My Story

My overall interest in “human matters” led me to pursue a career in business, earning my MBA and experiencing a successful 25+ year career in behaviour and marketing (for corporate and not-for-profit organizations).  For more than half of this time I focused my efforts in healthcare. I’ve been immersed in the lived experience of patients, physicians and caregivers who are living with, treating, and caring for people with a variety of illnesses including cancer, diabetes, heart disease, bi-polar disorder, depression, post-traumatic stress syndrome amongst many others. Along the way, I’ve learned a lot about the human condition, the meaning of life and what in the end, “really matters”.  I’ve gained a huge amount of compassion for people living with acute, chronic, and terminal illnesses and I’ve gained skills in deep listening, empathy, and in facilitating reflection and personal discovery for those participating in our studies. 

My parallel path has been as an explorer on the “road less traveled.”  I’ve studied psychology, theology, yoga, various forms of meditation, stress reduction and mindfulness. Initially I was drawn to yoga as a challenging physical pursuit.  Over time yoga became a practice that helped to balance my “Type A” personality and to build greater mental and emotional resilience (having struggled with some bouts of intense anxiety and self-doubt at the beginning of my career). The more I studied yoga, and more recently somatics (body based approaches to mental health/well-being), the greater my appreciation for the healing power of practices that intentionally move us out of our heads and into our bodies. Along my life journey I also began meditating, exploring a number of traditions including mantra, zen and mindfulness. Mindfulness training in particular really amped up the benefits of my yoga/movement practice and has helped me appreciate how building awareness of body sensations and breath can be a vehicle for understanding and managing one’s mental/emotional state. My deep dive into mindfulness, in addition to world events in the past few years, has also led me to better appreciate the pervasiveness of traumatic stress in our lives and to do further training in trauma informed mindfulness and trauma sensitive yoga.

Today I embrace my yoga/movement and meditation practices as resources that help me to feel more grounded and connected to my body, my being as well as in my relationships and work. They help me attempt to live more fully alive and open to the flow of life, experiencing its ups and downs without clinging to the good or pushing away/ignoring the tough stuff (this is a constant work in progress).  I continue to practice daily, study and attend multi-day mindfulness mediation retreats as a way to continue to build my overall resilience and well-being and to better appreciate and understand this whole “being human” and “human being” experience. I am most fulfilled when I can share this pursuit and learning with other seekers.