Alright, Kels is here to make a confession and an apology to you all, please be forgiving...also, it's time we learn to accept ourselves exactly as we are, because we're all perfectly imperfect.
Welcome to Awakened Bake, an educational, high vibrational, mystical, spiritual pot, I'm sorry, podcast from one girl of one joint in a journey to awaken what's inside all of us. In the words of the wise was Khalifa, let's roll something and get the day started. Hello, good morning, happy Monday or happy whatever day or time of day you aren't listening to this.
00:00:24
Speaker
I hope you are well. I feel like I've found myself taking so many grounding deep breaths in the past three months. I feel like I've breathed more in this time than I have in my entire life.
00:00:42
Speaker
There's a lot going on still. I feel like it's how I've started every one of these episodes. And I'm so sorry that it's been the same, but the world's been fucking heavy for a long time now. I mean, really for years, but like extremely heavy recently. And I know that we are all just trying to get through it. And so I just feel called to every time let you know if you're here and you're listening, you're not alone. Um,
00:01:07
Speaker
You are not alone. You don't have to carry the weight of this world, this heaviness alone.
Community Involvement and Personal Reflection
00:01:12
Speaker
We are all one humanity. We are all one species. We are all one family, whether we like it or not. And it is on us to help each other see that.
00:01:24
Speaker
So I love you and I wanted to start with that. I also have been telling you guys, you know, write little bits of kindness. If you've been listening to these past few episodes, it's been kind of like my little theme so that we can focus on the fun parts of life still and the good because there is still so much goodness. Even though it doesn't feel like it at times, there is so much goodness and I barely did any research on this little story I'm about to tell you. But there is a young boy, I believe 13 in the UK who started a food pantry last year.
00:01:54
Speaker
And this year he is doing a toy drive for the children in his town. And I just think that's so fucking beautiful. And I am so proud to know that there, there is a young child like that. I, I, it sounds so cliche to say children are our future. Um, but they fucking are. Like we were those children at one time. We are now the future and our children are.
00:02:21
Speaker
future's future. Okay um so we gotta step it up and so shout out to random kid kind kindness kid in the UK um for your little toy drive and thank you for inspiring me to be more involved. That's something I've been realizing is I need to do a lot more. I know Dani's been doing some really cool stuff um through her job at Megan's organic market in St. Louis Obispo um
00:02:47
Speaker
I feel like I always say that wrong. St. Louis Obispo, Obispo, whatever. But anyways, her job at Megan's Market, they do a lot of really awesome community outreach and cleanups and all sorts of things. And so between that and the story that I just told you, I just am like, I need to figure out what it is. I need the community aspect. I feel like I've avoided that, honestly, ever since church, because that was such a community thing for me. And then that ended up being not
00:03:17
Speaker
Good. Um, so I feel like I've been afraid of like the idea of the community. Also since I've been an adult, my right. Got 10 years of being an adult since leaving high school. I have realized that like I, I, I fear sometimes setting down roots, uh, and like settling in a place. Like I've moved every single year of adulthood pretty much to like a new apartment. I think there was only, I don't think I ever renewed a lease actually.
00:03:44
Speaker
No, I think I've always moved in like so. Now that we're here and I'm making this my home and I'm just trying to help better a place like this small town in Northeast Ohio that needs just, this place just needs me, okay? I don't know if that sounds like fucking vain as hell, but I just know I'm needed here. So I'm really proud to be here and I want to help this community because while there are some challenging people that I've definitely seen,
00:04:14
Speaker
There's also some really great people. Hold on for the cough. Excuse me. So, all right, all of that aside, that was just me rambling and catching you up on my thoughts, my life, way whatever.
Healing, Self-Improvement, and Motherhood
00:04:32
Speaker
Two points to this episode besides obviously hearing my beautiful voice blessing your goddamn years. Point number one, I owe you all an apology.
00:04:43
Speaker
I owe awake and bake an apology. I owe myself an apology. I owe Danny an apology. I have had an epiphany lately that I have kind of allowed myself to lose myself. I have kind of lost me. Especially after the miscarriage in early 2022.
00:05:06
Speaker
I really, and I said this to Dani, I really kind of leached onto her and like her energy to keep going. And I think that's because of one, just like she's my best friend, but also like having Awake and Bake together. Like I just kind of made Awake and Bake like my purpose in a way, but not in the
00:05:24
Speaker
I made it my purpose in a way with expectations and these rules that I laid out in my own head that I just kept disappointing myself. I wasn't being authentic to what Awakened Bake truly was or authentic to myself. And I think that I did a disservice to Awakened Bake. Now, I think I'm proud of the work that we did this past year and a half, year, obviously. We've done some amazing stuff. I'm not talking about... I'm not trying to discredit any of that.
00:05:52
Speaker
I guess what I'm trying to share is just that I have had a realization that I have put pressure on myself that has kept me from truly doing what I set out to do when I became a partner in this with Danielle and we set out to help change the world. And so I'm sorry, like I'm sorry to myself really is a big piece of it. I just had this epiphany kind of like I was saying these past
00:06:18
Speaker
Few weeks have been so heavy and that has just driven me to, obviously it's not about me, I'm just sharing my experience.
00:06:28
Speaker
But these past months, really since the beginning of the genocide in Gaza, I have been just doing a lot of introspection and reflection on myself, on humanity as a whole. I've shared a lot of that with you guys. I've been focusing a lot on my inner peace and finding that, finding my rhythm, finding where my rhythm fits in the world and how I can help elevate what it is that I believe humanity can be.
00:06:58
Speaker
And I've really, I've just set out to be better, I guess, is that is something that while something terrible is happening in the world, I will not let it happen in vain, even to the point of like the minuscule-ness that is my life. Like this, I will be different because that is the least I can do.
00:07:17
Speaker
if that makes sense. And that's again, just how I'm feeling. It's just been very forward in my mind. So I've, I've taken a hard look at myself and the imprint that I'm making on the world. And if I'm actually doing what I'm, what I've set out to do and what I've
00:07:32
Speaker
wanted and said I've been doing and I realized that I've kind of been half-assing it. Again, I'm not disappointed in myself. I don't want to take away the value of this time, this period that I was healing but I just I was healing while I was trying to evolve I guess and you can't really do them both at the same time. Does that make sense? I know you can't respond to me right now but I think that's how I want to say it is that
00:08:02
Speaker
Healing is one thing and evolving is another. Evolution is another. And while they can come very close together, they're not the same thing. They are not the same act. It's kind of like manifesting and releasing. You know, you have to, when you're wanting something in your life, when you have a desire, you have to release. They are one in the same, but not.
00:08:30
Speaker
Guys, I guess I just, I'm going to have to assume that you know what I mean. So I've been forcing myself to try to evolve and have this grand evolution while also trying to heal from this intense pain and loss that I felt. And in doing that, I was half-assing both of those things, both my healing process and my evolution. And so once I kind of took a step back and I
00:08:56
Speaker
I think I, a little bit more than half asked the extracurriculars, extracurricular like to my body and myself, like awake and bake, like my family, like my relationship. I kind of set those on the back burner and put myself forward. And I think you can kind of notice that again, and that's the kind of cool thing about having
00:09:18
Speaker
a podcast like this is I can look back and see my actual journey. And so when I look at this part of my journey, I can see that like this past year has sort of been, obviously there was the resting phase with having a baby, but then since then more the evolution, I think that was a very healing process. My pregnancy allowed me to really connect with my womb again and heal that kind of feminine wound that had developed from having the miscarriage, having that experience.
00:09:45
Speaker
It changed me and I needed to allow myself to get to know that change. And then I had a massive change again when I became a mother. And that change, as opposed to the change of a loss and a grief, this change was a blessing and a miracle. And I mean, I brought life into this world and now I have this incredible baby that I get to spend every day with. Like, I love this. I have never felt
00:10:15
Speaker
so-called to something or so fucking good at something as I do being Phoebe's mom. I know I'm not going to be like the greatest mom in the world. I know I'm not going to do everything right. I know I'm going to mess her up in my own ways. I know like but I know I'm doing my best at the same time and that feels so good and now like having that feeling
00:10:37
Speaker
again in mothering Phoebe, I remembered what it felt like when we started Awake and Bake and when I was feeling good and we were doing this and I remembered, I guess, my actual purpose of doing this and that is the sharing, that is the educating
Inspiration and Self-Progression
00:10:57
Speaker
that is the talking, that is the feeling, that is the expressing myself and my experience authentically, hoping that someone out there hears it and is touched by it, and it helps them to understand themselves and just move a little bit closer to their alignment with their higher self. And I think if we get one person to do that, then we have set out to achieve that goal of changing the world that Dany and I wanted to do from the very beginning. And so I'm back. I'm like real back.
00:11:27
Speaker
I'm real back. I'm real fucking motivated. I'm rested. I am aligned. I feel so good. I feel so called to be here. I just feel so grateful to fucking be here with you and to be chosen to be the one that, one of the ones obviously, that gets to have
00:11:50
Speaker
this platform and this community that I share my life with. And I am so fucking grateful to have Danielle as a partner and a best friend through that experience. And I cannot stress enough how much I am just so grateful for her and proud of her for her evolution and her everything. While I've been talking about all this stuff that I've gone through in this past year and a half, she has gone through her own entirely separate, entirely different
00:12:21
Speaker
series of traumas like we have both been through so fucking much and I know that I would not be here feeling this new sense of motivation and happiness and gratitude if I didn't have her going through that with me and kind of you know getting through getting through the trenches together. Okay that brings me on to kind of the second
00:12:44
Speaker
piece of this episode. And Danny did an episode about this on our YouTube. Go check it out, Awake and Big podcast on YouTube. Subscribe. Join the over 600 people who subscribe and love us because we're incredible. I say us. It's basically all Danny. She's fucking amazing.
00:12:59
Speaker
She looks incredible and if you go back and watch like our first video to now the evolution of her fucking tits Danny if you're listening right now my god, I just went back and watched an old video and When we first met you talked about manifesting titties and it's happening like I I can't deny I like laughed a little and I was like, that's crazy. I can now see three years later bitch you grew booze with your mind and
00:13:26
Speaker
Amazing, astounding. Anyways, Danny did a video about this. We had a comment and we're not going to share who asked this, but they basically, it was someone asking us to talk about our self-progression and acceptance of ourselves, which I think is a very different journey than self-love. And I think part of the reason that I struggled so much with self-acceptance was that I thought they were one and the same. I thought my self-love journey, I thought loving myself was accepting myself.
00:13:57
Speaker
And I know that might sound a little contradictory or strange, but they aren't the same. It's kind of like body neutrality and body positivity. They both have different benefits. And I think some people benefit from having each different mindset. It is not a one is better than the other thing necessarily. For me, it's a little bit of balance of both. You can love yourself till the cows come home.
00:14:27
Speaker
so deeply, but there will still always be, and this is just part of our human experience, there will always be something that you don't enjoy. Like I can forever say that I will probably never look at my lower stomach and be like, oh damn, like, ooh, that is, ooh, yeah, I love that. But I can look at my hands and my ass and my face and my hair and like so many other parts of myself that I love.
00:14:57
Speaker
but my lower stomach, I accept. It is what it is, okay? And that's the difference. If that made sense, then you get it. If not, keep re-listening. No, I'm just kidding. But obviously self-love and self-acceptance isn't just a physical thing. It goes deeper than that. To give an example, again, of the difference of self-love and self-acceptance on a emotional level, I love,
00:15:27
Speaker
my creativity. I love doing this. I love the part of myself that connects with people and reads people and allows me to build relationships and nurture them and myself. I love that piece of myself. That is something that I self-love of myself. Something that I accept. I can be a sarcastic bitch. Like I can be a fucking cunt.
00:15:52
Speaker
I can, and I don't mean to, like I can roll my eyes and be sassy as fuck. I can be a bitch. I don't love it. I accept it. I allow it. It's kind of like me being flaky. I don't love it. I don't love that I will change plans on you. Believe me. But I accept it. I'm not going to force myself to change it. It is a part of who I am. I am a very, very fluid person.
00:16:16
Speaker
So my journey personally for self acceptance was not necessarily easy because I truly put too much stock into the self love portion of it at first. I don't think that this journey even began until
Journey to Self-Acceptance and Inner Power
00:16:34
Speaker
my early 20s early to mid 20s which feels so funny to say because I'm about to be 29 next month so I have early and mid 20s and then late 20s like crazy I fucking love aging I need to do another episode about that we need to talk more about how awesome it is to get older anyways so like the first I'm gonna say 22 years of my life I think it's fair to say that I hated myself
00:17:03
Speaker
not only because I said that to myself, but the acts and the way that I treated my physical body, my emotional body, my mental body, my spiritual body, all align with hating every one of those aspects of myself. From a very young age, I remember hating my physical body
00:17:31
Speaker
before ever having any good thought. I didn't realize I was pretty until two years ago. And again, that might sound like vapid out of context, but I truly didn't realize. I have a strikingly beautiful face. And I say that because it is something that I had never noticed that I am so proud of. Again, I wouldn't have found that love, I guess, if I hadn't accepted my face.
00:18:01
Speaker
the hardest journey was finding out what it means to accept that you are as you are. So I hated myself for years. I would self-harm. That started in high school. I remember being on the volleyball court, I believe it was junior year,
00:18:18
Speaker
And I just kept messing up my hits and my coach was, um, I had a really hard coach for varsity. He was really intense. Um, we were great. Like if you define it being okay to be an absolute fucking asshole to teenage girls as like, at least we, like at least we won. Then like, yeah, at least we won. It was fine because we won.
00:18:42
Speaker
Um, but he was being just a particular heart of me. He used to make comments about like my weight, everything. And I started punching my thigh and every time I'd miss, I just, as hard as I could sock myself in the thigh. And, uh, I know this might be triggering, um, but it felt great. So that continued on until I think the last time I self harmed was in San Diego, probably a little over a year ago.
00:19:11
Speaker
No, like a year and a half ago, I would say last August was probably the last time that I hit myself, but that was always my mode of self-harm was hitting because I think it's because I liked the bruises, I liked the... I don't know, we don't need to get into that.
00:19:32
Speaker
because I hated myself. I liked self-harming because I had no value in myself or who I was. Um, can't lie. A lot of that was because of the way I was spoken to. Um, not just by my parents, but by my peers. Uh, I grew up in a small town and we really had like this mentality of one, caring isn't cool. Like it's not cool to care about anything, but two, like,
00:19:58
Speaker
Being mean was cool, was fun, or at least I thought, and I truly feel like my friends had the same understanding. Like we all, we were not nice to each other. We didn't push each other to do things. You know, we would always kind of take each other down. And I think that's something that happens, especially in small towns, because it's easy, it's easy to get stuck in stereotypes or in, you know, a reputation. You know, in my school,
00:20:25
Speaker
I was a little bit weird when I moved there in first grade and then like that was done. Like that, that was who I was. And so it was very hard for me. And again, even if that isn't necessarily how it was, that's how I perceived it. And so that really, I remember probably it was first grade sitting in a line of kids in school and it was boys and girls. And we were sitting at gym, like on the bench and my thighs were the widest. Someone pointed out like, Oh, let's look at our thighs. And mine were the biggest of all the boys and all the girls.
00:20:55
Speaker
So from that moment on, that is the first memory I have of my body and a judgment that I placed on my body. And that was it. Then that was done. My self-hatred for my physical body started there and just grew. Mentally, I think it really, I struggled a lot with school. I now know I had ADHD, but it was always put on me that it was laziness. I'm lazy, I'm lazy, I'm not doing it, I'm bad.
00:21:23
Speaker
which was hard because it allowed me to at least understand that I'm not dumb, so in a way it was good. However, then I just felt like I would bounce between like, all right, well fine, I'm just gonna fucking lean into this lazy thing then, I'm already lazy. And then also like this deep like, why the fuck aren't you better? Like where I would just self attack and then sabotage myself, where I would attack and sabotage, attack and sabotage.
00:21:49
Speaker
And this carried on throughout my entire school career. It really wasn't something I was able to solve until I removed that aspect of my life. The idea of school. School is something that really doesn't work for me. School, the way that the American system has it set up, does not work for me. And New York State, especially with like all the standard I testing, it just wasn't, yeah, it was very hard for me. So for pretty much my entire formative years, I had this pattern of self-hatred,
00:22:19
Speaker
for all aspects of my being as well as a physical punishment. And then as I got older, I added in this element of sexual punishment where for a long time my sexual life was very aggressive. I was putting myself in very questionable situations. I was very intoxicated and I would
00:22:44
Speaker
allow myself to be with men that I didn't know, unprotected probably. I have like I don't even know who all of the people that I have allowed to share my body and my intimacy with and that's okay. I'm not shaming myself. That is absolutely fine and I had my own sexual revolution throughout my self-acceptance phase but at this time in my late teens and early 20s I was using sex as another self-sabotage tool
00:23:12
Speaker
as well as a way to trick myself into self-love or self-acceptance. If a man wants me physically, then I must be beautiful. Baby, our value does not come from men. It comes from ourself. So when I started my spiritual journey in my, I'll say 24, I think that would probably be the best year to place an actual specific number, which is something that I've, again, kind of, I've also been kind of trying to figure out is like,
00:23:42
Speaker
quote unquote, how long my spiritual journey has been. I joined Discord, which I don't know if any of you use it, if you do find me, because I wanted to, I want to talk to more people. Like I want to experience more conversations. And I've heard that that's a great way to do it. So I joined it. And one of the questions in this group that I joined was, what's your experience with like spirituality?
00:24:03
Speaker
And so I was like, I always like my first thought is again, like belittling like, Oh, I'm just this, I'm just this beginner. Like, I just, I just, I like tarot. Um, and then I was like, no, wait, hold on, hold on. Let's think. And yeah, I've been, I've had a very committed, dedicated spiritual practice since I was 24. So that is five years of dedicating myself to education, to,
00:24:32
Speaker
self-bettering, to physical bettering, to mental bettering, to spiritual bettering. For me, my spiritual journey and my self-acceptance, self-love journey journeys are all very intertwined. I could not find self-acceptance until I found Source because Source is what taught me that I'm powerful.
00:24:57
Speaker
and source is what taught me that I have all the answers that I need and source is what taught me that I am the way I am and that is okay. Source is what taught me my knowledge and acceptance that source is within me, that God is within me, that I personally have that connection is what I think was the quickest severing of
00:25:28
Speaker
self-hatred and self-acceptance. That's what moved me truly into a state, a mindset, a lifestyle of self-acceptance. Now, again, this was before I had self-love, I think. I was starting to kind of understand this. And I would say this was probably two years into that spiritual journey was when I was able to have this evolution, this true understanding, because I had said it since the beginning, you know, I am source, I am whatever, I am the universe.
00:25:59
Speaker
but two years in around 20, when I was like 26, 27, again, probably right around the miscarriage, maybe a little before even, but just that, that period of time, that fall winter of 2021, it showed me, I think it was because it was a year after COVID, I had left nursing,
00:26:27
Speaker
I had done all these things or been forced to do these things that showed me that I could stand on my own and that when I stand on my own, I actually am.
00:26:38
Speaker
beautiful and powerful and on my own I was able to pass nursing school and for me it was a really big deal that on my own I was able to buy a car. On my own I was able to pay my rent. On my own I was able to stay responsible enough to make my doctor's appointments. I was responsible enough to start taking medication. I was responsible enough to stop drinking excessively and to realize that when I am drunk
00:27:06
Speaker
I am not necessarily a person who aligns with my values and who is someone that I accept. So why would I step into that person? And this, this just like intense phenomenon of
00:27:22
Speaker
the lifting of the weight of self-hatred and self-loathing being replaced with this the lightest self-acceptance like it compared to the weight of the self-loathing self-acceptance is just so light and freeing and god i hope you all can find it i hope everyone can find it because i think when you accept yourself
00:27:50
Speaker
That's when you're going to accept the world too. And that's when you're going to accept that shit is going to happen. It is what it is. It simply is. You have to accept. And again, accepting isn't liking it. It isn't loving it. I accept my lower stomach. You will never see me loving on it. I accept it. I accept that when I am tired and stressed out, I can be fucking bitchy.
00:28:19
Speaker
I accept that I might never text you back. Just text me again. I accept that. I accept all of these hard things about myself. And I also accept that I'm hilarious and that I have that beautiful movie star face that I always thought I did, but didn't think I did. That didn't, I didn't see when I looked in the mirror. Um, and I accept that I am quirky as hell and I accept that I have ADHD and so it takes me longer to complete tasks.
00:28:46
Speaker
And I accept that I have OCD. And so I get obsessive, obsessive thoughts about things that I cannot control. And I accept that sometimes I have to give myself a break to heal. And I just think it's been one of the most healing parts of this entire spiritual journey has been learning that I am because I am.
00:29:15
Speaker
the world is because it is and we are because we are and sometimes that's just all you need to know and you don't have to love it but it is and so maybe stop fighting it so much and try to find little things to love about it and then they do kind of evolve like right my lower stomach I don't love but I started posting pictures sometimes that show it off just because
00:29:46
Speaker
I need to see. I need to see and allow the world to see that that is all of me. That there are parts of me that I don't think are beautiful, but I accept them. And I am glad that they're here. And now I do. I love them. I have found love for even the ugliest parts of me.
00:30:09
Speaker
and the ugliest mistakes I've made and the ugliest days of my life because they have brought me here. They are the reason that I am.
00:30:19
Speaker
And so I hope that was a good enough detailed story of my journey to self-acceptance. I didn't write any of it down. I had just been rambling. Shocker! I love you guys. I hope you enjoyed this episode. I hope you take a little time today to just find acceptance in all that you are because I love you exactly that way.
00:30:42
Speaker
And I am so fucking glad that you're here with us and just know that we love you. And say hi. Bye.