Episode Summary

"Be the light" has become such a common phrase that it's lost much of its transformative power. But what if we could reclaim this concept and turn it into something practical, grounded, and genuinely impactful?

In this episode, we get to practice what it means to call in and embody "the light," and we get to dive into what it means to apply this in what has become a dark world. As we find our grounding and connect into our own embodied selves, we get to learn to show up for this life authentically connecting to what matters most.

Key Topics Covered

• Reclaiming what it means to be the light in a dark world: Moving beyond empty platitudes to embodied action
• Strategic Service: Being of service where it actually matters and makes a difference
• Problem-Solving with Purpose: Focusing your energy on solving important problems
• Staying Centered: Maintaining your groundedness while showing up for life in a way that matters
• Embodied Practice: Turning inspiration into consistent, meaningful action

Key Takeaways

✨  Spiritual practice requires staying grounded - Without a solid and embodied foundation, our spiritual intentions stay too airy fairy and don't impact what matters

✨ Practical service over performance - True impact comes from addressing real needs, not from looking good

✨ Centered action is sustainable action - When we stay focused on what matters most, we can maintain our service long-term

✨ Kindness is a practice, not just a feeling - Learn how to actively call in kindness rather than waiting for it to happen

Who This Episode Is For

• Anyone feeling overwhelmed by the world's problems and wanting to make a meaningful difference
• People seeking practical ways to be of service
• Those who want to move beyond inspirational quotes to actual embodied practice
• Leaders and changemakers looking to ground their impact in what truly matters
• Anyone ready to reclaim the power of "being the light" through concrete action

Questions for Reflection

• Where in your life are you performing "being the light" versus actually embodying it?
• What important problems are calling for your specific gifts and attention?
• How can you call in more kindness in your daily interactions?
• What does staying "grounded and centered" look like in practice for you?

Tags

#BeTheLight #GroundedPractice #KindnessInAction #ServiceOriented #MeaningfulImpact #EmbodiedLeadership  #PracticalSpirit #AuthenticService

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Join me in Earth Embodiment Circle! The newest addition to the many ways you can join me in practice and in community. Learn more here.

Deepen into practice in Membership - The Forest: A Library of Guided Meditations and Embodiment Practice. Learn more here.

Read my Earth Embodiment Ebook! We Are The Forest: Walking an Embodied Path of Collective Healing: Read it here

Deepen your grounding: Practice Earth Embodiment with my free Deep Roots Meditation

Find writings and deepen into guided practice on Substack or on The Mountain Mystic Blog

Follow my trailrunning and mountain adventures: @katiethemountainmystic

Right now, I am up in the big mountains of Colorado, training for my 3rd 100 mile ultra-running event later this summer. Join me as I explore the rugged beauty of the Colorado mountains as I train for this wild 100-mile race. More than just miles and vert, this podcast delves into the profound connection we share with the Earth, inviting you on a journey of embodiment and self-discovery. But the trails are under threat. Powerful forces are at play, attempting to disconnect us from the healing power of nature. That's why it's never been more critical to cultivate discernment, take meaningful action, and reclaim our rightful place in the wild. Join me as we run, reflect, and rise to the challenge, one step at a time.

Join me in Earth Embodiment practice - coming to you directly from the mountains - on YouTube: https://youtu.be/5MVyHmuGxAE?si=W_kugszfL-pRkGfi

Support the show

Join me in Earth Embodiment Circle! The newest addition to the many ways you can join me in practice and in community. Learn more here.

Deepen into practice in Membership - The Forest: A Library of Guided Meditations and Embodiment Practice. Learn more here.

Read my Earth Embodiment Ebook! We Are The Forest: Walking an Embodied Path of Collective Healing: Read it here

Deepen your grounding: Practice Earth Embodiment with my free Deep Roots Meditation

Find writings and deepen into guided practice on Substack or on The Mountain Mystic Blog

Follow my trailrunning and mountain adventures: @katiethemountainmystic

We have made it! After many episodes this season we are ready to jump into the core theme - the heart, the soul, the inspiration - for The Mountain Mystic Podcast!

The Mountain. In all her majesty. In all her glory. 

We all know the sayings and the cliches about The Mountain, including its use as a metaphor for our journeys through life. But I want to take you deeper. I am here to invoke The Mountain, to inspire her within you as you call her in, embody her, and let her guide you into connection with life that is grounded, fulfilling as it fills you with light and joy.

In this practice-centered podcast, we take what we all know about the metaphor of The Mountain and we embody it. We do this through guided visualizations, turning it all into an embodied meditation that you know I love to do in this space!

Deepen into practice: I have created an entire library worth of guided meditations and embodied activations to help you deepen into this work! Join in at a price that works best for you at upwardslopes.com/library

A Walk Through The Forest: Follow along on YouTube

Read the accompanying blog post: 

Support the show

Join me in Earth Embodiment Circle! The newest addition to the many ways you can join me in practice and in community. Learn more here.

Deepen into practice in Membership - The Forest: A Library of Guided Meditations and Embodiment Practice. Learn more here.

Read my Earth Embodiment Ebook! We Are The Forest: Walking an Embodied Path of Collective Healing: Read it here

Deepen your grounding: Practice Earth Embodiment with my free Deep Roots Meditation

Find writings and deepen into guided practice on Substack or on The Mountain Mystic Blog

Follow my trailrunning and mountain adventures: @katiethemountainmystic

We have a long list of challenges to face in this world. We do this by putting our minds together, working as a collective with effort to resolve that which needs to be resolved. But our task in these times requires more than this! We must also be doing the heart-centered embodiment work that brings us into a felt, known connection with that which connects us all.

This is biological concept, just as much as it is a spiritual one. In our newest conversation centered on The Embodied Path, I speak to the heart of the concept that ties your journey inward to your ability to show up as skillfully as you are able for this world we are all part of.

Collective healing can only happen as we recognize our own, individual selves in connection to the whole web of life. This is our work here, as we heal our internal patterning in connection to the collective healing of our whole Planet Earth.

Support the show

Join me in Earth Embodiment Circle! The newest addition to the many ways you can join me in practice and in community. Learn more here.

Deepen into practice in Membership - The Forest: A Library of Guided Meditations and Embodiment Practice. Learn more here.

Read my Earth Embodiment Ebook! We Are The Forest: Walking an Embodied Path of Collective Healing: Read it here

Deepen your grounding: Practice Earth Embodiment with my free Deep Roots Meditation

Find writings and deepen into guided practice on Substack or on The Mountain Mystic Blog

Follow my trailrunning and mountain adventures: @katiethemountainmystic

As we find ourselves in turbulent times, one of the most powerful things we can do (for ourselves and for the whole planet we are all a part of) is to stay grounded: To find that connection with the support we need to feel safe and vitalized, centered and ready to show up for this world.

Grounding has to do with presence, just as it has to do with connection. How present can you be in any one moment has much to do with how grounded you are. And, how grounded you are has a lot to do with how connected you are to the whole of life happening around you (and, within you).

In this episode, join me for two focused practices on grounding, along with conversation on how you can find and deepen into your grounding. Because grounding doesn't look the same for everyone. As I share in my own story in this episode, grounding sometimes requires creativity and doesn't always look like some standardized yoga or meditation practice!

Support the show

Join me in Earth Embodiment Circle! The newest addition to the many ways you can join me in practice and in community. Learn more here.

Deepen into practice in Membership - The Forest: A Library of Guided Meditations and Embodiment Practice. Learn more here.

Read my Earth Embodiment Ebook! We Are The Forest: Walking an Embodied Path of Collective Healing: Read it here

Deepen your grounding: Practice Earth Embodiment with my free Deep Roots Meditation

Find writings and deepen into guided practice on Substack or on The Mountain Mystic Blog

Follow my trailrunning and mountain adventures: @katiethemountainmystic

Join me today for focused practice as I guide you to tap into your sacred heart warrior within! Release the chaos of the outside world that is constantly trying to steal your attention. Find your grounding, get focused, and connect into the path that aligns with your highest service to this world.

Plus, in this episode we get to play in Leo Full Moon energy! What a treat to tap into our inner strength, courage, and compassion under the power of this full moon. This sacred activation will guide you to release the distractions and get focused on what matters most in this world.

In this episode:

• Grounding and connection - found within self and in connection to Planet Earth
• What it means to align with how you can best show up for this world
• Your empowerment to take control in this world doing what you are best capable of showing up for
• Full Moon in Leo Energy guiding us deeper into our fiery and courageous hearts
• Letting go of all those parts of life that hold your attention that do not serve

Support the show

Join me in Earth Embodiment Circle! The newest addition to the many ways you can join me in practice and in community. Learn more here.

Deepen into practice in Membership - The Forest: A Library of Guided Meditations and Embodiment Practice. Learn more here.

Read my Earth Embodiment Ebook! We Are The Forest: Walking an Embodied Path of Collective Healing: Read it here

Deepen your grounding: Practice Earth Embodiment with my free Deep Roots Meditation

Find writings and deepen into guided practice on Substack or on The Mountain Mystic Blog

Follow my trailrunning and mountain adventures: @katiethemountainmystic

In this podcast episode we dive into the importance of staying embodied in turbulent times. In a way, this means staying grounded centered, present, and focused on what truly matters. 

As always, embodiment is an umbrella term encompassing a broad set of experiences:

• felt connection to all parts of self, including the ability to know which parts of self most need your conscious awareness in any moment
• grounding and connection to your physical self, as well as your connection to this Planet Earth

Embodiment is a path and process. It isn't a state, but a dynamic state of being. This is especially important to recognize during turbulent times when life is throwing all sorts of challenges our way.

Embodiment is a healing path just as much as it is a process of learning discernment.

More to say in the episode!

Deepen in with a free guided meditation for grounding and connection: Visit https://upwardslopes.com/deeproots/

Go deeper on your embodiment path with my 5-part Embodied Foundations Workshops Series: https://upwardslopes.com/get-out-of-your-head-workshop/

Support the show

Join me in Earth Embodiment Circle! The newest addition to the many ways you can join me in practice and in community. Learn more here.

Deepen into practice in Membership - The Forest: A Library of Guided Meditations and Embodiment Practice. Learn more here.

Read my Earth Embodiment Ebook! We Are The Forest: Walking an Embodied Path of Collective Healing: Read it here

Deepen your grounding: Practice Earth Embodiment with my free Deep Roots Meditation

Find writings and deepen into guided practice on Substack or on The Mountain Mystic Blog

Follow my trailrunning and mountain adventures: @katiethemountainmystic

I am sitting here watching LA on fire: the latest catastrophe hitting our planet with devastating effects; and I am holding space for how I can best lead myself and my communities into the healing and transformation that we are all ready for. And I am humbled, because I just don't know how to fix this and how to solve these great problems that our world is now facing.
It is in this space that I return to the practices that I have learned as I've come to know the embodiment path. The reality is that us human beings hold tremendous power to not only transform ourselves, but also the world we are all part of. The problem is that we were taught to do this by living in our heads, doing all we can to be smart enough and muster up enough willpower to cause the change we believe to be most important. This is one way to do things, and sometimes it creates useful results.
The embodied path is different. It has us largely getting out of our heads, becoming ever-more present in felt connection to all that we are (as individuals, as communities, and as the ecosystems we are all part of).  

Support the show

Join me in Earth Embodiment Circle! The newest addition to the many ways you can join me in practice and in community. Learn more here.

Deepen into practice in Membership - The Forest: A Library of Guided Meditations and Embodiment Practice. Learn more here.

Read my Earth Embodiment Ebook! We Are The Forest: Walking an Embodied Path of Collective Healing: Read it here

Deepen your grounding: Practice Earth Embodiment with my free Deep Roots Meditation

Find writings and deepen into guided practice on Substack or on The Mountain Mystic Blog

Follow my trailrunning and mountain adventures: @katiethemountainmystic

Subscriber-only episode

Join me for a 12 minute guided practice to help you find your grounding: that feeling of presence while safe, held, and nurtured. Join me for a practice of finding your grounding in connection to Earth, and for finding your grounding within self.

Join me in Earth Embodiment Circle! The newest addition to the many ways you can join me in practice and in community. Learn more here.

Deepen into practice in Membership - The Forest: A Library of Guided Meditations and Embodiment Practice. Learn more here.

Read my Earth Embodiment Ebook! We Are The Forest: Walking an Embodied Path of Collective Healing: Read it here

Deepen your grounding: Practice Earth Embodiment with my free Deep Roots Meditation

Join the Newsletter and get started with a full set of guided embodiment practices.

Find writings and deepen into guided practice on Substack or on The Mountain Mystic Blog

Follow along my journeys across the lands and in my own wild journeys through life on Instagram: @katiethemountainmystic

Presence is a powerful term, but what we don't often understand is how much we are asked when it comes to the path that is becoming ever-more present to reality. In this way, I see presence less as a state and more as a process: an art and skill that is cultivated over time as we become more and more able to sense/feel/perceive and otherwise hold our consciousness with that which is arising in each moment.

Today we continue to speak to presence by looking at those challenging times that life asks us to stay here, sensing/perceiving/feeling/knowing that which is challenging in the moment.

Again, recognizing that this is a path/process as we move out of the modern way of things (a way of being that has us ever-reaching towards distraction, numbing, etc.) as we learn to feel into self. Knowing that it is in feeling into self that we become fully attuned to this world we are all part of.

Listen to the related episode mentioned in today's podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2047846/episodes/16079777

Listen to last season's episode on being present with those dark/painful/unpleasant aspects of reality:
https://www.buzzsprout.com/2047846/episodes/14082246

Join this winter's meditation program:
Visit stillness.forestbody.com to learn more

Support the show

Join me in Earth Embodiment Circle! The newest addition to the many ways you can join me in practice and in community. Learn more here.

Deepen into practice in Membership - The Forest: A Library of Guided Meditations and Embodiment Practice. Learn more here.

Read my Earth Embodiment Ebook! We Are The Forest: Walking an Embodied Path of Collective Healing: Read it here

Deepen your grounding: Practice Earth Embodiment with my free Deep Roots Meditation

Find writings and deepen into guided practice on Substack or on The Mountain Mystic Blog

Follow my trailrunning and mountain adventures: @katiethemountainmystic