Marie Sheppard is a long-time mindfulness and focusing practitioner who is passionate about sharing practices that help people improve their lives. Her interest in teaching these awareness practices was first kindled by the benefits she experienced from applying the practices in her own life—both professionally and personally. Now, over 20 years later, Sheppard teaches the caregiver’s conundrum: how to care for oneself while caring for others.

Sheppard believes that her mindfulness practices have helped her to be present, brave, and resilient, especially during challenging moments working in international development (primarily in sub-Saharan Africa), and in her role as wife, mother, and as a daughter of aging parents. She practices the traditions of Thich Nhat Hanh, a Buddhist monk and global spiritual leader, and received the Dharma name “Joyful Path of the Heart” from him in 2003.

Sheppard spent 25 years at the World Bank, including six years living in Zambia. She returned to D.C. to manage the World Bank’s Innovation Lab, a global unit that sought to learn about and leverage new approaches to some of the world’s most intractable problems. Sheppard has an MBA from Harvard Business School and a certificate in inner relationship focusing from the International Focusing Institute.