MY STORY

My experience with a painful childhood as an adoptee, growing up with an alcoholic parent, led me to discover healthy ways of dealing with anxiety, feelings of unworthiness, panic attacks, sadness, and anger.  I recovered my natural state of well-being by practicing both traditional Buddhist techniques and modern psychotherapeutic modalities, and now lead others using the same tools, to deeply engage with all aspects of their experience for integration, wholeness, and authenticity.

I teach people to develop their inherent qualities of kindness, compassion, and good sense through Buddhist teachings and contemporary mindfulness techniques. 

Since 2011, I’ve led classes, workshops, and retreats with thousands of individuals and groups. My work incorporates body-based mindfulness and compassion practices, which are grounded in the emerging scientific understanding that thoughts and feelings affect physical and mental well-being and the transformational power of love. I offer one-on-one meditation training, lead weekly meditation classes, and write books and articles.

I’m a Certified Mindfulness Teacher, Professional Level (CMT-P) with the International Mindfulness Teachers Association, a member of The Mindful Directory, and a graduate of a year-long 200 hour intensive Meditation Teacher Training program (2011). As a Buddhist student of nearly two decades, I regularly participate in silent residential retreats and train with teachers in the Insight and Tibetan lineages. I’m especially grateful to mentors Sharon Salzberg and Venerable Robina Courtin, and I’ve committed to follow the Five Precepts, the Buddhist training path in ethical behavior. Past experience includes training as a psychoanalytic psychotherapist at Washington Square Institute, working as a hospice volunteer with MJHS, leading meditations at Zuccotti Park as a member of the Meditation Working Group of Occupy Wall Street, and guiding residential retreats at Shantigar Foundation and Appalachian Mountain Club.

I regularly share my teachings in my free newsletter, Meditation with Heart. Sign up below to get on the list and access the archive.

As a leading voice in the contemporary meditation community, I teach public classes at many centers, including Tibet House, New York Insight Meditation Center, Shantideva Meditation Center, The Rubin Museum, and a monthly workshop for cancer patients at Gilda’s Club/The Red Door. From 2013-2021 I was Executive Director of The Interdependence Project, and a Guiding Teacher in its Meditation Teacher Training program. My work has been featured in Tricycle, Lion’s Roar, Mindful Magazine, The Authority Magazine, Buddha Weekly, Spirituality and Health Magazine, Bustle, the Everyday Buddhism and Metta Hour podcasts, and many other media outlets. I’m the author of Steady, Calm, and Brave: Buddhist 25 Practices for Wisdom and Resilience in a Crisis and Navigating Grief And Loss: 25 Buddhist Practices To Keep Your Heart Open To Yourself And Others, both published by Prometheus Books. My next book, “Happy Relationships” will be published in 2025.

What Students Say