Navigate your Inner Terrain

Meet Haleigh Fisher, MS, LPC

Licensed Professional Counselor. Trail runner. Mental performance coach.

I always knew I wanted to work with runners who were struggling — not just with their training, but with their mental health, their identity, and their relationship with their bodies.

As a former Division I athlete, I lived the gap between athletics and mental health.
Especially when it came to eating disorder recovery, perfectionism, and the pressure to “just be tough.” I felt the tension of loving the sport… while also getting lost in it. I felt the ache of wanting help but not knowing where I fit. And honestly? I often felt alone.

Somewhere in that tension, a dream formed: What if I could become the person I needed back then?

So I started the long process of becoming a counselor — and quickly realized I didn’t fit neatly into the typical boxes: traditional clinical work, standard eating disorder treatment, or textbook sports psychology. None of them fully captured the complexity of being an athlete with a human heart.

For years, people told me my dream wasn’t realistic:
“That niche is too specific.”
“You have to choose research or clinical work.”
“You can’t help runners with eating disorders AND let them run.”
“You can’t build a practice around this.”

But my passion for runners — their stories, their health, their freedom — outweighed every doubt.

That’s why Trailhead Counseling DFW exists.
To bridge the gap.
To meet runners where they are — in the joy, the struggle, the training block, the identity questions, the pressure, the purpose.
To offer a place where their whole self is welcomed, not just their athletic one.

I want to see more runners running from a place of joy, not compulsion.
From identity, not insecurity.
From freedom, not fear.

Because I’ve been the runner who tried to use miles to create meaning and purpose. And I learned the hard way that when you rely on running to give you worth, it eventually stops feeling like joy and starts feeling like a test you can never quite pass.

My faith is where my grounding is — the reminder that nothing I do in running adds to or subtracts from my worth. And nothing you do does either.

One of my favorite parts of this work is watching runners come in focused on pace, goals, or fueling struggles… and slowly begin to see their entire life shift.
Their compassion grows.
Their identity steadies.
Their joy returns — both on the trails and far beyond them.