Let Art Heal Your Heart with Catherine Just

Speaker 1 (00:01):

Welcome back, beautiful listeners of the Addicted to Love podcast. I am so excited today because I have something beautiful for you. With me here today is Catherine. She's an artist, photographer and intuitive seer based in Los Angeles, and I actually met Catherine in our relationship Beats Algorithm Alliance with George Bryant, who is kind of our mentor in business, not kind of, he is our mentor in business, and I've been connecting with Catherine back and forth for a bit of time now. And her story has really touched me in my heart in the deep, deep places of my heart. And I felt she's perfect to come on here because I am sure many of you will just find that as inspiring as I did. So a warm welcome to you, Catherine.

Speaker 2 (01:00):

Thank you so much. I'm so honored to be here.

Speaker 1 (01:04):

Yes, and I really definitely want to start right away with you and who you are and what magic you bring to the world.

Speaker 2 (01:16):

Okay. I'm Catherine. Just it is an honor to be here. And yes, I just want to also say a little shout out to George Bryant for the Alliance and his teaching about relationships over algorithms. It makes me emotional thinking about how much he's changed our lives and continues to bring it back to the heart. And that's so important to me. And I personally, I got addicted to meth when I was 16 years old. I started drinking when I was 13, but got addicted to meth when I was 16. And then at 18 I checked myself into treatment and have been sober now for 36 years continuously. And after I got sober, I went to art school and studied conceptual photography and learned how to take what I was really uncomfortable with in my feelings and my body and public around other people. All of that stuff that was hard to articulate and hard to process. I funneled it into my artwork and have been doing that ever since. And I've created classes and courses and retreats around how to turn what's triggering you and do a treasure basically. And when I had 10 years of recovery, I found Miguel Ruiz who wrote The Four Agreements, and I personally apprenticed with him and I consider him still to be my teacher. And it changed my life. I learned that 98% of the reason why we are suffering is because of what we're thinking.

(02:55):

And that could be a whole conversation right there. And I weave the two things, the artwork, the creative expression with learning about my beliefs and what my mind is telling me together to offer other people opportunities to drop the beliefs that are holding them back so that they can be fully self-expressed and learn to love themselves. And I don't know if we can cuss on the show, but we can learn, okay, well, I say a lot. I want us all to learn how to love ourselves no matter fucking what. And that is, and I say it that way because I feel it resonates on a deep level when I say it with that much gusto, I guess you would say.

(03:46):

And I now have a 15-year-old son. I'm a single parent now of a 15-year-old named Max who has Down syndrome. And he teaches me every day what love is and also what Down syndrome is. And I think that a lot of us have ideas of what we think we know that is, and it really points to, he doesn't have any negative beliefs about himself, but the world does. And it's almost the opposite of what we experience typically developing humans experience. We think other people are like, look at you, you're amazing. And we have this whole internal dialogue going on about why we are not it. And so it's been a fascinating experience of allowing Max of course, to show us who he is and what he's capable of and giving him all the opportunities, but also for all of us to have that as well. Give ourselves, do we give ourselves the opportunity to be fully self-expressed and drop whatever's holding us back. I find the whole thing really fascinating.

Speaker 1 (04:48):

Wow. I can imagine. When I look at people with Down syndrome, I really feel what you just said, they don't have this idea about themselves. So

Speaker 2 (04:59):

People

Speaker 1 (05:01):

In that sense as if they had never been hurt and love. I mean, of course there's also the difficult side of it, like the struggles you shared with him, but when they love, they love from such a pure space, right? Yeah. They teach us a lot, I guess. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (05:22):

Yes. And everybody's different. Everybody has a different, all of us have different talents that some are better than others as far as on the range of things I'm good at. My zone of genius is different than yours, and Max is the same in regards to all the people that have Down syndrome. His strengths are different than others, and he has all the range of feelings that all of us have. And what's interesting for me is that if he's mad at me and I look at him and smirk at him, he'll just drop it like that. He doesn't hold onto it. I'll just give him a smile. And he's just like, okay. He just shows me how easy it can be to not hold on to our own need to protect ourselves. And that being open-hearted really is where it's at. You have a happier life that way.

Speaker 1 (06:20):

Yeah, of

Speaker 2 (06:21):

Course.

Speaker 1 (06:22):

So beautiful. Can you walk me through a typical session? I know you do self-portraits, right?

Speaker 2 (06:30):

Yes.

Speaker 1 (06:32):

I just wonder what have been some of your most touching experiences with clients as you were doing these sessions and how that usually looks like?

Speaker 2 (06:43):

So I teach a class called Self-Portraiture as medicine, and I also do embodiment photo sessions where I'm taking pictures of somebody. It's different sort of experience where they're opening themselves up to be fully rooted and embodied and have access to a photographer who can really see them. I personally, when I look through the lens of a camera, see my version of God looking back at me, and I have the experience of that, whether it's a person I'm looking at or a landscape, it's a direct connection to source for me in my classes where I'm teaching you how to use your camera as a tool for transformation, it is the same thing where I'm giving you opportunity to gather evidence of what's going not only in your life, but also when you look at yourself, what is going have. And we've already started talking about this really just that we have gathered evidence that we think is correct about what's not right.

(07:45):

And so with self-portraiture, we can really change the lens that we're looking through and choose a different aperture setting and and create new stories that are more aligned with loving ourselves. And I feel like life is too short. Why not? Why not drop it? I think we get addicted to the stories of not enoughness and feeling small and ugly and not enough and comparing, and that it serves a purpose. It definitely is a coping mechanism, and it served a purpose and continues to, until we have an opportunity to maybe look again and see why we might, and let me take that back. I don't know that it matters. Why as much as it matters, a decision to choose again and again, and again and again until we're experiencing a love, what is the word? We're falling in love with ourselves as much as we do other people.

(08:52):

It's so easy to fall in love, but we don't really spend the time doing that for ourselves. So that's what the premise is for my courses. And a lot of people have shared with me, I'm actually going to interview somebody that's taken my classes for 10 years. She's a completely different person as a result of choosing to be vulnerable with herself and really face and move through the painful beliefs she had about herself to get to this other side and create habits around how she's talking to herself, which brings me to the four agreements about being impeccable with your word. That really starts with yourself. What words are you using against yourself all the time? Just to have awareness about that is an awakening, and then you can continue to use that toward falling in love with yourself.

Speaker 1 (09:48):

Oh, that's so beautiful. How do they react when they look at their pictures taken from this angle and from this intentional? So right, because you create with your work, you create a field of intention. It's very intentional what you do. So how do they feel afterwards?

Speaker 2 (10:06):

It is a process. So most people, when I say I'm teaching self-portraiture, they say, no, why would I? Their assumption is that they're thinking of it in terms of the selfies that are online, and that's actually not the case. So I need to educate and give people an opportunity to see that a self-portrait is not a selfie, and that it isn't about comparing yourself to that model that you think you don't look like. And that takes some time to unravel, I would say. And I also feel that every picture that we take as a self-portrait, because it's our point of view. So you could have a whole series of self-portraits that are all landscapes that tell the story of your feelings in a very specific, intentional way. And I think that even if you choose to use self-portraiture in that way, it is really having a relationship with yourself and with your version of God or source or the earth in a totally new way.

(11:16):

For me, it helps me focus my attention on having a conversation with myself. So at first, I think it is very uncomfortable because of these assumptions that we're making and the way that we're talking to ourselves. And it is like the great unraveling. So people have the experience of moving through all of that in my courses and beyond. People continue to work on themselves and use photography as a way to really get to the root of the root of what is bothering them. And using photography and self-portraiture is a way to see and love all of it and not make it good, bad or wrong, but just information.

Speaker 1 (12:04):

And I mean, a lot of it, the way it feels is that we work a lot through shame with that, because shame is a big one. And obviously most of my listeners know what toxic shame means. All people that I know, they have usually lived a toxic, no shame-based life, like a shame-based life. Everything that we think, everything we do is always rooted in that toxic trauma shame. And when you do that with the portraits, it gives us an opportunity to reduce some of that shame, right?

Speaker 2 (12:43):

Yes, yes, yes. And I think that we have a choice in every moment where we're putting our attention, and I think it can be really easy to get sucked into how deeply it's, I want to say dramatic. It is a dramatic energy in us around what's negative and to shift to the subtle it takes making new agreements with yourself that it's okay to feel safe in your body again, it's okay to soften to yourself again. It's okay to have the tears and all the things like grieve all the things and also show up in love and embodied and powerful being that you always have been. It's always been there. It's not like one of the things that's really powerful to me anyway, is the recognition that all the things that we're looking for having, we're looking outside ourself and thinking that person has it, that person has it, and we don't recognize that we have always had it. We've always had confidence. It's not about what we've done or proving anything. It is. It is just the energy of being alive. That to me is confidence. So it is a really hard challenging and extraordinary experience to face yourself and take responsibility for what we've created based on the beliefs that we have, and we've carried with us based on what's happened in the past, and choose to take ownership for what we're now carrying with us into the future that might not be serving us anymore. And getting down into the fear of releasing that, that's also present a fear of who am I without this story

Speaker 1 (14:48):

And changing the story. I think that's part of the process that we changed the story. And that brings me, well, it makes me curious about your story and your background with shame, with the drug addiction, with love, addiction, with relationships. Can you tell us a little bit about your journey

Speaker 2 (15:08):

On that? Yeah, sure. Yeah. I mean, I think that men or wanting attention from men came first, and I grew up with a dad who was not present to me but was present to my brother. And I thought that meant something. That's where I made meaning out of it

(15:29):

And misinterpreted his everything to mean that I'm not enough and didn't recognize that he didn't have, I mean, I know now that he had unprocessed trauma, that he didn't know how to, I mean, he didn't have the tools. It was not personal, nothing ever is, but I misinterpreted it, thought it meant something about me, and then acted that out, and always was seeking men who didn't really want me. The unavailable dude was really hot. That was dopamine inducing, and often a feeling that I needed to prove myself over and over and over and over, that lack inside of me trying to get his approval, whoever I made it be, the next person in that role, not really realizing that I had all of what I wanted inside of me. And so the drinking came from being in a household where my dad and my mom were both absent and had dysregulated nervous systems themselves, and I couldn't handle it. The anxiety that I felt based on their anxiety was screaming, screaming in my own head and my own body. I was crawling out of my skin. There was always an emergency. They were physically, spiritually, sexually, emotionally abusive to themselves and to whoever happened to be around, which was me and my brother and I.

(17:07):

And so I started drinking when I was 13, and I just remember feeling that the anxiety went away,

(17:14):

And that was remarkable. It was remarkable to me. And I also felt the less anxious around people that I wanted to be my friends. I desperately wanted to have friends, and I just always felt like I was this little nothing. I felt like I had nothing to offer anyone. If I wasn't around, they'd forget about me. So I was anxiously trying to be involved and everything, or they'd forget that I existed. And I mean, I can feel it just talking about I am transported to junior high and all that. And just watching other girls, it looked like they all understood something about relating to each other and to men in ways that, or boys that there was a movie going on out here, and I didn't get the memo. I didn't get the script, and I just watched them in awe. I didn't understand how cool, how did they know how to talk to people, how did they know how to have friendships and boyfriends and all of that.

(18:16):

Somebody else described it as having a thick pane of glass between you, and that's exactly how I felt growing up. And then I would go home to parents who were just yelling at me for stuff I didn't do and hitting me for their own whatever reason, and thinking all of that was because something was defective inside of me. So drinking was like relief. And by the age of 16, I was dating a guy who was doing meth, and I just thought, why is he acting that way? He keeps staring at my best friend and I don't like it. And I thought, she's prettier than me. She's cool. I'm not. I always get treated that way, and I would act that way, and I wanted to understand him. So I thought I would try meth just to understand his behaviors. I've never felt so in love with an experience before than I did when I had that first line of meth and I was up all night talking with people for hours, looking them in the eyes. It was like the first time that I could remember having deep, meaningful conversation with another human.

(19:37):

And unfortunately coming down off a meth was so, it was more painful than I had felt prior to doing meth. The darkness in me went down to 2000% deeper. It was extraordinarily painful to come down off of meth. And my thought was, I don't ever want to come down off of meth again. And instead of not using again, it was like, I will never come off meth again, because my experience being on it was so extraordinary. I felt like I was finally home in a way. So that's what led the way. What's that feeling of belonging? Finally? Yes, until it didn't take long for me to have really bad experiences. And it turned, I did meth from the age of 16 to 18, and it turned into really rapidly a situation where I was dating a drug dealer. He lived in a one bedroom apartment with eight other people, giant piles of meth on the dining room table and guns.

(20:57):

And they would leave with all the out at night with the guns. I don't know where they're going and what's happening, but I thought that, well, if I don't know what's happening, I won't get in trouble. I won't get arrested. I don't know anything, like a very naive experience of dating a drug dealer. And at one point, there were helicopters coming closer and closer to the apartment, and all of us stopped in our tracks and we were just listening to the helicopter, and it got closer and closer and closer and literally hovered at the window like hovered. We were on the second floor of an apartment building, and it hovered at the window, and we all scattered frantically out of there. And that was the last time I saw any of them. And that was the last time I did meth. And I went home and told my parents I needed help.

(21:53):

I was on my knees yelling at my mom, yelling while my mom was looking at me, basically that I wanted to die. And I heard a voice in my head that said, there's more to this life than what you're living. And I really, maybe that voice was there before, but I heard it and I leaned into that, and I'm telling you for 36 years, it makes me emotional thinking about it. But I think that I feel so lucky that I believe that voice forever, that in my own recovery, I've watched people go in and out of relapse and coming back or dying. My best friends have died from going back out because they believed a voice in their head that said, it's fine. I never believe that voice. I don't have that voice, really. But what I do have is that when it gets dark, dark, dark inside my own recovery, I have another voice in my head that says, hang on, because there's something even better on the other side of this. It's like a contraction before the expansion, and I know it. So I feel lucky in that way.

Speaker 1 (23:08):

That was a real blessing because yeah, it's not a given that people can come off drugs because the way it feels like you had this really wise voice that was guiding you, and you had the blessing to be able to hear it. How many people want to know, want to move on, want to recover, want to get to another place in life, and they keep falling back and keep falling back. What were the things you were able to hang on to in that path? What was helping you

Speaker 2 (23:44):

As far as staying sober in the beginning or

Speaker 1 (23:49):

As far as moving through? With the recovery?

Speaker 2 (23:54):

Yeah,

Speaker 1 (23:55):

Coming to another place,

Speaker 2 (23:57):

Curiosity of what happens when I stay, no matter fucking what, no one, no person, place, thing, heartbreak, especially heartbreak is taking my recovery away from me. It's mine. I watch all these people get heartbroken, and then they go to the bar and they're like, fuck it, I'm just going to drink. I'm like, why would you give them that? So I feel lucky that that does not, no, I feel so You're not getting all of me just because you broke my heart. This is mine. So that is really strong in me that even my own thoughts about how hard life can be, the thoughts don't get to win either. And I'm very, very aware that our thoughts can be very seductive and manipulative, and I see it in myself, and I see it in other people, that the part of us that's trying to keep us safe from real and imagined danger is going to pull out all the stops and try to make us feel like it's a good idea to lean into that old way of leaving ourselves so that we don't have to deal with the unknown, the discomfort, the discomfort of the unknown, which could be positive.

(25:12):

We would default to the negative way quicker than we would to just hang on through a new pattern, a new belief system, a new habit, forget it. And I think I'm just fascinated with how the mind works and how neuroscience or neurobiology has set us up for survival by keeping us from the unknown. It's just our mind's job is to be like, no, let's hang out in the thing that we already understand, which is very, even if it's painful, we'll hang out there. So I think I'm just very curious about what happens if I stay no matter what, like I've said, but also Miguel Ruiz's work, it took me to another whole level, and then from their subconscious reprogramming techniques and neuroplasticity of the brain, I can change this whole thing. That's amazing.

Speaker 1 (26:15):

Yeah,

Speaker 2 (26:17):

Let's do that.

Speaker 1 (26:19):

Yeah. You had a beautiful resilience. You still have it, I'm sure, but you are very resilient, and that's a wonderful quality. How did that happen? I mean, do you feel that was part of your character set up, or was there an inspiring role model, or was it the experiences that made you resilient? Where do you feel you have that resilience from?

Speaker 2 (26:44):

It's a decision I made literally. I made a decision that no matter what, no matter what, and I mean, I lucky that I don't really mean, I've heard other people say this, famous celebrities that get sober, they're on doing little clips on social media about what has helped. And I have to say the best thing that keeps someone on the road is a really, really big bottom. Despair is a gift. I don't think I could just have a sip of anything and be able to manage it. Other people, I don't want to either. I really feel that life, I get high off of life. I'm very, how can I get more high with just on breathing? There's so much here that I'm curious about that when I see other people drinking or I see other people relapse, typically developing, not alcoholic people drinking over dinner.

(27:54):

And I think, well, I don't want to add poison to my, no, I am. I love water. That's my favorite drink. I don't know why. I just know that my bottom was enough for me. I don't need to revisit any of that. My bottom was enough, and the gift of despair is real. I realize that Alcoholics Anonymous isn't a hundred percent effective, and I'm grateful that it was the only way for me that was the only thing that existed, and I just did what they said and took what I needed and left the rest. And there's a lot about it that doesn't work for a lot of people, but that's solid.

(28:42):

And I don't like community much. I get really, speaking of my childhood and junior high, I'm not sure that the group is safe. So learning how to find people that I trust has been really important inside recovery and surrounding myself with people doing the work like you, people who aren't necessarily alcoholic, but I think we're all recovering from something. And so people that are seeking, people that are really wanting to do the work, people that want to break their habits of believing themselves and of the drama, I want to be around that. It helps me see myself. I am constantly inspired by people like George Bryant and other mentors around me. I can't do this by myself. And I have tried, and I might not have had a drink, but I got miserable and at the root

Speaker 1 (29:40):

Cause, I mean, it's trauma, whether we want to say it or not. For some, it's really tangible trauma and you can pinpoint it, but there are a lot of people walking around with symptoms of trauma that don't feel like they've had severe trauma. And I write about this book, the Invisible Trauma, the more you can't grasp it. But as kids, every time we weren't loved the way we needed to be loved when we needed to be loved. That's the trauma per se, that keeps happening, right?

Speaker 2 (30:16):

Absolutely.

Speaker 1 (30:17):

I mean, a lot of people face addiction, and I think they're really correlated. Love addiction, drug addiction. It's just your addiction of choice. You connect to something, and now your work involves a lot of creativity and expression. And so how was your art and photography, how did that play a role in your healing?

Speaker 2 (30:44):

It saved my life, actually. I mean, there are many things that saved my life. When I was on math, I was in high school and we had to take one art class to graduate. And this woman, Susan Burke, I mentioned her as much as I can, and she's still a friend of mine. I've told her so many times that she saved my life. But she was a woman who knew I was on meth and didn't tell my parents thank God, because it's a personal decision of mine. It wasn't anybody else's decision to get me sober. Sober. I think that's very important. But she told me that I had talent and fostered that in me. And so I'd never really heard that before. And so when I got sober, all I wanted to do, well, let me back up a little bit. I took that class for four years. I just kept taking the same class all there was. And even though I was on meth, I still was learning how to see

(31:43):

Using this pencil or painting. I was learning how to see light and dark on a glass. This would be my subject. And I would just see the shapes. I mean, because I was on meth, I could stare at it for hours and draw, but then it turned into everything. I went to art school after I got sober. I didn't know what else to do with myself. And then that became the way that I dealt with my discomfort and learned how to use it as a tool to transform it, or at least to be with it for five minutes instead of just jumping into like, well, I got to just focus on the dudes now. I mean, that's part of my recovery too, is, and I do want to say really quickly that you could call it being an alcoholic or having being in recovery. But I think that really we're all, no matter what it is that we seek outside ourselves, it's just a coping mechanism. There's nothing wrong with it per se. It's actually a decision to try to help. We're just trying to help fix this discomfort, and we find something that works until it doesn't, whether it's trying to fill the, they say there's an empty hole inside of us that's God shaped, and I think, well, I don't know that it's ever empty. We just misinterpreted the feeling.

Speaker 1 (33:04):

That's beautiful.

Speaker 2 (33:05):

There's a whole lot happening in there.

(33:08):

It's always been there. So whether I was seeking attention from men or making a mess out of the drama of that, that was definitely pulling me away from myself before I got sober and after, that's been a long road for me to acknowledge where that was coming from and what that is and what I was doing, and then using whatever drama was going on with men and funnel it into my artwork. I mean, it was paired for a long time. It still is. Relationship really is the work that I do inside everything I do. It's all about relationship and intimacy and connection and all of that. But the dysfunction of it, I think it's really easy inside Alcoholics Anonymous, but any sort of program, because it's all manmade human made to label things as good, bad, and wrong, your behavior is bad. Well, it's actually serving a purpose. So going back to the four agreements, we don't have to make meaning out of that. We can just say, oh, I was doing a thing that actually worked for a minute, but I'm learning that the consequence of that is something I don't want anymore, and end it there and choose again, and again and again, and lightened the load of all the judgment that we have towards ourself, around any of it.

Speaker 1 (34:36):

It's like, and that means compassion. The moment I remember I learned compassion was when I truly understood why I did what I did, because of what I experienced, and I had to go to the depth of those levels where I really could see why. And then you stop judging and you look at it through that lens of compassion, and then you actually extend that compassion to other people because until you judge yourself, you judge other people too. And that was actually a beautiful, beautiful thing in my own process. Now, how do you manage triggers or challenging moments, especially when it comes to maybe love or relationships? What do you do today to work with that when it happens?

Speaker 2 (35:24):

Well, I teach a class called Turning Triggers into Treasures. I haven't offered that in a long time, but I think that that's what all of my classes are. How do we take what we're feeling and turn it into something that's beautiful? I think I can misinterpret what's happening and think it's happening to me rather than for me, right? Life is happening for me, and there's a treasure in here somewhere. I might not know what it is for years, but I'm going to say a friend of mine, Dan Manana, would say, I claim advantage even if I don't know what that advantage is, yet there is a reason that this breakup happened. There's a reason why this person cheated, that I need to learn about myself around. There's a reason why my business isn't going smoothly. There's a reason why my account is at zero. There's a lesson here.

(36:15):

I'm uncomfortable, but I don't have to make meaning. I'll just say our mind is a problem solving machine looking for what's wrong. So it's default setting is to gather evidence of like, well, you're a piece of shit. Let me show you how all the ways. And so while it's doing its job, I can also say, wow, that doesn't feel very good. What is going right here? Where is the treasure? So turning a trigger into a treasure, I get kind of turned on by the idea that, wait a minute, there's something else here. And just yesterday when I got on this call with you before we hit record, I was sharing, I found out some information about somebody that I was almost dating, like dating basically, that they weren't being impeccable with their word. And I just don't think it means anything about me or even them. It just shows me that where they're at, I don't have to retaliate. I don't have to point it out. They're on a journey. And I felt actually sad, a little sad for them because it pointed to maybe some pain that they're in, rather than, how dare they do this to me? Nobody's doing anything to me. They're just being themselves. It's

Speaker 1 (37:33):

Beautiful because your perspective is that of full accountability, which is the antidote of victimhood. I can't play the victim. I want to take accountability. And that's what I feel from you so much. You always choose a perspective that gets you further, that doesn't keep you in the past, but keeps you moving forward. So that's really inspiring. And I love, I claim Advantage. That's such a good, yeah, good mantra where you could say, right.

Speaker 2 (38:05):

Yeah, I just got goosebumps thinking about it. He has it when Dan Manana says it, he's from Great Britain. He will say it in an English accent, which just makes it stick. I claim advantage.

Speaker 1 (38:19):

Advantage, yeah.

Speaker 2 (38:19):

Advantage. Yeah. I like that a whole lot.

Speaker 1 (38:24):

How hard has it been for you to ask for help when you were, because you shared this moment with your mom, and I think many people actually struggle with asking for help. I mean, it is a lot connected to shame. We don't want to seem dependent, needy in need of things. It's very complicated. Anyways, our relationship with needs. But what is your advice for people in a similar situation? And they want to, but they can't get themselves to ask for help because it's so hard, right?

Speaker 2 (38:58):

Yes, it is. That's such a good question. Thank you for the question. I think really it does come down to being in pain enough to ask to humbly to get into humility around, I cannot figure this out. And it is embarrassing to the part of us that's trying to project perfection, and that has this image of perfection that we're holding on about who we think we should be. We're projecting on other people that they're going to think that we're an idiot because we already think we're an idiot. So I just think that when I'm in enough pain, I will ask for help. And when I'm dramatic and in pain and all the things, but not asking, I'm kind of still getting something out of the drama. So I see that in other people too. People that take my classes or people on whatever journey they're on, they are getting something out of it. And they say they want help, but then they're not really using the tools because they're addicted to that level of drama. If that drama doesn't exist, who are you?

Speaker 1 (40:09):

Exactly.

Speaker 2 (40:09):

That empty space is scary. So I mean, I think that for me, it really comes down to being in enough pain to humbly say, I can't do this by myself. And I go through it too. I think I don't, I don't need help. I, and in the meantime, I've got stuff that people aren't seeing over here and over here, it looks pretty right here, I'm managing my image. And the cracks just when it gets bad enough and the walls start falling down and it gets painful enough, I'll ask for help.

Speaker 1 (40:51):

Hitting the floor on your own journey, what has been the most surprising or unexpected aspect of your recovery? Something that was like something you didn't expect or was surprising for you in your recovery?

Speaker 2 (41:10):

There have been many things, but when you first said that, I just thought, oh my gosh, she really wants me to cry today

Speaker 1 (41:16):

Because

Speaker 2 (41:19):

I mean, I can't even get the words out. The fact that I'm alive is pretty extraordinary. I was really trying to die when I was on meth. I really wanted to kill myself, and I was using meth as my method, and I'm still here. That voice in my head said, there's more to this life than what you're living. And I keep saying, is this, it is the fact that we're on this podcast today, the reason why I've been sober this long, so that I could say something or you could say something to the one person who needs it that we don't know and might never know that it made that such an impact.

(42:02):

It startles me all the time when I just recognize that I'm still alive and that when I got sober, I was so uncomfortable in my own skin. I was crawling out of my skin. I was smoking two packs of cigarettes a day. I was needing a boyfriend and thought that I shouldn't be alive if I didn't have a boyfriend. I really didn't know that I had anything to offer anyone except for sex. And my hair was pretty. I thought I was an empty shell of a nothing. And I can say today, I don't suffer from that. I know that I have things that are genuinely rich to offer other people, including myself. That's like, I didn't expect any of this. I didn't have a plan to be alive. I can't believe I'm 55 years old and I'm sober 36 years. I have this beautiful child named Max who has Down Syndrome, and I get to make art as my living. I get to fly to France to take pictures of people and have retreats and have art shows. What is going on. Oh,

Speaker 1 (43:07):

No. Yes,

Speaker 2 (43:09):

I get to reinvent myself if I feel like it. I am very lucky. The money goes up and down, and I don't have to make it mean something. I don't have to act out because of it. I can still have a regulated nervous system through the ups and downs of business that's new. And I think the depth of relationship that I've had in my life and continue to learn about, I am only capable of having a deep relationship as much with somebody else as I am with myself. And I think I'm still learning how to really be with myself and have a rich relationship right here, and be available to be vulnerable and open myself up to being with someone so deeply that it's all we could go on and on. It's incredible to me,

Speaker 1 (44:01):

Oh my God, I am loving this. I'm loving this. And this is so rich. The things you share and the way you talk, and yeah, it's very rich. It's very inspiring.

Speaker 2 (44:17):

Thank you. Thank you. I feel lucky to be sitting in front of you who has so much similar experience of learning that we matter and that we're worthy of taking up space and worthy of love and worthy of boundaries, and worthy of all of this.

Speaker 1 (44:35):

Because it's not easy. And I mean, I consider myself recovered. I feel like I'm secure within myself now, but my love addiction still shows up in different ways. For example, in social media, or if I dare to really expose myself or I'm just taking more time than other people. But at the same time, it doesn't matter anymore because I already achieved the biggest thing I could ever achieve. And for me that was finding love. The money for me didn't matter the success or that all doesn't matter. What mattered to me was that I would not feel so anxious anymore when it came to love and that I did.

Speaker 2 (45:27):

I love that so much. I love that so much.

Speaker 1 (45:31):

Yeah,

Speaker 2 (45:32):

That's very

Speaker 1 (45:33):

Inspiring to me. Yeah. You've turned your experiences into, for me, really powerful messages of hope and positivity and resilience. And what do you want people to take away from this conversation today?

Speaker 2 (45:53):

Well, I think that we can choose again, and it's not too late that we get to really look at ourselves in a new way if we choose to in every single moment. And it's not about getting a straight A in this practice. It is a practice. Miguel's son, Miguel, Jr. Would say it's the four agreements, not the four conditions. And I think we do that to ourselves all the time. So I think getting to a place where we have opportunity to drop that story of good, bad, and wrong is where bliss lives. And it's available to us all the time. I think if there's anything I could leave, it's just that there's literally nothing to do to go get the thing you're wanting. It's already inside of you. And we've just misinterpreted some things that we think about ourselves that just really aren't real. It's an illusion. It's an illusion, and it's okay to wake up and it's okay to drop the story and it's okay to choose again.

Speaker 1 (46:58):

Wow. Yeah. That's a beautiful message. We can choose again, we have that authentic power. Yes. And I

Speaker 2 (47:08):

Think it's minute to minute. It's minute to minute, I have to say. It's not like all of a sudden I'm free. No. The voices that say negative things are still hanging out all the time. I just get to choose what I get hooked by in my own mind,

Speaker 1 (47:24):

And I can course correct, because I'm always going to fall back maybe into an old pattern or a choice that wasn't the smartest one, but I can always course her, right?

Speaker 2 (47:35):

Always.

Speaker 1 (47:36):

Yeah,

Speaker 2 (47:38):

Absolutely.

Speaker 1 (47:39):

How do people find you? And I know you've got something really exciting come up. I want you to talk about that too. Yeah. Where do people find you? What are you currently offering? What do you want to share with our listeners?

Speaker 2 (47:53):

Well, thank you. Right now, today I have a free three day masterclass where we're going to dive into internalized ageism and how it affects our sensuality and sexuality and how we relate to ourselves and the world using self-portraiture as a tool to look, become aware, transform it. And it's leading to a class that's coming up the Sacred Medicine of Self-portraiture, which is a six or a 12 week class, depending on what you want to do. And it's more intensive. One-on-one coaching along with the group coaching aspect. And I bring in everything. I bring the toll tech practices. I give you prompts to use every week. I am doing subconscious reprogramming on beliefs that are limiting you, and we get to the root and make beautiful art together, and we fall in love with ourselves. So that's coming up as well. And I have a book that's almost coming out, and there's a lot happening. Yes, there's a lot happening behind the scenes. And I am, if you get on my email list, you'll find out more about retreats in France. I'm going to Spain to look at that. There's a lot of opportunities for you to change your mind about yourself and have a more fully self-expressed experience. And so you could find me on my website, it's catherine just.com, but every day I'm over on Instagram, and my Instagram is at see, just,

Speaker 1 (49:31):

Yes. Wow. But you do know you have to come to Italy to do a retreat. Right?

Speaker 2 (49:36):

You know what I do? We need to talk about that.

Speaker 1 (49:41):

Yes. And then we have my partner who's going to bring the nicest food for us to nourish out our soul, and ah, this is going to be great. I totally feel that. Yes.

Speaker 2 (49:55):

I love that. And I do those photo sessions too, embodiment sessions. I can see the whole thing, like the food and the relationship and the whole tech practices and the, I mean, yes. Yes. Just yes.

Speaker 1 (50:09):

Magic. Yes. Oh my God, this has been such a delightful conversation with you, Catherine. Thank you

Speaker 2 (50:17):

So much. Thank you.

Speaker 1 (50:18):

You're sharing. Thank

Speaker 2 (50:19):

You for having me. I just am honored to be here with you in conversation about things that matter.

Speaker 1 (50:25):

Yes, things matter. Thank you. And for you guys, there is listeners, thank you so much for staying with us here today. Please head over to Catherine just.com. Her masterclass is just coming up, internalized ageism. I'm going to sign up for sure. That's clear. Actually, I already did yesterday. I'll see you soon. On the next episode on Addicted to Love podcast.