Meet The Sit.Feel.Heal. Core Teachers

Joe Clements

Joe Clements is the founder and guiding teacher of the Sit.Feel.Heal. Meditation Center and founder of Sit.Feel.Heal. Mindfulness-Based Recovery.

He offers a trauma-informed, emotionally curious and practical approach to mindfulness and inner healing. His work is grounded in the understanding that healing and recovery are not about fixing something broken, but learning to meet ourselves and our experience with greater awareness, curiosity, compassion, and choice.

For more than a decade has brought mindfulness meditation, emotional awareness, and recovery practices into rehabilitation centers while also teaching community groups, workshops, retreats, and class series.

Rather than asking people to adopt a particular tradition, teaching, or modality, Joe encourages each person to contemplate what is offered, trust their own experience, and discover what may be supportive and meaningful in their own life.

Joe’s approach draws as much from lived experience as it does from formal training. A musician for more than 30 years, primarily in the punk and hard rock communities, he brings creativity, honesty, self-expression, and a little irreverence into contemplative practice.

Whether screaming into a microphone, sitting together in meditation, working with difficult emotions, or gathering in community, the intention is the same: to create spaces where people can meet their experience, stay curious about what they discover, cultivate greater clarity and discernment, and learn to respond with greater choice and compassion.

    • Mindfulness teacher training in the Theravada Buddhist tradition

    • Group facilitation through the Mind Body Awareness Project

    • Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness with David Treleaven

    • Somatic and trauma-informed training with Manuela Reeds, including Trauma to Dharma - integrating somatic healing with Dharma practice

    • ISSITA training in Somatic Experiencing

  • Joe facilitates the Sensitive Bros Circle every 4th Wednesday of the month, as well as the Thursday meditation groups on the 3rd and 4th Thursday of the month.

Kimber Simpkins-Nuccio

Kimber Simpkins-Nuccio (she/they) is a white-bodied, cis, queer mom, writer, meditation and spiritual teacher who taught yoga and mindfulness in the San Francisco Bay area for over twenty years, bringing a body love and social justice perspective to her teaching and learning.

She is a visiting teacher at Spirit Rock, EBMC, New York Insight, Insight Santa Cruz, and is a Core Teacher here at the Sit Feel Heal Center in Santa Cruz.

She is currently a member of the Community Dharma Leaders cohort at Spirit Rock and serves as a teacher for Braided Wisdom’s 2026 Original Medicine training.

As a practitioner, Kimber values the intersection of social justice, self-knowledge, and decreased reactivity within Buddhist practice and appreciates how these skills help us increase our ability to connect deeply. Undermining white supremacy internally and externally is a core component of her work in supporting the Decomposing Whiteness deep refuge group at EBMC. She deeply appreciates how the practice of mindfulness has brought more compassion and joy to her relationships and life.

Undermining white supremacy internally and externally is a core component of her work in supporting the Decomposing Whiteness deep refuge group at EBMC. She deeply appreciates how the practice of mindfulness has brought more compassion and joy to her relationships and life.

She currently lives on the land of the Awaswas-speaking Uypi people, stewarded by the Amah Mutsun Ohlone, colonially known as Santa Cruz, CA

    • Dedicated Practitioner’s Program at Spirit Rock

    • Teacher training at the Mindfulness Training Institute

    • Racial justice facilitation training with Holistic Resistance

    • The Spiritual Teacher and Leadership Program at East Bay Meditation Center

    • Mindfulness Mentor Training with Banyan

    • Dharmapala Training with Sacred Mountain Sangha

    • Original Medicine Yearlong and InDepth with Braided Wisdom

  • Kimber facilitates the Q Circle, which is every 3rd Wednesday of the month. She also facilitates the 1st Thursday of the month meditation group.

Jessica Escobedo

Jessica Escobedo, first and foremost, is a bad-ass.

She has been practicing mindfulness meditation for 15 years, and her teaching is grounded in her own lived experience. Her teaching encourages an authentic exploration of each person's unique path, believing there is no single "right" way to practice mindfulness.

She is passionate about creating spaces where people feel comfortable showing up as their full selves, practicing in ways that feel genuine, and cultivating a deeper connection with themselves.

She is also passionate about making mindfulness communities more inclusive by addressing barriers to belonging and creating affinity spaces where marginalized communities can practice with greater safety, connection, and a sense of belonging.

She is also passionate about making mindfulness communities more inclusive by addressing barriers to belonging and creating affinity spaces where marginalized communities can practice with greater safety, connection, and a sense of belonging.

When she's not teaching, Jessica is a chef, entrepreneur, and social dancer. She believes mindfulness isn't something we practice only on the cushion - it's something we bring into our work, relationships, creativity, and everyday lives.

Jessica’s groups at the Center:

Jessica facilitates the Women’s Circle every 2nd Wednesday of the month and the 4th Thursday meditation group