Stephanie Romero wants to make everybody in Pittsburgh feel better. The Cedar Boulevard resident is the founder and executive director of Awaken Pittsburgh, a nonprofit organization that promotes mindfulness and meditation.
“People, especially our young people and the parents who support them, are trying to figure out how to feel better,” she said. “Everybody wants to be healthy and happy, but we don’t learn how to do that in the healthiest way.”
Romero founded Awaken Pittsburgh in 2016 after a long career as an educator in both public schools and at the University of Pittsburgh. She was already a regular meditator, but was motivated to bring it to a larger audience after learning of research showing that mindfulness and meditative practices had a positive impact on at-risk youth in Chicago.
Her aim in founding Awaken Pittsburgh was to reduce stress and increase mental health and wellbeing. Although her original target was schoolchildren and teachers, Romero quickly discovered that the need was greater.
“I saw that we were too narrow in only working with schools,” she said. “Basically now what we do is target any population that has high levels of stress and secondary trauma, compassion fatigue or a need for help with social and emotional skills. Meditation and mindfulness are supportive of all these things.”
“All of us can experience more richness in our lives when we bring our awareness to our internal experience.”
This has led Awaken Pittsburgh to offer services to first responders, helping professionals and people with PTSD. Organizations hire Awaken Pittsburgh for nine-week stints to work with teachers and other leaders who are unfamiliar with mindfulness benefits. Awaken Pittsburgh’s website cites reduced stress, decreased emotional reactivity, and less burnout and compassion fatigue as benefits.
“We all have minds that are conditioned to do things that are unhelpful,” said program coordinator Dawn Lehman. “Ultimately we can make conscious choices about what supports our well-being. And doing it with others in community is really key.”
The program can be modified for children. “With adults, we can be abstract. We can just say: ‘Sit and notice your thoughts,’” said Romero. “Kids need something way more tangible than that. So we say: ‘What would happen if the wrong school bus showed up — would you get on that bus? No, we’d wait for another one, they say.’
“So we point out that you can choose which bus to get on and which not to get on. They get a sheet with pictures of buses and we write words on those buses: Scary monster, birthday party, A on your test, growling dog. And then we verbalize about their feelings about those. We give them a different way to work with their emotions and thoughts.”
“Stephanie is a phenomenal person,” said Lehman. “She has such a clear vision. She really does strive for her own integrity. She lives her values and passions, which include a world that is better for all of us. She’s always thinking about how do we partner in genuine reciprocal ways with communities that are in need.”
Awaken Pittsburgh also offers classes at the JCC in Squirrel Hill and in Scott Township. Classes are free, although donations are accepted. People curious about meditation can attend an open session, in person or online. The open meditations schedule is available at awakenpittsburgh.org.