about
My Story
Meriah Kruse
A personal note…
I entered the Sovereign Renaissance stage of life 10 years ago, on my 65th birthday, although I didn’t know it at the time, nor have the words to describe it. It wasn’t about the number 65 or any other number. More importantly, I was noticing deep changes in my feelings about everyday life, what I wanted and how I saw myself. I had a strong urge to make changes, inside and out. In part, because I had spent most of my working life concerned with movement and the human body, I felt a need to do something completely different.
Among other things, this led to a series of novel experiments and new enterprises.
First I formed a greeting card company and, to my amazement, found I could generate interesting designs for cards from my own tiny works of art through painting and collage. It was a ‘learn as you go’ situation. I’ve since sold thousands of these cards in stores and at home parties and currently have nearly 100 designs in production for sale online.*
This “design” chapter awakened a long forgotten fascination with fashion and textile arts — learning and building on everything I knew as a teenaged seamstress. Now I’ve designed my own fabrics. I’ve learned to use a felt loom. I began doing embroidery again and bought a new sewing machine. I was invited to show two of my textile art pieces at women’s art exhibits. This is a life chapter I never expected to have.
The next big shift came two years later when I unexpectedly found myself advising friends in the wellness industry on matters related to their marketing (or lack thereof). I decided to write a book to summarize my approach to marketing which could serve as a curriculum. On the 4th of July (!) the chapter names suddenly appeared in my imagination, an unexpected and magical moment. A year later, when I completed and self- published “Life Force Marketing: A Prosperity Guidebook for Holistic Practitioners Who Don’t Like Marketing,” the chapter titles were still intact as I’d originally imagined them.
Writing this book led me to coach many individuals and several larger organizations during an 8-year period as a marketing coach and small business encourager. I became hooked on coaching and was thrilled when my book was picked up by a college educator for use in her community college classroom.
Just as with the greeting card designs and textile art projects, I had never contemplated being in the marketing field prior to this development. I had studied with the most well-known marketing teachers in North America — for my own purposes — but I still had to learn so much more to help others build their businesses. This called on different parts of me that I had barely used before. It was an exciting time. I’m very fond of the people I had the chance to work with, and proud of what we accomplished together.
In 2023, I began feeling a new wave of curiosity and realized it was time to make another change.
I began studying with Dr. Claire Zammit of the Institute for Woman-Centered Coaching, completing her Feminine Power course and also the Woman Centered Coaching Master Class. I began learning a research-backed coaching approach designed especially with the needs of mature women in mind. I later enrolled in the University of Kentucky’s Graduate Certificate program in Health and Wellness Coaching.
Then, serendipitously, I ran across a holistic psychiatrist from Boston on YouTube. Her name is Dr. Judy Tsafrir YouTube. She introduced me to the central theme around which the MeriahKruse.com website is organized:
There’s a new stage of life for women that didn’t exist for most of our grandmothers — because we’re living so much longer, we have more time to develop our talents, explore our priorities, and express the full range of who we are.
The Catch 22 is that because it’s a new phenomenon, we haven’t been prepared for this new stage of life, so we have to figure it out and help each other do so, too. That’s what the Sovereign Renaissance Woman programs are all about.
Thank you, so much, for taking the time to look deeply through my website. I wonder if you, too, are in the midst of some kind of transition, desiring a change in a key area or curious about what’s emerging next? If so, as you may surmise from reading my story, you can probably expect a few surprises along the way! I hope you’ll reach out! I’m curious as to what you’re working on, imagining, and thinking through.
Sincerely…
Meriah Kruse … facilitator of perspective shifts … helping women discover possibilities for themselves they couldn’t previously see.
p.s. Scroll down to read a more standard biographical statement!
MERIAH KRUSE
has spent decades working with women at the intersection of body, mind, and spirit. She has a deep and diverse background in the arts, wellness studies, coaching, body-centered instruction, and spiritual practice.
As a long-time therapeutic bodyworker and somatic educator, Meriah Kruse has had a continuous private practice in the Feldenkrais Method and Bones for Life for decades.
She shared this work through many statewide and community-based outlets, such as: the Lexington Healing Arts Academy, New Day Complementary Care Clinic, Lexington Senior Citizens Center, Kentucky Body Works, Be Free to Move, Women on the Move, BodySense, Motion Matters, MindBody Studio, the University of Kentucky Wellness Program, the Beaumont YMCA, and others.
In her ’60’s, Meriah developed Life Force Marketing, a holistic coaching practice to assist small businesses with their marketing and business decisions. Her clients, from throughout the U.S., included entrepreneurs, holistic practitioners, singers, coaches, non-profit consultants, acupuncturists, social workers, network marketers, a now-thriving youth arts organization who she nurtured from its inception, and one forward-thinking community college. Examples of clients’ web-based marketing to which she contributed:
DenisePate.com
BethDeanMusic.com
MpowerRhythm.org
In her 50’s, she designed and operated Gentle Adventure Retreats for Women, intimate group retreats in Hawaii, Mexico, South Carolina, and Kentucky. These multi-day retreats combined gentle adventures in magnificent outdoor environments, hands-on cultural experiences with local artists, and holistic health seminars.
In her 20’s and 30’s, Meriah was an avid dancer, dance educator, festival producer, and choreographer affiliated with the Woodland Dance Festival, Kentucky Arts Council’s Artist-in-Residence program, Different Ways of Knowing, Syncopated, Inc., Everybody’s Creative Arts Center (Oakland CA), Modern Dance/Kentucky, and Very Special Arts/KY, among others. A life-time arts advocate, she served for three years on the Board of Directors of the Kentucky Foundation for Women.
She is the grateful mother of one extraordinary man and a unique granddaughter.
Meriah is currently enrolled in a Graduate Certificate program in Health and Wellness Coaching at the University of Kentucky, and expects to sit for the national board exams in Spring 2027 (with the National Board for Health and Wellness Coaching).
Through these evolving pursuits, Meriah Kruse has remained a student of spiritual disciplines and theories of personal transformation, from many diverse sources:
- Teachings of Jesus Christ
- University of Kentucky School of Social Work
- Divine Light Mission
- Werner Erhardt’s ‘est trainings’
- Dhyani Ywahoo’s Peacekeeper Trainings and Sunray Meditation Society
- The Shambhala Buddhist Path and Pema Chodron
- International Professional School of Bodywork (IPSB), San Diego
- Contemplative Dance and Continuum Movement
- Teachings of Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais, including the Hawaii Professional Feldenkrais Training and numerous advanced trainings, including Bones for Life and the teachings of Ruthy Alon.
- Teachings of Thich Nhat Hanh and Patanjali
- Teachings of Ram Dass and Eckhardt Tolle, Jane Roberts and Seth, Esther Hicks and Abraham
- Mindset teachings of Mary Morrissey, Danny Iny and others
- Teachings on neuroplasticity, especially by Joe Dispenza and Dr. Norman Doidge (“The Brain that Changes Itself”)
- Woman-Centered coaching principles by Dr. Claire Zammit and the Institute for Woman-Centered Coaching
- Theories of Motivational Interviewing and Appreciative Inquiry
- and many more
