[00:00:01] Speaker A: It was like choosing the right container to be held at a time in life that what was happening internally was meant to continue happening.
And I also knew I can be very audacious. And because the experiences were so overwhelming, I really wanted to face everything in myself.
And that wasn't from a place of judgment, it was a place of I had such confidence that if every part of me could come forward, things that I call darkness, things that I call light, whatever you want to call it, that everything would be illumined and merged with Goddess.
[00:01:34] Speaker B: Welcome to supernormalize, the podcast, where we challenge the conventional break boundaries and normalize the seemingly supernatural. Join me, CJ Barnaby, in the liminalist space to explore less charted realms of existence and to unravel the mysteries of life. Experience. Each episode I'm blessed with the opportunity to talk to regular people from across the world where they openly share their understanding and wisdom in service to others. If you're looking to upgrade your life, you've come to the right place. Be sure to like and subscribe, and I'll bring you great transforming conversations each week. My treasured viewers and listeners. If you have a life story or healing modality or unique knowledge that you'd love to share, reach out to me at supernormalizedroton me. Let's together embrace acceptance of the supernatural and unusual, what it really is completely normal. Today on supernormalized we have Kimblee Braun. She's had a remarkable journey, unlike many in that from a very early childhood, she actually started having unit of experiences which actually informed her of her whole path. I mean, she did grow up in a catholic sort of framework, but that was actually supportive for her because it was actually an ecstatic sort of framework.
So she actually had grounding in her understanding what was happening to her in a way that actually helped her to grow and to see a way in life that made a lot of sense. She clearly understood that she was put here to help others.
This story today is about her helping herself and in her understanding and then helping others and what she went through. It's amazing story. She became a nun at one stage and then went from being a nun into making a monastery, and now tours the world and writes books and helps people through her retreats and workshops. I'm sure you'll enjoy the show I did. It's great talk. All right, enjoy.
Welcome to supernormalized Kimberly Braun. Kimberly, you've had a lot of unitive experiences throughout your life that actually put you on a path of wanting to share that with others. I'm very interested in hearing about all about that and your life experience, and this all means to you and. And how you want to share that today. So thank you very much for coming on the show, and welcome to the show.
[00:04:07] Speaker A: Thank you. It's really great to be here with you.
[00:04:10] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. So you actually started having unitive experiences when you were very young. How. How young was that?
[00:04:17] Speaker A: Well, from what I remember, it was five or six.
[00:04:20] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:04:21] Speaker A: There are some things that my parents tell me that happened when I was younger than that, but I don't remember those things.
[00:04:27] Speaker B: What was your first one?
[00:04:29] Speaker A: So, the first one, and what I was experiencing, which was the quality of the first one and all of them, was that as life was happening, I would find myself having a pause, like, wanting to understand what was happening, and time would seem to stop, and then I would be plunged into a deeper sense of reality. But the very first one, which is really a beautiful story and has. Has formed my worldview, that's even alive. Today was a day that I was walking home from school, so I was super geeky. I loved school. Fall was my favorite season, and we lived in Cincinnati. And one day when I was walking home, like all the other days, it was so beautiful. The leaves had all been turning, and the wind was picking up, and it was a little cooler, and everything seemed alive. And this day, it felt so alive. It felt like the whole earth was dancing. So I began whirling home like a soupy dervish, though I did not know what a dervish was.
And I began whirling home, and I found myself completely caught up in the bliss of the dance of nature.
When I got to the end of my cul de sac in front of my house, I stopped, and I was just taking it all in wordlessly.
And then a series of moments happened that were very pivotal for me. And I'm putting words to it. The words, as you probably know, are really. They fall short in these experiences.
And I was. As I was looking around and just feeling so much goodness and love, a tree caught my attention almost like a magnet, and my eyes were like.
And then one leaf on that tree pulled my attention to it. And as I focused in on that leaf, the leaf was teetering on its branch, and then it fell off the branch.
And when it fell off the branch, out of nowhere, deep within my own soul gut center, came this sadness, this anguish. It was, is that it is that all life is about? Because my felt response was that the leaf was dying.
And so as that question came forward, that I. Again, I wasn't thinking with my brain. As it came forward, time stopped and it felt like just the world opened up. And I had this direct experience that the leaf, this is my language then, it's not my language now. The leaf was in God and God was in the leaf.
And in that direct experience, I experienced that I was in God and God was in me and that all of life was about one thing, and that was being and becoming in this knowing.
And it washed any concern I had around death, around life after death, around why I'm here on earth. All of those really important big questions that we all have to go through were answered in this experience. Just washed my body wild.
[00:07:53] Speaker B: That would have been beautiful to experience that.
And it gave your life meaning from that point.
[00:07:59] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:08:01] Speaker B: What was the meaning that it expressed for you then? I mean, what, what did it, what did it do to you as a child or so?
[00:08:10] Speaker A: For me as a child, I was filled with joy.
And what happened for me as I came out of the experience in my mind, because I very intellectually curious, something in me connected. The dots flow. I was like, wow, this is what joy is about.
And then there came this unspoken commitment. I'm going to spend my life exploring this. And in that instant, I knew my life is only going to be about this. Like, that's what it was for me as a child. And it offered me context for all the unusual things that happen in our life. Whether they're joyful things, whether they're sad and challenging things. They all found a home in that experience.
[00:08:59] Speaker B: Sounds like you picked the best travel brochure for a life. And I know, right? Yes.
That's really cool. So you're growing up from a child with these experiences.
How were you accepted by your peers with this understanding? I mean, I know when I was very young and I had these sort of connective understandings that it felt pretty hard to express that as a child. I mean, I didn't get support. How did that happen for you?
[00:09:30] Speaker A: I made, I think, what's a normal assumption, that everyone was having these experiences. So I never spoke about any of them. And even some of the ones that are a bit more like phenomena, I never shared any of those things. It just didn't dawn on me.
Looking back, it's interesting. And I think part of that was just the culture, you know, being raised in a time when your parents are really loving, but they don't think to sit and talk with you about deep things.
Yeah. And friends never shared. I don't know. Did you ever share with your friends? I never shared with you.
[00:10:10] Speaker B: I did. They thought it was weird.
[00:10:14] Speaker A: Wow. I'm so glad you shared with them. And I bet that that made that hard on your heart. But I didn't even think about it.
[00:10:22] Speaker B: It actually was really challenging for me because I tried to share it, and I got pretty much labeled the weird. The weird kid, and it wasn't really good. I. It actually spun me into suppression of all of this understanding, and in that was. That came sort of self medication, using alcohol and marijuana and things like that. As a young. As a young child. Didn't. Didn't really help me. And after about maybe ten years of basically hurting myself to try and stop, you know, being so weird, I had let that go. I went, no, I'm a weirdo. This is okay. Yeah.
[00:11:05] Speaker A: What courage. I know that happens for a lot. A lot that pushing down. I think in some degree, we all do a little bit, right? Until we either we have a sense that we fit and belong, or we let go of that longing that can really. That can really hurt the heart.
[00:11:22] Speaker B: Yeah, but you can grow through it. I mean, I think it actually tempered my spirits in different sorts of ways. So I did learn from it, which is a good thing.
[00:11:29] Speaker A: Great.
[00:11:30] Speaker B: So how did your life experience roll out, then, from being a child, growing into a young adult with these understandings? I mean, it seems like something that was almost continuous for you.
[00:11:43] Speaker A: It was. It really was. One of the blessings in my life was that my mom and dad were involved in a charismatic movement in the catholic church.
So when I was young, right, some priest came to that church and was an instrument for all the gifts of spirit. So laying on of hands and instantaneous miracles and prophecy and all sorts of things, tongues as well. But that was less there. And so it created for me an environment where my multidimensional life, I felt a little safe to say yes to it, because even though my family, as far as I know, weren't having all the things happen that I had happened, we were in an environment where unexpected magic could happen. Right. So I was really open. And then I remember in junior high school, the gift of prophecy started coming really strong, and I had no idea what was happening. So the word would come, but it was a word that didn't come to my mind. I could just feel it like a pregnant ball of light, and it would drop into my chest and my heart would beat really hard until I did whatever I needed to do. But I knew what to do without thinking about it. The mind wasn't really involved. So it was always speaking the word to someone or in some situation. And as soon as then I would speak the word, my body would go back to normal. And then I had a lot of miracles through prayer. Prayer was really strong and powerful for me.
Answers to prayers, illuminations. During prayer, my room sometimes would be lit up in blue and white. And so it was pretty dramatic.
So that was a lot of.
I would say my spirituality was very alive and in the fore. And then in middle of 10th grade, I entered a really dark night.
But I look back on it, and I think I was able to go into that dark night because I had so much knowing that it was okay, knowing that I was held in it all. And the really big dark night was really.
I'm very passionate on all levels, like, with ideas, with movements, with sensuality, with. And I felt like that wasn't spiritual.
And I went into this real conundrum of, am I okay? Who am I? A typical teenage. But I got really, really intense about it. You know, it really took over for me. And I had a major breakthrough when I was 19. So I went through it for two and a half years where it was like a living hell. I tried so hard to get out of it. I tried to think my way out.
I didn't have the skillset to know how to open up with other healing modalities or know how to talk about it. I hoped for a mentor, but there weren't any in my community or that I had that I felt a trust with. It felt too dark. I felt really dark. I was having nightmares and, you know, visions of things, and. And then I had a major breakthrough. And when I had that breakthrough when I was 19, my worry about what I was as a human being, as being passionate, was dissolved, 100%. But what happened after that as well, is that my mystical experiences and all that phenomena just magnified. I mean, I was like Eckhart Tolle on the park bench. You know, it just. I spent years where it was.
My whole life was completely ungrounded in these realms as I was being undone and healed, and my heart healed in my mind, and then I grew to be able to be able to have it all happen in this body without being undone.
And so then that led me to my next step of joining a monastery. But it took probably about three or four years. I'd have these rushes of white light go through my crown chakra and just take me completely over, and I would swoon and be in that state for hours at a time. It was very dramatic.
[00:16:36] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. There's a book by Stanislav Grof and Christina Grof called spiritual emergence, spiritual emergency. And it's all about these sort of experiences. And it sounds like you went through that too. And it's wild when it happens, but you can't deny it because it's spirit working.
[00:16:57] Speaker A: Yeah, it's crazy, right? It's just right. And there was, you know, fortunately, my life was set up in a way that it wasn't in conflict. I was making life choices. I was going to school, but it wasn't full time, and I was working, and I had a balance in my life that gave spaciousness for all this. And I was able to just on a very minor level, support myself. So fortunately I had that at least to offer some stability.
[00:17:25] Speaker B: Yeah, sounds like you're being nurtured in a certain sort of direction. So you moved into a monastery situation. What happened there?
[00:17:33] Speaker A: Yeah, I 24. So I was through all this. I was. And again, I'm using a language that is still alive for me, but doesn't quite capture it. I'll use that language.
Being pursued by God. That's all I can say, is that I couldn't get away from this divine lover just after me and the heat within and from without. And it was really beautiful. And at a certain point, I was looking for some kind of spiritual director so that I could have either a teacher or a companion or a mentor. And I wasn't finding anyone. And even though I lived in Santa Cruz, California at the time, I didn't know about other traditions. So I was only looking within the catholic tradition at that time. Now I'm so broad, but I couldn't find a spiritual director that could understand what I was trying to share.
And I went to one man who was reputed to be a really powerful contemplative.
And I remember I share this story, CJ. It's so interesting because it makes me laugh, really. So I went out on a limb and I said, well, I don't know how to talk to him about my spirituality. I'll just give an example of what's happening. And I gave him one of these crown chakra examples and told him how I'd be out for 2 hours, 3 hours in this deep state of bliss. And it's beautiful and it's enlivening, but no. And when I finished telling him, he looked at me and he said, now, are you sure you're not falling asleep?
Because he didn't get it at all. And I said I had nothing to lose. I said, are you kidding? I said, I've never felt so alive in my life.
So then a beautiful intervention happened. I gave up on finding a human being to talk to.
And the next day, or within a couple of days, my roommate put in my hands the autobiography of Teresa of Avila.
And I sat down, I started reading this, and I am weeping.
First, because she came very alive for me, but second, all the things that were happening to her was what was happening to me.
And I found a friend, and she's carmelite.
And then shortly after, Therese of Lesieur's book got dropped in my hands. And I read that through one night. It, like, burned itself on me, almost like a inspired text that you can quote from anywhere. And I. All these carmelite friends started showing up. And then I went on a hike later that year in the Colorado mountains near Carmel, and my friend took me to what, a carmelite monastery that I had never seen or heard of in my life. So I walked into this monastery, and I'm like, whoo. You know, so it was crazy. And then the priest there afterwards, I came out. Well, my friend and I came out after the liturgy, because the liturgy was so illuminating.
You know, when you have. When you're in these flows of honeymoon and synchronicity and everything is touching you. Everything. And I was just in that, you know? And so I walked out, and there's this massive crowd, because it's a Saturday morning, and the priest that had officiated pushed through the crowd and came, and he stood directly in front of me, and he said, promise me you'll pray for me.
Right.
[00:21:16] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:21:18] Speaker A: Right, Jess?
[00:21:19] Speaker B: He can see what's going on, right? That's what's going on.
[00:21:21] Speaker A: Yes, yes. So all of this was happening, and it was like a no brainer to join the monastery because it was like I was being set up left and right. And I looked around at other monasteries, but Carmelite was the only one that every time I walked into it, I felt at home.
And so I ended up joining a monastery in North Dakota. But it wasn't to seek. I had already been found. It was just to have more of what was happening.
[00:21:54] Speaker B: To ground the experiences and the understandings.
Yeah.
[00:22:01] Speaker A: To go deeper. Right. Yeah. It was more of a lover throwing herself in the arms of the beloved than it was a reflection upon the best next step. So I was living with a pretty large amount of abandon.
[00:22:20] Speaker B: So when you're in this state, would you say that you were being touched by Christ's consciousness?
[00:22:27] Speaker A: Yes.
In an all penetrating way?
[00:22:34] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then what did that offer you after that? I mean, you're in the monastery for how long?
[00:22:41] Speaker A: Ten and a half years.
[00:22:43] Speaker B: Whoa.
Okay. And what did you. What do you say that you got from that by being in the monastery for that long?
[00:22:52] Speaker A: It was like choosing the right container to be held at a time in life that what was happening internally was meant to continue happening.
And I also knew I can be very audacious. And because the experiences were so overwhelming, I really wanted to face everything in myself.
And that wasn't from a place of judgment. It was a place of. I had such confidence that if every part of me could come forward, things that I call darkness, things that I call light, whatever you want to call it, that everything would be illumined and merged with goddess. And I knew that in the silence, it would be me. And that's what happened, because even though you're with everybody and you do talk once a day, things happen that trigger you, just like anywhere else in life, but you don't really have anywhere to go. So you either increase your agony or learn or face it.
And I was so excited to face all these parts of myself because I was so confident of the love that was holding me.
[00:24:11] Speaker B: Yeah.
So what did you get from being in there for ten years? And what made you finally decide it was time to change that?
[00:24:26] Speaker A: I would say my inner development continued, and I became more and more stable of. In the capacity to walk as presence, in presence.
So that part, I wasn't interested in all the phenomena, even though I had the visions and this and the that, and that didn't really fascinate me. What fascinated me was the abiding presence.
I wanted to be the fullness of who I was meant to be. And I think the capacity to open and be that in a stable way grew and grew. You know, I had psychospiritual development happened for me. Shadow sides came forward to be healed. Erroneous thoughts of myself or the world came forward to be healed. It was a very.
It was like a big retreat. Right. But there was also the outpouring of service in the world, because I had experienced the power of union with God and that power, and it could be union with life, source, universal energy, eternal one.
Whatever language we want to use, that union has a ripple effect that we get to participate in the uplifting and healing of the world. And I felt very much of service while I was there. So those two things were very alive. And I took solemn vows, CJ. So I never thought I was going to leave.
Yeah. So I was deep in vows, I was very happy. And then in about my 6th year, might have been my 7th year, I was out. I had joined. I was in North Dakota, and they asked me to go to a monastery in Texas.
And that monastery in Texas was very new and very young, and there were only four nuns there, and they were much older, but they needed young blood, they needed support.
So I said yes to going and I went two weeks after my solemn vows. And the monastery down in Texas was a converted house, very different.
North Dakota was a built monastery, very established. We lived off the land. There were a 20 women. The rituals were rich and deep. The schedule was solid and continuous. So I stepped into a very strong container of a community. I went down to Texas and we're in a converted house. We need to abbreviate all the rituals. We can't live off the land. It's too dry and we don't have enough nuns to do it. And the lifestyle is very different. But what was beautiful about it is it was very zen like.
It was very simple. And I loved that just as much as the richness of North Dakota.
But one thing that was challenging for me was that we were so beloved by the community.
We were visited a lot, and the small house made you hear it all a lot. And I was longing for the silence. So I went out back during a time of meditation and my heart was just longing for silence.
And as I was longing for that silence, I heard, build the permanent monastery.
[00:27:49] Speaker B: Hey everyone, I'm excited to share that you can now support the show on Patreon. Go to patreon.com supernormalized. Your contributions help me to create even more amazing content. Please check out the link below in the show notes and join our community and unlock exclusive perks. Thank you so much for your support.
[00:28:13] Speaker A: And I gave this massive yes, but I thought that yes was, we as a community are going to build the monastery and this is going to happen.
What ended up happening was I actually was called forth to build it myself.
I became the general contractor. I became one of the designers. I became the person that was the spokesperson for it. I was downloaded with the ability to do shop drawings, to manage 1015 crews a day, to solicit donations, to manage the flow of a 17,000 square foot mission style monastery project. I was downloaded with this knowledge and it was easy. It was light. Isn't that crazy?
[00:29:08] Speaker B: So you got the download and you started working on it?
[00:29:11] Speaker A: I did, but my roles came in increments because what happened was I was downloaded with more than what I realized then, every time I spoke of it, I knew how to speak of the project, and people always wanted to be a part of it. I became the spokesperson, and then I started doing the architecture, and then we were going to hire a general contractor. But this man by Michael Box, beautiful man, he's in my book.
He told me I should do it. So it was like a step by step. It wasn't the methodical. We none sat around a table, and we said, how are we going to do this? And then everyone said, well, maybe you, Sister Anenciata, maybe you should be the lead on it. There was no discernment like that. There was no comfort of it being an understanding. It just happened. And then. And I think that happens in all our lives. We give a yes. We have no idea what we're capable of.
We have no idea what we're really stepping into. We have no idea how one thing will build on another and build on another and build on another.
So I ended up doing it. And during that time, it was great. It was beautiful. It was powerful and debt free. You can see it. It's a gorgeous structure. And there were other ways that I was changing inside.
And there were challenges, because with this big project going, it shined a light on other things.
The darkness that lay in the community, the darkness that is within people's hearts, like jealousy or suspicion or the light shined a light on troubling things, too. So you had this great light going, and then you had a lot of chaos kind of swirling around, too. So when I came through all of that, I had changed so much, and that change made me ready for my next illumination.
That led me to leave the monastery.
And it was so it's in my third book that's not published yet, but it's a beautiful story, CJ, because I went to my. We had moved into the new monastery, and I went to my little hermitage, and I had this illumination wash through me.
And without my realizing it, there was a message that went with a. But that doesn't matter so much. I was actually washed of my vows, and I didn't know it. It didn't come to my mind. But the next day, I woke up, and I'm walking around, and everything is surreal, because when I took my vows, and I can tell you're sensitive to energy, too, there's an energetic constellation that happens to. I felt the beauty of my vows. I felt this pulsing thing that I was in as a means, as a portal, and it influenced me. Being in my vows influenced how I looked at the world. I was a carmelite. I was the beloved of God. As a carmelite. I was a contemplative, I was a monastic, and I identified with my environment that way.
When I woke up that next day, it wasn't there and I was just walking around. I was walking around in my habit. I'm like, this is crazy. I was looking at everything completely differently. And so, long story short, I ended up leaving because the right next step, but I wasn't given the leaving for the sake of that would have been a great consolation. When we take big steps in our lives, it's really nice if we get the gift of knowing what we're doing and why we're doing it.
But all I was given was, this is your next step, period.
[00:33:16] Speaker B: So, yeah, when you got that, it must have been quite shocking for that change to come over you.
[00:33:24] Speaker A: Yeah, it was very strange. It was easy and peaceful. I wasn't fighting it or confused.
But surreal is a really good word because it was like my eyes were adjusting to everything. It's like when you come blurry through something and then your eyes start adjusting. That's a bit how I was internally.
Yeah, I looked at, I looked at obedience differently, I looked at poverty, I was looking at everything different. I looked at all the nuns, my sisters differently.
And it was like I went from being where I belonged to being in a land I was visiting. That's how it felt.
[00:34:05] Speaker B: So spirit led you in another direction to create this monastery somewhere else. Right.
[00:34:11] Speaker A: Spirit led me to leave. I got a scholarship to go to seminary and do my grad work. And I studied the mystical experience and the adult spiritual journey. And everything that's about the awakening process was my passion, of course.
And so I had a wonderful time in seminary in DC. I got a scholarship, things lined up, and then I started an active ministry, first with a. In the catholic church. And then it became very clear that my spirituality was very universal.
It wasn't a tradition. It was really a mystic, essential path. And so I began working with people of all backgrounds, and as I straddled those, then I ended up getting banned in the catholic church. So then my whole focus, of course, was everything else. So since then, that's about 2007. Since then I've just been leading retreats, traveling, writing books. People bring me in to offer keynote talks, being of service in any way I can be a friend to other people.
[00:35:26] Speaker B: Right. Sounds like you stepped out of the framework of the church to actually expand people's connection to the divine.
[00:35:36] Speaker A: Yeah, definitely. So, you know, and I would have stayed serving in one capacity within the church if I hadn't been banned. You know, that was a sad moment to have all. I was seen as heretical. But where a door closes, a window opens. Right.
[00:35:57] Speaker B: So what did you do with your life after that? I mean, you've been through a lot, and you've learned all these methods of connecting to spirit.
Did that lead you to start helping people?
[00:36:10] Speaker A: Yes. So I've been completely of service the past 24 years, and again, I've had a number of roles. I do one on one work, healing sessions, spiritual mentorship, so people can connect to the divine at their center and live from there in a stable way.
But even more now, I offer keynote talks.
My third book is just published. My second one, beloved fountain, I have right here. It's a book of poetry.
And I travel.
Yeah, I do online courses and things like that, too, but everything devoted to the service of the awakening process for others.
[00:36:54] Speaker B: How does one live a life of greater freedom and peace?
[00:37:01] Speaker A: It's a big question, and I'm sure that that's among the questions I suggest.
[00:37:05] Speaker B: Yeah, that's right.
[00:37:08] Speaker A: I love it.
Right, right. So it's universal and it's individual. The universal answer, as I've experienced it, is the opening to the eternal pulse at our very center.
When we open in that way, we discover freedom.
Peace is the fruit of our awareness. So that's universal. I believe, for every human being, the how part is very individual, because each one of us has a different temperament and personality, and we to develop the capacity to live a life that is free and full of peace, we make the choice that that's a priority, and then we look into what helps us develop the skillfulness groups are very good. One on one sessions are very good. I'm a big meditation teacher. I think meditation is one of the quickest ways to come into contact with that juice, if you will, and to live in that flow. So the path is very individual, but the premise is very universal.
[00:38:27] Speaker B: You talked about meditation. Do you have a method that you like to use?
[00:38:32] Speaker A: What I have, I have my own method. But within that method, I'll tell you the method. It's a threefold method.
Within that method, I introduce people to all forms. So everything from vipassana to mantra to breath to heartbeat to imagination to observation, I'll help somebody find what really works for them.
Because part of the fruit of finding a practice that works for you is you end up not wanting it to stop.
You don't end up saying, oh, I give up, or, this is too hard, you end up wanting to continue.
But my threefold process that I teach in greater length is the. It's actually the psychological setup of ritual.
The first is separation, your meditation practice. You want to always choose a stepping away, stepping away from your activity, stepping away from the way you're thinking about things, just stepping away from any of the conditioning to step into. The second is liminality, and the third is reaggregation.
Liminality is where you have the practice. It's the body of the practice. And you come to the edge of all you know, and you open to the unknown, and that's the body of the meditation, which can happen in any of the forms I mentioned and others. And then once that time is ended, reaggregation is an integration process where you walk forward changed. So instead of it being, oh, that was great, and then you go back into stress, you actually. There are practices that can integrate on a cellular level, so you walk forward incrementally changed.
[00:40:32] Speaker B: I love that. When I do my meditation practice and when I'm just coming out of it and I'm still in that sort of space where I'm almost infinite and. Yeah, and the eyes just open, and that's when I start. I actually do prayers, and I pray for everyone, and I pray for the world. I pray for peace, and I bless the world, and I bless peace, bless my family, and I bless my friends. And I use that space to sort of spread that. That pure, infinite energy to as many places as possible to try and touch everyone. So understand that aggregation and then carrying that forward that I. I believe, you know, giving that out to the world sends it back to you, too. So, yeah, that's a big thing.
[00:41:12] Speaker A: I love that. Yeah. And well put. I like the way you spoke about it.
[00:41:17] Speaker B: In what ways do you believe love is at the core of our existence?
[00:41:24] Speaker A: Well, I think you can see in my experiences that it's direct for me. It's very immediate.
And love for me is a word that is an aspect of the divine, and it's got this paradoxical. It is the divine, and it's also an aspect. So it's the being part, but it's also the becoming part. So there's an agency. Love is a generative quality, and I think the word quality falls short.
My experience and my belief is that all creation is an expression of this love, that it came into being by the agency of this love. And therefore, by it being the agency of love with coming forward, it's at its very center. If something comes into being, there's a certain operative, fundamental, chemical or alchemical thing happening that's bringing it into existence, and that is love, as I would talk about it. And love, you could have a whole. I think we could have a whole hour long conversation on just even what that word is. But that's how I would speak of it. And knowing that provides great consolation, because then we know that everything is benevolent, and it doesn't feel that way. Especially, you know, on our earth, things don't appear very benevolent. At times they can. They can seem very much, you know, good and evil and black and white and dark and light.
But at the essence level, what would it be like if we became aware that everything was love?
We wouldn't overlook these conflicts and tensions, but we would come from a different place in relationship with them, and we would become an agent to cast out all fear. So when we embody love, fear is naturally dissolved by our very being.
[00:43:34] Speaker B: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
How do you incorporate your understanding of this divine presence into your retreats and your workshops?
[00:43:45] Speaker A: So, since I've been doing retreats for so long, I do workshops occasionally.
Not as much as I used to, but there isn't anything but that. So they. The. The idea of divine presence may not be the direct theme, like, we're going to talk about divine presence, but it is like the blanket that's surrounding us or the house that's holding us for the retreat. Divine presence is really what it's all about. It's what's brought us together. It's what's going to inspire all of the transformation and healing and illumination, and it is what is going to heal and help people come into wholeness, including myself. So I incorporate it very directly through practices, diverse practices, some meditation, other forms of practice from. I've been doing it for so long, CJ, that I draw from all different traditions, and then also through talks and inquiry. I think it's underestimated how powerful it can be to give the mind something really good to think about, not just move away from the mind, but offer some real deep reflection so that the mind, too, can heal.
[00:45:09] Speaker B: What advice would you give to someone looking to explore their own spiritual journey?
[00:45:19] Speaker A: Pay to have a professional guide or find a guide? I know with some traditions, those guides are included just in being part of the practice.
Look for the right person for you.
Trust and believe in the stirring that you have to explore your spirituality enough that you prioritize it and engage in a companion in a trained spiritual director and whatever the title might be, to go the long journey with you so that you can have the reflection of what's moving by way of spirit and where you may be having a shadow or a fear and where you may feel that you're really open but you doubt. Having a friend on the journey is so powerful, you can develop and move so quickly. Having a friend on the journey.
[00:46:20] Speaker B: You mentioned before that some of the states you were in were very Zen like. And do you have a bit of a practice that works with the Zen space that is understood?
[00:46:33] Speaker A: I'm not trained in Zen Buddhism, but yes, I would say that in many ways my life itself has become very pregnant in silence and very simple. And I think Zen looks to strip away all that things aren't and provide the innocent, simple clarity of what is. And so in that way, with that understanding of Zen that comes into all that I do. So usually when I work with people, there's an innocence that is restored, there's a simplicity that becomes a strong part of their life.
[00:47:13] Speaker B: I found for myself the zen sort of space. When you reach it and it becomes sort of like a constant, that even that space can be quite ecstatic, because when you're in that space, then you actually are in the flow of the divine, in accord with the universe and all universal plans and everything becomes synchronous. It's quite, quite wild how many coincidences seem to happen over and over.
[00:47:38] Speaker A: I agree, I agree, I agree. I love the way that you put that as well.
[00:47:44] Speaker B: How do you balance the line between work and play in your life?
[00:47:50] Speaker A: Well, because all I do is about this, play is naturally a part of it, it's a part of my personality. So work and play, there's a pretty good dotted line with that, because when you're in the flow of what you're meant to be here doing, it doesn't, it's not that work quality to it, that being said, because as you can see with the monastery, I love to create things.
I'm very, very productive, I'm very creative. This festival I created, I tallied up my hours. It was 1050, 9 hours to put this together and it was an outpouring of love. So my work becomes my play and it can be very all consuming.
I am coming to some new places of looking. I'm an entrepreneur, so looking at structuring things differently, so that there's simple things like not so much screen time to accomplish things. I'm asking new questions about that.
How can I accomplish what I'm meant to do by not needing to carry, wear all the hats?
So yeah, it's a constant conversation, really. But the screen time is really the main thing that I would say is a bit draining.
And work is a word that's kind of draining. It's like, oh, work and vacation, you know, work and play.
[00:49:22] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. Finding a way through where it all becomes one. That'd be. That's interesting. Yeah. So what future projects or initiatives are you excited about that will further your mission in helping others?
[00:49:36] Speaker A: Thank you. Yeah. So my third book just published, and I'm at the survey of that message. I'll be traveling, leading more retreats, mainly coming into spirituality centers to speak and drawing upon the message in the book that can be of service to people. And I like what this book is coming out right now, today, because it's called miracles in the naked light. And it can be easy with some of the things around global warming, with divisions around politics, with things seeming to have a real heightened intensity that could be bringing fear, remembering that we live a miraculous life, that a lot is possible that we didn't realize can be a source of encouragement. So that's one thing that's firing me up. The second is this chance festival that I created.
It was so successful. So I'm looking already till year two on that one when they start the planning for year two. Those. Those two are really big for me in the immediate.
[00:50:40] Speaker B: Sounds like you should take it on the road and maybe tour the world with it.
[00:50:44] Speaker A: Yeah, that'd be wonderful.
[00:50:48] Speaker B: I'd love to go to it. If you came to Australia, that'd be very cool.
[00:50:51] Speaker A: Thank you. I look on to Australia.
[00:50:57] Speaker B: Well, we're coming towards the end of the podcast now, Kim. So how can people find you and learn more about your work and learn and actually read your books?
[00:51:07] Speaker A: Easy, easy. Just my name, kimberlybron.com on my website. And that's k I m b e r l y b r a u n.
On my website. Everything is there. How to contact me, joining my newsletter, buying any of my books, any of my cds. I don't have my retreats posted there now, but I will post them and coming into contact. I've got three online courses. I've got an online community. And all of them you can learn more about really easily on my website.
[00:51:42] Speaker B: Brilliant. Okay, I'll put a link in the show notes, but thank you very much for coming on the show. It's very appreciated. I love what you've shared here and I hope that people can find that spark of the device in their lives as well because of what you've talked about.
[00:51:56] Speaker A: Thank you so much. My pleasure to be here. Thank you for having me.
[00:52:00] Speaker B: Okay, I'll just say goodbye, the listeners.
I really enjoyed talking to Kimberly. She does speak really openly towards that connection to the divine and how it can really touch you in deep ways. And she was lucky to have been supported in that and how. And have that grow. And obviously, she punched the right ticket when it came to coming to the. To earth. This was her life choice, and she's lived a great life. And it's.
It's been amazing what's happened to her and how it's all rolled out, how she gets to help people. And it's her calmness and her wisdom comes through in the conversation. If you've enjoyed today's show, please reach out to Kimberley at Kimberley Broad.
The link is in the show notes, as I mentioned. And, yeah, I'm sure she'd appreciate you contacting her to say that she presented so well. I really appreciate her time. So if you've enjoyed today's show and you'd like to support the show, please jump onto my
[email protected]. forward slash Patreon. No, no, other way around. Patreon.com forward slash.
I don't know. I got that wrong. Anyway, if you've enjoyed today's show, please do that. And if you want to share this show to another person, that would really help as well. And if you're on YouTube, like and subscribe, and if you haven't done it yet, get onto your podcast app, give me five stars, and write something really nice about me. Because I'm a nice person. I deserve it. And I think that more people deserve to hear these conversations, too. So please keep listening to our my episodes. I mean, I love you listening. I love making them. So thank you very much again. Until next episode, it's bye for now.
