Undoing Consumer Spirituality with Kat Kim
If you are anything like me, you grew up thoroughly steeped in the religious and spiritual lineage your parents subscribed to during this time of year.
You sang the hymns, read the stories, recited the verses and enacted the little play each year with cardboard cutout sheep and nose-picking wise men and usually a well-swaddled Baby Alive doll to stand for the Christ child.
Maybe, like me, at a certain point, you absconded with the cultural, religious and spiritual narrative you inherited. Rejected this anglo, narrow-minded Savior. And yearned for a way to connect with this season in your own rite. Enact rituals, stories and songs that spoke to your own heart, your own values and carried forth a wisdom tradition you could solidly support.
Cuz after all, in the absence of the sacred, what exactly are we left with? Santa Claus?
In an effort to replace the consumer narrative, I came upon the great work of Kat Kim. Kat is a spiritual teacher and coach who is here to serve the Spiritual Nonconformist, the misfit, & the misunderstood.
In other words, a changemaker.
For over ten years she’s applied what she knows about behavioral change and spiritual transformation to help her clients create radical, nonconformist change in their lives.
With an approach based on Hermetic Philosophy, New Thought teachings, and the wisdom passed down through the ages by Buddha, Jesus Christ, and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
(And Chomsky. Can't forget Chomsky.), she helps dreamers and doers who find themselves holding back or playing small reclaim an unshakeable faith - both in who they are and what they’re here to do.
I spoke to Kat, in particular, about her deep analysis around what she has come to call “Consumer Spirituality - The New Cultural Addiction”.
Over the course of our chat, Kat did a brilliant job of breaking down the different parts and components of this thread - and also, and perhaps, more importantly - helped to illuminate the ways in which we - as individuals, consumers and creators of ritual and culture and tradition in this world - can do our own work to disrupt this current trend.
How we can re-attach to the sacred - in a way that holds meaning and vitality to us.
How we can disrupt the scarcity and lack model that rampant consumerism thrives upon.
And how we can reclaim our birthright - as sentient, conscious and divinely creative beings - in an age that would have us believe we are only as bright or brilliant as the items we flash and carry.
One of the great gifts of this podcast is that it provides me the excuse to seek out conversations with strong, wise women. I spend an hour or so in their presence and feel my heart, mind and spirit elevated for days after, as a result.
And I press record.
And get to share the experience with you all, hopefully, as well.
May these words empower you to drop the stories that no longer serve.
To abandon the traditions that empty your wallet - and worse - bankrupt your heart.
May they empower you to step more deeply into your own work, analysis and culture re-construction. Pick up the thread. Set it to to motion. In the way that You - alone - are called to do.
Thanks for being here.
You can find out more about Kat at her website - katkim.com
Make sure to click on her blog to read the full, brilliant piece on consumer spiritaulity.
And be srue to leave a rating and review in iTunes if these words have stirred something in you.
Or drop me a line at mendpodcast@gmail.com and share your story.
We are living in a moment where almost everyting now has been broken open.
How will you tend to the mending - step in - and do the work that is needed at this time?
