xvACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire.—St. Catherine of Siena^1When contemplating how the writing of a book is possible, I think of the pinecone sitting—
without growth—on the shelf at work. It has been a few years since I first found that old
pinecone at the lake and brought it to work. Day after day it sits, not growing at all. That
pinecone reminds me that seeds without soil, water, and love don’t grow. It is the support all
around us that creates the context in which dreams can thrive, even bear fruit. From a seed
of an idea to the fruit of a book, I have so many to thank.
There are numerous people who played an integral role in the creation of this book.
First, thank you to Jerry Cottone, Chloe Cottone, and Maya Cottone, who agreed (in a tight
vote) that they would let me write another book. Thank you! More specifically, thank you
for all of the grocery shopping, dinner cooking, and comedic and dramatic relief you gave
me so that I could write. I love you guys.
I would like to thank Nancy Hale, who shared my vision and worked with me to
create the proposal. Once the idea and the contract were in place, I had a host of helpers.
A big thank you to Janel Anthony, a rehabilitation counselor (then a student), who helped
me collect and organize hundreds of articles on mindfulness and yoga. She did all of this
with a smile and the thoughtfulness that comes with multicolored tabs and gigantic bind-
ers. Thank you also to Heather Cahill, Jillian Cherry, and Rebeccah Sivecz for your hard
work searching for mindfulness and yoga programs in schools. As always, thank you to
Christopher Hollister, associate librarian at the University at Buffalo, State University of
New York, and seeker of quote origins and citations extraordinaire.
Critical to my research trajectory and forthcoming work, Lindsay Travers, elementary
school teacher, Melissa LaVigne, social worker, and Erga Lemish, doctoral student, helped
to bring together research on trauma-informed yoga, creating our first set of Principles for
Growth for our work with Yogis in Service, Inc. (see yogisinservice.org). These principles
helped to inform the Principles of Embodied Growth and Learning created for this book.
I can’t wait to see what is next for these bright and motivated young women.
Thank you to Madison Weber, photographer, and Kayla Tiedmann, mindfulness and
yoga model. I also extend a second note of appreciation to Lindsay Travers, who read each
manuscript page, making sure we caught all of the typos and that the words made sense.
(^1) “Be who God meant you to be,” said Anglican Bishop of London Richard Chartres, citing St. Catherine of
Siena in his address to the royal wedding couple Prince William and Kate Middleton at Westminster Abbey on
April 29, 2011 (Bishop of London’s amazing speech to William and Kate, Johannes 1721/YouTube, retrieved from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1vh-zWt9h8).