Rooted in Her Story, Rising on Her Own Terms: Kathleen Besas’ Journey of Reckoning

She earned the degrees, climbed the ladder and reached the top; but it wasn’t until she reconnected with her roots that she truly found herself.

To many of us, reaching the top is the ultimate feat, the greatest finish line. But for Kathleen Besas—a nurse of over 12 years and a Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP)—it felt like a question mark. 

“I was a type A student,” Kat admitted. “An overachiever, a perfectionist. Because I was the eldest daughter who had to figure everything out first.” This perfectionism added more pressure to herself, and the expectations that came with being a first-generation immigrant made it feel like failure was never an option.

“A wise man once told me, ‘Bahala og dili ka highest score, basta perfect,’ which translates to ‘It doesn’t matter if you don’t get the highest grade, as long as you have a perfect score,'” Kat shared about how her grandfather used to hype her up with this silly but oddly motivating advice.

And true enough, looking back at the years she spent grinding through nursing school, Kat did chase that perfect score. She graduated cum laude with her BSN from UCLA in 2013, completed her master’s degree, and in 2024, earned her doctoral degree—the pinnacle of academic achievement in her field.

But here’s what nobody tells you about reaching the top: sometimes, the view isn’t what you imagined. As Kat navigated this uncertainty, she started asking a different question: What do I actually want for myself?

“I realized that no matter how much I have achieved on paper, it will never be enough,” she said. “I was seeking approval and validation from a system that was not designed to keep me in mind as a woman and as a woman of color. I found myself exhausted from the constant chase of the ‘next goal’ or the ‘next achievement’ with no satisfaction nor fulfillment.”

But despite all the questions, struggles and self-doubt, Kat still pushed through. As it turned out, the road forward led her back to herself. And in that reckoning, she finally found what she had been searching for all along.

The Price of Belonging

Kat was just 13 years old when her family immigrated to the United States from Bohol, Philippines. It’s an age that sits in a peculiar in-between: young enough to absorb a new culture but old enough to remember exactly who you were before.

“Thirteen is a tender age,” she shared. “You’re young enough to assimilate into the mainstream culture but also old enough to retain your own culture and values. I still speak Bisaya. I speak Tagalog. So I’ve always struggled with that kind of bicultural identity, and I didn’t know where I truly belong.”

For many first-generation immigrants, the struggle for identity and the need to belong was a common denominator. And Kat was no exception. “I faced [a lot of] bullying because of my accent before, ironically from people who looked like me. And that somehow affected me psychologically, but now I’m past that,” Kat admitted. 

To cope with these challenges, she diverted her struggles to academic excellence. She chased achievement and turned it into her ticket to earn a seat at the table. Her education became her armor and her degrees became proof that she was worthy of belonging.

“Sometimes I had the deepest yearning to have a role model to look up to: to guide me, to tell me I’m doing just fine, to tell me that I’m headed in the right direction. But I had no one; I just had to be that person for myself.”

And Kat did climb the ladder to success and achieved her proudest professional achievement, becoming a doctorate graduate. But somewhere along the way, this long pursuit of fitting in began to cost her many things including her identity and her relationship with her mother.

“When I found my voice through doing those things, it unfortunately didn’t quite fit with what my mom expected me to be. She had certain expectations of what a model Filipina daughter should look like. But I wasn’t really like that anymore,” Kat recalled. “She told me I was too Americanized and somehow lost my Filipino-ness along the way.”

In the end, Kat had the biggest realization that pivoted her life. The doctorate was supposed to be the pinnacle, but instead, it became a turning point.

Coming Back Home

At 35, unmarried and without children, Kat found herself at a crossroads. She had achieved everything society told her to achieve, and yet, she felt empty.

“You don’t understand that until you get to a point where you have this goal in mind that you thought was the goal all your life. And when you get there, you realize it’s not it,” she reflected. “And I think it’s a luxury to be able to realize that it’s not always about being at the top to feel recognized and validated by everyone.”

It was during this season of questioning that Kat began reconnecting with her mother, and mending the very relationship that had been strained by her pursuit of American acceptance. Her mother, a former businesswoman in the Philippines, had always encouraged her to explore entrepreneurship and online ventures. But Kat had been too focused on the nursing path to listen. Now, with her doctorate complete and nowhere else to climb professionally, Kat finally opened her ears.

“My mom has always been pushing me to do social media, online entrepreneurship,” Kat said. “She kept telling me, ‘That’s the kind of world we live in now.’ So I was like, you know what? I have nothing else to do. Let me try this.”

What started as an experiment became something much deeper. Kat launched She is Rooted and Rising, a platform born not just from her desire to connect with other women, but from her journey back to herself.

“My mom is one of the main inspirations behind the brand,” she shared. “She left a lot of what she built for herself in the Philippines to sacrifice for us. For me to push forth the dreams that she did not fulfill for herself gives me a sense of fulfillment.” As a result, the platform became a bridge and a way for Kat to honor her mother’s sacrifices while healing the rift created between them.

Rooted First, Then Rising

She is Rooted and Rising is a community lifestyle brand that hosts events, workshops and provides resources for women to dig deep and have honest conversations with themselves and with others who share similar struggles.

“We’re not meant to do life alone,” Kat emphasized. “Life is supposed to be shared in community and with community, especially with all the uncertainties of today’s world.”

The brand also offers apparel like shirts, crop tops, crewnecks and sweatshirts, as a visual representation of its message. But beyond the merchandise, the heart of the brand lies in its name.

“Only when you’re rooted to yourself and to who you are on the inside—then can you rise.” For Kat, this philosophy isn’t just a tagline. It’s a lesson she learned the hard way.

“I wanted to hide my Filipino-ness because I wanted people to like me,” she admitted. “But it cost me in the end. The more I did that, the further away I got from my true self.”

Balancing the Hustle with Grace

Juggling a full-time nursing career while building a business on the side isn’t easy. Kat is the first to admit that it takes meticulous time management, planning, organization and strict boundaries to maintain a healthy relationship with her entrepreneurial pursuits.

“It starts with practicing small daily habits, setting hard stops at the end of the day where I force myself to log off mentally from any business planning or content creation,” she explained. “I also schedule rest as an essential part of my weekly routine.” Kat recalled that her perfectionism, a byproduct of being an overachiever, has been both a blessing and a challenge for her.

Prayer and meditation have also become non-negotiables. Kat sets aside time for grounding rituals first thing in the morning and right before bed; habits she believes will ensure a sustainable pace for both her and her business to flourish long-term.

“I have really good time management, organizational and leadership skills that are essential to running a business,” she said. “But I’ve also realized that my perfectionism cripples my creativity. I’m learning to let go of the things I cannot control. At the end of the day, I create better when it stems from a place of purpose and passion, rather than pressure.”

A Message for Those Still Searching

When I asked Kat what she wanted readers to take away from her story, her answer carried the weight of history and hope.

“I want people to understand that nursing was only meant to be our foundation, not our ceiling. There are many other avenues of success outside and beyond nursing. Understanding our history is essential to fully understanding ourselves, as well as the everlasting psychosocial and socioeconomic impact of imperialism and colonization in our community.”

For those navigating their own bicultural identities, Kat’s advice is simple but profound: stay true to yourself. “Don’t change who you are just to fit in. The more you do that, the more you get disconnected from who you really are on the inside. You’re so desperately wanting to belong that you bury parts of yourself or hide parts of yourself just so you can be part of whatever mainstream culture is. But it will cost you.”

She paused before adding, “The woman that I am now is the woman that I needed when I was 13 years old moving here. And I want to make sure that I become that person to my younger cousins, to the younger generation coming after me. And my message to that 13-year-old self that resides in all of us: you are enough. You’ve always been and always will be.”

Still Growing, Still Becoming

She is Rooted and Rising is still in its early stages. Kat admits she has her own struggles with it and is still figuring things out as she goes. But that’s precisely the point.

“It’s shaping me as much as I am shaping it,” she said. “I continue to learn more about myself through this process, to become an even better version of myself every day.”

For Kat, the brand isn’t just about women empowerment, but also about healing: healing her inner child, healing her relationship with her mother and healing the parts of herself she had buried in the pursuit of belonging.

“It’s healing every aspect of my inner child that needed and wanted someone to look up to,” she reflected. “And the fact that I can be that person now for the younger generation? That’s everything.”

Kat’s journey is proof that success isn’t a straight line. And that sometimes, the most meaningful destinations are the ones we never planned for. From a 13-year-old girl navigating a new country to a doctoral graduate questioning everything she worked for, Kat has come full circle. She is rooted. She is rising. And she’s just getting started.

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About Dr. Kathleen Besas

Name: Dr. Kathleen Besas (Kat)
Business: She is Rooted and Rising (SRR)
What it does: A community lifestyle brand centered on women empowerment through honest reflection and identity development. SRR hosts community events, workshops and provides resources for women to dig deep internally as a pathway to healing into the highest versions of themselves.

Location: Los Angeles, CA, USA

Website: www.sheisrootedandrising.com

Phone/WhatsApp: https://chat.whatsapp.com/J3rN44J16hb6tQ7woSwe0T

Social Media:

• Community Brand: @sheisrootedandrising (Instagram/TikTok/Facebook/YouTube)
• Personal Brand: @katbezz (Instagram/Facebook) | @kat.bezz (TikTok)

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