I am…Contagious Vulnerability!

“I am large. I contain multitudes.”—Walt Whitman, Song of Myself

Who am I?

Why am I here?

Why did my soul choose this particular moment in time to incarnate and what is my soul’s purpose in this lifetime?

What barriers am I putting up that are blocking my receiving the abundance (of love, of success, of impact, of…) that is all around me always?

What are my unique gifts?

How can I use these gifts and the insights and wisdom gleaned from my life experiences for the greatest good of the greatest number of my fellow beings?

How do I make this one precious life matter?

I’ve been asking these questions my whole life and oftentimes feel like I have far more questions than I do answers, that I am more lost than found. I’ve also spent my whole life feeling like I don’t fit in, that I’m not like other people, that I wish I could just turn off my overly active brain and be “normal” to put an end the constant identity and purpose struggle. Maybe some of you can relate to this? :)

Over the past three years, it’s felt like my whole world has fallen apart — that all the things I knew or thought I knew — about myself and my life (who I am, who I love, what I do, how I make money, what matters to me…)— suddenly fell away, leaving me feeling completely adrift, floating (sometimes drowning!) in a sea of questions and uncertainty. A super uncomfortable place to be!

I’ve spent this period going deep inwards, being more than doing and curiously exploring myself and my purpose in the world — really hard for a woman raised by a family of perfectionistic, super-optimizing people-pleasers who were so busy doing that we rarely stopped to contemplate the larger questions of life!

But with time and practice (lots and lots of practice!), I’ve learned to swim and dance in the unknown rather than be paralyzed by the not knowing. A wise conscious millennial in my extended social network once said that sometimes things have to totally fall apart for them to fall into place. This is starting to ring true for me.

Lately, I’ve been spending a lot of time getting curious about identity and labels. Just last night I was engaged in a conversation with a beautiful and soulful young woman blessed with myriad superpowers who has been struggling with what she wants to do and be in the world for quite some time— trying career after career without finding one that’s her and growing increasingly frustrated in the process. Her struggle, which I resonate so deeply with, reminded me of the ups and downs, frustrations and joys of my own early career explorations — and even my reinvention-after-50 journey!

As we were talking, it occurred to me that for most of us, our journeys of self-actualization and self-discovery often start out with us looking outwards into the world at the universe of possible career paths and choosing from this set of predefined professional (and personal!) identities, labels or job titles. There must be one out there that fits me, we tell ourselves, as we try on job titles like clothing.

We try to embody these roles one after the other, sometimes rejecting them outright like an ill-fitting swimsuit, other times wearing them for a while until we outgrow them or our dissatisfaction with the fit reaches a certain threshold or the soul nudges for liberation grow too strong. Others of us spend a lifetime in what feels like identity hand-me-downs that never feel authentically our own.

It feels like the world wants to reduce us to a single “I am” statement and that the what of the “I am” statement is meant to be something known, predefined, culturally validated — one of the societally sanctioned options.

For me and for many of my fellow beings, these choices are limiting — causing us to leave huge chunks of our magical essences on the sidelines — and soul-killing or at the very least soul-numbing! It’s like the “just right” option of Goldilocks and the Three Bears story just doesn’t exist.

I believe that most of us are resigned to this fate and feel that this is just the way it is — they wouldn’t call it work if it were fun, we tell ourselves! This (pain and suffering) is why they pay me the big(ish) bucks! Everyone else is doing it!

What if we dared to question the “wisdom” of the crowd? What if we played the role of the little boy in the Emperor’s New Clothes and spoke truth to the dominant paradigm and chose the joy of self-determination over the pain of conformity?

What if we turned the whole process on its head? What if we started out by asking ourselves who are we? What sets our souls on fire? What magic do we want to make happen in the world? What matters to us? Why did our soul choose this moment to incarnate and what is our soul’s purpose in this lifetime?

What if we designed roles from the answers and the wisdom that lies within each and every one of us to create bespoke identities that fit us like a glove rather than from the one-size fits none options “they” say we must choose from.

I have a choice — we all do! I choose to define myself from my inner wisdom and divine guidance and reject labeling and pre-defined roles and identities — and boy, did I have a lot of professional and personal identities to shed!

When I was in tech, I called myself a technical writer, a marketing writer, a project manager, a producer, a product manager, a user experience design manager, an evangelist, and many others I’ve forgotten. Though I was highly successful and impactful in my Silicon Valley career and super proud of all that I accomplished, to be honest, none of those titles truly defined or described my superpowers or what I did each day.

I came to explain my true role by saying, yeah, I’m called an Executive Producer but really, I’m a fixer, a translator, a product development therapist and dream doula, a special forces problem solver who uses her powers of intuition, persuasion and insight into human behavior to bring together disparate personalities, agendas and languages to create products with integrity that bring our customers joy. That’s a mouthful and definitely didn’t fit on any of my business cards.

After I turned the big 5.0, I took a break from tech and started searching for a second-half-of-life career with more meaning — one where I could do things I love with people I love for impacts that matter.

I convinced myself early on in this journey of reinvention that I was a coach. People had been telling me my whole life that I was an awesome coach (I ignored the fact that I loathed this label and had met very few coaches I respected or wanted to be like!) so that must be what I am.

I remember completing the first workshop in the CTI Co-active Coaching Training coursework and having an “oh fuck” moment at the end of it when I realized that the definition of what a coach was left a huge chunk of Kate on the sidelines. So, if I wasn’t a coach, what was I??

I’ve spent the past few years coming up with answers to this question. Here’s what I’ve got so far:

I am Kate (Joy is my middle name…really!)!

I am loved and I love well!

I am abundant!

I am fearless!

I am resilient and highly adaptable!

I am generous of spirit!

I am a light in the darkness and a beacon of hope to others!

I am a badass woman — a wildly and fiercely feminine feminist!

I am the calm in the storm!

I am perfectly imperfect and will always be in progress until I take my last breath!

I am a warm and welcoming host who stewards a 16-acre redwood sanctuary I call the Compound of Joy!

I am a daily forest bather!

I am MacShever, an enlightened divinely feminine fixer who can joyfully and creatively solve any problem using her powerful heart and intuition!

I am a lovingly curious explorer on this magical journey called life!

I am an amazing friend who would do anything for those I love!

I am a bringer and compounder of joy — the Queen of Joy to those who know and love me!

I am a catalyst for others on their journeys of self-discovery, self-healing and self-love!

I am a storyteller, a weaver of tales of life and the universe, of magic, joy and a voice for the power of personal transformation.

I am Contagious Vulnerability!

So why am I telling you all this?

My intention for sharing is to start a conversation with the world and share stories and wisdom from my life experiences to inspire others to keep going when all seems dark and hopeless — to give people the courage to continue the journey through their inner darkness to find the light, joy and wisdom within.

I will chronicle this very personal, epic journey, as things continue to fall apart and coalesce, fall together and progress for me (and for my struggling young soulful friend :D) as we continue to figure out how to use our multifaceted personalities and myriad superpowers in service of the greatest good.

If you’re deep in it and feeling stuck or hopeless or you’re just starting out and have no idea how to go about this thing they call “doing your inner work” and you need someone to listen, help you design your very own, perfectly-fit, bespoke identity, shift energy, identify new, more empowering perspectives, help you reframe your stories to be more self-affirming, and so much more, I’m here for you and would love to talk about ways I can be of service.

I hope that you’ll be inspired to join me to create a ripple (butterfly!) effect in the universe of contagious and courageous vulnerability that I believe will foster more authentic identities, deeper connections with self and others and with our planet.

If we come together as authentic, curious, heart-opened beings who embrace the superpower that is vulnerability, I believe we can heal the rifts, divides and diseases of disconnection in our world today.

Who’s with me?

If you’d like a partner in your own journey of becoming a more wholly—and holy—authentic you, please book a curious conversation to explore what the Vulnerability Doula can do for you.