007: Love, Fear and Earthquakes – Kate Hanssen

By Tegan Marshall

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In this episode:

In this episode of The Fearless Females Podcast your host Tegan Mathews interviews Kate Hanssen who shares:

How she found the courage to leave her husband
How winning a custody battle taught her to let go
Finding peace after surviving the earthquake in Nepal
Discovering true love amongst the ruins after the earthquake
How important re-connection is in finding the answers you need

Tegan’s Take Aways:

To come back to nature to get grounded
The more you fight or resist the challenges, the more the challenges will come
It’s always a choice how you choose to respond to challenges
You have the answers within you, you just need to connect with yourself and you will find your compass in life
I’ve learnt that the nerves, the anxiety, and the butterflies are a preparation of the excitement of what you are about to launch into.

About Kate Hanssen

Motivated by change and inspired by stories of others, Kate loves to engage people and connect with them. She views life as an opportunity to explore “Self”. Her most recent life experiences has seen her teaching Bounce Programs as a Life Skills Trainer and volunteering in Nepal after the 2015 earthquakes. In Nepal she helped raise $50,000 AUD and coordinated the relief to help those who were most impacted by the devastating earthquake. Kate teaches Meditation, guidance counselling/coaching and conducts workshops to empower people in the 4 C’s – Connection, Creativity, Collective, Contribution – the key to authentic health she says. Kate is a keen writer and singer and hopes to dedicate more time to her writing and public speaking to empower others and see their lights ignite. Kate is in the editing stages of her book “ Falling in Love with a country” and this should be released later in 2016. Upon her return from

Kate teaches Meditation, guidance counselling/coaching and conducts workshops to empower people in the 4 C’s – Connection, Creativity, Collective, Contribution – the key to authentic health she says.

Kate is a keen writer and singer and hopes to dedicate more time to her writing and public speaking to empower others and see their lights ignite. Kate is in the editing stages of her book “ Falling in Love with a Country” due for release later in 2016. Upon her return from

Upon her return from Nepal she was inspired to create a not for profit organisation called “The Reconnection Tribe.” She hopes to fund grass roots projects around the world empowering social change. She is hoping to attract like-mindedd people to join her on this mission.

Contact Kate Hanssen

www.reconnectiontours.com.au

Kate Hanssen – The Reconnection Tribe

thereconnectiontribe@gmail.com

A Gift for Listeners From Kate Hanssen:

Contact Kate to find out more about the Reconnection Tribe and to book your complimentary 20 minute conscious and connected session

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Show Notes: Episode 007: Kate Hanssen

The Fearless Females Podcast Show Notes – Episode 007 – Kate Hanssen

Kate Hanssen’s Fearless Story

Just over ten years ago I woke up one day and realised I had four children and had lost a lot of myself in that journey
I had a bit of a breakdown and went and saw a whole heap of different therapists and got no where
Then a little voice inside my head said, “The only person with the answers is you!”
I then set about learning different ways to get to know myself
Eventually I did a counselling course
In 2009 I finally got up the courage to leave my husband which then led me to an even deeper exploration of self
It wasn’t easy with four kids and being a single mum which anyone who has had to do that would know
We moved away and bit by bit I came to realise that my passion was working with people
Empowering other people that they have the power within themselves to change their lives
Working through one on one and meditation groups I found my niche
Then two years ago after a messy custody battle over my youngest child that I adopted from Ethiopia
I realised that sometimes when we fight so hard to hold onto something that the opposite is true and we have to learn to let go
I then decided that she was best to go and live with her father after all
I then took four weeks off and went to Nepal for a holiday with my eldest son
When I got there I was really sick so I decided to lay low and heal
I was sitting in a café in Kathmandu sipping a banana Lasse when the earth shook and the pillars in the café shook and it was pretty surreal at the time
I had never experienced an earthquake before and so it was a bit like “What is this?”
Everyone was running everywhere and all the buildings (which are built closely together and not necessarily to any standards) were moving
Then it stopped and everyone was just unsure as to what to do as it wasn’t a common occurrence
People were running to get away from the buildings
I made my way back to my hotel which was outside of the city and after a few days it was becoming a little scary as there was limited food and water
For me I felt an inner quiet, an inner peace and I just felt I wanted to stay and help
I then travelled to Pokhara which is 8hr bus ride west of Kathmandu and met up with some people I had recently stayed with and after a sleepless night due to the tremors we decided we were going to raise money
So we got onto GoFundMe.com and within a week had raised 7k
We got a group of about thirty people together with different skills and I ended up co-ordinating
Within three months we had raised over 50k aud from sources all over the world and organised over thirteen relief missions in and around the Gorkha region which was the worst hit by the quake
It was a life changing experience
One of the most peaceful in my life, which sounds so surreal to even say that it was peaceful
But it was like all the conflict I had been having within myself, didn’t matter any more
This is truth, this is reality, why am I worrying about all those little things that don’t matter
My love for my daughter and for my children is not defined by whether I am in their lives every minute of every day
My love for myself cannot be defined by the clothes I wear or the car I drive
There are statements in society that say your self-worth is related to your bank account and I dispute that
There are probably people with very healthy bank accounts but that have low self-worth and visa versa
Self-worth comes from when you are in alignment with your heart and what matters to you, what’s on purpose for you
At the time I also met a young man who I had met two years prior when trekking in Nepal and I got to know him during the relief work
He wasn’t his age, or his culture, or his work, he was just himself and we fell in love
For the first time in my life I felt open to receiving love on that level and I don’t know if it was because I was at peace with myself then
He has taught me so much about what love is and in a relationship, what it feels like to be supported and on the same path/mission
We got married in Nepal in a Hindu wedding which was not what I was expecting to be doing
Up until that year, I had decided I would never get married again or even be in a permanent relationship again
I thought maybe I was too left field to be in a traditional relationship
But I’ve learnt a lot from this relationship and it’s a beautiful thing

How Kate Hanssen deals with fear?

It’s an illusion to think that chaos goes away but amongst the chaos and confusion
We are here to learn how to sit in that space and choose how we respond to things
Particularly with the court case with my ex-husband, there was so much projection from others as to how I should be doing it and what I should be doing
I was told “Fight because it could be worth millions of dollars to you”
But it was a time I realised that I had to let go because the more I fought or resisted the challenges, the more the challenges came

What are you passionate about today?

What I learnt on my journey is that there are four things which I call the four C’s
Consciousness, connection, creativity, contribution
What I want to create is an organisation where people who are feeling disconnected with society, relationships, their job or whatever it is they feel disconnected from
To realise that the state you are is perfect to move you into the state you want to be in
If you are feeling disconnected then obviously you need to connect but to do that sometimes you get stuck and we’ve all heard
The thing you fear most is the thing you need to face
But there are ways to face your fears by connecting with what is around you to bring you to be more conscious within yourself
And I believe that we can take people through a series of steps to start with the smaller things first
Once they learn that, they can apply it to the other areas of their life
And find that peace within the chaos and the clarity to know what you need to do in that moment
You don’t get caught up in the projections from others or from society
And it’s really simple, you don’t have to fork out lots of money, it’s not that hard, just connect to yourself
You don’t have to drag up and relive the past, it’s quite simple and most of it comes from you and your own unique ways

What is something in your future plan that scares you?

Everything! Some days I wake up and I am overwhelmed with what is ahead of me
So I have to bring it back to this very second
It’s like the more you know, the more scared you get
They say “Ignorance is bliss” and “Knowledge is power” for a reason
But I wouldn’t change anything because I’ve learnt that the nerves, the anxiety and the butterflies are a preparation of the excitement of what you are about to launch into
It’s just a change of frame. Instead of looking at it like you can’t do it, deciding that you can
Channelling that fear energy into excitement instead

Five Fast Fun Fearless Facts about Kate Hanssen

Who inspires you? Elizabeth Gilbert – author of Eat, Pray, Love. I read her book back in 2009 and I realised I didn’t have to continue on the path, I was in a relationship with no energy, I had alternatives. It’s about getting ok with the uncertainty. My mother never did anything unless she was certain of the outcome so I have had to learn to take risks, calculated risks.
Favourite thing to do each day? To get out in nature. The truest version of you is when you are with nature, that’s my view anyway. To touch the earth with bare feet, smell the ocean, however, you can get with nature, it’s the perfect grounding.
What’s something that still scares you? Uncertainty and the fear of not having the security of money which is ironic because money isn’t secure. Losing my husband also scares me because I’ve never known a love like this before. But it is what it is and the more you hang onto something, the more you destroy it.
Favourite technique or app or book? Books: I love Osho’s work and his views on the western world and Paulo Coelho’s books because there’s a lot of talk about the feminine and masculine world and I feel there is a lot of disharmony within our feminine and masculine within ourselves and when that is out of balance we aren’t really connected with our heart space and all that we are. If you aren’t in balance then you will remain stuck, you need both to move forward.
If you could wave a magic wand and fix one thing in the world right now, what would it be and why? I would love it if everyone in the world who owns a business, could potentially donate 10% towards a grass roots project to empower other people.