Yes, I was just another stressed out Londoner. Busy-ness and exhaustion was my badge of honour. I was infatuated with agitation. As a journalist, novelist and mother of three, I saw life as an uphill battle to be won. Littered with lists, relentless self-criticism and unfavourable comparison.

Until I discovered Mindfulness practice: I immediately gained a decisive, calm, spacious joy and so much extra time that dramatically changed the quality of my daily life.

After meditating for many years, finally, I took the plunge and went to study at the Oxford Mindfulness Centre, Oxford University. I went on to teacher training with the internationally-acclaimed Mindfulness teachers Martin Alyward and Mark Coleman at the Mindfulness Training Institute.

Once you can bring yourself back to being present, conscious and aware of your moment by moment experience, you can so easily navigate the inevitable difficulties, ups and downs that is the stuff of all of our lives.

You have no fear, no anxiety, because you have the ease of knowing you can meet all your experience without resorting to knee-jerk habits and reactions that inevitably hinder rather than help you.

Once you see clearly what is going on in your daily life, you can respond wisely, simply and freely without the narratives and stories we tell ourselves and others to try and make sense of ourselves and our experience.

I really hope that I will have the opportunity to share this simple, yet life changing practice with you.

I work mostly one to one with clients. Focusing of whatever is alive for them, really exploring their experience from the inside and developing a strong Mindfulness practice which allows them to see clearly for themselves what is going on so they can respond more wisely.

Zoom allows me teach across the UK and in other continents: US, Europe and Australia.

I coach mostly regular weekly clients, but also teaches many one-to-one eight-week introductory Mindfulness courses, particularly helpful for those who have, perhaps, tried to practice Mindfulness with Apps and are looking to gain a better understanding of all the basics and to establish a regular practice on their own at home.

My clients range from students to board level executives.

‘Working on mindfulness with Shireen was the best decision that I made in 2020 and it has transformed my outlook. Although I still have a huge amount to learn and to practice, I feel much more able to face the ups and downs in life, particularly the pandemic. Shireen is fantastic on Zoom; the platform feels like it’s perfect for this kind of coaching.’

New York-based corporative exec Anna S.