listen to the podcast Archives - ⚡️Kristen Kalp

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Dance of the Heretic 💃🏼

My past year has basically been a tour of everywhere that you do not want to go as a human: loss, failure, loneliness, detachment, existential angst, grief, both parents’ cancer, and fear.

AND I’M STILL HERE.

This episode of That’s What She Said details the ways I’ve moved through the time since losing my mom.

Take a meander through the most devastating year of my life, embroidered with poems and tenderness and laughter.

In this episode, I’ll walk you through the practice that helped to reconnect me to my body, my breath, and my being when grief hit. Then, I’ll share completely heretical, would-have-gotten-me-burned-at-the-stake things I’ve learned to help me re-establish my connection to the divine.

I encourage you to embrace the bigger, larger, more profound connection to the divine that I’m detailing within this episode. It’s a connection I never found in a church of any denomination, but that I feel each time I place my feet on the earth. (Related: coming out of the spiritual closet.)

Progress Report

In the sacred text
left behind by Mary Magdalene,
the word ‘God’ was replaced by
‘The Good.’

Mama I saw
snowdrops yesterday.
They were revealed when the snow melted,
blooming on ice.

I almost genuflected in the mud.

Mama I’ve seen
birds bathing in the stream
as the woods thawed
and the juncos were passing through,

I’ve seen fog and rain
and the leaves falling one by one
for weeks until only a handful
hung on for winter,

I’ve seen deer
wandering through the forest
and a fox slinking through the snow.

Mama now I know
the pulsing of the land, alive,
even in winter.

I can feel the creek’s current
in my fingertips as it passes.

I’ve drawn the sun into my chest
and danced as if you’ve never left;
I’ve wet the forest floor with tears
for everything we did
and did not say.

Mama I’ve never danced so much.

I’ve shown up in the forest and loved
you, the world, the sky,
The Good,
even when nothing felt good
and I wanted to join you
somewhere beneath the earth.

Mama, I’ve seen
The Good.

Mama.
I’ve seen The Good.

P.S. The word Heretic is IN THE TITLE, so please don’t listen if you’re a Good Catholic Looking to Take Offense At Every Word I Say.

If you’re curious about how a formerly Catholic woman moves beyond early experiences of church to reclaim her connection to the divine — listen in now.

In my IDGAF era

Last week I heckled a man with a gun. It’s the PERFECT way to kick off my IDGAF era!

I’ll tell you the story in this episode of That’s What She Said.

WHAT DOES YOUR IDGAF ERA MEAN, KRISTEN?

Since I started a business 15 years ago, I’ve made things with all of my heart and soul. I’ve cared about every creation so deeply that I could hardly speak about it. I then followed a general pattern of undervaluing my work, beginning to value it, and then pricing myself right out of the market as I gained confidence.

It happened with photography, with ghostwriting, with straight-up writing, and with business coaching over the course of the past 15 years.

Throughout time, I’ve consciously asked: how do I make meaning through the ways that I make money?

For the first time, here’s what I’m doing:

I’m gonna play.
I’m gonna make products.

If they work, great.
If they don’t work, great.

I’m consciously untying money from meaning in 2024.

This translates to creating a number of biz experiments just to see what happens.  Some are private, some are public, some will use my real name, and some a pseudonym.

This is about holding my creations as they relate to capitalism a little more loosely, giving my ideas room to breathe, and reporting back about what I find.

My IDGAF era is for stretching those
purely-for-the-hell-of-it
muscles.

EXPERIMENT #1:

I’ve created literal IDGAF jewelry for my new experimental shop, Goldenswift!

These talismans are inspired by Taylor Swift’s use of the word ‘Eras’ to describe life phases.

⚡️ Grab your IDGAF era jewelry at Goldenswift.

P.S. On your own journey to IDGAF, may I suggest creating a NO Collection? 😉

Reporting From Toothpaste (And by toothpaste I mean burnout)

For a number of months there I felt like toothpaste.

You know how, when you have toothpaste and it’s in a tube, you come to the end…

…and then you roll it all the way down until eventually there’s just nothing left.

You don’t have new toothpaste so you’re just desperately pressing on the tube, like. “COME ON, GIMME SOMETHINGGGGG!!!”

But there’s nothing. No matter how hard you squeeze.

That was my life for a number of months last year.  We could call it burnout, but that sounds so clean and easily spotted.  This was trickier.

As much as I was like, “Just squeeze it harder!!!!!,” my method didn’t work.

If you’re doing capitalism in any sort of ongoing way, you’ll have your toothpaste moments when there’s just…nothing left.

This episode of the That’s What She Said podcast is for your toothpaste moments.

How do you navigate from NOTHING to something?
How do you begin to fill your tank if it’s been on E for days or weeks or months or years or decades?
What’s so bad about being the human equivalent of an empty tube of toothpaste?

We’ll get really existential and really practical together in this episode of That’s What She Said.

P.S. Did you see that Rob Bell was in the house recently? Go listen!

Rob Bell is in the house!

Come along with me for a gorgeous conversation about all things grief and joy and life and death and a new novel, Where’d You Park Your Spaceship, with the one and only Rob Bell.

We talk about books and writing (what’s it like to hold a world in your head?), the process of starting over and over and over (how do you JUST KEEP GOING, ROB BELL?), and why Rob’s being bad at ‘parking it’ is a gift to you and me and him and all of us.

I’ve been a fan-but-not-a-stan of Rob’s for 9 years now, and this conversation was pure joy from beginning to end.  The delight in my voice is PALPABLE throughout.

Grab the 1st 100 pages of Where’d You Park Your Spaceship here.  (SPOILER ALERT IF YOU DOWNLOAD THESE PAGES YOU’LL END UP BUYING THE BOOK.)

P.S. ‘Brave’ is just another word for vulnerable.

The Wall of NO (Innermost event = canceled)

I’ve never had an experience like this one.

For 8 months, I cultivated the energy of The Innermost, checking in with it, taking notes, making plans, and generally dreaming it to life. EIGHT. MONTHS.

As it came to the public, with a sales page and affiliates and general marketing, I continued to check in with it daily. There were no sales and lots of ‘no’s and ‘no thank you’s, but certainly that would change, right?

And then last Tuesday, I woke up and there was no energy in the event. None. Where there had been enthusiasm and excitement and YAY LET’S DO THIS, there was simply nothing. Like a weird little void in my heart.

I checked my email and found what I call the Wall of No: dozens of asks, big and small, all responded to with a no of some kind. The California No, the Firm No, the ‘Maybe Later’ No, the ‘This Sounds Great But I Have Plans Already’ no, the ‘Invite Me Next Time’ No…on and on and on. Each no was kind, but complete.

(I’ve encouraged entrepreneurs to build a No Collection for years now. Normally there’s a Yes or 17 on the other side of all those no’s. Not this time, though!)

Past me would have pushed HARDER: maybe there are a few dozen more people I can ask to promote this event! Maybe if I just buy ads/promote harder/send an endless stream of emails/harass the fuck out of my people…!

Truth be told, the pushing sounds exhausting. And with a fresh case of long Covid, I don’t have the energy for the pushing.

So, The Innermost is canceled.

In this episode of That’s What She Said, I’m speaking directly from the place exactly 0% of business owners like to be: the place where your latest project has been canceled and you have absolutely NO idea how the next one will take shape.

Listen in as I walk you through The Land You Hope You’ll Never Visit with humor and as much insight as I can muster.

P.S. When your failproof plan fails…it’s time to let your deep knowing drive the bus. 😉