Conjuring Integrity Feat. Kristin Sweeting

Integrity is a big, imposing topic.

Fortunately, we don’t have to explore it alone.

I’m so excited to share my conversation with Kristin Sweeting.

Kristin is a photographer turned

coach for creative entrepreneurs.

She’s succeeded by learning to trust herself,

and to honor her values over those of the dominating culture,

and she’s here to share her wisdom with us!

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Mentioned:

Follow Kristin on Instagram @kristinsweeting, learn more about her creative coaching on her website, https://dangerschool.com, check out Dangerous Creatives on Instagram @dangerouscreatives, and subscribe to the Dangerous Creatives podcast at https://dangerschool.com/podcast or wherever you listen.

Make Magic:

When you are true to you, that’s integrity.

That's where the happiness is.

That's where the growth is.

That's where the money is.

It's not easy. It's not a pot of gold at an end of a rainbow.

We still have to build it, and we have to grow a lot to do it.

But that’s how we build the life, and the world, that we want. 

Transcript: Conjuring Integrity Feat. Kristin Sweeting

Kristin Sweeting: It's really easy to see someone else that maybe has made a lot of money or gotten a lot of fame in an industry, and to just start doing the things they did, and be totally disconnected from the desires that they have for their life, and get down the road and realize I'm in a place that's great but it's not what I want. 

Natalie Miller: Yes. Yeah, I think that’s what got me into graduate school. I looked at my professors, and I thought, "I want that life. I want to teach at a small liberal arts school. This looks amazing." And, so, I was like, "How do we do this?" And they said, "Oh, go to a top graduate school." And, so, I did, and then it was like, "Oh, wait a minute. I don't want this at all." So, it's like following someone else's formula is going to yield something that worked for them, which might not necessarily be something that works for us.

[Music]

Natalie Miller: Welcome to Mind Witchery. I’m your host, Natalie Miller, and I’m so glad you’re here.

Natalie Miller: Hello, everyone. I'm so excited to introduce you to my guest, Kristin Sweeting, for today's conjuring. Hi, Kristin.

Kristin Sweeting: Hi. I'm so excited to be here.

Natalie Miller: Yeah. Kristin and I have known one another in various capacities, just so you all know. We've been in coaching relationships together. We've been colleagues in this kind of world of coaching and of supporting people who are creating their own businesses. And, Kristin, you so came to mind for me when I was thinking about conjuring integrity, which I hope [laugh] feels like a fucking compliment because [laugh] that's so awesome.

Kristin Sweeting: It does. [laugh] 

Natalie Miller: Yeah. So, tell the good people just a tiny bit about you, and where you are in the world right now.

Kristin Sweeting: Well, thank you for having me. This morning, I was taking my morning walk, listening to your last podcast episode, and just so excited to be here, having this conversation. I am a photographer. I've been a photographer for 12-plus years. It started as commercial photography, musicians, turned into weddings, and then have started coaching photographers and creatives since doing that business, which has been really fun. So, I have courses, and do coaching and retreats.

And I live outside of Nashville, Tennessee, with my son, who, for a lot of my business-building years, I was single-parenting, and also with his bonus dad, Andrew. So, we just have a great old time outside of Nashville, being creative, living life a little differently, and just, yeah, taking everything one day at a time.

Natalie Miller: Oh, my gosh. OK. So, what I thought we would do today is take this, like, big word "integrity" that, to me—I don’t know—it's like if this word were a building, it would be like a big marble building. It seems so—it seems to me so solid and serious as a word, and I wanted to explore it a little bit. And I think what you just said totally helps me see why I wanted to explore it with you. 

"I'm doing things a little differently." So, what do you think? Like, when we're living in integrity, I think part of what we're doing is we're being true to ourselves. How is it that, like, being true to yourself kind of means that you do things a little differently?

Kristin Sweeting: Honestly, I freaked out a little bit when you said that this is the topic because I think integrity in the past has felt like this word full of shame for me of, like, I hope you're doing things the right way. I hope you're following all the rules. I hope you have, like, ethics that are beyond question. 

And some of this comes from a lot of religious upbringing. I was in something that I would consider a cult for most of my childhood where there was a lot of pressure to be good, be quiet, be sweet, be, you know, perfect. And, so, I think for a long time, this pressure towards integrity felt like following someone else's rules, and making sure that there was no one that could question my intentions. 

But it was playing someone else's rule book, you know. Like, not showing my shoulders was someone else's rule book. Not being fun or flirty was someone else's rule book, you know. So, my relationship with integrity [laugh] feels complicated because, now, to me, it does mean like you're going to do things differently when you really listen to your intuition, and what feels like integrity to you. But I don’t know if that makes sense that it feels like a complicated relationship because of that past feeling with that word.

Natalie Miller: Oh, my gosh, that makes so much sense. And I'm so happy to start there with this idea that, you know, integrity, because it is this big marble building of a word, it feels very, very kind of solid and, yeah, I think it can have shades of rule-following and being beyond reproach. It makes me think though, you know, that rule book—the dominating culture's rule book, right—it was not written for us. [laugh] 

Kristin Sweeting: Right.

Natalie Miller: It wasn't written to help us thrive. It was written to keep us quiet and covered, I guess.

Kristin Sweeting: Yes. [laugh] 

Natalie Miller: So, you said another "i" word, intuition. You talked about intuition. Tell me a little bit about that. Like, how does your intuition help you be in integrity now? If you're not following the rule book, and you are following your intuition, like, what does that look like?

Kristin Sweeting: Yeah. It has been kind of a slow process and, honestly, I'm thankful for coaches and other people like you who have spoken into this season for me or into, like, building my intuition because I think it was, my intuition was really blocked for a really long time. And, so, now, you know, what intuition and integrity look like for me is a, lot of times, living differently. It's doing the thing that feels right in my body even when I'm afraid people will question it. 

And I notice myself kind of getting away from that. I was talking with a friend about this yesterday. I don’t know if you relate to this but I'll start, like, asking everyone's opinion about a question that I really, like, I already know the answer. But I'm just like, I want to make sure that my friends think it's a good idea, that like this person approves, that I'm getting this outward validation for the thing that I want or, like, someone else kind of scripting decisions for me. 

And, so, to come back to your original question about integrity, when I come to this place within myself where I'm like, this is the right decision for me, and it actually doesn't matter if other people don't validate it, that feels like integrity. But it's still a messy road to get there, and I think, like, that time of asking for validation keeps getting shorter and shorter, the more I start trusting my intuition.

Natalie Miller: I love that. I will say I can see you. Of course, our listener can't see you. But I can see you kind of gathering your hands in toward your—kind of toward your heart space, and so I'm curious, like, when you have that embodied feeling of this is right, what does it feel like for you?

Kristin Sweeting: Yeah. I'm, like, I'm touching kind of my chest because it does feel like this deep knowing. But, you know, and we've talked about this. We talked about this on my podcast the other day of often what my head says is different than what my body says. It feels so peaceful. It feels sure. It feels confident. And I think those are markers for me of being in integrity. 

It's like I've done all the mental gymnastics. I've done all the thinking through, "What will this person think? Is this in line with my philosophy? Is this—?" you know, all the kind of like mind-y mind work. And then it just settles, and it's like this the path forward, and it will be OK. But it is just such an embodied—it's different than all of the logic that happens in my head. [laugh] 

Natalie Miller: Yeah, yeah. You know, it's interesting when you were talking about asking for other people's opinions. Just last night, I was teaching new coaches, and I was talking about when we get into, like, ethically sticky situations, what do we do? And we talked about this component of ethical decision-making, which is called the light of day approach. It's like, OK, so if other people knew that this was the decision I was making, how would I feel? 

And one of the students in the class was like, "But I thought we weren't supposed to, like, get approval from other people." And I was like, "Yeah, that's a really good point." I wonder for you, like, there's something about let me say this out loud to another person just to, like, almost begin to decide; almost begin to manifest it. 

Like, I'm telling someone, "I'm considering leaving my husband." And when I speak it and I put it out there, out of my head-heart and into the dialog, like, maybe a little bit I want to know what they think. But I also think I want to know what I think. [laugh] Like, I'm putting it out there to see how they respond, and how it feels when they respond. Do you think there might be a little bit of that in there?

Kristin Sweeting: Yeah, yeah, for sure. Do you consider yourself an external processor at all, or are you an internal processor?

Natalie Miller: I really think I'm both. Whenever I do, like, Myers-Briggs or anything like that, I'm always—on the E/I front, I'm right in the middle. And, so, I think I need to do both. There's internal processing that has to happen but then there is external processing that has to happen too. What about you?

Kristin Sweeting: Yeah, I tend to be right in the middle too. So, I do think, yeah, speaking it out loud starts kind of bringing it into reality of what would that feel like to say that more often or, you know, I think the power of words is so—there's so much power there, you know. Like, I'm a photographer. It took me years of being a photographer before I would say that. 

And starting to say that, you almost get to try that on and, like, feel more confident, the more you're practicing it. But, yeah, I do think with decision-making, it's some of that too. Like, what does that feel like if I say, "I'm going to be this or I'm thinking about being this or doing this"?

Natalie Miller: Yeah, yeah, and then it becomes, like, you know, less about does this person agree with me or not—though I totally hear there's, of course, right, we're humans, and we have this desire for the approval of the rest of the group—but at the same time, it's sort of like how do I feel saying it, and if they disagree with me, how strongly do I still stand in it myself? Right? 

Like, if I say, "I'm thinking about leaving my husband," and they're like, "Oh, no, you couldn't," what happens inside me? Do I go, "Oh, yeah, let's talk about how I can't," or do I say, "No, I think I can"? [laugh] Right? And it kind of becomes, like, almost like a little mental reps, right, like I'm doing little mental weightlifting to say, like, can I hold someone's disapproval here, actually, and would that be OK?

Kristin Sweeting: Yeah, yeah. I remember my therapist asking me that when I was leaving my marriage, and I was—I had this kind of script in my head of, like, what if I am the problem? What if I am a narcissist? What if I am this toxic person, you know? Like, what if I have to stay? 

And she was like, "What if I sat here and I told you, Kristin, you have to stay?" And I was like, "My whole body is freaking out like I want to go jump off a bridge, you know?" And she was like, "There's your answer, you know"? [laugh] Like, she's like, "You don't have to stay."

Natalie Miller: I love that. I love that. OK. So, in conjuring integrity, I'm definitely getting this piece of checking in, especially with our bodies, to see, you know, how does body feel, even when someone disagrees, or how does body feel when someone says, "I can see that for you"? Does body light up and say, "Oh, you can see it too?" Like, is it so exciting? Yeah. I love that. 

You know, for me, it often comes to breathing. If something's not right, my breath, it like doesn't move. I'm almost wondering how even am I oxygenating right now because I can't feel any movement? But when something feels right—and that could be from, like, how much I'm charging for something; it could be a decision I'm making; it could be a parenting moment—like, if I can feel that my breath is moving, then that's a sign to me like, yep, this is right.

Kristin Sweeting: Totally. I feel like when you feel that peaceful feeling, you're more open. I feel more open. I feel like I am inspired to go and do things. I can keep moving through things. And I also do a lot of, like, checking back with my values. I've done so much journaling and thinking through kind of like who do I want to be as a person in the world? 

And even looking at that list or thinking about those embodied values gives me the courage to live differently too. You know, I do a lot more that's not in line with a 9 to 5 schedule, or I'm much more tied to kind of like freedom and location freedom. And I'm doing things that feel countercultural but they all kind of come back to this, these values that I feel so deeply inside. 

And you kind of like start feeling when you're outside of those, when do you something for a time. And, you know, I can do things for a time. It doesn't mean it's bad. It doesn't mean I'm not ethical. It just means that, you know, maybe for a time, I had to make that move but it didn't totally feel true to me or, like, what I want to be moving forward in, and then kind of like readjusting. 

Natalie Miller: Could you talk about an example of a course-correction that you've had like that where you're going along, living your life, and then, all of a sudden, you find yourself like, "This is not actually aligned with who I want to be"? Like, is there a time that comes to mind for you?

Kristin Sweeting: I've had a few different ones. A lot of it comes back to how I want to be relationally. So, I kind of redo this lesson, I keep learning, which is I want to be really present in my friendships, and have really deep connected relationships with my son and with my spouse and with the people that I really care about. 

And it's really easy to kind of get drawn into this hustle, grow your business, scale your coaching business, do more, be more, get more kind of like attention for what you do, which I don’t think any of those things are bad, and I actually think I will do a lot of those things in my career. But it's kind of this getting that foundation—the foundation getting lost in the path to the building. 

And, so, you know, I kind of had scaled a coaching business that just didn't feel aligned for the time. It didn't feel aligned for a few different reasons. I think timing was one of them. I think size was one of them. And I had to make some adjustments, and take a break, and kind of step back and look at it, and be like, "Where did the foundation kind of get lost of what I really want this to be?" 

So, I took a big break, and I'm about to relaunch it again. So, it's not that I totally lost the thing that I wanted to do, or totally lost my business. It just was the building blocks weren't in the right places. And I had to pull back to see that, and then to put my health at the very foundational building blocks, my relationships right above that, and then the business that I wanted, instead of the other way around. 

My body will start physically getting sick. I don’t know if yours does this. I will start physically getting sick. I will experience all this inflammation. I have a lot more stress or kind of like anxiety. And those are also my body being like, "Hey, Kristin [laugh], you're a little off track here. Something's out of whack." And it's just an invitation to look at it for me.

Natalie Miller: Yeah. We've been talking a lot about values lately on Mind Witchery, and just that idea that values are living, active ways of being, right? It's not like a word on a page like, "I value health and wellness." It's like, no, valuing health and wellness, when I'm valuing health and wellness, here's what you see me doing. Here's what you see me prioritizing. 

And I hear you. I think because of that dominant culture's total disregard for health and wellness, I mean, let's be real about it, right, even if your office is having a wellness fair [laugh], it's for two hours over lunch on a Thursday [laugh], like, you know. Really truly valuing health and wellness, it is not immediately obviously compatible with the ways that we're taught to build success. 

But it strikes me, Kristin, as just like so courageous to make a shift like that, to go from, "OK, I've got this successful, growing business that I secretly, deep down know isn't allowing me to be healthy and whole and connected in my relationships." Like, besides body kind of ringing the alarm bells, what else helped you to take that break, and make that shift?

Kristin Sweeting: I—and, you know, we've talked about this a little bit before. My world works in metaphors. [laugh] Like, just things will happen in my external world that are big signals to me. So, I had kind of an accident where I almost drowned last summer, and it was this really potent metaphor [laugh] in real life of I was—everything was fine. 

I was floating down this river and then, all of a sudden, everything kind of went wrong, and the kayak started taking on water. I started, you know, I started sinking. I started—I got, like, pushed up against these logs. Everything, like, everything that could've gone wrong went wrong. 

And there was a moment where I was holding onto the kayak. I was holding onto, like, my Starbucks trash. I was like, "I can't lose my trash. I can't litter in this river, you know." Like, again, that old thought of integrity being, "I can't do the wrong thing. I can't break the rule." 

I was like, "I can't litter. I can't lose this guy's kayak," while I'm, like, against this log drowning. I had to let go of all of that, the things I was trying to save that didn't actually matter, and to let go of that, and like prioritize kind of saving myself first.

Natalie Miller: Like breathing, prioritize breathing? [laugh] 

Kristin Sweeting: Yeah.

Natalie Miller: Oh, my gosh, yeah. [laugh] 

Kristin Sweeting: Like breathing. Like, you know, so I ended up getting myself out of that situation—I'm still not sure how, exactly—and then just like floating down the river for a couple miles until I found someone's house. And I was like, you know, I had lost all that stuff, whatever, lost the phone, lost the kayak, lost the things. And maybe 20 minutes after getting on shore, all of those things came back. 

And it's interesting, I keep going back to that metaphor, even though that was a real-life thing that happened, where I know if I let go of things that are making me feel trapped, they'll either come back in a better way when I'm safe and when I'm in a good place, or they won't, and that will be OK. But, like, so, you know, letting go of it wasn't that—I still feel like I'm a great coach. I'm going to keep doing that. I'm going to keep running a program. I'm really excited about it. 

But I had to, like, get my emotional shit together first, you know. I had to stop trying to save things that weren't my responsibility to save, and figure out to do that work first before I came back to it. So, I mean, it really—it was real-life situations but, also, I think that was my integrity being like, "Hey, you got some stuff you need to work on first before you try to go and help other people." So, it actually didn't feel in line with my own integrity to keep coaching until I worked through some of my own things.

Natalie Miller: Oh, my gosh. I mean, as you're telling that story, I'm like, "She's choosing herself. She's choosing herself, right?" I'm losing all of these things but I'm finding me. [laugh] Like, I'm discovering I'm a buoyant creature, actually. I'm a human. I'm a buoyant creature. I can float down the river when I'm unencumbered and I'm not holding onto all of this stuff that's holding me back. Oh, my gosh, I feel that, like, in my whole body. 

Kristin Sweeting: Well, and I know you have a lot of entrepreneurs that listen to this too. But, you know, for years, I had imagined growing my business to the size, to the point that I had. Like, this, I was living my dreams. I was running the business of my dreams. But there was something that I had not faced personally: my own people-pleasing tendencies; my own codependent tendencies. 

There are things that were—that kept tripping up the work I was doing that needed my attention, that I needed to choose myself. And, actually, I wasn't helping anyone. I mean, you know, I was helping people but I wasn't helping people to the point that I know that I will be able to now that I've done some of my own work. But, yeah, letting go, letting go of the dream was hard, you know. That's what I thought all of my time and effort had gone towards. How could I let that go? But I think what's so beautiful about life is, like, the right things come back, and they come back in different ways and in better ways.

Natalie Miller: Yeah, that makes me think of the, you know, the happily ever after promise that we're made since fairytales when we're children, and also capitalism makes us that promise, right? It's like, listen, all you need is the corner office, and then it's happily ever after from there, or all you need is to hit seven figures, and then it's happily ever after from there. But, actually, those new places often include things we didn't expect would be there. 

Like, I think about going to graduate school to become an English professor once upon a time, and thinking, "This is going to be so amazing. We're going to talk about literature. I'm going to learn how to be a professor." That is not what graduate school was for me. [laugh] Graduate school was like, "Please learn how to rip apart other people's thinking, and prove that you're the smartest." 

And I didn't know that's what it was going to be. So, I got there. I got the stipend to the best program in the country. Like, I was there, and I was like, "Um, I chose this door. I was not really aware of what was behind it. [laugh] And what's behind it is not what I want." 

So, can we talk about that desire thing for a moment? It's like what we really want, because there's, to me, a component of this too, right? I thought this is what I wanted but now that I'm here, I realize, actually, I want the weekend off. Actually, I want to be able to go to Pilates today. Actually, I want to go away with my spouse for a week, and not worry about the business, right? So, what do you think is the role of, like, desire and wanting when it comes to living in integrity?

Kristin Sweeting: I mean, I think there are like little light beacons that help you steer the boat where you're supposed to go. Like, I think desire is important to pay attention to. You know, one of the biggest reasons I wanted to build my business was to have more time with my son; was to be able to travel; was a lot of things that I was like, "Oh, one day when I'm here, I'll do these things." And now what I've realized is you have to start doing those things while you're in the building too. Otherwise, you can kind of build this thing that then pushes out the desires that you actually had.

Natalie Miller: Oh, my gosh.

Kristin Sweeting: You know, and you kind of have to keep checking yourself against those little light beacons of, "Is this business, is this the way I'm structuring it, giving me that freedom? Is it letting me have those relationships?" If not, like, where can I make adjustments? Or [laugh] did I get on the wrong boat in the first place to get to this place I want to go, you know? I see people do that too where it's really easy to see someone else that maybe has made a lot of money or gotten a lot of fame in an industry, and to just start doing the things they did, and be totally disconnected from the desires that they have for their life, and get down the road and realize I'm in a place that's great but it's not what I want.

Natalie Miller: Yes. Yeah, I think that’s what got me into graduate school. I looked at my professors, and I thought, "I want that life. I want to teach at a small liberal arts school. This looks amazing." And so I was like, "How do we do this?" And they said, "Oh, go to a top graduate school." And so I did, and then it was like, oh, wait a minute. I don't want this at all. So, it's like following someone else's formula is going to yield something that worked for them, which might not necessarily be something that works for us. Yeah?

Kristin Sweeting: Totally. 

Natalie Miller: I so agree with you that deferring desire, if we're building our business or we're building our marriage, we're building our household in a way that's saying, "I'll have what I want after I get this, after that," if we're deferring that kind of fulfilment of those wants and desires, we are not going to get them because what we are building doesn't have room for them; doesn't know how to accommodate them. I so deeply agree with that.

Kristin Sweeting: Yeah, I mean, you know, one example is a schedule. So, when I was single-parenting, my son was with his dad one day a week, and then I had maybe one day of childcare. And the most important thing for me was to have as much time with him as possible. Like, I loved spending time with him, and I also loved my business. So, I was trying to do both of those things. 

And, so, part of the reason I specialized in wedding photography was I can take 10 weddings a year, and I can reverse-engineer how much I need to charge for those so that I can make what I need to make to be with my son the amount of time I want to be with him, travel the weekends he was with his dad, and do these weddings, and then come home and be here. 

Like, it started with that schedule that I wanted to have, and the goals adjusted around those. So, that was one time that I feel like I really made a lot of adjustments based on desire, and based on love, and based on the schedule that I wanted to have; not on what can I do to be a really well-known photographer? 

Because there's a whole list of things I could give you on how to get your name out there, how to get published in the right places, how everyone, you know, like, all these different industries have these little pockets of fame. Like, there's lots of ways to get there, and it might still not be what you want because what I wanted was to be home with my son.

Natalie Miller: Yeah, yeah, and I have to say, and I'm curious if you agree with this, but, actually, the thing that will most ensure your success—I'm going to almost say guarantee it—is doing what you want. Because when you're doing what you want how you want it, you are so powerful and, like, glittery, glimmery. There's just—when someone is living the life that they want, and they're doing the work that they want, there is just this glow of integrity. 

You know, actually, who comes to mind is Senator Barack Obama running for president, like, ready just like, "Yes, this is me. This is what I want to do. This is who I am." And it didn't matter that he didn't have a lot of experience, and it didn't matter that his middle name was—I don't want to say it didn't matter that his middle name was Hussein. Obviously, it mattered intensely. But it didn't obstruct him, right? 

He was an unlikely person to become a two-term president. But he was so in his talents and desires, and you could tell, like, it was coming from within, he glowed with that. And I think, really, if you want to be successful, that is the checklist of how to become a successful photographer, that may or may not work. But if you love what you do, and you're doing it in a way that works in your life, that is actually what gets you success. What do you think? Do you agree?

Kristin Sweeting: I do agree, yeah. I agree, and I think it gives you a, like you said, that glow but also this courage to do the thing that most people are too afraid to do. Like, I came out the gate charging a lot, a lot more than my peers, a lot more than most people would say I should charge. But I had a damn good reason, you know. 

It was like I want to do the best work I can possibly do, and create beautiful images for my clients, and I want to do 10 of them a year, and make six figures. Like, all you have to do is do the math, and you know what you have to charge. And the only reason I had the courage to do that is because I had a really, really good reason to want to be home. 

Natalie Miller: Yeah, yeah. You had a deep desire and, like, courage. I always love coming back to the root of that word. Like, "courage" comes from like heart, right, so full of heart. This isn't, like, I don't want to do it to impress people. I don't want to do it to, like, I don’t know, hit someone else's goal. I want to be with my son.

Kristin Sweeting: Yeah.

Natalie Miller: I want work that supports that, yeah. I love that.

Kristin Sweeting: And I think even in the coaching business, and the adjustments I'm making now, I think when you realize what you're really good at or where you really are in your integrity, then it also gives you the courage to make those moves. Like, I'm really good one-on-one. I'm really good at helping people see what they are great at. I'm great at helping people get really deep into something. So, I think when you realize what you're good at, you can say yes to that in smaller quantities to allow yourself to do the best work you can possibly do, and you can say no to the rest of it. 

So, like, this big program I thought I wanted isn't going to let me do my best work because my best work is having a smaller group that I can really, really pour into, and that I can really take one-on-one time with. But it's easy if you lose track of those things of what you really value, what you're really excellent at to be like, oh, well, yeah, let's do this other thing over here that, you know, so-and-so suggests or whatever. It doesn't mean it's bad advice. It just wasn't good for me and what is really, really true to who I am.

Natalie Miller: Yeah, I feel the same way. So, what's a value or a way of being that you are bringing more into your life right now? What's like something that you're consciously trying to kind of conjure up for yourself right now?

Kristin Sweeting: I would say freedom, and I feel like I'm rolling my own eyes at myself saying that word—

Natalie Miller: [laugh] 

Kristin Sweeting: —because, like, everyone wants more freedom, right? Like, it can be taken in so many different ways. But here's what it means for me, and I'm leaning more into it, is not only freedom of time and location but emotional freedom. And if you have people listening that are coaches or kind of empathetic, it is so easy to take on the burdens of all the people that we want to help.

Natalie Miller: Yeah.

Kristin Sweeting: And, so, the freedom that I'm working on now is this emotional freedom, and resilience, and holding space in a loving way without taking on the problems or the burdens of my clients or my friends or the people around me. It's having this really open-handed, loving, supportive presence instead of letting it kind of consume me or consume my emotional energy. So, freedom looks a lot of different ways but I'd say that kind of energy of openness and freedom and love that doesn't come with strings attached, that's really what I'm inviting in.

Natalie Miller: Oh, my gosh, Kristin, you and I and all our Pisces energy. [laugh]

Kristin Sweeting: [laugh] 

Natalie Miller: Kristin's got a lot of Pisces energy. I've got a lot of Pisces energy. That's such a Pisces thing to be like, "Freedom but also from the burdens of everyone's heart." [laugh] 

Kristin Sweeting: It's because I love you so much [laugh]—

Natalie Miller: [laugh] Exactly, yes, totally. 

Kristin Sweeting: —that I need to work on my boundaries. [laugh] 

Natalie Miller: Yes. I love that. Oh, my gosh, that's so wonderful. That's so wonderful. I think I'm in this next level of being with my desires; really centering my desires; allowing my desires; owning my desires. I think I—and I don't know if you find this to be true too. It's like I got to a certain kind of level with it, and now I can see the next level of it. I can see the next layer. 

It's like, oh, yeah, I do feel comfortable taking Mondays off. That's no problem because I want to. Once upon a time, I couldn't imagine it but now I totally can. But I see this next layer, it's right over there, like this next layer of, oh, but, you know, what would even more spaciousness look like? What would even more time to create look like? And what's in the way of me going for that, that next-level desire? So, that's something that I'm conjuring for myself. 

So, let's make it practical and not so dreamy-dreamy, right? So, what does that look like for you, conjuring up more, you said, location freedom and, like, kind of schedule time freedom, and emotional freedom? Like, what's an example of, like, how do you do that?

Kristin Sweeting: Yeah. So, there have been a lot of big shifts in my life lately, some that I haven't even talked about at all, which is, I realize, it's time for me to let go of wedding photography, and things that really have me tied to a location or tied to dates far away. So, I'm making big, big career changes. I also decided to—I'm homeschooling my son so that when I do have shoots in other countries, I can bring him with me, and we can do education on the road. 

All of these things kind of are decisions just recently made in that, like, following of integrity of what if I actually let myself do that thing which I desire, which is to travel, and be with my family, and create beautiful things, and help people, you know? So, those are some really big shifts. 

Other things are I've had times of only working two days a week. This time, I think I'm probably going to do a couple hours maybe four days a week. I am relaunching some of my programs but with different boundaries in place to allow for more freedom, communicating a lot more on the front end. [laugh] I wake up and take a walk every day, and kind of like set aside that time for my own processing, and being with myself, and thinking, and dreaming, like, giving myself the Pisces time. So, yeah, there's a lot of shifts happening right now.

Natalie Miller: I love that. And I love that you show us the big and the small versions of it because I think, sometimes, what I see for my clients a lot—and sometimes for myself too—is that it's like, oh, only the really big changes count. And it's actually that daily walk that builds the connection with self. Tell me where I'm wrong but I'm thinking that daily walk builds the connection with self; builds the courage to make the bigger shifts and changes.

Kristin Sweeting: Oh, yeah. Yeah, the daily walk has been really, really foundational to a lot of these other decisions because I do have a hard time hearing what I actually want. It's a lot easier for me to just go along with what everyone else wants. And, so, having that space to think and to dream and to get some courage to do the things is really, really vital. 

Natalie Miller: Yeah, I love that, oh, my gosh. When I think about how I'm, like, kind of accessing this next space of, like, desire, like being able to own and be with my desires, it's things like saying, you know, I also love to travel. And I find that, for me—and maybe it is kind of a little bit of a Pisces thing—when I'm going to do some creative work, I can't be in this house. [laugh] Like, I can't be here. 

I don't want to be in my home with my people all around me. I want to be somewhere else. I don't have to be completely alone but immersed in a different environment away from the day-to-day. And, so, my Mondays that I have no problem taking off, I'm ready to evolve that into, like, monthly creative retreats. 

Like, where could I go to have this every single month a couple of days to do my creative work? So, that feels like a big one. But then a smaller one is even—and this is like I can't even believe I'm going to tell you all this, but it's true—like, at the end of the night, asking my partner, "Hey, would you rub my feet?"

Kristin Sweeting: Yeah.

Natalie Miller: Like, I want that, and I'm willing to ask you for that. It doesn't seem like it should be a big deal but, let me tell you, I have been through it with being in relationships where it's not OK to ask for what you want. And to build that little capacity to be able to say, "Hey, I'm going to ask you for something, and I'm not going to worry that it's too late or you're too tired or you might not want to or whatever. I'm just going to ask for what I want, and I'm going to feel more comfortable doing that." Like, that's a little thing that is actually also huge.

Kristin Sweeting: It is huge, yeah. I often think about how much I struggled with thinking of myself as needy, like, how much I needed things from people, or just I would pretend like I didn't need anything. And I'm like, I'm kind of, in an empowering way, embodying my most needy self, right now. 

Natalie Miller: Yes. There's so much integrity in that, Kristin, I think, because the reality is we are human beings. Like, if I look at my dogs, those little fuckers are so needy. [laugh] Like, they need food. They need walks. They need love. They need water. They need treat…like, they need, and they don't feel ashamed about it. 

They're just like, "You know what would make my life better? If you rub my belly right now. You know what would make my life better? If you let me out. No, let me in. No, let me out. No, let me in." Right? [laugh] It's like they do it so naturally because they're mammals—and so are we. We're needy. 

Kristin Sweeting: Exactly.

Natalie Miller: We are. 

Kristin Sweeting: Yeah, exactly. I'm like, why do I attach shame to that instead of just being like, I'm a really needy business owner. I'm really needy, you know, and like just living it. I'm a really needy friend, and I find friends that are needy right back. [laugh] 

Natalie Miller: Yeah, yeah. And it's almost like too, you know, if I'm going to show up in this life the way I show up with this much—this big of a heart and, like, this much willingness to kind of do things differently, and help other people do things differently, yeah, that's going to require a lot of fuel for me. I'm going to need a lot of support. Does that resonate for you?

Kristin Sweeting: Definitely. Yeah, I can't half-ass anything. Like, my whole big heart is in everything. And, so, just realizing that if I need a creative trip every month, if I need to travel [laugh] by myself for a week twice a year, like, those sound ridiculous and needy to myself saying them out loud, or I could just own it, and be like, this is what helps me be the best version of me, and that's OK. It's more than OK. That's kind of awesome.

Natalie Miller: No, it's so awesome, and it is like building the next culture, right? I mean, I talk a lot about how damaging the dominant culture's ideal of rugged individualism is, this whole idea that, you know, somehow, we pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, and we're self-made. We do it on our own. Like, it's such a lie.

Kristin Sweeting: It's such a lie.

Natalie Miller: It's such a lie. Nobody does. And it seems to me that, yeah, to kind of pull that pendulum in the opposite direction and say, "No, actually, we all need each other. We cannot do these things alone. We need each other." Because, like, let's face it, if I want to go away for a creative retreat, I need help. I need someone to help me with the house and the dogs. I need someone to help me with the kids. I need processes set up in my business that, like, allow me to be able to do that. I need a lot, actually, to be able to do those things, yeah.

Kristin Sweeting: Yeah. I think that, like, building a community is so vital to our businesses and to a beautiful life. And, really, one of the things that getting divorced kind of with a young kid showed me is that when you do need something from your community and your friends, it's such a beautiful gift to receive that from them. 

Like, all of the time I spent being the strong one, being the one that had it all together, kind of took a lot away from me as far as, like, getting to experience connection; getting to experience true friendship. And, so, some of that opening up and being like, I actually do need—I need a friend. I need my mom sometimes. I need [laugh], you know, a partner or whatever it is. Like, that helped me to experience the world in a different way too, and to give that back to people, that there's so much fullness in that giving and receiving.

Natalie Miller: Oh, my gosh, I love that. And that maybe is like a wonderful, like, kind of last definition of integrity, right, is like we think of integrity as this very strong, like, you know, that big marble building I was talking about. But integrity also is, like, what I'm hearing and really resonating with is it's honoring the whole self, including the vulnerable one, including the one who needs, the one who can't do it alone, actually. 

OK. So, let's do a little review of where we've been because we've been so many places. [laugh] Integrity is listening to our bodies. Integrity is listening to our desires, and saying them out loud, and manifesting them in little ways that kind of turn into bigger ways, like Kristin was just kind of illustrating for us. What else did you hear, Kristin, that integrity is from this conversation?

Kristin Sweeting: I think integrity is a softening, and letting go too, because I still have this visual as a kid. When I was really deeply entrenched in this religious community, I got this yardstick, and I wrote all of these, I guess, fruits of the spirit if you're religiou…if you, like, are familiar with some religious things. I wrote all these different traits that I could grow to be, and I could eventually reach this, like, pinnacle of just doing all of the right, perfect things. 

And I think integrity is being OK getting it wrong sometimes. Integrity is softening, and realizing that, like, it's OK to let people catch you. And I think integrity as a leader is also showing people that everyone needs help. Everyone needs to take a break. No one is there to save the day for everyone. 

Natalie Miller: Right. And it's not effortless, easy, you know. It's actually a lot of growth. A lot of growth and a lot of support is required. I also want to be sure to circle back to that moment, the river, the river moment. Sometimes, integrity is putting yourself first, and letting go of what's not necessary. Sometimes, integrity is being willing to let go of things you've built or things you're hanging onto that you know are just not working, and just trusting that we're both here to say it for you all. [laugh] 

We're both here to tell you. When you are true to you, that's where the happiness is. That's where the growth is. That's where the money is. It's not easy. It's not a pot of gold at an end of a rainbow. That's not how it works exactly. We still have to build it, and we have to grow a lot to do it. But that's really, that's integrity. 

Oh, my gosh. Kristin, thank you so much for being here today. You're just the gemmest of the gem. Please tell the lovely Mind Witchery listener where they can find you and learn more about you, and what they could with you. 

Kristin Sweeting: I am on Instagram a lot @KristinSweeting. I also have a program that we launch a couple times a year called Danger School. It really is taking your creative business, and making it work for you in probably a way that's different than most people tell you you should. And then we also study abroad together a couple times a year, which those are very fun. 

We go and really immerse ourselves in the culture of where we're going, talk about creative business, do all of the things, so, get uncomfortable. So, that's how you can find me. I also have a podcast that Natalie was just on, the Dangerous Creatives Podcast, and I'm just glad to be here today. 

Natalie Miller: Oh, my gosh, so much fun. All right, loves, so, please do what you want. Listen to your body. Be willing to do things differently. It really is the way that we build a culture that has so much more integrity, which I think we're all longing for that. We all long for a culture that is in more integrity. We get to build it, choice-by-choice, together. I'm so glad that you're with me in this, Kristin.

Kristin Sweeting: Thanks for having me. 

Natalie Miller: Yeah. OK, everyone, thanks for listening, and by for now.

[Music]

Natalie Miller: Thank you for listening to this episode of Mind Witchery. To catch all the magic I’m offering, please subscribe to the show, or if you want a little bit of weekly witchiness in your inbox, sign up for my Sunday Letter at mindwitchery.com. If today’s episode made you think of a friend or loved one, your sister, your neighbor, please tell them about it. We need more magic-makers in this troubled world. 

Like all good things, this podcast is co-created by stellar people. Our music is by fabulous DJ, artist, and producer, Shammy Dee. Our gorgeous art is by the sorcerers at New Moon Creative. Mind Witchery is produced in conjunction with Particulate Media, K.O. Myers, executive producer. And I am Natalie Miller. Till next time. 

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