Finding True Alignment Through Transformation – Exclusive Interview With Eljin Keeling-Johnson
- Brainz Magazine
- Aug 26
- 6 min read
Eljin Keeling-Johnson’s life story is one of resilience, transformation, and purpose. Once battling depression and addiction, he now empowers others through The Alignment Method, an integrative approach that combines coaching, NLP, EMDR, breathwork, and energy practices. His mission: to guide people toward deep healing, authentic alignment, and lasting personal growth.
Eljin Keeling-Johnson, Personal Development Coach
Introduce yourself! Please tell us about you and your life, so we can get to know you better.
Hi, I’m Eljin Keeling-Johnson, and I’ve been in the wellbeing space for nearly 18 years in one form or another. I’m deeply passionate about personal development and take a holistic, integrative approach, adopting the Taoist principle that “the only way is no way.” For me, it’s never about comparing modalities or putting one down to lift another up. It’s about staying open and using the tools that best serve the unique journey of each client I work with.
My path into this work started from a deeply personal place. In my 20s, I worked as a bricklayer, but behind the scenes, I was battling depression, anxiety, and alcohol and drug addiction. Life became incredibly dark, with hospital visits, run-ins with the law, and even homelessness. At 26, I finally reached out for help. That was my turning point, and what I didn’t realize at the time was that it was the first step toward the life and work I have today.
I began in fitness as a gym instructor, then moved into outreach work, helping others the way I’d been helped. That experience inspired me to complete four years of training in Integrative Humanistic Counselling and Psychotherapy. Soon after, I joined a drug and alcohol rehabilitation unit, where I worked with people from all walks of life and eventually went on to manage the therapy team. Those years gave me an incredible foundation in understanding people, transformation, and resilience.
From there, I launched my own wellbeing company, blending physical, creative, and therapeutic practices, everything from fitness and yoga to art and music, to create a holistic community impact. That project went on to reach over 1.5 million people, something I’m still incredibly proud of. Over time, I shifted my focus to one-to-one transformational coaching, weaving together coaching, NLP, EMDR, breathwork, somatic work, and energy practices to help clients create deep, lasting change.
Outside of my work, I’m a proud dad of five amazing kids, which keeps life full and joyful. To stay grounded, you’ll often find me hiking in nature, practicing yoga, or exercising. I also have a deep love for music, meditation, and reading, and I’m always up for new adventures and experiences.
At 46, I’m just as passionate about personal development as I was at 26 when my own journey began. What truly lights me up is simple: connection, walking alongside people as they release what no longer serves them and realign with clarity, purpose, and the best version of themselves.
What inspired you to transition from counseling and psychotherapy to coaching and NLP?
While I’ve always loved counseling and psychotherapy, and still hold deep respect for the work, it eventually began to feel limiting for me. Those ten years gave me a solid foundation in understanding people and the human experience, but I found that traditional therapy sometimes kept clients in a cycle of talking without fully transforming.
When I began exploring coaching, NLP, EMDR, Neurodynamic Breathwork, and somatic and energy practices, it felt like a whole new world opened up. These tools allowed me to work with clients more holistically, consciously, subconsciously, and unconsciously, and to help them create faster, deeper, and more lasting results.
What really inspired me to make the shift was seeing how much more effectively I could help people with anxiety, trauma, and PTSD without requiring them to rehash painful experiences over and over. Instead, we could work safely and powerfully to help them release, heal, and realign in a way that felt both empowering and permanent.
How do you blend therapeutic techniques with coaching to facilitate lasting change in your clients?
Absolutely, if someone wants pure counselling, I can offer that. But in my personal development program, The Alignment Method, I take a much more integrative approach.
I’ll often start with classic coaching techniques to help clients define their goals, understand their drivers, reframe limiting beliefs, and clarify their values. From there, I integrate deeper modalities like NLP to work with core beliefs, subconscious patterns, and the inner “personas and saboteurs” that may be holding them back.
For clients carrying unresolved pain or trauma, I may bring in EMDR, deep unconscious work, or breathwork practices to help release trapped memories, emotions, or energy that are keeping them stuck.
I also draw inspiration from Buddhism and Taoism, incorporating mindfulness, meditation, and somatic practices alongside these more structured modalities. It’s about balancing the masculine, strategic tools like NLP and EMDR, with the feminine, breathwork, stillness, and spiritual integration.
Ultimately, my goal is to help clients achieve true alignment, where the conscious, subconscious, and unconscious are all working together. That’s where deep, lasting transformation happens, and where people feel fully connected in mind, body, and spirit.
What advice would you give to aspiring coaches looking to make a meaningful impact in the lives of others?
That’s an interesting one. The coaching space today is incredibly crowded, so my first piece of advice would be: don’t compare yourself, just be you.
Qualifications are valuable, absolutely, go and get them, but piling up certifications, marketing courses, and business training won’t mean much if you haven’t done the deep inner work on yourself. The most impactful coaches I know are those who have truly walked the path of personal development, not just studied it.
What makes the biggest difference is your ability to deeply understand and connect with your clients, to see them, to hear them, and to hold space for their journey. As Carl Jung said, “Knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing with the darkness of others.”
So my advice is this: embody the work. Do as much personal development as you can, not just academically but experientially. The more you embrace your own journey, the more authentic, empathetic, and effective you’ll be in helping others transform theirs.
And finally, don’t do this work for the money. You have to truly love what you do. I’ve never once woken up and not wanted to see my clients or start my day’s work. That genuine passion is what keeps you grounded, authentic, and able to create a meaningful impact.
Tell us about your greatest career achievement so far.
To be honest, while I’m incredibly proud of founding my first company, Connection Wellbeing Services, and seeing our community impact measured by Sheffield University at over £1.5 million, my greatest achievement isn’t a single milestone.
It’s every client I’ve worked with. I feel deeply connected to each of their journeys, and watching them transform is something I never take for granted. It’s an honour and a privilege to do this work, to roll up our sleeves together and row the boat from point A to point B.
That connection, that transformation, that’s what I’m most proud of, and it’s what keeps me passionate about what I do every single day.
Tell us about a pivotal moment in your life that brought you to where you are today.
Aside from the journey that led me into the wellbeing sector, one of the most pivotal moments in my life came a few years into running my own wellbeing business.
I remember it vividly. It was a cold winter’s day, and I was stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic on the A50. Something in me just snapped. I got out of my car during a moment of road rage and hit another man, with countless witnesses watching. In that instant, my heart sank. Here I was, a wellbeing practitioner, a counsellor, a coach, on my way to deliver a workshop on wellbeing, acting completely out of alignment with who I wanted to be.
The shame was overwhelming. When I got home, I told my then-wife what had happened. She asked me, “Why are you working so hard? What are you chasing?” I snapped again and said, “Because I need to be a success.” Her response stopped me in my tracks: “You already are a success.”
That conversation changed everything for me. I realized how much I was pushing, how burned out I’d become, and how much I was defining my worth by external measures. From that point forward, I began to reassess everything: how I worked, with whom I wanted to work, and how I wanted my life to feel.
That shift led me deeper into coaching, NLP, and transformational practices like breathwork. It also inspired me to design my own signature personal development program, The Alignment Method, which integrates everything I’ve learned into a process that truly transforms lives.
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