How to Connect with Your Heart (And Get Out of Your Head) with Katie Hendricks

What if the reason you struggle to speak from your heart isn’t because you don't know what to say, but because you've forgotten how to connect with yourself first? Most of us want deeper connection, but we’re so stuck in our heads, running on adrenaline instead of presence.

This week, Gervase sits down with best-selling author and international consultant Katie Hendricks to explore how to make the journey from head to heart and discover the practical tools that make authentic connection possible.

Katie reveals why most of us are walking around “from the neck up,” running on adrenaline instead of presence, and how this disconnection affects everything—from how we show up with our partners, to how we navigate conflict, to how we experience our own lives. She shares practical tools for reconnecting with your body, giving yourself nourishing attention, and moving through the world with your heart open, even when it feels scary.

Listen to this episode now to discover:

• The simple “hmm” technique that shifts you from criticism to curiosity (and opens the pathway between your head and heart)

• Why most people live “from the neck up” and how this keeps you running on adrenaline instead of true presence

• Katie’s “loop of awareness” practice—how to circulate attention between yourself and others so you don’t get lost in your head, or lost in others

• How to ask yourself “How am I experiencing this in my body right now?” and why this question changes everything

• Why opening your heart feels scary and how to move around the fear instead of forcing through it

• The difference between giving attention from adrenaline versus presence and why one nourishes while the other depletes

• How to separate “stuff talk” and “heart talk” so business doesn't block heart connection with your partner

• How to shift from seeing your partner as a “fixer upper” to an evolving work of art

• The game-changing concept of a “no blame relationship” and how to create one

---

Follow Gervase

• 📲 Let’s hang out on IG: http://www.instagram.com/gervasekolmos

• ✨ Want to go deeper (and get juicy discounts)? Sign up to Gervase’s newsletter: https://www.gervasekolmos.com

Connect with Katie Hendricks

• Be. Play. Love Podcast: https://beplaylove.com/

• Love and Relationship products: www.heartsintrueharmony.com

• Hendricks Institute: www.hendricks.com

How to Connect with Your Heart (And Get Out of Your Head) with Katie Hendricks

Episode Full Transcript

Gervase: All right, everybody, welcome back to the Modern Phoenix Podcast. I have brought you a bit of a legend today. Katie Hendricks is here with us to share a beautiful conversation. Katie, it is beyond an honor to be here across from you. Thank you so much for your time and your work in the world.

Katie: Oh, thank you. It’s my pleasure. Having this way of connecting with people when we’re not in the same place has been so exciting. We can have these conversations and share presence no matter where we are in the world. I think it’s one of the best things about technology.

Gervase: Agree. And you are such a connector in the way you show up. I’m really in love with your podcast.

Katie: Oh, thank you.

Gervase: Your podcast is so good. I literally listened to one of the episodes twice because the way you speak about relationships is so refreshing. It’s grounded, wise, and something I really respond well to.

I have to say—the first personal growth book I ever read was The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks, your husband, which I’m pretty sure you influenced quite a lot.

Katie: Yes, yes, yes.

Gervase: It’s wild to be here with you 11 years later after reading that book. Let me read your bio so people can come into our world, and then let’s dive in.

Katie Hendricks, bestselling author and international consultant, has been an evolutionary catalyst, contextual disruptor, and freelance mentor for over half a century. She’s passionate about our ability to give and receive more nourishing attention and loving play in all aspects of our lives.

Her purpose: I feel through to the heart with laser love and evoke essence through deep play.

So beautiful.

Katie: Thank you so much. It took me several years to really land on, “This is what I do.” Because you go to parties or conventions, and people ask, “Who are you?” Usually people say, “I am a writer, I am a coach.” But I wanted to say, “Here’s what I do in the world.” And that always leads to, “Oh, how do you do that?” It opens a conversation rather than putting me in a category.

Gervase: That is so good to hear. I truly struggle with that question depending on my environment. When I first became certified as a life coach 11 years ago, it was so edgy for me. The word “life” in front of it—like, I’m going to coach you through life—felt so pretentious. I would panic when someone asked me.

Over the last decade I’ve changed a lot, added modalities and passions to my portfolio, but I still freeze depending on who’s asking. Like yesterday, the window guy was here and said, “What do you do?” I said, “I help women untangle who they are from who the world told them to be.”

That is what I do, but I cannot land it. It sounds like the train is still leaving the station. Part of me feels really nervous about it.

Katie: I’ve found that if I move from a noun—“I am a”—to a verb, it makes a big difference in how I experience myself. It also creates a connection. If I say, “I facilitate, I assist, I guide, I consult,” those are verbs. “I am a” fixes you. Verbs are my favorite. I forget who said it, but I love the quote: “I think I am a verb.”

Gervase: I love it. As you were saying the verbs, I checked in with my body and felt a sense of wonder and play. That kind of kicks us off.

You are really an expert in so many things. In your bio, when you wrote about connecting with the heart, I thought that was really interesting. Let’s start there, if that’s okay with you.

I have some brilliant friends, and one therapist friend once told me: when she’s in a conversation and struggling to explain herself, she closes her eyes, puts her hand on her heart, and says, “I wish you could feel what’s in my heart right now, because in my heart I feel…” Even as I say that, it makes me emotional.

Some people listening will roll their eyes, but for others, the idea of communicating through the heart might feel foreign. How would you recommend someone start? Like, if you’re in a conversation and not connecting, the words aren’t landing, and you want to cut through and speak from the heart—you have to first access it in yourself. How can people do that?

Katie: I’d say the main thing people struggle with in relationships is making the trip from head to heart to body. It’s like a canyon. Many people say, “I don’t know what I’m feeling.” Or, “I know what I’m feeling, but I don’t know what to do about it.”

The big move is including the rest of your body. When people are talking about an issue, I ask, “How are you experiencing that in your body right now?” Even if they don’t have an answer, they have to do something—they have to make that trip and inquire. That’s the move, and most people need to make it many times.

What helps is curiosity. The sound hmm moves us from our critical brain into our wonder brain.

Gervase: Oh my God, I just did it. I went, hmm.

Katie: Exactly. That sound opens the highway—your throat, your breathing, your ability to speak. Hmm relaxes your throat, so you’re not gripping to say the right thing. It allows you to think better. So I suggest: hmm.

Another thing is to take slower breaths. That moves you out of fight/flight/freeze/faint into presence. Then, I like to have people share something they appreciate about themselves. For example, I might say, “I appreciate the quality of your voice—when I hear it, I find myself relaxing.”

Sharing appreciation opens the space to be with ourselves more fully. Because most people live from the neck up—in their heads, in their phones, thinking about life rather than experiencing it. They don’t move. Kids learn through movement, but adults suppress that playfulness and spontaneity. So I ask people to shrug their shoulders or feel their feet, just to experience their body directly.

Opening the heart is scary for many people because they’ve been wounded. So I don’t go directly for the heart. I move around it with breath, movement, appreciation. It lets people know however they are is welcome.

Gervase: Thank you. That felt like hearing someone describe focalizing—the body-based modality I’m trained in. The journey you described is almost identical.

In focalizing, we repeat: no shame, no blame, no expectation, no pressure. Just show up however you are. It sounds cheesy, but giving someone permission to be as they are—even anxious or disconnected from their heart—is a big deal.

Katie: It is. We grow up in environments where rules matter more than presence. “Look good, be nice, don’t say anything if it’s not nice.” Spontaneity gets suppressed.

Letting people know however you are is welcome—that’s the biggest gift. I use the image of sitting with a friend on a porch swing, just rocking together. That slows down the anxious stuff and lets essence emerge.

I’ve even asked people to invent how they like to retreat when it’s too much—like building a fort or creating a safe space. That makes a huge difference.

Gervase: Yes. I was told I was “too sensitive” growing up, and now I know that’s my superpower.

Katie: Exactly. Sensitivity lets us find the little windows where people are closed off. Presence trickles through the cracks like water. And instead of saying, “There’s nothing to be scared of,” we let people feel safe through our own presence. That thaws the ice, lets energy flow, and brings us back to being enough.

Gervase: It also shifts us from achievement fueled by adrenaline—which is empty—to nourishment through oxytocin and connection.

Katie: Yes. One of the practices I use is the loop of awareness: shifting attention between yourself and others. Inside, it looks like noticing a sensation and being curious instead of critical. With others, it’s noticing them, then noticing yourself. It keeps circulation going.

When I use loop of awareness, I can teach ten-day trainings and end up more vital than when I started, because I’m constantly refilling myself. It’s like an attention pump.

Gervase: I love that. My friend Edie Allen, a Big Leap facilitator, taught loop of awareness and essence pacing at my retreat last year. It’s so approachable.

In my Inner Knowing Mastermind, I emphasize resourcing. But it can sound too cognitive. Loop of awareness feels more natural—like a constant rhythm: in to me, out to you, back to me. It’s not time-blocked self-care. It’s moment by moment.

With my three kids, I see how much better my days flow when I check in with myself throughout: Do I need water? Do I need to slow down? That’s embodiment. That’s sustainable.

Katie: Yes. And if you add a quiet hmm when you shift, it brings curiosity instead of criticism.

Most people are “outies” with attention, always outward. So just shift the other direction. That’s the basic skill. You can also play with rhythm—fast, slow, alternating. It wakes up the witness inside you, who can say, “Oh honey, you’re anxious. Let’s be with that.” Often, acknowledgment and a breath is all that’s needed.

Gervase: That reminds me of saying “I’m fine” with a broken hip.

Katie: Exactly! Years ago, I fell off my bike and broke my hip. Within five minutes, fire trucks and ambulances were there. They asked, “Are you all right?” and I said, “I’m fine.” Automatic. Even with a broken hip. That’s how ingrained it is.

Gervase: Yes. “Don’t mind me, just a broken hip.”

Katie: Right. But when you learn loop of awareness, you stop draining yourself. You can give from fullness. And attention becomes nourishing instead of fear-based.

Gervase: That’s beautiful. Let’s talk about relationships. You and Gay have been married how long?

Katie: We’ve been together 45 years, married 43.

Gervase: Wow. You clearly figured things out. You’ve said presence and attention open love and creativity—but what about when stuff gets in the way? Like resentment, exhaustion, decades of disconnection?

Katie: We created two conversations for couples: the stuff talk and the heart talk. Ten minutes each. Stuff talk is for the business of life—schedules, toilets, dishes. Heart talk is for sharing experience and appreciation.

This structure keeps the business from overwhelming the relationship. When you know you’ll have a business meeting, your body relaxes. It takes a couple of months to get into rhythm, but it’s worth it.

Another big shift is seeing your partner not as an improvement project but as an evolving work of art. Commit to appreciating. Whenever you catch yourself criticizing, move to appreciation. Research shows you need at least five appreciations for every criticism. We chose a no-blame relationship years ago, and it’s been transformative.

Gervase: I love that. I tell clients—it’s never about the dishes. It’s about connection.

Katie: Exactly. If dishes are an issue, schedule a stuff talk. But heart talk keeps love flowing.

We also teach couples to drop words and use sounds and gestures when they’re triggered. It often turns funny. Or we’ll have partners put their hands together and go, “Na-na-na-na-na-na.” That’s what all power struggles are. Then you laugh, melt the adrenaline, and reconnect.

Gervase: Yes. It brings you back to why you’re together. You didn’t marry for a clean sink.

Katie: Right. You marry for love, fun, and co-creativity. A relationship is like a team, like a great sports team. Everyone becomes an expression of the whole. Out of that “we space,” new ideas and creations emerge.

Gervase: And resentment dissolves when you shift from blame to appreciation. Instead of demanding they change, you get curious: what happens if I shift to appreciation?

Katie: Yes. And when in doubt, it’s probably fear. Befriend fear, and the energy caught in fight/flight becomes available. Sometimes just saying, “I feel scared” (not “I feel scared because you…”) shifts everything.

Gervase: Thank you so much for your wisdom. We’ll link your books, websites, and materials in the show notes.

Katie: Thank you. What a pleasure to co-create with you.

Gervase: I want to acknowledge you. The little one in me is grateful for your mother energy—nurturing, loving, grounded, wise. I soaked it up. Thank you for your presence today.

Katie: Thank you.

Gervase: Tell everyone how they can find you.

Katie: We have two websites: hendricks.com for seminars, coaching, and relationship resources; and foundationforconsciousliving.org for dozens of free videos on breathing, essence pace, loop of awareness, and more. Our nonprofit offers programs on restoring resourcefulness and creating caring community.

We also share on my podcast Be Play Love with my partner Sophie.

Gervase: It’s so good. Your relationship with her is lovely to listen to. We’ll link all that in the show notes. Thank you again, Katie.

Katie: Thank you.

How my body helped me make up with my husband

What if the key to breaking through relationship conflicts isn’t in the talking but in the listening… to your body? In this episode, Gervase reveals how shifting from mind-based strategies to somatic and soul approaches (read: dropping out of the mind and into the body) transformed a weeks-long rupture in her marriage into a moment of deep connection and repair. Listen in as she shares her struggles with “circling the drain” with repetitive arguments, how the mind can get in the way of reconciliation, and the power of the body in moving through relationship stalemates. Keep listening for questions you can ask yourself to explore the practice of dropping into your body wisdom, and for a powerful reminder that healing doesn’t always come from trying harder but from thinking differently.

---

Drop into your own unique body wisdom with a Somatic Soul Session:

• 60-minute, 1:1 coaching session to get you unstuck and ready to work with your body wisdom. On sale through January.

  Check it out here: https://gervasekolmos.podia.com/f1c7c21a-5772-4222-bf65-7bac78672c33/buy

Follow Gervase

• Connect with Gervase on Instagram: www.instagram.com/gervasekolmos

• Visit her website: www.gervasekolmos.com

How my body helped me make up with my husband

Episode Full Transcript

I try to convey to all of you, as often as humanly possible, that I am a human just like you. I’m humbly working through so many things over here on my own, alongside you—maybe a few steps ahead, maybe having learned a few more things and sharing them with you. As a facilitator, it’s different. I have a set of gifts where I can sit with someone and really see them, see their blind spots, and intuit what’s needed. But it’s impossible to do that for yourself.

I need everyone to always know this. However you’re shopping around, finding the right facilitator for you, know that you want to see yourself in your teachers and you also want to see what’s possible.

So I want to share a story about how my body helped me repair a big rupture with my husband, in the hopes that you can see yourself in my marriage. I often talk about how happy and grateful and proud I am to have such a wonderful marriage—and also, we work through things, same as everybody else. My hope is that you can also see what’s possible for you and your partnership, whatever that looks like.

Without getting into details, there was a recurring theme between my husband and me that was causing frustration and resentment on my part. We had gotten to a stalemate. Two loving people willing to do the work and have hard conversations kept circling the drain. Maybe you’ve been there: you find yourself having the same argument over and over, not making progress.

For me, being who I am, doing the work I do in the world, being as self-aware as I am—this is infuriating. Finding myself in the same place in the drain I was weeks ago in the quest for repair and connection with my partner is maddening. That was maddening.

One stormy night we reached the point of, “We’ll just deal with this tomorrow.” We had said everything that could be said. For whatever reason, we could not hear each other. The words weren’t penetrating our egos, our need to be right, our need to feel seen and heard, our need to self-defend or self-protect. All normal, natural parts of being human—especially in conflict and especially in romantic partnerships. All your childhood wounds come up.

Sometimes all the talking in the world isn’t going to do anything. We went to bed. I laid awake, fuming and also feeling deeply sad and discouraged. After a fitful sleep, I woke up at 3 a.m. There were other big things happening at the time as well. I went downstairs, started journaling, watched a little TV, lit a candle. I just tried to enjoy the quiet time in the middle of the night because my mind would not stop.

Through journaling I had a moment of awareness: my body missed my husband. If I was really honest and humble and let my ego pause, I didn’t need to be right or heard; I just wanted to lay with my husband. Then pride showed up. We all have pride. For me, this is a part I care about working with in partnership because I’ve seen what happens when you let pride get in the way of love.

I kept having this visual of my body showing me the way: just go lay on your husband, just go be with him. I got curious about it the way I invite my clients to get curious. Ask the body a question: would you like to go be held by your partner? The body responded with a longing yes. Ask the soul: would you like to go be held? The soul gave me an image. Then ask the mind: the mind said, “Yeah, but they won’t get it. That’s giving in. You can’t be wrong. You didn’t resolve this.”

That, to me, is an opening to see things differently. What might happen to this pattern we’d been stuck in if I allowed my body to lead me back to bed into his arms? So up I went back to bed into my husband’s arms at 4 or 5 a.m.

I’m grateful he allows me to share our story. It speaks so much to his confidence and trust in the work I do. I climbed into bed and he welcomed me with open arms. We lay like that for 20 minutes, then changed positions and lay like that for an hour. I fell deeply asleep—better than I’d slept in many days. I felt my heartbeat syncing with his, my soul relaxing, my body co-regulating. I felt safe.

I woke up the next morning and the problem that had felt absolutely impossible just a few hours ago truly felt dissolved. I couldn’t access the anger and righteousness I’d felt the night before. All I felt was deep intimacy, love, and connection with this person I share my life with. Not rose-colored glasses, not forgetting everything that happened. I still cared about what mattered to me. But I had patient, loving, wise, embodied trust: we’ll get there. We’re going in the right direction. I can let him make the next move. It is safe for me to be loved by this person.

For those listening, remember: the part of us that’s activated and triggered when our childhood trauma comes up in partnership does not remember anything about safety. You cannot believe anything it says. It’s a protector rising up to defend because that’s what it had to do when you were younger. But the steady, wise part of you—the part that knows it will be messy and imperfect—lives in your body and soul.

We need a somatic and soul strategy to get through circling-the-drain moments. We have to try something new to get a result we haven’t gotten before. The mind can take us so far, then we dead end. We stalemate. We put up walls. We close down. We suffer. Personally, I hate going through my day disconnected or in a fight with my partner. When I let my protector part be in charge, nobody wins.

So at five in the morning, I softened my mind and received the wisdom of my body and soul. I treated it like an experiment and noticed how my system felt before, during, and after. It was so powerful. Obviously I already believe the answer to everything is to stop—stop what you’re doing and drop into the body, stop ruminating, drop into the body and soul. But having this specific example was wild for me.

A few years ago my husband and I did a bunch of work and it was so helpful. Our disagreements went from not a ton to about half. Since this experience, I’ve noticed we’ve cut them in half again. There are so many battles the mind wants to pick that the body knows are just a little child throwing a tantrum, a fragmented part picking a fight. In relational dynamics, there’s always more than one thing in the room: inner children, finances, moon cycles, personalities, stressors. Thousands of beautiful acts of love and kindness alongside the harm. But in rupture we simplify it down, dilute it, because we’re uncomfortable with the wound.

The first approach is to consult somatic and soul strategy. Check yourself before you wreck yourself living from one part of the mind. Ask: have I actually checked in with my body? When I allow myself to be held by this person who loves me so much, I feel settling, safety, repair happening—not by talking it to death. As a passionate talker, that’s revolutionary.

This is just one thread of a ball of threads when it comes to the body solving our problems for us. If you unravel all the threads and hold them out into one big thread, the one consistent thing is: the body is the shortcut. We want a tool, we want a strategy, but we’re not willing to travel from the mind and ego into the body and soul. So we circle the drain forever. We get the same results over and over.

If that’s where you’re at, it’s understandable. We glorify talking and mind strategies and are greatly undereducated about the body and how it all works together. There is so much research about how mind, body, soul, mental health, and physical health all work together. One of my favorite speakers on this is Dr. Gabor Maté. But if you want the shortcut: stop ruminating, stop aligning exclusively with the story you’re telling yourself in the mind, and drop into the body.

An exercise I like for myself and my clients is to ask a question and notice what it feels like in your body. Start simple. “Do I want to go to that birthday party?” What does your body do? Is it heavy or is it light? Your body has its own language and you can start speaking it slowly, one little choice at a time. Then you build up to the big things.

As always, it’s nuanced. You could be in an actually devastatingly toxic relationship where your body pattern is to go back to someone causing harm. In that case you may need the opposite. Your tangle of threads is different from mine. Where do you start? With your own tangle. Knowing yourself. Untangling mind, narrative, story, body wisdom, soul voice.

I teach you to untangle so you can consult the body for wisdom and get transformation with less energy. Being in physical proximity to other people, allowing bodies to co-regulate, allowing bodies to inform what we do in relationships is such a shortcut to repair. Gathering with people when you’re grieving or celebrating is the quickest way to change your state—not because you’re thinking about it but because your body is reacting to community.

That’s one of the threads. I’ve navigated this in relationships beyond my marriage—family of origin, friendships—watching and listening to my body every step. Do I want to stand closer or farther apart? Put a room between us? Go for a walk? Sit next to them? Fascinating science experiments that ended with connection and repair I could never have anticipated.

And of course, sometimes the other person isn’t ready. That’s okay. They get their own safety line and somatic response. But if you’re pushing against your own without even knowing it—overriding it with the story you’re telling yourself—you’re missing out on the best-kept secret of being human, the best-kept secret to powerful, resilient relationships.

This ninja skill of knowing what to do, say, and choose next is how I do it—with somatic and soul strategy, deep attunement to my soul voice, my inner knowing, and a deep intentional way of relating not just to everyone in my life but to myself. It makes the way forward easier. I’m rarely in self-doubt, self-questioning, overthink, or overwhelm because I stop and drop.

This is not unique to me. All of us can do this. Women have lost touch with the feminine art of being complex, ever-evolving humans. We’ve tried to woman by being men, and it’s backfiring, leading to stress and noise. If that’s you, you’re one of bajillions. It’s so normal based on the modern culture, climate, and education we’ve had. Now we’re ready to step into a new paradigm and do things differently to get results we haven’t seen before.

We didn’t see these results in the generation before us because they didn’t have these strategies, this lived wisdom, even the science and research to back up that integrating the mind, body, and soul will take you places the mind alone never could.

I want to share a new offering for January. Somatic Soul Sessions are 60-minute one-on-one coaching sessions with me where I’ll help you drop into your unique body wisdom, get unstuck, and access your soul vision for 2025. These are $299 when purchased now through January and will increase to $349 after that.

December can go by fast and then January hits and you’re left depleted without ideas or resources for replenishing all you gave away. You can think of this 60-minute call as having me in your back pocket for when life happens—which we know it will. As I’ve been swiping my credit card for gifts this season, it inspired me to invite you to swipe for you. Plus, I love a good sale.

Purchase this offer now through January and redeem it anytime something tough comes up, or you feel stuck, trapped in your trauma, or can’t see the forest through the trees. Or use it to clarify your wants and needs versus your shoulds in the new year. Remember, this one-on-one with me will be offered at the discounted $299 price only when you purchase now through January.

I appreciate you so much for spending time here with me today. I love you so much, and I’ll see you back here in two weeks.