Heart of Motion
The Heart of Motion Podcast is an exploration of the heart, soul and science of movement - and what it means in our lives.
Movement connects us more deeply to ourselves, to our bodies and to the things and people that are most important to us. Beyond a fitness routine, why do you move? And what moves you? When we can look past the hamster wheel of ''fitness" - we start to realize that when we really live the lives of our bodies - life can be a whole lot more fulfilling, and a whole lot more fun!
Host Susannah Steers is your guide on a quest to understand how we can move better, feel better in our bodies and connect more deeply to our people and the world around us. Join her for some conversation, interviews with experts, and conversations with everyday people about what movement means to them. You might just find movement feels a little different on the other side...
Heart of Motion
Doing Hard Things with Love
In this episode of the Heart of Motion podcast, I am thrilled to welcome Kristy Kilcup, a seasoned health and wellness professional with over 30 years of experience. Kristy recounts her inspiring journey of finding solace and self-assurance through sports and physical activity, despite facing struggles in academic settings. Join me as Kristy candidly shares the highs and lows of pushing her body to its limits and her evolving understanding of self-worth from her youth, through motherhood and into peri-menopause.
Discover Kristy's transition from traditional fitness and coaching to hypnotherapy, specifically Rapid Transformational Therapy, and how it sparked her involvement in a startup company called, AHA Healing. We delve into the role hypnosis can play in breaking self-sabotaging behaviors and achieving lasting change. Kristy shares her passion for empowering individuals across emotional, mental, physical, and spiritual dimensions. This episode offers a wealth of insights into holistic wellness and the profound impact of nurturing all aspects of health.
Kristy Kilcup
Kristy@versionofyou2.com
Heart of Motion Podcast host Susannah Steers is a Pilates & Integrated Movement Specialist and owner of Moving Spirit Pilates in North Vancouver, BC. She is passionate about movement, about connections and about life.
Through movement teaching, speaking, and facilitating workshops, she supports people in creating movement practices that promote fitness from the inside out. She loves building community, and participating in multi-disciplinary collaborations.
Along with her friend and colleague Gillian McCormick, Susannah also co-hosts The Small Conversations for a Better World podcast – an interview based podcast dedicated to promoting the kind of conversations about health that can spark positive change in individuals, families, communities and across the globe.
Social Media Links:
Moving Spirit Pilates Instagram
Moving Spirit Pilates Facebook
Susannah Steers Instagram
Welcome to the Heart of Motion podcast. I'm Susannah Steers and I'll be your host as we explore the heart, soul and science of movement as a pathway to more active, vibrant and connected living. Nothing happens until something moves, so let's get started.
Susannah Steers:If you look up badass in the dictionary, I think you'd likely find the photo and bio of my next guest, Kristy Kilcup. Drawn by physicality and a desire to help others achieve success through optimal health, Kristy has been in the health and wellness industry for 30-odd years. You've likely heard the expression we can do hard things. Well, Kristy has made it her life's work, so today we're going to talk about what that means for her and for her clients, and a few other things along the way. Welcome, Kristy. I am so glad you're here.
Kristy Kilcup:Me too. Thank you for having me.
Susannah Steers:Your experience with movement and sports and fitness is pretty diverse and, from what I can tell, it's pretty hardcore. Can you tell us a little bit about the kind of movement and athletics you've enjoyed over the years?
Kristy Kilcup:Yeah, absolutely.
Kristy Kilcup:I think the reason why it's so diverse is because it comes with a story. Are you okay with that?
Susannah Steers:Absolutely. I love stories.
Kristy Kilcup:I think for me I ended up getting into all of the different concepts of athleticism, of physical fitness, of movement, because I realized really early on in my mind anyway, the perception I had was that I didn't fit in. My friends would play with Barbies and while I could do that for a short period of time, I didn't enjoy it. I would actually get into trouble because I was being too aggressive with their Barbies or their dolls or their toys. But I found that my place, my safe space, was on the playground where I would be playing on the monkey bars, but not even just climbing the monkey bars like working, even just climbing the monkey bars, like working on balance and walking over the top of like the arch of the monkey bars, swinging and flipping and doing all of these crazy things.
Kristy Kilcup:And when I got into school I kind of realized that there was this unique differentiation against, again, my perception, this unique differentiation against, again, my perception, but this differentiation between everybody else in the classroom and the way that they learned and then how I learned.
Kristy Kilcup:But when it came to recess and when it came to gym class, that's where I actually felt like I got to shine bright, where I actually felt like I was a part of everybody else, and it was really, I think, in high school for me, where I noticed that that chasm between my academic prowess which didn't exist and my athleticism, you know, was really significant, and it was then, when I turned 16, and it was then, when I turned 16, where I really leveraged my passion for exercise and fitness. And because of that time period, I really, truly believe that's what helped me get through high school and then university. It gave me the confidence that I needed, but it also gave me the empathy to be able to help other people to do hard things, and so my passion for exercise and physicality and all of the broad strokes of everything that I've done is because I just felt more comfortable and secure in who I was because of that outlet that I had.
Susannah Steers:Right. Well, it's interesting because hearing you talk about it now it sounds quite strategic, like there were choices along the way. Is that you looking back now, or is that, like were you conscious of that as you went along, or if this was just where you felt good, you fit in, you felt like this is my place to shine and I love being in this space?
Kristy Kilcup:Yeah, it was unconscious and it was really honestly, it was survival. I knew that I didn't fit in in the classroom. I would have teachers who would get frustrated with me because I didn't understand concepts. I was called a space cadet in class by my classmates. It wasn't that I didn't have friendships, it was that I never felt like I was on the same level. And again, I recognize that this is my perception. But because of that perception that I had, I really did turn to what I realized was something that I was strong in and that's what kind of led me down the road the pursuit of physical fitness.
Kristy Kilcup:Now, knowing that physical fitness was a way that I could feel confident, it was also something that I leveraged when I felt insecure. So I didn't always treat my body with the respect that it deserved and that I leveraged when I felt insecure. So I didn't always treat my body with the respect that it deserved and that, I think, is very important as well. And you know there are people who know me very well. You know my best friend - she knew that I would push myself physically oftentimes beyond its real healthy capabilities. That was the only place where I felt secure and confident in who I was, and so I would ignore the pain and injury in order to kind of stay in that environment of where I felt I fit in best. And over the years as recent as the last 17 years with my son being born I've learned to be able to move and kind of flow with respecting my body, working on my insecurities and validating my own sense of self-worth without having to feel like I have to perform.
Susannah Steers:You have to be the superhuman being. It's interesting to hear you talk about that because I think there are parallels in dance. For me, there were a lot of things. It was a wonderful physical thing that I could do well. I realized in my 50s that it was also a way for me to process emotion that I didn't have when I wasn't dancing. So it took me a while and some therapy to figure that out.
Susannah Steers:I'm curious when I see that you've done figure competitions and there's a little part of me that as a dancer, I'm like Ooh, that would be dangerous territory for me, you know, and that's all my own body image crap. I'm curious because this world fascinates me and, given what you've just said, I'm curious about why and W hen I was coming up in dance, bodybuilding was frowned upon. It was like thinking you'd build the wrong muscles for dance, you'd lose your flexibility, your body would be bulky, like all the reasons, right?
Susannah Steers:Nobody was doing weight training back in the day. We do other things, but you didn't go to the gym. That thinking has obviously changed now and while I don't imagine dancers or strength training in the style of muscle and fitness magazine. They're training and weight training in ways that never happened when I was young. So I have no exposure to this world at all. Actually, I lied, the only exposure I have. I did some work with. I choreographed a posing routine to music for a woman who was in a competition. I'm hoping you can share your experiences so I can understand a little better what it's all about and how you got in there and what it was for you. So what drew you to physique competition in the first place?
Kristy Kilcup:The challenge of it like right, it's the commitment that you make. It was again this was all part of my journey, of this was when my son was quite young and it was just him and I. I've been, um, I was a single mom for a very long time and I was in and out of unhealthy relationships very short term. But again, the relationships, the men that I was picking, was a reflection of that lack of sense of self-worth. And again for me, self-worth came in the form of what could I do physically to showcase the value that I can bring to the world, because I didn't feel that it was enough for me to be who I was, just as I was, to bring value into the world. So what could I do more? How could I push myself further, how could I prove myself? And so, of course, introduce you know figure competition, something I've never done before. I didn't research it, I just knew that from a you know physiological standpoint, if I worked out hard enough, I could develop the musculature to do pretty well in something that was basically a beauty contest for people with muscles, and so that's how I got into it.
Kristy Kilcup:Now I had to be very careful, because the major discipline attached with the eating and exercise was a fine line that I had to walk on, knowing that, at the end of the day, the body that I was holding on to wasn't my identity. And I had to be very conscious of that Because, again, this was still early on in my personal transformation of finding my. But I knew that that was a fine line and I was also a mom and wanted to be a role model for him in a way that was healthy. So I didn't stay in it for very long, but long enough for me to compete in a couple of different competitions. I did pretty well. I came second place.
Kristy Kilcup:Every once in a while I'm like, oh, if I could have more, maybe I could have come in first right, just that, that high performer in you, yeah. But I I did tread that line very carefully and was very cognizant that if I stayed in it for much longer I might tip over the edge into the it becoming a necessity for me to control my food and my exercise habits in a way that created this sense of identity around the figure that I had, which I knew wasn't attainable from a really healthy perspective and being a single mom as I was in the work environment that I was in as well, so I loved it. It was definitely an experience that I'm grateful for having. I'm glad I didn't tip over the edge I wouldn't have had it any other way but I think I learned my lesson as a result.
Susannah Steers:Okay. Well, let's take it to some more fun things and let's talk about some indoor cycling. I know this is a passion of yours. I live in a place that is a mecca for mountain biking for people all over the world, and there are legions of folks road riding too, doing sort of Gran Fondo type events up to Whistler and so on. And yet still there are cycling gyms and I don't even know if that's what they're called literally everywhere. It seems to have taken the world by storm. Why do you think it's so popular?
Kristy Kilcup:Yeah, so when I first got involved early on in 2011, we had been introduced to a company called Mad Dog Athletic Spinning and you know it had become something that was really popular because it was a way that you could exercise in a non-impact, linear fashion in an air conditioned studio, you know, where you could fill up your water bottle, you know it was. It was really convenient and comfortable for the discomfort of the exercise modality itself, and then it kind of faded a little bit and when SoulCycle started to introduce more movement on a bike, that's whenever it became like almost like a rebirth, and then you had kind of two disciplines in this indoor cycling arena. You had the discipline that people were born to, which was, you know, you want to turn it into as much of an authentic road cycling experience as possible with this new found, but we just want to have a really good time, we want to do it on a bike and we want to jam to really good music, and so this is kind of where we had this dichotomy and what I was really grateful for was that I was involved in this at the perfect time and I remember offering a conference, a workshop, sorry at I believe it was Ursa, it was in Las Vegas and my my colleague and I were the master educators and we offered this workshop and how to bridge the gap between this kind of outdoor riding power-based experience that people were super accustomed to with indoor cycling, with this more cheerleader style, more movement on a bike, move to the beat of the music, versus focusing on power, and she and I were able to kind of really show the polar opposites of it but then also show how you could bridge the gap and kind of close that chasm between those two worlds to create one universal experience where you can enjoy music, you could ride to power, you could add a bit of flavor to your movement, to your riding experience, if you wanted to. But there was no one versus the other, they were both. It was like an and and both experience.
Kristy Kilcup:And I think when that started to happen, what I started to notice, particularly in my classes, was, while at the beginning I had a lot of outdoor riding enthusiasts who would come, particularly a lot of time trialists and triathletes would take my classes pre-season, what I was noticing is, once we were able to bridge this gap between the sole cyclists and the power cyclists, I started to notice this, I don't know both. You know both types of people would be enjoying the indoor cycling experience again, and then we started to see that interest really take hold in, you know, during COVID, particularly with Peloton and and all of their classes, you know, rising in in interest. I just think it's the convenience, it's the comfort, but it's also the entertainment factor, right, people want to be able to feel that experience rather than just take a class for the sake of burning calories and then it's done and dusted. It's the experience now that people expect to have.
Susannah Steers:Yeah, and from the other side of it, if you're training really hard for an upcoming event or something, how much fun that you could get your hard training and still get a focus and also play at the same time.
Kristy Kilcup:Yes yes, play such a vital component that oftentimes we forget about, and community.
Susannah Steers:And community. Yeah, community is huge. I'm curious you've traveled across North America as a master educator. Do you see differences in how people engage? I mean, I guess particularly in indoor cycling in different parts of the continent. Like, is it different in Vegas, is it different in Ottawa? Is it different in, I don't know, new Orleans? I guess, both in terms of the way the people coming into the cycling gym attack the movement and maybe from the teacher's perspectives, sure.
Kristy Kilcup:I find it's more influenced, based on the trends. So, having gone to different cycling studios to offer the certification for indoor cycling, for me in particular, ours was geared towards understanding the power meter, understanding the bike and understanding the power meter. My particular skill sets were more within the power side, like understanding how much effort you were putting out, but then also teaching the instructors on how to leverage music as a tool for motivation capacity. Where her skill sets lied more within we'll just say that soul cycle realm, where it was really more rhythm oriented, and then she would go ahead and offer more of the movement experiences and how that can relate to music and the different tempos et cetera. So when we would come on site it was more what the influence of the trend was.
Kristy Kilcup:In some locations they were more power-based, they had more of a community that were more of the outdoor riders looking to improve their sport performance. But then in other clubs the community was more community-based, more around the celebration kind of like. If you think of a Zumba class, you know the people that are attracted to Zumba classes tend to be those who are more interested in the rhythm and the way that the music moves their body and the feelings side of the experience, and so we, as master educators, would just come on site, start talking to our instructors and we would navigate the way in which we would go ahead and offer the certification based on the influence that they're telling us that's predominantly something that their community is interested in Fun, that you can play with it on the fly too.
Susannah Steers:I mean, that does speak to your expertise, right, that you walk into a room and it was like, oh, I had this thing planned. But this group is all about the numbers and the lap times and just being able to play with that in the moment and navigate their expectations.
Kristy Kilcup:Because, if you think about it with instructors, oftentimes we're working with seasoned instructors who are learning something new, and I mean, I understand this also for myself that whenever you're learning something new, sometimes you're like, well, do I have to throw out everything I've already learned thus far?
Susannah Steers:Every single time, a new thing comes in what. What am I doing? Oh my God, I've been doing it wrong all this time.
Kristy Kilcup:So it's navigating the insecurities which we all have, but then letting them know that it's actually just more tools in the toolbox and in fact they don't have to throw anything out, but it's about knowing that they can leverage more.
Susannah Steers:Yeah, and yeah, like you say, a different flavor, a different experience that you can bring out when it's appropriate for the people that you're working with. I love choices. I really do, right, Okay, well, I want to know a little bit more about you now, too. I know that you are dedicated to your own health and fitness. You've spoken about what movement has meant to you over the years. What is a day in the life of Christy Kilcup look like these days.
Kristy Kilcup:Yeah, it's really interesting because again we were talking about me getting to a place where I've started to respect my body. Now I'm navigating perimenopause. You thought you knew your body, so right now I find it's again exploring what my body wants and needs versus what I think my body wants and needs, and just trying to take the time to sit and listen. I'm not great at that, yet it's hard. I owe my body a lot of love and gratitude because I'm not patient enough to sit and listen. I want it to do what I want it to do, not always what it wants to do. And yet I recognize that my body is my best friend and I need to treat it as such and respect it as such and keep my promises to my body.
Kristy Kilcup:And so, while I'm navigating perimenopause, I am trying right now to focus on regular exercise, as I always have done. You know, I've always been somebody who's been very interested in strength training. That is my jam. I love it, so I've been keeping that up. I'm trying to focus more on proper quality sleep. I actually did end up on progesterone, which I've only been on for a couple of weeks, just to see if that's going to help me with my sleep quality.
Susannah Steers:That changed my world. Right it was like, wow, sleep. This is what people talk about when they feel rested, when they get up in the morning. This is a thing.
Kristy Kilcup:Yes, I waited two years. I haven't slept properly in a number of years now, and it's only been this last month where I'm like I wish, like I knew it was there, but I kept thinking again well, maybe I can just do this on my own, maybe I can just do this on my own. And I didn't do the research and I didn't talk to anybody, I just decided I was going to do this on my own. Anyway, I finally waved the white flag and had the conversation and, luckily for me, I have a doctor who was able to sit down and just have a very frank, open, honest conversation, answer all of my questions, and we're just trying this out to see if it's the right fit.
Kristy Kilcup:You know what I'm working on my nutrition. It's easy for me to not always pay attention to the quality of food, because I just get hungry and I want to eat sometimes and not really meal plan and take care of myself that way. So, alongside of this progesterone that I started to take, I'm just really paying more attention to the food, taking the time to prepare the food and nourishing my body with water, cause that is always a new year's resolution for me is I don't drink enough water. So this is the year that I will drink more water. This is the year I would drink more water, so I've been trying to do that as well.
Susannah Steers:I love to hear that you found that you have a doctor who can talk to you about this stuff, because I think there are a lot of women who are just lost and don't have places to go to get support. I talked about progesterone having been a huge game changer for me, but that's not for everybody, right. Everybody's got their own pathway, and it seems to me that if you can find someone who could talk to you about specifically what are you experiencing, what is going on for you, then you can play around with all the variety of solutions that may be there for you, because there ain't no cookie cutter when it comes to perimenopause and menopause. We are all unique.
Kristy Kilcup:This is true.
Susannah Steers:So what do you do for fun?
Kristy Kilcup:So right now I've got a lot of projects on the go, so fun for me right now is building a startup company with the founder. Fun for me right now is taking the time to exercise. I really have always enjoyed that. It's never been a task for me, it's just a matter of making sure that I make that a priority. Sometimes that's something that I don't do enough of.
Kristy Kilcup:And then fun for me right now is spending time with my 17 year old. He's got his own life. He's basically living his best life right now. He loves to exercise. Exercise for him kind of has had the same impact as it did for me in terms of self-confidence and self-esteem. And so watching him really shine brightly and work through or navigate through high school right now, knowing that he's really enjoying himself, I am enjoying these times with him. I know that eventually he's going to be going away to university, and so I'm just kind of soaking up the little moments that I can. And then, outside of that, I am spending some time when I can with all of my people walks and coffee dates. And I'm going to visit a friend at her house on Sunday and she's spoiling me with whatever experiences she has lined up. It's all encompassing, but I can tell you the main focus is on my business and on building the startup that I'm working on.
Susannah Steers:I'd love to dig into that a little bit more, because I know that you have added a component to your work. I've known you for a number of years and this is exciting for me. You've added hypnosis to your work. You've always seemed pretty clear in your goals to improve people's lives, and action has always seemed to be your MO. So how does hypnosis fit into the equation?
Kristy Kilcup:Great question, actually. So I became a hypnotherapist because of the fact that I was literally having the same conversation with my clients. After a year of working with them, or years of working with them, I started working as a personal trainer at the age of 16. And amongst all my other qualifications, you know, as I mentioned, motivating people to do hard things is something I've been doing for decades now, but it was having the same conversation. Despite the fact that my clients knew how to resolve their problem, they were consistently getting in their own way. I have five different coaching designations. You would think that one of them would have helped me to help my clients push past this cyclical pattern, but it didn't. And I remember working with a client and it had been a year and she said something and in my head I had this aha moment where I was like, literally, this is how we started our first session together. Why are we still having the same conversation and I'm reframing this for her and working with different cognitive behavioral therapy skill sets and linguistic programming skill sets, and nothing's working.
Kristy Kilcup:And then I got into hypnotherapy because I started doing some research. I was really tired and it sounds kind of untrue, but it really is my truth. I was tired of taking money from my clients without feeling like they were resolving their issues. It felt like I was doing them a disservice and I wasn't comfortable with that. But I didn't know how to fix it, and so I did. I researched hypnotherapy, particularly rapid transformational therapy hypnotherapy with Marissa Peer, and I took her program and I was able to move people from working with me for a year to working with me over three 90 minute sessions. With me over three 90 minute sessions. It went from logical conversation to working with the subconscious. And it's actually that work that I was doing with that subconscious mind and these default patterns that we have and dealing with people's early childhood trauma that actually brought me to the startup company that I'm helping to develop, which is AHA Healing. So when I say I had my AHA moment, it really is kind of funny that that was the moment I had.
Kristy Kilcup:I didn't know about AHA Healing, but when I take a big step back and I look at my entire life and the landscape of the skill sets that I have, the certifications and all of my personal and professional experiences, it has led me to a time such as now, where not only do I get to leverage my hypnotherapy to help my clients to work through their subconscious or unconscious belief systems that keep them stuck.
Kristy Kilcup:But that's literally what we're developing with this company, AHA Healing, where my colleague, the founder of the company, Janice Taylor, has been working for the past 30 years on this 12-step program on this theory that works people fundamentally through these unconscious core belief systems.
Kristy Kilcup:That gets them to a place where they have autonomy, where they don't have to rely on a therapist, where they've created mastery, where anytime they start to notice that they have kind of created situations for themselves or are in relationships that are toxic, they actually learn how to unravel that, how to get themselves out of that without relying on another person to help them.
Kristy Kilcup:So they become self-reliant and they become advocates for their own well-being and they also are able to find their purpose. And so with this company and my hypnotherapy, it all has kind of come full circle for me, where, with this company, we're developing an application where people can subscribe to the app and work through the 12 steps, so it's going to be accessible to the masses. We've got our online program that allows people to work at a pace that works best for them, and then we've got our retreat center that we're building in Kelowna BC, pretty much next door to you, where people can go ahead and really experience a hyper personalized wellness experience, which is what people are looking for right now. But there isn't anything out there that exists that deals with the emotional healing, which we like to call that emotional fitness side of the equation, where we get to work on all four quadrants of health emotional, mental, physical and spiritual.
Susannah Steers:Do you ever find - especially if you're dealing with people who are often in sort of a high performance area - do you ever find that people are resistant to hypnosis, maybe with thoughts of crazy performances where someone hypnotized people and got them to quack like a duck or do ridiculous things for laughs? I mean, I guess my impression, and I've never been hypnotized so I don't know anything about it, my impression is that it might feel like a very vulnerable place to be or to go with someone.
Kristy Kilcup:Yes, how do you navigate that? So perfect question. I get a series of kind of the commonly asked questions. One can I be hypnotized? Two am I still in control? And you know. Three will this work? Can I be hypnotized? I have not. I've had thousands and thousands and thousands of hours and I have never had anybody who couldn't be hypnotized, but most of the time my clients don't know that they've been hypnotized until I pull them out. Number two am I still in control? I can only provide you with the suggestions that you're willing to accept.
Kristy Kilcup:It's different than stage hypnosis in that you already know you're going on stage to perform, so it's already attracting people who are willing to do grandiose things, whereas I work in hypnotherapy, where it's a very therapeutic process. It is very much a therapy session, if you will. And so, because I'm really dealing with the vulnerabilities of these types of conversations, it's important that they do recognize that they're in total control, and not only that. What ends up happening is we have a conversation and we work through a portion of the problem before I even hypnotize them, so that they already know the pathway that we're going to take and that they're already comfortable with the rapport that we've built and the information that they've shared with me. And then does it work? Well, that's really dependent on how far they're willing to go.
Kristy Kilcup:And I say this with my practice, but also in AHA Healing we say the same thing, in that we are here to facilitate your transformation.
Kristy Kilcup:I like to say, I hold a flashlight and a map, but you're the one driving the bus.
Kristy Kilcup:So I hold the flashlight because at some point in time we're going to go into a deep dark, what I call the pain cave, and I hold the flashlight so that you've got more perspective, and I hold the map, but ultimately you're the one telling us if we're going to turn left or right. And there's never you choosing the wrong direction, because the direction that you choose is always the one that we need to go down. But it really is you deciding how far you're willing to go in order to break those old habits, because, while hypnotherapy has been known to help people with smoking cessation and weight loss and anxiety and phobias, at the end of the day you're still the one deciding if you're going to eat that food, or if you're going to get on that plane, or if you are going to change your life and decide that you've drawn a line in the sand and you're not going to behave in a way that creates the same experiences that you've come to expect.
Susannah Steers:When you talk about diving into the pain cave or opening that door, and especially if you're talking about childhood traumas and things that people may have suppressed or put away because they were just too hard to look at. Because sometimes that stuff's surprising right? It sneaks up on you. You don't really even remember it's there and then all of a sudden you're in a situation and it's shown to you or it shows itself. I mean, it sounds like there's a container for this, but do you ever have a situation where people just decompensate and are overwhelmed by the things they discover in that state?
Kristy Kilcup:I deal with a lot of trauma with my clients sexual trauma, physical trauma, abandonment and there are situations where they have put it out of mind, where it's not something, that even when they're trying to figure out why they experienced the experience that they're experiencing, that's not an answer that they consider because they've just blocked it out.
Kristy Kilcup:I can feel usually I'm kind of an intuitive hypnotherapist. I usually know that's where we're going and so oftentimes I'll have language that lets them know that they're dissociated from the experience. It's like you and I sitting in a coffee shop and we're listening to the conversation, or you and I are watching a romantic comedy and we're crying and we're laughing and we're angry. We're feeling all of the feelings, but we know that while we're feeling those emotions, the experience is not happening to us. We're just empathetic to the characters on the screen. And so, while my clients may feel emotions, they recognize that they're not reliving an experience it's not happening to them but what they're able to do is they're able to gain clarity from being able to see and better understand the experience as laid out in front of them.
Susannah Steers:Right and then, as you say, they make the choices to turn right or left, or dive in deeper or retreat or whatever the choices may be. That's a lot.
Susannah Steers:In my experience, some folks are drawn to doing hard things, you know? They see a challenge and run toward it, and others seem to turn away at the slightest hint of challenge. Now, that being said, there are also people who can seemingly do virtually impossible things in one area of their lives, but then seem to wilt when faced with hardships in other areas of their lives. Your experiences and your work seems to be like a litany of experiences where you looked at hard and you looked it in the face and you said hold my beer, why do you think that is?
Kristy Kilcup:I think, because I grew up again, like at a very young age. I remember coming home and I was in kindergarten and saying that somebody told me I was a space cadet. I didn't know what a space cadet was, I didn't know it was an insult. I felt like I was being made fun of, and so I remember being sad because I thought this person was a friend, and then being told that I was a space cadet, and then them kind of running away on the playground. But I went home and told my mom, you know I was called the space cadet and I kind of started to recognize then that it felt like or it meant that my mind, my smarts, was a limiting factor for me. Now, now I don't believe that to be true, but for years and years and years I did. But what it did for me was it created this resiliency and this tenacity, and I would say if there would be a word that would describe it, would be persistence and tenacity. Because if you told me I couldn't do something which happened in high school several times by my teachers, I was going to prove you wrong, like I would have my math teacher get frustrated with me in high school because I was taking the advanced math, because I wanted to go to university. None of my family members had ever gone to university, so I wanted, knowing that.
Kristy Kilcup:My insecurities lied in my aptitude for academics. College for me was something that all of my family members had done, but university was something that they hadn't. So maybe I could prove my worth and my value in this world if I went to university, right? So I ended up taking all of these advanced classes. But I remember going to see my math teacher, my calculus teacher, and he was getting super frustrated with me, to the point where he said why are you even in this class? You're not going to be able to go to university anyways. And I remember when I graduated from my first university degree and I was raising a toast with my parents, I raised a glass. I won't say the teacher's name, but I've not forgotten it. I raised a glass in his honor to say if it wasn't for him telling me I couldn't do it, I probably wouldn't have pursued it. But I ended up graduating with that four years honors degree, in spite of.
Susannah Steers:In spite of - Yeah, girl!
Susannah Steers:Well, so what do you think people need to know about approaching something that feels like an insurmountable challenge?
Kristy Kilcup:We always have it inside of us. And again I have to go back to AHA Healing for a moment, because I have to give them the credit for this. This is the awareness that I've received is that, at the end of the day, our insecurities come from not believing that we, as we are, are enough, but there's usually this point in time where we are deciding that we're deserving of more. What I'm really hoping that people get out of this is that they find that voice sooner versus later, that they just stop and listen to themselves for a moment and really feel that yearning. If people feel restless in their life right now, if people feel lonely, if people feel detached, if people feel like they haven't quite found what it is that they're supposed to be doing or found the person that they're supposed to be with, that's usually because they're stuck right, what we call in aha healing. They're on this bridge.
Kristy Kilcup:There's a part of them that knows that they're deserving of more, but oftentimes there we're still making decisions out of fear because we don't see our own value. So at the end of the day, I did see my own value. That voice was a little bit louder for me, even though my perceptions was. I was different and I wasn't smart enough and I wasn't good enough. There was enough of that little voice inside of me that did push me to do it anyways, and I just got better at not comfortable, but better at leaning into fear and doing it anyway.
Susannah Steers:Kristy, where can people find you if they're hearing you and thinking, oh my goodness, I need to learn more about this?
Kristy Kilcup:Sure, I can always provide you with a link if they want to book a 30-minute free call and have a conversation about their story to see if any of the programs and services that I have available are of interest to them. But they can also just email kristy@versionofyou2. com
Susannah Steers:I'll put the links in the show notes for people that you'll find them there. Although we may go about it in different ways, I think we both share a dedication to supporting people in living their lives as authentically and as fully as they can, and movement and the dynamic relationships involved can be a powerful pathway toward unleashing new potential and opening new pathways and building confidence to do the things that we want to do. Thank you so much for spending the time with me today, Kristy. I really appreciate you.
Kristy Kilcup:Thank you for having me. We've known each other for a very long time, but we certainly haven't spent a great deal of time together, and so this has been a real gift. Thank you.
Susannah Steers:It's been a lot of fun. Take care and I hope to see you in Kelowna soon. Bye-bye. I
Susannah Steers:hope you enjoyed today's episode. Subscribe and, if you love what you heard, leave a five-star review and tell people what you enjoyed most. Join me here again in a couple of weeks. For now, let's get moving.
