Maybe you’ve seen the meme or actually saw the movie for the quote – “Nobody puts Baby in the Corner”.  Can you name the movie?  You’re dating yourself if you can.  It’s a clip from “Dirty Dancing” and it’s in reference to a time when the main character was left in her room because she was a “bad girl” and quite honestly, that was the only voice she had.  Set in 1963 among the retreats of upper New York, women and girls didn’t have much of a voice.  Putting Baby “in the corner” – well it’s a way to control a person who is special, talented, or worthy of respect should never be ignored, hidden away, or marginalized by others.  That 1 Girl in a movie, well, it’s the same story for many, until Kate Milligan came along and started a revolution.  Brace yourself. 

As Kate mentions, “story telling is a healing art.”  It’s a powerful tool on two fronts.  First, the storyteller.  There’s nothing more powerful than speaking your truth.  It’s a soul cleansing activity.  Even in the most confidential of settings, take for instance a confessional at church…you are telling a story of yourself in the reach for forgiveness.  It might be the one act that you are seeing forgiveness for, but it’s a piece of story.  For the person hearing the story, it’s an incredible call to them because no matter your story, there’s someone out there who comes as close to yours as it can be and needs to know they are not alone.  When I say close, I don’t mean exact matches, I mean life situations.  For in as much as we all think that we are “radically individuals” now a days, truth is we’re all kinda wired the same.  We all share common fears, experiences, mistakes and second guesses about our lives every day….we just don’t talk much about them.  We’re all in a silo….that continues to get taller and thicker as we watch the world from a screen the size of a bar of soap in our hands.

Kate is the story teller.  Not only by trade being a PR person, but by desire and lived experience.  As a child, Kate has JOB Syndrome.  It’s a immunodeficiency disorder that causes some eczema,  repeated bouts of pneumonia and some facial bone structure disfiguration.  Basically anything kids freak out over.  Kate was bubbly, happy and free until she met social anxiety and then shut right down.  A story almost untold but, her mom knew she needed an outlet…so…in comes Irish dance.  As the passion went into that, out came Kate once again and on with life. That story could have been the stopping point.  It could have remained unheard.  It could have.  So many others are.  Kate took her bago of tools and said no more.

A multi-media experience came about with documentary movies, filmed in jail where women in prison could finally tell their story.  No one ends up in prison without a story behind them.  For a gender that’s not really supposed to talk buch….like baby in “the corner” their untold story was part of why they ended up in that prison.  Along came some collaborators who knew how to make a documentary.  Then along came people who could grow the story through social media.  Then came the critics who acclaimed the work.  Then came the podcast to allow for those stories to be heard before it was too late to be heard and the cycle kept going back to prison.  Well, of course not all stories end up in a prison, but they all have a beginning, middle and end and in them, cross over the lives of all of us.  1 Girl Revolution hits the nail on the head pretty hard.

In our past, we’ve all got those moments.  Moments where our significance, importance and self worth are just dumped out.  It’s an unavoidable part of life.  Some can rebound from it and move on.  Some, stay stuck kicking rocks their entire life.  Others….like say Kate here…take it as a fuse that’s been lit to launch a rocket and use that one singular moment that left them in a place of isolation and loss into a movement where any woman can tell her story.  If one person hears it, even if that one person is Kate herself…..to the woman who told it, she’s been heard, seen and understood.  On the scale that Kate reaches however…one that you may see telling her story is speaking for countless others who share the same, or nearly the same.  That’s a revolution.  The kind the world needs now more than anything.

That’s what makes Kate Remarkable in Michigan.

Find every way to stay in touch with Kate and 1 Girl Revolution on their website.