Rising Stars: Meet Kali Killingsworth

Today we’d like to introduce you to Kali Killingsworth.

Hi Kali, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
My name is Kali (pronounced Kay-lee); I am majoring in Philosophy with a double minor in psychology and physics at Arizona State University online. As a young kid, I have always considered myself quite an existentialist. It doesn’t surprise me that my life has led me down this path because I fall deeper in love with the field with every course I take. I am a non-traditional student and began a career in Cosmetology. After a life-altering Near-Death Experience (NDE) in 2020, I became fanatically obsessed with researching the indescribable phenomena I experienced. I grew up incredibly atheistic, grappling with what I now know to be the classic “problem of evil.” Yet, I had experienced something I could only describe as “divine,” which made me uncomfortable. I spent hundreds of hours piling over every possible scientific explanation for my experience; the only logical solutions that fit the event were metaphysical in nature.

My research found that NDEs are an increasingly popular phenomenon as modern resuscitation and life-sustaining techniques and medicines are advanced. They happen universally throughout every culture, religion (or lack thereof), age group, sex, or socio-economic background. Leading experts and scientists explain how these events cannot be constrained to neurological causation through NDE cases of patients with no electrical activity on EEG scans and provide some exciting proposals dismissing most other physiological causation models. I admired this multidisciplinary and scientific approach to existential questions I had been grappling with my whole life.

My experience had many incredible parts, but the most valuable was my life review. One of the many lessons I learned was my life’s purpose, in which my effervescent wonder and awe inspire self-inquiry in others. I aim to integrate this cross-discipline knowledge into digestible language and tools for average people seeking the extraordinary to find meaning and purpose in their journey toward it. Self-discovery requires a deep sense of introspection and contemplation of our innermost worlds. A deep dive into the unseen terrain of our emotional nature can cause an uneasy feeling amongst those apprehensive about the intangible, and spirituality can easily be misconstrued with religion. What makes spirituality coaching different from therapy or religion is that it is a unique journey of discovery for each person. The focus is on self-actualization, which can look different for many people.

Throughout all my life experiences, whether that be jumping out of a plane or mountaineering across 500 miles of the high deserts of California, a typical response to tales of my adventurism has been, “Wow, you’re brave. I would love to do that.” and my counter always is “well, go out and do it.” It’s easy to look at the experiences of others as superhuman and conflate our obstacles as impossible, but Elon Musk puts his pants on the same way we do in the morning. Someone wins the lottery of life every day, but only those who play get the chance! Another common occurrence that contributes to a lack of fulfillment in individuals isn’t a lack of courage, willpower, or desire but an absence of a clear goal to attain. Those yearning for “more” can’t aspire to greater if they lack the coherence to form such a vision. This is due to a need for proper self-inquiry and integration of the formless and that of reality.

So, how can one achieve all their greatest hopes, dreams, goals, and desires if they don’t even have a firm grasp on who they are as an individual, what they stand for, how their experiences have shaped their beliefs, or what their strengths and weaknesses are? The disciplined and structured program I have laid out helps guide the client through defining these intimate conclusions and, in turn, provides us with practical tools that we can use to integrate this abstract newfound knowledge into individualized solutions toward their personal goals.

Alright, let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what challenges have you had to overcome?
To answer the question of whether it has been a smooth road, I’ll quote the man who knows the lay of the road the best–Henry Ford: “Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal.”

Of course, there has been hardship, but the moment you start perceiving said events as “obstacles” and not “opportunities,” you lose to them. Every bump has been essential in my evolution but necessary. Whether in my career, finance, love life, or friendships, I would not have the wisdom I have today without the tremendous amount of mistakes I’ve made. In retrospect, that phrase will always be easier to say than at the moment you are experiencing an obstacle. I teach my clients the value of grace in such moments; of course, I must practice this daily. Still, it is one of the most influential tenets of my philosophy, and subtle mind-shift alone is enough to make a big impact on someone’s life. Along with others like me, after my NDE, I kept it to myself for quite some time, hunched over several open tabs online and several textbooks, quietly grappling with my sub-sequential existential crisis. As I mentioned, I can empathize with materialists, as I have an analytical disposition that craves expository facts that I do not understand. To rectify the polarity between my analytical mind and newfound spiritual wisdom, I pursued a Degree in Academia, majoring in philosophy and minoring in psychology and physics. I hope to expand the healing potential that I’ve deduced from a multi-disciplinary approach to spirituality in a way that resonates with ordinary people and scholars alike. After all, the human quest for meaning is just that–human and this information should be accessible to all.

Throughout my educational pursuits, I have been met with some resistance by certain materialist professors, who acknowledge the disparity between Newtonian Physics and Quantum Mechanics yet lack the courage to embrace attempts at rectifying this gap. You see, “the hard problem of consciousness” is a topic that requires metaphysical evidentiary support. Unfortunately, at this point, there are few, if any, means of practical testing of these phenomena. So, to avoid being disbarred from academic journals and risk defamation to one’s credibility in Academia, most circumvent touching the topic altogether.

Thanks for sharing that. Can you tell us more about your work next?
The people who know me know I have a special affinity for butterflies. Not only do they have representative meaning for me on an individual level, but I resonate with their cycle of life. When caterpillars enter their cocoon, they enzymatically break down into this sort of primordial goop in which their DNA is completely reconstructed into a new thing. Scientists have done studies that show 1) caterpillars have mechanisms adjacent to memories and 2) those memories are maintained after this DNA reconstruction. Butterflies embody the essence of adopting a new identity and embracing the destruction of the self to make way for the new. In many ways, I feel this correspondence with my death and rebirth (no pun intended) during my NDE is the transformational experience I attempt to foster within my clients.

I’ll be incredibly vulnerable to admit before this awakening, I was the most unhappy person I knew. Not only was I ridden with despair and lack of hope for the future, I was emboldened by self-pity, righteousness, and resentment for the causally determined circumstances of my life. I grew up the product of teenage pregnancy and divorce; my childhood years oscillated through poverty while my stepfather supported my mother’s efforts to pursue an education and better her life. Though this was a courageous display of perseverance over obstacles, tenacity, and grit–one that invaluably influenced my decision to live up to my highest potential and go back to college as a non-traditional student, I didn’t always see it that way. My indignation towards the fate I was born into clouded me with anger towards the higher version of my mother and the better financial situation I would only see my young siblings receive as the benefits of her efforts wouldn’t be reaped until long after my independence and adulthood. Because I had no religious or spiritual ground to stand on, the foundation of my self-worth succumbed to a type of pessimistic determinism that closed my eyes to opportunity.

In this day and age of “nepo-babies” and digital influence, it’s easy to compare your life to others. It is common knowledge that social media fosters a breeding ground of comparison that isn’t healthy for an individual; however, with its rise, it is becoming increasingly difficult to avoid as social leverage has become an integral pillar in marketing campaigns of nearly every product and service that is brought to the consumer market. This means we are inundated with its insidious pressures inside the home, at work, and in the world. Unless one wishes to become a member of a conservative religious sect, these influences are unavoidable. The only way to fight back against the unwanted feelings of resentment, self-pity, comparison, and lack of self-worth is an extensive and deep understanding of one’s identity.

As I alluded, my identity has evolved tremendously over the past 10 years. If you asked me if I resonated or aligned with who I was at that point or what defining identity I chose to embody; my answer would be no. But just like my caterpillar friends, I have held onto those memories, not out of fear of change, but despite it, proud of the growth and mistakes I have made, as I wouldn’t be who I am today without them.

I am asked about my early career and background in Cosmetology and how I logistically switched in my professional life after my NDE. Although there was uncertainty at times, It wasn’t as much of a jump as people may assume. Consumed with a bitter attitude toward my life and a desire to divorce that past identity, I graduated high school a semester early. I moved 1,000 miles away from everyone and everything I knew, ending up in Tallahassee, Florida. There, I began tiptoeing into a new way of being and a new ideological framework. My mental and spiritual health oscillated from expanding on a vision of a new destiny and total devastation. I had yet to master the tenant of grace. Every obstacle along the way felt truly impossible at the time. I attempted to go to community college and allowed a misfiling of financial aid paperwork to cast a shadow of blame on everyone and everything but myself. The undervaluing I had of myself caused me to settle for work environments that only took more than they gave and left me feeling uninspired and unfulfilled. I positioned myself into a scarcity mindset, and that was reflected as I slept on the bare floor of my apartment when I couldn’t afford necessities. The lack of firm grounding in myself had me searching for security everywhere but within, and I fell in and out of toxic relationships.

Through those years, however, I was always striving for self-actualization. During this time, I rediscovered one of my greatest joys in life–nature. I found a true passion in hiking, and I did some amazing things, such as attempting a thru-hike of the Pacific Crest Trail, where I achieved the feat of mountaineering through 500 miles of the southern Californian high-desert, give or take. Still riding the high from my excursion, I enrolled in the Tallahassee Aveda Institute for Cosmetology upon returning. Still unsure of a clear vision for my future, I leaned into a skill I was always praised for growing up. Incidentally, it was there that I fostered an interest in Philosophy. Aveda is a renowned institute for hairdressing; its curriculum focuses on precision cutting and using plant-based ingredients. The name “Aveda” is derived from the Hindu practice of “Ayurveda”. Ayurveda, as defined by the Oxford Dictionary, is “the traditional Hindu system of medicine, which is based on the idea of balance in bodily systems and uses diet, herbal treatment, and yogic breathing.” The word Ayurveda is procured from the Sanskrit “Ayus”-meaning life, and “Veda”-meaning knowledge. This term interested me and thus began my explorations into Eastern and Western philosophy.

I continued with this recreational research for many years, and with each passing season, I noticed how the various teachings I was learning subconsciously affected my nervous system. When I began to take notice of these changes, I realized that my para-sympathetic system no longer felt in a constant state of fight-or-flight, and I felt more equipped to handle unforeseen obstacles and uncertainty in this unpredictable world. With the dramatic improvements in my life, I strived to understand what I believed was exponential growth and improvement in my mental state. Then, I began my journey into the depths of psychoanalysis and neurology. My interest in physics was a natural consequence of this quest for meaning, as every discipline fundamentally breaks down into these inherent building blocks of the nature of reality and consciousness. However, it wasn’t until my NDE confirmed the notion I had a semblance of presentiment over that I dived head-first into living my purpose.

Irrespective of how my non-conventional path has led me to this point, my background in cosmetology has granted me a ton of practical tools that I’ve carried into my coaching business. It wasn’t uncommon that my clients expressed a certain level of gratitude for the time spent in my chair, not just as a hairdresser but as a trusted confidant. That said, it never ceased to amaze and humble me when people of all ages and walks of life expressed gratitude for my bits of wisdom. I was always told I was “mature for my age” when I was young. I accredit this attribute to my naturally curious and empathetic disposition. My strengths have always lied in the amplitude of others and curiosity towards insight into their rich inner lives. Throughout every twist and turn in my life, I have found myself taking upon the role of a mentor, a position that was only strengthened as I spent years in the service industry. I often found my clients expressing sincere gratitude for the intentionality and connection garnered in our conversations, and I knew that I was not only touching people’s hair–but their hearts as well.

Because of my background, I offer some one-of-a-kind services you can’t find anywhere else in the world. In addition to my standard self-actualization coaching package, I provide a unique gender-affirming package that includes etiquette training, femininity/masculinity coaching, and a head-to-toe makeover by yours truly–where else can you find a spiritual consultant and life coach who is also a licensed cosmetologist?

Let’s end by discussing what matters most to you and why.
As a species, human beings are inherently creative. It is in our DNA to build, create, and forge forward through progress and innovation and to look at the world we live in with wonder and awe. My goal is to inspire others to reach their fullest potential and do my part in satiating the global epidemic of feelings of inadequacy. I plan to act as the permitting authority for those needing that extra push in life by alleviating the overwhelming desire for a more fulfilling and purposeful existence without a clear vision of what that dream is. To quote Nietzsche: “If we possess our why of life, we can put up with almost any how.”

Pricing:

• Self-Discovery Coaching (3 month package): 1500
• Feminine Energy/Gender Affirming Coaching (30 day package): 650
• Astrology Chart Reading: 85
• Tarot Spread Reading: 55
• Guided Meditation: 30

Contact Info:

• Website: spiritualitycoachkali.com

Image Credits
Photo taken of me applying makeup to a model was photographed by photographer Kallen Lunt of Tallahassee, FL