Learning to Breathe

Originally published July 2021 · Updated August 15, 2026

How Meditation & Mindfulness Changed My Life

As a parent, educator, neurodivergent person diagnosed with ADHD in adulthood, and lifelong anxious over-thinker, I spent years believing I simply needed to try harder—to be more organized, more productive, more capable, more everything.

Then, in 2013, I began meditating.

I didn't know it at the time, but that small decision would profoundly change the way I related to myself, to other people, and to my life.

My Story

I grew up in McGregor, Ontario, Canada, and graduated from the University of Windsor with degrees in Music and Education. My life has taken me through classrooms, private music studios, cruise ships, stages, and a chapter working as a singer-songwriter in Las Vegas.

Eventually, I became a parent to twins—and parenting brought parts of myself into focus that I had been able to compensate for, work around, or simply push through before.

Living With an Invisible Difference

For years, I coped with ADHD and anxiety in a mixture of healthy and not-so-healthy ways.

After becoming a parent, the anxious overthinking, forgetfulness, perfectionism, exhaustion, difficulty organizing, and persistent feeling that I was somehow responsible for everything became impossible to ignore.

So I tried to fix it.

I found a therapist. I enrolled in a songwriting certification program through Berklee College of Music. I began teaching music again and performing. I carved out "me time." I tried all the things we are often told constitute self-care.

They helped—but something was still missing.

Enter Mindfulness Meditation

In 2013, I discovered meditation through a four-week mindfulness meditation challenge offered by Sharon Salzberg, one of the pioneering teachers who helped establish Insight Meditation in the West.

I began sitting regularly.

Sometimes it was 20 minutes.

Sometimes 10.

And sometimes I managed one or two minutes.

Whatever I could do was enough.

Gradually, mindfulness began making its way off the meditation cushion and into the rest of my life.

I started noticing thoughts without automatically believing every one of them. I became more aware of what was happening in my body. I began recognizing emotions earlier instead of only noticing them once I was completely overwhelmed.

Most importantly, I began developing a different relationship with myself.

Feeling Held by Practice

The best way I can describe what happened is that I began to feel held by my practice.

Life didn't suddenly become easy. Difficult people were still difficult. Parenting was still parenting. Stress, grief, excitement, conflict, joy, disappointment and uncertainty continued to arrive.

But there was a little more space around all of it.

Before meditation, my mind often felt like a computer with dozens of applications running simultaneously in the background. Meditation didn't magically turn them all off.

It helped me notice that they were running.

And sometimes, I could close a few.

Over time, I found myself responding more often instead of immediately reacting. I developed greater compassion for my own mind and nervous system. I became increasingly curious about my experience rather than constantly trying to fix it.

What began as a way to manage stress eventually became something much deeper: a practice and path that has continued to unfold for more than a decade.

The Science of Mindfulness

My experience is deeply personal, but it also exists alongside a growing body of research examining mindfulness and meditation.

Studies have explored the relationship between mindfulness practice and attention, emotional regulation, stress, self-awareness, compassion and well-being. Meditation isn't a cure-all, and everyone's experience is different, but these practices can offer meaningful tools for meeting our lives with greater awareness.

You can explore some of this research through the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley.

Becoming a Meditation Teacher

As my own practice deepened, I naturally began sharing what I was learning with the people around me.

Eventually, after attending my first 10-day silent meditation retreat, something became very clear: I wanted to devote myself more seriously to practice and learn how to share these teachings responsibly with others.

I trained through Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach's two-year Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification Program through the Awareness Training Institute in partnership with UC Berkeley's Greater Good Science Center.

My education has continued far beyond certification.

Through years of practice, retreats, mentorship and continued study, I have deepened my training in Insight Meditation and Buddhist practice while continuing to explore how these teachings intersect with neurodivergence, education, relationships, grief, identity and ordinary human life.

I also bring more than two decades of experience as an educator to the way I teach. I believe people learn through curiosity, connection, experimentation and compassion—not through getting meditation "right."

Why I Teach

I don't teach meditation because I have figured out how to remain calm all the time.

I teach because practice has taught me another way of being with the full complexity of being human.

Meditation has accompanied me through parenting, neurodivergence, relationships, grief, change, anxiety, joy, uncertainty and the many ordinary moments in between.

And after all these years, I am still practicing.

Still learning.

Still beginning again.

My Mission

My work is about helping people breathe, reconnect and pay attention to what matters.

I offer a playful, compassionate and supportive space to explore awareness of the breath, body, mind and heart—without requiring you to become a different version of yourself first.

Whether you are completely new to meditation or looking for mentorship as your practice deepens, my hope is to help you develop a practice that belongs to you: one that can meet you in your actual life, exactly where you are.

In love and mindfulness,

Sharon