• Kate Intro
• Better Together Story
• Random Kate Facts
• Kate's Work

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Hey, I'm Kate.

I am NOT an expert on life.
I do have doubts, fears that hold me back, and pain I'm still learning to process.

I am not the absolute authority of Better Together.   

​Instead, I am Better Together's beneficiary. I  zealously want to learn, heal, and explore along side other authentic (possibly wounded and complicated) explorers.

I am the facilitator: creating space where we work slowly toward wholeness together. 
The convener: gathering people together.  
The Spiritual Ally:  transition-honoring your journey and celebrating your discoveries.

If I had to give a Facebook status for my relationship with God I would reach a declarative, oversimplify statement: "it's complicated."

After decades of passionately seeking, pledging my allegiance, wholeheartedly selling out my energies and devotion in desperate attempt to chase after God in multiple faith belief structures throughout my lifetime of transactional relationships, I can, hear and now, proclaim I am bankrupt of certainty-- and am absolutely loving it.

Having dedicated years of my life in a conservative, legalistic, religious Institution where the most sensitive we're also the most exploited. (The cliche saying that hurt people hurt people has never been more true.)  Sadly, I admit I have done my fair share of mimicking my harmful experiences by oppressing others. I am deeply grieved of how I contributed to hurting others and their identity with Divinity in my desperate attempt to earn spiritual credibility with my advisors. 

(Dear Washington State peers, colleagues, and students- I'm sorry.)

I spent countless years of my life scurrying around trying to earn the approval of every Earthly relationship I had, believeing that this frantic service was also a demonstration of loyalty to the difficult, unappeasable God I was introduced to.  I humbly acknowledged my pathetic worthlessness and was zealously hoping that I could serve the good and qualified people well enough to be invited into a place of safety as a result of my dedicated, albeit, clumbsy, service.
​

It was a painful way to live. Always sure, each day, that I was being evaluated again. And each day coming up wanting.  I was not good enough. Not administrative enough. Not passionate enough. Not sweet enough. Not skilled enough. Not in my proper place. Not a canidate for educational investment. Not domestic enough. Not timely enough.... I was "not."

And even now, a few religious associations later, this programing plays involuntary like an audio-tape in my immitable head. (Insert meditation here.)  The tape reminds me that I am a disappointment. That I am a charlatan. That I am not now, nor have I ever been, the right class of people to be considered God's people.

It is only recently that I celebrate my place as a "not" in  a system with expectations that require "God's people" to gain worth by surpressing their flaws and comparing thwmselves with another, disenfranchised, terrified group of people who are "not." In this bianary system, I am greatful to be among the "nots."  

Pretending to be perfect all the time was exhausting-- and I wasn't even good at it. I fooled no one. I was (still am) clearly not perfect.

Once I accepted that I would always be a "not," despite my best and most passionate efforts to be compliant, I suddenly could breathe again.

It didn't happen all at once of course. It took many blurry months away from that organization before the physical trembling began to settle. Months of waking up to disorienting, adrenaline flushed anxiety attacks. Terrifing fears that I had missed a prayer meeting. Paralyzing paranoia because I had watched a video I shouldn't have and now my children's lives could possibly be forever impacted by my sin.

Cycles of Celebration,
turn to shame,
turn to questioning,
turn to Celebration, 
turned to shame.... and so on.

It was only in the empty space after leaving this religious Institution that I recognized this constant narrative of Shame. Recognizing that oppressive, painful, powerful narrative which aggressively reminded me how I had failed began to teach me. To identify that I had suffered some extreme degree spiritual trauma leading to the next several years of God-related PTSD symptoms.

Having already a predisposition toward codependency which developed as a neglected my child, I was a prime candidate for deeply internalizing every message of "try harder, work harder, be more" translating to echo my broken heart's crescendo, reinforcing my every insecurity. 

Unfortunately, I am not alone in this story. Many others like me, take years to even begin to unpack how deeply the emotional abuse went. Many of my fellow victims have chosen to entirely disassociate from the spiritual world as an act of self-preservation.
​
If that is your story, I honor your choice. I firmly believe a choice to separate yourself from anything that could cause such extreme harm is a step toward health.

Please hear me now, beloved, God (the actual God of love and goodness; not the oppressive patriarchal God you were misled to trust) is not disappointed with you. Take your journey of healing with blessing. Step away. Be angry. True safety. Heal. ever so  Slowly.

But I missed connecting. I missed community. I missed belonging to something.... And I know it sounds crazy because the God I was introduced to was basically an aggressive, controlling, impossible to please dictator that found value in me only when I was being an obedient servant... But I missed God. Not that God of course. But God I encountered in my own private prayer life. The One that wooed me. The One that I was told was probably the "enemy trying to manipulate" me with good feelings. The One that vibrated in the front of my chest with radiating compassion. The One I didn't see it my institutional Church structure. The quiet, and gentle, tender One that I would occasionally see glimpsed and reflected in an individual person authentically flawed.

I want spiritual community. I don't want what I had. I don't want Church.

There has to be a better way to do this. There must be a way.

A church alternative. Better Together. 
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• I am memorized by magic with the same wonder and enchantment of an ignorant 6 year old.
• I wish I could say I am a gardener-- But I think that requires things growing on purpose.  So it is more accurate to say I like to play in the dirt.
• Despite my angry allergies, I LOVE being outside: hiking, camping, walking, sunbathing, reading, ect. Outside is my happy place.
• Vitamin D is a saturating, instantly sleep-inducing source for me... I must have been a spoiled house cat in another life. 
• I appreciate quick wit and any excuse to laugh (unless it causes harm, of course.) I am shamelessly impressed with a well placed pun. 
• I am a total sci-fi nerd.  Mostly Start Trek, Next Generation.
• I enjoy historical novels, and dystopian themed recreational reading. 
• I'm a wanna-be vegan.... But Cheese is sooooooo amazing... 

I'm a 7 on the enneagram (that means I'm typically bursting with excitement).
I am a Cancer (So I am often over sensitive and dramatic).
I am a cis gendered woman (I was born a woman and identify as a woman).
I'm divorced (took a while for me to believe God loves me more that my contract-  I am so grateful for fresh starts).  
I am a proud momma of these four kids (honestly, the best invest I ever made)!​
I'm a mess (and I'd prefer my expectations stay right at that attainable level).

I've been involved in building strong families in one way or another as long as I can remember.

I first began this work as my mother's caregiver. Obviously this is not a healthy start for a 7 year old girl. There were many disadvantages to being my mother's caretaker (such as developing a personality prone to co-dependence) but I do celebrate that no matter the harm, I was able to develop empathy and intuition to my surrounding circumstances. 

Unfortunately, my unhealthy childhood meant I spent some time away from home in foster care-- this was a real blessing.  For the first time in my life, I was encouraged to be a child.  I had little practice. I mostly stared at all the other wild children in the group home on pins and needles anticipating some kind of sharp disipline on the way. The discipline never came. The adults laughed and joined in the chaos. I didn't know how to interact with adults. I didn't trust them. Trust was something I didn't realize my life was missing anything until I was suddenly very uncomfortable with an adult sitting across the table from me quietly asking me questions and then actually listening.  This flipped all the things I new about the world upside down. 

​Because of my time in foster care, learning lessons of my value that would echo into my adulthood, I became passionate about children who would go through their whole day without a single adult looking at them in the eye or speaking value to them.

​FAMILY WORK: foster family
So I became a foster parent. Being a foster parent has been my great privilege! It offered me so much opportunity to heal go to express the love and belonging to other wounded children, healing my own hurts along the way. I have been a licensed foster parent in two states, on and off, over the last 14 or so years. I have loved my season as a foster parent and I'm so grateful that through this system I was able to adopt two of my beautiful children

FAMILY WORK: new parents
In addition to my two adopted children I have two birth children. Which began my journey into exploring childbirth and our Western system of medicalizing growing families. I began my own journey of disssecting myths to calm my fears. So after much research I was empowered to educate women to rethink birth and choose a birth situation that was not just in their medical best interest but also to birth in a way that reflected their values. To do that work I became a certified labor and delivery doula, later a certified childbirth educator, and then later a certified nursing assistant.

FAMILY WORK: church families
Along side my work as a birthworker and foster parent, I was also a Sunday school teacher, a youth chaperone, a minister's wife, a home-school parent, a director of family Ministries, and a director of elementaries Ministries I saw one very consistent truth working with these varisous groups. Most parents feel like they're doing it wrong. Like everybody else knows what they're doing but they don't. They seem to think their kid is the loudest kid, most rambunctious kid, most problematic kid, and that some other parent, any other parent, could do it better. 

And I would be lying if I haven't bought those thoughts myself!

FAMILY WORK: every parents' confidence
But it is absolutely a myth that any parent is able to somehow intuitively, with no effort on their part, have the right answers, be the best example, know how to explain new math, model confidence, and of course never have your insecurities triggered by your child's Behavior or comments.  Nope. Non of us get to escape parenting without feeling in over our heads, at some point.

So exhale. You're in good company. 

For several decades my ministerial work was focused on children period on their need to be heard, on their need to feel like a deliberate Focus, on the very basic understanding that they don't want to go to church or learn if the environment isn't safe, Fun, and engaging and then it hit me.... 

We adults need that too! 

How could we possibly offer our children something we don't even have ourselves

Church?  um, no thanks. 

Because church, for a lot of us, has been:
Boring
Uncomfortable
Uninteresting
Disappointing
Impersonal

Just to name a few...

We opted out.
But turns out isolation doesn't feel that good either. the more disconnected I am from people going through the same life situation that I'm going through the more likely I am to think I'm the only one with my struggles. The more likely I am to assume everybody else is as well put together as their Instagram posts and the more likely I am to drift into the exhaustion of just rushing through each day's work and forgetting that I am a being worth much more than my paycheck


I need to connect.

There must be a way that individuals and families can grow, connect, and play side by side.

Better Together.