Zeynep Selvili didn’t grow up wanting to be a mental health counselor. Early on, she had her heart set on becoming a belly dancer. Later, she was sure she wanted to be a vet. As an only child growing up in Turkey and the United States, she wished she had an older brother. Until she was seven, she and her family spent half the year in Izmir and the other half in Miami. In high school, however, she discovered a new passion: psychology. While enrolled at Izmir St. Joseph French High School, she took courses in psychology and creative writing at Princeton and Georgetown Universities. She was intrigued. At 18, she moved to Florida full-time to study psychology and motion pictures at the University of Miami. Later, she moved to New York City to earn her master’s in applied psychology at New York University.

Psychology was her true calling. It fulfills her desire to connect with people, to hear their stories, and to help them build healthy lifelong habits for mental self-care. Today, she fulfills my passion for helping others with teaching the eight-week Mindful Self-Compassion (MSC) program at Bahcesehir University in Istanbul, Turkey. She helps people (and of course herself) shift their focus from self-improvement to self-acceptance.