Hit by a car. Struck by lightning. Hanged from a tree. Survived a mass murder. At age 29, went into the “White Light” and lived to tell. What does Kelly Standing do when she’s NOT dodging death and natural disasters?

Born and raised in St. Louis, a product of the University Of Missouri School Of Journalism … Kelly started her career in public relations and quickly chose to specialize in speechwriting and corporate script writing. She LOVED getting paid to put words into other people’s mouths.

She met fascinating people along the way, including business management guru Peter Drucker. She met a U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, appeared on World News Tonight with Peter Jennings and met Oscar winner Roberto Bengini. She met the Today Show’s Willard Scott, celebrity doctors, professional football players and countless captains of industry. One speech led to another. Her practice grew and, for more than 15 years, she served as speechwriter and coach to some of America's top executives in a broad range of industries.

Through her professional lens she saw organizations sink or soar based on the attitudes their people had toward change, adversity and uncertainty. Based on all her brushes with death on the personal side, she developed an uncommonly positive, even fearless, approach to those topics. Kelly welcomes change. She weathers adversity remarkably well. She’s still STANDING.

Early on, her parents taught her to see the world as it could be, not as it is … to see the possibility in her pain. Now, Kelly shares her dad’s secret recipe for resilience with audiences all over the United States. She believes anyone can apply his formula … on Main Street, Wall Street or Sesame Street.

When Kelly’s speechwriting clients heard everything she had to say on the professional side, they invited her to tell her personal story – all the “near-death stuff.” Apparently, they liked her philosophy and approach and trusted her to be passionate without getting preachy. Smart companies know they have to feed the part of their employees that’s starving. Kelly fed them. Kelly’s speaking career took her all the way to the World Championship of Public Speaking in 2001. She ranked in the top nine speakers in the world out of 25,000 competitors and 180,000 Toastmasters.

In 2003, based on all her brushes with death, she wondered if she might be called to ministry or hospice chaplaincy. She explored the possibilities in seminary. As part of her coursework, she served as a chaplain to criminal youth for a year in St. Louis, served a church for a year in older adult and general ministry and served as a student chaplain at a Level One trauma center in Chicago for a year, helping patients and families as they approached death. Ultimately, she felt called back to her career as speaker and coach, but with life-altering new insights and experiences.

Today, Kelly amuses, entertains, encourages and inspires audience members to find in themselves the resilience and ability to adapt that she learned the hard way. She went from speechwriter to speaker to author with her memoir, I'M STILL STANDING: How One Woman's Brushes with Death Taught Her How To Live.

Kelly stepped in at the last minute to substitute for Jane Katra, who cancelled a few hours before her presentation. It was the first time Kelly had attended a meeting of Chicago IANDS. Everyone loved her and she received a standing ovation.

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Jane Katra holds a Ph.D. in Public Health from the University of Oregon,
where she taught mind-body health classes in the 1980’s. Dr. Katra has
also practiced as a natural spiritual healer for thirty-four years.
Katra is the coauthor with physicist Russell Targ of the books *Miracles
of Mind: Exploring Nonlocal Consciousness* and *Spiritual
Healing(1998),* and *The Heart of the Mind (1999)*. Her work has been
featured in the book *Reinventing Medicine* by Larry Dossey, and in
Science of Mind, Natural Health, Alternative Therapies, New Dimensions,
Spirituality and Health, and Noetic Sciences Review.

Thirty years ago, Dr. Jane Katra received instructions about being a
spiritual healer during a near-death experience, and in 2003 she began
receiving communications from her recently deceased step-daughter. These
experiences have launched her on a quest to understand mind-to-mind
communications, which involve not only knowing who has telephoned you,
but also the possibility of being attuned to and transformed by a
greater transpersonal field of Infinite Mind.

Dr. Katra transmits an evolutionary experience of naturally radiating
energy, and teaches classes in Esoteric Wisdom, Psychic & Spiritual
Development, Remote Viewing, Forgiveness as Transformation, Facing Death
& Meeting Soul, Awakened Activism; Patanjali, Ramana Maharshi & Becoming
Who We Are. Dr. Katra is active in healing research, is featured as part
of The Science & Consciousness Visionary DVD Club, and has presented at
Omega, Esalen, The Institute of Noetic Sciences, The Monroe Institute,
The International Conference on Science & Consciousness, the Rhine
Research Center where she is on the advisory board, and to medical
schools and spiritual organizations internationally.

*Developing Healing Power: Awakening Subtle Perception & Higher Vibration and Receive Spiritual, Emotional & Physical Healing.... A Class on Experiencing Higher Consciousness with Jane Katra, Ph.D.* This November we are fortunate in being able to offer 8 Healing
Mini-Workshops.... with Jane Katra, PhD, who will be speaking for us on
Saturday, November 12 and will be staying to do these Mini-Workshops on
Nov 13, 14, & 15. Each workshop is 2 1/2 hours long and contains 5
\"students.\" The cost to each person is $60. The Mini-Workshops will be
offered at 9:30 am, 2 pm and 7 pm on November 13 & 14 and at 9:30 am and
2 pm on November 15.

If you want to participate in this, please call me asap at 847.251.7270
to reserve your time. You will then need to send me a check for $60 made
out to \"Chicago IANDS.\" Please mail it to me at: Diane Willis, 2226
Wilmette Ave., Wilmette, IL, 60091