Author. Philosopher. Polymath.

What changes when women begin asking their own questions about spirituality, enlightenment, and what it means to change the world?

Dr. Victoria Lynn Schmidt has spent years chasing that question through philosophy, psychology, feminism, neuroscience, spirituality, culture, and her own life.

A twice-doctored philosopher and Harvard trained author of four books published by Random House, Victoria writes for women who are curious about the deeper questions of consciousness, meaning, and personal and cultural transformation. Her essays, cultural criticism, memoir, and academic work explore the fascinating territory where feminist thought, philosophy, culture, spiritual neuroscience, and women’s inner lives meet.

Sometimes the questions are serious. Sometimes they’re irreverent. Usually they lead somewhere unexpected as in – Who gets to define enlightenment, and what changes when women enter the conversation?

Animal Welfare and Human Rights are also important to Victoria, as well as living her feminism in everyday life.

See portfolio here. Full Bio below.

2

Doctoral Degrees

4+

Books at Random House

26+

Certificates

100s

Of Questions

Dr. Victoria’s Author Bio

A Life of Questions

Victoria has never been particularly good at staying in one intellectual lane.

Her career began in technology, working with fractal algorithms and chaos theory to help Fortune 500 companies solve marketing problems. Then came UCLA’s film school, where questions about the way women were written and represented led her somewhere unexpected: her first nonfiction book, written while she was still an undergraduate.

That book began a writing career, and four books with Random House quickly followed, along with international editions, articles, conference presentations, and media appearances. But publishing didn’t satisfy her curiosity. It gave her more things to investigate.

So she kept studying.

Psychology led to philosophy. Philosophy led to consciousness. Questions about consciousness led into neuroscience and spirituality. And feminism kept appearing everywhere.

Eventually, that curiosity led to two doctoral degrees and an interdisciplinary body of research concerned with something Victoria had actually been asking since childhood: How much of what we believe about ourselves is truly ours—and what happens when we begin questioning the rest?

Spirituality has been part of Victoria’s life since childhood. Beginning around age nine, she experienced expanded states of awareness—and regularly annoyed her mother with questions about the nature of life, consciousness, and personal power. Years later, those early experiences became subjects of doctoral research. Her dissertation explored spiritual experience and how women might enter a conversation about enlightenment that has historically been shaped largely by male voices. Interdisciplinary research, particularly Intuitive Inquiry, gave her a way to bring lived experience, scholarship, and the study of consciousness into the same room. Poetry was brought in to help describe the ineffable.

A period of unexpected—and at times disturbing—encounters with celebrity culture opened another line of inquiry: What happens to women when identity, power, image, and harassment collide? That experience deepened her interest in how women reclaim their own authority, reinvent themselves, and create lives that are not merely successful on the outside, but whole on the inside.

Because perhaps the more interesting question isn’t simply what women are capable of. It’s what becomes possible when nothing stands in their way.


On Victoria’s Writing Style

Victoria writes where the personal and intellectual meet. She brings humor, curiosity, and a philosopher’s habit of questioning things to subjects that can otherwise become terribly serious.

Her essays move between lived experience and larger questions about women, culture, consciousness, power, and meaning—mixing research and reflection with personal stories, unexpected observations, and the occasional willingness to laugh at herself.

She isn’t particularly interested in telling readers what to think. She would rather leave them with a question they can’t quite stop thinking about.

Neuroscience Certifications:

HARVARD
Neuroscience and the Brain. 3 month intensive exam course.

THE NEUROSCIENCE ACADEMY
Applied Neuroscience and Brain Health. 4 month exam course and The female brain from birth to old age. 2 month exam course

NEUROSCIENCE & SPIRITUALITY
with Dr. Joan Borysenko at the Integrative Psychiatry Institute

NEUROSCIENCE OF GOD & FAITH
CE workshop. Stanford Instructor.

NEUROSCIENCE OF GROUNDING
CE workshop

Yoga, Mindfulness, Certifications:

YOGA TEACHER RYT 200 hr
Internationally Accredited and registered

YIN YOGA
Specialty training in Yin Yoga.

TRAUMA INFORMED YOGA
Specialty in Trauma Informed Yoga.

YOGA PHILOSOPHY
8 Limbs of Patnanjali.

MINDFULNESS TEACHER
2 Certified Teacher trainings, a 3 month program in mindful awareness teaching with Tara Brach and Jack Kornfield at UC Berkley.

BUDDHISM
Empowerments and Courses

LIFE COACHING
All aspects of coaching for living a great life. And journal coaching.

REIKI HEALING
Mastery in Reiki from two schools.

VEDIC MANTRAS
Initiations into three Vedic mantras

University Education:

CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF INTEGRAL
SCIENCES, PHD
PhD in Interdisciplinary Studies & Research. Focus on Spiritual Neuroscience, Phenomenology, Poetry, and Feminist standpoint with Intuitive Inquiry. 

HARVARD
Graduate studies in English & Poetry.

CAL
PsyD Psychology.

LOYOLA MARYMOUNT UNIVERSITY
Communications – Writing. Psychology of character.

UCLA
Film Studies, Focus on Social Sciences.


Food & Writing Certifications:

STANFORD MEDICINE
3 Course Specialization:
Food Mindfulness,
Food Sustainability,
Cooking Healthy When Busy

GOOD CATHOLIC
The Holy Table Food

UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO
Exploring the Microbiome

WRITING: Journalism & Essay & Research
Jack Canfield.
Dr. Jennifer Cognard-Black,
Harvard University,
The Op-ED project

Feminism, Fashion, Religion Certifications:

FEMINISM & SOCIAL JUSTICE
University of California Santa Cruz with Bettina Aptheker

MLK INSTITUTE
Anti-Violence 365

FEMINISM & GENDER STUDIES
History and roots of global feminism.

FASHION DESIGN AND TECHNOLOGY
A 450 hour program in all aspects of fashion design, sewing, and putting on a show. Interned with a designer at Esprit.

GOOD CATHOLIC
Religious courses. 

Quantum Physics & Energy Practice:

SPIRITUAL HEALING AND PSYCHIC WORK
A 20 year apprenticeship with a woman who does psychic and energy work for the military.

QUANTUM PHYSICS
Dr. John Hagelin, Dr. Amrit Goswami,
Dr. Michio Kaku, Dr. Lynne McTaggart

NATURE TRAINING
Pema Chodron, Findhorn, John O’ Donohue

ENERGY HEALING & HORSE WHISPERING & HUNA
Donna Eden, Dr. Barbara Brennan, Topanga Associate, Serge Kahili King

JAPANESE JUJITSU
Michael DePasquale Jr.
Thomas Fressle

QIGONG
Sifu Matthew Cohen,
Lee Holden

Unusual Facts About Victoria:

Hattfield & McCoys – Victoria is a direct descendent of the McCoys of the Hattfield and McCoys.

War Heroes – Her Uncle Jerry was posthumously awarded the silver star at age 24 in Viet Nam for dying while saving his men. She also had family at Pearl Harbor.

Rebels – Her Great Great Grandpa Harry was in hiding for his life, due to working with Eleanor Roosevelt to change conditions in the coal mines.

WTC 9/11 – She had family in the WTC who escaped and firemen friends who did not.

Hurricane Katrina – She was out in Hurricane Katrina because shelters wouldn’t allow dogs & she wouldn’t abandon her’s, she drove for 11 hours to try to get ahead of the storm.

Sandy Hook – She had a sister who taught in the elementary school right next to Sandy Hook. A few hours waiting to hear which school the shooting happened in, she will never forget.