Débora Prieto was born in Vigo, Spain in October of 1972. She is an educator of mentally handicapped children and studied philosophy for three years at the University of Madrid. Débora’s active interest in perennial philosophies continues to this day.

Over the past few years, she has studied with such teachers as Andrew Cohen, Eckhart Tolle, The Dalai Lama, and she has also completed a Phowa course of consciousness death lead by Western Buddhist Lama Ole Nydahl in the Czech Republic. Ken Wilber’s Integral Life Practice is also a part of her daily practice and development.

From an early age Débora felt a deep interest for matters and reasoning that few around her considered important, let alone essential. Naturally, she followed a life-path that was more closely aligned with her social and cultural conditioning. She got married, found a secure job with benefits, and bought a house. She also developed some serious addictions that eventually led her to an existential crisis which offered her a choice between a life of contradiction and denial or somehow breaking free from everything she knew as being familiar.

Débora decided to take the more trusting option and shortly after separating from her husband and closing many friendships that had no true basis, she happened upon a writer who had just moved to the country across the river, Portugal, from where she lived in Western Spain. Thanks to him she was introduced to meditation and the possibility of living in a completely different way.

Débora met her future and current husband, an Irishman named Mick, quite by coincidence on Saint Patrick’s Day in 2004. From the day their paths merged they have been inseparable in an adventure of learning, growing, and evolution that has driven them until this moment in which they both work, travel and teach together on the joy of life beyond conditioning and the wondrous possibility of relationships free from personal conditioned conflict. They were married in 2007 in Ireland.

As a result of her interest in the works of Ken Wilber, Debora discovered the Big Mind Process developed by Genpo Roshi, which integrates Eastern and Western wisdom in an astonishingly original and effective manner. Débora has trained intensively since 2007 in Salt Lake City, Utah with Genpo Roshi, his staff, and Diane Hamilton in the process. In 2009 she was ordained as a monk in the Zen tradition of Sōtō.

In 2011, she and her husband Mick founded the Integral Heart Foundation which creates conscious leaders through heart-centered sponsorship and educational programs which include the development of mind, body, spirit and emotions. The education center provides education for children from families who live in poverty around the city of Antigua Guatemala.

Both Débora and Mick currently manage the education center and its six staff members. The center is currently home to 85 children with 6 learning programs, a Teacher-Training Program, a library and is serving 1,500 nutritious meals and snacks every month. Since 2011, their programs have delivered classes and support to over 1,200 children and their families in Guatemala.

Together, their Critical-Thinking/Advanced Functioning Skills and Education Sponsorship Programs have reached an additional 2,800 students and are creating sustainable community leaders. They have also provided over 2,500 food baskets to our 40 sponsored families.