A few examples of why people choose to work with me

Whether you are new to mindfulness and meditation or an experienced meditator with years of practice working for you, it can be deeply rewarding to work one-on-one with a mentor to develop your personal practice. There are many reasons people chose to work with me for personal support to include:

• Initiating a new mindfulness practice and getting individualized instruction on where to start
• Develop a regular mindfulness practice and integrate it into your everyday life
• Deepening an already rich meditation practice that can benefit from some new approaches
• Getting past a sticking point in your current practice and opening up new areas of wisdom to explore
• Creating a calm body and peaceful mind to transform your story into meaning and purpose

Some of the main benefits of deepening practice

Learning to practice mindfulness provides a way of relating directly with whatever is happening in your life. It can help you to develop a way of taking charge of how you relate to what is happening in your life and can give you a sense of control over how you respond to the challenges of life. We start by cultivating present-moment attention in an open, nonjudgmental way and I will teach you ways to integrate your practice in everyday life. A growing body of research indicates that practicing mindfulness and meditation can lead to:

• Greater ability to manage anxiety and stress of modern daily life
• Moving from being reactive to being responsive to what is happening in your life
• Loosening of the grip of negative habits and thinking
• Developing a perspective that brings with it a sense of compassion
• Learning how to be more present and appreciate the simple pleasures of everyday life
• Discovering that difficult and unwanted thoughts and feelings can be held in an altogether different way

Overview – I work one-on-one with committed insight meditation students with a focus on nature-based mindfulness as a way of illuminating the Buddhist concepts that support a strong mindfulness meditation practice. I generally ask that students signup for 3 to 5-session bundles so we can develop momentum in your practice and the typical student will choose to work with me for 1 to as many as 5 years or more, spreading their sessions out at a rate that is most supportive to their personal development. From time to time, I also have students who want to work on a specific issue or concept, and that mentoring relationship will often last from 1 to 6 months. Each mentoring session is typically set for 1 hour and is offered on a sliding scale of $60 to $160 per session depending on your personal means.

Sessions Structure – As a mentoring student, you can meet with me once per month, twice per month, or every other month to discuss your personalized meditation and mindfulness practice, articles or other readings that I may assign for study, how you are integrating what we develop together in your daily life practice, self-retreat, and deepening realization of the context teachings that I will point to in order to support your personal mindfulness journey.

The Practice of Dana – My session fee structure is grounded in the Buddhist principle of dana, or mutual generosity. In this modern world, I set a sliding scale for mentoring based on my life needs. You are invited to explore your own practice of generosity by selecting a point on the sliding scale at a level that reflects the value that the mentoring sessions bring to your own life. The dana generated from the coaching/mentoring program compensates me not only for my current financial needs, but also allows me to recover costs I’ve incurred while accumulating my education, credentials, personal retreats, and ongoing professional training. I am deeply grateful for your support which allows me to continue to practice right livelihood as part of my own devoted practice of mindfulness.

Chemistry Call – Before working together, I request that we have a short “Chemistry Call” to discuss our backgrounds and determine whether working together will be supportive of your practice and feels like a good fit for each of us.