Following the Nudges-How Do You Know When It's Guidance? Pt 1 Ep 139 | Guest: Kirsten Rudberg

 In Part 1 of a 2-Part conversation, host Julia Marie interviews Kirsten Rudberg, a creative, author, and Panentheist.

Kirsten shares her experiences growing up in a multicultural environment and how it shaped her worldview.

She discusses her belief in magic and miracles, and her journey from atheism to spirituality, which led her to pursue a master's in Divinity.

Kirsten also shares a dream that significantly impacted her life and her experiences with the supernatural. She describes herself as a "reluctant mystic" and shares an example of a supernatural experience where she felt guided to help a stranger.

Kirsten also talks about her podcast, Byte-sized Blessings, and her animated series, Murder of Two.

THANKS TO Pixabay artists for the music beds for this episode:
Dream Protocol's The Light of the Universe-ambient Soundscape and
Nick Panek 620 Music Bed-Piano Music 218762

RESOURCES:
Kirsten's Links:
Website: bytesizedblessings.com
Facebook: Byte Sized Blessings
Youtube: Byte Sized Blessings
Insta: bytesizedblessingspod

Thank you for listening to Evolving Humans!

For consultations or classes, please visit my website: www.JuliaMarie.us

Evolving Humans with Julia Marie is now on YouTube, and will offer more than the podcast episodes there, so give us a "SUBSCRIBE"!

https://www.youtube.com/@EvolvingHumans731

You can find my book, Signals from My Soul: A Spiritual Memoir of Awakening here:

https://tinyurl.com/Book-Signals-from-My-Soul

Transcript

This transcript was generated by ai, and therefore may contain errors.
Julia Marie (00:00):
Coming up part one of a two-part story about a life spent following the nudges from the universe.
Welcome to Evolving Humans, the podcast for Awakening Souls. I'm your host, Julia Marie. Settle in and get ready for another spirited conversation. Kirsten Rudberg joins us today. She's a creative and an author
with an animated series on YouTube called Murder of Two, about two crows who sit on a line and observe humanity. She is a Panentheist and believes that magic and miracles are real and potent. She received her master's in Divinity in 2020 and hosts the popular podcast Bite-sized Blessings. She has an inspiring story and I can't wait for you to hear it. Welcome to Evolving Humans. Kirsten,
Kirsten Rudberg (01:12):
Thank you so much for having me on. I'm really excited to continue our conversation.
Julia Marie (01:17):
Frankly, that's one of the reasons why I wanted to have you on this show. I had such a wonderful time with you on your show. So there you go.
Kirsten Rudberg (01:24):
Yay.
Julia Marie (01:25):
I like to always start at the beginning. What was it like growing up in Kirsten's home?
Kirsten Rudberg (01:33):
Oh, gosh. Well, I grew up overseas, so really up until 10 I was in Guana, south America and then in Pakistan. And so my home was, of course, for me, I didn't know any different. I thought, oh, it's totally normal to have a three day wedding celebration in your front yard where everybody's up all night long
and celebrating and nobody goes to sleep because our chef, I think our cook had a daughter and my parents said, yes, have the celebration here. I thought it was totally normal to go to an American school and go to school with kids from everywhere of every religion, every skin color, and just have fun, just
hang out and play soccer and have fun. And I was so lucky. I got to travel to Kashmere. I got to go to Bangladesh and Bangkok and the Taj Mahal. So that was my life, and so I am sure you can imagine is
when I transitioned back to the States in the middle, just outside Chicago, in the middle of Illinois.
(02:33):
It was rough. There was a little bit of a rough patch for a couple years, and it didn't help that my mother sent us to school the first day in our Pakistani clothes that did not go over well. And you want to talk about being branded, the little alien people in the room, alien kids that kind of branded us forever. She was so proud of that school photo she took first day, but it did not land well with the other kids. So after
that school life, my home was so confusing for me. I went from a place where everybody was accepted, everybody was appreciated and included to middle of Illinois, everyone was white. There's nothing wrong
with that, but it was just a real cultural shock for me. What you brought in your lunchbox was essential to being popular. What you wore was critical to being talked to and not ostracized. And I didn't have parents that would buy me the DoorDash jeans and the Izod shirts. That was not part of their lifestyle. And so it
was really rough for a couple years trying to figure out how do I navigate in this totally alien culture?
How do I navigate? How do I make friends? How do I not want to hide all the time? So yeah, it was my younger years were both beautiful and challenging.
Julia Marie (04:00):
Well, I completely identify with you military brat, same kind of experience. I mentioned in the intro that you're a pantheist pantheist. Would you mind defining what that is? Because some people might think I was mispronouncing pantheist.
Kirsten Rudberg (04:19):
Absolutely. I didn't even know what it was until I went to seminary and my cohort had, gosh, people from every kind of religion or a religion or atheist, every kind of person you want to imagine. And all of a sudden I was meeting Panentheists and I thought, what is this? What is this? So I looked it up because
Wikipedia and basically it means that I believe everything's sacred. Everything has consciousness. Some people call it panpsychism, that everything is alive and conscious, but everything has merit. It has worth, it is worthy of being noticed and appreciated and respected for how it is or what it is in this world, and
that really we shouldn't take anything for granted, whether it's the tree in our backyard or the person we're walking past on the sidewalk on the street, or even that sweet doggy that they're walking. Everything is worthy and sacred and beautiful and should be included as being worthy of reverence. Not only
reverence, but worthy of actually being something that is important to preserve.
Julia Marie (05:36):
Well, then I guess I'm one of those two. The thing that comes to my mind is last summer, about the last spring, about this time, I remember having a communion with a praying mantis on my garbage can sunning itself. And I thought I was going to use a bad word, but I thought I was a little nuts, but it just felt
like there was a connection and a flow happening. I guess I'm one of those too. So would you say that you are raising overseas and having that multicultural viewpoint might have already led you down that road?
Kirsten Rudberg (06:20):
Yes. I do want to just say that I do belong to several online praying mantis groups, and it's so sweet. There is just this contingent of people in the world who love those little creatures so much and they're always putting up concerned pictures, what's going on? My mantis is doing this, but it's really precious to
witness the love and adoration. They give those really magnificent insects. It reaffirms my faith in humanity over and over again. But yes, I do have to say that absolutely 100% growing up overseas and going to all these different places, we went out into the world. So as I said, I mentioned the Taj Mahal,
but we were always going driving to places and seeing temples and seeing other ways people worshiped.
And I got so much exposure to other people's, other cultures, other religions, other ways of life that I use the, I always say what I'm eternally trying to do, if you want to analyze me psychologically, is create the
sandbox for my childhood where everyone is included, everyone is welcomed.
(07:34):
There's a huge sense of belonging because I deeply feel that the more people we include, we can make this world a more beautiful place, that much faster. Someone might have an idea that I would never consider, or someone might have a contribution that might make a project or an idea even more gorgeous.
And I really do believe with collaboration and belonging and bringing everyone in, that we stand a greater chance of maybe I would say, successfully navigating all the challenges going on in this world right now.
So yeah. Yes, of course I'm haunted by my childhood. Yes,
Julia Marie (08:14):
Haunted in a good way. Okay. This is a friendly ghost that's haunting you. Okay. It's a good ghost. I personally would agree that making the sandbox big enough to include everyone because we're all simply expressions of the same divinity, the same and infinite consciousness expressing itself in infinite ways,
and there really is no separation except that which we create both for ourselves and for the people in our lives. Now, you have touched a little bit on the divinity aspect of things, and you say you're not religious at all. So I'm curious, what led you to pursuing your master's of divinity?
Kirsten Rudberg (09:02):
This is the question everybody asks because it's so bizarre. Well, my childhood of course, and all these experiences going to all these religious spaces and meeting all these different people, but I've always been very deeply curious and invested in learning as much as possible about myth, fairytale, folk tale, and
truly, how do humans create meaning? Because we are such fascinating creatures. We tell story, we tell fables, we create characters to explain. Let's say that lightning storm someone had a week ago or something. It's just so fascinating to me how we parse out meaning and how we create meaning in our lives. And religion, of course, is part of that. We have so many religious texts, which are basically people
trying to create meaning in the world and figure out what exactly is going on here. And I am a biblio file. I love books so much.
(10:12):
I've been, yes, two thumbs up to that. I have been kind of horrible about my love for books, hiding in the library when I was a kid. The library was a safe place and I could have fun and just do my own thing when I wanted to. And I love learning. I have an insatiable kind of curiosity about everything because the
other piece you should know is that I've been reading science magazines since I was a kid, so I just have this voracious need to learn things. And I always lament that I'm going to die before I learn everything. I always think about that there's not enough time. But all that to say that Masters of Divinity came to me
because I thought, okay, I know this is really bizarre. It's going to put me crazy in debt, but I feel called and compelled to do this because it will be, imagine grandiosely that someday I'll marry science and religion in some respect.
(11:11):
But it was a way for me to scratch that itch of getting more education, but also learn more about how humans create meaning. I took a Buddhism class, I took intro to Islam, I took body and sexuality in the Hebrew Bible, and it just kind of expanded my understanding of so much, and I felt like I needed it. Not
only that, I met some of the most interesting and compelling people in my school who were making this world a better place, and it really galvanized me and inspired me to understand that I too can contribute and create beauty for other people from soup to nuts. It was absolutely the correct decision, very
expensive decision, but one that is playing out in my life now. I've always thought, why did I go to seminary? And now I have all these beautiful things kind of emerging from that decision which are changing my life.
Julia Marie (12:10):
I almost feel like that seminary experience was part of the process of soul emergence or moving you closer down the path to what your actual purpose for being here is, and that is to facilitate the creation of a larger sandbox.
Kirsten Rudberg (12:27):
I totally agree. And while now in my life, I don't actually playing in the sand. It gets in my shoes and in my socks, and it's kind of itchy. I love the metaphor because you can build sandcastles, and if something's not right, just take a little water and splash it on over there, and you can start from the beginning.
Julia Marie (12:49):
You mentioned a dream that changed everything for you. Can you tell us about that and how that changed your life?
Kirsten Rudberg (12:58):
Yeah. I've had several dreams, but this dream really gobsmacked me and changed everything I viscerally felt with my whole body that I was floating out in the universe and I could see the depths of space and the stars and the galaxies, and it was really, really beautiful. And there was even this audible hum of being in
space, this kind of a hum. And I just thought I was reveling in the beauty and just how magnificent it was.
And then this figure came from the side of my vision and said, oh, you think this is real? This is what's real. And it reached down to the bottom of my vision. The universe was a curtain and pulled back the universe. They talk about noetic experiences or experiences where there are no words, and I try to
explain, I just try over and over to explain the feeling that came to me.
(14:04):
I mean, it was so I can say, oh, it was love, but it wasn't was more than that. It was everything. But that word isn't even appropriate in this case. It was so shocking and unreal and fabulous and overwhelming that I woke up from the dream and my entire room was filled with that energy. As I got ready for the day,
I kept looking at the ceiling, wondering when it was all going to trickle down. And I thought, when I get back from work today, it's going to be gone. It was just encapsulated in that room and held there kind of like it escaped from my dream or bled through from my dream, but I thought my heart was just blown
open. And yeah, I thought this, I have no words for this. This is a vision maybe that I didn't ask for. And then I had a couple of years where I was seriously screwed up and angry and bitter that I had been shown that and really filled with a lot of rage because I was vacillating between this beautiful gift, which I was
like, this is sort of a little curse that I was shown because it changed everything for me.
(15:34):
And I understood that what I am in this reality isn't actually real. And I had a lot of times that I thought to myself, what if this isn't real? I don't want to be here. I want to be there. Why would anybody ever choose to be here? And I did think about taking my life several times just because what I'd been shown was too
much. And I don't know if anybody's ever ready for that kind of thing. I felt like I wasn't, but it really destroyed a lot of how I operated in the world, and I was really depressed and melancholy and angry and resentful and bitter. It was a really bad time in my life, really, really bad. And later, I've read a lot about
having noetic experiences, and sometimes they're beautiful and wonderful, but other times they're meant to challenge you and confront you and almost wound you a little bit so that you move from a place of inaction or being static into maybe having more curiosity or being more open to the real reality, let's say.
But yeah, I was, I did not, it was nice that morning, but then after that I struggled. It was really, really bad.
Julia Marie (16:58):
Well, I can say one thing for sure. You can never go back. When you have that kind of experience, it leaves an indelible mark, not just on your personality, but on your spirit. I had a similar experience, but one that wasn't as lovely and revealing as yours. Mine was more one of those ones that said, you need to get busy. So I understand the impact an experience like that can have. And you're right, there are no words that can ever adequately describe a limitless experience. You can only live it and try and do your best to integrate it, which is not easy when you're in a finite body and you've just had this glimpse of the infinite and the image of a being raising up the curtain of the universe. Oh boy, mind blown. Did it change how you perceive your connection to the infinite?
Kirsten Rudberg (17:57):
Well, I mean, that took time because I spent several years being very angry and bitter and just resentful and not even understanding why I would be shown something. I called it. I was like, that stupid thing that happened to me, I was so bitter and resentful. My heart just hurt. It hurt so badly. And so I started seeing
this acupuncturist who practiced tween on. I couldn't get anything by him at all. So after a few, seeing him for several months, six months, I finally confided this experience. He thought, what? We're going to figure this out because you obviously need assistance with this. You can't do this alone. And then that
spirit, that great spirit, I call it great spirit, has been very gentle and kind with me because it knows that I am grumpy and stubborn. And so the unveiling of everything that is going on in my life has been much more gentle and the strange things that have happened to me over and over and over again, I call them
strange. Hopefully someday we won't use that language and it'll be normal. But the odd things or the super normal things that happen to me that are so overt and ridiculous, they've been happening very gently over time, I think, to introduce me, because that first experience was less than ideal.
(19:28):
So it has changed everything. And I love science. I've loved it since I was a kid. I was an atheist in high school and college. I didn't believe in any of this. I was so anti all of this, and I saw this as being a sign of weakness, believing in any of this stuff. But now I've had so many encounters and experiences that are so
inexplicable that I am forced to understand that there's a lot more going on in this world than I can understand.
Julia Marie (19:58):
Like you said, those supernormal experiences over time, they pile up and eventually it gets to a point where you can't ignore the evidence. Now you called yourself a reluctant mystic, and I started laughing because you said you also whine and complain. Well, okay. So took the words right out of my mouth.
That's how it was for me. You also said that when you show up and do your part, your life changes and the lives of the people around you change. Would you mind sharing one example of one of your impactful super normal experiences so the audience can get an understanding of what we're talking about here?
Kirsten Rudberg (20:49):
Oh, yeah, of course. Here's just a relatively benign one that I wasn't even expecting. So I woke up one morning and was sitting on the couch, and I get this nudge, but it's not really nudge. It's more like, oh, it'd be really good idea to go on a walk today. And I thought, okay, it's morning. I'm not going on a walk right
now. But then it lays on my heart again. It's like, it would be a really good morning to go on a walk today.
And I'm like, are you kidding me? Because I'm totally comfortable and it's a morning, but then it sits on my heart and it's like kind of won't let go. So to get it to stop nagging me, I put on my shoes and I walked out the front door. And usually when these things are happening, I'm like, all right, what direction do you
want me to go?
(21:35):
Whatever stupid thing is happening right now, because very grumpy. And so it said, turn right, I turned right, and it led me in white rock up near Los Alamos on this hiking trail. So I'm hiking on the trail. I've been on the trail for eight to 10 minutes. And then it says, basically I stopped at a juncture and it said, turn
right, which led back to the street. And then I started getting annoyed, and I thought, you got me off the couch to go back to the street, but whatever, whatever. So I get back to the sidewalk and I'm heading back
to the house, and I see this car drive past me, and it parks about half a block up. A woman gets out and she starts looking all around. She looks confused and doesn't know what she's doing. And then she gets back in the car and she drives down another half block, and I'm walking towards her.
(22:28):
She gets out, she looks confused, and I think, oh gosh, that woman, she looks super confused and totally lost. And then all of a sudden it hits me that a woman was coming to pick up a table, a tiny little table TV table that I'd given away on Craigslist at that exact time. And I thought, and she said she'd be on a Nissan
Ultima. And I looked and I was like, oh my God, that's a Nissan Ultima. And so I trot on up to her and I said, are you coming to pick up a table? And she said, yes, and I'm totally lost. I looked for the house on Google Maps from space, but houses from the front look different from space. And I thought, okay, well, we're not even going to visit that whole thing that you just told me, but I'm the person that's selling you the table or giving you the table.
(23:20):
And she said, what? And I said, yeah, I just watched you look lost. So it hit me. All of a sudden, there she is, the woman. So I said, I'm actually way down at the end of the block. And she said, oh my. What are the chances you'd be on a walk at this time? And I thought, oh dear. I'm the jerk. Now I know that I'm the
jerk. Okay, I'm the total jerk. But I said, I don't know. I guess I just felt like I was supposed to be out here at this time playing it off. Totally cool, playing it off. But yeah, there's an example right there.
Julia Marie (23:55):
Well, that's exactly the kind of example that proves my point. And that is, that's a perfect example of how it's designed to work. If we all pay attention and follow, even when we don't understand why we're being urged to do something, everybody would be where they needed to be when they needed to be there
prepared to give or receive whatever it was needed. In this case, it was directions to your house. It seems like something very mundane in its impact. But when you think about what it took to get you out of your house and on the street, otherwise, that lady probably never would've found her way to your house, and
she never would've gotten her table, and you wouldn't have gotten that additional piece of evidence that says, this is how it's really supposed to work. So thank you for that.
Kirsten Rudberg (24:53):
Oh, yeah. I mean, I don't know. I often wonder what those spirits and ancestors and guides think of me, and I'm pretty sure they're all like that grumpy one over there, the stubborn little stinker over there in the corner. We just have to be gentle and have patience with her because she, she's thinks we're nags because
I do. I'm like, please stop nagging me. I'm like, okay, I can feel you on my shoulders or my heart. I know you want something for me, but it's inconvenient. Slowly that resistance is being weeded out of me. But it's been a process
Julia Marie (25:36):
I've learned over time. Surrender is easy to say, but it's extremely difficult to actually achieve absolute surrender to an aspect of your own being that is greater than your physical self. Let's put it that way, because in my world, the energy that I'm interacting with is a part of me. I'm the avatar on the game
board. They gave me free will, but that doesn't mean I'm the one in charge. We can choose to follow or not, is the bottom line. Now, please tell the people how they can connect with you.
Kirsten Rudberg (26:14):
Oh, sure. So I have a podcast called Bite-sized Blessings, and it's BYTE. And all of that is to say that my website is bite-sized blessings.com, just so that everyone gets the spelling. But on my website, you can
find out about my podcast, you can find out about my animated series, and there's sorts of other fun stuff that can kind of introduce you to who I am as a human being on that website.
Julia Marie (26:39):
Well, once again, thank you so much for being a part of this animated conversation today. I enjoyed myself very much.
Kirsten Rudberg (26:49):
Me too. I just loved every minute, so thank you for having me on.
Julia Marie (26:55):
Well, that's our time for today to every person listening now, thank you for continuing to support this podcast. If you found value in this episode, please share it with two other people so that together we can bring more light to this world. If you want to leave me a message now, you can. If you click the link in
the show notes, you can leave me a text. And now here's a quote for you to ponder as you go about your day: Those who don't believe in magic will never find it. - Ronald Dahl