About Catherine Zack — catherine zack

Welcome, welcome, welcome.

If we haven’t met before, I’m Catherine Zack,
a corporate litigator turned meditation teacher.

I help people quiet their minds, reduce stress, heal from burnout, come home to their bodies, listen for their own inner wisdom, and create alignment between their inner and outer lives (which by the way is way juicier than chasing the ever-elusive “work / life balance.”).

I didn’t come to this work because I am a naturally calm, patient, relaxed person.

Oh no, far from it.

I came to it because I needed to heal my own stress, claim my own wholeness, and build my Real Life from there.

I began my career as a corporate litigator at a white-shoe, top-tier law firm in Washington, DC.

Looking in from the outside, I was a high-achieving, high-performing, Type-A+++ perfectionist who was, by all traditional narratives, “successful.”

I was on a straight and narrow, 100mph-fast-track to success, climbing the ladders, checking all the right boxes, and building a life that looked great on paper.

But a few years into that fast-paced, high-stakes, sleep-when-you’re done, big-law life, I finally looked up and realized that a career path toward the partnership wasn’t actually for me.

Though I could hustle and grind with the best of them, the price I was paying was too high.

From undiagnosed panic attacks that landed me in the University’s hospital at law school (I was told something like “Ivy League grad school is hard, toughen up.”) to disordered stress coping mechanisms to anxiety that wrecked my health to finally losing a sense of meaning and purpose in the career ladder I was climbing, it was clear: The cost of THIS kind of success, with all of this unmanaged stress, was too high.

In 2014, I walked away from it all — both my prestigious legal career and my safe path of professional security — to do the work I came here to do: create welcoming, inclusive spaces of belonging and empower people with tools of self-understanding and wholeness.

It hasn’t been a straight or a narrow path. In fact, it’s a been a winding one of daily practice. Of paying attention. Of being as gracious with myself, my people, my work as I can.

I love helping people do the same in their lives & I’m so happy you’re here.

With one foot firmly planted in the analytical, reason-based training of my legal career, I’ve spent a decade since leaving Big Law studying, practicing, and teaching embodiment & somatic practices, rest & relaxation, meditation & mindfulness.

My work takes many forms — 1:1 coaching, speaking and leading workplace wellbeing trainings grounded in mindfulness-based stress reduction to organizations of all sizes & industries (yes, even my old law firm!), leading virtual group programs like Stress School, hosting my podcast Beyond Balance, teaching IRL in both in Washington DC and now my own yoga & meditation studio in the Hudson Valley, Village Yoga, leading retreats all over the world, and currently working on my first book, 40 Early Mornings.

But the through line remains steady — helping people (yes, even the most stressed-out, ambitious, high-achieving, Type A+++ folks with zero time to spare) create daily practices to better navigate stress, uncertainty, and change, to move with less rushing & hustle and a lot more presence and grace, and come home to themselves.

My Approach:

I’m still a lawyer at my core, trained in the Socratic method and structured analytical reasoning. Which means I ask good, honest, challenging questions to help guide my clients to discover their own right answers.

And yet, my work is incredibly warm and welcoming. I create soft places for my people to land.

None of this is a self-improvement plan. It’s about self-understanding and self-knowledge, a process of inquiry that brings us closer to the center of ourselves. Who we really are, beyond / below / before “our life on paper.”

I use tools, techniques, and skills that cross different wisdom and contemplation traditions, leadership theories, mindfulness-based stress reduction and more — but really it all boils down to rest, stillness, silence, listening, slowing down, making space — growing our capacity to BE in our lives (& not just do them efficiently on auto pilot).

More than a mindset shift — I teach “meditation in context” as a way to unpack stuck storylines, unravel habits and reactions, and create real muscle memory for being in touch with your own needs, desires, and wants and shaping your life, your work, your days from that place.

How We Can Work Together

My Specialties:

I tend to work with women who, like me, where raised on a particular breed of late-stage capitalism / patriarchy etc.: You hustle hard, you sleep when you’re done, rest is not an option, success looks like climbing a particular ladder. Check all the right boxes and then you’ll “arrive.”

Except, we never really arrive. And our lives are SO much more than what our resumes say.

I meet my people at their own threshold moments —

Women on the verge or in early stages of motherhood (I’m a mama of 2 myself) who want to parent with presence and find a
High-stress, high-stakes, successful folks approaching mid-career, proud of their accomplishments to-date, but ready to create a juicier, more fulfilling, more self-reflective vresion of success in the back-half of their careers;
Lawyers who want to make the leap out of Big Law ( fill in your own adjacent-industry-blank here);
Other coaches, consultants, entrepreneurs, small business owners, and independents who want to create success on their own terms, to build livelihoods that support actually living creative, fulfilling lives — to BE well while they do their best work.

My clients work with me —

in 1:1 coaching containers;
on retreats (whether they join me on one of my retreats, bring me in to facilitate sessions in other retreats/conferences/off-sites or book me for a private mini-retreat in the Hudson Valley);
in workplace well-being sessions / talks / workshops;
in my group programs like 40 Early Mornings and Stress School;
through my podcast Beyond Balance and guest appearances on other podcasts;
in custom engagements, such as mindfulness-curriculum and app development;
and in my Hudson Valley studio, Village Yoga.