On this shorter episode of The Curious Empath, Catherine welcomes healer, poet, artist, ritualist and mother Katia Wallace. Katia has more than ten years of experience reading tarot and lives in the UK, though she's originally from France.

Katia shares how her Italian grandmother's tarot reading and her other grandmother's visits to healers shaped her path. She also describes how becoming a mother led her into womb healing and ancestral healing. She explains why she tells clients she isn't a fortune teller and walks through her nine-card pyramid spread. She also explains how flower therapy (communicating with the spirit of plants) differs from flower essences.

In this episode:

• Katia's family roots in tarot and energy healing
• Womb healing and ancestral healing after her daughter's birth
• Tarot as a mirror: what's leaving, what's ongoing, what's coming in
• The nine-card pyramid spread
• Destiny as co-creation rather than fate
• Flower therapy vs. flower essences, and noticing the plants that keep showing up for you

Resources mentioned

• The Rebel Heart Tarot by Alice Grist
• Linda Howe (books on the Akashic Records)
• Juliet Bryant (Juliet's Kitchen, ships to the US)

My favorite Tarot & Oracle Decks (aff links)

• The Good Karma Tarot
• The Neoteric Tarot
• The Wild & Sacred Feminine Oracle Deck
• The Medicine Woman Oracle Deck

Connect with Katia - Website - Instagram

Connect with Catherine - ⁠Website⁠⁠ - ⁠⁠Substack - Sacred Wild

In this episode, Catherine sits down with Teda Kokoneshi, a licensed mental health counselor and self-published memoirist, to trace her winding path from immigrating to the United States at 18 through a green card lottery, to studying continental philosophy in Boston, chasing a publishing career in New York City, and ultimately finding her calling in clinical mental health counseling. Teda opens up about the disorientation of adapting to a radically different culture, the burnout that brought her back to Florida, and how discovering Carl Jung's analytical psychology became a turning point in understanding her own mind. She walks through how she uses active imagination, dreamwork, and art therapy with clients, and shares why she believes true social justice work has to be rooted in personal healing. Teda also talks about her memoir, Living to Tell the Story: A Memoir and a Map of Reconstruction After the Dark Night of the Soul, and the writing projects — poetry, short stories, essays — she has percolating next.

Connect with Teda - Website - Instagram - Substack

Connect with Catherine - ⁠Website⁠⁠ - ⁠⁠Substack

Prentiss Hemphill Podcast

"You can't change your voice without your life coming along for the ride." — Barbara McAfee

What if your voice already knows what part of you needs attention — you just have to make the sound and listen? In this episode of The Curious Empath, I sit down with Barbara McAfee: singer, songwriter, voice teacher, author of two books on voice work, and the leader of a "comfort choir" of volunteers who sing for people who are dying, sick, or grieving.

We start at the threshold — literally. Barbara talks about the retreats she leads on music, death, and dying, how she stumbled into death doula work at her father's bedside at 31, and why she believes grief and joy have always lived in the same room. We talk about a grief ritual she helped hold for hundreds of people at a singing camp in Iowa, and the collective grief so many of us are carrying right now.

From there we go into Barbara's Five Elements Framework — a way of understanding the voice through Earth, Fire, Water, Metal, and Air, each with its own archetype, gift, and shadow side. We talk about the parts of our voices that go "offline" under trauma, culture, and gender norms; how reclaiming a silenced part of your voice is really a form of soul retrieval; and how Barbara can often hear someone's deepest gift — calm under pressure, seeing the future, cutting insight — just by the way they talk.

This is a conversation about sound, grief, gender, gifts, and what it means to let your whole voice — and your whole self — come home.

Connect with Barbara - Website - Ted Talks - Instagram - Patreon - "Oh For Crying Out Loud" Song

Connect with Catherine - ⁠Website⁠⁠ - ⁠⁠Substack - Soul Retrieval

I'm Catherine — counselor, mystic, and neurodiverse adventurer living on the Emerald Coast of Florida. I help people define their neurodiversity, trust themselves, and live fully connected to Self and Source. I’d love to hear from you and walk alongside you on your journey.

With a full heart,

Catherine

Catherine sits down with Cristine Hull, PhD — founder of the Zero Point Meridian Technique and creator of Frequency Formulas — for a wide-ranging conversation about the road from living entirely "in her head" to becoming a practitioner of energy psychology and quantum healing. She and Catherine dig into brain integration and heart rate coherence, the neuroscience of different neurodivergent minds, Gretchen Rubin's Four Tendencies, and Cristine's Love Solve method for processing the four core negative emotions — anger, fear, sadness, and guilt — including some delightfully practical ways to actually get anger out of the body.

Join Cristine for a free webinar 8/26/26!

Contact Cristine - Website - Instagram - LinkedIn - YouTube

Contact Catherine - Website⁠ - ⁠Substack

What is divination really for — predicting the future, or understanding the energy you're working with right now? In this episode, investigative metaphysician and certified Monroe Institute trainer Demi Pietchell joins me to unpack her eclectic toolkit (tarot, runes, shufflemancy, sound medicine) and the throughline beneath all of it: intention. We talk about how she tunes into collective energy from a distance, the discernment required to hold that kind of sensitivity, and how ancient sites like Malta's Oracle Chamber may have been built to resonate at frequencies that shift consciousness. A conversation about using insight to empower choice — not to hand over your agency to fate.

Contact Demi: Website

Sign up for her Manifestation Training Aug 7-9 (use code 20ce20 for a 20% discount)

Contact Catherine: Website - Substack

Editing and Logo by Catherine Quiring

In this conversation, Katherine Spearing discusses her new book, 'A Thousand Tiny Papercuts,' which explores the complexities of spiritual abuse and the journey to reclaim autonomy after leaving high-control religious environments. The discussion delves into the insidious nature of spiritual abuse, the confusion experienced by individuals trying to navigate their faith, and the emotional turmoil that often follows leaving such systems. The conversation also highlights the importance of understanding the BITE model of control and the potential for thriving after leaving these environments, emphasizing the need for healing and self-acceptance.

Have you ever caught yourself in cycles of self-sabotage, then felt like this proved you were fundamentally flawed? For years, many of us were told this was evidence of our “sinful nature.” But what if that explanation isn’t just wrong—what if it’s creating the very problems it claims to solve?

This episode explores religious trauma through Internal Family Systems therapy, revealing how “dying to self” theology creates internal oppression, and offering a revolutionary alternative based on self-compassion rather than self-control.

What you’ll learn:

✓ How religious environments create the “Inner Controller”—an internal slave master

✓ Why “dying to self” doctrine is psychologically harmful, especially for sensitive minds

✓ The neuroscience showing self-compassion works better than self-control for growth

✓ Internal Family Systems alternative: parts with good intentions vs “sinful nature”

✓ Why your “self-sabotage” might actually be self-protection needing updates

✓ How to rebuild spirituality from wholeness rather than brokenness

Perfect for:

• Religious trauma survivors questioning harmful theology

• People deconstructing faith while wanting to maintain spiritual connection

• Anyone taught their emotions, body, or instincts can’t be trusted

• Those struggling with shame-based identity from religious conditioning

• Individuals healing from spiritual abuse or authoritarian religious environments

Key theological reframes:

• Human behavior stems from need-meeting, not cosmic battle between good/evil

• Your core Self already embodies “fruits of the spirit”—they’re not borrowed from outside

• Parts of you labeled “sinful” may actually be authentic aspects needing integration

• Self-compassion isn’t self-indulgence—it’s neurologically necessary for growth

Important notes:

• This episode respects diverse spiritual beliefs while addressing harmful applications

• Focuses on psychological healing, not theological debate

• Includes resources for religious trauma recovery

• Content may be triggering for those with severe religious trauma

If you’re struggling with:

• Depression or anxiety related to religious experiences

• Thoughts of self-harm connected to religious shame

• Severe religious trauma symptoms

Please reach out to mental health professionals trained in religious trauma recovery.

Part of the Befriending Your Inner Critics series: This penultimate episode addresses the Inner Controller—the critic formed in religious environments that taught you to distrust your own heart, mind, and instincts. Recovery involves updating these parts with compassionate truth.

Next steps: Befriend Your Inner Critic Course

Your worth is not contingent on your performance. You are loved exactly as you are.

Connect with Catherine: Website - Substack - Pinterest - YouTube

Hi, I’m Catherine. I’m grateful to share this time and space with you.

I’m a counselor living on the Emerald Coast of Florida, on the unceded land of the Muscogee. I am a creative, mystic, and neurodiverse adventurer. I love writing, creating, and connecting.

I love helping folx Befriend Your Inner Critic, Become Your Own Best Friend, and reclaim your untamed soul.

Thank you for being here in this sacred space we get to co-create, as we come home to ourselves and enjoy the fruit of that self-belonging. I love hearing from you and walking alongside you on your journey.

My free gift to you: ⁠3 steps to trust yourself⁠.

With a full heart,

Catherine