Meet Dr. Rowin
Julie Rowin MD is a Neurologist turned yoga teacher and non-dual spiritual guide. She has decades of experience treating neurological and neuromuscular disorders in private practice and academic settings. She has been a researcher, teacher and holistic integrative practitioner trained in Ayurvedic Medicine, Functional medicine and Acupuncture.
She had her Kundalini Awakening and Spiritual Awakening in 2024. Prior to this she had been on the spiritual path for decades in the traditions of Yoga/Ayurveda, Advaita Vedenta, Zen Buddism and is certified 200 hour RYT each in Hatha and Kundalini Yoga. She teaches public yoga and holds spiritual yoga retreats in Sedona AZ. She is a guide for those interested in ending suffering and awakening to the truth of who we are and to those who have had a spiritual awakening and are interested to learn how to live from that place and deepen their realization on their path to freedom. Liberation is inevitable for everyone, but support and guidance from someone who is Self-realized can help us from getting lost in the cul-de-sacs and common ego detours.
My Philosophy
Our bodies and souls have an innate intelligence for healing and Awakening.
Spiritual traditions such as Yoga and Ayurveda were traditionally developed so that the physical vessel would be prepared to hold the new level of energy that comes with an awakened consciousness.
With a prepared body and mind the life force energy called Kundalini can more smoothly move through us clearing and waking up all the parts of us with more peace and gratitude and less resistance and turmoil.
Art by Julie Rowin MD
Medical Bio
Dr. Julie Rowin is a board-certified neurologist, neuromuscular specialist and acupuncturist. She completed her medical school training and Internship in Chicago at Northwestern University Medical School in 1993. She went on to do her Residency and Fellowship training in Neurology, Neuromuscular Medicine and Electromyography at Rush University. She was Assistant Professor of Neurology at Rush University from 1998-2004. Then from 2004-2013, she was Associate Professor of Neurology and founding director of the MDA/ALS Center and MDA Clinics in the College of Medicine at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Over the course of her career, Dr. Rowin has been actively involved in medical student, resident and fellow teaching, notably serving as the director of the clinical neurophysiology fellowship at Rush University Medical Center from 2001-2004. Dr. Rowin has served on the Neuromuscular Medicine Accreditation Committee for the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology, and as an oral board examiner. She has provided medical and scientific input as a member of the Medical Advisory Boards for the Muscular Dystrophy Association (MDA) and the Myasthenia Gravis Foundation of America, serving as the chair of the Medical Advisory Board for the Myasthenia Gravis Foundation of Illinois. She has been a reviewer for the journals Neurology, Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry, JAMA, Muscle and Nerve and the Journal of the Neurological Sciences.
Dr. Rowin became interested in Functional Medicine and Acupuncture in 2012.
She has obtained additional board certification in Integrative Medicine and Medical Acupuncture. She also has training in Ayurveda (certification in Ayurvedic health counseling, 2008-9), Acupuncture (Helms Medical Acupuncture Course for Physicians, 2014-5) and Yoga (200-hour yoga teacher training) including most recently another Kundalini Yoga Teacher training in 2024-5 (200-hour).
Dr. Rowin is a sought-after public speaker, leader, educator and author on the subject of disease prevention and integrative management of neurological and neuromuscular disease. She has 37 peer reviewed original scientific research articles, 22 platform and abstract presentations, and 7 book chapters and invited reviews. She has done 12 international and national invited lectures. She has several distinguished awards for her work in ALS including “The Iron Horse Award” from the ALS Association, “Ben Byer ALS Awareness Award”, and “The Hilda Glassman Award for Clinical Management Research” from the ALS Association. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Neurology and has been involved in numerous public speaking engagements on the topic of integrative and functional medicine management of neurological and neuromuscular disease.
Spiritual Guidance
Contact Dr. Rowin if you are interested to discuss if working with her is right for you. Send a brief description of your spiritual path and any areas of challenge and she will respond to you. We can decide if a brief no obligation phone call will be helpful to start or whether we will start with a full Guidance Session which generally costs $100/hr and is payable via Zelle or credit card payment link. Use the following contact: julie.rowin@gmail.com
Art by Julie Rowin MD
My Story of Awakening
This is my story of transforming from a traditional medical doctor to a spiritual mentor. Several life experiences and awakenings have shaped the way I understand life and healing, moving me closer to the love that we are. At the age of 19, I was violently assaulted by an unknown person on the streets of Los Angeles. I spent many years in a dark night of the soul. However, over time, I grew to be grateful for what I learned from the experience because it taught me compassion and forgiveness and led me to a healing journey that ultimately led to my awakening.
After medical training, I worked in academic medicine as a neurologist and neuromuscular specialist for nearly 20 years, enjoying most of it. But the endless stress, disconnect with the medical/pharmaceutical industry, and the corporate face of US medicine took its toll. I found myself getting sick and was eventually diagnosed with an autoimmune condition. When I realized that I didn’t want to take the very medication I prescribed to patients nearly daily—knowing all too well its side effects, I understood I had to change how I practiced. In medical school, we were taught to approach disease with pharmaceutical and surgical intervention. In certain situations, this is an effective method of treatment, but I knew there was more to healing and again suffering led me back onto my destined path. I began to explore integrative and holistic methods of healing. After finding success with my own disease, I took a major turn in my career path toward natural healing. I couldn’t continue to treat patients by limiting therapy to medications without considering the root cause or the “why” of the illness. I eventually found and embraced functional medicine principles, becoming board certified in integrative medicine and medical acupuncture. This medical awakening left me open-minded to the undiagnosable symptoms people were experiencing, which I now realize were often spiritual in nature, arising from Kundalini awakening.
My personal journey took me through psychological healing, nutritional and body healing, plant medicine ceremonies, trauma healing, and decades of yoga, meditation, and spiritual study. I also had a creative awakening which led to years of painting the divine feminine. I intellectually knew I wasn't just this body and mind, but I didn't have the direct experience of it until I underwent a particularly intense period of meditation and self-inquiry in the tradition of Ramana Maharshi. During a week-long silent meditation retreat, I experienced what is traditionally called Kensho—a moment of pure unbounded awareness coupled with a release of Kundalini energy. For a brief time, I had no association with my character, Julie, but when I remembered "her," she appeared to me as an insignificant construct. I was completely unattached to the ego mind I had spent decades trying to perfect. The ego seemed to be a misery-making mechanism, causing problems and then trying to solve them in a perpetual cycle. I had no desire to be associated with that construct again but, nevertheless, ended up back associated with that body/mind. After this experience, it became clear to me that the path to freedom had nothing to do with fixing the character. It was impossible and a complete dead end. The body and mind would never understand awakening or comprehend who we are. The way forward was to get to know my Self, the one beyond all of it. This initiated an 18 month period of deep silence, leading me deeper into the understanding that I am nothing and everything. The less I became, the more freedom there was. The path is not easy, but it is the most beautiful and amazing surprise that we all have waiting for us.
I have learned that much of traditional psychology and neurology have it all upside down, and many of the symptoms that occur during a spiritual awakening—including anxiety, depression, and strange neurological and somatic symptoms—need to play out. Many well-meaning physicians attempt to make us feel better by numbing and covering up these symptoms. This is not the way to liberation. We must feel all that we have repressed and suppressed over the years. All of our own issues, some of the collective, and perhaps even past life samskaras and vasanas (conditioned patterns) will be observed, felt, seen for what they are, and released. This does not mean you don't have a medical issue that needs to be addressed. Certainly, any medical issue must be considered and treated, but when no medical issue is found, we can be reassured that this is a natural process leading ultimately to our liberation.
It’s an honor to share my story with you. Many blessings on this precious journey of awakening.