Mindfulness was all around me growing up. "Be here now" was one of my dad's most common expressions. The embodiment of mindfulness in his parenting through feeling completely seen and held in moments remains indelible in my mind. Much of my childhood was spent outside, playing in the forests of the Pacific Northwest, tuned into small, sensory moments. As an adolescent athlete, mindfulness created spaces to rest my entire experience in a single moment of play. I began to practice mindfulness more intentionally as an adult, first through distance running, where I learned to connect deeply with my breath and body, and later through formal meditation training. I studied mindfulness clinically in graduate school at NYU and later at Brown University under Dr. Zindel Segal in their Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) Teacher Training Program.

Over the cultivation of a 15-year personal practice, however, I came to understand that mindfulness isn't just something you study — it's a way of being. For nearly two decades, mindfulness has been the touchstone for my own growth and healing as well as a foundational clinical tool that has helped so many of the people I have worked with. Experiencing my own human difficulties has deepened my belief and commitment to teaching and practice. My mindfulness practice has provided a salve in my darkest moments and brightness in my most joyous ones. I believe the purposeful clarity, presence, connection, peace, wisdom, and healing that can be learned from it is something all humans deserve to access.