If we haven’t met before, I’m Catherine Zack.

I’m a contemplative educator, writer, former litigator, and speaker working at the intersection of contemplative practice and high-stakes professional life. I began my career as a litigation associate at Kirkland & Ellis, after a J.D. from Penn Law. I left the practice of law for the practice of meditation, in search of an answer to my own question: what happens to the interior life of someone whose outer life is a success? The immediate version was less lofty — I was burned out and wanted to fix it. What I found instead were tools for sitting with the question rather than dispatching it: not a problem to solve, but a practice to live. And it isn’t mine alone. It belongs to almost anyone doing high-stakes work.

In the twelve years since, I’ve taught contemplative practice to thousands of students, designing curricula for institutions including an LSU sports-psychology research initiative, serving as Wellness Director at one of D.C.'s leading yoga centers, co-founding my own studio in the Hudson Valley, and creating The 40 Portal, a year-long listening project documenting women’s interior lives at midlife. My first book, 40 Early Mornings, arrives in early 2027: a memoir meant to be practiced, not only read.