speaking

doreen has is an energetic, creative, and skilled presenter who will bring your event or conference to life. Her sweet spot is large groups where she introduces even the most difficult of topics in a way that makes her audience feel like she’s giving them a hug. Her talks are drenched with up to the day references, attention catching video and audio, and rock solid research and data. She makes her talks unforgettable, engaging audience members individually and as a group. 

doreen speaks on many topics (see below for listing) but is frequently invited to speak at corporate wellness events and conferences about the topic of how to stay healthy in an always online world. She also regularly presents on how boredom can change our lives, how to find your strongest voice, and on various mental health topics.

doreen has presented at annual conferences for national corporations ranging from Nike to Abbvie to Firehouse Subs and keynotes for organizations such as the National School Nurses Association, New York Library Association, and universities across the country. She is a popular presenter for in person and online corporate wellness events.

doreen, and her agent, Sean, would love to work with you to create a talk that is perfect for your group. We look forward to hearing from you.

topics

Restart: Designing a Healthy Post Pandemic Life (General/Mental Health Audiences)
Restart: Designing a Healthy Post Pandemic Work Environment (Corporate Audiences)
Covid, and the resulting quarantine, has had a profound effect on our mental health and well being. This fast paced, media drenched talk includes an informative (as well as hilarious) review of where we were when quarantine hit, how the lock down impacted us behaviorally, interpersonally, and intra-personally, then gets to work addressing how to use the re-opening of the world/restart of “communal” life as an opportunity for growth and health.

Ideas regarding how to identify and break pandemic habits that will no longer serve us is offered alongside practical tips and tools for thriving. During this talk, you’ll laugh and you’ll cry and, when it’s over, you’ll say, “We really need to take seriously (and work through) what we’ve all just been through.” The best part? You’ll have the tools you need to do so.

Welcome to my Boredom Party! How 10 min of Boredom Changes Everything

We live in a world that demands our attention in digital spaces and our bodies, brains, and relationships pay the price of our over attachment to devices. While the impact to our brains is real (and not in great ways), the world of neuroscience tells us that we can, with intention, work to increase our abilities to focus, delay gratification, regulate our emotions, and experience greater creativity and relational satisfaction.

The good news? We can do this by growing our ability to tolerate boredom. Eventually, just 10 minutes of what the Dutch call “Niksen” (roughly translated as “to do nothing deliciously”) might just change our lives, work teams, families and world. Packed with ample opportunity for practice and inspiration of how to accomplish this difficult (and wonderful feat), this talk will get you craving boredom in a way you never imagined.

Deviced! Balancing Life & Technology in a Digital World (General/Mental Health & Health Audiences)
Deviced! Parenting in the Digital World (Parenting Audiences)

The research is clear: Americans spend, on average 12 plus hours a day with screens. Since this time comes from time spent accomplishing major personal and developmental milestones, there’s a double impact. We’re missing out on tasks that enable us to focus, delay gratification, and regulate our emotions while, at the same time, wiring our brains to be uncomfortable with the very settings that would help us attain these skills.

Far from tech shaming, this talk empowers audiences by helping them assess how their tech use is impacting their relational, physical, and mental health in order to make realistic plans for how to moderate use and mitigate negative effects. Filled with fast paced media and chock full of inspiring tips and tools, participants will walk away inspired to tend to their embodied lives and mental health without forcing unrealistic digital detoxes.

The Power of Pause: Turning from Tech Toward Calm

Most people feel a deep desire to set boundaries and be able to step back from the pressures and grind of life but lack the tools to do so. This talk gives a brief overview of the neurological and intra personal benefits of being able to stop, get emotionally regulated, and develop a realistic self care plan, then dives deep into teaching the skills of psychological and physiological regulation. Breathing and boredom tolerance skills are taught and practiced in fun and inspirational ways that leave participants wanting more calm.

Embodied Rest Experiences

These are experiential sessions where differing forms of meditation and regulation skills are taught and practiced. I’ve typically offered these in tandem with other talks, providing a bit of a break after a lecture and encouraging people to re-enter the space in comfortable clothing and without shoes.

Self Care for Activists

Every definition of activism is filled with verbs. Action is the name of the game and passion is the driving force. Eventually, however, the need for constant adaptation, the never ending back-breaking pace, the exposure to disappointment and backlash, and the intensity of the work lead to burn out and mental health concerns for individuals and organized groups.

Offering a compassionate space in which to honor the audience members for their work while also affirming the need for rest and care, this talk offers an opportunity for groups to take a collective breath, assess their current needs (individual and communal), and make a realistic and practical self care plan. Filled with both calm and inspiration, ideas and validation for the seeming impossibility of it all, this talk will change lives and culture by enabling activists to keep going without losing themselves.

Does Giving Life Mean Losing Mine: Parenting While Whole

As children and teens suffer with greater levels of depression and anxiety in a world that expects more of them, caregivers are left bereft of help or comfort in the impossible task of parenting.

Giving practical tips for how to have hard conversations, get to the root of issues, and communicate well within their families, this talk will also emphasize the strong need for setting the stage for health, self care, community building, and boundary setting as a parent. Parents will leave inspired to model mental health management for their children and to care more effectively for themselves as their greatest parenting tool.

I Belong to Me: Maintaining Mental Health in a World that Cares Less 

Counter to the teachings of many American subcultures, we can’t healthily belong to anyone else before we belong to ourselves. When we belong to others first, we give up our own critical thinking, unique views, and, too often, put our well being and sense of self in systems outside of ourselves. This leaves us prone to anxiety and depression at the least and to control and abuse at the worst.

Belonging to self, also spoken of as having an internal locus of control, doesn’t make someone selfish. Instead, it enables them to live wild, fiery, engaged-with- others and doing-important-work lives from a place of groundedness, discernment, and effectiveness. Learning to take breaks from the curated spaces of social media and news, to settle into comfort with oneself, and to create a realistic self development plan will be encouraged and facilitated in creative and empathic ways.

De-vicing Your Awkward, Big, Boring, Beautiful, Post Grad Life (Commencement Address)
10 minute talk overviewing the way in which technology enables us to overextend and live outside of our skin with inspiration for balancing the demands of modern life with a rich and interesting embodied life.

speaker request form

*Requests via this form will be directed to Sean at collective speakers