ABOUT ME
Sara Hart Schultz, MS, LPCC, SEP
I grew up on a lake in the woods in rural northern Minnesota, where my deep appreciation for and connection to nature was cultivated. I have fond memories of being outside and having nothing to do, wholly present with my surroundings. I can vividly recall the sound of the water, the birds and the wind, the reflections of the trees along the shoreline, and a deep awareness of and connection to a sense of something greater. I enjoyed my mother's flower garden, my father's vegetable garden, running with my twin sister and brother in the woods, canoeing, swimming at the point, swinging in the hammock we had tied between two birch trees in the front yard where I would lay and watch the clouds go by for hours, climbing trees, the walking path. These early childhood experiences continue to be some of my favorite resources today, and cultivated to my passion for bringing my clients into contact with nature, especially in our tech driven world.
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My mental health took a downward turn as I became a teenager, endured trauma, and witnessed the lasting impacts of intergenerational trauma on the people in my community. Once I got help, I tried really hard to change my patterns, and I did! I also accessed great inspiration and hope for my future. I was in awe of my own resilience and capacity for change, and became determined to learn how to help cultivate and encourage the same resilience and recovery in others. I was eventually diagnosed with ADHD at 17 and it took me years to accept and understand this diagnosis and what it meant for me personally.
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I completed my Bachelor's of Science in Psychology from 2009-2012 at Bemidji State University. From there I moved to Saint Cloud, MN to pursue and complete my Master's of Science in Community Counseling, which I finished in 2014 while I worked as a statistics and research consultant. I also completed yoga teacher training in 2016.
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My journey as a counselor started with college students, at a small outpatient private practice, and at an inpatient co-occurring mental health and substance use disorder adolescent residential treatment program. I then worked in community mental health as a generalist where I gained experience working with a very wide range of ages and clinical populations. I specialized in Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) and focused on treating BPD and other emotional/behavioral dysregulation, as well as integrating Prolonged Exposure Therapy for PTSD, for a period of about 6 years. I am deeply grateful for these early career experiences where I was able to hone my skills as a clinician, colleague, and personally.
I moved to Stillwater Minnesota, my current home, in 2020. I have been in private practice since 2022. I recently completed training in Somatic Experiencing and am now an SEP, my primary focus being healing trauma and helping folks increase their capacity, resilience, and vitality. Besides trauma and nervous system healing, I am also excited to be learning more about neuroscience informed interventions, the role of spirituality in healing and resilience, and attachment.
Personally, I really enjoy being dog-mom to my precious miniature dachshund Daisy and exploring the St. Croix River Valley with her. Hobbies of mine include travel, reading, baking, hiking, strength training, long boarding, agate hunting, live music, spinning poi, spending time with family, growing in Christ, and last but certainly not least, cleaning and making my spaces cozy and comfortable (my fam calls it "the Sara touch" haha!). ​​
Meet Daisy!
Many days you will find Daisy, my 2 year old miniature dachshund, joining me at the office. She is sweet and gentle, and often will get up to greet, but mostly stays with me in my chair and sleeps the days away.
“Some periods of our growth are so confusing that we don’t even recognize that growth is happening. We may feel hostile or angry or weepy and hysterical, or we may feel depressed. It would never occur to us, unless we stumbled on a book or a person who explained to us, that we were in fact in the process of change, of actually becoming larger, spiritually, than we were before. Whenever we grow, we tend to feel it, as a young seed must feel the weight and inertia of the earth as it seeks to break out of its shell on its way to becoming a plant. Often the feeling is anything but pleasant. But what is most unpleasant is the not knowing what is happening. Those long periods when something inside ourselves seems to be waiting, holding its breath, unsure about what the next step should be, eventually become the periods we wait for, for it is in those periods that we realize that we are being prepared for the next phase of our life and that, in all probability, a new level of the personality is about to be revealed. “ —Alice Walker