Atabey Sánchez-Haiman

Atabey Sánchez-Haiman is a biologist, artist, and mindfulness-based intervention teacher who integrates scientific training, creative practice, and trauma-sensitive mindfulness education. She brings years of experience supporting people with stress, anxiety, and habit change through compassionate, culturally aware approaches.

Her art and mindfulness studio, Giraffes and Robots, creates and sells vibrant artwork that brightens private collections as well as campus and corporate collections at Brown University and The Graduate Hotel in Providence, Rhode Island. Explore This Moment is a website she created to explore the way mindfulness can be expressed visually. As part of this exploration of art and mindfulness, she has collaborated with and created images for mindfulness researchers, conveying mindfulness concepts through art.

During the pandemic world pause, Atabey intentionally chose curiosity and exploration of mindfulness and neuroscience as an antidote to anxiety. This led to years of training in MBSR (Brown University), MSC (Center for Mindful Self-Compassion), MBCT-L and Deeper Mindfulness (Oxford Mindfulness Foundation). These practices transformed her, from stress driven reactivity to awareness, joy, love and connection—a shift she now guides and supports others to possibly experience.

At Mindshift Recovery, she facilitates weekly live online recovery meetings, weaving neuroscience-informed tools with self-compassion. She also facilitates sessions for Frazzled UK, Greater Good Science Center, and teaches at Ethical Mindfulness as part of the Mindfulness Based Ethical Living (MBEL) curriculum and teacher training team.

Puerto Rican and Spanish-speaking, Atabey is interested in cultivating cultural humility and contributing to creating spaces where racialised communities can disentangle colonial narratives about race, worth and belonging through art, mindfulness, neuroscience, ethics and habit change.

Atabey sees mindfulness as active. It is compassionate action that can transform cultures from being dominated by hate, delusion and greed and turning toward love and flourishing instead to live more meaningful, peaceful and value aligned lives.