Courage. Compassion. Connection. Grit.

Dr. Carli Braun

Owner. mPEAK Team Co-Founder. Licensed Psychologist. Performance Coach. Mindfulness Teacher.

MISSION: To empower living, loving, and leading with heart, wisdom, and mental and emotional agility. To fortify how you show up for life and the moments which matter most to you.

My Sweet Spots.

I have a passion for working with high performers, people who strive for excellence in their lives and have a tendency towards driving hard in their endeavors. This group includes people juggling multiple life roles under pressure, business leaders, legal professionals, medical providers, mental health providers, first responders, educators, creatives, athletes, and parents striving to show up their best with their families and in life. I have a sweet spot for empowering high performers who consider themselves to be “highly sensitive people” (HSP) or empaths.

Once an athlete, always an athlete. I love working with athletes including those of us who no longer consider ourselves competitive athletes, but the competitive juices still flow! I have a background in competitive athletics, coaching athletic teams, and expertise in sports psychology. I am attuned to the unique needs of injured athletes and individuals who are called to adapt to new ways of living with limited or different abilities due to injury, accident, or illness. I’ve had 8 surgeries on my left knee, including a partial knee replacement and a conversion to a full knee replacement. These experiences have provided abundant “classroom of life” opportunities to apply and experiment with mindfulness, self-compassion, and other performance and resilience tools. When I say, “I empathize with physical pain and injury,” I really mean it. I also know what it takes to get back up.

I am highly attuned to the neurodiverse brain and the unique superpowers and challenges that come with living with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), sensory processing issues, and other executive functioning challenges. I'm fiercely committed to helping my clients unlock their superpowers and live awakened, fulfilling lives.

Like a wild animal, the soul is tough, resilient, resourceful, savvy, and self-sufficient: it knows how to survive in hard places. - Parker Palmer

Foundational goals of our work together:

• Hone your skills for optimal performance, stress resilience, focus and flow across life realms.

• Strengthen your ability to skillfully work with the process rather than focusing solely on outcome.

• Develop greater focus and concentration.

• Tap into the power of “flow states” during performance events and everyday life.

• Develop wise ways of navigating stress and uncertainty rather than reacting out of fear.

• Strengthen your mental and emotional durability for working with difficult emotions and physically painful experiences.

• Increase your mental clarity and self-trust for decision-making and wise action in your life.

• Leverage personal strengths and stretching your personal edges without giving up or burning out.

• Strengthen your self-compassion skills, a powerful skillset for emotional durability, cognitive agility, resilience, and grit.

• Boost your capacity for joy, peace, gratitude, love and fun.

Our work is centered around you.

You are the most important element in our work together. You are the expert on you. If you don’t feel like the expert on yourself and how your brain-body works, then we’ll work to get there. Your self-awareness and your ability to observe and learn through mindfulness are two powerful keys to unlocking new pathways for wellness, crushing it in your performance endeavors, resilience in the face of adversity, and enjoying life.

This work can get deep at times as you explore areas of difficulty, challenge, emotional or physical pain, or feeling stuck. Work around attunement to goodness such as love and joy can get deep too! I encourage you to be as real and authentic with yourself as possible as you enter into this work. It’s my goal to build trust with you so that you feel comfortable sharing how I can most effectively support you.

Know that we all struggle at times. It’s part of the deal of being alive. I understand that performance and resilience do not exist in a vacuum. Areas of our lives and how we show up are often more interconnected than we realize. Sometimes excelling in one realm creates challenges in or deficits to the way you’re showing up in another realm of your life. There’s space to explore and unpack whatever is helpful for you in our work together. I’m here to walk with you. As Andy Andrew said, “Everybody wants to reach the peak, but there is no growth on the top of a mountain. It is in the valley that we slog through the lush grass and rich soil, learning and becoming what enables us to summit life’s next peak.”

I am trained to swim with you in the deep.

Licenses & Certifications

• Licensed Psychologist (Ph.D., LP) in Minnesota and Michigan.

• UCSD Certified mPEAK Coach

• Certified Daring Way™ Facilitator (CDWF), certified by the Brené Brown Education and Research Group (BBEARG)

• Trained Teacher of Mindful Self-Compassion (MSC), trained through the Center for Mindful Self-Compassion at the University of California - San Diego Center for Mindfulness

• Advanced trauma training including Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing (EMDR), Level One EMDRIA Training.

Education

• Doctorate in Counseling Psychology from the University of Minnesota (2008)

• Master's degree in Counseling from the University of Minnesota (2002)

• Bachelor's degrees in Psychology, Women's Studies, and German at St. Olaf College (1999)

For more information about my work as a psychologist, check out my private practice website: www.drkody.com.

Courage and vulnerability are innately connected to peak performance, resilience, and well-being. Research evidence reveals that vulnerability is a powerful pathway for rising stronger in our lives and performing at our best, in the moments that matter most to us.

Diversity & Inclusion

I stand firm in advocating for multiculturalism, diversity, and social justice in psychological education, research, and practice as defined by the American Psychological Association's guidelines and standards. Cultural and societal factors influence our life experiences and impact our mental health and wellbeing. These factors include majority and minority cultural experiences, privilege and marginalization, racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, religious discrimination, classism, ableism, ageism, and sizeism. I seek to understand your identity and experiences in the culture(s) in which you live. I will advocate for you with societal pressures, systemic issues, and oppression.