Meet Sarah Stevens

We were lucky to catch up with Sarah Stevens recently and have shared our conversation below.

Sarah , so good to have you with us today. We’ve always been impressed with folks who have a very clear sense of purpose and so maybe we can jump right in and talk about how you found your purpose?

It was Spring of 2019. March 27th to be exact, around 2:30 in the afternoon. I’d been tapped as the last presentation before intermission for the TEDx Conference being held in my hometown, and I had decided to leave it all on that stage, including the dress that had been covering my body during my 14 minutes in the spotlight.

Stripped: The Art of Being Seen was a bit about my fat body, a bit about finding peace with it, and a bit about the common human experience of hiding the seemingly loathsome parts of ourselves away from the world, a presentation I thought best punctuated by stripping the literal clothes from my body as testament to the freedom we find by being seen. I walked off the stage to a standing ovation, exited the auditorium, found my dress, and thought, “There. I did it. My Magnum Opus. The message I was meant to share with the world. Done and dusted”

And for a brief moment, “the world” agreed with me, as long as you’re willing to classify “the world” as my hometown of a quarter million people, several thousand of whom would later watch that talk and come up to me in restaurants and coffeeshops and bars to say, “HEY! You gave that TED talk where you took your dress off! YOU. ARE. SO. BRAVE.” (or some similar sentiment) For a while, I was good with this. It felt like enough. I liked being the fat lady who had nothing left to hide, who had truly bared it all – or at least a much as you’re allowed to bare in an auditorium in Iowa on a weekday afternoon, But then as my 15 seconds of “fame” faded into oblivion, I began to wonder if that really was IT. THE moment. The crescendo. The peak. And if it was, then WHAT WAS I TO DO NOW?

Much has happened in the years since that moment. I lost my way for a while, discouraged by the fact that my vulnerability on stage hadn’t catapulted me to viral, half-naked stardom. I licked my wounds and decided “public work just wasn’t for me.” And then I started to heal. Not so much from the experience with TED, but from everything else. From everything that had led me to that stage in the first place. The dangerous decades of dieting, the incessant pursuit of perfection, the relentless drive to BE MORE and DO BETTER. I started to heal and trust that body I’d exposed on stage that day. I started to heal and stopped finding much about myself to be loathsome at all anymore. I just started to heal.

And from that place, I do think I’ve stumbled on my purpose so long as I remember that my purpose isn’t a destination. There is no pinnacle, peak moment. It will never be done and dusted. My purpose is presence, radical presence to myself and to the people around me.

And for the briefest moment, that meant. I spoke on stage to every woman who has ever felt like her body has betrayed her.
And for the briefest moment, that meant I collected hundreds of stories and curated them into The Beautiful Project – a storytelling collective that invites women to take up space.
And for the briefest moment (this exact moment) that means I am the owner of Sanctuary Studios, a pay-what-you-can home for movement and meditation where every BODY belongs – an incredible space that has hosted over 5,000 visits in its first nine months of operation.
But there also will be many brief moments after this, each teeming with purpose, so long as I remember that my purpose will always evolve alongside me as long as I let it.

Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?

I am a former healthcare executive turned writer, speaker, entrepreneur, and embodiment practitioner. I earn my living by telling stories about the people and places that make the world better, and since 2018, I’ve been on a mission to change the way we relate to our bodies.

Beginning with The Beautifull Project, I amplified a message that moved beyond a body-positive sentiment and created a movement that makes room for every body to tell their truth and take up space.

But today, I am pouring that message into Sanctuary Studios, intent on creating a place for people to come back to their bodies and home to themselves. What we do at Sanctuary is about more than just moving our bodies. It is about belonging, to ourselves and to each other. It is the magic I was always looking for in the message.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

Empathy – this gets a bad rap because we’re so accustomed to believing that being empathetic means we’ve also got to be without boundaries, but nothing could be further from the truth. Because I am always willing to understand the other person first, it makes me infinitely more capable of finding a way forward together, which also means I waste very little energy on fighting to be right.

Self-compassion – I have worked HARD to develop this because we are conditioned to be self-critical, but extending compassion to myself means I spend MUCH less time wallowing in my own inadequacies and much more time creating the kind of world I believe we deserve.

Communication – I am skilled a communicator in nearly every medium; this skill has set me apart throughout every professional endeavor.

Okay, so before we go we always love to ask if you are looking for folks to partner or collaborate with?

I am really interested in collaborating with people who developing innovative ways to build community – and to be clear, I don’t just mean the kind of community who spends time together or has common interests. I’m talking about the kind of community that cares for the physical, emotional, and spiritual needs of the collective. I believe community is the way forward and I want to know everyone who is committed to the same end.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.sanctuarystudiosqc.com www.bysarahstevens.com www.thebeautifullproject.com
• Instagram: @bysarahstevens @sanctuarystudiosqc @thebeautifullproject
• Facebook: same as IG