About Us

As a student therapist and licensed social worker Cyndi Collen worked for four years with individual and group clients at Capital Area Counseling (CAC), a local non-profit that offered low-cost, sliding scale therapy to Austin residents.  While at CAC she had the idea of forming a non-profit with a similar structure and low-cost offerings but with therapists that were using mindfulness-based therapy models. 

In late 2016 she partnered with Laura Benton, one of the founders of Yoga Yoga in Austin, to form the Mindful Wellness Center of Austin (MWCA) with the mission of helping people build mindful presence and coping skills through a trauma-informed lens.  Thanks to the generosity of Cyndi, Laura and Mehtab Benton they applied to the IRS to form a public charity non-profit and received approval fairly quickly. 

In 2017 MWCA was launched with three volunteer board members, two volunteer therapists and four clients receiving in-person, mindfulness-based counseling for $30 a session in 2018. We had access to free shared therapy office space several hours a week and even though we did not have sufficient financial or personnel resources we were able to provide around 50 counseling sessions a year before March 2020. 

In 2020, the pandemic required us to shift our services to Zoom and this shift enabled us to expand the number of provisionally licensed therapists as many people were requesting low-cost therapy to help them during a time when experiences of stress, anxiety, hopelessness, fear and isolation were very common. The pandemic also inspired helpers and therapists to give back to their communities and we were able to bring on new volunteer board members that were committed to mindfulness and this commitment helped us to collaborate with counseling graduate programs by becoming a site for student therapists.

In 2024 we brought on our first paid supervisor, Linda Ramsey, LMFT, LPC and Linda has done a phenomenal job of bringing on student therapists that embrace mindfulness and are aligned with us in their passion of bringing compassion, empathy and no judgment into the therapeutic relationships with clients.

We lost access to our free office space during the pandemic but have provided training for our therapists so that we can bring mindful presence, connection and nervous system regulation into video sessions. In 2024 we delivered over 3,000 counseling sessions and are committed to expanding our team of therapists so we a serve those seeking mindful wellness.

Mission, Vision, Values

our Mission: Empowerment through Mindfulness

Everyone deserves to learn how to become more mindful.

Everyone deserves to feel a sense of ease and grace.

Everyone deserves to develop mindful coping skills to navigate the complexities of our modern world.

Everyone deserves to have access to mindful practitioners who assess and treat individuals without judgment and labels.

The Mindful Wellness Center of Austin believes that connection to others who hear you, see you, and collaborate with you on your journey will lead you to true well-being and authenticity.