** At the bottom of this post-which was my contribution to the Q3 Zine edition-I’ve added an update, since this article was written in June at the same time as all the other ones.
The “Family Brand”
If I’m being honest: I’ve never not felt like part of a “brand.” In a very similar way to child stars…or kids exploited by their parents for a Youtube channel, I have been aware of public perception; and, have lived life in a state of hyper-awareness when it comes to who I am, what I do, and how others may see it/interpret it.
Before I could walk, talk, or recall memory I lived with the expectations attached to being in a Pentecostal pastor’s family; the only child of a single, sports loving, mother and elementary school teacher; dutiful granddaughter who plays the piano at church every Sunday morning and night; youngest cousin; first girl grandchild; former orphan; and the “one thing” that’s “not like the others” as an Asian in a white family from a rural area near Mexicali.
Eventually I wanted to leave the well travelled paths of brands past. It started slowly, with music I listened to or friends I had that I didn’t go to church with. A cuss word here; a tattoo or piercing there. My late teens and early twenties really kicked it up a notch when I became the “first bisexual pagan woman who didn’t go to ‘real college’ “ in my family; and “first online professional psychic operating in the county”. I changed my IG name to TheHalfassWitch, left my marketing and graphic design business, and started doing readings for money.
Blazing a New Trail
My entire life I have wrestled with whether or not to adapt or let go of hobbies, personality traits, beliefs, projects, etc. that would help me fit into whatever brands I thought defined me.
Leaving behind the family brand, didn’t mean I left behind the struggles of fitting into it. The old questions started surfacing with new focuses.
Instead of wondering if I was a good Christian for not buying into everything that comes with, I started wondering if I was a “real” witch because I still found validity in Biblical verses. Can I claim to be bisexual if I’m in a long term relationship with a CIS-HETERO WHITE MAN!? If I started with tarot, will it ruin my brand doing readings with YuGiOh Cards or Hot Sauce Packets? As an Asian witch are my ancestors mad that I work with Loki as a Norse pagan? If I’m manifesting with video games, am I doing it wrong? I don’t see anything when I’m meditating, so am I actually meditating or am I pretending? I don’t have a degree, so will people even believe I can do what I do?
These thoughts were bred from the assumption or belief that we are always being observed, judged, or are on some metaphorical stage all the time. The truth is: we aren’t. The same feelings I have when picking my clothes for Church-worried about how short or put together my clothes look-are the same ones I feel when choosing the pictures we use for zine covers, aesthetics for insta, etc.
We’ve all heard “our family doesn’t do that” or “that’s not how you are” at least once in our lives. We’ve all had our actions put in to the perspective of how others will interpret them-instead of how we interpret how they make us feel.
Rebrand of the Century
Many of us professionals or creators often get into the trap of dictating our work based on our brand-not the other way around.
As we learn and grow within ourselves, we shift into new versions of who we are or aren’t. We rebrand. Life asks us to take paths that are meant for only us-which of course means they are paths less travelled. We go through the process of shedding old patterns or pieces of self. The same way that I left my Halfass Witch behind for Kieu Co., did I lovingly release Teejay Zeigler to embrace Kieu Dang.
For me rebranding in work comes after a rebrand of self-and a rebrand of self can only come from honest self recognition outside of any expectations, preconceptions, or perceived branding of the past. In all my years doing this work educating and consulting professionals…and just plain ‘ol people, the advice I find myself giving over and over again is this:
📢 YOU are the brand.
YOU are the label. Not the industry you work in. Not the products or services you give. Those should change as you change-as your hobbies, loves, and identity. A fact of human life is change. If what you do professionally is a big part of who you are, then that inevitably will change too. Human beings aren’t one dimensional. We are multifaceted, and can’t help but be so. Often times our most insecure moments, imposter based thoughts, are just a signal that we aren’t allowing all of the facets of who we are to be exhibited. We aren’t showing “all of the brand.”
Meaningful transitions are partly TRANSITION-imagine that.
There’s always a limbo that takes place in between point A to point B of evolution. The middle exists for a reason-one of which is to give us a chance to get our bearings before moving forward into what we’re becoming. This also gives us a chance to see where we’ve been; what parts of old versions we want to keep cultivating or what to leave behind. Then we move forward, course correcting or changing where we need to.
We can find comfort and grounding when we know where we aren’t going; what we don’t know; and what we want to pursue-but this knowledge isn’t always have to be some giant unveiling with a press package. We aren’t Kardashians. We can just…change.
Let me tell you a secret:
Confronting insecurities through this process is inevitable, but these insecurities are what tell us we are human.
Part of the brand that is “humanity” is being unsure about what’s not solidly laid out in steps 1, 2, 3 for us. It’s generally to keep us safe; but, what about when life has set us up to make us insecure about change? Or knowing ourselves? Insecurity can often manifest as procrastination; lack of motivation or passion; and even creator’s block. Why? Because we’re trying to apply ourselves to a brand we don’t understand anymore-avoiding the dazzling new rebrand sitting before us. Inside we become unsettled as bits and pieces we are now, have been, and will be fly around us in a chaotic storm of identity soup.
The only way to quiet that chaos and survive the storm, is to become the storm itself. Move in power of choice. Determine where the path of your storm is headed; what bikes of being do you want to fling in the countryside; and, which cows of creation you want to whisk away with you on your journey to wherever it is you end up.
Hyper fixating on what you perceive to be your deficiencies or off-brandness won’t somehow protect you from the crass nature of them, or their existence in other people’s minds.
It merely shields you from the uncomfortably of living a fulfilling life-one that requires a soft interior to embrace and what’s in your own mind-and exasperates the discomfort of fitting ourselves into boxes that we have very well outgrown. Sometimes our mental storage is more full of other people’s boxes than our own. We grow when we transition from a public storage unit, to a personal one.
Understand that these feelings of transition-or blocking transition-usually surround questions that need to be answered. Avoiding the answer is what can cause problems. Embrace the adventure of those questions. Admit the answers that are “out of left field” based on your past. If the answer is “I don’t know,” then it requires you to learn more-about yourself, or whatever it is that’s pulling you into the great unknown.
My career on the internet has taught me to choose for myself-and how to recognize when those choices need to be made. I’m not pigeonholed to the brand of an ancestral medium; magazine editor; Sims player; interior decorator; Pentecostal prodigy. I’m not even pigeonholed by the brand that’s associated with my name.
Through all of this, I’ve learned that the “branding” in our lives lays paths and trails that we choose whether or not to follow. When we’re younger, we’ve got less choices; and, less ways to physically enact them; but as soon as we have the ability of self-awareness, cognitive thought and sentience: we do get to choose whether or not we believe the branding presented to us by others feels right.
An Update on 9/6/2023
The Family Brand, and Kieu Brand, and Teejay Brand are all in flux right now. They’re all a thread of who I am, have been, and will be. All the lessons and knowledge are weaving themselves together, to create some form of tapestry of purpose in me.
We went to Church in the last week. I am personally re-exploring a relationship with Mary Magdalene; and, have really even found a renewed passion in Christ Consciousness. I’m still a Pagan, too. I believe more in the allegory of Biblical texts within historical context, than an evangelical type of situation.
What’s just important to me right now is holding space for what I want to do. Holding space for the past me, who was lucky enough to find one of the better (but never perfect) pockets of a religious body-and am now reintegrating into my life. I am exercising my right as a human being, to be a full human being; which, doesn’t always mean that I have to be those at the same time.
My brand is defined only by who I choose to be, and what I love to do-which is help everyone that I can in my own way.
And this is how I believe we entrepreneurs continually find success:
We continually are finding ourselves. With mistakes and embarrassment as much as moments of ease or triumph. Or even just realizing how to take one thing, and make it fit into the bigger picture of your life-or moreso let it.
I of course am not sure where it’ll takes me, and that’s full of a lot of fear. It’s also full of possibility-which can only be reached through trying. I’d rather try things I want to try, than not. Do work I like to do, than work I said I was going to do on my website (I desperately need to update that). I’m trying Christianity again, but in a new way that’s very conscious. I’m trying community again through Soft Power-both in facilitation, service, and also just being held as a member. I’m trying to remember that no matter where we go, what we are surrounded by, we are the writers of our own definition.