

Today we’d like to introduce you to Cassandra Cabrera.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Cassandra. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
Sure! Well, I know that had I not found meditation and mindfulness at an early age, I would not be living the life I love today. I would not be in this place of joy and fulfillment. So, it makes me happy to share my story in case it sparks something in someone else.
My story really begins with the amount of time I spent in nature as a child. I spent most of my days outdoors free to explore and connect with the beauty around me. During those formative years, I was connecting over and over again with this more-than-human world. I remember one specific example, after hours of imaginative play and exploration in the forests around my house, of laying down in the grass. That’s it! The quiet, the only human around, but surrounded by so much life. The sun was so bright that day. It was soul-soothing. This simple experience has remained profound in my life. All that space and that peace settled in my bones, and I think experiences like this is the source where I draw the most of my mindfulness from.
That and my connection to what I call God, others might call spirit or the universe, I always felt held even when there was upheaval. Just as much as I felt like a small child in a great big natural world and landscape, I feel like a small part of a much larger purpose.
There is a perspective of grief and loss, that it’s not completely detrimental. This resonates with me. I think of my losses, my high school boyfriend’s death, my mother’s ALS, my nearly fatal car accident, my mother’s passing. These times when my heart was ripped out and everything suddenly changed. I changed. But remaining awake and feeling the grief, going through that I’ve cultivated this resilience and great love for people who go through life’s challenges and for the people who support them.
Meditation, I found at an early age. I discovered that I could tap into the inner peace and safety that I felt in nature with meditation and mindfulness practices. It’s kind of a funny story because it seems I was so young to be finding my way to meditation on my own this way. I wanted to study holistic health and write about it really early on. I was making all these connections at that point about food, its relation to nature, its relation to our bodies and how it makes us feel, and I was especially fascinated with food and plants as medicine. By 11 years old, I had a subscription to Alternative Medicine magazine and I read an interesting article about meditation. So I tried it out:
“Sit or lie down in a comfortable position, imagine starting at your head, sand pouring in, it becomes heavy…” and so on. Life-changing. It felt powerful. And because I was highly sensitive, I immediately recognized the major benefit of “powering it off” intentionally, in this way. I really started training my brain and learning to access my intuition and noticing my thoughts right after that experience.
Of course, my lens from a child to an adult has broadened as I’ve studied mindfulness and wellness, grief and life coaching more deeply, and as I’ve experienced life and daily stressors as an adult. But these real meaty parts of my story have made me incredibly caring and passionate about empowering others to find their own source of inner calm, resilience, and to be awake to the gift of this one life that we all get.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc. – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
I certainly struggled through parts of my journey. Many of them make up the fabric of my story, shared in the previous question. Presently and on a practical level, it can be challenging to find enough time for what I want to do professionally, as an entrepreneur, and to be as fully present as a mother and wife as I am committed to being. Setting boundaries around my family time has helped me the most with this. This is the most precious time to me – and my children and relationships are my biggest teachers, which really enables me to be a better mindfulness teacher and life coach anyways.
We’d love to hear more about your work.
My business is called Metta Mind and Life. It’s been said, ‘To reteach a thing its loveliness is the nature of metta. Through lovingkindness, everyone and everything can flower again from within.’ (Sharon Salzberg) I love this.
“Mind and Life” is the mindfulness, life & wellness coaching aspect of what I do as a mindfulness teacher and life & wellness coach.
I specialize in “mindfulness for modern life” – empowering people to come out from under stress and unbalance into a place of thriving and inner contentment. To ride the waves! – resilience and prevailing joy despite life’s challenges. The unique melding of my background in human science, mindfulness, meditation, holistic health, grief work, nutrition, ecopsychology, life coaching and diverse personal life experiences – and how I utilize this combination in my work with clients really makes my method a bit different.
I am really proud of the wonderful results and benefits clients have felt during the holistic cleanse program and mindfulness-based coaching. I want to shout it on the rooftops! “This stuff works!” Take time for yourself and everything else shifts. It is so meaningful when people try the mindfulness or wellness practices and report happily, “it’s working!” or share with me that one of the techniques or teachings has been really helpful to them. It doesn’t take long for there to be a noticeable positive difference in the way we feel and in our relationships when we start practicing mindfulness.
What were you like growing up?
When I was growing up, I was happy and curious. Empathetic. I was known to be caring, kind and mature for my age. I was using my imagination all the time, climbing trees, traveling the little creek and exploring the forests around my home and writing. I loved music and dancing and was pretty athletic. As I got older, I found I was really interested in people and having the best kind of soul-baring conversations. I liked holding that space for others. From a young age, I wanted to work in the holistic health field, helping people to be healthy and happy. I have always had a bit of wanderlust.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.MindfulnessBasedCoach.com
- Phone: 970-633-0126
- Email: MindfulnessBasedCoach@gmail.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mindfulnessbasedcoach/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mindfulnessbasedcoach
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/MettaMindful
- Other: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cassandra-cabrera/
Image Credit:
Photography by Debra Somerville
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Debbie
October 3, 2019 at 6:33 pm
So proud to call Cassandra my niece! She has come a long way from her rural Nebraska roots but I know she cherished the childhood & environment that made her who she is today. I know her mama is smiling down on her!! Love you Cassandra!!