NeuroStateOfMind

10/05/2026

What surviving multiple traumatic brain injuries taught me about identity, neuroplasticity, personalized rehabilitation, and the role survivors and caregivers can play in creating the conditions for...

09/24/2026

I’m sharing my Brainz Magazine interview, “From Brain Injury to Brain Innovation.”

👉🏼 It’s a look at how surviving multiple traumatic brain injuries shaped the work I do today through The Harkins Method™ and The Harkins Project VRx™.

My experience began with learning how to rebuild my own life and it grew into a mission to help others find a pathway forward in brain health and neuro recovery.

Read the interview here:

https://www.brainzmagazine.com/post/from-brain-injury-to-brain-innovation-an-interview-with-founder-and-ceo-shawnee-harkins

I also have a new article coming soon to Brainz Magazine:

The Mindset for Neuro Recovery – 5 Things I Would Tell You About Healing After Brain Injury
What surviving multiple traumatic brain injuries taught me about identity, neuroplasticity, personalized rehabilitation, and the role survivors and caregivers can play in creating the conditions for change.

I look forward to sharing it with you. 🕊️

Shawnee Harkins is a neuroscience-driven performance expert, Neuro Fitness Trainer, and Founder of The Harkins Project VRx™, a medical extended reality company pioneering immersive therapies for brain health...

08/31/2026

🦅 COMMENT “THRIVE” and I’ll send you straight to the book.

SURVIVAL WAS THE BEGINNING OF MY STORY.

THRIVING BECAME THE GOAL.

I co-authored How to Survive and Thrive: Special Edition, alongside Joe Foster, Founder of Reebok, and the One Golden Nugget Publishing team.

My chapter is the part of my story I have spoken about least.

It begins with surviving multiple life-threatening traumatic brain injuries, and then moves into the work that followed: rebuilding cognition, communication, movement, independence, and identity.

It covers the part most people never see. The repetitions between the milestones, and what the brain and body were learning inside them.

What I hope you take from it:

Neuroplasticity. Mindset. Identity. Resilience. Rebuilding after neurological injury. Learning to walk again. Finding meaning after adversity. And turning lived experience into contribution.

Because the questions I started asking during my own recovery became the questions I now teach. What is changing? What is the brain and body learning? What may be appropriate to train next?

My pain became purpose.

If you are in the middle of a recovery right now, or walking beside someone who is, I wrote this for you.

How To Survive and Thrive: Special Edition is available now on Amazon in the US and UK.

Mind leads. Brain responds. Body follows.™

👉🏼 Comment “THRIVE” and I’ll send you straight to it.

Give light away, chase greatness. ✨

Onward. 🦅

08/27/2026

🦅 COMMENT “NEURO” and I’ll help you find the program pathway that fits where you are today.

LEARNING TO SEE THE PROGRESS BEFORE THE MILESTONE.

Kyle survived a severe traumatic brain injury that changed movement, speech, cognition, independence, and family life. We are approaching eight years of training together.

Meet Kyle.

Former arena pro linebacker. Youth minister. Father. Traumatic brain injury survivor. His diagnosis mattered. But it was never going to become his entire identity.

We didn’t train the diagnosis. We trained Kyle.

His program has integrated cognition, speech, breathwork, nervous-system regulation, visualization, strength, fine and gross motor work, bilateral training, neuroboxing, mirror training, cycling, gait training, identity work, and home repetition.

Recovery was built in stages.

Wheelchair → Walker → Cane → Independent Walking Practice.

Each stage became the foundation for the next, and the work did not end when our session ended. Cycling. Compression. Breathwork. Visualization. Home walking. Repetition. What happens between sessions matters.

But there was another person navigating this recovery.

Neurological injury changes families. Meet Donna, Kyle’s mother and long-term caregiver.

So I want to ask the question we do not ask often enough: who is training the caregiver?

Caregivers carry emotional, physical, logistical, and mental demands for years. Donna trained alongside Kyle to strengthen her own health, resilience, and capacity to continue showing up.

Today Kyle is practicing repeated independent walking under supervision — something that once lived only as a future goal.

Here is what I want you to take from Kyle’s story.

Do not wait for the final milestone before you acknowledge progress. Before greater independence may come hundreds or thousands of smaller moments. One more repetition. A longer stand. Greater initiation. Improved control. Less assistance. A better transfer. Another step.

Those are the data points of change I pay attention to. And data gives us information about what we may appropriately train next.

Recovery is not only about what someone regains. It is about what becomes possible again. Independence. Family. Purpose. Identity. Future.

Mind leads. Brain responds. Body follows.™

👉🏼 Comment “NEURO” and I’ll reply in your DMs. Tap “Learn more” and we’ll go through a few short questions about where you are today, find the program pathway that fits, and from there you’ll get the questionnaire and the link to book a discovery call with my team.

Give light away, chase greatness. ✨

Onward. 🦅

Educational content. Not medical advice.

08/26/2026

🦅COMMENT “NEURO” and I’ll help you find the program pathway that fits where you are today.

I DIDN’T SHARE MY TBI STORY SIMPLY TO TELL YOU WHAT HAPPENED TO ME.

I shared it because something I learned about rebuilding my own life may help someone else think differently about theirs.

By 24, I had survived three life-threatening traumatic brain injuries. Recovery challenged movement, cognition, communication, independence, identity, and the future I thought I was going to have.
Here is the part I want you to take with you.

Your current function is information. It tells us where you are today. It can help us understand what needs support, what needs training, and what we may begin working toward next.

The nervous system can change in response to experience and repeated activity. That capacity is called neuroplasticity. My recovery taught me to become deeply curious about what my brain and body could learn through intentional practice.

So recovery became active for me. I practiced movement. I practiced cognition. I practiced communication. I visualized what I wanted my body to do before I could always physically do it.

The big breakthrough was built through smaller ones.

Swipe through and watch the progression. The wheelchair. The harness. The parallel bars. The walker. Every image is a stage, and every stage became the foundation for the next.

Eventually, I learned to walk again. But what I rebuilt was greater than movement. I rebuilt cognition, communication, independence, confidence, identity, purpose, and ultimately my life.

What I learned through recovery eventually became part of what I teach today. My lived experience, education, applied neuroscience, and years of Neuro Fitness Training with neuro clients ultimately helped shape The Harkins Method™.

My recovery became research.
My experience became application.
My pain became purpose.

Here is what I would ask you to do with this.

Look at your own current function today and treat it as information rather than a verdict. Name one thing you can do now that you could not do 30, 60, or 90 days ago. Then decide what that tells you about what may be appropriate to train next.

I write about all of it in my chapter in How to Survive and Thrive: Special Edition.

Mind leads. Brain responds. Body follows.™

👉🏼 Comment “NEURO” and we’ll go through a few short questions about where you are today, find the program pathway that fits.

Give light away, chase greatness. ✨

Onward. 🦅

Educational content. Not medical advice.

See less

08/23/2026

🦅 COMMENT “BELT” and I’ll send you the link to the NEW Harkins Method™ Signature Gait-Training Belt.

I didn’t create another gait belt.

I created the gait-training belt I wanted for my own neuro clients.

After years of hands-on work with individuals navigating neurological recovery, I became very clear about what I wanted from the equipment I used to support standing, balance, transitions, and gait training.

Because learning or relearning to walk is built through purposeful practice.

One sit-to-stand.

One additional second of balance.

One weight shift.

One step.

Then another. That experience helped shape the Harkins Method™ Signature Gait-Training Belt, now available in Adult and Pediatric designs, made to order according to individual measurements and designed with multiple supportive handles.

No piece of equipment can promise an outcome.

But we can continue creating appropriate opportunities to practice, participate, learn, and progress.

That is what this belt was created to support.

Mind leads. Brain responds. Body follows.™

👉🏼 Comment “BELT” and I’ll send you the link to learn more.

Give light away, chase greatness. ✨

Onward. 🦅

08/21/2026

🦅 COMMENT “STORE” and I’ll send you the link to shop the NEW Harkins Method™ Neuro Recovery & Performance Store.

IT’S OFFICIAL. WE ARE LIVE.

I am incredibly proud to launch the Harkins Method™ Neuro Recovery & Performance Store. This did not begin with the idea of creating merchandise. It began by listening to survivors, caregivers, families, and this community who wanted products that represented the work we are doing together.

So I created an extension of The Harkins Method™.

A collection rooted in neuro recovery, brain health, performance, identity, autonomy, and independence.

Inside you’ll find Harkins Method™ apparel and performance gear, along with something especially meaningful to me: our new Harkins Method™ Signature Gait-Training Belt, available for both adults and pediatric neuro clients.

And we are only beginning.

Over the coming months, I’ll continue adding products and tools intentionally developed or selected for neuro recovery and performance.

Because we are not simply training for today.

We are training toward what comes next.

Mind leads. Brain responds. Body follows.™

👉🏼 Comment “STORE” and I’ll send you the link. Give light away, chase greatness. ✨

Onward. 🦅

07/09/2026

Deeply honored to share this press release from Brainz Magazine. 🫶🕊️

Frisco, TX — July 2, 2026 — Founder & CEO of The Harkins Method™ and The Harkins Project VRx™, Shawnee Harkins, officially announces the release of How To Survive and Thrive: Special Edition, now available...

06/22/2026

Honored to be recognized as one of The Most Influential Leaders in Neuro Rehabilitation.

Today, I am proud to share my cover feature and interview in Executive Excellence Magazine's special edition recognizing leaders who are shaping the future of neurorehabilitation, neuroplasticity, and brain health.

This recognition is deeply meaningful because my journey into neuroscience and neurorehabilitation did not begin in a university, or research center.

It began through lived experience.

By the age of twenty-four, I had survived multiple life-threatening traumatic brain injuries that challenged my cognitive abilities, physical function, identity, and future.

Yet through every challenge, I never lost faith in my ability to heal.

I never accepted limitation as final.

I never accepted that "this is as good as it gets."

The doctors gave me a diagnosis after each traumatic brain injury (TBI) and
shared their perspective on what the rest of my life would look like.

I chose a different ending for myself. 🕊️

And now I share my story and message of implanting hope for change for others.

Long before I studied neuroplasticity, I lived it.

My recovery journey taught me that the human brain is capable of extraordinary change.

It taught me that hope is a decision and often the very thing that keeps people moving forward when the outcome is uncertain.

That belief became the foundation of my life's work.

Today, as Founder and CEO of The Harkins Project VRx™ and creator of The Harkins Method™ Neural Network of Change, I have the privilege of helping survivors, caregivers, clinicians, and organizations reimagine what is possible after brain injury, stroke, and neurological challenge.

👉🏼 At 44 years old, I am proud to say that I am 100% healed and have been for years. 🏅

Now that I stand on the other side of healing, my mission is clear:

To help others see, believe, and turn their page towards possibility in their own healing and neuro recovery journey.

To help people heal, recover, and rise. 🕊️

I believe the future of neurorehabilitation is about helping people discover who they are capable of becoming.

🫶 Thank you to Executive Excellence Magazine for this incredible recognition and for providing a platform to share this vision with a global audience.

The future of neurorehabilitation is defined by human potential.

📖 Read the full online cover feature interview:

https://theexecutiveexcellence.com/magazine/

📲 Read the full digital magazine cover interview:

https://theexecutiveexcellence.com/the-most-influential-leaders-in-neuro-rehabilitaion/

Pass the love, share the light, chase greatness. 🌈

Onward. 🕊️