“On the human spectrum” with Katherine May

Things we talked about:

• Allowing ourselves to feel good when things actually go well
• The synchronicity of things happening when they’re supposed to (and when you’re ready)
• Defining success for ourselves (and it’s not always what we assume it might be)
• How lockdown taught Katherine to create her own “sense of safety” following the success of her book, by creating courses to shore up her income
• Finding ways to own your own story, message and brand
• How Katherine’s approach to Instagram evolved from “sharing pictures” to “telling stories”
• Katherine’s experience of coming back from “an anxious pattern of behaviour” around social media
• The quiet activism in the premise of Katherine’s book, Wintering, which is all about periods of life in which we feel cut off from the rest of the world
• Not always having to be “on” and “up.” As Katherine says, “The vision of us being always up discounts useful wonderful things like thinking, reflecting…”
• How we’ve all learned things about ourselves during lockdown, and the way our priorities (and what we are willing to accept) have changed
• Being diagnosed as autistic, quite late in life, allowed Katherine to make the personal changes she needed: “How to meet my own needs, rather than how to solve me”
• The experience of living life as a neurodivergent person
• Finding your right people online (if you lose followers after sharing your true self, then you’ve lost the right followers - you don’t want them)
• And this piece of wisdom from Katherine, for anyone who identifies with our “neurodivergent” conversation: "Your identification is yours. It doesn’t need the approval of a doctor or your mum.”
• The Insta Retreat - My tell all, best selling course for Instagram creatives and business owners.

Where to find Katherine online:

• Katherine’s website, katherine-may.com [https://katherine-may.co.uk] where you will also find her books
• Katherine on Twitter: @_katherine_may_ [https://twitter.com/_katherine_may_]
• Katherine on Instagram: @katherinemay_ [https://www.instagram.com/katherinemay_/]
• Katherine’s podcast, The Wintering Sessions [https://katherine-may.co.uk/winteringsessions]
• The True Stories Writing School [https://www.truestorieswritingschool.com], home of Katherine’s online courses

Books we mention in this episode:

• Wintering: the power of rest and retreat in difficult times [https://bookshop.org/books/wintering-the-power-of-rest-and-retreat-in-difficult-times/9780593189481]
• Electricity of Every Living Thing: a woman’s walk in the wild to find her way home [https://uk.bookshop.org/books/the-electricity-of-every-living-thing-a-woman-s-walk-in-the-wild-to-find-her-way-home/9781409172512]
• The 52 Seductions [https://uk.bookshop.org/books/the-52-seductions/9780755362530]

Where to find Sara

• meandorla.co.uk
• Instagram - @me_and_orla
• My website designer - stories studio

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