Leah Harris is an incredible outspoken writer, public speaker, and advocate for “trauma-informed” approaches to health care, and creative and holistic strategies for healing from the effects of trauma and toxic stress. A suicide attempt survivor and suicide prevention advocate, Leah’s story is featured in the upcoming feature-length documentary about suicide, The S Word.
Leah #Emergesproud to say:
“I’m a mother, storyteller, and mentor who loves to support people to heal on all the levels – mind, heart, body and spirit — so they can more fully step onto their path and do their sacred work in the world.
I’m so passionate about the healing journey. I love what a non-linear spiral it is and how it’s never done. I’ve spent the last 20 years of my life devoted to learning everything I can about healing my own wounds, so I can share these elixirs with the world.
I love, love, love creative exploration and expression. Poetry has saved my life on more than one occasion. Nothing brings me more joy than to be in that creative zone of flow where the passage of time means nothing. Those moments of connection are what make life matter.
I’m obsessed with all forms of social justice. My mission is to make the world a safer and more gentle place to be human.
I’m a super sensitive, empathic, introverted type who uses all the labels and then rejects them in order to remain in a state of wonder and surprise about myself, others, and this life.
I dislike boxes of any kind, unless they are filled with organic dark chocolates.
I’m learning to lean more authentically and unapologetically into myself, and I love to encourage others to do the same.
My best friends say my superpower is listening. Folks I work with tend to agree: I hold space like nobody’s business. And that’s only because I’ve learned how to hold space for me.
I know what it’s like to feel like the world is too much, and I don’t belong here. What it’s like to want to crawl under the covers and not come out. What it’s like to hurt and to be without hope. What it’s like to sense a calling but feel so stuck, I can’t step into it.
When I was 28 and going through a serious quarter-life, Saturn-return mega crisis, an astrologer told me that my soul chose to come into a really turbulent and chaotic life experience so that I could take on the mission of healing my own trauma, become empathic as f*ck, and step into a role as a teacher and healer. At the time, I was like “who would CHOOSE this?” and “no WAY do I have anything to teach,” but now I know that she was right. I had to learn to trust myself enough to see the truth in her words….”
How much are you looking forward to hearing Leah speak? Probably not as much as me!
Reframing Mental distress as a potential catalyst for positive change 