Spirituality vs Religion

0:00 Hello there. I'm Kimberly and I'm Laura and today we're talking about religion versus spirituality. I actually want to say thank you because one of our listeners actually messaged us and asked us to speak about this topic today. So we were more than willing to take it on. So yeah, take it on. That's exactly what I was going to say. It's a big topic. We're just like jumping right in there. Yeah. And because we're a little bit late getting this episode dropped, but we're in different provinces and both of us are battling a cold. So bear with us. Yeah, we're coming through for you. We're coming through for you listeners. That's right. Yeah. So I think for me, I think we can start by saying that both Laura and I have been both in pretty heavy I'd say as children into religion. I was brought up in Christian science and I really didn't have a problem with how I was brought up. I loved everything about it. But as I grew and became an adult and had children and learned more about spirituality, religion seemed to fall to the wayside for me. Like it just it started so that I felt I didn't feel as connected to it

1:19 Anymore. And I always say if all you've ever read is one book, that's all you're ever going to know. So when you get out there and you start studying and you start looking into other material, I'll say like the Dead Sea Scrolls or the Da Vinci Code or multiple things that we've we've looked at and listened to your awareness changes. And when you have a big spiritual awakening, it changes even more. Yeah. Yeah. That's the thing. I grew up in the Roman Catholic Church and my family was I'd say leaning more towards the Irish ancestry, but we have some Scottish ancestry and some British, but mostly the Roman Catholic was the way that our family was raised in the church. And it is, as people know, very structured, very much like old ways, rituals, ceremonies, traditions, and you're really quite limited. But you know, when you grow up in a faith, in a religion, you, you just accept that you accept it as truth. And that's all that's been presented to you. And I remember having, I did so much in the Catholic Church, I did everything.

2:43 I was really searching. I was really searching for something for a place to feel, you know, like I belonged, I guess. And I always sort of felt like I couldn't quite get into the inner circle, but I kept trying. You know, I was, I was, as I got older, I was volunteering in the church quite a bit. I was teaching catechism Sunday school. And I was helping to run the summer camps. I was running socials. So like, we used to have like a tea social once a month for the parishioners. And I was a donor to the church. I was a minister of the Eucharist. So that's quite a big position to have within the church. You know, I, I was on the parish council. And at the time, I was the youngest member of the parish council that anybody could ever remember having.

3:40 I think I was 18. And I was sitting on a council with 60 and 70 year olds. So I could see that. Yeah. So I literally did everything I possibly could. And the priest that we had around the time when I was, you know, really involved, he was quite fanatical, I would say. Like, you know, you really couldn't step outside. You couldn't color outside the lines. Like, if you did, he would make sure that he made a point of like you. So I started to have spiritual experiences. And I was so excited about them because it felt like my connection with Jesus, with Mary, it felt like I was literally connecting with them and their energy. And I was feeling myself, my energy like elevate, like I was feeling myself, you know, it's a hard thing to explain. But when I would go to church and I would sing, I just felt so connected. And it didn't really matter what was going on, like what the readings were or what people were saying, you know, or what the scriptures were, I just was, I felt like my energy was leaving my body.

4:54 So I was having these experiences. And I started to tell people, and boy, did I get in trouble. I started to get your hand slapping. Oh man, did I ever. I was, I thought it was inspiring, you know, because people, people were actually asking me like, you know, do you feel God? Like, how do you experience God? And how, how do you know that all everything that's happening in the church is real for you? And for me, it was all these kind of supernatural experiences. You know, so here I am telling people, like, you know, I prayed to Mary, and I felt like she lifted me up. She lifted me off the ground. And I have no, you know, nobody else to witness it with me. I was by myself when it happened.

5:43 But I literally felt like she put I felt her hands under my arms, like under picking me up, like lifting me up. And, and I had a message from her that day. So I was really starting to feel spirit. And I at my one of my lowest times, I was praying to Jesus and smelled I could smell roses. And I didn't know at the time that that is one of his signals. When he comes in, you can smell roses. So here I was telling people, I was telling other parishioners like these stories. Yeah, that didn't go over so well, because the priest found out and how dare you be more godly than them. Exactly. So the, the lecture was that I was not allowed to talk to God myself, that I wasn't allowed to talk to Jesus. And I wasn't allowed to share what Jesus said to with other people because I wasn't a priest. And only the priest can talk to God for the parishioners. Now, whether that really is how things still are, I've no idea. I've been outside of the church now for more than 20 years. So I don't

7:01 Know. But, but I'll say that that the time I got my hands slapped, I just felt like, and he gave me penance. So I had to do volunteer like cleaning and things around the church. I had to, I had been disciplined. I was, I had to pray. I had to say, do the rosary every day. So if you know what that is, it's like a number of Hail Mary's, a number of our fathers, you know, I had to put myself in a place of penance, they call it. So yeah, I was being punished for talking to God. And it struck me so odd, because these experiences had been so happy for me. And I was like, I don't understand, I'm just sharing my happy. Isn't that what God wants? Doesn't God want us to be happy?

7:52 And these are my happy experiences with God, but because they were sort of like outside the realm, you know, and I, and I, none of it made sense to me, because if you study the Bible, you know, like the Old Testament, Moses climbed up a mountain and talked to a burning bush, like, come on, you know, like how more supernatural could it be? Listen, Jesus turned water to wine, like, this is stuff I don't understand. It's like all these stories, it's like, they tell them to us to get us to believe in this, this way out there thing, right? To trust and believe that this is what's possible. But then when you become the possibility that is that, it's like, oh, no, you're not doing it the right way. Because, you know, it's like fire and brim stuff. It's like, come on, get back in the box. Do not leave the box.

8:50 How dare you, right? Our box is safe, and we want to keep you there. So many things started to happen to me, and I'm short to you too, where I just was like seeing things from a different angle, and I started reading history. So I was like, I want to know how the Bible was created. I want to know why it was created. I want to know, you know, how many times has the Bible been translated? Have we lost the translations? Is it really, you know, or Jesus' teachings really, you know, what they used to be? So I started studying. And the more I read, the more I was disenfranchised from the church. I realized that I had been in a form of, I mean, people say brainwashing, but it's indoctrination. You know, you're indoctrinated into a belief, and so you don't see anything else. That's just all you see is truth, and you think that's the best place to be. You think that's the best truth, and you don't think anything else. So reading really did it. And you mentioned the Da Vinci Code, and I know it's a fictional story, but something about the Da Vinci Code it introduced possibilities for me. So possibilities of a different story.

10:08 And the different story, although the Da Vinci Code, like I said, it's, it's fictional, like, but there was pieces in it that resonated with me as truth. And I felt like there is, there is a bigger story here. There's something we're not getting. And I never felt like Mary Magdalene was a prostitute. Never, ever. I feel I actually love love. I always have this deep love for her and Jesus. Yeah, almost like I lived in that time. Like it was that deep. It's like, it's like this knowing them, they were like we walked with them. We shared the same beliefs. And I just don't think anything that it's not that anything we've been taught isn't true. It's that there's very little truth within all this dogma. It's like, and for me, it was always, I couldn't understand why, because to me, everything's about knowing.

11:02 I'd have to say that that's one of the things I love about having conversations with you is that, you know, you're the one with the head that you're reading information, reading information all the time. And, and for me, a lot of my life has been about me really trusting and honoring who I am within myself to the point where I've had to almost go up against many giants in a sense, you know, and I've had many pastors and, and oh God ministers, you know, come right at me for different reasons and ask me profound questions right in the moment. And I've never backed down because one of the things is I have always since I was a little girl trusted and known who walked with me. But I my belief in God is not what it used to be, because I do not believe in a man God. You know, I believe that universal consciousness is God and that love is pure God. And if you, you know, if you don't take the time to go within yourself and heal what is, I'll say, dysfunctional, because, you know, we grow up and we're all in whatever dogma that we're programmed from or even our families. So, you know, if I go back and think about when we were little and we went to church, I could remember my great-grandmother

12:22 Who I was named after and even my grandmother. And I would just think I loved going to church because everybody went to church and what did you do at church? You got together, you said hello and you, you know, you had conversation and, and then there was music and, gosh, who doesn't like music, right? And the other thing was at our church, we never had a church. They always had like a meeting place. So there was never that big like, I know my dad was Catholic and mom was Protestant. So we did take on mom's religion because we had anything. Yeah. And, but for mom, the Christian science, it was very, like, I don't remember fighting with my mother. I think I might have been eight years old and I'm standing at the bottom of the stairs and she was like, go get your dress on. And I hated dresses back then. I was like, I don't want to wear a dress. God, God doesn't care what I wear. Why are we, why, why do I have to be uncomfortable in church? Like, why? You know?

13:19 And of course, mum being mum, you know, I mean, every mother wants their little girl to look appropriate and like a little girl. And I just didn't want to. So I was always spiting back. You know, that was always me. I was always that kid that was like, putting truce in front of other people to say, well, wait a second, you know, why God doesn't care. And I said, joy him and told me that she doesn't care what God doesn't care what we wear to church. And I didn't want to be disrespectful to my mother, but I still had this feeling that I was just very uncomfortable. So that was a normal thing for me. And when we went to church, the thing that I really got the most from the Christian science was that the faith that Mary Baker Eddy had in trusting that we could overcome anything.

14:06 So that was like seated in me from a very young age, which I'm so grateful for because if, if there was, I didn't ever go back and study, you know, Christian science again. Once I, you know, as I got older and I had a little boy, you know, my first child, I took my grandmother back to church and we went to a United Baptist church. And, you know, I went and my husband at the time, he didn't like believe that way. It didn't mean he wasn't a godly person. And that's the biggest misconception is people think that because you don't go to church, you're not a godly person. But I've met more profoundly godly people outside of church. So, but every time he dropped me off, there would be a minister there. And they would be just waiting to put a dig into my ex at the time, his name's Donald. So, you know, they'd be like, Hey, you know, like you can come in, the church won't fall down. And I used to think, wow, what a, what a way to bring people in, you're making them feel bad or trying to diminish, you know, diminish them. So, you know, I, when I went to that church, I had more problems, I'd say, with how things were being handled. And I remember, I even took Bible study and all this stuff,

15:21 Because I loved learning about it. It absolutely was profoundly affected by the word of God factor. So, but the more I learned what I can remember being a Bible study in the deacon, he'd be saying about fear in God. And it was like putting the fear in the end. He kept talking. And I was feeling like somebody was like, obviously saying stabbing is a little bit rough, but it was physically hurting my energy, because he was so aggressive in how he was trying to explain how we should fear God. And I raised my hand and I said, but why would we fear God? Because if God is so loving and kind and nurturing, then why are we teaching people to fear? Shouldn't we be teaching them to love, honor, respect and know more about God than to be fire and brimstone scaring people? I don't really understand how that works.

16:17 And of course, I always made people angry, I think, because I was so honest. And then he got really angry. Oh my gosh. And then it just kept throwing me. So here I am, this person trying to keep pushing myself forward to learn more and to grow. And each time I did, it was like I was obviously ticking them off. And then I was feeling hurt and not heard from from the conversations. And I always thought that, you know, when I talk to God by myself, I hear him, Chris, I hear it. The message is crystal clear. There's no, there's no in between. There's no muscle. There's no like trying to understand what they're saying. It's it is so like easy for me to hear God in my ear, right? Right. And I just never, I never felt like, you know, the way they were trying to make me feel God never made me feel like that. I never felt anything more like I just felt love, acceptance, just complete deep connection with something bigger than me. And that has been the thing that's been my saving grace all my life is that I absolutely know what I'm connected to. But it is not

17:35 A judgmental God. And I think that if I was to put religion against spirituality, I would say that that religion cannot even touch the truth of spirituality. There is no comparison. Well, that's because spirituality is all encompassing. And religion is a very like small fraction of what you connect with. And it gives you it's sort of like gives you just enough, like a tiny connection. So it keeps people coming, it keeps people feeling it. But you have to stay within the container, you know, you're not allowed to leave the box of the belief of the teachings of that religion. And it it's it's telling you who you are, whereas spirituality is saying, no, you find you find out who you are and whoever you are is okay. So it's a very different way of being. And there's there's reasons there are benefits to being in a religion, because you have you have that community, you know, you have identity, you have like solid structure. And some people really need, they really need that structure.

18:55 With spirituality, it's more like experience, like you go out, you go out into the world, and you see things and you feel things, and then you decide who you are based on that. So nobody's telling you who you are, nobody's telling you what to do. And the connection, that's the thing, the connection to God consciousness. God is the consciousness is everywhere and in everything. So I always felt like it was very accessible to me, like in the beginning, you know, you're taught you go to church and when you're in church once a week or twice a week, whatever it is, you're like, that's when you're with God in the church. And then and then something happened to me in my late teens, where I started to feel God in other things and everywhere. And I started to see it everywhere. And I was like, we teach kids, like I was teaching kids in Sunday school that God is everywhere and God is in everything. But then we say no, you can only access God in a building, which makes no sense. So God is actually actually very accessible in every way. And I feel like that is the eye opening piece of spirituality is that you don't access a God through a human. So you don't

20:16 Access God consciousness through a human made Bible or through, you know, human activities or human ceremonies. God is in everything. So you don't, you don't have to do something to get to God, you know, you don't have to be somewhere. And I'm probably about a year ago, some Jehovah Witness came to the door and I actually love, you know, most people don't like it when they show up, but I actually love it because we have these, we have these discussions, right? Yeah, I'm like, so I'm at the door and I'm telling them, you know, I'm a psychic medium and they're, they're staring at me, of course, like, yeah, okay. And the first thing she said was she said, um, but how do you, how do you feel about the state of the world? And I said, I feel great. And she looked at me and she was like, what do you mean? Like everything's falling apart. The kingdom is crumbling. And, and just as they're turning into museums. Yeah. And will you be ready for the second coming? You know, and I said second coming, I said,

21:34 You know, Jesus, the God consciousness never left us. It's here. There's no second, there's no coming. There's no Armageddon. There's no fire and brimstone. You know, this is the world of contrast where souls come to evolve and grow and expand. And we don't grow and expand without challenge. But all those challenges happen for us to create resilience, to create character, to create your, you know, strength and who you are, your identity. If you were never challenged, you would have no idea who you are. Right. So, you know, we talk about, you know, this year, um, 2026 coming up, it always felt like it had this, um, theme of mastery for me. And I've been talking a lot about this lately, but you don't become a master by taking the easy road. You know, you become a master by being challenged over and over again and finding ways to complete those challenges and get through those struggles. So I think religion keeps you very small and keeps you, you know, if you want easy and if you want safety, then it's a place to be. But the problem is when you're taught, when you're taught to

22:56 Believe something and only that, and you only see one way, it creates judgment. So we, we see religion just putting people in a place of saying, well, my religion is better than yours or what I'm doing is better than yours because what my religion has taught me that I'm more godly than you. Right. And that, that's, that's a dangerous place to be. Right. Right. Because, you know, and I always say to people, like I compare spirituality and, and, uh, like the ocean, the ocean is like unapologetically itself. So consciousness is the same. We are all one, we are all connected to a oneness that I call God consciousness. And the thing about that is I always tell people that it, it's completely encompasses everything. So if you are connected and you believe in a higher power, which I, part of where we're at right now, I feel like people need more of this. They need more conversation about this because they need to have permission to think differently. And if you're connected and that means you're connected to everything that is. So when you're in a good place, like I feel like I'm super connected to God, but it's because that every day I don't hear the chaos of the world. I don't watch the news.

24:14 I don't read the paper. I don't have that programming in my head. So the minute I wake up, I'm connecting with my own self. I feel my body. I'm like, how, where am I right now? Like for instance today, I'm fighting a cold. So I'm trying to keep my headspace good, but I always know and I'm always asking for help, help me get through the day. So, you know, people think that when you're spiritual, you don't pray. People think that when you're spiritual, you don't, you know, you never say a curse word or you're like this perfect person. But I think the thing about spirituality is you're just somebody that's always in a place of learning and growing and expansion, because you know what you're connected to and you want more of it. And I always say that God to me is love. And where does, when I put religion against spirituality, I say spiritual beings, people that are spiritual, they don't judge because now they're spiritual people that judge. But like when somebody's really, really, truly owning who they are, that person is emanating love out into the world that is amplifying our consciousness energy that is, it's no different than praying. It's no different

25:31 Than we talk about Santa Claus in the sleigh. It can't go if you don't believe. So I believe in the power of prayer. I believe in the power of connection, but I do not believe in a judgment because I know I have a few stories to tell that to make it a little bit simpler for me is, you know, I can remember somebody in the family was being baptized and I went to their church in respect for their baptism. It was like a niece or something. And I don't even remember what the church name was or whatever, but it, you know, at first you're there and everybody's singing and the energy's big and you're like, oh, this is good, right? And then people started like raising their hands and kind of look like to me, from my perspective, looks like they got hit by lightning and they were doing these things and people were running up and down the middle of the church.

26:24 And, you know, so I'm just paying attention and I'm an observer. I've always been an observer. I've always been observing people my whole life and I always will. So I'm just taking it all in and then later we go in the back room because it was full body submerging and they were there was people coming and grabbing people right by the head, like right over their face. And I was speaking to myself, oh, Lord, please do not do that to me because I'm not going to be okay. So I just stuck back respectfully and I kept observing and after the whole thing, the minister and his wife came up to me. I think there's some light bulb that comes up out of the top of my head because people literally do pick they do pick me out of the crowds a lot. So, you know, they just said like, what did you think of the service and all that? And I said, well, you know, I said, I, here's a problem with me and you know this, you're my wife.

27:15 I can't lie to save my soul. I can't. It's like no possible. So I can avoid, but I'm not good at lying. So anyway, I said, well, you know, I said, there's lots of energy. That's for sure. And they got more specific and asked me a few questions. And I said, well, so I said, what was that that just happened in that room? And because they were chanting and stopping talking in tongues. And she the wife said, well, we were talking in tongues. And I said, well, yeah, I understand that. But when so I said, so what what exactly what like was that for you though? And she said, and she was getting annoyed with me. And the pastor said, well, he said, well, we were talking to God. And I said, well, okay, but what were you saying?

28:01 And she said, well, ah, and I said, okay, well, what did he say to you? And again, she was baffled. And I said, for me, talking in tongues was a way of people from all different places in the world being able to understand each other. And I said, I to me, I just felt like this felt very it bothered me. It felt hypocritical. It felt judgmental. It felt like this whole like way of being was being forced on people and it didn't feel right. It didn't feel and I think that's another thing you know, when something feels right, it feels it just feel you feel it, you know, it's right. So again, they got a little deeper in and I just said, listen, I when I talk to God, I know exactly what I'm saying. And when he talks to me, I hear exactly what he's saying. And I said, and I raffled off like something like Corinthians 1310 where it says pretty your father who's unseen for he knows what you speak before you speak it. Why do we have to do it like this? Right? And the neat thing was the wife was very pissed off. She did not like me at all. But the minister was very like intrigued. He was. He was very intrigued. And he really liked what I had to say. So that has always been my personality.

29:15 I remember being a kid going to church and thinking, I kind of was like watching the people around me and my environment that were there and how well behaved they were. But then when they went home, they would act airable. And I mean, airable, very dysfunctional, they're lots of mental illness. But when they were in church, in front of everybody else, they were singing the praise and acting like they were so great and so good. And in my poor little like mind as a as a young child, I was thinking, I'm not sure I understand how this works. Right? Like, I don't think I understand all this. This is very backwards. You know, and those things have followed me. There's always been somebody, you know, I have a great connection with a nun that we have great conversations about spirituality and religion.

30:03 And we're both very respectful. And we both have a deep, I would say love for each other and what we believe in. But I also had when I first started doing Reiki, which anybody that knows it, it's just energy healing. It's no different than what Jesus did. And I don't care how that sounds. You know, so I was another Jesus basically channeled love to heal people. You know, that's right. That's what's happening. So what's Reiki Reiki is universal love energy. Right? And there's lots of different modalities that are the same type of thing, right? Energy healing is energy healing. It comes from God consciousness. You're just the person that believes in it that transfers it from there to the person. So when I first started doing Reiki, I felt like, Oh my gosh, somebody had just taken my hand and put it back on Mother Earth. And I just felt the heartbeat and I just felt alive. I just was, I was on a mission. Oh boy.

31:04 Oh, we lost her just one second. We'll get you back. Hello. Hello. I think that was a big one. It knocked us right off line. Oh my gosh. Oh my goodness. That's hilarious. So anyway, what was I saying? You were talking about doing Reiki. Yeah. So something else happened to me where another pastor from another time I was going to somebody's baptism in my family. And funny enough, my daughter at the time was I think 13 years old and we went and we went to the service and everything. And then after the service, we left and we were driving home and my daughter said, Oh, I don't want to ever go there again.

32:11 And I said, Whoa, what do you mean? She said to church, I don't like it. I said, Why? And she said, because I just don't like it, I don't want to go anymore. And I said, Well, you're going to have to do better than that. I said, You're going to have to tell me why you like give me a reason. And I said, You can tell me the truth and you don't have to go. And she said, Well, mom, did you hear the minister? And I said, Yes. She said, Well, did you hear that he was talking about the people that weren't filling the seats that Sunday? And he even went so far as to say that, you know, he told everybody that they were on, they were doing like one of those cancer walks. So, you know, the walk for cure or whatever. And she was so appalled. And she said, They're hypocrites. They're talking about the people that have so the people have been there how many Sundays, you know, out of the year, but they miss one here and there. And then you're being talked about. She said, That doesn't sound very godly to me. Right. And you could tell she was just legit crawling like it affected her physiology, like she was like, Yeah. And I said, Well, thank you for telling me the truth. You don't have to go. And we like we went back, but the minister that was doing that baptism, I had met him out in front of a store in the valley.

33:28 And when he seen me, he was so happy to see me and all he had his big smile on and how you're doing and great. And then I was so happy because I was touching people and helping them through this through doing Reiki. And I was doing free treatments all over the place because I just wanted to learn more about it. And I was in love with it, just, you know, and anybody that knows me knows I'm a big lover and I would do anything for somebody in need. Like I just I love love. Right. So here I was explaining to him all about, you know, doing Reiki and his eyes changed his demeanor changed. It almost looks like, I don't know if you know anybody with bipolar or mental illness, their eyes get affixed and they get angry. And it's like, Whoa, yeah. Oh, no, right. Yeah, like what's happening, right? And and he looked at me and he said, So you think you're Jesus? And I said, Well, he said you can do what I've done great and greater things. Like I never missed the beat. It was so funny. I just thought, Wow, was I ever already had the gun loaded, right?

34:27 Yeah. So and then he kept talking and he was getting matter and matter. And then I was like, Wow, I did not expect this response. So I looked at him and I probably said, I said, I'm glad I don't believe in your God because I said my God is love and non judgment. And I was starting to try to get like away from him and he was getting matter and matter and just like floating things to me. Get me away from this crazy person, right? I was like, Wow, this is a, you know, a representation of God. I don't want anything to do with yours, right? So I looked at him and I said, You know, just like Jesus didn't worry about the rock checkers, neither do I. You have a great day because I was happy and he was trying to steal my happy race. So this is what happens to me all the time in life. People want to push up against me. They don't quite understand where I come from. They don't quite understand, you know, how I know what I know, but I truly have always believed in this higher level that I'm connected to and I'll call it God for sake of listeners, but I've always believed in God. I've always believed in prayer. I pray for everybody all the

35:45 Time and I'm somebody who I work on myself every single day, every morning, every night. I have a ritual that I do and I'm grateful for everything I have. And if that's not Godly, I don't know what is, you know, that's it. It's the higher, even when we look at the frequency of emotions, like you can scientifically measure the frequency of the emotion of gratitude, the emotion of love and compassion and understanding. And they are really high on the scale compared to judgment, resentment, anger, jealousy, fear. So when we're trying to, when we're trying to kind of put good energy out into the world, love people, share information, teach people, you have to be in those places of gratitude to get to enlightenment or understand the word compassion. And that, I feel like that was something that Jesus knew, like he knew, coming from the place of love and compassion, it translates for people, people feel it and resonates with them. And the teachings will land in a way that they can be transformationally changed. Now, if you're just using fear, it will

37:07 Reach people, you know, it will control people to a point, but you can never, you can't maintain that forever and it will never reach the amount, like it will never reach the sort of the masses. And I think that's what's happening now as we're coming into a time where religion is, religion is becoming, it's taking a backseat because people are tired of being controlled. They're tired of being told what to think. They're tired of being judged. Right. I was just going to say they're tired of feeling like they're less then because of who they were born to be. And I remember clearly, I was in Catechism in grade nine, so in Sunday school, and in the Catholic Church, you get sacraments. So there's like every, there's like a certain number of sacraments that you can get in your lifetime. And we, in grade, in grade nine, you're doing confirmation, it's called. So you, you basically become an adult in the church by going through all these sacraments. So in grade nine, our priest was teaching our class and he went on a rant one day about gay pride

38:23 Parades and about how awful they were and how, you know, what are these people doing like dancing in the streets with no clothes on and, you know, like, why are they so like, you know, exuberant and why do they have to shove it in our faces? And I remember sitting there thinking like, kind of along the same lines as you, like, if we're all God's children, then shouldn't we be allowed to dance and be free and be happy and celebrate who God made us? You know, God made us this way. And this idea that we can't be ourselves, that God only accepts certain people is utterly ridiculous. They're, God does not care if you're gay or straight. It's like God, but it's like, there's so much.

39:14 To me, it just drives me crazy because it's like, we're made in his image and likeness, but that's not okay. That's not enough. That's not enough, apparently. You know, so, so here with spirituality, what happens is you start to feel it's almost like you're connecting with who you are, but you're also connecting with what you are actually connected to. So the truth of the truth of our existence, the truth of who you are, the truth of who you are beneath your fears, you know, like looking, looking beyond all the worry and the fear and going, wait a second, who am I actually? And, and what am I supposed to do here? You know, or even learning how to control your mind. Like you talked about doing energy treatments on yourself every day. That's a form of discipline. And that's a form of discipline of the mind as well as, as well as the body, as well as your energy field.

40:13 And you learn and you, you have to keep it a story to interrupt you. The thing about that is that I have to stay so, I'm so careful with my energy because when, when you reach a level of awareness and consciousness that I'm at, it physically hurts me to be around people. And I love, I love all my family, all my friends. I love them all, but I can't be around people because it feels like when you're talking about other denominations and you're talking about other people, whether they're Native or African American or whatever, it's like you're being disrespectful about them. And doing that hurts me because I believe we're all connected and we're all equal. I don't look at one of us as being better than the other. I don't look at, I mean, obviously I'm in a gay marriage, but I was with a man too. And I'm not some closet gay person. I could be with anybody because I just love, love. And I think that God consciousness is that I, I'm sorry, I'm a very confident person, but I know what God is. And I know it to the core of my being. And no one can sway me off that because when you're coming

41:31 From a place that I'm coming from, it is pure love. But I have to protect my sacred energy. And that means that sometimes I can't be around the people that I love because where they are, which is perfect for them, is too painful for me. I can't be around that. But there's a, there's a like sort of like a quantum leap that we take when we leave behind the idea that we have to conform. So when you leave behind that idea and you start to see that, wait a second, I'm tired of feeling less than I'm tired of feeling like I have to change who I am to fit into this idea of what, you know, they want me to be. So when you leave that behind and you start to explore and you start to, you really start to like yourself, like you love who you are. And that, that kind of feeling of connectedness to everything, like everything is one, you start to see that there's no difference between you and other people really, you know, we're just all people having an experience. We're all souls that are here to have a learning experience. And that's, that's it. You don't care. Like when you have that self assurance within yourself that you have personal power, like you have empowerment

42:50 From leaving a system that has kept you down, you have this lightness, you have a freedom and you learn about yourself and you feel confident, you no longer care. It's almost like, you know, I love other people, but do I care how you live your life? No, I don't because I, I know I'm doing what I need to do in my life and I feel very self assured within myself and my path. So I don't need to judge anybody else to make myself feel better. Well, and I think that both of us have the same love for a God consciousness, you know, we both have gone through different things. And at the end of the day, I love the way love feels. So I gravitate towards loving experiences, loving moments, like being in the earth. And that's one thing I love about the native culture. And I, you know, I found out that we have, we're connected and we have like native, you know, my great grandmother was with a native man. And so we have that direct connection. And that always made me feel so much better because I always had it in me. And then I have a wife that says, you know, Kim, you live more native than most people I know, because you live off the earth. You're always planting things. You're always, you know, putting things in oil and making products and everything you do is about.

44:07 But I think it's also the reverence of mother nature, like the connection to the earth that you and the cycles of earth, like I watch you follow the energy of the moon, the cycles of the moon to follow your animal messengers. Like, and you're doing all this in a very intuitive way, but there was also when I first met you, and I know like some of your indigenous heritage, like it's kind of like more has revealed itself over the years. But when I first met you, you had this centered groundedness that was, it felt so sacred and it felt so like still, like I couldn't exactly explain it other than I just felt like you were actually connected to the heartbeat of the earth. And there, there's not a whole lot of people that I've met that feel that way. And the, you were just doing it naturally, like it just came naturally to you. There was, there was no, you didn't have to read things. You didn't have to try.

45:17 You didn't have to, you know, show people. You didn't have to make a big scene about things. It wasn't anything like that. It was just, it was actually part of who you were. And so that is your honoring of your ancestors. And that's something that we all could, we all could take a page from that book and go back to our ancestors and see like what makes sense for you, what feels right to you because the, our ancestors like, and I mean like, like a long time ago, I don't mean like a few generations. I mean like back when people actually did, you know, work from the earth and connect to the earth and followed the, the cycles and the seasons and the moon phases and everything, you know, we're talking about like interconnectedness that we don't have as much of anymore. That's where, that's where we need to go to the place where it feeds us. It feeds our systems and we're really, none of us are any different from anybody else other than our experiences on this earth, but on the soul level, we're all souls, you know, we're all energy beings and there's no, there's no difference between us. So do I,

46:36 It doesn't bother me when people want to live their life in any way, you know, live your life, the whatever feels authentic to you is how you should be. But what I've found is religion can breed almost like a type of insecurity in people. Absolutely. You know, where they feel like they're looking at other people going, well, I'm, I'm doing this. So I'm, I'm on top. I'm so much better than them. And that's really dangerous. That's a really dangerous because it creates such a divide between people. And we really are just all, we're just all here. We're all wearing these meat suits, you know, like, we're all just walking around with our energy, you know, trying to live life the best way we can. And I don't know if you remember, but there was this kind of like a demonstration in New York, a few years ago, where they put up a screen that was like an x-ray screen. And then they asked people to step behind it. And then you just see people's skeletons. So you would see two skeletons dancing or two skeletons kissing or whatever. And then when the people would reveal themselves, you'd see, oh, it was two women kissing, or, oh, it was, you know, a black man and a white woman dancing or something like that. And it was supposed to show like, we're all made of the same

47:55 Stuff. You know, why do we care that there's differences? In fact, this world would be so boring if everybody was the same. There would be, there would be no growth, no challenge, nothing interesting. Why would we do anything? We'd just be like blobs, you know, we'd just be like, like we'd get bored and just be blobs, like, you know, sitting around like doing the same thing all the time, no intellectual stimulation, no physical stimulation, just like, bleh. So, you know, let's celebrate differences. Let's enjoy them. Let's learn about other people and other cultures. Why do we care what other people are doing? If it makes you happy, do it. Right. You know, last night I had a new client and this is always a fun thing for me when somebody's new and they come and, you know, they're just coming for a treatment to treat themselves, but they don't realize until they get here what exactly I do. And, you know, for the most part I say that the biggest part of my work is loving people. Yes, I'm doing a treatment, but I am holding the channel from divine consciousness into the client and I am sending energy through the body, whether I'm doing reflexology or whatever I'm doing behind the scene, all I'm

49:14 Really doing is touching people and loving them and connecting them to a God consciousness. So, they don't know that. That's all my intention. That's all to do with me and my work. So, this girl comes last night and she was so cute because she was, number one, just so happy that she took the time to give herself a break. And when she was all done, she get up and she was a little bit disorientated because sometimes through an energy work, you're removing heavy energy from the body and you're putting in love and source energy. So, it's like, it's big. It feels amazing. But it was so cute just to watch her because she kept walking around the room in a little bit of like a wet noodle, you know. And she kept saying that it was what she said.

50:02 She said, I'm so happy. I'm so happy. I can't believe how happy I am. I just feel so great. She was like a little kid and I thought, oh my gosh, what a gift to me. And she was my last client of the night because I went from nine to nine. And I was just so grateful to have that, like to be gifted that, to have that response, you know, because you don't always get it. I mean, I love all my clients and I think most of my clients love me and we have great conversations. But the truth is my biggest love for what I do is when I connect with the soul and I show them love in a way they haven't felt before, which in turn opens an awareness and an aha moment for them to go, wow. I don't know what that is, but I want more of it because that's how I felt when I first began. When I had a big spiritual awakening, I was like, holy shit, I don't know what the hell this is, but man, I'm going to keep walking down this road.

51:04 But that is the beauty of Reiki. It really is. I always looked at Reiki like it, we have all these, we're like, when we're born, we're a complete picture of ourselves. So we're our true selves, you know, up until we're probably three or four and then, you know, all the pieces kind of, things happen to you and the pieces of the picture start kind of breaking up. But I always felt like Reiki was like something that helped you pull all those pieces of the puzzle back together so you could see the true picture of yourself. And it just is happy because you're letting go of all the stuff that you don't need to carry anymore and the things that have broken up, you know, that idea of yourself.

51:50 Well, unless we live in a world that is very ill, I mean, there's lots of beauty in the world that people could just attach themselves to it. Like, you know, you and I are very conscious every day of keeping our energy good. And I mean, a little while ago, you said, you know, we're energy beings. Well, think about that. We're energy beings when our energy leaves this world. It's not done. No, we're growing all the time. You and I had a great conversation last night because I've been communicating with my mother in spirit a lot lately. And last night I felt this aha moment connecting with her where she was in a state of learning to a point where she was remembering some of the things she allowed in her life. And it was like she was watching it going off. Why did I do that to myself? Why did I accept that and think that was okay? So even in spirit, and I remember saying to you, isn't it beautiful that even after we die, we're not done? That's spiritual that energy being is still in the afterlife in in the on the other side going, wow, look at the different perspective I have. And I think that sometimes, and I'll ask you this question, don't you think sometimes people have more growth

53:10 After their death than they did in the physical down here, having this experience on this earthly plane? Yeah, it's a different kind of growth. Because when you the reason we come into a physical life is so that we expand and grow without all the tools and without all the memories without all the energy that we have in energy consciousness form. Because it's like a challenge, right? It's like, you come here to remember who you really are. And every time you do and every time you fight for it, it it like creates another growth within the soul. Now, when you when you move to the other side, there's no resistance to growth anymore. So it's a different it's a different kind of expansion that happens in the energy form, because you can see, you can see where you were blinded, you can see where you didn't have the strength, you can see where you were too fearful. You know, like we as humans have a ton of emotions. And in the spirit world, they understand the emotions, but they don't they're not barriers to them. And they you think about yourself in this life, we the ideas that we have a small percentage of our consciousness focused into this life. So maybe we'll just

54:27 Say five, five percent or something. So five percent of your energy is here 95% of your energy is in the spirit realm all the time. So that's your higher self, your higher consciousness. Imagine when you go to the other side, when you leave this physical life and your 100% yourself in 100% of your energy, imagine what that must feel like. It would feel like all the problems here would be so small, you know, like, how did I even let that hold me back all those years? And they have no limits. There's no limits on the other side. So what's happening with your mom now is that all the limits, all the restrictions, all the problems, all the weight has been lifted from her. And so she sees everything clearly now.

55:16 It's like clear vision, total remembrance, total strength, total her total energy in one place. So she can now put to rest all the problems and all the things that she dealt with in this life. Right. Well, it was funny because on my daughter's wedding day, of course, you know, me being a mom, you're always, you know, praying that the goes perfect, that your kid has everything they deserve to happen to them on their beautiful day. So, you know, I can remember I was in the shower and I was going, okay, mom, might need a little bit of help today because I'm always, you're always worried that somebody's going to react badly or somebody's going to, because that's been my experience, you know, with family and people behaving badly.

56:03 So I was, I remember I was in a moment in the shower and I said, mom, send me some good stuff. I might need a little bit of extra help today. And she literally said, clear as a bell, Imi, they can't take what you don't give them. And I went, wow, like, wow, I say that to people all the time, but I didn't have it being said to me. And it's, there's a difference when you're the person always being the inspiration for people because that's your, that's the job you gave yourself. And truthfully, I took on a lot of responsibility in this life to teach people to behave the right way. But here's what happened. When I was really trying hard to help people and do free treatments and do this and do that and try to show them how to be the right person. And it was wearing me out. It was, it was draining me. So when I decided to take my power back and say, hey, I love you, however, I love me more. And I have to, I have to take care of me and make sure I'm okay because I love who I am and I love my life. And I love the way I think I love the way I live.

57:11 But it's like when I'm around some people, it feels like I'm sick. I don't like the way I feel. I feel like I have to almost hide who I am or that I don't want to fight. I don't want to say, Hey, why are you talking about those people? What did they do to you? And, but I just don't have the energy to fight with them anymore about the way they think and the way they talk. So, and the beautiful thing that happened was I started to heal. I started to feel better. I started to have more energy this year. 2025 has been the best year for my physical, mental and spiritual self. I played in the earth, which meant I was talking to God constantly all day long. Yeah, it didn't matter what I did. I was communicating with God. And that's another reason I like, I probably say creator, great spirits, like, you know, because that's more of my language. But, and I remember you telling me a story about somebody in your family that was diagnosed, and they had said that finding out that they had cancer made them enjoy even like a blade of grass. I actually know what that feels like now, because it happened to me.

58:34 I didn't have to get ill that way. But being giving myself permission to take the time for me, because gardening is like walking meditation. The whole time you're in this love bubble, where you're like looking at this, because, you know, it's a ton of work and costs to grow your own vegetables, but it's the groundedness that is, you know, divine connection with a God consciousness. Because I could hear the plants say, the ground is too acidic, can you please sweeten the soil? Or there's too much sun here, I can't I'm going to die here. Or, you know, there's too much of whatever. And it was, and we have a big Jared. And, you know, I go outside, you can, you can agree with us that, you know, I wouldn't come in because I was in heaven out there. Yeah, I know. We bought, we bought walkie talkies so that I can, I can get in touch with Kim to say, Hey, get in here and have some to eat. Or, you know, get in here and have a rest. Yeah. No, it's, that's it. I've never felt closer blood than, or when I'm in the ocean, like when I'm in the water. And I feel like a little kid. And that's something we, if you look at little kids, they're so close to God, they're so close to heaven because they haven't been here long enough, pardon me,

59:50 For us to mess them up. Right, right. Because we're so disconnected from what we're supposed to be connected to. I know. And I look at our grandkids and look at our grandkids when we take them out. We get to the beach and it only takes a couple minutes, they could be cranky or they could be whatever. But when we get them to that beach and they're running and looking around and each one of those kids like something different about the beach, you know, so where's like a beach town, he's got to get the sea glass and, you know, and they just love the way they feel there because they're free. We as adults, we are so plugged up, we're so backed up, we're worrying about everything, we're watching the news. And I don't know about you, but we don't have like, we don't watch enough TV to see like commercials and all that stuff. And when we're at the hotel or we're away and we see it, we're like, wow, this is what people are watching. Like no wonder you don't feel good, no wonder you're anxious. Like if you don't get inside, you're just like, it's like this electrical turbulence that it makes me feel crazy. So, and you know that if I'm not outside enough, it's like, I know you're probably inside going, him needs to get the hell outside.

1:01:06 Yeah, well, you know, however you, like your spirituality is personal to you, it's personal to each person, but I will say the closest way back to yourself is through nature. So it's the easiest, excuse me, it's the easiest thing. It's the clothe, it's the, it's free, you know, get yourself outside and connect back with yourself and who you are. It is really important and you know, you, you've always been a really, you know, outdoor enthusiast and gardener and everything. And I, I've been preaching this to people for as long as I can remember that, you know, you're, you're an electrical system, you need grounding outside. But if you're willing to receive the energy from nature, from trees, from plants, from animals, and if you're willing to allow that to happen, it will, nature will give just continuously give and give and give. There's so much abundance in nature and abundance of the energy that we actually need. So it's the quickest way back. If you're feeling lost, how many people do you know when they're feeling lost? They go

1:02:22 For a walk or they go to the beach or they go to the lake or they go for a hike, you know, a lot of people feel that need and you need to trust, trust that, trust that feeling that when you're feeling like you're off or whatever that you do need to just get outside, go do something outside. It's so, it's so helpful. And we're, we're so trained now consciousness. Yeah, like, you know, like that's the thing that's the separation is like religion. It's like, you sent me something that showed like a fish in a bowl. Maybe you can explain that a little bit. Well, the image showed the difference between religion and spirituality. So there was a goldfish in a bowl, but the bowl was in the ocean. And then there was another goldfish who was just swimming around free. And that's kind of the difference like spirituality is like the ocean.

1:03:17 It's open for you to discover there's freedom, you know, you just kind of move around in there as much as you want, see what you want, take what you want, have experiences and you just observe and reflect and awaken. And then in religion, it's like you're, you're just in one container. So you only have what you have in that container and you don't have anything else. So it's very much top down. They give you the information. You have to believe it. You don't really have a choice. And they ask you, they, they're asking you how to be. And if you think about spirituality is growth, spirituality is expansive. It's like, you get freedom, you get to learn about who you are and how amazing is that. And I'm not saying like religions, a totally bad thing. I think it's good for, it serves a purpose when people really need that structure and they really need something very easily attainable, you know, and they need, maybe they need community in that moment. But I'm going to tell you the spiritual communities that are out there are amazing. And you don't have to change who you are to be a spiritual person. So, well, no, on the contrary, it's about allowing yourself

1:04:38 The space to figure out who you really are. And it's like, I have never known the love that I have, that I know now, like love within myself, because I'm with somebody who gives me permission to be myself. And you are also, and I think that is a massive, massive gift. Because so many people, they, because they're so fearful. And that's always something I've had a hard time with is like, where does all this fear come from? You know, because we're always exactly where we're meant to be always in every moment. That's it. And if we trusted it more, and here's the other thing, like if we didn't trust that we chose as a soul to come down here and have this experience. And that's why I have always been like somebody who said, be careful the things you're against, because that might be your next life. All I fear you have about that.

1:05:31 Yeah, it could be, right? But you know, this is all, this is all perfect in perfection. This, this path is the, it's like, you are going to navigate, navigate your life and this path much better if you can accept change, because that's all we really have is a whole bunch of change. And we're not in control of everything. And this, this topic today was so big, like it's just so expansive. I mean, well, yeah, like maybe there's a part two to this because this could be, this could be a whole series of a conversation. And we just covered, like we just scratched the surface today, but I hope that people can realize that, you know, there's, there's nothing wrong with being religious. And in fact, I think religion without spirituality is very confining.

1:06:23 If you find a balance between the two, and that makes you happy, then do it. I don't have a problem. I don't feel my personal self. I don't have a problem with anybody doing anything that makes them happy. But for me personally, I couldn't stay in the confines of religion. Spirituality spoke to me and it made me feel whole. It made me feel loved and accepted. And so I don't, I didn't have that with religion completely. But I will say that if you can have, you can be religious and you can be spiritual, it is possible. And if you have that balance, then, and if makes you feel good, then I think you should do whatever, whatever makes you feel good. But in, in my case, and I can think I can speak for you Kim, that for us, the structure of spirituality wasn't, it was limiting our growth. And so, and it wasn't making us feel very good as people.

1:07:17 So here we are as spiritual connected to a God consciousness, still loving God, appreciating God. I don't typically, like we've talked about God a lot in this episode. And typically, I look at it like an energy. So I normally would say universal consciousness or source, but this is where we are today to communicate how we feel. And it's, it's a really nice place to be when you feel comfortable within your own self and who you are and what you believe. Right. Well, and one of this, this is kind of a little bit off topic, but it has, has a deep meaning is I used to study Dr. Imoto's messages and water. And it was just that it gave me that picture in my mind about how when you're in an environment that's hostile, how your energy would look. So if you see like Dr. Imoto's messages and water, it literally would show you like a raindrop, right? And it would, it would zoom in on it and it actually looked like a beautiful snowflake when you zoomed in.

1:08:23 And so it put it around, it put droplets of water around like positive energy. And then it did it around a hostile environment. And you could physically, you could see the difference. Yeah, because I ask anybody to look it up because it's, it's absolutely incredible to see how we're influencing other people because that is a direct connection to how do we as a family operate in the confines of our home? How do we talk to each other? What, what's our, what's our dialogue? How do we treat each other? Because sometimes we have to just flip how we're doing something so that we're more empowering the other people in our home than disempowering them because we don't want them to go out into the world and feel like, you know, they're being judged for every single thing they do, how they look, how they feel, what they're eating, what they're like, oh my goodness, there's just so much judgment out there.

1:09:19 The energy of that is just like soul sucking, right? So that's, that's not, that's not what we're about. And but I love that you're, I love that you're going that way just so that, you know, people can see that how we conduct ourselves in an energy forum really does affect our environment and it affects other people. And do you really want to do that to the people you love? Right. And sometimes we don't know until we do. So like we're, this beating ourselves up, that's the other thing I see is this, this, everyone's beating themselves up. They're, they're like really good parents, but they're beating themselves up and they don't feel like they're good enough. And it's, it's changing how they're parenting or, you know, as a friend or a family member, the way we're behaving with each other, it's like, it's not okay. No. And it's so destructive to the, and, and we're beings, we're being, meaning we're here to be, to, to express life and to learn what love for self and, and then emanate that out into the world where we're here to show people the beauty that is everywhere around us. Well, if that's not God consciousness, I don't know what is.

1:10:29 Yeah, exactly. Well, your, your passion is infectious and obviously we have lots more to talk about, but I think, I think we're going to end it here for today. And we welcome all your comments, suggestions, please make sure that you download the episodes. It really helps us. It helps us get the word out there more, share the episode with friends, anybody that you think would benefit from this. And we're just, we're just obviously really excited about what we're doing. And we'll be back next week with another episode. If you're interested in contacting Kim for Soul Awakening Coaching, please contact her at mksoulcoaching.com. If you'd like to check out my website and everything that I do, please go to laurawarrenmedium.com.