Member since October 2026
Lori Karsch is an author, speaker, guide, and certified mindset facilitator whose work centers on one powerful question: What if you are not broken?
Originally from Northeast Philadelphia, Lori began her career as a teacher in inner-city schools, went on to earn a graduate degree in school counseling, and later worked as a recruiter for financial advisors. Her counseling-informed perspective, combined with deep lived experience, shapes everything she brings to the stage.
After losing her mother young and growing up learning to read every room before checking in with herself, Lori built her adult life, marriage, and motherhood without the person who had steadied her most. She first wrote her memoir, Torn Wide Open: What Ripped Me Apart Also Made Me Whole, as a legacy for her two daughters, and in the process discovered her own voice again.
Today, Lori speaks to women who look capable on the outside but feel disconnected on the inside. Through her signature SEE Framework (See the Survival Pattern, Expose the Pattern, Embrace Your Inner Voice), she helps audiences understand that people-pleasing, over-functioning, and constant vigilance are often adaptations, not personality, and that recognition is where something new becomes possible.
Audiences describe her style as warm, honest, and deeply relatable. Lori doesn’t speak from above; she speaks from beside.
My daughters, and the fact that the book began as a legacy for them
Callie, my dog, a big part of family life
Your husband and the life and family you built together
Intuition, inner knowing, and life purpose, the curiosity about why we meet the people we meet
The moment of recognition in an audience, when a woman realizes “this wasn’t who I was, it was something I learned.” For me, that’s the part of the work that feels like joy, not effort.
Lori Karsch never set out to write a memoir. After losing her mother young and building her marriage and motherhood without her, Lori began writing as a gift for her two daughters, so they would know where they came from. But as the pages filled, something unexpected happened. She began to see her own life differently: the little girl who learned to read every room to stay safe, the woman who kept everything together for everyone else. Writing gave Lori back her voice, and the realization that changed everything: what she thought was her personality had been adaptation. That discovery became Torn Wide Open and the heart of the message she now brings to audiences.
A lot of marriages should never have happened, and my parents had one of those marriages.
Faced with an accidental pregnancy, they felt they had no choice. And given the reality of American society in 1964, they weren’t entirely wrong.
When they got divorced, the court said my father had a “right” to see my brother and me. Even though he wasn’t that interested, and had a violent temper.
On three separate occasions, his reckless behavior almost killed me. I lived in fear whenever he was around.
I didn’t sign up for that. No child ever does.
My mother was my safe place. She was all I had. But due to a rare brain condition, she was taken away when I was only 27. My father said that crying and being upset wouldn’t solve anything.
I’m glad the Jewish community gives us tools to process grief. But what happens when the sympathy cards stop coming, the mirrors are uncovered, and you have to figure out how to live without the person you always depended on?
When you’re alone with the silence, how do you keep going?
My memoir is the story of the love I shared with my mother, and how I kept going after I lost her. I had to turn inward and rely on myself. While I did have supportive friends, they couldn’t build a new life for me. I had to do that.
The core theme is reconnecting with my inner knowing. That quiet, steady whisper that we all too often push aside. Most of us have been trained to ignore this voice within us since the day we were born. This book is about how I reawakened it.
If you’ve ever ignored that voice inside you….if you’ve ever kept quiet and wished you had spoken up, or chosen what was expected instead of what was right, this story will feel familiar.
When your whole life explodes and the only thing left is you, it’s terrifying.
If you’ve ever wondered whether you can trust yourself to find your way through that,
I wrote this for you.
Lori Karsch never set out to write a memoir. After losing her mother young and building her marriage and motherhood without her, Lori began writing as a gift for her two daughters, so they would know where they came from. But as the pages filled, something unexpected happened. She began to see her own life differently: the little girl who learned to read every room to stay safe, the woman who kept everything together for everyone else. Writing gave Lori back her voice, and the realization that changed everything: what she thought was her personality had been adaptation. That discovery became Torn Wide Open and the heart of the message she now brings to audiences.
A lot of marriages should never have happened, and my parents had one of those marriages.
Faced with an accidental pregnancy, they felt they had no choice. And given the reality of American society in 1964, they weren’t entirely wrong.
When they got divorced, the court said my father had a “right” to see my brother and me. Even though he wasn’t that interested, and had a violent temper.
On three separate occasions, his reckless behavior almost killed me. I lived in fear whenever he was around.
I didn’t sign up for that. No child ever does.
My mother was my safe place. She was all I had. But due to a rare brain condition, she was taken away when I was only 27. My father said that crying and being upset wouldn’t solve anything.
I’m glad the Jewish community gives us tools to process grief. But what happens when the sympathy cards stop coming, the mirrors are uncovered, and you have to figure out how to live without the person you always depended on?
When you’re alone with the silence, how do you keep going?
My memoir is the story of the love I shared with my mother, and how I kept going after I lost her. I had to turn inward and rely on myself. While I did have supportive friends, they couldn’t build a new life for me. I had to do that.
The core theme is reconnecting with my inner knowing. That quiet, steady whisper that we all too often push aside. Most of us have been trained to ignore this voice within us since the day we were born. This book is about how I reawakened it.
If you’ve ever ignored that voice inside you….if you’ve ever kept quiet and wished you had spoken up, or chosen what was expected instead of what was right, this story will feel familiar.
When your whole life explodes and the only thing left is you, it’s terrifying.
If you’ve ever wondered whether you can trust yourself to find your way through that,
I wrote this for you.