Give yourself permission (Part 3)

“Don’t look for society to give you permission to be yourself.”

– Steve Maraboli, Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience –

Following on from yesterday’s Part 2 . . .

. . .  It’s not been easy. In fact, it’s been really, really hard for me. I’m sure people on the outside think that I just woke up one day with a cool idea, painted some designs, threw them on a website and then invited people to contribute, but it has taken so much more than that. . . . .

It has taken me, letting go of the image that most people have of me, ‘academic Kat’, ‘intellectual Kat’, ‘clever Kat’, so that I could allow the more ‘creative Kat’ to come in. The way that I am on this planet to truly express myself. Through writing, or singing or painting or designing. It’s been hard, however, my desire to do that which I love and let go of the ‘notself’ has been incredibly liberating, and I feel as though this is just the beginning.

And so, to conclude. Whatever you feel in your heart to do, do it. Whatever you wanted to do when you were little, and never got to do, do it now. There is no time like the present, and anything is possible.

If you always wanted to be a vet, and you’re 40, there’s still time to study and become a vet. If you always wanted to dance, then dance. If you always wanted to write a book, write a book. If you always wanted to start your own business, f*ck it, start your own business goddammit! If you’ve been running a project on the side of your day job and you’d like to start making money out of it, because that is what you would love to do, then do it! You don’t need permission from anyone other than yourself. Life is too short. And just because your choices were taken away from you by someone else earlier in your life, doesn’t mean to say that you can’t make different ones now. You’re too wonderful and too precious and too gifted.

If you feel in your heart to do something, from a place of love, for yourself, for your life, your happiness then do it. I promise you that you won’t regret it. Carpe-the-mother-funking -Diem!

If you would like to have a Numerology reading and learn what your Life Path and Expression numbers are (among many other things), feel free to drop me a line at kat@thoughtcloudcollective.com and I will talk you through your entire Numerological Chart and let you know what the coming year has in store for you. A 60 minute reading with me is $150 AUD.

And if you would like to buy a Katkin t-shirt or tote bag, feel free to skip over to our crowd funding page on Indiegogo.

Sending you lots of love, hugs and light,

Kat x x x

Read Part 1 of this blog post

Read Part 2 of this blog post

Give yourself permission (Part 2)

“Poor is the man whose pleasures depend on the permission of another.”
– Madonna Ciccone –

Following on from yesterday’s Part 1 . . .

. . . All of the things that I loved to do as a child, I was bringing back into my life now, and it made me feel happy . . .

One of the things I started to do was paint t-shirt and bag designs, and it was only when I started to share them with people did they start to tell me how much they liked them and that I should do something with them. The problem was I had no confidence in my creativity, and I couldn’t actually believe that anyone would think that something I had painted was any good.

My boyfriend kept asking me when I was going to sell them. Every time I told him, that I wasn’t ready and that I wasn’t really sure whether they were any good. I had been told over and over again, that I wasn’t that creative and that I should study ‘academic’ subjects, so that was all I knew. What gave me the right to start a company designing t-shirts and tote bags?

The thing was, I loved painting and designing them. It got to the point where the designs were flying out of me. I had painted tonnes and tonnes of them and I had come up with hundreds of designs that were just flowing out of me effortlessly and easily. The problem? I didn’t think I was good enough.

My boyfriend (Darren) offered to put money into the business to start it, I refused. My boyfriend continuously asked me, when are you going to do something with Katkin (which was the name I gave to the project)? To which I answered, I don’t know. It got to the point where it had been nearly a year since I had painted my first design and still nothing much had happened.

I just didn’t have the confidence. I just didn’t see myself as someone creative enough to start a clothing company using my own designs.

But Darren never gave up, he kept asking me and asking me. “Come on Kat, when are you going to do this? What needs to happen next?”

Bit, by, bit I inched closer. I took a shortlist of about 8 designs and asked friends to vote via Facebook on their top 4. Then once they were selected, we took some photos of the t-shirts and us in them. Then I plucked up the courage to make a video. And we finally put together a crowd funding campaign to start the business, because the only thing holding us back was capital.

And so, here we are a month or so later and we have raised nearly $2000 so we can get our first run of tees and totes, set up a website and start selling our beautiful designs.

It’s not been easy. In fact, it’s been really, really hard for me. I’m sure people on the outside think that I just woke up one day with a cool idea, painted some designs, threw them on a website and then invited people to contribute, but it has taken so much more than that. . . . .

To find out what else it has taken, tune in tomorrow for the third and last part of this 3 part blog series.

Sending you lots of love, hugs and light,

Kat x x x

Give Yourself Permission (Part 1)

“As we let our light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence actually liberates others.”
– Marianne Williamson –

It was about this time last year that Numerology was starting to really interest me.

I had been introduced to it by a client of mine in Dec 2012. And I wrote an entire blog post on this entitled ‘You can find your purpose in life, through numbers‘.

As well as realising that I am a 22/4 life path, it became apparent to me that I am Expression/Destiny 3. And in numerology a 3 represents creativity, optimism and positivity amongst many other things.

In numerology, while your life path is like the plot or theme of your life (if it were a book or a movie or a play), your Expression/Destiny number is the character that you play while you walk your life path. So while the 22/4 represents the Master Builder who (if they are vibrating at the 22 frequency) has the ability to make the seemingly impossible, possible, some one with a 3 Expression would be expressing themselves in a very creative way.

And this time last year, and pretty much the entirety of my adult life, I had not been doing that. Interestingly when I was younger, I was very creative and loved to be creative. I loved to sing, I loved to paint, I loved to write, to take photos, the list is endless. However, when it came to choosing subjects to study at school for my GCSEs and A-Levels I was told that I should take those which were ‘academic’.

Even though in my heart I really wanted to study art and music, theatre and design, I ended up taking French and German and Geography and Sociology and Business. Now, I’m not saying I didn’t enjoy those subjects, nor did I not succeed at them. However, I was sad that I didn’t get to study the creative subjects, just to see where they would have taken me in life . . . .

I have no regrets now, because the things that I have done up until now in my career have got me to where I am today. However, one of the things that my numerologist said to me last February when I had a proper reading was that as a 3 Expression I really needed to be expressing myself in as creative a way as possible in life, because that was my destiny. And by doing so, the Universe would support me.

As a result, I started writing this beautiful blog. I also started writing a book. I started to sing more and I started to paint. All of the things that I loved to do as a child, I was bringing back into my life now, and it made me feel happy . . .

To learn about what happened next, tune in tomorrow for Part 2.

Sending you love, hugs and light,

Kat x x x

Perfectionism Perschmectionism

“Have no fear of perfection – you’ll never reach it.”

– Salvidor Dali –

I had a very beautiful chat with a wonderful new friend of mine today about life, spirituality, philosophy and all things metaphysical. In amongst that we talked about the importance of doing what you loved and I mentioned how much I love writing my blog.

He responded by saying that he would love to write a blog, but that he overthinks and rewrites a blog post 20 times and can take an entire day to get something out, and wishes that he wasn’t so much of a perfectionist.

I laughed and said that since writing my blog, and having written over 120 blog posts since March, I have worked through my previous issues with perfectionism in that I can write, edit and put out a 500 word blog post in about 20 minutes. Sometimes less. The only way I have got to that is by letting go of what I think I should write, or what I think people want to read, and rather just write intuitively. I have also worried less about proofreading everything to heck. Knowing full well that I will be forgiven by my beautiful readers if there is a small typo or spelling mistake and that it’s OK if I use its when I should have used it’s. Because really, it’s the content of what I’m saying that matters, rather than the accuracy of it.

Interestingly, I have just made a mistake, by putting a link to the wrong video in my blog. Now for those people who will be heading directly to my blog, that doesn’t matter, because I have rectified this and they will see the correct video there.

However, for those of you beautiful people who receive my blog directly to your inbox, you will have noticed that the video that I embedded in the post is not that of the Graduation Speech made by Mr Tim Minchin, but actually a video created by a girl who used it to quit a job that she wasn’t that bothered about any more.

So I thought I would write a blog post on this, and highlight the fact that, it’s OK to make mistakes. People won’t think any less of you. Everything happens for a reason and things can be righted as quickly as they were wronged.

And the best advice of all? Worry less about things be perfect and just be. If you make a mistake, it’s OK. If something you do isn’t perfect, it’s OK. At least you did it!

If I hadn’t started writing my blog just because I was worried about making mistakes or it not being perfect, I would never have put the 120 odd blog posts that I have put out there into the Universe. It’s all good.

Sending you lots of love and light,

Kat x x x

Image gratitude – http://livinginfashion.tumblr.com/

Stop learning, start creating

“It is better to create than to learn! Creating is the essence of life.”

– Julius Ceasar –

I have just watched a fantastic TED Teen talk by an 11 year old astro physicist called Jacob Barnett, who society labelled autistic. It has a very salient message. Stop learning, start thinking, start creating.

And it got me thinking. We spend so much of our lives learning, reading books, studying for courses, taking on other people’s views and opinions, that sometimes we forget to think for ourselves. Sometimes we forget that our own unique take on something, could actually be valuable.

I am currently writing a book on Conscious Branding and I have been researching it for the last month or so. However, every book that I read, doesn’t really satisfy what I’m looking for. There aren’t any useful quotes or references out there to inspire me. So I have actually stopped writing for a few weeks.

After watching this video, I have realised that I need to stop learning and start creating. And as Jacob concludes. I need to be the field, rather than keep looking for it.

Sometimes we just need permission to create. We are brought up in a society that tells us we need to be constantly learning, studying, reading. We have to go to school, we’re encouraged to go to college or university and gain further knowledge, higher education. When in actual fact, perhaps we already know all we need to know and we have everything we could possibly need to create, inside of us.

So my thought for today is, stop learning and start creating. Whatever thing you’re passionate about in life, whether it’s writing, painting, photography, nature . . . . start creating something amazing. Something that is unique. Something that is special.

Sending you lots of love, hugs and light,

Kat x x x

Inspiration for this blog

Forget What You Know: Jacob Barnett at TEDx Teen – You Tube video

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