My Life’s Work:

I am a school leadership consultant and professionally-trained mindfulness instructor through Inward Bound, Mindful Schools, the Centre for Mindfulness Studies in Toronto, and the UCSD Medical School. I am also a Doctor of Body Mind Health, creative nonfiction author, single mother, anthropologist, bluegrass musician, dog lover, Fulbright scholar, trauma survivor, and eco-therapist. 

As an advocate for widespread mental fitness education across the lifespan, my academic interest lies in research-backed and medically-based mindfulness interventions, and healing relational trauma with mindfulness.

Throughout my training I have learned that whole-systems healing is possible when we can connect with our real, lived human experience, and welcome ourselves to rest in the present moment, and to be enough just as we are.

I offer personal healing retreats in Crestone, Colorado, professional development programs for educators and administrators, a self-paced course for educators, and school leadership coaching. My approach is grounded in creating interpersonal safety through individual and relational practices, and these workshops and sessions are experiential and provide opportunities for self and group reflection and whole-community care. I am committed to authenticity and presence and bring a wealth of classroom, family, and life experience into my teaching.

My Mindfulness Practice:

Mindfulness practice has been an important part of my life for over 20 years, since I began practicing Hatha Yoga and meditating on the shores of Lake Atitlán in Guatemala. I was on and off the cushion for some time after that, mostly practicing meditation in organized or retreat-based settings. Towards the final years of my twenties, I began regularly attending group meditation sessions at a Zen center in the Bay Area of California. Though I was not captivated by studies of Buddhism, I continued to seek out secular and psychotherapy-based meditation groups, body work training, restorative Yoga classes, and hypnotherapy. The atmosphere created in these spaces was one of safety and belonging, of not-fixing and allowing, resting and being. The serenity and peace available in meditation spaces allowed me to hear my thoughts, to make friends with sensations in my body, and to experience non-judgment in ways that were liberating and offered a sense of health and wellbeing I had not yet known in my life. After many years growing up in a very loud and chaotic home, working in busy restaurants and as a substitute teacher, I craved the quiet and solitude of the massage room, the sauna, the temple, the hot springs, the meditation cushion. In many of these spaces, as my system settled and I learned to be with my thoughts and feelings, I experienced layers of healing, unfolding grief, and the gradual release of traumatic energy that had been stuck in my body since a very early age.

Having survived several childhood traumas, and also being fortunate enough to land in the care of well-intentioned and loving adoptive parents, I grew up with a lot of natural resilience and capacity to manage challenging situations. During the tumultuous years of my early thirties, I chose to apply these skills and to “give back” by taking on the job of middle and high school teacher in my local district. As much as I loved this work, after seven years of dedicated service and passionate teaching, I found myself overwhelmed, under-resourced, and emotionally depleted.

The most challenging time in my adult life arrived at 36. This was the year that the world came crashing down on me and I was crushed under the weight. In a single school year, I divorced, struggled to make ends meet as a single mother of a toddler while teaching full time in a large, under-resourced public school, sustained a debilitating back injury that put me in a wheelchair and on heavy painkillers for months, and lost part of my hearing due to a prolonged sinus infection. In addition to these many difficulties, I was increasingly at odds with the administration at my school, and knew that my job was on the chopping block. I had regular panic attacks in the parking lot, and long, sleepless nights of ruminative thinking about my students and my work. This was also a tumultuous election year, and my numerous Hispanic students faced tremendous and life-threatening stressors on a daily basis. Together in the classroom, we were a melting pot of stress, reactivity, and fear, ever threatening to bubble over in the form of explosive outbursts, violent interactions, and behavioral mayhem.

The world shifted for all of us when I began bringing mini mindfulness lessons into my Spanish classroom. Even though not all students were interested, the tension eased and we pulled together for brief moments of calm and resource. There was finally a sense of relief for all of us. My relationships with these students blossomed into something truly magical, and they requested these brief (and sometimes silly) mindfulness practices every day. So, you might imagine my disappointment when the school principal (without ever coming to observe the lessons or do his own research) shut down my Mindfulness instruction full-stop, because a parent had emailed with a question and concern about the religious implications of meditation in school that he was not able (or willing) to address.

This situation devastated and paralyzed me, and troubled me on a much deeper level. While it made my exit from classroom teaching a no-brainer (despite deep waves of grief), I was filled with righteous anger and activist energy. I channeled this fury into the founding of a local mindfulness organization with a focus on increasing access to mental health education in schools. On a personal level, I dove deeply into a daily meditation practice and signed up for as many secular mindfulness trainings and graduate counseling courses as I could manage with my limited savings and by taking out large student loans. Here, I discovered that healing is possible when it is supported in a community of care and with the intention to connect. I enrolled in numerous comprehensive training programs for Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, Hakomi (Mindful Somatic Psychotherapy), and with the Mindful Schools Organization. Undertaking multiple approaches simultaneously, I embarked upon a five-year period of inner work, relational studies, and depth psychotherapy.

Along the way, I became aware of the impact of early trauma on my own experience, and its ripple effect to those around me. In learning to work skillfully with traumatic stimuli, combined with self-compassion, heartfulness, and deeply committing myself to a consistent sitting and movement practice, I experienced healing not just in my own life, but also in the family and relational circles around me. I will forever be on a personal healing path, and as my daughter grows into her primary school years through the Covid-19 pandemic, I am expanding my trainings and experience back into the elementary classroom. I am also aware that these powerful and soul-nourishing teachings can be applied to the larger system of education in such a way that whole-community healing is possible.

I am fully committed to helping others turn poison into medicine so that we might create more kind, connected, compassionate communities. I believe that in coming together around our collective humanity we can teach our children how to skillfully navigate the immense challenge of healing our collective grief, dismantling systemic oppression, prioritizing mental health and social justice in education, and repairing the ruptured human-earth relationship.

Education, and Training:


• Doctorate in Body-Mind Health, Parkmore Institute. “Mindfulness for School Leadership: An evidence-based Framework for Healing School Trauma Using a Top-Down Meets Bottom-Up Approach to Mindfulness Implementation.” Formal mentorship with Dr. Reynold Ruslan Feldman, Ph.D. June 2023.

• Advanced Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness: Widening the Window of Tolerance and Supporting Trauma Recovery, 31.5 CEU hours. David Treleaven, May-Oct. 2021.

• Mindful Schools, School-wide Implementation Program. Year-long training for Mindfulness Educators, Summer 2020-2021. Year-long mindful teacher certification program, 2018-2019. 

• Centre for Mindfulness Studies, Toronto, CAN. Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction Advanced Teacher Training Intensive, April 2021. Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction Teacher Training, July 2018. Formal mentorship with Susan Woods, LCSW, and Patricia Rockman, MD, Ongoing.

• Authentic Communication, with Oren Jay Sofer. February – March, 2021. 

• UCSD Mindfulness- Based Professional training Institute, Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy Advanced Teacher Training Intensive, September 2020. Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy Training, March, 2019.

• Inward-Bound Mindfulness Education, Mindfulness-Teacher Certification Program for working with Adolescents. 2019-2020.

• Regis University, Denver, Co. Graduate Courses in Counseling Psychology: Crisis and Trauma; Dreamwork; Ecopsychology; Grief and Loss; Professional Ethics; Substance Abuse; Military Trauma; Human Development; Counseling and Spirituality. 2017-2020.

• Hakomi Institute, 2-year Comprehensive Training in Mindfulness-based Somatic Psychotherapy, Boulder, Co. Graduate. July 2019.

• Mindful Education Teacher Training, with Daniel Rechstchaffen. Jan-June 2018.

• Western Governors University, Salt Lake City, UT. Teacher Preparation and Licensure Program, Social Studies, May 2010. 

• McKinnon School of Massage, Oakland, CA. 500-hour certificate program in therapeutic massage and bodywork, July 2007. 

• Goucher College, Towson, MD. Master of Fine Arts in Writing Creative Nonfiction, Aug. 2006. 

• Franklin and Marshall College, Lancaster, PA. Honors B.A. in Anthropology, May 2001. Magna Cum Laude.  

Experience:

• Mindfulness Instructor and School Leadership Consultant, Alamosa K-2 Public School, Adams State University, Alamosa, CO., Sierra Grande Middle School, Blanca, CO., Moffat School, Moffat, CO., Earth Worm Forest School, and Crestone Charter School, Crestone, CO., Bill Reed Middle School, Loveland, CO. and Skyline High School, Longmont, CO. Fall 2018 – present.

  • Instructed school administrators, counselors, teachers, and students in mindfulness and whole-systems wellbeing. Developed and facilitated professional development offerings for small and large groups (80+ educators), with a focus on whole-faculty connection, establishing safety, trauma-sensitivity, and self-care. Worked closely with school administrators to specifically tailor offerings to fit current needs and to create a leadership-based/top-down culture of wellness and mental health support. Facilitated delivery of the Mindful Schools curriculum to preschool, elementary, middle, and high school students, and provided feedback to classroom teachers and instruction on attunement, embodied presence, mindfulness as anti-oppression pedagogy, and calm, non-reactive teaching practices.

• District-wide Mindfulness Consultant, South Bend Community School Corporation, South Bend, IN. 2020-2021 school year.

• Mindfulness Teacher, Rio Grande Mindfulness Institute, Albuquerque, NM. Fall 2020 – present.

• Mindfulness Consultant and Professional Development Facilitator, Earth Worm Forest School and Crestone Charter School, Crestone, CO., Bill Reed Middle School, Loveland, CO. and Skyline High School, Longmont, CO. Fall 2018 – present.  

• Executive Director/Founder, Rocky Mountain Mindfulness Center, 501c3 Nonprofit Organization, Longmont, Co.Founder, Executive Director. August 2018 - present.

• Facilitator of Mindfulness-Based Psychoeducation for Individuals, Family Systems, and Community Groups. May. 2017 – March 2020. Collaboration with the City of Longmont Youth Services and Mental Health First Aid Trainers.

• Middle and High School Educator, Lyons MSHS, Lyons, Co. Twin Peaks Charter Academy, Longmont, Co. Aug. 2010-May 2017. Highly qualified in Social Studies, English, and Spanish. Substitute teacher, 2008-2010.

• Massage Therapist and Receptionist, Piedmont Springs Spa, Oakland, Ca. July 2007-Jan. 2009. 

• Archaeological Field Technician, Eastern United States and Jamaica. April 2003-June 2006.

• Fulbright Grant received for anthropological research, Guatemala. Jan.-Oct. 2002. 

Articles: 

• “A Colorado Mindfulness Teacher’s Response to Gun Violence.” March, 23, 2021. Medium.com.

• “Welcome the Children.” August 4, 2020. Lyonsliving.org.

• “Cultivating Deep Respect for Nature and Learning to Listen.” February 28, 2020. Lyonsliving.org

• “Sit Spot.” January 24, 2020. Lyonsliving.org

• “Lessons from the Natural World.” December 20, 2019. Lyonsliving.org

• “A Shake-Up That’s a Wake-Up. The Fear is Real.” April 17, 2019. Medium.com

Book:  Out of Grace: An extraordinary journey through Guatemala’s Haunted Highlands.
Wrote and self-published nonfiction memoir examining fear and about the search for spirituality and identity during my Fulbright experience in Guatemala. Available for purchase in paperback and kindle edition, August 2014. 

Language Skills: Fluency in written and spoken Spanish.