Bio

Ryan Grist is a National Board Certified Health and Wellness Coach with a Master’s degree in Integrative Health and Wellbeing Coaching from the University of Minnesota. He specializes in working with changemakers, highly sensitive people, and heart-centered humans experiencing high levels of stress and overwhelm.

Ryan has worked for a decade at the intersection of ecological healing, community resilience, and individual well-being. In his private practice, he helps his clients cultivate mental wellness to support bold, visionary work in a rapidly changing and destabilizing social, political, and ecological climate. In organizational settings, Ryan helps leaders and teams build effective partnerships and working relationships to support dynamic social and environmental change initiatives. He is a compassionate critic of white supremacy culture, patriarchy, and settler colonial ways of relating to people and planet. As a white male with racial, gender, and class privilege, he is committed to his own inner work and considers himself a life-long unlearner of the subtle forces that divide us from our shared humanity. He believes deeply in the goodness of the human spirit.

Education

  • M.A. Integrative Health and Wellbeing Coaching | Graduate minor in Health Equity | University of Minnesota

    • Capstone Project: Health Coaching Increases Help-seeking Behavior Among Self-reliant Men

  • B.A. Community and Environmental Sociology | University of Wisconsin | Second major in Environmental Studies

Certifications

  • National Board Certified Health and Wellness Coach | 2021-Present

  • Adult and Pediatric First Aid/CPR/AED | Current

  • Restorative Justice Conference Facilitator | University of Minnesota | 2021

  • Mental Health First Aid | 2019

Work Experiences

Partners Connect Coach, Stanford University |

September 2024 – Present | Virtual

  • Provide 1:1 coaching sessions to clients as part of a research study on substance use reduction

Mind Coach, Life Time, Inc.

August 2022 – December 2024 | Virtual

  • Provided 40-50 mindfulness-based cognitive coaching sessions per month to leaders and team members at Life Time, Inc., ages ranging 18-60 years old

  • Researched, designed, and taught quarterly webinars on mindfulness and well-being topics to promote mental wellness and psychological resilience, average of 80-150 attendees per session

Integrative Mental Health Coach, Golden Mend Wellness and Counseling

June 2022 – December 2023 | Madison, WI

  • Provided psycho-social rehabilitation coaching to diverse client population recovering from substance use and

severe and persistent mental illness

  • Recorded client data in Electronic Health Record and reported on outcomes in collaborative care team meetings

Group Health Coach Intern, Hennepin Healthcare

March 2021 – April 2021 | Minneapolis, MN

  • Designed and co-facilitated five sessions of group health coaching to clinicians and staff to promote resilience

Gardens Network Manager, Community GroundWorks

April 2017 - May 2018 | Madison, WI

  • Trained 30+ volunteers in leadership, cross-cultural communication, and community building skills

  • Facilitated successful conflict resolution and community building process over 3-month period

  • Provided strategic support to low-income neighborhood gardens to improve operating procedures

Co-Founder, Nomad Farm, LLC

January 2016 - August 2017 | Dodgeville, WI

  • Managed development of business plan, budget, and operating procedures for three farm enterprises

  • Facilitated weekly strategic planning team meetings, led tours and educational days on the farm

Community Engagement

  • Decolonial Repair Network | Current Member

  • Organizing White Men for Collective Liberation | SURJ | Volunteer and Current Member

  • Healing Roots Learning Community | 2019-2020

  • Critical Race Theory Study Group | 2020-2021

  • Health Students for a Healthy Climate | 2021

  • Student Advisory Council Member | Center for Spirituality & Healing | 2020 - 2021

  • Earl E. Bakken Center for Spirituality and Healing | Events Volunteer | 2019 - 2021

  • Nature Rx Program | Community Advisor | Fall 2018

  • Tergar Meditation Community | Volunteer | 2015 - 2018

  • Native & Medicinal Plant Garden | Lalo Loor Reserve, Ecuador | Summer 2015

Trainings

  • Mental Health Literacy for Coaches, Institute of Coaching | 2025

  • Positive Intelligence Coach Training | 2024

  • Stories of the Land: Decolonization and Solidarity-Building Retreat | 2024

  • Deep Resilience Summit, Institute for Zen Leadership | 2024

  • Before We Were White: Ancestral Healing and Racial Identity | Comrades Education | 2024

  • Power of Presence | Coaches Rising | 2023

  • Basic Principles of Somatic Experiencing: A Body-Mind Approach to Healing | 2023

  • Expand Your DEI Coaching Mindset | 2022

  • Cognitive Biases and Deep Listening | 2022

  • 10-Steps to Personal Resilience and Empowerment in a Chaotic Climate | Good Grief Network | 2022

  • Somatics, Social Justice, and Healing Trauma Webinar | Staici Haines | 2022

  • Dealing With Anxiety Course | Rick Hanson | 2022

  • The Great Adaptation Conference | Esther Perel | 2021

  • Embodied Trauma Conference | 2020

  • Introduction to Strategies for Trauma Awareness and Resilience | Minneapolis Peacebuilding Institute | 2020

  • Leading from the Emerging Future | Presencing Institute | 2019

  • Transitioning to a Dynamic Workstation for Whole Body Health | 2019

  • Power of Awareness Meditation Course | Tara Brach & Jack Kornfield | 2018

  • Joy of Living Level 1, 2, & 3 Retreats | Tergar Meditation Community | 2016 & 2017

  • Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) | 2013

Favorite Books

Mindfulness

  • Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life With the Heart of a Buddha | Tara Brach

  • The Joy of Living: Unlocking the Secret and Science of Happiness | Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche

  • Trauma Sensitive Mindfulness: Practices for Safe and Transformative Healing | David Treleaven

Trauma & Embodiment

  • The Politics of Trauma: Somatics, Healing, and Social Justice | Staci Haines

  • In An Unspoken Voice: How the Body Releases Trauma and Restores Goodness | Peter Levine

  • Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma | Bessel van der Kolk

Masculinity

  • The Will To Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love | bell hooks

Healing Justice

  • The New Saints: From Broken Hearts to spiritual Warriors | Lama Rod Owens

  • My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Mending of Our Bodies and Hearts | Resmaa Menakem

  • Radical Dharma: Talking Race, Love, and Liberation | Lama Rod Owens & Rev. angel Kyodo Williams

Grief

  • The Wild Edge of Sorrow: Rituals of Renewal and the Sacred Work of Grief | Francis Weller

Poetry

  • To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings | John O’Donohue