Sacred Catharsis: An Interview with Writer/Yogi Kelli Hansel Haywood

Appalachian Author/Yogi Kelli Hansel Haywood's life and practice is firmly rooted in the soil of her native East Kentucky. In this interview, she speaks about home, art, motherhood, healing, and her artistic processes. 

Some of the things we talk about include:

• The way her knowledge of her kin and extended family has informed her identity provided a lifelong sense of groundedness. 
• Her feelings of not quite fitting in outside East Kentucky, but ironically not fitting in fully there, either.
• How having children changed her artistic process, and allowed her to realize that inspiration is always there for her.
• The sensation when your kids model your examples and start becoming artists themselves.
• The seemingly-paradoxical fact that there is a lot of rhetoric in Appalachia about men being the leaders of home and church, but that strong women uphold the communities and families. 
• Her style of feminism and her conflicted feelings about changing her name after marriage.
• What she wants folks from outside Appalachia to know about the region.
• Why Appalachian ways of knowing the world are sometimes discriminated against.
• How a mountain accent does NOT signal a low IQ
• How she got a book deal from consistently posting on Instagram, and how she used her own healing and transformation to create the content that became the book.
• The way knowledge has become wisdom over the course of her life.
• Personal Alchemy and Jungian shadow work
• The special gifts that artists have to share with the world, and which should NEVER be taken for granted.

Links Mentioned:
www.kellihansel.com
Kelli's book Sacred Catharsis
IG: @darkmoon_kelli
Download the How to Live Your Most Creative Life Guide