For the last 20 years, Lauryn Henley has worked as a leader, speaker, facilitator, and consciousness coach. She aims to support individuals, families, communities, and organizations to liberate themselves, their relationships, and their organizations and align with the Life Principle. Lauryn is deeply committed to the decolonization of land and bodies and views this as her life’s work.  In 2003, she graduated from the University of Florida with a Bachelor’s in Psychology focusing on race and multicultural studies. Specifically, she studied the role that white bodies play in perpetuating racial injustice. Lauryn joined Teach for America in 2003 to further her commitment to racial equality through educational transformation. For thirteen years, Lauryn worked on the west side of Chicago as a teacher and school leader at KIPP: Ascend Middle School. During this time, she was also coaching and consulting around diversity, achievement and inclusion at six Teach for America Summer Institutes.

Lauryn’s journey as a school leader led her to conclude that to disrupt the system and change behavior, she needed to start at the level of consciousness. As a result, she participated in four Conscious Leadership forums and began facilitating white affinity spaces and consciousness classes at Bodhi Spiritual Center in Chicago. In 2019, Lauryn was certified as a 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership Coach and left her 16-year education career to work as a leader, speaker, consultant, and coach who partners with individuals and organizations to support the emergence of more liberatory cultures, decolonize minds and bodies, and support realignment to the principles of life.

Lauryn received a Masters in Curriculum Planning and Design from National Louis University, earned a National Board Certification in Literacy, and completed the KIPP School Leadership Training Institute at New York University in 2011. In 2009, Lauryn was awarded Teacher of the Year for Chicago Charter Schools and in 2011 was a finalist for the Teach for America Distinguished Leader Award.

Lauryn is also an inspiring public speaker. She has been invited to speak at the National Charter School Conference in Minneapolis, and as a keynote speaker for Teach for America’s Induction Ceremony, at North Park University, Columbia College, and Indiana University-Purdue on Leadership, Consciousness, and Education. Additionally, she co-hosts a weekly podcast called The Healing Collective podcast that discusses the paradox of collective healing.

Lauryn is a proud mother to her eighteen-year-old son, Taylen, and loves communing with nature, creating sacred rituals as a celebrant, and forging deep, meaningful relationships with the people closest to her.