Filipe is the founder and main teacher and author of the Center for Human Flourishing. He is a teacher, trainer, and author in the fields of mental and emotional balance, emotional intelligence, awareness, and regulation, meditation and contemplative practices, mental health, happiness and well-being, and personal growth and transformation.
He is also a Medical Doctor, having graduated from the Abel Salazar Institute for Biomedical Sciences – University of Porto (ICBAS-UP), and a voluntary paramedic at the Portuguese Red Cross.
He teaches and trains individuals to small to large groups, always with the goal of helping others become better, happier, and fulfilled persons. He has and continues to study extensively the sciences and practices of exploring, understanding and transforming the mind, drawing both from current scientific knowledge (including medicine, neuroscience, psychology, sociology, biology, and physics), and from the philosophy and wisdom of contemplative traditions with millenia of development and experience, especially Buddhism.
In the same spirit as the athenian philosophers of old and the wise Dharma teachers of past and present, Filipe wishes and strives to not only “teach and preach” but to actually be and embody what he teaches. He believes that being good and happy is the best way to help make others good and happy.
Filipe is a Certified Teacher of Cultivating Emotional Balance, an evidence-based program designed to develop and improve trainee’s emotional awareness and regulation, well-being, and realization, established and recognized worldwide. He completed his certification in 2016 under the guidance of Dr. Eve Ekman and Dr. Alan Wallace, and has since been teaching and adapting it to various populations, including the general public, mental and health care workers and patients, children and education, universities, and business.
He is from and lives in Porto, Portugal, likes to exercise and practices yoga, rides his bicycle to university and mostly anywhere he goes, tries to eat in an environment of sentient beings, and health friendly diet, enjoys the sun and the sea as well as the rain, playing the guitar, piano, and drums, nature, reading and learning, travelling and exploring, laughing, and spending time with friends and loved ones.
A personal message from Filipe:
“Hi, thank you so much for being here! You being here is the reason that I can spend the time of my life doing what I most love: helping you and others improve and become better and happier people, and achieve their highest potential as human beings, as well as help shape better, happier and more just societies and the world. This has always been a profound desire and joy in me, and so I’m delighted to be creating and expanding this project, which allows me not only to reach those closer to me, but also people all around the world, including you! I’m grateful for being able to do this as a job each time more, and I’m sure I would still be doing this even if I was the richest man on earth (and even other planets). I truly hope I can be of some benefit to you, and I look forward to seeing you around!”