Heather Prete shared their story and experiences with us recently and you can find our conversation below.
Hi Heather, thank you so much for joining us today. We’re thrilled to learn more about your journey, values and what you are currently working on. Let’s start with an ice breaker: What are you most proud of building — that nobody sees?
That’s a really interesting question for me. The truth is, while the paradigm I use is rooted in a 2,500-year-old contemplative tradition, what I’m most proud of is the way I’ve evolved it into something uniquely my own—an approach I’ve developed over decades of working with clients.
Today, there are psychological interventions—like Internal Family Systems or EMDR—that work with energy and internal dynamics in powerful ways. In a similar spirit, I created a system that allows people to navigate the complexities of internal healing using methods I first cultivated during long silent meditation retreats. Essentially, I’ve translated the profound transformative processes that come from extended contemplative practice into something accessible for people who don’t have the time or inclination to meditate 14 hours a day.
What I’m proudest of is that this work bridges ancient wisdom and modern psychology, giving people a practical, experiential way to access deep healing and self-transformation.
Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
I’m Heather Prete, a UCLA Mindful Awareness Research Center (MARC) affiliate teacher, Mindfulness and Self-Compassion facilitator, and long-time student of both Eastern and Western psychology. For more than 25 years, I’ve dedicated my life to exploring the art of mindful living and helping others heal from the inside out.
My work bridges ancient contemplative wisdom with modern psychological understanding, offering clients a path toward genuine self-awareness, compassion, and emotional resilience. I guide individuals through a process of insight and healing within a compassionate relational space—a practice that allows deep transformation to unfold safely and naturally.
What makes my approach unique is the way I integrate the full breadth of Buddhist psychology with contemporary methods, using compassion as the foundation for all growth. Each meditation practice functions like a different form of medicine, supporting the specific healing someone needs.
Having personally overcome lifelong anxiety through these practices, I’m passionate about helping others experience the same freedom, blending mindfulness, neuroscience, and loving presence into a deeply human and transformative journey.
Thanks for sharing that. Would love to go back in time and hear about how your past might have impacted who you are today. What breaks the bonds between people—and what restores them?
What breaks the bonds between people is the illusion of separateness—the belief that we exist as solid, independent selves. This illusion gives rise to all forms of human suffering. In daily life, we tend to operate in three habitual modes: clinging, aversion, and disconnection.
Clinging is our attempt to hold on to what we desire and make it permanent. Aversion is our resistance to what we dislike or fear. And disconnection is our indifference—the tendency not to see or care about what doesn’t directly affect us. These three modes create what I call “othering.” We begin to see people not as whole beings, but as objects—objects of desire, of irritation, or of irrelevance.
This fragmentation is compounded by the mistaken belief that our personal perception of reality is the reality. When that illusion takes hold, empathy collapses. It becomes easy to justify conflict, war, or the quiet cruelty of emotional withdrawal.
When I work with couples, I help them soften this illusion by inviting curiosity in place of defensiveness. The egoic mind feels deeply threatened by differing points of view because it equates disagreement with annihilation—“if I’m not right, do I even exist?” But when we recognize that many perspectives can coexist without threat, a wellspring of peace opens within us.
This realization dissolves the need to control or convert others and restores the natural bond between hearts. From this understanding arises boundless compassion—the capacity to truly see, accept, and love. When we rest in the truth that there is no danger in diversity of mind or heart, we rediscover the freedom to connect, to forgive, and to love without fear.
What did suffering teach you that success never could?
Suffering taught me everything that success never could. When we suffer, we’re stripped of the illusion of control and the idea that we can avoid pain through achievement or effort. What I learned through suffering is how to be with myself and others in a completely different way—with compassion, patience, and real presence.
It showed me that peace doesn’t come from fixing or arranging things, but from meeting what’s happening inside of us with understanding. Suffering breaks down the part of the mind that thinks it can manage or escape life, and in that breaking, something much more real and tender emerges.
It also taught me humility—the recognition that everyone suffers, and that we’re all doing the best we can with the conditions we’ve been given. That realization opened a deep well of compassion in me, one that no amount of success could have reached.
Next, maybe we can discuss some of your foundational philosophies and views? What are the biggest lies your industry tells itself?
I think the biggest deception in the healing industry is the idea that the goal is to become “better”—a better version of ourselves, a better parent, a better employee, a better spouse. Underneath that way of thinking is the belief that there’s something missing or broken within us that needs to be fixed before we can be okay. I can say with confidence that this is not true.
When we look deeply into the nature of being human, we see that the foundation of who we are is radiant compassion and equanimity. It’s like a diamond covered in mud. The diamond—our true nature—can’t be harmed by the mud. It can’t be defiled, polluted, or broken; it can only be hidden.
The essence of my work is helping people gently clear away that mud through loving awareness. When we meet the mud with compassion and acceptance, it begins to heal, and the diamond naturally reveals itself as the ground of our reality.
It’s an epidemic that so many of us carry a deep sense of unworthiness, when the truth is that we all contain inner goodness and an unbreakable core of wisdom and love.
Okay, so before we go, let’s tackle one more area. If you laid down your name, role, and possessions—what would remain?
Love
Contact Info:
- Website: https://Heatherprete.com
- Instagram: @heatherpretewisdom
- Linkedin: Mindfulness in the Workplace
- Yelp: Heather Prete
- Youtube: @heatherpretemindfulwisdom
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