Stephanie Swann

Stephanie Swann, PhD, LCSW, is a mindfulness and dharma teacher based in the Atlanta community. For more than thirty years she worked as a psychotherapist specializing in trauma, supporting others in the process of healing and remembering their innate wholeness. In 2022 she retired from her psychotherapy practice and now devotes her life to practicing and sharing the Dharma and teaching mindfulness.

Her own path changed in 2008, when she took an eight-week Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction course. She noticed less reactivity, more equanimity, and a heart opening to others and to life. Asking whether there was more, she turned to the Buddha's teachings and began living the Noble Eightfold Path. She calls the Dharma her north star.

She is a certified MBSR instructor through the University of Massachusetts Medical School's Center for Mindfulness, an Atlanta Mindfulness Institute instructor, and a guiding teacher with the Atlanta Insight Meditation Community. Her practice and teaching are rooted in the Thai Forest tradition, especially the wisdom of Ajahn Chah, and in Early Buddhism through the work of Venerable Analayo. She has been individually mentored by Taraniya Gloria Ambrosia, Donald Rothberg, and Noliwe Alexander.

Her personal practice centers on Satipatthāna, mindfulness grounded in embodied awareness, and Ānāpānasati, mindfulness of breathing, along with the Brahmavihāras of loving-kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity. She offers individual instruction and consultation, and group courses that include MBSR, the Noble Eightfold Path, the Four Foundations of Mindfulness, gratitude, and a year-long exploration of the Brahmavihāras. Her guided meditations range from concentration practice to choiceless awareness.

Service is at the heart of her work. In her words, "we awaken together, one mindful breath, one open heart at a time."