Meet Kathrine Yets

We recently connected with Kathrine Yets and have shared our conversation below.

Kathrine, we’re so excited for our community to get to know you and learn from your journey and the wisdom you’ve acquired over time. Let’s kick things off with a discussion on self-confidence and self-esteem. How did you develop yours?

Most of my life, I had extremely low self-esteem, lacked confidence, and was so shy to the point of developing social anxiety.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?

I am an educator and a poet. These two pieces to my identity are both interchangeably important and most of the time go hand in hand. I have taught ages 8 through 80 at various schools, colleges, universities, and organizations. In the summer of 2023, I established and now instruct various themed poetic workshops through my own LakeSide Poets & Writers along with offering personal poetic sessions for edits, critique, marketing advice, author website development assistance, performance enhancement, and more to individual writers. There have been various collaborations over the years, including Better Together with Food for Thought Society, Writing Your Way to Work (& Purpose) with UW-Milwaukee Quest Project and AWWI W-2 program, First Day Fits, and many more. I strongly believe poetic growth must be accessible to everyone, so the majority of service offerings are free to the community, and for the ones that do cost, the price is significantly discounted by about 90% for students, veterans, disabled, and those in need or financial hardship. Education and poetry are my passions, so of course, I have to share.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

Empathy is my greatest quality. This is a necessity as an educator and poet to truly connect emotionally and personally to any person or at least most individuals through the heart and soul fully. Inspiration is close to impossible without an internal knowing of trials and triumphs. I am not ashamed to say I cry a lot with sadness and joy for students, clients, strangers, and all those who choose to share their stories with me. Kindnesses and cares should not be miracles, yet for many, these positive acts and reactions feel as such since they are far and few between, and this used to shock me, because I had thought empathy was innate for everyone, but sadly, that is not the case. If not born with this vital quality, this needs to be learned not only for self success, but for the success of society as a whole. This I surely believe and hope for. So I highly recommend trauma informed training, courses on compassion, mental health first aid, and other learning to build this quality.

Confidence is not the main key but certainly helps as a skill and can be developed over time. Most of my life, I had extremely low self-esteem, lacked confidence, and was so shy to the point of developing social anxiety. There was a while in grad school where I feared to even leave the upper duplex I lived at the time. I would stare at the esthetically atrocious old popcorn ceiling, attempting to calm myself enough to go to my librarian night shift at the college for my graduate assistantship. Luckily, during the time I became practically agoraphobic, my best friend Cory Tracy told me about the book Feel the Fear & Do It Anyways by Susan Jeffers. He gave me a typewriter typed copy of the five truths that I pinned on the visor in my old Camry. These truths and his encouragement became my mantras and were part of what snapped me out of what felt like an insurmountable problem. Many assisted along the way to becoming confident in myself, so I want to take note that while confidence can be built on one’s own, having a little help from friends certainly boosts.

As far as knowledge obtained, grammar is near the top of my list. The most important knowledge I have learned shifts, but grammar consistently proves to be a device I learned that impacts daily. A poet I know posted on Facebook that his student asked, “When people are dying, why does grammar matter?” This question sparked me, igniting indignation, yet on the flip side, the devil’s advocate inside retorted this feeling was in ways privileged and pompous, so I knew I had to reflect on the whys behind my initial response. No joke— grammar does save lives among other pivotal catalysts whether positive or negative. Without being able to communicate in comprehensible ways, there is no way to make change sing. The grammar does not need to be standard by any means but understandable. And if played with enough, knowing patterns, structures, syntax, etc., then simple or complex statements become influential. From “I have a dream” to “Do not go gently into that cold night,” sentences and how they are chosen to be stated matter. Maybe if more chose to embrace the power of linguistics, there would be less violence and death. Or maybe more. Depends who is speaking. Either way, grammar is one of the most powerful tools to be knowledgeable about. I am not saying go out and get a college degree in English or related (I would actually advise against this to a certain extent unless planning on going for a difficult and bumpy career life such as I had), but do take some time to read, write, and play with language.

Alright, so before we go we want to ask you to take a moment to reflect and share what you think you would do if you somehow knew you only had a decade of life left?

If I had a decade left to live, I would spend it mostly living as I have, dedicating my time and efforts to help people improve some aspect of their life whether that is teaching Language Arts to an adult on path to obtain their high school diploma or reviewing an author’s final manuscript. I often ask in classes or workshops on the topic of career exploration if they know the definition of vocation. Generally, the answer is no. I ask then what does this word sound like? Sometimes, someone will chime in with the answer, but if not, I will sing, “Aye, aye, aye, I’m on…” and they will respond “vacation.” Being in a vocation is living a vacation every day– being in alignment with what meaning is made of, defined by personal preferences.

I recently read Wolf’s Project of Worth Theory because I was researching for new mental wellness tools and through this rabbit hole, started to dive into life purpose. This was the only theory I was not familiar with, and overall, while reading, I realized most of my life I have held onto projects of worth that gave me purpose, even in my lowest and most deepest depressions. I would sum the elements of projects of worth in this way:
1. Passion Project
2. Sincere Encounters
3. Placing Purpose
4. Deliberate Positivity
5. Influence Environment

I have been near death a handful of times, at times at my owns hands, and if I knew I would be gone tomorrow, in a year, in a decade, in fifty years, etc., I would keep on keeping on as I have as an educator and poet. Anyone who has otherwise to say really needs to reevaluate their lives and discover the whys in order to change their daily. I am not where I am by some fluke or luck. One way or another through heaven and hell on earth of trials, errors, and successes over the years, I made my existence as it is. And I will keep making every minute stellar as I am able within my means and capabilities.

And I suppose I would buy a boat. I should buy a boat.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://sites.google.com/view/authorkathrineyets/home
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/author_kathrine/
• Facebook: https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fsites.google.com%2Fview%2Fauthorkathrineyets%2Fhome&h=AT0CzpM4Zb9b0p1Ci5mkd086fTJlprhp1U_3FB8eiP_OIOPolo4pDeQ6nB_W1HTJ8ubmRVmGs9AviMCRAPpsSXJzG6ItY_0uHCg0p2eS0BIpsVQ0_7nVki6kryCrlWXTK8XGUR8yJ6eER0tB1q4K2w
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kathrine-yets-0035ab198/