Profile

I have been dedicated to the practice of meditation and mindfulness, which is simply the act of paying attention with concentration; it is the ability to become aware of where we are and what we are doing. It is the pursuit of discernment and meaning in life, a skill that can be learned and developed. My project is the Culture of Well-being: research, learning, and dissemination of knowledge, content, and practices that contribute to people's health and quality of life. It has been a long and good journey to get here, and I share some moments of my path.

I was born in Recife, the capital of Pernambuco, in northeastern Brazil. My life is about learning and sharing. I live guided by the ethics of care. I work and study care in people's relationships with themselves (self-care), in their relationships with others (other-care), in their relationships with the environment (eco-care), and in their relationships with the transcendent dimension of existence (trans-care). At the base of this ethic is the certainty that no human life is worth more than another, and that all need to be cared for.

My first field of experiences and learning was my family. I am the youngest of six siblings. I say that I am a mixture of Frankfurt, my father's city, in central Germany, and Glória do Goitá, my mother's city, in the sugarcane-growing region of Pernambuco. I had a peaceful childhood, surrounded by grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins, all living nearby, a large and loving family. My mother died when I was fifteen years old, which changed my way of being in the world, now without the presence of her firm pulse and constant reaffirmation of her values. She guided her children to appreciate music and different cultures. She worked to raise educated, generous, upright, studious children who were always seeking a purposeful and meaningful life. In this context, I learned the strength of family education, the importance of education for values, and the power of example in people's formation.

In adolescence, just after my mother's death, I was selected for an exchange program and lived for a year with an American family in Connecticut, USA. What an extraordinary experience! It was during this period that I took my first steps in volunteer work. I worked at a large hospital, serving snacks, bringing magazines, and doing handicrafts for hospitalized patients. It was a time to experience and learn the power of solidarity and the importance of caring for people. Small daily gestures - molecules of good will - can change the lives of those who care and those who are cared for.

Upon returning to Brazil, I studied and graduated in Architecture at the Federal University of Pernambuco. During the course, I met my life partner. We got married while still students. We are together to this day. After graduation, my husband went to do an MBA in Philadelphia, and we followed him. Once again, volunteer work came into my life: I became a guide at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, an opportunity to learn how to deal with varied audiences and learn more about art. As a newly graduated architect, living surrounded by works of art was what I call a "beautiful exchange!"

After the MBA, we moved to São Paulo, where our two children were born. Six years later, my husband received an invitation to work in New York, and we returned to the USA, where we lived for almost twenty years. As the children grew up, I returned to studying and earned a master's degree in Systemic Therapy at Fairfield University in Connecticut. I worked as an intern and was later hired by public institutions: Fairfield Community Services and Family Reentry.

In 2016, we returned to live in São Paulo, where I started my Mindfulness and meditation courses, practices that are at the base of the Cultura do Bem-Estar project, my current focus of work. New values, new practices, and the realization of desired changes.

Throughout my personal, family, social, and professional journey, I have learned to work in an articulated way, adding and multiplying resources, competences, and efforts. I always seek to have an overview of society, its challenges, and potentialities. The challenge of life is to learn to unite, link, interlink, and articulate. We are called upon to learn the best social math: to add and multiply. We are called upon to combat fragmentation and isolation. This is the path I tread, always attentive to vital learnings and care."