hi! i’m sarai
embodiment coach * speaker * energy healer * ritualist
Pleasure * Fun * Liberation * Being With
here’s a (sort of) normal bio lest you long for it:
Sarai Johnson is an embodiment coach, eclectic agonistic secular witch, author, speaker, and podcast host of Holy Ghosting and an upcoming project, In This Body: A Practice of Liberating the Self Through Embodiment, Energetics, and Sexual Education. Her current work focuses on helping people who have experienced repressive and oppressive systems, including high control religion, to reconnect with their own bodies to find liberation. She also helps people reclaim their inherent wisdom, to build ritual and meaning in their everyday lives, and to reimagine and co-create rites of passage that white supremacy, patriarchy, and christian supremacy have erased.
Sarai has two decades of experience experience managing businesses, nonprofits, people, projects, and as a creative entrepreneur. She was raised in American Evangelicalism, a high control religion that is considered mainstream in her culture. After growing up within an oppressive system that was designed to alienate humans from their own bodies and their own agency, Sarai slowly dismantled her religious beliefs, worked through religious trauma, and reclaimed her body as her own. She now works with others who have been raised and lived within oppressive systems to help them connect with the immense power that comes with knowing you are your own, and tapping into the agency you have always had but weren’t allowed to realize.
She earned her Master of Public Administration and a Graduate Certificate in Nonprofit Management from the University of Oregon, and holds certifications in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Group Coaching, Book Yourself Solid® Business Coaching, Yoga, Reiki, and is an Emerge Oregon alumna.
At home, Sarai enjoys her two delightful human children, and her distressingly large number of cats.
my approach to the work
i help people reclaim their bodies as their own so that they can get in touch with their inherent wisdom, intuition, sexuality, and power to live as their whole selves.
coach
My approach to all coaching begins with the body. Whether a client wants to start or build their business, run for office, get a job more suited to their dreams and desires, or free themselves from sexual repression, the first step is to connect the mind to the body. As creatures who live in a culture that is built upon the necessary oppression and exploitation of large groups of people, especially black, brown, indigenous, queer, and trans people (not to mention the entire global south), we are compelled to override our bodies and the needs of the body just to get by at work, at home, and in our communities. Learning how to feel into spaces in our bodies that we were told were bad, or that cause us physical or emotional pain allows us to shift everything else. Together, we practice honoring and prioritizing our physical, mental, and emotional wellbeing as a foundation for success.
speaker
Freedom, liberation, and self-determination are my driving force. I have spent my entire life working to help myself and others courageously liberate ourselves from the expectations and trappings of our unconsciously created roles and choices in life. Sharing through keynotes, workshops and facilitation is a way to share this message of self-empowerment, self-discovery, embodiment, healing, and action. When I speak, people jump to their feet for "YES!" that resonates for them.
I help people see what is possible, that all the magic they need is already inside them, and how to make their dreams happen.
author
My books, articles, and blogs are meant to help people transform their ideas into achievable action steps, and to identify and release the unconscious ways we hold ourselves back and alienate ourselves from our own agency. All of my work is centered in the liminal space where individuals (bodies) meet systems (culture). Our lives, work, passions, and actions are shaped by the cultures and mythologies in the spaces where we engage and invest - especially family, work, and organizational culture. Through understanding our own bodies, experiences, and beliefs and how they interact with systems of oppression - especially white supremacy, patriarchy, and high control religion, we can begin to dismantle cages we thought made us safe, beginning with subtle energetic shifts, liberating our bodies and sexuality, and make it safer for more people to find liberation along with us.
sarai’s educational and somatic lineages
Learning and gaining mastery is a life-long pursuit. In my days of honing my personal and professional skills, and leaning into my highest and best work, I have earned credentials and received valuable training from wonderful teachers and also just regular institutions of higher learning.
relevant credentials and certifications
Master of Public Administration // University of Oregon
Graduate Certificate in Nonprofit Management // University of Oregon
Certified Associate in Project Management (2013-2018) // Project Management Institute
Certified CBT Group Facilitator // National Association of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapists
Book Yourself Solid® Certified Coach // Book Yourself Solid
And last but not least, a surprisingly useful degree from my peri-Christian days, a Bachelor of Ministry from Central Christian College of Kansas. This education provided me with a variety of skills I continue to use in my work to this day. Philosophy, theology, pastoral ministry (caring for a community’s spiritual wellbeing), counseling, public speaking, and a host of other related education and practice all remain part of my work today, outside of the high control religious context. I’m grateful for my experiences in college, and especially thank Larry Anderson, DTh, for asking questions I just had to answer for myself, and for saying that he’s a Christian even though his wife is a Republican. I didn’t know those were two different things until he said that. For real.