Connection Matters is a home for people who know that getting through the days isn't the same as feeling fully alive.
Our vision
We hold a vision; for a world of true freedom and beauty, where we each have the necessary support, skills, understanding and experience to be truly self-aware and self-actualised. Here we live with reverence for all life and with a deep commitment to connection, healing, community and love.
Our mission; is to inspire and empower our communities and people both individually and in groups, to step into their greatest visions for life, aligned with their values and highest potential for the benefit of all.
Alongside one-to-one coaching and teaching, the vision is to bring together a growing network of facilitators, guides and practitioners who share these values.
Beginning as the Connection Matters podcast, this work has grown into a wider offering of coaching, courses, immersive experiences and community — all exploring what it means to live a more connected, meaningful and purposeful life.
It exists for those who sense there is more possible — more meaning, more connection, more aliveness and a deeper alignment with who they truly are.
Through coaching, community, nature connection, ceremony and transformative experiences, Connection Matters supports people to navigate change, reconnect with what matters and create lives that feel deeply fulfilling and purposeful.
Leona Johnson
As the founder of Connection Matters, I work with people through life transitions — those moments when something is shifting, calling for attention or asking to be reimagined.
Together, we explore what matters most, what wants to emerge and how to create a life that feels more aligned with your values, purpose and potential.
My work sits at the meeting point between personal growth, nature connection and everyday spirituality. I believe that when we become more deeply connected to ourselves, each other and the living world, we don't just transform our own lives — we contribute to creating healthier communities and a more regenerative culture.
As a young adult, working as a front-line child protection social worker, I became acutely aware of something I now think of as "disconnection sickness".
I saw it in the families I worked alongside, in communities where people were searching for belonging, and — perhaps most importantly — in myself.
I began asking deeper questions.
What happens when people lose connection to themselves, each other and the natural world? What helps us come home again? How do we create lives that feel purposeful, meaningful and alive?
My search has taken me through many different worlds. I've been an artist, an activist, a trainer and facilitator, a project organiser, a child sexual exploitation worker, a parent programme coordinator and a community organiser.
I travelled to Gaza, behind the blockade, to perform circus and work with children affected by trauma. I travelled to a refugee camp in Greece and helped establish women's safe spaces. I facilitated temporary autonomous zones in Manchester for intercultural creativity, connection and learning.
Each experience taught me something about human resilience, suffering, creativity and our deep need for belonging.
My story
From changing the world to changing the culture
When I became a mother in 2011, something shifted.
I still cared deeply about the wider world, but I felt called to focus more on creating the conditions for change closer to home.
I became one of the founders of an alternative education provision supporting Home and Steiner Education in Calderdale, West Yorkshire.
In 2012, I became a founding member of Live Wild CIC — a community organisation creating opportunities for children and adults to reconnect with nature and experience a more connected way of living.
Over the years, Live Wild has become recognised for its nature connection programmes, training and events across the UK and I am proud to have been there from the start.
Finding spirituality in everyday life
For many years I searched for that feeling of connection in different places — the magic of festivals, being part of something bigger, dancing until sunrise surrounded by people who felt like family.
As life changed, I discovered that same sense of aliveness in different ways.
Around a fire. In honest conversation. Walking in wild places. Sitting in circle. Creating ceremony.
The questions became deeper:
What is our true nature? How do we live fully and consciously in this one wild and precious life? How do we stay connected in a world that constantly pulls us away from ourselves?
This exploration led me into ecopsychology, ceremonial practice, rites of passage and nature connection.
I am now a coach, ecotherapist and ceremonial leader, weaving together these different strands of work to support people through moments of change, growth and transformation.
I don't offer this work because I have all the answers. I offer it because I have spent my life exploring these questions — and because I know the power of being supported by others as we find our way.