In this episode, Zander Sprague and mystic adventurer Kimberly Braun explore the path to self-discovery, breaking free from limiting beliefs, and uncovering a life of purpose. Kimberly reveals powerful insights on embracing joy, infinite possibility, and the sacredness found in everyday moments. Tune in to awaken your inner mystic and ignite your EPIC journey toward fulfillment and growth.
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Awakening The Inner Mystic: Unfolding Your EPIC Potential With Kimberly Braun
Hello, epic people and welcome back to another exciting episode of Epic Begins With 1 Step Forward. I’m your host Zander Sprague. I am so excited to welcome Kimberly Braun. Kimberly, tell us who you are and what you do.
In my world of spirituality, that’s a dotted line. At heart, I am a mystic adventurer. From my earliest years, I have found myself impelled by and excited about this becoming who were meant to be, discovering who we’re meant to be, discovering what the world is like, and discovering what are the uncreated aspects of the world that are involved in our being alive.
By way of titles and how I orient my time, I am a minister, a Reiki master, a spiritual director, and a meditation coach. I lead a lot of retreats. People bring me in to offer inspirational messages, whether it’s a keynote at a conference, whether it’s an inspired message at a Sunday service. I tend to travel a lot and I am an author. My third book just came out.
Congratulations.
Thank you.
The Beginning Of An Epic Journey
You certainly have it fully played. I understand because when people say, “What are you doing?” I’m like, “How many times am I going to tell you? I am a podcast host, I’m an author, I’m a speaker, I’m a mental health professional, all of these things.” I get it and it keeps it interesting. We’re not just doing the same thing all the time. I’m interested. You’re clearly on this epic journey or this epic adventure. How did it all start?
It’s great because epic is such an appropriate word. I won’t get into all the stories because some of the stories are winded and long in detail. To cut to the chase, from my earliest years, I was cognitively engaging in my life and self-reflecting in that, which happened when I was about 4 or 5 years old. I began having experiences, which I think many children do even though they may remember them differently, that pulled back the veils of time.
I found myself immersed in the timeless understanding of what this world is about and what I am as a human being. Those happened when I was little and in relationship to my world, to the environment that I lived in, to my family structure, to my longings and desires, to my sadnesses and losses. Because they were so much a part of the fiber of my life, I reflected that this is what life is about.
It filled me with so much joy that I was like, “I’m going to spend my life learning about this.” It was the curious, not even a seeker, because when we find in a way where discovering more without it being a seeking of something we haven’t found. That’s been it. Unraveling it, learning more, and letting life take me through its process. That’s how I’ve ended up on this path that you might call spirituality.
I believe that, as children, we find ourselves so much more open to different experiences and learning and going, “This is what I’m experiencing.” Sadly, as we get older, we put so many constraints on what we can or can’t do. We forget that we have choices. I think choices are so important. It’s central to my whole idea of epic. It is that just because you’ve always wanted to write a book, travel somewhere, or learn something new, there are always reasons why you can’t do something. If you say, “I’m not letting that stand in my way.” In my book, I talk about how my roadblocks. Too often in our own lives, we put up roadblocks that aren’t there. We just perceived there was a roadblock.
I think that’s part of the homecoming of the things that feel like they’re limiting us. We eventually discover that it’s ourselves and we are limiting ourselves because of our perspective and beliefs. There’s a limiting contracting event happening within, but we discovered that it’s all within us. We then discover even more that the shift in belief, the shift in perspective, and the shift in healing some trauma that we didn’t realize we had opens the horizons. I love the way you put that. We do discover that we have more options than we thought we did.
The whole idea for me for epic is that we have these things that we dream of doing. We talk about doing it, “Someday I’d like to do this.” If you’d asked me in college if I would ever write a book, I would say, “Absolutely not.” I’ve written three books and I don’t like writing. I had ideas that I wanted to share and I figured out how I could write my books and turn them into something.
You talk about those limiting beliefs. I wrote my first book, then I sat on it for five years because I had all kinds of feedback in school that I wasn’t a particularly good writer. I kept telling people I was coming out with a book. It was no more coming out with the book than flying to the moon because I wasn’t doing anything to make it happen.
I didn’t want to be one of those people who twenty years later says, “ I’m doing something,” and people go, “You’ve been saying that for twenty years.” I got brave. That’s another big thing that I’m sure you and I share, which is to be boldly brave even if you have no idea how it’s going to work out. You don’t necessarily believe it, but you’re like, “I’m putting it out there,” and I did.
The funny thing happened. People liked the book. My first book was about sibling loss. I heard from people around the world who said how they liked the book and how it was helpful. For the first year, I also didn’t believe them, which is terrible. Another thing I talked about, which I think is important and I want your take, is I believe that for most of us, the meanest person in our life is ourselves. We say mean things to ourselves in our head all the time, horribly mean things.
For many of us, the meanest person in our lives is ourselves. Let’s start practicing kindness toward ourselves.
The Power Of Unconditional Love
I think as well that we couch a lot of this self-judgment and self-hatred in the cloak of being responsible. We’re taking accountability for our mistakes, so our blindness. I’ve had a lot of experiences where the unconditional love of the eternal healed me. It’s been the one thing that’s reached right within and healed me. That’s where we limit ourselves to experiencing that. When we experience that, the fear is dissolved through this love.
The sense of freedom in being who we are is enabled the more we open ourselves to realize we’re loved into existence. That’s even a powerful reflection point in and of itself. What if we woke up every day and said, “I was loved into existence today.” I’m a relational spiritual person, but even if you wouldn’t find an affinity with a relationship, you have a relationship with yourself. Even waking up and saying, “I was loved into existence.” How does that make me feel? What does that open for me with the possibilities in my mind, how I spend my time, and what choices I make?
It’s coming down to that simplicity. I agree that we are hardest on ourselves and we’re taught that there’s some merit in that. It’s better to give than to receive, which I don’t think when that statement was said meant the way we’ve interpreted it.
I was a History and Psychology major in college major, so I blended those. I grew up in New England. I think that at least here in the United States, to talk about being hard on ourselves, it’s this underlying pure tentacle belief system that most of us aren’t even aware of that our life has meaning and will. If you believe in the thought of going to heaven or whatever your belief system is. Whatever happens after you die, you need to suffer in your life.
The purists had it messed up. You have to have a hardened tough life to make it to heaven. I can trace my heritage to coming from some of that pure tentacle belief system as a lifelong Red Sox fan. I can say that this is so messed up. In 1986, when we got one strike away from winning the World Series and all of that and then we lost. It is somehow heartbreaking as it was because that’s my lot in life. I’m supposed to get close to what I want but not get it.
When they won finally in 2004, I didn’t know what to do with that. I expected some cataclysmic thing to happen because I got something I wanted my whole entire life. It’s so messed up, but I do believe that we have to work hard. Yes, we have to work hard but you want to know what? There’s so much study around if 75% of the time, we do the work we’re doing in our areas of strength, we’re so much happier. I look at the work that you do and I can see the joy that it brings you. It doesn’t probably feel like work so much as getting to share your wisdom.
Totally and getting to even continue the adventure. Even though I’m in a position where people bring me in for specific roles, for me, the role falls away because, in my field, standing before the mystery of life is this fascinating field of potentiality. Potentiality is where we discover a new thought. Potentiality is where we discover a new way of being.
It’s like the ever ancient ever knew that living that new life also touches upon something that already exists. It’s when you’re surprised like, “It was here all the time.” For the sake of business purposes, I have examined some of my choices from time to time in the cycle of my life career if you will. Each time I come back, I can’t imagine being in any other field.
Even though I have the capacity and skills that say, “I’m going to do this role,” within some nonprofit or something, I still always come back. Even when taking temporary roles, what I’m doing comes out. The essence of this priestess, ministerial, mystic adventure comes into it. It becomes the main thing I’m doing even in that role.
I agree with you about discovering these parts of ourselves. It can be scary at times even today looking economically at how challenging our infrastructure is, how broken and fragmented. It’s coupled with all of these beliefs. I listened to a podcast recently that in our Western culture, People are still rewarded for working 80 hours a week doing things they don’t love to do. Somehow you’re seen as a good employee that if you were to draw lines saying, “My general capacity is about 40 hours a week,” and you do a good job and you put your all into it, somehow you’re not like a team player.
I worked in the corporate world. I worked for a large worldwide organization. Companies talk a lot about corporations and talk about work-life balance. My experience is that is created by the employee. I had it on my calendar so people wouldn’t schedule meetings. People could schedule meetings with me from 5:00 AM to 5:00 PM Pacific time.
I’m like, “I’ll get up and do a meeting with you because I get that you’re in a different part of the world. I don’t expect you to get up in the middle of the night for me.” I had a hard thing and it said not a work time after 5:00 PM. Some people are like, “You’re not going to move up.” I said, “Maybe that’s the case.” I find that if I take a meeting at 9:00 PM, and then I’m trying to go to sleep because I have to get up to do a 7:00 AM meeting, then I’m thinking about work. That’s that’s not good.
There’s is a time and a place for us to work and there’s a time and a place for us not to work. I remember years ago, my younger sister and I were having a conversation. She had just gotten out of college and she was comparing herself to some of her friends. The work that she was doing, she enjoyed but wasn’t necessarily compensated as well.
I said, “Let me tell you something. That friend who’s making all this money is probably working 80 to 100 hours a week. All they do is work.” It’s great that their bank account has all this money. That’s awesome. Money isn’t everything, but it certainly helps you to have a life and you don’t have to worry as much. We all worry about money. No matter how much you have, you have different worries, but you’re not like, “How am I going to get groceries?” There may be bigger things that you worry about.
The Richness Of Life Beyond Wealth
The important part here was you’re enjoying your life. You get to do the things you like to do like ride your horse. These people are working all the time. Even though their bank account is big, they don’t have any fun doing it. You go on vacation and you enjoy it. You go sightseeing. You see these great things. You have these experiences. They’re in Hawaii, but they’re like, “Hold on. I have to take this phone call. I have to answer this email. Who’s richer? Who is actually richer?
The real wealth lies in enjoying life—not just in a bank account. Time to measure richness in experiences, not money.
I agree. We’re caught. We’re in a tricky position in this Western culture. It has become more and more complicated to navigate those waters. That’s why so many people make radical choices and move to Mexico or wherever.
Here’s a question because I’m sure that you perhaps see. You’ve traveled a little being a mystic adventure as you said. What are 1 or 2 places that you’ve been able to visit that are special to you? Epic destinations as I like to call it.
It’s a great question. I can answer it, but I need to give a little caveat on that. Because usually I’m traveling for what I would call sacred reasons, I am moved everywhere I go. There’s a real power in depth because of the reason I’m there and also the places we’re going have that energetic quality sure. However, that being said, I can give an answer just in case you’re tuning in to this episode and you’re like, “Hmm.”
Last February, I led a retreat in Mexico and the Yucatan Peninsula. We went to these small little towns in the interior. Izamal is a city that’s painted yellow. There are these Mayan ruins around it that aren’t built up with entrance fees and gates. They’re very powerful, and then very close to Izamal, I went to Mani. Mani was the seat of the Mayan culture where a lot of the texts were kept until they were burned by Europeans coming over. They are home to seventeen stingless bee farms.
The stingless bees are very important to their spirituality. We got to be with Donya Elizabeth who was trained by her grandmother who needed a translator. She taught us about the bees. That was one place that moved me. I’m leading a second retreat in Spain. I went to Spain and I took people to five locations where mystic poetry was written in the 1500s, powerful poetry. Because the person who wrote the poetry was experiencing something very powerful, the energy of the place was so moving. We went to those locations in Spain. I got to tip in and be right in the cave, where the person experienced a transformation. It was awesome.
I’ve been fortunate to travel to some cool places and places that have touched my heart. One of them was getting to travel to South Africa and go out on Safari. It does get into your heart. There’s something about being surrounded by all these incredible animals that you get. I joked that you get dangerously close to animals that can kill you. I have been 6 feet away from a pride of lions. We’re on a line there. They could care less, but one of them could jump up.
You start to have those, “I could die right here, but I’m not going to. I’m going to enjoy the fact that I’m getting to observe them in their natural habitat and what they do.” It’s cool but they’re honestly not that exciting because they’re sleeping most of the time. If you have a house cat, you’ve seen your cat sleep. It’s just a bigger version of your house cat sleeping.
I watched two leopards sleep for like 45 minutes. We sat there and they were sleeping. I’m like, “Okay.” It was great, but then one of them got up and they killed an Impala. It was a mother and a juvenile. The mother got the Impala and came up right next to our Jeep. We were parked and there was a tree. She climbed up the tree with the carcass.
That was so worth 45 minutes of watching cats sleep. That five-minute period where she left and came back was incredible. I’ve been able to travel to Mexico, but not where you have. I got some places where there’s great energy. It’s hard to explain but you’re like, “I feel that there’s a certain vibration here.”
I love that and thank you. I love epic destinations.
The Concept Of “Not Yet”
I have a whole thing where I talk about epic destinations. What fun is it to be able to go places if you don’t share it with other people so other people know, “I’d like to go there. That would be fun.” I’d like to ask my guests this question. For me, a powerful thing is the concept of not yet. Have you finished your book? Not yet. It doesn’t mean you’re not going to. We both know, having written books. You say, “Not yet,” especially if you’re in the editing process. “Are you done editing?” “Not yet.” It doesn’t mean you’re not going to be, but when it comes to the things that you still want to do, Kimberly, what’s 1 or 2 of your not yet? Maybe it’s visiting someplace or doing something. I am always interested in finding out what people’s not yet are. Maybe you don’t have one. Maybe you’re so fulfilled.
I think I live between both of those where fulfilled and not yet are both coexisting. I love the question because I have been sitting with that question in a different form a bit more myself tapping into my childlike curiosity, and letting some of my not yet not only be in the realm of transformation. I’m so fascinated with my field. Pretty much, I’m eating it, drinking it, sleeping it, rolling around in it, going places for it.
I’ve begun to explore, but what are other things? What are some other things that are for the joy of being alive that are niggling within me? One of them would be to choose 5 or 10 renowned high-energy places like being at Stonehenge and some of the places in Ireland and Scotland that are so renowned for their energy, and choose 5 or 10 of those around the world and make it a bucket list over 10 years or 15 years. That’s one of them.
Around the world for energy. Look at that.
Exploring Creativity Through Music
The second one is I would like to explore music more. I used to be a pianist but I haven’t played in twenty-plus years and I still chant a lot, but there’s creativity within me. I’m feeling some of these chants. I know having a cello will be a part of it and soundscapes. I am feeling an urge to I want to create. I want to step into the unknown because I have a feeling for it like something. It’s meant to be informed in an audible way that I’m experiencing energetically but I don’t know what it is. I’m in the not yet around that.
That’s a great not yet. It’s there. It’s amorphous right now. I know it’s there. I could feel it. I can see it but how do I put it into something that other people can also have? That is so cool. Kimberly, how can people find you, find your book, and experience your awesome energy?
Connecting With Kimberly Braun
Thank you for asking. If you’re tuning in to this show and you feel a connection, you feel a resonance, I would love to connect with you. I’m going to hold up my book because you can see my name, Kimberly Braun. Everything is on my website. I have three books, three CDs, and online courses. I have an online community.
I’ve also begun a Patreon profile where you can get free weekly mystic moments and you can participate through a very low-cost membership in a lot of things I offer like meditation immersions. We do mystic exploration, which is where we take people who are renowned for very deep insights and illumination. We learn from them and discover our own wisdom. My retreat is there. My newsletter is there. KimberlyBraun.com, you can find it all.
Kimberly. Thank you so much. Truly an epic conversation.
Amen.
I want to remind everyone that if you’re ready to begin your epic journey, go to EpicBegins.com. You can get a free eCopy of my book, Epic Begins With 1 Step Forward: How to Plan, Achieve, and Enjoy the Journey. As always remember, epic choices lead to the epic life that you want.
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About Kimberly Braun
Kimberly Braun impelled from earliest childhood experiences, has spent over a decade as a monastic nun exploring the path of Presence. With a master’s in theology, she lives to inspire others to connect to and live from Divine Love at their center. She is a TEDx speaker and former meditation faculty at the renowned Omega Institute.
Kimberly’s communication skills ignite transformation on all levels serving others to lives of greater freedom and joy. She has served tens of thousands through her writing, speaking, retreats, online courses, and community and has two new books in 2023. Her latest book, Miracles in the Naked Light is her personal and dynamic story of building a monastery with no experience.