Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Leah Taylor. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Leah , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Can you share a story with us from back when you were an intern or apprentice? Maybe it’s a story that illustrates an important lesson you learned or maybe it’s a just a story that makes you laugh (or cry)?

When I was a marriage family therapist (MFT) intern, I took an internship at the Institute for Health and Healing in San Francisco at Sutter General Hospital. It was before I started my PhD in Mind-Body Medicine, but I knew this was a field I was interested in. The internship was to facilitate guided imagery and expressive arts to enhance healing and improve treatment outcomes. It was a very unique position as hospitals are not required to have MFTs on staff so most hospitals don’t offer this type of emotional support. Because the patients were not opting into therapy with me, they were just in the hospital for other reasons, I wasn’t doing traditional therapy.

My job was to provide the most healing experience in the best way I could. I would offer guided imagery and/or expressive arts because that’s what I was learning, but not all patients were into that. Sometimes I just sat and talked with them, offering my presence and support, or we might just color together. The hospital is a very unpredictable environment, and I never knew how much time I might have with someone.

It was an everyday practice of being in the moment, in service, without an agenda of what that looked like. It was also an opportunity for me to really feel and allow myself time to process the intensity of emotions present at the hospital. I am forever grateful for this experience, and it has greatly informed my ability to be in the moment, be of the highest service, and open up to a sense of spirituality in my work with people and groups.

Leah , love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I have known from a very young age that I wanted to be of service and help make the world a better place. I believe that any change begins within. When we can change our own internal environment and learn to care for ourselves, we can truly love and care for others and our world at large.

I started down this path as a therapist but never felt comfortable with traditional talk therapy which just continues to strengthen the mind/body division. With this knowing, I got my Master’s in Somatic Counseling Psychology, to include the body in the healing, and later earned a PhD in Mind-Body Medicine to put it all together.

Throughout my graduate education, I learned the research that supports what I have always known is true. Our thoughts, emotions, and behaviors are extremely important to our health. And, there is no cookie-cutter approach to health. I talk about personalized wellness because a person’s beliefs, interests, and values are an essential element in what promotes health and healing. This is something not considered in modern healthcare.

In my work with people, I assess their lifestyle from a holistic perspective and help them make positive changes in all areas of their life by focusing on their thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. I teach them how to use their body as a portal for pleasure (the antidote to stress, anxiety, insomnia, and pain), Divine Intuition (that will always provide information on what the body needs at any given time), and Personal Power (where they are the expert of their own health and wellbeing).

I am unique in the fact that I can teach these concepts to others, talk about them in a way that is understandable and easily applicable to one’s life, and I am the embodiment of this work, this is how I live my life.

I have also created my own movement modality, Embodied Groove®. The 3 Pillars of Embodied Groove® are 1) Transmuting stored trauma & strengthening inner resources, 2) Experience Dr. Leah Taylor’s Sacred Medicine, and 3) Connection with the Divine & enhanced frequency activation.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

About 5 years ago we had a house fire. Our family (my husband, son, and myself) were awoken at 4 am by the sound of fire alarms going off in our house and smoke filling our rooms. We all got out safely, thank goodness and our house was saved from burning by a fire suppression system. But, most of our stuff was lost to smoke damage and the majority of our house needed to be gutted and rebuilt.

We were out of our house for a year and a half. At this time, I was at the end of my PhD just about to finish up research on my dissertation and write it all up. A few months after the fire I had my first panic attack. Even though I had all the tools from my PhD in Mind-Body Medicine and my training as a therapist, the stress and overwhelm got me.

At that time, I realized that nervous system regulation and “doing the work” were not enough. I had to add in pleasurable emotions to my life as an antidote to what I had gone through. For that year, I tried an experiment of following what felt good and prioritizing that.

This experiment went against so much of what I “thought was right” but it proved to be the best thing I could do for my healing and elevation. Through the prioritization of my emotional wellness, I healed my anxiety and panic attacks and became a much happier, relaxed, and hopeful person. I also lost weight and connected more deeply to my purpose. Now I add this into my work with clients and continue to prioritize this within myself.

If you could go back, would you choose the same profession, specialty, etc.?

Yes, I absolutely would! I can’t imagine not doing work where I get to make an immediate positive impact on people’s lives. It fills me with so much gratitude to be able to empower my clients with active tools and strategies they can use every day to enhance their health and well-being. I am on a mission to empower everyone with medicine that doesn’t come from a pill and to help them understand that their lifestyle is their medicine. I love knowing that in my own way, I am doing my part to transfer control away from pharmaceutical companies by returning personal power to individuals, one person, or one group at at time.

As for my specialty in holistic health, we are multidimensional beings and the only way to truly affect our health is to focus on mind, body, and spirit and the interplay between the three. With everything we are learning about quantum physics and healing, this is the new paradigm of healthcare and I am grateful to be on the cutting edge.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.drleahtaylor.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drleahtaylor/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/inneralignment/
• Other: Tik Tok – https://www.tiktok.com/@drleahtaylor

Image Credits
In Her Image Photography In Her Image Photography Alan Scheckter Lori Cheung Cierra Breeze Photography