Alison Canavan
Alison Canavan has been named one of the top 8 transformational coaches in the US by USA Today for 2021. She specializes in managing change, stress, burnout & overwhelm. She helps companies support their workforce who are transitioning back into the corporate office and finding their work/life balance. Her focus is on 360 health and wellbeing with mental health; including depression and anxiety being at the forefront and focus of her work. Alison is a UCLA trained Mindfulness Facilitator from The Semel Institute of Neuroscience and Human Behavior, a Master NLP Practitioner, HeartMath facilitator, Nutritional coach, Raw Foods Master and an award-winning author of Minding Mum – It’s Time to Take Care of You – the world’s first 360 self-care book for mums focusing on Mums health and wellbeing post birth.
Alison’s workshops and talks include incredible tools for transforming and understanding people’s daily struggles which include chronic stress (responsible for 90% of disease), anxiety, depression and addiction in all forms from sugar to alcohol, co-dependency and more– helping people to become more aware of what’s driving their habits. Her heart-led business and 360 approach to wellbeing is innovative, inclusive and accessible to all. As a meditation teacher she understands the power of a daily mindful approach to living. She believes that to create peace in our life we must carve out time for self-care, go within and create space to heal, learn and grow.
Alison has worked with thousands of clients in her private practice and for over a decade has been teaching about The Power of Gratitude on stages across the world and how it can create incredible perception and paradigm shifts in your life. Through her life changing 5-minute journal, Alison offers an innovative way in a short time every day to experience real change.
Alison has become a highly sought-after motivational speaker and contributor to the wellness space. Some of her previous clients include, You Tube, Plancorp, Vista, Medstar Health, Bank of Ireland, Allianz, Deloitte, City National Bank, Moxifit, Aegis Living, Google, Barnardos, Deutsche Telekom, AllBright, Coinbase, Vitality, Paypal and Bristol Myers Squibb.
Alison began her professional career as one of the world’s top fashion models at the tender age of 15 and spent over 20 years traveling the world and walking the runway for world-renowned designers. During this time, she also battled with depression, anxiety and addictions. She transformed her own life using simple but powerful tools like meditation, mindfulness, movement, coherence training, breathwork, food and mindset techniques and has been studying and training and working in these fields for decades.
She created a “Wellbeing in the Skies” series for Ireland’s national airline Aer Lingus. This series looks at gratitude, meditation, anxiety, fear of flying, jetlag, a kid’s wellness corner and much more.
Alison continues to contribute to Podcasts, Newspapers, Magazines and TV and Radio shows around the world including The Sunday Independent, Mindful magazine, Spirit and Destiny, The Daily Mail, Ireland AM, The 6 O’clock show, Pregnancy and Parenting magazine, Oh Baby, VIP Magazine, Positive Life, You Magazine, Voyage LA, The Cutting Edge. Podcasts like The Living Proof, Real Health with Karl Henry, The Good Glow, Chasing Passion, The Courageous Life, Lovin.ie, Mindful Mama Podcast, Sandra Rea’s Fiercely Spiritual podcast, Alive and Kicking Newstalk, Motherly, iHeart radio to name but a few.
Interested in working with Alison Canavan?
Book Alison Canavan for your next event or access meeting planner / event materials.
Speech Topics & Descriptions
The Art of Inspirational Living – HEART
The Art of Inspirational Living is a H.E.A.R.T based program that covers so many of the pain points in today’s world like stress, boundaries, focus, resilience, time, values, mindfulness and coherence.
It encompasses a Full 360 approach to living a healthy, happy and successful life for each individual. The H.E.A.R.T technique can be applied to anyone’s life and Alison works with each individual client to tweak it to their specific needs.
The program encourages a healthy and more balanced life. Alison has trained health coaches, CFO’s, CEO’s and many more in H.E.A.R.T based living helping people to reduce stress, incorporate better daily habits and have better overall understanding of health and wellbeing.
H.E.A.R.T is currently being offered as a half day in person or over four (4) virtual sessions with exercise and challenges to do in between each session. Key takeaways include: H – HEALTH | E- EARTH | A- ACTION | R- RESPECT | T- TIME
SESSION 1 Introduce Energy |Mindset | Your Why and Values | Clarity of thought | Vision Statement | Your perfect morning Routine
SESSION 2 EARTH | Understanding Stress | Coherence Techniques – HeartMath | Ground and benefits | Tips on living more mindfully | Meditation | Connection
SESSION 3 ACTION | Better decision making and daily habits | Understanding patterns of success | Taking Inspired action through awareness | Taking action aligned with your purpose and values | Taking action based on your goals and dreams
RESPECT | THE ABC’S OF RESPECT | Authenticity | Boundaries | Connection | Gratitude and understanding the RAS (Reticular Activating System)
SESSION 4 TIME | The myth of no time | What gives us back our time | The power of story | Respecting others time | Expectations | Perception | STOP/CATCH/CHANGE Technique
More Energy, Less Stress
People think they need better time management, but they actually need better energy management. In a world where people feel like they are always playing catch up with a never ending to do list it can be helpful to understand energy management. Understanding energy helps us to become more present, focused, efficient, less stressed, sleep better and have better quality relationships.
In this talk I encourage you to look at energy as a currency, asking questions like; how do you spend yours each day? Do you save your energy for when you need it? And What habits deplete your energy and what habits are life giving?
I will take you through practices so you can experience a shift in your own energy in real time. We will also be looking at the energy of language and how you speak about yourself and others can be energy depleting or energy giving.
Energy is also contagious and through the lens of understanding coherence we can really begin to understand the energy of stress and anxiety and transform to one of presence, patience and calm. Key takeaways include:
- The currency of energy
- Starting your day strong – determines how you spend your energy
- My Stop, Catch, Change Technique for interrupting behavior patterns
- Coherence techniques
- Stress reduction
- The power of the breath
- Why movement matters
- The importance of letting go
The Full 360: The Mindful Path to Better Living
As a mindfulness teacher, Alison believes that awareness in all areas of our lives creates space for change. Until we fully accept who and where we are in this moment, we can’t take steps on the path to where we would like to be. Bringing mindfulness gently into all areas of your life helps to bring trained awareness to the forefront, empowering you to make better decisions, become less reactive, less stressed and more content.
For organizations, less stressed and more content individuals leads to a healthier company and greater growth.
Alison shares key tools and starting points for people focusing on her mantra that; ‘small changes done consistently bring about lasting differences in our lives’. This session includes mindful tips to gratitude, sleep and stress management.
The Power of Presence
Using the power of mindfulness, awareness and intuition we can create positive change leading to the real results we truly desire for ourselves, our business and our loved ones.
In this talk/presentation Alison explores tools and techniques to help us tap into our potential and our true intuition.
She shares fun and interactive exercises and mindfulness techniques which helps us to experience true presence.
Most of all she asks important questions because its only by asking the right questions can people search within for the answers they seek.
By truly stepping on the path to knowing ourselves we can become more resilient, focused and self-assured and confident. This leads us to become better partners, friends, coworkers and even bosses. Key takeaways include:
- Exercises to help activate the vagus nerve (also covering what this is) in the body and why it’s important
- Mindset
- Mindfulness techniques
- Coherence Practices
- Stress management
- Navigating change
- Building resilience
BREAKOUT SESSIONS/WORKSHOPS
The Full 360 Workshop: Live Better, Feel Better
The full 360 approach to health and wellbeing encourages people to look at all areas of their lives and not just one or two. Alison shares tools and techniques that help people connect, go within and create lasting change through intuition and everyday small behavioural changes. Alison firmly believes that real wellness can only truly be achieved when we connect the dots, taking a full 360 approach with our own health and wellbeing. This means looking at body, mind, spirit, our environment and the quality of our relationships.
This workshop will bring guests through different, fun techniques including mindfulness, gratitude, self-care tips and what effect our food has on our mood. Alison will also talk about looking at our toxic load and the products we use on a daily basis both in the home and on ourselves. Most women put on average 168 – 515 chemicals* onto their skin each day. This has a very strong and negative effect on our overall health and wellbeing and something Alison is passionate about spreading the word on.
The Full 360 event helps attendees make small changes that will give them the confidence to follow their dreams and to believe in themselves. Small changes make a big difference.
**Alison customizes a 44-page workbook, which should shared with each workshop attendee. Printing costs are separate from speaking fees.
Workshop takeaways can include:
- Stress Management
- Understanding Energy
- Coherence and What That Means (with techniques)
- Meditation/Mindfulness
- Immunity Tips
- Breathing
- Eating well
- Gratitude
- Daily Happiness Habits
- Movement
- Mindset – How to Shift It
- Energy and Vibration – How to Keep Yours High
What people are saying
“Alison was scheduled to present ways to practice self-care via mindfulness. Unbeknownst to her, her audience was a multigenerational mixture of skeptics and receptive team members who are analysts by trade. She completely engaged the audience through her use of media, team exercises and animated narrative. Even months after the event, team members are still talking about her successful event and using the diaries that she created to further instill the principles of mindfulness. In fact, a few have suggested that they wished that she would come back on a regular basis! We highly recommend her, especially to gain tools to better insulate employees from burnout, COVID weariness and, above all, fear!”
“Thank you for choosing such an amazing speaker today. She was incredible. I got stopped by almost every person that left with the same sentiments. Many said that this was one of the best events they have ever been to. I am grateful to have heard her message today; and, I know the chapter is as well.”
“YPO St. Louis recently hosted Aly Canavan for an evening of Mindfulness. Her rating was a perfect 10, along with comments from YPO members stating how much they enjoyed the resource. Personally, I’ve hosted hundreds of events over the course of my 17 year career with YPO. I think Aly is one of the best resources we’ve ever had. I would highly recommend her to other YPO chapters.”
“From the moment Alison walked on stage to keynote our annual convention, to the moment she walked off, the audience was absolutely captivated. Our event was themed “Transformation” and her insights, vulnerability, and energy aligned with the theme and inspired everyone present. As I looked across the room I saw people emotionally engage with her stories and grounding techniques. (Our executive team continues to use them to manage our stress to this day.) Even those uninitiated in mindfulness practices found her teachings practical for use in daily life. Our audience loved her message and we will be working more with her in the future.”
“Alison has been a fantastic addition to the Allianz Active & Aware programme. Her enthusiasm and passion for Health and Wellbeing was palpable from the moment she arrived. Her honesty about her journey was refreshing and ensured that her presentation was incredibly interesting and most importantly enabled her to connect with the groups she was addressing. Her presentation style is effortlessly engaging, exuberant and infectious, and most importantly inspirational as she demonstrates how everyone has the ability to take control of our wellbeing destiny.”
“I want to thank Alison so so much! It was simply wonderful – so much powerful information. Her energy and enthusiasm was infectious. Please thank her for us, we are incredibly grateful.”
“I first met Alison on the ‘Walk In My Shoes’ fundraising and awareness project. Ali was a rock of good sense and committed to sharing her story with anyone who needed help or could help. She has an intuitive personality and a need to open things up for discussion until she understands all aspects of the issues. Ali is a doer and I am grateful that she has given so much of herself to raise awareness for mental health issues in Ireland.”
“Alison joined us for the final day of our annual three day off site meeting to help us focus on personal development. Alison’s session was at once practical in terms of steps we can take to balance home life and work life, but in truth it delivered much more…introspection, self-reflection, emotion and motivation. It was real, tapped into our investment in our people in a genuine way and allowed us to look at our development as people rather than employees. It hit exactly the right note and at the right time. I would highly recommend Alison if you are open to honesty, sincerity and looking after your team beyond what the ‘job’ provides them.”