VBB 330 Walker Kimberly Brandt: Innocence As Strength!

Intro [00:00:01]:

Virgin Beauty Bitch Podcast: inspiring women to overcome social stereotypes and share unique life experiences without fear of being defiantly different. Your hosts, Christopher and Heather.

Let's talk, shall we?

Christopher [00:00:20]:

What does not kill you makes you stronger. That is a cold, hard, brutal truth. But what's the point of misery and suffering unless it transforms you into overcoming, or as lessons that can help others suffer less? That noble goal happens to be the trajectory of our guest actor, author, and coach, Walker Kimberly Brandt. Welcome, Walker, to Virgin Beauty Bitch.

Walker Brandt [00:00:53]:

Thank you. Thank you so much for the invitation. I'm excited to be here.

Christopher [00:00:58]:

We are excited to have you, believe me. Walker, your career as an actress is an achievement. It includes film roles in Dante's Peak with Pierce Brosnan and Linda Hamilton, City Slickers with Billy Crystal, and on TV, you've donned the Star Trek uniform in The Next Generation with Patrick Stewart. But you're also a model, a coach, and most recently, a number one international best-selling author. Congratulations. And we'll get into that more as we move on here. But life didn't bless you with a silver spoon in your mouth. Instead, from what I've read, life gave you a serving of misery and suffering that almost ended in suicide.

Walker Brandt [00:01:40]:

Absolutely. And you know, for the longest time in my life, you know, digress for a second. You know when you hear somebody like 22 years old and they're like, for my whole life, and you, and you can't help but smile because you're like, oh, my dear. Oh, you have a ways to go. I remember. And for me, for the longest time, up until my late 20s and early 30s, it was really hard, even though I was creating success, to not allow or move beyond that pain in a way that wasn't compartmentalizing it so that I could create success. And in being in sort of that strange space in between, which is not the most peaceful place inside, I was made aware this is not what I want in with the same intensity that I was made aware as a young child out in nature that where I was in the way that my family functioned was also not what I wanted and not going to be my story. Even though I didn't have the language, it wasn't going to be my story.

Walker Brandt [00:03:09]:

It was more of, this is not what I am going to be, and I am fighting against this, and these people are nuts, and they don't tell me the truth. You know what I mean? I remember so many times looking at my mom and saying, what's the matter? Why are you angry? Why are you so mad? And she would say, I'm not mad. And it was like, as a kid, you know, we are so rooted in, as you said earlier, frequency, energy. We are so connected to the source around us, the creation that we just kind of flew through into this beingness that we know when someone isn't flowing in their frequency, when they're flowing in chaos. And not the kind that makes magic like the universe, but the kind that, that butts up against that beautiful flow of the natural chaos of life that understands that it's part of the adventure of life. It's where all life comes from, this blast of what looks like chaos. But it's life. We have the sensitivity as a child, and for whatever reason, I felt it knew that what I was around was not the only thing because I felt at home in nature, which was a complete unknown, a complete, for all intents and purposes, chaos.

Walker Brandt [00:04:34]:

Because I couldn't define it, I couldn't tell you why a blade of grass grew or why that salamander that I was so mesmerized by would connect with me, why a rattlesnake wouldn't bite me, or why I could pick up a chipmunk that was injured. I couldn't explain that to you. It just was the way it was, and it made sense.

Walker Brandt [00:04:55]:

It was this natural harmony of energy. That creature, those creatures, everything around me knew I wasn't there to harm it, knew I was part of it. I knew it was part of me. And for some strange reason that maybe a psychologist might have the verbiage for it, but for me, it's just a disassociation with the frequency and the harmony that you're meant to be that happens in a dysfunctional family. That's what it seemed to me. My parents weren't these monsters. It's their behavior that was the monster.

Walker Brandt [00:05:37]:

It was the dissociation with the frequency that they were; that was their origin. That was the enemy in my house. And because they weren't willing to battle it like I was willing to, I couldn't be there. I knew I had to leave. I knew as a very little kid that the place that was going to feed me, that I was going to build strength around the frequency that I felt safe in, was out in nature, and wasn't with my family. So being in the unknown wasn't something that, most of all, like a lot of people, wasn't something that made me afraid. What I knew was much more terrifying.

Walker Brandt [00:06:23]:

That, for me, opened a huge door that I didn't know until my later years was a door that a lot of people didn't know they had in front of them to open. The unknown was something that we came into and were really comfortable with from the beginning of our existence. Not just this life, but I think in our energy, the frequency that we are, the energy that we are, is comfortable in that space. Because everything we become comes out of what we don't know. If we know everything, what are we doing? We're just repeating. Right?

Christopher [00:07:06]:

That's fascinating in that I think that what happens to children, all of us, is that we get conditioned out of that exact thing you're talking about, the unknown. We get conditioned out of that, of our curiosity, of our need to find things out that we aren't being told.

Walker Brandt [00:07:30]:

Exactly.

Christopher [00:07:31]:

That never got conditioned fully into you because you left before the programming was complete.

Walker Brandt [00:07:37]:

Exactly. Exactly. And you know a friend of mine, Michelle Colt, she's a beautiful soul, and people call her the nervous system whisperer. And what she calls that is "conn-ditioning." I love how she uses words like that because it's true, we are conned to believe that the very thing that we come into this life with isn't wise enough, doesn't know enough, doesn't have the intellect that we need. And in truth, you can build up so much of your academic knowledge, your intellect, and be one of the most unhappiest people on the planet because it doesn't feed your soul.

Walker Brandt [00:08:28]:

It feeds the mind. And the mind is only preoccupied, for the most part, with keeping you safe. And for some reason, it thinks that safety is about information or what we know, which is back here and literally gathering it and throwing up in front of us. And it makes us feel like, oh, we're safe. No, we're not. If we have no adventure, we end up feeling stuck, unfulfilled, and dispassionate about life. And that's about letting everything be from here up and not from starting from here and floating up and utilizing what we put inside this amazing computer of a brain, which I think is a beautiful thing, but not meant to lead us around like a floating head with our heart and our gut saying, you know, hey, hang on a second. You know, we're here.

Walker Brandt [00:09:17]:

Yeah, it's like that old native saying, the man is the head, and the woman is the neck. How far can the head go without the neck? You've got. I mean, you're literally going nowhere. You're walking in one direction, and you're eventually going to either go off a cliff or run into something and trip and fall. So you need to have this balance, right in that the masculine and the feminine, and that working together to create this beautiful harmony.

Walker Brandt [00:09:44]:

Because life is meant to be an adventure where we work together, right where we are not in denial of what we're experiencing, which is what I experienced in my family was everybody suppressing and in denial and, you know, thinking that having the answers or saying, no, it isn't is going to somehow over time, make it disappear. It doesn't work that way, as you both know.

Heather [00:10:11]:

That's what I love so much about your story, Walker, is that, you know, you didn't just survive a difficult childhood and personal trauma, but you faced it, and you looked it in the eye, and you said, you don't get to define me anymore. And made some very bold moves in order to get to a state where you wanted to understand an awakening, or what was really within. Could you walk our listeners through that transition point of your journey?

Walker Brandt [00:10:41]:

Well, there have been several transition points. You know, when I, I knew as this is a 3-year-old looking at my mom, this was a huge point where I recognized that my mom and I had a lot not in common, even though she was my mother. When I looked at her and I said what I said earlier, why are you so mad? And she said, I'm not. And I said, I know you mad, mommy. And she said, no, I'm not. And I said, I know in here, I know, I can feel you. And in my mind, what I was trying to communicate was before we started polluting the air with all of our words, we felt each other. And you're lying to me.

Walker Brandt [00:11:31]:

I know you're hurting. And my mom wasn't being honest with me, and she never really broke that wall between her and me. So that was a point of transition where I realized, I'm not going to get what I need from this person. She's not going to give me what I need. So I moved out, seeking it the only place I could, which was in nature. So that was transition point one. The pull away at a really young age from what would normally be the safety of my mother, because she wasn't safe in her own skin. She didn't feel safe.

Walker Brandt [00:12:08]:

She couldn't make me feel safe. She knew one way, which was to suppress. And it was either with alcohol or violence or sleep. And that was just not what I knew because we want to be safe. We want to be bonded, but it wasn't happening. And I had lost my grandmother that same year. She was, I think if you've read Awaken, you know, my grandmother was a victim of domestic violence. My grandfather beat her daily, and eventually she died as a result of a beating.

Walker Brandt [00:12:46]:

And there was never any consequence for that in our family. So the women carried the burden of that, and the women drank to suppress and, and it was, that was, that was what was handed down. It was also part of that generation being born in that masculine paradigm, or went, women just did what the men told them to do, and they were, you know, just in that second-class sort of citizen. Women didn't even get to vote. I mean, think about when we got to vote. We didn't get to open a bank account without her husband co-signing until the late 60s. Just really bizarre behavior, you know, and we don't know that as children. Why our mothers and our aunties are so, you know, burdened and why they're drinking and why they're, they look know, shell shocked.

Walker Brandt [00:13:33]:

Well, it was, it was the suppression that had been handed down. And there was something inside of me that said, I'm not going to do this. The next time was during my teen period, 13 years old, that was a pinnacle time, 11 to 13, and my body is changing. I'm becoming a woman. And this meant a lack of freedom in a way that I didn't connect with before. I recognized some of what my family went through by the way my mom treated that huge transition. For women, when we start our cycle, it's a coming of age. And in my family, it was a burden. It was a time to be afraid because you were a woman.

Walker Brandt [00:14:12]:

It was a time when you started to develop, and people would be looking at you incorrectly, touching you incorrectly, and there was a potential that you were going to suffer what they had suffered. And so it was a time when the women got really closed and angry and unfortunately didn't take it. They just never transitioned that to protection. It was rejection instead because of not healing that pain. And I think that's what we tend to do if we don't heal and or at least open the door to healing and understand that we need protection first. We need our protection from what we went through, meaning we need our loving parent within ourselves that we didn't get to care for us first, then we can care for those around us. We send that frequency out, we send that energy out that makes other women recognize, oh my gosh, this person has tapped into something I'm still afraid to tap into. It can be done.

Walker Brandt [00:15:17]:

You can do this. I knew at that age.

Heather [00:15:21]:

I'm just so interested to know that if you could parent yourself in that coming of age moment. What would you have loved during that time? What would have been a place for you to meet womanhood if you were parenting yourself?

Walker Brandt [00:15:35]:

Well, you know, it's interesting you asked that because I went through every year of my life in an exercise in 20, 20, 2021, end of 2020 and 2021. I spent a lot of time by myself, and I had done this in my younger years as well, but not to this degree because I wasn't ready to really go here. And I went from within the womb, and I, I was the mother to that child, birthing that child and holding that child, because my mother didn't, she didn't hold me when I was born. I was born early, and I was a breech, and she didn't want to have a child. So I went through the process of looking at that child. And when I got to 13 years old and saw myself in this exercise, you see yourself standing opposite, you remember yourself in that place, and look at yourself and say, what is it that you're so hurt about? What is it that you need from me? And let that part of you speak, and you move your body to that side so you're standing like this. What do you need from me? What can I give you? Tell me what to do.

Walker Brandt [00:16:51]:

And then you come back over and you stand at that age and you speak from that voice. So when you physically embody that and do that work, you will be surprised to find out what that part of you needed. I didn't know. And it's, I mean, I didn't know at that moment how important it was for that 11-year-old little girl who started her cycle and needed me to tell her what it meant. I needed to talk to her and share with her what it meant. That it wasn't that she was now not free, but it was now she had a responsibility. She had something that was beautiful, that was hers. She had something that connected her to all women in the world.

Walker Brandt [00:17:44]:

That she was never alone again in the way that she thought she was. In that moment, she felt alone. I felt alone. In that moment I felt so alone. My mom, so this is funny, my mom, if she hears this, she'll laugh because she remembered I told her I started my period. My mom took a little thing, a box of Tampons. This is straight, guys. That's what we, some of us use.

Walker Brandt [00:18:08]:

She opened the door, she threw it into the bathroom, and she said, read the directions. And that was how, that was my experience of starting my cycle. So it was not about any kind of conversation about creation, about how to honor this, you know, this part of our evolution as a woman and how powerful it is. And I'm certain that my desire for that was in the words of that little girl, that 13-year-old, I know that it was her that drew me to a relationship in my early 20s with a traditional Native American man. I have beautiful bonus Native American children because the Native American women, this is how they treat their girls, this is how they treat the feminine. When you begin your cycle, you are surrounded by women. You are brought into that space of creation.

Walker Brandt [00:19:09]:

You are brought into the knowing of what you're now connected to. And there's a responsibility there, there's an honoring of that flow that comes through you, that letting of each month that you let go of goes back into the earth, that it's a reciprocation, and it's a gift that you're given. And when you become with child, it's something that the earth that connects you to the earth, this, this organism of the earth in a way that is so much richer. And, we've lost touch with that. All, all people, all of us were indigenous at one point, and all of us knew how connected we were at one point in our existence, and through modernization, we disconnected. And something in me knew I needed to reconnect with that. And so in my early 20s, when I met this man and met Medicine Woman speaks a Native American woman, and started to really study and dive into what I didn't know that I was already connected to as a child. Because where we lived in Santa Barbara was on Chumash native lands in Painted Cave.

Walker Brandt [00:20:14]:

So I would spend my days out in these ancient camps where the Chumash lived, you know, hundreds of years prior. And not even hundreds of years, you know, hundreds of years for hundreds of years, but they used to, a hundred years ago, live at this beautiful place called Flat Rock that I went and hiked to as a little tiny girl. And I pretended that I was an Indian, that I was a Chumash, that I was a Native American. I slept in a cave that's now barred up and I felt connected. So there's that frequency that lives within that truth that we all are a part of. And those moments where I connected to it were the transition moments. So it's allowing ourselves to connect, that is, I think, the deepest gift, the most valuable gift we can give ourselves.

Walker Brandt [00:21:07]:

To transform, to move through pain and suffering, into and out of surviving to thriving, is allowing yourself the opportunity of opening to something different than you know, no matter how terrifying it might seem, because first, there's nothing. And that nothing feels like you want to grasp onto something. But that nothing is everything. It's where everything comes from. It's getting past that moment of intellectual fear, which is, you know, it is a mind thing. I don't think, you know, children don't get mad, don't become afraid of falling down, and to the point where they don't get back up and want to walk. That's an intellectual thing, right? That's something we do as an adult.

Walker Brandt [00:22:01]:

We fail, and we think, all right, well, that was my only chance. I failed. I can't do that again. Where did that come from? It's not any. It's not even a remote thought as a child, right? It's not even something we consider.

Christopher [00:22:16]:

But what do we learn in school? We learn that failure means absolute failure. If you fail at something, it means you are a failure. That's where that fear grows. And you don't want to be that failure. So you avoid things that you can fail at, you might fail at, and don't do them at all.

Walker Brandt [00:22:40]:

Unless you shift it inside your mind and say, this isn't a failure. That's the conditioning that my friend Michelle talks about. Because, I mean, school. School was so challenging for me. It was so challenging for me because I didn't understand how everybody could be taught in the same way. We were so different. How could we all have a generalized education? Why would we not be looked at for our uniqueness? So in order to parent ourselves in a way that gives ourselves the true voice that we came into this world to express that other people need so that we can all evolve together and change this, you know, this experience in a way that's positive and life-affirming, not discouraging, but empowering, is we first have to recognize that we have a voice that's unique to us.

Walker Brandt [00:23:34]:

That is generalizing, that and trying to make it fit into something that doesn't fit is much like trying to squeeze a size 9 and a size 7 shoe. It's just a lot easier to take the pain in our head than it is to take the pain physically. But it's no different. The harm is the same. You cripple yourself. If you do that with your feet, you cripple. You end up crippling your mind.

Walker Brandt [00:24:01]:

But the great thing is it's temporary. It's temporary when it's in the mind. It's something you can shift if you realize, come to the point of opening the door, and just allow for the possibility. Okay, I have been conditioned. I have been told a story, sold a story, and enrolled in a story. That is something I don't relate to. And that is the contention I feel.

Walker Brandt [00:24:33]:

It may not be that teacher, it may not be my father, it may not be my mother. It may not be my boss, but it's the contention. I'm contending with something. I'm selling myself inside. Oh, wow, wait a minute. If it's an inside-out thing, how do I go there? All right, that means I'm responsible. That means I have some power in this game. That means I can do something about it.

Walker Brandt [00:25:01]:

I don't have to look out here and try, and get their attention. I don't have to wait for them to get it together. I can do it from the inside out, and I can watch everything around me start shifting as a result of that. And that's exactly my life is that I woke up to that, and it was little tiny steps, Little tiny steps and big moments of big transformative, transformative moments. Heather, like to your question. Then again, that was like 11 to 13. And by 14, I was not living in my house anymore. I was at a school. And by 15 and a half, I was gone. I was already setting that.

Walker Brandt [00:25:36]:

I knew my parents were not going to walk this path I was walking. It wasn't my job to make them just like, it's not our job right now that all of us. I'm sure you have family members that are looking at you and are like, I don't know what you're doing on that podcast, but they have. Our job is not to convince them what we're doing.

Walker Brandt [00:26:07]:

Our job is to speak life into the world that we are. And if they're meant to hear that frequency, they will love them for who they are, where they are. And, oh, my gosh, did it take me a long time to learn that. And I have to say, one of my greatest teachers, Lisa Nichols, when it comes to that, I mean, I adore that woman. And this. Her, gosh, this thing about her that is one of the most powerful gifts she has to witness is how she brings her family with her, wherever they are. If they want to be with her, she is not trying to change anyone. She's not trying to teach anyone she knows.

Walker Brandt [00:26:49]:

She's there for other people to hear her voice, to speak her truth. And she has to be authentic to that. She has to serve that up. And if her family wants to come along, they'll come along. But wherever they are is where they're meant to be, and love them where they are. And that opens the door that we're not meant to open for them. The door that they have to take the knob and open it. It can't be because we're saying, come on, come on.

Walker Brandt [00:27:17]:

You know, and I did that for the longest time. I just did that for the longest time in my game. I think you gotta, because they were suffering. Not my job, not my job. My job is this person right here. Because the ripple that I put in the water is the ripple I'm meant to start. And it will reach out and it will touch the people that it's meant to touch.

Walker Brandt [00:27:42]:

And if I'm trying to control, I'm diluting my frequency, diluting my energy, diluting my impact. If I'm trying to make sure people come with me that I think need me now, the people that need me will come to me. They need me because they, as you said so beautifully, Christopher, frequently, we just know each other. When we meet each other, we just know each other. It's beyond our names, beyond our form. We know each other.

Heather [00:28:10]:

I think that's a beautiful segue into a question we love to ask our guests and we're so interested to hear your thoughts on What Does Feminine Mean to You?

Walker Brandt [00:28:22]:

Feminine means responsibility. It is. Feminine is the tree from which all life and all fruit come. It's where it grows. It's where it finds the nutrients to become the fruit that it's meant to be, with all of its beautiful, unique traits. So if we're going to be that tree, we need to be conscious of what that self-loving, accountable to our power as a feminine energy, responsible for that energy, a divine creator of life in harmony and in partnership with masculinity. If we don't recognize that, our children won't recognize that. So feminine to me is connecting to the root of creation, the responsibility of the tree of life and knowing that we are here to create the environment, to nurture the environment that brings in another generation that has the consciousness to nurture their environment. It's the very beginning of creating happiness, creating joy, abundance, and peace.

Walker Brandt [00:29:49]:

It's something that allows for healing to occur. It allows for the birth of healing. I don't think we're here to not suffer ever. Life has suffering. The very nature of our birth is suffering. So there's something beautiful in that. But there has to be a balance of suffering, nurturing, and healing. And I think the feminine is uniquely empowered to do that because of what we are given, with the ability to give birth.

Walker Brandt [00:30:24]:

I think we have the power to change when we're in balance, to change the world, to change humanity through the life that comes through us. And we can't do it alone. We need each other to do it. And we need the masculine partnership that is, it's just there's an imbalance happening, and we need that partnership. So feminine, if I were to put it in one word, is transformation. It is a transformation. And we can't grow, we can't go through our seasons naturally without transformation.

Walker Brandt [00:31:03]:

Everything goes through transformation each season. It's part of the cycle of life. So if we don't allow ourselves as a feminine to recognize our transformation, to go inside and be with ourselves in those times in the seasons when we need to go in and heal and do those exercises like I spoke to earlier that I did with those ages of myself. To go in there and see where we might be stuck. I think that is what the feminine brings to the world, is we give that space. And I love the visual of a beautiful teepee and women sitting in the room together, holding each other's space, supporting each other. And I love the idea of welcoming a masculine, the masculine energy, into that inside the circle and every. And both the masculine, the feminine, respecting each other and coming together and supporting each other so that we can really heal, really heal the. And be accountable to the power that we are. I think that's why we have, you know, child trafficking and these terrible crimes against humanity is because of this, this void between that collaboration and support and consciousness of what the masculine and the feminine have to give to one another and be as they are, first in that power and then come to the understanding that we aren't.

Walker Brandt [00:32:44]:

One is not more powerful than the other. We have different strengths and gifts, and if we're working together, then we can change this world together. There's been this power play. It's not about that kind of power. It's about using what you're born with. It's about giving that grace. And, you know, and we're in a real time of confusion about, you know, who we are, what we are. I truly believe that when we come into this world, whatever sex we are physiologically, if we connect to what our strengths are there, we're going to find peace there and we're going to be able to empower the world from that place instead of trying to pull ourselves from it.

Walker Brandt [00:33:34]:

We need men who connect to the feminine so deeply that they want to support women who have been pulled away from their feminine. We need women who have connected, who have pulled far away from and feeling so afraid of being vulnerable, and have surrounded themselves with the masculine side of them to show women how to let that go and connect into harmony. We need to take that time, those moments when we feel so like, I can't be this, I can't be this, so we can work together where we are and find out where we are and be in that truth. And I just right now, I feel like it's, it's a time for the feminine to step forward and own what we are and be in that place of clarity of what we are and for men also to be the same, so that we can show anyone that's in a position of being in conflict there is a path to finding peace where you are without harming yourself, without harming anyone else, without blaming anyone else, without denying. And I know I'm saying this around, you know, I'm kind of skirting around the identity crisis that we've seen in our world, where it's not peaceful for a lot of people. If you feel different than where you are, there has to be peace with it, there has to be joy with it. So find that, find that without hurting someone else, yourself.

Walker Brandt [00:35:05]:

And I think that's what feminine teaches is that you have to be conscious about what it all is before you, maybe before we decide that it's something we don't want.

Christopher [00:35:21]:

As I mentioned, that word, the concept of that word, the philosophy behind that word, all those things that are involved with that one word, is what brought Heather and me together in the first place. And exploring a lot of what you've just shared with us and transitioning, as you've used that word, from where we are now in this very, very male-centric world into one that is definitely more balanced in both these aspects of who we each are. We definitely hear you loud and clear on that. Does your book get into that process at all, and tell us a little bit about your work, your writing?

Walker Brandt [00:36:04]:

My book doesn't go into identity, any kind of, you know, I've always been, you know, identified as a woman. I don't go into any conflict there, but I definitely was a tomboy in my era. When you were a girl that was strong, just, you were strong, you were considered a tomboy. But I never felt like I was not a, you know, a girl, a woman, and didn't feel those vulnerabilities. So, I don't go into it in the language that we have all come to know in recent years. And you know, and I, gosh, I don't know how I would have moved through the world had I been at a point of rejecting the nature of my whole physical being while I was in that trauma. Because I feel such compassion for people who have lived through trauma and now are feeling, attaching the trauma to the very being that they are biologically, and finding that conflict. I am writing another book, but it's not ready, it's not finished, but I am writing a book, and that will be in it because this, this will be a chapter.

Walker Brandt [00:37:33]:

It really would have taken me out of being able to be at peace with who I was and am, and how I came into this world, and not create a huge attachment to something outside of myself that I wasn't. That would have been a huge distraction for me as somebody who wanted to heal and move beyond what was already creating contraction. My family was in contraction. If I went into self-rejection in any way, whether it be physically, whether it be behaviorally, I would have been in further contraction, not in expansion. And accepting who I was is part of what made or gave me the path to heal. It's that I didn't accept all of the words my parents called me, the names they called me, the ways they labeled me, you know, hyperactivity disorder, you talk too much, you think too much, all the things that I did, too much. You're not smart enough, you're not. All these things, these labels, I didn't allow myself to accept those things or attach to them, really root into them. And now there's so much focus on rooting into something that's from the outside in and not the inside out. And I really would love to see that change.

Walker Brandt [00:38:57]:

Because if we are feeling that we're not connected to ourselves, the very nature of our being what we are, and we can't find peace and appreciation for what we have been born as before we choose to reject it and attach to something that it Isn't, then there is a void. There's, it's like if you look at a path, there's one side of a rushing river and the other side, how are you going to build that bridge when there's, there's no, there's not a love and acceptance for what you are first and a diving in deep to what that is. Because you might fall in love with yourself, you might fall in love with the gift that you are. And when you fall in love with the gift that you are, then you can give that love to someone else. But if you don't have that love for yourself, you don't have that appreciation. How are you going to give that to somebody else? How are you going to go out in the world and not feel?

Heather [00:40:00]:

I do feel like there are so many people in this world who feel that they weren't born into the body, that they know that they are on the inside, so their physical body doesn't match how they feel and know their essence is on the inside. And I agree that trauma, if attached to your body, would make it so hard to be able to heal when you're healing on multiple levels. But you know, I do feel that in the people I know who are trans and knowing their story, that it isn't always that there's trauma. Like, sometimes it's that they're trans and there actually isn't trauma. They feel that they know who they are, and they are not the body they were born into, and I've seen so many people try to not honor that. And they are filled with despair, and to see them step into the biology or the gender expression that they are, that is what releases joy, and love, and connection with others because they are authentically themselves. So I think it's a challenging conversation because there are multiple ways that a person becomes aware of how they feel on the inside.

Heather [00:41:26]:

And I think that that's, you know, what is so beautiful about your book is that it calls home to yourself. And people find that in so many different ways.

Walker Brandt [00:41:37]:

Absolutely. I agree with you 100%. So my closest friends do not identify with the physical being that they were born into. Throughout my life, I've had some of my closest friends, so I understand that conflict. One of the things that one of my dear friends who's no longer here, Dee, said to me, he said, I wouldn't wish this on anyone. And the reason I wouldn't wish it on anyone is because to wake up in the morning and not feel connected to the way you look. But to feel something different on the inside is a conflict that I would not want anyone to go through. And I, and we used to talk about this deeply.

Walker Brandt [00:42:21]:

And I said, so if you're not feeling that, how do you connect yourself? How did he connect himself? Well, first, he was a baby boomer generation, so he didn't have the compassion that our generation has. He did not come through this conversation as open as it is. And so his statement, that statement was heart-wrenching for me to hear because he felt like it was torture. But he also didn't have the information that so many people like you are speaking to there. The trans community has a message that is, we are who we are. See us for how we express ourselves, and let us show you who we feel we are. That, I think, is an honest expression of how you, we, are. That's an energy that's part of what we are.

Walker Brandt [00:43:26]:

And at the same time, if you're a man, physically, biologically, there has to be, and you feel like a woman, and you want to express yourself as a woman, there has to be an honoring of those two. Like in nature, you don't find the animals that can change their sex, and there are several in disharmony with themselves. They change it as a result of needing to, so that they can bring life. So, for me, I find that when there's, when that is a beautiful expression. It's when you meet and see a person who understands I'm a man physically, but I feel everything that is a woman inside myself. And I am in harmony with both. I don't deny one above the other.

Walker Brandt [00:44:19]:

This is how I feel in my life, in my emotions, but in my physical. I am a man, and I honor everything that is that male gift that I am. It's when there is a complete denial of one or the other, and then a harm that creates suffering. And that's what surviving, that's where I feel that in the feminine we can teach how not to deny what we are. And I'm not saying that people are. I'm not saying that if you're trans, you're denying what you are. Please don't mishear me. That's not what I'm saying.

Walker Brandt [00:44:52]:

And I'm not saying that if you're a homosexual that you're denying with the other. This is a tender conversation, but it's a conversation that needs to not be so tender because it's real and it's part of our expression, and it has been a part of the animal kingdom for eons. It is not something that is so wrong that we shouldn't be able to say, okay, this is part of life. This is how some people are born. But can we be in harmony with it? Can we really be in joy and tenderness about it? And when we see somebody come into our community that may not feel like when somebody loses connection with the piece and needs to be in conflict as a feminine, as the feminine, which I think is part of our gift is, we are intended to nurture, we are intended to open that space. That conversation has to come from people who connect to feminine, not only feminine, obviously masculine as well.

Walker Brandt [00:45:58]:

But there has been a conditioning in the masculine paradigm that it has to be a specific way, you know, that you're a man, Christopher, you know, you know, wouldn't you agree that there is a rejection of what isn't male in more in the masculine than in the feminine?

Christopher [00:46:15]:

I think our problem is that we have been, as you say, conditioned to think only in binary terms. That we can only accept one of the opposites. That we do not give room, space, or any kind of latitude to what's in the middle of these two poles. And I think that's where we, that's where an individual feels they have to make a choice, so they have to deny one in order to accept one. They can't be gray. They have to be black or white. You cannot be gray. And that is just the condition of the world we've created and the way that we have been conditioned to think and to believe that that is all that exists. I think it's a fundamental issue that we've made political.

Walker Brandt [00:47:09]:

Yeah, exactly. And please. The political hijacking of every human conversation has been one of the most destructive elements of our evolution, I think, because if the family and humanity outside of the political environment gave ourselves the space to have these conversations that are uncomfortable about all these topics, that since the pandemic, we've all been challenged to be able to bring them up, you know, and I don't ever know what's going to come up when I am on a podcast. I never know what is going to be part of the conversation unless I'm asked a question. And I don't. I don't cultivate my words in that way. I speak to what comes up in the moment.

Walker Brandt [00:48:03]:

And I have had such a life where my exposure to so many thoughts, mindsets, and experiences, and my desire to be compassionate and to understand, and to create space for people to actually be happy. That's what peace comes from. And why can't we find peace? And so in that, that's what, that's what my, what I, my goal in this conversation. To talk about something that so many people have been, or are afraid to talk about. Because I have my conditioning in this.

Walker Brandt [00:48:46]:

I grew up in the 60s and 70s. My family wasn't like, you know, they weren't talking about, you know, non-binary. They weren't talking about, you know, any kind of, there was nobody in my family who was outwardly gay, but there were people in my family who were gay, but they weren't outwardly gay because they didn't feel like they had a right to be gay. My closest friend from the time when I moved to Italy at 18 years old, he was like a brother to me. It was like I met my brother from another mother, who we passed through space and saw each other, and we met there. And he was this beautiful gay man. And I had never been ina  friendship that deeply with a gay man before. And it was like a, it was like an evolution to my understanding of what human beings are.

Walker Brandt [00:49:30]:

It was like, wow, he was so. Oh God, he died way too young. And he was just so full of life and joy and happiness and so much like me, you know, and he was just. We were just like. It was just like me. It was this live, innocent person who was in the world expressing. And I thought, how can this be suppressed? How can we not find space for this? And then I started studying in nature, and I started finding the animals that could literally change their sex.

Walker Brandt [00:50:09]:

Like I said earlier, I was like, why are we so surprised that there are, that we feel this in our nature? Yeah. I would like to not see people hurt themselves and go through regret when they're so young. I would like us to nurture our people who feel that maybe the unique, the unicorns in our society. Like something I learned in our, in our communities, like I learned in the Native American culture, when there was a person who was contrary, is what the natives called gay. A person who was gay they were contrary. They knew what others didn't.

Walker Brandt [00:50:51]:

And they often became medicine men, and medicine women, because they didn't force them to be in a relationship with anyone. They didn't want to be in a relationship. And they recognized that there was something connecting them to a part of nature that not everybody else understood. And that was something that was so beautiful to honor it in that way. And that brings us right back to the feminine. It was the women who made this discernment, it was the women who protected these individuals because they were their children, and they knew when something was different. So they nurtured and protected. And that's where I think the power of us in the feminine.

Walker Brandt [00:51:33]:

That's why I think we have to bring the feminine balance into this masculine paradigm so that we can create a space where if somebody feels like they don't fit into that binary, as you said, Christopher, that they know they're safe, and they don't have to choose one or the other. They can be. That understanding of how both can be in harmony, to me, that's like, oh, my gosh, please teach us how to be in harmony with both. Please teach us how to be in harmony with both. You feel bold. That, to me, is such magic, you know, help us, because we've gotten so far away from understanding what that harmony looks like. You're here feeling both. You're physically feeling one and internally feeling another.

Walker Brandt [00:52:29]:

How can we bring this harmony? How can we stop one from abusing the other? With the child trafficking and how that whole thing comes around women, the feminine is the most harmed in that world. In child trafficking, the feminine is the most harmed, the most tortured, the most damaged by masculine energy. Now, if you come in the world and you know how to love that feminine inside of you with the masculine that might be outside of you, or the inverse, what can you teach us? What can you teach us? That's what I want to know, because I think. I feel like it's a gift.

Christopher [00:53:04]:

Yeah, no, you definitely resonate the things that Heather and I feel the most is in that giving grace to the human being, not whatever gender or sex you happen to be, just giving grace to humanity and human beings.

Walker Brandt [00:53:26]:

Yeah, because at one point, we were both.

Heather [00:53:29]:

Yeah, I. I mean, that is, you know, we. We go back to something that's very, you know, ancient in its wisdom, but the yin and yang, that there is that masculine and feminine within each one of us. And I think this world, it pushes our understanding of what once was very rigid. And I love that, you know, you talk so eloquently about indigenous teachings because they had that deep knowing that really is within all of us still, if we look for it, that helps us to understand what the newer world is trying to teach us, which is that these people have always existed and will always exist, and that there's something special to what they call on us to understand so that we have a deeper understanding of that feminine and masculine in each of us. So I love conversations like this.

Heather [00:54:28]:

Because I appreciate how people wrestle with challenging changes that sometimes make a lot of different people uncomfortable for different reasons. But, you know, Christopher and I are big believers that open dialogue is the only way that we get to know ourselves better and get to know other people's viewpoints better. So I appreciate, you know, what you've shared and how you. How you understand, and how you choose to grow, and how you also choose to connect to ancient wisdom. Like you bridge those two senses of knowing in such a great way.

Walker Brandt [00:55:08]:

And, you know, and thank you for saying that. I mean, I wrestle with my conditioning. I wrestle with, you know, on a daily basis, I see men who are suppressing their vulnerability because they think it's essentially the feminine in them, because they think it's weak. And I see women putting a front of being strong, acting like they're strong when they're not, because they think that makes them, you know, stronger. And it's like this confusion, this thing that the vulnerability is a weakness when it is a powerful thing. And to be able to have the courage to step out and say, I am both.

Walker Brandt [00:55:52]:

And if you are both on 11, I'm both. Now I'm both. I'm just more feminine than masculine in my chromosomes. So I'm a woman. And intellectually and in my mind, and my attraction, I am. I'm She / Her. I am attracted to men, but that does not mean I am not both.

Walker Brandt [00:56:13]:

And somebody who comes out and feels really different than the way they look, and they are both, or they feel equal. There's so much we can learn from our differences in that way. And I wrestle with the discomfort of being trained not to have this conversation because we've been trained through religious dogma. We've been trained through, you know, societal traditions. We've been trained in so many ways not to move toward. In the same way, at the beginning of this conversation, when we talked about going into the unknown, we have been trained not to go into the places that make us uncomfortable, but in the places that make us uncomfortable lies our freedom. And that's just the way it is.  In it lies our evolution, lies our freedom, lies our healing. It is where it all begins.

Walker Brandt [00:56:55]:

It's where that fertile soil is waiting for us to dig our roots in and grow forward from there. When somebody brings something that's uncomfortable into our sphere, it isn't a moment to turn our backs. It's a moment to say, how do I talk about this? Like today, in this moment, I was telling Christopher, this is uncomfortable for me. I never know what I'm going to talk about in this moment. Talking about this is not the most comfortable, but I have to talk about something when it comes up like this because there are too many people not allowing for it just to be a conversation.

Walker Brandt [00:57:38]:

Even me at times. I don't always express myself as openly as I am right now because sometimes I'm with family, and I feel that pressure to conform. Sometimes I'm with friends and I know I'm with a group that may not feel, and I feel the pressure. I'm not always, you know, I don't live on courage 11, but it's part of me and I'm gonna go, I'm going to turn up the volume because it's been my path, and I think it's your path too.

Walker Brandt [00:58:10]:

And I think that's the frequency we connect to, that we're going to open the door to a conversation that somebody might hear this, and they may think that they may hear from their own listening, which is about your own pain and suffering. Looking at me, and I'm a heterosexual woman, and thinking that I'm judging you whether you hear me or not, know this. I don't judge you. I love you. You're just like me, and I'm just like you. There's not a whole lot different between us because it boils down to, we all need water, we all need air, we all need love, we all need food, and everybody poops. That's just the truth.

Heather [00:58:54]:

That's right.

Walker Brandt [00:58:56]:

And so when we, we're here on this bus together, and we might as well be able to go sit next to one another and find out who we are and deal with the discomfort of just not knowing. Just not knowing. I don't know what my next conversation like this is going to be about. Know if somebody's gonna reach out to me and say, you hurt my feelings, or do you really get me? I don't know. But whatever that may be, it will be. And by the grace I will be given the words to let that person know that we're not that far apart.

Christopher [00:59:25]:

You know what, Walker? This is in all this conversation, this is all the concept that comes to me is that humanity evolves. We are in a, we are at a point of evolution. So these conversations that we're having now are we're trying to hang on to, again, security, what we know. But we cannot help but evolve. And this is an evolutionary point for humanity. So that's what these conversations are about.

Christopher [00:59:58]:

We're acknowledging there is an evolution coming in, who we are as human beings, and a lot of us are resisting it, but it's inevitable.

Walker Brandt [01:00:11]:

Exactly. And we're being challenged and charged with something that has value, and it's important, and it's. Yeah. So we crossed that today together, and I just feel like, you know, I just want to grab your hands and thank you for, you know, for being open. Same. Ah, you just never know.

Heather [01:00:32]:

Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. No, it is. It's refreshing to go in there together. It is. It really is. And I thank you for that.

Walker Brandt [01:00:42]:

I thank you. I thank you for the passion that you spoke to Heather when you said what you said. I felt this. You know, I felt it coming from in here, and I felt you. I need to say this. I need to make sure. I need to make sure that the way that I believe what I believe in my expansion is not being pushed in. In any way.

Walker Brandt [01:01:01]:

I need to speak this out into the, into the air, into the energy, and I just made me feel so good. So, thank you. Because it was like, it was like, oh, we are pushing each other in a way. It's like when you lock arms. You remember, you lock arms. You're like, all right, I know this is really hard.

Walker Brandt [01:01:18]:

Where are we going? But I got you. We're gonna do this. Okay. You got that step? All right. I got this step and those. We're gonna go. Where do we. Yes.

Heather [01:01:25]:

We're gonna go together.

Walker Brandt [01:01:26]:

Yes. Because we are going together. Like it or not, we're going together.

Christopher [01:01:33]:

Lucky me. I'm in the middle.

Heather [01:01:34]:

Totally agree.

Walker Brandt [01:01:36]:

Yes, you are.

Heather [01:01:37]:

That's right.

Walker Brandt [01:01:41]:

Yes. Yes. Beautiful. I love that.

Christopher [01:01:47]:

It is such. It's one of those rare moments on the show where we really can reach through the screen and just hug you to death. Right. It just resonates so perfectly, so beautifully. And we cannot thank you enough for being who you are and being as open and as vulnerable as you are on this platform that you've never been on before. You don't know the two of us, but to be that open, we are so grateful. We are so thankful because that's what people need to hear, and we appreciate it so much.

Walker Brandt [01:02:25]:

I do, too. Thank you for the opportunity to grow. I've grown today. I've grown today because of the space that you both have created and because we trusted each other to be vulnerable together. We didn't go into protection. We went into. We just kept moving forward. And I'm just really grateful whenever I feel growth, and that somebody else opens up and supports me.

Walker Brandt [01:02:55]:

It's beautiful. So, thank you.

Christopher [01:02:57]:

It reminded me of one of the shows you've been on, Star Trek. Into the unknown.

Walker Brandt [01:03:02]:

Yes, yes, yes. Exactly. Exactly. How funny that. That was drawn to me.

Heather [01:03:08]:

We did it today.

Walker Brandt [01:03:10]:

Yeah. Into the unknown. Yeah. Warp speed and yeah, I think we've, I think we've created something, an opportunity for somebody else maybe to recognize they're not alone. You're there.

Walker Brandt [01:03:27]:

Heather and Christopher are both in this world with you. I am in this world with you. None of us knows exactly what our next step is, and what our next step is, is unknown. And that's part of the fun. That's part of what could be trepidation, but like Lisa says often to her team, she says, hold your fear in one hand and your courage in the other, and jump.

Walker Brandt [01:03:55]:

Because what it is that you have to share cannot be held back by what you think you're afraid of, because what you think that you're afraid of isn't what you think it is. It's something that's already gone, that has been thrown out in front of you. It is already gone. You're already past it by the time we know and are trying to define and say what it is. It's so far behind us. So we don't. We don't.

Walker Brandt [01:04:24]:

We don't know. And being okay with what we don't know. And for those, oh, gosh, for those that are tender in this conversation, gosh, I just want to say you're so not alone. You have people here in this world who are leaning into you and need to know that you are leaning into us, too. Because for me, I need to know that I'm trusted as much as I need to trust. That helps me grow.

Walker Brandt [01:04:58]:

So give me the opportunity to be trusted with your tender spots and your moments of feeling alone. Give me that moment. Think of me there with you, by yourself, because you're not. And think of Christopher there, and think of Heather there, and think of the people that come into the space. We're together in this, and we're all learning like children, innocently trying to discover what the best thing is for not just ourselves, but for all of us. That's where I'm at right now. That's where you bless me for my day going forward, and I'm grateful. Thank you.

Christopher [01:05:39]:

Her name is Walker Kimberly Brandt. And I want you to check out her book, Awaken: Discovering Yourself Through the Light of Your Innocence. Please look for that, because there's a lot to learn and gain from her words, as we've heard here today, so thank you so much.

And you have been listening to the Virgin, the Beauty, and the Bitch!

Walker Brandt [01:06:13]:

That was so good.

Christopher [01:06:15]:

Love it, love it, love it, love it. To become a partner in the VBB community, we invite you to find us @virginbeautybitch.com, like us on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn, and share us with people who are defiantly different like you.

Until next time, thanks for listening.