About Dr. Mark Pirtle

Helping people understand their patterns and live them differently.

Dr. Mark Pirtle is the creator of SkillfullyAware®, author of Built This Way: Why Painful Patterns Repeat and How to Change Them, and creator of the SkillfullyAware Awareness Quotient, or SAAQ.

His work helps people understand why painful patterns repeat, how those patterns shape life, relationships, and leadership, and how awareness, practice, integration, and compassion make change possible.

The Story

How the Work Began

Mark's work did not begin as a brand strategy or a business model. It began when a professional crisis exposed how much identity, stress, anger, and old protective patterns were running his life.

Early in his career, Mark was a successful physical therapist and entrepreneur. Then a loophole in an operating agreement cost him his business, title, income, professional identity, and much of what he thought made him secure. The fallout was not only financial or professional. It affected his body, his relationships, his sleep, and his sense of self.

During a two-month retreat at a Tibetan Buddhist monastery, Mark immersed himself in meditation, silence, and sustained self-reflection. He began to see that painful patterns could be observed, understood, practiced with, and changed.

"That retreat taught me something I still teach today: awareness is not an idea. It is a practice."

Today, his work includes Built This Way, the SAAQ, Power Tools, coaching, forum retreats, leadership experiences, and the PBS documentary Is Your Story Making You Sick? Each doorway serves the same purpose: helping people understand their patterns, work with them, and continue evolving throughout life.

The System

A Practical System for Understanding and Changing Patterns

SkillfullyAware® is a practical system for understanding and changing painful patterns. It helps people see what is happening, understand how the pattern was built, and practice responding with more awareness and care.

If you are here to understand your own painful patterns, the work often begins with Built This Way and the reader tools. If you are here for leadership, forums, retreats, or coaching, the work may begin with the SAAQ, coaching, or a forum retreat.

Different starting points. One integrated system.

The World-Body-Mind model helps people understand how experience is shaped by outer circumstances, inner stories, nervous system patterns, relationships, attention, and meaning-making. When these dimensions become more integrated, people can respond with greater clarity, connection, and resilience.

The Science

Grounded in Practice, Informed by Science

SkillfullyAware® is practical first. The point is helping people understand the patterns shaping their lives and practice living them differently.

The work is informed by mindfulness, adult development, shadow and relational work, systems thinking, Buddhist psychology, CBT, Socratic inquiry, and decades of direct work with clients, leaders, retreats, and practice communities.

The Roots of the Work