Dr Linda Kantor is a Counselling Psychologist, Hypnotherapist and Yoga Teacher, based in Cape Town, South Africa.
Linda has worked as a counselling psychologist since 1998 and has trained in numerous modalities including schema therapy, somatic experiencing, hypnotherapy, and depth psychology. In her psychotherapeutic work with adults she shares the gifts of presence and somatic awareness to facilitate deep healing.
She is passionate and dedicated to the work of bringing heartful awareness, wisdom, and compassion into the lives of individuals and organisations. Linda has worked with numerous organisations over the years to bring awareness practices to leaders in South Africa and internationally.
In 1999, she taught the first Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Program (MBSR) in Cape Town, South Africa having been taught by the founder of these practices Dr Jon Kabat Zinn. Since then, she has been deeply committed to bringing mindfulness-based interventions to the South African context and became a certified Mindfulness Trainer through the University of Massachusetts Medical Centre in the USA.
This work has taken her into a variety of settings, including corporate workshops, community-based interventions, as well as programmes for health professionals and the public. Since 2013 this work has expanded into teaching health professionals, coaches, educators, pastors, yoga teachers etc., to become Mindfulness Teachers through the University of Stellenbosch’s Certification in Mindfulness-Based Interventions (MBIs).
Linda has, since 2009, developed a two-year Mindful Leadership Programme which she teaches part-time for the Executive MBA (EMBA) programme at the Graduate School of Business (GSB), in Cape Town. This mindfulness training is compulsory for all participants and encourages attitudes of compassion, non-violence, and collaboration in the workplace. The questions that the work with leaders evoked in her, led her to complete her PhD, where she looked at the “Applications, Understandings and Perceived impact of mindfulness in the organisational context.”
She is also a co-founder of the self-development platform INARA https://www.inaratribe.cc which offers personalised online and in person transformational journeys that prioritise wellness, flourishing and social activism. The platform offers monthly practices for presence, deep rest, self reflection, compassionate community and personal growth.
“The capacity to be present is one of the most powerful abilities we can develop to cope with the ever-changing, fast-paced world. This simple capacity is not easy to cultivate. However, when understood, it can transform the way we relate to our own lives, our relationships, and the world around us. Learning to be present can help individuals build stress resilience, manage conflict, improve leadership, and develop emotional intelligence. No matter the context or the situation, mindfulness offers us the opportunity to deal with our lives with more clarity, precision, and heartfulness.”