Guest Interview: Kate Holly

​​​​​This series of guest interviews is part of the Practicing Together project - a 6 month exploration of the 5 Practices framework that I use in my Seeds of Connection groups.  Each guest was invited to choose 5 questions from a list of over 60 questions that were based on the different practices.  The questions are being posted over the next many months on my Instagram feed - follow along and answer them for yourself, and see how others in the community are reflecting on these topics.  A new guest interview will be posted to this blog every Friday from June through November 2022.  Read more about the Practicing Together project and join us for the monthly Community Calls for deeper exploration!

Today's Guest Interview is with Kate Holly.  We met through a course we both were taking with Kelly Diels.  When Kate offered input during a conversation in a virtual class, I was struck by her curious, vulnerable, and thoughtful approach to the topics we were discussing (feminist values in social media marketing).  She is still a new person in my circle, and as I get to know her, I can really see how much her values are embedded in her work, her podcast, and her life as a whole.  I so enjoyed reading Kate's thoughts and learning more about her through her answers to these questions. She picked some good ones! I appreciate someone willing to jump right in to the deep end, and I hope you too will appreciate her thoughtful answers to these questions.

Leave a comment and share your thoughts, or share YOUR answers to these questions.

Finish this sentence: I want to live in a world where…..?
I want to live in a world where we use our shared resources to create a thriving quality of life for everyone, where production never outpaces or ignores what is sustainable for our climate and ecosystem, where we value each other’s diversity and unique perspectives and gifts, where CARE is valued, where together we solve problems from the brilliant part of our brains instead of running from problems with the most fearful part of our brains. 


What are your personal practices or beliefs around things like decolonization or divesting from capitalism?
I love this question! This truly is a practice, and one that will never be finished. Here are a few indicators for me: 

• From connecting my worth to my income >>> To valuing myself inherently and without the need for external validation. 
• From valuing others based on a hierarchy imposed by capitalism >>> To valuing others inherently without placing them on a hierarchy. 
• From “harder faster stronger” mentality >>> To gentleness, presence, and a balance of ease and effort. 
• From seeing our ecosystem and wildlife as something to be controlled and possessed >>>To seeing our ecosystem and wildlife as something to be experienced and nurtured. 
• From seeing my body as an object >>> To awakening the consciousness and wisdom within my body.
• From a homogenous value system that reveres a “right way” of doing things >>> To curiosity, creativity and active listening that allows me to learn about the many beautiful and diverse ways that people think and operate. 
• From waiting for permission to speak and take up space >>>> To boldly sharing my voice and vision with the world because there is value in my perspective.
• From believing the scarcity myth that tells me I have no choices >>> To seeing the resources and choices that are available to me when I think outside the box. 

Ultimately, divesting from capitalism is about staying conscious, aware and connected to the vulnerable tenderness of caring about oneself and others in a real way. 

• I feel myself divest in every moment when I pause and give in to desire and gentleness and playfulness and love.
• I feel myself divest when I look at the systems and think about greater possibilities and pay attention to what is happening politically and get engaged. 
• I feel myself divest when I learn how to create a justice-oriented business that does things a different way, and when I can support other historically marginalized folks build successful businesses that are rooted in justice. 

What is your relationship to perfectionism like?
I didn’t used to think I was a perfectionist, because I don’t tend to be uptight about small details. However, over the years I have come to terms with an extreme perfectionism in me that really wants to have a “right way” of doing everything, and wants to “be right” with every move. This becomes particularly challenging for me with politics and ethics, which are fundamentally complicated and sloppy and non-binary, and it also becomes challenging when self-expression is involved, because I always want to present myself as good and right and perfect, and it turns out this is impossible. I have been working for years on discerning where I have a high standard for myself and others in a way that is positive and supportive of growth, and where I am being unnecessarily perfectionistic and unrealistic with my expectations. I have come to think of perfectionism as “getting the mask right”. As someone who learned late in life that I am neurodiverse (ADHD), I had to come to terms with the fact that I had been performing perfection because I was so terrified of anyone seeing what a disorganized mess I actually feel like I am so much of the time. Self-love has been the biggest practice in releasing perfectionism for me, along with becoming a life coach. As a coach, I have had the incredible privilege of learning how much of this conditioning is universal and damaging to all of us, and as I recognize these universal threads I am able to be more gentle with myself when they come up. 

What do you see as the cause(s) of disconnection in our lives?
I think the primary cause of disconnection is the culture of individualism and privatization that stems from colonization, white supremacy, patriarchy and late stage capitalism. 

I know so many people who have the same dream: to live on land somewhere beautiful where they can connect to nature, to create a retreat center where they can bring together community and host events and eat communally, some version of this. It’s interesting that the best dream we can create in an individualist culture is one where we privately own a bunch of acreage and have a capitalist venture like a wedding retreat venue. There is nothing at all wrong with this, but the fact that SO MANY people I know have the same dream shows me that we are missing some of the same fundamental things from our lives. We have more “wealth” than ever in private property, but less wealth than ever in community, quality of life, health and happiness. It is tragic to watch us keep reinvesting in the idea that more privatization is going to solve this problem, when it’s clear that privatization created the problem to begin with. 


Do/have you worked with a coach or therapist?  What makes this work meaningful to you?
I have worked with a variety of coaches over the past 6 years. For me, coaching is one of the most impactful tools I have encountered, which is why I ultimately became a coach myself. Coaching completely liberated my brain from limiting beliefs that I previously thought were just “how things are”. My first encounters with coaching changed my perspective deeply, allowing me to release judgement towards myself and others, shift my relationship to money, free myself from the dread of scarcity thinking, and take meaningful action on my goals. I have always been naturally optimistic and believed that people can change in any way they set their mind to, but it wasn’t until I encountered coaching that I had the tools to back up this perspective. 

BIO

​Kate Holly is a coach, facilitator and educator for creative entrepreneurs, healers and thought leaders who are building sustainable businesses that model the world they want to live in.  She is the host of “The Space Beyond Scarce” podcast, which explores how we can create more justice and prosperity by overcoming the scarcity mindset. 

She helps her students and clients to cultivate self-love, discover and live from their unique brilliance, and build the dreams that they are meant for. You can find her writings, workshops, training programs and coaching opportunities at www.kateholly.com. Connect with Kate on Instagram @katesandersonholly.

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