Catherine Lee
I support high level creatives and driven business owners to radically reform *each* part their money in order to transform their money as *a whole*, using a customized and specific scientifically proven psychosomatic approach.
I also work with my clients to further develop and/or refine what I call Your Singular (Genius) Work in order to better communicate and represent their work as well as deliver superior results. This is what leads to demonstrating true influence and receiving the higher investment value for your work.
I remember when I could barely stop strangers in the streets of NYC to ask for directions.
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I was afraid to annoy people or be seen as needy or dumb, despite being a highly social person.
It was irrational, and it expressed itself in various ways.
When it came to the professional positions I held, I liked to put my head down, do my work, and go unnoticed. I lived a double and fragmented life — a meek mouse by day and a wild scenester by night.
When I transitioned from working as an employee in various positions of the professional creative industry to working for myself as a freelancer, I experienced a level of pressure I never imagined. I could no longer hide.
Those aforementioned fears began to rear their head in new ways as I no longer could count on simply “just showing up”, put my head down to work, and expect to get paid.
THE TERMS HAD CHANGED.
I had to call on other faculties which were perhaps dormant or less flexed.
I was caught in what I now know as survival programming, which meant that no matter how much money I had in the bank, I still struggled to feel at ease or experience pleasure.
I was often operating in fear/stress that was silent and even unfelt (unconscious).
I struggled to turn off at night: hyper vigilant, over functioning, worrying about my clients, checking and re-checking my work, distracted while thinking about business when I was supposed to be “having fun”.
I thought it was normal — the New York way 😉
On the day I was about to deposit a sizable check to my bank account, waiting in line, I experienced my first and most severe panic attack. I had no conscious reason to be worried, especially in regards to money. I had very little to no debt, a good amount of savings, and a decent income….of course I wanted to be making more money, who doesn’t? In fact, the more money I saved, the less safe I actually felt at times. It was never enough.
It was not rational, and it also affected so many other things I most valued, including decisions related to my own creative work.
The day I experienced my first panic attack, I thought I was relaxed, except I suddenly felt light-headed; my heart aggressively palpitated and startled me out of my bored trance; my breath shortened and I struggled to swallow; my shoulders and neck tensed as the heat moved to my head and my legs weakened. What was happening to me? I couldn’t say anything. I was mute.
The room began to blur and I felt completely out-of-control. I truly thought I was dying, but I couldn’t ask for help. I just stood paralyzed turning to look at the strangers’ faces around me, ashamed and deeply embarrassed that my body was suddenly betraying me and making me feel helpless and like a complete fool in public.
“I don’t want to cause a scene.” I sincerely thought that.
The attack thankfully passed, but people around me could clearly see I was not well.
I ended up sitting on the bank couch for a couple hours as the security guards studied me nervously.
Subsequently, I suffered anxiety for over a year to the point of being nearly agoraphobic. It wasn’t because I did nothing, quite the contrary. I spent my nights on the internet watching talks on YouTube and ordering book after book. (I wasn’t on FB until 2016 when I brought my business online and had no awareness of “coaching”.)
In fact, my family and friends encouraged me to see a therapist, but I was afraid to ask for help as I was afraid to be put on pharmaceutical drugs.
But, in truth, I was terrified to ask for help — STILL.
As a lifelong athlete and someone who was from a very progressive health conscious city, I knew my body was showing me something. It was time to understand exactly WHY I was experiencing this after years of being a healthy and thriving person.
I exercised and ate well my whole life. This was different.
I knew that my fears stemmed from deep security and trust issues I could not pin point. This became my greatest fixation.
What was causing this and how to could I actually resolve it?
I knew it was complex.
As a professional creative and exhibiting artist, I never thought money would be the thing that showed me the way, not to mention the various ways I hid and held back in my own creative/critical work and expression.
It has been through uncovering my own *specific* interpersonal dynamic to *each* part of my money and dissolving the programming/trauma related to to each, using a scientifically proven psychosomatic approach, I was able to experience an entirely new relationship to money and business; thus, clearing the resistances related to my own singular expression and work so I could give it the form and shape it most deserved.
It was a few years after experiencing my own results which included receiving opportunities to present my new work at Yale University, including other critical galleries in NYC, work with Women’s Wear Daily as my client, as well as many other artists, performers, and thinkers, I began to fluidly move my work in new directions with various iterations to fully demonstrate the versatility of my ideas and approaches.
It was a few years later I decided to properly train in psychosomatic work related to this very complex and taboo topic: money, in order to further design and develop my own transformational work to support other high performing creatives/artists, who value elevated critical work and know that with each new phase comes new pressures that require resiliency and a respect for nuance, not to mention a financial foundation to properly support it.
I have since also supported a variety of driven business owners, including transformational, trauma, and business coaches/consultants, publicist, financial analysts, traders, private tour/travel, and therapists.
Catherine xx
