Why I Do This Work.
Healing begins when we stop fighting ourselves and start building a different relationship with who we are.
Hi, I’m Sarah.
People are often curious about how I found my way into coaching and therapy. The short answer is that, from a young age, I turned to psychology to make sense of my family’s suffering, heal myself, and build deeper relationships.
Today, I work especially well with people who developed many of the same protective strategies I once relied on. They’re thoughtful, caring, and often deeply self-aware, yet exhausted from overthinking, people-pleasing, striving, or trying to fix themselves. They usually understand why they struggle but still feel disconnected from themselves or caught in patterns they can’t seem to change.
The long answer is a bit more personal…
My Story
Growing up in a family impacted by addiction, I became fascinated by human behavior at a young age. Looking back, I can see that what I called curiosity was really survival. If I could understand people well enough- why they acted the way they did, what motivated them, what they needed- I believed I could somehow keep everyone safe. Maybe then I’d finally receive the love, stability, and connection I longed for.
When my older sister died from an overdose when I was nearly 21, my need to create safety through understanding deepened. For years, I carried the quiet conviction that I should have been able to save her.
So I immersed myself in understanding how people heal. I studied coaching, neuroscience, stress physiology, nervous system regulation, leadership, and mental health. Along the way, something unexpected happened: I began to realize that insight alone wasn’t creating the change I was longing for.
Learning to Heal Differently
Just as I was preparing to open my coaching practice, my life changed overnight. My partner died in a climbing accident that I was involved in. In an instant, everything I thought I understood about resilience was put to the test.
Grief, trauma, survivor’s guilt, and heartbreak brought me face-to-face with the very strategies I’d relied on my entire life. I wanted to make sense of what had happened. I wanted to control what couldn’t be controlled. I wanted to think my way out of feeling.
Instead, I committed to something much more difficult: trusting that my body could learn safety again if I stopped fighting what I was feeling. This required a fundamental shift in how I approached healing.
Healing wasn’t asking me to become stronger.
It was asking me to become more present with my experience and more willing to honor my sensitivity as part of who I am.
Those experiences continue to shape how I understand healing and the way I support my clients today.
My Approach
I don’t believe you’re broken.
I believe your mind and body have adapted in remarkably intelligent ways to help you survive what you’ve lived through. Together, we’ll get curious about those protective strategies, not to judge them or fight against them, but to understand what they are trying to protect.
When those parts feel seen and safe, they often no longer have to work quite so hard. From there, we can begin creating something new.
My hope isn’t that you’ll leave therapy as a different person. It’s that you’ll leave with a different relationship to yourself.
One built on curiosity instead of criticism.
Compassion instead of shame.
Connection instead of control.
I’ve come to believe that healing isn’t about becoming fearless or perfectly regulated. It’s about expanding your capacity to stay connected to yourself, even when life feels uncertain, painful, or messy.
Because when we stop fighting our experience, we create space for something new: more choice, more freedom, and a deeper sense of belonging within ourselves.
If this resonates with you, I’d be honored to walk alongside you.