(NASHVILLE, Tenn) — For years, Kathryn Ziegler lived the life she thought she wanted. A career in corporate finance, a beautiful home in Chicago draped with Restoration Hardware chandeliers, two children, and all the external markers of success. But beneath the glossy surface, something was deeply wrong.
“My life was exactly what I thought I had dreamed of it being,” Ziegler recalled. “I had the beautiful home, the amazing wardrobe, and I was depressed. I literally was numb. I couldn’t feel my life.”
Ziegler’s breaking point came during long, silent commutes to and from downtown Chicago. “I didn’t have music on. I was just absolutely leaving my body,” she said. “I didn’t know what was happening.”
What followed was a spiritual and physical unraveling which consisted of postpartum depression, adrenal burnout, and an awakening that would transform not just her life. Today, she now trains and mentors through her signature approach: The KLZ Method to help you while also continuing to help herself.
Long before creating The KLZ Method, Ziegler had studied yoga, then shifted into boxing and strength training. “I had moved from that feminine place into that masculine place,” she said. “And I was just getting chewed up. My adrenals were shot.”
Desperate to feel like herself again, she reached out to a healer who helped her reconnect energetically and emotionally. “She helped me start to string together bits of myself and bring myself back to my truth,” she said.
That reconnection lit a spark. “I was like, what the heck just happened? Absolutely not. I can’t raise my kids to believe that this pseudo reality is the truth,” she said. “I need to really dig deep and take a good look at where I am and what I’m doing and how I’m teaching them not by what I’m showing them, but by what I’m living.”
What began as a personal quest to rediscover purpose became a spiritual calling. “I started to just call out for my purpose,” she said. “It was a year of just going into the woods and praying and meditating through that heaviness.”
Her answer came in the form of what she initially resisted: personal training.
“At first, I was like, ‘No, it’s deeper than that. This is more than making sure people’s butts look good,’” she laughed. “But what I realized is, it’s not about the final thing, it’s about the path. Personal training was the path.”
Ziegler built a small gym in her basement, piece by piece. “Picking up a drill and building a basement gym really got the action going,” she said. “That process was me returning to myself.”
Her training style evolved naturally. “Everyone was telling me I needed to be niche,” she said.
What emerged was an integration of modalities rarely seen together: boxing, HIIT, strength, vinyasa yoga, Kundalini, Reiki, sound healing, microdosing, and even shamanic practices.
“I’ve been sort of my first client in this transformational method I’ve created,” she explained. “It’s a systematized approach to returning back to your truth in a world that’s monetizing us being outside of ourselves.”
Her philosophy is simple: energy is the origin, the body is the byproduct.
“When we work on the energy first, the body transforms,” Ziegler said. “I had one client who said her dream was just to lose five pounds. She ended up losing fifteen, going back for her master’s degree, and completely transforming her life.”
Through years of experimentation, Ziegler discovered patterns in her physical training that mirrored ancient wisdom. “Unconsciously, I was doing the medicine wheel in my movement,” she said.
Each direction: east, west, north, south, up, and down became part of a ritualized sequence she calls The Six Directions Movement Series.
“I was watching my body show me: this is East, this is West,” she explained. “I was literally working the masculine side and feminine side of the body, rooting down into the earth, reaching up into the ethers, and bringing it into my heart.”
What began as functional training evolved into a meditative, spiritual practice that bridges the physical and the energetic. “I really feel like what’s happening with this movement series is that we are cleaning and clearing our DNA of ancestral trauma, lineage trauma, and so much more,” she said.
The KLZ Method, is Ziegler’s blueprint for helping clients reconnect to their truth through the body. It weaves together personal training, yoga, energy work, and psychology, all anchored in the chakra system.
“All of my videos are categorized by chakra,” she said. “We’re using squats and lunges as grounding root chakra modalities. If you’re feeling anxious, activate your leg channels so energy can flow into the ground and you can stop spinning.”
Each movement or breathwork exercise serves a purpose. “If your confidence is low, we do core work which is literally pumping your power back into your solar plexus,” she said. “If your heart feels blocked, we use boxing. When you throw a punch, you’re casting energy from your heart outward. Someone catches it in their mitt, it’s the coolest thing.”
Her approach also incorporates Reiki, which she defines simply as “energy healing.”
“Reiki sees the body as energy before the physical body,” Ziegler explained. “Disease shows up first energetically before it manifests physically. We bring all the chakras into balance using visualization, color, and divine light.”
She teaches clients to imagine each chakra as a color: red for root, orange for sacral, yellow for solar plexus,.
“It’s connecting into God and allowing that to flow through you,” she said. “You’re not giving them your energy, you’re letting divine energy pass through you.”
Ziegler’s clients range from fitness trainers and yoga instructors to energy healers and individuals struggling with mental health.
“It’s for people who are close to their body but haven’t yet connected to their spirit,” she explained. “It’s also for energy healers who are so out there that they need to come back down into their body. And it’s for people struggling with depression or anxiety, because that’s just your body’s way of saying your old life no longer fits you.”
Her mission is to help people reclaim their power. “Stop giving your power away,” she emphasized. “The mushrooms didn’t tell you. The guru didn’t tell you. You already know. Everything you’re looking for is inside you.”
Ziegler is now developing a certification program for the KLZ Method, incorporating Reiki guides, microdosing education, breath-work, and movement through the Six Directions.
“The certification is in its infancy,” she said. “The Reiki course alone takes a year because your frequency changes so much during attunement.”
She’s patient with her timeline. “I’ve created all these amazing courses,” she said, smiling. “And there they sit, as I wait for the right time to activate it. I’m just listening and trusting.”
Kathryn Ziegler offers private sessions, classes, and energy healing in Nashville and online.
“I’ve really been intuitively waiting for the right time to expand,” she said. “But it’s coming.”
And as for what drives her work today? Ziegler summed it up simply:
“I don’t just want people to look strong, I want them to feel alive again.”
Give her a follow on Instagram or check out her website to start your spiritual and engergetic journey now.
Fill out the form and get the latest issue delivered right to your inbox
