HEY, I’M KATIE.

Believe it or not, I wasn’t always this confident.

For a long time, I struggled with anxiety, low self-esteem and basically no sense of self-worth.

I could catastrophise just about anything. I was incredibly negative, I found myself in unhealthy relationships, and somewhere along the way I completely lost myself.

From the outside, though, you probably wouldn’t have known.

I was pretty good at showing up with a smile and a positive attitude. Most of the time, anyway. 😂

But behind that, I was struggling.

I found myself in a long-term relationship that had completely taken over my life. During that time, I was depressed, unhealthy, sick all the time and living in fight-or-flight 24/7. My self-worth was pretty much non-existent. I’d recluse and shut myself away, and I genuinely didn’t feel like myself anymore.

And somewhere in the middle of all of that, I started teaching dance fitness classes.

I had no idea at the time how important that one decision would become.

FOR ONE HOUR, I FELT FREE

That one hour a week became my escape.

When I danced, I felt like me again.

I felt happiness flood my body. I connected with other women. I stopped thinking about everything going on in my life.

During that time, I didn’t hate my life lol.

Sometimes that feeling would stay with me for another hour or two after class. Then eventually, I’d go back to my reality.

At the time, I just thought I loved dancing.

Looking back, I can see that there was so much more happening.

Movement was becoming part of my healing journey.

I was moving my body, getting out of my head and giving myself a break from the constant stress I’d been carrying.

I didn’t have the words for any of that yet.

I just knew that when I danced and connected with other women, I felt happy again.

I JUST WANTED TO BE HAPPY

After my second long-term relationship ended, I hit a crossroads.

I couldn’t keep living like this.

I was depressed, anxious, struggling with motivation and genuinely not enjoying my life. I was attracting terrible relationships and I started to realise that something had to change. I couldn’t keep repeating the same patterns and expecting my life to somehow feel different.

I remember one day so clearly. I was at work, sitting in a dump truck, and I could not stop crying.

I just remember thinking:

“All I want is to be happy. I don’t care about material things. I don’t care how much money I have, what car drive, whether someone loves me or not. I just want to be happy for myself.”

And I meant it.

I didn’t want my happiness to depend on another person, more money or material things.

I wanted to be happy because I was me.

That moment became a huge turning point for me.

I didn’t know exactly how I was going to change my life yet.

I just knew I couldn’t keep living the same one.

SO, I STARTED DOING THE WORK

I made it my mission to try and understand myself.

I went deep into mindset and how the brain works. I wanted to understand why I thought the way I did, why I kept falling into the same patterns, and whether changing the way I thought could actually change the way I experienced my life.

I read countless books and listened to podcasts that exposed me to completely different ways of thinking.

I went to therapy. I journalled. I tried breathwork, meditation and energy healing.

I started questioning where my beliefs came from, recognising patterns I kept repeating and understanding myself on a much deeper level.

There wasn’t one magical thing that suddenly fixed my life.

It was all of it together. Learning, questioning, reflecting, and choosing grace instead of judgement when it came to myself.

And throughout all of this, I was still teaching my classes. The more I learnt about myself, the more I started seeing my own reflection in the women around me. We all struggled with doubts, limiting beliefs and fear of judgement.

The connection between mindset, movement, confidence and self-worth was becoming very clear.

I was becoming more aware of my patterns. I was changing the way I thought. And I was learning who I actually was instead of constantly trying to become whoever I thought someone else wanted me to be.

For the first time, happiness felt like something I could truly access from within, and I couldn't wait to share it with my girls.

THE WOMEN I WAS TEACHING WERE TEACHING ME TOO.

One thing that has always come naturally to me is hyping other women up.

Bringing the energy. Making people feel comfortable. Helping women feel good about themselves.

So teaching through Booty Factory felt natural to me — even while I was still working on my own confidence behind the scenes.

As I worked on myself and taught more classes, I started noticing something really magical.

Women would walk in shy and nervous. Arms folded. Worried about what everyone else thought of them.

And then I’d watch them transform in real time.

They’d start moving differently. Taking up space. Letting go.

They’d laugh. They’d make friends. They’d shake their ass without giving a fuck. 😂

Given a safe place to express themselves without judgement, these women would absolutely SHINE.

They’d leave looking like the confident baddie who had been hiding in there the entire time.

Each and every one of them was so inspiring to me.

The women in my class would thank me for helping them find their confidence.

But what they didn’t realise was that they were teaching me how to love myself too.

IT WAS NEVER JUST ABOUT TWERKING

Looking back now, I think I started Booty Factory with a much deeper purpose than I understood at the time.

I wanted other women to find their power because I didn’t know mine.

I wanted women to feel good about themselves because I knew exactly how horrible it felt not to.

I didn’t want another woman feeling the way I had felt about myself.

And the more I learnt about myself the more my desire to help other women find their own power and confidence grew into my soul's purpose.

Dance was changing me.

Community was changing me.

Mindset work was changing me.

And I know for a fact these same things can help other women too.

What started as a twerk class had become something much bigger.

AND THAT'S WHY I'M HERE NOW

Now, every step of my journey makes so much sense to me.

Movement helped me reconnect with myself. Mindset work helped me understand myself. And the women around me showed me how powerful it can be when we have a space where we feel safe enough to let go, take up space and be ourselves.

That’s why what I do now goes beyond teaching women how to twerk.

Yes, I will absolutely teach you how to shake your ass. 😂

But underneath that is the reason I started doing this in the first place.

I know what it feels like to have no confidence.

I know what it feels like to lose yourself in relationships.

And I know what it feels like to slowly find yourself again.

My purpose now is simple - I want to reach as many women as I can and share what I’ve learned through mindset and movement.

I want to help women reconnect with themselves, build their confidence and recognise the power that was already inside them all along.

I spent so much of my life looking outside of myself for happiness. Now I know it was within me the entire time.

And if sharing what I’ve learnt can help even one woman realise that for herself too, then everything I went through was worth it.