I'm Sarah.
As you'll discover as you wander around my site, I'm a Trauma Sensitive & Mental Health-focused Yoga Teacher & Teacher Trainer & Mentor. I'm also a Body-Positive Counsellor & Social Worker specialising in eating disorder recovery.
Alongside this...I'm Mother to Hazel, as well as Step-Mum, Aunty, Daughter, and Friend. I include these here because to me, the quality of these relationships - and the daily practice of living in connection with others - is as essential to my work as any credential.
Whether I’m...
Facilitating workshops, courses, retreats, teacher trainings, or therapeutic groups on Body Love Yoga, Yoga for Anxiety and Depression, Eating Disorder Recovery, or Trauma Sensitive Yoga...
Counselling, amazing humans who've encountered various life challenges...
Or
Speaking and facilitating at events, yoga teacher trainings, and festivals....
What I’m really doing is…
Exploring the many ways in which we (and/or the environment and systems in which we're living) get in our way whether it’s due to fear, confusion, oppression, self-destructive habits, procrastination, tiredness, limiting beliefs, excessive busyness, or any number of other reasons….
And
Finding solutions to get out of our own way, and clear the way around us, so we can live with authenticity, courage and passion in any area of our life we choose to focus on, whether that be finding the words to launch a creative project, transforming the way we feel in our own skin, or amplifying the way we chase our dreams.
because…
The world is a much better place when we end battles of any kind. And because empowerment can begin with ourselves.
Now that you know a little bit more about what matters to me, you can...
- Sign up to my newsletter (at the top of this page) to receive occasional deliveries of inspiration and news.
- Check out my blog
- Head over to my bookings page for upcoming workshops and events
- Contact me to ask a question, discuss counselling sessions, propose that we work together, or just to say hi.
Thanks for stopping by to say hello!
Love,
Sarah
Since you made it this far, here are 10 random, true things about me...
1. I love fresh raspberries, especially if I can gather them from the bush. In fact I love gathering in general – eggs, feathers, fresh flowers, op-shop bargains, circles of friends…
2. I have many nicknames. My favourites are ‘Diz’, ‘Pip’, 'Ra-Ra' and 'Tia' (which means Aunty in Spanish and is the name given to me by my bi-lingual nephew).
3. I started practising yoga and regularly writing in a journal when I was eleven. I have filled well over 100 volumes of journals.
4. I once made crocheted woolen cosies for each of my journals and exhibited them in an art gallery under the title ‘putting the past to bed’. As a nomadic woman, the blank pages have been my most consistent home.
5. My favourite film is a Swedish film called "As It Is In Heaven".
6. All-in-all, I went to nine schools. One of them had only nineteen kids.
7. I dream of touring the world on a bicycle - though I have never actually tried this mode of traveling, I am in awe of those who do.
8. I believe in the truth of the statement "Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day I can hear her breathing." Arundhati Roy.
9. I’m prone to depth and contemplation, so can easily misinterpreted as being a very serious human. I'm also a playful kid in so many ways – loving hoolah-hoops; trampolines; starry skies; fire twirling; campfires; bodysurfing; rock-pool-wandering, and long cozy cuddles with loved ones.
10. I grew up on the chilly plateau of the Blue Mountains, Australia, and still love it when the crisp autumn mornings begin to muffle the heat of summer.
11. I don’t always follow the rules- especially not with writing. Hence adding an eleventh point…
Credentials and Training
I am a qualified yoga teacher, art therapist, counsellor, and social worker. I hold a Master of Social Work from The University of Sydney; a Graduate Diploma in Art Therapy from La Trobe University, Melbourne; and a bachelor of visual arts from the University of Sydney. My professional experience includes running therapeutic group-work and 1:1 counselling in the fields of disabilities; adult mental health; child and adolescent mental health; addiction treatment, and eating disorder recovery. I also develop professional development programs, sit on the national leadership committee, and facilitate courses, for social justice organisation Off The Mat Into The World, and am a community partner of the international Yoga and Body Image Coalition. My therapy experience includes Dialectical Behavioural Therapy (DBT) skills training with method founder Marsha Linehan; facilitating DBT skills groups for adolescents with CAYMHS, Illawarra, as well as training in Family-Based Treatment (FBT/Maudsley) for anorexia nervosa, and facilitating recovery programs with The Butterfly Foundation. This eclectic range of training and work has led me to supportive and leadership roles in a diverse range of adult mental health; community health; creative arts; individual counselling; communications, and international development settings.
Alongside my creative and academic studies, I have continued to be an active student of several yoga traditions over the last twenty years, as well as a facilitator on a number of yoga teacher trainings around Australia and internationally. I have studied multiple yoga teacher trainings, including a 2-year 500 hour training at Nature Care College in Sydney, 200 hours with the School Of Sacred Arts, and 150 hours in ZenThai Flow. I am qualified to teach in the styles of hatha, Viniyoga, vinyasa flow, ZenThai flow, and yin yoga. I spent most of 2013 coordinating a nonprofit yoga studio in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, raising funds for Krama Yoga NGO, a program offering trauma-sensitive yoga for more than 300 at-risk Cambodian youth every month. I also bring to my work a background of formal and informal studies in yoga therapy, ayurveda, mindfulness, trauma-aware yoga and yoga philosophy. Thanks to the role yoga has played in my own journey, I bring a diverse, open-hearted, and candid presence to my teaching, activism and creative practices, to facilitate spaces for personal healing and collective social change.
“Worthiness doesn't have prerequisites.”Brene Brown
