Dear Kat: Hate Mail

CRITICISM/ MONEY/ SERVICE/ SELF ADVOCATING

Friends! Hello!

Today I’m celebrating the duality of being in the process of paying almost $20,000 to mother creatives in my community, a dream I’ve held for a long time, creating a channel of income for women in my community.

While also receiving my first significant hate message from someone no longer subscribing to me on substack about making money off mothers and women and how I’m a part of the problem…

This is what I call, a kids in bed, cup of tea post.

Set a reminder on your phone and I’ll meet you back here when you have a moment to enjoy and be present xx

In this post I’ll show you the message I received last night, and write a real time response, alongside my personal process through unpacking the message and how I navigate things like this. This is a mix of personal advocacy and teaching points.

I say hate lightly - because everyone is entitled to their own opinion, and she holds truth in her world and I hold truth in mine… Turns out both can co-exist.

This is not my first time experiencing “negative” feedback too.

Most of my entrepreneurial creative life I’ve had people project, cast opinions, or feel very entitled to tell me how what I was doing didn’t quite fit into their paradigms of their life.

In saying that, I always do self reflect.

I don’t just say “Fck you h8erz” and ignore.

I take responsibility for some feedback when it’s relevant and fair.

Though most of the time, it’s water off a ducks back and I’m pretty unattached. In fact, I’ve had so much of it over the years that now, I just turn it into art.
I turn feedback into an opportunity to elaborate, create and do MORE rather than recoil in self pity and embarrassment.

So

Dear h8er,

fuck you Thank you for inspiring todays post and I hope it helps others in my community firstly: Understand money better. Secondly: Feel less fearful of putting themselves out into the big wild world.

---

I remember when I was only 17, I had just started a new business. It was going well.

I had partnered (Underage and somewhat illegally) with a network marketing company… before anyone really knew what network marketing was.

Most kids I knew, knew an adult who had done Amway or been a part of a pyramid scheme…

Most of the people I knew in my company, were changing the game. Millennials were in their early to mid twenties and laptop lifestyle/ digital nomad culture was just kicking off with the rise of instagram. Most people I knew lacked foresight for the digital age that was coming. I knew it was my ticket out of going to university and working a job for the rest of my life. Not network marketing itself, that felt like a steppingstone. The digital age. The era we are now, well and truly established in.

I was creative chaos. Virtually unemployable unless I was interested in the topic.

I couldn’t see a life for myself where I did one thing forever. I needed a career that could evolve with my interests so I figured entrepreneurship would be the best bet.

Essentially my entire grade thought I was about to scam them. They’d show support to my face, and gossip behind my back. Some even very publicly. I was passionate and vocal about what I was doing… which lead me to eating lunch in the study room alone most days.

I had gone from being a social butterfly and (mostly) liked by everyone … Until I began choosing my own path and advocating for what I believed in.

This period of my life, having group chats made about me, people commenting on my posts hurtful things then walking past them in the school hallway the following day in silence, and feeling somewhat socially outcast - was truly very foreign for me. However it also quickly built empathy and compassion, but also had me develop a lot of resilience.

Not only that, as I moved further into the personal development industry at the time, I began to see that all those who were not being kind, were hurting inside in their own ways.

After high school I kept at it, and was very direct in my approach. I made many mistakes, and had many cringeworthy moments. My brain has blocked many out.

Though by putting myself into the arena and meeting my own edges, I hustled hard, then reached my goal of creating a passive income of about $1500-$2000 a week as a 17/18 year old back in 2013 (Ish). I bought a motorhome RV with my ex boyfriend and we traveled Australia. He surfed, we worked in our business, we had public speaking gigs in many cities and towns around Australia, we had a magazine feature and invited to guest teach for other teams.

Later, our relationship became incompatible, we both became unrecognisable, and alongside a breakup came the inability to maintain our business. It crumbled.

So I did what any heartbroken burnt out girl would do.

I established my Eat Pray Love era.

I moved to Indonesia.

Fell in love.

With myself.

Also with some exotic men.

Returned home forever changed.

I couldn’t do the hustle culture anymore. I knew myself differently.
I couldn’t continue in the personal development space from such a structured way.
Not with seminars and big shot coaches and pedestaling leadership.

I needed a more intuitive approach.
Softer.

Less capitalist. More connected to an ecosystem.

Less “let’s make a million dollars” and pretend to care about others,

to let’s actually look into peoples eyes and feel their pain and share it.

Something more reflective of my heart.

I needed change, though I was still incredibly passionate about the core mission within me.

I wanted people to feel connected to themselves.

Open their minds to possibility and dreaming.

Help them feel more aligned in their pursuits of creating a lifestyle they loved.

Making money was a part of that, but I noticed pretty quickly that most people were either obsessed with money or resented it while needing it.

Most people I knew needed money to fulfil the vision they had for their life. At that point it was a bunch of friends in their early 20’s wanting money to travel the world, But over time as I moved through life and people became parents, and more established in their personal values and career…

They wanted money so that they could care for their families, feel secure, make core memories, support their friends businesses and many needed money to bring a bigger vision of their work to life - which for my network, tended to be service based business or not for profit, that would help many others.

Intentions were pure.

Ever since I was 17, I wanted to help people make money to actually live the life they wanted. I had to decondition (and continue to do so) the fine line between capitalism conditioning and also rejecting capitalism so much that nobody gets helped. Both ends of the pendulum are not it.

Over time, it evolved into a more holistic journey.

Make money,

While staying deeply connected to the creative process,

While maintaining delicious nourishing relationships.

While being attuned to your children.

While keeping intentions pure and being in intuitive communion with a vision.

While using resources to circulate in a community.

So after over 12 years of the core essence being consistent…

You can imagine my surprise when this was the feedback alongside someone in my (paying) Substack community leaving

Like I said above, I’m all for feedback. I often self reflect and take on what I feel is true.

What I don’t do, however is allow assumptions or projections to be made.

Elizabeth Gilbert

said the other day when I saw her live talk,

“You are not what they call you, you are what you respond to”

Now the thing is with this- Is the irony of my space here being specifically for women, especially mothers, to unpack beliefs, internal systems, blueprints and structures that keep us IN the Starving artist and mother martyr archetype.

Mothers are creative beings. We are creating ANYWAY. We start businesses because we WANT to be able to open channels for resources to reach us and be able to nourish our families.

Unfortunately we live in a capitalist society, and mostly all need to pay rent/mortgage/ pay for food, fuel, bills, etc. Capitalism is fucked. We can mostly all agree on that.

I also don’t believe it’s going anywhere fast and it sure won’t crumble with a bunch of people screaming from the sidelines “fuck capitalism let’s lean on each other in community” then continue to be keyboard warriors and not actually go and meet their neighbour.

Usually I’d say “Unless you go off grid and start growing all your own food and have a water tank” but then I went off grid and turns out we still have bills too.

So I figured instead of trying to save the entire world, I would simply do my part and I would find a way to support mothers in making resources for their families, and support them in remaining connected to themselves and their kids in the process - which is a high value for us all and a priority…

I got to work.

And so,

If you are interested in reading me unpack this comment

From a collective point of view, and hopefully have you feel like you can lean into negative feedback more instead of always diluting your passion in fear of setting anyone off…

keep reading.

---

“All of you is not for everyone”

Maybe that should have been the title of this post.

---

Dear “Person who believes I am making money “off” them, and that money doesn’t circulate through communities, and likes conversations around art and creativity but god forbid making any income from it"

Let’s chat. Human to Human, Woman to woman, because our path is unique in this world. Mother to mother even. Or, if we want to be very specific… Creative mother to creative mother.

I’m not angry, or honestly even that attached. Though I do appreciate you sparking thought and giving me a creative muse to write about.

Let’s not misunderstand each other though.

Making money “off someone” implies you didn’t voluntarily and eagerly put your card details in and “Give” me $9 to help solve a problem for you.

Perhaps you thought I would only be speaking on creativity.

Maybe you didn’t read my about page or take a look at my 133 articles about creativity, money, motherhood, and self inquiry.

Maybe you still believe the creative process and income making are mutually exclusive. So I’m really glad you brought this up. My literal job is to teach people that it’s NOT.

I work for mothers. This is my “job”.

I found a problem (Mothers thinking they need to abandon their multifaceted selves in order to make an income, or to abandon their dreams if someone else is making income. Or that they have to be a boss babe in hustle culture and abandon a slow and present attuned relationship with their kids. Or simply, mothers feeling depleted creatively and that they cannot find their feet or feel alive within.)

I got to work, unleveling my skills, self checking, becoming an embodiment of what I teach, reconditioning my own mind and life, learning facilitation skills, speaking skills, tech skills, marketing and social media skills, trial and error, many many failed attempts, many cringe moments, many successes, much refinement, much trust, hours of ceremony, hours of unlearning, hundreds of thousands of dollars invested…

So that I could technically, work FOR you. (and selfishly actually feel passionate about my work in this world)

To truly help you as mothers feel connected, alive, more liberated and free, creatively and in your dreaming, connected to intuition, while opening channels for resources if that is a part of your path.

Now, I do that well.

Typically, mothers do a lot of invisible unpaid work. That is an entire conversation and article that needs to come.

Typically, when you work, you get paid.
Typically if you want someone to work for you, you pay them.

I am not scared of this -

But I used to be, and maybe others can relate.

I used to martyr myself in my creativity, wondering why I could never find the time or have the energy to be creative because I was so busy giving my time and energy to a job I didn’t love and was not an expression of me. It sucked my passion.

I was willing to be paid for work I didn’t love? But scared to be paid for work I loved?

Or I was willing for my partner to go to work all day every day and be paid and he never be home, and I raise my children alone and disheveled and martyr within my home instead, all in the name of a dollar?

My dream is for people to simply do what they enjoy doing. If thats creating for arts sake, epic. If that’s quitting a job and going all in and turning art into an income stream (If you’ve been here a while you know that art is any creative endeavour, from podcasting, facilitating, coaching, music, photography, homemaking, social media - all of it.)

If fathers don’t enjoy their work and would prefer to be home with their families, I want to help that happen. I believe families together is so great for the family energetic field. I want mothers feeling lit the fuck up, and turned on by their lives.

Simple.

I thought.

(And also incredibly multilayered and there’s LOTS to unpack here, which we do both here on substack and in my deeper work with mothers)

Though not everyone is into it.

Some love that their creativity is a hobby with no pressure.

I GET IT

and same. For example I love needle felting, painting, making clay toys with Rafi… and I’ll never monetise any of those.

But here on substack, I write for those who can see that money is a tool.

I don’t make money “off people”.

People give me their money voluntarily if they can see that I am able to help provide solutions to their problems.

Making money off trying to show people how to make money being an endless cycle would imply that

firstly making money is bad (

Are we still here? Money isn’t a person. It does not have a moral compass. We, the humans, project ourselves into money. We humanise it. How money feels to YOU (Scarce, abundant, valuable, neutral, never enough, too much so must get rid of it, good, bad, right or wrong, greedy, evil, privileged, filled with choice, responsibility etc) is a HUMAN thing and also incredibly personal, incredibly cultural, and incredibly social.

It would imply that the only impact that is being made with my work is that I only make money of a promise that others will (maybe) make money.

That my work doesn’t change the lives of women creatively all the time, within their motherhood, their relationships, their income, their connection to themselves. Or imply that creativity is the only part of the money and creativity conversation that is impactful or important (While creatives are having to throw away their passions all the damn time because they need to prioritise putting food on the table).

That people are just having $9 ripped from their hands involuntary. It almost makes me giggle.

Guys, I’m being sassy and somewhat dramatic here because when we unpack it, it’s so obvious.

AND I’m wanting to let you in on my process here because how many of us don’t go two feet in, in our work because we are truly fearful of what others think?

That we hold "*their opinion and projection above our own multilayered, deeper truth. We feel we either need to respond with FIGHT energy, or we need to dilute and hide, retract our visibility because it no longer feels safe.

Part of my process over the years has been to find my middle ground.

See criticism.

Self reflect. Is any of it fair?

Sit in my truth, scan who I am, my journey, my message, my intentions.

If it’s fair, then shift my direction accordingly, or apologise if necessary.

If it’s not, then instead of diluting my message, Instead of being angry and need to self protect and fight…

I see that there has been a gap in what I’ve been trying to communicate and what’s been received by audience members.

I take it as an opportunity to educate, to become clearer in my message.

I then make sure I’m unattached to the individual. My work is for a larger group. There is literally no possible way I could shape myself to every individual persons needs. It’s important to keep a finger on the pulse of the needs of your community and, also, sometimes people leave your community because THEY realise that THEY may not actually be aligned with your life perspective and that’s okay. In fact, I celebrate it. I’d honestly rather they go where they feel more themselves anyway.

In the past, I’d go quiet, or I’d fight with passion.

Now, I self advocate.

It’s simple. I hold myself and them with compassion, and I make sure people get blocked if they are been actually rude or hurtful. Then I move on.

One thing I like to do when I receive any feedback that feels like a projection, after self assessing, is to evidence stack with feedback that feels supportive and empowering about the work I am doing in the world.
I know all of me is not for everyone, but much of me is for many.

Then I evidence stack my receipts rather than rereading negative feedback over and over.

Now look, I don’t actually mind if this woman unsubscribed, Like I said, I’m being sassy in this post here and there but I’m actually very unattached.

$9 is like a coffee and a half.

If we sat down for 90 minutes at a cute cafe,

had coffee,

and I listened to your dreams and then you let me share my perspective on how you could get there…

You’d walk away with something deep shifted. I know this. I know this because I’ve evidence stacked enough to know for sure.

I have done enough inner work around money to go from hating it,

recoiling, feeling tense, stressed

never checking my bank account etc

angry I couldn’t afford the lifestyle I wanted or to be able to donate to go fund me’s…

or to give to my parents, or to support my girlfriends in biz… to even not having been able to give people in my community opportunities to MAKE MONEY through me not just give me money…

(Celebrating paying out almost $20,000 AUD

to mothers in my community at the moment!

This was a dream I’ve had for the last decade, is to CIRCULATE resources into mother centric business.)

Then I had polarised into being TOO obsessed. Every thought was about healing a relationship with money…

To now, being neutral. Feeling confident in my ability to help others, and knowing it doesn’t have to be linked to self worth, It’s not linked to if you’re a good person.

It’s a tool for exchange value. Literally a bartering tool no different to swapping an apple for a pear if the perceived value was the same.

You only give it to me if you find value in what I share.

My goal, is to provide value to you.

I want to see more liberated families.

and

if you wouldn’t sit with me and have a coffee in a sunroom cafe filled with plants

then don’t pay for a subscription.
if you would - then consider.

Business is providing a solution to someones problem.

I’m not scared to make money working for people.

My intention with this substack space is to doula you through your own “stuff” about sales, marketing, creativity, motherhood, “martyr”hood, money, time, quantum physics, neuroscience, structures, beliefs, paradigms that don’t actually serve YOU in the life YOU are dreaming of.

I ask my community often, what IS your edgy dream? I had over 300 responses the last time I asked that question. The answers were stunning. Delicious. A cauldron of pure magic and a collective energy of fire under the pot burning all that is in the way of those dreams.

Though there were many that had the dream of being able to just be with the kids, sip warm tea, grow their own food. Many still, even in that dream, lived in a different location, felt different in their relationships, partners were home, family was together, community was vibrant, and nervous systems were relaxed enough to actually receive that life. Not to mention there was rarely mention of going to a job. There was some desire for passion and service based business but in most dreams they felt free- free of financial stress, free to do what they please. Travel, do home projects, create, whatever.

Those dreams are SIMPLE.

The dream is not to make a million dollars.

But most of us do need money and resources to bring much of this to fruition.

I truly truly hope that by being a part of this community of mother makers, YOU also realise that your solutions for others should be paid for too. Not always. It’s important to be able to hold space in our offerings for accessibility when appropriate and create opportunities for people who need it. But make sure you’re financially cared for so that you CAN give, without burnout. Because then you’ll be giving to nobody.

I want you to know that you are more than worthy to make money from your passion (IF you want to) and there is honestly nothing wrong with it. That we can collectively face this ickiness around sales and money and nobility and apparent “morality” head on. Uncover our shadows and shit around it and just all get into a more thriving life with resources, and do our own reconditioning work so we can circulate resources(time, money, services etc) within our communities and lift each other up.

Isn’t it so much more stunning when we circulate our resources through our communities and support each other and the solutions we can offer each other, rather than refusing to pay people we know, and just going to the big corporations instead???

The starving artist era ended alongside the industrial era.

We are in the digital age and anything is possible now.

I don’t believe you NEED money to be happy or to thrive.

You don’t need money to be a good person,

But money can amplify your life and offer choices where perhaps before their weren’t.

If you can open channels of income for your family, that feel nourishing.

DO IT.

I believe if we want our work to go far and wide, we will inevitably have people who don’t understand, cannot accept, or will project and judge your work. There IS an element of responsibility here but do not disregard part of that responsibility is to advocate for yourself too. To know the work you’ve put in behind the scenes and back yourself.

Before I go, next week I’ll be sharing an article about a recent $98,000 month I just had. This is after 9 years of working minimum wage jobs and scraping by, and then 9 years of choosing a more entrepreneurial journey. I am taking you behind the scenes of my intuitive launch and my process with a more soulful style of business, as a mother. In a way that felt nourishing, nervous system regulating and did not require me to hustle away from my family all day. In a way that let me circulate education, money and attention through my community of mother makers, and then their families and beyond.

My intention with this post is to breath possibility out into the world. I am a very transparent person, though this post feels incredibly intimate for me and will only be available to my paying community here on substack.

Right now, to subscribe to my work here as a paying subscriber and have access to over 133 articles, and moving forward, guest speakers, podcast episodes and more exclusive content outside of what I offer for free…

It’s a $9aud a month subscription. Taking me to coffee. This is by far my most affordable offer.

HOWEVER before this post next week, I will be increasing my subscription price as substack is evolving and changing and I need to reflect that and the time and transparency I put into it here.

Anyone who is ALREADY subscribed will KEEP the current price of $9 ongoing.

This will not change.

So I do invite you, to upgrade your subscription now rather than later if this is resonating with you.

Lots of love,

Kat

Hope that essay had something golden in it for you, and if so, I’d love to hear it.

You can upgrade your subscription via email or on desktop (Not through the app unfortunately)

and come and join the inner circle of mother makers.

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