Creativity, Grief & Healing: Art, Unschooling & Spiritual Practice with Jocelyn Bates

Hello beautiful, I'm your host Nicole Gough. Welcome to the Extatic Life Podcast. The podcast for women who want to live fully embodied, nervous system regulated, open-hearted, radiant, and alive. Here we explore the practices, modalities, and lived rhythms that return you to yourself, to your heart, to your body, your intuition, and your divine spark. This podcast is for women who are ready to awaken their inner-creatrix, activate their inner-manifester, and remember, an ecstatic life isn't a destination. It's the path we're walking together. Hello and welcome to the Extatic Life Podcast. I am host Nicole Gough, and today I am here with Jocelyn Bates, who is a multidisciplinary soul artist, a Cachec wisdom keeper, and guide who works at the intersection of creativity, emotional alchemy, and spiritual practice. Through her work, including grief transmissions, soul art journeys, and immersive storytelling, she helps others navigate transformation with depth, honesty, and imagination. Jocelyn's work invites us to reclaim the sacred and everyday experience and to create from the raw material of our lives. And today we are here to learn about creativity, grief, a Cachec records, human design, soul art, and being a woman right now in this crazy, ever-changing world. Welcome, Jocelyn. That's it. I just changed my introduction, so it was so fun to listen to it. I know, isn't it, funny? I've been on the other side of the mic, and it's so funny to have you're like, bioretten that way. It's like, oh, that's me. That's me. [LAUGHTER] Yes, so welcome. I'm super excited to have this conversation. Thank you for coming on. You have so many different areas you work in, and I'm really excited to learn more from you. So I would love it if you could kind of just give us a little backstory, kind of just start at the beginning, what brought you to this work? You know, I don't-- I'm not quite sure what exactly brought me because I've been a very creative person in my whole life. Like, I started really young, just being creative in all facets. I was an artist. Like, I did-- even when I was a really young kid, I did art and dance and theater. And I just was always in it. When I was a teenager, I actually ended up-- I used to dance with Gabrielle Roth. I danced with her for about a decade and a half. When I was 12 or 13 all the way through, you know, I used to travel with her. And so I did that. And then I went into school for theater and dance, and I worked with Toilet Th art for a while. I did a lot of artistic things. And then I wanted to-- I didn't want to go to college necessarily because I was going to become a re-birther in San Francisco. My mom was like, don't re-birth. Don't do that. Get a master's. Get a master's. So a re-birther. Can you define that for me? I never went for it. But you know, it's people have very traumatic birth experiences. Even so I went-- I had a lot of my mom had Potosan. I was a breached baby. And it was a really-- like, it was a very intense labor. And when I was out in San Francisco, I was like, I think I need to be re-birthed. Like, because all of this stuff happens, and I had three kids with C-sections. So they didn't get the birth process. So re-birthing would be actually as an adult moving through your birth process to reclaim. And there's so many things you can do as a mother, too, with the muscles down there. The world of re-birthing is crazy. But my parents were like, don't please don't do that. Get a master's. So I actually came back. And I went to school for expressive arts therapy, because it kind of mixed with everything I had done. But I never wanted to be a therapist. I ended up being a therapist. And I worked with sexual trauma, teenage girls. I worked with domestic violence, with homeless population, with schizophrenia. I did it all. And I always just tated the structure of the therapeutic world and the way insurance works, and the way diagnosis works. And I always hated pharmaceuticals. I mean, we're a very-- we're a vaccine for very holistic household. We don't do any of that. And then I'm-- Oh, yeah, that's true. Yeah. People have trauma. And they're on 15 medications. And they can't sleep. And they're not able to access their emotions. It was really rough. So I did that for a long time. Then I had my kids. And I was like, you know what? I'm just going to-- on school, homeschool. And then I ended up doing co-ops and really getting involved with them and teaching on outschool. So I still teach on outschool. I just love kids. So I teach on outschool. And that was kind of how I got through until about 2021, when-- you know, 2020 was crazy just the whole-- Yeah. New Jersey, it was crazy. And then-- And then 2021, in the midst of all that, I was living with my-- well, my family lived with my parents. And they died seven days apart in 2021. And it was an awful situation. I was in shock. And because they were healthy, just came back from their 50 first anniversary. If you ask me-- and I don't know if you're OK with me saying this-- but the house-- [LAUGHS] It wasn't the vaccine, but it was the right one. Here, and all the other medications and not being able to advocate and being kept from them. There was so many things. And-- So sorry. Yeah, it was crazy. It was really crazy. And that threw me into shock for about five months. I don't even have memories from it. And then when I came out, I had PTSD really bad. But I slowly started to heal. And I healed through human design, through the Akashic records, through Yogan Nidra. I started working with Yogan Nidra in meditation and nervous system. And then eventually through solar, and solar brought me way back to my roots. Embodiment, movement, art, writing. I was even a spoken word poetant when I was in my 20s. I'm like 48 now. But so that's it. Solar, and all of that work in the Akashic records when you're looking at your lifetimes, different timelines, it all came together. And so now I feel very whole in just the way creativity can heal. And I think I've experienced it and explored it in many, many different ways. And I continue to learn from it. So that's a really long-winded answer. But I've had a long history of even as a therapist, I was an expressive arts therapist. And I worked in Trimotol, which is like moving from one medium to the other. And so I've just, I've had it. It's been a lifetime of it. Wow. No, that was a beautiful story. Thank you for sharing all that. I love to get the back stories. And I love to hear the why. You know, like what got you to these modalities? Because on ecstatic life, it's all about practices and modalities and lifestyles that make your life more ecstatic. And it's like most of us, I find, have had some sort of dark journey, some sort of pivotal moment like that that really got us to it, that really got us to all that soul searching. And so I love to hear those stories, because I feel like it is so inspirational. And it's funny, like as you're telling your story, there's so many little overlaps and similarities that we're popping up that it's just like, it's so exciting to make those connections, too. I have, I have dual training. And I was starting a, a dual business with my eldest daughter, but then she kind of backed out. So I do some birth coaching, but I, I unschooled my children. I originally was in school for a PhD in psychology. And then I had four kids in a row, and I took a break. And I didn't make it into being a psychologist, like I planned, but through that break, through that 10 year break, I realized that I didn't want to be a part of that system. And I didn't want to, like you said, dealing with insurance, dealing with the government oversights and the regulations and being kind of tied. I was like, you know what? I don't think this is for me. I think like coaching and, you know, (laughs) only having myself as a boss, especially I wanted to like work in academia. I wanted to like work in a university and do research. And now I'm like, oh my gosh, I dodged a bullet. Only different life. Yes, yeah, I totally died. And that was like, you know, that was pre-2020. And things got really crazy, like you said. And so like after watching how, you know, the system, and the academia system and the medical system and everything else just went so barbaric. A lot of ways. I was like, wow, I'm really, I'm really glad I didn't entrench myself in that. And I didn't get, you know, $200,000 in student loan debt. (laughs) (laughs) Yes, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. And I, you know, I'd love to hear about your journey a little bit with homeschooling and your kids. Because that is such, I run a big homeschool co-op. We're not for profit. We have like 30-something families now. And so that's always been, my eldest is 19. And I've been doing co-ops and unschooling for many, many years. And so that's like a huge part of my life and my like ecstatic journey too. So if you could just touch on that a little bit, I would love it. Well, yeah, I never thought I would homeschool. I didn't know anything about it. Like I was very solid. I'll never vaccinate my kids because I was never vaccinated. I grew up very spiritual. Me too. That's so, again, like how many people are out there that can say that? But I know. (laughs) I have met like less than I can count on two hands, people that have that same story. So sorry to interrupt you, but that's like awesome. I know. Awesome. And so I always had that like really solid. But homeschooling, I had no idea. And I was home with my kids, you know, because I stopped working as a therapist as I, and so my kids are now like 16, 14 and eight. And when it was time to put, so I didn't have to worry about preschool because I was home. It was time for my oldest daughter to go to kindergarten. I was like, I don't want to go. to leave. She's so joyful. I don't want her to leave. And I don't want to deal with vaccines. I didn't want to deal with all of that stuff. So I just stayed home. And it just happened. That's just, and when you start to go into the homeschooling world, and I started more homeschooling than unschooling, now we're more unschooling. There's such a community here in New Jersey, at least now, hopefully it stays that way. But right now it's a good community, and there's lots of places to connect and people to connect with. And I was very lucky to have met people very early on who were very involved in the unschooling and homeschooling communities who took us under their wing and who really gave us a wonderful trip through it. I ended up creating creative homeschools like a co-ops. When I was doing it, I wanted, when I felt like my kids didn't have enough, maybe time with other kids, I would start a co-op. I started one about it religious diversity where we went to, we went on field trips every week, every, well I did every other week I think. And we would go to like the Tibetan temples. We went to the, the, the, Jewish rabbinical college. We went to all the different places and we experienced a ceremony. We even had a pagan ceremony in the woods for a sowing. So we love that so much. And they could have any questions. And before I would go to a place to say, can we bring, and I would bring 30, 40 kids and their families. So we had a lot of people that I would say they have to be able to ask every question they want. Like if you're going to start saying they can't ask questions, we won't come. And so the kids were like, we went to a mosque, we went everywhere. It was really amazing. And they would open up and these kids would ask questions and they'd live in this world for like, I'd say half a day at least. So those are the kind of co-ops I did. And I did, I did a bunch of co-ops around creative day to do a movie making co-op. And it just, it helped the kids have friendships and things to do. And, you know, all of this beautiful homeschooling stuff. And then when when it happened, everything stopped. And, you know, it was, it was really hard. I mean, everybody, even the school stopped. So it wasn't like it was just the homeschooling world. And then when we had that, that happened with my parents, we took off for two years. Like we didn't do anything for two years. My kids were so rocked by it because they were like second parents, being home all the time, 24/7 with them. And so we just stopped for like two years, didn't do anything. And I mean, they, they did their own thing. But coming out of that, I found that they all had their own, like during that time of the 2020 area, and when my parents died, they all found their own nooks, like or niches, like that. They, and I'm like, well, I don't want to necessarily homeschool them. You know, I'm going to let them do their thing. And right now I have like a 16 year old who is an amazing artist. And she plays guitar and sings. And she's in all these bands. You know, the sun who is insanely smart when it comes to computers and games and gaming. And he plays bass. You know, and I have a little list. My little is just eight. And I have just, she's a, we were talking about human design earlier. Before we started, she's a manifestor. You can't tell her what to do anyways. So, you know, you just let them, you just let her find her moments when her energy is up. You let her rest when she's down. And she's just a firecracker. So we don't even really do much schooling other than offering them classes. Like I'll offer them classes in person or online or, you know, all of my kids go to school of rock and they love it. You know, and other than that, I check in on them, you know, and I'm like, what's, and I try to be part of it. Like we listen to music together. We read books together. We watch movies and it's just such a beautiful life because I know I run into people all the time that say, Oh, how do you do that? You're around your kids all the time. I'm like, I'm like, what? I like my favorite people. They should be like your favorite people, right? Right. And like all the people that I know that don't, they don't even really know their kids. Like sometimes I feel like they, you know, they're, they're just so involved in like needing to get ready for college because you have a, you have an older kid like all the kids in high school, all their parents are doing is taking into college and coming back and making sure they have all of this stuff ready. And I'm like, we're just enjoying life and I get to see all the facets of their personalities. So yeah, it's been, yeah. And fun. It's been. Yeah, we, so with our homeschool co-op, we have explored and you know what, I absolutely love that idea of actually going to like different churches and temples because we hadn't thought of that. That was like mind blowing to me. I love that idea. I'm stealing it. So we have though introduced, you know, I'm, I'm spiritual but not religious, but I've studied with all like, you know, all day I went out to Utah and knew some Mormons and studied with the Jehovah's Witnesses. And you know, I went to the Hari Krishna Temple for a lot of years and I've tried it all out and I see, I see the good and I see the wisdom in all of it. And so we've tried to, my partner and our co-op, they're Buddhist. And so we've tried to bring this into their lives, but like, I absolutely love that idea. And I'm a poet also. So I hosted Open Mikes for many years. And so I've done poetry writing courses with the kids. We've written two poetry books as classes. And this fall we're going to do an Open Mike. And we're going to open it up to like musicians and like bring adults in. So yeah, it's the, the, the joys of unschooling in that way. Like we don't have any kind of structured curriculum. We don't follow grades. People will be like, Oh, what grade are you in to one of my kids? And I'm like, Oh, what grade are you supposed to be in? I'll do. But we don't, we don't follow that. We do the same thing. It's like following their passions. My 11 year old just started a baking business. She just got cards printed. She's involved in a women's entrepreneurial circle that I go to where we do like, it's like a entrepreneurial women's mixer. And she like gets in there and like, you know, talks to the other about her business. And like, yeah, she went, she went and sold cookies at an event the other day and make like $120 to sell and cookies. So I'm like, it's like, it's so amazing when you give kids that freedom. Yeah. What will come through, you know? And so yeah, I absolutely love that. And as far as art. So I know that, you know, art is a big part of what you do. And like passing that on to the kids as well, like allowing them their creativity and their expression, which has been so, I would say purposely, like agenda driven, taken out of the public school system has been taken out of public education. You know, honestly, like I think it's because creative people are dangerous. I would say to, it's not even just recently because I do, I work with creativity and adults all the time. And so many people are stuck. If you think about like writing is a creativity thing, like movement, and you have like art, art, right? And we learn and the thing is, I don't even know if it has a place in the public school because they put, they rules and grades and how to do this and how to do that. Like unless they were to free it up somehow, I feel like so many adults come at it. And I just try to teach them, like I do automatic writing classes on Insight Time, right? And they have such a hard time to just let go of the critic because you just need your hand to move. So like at the same time, I feel like lots of us have been conditioned by the public school system to not be creative as well for years, like for years. So it's not even just, I don't think now, but even way back when. Yeah, I was lucky to have been homeschooled, unschooled myself. Yeah, so I had a couple of years experience in public school in my teens and then I went to the community college to do some time there. And I was actually in, I was a fine arts major when I was at the community college at 16, 17 and I was in a painting class, like oil painting 101. And I got a D on a painting for being too creative. That's what I'm saying. I was so mad. I mean, like you didn't follow the assignment. Yeah, there's a place for techniques. There really is. I don't know, there's, I don't know if you want me to talk about this, but there's a really cool study that was done years ago. And it was about child development. And they took a whole class of kids and they let them go through an actual school through child development. And they found that, so that the child development would be like the young age, like the kindergarten first grade is really about exploration. And so they just let them free form explore. And so they didn't tell them what to do with the paints, what to do with the paint pressures. They just put them out for them. And they let them do whatever they want. And then the second phase was like that, five, six, seventh grade in that area, you know, that 10, 11, 12, 13 going up to high school. And and there, everything was physical. They only sat down for like a half hour an hour a day. So they learned their, it's very Montessori in a way. They learned their history through plays, through enactments, through, you know, sword fight, like all that stuff. Everything was active. Their math was done up standing up and showing ratios and all this stuff. And then when they went to the teenage years, they stopped teaching all together. And what they did, because in the teenage years were so, our bodies are changing so much. All they focused on was knowing who each, each child was. So you would learn how, who you were and how, explore who you were and how you were in the environment and how you were in community. And it ended their high school career. And it would like four years of no academic learning, but they would do a community project. They would go out and do a community project that they developed that the whole school would help each other with. And when they went to college, they had no. Nothing, no classes from high school. They learned everything in less than a year. They learned four years in like six months. And by the second year of high school, they were ahead of the kids who were in the public school. And they hardly, like I'm entire four years of nothing academic. And that's how, because that's what were, the place when you're, you know, teenager, you're learning about relationships, you're learning about your body and feelings and all of these things. And so they were really solid people. And they'd also had experienced giving back to their community. They'd experienced what it feels like to be empathetic with your community, to give back to be a part of it. You know, so, you know, and then I always, when I think about that, I go back to when I was an express right therapist, I worked in a school for a little while with, I had a single girl in a classroom that I was working with who had Down syndrome. And when she was a kindergartener, and they gave them cotton balls that they were supposed to make into snowmen. And so she was really cool. She put the paper down and she put the middle cotton ball on the paper and then she put the head cotton ball on the chalkboard and the other one in the back. And then she took this big ribbon and ran it all the way around, all of the ones around the, and of course, what did the teacher do? And she took everything, she took them all and then she glued them in front of her on the paper. This is how to do it. At kindergarten, we let's how quick we learn, like in kindergarten already, in preschool, with all these new preschool things happening. That's when we learn, oh, it's not okay to go out of the box. So I'm supposed to follow the directions, but creativity isn't like that. You're supposed to be following your inner voice, your wisdom, you know? - Yes, oh my gosh. Yeah, yeah. No, thank you for going into all that. I love that. And you know, actually that was very validating for me because I ended up dropping out at 17 and getting my GED. And very much missed out on a lot of the formal education. But when I decided I wanted to go to college, I tested back in with really high scores and got a 4.0 chancellors list. Like I had no problem with any of the academic stuff. And so it was very much like, well, I never took any of these like upper level maths. Like I think I made it to like algebra one. Like, you know, it's like I didn't get any of that formal learning, but I really credited to learning how to learn and learning how to love learning because being able to follow your heart and what you want and your creativity. And I think that really like exemplifies it because it's like these kids didn't need to sit there for four years and learn how to take an SAT. Right. That doesn't actually benefit anyone. So yeah, the system is so broken. To pivot, you know, well, I guess not really pivot to go on to creativity and art, but working with adults. So you work with women now or is it men and women? I work with anyone who wants to come in. Yeah, I run like workshops and run solar journeys and I work with people. So I actually have an insight timer, teacher page, and I do a lot of things that like right now I'm doing a solar circle that's free every Sunday, just tapping into the, I call it for the creatively curious. (laughs) We just talk about the basics of solar and we jump into it as a circle each week. And then I work with the-- Define it. So solar and this is your trademarked. This is not mine. I-- Oh, okay. Yeah, no, solar it was originally as the trademark was originally envisioned by Laura Hollack who is a beautiful, wonderful, amazing person and she lives in Canada and she started this years ago. And it's so funny, she also danced with, she danced the five rhythms and all this stuff as well. And so it's her body of work. And so she has like different certifications and I'm currently, I'm on the very final assignment of solar shaman. So I'm in the middle of it, I'm writing a book for it. And solar is really, it's about using creative expression. It really helps you to open the doors to make it easy because a lot of us have light, tight muscles around that, right? Like, oh, I'm not creative or I can't do that or I haven't been trained or whatever. So it makes the process easy to open up and stretch into the creative expression and then using your creative expression to tap into your inner wisdom, to transform things in your life, to understand the things behind the things behind the things, right? (laughs) So it's really like, it's working with your soul, working with your inner wisdom, your higher self through creative expression. And a solar journey, there's many, there's many different journeys you can go on. I often work with, I meet with someone first and what are you looking for? What are you looking towards? What is it? What's the, the polaroid of what we have now, right? Like, and then I'll design a journey around it. And are the journeys limited to physical art or is it actually like embodiment work? I mean, you brought up five rhythms. Like, I am a avid, ecstatic dance connoisseur. (laughs) I know, so that's the thing is, 'cause even through my, I've been doing the certification for over two years and I'm in the final certification of the four and throughout it, I went, the first certification, I really stuck to the page 'cause I was like, I really wanna get working with this like visual thing. I wanna feel myself into it. And as I've gone over across the years, I've moved into embodiment, into dance, into like working with costume and makeup and all of these. And if you actually look up Laura Hollock, she has a, I mean, her husband is a photographer. So she, like, he takes the pictures of her out in, like in her costumes, out in nature, and they're just absolutely gorgeous. Yeah, so it's full embodiment. Yeah, you don't have, like I always say this on an inside time and I'm like, if you guys wanna write, you can write. Even if you can write through this journey that we're on or you can get up and stretch and feel it and get into it. 'Cause too many people's here creativity and they think, oh, I'm just, that's journaling or an art, you know, visual art. I better get markers. (laughs) I mean, granted, I have a lot of markers and a lot of pages. (laughs) But it is sole expression. I mean, I think, you know, it's sole art. I think those things are tied together because it's, you know, many, many things, if not anything, can be art, depending on how we're using it. Because through dance and even you brought up, you know, adorning yourself as I call it, like making art out of how you do your makeup and your hair and, you know, put clothing on your body. Like even that in and of itself, like that creative expression and it's so important. It's like, I believe that it is one of those innate needs for our soul. And again, back to possibly it being weaponized, I see that it is purposefully squashed out of most people. Because yeah, you step outside of the box and you're told to get back in the box and shamed, you know, somehow that is bad, like that creative expression. And whether it is through like, you know, a lot of times in our adolescence or in our childhood, like through the way we creatively express ourselves through our dress, singing, dancing, you know, movement, we are told to calm down, sit down, be smaller, you know, and it really, it's-- - A persexualized as women. - I mean, I just think about, I mean, I, you know, I would ask about my own experience in the 90s and I think about, oh, what my daughter's going through now and I'm like, it's not really that much different. And there's like, and so much is sexualized. - Yeah. - And then there's the group of people that say, oh, don't do that because you don't want to attract attention that you have the other people who are like, you can't do that for all the different reasons, right? - Yeah. - And the whole thing's body has always been in its own, in its own, I don't know what I would call that, but like an instigator of a lot of things, right? A lot of conditioning. Not that it itself deserves it, you know? - No, I think it goes back to like the witch trials and, you know, women were persecuted and hunted down for that, you know, and I call it eros, like that is our, you know, sensual, creative, right? Like as women, to be able to express that and to move that through us. And that has been so shamed and put in the closet and turned into something sexually deviant, or you know, deviant in some way. And it's just such a shame because, and this is the, some of the work that I do with women is to be able to tap into that, that passion and that creativity, that eros, and be able to figure out a way to move it through our bodies and to allow it because that, you know, it's tied from all this generational trauma, this witch wound that we all carry, it's really tied to the fear of death. You know, and that's what we're told, don't dress like that, or you're gonna get taken advantage of. Don't act like that, or you're gonna get taken advantage of, you know, so yeah, yeah, that's a whole, like topic. We can do a whole podcast on that. I love that subject. (laughing) - You know, one of the furt that's so funny that you mentioned that 'cause right after my parents died, after I came out of this shock, the thing that caught me out of the shock was that I was doing emails for my mom trying to get their bills in order. And I found that she was really connected with one of the human design people. And I was like, well, I just wanna connect to what my mom was connected to. So I reached out and I said, you know, my mom died like seven days later, my dad died, and I just, I need some connection. And she's like, well, I'm running this healing your witch wound through human design, and I wanna offer it to you for free, you know, coming, and that's what started my journey back into my life. And it was the most healing thing I'd ever experienced, like being in that group, working with human design with it. And also a friend who wrote a whole book on healing the witch wound through, oh, it's just amazing stories. And it's such an opportunity when you actually are presented and invited into that healing. - Mm, yeah. Well, I did wanna touch on that grief 'cause I know that is like, [BLANK_AUDIO] big part of your journey and now the work that you do for others. So can you talk a little bit more about working with that grief? Yeah, what it's always new, I just ran through a new threshold the other day. I just ended up, it's always changing. But I started, like I said in shock and slowly I came back and it was through really, what I've come to realize is that grief is this amazing, sounds weird to say, portal of just transformation and what I've, my recent discovery coming through even more and this is four years is that grief bends time. Grief bends time so that you can heal so many layers of your life, your lifetimes, all of your relationships and you may not even have anything to do with that grief itself, but it bends time in a way that you can heal ancestral wounds. You can, I mean, it's, it's really amazing. And part of my grief journey, which is interesting that brought it in for me was I started, I ended up getting trained in yoga, Nidra because, because of how everything went down. I, and that shock and everything came out of nowhere. I had the, I would say the, the fall after my parents died. I had massive panic attacks because my kids had a sniffle. And if you remember, 2020, when we went back to school, so other sniffles everywhere, it wasn't like they had a crazy sniffle, but I was praying over them. Please don't die. Like that's how crazy it was. And I wasn't sleeping. I was watching them all night, which sounds really creepy. But when grief can do strange things to you. And so when I was doing this, I actually, this is how I got on insight, where I got an insight timer and found a teacher. And I started doing her yoga Nidra's every day, like morning, noon and night, because I'm like, if I was getting crazy or no sleep, right? Like on top of it, all this anxiety. And it healed me in like a month. Within a month, I was better than before my parents had died. My nervous system was like, it was core. And so I'd reached out to the teacher and I just have to tell you, like, this is my story and I'm happy to write you a testimonial or something, you know, whatever you need. And she invited me in to take her workshop to teach it and to guide it. And I was like, absolutely, like, I would like what a gift. And so a lot of my work with grief is also about balancing the nervous system so that you can work through it because a lot of us approach grief and we're like, we're already, you know, off balance, you know, just completely dysregulated because it's scary. Like you just said, the fear of death, right? Going back to the witch wound stuff, it is scary. And so a lot of it, it's about, you know, how do we work with the nervous system? How do we work with, you know, meditating in yoga Nidra and also the Akashic records? Because oftentimes when we have that kind of fear, it is plugged into other lifetimes. It's plugged into other energies, other dimensions. And so you can work in a really well rounded way with all that. It took me doing one thing at a time over two, three, four years to begin to see how it all is, is connected and how this work all like goes hand in hand, like a spiral almost. And now I understand it, but I had to do it piece by piece, like step by step, because I had to, that's the, that's the four one in me, the one, the, the line one in human design to me. I have to know fully everything before I can go to the next one and follow that one. But my, my grief was very intense. And I went through it. I'm an only child. We were living with them, like, and they were amazing. And I had great parents. And it was just so I had, I had the, the anger of the system in the 2021, the time that we were in and knowing what could have been looking at their medical records and seeing the truth, like it has been a, a journey. And it's starting, you know, is having it started with shock and not having a lot of memories. And then slowly crawling back in, it's almost like my body said, just a little bit at a time, like just a little bit, just a little bit in at a time. And I even went on, I went and did a photo shoot where I, a friend of mine did a photo shoot where we let go some of the ashes so I could remember it. And it was like this intense five hour experience where I just went through every emotion in the book. And even then, and then I'm like, Oh, I'm done with it. But it's a spiral. It comes back around. And then I would go to another level. And then I'd be like, Oh, and I'd come out like exhausted and full and clear. And I'd be like, this is it. All right. You know, and it's like just, just what I say, like a few weeks ago, I went into, I was working on one of my assignments for the Soul Art, Shaman. And it was about my medicine. And right in the middle of it, I got hit with the biggest wave of grief I have felt yet. And I, but the thing is I know how to move through it. So I ended up creating all of these raw audios that about my experience of grief through all of the different areas of my life. And, and they hold so much wisdom in them. And I only know they hold wisdom because I listened to afterwards. I didn't, I didn't actually edit them. I just listened to afterwards and I'm like, wow, that came from me. Like that came from this experience. I have gained so much insight from my grief and so many gifts and so much beauty. You know, I had to go through this whole fear of death thing too. I was really scared at one point because I'm the only one here for my kid, my husband, but he's not really talking to his parents either and you're not. And so we, it's like me. And if I was to die, what would be there for my kids, right? Like, and so I had to go through this whole fear of death thing and that was like a whole year. And every time you think you're through it, like, wow, yeah, no. Yeah, it spirals back around and back around things. They definitely brings in new beautiful teachings every time. And I've just, I've, I've learned to have a lot, a lot of courage with my feelings. And I don't shy away from them anymore. And I listen to my body. And when I have those feelings, I pay attention. And there's always these beautiful, you know, almost diamonds of insight in there. So grief has been really rough, like really hard, not easy. But I've stood up with it. I've stood up next to it and I've kind of looked it in the eye. And by doing that, it, it, things moved through quickly. Like when I had that threshold of grief, I, I moved very quickly. It was maybe a week. It was a bad week. It was no fun. But within a week, I was like in a totally different place. And I had almost like gone, what would you say, like, mining for the diamonds? Yeah. And what I hear, you know, is emotional alchemy, you know? And so is that like a practice you undertook, like to, when you say mining for the diamonds, but to transform that grief, to alchemy is it and to create something beautiful out of it? Yeah, to create the transformations you're looking for. And what I, like you get to choose, you get to say, I'm going through this. And this is where I want to be. And sometimes in grief, you can't even say where you want to be. So you're working with the emotion, the raw emotion itself, you know? And just beginning to, to see what's behind it. And that's where creativity comes in, right? That's where using your creativity can give you so many beautiful pathways that you can travel. And you do, and a lot of times an expression, like when you're in grief, we can't express with words. I could, for a long time, couldn't express with words. Every time I open my mouth to say something, I cry. And like, but I actually wrote a lot. I couldn't say the words, but I could write. And what's really interesting is when I was in my deepest group, because I was, I created the whole way. I, for about in that time that I was in shock, I actually wrote a ton of stories. And every story was she, a girl, a woman, she. And when I came out and it was about a year later, I went looking through my journals and I was like, wow, I only used third person about everything I was feeling. So I went through this whole thing and I changed, I rewrote every story into I. And I couldn't believe the, the, the what cracked open in me. I was like, oh my God, I owned it. I like, I didn't own it when I was writing it originally. When I started making eye, like, writing every line, I all of a sudden owned this beautiful school that I went through. And it was like, it was a really powerful thing. So I got there, I just tend to talk, but yeah, it's alchemy. It's taking that and it's owning it and it's claiming it and it's saying, this is what I want. And it's taking that power and that energy to the places that you want to grow, you know? Yeah. Well, and you mentioned the Kasha Krakow's and so I'd love to hear more about that. That's something I'm not like super familiar with, but I, I do know that that is having implications of recognizing that our souls are on these journeys from, you know, other lives. And so did part of that, learning the, to read the Akasha Krakow's and getting involved with that, help you to feel that you could be connected with your parents still even, after death. Well, I, you know, I've always been a spiritual person. So I've always thought, I never had a question that I wouldn't be able to connect with my parents after they died. But there were some weird things that happened before they died that like, it's almost like my mom knew. So, like, a strangeness going on that I didn't name at the time. But when I started working in the Akasha Krakow's and this all started from human design, because I took a, I was in a human design program. They had a meditation. They had, I went into a past life by mistake. And so I reached out to the teacher and I was like, I wasn't supposed to do that. And she was like, you're meant to be an Akasha Krakow's teacher. And she gifted me that, that, that, that. training as well. And so at first when I had no idea, I literally had just heard the word of Cacheck records and a week later I'm in a training program. And so I had no idea what they were. And really, there's so many teachings. It's its own dimension of knowledge and it's the soul's knowledge. And it's really a dimension where the time is not linear. I feel like everyone internally knows this. They just haven't maybe brought it to the surface yet. But time is not linear. And so you kind of, you can work with past lives, future lives. You can work with different, different dimensions. You can find the information, you know, and it's not only that, so every soul has a Cacheck record. And it's basically the knowledge of that soul from the time of the very beginning. But also animals have records, trees have records, businesses because businesses are made from human, you know, the living of the human. So businesses can have records. And so you can go into all of these. And when I first started doing the training, we really worked in understanding our spirit team, understanding the Ascended Masters we were working with. And because of that, I called in my spirit team and I was so vulnerable and I worked so vulnerable with them that my parents, I don't think they ever left my side. I feel I have felt they're continued. And actually, my ancestors going way back have totally come up and backed me up. And so the work in the Acacheck Records has made me more aware of my clarifications, made me more aware of how I how I hear and feel and see things. It also clarified for me, like I have a very strong clairvoyance. But as an artist and a creative, I always thought it was my imagination. Well, it is. I'm a good, I have a great imagination, right? It is. That's what that's what God has gifted us when ordering to get these downloads to get those messages. It's our donation. And I never took it seriously. I'm like, oh, I just have a big imagination. And even as a kid, I would tell these stories and stuff. But it's actually clairvoyance. And so I got to start to feel into that. And ever since I started moving, working with all these years ago, I can feel my parents around all the time, my spirit team all the time. And I have so many downloads. Although, I hate the word download, because it's so connected to like the computer for me. But yeah, that's the common word that's used now. And that's what that's the word I use to is downloads. Because it is. It's like, it's like a moment. It's not there. And then the next moment, it's there. It's like, boom. It's sent into you. So yeah, maybe there's a better yeah, a softer way to say that though. Well, and I would even say when I was working with the records, my parents and again, I feel like in general, my soul is called in a timing. It's almost like I have to do things slowly. And because if I had jumped fully into all this in the beginning when I was in shock, I would nothing would have stuck. Nothing, my body would have just overwhelmed me. I needed to learn the yoga ninja. I need to learn all these other things in tandem and and wanted a time. And and really with the work with the Akashic records, I began to connect with my parents and they used to visit me in dreams. But not all the time. I like once a season they'll come and they'll give me like something in a in a dream. And you know, it's not a dream because it feels totally different. It's like them coming and being with you for a minute. And so yeah, so yeah, the work in the Akashic records has also I've also done some work with the relationships I've had with my parents in past lives. And so there's there's so many interesting things in the records you can do so much work. You can work on your contracts, your deals, your agreements, your belief systems, across lifetimes. You can work with future lifetimes, galactic lifetimes. And all of the knowledge that your soul has brought with it. And so you can really jump in and heal some stuff. Yeah. And again, generationally too, you know, this this work. It's like and it does start with your nervous system. So you did say like as far as like if you had jumped into this right afterwards when you were maybe yeah, it's like you can't you have to you have to work. I think from the body up, you know, if you don't start with healing your nervous system. And you're going to need you as a beautiful way to do that. And there's so many, you know, so many other practices too that you have to be able to feel safe in your body first. Yeah. Because like you said, otherwise none of that is going to stick. You're not or you're not going to believe yourself. You're not going to trust yourself. You're going to be like, Oh, that's just my imagination, you know. And so you really you have to start with really feeling safe in the body. Well, it's funny too. I was saying originally the first thing that brought me out was this human design, heal your witch wound, which was connected with quantum tapping and EFT. So even though I wasn't in doing nervous system regulation then what happened was I was getting it through the EFT. And I was so I actually was tapping on the meridians. And you know, I'm an I was a master practitioner in EFT anyways. But like I so I knew what I was doing. So yeah, it was it was interesting that that was the one I chose or whatever my soul chose to bring in at that time. The first thing that kind of held all of these pieces together. Yeah. And it's so beautiful the way it was like gifted to you in that way. You know, following those little breadcrumbs and the things that the universe just like presents to you. And it's like offered up in this perfect package that then led to the next step, then led to the next step. And all of these, you know, beautiful guides, trail guides, you know, that came in to offer you that, you know, so yeah, that's really that's really beautiful. I wanted to ask you what immersive storytelling is because that was something in our intake that you had mentioned that I am very curious about. I have done some workshopping and I'm wondering if it's the same as the as the immersive experiences I've had with that. So could you explain that some more? Well, so I love storytelling. I love storytelling. And right now what it means to me is so currently so after doing these grief, these grief raw audios, I am going to say downloaded again or channeled through that this book that I'm writing and I'm writing a book about my own grief, but through the Akashic records, it's actually has to do with a carnival like the Akashic space. And the whole book is how to work, it's my own grief journey through different places in this carnival. And you learn through one of the characters following the memories of others. And so in it's an it's an entire story of it. But once I finish publishing, is it sorry to interrupt. I'm really curious. Is it like a fiction or is it like? Yeah, it's fiction, but it's based on my grief journey. And then when I talk about immersive storytelling, when some finished writing it, I'm writing it right now. It shouldn't take too much longer. I'm going to be doing a second book to it that is a transmission to bring other people into the Akashic records through the carnival. So everything will be written in the first person. And it'll all be as you read it, you're brought into your own Akashic records. So it's so cool. It's great telling. Like so it's through the storytelling. But I've been doing storytelling for a long time. I love working with myths. I love working with archetypes. I love working with all, you know, I'm bringing and in hearing people's story and retelling their story for them. Because oftentimes people don't have necessarily a little language. And if you can pick it up and just in 4-1 being a quad right, like I can I can hear it and give it back. So yeah, yeah. Yeah, immersive storytelling. Tell me. So I went to I went to a workshop recently with it was actually my personal coach put it on. So we had a women circle where she told a story. It was an archetypical story. And she had a way to bring us into this story of identifying with certain characters. And it was this whole like two hour experience. And in the end, we all told our story. And all the women, I mean, it was like 20 of us. And we all had a different story. She spoke one one story, one myth allowed. And each of us gained some personal, you know, personal story that came out of it. And so many of us were like, you know, just moved to tears and like all these big things that were brought up. So it was just it was a very beautiful experience. So, yes, well, story is so is a gift. And so that's kind of what I'm doing with this book that I'm writing now. And this is my final assignment for my shaman certification. And it's really about the storytelling, but also bringing in the Akashic records. And it's all archetypal. But, but yeah, so it's very cool. I'm, you know, I think story, like I said, story is just such a gift to all of us. And I love researching. And right now I'm doing big, big work with the stories of Mary Magdalene and mother. Which I find absolutely like, it's hard to stop reading. Yeah, I'm not super well versed on it. But what I do know it's it's been obfuscated from us. And this goes back to the witch wound. And so this is information that has been stolen from us as women and the power of these women. And yeah, again, that could be like a whole podcast on that subject. Yeah, but yeah, you know, that's yeah, I mean, if you want to, you probably are more well versed if you want to just tell That's not showing that for a second. - Well, there's so many stories that had just been not told. I mean, there's a whole time, as far as mother Mary, like there's so many years of Jesus's life where they were together. And so many things, so many healings that have happened. So many, and they talk about it as being like a raky. They talk about it and being all these different, different things that have happened that can mirror what us as human beings can do for each other, for ourselves, with Mary Magdalene, fascinating. I mean, you go back into that whole divine feminism and the power between the relationships she had. And then you look at what she was, you look at it from a biblical standpoint as being a whore or whatever it be, right? And what it's been turned as, but really was the equal partner. So interesting when you return the stories and you listen to them. And I don't read them and go, okay, this is truth, this is truth. I actually worked with both as ascended masters in the Akashic records. I like read open, I stay open. 'Cause again, stories are gifts. And just like you said with your immersive storytelling, you find the gems that you need to find. And they will resonate for you, if they resonate for you. You know, if you stay open, if you're aware of your clarifications, if you're aware of like if you're open and clear and calm, you can feel when things are like, yep, uh-huh, that's right for me, right? (laughing) But so, I've offered from all different angles, all different areas. So really it's, you know, I just love reading about the different define, divine feminine masters out there. Just one of the things I've watched is, I followed is the Sophia code. I love the Sophia code. Yeah, yeah. Well, but it goes back to what we were saying before though, this is information that was purposefully kept from us, specifically as women, specifically about our divine power, you know, and it was roles that we've played. Yep, and it was perverted and twisted. So it all ties back into what we were talking about, you know, earlier that this information was cut out of the Bible, it was cut out of all teachings, and it was hidden from women. We weren't allowed these stories. And, you know, they were seen as dangerous, just like women's, you know, sensuality and our expression and our creativity, those are all seen as dangerous. And, you know, not to get too conspiracy theory, but why, you know why? I wonder why. I wonder why. I mean, my husband was reading some book, and I forget the book of it now, but he was also talking about, like, I feel like it was, was he talking about mushrooms? But how these different psychodalic drugs that were used way back when, and how they were hidden and their history and what they did for people was hidden, I forget the name. I feel like it was connected with, not Ioska. I don't remember, it was connected with how they were used and what they did for people. Now, not as a way of like becoming an addict or anything, but the actual properties and how women were taking care of it. And all of these, like, there's so many depths to the, to what's been distorted, and I'll say, yeah, or what's been hidden or kept. And you've got to find what the truth is for you, too. - Well, and even with Ioska, she is called grandmother. - Yeah. - So right there, there's the feminine energy that comes along with that plant medicine. I have not yet taken an Ioska journey, it's something that's kind of on my bucket list. I'm like, eventually when I, you know, don't have a bunch of little kids, make a trip down to Peru. But yeah, I mean, she is grandmother, right? She is that loving female energy. And so much of that has been either distorted or hidden or, yeah, it's a, - Do you live in a society that people over, over indulge in that? Like I was talking, so weird. So as a homeschooling parent, I end up with really strange conversations because my kids see a lot of things around all day long. They hear things and you really can't keep them from a lot of what's going on. (laughs) You know, like I just like, we'll just bring it up and we'll talk about it. And it was my eight year old who asked about drugs. And I was like, well, this is young, but she's around older kids all the time. And I was like, well, and we have this talk. I'm like, you know, people do drugs all the time and they try to, you know, they go for the high or they go for this or they go for that. And I said, but people have been using plants, not necessarily the chemical things forever. And I said, and you know, if you're, like I said, there's all different reasons for healing for this, for that. But I said, I wouldn't call those drugs. So I, 'cause I didn't know what quite she was talking about. So I said, could you tell me exactly what you're talking about? (laughs) And this is how I'm talking to my eight year old. And she's like, well, this, that, and this, you know, and I'm like, yeah, so that's interesting. And then my 16 year old chimes in because, you know, she knows people who are doing things. And she's like, yeah, that, that, and we had this conversation in the car for like an hour that was so intense. And I got to, in part, like this awesome message about like how awesome plants are. But you don't have to use it. And if you ever were to use it, like you should be with someone you trust, you should honor it, you should celebrate it, you should be really clear. And you don't do it very often. It's like, it's like a right of passage. And I don't think many kids who are eight or 16 have heard that. - Yeah, right of passage. - No, not a whole other subject. - That is something that we have lost also. And this is, you know, it's funny 'cause this is, these are conversations that come up with, you know, my eldest is 19. She's engaged, she has her own kid. She's an adult now. And my youngest is two and a half. So I've got like this whole, we've got a big group. - Yeah, and these conversations they do come up and being able to have those like nuanced takes. And like, you know, I talked to my kids about the drugs that are the, you know, the ones that are put into the food and the ones that are available on the, you know, the store shelves, you know. And it's like, there's a place for like, sometimes when you have a migraine and there's nothing else you can do and you need that drug, you know, so we have those conversations and it's like, I think going back to like this unschooling mindset, you know, to tie it all back around to be able to discern and to know how to learn is so important. And it's so much less likely that you're going to end up with a kid that gets into a situation where they're doing something unconsciously and you know, fall into a trap of addiction or things like that because they're able to discern. They are like critical thinking. - Yes, they know how to think about, you know, and being able to say, oh, this is the situation. What could be out, can be where am I going to be with this? You know, and I think I even remember why she was bringing it up 'cause she's in bands at School of Rock and Rocksong to talk about it. - Mm. - Like, it was actually very innocent. It wasn't like anyone said anything, but she really wanted to know. And she, so, you know, being, I feel like also the honesty that comes, 'cause when you run your kids all day long, like there's an honesty that happens. And I hope that they would come to me knowing that, like if they had a problem or they had something or that they would come to me and, you know, ask me and open up to me about the situation. But it's very, it's interesting because it's a world, I mean, I grew up in the '90s and there was like eight balls and cocaine and heroin. I many, many friends, die in my 20s. And the '90s were a time, you know? In some ways I miss it, like without all the technological advances. Like I remember when you would like, get dropped off at the mall and like, you had no way to-- - Oh yeah. - Act your parents are like, you know, there's no cell phone or anything. Those were the days. (laughs) - Yeah, well, you know, like, I, and I remember what I, what I knew at their age. And I was like, a lot more. I knew like everything. And I, thankfully kept myself out of situations, but I didn't have anyone to talk to. My parents weren't open to talking about that. It was like, don't you remember this is your drug on brains? Like I think it would be cool. - Yes, I did to that. So the Friday, yeah. - Yeah, you'd forget that. That was like on every Saturday morning cartoon. (laughs) - Yeah, so, you know, like it wasn't, I didn't have anyone to talk to. All I had was talk to other people my age who were having the same questions, right? So I, you know, when I talk about it, 'cause she, you know, and we talk about, we can't plant, our plants are cool. We even talk about how you can make dandelion cookies and bread. And, you know, like so it's across, but they're, you know, she also knows, you shouldn't really touch mushrooms unless you know what mushroom it is. Because this, you know, so there's, there's all this learning that happens that's so multidimensional. You know, it's like it goes all the way across all the areas of her life in, in many ways. - Yeah, yeah, it's so, it's so cool. Wow, we are already at an hour. I have loved this conversation so much. (laughs) I feel like I could just keep talking, but I have to go and get ready for a retreat. - I had it so excited. (laughs) - Guys, yeah, so I do want to ask you if there's anything else that you want to share here on this podcast, any like last nuggets of wisdom or anything like that, anything we didn't touch on, that you just really feel like called to express to my audience. And also, ways to work with you, how to get in touch with you. I'm gonna link everything in the show notes too, obviously, but any offers you have or anything like that that you want to share before we wrap up. - Well, I have an insight timer page where I have a lot of free yoga nidras and I do free live events all the time. That's gonna make me excuse me. And so you can go on there anytime and see some of the work I'm gonna do. I have a lot of them are yoga nidras. I do some kids and teen things on there and I have different talks. So that's always available. and my website is jossalandbates.net and you can always kept me there if you're interested in one-on-one work online or in person and I run groups and I have a workbook that I have that's just easing back into creativity like he's back into yourself. It's like a little bit of it's a 21-day journal and yeah and I'm on Instagram and such and I just I share whatever I have of my own stories hopefully that they create nets for others and I guess I would just end with one of the biggest things coming out of just my life over the last like four or five years has been how amazing it is to be a human and like how awesome it is to be this instrument of like this this conduit between you know the spirit world and the earth world because that's what our bodies are and you know and just it's so beautiful and amazing when you become not scared of the emotions not scared of the energy but rather just a bit curious and and ready and able or have the tools to express it a little bit because all of a sudden the whole thing opens up and and we really are amazing like I know we get boxed in in a lot of ways like we get stuck you know we got to lose weight we got to do this we got to do that because we have to control our body and we have to do all the things but our bodies are like really like really fucking phenomenal and amazing when you start to open up to it and so just holding some gratitude for whatever hardships are going through holding some gratitude for all the emotions that you can feel them that you have the opportunity each emotion is a portal towards something and and that your hands can create right and that your body can move because it's so easy to get stuck in all the the negative stuff that's out there but we are amazing beings so yeah I think I would end with that that is a beautiful place and I love that message so much thank you thank you so much and I just wanted to say is that your beautiful artwork for anybody who is watching behind you oh yeah these are some of my solar journeys yes I've been I've been like glancing at them throughout our whole conversation like taking them in so I just wanted to acknowledge their presence at the background because I think they're really really beautiful the middle one especially it's like a flower possibly a whale and a wave I'm not sure what I'm seeing but I'm loving it if you're to see it up close you'd be like oh that's not what I thought it was yeah from from here I've been super great just wanted to acknowledge the art too so thank you so much jocelyn I appreciate this so much and I hope you have a lovely day oh same do you have a beautiful retreat thank you