From the Classroom to the Cushion
Before Erin Easton became the calming voice of KVNF's Mindful Reflections, she spent eleven years in the classroom as a language teacher. It was while completing her master's degree in Switzerland that everything shifted. A serious back injury sent her searching for relief — and she found it in meditation.
That experience led her to study mindfulness in Zurich's international schools, and eventually to Plum Village — the French monastery of the late Vietnamese Zen master Thích Nhất Hạnh — where she attended retreats and workshops. She returned to Colorado energized, developing brain science and mindfulness programs in schools in Bayfield and Durango before moving to Montrose six years ago to run her coaching practice full-time.
New Leaf, New Chapter
Today, Easton operates New Leaf Mindfulness Coaching out of a studio behind her home in Montrose. She offers individual coaching, group classes, and nature retreats — and she's published three books drawing on her own path through injury, emotional healing, and mindful living. Her most recent, Mindfully Freeing Ourselves from Emotional Abuse, grows out of experiences she traces back to childhood.
Central to her work is a connection she believes most people overlook — the link between emotional life and the body. Unprocessed pain, she says, doesn't disappear. It finds somewhere to live.
A More Mindful World
Nearly three years into her Mindful Reflections partnership with KVNF, Easton says she keeps doing this work because she's seen what it can do — in herself, and in others. She believes people who heal their own wounds become kinder, more peaceful — and that ripples outward.
You can learn more about Erin Easton and New Leaf Mindfulness Coaching at newleafmindfulness.com. Mindful Reflections airs weekly on KVNF, and past episodes can be found at https://www.kvnf.org/show/mindful-reflections.
