About Me.
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I have been a practicing therapist since 2009 and a spiritual teacher since 2019. I love my work! It is such a joy to be able to do what I love all the time - whether I'm working, playing, or resting - I live what I offer. I walk this path every day, in every moment, and I have learned so much through my own healing process, which I wrote extensively about below.
I have been a devoted meditator since 2008 and have spent a great deal of time on silent retreat since then. I am both passionate and practical, open-hearted and fiercely firm. I believe in woo, and in critical thinking. I question everything. I'm blunt and I care. Above all else though, I trust that the nature of existence is awakening, and I know that the deepest current of life is always carrying us there. This is what I have the most joy in sharing. I love dancing and intuitive movement and find much pleasure in walking and hiking and otherwise being in nature. I have learned the forests and the oceans have as much to teach me as do the books on my bookshelf. I value community and feel the good fortune in having two that I cherish - one centered around the Flowjo in Carrboro, and one at the Insight Meditation Society in Massachusetts. In addition, I have been on partial retreat since 2018, devoting almost all my time outside of work to spiritual practice, as this is what my own path has been asking of me in this time. My pronouns are she/her/hers. I also started a business with my best friend and dear colleague, Francesca Morfesis. Please check out Full Circle Spirituality if you are interested in seeing the form our work together takes. Credentials and Memberships: I am a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, in practice for the last 14 years. I received my undergraduate degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in Psychology and Political Science, and then continued my education at Virginia Tech in the Northern Virginia Region where I received a Masters of Science in Marriage and Family Therapy. Association of Marriage and Family Therapy To verify my license see the North Carolina Marriage and Family Therapy Licensure Board. |
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I decided to include this Wheel of Power/Privilege because transparency is important to me. On the left is my representation of my own power and privilege, as well as where I'm marginalized. On the right is a blank one in case you want to use one for yourself!
Dismantling white supremacy, patriarchy, ableism, fatphobia and so on has been an important part of my path. I am a cis, middle-class, differently-abled, mostly heterosexual but a bit queer-ish, thin-privileged white woman. My own social location has shaped my perspective in deep ways, and I continue to work to understand the perspectives and experiences of others and to not center my own perspective as "right." It is my responsibility to let go of conditioning that causes harm to others, and it isn't something I take lightly.
Dismantling white supremacy, patriarchy, ableism, fatphobia and so on has been an important part of my path. I am a cis, middle-class, differently-abled, mostly heterosexual but a bit queer-ish, thin-privileged white woman. My own social location has shaped my perspective in deep ways, and I continue to work to understand the perspectives and experiences of others and to not center my own perspective as "right." It is my responsibility to let go of conditioning that causes harm to others, and it isn't something I take lightly.
My Own Journey with Awakening
I began my healing journey in my early-20’s while I was getting my degree in Marriage and Family Therapy. I was lucky to be part of a progressive program that emphasized mindfulness and lovingkindness practice and the importance of clinicians doing their own work. I was anorexic and a workaholic and a perfectionist and so full of self-hate. I recognize now how lucky I am that my mind accepted early on that self-hate wasn’t going to fix anything - I knew I would have to learn to love myself.
After grad school, exhausted and run down, I decided to hike part of the Appalachian Trail (yeah I hear how that sounds 😆). I got lab results before leaving that scared me into gaining some weight, and hiking forced me to eat larger and larger portions every couple of hours. I ended up hiking for two and a half months, and it was important for me. I was in tune with nature’s rhythms and had detoxed from all the stimulation I had been used to in school. I gained weight and truly began to recover from my eating disorder.
I began to attend meditation retreats at 26. I saw the peace with which the teachers walked, and in Buddhism I found a worldview that made sense to me for the first time. I emerged from that retreat glittering - more present, more loving, and more joyful. I was hooked.
I quickly signed up for longer and longer retreats - 2-weeks, 6-weeks, and then 3-months. Initially retreats made my life easier. I was practicing Vipassana and Metta, and was able to take in to some extent that thought and emotion was impersonal and ephemeral. Some personal patterns started changing. I felt much more compassionate towards myself and was slowly learning to take better care of myself. However, I also learned that if I opened to feelings in my body, they would go away. For a long time, I desperately wanted to manage my life this way. It didn’t work for very long, and ultimately I’m grateful for that.
I started to have body pain when practicing pretty early on in my practice. I chalked this up to bad posture and bad body mechanics.
After grad school, exhausted and run down, I decided to hike part of the Appalachian Trail (yeah I hear how that sounds 😆). I got lab results before leaving that scared me into gaining some weight, and hiking forced me to eat larger and larger portions every couple of hours. I ended up hiking for two and a half months, and it was important for me. I was in tune with nature’s rhythms and had detoxed from all the stimulation I had been used to in school. I gained weight and truly began to recover from my eating disorder.
I began to attend meditation retreats at 26. I saw the peace with which the teachers walked, and in Buddhism I found a worldview that made sense to me for the first time. I emerged from that retreat glittering - more present, more loving, and more joyful. I was hooked.
I quickly signed up for longer and longer retreats - 2-weeks, 6-weeks, and then 3-months. Initially retreats made my life easier. I was practicing Vipassana and Metta, and was able to take in to some extent that thought and emotion was impersonal and ephemeral. Some personal patterns started changing. I felt much more compassionate towards myself and was slowly learning to take better care of myself. However, I also learned that if I opened to feelings in my body, they would go away. For a long time, I desperately wanted to manage my life this way. It didn’t work for very long, and ultimately I’m grateful for that.
I started to have body pain when practicing pretty early on in my practice. I chalked this up to bad posture and bad body mechanics.
On a 3-month retreat I sat one fall, everything fell apart.
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I was on the retreat with my then ex-best friend who I was incredibly angry with, but I wasn’t comfortable with my anger. Instead of honoring what wasn’t ok in her behavior towards myself, I fought with myself and tried to force myself into forgiveness and compassion. I was also contemplating leaving the loving relationship I was in, which was agonizing. And to top it all off, I injured my foot on the 5th day of the retreat and decided to stay despite the likelihood that I would need surgery to fix it. This predictably caused more and more pain. Though the pain was mostly not in my foot, I attributed it to that injury. I also started twitching when I practiced, as my body beginning to discharge pockets of egoic stress.
When I left that retreat, I was incredibly depressed and broken down. I could no longer practice because it triggered panic. I could no longer use the practice to get away from painful emotions and aspects of my personality. (And yes, I had to have surgery on my foot.) I was forced to turn away from Ultimate practices and to seek relief elsewhere. I began to look at the ways I was spiritually bypassing more earnestly, and came to understand more clearly why bypassing would never ultimately work. I knew I would have to face everything I was avoiding - so I did. I made a practice of moving towards or doing what I was afraid of. I also began to see a somatic therapist and began training in various somatic trauma resolution modalities, including Somatic Experiencing. I explored healing my own feminine energy which was at the same time empowering, softening, and brought me into deep intimacy with myself in a new way. I kept going on retreats. I was too terrified to give them up. But I did change the way I was practicing and incorporate everything I was learning. Meditation became more somatic, and I did drop all seeking for Ultimate truths. |
As with everything I do, I dug super deep and was super committed. I was desperate to truly heal. And I was healing. I became much more empowered and was willing to set boundaries. I was able to feel my body’s cues and was more willing to follow them. I felt a sense of wholeness and inner stability more frequently. At the same time, life was becoming more and more physically intense and I didn’t understand why.
I went through a devastating break-up, with the first man I’d truly wanted to marry, and deeper trauma surfaced. I had horrible, unabating insomnia, and I felt charged all the time. Whenever I went on retreat, I dove deep. I began to have what I called “emotional storms” where I would get really stuck in the physical intensity of an emotion in a different way than I had ever experienced before. I continued to twitch when I meditated, and several times experienced intense electric energy shooting up and down my spine. As a somatic therapist, I thought it was cool, but assumed it was normal - just the body discharging energy. When I went on retreat, I would get more sensitive, which made coming off retreat increasingly challenging. Unfortunately, I was so committed to retreats that I didn’t see this pattern at the time.
My body became more and more worn down. I continued to do too much - too many trainings, too much socializing, too much work, too much putting my mind's agenda before what I was really needing. I was still sleeping 2-5 hours a night. During my first touch-focused training I realized I could easily feel what was happening in the energetic systems of the people I touched. This was not something I believed was possible before experiencing it myself. It was pretty unnerving.
I went on one more retreat and settled deeply. Leaving at the end of the week was incredibly difficult, but I again refused to listen to my body and chose to push myself. I ended up in the ER two weeks later. I was diagnosed with autoimmune conditions and anemia. I also had swelling in my heart and fluid around my heart. I changed my diet dramatically and started a bunch of supplements . . . and I didn’t get better. My labs were back to almost normal levels, but at this point, doing literally anything, even getting off the couch to go to the bathroom, was a struggle. It was terrifying.
I had been planning to leave my beloved Carrboro community and travel and dharma bum (bounce around between meditation centers). Because my diet was so restricted, this was no longer possible. So I took a month off just to rest and to be on retreat. I began to have panic attacks that lasted for hours, sometimes full days. I was terrified of making my conditions worse and everything felt like a threat. My body also began to move in spontaneous ways. I assumed it was processing old traumas and this didn’t clue me in that something unusual was happening.
I went through a devastating break-up, with the first man I’d truly wanted to marry, and deeper trauma surfaced. I had horrible, unabating insomnia, and I felt charged all the time. Whenever I went on retreat, I dove deep. I began to have what I called “emotional storms” where I would get really stuck in the physical intensity of an emotion in a different way than I had ever experienced before. I continued to twitch when I meditated, and several times experienced intense electric energy shooting up and down my spine. As a somatic therapist, I thought it was cool, but assumed it was normal - just the body discharging energy. When I went on retreat, I would get more sensitive, which made coming off retreat increasingly challenging. Unfortunately, I was so committed to retreats that I didn’t see this pattern at the time.
My body became more and more worn down. I continued to do too much - too many trainings, too much socializing, too much work, too much putting my mind's agenda before what I was really needing. I was still sleeping 2-5 hours a night. During my first touch-focused training I realized I could easily feel what was happening in the energetic systems of the people I touched. This was not something I believed was possible before experiencing it myself. It was pretty unnerving.
I went on one more retreat and settled deeply. Leaving at the end of the week was incredibly difficult, but I again refused to listen to my body and chose to push myself. I ended up in the ER two weeks later. I was diagnosed with autoimmune conditions and anemia. I also had swelling in my heart and fluid around my heart. I changed my diet dramatically and started a bunch of supplements . . . and I didn’t get better. My labs were back to almost normal levels, but at this point, doing literally anything, even getting off the couch to go to the bathroom, was a struggle. It was terrifying.
I had been planning to leave my beloved Carrboro community and travel and dharma bum (bounce around between meditation centers). Because my diet was so restricted, this was no longer possible. So I took a month off just to rest and to be on retreat. I began to have panic attacks that lasted for hours, sometimes full days. I was terrified of making my conditions worse and everything felt like a threat. My body also began to move in spontaneous ways. I assumed it was processing old traumas and this didn’t clue me in that something unusual was happening.
But towards the end of that month, this love woke up that I had never experienced before.
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I had done countless hours of Metta practice, but my experience had always been that the warmth that arose was created by me, and that it was conditional, (though less and less so as my ego processed its resistance). This was different - this Love was not created by me, it was received. It was always there, no matter what was happening, as an energy in my spine. It loved without reason or boundary. It was unshaken by pain or emotion. It simply loved, everyone and everything, all the time. No exceptions. One moment of overwhelming love happened for the stinky garbage I was taking out. As a resource, it couldn't have arrived at a more needed time, and I took respite in it whenever I could.
I flew to Bali, not knowing how long I would be there or what I would do next. I rented a little cottage, and isolated myself. I worked a few hours a week, and practiced with the rest of my time. I could barely sit up, I was so sick and exhausted. Leaving the house was a nightmare and always triggered a panic attack. But . . . I had an opening a month after my arrival. |
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I had, without any intentionality, turned back towards Ultimate practices and started dipping my toe into non-dual wisdom that month. The love in my spine had changed over the previous two months - it was a more neutral feeling, though still incredibly profound. I couldn’t come up with any words to describe it - that is, until I was reading a piece of writing by Mukti on Stillness and her own awakening. Quite suddenly the energy in my spine recognized itself in her words and exploded out of my spine and into my whole body. I could see that that Stillness did not have a self or a center. It was always ok. It extended outside of myself, though fear kept it from extending very far at first. And it didn’t differentiate between aspects of my experience or environment.
I really had no idea what was going on. An actual experience of awakening upended most of my assumptions about what it was. But all this spinal activation finally had me wondering about kundalini. I met with an expert who confirmed this was what I was dealing with.
I am still putting the puzzle pieces together - understanding the clues I missed over the years. Kundalini caused my autoimmune conditions, my twitching, my sensitivity, my pain, my ability to read the bodies of others, my insomnia, my emotional storms, my elevated anxiety, my awakening. While external events contributed, the primary driver of my descent into dysfunction was kundalini.
I really had no idea what was going on. An actual experience of awakening upended most of my assumptions about what it was. But all this spinal activation finally had me wondering about kundalini. I met with an expert who confirmed this was what I was dealing with.
I am still putting the puzzle pieces together - understanding the clues I missed over the years. Kundalini caused my autoimmune conditions, my twitching, my sensitivity, my pain, my ability to read the bodies of others, my insomnia, my emotional storms, my elevated anxiety, my awakening. While external events contributed, the primary driver of my descent into dysfunction was kundalini.
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When kundalini opens fully, it will not let up until the ego has entirely let go. It was fairly daunting to realize this, but also a HUGE relief. At least I finally understood why I was struggling so much, despite having a mediocre trauma history. And I knew what I had to do.
With that knowledge, I did what I am good at - I dove into understanding awakening and what it was asking of me. During the six months I was in Bali, I had deeper and deeper experiences of what I realized was simply Reality. My sense of self loosened. My panic attacks became less and less frequent and severe. But I was still using so much effort in practice. Practice was driven by very intense controlling energy, and this prevented much of the growth that was needed because my system was too rigid - physically braced against it, though simultaneously wanting it desperately. I had one more panic attack. I was so broken down, so tired of forcing my will and failing. I felt suicidal. It all felt so pointless and hopeless. I finally fell asleep for a few hours and when I woke up the next morning, as panic arose again, I couldn’t fight it. I had given up. Something in me had been broken. It was my system’s first true experience of surrender. And it felt GREAT. My energy levels improved and I was able to move around more. I was able to socialize with slightly less difficulty. I was able to start seeing more clients. My vision widened. I stopped being able to feel the edges of my body. And my panic attacks decreased in frequency and intensity and gradually stopped. I came home to the US, and have continued to devote most of my free time to my process. The openings have continued with intensity. |
As I surrender over and over again to Love and the Unknown, as I trust my bigger self and let go of my small self, my body heals. While my experience is still intense, things that used to bother me bother me less and less. My mind functions very differently from the way it functioned before, as do my senses.
More and more, I love for no reason. I meet the moment nakedly, with no expectations. I surrender my agenda to Reality's.
This has been no quick fix, just a steady march of the awakening process as it slowly rewires my brain. It’s difficult, and beautiful.
I began to feel moved to offer spiritual teaching in addition to therapy, and was authorized to begin teaching by my own teacher, Erin Treat. My own teaching emphasizes the hard work of integration, the harm caused by spiritual bypassing, the importance of body and the feminine, and nervous system healing. It feels like the culmination of a lifetime of deeply asking the Universe to unveil its nature to me. It is clearly what I’m here to offer. I see now how I made the journey more difficult for myself, and how I can support others in choosing easier paths.
Ultimately this is just about recognizing Reality. And deep down, this is something we all want. We will never feel fully at ease until we are in alignment with it.
My journey is far from over, but it is less and less my own. I am grateful now for every step. And excited to see where the next fork in the road takes me . . .
(All pictures in this section are from my time in Bali)
I began to feel moved to offer spiritual teaching in addition to therapy, and was authorized to begin teaching by my own teacher, Erin Treat. My own teaching emphasizes the hard work of integration, the harm caused by spiritual bypassing, the importance of body and the feminine, and nervous system healing. It feels like the culmination of a lifetime of deeply asking the Universe to unveil its nature to me. It is clearly what I’m here to offer. I see now how I made the journey more difficult for myself, and how I can support others in choosing easier paths.
Ultimately this is just about recognizing Reality. And deep down, this is something we all want. We will never feel fully at ease until we are in alignment with it.
My journey is far from over, but it is less and less my own. I am grateful now for every step. And excited to see where the next fork in the road takes me . . .
(All pictures in this section are from my time in Bali)
Kristin Leonheart, 2020
Update
I wrote the above in 2020, not too long after my series of awakenings occurred, and have gone back a few times to see if I felt the need to update it. Each time, I looked at the last thing I wrote, that I was surrendering to the awakening unfolding and to the egoic healing it asked of me, and felt like, “yeah that still pretty much sums it up.” This year, I finally felt differently!
In 2024, some experiences I’d been having mildly began to ramp up. Then one night, a door slammed open and that has led to shifts in my perceptions and capacities that I was not anticipating. That continues to unfold, doors continue to open that I didn't know were there.
I began to experience the spirit realm, (ghosts, colloquially), all the time. A few months into that, as I worked on boundaries there, I had a past life memory. A few months after that, I began to experience my consciousness traveling outside of my body, and then I had another past life memory. I’ve had access to some psychic abilities as well. My hands started to spontaneously work with energy in the beings around me to support their healing.
Using words for all these things is complicated for me, because the actual experience of these things is so different from the way I used to relate to those words. For example, “past” life memories don’t feel past, they still feel living. Time has not existed in my relationship to them. Soul just feels like energy that’s particular, and I could go on and on. Still, I don’t have better words.
Previous to 2024, I also began to experience soul more clearly, gained access to what we refer to as the higher self, and had experiences of soul retrieval, both guided and spontaneous.
I’m in a learning process around all these things, and in how to relate to them in the healthiest and most effective way. I’m still the practical spiritual girl, even now that I know so many things are possible that I used to flatly reject. I know these abilities can be entrancing in a way that distracts or causes harm, and I know my process will ask me to mitigate that, but I also now understand how helpful they can be. This was something I greatly underestimated.
Buddhism talks about wisdom types and faith types on the path. I’ve always been a firm wisdom type, and now I see the ways that was limiting me more clearly.
In 2024, some experiences I’d been having mildly began to ramp up. Then one night, a door slammed open and that has led to shifts in my perceptions and capacities that I was not anticipating. That continues to unfold, doors continue to open that I didn't know were there.
I began to experience the spirit realm, (ghosts, colloquially), all the time. A few months into that, as I worked on boundaries there, I had a past life memory. A few months after that, I began to experience my consciousness traveling outside of my body, and then I had another past life memory. I’ve had access to some psychic abilities as well. My hands started to spontaneously work with energy in the beings around me to support their healing.
Using words for all these things is complicated for me, because the actual experience of these things is so different from the way I used to relate to those words. For example, “past” life memories don’t feel past, they still feel living. Time has not existed in my relationship to them. Soul just feels like energy that’s particular, and I could go on and on. Still, I don’t have better words.
Previous to 2024, I also began to experience soul more clearly, gained access to what we refer to as the higher self, and had experiences of soul retrieval, both guided and spontaneous.
I’m in a learning process around all these things, and in how to relate to them in the healthiest and most effective way. I’m still the practical spiritual girl, even now that I know so many things are possible that I used to flatly reject. I know these abilities can be entrancing in a way that distracts or causes harm, and I know my process will ask me to mitigate that, but I also now understand how helpful they can be. This was something I greatly underestimated.
Buddhism talks about wisdom types and faith types on the path. I’ve always been a firm wisdom type, and now I see the ways that was limiting me more clearly.
I feel a deeper sense of faith, of being loved and supported by Isness, of more intentionality to life than I had previously felt.
My fear of death has lessened further, my perspective has further broadened.
I was previously unsure how political my process would ask me to be. In this time of rising fascism in the US, I have found that question answered. I am fully committed to spiritual activism and that has also forced me to face my fear of being harmed, and of dying.
I stand with all human beings who long for freedom, and for a more loving world. I will use the suffering of this time to further let go, and realize my True Nature, and to enable me to more effectively support others in doing the same. I will peacefully stand in front of a tank, or a drone, or a federal officer, to protect my community.
The process of surrendering into the gravitational pull of awakening, letting go of ego and having deeper and deeper communion with God, consciousness, Being - whatever word you want to use for it - still continues. It has me in its clutches and I know our union is the only answer.
Lastly, because I think it is so important, I want to be explicit about still having plenty of ego left. I am not perfect - nor are people who are more enlightened than me. No one should project superiority or perfection onto me or onto anyone on the awakening path.
That is so brief, but encompasses what's most important I think. I wanted to add this addendum in case it helps people who have had similar experiences feel more comfortable reaching out to me.
The path is weird and it takes us all to different places on our way up the mountain. I feel so incredibly lucky to have access to this wisdom in this life and to be able to share that with others. I am here if this resonates with you.
I was previously unsure how political my process would ask me to be. In this time of rising fascism in the US, I have found that question answered. I am fully committed to spiritual activism and that has also forced me to face my fear of being harmed, and of dying.
I stand with all human beings who long for freedom, and for a more loving world. I will use the suffering of this time to further let go, and realize my True Nature, and to enable me to more effectively support others in doing the same. I will peacefully stand in front of a tank, or a drone, or a federal officer, to protect my community.
The process of surrendering into the gravitational pull of awakening, letting go of ego and having deeper and deeper communion with God, consciousness, Being - whatever word you want to use for it - still continues. It has me in its clutches and I know our union is the only answer.
Lastly, because I think it is so important, I want to be explicit about still having plenty of ego left. I am not perfect - nor are people who are more enlightened than me. No one should project superiority or perfection onto me or onto anyone on the awakening path.
That is so brief, but encompasses what's most important I think. I wanted to add this addendum in case it helps people who have had similar experiences feel more comfortable reaching out to me.
The path is weird and it takes us all to different places on our way up the mountain. I feel so incredibly lucky to have access to this wisdom in this life and to be able to share that with others. I am here if this resonates with you.
Kristin Leonheart, February 2026
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Love is reckless; not reason. |
