LIFE DOESN'T SHOW US OUR GIFTS ONLY TO TAKE THEM AWAY...

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Hello there beautiful loves, 

I hope you're keeping well and I trust that you've had a chance to listen to episode 11 with Beth Suter this week.  There are some really powerful moments in it. Beth is a beautiful, joyful, caring, generous & sensitive human being. It really was a privilege to talk to her. 

I was extremely moved by her vulnerability. I think what I really appreciated the most was how Beth spoke to us from the scar rather than the wound.  And what I mean by that is, I think it's possible to come through traumatic events and stay stuck in our own victimhood afterwards.  And so when we try to share our experiences with the world around us we're speaking from a place of rawness and powerlessness because we haven’t healed and integrated our experiences yet. 

But when we come through trauma and take responsibility for ourselves, there's something sacred available to us, that we can then share and help to inspire transformation and healing in those around us. 

I posted a video clip (you can find it in Episode 11 Show notes) and on Instagram. In it, Beth talks about how we almost lost her. She didn't go into too much detail about the nature of her depression but I do get the sense that it was a very long and difficult time of not being able to extricate herself from the depths of depression and she had many moments of really wanting to give up -  but she didn't. 

We talked about how when we cut ourselves off from our gifts, we inflict upon ourselves some of the deepest pain humans can experience.

It takes a certain amount of bravery to say, “Hey I have this thing inside of me that I love and I can't stop thinking about, and I know I'm really good at it and that I have a different perspective on it than 99% of the rest of the world and I have something to share” It is scary because sometimes we have to be really different from the people that raised us or who are closest to us. 

Still we have to be brave. To share our gifts. Because it's the moment that we divorce ourselves from our gifts, that we begin to really feel that deep pain. 

Some of us we can keep it down or numb it out just enough that we don't spiral into depression. 

But for so many of us sensitive souls, who are deeply connected to out creativity - when we force ourselves to put it away to fit into the rational world, something in us breaks. It is a deep loss that many of us are not even aware we endured. 

Beth came into the world a sensitive, happy, carefree artist. She was lovingly supported by her parents to do her art and STILL she experienced a pressure to put it away and do something more “meaningful”  She says it was her own limiting beliefs around what she could accomplish with creativity that she absorbed through the world around her and then self-imposed this idea on herself that she had to go out there and do the big bad world and and make it and ultimately that led to years and years of depression and suffering and anxiety and and ultimately I feel that was unnecessary 

Recently I was having some ups and downs around the podcast. It has been such an incredible invitation for me to grow into who I was always meant to be. But as you know, growing can be painful sometimes. So I was having a conversation earlier this week with Jane Dunnewold who I was fortunate enough to have as a guest for two episodes (episodes 5 and 6) she said,  “Kate you know the universe doesn't show you your gifts and give you a task only to pull the rug rug out from under your feet. We do that part to ourselves” And I realized that is so true. Life doesn't give us these beautiful gifts inside us only to take them away, ego does that, and we can learn to stop letting it happen. We can strengthen the part of ourselves that remembers. “no no no no no no hang on a minute I'm not going to let that thought take over. I'm going to remember that this gift inside of me feels closer to the truth than this idea to of shove it away or make it make sense or whatever it is. 

And finally today, I also wanted to say you know if you've been listening to the podcast or reading these posts,  and thinking, “but I feel really alone…”  Maybe the people in your neighbourhood aren't the ones who are going to hold you up, remind you of what's true about you and help you bring out your gifts, but there are a whole bunch of us who want to see you do that, and we may be closer than you think.  

xoxo