How Feminine Authority Was Birthed From The Shit Pile
(If you don't feel like reading, press play & I'll read it to you)
You know what happens when you’re willing to face the shit, dig through it with a tiny teaspoon and a high power magnifying glass, NOT pretend it’s something it clearly isn’t, and then work through it?
It turns into some of the most high quality life fertilizer on the market.
I know that for so many people, they wouldn’t be where they are now if it hadn’t been for some pretty significant healing. And I realized recently that my work as it is now - teaching women entrepreneurs how to show up, promote, and sell from a foundation of feminine authority - literally wouldn’t exist if I hadn’t faced the shit pile.
A Quick Look At The Shit Pile…
Now I’m not going to totally rehash the last few years of my trauma healing but I’ll give you the malodorous highlights…
I learned that I was in charge of my mindset monsters & not the other way around.
I found that I can actually trust my inner voice & that she’s pretty damn wise.
I met my spirit guide & learned that she was the other half of my inner voice.
I accepted the fact that just because I had been trained one way, doesn't mean I have to do it that way.
I found out I was carrying the other people’s stories - most of which I didn’t agree with or even believe in.
I deconstructed my religious upbringing & patriarchal training & found my truth.
I healed 9 yr old, 14 yr old, & 27 yr old Katie in profound ways.
And that’s just a smidge of the last 4 years of healing. I’m sure if you were to sit down & bullet point out all the ways you’ve healed it would be extensive, and honestly, pretty damn impressive.
Actually, can we take a moment to pause & acknowledge just how far you’ve come?! Seriously, healing is ugly, awful, hard work & no matter how long you’ve been at it, that work deserves all the celebration.
Feminine Authority - A Birth Story
Now having actually birthed two fully formed humans, let me tell you something, birth in any form is usually an ordeal - and Feminine Authority was no different.
The last 6 years of my entrepreneur journey has had me trying, doing, failing, and trying again in an industry that I was diligently keeping up with.
In its earliest form, my business was strictly freelance content writing for women owned small businesses (that is still a core part of what I do & I adore my writing clients) but as I got deeper into the online business space, my long held marketing roots were activated.
Fun fact: my bachelor’s degree is in Marketing & PR. However I got that degree back in 2004 and MUCH has changed in the world of business marketing since then…
Digital business marketing was in its primordial stage in 2004. (If you’re up in my age range, this is a fun trip down internet memory lane - What The Internet Was Like In 2004)
Content as a commodity has become its own industry.
Small business reach is no longer defined by geographic location & any small business can reach across the globe.
Small business marketing now requires internet know-how & literacy if you’re going to take it online.
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg!
So when I decided I wanted to make content marketing & strategy part of what I did, I had to re-train my marketing brain in the ways of the digital business world. With my Digital Marketing certification in hand, and a renewed excitement to support other women, I launched 1:1 marketing strategy consults and got to work!
But then, the c-section happened…
An Unexpected Complication
Another fun fact, both of my kids were born via c-section. The second was scheduled to avoid the trauma of the first, but it was my first born who taught me a lifelong lesson in letting go.
On a July morning back in 2013, after 16 hours of hard labor - my first time in labor - my doctor came rushing into the room to tell me that I had spiked a fever, my daughter’s heart rate was dropping and if things didn’t turn around in the next 10 minutes she was taking me in for a c-section.
Well damn, I wasn’t prepared for that, but long story short, my girl made her debut about 20 minutes later and we were both safe and healthy.
Now this is kind of how I think about my business story, similar to that first time pregnancy & birth experience:
Excited to have a business & all the new possibility -> learning the good, the bad, the ugly along the way -> surprises, hard lessons learned, expectations adjusted -> the end game achieved but not looking at all like you planned -> 20/20 perspective, wisdom gained, adjustments made for next time.
And that unexpected surgery at the end of my first pregnancy was a lot like coming to the realization that the industry I loved, that I had built my business around, and was currently existing in wasn’t going to be sustainable for me. Like at all.
Getting The Marketing Ick
It was somewhere in early 2024 that I admitted something sort of important to myself - I really didn’t like the current state of online marketing.
The tactics, strategies, tips & tricks - they all felt so forced, so inauthentic and, most importantly, so predatory.
The rise of bro marketers, out-of-touch industry gurus, and profit-above-all-else marketing blueprints had turned the simple connection between business and customer into one giant, sketchy used car lot where no one felt good but everyone still needed cars.
My 2024 marketing ick round up:
Fear based messaging that preyed on desperation and unrealistic expectations.
Pressure filled sales tactics that may have worked but for all the wrong reasons.
Big business claims, with even bigger money claims, without context or proof.
Hustle culture everything with no consideration for life, energy, capacity, or comfort level.
An over load of “do it this way” with each method claiming to be “the best”
A system built in the patriarchy to support a system that didn’t support women in the first place.
I could go on, but you get the picture.
None of it sat well with me, none of it felt comfortable, and I started feeling like that person in the room looking at the naked emperor and wondering why no one else was seeing a bare ass.
My justice sensitivity had been activated - along with some built-over-the-centuries feminine rage - and I knew I had to either figure out a different way or quit altogether.
And as Margaret Atwood told us in The Handmaid’s Tale, “Nolite te bastardes carborundorum” - never let the bastards grind you down.
The 3 Simple Steps From Ick To Authority
Step 1:
Have a crisis of business consciousness & pause your most lucrative service.
Step 2:
Take your healing to another level & dive deep into Mary Magdalene, the divine feminine & the history of the patriarchy - get angry & get activated.
Step 3:
Remember that there is no one right way to do most things & create a method of small business content & marketing rooted in the feminine & built for women like me.
And now I’d like to introduce to you, all 7lbs, 2 million ounces of pure love, support, & empowerment - Feminine Authority Content & Marketing.
Now I know being the single parent to an entirely new way of doing things isn’t going to be easy, but when you create something important, and you know you can do hard things, you get the job done.
What Is Feminine Authority Content & Marketing?
I’ll make this quick because this post is not a pitch:
Feminine Authority Content & Marketing is a framework for creating marketing strategy and content for women owned small businesses that takes the grounded, insightful, impactful power of the divine feminine and allows it to guide your positioning, visibility, content creation, messaging, and sales.
It’s connection focused, community minded, and deeply rooted in respect for your audience and an honoring of your most authentic self.
It’s a framework and a guiding philosophy that puts a bit of humanity and mutual benefit back into marketing and content.
The Pain & Then The Purpose Driven Rising
One of my favorite writers, Glennon Doyle, talks a lot about the process of going through something to get to the other side where it’s better - the pain and then the rising.
I’ve had quite a few ‘pain and then the rising’ moments in my life - some more painful than others - but the conception and birth of Feminine Authority was a different kind of “pain”.
Not to be dramatic about it, but I am who I am - this whole process was a sort of purpose driven pain and rising.
Facing my truth around my business, what I was doing, and how I was doing it took some uncomfortable honesty and, eventually, a grieving of sorts - what I thought my business was going to be wasn’t possible anymore, and I had to make peace with that.
Then came the bewilderment and fear of, “If not this, then what?”.
And while I was doing all this business grieving and questioning, I was also discovering and healing my own divine feminine self (and that’s a longer story for another day).
So there I was questioning and grieving, healing and accepting, wondering and dreaming, and after all the necessary work, the idea was born - a brand new something with nothing but potential.
The purpose driven pain and then the mission driven rising.
Just Keep Making That Life Fertilizer
When you’re on the other side, you’ve gotten to the rising, you’ve turned that shit into fertilizer, do a few things for me:
Celebrate the hell out of yourself. It’s not easy work & it deserves all the kudos.
Move forward not in spite of the shit pile, but in honor of it. All moments in life, no matter how hard & ugly, can either break us or be a brick in a future foundation. If you’re in the rising, you’re building something better.
Turn around & extend a hand to those a few steps behind. Whether that’s in your work & the services you offer or in your personal life, maybe through volunteering or within your community. Take the wisdom, perspective, & strength you’ve gained and help someone else. There is nothing more human than that.
In the collection of all the moments we have in life, the choice is always ours - sit in the pile of shit and complain about the stink, or get in there, mix it up, and grow something beautiful.
