The MFJS Reporter — Winter 2020 M-W

Inquisitively floating through her living room, Molly Woodhull readjusted furniture and tidied before settling down on the couch of her home beneath a lamp illuminating her welcoming smile. This smile sees and speaks with handfuls of people each day, as a guide. Woodhull is not your typicalguide, however; she communicates with people to elevate themselves in the business world through intentional mindfulness practices. 

University of Denver Alum, Woodhull, has taken what she learned at the DU to create a business unique to her personal abilities. Woodhull started a business as a corporate mindfulness coach, hired by businesses like Bumble, WeWork, and Boulder Community Health to train their workforce to be moreeffective.

“We provide mindfulness and compassion-based meditation as tools to help employees feel cared for, learn how to manage stress and anxiety and also become more productive and better communicators within their work environments,” she explained.

Mindfulness coaching is by no means a standard 9 to 5 job. A typical day for Woodhull ranges from seeing one-on-one clients, working with Denver Pubic Schools, instructing at Boulder Community Health, attending workshops, then coming home to practice the tools for stress mitigation she spent the day teaching.

One of Woodhull’s main job focuses is creating an effective community in the workplace.

“The other day I was at boulder community health and I taught a neurosurgeon, a nurse, and a janitor all in the same class. They didn’t often interact. Bits of the hospital were all together communicating,” she explained.

Woodhull described her motivation for work as a calling. Quite literally, in a sense, her career began when she received a call to teach a mediation class at the University of Denver. After the meditationsession she felt a true sense of purpose and the very next day created Woodhull Wellness Incorporated.

She defined mindfulness, the concept for which her teaching is focused, as an awareness of our mind’s proclivity to wander.

“Each day, not ruminating about the past or fretting about the future. Being able to focus on the task at hand without your mind wandering to all the different agenda items on the checklist,” she said.

The practice of mindfulness meditation is an ancient tradition dating back to fifth century BC Buddhism. As the concept of meditation was brought into the fold of modern American society, a demand for such teachers rose. Though, the sessions for trendy tech companies, with employees who spend the majority of their day building the future of social media, differ from the ancient Buddhist practices.

Woodhull mentioned even sessions within a hospital look very different from what she the work she does at the trendy phone accessory company Pop Sockets.

“I round with doctors and nurses at the hospital, talk about the science behind the practice and I’lllead everyone in a meditation and come back the next week. Which is very different from what I might do at a place like pop socket that’s really hip and cool. We do lunch and learns or do one-on-onecoaching.,” she said.

Careers in wellness often encompass a long list of practices namely yoga, meditation, physical therapy, and counseling. More recently, his type of mindfulness practice in business has been referred to asneuro-coaching, a practice of aiding the uncovering of layers of thought within our brains. The job is foundationally rooted in communicating scientific research. Many mindfulness coaches have a background in medicine, teaching, and psychology and typically make around $58,000 annually.

Woodhull who studied psychology, business, biology, and communications at DU, expressed gratitude for being able to put her skills to practice.

“I will teach and come out of it every single time and feel energized, like I’ve done something meaningful and fun. After work I feel better, calmer, and more excited,” she said.

At the core, however, Woodhull is running a startup business. She referenced the remarks she’s received from others assuming because of her job title she doesn’t experience stresses in the workplace.

“Understanding how to scale my business it my biggest stressor right now,” she said.

The workplace is one of the main sources of stress and anxiety in the average American’s life, with yoga and meditation increasingly becoming a top method for management. Mindfulness coaching in the office offers a solution to the workplace stresses of the business world.

The conversation with Woodhull alone, was enough to inspire incorporating mindfulness into every day.