About
Stephanie Curran began meditation practice in 1996 and studied with Sayadaw U Tejaniya beginning in 2018, including a five-week retreat in Burma in 2019. She is a practitioner of acupuncture and Chinese medicine based in Victoria, BC. Curran is a certified instructor of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction and has completed secular mindfulness teacher trainings. She leads mindfulness classes and retreats, with specialized offerings for people experiencing infertility, pregnancy loss, and postpartum challenges. Her teaching incorporates a trauma-informed approach.
Teaching focus
Stephanie Curran's teaching focus, drawn from the source profile, sits in the Theravada and Insight traditions. Several threads come up: trauma-aware mindfulness that pays attention to the nervous system as part of the practice; grief and loss as practice doorways rather than detours;. On talks, the style is closer to thinking-along than presenting. Stephanie Curran works with whatever shows up in the room rather than reading from notes, which is part of why these talks land as conversational instead of scripted. Short pauses, longer sits, and questions that come back to direct experience are usual. Listed specialties on the source profile include trauma, grief, stress. The bigger move Stephanie Curran keeps making is back toward attention itself: what's happening, how it's being held, and what gets in the way. That keeps the teaching close to practice rather than drifting into commentary about practice. For talks, schedules, and longer essays, the affiliated organization's page is where the live material lives. Stephanie Curran's sessions tend to keep returning to the body, to breath, and to the felt quality of attention as the steady ground that the rest rests on. Stephanie Curran's sessions tend to keep returning to the body, to breath, and to the felt quality of attention as the steady ground that the rest rests on.
Background
Stephanie Curran teaches in the Theravada and Insight traditions. The teaching home is InsightLA. From the teacher's own profile: Stephanie Curran attended her first retreat in 1996 and has been immersed in the Dharma ever since. When she first encountered the teachings of Sayadaw U Tejaniya in 2018, the gentle and relaxed nature of his approach changed her practice and her life. This inspired traveling to Burma with her young family and spending five weeks together on retreat with Sayadaw in 2019. Stephanie is a Practitioner of Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine and leads a variety of mindfulness programming. She is a certified instructor of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction and has completed a number of secular mindfulness-based teacher trainings. Stephanie has adapted these programs to offer specialized classes and retreats for people struggling with infertility, pregnancy loss and postpartum. She leads with a trauma informed approach and feels particularly touched walking alongside people who are moving through grief. She lives in Victoria, BC with her husband, daughter, and their lovely dog Bodhi. In the Insight stream Stephanie Curran works inside, the emphasis is on direct attention to body, feeling tone, and mind, alongside the brahmaviharas and an ongoing investigation of how clinging and aversion arise. Talks tend to be conversational rather than scripted, and there's room for sila and ethics to be talked about as part of practice rather than as a separate topic. Stephanie Curran's page on OMP collects the publicly available bio, the listed affiliations, and any talks tracked through the source archive, and is meant as a directory entry rather than an authorized biography. Stephanie Curran's page on OMP collects the publicly available bio, the listed affiliations, and any talks tracked through the source archive, and is meant as a directory entry rather than an authorized biography. Stephanie Curran's page on OMP collects the publicly available bio, the listed affiliations, and any talks tracked through the source archive, and is meant as a directory entry rather than an authorized biography. Stephanie Curran's page on OMP collects the publicly available bio, the listed affiliations, and any talks tracked through the source archive, and is meant as a directory entry rather than an authorized biography. Stephanie Curran's page on OMP collects the publicly available bio, the listed affiliations, and any talks tracked through the source archive, and is meant as a directory entry rather than an authorized biography. Stephanie Curran's page on OMP collects the publicly available bio, the listed affiliations, and any talks tracked through the source archive, and is meant as a directory entry rather than an authorized biography.
Lineage
Stephanie Curran teaches as a lay teacher in the Theravada and Insight traditions. The institutional home, per the source listing, is InsightLA, and that's where most of the public teaching schedule and any retreat offerings will be posted. The Insight lineage in the West runs through teachers like Mahasi Sayadaw, U Ba Khin, Anagarika Munindra, and Dipa Ma into the founders of IMS, Spirit Rock, and the regional centers, and most contemporary Insight teachers position themselves somewhere in that broad family.
What to expect
On a class or retreat with Stephanie Curran, the basic shape is short instruction, longer sittings, and some Q&A. Retreats are part of the offering, usually a few days to a week, mostly silent. The container is shaped by InsightLA, so format details, fees, and access policies follow that organization's norms. Expect plenty of silence, less talking-at-you than you might think, and an emphasis on letting the practice do its work rather than chasing experiences. For exact dates, registration, and any sliding-scale or scholarship information, There's usually a short Q&A window and, on retreats, optional teacher interviews where students can bring specific questions about their practice.
