Kitty Stitt — Author, Former Teacher, Women's Circle Facilitator & Community Leader on Finding Alignment, Authenticity, and Abundance

Transcript Part 2

Melanie Suzanne Wilson

As we get into part two of this episode, which is a treat only get to do occasionally, a double, I want to seriously acknowledge the work you are doing because,

You talked a lot about mental health last time and the importance of community. And this is as important as ever. And knowing that you are a former teacher, I can tell you that we live in an odd world right now. And so I'm very curious as we bridge into talking about your book, Kitty, I'm wondering, I'm wondering in particular what

wisdom you can share with everybody about navigating spaces that are either... actually, here's a way to put it. We have very relaxed communities. We have very informal spaces where someone is sick, and people bring a meal to them, and then we have some very bureaucratic spaces that could have felt like a community, but it's not. I'm very keen to ask you.

How can we look after everybody, whether we are in one of those types of spaces or the other?

Kitty Stitt (01:19)

Good question, Melanie, I feel like it's well, actually comes up when I talk about my book. It's like knowing in your heart what's right for your child, what's right for you. And it's like following that. And if something doesn't feel safe and comfortable and authentic, and it really goes back to following your body's internal cues, you know, if you're getting an extra stomach in a place, it's kind of like

I don't have to spend my time in a place where I don't feel seen, heard, understood and acknowledged. And, you know, we need to be in spaces where we thrive. And that's why I'm so proud of, you know, people I know who have said, " My child feels anxious at school. I, can't get him to go to school. It just didn't feel right. So they've chosen homeschooling.

And then when they're in that space, especially in a rural area where it's not common, then they have to use the amazing technology that we have that you and I are utilising now to find groups of people who are also following what's right for their child. And then so it's about creating that community. You have to drive to the local town to get together with the other children, that's what you do, and it's following your heart, and it's hard to go against the grain. It's hard to not be going mainstream. But I feel like if you're following your heart and you're following that being authentic, then find the community where you have that feeling of safety, like you're saying, where there's not the bureaucracy, where you can assist people to be in their happy place.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (03:06)

That's amazing.

Kitty Stitt (03:08)

Like I said, a lot of schools.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (03:10)

Go for it, go for it.

Kitty Stitt (03:11)

If you can find a school that does that well, that's wonderful. If you can't find a school that does that well, I feel I just have so much admiration for people who then find a way to do an alternative to what everyone suggests you should do. Because that's not easy. It's easier just to go along with what the, as you say, bureaucracy is of just, yeah, so I'm really proud of people who can choose a different alternative if something doesn't feel right for them.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (03:49)

That's an important thing to consider in any life decision. Knowing what feels us, sorry, knowing what feels right for us. And the reason why I feel so emotional asking these questions is because I've seen that we are in a society that questions our legitimacy when we are doing something that feels right for us.

I personally, I don't eat meat, and I feel comfortable with that decision, and I don't judge people who do eat that because we all have our freedoms. And I know that some people feel anxious because they feel overwhelmed in some spaces or whatever it might be. And it seems like there's a fixed approach to people who are not fitting the box.

Either wear a set of headphones or do what everybody else is doing. So I'm wondering how can we feel empowered and speak up for what we need and legitimise what we need in spaces, in a society that questions us.

Kitty Stitt (05:07)

Well, then I would say, you know, start with what I started with at the beginning of my book. It's like, am I just going along with things because it's the way I was brought up, it was the way society thinks I should do it to think, you know, or am I there an alternative way? And that can take time. It takes a lot of guts. It takes a lot of guts to say, you know, if the pediatrician says try medication and you say, " That's not my first choice. Then you try another avenue, and it takes a lot of being steadfast and saying, I don't know where I'm going or what's going to happen, but I know that where we are right now doesn't feel right. So it's like, you don't need to know and be sure of what the next step is. But if you're motivated by, well, this doesn't feel right. So I'm going to try to find space where it does feel right, then I've always found in my experience that all the doors open. So I'll just share a little story from my book. We're living in Newtown and, you know, Newtown's like, our house is three k's from the city. It's a lot of pollution. We had a beautiful school, but the walk to school was along King Street in Newtown and Sydney. So a lot of traffic and pollution.

And my daughter had been sick with colds all winter, and my little one had pneumonia, and I just cried out to the universe, " This can't be, this can't be it. I just don't know what I, where or what or how it's gonna change, but this can't be it. And as soon as I spoke those words, that was on the Wednesday and on this Friday, my husband came home, and he said, You know, the parent companies, the company that owns us, is having some troubles. How would you feel moving to the country? And so literally eight weeks later, you know, we'd had four farewells. We'd put our house in the market. We were driving into this place in the country. I had no idea what I was doing or what it would look like or how I was going to create that change. But as soon as I was like, really knowing that this wasn't right, then all the doors opened into the future for me to create what I needed to create. And then we had a house on the lake, and we had trees, and we had fresh air, and we've never looked back, and that was 16 years ago. But in that moment, I could have continued living in Newtown. I could have pushed all that down and said, oh, don't be ungrateful. You should be counting your blessings. You have so much to be grateful for. Why are you complaining? I could have ignored all of that and been like, " It's good enough, you know, but I didn't. I felt with every part of my body, I allowed myself to cry and to grieve and to be like, " This doesn't feel right. So by doing that and acknowledging honestly, all the doors just opened. And that's what I say to people I work with. You don't need to know what the next step is to take the first step.

You just need to be confident enough to take that first step, and everything else, you know, everything else works out because you've been brave enough to acknowledge this doesn't feel right for me or my family or this community. You know, it's been wonderful to this moment, but right now I need something else. It's not, you know, it's not that the community was bad. It wasn't, but it just wasn't right anymore for me, my children and my husband.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (08:51)

You can be grateful to people who have helped you when also knowing that you need something else.

Kitty Stitt (08:57)

Correct. Yes.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (08:59)

You mentioned how this aligns with your book. What other lessons do people need to learn that the book highlights?

Kitty Stitt (09:07)

Beautiful. Well, as I say from the beginning of my book, this is just an example of one of the infinite ways that somebody can connect to their truth and then light up and then contribute positively to their community, to humanity. That's how we evolve as a species. Mine's just one example. There are so many different ways. And throughout the book, I've always said, at the end of a chapter, I might say, have you ever planted a seed that you had no idea that you were planting? Then years later, it just manifested, and you're like, wow, I had that thought five years ago, you know? So I always try to invite the reader to think about times in their lives or how they felt when they really felt an alignment. You know that feeling when you're just like in the flow? One time I went away for eight days, and I wrote every day for like 12 hours with no, my body held up.

I was just so creative. I was just like plugged into something beyond me because it was for the good of all. And I was just guided because I I'm sharing about inspiring others to answer this call to action, which is, you know, find what is your truth, listen to your body so that you work out what feels good, what doesn't feel good. And then start to align to that. And by aligning to that, takes us back to what you said. That's where you need to be like, well, you know, who makes me feel good that I spend time with, who drains me, who, what job is my job really fulfilling me and making me feel satisfied? And then eventually, you know, I start the book stories around the age of 18, and I finished the book stories around the age of 50. And by then I was really living a line to that truth. And then when you, when you do that, there is abundance, and it does, life does flow. It's not to say that

Life doesn't happen. We still have all the things of being human, know, death and being away from people and sickness. But it's just that you're more, you have more tools because you develop those tools. And my tools may not look the same as the tools that you develop, but you'll find it's like when the student is ready, the teacher appears. So the person reading will find their own tools to live in that feeling, have that alignment.

And so it's just a very positive book. It's all about how, when we do this together, we can evolve consciousness on the planet. So it's very positive, so much positivity, so much acceptance, so much shift in perspective that allow you to view your past stories in a more evolved way so that you're not the victim of those stories. You're more the empowered creator. It's like

Wow, I created that story so that I can learn all these things. So you go into gratitude for those. So it's a very beautiful book, and it's got like a futuristic ending. I don't want to give away the twist at the end, but it's got a very futuristic ending where consciousness evolved to a beautiful cooperative, kind, abundant place where everyone feels safe and accepted.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (12:24)

That is amazing. That's a great book in particular.

Sorry, it flicked microphones. I'm just checking. That's a great angle and a great end to the book in particular.

This is, this is a big message. You're saying that we can listen to the voice within, and I'm wondering how does this approach line up with your background in education, where, especially historically, I mean, you were teaching so many years ago. I was a child in the nineties and

There were expectations in these spaces to fit the box, fit the norm. And there was an expectation as well to do what we are told instead of finding what feels right for us. How did you bridge from one to the other, and how can both thoughts, how can both spaces coexist? Because I know that those thought processes, it goes beyond schools; we know that those expectations then filter into workplaces, all sorts of mainstream structures. How can we make peace with the world around us when also living in our truth?

Kitty Stitt (13:46)

Yes, great question. So all we can start, the only place we can start is ourselves. And once you start with yourself around how can I navigate those spaces and still be in line to my truth, then I feel like you become a good role model for people. So my children went through mainstream education, but they had this, you know, incredible mother and father who just modelled.

You can be whatever you want to be. You've got so much, and they've got such beautiful emotional intelligence. So my dream is that teachers will do that in the classroom, that they will show children to be kind, to be compassionate, to be loving, and to celebrate everybody in their diversity and that there's equality in their hearts.

So I suppose I hope that a child will find that. My positivity believes that children will find that. Even if they don't have it at home, they'll be that teacher, they'll be that community leader, that coach, someone who gives them a job. I just feel like we have to trust the process that we can. If you start with knowing what aligns to your truth, then you can find the job that lights you up and that we can navigate our joy by knowing what's true for us.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (15:18)

So living in alignment, it's fascinating that you did move from the city to a small town. And I would say these days that is an experience that a lot of people would be considering or contemplating whether they have done it or not. I'd say, since maybe a few years before COVID, at least, and definitely after COVID, people were wondering did they really want to be in the city. It's, it's a big leap because we are fed a narrative that we'll have more of what we need in the city, and we could have more resources in some ways in the city. But, but at least within your truth, you needed a different space. I wouldn't swap places with you. I like to be near water, but I appreciate, I know some people who wanted to do the sort of thing you did and get some space from the crowded city. I'm curious, have you talked with anyone else who made a similar elite?

Kitty Stitt (16:26)

Yes, I have. You know, although there are so many resources in the city, when you raise a child in the country, they go away to the city, and people notice that they're very resourceful, very resilient. They can do things, and they just have this attitude, a, you know, I can do an attitude. And I feel like, you know, the feedback that I've got once they've moved to the city, when they finished year 12, that there is a certain protective factor from growing up in the country that I've noticed when they've moved to the city. And I just needed to spend more time in nature. Like I said earlier, I'd lived in Rome and Paris and Indianapolis, Indiana, in the middle of Sydney in the eastern suburbs. And I just didn't have any idea of my cycles, the moon, tides, rivers, trees. And when I came here, I met the Native American Shaman teacher straight away. And then I realised, wow, there's so much I can learn from nature that I never ever would have been able to learn in Sydney, a new town where there was more concrete. So I feel like it's just, it's the slower pace. You can go down to downtown and do like five jobs in 20 minutes, you know, whereas those five jobs in Sydney would take the whole day. So it's a simpler life, it's slower. And yeah, people, other people who've made the change feel like they wouldn't go back. But I mean, I still have all my family in Sydney. So I go to Sydney a lot. So I still have the, I still have the experience of the city life. Whenever I'm there, I think I've made the right choice.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (18:24)

It's definitely good to stay connected with the city for sure. Absolutely. And it's fascinating. I see both sides a lot. You talked about physical health a bit and, and the light is very odd. Would you mind waiting? Would you mind waiting one second? I really want to get to that blind stand. There are blinds there, and you can see this, just this light on my arm. Can you see that?

Kitty Stitt (18:52)

Yeah, yeah, go for it.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (18:54)

Thanks. I felt like I had to. It was just looking odd. sorry. It was, I mean, it's going to look like that through the whole recording. Why not just fix it?

Okay. That's Think, have it right. Have it the, have the light the way we need it. Okay. That's good. They say that you need a lot of light, but I think sometimes you need less. Okay. The physical health in the city or your physical health in general. This is something I would love to look at because I found after I had a few days in the city and I was settling into it, I felt quite sick for the first time in so long. I felt like I was losing my voice physically. And I know that we adapt to all sorts of things, but also, there's a rush and a busyness that could happen anywhere. And that would of course, change our physical makeup quite a bit. But you mentioned cycles as well.

I think women should be encouraged to talk about the realities that do affect us because I don't know if you've seen, but in professional work in general, we're expected to just keep going in a straight line with our energy levels all the time when we know we're not built like that. And I'm so curious about your experiences because on my end, I know that I will have a few days in the month when I'm just wiped out, fading away, and it's just happening. And there's no point saying to us, be in a straight line, because then the highs are so great, even if the lows are something else. What has your experience been with things like that?

Kitty Stitt (20:50)

Yes, I found exactly the same. And I hope that the future workplace is more respectful. I know there's a lot of people doing amazing work in that area where they're, you know, trying to get men to understand that women have different energy levels. Some days, they just need to go home at lunchtime or they're tired. So yes, I hope that the future there will be a much, much more respect. And that's why we study that 13 original mothers that I spoke about because that's respecting that in the old days they had something called the Red Tent and every single cycle the women would go into the Red Tent and first they would honor three days, three days and two nights of complete silence where they would just go within for the answers, they would be still and then for the rest of their cycle they would be in the Red Tent with their other tribe members and sisters.

And they would be creating because at that time the womb is the most open to the universe, and that's when women were most creative. And in that time, that honouring of their cycles, the other younger girls who weren't menstruating yet or the older women who'd gone through menopause, they would do all their chores. And so by doing the 13 original Clan Mother'’ book by Jamie Samms, we honour that going within on our moon cycle to respect the silence, to go inward. Sometimes you can't necessarily go completely silent, but it's that honoring, I'm starting to menstruate, I'm going to honour that and just be a bit quiet, look after myself, a little bit more self-care, a little bit less doing and a little bit more being. So I think if we follow traditional indigenous people, they always lived with their cycle. Their cycle was what how they sowed, you know, the pagans, how they sowed their crop. Everything was done around the moon cycle. So I feel like by me doing like all these 55 full moon cycles in a row, we've been doing that. We've been honouring our cycles and honouring when the moon's full and then coming together and being quiet and, you know, letting other people do our jobs for the night while we tend to self.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (23:16)

That's amazing. Knowing that this was honoured and respected. It's a very different narrative because when we hear about ethnic spaces elsewhere these days, where some communities encourage women to be elsewhere when they have their cycle, there are stories and realities elsewhere where there's a feeling of shame, where there's restricted access, and it's probably used in the wrong way. But what you're describing in a more positive community, in a positive village, it's not about shame, it's about compassion.

Kitty Stitt (24:01)

Yes, exactly. It's the opposite. It's about celebrating that we're creative at that time and that we give ourselves permission to go within and to just slow down and look at what do I need at this time, and even just being, even just sitting and being creative, know, knitting or crocheting or writing, that's that, also that permission to just slow down.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (24:26)

Slow down and be creative.

Kitty Stitt (24:28)

And I was just gonna say, yes. And I was gonna say, I didn't get to talk about what my book's called. It's called Living Evolved, right here, right now. And the reason why I've done it with the W's is because the word that you've used a few times this interview, Melanie, is about our narrative. And I wrote on the back, in each moment, we can be our old narrative or our new narrative. What we choose creates our future.

So what story will we write? Write here, right now. So it's about choosing to write the narrative that's in alignment with what makes, what brings you joy, following your bliss, being in your heart. And for a while, you may need to stalk yourself because you may have habits and patterns that have been established at school, and you've just always reacted that way.

So for the first part, need to take the time to look at how does that feel when I say that? Maybe that's not my truth. Maybe that's something I just picked up from school or family or community. So then you start to change those thoughts, change those habits, and eventually those deliberate choices become an evolved way of being when you're no longer having to catch yourself the whole time you've done it for so long. And that's what I mean when I say you begin to embody your truth, because you start to be living your new narrative and creating from what feels good to you, as you said, not just the society's narrative or the workplace's narrative or the school's narrative.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (26:09)

This is becoming even more than emotional empowerment and decision-making. This is becoming a reframe that can be used for personal branding. This is becoming a reframe that can be used for personal branding because we are the version of ourselves that we choose to be. And I appreciate that so much.

This cycle can either be seen as a, as a, can't say handicapped these ways these days. The cycle can either be seen as a burden or it can be seen as an opportunity because, within the pausing and the slowing down, there is a chance to reflect. Then, looking at the narratives as mentioned in your book, as highlighted in your book, we can ask, okay, what's another way to see reality and shape reality?

Kitty Stitt (27:17)

and then each choice leads to an evolved way of being.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (27:22)

Absolutely. What sorts of opportunities can people gain when they are taking this approach? Have you seen that in people in your community, in yourself, where the reframe has created real everyday opportunities?

Kitty Stitt (27:40)

Well, absolutely. I mean, it's that choice point. It's all, as I say, it's all in the pause. It's looking at how's my body feeling right now. It's like, ooh, I could just react as I've always reacted, how I reacted because of the way my parents were when I was a child. Or I could pause and say, this is not, this, this, this,

This old memory doesn't need to define me right now. I'm safe. I don't need to lash out at my husband or feel like I need to control a situation when it's not going to plan. And in that moment, there's that softening, that acceptance, that forgiveness of self. You're forgiving yourself for having to have developed all those behaviours to protect yourself leading up to this moment.

And it's kind of like, wow, I don't have to choose that narrative in this moment. I can choose a different way of being. And it's quite freeing, and it's liberating, and it causes the person to feel so much more calm, like I said, there's not the anxiety of being in your patterned habitual ways all the time, because that can be exhausting, you know, someone who's a perfectionist, it can be exhausting. And when the person says, I don't have to, you know, I don't have to worry. I don't have to; I'm not defined by whether my house is tidy if someone drops in. It can be a real relief. So it's very empowering. It's very, very liberating. And I feel like myself and all the women that I work with, there's that freedom. They tell me that there's a freedom that they feel when they, particularly people who've always felt like a victim, like, it's, this always happens to me. Instead, they might say, " Wow, I created this opportunity to learn from it. How can I, how can I think differently this time? Maybe the outcome might be different if I think differently. Then they give it a go. So it starts with curiosity, and then it's, it's followed on by practising, and then results come. And then you realise, wow, this is, this feels a lot more in alignment to my truth.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (30:05)

This is exactly what people need to hear. Living in alignment creates freedom. Kitty, thank you so much for sharing this wisdom.

Kitty Stitt (30:16)

Thank you, Melanie. It's been so lovely to meet you. You're just a full of joy person. I just love your positivity and your energy and your beautiful questions, and you're bringing so much knowledge and joy and happiness to the world with the work you do. So keep it up.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (30:35)

Thank you so much.