Owner, instructor, and consultant

With over 30 years experience in Healthcare and Human Service from front line service in acute adult mental health, adolescent trauma, psychosocial oncology to the C-suite in Ethics and Spiritual Care, Dawn holds certification as a trainer and a teacher of Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) from the University of Massachusetts Medical School, the birthplace of MBSR. As someone familiar with the striving of being a healthcare provider, she sought out Dr. Kristin Neff in 2010 and she and her husband were part of the original cohort of trained teachers in Mindful Self Compassion (MSC) and one of the first to pilot MSC in healthcare. Her commitment to excellence took her to Stanford University where she completed Compassion Cultivation Training. A natural leader, she was invited by Janice Marturano, Founder, Institute for Mindful Leadership to be a senior instructor. Committed to awakening more and more to anti-oppressive ways of being, Dawn is a social worker learning and unlearning the ways colonization has perpetuated harm and is investigating the ways mindfulness practice can inspire a more just and loving world. She is currently working with Dr. Michael Yellow Bird at the University of Manitoba to establish a Center for Mindful Decolonization and Reconciliation.

Michael Collins McIntyre, BA, PhD

July 11, 1947 - November 5, 2022 (see obituary here)

In loving memory of our beloved, Michael, we welcome you to take a moment with his words:

May I, you, we, know joy
even in the midst of the struggles…
May I, you, we, occasion joy as often as possible,
May I, you, we, live in the safety of kindness always.

A highly accomplished award-winning professor, researcher, and administrator. Dr. Michael McIntyre, Dean Emeritus at the University of Winnipeg served as the Research Program Leader with the Compassion Project at the St. Boniface Hospital Research Centre. His impressive legacy of research includes more than 40 refereed journal articles and 55 conference presentations and informal publications. He also served as an Affiliated Scientist and Program Leader of the Functional Neuroimaging Program at the National Research Council of Canada, and has supervised doctoral and post-doctoral students in psychology, neuropsychology, neurophysiology, linguistics, radiology, and physics. A trained teacher of MSC and MBSR and Compassion for Couples, his teachings were infused with the warmth and power of stories. Personally familiar with the burdens of chronic illness, he could not imagine a definition of health that doesn't include being able to be kind to oneself. Proud Papa to 4 beautiful grandchildren, and Dad to 6 adult children and their partners, together with Dawn, they shared their lives with their loving rescue dog, June.