Hi, I’m Yael.
I’m a meditation teacher and author with more than twenty years of experience, the founder and CEO of Sefira Wellness, and faculty at NYU.
When I was 38, I found myself in the middle of my life, confused about where all the joy went, bereft at the loss of attention in the public sphere, exhausted by all my obligations to family and work, and terrified that the best, most exciting days were behind me.
How I got here
I was born an anxious child and that anxiety continued to grow as I did. I was averaging two panic attacks per week until I discovered meditation in college.
Meditation became the start of a new relationship with my own mind.
One of the most surprising learnings was that underneath my anxiety, there was always a desire asking to be discovered. When I learned to unbury and befriend those desires, they eased the anxiety and handed me back a joy I had stopped believing in.
When I turned forty, the ground moved again. So much of my twenties and thirties was about getting other people to notice me, to decide I was attractive, smart, worthy. Now I felt sidelined in the public eye, drowning in obligations at work and at home, with my real self disappearing each day. I found myself asking, “What has happened to my joy?”
The despair turned out to be fertile ground. Through deepening my meditation practice and studying sages like Audre Lorde, Carl Jung, and Dr. Mark Epstein, I started seeing and feeling myself from the inside out instead of the outside in. I started tapping into my desire and letting it energize me and point me where I was supposed to go. It rose up like a warm, growing light: confidence, clarity, aliveness.
And since nobody else had handed it to me, nobody else could take it away.
It was like being turned on all the time, and not just for sex. It was being turned on for life.
The work I do now
That became the work of my life. I’ve since walked hundreds of students through my framework. These are people who came to me running on fumes, going through the motions, sure that their best years were behind them.
They weren’t. Yours aren’t either.
Where you’ll find my work
I teach at NYU’s Wagner School of Public Service, and I founded Mindful NYU and co-founded NYU’s Global Spiritual Life Center - one of the largest campus-based meditation programs in the country. I’ve also served as Chief Mindfulness Consultant for Procter & Gamble and the Fotografiska museum.
My work has been featured on Good Morning America, CBS News, and Fox 5, and in Time, Real Simple, and the Harvard Business Review. I’m a regular contributor to Happier and a regular instructor at Columbia Law School.
I’m the author of the Nautilus and Mind-Body-Spirit award-winning book: What Now? Meditation for Your Twenties and Beyond (Parallax, 2017), with a new book on the power of desire forthcoming from Diversion Books in 2027.
I also speak, lead workshops, and consult for universities, companies, and conferences, including Yale School of Medicine, Institute for Jewish Spirituality, Quinnipiac University, Columbia Law School, Jewish Federation of New York, University of Hawaii, Wisdom 2.0, Etsy, and Corcoran, among others. If you're looking for a speaker, here's how we can work together.
For organizations: Looking for a speaker, workshop, or consulting support?
For individuals: Start with my free guide, Flip Your Fear.