We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Kate Nasuti a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Kate, thanks for joining us today. Setting up an independent practice is a daunting endeavor. Can you talk to us about what it was like for you – what were some of the main steps, challenges, etc.

In June of 2020, in the midst of the pandemic, when I was an essential worker and had the job security that most other people would have coveted, I put in my resignation. I was working for a company from whom I was falling more and more out of alignment. Alignment with my values, both inside and outside of that clinic, had been the way I had started to live my life in the previous couple of years. On the way into work that morning in June, I said out loud to a human I cared about very much that if we were to continue to date that it was absolutely imperative that I am moving toward my value of honesty. As I said that out loud

Kate, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I don’t know if I got into what I’m doing now, or I was pushed into it. I had this quiet urge to be a coach (although I still don’t love that name) for some time. When I was mentoring my employees (who were also behavior analysts) at the clinic, I was always reminded that that was pretty much the only time that I was working that I actually liked working. All of the other duties- the billing, the scheduling, the putting out of fires- were draining the life out of me. But when I sat 1:1 with a supervisee or with the group at a staff training and was teaching my team about Acceptance Commitment Therapy (ACT) or meditation or mindfulness, I was lit up.

But there was just no way. No way I could make a living doing just that. No way I could still be a behavior analyst and talk about some of the things I really wanted to talk about. The things that had actually helped me change my behavior. These were things you couldn’t see, couldn’t take data on, and therefore no insurance company would reimburse me for that. Just no way.

Or was there?

One day on the way into the clinic, I had a difficult personal conversation where I put a boundary on something because it was outside of my values. I told this person that I absolutely could not be out of my integrity. And then I walked into work and heard the words I had said out loud in my mind “I can’t do this because it would be moving away from the things that are important to me.” Wasn’t this what I was doing on most days when I walked into that clinic?

So I gave my notice. And I had no idea what I was going to do next. And then came the push.

A dear friend started to send people to me. I would wake up to texts linking me to people all over the world- Los Angeles, Australia, the UK. Angel Kate, meet this person. This person, meet Angel Kate. Connect. My dear friend wanted me to talk to these people about the things I had talked about with her. To talk about the tools I had developed to work with my mind, to shift my behaviors, and to live a more meaningful life.

So I did.

I set up sessions. Started meeting with clients weekly. And I watched their lives shift in very similar ways to the ways mine had. They were becoming more mindful, speaking more nicely to themselves, taking care of themselves, having less unhelpfu internal dialogue, getting rid of habits that didn’t serve them, finding more courage to live the lives that they always wanted. And more.

Two years later, I am still at it.

I struggle with articulating why my approach works so well for most of my clients, and I think it’s a recipe of many ingredients. And here are some of them:

A deep understanding of behavior change- although there are times that I’ll be talking about spirituality or energy and feel myself shifting far away from my rigorous training on the science of behavior, I always know these neural pathways are still there and grooved and easily accessible. I look at baselines, I use shaping procedures, I recognize where new behaviors will or will not get reinforced in the environment or whether reinforcement will be delayed or immediate. These skills are invaluable, and I suggest anyone who is helping someone make changes in their life have somewhat of a foundation.

Experience, Strength, and Hope- I use self-disclosure in my work. I have been trained through the Compassionate Inquiry course to do this skillfully, to make sure I am not bringing anything to a client that I haven’t fully worked out myself. Sharing myself helps to create a non-judgemental space. It helps give my clients of a taste of possibility- most likely I have climbed out of a hole that is similar to the one that they feel they are stuck in. Sometimes I picture it as if we are just walking on a path where sometimes I am right next ot them, and other times, I am a few steps ahead with some wisdom on some potential trouble ahead.

Humility- I often hear myself telling clients that I am not God. I don’t know what people should do, so I don’t should on them. I don’t know what’s best for me a lot of the time so how could I know what’s best for them? What I do know is how to ask questions, how to loosen up tight or rigid thinking and perspectives, and how to maintain a sense of curiosity.
Laughter- We get to have fun and be silly, not as a way of disassociating or deflecting, but as a way of remembering not to take ourselves to seriously. Sure, growing and changing is some serious stuff, but no one said we can’t laugh along the way!

More ingredients keep getting added and some are taken away, but every client relationship is so extremely boutique and special.

I am really so extremely and humbly honored by what I get to do and by how my clients show up so courageous and vulnerable and wiling.

My most proud moments come (and this happens often!) is when I hear a client ask out loud in a bewildered way, “Who am I?” They are usually referring to some wildly brave and authentic thing that they did or said. I always snapshot those moments and sometimes to myself, sometimes out loud, respond “You are exactly who you are becoming and who you’ve always been.”

Other than training/knowledge, what do you think is most helpful for succeeding in your field?

Making sure the water stays clear.

The esteemed Gabor Mate, says in his book Scattered:

“Children swim in their parents’ unconscious like fish swim in the sea. It is good to make sure that the water stays clear. Or at least as clear as possible.”

Now while I don’t have any kids, I do have a lot of people swimming around in my unconscious. We all do, but as someone who chooses to engage with people in a way that’s helping, serving, guiding, I think it’s absolutely crucial to do the work on yourself.

People reflect to me often how committed I am to my own practices: to my meditation, 12-step program, yoga practice, therapy, etc. I am constantly seeking out my blindspots and taking inventory. This dedication is obviously for me, it’s a path of freedom and a way out of suffering. And it’s also for my clients, my unconscious swimmers, to make sure I am really super duper clear on any motives that I have for people to change and that my views are not muddied by my own stuff.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

I had to learn to break some rules.

I was an excessive rule-follower for most of my life. I was TERRIFIED to break rules. I even created rules about rules: following them kept me safe and breaking them was extremely dangerous. I learned this as a child and carried it into my adulthood. Of course,

In my career as a behavior analyst, I began to really study rule-governed behavior. I realized how inflexible my rigidity was making me, and how sometimes it kept me from contacting some pretty cool shit. So I began to question my pliance (doing what I was told to do because I was told to do it without looking at the outcomes) and started to do some tracking (actually checking to see what happened when I followed said rules). I started to create some new rules for myself based on the environment and people around me. And I got access to a helluva lot of juicer, richer reinforcement in many forms.

My whole fairly-new career path begun with me breaking this rule: my training telling me that there are certain things I can and can’t talk about with clients. When I went rogue, I found these untalkaboutable things were actually the things that have helped to created super huge shifts for my clients- spirtitual practices, breathwork, etc. Lives were changing, and I was still safe.

I am able to take this lesson with me into my work, to challenge my clients to be rebels and to stop following rules that no longer serve. To ask them- what if that rule weren’t true? What would breaking that rule look like? Or maybe inviting them to do something scarydifferent and break it.

So the lesson that I have lived results in this invitation to others. Let’s break some rules, shall we?

(Disclaimer: when I am functioning as a BCBA and under the board considerations, I follow these rules! Everything is contextual!)

Contact Info:

• Website: www.katenasuti.com
• Instagram: rename.reframe.shift
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kate-nasuti-09b4174/