LIVING SEXY IS... Embracing All Of Who I Am
Strap in and get ready for this one, because I guarantee I’m about to take you for a ride!
Katherine Harris, a woman with many titles and many blessings, is the epitome of a fearless soul. There’s nothing she’s faced with that she doesn’t tackle with strength and grace. In running her blog, The Refined Woman, with her good friend Em, she touches thousands of lives and hearts - especially that of women.
When I met Katherine at a photo shoot, there was an instant connection between us. If you know just a little bit about me, you know I rarely (if ever) meet a stranger, so making friends has thankfully never been an issue. But this connection with Kat I speak about was something completely different - at the risk of sounding like a lunatic, we met for the first time a year ago but our souls had known each other for long before then. There, I said it! Ever since that day, Kat and I have been inseparable.
We both want to spread a message of love, acceptance and strength to women and through photography, writing and yoga, we’ve carved a similar path for each of our individual journeys. I decided to feature Katherine because I especially know how draining our work can be and how it’s just as important to turn the camera around every once in a while to truly see how amazing this time in our life is.
As I mentioned earlier, Kat has many titles - photographer, writer, blogger, dreamer, volunteer - all paths that focus on giving. But for now, I want to allow this space to be for Katherine, for her to be able to receive all the energy, love and attention she constantly gives out.
In planning Katherine’s shoot, I knew I wanted to use the golden hour of Brooklyn’s spectacular sunset to complement the light and softness that Kat carries with her. If you ever have the pleasure of speaking with or listening to Kat as she talks about her passion for women, I’m 100% sure you’d be blown away. This is one of our favorite topics to discuss (and boys, obviously) because we’re each super okay with going deep into the subject at the risk of sounding like a broken record. But this is where Kat’s biggest blessing shows up - her ability to look inside and verbalize her innermost thoughts and feelings.
In terms of a sexy lifestyle, Kat admits it’s been an evolutionary concept for the past few years, going from being scared of “being a woman in a man’s world” to seeing womanhood as gift. Moreover, once she accepted and embraced all parts of who Katherine is - feminine, go-getter, athlete, strong, woman, dreamer, soft, vulnerable - is when she started connecting with other women from a grounded place of freedom.
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Whenever we compartmentalize part of our lives, we shut down parts of our hearts.
Giving myself permission to fully be the person I was created to be… it's like it sets this spark - not only in my life but in the lives of those around me.
Free people free people.
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It’s not easy being vulnerable in general, add to that a whole pool of social media followers looking in as dating anecdotes stream in from Kat’s personal life, and you’ve got yourself a juicy story. When I brought this up during our interview (listen above), Kat gave me the smartest answer I’ve ever heard about some of the most common dynamics between men and women (in the dating world).
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As women, we have these questions we bring to the world, and a lot of time we bring to men:
Am I beautiful?
Am I sexy?
Am I valuable?
Do you want me?
Am I worthy?
For a long time, I wanted a man to answer those questions for me, and what I was doing was setting up every guy I dated for failure. No man was created to answers all my questions.
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The lesson?
You have to know your worth before anyone else can affirm it.
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My worth, my identity, my value, who I am - I am perfect as I am today - no one’s answers but my own affect who I am right now.
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So here’s to all of our female complexities, to our questions, to our dreams and to our desires - and may we all find that our true power as women is born in the very depth of our being.
Thank you, Kat, for challenging us to be fearless in looking in so that we may allow others to find freedom and embrace all parts of them.
Love always,
Tutti
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Check out the Living Sexy video below featuring this goddess!
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Featured: Katherine Harris from The Refined Woman
Location: East River Ferry + Brooklyn Bridge Park
