Like many who end up in this field, I come with my own healing journey.

As a child and throughout my adolescence, I would daydream frequently.

It was as though my mind wanted to be in a different reality. A reality that was more secure: where I felt noticed, belonged and not forgotten.

A place I could call home…

The irony was that I grew up in a “regular family”! For many years, this blinded me from acknowledging what I encountered in my surrounding was in fact “trauma”. And, while a part of me chronically searched for stability and normalcy, I learned to simply dismiss the old pain that lived inside.

No career titles or personal achievements made the feeling of “something is missing” go away.

But as I studied trauma, I realized that even though my mind tried to dismiss pain stories for many years… needless to say I was very good at this… another part of me held on tight to the past. And soon, I learned to teach my mind and my body to stop minimizing the past and move towards healing.

Today, I’m a registered social worker and trauma-trained psychotherapist. I work with emotions and absence of emotions, autopilot nervous system responses and deep-seated beliefs. I established A Time To Heal to offer experiential and neurobiologically-based wellness methods for restoring one’s innate equilibrium.

Today, I challenge you to dismiss labels and welcome the past.

Because healing is not whole until the past, the body and the mind are fully acknowledged.

 

Sara Saniee

Founder & Clinical Lead, MSW | RSW

Registered Social Worker | Psychotherapist

Certified Sensorimotor Psychotherapist | EMDR

LENS Provider | HRV Biofeedback & Neurofeedback Clinician

Another Sliver Of Me…

Forging Connections through Art. Art is an unrestrained expression that gathers us despite our human nature to critique it! Art - in the form of drawings, statutes and monuments – has existed for centuries as way of coming together, sharing and passing down emotional tales. Art takes a fundamental place in my life for it has helped me feel profoundly, and given me space to numb out! It has allowed me to be seen and hidden all at once… and to feel safe in sharing with others what I have forced myself to deny. My art is not for display, nor for praise and criticism. It is a collection of accidental brush strokes and collages that could mean nothing to nobody, yet feel so significant to many parts of me.

Living Embodied through Weight Training. It is quite intriguing and familiar the things we do, as human beings, to be accepted, to feel worthy and to belong. For a good part of my life, I was at war with my body and often felt confined by societal expectations. In fact, the concept of feeling physical strength inside was both foreign and unimaginable. After a few health conditions, I found myself standing by a barbell at my local gym in hopes of changing the next chapter of my life. Through weight training, I learned to stop viewing my body as an ornament… I learned to nurture its power, and recognize its design to keep me alive as I feel the world around me! And with time… my physical strength morphed into a deep sense of embodiment and an unbreakable spirit.