Sarah Dawn Steilen

Hi, I’m Sarah. Return to Being is the culmination of my heart’s journey, rooted in ancestral wisdom and a deep inner calling that I share with others to help them return to their health, full expression, and vitality. 

I come to this work humbly, shaped by lived experiences of physical, emotional, and spiritual healing. I have learned what unfolds when we slow down, embrace grief, and meet ourselves with radical acceptance. Healing happens in relationship—within ourselves and with others—and my work is grounded in compassionate curiosity, seeking to dissolve the illusion of “otherness.” Return to Being is an ongoing reclamation of authenticity through Earth-based practices, including touch and ceremony, that honors our connection to all life, seen and unseen.

I am a nature-based body and spirit worker. I walk with the Earth, live with the seasons, and listen to the trees. As a queer person, ceremonialist, and lifelong bridge-builder, my passion is deepening connection—to ourselves, each other, the Earth, and all living beings. 

From a young age, I knew life was sentient and interconnected. I spoke to trees, left offerings for animals, and felt most at home in the woods. This way of relating contrasted with much of my upbringing, which often centered dominion over and disconnection from the Earth. As a highly sensitive person, this created a sense of isolation and silent suffering.

Healing began when I returned to dance and later explored yoga, meditation, breathwork, massage, and sound healing. Through these practices, I learned to listen to my body and nervous system; this wisdom now informs how I hold space for others.

My relationship to “home” has historically been complex, which led me to work in social justice for six years, bridging housed and unhoused communities. In that work, I saw the power of compassion—how transformation happens when grief and trauma are seen and held with care. It is an honor to witness others in their healing.

Seeking to deepen my connection to the spiritual world, I sought out teachers and mentors to help me understand and work with my intuitive gifts. I am a trained ceremonialist and incorporate some of my medicine tools, like the rattle and drum, into my work. The drum is especially sacred medicine to me and has been a significant part of my own healing; it is a representation of the heartbeat of the Earth, the self, and the collective. I live in relationship with my allies, ancestors, and guides and hold deep gratitude for their presence in my life and the teachers who opened this path. 

Though parts of my lineage were severed, I live with intention to heal those ruptures and honor my ancestors and the medicine they carried. I descend from Cretan, Croatian, English, Irish, German, and Indigenous American lineages, and I honor them through prayer, practice, and ceremony. I also recognize that I move through the world in a white body and hold the privileges that come with that. I am committed to lifelong learning and to undoing the patterns of white supremacy within myself and the systems I am part of.

Education | Trainings

• Cortiva Institute Seattle — 1000 Hour Extended Professional Massage Therapy Program (2009–2011)

• Tending the Belly — Tul'ix Indigenous Arts (2011)

• Sundust Oracle Institute (2017–2024)

• Reiki I & II — Northwest Healing Studio (2019)

• The Art of Sound Healing Level 1 — Seattle Sound Temple (2025)

• Transforming the Experience-Based Brain (TEB) (2026–Ongoing)

• Work that Reconnects, Facilitator Development Program — School for the Great Turning (January 2026–June 2026)

Decades of Study, Practice, and Lifelong Commitment To

• Anti-racism and decentering whiteness

• Nonviolent communication

• De-escalation

• Radical acceptance

• Breathwork

• Trauma-informed somatic and movement practices

Licensed Massage Therapist — MA60209717

This is a non-exhaustive list of completed trainings