21-Day Challenge: Meet the Teachers
Sara Flitner
Sara Flitner is the founder and president of Becoming Jackson Whole. After practicing meditation for many years, Sara developed a particular interest in the neuroscience of mindfulness and how attention training might better equip leaders to solve problems. She founded Becoming Jackson Whole with a vision for a community where the majority of us have a greater capacity for empathy, compassion, and resilience.
Brittany Belisle
Brittany Belisle is the newest member of our teaching team and has been practicing yoga and mindfulness since 1999. She committed to a daily meditation practice with her husband 5 years ago when they learned they were going to have two kids under two years old. She appreciates how much more ease, acceptance, and joy this practice brings to her life. You can find her teaching at the new Home Yoga Studio, which she opened in November in the space that was previously Akasha Yoga.
Kirsten Corbett
Kirsten's meditation practice dates back, with fits and starts, to her first religious studies graduate class on Zen Buddhism with Dr. Harold Roth at Brown University. Professor Roth began each class with 30 minutes of zazen meditation. That opened up a whole new world of experiential learning for Kirsten and later seeded a more dedicated practice when she became a proud (and somewhat overwhelmed) mom. Since then Kirsten has studied in India, with Mindful Schools, with The Mindfulness Teacher Training and Certification and Mentor Programs created by Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach, and our Train the Trainers program for Mindfulness-Based Attention Training (MBAT) supported by Dr. Amishi Jha and Scott Rogers.
Thom Kinney
In 2016, shortly before moving to Jackson Hole, Thom read The Emotional Life of Your Brain by Dr. Richard Davidson. The science was fascinating to him, and the message was compelling: through mindfulness practices, it’s possible to develop capabilities in areas such as increased resilience, focused attention, or positive outlook, traits Thom had long thought were hardwired at birth. He started to practice and experience the benefits, then began to teach and coach the principles to others, with a primary focus on leadership.
Elizabeth Martinez
Elizabeth was born and raised in Jackson Hole. For the past four years, she has been a practicing mental health therapist working with Jackson's diverse populations. Elizabeth has been invested in helping her clients and colleagues learn proper emotional and mental well-being, and mindfulness has been a big tool in this journey (both personally and professionally). She hopes to continue her own mindfulness journey and education to help make mindfulness a well-known and accessible tool for all ages and cultural backgrounds.
Sue Mason
Having worked nearly 30 years in health and human services, with a focus on enhancing mental and emotional wellness for clients and colleagues, Sue was a natural addition to Becoming Jackson Whole’s teaching team. She was among our first cohort of instructors certified to teach the two-day Mindfulness-Based Attention Training curriculum.
Vanessa Sulzer
Vanessa has been consistently practicing meditation for about 13 years. She was initially drawn to the practice out of a desire to feel more equilibrium inside herself. After hearing from many teachers how meditation could expand her life in ways she couldn’t imagine, one day she “woke up and was ready for that.” And we are so grateful for it!