Behind Align+Clear: The Origin Story of Intuitive Strategies for Overthinkers

In the corporate world, we're often taught to hide the messy parts of our history and present a polished, perfect front. But at Align+Clear, part of the process is to strip away the layers and trust your own signals, so it’s only fair that I'm out here doing the same.

My path to becoming a coach wasn’t a direct line, and it wasn't a calling until later in my career. I've created a space here to share the longer version of my story, from the childhood diagnosis that drove me to question everything to the corporate career that tested my intuition, I'd love to show you how grounded strategy and mystical insight actually work together in real life.

Intuitive Strategies for Overthinkers

The Evolution of Align+Clear: Why I Shifted From Food to Mindset

In 2023, I launched Align+Clear as a health coaching practice. I was armed with multiple certifications in primal health and functional nutrition, ready to help people fix their wellness through better food and lifestyle choices.

As I started to work with clients, I noticed a pattern. While they loved learning how to eat better and look at their lifestyle holistically, changing food choices didn't create the biggest breakthroughs. They valued the mindset strategies. They valued learning how to shift their perspective on why they wanted to change, which was the only thing that actually made the changes last.

I realized that my clients (smart, capable, high-functioning people!) didn't just need a meal plan. They needed intuitive strategies for overthinkers. They needed a way to quiet the mental noise so they could actually stick to the healthy habits they desired.

That's where I really found my footing as a coach. I began blending mental conditioning into my messaging and program frameworks, moving away from health coaching and toward a mentorship practice that combines grounded strategy with mystical insight.

Authorship Cultivates Alignment

Building the framework for transformation

This shift in focus led to a burst of creativity. In late 2023, I published three books: the Align, Clear, Traverse workbook series. Writing these was my way of codifying the process of transformation that I'd been witnessing and backing it up with research.

As my practice deepened, those original works morphed into the reference materials for my more recent inner alignment series: Amplify, Awaken, Activate. Through writing and coaching, I gravitated toward the three specific qualities where I saw the most meaningful improvement in my clients: Intuition, Authenticity, and Routines.

The Story That Shapes My Work

How a childhood diagnosis taught me to question everything

This is 13-year-old Katie. Before I was a teenager, I was diagnosed with a seizure disorder and recurrent bladder infections, prescribed a regimen of anti-epileptic drugs and antibiotics that would be in my system for years.

The prescriptions drained my energy, increased my appetite, curled my hair like a perm, and dropped my grades in math from A's to D's. My roster of doctors at a world-class hospital disregarded all of these side effects. Ironically, in 25 years of medical care, not one physician recommended a keto (primal!) diet or fasting, both of which have been proven to reduce seizure activity since the 1920s.

It wasn't until 15 years later that I decided to take control of my own wellness with a holistic approach. My hope is that my story can be a reminder that you can escape your past. One mantra from my health coaching training really stuck with me: the problem isn't in your family genes, it's in your family pantry.

Coming Back to Myself

Intuition, identity, and the move to the mountains

In my adult life, I've felt deeply intuitive, highly self-aware, and endlessly curious, but I struggled with consistency, certainty, and belonging. I could sense when something wasn’t right long before I could explain it, and instead of trusting that awareness, I learned to override it. I stayed in situations that drained me. I created versions of myself that were more acceptable, more impressive, more convenient. I told myself I was being practical, responsible, and adaptable. In reality, I was disconnected.

In 2022, I made a decision that changed everything. I stopped questioning my gut. I started listening to every instinct. The results weren't subtle: I moved across the country from Cleveland to the mountains of Colorado. I ended relationships that had expired. I started listening to signals that I should quit a job that no longer served my purpose.

People called it brave, but I didn’t see it that way. It felt more like finally hearing something that had been trying to get my attention for years. Listening to my intuition brought clarity, but clarity alone wasn’t enough.

Even as my life shifted externally, I began to notice how often I was still editing myself. I said yes when I wanted to say no. I filled my schedule with social obligations that looked good on paper but left me exhausted. I pretended to have energy I didn’t actually have. I started to realize how much of my life had been shaped by expectations rather than my preference.

When I relocated to the mountains, the stark contrast gave me intense clarity. I settled into a quiet log cabin far from city noise. Leaving my corporate leadership role was my final acknowledgment that I couldn’t reconcile who I was during the week with who I was on the weekends.

Why "Routines" Are a Pillar

From chaos to consistency

With more freedom came more choice, and with more choice came chaos. I had insight and vision, but no structure to hold it all. This wasn’t new. As a child, I started and stopped everything, mistaking exploration for failure.

It wasn’t until I stopped forcing discipline and started building routines around things I genuinely enjoyed that consistency became possible. Simple rhythms. Small habits. Watering plants. These experiences shaped my work and the content for the Amplify, Awaken, Activate series.

I developed these frameworks because I believe personal transformation happens in layers. You learn to listen (Intuition). You learn to choose yourself (Authenticity). And then you learn how to build a life that can hold who you’ve become (Routines).

My path from the corporate boardroom to the Colorado mountains still shapes my

mindset strategy practice. I believe the best coaches speak from a combination of lived experience and research-backed insight. While my story explains the heart behind Align+Clear, the list below represents the grounded expertise that ensures our work together is safe, effective, and evidence-based.

Credentials & Certifications

My work is grounded in continuous learning. In addition to my lived experience, I bring the following formal certifications to my practice:

Coaching & Psychology

• Brain Neuroscience Coach (2024)

• Positive Intelligence (PQ) (2024)

• Certified Master Coach (2023)

• Mindfulness-Based Strengths Practice (MBSP) (2023)

• Positive Psychology (2023)

• Certified Primal Health Coach (2022)

• Mindfulness for Wellbeing (2017)

Health & Biology

• Functional Lab Testing (2024)

• Applied Ketogenic Diet (2024)

• Functional Therapeutic Diets (2023)

• Health Coaching in Medical Practices (2023)

• Specialist in Human Intestinal Microbiome in Health and Disease (2023)

• Registered Yoga Teacher (RYT-200) (2014)

  
  

Specialized Modalities

• Somatic Psychedelic Facilitator (2024)

• QHHT Level 1 Practitioner (2024)