Depth Psychotherapist and MFT Trainee, Author/Writer, Coach
Dear one,
What I discovered along my personal healing journey changed my life in the most unexpected ways.
The path to healing is so much more accessible than most of us realize.
My own rock bottom experience now informs my renegade body of work to provide resources for folks who are growing and living as they grieve (and the people who love them).
For years, I worked directly with grieving people as an educator and coach. As I approach the completion of my MA in counseling psychology with a focus on marriage and family therapy, I’m in the launch phase of up and coming offers that will be announced in 2024.
Some of my offerings are for the important front-line friends and family who doing the work of showing up for folks doing their best to live. It can be so hard to know what to do and what not to say - so my emotional companion resources will spell it all out for you!
The information I share is both holistic and cutting edge: it’s supported by modern neuroscience and ancient wisdom practices shared in down to earth language. I’m all about keeping it simple and sticking to real talk at all times. This is why I love podcasting - its my favorite way to connect with you - heart to heart. Looking forward to launching a new show this summer!
Like a caterpillar in its chrysalis, we often experience the greatest transformative potential during the moments in life with the most uncertainty. My body of work is here help you find your way.
You don’t have to do any of this alone.
"Let’s demystify the lie that grief has to be a wasteland of endless suffering and affirm the truth that grief is a universal mental, emotional, spiritual terrain we will each traverse throughout our lives. Grief is integrative; healthy grief is how we heal.”
-Sarah Nannen
About Sarah
Sarah Nannen is the founder of The Center for Grief & Growth. The support she offers weaves together a rich body of work infused with a proactive and renegade approach to mental health, emotional resilience, and accessible body-mind healing that lasts. Sarah helps others talk about and navigate painful life transitions and the trickest edges of our beautiful/brutal shared humanity with resources, workshops, group and individual work, books, a podcast, and more!
Sarah Nannen is an American writer/author, depth psychotherapist, MFT Trainee, coach and podcast host. She became a military widow and solo mom in 2014 when an aviation accident claimed her late husband’s life. Her personal journey and vast professional training informs her body of work supporting folks who are growing and living as they grieve (and the people who love them). Sarah is the author of the best-selling book Grief Unveiled and is writing a forthcoming book on the topic of emotional care for grieving friends and family.
Sarah is a Martha Beck trained professional life coach. She holds a trauma studies certificate from Pacifica Graduate Institute where she is also pursuing an MA in Counseling Psychology with an Emphasis in Marriage and Family Therapy and Depth Psychology alongside a certificate in Ecopsychology. Her thesis focuses on adolescent mental health crisis and the important role adults play in the lives of teens in modern America: specifically, therapists, teachers, and parents. Her dynamic background as a professional life coach, yoga teacher, military veteran, birth doula, and mother informs her applications of ancient wisdom traditions and modern day science into an accessible, yet powerfully informative approach to grief, living, and emotional care. Sarah lives in central Illinois with her partner Brad, their four children and their pit bull, Luna.
Sarah is a student of humanity who finds meaning in guiding others to find their best life — one that fully honors the enormity of the human experience. She approaches teaching, coaching, and therapy with the same innovative and reverent spirit she embraces in life.
“Sarah creates this beautiful space to welcome you into. She's got open arms, her energy is palpable, she knows what she's talking about and makes that instant connection. She shows you doors. And she helps you open them yourself.”
- Alison M.
“Sarah’s got a handle on life. She’s true blue. She’s so intuitive. Her gut is right on. If you’re searching for a lifeline, this is it. She’s not going to make you happy, she’s going to teach you how to make yourself happy.”
- Amy E.
“Sarah’s lit up with life. She works at a high frequency. She has a quality about her that is very zen-like where she can hold a sacred space and meet people where they are and really zero in on the group or the individual. She’s really smart, both intuitively and intellectually. She has a lot of emotional intelligence. She knows her stuff, she’s done her research. [With Sarah], I feel very safe. I can be guarded and I was able to open up to her very quickly. I felt valued. I felt supported to take time to make myself the center.”
- Karen M.
“Sarah’s so gifted at evoking hope in me and being a guide and being someone who sits beside me as I step into myself in powerful ways I didn't even know were possible before the worst day of my life. And in that way, it was one of the most powerful days of my life — because it was when I started to live as me.”
- Christina K.
“Sarah says she's not a magician but I disagree. It's like she has a sixth sense. She can read people and she just knows how to very nicely, lovingly, draw things out. She's very empathetic. She can feel that you're holding something back or that there's more to the story. She's genuine, honest and open.”
- Lorri R.
“Sarah’s a visionary. She can see things in us, and she can see things in life that a lot of times we don't see. She encourages me, helps me see what's possible. She's just an amazing human, so full of life, so full of joy, full of love. She has the best hugs ever. She's just an amazing human being.”
- Lisa P.
Speaking
Hear Sarah’s story, "Being a Renegade Widow” (9 min talk) at Speakers Who Dare, a TEDx-styled speaker series produced like a Broadway show, featuring speakers from around the world who want to ignite change and inspire new ways of thinking in New York City. This talk is not just for widows - its for anyone who has felt judged, misunderstood, and afraid as they confronted a painful life experience.
Sarah Nannen speaks to a variety of audiences, offering a personal take on navigating the moments in life that bring us to our knees. Sarah offers a proactive and renegade approach to healing that is both inspiring and actionable. Her transformational speaking + teaching topics range from hope and healing to grief, trauma, and resilience, and often incorporate mindfulness with a focus on well-being as a lifestyle practice.
Book
During the first five years of Sarah’s professional coaching career, she worked exclusively with widows and those navigating the painful terrain of grief resulting from a variety of losses in their lives. She found abundant universal threads within the scope of her work with widows and individuals navigating painful life transitions. In 2017, she wrote and published the Amazon best-selling book, Grief Unveiled: A Widow’s Guide to Navigating Your Journey in Life After Loss. (Morgan James, 2018). This is a love-letter of a book for anyone who iso grieving.
Yoga
For 15 years, Sarah has found yoga to be an ever-deepening practice of coming home to her most-true self and a sustainable resource to return to for healing and well-being.
Trained in the Pranakriya School of Yoga Healing Arts, she received her 200 hour yoga teacher certification in 2015. She continues to deepen into her 300 hour training with the same lineage. Through yoga, Sarah has learned to practice swadyaya (self observation without judgment), which has shifted the way she lives, loves, and sits with her experiences.
Sarah founded Renkon Yoga Studio with her partner in Bloomington, IL which closed its studio doors in 2020 in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic. She now offers yoga and meditation practices to support the well-being of her online support community and clients.
Sarah recently contributed a very personal essay about the impact of yoga in her life to a new book available titled Embodied Resilience Through Yoga: 30 Mindful Essays About Finding Empowerment After Addiction, Trauma, Grief, and Loss [2020].
This inspiring book, filled with personal essays of resilience found through yoga, supports your healing journey to find empowerment, connection, and growth following trauma. Topics of loss and trauma are often swept aside in conversations about mindfulness and yoga, but this remarkable book presents empowering essays that prove your experiences matter and that yoga can help you find the resilience to carry on. This essential reading will inspire you to find strength you didn't even realize you had.