Profile

The HeartWell Institute is a BIPOC woman-led educational institution, positioned to bring personal, relational, and collective healing to the community. We have designed a curriculum that is sensitive to multiple cultures, trauma-informed, and is skilled at bringing participants together to move forward as part of a larger community, with an open mind, compassionate heart, acceptance of the conditioning of ourselves and others, and the need to become agents of change. Zayda Vallejo, MLitt is Co-founder and Executive Director of The HeartWell Institute in Worcester, MA. A Certified MBSR instructor, for the past 20 years Zayda has been teaching classes, mentoring professionals, and conducting trainings in MBSR at the UMass Center for Mindfulness, the Mindfulness Center at Brown University, the Center for Mindfulness and Compassion at Cambridge Health Alliance at Harvard University Medical School, the Center for Mindfulness at UCSD, and Mindfulness Kids Miami. She teaches 5- and 7- day MBSR guided silent retreats. She also holds a 200-hour Yoga Teacher Certification from the Kripalu School of Yoga. Zayda is a co-author of Treating Co-Occurring Adolescent PTSD and Addiction: Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy for Adolescents with Trauma and Substance-Abuse Disorders, and Moment-to-Moment in Women’s Recovery: A Mindfulness-Based Relapse Prevention Program. Zayda designed the “Mindfulness Immersion” training program, which she has taught for the past six years to educators, psychologists, and social workers. She is co-author of the Compassionate Consciousness Framework and the “Mindfulness as a Catalyst for Equity and Collective Healing” training program.