Returning Clients
Everybody deserves a voice.
I am a Narrative Change Leader, Somatic Healer and Social Justice Movement Strategy Coach.
I offer Body-Centered Skills, Narrative Reframing, Therapeutic Coaching and Embodied Leadership Support to help you on your journey towards trauma transformation, personal freedom and strategic action for the sake of our collective liberation.
To explore my offerings:
1) Ongoing 1:1 Online Somatic Sessions
2) Immersive Coaching Packages
3) In-person Sessions in Oakland, CA
4) Group Somatic Workshops and Courses
My role as your Somatic Practitioner Or Embodiment Coach is to help guide you from insight into action through the wisdom of your mind/body. In our sessions we will connect with the entirety of your being — thoughts, feelings, actions, spirit, and body — opening access to an unparalleled depth of transformation. I bring a deep embodied skillset to these sessions both as a Somatic Practitioner, SEP, trained in trauma transformation (Somatic Experiencing International) and a Certified Mind/Body Coach (though Embody Lab) and a person long-commitment to the path of healing and embodied liberation. The scope of my practice is to help empower clients identify specific goals and reach them– to move farther down their path of healing, embodiment and strategic action. I offer deep listening, empathetic witnessing and guided embodied practice to help you release limiting stories and stuck energy, deepen your social and political commitments and realize the change you want to see in your life and the world.
In Social Justice Movement Strategy Coaching Sessions I will draw from my extensive expertise in the field of healing and embodiment, as well as 15 years of leadership experience in the field of reimaging justice. In these sessions we will identify your strengths, focus on your goals and introduce practices that will help you restructure habits, improve communication and engender more trust with your team. Unlike traditional leadership models, embodied leadership recognizes the importance of emotional and relational intelligence, it’s about leading not just from the head but from the whole self. About me: I’m an award-winning journalist, Pulitzer-presented playwright, impact producer and 2019 Stanford John S. Knight Fellow. As a Producer I’ve raised well over a million dollars and my journalism has been published in the New York Times and The Atlantic. To learn more visit Sarahshourd.com.
“Sarah has done the needed alchemy to make her life an offering, to use the challenges she has faced to make beauty in the world. I trust her capacity as a guide, knowing that she has, and continues to do the work of transformation, both personal and cultural.” -Aninha Livingstone, P.H.D., Psychotherapy and Soul Activism
Liberation and Executive Coach offering Body-Centered Therapy and Skills for Embodied Leadership
As a Liberation Coach offering Body-Centered Therapy and An Executive Coach with a specialty in embodied leadership skills, I offer immersive coaching packages, group courses and ongoing 1:1 sessions to help you on your journey towards embodied leadership, liberation and trauma healing.
“Sarah has done the needed alchemy to make her life an offering, to use the challenges she has faced to make beauty in the world. I trust her capacity as a guide, knowing that she has, and continues to do the work of transformation, both personal and cultural.” -Aninha Livingstone, P.H.D., Psychotherapy and Soul Activism
Hi, I’m Sarah Shourd (she/her)—Somatic Healer, Movement Strategy Coach, Award-Winning Journalist, Pulitzer-presented Playwright, Filmmaker and Founder of The End of Isolation Initiative. My work lies at the intersection of social justice, leadership, creativity and personal trauma transformation. I support individuals and groups seeking transformative change.
In 2009, I was captured and held as a political hostage for 410 days in solitary confinement (see my memoir, A Sliver of Light). That devastating experience didn’t break me—it made me a bigger, braver, and more fabulous version of myself.
Through daily practice, I continue to do the work of transforming my trauma into a gift for the world.
video shot by Matt Clarke and edited by Bobby Field
What is Somatic Coaching?
Somatic Coaching is a mind-body therapeutic modality that creates lasting change.
Create a Future Different from the Past
Somatic Coaching is a mind-body therapeutic healing method that creates lasting, transformative change through guided practices that release stuck energy, making it possible to respond to stress and activation in new ways. My own healing journey has given me an unshakable belief in each person’s unique and powerful path and trust in my own ability to support you along the way.
Our bodies are populated by a web of neurons that influence every feeling we have and every decision we make. Throughout our lives, stress, traumatic events, systemic oppression and early patterning get stuck in our bodies.
Through somatic coaching we can reprogram and renegotiate these neural networks, forming new pathways that lessen the charge of past wounding and allow us to meet overwhelm with more expansiveness and creativity.
Through practice, these new habits can become second nature. Somatic Coaching can also help alleviate pain, deepen social and political commitments, embody new skills and create a future different from the past.
My role as your Somatic Practitioner Or Embodiment Coach is to help guide you from insight into action through the wisdom of your mind/body. In our sessions we will connect with the entirety of your being — thoughts, feelings, actions, spirit, and body — opening access to an unparalleled depth of transformation. I bring a deep embodied skillset to these sessions both as a Somatic Practitioner, SEP, trained in trauma transformation (Somatic Experiencing International) and a Certified Mind/Body Coach (though Embody Lab) and a person long-commitment to the path of healing and embodied liberation. The scope of my practice is to help empower clients identify specific goals and reach them– to move farther down their path of healing, embodiment and strategic action. I offer deep listening, empathetic witnessing and guided embodied practice to help you release limiting stories and stuck energy, deepen your social and political commitments and realize the change you want to see in your life and the world.
In Social Justice Movement Strategy Coaching Sessions, I will draw from my extensive expertise in the field of healing and embodiment, as well as 15 years of leadership experience in the field of reimaging justice. In these sessions we will identify your strengths, focus on your goals and introduce practices that will help you restructure habits, improve communication and engender more trust with your team. Unlike traditional leadership models, embodied leadership recognizes the importance of emotional and relational intelligence, it’s about leading not just from the head but from the whole self. About me: I’m an award-winning journalist, Pulitzer-presented playwright, impact producer and 2019 Stanford John S. Knight Fellow. As a Producer I’ve raised well over a million dollars and my journalism has been published in the New York Times and The Atlantic. To learn more visit Sarahshourd.com.
Somatic Coaching is a mind-body therapeutic modality that creates lasting change.
All Ages
Virtual and In-Person
Customized Sessions
Check out my FAQs and reach out to me with any additional questions about how I might help you in your healing and leadership journey.
FAQ’s
How it works
Somatic Coaching is a mind-body therapeutic modality that creates lasting change.
video shot by Matt Clarke and edited by Bobby Field
Somatic Coaching is a mind-body therapeutic healing method that creates lasting, transformative change through guided practices that release stuck energy, making it possible to respond to stress and activation in new ways
Our bodies are populated by a web of neurons that influence every feeling we have and every decision we make. Throughout our lives, stress, traumatic events, systemic oppression and early patterning get stuck in our bodies.
Through somatic coaching we can reprogram and renegotiate these neural networks, forming new pathways that lessen the charge of past wounding and allow us to meet overwhelm with more expansiveness and creativity.
Through practice, these new habits can become second nature. Somatic Coaching can also help alleviate pain, deepen social and political commitments, embody new skills and create a future different from the past.
Check out my FAQs and reach out to me with any additional questions about how I might help you in your healing and leadership journey.
Begin your transformative experience by booking a complimentary 60-minute “Discovery Call” session. During this call, we’ll explore your unique needs, goals, and aspirations, and discuss how somatic healing can empower you to achieve profound levels of healing and growth.
Words from my clients
“Sarah is a powerful and intuitive practitioner. I was deeply anxious about making a big decision. She helped me to safely process my emotions and approach the choice from a new place of calm and confidence.”
Pamela O’LearyFounder & CEO, The Global Empowerment Lab
“Sarah’s healing led me to a very deep place. I felt that I would be safe forever.”
Summer BrennerWriter and Activist
“Sarah Shourd and james-amutabi’s groundbreaking work as facilitators for Theatre of the Oppressed has deeply impacted our community. For nearly a decade, they have dedicated themselves to empowering young people, using theater as a transformative tool for social change. We had the honor of cohosting an event where they led marginalized youth through a series of immersive activities, witnessing firsthand the profound effect of their work.”
Liz Jackson-SimpsonCEO Success Centers
“james-amutabi and Sarah Shourd are both exceptional and inspiring facilitators who create an inclusive environment that allows participants to express their thoughts and experiences freely. They encouraged us to practice active listening as we immersed ourselves in the personal stories and diversity of viewpoints of the many participants in the room. I especially loved the games and activities that added a fun and unique dimension to the learning process.”
Seneca Beth MillerFounder, Be Just Bodies
“Over the last decade, I’ve seen Sarah use a rigorous journalistic approach — including uncompromisingly ethical reporting and thorough fact checking — to tell compelling stories in new narrative formats. I’m always impressed with her ability to open up complex and opaque issues, both to understand them herself and to translate that insight for audiences.”
Monika BauerlineCEO, Mother Jones Magazine
“Shourd brings the sensibility of the journalist to the theater, and with it a sense of urgency missing from many prison dramas.”
John WilkinsKQED Theater Critic
“One of the best pieces of graphic storytelling I have read in a while, on top of being about a topic close to my heart. Truly, it was brilliant.”
Thi Buiauthor of The Best We Could Do, on Flying Kites
“It is a triumph of writing born of a triumph of being. A Sliver of Light weaves a spellbinding tale of hard-won survival at the intersection of courage and love — the love of friends struggling to support one another in wretched circumstances, the unyielding bedrock of mothers’ love for their long-lost children, and the fiercely tested love of three people for the family of humankind.” —
Andrew Solomonauthor of Far from the Tree on Sliver of Light
“Sarah has done the needed alchemy to make her life an offering, to use the challenges she has faced to make beauty in the world. I trust her capacity as a guide, knowing that she has, and continues to do the work of transformation, both personal and cultural.”
Aninha Livingstone, P.H.D.Psychotherapy and Soul Activism
“Sarah is a bright light, and she always makes an offering of that light to the world”
Liz OgbuDesigner and Activist
“Sarah Shourd’s intuitive direction, infused with radical empathy, has unlocked shifts of awareness in my mind-body connection, igniting deeper personal growth and freedom. I highly recommend Sarah to anyone seeking a supportive and conscious guide on their healing journey.”
Client
“Sarah played a big role in supporting our team during a very hard time in Venezuela that affected our jobs and personal lives. She helped us connect with ourselves and feel grounded, calm and peaceful despite all the craziness of the world.”
Lorena BravoExpand Your Capacity VA Agency
I am here to fulfill the unfulfilled potential of my ancestors–right wrongs, repair the field, make less strangers, love bravely, and align with the universe–so that our future ancestors can be even more free.
