10/25/2025
I'm excited to offer my first Mindfulness Meditation Experience for beginners and experienced meditators alike in the cozy setting at Dock Side Cellars, complete with a complimentary yogurt bar & wine mimosa! 🥂
Please click link below for details and info on how to make reservations:
https://facebook.com/events/s/mindful-meditation-with-jennif/3172016422974560/
I've facilitated meditation groups for many years, this will be my first time leading a group open to the public since receiving my Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification earlier this year!
I wanted to share about my personal & professional journey and how I came to my passion for exploring my own consciousness and sharing that experience with others.
I was born and raised in Youngstown, Ohio and from a young age was always pondering life’s deepest questions and searching within and without to make sense of the world and find deeper truths.
I received my BA in Psychology & Philosophy with a minor in Religion from the University of Mount Union and this is where my questioning and enjoyment of the search really took shape and found engagement, encouragement, and excitement!
Less than a week after graduating, I moved to Boulder, CO, drawn to this hub for consciousness studies & exploration. One day I was drawn to walk into a group meditation at Boulder Shambhala Center and realized I had no idea what I was supposed to be doing sitting on this cushion, but something felt good about being in relative silence surrounded by others.
Soon after, I gave myself my 1st meditation retreat for my 25th birthday in 2005 at Shambhala Mountain Center (now Drala Mountain Center) and I enjoyed what I perceived as the challenge of the practice to come back to the breath for hours and days of "practicing" meditation. It was difficult and uncomfortable and sometimes very overwhelming. There were moments where I felt I wanted to run out of the room. I watched as some participants left and did not return. But, I felt something was happening to me that I deeply felt was positive.
I had a profound experience that weekend as I sat in the final hours of the retreat, feeling more connected to the sky. I could see it and be with it more intimately, and enjoy its beauty. And despite my “personality” being a “talkative” one, relatively, I had no desire to talk with anyone that final day.
Even at my 1st retreat, I felt a deep desire to one day be a Meditation teacher. I felt a shift in my consciousness that felt more fulfilling than my typical state of mind...and it felt like the most important thing I'd ever learned to "do." I also saw myself coming back to the retreat center to work for the summer and spend more time exploring meditation, which I did in 2008.
Some time passed in life of tremendous challenges and suffering manifesting as abusive relationships and undiagnosed major depression. I began attending Adult Children of Alcoholics meetings and when we would hold hands and “pray” at the end of the meeting, I had no idea what “higher power” meant to me. I wanted to explore that. The closest thing I ever had to knowing what higher power meant to me was the experiences I had during and after meditating.
So I sought out the closest known meditation center to me, Shambhala Akron (which is now The Meditation Studio in Akron, OH) and began attending. I would drive 2 hours round trip sometimes 3 times a week. It felt in a deep way like I was coming home. This community healed so much within me over the course of a year and a half. For the first year I cried about every single time I attended group meditation and the discussion sessions. And then one day, I noticed I hadn’t cried in a few weeks. I could feel and see myself slowly changing with a sense I was becoming more at peace and having more inner strength.
In the meantime I found a closer group to me and began attending. It was a Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition (FPMT)—Discovering Buddhism Course led by Julie Thomas (a former psychology professor at Youngstown State University). It felt like I was learning and growing more. It was such a rich program.
Eventually, Julie became a nun in the Tibetan Gelugpa tradition and she moved to Dharamsala, India. Another long time practitioner, Ed Savel, took over our group but after some time the attendance dwindled further and he moved out of state. I was the only attendee at his last group meeting.
So, in 2016 I approached another Buddhist study group, The Coffeehouse Sangha, who meet once a month to discuss Buddhist material and mediate. I asked if anyone would like to meet weekly and engage with a more intensive program in Tibetan Buddhism. About 12 folks out of 15 or so raised their hands! So in 2016 I began facilitating that group in my living room on a weekly basis. I facilitated this group for over 4 years.
In 2018 I had the great fortune of getting to attend November Course for 6 weeks at the Kopan Monastery near Kathmandu, Nepal. It was very challenging and came with it a lot of physical and psychological pain and suffering for me. It was also deeply transformative and I felt a sense of home. I also feel the benefits of having done that course continue to reveal themselves in my life afterwards in ways that are hard to give words to.
Since the pandemic, I’ve struggled with Long Covid and its been very debilitating at times. I was unable to stand for any length of time for periods in 2020–2022. In 2023 I was unable to handle the physicality of being a massage therapist anymore. These chronic and debilitating symptoms at times have caused me to be unable to take basic care of my house, life, and work responsibilities.
During this time of great fear and suffering, I had several realizations. One night I was experiencing significant chest pain, I was all alone in my home and had been for many weeks with covid, and I thought I might be having a heart attack. I felt tormented because I did not know what to do. I began to cry extremely hard and after the crying stopped, I noticed the pain had decreased significantly. It then occurred to me that the relief had something to do with having cried. I wondered if my chest pain might have a psychological causal component. In the days to come, the only way for me to relieve this moderate constant chest pain was to keep my mind in a meditative state. I was meditating informally constantly to keep the pain at bay.
Also during these years, I was unable to recover from the least amount of stress and was forced by illness to rest more or else I would experience very painful and debilitating symptoms. I was forced to surrender. In that surrender I came to realize that my acceptance of my suffering body and allowing it to rest could lead me to a more peaceful state. I found myself actually enjoying myself, in this surrender, even though I was very sick. I could rest, allow those moments, and enjoy them.
Finally, I realized the importance of my previous meditation experience in allowing me to have these insights and to suffer less and in moments, not at all. I realized deeply that my health and my life are not promised and I began to see that the practice of meditation is the singular most important thing I’ve ever learned and spent time exploring and I desired to continue to deepen the exploration and share it with others who could benefit from it too.
I’m currently a fulltime musician, a Vocalist/Violinist & Owner of Leather & Lace Music Productions. I play music in a variety of settings, including drug/alcohol recovery centers.
In 2022, after a night of loud wild music making, I felt the strong desire that I wanted to share silence with the amazing clients in attendance! The following week, after another night of music making, one of the clients came up to me and asked about my “Free Tibet” sticker on my car. I told him about the Chinese take over of Tibet and my love of Tibetan Buddhism. He then told me that he learned to meditate while in prison and it really helped him get through it. Then he said, “Ya know, I don’t know why I ever stopped meditating.” I felt this conversation was divine timing. I had just recently researched programs to become a meditation teacher online the week prior and I felt I was being guided.
That weekend, I attended a day retreat at UUYO lead by Linda Scharf and I hadn’t done any in person retreat since before the pandemic. It turns out Linda Scharf was completing her practicum in the Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification Program! It was an incredible day retreat experience and that was the final synchronicity. I had researched that program just days earlier! I met with her to talk about MMTCP and she was very supportive and encouraging. I applied and have now completed the 2 year program and am certified!
My aspiration is to continue to rest deeply and continue to let go into Being. I wish to share that with others to reduce their suffering and discover inner peace, their true nature. After completing my program in 2025, I aspire to offer Mindfulness Meditation in a variety of settings including prisons, recovery centers, businesses, schools, and community groups of all kinds.
