Francesca Marguerite Maximé

Francesca Marguerite Maximé is a Haitian-Dominican Italian-American Somatic Experiencing Practitioner (SEP), IMTA-accredited certified mindfulness meditation teacher (CMT-P), certified Indigenous Focusing Oriented Therapy for Complex Trauma wellbeing guide, Relational Life Therapy Couples & Life Coach, and poet/author in Brooklyn, New York. She is the 2019 recipient of the International Society of Traumatic Stress Studies Outstanding Student Advocacy & Service Award, as well as the 2019 first prize winner of the Allen Ginsberg Poetry Awards. She hosts the #ReRooted podcast on the Be Here Now Network, and the now-retired #WiseGirl video podcast, available on iTunes and YouTube and other podcasting outlets. She has been mentored in mindfulness meditation practices by clinical psychologist and Insight Meditation Society co-founder and Spirit Rock Meditation Center founder Jack Kornfield, Ph.D. and has also been a mindfulness student of clinical psychologist and Insight Meditation Community of Washington, D.C. founder Tara Brach, Ph.D. Francesca has sat in silent retreat cumulatively for several months.

Through her Maximé Clarity, Creating Space for Wellbeing and Mindful Brooklyn offerings, she offers services to help address trauma, process grief, reduce stress, and more, including working with organizations and communities on addressing structural, organization and social/cultural trauma. Maximé teaches meditation and mindfulness to individuals, executives, nonprofit leaders and groups in New York City and online, primarily through a secular lens informed by ancient wisdom teachings. Maximé integrates mindfulness and relational practices, Buddhist psychology, attachment styles, neuroscience research, positive neuroplasticity, Nonviolent Communication, Focusing, narrative expression and somatic “bottom-up” approaches in her private and group teachings and trainings with clients and students.

After graduating from Harvard University, Francesca’s career began in working in Fortune 500 companies in Sales and Marketing, traveling all around the country addressing Bank Presidents, CEO’s, sales and marketing teams, and more. In addition to looking inward to address past trauma, Francesca applies a broader communal lens outward to try and help prevent it: her work with executive leadership, in communities and with groups additionally emphasizes issues pertaining to organizational, social and cultural trauma as well as gender and racial equity and equality.

Francesca is an award-winning poet/author and TV news personality, and appeared on-air as a news anchor and correspondent for local, national, network and international television stations including PBS NewsHour, Bloomberg, NY1, WPIX, NBC and FOX. Maximé interviewed countless celebrities and politicians alike (Mike Bloomberg, Mitt Romney, Chuck Schumer, Matt Damon, Blake Lively, Zoe Saldana) while reporting ‘live on scene’ from some of the most groundbreaking and transformative domestic and international stories of our time, including 9/11 and Occupy Wall Street. She also got a chance to pilot an F-16 with the Air Force Thunderbirds and pull 9 G’s, as well as fly with the Blue Angels, in addition to reporting from an aircraft carrier for Fleet Week. Experiences!

As the host of the #ReRooted and previously, the #WiseGirl video podcasts, Maximé interview renowned neuroscientists, trauma specialists, activists, psychotherapists, and Buddhist and mindfulness meditation teachers including Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, Dr. Peter Levine, Dr. Rick Hanson, Dr. Dan Siegel, Dr. Mark Epstein, Dr. Vincent Felitti, Dr. Stephen Porges, Dr. Richard Schwartz, Bruce Ecker, author Mark Matousek, law Professor Rhonda Magee, Grammy-winning bassist Christian McBride, Dharma Teacher Ruth King, sociologist Dr. Michael Kimmel, meditation teacher Sharon Salzberg, Lama Surya Das and Lama Rod Owens as well as activists, particularly around the issues of systemic racism and oppression, gender identity, sexual orientation, trauma, mindfulness, and sustainable wellbeing. Francesca graduated from Harvard University with a degree in English Literature and has written two books. Rooted: A Verse Memoir was published by NYQ Books in 2012 and ReRouted: Verse for the Human Animal was published in 2013. Francesca also loves the beach, her two kitties, playing tennis, and baking yummy things.