed land. We don't own it and it can go away at any time. I don't have 500k followers but I do have YOU and that matters to me.

If you want to make sure we stay connected no matter what happens out here, you're always welcome in my email community. We're small but mighty. 💪 I share a couple of times a week - always what's on my heart or my head. Often funny. Hopefully inspiring. Never spammy. Completely private.

I'd love to have you! See comments for link.👇
~kab 💗

I just got back from a 4-day cruise with 5 of my Soul Sisters - girlfriends who've known each other most of our life, some since kindergarten. That's a long time when you're 65. 😉

There's something so comforting about being with your "no matter what" people - the ones who KNOW you and still love you, flaws and all. The ones who hold the mirror up to parts of ourselves WE don't even like sometimes, so we can heal a little more.
All of those things happened on this trip - some were quiet little moments, some were messy, some were hilarious - all of them mattered.

The beautiful thing about life-time friendships is they grow and stretch and change WITH you - at least the healthy ones do.
But just like relationships with family, they can be challenging if you hold each other in a perception or expectation of who you've BEEN rather than who you ARE.

Great example: I changed my name from Katherine to Kate when I was 7, but my sister who's 4 years older than me didn't call me Kate until her children called me "Aunt Kate" - 20 years later! And that was just my name.

The same thing happens when we hold onto old perceptions and judgments of ourselves and others. We can get stuck in who we think we're supposed to be or who others need us to be, and lose our sense of who we ARE.

We're still in there. We just need to know how to find her again.
I didn't always feel worthy of showing up in ALL of myself, but thanks to my Return To Self, I'm more free to be messy, human, perfectly imperfect ME than I've ever been in my life - and I like her!

She's REAL. She takes no bu****it. She's got the potty-est potty mouth. And she loves her people fiercely.

By the end of our cruise, we'd named ourselves like the 7 dwarves: Bossy, Goofy, Salty, Sassy, Spicy, Crabby...

Guess which one I was? 😎

When was the first time you knew your life was your own?

Someone asked me that once and my first answer was "I ALWAYS knew my life was my own.", because a part of me absolutely did. That very independent, very determined "I do it myself" little one who knew what she wanted and had no problem stomping her foot for it.

Oh, believe me - she's still in there, but the more I thought about the question, the more I realized I stopped trusting that confident, knowing little spit-fire part of me when I was really young.

When I was 27 and remodeling my first house, I was running floor samples by my mom and she said, "Oh, you don't want a dark floor."

I can still remember how it felt in my body. Not because she offered her opinion, but because it actually registered that someone else was telling what I didn't want!

It smacked me awake a little. I don't know, maybe that was my brain finally fully forming (as happens about that age), but it hit me that I didn't trust myself and my own opinion as much as I trusted hers.

And right there in that moment, I declared outloud for the first time in my life (or at least in a long time) that I absolutely DID want a dark floor!

It might sound silly in light of the big, deep healing breakthroughs I've experienced in my life, but that was a huge turning point. I took back a piece of myself I hadn't even realized I was smooshing.

That's what happens when we stop trusting ourselves - we default to what others want for us. And despite their best intentions, no one knows better what's true for us than we do.

That's one of the reasons I'm so passionate about this work, because it brings us back to our true Self, where all the knowing, all the gifts, all the authenticity lives - and allows us to live it on the outside.

And I got that dark floor, btw - and the dark green wallpaper - and gorgeous apple red sink! It was dreamy. Even mom loved it! 😊

So, when WAS the first time you knew your life was your own? And when did you stop trusting that?

Drop it in the comments. 👇

I gotta be honest - unsubscribes still break my heart a little. 😪

I have a tiny little email community and even those I've never met feel like friends, so when one of them goes away, I feel it. But I feel everything, so there's that. 🤷‍♀️

In marketing, it's called "self selecting" and apparently, it's a good thing, but the people pleaser in me wants to make everybody happy.

Yeah, she's still in there - wanting to do eveything right so people don't leave her. But it happens. And it's not about me. My grown-ass-woman Self knows that, but that little one still needs reassurance sometimes.

I'm not saying this so you never leave me, lol. I'm saying it because it's a real thing we ALL experience and it's a huge part of this work.
If you're trying to shush the part of you that still feels hurt or anxious or sad sometimes, I want you to stop.

Emotional health is not NOT feeling pain - it's knowing what to DO with that pain when it rises. There's a difference in reacting to it and responding to it.

This work helps you respond to that part of you that needs regulation or reminding or reassurance, so it doesn't run-a-muck in your head, taking you down every rabbit hole up there.

When we're emotionally healthy, we're safe to feel our emotions without losing our sense of Self. We stay in our body. We turn toward the hurt part, rather than away - and 'away' can look like self-medicating, obsessing, anger, anxiety. You name it, I've probably done it.

If that sounds like you, too - this work is for you. What makes the Soul Integration Method™ different is, its not about rehashing or reliving pain and trauma - it's about finding the part of you that's still holding it and helping her lay it down.

This isn't "coping 101". This is healing at the root. When she's secure, you're secure. When she's free, you're free!

So if you're ready to dip your toe in the water, the Breakthrough Blueprint™ is where we start. It'll show you the part of you still carrying the pain and exactly what she needs to finally lay it down so you're both free to be YOU!

Link in comments. Let's go find her. 💗

I just completed my signature program The 60-Day Return to Self™ with an amazing client I'll call Anna.

Smart, kind woman, who came with a bit of a chip on her shoulder like someone carrying defense wounds. Definitely kept parts of herself protected, like she wanted to jump all in, but didn't want to get her hair wet.

She would tell me all the things she already knew about herself, her process, her relationships, like she needed me to know she had it covered. And she DID actually - she understood more about herself than most. But she was still completely stuck.

I could see the loop: she was in her head about her heart. She knew what caused her pain, but she hadn't gotten to the under-belly of the pain itself - the part that actually needed to heal.

That's the work we just completed.
It was a beautiful thing!

I'd say she's like a different person now, but she's not - she's finally herself.

She's present and open and at ease in her skin. Still stronge, but softer with herself. Clear boundaries, not hard edges. And there's a palpable lightness in her that wasn't there before. Peaceful. Grounded. Real.

That's what shifting and healing from the inside out will do for you.That's your Return to Self™

Omg, I love this work. 😭

Click link in comments - you'll love it too. 💗

~kab

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