The HYHTM Leadership Circle has been meeting monthly since December 2021, serving to envision the community, support our volunteers, and attend administratively to our community development.
We recently welcomed two new members serving as priestesses: Eden and Katie are saying prayers each week for our community, an especially helpful gift for those who are healing from trauma.
Andrea is the creator of the Heal Your Heart Through Meditation program and founder of the community. She is a wise, brave and caring woman who has integrated deep personal healing with strong academic training, healing arts training, social justice activism, and work with clients for the past 20 years. Andrea is a catalyst for change. She works globally to invoke healing and authentic spirituality. Her passion is empowering people to heal from trauma and live their full potential. Her work has been documented in high-profile publications such as the front page of The New York Times and in Newsweek, The Guardian, and The Columbia Journalism Review. She has been interviewed on NPR, CBC Radio and CBC TV.
I live in Bristol, England, and I have four grown up children. I qualified in medicine in 1980, and after working as a junior doctor in England and overseas, specialised in Public Health, practising mainly in the sphere of health screening programmes and services to help those affected by cancer – ranging from tobacco control through to end of life care. As well as my local role in Bristol, I have worked as a Consultant to the UK National Screening Programmes since 1996 and am lead author of what in England is affectionately called ‘the screening bible’ (Screening; evidence and practice OUP 2019 2nd edition). In 2008 I became involved in the Transition Towns movement, leading me to shift my public health work to helping create a more sustainable and ethical food culture and system within the Bristol region. I helped set up The Community Farm in the Chew Valley and I chair the Farm’s management committee. I was a member of the Bristol Shambhala group from 2016 (until 2019), leading me to become involved in Buddhist Project Sunshine as a volunteer helper from 2018.
Eden has powerfully integrated corporate work experience with extensive healing and yoga training and experience. She has been working for a corporation for the last 12 years. Her yoga and energy work training have helped her to manage her well-being and be an exceptional mother to her 10 year old son, even as she is an effective Project Manager for her employer.
At the young age of 21, Eden discovered yoga and has deeply engaged with yogic principles since that time. Yoga and meditation enabled her to build acute body awareness and deep trauma healing from her abusive childhood. She then began training and practicing energy work in 2005. Her energy work is a blend of Reiki, Angel Healing & Alchemy (certification through Calista Ascension Angel Healing® - Calista Ascension) and Soul Healing which is a Pleiadean healing modality taught by Eva Marquez (Eva Marquez – Spiritual Consultant, Healer and Author). Soul Healing is a combination of intuitive consulting and energy healing to target trauma or wounds developed from current or past life trauma; it heals them so that an individual can clear karma and move on with their ascension (enlightenment). Eden also works closely with the violet flame.
Eden became aware of past life Priestess work through her Soul Healing apprenticeship. She was able to heal past and present soul wounds which allowed her to remember and expand her awareness of her higher self and who she really is beyond this lifetime. She has since taken a Priestess role working in collaboration with Andrea Winn.
Katie has always been passionate about the unique role of spirituality in people’s lives and overall wellbeing. She is a spiritual care practitioner trained through the Canadian Association for Spiritual Care (CASC), and has worked for four years in a long-term care facility specializing in complex dementia and palliative care in Calgary, AB. She has a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in Religious Studies and a Master of Divinity from Regis College at the University of Toronto.
Katie has been involved in the Heal Your Heart Through Meditation Community for many years through her friendship with Andrea. As a survivor of life-threatening mental illness whose own healing was grounded in a trauma-informed approach to spirituality, Katie has found deep resonance with and benefit from the trauma-informed approach to meditation that lies at the core of the HYHTM community. She says, “I feel deeply honoured to offer prayerful support as a priestess in the Leadership Circle.”