Heather Shaughnessy-Cato
Co-founder & Partner, Certified DYL Facilitator
Fieldbrook Advising

Heather Shaughnessy-Cato is Co-Founder and Partner of Fieldbrook Advising, a small company that offers workshops and coaching for personal and professional development, incorporating design-thinking and self-compassion.  Heather is a member of the first international cohort to be certified to facilitate Designing Your Life (DYL), a methodology which applies the creative, iterative, human-centered design process to life changes and transitions, and to crafting a life we love.  

Heather is also a teacher of mind-body practices including mindfulness, self-compassion and yoga.  With a background in counseling, Heather incorporates a range of evidence-based practices into her work to explore embodied and creative ways of navigating life’s challenges with more awareness, curiosity, wisdom and ease. 

Heather has enjoyed a range of professional experiences: as a mental health counselor; yoga, mindfulness and self-compassion teacher; development / fundraising professional working in leadership roles with non-profits and within higher education; and as a volunteer with a number of empowerment-based programs for youth. 

Heather Shaughnessy-Cato holds an M.A. in Clinical Mental Health Counseling from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, and a B.A. in Psychology and B.A. in Sociology from the State University of New York at Geneseo. She completed a 200-hour Vinyasa Yoga Certification in 2010, and the Mindful Self-Compassion teacher training and the Designing Your Life Certification in 2019. Heather has also completed trainings on and regularly integrates trauma-informed practices into her work.

Heather loves to read, practice yoga, garden, and spend time outside in gorgeous mid-coast Maine. Her favorite adventures are those with her 4-year old son and her partner and and husband, Michael.

 Heather will be joined by her Fieldbrook Advising colleagues Michael Cato and Joan Cheverie