I came to meditation and yoga the long way around.

 

For 20 years, I was a bookseller. I loved connecting people with stories, helping them find language for what they couldn't yet name. I found yoga and mindfulness during those years, but I didn't really need them yet—not in the way you need something when your life cracks open.

 

Then mine did. I walked through a personal tragedy that dismantled everything I thought I knew. I dove into practice—not because I was seeking enlightenment, but because I needed to feel less shattered and somehow find my way back to love. Yoga and meditation became the ground under my feet when nothing else made sense.

 

I trained as a yoga teacher (E-RYT 500), then as a certified meditation teacher (CMT-P). I fell into lovingkindness practice—metta—and found teachings rooted in compassion, not perfection. Then I started teaching at Rikers Island Correctional Facility.

 

For over a decade, I brought yoga and meditation to people who'd been explicitly told—by the system, by society—that they didn't deserve care, let alone practices like mindfulness. I watched people who were incarcerated discover they could be kind to themselves. That they could sit with their breath, their pain, and their full humanity. That work—teaching in one of the most brutal environments in the country—changed everything about how I understand practice and who it's for.

 

Meditation isn't reserved for people who have it all figured out. It's for all of us—the anxious, the heartbroken, the angry, the lost. It's for people who've been left out, judged, or told they're too much or not enough. That's who I teach. That's who I write for.

 

I've spent nearly 15 years teaching mindfulness and metta in spaces most wellness teachers never enter. As a Mindfulness Coach at Rikers Island Correctional Facility through NYC Health + Hospitals, I brought meditation practice to one of the country's most notorious jails—teaching people who were incarcerated that they deserved care, compassion, and access to their own humanity. I serve on the board of One Love Prison Meditation Project, and I've taught in hospitals, community organizations serving marginalized populations, and on platforms like Yoga International, Embodied Philosophy, and Kripalu. I lead workshops, retreats, and trainings—and I bring a no-BS approach to practice that centers accessibility, honesty, and love.

 

My book, Sit With Me: A No-BS Journey to Mindfulness and Meditation, comes out March 2026 with HarperOne. It's part memoir, part guide—and all about practicing lovingkindness when life is messy, which is pretty much always.

 

I teach what I need to learn. That's the practice.