I’m am so freakin’ excited to announce that I am officially a Koru Mindfulness Certified Teacher!!! This was two years in the making from meeting all the requirements, planning groups, marketing groups, working with our Sac State Teacher-Training team to stay on track, going outside of our comfort zones and all the other challenges and victories of this process.

I absolutely love Koru because their program was structured and created specifically for the populations I work with- adult and emerging adult populations aka college students. Not to mention the founders at Duke University did extensive research on what could best meet the needs of emerging adult populations. It’s an amazing program and community! In my years of teaching, no two groups have been the same but the positive life changing feedback has been a consistent and inspiring! I am truly blessed to have been apart of so many student’s mindfulness journeys and continuing as a certified teacher.

Our Sac State team has truly been unique. We are the first university across the country to incorporate Koru Mindfulness with student-athlete teams and within the athletics department!!! Personally, this was a major breakthrough in making a positive shift in the culture in athletics. Thank you Sac State men’s soccer for being the first team to complete the program!

If you have worked with me, then you know that I strongly encourage every athlete to have a mindfulness practice. And if they don’t have one, we create one. Meditation and mindfulness is definitely apart of my professional and personal philosophy of self-care and self-awareness. I have had a personal practice in mindfulness, mediation and yoga for years. I have completed many trainings from qualified professionals in the field, done personal retreats, conducted research, written about the topic in a variety of media platforms, and taught hundreds of people/athletes the skills. With that said I take this certification seriously, not because it gives me some “stamp of approval” or makes me “more or better than”, but because I have committed to doing the work outside of this certification, because I am deeply passionate about this area and continue to education myself on this area.

With so many certification programs out there for meditation, yoga, life coaching, nutrition coaching etc. I believe it’s important for consumers/athletes to be well educated  and informed on what “certification” and credentialing means. I strongly believe that anyone whom works independently (private practice, private coaching, etc.) must have a professional accountability structure aka something that holds them accountable for professional standards, laws and ethics in the field. For me, the main one is the California Board of Psychology because I am a California state licensed psychologist. However, Koru Center for Mindfulness certification process also has a built in structure require me to be accountable for upholding professional standards. This is so important because anyone can go out a get a “certification” and sometimes we don’t always know what that means.  With that said, I am so thrilled to hit this milestone, and share it with you all, but that does not mean my personal or professional work is done.

I encourage you all to look into Koru programs and in your area and/or if you have any questions about the certification process or program feel free to hit me up.

-Dr. G