Featured Teacher: Sarah Zandbeek
If you've been around Yogalife Studios for a bit you've probably had an interaction with Sarah Zandbeek. From her thoughtful, informative classes and workshops to the teacher trainings facilitated each year, she is a staple member of the Yogalife family. Today we're catching up with this beautiful human; enjoy her words!
Check out Sarah's Facebook page. Although since having a baby, she has taken a break from teaching publicly, she continues to develop and refine the teacher training each year.
“I am a woman with a curious heart and a fierce, graceful edge. I am a seeker, turning over every stone, searching the world and my Self for the truest of true. I am a Lighthouse, holding up a strong pillar, unwavering, bringing light to the depths until the light shines from below. I am a student of life, a deep lover, and a healer. At the same time, I am none of this. I am a girl trying to figure out how to exist in this world, a wanderer having forgotten my way, a student unwilling to see the teacher in front of me, and someone seeking to be healed; yet, I am always a lover and observer of life.
Every thing in its context, every thing with a lesson to be learned, everything in its place.
Om.”
Trainings Taken:
200 hour Yoga Alliance Teacher Training with Open Door Yoga in Vancouver 100 Hour Teacher Training with Ryan Leier, Troy Hadeed, and Dustin Fruson 200 hour Advanced Teacher Training in Bali with the brilliant and devoted Tara Judelle and the wildly, unfathomable Scott Lyons Time spent with Stephen Thomas in quiet seat studying breath and mantra University degree in Traditional Chinese Medicine and Acupuncture at Macewan University
Share a favourite poem that inspires you:
Self Portrait
It doesn't interest me if there is one God or many gods. I want to know if you belong or feel abandoned. If you know despair or can see it in others. I want to know if you are prepared to live in the world with its harsh need to change you. If you can look back with firm eyes saying this is where I stand. I want to know if you know how to melt into that fierce heat of living falling toward the center of your longing. I want to know if you are willing to live, day by day, with the consequence of love and the bitter unwanted passion of your sure defeat. I have heard, in that fierce embrace, even the gods speak of God.
-- David Whyte
What's your favourite music to practice to (or do you prefer silence?):
Anything that takes me on a journey into the deep caverns of this body.
Your favourite books, yogi-inspired and fiction: Radiant Sutras by Lorin Roche Five Spirits by Loris Dechar The Gift - Poems of Hafiz by Daniel Ladinsky The Anatomy of the Spirit by Carolynn Myss ....I could go on for ever, I am a bit of a geek.
Where's your favourite vacation spot? I use to dream of being a traveller and when I became one, I used to dread coming home. Now, my favourite vacation spot is in my heart. Sounds cliche, but it is true. I like being home, I like being away...everything has its purpose and I mostly enjoy my life and the work I get to do.
What is your favourite meal to make and share with friends? Wine, cheese, crackers, olives, bread and butter and on the other hand, I love me a green smoothie. Kale is King.
What's the coolest experience you've ever had with a student? Any time a student discovers something new for the first time is pretty cool for me. Watching the growth, the mind-boggles, the ripples of awareness seeping in. It's all so cool.
What's your favourite pose/sequence/area of the body to work on? I don't know that I really think about the poses all too much, I am mostly "favouriting" the insides! Get inside, what is happening in there...something juicy surely, something a little ragged, some cob webs, a few intricate disguises, so many things.
Who inspires you? Humans inspire me. It blows my mind often how we are all having a totally different experience and view of the exact same thing. It is all so curious to me.
I am inspired mostly by those seeking their truth through the depths of hell and choosing to keep going. The ones getting pummelled by Life's sweet lessons, but their heart continues to beg the question, "but who am I really." Taking only truth and laying everything else to dissolve. The ones that are curious about something more than what they already "know." The ones willing to give it all up for Love. Those are the ones who inspire me. The ones with fight in their heart and soul that denies nothing.
What is your favourite festival to attend?
Burning Man....yes, Burning man. Woa.
Photo: Trey Ratcliff
If you could study with one person who would it be and why? Lorie Dechar, I read her words and hear the refinement and depth of her wisdom.
What is the best concert you've ever been to? Ooo, hard one. Probably Radio Head, outside in Vancouver, pouring rain...total Bliss!
Where's the next place you want to travel? Switzerland :)
Share your favourite self-healing practice. Quiet Solitude steeped with rich conversation with those who have learned to listen
Share one of your life goals. To write a book.
May we share in this practice together.
xo