My journey to mindfulness began when I was a first year teacher severely overwhelmed and struggling to stay present. My mind was such a blur of emotional and mental activity that I found it hard to be in the moment with my hilarious, individual and often challenging students - which was the very reason I first went into teaching!

Coming home burnt out one night I decided to download the Headspace app and try their ten day trial. The first time I sat to meditate I couldn't keep my mind quiet for more than a second at a time but I'd heard too many good things about meditation to give up. By the end of ten days I started to look forward to my meditation time and was already starting to notice a difference. There was a small pocket of peace in my brain, it was growing, and over time it became larger and more and more accessible. I came back to this space when I was feeling overwhelmed and took this peace back into my voice, my manner and the way I dealt with chaos in the classroom.

I continued meditating almost everyday for the next five years, saw the effects of using Smiling Mind meditations in my own classroom, went on to do 100 hours of meditation on a 10 day silent retreat, got my yoga teacher certification for kids and adults, and completed Mindfulness Fundamentals and Mindfulness for Educators courses through Mindful Schools. Seeing the effects of mindfulness on my life I developed a growing desire to bring the invaluable skill of mindfulness to students at a young age.

And so the Mindful Monkey was born...