We were lucky to catch up with Sarah Lane recently and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Sarah thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Was there a moment in your career that meaningfully altered your trajectory? If so, we’d love to hear the backstory.
When I was in college, I was a double major in the business school, and minored in psychology. After graduating from college, I worked for various marketing agencies. I learned a lot, but I hated sitting in front of a computer screen all of the time. The computer, the long hours of sitting, the cutthroat environment, the deadlines, was very draining to my Soul that wanted to be out in the world making a difference. I remember thinking, “is this really what I worked my ass off for all these years?!”
I went from sitting at a desk for 9-11 hours a day to pushing myself hard at the gym. One day after work, I hit the office gym and innocently bent over to tie my shoe, then found myself feeling paralyzed, lying on the gym floor in agony. I was not sure how I was going to get home and called my mom to come pick me up.
I had thrown my back out at the young age of 22. Physical therapy treatments and hot yoga helped, but I still wasn’t extracting the lesson I was supposed to learn from this injury. Apparently I needed another wake-up call.
About a year of partying, working long hours, and ignoring my body went by, and I found myself in another predicament. I was involved in a serious car accident. My car was totaled, and from the photos looked like I could have died. But I survived. I only came out with a few stitches and pain. After more PT and yoga, I started to ask more questions and take a deeper look at my life and the decisions I was making.
These injuries were the Universe’s way of getting me to WAKE UP and listen to my intuition. I started to realize that I hadn’t been listening to my true self at all, but I was listening to society’s expectations of me and how I “should” be living my life.
“Go to college, get a good job, make money, have fun on the weekends, then retire…”
I started to question everything – where was my career heading? Why was I settling for less than I deserved & desires? What was I doing with my life?
After a break-up and starting a new job, I decided to sign up for Yoga Teacher Training. With training taking up most of my time, I said goodbye to my social life and said hello to my Soul Life. Teacher training was one of the most valuable experiences of my life, involving deep introspection on all aspects of my life and who I am, my goals and long-term aspirations. I also learned about the chakra system, which I use on a daily basis to “diagnose” and treat my own physical and emotional imbalances. I didn’t realize at the time that Yoga Teacher Training was teaching me how to heal myself along the way.
I received my first reiki attunement, which allowed me to get my period for the first time in 10 years!! My period was suppressed due to hormonal birth control and years of suppressed emotions held in my sacral chakra and womb space, which were energetically cleared by the Reiki Attunement.
When I was at a women’s retreat in San Diego one spring, I saw the facilitator on stage and thought “that will be me one day” so I put it in motion and started to follow my intuition and clues from Source to lead me here.
I started investing in myself — hiring my own coaches, reiki masters, and shamanic healers to go deeper into my own healing.
In the meantime, I was still working in the corporate world and using every second of free time to work on my personal development and spiritual practices. I was great at my job, but my nervous system felt under attack every day because i was so out of alignment, my intuition was practically screaming at me. I felt like I was straddling two worlds — one foot in the soul-sucking corporate life and one foot in my spiritual, soul-led life. I had to choose one or I’d be straddling and stretched too thin forever.
After my second panic attack that year in the middle of a client meeting, I went outside, took off my shoes, and hugged a tree. I meditated beneath the tree and felt the earth below my feet, feeling completely supported at that moment. It was an awakening moment — I knew that it was time to leave my job. I could hear the quiet whispers of the trees saying, “we’ve got you” and warm sun bringing me hope and joy. I felt so supported by Mother Nature.
I sent a resignation letter that had been sitting in a file on my computer desktop for A YEAR.
After I had the final conversation with my boss, I went out onto the balcony at the office, threw my hands up in the air and yelled, “I’m FREE!!”
This was the beginning of my freedom, not only from a job that I disliked but freedom from the confines of the system. I knew that this way of life was not for me. When we live with intention and from intuition, we create the life we really desire. God plants desires within us for a reason. God does not place true heart-felt desires within us that aren’t meant for us.
Panic attacks, car accidents, diagnoses, major inquiries…these are not punishments for bad behavior, but rather wake up calls from Spirit to invite us into deeper inquiry. They are revelatory moments that redirect us to the right path, if we choose them.
Now, I’m following my soul’s desires and I’ve hosted women’s healing retreats in Joshua Tree, Hawaii, and San Diego. I’ve facilitated breathTWERK at music festivals, jungle gatherings, and have helped thousands of women reclaim their sovereignty. I’m hosting RAGE RETREATS in San Diego to support women in transmuting their rage into power and pleasure. I’ve met the partner of my dreams, and I’m living in a gorgeous sanctuary space. I live my life by design and co-create it with Spirit daily, no longer giving my power away to what society expects me.
Sarah, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
Dance broke me out of a thousand cages, shook my shame and woke up the truth-telling, twerking, tantalizing tantrika within me. I want the same for you!
I have facilitated transformational breathwork journeys for thousands of people and have facilitated BreathTWERK at music festivals such as Same Same But Different Festival. As a DJ and the founder of BreathTWERK, my dance floors and healing spaces are as multidimensional as you — sanctuaries that welcome your most awkward, sexy, silly, powerful, embarrassing, fabulous, loud, cringey parts of yourself.
With a background in somatics, yoga, breathwork and the art of DJing, I bring every morsel of embodied knowledge I’ve picked up to our dance floor or ceremony space to make room for all your parts, from the inner kids and howling creatures within.
My vision for women is to reclaim our bodies, pleasure, and sexual energy as made FOR US, BY US – not for anyone else’s use or exploitation.
I went from dissociated and numbed out to connected and embodied. I went from drunk to sober. I went from unsatisfied to fulfilled. I went from lost & living nomadically to truly feeling at home in my body.
I can truly empathize with the problems of addiction, feeling confused about sexuality and navigating bi-sexuality, codependency, abandonment wounds, lack of boundaries, low self worth, lack of purpose / direction in life, children of divorce, children of addicts, and sexual trauma.
The work that I’m doing now creates a safe space for people to talk about, acknowledge, feel, and transmute these problems. We have space for the full cycle completion of an emotion, fully integrated healing that incorporates the body wisdom and the mind.
I created the practice of BreathTWERK to support women in creating a healthy, embodied relationship to their sexuality while healing shame, anger, and grief around past sexual experiences and relationships.
BreathTWERK is a breathwork & dance experience designed to awaken your primal, wild, Shakti energy and claim your body sovereignty. Your journey begins with a guided 3-part Conscious Connected breathwork technique to get out of your head and into your body. After breathing, we move into yoga-inspired floor movements followed by dance, twerking, primal embodiment, vocal toning, and more. Uncage your wild, awaken your sovereignty and transmute density in this safe container for transformation and emotional alchemy.
I also co-founded Rage Retreats with my friend Rebecca Cuje, another powerful Reiki Practitioner and Somatic Coach. We hold retreats for women to express their sacred rage and empower them to transmute their rage into pleasure & power through somatic release practices such as BreathTWERK, burn rituals, and more.
Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?
Being real.
In a world of AI, fake news, influencers, and a whole lotta BS — people NEED real. We need real people like we need real food.
We are literally starving for it.
The thing about being real is that you can’t pretend to be real/authentic. You either are or aren’t, and people can sniff it out like they can sniff out fruit snacks from real fruit. Especially in the un-regulated coaching/healing industry, it’s important to sniff out the real fruit!
I also have extensive training and education — including a 400 hour Somatic Coaching Certification, 200 hour Yoga Certification, Reiki Certifications & Attunements from multiple Reiki Master Teachers, Breathwork training, Yoni Steam Training, two 10-day Vipassana Retreats under my belt, and countless hours of devotional Svādhyāya (self-study).
Comprehensive training combined with a deep passion for embracing our full spectrum humanity creates a safe container for transformation that values humanity, spirituality, and sexuality equally.
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
I woke up to see light streaming in from the window pane. I’m somewhere familiar, yet it doesn’t feel quite right to be waking up here. I feel hot and confused.
How did I get here?
I feel the cushions beneath me, and smell the clorox baking soda scent of the cocaine dried in my nose from the night before. Which just ended a few hours prior.
I see a blank, black screen. My television.
OK, I’m in my own house. That’s a good sign.
I realize I’m in a body, and now my heart is beating quickly.
My heart is beating so fast that it palpitates, skipping beats and beating irregularly.
Now I’m getting into my head. Am I having a heart attack?
The fear swallows me until I convince myself that I’m having a heart attack and will die right here on this couch.
In that moment I made peace with death. If I was going to die right here on this hand-me-down couch in my Baltimore row home, so be it.
I started sobbing, feeling so alone and confused on what to do next. “Do I call a friend? I couldn’t possibly burden them with my problems that I 100% created all by myself. Do I call 9-1-1? No, the ambulance is too expensive.”
Just the night before I was dancing my face off at a local music festival, feeling (what I thought was at the time) so “alive and free.” How could I go from such a high to such a low?
I can’t remember what I did next, but I didn’t die. I do remember making a promise to myself at that moment, however, “No more drugs. It’s time to make a change.”
Yoga teacher training saved my life. Ecstatic Dance saved it again. From this moment on the couch, I significantly cut back on drinking, stopped abusing drugs, and went vegan. Now I have a much healthier relationship with food, alcohol, and most importantly – my body.
Yoga emerged as my guiding light, offering solace and connection amidst the chaos. Through discipline and dedication, I found liberation from my past and cultivated a newfound sense of self-love.
With the guidance of a compassionate healer, I delved deep into my trauma, unraveling layers of suppressed emotions and reclaiming my power. This inner work led to a profound revelation: the key to healing lay within me, and I possessed the ability to rewrite my story.
Embracing sobriety and self-love, I underwent a metamorphosis, emerging as a fierce advocate for embodied femininity and holistic healing. From facilitating women’s retreats to pioneering BreathTWERK, I empowered others to reclaim their bodies and awaken to their sovereign truth.
My vision extends beyond personal transformation; it encompasses a world where women stand in their sovereignty, unapologetically owning their truth and radiating love. I am passionate about guiding others to recognize their purpose, tap into their inherent power, and experience pleasure without shame or inhibition.
Through my journey, I’ve come to understand that true fulfillment arises from aligning with our purpose, embracing our power, and embracing pleasure as a sacred birthright. By embodying these principles, we not only transform ourselves but also ripple positive change throughout the world.
I used to treat my body like a trash can. Now I worship at the altar of my body temple — treating her with the utmost respect and reverence. This is what I want for you, too.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.breath-twerk.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iam.sarahlane/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/namaslane
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@iam.sarahlane
- Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/namaslane
- Other: https://www.instagram.com/rageretreats/
https://www.instagram.com/breathtwerkmovement/
https://insighttimer.com/namaslane
https://view.flodesk.com/pages/64dbdf1fce23c9cec38a76ef
Image Credits
@kghaus.photoshoot
@ofstardustandearth
@bridget_contentqueen