#56 Refined Through Forgiveness

Find Your Voice, Change Your Life Podcast 

Podcast Host: Dr. Doreen Downing

Free Guide to Fearless Speaking: Doreen7steps.com

Episode # 56 Kate Vrastak

“Refined Through Forgiveness”

(00:36) Dr. Doreen Downing  

Hello, I’m Dr. Doreen Downing and I’m the host of the Find Your Voice, Change Your Life podcast. And every week I get to invite people who have had some story about having lost their voice or never even having had it in the first place. For whatever reason that has happened to them, we get to listen to their journey. Not only what occasionally might have been difficult moments for them, but also what they discovered and how that empowered them now. So today, I get to introduce a new friend of mine, and we are happy to be wearing the same color. This is Kate Vrastak, and she’s with Sacred Roots Coaching. Welcome Kate.

(1:27) Kate Vrastak

Thank you so much Dr. Doreen, I’m so happy to be here. Finally we get to connect about our voices. It’s powerful, but to find it has been a journey even for myself, so I’m glad to talk about it.

(1:43) Dr. Doreen Downing  

That’s one of my favorite words, journey. I speak about it all the time because every day and every moment is actually a journey. And so what we’re talking about is, my dear, your journey. I’ve read some things about it, and I’m already touched and already feel amazed by the trauma that you’ve been able to move through and transform into a bright you, bright light. So maybe it’s best if we can just get a little bit of history, how you started out, where you grew up, and wht the challenges were there.

(2:26)  Kate Vrastak

With my journey, as we call it, because it’s definitely not a destination for sure, it’s a journey. And that’s what I encourage everyone to realize, that whatever they’re going through when they’re listening to this, it is a journey. And it’s like a season, it comes and it goes. So you just need to ride the wave, but not hold on for all your might but just surrender. And I believe that that’s been my biggest saving grace, I guess for me, because I’ve held on to my faith that this too shall pass. But knowing that it’s happening for me, not necessarily always just to me. Because when we can breathe, and we can look from a higher perspective and see that it’s just molding us into something bigger and better, it just helps us see that growth is on the other side of it and just surrender. So my journey started, ironically enough, when I had to basically change my entire life, from when my whole family passed away at the hands of somebody else, ironically. It truly was not a surprise for me because I was a clairvoyant as a child, but I didn’t embrace that because back in the early 60s and 70s, that wasn’t really a thing at all. That’s become more of a thing in the 90s and millennium. But that being said, I was woken up out of my sleep, and I had a “sixth sense,” as they call it now, or a gut feeling and intuition prodding that my mother wasn’t to leave that day with my brother and the missionaries and their children. Well lo and behold because she didn’t listen to me because my voice was always muted as a child, I was always to be seen and not heard and sometimes even not seen. I was hidden because my mother wanted to protect me because she had gone through enough trauma in her life that she wanted to shelter me as much as possible.

However, I guess, in the long and short of it, it’s been my best catalyst to help me heal on my journey. And I talked about this in my second book that I just released with Les Brown, how it brought me to the inner soul journey that I’m still on and still searching always for more answers, more resources, more tips and tools, because we can never have enough of them. But that being said, I didn’t stop there, it was only four days after my 13th birthday, and I’m from Thunder Bay, so it was just the accident that happened right outside of where Terry Fox Lookout is, it took out an entire bridge. So they were killed instantly, and I knew I would not see them again. But we heard this on the radio before even the police could get to our door. So it was a very turbulent time for me because I then had to take care of my grandmother who was very ill, who had a very delicate heart that had a few heart attacks previous to this. And lo and behold, I wasn’t able to keep her much longer, she died just a month and a little bit later, five days before Christmas.

So as the body keeps the score, as we know in the work that we do with trauma, that I kept it hidden. I kept it down inside of me until I went off to Bible college, and just kind of went about my day, but realized that I was basically numbing my pain by becoming bulimic. And this was the catalyst that broke the camel’s back, for lack of better words, where I was actually asked to go and take care of my house. So the dean of the college let me go, so I could not take care of everybody else as a missionary because I was taking a missionary course because I wanted to follow in my mother’s footsteps, and live on in her legacy. So that being said, I decided that my life was important, and I had to take care of it. And so that journey started on my trajectory of healing my trauma, doing a lot of trauma work. A lot of soul searching, even uprooting myself within, and I moved with a friend and her family, and even had to repair some damage that had been done by physical abuse. And I talked about that again in my book. So the journey has been from the inside out.

(7:19)   Dr. Doreen Downing  

I like that phrase, “from the inside out.” And you said something about how the body keeps score. Well you’ve said a number of things already that are pretty profound around at 13, it sounds like it was a tremendous loss, absolute loss, and then your grandmother also, and not being able to grieve that. It sounds like your grief buried itself in your body.

(7:52)   Kate Vrastak

It definitely did. Well my mother brought me into religion just before she died, actually, at age 10. So I was well immersed in different religions because basically, she thought saving my soul in religion would be the way to heal me from the trauma that I had endured. So that being said, I was well versed in Scripture and Bible studies and so forth, but that was not helping my pain. And deep within my soul, I knew that I had to let the suffering go, but it wasn’t that easy because I didn’t have family to rely on. I didn’t trust anybody. I worried about getting close to somebody because I thought I was going to lose them again. So relationships were very hard for me, I kept everyone at a distance. Not saying that I wasn’t social, I was, but I only kept very close people near me.

(8:45) Dr. Doreen Downing

I know exactly what that feels like. My trauma doesn’t sound like the degree that yours was, but I kept everybody at a distance. And at 40, my best girlfriends sat around and told me how difficult it was to get close to me, and they each had their own stories. I was very close to my sister, and I said I only have room in my heart for my sister. And then it was Mary, I only have room for my sister and Mary. And so the heart closes down, exactly. I hear what you’re saying, and it’s protective.

(9:21) Kate Vrastak

It is, and because it guards itself, right? Because you don’t want to get hurt again, but yet my heart felt in pieces because I lost one compounded loss after another. My brother was only 14 when he died and my mother was only 33, so they were both young. And the responsibility though that I put on myself because I knew it was going to happen. And let me tell you, this is shocking for a lot of probably your listeners, is that when my first book launched just last year, I realized that I held that guilt, that shame, that responsibility for not being able to stop my mother’s death for all those years. 40 years I literally held on to all of that and realize when after I did a process of healing to my core, my cells, as you know NLP does, in cellular healing because you go into hypnotherapy and you heal your generation timeline, I realized that imposter syndrome was coming up, and I wondered why it was. And it was because I feared being loved for putting out a book that could really speak to people and really resonate with a lot of people’s stories that don’t get told. And that was huge for me because I thought oh my God, am I going to have judgment? Am I going to have people shunning me now or what? You know, you get all those false beliefs. It’s false beliefs, it’s not anything foundational, but you just worry. I always worried as a child, I took it on myself to worry because I felt responsible, and the whole spiritual philosophy is that we need to take responsibility over our life.

Sometimes it’s not that easy, and for me, it wasn’t easy, but yet, when I search for forgiveness for myself, then that was more of a release of freedom for me. And that’s what I really speak of to this day, that freedom in forgiveness is where I found more of the peace than chasing after answers. Or chasing after the unknown, chasing after a false identity, which wasn’t me anyway because it just happened to me. And it wasn’t who I was, it doesn’t define me, in fact, it refines me. My past refines me because I’m stronger because of it, and I can help so many more people because I have gone through and I’m sure you do too. You’re empathetic more because you’ve gone through it. Some trauma, doesn’t matter the severity, it’s just when you walk the talk, you can definitely hold the space for other people.

(12:00) Dr. Doreen Downing

Well the refine and the define, that’s a great phrase. And I hear what you say about freedom and that responsibility, are we taking responsibility for our souls? Are we taking responsibility for other people’s journeys and souls, and I think you finally made some kind of separation there.

(12:27) Kate Vrastak

Yes, and the separation is what really needed to happen because I didn’t have healthy boundaries. Because as you know, yourself, probably as a trauma survivor, you don’t know what boundaries are. It’s not taught a lot of the time when you’re young, and you don’t know how to set those healthy boundaries or barriers or just protect yourself. Because as a child, when you’re supposed to be submissive to your adults, your peers and your mentors, you just trust them, you instinctively know that that’s what you’re born into, and you just count on them as being there. But when they violate you, and they are perpetrators against you, then you kind of go trepidatious about trusting people and then you really wonder who. Even in the professional field, I was just saying to my therapist today, and I believe everyone should have a therapist because talking out your stuff as you’re helping others really helps you stay present.

I was just saying that how one psychologist I went to because I had gone through so much trauma at a very young age, he compartmentalized. He was a psychologist and just said oh, well you must have multiple personalities because he was categorizing every trauma and I’m like how unfair was that and I walked away and never went back to his office. And that was just one of the stepping stones of trying to heal my trauma, and after I had nose reconstruction. So I was working on the outside now because I was learning to love myself from the visual of not just from the inside because I had had ulcers and digestive issues which manifested because of the bulimia. But that being said, even my teeth were rotting very quickly. And my dentist that I worked for, tried to get to the bottom of it. And it was all because I wasn’t accepting myself and my body was very acidic.

(14:23) Dr. Doreen Downing

Wow, I have to take a breath here with you because I am so moved by all of what you had to carry for so long. And the word you used a second ago was trepidation and trepidatious. And I’m thinking that the people who have public speaking anxiety it is more about what’s in their body and what they’re holding back. And so that standing up and saying “Hello world,” and getting into the light or having people looking at them…it feels like oh no, I’d rather just hide but I have to stay out here, but I think it recreates some of that trauma that you’re talking about. But what a journey.

(15:12) Kate Vrastak

Yes. And it’s a journey that I realized was a road less traveled for a lot of people that don’t choose to do the work. And I can honestly say, I’m grateful that I showed up for myself, and I’m still here today. Because not only did I have the hope that I could touch one life, I wanted to make a difference in just one person’s life. But I know during COVID, by me having my clubhouse rooms and my support groups online for my local community, I’ve saved a lot more lives. Because COVID really was causing a lot of mental difficulties, we’ll just say, for a lot of people and even mine until I got my hormones balanced, which women go through at change of life, that I was struggling with too, at some point of it. I thought what’s next? Because I was healing, which I forgot to also mention, I was healing a concussion during post COVID. As a result of the blessing now, I call it a blessing that I talked about in my first book Ignite Possibilities, which it did, it ignited possibilities in me that it made me realize that we’re all like the tree of life. But if we only embraced it, like you said, the breath and just breathe through life, and allow ourselves to surrender like I had to that fateful day, as I fell down with that tree that landed on my home, during a perfect storm, as I call it in the book. It made me realize that I had to just let go. I was holding on too much and my cup was empty because I was all about helping everybody else. It was about being of service to everybody else, but I came up empty.

(16:57) Dr. Doreen Downing

When was this, tell us about it.

(17:00)  Kate Vrastak

It was actually August of 2019. COVID had just started out just shortly thereafter, so my whole COVID started before because I was in total darkness. I couldn’t even look at daylight, let alone sunlight, to even walk straight. Like I was rushing to the hospital a couple of times because my whole balance was off. I just went to see another specialist just yesterday, and they told me I have to get some work done because of the balance in my inner ear.

(17:33) Dr. Doreen Downing

Look at you, you’re still living in possibility and healing.

(17:39) Kate Vrastak

Yes, I’m not holding back. I believe when we can rise up, we can do anything. And that’s what we can honestly give hope to others when life knocks us down, we can still get back up. And as Les Brown says, “As long as you can get back up and look up, your life is worth living.” And that’s truly what my life has been about, is getting back up and not getting torn down by circumstances or situations. Sure, we have a time or a season to go through it, but there’s always the other side of it that we can be hopeful for because it happens for us, and it’s just made me stronger.

(18:19)  Dr. Doreen Downing

Yes, so I’m bringing all this back to voice and I’m thinking about your journey, and early on, not having a voice because your mother made you feel like you had to be seen and not heard. And then you have the trauma, and you can’t speak the voice of pain, so that’s buried inside of you. And then you find yourself later in life trying to express yourself. And finally it feels like all along the line, you’ve got some kind of inner drive that keeps you, and you’ve used the word soul a couple of times today and your coaching program is called Sacred Roots coaching.

(19:09) Kate Vrastak

Yes, Sacred Roots because I really believe that going within me and healing from the roots up really helps me and it’s ironic because the same tree that fell on my home is now in my plumbing. So I talk about the roots, literally we have to heal from their roots because they keep going and going as long as we keep flourishing and growing ourselves. And to me, I want it to be firmly planted here because my identity was always shaken and at a young age. I’ve been an orphan since I was 13, and I’ve met many orphans, believe it or not, along the journey. In fact, I tend to attract orphans to work with because they’re working through that whole identity crisis that you go through of not feeling like you belong anywhere, and trying to make your own path your life purpose. And that’s what I knew and I held on to because my mother, I believe, got me ready for this journey. She silenced me, but that was the best advice I could have. Because in order to heal my concussion and to be where I am today, I had to go silent. I had to go within, I had to meditate, and just be in that silence.

And a lot of people aren’t comfortable with that silence. And you know, the mind takes over and it kind of controls and manipulates people. “Oh well, I got to be doing this, I got to go here,” and people think this and I’ve got to be this. And so we constantly listen to those inner voices which aren’t healthy. But when the soul speaks from love, that is what you bring to the world, because that love is emanating from your pores, your cells, your everything, because people feel the love that you have for yourself. And then you can give back from the overflow because your cup is full. And I realized that in being a mother and being a care provider, and even helping exchange students all around the world come to my home and learn about Canada, I was coming up empty. And I was constantly giving because I thought that that’s what my purpose was, not who I was.

(21:16) Dr. Doreen Downing

Repeat that please, that’s great.

(21:21) Kate Vrastak

So it was what I was doing I thought was who I was, but it wasn’t. It was who I am as a person as a soul as my heart, but I was so caught up in the doing as opposed to the being

(21:35) Dr. Doreen Downing

Oh yes, the being and I’m hearing what you’re saying about the soul having a voice and the soul speaks, and that’s what I’m taking from you today.

(21:45)  Kate Vrastak

Is the inner God whisper I like to call it. And ever since I heard that in one of my groups, I said yes, that’s exactly what it is. It’s a whisper that we aren’t listening to because we tend to override it and say no, we’re not gonna listen to that. That’s just a fear, that’s a doubt, but no, there’s a subtle whisper within us that God says no, just go here. Ironically enough, a couple months ago, I had been in because I thought I had COVID, but I just had strep throat. And I had been cooped up for quite a while, a couple of weeks anyway, and inside the four walls of my home. And finally I just went out one day with my dog, went for a drive, and I had this inner whisper that said go to the waterfront,  and “I’m like waterfront, it’s winter, what’s at the waterfront? Sure enough, I went and there was a beautiful wildlife photographer there, so he captured the moment. And it was three eagles, you don’t see just one, I saw three eagles, and to me that’s a spiritual sign. Eagle is a powerful totem, especially for the native culture. But I took it as a message that I’m exactly where I need to be on my journey, and I don’t need to question it.

That just brought so much joy and I felt so exhilarated because the eagle is so powerful with its wingspan and it can glide, it doesn’t need to do anything in the air, and that’s what I just embraced. I’m even getting goosebumps thinking about it. Like I’m going to listen to that voice because that stillness, that little messenger of that eagle or the three eagles really brought me hope and a sign that God is with me. My angels are with me, my spirits, whatever you want to call them, my family I even feel is always with me in the spirit world. Because I believe too in the afterlife, but I feel spirit is always there with us. If we call on it, it hears us. Like in prayer, and I’m not trying to profess to be religious, I’m more spiritual than anything, but I believe that prayers do get answered. And so I trusted again, in a whisper, and wow, was it ever a revelation for me that day. And I actually spoke about it in one of my books that I’m writing this year.

(24:02) Dr. Doreen Downing

Well, I think that the idea of us listening to that whisper because it is a voice and the program here is about finding your voice. But I think that the whisper is a voice because you’re talking about the soul within us and it’s in ourselves and our being state has a voice. So I think that’s one of the things that I feel like we can really offer people today, is that it’s not just about getting up on a stage and having a voice or being able to speak up at a meeting. It’s about actually being more true to what’s inside of you and being able then to feel okay, I hear it, how do I follow it and trust it. And I think before we end today, I’d really like to have you talk a little bit about trusting that inner whisper.

(25:02) Kate Vrastak

Yes, trust. And what I’ve learned is to pick up your cross and just follow your guidance, your faith, and that’s what truly I did. In my journey, I knew that I could do all things through Christ who strengthens me, Philippians 4:13. But that being said, I always knew that there was something that I was being guided by in every part of my journey. As much as people say wow, you’re the sole survivor, and I am. My children never had grandparents. So there was always one loss after another, but I just picked myself up and said there’s hope here because I am strong, and God doesn’t give us anything more than we can handle. And the strength that we have in listening to that inner whisper comes from just being that discernment. And as a little girl, I prayed to the point that I was even falling asleep on my knees where my knees would even go numb because I really believed in a higher power, a higher self. And that’s what I really want to encourage people to believe in, in themselves, is that you’re here. And as Eckhart Tolle even talks about, if we stay in the present moment, and we stay present to what’s here, like even what’s happening in our conversation, we don’t look at what’s happening tomorrow, the next day because then that’s bringing worry. And we can’t worry about something we can’t control, but if we’re living in fear, that’s living in the past.

So we need to always live in the present moment because when we are, then abundance is all around, and we come from a place of gratitude. So that’s what I do with listening and trusting, is I’m grateful for the tree that fell on my home and then fell on me just after I moved into my home and started a new beginning. I just trusted, I just kept saying God, what else do I need to do to surrender? That’s what I always was asking of the Holy Spirit because I really believe that we all have an anointing of the Holy Spirit. Because even to orchestrate this meeting today, look at our synchronicity of wearing the same color as if we called each other like high school girlfriends. We didn’t though, by the way, everybody that’s listening, but I believe everything in life is synchronistic. And when you know, it’s synchronistic, you can trust that it’s of divine guidance, it’s of divine ordinance that is supposed to happen. And that’s what truly I believe in my heart, that I have forgiveness even for those that killed my entire family, even my last brother, nine years ago now, passed, and I had to go through the court system. But I listened to myself and said this is an opportunity to go within to forgive even what I hadn’t forgiven. And I realized what I hadn’t forgiven is myself.

I really want to encourage everybody to trust themselves to go within, to find that forgiveness for yourself. Not for your perpetrators, not for the past individuals that might have traumatized you or hurt you, including your family, like mine, but you just go and trust yourself. Because when you get up every morning, and you look at yourself in the mirror, you have to love who you look at. And if you don’t, then those wounds that you have within you need a voice. And that’s what I started doing, is giving those wounds a voice, but not holding on for dear might, I let it go. As much as it came up, if there’s a trigger that you’re being triggered by, trust it for its message, but let it go. Don’t be attached to the outcome, just let it go.

I know that might sound easy, but it’s a journey. The more practice that you do with it, the better you’ll get at it, like working out a muscle, you have to work at it in order to strengthen it. I had just had shoulder surgery, and in order to use my right hand again, which I’m right-handed, I had to keep working at it and practice and practice. So trusting is the same thing, you have to trust yourself. But it all boils down to boundary setting, learning to take yourself seriously, but not so serious that you don’t have fun, and you don’t have joy, and you don’t trust the process. Because as much as it can be painful, there’s always the light side of it as well. And that’s what I’m learning to embrace. And that’s what I brought into 2022 this year, is more joy and I set the intention and the vibration. So be very intentional with the trust because within trust, grace leads you to the next step and just the next step and it just organically happens. And synchronistically, everything just falls into place. And since I really harnessed the forgiveness, I can hold that sacred space for other people. That’s why I called my company Sacred Roots because I believe I’ve gone through the journey And I know what it’s like to have gone through it. So just holding that container, that nesting for other people to just empty out is sometimes the most valuable thing that you could do for someone.

So just holding that space is beautiful, and trusting yourself to do it and not having to have the answers. And that’s as simple as it can get and just say okay, I’m showing up for myself. But write yourself a love letter, encourage yourself to empty out whatever emotions that you’re holding onto from your past and say that it wasn’t their responsibility to give me the love now, it’s me to give me the love. And the validation and the love of filling those voids that I once had. But they did the best they could with what they had, and they needed love, so now, the best I could do to give them love is to give myself love first. And that’s where I reciprocally do that with people, and I walk them through that journey. And it’s so beautiful to see the blossoms, like the lotus flower in all of us, as the Yogi says, but I believe the beauty comes from the inside out when you can go through that journey of trust.

(31:08) Dr. Doreen Downing

Yes, and what I hear is that trust is about listening. I mean, we may have the voice and the whisper inside, but we also have to listen and I get that it’s a surrender. And you also talked a little earlier about stillness and silence, and I feel like we get so busy in that we aren’t able to actually do that kind of deep listening. So the quieting, holding space for ourselves, that’s really lovely, and I feel like we can go on and on and on. Because there’s so much that I believe in that you believe that feels so compatible, the depth of where our voice really can come from deep inside. And so for the people who have suffered speaking anxiety who may be listening today, I think you can see that this way of giving your moments where you felt traumatized or you had an unpleasant event and you had to walk away or you felt like a failure. It seems like what Kate is offering you and what I offer in my programs also is this way of using everything in your life as an opportunity to grow. And so that’s what I’d like to leave listeners with today. And how Kate, can they find you?

(32:34) Kate Vrastak

Well I can be found at www.sacredroots.com. I’m also on LinkedIn as my name Kate Vrastak, and Facebook the same. But if you’re on Instagram, I’m @4sacred_roots there, but my website is probably the best. I didn’t even mention my forgiveness acronym, but I really want people to know that the freedom of forgiveness is truly the gift that you can give yourself. Because everybody that comes to me is a gift because I believe we always love gifts, and how we receive someone is exactly how we receive ourselves. So if we value ourselves enough, like the V in forgive, we can really bring those values to the forefront in our life and really take up our ability to empathize and listen to that intuition. So those are all the symbols of forgiveness, and when you get to that, the freedom is so expansive, and it’s so open, when you open your heart to the O in forgive.

So I trust all of you guys were touched by something that both Doreen and I have said, but I just hope that you reach out as the R in forgive is. Don’t suffer in silence. If you’re going through trauma or anxiety or stressors in your life, reach out, don’t suffer in silence because that silence is good to still yourself, but if you’re feeling like it’s perpetual, and you’re in the mind and the cycling of the mind, you need to reach out and unravel that. Because it’s coming up for a reason to be healed, and coming up for a reason to be validated and supported. Because there’s a true blossoming that can happen when you’re witnessed along your journey. And that’s what really was my saving grace, is that I wasn’t a lone wolf anymore living a traumatic life. I became a catalyst to give back to help others. And yes, I’m on speaking platforms now, yes, I’ve written books, but my journey is just the same as anybody else. We need to take the time to reflect and we need to also honor but letting go is what really is more expansiveness for the future to live your life purpose. So I hope everyone feels enlightened and empowered by what we’ve shared today. And I’ve touched somebody, I hope. At least one person.

(35:03)  Dr. Doreen Downing

Oh, I’m sure it’s more than one person, Kate. I know that you’ve touched me in the way that we touch each other then ripples out. So I’m sure today Friday, I’m going to be speaking with people and I’ll be bringing some of your vibration, you might call it, with me. And people who can’t see and are just listening, your smile is really gorgeous, you’re brilliant, and you radiate. And so thank you very much for sharing those notes today.

(35:37) Kate Vrastak

My pleasure and thank you, God bless, much love. Thank you.