Hoorf! Radical Care in a Late-Capitalist Heckscape

a global journey from missionary to deconstructing mom with Katie Bjärgvide

• Elle Billing • Season 4 • Episode 5

Share episode

Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.

0:00 | 39:58

Send us Fan Mail

Elle hosts Katie Bjärgvide, a former missionary and US expat living in Sweden. Katie discusses her journey from evangelical Christianity to deconstructing her faith, influenced by events like Trump's election and choosing to accept her transgender brother. She shares her experiences raising neurodivergent children in Sweden, her struggles with burnout, and her transition to a creative career. Katie emphasizes the importance of self-care, creativity, and adapting to new challenges. Elle and Katie highlight the value of compassionate and sustainable care for getting through the gauntlet of all the things.

Links to Katie’s YouTube channels and podcast, as well as all other resource links, are in the full show notes at hoorfpodcast.com

Subscribe to Hoorf! Radical Care in a Late Capitalist Heckscape wherever you listen to your favorite podcast:

Apple | Spotify | YouTube

Join the Blessed Herd of Saint Winkus: Sign up for our newsletter, get Hoorf! episodes delivered directly to your inbox. What's more, you get invitations to our monthly Coffee and Biscuits Chat, where you get to hang out with Ricki and Elle, talk about the show, and connect on the topics that mean the most to you.

Become a Patron:

https://www.buymeacoffee.com/hoorfpodcast/membership

Connect with Elle Billing:

Support the show

Elle Billing:

Hi. My name is Elle Billing. I am a chronically ill queer femme, and I'm tired. I'm here this episode and every episode to dig at the roots of our collective fatigue, explore ways to direct our care in compassionate and sustainable ways, and to harness creative expression to heal ourselves and to heal our world. Welcome to Hoorf: radical care in a late capitalist heckscape. my guest for this episode is Katie Bjärgvide. Katie is a

woman with many faces:

offline, Katie is a deconstructing former missionary, a US expat living in Sweden, a mom and a wife; online, Katie is a podcast host, a video editor and the kind of content coach who equips and cheer-leads her clients towards their goals. On her YouTube channel, Katie is a memory collector, a ranter, a laugher, a crier, and more awkward than she is probably aware. She loves having conversations about transformative experiences that are spiritually diverse and many levels of weird. I'm excited to have Katie on the podcast today. Welcome to Hoorf. Hi, Katie, welcome to Hoorf.

Katie Bjärgvide:

Hello, hi,

Elle Billing:

Hi. It's great to have you here. This is my first interview with somebody that I met in the Find a guest, Be a guest, collaborative. This is kind of cool

Katie Bjärgvide:

NOICE

Elle Billing:

and I know that you've been a guest on a few podcasts that you've met through that group too. I saw your post the other day,

Katie Bjärgvide:

yeah,

Elle Billing:

so that's cool. I'm glad that we get to do this.

Katie Bjärgvide:

It's always wonderful to make new connections.

Elle Billing:

Yeah, and you, I think I found you. Your post was like, I want to be on a podcast, but I don't want to have a really long intake process. And I was like, Oh, I have something great for you.

Katie Bjärgvide:

Yes

Elle Billing:

my intake form is short.

Katie Bjärgvide:

Sometimes we want to be super prepared, and you have a specific audience, and it has to be perfect, but I would rather make the connections without feeling like I have to fit into the box first, right?

Elle Billing:

And I mean, I do have kind of a specific audience, and like my podcast, this podcast. Hoorf!, is pretty niche, but we fit each other.

Katie Bjärgvide:

We do.

Elle Billing:

And my intake form is very open ended, because, like, I want to know what people want to talk about. Instead of saying, Hey, this is what I do, come talk about my things, it's like, Hey, I interview disabled, chronically ill, and neurodiverse creative people -- tell me about your thing.

Katie Bjärgvide:

Yeah.

Elle Billing:

So it's like, what do you want to talk about? Okay, what don't you want to talk about? Is there anything I need to know about you? And then we go from there. And then I prep the questions. And this is background for people who don't know how I prep. I prep the questions and send them to you ahead of time. And then we can dialog about them if we need to before we come on. But even then, the conversation--for anybody who's ever listened--sometimes goes way off the rails based on how the the flow goes. But we always know ahead of, ahead of time, a little bit what we're going to talk about, and it's fun and it's low key, and we have a good time.

Katie Bjärgvide:

NOICE

Elle Billing:

yeah, I'm glad you're here. I It is the morning here, and it is evening where you are, but we both just had our first snow.

Katie Bjärgvide:

So crazy.

Elle Billing:

Well, it is that time of year, yeah, and my dog is sitting here, and she's pouting because she wants to go outside, but it's cold and wet, and it made her cranky this morning. So you are in Sweden?

Katie Bjärgvide:

Yes, yes, I am, indeed. I'm not just in Sweden. I'm on an island of Sweden called Gotland.

Elle Billing:

Oh, cool, that's neat. We will get into that in just a little bit. My first question, though, I mean official question, since I just asked you about Sweden, is, how have you received care this week?

Katie Bjärgvide:

I really like that question. I was like, How do I, I don't like paying attention to how do I receive it? I don't know, but the answer that I came up with that I wanted to put as an encouragement out there is, it wasn't just this week that it happened, but it still affects me to this week is I quit playing this game that I was obsessed with, that I would play all the time. It was called Travel Town, and it was just like, every few minutes I'm there, it's like, oh, things have reloaded, and I'm still just like, blown, blown away by how much time I have so, like, I gave myself this care to notice how much more time is available to me, because I'm kind of obsessive. I'm kind of like all or nothing.

Elle Billing:

I understand that. Was it a game on your phone? A couple summers ago, I downloaded Merge Dragons.

Katie Bjärgvide:

Oh, I was obsessed with that one first.

Elle Billing:

Oh, yeah. It was bad, yeah. Like, I would sit down to play for like 10 minutes, like, I just need a little 10 minute break. I need a little dopamine fix, and then three hours later, I'd be like, I have done nothing except farm little hearts and play with dragons for three hours, like, my whole afternoon is gone.

Katie Bjärgvide:

Yeah

Elle Billing:

and I deleted it three different times from my phone. Or, like, my sister also played it, but, like, she had much stronger boundaries around the game. She's like, Yeah, I can sit down for 15 minutes and play the game and then put it away. I'm like, I can't do that.

Katie Bjärgvide:

Yeah, this was also a merge game that you had to wait for things to reload.

Elle Billing:

So the dragon one's the same thing, like, you would run out of like, time, like points or energy or whatever, your dragons would go to sleep, and there was you couldn't do certain things, and so you just have to wait. And, like, I got to the point where I had so many dragons that I could just play for three hours.

Katie Bjärgvide:

Yeah, it's really, is giving care to yourself to not need to do these things to to be able to be like, Oh, I really want to play right now, but I don't need to. And like, wow, I can actually do other things that feel good for myself in this time.

Elle Billing:

Yeah, like, at first playing for a few minutes was, was care, because it was giving me a chance to, like, disconnect and just do a little game. But then it got, yeah, like you said, obsessive, and then it wasn't a good coping strategy anymore. Cool. Thank you for sharing that.

Katie Bjärgvide:

Yeah.

Elle Billing:

Well, like I said, I prep questions ahead of time, and usually I have this whole process, but we scheduled this and booked it so fast that I don't have it printed out there on my phone, so I'm going back and forth between one screen and another.

Katie Bjärgvide:

I just want to say, like, I- You're doing a great job, and I--

Elle Billing:

oh, well thank you.

Katie Bjärgvide:

I appreciate the chill vibe of it.

Elle Billing:

Oh, thanks.

Katie Bjärgvide:

There's comfort in just it doesn't have to be boom boom boom boom you know,

Elle Billing:

oh yeah, we're, we're chill here, yeah, that's kind of how I have to live life is as chill as possible, which is difficult for me, because I used to be very, very hyper-driven and hyper perfectionist and like, go, go, go. And I still get into that mentality sometimes, and then I pay for it later,

Katie Bjärgvide:

yeah

Elle Billing:

like, I crash or a or a flare, and then I'm like, Oh, wait, I can't do that anymore.

Katie Bjärgvide:

That's why I have to be calmer and just do what I'm able to do and let that be enough.

Elle Billing:

Yeah, a lot of that. like enough is good. Like, that's enough. Like, not like enough is enough (angry), but like enough is enough (content),

Katie Bjärgvide:

yeah, but like, the self care question, How did I give myself care? I didn't expect to do too much today.

Elle Billing:

Yeah, that's so huge.

Katie Bjärgvide:

Like, with all the, with all, with all we had a parenting meeting, we had, we had all these things, and I'm like, I have a, I have this little bit of time, and that's enough. I made some shorts for YouTube, and that was enough,

Elle Billing:

Yep, yeah, yesterday -- I was telling you before we recorded -- my my mom and I go to physical therapy on Wednesdays. Well, our physical therapist had carpal tunnel surgery, and so she has someone filling in for her, and so we had PT on Monday the last two weeks, and it's just completely thrown us off. But last week, I had to cancel because I had a migraine, and it lasted--my migraine lasted six days.

Katie Bjärgvide:

Oh no!

Elle Billing:

That happens. And so that threw off my entire week, because I was, like, sleeping as much as much as possible, but still trying to get things done for my mom. And then I finally got over the migraine, and then we had PT again on Monday, like, my whole week just feels weird because there's also a holiday this week, and trying to, like, like you said, find those moments where, like, I can get a few things done, but like, also my routine is thrown off. So, like, those pockets of time aren't where they usually are. And I just yesterday, I just had to be okay with the few things I got done being enough, and they were like, everyone got fed. I picked up prescriptions. We all got a nap. It was fine.

Katie Bjärgvide:

Yeah

Elle Billing:

everybody showered.

Katie Bjärgvide:

Oh, look at you killing it, yeah.

Elle Billing:

Well, close enough. So you you have a really interesting backstory, just from the few things that I've learned about you already. So you're from the US originally.

Katie Bjärgvide:

Yes, I'm from Utah.

Elle Billing:

Okay, I used to live in Idaho, so I know neighbors, yeah, I know the area. I know the culture. That makes the missionary thing seem a little like, click, a little more like, Oh,

Katie Bjärgvide:

but I was not a Mormon.

Elle Billing:

You're not a Mormon missionary.

Katie Bjärgvide:

No, no, I was a totally different, we even weirder kind of missionary.

Elle Billing:

Okay, well, why don't we talk about that, then?

Katie Bjärgvide:

sure

Elle Billing:

you spent a longer time then than most LDS missionaries, which is usually two years.

Katie Bjärgvide:

I grew up evangelical Christian, and okay, they're very quick to evangelicals. Some Christians are not, but evangelicals were much more quick to say we're not Mormon. That's a cult like calling the kettle black there,

Elle Billing:

yeah, especially, like our generation growing up, I think, from my perspective, that softened once Mitt Romney was a presidential candidate, then yeah, they were. Like, the evangelical tent kind of opened up a little bit more to say, oh no. LDS are one of us, because

Katie Bjärgvide:

we, as long as they support us in the same things, politically, we

Elle Billing:

politically, yep,

Katie Bjärgvide:

yeah. We have two goals, and it's to eliminate gay marriage and abortion.

Elle Billing:

Yep, yep. That's I noticed that too. I was teaching out in Idaho when he was a candidate, and I noticed that the big shift, at least from the evangelicals. So you, you were a missionary for a long time, and then you became, you started deconstructing at some point. So that's a pretty big, that's a pretty big shift. Do you want to kind of walk us through your journey and how that happened?

Katie Bjärgvide:

Yeah, so the kind of missionary that I was was an actor. We were actually traveling doing theater.

Elle Billing:

Okay?

Katie Bjärgvide:

So we would travel around and out of vans, living out of suitcases, staying in people's houses, doing plays and churches and schools and nursing homes and daycares and all kinds of places. And the deconstruction didn't start happening until I was already done with all of that.

Elle Billing:

Okay

Katie Bjärgvide:

it was really with like Trump. That's like a real big starting off point, which I think a lot of other deconstructing people will probably resonate with, is, wow, are these the true colors of the people that raised me that were like, telling me their values and and how important it was to love. And another big part of it was my transgender brother, and I did not receive Him the way He I should have. I did not. I felt like if I were to, you know, use his preferred pronouns, that I would be letting God down. And it was, it was a really long journey, and it's funny how much of a difference media made in it, like shows like Glee and different things I came across on the internet to give me the perspective to see like, oh, this isn't a choice. This is who people are. And then so many things, digging into history, digging into finding out that the word homosexual wasn't in the Bible until 1946

Elle Billing:

Yeah,

Katie Bjärgvide:

like so many things that it was just like this house of cards that had been stacked up of my faith, and it was like, okay, that's-- the Bible is supposed to be perfect and infallible, and if that's wrong, what else is wrong? And you know, like, Hell's not real. Why did Jesus die for? Ah, who am I? What is going on?

Elle Billing:

Yeah.

Katie Bjärgvide:

Why did I ever want to believe in hell? Why did it take me so long to accept my brother?? and I have so much compassion for people going through this thing, because there's so many emotions involved. There's such an anger, there's such a grief, there's such a sense of just being lied to and and being complicit and like, it's, I have so much compassion for it because of just how much it hurt myself and how I see other people that feel so guilty for their complicity and being homophobic and being transphobic, and it's like we did the best we could with what we knew, and then we got better. There's hope if we if, if I could change, anybody can change, because I was such a Jesus freak, I even wrote Jesus freak on my backpack in high school, like

Elle Billing:

I had some pretty out there T shirts myself. I was sort of in in between the evangelical and progressive wings, like my family, like I have a I have a gay cousin, and when he came out, like my parents and I, we were totally cool with him.

Katie Bjärgvide:

Wow, nice.

Elle Billing:

Yeah, my family had always voted Democrat, and most of, like, the really toxic parts of Christianity I had picked up from other places. There was, you know, purity culture was really big, so, like, that was all around me anyway. So I like the evolution versus creationism thing I was thankfully spared from, but there was still quite a bit of deconstructing that I did and am doing, and figuring out which pieces of the faith I grew up with I still want to you know, and I think deconstructing is a good word for it, because it's a present-progressive verb, and it's something we're always doing. And it's not just like our faith that we're, you know, wrestling with and piecing back together. I usually use deconstructing and reconstructing in the same sentence or in the same breath, because I'm not just taking something apart, I'm putting something back together too. I forgot what I was going to say after that.

Katie Bjärgvide:

Definitely leave this in. It's real, man. Oh yeah.

Elle Billing:

Oh yeah. We always leave these in when I mess up, yeah. Ricki edits and leaves me exactly how I am,

Katie Bjärgvide:

Ricki!

Elle Billing:

like it's deconstructing and I'm reconstructing. And maybe that that bird flew I'm trying to backtrack.

Katie Bjärgvide:

It's just a process, yeah, wait-- finding out who you are like, because my so much of my identity was in being the Christian who never wavered, you know, right?

Elle Billing:

And like, wrestling is actually a huge part of faith.

Katie Bjärgvide:

Like, yeah, figuring, like, it was never meant to be the stagnant thing. It was meant to evolve, like, right, getting out from under judgment and fear and whitewashing and colonizing. It's like that was meant to be a deepening of faith.

Elle Billing:

That's, that's the part where I am now, is like looking at the places where the church has caused the most harm, and kind of wrestling and taking stock of those things and, yeah, rebuilding something that's worth holding on to.

Katie Bjärgvide:

Yeah,

Elle Billing:

so you, but how did you end up in Sweden? I guess when you were a missionary, you were traveling all over, right,

Katie Bjärgvide:

yeah. And when I on my 21st birthday, I came to Europe, okay? And so two years in the States, then I spent then I came over. And after I was traveling around mostly English speaking parts, it was in England and Ireland. And then I, after a year there, I worked. My husband joined. He was a fresh young Swede joining the ministry and and we became friends right away. He joined in '09, he joined in '08. We became a couple in '09. We got married in 2010

Elle Billing:

Okay, so you were doing missionary work in English speaking countries that already,

Katie Bjärgvide:

yeah, but then we were German speaking, and then French speaking, okay, and so I performed in German and French too.

Elle Billing:

Okay, cool,

Katie Bjärgvide:

yeah, oh, boy.

Elle Billing:

So you guys got married in 2010 and then moved back to Sweden.

Katie Bjärgvide:

Um, there was a lot of stuff in between there. We went to South Africa. Got pregnant with twins, was lived in Sweden for the first six months. Went back to Covenant Players with two babies. Didn't travel as much with them, but that was I can't imagine doing that now.

Elle Billing:

Yeah, no kidding. So we talked a little bit before, when we were prepping about being neurodivergent and having neurodivergent kids. So what is it like raising, being neurodivergent and raising neurodivergent kids in Sweden.

Katie Bjärgvide:

Well, I have always just felt so completely different, like I was at this parenting class today, I was like, I still don't really see myself as a peer to anyone. I just they're all the much more adultier adults. And --

Elle Billing:

that's a mood

Katie Bjärgvide:

they can they can tell just by looking at me that I'm I, I'm not a peer, I'm not the same as them,

Elle Billing:

like I do not have my shit together at all.

Katie Bjärgvide:

Nooooooo!

Elle Billing:

yeah, I know that feeling there.

Katie Bjärgvide:

The the reason that I was at the parenting class is because we suspect that one of my kids, especially is neurodiverse, and it's like a resource to parents, to go to a class to learn some tools for how to set expectations and make, make work on our own emotions and model, model what can be best for them, and figure out how to make a plan for chaos. So that's, that's a really cool resource available over here in Sweden, it's just so different from in America, with mentality wise, like in Sweden, there's, it's much more. You don't stick out, you don't you don't cause a fuss. You. Don't think that you're special, like you are in a box.

Elle Billing:

And, yeah, it's like, a lot more homogenized, yeah.

Katie Bjärgvide:

And like, my husband was suspecting that he was neurodivergent, and they want to get see if he could get some support for that. And they were like, well, yeah, you're not, it's not bad enough that you really need a diagnosis. But here's some they gave him, like, three classes, like three things to give him tips for being organized. It was like, Well, that didn't really seem like enough.

Elle Billing:

Yeah, that sounds like my partner went in to get an ADHD evaluation, and has had two or three evaluations, and they're basically, they said, Well, you're so smart, like, yeah, if you just try harder, yeah, it shouldn't be a problem, which is, like, I'm trying as hard as I can, and I'm still struggling. Like, that's the problem. This is me trying hard.

Katie Bjärgvide:

Yeah. Like, Covenant Players was such a weird job because it was so it was a culture in itself. It was a cult within a cult. It was. It was like, you plan the schedule, you plan the plays, you you're always in different people's houses. It was, it's a very good job for neurodivergent people. There were so many of us there because it was like, you couldn't get bored doing just one thing. There was like, so many options of things to do, and so much pressure constantly things to do. And I just feel like, mentally, I couldn't do a normal job, I couldn't do a nine to five thing, like I burnt myself out in Covenant Players. And I just don't think I my brain is built that way to survive that kind of grind. And I just, it makes me crazy that it's like you're expected to work 40 plus hours a week and have meaningful relationships with your family and keep the house clean and do laundry and do dishes and do shopping. I'm like,

Elle Billing:

Oh, I know. I worked as a teacher for 13 years, and there were so many times where I'd be struggling with something at work and I'd be like, but this is the only thing I can do, like, there's no other job that I am equipped for, because teaching, at least there's a variety during the day, and it's relationship based. And even though I'm like, completely sapped of energy by the end of May, at least, I have two months to sleep so I can fire back up and do it all over again, and until I couldn't anymore, until I was so ill and so burned out that I went on medical leave and then stopped teaching. But it is like there is nothing else that like, like you said, there's no other type of job that I could do without either being completely bored and like, bored out of my mind, where I wouldn't stay or burn myself out trying to keep up with the expectations.

Katie Bjärgvide:

It's like, I don't want a lot of money. I just want to be able to enjoy the basics of life without thinking about them. Like, yeah, after during covid, I was working at a hamburger place, so American themed, ironically enough, just running around serving people their food. And when COVID happened, it was so boring. We were literally cleaning the walls. And I said, Oh, call me when you need me. And he never did. He was, he was a weird guy. And so I took that as my time, like, now I'm going to pursue editing. Now I'm going to pursue YouTube. And I had some jobs, and it was okay, and I was making some money, and then all my editing jobs fell through. And so it's like, yeah, I'm working from home, not getting paid anything. This is awesome, but I would rather be able to keep doing this like, I feel like this is enough.

Elle Billing:

Yeah, during COVID, that's we switched to, like, remote learning. And so I was teaching using zoom from home, and my migraines got significantly worse because I was on the screen so much, but I was, that's when I got into painting. Like I painted, I dabbled like I had been doing it for a couple years, but as a side hobby. But I that's what I really used to cope. I did a lot of painting, and that's when I really got into that. And so when it came time for me to leave Idaho and come back home, I had applied for a teaching job, and they offered it to me, and it sounded really good, and they were even creating like an art class that I could teach, because they knew I was an artist, and the position only had 10 days of PTO or sick leave. I was like, I get more migraines than that in a year.

Katie Bjärgvide:

Oh

Elle Billing:

and I was like, this job sounds really great, but I didn't think it'd be fair to them for me to take this job and then be gone and then, like, be sick more days than they were offering. And I was like, this job is not designed for me, like they tried to, but it also isn't going to work. And so I said to my partner, what if I painted like, what if I actually built an art business and worked from home? And, like, saying it out loud was like, super scary, but once I said it out loud, I was like, No, I think this is possible. It's going to be really hard. And you know what? It has been really hard. But it's, I'm glad I didn't take that teaching job, because I can only work in like, two hour bursts of time before I need a rest, and there's no way I could have been able to do a full time teaching job with the way my brain is post-burnout. I just-- it's different, like I was, I've always been different, but like, burnout changed the way my brain works, and I can only do two hours three tops if I really push myself, but the three hours at a time isn't sustainable,

Katie Bjärgvide:

and that's like, about similar to me, but not because of of mental, mental or physical challenges. It's just kids. I'm lucky if I can pull out three hours to work at the library and, like, actually write stuff done over there.

Elle Billing:

Well, I think Mom Brain is its own restructuring of your brain.

Katie Bjärgvide:

Anyway, yeah, I have two nine year olds and an almost three year old, and I'm waiting for a Mom Brain to, you know, ease up a bit

Elle Billing:

this last time my partner was here, she would sort of take over keeping an eye on my mom and making sure my mom was okay when I would have to go to work. And after one night, she was like, How? How do you do it? Like, my mom doesn't really have a sense of scale, right anymore. So, like, a small thing happens, and she goes, [gasp] like, really loud, and then you go running to see if she's hurt, and, like, she just dropped a piece of ice cream on her shirt, right? Like, everything is just like startling. And so my partner was, like, My nerves are fried because, like, she sneezed, but she sneezes so loud it sounds like she's screaming, and like she drops something and makes this big noise, and it's like, this constant hyper vigilance. It's like, Mom Brain, but like, cranked up because my mom could hurt herself.

Katie Bjärgvide:

Oh, is it dementia?

Elle Billing:

It is, yeah. And I was like, yeah, that I might that's probably why I'm so stressed all the time. I just I-- in my mind, Mom Brain is its own form of neurodiversity.

Katie Bjärgvide:

I like that that resonates,

Elle Billing:

or especially unsupported Mom Brain, I would say, because, like, if you have proper support and you have your village, or you have a partner who can who really like steps in and like shares the load with you, it's completely different.

Katie Bjärgvide:

My husband's great. He does a lot.

Elle Billing:

That's good.

Katie Bjärgvide:

We're moving into a new season of him working full time. So it's, I'm headed towards a big old transition now.

Elle Billing:

Oh, and we don't like transitions, do we?

Katie Bjärgvide:

Seriously? I've been eating the same thing for breakfast for, like, years and years, like, you know, the same.

Elle Billing:

My breakfast and lunch are the same every day, just because it's easier, just it's easier, it's predictable, it's safe. So you were, you did theater and that's how you met your-- or theater missionary work, and that's how you met your husband. You still do any theater work now that you're not in that like missionary evangelical space anymore?

Katie Bjärgvide:

no, but my YouTube channel has been a huge creative outlet for me, my the first creative outlet that I had after Covenant Players was pen-palling.

Elle Billing:

Oh, fun.

Katie Bjärgvide:

And it was fun, and it was awesome to get mail, but then I went too far. I got obsessive, and then I was overwhelmed by it, yeah, and I had to just cut that off cold turkey and leave all those letters unanswered because it felt too much like work, and I was being like a dragon about my time, like, No, my two year old twins, I don't have time for you. I must write my letters so that I can get letters.

Elle Billing:

Yeah, it's that sense of scale. Yes, all or nothing.

Katie Bjärgvide:

Yep, exactly. Oh, this brain man. So then I got super obsessive about YouTube. But the great thing about that is that I could, I was able to scale back when I needed to. I was able to notice when it was too much and readjust the process over and over and over again to what worked for me. And I mean, that's a whole journey in itself. My YouTube thing, I started it in 2018 and I'm still going, and I'm still and it's still my a big way of putting my creativity out with putting the memories together, taking poetry, puzzling it with VoiceOver and and poetic thoughts, and I also have junk journals, and that's a really fun thing. Are you familiar with junk journals?

Elle Billing:

I am a little bit but my listeners might not be. You want to,

Katie Bjärgvide:

okay, but a bit too bad this isn't a video podcast, yeah, if you ever want to do that. But basically you just can take a book that's already there, or you can take cardboard pieces and hole punch them and put string through them and fold paper in half and hole punch that you know, it can be as easy or as complex as you want, and just gluing and cutting and just-- No, it doesn't have to be pretty, it doesn't have to be perfect. It's just a place to put the random bits of your life that you have, you've held on to, and don't have a place for them, you know, ticket stubs and pretty colors that you cut out of a magazine. And so that's been a really special thing. I'm actually writing a book right now, and I'm currently in my third junk journal that I'm just writing through. And I do it bullet journal style, where you number the pages, and then you can use it write an index in the beginning, and all the things that have to do with being courageous, all the page numbers go under that tab.

Elle Billing:

Yep, I've done bullet journaling, so, oh yeah, I've never seen it combined with a junk journal, though that's really a neat idea.

Katie Bjärgvide:

Yeah, and my my planner itself, my bullet journal itself. I remember when I realized, wait a second, I don't have to just put the lists and the overviews in here. I can also put collages in here. I make the rules.

Elle Billing:

That's one of the things I love about bullet journaling, is it's like, the framework is so simple, like, that you can adapt it to your own style. Like,

Katie Bjärgvide:

yeah,

Elle Billing:

my my bullet journal does not look like the way it's taught. But, like, I use the principles of it to keep myself organized. Like, I call my weekly list my TA-DA list. Nice, more triumphant than to-do.

Katie Bjärgvide:

I like that! I might if I remember that, which I probably won't. I if I would remember it, I would steal it.

Elle Billing:

Yep, it's my ta-da!. I've met other people who do that, and I have a few friends who have changed what they call theirs, so there's other people now who call it that my ta-da list.

Katie Bjärgvide:

Another way that I have fun with creativity is, are you familiar with ATCs

Elle Billing:

Artist Trading Cards?

Katie Bjärgvide:

Yeah, I knew I liked you. You know, all kinds of stuff that I know. I started making them years ago. And then, as I was, you know, walking away from all the rigidity and stuff of Christianity, I was like, wait, they all said that they were the good guys and the witches were the bad guys. Maybe I want to be a witch,

Elle Billing:

the deconstruction to witchcraft pipeline.

Katie Bjärgvide:

I know so but, but I was like, but I don't have any money, and I don't have any way, and I'm not sure, I don't know what I'm doing. And I was like, and tarot, oh gosh, that looks way too complicated, like 9 billion configurations. I could never learn all that. So then I was like, what if I used my cards magically. And so that was a really fun thing. I Same exact thing is with the junk journals, cutting and gluing and putting stuff down and getting little plastic sleeves, like

Elle Billing:

using them as oracle cards. Then, yeah, cool.

Katie Bjärgvide:

So that's another little creative thing

Elle Billing:

that's neat. I've seen that on Pinterest, like homemade oracle cards and things with your own artwork. That's a neat idea,

Katie Bjärgvide:

and it's free, free 99

Elle Billing:

if you already have the stuff. I mean, you have quite, a quite a lot of art materials at hand. So that's that's true. We do have a lot of cereal boxes. My good.

Katie Bjärgvide:

I mean, cereal boxes or pizza boxes, magazines, glue, scissors, like it doesn't-- Doesn't have to be professional art supplies, dad and I are both the like you said, the same breakfast every day for years. Yep, yep.

Elle Billing:

Dad eats a lot of Cheerios.

Katie Bjärgvide:

We eat like a configuration of eight different kinds of cereals? Yeah?

Elle Billing:

No, my dad and I eat the same like three cereals every day. We are creatures of habit in some things, yeah, every once in a while we'll mix it up. But, all right, I have one more question. What is one true thing? That you have learned from your creative practice,

Katie Bjärgvide:

don't think too much. Like, like, when you're when you're going to do something creative, you don't have to think, what's the oh, I have to save this picture. It's a really good one. I got to save that for the perfect page. Or, like, if you get it, when you get a book, a notebook or whatever, like, make a squiggle in it, write your name. Like, do something so that it's not perfect and white anymore. Like, let it just be messy. Let it be you. And don't judge it as you go, because judging it is just like editing yourself in real life. Like, if have you ever found yourself at doing a podcast and you're like, oh, I shouldn't have said it that way, and I gotta rephrase that. I gotta do it perfect. Like, if you edit yourself as you go, you're not in the moment. You're not letting yourself just be there with the creativity. So let it be messy. Let it be you. Don't compare yourself to others. You're the way that you did it is perfect. Sin boldly.

Elle Billing:

Thank you. 'm definitely fussy about sketchbooks and notebooks. I think that'll resonate with a lot of people. I'm getting better about it. Like a sketchbook is a sketchbook. It doesn't have to be perfect, but I always want it to like that first page pressure is such a thing. I start all my sketchbooks on the second page, and then I go back. Then I go back and do the first page later.

Katie Bjärgvide:

My friend gave me this gorgeous book that's got one of those fun little hooky things to close it. And it's like, in the in the hand made paper that's all rough, and it's leather, and it's got a stone in the middle of it, and she's like, I got you the witchest looking one I could find. Like, oh. So it's like, that's the kind of book that sits on a shelf forever and ever, because it's so special. So like, the first sentence in the first page I wrote is "there now I wrote something .now it's no longer perfect,"

Elle Billing:

Yep, yeah. I just usually start on the second page to get over first page pressure, and then I go back to it. But I did have one sketchbook where I just scribbled on the first page to get over it. And then I was like, okay, that worked. this time. All right. Well, thank you for being here. Where can we find you? Like on YouTube, other social media.

Katie Bjärgvide:

Y'all, I have my YouTube. My first channel is Epic Kate, and that's where my vlogs and poetry and memories and stuff are. I also have a podcast, the Epic Kate Podcast, okay? And it's awesome conversations with all kinds of people their journeys. And I also have Clearing the Creative which is where I help people with their creative blocks, great, and give them inspiration and practical advice of what they can do to move forward. My husband and I also have a podcast called Stories About Blank where we do creative writing prompts and share them with each other and talk about that process.

Elle Billing:

Oh, fun. That sounds cool. Yeah, all right, I will have you send me the links to all those, and then I will put those in the show notes.

Katie Bjärgvide:

Yay.

Elle Billing:

Thank you for being here today.

Katie Bjärgvide:

Thank you -- that was so fun.

Elle Billing:

Thank you for joining us on this episode of Hoorf! tT get the complete show notes and all the links mentioned on today's episode, or to get a full transcript of the episode, visit Hoorfpodcast.com Join the Blessed Herd of St

Winkus:

by signing up for our newsletter, you can get Hoorf episodes delivered directly to your inbox. What's more, you get invitations to our monthly Coffee and Biscuits Chat, where you get to hang out with Ricki and Elle, talk about the show, and connect on the topics that mean the most to you. You can sign up for that at Hoorfpodcast.com if you become a patron for only$3 a month, you can support the creation of this podcast, help pay my editor, and join a community of caregivers out here just doing our best. Thank you again for joining me, Elle Billing, the chronically ill queer femme who is very tired, on this episode of Hoorf! Until next time, be excellent to each other. Hoorf is hosted by Elle Billing @elleandwink. Audio editing by Ricki Cummings@rickiep00h music composed by Ricki Cummings. Hoorf is a production of Elle & Wink Art Studio LLC, all rights reserved. Hoorf can be found on all social media platforms. @hoorf podcast, at H, O, O, R, F podcast,

Katie Bjärgvide:

sin boldly.

Contributor

Ricki Cummings

Producer