Episode 13 - Katy Bandy and Glorifying the Feminine

Anni and her sister Katy Bandy discuss finding the Divine Feminine, the mental health implications of living under patriarchy, what we need from the Masculine, and living with awareness of our mortality.

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Transcript

Hello, welcome to Barely Christian, Fully Christian. This is Anni Ponder. This podcast explores loving Jesus, being repulsed by much of Christianity, and relating to the Holy Spirit as the divine feminine, or as I prefer to call her, Mama God.

On today’s episode, I talk with therapist and women’s mindfulness coach Katy Bandy about all things Divine Feminine. Thank you for joining us.

I want to welcome Katy Bandy, who is someone I know and love from way back, and we'll get to that in a second. But Katy, thank you so much for joining us here today on Barely Christian, Fully Christian.

So glad you're here. I am so excited to do this with you. Well, for starters, for anyone who doesn't know this amazing woman, Katy is a licensed mental health therapist in the state of California, as well as a, okay, Linnehan. Linnehan, board certified dialectical behavioral therapist with a passion for supporting ambitious women and seeing them rise. She spends half her time working as a coach for high achieving women and half her time providing psychotherapy for women in her private practice.

And so just super excited to talk with you today about all that you have learned and seen and ways in which you have grown. And so I guess now I'll put up again. And this is also my little sister. I was going to say, tell them who I really am.

Yeah, who you really are, just so the world knows how I love and adore you. So Katy became my sister when she was, we were thinking seven or eight, and I was 13. Our parents got married, her dad and my mom.

And for some time now, the term step has never really felt descriptive. And so this is my sister. Thank you for joining me here and lighting the world with your presence.

Yeah, no, I'm super excited to be here. And I remember like when our parents got married, you were the cool older sister. And I just immediately wanted you to just be my sister, right? Like, no need for the step part.

Yeah, absolutely. That is really the truth. And I was going through a snarky sort of punky phase. And I don't think... I was all that welcoming and kind, which I deeply regret now. But I'm so glad that we can walk this path together in our adult years.

Totally, totally.

So one of the things that you and I share in our adult years without having talked about it a whole lot at the beginning, we've kind of discovered this mutually in one another, is our deep love and appreciation for the divine feminine, which is at once beautiful and also kind of hilarious, given our shared history and the heritage that we came from, very patriarchal upbringing that we experienced.

And so it is a delight now to know that we're both walking this same path into the woods, if you will, discovering the divine feminine. So my first question is, I would just love to hear how you came to discover about her. Because we were not brought up to know about her.

No, not at all. And I would actually say kind of recently, like within the last six or seven years. But my journey towards that obviously started like, you know, in my late teen years exiting from the fundamentalist religion that we were raised in and just knowing that that did not sit in my gut, rebelling against that. I took a turn being atheist, you know, in my early 20s and very scientific minded. And then in my late 20s, I started learning mindfulness through my career. And mindfulness is a little bit more of an intuitive practice. Teaches us how to really connect with our intuition, listen to our emotions. And I think that was probably the first trigger that started leading me more down the road towards kind of coming back to spirituality, but in a different way, like in a much different way.

I didn't actually know about the concept of the divine feminine until I read a book by Sally Kempton called Awakening Shakti, which is about the goddesses of yoga. And she kind of highlights in Hinduism, the pantheon of female goddesses. And I was like, Oh, my God, this makes so much sense. There's a feminine divinity.

Isn't that amazing that it would be an epiphany to us? Like, Oh, because it's just so long swallowing hook, line and sinker. You know, God is all male. And even though there are three persons in the Godhead and one's a father and one's a son. I don't know about you, but it never occurred to me to be like, well, if there's a daddy and there's a baby and then there's this other person, might it be a mommy?

Where's the mom?

Never once did I even suspect. Yeah, no. Right, wow, that's amazing. And so, oh, it's so good to hear about this. And you have shared with me resources over the years that have been helpful to you, that in turn were helpful to me, particularly, I mean, let's just take a moment to honor Dr. Henry Grayson and Mindful Loving, and how transformative that was. And I think that book was, for me, at the beginning of my awakening to, he doesn't really get into the masculine feminine archetypes very much, but it was an introduction to mindfulness, which then... opened me up so that I could begin to wonder, where is our mama? Why do we just have a dad? Is he a single dad?

Yeah, I know. It's funny, like, maybe this is a tangent, but, you know, I look back at even the way the origin story is written in the Bible, where, you know, Adam was created first, and then Eve was just like an afterthought that came out of the rib, like it completely structured in a patriarchal way to just make women kind of this sub-afterthought.

Yeah. Exactly. I've struggled with that, and what I keep coming back to is really fascinating, is the first time in that story when, actually, this is funny, I was talking on my last podcast with my guest about this verse, so when God says, let us create humans, it says man, but it means humans in our image, let us create them male and female. God is talking as a morality, let us create, and then when we create humans, they'll be male and female, because, so are we? Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Well, and, you know, of course, our human minds are binary, you know, and I think, like, we can, we come in, and we're a little rigid, and we can only grasp so much, and then once we're able to kind of open our minds a little bit more and expand our understanding of things, we can, I don't know.

Yes. The more you grow, the more you grow.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

So, I love to ask this question. Finding your way into there is a divine femininity. What has that done for you as a woman?

Yeah, you know, I think it's something that I'm continually connecting with and nurturing because it's hard to kind of unravel when you've been living and stuck in such a patriarchal worldview for so long to really kind of like whoa wait a second let me explore femininity without judgment and also without the infinite stereotypes and shoulds you know like what is a woman and what is femininity supposed to be but I think really when it comes down to it it's offered me more self-acceptance you know like unconditional self-acceptance which is you know letting myself be who I am acknowledging emotions that I'm feeling as natural and valid. Listening to the wisdom of my body a little bit more, not getting so stuck in the hyper-analytical, which is hard for me because that's where my brain goes, right? So, yeah, I don't know. Those are just a couple things that come to mind.

Oh, I resonate with all of that. When I started walking into this, I was like, oh, I am allowed to accept myself. Yeah. In a way that I have never before understood. And it was such an epiphany to realize that my femininity derives from God herself. Yeah. It is an expression of godliness to be woman. Wow. And that goes so deep. And like you're saying, that allows us to connect with the nature of our bodies, the cyclical nature of our bodies and to honor. Oh, bleeding regularly is an expression of our divine femininity and having the emotions that we do, having the sensation, the intuition, which is something I'm finding I need to work out like a muscle because it's been so dormant for so long, right?

Totally, totally. And all of these things, and it just makes me at my deepest place so grateful to be who I am because it's much like if you grow up and you're always told, you know, God is male, God is masculine, then you go, oh, well, then I don't relate to that. You know, what am I? But when you start to recognize the femininity of God, and again, I always like to say, and probably gender is just a metaphor and God transcends all that fine. Totally. Yeah. And we need this metaphor. Then it's like that beautiful thing. thing when you're a child and somebody can come to you and say, oh, you look just like so-and-so in your family. You're, you know, like maybe you have a favorite aunt that you love very much and your family member says, oh, you look just like your auntie.

And you're like, Nice recognition. Yes. And that's how it's felt to me. Oh, yeah. The trait that I have, this desire to work for, this collaboration that I want to offer the world is like my mama. Oh, yeah.

Totally. Totally. And I think the other thing that's layered on top of this, not just that God was a male in, you know, in traditional Christianity, but not only that, women were at fault for sin. And for the fall of humanity, it was women who tempted Adam.

And so there's this massive blame and burden that is 100% felt on the shoulders. I remember it growing up. It's, you know, women like, ooh, don't let them tempt you. They'll be your downfall. You know, so it's kind of like, oh my gosh, like deep within me, there's something wrong about me I should be ashamed of, I should hide, or I got to be careful. And, you know, it's like, I think that's a whole other element that is just damaging to the psyche.

100%. I can relate to what you're saying. And this, like a shame about being a seductress or a whore. Or, or any of the...

Or even liking yourself. Like don't like anything about yourself. Don't be prideful. You know, keep your head low. Don't wear bright colors. Don't wear makeup. Don't wear jewelry. Don't call attention to your femininity. And for goodness sake, cover up your curves. And don't be a stumbling block to your brothers. And yes, the shame goes deep. And it cuts at our very fabric of, you know, can you imagine the divine feminine in her purest form ever being like, oh shoot, you know, my shoulder is showing. I can't. Oh goodness.

No. Yeah. Yeah.

And the damage, you're right, that that does to our psyches, putting us initially at the very beginning of our cognitive understanding. And even before that, even prior to when we really start to wake up to this, at least disadvantage and thinking we are lesser. We are secondary. We are going to be helpers. You know, our job is to assist. And, and we are not good. You're right. That's really the message that we aren't good. We're not to be trusted. We started the whole. thing. And when we get to heaven one day, everybody's going to be so mad at Eve for what she did.

Yeah, yeah. I remember that. Yeah, no, it's like such a current that is there. And you know, you even, I even can think of some, some family members that I've heard joking about this, you know, and it's like, it's serious, but it's also they joke about it. Yeah, Eve, she just duh, duh, duh, duh, you know, and so it's just pervasive.

It is, it is everywhere. It was the air that we were breathing and the water we were drinking. Yeah. And it's so nice to be far away from that now.

It really is. And you know, I think that I always like to look at the macro and we live in a Protestant based nation, you know, the United States was really founded on Protestant Christian beliefs, as much as they like to say there's separation of church and state, you know, there's not. And so those subtle innuendos and themes pervade our whole culture in society, even for people who aren't in strict fundamentalist religions, I think these subtle veins are everywhere, you know?

I agree. In fact, not only Protestant, but I've been on this hunt of the thread of where is Puritanism still?

Puritanism, exactly.

In our culture at large, where did it get baked into the founding fathers? And where were the founding mothers anyway? And it still shows up these, you know, for instance, the easy one to pick out here is that, you know, sex is a shameful, secret, dirty kind of thing. And wow, the damage that has done to our psyche is something to explore.

Yeah, well, actually, a little pivot here. So you shared that I'm board certified in dialectical behavioral therapy. So DBT is a form of therapy that was created by this amazing woman named Marsha Linnehan. And it was originally created to help individuals who have something called borderline personality disorder. And it's a disorder where people suffer often from suicidal thoughts and actions. A large percentage of the time, there's been some form of childhood abuse, especially sexual abuse. And the majority of people diagnosed with BPD are women. And in DBT, one of the first thing that's taught and one of the things that she really highlights is something called the invalidating social environment, and the impact of an invalidating social environment. So that's things like sexism, you know, and all of these social norms that tell us what we're supposed to do, how we're supposed to be, what our value is, whether we're okay or not, that impacts our psyche.

And so, you know, it's fascinating because I feel like that form of therapy is really healing and kind of addresses this population of women who have been directly impacted by these threads of sexism. There's other aspects too, of course, but that's a big part of it as they're growing up and they don't trust themselves, they don't like themselves, they harm themselves, they don't know how to cope with their emotions. And yeah, so that's a little rant.

So I'm so glad you brought that up because I think a lot of us have a lot to learn here and that's fascinating actually. I'm just thinking about three different thoughts at once. So which one did I want to pull out? I don't know if you know this, but at one time it was suspected that I had borderline personality disorder. Turns out it was bipolar disorder of a sort. But I can really relate to what did you call it where you're getting the messages from your society that you're bad?

The invalidating social environment.Yeah, yeah. Yeah, you know, she just a real quick plug here. So Marshall Linnehan, who she also struggled from some of those symptoms, and actually really agree with what she said, she said, most of us have a little flare of BPD. And because we are humans living in a highly invalidating world. And so kind of like de-stigmatizing that idea. And obviously, there's a spectrum, you know, where people might suffer more intensely with some of those things.

But I agree with that, because I think I've even noticed in myself, especially in my younger years, some of those like traits, right? It's the lack of self trust and some self harm in my younger years and stuff like that. So it's more common than people think.

Right, that's really true. And I think what we're learning in the larger context of psychotherapy is what I'm hearing. Obviously, that's not my field. But what I keep hearing with my ear pressed to the ground is that many of these disorders are like a spectrum or a bell curve, which we can find ourselves, you know, in various places. And I can so relate to the mistrust of one's self. My therapist's office a couple years ago, and we were doing some EMDR, healing some trauma, and it was really helpful. And he asked me a question, and I kind of didn't know exactly how to respond.

And he said, it's okay to trust yourself. And I went, are you sure? But you know, my history, you know, that I literally went out of my mind. I'm not sure that's true. And he said, Yes, you actually can trust yourself and I want you to start trusting yourself that's actually part of the problem is you have not been able to yes trust yourself and I'm sure he was drawing on some of this and the invalidation that our culture serves up.

Yeah and I think in sexism particularly since we're kind of talking about the patriarchy and the divine feminine you know it's it's built that way on purpose as a power dynamic so that women do doubt themselves and outsource their power right right like someone else knows better than me what I should think and feel I need to rely on others to help me feel safe and stable right and so it's by design yeah it's by design.

So this is a little wacky but I want to tell you this. One night, I Googled, like, people having experiences with God, because much like you, I went through a period of, like, probably there is no God, I can't handle this whole business, right? And so I came back on my spiral shaped journey, and here I am. But I'm curious about what other people have experienced with God. And I found this video, you know, again, who knows, take this with a grain of salt, but this man was telling a story about a vision that he'd had when he was eight years old, and he'd been invited to come to heaven, and what he experienced there.

And what blew my mind, I will never forget this, is he said, in heaven, there is an air of acceptance and approval from everyone you meet. He said, I would be walking down the streets, and he had a guide who was taking him around and showing him places, right?

And he would pass different, I don't know what they were, angels or beings, whatever. And they all knew his name, and they all, he said it felt to me like they accepted and approved of me exactly as I was. There was just this air of approval. And I thought, wow, how very different that thought is, what we experience here, particularly as women, you know, I just have felt most of my life like I needed to seek approval as most of us do, and like I needed to seek validation and outside voices telling me that I am right or on the right track or worthy and valuable because I've received the message loud and clear that women are not to be trusted.

Yeah, totally. Wow.

So what has it done for you in your own life and work and your career and what you offer the world to begin to trust your body, your intuitions, your inner knowing?

Yeah, I mean, I feel like it starts to kind of bleed into everything, you know. It's not only kind of directed my personal relationships, you know, my life partnership. I think I'm just starting to be a little more self-aware of the energy that I bring when I might be polarizing into that conditioned masculine and then trying to sink back a little bit more into what feels more natural as feminine.

I think it's helped me guide the direction in my life. So for example, starting my own business a few years ago, leaving the structure and safety of a nine-to-five I quit last year. And you know, while part of me is screaming like, this is illogical, what are you doing? This isn't safe. And my fear is there or whatever. Just knowing like, no, I'm going to trust myself, I'm going to trust where I'm going and what I need in my life at this time. So I think that's huge.

Yeah, I mean, when you start to really connect with yourself unconditionally and your intuitive self, it just informs so much. And I'm sure even in my work with my clients, it gives me an ability to really be present with them, kind of read them, be receptive to them, and just using that intuition to guide in there too.

I'm sure that is really useful. Not only what it does for you, but what you're able to offer the people you're working with this whole body listening and responding, feeling, knowing. Yeah. Wow. Yeah.

So speaking of your clients, I'm wondering if so you've worked in the field of psychotherapy, what is it, like 15 years now? Okay. So I'm wondering if you have noticed any meta themes over the time that you've worked in this field that are connected to what, oh, I'm forgetting the author that I'm drawing this from, but it's written in a lot of places.

A lot of people talk about the mother wound, right? The separation from the feminine, right? So I'm really curious if you have noted any larger themes across your practice that you could talk about where what is the sickness that is showing up in and among us because we don't have the connection to the feminine that we need.

Yeah. I mean, I think other than what I had mentioned previously about this invalidating social environment that impacts our mental health and emotional wellbeing, taking it even a step above that and looking at the mental healthcare system in general. You know again another system that I've really bought into which I want to first say is a valuable system. We need more mental health care access. It's a much-needed resource and it was also created within a patriarchal worldview and you know a scientific method which is hyper-masculine.

And so something that I started to really see within the last you know a few years is how a lot of forms of therapy are polarized into the logic, right? Well change your thoughts, fix your thoughts, rather than body wisdom and thinking into okay where do you feel this emotion in your body and all of that kind of thing, right?

You know if you go back and look at the ancients like Freud and Jung, Freud especially, you know, let's pathologize women who are having these reactions, understandable reactions to an unfair society, you know, an oppressive and patriarchal worldview.

And so, you know, even the mental health care system over the years I think has reinforced sometimes that it is the individual that's sick, they're the problem, they're not functioning in our society rather than seeing that these are natural responses to an environment that is not tapped into the feminine and the wisdom that is held in the body, in the intuition, in, you know, glorifying the feminine on all of her strengths, right?

I cannot agree more with what you've just said, and particularly having experienced my own mental illness. It was really life changing to me for my therapist to say to you, of course, this happened to you. Do you know the society in which you live? Do you know how maddening like I want you to listen to that term maddening, it is to live lopsided. And of course, you would have a break in your sanity. Yeah, of course, it makes perfect sense.

Exactly. So it's not like I'm at fault. Yeah, years ago when I'm unraveling this. Yeah. Yeah, no, honey, it's not your fault. And of course, you would be damaged. It's your mental illness is a symptom of this large problem.

Exactly. Yeah. And I think it's really important to highlight too that this doesn't just impact women, right? And And obviously, we could open this up to the LGBTQ community. There's non -binary individuals.

It's not a polarity and even for men, their patriarchy harms them just as much as it does women because it tells them they can't feel their emotions. It tells them to just toughen up and think logically, push through.

And so that is just as damaging and I've seen this in my work with clients over the years. It's kind of the same unraveling work for men to say, hey, there is feminine and masculine in all of life, including every individual.

And so don't cut that out of yourself. It's okay to acknowledge emotions. It's okay to connect and trust your intuition even as a man, right?

I'm so glad you brought that up. I wanted to hear because I know you specialize in working with women, but that was my next question because Um, the, the, what I, what little I know about this field is yes, we have all been starved of something vital to us. And so the, the maybe more, um, first apparent symptom of this is that women are just, yeah. Yeah. It's like we're dancing on one leg, but also what it has done to men, how it has, like you said, told them just ignore their feelings, like don't even have feelings.

Yeah. It's not, it's not manly to feel or acknowledge your feelings and then just buck up, tough it out, which I'm grateful for the men I know who are able to do really hard things. I'm grateful for the protective energy that that place and, and it can be both and we need men to be able to have permission to come inward to themselves to listen to their feelings, pay attention to their bodies because it's not just women's territory to have intuition and knowing bodily knowing.

And then that translates into, okay, if a man can learn to listen to his own emotions and his own intuition, that's how you're then also receptive to others. Can you listen to the women in your life?

Can you validate them? Can you acknowledge them? Can you uplift them from an empowered place, right?

That is something I am just calling out to all my male friends and beloveds. Please use your voice, your position, your power to make space for those of us who have been so long silenced and oppressed. Use your position. Yeah. And elevate our voices. Share your power with us so that we can truly create a more balanced environment for everyone to thrive.

Yeah, yeah, totally. I think from the spiritual perspective, at least from this book, Awakening Shakti, you know, the male masculine energy is that strong container that can hold space for the feminine, as she is creative and wild and whatever, right? And so yes, men, we need you to be able to hold space for us. And that means being open and receptive to that feeling and feminine energy, right?

Absolutely. Oh, I'm seeing this play out in my own life so strongly right now. We've been doing a little bit of internal family systems therapy. And I've learned about this part of myself. And I call her the shy artist. And she only comes out when she feels really safe. And it's been really fun to introduce her to my husband and say like she'll only, you'll only see her when you know the skies are clear and at least for now she's just just starting to tiptoe out and I've been sharing with him you know what I really want from you is to stand in a sort of protective stance against the world keeping her safe maybe you can even have a sword if you like that imagery keeping everybody away and saying I need to create space for her to come out. She's a dancer, we want to see her art we want to hear her sing, and um but she won't stay out long if she feels threatened she just goes right back in.

Yeah yeah yeah so I think I think that's where like a lot of feminism gets a bad rap because it well and some people are this way they do want to cut out the masculine or minimize the masculine or get rid of it like no we need the masculine we love the masculine you know and it's it's also within all of us right and so yes

Yes I I keep having to repeat this over and over we are not asking for matriarchy that's no nobody nobody in their right mind thinks that would be a good idea it would be just as lopsided we would have just as much dysfunction and if we had an imbalance we are asking for partnership where everybody's strengths are welcome yeah and I don't know do you find that you have to clarify this it just blows my mind I keep having to clarify I'm not saying women can physically do everything men can do with the same acumen. I'm not saying yeah let me know go out and and do your work because I can do what you can do. Do you find that you have to clarify that a lot?

Yeah totally totally and I you know I think that that has been part of the push of feminism that's been needed, which is that, hey, we can work in the workplaces too, we don't have to just stay at home, you know, like, let us come out of the house. Let us come into the work roles. And so, you know, part of it is like we both we're both intelligent beings, we have brains too. And you know, and so that has been part of the push. But like you said, it's not, there are strengths and weaknesses. And on both sides, it's not about better or worse or equal or you know.

And of course, there are always, you know, instances of variance here, but in general, men are bigger, stronger, faster. And so why would I be fighting for Oh, I need to be doing everything the way a man does. I would rather We'll look at individuals and have us, here's where my gifts are. Here are the things I would like to do to contribute to this, whatever partnership or corporate world where, great. Here's my strengths. Here's what I offer. I'm not going to try to compete with you. And certainly you're right. There is a place for, yeah, Rosie the Riveter comes to mind, right? We can do hard physical things, but I think part of the pushback I get, particularly from some men in my life is like, but I am bigger. I am stronger. I am faster. Why are you saying women are equal? And I'm like, okay, let me clarify again. I believe we are equal in worth and in power, maybe not always physical power.

We're not balancing biology here.

Biologically, there are distinct differences. And again, there will be some women who can outlift men. Right. General trend is their bodies are bigger and stronger and faster. But what we're talking about is the weight that we have at a table where decisions are being made, where contributions are being given so that we are creating a balanced society.

You know, adding on to when you mentioned competition, right? It's not about competition. There's this another other amazing book. It's called The Soul of Money by Sally Kempton. And she talks about our relationship with money as humans.

And at one point she talks about, you know, the scientific theory, survival of the fittest, right? That's been really promoted that it's all about competition for resources and whoever's stronger gets more climb to the top. And that is some of the old science and to an extent true. And that is generally a masculine trait. What she highlights is that nature and a lot of science is now showing this too. Nature is actually far more collaborative than competitive and so all you have to do is look at a forest ecosystem and look at how things work together and you know feed each other to see the collaboration that happens and like sure a tiger might kill a deer but typically it's not out there killing 20 deer that is going to leave 19 to rot and just eat one right it only eats the minimum so I'm kind of going on a tangent here, but I think that, you know, that's another area where if we can bring in more of the divine feminine into our culture, it's going to balance this polarization into competition and stomping over everybody else and taking more than we need and compete, you know, all of that stuff that is destroying our planet.

So much, so, so much, because that idea that we should hoard, you know, that's a cancerous idea, right? That's what cancer cells do in the body. And they take more than they need. And so they end up meeting the body, which we see the thing that came up for me a couple of things while you're talking is that the idea of competition and only the strong survive and all that is inherently based on the idea of scarcity.

And what's fascinating is, yes, we may see instances where, you know, two male birds are competing for the one female who's available. Yeah, there is some competition in nature. Yeah, sure, there is.

But, and I tried to think dialectically, there is so much to say about how nature collaborates. My Instagram feed has figured out that the algorithm there has has discovered that I want to see more of this in nature.

So it continuously feeds me these beautiful little stories and reels where, you know, there's a turtle floating upside down in a pool and 20 turtles come and conspire to build a turtle tower and flip it over.

Or there's a there's a little hedgehog in the road and it's in danger. And so crow comes by and like nudges it out of the road. Yes. Or my favorite was there was a mother whale and she was about ready to have her baby.

And there were sharks circling because they could smell the blood. And so somehow she sent a distress call or the dolphins. and the good dolphins of the ocean came in mass and drove the sharks away and provided safety and it was just like full body chills thinking about it.

I have it right now too. Yeah.

So maybe it's true. Maybe sometimes we do have to compete to survive. And also enough of this notion that this planet can't support us all. Yeah, exactly. It's a ridiculous notion.

Exactly. This planet could lead 20 billion of us. There is that idea as to... If we worked collaboratively, it would be simple. If we decided to believe there's enough for us all, then we wouldn't need to hoard.

Yeah. Wow. I think that's the macro for me where the importance of balancing the divine feminine, and it starts on the micro individually within ourselves. And then it builds into our relationships and then it grows into the broader dynamics in our world and cultural norms on the planet, you know, yeah, and it's our life depends on it, I think it really does.

And you're absolutely right. The best place for any of us to start if anybody is going, Oh, I, I'd like to be a part of this is within. I know there is enough for me. What I have to others, there is enough for me.

Yeah, yeah, has been really helpful. Yeah, yeah. Really helpful. And then the other thing that I wanted to look at there with you is to look at this a few years ago, actually, and I'd be curious about your, your insights here.

I was examining racism, and I was teaching at a school where we were really trying to eradicate as much white supremacy from our teaching as we possibly could and it was really hard to do. Yeah. And so I sat down and started to think, okay, if, if racism is a tree and the fruit that it bears is all this injustice.

I'd like to go down and look at what is the root. Where is this rooted this, this thought that as my friend Carl says, my world would be better without you in it, which is the root of genocide he's the one I think you about, and I just did a podcast with him last week.

He was in the, he was in Rwanda during the genocide. And so he taught me long ago that the root there is that my world would be better without you in it. And I traveled all the way down to where I was like, okay, what belief is behind that thought?And I got down to, oh, it's a belief in scarcity. There isn't enough for us all, and I have to procure the needs of my tribe, my people, my family, myself. And then I was like, is there anything underneath that I kept digging?

I bet you can guess what I found. Beneath the belief that there isn't enough is the fear of my own death. I'm just afraid to not exist. I don't know what might happen after, and so I have to then get as much as I can to prolong that death.

And so I looked at this huge ugly tree of racism, and all the way down traveled as far as I could, and perhaps there's more that other people can notice. But what I found is, oh, the very, very, very tip of that root is fear of my own death.

Oh, and so I bring that up because I'm wondering, is that also at the root of sexism, which is a very similar, planted in the same Grove, if you will, other is is it that we had a very core of ourselves are just afraid to die?

There's another great book that I love. Okay, that I had to read in college, I'm not gonna remember the author's name right now. But it's called The Denial of Death. Okay, it's a fat book. It's huge.

And it's about, you know, it's kind of theorizing about how humans have come to grapple with our mortality. It's taking a more scientific approach, you know, and thinking, okay, along the lines of our evolution, at some point, we became aware that we have a lifespan and we're going to die someday.

Like, you know, a dog probably doesn't know it has a lifespan or a monkey doesn't know it has a lifespan. At some point, we realized we do. And that terrified us and is what triggered the development of spiritual or religious belief systems.

As a way to cope with our death. Right? And so, you know, what do we need to do to make ourselves immortal? What do we need to create to feel like there's not an ending? And, you know, I mean, I genuinely believe have a spiritual belief system now. And I do acknowledge that faith is faith, right? We're making our best guess on something. But when you look at rigid fundamentalist beliefs, I think 100% that is rooted in a deep fear of death. like the psyche just trying to grip into with a hundred percent certainty that if I do X Y and Z and I follow X Y and Z then I'll pass the test and I'll make it to heaven and then I have to get everybody else around me to do the same thing because I love them and I don't want them to die and you know it kind of turns into them that almost becomes a virus where it's like oh right I've got to spread and take we take what I can and get what I can but metaphysically spiritually speaking right?

Yeah, and how that fractures us yeah separates us from our sense of wholeness here and yeah exactly and then we start talking about ourselves as bad or sinners or right you know whatever so that we can be on this

so we can get the ticket

Yeah get the ticket yeah yeah. One of your nieces, I won't name her, but I don't think she would mind if I shared this. So one of my daughters, when she was three years old, had an experience, a loved one died. And she looked at me with wide eyes and said, wait a minute. One day, are you going to die? She was three years old. And I said, yeah, honey, I am one day. I'll probably be a really old, old lady. You'll probably have me a long, long time. Yes, that's the way it goes for us. She got really quiet and her eyes got huge. And I watched this thought come into her body and she went, am I going to die one day? And I was like, shoot, I did not, I was not ready for her at the age of three. You know, those children, I think, what do they say? Around five or six, they comprehend their mortality. She got it early. And the moment she recognized she was mortal, everything changed for this kid and not in a good way. She became anxious. She became obsessed with death. Everything we did, is this going to make us die? You know, to the point where like family members are pulling me aside. I'm really concerned about your daughter. She's like obsessed with that. And I'm like, no, I know. We know we're working on it. And I think that fractured a part of her sense of wholeness and terrified her. And she has done a lot of work. I'm so proud of her. Putting herself back together and recognizing that she now lives with a lot of anxiety that I traced back to that moment in her.

Yeah, totally. I mean, this is this is like a whole other topic that I'm super passionate about and it is, you know, grappling with our mortality and, you know, everyone has their belief systems or not you know even for atheists if it's like I'm gonna turn into dirt and they're fine with that right okay whatever but it is something that if we don't find some way to cope with it it will rule our life and it will direct everything we do and every decision we make and that can well depending on how it's working it can be a harmful or a positive thing right

Oh so much in my experience teaching high school English something that I liked to do was offer a writing assignment and I would offer it like you don't have to do this but if you're game right imagine that you have lived the life you most want from where you are you're 16 years old okay imagine that you go through your whole life you live it you accomplish the things you'd like to accomplish you've set goals and you've achieved them you've had the relationships you wanted and then and then one day you pass on Okay.

I want you to write what would be said about you at your funeral, right? Write your eulogy. And some of them could, oh, that's a cool assignment, but a terror in the eyes of some of my students who are like, I don't want to think about that I am mortal.

And maybe, you know, looking back, maybe this was a weighty assignment and I don't know, I'm not suggesting- Just diving right in there. It is. It is. And I'm not suggesting this is a good thing. This is just what I did.

I saw the abject terror in most of their eyes because they had never considered being at peace with the idea that they would die one day. Yeah. And then doing a creative assignment about it. And so I would be like, okay, well, you can do another assignment.

Why don't you write about a celebrity you really enjoy or something, you know, something that really struck me how I will say societally, we're doing a very poor job of accepting our mortality, embracing it, knowing it's here, even welcoming it.

Living in a way that honors it. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that drives a lot of our like our consumerism and our desperate, you know, like I've got to let me just numb out or have all these things or it drives so much of what we see in the world that's harmful.

And, you know, you've read Women Who Run with Wolves. Clarissa Piknola Estes. Yeah. One of the first stories is the Los Lobos, or I forget, it's like the death mother. And and the part of the divine feminine, it's like an old Mexican folklore or, you know, Latin folklore about, you know, the feminine as being the energy that is life death, life, death, and able to acknowledge endings and beginnings. And so I think there's another aspect here where the divine feminine can help us cope with death differently so that it isn't such a terrifying, fearful thing that drives us into neuroses, you know?

Absolutely. It is so true just looking at nature helps with that too. Yes. You know, even if somebody's listening like, I don't know about this whole divine feminine thing. But okay, look at nature or watch the Lion King.

I love this part where Simba and Mufasa are talking and Simba is feeling a little bit big for his britches and he's excited he's going to be king and he's going to rule over everyone. And Mufasa reminds him, hey, one day you're gonna be the grass that the antelope eat.

So even if you kill antelope, one day you die. You go back to the earth. Grass grows from your soil and they eat you, so don't be too high and mighty. Yeah, I love that. And then I also love how what a Peace there is Such a knowing like there is a cyclical nature.

Yeah, like like she's always saying in Women Who Run with Wolves. It's life that life we don't actually have to fear Yeah, whether you believe in an afterlife Yeah, you're from dust you are and to dust you shall return and that's all the grass you're turning in the grass.

You're always You're always going to be in one sense or another and so like we can afford to take a deep breath Take this life as slowly as we need to yeah Exactly really be present to it because there's no there's no rush to accumulate all the toys before you die. That's just such a tired story Totally.

Oh my gosh You know, I don't know. This is making maybe also taking it to another meta level here .

My favorite level.

You know your mom Gloria who was my stepmom and she was like a mom to me from the moment she joined our family, And of course she passed away. I think I was 27 when she passed away and You know being there by her bedside there with my dad Watching the process of death firsthand Was both sobering and Sacred and I think that is another moment in my life that just Pivoted the way I viewed life and it did feel Obviously, it was like heartbreaking and there was the grief and the sadness and all of that But there was also an element that was freeing because it was this. Yeah, we do die and I am living life now. And so how do I want to live life now? And the moments became more precious, not in a desperate way, but in a sacred way. And I made some huge life pivots after that. I exited an abusive marriage, you know, like I just pretty quickly started kind of changing the trajectories in my life. And I know that the divine feminine and her literal feminine loss was weaved through all of that.

That is so beautiful. And I just know from wherever, I don't know how it works on the other side, but that she is so glad to know that. Yeah, yeah, that her influence could be so calming and also energizing that you would then take action.

And begin to really own your life in a better way. Yeah What a what a beautiful gift of her dying. Mm -hmm. What a great use of her death For you And it yeah, it took me a while to process her death And I think I'm still thinking about it, but yeah, there were definitely gifts Even in the sadness even in the tragedy Mm -hmm of her life cut far too short.

Yeah But how at peace she is now And how grateful to have us Yeah, you're doing doing these things. I know I Know very deeply that her love is still with us. Yeah in whatever form it happens of course, she believed that her consciousness would I don't know how it works in that theology, but it just goes dormant pause to pause right goes on pause and I don't know if people's beliefs are honored in the hereafter and if that's what's happening, but Transcending space in time. She is delighted in yes us her children And yeah, so glad with who we are and yeah the work we're doing Also, just wanting to take a moment and wish her happy birthday.

Yeah, today's her birthday. Yeah. We love you, Mom.

Well, I'm so grateful for this time Katy, thank you number one for being a woman who's known me almost my whole life and Has been here for the whole the whole wild ride Mm -hmm then and for taking this time to have this conversation. Is there anything else that you would add at the last and then of course I want to offer you a chance to share with folks how they can find you if they'd like to connect. Maybe they're curious about what you do and want to hear more.

Yeah, no, I don't know. I guess the only thing that I would add or just kind of reinforce is to encourage each person to explore their intuition, to explore their connection with themselves. And for me, mindfulness was really the catalyst because it helps us bring a lens of non-judgment. Mindfulness is a non-judgmental practice, and so it takes off some of the heat of self-exploration and self-understanding. And sometimes getting to know oneself seems like a scary journey, but it's one that's so worth it to do. Oh, so I think that would just be kind of my final thing.

Oh, I love that. To welcome and explore our intuition. I have a friend, Kristin Hanggi, who taught me two things about intuition that I'll just share. If anybody heard the podcast with her, they've heard this before, but it's just so rich. So she does a lot of work helping women, especially awake, women and everybody, but especially women awaken our intuition.

And she took me on a guided tour of my intuition, and I traveled down from my mind where I hang out all the way down into my solar plexus. And I brought a question down about some work that I'm doing directing a play. And I asked it down of my solar plexus, and immediately I knew some wisdom that I hadn't thought of before when it opened my mind. And so it was really cool how she guided me almost like I was on an elevator traveling down through my core, and I could listen to myself. And I was like, Kristin, that's great. What else do you have? How else do you connect with your intuition? And she told me this practice that she engages in, and I just think it's so beautiful. She said, I go on intuition dates. I block out several hours in the afternoon, maybe or in the morning, where I don't any to-dos in mind, and I just ask What are we going to do? Where are we going to go? Who are we going to talk to? And I just follow every time it is really surprising and beautiful in what I'm able to encounter, the conversations I have, the places I go, when I let my intuition drive the bus.

Yep. Prioritizing that time spent with it is so key.

So key. Yeah. Beautiful. And of course, all the books that you brought up that we have shared, I'll make sure those are in the transcript so people can look for them.

Cool.

Well, how could somebody get in touch with you if they wanted to have some coaching or work on therapy? Yeah. Oh yeah.

How could they listen to your podcast? Which I need to get working on. I only have one season out of that. Um, no, but you can find me online.

I have a website. It's just my name. So www dot Katy with a Y bandy.com or I'm on Instagram at It's Katy Bandy. I like to hang out there too. Great. And if you get lost, you can find me on Instagram through my website and she is right there on my Instagram too.

So you can connect. All right. Well, thank you so much. My dear sister. I love you.

Yes, I love you too. Thank you. What a gift.

This has been fun. Until the next time.

Thanks so much for joining me today. If you’d like to get ahold of me for any reason, you can find me at barelychristianfullychristian.com. I’d love to hear your thoughts about this particular topic or anything else that’s on your mind and heart.

The artwork for Barely Christian, Fully Christian was lovingly created by Lauren Leith of Little Moon Market. You can find her on Instagram if you'd like a beautiful moon of your own. This gorgeous song by Wyn Doran and Paul Craig is called “Banks of Massachusetts.” Enjoy.