Mindfulness through an Equity Lens: Building Bridges with Michelle Maldonado

When viewed through an equity lens, mindfulness helps us connect with others and overcome unconscious biases.

In this episode, Michelle Maldonado encourages us to explore mindfulness not merely as a personal practice, but as a way of being in the world. When viewed from an equity lens, mindfulness becomes a powerful tool for transforming our judgment, unconscious bias and (often unintentional) microaggressions into opportunities for curiosity, introspection, and connection. Today’s topics include moving from judgment to curiosity, cultivating inner awareness to remove blind spots, and how to truly be anti-racist.

Mindfulness and emotional intelligence educator Michelle Maldonado is a former corporate and tech attorney turned CEO of Lucenscia, a global firm dedicated to human flourishing and mindful business transformation. Michelle has worked with the world’s most powerful organizations in the education, industry and government sectors, with the goal of ​​elevating human consciousness and alleviating suffering. Her most recent compassion project "A Bridge to Better" centers on an open letter to humanity. In it, Michelle and her family call on us to courageously co-create the conditions for social and racial justice. This action begins with mindfulness.

This talk is a brief excerpt of Michelle Maldonado’s live presentation to our Mindfulness Teacher Trainees. You can access the full recording and learn more about that program at teach.mindfulnessexercises.com

Find Michelle and additional resources for mindful connection at abridge2better.com

Welcome to the Mindfulness Exercises Podcast. If you find these episodes valuable, I’d be grateful if you left a 5-star review. As a thank-you, I’ll send you free access to The Complete Mindfulness Toolkit — everything you need to deepen mindfulness and make a greater impact. Just leave the review and let me know, and I’ll send it your way. Thank you for helping us share mindfulness with others.

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Mindfulness Exercises with Sean Fargo is a practical, grounded mindfulness podcast for people who want meditation to actually help in real life.

Hosted by Sean Fargo — a former Buddhist monk, mindfulness teacher, and founder of MindfulnessExercises.com — this podcast explores how mindfulness can support mental health, emotional regulation, trauma sensitivity, chronic pain, leadership, creativity, and meaningful work.

Each episode offers a mix of:

• Practical mindfulness and meditation teachings
• Conversations with respected meditation teachers, clinicians, authors, and researchers
• Real-world insights for therapists, coaches, yoga teachers, educators, and caregivers
• Gentle reflections for anyone navigating stress, anxiety, burnout, grief, or change

If you’re interested in:

• Mindfulness meditation for everyday life
• Trauma-sensitive and compassion-based practices
• Teaching mindfulness in an authentic, non-performative way
• Deepening your own practice while supporting others

…you’re in the right place.

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