My Backstory
I wanted to take a different path today and share something personal with you…
I wanted to talk a bit about my history and what got me to where I am today.
(Just a heads up, this will be a bit longer than normal, because I really want to give you an inside look at how I got started.)
My company, Grounded Flight, helps people learn how to transform their inner pain and trauma into unf*ckwithable inner peace, and step powerfully into their purpose in this lifetime.
TO DATE we have helped over 50 individuals and their families learn how to heal their inner child and reprogram their minds to automatic abundance and optimism. We do this through our unique 𝙄𝙣𝙣𝙚𝙧 𝘼𝙡𝙘𝙝𝙚𝙢𝙮 𝘼𝙘𝙖𝙙𝙚𝙢𝙮, a program that I have developed over the past 6 years through my own healing journey.
Our mission statement at Grounded Flight is “We are committed to empowering individuals with the healing and rewiring tools to transform their inner pain into inner peace so they can propel powerfully into their purpose and be the healing agent that breaks generational curses and trauma in their bloodline.”
Way before Grounded Flight, I was fascinated with spirituality, meditation, and energy at a young age.
I was 10 years old when it came to a head for me.
Around that time my best friend’s older brother was shot and died in my front yard. I knew that something was off with me afterward. I just didn’t know what it was.
(It wasn’t until I took a psychology class in college that I recognized I was living with anxiety and ptsd)
At that time I was watching this popular show Avatar the Last Airbender. I saw the main character Aang meditating to heal and evolve. It clicked, and I was compelled to go outside in the place where I experienced the trauma and meditate.
And that was when everything changed for me.
I took a deep dive into videos, articles, books, and websites on chi, energy meditations, and how to see auras. I and my little brother would go in the backyard and practice chi energy experiences for hours and study the effects.
I began to attract the teachers that would help me advance.
At the church, I attended there were a few older men who also understood chakras, energy, meditation, and spirituality outside of the scope of religion.
And so religiously every Sunday I would come to them after church with a notebook FULL OF QUESTIONS about everything and anything that I could think of.
Because of my tenacity and obsession with this craft, they would give me very advanced spiritual techniques that I would practice every day at home from the ages of 10–17. This included everything from chakras, energy works, astral projection and reiki healing, etc.
[Picture on the left] There was a point in time that I wanted to see auras, desperately. While I was able to open my third eye, I was not prepared for what seeing others’ auras would entail. It got scary, out of my control. I saw some ugly things that caused me to get removed from class because I couldn’t stop crying.
However, the wins, trials, and errors gave me the educational foundation and spiritual experience needed to create Grounded Flight.
Now before I continue, at the expense of sounding like I had it all figured out and knew what my purpose was so soon, that couldn’t be furthest from the truth.
I grew up with anxiety, depression, ptsd, low self-worth and self-esteem my whole life.
Unbeknownst to me in my younger years, I was using spirituality, my practices as a way to cope with my existence and the rough upbringing.
When I got to Oberlin College in 2014 I was in a dark place and didn’t know what I wanted to do professionally. Meanwhile, all of my trauma was festering in the background. I silently felt like I was a boat at sea without any coordinates.
And we can’t forget experiencing racism on top of everything else. This plus trauma and unhealed wounds in the background created a concoction that led me to have a mental breakdown ..
It was my 2nd year of college and I fell to my knees feeling broken, hopeless, and lost, feeling like I didn’t want to live anymore.
Thinking all was going to be over soon, that was when I heard a voice….
God said “ 𝘋𝘦𝘳𝘰𝘯, 𝘎𝘦𝘵 𝘜𝘱 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘎𝘦𝘵 𝘉𝘢𝘤𝘬 𝘐𝘯𝘵𝘰 𝘠𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘚𝘱𝘪𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘶𝘢𝘭 𝘑𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘯𝘦𝘺”
At that moment I saw the light at the end of the tunnel.
And I began to remember all of the training that I did growing up, I hadn’t forgotten I simply veered off my path. I started to infuse the psychological tools from class plus what I practiced growing up to put the fractured pieces of my life back together again.
About 3 months went by of me doing this work. I felt renewed, internally changed. It was almost as if someone turned the attic light on and I could see differently.
It wasn’t long until my peers and my professors started asking me about my internal changes that were reflecting outward (my demeanor, my mood, and my confidence).
I told them and they saw results once they tried it in their lives. One of my professors even encouraged me to apply for a special 4-year grant project that would fund me researching these very practices and transformations.
From my experiences, I created a research project about the connection between racism and unresolved childhood trauma, anxiety, and depression. My thesis was that one can reverse the effects of racism, anxiety, depression, childhood trauma, and low self-esteem issues through different meditations, and psychological and spiritual practices.
They wanted us to give them a 2-year timeline of what educational resources we would initiate through our research. I planned out 2 years of bringing different practitioners to the space and creating classes solely focused on my thesis.
After a long promising application process, they denied me.
They said that they couldn’t see the correlation or benefit.
I was confused. I was sad. I was actually unconsciously seeking validation from this institution for my ideas, and I was angry that they didn’t accept me.
One angry night, as I was looking over my denied application, I stumbled across an idea I wrote for the proposal.
It was called “Uh Oh Meditation”. A meditation class that would bring different practitioners into the space and help guide the student through various mental, emotional, and spiritual exercises to begin to heal themselves from their stress, anxiety, depression, etc.
I said “F*ck it” I’m going to start Uh Oh today and I’m going to teach.”
My weekly Sunday meditation group was founded on my college campus in 2016.
It was magical. After a few months of consistently having these sessions professors were talking about it in their class, peers were talking about it in the dining spaces.
I would be regularly stopped on campus and asked when the next session was.
Students called it their home away from home. People on campus started to nickname me Mr. Meditation.
As I kept hosting these unique one-of-a-kind sessions, people started to ask about working with me 1 on 1…and Grounded Flight was born.
( I recognized one has to ground themselves before they fly, thus I began to call my work Grounded Flight )
The next evolution happened in my business 2 years later when word started to pick up about what I was doing in the college town.
I was nominated for this huge business pitch competition called Launch U held at Oberlin College. It was a 4 month 3 round application process.
I was in the top 10 finalists for the 20 grand business seed funding award.
I got on stage, captivated the audience, and won the crowd, but once again I wasn’t picked in first, second, or third place.
All of my friends and family came to support me in winning, and when I didn’t win I felt as if someone shot me in my chest.
Once again I felt angry like the institution didn’t value my ideas or how I wanted to push society forward.
𝘽𝙪𝙩 𝙤𝙣𝙚 𝙢𝙖𝙜𝙞𝙘𝙖𝙡 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙘𝙖𝙢𝙚 𝙤𝙪𝙩 𝙤𝙛 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙣𝙩.
One of the judges was so moved by my energy that he invited me to speak at his yearly leadership and creativity conference in Toronto Canada, called Mindcamp.
I presented my research to a room of about 40 people on healing and reprogramming the mind.
They were blown away.
They actually had me come back for the next 2 years because people raved about my sessions.
In one of the sessions I presented, I met an older gentleman who stopped me in the hallway after my workshop. He began telling me about the anger that has been hard for him to let go of for years.
He even went to therapy but wasn’t finding the success he wanted.
He had unhealed traumas from his past that were negatively affecting his relationship, his business, and his self-image.
It’s a 12-week program where we help our clients learn how to become alchemists and transform their inner pain and trauma into unfuckwithable inner peace.
An alchemist is ( someone who takes any negative event in life and transforms it to positively impact their lives)
The process begins with us helping them turn the chaos and confusion of what happened to them growing up into crystal clear clarity so they can understand how everything in their life started.
Then from there, we show them our 4 step healing method. They learn how to heal themselves, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and physically.
They heal and resolve their trauma on all 4 levels of their psyche and create deep inner peace and balance.
Then I show them how to make that inner peace a natural framework of their daily life while removing every negative, self-sabotaging thought pattern and transforming them into positive unconscious empowering thought patterns that run 24/7.
With that, they effortlessly become and sustain this new peaceful 2.0 version of themselves for the rest of their lives.
( we leave no stone unturned here)
[ If you’d like to talk to us about transforming your inner pain into unf*ckwithable inner peace, we would love to chat. Secure some time to chat with me- link in my profile. ]
Because I have gotten a reputation for helping people expand their hearts, minds, spirits, and businesses, I and Grounded Flight have also expanded over time.
In 2016 I was just doing free meditation workshops
In 2017 Grounded Flight was born and it grew into a powerful meditation group. From there I started offering small 1 on 1 session.
In 2018 I graduated from college, spoke at the Mindcamp conference, got my first private long-term client for Inner Alchemy Academy.
In 2019–2020 I taught as a contracted teacher and artist in residence at my alma mater for 2 years teaching Capoeira Angola and mindset while refining and honing Inner Alchemy Academy every day with every new client.
During this time I was also asked to speak at different events around the world (Chile for example), I grew my clientele and created my own after-school meditation and healing program for elementary school kids that my girlfriend worked with.
And now in 2021, we have walked 50 people through Inner Alchemy Academy, dozens of testimonials documented.
5 people started and grew their business with me
6 people have manifested their dream job from working with me
Countless breakthroughs that led to
With robust global group coaching calls and 1 on 1, I have about a dozen people right now that I’m working within our academy to transcend past their wildest dreams.
We have developed an international community, brotherhood, and sisterhood.
These beautiful clients who brought me into their life, their journeys are the reason why we have been able to grow to where we are today.
Helping people transform, elevate, and evolve is my passion. My purpose in this lifetime.
From a 10-year-old boy who was meditating outside in the hoods of Chicago to a spiritual consultant with an academy that empowers empathic individuals all around the world… I get to use my same passion every day to help people evolve into who they were meant to be in this lifetime.
My goal is to go into 2022 with helping 100 more families transform their inner pain into inner peace and be the catalyst to break their generational trauma.
So to wrap up here is my mission statement again: “We are committed to empowering individuals with the healing and rewiring tools to transform their inner pain into inner peace so they can propel powerfully into their purpose and be the healing agent that breaks generational curses and trauma in their bloodline.”
It’s been an amazing journey so far and I am excited for what is next!
