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Vassilis Xypolias
MBSR Teacher, CFM/UMASS & Mindfulness Coach

My journey to mindfulness

My main academic background is in marketing, holding an MBA from the University of Bridgeport, USA. Until 2013 and for twenty-five years, I worked in the marketing communications field running also my own company abroad. During that period, I gained extensive experience and understanding of how human mind works and the influence beliefs, thoughts and feelings exert in the way we perceive, act and experience life.

Around 2009 due to personal life difficulties, I began to learn more and better understand the applications and benefits of mindfulness. The turning point for my decision to fully immerse and commit to mindfulness came when I had the unique chance to met and work with Jon Kabat-Zinn while participating in one of his workshops. After a series of formal studies, international workshops and professional training programs including a semester in Buddhist psychology at the Kathmandu University (Rangjung Yeshe Institute), in 2015 I acquired authorization to teach the Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program of the Centre For Mindfulness and Medical School of the University of Massachusetts.

With Jon Kabat Zinn

Today, my effort and focus is to support the cultivation and integration of mindfulness into our lives as a means of healing, knowledge, change and growth. To teach how we can relate to our experiences with equanimity and an open, more flexible approach for emotional balance and personal growth. To offer a “roadmap” how to access our inner resources for wisdom and compassion to meet skillfully life’s inevitable challenges. Last but not least, "not to forget” (the original meaning of the ancient Pali word “sati” translated as “mindfulness”) that life, is a unique and exciting journey and the only moment we really have to live, to learn and to love, is now!