Barry Lee, Founder

MBSR, MBCT, MSC, MBCL, Positive Neuroplasticity, Psychotherapy, Yoga

I have worked for over ten years as a corporate and commercial lawyer and have been recommended in the Legal 500 as providing “a first class excellent service” and as “showing an outstanding understanding of clients’ businesses”. I first learned about mindfulness when I was working as a newly qualified solicitor at the height of the “Celtic Tiger”. There was always another big deal around the corner. My life seemed to revolve around late nights, pressure from my bosses and clients, inner pressure and self-doubt, deadlines, and a nagging fear that I had too many plates spinning in the air, and that I would make a mistake.

Unbeknownst to me, I was suffering from chronic low-level stress and I wasn’t equipped with the tools to help me deal with it. My health began to suffer. I experienced panic and anxiety attacks…. all in secret. Showing any form of weakness in the job didn’t seem like a feasible option. So I persevered – constantly ruminating about what needed to be done, what could go wrong, not sleeping, rushing through my life. In all likelihood, the quality of my work also deteriorated.

I was very fortunate at that stage in my life to learn about meditation and more specifically mindfulness. I have practiced meditation almost every day for the last eighteen years.

For a long time, I practiced in secret. I was fearful of the stigma that comes from admitting to colleagues that I was susceptible to stress and that I needed something like mindfulness practice to help me deal with it.

Over the years I have trained, first as a yoga teacher (I am a registered member of Yoga Alliance UK & Ireland and hold RYT Senior Teacher certification), as a mindfulness teacher with the Institute for Mindfulness Based Approaches and more recently as a psychotherapist with the Dublin Counselling and Therapy Centre (University of Northampton). I am fortunate to have trained and studied with some of the most experienced meditation teachers in the world. I am a former chair and founding member of the Mindfulness Teachers Association of Ireland.

I combine my understanding of the challenges of the legal profession with my experience as a mindfulness teacher, psychotherapist and yoga teacher. I know from personal experience that a career in law can be very rewarding but that it can also be stressful. I sincerely hope to meet you in person someday on one of our courses!