Leah Willis
Determined | Courageous | Dedicated
Leah Willis
Leah Willis, founder of Hueman Alternatives, offers workshops and mentoring encouraging empowerment, resilience and healing through ancestral practices.
She is a wise woman and matriarch sowing the seeds for a new epoch through her intuitive connection to plant spirits, the wisdom and guidance of nature and her ancestral lineage. Leah is a student and teacher of ancestral life ways, certified Shamanic Ecotherapy Guide through an apprenticeship with Elizabeth Meacham, PhD., a 200 hour registered yoga instructor through the Dawn M. Rivers School of Yoga, and a certified permaculture designer through Bret Joseph, president and director for Resilient Health Network, Inc. and director at Center for Ecological Culture, Inc. She has completed survival training, wilderness first aid and is an avid forager of mushrooms and wild edible and medicinal plants.
In June of 2019, Leah participated in a 6 day survival skills training. Of the 4 participants, she was the only person of color and the only woman. She was also the only one who stayed the entire 6 nights in the woods, built a shelter and slept on the ground. Leah learned to build a fire without matches, carve traps, navigate in the woods, filet a fish and survive with a knife, cordage, flint and steel. It was scary and empowering. Because of that experience, Leah became a certified yoga instructor, created Hueman Alternatives and became a shamanic ecotherapist. One act of bravery led to a new and exciting life and career.
Laura Silverman
Effervescent | compassionate | loquacious
Laura Silverman
I’ve always known I was bisexual. And in today’s day and age, it’s really no biggie. But for years I beat myself up about my orientation – and to this day I’ve only ever dated men.
My Scare Your Soul challenge was more internal. It was to fully accept myself and to tell others – besides my super close friends. So I did – and as it turns out, there are so many other thirty-somethings, like me, that are just coming out as bi or figuring things out about themselves. I feel a sense of solidarity. It’s important for me to be open now, regardless of whom I date or whom I’m attracted to (and even if I end up in a hetero-normative relationship) because I don’t want any future kids hating themselves or suffering internally, as I did. If anything else, I’m saying what I’m saying so that my inner child knows she will always be loved. And in June 2022, at age 39, I finally told my parents. I was so fearful of what their reaction might be — would they look at me differently? Love me any less? My wonderful parents received me with unconditional love.
I’ve also started to share more publicly about being HSV2 positive (genital herpes), which I got the night I lost my virginity in 2005. Navigating the dating world isn’t easy, period. But with an STD? It’s a Wild West out there. I take daily medication and haven’t had an outbreak in over a decade but I feel a sense of moral obligation to disclose my status to potential partners. To try something new — and really scare my soul — I include my STD status on my dating profiles and remove all emotion out of the disclosure. “Just telling you I have HSV2, I take daily meds, and it’s really not that big of a deal. Ask me anything!” I have fewer matches now but the ones I do get, I feel more empowered about.
I celebrated 15 years of being a booze-free babe in July of 2022 and choosing to embark on a path of sobriety was the most infinitely massive way of scaring my soul in 2007. It continues to be the best decision I ever made.
Instagram: @wearesober / @boozefreeindc / @zeroproofnation / @byvolumepodcast
TikTok: @boozefreebabe
Websites: www.zeroproofnation.
Kristina Ambrosia
Creative | Spunky | Sensitive
Kristina Ambrosia
What Scares My Soul?
So much.
I’m scared that I’m too much, and I’m scared that I’m not enough.
I’m scared that I feel too deeply, and I’m scared of not being able to feel at all.
I’m scared that I’m too dark, and I’m scared of my light.
I’m scared that I love myself in excess, and I’m scared that I’ll never love myself enough.
I’m scared of being rejected, and I’m scared of rejecting what is right for me.
I’m scared of being too ordinary, and I’m scared of not being ordinary enough.
I’m scared of my ego, and I’m scared of my insecurity.
I’m scared that I’m too selfish, and I’m scared that I’m a pushover.
I’m scared that if I put myself first I’ll let others downs, and I’m scared that if I put others first, I’ll let myself down.
I’m scared of truth-telling, and I’m scared of secrets.
Mostly, I’m scared of staying stagnant.
This fear, it turns out, saves me from collapsing under all my other fears. So at least there is that ☺.
I invite you to come be scared with me (I promise it makes it a little less scary that way).
You can find me on IG @k_ambrosia5 (personal) or kristinaambrosia (business) or at kristinaambrosia.com
Chris Bordoni
Thoughtfulness | Honest | Restless
Chris Bordoni
As a teenager, I was an All-America swimmer…. until I blew out both my shoulders.
In my 20s, I was an up-and-coming management consultant… until I suffered a serious back injury and was forced to leave my job.
And at 30, I was on top of the world after getting married, starting a business, and landing my first client… until I was diagnosed with Stage 3B testicular cancer.
Interestingly, though, it’s the “untils” that have added much of the richness to my life.
Today, I work with leaders and organizations facing big (and often terrifying) changes.
I’m the founder of Bordoni & Company, a boutique strategy consultancy, an Instructor at American University’s Kogod School of Business, and the host of the Reinvented podcast.
You can learn more about me and my work at https://chrisbordoni.com
Cynthia Coupe
VULNERABLE | OUTRAGEOUS | POWERFUL
Cynthia Coupe
2022 changed the course of my life. It scared my soul beyond all stretches of my imagination.
In the early morning hours of January 7th, 2022 I watched my husband take his last breaths. I didn’t know what was happening. I thought he was being funny, but he wasn’t. He was having a heart attack. Before that we were deeply in love, happily married, owned a business together and were making plans for the future. I had just done a TEDx talk, we had hired our first employees and were making plans to buy a home.
This has been the ultimate opportunity to reinvent myself. To turn out all the unintentional and negative programming that has kept me small, dimmed my light or thrown me off center. I’m filling myself with the things that get to be here, the things that make me feel powerful, capable and aligned. It’s soul scaring, and I’m doing it. As a result my daughter and I are thriving, my consulting business is taking off and I’m planning a trip to Australia with my daughter.
More than anything my husband wanted me to love myself; to truly see my light and live unafraid of my shadow. I couldn’t access that before, but I can now.
Somehow, I’m finally complete.
I am me: a world traveler, lifelong learner and single parent. I am a thought leader that works to shift paradigms and bring neurodiversity awareness to schools and corporations.
It took the love of my life dying to realize that I am enough. I am everything I ever needed. And so are you. We all are.
You can follow my blog on CynthiaCoupe.com and view my TEDx talk here: https://youtu.be/WprLOcEyh6M
