Nikita Gupta, MPH

she/her

Nikita Gupta is a passionate and dedicated resilience educator, coach and program director who has served diverse populations for over 20 years to promote healing, thriving and positive growth.

For over 9 years, she has served students and staff by integrating dynamic strategies for mindfulness-based resilience across campus using an interdisciplinary synthesis of theory and practice that is rooted in positive psychology, healing-centered practices and culturally responsive community care.

In 2014, she launched the highly successful GRIT Coaching program at UCLA which provides one-on-one and group coaching to develop positive mental health and holistic success. As a registered yoga and meditation instructor, Nikita facilitates trauma-informed healing spaces to foster dialogue, build bridges and promote transformation. Her work to integrate resilience practices in various campus spaces and contexts continues to inspire unique ways of navigating the challenges of the current climate toward bravely moving through the unknown, while finding joy and satisfaction in each day.

Favorite self-care practice: Listening to evocative music while moving-stretching-dancing-breathing! And a fun fact is that she loves to make jewelry and cross stitch.

How would you define resilience:

An innate mechanism of flexibility and adaptability that is central to our biology. It is something that is alive in us already, and that by tapping into our resilience we can find joy and thriving in every day.

What does wellness mean to you:

Wellness is the ability to find satisfaction in the micro-moments of life, even in the face of challenge. It means that we are tending to the multi-dimensional parts of our whole-person-ness, that we make optimistic meaning out of our life experiences -- the successes and failures.