We were lucky to catch up with JESSICA Crow recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, JESSICA thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Have you ever experienced a times when your entire field felt like it was taking a U-Turn?

Pre-pandemic I was focused on teaching wellness to individuals in person. I commuted to clients who could afford private lessons and business that wanted corporate workshops, I traveled around the country to teach continuing education and speak at conferences, and I traveled overseas to train the wellbeing staff at hotels and spas. Like so many people, I realized quickly the value of virtual classrooms and how it was especially easy to teach mindfulness and meditation in an online format. While my plans had actually been to recreate my business into a spa and hospitality consulting and training business just before Covid hit, I did a U turn right back to teaching individuals and groups— but now I was able to teach more people in more locations than ever from my home studio.
I started to consider how I could reach the most people and share the benefits of meditation as widely as possible. I had helped train groups of yoga teachers in the past and I knew if I could do the same online with meditation, I’d be helping to spread meditation and mindfulness far and wide as my new teachers went out and shared with their communities and online. The potential reach was exciting, and so I created the online CNTRD Meditation Teacher Training.
Now it’s very rare that I see a client or student one-on-one in person. I spend my time creating online programs and trainings for both the everyday meditator and new teachers, therapists, and coaches, teaching online classes and workshops, and mentoring budding meditation guides.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I’ve been a wellness leader for over 20 years now— giving instruction in mindfulness, meditation, yoga, breathwork and massage therapy to individuals and groups, both live and virtually. I use my knowledge across multiple healing arts and my personal & professional studies in neuroscience, biology and philosophy to create one of a kind, effective healing protocols for anyone looking to improve their health, personal insight and awareness, and the quality of their everyday life.

Through my classes, recorded sessions, and book (The Power of Guided Meditation 2021), I aim to help people manage their stress and anxiety, get more in tune with their bodies and their bodies’ messages, forge a deeper relationship with their intuitive guidance, find sleep better, create more from their heart, have better relationships— and much more. The power of meditation is vast but surprisingly accessible. I’ve been using these tools for over two decades as a method of self exploration, self development, and personal healing on my own path. So I stand behind the transformative power they hold.

I’ve instructed students and helped train teachers in NYC (including years of immersions with Sri Dharma Mittra of Dharma Yoga) and around the world in mindful living and the development of compassion, intuition, and holistic self care using meditation and self awareness. And now I’m going bigger. I’m passionate about my mission to spread the healing and clarity that meditative practices can bring to us all. I recently launched the online CNTRD Meditation Teacher and CNTRD Yoga Nidra Trainings which prepare new teachers to share essential tools, but also act as online immersions for anyone who wants to deepen their personal practice, restore their health, and reshape their life. I’m also growing a community online by offering free and donation-based meditation classes to anyone around the world.

My classes and trainings incorporate techniques from the ancient science of yoga and meditation, modern-day Western medicine and evidence-based psychology and neuroscience. I have a degree in human biology with a focus in behavioral neuroscience (including personalized studies in meditation and mindfulness) and a degree in health sciences. I’ve completed numerous yoga teacher trainings with several teachers, as well as decades of self-study in philosophy, psychology and meditation. My experience in mind-body work sets me apart from other meditation teachers and helps me create more immersive content, and tools that are effective on multiple levels.

If you could go back, would you choose the same profession, specialty, etc.?

I absolutely would choose the same profession! But… I would go at it with more dedication and focus, and confidence. Although I’ve been running CNTRD Wellness (fka CenteredNYC) for over a decade, I didn’t give it the attention that I do now. I didn’t realize its potential to touch people around the world until my first book was written. The Power of Guided Meditation book (Fair Winds Press 2021) was a launching pad to the worldwide clientele connection. The feedback helped me see more clearly that humans on every continent, from every background, culture and religion, all suffer from similar ailments of body and mind. We all share similar struggles and the practice of meditation and mindfulness can alleviate many of them, helping us reconnect to our own internal knowledge, and helping us grow the tools to connect our communities as well.
I actually created a meditation app some years back that had the technology to advise which practices to try depending on your mood (this hadn’t been done yet). I wrote meditations, recorded them professionally, drew up a business plan, wireframe, and everything else that was needed to get funding and begin. But after one let down with a potential investor/ partner, I gave up. I didn’t have the confidence around business and finance to step fully into my project, and for that I lost an absolutely incredible opportunity.
Now that I’ve had a crash course in business through my recent scholarship program with Cornell University (Women’s Business and Entrepreneurship), I’m ready to go all-in with building my current venture, which is to expand my meditation teacher trainings worldwide, growing the number of teachers and classes available to communities of ALL kinds, so that collectively we can have an impact on the state of global mental health.

Training and knowledge matter of course, but beyond that what do you think matters most in terms of succeeding in your field?

I think self confidence and networking are essential for a successful business of any kind. And they go hand in hand. You have to believe in your product/ service and its benefits, of course. But you have to believe in your vision even more. And being open to revising your vision as new information comes in is paramount. Open mind, open ears.
Your network holds many keys to your success, whether through connections, clients, market insights and fresh ideas, or just unbiased, objective feedback. When you are self assured you can listen to suggestions and comments and hold them up to your current vision and see what complements it, or see which could potentially help you move forward even more quickly in a novel way.
Meditation and mindfulness have been shown to make people more open-minded, so my own practice also helps with building the business. As above, so below.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.CNTRDwellness.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cntrd_wellness/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CNTRDwellness
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessica-c-4386a18/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/CNTRDwellness
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@cntrdmeditation
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/cntrd-wellness-new-york