Heather Albrecht

I’m a registered psychotherapist and mindfulness teacher and ever since I can remember I’ve had a deep interest in what makes life meaningful; this search has taken me to ashrams in India, extended meditation retreats around the world and much time with skilled teachers from many different wisdom traditions and schools of psychology. For all this enrichment I feel an enormous amount of gratitude. I’m a seeker – seeking is my north star. I worked in the corporate world for over 30 years and used to joke with friends that I felt ‘too hippie for the corporate world and too corporate for the hippie world’. Behind all of this I’ve felt a lot of confusion about where I fit and who I truly am. Mindfulness has given me a lot of freedom. The freedom to hold the seeming contradictory parts of myself as a whole and to hold all of my ideas about who I think I am more lightly. It’s taught me how to be less resistant towards the things in my life that feel hard, uncomfortable, feel difficult, even scary. And let's face it, life is full of the uncomfortable, the unpleasant. From the small ouch of a friend’s unkind comment to the big lose of a loved one. Being less resistant has brought me more freedom and ease – paradoxically less suffering. Mindfulness has also brought me freedom from my inner critic and from the striver and the controller in me. I’ve learnt to befriend myself and motivate myself in kinder ways. And in finding more compassion for myself I’ve also found more courage and more compassion for others. Of course none of these freedoms are absolute in me – they are the sweet rewards of ongoing practice. All of these freedoms and more I wish for you and while I can’t guarantee the time we spend together will always be comfortable I do hope you will find it liberating and nourishing. A quote by the wonderful Gloria Steinem comes to mind: “The truth shall set you free. But first it has to piss you off.”

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