09 · Content System
Four pillars, a rhythm you can actually keep, and thirty days written out
You said you can give around thirty to forty five minutes a day to messages and two to three hours a week to recording. Everything here is built to fit inside that, and not one minute more. A plan you abandon in week three is worse than no plan.
Read this as the foundation, not as an order to start on Monday. On 13 August you said you felt a little lost about Instagram and asked whether to post now or wait. The answer we gave you holds: the content phase is the next deliverable and it has its own session on 4 September. This section is what that session will be built on, and it is here now so you can read it and disagree with it before we plan around it. Until then, post whenever you feel like it, with no strategy and no pressure. Producing content is a muscle, and nothing you post in the meantime can hurt you.
Posts per weekThreeTwo Reels, one carousel
StoriesThree daysNot daily. Daily is how people quit.
YouTubeEvery 2 weeksOne gate, 10 to 20 minutes
RecordingOne afternoonFilm the whole week in one session
What one block means, since you asked. It means you do not film on the day you post. You pick one afternoon a week, put on one of your two or three outfits, set the phone up once, and film everything for that week in a row: the two Reels, the video for the carousel, and three or four story clips. Then you edit and post them across the following seven days. Two hours once beats twenty minutes seven times, because most of the cost is not the filming. It is changing clothes, finding the light, moving furniture and getting your voice ready. Do that once, not seven times, and the plan survives the weeks when you do not feel like it.
The names of the things you sell, so they are used the same way everywhere. First Gate is the single class. The Seven Goddesses Within is the workshop. The Seven Gates Journey is the seven week programme. Seven Gates, One to One is the individual work. Which Gate Is Speaking is the free test. Use these names in captions, in flyers and in conversation, and never invent a new one for the same thing. A product that is called three different things is three products nobody remembers.
First Gate, the product, and Gate 1, the gate. You asked which one First Gate means, and you were right that it reads as two things. Gate 1 is the first gate of the method: Root, Demeter. First Gate is the name of the single class you sell, and it is called that because that is the gate the class teaches. So her first class is the first gate, and the overlap is deliberate. If it still feels unclear when you say it to a stranger, change it now while it costs nothing: The Root Session or One Gate, One Evening. Say all three out loud once, keep the one that comes easiest, and then use only that one everywhere.
The four pillars
Every post belongs to one of these. If it belongs to none, it does not go out. The percentages are a target across a month, not a rule per week.
| Pillar | Share | What it is | What it does for the business |
|---|
| The Body Remembers | 35% | The body as first language. A short practice, a sign that a gate is asking for attention, one movement done properly. | The easiest to make and the easiest to share. This is your reach. |
| The Goddess in You | 30% | The Greek archetypes, one at a time. Her story in a sentence, her light, her shadow, and how to recognise her this week. | The layer nobody else has. This is what makes people follow rather than watch. |
| Holding the Space | 20% | You. Your story, your ethics, why you refuse the word guru, what you are still learning. | This is what makes people buy. Trust is built here, not in the practice posts. |
| The Sound of the Gates | 15% | The bowls. A note, a demonstration, what a seed mantra is, what people say they feel. | Your most distinctive tool, and the most memorable thing you own. |
The caption formula
1 · The hook. One line. Something true and specific, never a question that could be asked by anyone.
2 · The turn. Two or three short lines. The thing most people get wrong, or what you noticed, or what it was like for you.
3 · The practical. One or two lines she can do today. This is what makes it worth saving.
4 · The invitation. One line, always warm, never urgent. Usually: come and experience it, or the link in bio.
Two formatting rules. A line break after every one or two lines, because a wall of text does not get read on a phone. And three to five hashtags at the very end, chosen for the topic, never thirty. Thirty hashtags is a signal that you are trying to be found rather than trying to be understood.
Hooks that fit your voice
Nobody teaches you how to say no without it costing you the room.
The gate people ask me about most is not the one they need.
I was the difficult child on the floor saying no at five years old.
School was torture for me. That is not a footnote in this work, it is the reason for it.
Three things I hear from almost every woman before her first class.
If you cannot answer what you enjoy, this one is for you.
I never heard the word chakra until I was in Nepal.
There is a difference between being alone and hiding, and the body knows which one it is.
This takes ninety seconds and you can do it sitting down.
I am not here to heal you. Here is what I actually do.
Your first thirty days, whenever they start
Twelve posts and two videos, in order, with what to show and what to say. The month is built so that it ends with Which Gate Is Speaking going live, which is the moment your audience starts becoming a list. Week 1 begins on the day we agree it begins, not on a date already written here.
How to read each post, since you asked about the sand block. Every post has two or three parts, and they are now labelled. What to show is the film or design instruction: this is for you, in your hands, before you post. Caption, the sand coloured block, is the text you copy into the post on Instagram. Copy it as it is, or change one word so it sounds like you on that day. It is never something to read out loud on camera word for word. In a Reel where you are talking, use the caption as the idea and say it in your own words, because reading a script to camera is visible in about four seconds. Some posts also have a gold block: that is a question you asked on 18 August, answered in place.
The grid rhythm and these thirty days, which contradicted each other. You noticed that Applications tells you to alternate a photo of you, a text card and a practice frame, and that the thirty days do not follow that rule. You were right and the thirty days win. For the first month, follow the calendar and ignore the grid rule. The first month has a job the grid rule does not: it has to introduce a person, prove the practice, open the goddess layer and launch the test, in that order, and that order matters more than what the grid looks like. The alternation rule starts in month two, when you are choosing posts freely and the grid is the only thing keeping it from looking like a template. It is also worth knowing that this calendar already alternates most of the way by accident, because the four pillars naturally produce different formats.
Week 1Recognition
Arrive. The account has a new name and a person behind it. Nothing is being sold.
Who I am now
Reel · 60 to 90 seconds · Holding the Space
What to showYou, looking at the camera, daylight, one take. Say your name, what you teach and who you teach it for. Say your surname slowly, DAH-nen, because this is the post that teaches people how to say it.
Caption · copy this into the postMy name is Elena Daenen. I teach yoga, sound healing and a method I built called The Seven Gates. I am not here to heal you. I hold the space, and you do the rest. Come and experience it.
The room where I practise
Carousel · 4 frames · The Body Remembers
What to showYour own room, the one with the purple wall, or the garden. Mat, bowls, light on the floor, no people. Not the studio in your hometown.
Caption · copy this into the postThis is where I practise, and where the videos are filmed. A mat, seven bowls and enough quiet to hear my own breathing. Everything I teach starts here first.
Your question, answeredYou asked whether to film the studio in your hometown, where you will not actually teach. No, and your instinct was right. Film your own room and the garden. Two reasons. Showing a room you do not teach in is a small lie, and small lies are the one thing your brand cannot afford, because your whole position is that you do not promise what you cannot control. And it is not even the better picture: your purple wall is your colour, and no rented studio can give you that. The post was renamed from the room where I teach to the room where I practise, which is true, and it works better anyway, because a woman would rather see where the practice actually lives than see an empty commercial studio.
And yes, to your other question here: the text goes in the caption. The sand block above is what you copy into the Instagram caption. Nothing is written on the images themselves in this post, because four photographs of a quiet room are stronger with no text on them.
I am not here to heal you
Reel · 45 seconds · Holding the Space
What to showYou talking, close, one take, no music under your voice.
Caption · copy this into the postThere is a word I never use about myself, and it is healer. I hold a safe room. What happens inside it is yours. That is not modesty, it is the whole method.
Week 2Saves and shares
Show the practice. Give something usable before asking for anything.
Ninety seconds for when you cannot settle
Reel · 90 seconds · The Body Remembers
What to showFeet on the floor, close up. One breath pattern, done in real time so she can follow you.
Caption · copy this into the postThis takes ninety seconds and you can do it sitting down. Feet flat, weight into the heels, four counts in, six counts out. Six rounds. The root is not a belief, it is what your body does when it decides it is safe.
Three signs your root gate is asking for attention
Carousel · 5 frames · The Body Remembers
What to showText on a linen background. The gate 1 red appears three times only: the frame number, a short rule under the title, and the arch on the last frame. Everything else stays ink on linen.
Caption · copy this into the postYou avoid decisions that would keep you in one place. You check your bank account even when you know there is enough. There is no place where you feel completely at home. None of that means something is wrong with you. It means one gate is asking for attention.
Your question, answeredYou asked what small details in red to use, and whether to use the red arch and the Demeter portrait already. Exact recipe: background linen #FBF8F3, all text ink #2A2233, and gate 1 red #B0392F in exactly three places, never more. One, the small frame number in the top corner. Two, a 44 pixel rule under the title on frame 1. Three, the arch, in red, on frame 5 next to the invitation. Yes to the red arch. No to the Demeter portrait in this post. Keep her for week 3, where she is the subject. Two goddess signals in the same week and the account looks like it is about mythology rather than about the body.
What a bowl actually does
Reel · 30 to 45 seconds · The Sound of the Gates
What to showTwo shots in one Reel. First the floor bowl: hands on it, camera low, sound recorded with the phone one metre away. Then the body bowl, resting on the belly or beside the chest of a woman lying down, filmed from the side. Sound is the whole post, so record in a silent room and do not add music.
Caption · copy this into the postI work with two kinds of bowl. One stays on the floor and gives your brain a long steady sound to follow, and it slows down to match it. The other comes close to the body, and you feel it before you hear it. People tell me they go somewhere else. What is happening is simpler than that, and it is enough.
Your question, answeredYou asked which of your two bowl types to show, and whether the second one needs a woman lying down. Show both, in that order, in one Reel, and yes to the woman lying down for the second one. The two together are the post: one is the sound you hear, the other is the sound you feel, and nobody else in your feed is showing the difference. You need one person and their written permission, so ask a friend, and film her from the side so she is not identifiable if she prefers that. If nobody is available this week, film the floor bowl alone and keep the body bowl for a second post rather than filming it on yourself, which does not read on camera.
YouTube · Root Gate, a grounding practice
Video · 15 minutes · The Body Remembers
What to showFull practice for gate 1. Say what she will do and how long, in the first fifteen seconds, then start.
Caption · copy this into the postTitle: Root Gate · a grounding practice for when you cannot settle · 15 minutes
Week 3Follows
Introduce the goddesses. This is the layer nobody else has.
Meet Demeter
Carousel · 6 frames · The Goddess in You
What to showFrame 1 the Demeter portrait with her name only. Frame 2 her story in one sentence, ink on linen. Frame 3 her in her light, three lines. Frame 4 her in her shadow, three lines. Frame 5 a photograph of your own hands on the floor, which grounds the myth in a body. Frame 6 the question, plus the red arch.
Caption · copy this into the postDemeter is the one who feeds. In her light she builds a home that holds you, and she takes care of people without emptying herself. In her shadow she helps so much that nobody can manage without her. Which one was your week?
Your question, answeredYou asked what frames to use apart from the portrait. The six above, and the rule behind them: portrait, story, light, shadow, body, question. That is the shape of every goddess carousel you will ever make, so once you have built this one you have built all seven. Frame 5 matters more than it looks. Without one real photograph the carousel becomes a mythology lesson, and mythology lessons get saved by people who will never book a class.
Which goddess is speaking in your life right now?
Reel · 45 seconds · The Goddess in You
What to showYou naming three goddesses fast, one line each. Poll sticker in stories the same day.
Caption · copy this into the postArtemis says no and means it. Hera needs to be chosen. Hestia is quietly sure that nothing is a problem. One of them ran your week. Tell me which.
Every goddess has a shadow, and that is the useful part
Carousel · 5 frames · The Goddess in You
What to showTwo portraits of the same goddess side by side, light and shadow.
Caption · copy this into the postA goddess with no shadow would be no use to anyone. The women I work with are not bad at loving, or at speaking, or at resting. They are good at all three, and they disappear while they do it. The shadow is where you can see that happening.
Your question, answeredYou said they are failing at doing it without disappearing was not clear enough. You were right, and it was two negatives inside one sentence, which is the hardest thing to read in any language. The caption now says the same thing in the positive: they are good at loving, and they disappear while they do it.
Week 4Emails
Turn attention into a list. The test goes live.
Why the seven gates are in this order
Reel · 60 seconds · The Body Remembers
What to showThe seven arch graphic, you speaking over it.
Caption · copy this into the postYou cannot speak your truth from a body that does not feel safe. That is the whole reason the order exists. Ground, then pleasure, then will, then love, then voice. Nobody starts at the throat.
What actually happens in a class
Carousel · 6 frames · Holding the Space
What to showIf you have run a class by then, real photos, wide and quiet. If your first class is online, film your own screen setup and your mat as you teach it, and say online in frame 1. One frame carries the price and the next date.
Caption · copy this into the postWe start on the floor and we do not rush. Yoga to open one area, then the bowls, then quiet. Nobody is corrected in front of the room. You leave with one thing to keep, and no homework.
Your question, answeredYou asked whether your first class will be online, and said you doubt there are many women in Belgium who want this in English. You are probably right, and the plan already agrees with you: Belgium in person, the world online, with online as the engine and not the compromise. So write this post for an online class, and say the word online in the first frame. It removes the geography question before anyone asks it, and it makes the post work for a woman in Lisbon or in São Paulo, who is the woman most likely to book you this year. The in person version of this post gets made the week you actually run one.
The free test goes live
Reel · 45 seconds · The Goddess in You
What to showYou explaining the test in plain words. Link in bio, and the link goes only here.
Caption · copy this into the postForty two short statements. It takes about seven minutes. At the end you know which of the seven gates is asking for your attention right now. It is free, and it is the honest place to start. Link in my bio.
Your question, answeredYou read this as a seven minute video and asked what you would say in it. Our wording caused that, and it is fixed. The seven minutes is how long the test takes her, not how long the video is. The Reel is 45 seconds and you say exactly what is in the caption. The post title was Which Gate Is Speaking? Find out in seven minutes, which read as a promise about the video, and it is now the free test goes live.
YouTube · Sacral Gate, a practice for feeling again
Video · 15 minutes · The Body Remembers
What to showGate 2. Same shape as the root video: say what she will do and how long, then yoga for the hips and the pelvis, then the bowl in D, then silence. Not bowls alone.
Caption · copy this into the postTitle: Sacral Gate · a practice for when everything feels grey · 15 minutes
Your question, answeredYou asked why video two jumped to the throat gate, and said you were not sure you could hold twelve minutes with only the bowls. Both objections were right. The playlist in Applications says one introduction and then one video per gate, in order, and this calendar broke its own rule by going from gate 1 to gate 5. Video two is now gate 2, and the order continues from there. On the twelve minutes: no video is ever only bowls. The shape is always one minute saying what she will do, three or four minutes of body and breath, seven or eight minutes of sound, then a minute of silence and returning. You are not holding the space with the bowls. You are holding it with the structure, and the bowls are one part of it. The introduction video is filmed last, once two or three gates exist, because you will know much better what you are introducing. It gets pinned to the top of the playlist, so the viewer still sees it first.
When you have no idea what to post. Go to the Method v4, open any gate, and take one line from it. Every gate has a theme, a myth, six signs of a deficient gate, six of a gate in excess, a yoga note, a sound note and three questions. That is nineteen posts per gate, one hundred and thirty three across the method, without inventing anything. You will have no weeks left long before you have no content left.