My name is: Shira Myrow.

I’m known for being: I am a psychotherapist who specializes in relationships and couples. I’m also a meditation teacher and curriculum director of programming at Evenflow meditation.

I'm helping to launch: Evenflow, an innovative mindfulness and meditation company that combines secular meditations with psychological insights.

You can find it at: Evenflow.io and iTunes.

What makes it special is: Evenflow is really a next generation approach to meditation. Instead of vague meditations that help you feel generally more calm or present, our team of therapists and mentors have created a program that not only gives you a great foundation if you’re a beginner, but helps you right where you’re struggling: with sleep, stress, anxiety, relationships, addictive behaviors or challenges at work.

We help listeners take their mindfulness practice off the cushion and apply it throughout their day. Meditation and mindfulness become much more powerful tools for well-being when they are integrated into a practice that helps you dive into the deeper questions. All of our challenges are doorways into self-awareness and self-development. Our mentorship program can help guide users with a live coach who customizes a unique program according to each person’s specific needs.

One thing you can’t miss is: We just released a mindful eating and mindful body image series that we think are wonderful starting points for redefining your relationship to food. It’s really difficult to move away from unhealthy and unconscious behaviors and attitudes and toward a more conscious relationship to what is truly nourishing and sustaining—both mentally and physically.

The first step is learning how to use compassionate inquiry. Evenflow meditations really help you understand how to do that. For example, you might ask: Is the way I treat my body truly compassionate? Am I present with myself? Am I exercising to punish my body and beat it into an impossible ideal or am I eating to numb out? These series explore how we can start to move into an ethic of self-care versus perfectionism or self-improvement.

Your body will thank you because: There have been over 3,000 clinical studies on the powerful effects of meditation on the mind and the body. A regular meditation practice reduces stress and depression, builds resilience and self-acceptance and decreases anxiety and emotional reactivity. It also increases impulse-control, self-awareness and compassion and helps improve immune functioning and sleep. The list goes on and on. There are so many benefits if you practice long term.