Kindness Is Growth: Turning negative experiences into your biggest strengths with Bloom Foundation founder Andi Kay

An empowering and uplifting conversation of how a woman's experience with cyber-bullying and emotional abuse as an adolescent has lead to the creation of a community set to foster growth and support others through similar experiences.Kaitlin is joined by Bloom Foundation founder Andi Kay to discuss growth, self-love, resiliency, and much more. Andi took some of the worst moments of her life and used them to create the Bloom Foundation: a 501c3 organization helping teen girls overcome bullying and build emotional resilience and bloom into confidence as leaders. Instead of preventative measures, Bloom exists to help girls process and cope in a safe and supportive space so they can grow through what they go through.Full transcriptQUOTES"I was driving and there was a long tunnel that was seven miles long. I remember driving into the tunnel and then after a few minutes I thought, Okay, this is really long and dark. Then I started to think, Is this gonna last forever? Obviously not. But for some reason it was easy to think that maybe it will. In that tunnel I realized it is the tunnel of our lives and as long and dark, but there is always light at the other side. And there is never a tunnel that lasts forever.""they tried to bury us but they didn't know that we are seeds. And so once I heard that, I really connected to that quote and I said I feel like I've been buried but that doesn't have to mean the end of my story because I could be a seed, planted to Bloom and to grow through what I've gone through.""yes, maybe you feel like you've been buried but you've that's, that could be where you've been planted to Bloom""Children are, you know, exposed to really hurtful things. And so I think giving the tools on like, it's almost like emotional first aid kit.""I think bullying is one of the most isolating things because, and again I think it goes back to just hearing those things over and over again and, you just feel so isolated it. So yeah, being able to kind of break that and just like, no you you're enough and sometimes I think personal affirmations are great. And even I kind of touched on this in our conversation pre podcast, but and like giving ourselves grace, but sometimes you need to borrow that from others, right? Like you need to just like kind of ask for a compliment, you know? I mean so I think. Yeah we we can offer so much as the community""To hear them share about how Bloom came into their lives at a time where when Covid was happening. So they're going through that, and but they have described it just as life-changing and just hearing that is really powerful, but just to see and here, just how terrible their bullying experience was, but then learn being able to learn skills, and then now lead others, while they're going through it or just with their own stories and to see how stories can stories can like heal other people's stories or just again going back to our tunnel can like lend that flashlight to others and seeing that in real time is very empowering and just makes me very filled.""I think I what I love about kindness so much is that it's so easy to activate. It's so it's at our fingertips""I still struggle with insecurity and not feeling good enough, but my one constant can be helping others by taking the focus off my troubles, one moment to help someone in need, can give me a peace of mind and strength to keep going""although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it, and I think we always have the opportunity to just join forces in the overcoming of it""kindness is realizing too just like how much you have. You have so much support that you can give to others every single day and that's exciting.""I just think that there's so much that we so much kindness that we have, and it's kind of this action of activating it and putting it into practice. And and offering it to others is a beautiful transaction""So good to be kind to ourselves to when we make mistakes to forgive ourselves or not, you know, know that we don't have to show up perfectly in this world to be loved. But just like let you know, let ourselves be human just as we let others can human too"" just take maybe a couple moments today too, to think of it. What are those like, three to 10 reasons why I love myself and maybe share that with someone else or do that activity together because you really matter, and you're doing great things."Connect with us on social media:'Kindness Is' Podcast InstagramKind Cotton InstagramKind Cotton TikTok