Using Plant Medicines with Intention: Katherine's Story | Healing Heroines

Ever been curious about psychedelics? If so, you're not alone. But consuming psychedelic plant medicines has always been taboo, even when it comes to healing modalities. Over the years, more research has shown that plant medicines, when taken with intention, can have a positive impact on one's psyche and healing journey. 

Katherine Petrullo is the founder of Lüminate and creator of Women of Impact. Her work weaves together Taoist philosophy, tantra, kundalini, and plant medicine. Before her success, she was a young woman quietly falling apart, cycling through rock bottoms, and reaching for anything external that might make her feel whole, a feeling she had never truly known. Katherine explains what finally shifted, including a plant medicine ceremony, and what she learned on the other side of it. 

Click 'play' to see if psychedelics might be your next (unexpected) healing modality.

What You Will Learn

[00:07:30] Childhood existential anxiety — and distorting her voice to feel safe

[00:13:30] Why plant medicine wasn't the magic bullet she expected

[00:17:00] Why not feeling safe to share kept her deeply isolated

[00:30:30] What her first ayahuasca ceremony actually felt like — and the dark night of the soul that followed

[00:36:00] What coming back into the body actually felt like

[00:46:00] How the medicine wheel explains why so many people experience energy crashes and empty creation

[00:53:30] What Women of Impact is — and what it's actually designed to do

[01:01:00] Why healing isn't something you're always doing — it's a dance

Resources Mentioned

• Many Lives, Many Masters by Brian Weiss

Let’s Connect!

Katherine Petrullo

Website | Instagram

Chandler Stroud

Website | LinkedIn | Instagram

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Mixing and editing provided by Next Day Podcast.

Transcript

Chandler Stroud: [00:00:00] Hey, guys, it's Chandler, and welcome to The Healing Heroes. I promise you. We're falling again.

Chandler Stroud: I'm Chandler Stroud, an executive, wife, and busy mom of two, who after years of living with anxiety, health struggles, and an unshakable feeling like I should be happier, made a profound discovery that changed everything. Join me on a journey where unexpected paths lead to [00:00:30] healing and more happiness. On this show, we'll explore unconventional ways to unlock more joy in your own life with the help of my very own healers and trusted advisors, The Healing Heroes.

Chandler Stroud: Hey everyone, and welcome back to the Healing Heroes podcast. I'm your host, Chandler, and today we're sitting down for another one-on-one interview with a healing heroine. [00:01:00] As a reminder, our heroines are women who have walked through real hardship and have come out the other side not just healed, but devoted to helping others do the same.

Chandler Stroud: Today's conversation is a little different from what you might expect. We're not just talking about what happened to my guest. We're talking about what she did about it, and more specifically, what she discovered along the way that changed everything for her. Catherine Petrullo has spent over a decade [00:01:30] working at the intersection of embodiment, personal development, and purpose, weaving together ancient wisdom traditions, including Taoist philosophy, tantra, kundalini, and energy medicine to support women in coming back to themselves.

Chandler Stroud: Part of what makes this conversation unique is that Catherine also brings a deeply informed and thoughtful perspective on plant medicine and psychedelics as tools for healing, [00:02:00] a topic we haven't explored yet on this show. She's not here to advocate for any one path, but she has lived experience with these modalities, including a ceremony that left her with what she calls psychedelic trauma, and she has spent years studying how and when these medicines can be genuinely supportive versus destabilizing.

Chandler Stroud: It's a nuanced, honest conversation, and I think it's one that a lot of you have [00:02:30] been waiting for. But before she built any of that, before Luminate, before Women of Impact, Catherine was a young woman who felt deeply out of place in her own skin. Someone who smiled on the outside, kept it together, and quietly had no idea how to find her way home to herself.

Chandler Stroud: Today, she's here to talk about that journey, the clunky parts, the wrong turns, the practices that actually worked, and what she now believes women [00:03:00] most need in order to lead and live from a truly aligned place. Here's a bit more about Catherine before we dive in Catherine Petrullo is the founder of Luminate and creator of Women of Impact, a year-long container designed to help women lead and live from a deeply aligned place.

Chandler Stroud: Her work weaves together ancient wisdom traditions, including Taoist philosophy, tantra, kundalini, and [00:03:30] energy medicine to help women reconnect with their truth and step into purpose-led leadership. She works primarily with high-achieving women, think lawyers, executives, and investment bankers, who have built impressive lives on the outside but feel something quietly breaking down within.

Chandler Stroud: Catherine has spent over a decade studying and training across multiple lineages, and also brings a uniquely informed perspective on plant medicine and psychedelics as tools for healing, [00:04:00] something we'll get into today. Her signature offering, Women of Impact, supports women whether they want to go deeper within the life they have or are ready for a pivotal change entirely.

Chandler Stroud: Catherine, welcome to the show today. I'm so excited to have you here. Thank you for joining us. 

Katherine Petrullo: Thank you so much for having me on. I'm so excited to have this conversation today. 

Chandler Stroud: Me too. I've been waiting a long time for this one. This is a space that I have not personally dipped my toe into in [00:04:30] my own healing journey, but have been monitoring and researching from the outside looking in, and I'm so excited to get that inside perspective from you today and just learn from you and your own experience and how you coach a lot of the clients that you work with today.

Chandler Stroud: So super excited to dive in. 

Katherine Petrullo: Oh, I can't wait to share. 

Chandler Stroud: Well, before we get going, there is a little bit of a tradition on this show. I like to start with a bit of a warm-up question for our heroines. So Catherine, what's one [00:05:00] thing bringing you a genuine sense of joy or peace this week? 

Katherine Petrullo: Ooh, genuine sense of joy or peace.

Katherine Petrullo: Oh, so this year I have really started to study Kabbalah. Mm. I facilitate all of these ancient healing technologies and this work, but I'm truly a never-ending student of it as well. And so this year I really started exploring Kabbalah, and one of the introductory practices that they give you is [00:05:30] pause, what a pleasure, when you are feeling triggered.

Katherine Petrullo: And what it has done for me this week has been so expansive because as things have come up in my day-to-day, I am getting so excited to work with this methodology of how you actually expand and bring more light in. And so I've been getting a lot of joy and pleasure from playing with my triggers in this way of pause, what a pleasure, what strength do I need to bring more light into this situation?

Katherine Petrullo: [00:06:00] And so that has been a great reframe for me, and now when I get triggered, I'm getting so excited, and I feel really inspired by this really empowering practice. So it's been bringing me tremendous joy, which is kind of a funny response where it's like I'm getting joy in being triggered. But it's, it's where I'm at.

Katherine Petrullo: It's, I'm really enjoying the growth at this moment in time. 

Chandler Stroud: No, I can totally appreciate that. I mean, there is no greater joy than finding something that maybe threw you for a loop [00:06:30] before and now you feel so empowered to face head-on with just such a simple reframe. I totally get it, and I love that example.

Chandler Stroud: Thank you for sharing. 

Katherine Petrullo: Yeah. 

Chandler Stroud: So Catherine, I would love to just start at the beginning of your story, before all the work, before all the healing, before you even had language for what you were feeling. Take us back to the younger version of you, if you don't mind. Can you share, to the extent you're comfortable, more about your upbringing, your childhood, and I think most [00:07:00] specifically, your inner world at that time?

Katherine Petrullo: Absolutely. So as a child, I would now say I was gifted with a lot of existentialism. At the time- Mm-hmm ... it definitely was not a gift. But I can remember as early as the fourth grade feeling a lot of anxiety and kind of a constant rumination of thoughts regarding the finality of the lived experience. [00:07:30] And it would be so intense that it would actually overwhelm me at times.

Katherine Petrullo: When I would just be moving about my day, all of a sudden there'd be this wave of, "This is gonna end, and what does that mean?" And so I think because that was such a big part of my childhood thought process, I, in a way, was always oriented towards finding this work, finding these tools. But growing up, obviously, that was kind of a back-running track, but I also was experiencing a lot that made me shut down my [00:08:00] emotions and disconnect from myself.

Katherine Petrullo: There were periods where I was getting bullied really badly, to the point where I actually started distorting my voice. So, 'cause it felt safer to share something in a fake voice, 'cause then if it gets rejected, it doesn't feel as bad. Mm-hmm. But I started distorting my voice. I started really trying to just mirror what I saw as acceptance, rather than connecting to myself and exploring what my own authenticity was.

Katherine Petrullo: So flash [00:08:30] forward to my late teens, early 20s, that was kind of my mode of operating, where I was very hypervigilant on what the external was cuing to me, rather than it all connected to myself. And when any of us find ourselves in a position like that, it's kind of like we're standing on a powder keg, because once the external stops responding to us, our self-concept implodes.

Katherine Petrullo: I had a series of sh- things that [00:09:00] shifted my external world, and in that, everything that I thought was solidified within me collapsed. And so I started going into my coping mechanism, which was grasping for the external. And I was, one, trying to present a version of me that wasn't authentic, and two, trying to shut down my own narrative.

Katherine Petrullo: So I was drinking a lot. I was moving in a way that was so desperate and really grasping. So I thought, "Oh, if I [00:09:30] get the right school, the right friends, the right boyfriend, the right this-" I'll feel okay again. It'll finally prove to me that all the things that I want, to feel worthy, to feel whole, to feel lovable, well, the external will prove that to me.

Katherine Petrullo: And it was a series of consecutive rock bottoms from there because every time I would reach for something, I would either grasp it for a second and it would disappear, or I wouldn't get it at all. And so I was really [00:10:00] reinforcing all of these horrible things that I was saying about myself and feeling about myself over and over again until the point where I realized that I was in such a dark place.

Katherine Petrullo: In college, I really experienced the onset of deep anxiety and depression to the point where getting out of bed was a difficult experience. I remember I would wake up and I could not get a breath in. And at that point, I realized something has gotta give. Something has to change here because [00:10:30] I simply wasn't living a life.

Katherine Petrullo: I wasn't able to show up and function. So I had no choice. And for some reason, a very traditional path of healing never really appealed to me. And so I started on a quest to find support that felt true to what I was looking for at the time. And so I found a life coach, and I remember going into her for the first time, and I have a [00:11:00] memory of this moment, and I just feel like I was a dark cloud.

Katherine Petrullo: I was so defeated, so contracted, and I just had no idea of who I was what I wanted or how to get out of this desperate place. And I remember she was like, "I'm gonna chime your third eye," which I had never even heard of at the time. 

Chandler Stroud: Oh my 

Katherine Petrullo: God. And she literally goes, "I have never done this for someone before."

Katherine Petrullo: So I really have to look back and have so much appreciation that the universe was guiding me [00:11:30] in every step of the way, because how did this happen? And I started working with her, and changes started to be made. But again, my coping mechanism of reaching for the external was still really there, so we have a long time between that moment and actually getting to a point where I felt like I was w- really transforming myself.

Katherine Petrullo: But that was truly the start. Because I started to open my awareness, and I started to explore my emotional body, how to express, [00:12:00] what was it being r- expressed, and why. And this life coach was getting a certification in past life regression, so we started to do hypnosis therapy. So it really also started to expand my worldview on the modalities that are out there.

Katherine Petrullo: And I remember doing my first past life regression with her. I was like, "I have no idea what that just was, but there's something here. These modes of healing, there's some validity to them," and I was [00:12:30] fascinated by them. And so I opened the door from past life regressions into manifestation and- At that time, I was really exploring a lot of predictive practices, so I loved working with psychics and mediums, which I think are beautiful tools, but at the time I wouldn't say I was engaging in, with them in a super healthy way.

Katherine Petrullo: But I really started to open up to this new world, but still in my wound. So I [00:13:00] was really looking to fix my external, but through these alternative technologies that we have available. And again, that kept me in the cycle of grasping for something, placing my worth in a manifestation, in an outcome, in a, the ability to change my reality, and constantly falling flat.

Katherine Petrullo: And finally, I would say I hit a complete rock bottom with it, where I had [00:13:30] had my first experience with plant medicine. It didn't fix everything, 'cause I thought when I started with plant medicine that it would be a magic bullet. Not to jump into that discussion too early, it is not. Don't... I really thought, I was like, I even said to someone, I was like, "It's gonna be eight hours of hard work, and then, like, you're fixed."

Katherine Petrullo: And they were like, "Eh, you'll see." And, um, that was not the case. But after that ceremonial experience, I [00:14:00] had to really look at all my coping mechanisms, all this desperation that I was quietly carrying and not addressing, and exactly where I was in that moment, which was not in a good place, not in a healed, whole, empowered place, and ask myself the question, "If nothing changes, what do you bring into this space?

Katherine Petrullo: What will make this livable?" So I'm gonna be rejected for the rest of my life. That ver- voice that's like, "You're inherently unworthy," that's gonna be the correct voice, but I get to bring in [00:14:30] one additional experience, and my word was joy. And that shifted my orientation from trying to fix myself to cultivating joy in my life, even with the parts of myself that I felt were deeply unhealed and deeply unlovable.

Katherine Petrullo: And that is when my work shifted dramatically, and I really began to fall in love with and understand the power of transformational [00:15:00] work when you put yourself and your self-view at the center. 

Chandler Stroud: Mm. Beautifully said. That's great. I'm really excited to get more into that specifically and your work towards the end of this conversation, because that's where I really wanna learn a lot about how to think about these practices.

Chandler Stroud: You know, I think they are, to your point, like ancient tools, but feel so new, I think, in our modern world in the way they're being discussed in [00:15:30] media and in other places. So I really wanna kind of peel that onion back with you. Before we get there, I wanna go back to something you said when you were describing your childhood, just to understand this inner world a little bit better and what you were up against as you were trying to put yourself in the center of these conversations.

Chandler Stroud: You described yourself to me when we first met as a stoic kid, someone who didn't cry easily, but felt everything incredibly deeply. And I'm [00:16:00] curious, what did that feel like to carry as a young girl, just given the depth and intensity of some of the kind of backtrack that was on loop in your mind, even in fourth grade?

Katherine Petrullo: Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's interesting. My, my mother said she would describe me as a very stoic child, to the point where she would tell my teachers in elementary school if I started to cry on the playground, just call 911, and she would meet them at the hospital. Oh, God. 'Cause I, I really was just not at [00:16:30] all comfortable with expression, and because of that-

Katherine Petrullo: It was really hard for me to find avenues of support. Mm-hmm. And I think that that's something that a lot of people deal with, especially when we're not even 100% sure how to articulate our internal world. But having such a deep internal world of, I had, obviously, as I mentioned, a lot of existential thoughts.

Katherine Petrullo: I felt things very deeply, [00:17:00] but not feeling safe communicating them really left me deeply isolated in what I was experiencing. So the support that I most likely could have received was never made available 'cause no one knew. Mm-hmm. And I think that whenever I discuss what is commonly called the shadow or anything that we don't normally feel comfortable expressing, one of the hardest parts for most people to overcome is even [00:17:30] just stepping forward and admitting or being vulnerable to share, "Hey, this is something that's going on, and I need support navigating it.

Katherine Petrullo: I don't know how to move through this." And so we end up carrying these tremendous burdens and unprocessed emotions alone when we don't necessarily have to, and healing actually comes through that vulnerability of saying, "Hey, I'm ready to share this, and I'm ready to bring it to light to be healed."

Chandler Stroud: Cosign. Could not [00:18:00] agree with that statement more. Thank you for sharing that. The last piece of your story that kind of struck me is you talked about your rock bottom. I believe that was during your college years. Am I right? 

Katherine Petrullo: I like to say I had many, many rock bottom. So I definitely had a rock bottom in my college years, and then I had them after my college years.

Katherine Petrullo: And yeah, I had... I just could not get away from rock bottom. I loved it there. 

Chandler Stroud: [00:18:30] Oh, I'm so sorry for that. But I mean, in some ways it drove you to do what you're doing today. So, you know, s- I always say for those of us who have experienced really trying times, like, it's amazing when you can look back at a point in your life and really feel like those things happened for you and not to you.

Katherine Petrullo: Absolutely. I think that I am such a believer that we are alchemists. And so I try not to say everything is a gift because I think there [00:19:00] are tremendous d- atrocities in this world where I am not at the level of consciousness to even begin to say I understand why those things are happening, and I don't know if someone experiencing that would be at any point like, "Oh, that moment was a gift in my life."

Katherine Petrullo: But as an alchemist, we can heal from anything. We can use every experience that we have to become a more embodied, more healed, [00:19:30] more whole version of self, and that is a gift. And I think anyone who carries that belief of- I can alchemize. I am not held hostage to any situation or anything that has happened to me.

Katherine Petrullo: We're able to become more resilient, and that's really the key to all of this transformation work, is that safety and that resilience that we're building within ourselves, regardless of the situation. 

Chandler Stroud: I totally agree, and I love how you phrased that because I think that [00:20:00] is the work, and it's so empowering when you know you are able to find yourself again after these hardships and these tragedies and traumas that everyone goes through as a human being- 

Katherine Petrullo: Yeah

Chandler Stroud: living this life, right? Mm-hmm. And I just, I think that really is a reframe that's so important and puts the power back in your hands to make some of these choices and find the road back to that joy, that anchor- Mm ... word that you used. I love that. When you [00:20:30] did get to college, that period in particular, you talked about Louisville to moving to San Diego, your first serious relationship, even losing a friend at that time in your life.

Chandler Stroud: Something around that time, it felt to me, started to unravel, and I wanted to dig in and understand a little bit more from you what you think was happening during that time in your life. I know you ended up transferring, which was a completely logical fix- Yeah ... but internally you mentioned that nothing changed, [00:21:00] and I'm just curious what that realization felt like and kind of that journey at that season of your life.

Katherine Petrullo: Yeah, so at that time in my life where I felt like a lot of my foundational pieces destabilized, when I went to the first university that I attended, I was able to find an external anchor. Oh, I picked the wrong place. The issue is I'm here. And so I devoted all [00:21:30] of my energy to changing the place that I was in, so I excelled academically, and I was very devoted to exploring what I thought would bring me that joy.

Katherine Petrullo: And of course, because this is the bandwidth that I had at the time, it was something external. And then the real pivotal shift, like, at that time, I was... That was the initial onset of anxiety, and I knew things weren't going well. I had a place that would take these [00:22:00] problems away from me, and where I could rescript what I felt was going wrong in my life.

Katherine Petrullo: And I got everything that I thought I wanted in that moment, and then I arrived in this future that I had projected all of my healing onto, and that was the one piece that was missing, and nothing that I thought would be there was there. So I didn't spontaneously overcome my depression and anxiety. In fact, it got [00:22:30] worse, to the point of me gaining 30 pounds in three months.

Katherine Petrullo: To the point where I went to my doctor when I got back for winter break, and she was like, "What's happening?" Like, it was quite literally unexplainable. I started drinking and partying a lot more because the thing that I thought would fix me didn't, so I was just trying to hide what was wrong. I was not serious academically [00:23:00] because I had no goal anymore.

Katherine Petrullo: I really went into this deep space of complete disillusionment because my saving grace, my, my fix, my, like, fix-all- Mm-hmm ... didn't do it, and I had no idea where to look after that. 

Chandler Stroud: Thank you for sharing more about that. I mean, I know that's gotta be so hard just at any point in your life to be struggling like that, but especially during your college years, which are so formative, and you're trying to figure [00:23:30] out who you are and where you belong.

Chandler Stroud: And I think to make those transitions and changes and then those realizations as an outcome of those decisions is, that's a journey in itself. And, you know, I think to undergo that and look at that kind of from the outside looking in as you were able to and say something needs to change I think is really commendable.

Katherine Petrullo: Thank you, and I'm, I'm really grateful that this happened at the time. Obviously, going through that period [00:24:00] was tremendously tough, especially because culturally, college, the best four years of your life. And so with, again, not sharing emotions, not having a relationship with vulnerability, that was an incredibly isolating time in my life because I was clearly, or I was hopefully not having the best time of my life 'cause I was like, "If it gets worse from here, oh my God."

Katherine Petrullo: I was like, "What? What the hell's it [00:24:30] gonna be?" Mm. But feeling like everyone else around you is having the time of their life and you're fundamentally getting it wrong is exceptionally isolating. And now having gone back and spoken to friends, you know, years and years out, a lot of people were hiding what was going on in their external world.

Katherine Petrullo: I, my journey was by no means unique, and we were all just kind of in these isolated silos, but I'm actually very grateful that everything that didn't work out, didn't work [00:25:00] out because it brought me to this path- quickly. And again, it took me a good, you know, from that point to when I really feel like I started to get a command of my own internal world, that was a good five years.

Katherine Petrullo: But I- Mm-hmm ... I feel like I had a good amount of time to really play around with it and to make the mistakes and to fumble, and I mean, I'm continuing to do that now, but I'm just [00:25:30] grateful to be on the journey. And I'm grateful- Yeah ... that it brought me there when I was in college. I'm glad I didn't get the experience I thought I wanted.

Chandler Stroud: I love that. I'm ready to pivot here. I'm dying to ask you questions about plant medicine and your current work, but before we do, there is one thing you told me when we first spoke that I wanted to ask you during our conversation today. You mentioned the book Many Lives, Many Masters changed your life, and I [00:26:00] similarly had a book, The Body Keeps the Score, that really changed my perspective on my own.

Chandler Stroud: So I love hearing about books that had an impact like that on our guests. Can you share a little bit more about what it was within that text that unlocked something in you? 

Katherine Petrullo: Absolutely. So as I said, my life coach in college, she started to do past life regressions, and I went into several with her, [00:26:30] and then her and I were talking about her experience and learning about past life regressions, and she shared the book that was pivotal to her was Many Lives, Many Masters, and she recommended that I get it.

Katherine Petrullo: And so I purchased it right before finals my junior year. I remember this so vividly because I was up until 2:00 AM just devouring this book, and I remember being like, "Oh my God, I should be asleep. I need to be, like, studying and on my game to make it through these [00:27:00] finals," but I could not put this book down.

Katherine Petrullo: And there have been several books that I've discovered on my journey that I would say I had a full body resonance with what I was reading. Like, it was truly a deep knowingness inside my body of like, "Yes, of course this is true." Like, "Yes, I believe this." And that book was it for me. It was the first book I found that I received this deep, deep resonance of this [00:27:30] is truth, and this is a way that we heal.

Katherine Petrullo: And the book itself Follows a woman who went for hypnotherapy sessions, and under hypnosis goes into past lives, and then she begins to channel messages from masters. And it was just such an affirming book. There is something beyond what we are experiencing as day-to-day [00:28:00] reality, and when we can access that higher state and we can be aware of some of those mechanisms that are moving in the background, we can transform.

Chandler Stroud: Again, cosign. Totally, totally agree with that. That is becoming a big focus area of our work with the Healing Heroes as well, and I think something that is maybe being forgotten or left behind in modern-day life, and it's so powerful when you can connect to [00:28:30] that transcendent Body, right? Something bigger than your individual self.

Chandler Stroud: So I love, I'm gonna have to check out this book. I think it sounds right up my alley. 

Katherine Petrullo: It's so good. It's so good. Just be ready to not sleep for, like, a night or two. It's, uh, not too long. Great So it won't, it won't impede the sleep too much, but it is... I just could not put it down. 

Chandler Stroud: Okay. Well, I'm ready at least.

Chandler Stroud: I, I've been warned- Yeah ... I guess, right? 

Katherine Petrullo: Yeah. 

Chandler Stroud: All right. [00:29:00] Well, now let's get into your work a little bit deeper, Katherine. Around the same time, I know you encountered something that became a real turning point for you, though maybe not in the way you expected, and I wanna spend a few minutes here because, again, I know this is a topic many listeners have probably heard about in a variety of places, but don't necessarily fully understand or have been exposed as much to.

Chandler Stroud: Mm-hmm. So I wanna make sure that we can explore this really honestly, but also really [00:29:30] responsibly. When you referenced earlier that you experienced that form of psychedelic trauma, that was your first experience with ayahuasca, correct? 

Katherine Petrullo: That was my first experience with medicine in general. Okay. And I really didn't know what I didn't know, and so the post-experience was exceptionally difficult for me because I had no understanding of integration.

Katherine Petrullo: I also really did not understand medicine work at all, [00:30:00] to be completely honest. It was presented to me, and there was a resonance of I know that this is something that I want to explore and do. However, I wa- didn't know what I was getting into, and again, didn't know how to care for myself afterwards. So that really left me in a disillusioned place.

Katherine Petrullo: So to kind of just drop into how that happened, so I went to the ceremony, and the [00:30:30] beginning was really beautiful and really expansive, and then it got really, really confusing and somewhat dark for me. And I just kind of got stuck in a loop for a really long time. And I left the experience, as I mentioned earlier, going in with my lack of knowledge about what I was doing.

Katherine Petrullo: I thought that there would be a sense of completion at the end of the journey, that I would understand something, and I didn't. [00:31:00] And one of my biggest wounds has always been rejection, and I felt like, "Did I just sit with this medicine that is so loving and so healing and get rejected? Like, is there something really that flawed with me that even something that's meant to heal is not actually meant for me?"

Katherine Petrullo: And I really, really struggled with the integration, and again, I didn't even have that word at that time. And so- The [00:31:30] beautiful things about this medicine, and this is going to be a little bit of a broader concept, but the beautiful thing about these medicines is they work with you before, during, and after ceremony.

Katherine Petrullo: So in this place of I don't know what I just did, but it was almost like I opened up a door that I could not close. I remember being like, "I just-" Beautiful metaphor. "Wish I never sat," because I was so aware of this pain and this fear that had been [00:32:00] brought to light in the ceremony that I couldn't ignore it anymore.

Katherine Petrullo: Mm-hmm. Wasn't an option. I could not escape it. I could not ignore it. I went through what is commonly called in the spiritual world the dark night of the soul, where it's kind of like every program that you were previously running stops running at the same time, but the new programs haven't started running yet.

Katherine Petrullo: So you're just in this void in between, and I just had no idea what to do or where to go, and again, I thought that there was something fundamentally wrong with me that I didn't know these things. [00:32:30] But through a series of really beautiful serendipities, I was then brought to the person who would become my mentor for the next three plus years, and that individual really, really supported me in integrating and understanding and actually becoming empowered in the work that I was doing.

Katherine Petrullo: And so I truly believe that the medicine orchestrated that and brought me there, but that period was so confusing for me [00:33:00] because I really was asking myself the question, what have I done and how do I find my footing again? 'Cause I knew I couldn't go back as much as I wanted to. Like, I was like, "I'll take the unhealed version of myself.

Katherine Petrullo: It feels better than how I feel in this moment." I was ready to go back if I could, but I had to find a way forward, and ultimately did, but there was a few months where it was [00:33:30] really taxing and really trying and really hard to understand. 

Chandler Stroud: What do you wish someone had told you going into that ceremony?

Katherine Petrullo: What I've learned and what has really been so supportive for me in exploring the world of plant medicine has been the medicine has a purpose in all that it does. There... And, and as things get brought up, it is meant for your healing. 

Chandler Stroud: Mm. 

Katherine Petrullo: However, that [00:34:00] healing might take place in the integration. The journey might be the exploration of what has not been able to come to the surface until that moment, and then the integration might be its own form of healing, its own journey in it of itself.

Katherine Petrullo: And each journey is different. There's a lot of different ways that it can go, but I think it's really understanding that there is a beauty and an [00:34:30] intentionality and a purpose to every single journey. And going in with the intention to just be present with whatever journey comes through, whether that's integration heavy, whether that's just a beautiful journey with medicine, whether that is a full circle journey where you leave and you feel that sense of completion, it's all available, but the, the intention really is to just be present with what comes up, 'cause that is the [00:35:00] medicine that is needed in that moment.

Chandler Stroud: You eventually found a mentor who you describe as bringing you back into your body in a way that other things you had tried had not done before. Can you help listeners understand kind of what you mean by that, and what does coming back into your body actually feel like? 

Katherine Petrullo: Yeah. So as I mentioned earlier, when you are shut down from emotions and feelings...

Katherine Petrullo: Well, I guess feelings are emotions, but when you are shut [00:35:30] down from your internal world, you aren't embodied in it. You aren't safe in your body, 'cause you don't wanna receive those sensory cues, or you don't wanna receive the signals of the body. And so after my first plant medicine experience, I was so in my mind that- I couldn't actually process what needed to be processed 'cause it was moving through my body.

Katherine Petrullo: And so I started working with a mentor, and we [00:36:00] started with practices like breath, and there was a lot of energy medicine incorporated in that. But all these practices where you had to tune into how do you breathe? How do you start to build a relationship with your physical body? And ultimately, as I opened up to understanding that my journey was just the start, I also began to work with other [00:36:30] medicines, other practices that awakened my relationship with my body.

Katherine Petrullo: So I started this journey through medicine and breath and began to build a relationship with, "Oh, I can actually feel this. It's safe to feel this." And feeling it is the code to releasing it And as I started to build that relationship, I actually started to move faster and [00:37:00] faster 'cause I no longer was resisting my own release.

Chandler Stroud: Hmm. Well said. Well said. How do you think about the role of plant medicine now relative to the other things that you practice, both personally and with clients? 

Katherine Petrullo: So I think with plant medicines, the field is so vast, so there are so many medicines that offer so many avenues to healing. So first off, explore what you're called to is a big piece of plant [00:37:30] medicine.

Katherine Petrullo: I think that jumping on a trend serves no one, and as I've said so many times in this interview, my journey has been one of coming back into my own embodiment and into my own authority. And so when exploring the world of plant medicine, trust your embodiment and your authority. And even if you're like, "I'm so disembodied, I don't know what my authority is," if it's not resonating with you, you can trust that, and if it's meant to at some [00:38:00] point, you can also trust that.

Katherine Petrullo: So with that said, exploring what is out there, I know in the United States there's a lot of legality and a lot of discussion happening around plant medicine. There are medicines that are completely legal in the US, and then there are also pathways outside of the US for legal medicine use. So I just wanna kind of have that disclaimer and that clarifier that there are many safe pathways to take at this point.

Katherine Petrullo: However, trusting what you are called to [00:38:30] is an incredibly important piece of this work. Additionally, as I mentioned, I really did not have a great mindset going into my first journey. I didn't know what I didn't know. I kind of just moved through what was being presented, and that was what I needed at the time.

Katherine Petrullo: That was the perfect journey for me. Despite the fact that it had a lot of integration that was required, it was exactly what I needed. I say that it took me from [00:39:00] one life track and just placed me on another that I'm so grateful to be on. However, if you are going in with, "I want a quick fix, I wanna heal something rapidly Plant medicine will illuminate so much, but it does require a dedication and an amount of work that really preparing the body and preparing the vessel for, I would say is a really important aspect of working with the medicine in [00:39:30] reverence.

Katherine Petrullo: 'Cause I also am a really big believer that these are sacred technologies, these medicines, and they're becoming so popular right now, but we have to honor how sacred this technology is. And so going into working with these medicines with deep reverence, with deep respect, with a deep honoring that these are tools that can expedite our healing, but we have to [00:40:00] show up, and we have to co-create that healing experience.

Katherine Petrullo: So typically, if someone is curious, I invite them to explore, okay What are you creating around you right now? If this is something where it's like I wanna go in, I wanna do this, and then I wanna go back out and not change anything in my life, that could be difficult. And I will say for me, plant medicine brought me back into myself.

Katherine Petrullo: It changed [00:40:30] my worldview, and I'm so grateful for it and will always advocate for if you are called, work with medicine. Find medicines that work for you, 'cause like I said, there are so many medicines. There's so much that we can do with these medicines. And so what works for one won't work for the other.

Katherine Petrullo: There is no one-size-fits-all, but finding that resonance within yourself and then showing up in that deep place of I'm going to work with something that is an advanced [00:41:00] consciousness, an advanced technology, and honoring that, I would say are the two things I really explore with anyone who comes to me asking about, about their journey with plant medicine.

Chandler Stroud: I think that's really well said and a really important reminder because so often we look for that light switch fix, right? But as we've talked ad nauseam on this show, it is not an overnight change, right? It takes a lot of effort. It [00:41:30] takes a lot of showing up for yourself. And I also love that you talked about getting to know the full person rather than just a piece of the story, because that's also a theme that's emerged a lot with the heroes that we have on the show.

Chandler Stroud: So I'm glad you highlighted that for people. I think to take what you're saying a step further for listeners who are wondering, "What does that mean for me?" What do you believe someone needs to have in place before plant medicine could be genuinely supportive for them rather than destabilizing? Like, are [00:42:00] there specific practices that you generally recommend or would suggest your clients do before they embark on a plant journey?

Katherine Petrullo: So again, that everyone's going to have a unique journey pre and post working with medicine because, like I said, it depends on what medicine they're going into and also what comes up during the journey and how integration impacts them. However, I always explore what is the intention for going in, [00:42:30] but I think it's really important to become clear on the intention with- Mm-hmm

Katherine Petrullo: working with the medicine to make sure you're going in from a place that actually invites surrender and openness and communion with the medicine rather than Thinking of a one-to-one relationship, I talk to people a lot about intention setting and, you know, whenever it's, like, a hyper-specific one thing, I always ask, "What's the broader desire?

Katherine Petrullo: What is the broader ask [00:43:00] to really allow it to be a collaborative experience?" But with any medicine, having support pre and post is just necessary in whatever way you find support. So if it is finding a practice that allows you to drop into your body, I think anything that brings you into your body is incredibly important, because if we don't have that connection, it's very easy to get disembodied, especially if you're stepping into the psychedelic space.

Katherine Petrullo: You are going into the upper [00:43:30] chakras, and so if you have a hard time coming into your body, that is definitely something to maybe take some time and build that relationship with the body before going in. There are contraindications for medicine, which is a separate discussion in and of itself, but really exploring, "Okay, do I feel safe grounding, coming back in, and do I feel that this would actually be something that supports me, or do I think that I'm just kind of grasping for [00:44:00] something?"

Katherine Petrullo: So exploring really the intentionality, the ability to connect with the body, the ability to sustain and clear is always something that I say is really great as you start to contemplate going into a ceremony. Post-ceremony, I would say, again, know your tools that work for you. When we know what works for us, it's much easier to handle whatever comes through.

Katherine Petrullo: This is true whether you're doing medicine or you're not. If you know [00:44:30] the tools that really work for you, you are much less afraid when something really requires you to use your tools, when we get triggered, when we get into a state of overwhelm We have tools. We become more empowered. So I would really advocate have tools, but also have support.

Katherine Petrullo: Know where to find the support. So whether that's with whatever practitioner you are using or you have, you know, your team on the side, [00:45:00] have people that if something comes up or even if it's just like, "Hey, this was beautiful, this was amazing, and I don't know where to go from here," have that integrative support.

Katherine Petrullo: 'Cause no matter what comes up, no matter what is meant to integrate, it's our journey to carry that lesson forward and to root it into reality. And the more support we can have both personally and outside of ourselves, the better off we will be. 

Chandler Stroud: I love that. Thank you for sharing. [00:45:30] Catherine, just to kind of shift gears a little bit before we get into your signature program, you spent time in Bali going deep in a tantric space, and something crystallized for you there, this idea that how we create ourselves is how we create what's in the world around us.

Chandler Stroud: Mm-hmm. Which is also something I fundamentally believe, and just wanted to have you unpack that for listeners if you don't mind. 

Katherine Petrullo: Absolutely. So really, as I said, plant [00:46:00] medicines opened me up to exploring embodiment. And since then I've really became curious about how do we live embodied, authentic lives?

Katherine Petrullo: And where that led me in the work that I do now is in these ancient technologies of embodiment and developing the vessel to hold more authenticity and more light. And so when I was in Bali [00:46:30] studying these methodologies, what was presented to me was the medicine wheel. And this is, what I'm about to overview is a very simplistic version Yeah.

Katherine Petrullo: of all that the medicine wheel contains. But the medicine wheel has us starting in a yin stage. So we're gonna use, for the purpose of this discussion, an individual. So the individual yin stage, so you're in the seed stage. So this is, imagine sleeping. So you look [00:47:00] like you're dead, but there's so much energy running internally.

Katherine Petrullo: You're detoxifying, you're dreaming, your subconscious is clearing out stuff. All the work is happening internally. And so this is our starting point, this yin stage. All the energy is internal. And then as we wake and our day begins to build, we go into a phase called ascending yang, which is the cultivation of energy for our midday peak yang experience.[00:47:30] 

Katherine Petrullo: And then after that peak experience, we go into descending yang, which is the integration, the learning, and the understanding of all that has occurred through the day. And the descending yang stage is actually associated with the element metal, which is you take this liquefied metal, scrape the impurities, and you make it into a tool.

Katherine Petrullo: So it's really our time of processing, internalizing, and [00:48:00] then when we have this, like, new data, we go back into yin, and we resource ourselves, but we have a new tool Now, let's take it into modern day, and you wake up, and you look to your phone first thing, you grab a coffee, you're constantly stimulated.

Katherine Petrullo: You're going, you're going, you're going. What a lot of people are experiencing is crashes around 2:00 to 3:00 PM, and that's [00:48:30] because we're creating empty yang. And empty yang is really when we have not nourished ourselves in that ascension process. So when we have this peak experience, it's like this frenetic energy.

Katherine Petrullo: So you have energy, you are moving, but nothing is actually getting done. You're not actually ready to create something or have a peak experience. You just are kind of static energy, and then typically that is indicated [00:49:00] by a crash. And then, again, we get home from our day, we're on phones, we're on televisions, we're on all...

Katherine Petrullo: We're stimulating and stimulating, so we're actually not integrating anything from the day either. And so that's kind of how we can personally understand a very simplified version of this wheel and where we're distorting it a lot in our modern world. But we can also take that to business. And so you have your idea, that seed stage.

Katherine Petrullo: But when that seed [00:49:30] stage is devoid of a root or a purpose, what we can do is start chasing profit. So it's like we just want that peak experience. I just want my business to launch. I just wanna make my first million. I just wanna do this. And so when we reach that yang, what we're producing is actually empty yang

Katherine Petrullo: So our product isn't actually sustaining anything, it's just creating a peak experience that- Mm ... doesn't have any substance to it. And so when that was kind of [00:50:00] broken down for me, I had this massive moment where I, I realized, I was like, oh my gosh, the way we cultivate our internal world is exactly the way we produce in the world.

Katherine Petrullo: And we have often separated these two worlds, where inner cultivation is the thing you get to do on your free time, if you're able to do it, and then work is work. And you do your work, and you follow these very traditional pathways to get somewhere. But what [00:50:30] I kept seeing with my clients was I was working with these women who were exceptional and excelling.

Katherine Petrullo: Mm. And they would reach this point where they would ask themselves, "Well, okay, I've checked all these boxes. Why am I not fulfilled? Why do not I, why don't I feel purposeful in what I'm doing?" And that's when they would start to explore the inner work. But the truth is, when we are able to cultivate ourselves internally, honoring this natural cycle [00:51:00] of expansion, peak experience, integration, understanding, and then nourishment, and we're also able to resource ourselves with tools such as the ability to move through things that come up, the ability to navigate our own internal landscape in a really positive and self-af- affirming way, and the ability to internalize our locus of control, we're then able to [00:51:30] comfortably step into producing from a place of fulfillment, so that what we create and what we produce comes from our seat of power and purpose, and therefore the offering is able to hold that as well.

Katherine Petrullo: 'Cause you're honoring the cycle versus chasing one thing or chasing the expanded experience. And so our internal world and our ability to move through things is what gets amplified when we go [00:52:00] out and when we create 

Chandler Stroud: I mean, my... I'm having a major aha as you're speaking too, 'cause it makes total sense, right?

Chandler Stroud: Yeah.

Chandler Stroud: Like, I think about all the things I've done in my life that were really chasing some sort of output or outcome versus the different feeling I had even in just building the Healing Heroes, and what that North Star was. And it was so not about reaching a destination, but just, like, the journey itself of talking to all [00:52:30] these incredible women and healers and sharing knowledge with the world, and I'm just like, "Oh my gosh," like I un- maybe just intuitively, like, am following this process both through my own healing journey, and it's also being reflected in what I'm doing professionally now.

Chandler Stroud: So it's really cool to hear you break that down in a way that I'm hearing it for the first time, but also feel like to a degree I've maybe lived it- 

Katherine Petrullo: Yeah ... 

Chandler Stroud: myself, which is really cool. 

Katherine Petrullo: That's beautiful. 

Chandler Stroud: Thank you for [00:53:00] that insight today. And I assume this is probably a great segue for what you've built, the Women of Impact.

Chandler Stroud: Do you wanna tell our listeners a little bit more about that? I'm curious kind of how you've taken your own journey and reflected it in how you're now serving and helping other high-achieving women find that kind of authenticity and embodiment in their own lives. 

Katherine Petrullo: Absolutely. So Women of Impact is inner cultivation for external expression.

Katherine Petrullo: So it [00:53:30] really is designed for women who feel that deep call and that deep resonance to make an impact in the world. And full disclosure, this whole container came to me during a meditation. I, I had gathered all these tools, and then I was in this meditation, and I was alternating between shaking and dancing, and what I saw was the understanding of this work is kind of like dropping a rock into a still lake.

Katherine Petrullo: And the more people who feel [00:54:00] embodied, feel empowered, the more impact we get to make in this world because we are plugging this mindfulness, this higher consciousness into any area that people choose to grow within. And so it really is designed to support people who want to make a sustainable impact and also who understand the call that we are in a time where consciousness is no longer a luxury.

Katherine Petrullo: There's [00:54:30] so much advancement, there's so much growth that we have to become highly conscious of what we are outputting, both personally and professionally, to make what we create sustainable not only for ourselves, but for the world at large. So there is that higher purpose. But what I work with women in is really coming into that deep sense of embodiment so that they can come home to their place of power.

Katherine Petrullo: They can feel that connection to their own energy and their own [00:55:00] true voice. So the first part of the container is really going deep on the internal work, on the embodiment work, and then cracking into, and how do we expand? When you are safe in yourself, when you're resourced in yourself, and when you know how to clear yourself, you then get to play with, okay, how do I start to break through?

Katherine Petrullo: How do I start to really challenge what I'm seeing that maybe I'm not comfortable with? And how do I start to play with the expansiveness of my [00:55:30] being? So that's the work I work on with women to really solidify how they move through that cycle of creation within themselves. Because when we're creating from a wound, our creation has wounding within it I always say two people can do the exact same thing, one from a wounded place, one from a healed place, and those two, those actions are actually two different actions.

Katherine Petrullo: If I give you a compliment because I want you to like me, it's like, "Oh my God, I, I don't know if, if you're gonna [00:56:00] like me, so I'm gonna tell you how beautiful you look today." I'm creating from my desperation. Versus when I'm in my body and I'm feeling whole, it's like, "Wow, I just see the beauty of this individual."

Katherine Petrullo: That's an expanded action. So you kind of start to learn how to play with what's present and how you could start to take expanded action over and over and over again to grow yourself. And then from there we transition into, okay, what is your purpose? What do you want to [00:56:30] express? Because we all have it.

Katherine Petrullo: We all have a purpose. We all have something that we want to create within this world And when we can come into our authenticity and our inner authority, we then get to create from that place of purpose. And in the articulation of, okay, what is your purpose? I work with women in many different ways because I have some women who actually love being in the corporate structure.

Katherine Petrullo: This container is not anti-corporate. But let's say they wanna make changes [00:57:00] or they wanna do things differently. They don't know how it's been done before. I work with them on articulating how do you move forward from your place of purpose? How do you live from that place of what your true core intentionality is?

Katherine Petrullo: And then as for women who maybe are ready to step into their entrepreneurial journey, I work with them on articulating what is your mission, your vision, your values? What do you want your brand to resonate as, both internally and externally? And then how do you actually have [00:57:30] the inner resolve to sustain it?

Katherine Petrullo: Because when I launched my company, and this was several iterations ago, so before Women of Impact, it was like the most insane plant medicine journey you could ever imagine. I was getting confronted with every shadow I'd ever had, ev- anything that I didn't feel worthy in, well, now all of a sudden I'm holding my livelihood.

Katherine Petrullo: I created an offer from me, so you better have some sort of self-worth if you wanna hold and present, [00:58:00] like, "Hey, I created something that I truly think is so worthy of existing in this world." And I... You know, if you don't make money when you launch a company, you don't get paid. And so you're holding all of this at one time, and so your shadows get really loud.

Katherine Petrullo: And it happens for everyone that I know that's launched a company, where at some point you really get tested in your resolve, and that test is natural and necessary because it's kind of how we [00:58:30] really grow and really recalibrate ourselves. But understanding how to move through that, how to break through those moments of really feeling that pressure from the external world, is a key to sustainable entrepreneurship.

Katherine Petrullo: So we also work and play in that field, too. So it's a really, really deep journey. We go through it all, and it's truly an expression of [00:59:00] the deep vulnerability of becoming your truest expression of self and then knowing that you get to create from that place and doing it in a really powerful way. 

Chandler Stroud: Thank you for sharing all of that, Catherine.

Chandler Stroud: That sounds like an incredibly powerful support system and kind of guiding light for any woman feeling stuck or needing a change, or just ready to feel that kind of embodiment and authority in her own life again. So, you know, [00:59:30] you speak so beautifully about your work, and I'm just so grateful to hear you kind of share your experience.

Chandler Stroud: I'm learning so much from you as it relates to not just plant medicine, but as I think about someone who's healed and building a brand and building a business and how it is truly, my work is truly a reflection of where I am in my own personal journey, and that there's still more to explore. Not that, you know, I'm constantly and consciously healing throughout the rest of my [01:00:00] life, but I do know that you have these breakthroughs where you just reach new heights and ceilings of joy and health and happiness and embodiment.

Chandler Stroud: And I love meeting women who can kinda lead the way and help hold our hands as we try and do that in our own lives. So thank you. 

Katherine Petrullo: Oh, my gosh. I love what you said. And, you know, I love that you said you're not always healing in your life 'cause I, I truly think that in this whole long [01:00:30] journey, what's happened is I've shifted from, "Oh, I'm healing.

Katherine Petrullo: Oh, I'm doing- Mm-hmm ... this inner work," to like, "No, I'm in a dance. I'm in a dance with the universe," and there are gonna be times where the dance feels like, "This is pressure. This is shadow. I don't feel 100% comfortable," but I'm still in this playful state with it of like, "Oh, what can I do here? What can I cultivate?

Katherine Petrullo: What's being illuminated?" And then there are times where the dance is just really joyous and fun and celebratory, and I do think that that's something I [01:01:00] hope women really know, that it's not always this deep work of, you know, you're fighting against something. There is a point where you can really dance with the human experience and play with it, and it's not that everything smooths, 'cause trust me, that was the path I was trying to get on.

Katherine Petrullo: I don't think it's out there. If there was a bullet path to like you just get to have, you know, just be happy, abundant, everyone loves you all the [01:01:30] time... I tried to find it. It wasn't there. But it does become this really beautiful dance that we get to do with the lived experience, and it's not- You're healing or you're unhealed.

Katherine Petrullo: And I think that that is such a gift that we get to experience, of just a new way of relating with everything that we get to do and get to experience. 

Chandler Stroud: I really appreciate you shining a light on that and speaking about it in that way, and I will credit you if I use the analogy of a dance in future conversations, because I [01:02:00] think that's exactly what it is.

Chandler Stroud: I think when I started this journey, I thought, you know, you're healing your entire life. And to a degree you are, but not so purposefully and intentionally- Yeah ... all the time. I'm now at a stage where, like, I would not say I'm healing. Mm. That doesn't mean I won't be- No ... healing at periods in my life going forward, but I feel like I've done enough and I'm in a place where I'm ready to enjoy it.

Chandler Stroud: And even looking back, I had those moments- Mm-hmm ... of, like, healing, enjoying, healing, enjoying- Yeah ... [01:02:30] throughout the two to three years that I was, like, in active healing. 

Katherine Petrullo: Mm-hmm. 

Chandler Stroud: And I think that's important, because it's easy to lose sight of that when you are doing the harder work, but there are so many periods of just, like, release and joy and experiencing your life in a completely different way.

Chandler Stroud: And then- Yeah ... just moving upward and onward from there. And so- Mm ... I just, I love that you talk about that feeling because I think I've only recently realized that's exactly what it is. 

Katherine Petrullo: [01:03:00] Yeah. I think that this, this world really opens you up to a different depth of the human experience. You get to feel so present in your celebration, but you also s- are really present in your wound, and that's really hard when you first get present in your wounding.

Katherine Petrullo: 'Cause then, yeah, it feels like, oh my God, I'm really in the thick of it, and, like, when do you get out? But it is beautiful when you can just experience the depth of all things, and it doesn't have to be this dichotomy of [01:03:30] healing, not healing. It's just weaving together all that is the human experience and knowing that you can do something with all of it.

Katherine Petrullo: You can alchemize, you can expand, you can change your own world through embracing all of it. 

Chandler Stroud: Love that. Thank you for sharing. What do you want most women to understand about what it means to truly come home to [01:04:00] themselves? 

Katherine Petrullo: Hmm. Coming home to ourselves is a tremendous gift, but also how we sit in our place of power.

Katherine Petrullo: Because there's so much that pulls us outside of ourselves that we can get lost in, that we can get disillusioned by. But when we come into our own internal authority and really connecting to who [01:04:30] we are, who we are beyond the egoic self, and trusting the value, the brilliance, and the divine plan of that, we are really able to live life in an extraordinary way.

Katherine Petrullo: And so when it comes to coming home, becoming embodied, experiencing full present with the self, that is a gift I would [01:05:00] truly wish for every single person. Because when we can come into that place of our truest self, one, it is so inherently lovable. It is truly the embodiment of whatever we picture the higher self to be.

Katherine Petrullo: That version of yourself that you are calling in, that version of yourself that you feel is several steps ahead, that's a piece of your embodiment. So when you start to do the work and come home to it, you are calling that in, [01:05:30] and you are becoming that magnet, that force, that pull. So it is possible to be that version of yourself.

Katherine Petrullo: You are probably meant to be that version of yourself. It's, it's in you because you want it, and that embodiment is your lived expression of that higher self. So I just invite you to step forward, connect, begin that journey, because it [01:06:00] truly is a journey home. 

Chandler Stroud: Beautiful invitation. And with that, Catherine, I'm gonna thank you so, so much for being here today.

Chandler Stroud: I loved our conversation. I really learned so much from you, and you may hear from me in the future. Thank you for coming today. 

Katherine Petrullo: Oh, call me anytime. Thank you so much for having me. I so appreciate it. 

Chandler Stroud: I feel like there's definitely gonna be a part two at some point in our lives, 'cause I know there's so much of your work we didn't even get to touch on today.

Chandler Stroud: [01:06:30] And so maybe for a future conversation. 

Katherine Petrullo: Let's do it. 

Chandler Stroud: We loved having you here. And to our listeners, if today's conversation stirred something in you, please follow Catherine and learn more about her work, as well as Women of Impact in the show notes below this episode. And as always, you can visit thehealingheroes.com to work with me or my heroes and learn more about how we can support you on your own journey home.

Chandler Stroud: Thanks for listening, everyone. [01:07:00] And until next time, remember, be curious, be courageous, and be kind to yourself. You've got this.