” I love the way Sara connects with everyone on a personal level, being caring and careful to the needs of each student.”
Lucia Garavaglia, Kindred Spirit magazine

Namaste,

My name is Sara Palmer or Shama, a spiritual name given to me 25 years ago when I was in India. I am the founder of LoveYogaHealing, an Ayurveda Practitioner, educator and registered senior Yoga teacher with over 15 years’ teaching experience. I am also a qualified Yoga therapist. I teach classes, workshops, courses and retreats in the UK and overseas, and I also offer 1-1 Ayurveda consultations and/or Yoga sessions

With 25 years’ experience in the field of natural health, there is much I want share with you. It is a crucial time on our planet and I am sure that each of us feels the call to take responsibility for our choices and for our personal health and happiness. The health services are stretched and yet our lives and the issues we face and our needs for help and guidance become increasingly intense and complex. 

I am passionate about the potential of Yoga and Ayurveda to meet the needs of these times. I believe that more than any other system available to humanity, Ayurveda and Yoga offer us a powerful and time-tested formula for transformation body, mind, heart and consciousness. It’s my complete privilege and joy to be working with the incredible wisdom of these ancient traditions. I’d love to share with you all that I have learned during thirty years or so of practice and learning from amazing masters in their field, and from fifteen years of teaching. 

The focus of my work is Ayurveda and a classical approach to Hatha Yoga. My Yoga teaching is informed by Ayurveda and it’s understanding of our whole being – body, mind and spirit – and how they are impacted by our age, the seasons, climate, our lifestyle and our natal constitutional make-up. And my Ayurveda practice is complemented by my in-depth knowledge of the classical teachings of Yoga. 

I combine both of these ancient sciences in Ayurveda Yoga trainings and courses, and in my group and 1-1 classes. Also I love to offer individualised Ayurveda Yoga Coaching programmes for body, mind and heart. In these sessions, we build together personally tailored Yoga, meditation, and nutritional programmes to relieve symptoms of illness, support weight maintenance, ease pain and/or to simply enhance physical vitality and mental well-being. 

The day I committed to an Ayurveda-Yoga way of living, my life became filled with the blessings of these long-prized wisdom traditions. They teach us how to live and work for our greatest health and happiness. It is this ancient wisdom that I long to share with you, not as something you learn about in class or simply practice on the Yoga mat, but as a most fulfilling way of life. Whether you are a newcomer to Yoga and Ayurveda or a seasoned practitioner, whatever your goals and aspirations, it’d be my honour to journey with you on these paths. Please do drop me a line and let me know what you are looking for.

With my love

Sara

MY YOGA STORY AND APPROACH

I have been practicing Yoga for more than 30 years, and teaching for 15 years. I trained with the Sivananda Yoga lineage to advanced level, and lived and worked as a senior staff member in the Sivananda Ashram Yoga Retreat, Bahamas for much of 5 years. I have also trained and/or studied with world-renowned masters of Hatha Yoga from outside of the Sivananda organisation and their wonderful teachings continue to support my own practice and all that I share in classes, workshops and on retreat. I feel blessed to have been taught by such inspirational leaders in the field of Hatha Yoga and Ayurveda from the onset.

I am also a fully qualified Ayurveda Nutrition and Lifestyle Practitioner, Ayurveda Educator, and Yoga Therapist registered with the International Association of Yoga Therapists. I have studied Ayurveda with leading world figures in the field: Dr David Frawley, Mukunda Stiles, Maya Tiwari, Atreya Smith and Dr Sunil Joshi.

On qualifying as a Yoga teacher 16 years ago, I went to live and work in the Sivananda Ashram Yoga Retreat, Bahamas to fully immerse into Yoga teachings and lifestyle. During my time there, I commuted to New York to qualify in Structural Yoga Therapy and also to study Ayurvedic Yoga Therapy with Mukunda Stiles. On qualifying, I worked as a Yoga therapist in the Sivananda ashram, offering one-on-one sessions to ashram guests and staff, and also offering specialist therapeutic residential Yoga workshops and programmes: Yoga for Back Pain, Yoga for Stress Relief, Yoga for Healing & Pain Relief, and The Healing Power of the Breath.

This was a very transformative time in my life. My understanding and appreciation of the healing and transformative power of Yoga deepened incredibly. I was learning so much from the senior staff of the ashram and from the intensives in which I was blessed to take part in.

During these years, I also undertook further study in Pregnancy Yoga and Yoga for Cancer and Cardiac Disease. I lived within the Yoga ashram community, living the lifestyle directed by the texts of Yoga and Ayurveda, and working in service of the teachers and guests at the ashram.

“Yoga was making me happier, more whole and stronger than I had ever felt in my life, and ever since then I have wanted to share the incredible benefits of Yoga and Ayurveda with as many people as I can reach.”

Also during these years, I was introduced to the wonders of Ayurveda, being exposed to Ayurveda educators and doctors who visited the ashram to give programmes, and to the ashram Ayurveda staff. I studied first of all Ayurveda Yoga therapy and later went more deeply into study and training as an Ayurveda educator and practitioner..

That 5 years as a member of staff at the Sivananda Ashram Yoga Retreat in Bahamas was one of the most powerful phases of my life. A full immersion into a Yoga way of life revealed to me just how potent a dedicated Yoga practice can be. I felt stronger, happier and more confident than ever before.

However, as you know, we never know what is around the corner and I quite suddenly found myself chronically ill. I had developed an apparently untreatable debilitating condition that doctors told me I had to learn to live with. My world closed in on me, but I would not give up. Specialist doctors and natural therapy practitioners charged huge amounts with promises that largely amounted to nothing. I did not give up. I was certain that I was being called to heal in alignment with the teachings of Yoga and I knew that once healed I would share my discoveries from this healing journey with others. That intuition proved true.Illness and the six year journey back to health was for sure a “rite of passage” into this work and way of life which it is my honour to now share with the world.

Currently, I am writing my first book in which I am drawing together 30 years of seeking and experience on my travels across the globe, my training, and my own healing journey as a hand-book to hopefully inspire and guide others to also find their special formula for a life of health, love and purpose.