Veronica Valles is a dynamic Peace Educator, Mindfulness Trainer-Facilitator, Speaker, Author, Artist and Ordained Minister for Centers for Spiritual Living.
She has a 35+ year meditation and 30+ year Mindfulness practice and is licensed to teach Mindfulness-Meditation through Centers for Spiritual Living, certified in The Connection Practice (Foundations training at the University for Peace in Costa Rica) and HeartMath® Clinical Certification for Stress, Anxiety and Emotional Regulation. She successfully completed trainings/courses in a variety of peace modalities such as Nonviolent Communication, Mindful Schools Fundamentals, Educator Essentials and Difficult Emotions training, Mindfulness Based Stressed Reduction, The Power of Awareness from The Awareness Training Institute in Association with the Greater Good Science Center at the University of California, Berkley, the Peace Alliance Restorative Justice course, Restorative Justice Basics & Circles training from Restorative Justice on the Rise with introspec360 along with online trainings from The Shift Network.
Veronica's Masters of Conscious Studies (MCS) from Holmes Institute and Centers for Spiritual Living School of Spiritual Leadership (Colorado) as well as Ordination as a Minister, provides a unique background as a Thought Leader who offers secular, powerful, executive coaching to Teachers, Counselors and Administrators.
Since 2007, Veronica has presented peace programs to thousands of children in the Dallas Independent School District. She has been the Dallas Chair for Season for Nonviolence (a grassroots program that honors the lives and nonviolent principles of Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.). She and her team brought in internationally acclaimed speaker-author-teacher Azim Khamisa, with his “Ending the Cycle of Violence program, to over 5,000 children at key campuses in DISD in 2007 and 2008 along with an unprecedented event with 160 Counselors.
Veronica supported the transformation of the landscape and culture of Victor H. Hexter Elementary by providing mindfulness tools to students, staff and parents from 2015-2020. She also presented her program at other Dallas Independent School District Elementary schools - Alex Sanger for 5 years, Bayles for three- Solar Preparatory School for Boys at John F. Kennedy Learning Center where she will be returning in fall, 2024 and has been serving Solar Preparatory School for Girls at James B. Bonham for four years and is her current, primary school.
Presentations were provided to the the following schools - the 10 week-Mindful Moments program at Ben Milam Elementary, Booker T. Washington School of the Performing Arts, the 2018 Bryan Adams Collaborative at Hexter Elementary, White Rock Library spring program, the Family Place, and the Ronald McDonald House. In the fall of 2019, she supported a pilot program at Bryan Adams High School with Park Stearns, a long term teacher.
Weaving her artistic background and visionary ways, she offers a blended curriculum from some of the best programs in the field along with her original, simple, practice book, “Mindfulness: The Basics.” Veronica is passionate about engaged, life-long learning where children have a “choice, voice and agency” that is grounded in their emotional well-being to thrive. Veronica empowers children to be Mindful Leaders as she brings her “Most Favorite Aunt” energy into the schools supporting compassion, connection and community building.
Key, personal mentors for Veronica have been Vivian A. Castleberry (Peacemakers Inc. and UNT Castleberry Institute for Peace), Rita Marie Johnson (The Connection Practice), Azim Khamisa (The Tariq Khamisa Foundation), Philip Hellmich (The Shift Network), and countless individuals past and present who have graced her with wisdom and the heart and soul for peace in a world that works for everyone.
Veronica received the 2018- 2019 Dallas Independent School District Volunteer of the Year for Classroom Support award for her outstanding work at Victor H. Hexter Elementary.
