From as early as I can remember, growing up, I had a trampoline. Some of my happiest memories were of those sessions where we’d spend hours jumping off the retaining wall and onto the trampoline pretending we were superheroes.

I did that jump countless times without any issues. Until that one time, I miscalculated and ended up hitting the bar of the trampoline with my face. My 2 front teeth went through my lip. As you can probably imagine, it was a mess 😬

Funnily enough, it didn’t stop me from getting back on the trampoline (ONCE the lip had healed, obvs). However, from then on, I always had the awareness of what could go wrong. And I’d jump with a little less carefree abandon.

One other favourite activity during that same time was climbing a massive tree in our front yard. I spent countless hours up there feeling invincible. There was something so magical about being so high up, able to see the world from a different perspective.

…Until that one time when the magic spell was broken by a huntsman spider that appeared right in front of my face. I practically ran down the tree and never climbed it again. Blissful ignorance, ruined forever.

The tapestry of your being

I’ve been reading a beautiful book recently called “How We Break” by Vincent Deary which talks about how while we often look for one single source of our brokenness — that one traumatic event that forever changed us — the truth is that who (and how) we are today is the result of countless events of all sizes, all of which slowly chip away at our bodies, nervous systems and spirits.

My trampolining incident and the spider in the tree were 2 of so many events that took place in my life that shaped who I am today. Shaped my view of the world, my fears, my approach to life.

The book reminded me that every single interaction (not just the “traumatic” ones) we have with another human being shapes us in some way — adds to the tapestry that is our being.

Every success, every disappointment, every hurt. It’s all adding thread upon thread. Molding our nervous systems, shifting the way we see the world, and creating protective patterns that kick in whenever we put ourselves in “dangerous” positions like becoming more visible and therefore vulnerable to public criticism, or at risk of failing to meet our own expectations. (Something I’ll be unpacking a lot more in upcoming essays!)

When not all the threads are telling the right story

I write this in the midst of a season of my own business (and life in general!) that I’ll dub “Unpicking the Threads”.

In practical terms, this means that as I’m rebuilding my business from the ground up, I’m also using a magnifying glass to inspect every single belief that’s motivating my every move (or resistance behind the lack of movement). Realising that every decision I’ve ever made in my business… from what I offered to how I offered it, what I charged to how I promoted it… all of it was determined by the set of beliefs I held at the time.

And so while I’d originally thought that this next phase of my business would have been a little more straightforward — focusing on shifting the what I do — I’m understanding now that of equal or even more importance is ensuring the why behind what I do (and how I do it) is also upgraded.

An example so this doesn’t get too abstract:

A few months ago I created a new offering called Mythic Journey. Something I’m yet to publicly announce (though I guess this is a roundabout way of doing it!).

Part of my motivation for delaying the announcement was that I wanted to have a few more pieces of the puzzle (new coaching offerings, maybe a freebie, overdue website updates…!) in place first. Now that’s easy to justify logically, right? I could have easily left that justification in place and moved on to the other puzzle pieces.

Today, however, I felt compelled to do some deeper enquiry. And what I uncovered were multiple beliefs that were all playing a part in this decision to not announce the offering.

• “You can’t relaunch your business with only one offer in place”
• “You can’t build a business around just one offer”
• “People won’t get what you’re doing if you don’t have all the other pieces on display”
  … you get the idea.

Once I caught these, I was able to break their logic easily because I knew all of them were fear-driven lies. They were actually just excuses to keep me from putting myself out there. Which meant there was clearly some deeper concern they were functioning to protect me from.

Sure enough, I landed on it:

“Will anyone actually want to pay for this?”

Ah HA. So that was the little bugger that was keeping me going in circles. Despite the fact that people had already started paying for this offer 🤦🏼‍♀️ (our fears are often extremely illogical!)

The good news is that I’ve got a ton of tools in my toolkit to help with this kind of belief, so I started the process of shifting that belief and found it transformed quite quickly.

Not only did I get myself to a place of realising that it’s a no brainer offer (I went from “Who would want to pay for this?” to “Who wouldn’t want to pay for this?!”) — it also hit me that I was under-charging for it.

But the exploration didn’t end there.

After a quick price adjustment, I felt this urgency to put the offer out there. So I started trying to map out some content ideas. But before long, I felt some tension and even anxiety building in my body. Something still didn’t feel right. Wtf? 🤔

I paused. I pulled some Alchemy cards for myself (one of my favourite practices for gaining clarity and connecting to my intuition) and the guidance I received literally told me to take a breather. Which felt extremely counterintuitive. Because didn’t I just realise I was ready to share my offer with the world?!

But I listened. Because my body doesn’t lie. And because part of the vision I have for this next phase of my business is that I work from a flow state — from mundane tasks to creative work, I want to be present and able to experience timelessness and joy as a I work.

That anxiety I was feeling was NOT in alignment with that vision. So I sat quietly for a bit, and that’s when the most important realisation hit me: I was about to start my content creation process from a place of needing to “get” something from it.

Asking questions like, “How can I get someone’s attention?” and “How can I help them see that they need this offering?” — both of which are regularly a part of the content strategy process, right? So what’s the problem?

The problem is that I no longer want to create content from a place of needing to receive. As part of this next chapter of my business, I want my content to be created from a desire to give.

Which is what I was getting at when I said that this next chapter of business for me is less about the “what” (the niche, subject matter of my work, modalities I use etc – even though all of the above have evolved) and so much more about the why and how. I desire to operate from a heart-centred space. For everything I share to be an act of service. And for my creative process to be, well, creative – operating as an artist first and as an entrepreneur second.

So… what does all of this have to do with childhood memories and that tapestry of beliefs I mentioned earlier?

Your life today – your career/business/vocation, your relationships, your circumstances – have all been influenced by every single belief you hold about yourself and the world.

And when there’s something about our lives we want to change, we typically focus on the what: “I need to find a new job” “I need to pivot my business” “I need to move to a new town/city/country” etc.

But while the what will likely need to change at some point, what we first need to explore is how we ended up here to begin with. Because you can change the what and still experience Groundhog day if the beliefs that have been shaping your decisions never shift.

Case in point:

I used to have a belief that if I had a certain skillset (in this case, copywriting) I was being selfish if I didn’t offer it as a service to others.

→ And that belief stemmed from the belief that it was my responsibility to protect my clients from discomfort.

→→ And another belief that if I just did it for them, they’d get better results.

→→→ And the related belief that their results were my responsibility – that if they “failed”, it would be my fault.

I could keep going, but I think I shared enough for you to hopefully understand how every one of those beliefs shaped the business I’d built.

Played into how I packaged my offerings, how much support was included, what boundaries (or lack thereof) I set with my clients, how much I charged.

And those decisions all influenced my capacity, my earning potential, my marketing strategy, my target market.

Are you seeing the wild domino effect here?

Everything I’ve shared with you so far is why:

1) I reached the point where I HAD to allow my business to evolve (both for my own sake and for my clients) — because the previous version was built on so dang many outdated & limiting beliefs

2) I will not start talking practical strategy with my clients until we’ve explored their belief systems — and when we tackle strategy, we do it in stages, from the inside out, so we avoid prematurely committing to things that are misaligned

and 3) I created Mythic Journey, my new offering. Because it accelerates the process of getting to those root beliefs that are influencing every decision you make. And when I say accelerate, I mean that it allows me to help you achieve the same kind of realisations that would usually require at least 6 months of 1:1 coaching with me. (Yes, this is another reason my coaching packages need updating!)

And now it’s your turn

In keeping with my intention that everything I share to be an act of service, I want to leave you with an exercise I highly encourage you to try.

Here are your instructions:

🧩 Pick one aspect of your professional life or creative expression that involves a commitment you made to either do or not do something. For instance, an offering you have, a marketing strategy/platform you’re using, a project you launched (or aborted).

📝 All you’re going to do is start by completing this sentence: “I (insert thing you do or decided not to do) because I believe that (insert the first belief that pops into your head)…”

🧵 Then you’re going to follow the thread the way I did earlier, by saying “and that relates to my belief that (next belief)”… so on and so forth.

See how many beliefs you can uncover just by following that one thread.

“Wait, does this mean I now need to change all my beliefs?!”

A fair question, and please don’t panic. Not all beliefs require changing — it all comes down to whether or not they’re serving you or holding you back. And here’s how you’ll know.

The 2 most obvious signs a belief needs a re-write:

1) The actual thing you’re doing (and/or the WAY you’re doing it) doesn’t feel good, yet you’re forcing yourself to stick with it anyway
2) A belief you uncovered doesn’t ring true, or feels limiting in some way

If you find any beliefs that need an upgrade, go ahead and write down what they should be instead. As in, what belief makes sense to replace it with? The key here is that the belief should empower you to feel like you have a choice in how you do things. As long as it leads to a “should” or a “have to”, you’re in a prison of your own making.

Now, I’m not saying they’ll magically change in an instant (sometimes they’re related to something much deeper – a root belief or wound that needs healing first) however just bringing your awareness to it is enough to begin the process and you’ll now be on the lookout for evidence that your new belief is in fact true.

With all of that said: Happy belief hunting! 🕵

Oh, and if you’d like my support in starting to explore those root level beliefs through a compassionate, non-judgemental lens — that is exactly what Mythic Journey is for. To quote one of my journeyers: “It’s like seeing your life in a bubble of clarity—without the self-loathing.”

You can learn more about it here. And if you have any questions, shoot me a DM or send me an email here.

— Kat x

PS Remember that pause I took when I was feeling anxiety about the way I was trying to approach my marketing?

When I opened my eyes after a few minutes in prayerful meditation, I looked down at my Freewrite (my distraction-free writing tool) and it said “Set your story free” – something I’ve been seeing on the screen for years, but never paid attention to. This time around though, I took it as divine instruction. So despite not knowing what I was about to write, I took a breath and started typing. An hour later, I’d finished this draft. Something that came out effortlessly as I was in that timeless flow state I was talking about earlier. Coincidence? You tell me 😉

PPS Where possible, I include links to products I mentioned. Sometimes these are affiliate links which means that if you choose to purchase them, I may get a small commission at no additional cost to you. That said, I only ever talk about products I use personally and love.