Hello, I'm Sharon!

I’m a meditation teacher, mentor, educator, musician, parent, neurodivergent human, and lifelong learner who believes that meditation doesn’t have to look perfect—or particularly peaceful—to change the way we experience our lives.

I came to meditation in 2013 as an anxious, overwhelmed, over-thinking parent who had been diagnosed with ADHD as an adult. I wasn’t looking for enlightenment. I was looking for a way to breathe.

What I found was a practice that slowly began changing my relationship with my mind, my body, other people, and eventually my whole life.

More than a decade later, meditation is still an important part of how I meet being human—with all of its messiness, beauty, grief, joy, uncertainty, relationships, and change.

My Meditation Practice & Training

My own practice is rooted in Insight Meditation (Vipassana) and Buddhist teachings, and has developed through years of daily practice, retreats, mentorship, study, and lots and lots of beginning again.

I completed the two-year Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification Program (MMTCP) with Jack Kornfield, Ph.D., and Tara Brach, Ph.D. through the Awareness Institute, in partnership with UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center.

Since then, my education and practice have continued to deepen through retreats, ongoing study, mentorship, and practice with teachers in the Insight Meditation and Theravada Buddhist traditions.

One of the things I love most about this practice is that there is always more to learn. I don’t see myself as someone who has meditation all figured out. I am a practitioner first, and teaching grows out of that practice.

An Educator at Heart

I have also been an educator for more than two decades, with degrees in Music and Education from the University of Windsor.

Over the years I’ve taught in classrooms, private music studios, community programs, and meditation spaces. Today, alongside my meditation teaching and mentorship, I work as a Dean of Instruction and music educator.

Teaching has always been about much more than giving people information. I’m interested in what helps people feel safe enough to be curious, experiment, make mistakes, ask questions, and discover things for themselves.

That philosophy shows up in my meditation teaching too.

There is no gold star for meditating perfectly.

You don’t have to sit a certain way, stop thinking, become endlessly calm, or somehow turn yourself into a different person before you can practice.

We start with the human being who actually showed up.

Meditation for Real Life

I founded Grounded & Calm because I wanted to create the kind of meditation spaces I value myself—spaces that are welcoming, curious, compassionate, playful, and grounded in real life.

Meditation has supported me through parenting, ADHD, relationships, grief, anxiety, enormous changes, difficult seasons, beautiful seasons, and plenty of completely ordinary Tuesdays.

My practice hasn't removed those experiences.

It has changed how I meet them.

Sometimes practice looks like sitting quietly for an hour. Sometimes it’s ten minutes before the rest of the house wakes up. Sometimes mindfulness happens in the middle of a difficult conversation, while walking outside, teaching a class, or noticing that my nervous system has gone into overdrive and remembering to come back to my body.

It all counts.

How I Teach

I believe meditation should help us become more deeply connected to ourselves and our lives—not more disconnected from them.

My teaching combines mindfulness and compassion practices with curiosity, conversation, reflection, and an understanding that different minds and nervous systems need different things.

This is especially important to me as a neurodivergent teacher.

There isn't one “right” way to meditate, and struggling with a particular practice doesn't mean you're bad at meditation. Sometimes we need another doorway in.

My job isn't to make you meditate like me.

It’s to help you become curious about your own experience and develop a practice that genuinely supports you.

Mentorship & Community

Over the years, my work has naturally moved toward mentorship.

There is something powerful about practicing with other people and having a place to bring the questions that arise once meditation becomes part of your actual life.

What happens when practice feels wonderful?

What happens when it doesn't?

What happens when you get bored, restless, angry, distracted, grieving, inspired, confused—or simply stop meditating for three weeks?

That is practice too.

My mentorship spaces are places where we can explore those questions together through meditation, conversation, reflection, Buddhist teachings, and community.

You don't have to arrive as an experienced meditator. You just have to arrive.

Still Learning to Breathe

When I first discovered meditation, I thought I was learning how to calm down.

I was.

But I was also learning something much bigger: how to stay.

How to stay present with myself. How to notice what is happening without immediately needing to fix it. How to make room for joy and difficulty. How to offer myself and other people a little more compassion.

I’m still learning.

And I would love to practice alongside you.

In love and mindfulness,

Sharon

Grounded & Calm Offerings

✅ Bi-Monthly Mindfulness Mentorship Group

✅ Private One-on-One Introduction to Mindfulness Meditation Courses

✅ One-on-One Mindfulness Mentoring

Ready to Practice Together?

If something here resonates with you, I’d love to welcome you into practice. Visit the Mentorship page to learn more about our meditation community, upcoming gatherings, and ways to practice together.