Mental Health Champions: Why & How Niki Cozmo Is Helping To Champion Mental Wellness

An Interview With Michelle Tennant Nicholson

Self-development: I’ve read a wild amount of self-help books and learned a lot from different schools of thought which has supported and guided me on my journey to today. I even remember reading Buddhist philosophies well before my parents passed, so it’s safe to say it’s been an integral part of my life since pre-teen years.. I’ve always had the seeker mentality, however, it wasn’t until I got into the rooms with similar people, went on retreats, attended seminars and immersed myself in those in-person experiences that I began to know myself on a much deeper level.

As a part of our series about Mental Health Champions helping to promote mental wellness, I had the pleasure to interview Niki Cozmo.

An esteemed Hypnotherapist, Spiritual Mentor & Wellness Educator, Los Angeles native Niki Cozmo finds her greatest happiness through giving back to her community. A dedicated healer, Niki allows her clients to explore the innate power that lie at the subconscious and cellular levels, ultimately inviting greater freedom into their lives. Marrying her colorful life experiences with her formal training, Niki opened multiple trauma-informed, transformational education programs giving equal opportunity to thousands of folks around the globe.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit. Can you tell us a bit about how you grew up?

I grew up in an affluent town just outside of Los Angeles, California with my two wonderful parents, who were also LA natives, and one younger sister. I have many memories that I hold dear to my heart about growing up in a house that was loving, affectionate, warm and open-minded. My parents supported me in all of my years from early childhood all the way through my early adulthood years. On the flip side of that, both of my parents were alcoholics. This realization came through when I was 16, and I’ve been unpacking the effects this has had on me ever since.

You are currently leading an initiative that is helping to promote mental wellness. Can you tell us a bit more specifically about what you are trying to address?

As an esteemed Hypnotherapist with a global network, I take pride in giving back to my community through my acquired knowledge and skills rewiring the subconscious mind via hypnotherapy. I take a trauma-informed approach in my work, which has not only been built through expanding my mind in classes and courses, but this approach is also taken via my own personal and colorful life experiences. Through my work, I address something I like to call post-trauma growth. This concept was something that I have witnessed in my own life and how I navigated my way through my own trauma, despair and rock-bottom. It wasn’t an overnight thing, however, I’ve made it my mission to teach and support fellow humans that they, too, can transmute their pain into power.

Can you tell us the backstory about what inspired you to originally feel passionate about this cause?

My passion for my mission stems from losing all my immediate family members to death within a span of 8 years. Their legacies fuel me and I’ll tell you why. Shortly after I turned 22, my dad died tragically and unexpectedly while in my care. I was the last person to see him alive, and the first person to see him dead 10 minutes later. My dad had begun hemorrhaging severely. Witnessing something so horrific at that age and having the strength to jump to his rescue — literally, I jumped on his body, full of blood, to give him CPR. Unfortunately, he did not make it. By the grace of some mysterious higher power, from that moment I was instilled with a deep wisdom difficult to describe. From then on I understood the preciousness that is life. Which leads me to my next major life event.

Sadly, 5 years later at 27 years old, my mom passed away tragically and unexpectedly. Her cause of death was mental health and substance related. Her death completely threw me for a loop. I lost all sense of self and my world turned black. From this point on, I had to learn how to pick up the pieces of what I thought life meant, what I thought family meant, and had to figure out who/what I was and what role I wanted to play in this existence. I was thrown deeper into responsibility when I had to take on the role of parenting my younger sister (6.5 years my junior). I had always parented her, however, now that my parents were gone, the role became my number one priority. Fast forward to 30 years old, this is when I found out my sister had passed away, tragically and unexpectedly, from mental health and substance us as well.

Having lost all my immediate family to death, I was almost forced to look at the deeper meaning of life, death, love and so on, and what it means to be human, alive and happy.I learned quickly that death is inevitable, it will happen to the best and the worst of us, and it can happen at any moment. With my life experiences, being impacted by these 3 deaths, I knew it was my mission and my purpose to promote mental wellness through mindset practices, inner healing and by guiding others through their own hardships and darkness..

Many of us have ideas, dreams, and passions, but never manifest them. They don’t get up and just do it. But you did. Was there an “Aha Moment” that made you decide that you were actually going to step up and do it? What was that final trigger?

My (final) “Aha” moment, following all of the loss, following years of world travel and seeking, was in 2019 when it became undeniably clear that I was ready to become a mom. My intuition was speaking loud and clear saying “the time is now, you’re ready”. However, growing up in an alcoholic household, exposed to negative coping skills, I, too, developed unhealthy coping habits and I found that in alcohol. In 2019 I had a strong “come to god moment” or “spiritual awakening” with the inner knowing that I had to stop drinking alcohol if I wanted to have a baby. So, I stopped and got pregnant not long after that.

At that time I also started attending a non-denominational spiritual church, and a 12-step program — Adult Children of Alcoholics (ACA) to be exact — to support my healing. It was a combination of actually taking the responsibility for my life. Whether or not my family had died, I had to turn within and seek what I could change for my highest good. That was tied in with my “Aha” moment and I started making changes like there was no tomorrow, (because tomorrow isn’t guaranteed.) From there, I put everything I had into starting my business you see today.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began leading your company or organization?

There are two that have happened to me since beginning my company and that is getting pregnant with my first child and stopping drinking alcohol completely. So, what does this have to do with mental wellness? I had to look inward and do the deeper work to realize what wasn’t working and shift it. All of it. After facing death head on three times, I’ve had the notion ingrained in me that tomorrow is not promised. It doesn’t matter if I have imposter syndrome, a lack mentality, or fixate on what people are going to think about me. All that matters is taking all of my pain from my losses and my desire to make a family, to build myself up and help other people to do the same. I found ways to blend them together and emerge like a phoenix rising from the ashes.

None of us can be successful without some help along the way. Did you have mentors or cheerleaders who helped you to succeed? Can you tell us a story about their influence?

I have been fortunate enough to have support along my way as guiding lights. My guiding lights came in the human form of my Aunt Kathryn and Aunt Val. Both aunts help put me through college. I am forever grateful that they never gave up on me or waivered in their belief in me, even though the whole extended family was also grieving our collective losses. I wouldn’t be here today without them, or their spouses, my bloodline uncles.

My Aunt Kathryn is a well-known self-development and love coach and has been in this industry for many years, well before social media was even a thing. Witnessing her brilliance from a young age, I knew she was doing the style of work I was seeking. I remember her telling me about a certification course that she was launching back in 2017 (which was way out of my budget), and she had the generosity to gift me the course for free. The funny part is, once I completed the course, I said, “Ok, now what?” and I’ll be forever grateful for her choosing not to tell me what to do. That was the best thing for me — to figure it out on my own. Because while we can have guiding lights in our lives, there’s something potent about giving people their power back.

According to Mental Health America’s report, over 44 million Americans have a mental health condition. Yet there’s still a stigma about mental illness. Can you share a few reasons you think this is so?

This kind of statistic pains me. I believe there’s stigma around mental illness due to its collective, societal perception. It was not that long ago, around the 1930s and 1940s, where if you were having a distressing time, you were seen and labeled as “crazy”, “psycho”, or that you needed to go into an “insane asylum”. Even if someone was having a minor episode of depression or anxiety, it was perceived as an evil entity in some cases. This is all because we didn’t understand it and we’re still taking the time to learn about it today. When we have a physical ailment, we go to the doctor to treat it and there’s no stigma around that. Yet, mental health isn’t perceived the same way. Just because mental illness is intangible, doesn’t make it any less important to seek help for.

In your experience, what should a) individuals b) society, and c) the government do to better support people suffering from mental illness?

Individually, we need to start looking at the parents of an individual suffering with mental illness. We need to ask more questions like, “what was their parenting style?” “How could this have impacted said child?” “Did that family have the resources they needed?”. We must be mindful not to place the blame on the parents, because sure enough the way they were parented also impacted them — and the ancestral line ensues. We know it is ancestral, but where do we catch it and enforce change? This can be interjected via the education system. Changing the way information is presented around mental illness and mental health is wildly important. If we can find a way to lovingly teach children more about emotions, safety and feelings, I believe this will have a positive ripple effect on their lives forever. Exposing children to mental wellness early on de-stigmatizes the discomfort around talking about it.

At a government level, we need better healthcare in the US. Point blank. In a perfect world, I would have free healthcare, free therapy as a resource, more people with influence, even in pop culture, talking about mental wellness and illness. This would help provide less stigma and judgment and instill more love and understanding around the topic. We’re all on this planet navigating life together. While we all don’t look the same, we’re all riding the wave of life the best as we can. Simply put, we need more collective compassion.

What are your 5 strategies you use to promote your own well-being and mental wellness? Can you please give a story or example for each?

1. Therapy: For most of my life, I’ve had an aversion to therapy. Not because I thought it was bad, but simply because it wasn’t talked about enough in a positive light. I admit, I was always someone who said, “I’m fine”, or “I’ll figure it out” — that lone wolf mentality — but I had to get out of my own way in order to truly heal my life. (Funny that I’m a therapist now). It wasn’t until I hit my very rock bottom after a bad car accident while under the influence of alcohol did I see the light (as they say). From this moment on I knew I couldn’t live this way anymore. So, I decided to get a therapist and it was the best decision I ever made.
2. Spending time in nature: I believe that modern society has truly lost something special in the way we coexist with each other and that involves tuning into the divinity of nature. We’ve all become so confined in our boxes called homes, we commute in boxes called cars, we go work in another box called a building, that we’ve lost touch with what’s important — the wisdom of nature. Nature helps bring us back to center. It enables us to feel more peaceful, more intuitive, and more calm. We are a part of nature after all so I encourage all my clients and students, and even you reading this, to go out in nature today.
3. Writing: For me, writing is cathartic. My dad was a writer and a poet, not by profession but by passion. Inherently I picked that up from him — I’ve always been inspired by my dad. I’ve been writing journal entries since 5th grade, that’s the earliest memory I have of writing. Writing is a way for me to get my feelings out of my body. I can be as honest and brutal as I like without hurting anyone. It’s a truly powerful way for me to dissect what’s going on in my mind.
4. Music & Dancing: My parents were well-liked by their friends as they were great hosts and entertainers. We always had people over, BBQing with the music blasting and guests dancing. It was always lively at my house and I have the most beautiful memories with music and dancing being a core part of my life, especially with my mom. Music gets me into my feelings like nothing else can. It moves me to tears, to rage and gets things moving and out the body. Letting oneself go with the music is healing in real time. This strategy provides an incredible sense of freedom.
5. Self-development: I’ve read a wild amount of self-help books and learned a lot from different schools of thought which has supported and guided me on my journey to today. I even remember reading Buddhist philosophies well before my parents passed, so it’s safe to say it’s been an integral part of my life since pre-teen years.. I’ve always had the seeker mentality, however, it wasn’t until I got into the rooms with similar people, went on retreats, attended seminars and immersed myself in those in-person experiences that I began to know myself on a much deeper level.

What are your favorite books, podcasts, or resources that inspire you to be a mental health champion?

One of my favorite books of all time is The Art of Happiness by the Dalai Lama. I tell every person I meet to read this, so this is your invitation to do so.

For podcasts, I enjoy listening to The Joe Rogan Experience podcast and The Aubrey Marcus Podcast.

For resources, I’d recommend any 12-step programs for those on the path to sobriety or recovery (of many sorts).

If you could tell other people one thing about why they should consider making a positive impact on our environment or society, like you, what would you tell them?

One day you will die. That’s my most famous line and I say this in every course I lead, every training I host, and every speech I do. I start with this line because it gets the audience thinking and provides shock value. Death is a fragile topic that not many people talk about but I like to bring space and warmth to the topic because it’s the truth. If you’re not living the life you want, with the people you like, doing the things you love to do, then what the fuck are you doing?

When you lose your whole family to death the way I did, it shoves this learning in your face. We all have choices and will power to live the life we want to live, so who do you want to be? What do you want your legacy to be? You just need to decide what that looks like — alchemizing your pain into your power in a very real thing.

How can our readers follow you online?

Please come say hi over on Instagram as that is where I am most active, @nikicozmo. Feel free to browse my website www.nikicozmo.com to get a taste of what I’m about and find out how you can work with me.

This was very meaningful, thank you so much. We wish you only continued success on your great work!

About the Interviewer: Inspired by the father of PR, Edward Bernays (who was also Sigmund Freud’s nephew), Michelle Tennant Nicholson researches marketing, mental injury, and what it takes for optimal human development. An award-winning writer and publicist, she’s seen PR transition from typewriters to Twitter. Michelle co-founded WasabiPublicity.com.