Lessons on Moving Through Change, Loss, and Disruption

We all go through times when it feels like the ground is being pulled out from underneath us and what we relied on as steady and solid may change or even appear to vanish. Not only are loss and separation painful, but even positive changes can cause great stress. Yet life is full of change: birth, death, marriage, divorce, a new relationship, losing or starting a job, beginning a new phase in life or ending one. Change is stressful, even when it is much desired or anticipated. The unknown can feel scary and threatening.

Experienced mindfulness teacher Kaira Jewel Lingo provides accessible advice on navigating difficult times of transition by drawing on Buddhist teachings on impermanence to help us establish equanimity and resilience. Her latest book, We Were Made for These Times, dives into her work, providing essential teaching and meditation, unfolding a step-by-step process to nurture deeper freedom and stability in daily life.

In this era of global disruption—where threats to our individual, social, and planetary safety abound—life can feel overwhelming. Kaira Jewel’s work provides us with powerful ways to meet life's challenges with wisdom, resilience, and ease. The time-honored teachings that Kaira shares help us develop presence and compassion, supporting us to release the fear, doubt, and resistance that hold us back.

Join CIIS Integrative Health Studies professor Megan Lipsett for a conversation with Kaira Jewel about her teaching and her latest book, and learn how to move through change, loss, and disruption to find both freedom and stability. 

Copies of Kaira Jewel's book is available for preorder at checkout.


Kaira Jewel Lingo is a Dharma teacher with a lifelong interest in blending spirituality and meditation with social justice. Having grown up in an ecumenical Christian community where families practiced a new kind of monasticism and worked with the poor, at the age of twenty-five she entered a Buddhist monastery in the Plum Village tradition and spent fifteen years living as a nun under the guidance of Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh. She became a Zen teacher in 2007, and is also a teacher in the Vipassana Insight lineage through Spirit Rock Meditation Center. Today she sees her work as a continuation of the Engaged Buddhism developed by Thich Nhat Hanh as well as the work of her parents, inspired by their stories and her dad’s work with Martin Luther King Jr. on desegregating the South. Now based in New York, she teaches and leads retreats internationally, provides spiritual mentoring, and interweaves art, play, nature, racial and earth justice, and embodied mindfulness practice in her teaching. She especially feels called to share the Dharma with Black, Indigenous, and People of Color, as well as activists, educators, youth, artists, and families.


Megan Lipsett is a CIIS core faculty in the Integrative Health studies department, where she teaches courses such as "Mindfulness and Stress Physiology" and "Sustainable Health and Ecological Resilience". Megan holds an MA in Integrative Health Studies from CIIS and is a doctoral candidate in Social Health Psychology, conducting research in the Social Affective Neuroscience Lab. As a research psychologist, Megan examines how our perceptions impact physiology (such as inflammatory biomarkers and cortisol), social connection, and long-term health behaviors underlying noncommunicable diseases. Megan has extensive training in Yoga Philosophy and Ayurveda, including a yoga therapy teacher training ("Yog Pravesh") from Yoga Vidya Dham in Nasik, India with Guruji Dr. Vishwas Mandlik. Megan has studied Ayurveda, the "science of life", with Dr. Sarita Shrestha, MD, Dr. Scott Blossom, and Jennifer Taylor. Megan's personal meditation and mindfulness practice is rooted in the Vipassana tradition. Megan has a thriving integrative health coaching practice and is the founder of COPIA Health, a company dedicated to teaching integrative, mindful, and sustainable lifestyle practices for individual, community, and environmental flourishing. Megan has done program development and facilitation for diverse organizations, including integrative medicine centers, transitional women's homes, social worker training centers, environmental awareness groups, benefit corporations, and health and wellness centers. Megan's courses focus on both experiential and scientific knowledge, supporting students in establishing meditative practices, integral lifestyle practices, social and cultural awareness, personal and community empowerment.

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