Simone Kessell stands with Juliette Lewis on the set of Showtime's Yellowjackets in character as "Lottie" wearing handmade necklace from Artist Kate Shepherd's Nurtured Series
Are you dimming your own light? I have been.
It's so easy to not notice or find ways to minimize all the wonderful things life is giving us - sometimes we do this because we are so busy with the excitement to be always moving forward, building our dreams. But often, especially as women, we do this because we are not comfortable sitting in the feelings of being openly proud of ourselves.
Learning how to navigate our feelings around our greatness is absolutely one of the most important things we can learn how to do for our own healing, for modelling healthy behaviour for the next generation and ultimately to shift the toxicity in culture that is causing humanity as a whole to glitch so badly. And I can help you with this. Stay with me.
It is also SO important to STOP, acknowledge and SOAK in the wonderful feelings of all our successes great and small because this is how we thank the universe/god/creativity for all it is giving us, how we let it know "YES! More of this please" and how we humbly ask for more.
Lottie (Simone Kessell) wearing a treasured piece from my Nurtured series.
So many wonderful, exciting, auspicious things have taken place in and around my work in the last little while. It is interesting to see why I have not shared them. Holding myself back because I feel like an imposter, or like I will be seen as smarmy, or arrogant. But the truth is, if I was my friend I would be shouting these accomplishments from the rooftops - I would be so proud of my friend. Why do I believe I can't be proud of myself in the same way?
What do Meghan Markle, Simone Kessell, Andie MacDowell and Disney have to do with loving myself?
The stories I am about to share are ones I have minimized out of a long held fear of 'shining too brightly'
A personal, intimate phone call with Meghan Markle
Just before covid, I had a beautiful, personal connection with Meghan Markle that was sparked by her receiving my gift of a pair of my cedar earrings - she loved them so much that she picked up the phone and called me and we had a beautiful, intimate heart to heart on the phone for over half an hour (I will write a whole blog post to share that story with you soon)
Legendary Model and Actress Andie MacDowell loves my work
How about the time that legendary, beautiful actress and model Andie MacDowell kept coming back to my table at Granville Island to buy my jewelry pieces? She is someone who counts my cedar earrings among her favourite jewelry - I met her several times as she came to buy multiple pairs of them for her and her daughters from my booth at Granville Island Public Market.
A piece of jewelry from my cedar collection lives in the Disney Vault
A few years back when the series once upon a time was getting going, the Disney production team came to my studio and bought a piece from my cedar collection for Snow White in their hugely popular series Once Upon a time. To this day it lives in the Disney Vault! How cool is that?
Simone Kessell fell so hard in love with a piece from my Nurtured Series that she insisted it was critical prop for bringing her character Lottie from Yellowjackets to life
This past summer Amy Parris, the costume designer for Yellowjackets and her team approached me looking for jewelry that the beautiful and complex character Lottie (played by Simone Kessell) would wear. We had so much fun looking over the whole collection together and ultimately landed on the perfect signature pieces that we thought Lottie would be at home in.
The necklace (worn by Simone Kessell) who plays Lottie on Showtime's hugely successful series Yellowjackets is part of a colleciton of work close to my heart called my Nurtured Series. You can see the pieces and shop the look here.
In show business, the production team often wants multiples of whatever is being used for the shoot, because things can go missing, get damaged on set. When Simone set her eyes on this piece from my Nurtured Series, she insisted that it was "the one" even though there was only one! She had to promise to be very careful with it!
It looks incredible on her, and it was such a thrill to see her beautiful face wearing it on the show and in that terrific Vanity Fair piece. Simone sent me a private message saying she loved her pendant and that she really appreciated my talent. It really made my day, it was lovely"
So why oh why am I not shouting all these magical encounters from the rooftops?
Because I was conditioned to dim my light. It is one of the many limiting beliefs that we absorb as we are coming into this world. Some people are better at dismissing them, but a great many of us end up internalizing them and bringing them to life in really painful ways.
I am willing to bet that there are all kinds of ways you have also kept yourself small, dimmed your light and held back your gifts.
The wonderful thing is you can learn to undo this thinking that has held you back. You can learn how to love yourself, and express more of what was always inside of you. You can heal the thing you've been doing that has made you keep yourself small. And I can help you.
My life's work has (currently through the Creative Genius Podcast) explores these limiting beliefs and actively identifies alternative beliefs we can bring to life that will not only make our lives easier, more enjoyable and free - podcasts to ignite and inspire your innate wisdom, guided meditations, worksheets and other materials and activities that will not only help you create the life you've always yearned for, but will also help humanity to finally stop glitching.
You can access the whole library of tools and materials to help you on your own journey of unlearning the things that have been keeping you from being the creative genius you are on The Creative Genius Patreon or purchase a selection of them at Creative Genius Emerging
In creativity and with excitement about what you can unleash,
Yes! Thank you for this. I too struggle with this, and I believe it is holding me back from greater success in my business, but I get braver by the day. These are very cool stories that being a level of credibility to the value of your jewellery, and from over here I say damn right you should be proud of them! But I also know that hesitation out of fear of being seen a certain way, or simply being seen.
As I read this I was thinking about my daughters, and what I am modelling for them in terms of shining/dimming my own light. I have 2 girls 2 years apart. The older one is 12 and I’m watching her gradually fade into the background, her voice is virtually non existent and my heart is breaking a little. She is a lot like me this way, deeply contemplative but doesn’t seem to even know what she wants or how she feels, not in words anyhow. Her younger sister, whose name actually means “light,” walks through this world seemingly invincible, not afraid to take up space and shout her view to the world without regard to what anyone may think. I watch her with admiration…and the occasional wince. I learn from her, from both of them, and also from the amazing interviews you have had on your podcast, I’ve tuned into every single one. Thank you for being real in your challenges, and the message you so passionately are putting out there. I know it has been scary. It has impacted me greatly and my girls are watching me get braver in shining my light again, and it will impact them each differently because of who they are, what they need. I trust what you do is reaching ripples way further than you will ever know or believe. Keep going!
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