We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful OPI KAUR. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with OPI below.
OPI, thanks so much for taking the time to share your insights and lessons with us today. We’re particularly interested in hearing about how you became such a resilient person. Where do you get your resilience from?
I grew up in inner city Manchester where the rain doesn’t stop with my parents and 4 siblings. My dad spent his nights working in factories and sleeping throughout the day, in bad times which came every few months he spent his nights drinking and missing for days or weeks. My mother was depressed and overwhelmed, most of our childhood and alone. All the anger she had for our father was taken out on us. At the age of 12 I began writing a diary, I didn’t know it then, but I was making space to manifest. I dreamed about a better life, leaving home, having money… One afternoon, I was walking down the corridor in college, I was 17 at the time, and the words ‘Gap year in Canada’ grabbed my attention, they were written on a flyer, I quickly stuffed it in my bag.
When I read it later, I learnt that to be able to go I needed to pay for my flights, visa, have 1000 pounds to get in and a place in University. I wasn’t planning on going to Uni, There was less than a year to go, and I was only earning €3,61 an hour at my saturday job.
But, I had this deep knowing that I had to go.
I started applying to universities, and looking for more jobs. They next few months were intense, I didn’t rest, I had this desire pushing me along. I didn’t get the grades I needed to get me a place in uni, but a teacher who liked me questioned the other teachers grading and managed to bump me up, just enough to be qualified to get in to a Uni I had no plans on going to.
I managed to pay for my flights and visa, but even with my 3 jobs wasn’t able to save more than €300 extra. On the 14 hour flight to Canada I cried, I had just turned 18 and had nothing more than my first nights accommodation, I had no plan and I was shit scared I would get deported as soon as I arrived. But no one checked my account.
I was in! I was in Vancouver, an expensive city and I had to find work, I got out and started job hunting, met people in the hostel that I ended up sharing an apartment with and knew I couldn’t fail, because I didn’t want to go back – I couldn’t go back. I learnt what it meant to go hungry and save pennies for one snack a day. I learned that I could accept this for myself or push for more. I got better jobs, better pay, met extraordinary people, and one day it truly hit me, I looked around me and everyone was happy at ease, the sun was shining and the landscape was beautiful, I thought wow, life can be easy and beautiful. I made a decision that day, that I would accept nothing less.
That year transformed me into someone confident and fearless. I believe things work out if we believe they will. And I encourage others to jump into the deep end first, everything else will feel less scary.
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?
My adult years were spent moving from place to place somewhat aimlessly as I searched for a better life, having once found it this way. In 2012, I moved to Spain. It was meant to be a one-year thing: teach English and move on to the next best thing. However, after I had handed in my notice, I met someone, so I decided to stay another year.
Stillness, boredom, and not being able to run when the going got tough were the best self-development tools for me.
In 2014, I reconnected with my love for celebration and events and hosted my first event, connecting small creative businesses, music, and contributing any earnings to an NGO that helped refugees.
From that event, another came, and I quickly realized how much waste was accumulated in weddings and events. It wasn’t how I lived my life, and it felt wrong to have a company that didn’t align with my values. I secretly decided to focus on waste-free events—no plastic, using local materials, and hiring local vendors to pour money back into the community. Only once I had a portfolio to show how beautiful an eco-conscious wedding could be, I started branding Open the Door Events that way. As one of the pioneers of eco-weddings, we paved the way for many more industry vendors to take this route. In 2020, we were interviewed by Vogue for our inspirational eco-friendly designs, and this year, we celebrate 10 years of Open the Door Events! We are growing as a company and over the years have designed weddings and events in 7 countries around the globe. We also launched our first course for event planners this year, focusing on reconnecting with purpose, creativity, and mindset.
To celebrate our decade in the industry, I am designing a community festival to celebrate with everyone who has supported us on our journey: our clients, Instagram community, friends, and family. The festival will take place on the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd of November, and I will be inviting artists, musicians, holistic practitioners, and the charity we have partnered with over the years, which regenerates arid lands into fertile ones. It’s going to be an immersive event for those who want to connect with like-minded people or learn about how to live in harmony with themselves, nature, and what wealth really means. So if any readers out there want to come, sign up for our newsletter for information on how to get involved.
We are currently searching for an art director specialised in creative immersive installations. It’s important for us to have an evolving company, and with that comes new ideas.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
Asking others for help. For a long time, I tried to do everything alone. My conditioning taught me that I was the only person I could trust, and because it had always worked for me, I struggled to do everything alone. Thanks to my husband (the person I met who made me stay another year in Spain), he opened my heart and showed me that people were good and humans are meant to lean on each other. Alone, we can only go so far. Because I have expanded my team, I am able to continue with other life projects like my writing!
To stop taking things so seriously. I love this quote and use it often: ‘What would this look like if I enjoyed it?’ I am using it a lot these days. I have always aimed for perfection, especially when it comes to how I come across. And in a few weeks’ time, I am speaking in front of 500 people at a conference in Florence. I really want to enjoy it. I take life too seriously, but it’s something I am working on—I want to have more fun and laugh at myself more.
What’s the worst that could happen? When you’re scared about doing something, play the worst-case scenario game and then laugh at yourself. Fear and worry are part of us to help us survive, but there are no dangerous tigers lurking in the shadows, just your weird thoughts. Get over them and go do what makes you scared, and then come back and thank me. We only grow when we step out of our comfort zone.
As we end our chat, is there a book you can leave people with that’s been meaningful to you and your development?
Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself: How to Lose Your Mind and Create a New One by Joe Dispenza.
All my life I battled with anger. It was written so deeply in my subconscious that most of the time I didn’t know it was there. But, when it emerged everyone knew, especially the people I loved. It was muscle memory, habits that had been created without my permission.
Growing up, I heard my mum say over and over again – He will never change, people don’t change (referring to my dad).
When you hear things constantly, you begin to believe them.
I started meditating around 7 years ago, and I began to get hooked on the feelings of calm and tranquility, meditation lead me to breathworks and that lead me to taking my life back.
The book by Joe Dispenza was a game changer for me, along with other rituals like full moon releases and new moon manifestations, journalling since the age of 12 and meditation, this book showed me how to change through subconscious reprogramming through breathworks and meditation.
Our thoughts are what control our life, each carry a vibrational frequency and what we release is what we attract. The thoughts we have are very possible to change, but we need to do that by hitting the daily reset button first thing in the morning by meditation.
My anger doesn’t control me anymore, I don’t need to explode to rebalance. If a negative thought comes, I let it go.
Presence is the most important tool if you want to navigate your life.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.openthedoorevents.net/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/openthedoorevents/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/opi-kaur-7b2399225/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPjHT2YrRugDny7Bi6FXg2w
Image Credits
Photos taken by my husband Joy Zamora https://www.instagram.com/joyzamoraphoto/ https://joyzamora.com/
