Kaeley Pruitt-Hamm: Believe Your Dreams - Intuition, Inconvenient Truths, and the Rebellion of Our Bodies

Speaker 1: 0:05

This is the Inner Rebel podcast.

Speaker 2: 0:34

I'm excited.

Speaker 4: 0:55

I'm excited because I get to see you and I don't get to see you enough. I'm so lucky to be able to see you. I'm so grateful that you're joining us. It's very difficult to summarize Kaylee in a bio, but I'm going to try. I'm so excited.

Speaker 4: 1:45

She founded the indie folk music project and movement KPH in the Canary Collective, which seeks to use music as a storytelling and community organizing tool as a call to action for climate and healthcare justice. She also dreamt and co-organized the virtual music and arts festival, BedFest 2017, which featured art and performances from hundreds of other bedridden artists from around the world, and co-founded a series called Sick Women and Queer Shows that used music, poetry and performance to raise awareness about the need for affordable and accessible healthcare, housing, clean air and water for everyone. I know this keeps going, but there is no limit to Kaylee's accomplishments. I just also want to mention her music. Her latest album, the Five in Three, was recorded while quarantining in a hundred days of solitude in a trailer in the Joshua Tree desert at the start of the pandemic, and she hopes to continue to use her music and her unique performance style as a tool of encouraging dialogue around healing our bodies and healing the ecosystems on this planet.

Speaker 1: 2:44

Whoa Kaylee, and she did our music for the podcast. She did our music for the podcast, so our intro and outro is done by Kaylee, so also a special thing that we get to have, we're so lucky.

Speaker 4: 2:57

Thank you for being here. I love you so, so much. I know I've already talked so much, but I would like to share with our listeners how we met. How did we meet? So Kaylee just walked into my life. She literally just walked through the front door of my house. One day I had a friend. Call me Random.

Speaker 1: 3:18

Sounds creepy in a way. I know Just off the street. She was looking through my windows at night and then she entered. Not like that. That was the best thing that ever happened to me.

Speaker 4: 3:28

We have a mutual friend and that friend called me and asked if I wanted to do. I think it was an eclipse circle, because this is Los Angeles, you do eclipse circles and of course I said yes, because that is what one does in Los Angeles, and the place that I was staying at at the time just happened to be this really big, nice house that I had all to myself. So it made sense for me to host and Kaylee was brought over and she was invited in and we had this really incredible night. It was four of us and it felt like there was this instant connection. My memory is almost as though it was like sitting around a fire, even though it was my living room, and it just felt very intimate. We were sharing really, really deep parts of our souls.

Speaker 4: 4:10

We did this ceremony for a relationship that was ending for me at the time, so it was really beautiful and I didn't know Kaylee really at all except for that night and days later reached out and she needed a place to stay for the night.

Speaker 4: 4:22

And what you're going to learn about as we talk with Kaylee is that she has some health issues and that means that she can't stay in certain environments that might be moldy or dusty or make her sick, and so the place that I was in just happened to be the right kind of place.

Speaker 4: 4:36

So she reached out and asked if she could stay with me and I've mentioned this to you before because I don't think that would be an easy thing to do. I think reaching out to someone that you don't know and saying, do you mind if I stay with you for an evening might be really uncomfortable for some people and it may have been really uncomfortable for you to do, but the reason that I bring it up is that was one of the greatest gifts of my life and I just want to share that. For anyone who's like maybe I'm too much or maybe it's too much to ask somebody, I'm telling you that her asking for that favor opened up my life to one of the greatest friendships I've ever experienced, and Kaylee came that night. We had such a good time and my life has been different ever since. So thank you, I love you and thank you for being here with us today.

Speaker 3: 5:28

Yeah, I love you too, and that's the kind of person Jessica Rose is, who thanks someone else for letting her host and give a safe place to stay.

Speaker 4: 5:41

If that someone else is.

Speaker 1: 5:42

Kaylee Pruitt-Hamm, for sure yeah you just knew and I want to echo the last piece that you said about for our guests that if you feel scared to make a request or ask or put yourself out there, I will echo that a majority of my most precious relationships are because of that, because of like a weird fangirl moment where I might have reached out and been like, hey, I really want to connect with you, or even asking you to do a podcast was probably really weird given the nature of our relationship, and that is where so much magic happens when you decide to get out of your comfort zone and say the thing that's in your heart and make the request and put yourself at the risk of a no. But what do you miss? Like a lifelong friendship like this Right, the pros often way outweigh the con. So I just wanted to echo that that it's like such a beautiful way to be in the world.

Speaker 3: 6:35

Thank you. It has been one of the most important, significant, life changing friendships of my life as well. I am so glad that my past self pushed past her fear of being too much or a burden to walk off the street. I actually shouldn't joke, because I was quite literally living in my van at the time due to disability and environmental illness and housing insecurity. A lot of people are actually really in a housing crisis right now, but I am so, so lucky and privileged that I've had a community safety net, including you, and also, I mean that was the best eclipse ever because it just brought the wrong women into my life.

Speaker 3: 7:24

And then, you know, of course, the pandemic happened and I had to be way more isolated than the average person. I know there was a time where we all were isolating, but I'm still isolating. It's been three years and smiling and laughing, three years doing great yeah, everything's fine, yeah, and we've still stayed so well in touch. I mean just getting through these tough times together and the paradigms that you also teach from the perspective of human design. I mean you have so much more wisdom beyond the framework of human design that you offer. I mean your gifts are so vast and you're using them all on this podcast, but that was also very, very game changing for me to just hear you drop all these wisdom bums on me.

Speaker 4: 8:13

We did that that night that she came to stay with me, I gave you, you got us Thai food and I gave you a human design rating.

Speaker 3: 8:19

Yes, yes, and you told me all about being a projector type and making decisions from your splenic authority, like being someone who tends to have a relationship with fear and intuitive decision making, and that has been so important for me to learn about. And then also you said things like you should never have to convince somebody to love you. I did say that. What a powerful statement. So, yeah, I want to thank you both because your podcast has totally been getting me through this particularly hard chapter. I just went through endometriosis surgery last month and I have been like gripping on like a lifeline to your podcast.

Speaker 3: 9:10

So, you both are the absolute dream team for asking meaningful questions and just making it fun. And I'm so glad that you asked me to make the song because I was trying to figure out what would inner rebels sound like and at first I was thinking maybe a rebel had to sound like really loud and powerful. But it was a very interesting exercise, kind of letting the song come forth intuitively. That's what I've been trying to do more of a songwriting from an intuitive place and letting it just flow through me rather than thinking about what I think the song should be through my mind.

Speaker 3: 9:50

And yeah, what came forth was a little bit more of like a quiet. I have a secret and I'm gently powerful and I'm going to hum along to these badass women who are talking. It's perfect, I really perfect, yeah, that you asked me to make that song.

Speaker 1: 10:09

You both are a dream team, thank you so much and I love that you've chosen to listen. That means a lot. There's a lot that I guess is at risk when you choose to expose yourself in the way that we have. And honestly, I do feel like even though I'd really have to work around, this being totally true for my whole body, but even if no one ever listened I feel like this would be a worthy use of our time and our energy and our friendship to be able to have these conversations and make the revelations that we've made within ourselves without even having it have the ripple effect. But it's 100% really wonderful to know, like even just you saying that I'm like okay, all that's worth it, like we made a difference in one, you know yes, yes, I am your one listener, one fan.

Speaker 1: 10:53

We have one fan. Welcome to our one fan. But I also want to talk. There's a couple of things that came up when you were talking.

Speaker 1: 10:59

The one is the traditional rebel that initially you thought it had to be more like overpowering loud, like more of a what I would in the language of masculine feminine, of a really overpowering, toxic masculine rebel versus a soft rebel which is more, I would say, the feminine, and even in the creation of the song of you using your intuition is a feminine quality and finding the softer rebel of I'm actually going to turn inward for the answers, and that is my inner rebel, that's my act of rebellion and it doesn't have to be loud or overpowering. It's me actually listening to me and that's the rebel. So I love that, even in the creation of the song, that that was felt, because it's really it's what this is all about.

Speaker 3: 11:41

Yeah, it's really, really good to be challenging our old ideas of what is power.

Speaker 4: 11:48

I think. So, on that note, kaylee, because you tune into this podcast, you know that there is a question that we like to start with that we ask our guests, so I would like to offer that to you. Who are you, and how is that different from who you thought you were supposed to be?

Speaker 3: 12:09

I'm just a random girl who walks into people's houses and changes their lives.

Speaker 3: 12:19

Yeah, I. Obviously this is always a difficult question to answer succinctly, but I do want to start. I was thinking a lot about what a definition of a canary is, because a lot of people hear my band name, kph and the Canary Collective, and I assume that they know what I'm talking about when I talk about a canary. But I'm realizing that maybe I should be more clear. So I feel like I'm a canary. I feel like society taught me to believe that I needed to be a coal miner and I actually have never said that sentence before but yeah, I feel like society taught me that I needed to be the one who's like holding my vulnerability in a cage and like plunging into toxic systems and just being like this is fine, we're fine, let's keep going. Capitalism and white supremacy and misogyny and ableism all teach us to normalize injustices every day. And being in this toxic mine which, up until the 1980s, literally a mining practice was to bring little yellow canary birds in cages right, and the miners would do that because scientists were like, oh, we have this idea, we can do this as a way of keeping the miners from passing out and dying from toxic air, because humans wouldn't be able to sense, when it's toxic enough air that they should go, like you won't be able to really feel it until it's too late and you pass out. And the canaries they not only have a smaller body, but their superpower is their sensitivity. They take in air in secret chambers in their lungs, like the same thing that gives them the ability to fly and sing that we appreciate about canaries. That's the same thing that makes them extra vulnerable. So they're very extra sensitive. They have extra clean air, but if it's toxic air they take in extra toxins. And so when the canaries stop singing and when the canaries keel over with chronic illness which one out of two Americans has a chronic illness that is a signal to try to get ourselves out of this mine before it's too late for everyone, for the other 55%. And so I feel like I want to be very deliberate about how important that shift was in my life, because I really it's very strong the tides are very strong to have a hard time accepting and loving yourself for your sensitivities and your vulnerabilities and your quieter power. We're taught that it's better to be that louder power and overpowering, as Melissa said, like being in the toxic masculine sense of power, is like coercion and just pushing forward through, ignoring our body's signals and everything. And that being said, I also want to acknowledge right now I'm on Koumier land.

Speaker 3: 15:33

We are in colonized territory and my ancestors I come from mostly European, like Irish, scottish, welsh, french descent. And my ancestors were Quaker and came to the United States in the 18th and 19th centuries, like wanting to make a different kind of society where it wasn't as patriarchal, like a lot of the Quakers who I came from wanted to have a more egalitarian society where you didn't have a pastor, you didn't like everyone gets to just sit in silence and marvel at like nature and singing and being in harmony together. So it's like a part of my history that I'm actually like. Okay, I'm glad that I have that part of my family history. At the same time, there's a lot of accountability to be had from people with European descent for all of the harms that that system has caused of colonization and erasure of indigenous people here and I am currently in California, but it's Quoumier land and sometimes I live in the Seattle area, which is Duwamish land.

Speaker 3: 16:45

I go by she her for now and I feel like I'm forgetting something else. It's also good I have learned to try to give a visual description for people who have differently geared bodies in terms of eyesight and hearing. So I'm wearing overalls black overalls with a white t-shirt. I'm a white woman with short brown hair and I'm currently in a place that I'm renting week by week with my parents who are caring for me after surgery. So that's who I am right now, in this moment, and I'm trying my best to come to terms with all of the parts of me that I'm excited to grow and the parts of me that I've been, like, ashamed of.

Speaker 3: 17:29

We all have that within us but with the kind of work that I'm trying to move more into as a songwriter and I got certified in sound healing two years ago that's informed in internal family systems. So I'm trying to recognize that we all have parts of ourselves. Like, when you ask you know who are you and who do you think you should be, it's not about canceling certain parts of myself and being like you're over, now I'm this new person I kind of thought that that was what it was supposed to be, to be like, oh, I have fixed myself through therapy and now like, yeah, the parts of myself that I really don't like, that other people tend to not like, like the part of me that talks too much. I want to figure out why I have that part of my personality and then extinguish her and muffle her. But no, it's like understanding and having compassion and honoring yourself.

Speaker 3: 18:26

Like you have casts in a musical theater production. Within you, you have a cast of characters and all of them are playing a very important role. All of them, even the villain or whatever. She gets her moment to shine, she gets the spotlight on her, she gets to be seen as a heroine for a good five minutes, where she just belts it out and she's like this is my rage, this is why I'm the yurrigus.

Speaker 2: 18:53

And you get to clap and be like wow.

Speaker 1: 18:56

And so that's kind of the work that I'm trying to do.

Speaker 3: 18:59

It's like rooting for all parts of myself, knowing that I contain multitudes.

Speaker 1: 19:03

It's like the archetypes, like we talk about in the somatic movement practice. It's knowing that, even though there's some that are predominantly more forward in your way of being, they're all kind of in there. You know, the drama queen is another one. I was thinking when you were like the, you know the one that gets really big and blows things up and like oh, there's my drama queen, welcome to the party, thank you for being here. I have a question. I know Jess probably is like 700.

Speaker 1: 19:27

I saw you writing Well done, true note pad. So one of the things that earlier in your share you were talking about the different types of power and you talked about quiet power and it sounds like that is your superpower is having a quiet power, even though you take big, bold action in the world and you're an activist and there's a lot of power in that and that's really bold and maybe loud in a non-conventional sense. But I'm curious when you have felt in your power, when you have felt that quiet power, and I would love to know what that feels like for you and when you have felt that.

Speaker 3: 20:06

That's such a great question. That's a yummy, yummy question. Yeah, I. The first moment that actually came to my mind was maybe not the type of quiet power that I've been introduced to by the fabulous teacher of my body and my illness. I am chronically ill and there's been a lot of shame in that.

Speaker 3: 20:32

I was taken away from my job eight years ago I believe it's been eight years when I was 25. I was working in the nonprofit field and I was a go-getter and I was playing that coal miner game of working myself dry and really wanted to help change the world so that we could, you know, not have as many climate crises and social injustices. So I really threw myself into work. So the first incident that came to mind was from the before times before I completely crashed and had to have really quiet power, of learning how you can be very powerful and a disabled person. But before I identified as being disabled, I was working with these organizations in Seattle that were trying to raise awareness and advocate for airport workers who were subcontracted by Alaska Airlines, and these activist groups were the ones who built the $15 an hour minimum wage law. They're really amazing, mostly of women of color led organization, for example, called Puget Sound Sage. That combines research and direct action, where they would go around the city of Seattle and they would do research on the air quality, realizing that these schools in lower income communities had all these truckers and factories that were spewing out toxic chemicals and so their air quality was way lower and the life expectancy was actually like, I think, 18 years lower in South Seattle than it was in more affluent North Seattle. And so, with this particular airport workers action, we went into a shareholders meeting and brought rabbis and priests and indigenous faith leaders and we had like a prey in and all these airport workers who are being forced to work without gloves with toxic cleaning chemicals. They were not paid enough, so they had to have like three jobs and would only be able to get home in time to kiss their kids, to sleep and, you know, not have any time for anything except work. Yeah, yeah, and that's what capitalism does. But it was actually all legal, like we were technically shareholders, but we stood up. I stood up and I interrupted the CEO and said I really love your company, like thanks for trying to do a good job. I'm sure you're very proud of your company If you want us to be even more proud and make even more money. I would like to invite you to treat your workers well and you're going to have so much more profit in the long run. I know you're focused on this quarter saving money, but if you're actually going to invest in what feels inconvenient now health care for your workers, etc. You're actually going to make more money.

Speaker 3: 23:38

And we interrupted them by singing and it was very awkward for them because they didn't want to interrupt these like priests and rabbis who were like holding hands in a circle and like singing a song. You know they're going to look like jerks and that is a form of quiet power where we weren't like, hey, you're jerks. We were interrupting with love, with very assertive love, and I miss those days. I miss the days of being able to go into a crowd or go and marches and rallies and we would have sing-ins in the halls of Congress in DC where we would sit in senators' offices and I would make a parody song from a you know queen or prince song and we would sing about corporate finance. Yeah, that was my life. I love that when I was 25, then my body was like hey, kaylee, let's now teach you about applying those lessons inside your own ecosystems and economies and resources within your own body.

Speaker 3: 24:40

And it was like you have been waking up at 6 am and going to sleep at midnight and in between there you have worked your nine to five job, which is really an eight to seven pm job. You've ridden the metro, you've been finding a $400 a month house that was the cheapest you could find so that you could pay your $300 a month health insurance and medical bills to just keep on ignoring your body's signals of stomach upset and missing your period. And now your tongue's orange. And now you can't open your eyes or swallow because your throat is so incredibly sore and you don't know what's going on. And I've been wearing all those signs until I. You know it was kind of too late. I didn't listen to the canaries within my own body and I kind of keeled over and I became mostly bedridden, like I needed people to carry me to the bathroom. I couldn't walk more than half a block and needed a wheelchair sometimes for about six years, and I'm doing a lot better now.

Speaker 3: 25:40

But it has been quite the journey and I think there is power in me accepting. I had a woman two days ago on the phone who I was meeting, say oh, so you're a sound healer. Now it's really interesting. I was telling her about my journey with endometriosis and how I'm here for surgery and she's like it's interesting that you haven't been able to heal yourself yet with the sound. What I was like um, you know what? Normally, yes, I do feel like an imposter. I feel really scared to advertise or say like here, let me help you heal. But that's an old definition where you have to have arrived and be 100% able-bodied and 100% healed.

Speaker 3: 26:26

What does it mean to be fully healed? I think it's a compliment. Actually, if your body is rejecting this world, if your body is rejecting the way society is treating the earth, that's a compliment. I don't want to be okay with that. It's a compliment to be a canary. It's a compliment to be sensitive. It's a compliment to be sick in a toxic world and I think it's going to be a never ending journey to be healing.

Speaker 3: 26:52

And so that's my newfound, even quieter power is realizing. I don't have to quell the part of me that's afraid. I don't have to be ashamed of the part of me that actually my throat closes when the wildfire smoke, or even I eat gluten. You know, like I feel like I should be someone who's like I can eat gluten, I'm fine, like I'm tough, but actually it's okay, like that's a specific gift, that's a specific role in society, to be the canary who's saying, hey, you know who's the smoke alarm. Don't muffle the smoke alarm. I'm going to work with my body to hopefully be able to take those signs and signals and not be as in pain. We're healing together, we're healing alongside one another, and that's quiet power.

Speaker 4: 27:42

There's so much about your journey, and both your social activism, your political activism that speaks to the interconnectedness of all things, how all of these different ecosystems are actually intertwined, that the health of our bodies is a reflection of the health of our environment, for example, and that the canaries are that signal. When you were talking about the canaries and the coal mine, what was coming up for me was, wow, we actually recognize their power and how important they are, and then we also treat them like shit. Yeah Right, we recognize that we need them, we're very grateful to have them, or else something is going to come for us. They're the signal, and yet we do not value them and we do not respect their bodies and take care of them. Because that's what I think. When I think canary, I think about that interconnectedness and I was wondering if you could speak to what you think the message of the canaries are and what you would want the world to understand or listen to.

Speaker 3: 28:52

Oh, it's hard for me to choose. Oh no, this is my time.

Speaker 1: 28:59

This is my one chance For one fan and her one chance. This is a big moment for this one fan of ours. Yeah.

Speaker 3: 29:11

You both are so good at asking questions, I feel like what I would want people to know I do want to say about the ecosystems being in our bodies and us being sick as a reflection of what's going on with Earth's ecosystems. It's a very impossible paradigm for the Western medical system to accept. Apparently, it's really difficult to them. The pharmaceutical and insurance company industries have influenced the healthcare system to be very siloed, to be very stressed and rushed. So the average time that a doctor has and in a plane, oh, the patient is seven minutes.

Speaker 3: 29:51

So when I first had all my symptoms really, really mount and all of the ecosystems, kind of like in a garden or a farm, you're like oh no, all the chickens are being eaten by coyotes, all of the lettuce is being eaten by snails. What's going on? And you have to figure out. Oh, there's an overgrowth of these snails, so let's spray poison all over the lettuce and then your lattice is poisoned. Or like in the fantastic documentary Biggest Little Farm, have you seen it? Oh, it's so good. Well, spoiler alert.

Speaker 3: 30:25

Spoiler alert, this is an M night Shyamalan twist. Instead of spraying pesticides on the lettuce to deal with their snail population problem, they got more ducks and the ducks ate the snails. That's like how healing should be. You're thinking strategically and creatively about how to balance ecosystems. You're not as so much being like, ah, let's extinguish it. Sometimes you do have to set it firm boundary and say I'm so sorry, but we've got to smash some snails. But yeah, I think with my body. I went into my first doctor's appointment after I moved and started this new job in DC where I was an environmental lobbyist and I was loving my job, but I was having all these really strange symptoms.

Speaker 4: 31:08

Can I just say how interesting it is that you were an environmental lobbyist before this ever happened to you, isn't that?

Speaker 3: 31:15

wild. Well, I mean, it's way too long of a story to say it's not that much of a coincidence, because I've always been a sensitive person. As a child I had a lot of health issues, but I was just taught to not think of myself as sick. This is not an uncommon story. This is why I call it the canary collective, because once I started sharing more and being more public through my music about my illness experience and how much gaslighting from doctors I faced, I had all these people come out from the woodwork like oh, my sister's cousins, dogs, sitter also has late stage Lyme disease or they have environmental illness and they've had to live in their van and move to the desert too.

Speaker 3: 31:58

What do I do? I've had so many people who also are just going in with these weird symptoms to the doctor and the doctor has no answers of the problems or the solutions. There is, unfortunately, a pattern of especially blaming women and people who are not cis white men, cis white, evil-bodied men. Not only is fat phobia a huge problem and a white supremacy of racism, but there's just so much blaming of the patient and saying well, we looked, we can't find any evidence of an invader.

Speaker 3: 32:32

There's no bug that we can see that's causing this in your body, so it must be that yeah, you're stressed, you need to take a deep breath and calm down, be that's very reflective and parallel to what happens and that just trigger warning content, warning for anyone. Just a brief mention of sexual assault. But with our criminal justice system in terms of sexual assault, less than 1% of sexual assault cases actually get justice, because the system is designed to blame the survivor. It's designed to say what did you do to invite this? I'm looking and he's not that bad. I'm looking at this guy and he looks really nice. How could he have done this bad thing? And I'm a survivor of that experience as well, which is a whole other story that maybe someday I'll share because it's actually quite intense.

Speaker 3: 33:31

But I was really similar to how I felt in the justice quote unquote system, where I did not receive justice. I felt similarly in the healthcare system with just saying hey, like I've stopped getting my period, I'm waking up six times a night to go pee, I am starving, my tongue is coated orange, I'm nauseated, I'm having pain and swelling and all my joints. And the first doctor walked in and she said I don't have time for all these symptoms. You have to choose one. You have to choose one. So that made me think. Do we ask Mother Earth to choose a symptom to focus on or like? Well, climate change can't be all of these things. Climate change has to just be extra blizzards or extra wildfires or ocean acidification, so all the whales and coral are dying. You have to choose, mother Earth.

Speaker 1: 34:21

Geez, you're such a drama queen, mother Earth, like you are just complaining, but you know what it makes me think of, as you're talking about the CEO of the company that you're like hey, let me assertively love into this conversation. You're thinking about the next quarter's profits. What if you looked further ahead? It's like the same exact conversation. Right, we have to look at the bigger picture. We have to look ahead. We can't just deal with what's right in front of us and pick one symptom and try to deal with that. But it's like when you look at the entire ecosystems of how we navigate everything. It's like this is one example of how everyone is just dealing with the thing right in front of us reactively, instead of looking at a bigger picture impact as a way of making choices.

Speaker 4: 35:07

So, if I'm interpreting it correctly, when we speak to canaries, canaries are saying something is wrong. Look at our bodies. Our bodies are failing us. We're very, very sick and because doctors can't necessarily get in there and understand it in the way that they understand things, they go it's all in your head that doesn't actually exist, and then we're not actually collectively tuning into what your bodies are signaling about the world that we live in and about how we're treating the world that we live in. Am I right? Is that what you're?

Speaker 3: 35:43

saying yeah, and I know what you're saying. I understand, but I'm trying not to say that my body's failing me anymore and I've learned so much from looking at animals and what's happening to the bees. These are getting chronic viruses. They monocrop agriculture and all of the pesticides that we're spraying is lowering their immune systems, and orca whales are not able to give birth to very many babies that are surviving past a day or two because the whale mothers livers are becoming so toxic with petroleum chemicals Then the mother passes that on through the fetus to the baby. All of those toxins you wouldn't say their bodies are failing to do what they want to do to survive.

Speaker 4: 36:29

Responding appropriately to the circumstances, to the situation, to the harm that is in the environment.

Speaker 1: 36:37

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 36:38

Yeah, exactly, and we wouldn't just look at what's happening to orca whales, the orca whale mamas, and say here's a self-help book where it's actually telling you to breathe deeply and there is so much power that we can alchemy as a situation, and I do believe in the power of intention and sound healing and everything is about doing what you can from your internal environment to strengthen you. But it also doesn't cancel out the other side of the coin, which is that we do have these toxins and environmental challenges that our bodies are facing, no matter how strong our bodies are, and we have a pandemic still going on. That's what I want people to know from Canaries, especially in this time in human history, is that we're still dealing with a lot of bugs, that a lot of people who are telling me, like you, are so silly for still wearing a mask I have had a lot of people tell me that, believe it or not. A lot of people who are rolling their eyes when I ask, especially white, able-bodied men, would you mind just putting your mask above your nose? And I'm so scared to ask that. I am literally trembling when I ask that because within me I have this battle for the first 30 minutes when I'm in the room with a man who's got his mask there and I'm like Kaylee, you're going to look like you're one of those divas and he's going to roll his eyes and you're going to be like I'm a super germaphobe.

Speaker 3: 38:06

We have these archetype, negative stereotypes of a sensitive person that I've strived to not be. I want to be the chill girlfriend who's like I play video games and I stay up till three and I'm like I don't care and like that's cool too. That's another archetype to celebrate, and let's celebrate the person who's wise enough to say it's going to be hard for an immunocompromised body to deal with a respiratory vascular virus right now, so I'm just going to ask you to scoop this baby up. And they, so many times, actually do what I'm afraid of they roll their eyes, they have a heavy sigh. That's like okay, I'll put on a mask for you, a walkie girl who's like so paranoid, but all right, as long as it makes you feel comfortable, whatever, just like you would do for a child. Who's like mommy, I'm scared, I'm having nightmares, there's a monster in my closet. And to be like okay, sweetie, I'm looking in the closet, there are no monsters. Like dad is so freaking, condescending, and so many of you are doing it to immunocompromise people.

Speaker 4: 39:22

I'm sorry and some of these are doctors, right? Yeah, so many of them are doctors who are doing that, because that's really all the people that you see.

Speaker 3: 39:34

Those are the people I'm in a room with. Yeah, but like that they took out the mask mandate in hospitals Like I understand if you all who are able-bodied and think that you're fine want to go to concerts and like keep on not wearing masks in restaurants, like okay. But hospitals Like I had to get surgery because I had endometriosis on my appendix and in my colon. I had no choice but to go in there. Like I can't be the chill girlfriend who's like do your thing, you do you, which I was really trained in the hetero relationships that I was in.

Speaker 3: 40:08

I must say I was really trained and like being queer and now like coming out as queer and pansexual. That's also helped me explode those old ideas of who I was supposed to be, of being the chill girlfriend who's like pushing past her pain, not voicing, basically being like uh-huh, uh-huh, everything's fine. So what I want people to know from Canaries is that everything's not fine. We're doing our best, like we will try our best to breathe in a certain way where we can last a little bit longer in this toxic mind. But let's listen to underrepresented, vulnerable voices and let's actually together, all of us, get out of this toxic mind and get to healthier air.

Speaker 4: 40:48

I feel like my brain wants to link this to the bigger picture, because what I'm feeling is that a lot of the attitude and what I saw through the pandemic is, if it's not affecting me directly, it doesn't matter. And what we're not understanding, or what I don't think they understand, is that it is affecting you directly. You just don't know it yet. Yes, and I think on the larger scale, that's actually what's happening. Just because you aren't having the direct experience of what the toxins in your environment are doing to your body does not mean your body is not affected by it, and that there are people out there who are showing you, because of their superpower, because of their heightened sensitivity, like we should be grateful and witness it and see it so that we can make those changes, because it actually benefits the whole planet.

Speaker 4: 41:40

But this attitude of like why should I wear a mask? I'm not going to get sick? I was always so confused by that because there are so many people who are vulnerable, who, like you just said, don't always have the option not to leave their house. And why are we trying to hide everybody? Why are we trying to take all of these members of society who are not exactly how you think a person should be by your own definition and hide them away, so we don't have to look at ourselves and deal with what's wrong with the world.

Speaker 1: 42:10

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 42:11

Thank you, Jessica. I'm going to put that on a loop, just like hearing you flex your ally muscles.

Speaker 4: 42:17

Yeah, so well, thank you.

Speaker 1: 42:19

We need to wake up and you're like, yeah, we do so in my coaching world. What I deal with so much in people is overwhelm. I'm so overwhelmed in my existing world of like me and the things I'm responsible for and like I actually can barely even handle my own problems that are like smacking me in the face every day that I can't ignore. And I'm not saying this is like a justification, but this is like what I see all the time. Life is so chaotic because of the bigger systems and because of the way we think we have to show up, like to full circle back to your first job. Of all the doing, I have to look a certain way and my life has to be a certain way. All the expectations that we take on as individuals. People are crumbling in their own bubble without considering the greater impact. So there's that piece of it. And then I've been with Beauty Counter for eight years. I'm involved still, but I'm not actively like building my business. But the whole messaging of Beauty Counter is there are these toxic ingredients that are perfectly legal and they're in all of our products and there's a lot we can't control in our lives. There's a lot in the environment we can't control and you can certainly.

Speaker 1: 43:26

I wish I had something to like grab. But let's pretend this is a cream, it's a candle well, also toxic candles, not this one. But like there's things that you're choosing to put on your body, there's things you're choosing to burn and put in your air and your household. There's cleaning supplies that you're choosing, and so even to get people to like put a different cream on your face, put a different sunscreen on your body, try not to use a chemical sunscreen, just try to use a zinc sunscreen, just that like teeny, tiny, small tweak for a lot of people. I mean, there's a lot of people who do give lots of shits about this, but there's a lot of people who are like I don't want to do that, you know. And just seeing this dynamic at play here of like I just need to do the easiest thing that's humanly possible right in front of me and I'm reacting to my entire life. So how could I possibly give a shit about other people and the entire planet? That's like way too much for my brain to handle.

Speaker 3: 44:20

Yeah, and, like you're saying, listening to the Canaries is about, like Jessica said, honoring that. It's not just out of pity for people who are less fortunate. If we listen to the Canaries, we're helping ourselves. Yeah, but it's so hard to get out of the grind. It's very not affordable to have non-toxic products. It's very not affordable to have non-toxic, safe housing. So we need systemic change For sure.

Speaker 1: 44:46

Yeah, and one of the things I'm really present to about who you are is that a pattern that you have had in at least the parts of your life that I'm aware of, is you've given a voice to those who don't have one. That's been your pattern, whether you were doing your first job out of college, to the way in which you're showing up today, to the way in which you use your music, to the way in which you've advocated. It's like always giving a voice to the one that's not the loudest in the room the quiet power, if you will. Well.

Speaker 3: 45:13

I mean thanks, but yeah, everyone pretty much is a Canary, everyone who's under this oppressive system. Unless you are Mitch McConnell at a golf club or a billionaire, the system's not working for you. So you're all welcome to the club, and the only reason why some of us might have less voices than others Well, no, this is not the only reason, but one reason why we might not feel empowered to believe in ourselves and our own sensitivities of superpowers is that we are isolated. Like Jessica said, we are being hidden away from each other and the world.

Speaker 3: 45:48

So that was my goal in making my music and recording my albums and all my music is pay what you can, so like. I wanted to make it accessible because my goal every time I record is for people to listen who are in hospitals Wondering is anyone else wearing a mask? Like people who are bedridden for years and in their 20s and 30s in their parents' home, like I was living in a van. I want them to listen to the songs and feel less alone and feel connected to the community.

Speaker 4: 46:16

I remember from that human design reading, because I had only met you the one time before, I didn't know anything about your story and I know that your human design and what I would have said is around marrying leadership with artistic expression. And, yeah, and that is what you do with your music. And even when you were at your sickest, you were writing in bed and spreading your message and you found other canaries and you did Bed Fest, yeah, bed Fest, yeah.

Speaker 1: 46:46

I love that.

Speaker 4: 46:47

I really have never met a person that consistently, while you are moving through challenges that some of us could not even fathom having to deal with in our lives, have always found a way like I said earlier about this interconnectedness to make it about everybody, and that is such a profound gift. I do want to come back to intuition, though, because I think that is such an important thing for us to touch on before we wrap up, because, having gone through this system and being told over and over again and you have a song believe her right. Being told over and over again, I don't believe you. It's in your head. Go to therapy, whatever it is. What does that do to your connection to your intuition, to your relationship with self-trust, and how have you been navigating that in order to continue your advocacy, continue standing up for yourself and speaking your truth anyway, which I have so much admiration for? Oh, thank you.

Speaker 3: 47:46

Well, it's pretty incredible that we talked earlier this year and just so much has happened. That is making this conversation even more rich for me. But since we talked, I've gone through an even more intense chapter of my health journey and, for example, I get intuitive hits and I have since I was young where I would predict people's deaths. Unfortunately, as a small, creepy haunting six-year-old child, I would be like there's a hurricane coming. There's a hurricane coming, and everyone would be like sweetie, there hasn't been a hurricane here for 25 years. Just calm down. You're annoying everyone with your tears, and so I built in so much shame about that. And then we get to the specific island and we turn on the TV and it's like the largest hurricane in 25 years is headed for the exact location where we landed and we had to evacuate. Oh my gosh, kaylee, you're like see, it's hard. It's a hard life being canary, because, also, I'm not always right, so I have to decipher the codes and the messages that I get.

Speaker 3: 48:54

But, for example, I had a dream a few months ago as I was getting ready for this endometriosis surgery. I felt in my body so clearly I had this dream that I was coming out of the surgery and they were like great, we helped you with your appendix, the endometriosis, down in your womb, but we missed your gallbladder. We didn't do anything about your gallbladder. And so I chose to listen to that, even though it didn't make as much sense, even though everyone, all the doctors, were telling me no. And so I brought to the colorectal surgeon and I said I really feel like I should get my gallbladder checked. And he was like your gallbladder is fine.

Speaker 3: 49:33

I am actually not exaggerating, this is how he was talking. He's like you're fine, your gallbladder is not a thing. That's not a thing. Endometriosis doesn't impact the function of the gallbladder. And I was like OK, all right. And I left the office and I was like, yeah, I'm probably overreacting. Like yeah, Kaylee, and I have that within me. Still, that makes fun of myself. Then I came back the next appointment. I was like I just have to mention this again like gallbladder. And he was like you must be seeing witch doctors. And I was like actually, this other doctor who told me about my gallbladder, like here's I want to jump through the screen at that time, I know.

Speaker 3: 50:10

And so then the third time, third appointment, I was like I know you're really annoyed with me, these are some peer reviewed articles and everything. And I got called by his office a few weeks later and they're like the doctor would like you to get a gallbladder test. And I got it and I have biliary dyskinesia. I have, I have gallbladder disease and I'm having the symptoms. He did not acknowledge me in the slightest. We had a telehealth visit. He did not even look me in the eye. This was him, you know, shuffling his papers. Yeah, so, yeah, you have biliary dyskinesia and yeah, you've got to. We've got to just like, get your laparoscopic surgery and then, like, next month, come back and we'll take out your gallbladder.

Speaker 1: 50:50

Then you want to be like look at me and say you're right.

Speaker 3: 50:53

Yeah, I want to hear that I'm right and so, yeah, I'm going to have to deal with that now. I have been to hundreds of doctors. None of them have believed me. I have had to be so persistent. I have had symptoms of gallbladder disease for eight years, where I cannot digest fats. I'm not going to mention the other unmentionable symptoms. But, yeah, believe yourself, and I think I'm practicing with my intuition. I have a whole story about reuniting with Orca whales. That I'll say for a different time, but I followed my intuition there too.

Speaker 4: 51:24

If you can stay on once. Melissa actually has to go. I think you should tell your story because I do think it's really important and I know you really want to.

Speaker 1: 51:31

I'm like. I want to actually hear the whole thing, but I do need to honor babysitter hours and all the things.

Speaker 4: 51:36

Yeah, so I think we should stay on and make sure that happens. But with all of that said, then how do you navigate that inside of yourself? How do you anchor more deeply in your intuition when the world is constant? I know this is a journey for you because we're friends and we talk a lot, and I know it's really hard, but I see you embracing that journey. I see that you know on some level you have access to your truth, and then you're constantly bumping up against a world that wants to deny it. What keeps you on that journey? What keeps you?

Speaker 1: 52:07

from abandoning yourself. This is everyone. Like another moment where you're speaking for every single person, because every single person is like no pressure, get it right.

Speaker 1: 52:18

Everyone is being taught in their own way to ignore their truth, to disregard their bodies, to keep on moving forward that they're wrong, but it's like. This is the reality and the more we can come back into honoring what we know and continuing to push forward, the better our world will be. So I just want to say thank you for sharing your story and thank you for coming forward with this and being so vulnerable and honest about it, because you are speaking for everybody, because everybody has had their voice taken away and some people just have more profound experiences with that or experiences that you're like. I actually cannot continue to ignore this. My life is on the line here, yeah thank you.

Speaker 3: 52:58

Just returning to songwriting, because the songs are my intuition, speaking and singing through me. My goal is to basically be a full-time life transitions sound facilitator. I want to help people through death and birth and illness experience in the hospital, and I want CEOs to listen to my music and have them return to their hearts and their intuition and be like what am I doing? Yeah, my friend just texted me who's been a patron on Patreon for many years, that she downloaded all my music from my Patreon because she is getting ready to go into labor and she said did you know your songs are really good for going into labor too? It's like that is the best compliment ever. That's what I want because, yeah, just following my intuition and returning back, being like oh really, that lyric wants to come out, oh, that song wants to come out and no one can take that from you.

Speaker 4: 53:50

I'm your friend too. Yeah, I hope everybody listening looks up KPH in the Canary Collective right now. Kaylee's music is so good.

Speaker 1: 54:24

It's so good.

Speaker 4: 54:25

Thank you, I mean this. You are my favorite musician. I can't believe that I know you. Kaylee sent me a song for my birthday that I listen to every single day, because your ability to see not just the world but the people in your life is so profound. I have never felt more seen and I just am in just such gratitude for you, your existence on this earth and the gift that you are and the gift that you're being for the world, the generosity of your spirit, because a lot of people could turn your experience and just want to hide and shut down and I know that that's probably something that you want to do sometimes but you keep choosing to show up and use your voice in a really powerful way, and so thank you for being you.

Speaker 3: 55:18

Thank you both. And listening to this podcast also helped me return to my intuition, so that's my other answer.

Speaker 1: 55:25

Thanks for that plug, thank you. All right, I'm going to hop. I love you. Thank you for being here. This was beautiful. I can't wait to hear the full orchestra story. I'm sorry I can't stay, but I have to go put on my other hats, that's okay 100%.

Speaker 3: 55:38

Yeah, it's a lot to be a parent. You are amazing at all the things you do. Thank you All right, okay.

Speaker 4: 55:46

So you told me that you would want to do a TED Talk on Orca Whales, and so I would love you to share why that is, and what have Orca Whales taught you. Oh, thank you.

Speaker 3: 56:02

Thank you. Well, I definitely do not have a polished TED Talk ready, but I have always related to Orca Whales a lot and just felt very connected to them and that's evolved for my life. But I feel that Orca Whales are kind of canaries of the sea. Orcas have a bigger proportion of their brains that's dedicated to feeling connected, like empathy, and connected to their community and their environment of any other mammal on earth. That's their superpowers. They're very sensitive to feeling like ooh, what's going on with my grandmother right now? Ooh, over 50 kilometers away there's a bit of an oil spill and I'm going to go with my intuition and swim this other direction to avoid the oil, even though everyone's saying those waters are fine. I think that's some of what I love about them. Obviously, they use beautiful sounds to communicate and using sound to navigate within your environment to safety and prosperity and joy. So I love Orcas.

Speaker 3: 57:10

They're also just like super cool and so funny that this time in my life, with my particular health journey, with endometriosis and finally being validated after so many years of knowing something was going on, you literally coming into women, run emergency rooms with me in January 2020. And having this incredible pelvic pain and they said we can't see anything. They say we don't know what's going on and like try stopping eating chocolate and citrus. Those were some of the things. So finally, it's like I've listened to my womb speak. I'm hearing my uterus cry out Instead of being like there's no oil spill, you silly uterus. Finally, the doctors and I can be like oh you, poor uterus. This whole time you've been in a toxic sludge, you've had cysts and adhesions and things that are strangulating you and it was severe.

Speaker 4: 58:11

That's validating. I mean you don't have to share it all here, but what you shared with me by the time you caught it. It's remarkable that it hadn't been caught earlier.

Speaker 3: 58:19

Yeah, well, actually it's kind of a long story now and complicated, but it wasn't as severe as they thought. In the endometriosis it doesn't really matter the size of the growth. You can have a very, very small spot and have nine out of 10 pain where you like throw up from the pain. So I'm learning a lot about endometriosis that I didn't know. But I was told for a long time that endometriosis is just benign and so come back to me in a couple of years if you want to get pregnant is like what a lot of doctors tell people, a lot of gynecologists they're in a crisis of healthcare for people with uteruses, et cetera. And so it wasn't as severe as they thought. It was on my appendix, which can explain. It wasn't like burning holes into my colon like they thought, but it was on the appendix, which is like that's not benign. That can be increasing your risk of infection. Sometimes it can kind of impact the function of your gut microbiome If you're having hormone imbalances and everything that are causing you to have a recurrence of infections, like just your immune system is chronically suppressed. So that's not actually benign. But we kind of view reproductive organs as just like unnecessary, like oh, unfortunately you have pain but we don't need to take action on this is kind of how they talk about it. So, anyway, I was not prioritizing listening as much as I could have because I was like it's fine, you know, it's painful, but that's just about my comfort, that's not about my safety, it's not like causing damage. But then to learn that, yes, it can cause damage, it can mean if you want to have kids biologically you're not going to be able to do that, like all kinds of things where it was really impacting my safety, my immune system, everything. So, yes, it was severe and that if they had caught it, if they had known from the moment symptoms started when I was 12, like that's what a lot of these doctors that I traveled to California to see are writing about and being activists about. And Hillary Clinton actually just made a documentary called Below the Bell about endometriosis and about this issue with our healthcare system not researching, not prioritizing this disease that's found in one out of 10 people with a uterus. So, anyway, you can't talk about workers without talking about a uterus.

Speaker 3: 1:00:43

But I think I was listening to my body for a long time in my life with this annoyance of like come on body. Why can't you just buck up and let me work a full-time job? Why can't you just let me go to this concert and perform? I was so frustrated with my body and the orco whales are struggling so much, and I feel like a lot of people kind of meet our earth with this frustration of like why can't you just do what I want you to Like? I want it to be sunny weather right now. I don't want it to be a storm. I wanted to be able to have this like football game, but the wildfire smoke is getting in the way and, with the whales, they're being affected by noise, pollution from boats and all of the toxins in the water and so many different aspects that are complicated, sciencey, and now they are rising up. It's so apropos that, as I'm rising up and I'm like, wait a second, I deserve to get help. I deserve to have you stop dumping chemicals into my body please, and I have asked nicely for help for years. I've asked so nicely, and now I am accepting the part of myself that feels rage about this. I deserve to feel rage and I deserve to not ask as nicely right now, and the orcas are doing the same thing.

Speaker 3: 1:02:19

I feel like in sinking the yachts. What are they doing? There's a whole orca uprising going on. Oh my gosh, I assumed everybody knew because, like the algorithm just feeds me orca news every day, there's an orca uprising.

Speaker 3: 1:02:34

There's a weird phenomenon happening where orcas around the world, but specifically like off the coast of Portugal and Spain, are sinking yachts. There haven't been any fatalities, but this grandmother whale, gladys, in particular, whales are matriarch goal. They followed the grandmothers and Gladys was injured by a boat and she is teaching the next generation of whales to bump their noses against the boat in a specific way to cause the boats to sink. They're rebelling. There's an orca rebellion happening and scientists and newscasters are trying to figure out, and I made a kind of parody video on TikTok and Instagram about how funny it is to see news reporters reporting on this phenomenon, where they're like it sounds so bizarre, but it's almost as if the orca whales are conspiring and collaborating and teaching their young and it's like is it really so hard to believe that they're intelligent and that they have their own version of intelligence, like we're so human centric?

Speaker 3: 1:03:43

Yeah, but they're. They're very smart and I think a lot of humans who have been oppressed, who are rising up in their own ways, maybe throwing rocks and bank windows or screaming at cops, like there's been a lot of pushback not that this is the same thing at all, but there has been a lot of pushback of a lot of people saying they should ask nicely for justice. Why didn't you ask in a nicer, calmer tone it's like you have not been in my shoes for these 35 years or whatever that I was asking nicely and you caught me in the 20 seconds where a little bit of my rage came through. So I think there's a lot of lessons right now to be learned from the uprising of the orcas in terms of human, social and environmental justice and honoring marginalized communities who are saying I've had it, these systems that aren't working for us.

Speaker 4: 1:04:33

I know that you've shared with me before, that there's something that we can learn from rebels.

Speaker 3: 1:04:40

Well, I mean just what I said. I guess that we are when we're rebels, when we're really getting in touch with our inner rebel. I was really thinking about this, prompted by your brilliant name of your podcast. We have to be ready to accept the inconvenient truths about ourselves and society. We have to be ready to take a detour and go the seemingly inconvenient route. It might end up actually getting us to our dreams and to our goals faster and in a more beautiful way than we had imagined. It might actually be the outcome we want, but we think no, we've got to save money. We don't have time to circle the boat around and rescue those seals or orcas from the oil spill.

Speaker 4: 1:05:29

Because it challenges all our systems. It means that we actually have to pause and examine ourselves and examine the world and make changes that are less comfortable for us.

Speaker 3: 1:05:44

Yeah, and I'm very uncomfortable with those inconveniences too and I've had to really work on that because, you know, I had a friend who was in a wheelchair and we were traveling and it's like there were parts of me that had internalized ableism, just ableism in general.

Speaker 3: 1:06:01

This is before I had learned about disability justice from amazing authors and activists such as Leah Lakshmi Piups and Esama Rasena, who writes a book called Care Work, dreaming Disability Justice have to mention them. But this is before and I would think, oh, this is pretty inconvenient to not be able to take this fast route back to our hostel. You know we would have to go this route in the wheelchair because it's paved, but oh my gosh, it's obviously so worth it and so important, and that's such a terrible thing to think. And it's so inconvenient to wear a mask and figure out, okay, well, we can't sit inside this restaurant here. Let's move tables to this outdoor restaurant, or let's inconvenience the waiter and be like could we sit outside or could you turn that air filter on, like these are all inconveniences, but it's what it takes in order to let the rebels be a part of society.

Speaker 4: 1:06:57

Well, I think it goes back to what we were talking about a little bit earlier, which is that it's actually flipped. There is actually a much greater inconvenience. There's a much bigger inconvenience that we're not looking at. The problem is so much bigger than we want to see, and if we continue to do these little micro, convenient things that make us comfortable on a daily basis without looking at the bigger picture, one day it is going to be so inconvenient for everyone, exactly. Yeah, what you do so well is, I think, big picture thinking right. It's the way that you're able to connect your story to the collective. It's connecting this moment to the future and to our children and to the world at large, and understanding that all of these systems are one in the same, or all interconnected. You can't remove yourself from the whole. You're affected by it, whether you want to believe you are or not, and so what role do you want to play in that story? While you can, yeah.

Speaker 3: 1:08:04

You are such a writer, actor, director, you're so good at summarizing, you're so good at wrangling my vast musings.

Speaker 3: 1:08:13

I do want to say my passion in this chapter is I've gotten a few grants to do more concerts and activist fundraising efforts and things for supporting the indigenous uprising against the dams that are strangling our water systems and strangling our rivers. Those looking at the big picture, like in the long run it's not good for any of us. It's actually also costing so much more money to maintain these dams that aren't really giving us that much electricity, but it's so inconvenient, like to get the bureaucracy moving, for these companies that are making money are damming progress. But if we can remove these dams and if we can convince a national of the decision makers to connect the dots through music and song, to be able to zoom out and say, oh, it's inconvenient now but it actually would help us restore our ecosystems so that we all can have prosperity in the long run and we can have a good future for our children and we can have a good future for our grandchildren.

Speaker 4: 1:09:29

We're talking earlier about intuition, so trusting your intuition, learning to trust yourself and I know that you have this story around orcas connected to this, so I would love it if you could share it before we go. Okay, if you insist?

Speaker 3: 1:09:44

Yeah, I learned about listening to my intuition in a really fun way Ever since I was five. I have always had recurring dreams about orca whales, and each dream I would be at Lyme Kiln State Park on San Juan Island in Washington State which is Salish and Duwamish territory and I would be looking out in the horizon and then these orca whales would start breaching from shore and I would look around me at the crowd forming and I would explain to them oh, I dream about this, but now it's happening in real life. And then I would wake up and I'd be like, oh darn, that didn't actually happen. And so the dreams kind of evolved over my life, but they happened about once a month at least since I was five. Since I was five, I mean free will you might have like influenced it. I grew up. Yeah, I mean, I watched that.

Speaker 1: 1:10:37

Me too, and over and over.

Speaker 3: 1:10:39

Yeah, but I grew up in the Pacific Northwest so it definitely I felt connected to those waters. So then, when I was in my twenties, I kept on trying to make this dream a reality. I went to that same beach and I hoped and I prayed and I was just waiting. And I kind of developed this game with the orcas, where I was like, just for fun, if let's pretend that I can communicate with you telepathically, what do I need to do in order to be ready for this dream to happen? You know what? And so I like brought my boyfriend, who I thought was my true love, and I was like they're going to approve of this man and then they're going to show up and that's going to be my sign that he's my true love. And so I like, wow, the beach. And he was like it's going to happen. And we were just like waiting at shore, like nothing. So now we broke up, not because of the orcas fault, no, I listened to them. If they don't approve, we can't date. But then I went with my sister. Didn't happen. I was like, oh, it's about my best friend. We used to watch Free Willy together when we were in preschool, brought her. It didn't happen.

Speaker 3: 1:11:47

And then I finally moved to DC to lobby for these orca whales because the dreams started changing. The dream changed and I was looking out and they weren't coming. I found myself in a canoe. That had never happened in the dream before. I had to go to this special part of the waters and they finally showed up and they said this is what it's going to be like. If you don't do something, we're not going to be able to be on earth anymore, especially the southern resident killer whales. They're endangered. They're not able to give birth to very many babies because they're so sick and starving because the dams are choking the rivers of salmon.

Speaker 3: 1:12:25

And so that next day my friend who was in town to lobby senators on Arctic oil drilling was staying with me in my apartment and she was like oh yeah, people have that dream all the time when I come to visit them because my ancestors are of the killer whale clan. She's indigenous First Nations. She taught me so much. I was formerly kind of like, oh, this is so fun, I'm just using my intuition for a fun tool. But it's not really science. It's not scientific. So I kind of pushed it down and was embarrassed about using my intuition for decision making. But then it made me realize that's part of colonization's conditioning to de-legitimize alternative you know like be feeling connected to animals and nature and not the Western science way of measuring quote unquote truth. So it was very important to learn from her and four years later I had fallen very ill, had to leave that job and I had been too sick to drive for three years, couldn't drive.

Speaker 3: 1:13:27

But I felt in my bones I was like it's time I need to go on my own. I'm going to go on my own. I was sleeping in my parents' minivan and I drove myself and I listened to Sufian Stevens on the way there yeah, share a favorite song. And I asked my heart. I was like heart, okay, I'm going to let go of the outcome. If you want to show yourselves, fine. If you don't, that's fine. I'm truly okay with either outcome. But just in case, I'm going to follow my heart rather than what I think is the right timing or the right place, circumstance with the right people and all the different conditions.

Speaker 3: 1:14:05

Yeah, yeah, exactly. So I got to you know Anacordis, which is where the ferry takes off for San Juan Islands, and someone called me who lives there, and they're like, kaylee, the Orca whales are here, they're swimming in front of our house, and I was like, okay, where should I go? What beach? And they're like, in 15 years, like we've only seen them pass through this specific part of the water twice. And so they told me, go to this specific park. And I was like, okay, I'll go to this park. And in order to go to the park, you turn left. And so I was about to turn left and my arms turned right. Wow, I was like what is happening? It just turned the wheel right. I was like, okay, and I parked and immediately went. Wow, I'm crying. I'm like, immediately as I open my door, I heard that and I saw this black fin coming out of the lock and it was like you know, I had that dream so many times.

Speaker 3: 1:15:06

This time, after so many years, it was just like years of buildup, years of anticipating this moment. Yeah, and it had to happen with me myself and I. It had to happen with me not listening to everyone else's idea of where I was supposed to be or who I was supposed to listen to or what scientifically rationally made sense. But that wasn't the beach. That wasn't the beach that was in my dream. So the next day I went to that beach. I opened my door, I saw all these children running to shore because they had just arrived as I pulled up. Oh my gosh, hundreds of miles away. But they swam to that beach the next day. Wow, and I said if you can hear me when I start singing, will you breach? I started singing and they started reaching. And it was my dream.

Speaker 3: 1:16:00

And then the next day I had a Celtic energy healing soul piece retrieval session that my Lyme disease doctors had recommended that I schedule. And I arrived at her house and she came out and greeted me and said Kaylee, you must have good whale energy because the whales are circling outside. They're like following you. At this point I'm following them. I mean, who knows? I don't mean to be like me, centric, but I was following the messages and so I said I want to go reunite with them after this session. Where do you think I should go? And she's like oh yeah, just turn left towards this place.

Speaker 1: 1:16:34

Once again.

Speaker 3: 1:16:35

My wheel turned right and I went back to that beach and on the fourth day I was alone, no one else on that beach. The sun was setting and I sat and I sang and I had my moment alone with the work of whales. Wow, four days in a row. That was probably the most life changing, blissful memory that has ever happened to me in my life. That taught me the power of working with your intuition and then also working with science, also working with lots of perspectives, taking it all into account, like it's dangerous to solely listen to what you think you should.

Speaker 4: 1:17:11

Well, I think our minds can often do a lot of interpreting and come up with a lot of stories around our gut feelings, but it must have felt so affirming. It sounds like so many messages come to you through dreams. It's like you're here to believe in your dreams. Kaylie Brutale.

Speaker 3: 1:17:33

That's what I see. However, I have horrific dreams too. Not those ones.

Speaker 4: 1:17:38

I know where those ones.

Speaker 3: 1:17:39

But I think I need that that has been an important part of my journey is that I also will have to be ready to accept that bad things also might happen. And that's what's so scary is that I was getting these messages from my body Something's very wrong. It was more convenient to be like listening to the doctors who were like no, your gallbladder's fine. So I had this worst fear that there were going to be complications in surgery and that something was going wrong and I wasn't going to be believed. And it did happen.

Speaker 3: 1:18:08

I did have a terrible experience with surgery, but I still went through it and I believed my nightmares and I believed my blissful dreams and I worked with my fear to not say go away, fear, I'm going to be courageous. Courage is not the absence of fear. It's encouraging people to move forward, acknowledging that there are challenges, there are real things that are difficult to get through, but having the courage to use tools to move through them and feel our way through and let our hearts guide us through that, yeah, yeah, because I do human design and so much of human design is around following your intuition and trusting.

Speaker 4: 1:18:46

Well, in a lot of cases, trusting your joy it's not always joy necessarily but following your instincts, and I have to remind people that sometimes your intuition takes you right into the fire, like this is not actually about spiritual bypass. It's our mind that wants to bypass those things, that wants to dodge challenge, but our souls sometimes know that actually this is the experience you need. It's like an initiation sometimes into your full power, into your highest self. And so, to try, I try not to interpret experience as good or bad, right or wrong, it's all for me in some way, and sometimes, when we're listening to our intuition, it can fast track you in a way right, it can take you right through it, because on the other side of that fear is your most empowered self.

Speaker 3: 1:19:37

Yeah, and it's a balance of many things, because everything in moderation, including moderation, everything in balance, including. Sometimes you're going to be out of balance for a while and you can't force yourself to be like I'm looking forward to this excretion surgery. No, that's not what I'm saying. But I feel like I've had to also love myself through, like it's okay to have fear about this.

Speaker 4: 1:20:05

And speaking to that situation more specifically and again, we don't have to put everything into the episode, but, just as your friend, I don't know if there's actually a right way or a wrong way Like if we do listen to our intuition, if we don't, there's just learning and it's just experience and that's what life is right.

Speaker 4: 1:20:23

So you were sort of up against a situation that was really hard to act on your intuition in any other way, which makes it really challenging, sort of like okay, well, what happens when we have this really strong download and the circumstances of our life makes it really challenging to alter the course of events or exercise that intuition. There's something about working with the real world that is really confusing and challenging at times. I don't actually have all the answers of like what do you do in a situation where you're like I feel danger and I don't actually feel like I am able to exercise my power in order to listen to this, All the systems that you're talking about being up against? We're up against these systems that disempower us, and so how do we continue to hone and trust our intuition and continue to do our best within those systems to show up for ourselves, you know, and as we keep learning. Maybe next time we can choose a little differently, maybe not, I don't know. Like you, didn't fail your intuition.

Speaker 3: 1:21:29

Your intuition spoke really clearly, and there's also so much we can do sometimes, yeah and my intuition was telling me it would be better to go with this surgeon who's listening to you and has more experience, but he's $40,000. So I'd chosen, went with surgeons who were covered by Medicare. And you're right. That's what you have to do Working with your intuition, zooming out and being able to see messages about how to avoid certain circumstances or try to listen to your dreams and meet those dreams. But also you're in the real world, unfortunately.

Speaker 4: 1:22:01

Yeah, so don't make any of it wrong. I think is the point, it's just learning. You're right. It's very, very well said. I love you. You are such a profound human and I am so grateful to call you my friend.

Speaker 3: 1:22:13

I've learned so much from you. I've learned so much. So grateful for you.

Speaker 4: 1:22:19

I'm so grateful. Ladies and gentlemen. Kayleigh Pruitt-Ham.

Speaker 2: 1:22:51

Should I have expected this to happen somehow? I guess the question is, what do we do now? What if the lovers who held up to struggle so long before are stunned? What if the others, our sisters and brothers, don't do? Make sure, I love one. They had a mission, they had a vision. They kept their eyes on the price. If that is lost and the means become ends, then the people's permission dies. If they could speak now, whispering our ear as we face today, I can't imagine. But if I imagined, I still believe they'd say Go forth in love, show them what you got, offer a new way.

Speaker 2: 1:24:27

Go, shake things up. Make it look fun. If he orders hate, disobey. The chair is only so sturdy as one of four legs that hold Office and cabinet, only so strong till all of the walls they fold. You've got the power. Don't play by their games. Use your own better rules. They may have money tanks and tall towers, but we still got stronger tools. Go, now's the time. Convict the crime, expose greed in the light of day. Go, shake things up. We've had enough. When he orders shoot, disobey. When he orders hate, disobey. When he orders shoot, disobey. Love is the only way. Love, love, love, love is the only way.