Nkechi Njaka
Nkechi Deanna Njaka is a leading mindfulness meditation guide, movement artist, and practice-based creative researcher with over 15 years of teaching and personal practice experience.
She holds certifications in Embodied Mind (200 HR Yoga Teacher Training), Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) an evidence based program that combines meditation, yoga, and body awareness techniques to help individuals manage stress, improve emotional regulation, and enhance overall well-being; IIN (Institute of Integrated Nutrition), and additional Meditation trainings by MNDFL.
With a background in neuroscience and choreography, Nkechi’s offerings, Embodied Presence and Movement as Research (see classes below), both pull from improvisational somatic inquiry and contemplative practice. Her teaching integrate science, art, and social/ relational for wellbeing and transformation to support individual and collective liberation.
Nkechi is the founder of The Compass and NDN Lifestyle Studio, and the co-founder of the sleep and mindfulness app DreamWell. She also co-hosts the Dating White podcast and performs as half of the music and mindfulness project RESONANCE. Her work lives at the intersection of wellness, embodiment, and creative inquiry.
Nkechi’s path to teaching, facilitating and guiding emerged from a deep curiosity about the relationship between the brain, body, and lived experience. She started her journey with these practices after navigating her own mental health with diagnoses with depression and anxiety as a college student which led her to study neuroscience and dance. Her post graduate school studies landed her in a neuroscience research lab where her job was to look at fMRI brain images of people who were using meditation to heal their depression and anxiety. With this very specific background in neuroscience and dance, she now weaves mindfulness, somatic inquiry, and creative expression into each offering.
Students can expect practices that are grounded, reflective, and transformative—spaces where presence becomes a practice, movement becomes insight, and each session is an invitation to return to the truth, wisdom and intelligence of the body.
Meditation
The Art + Practice of Embodied Presence is guided meditation that explores embodied presence as both a sacred art and a living practice. Rooted in mindfulness, participants are invited to tune deeply into the intelligence of the body as a site of wisdom, regulation, and truth. Through stillness, sensation, and gentle reflection, this offering cultivates inner clarity and spaciousness—supporting participants in returning to themselves with care, attention, and grace.
Wednesdays at 9:45am
* 30 minute class
Movement as Research
Based on the Principals of The Compass (Your Mind, Your Heart, Your Body, Your Feelings), Movement as Research is a meditative and somatic exploration of how the body holds intelligence and insight.
Combining freeform movement, breath, and mindful observation, this practice invites you to use the body as a site of inquiry and discovery.
Guided by prompts and supported by ambient sound, participants are encouraged to let expressive movement arise from within—cultivating presence, expression, and embodied awareness in a safe, generative and liberating container.
Wednesdays at 2:15pm