Why Kathryn Eipl left behind a prestigious job in the Entertainment Industry for Health and Wellness.
Common Ground Project | Kathryn Eipl
Written by Christian Locantore
Kathryn Eipl is the creator of Neuro-Resonance Method, an innovative approach that helps people reconnect with themselves on a medical, emotional, and energetic level. Kathryn is a holistic health practitioner, certified as a life coach in cognitive behavioral therapy, and a substance abuse counselor based in California.
After years of working in the high-pressure entertainment industry, feeling herself battling burnout, emotional exhaustion, and addiction to alcohol and cannabis, Kathryn went through a personal healing journey through yoga, mindfulness, sound therapy, and deep inner work.
Kathryn now inspires others to break free from self-sabotaging patterns, addiction, and limiting beliefs. She believes true healing happens when we stop numbing pain and start facing ourselves with honesty, compassion, and intention, but it was a process to reach this point.
Before Her Healing Journey: Being the Youngest in a Broken Family
Kathryn initially grew up in Chicago, as the youngest of a family who argued a lot, addiction being prevalent in one of her parents, and mental health issues hovering over her family like a thick cloud.
Being the youngest, it eventually came to the point where Katheryn was the only kid at home, and she didn’t want to face this negative space alone. She joined activities, became part of sports, but less out of interest and more so to get out of the house.
As a young adult, Kathryn began to lean into her passions with intention, which were in theater and entertainment. Preparing for college, she worked a lot to save up money while still enjoying her passions, but remained focused on studying Psychology. How a person’s mind worked always fascinated Kathryn.
How does addiction look like with the different people in her family?
Where does that addiction fall into place?
How does it change someone’s thoughts? What is the wiring there?
She was set on majoring in Psychology, but it wasn’t until a friend said to her, “I feel like you should major in theater. You’re just so animated and vibrant,” that Kathryn seriously considered theater as a double major. When she found out one of her top schools offered a theater scholarship, and she was able to earn it, that sealed the deal.
Success as an Addiction: The Impact of Hustle Culture in America
When asked “In your early life, what did success mean to you,” for Kathryn it was clear. Success looked like:
- Academic Achievements, priding herself on getting good grades and studying.
- Graduating, especially from a prestigious art school in California.
- First job, landing at Universal Studios, one of the six major studios in the industry.
These achievements that Kathryn accomplished by her mid-20s defined what success felt to her. But what happens when these same achievements no longer become fulfilling, achievements she once worked so hard for and essentially anchored her whole life to that point, no longer being satisfying?
This is when Kathryn leaned more into drinking, because she didn’t want to feel, or believe, that her achievements and life path were no longer fulfilling to her. Social drinking in college now changed to avoidance. It came to a point where everyday after work, she would socially drink. Her coworkers also felt exhausted or underappreciated, so it seemed normal as long as other partook. Then when Kathryn would get home, she would pile on to avoid these feelings, thinking that she might as well drink more or think “well, I guess I should smoke weed now,” with it being easily accessible.
As her reality became hard to face, substances were the Band-Aid fix.
Kathryn now sees that success can become its own addiction. Anything that gives a dopamine high can become associated with, “[when] I do this thing, I feel great, so I’m going to keep doing this thing.”
Success became this for Kathryn, starting from graduation, to landing her job at Universal. She would get smaller projects at first, knock them out of the park, eventually leading to bigger projects where she would also perform well on. She would keep going and going until all of the sudden she found herself burnt out, not being fulfilled in her work, which led her to not taking care of her physical or mental well being. Whether this was not exercising, not eating well as long work hours led to eating whatever you can get quickly (often fast food), it all led to feeling depleted not only emotionally but also physically.
In America, it is common place for one to pride themselves on how much they hustle to make it. It is also common for others to notice this, see someone handling two or three jobs and priding themselves on not making it look hard on the outside, and then strive for the same themselves.
Finding Healing through Yoga
Since Kathryn’s addiction didn’t look like how it was presented in her childhood home–she wasn’t getting blackout drunk every time, she wasn’t hiding her drinking–she thought it wasn’t a problem. She now understands this was just one of the many ways addiction can take form. When Kathryn no longer liked how agitated she had become in her relationships, friendships, and work, she felt like something had to give.
Kathryn was first introduced to yoga in grad school, and it helped her a lot throughout her studies. Once she started working more and more, yoga became an easy first thing to sacrifice and let go of. When she brought it back and started getting more serious about it, she realized she had been suppressing emotions that only started to come up from her yoga classes. She then connected that these emotions were being suppressed by her use of alcohol, so she thought, “well, maybe I just need to let myself feel this [the suppressed emotions] and let go of alcohol.”
“It was definitely a process,” Kathryn said. As she started drinking less at the beginning, she also went more into smoking because she thought smoking’s not my problem, I just need to drink less. This brought her to the realization that she also had a major cannabis addiction.
The more she started to practice yoga, the more she wanted to learn about it. Soon after, her studio began to offer trainings in teaching yoga, and she thought “Oh, I’m going to take it.” Her intent was not to teach yoga, but to learn how to do the poses that were better for her body, so she did not have to conform her life around scheduling. Working graveyard shifts, or working until 6 or 7 PM, often meant not being able to attend classes, but she also no longer wanted to sacrifice yoga in her life.
The more Kathryn dove into the studies around yoga, having philosophical discussions every Friday in the studio and learning its psychological and physical effects, the more she began to embody the discipline (yamas and niyamas). Applying these to her life meant she could no longer ignore her personal struggles, and accept that the entertainment industry was no longer serving her.
Finding Fulfilment in Leaving the Entertainment Industry
Kathryn slowly made the transition into teaching more yoga. It started with one class a week, super early before work, to teaching more classes overtime. While in the teacher training, Kathryn became exposed to sound therapy, further diving into it and then getting certified in Reiki. She utilized her psych degree to become certified as a life coach based around cognitive behavioral therapy as she has always loved studying it.
Still, she was doing all of this in tandem while still working in the entertainment industry, but with the intention of smoothly transitioning into the health and wellness industry rather than abruptly switching.
As Kathryn established enough yoga classes and clients, she began to feel like she could float for a little bit before being in trouble financially, and that’s when she catapulted herself into creating a health and wellness practice.
Questions of Inquiry
Kathryn’s story is important, but not unique. Many people can find many similarities, relate to, or understand Kathryn’s lived experiences.
- Have you, or do you know someone, who is experiencing the hustle culture but could be on the verge of burnout and breaking down?
- Some people believe that an imbalanced work-life is sometimes what you have to do, especially if you want to change your position in life. Do you believe that? If so, tell us why you believe that is true.
- Kathryn found help through holistic health, yoga, and other therapies. Have you found help through similar mediums, or have other outlets helped you?
Let’s have a respectful conversation about hustle culture, work-life balance, and approaches to help with addiction or mental health struggles. Thank you all for reading, and be sure to check our Common Ground Podcast with Kathryn Eipl for more of her story and insights!
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