A licensed therapist will spend Saturday afternoon asking a room of teenagers a question adults rarely put to them: which version of yourself do you show, and to whom?
The Teen Mindfulness Workshop with Jamie D. Roberts is set for 1:00 p.m. Saturday, August 8, in the event space at Vroman’s Bookstore on East Colorado Boulevard. It is free, open to anyone ages 13 through 18, and built around a hands-on art exercise, according to the bookstore’s event listing. It falls nine days before Pasadena Unified School District students return to classrooms on Monday, August 17.
The Playhouse Village Association’s district calendar describes the session as a guided workshop introducing teenagers to practical mindfulness and attention skills, and files it under community and family programming. Vroman’s, at 695 East Colorado Boulevard, tags it a young adult event and a book signing, and bills it as an afternoon of mindfulness, creativity and self-expression. The store’s listing says teens will work through an expressive art activity organized around emotion regulation, identity and what it calls the art of showing up authentically. The exercise proceeds from the premise that people present differently depending on who is in the room.
Roberts is a licensed marriage and family therapist who has worked with teenagers for more than 14 years, according to the listing. She wrote Mindfulness for Teen Anxiety, published in December 2024, and Neurodiversity for Teen Girls, published in April 2026. Both will be available for purchase at the event, the listing says.
The listing describes Roberts as the founder of Equilibrium Counseling Services, which it characterizes as a teen and young adult mental health center in Southern California, and of NeuroPebble, a clinical training platform. It says she speaks on neurodivergent, teen and LGBTQIA+ topics and posts as @neurodivergenttherapist.
Roberts has spoken publicly about how adults treat adolescent experience. “Adults tend to steer away from teens and minimize their experiences,” she told the online magazine Voyage LA in a 2021 interview.
Teen mental health has drawn separate organized attention across Pasadena and Altadena this year. In June, Pasadena Unified high school students attended a free Youth Mental Health Advocacy Day at The Collaboratory in Altadena, run in partnership with the Eaton Fire Collaborative, Google.org and the nonprofit Active Minds. The district says it has expanded mental health support for students beyond the school day.
Need to know: The Teen Mindfulness Workshop with Jamie D. Roberts takes place on Saturday, August 8, 2026, at 1:00 p.m. Admission is free and the session is open to teenagers ages 13 through 18; and the district calendar directs prospective attendees to the organizer. The workshop is held in the event space at Vroman’s Bookstore, 695 East Colorado Boulevard, Pasadena, CA 91101. Vroman’s lists no dedicated parking of its own; the Playhouse Village Association directs visitors to parking garages and surface lots north and south of Colorado Boulevard, each within walking distance, with rates posted on the association’s parking map rather than as a single published rate. The store opens at 10:00 a.m. on Saturdays. For more, call (626) 449-5320 or visit vromansbookstore.com/event/2026-08-08/teen-mindfulness-workshop.
The listing sets one condition for the teenagers who show up: “No experience necessary, just bring yourself.”
