About Lean Into Your Life: Life Coaching
Gary Merel M.S. CLC
My life has been guided by a commitment to my own personal and spiritual growth. I am a certified life coach with 25 years of experience as a functional medicine practitioner at Ann Arbor Holistic Health. In 2022, I stepped away from clinical practice to devote myself entirely to the deeper work of transformation, helping people live with clarity, intention, and alignment.
As a young adult, I lived in a yoga ashram for several years, immersed in disciplined spiritual practice. In midlife, I moved to Ann Arbor to study with a spiritual teacher, a relationship that shaped me for more than two decades. Most recently, my connection with my current teacher led me to spend extended time in India. These were not casual explorations. They were commitments, immersions into the questions that define my life.
My path has included facilitating men’s work through the ManKind Project and the Path 2 Spirit Warrior Program. I have also trained with the Andrew Weil Center for Integrative Medicine in the therapeutic use of psychedelics and have also studied with indigenous traditions, including the Huichol, Shuar, Quechua, and Kallawaya peoples, always holding these tools within a grounded, ethical, and spiritually centered framework.
As a cancer survivor, I have faced fragility and the power of life directly. That experience stripped away abstraction and demanded authenticity. Today, I draw on decades of spiritual practice, personal inquiry, and professional experience to help others grow honestly, courageously, and with heart. This work is about awakening. It is about becoming fully alive.
Blog Posts
No One Is Coming To Save Me
Not long ago, I found myself sitting alone at a coffee shop waiting for someone who never showed up. I had made these plans several weeks ago and had recently confirmed the meeting. As the minutes stretched on, I did what so many of us do. I replayed conversations. I searched for clues. I tried…
I Versus We
Most people begin life focused on one thing: survival. As children, that is exactly what we are supposed to do. We need attention, affection, safety, encouragement, food, guidance, and reassurance that we matter. Healthy development begins with “I.” But maturity is supposed to move us beyond ourselves. At some point, a healthy adult begins asking…
Can Your Really Trust Your Gut?
There comes a moment in life when what once worked no longer fits. The pressure builds quietly at first. A career that drains rather than inspires. Financial stress that never quite lets you rest. A marriage or family dynamic that feels disconnected from who you are becoming. These moments are not interruptions to life. They…