Leah Skurdal

Resilience Guide · Speaker · Author · COO, The Wellness Universe

Calm Is Contagious — So Is Grounded Leadership

Helping people reclaim their inner authority in the face of uncertainty.

Based in the Twin Cities, Minnesota · Speaking and teaching virtually and in person, nationally and internationally

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Welcome

Welcome. I’m Leah Skurdal, a Resilience Guide, speaker and author, and COO of The Wellness Universe.

I help people stay steady when life feels uncertain. Through my Grounded Presence framework, I teach practical, body-aware tools for calming the nervous system and listening to the inner wisdom that knows your next right step. The words I hear most often after a session are “I feel more like myself.”

If you’re planning a retreat, conference or team gathering, I’d love to help your people leave with steadier nerves and tools they’ll actually use the next morning. And if you simply know you need something but aren’t sure what it is, you’re welcome here too.

For retreat, conference and event organizers

Speaking and Workshops for Retreats, Conferences and Organizations

Leah meets people where resilience matters most: at work, in leadership, in relationships, through major life transitions, and in the moments when there is no clear answer. She speaks and leads experiential workshops for retreats, conferences, associations and organizations, both virtually and in person.

Her sessions are practical and participatory. People learn what stress does in the body, practice simple tools in the room, and leave with something they can use the same day. Leah brings warmth and a light touch, so even serious topics feel approachable.

Group size: Leah’s sweet spot is small, intimate groups where everyone can take part in the practices. She also speaks to large audiences and shapes the experience to fit the room.

Full- and half-day programs are also available in collaboration with other wellness providers from The Wellness Universe and The Wellness Universe Corporate Wellness Solutions.

Tailored to your event: every session begins with a planning call to learn about your audience, goals and theme. Leah can present with or without PowerPoint and, where space allows, include gentle movement and quiet partner sharing.

Signature Talks for Recovery Support Teams

Supporting organizations that serve families in addiction recovery is a growing focus of Leah’s work. These three talks were designed for the people who carry that work every day.

Recent Talks and Workshops

• “The GOAL Method: How Sensitive Leaders Stay Centered When Everything Is Changing” — Stronger Together Speaking, Wellbeing Reset Summit
• “Grounded Presence: Focus, Resilience, and Flow” — a three-part mental fitness and resilience series Leah designed and facilitated for professional women soccer players, TPN Wellness Academy
• “Grounded Presence: Embodying Soul to Stabilize the Field” and “Structure, Flow, and Soul Embodiment: What Is the Universe Asking of You?” — Anchors of the Light retreats
• “Confidence After Change” — featured panelist, The Wellness Universe SoulTreat
• “Grounded Presence – Embodied Resilience” — Gilda’s Club Minnesota, Integrative Pathways to Healing program

Leah also knows retreats from the inside. As speaker and event operations manager for SoulTreat at the Art of Living Retreat Center in Boone, North Carolina, she handles check-ins, room logistics and on-the-spot problem solving, so she understands what organizers are juggling.

Fees and travel: fees vary by format. For in-person engagements, travel and lodging are arranged with the host. Contact Leah at [email protected].

Book Leah to Speak Download the Speaker Sheet (PDF)

What Organizers Say

“Leah Skurdal is an amazing speaker and workshop presenter. She recently offered a presentation at a conference I helped organize and was such a delight to work with. She was prompt, professional, knowledgeable, and flexible. … Leah’s teaching on the nervous system, stress response, self-regulation, emotional reactivity, boundaries, inner authority, and burnout was comprehensive and practical. … Participants reflected in their feedback to me on the multiple ways they can utilize the wisdom and practices shared to become more effective leaders.”

Michele Rae, Transformational Coach, Author, The Center Within; Co-founder, Anchors Of The Light CommUnity

“Leah is a compassionate and gifted facilitator who creates an environment where people feel safe, welcomed, and able to connect with themselves. Her Grounded Presence Framework beautifully blends reflection, body awareness, meditation, and gentle movement into practical tools participants can carry into their everyday lives. She was a wonderful addition to Gilda’s Club Minnesota’s Integrative Pathways to Healing program, and our participants responded very positively to her warm, accessible approach.”

Katherine Todd, DNP, RN, MBA, Chief Executive Officer, Gilda’s Club Minnesota

Leading a workshop on choosing your response under stress.

The framework

Grounded Presence: How to Stay Steady Under Pressure

Imagine your team, or you, meeting a hard day with calm assurance: breathing easier, reacting less, and making clear decisions when there is no clear answer. That is what Grounded Presence is for.

Grounded Presence is Leah’s framework for staying steady when life is stressful or uncertain, the current, named expression of practices she has lived and taught for decades. She teaches it through the GOAL Method, four steps people experience in her talks, workshops and classes rather than read about.

The Four Steps of the GOAL Method

What people notice with practice. People who practice GOAL breathe more easily and stay calmer in stressful moments. They become less reactive and more responsive, which shows up in their relationships, their leadership and their ability to make confident decisions for the greater good.

How Leah teaches it. Sessions draw on stories, breathwork, voice and toning, improvisational movement, journaling, partner and group sharing, and guided meditation. Every practice can be adapted to the group and the space.

Who Leah Works With

Areas of Focus

Resilience Nervous system regulation Stress and burnout Compassion fatigue Compassionate boundaries Emotional reactivity Calm leadership under pressure Inner authority and self-trust Navigating uncertainty and life transitions Body awareness Guided meditation Practical spirituality

Leah also works with educators, wellness professionals and heart-led leaders who want to be a steadier presence for the people they serve.

Learn with Leah online

Online Classes and Free Guided Meditations

A good place to experience Leah’s teaching before booking her, or to begin your own practice at home. The classes are recordings you can listen to at your convenience. Her classes in The Wellness Universe Lounge have earned ★ 4.9 from 84 ratings, plus 11 learner recommendations.

Recorded Classes

• Grounded Presence – Embody Resilience
• Grounded Presence: Building Trust and Influence in Every Conversation

See all of Leah’s classes in The Wellness Universe Lounge →

MidWeek Reset Library: more than 50 free recorded guided meditations in The Wellness Universe Lounge (donations welcome).

“Leah’s Grounded Presence session gave me practical tools for managing stress while reminding me to listen to my body. Her presence was warm, compassionate, and reassuring, and I would absolutely participate in another session with her.”

Workshop participant

For individuals

Going Deeper: Soul Embodiment Private Guidance

Some people want to go further than a workshop allows. Soul Embodiment Private Guidance is Leah’s one-to-one work for individuals ready to deepen their relationship with their inner wisdom and integrate higher consciousness into everyday life. Her individual sessions, called Soul Embodiment Energy Healing sessions, are available virtually or in person in the Twin Cities.

A one-to-one session at SoulTreat.

By inner wisdom, Leah means the part of us that stays connected to something larger — called by many names, including the soul, higher intelligence, Source or Divine Love — and that always knows our next right step. Body wisdom is its partner: the innate intelligence held in our physical cells.

What a session may include: energy healing, personal guidance in bringing the Grounded Presence framework into daily life, embodied awareness practices, nervous system regulation tools, improvisational movement, sound healing with voice and toning, and guided meditation.

Private Sessions, Mentorship and Investment

Book a Free 15-Minute Chat

Leah’s own practice. Leah has completed mastery-level training in Awakening Your Light Body, a path to self-realization that develops the ability to sense the subtle energies of the soul and bring the soul’s consciousness into daily life. It represents more than 10,000 hours of training and practice over 30 years.

“I want to sincerely thank Leah for the beautiful and magical ritual she guided. It created a profound shift for me — freeing space in both my mind and body and allowing me to move forward with greater clarity, alignment, and self-trust. The experience gently affirmed what I was already sensing deep within myself: the need for more spaciousness, care, and intention as I step into the next chapter. Leah holds space with remarkable wisdom, intuition, and grace, and I am deeply grateful for the experience and transformation it inspired.”

Charleen M. Michel, Ph.D., Founder, Wisdom Unleashed – Unlimited Paths to Self-Discovery; Lead Author, Soul Notes: A Women’s Guide to Empowerment

Leah offers education and spiritual guidance. Her work can complement, but does not replace, therapy, medical care or addiction treatment.

Her story

About Leah: 30 Years of Research, Practice and Lived Experience

Leah Skurdal is a Resilience Guide, author, and COO of The Wellness Universe. Drawing on 30 years of research, practice, and lived experience, she helps people reclaim their inner authority in the face of uncertainty. Through her Grounded Presence framework, she teaches practical, body-aware tools for nervous system regulation to educators, wellness professionals, and conscious changemakers, with a growing focus on organizations serving families in addiction recovery. Leah bridges higher consciousness with practical action, helping people trust their inner wisdom and live as their most grounded selves.

Leah knows uncertainty firsthand. At 20, she survived a car accident around the same time a friend died, and she began asking about her life’s purpose. In her twenties, a season of loss and transition had her dancing on the edge of alcoholism, until she turned inward and rebuilt her resilience from the inside out. Learning to trust her inner wisdom changed her life and became the foundation of her work.

Leah also grew up in an alcoholic family. She knows from the inside what families affected by addiction carry, and what the people who serve them carry too.

Her path has crossed cultures and disciplines. After studying in France, she served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Democratic Republic of Congo, teaching Business English and Family Education at a business school. She went on to earn an MA in Political Science specializing in African Studies and to work with Southeast Asian refugees. She co-directed Friends for a Non-Violent World and coordinated the Turn Off The Violence project, work that taught her how calm presence and compassionate communication can shift tension. Since her twenties, Leah has studied the body’s wisdom, and more than 500 hours of training in therapeutic bodywork and energy healing taught her to trust her body’s signals and grounded her inner knowing in somatic awareness.

As a Peace Corps teacher in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Leah often wore a pagne, a traditional cloth wrap.

For 30 years, Leah has taught classes and led workshops that help leaders embody their inner wisdom and wellbeing.

Today, Leah continues to support former Peace Corps students and Congolese refugees in Uganda through micro-enterprise projects and children’s education.

At the heart of all of it is connection: Leah connects people with each other, with the resources they need and with their own inner wisdom and body intelligence. Grounded Presence is the structure she developed to help others move through complexity with the same steadiness she found.

Her life motto is One Earth, One People, One Love.

Books and articles

Published Work by Leah Skurdal

Newest: The Wellness Universe Guide to Complete Self-Care: 25 Tools for Navigating Loss, Grief & Transition (Book 7)

Leah’s chapter, “When the World Falls Apart: Trust in Your Inner Authority,” is about finding steadiness within when trust in outside structures erodes.

“Leah’s personal journey encourages me to challenge the necessity of external structure and organization, and instead, invest in actually listening to the divinity, wisdom and ‘Holy Spirit’ that is already within me.”

Shelley Hyytinen, Retired Leader

Seeking Serenity: How to Find Your Inner Calm and Joy (author)

A practical guide to releasing stress and returning to inner calm, with simple exercises you can use anywhere.

“Seeking Serenity is a beautifully written guidebook to help manage anxiety and stress. It’s filled with easy to follow lessons in stress release that you can practice anywhere. I loved the instructions given to vividly imagine what you want, I’ve always wanted to know how to do that! I loved this book and plan on recommending it to my clients, it’s something useful you can keep close by and use when you need it.”

Linda Yalen, verified Amazon reviewer

The Wellness Universe Guide to Complete Self-Care Series (contributing author)

• 25 Tools for Navigating Loss, Grief & Transition — “When the World Falls Apart: Trust in Your Inner Authority”
• 25 Tools for Transformation — “The Courage to Be Seen: Reclaim Your Voice, Power, and Purpose”
• 25 Tools for Life — contributor page, “Inspiration and Integration for Your Best Life”
• 25 Tools for Goddesses — “The Art of Jazz Living: Overcoming Challenges with Grace, Ease & Joy”
• 25 Tools to Achieve Anything — “Listen to Your Body Wisdom: Transform Energy Blockages Through Movement”

“Chapter 19 The Courage To Be Seen Reclaim Your Voice, Power, and Purpose really spoke to me. Leah writes how we can be influenced by genetic emotions that we may not even recognize. They come from our familial history and can be contributed by one or more of the following factors: cultural, religion, and environmental. Understanding where they come from, Leah writes, is the exercise to process genetically installed tragedies, then she gives tools to embrace your authentic self.”

Betsy Cutler, M.Ed., VP, Corporate Wellness and Safeguarding, United Soccer League

The Ancestors Within: Discover and Connect with Your Ancient Origins — “Our Ancestors Are Related: Raising Collective Consciousness”

Featured articles on The Wellness Universe blog: Grounded Presence Builds Resilience · Agile Rather Than Fragile · “Now What?!” Responding to Life Challenges with Presence · Listening With Your Heart

Read all of Leah’s articles on The Wellness Universe blog →
Find Leah’s books on Amazon →

Experience, Credentials and Affiliations

Leah speaking on the “Personal Interfaith Peacemaking” panel at the Parliament of the World’s Religions, Toronto.

More Speaking and Teaching

• Parliament of the World’s Religions, Toronto — panelist, “Personal Interfaith Peacemaking”
• Four-time presenter, Women & Spirituality Conference, Rochester, MN, including “Choosing the Center: Finding Peace in Chaos”
• Contributed “Finding Your Center for Stress Resilience” to the University of North Carolina Wilmington’s Whole Self Care and Wellness pilot program for social work, nursing and exercise science students
• The Wellness Universe SoulTreat — provider
• “High Vibration Living: Leaders Bridging Inner & Outer Peace,” The Wellness Universe
• “3 Ways to Reset the Vagus Nerve for Improved Mental Wellbeing,” World Mental Health Day
• Also: Anoka-Ramsey Community College (“Toggle to Joy”); Dare to Soar Chiropractic (“Five Simple Strategies to Subdue Stress”)

Leadership at The Wellness Universe and Beyond

• COO of The Wellness Universe. Leah’s path there ran from core blogger and co-author to SoulTreat provider, leader of two Wellness For All programs, Wellness For All Program Manager and then COO. Her favorite part of the role is helping members uncover their intentions for their business and connecting them to resources that expand their impact.
• Hosted, in partnership with The Wellness Universe, a Resilience Building event series in which global wellness experts shared different aspects of resilience: “Resilience for Everyday,” “Resilience for Harmony” and “Resilience for the Holidays”
• Speaker and Event Operations Manager, SoulTreat at the Art of Living Retreat Center, Boone, North Carolina
• Led more than 50 MidWeek Reset guided meditations
• Represented The Wellness Universe at Soccerex Miami, introducing attendees to WU programs and services
• Event producer for the Global Summit for Transformational Educators, which brought together a global roster of teachers and healers to explore transformational education

Media, Podcasts and Interviews

Featured in Voyage Minnesota, “The Changemakers: Stories That Inspire”

As Heard On

• Stronger Together Speaking, Wellbeing Reset Summit — “The GOAL Method: How Sensitive Leaders Stay Centered When Everything Is Changing” (clip)
• Today’s Conversation with Sara Jane — “Grounded Embodied Resilience”
• Be Amazing You with Lolita Guarin
• Also: Growth Mindset Parenting Summit · World Mental Health Day · Wellness Quarters · Your Face Story with Yolanda Russo · Life Mastery Podcast (“Claiming Your Inner Authority”)

Podcast hosts: Leah welcomes interview invitations on resilience, nervous system regulation, inner authority and calm leadership.

Frequently Asked Questions

What topics does Leah speak on?

Staying steady under pressure, nervous system regulation, compassionate boundaries, burnout and compassion fatigue, calm leadership, and trusting your inner wisdom during uncertainty. Her signature talks are Grounded Under Pressure, Compassionate Boundaries, and Agile, Not Fragile.

How long are Leah’s talks and workshops?

Each is tailored to your event: 20-minute talks, 45–60 minute keynotes, 90-minute workshops and half-day programs. Full- and half-day programs are also available in collaboration with other Wellness Universe providers.

Can Leah tailor a talk to our audience?

Yes. Leah begins with a planning call to learn about your audience, goals and theme, then shapes the session around them.

What does Leah need from us?

Very little. Sessions adapt to your organization, audience and space. Leah can present with or without PowerPoint and, where space allows, include gentle movement and quiet partner sharing.

What size groups does Leah work with?

Leah’s sweet spot is small, intimate groups where everyone can take part in the practices. She also speaks to large audiences and shapes the experience to fit the room.

Is Leah available for virtual and in-person events?

Yes. Leah speaks and leads workshops virtually and in person, and is available for events nationally and internationally. For in-person engagements, travel and lodging are arranged with the host.

What are Leah’s speaking fees?

Fees vary by format and travel. Contact Leah for details at [email protected].

Is Leah’s work spiritual? Is it a fit for a secular organization?

Leah’s talks and workshops are practical: body awareness, nervous system regulation and clear thinking under stress. Any spiritual elements are offered as an invitation, never a requirement, and every practice can be adapted to your group. Those who want to go deeper can explore her private guidance.

Does Leah work with recovery organizations?

Supporting organizations that serve families in addiction recovery is a growing focus of Leah’s work, and her signature talks are designed for recovery support teams. Her understanding comes from lived experience growing up in an alcoholic family and 30 years of research and practice.

Does Leah work with people struggling with addiction?

No. Leah is not an addiction therapist and does not provide crisis support or treatment. She supports the professionals, teams and volunteers who work with people in addiction recovery, and she works with individuals navigating transitions, transformation, and stressful seasons of life. If you or someone you love needs help now, please see The Wellness Universe Emergency and Crisis Resource List or contact a licensed provider.

What is Grounded Presence? What is the GOAL Method?

Grounded Presence is Leah’s framework for staying steady under pressure. It is taught through the GOAL Method: Ground in your body, Observe what is happening inside and around you, Ask your inner wisdom what you need, and Listen inward and to others beneath the noise.

What happens in a Soul Embodiment Energy Healing session?

A private, one-to-one session, virtual or in person. Sessions may include energy healing, personal guidance in bringing the Grounded Presence framework into daily life, embodied awareness practices, nervous system regulation tools, improvisational movement, sound healing with voice and toning, and guided meditation. Options include a single session, a package of five, or a 4-month mentorship.

Is this therapy?

No. Leah offers education and spiritual guidance. Her work can complement, but does not replace, therapy, medical care or addiction treatment.

I’m not sure what I need. Where do I start?

Book a free 15-minute chat with Leah. Many people come to Leah knowing they need something but not yet sure what it is. Together you can explore whether a class, a session or the mentorship is the right next step.

Book Leah to Speak or Start a Conversation

Whatever brought you here, there’s a simple next step.

Planning a retreat, conference or team event? Email [email protected] about a keynote, workshop, retreat session or ongoing program.

Supporting a recovery organization? Ask about a team workshop or one of the signature talks for recovery support teams.

Ready for something more personal, or not sure what you need? Start with a free 15-minute chat.

Want to try a practice first? Visit the MidWeek Reset Library or Leah’s classes.

Book Leah to Speak Book a Free 15-Minute Chat Download the Speaker Sheet (PDF)

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One Earth, One People, One Love.