My Story

 

After 15 years of throwing pots in my woodland studio, I learned to meditate, and everything changed.

Snapshots of a new life:

  • Lived in an Indian ashram and worked in the middle of nowhere on a hospital bus

  • Trekked solo in the Himalayas

  • Attended medical school at 41 where I fell in love with science and my patients

  • Worked in a large county hospital filled with immigrants from all over the world

  • Started a private practice in Washington, DC

  • Integrated meditation, yoga and nutrition with cutting-edge science

  • Senior Faculty of the Center for Mind-Body Medicine teaching professionals in Mind-Body-Spirit Medicine, CancerGuides, Healing the Wounds of War and directing the Food As Medicine Program.

  • Taught mind-body-spirit medicine at Georgetown University School of Medicine

  • Trained health professionals in war-torn Kosovo and in New Orleans after Katrina. Supported firemen and their families after 9/11

  • Became a single mother and moved back to the Berkshires to raise my daughter.

  • Joined the faculty at the Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health and practiced holistic addiction medicine

  • Led the Center for Peace through Culture, working at the intersection of education, medicine and social justice, under the banner of peace.

The events of my life and the meaning they hold for me have shaped my work. I am a student of well-being: what human beings need to thrive, how we get out of balance and which conventional and unconventional approaches to healing are effective in any given situation. I look to the natural and social sciences, as well as to the ancient wisdom traditions and the growing science of spirituality to inform my work. In addition to this scientific and holistic approach, I have found the ongoing support of coaching to be an essential missing piece in the equation of health and healing.

“Over the last 2 years, under Susan’s guidance, I have changed who I am and how I look at life. She taught me how to feel my emotions without getting stuck in them and how to find a place of love and gratitude in myself, which has helped me grow spiritually. 

She has taught me to be self-reflective and to look at difficult situations from the long-term perspective of what would be the “greatest good” and to speak and act with that in mind. I have done a lot of work on myself and now I am aware of how powerful I am. I am careful of the words I use and the actions I take, and I know I can bring about change in the world. My friends and family have noticed this wonderful change in me.” - D.