I started meditating in 2010, seeking to work with a disquieting insight: I felt like, if I stopped being busy I would disappear. I needed to be busy to validate my existence. My daily grind of endless to-do lists and deadlines had been driven by – and distracting me from – the deep-seated feeling that I simply wasn’t enough. I had to always try to do something that others would value because I had no inherent value myself. So I wanted to learn how to sit and do nothing (what I understood meditation to be) and find a sense of completeness and ease in just being.
Through a mutual friend, I started meditating with Jeff Warren and started sitting with the weekly sangha that would become the Consciousness Explorer’s Club. Jeff introduced me to the teaching of Shinzen Young, and soon after that I began regularly attending retreats with Shinzen, training in the Unified Mindfulness framework of contemplative practice. Eventually I started facilitating with the CEC, attending retreats and workshops with other teachers, and seeking ways to bring more depth and clarity to my practice so that I might also be able to more effectively guide and support others. So, after meeting Julianna Raye on retreat, I started my formal training as a Unified Mindfulness coach.
Since then. I’ve become a certified UM Teacher/Trainer. I’ve co-taught a virtual retreat with Shinzen Young, and I continue to mentor others teachers in training through UM’s Pathways and Compass programs. I lead workshops in schools (elementary, high school, and University), corporate offices, yoga studios, and online. I teach 8-week group programs, as well as work with clients one-on-one. I welcome the opportunity to support meditators at any and all levels of experience, whether they are new to mindfulness and meditation, or have a long-established practice with a specific technique, teacher, or tradition. While Unified Mindfulness forms the foundation of my training, my priority is always to meet people wherever they are and support them in their practice, working with them to integrate mindfulness, and then insights and benefits of their practice, into their lives ‘off-the-cushion’.
If you are curious about possibly working together, please feel free to get in touch. I’d be more than happy to arrange a phone call to talk about practice and explore the possibilities. Whether it means working together, or simply helping you get more clarity about what you’re looking for, I’d be happy to support your practice however I can.
Thanks for reading.
Kevin
[email protected]
Ps. In addition to mindfulness training, teaching, and coaching, I’m also a professional musician, motion graphics designer for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and occasionally an illustrator and animation background designer/digital painter.
Julianna received her BA in psychology from Duke University. As founder, president, and head trainer of Unified Mindfulness, she is dedicated to disseminating Shinzen Young’s comprehensive mindfulness meditation system through the creation and presentation of educational programs and teacher-training certification programs.
Dr. Hunter serves as associate professor of practice and is the founding director of the Executive Mind Leadership Institute at the Peter F. Drucker Graduate School of Management, Claremont Graduate University. He also serves as visiting professor at the University of Virginia Darden School of Business, where he developed and co-teaches the Leading Mindfully executive education program..
Dr. Eisendrath serves as chief psychologist and president of the Institute for Dialogue Therapy, P.C., where, as a Jungian analyst, she offers psychotherapy with individuals and couples, psychoanalysis, supervision, and training.
Dr. Vago serves as the research director of the Osher Center for Integrative Medicine and the director of the Contemplative Neuroscience and Integrative Medicine (CNIM) Laboratory at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. He is an associate professor in the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation and the Department of Psychiatry.
Stella is a psychologist, professor, and Zen practitioner. She became a formal student in 2008 in the Soto Zen tradition. She teaches courses in mindfulness based psychotherapies and the psychology of compassion at the Union Institute & University. She also co-facilitates a family program and young adult program at Shao Shan Temple, in Woodbury Vermont.
Dr. Creswell serves as a tenured associate professor in the Department of Psychology at Carnegie Mellon University. He is also the director of the Health & Human Performance Laboratory at Carnegie Mellon University.
Dr. McCormick currently serves as director of education at Unified Mindfulness. In 1975, he received a B.A. in psychology from the University of California Santa Cruz, where he was part of Dr. Elliot Aronson’s research team that examined cooperative approaches to reducing interracial conflict and academic performance problems in newly integrated school, and made Honors in Psychology, College Honors, and Thesis Honors.
UnifiedMindfulness.com is the official teacher training platform for Shinzen and the Unified Mindfulness System.
Created over 50 years of research and testing by Shinzen Young, Unified Mindfulness is a system of meditation that’s easily researchable by science, with clear terminology and rigorous precision around concepts and procedures.
The Unified Mindfulness system is a comprehensive, robust and refined support structure that any individual at any stage of meditation practice can rely on to go deeper in their insight and their ability to share it with others. It is also a secular form of meditation, which means it’s not religious in any way so anyone, of any faith, can do it.