Elizabeth Lesser is the co-founder and senior advisor of Omega Institute, this country's largest adult education center focusing on health, wellness, spirituality, and creativity. She is the author of Broken Open: How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow and The New American Spirituality: A Seeker's Guide (published in paperback with the title The Seeker's Guide.) For 30 years she has studied and worked with leading figures in the field of healing-healing self and healing society. She attended Barnard College and San Francisco State University. Previous to her work at Omega, she was a midwife and birth educator. The mother of three sons, she lives in the Hudson Valley with her husband.