Author Katherine Bihlmeier: “Seeing Light at the End of the Tunnel; 5 Reasons To Be Hopeful During this Corona Crisis”
When you are fearful, you let others control you. Fear is never a good advisor. Love and kindness are always the best way, as well as allowance. A prime example of this is nature. When there is a fire, the forest doesn’t run away — it allows it to happen. And then it renews and rejuvenates itself, with even more beauty and growth happening afterward. In the same way, we can now be in allowance of the current events and focus on what our hearts and souls want to see more of in this world.
As a part of my series about the things we can do to remain hopeful and support each other during anxious times, I had the pleasure of interviewing Katherine Bihlmeier.
Katherine Bihlmeier helps people who are ready to step out of the anxious, fear-based and limited survival mode to find out what else is possible in life, live their full potential and rejoice the miracle of each day. As a certified Access Consciousness Bars and Body Process Facilitator, and a transformational life-changer with over 20 years of practical expertise in working with kids and adults worldwide, she is now authoring an upcoming book “The Soul on Fire” — an inspirational pragmatic guide for life transformation from feeling overwhelmed and lost, to waking up each morning excited to be alive and living a truly orgastic life. Nowadays, Katherine teaches and speaks at events on a wide array of topics, such as fulfilled relationships, conscious parenting, holistic approach to business, self-empowerment and potential development; she travels the world creating multiple projects and spreading joy and consciousness everywhere she goes.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you share with us the backstory about what brought you to your specific career path?
Oh, where do I begin? My career unfolded out of my life journey, and in that sense, I could jokingly say my career path began when I was born.
Since I was little, I had a tremendous awareness of everything which was going on in my surroundings and how everyone was feeling. When people were not telling the truth, I would sense that. I would pick up on their feelings and inner states. I wasn’t conscious of that, so all I knew was that being with people felt weird and that I really loved exploring and enjoying the incredible world of nature.
My great awareness and sensitivity — and the lack of understanding and acknowledgment for these capacities — brought me through multiple ups and downs while growing up. As a teenager, I was tormented by my sensitivity and spent a part of my teen years in therapy. It didn’t bring me further, though it taught me that the conventional way of treating people’s issues wasn’t matching what I knew was possible. I often looked at this world in disbelief, because what I saw being lived around me just didn’t match my knowing of what life can be. For example, I really wanted to work with children, so I’ve attended a pedagogical school to be able to start working in a kindergarten. In my first workplace, I was faced with how firmly and restrictively kids were treated in the educational system. It was not at all aligned with my inner knowing of the kindness and presence that children truly require. So I left that path and set out on an odyssey of working in various professions, always picking up valuable life lessons that would lead me to my next steps.
Some of my biggest challenges opened me up to the greatest discoveries, and so about 20 years ago I brought myself to recognize that I do have great capacities to contribute to people. I started working with various healers, spiritual teachers, and even doctors, bringing a new approach to their practice with clients and patients. All along I learned so much about my energetic capacities, my way of perceiving people, helping them get to the next step in their lives and inspiring them to create something greater in the world.
Along the way, I’ve started educating myself in various techniques and training. I studied meditation, Qi Gong, transparent communication, got certified in Access Consciousness modalities, Zero Point painting, Montessori, even style & image consultancy. My life might have not been linear, though everything that I chose brought me to who I am now.
In this world, when you complete a Montessori teaching training and learn everything about Montessori, it is common to choose to work with it afterward. If you have a certificate or a license, why wouldn’t you do it? For me, all these courses and training were a pathway that brought me to the wisdom and the knowledge I had in me already. I truly believe that everyone has their own wisdom, gifts, capacities and skills which they come down to Earth with. The only thing which is required is for you to get in touch with that and remember what you know. We are all so connected. Everything and everyone around us share the same essence. And we all carry the wisdom of life. All of this can remind us of what we know. Presently for me, it is more about sinking in, asking questions and accessing my knowledge and wisdom more directly.
Nowadays I teach and speak at events, helping people step out of worry, fear and all other limitations, so they can start creating the life they truly desire for themselves. I also do private coaching and host online and live classes all over the world, inviting my clients to change the unsatisfying situations in business, family, relationships, and health into joy and fulfillment. My most recent goal is to help even more people step into their magic and greatness through my upcoming book “The Soul on Fire”, which is due to be released spring of next year. My work is about empowering people to discover their wisdom and capacities and to create a life and the world we truly desire to live in.
I wrote a longer post about my life path on the blog on my website, where you can read in more detail about my journey.
Is there a particular book that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?
Before I truly chose to set out on the exploration of my capacities and my life calling, there was a time in my life when I felt very lost. On the outside, I was living what seemed to be a perfect life. But in fact, I was stuck in an abusive marriage and felt totally disconnected — what you may call “depressed”. I was asking and praying for change. One day a book fell into my hands. I don’t know how it came to me and I don’t even remember the title anymore. It was a book about setting intentions for your life, it was quite well known at the time. I committed to myself and started doing the exercises and practicing everything I read in it. From that moment on, my life started to shift and change. Everything was getting lighter and easier. I was less in reaction, and new possibilities started showing up.
Looking back at it 20 years later, I’d say that remembering the exact name of that book doesn’t even matter. It’s not about the book itself — it’s about what you do with it. I always ask my students and clients: “Will you be just internalizing the points of view of others as you read? Or is this book going to invite you to choose differently? Are you reading it to evolve, expand and remember what is true for you?” — That’s the process I went through with this book that changed my life. And it’s the process I want my readers to go through when they read my book as well.
I really explored what the author wrote about and questioned if that matched my truth and my wisdom. Through this process, I started making new life choices. And through choosing new, my life continuously changed.
I stepped out of being miserable, frustrated and feeling uncomfortable in my own body. I got divorced, reconnected with myself and started to live again. And all that brought me to where I am now.
Ok, thank you for all that. Now let’s move to the main focus of our interview. Many people have become anxious from the dramatic jolts of the news cycle. The fears related to the coronavirus pandemic have heightened a sense of uncertainty, fear, and loneliness. From your perspective can you help our readers to see the “Light at the End of the Tunnel”? Can you share your “5 Reasons To Be Hopeful During this Corona Crisis”? If you can, please share a story or example for each.
First of all, I’d like to invite you to get a different perspective on hope and, perhaps, stop hoping altogether. For me, hope is a passive state. I see both hoping and wishing as distractions that divert us from actually creating the outcome we’d like to have. If you tune in and look behind how you usually use the word, hoping is a waiting and disempowering response. When you hope, you give up your authority and awareness by letting other people or circumstances determine the outcome for you, instead of actively creating what you desire out of a situation.
Rather than hoping, I would encourage you to create! So instead of offering 5 reasons to be hopeful, I would like to share 5 inspiring and actionable steps to view this situation in a new bright perspective. Use what this time in your life is offering to you. Stop judging this situation, because the judgments fix it and make it harder to change. Instead go into your heart and be in total allowance. By allowing the situation as it is and opening up to new possibilities, you can ultimately create an even brighter future for yourself and for all of us.
You can, of course, use these steps in any challenging situation that might arise in your life.
Change your perspective
Whenever you find yourself facing a challenge, the first helpful step is to get out of your head — the problem thinker. As I’ve invited you to change your perspective on hope, I’d like to invite you to altogether stop viewing what is going on right now in the world as a ‘crisis’ or a ‘problem’. I always tell my clients that every ‘problem’ hides in itself a gift of a possibility. So I’d like to invite you to look behind how things appear to be.
What if we all created this situation to change something in the world? What if this is a great wake up call for everyone?
If you don’t focus on what seems to be a problem and a difficulty, what else could you perceive?
Looking at the positive side of the current events can help you get out of the tunnel vision. What positive things has this brought to your life? Do you have more time for yourself and the things you always wanted to do? Do you have more time to spend with your family and kids? More time for introspection and reflection?
And what is the positive on a bigger picture? For example, the air quality is getting better worldwide. Major Chinese cities have recently enjoyed blue skies. The water in the canals of Venice got so clear and you can even see fish in it, which most of the locals never experienced. The nature has space to bloom and regenerate. Critically endangered animals are being spotted returning to their natural habitats.
Look for the possibilities
Many people are tempted to go into hopelessness, seeing the current events like a disaster and focusing on loneliness, feeling uncertain or having nothing to do. What if you could use this time to your advantage? What if you would look at things which you usually don’t look at and heal old wounds that created what is showing up now?
We all created this situation. What if we used this as an opportunity to wake up to a new level of responsibility and start choosing and creating for the future? Is it time to stop letting others choose for us and start creating what we truly desire? I know this might sound uncommon, but don’t go into your mind trying to figure out what it would look like and what you’d need to do. Ask your heart. When you ask a question, answers start showing up in the most unexpected ways.
There is an advantage to everything that shows up in your life. Whatever comes your way, there is a chance to gain new awareness and then choose and create new.
This situation which we created all together will end for sure. Everything that comes, goes. What did we create it for? And how would you/we like to come out of it? Current events are breaking all the common structures, allowing us to create something new in this world, for our lives, for the nature… What contribution can all of this be? Then we do not even need to look for the light at the end of the tunnel — we can see the light and the possibilities which are already here, now. The light is always here. It is just our choices and thinking who determine whether we experience it.
Connect with your heart — and ask yourself questions
My invitation is to leave the space of your head and mind, which would just circle around and create the next limitation as they always do. Drop down into your body. Breathe into your heart and start asking questions from there.
Take this time to get clearer in yourself and keep creating your life. Write down how you would truly like to live your life. Don’t look for an answer in your head and mind. Ask your life and soul. Let the answers come out of your inner wisdom. Journaling might be a great tool.
If you can have everything out of this situation, what would that be? If everything is possible and available for you, how would you then like to live? Where and with whom?
What did not work for you in your life so far? What would you like to create different? What would you like to have more of in your life?
Knowing all this will not only be the first step to creating it, but it will also help you stay on your track without getting carried away by everything you hear around yourself. Let what others think be their reality. What will you choose as a reality for yourself?
Turn off the news!
I totally encourage you to stop listening to the news in any form. I’ve been doing that for 20 years and all the information I truly needed to know, would always find their way to me. The media is overflowing with mass panic and is flooded by an enormous quantity of information and misinformation. Each thread on your social media, almost every email you get which enforces the reality of the pandemics just adds up to it. Ask yourself: “Is this flood of input truly helping me gain clarity and stay balanced, or is it just contributing to feeling more lost, fearful and anxious?”
Focus on what you would like to create in your life and leave the rest. Do not invest in what you hear from the media by resisting it or getting anxious. When you go against or get fearful, you buy into what you hear even more, and it is a lot less easy to stay connected with yourself. Choose to stay connected with your inner knowing.
Reconnect with your inner knowing that everything is right as it is
Once you’ve gone through the previous steps, you can tune in to a much more creative source of information — yourself.
Everything is right, even if your mind can’t see it, or if you’re judging that it doesn’t look so at the moment. Just because you don’t see something, it doesn’t mean it is not there. Letting go of gloomy points of view and thoughts can create a big difference in how you will go on. Reconnect with your heart and body and get your clarity on again.
Do my words make you feel more relaxed and at ease? Do you feel lighter as you read? Then this all must be resonating with what you know is true inside of you. Acknowledge that.
And coming back to the phrase of ‘Seeing light at the end of the tunnel” — what if the current situation was an invitation for something greater? What if we changed our perspective and there was no tunnel and no darkness? What if the light is already here? Life in its full expansiveness.
When you are fearful, you let others control you. Fear is never a good advisor. Love and kindness are always the best way, as well as allowance. A prime example of this is nature. When there is a fire, the forest doesn’t run away — it allows it to happen. And then it renews and rejuvenates itself, with even more beauty and growth happening afterward. In the same way, we can now be in allowance of the current events and focus on what our hearts and souls want to see more of in this world.
People’s points of view create fear and anxiety. None of that is real. Everyone can choose whatever they want to. By choosing something different, you become an invitation for everyone else around to create a different reality.
The question is — what are you going to choose? Will you listen to others, or will you listen to your own awareness? What is your truth? What do you really know about what is going on around you? And what is truly required for you to create your reality?
Will you sit and wait for the light to show up at the end of the tunnel? Or will you take off the tunnel vision glasses and see the bright future which is already here, waiting for us to receive it?
From your experience or research what are five steps that each of us can take to effectively offer support to those around us who are feeling anxious? Can you explain?
Step number one would be sharing this interview with them and helping them get a sense of this different perspective, too!
I’d recommend inviting those who are anxious to see where their anxiety is coming from and what is causing it. As I already mentioned, none of it is real — it comes from the thoughts we choose to believe.
If you see someone is feeling anxious, invite them to get a new outlook on the situation. Guide them through all the steps listed above, so they can feel empowered.
You can be a contribution and an example with everything you say, do and choose different. Be an invitation for those around you by living your truth.
Also, be aware if a person is truly willing to choose something different, or if they prefer to feed the drama. The choice is theirs. Don’t let yourself be drained out by people who are not truly willing to change their perspective. Recognize who would be willing to receive your contribution. Then help them have more ease to choose new.
What are the best resources you would suggest to a person who is feeling anxious?
I already spoke about how aware and sensitive we all are. In times like these, there is a lot of emotional turmoil. People get anxious and stressed. There is also a lot of suppressed anger and resistance because we are commanded what to do and very restricted in our daily lives. And we are all picking up on these emotions from one another.
From what I see, many people would not be anxious, but they are buying into the media panic and the anxiety of others. I’d even dare say that the biggest virus is not the corona itself, but the pandemics of disconnection — fear, uncertainty, and anxiety that are spreading among the people.
As I mentioned in the previous answers, the greatest resource you can tap into during these times is — you. Your knowing, your power, and your capacity to create the outcome that you desire to see. You can do it, and you can be it!
Many might be tempted to bury their head in the sand, ignoring what is going on in them and around them. Waiting for things to pass, hoping that others will take care of it all. But this ‘ostrich technique’ will not get you where you’d like to go.
Starting with our upbringing and educational system, we are taught to accept and internalize what we are told, rather than to ask ourselves what we are aware of and what we know. So if you’re feeling anxious, what would happen if you tapped into your own inner wisdom and knowing — which is not your head and ego? What would it be like if you listened to you and to your awareness? Would you then still get caught up in anxiety?
Every single choice you make shapes your life, your future, and also our togetherness on planet Earth. And this goes beyond the corona situation. It starts with the toothpaste you use, where you buy your food and what kind of products you choose, what you think, how you live, how you communicate with people on day-to-day basis… Look at what you’re choosing in each moment. Every single choice we make is creating what we see happening around us on planet Earth. We have a lot more responsibility than to give it all up to a few people, hoping they will fix this problem. And what if there was no problem in the first place? What if we allow our fears to be, without judging them? Instead of letting the decisions and points of view of others rule our lives, what if we choose to create our own life, from a heartful, connected place?
I think it is not the time to be fearful or to fight against how things appear to be. What if you instead started creating what you truly desire to live? What if you tapped into the future you’d like to see on planet Earth as your resource? I believe that if we all lived from our heart and soul, we would be so much more guided. We would create less destruction on Earth, in nature, with our children… Life can be so much more simple, easy, and light. And new spaces for more aliveness, intensity, creativity, and happiness can show up.
We’re all connected. We are all creating this world together. We are not passively affected by it — we are actually creating the outcome. Take this time to reconnect with yourself. Review your thoughts, feelings, and emotions, and choose differently for the future.
So here comes again my invitation to stop hoping, putting your head in the sand and waiting until everything has passed and things can go back to how they were. What if instead of going back, we can go forward?
What if we can create the Paradise on Earth that we as children came here to live?
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Do you have a story about how that was relevant in your life?
I have plenty of life lesson quotes I love, though the one that comes when you ask this question is: “Everything that shows up can dissolve again”. I even noticed I used it in one of the previous answers when I said: “Everything that comes, can go”. I’ll illustrate with a story from my book.
Several years ago, I was living in France and sharing a big house in nature with four other people. My room was on the top floor. Every morning, I’d wake up excited and happy to be alive. I’d joyfully come down into the kitchen to make myself a cup of tea. I’d open the door, go inside, and all of a sudden I’d feel as if I ran face-first into a frying pan and all the air was knocked out of my lungs. My whole body felt heavy. I was full of anger, sadness, and various emotions, feelings, and thoughts. I had experienced these sudden mood swings and changes ever since I was a child, so I thought that was just how I was.
This time, the change was so obvious that I stopped taking this occurrence for granted and began asking myself what that was. I started telling my flatmates about how I felt, and all of a sudden one would say: “Oh, I’m feeling very angry actually”, or “It’s me who is sad”…
It became even clearer for me how sensitive and aware I am — and we all are, actually. If we don’t acknowledge it, then we take everything that shows up in our world for granted without asking any questions. As children, we are all highly aware of everything that is going on around us, thought we usually think it is all ours. Feeling overwhelmed with all that, we decide that we need to cut the information off and put a great effort to keep it all away. This resistance and going against our own awareness is what actually keeps us in stress and burnout. And that makes it very hard to change anything in our lives.
Since then, I’ve started acknowledging my awareness more and more. Whatever shows up in my world, I allow it to be and start asking questions about it. And it’s been so much easier for me to stay in my clarity and be happy and joyful — which is the natural state of being for all of us. I now teach people various practical tools that help them do it as well, and truly create what they desire to live in their lives.
So, coming back to my favorite life lesson quote — “Everything what comes, can go.”
Whatever shows up in your life, don’t presume that’s how it must be. If you don’t hang on to how things appear to be, they can dissolve or unfold into something different. So start asking more questions. And remember that your natural state of being is happiness, joy, and lightness.
Thanks for being in the world!
You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)
My movement would be about facilitating people all over the world to open up to new possibilities in their life. We mostly learn to automatically accept things as black and white, and make everything which momentarily shows up in our world so significant. I would like to invite people to see the infinite possibilities we can create in each moment. Life is never ‘either-or’ — there are so many choices for each situation.
I wonder what we could create in the world if we stopped living our lives from the tunnel vision of what we learned and accepted as true. What would the world be like if we all started living and creating from our hearts?
What if we were living more out of wonder? Instead of accepting the black-and-white reality of how things appear to be, what if we asked: “Oh, I wonder what I can create out of this situation?”
I know that everyone can do it. It’s like learning to ride a bike. In the beginning, you are not used to it, but with time and practice, it becomes natural.
What if we were truly conscious about the choices that we make and the effect they have? You can create and bring into the world whatever you choose. In the best case, it won’t come from your mind and ego, but from your heart and soul. That way, you’ll always be authentic and a contribution to your life and the world. You are the gift.
Actually, I speak about all this and more in my book “The Soul on Fire”, that is coming out early next year. I’m giving the readers many tools to help them create their lives from this space of possibilities. One of my intentions with the book is to bring a lot of new awareness and possibilities to people and to get this movement already rolling.
What is the best way our readers can follow you online?
There are so many ways! On my Facebook page, I post a lot of inspiring content and create interactive live videos with my audience.
Though since I love engaging directly with people, I am always looking for ways to actually meet my audience in person. That’s why I’ve created a monthly free online group meeting called the “O” Factor Coaching. It’s about opening up to new possibilities in our lives. The participants ask questions and choose the topic for each call. You can sign up on my website — and I’m looking forward to meeting you all there!
Thank you for these fantastic insights. We wish you only continued success in your great work!
Thank you, too for this great possibility. ☺
I am aware that this conversation might stir up a lot in those who read it. Some might resist, some might be deeply touched. I’d invite you to read it again and let the invitation sink in deeper. If you have any additional questions or ideas, I’ll be very happy to hear from you.
