I grew up in Detroit neighborhoods selected by my parents for their mix of Jewish, Black and other cultural identities.  I am the second of a rollicking sibship of five that was and is, challenging, stimulating, educational, aggravating, appreciative and caring.  I knew by age six that I wanted to be, “a lady-doctor and a ballerina on my day off.” Moving my body was a need and a joy expressed through swimming, dancing, hiking, cycling, canoeing, horseback riding, and skiing.  A love of teaching manifested as I tried to pass along my passions in my roles as big sister, camp counselor and would-be pet trainer.

I’m a proud graduate of Cass Technical High School, a premier Detroit public school.  During my first year at University of Michigan, I worked Saturday nights on the assembly line at the Ford Rouge Complex building Mustang IIs.  The summer after my Junior year I fell in love while working at Detroit Memorial Hospital.  He was an older man (by two and a half years) and ready to get married.  While I didn’t think anyone got married anymore, I was smitten and agreed.  Forty-three years later, I can say that it was the best decision of my life.

Between marriage, medicine, and soon thereafter, motherhood, I found myself living “the Full Catastrophe” in all its intensity.  In 1994, my first breast cancer slowed me down for a bit but it took a worse breast cancer in 1999 to really make me pause.  And it wasn’t just the cancer, in the subsequent year: the oldest of my three children fell seriously ill; my dad (my mentor in medicine) died; my job was eliminated; and we had to move out of our house due to renovations gone awry.

It was hard to live what happened next and impossible to summarize it other than to say, I gave up, I got help and I began again.  

That early joy of moving my body and maybe the ballerina dream manifested in learning yoga and cycling lots of miles with friends.  The love of teaching pulled me into yoga teacher training and teaching yoga to breast cancer survivors.  I discovered MBSR and learned to practice this too. The surgeons who had treated me hired me to practice alongside them, as an internist specializing in breast health and disease. 

Little by little I grew as a student, teacher and researcher of mindfulness, including Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction.  I developed and lead the Beaumont Center for Mindfulness (BCFM) which offers evidence-based mindfulness training for all adults including mixed populations of patients, health care workers and families.  The BCFM is represented by a lion, symbolizing the characteristics of Courage, Compassion, Clarity and Community and in memory of Aryeh, my eldest child.  His name means lion. He died in 2010.  His memory is a blessing.  My practice is dedicated to him and to all who suffer.  May we all give up, get help and begin again.