Being and Becoming: In Conversation with Kaitlyn Cahill
Kaitlyn is truly such an inspiration to me and I am so grateful for her positivity in my life. I mentioned in our podcast conversation, but Kaitlyn is genuinely someone who makes others feel as though they can be themselves, and seeing her live her truth inspires me, and I’m sure so many others, to do the same. If you have had any difficulty finding yourself, or living in alignment with your highest self, make sure you listen to this episode so you can hear how Kaitlyn has learned to, and continues to grow through, embracing herself.
One of the most powerful things Kaitlyn offers in this episode is her philosophy, “Live a life led by love,” and that is one of the most beautiful ways one could ever choose to walk through their life. Of course, I believe everyone should live an examined life, but whenever in doubt, leaning into love will never steer you wrong.
Hearing Kaitlyn talk about how the way she lives her life all boils down to one principle made me think about the necessity of deeply examining our lives, and further, not just cognitively thinking about our philosophies, but discursively putting actionable words to inspire that philosophy. It’s hard to think about what you believe to be true about life, but it’s even harder to intentionally live your life in accordance with that.
How, as people who are asking these big questions, do we actively develop a life philosophy? Kaitlyn discusses how part of this has been an intrinsic belief she’s always had, and we can’t ignore that, but she also includes the way she’s actively made conscious choices towards living in accordance with this. Making meaning is a deeply intellectual process, but it means nothing if we don’t apply those principles into our daily lives. Living a meaningful life requires that we live it.
I think beginning to think about your life philosophy, and actually living it, go hand in hand. Without testing out the principles you develop, you will never know how living out your principles actually feel. And vice versa, without thinking about the life principles we want to enact, we will not have a philosophy guiding our actions. As you live and gain meaningful experiences, your principles will be honed to better match what you find to be true about the world, but comparatively we cannot let solely our own personal worldview be the only informant of this philosophy.
Living in alignment with our highest self and meaningful values means balancing the notion that we are imperfect beings striving for perfection with being thoughtful beings leaning into a bias towards action. Living a meaningful life combines the difficulty of thinking about how we want to live with the bravery of trying something without knowing what’s going to come of it. Whether or not we are intentionally choosing how we make meaning, we are making it, so holding onto the comportment of being a human, we must stand within the tension of not knowing, and knowing, answering the call, and calling, being and becoming.
To further explore the things discussed in this blog post, check out the below resources and recommendations.
Recommended by the Guest
Vlogbrothers On Youtube
Daring Greatly by Brené Brown
Books
Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert
Library of Babel by Jorge Luis Borges
I hope you all enjoyed this conversation as much as I did! If you want more content, subscribe to Making Meaning on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, and subscribe to the blog so you never miss a post! If you want to join the conversation, follow us on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Tik Tok @thecoherecollective and leave a comment sharing your thoughts on this episode. If you want more of Kaitlyn, follow her on Instagram @cahill.kaitlyn.
Until next time, so much love!
XX
Reese, Founder
The Cohere Collective
