Hi! I’m Kori, a human based in the San Francisco Bay Area with a name that conveniently doubles as a motivational affirmation when spelled backward. I’m a philomath who seeks depth, beauty, and truth in all that I do. I enjoy exploring consciousness, human connection, Eastern philosophy, writing, dancing, creating, inspiring and being inspired.

After over a decade submerged in the achievement-driven Western lifestyle–from corporate consulting to tech entrepreneurship and investing, to building the leading psychedelic therapeutics startup from an idea to a NASDAQ listing in 18 months—I hit a breaking point, leading me down an awakening journey that healed an eating disorder, chronic anxiety and back pain, and transformed my life. 

After many psychedelic medicine, breathwork, and meditation journeys, a slew of therapists, coaches, and spiritual teachers, and a year of travels to sacred lands in Central America and India to study Eastern wisdom, astrology and Human Design, my conditioned mind expanded to see that I was living according to scripts, not feeling. Chasing labels and affirmation, not joy.

I began observing my thoughts rather than identifying with them, questioning my narratives and thought patterns, seeking truth and shedding lies from my ego, my upbringing, my peers and society.

I learned the power of looking inward to transcend external programming, connect with my deeper Self, and live and create from that place.

Mostly, I learned I can and should feel good in this life, that’s the point—in the Dalai Lama’s words, the purpose of life is to be happy and help others find the same.

I’ve since been on that journey. Toward living a conscious, vibrant, heart-led existence where bliss and love are my compass, anchored in knowing we are all one and I am one manifestation of this collective unfolding.

I believe we each have a purpose in this unfolding, discovered through the age-old path of Self-realization. This is our guiding light on the winding road of life. This is what’s been missing in our Western world, until now.

No longer isolated to marginalized communities like the hippie or New Age movements, the spiritual path is a lifestyle, a state of consciousness that high performers seek as they climb Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and realize their greatest potential may only be actualized by turning inward. The psychedelic medicine and mindfulness waves are reducing stigma and increasing awareness, yet it remains a murky and lonely path for the modern Westerner. 

My mission is not to build the next religion preaching a set of beliefs, it is to empower the creators of our next generation to access the answers within themselves via a supported, accessible path and like-minded community. 

AWA is a path for leaders and changemakers, for those ready to shed the heavy cloak of programmed identities, and to live their free, empowered, and vibrantly alive truth. It is a journey into oneself through coaching and plant medicine, bringing what was previously isolated to remote lands to the very backyard of the world’s greatest innovators.

What I’ve discovered is that inner and outer success are not mutually exclusive—they are one. This blog is my space to share my journey, vulnerably and honestly, in hopes it may help others along theirs.

I’m here to help you discover first-hand the power of looking inward, in shedding the layers of societal conditioning that hide your truth, then the courage to live it, so that we can, together, steward the new earth.

“The world is changing. Walls are crumbling. Tyrants are toppling. Our moment of disruption deals with death and rebirth. What’s dying is an old civilization and mindset, one that has led us into a state of organized irresponsibility, collectively creating results that nobody wants. What’s being born is less clear but in no way less significant. This future is not just about firefighting and tinkering with the surface of structural change. It’s not just about replacing one mindset that no longer serves us with another. It’s a future that requires us to tap into a deeper level of our humanity, of who we really are and who we want to be as a society. It is a future that we can sense, feel, and actualize by shifting the inner place from which we operate. It is a future that in those moments of disruption begins to presence itself through us.”

- Otto Scharmer