Katie: After realizing that perhaps our thumbnails were not the most engaging piece of content on YouTube, I am slowly redesigning them and all the new episodes will have our brand new template, which is a lot more indicative of what the episode actually contains!
Jim: And are you seeing a difference? Are you seeing a
Katie: bump?
Katie: Yeah. We're getting more people interested in following us, which we appreciate and more watches over time. So I think it's just appealing to what people are already looking for. Now we can just help them find it more easily.
Jim: Katie's doing cool Shit.
Katie: That's right. Keep your eyes peeled. Check us out on YouTube if you haven't seen it yet.
INTRO
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Light From Lantern presents: Knit A Spell.
I'm magical maker: Katie Rempe.
And I'm the maker of magic: James Divine.
Join us as we stitch together the symbiotic relationship between crafting and 'The Craft'.
Katie:
Rupaul's Quote Explained
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Katie: We're still talking about love, but this week we're talking about love for yourself because Jim, as I think many people have heard from our queen,
Katie: if you don't love yourself, how in the hell are you gonna love someone?
Katie: RuPaul. Thank you. That's the one.
Jim: Just like RuPaul has many layers of foundation wigs lashes. The saying that sounds cliche or just that saying that people are used to actually has many layers underneath.
Jim: Indeed RuPaul takes drag and actually has a lot more of a deep understanding of what drag really is. And this saying, if you can't love yourself, how the hell you're gonna love somebody else? Can I get an amen? It's actually a much deeper idea and it has some psychological implications.
Jim: If we think about self-love. How do I love myself? The love that you're able to have for yourself. And when we talk about love, it's the commitment to ourselves, not just always the feeling like I can feel disappointed in myself. Or I did something that I regret and I need to make amends, or I need to do something and I can feel bad about it.
Jim: That's fine. Love is not always a feeling. And I can still feel bad about myself, but I can still love myself because I can choose an action. I can choose to do the loving thing that is the commitment and the decision and the verb of love for myself, regardless of how I feel. So love as a verb, as an action, as a commitment to do the healthy thing that is loving for myself, that is caring for myself regardless and despite my feelings for myself.
Jim: So when we love ourselves, when we have that choice and that commitment to ourselves, it expands our capacity to love others. And if we don't have. The capacity of love for ourselves, we limit the capacity of love for another.
Jim: And so the way this works is if I only have a small capacity of love for myself, I really don't have a large sense of love for myself, I really have a lot of self-loathing. When someone else comes along and really does love me, sees me for the amazing human that I am, and is completely committed to me and loves me, I'm going to reject that love.
Jim: I'm not going to be able to have the capacity to receive their love, and they're going to experience that as rejection of their love for me, even though I don't really intend that to happen. I don't have the capacity to receive their love because I don't have the capacity to have love for myself.
Jim: Mm-hmm. What do you think about that? I
Katie: think that is completely accurate. And there's another side of that too, which is committing to so much love outside of yourself that you have nothing left to give back to yourself. So instead of filling up your cup first, which is what we're talking about, or remembering to take time to refill your cup, if it's all outgoing, eventually it's bone dry. And those tasks that you used to be so happy to do for your loved ones are little resentments. Things you fight over instead of things that you used to just do without even thinking about it. Yeah.
Katie: And so where does that come from? Are you tired? Do you need sleep?
Katie: We were talking earlier before we started recording about sometimes the feeling of a lack of self-care being similar to a lack of sleep.
Katie: Here's a fun example when I was in college, I remember going out one night at Halloween. It was out late. I came back, I had to do laundry and for some reason, that ruined my night. There was someone using it. That was it for me. And so that became known as the Halloween laundry incident.
Katie: And so and I find myself getting upset over nothing. I ask, am I Halloween laundry upset, or is it something real ?
Jim: Because you were in that state of any little thing would've been Yep. Yeah, that's right. If you were seven, it would've been, I got all Tootsie Rolls and no Snickers bars.
Jim: It would've
Katie: been that, right? Yeah.
Jim: Yes, exactly. But in this case it was laundry. Oh my God, I have to do laundry. And you collapsed.
Katie: It could have been anything.
Jim: There's a saying I've heard if you're hungry, angry, lonely, or tired, just HALT. Cause yeah, it's a good little, reminder. Yeah.
Self-Love in Society
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Jim: And I think about this too: the role of our society. As a sociology oriented person, we are taught this puritanical selflessness of give give to others and don't worry about ourselves.
Jim: That puritanical martyrdom that to give selflessly and our reward is in the afterlife. This idea that we sacrifice ourselves for the good of other people, and somehow there's a heroic or a saintliness to doing that.
Jim: And that's often especially oriented in women to do that. To be the caregivers and to make the casserole for everyone else and not for yourself, or just barely eat as you're running from one thing to another. Being the caregiver for this family member and that person.
Jim: And you're left with nothing for yourself. And especially guilt and shame overtaking a moment to care for yourself! And I've seen many palmistry clients who struggle and it shows up in their palms, struggle with the guilt and shame of taking a moment to meditate. Taking a moment to take a hot bath. Taking a moment to really care for themselves.
Jim: You listener, if this reminds you of you, you are worthy of taking that time for yourself. You're worthy of that self-care and self-love. What defines you as worthy is not in how you care for others, it is in how you care for yourself so that you can do the amazing work for others in a way that is balanced and has those healthy boundaries.
Jim: It's a very tough thing because people resist that when you hold back and start to put up boundaries and say, no, I can't enable you any longer, or I need to have my own time. Charity begins at home is the thing that my husband says, which is what absolutely. Fill your own cup first.
Katie: Exactly. And that's a good point too, is sometimes self-care is asking for help. Being courageous enough to know that the people that you would help, most of them also would be happy to help you. Most people aren't mind readers, you have to let them know.
Katie: And if you're willing to do that, you usually get what you need. If you're got a new baby or two jobs, who's someone you could reach out to maybe watch your kid for a second so that you can take a 10 minute bath? It doesn't have to be a whole day that you take off for self-care, cuz that's not realistic for everyone. Certainly.
Katie: What's the smallest amount of time that you can just take and be totally present with yourself and not worried about anyone or anything else? It's a luxury.
What IS Self-Care?
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Jim: Katie, what is self-care? Is self-care going out and buying myself a
Jim: big chocolate cake and eating it in one sitting?
Katie: I mean, I could be I suppose.
Katie: There's a really cool book out there that is called, the Witch's Book of Self-Care, magical Pampering. We have at linked in our show notes.
Katie: There's a couple great quotes that they've put out on their Amazon page that are most liked from people who read the book, and I think it really encompasses this really well.
Katie: "Self-care means considering yourself a worthwhile person and presenting yourself as valuable, capable, and deserving."
Jim: Oh, I love that. Considering myself a worthwhile person. Ah, that's so cool.
Katie: " It's a complicated woven combination of hundreds of small acts and an attitude shift."
Katie: Which we talked about earlier in our society this is very low value because you need to be a productive worker bee. And you're not being in their minds, if you're not working constantly at your computer.
Jim: We're trained to be factory workers in our modern society. I guess this would be countercultural, wouldn't it?
Katie: Indeed.
Katie: " It rests on the idea of a slow moving, low stress and low commercial consuming life."
Katie: Talk about countercultural. Want less, expect less stress?
Jim: I love the connection between slow moving, low stress, low commercial consumption and self-care.
Jim: I think about how often I have been in this high stress, fast moving, high commercial consumption rush to feel better or to feel like I matter. In my attempts to please others, in my attempts to feel like I'm a valid member of society. And it is so often collapsed with, am I driving the right car?
Jim: Am I wearing the right brand of shirt or clothing? Living in the right neighborhood. Do I have the right title In my job? Do people like me because I've given them gifts or paid for their dinner. And that stress and fast moving lifestyle is Not self-care.
Jim: And I think about how so often self-care is associated with high consumption. Like getting our nails done, or going to the spa or buying something. We even talk about retail therapy as a thing. And sometimes it's even. Somewhat validated by others.
Jim: Oh yeah, that's a totally valid thing. Read that again.
Katie: It rests on the idea of a slow moving, low stress, low commercial consumption life.
Katie: And so here's my example of this.
Katie: Christmas.
Katie: Christmas, oh shit. It's hollow for me because the time breezes by so fast. You have to do the to-do list. Did I do the obligation of decorating? Did I do the obligation of buying everyone the gifts that maybe if I had time, would hand make instead and they would be more meaningful.
Katie: But I don't, I have to get through them. Cause I have all these other things to do and I have my business to run and I have my life and I have my kids and I have this. And we're also going on vacation. That's a lot of stuff.
Katie: When you're always doing the runaround, you're not paying attention to anything anymore. So time is lost.
Katie: What do you think about that?
Jim: That nailed it a hundred percent. What is everyone's fantasy of the holidays, of Yu Tide of Christmas? Is everyone sitting around by a fire with a beautiful holiday tree, or a beautiful manora, or a beautiful lonza can, or whatever it may be.
Jim: And having a wonderful, food set out. And telling stories in laughter and exchanging little gifts. And it's magic because who went and purchased those gifts? Who wrapped those gifts? Who made the food? And a lot of times it falls on one person. And this happens at a lot of holidays.
Jim: Think about a birthday, a wedding. Think about, oh God, but think about. The person who makes a birthday happen. Who was it in your household who made the cake? Who made the dinner? Who bought the presents? Who wrapped the presents? Was there one person in your household who did all that?
Jim: And is that the same person who even in their retirement when the kids are grown, is running around like crazy caring for everybody. And was it the female person in your household who still has those patterns? Anyway, it's a very interesting thing of how they're validated. Oh man, this is harsh, right? Yeah. So it's no wonder that our society sets that up.
Jim: My mom started setting up a Christmas where, Christmas day was low stress and we all made and helped cut up cheese and it was nuts and dried fruit and fresh fruit and cheeses and crackers, abundance of them. And that Christmas morning was what was set.
Jim: And that's what we snacked on, and it was very low stress and we just got to chill and there was no big dinner until much later.
Jim: And we all, he had to help with that. There was a lot of stuff that was already made, because the Italian tradition was we had a pasta making party and we made raviolis.
Jim: Everyone made raviolis weeks before. So all you had to do was boil the raviolis. And there was no big, like Turkey or goose or ham or whatever. There was wedding soup that was made weeks before. It was all in the freezer. Mom would take out of the freezer, boil it, and we, there was already sauce in the freezer.
Jim: So there would be this like big meal but it was pasta. She figured out how to make this stuff low stress because she was just not having it.
Jim: And so there are ways, to figure out in our tradition how to do that. Or we would do, we would grow up in Arizona, we would do the. Low stress because she would buy tamales, which are very those are the Mexican tradition at Christmas.
Jim: And there would be tamales and all you do is steam 'em and they're already made. And so there would be these other foods that we would have at Christmas that also are a lot less stress. And, so it was interesting how, now looking back in the context of this conversation, how my mom was pretty good at being oh hell no.
Katie: Oh yeah, I feel like mine similar.
Saturn IS Self-Love?
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Jim: In the context of self-love, this is an example of how boundaries can be amazing self-love, which is that power of Saturn.
Jim: Saturn is self-love. Isn't that interesting to think about?
Jim: If we go on a little tangent here, please. Could Saturn be self-love? Think about the mudra. What's the mudra of boundaries? Oh, it's my favorite. It's the middle finger. Yes.
Jim: But if you really wanna have boundaries in a way that doesn't really piss people off, a self-love mudra that is actually about having healthy boundaries with yourself , let's say people are asking a lot of me, or I have given a lot of myself and I'm go want to stand for some new boundaries where I need to say.
Jim: I'm not going to do this for you this time. Or I can make one casserole a month, not seven casserole a month or something like that. You're feeling the pull or like I'm pulling back on what I was committing to, or instead of volunteering five days a week, I'm just gonna volunteer one day a week, whatever that is.
Personal Boundaries Modern Mudra
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Jim: In order to hold to that boundary, you can extend your middle finger just slightly on your hand . You don't need to actually do the flipping off, and as you hold your fingers in your pockets, or if you hold your fingers this way, below the fold, below the camera on Zoom or on the phone,
Jim: you can hold your finger, your middle fingers, which is Saturn rules, boundaries, ethics.
Jim: If you're in person with someone, you can just do it very gently. They won't even notice. It can be a very helpful mudra to keep to your boundaries.
Jim: If you love this little tidbit, subscribe to this YouTube channel and right there we'll have more little tidbits as we go along.
Katie: That's such a great tip because people often think about what can I do to promote self-love or boundaries within me? People might carry, a talisman or a rock that is associated with that.
Katie: Or they might create something that wraps themself up in a feeling of self-love. Putting that energy into something as opposed to buying something, not that can't work just as well, but something about having to put the time into making it, Mm-hmm. , even if it comes out, not great. Is still great. Yeah, I love that.
Jim: Yeah. Let's talk about some crafting ideas after our break, stick around and when we come back more from Katie and me on self love.
BREAK
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Jim: And we're back. Let's start with some foundations, like if I want to. Bring self-love into crafting like magically or psychologically. Yeah. Are there some like ground rules?
Jim: Where do we start with some of that stuff?
Craft Boundaries
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Katie: I always think of a couple of things when. Starting a craft or starting one for someone else, especially is Do I wanna do it?
Katie: So I know that's like a little vain perhaps, but if you really don't want to do something that somebody asks you to do and you say yes to it, and it's something like knitting. It doesn't take a day . That's a long commitment to something that you're gonna have potentially like a growing resentment towards over time. And that's not great energy to start with any project, right? Here's this thing I made for you. Take it.
Jim: Talk to me about that because. I want to do it. But it's also a little bit of I feel compelled, or I feel like she's struggling with this terrible disease and this could be really helpful for her.
Jim: And I know that everyone has agreed to knit a cap and I'm new at it, so I'm gonna try and I have these big plans and I want to do it. What's the role of like discernment or self-awareness and all that kind of stuff?
Craft with Grace
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Katie: In the terms of someone being new. Sometimes you don't really know where your boundaries are or your limitations until you start something. That's where having a lot of grace is really important and makes things a lot easier because if you give yourself grace to realizing, oh, I committed to making this hat, and I just got the pattern from the person that we're all making, and I don't even know what half the stuff is, and I'm afraid to ask them. And now it's been two months and everyone else is finished and I'm freaking out. These are things we can learn over time to say, okay, I don't need to freak out.
Katie: This is something we're trying to do to help someone. So let's remember, what is the name of the game here? What's the objective? It's to love and care for someone. So maybe the way you love and care for that person isn't making them a hat. Maybe it's gifting them a teddy bear or your time or a meal or something different.
Katie: Maybe it's, a face washcloth or a project that's much smaller but still quite useful that you just haven't thought of. Creativity is the mother of invention. We can get ourselves out of a lot unnecessary commitments by being a little more creative with how we go about doing them.
Jim: I love that. Yeah. And this is self-care, which is being really clear with myself and having that discernment of what is my thing? If I'm gonna do something for someone else, what is something that is easy for me to. That's okay. What is something that I am really good at doing?
Jim: And for me especially, I don't need to commit to something out of a sense of obligation because that's probably what would drive me to do something that I'm not really good at. Or say, oh, this is how I'm gonna learn something. And instead say, Hey, I need to do something that's well within my wheelhouse.
Jim: Something that's actually pretty easy for me to do so that I can do it well and provide this for someone because that'll be something that I'll be able to be successful at. That's a good.
Katie: And you're offering somebody else with that expertise, the opportunity to shine. There's probably somebody out there doing that thing that you don't really want to do or you're not good at doing, and that's why you don't wanna do it. Yep. That's usually why I don't wanna do something.
Jim: There's people who are actually really good at sorting through medical bills. And there's people who are really good at making food. And there are people who are really good at knitting. It's really are all kinds of people.
Self-Love Craft Ideas
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Jim: So if I wanna do stuff for me , do you have ideas that are around self-care crafts?
Katie: Just taking a second to even consider what you might want to do is in itself an act of self-care. Much like creating the wheel of the year just by looking at it to see, yes, it works. No, it doesn't. Tells you a lot about yourself. So sit with yourself and ask if I had. Five minutes, 20 minutes, an hour, a whole damn day, what would I wanna do?
Katie: Sometimes that's hard for people. It's been hard for me, and I feel like I have an insane creative imagination That's one place to start.
Katie: You might surprise yourself, especially if you think back to when you were a kid or like the last time you just had a blast to doing anything.
Katie: What were you doing? Was it just hanging out with people? Was it roller skating? Was it knitting with a knitting group? These are all things you can maybe explore more of to gain some of that back a little bit.
Katie: There's also a lot of traditional things out there. Like just taking half an hour to have somebody else take care of everything in your life, turn off your brain and have a nice hot bath. Whether you made your own, special ritual salts or just Epson salt works great too. If you're like, thanks, throw it in there, that works just as well.
Katie: Being present is the key to self-care.
Katie: what kind of things do you think of, Jim? Where do you go when you think, man, Jim needs some self-care?
Jim: Yeah.
Jim: Meditation. Taking even 10 minutes to meditate is self-care. I think also going for a walk and experiencing nature and just walking is really good self-care for me because it gets me out of my office gets me moving.
Jim: That's important self-care that I tend to resist also because it's ugh, I have to change the inertia of sitting still to like actually get my ass up and go out.
Katie: Plus the weather's not always agreeable.
Jim: Yeah, February weather in Seattle.
Katie: Oof. Yeah.
Katie: I also think of things like painting. I'm not good at it, you don't get better at it if you make no time for it. So whether it's five minutes in the morning or in the evening, or, I also like to do like a tarot card in the morning as a way to just be present and reflect on the day before or day after whatever's coming up.
Katie: Writing like journal entries.
Jim: If you're not a writer, there's a great book called The Artist's Way and she has a practice called Morning Pages.
Jim: It's not for writers, it's just to download and get all the mental chatter out of your head onto paper. And that's a great technique for non-writers that is a really fantastic practice of mental expunge your mental, squeeze out all the mental chatter and clear your brain. And highly recommended.
Jim: And if you do Morning Pages, leave us a comment or let us know because it's a really fantastic practice. And I'd love to know if you're a person that practices morning pages.
Katie: Ooh, that sounds interesting. I'm gonna look that up. Speaking of a morning page, what about the practice of maybe writing a letter to yourself, whether it's your past self or your current self, or a future self?
Katie: A letter of appreciation or of a healing. You know that self care too. Or just if you need inspiration on a thing that if you're feeling blue, you need to go back to a time where you were really happy. What were you doing? Could you bring more of those things into your life now?
Jim: This reminds me of something that we used to do. You can do this at the spring Equinox which is also the Persian New Year. Where you can take 12 tarot cards and you can put them in 12 envelopes with a little note to yourself on what that tarot card means. and you can do them for the 12 Zodiac months that are coming up.
Jim: And those are like notes for yourself going forward. Little n love notes, little positive encouragement on whatever that card means.
Jim: That's a really fun thing. Oh, I love that. Isn't that cool?
Katie's Self Love Cowl Pattern
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Jim: I think you could also make something for yourself. Isn't one of your things. You have the Travelers' Tasman, but don't you have a self-love thing?
Katie: I do, yes. Quite on the nose to this topic, I have a pattern called Self-love Cowl, which is imagine a cowl that has a really fun, textural puffy stitch.
Katie: That is a great way to do little meditations. I almost think of them as like rosary beads because each one allows you time to build in some energy. Or maybe you wanna do a different prayer for each one or just in a different intention.
Jim: Oh, wait, so tell me what you mean. So as you're knitting each little puffy like, Thingy. Oh, yes. Is that what you mean?
Katie: Yes. Explain. The way that it's constructed is several rounds where you're just knitting the two colors held together.
Katie: Hold on. Speaking of self-care, my dog is knitting some.
Katie: There she is. Hello.
Jim: Welcome to the podcast Pancakes.
Katie: Pancakes actually models my
Katie: Self-Love Cowl in my newsletter.
Katie: If anyone's curious of seeing her look at it you can check her out there.
Jim: If you wanna see more of pancakes, subscribe to the Light from Lantern Newsletter.
Katie: The cowl is worked in several rounds that are just simply meditative. But every so often you do a pattern stitch that makes you stop and work a small amount of it back and forth. And then you progress forward and do another one back and forth before you progress forward and work all the way around until you get to the end.
Katie: Then you do several rounds again to build up like a foundation, and then you do more of these meditative stitches.
Katie: It's a great way to really imbue this energy into the piece because it does go fast. Overall, the piece knits up quickly, I would say. But it feels like it's going slowly because you're doing it in so many small pieces.
Jim: So you can use each of those back and forths with an intention or with a repeated mantra of some kind around self-love.
Jim: And even the colors, you suggest colors, but really a person can use any color that they want.
Katie: Certainly you could just use one color if you have one really strong intention that you want. What's stopping you from using two of the same blue or two really similar shades of blue. If you want really strong healing, comfort, two shades of blue could be the whole thing. Yeah, and it would be stunning.
Katie: So just because I put a guideline out there of things you could do, sky's the limits. Use your imaginations. You tell me what you're inspired by because I'm always inspired by what people who are making my patterns do. Because again, I'm only one person. I'm looking for your point of view as well.
Past Color Magic Episodes
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Jim: And we have episode 47, 48 and 49, and episode 50. Which are all about color magic, crafting with color, the three primary colors, gray magic, green magic. So you can learn a lot about crafting with colors in those episodes. And we'll link those episodes in our show notes as well if you're interested about some of those meanings in color magic and how to craft with color and some sources of amazing colorful yarns.
Jim: Check those out as
Katie: well.
Katie: And we'll put 'em in the show notes like Jim said.
Katie: And if anyone out there is a knitter and interested in this pattern, there's also several page in the pattern that outlines ways to create a magical intent, different color combinations that you can use and places for you to develop your own senses of what you feel like is right.
Katie: So there's lots of resources within there too to inspire you further.
Jim: What is your mantra for February around self-love?
Katie: Mine is, help me help you. That's what it is.
Jim: You went on Jerry McGuire on us. That's right.
Katie: How about you, Jim ?
Jim: You cracked me up. Mine is
Jim: it's really believing in myself while being open to other people's experience. And why I say that is I don't wanna become blind. I want to have that balance between my own self-confidence self love and belief without becoming like the Aries stomping all over other people.
Jim: And so I want that balance of compassion and confidence with myself. So that's my desire for self-love.
Katie: I feel I do this and it's my cancer ascending self is allow me to help you more than you want, or I will do it all.
Jim: and then the Virgo is and I'll do it correctly.
Katie: And then I'll tell you how you should have been doing it to begin with.
Jim: And that's my Virgo rising too. See? .
Katie: Yeah. That's why you and I get along so well. Jim.
Jim: I hope you loved this episode. Get it? Loved this episode. Ooh, and I hope you continue to expand your capacity for love within so that you can love those who are without. And we'll see you next week on another episode of Knit A Spell.
Katie: I can't wait to see you next week.
Katie: Okay, chow.
Katie: Bye everybody.
Thanks for listening. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed the show, consider sharing it with a friend, leaving a review on iTunes and Spotify or following Knit A Spell on Instagram.
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See you next week. Next week.
