Kirsten Johnson
About the Guest
Our guest today, Kirsten Johnson, is a Transformational Life Coach with a powerful story of how she overcame childhood trauma, addiction and fear to pursue an incredible career changing the lives of women across the globe, appearing as a TEDx speaker and becoming a published author. Her story of understanding of her potential, overcoming all obstacles and living a truly incredible life is beyond inspiring. This podcast is a must-listen if quite simply, you’d like to uncover how to live beyond fear, how to free yourself from numbing, dumbing and distracting, and be inspired to live your best life. It is with great pleasure that I welcome Kirsten Johnson on to the show today.
Podcast Summary
- At a very young age, Kirsten loved creating videos using her dad’s video camera. Creating content fascinated her. She’d make lots of videos, edit them, add music and put everything together. She’d also write her own stories, draw pictures and publish them. Kirsten already had the skill of entrepreneurship as a young girl. She experimented ways for her to earn some cash.
- Adversity came to Kirsten’s life when she experienced childhood sexual abuse. The result was for a period, a life full of pain and rage. She had nightmares of killing her perpetrator. She was terrified all the time. At 16, Kirsten found alcohol. She poured all of her emotions to alcohol to numb her feelings. Partying was also one of her escape. She loves the rhythm of the melody and the beat of the music while dancing around. For her, it felt like time stops and it transcends her mind from all her problems.
- In University, Kirsten studied Mathematics and a graduate degree in Statistics. Being analytical by nature, she also looks at her personal development through the lens of logic.
- September 2009, Kirsten looked in the mirror and was frightened by what she saw. She saw herself like an empty shell. She felt her spirit was about to leave her body. She knew she was dying at that time and it scared her the most. By 29th of September, she had decided to go to rehab.
- Kirsten finally reached sobriety. She stopped drinking and withdraw for benzos (medication for her anxiety) which were hard to get off. With all of her emotions umedicated, the ignored trauma and PTSD due to her childhood sexual abuse were all raging in her face. She was sober but was experiencing anxiety akin to an anxiety attack of two years. The pain served as a motivator to change and to simply feel comfortable in her skin again. Kirsten decided to do everything she was afraid of and realized along the way that it wasn’t actually that bad.
- Kirsten learned how to heal herself through acknowledging the sensations in her body. She started to break through the decade long fears. She wanted to be courageous, live in faith and honour her purpose. Her ultimate goal was to be free because she had been a prisoner of her thinking, emotions and internal world for so long.
- Kirsten considered pain as one of the biggest gifts of her life for it radically transformed her life. She realized that it’s her gift to the world as what she learned about the inner world, physical pain, anxiety, rage, shame, guilt and learning to transmute all of them to get the ultimate goal, freedom.
- Kirsten did a major heart healing and she realized that there’s was nothing wrong with her but that her heart was blocked. By allowing her feelings, she was able to release them from her body.
- After arriving in Bali, she looked at the palm trees and the luscious nature, and she felt an instant connection. She was connecting with love and it was beautiful. Immediately, after she felt relief from everything that was blocking her heart from its expression of love, she would cry while looking at the palm trees. She called this experience a heartgasm.
- Kirsten’s work the Heartgasm Revolution book, is in three parts. First, it talks about your barriers to love like how we are blocked from love. Second, excavating your heart. It’s a practice to heal the heart and body. Lastly, coming alive. This is the reason why she’s doing all this work – to live and be alive. There are many exercises to the book. It’s a practical guide to self-love.
- Finally, Kirsten shared her method called Double Check. In this process, what we do is we bring our full attention to our thinking when we’re triggered. Triggered in anger, sadness, frustration, guilt, or anything. When we’re in this emotional flare-up, instead of reaching for a cigarette, ice cream, chips, yelling, or whatever comes up in your mind, what one needs to do is close your eyes and bring your full attention into the sensations in your body and what you feel. Notice where it is, how big it is and what’s going on. Then, open your eyes, take a breath and check again. What we can see right away is that our consciousness affects matter including our feelings. With that, we’ll know how to compose ourselves and be mindful of our being. It’s all about the self-awareness and mindfulness that can bring us true peace within ourselves.
Podcast Conclusion
Knowing Kirsten, a little from Bali, I did know some of her stories. However, to hear her full story from the beginning has been such a privilege. Understanding her own unique talents and gifts from an early age and to see how she brought those gifts to the world in a meaningful way has been such a gift. Her method of overcoming fear is certainly one I’m going to be putting into action. Now you too can learn more about Kirsten on Facebook. You can follow her at Kirsten Johnson. You can uncover more about her programs and have access to free resources on the site, you can also purchase her book or you can go directly to Amazon for your copy of the Heartgasm Revolution. So, again, such a pleasure to have her on the show.
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