The Dream 

Time and time again, I have had clients come into my office and when I mention mindfulness or meditation they tell me some version of: “I’ve tried it before, it didn’t work for me”, “it turns out you can fail at meditation because I never get out of it what I am supposed to”, or “trying to meditate is actually traumatic for me”.

Time and time again, those clients have practiced with me in session and, later at home, with minimal problem and benefited! These cases often were tied to specific instances, a past therapist telling them that meditation and mindfulness was meant to remove their anxiety, or using meditation as a decentering tool, for clients who find it traumatic they have often cited sensory struggles or being actively triggered and overwhelmed and someone telling them to visualize the traumatic experience.

It is my dream to make mindfulness accessible to everyone, whether they have had bad experiences in the past, suffer from chronic pain, or struggle due to sensory differences! Often traditional mindfulness practices can be rigid in that to do it properly one must attend to their specific focus in their specific way. However, there is developing research indicating that these rigid tendencies may actually make the practice exclusionary to neurodivergent populations and people who have experienced trauma. This same data also indicates that mindfulness is just as beneficial to a neurodivergent person as a neurologically typical person once made accessible!