“I feel such strength within me because of all of the hardships that I went through,” says Lindsay King. She was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Her dad is from Little Grand Rapids, Manitoba and her mother is from Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation in southern Ontario. After her parents separated, she lived with her mom who worked as a nurse. Her mom nursed in places like Laredo, Texas and Owyhee, Nevada before moving them back to her home reserve in Ontario. 

When King was 19 and living in Thunder Bay, she had her daughter. Being pregnant motivated her to finish high school. She wanted to work in nursing like her mom but didn’t excel at math or science. When she became a mom, she wanted to do social work because so many people confided in her and she was so empathetic, her natural instinct was to help people who were hurting. She did a three-year program at Confederation College in Thunder Bay, and worked in child welfare for most of her twenties and thirties with Indigenous children and families. 

Now, King does something completely different. She’s always been drawn to fabrics and her mom, as a single mom, took them to second hand stores to pick out their clothes. Going through hardships and childhood trauma, getting dressed up and doing her hair and makeup helped her feel good about herself. 

When King worked in social work, she daydreamed about selling clothes in a store. She had the opportunity to move to her mom’s reserve to study fashion for a few years in Toronto. After never sewing in her life, she found it came naturally.

“I really, truly believe that we're all born with gifts, and it's so important to pay attention to those strong feelings you have throughout your life and again, even when you're going through hardship or healing from difficult things you've experienced, those gifts stay with us, through thick and thin. Those gifts are always going to be there within you, and it's a matter of believing in those gifts and getting to the point where you can access education or access training so that you can basically honour and practice those gifts,” she reflects. 

Studying fashion, her soul came alive. She found mentors and traveled to Italy to study leather bag making. She went back to social work for a few years because she couldn’t afford to start her brand but she kept learning. Eventually, King received her Indian Days School settlement money and the $150,000 allowed her to quit her job and start her online store selling jackets and outerwear. She has a team that does the sewing for her collections and her life has completely changed. 

When it comes to her motivation, King says, “my motivation was that dream within me, and… I would like to believe that we all have… something that we're so passionate about. It doesn't matter if you come from the reserve or grew up on the reserve, or even if you're in an isolated community, we all are born with gifts, and we are meant to share those gifts with the world. Sometimes you have to leave the reserve and go and access and obtain education in order to practice those gifts and learn more about those gifts that you have within you so that you can be in a place of then sharing those gifts with the world.”

As far as obstacles go, King’s sister passed away from cancer at 26 and King also went through divorce and financial hardship. Growing up on reserve, she had difficult childhood experiences she now feels brought her strength as a mother, grandmother and business owner now. What she’s found is that sometimes hardship is overwhelming and reaching out for help is necessary. King has struggled with extreme anxiety and panic attacks due to trauma herself that she’s had to learn to heal from.

“My story may look a bit different from yours, but at the end of the day, we're all human, and we all have experienced some sort of tragedy or hardship or grief, loss or anxiety.” 

If King could share a message with her younger self it would be to be kind to herself. “I think something that we don't learn from a young age is like how to truly love yourself and we're hard on ourselves,” she observes, thinking about how she rehashes past mistakes. “It's important to just be kind to yourself, because in each moment of our lives, we're always doing the best that we can do with what we know….when we know better than we can do better,” she reinforces. 

“I would not be where I am or who I am today if I didn't experience the hardships or the mistakes or those tough lessons, so I've learned to be kinder to myself now and love myself more and again, it's still a work in progress, because there's times where I do get down on myself still, but again, that’s a part of our human experience,” King confides.

As I've gotten older, I've realized, I'm not alone, I have those spirit helpers with me, and it's really about moving energy.”

To maintain her mental wellbeing, King prays and turns to her ancestors and spirit helpers. She also finds movement and yoga is important as well as talk therapy, whether that’s to a therapist or to a friend or family member. She’s realized it’s about mindset, too, and not getting stuck in her feelings is important. Another thing she’s come to learn is that some phases of life are hard but she’s had to trust that not all phases are like that. 

Trusting her higher power and believing that things will shift is an important part of her ability to maintain perspective and not getting stuck. King’s learned that nature is the best medicine for her, with hiking and time on the land healing her soul. Yoga and moving her body has also helped, as well as surrounding herself with good, healthy people and good friends.

Fashion and fabrics always fascinated her but it took time until Lindsay King could pursue those dreams and build her brand. After losing her sister, her marriage, dealing with financial hardship and many difficult childhood experiences, she struggled to overcome anxiety and panic, too, while helping others with their challenges. Working as a social worker while daydreaming of what she really wanted to do, Lindsay King made a difference for Indigenous families in Thunder Bay with her empathetic spirit.

Thanks to Alison Tedford Seaweed for authoring this article.