Pianist · Author · Mentor · Louisville, Kentucky
Music that brings the body to rest. Keynotes that help people bring their full humanity to a turbulent age. Mentoring for smart, creative people when the old forms no longer fit and the new ones haven't arrived.
Three ways to work together
Music
Contemplative solo piano, improvised in the moment for the people in the room. For retreats, faith communities, healing spaces, conferences, and private listening.
Keynotes & Workshops
Live improvised piano woven with practical neuroscience. Harry helps leaders, teams, and organizations stay clear, present, flexible, and steady, and preserve the best of their humanity in an AI-driven, constantly changing age.
Mentoring
Reinvention when there's no clear path. Possibility after adversity. Restoration after loss. Harry helps you:
Is this you?
The shape of your days no longer matches the sound of your soul.
The old forms don't fit. Something is dissolving: a role, a relationship, your health, the life you thought was secure. You don't yet know what's next. You only know this isn't it.
This is the chrysalis. I specialize in it.
How I can help you
Most of the people I work with are capable, accomplished, and self-aware. Many have meditated for years. They know how to find calm, but they can't keep it, because when an old trigger returns, the old reaction returns with it. Emotional Empowerment for Personal Mastery changes that. We steady the nervous system, clear old patterns at the root, and build a clear vision for what comes next.
The order matters. A body that feels safe can let go of the past, and a mind free of old charge can imagine a new future.
1
When stress runs high for a long time, the body stays braced: fast speech, a racing mind, a sense of spinning. We start by lowering your stress baseline. You'll learn simple practices of breath, attention, and soothing touch that bring you back to a grounded, centered state within minutes. Your body learns again that you are safe. Everything else builds on this.
2
Together we identify the specific experiences from your history that still carry an emotional charge, and we clear them so they no longer intrude on your present. As the charge dissolves, the reactivity goes with it: the same trigger stops setting off the same response. That's when the calm you find in meditation starts to last.
3
Many high achievers learned early that their worth, safety, or belonging depended on performing, achieving, or being recognized. That drive has carried you far, and we honor it. We also look gently at how it formed. Often old wounds lie underneath, and healing them lets you keep your excellence without the anxiety that came fused to it.
4
Transitions ask us to release perspectives that once served us, whether that's a career ending, a relationship changing, health shifting, or the threshold into elderhood. We craft a vision for your next chapter that honors your values and what this season asks of you. Along the way, we find role models who crossed similar thresholds and came out flourishing, and we let them guide your choices.
I use gentle, body-based methods that work with how the brain stores and updates emotional memory:
I've studied and practiced these methods since 2011. I'm a certified Havening Techniques Practitioner and Trainer and a Pro EFT Master, and I've trained more than 200 counselors, therapists, and coaches to use these tools with their clients. You'll learn them too, so the work continues between our sessions and long after.
How we begin
I work with a small number of clients at a time. This work often extends over months and can be rigorous and intimate, so we start carefully. The process helps us both see whether working together will serve you well.
A detailed conversation about where you are, what you're facing, and what you hope will change.
Set aside two hours. Together we choose one specific issue and work on it, aiming for a tangible shift in how you feel and respond to it. You get a direct sense of how I work, and I get a sense of how your brain processes information and experience.
If we both want to continue, you complete my intake form. It's thorough, and it gives me a fuller picture of your history, goals, challenges, and experiences.
From there, I write a comprehensive proposal with a curriculum built around your needs and intentions. It covers recommended session frequency and duration, supporting materials such as books, articles, and practices, specific goals, and the investment of time and money involved.
There's no standard package, because the structure depends entirely on what will give you the best possible outcome. Some clients work with me for 90 days, others for 18 to 24 months. Often we meet weekly. Some clients begin with two or three sessions a week for a few weeks, then taper as they stabilize. I also lead personal retreats, in person or on Zoom: three to five intensive days together, which some clients repeat each quarter.
I am not a therapist or licensed mental health practitioner, and I do not diagnose or treat any medical or psychological condition. My work is emotional empowerment: evidence-informed, neurobiologically grounded principles and practices that help you retrain your brain so you can meet whatever the moment brings with greater poise, presence, and power.
Or write to harry@harrypickens.net
About
Harry Pickens is an award-winning jazz pianist, educator, author, and neuroregulation coach. He has performed with Milt Jackson, Freddie Hubbard, James Moody, and Johnny Griffin, and in 2015 played an original composition for His Holiness the Dalai Lama.
A personal experience transforming debilitating performance anxiety into rock-star confidence led to decades of research and study exploring the miraculous capacity of the human brain to reorganize and remold in response to clear intention and dedicated practice. Along the way, Harry gained expertise in multiple modalities that build on the power of neuroplasticity to transform belief, emotion and behavior. He earned a Certification in Applied Positive Psychology from the Flourishing Center, the ProEFT Masters Certification, and is a Certified Havening Techniques® Practitioner and Trainer.
He has also lived the transitions he now guides others through: years as solo caregiver for a parent with dementia, long COVID, cancer, and more reinventions than he can count. He came through them clearer, stronger, kinder, and wiser. Now he brings the best of what he’s learned in life’s crucible to others.
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