Episode 8 - Kristin Hanggi and the Wonder of Our Intuition

Kristin and Anni discuss all things Heroine’s Journey, Intuition Work, and the Divine Feminine. Kristin leads Anni on a guided tour of her own Intuition and shares about a practice called “Intuition Dates.”

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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 I prefer to call Her, Mama God.

On today’s episode, you’ll meet my friend Kristin Hanngi, a beautiful soul doing great work in this world. She’s an author, producer, director, and a Creative Guide. I hope you’ll enjoy listening in as she takes me on a guided tour of my own intuition, and we discuss all things Heroine’s Journey and the Divine Feminine. Welcome.

Hello, Kristin Hanggi and welcome, welcome, welcome to Barely Christian, Fully Christian. I am super glad you're here.

Oh, thanks, Anni. I'm happy to be here.

For anybody who doesn't know, Kristin Hanggi is a wonder woman to say the least. She is a creative, she's a director, a producer. She has written a book of poetry that I absolutely love called God, Sex and Musical Theater. She does a whole host of other things. She helps people birth things into the world like stories and plays and anything they're trying to create. She helps them find ways to get that out. She's a Creative Guide, I would say, and she's one of the dearest people I know. So, so happy that you are here today, Kristin, and thanks for coming.

Oh, thanks, Anni. That's really, really lovely to hear.

Yeah. Well, you know, the first time I heard your voice, we were talking about, I was, I was considering coming on that creative retreat with you, the heroine's journey. What was it? Being the main character in your own life? Yeah. And you called me. I had asked a question and you called me and I heard your voice and I was like, this woman is power and presence and creative goodness.

And it turned out to be absolutely true when I got to meet you in person. Yeah, that was, you are the real deal and I'm so happy we get to talk today.

Yeah, me too. I remember that phone call very well.

Do you? And my girls were super excited because you've done things on Broadway and they were like stars in their eyes. Mom, I can't believe you're talking to somebody who's directed on Broadway. I'm like, it's just a wonderful life. That's all that is.

That's right.

Well, what drew me to you was learning about your work with the heroine's journey. And I, it's really interesting. I, how did I stumble onto, oh, I think, I think what happened was I was listening to the Robcast, which I do at certain points in my life when I need direction. I just hear a voice that says, listen to the most recent Robcast. Okay. So I turned it on and it was the episode with you. And you talked about the heroine's journey and Maureen Murdoch. And so I paused the podcast, ordered it from Thriftbooks, I think, right away, and then continued listening.

And then, you know, the synchronous sort of experiences where things begin to line up. I was talking to a very dear girlfriend of mine, not long after that, I'm going on and on about it. And she was, I'm reading the same book.

How did you find it? And I told her and she said, Oh, I found it a different way, but we actually began this conversation. And then I was like, I need to know more, right? There's something here. So as we walked and talked through this journey, then I was like, I've got to go to Kristin's website, see what she's all about.

And that's how I ended up on your retreat. So.

Oh my goodness. I love those stories. I also just love the breadcrumbs the universe gives us. And all of a sudden it's like, Oh, I'm being led somewhere. Oh, something's happening. Oh, I'm being told to do something. Oh, okay. Right.

I keep finding these, um, these clues and it is like breadcrumbs, like absolutely following a trail and realizing that it's not random. You're actually being led someplace. So the heroine's journey has opened up a whole new world for me. And I was hoping you would just give us a little insight for people who are like, wait, I maybe have heard about Joseph Campbell and the hero's journey. What is this heroine's journey? Just give us a brief overview please.

Sure. So without going through all the stages, I'll just say that the heroine's journey, I love to frame it for people that's not just a woman's journey, though I think women identify with it strongly, that it's for all of us. But in that model, I love to think of it as when Maureen Murdock talks about the feminine. She's really talking about the inner world and inner world connection. And when she talks about the masculine, it's a metaphor for the outer world.

So in the heroine's journey, it's a storytelling model that's different from Joseph Campbell's, the hero's journey where the heroine is separated from the feminine. So separated from their inner world, separated from the landscape of dreams, of their intuition, of the earth and over identifies with the masculine, the outer world, this idea that something outside of me will make me happy and fulfilled.

And she goes on a journey to pursue that thing that she's decided will be, you know, make her happy, make her fulfilled, give her what she wants. And she uses these quote unquote masculine tactics to get it only to hit the boon of success.

And she realizes, I got the thing I wanted, I got it. And, and then realizes she doesn't feel good on the inside. So there's moment that Maureen Murdock talks about where the heroine’s like, ooh I thought there would be more than this. And aren't I supposed to feel better?

And Marine Murdoch talks about the spiritual eridity, this dryness, this feeling of being burnt out and over scheduled and cut off from your inner landscape. And at that moment, something comes into the heroine's life that looks like a crisis and sends her into the descent.

So we're going into the underworld, you know, and this crisis comes and it could be divorce or it could be death, it could be illness, it could be bankruptcy, anything that they don't see coming that puts them into this place of deep isolation and the heroine often like retracts from society.

There's a vision of, you know, a woman going deep into a cave or into a cabin in the woods and this, or it could just be a societal isolation in order to heal. And in this place, there is a meeting with the goddess, which could be a meeting with an actual woman in the story, or it could just be a meeting with the higher self or a reconnection with one's body, creativity, spirituality, intuition, dreams.

And once a woman goes through this process, and again, doesn't have to be a woman, could be any gender, there is a healing of the mother-daughter split. Now this could be a person's actual mother, or it could be with the earth, the earth mother, one's idea of the Divine, right, and you and I have talked about that a lot, and then once that is healed, then it's the healing of the wounded masculine.

Now this could be with an actual man figure in a story, but I love to talk to people about it as healing the wounded masculine inside of ourselves. And so if I think of the masculine is my outer world actions, where are my outer world actions? Where do they need to change to get into alignment with my inner world, with my heart? So once I've gotten to attunement with my heart by healing this inner world relationship, now I get my outer world actions in, to alignment with my inner world's calling.

And when that happens, I've healed my feminine, I've healed my masculine, there's a sacred marriage, right? And that sacred marriage then births a new life. So once we've healed these both sides of our nature as both sides of our polarity, we can birth something new into the world.

That's my overview.

And there could be an entire like university level course on each one of those stages.

Absolutely.

What is popping out for me right now as you're talking is that it is a healing journey and I've been thinking a lot about how in our collective psyche we have this split from the feminine and it's evident in almost all of our fairy tales where there's a dead mom or she's absent or sick or in some way unavailable.

And yet I, you know, nothing is coming to mind that is correct me if I'm wrong. This is just a brand new thought that's occurring to me right here in this little closet. Do we have stories? Do we have folklore where someone goes through the heroine's journey cycle instead of, oh, as we're always saying, people going through the hero's journey and we don't need to get into that, but it's the outward journey that everybody goes on, Frodo and Luke Skywalker and Harry Potter and all that.

Do we have stories that represent this?

Absolutely. And I would even argue that our greatest myths do both. They do the hero's journey at the same time. And actually, Maureen's book has examples of folklore and fairy tales that ascribe to different parts of the heroine's journey, but I believe that the greatness, the great stories, you watch the character go on that Joseph Campbell hero's journey.

They're going on an outer world journey and they're also going on an inner world journey at the same time and those story points collide. So some of the work that I'll do at my retreats is I'll have people write down and do the graph of their heroine's journey and then I'll also have them do the graph of their hero's journey so that they can see the different ways that their life does it.

And at some point there's always the aha moment of, wait, I've had multiple hero's journeys and multiple heroine's journeys in my life. And it's like, yeah, yeah, of course, it's a spiral upwards and we do it again and again in different parts of our lives.

And one of the reasons I love to do the heroine's journey with people is that they realize, oh, this is a mythic process I'm going through. So the fact that something really hard happened to me and I'm going through something that's really intense, like it's not my fault, I didn't do anything wrong.

My life fell apart. But oh my goodness, when I sit in a retreat and everyone's talking about that moment their life fell apart, then I can go, oh, this is a mythic process. us, it's about spiritual maturity.

We're all going through it at different times in our life over and over again. Oh, oh, it's on, it's actually on purpose. In fact, maybe my soul called this up so that I could reconnect with a deeper part of myself.

Oh, I hear that and I feel that and I remember that on your retreat, mapping out the story of my life on both wheels and going, whoa, so much of this that I thought was happening to me was actually happening for me and was deepening my awareness, my connection with myself, was allowing me to heal things.

You know, you can't, you can't heal a wound until it's open and, you know, all of the gunk comes out and you, and then you give it to the light and the treatment that it requires. I'm not in medicine. So that's as far as I'll go with that metaphor. But I know that wounds don't heal if not given the attention that they need. And so that's one of the beautiful things that happened for me on your retreat was, in fact, our group of women, I hope they don't mind me saying this, we recognized that moment when everything goes wrong and we think all hope is lost and we called it the bad cherry on top of the sundae, right?

Yeah, it couldn't get any worse and now here's the cherry on top, so we called it the bad cherry. And we have a whole lot of lore about that. And doing the work of recognizing the heroine's journey along with the hero's journey maybe is more about recognizing how that moment in our life when we thought all hope was lost is actually a very important moment in the story and it's not where the story ends.

If we keep going, if we choose to keep engaging and keep pressing forward, then it's actually gonna work out to our benefit, which is really hard in that moment, but we have the choice to make it work for us.

Yes, and often that feels like a death at that time, because there is a part of us that is like an old self or illusions that are falling off during that time.

Yeah, that whole life, death, rebirth cycle, I'm reading, you’ve probably read, Women Who Run With Wolves. And she takes all these different fairy tales and talks about them in great detail about what's really going on in them and she continually comes back to what is in the feminine experience and what you're talking about, this going inward, it is life and then a death of some sort, but then it doesn't last.

It's this almost, in my church, they talk about this parabola of death. you and it goes down and then it comes back up and we see that, you know, the thing that you ultimately come away with is that there's nothing to fear. Why were we afraid in the first place?

And yet, it feels so scary while we're going through it.

It certainly does. Yeah. And it's maybe only in hindsight that we can look back and go, oh, they were just shadows on the wall, or it was a real disaster. And yet I've come through the other side.

Yeah, that's right. And learning how to like hold our own hearts as we go through it. Because I believe that the heroine's journey and the reason I've been talking about it a lot is because I believe we're going through it not only individually but collectively.

And you see that everywhere. You see this awakening to the feminine. You hear people talking about something I want to talk about next, which is awakening our intuition. You hear about people talking about collaboration a whole lot more than we used to about this, this collective usness that we're breaking down the us versus them, realizing there's really no barrier between you and me. We're all part of the same organism anyway.

That's right.

So can you please talk about it?

Oh, I just want to say on that breaking down the us versus them, it's dissolving the barrier of our ego and learning how to just talking to my friend, Mindy Kay, who does these great animations on Instagram about the ego. She has this thing called EgoCat, but she was talking about unblending the ego from our identity. So when we can like see the ego as something that is helpful, but we're not identified with it, then it allows us to work on behalf of the soul. And the soul is what knows that we're all one.

Yeah.

Yeah. That's the process we're going through, but that also means a certain kind of ego death. Right?

Yes. And it's not, tell me your thought on this. I've heard different teachers express this differently, but not the extinction of the ego permanently. But a, what did, I think Rob said, it's a good servant, but a bad master or something like that. Putting it in his proper place and not letting it run the show.

That's right. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. And it's the ego that creates the illusion that that thing outside of us will make us happy. That's the ego that creates the illusion that like, I need more money to be happy. I need that person to be happy. You know, it creates these. Yeah.

Yeah. And I think I was listening to your podcast recently and you were talking about about essentially there not being any bad parts of us. You didn't use the word no bad parts but that book came to mind.

Right the Dick Schwartz book.

Yeah yeah but needing to put them in proper order or let the I don't know give voice to the creative part to the part that knows you and I are really very connected and not letting the ego call the shots.

Yes that's correct.

Okay so what I'm really excited to hear about from you is your work around helping especially women but probably all folks awaken and pay attention to our intuition. How do you?

Oh my goodness talk about my favorite thing. This is when I learned it because I was a director and I was conscious of the fact that when I would direct, there would be something that would be like talking to me and often like giving me images and I was aware that it wasn't me.

So that like an idea would flash into my mind or I’d get an image I’d get a you know and if I realized if I followed that thing, the scene turned out better and so that was exciting to go oh there's something that's communicating to me and then I realized that energy that was communicating to me was also communicating to me during my daily life all the time. Saying go here do this try this thing now often we can't hear it something I've recognized is I can hear the voice of my intuition best when I'm relaxed, which is often why we hear the voice of our intuition in the shower or like on a long car ride. JK Rowling talks about harry potter came to her on a train ride. Mozart would talk about his compositions would come to him in a carriage ride. So all those things do is they relax our body so one of the things that we're learning is to listen deeply to that part of ourselves that is communicating so if you want to call it your higher self communicating or the universe or the God-force, whatever you whatever works for you, it it talks to us in a way that we can hear best when our body is relaxed. Which is why when my mind is running stories, I can't hear it as clearly. When I'm deeply afraid, when I’m deeply in anxiety, when I’m clutching, when I'm as Ram Dass would talk about an attachment or aversion, so if I'm attached to something in the past or the future or trying to push away something from the past or the future my energy is doing that.

It's like I can't hear as clearly. I'm not as open. So that's why meditation, right, teaches us how to relax the body, how to relax the brain. One of the reasons Eckhart Tolle talks about being in this moment is when we're totally awake and aware in this moment, right, then we can hear that part of us that is communicating to us and through us.

Yeah. And it's a great reminder. Yeah, when I get spun out, I'm like, I'm holding space for that tender part of me that has all the tears and sadness. And also, I want to remind myself, cry it, release it, feel the feelings.

And then can I bring my nervous system back to a safe place…

Where I can feel and hear what's actually needed to be known through you.

Receptive, exactly.

Oh, well, there's another feminine term. Yeah, in my language and in my cosmology, you know, I would reference this Still Small Voice or the Inner Voice, the inner knowing, within the context of, I would call this the Holy Spirit, whom now I've begun to call, Mama God, that voice that's always here, always wanting to speak to me, always guiding, directing, giving insight, but you're absolutely right. I have to get quiet and still in order to hear, because there are just too many other programs running in my brain and the noise is overwhelming, unless I can quiet myself and still myself. I had an experience the other day with one of my daughters. I'm raising three girls. They're all teenagers. They are so much fun and it is a full -time job. And one of them was giving me some challenge and my immediate reaction was, I'm just going to go into her room and talk with her and sort this out. But I remembered I want to do things better. So I sat in my chair and I got very still and quiet and I listened and I said, I'd like to hear what wisdom wants to come from me. The wisdom I always call Sophia, that's the Greek word that's used in the Bible for wisdom. So I said, Sophia, I'd like to hear from you right now. Please speak to me. And I got really still and quiet and nothing came for a few moments. And people in my house were walking around and they're like, what's she doing? And my husband does a lot of stillness and meditation. So he's like, leave her alone. I think she's praying or something. Leave her alone. So all of a sudden this phrase came to me and I was like, oh, this is pure gold.

It was Meet the need, not the behavior.

Hmm.

And I was like I didn't think of that myself I didn't, Anni didn't sit there and put together some catchy slogan in my mind. But this truth welled up from within me: meet the need not the behavior. So go in and talk to your daughter and meet what she's really needing right now. Not, hey when you do this, you know, here's the effect that it has on me. And there may be time and place for that.

This is not a parenting how to podcast by any means, but I'm telling you when I agreed to that I found so much. When I when I walked into her room It was a different experience because I was there to deeply connect with her and find what her need was rather than just parent her.

Yes.

We could connect just two humans instead of I'm your mom and I'm here to tell you what to do and how to be. And it was so much a better connection than if I'd gone in with this like curriculum, you know, I got to tell you how your behavior is affecting everybody else.

So that's just to say I am learning this and what I'm learning is gorgeous and it's working really well for me. So I just want more of it. So what else would you say about intuition?

Well, I like intuition dates. So if you're learning how to like get deeper into your intuition, you can take an afternoon couple of hours, carve it out and say, I'm just going to use this time to tune into my intuition. I'm going to relax and without, you know, not a lot of effort on it, just see, oh, where do you want to take me? What do you want to do? You know, like, let's go on, let's go explore, you know, and you can kind of play a game where you allow your intuition to lead you, right? And like what surprises it might have for you, what people it might introduce you to, where it might take you.

And then we realize when you do that, you start to realize, oh, I spend most of my day not listening to my intuition. I spend most of my day trying to get through my to -do list or try to manage, you know, all the thoughts coming through my head.

But when I'm just in the flow and in a place of deep receptive listening, there's something that is guiding me and it wants to guide me like to something really exciting. It does take the beat. Yeah.

So you actually schedule out like an afternoon, like I'm not going to do anything. I'm not going to accomplish any tasks. I'm not going to do any work. I'm just going to have a date with my intuition and let it leave me where it wants to.

Yes, exactly that.

I think that is game changing.

It's so fun.

Why doesn't everyone do this? Why have you been doing this? I thought of this before. We heard this talked about it from every platform? What an incredible thing giving your intuition your full attention.

Right, because it's like a muscle that will grow stronger the more that we develop it. Yeah, and it's fun also to play. Like if there's something that you're working on in your life, like whatever it is, just giving yourself like little intuition times where I'm gonna have a little intuition journaling session about this issue in my life and just tune in and see what my intuition wants to say about that. And then try that like five, 10 minutes every day for a week and see what your intuition has revealed.

Okay, so what do you say to somebody because I can already hear the but. I can't sit still. I have monkey brain. I sit there and all these thoughts come to me and I can't stop them and it's a roller coaster and blah blah blah. How can we get over that?

Right. Well, that's why we meditate, right? Is we meditate. I think everyone has a monkey brain, right? That's like, that's living in the modern world. We meditate, we sit in order to be able to watch the thoughts so we can learn how to become the watcher and not identify with them.

So the reason that we sit for 10 minutes is so that we can sit and just see what are the programs that are running us. You know, so when I sit, I can just watch. Now, and the more that we do that, we learn how to listen to our breath, allow those thoughts to relax. You know, you've heard the metaphor of being like on the choppy ways of the ocean and the meditation allows us to go deeper where the ocean is still. And then, and so when we start to train ourselves, we can hear.

But I've done this exercise so many times with people when, like in a forum, people asking me a question and they're like, they have something they don't know the answer to and I'll do this exercise with them. We can do it right now if you want to.

Let's do it.

Do you have anything you want to know the answer to? Something in your life you’re trying to figure out? That you’d be willing to share. Yeah. Right.

Right. Not a specific answer, but I'd like some guidance. So I am about to direct a play here in town. And it's my first go as lead director. I was director-in-training a year ago. So I'm really excited and also aware that I don't know what I don't know. I'm coming in fresh and new. And so, yeah, open hands to wisdom and instruction on how to be a great director that brings out the best in all my actors and the teams.

So good, okay, so. Let's close our eyes and let's take some deep breaths. And if you're listening you can do this too with your own question. And I want you to breathe into your belly into your solar plex. And I want you to imagine your mind just relaxing. So your mind can even let go of the question or needing to know.

Sometimes I'll envision it's like the top of my head is screwing off and the thoughts just float away.

And as you breathe into your belly and you give your body conscious permission to relax, I want you to imagine that your mind is on an elevator and that that elevator can go down, like going down floors and imagine your mind going down into your throat and then your mind goes down into your heart and then your mind goes all the way down into your solar plex.

So even envision your mind inside of your gut. And now ask the question to your gut. You might say, what do I need to know about directing? Or how can I be the best leader in this environment? And then if you would, why don't you say out loud what you hear from that space?

Pause. Do not respond immediately let the silence speak and pause.

That's so good. What beautiful guidance.

Yeah, I have a whole story about who lives in my solar plexus. I'll tell you off the air sometime.

Okay, I would love that. Interestingly enough, it's so funny what you said. You know, one of the things I know about directing is that a great director's hand is invisible and that a great director makes everyone feel that they've done it themselves. So what you're saying about pausing, right? It is almost like creating the environment where like the actors discover it for themselves. And like asking the questions that would allow them to have the ah-ha answers inside of them.

Absolutely. Pointing it back to them. You actually already know how to do this. Let me hear you say it. Yeah. Yeah.

That's right. That's right.

Oh, that's beautiful. Thank you. I had.

Oh, can I say.

Yeah, go ahead.

No, you go. You go and then I'll go. I had never thought about the elevator and taking my brain through my body actually was so helpful, Kristin, because when I just leave it where it is in my cranium, it feels like it's scrambling. But when I take it with my awareness to the various parts of my body, that's powerful. My brain enjoyed that actually, which is new. for my brain in meditation, usually it's like struggling and kicking and screaming and asking to please stop, but it liked that.

Oh yeah, you want to have some fun, take your brain down into your sacral chakra, like into your second chakra and between your hips and say, you don't have to think just hang out there for a while.

Be with the creative space and see what happens down in there. Y

eah, that's right.

Wow. Okay, what were you going to say?

It was about directing. Oh, I got this download once on set. I could hear Spirit say to me, don't do anything. Sit and be still, completely still, hold the vibration of what it is you want to create. And I want you to see how little you can do. All I want you to do is sit here and know, just sit and know, and watch.

OK, what happened?

Oh my gosh, it was such a great day because the day before had been a big, big, huge scene. Lots of extras, lots of people, big, big, big. And I realized I was over-functioning, like I was overworking.

And I could feel it in my body afterwards. I was exhausted. And I could hear, I got like that strong direction, like we're not doing it that way anymore. There's another place, there's another place to operate from.

And so then the next day was actually so effortless. And I was like, Oh, I just have to hold the feeling tone. That's what I do. I like I hold the feeling tone, I hold the knowing, I hold the vision.

And holding that is actually more powerful than trying to accomplish that. I'm just holding it.

That's a whole new way of being, we're being invited into.

That's right.

So much more trusting, relaxing, knowing, so much less doing and fretting and arranging and making happen.

It's still more, like more fun.

More fun. Yeah. And more inner world. Like we were just talking about the heroine's journey, more inner world, less outer world action, more inner world being.

Which I keep saying this in conversations, both are necessary. We are not trying to eradicate the outer world doing. We're not asking for, you know, in my circles, I'm not asking for matriarchy to overtake patriarchy. I'm not asking for worship of Mother God to replace worship of Father God, I'm looking for the partnership and marriage of both in balance and harmony so that we have the benefit of all of the energy instead of just one or the other because either way it's lop-sided.

We don't, you know, just being and not doing it all, nothing happens. And so I keep having to clarify this so that folks listening are like, oh, okay, so it's we're not trying to cut out men from the picture. No, we're not. We're trying to integrate our full selves, our inner and outer selves.

And that's right. Yeah. Yeah. And that they're in cooperation and sharing the same vision and that they're serving each other. So like what I have to watch in my own self is taking action but taking the right action. So making sure I'm taking action when action is called for. So if something is not right or unjust, speaking out for it, you know, if a relationship needs to be repaired, speaking directly to what needs to be repaired. And also that my outer actions are serving what is going on in the interior. So and that, you know, that takes alignment. That takes alignment of being clear with what my inner world is saying and that my outer actions are reflecting that.

The full integration of who we are within and how we act outside in the world, what the world sees and that is the same as we are on the inside.

Yeah. Yeah.

So I don't know if you do this practice, but for the last, this is my fourth year, choosing a word of the year instead of a New Year's resolution, which I've had varied success with, but I'm really enjoying this new practice.

So I choose a word for the year and I write a letter at the beginning of the year and I practice the Christian calendar. So I just did this on December 3rd because Advent is the start of the year.

And so I write this word a letter. First of all, I write my old word a thank you letter. Thanks for being here. I hope you always stay with me. I've loved this adventure. And now here's an invitation letter to my new word.

Let's let me invite more of you in. And so my word for this year is BOLD. And I am inviting bold to help me do just that, to speak what is within me and let it come out on the outside so that I have, you know, of course, there's always tact and there's always wisdom and, and, you know, sometimes deciding not to reveal everything.

But, that's not where I have erred before where I have or erred or been in lack is in not speaking my full truth from within because of the politeness or not wanting to offend people or even make them struggle. I've just wanted to pave the way for other people for so long and now I'm like, oh I'm actually going to invite bold in so that I have the courage to speak from my solar plexus, let my words come up through my heart, out my throat and be authentic and real and speak up for my needs, advocate for what my wishes are, set my boundaries.

Recently I was in a situation where I didn't do that and because of politeness I could have really been hurt. I didn't want to offend this other person and so I didn't speak what was in me and what in my solar plexus was going, hey, this is not safe. This is not a good situation to get out, you know, put a boundary, make yourself safe and I didn't because I didn't want to offend this man that I was talking to and I realize now I could have been, it was a very scary situation and bad things could have happened.

So that kind of got me thinking what would I like to invite in that will help me avoid that kind of thing in the future and this word just came to me. Okay, so I'm inviting bold in and so far it's it's only a few days in now that I've invited it but it's already making itself comfortable and offering me a lot of opportunity to be clear about who I am, what I need and set my boundaries and it's wonderful. I love it.

Oh, that's so wonderful. Yeah. Thank you for sharing that.

Yeah. Yeah Thank you. If you're up for a list of, I've got a, I've selected a list of 260 words that people can use to see if anything pops out. I'm sharing that out this year. So.

Oh, that's very cool. Yeah, I know that practice. I've worked with that practice before and it is, it's fun. So like, it's like claiming qualities. And it reminds me of like, archetype work is like that too of like you claim an archetype. And let that archetype start to live through you.

Yes. Yes. I love this process of growing and evolving. And it's almost like those, those crabs in the bottom of the ocean that go along and they find an attribute, they find a shell or something that they want and they stick it to them, you know, like that guy in the movie Moana, the shiny crab is always sticking things to himself. Yeah, I would like this quality. I'm gonna I'm gonna place it on me instead of saying, oh, that's just not in my nature. I just don't naturally do that. No, I would like to and so I'm going to create avenues for that to come in. I'm going to welcome it and invite it and partner with it and see where it takes me.

Yes, exactly. And realizing behaviors are things that can be learned. Right. And so part of the way that we evolve is we evolve our behaviors. Often our behaviors are connected to a narrative. But if we like shift our behaviors, then we can actually just watch our narratives start to change.

Right. Yeah, that is really interesting. It's I mean, neuroscientists, I'm sure can chime in here and tell us about how the synapses are connected, firing and the new neural pathways are being formed when we do these things. And we're creating new habits. And so we do have the power to grow, change, improve ourselves. And we're so much happier when we do.

Yeah, it's interesting. It's so, I always feel like one of the things that I love about loving people for a long period of time, you know, you have a friend you've had for 20 years is getting to watch the way also that life evolves them. So there's the ways that we like can we go, oh, well, this is something about myself I want to work with like I am taking a hand in my own evolution and saying, oh, I have a vision here and I want to move towards that vision and and see what I can become when I put my energy there.

And then also the way life itself will naturally evolve us will, like over time. It's like the wave on the rocks, like we'll smooth out our sharp edges. It'll go, oh, watch what happens here.

Especially, I don't know about rocks, but I think especially if we are willing to be shaped and inviting that shaping, I think goes a long way toward, you know, I was enjoying what was happening on your podcast with Natalie, right? She was talking about childbirth and not fighting the pain, but being there with it, even welcoming it, which is really hard to do in the moment. But, oh yeah, here it is. All right, it's here to accomplish something. And so not resisting, but going along with it and then partnering with it to see what creative thing comes out, literally, because it’s a baby, seems to me the best way to live. Not resisting. really, really surrendering. I like that word better than submitting. There's a little on the book of Ephesians, I still bristle at the word submitting. So it's on time out for me right now. So surrendering to that process and seeing, like you say, over the course of your life and a lifelong friend who bears witness to the whole thing will see the gentle ways in which life shapes and changes you.

And then there's also this maybe more accelerated course where we say, ooh, I'd like to switch this about myself, okay? I'm gonna pick a word this year or I'm going to choose a behavior to start doing or stop doing or be doing with more regularity or whatever it is we want to be doing to grow and change.

Yeah, and I love that you mentioned surrendering to the pain, that when pain comes, it's so human nature to want to like bemoan it and go, ah, why is this happening to me? And, you know, it's really easy to fall into victim stories when life is painful.

And especially when grief comes up, which is such a natural part of life, right? So like the grief is natural and feeling intense feelings. That's just part of being human. But the narrative that then gets created around those feelings, just recognizing that we have the choice to go, ooh, pain's happening, but what if this pain is for me? And what if I let go and take the word pain off and call it sensation and say, okay, this is taking me somewhere. This is for me. I'm gonna let it do its work. It's doing work on me right now and let it do its work.

I was in a pain management class actually preparing to give birth and I was very interested to learn how to not be in so much pain, right? I was really young and really hopeful that it could be a nice, easy thing.

So they had us take our hand in a bucket of ice and grab a tight-fisted grab around a chunk of ice and hold it for 30 seconds. And of course, that was really challenging and very painful. And they were like, keep gripping it, keep white-knuckling it, just like every contract around it. And we're like, this really, really hurts, right? And so they said, okay, you know, let go, dry your hand off, warm it up. Okay, take your other hand, do the same thing, but this time hold it really loosely.

Still have your hand there around the ice. But don't contract, don't fight it. Just hold it to make sure all parts of your hand, your fingers are touching the ice. So it's, you know, the same amount of pressure sensation, whatever. But you're not constricting, you're not clenching. And it was incredible. I could hold the ice so much longer when I wasn't fighting it. When I was simply surrendering. Oh yeah, this does feel cold. Wow, that's cold. I'm not dying. I'll get through this. Okay, and maybe this is teaching me something. It was fascinating.

Whoa, that's so good when it is also applied to things like grief.

Yes. Which is something I like to talk about a great deal these days because much of my own healing has come from not compartmentalizing or saying I'm done feeling that, but exactly the opposite. Oh, I have a pocket of pain here. Oh, I didn't know that lived in me. Oh, right here in this spot in my body. Let me hold that. Of course that was hard. Of course that hurt. Yes, anyone in my situation would have felt that way. Wow, it does so much good for me to allow space for reef rather than fighting it or ignoring it.

That's right. Even though it can be really challenging to feel, if I can again, like relax my body and just be with it. And I often imagine myself as the loving mother with like the tender child. And if I can just like make space for the tender child that's hurting and just hold that sweet pain and cherish it.

Yep. Yeah.

And I also say it doesn't, you don't have to rush to get through this. Stay as long as you're here. Right? I'll be here and I'll feel you.

Oh, yeah. You have permission to just feel right now. There's no agenda.

Yeah, you don’t have to get anything done. You don't have to put a happy face on it. You can just be here. It's attunement. It's that kind of of attunement I think that is part of that healing process as we reparent ourselves. We're learning how to do self-attunement.

Yes, yes and that is such precious work that we get to do. For those of us who had wonderful parents, for those of us who had parents who tried their best and struggled to love us well, for those of us who had parents who did not, all this work is really good. This reparenting and holding of ourselves. That's right. Yeah.

Oh, Kristin, thank you so much for the light that you spread in this world. I just giggle every time I think about you and all the work you are doing and what I have learned from you and just being around you. It's a gift. You are a true gift.

Thank you. Thank you, Anni. So are you. I just love you to pieces and thank you for the work you're doing in the world. So grateful. And I love that you and I both love to give voice to the feminine face of God.

Yes.

I know, I know that the divine is genderless.

Right.

But also that we have dealt with a gendered God for a long time. And so just to remember that Spirit is generous and compassionate and abundant and life-giving and has space, has all the space and all the time for us.

Yes, She does. It's so healing to think of it in those terms, to Her holding us, us holding our inner selves. The world heals in that situation.

That's right.

Well, speaking of your work, I'd love to give you just a moment to talk about how people can find you and all the, all wonderful the things you do. Of course, I would say if you happen to have a chance to work with Kristin, either with one of her story shops. No, that's not the right. What’s it called?

Oh, yeah. So I do a few things. Yeah. So I have, if you have a story to tell, I have an ongoing program called Story Space that helps people get their stories out. I also do retreats, as you know, you can go get on my, go to my website, get on my mailing list, follow me on Instagram. And yeah, I'd love to share, but I also do have my book, God, Sex and Musical Theater. And I also have some tracks that I created from those poems that you can listen to on iTunes or Spotify. So.

Yay, I didn't, I didn't know that because I'd love to hear the author's voice on the poem. I think it just adds to such a great bit of authenticity to it. And yeah, if you happen to be a person who wants to go on a retreat, I just cannot more highly recommend the retreats that Kristin does. They are fantastic and phenomenal and I met lifelong friends on the retreat that we went on. And so, yeah, if you are a retreaty sort of person, check her out.

Thank you so much. And this has been such a pleasure.

How great to talk to you. Thank you. Thank you, Kristin. Have a beautiful rest of your day. And I hope to see you again soon.

Yes, very soon. Take care. Bye.

Well, there you have it my friends. Kristin Hanggi. Sorry about the crackley nature of the audio. I guess I’m gonna need to invest in some better equipment if I want to keep talking to rock stars like Kristin.

Speaking of, if you want to get ahold of her, you can find her on her website kristinhanggi.com. You can also follow her on Instagram like she said.

If you want to get in touch with me, find me at barelychristianfullychristian.com.

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 Cray is called “Banks of Massachusetts.” Enjoy.