Samantha Kearns
Samantha Kearns

For nearly two decades, Samantha Kearns thrived in the high-octane world of corporate event planning. At her peak, she managed more than 130 events a year, hopping between time zones so quickly. She worked 18-hour days, survived on adrenaline, and lived out of a suitcase. On the surface, it was success: the travel, the money, the applause from colleagues and clients. But behind the curtain, the life she had built was exhausting her.

"I was living on airplanes, constantly sick, and I didn't even know there was another way to live," Kearns recalls. "Everyone was so proud of me, but I had missed every wedding, every barbecue, and I barely saw my closest friends twice a year. I was successful by society's standards, but I was not really living."

When COVID-19 shut down the events industry, Kearns suddenly found herself still. What felt like a catastrophe for her career became the opening she didn't know she needed. "When everything stopped, my personal life exploded," she says. "I had to ask myself: who am I, and what kind of life am I living?"

That reflection led her into therapy, mentorship, and a deep dive into practices she had never truly prioritized before: breathwork, sound healing, sobriety, journaling, and nervous system regulation. The unraveling was not easy. "It felt like pulling the pin on a grenade over and over," she admits. "But peeling back the layers of who I was turned out to be the hardest, and also the coolest, thing I have ever done. It brought me to my knees, but it also gave me the comeback story of a lifetime."

Through that process, Kearns began to feel something she had not in years: grounded. "When you regulate your nervous system, you start to trust yourself. You know that whatever life throws at you, you can handle it. I would not bet against me if the whole world were on fire," she said.

Her transformation didn't stop with personal healing. Kearns felt compelled to share what she was learning. "I believe in an infinite amount of pie; there's enough success for all of us," she explains. "Especially as women, I don't understand shutting the door behind you. Women supporting women is a pillar of who I am. Success is better with company."

She started by sharing breathwork techniques and mindset shifts with her closest friends. To her surprise, their lives began to improve, too. "At first I thought, is this crazy? Am I crazy?" she remembers. "But when I saw people I loved making changes, I realized I was onto something."

Not everyone understood her pivot. Her family and former colleagues struggled to reconcile the Samantha who once orchestrated massive conferences with the Samantha now guiding people through crystal bowls, breath cycles, and nervous system regulation. "My orbit was supportive but also concerned," she admits. "They asked, 'What are you up to now?' But I always say, the life you want costs the life you have. Walking away is the price of admission, and not everyone is ready to pay it."

Today, as the founder of Internal Evolution, Kearns calls her work "a radical approach to wellness coaching." She blends breathwork, sound healing, and trauma-informed coaching to help people regulate their nervous systems and step into more authentic lives. Her six-month program is designed to guide people through unraveling old patterns, integrating new practices, and learning to hold onto the joy and stability they find along the way.

"You can't quit in the middle," she emphasizes. "It's like taking cookies out of the oven halfway through. But if you keep going, if you change what you consume, whether it's food, media, or even relationships, your outputs will change. Your ship will turn, one degree at a time, and you will end up in an entirely new destination."

For Kearns, the work is not about erasing the past but rewriting the relationship with it. "There's a grit that runs through me, and now I know how to tap into it. My body, my nervous system, is my ally. That's what I want for my clients, too, to realize that regulating themselves doesn't just make them calmer; it makes them powerful, authentic, and capable of creating a life they actually want to live."

From corporate catastrophe to coach, Samantha Kearns' story is more than a career change; it's a blueprint for transformation.