INTRODUCTION
On this week's episode of Midlife AF we are going to talk to my wonderful friend, Katie Underwood. Katie has had a varied and extraordinary life. She started off as a pop star in the Australian band Bardot, and since then she has followed her intuition and become an incredible healer. I met Katie back in COVID 2020 Melbourne, when her meditation teachings, her sound healing group work online during COVID was extraordinarily helpful to me in my journey to an alcohol free life that feels really good.
Katie talks to us about how we can achieve an altered state through natural means. And often I find that clients of mine and friends of mine in the alcohol free community are seeking something that feels spiritual and enlightening. And Katie talks about what different things that we can use to achieve that in ways that move us towards our goal of a greater integration, a greater love and connectedness with ourselves and the world around us - over to me and Katie!
MAIN EPISODE
Emma: Thanks so much for joining me today, Katie, Katie has been really, really inspirational for me in my journey. Becoming alcohol free and living as an alcohol free person. Particularly somebody who back in the day was a big raver, really enjoyed getting off my head and having a lot of fun and you know, it. Lots of the women that I work with and you know, have got similar backgrounds, you know, we've kind of we grew up wild child, the rebels of the 90s, and the ladettes, and all those sort of cliches that we think about, but we were very much you know, we're all and I think you attract the people who have similar kinds of backgrounds work for you. But often people who I work with are like, Well, I love being alcohol free, it's joyful, it's content, it's, you know, that sort of daily happiness, the daily kind of moments in life are so much brighter and more vibrant. But I really miss kind of altering my state and getting that kind of spiritual thing that you get from you know, being elevated with synthetic substances. Which, you know, we've all been part of, so I, I will let Katie introduce herself. She has a very interesting history and her work is transformational.
I came across Katie, when one of my clients introduced me to her and said you should come to one of Katie's sessions. They are phenomenal. And I started following her and COVID and she was running all this awesome stuff for us poor Melbournians in the lockdown that never ended. So without further ado, Katie. Would you be kind enough to introduce yourself to the people who are on live today.
Katie: Hello everyone viewing now and perhaps viewing later as well. Yeah, so my name is Katie Underwood. I've done lots of things in my life. I'm going to start with what I do now and then I'll rewind back to connect the dots. For some of you. Yes, I am that Katie Underwood, I used to have red hair. That was the origin story in Bardot popstars, you name and I did it. But now I re-trained myself in the wellness industry. So starting 13 years ago, I studied remedial massage and became a working massage therapist, originally in a drug and alcohol recovery centre. And I worked there quite happily part time for four years while my kids were very small. And then I added Reiki energy to my practice. But over those first four years, something interesting, I noticed about my clients, many of whom were in hard recovery at that point, that people simply didn't know how to breathe. Forget trying to relax, it just didn't know how to breathe. And I found myself during my message sessions, just reminding people to take a deep breath, using my calming massage therapy voice. And exhale, breathe in and out, because often you’d ask people to take a big deep breath, and they go, Oh, I know how to do that. And then they would stay there. And I'd go and out. And so far out, people don't even know how to breathe. I feel like there's a huge gap here, where I could step up and be more helpful. And that led me to becoming a meditation teacher, because of my awareness in my personal life. I've been practicing meditation for about five years, myself, which was a key part of my own recovery journey, which we'll get to. And I thought, You know what, maybe I need to teach people how to breathe. And meditation is all about breathing and unconscious awareness and being in the moment. And so that led me to my meditation teacher training.
And during that time, somewhere in the timeline, being a working musician for 20 years prior to that, I was really intrigued by people that I had gone to see for sound healing events and sound bars. And it was a relatively new thing in Australia about 15 years ago. And I'd gone to a couple of events myself and attended them and thought, wow, this is just profoundly relaxing and moving and transformative. And I walk out floating on a cloud, and this is amazing. And then the penny dropped, hey, I could do that, too. I want to do that as well, I want to be that. It's often how my life has evolved professionally and personally, as I look at what other people are doing, and inspiring people, people that I admire, that I respect and that I would like to be like, and I think, yeah, I want to be that. I want to do that for people. So now bring you up to speed. So I'm a mother of twin girls who are now 11 years old, and a parent will tell you, that's my main job. But when I'm not looking after my kids, I'm a meditation teacher and Reiki practitioner, I still do massage therapy, and I weave sound healing in all of that. Prior to that, though, in my early 20s, I was in a pop band, and did music professionally for a good while. I mean, I still do but I was in that scene for a good five years. It was a very high excitement state to be in, but also very high stress. And so to counter that I did what most people do is go to the easiest quickest thing you can reach for - prescription drugs, alcohol, narcotics, you name it, I did it. I smoked it, all of that stuff. And it took me up until I think post my divorce and intense depression and bad relationships and poor choices to hit my version of rock bottom to go this is not you know, I had a moment of clarity around the age of 30/31 and thought this is not how I want my life to be.
I couldn't see any future. I couldn't see any brightness, any joy and I made some steps to clean up my life. That began with getting rid of drugs and alcohol for a time and then other forms of cleanup. Cleaning up my mental health, cleaning up my relationships - intimate and social - and that that work is ongoing to this day. I managed to find myself in a happy place. This will sound weird to say I struggled to call myself an alcoholic for many years because of the stigma around that. But as a child of two high functioning alcoholics, it was normalised for a long time. I'm, but I've become comfortable with the term because what it means to me to call myself that is that I will always need to be mindful of alcohol in my life. And that when it is in my life in any degree that I need to really pay close attention to why I'm drinking, and to moderate that. So yeah, I've explored all ends of the spectrum, I managed to go totally sober for an entire year, which was something I never dreamed I'd be able to do. Since then, I've fallen back in, relapsed and then re sobered, and relapsed and re sober numerous times. And I've also learned to be really compassionate with myself about where I'm at, on that journey. And when I'm ready, like now, I've been sober again for about a month, and I'm really enjoying that. Yeah, and for all the reasons that you said, that, I know that I'm my best self, I’m my better self, when alcohol is either totally out of the picture, or so reduced in my life, it's barely there. And again, everyone's definition of what their sobriety is, is different. And they're all okay. And it's up to each person to figure out what works for them. What makes me wake up in the morning and go, I feel good about myself. And yeah, that's, that's where it's at. So that's who I am.
Emma: Thank you, Katie. That was such a lovely introduction of yourself and so vulnerable as well. And I love that you talk about all these things, because it's really important. You know, a journey with alcohol is not a straight line - never is. And anyone who tells you it is a big fat liar. We come in, and we go out, and sometimes we're ready to do things and other times we're not and that's all. Okay. You know, that's a really important message, a really important message. And so Katie, you my experience of working with you, I've been to see you personally. I've been to quite a lot of your events. And I followed you online, your voice is extraordinary. It brings me so much. Oh, nervous system. It's like, it's like that dopamine hit, you know that ‘aaah’. And then all the percussion and everything. And I think the most beautiful thing about what Katie does, in her group work, which is just phenomenal, is that she brings everybody together. It's a beautiful, kind and caring place. Everybody has a hug. You know, you get an opportunity to do one of my favourite things that we did recently in a session was doing vocal toning Katie, do you want to talk a little bit about that? Because I know for the vagus nerve, it's, it's huge.
Katie: Yeah, sure. So the way I talk about vocal toning, for those who don't know, what we're talking about is essentially a form of breath work. So when we use that word, what I mean is that we're engaging in a practice where you're consciously inhaling and exhaling much longer and deeper than you normally would. And that, in itself, is enough to begin to calm the nervous system. But when we introduce the engagement of the vocal cords, what we're doing is giving the vagus nerve a double hit. So again, vagus nerve 101, it's one of our cranial nerves runs from the brainstem. And it's a nerve that connects with almost every internal organ that we have, and all of our major operating systems, so respiratory, digestive, endocrine, and so on. So it's really important that this nerve is operating correctly. And when we become stressed, one of the flow on effects that can occur is that any or all of those systems may then fall out of alignment and either suffer disease or distress. So when we work to balance the nervous system by activating the vagus nerve, we're helping to rebalance all of these internal systems and therefore having a positive flow on effect. Improved sleep, decreased stress, relaxing, being able to digest food properly, and a whole myriad of other things. So there's lots of ways that the vagus nerve can be activated. Yoga will do it, meditation will do it. But one of the other key ways that will do it is diaphragmatic breathing. So that is when we're engaging the belly when we breathe, and then also anything involving using the vocal cords so singing, humming or toning. So the reason that I find that the vocal toning is so powerful is because we're activating now the vagus nerve in two places at the same time, one through the vocal cords as we do the ‘om’ chant we do in my circle, but any sound will do it even just humming will do it. But also encouraging people to breathe with their belly. And so you're kind of getting this double hit into places. Sorry, I'm gesturing to my belly, but you can't see. And so when we engage in this practice, and usually for around 20 minutes, because that's how long it takes for the nervous system, and the brain waves and the breathing, your brain has to get over itself and get out of the way. But usually, and I've been running these events now for about seven to eight years, it takes a good 20 minutes for people to really settle into the practice. For the first 10 minutes or so everyone's kind of still caught in their own self judgement: Oh, God, am I doing it right? What is? What is this? Is this correct? Oh no, I'm out of breath. And all of these internal thoughts get in the way. And my experience has shown me something magical happens after about 10 minutes, and people just fucking get over themselves. And just let go. And there's a real surrender that comes with that. And I think back to your point about engaging in practices that create a natural high.
So the other wonderful thing that happens during this practice, because we are the technical term, is hyper oxygenating the blood, which is a fancy way of saying we're bringing in much more oxygen than we normally would. Now, why do we need oxygen? Oxygen feeds our red blood cells, red blood cells are what fires our circulatory system. Our circulatory system, aka our blood is what feeds all of our immune system, involvements and organs and so on. So the physiological benefit of this practice cannot be understated. So one of the results that we get when we hyper oxygenate the blood in this way for this period of time, is then one of our other systems and your endocrine system or natural chemical hyperemesis system kicks in and goes “Oh, I love what's happening right now here have some dopamine here have some have some oxytocin”, which is the natural love hormone “here have some serotonin”, which is the feel good hormone. So your body starts releasing natural antidepressants, immune boosting, hormones, and so on. So it's, you can tell I'm really passionate about this. So it is really, really powerful. So you know, and that's just what's happening in the body. While all of this stuff is happening in the mind, suddenly, all that's going on in our mind is just on.
And if you're like me, or Emma, and have marvellous minds that have 1000 things happening all of the time, any break from that busy highway of thinking is such a relief and a release, and you get to the end of that 20 minutes and that's so relaxing mentally. And again, that effect has a beautiful flow on effect.
So yeah, I think one of the things I remember about my recovery journey, when I was trying to give up pot and give up alcohol, is that they were very on the front foot with look: if you're a drug user or a heavy alcohol user, you've been chasing a high your whole life. But you don't want to be a drunk, you don't want to be a drug addict, but you do want to feel good. So here's some other things that we can do to help you feel good. And I was introduced to things during my stay there like art therapy, like ecstatic dance, like really regular exercise, like meditation, like holotropic breathwork, all of these other practices that helped me to get into an altered state where I would come out better than when I came in. And yet I'd ingested nothing illegal or nothing at all really harmful. And this was a revelation. Because sometimes when you move into sobriety, it's like, all of a sudden, oh, well, I'm never going to feel that high ever again. There’s a grief that comes with that, because I don’t want to give that up. And I think that's the notion that keeps people stuck in their patterns for so long. It's like, well, I want to be healthy, and I want to have good relationships, but I'm not ready to give up having a good time.
So, you know, the real pathway back for me, was about finding these new activities and new people, new relationships that were like, Yeah, let's still have a good time. To give you an example. On Melbourne Cup day this year. I'm not a supporter of the Melbourne Cup. So I'm doing something alternate to that. And it's the second annual running of the Dinos in the park. And so myself, my family and some friends of ours are getting together inflatable T-Rex costumes and are going to run around the park. Because why not? So you know yourself permission I think as an adult to just go well, just because I'm not drinking or smoking or doing whatever else doesn't mean I have to stop having fun. You just need to be a little bit more creative about how to. But vocal toning, that was the question. I know I keep doing this.
Emma: It's so amazing to hear you so passionate, and you get it! You really do. For me, that feeling and I think for so many of the women that I work with, what you talked about there is hitting the nail on the head. Most of the time that people that I work with aren't drinking because of alcohol, they're drinking to stop the noise in their head. That too. And there's so many ways that we can learn to do that in a way that moves us towards where we want to be. But this is what you create the community, the like minded people, everybody there is on a journey in some way, you know, that they're on some some kind of journey, wanting to get in touch with themselves wanting to access that other part of ourselves that sort of more spiritual part, that oneness, you know, be part of a community, a group, that oneness with everything. And I definitely have had when I've been at Katie's events, just some extraordinary experiences and the way that she lights the room, instruments that she uses. Katie, do you want to talk a bit about the percussion and the instruments and things that you use?
Katie: My main instrument is my voice. I've been a singer for as long as I can remember. So I use that quite a lot. And I'm very passionate about the use of Tibetan and Vedic mantras. So lots of people out there are doing sound healing journeys. But my point of difference, I suppose, is that I use what's called a looping machine where I will record and layer and loop my voice over each other live. So what that does is creates this very lush, evolving vocal landscape of sound. But the instruments that Emma’s referring to around that are a lot of the instruments, native and traditional healing instruments that have come from a number of different cultures. So I have a Native American style Indian medicine drum that I made myself. But the way, ideally, to make a medicine drum is to make it yourself rather than just buy it, because then it has your energy in it. So we use that. And the advantage of using drumming in a sound healing space is that drumming for a number of reasons brings us back to an earlier time. And in fact, probably the easiest association of why drumming is so relaxing, is to let you in on a little known fact that the first sense that we develop of our five senses touch, taste, smell, sight, etc. is sound. And we develop this sense in utero. We develop this sense before we are born around the 20 week mark. And so what's the very first sound that we hear? Boom, boom, boom, boom, right? That's it. That sound, that drumbeat, which is our mother's heartbeat, or this, the sound of her pulsing blood through our system, is our very first experience of our physical lives, right? That's huge. And so when people then feel that drumbeat around them instantly, for reasons they don't even understand. They go, Oh, that's good. Just so primal. And so drumming is usually a way that I like to begin, I don't always begin in that way. But I often like to incorporate drumming at some point because it does bring people back down to that deeply grounded sense of safety and security, which is so vital to feeling relaxed. So when I've done that, then I start to weave other sounds. So I use Koshi chimes which is basically a musically tuned chime. And most people find the sound of chimes relaxing, although I have to say one of my guests recently said that when he hears the sound of a chime he thinks of that movie with their little creature that jumped out of the jack in the box.
But anyway, it was the one exception - it was like when I hear chimes, I think of a creepy jack in the box. And I'm like, Oh, okay. But 99.9% of people generally find it relaxing. But I'm also trained in traditional Tibetan sound healing. So I use traditional Tibetan singing bowls quite a bit. And they emit this deep resonance. So the Tibetan singing bowls create a beautiful deep resonance as well. I have one crystal singing bowl, I'm not a huge proponent of singing bowl sounds, some people love them. I find if crystal singing bowls are used too much it kind of it's a very high frequency sound. So it can be relaxing. But it can also be overdone. So I use mine with minimal effect. And then I have another beautiful instrument, which is called a hand pan, which looks like a UFO. But it's a tuned steel drum. So it is wonderful. For me, it reminds me of musical raindrops. If that makes sense. Do you think that's an accurate description of it? How would you describe the handpan sound?
Emma: It's amazing.
Katie: Again, very soothing. And then there's other sorts of things and sounds that I will use, but they're the main ones. And so I think the other reason I'm so passionate about using my voice as a sound healing instrument is, again, hearing the voice is probably the second sound that we hear. We hear our voice, the voice of our parents or our family. Again, in utero, we start to hear these sounds. And from the moment we're born, we have people pouring over us going “oh, blah, blah, blah, blah”, and singing songs to us. And I think that in itself, that feeling of being sung to is inherently soothing. And whether you understand the why or the why not, it really doesn't matter if the end result is that you get wrapped in this beautiful cocoon of sound, and then kind of reborn back into your original state of joy and peace. You're like, I remember what it feels like to be safe and feel love and feel connected to everyone else in the room. And, and that's the space I like to hold and the energy that I love to create.
Emma: You do it so beautifully. Beautifully. It's a wonderful experience. Thank you so much, Katie, for taking us through your process. And I hope that will open up for other people to come and find you. Because it really is, you know, really an amazing experience. Katie's mantras are phenomenal. It's such a beautiful practice.
Katie: The important thing, again, for people on the sobriety journey, is that one of the more challenging things I found about my journey was one getting sober kind of becomes the easy bit. And then the really hard bit is “Yeah, but now where do I go, and now who do I hang out with without being triggered?” And so with these events, because they are, of course, drug and alcohol free, that it's a place that you can come and that while you're there, you're surrounded by people who are present, who are authentic, who are also on their own journey, they may or may not be sober when they're not there. And that doesn't matter. And there's no price of admission in that sense. But while you're in that space, you're safe, you're not going to be triggered by those old patterns. And that will leave you better than we found you. So I certainly want to extend that invitation to anyone looking for something to do where they can still be social and still feel connected, but not be triggered into any patterns that they're not wanting to engage in.
Emma: Yeah, definitely. Katie, did you want to share with everybody where they can find you, or anything that you've got coming up that you might want to talk about?
Katie: Sure. Look, the first place to go is my website. And that's really got all the information that you would need. So underwoodhealing.com, so that's really simple. As for what's coming up, there's all sorts of events coming up at the moment. I'm rotating through five different locations. So I do events in Southbank emerald, which is in the Dandenongs, Brunswick, North Side Mornington service on the Mornington Peninsula. So they're my regulars. And then I often do other events around. To me, the most exciting thing coming up is I'm running a retreat in March. Although scarily I just said to Emma, we've only got two places left for that. But if not in March, I'll certainly be running more weekend retreats through 2023. So as those new dates become available, all of that stuff is on the website. I also do one on one sessions from my space in Ormond, where you can come and have a combination session of massage Reiki, and sound healing. And there's a number of different price points, whatever works for you, you choose your time and we go from there.
Emma: A couple of times, I've been to Katie, one on one and she was having a very out of body experience. I was like completely flying, really disassociated and just a lot of stuff had been going on and she was totally calm and just brought me back down. When I came out I was like ah, I felt like just now so back away body I thought back to myself. So thank you Katie for all you do. And thank you so much for coming on here and spending time with me and sharing yourself with the people in my world. I really appreciate that.
