Uplevel Your Vibration with Sarah Aborn
““I want people to drink in the elements and feel the love of the earth. I want people to come into sacred relationship with themselves and with the divine and to recognize that these are one and the same. This is my contribution to raising the mass consciousness on this planet through the much-needed healing of our individual and collective traumas.””
Sarah Aborn’s energetic body is a presence you feel – to know her is to feel love. She moves through life with grace, her mane of curly blonde hair radiating around her as her sparkling deep blue eyes offer the gift of undivided attention.
As an Embodiment Coach, Sarah draws on two decades steeped in the healing arts to help people find freedom in their bodies, mind and emotions. She cares about her clients’ passions and she is purposeful in helping them determine what old belief systems need upgrading.
In practice, Sarah weaves together conscious breathing, sacred movement, coaching, Emotional Freedom Techniques and guided meditation to support her clients and students in dismantling ingrained patterns that keep them from experiencing their full, unlimited creative potential. Currently, Sarah teaches yoga, leads workshops and retreats, and coaches groups and individuals both in person and online through her new program, “UPLEVEL: Embodied Self-Healing.”
Sarah is a valued member of the Sága Circle network, and in fact, a selection of her meditations are featured and included in the “Sága Studio Library” within the new Sága Studio. We sat down with Sarah (well, virtually) to learn more about her life, her influences and what instilled such radiance into her being.
Here’s what Sarah had to say:
Sága: Welcome! To begin, tell us about little Sarah. Where did you grow up and how would you describe yourself as a child?
Sarah: I grew up in Peekskill, New York until we moved to New Hampshire when I was starting middle school. As a kid, I remember being outside a lot, making forts and my version of “gardening,” which was actually planting whole vegetables in my sandbox.
I was kind of obsessed with helping people, to be honest.
Sarah and her siblings as children.
I was the oldest of three children and always trying to help my mom with my brother and sister or rubbing my dad’s shoulders when he wasn’t working. You could often find me daydreaming about the homeless shelter I wanted to have someday, or how I would spread around my lottery winnings. I also had a “Star Studio,” which was a glorified boombox with a microphone that made it possible for me to jam with Whitney Houston, Madonna and the Bangles. I miss that thing!
Sága: When were you first called toward the healing arts?
Sarah: In high school. I didn’t even take my SAT’s because I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I was headed to massage school, one way or another.
Sága: Were you practicing any arts at that time?
Sarah: When I was 15, I knew that something was missing. I started looking in the paper for classes that would feed my spiritual deficiency. I found a yoga class offered by Peggy Cappy, and the description turned on every atom inside my being. I went, and needless to say, I was the youngest person in the class.
The experience was utterly mind-blowing. I was guided into my body for the first time in my life and I moved in ways that were so much more centering and nurturing than all of the ballet and modern dance classes I had knocked around in up until that point. Toward the end of class, Peggy had us trade shoulder massages with the person sitting next to us. It was unbelievable. We sat for a closing meditation and she said a short prayer and instructed us to listen to the sound of the singing bowl until we couldn’t hear it anymore. I can’t explain what happened when I listened to that sound, which went on and on and on, touching into some aspect of eternity.
I landed for the first time ever. I felt infinite stillness and gorgeous, divine patience. It was sublime.
I walked out of that class forever changed. I sought out yoga everywhere I lived after that.
Sága: What were the first steps you took toward your calling after high school?
Sarah: I ended up going to the most magical place I never even dared to dream of called Heartwood Institute in Northern California (now known as Heartwood Mountain Sanctuary).
It was a residential Holistic Healing school set in the mountains of Humboldt County and I lived there between the ages of 18-20. It was a gorgeous, thriving little community of about 100 people that was a winding 50-minute drive from the nearest town. I learned a wide plethora of modalities there. The ones I studied intensively and became certified in were Polarity Therapy, Zen Shiatsu Acupressure, Swedish Massage and Deep Tissue Massage. I am in deep gratitude that I was able spend such formative years at this Avalonian temple. It was life-changing and life-giving.
Sága: That sounds absolutely dreamy. Did yoga continue to be a part of your life there, in addition to the body work?
Sarah: It was! I studied with an amazing Iyengar yoga teacher in California named Gayna Uransky, who really helped me open and strengthen my body and spirit. Later, in 2007, I took my first yoga teacher training course, which was an Anusara-inspired Hatha program rooted in classical Tantrik philosophy. That was an absolute game changer for every level of my being. I continued to study this non-dual Shaiva Tantra over the years, in addition to other types of yoga. I also completed another 200-hour Teacher Training in 2014, this time in Kundalini Yoga as taught by Yogi Bhajan. A lot of scandal has come to light surrounding him since, so I rarely incorporate that modality into my work. I do find some of the kriyas useful, though, so I occasionally pepper it in.
Sága: You later spent more time out West, correct? Why did you go back?
Sarah: I went back out West when my son was six because I felt very alone in New Hampshire. I was raising him solo and it was wicked depressing, exhausting and frankly, maddening. I needed community. I needed support. I wanted the tribe.
But I got my ass handed to me out there.
It probably comes as no surprise, but it was a thousand times harder to be a broke, single mom in California than a broke, single mom in New Hampshire. I made amazing, life-long friends, but couldn’t find the magic village. I realized how much connection I actually did have in New Hampshire and that I needed to nourish those connections. I realized that I needed to ask for support and seek it out for us.
I realized that I have an amazing family and community and that no matter where you go, there you are...
… as cliché as that sounds.
Sága: Where did your practice take you when you and your son came back to New Hampshire?
Sarah: After we came back, I trained in EFT and Vedic Meditation – two of my favorite modalities, both of which breathed life into my yoga and my bodywork.
EFT Tapping is an absolute game changer. It instilled unconditional self-love and acceptance within me, which rippled out to affect everything. EFT reprograms your subconscious mind via the neural networks and neurotransmitters. It neutralizes old emotions that get packed away into our tissues and create blockages in our energy. It is a phenomenal tool.
Sarah with her son, Desmond, as a young child.
Vedic Meditation generated patience and boundaries. I first studied it in 2017 at Kripalu Institute with Light Watkins and I noticed the most profound thing right away: I wasn’t reacting to my son anymore. Instilling a daily meditation practice created s p a c e within me that suddenly made it possible to witness the world around me without feeling electrocuted by it.
Later that year I traveled out to Santa Monica to receive my Mantra and deepen my studies with Light. Vedic Meditation enabled a deeper connection with myself and my path that really changed my relationship with my son. We have been so much more connected ever since.
Sága: Wow, you’ve had the opportunity to study with such incredible teachers. Who would you say is your greatest teacher?
Sarah: I am tempted to tell you that my son is my greatest teacher. It just seems like the poetic thing to say. In fact, I know I’ve written it in bios! And, don’t get me wrong: he has been one of my most profound teachers, and I know that he will continue to be so. Raising him by myself has been the hardest thing on Earth, which has many built-in, tough lessons. Beyond that, though, he is enlightened in his ability to love people. He is an old soul and brings me endless gifts. I love him more every single day.
My greatest teacher, however, would have to be my dad.
I love him so much and we are so different. It has been a really hard relationship for me—for both of us—and I would venture to guess that I am probably his greatest teacher, too. At least, he better be learning from me!
Sarah with her father as a baby.
My dad has always prided himself on having one emotion and he jokes that this one emotion is malice. It’s not true. (Well, maybe it is partially true. But he is, in fact, quite sentimental. Just don’t tell him I told you so.)
He has taught me so many crucial things. The first is the non-negotiable importance of having a good sense of humor. His is way dryer than mine, but still funny as hell, and I think there’s something really enlightened about that. A sense of amusement is alchemical. It has the power to lift darkness and transform dense energy into higher vibrational frequencies. Humor is magic.
He also instilled within me a killer work ethic. I certainly would not be where I am today without his guidance in that department.
The differences between us have rocked me through and through, but they have also grounded me. I was born into this world a very sensitive and spiritual soul and he is a die-hard practical New Yorker. It’s been painful for both of us. We are even polar opposites on the zodiac wheel.
There were many times I felt misunderstood and unaccepted by him over the decades, even though I am sure he would never want that. It has driven me not only to connect with the divine for support, but to ground said connection in science. If he wasn’t the fatefully logical atheist that he is, I would likely have remained WOO WOO to the MAX.
I suspect that my interest in being able to scientifically prove what I intuitively know to be true is due to wanting to prove to him that my work in this world isn’t imaginary. I really value that.
I like being able to point to how these transformative techniques work from an evidence-based perspective. It takes longer than just knowing, but it provides a great bridge for people who don’t trust that which can’t be seen. And I’m down with that. I’m here to be a bridge, so it’s important that I know how to speak the language on both ends of that bridge.
Sága: That is both beautiful and insightful. Our parents teach us so much, both intended and unintended.
Sarah: Being the deep, emotional Scorpio mama that I am, I’ve had a lot to unpack. Through my teens and twenties I watched my mom completely lose herself to the destructive ways of western medicine. There are a lot of amazing things that come out of western medicine, but also a lot of poison and manipulation. Unfortunately my mother was the recipient of a vast array of reckless negligence. From multiple botched surgeries to opioid addiction, it took her out in every way. It has been a devastating road for all of us, and I knew I needed to help people through the opposite of what she was offered.
Sága: From where we sit, you intrinsically embody that goal. It is incredible how you have transmuted these influences into an embodied path that empowers others. Most recently, with the release of your new online program, UPLEVEL. How did that come to be?
Sarah: Once I integrated EFT Tapping and meditation into my yoga and bodywork, everything became technicolor and my course, UPLEVEL, happened effortlessly. It was the product of all of these things coming together and the healing that I experienced from it. I saw how complete and systematic it could be to utilize all these tools in a journey through the chakras. The Chakra System makes so much sense to me and I love what a multi-dimensional framework it provides. UPLEVEL was so well received every time I ran it in person and I started realizing that the way to reach more people was to get it online. When COVID hit, I knew it was time.
Sága: It’s definitely time. Who is UPLEVEL intended to serve and what is your hope for its release and ultimately, its impact on the world?
Sarah: UPLEVEL is for people who want to heal themselves by raising their vibration. It’s for people who are ready to take responsibility for their well-being. I have a very special place in my heart for single moms, so they will always receive the course for whatever they can afford.
My hope is that this course feeds people on a soul level. I want people to drink in the elements and feel the love of the earth. I want people to come into sacred relationship with themselves and with the divine and to recognize that these are one and the same. This is my contribution to raising the mass consciousness on this planet through much needed healing of our individual and collective traumas.
I want our species to make it and I want that ride to be a fun, sensual, soulful journey.