i have been fairly obsessed with meditation since i first got the bug for it in 2013. for several years, i worked to establish a daily practice and bring mindfulness into my daily life, while continuing to read books and listen to podcasts about meditation and the dharma on my own.
in 2017, i attended my first silent meditation retreat at spirit rock meditation center. the prolonged silence, the intimacy with my own heart and psyche, and the wisdom shared by my teachers were all profoundly moving to me, and my faith in meditation practice grew immensely.
on that retreat i met tempel smith, who then became my primary dharma mentor in 2019.
i have sat many more silent retreats since the first one, adding up to over 8 months of intensive practice, cumulatively. the longest of these retreats were a 3-month period at the insight meditation society (2022), and a 2-month period at boundless refuge (2024). i am immensely grateful to have been able to attend these long retreats, and for the skillfulness, ease, and authenticity that continue to unfold in their wake.
while the bulk of my meditation practice is rooted in the insight tradition and early buddhism, in recent years i have become increasingly interested and somewhat practiced in the mahayana and vajrayana traditions as well.
meditation and buddhist practice hold a central and special place in my path, but they are far from the only modalities and lenses that i love. psychological modalities such as internal family systems (IFS), core transformation (CT), ideal parent figure protocol (IPF), and attachment repair practices are real goldmines. over the years, i have worked with various coaches in these methods to help me turn towards the content of the mind, rather than dive beneath it.
i have benefitted greatly from a wide variety of psychedelic medicines, and continue to practice fruitfully with them. while medicine practice is not a replacement for the many sober practices, it does create windows of opportunity where deeper structures of the heart, mind, and body can be accessible, and met with uncommon clarity and resource.
while the actual relationships of life are where the deepest transformations and rewards often lie, i have also found that relational practices provide important bridges. among my favorites are circling, social meditations, and contact improvisation.
i have always loved sharing what i know. to me, learning to teach, embody, and transmit a skill is an integral part of continuing to learn and master it. at the same time, i've always wanted to be of service in the most fundamental ways i could find.
in 2021, i took a year long meditation teacher training program through inward bound mindfulness. with the approval of my teacher tempel, i began offering coaching calls in meditation beginning in 2022. in 2025, i taught two cohorts of my 8-week class "meditation fundamentals: practicing for a free heart." in the same year, i took the core transformation foundations training, and the attachment alchemy training — both of which i am continuing in formal studies with. since late 2025, my coaching calls have included parts work and attachment repair, as well as meditation coaching. i've now given over 300 coaching calls.
