AN UNAPOLOGETIC JOURNEY OF SELF EXPRESSION

June brings with it the playground for bold risks, an invitation to step into your most audacious, wild, and revolutionary self. The collective is experiencing a massive reckoning that brings them home to their truth. That requires them to strip the excess, ditch the glitter and smoke, and continue to remember who they are. Who they came here to be. As souls leading a very human existence. Our cover girl and feature story this month will leave you feeling seen, heard, felt – in your most unapologetic expression so you can be who you are. Wildly Audacious. Courageous. Authentic.

Self expression carries with it many forms and faces. Because who we are evolves on a daily, weekly, monthly and yearly basis. You get to be all of you – the business owner, the CEO, the parent who’s so proud of their kiddos, the homesteader, the medicine woman, the healer, the artiste… the list goes on. But that is the whole point isn’t it? To be all of YOU, no matter what.

Somewhere along the way, we decided that it was easier to repress our truth, hide our light, and stop sharing our desires and wanting what we want. Welcome to social conditioning. If you’re here reading this, chances are you are a trailblazer, a black sheep, a cycle breaker, an expressionist who sees life as her creative canvas and playground to live, love, laugh, and create some masterpieces.

Those who know me, know that self-expression isn’t something new to me. In fact, it’s not something new to you either. You know how to express yourself. You simply forgot that how you love to express yourself or show up is your greatest gift to the world. You started to take on layers of others projections, limitations, and fears, when in fact, you maybe…. loved the spotlight… loved pursuing your dreams and desires… loved simply being who YOU are. Your business and your leadership requires you to be a fully self-expressed individual. There is no other way than to be radically candid, vulnerable, and transparent with yourself… which then leads to your whole self shining bright as a beacon and lighthouse

This month, Courtney and I had the wonderful opportunity to connect with the vivacious, sassy, and sultry Kari Russell.

For me, it signified another full circle moment of its own. Kari was one of my self-expression mentors two years ago. I remember coming across her old brand “Goals and Grapes” and thinking… Man, I wish I could be as audacious as her… I LOVE how she shows up. She’s just herself!” And so began my journey in her world. Over the last few years, Kari helped me come home to my own authentic self expression and unleash my inner creative expressionist. So I cannot wait for you to dive into her journey and soak up some powerful gems along the way

Our interview with this month’s incredible feature guest, Kari Russell is a powerful reminder that being your whole self is the greatest permission slip you can ever give to yourself and the world. It is healing, cathartic, and exhilarating. When you express yourself, you peel off a layer and uncover the true you. You change the world around you and show others that it is incredibly safe and nourishing to show up in a way that only you can. That you don’t need to take on all the layers, conditioning, and projections that others toss your way. Kari is a breath of fresh air, her energy is riveting, daring, and renegade. She is the poster child for self-knowership, self-ownership, and self-honorship. You in your fullest self-expression are a miracle waiting to happen. You command mastery, truth, and become a catalyst for massive mission and movement – in your life and others.

Kari Russell is a leader in Self-Expression and an Energetic Business Coach who has built a multiple six figure coaching business rooted in deep power, freedom and bold self-ownership. Her private coaching, masterminds, group programs and membership space STUDIO: S-EX, focus on Mindset, EQ, Somatic Healing, Human Design and of course Unapologetic Self-Expression. Kari guides her clients in leveraging their authenticity to own who the f*ck they are in their branding and content to make a massive impact, unlock wealth and build their business their way!

Kari’s life didn’t always look or feel like it currently does. It has been a steady, often diving in headfirst journey of deep evolution and allowing herself to go first, shed the layers, become bare naked honest with herself, her soul, her desires. Read on and soak up all the truth bombs and soul talk this beautiful powerful woman has to offer. Let’s journey back to where and when it all began…

Q. WE ARE SO FASCINATED ABOUT YOUR LIFE AND BUSINESS JOURNEY. HOW DID YOU GET HERE — WHO IS KARI RUSSELL? WHEN DID YOU FIRST IDENTIFY YOUR CONNECTION TO SOURCE/ SPIRIT, AND ATTUNE TO YOUR CHANNEL? AND HOW DID YOU DEEPEN YOUR SELF-EXPRESSION?

It’s so funny. Whenever somebody asks me this question, I feel like I don’t have a scripted response. I feel like I’m a different person daily. The mantra that I live by is, “I’m not who I was yesterday, I’m not who I will be tomorrow, but who I am right now is enough.” And so, I would say, Who am I? I’m an ever-evolving, deeply desiring to be expanded individual, who really wants to not lead a revolution but lead women and individuals back to their own inner authentic expression. You know, we are so inundated with what everyone is doing and how everyone is moving. We spend so much time on social media and we get glimpses into everyone’s expression all the time… so it’s easy to be swayed in different directions and we lose track of our own path, we lose track of our own intuition.

I call myself an energetic business coach because I love working with entrepreneurs, I love working with business owners, I love working with individuals who have a massive impact to make in the world. There’s a level of courage and bravery that is automatically present when you decide you’re going to start a business… or a movement… or write a book, or start a podcast. There is a level of audacity that is required to put yourself out there and claim your space. When you start your brand, business, movement, I know that you’re a leader of courage, you’re a leader of bravery because not everyone is willing to put their heart and soul on the line. I love to guide people into leaning into what I’ve coined ‘conscious discomfort’ because we have to be willing to get uncomfortable, and we have to be willing to get excited about the discomfort knowing the growth, the impact, the evolution, the expansion, that’s on the other side of it. So I help leaders in business step into their edges and completely strip back all the story so that they can expose and express and most importantly own, who the f*** they are in this world and what they’re here to do and how they’re here to leave a legacy.

Q. WHAT PROMPTED YOU TO STEP OUT OF A COMFORTABLE EXPRESSION AND INTO YOUR EDGE?

I love this question! When I look back on my childhood, I’ve always wanted to be the center of attention. I always wanted the camera on me. When I look back on family videos, it’s like Kari trying to steal the spotlight… Kari trying to come in and jump into the frame. My sisters and I would make up little skits and I would do my sister’s hair and her makeup and I would do my hair and my makeup. So self expression was and has always been a part of me. However, once I hit puberty, I developed a lot of body insecurity. I hit puberty really round, full face cystic acne. I was the first girl in my class to cross these milestones. I literally look like a woman in grade four. So as much as I wanted to stand out, I also wanted to fit in with everyone else in my grade. As I grew older, I found my expression shifting more from what I wanted to share… to what’s going to allow me to fit in… to make friends easily… to belong with the community. My desire to build a deep connection with people has always been present, but it came through in a misaligned way as a child and young adult.

When I found human design and I saw who I actually was… it was one of those lifechanging, eye-opening moments. Like holy crap… all the s*** that I’ve been through, makes sense. I know why I feel the way I feel. I know why I react the way I react and know why I do what I do because of all the conditioning that I experienced. The awareness that human design brought about – the deeper mindset, the deeper emotional intelligence, that deeper self expression work – is what took me from being the one who looks around at what everyone else is doing and shifting that gaze inward to: Who am I? What do I love? How do I communicate?

At this time, I already had Addi – she was a little girl at the time. And being a mom also was an awakening that made me feel, “If I’m gonna be this little girl’s number one role model and example of being a powerful being – someone that she looks up to, and wants to be like… then how do I want to show up? What do I want her to experience in her body, in her relationships, at school, everywhere? I realized that I want to be the person, leader, and mama that I am proud of and Addie is proud of looking up to. So me getting out of my comfortable expression was a combination of these things, including starting my business.

Q. THAT JUST TOUCHED MY HEARTSTRINGS. SUCH POWERFUL INITIATIONS, KARI. I VIEW SELF-EXPRESSION AS A STRIPPING OF LAYERS AND LAYERS OF OUTFITS THAT WE THOUGHT WE “SHOULD” WEAR UNTIL WE HAVE NOTHING LEFT BUT OUR OWN BARE NAKED EXPRESSION OF OUR SOUL. HOW DID YOU SHIFT OUT OF THE FEAR AND IMPOSTOR SYNDROME THAT COMES ABOUT AS YOU STEP DEEPER INTO YOUR LEADERSHIP AND EXPRESSION?

Until I started my business, I didn’t realize just how much fear I was holding onto. Fear of what other people thought of me, and how other people were gonna take my work. I was already leading Goals and Grapes workshops when I was working at lululemon for years. I was their resident goal coach – so I got to mentor, coach, and lead our team through various workshops. However, when I decided to start doing this as a business, I actually canceled my first non-store workshop like three times because I would get sick.

But I realized it was my fear manifesting itself like an illness. For instance, I would get a migraine the night before or wake up with a sore throat. My illnesses would stop me from going forward with the workshop. I realized it wasn’t actually the illnesses, it was me. It was my fear manifesting. I was petrified of bringing the work out into the world. Since then, it’s been a big journey of stripping back more conditioning and letting go of the focus of what everyone else is doing and really focusing on me, giving myself the permission to be self-obsessed to be self-absorbed to be self-centered.

In this work of self-expression, we see everyone’s expression and I love your analogy that we’re putting on clothes, taking on layers. And in order to figure out who we are, we actually need to put up our blinders, take the layers off. We have to figure out what we want to wear, what feels good to us, what feels exciting to us. I feel that that way we express ourselves is an ever evolving journey. I don’t feel like we are ever actually fully SELF-EXPRESSED because in every moment, there’s a new layer that could be potentially unlocked, there’s a new experience that we could have, there’s a new breakthrough.

So I feel like we are only momentarily fully SELFEXPRESSED. And then there’s always a deeper layer to step into.

Q. OOF. NOW THAT IS A QUOTABLE. I LOVE THAT! I’D LOVE TO EXPLORE HOW WE CAN JOURNEY FROM INAUTHENTICITY TO BECOMING OUR AUTHENTIC SELF. WHAT DID THIS LOOK LIKE?

I think our journey from misalignment to alignment is actually part of our learning – an initiation into our self-expression journey. Sometimes we don’t know what’s right for us until we know what’s wrong for us. And I think in this work, we have to examine where we are actually shaming ourselves and putting more self judgment on ourselves because of our past experiences. I feel like whenever we find ourselves in a moment of, “Holy crap, I was being inauthentic or I was out of integrity or I misaligned,” our instinct is to make ourselves feel bad or wrong for that process. But I really feel we had to experience that for a reason. We were given the gift of misalignment. We were given the gift of inauthenticity. We were given the gift of the awareness that we’ve somebody else’s jeans or outfit on so that we can reflect and then ask ourselves, “Is this really me? Do I want to lead/ be/ show up / express myself like this? This is a lifelong journey of evolution and expression.

Q. KARI, I LOVE THAT. I LOVE THAT SO MUCH SO I’M THINKING LIKE THE READERS OF THIS MAGAZINE. THEY’RE ENTREPRENEURS AND HIGHLY SPIRITUAL AND CREATIVE. WHAT WOULD YOU SAY TO SOMEONE WHO IS DIPPING THEIR TOE INTO THEIR OWN SELF-EXPRESSION AND FINALLY STARTING TO OWN WHO THEY ARE? WHERE COULD THEY START? WHERE DID YOU START?

I was kind of hoping you were gonna ask a question like this because I had a realization, a couple, a few months ago. It was very much an intuitive nudge to step into this deeper layer of self-expression.

And I remember, the moment I was sitting in my hot tub and the word ‘audacity’. I had never used the word, it was not a word that was frequent in my vocabulary. But I continued to hear the ‘audacity’ in my right ear. And it spurred a whole expansion. For me. For my brand and my expression. It was supposed to be a mastermind and then it launched into Wildly Audacious – my podcast… and then wildly audacious very much became a term that I would use in my business and my brand.

Looking back, had I not been cultivating those moments of silence to myself… in my hot tub… staying open to nudges from Spirit… I wouldn’t have heard ‘audacity’ –the word that ignited the deepening of my self expression. For me, it’s important to pay attention to the signs, listen to the intuition within. Give them space to breathe so you can pick up on the true intuitive knowing that you are meant to receive from having this awareness. Stop scrolling. Start unplugging and listening to your soul. Stop looking for inspiration outside yourself. Stop looking at how everyone else is building their business. Stop looking at the “top five tips” and “three things to avoid” because it contributes to the rules that we think we need to follow while we are building our brands and businesses. Give yourself permission to be selfish, selfcentered. Ask yourself what you really want. What do you like? What do you want to be known for? Who are your people? What is the energy that you want to share with your community? If you were to die tomorrow, what is the legacy and message that you want to have written in the sands of time that links it back to you?

I stand for self-knowership – know yourself deeply. Spend copious amounts of time with yourself. Understand who you are through human design or astrology, or other other modalities such as yoga, breathwork, prayer, meditation, and other somatic practices. Give yourself permission to be selfish in your self-knowership so that you can then express unapologetically in your self-ownership of who you are in your self-expression.

Q. TALK ABOUT MIC DROP MOMENTS. I AM IN DEEP GRATITUDE THAT WE GET TO RIFF ON THESE TOPICS BECAUSE THE COLLECTIVE NEEDS THIS RIGHT NOW. I’D LOVE TO EXPLORE SOMETHING THAT I’VE SEEN YOU SHARE DEEPLY ABOUT – READING ROMANCE NOVELS, FICTION, BEACH READS AND THE RESONANCE BETWEEN THAT AND ALLOWING SPACE FOR YOUR DESIRES TO UNFOLD? WHAT IS THE LINK BETWEEN THAT AND UNINHIBITED SELF EXPRESSION?

I found this linkage by accident. It happened intuitively. I was led to a specific author last summer around the time that my Nana who was 100 years old passed away. It was an unexpectedly hard time for me. She was in a nursing home, she lived a great life, and so her death wasn’t unexpected, we knew her time was coming to an end. However, the speed at which the last four to six weeks of her life happened was sudden. She was gone. It was a shock to the system, even though I knew it was coming. So in order to avoid processing the emotions and dealing with the bigness of her presence (calling myself out here) no longer being in my life, I turned to reading. It was a comfort to my soul. So I started binge reading one specific author –every single one of her books. I continued to read non stop and it was through reading her books – which are spicy and very descriptive – I realized how uncomfortable I felt while I was reading them, I was feeling embarrassment. I thought to myself, Nobody can know that I’m reading these books.

There was so much shame and self-judgment – where I’d read and judge the characters, and then think… How can people like this s***? I was very much triggered while I was reading these books. And then I discovered that one of my sisters was reading these exact books too and it was like a slap across the face. And here I am thinking this is my dirty little secret. This was around the same time that I found Booktok on Tiktok and everyone was talking about these books. Can you imagine! There’s actually a community of women and men – lots of them – who read these books. And so that felt like a massive relief and permission slip to dive deeper. I started reading more and really led myself through the conscious discomfort. I kept picking up books that I knew were gonna be triggering to me. I knew that they were going to be triggering me. I knew that they were going to elicit thoughts, beliefs, and feelings that I hadn’t yet examined. And so, in reading these dark romances where the topics in the book are very morally gray, taboo and highly toxic – I started examining my own sensual expression. I started asking myself, “Where have I stifled my own expression of sensuality and sexuality (the relationship I have with my physical body)?

I am a sacral authority in human design, and I found such deep connections to the sacral center for both defined and undefined. The sacral is connected to our sexual desire, our pleasure, and joy. For me, understanding how that relationship impacts my relationship with my husband, when I step in front of a camera for a photo shoot and how I express myself, what I choose to talk about, what I choose to share or not share in my business. As a result, I was experiencing such massive growth in my own expression, evolution, so when I started sharing about this out loud, it was another edge of expansion. Another moment of conscious discomfort where I kept thinking, “What business coach talks about spicy romance novels? Am I going to be the one? Can I be okay with people thinking, ‘What the f*** is Kari doing?’ Why is she talking about romance novels and what does that have anything to do with business?

It was an evolution that I was extremely passionate about – it was benefitting not only me, but my relationships, my business, my conversations with my clients. It was bringing a deeper healing for everyone. That is how the S-ex Talk (Self-Expression) series was born and the Tryst (Spicy Romance Book Club) came about. These are conversations where we go deep. This isn’t something you will find at a Starbucks. This is us bringing up the old beliefs and conditioning, and saying, I want you to confront the Iyou to confront the s*** that’s holding back your self expression. That is what we unlock in these conversations.

Q. THANK YOU FOR SHARING THAT WITH US SO OPENLY! WE ALL KNOW WHAT WE’RE DOING THIS MONTH (RUNS AND GRABS A ROMANCE NOVEL)! I LOVE THAT SO MUCH. I REMEMBER SEEING YOUR PROMO FOR TRYST AND S-EX SERIES… I THOUGHT TO MYSELF, THIS IS BRILLANT. IT’S GENIUS.

So speaking of self-expression, one of the ways in which I noticed you distinguish yourself from the noise and the majority is by your use of one word titles for your programs, a play on words and word-puns. And I am a huge word-nerd! I think you were one of the first people that was actually using different words to convey the meaning and essence of your programs. And I love it because I think business and marketing are a symbiotic relationship. I equate marketing to sex… S-Ex.. selfexpression. Your people want to be enticed by you, they don’t want to get bored and they want to be peaked and agitated or activated enough to make their moves. Can you share a bit about that?

I’m so glad you said that because that’s exactly where I love to strategically leverage my authentic expression and powerfully communicate what it’s like to play in my world. I use these words because I want them to sting. I want you to feel something. I am a huge word geek and I love using words to convey big emotion. It’s my way of creating that visceral ignition through the words and…through my marketing. Thank you for saying that and acknowledging that because it’s something that I’m very conscious of inside of my branding and marketing because I want you to feel me. I don’t care if you get me, I don’t care if you understand me. I want you to f****** feel me.

Q. MMM I FEEL THIS DEEPLY. IT’S AN INITIATION. YOU GET TO SHOW UP AND BE THAT LIGHTHOUSE THAT CONTINUES TO SHINE AND EXPRESS THEMSELVES. I WANT TO SHIFT GEARS A BIT… AS SELF-EXPRESSION AND AN ENERGETIC BUSINESS COACH WHO USES HUMAN DESIGN AS YOUR MODALITY OF CHOICE, HAVE YOU WITNESSED PEOPLE ALMOST INHIBIT THEIR EXPRESSION BECAUSE OF THEIR HUMAN DESIGN?

100%. This is where there needs to be a bridge between the information that people are learning about human design with the mindset, the emotional intelligence, the somatic activation and the deeper awareness. Human design is for us to feel liberated, to be free in who we are. But the human in a lot of us holds onto a lot of fears, limiting beliefs, past trauma and conditioning.

I see a lot of people latch on to the limitations that they have created within human design. For eg: Projectors thinking they cannot take on another project because they need to rest. It is their fear of being misaligned. Or if you’re a generator and you’re thinking, If it’s not a full hell yes, I am not doing it. Let’s keep it real, there are things I don’t like doing, nobody does, but we gotta do them in our business and our life. I don’t like doing laundry, but I gotta do laundry. Use the information that Human Design gives you to inform you and help you get into alignment. Embody it in your lived experience. Allow it to expand you. You get to choose what parts of it you want to take with you regardless of what the human design textbooks and experts say. The only one who is an expert on you… is you. And as you go through your alignment process, you will discern between what is for you and what isn’t.

Q. THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR SPEAKING TO THAT! I LOVE THIS – HUMAN DESIGN GETS TO BE YOUR EXPANSION, NOT YOUR LIMITATION. ON THAT NOTE, I’D LOVE TO SHIFT THE CONVERSATION A BIT TOWARD WHAT YOU FORESEE HAPPENING WITH SELF-EXPRESSION FOR BUSINESSES AND PERSONAL BRANDS RIGHT NOW?

Hmmm what I have felt in my expression and in my clients expression, and what I see online is that we went through this wave of expression. At first, when I think back to four or five years ago, everyone was real, raw, with zero intentionality in their business and brand. And then we transitioned into a period of very high intentionality, highly curated, where our magic was killed, our creativity stifled. All because we are wondering if it looks good on our feed.

And I now feel like we are in a void, finding our footing, our middle ground between the two. I feel there is a place for both. I’ve really stepped into this - I don’t want to have to choose to be this pretty, perfect, polished, packaged version of myself and neither should you. I want to see all of you – the badass bold leader in the industry, the low key mom bun with sweats and a hoodie, the sappy lovey human being, the hype woman and bestie, the femme fatale, the biker chick, the book nerd, the hippie, the goddess, the garden nerd, the loving partner and mother. I want to see all sides of your expression. Your identities don’t need to duel for attention. They all get to be seen. They all get to be celebrated.

Shaming and stifling any one side of you isn’t going to bring you liberation. Give yourself permission to be messy, real, raw, and show up deeply in each moment with intentionality. We still get to be precise and potent in our branding and in our business, but not at the expense of stifling another identity that wants to be seen.

Q. POWERFUL. YES – TO ALL OF THIS. IF YOU HAD TO SAY SOMETHING TO THAT YOUNGER VERSION OF YOURSELF – IN LIFE AND BUSINESS – WHAT WOULD THAT BE?

Mm-hmm. I would say…zoom out. I mean it. Zoom out and stop focusing on the scenarios, the circumstance, the situations and look at everything from an eagle eye view. Don’t be so hyper focused on your insecurities or on what isn’t working. Open yourself up to everything. Look for the gold in your experience instead of shaming yourself or judging yourself. Zoom out. Nobody cares that you had a typo in your email… nobody cares about your thighs or the pimple on your forehead. Zoom out. Gain that perspective.

Q. I LOVE THAT SO MUCH. THANK YOU. AND LASTLY, I HAVE TO ASK THIS, SPEAKING OF NEXT LEVELS AT NEXT LEVEL PSYCHIC MAGAZINE, WHAT DOES YOUR NEXT LEVEL FEEL LIKE? WHAT IS YOUR NEXT EDGE?

Ooh, yes! There is a next level edge coming for me very soon in my brand. There is a conversation I am having in the next few weeks where you will see a lot of contradictions in my content (from what I’ve shown and said before). There has been a lot of internal identity work going on behind the scenes of the last, like four or five weeks in my world. So in the immediate future, bringing this new identity conversation to the forefront is a current edge to me.

In terms of what my next edge feels like in the bigger picture? I see myself standing on stages. I see books. I see deeper client connection in my spaces. I see more sexual expression and healing with my own self and body. So I am really being receptive and open to the nudges toward these things. Every day is an invitation to deepen my edge with my self expression.

WehopeyouenjoyedKari’sjourneyjustasmuchaswe did!Yourself-expressionisaplaygroundforyoursoul tocomealive–allpartsofyou–allyouridentities–all yourdesires–playinginbroaddaylight.Asyouwalkinit unapologetically,sotoowillyourlovedones,yourclients, your partner, your children. As you continue to share yourtruth,youwillcontinuetouncoverdeeperlayers andstripthemoff.Whereveryoufindyourself,honorthe evolutionofyoursoul.Practiceself-knowership,soyou canmovefromaplaceofself-ownershipandstepinto self-honorship.

If you’d love to connect with Kari and experience her world,shehasgenerouslygiftedusandourreaders,aka YOU, a free experience. Click here to sign up. Follow heronInstagramandTikTokandstepintoyourmost uninhibitedS-expression.