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non-judgment & Describing Application
Chapter Four
susan west
Owner and General Manager of M2 Wellbeing, LLC
Before starting her own company grounded in mindfulness practice, Susan West was introduced to the idea through a friend after enduring an injury and some other stressors in her personal life. She was “out of the game” for 4 months, not going to work, not caring for her family, nor handling her daily schedule. She felt physically miserable. Once she heard about the concept of mindfulness and did some research, Susan made up her mind that she was going to try some exercises and see what the potential benefits could be. It was an intellectual decision that lead her to taking a mindfulness based stress reduction course, “the gold standard in modern mindfulness training.” This class further deepened her convictions about the practice as she found a sense of gratitude in the midst of her painful experience. Gratitude for her husband and family, gratitude for health insurance and access to medicine and procedures, gratitude for the medical team and the space and time to heal.
gratitude for health insurance and access to medicine and procedures, gratitude for the medical team and the space and time to heal. This painful experience blossomed into integrating mindfulness as a lifestyle and eventually starting her own company called M2 Well-being. M2 Well-being is a mobile studio designed to bring practice based approaches to educate and inspire employees to “train their brain” and improve their health, productivity, and creativity while building workplace relationships and community. Susan believes the best way to practice mindfulness is to apply it: “It’s one thing to have a lunch and learn to find out how great Zumba is for you and then it’s a totally different thing to actually do Zumba. It’s the same thing with practicing mindfulness.”