Sarah McLean grew up loving to read and spending time in nature. She never set out to be a meditation and mindfulness teacher, in fact she wanted to be a spy because she loved a good mystery. But as destiny would have it, she spent time uncovering the mysteries of mind and how it worked while in meditation. She is an acclaimed teacher today, one who has been inspiring people to meditate since 1993.
She first experienced what she would call a “real meditation” while training in the U.S. Army as a Behavioral Specialist. Her job was to help soldiers address their Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. “Unfortunately,” she says, “meditation was not part of the treatment.” It was only something she learned from a colleague she worked with.
Cycling Quest
After her stint in the Army and then graduating from the University of Massachusetts with an English degree (that’s when she discovered the road less traveled that the American Transcendentalists took), Sarah hopped on her mountain bike and embarked on a nine-month journey, travelling from Europe to the Middle East and into Asia hoping to find the secret to her everlasting peace and a sense of fulfillment. It was a mystical far off land where it seemed that magic happened. And it was magical to experience the birthplace of Greek mythology, whirling dervishes, the Vedas and places where Buddhism was practiced. Ironically, it was only when she returned to the US that she found what she was looking for.
Falling in Love
It was in 1989 when she was living with such debilitating anxiety that seemed to be her norm, that her friend insisted she learned meditation. That’s when she fell in love and committed to meditating every day. She fell in love with how she felt and her anxiety diminished. She soon sought the secrets to meditation and became a resident at a Transcendental Meditation residential community – what was the Maharishi Ayurveda Health Center in Lancaster, Massachusetts. That’s where Dr. Deepak Chopra had his medical practice and where Sarah was immersed in ancient mind/body healing modalities of Ayurveda. That’s also where she learned advanced meditation techniques with their origins in ancient India which she still practices today. A few years later, Dr. Chopra became the popular teacher and iconic mind/body/spirit advocate he is today. He moved his work to California, opened his new center and hired Sarah as the Education Program Director for what was soon to be known as the Chopra Center for Wellbeing.
A Contemplative Life
After eight years of being immersed in the world of Ayurveda, ancient wisdom, mind/body health, and teaching meditation and natural healing at the Chopra Center, Sarah took a sabbatical to find the origins of meditation. This time, she went to India where she lived for a few months in a traditional ashram in Kerala. There she meditated at the guru’s feet (a la Eat, Pray, Love), sang Sanskrit chants, practiced yoga, and helped prepare breakfast for the thousands of residents each morning. She traveled north to Dharamshala and had the good fortune to meet the Dalai Lama and while there, trained the Tibetan Buddhis nuns in conversational English. After returning to the States, she became a resident at a remote Zen Buddhist training center. That’s where, for two years, she practiced zazen, walking meditations, and mindfully worked as a vegetarian cook – all while making the daily impossible vow to “save all sentient beings.”
Real World Work?
After two years, Sarah left the monastery and moved to Mount Shasta where she supported the work of best-selling author Gary Zukav – and was immersed in his “spiritual partnership” teaching. On her days off, she attended talks by spiritual teachers, and one weekend, she met a woman in Southern California who seemed to have the keys to the undoing limiting beliefs that Sarah had learned to live with. Her name is Byron Katie, called Katie, and she asked Sarah to be the director of her School for the Work – and was then steeped in the potent practice of self-inquiry.
“I am dedicated to doing what I can to create more peace on this planet for every living being. I believe that when people learn how to meditate and practice every day, their awareness expands and they are able to cultivate their own personal peace. When each one of us is peaceful, it creates a more peaceful planet for everyone. That’s the kind of planet I want to live on.” – Sarah McLean
Falling in Love Again
It was through Katie that Sarah met her soon-to-be husband – a surprise because she was surrendered to a single life! Marty was a friend of Katie’s who lived in Sedona, Arizona. He was also a devout meditator. Eventually, Sarah moved to Sedona and opened the McLean Meditation Institute, a destination meditation center that offered daily meditations, meditation training classes, and weekend self-discovery retreats, as well as hosting spiritual conferences and mindfulness training events for leaders and teams.
Falling in Love with Teaching
In 2012, Hay House published her best-seller, Soul-Centered: Transform Your Life in 8 Weeks with Meditation, which offers an insider’s experience on the quest to learn the “right” meditation. She shares meditation practices and insights from a variety of spiritual perspectives and expounds on the very real benefits that transform the way you live your life when you meditate daily. She soon was asked to share her insights and her teaching giving keynotes for large audiences at venues and events in the US, Canada, and Europe; events such a Hay House’s I Can Do It, the Chopra Center’s Spiritual Solutions, Liz Dawn’s Celebrate Your Life, and so many others. She’s held retreats at the Esalen Institute, The Art of Living Retreat Center, spas and wellness centers, and other world-class destinations.
Her latest release, The Power of Attention: Awaken to Love and its Unlimited Potential with Meditation (Hay House) offers a new perspective on the value of your attention and why it is your superpower. It has received rave reviews.
Sarah’s interviews and teachings are featured in a variety of award-winning movies including, Cancer, the Integrative Perspective, Enlightenment, Sacred Journey of the Heart, and Tapping the Source. Her work has been touted in a variety of media outlets among them are The New York Times, The Guardian, Chicago Tribune, Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times. And she has a YouTube channel with hundreds of guided meditation practices and interviews.
“Can I Learn How to Teach Meditation Like You Do?”
Sarah was asked by her students to learn how to teach meditation like she did: with a down-to-earth, contemporary style. So, in 2012, Sarah developed a comprehensive curriculum and teaching program and began training her meditation students to become professional meditation and mindfulness teachers. She soon founded the Meditation Teacher Academy. The now 300-hour teacher training program offers a deep dive into the wide spectrum of meditation and mindfulness techniques from ancient and modern traditions and lineages. Taking the course is a self-awareness journey in and of itself, but then the students learn how to teach. They receive training and learn a special set of tried and true formulas and instructions so they can bring meditation and mindfulness training and experiences into any population. Sarah is personally involved with each and every student enrolled in the academy, and helps them to uncover their unique skills, and illuminate their personal power so they can feel confident as they teach their students how to meditate and to live more mindfully. She thinks of the students of the teachers she’s trained as her “grandstudents!”
More Resilience & Creativity
Once people learned to practice meditation and began to create a more mindful life, there was a call for bringing it into organizations. That’s when Sarah found a team of professionals to help her create an eight-week Mindful Advantage Training for work. She is the president of MMI Mindful Training Co., a company that is made up of professionally trained mindfulness teachers; partners worldwide dedicated to helping people in organizations cultivate more resilience and creativity, as well as increased attentional capacity, emotional awareness, and productivity. Find out more about the mindfulness training for the workplace, or how you can become a Mindfulness Advantage Trainer, here.
These days, Sarah meditates, trains meditation and mindfulness teachers, offers live meditation events virtually and in-person, is writing another book, gardens even with her not-so-green thumb, and keeps bees and eats honey in Santa Barbara, California with her husband and adopted furry friends.
