Gratitude Blooming Podcast
Inspired by nature, art and gratitude, the Gratitude Blooming co-hosts Belinda Liu and Omar Brownson bring fresh and diverse perspectives to well-being. For us, heartfulness is the new mindfulness. Gratitude Blooming was inspired by the artist Arlene Kim Suda and her 100 Days of Blooming Love art project. Hear from culture keepers, creators, healers, leaders and so many others who share their emergent practices to build the beautiful world our hearts know is possible. Please rate, review and subscribe. New conversations each week. We want to hear what you're grateful for. Learn more at www.gratitudeblooming.com
Gratitude Blooming Podcast
Kindling Hope and Gratitude with a Candlemaker
You ever find yourself searching for an antidote to the chaos of the world? Let's journey together into the warm, comforting embrace of hope, gratitude, and the soothing scent of candles. Special guest Kate De Palma, former teacher turned candle artisan and founder of Scented Designs, illuminates us with her story of transformation. She shares her leap from the classroom to the candle workshop, and how her newfound passion became a beacon of joy and community.
Our intimate conversation continues under the soft glow of intention setting and candle rituals. We share our personal experiences, revealing how these practices have brought light and positivity into our lives. The transformative power of ancestral healing, the art of candle hygiene, and the practical use of candles as tools for setting intentions are all threads woven into this enlightening chat. So, light a candle with us as we explore these heartwarming rituals together.
Finally, we explore the importance of balance and boundary setting. Co-host Omar Brownson shares his ambitious dreams for sustainable growth while preserving his own wellbeing. We reflect on the harmony between personal and professional life, using the symbol of the Fox Glove flower, a metaphor for singing your heart's song. We wrap up our conversation with a focus on the simple practices that can spark joy, hope, and gratitude in our lives - think candles, note cards, and music. So, join us as we kindle hope and gratitude in the cozy glow of our candle-filled spaces.
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Hello Belinda.
Belinda Liu:Hey.
Omar Brownson:Omar, I'm excited to have a guest this week and you continue to have this conversation around what are we lighting up in the world and, you know, what are we bringing attention to and really, how do we find those daily practices that just give us a little bit of hope? You know, these are just, in some ways, such difficult and troubling times and I feel like I've been saying that for a while now. You know, when you and I first started collaborating during the pandemic and holding weekly spaces, and each week it felt like, oh, some big challenge was unfolding. And three years later I feel like we're still in these times, and so, you know, I think it just gives even more meaning and purpose to find these daily practices. Like what is it within our own control that can help give us sort of the self-care and the healing in the face of, you know, so much turmoil?
Belinda Liu:Thank you for naming that, omar. I feel like part of our work together is about being real with what's happening in life, and you know, this fall season is so much about gratitude and about grief and loss, and you know, I'm finding myself looking to nature right now and seeing these beautiful leaves on the trees and they're falling to the ground and so much color, yet so much loss, and it feels like that's just reflected in what's going on collectively right now. So, yeah, how do we find that inner anchor? And I am so grateful that we have amazing partners in our gratitude ecosystem to really like lift each other up.
Belinda Liu:As you know, artist collective and a small business, we are constantly trying to learn from other small business owners, and so I'm really delighted to introduce Kate De Palma of Scented Designs. Kate, you are our candle maker of gratitude blooming and it's so lovely to be able to, you know, share your magic with our community. And so I would love for you to start by just introducing your journey, because one of the areas that we've connected on in our lives has been the fact that we both were classroom teachers at one point in our professional journeys. So, yeah, how did you become? Go from a teacher to having your own business? And and how did you choose the candle making business?
Kate De Palma:Goodness well, hi everyone. Thanks so much for having me Blenden Omar, so excited to be here and just having been brought into the gratitude blooming community. I feel so fortunate to be among so many wonderful souls and that's one of the things in my journey from being a teacher to being a small business owner. For me it's been the people that's been kind of driving, driving me along and helping me find my way, because I was an English teacher four years high school, four years eighth grade, and candle making was just a hobby.
Kate De Palma:I picked up at one point because I liked being crafty and wanted to not be on the computer, wanted to be doing something with my hands, engaging the senses. But I didn't know anything about running a business. Even when I launched the business I didn't think I was starting a business. It just kind of happened. I brought candles to a craft fair. People loved them, they sold and then, you know, after the holiday rush I kind of realized, whoa, I have a business. But it wasn't. It wasn't until I kind of started joining these groups and meeting other business owners. That that's what transformed the business for me from a craft I did on the side to I'm a business owner, and let me see where that journey takes me, and that's a journey that I, of course, continue to be on, and I'm finding new things out every day.
Omar Brownson:I would love to hear a little bit more of that evolution, right From sort of a steady paycheck as a teacher, summers off. My mom is a former elementary school teacher, my dad's a professor, so you know, I appreciate also just the calling that that is often inspired by, to really then being a small business owner and really, you know, all of a sudden everything is on you and you know, and you usually you do a craft because it's just, it's a passion, right. I was recently a chair, was in a community called Ubuntu Climate Initiative and we had a gathering in Atlanta recently and the chair of the NEA, the National Endowment of the Arts, was there and she talked about amateur artists, amateur means to love, right, and so like it's a passion. When it becomes a business, you know it, it pulls on that passion in a different way, and so how's that journey and evolution been for you?
Kate De Palma:I come from a family of teachers. My mom is a preschool teacher, my grandma is a teacher, my brother is a teacher Just a lot of teachers. My husband is a teacher. I met him and there are so many things to love about teaching and when I when I kind of shifted away from that, it was more just to see what was else was out there, because I started teaching right out of grad school and you're kind of looking down, you know your life of the next 40 years, and I kind of had this like oh, I'm not, I'm not sure I want to be doing the same thing for 40 years, even though the day to day as a teacher is so different. You're always dealing with different challenges and things come up and that's part of what I loved about it is that no two days were ever the same. But just kind of looking down like, okay, it's this.
Kate De Palma:I made this decision to become a teacher when I was 21. What am I going to do with this? Really, you know the path and I just was open to seeing what it would be like to do something else. So I left teaching, took some interior design classes, like just kind of explored a little bit. You know still, I'm still in my 20s and I felt that space and I leaned into that and gave myself the permission to explore and, like I said, because the business kind of came out of just a hobby, that was never the plan.
Kate De Palma:But when I started doing it I found passion in the creation of something and the creativity of setting up a booth for a fair like you know how do you have the displays and the signage and it really appealed to that need for creativity and color and textures that I feel like I've always had. I loved scrapbooking as a kid right kind of. It's all colors and textures. And then as the business evolved, I realized that the part I loved and love now about it is very, very different than when I started to that that piece.
Kate De Palma:You were saying, omar, about amateur and I've never heard that before. But I love it and I get. I see the root, the root word in amateur and it's not the candle making itself that I necessarily love anymore Now, it's the business building, it's the networking, it's the relationship, it's the strategy. So I've seen that evolution in myself very much on my journey. But it's always like where is that passion for me? And then I kind of just follow that and I try not to tie myself down to what I used to love about it and I lean into what is the thing I love now.
Omar Brownson:It's good to know that love can evolve right.
Belinda Liu:Yeah, this is going to be a good title for the podcast. Omar Love can evolve, and what I appreciate about your story, kate, is how much of it is about your inner knowing of what do you need to feel fulfilled or find meaning, and it's less about the product and it's more about the way in which you get to the end result, which is the creativity, the relationship building like. Those are all strengths that I've seen in you as I've gotten to know you and worked with you over almost a year now, I believe.
Belinda Liu:Crazy yeah, yeah, and I would love for us to touch on a little bit of just like, the magic and the ritual behind candles. So, for those of you that are joining us on YouTube, this is one of the candles, this is the Joy candle Omar, you've got your gratitude candle and this is one of four. We have four different kinds joy, curiosity, gratitude and healing and they're all connected to our gardens. We have four gardens and note cards that align with those gardens.
Omar Brownson:Music album.
Belinda Liu:Yes music just released the Garden of Curiosity, which, I have to say, it's hard to say to have a favorite, but this one, the Curiosity one that just launched for fall, I just love it. It's so dynamic and you could look at them in one way and say, wow, these are products, these are things you can give as gifts, and it's very meaningful and they're really beautiful. But I think behind all of that is the intention, and so I'd love for us to talk a little bit about that. What is that practice of creating an intention and letting that intention inspire hope, Like you said, omar, at the beginning? Omar, what for you, is your way of creating the intention, and you've been working with the gratitude candle.
Omar Brownson:I'm curious what connections you're making in your daily life to stay inspired was very timely that you asked Belinda, because just yesterday I started working with this Indigenous healer and she invited me to really focus on some ancestral healing and work. And so she asked me to bring a basil plant, a white candle and a picture of myself when I was a younger kid. And so yesterday she uses the four directions, so north is the direction of ancestry, and so I was meditating, I lit my gratitude candle and my grandmother shared, before she left, like she wrote a series of stories like little vignettes of her life, and one of the vignettes was that she just to give some context, my grandmother was born in 1917, chinese, born in China, and went to Berkeley and studied chemistry. So I can only imagine just like how sort of pioneering of a person she was to be able to go do that. But she had moved down. Now she's in her early 40s, she's got four young kids, her husband passed away and she's now managing this motel on Venice Boulevard, and so you know she's just juggling a lot.
Omar Brownson:And she shares one of the stories where one night a customer came in and it wasn't a customer, it was a robber who had a gun, and so she was robbed at gunpoint of all the money that she had.
Omar Brownson:And this was just one moment of mini where she was like robbed with a knife.
Omar Brownson:She was like just some people just straight up, like she stepped out and then somebody took all the money and so just talking about running a small business right and in such a very tough environment, and so I had that story open, you know, with the candle lit, and I just meditated, you know, for the next 40 minutes of just like holding compassion for this woman who had faced so many barriers and continued to face so many barriers and challenges, and just she probably never had the chance to like pause in the way that I was able to pause in that moment.
Omar Brownson:And so, you know, and the healer was just like a white candle is like we have to bring the light wherever we can. And so I just really, you know and I did not do it knowing that we were going to be recording a podcast with UK today around the candle it is beautiful that there was just such intention and that I had one that was not just any random candle from the store. It was like, no, there's a lot of intention behind the theme and the focus and so, yeah, it was a very beautiful kind of way to just pause and recognize the healing work that is possible when we create room for it.
Belinda Liu:Wow, I know we've talked about your grandmother in past episodes of this podcast and it's beautiful to honor her in this particular way because I didn't realize you know some of the hardships that she experienced in that. You know just, you know feeling safe and well, that was the thing is like.
Omar Brownson:at the end of the story she even said like she was just grateful to be alive, right, that like that she wasn't harmed, and so, even in the face of that violence, she was still able to find some gratitude, which was just so remarkable.
Belinda Liu:And so in the summertime I really worked a lot with the joy candle and and I for me, I'm very sensory, like it's hard for me to write to express what I feel. It's a lot easier for me to, you know, create an experience around something or be in nature and feel something, and and so this joy candle I would every morning, instead of just like running out of bed making the coffee, checking my phone, which sometimes I do, you know, it's like what's, what do I need to stay on top of. Today, I did have this more intentional practice of every, every morning, just lighting the candle, first thing, and just having that reminder of like, okay, stay in your joy right now, because you're always being pulled to do this and that, and the other thing, especially just stewarding land, having a retreat center where there's, you know, people you got to take care of, and summer is like the biggest, busiest time of year for us. So I feel like for me, the daily practice of having that reminder was really helpful around an intention, you know, knowing that the season of the summer was going to be hard work in some ways, but also like, like, come on, remember to play, remember to have fun, and then I would literally let that candle burn for as long as I needed that reminder.
Belinda Liu:And, and for me what was nice is like the smell would percolate the room. It was this like, like citrusy, joyful smell. So even if I couldn't see the flame, I could feel the presence of the joy. And yeah, kate, you taught us something really important about candle hygiene which I never knew about before, which is, you know, in the first burn you've got to let the whole thing burn, you know, so it doesn't tunnel down. You can get the most out of the candle if you really let it express itself, and I mean, I want to say that takes about at least an hour, would you say like to get the whole top layer.
Kate De Palma:Yeah, at least I think it's about an hour for every inch diameter of the candle. So for these ones we have, it's going to take a good two hours, maybe more three hours, which I think is a good lesson to, though, right, if we're letting the candle as a reminder to pause and have space in our day and you know, part of a routine like the you need to let it burn to get to the edge. It's just, it's kind of a nice reminder to slow down a little bit and let it unfold the way you know it's supposed to.
Belinda Liu:I love that. Omar, your example is this like really deep ritual and ceremony to honor, you know, an intention or a person and mine is more around, you know, just having this like every single day reminder to like stay joyful. So I'm curious, as someone who is around candles all the time and seeing people work with your candles, what, what is a practice that has resonated for you?
Kate De Palma:I love that people will share with me kind of how they use our candles or when they will, and they range from teacher. Friends of mine say, yeah, I'll sit, I'll light one in my classroom at the end of the day because it was full of middle schoolers who went to PE. I think was sweaty and kind of gross. So I light a candle while I grade papers or a lot of people will use them as part of their morning routine. I get photos sent to me of their journaling in the morning. So journaling, you know, with their coffee or their tea, the five am, and so I love it. If people heard of that getting up at five am and I'm not an expert, but I was. A couple of women in my group were trying to institute that practice where you get up at 5am, but you don't start your day right away.
Kate De Palma:You actually have space for you know, some journaling and intentions, and they would like their candle kind of during that that piece. A little bit of meditation, yoga I've heard it with people who practice yoga the light one for their practice. So a lot of different things. For me personally, I love having them in the evening to just help me settle in after kind of a busy day of running around doing all the things. The candle just sort of reminds me to okay, now is the time to slow down. You had a productive day. It's okay if you didn't finish everything. Look like the candle, let's hang out. And I like the joy one a lot too.
Kate De Palma:Felinda, I love how energizing the citrus is. So, even though it's like evening and it's time to settle in, you know, relax, calm down. I like that little energy boost because it's a good reminder for me but even though I might be really tired from work, that I don't have to just be a blob in the evening Like now is the time to engage in a different way, to make it meaningful time spent with my family. Where I do have energy. It's just a different energy I can call forth and help me harness that time and help it be joyful for my family, where I'm not just oh my God, I'm exhausted from work.
Omar Brownson:That's beautiful. And just now, as you're kind of into this practice of building a business and you know finding those moments for your own self-care, what questions are you sort of now holding sort of in this next phase of things?
Kate De Palma:I think the question often comes down to how do I continue to grow the business while maintaining or even building better boundaries between business and my own life? So how do I build a sustainable business that continues to bring me joy and that I continue to love and that doesn't burn me out?
Omar Brownson:No pun intended. So we love obviously bringing questions into the gratitude blooming space and Belinda just pulled up the gratitude blooming digital card deck. There's seven rows, six columns, and you know she will scroll and just invite you to tell her to stop when you want.
Kate De Palma:All right number four in this row here.
Omar Brownson:All right, so one, two, three, four, holding kind of finding boundaries and not burning out. Let's see what Mother Nature has to say. Card number 34, represented by the flower Fox Glove and the theme of sing what makes your heart sing? How does your song want to be expressed? So I invite you first to just really notice the art itself and just, you know, describe what you see in the art before kind of thinking about the question.
Kate De Palma:Oh, it's so beautiful. I'm not familiar with Fox Gloves out in nature per se, like it's definitely a flower I've heard of, but if you would ask me to picture what it looks like I'm not sure I would have known. So just I love the kind of simplicity of it, kind of the tubular nature, it seems, of the petals and the stock. It seems very simple but proud. I like it.
Omar Brownson:And as you think about your question around setting boundaries and not burning out, how does the theme of seeing what comes up for you?
Kate De Palma:Oh, my God, it's so perfect. What makes your heart sing? That's all that's what I was talking about. What am I passionate about? What do I love? How do I keep loving my business, even as I love the success of it growing and getting bigger? And that question of how does your song want to be expressed? I think it's fascinating. I'm not sure how I have an answer, but I think it's to be expressed. I want my love for my business to be expressed through it growing as sustainable, and that's something I can show off as, hey look, I've built this, but I've also built this amazing life alongside of it, because that's what's going to make my heart sing. It exists, I exist, and it's not. We're not taking over each other's lives.
Omar Brownson:I feel like, as I look at the art, it almost has like an antenna sort of vibe. It's sort of like looking up and just sort of like, hey, let's see what's happening around me and just orient, because that's one of the challenges is that you can be so focused you don't see everything changing around you or the changes that are happening within you, and so how you bring those things into alignment and maybe that's you know, I think what I'm hearing is really harmony. Right To extend the sort of musical theme of harmony is like it's different voices that can come together, and so what is the voice of your life, what is the voice of the business, and how do they bring harmony together?
Kate De Palma:Totally. I love that word harmony for what I'm seeking. That's probably the answer to that question. It wants to be expressed in harmony with all the pieces of my life, all the parts of it.
Belinda Liu:And I love how the foxglove pedals. It always reminds me of a megaphone and you know, when I look at the word express in the prompt, it what comes to mind is also amplified. You know what is the message that wants to be amplified, or the feeling of harmony, or you know what is the energy that wants to be expressed beyond even the tangible thing, because I love what you said about. It's not necessarily about the candle product itself. It's like the way in which you're stewarding this business and the networks and that you're weaving together. That's joyful and and how.
Belinda Liu:You know the 20 something version of you embarked on that journey because you were like is my life complete?
Belinda Liu:You know if I, just 40 years from now, you know that was. You know the classroom was my, my stage, and it sounded like there was another stage that needed to. You know you needed to step into, and so I am curious about how you're looking at the networking or the community building as it relates to your business, because I feel like there is something around you know, omar, and I talk with Arlene all the time like what is the new, the new way of doing business in a way that is really reciprocal, where there is abundance and what we're finding is it's. There are more questions than answers and it's really not easy to weave with other people clearly where it's. You know the financial exchange, you know it's well defined and and it works. You know, I feel like we're all in this kind of emergent discovery phase. I'm curious if there are any clues that you're discovering that we can learn from and our community of people who are also, you know, exploring entrepreneurialism and, you know, having their own business.
Kate De Palma:Well, when I first started the business, I felt very much like I was working by myself at home, not having this connection with other business owners. And when I first started meeting more people who are also running businesses, you start to connect with them, usually over struggles, right, what's? How can you grow? You know you need help with something. You're asking for help and I think that's just. The first step is recognizing that you do need help. You're not an expert at everything and that it's okay and it's only going to. I like that word you used abundance. Bring abundance into your business and into your life, if you're, if you're open to it. So for me, my business was transformed when a photographer found me on Google and all of a sudden I was making branded candles for his business. And then from him I started meeting kind of this. It was a snowball effect of other business owners I met, I met my, my product photographer and the makeup artist who's helped me when I've done speaking events. And then this business group I joined and you just realized that there's so many other people out there that, like I didn't even know groups like that existed. I didn't know masterminds existed or collectives or whatever you want to call it. But once you sort of find them, you've you've found your people, and I think it's just thinking about whatever area you're in or whatever business you're in, your people are out there, your network is out there. You just need to, I guess, be open to finding them or looking for them, or being open to unexpected collaborations. That's often how I think of of that very first one, because he was it was a Boudoir photographer, which I just thought was the oddest thing, that I was making candles for him, for his clients. But in retrospect it made total sense because it's all about, like, confidence and setting, setting the scene and and then joining. You know this, this moment of empowerment, and the candle to totally fit in. But I didn't think of that and he did.
Kate De Palma:So what are ways that you can enrich other people's business or ideas you can kind of bring up with them that they went to thought of, and vice versa. So it is this, this give and take. You're not just there to take and you're not just there for a transaction, right? You mentioned kind of that financial piece of it. If you look at it as a collaboration and not just a transaction, there is so much more to it than just that. There's building community together and learning together and growing and doing things like being on Instagram Live and podcasts, where you're meeting each other's community. There's such a level of trust there that you, for example, are bringing me in to meet your people. That says a lot. I think building connections that way is what's really going to move the needle in your business, because it's genuine and comes from your heart. If we go back to the card that I drew, heart comes up. So you're building connections from the heart and not just for the money you would put in your pocket.
Belinda Liu:There's a real clue there, Kate, with the way that you are so collaborative. I feel like that's a real strength, Even when we were meeting to do a candle handoff and talking about, oh my gosh, how are we going to do fulfillment for these candles over the holidays Because they are a really meaningful gift and to even be sharing that load literally. Maybe we could do it together and figure out a way to centralize this. I feel like that is the ecosystem is how do you get to that level of tangible exchange? That's definitely something that we want to help amplify, and Omar and I are constantly trying to figure out an unpack. What is this gratitude ecosystem really mean? I feel like there's a clue in how we're working with you.
Omar Brownson:I love that. Who are your people? I feel like that's such an important reminder that that's who you are here to help serve. It makes me think of the roomie quote if everything around seems dark, look again. You may be the light. I feel like that's what you know, and then when you have an ecosystem of people who are trying to be the light, that's how things change. If there's anything else that you would love to share with our community about either your journey or the candles, otherwise, I'd love to be able to close this out with the song Sing from our album.
Kate De Palma:I just want to say thank you again for having me and bringing me into your ecosystem. I truly am just. I love the candles we're creating together for gratitude blooming, the curated sense selection. They fit the intentions so, so well and that was one of the best things about early on when we met Belinda to go over. We are so careful about choosing the perfect sense and sense samples and to really embody those intentions and just the pure level of intentionality that went into that. I love it and I can't wait to see where our collaboration continues to go, because there's just candles and gratitude and mindfulness just match made in heaven. So I'm really excited to continue to embrace that journey with you.
Omar Brownson:Well, thank you, Kate, for joining us, and you know, I think that word embodiment is really it's what got me into gratitude was like I had done meditation and mindfulness and still do, but gratitude it's like it's in the body, right, and this is really the ecosystem that we're talking about is like the candle, is like it's something that you can see, it's something that you can smell, and the music is something that you can hear, and so it's just like how do we create really the environment that we want to embody and live into? And so I'm excited to now share the song Seeing off of the Garden of Joy album.
Belinda Liu:There is how that felt to hear the song of saying you know, just as a question for our listeners and our viewers, and also the three of us just have another layer of connection with this card.
Kate De Palma:It was so peaceful. I felt calm in the middle of a busy day and I just enjoyed having a moment listening to the. I felt like I was sitting outside in the middle of a garden and it was just grounding, with the word I thought of.
Omar Brownson:It had like almost like a wind chime, like you could imagine the way that the sound was sort of almost like sprinkling. He created this like wind chime or they created this kind of wind chime sound to it.
Belinda Liu:It was interesting. I've never heard the music in this way of like processing it, you know, with these layers, and when I had my eyes closed and hearing it I felt like I was underwater and the water was singing. It had this kind of otherworldly watery feel. So it's kind of interesting that we all had a different sensation hearing the song of sing.
Omar Brownson:Yeah, from a garden to wind chime, to sort of a waterfall of rain. Well, this is what is beautiful about the practices is that it really is an invitation for you and what speaks to you. There's no right or wrong, it's just actually just creating the space to pause, and so we appreciate you pausing with us today and we wish our listeners, you know, grace in these times and invite these very simple practices. Just lighting a candle, listening to a song, you know, reflecting in your journal, whatever practice works for you is the right one, and you know, and I think anything that we can do to support that is important.
Belinda Liu:And I'd love to offer up, you know, a 10% off with the promo code of sing in our shop for everyone, as you are really, you know, trying to find joy, hope, gratitude during these times. And you know I love having the note cards now to go with the candles Literally, I'm not a journaler but I love to reflect, you know, the candle with the card and with the song. So it's just really nice to have all of these visual reminders in the space. So, yeah, offering that up to everyone that's looking for some of that inspiration or a nice gift for the holiday season. Wonderful.
Belinda Liu:Thank you so much, Kate and our listeners. Cheers.
