We recently connected with Katie Henry and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Katie, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.

It was always been a dream of mine to lead a women’s retreat in Central Oregon. I grew up in Oregon and have been going to the Central Cascade mountains my whole life. As I started gathering ideas for offerings in my business, I knew that women’s retreats in these mountains would be a part of it one day, but I thought that day was really far off. Last summer my friend and I went camping in Central Oregon and as we were feeling the magic of the mountains, I said to my friend, “Hey, maybe we should try to lead women here next summer,” She responded, “Let’s do it!” Shortly after, I met another spiritually aligned female entrepreneur who had lived in the area and was super excited about the idea. I was on my way moving to Santa Cruz, and they were both living in Portland, but we decided to start meeting over zoom and birthing this crazy idea. We basically had no budget, so we had to be super creative at how to put on a in person retreat without fronting any costs. At first we decided it would be a backpacking only retreat, but then a friend of ours gifted us a beautiful Air B & B dome to be able to host the women for part of the time. Slowly but surely, it came together. We planned our marketing, our ceremonies, rituals, and the universe supported us in having it come together. We ended up having women sign up and fly in from all over the country! In our wildest dreams, we never thought this was going to happen at our retreat. We thought it would just be more local women from Oregon, but over half of our retreat came from out of state. We made our retreat like a hybrid, so we stayed at the Air B & B for two nights and prepared women to go backpacking into the woods for one night, where we continued our ceremonies out in the wild. The deep sisterhood bonding, connection with the Earth, bodies and voices was so powerful, every woman that came told me how deeply their life was changed because of this experience. I am so grateful for following my intuition and aligned with the amazing women who helped me make this wild idea into reality. What I learned most deeply from this experience, is to make your dreams happen, you’ve got to use the tools in front of you. Get creative. Use the resources you have available to you, the people around you. If we constantly think our dreams are so far off, we really never will get there. You can wow yourself with what you are able to create with what is in front of you! Your heart and good intention mean so much more than having a lot of money to front or fancy offerings.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Hi! My name is Katie, I’m a wild voice coach and photographer for women! I’m also a singer/ songwriter, model, intuitive, tarot reader, and sound energy healer. At the heart of my business, I help women express their soul in the world, whether that is through their voice or through photos or both! It was never my intention to become a singer, teach voice or do photography. This was what the universe decided for me. Singing had always been a part of my life, growing up as a minister’s daughter, I was always singing hymns as a way to connect with spirit from an early age. I sang in church and choirs all through high school and college, but after I was kicked out of an a cappella group for not having the voice they wanted, I shut off my voice and swore I would never sing again. A couple years later, my body broke down with severe autoimmune illnesses. I was pushing myself to the max, I was a social worker, trying to go to law school and save the world. But in the process, I couldn’t save myself. As I stumbled along my healing journey, I tried to start several businesses and dabbled in many healing arts to find my true passion. However, nothing was really sticking or leading me to alignment. Then, I went on a women’s retreat in Ashland, Oregon. I heard a woman sing, share her story about song, and I thought… oh my gosh… my voice…. I must use my voice again! Then slowly but surely I began to sing again. The more I sang, the more creative I became. Songs started to come to me, musicians began to want to collaborate with me, the money became available for me to go back to school to study voice, piano, and music production. Women began to approach me wanting to sing and expressing a deep desire to be seen and heard in their authenticity. From there I built my business Wild Women Voices, where I now do voice coaching, lead retreats and workshops that focus and helping women discover their own wild voices. I strongly believe in combining classical vocal technique with spiritual and shamanic practices that allow individuals to discover their own unique frequency of their voice. Through these channels, songs can come, the voice can open and the throat chakra becomes unblocked. You discover, what you truly want to use your voice for in this life and access a new level of power and healing capability with your voice. Healing not only yourself, but others as well. My passion for photography and modeling started to develop alongside this, and I found I could create breakthroughs for women by getting them in front of the camera and face their fear of being seen in their full power. I believe that women have amazing voices, souls, bodies, that deserve to been heard, seen and respected. But first we have to do the work on ourselves. We have to hear, see and love ourselves in our authentic, unique expression before others can witness and see it as well.

Have you ever had to pivot?

The first business I built completely crashed. Ironically, I was doing trying to do business coaching for women. I put all my eggs in one basket and tried to launch a group program that I charged a lot for. When I only had one person sign up, I realized I had sunk every penny I had into it and basically was at ground zero again. I had to also face the hard reality, that what I was doing didn’t truly light me up. I loved talking to women about following their dreams, but I didn’t actually love getting into the nitty gritty of business or marketing. At that time, I had to go back to a 9-5 job while I got myself together and explore what I wanted. After doing a few years of deep healing work, I found my passion as a singer/ songwriter and teaching voice and was able to launch a successful business in true alignment. I think our culture shames failure or having to get a “normal job,” but for me it was part of my path and necessary while I got back into true alignment. It’s far better to take pause that barrel ahead and keep hitting wall after wall. Once you are in alignment, it flows and you can feel a burning passion in your soul that keeps driving you even in the face of challenges. Failure is just a road block rerouting you to something better! And there is no shame in having a less than glamorous job to help support you while you figure out what that passion is.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

For me, the most rewarding aspect of being an artist to feeling like I can create a tangible thing that is a deep expression of mine or someone else’s soul. Creativity is a spiritual channel and necessary for us to use to get out what no longer wants to be in our body’s and minds. When I can sit down and write a song that allows me to process what I’m going through, it’s like spirit is guiding me to turn something hard or difficult into something beautiful. Voice and songwriting is like alchemy, it transforms and transmutes emotions into something so unique that gives a glimpse of someone’s soul. The same is true with photography, When I can capture a moment of myself or someone else, that allows them to see a part of their soul that is not expressed daily, it shows us a hidden part of our soul, who we are becoming and the true power that exists within. It gives us the strength to keep going on our path. It is so rewarding for me not only to create my own art, but also help other women sing, create songs and photos that show these expressions of their souls in the world.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.wildwomenvoices.com
• Instagram: @kwithanamusic
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wildwomenvoices
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnAFSJca3ddYoXaWIwJSwag
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/wild-women-voices-felton
• Other: Tik Tok : @kwithanamusic

Image Credits
All photos are taken by me!