Today we’d like to introduce you to Matt And K.ay’nea Riley
Matt And K.ay’nea, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
Our names are K.Ay’Nea & Matt Riley. We currently reside in Monmouth County, NJ. We met each other in 2003 online, before it was really popular, on Yahoo. There was an instant connection between us that went way beyond just an ordinary meeting. Ten weeks later, we were engaged, and we got married in 2004.
We began our business, the Heart of Oneness Holistic Expo, in 2018. We are a holistically-minded community organization located in New Jersey that is committed and dedicated to wellness, self-awareness, mindfulness and inner unification. As an organization, we have the profound gift of coordinating and collaborating with over 250 wellness practitioners, businesses, and progressive thought leaders as a way of educating others on the importance of a healthy mind and healthy body connection.
In 2018, we launched our first holistic 1-day event, and within 3 months of startup, we were sold out. The outpouring of support from the community was overwhelmingly beautiful and validating. We not only sold out our exhibitor booth requirements, but the turn out and interest from the public was incredible. It was amazing to see how enthusiastic people were to come together in this way and experience sound healing or energy techniques that helped to alleviate pain and stress from the body as well as the mind. It has been such a period of grace to witness the transformation in other people’s lives.
Since 2018, we have hosted 7 in-person holistic events growing from 40 exhibitors to 300 exhibitors with thousands of people attending each year. This past April, we had exhibitors from all around the nation and anticipate an even greater number of attendees and collaborators moving forward into 2025.
Our passion project is to truly create an environment in which others feel safe to express and expand into their own greatest selves while discovering new ways of supporting their path to wholeness and higher awareness. As a holistically minded business, it is vitally important to support others and come together in ways that inspire new pathways of living and being. We feel these collaborative weekend events inspire so much more than what meets the eye. Now more than ever, people are looking for ways to improve and better their lives both naturally and organically. From food to health to self-development, there is a desire for people to connect with themselves and others in a whole new way.
Our desire and goal are to host these events nationally in a way that is sustainable and healthy for both participants and attendees. We believe that despite the world events right now, human connection is what bridges every difference and makes all the difference we ever need. As human beings we are naturally drawn to places that feel like home and where there is great love, we will always have a home. Our dreams, desires and visions are big, and we believe that through heart-to-heart connections, we will change the world for the better. Choice by choice, action by action, and hand in hand, we will evolve into our greatest selves.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
For years, we had put so much focus and energy into our corporate life that it was taking a serious toll on our personal health. When life starts to feel like an uphill climb, it is vital to take a pause and re-evaluate our purpose. We both went on a spiritual journey that began in 2007, and things have not been the same since. Now, we are both in our 50’s and are very passionate about living a holistic and balanced lifestyle and believe that our best life has only just begun. Our lives and inner practice at being and living as better humans has reshaped our world and the lives we touch. We believe in our core that “Dreams beget Dreams”, and we should live with an abundance mindset and values that foster the importance of giving to others and being of service, especially now.
In 2016, after experiencing some health challenges in our lives, we both realized that major changes needed to be made in our lifestyle. This experience led us inward as we began seeking the answers to deeper questions as to why we are here and what we were meant to do. We both always naturally felt the call to lead, and we both felt that we were missing the passion and excitement that comes when you truly find your purpose. Through challenges and disappointments, we found and discovered ourselves in a whole new empowered way.
We’ve been impressed with Heart of Oneness Holistic Expo, but for folks who might not be as familiar, what can you share with them about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
At Heart of Oneness, we specialize in consciousness, relationship building and setting a safe foundation and environment for businesses to flourish and thrive not only for the weekend but long after the event. Our passion resides within a new paradigm of collaboration that fosters growth for everyone. We know we are building a new way of doing business by being focused upon the success of our collaborators and exhibitors. In our realm of conscious creation there is no competition, only shared mutual goals and desires so that everyone is succeeding and supporting one another. We believe there is great power in togetherness, a shared vision and intention.
Can you tell us more about what you were like growing up?
As children, our background stories are very different. Yet, we believe they led us to meet and converge at the timeliest of moments.
Matt was born and raised in East Keansburg, NJ, grew up in an Irish Catholic household, the middle child of 3 and attended private school. Despite attending 12 years of religious education, he always felt an inner calling to explore his spirituality from different perspectives. His hobbies included sports throughout most of his early childhood, and as he became a teenager, he began to experience bouts of severe depression, anxiety and anti-social tendencies which led to two suicide attempts and many years of psychotherapy and medication. It would not be until we met in 2003 that life began taking a massive shift, and at the age of 43, he came off medication and began unveiling the real aspect of who he believed himself to be, outside of traditional labels and ideas.
K.Ay’Nea, on the other hand, was born in the Bronx and lived in the New York area most of her life. Being born in the Bronx gave her a very strong understanding and foundation of how diverse life was at an early age. Despite growing up most of her childhood years in Staten Island in the 70s, what stands out most was visiting the Bronx to spend time with her grandmother every summer. This cultivated her understanding of the NYC heartbeat which fed her inner flames of passion and inquisitiveness that is still very much with her today. Her teenage years proved to be some of the most challenging years of her life as she learned that her birth father had enforced parental relinquishment at the age of 11 which led to a deep inner wounding that was the perfect breeding ground for self-doubt, self-esteem challenges and difficulties in being seen. It would be during her later teen years that sexual assault, teen pregnancy and dropping out of high school became her manifested reality. At the tender age of 40, the universe initiated a move to Florida that changed the course and direction of her life forever.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.heartofonenessholisticexpo.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/heartofonenessholisticexpo/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Heartofonenessholisticexpo
