There are many avenues for creative expression. Some paint. Others write. Some make videos. And others still do all this and more. Such is the case with Kathryn Hediye, or Kat, a Scotland-based Creative and the beautiful mind and soul behind the YouTube channel Pilgrim Kat.

Inspired by her brother’s ventures into YouTube, Pilgrim Pub in Edinburgh, and her own sojourning childhood, Pilgrim Kat has become a repository of stories, lifestyle advice, and calming creativity. Kat’s ideas of pilgrimage are rooted in Scripture, where she sees “the pilgrimage that your heart goes through when you’re in a season of suffering and how you come out onto the other side into a place of blessing.”

Kat currently works full-time in a dementia-specialist care home. We spoke on her day off, chatting as she sipped a mug of chai tea. Apparently, chai is “for drinking when in a creative mood” and so the perfect “spicy tea to drink during a creative chat”!

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Initially, your content mainly addressed and came from your experience as Third Culture Kid (TCK). What does it mean to be a TCK?

A TCK is someone who has grown up in a culture that is not their parents’ home culture. They have three cultures altogether: They have their parent’s culture, they have the culture that they’re living in, and then they have a third culture, which is an intersection and result of their experience. A TCK is someone who is of a mixed cultural identity and usually moves around in international kinds of circles.

Being a TCK means being a unique mash of different cultures. It’s often marked by certain positive and negative traits. Some of the more negative traits are a sense of rootlessness or homelessness. Maybe struggles with identity. Some of the positive things include being very adaptable, often very creative, very empathetic and able to connect with people of all different backgrounds.

How did that TCK identity inform your Pilgrim Kat content?

I wanted to create a kind of virtual online home and place of belonging where people who came from a similar background to me could gather. They could watch these videos and find a sense of connection and home and belonging. Often TCKs will live in places where they don’t have many people they can connect with or relate to. I really wanted to create a virtual version of that, to have a place to talk about my experiences and hopefully encourage people through it. 

Then I started to get people who weren’t at all of a TCK background watching my content and saying, “This really resonated with me.” I started thinking, “Alright, maybe there’s something a wee bit more universal about this experience.” I’ve experienced a sense of rootlessness and struggle with identity through the way my life has happened but those actually are universal human experiences. We all look for a place of belonging. My journey has been a bit more of physically moving about, but every human being wants to belong and have a sense of home and safety and security. I realized that there could be more to it. If people of all different backgrounds and walks were finding encouragement from my videos then I wanted to tailor them more to that wider audience and make it much more inclusive in that way.

Recently you’ve been more focused on “slow living.” How did you arrive here in particular?

It felt like it almost naturally fell into that because of the kind of content I was creating. I’m not a bouncy YouTuber shouting at the camera. I was trying to make content that was more calming and wholesome—lots of baking videos and nature videos and artistic painting videos, these sorts of things—because that’s how I’ve found a sense of home no matter where I am in the world: in quietly taking myself away to a creative place or going out into nature.

There was a sudden spike in the slow living niche particularly on YouTube around lockdown. Everybody was slowing down and starting to take time to have those quiet moments and get away from the busyness. People stumbled across my channel looking for that slow living content. 

Then I did a video, something like “How to Slow Down,” and that did really well. I got a really good response to it and it made me realize that that was the content people were craving. 

I was trying to help the YouTube algorithm work out what my channel is about. The term “slow living” just happened to encompass a lot of the values that were already there in the channel. I could continue making the same kind of content, but in a way where it was more likely to be picked up, without resorting to clickbait.

It’s a balance. On the one hand, you make stuff that makes you come alive, but on the other hand, you want to have what you create found by people. And slow living is a buzzword at the moment.

So it’s a buzzword, but what does “slow living” really mean? Why is it so attractive and, I’m sure you’d say, important?

Slow living is a rebellion against the busyness of the 21st century. Busyness has become of very high value, to the point where when you ask someone how they are, they say, “Busy.” That’s a very common response and it’s seen as a very positive response. Sure, there are seasons of life that will be busy and things are exciting and that’s wonderful. But when you’re continually on this loop of busyness and continually feeling a pressure to say yes to everything, then that’s often what results in burnout. 

There’s also something about how everyone says they’re busy but everyone also spends an awful lot of time on social media and watching telly. Personally, I had to start asking the question, “Am I actually busy or am I just spending a lot of time on things that aren’t nurturing and fulfilling?”

Slow living is about slowing down. Taking some spaces of quiet. Not immediately turning to social media or Netflix to fill the void. Allowing yourself to be bored enough that you can really take stock of your life and find a more mindful way to live. It helps you to live in a way more aligned with your value system, or even work out what your value system is in the first place, rather than rushing from one thing to the next and never actually stopping to have those more introspective moments. 

I think it’s very linked to creativity as well. I need to get bored to get creative.

What do you mean?

It was a weird thing I discovered when I was in Russia during my year abroad. I was living in this very small town and I had maybe three hours of classes a day. Besides that I had a lot of free time. I started to get quite bored; there was not a lot happening in the town. It was in that place of boredom and having a lot of time and space where I’d just go on these long walks along the lakeside. 

It’s uncomfortable at first because you feel like you need your time to be filled to have a sense of worth. It’s almost like who you are is based upon what you do. But it was in allowing that space, where all the sudden I found that this big well of creativity came out of me. I started writing a lot more. I started drawing a lot more and having this space for more nurturing creative activities. Having time to think, daydream, ponder brought this new inspiration that if I hadn’t had this empty uncomfortable space, it would never have come up. 

It happened naturally through the circumstances for me; slow living is working out how you can create that environment in your own life. It’s hard because when you start to get that uncomfortable bored feeling, you can easily switch on the TV or pick up your phone. I still do it, all the time, way too much. It’s choosing to sit with that uncomfortable feeling for long enough to let your soul start to speak and to let inspiration come forth.

As a content creator, you need to produce content at a certain level of consistency and quality. In light of rejecting busyness and production as a mode, how do you handle the pressures of being a YouTuber?

There can be a pressure especially when you’re in a kind of environment where there’s a temptation to make it all about numbers. How many followers a channel has seems to be indicative of how successful it is. 

I watched this video by a guy who’s recently become a very successful YouTuber and he talks about the importance of keeping yourself down to earth and keeping yourself from getting lost in the numbers. Because it can get really toxic. No number is ever actually enough. There’s always someone who’s got more than you. He says the important thing is to focus on building more depth with the audience you already have rather than building your audience bigger. Like having a really deep lake rather than a really wide lake. It’s this idea that if you focus on connecting with the people who are already there and already supporting your content, it makes the process a lot more fulfilling. You’re not treating your subscribers as if they’re just numbers. 

Whenever I get a new subscriber, I try to imagine them as a human being sitting in their room watching my videos. I try to really visualize a room full of however many people as actual human beings. I have that physical image in my head because it then brings a lot more gravity to my content production. It means that your content is easier to keep down to earth and authentic because you’re not just trying to grow numbers for your own vanity and edification. It becomes more about community. And then it almost doesn’t matter how many subscribers you have. You could have ten, but if they’re ten really devoted subscribers where what you’re making makes a difference in their lives, then it’s worth it. 

It’s definitely tough to get that balance. Recently I’ve been working full-time, so I’ve not been able to be as consistent with the content I put out. It’s been kind of hard. Initially I did feel this pressure to keep putting out high quality content but I realized that it would be hypocritical for me to be working full-time and also working really hard on the videos that take up to ten hours to make. To try and continually get that content out, burning myself out in the process of telling people how not to burn out, it didn’t make any sense. 

I’ve come to a place of acceptance. My channel may grow more slowly. I may not be as consistent with the content I put out. But I’m still going. I’d rather be less consistent but remain authentic than try and feed the YouTube algorithm monster and lose that sense of deeper connection and authenticity that I have with my audience at present. 

Throughout the various Covid lockdowns, it was easier to cultivate slow living practices. Now that things are starting to open up, there’s a high risk of defaulting to busyness. Do you have any suggestions for someone who wants to continue resisting busyness but feels that pressure to go “back to normal”?

This is something I’ve thought about a lot these last three months because I have myself starting working full-time. I’ve been wrestling with how to continue to cultivate a sense of mindfulness and slow living in spite of the fact that, at the end of the day, you do need to pay the bills and maybe your kids have loads of clubs. Life does just get busy. That’s the reality. 

What I’ve come to with it—and it’s still a process—is that it’s not about how much time you have; it’s about how you use it. 

For example, before I started working full-time, I had these lovely long morning routines where I would journal for half an hour, I’d do long yoga practices. I’d have this really restful, very slow living kind of morning routine. Now I start work at 7:30a. I get up at 5:30a and have maybe an hour, hour and a half before I need to head off to work. That is not really enough time to have this very long peaceful morning routine. What I’ve done is take what I was already doing and make each minute count. When I get up, I do ten minutes of yoga, and I try to make it as nurturing as possible. I light a candle, I have a hot drink and I allow myself for those ten minutes to be totally in the moment. I meditate for three minutes; it’s almost like, “Oh three minutes, how’s that even worth it?” But it gives you those few moments of starting every single day with intentionality. After that, I’ll sit for ten, fifteen minutes. I’ll read my Bible, I’ll look out the window, I’ll birdwatch a bit, watch the sunrise. 

In total that’s maybe half an hour of time. That’s not a lot. And I could have been rushing around trying to get ready. Instead I try to use my time in a really mindful, in-the-moment, intentional way. 

Even when I’m at work and things are really busy, I’m continually trying to be in the moment, to take deeper breaths. Trying not to get sucked into the stress of the situation. There’s all these little things I can do. At lunchtime, I could sit in the staff-room on my phone for half an hour but I try to go outside. I’ll go and sit in the garden. I’ll do five minutes of yoga. I’ll literally pick up a leaf and examine the leaf for a few moments, and that centers me. Different people have different ways of being in the moment. That might not work for everyone.

In addition to lifestyle and educational videos, you produce videos featuring original poetry. Tell me more about the process of combining the written word with moving picture. What’s that like for you as a creator to put together?

Some of the more lifestyle videos, I sit down and I research and I write a script and I put it together. I follow a formula. The poems are probably the purest part of my channel. Those little videos are like little pieces of my soul. They tend to just—I don’t want to sound pretentious, but they just come to me! It’s usually when I’m out in nature or sitting up at my bedroom window. I’ve got like an attic bedroom where it looks out over the rooftops and there’s a park. It’s often in the quiet moments, really early in the morning or when I’m cycling home late at night, that the first line will come to me. I basically just mull over that line again and again. Then so much of it is just me asking, “Well, what rhymes with that that would make sense?” And the poem just flows out. They’ve always been very nurturing and soul-filling to write.

The music I use is very important too. It’s something that one might not notice but it’s essential. Some of the poems that you hear, I have written while listening to a piece of music, which is why the rhythms go in time. I will listen to the same piece of music several times over. I don’t write the poems with pen and paper usually, I write them through speaking them. I use that same piece of music in the actual video.

Then comes the videography. Often I’m just making something for fun. I don’t necessarily have a plan. I’m thinking maybe it’ll become the b-roll in a lifestyle video or maybe it’ll be something else but I just go out to create for the joy of creating. There’s no agenda, no keyword I’m trying to target. 

I want to capture and give people watching a sense of my soul in the moment when I’m in a beautiful place or when I’m creating. I think having both the written word and the visuals creates a fuller sensory experience. Recently I’ve been experimenting with color grading. I like to make things very vibrant because that’s how I see the world and how I feel the world in those moments, very rich and vibrant and alive.

You’ve mentioned scripture as a way to connect with God and create spaces of calm. How does your faith impact your perspective on life and influence your creative practice?

From a very young age, it’s been in creative practices and creation, like all of nature, that I feel closest to God. I feel most alive in those times and spaces. When I was age seven or so, I had a sudden and traumatic move. It was a very tough time. I was grieving a lot, though I didn’t understand it like that. 

It was in that time that I turned toward creativity. I wrote poems and short stories and I started painting. It was a safe place for me. I wasn’t aware of God being around in the same way as I am now. It’s only when I look back that I realize where He was in the comfort and solace of creativity. Over the years, it’s always been in really hard seasons that I come back to painting and journalling. Writing is a way to process my thoughts and to pray, but it’s also a way that God speaks to me. 

There’s a kind of spiritual connectedness that comes through written word because it’s through written word and creation that God has chosen to show himself to humanity and share his heart and soul with us. When I read Scripture—particularly the Psalms and Proverbs and Song of Songs, which are poems, most of them, and words of wisdom—I find this connection.

God as the Creator has created all of nature and He’s invited humanity into that creative process through Scripture. He’s given human beings the gift of writing to take part in that creative process. When I create, when I write, when I spend time in nature or write about nature, I’m invited into this creative triad. It’s when I have these things together—written word, creation, art—that I have a sense of deep connection with God. I’m part of this process. 

God made human beings in His image. It’s no wonder that human beings are so creative: God is the ultimate Creator. There’s something in creating that fulfills something of humanity’s purpose.

What’s your favorite video you’ve made so far?

The one that immediately jumps to mind is a more recent one, and it’s “Slow Living in Nature.” I’ve got a lot of videos where there’s a particular part of the creative process—either the writing or the videography or the editing—that I really enjoy but I think this one, every single part of the creative process was deeply fulfilling. 

I don’t know how to describe it. It’s kind of like a poem—I put it in my poetry section—but it’s not like other poems I’ve written. It was late at night. It was really quiet, that summer dusky kind of vibe in the air. I was listening to a piece of music while looking out of my rooftop window, and these words just started spilling out of me. 

I’d recently started my new job and had been feeling a lot of pressure about it; how did this match up with the slow living thing that I’d been preaching? Then, I felt this overwhelming sense of peace. Like, you know what? I don’t need to achieve or prove anything to the world. I can create for the joy of it. I can work for the joy of it. No matter what I do or don’t do, I’m completely secure in God. He knows what He’s doing. It was a really refreshing revelation, so I put words to it.

Then there were all the bluebells. The bluebells this summer have been amazing, they’ve just been everywhere! So I put on a blue dress and I went out and filmed. It was just me wandering around with a basket amongst these bluebells. 

The end effect came together really beautifully. This was one of the first times I created something where I felt like I hit the nail on the head, like I managed to make something that really fulfilled some of my creative potential that I’d been longing after. It was even fun to edit. It ended up being a really beautiful piece and I was really, really proud of it.

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Follow and support Kat’s artistic journey…

• See more of her work and learn more about Kat on her website: pilgrimkat.com
• Subscribe, like, and comment on her videos on her YouTube channel Pilgrim Kat
• Email her with questions, encouragement, and commissions at pilgrimkat@gmail.com

Remember, every moment is precious. We are given exactly as much time as we need; so breathe deep and resist busyness as a mode of being!

Tune in next month for another Chat with a Creative! Follow the blog or subscribe to Katie’s newsletter to receive an update as soon as it’s posted.