4/15/2008 4:26:00 PM
Sarah McLean a trailblazer in meditation facilitation
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Photo courtesy Tom Wallace
Sarah McLean studied extensively with Dr. Deepak Chopra and now teaches, trains and facilitates meditation in Sedona. She is among 11 business women to be honored by NAWBO next month. |
| | NAWBO Sedona-Verde Valley | 2008 Entrepreneurial Excellence Awards to be presented May 15 at Sedona Hilton Resort & Spa
Trailblazer
Beth Carrigan, founder, Light Heart Foundation
Katie Lee, owner, Katydid Books & Music
Sarah McLean, founding director, Sedona Meditation Training Company
Customer Service
Sandy Barrett, owner, Red Rock Taxes
Isolde Dryer, owner, Desert Dancer
Michelle Jurisin, owner, Haunted Hamburger, Grapes, The Tavern Grille & Nic's
Community Involvement
Mary Clabaugh, owner, Curves Sedona
Ramona Stites, owner, Javadog Fine Art Gallery
Prayeri Harrison, founder/co-owner, Out of Africa Wildlife Park
Non-Profit
Adele Seronde, founder, Gardens for Humanity
Special Visionary Award
Martha Mertz, founder, Athena International
Call (928) 204-3044 for more information.
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Sarah McLean has a lifetime of spiritual self-discovery under her wings. It has nourished every facet of her life and led her to her vocation.
Now the director of the Sedona Meditation Training & Retreats is one of 11 women who will be honored in May by the National Association of Women Business Owners of Sedona-Verde Valley. NAWBO has put McLean in the spotlight of the Trailblazer award.
"Since meditation is becoming more mainstream, I think it's time to see who's teaching it, and it's an honor to be recognized for that," she said.
McLean was a founding board member of Sustainable Arizona and serves on the board of Keep Sedona Beautiful. She also leads the community action committee Balance in the Forest.
From the Army Reserves to real estate to the Chopra Center for Wellbeing, McLean's life has been varied. At its center point, however, has always been the search to experience wellbeing.
She grew up in a two-religion household in a Jewish neighborhood, which only added to her early confusion.
"I had no sense of wonder or of a great being," she said. "I didn't experience it anywhere, but I wanted to. It wasn't like I wasn't trying, but I didn't know where to look."
She had dabbled in meditation in college, when the practice still had the hippy-dippy reputation and also had strings attached.
"I was always looking to feel good - drugs don't really work, and meditation doesn't have side effects," she joked.
Other education came through studying in Europe, joining a boyfriend on a cycling trip across the Middle East and Asia and discovering the close community of the spectacular Hunza Valley of Pakistan.
As a behavioral specialist in the Army, she had to train as a medic as well, dealing with post-traumatic stress. She saw there were few answers that addressed the complete lifestyle, such as how to sleep, how to eat, how to get rid of stress. It only added to her search for spiritual wellbeing.
While working in real estate in Washington, D.C., she got hold of a hot new bestseller called "Perfect Health," by Dr. Deepak Chopra. It brought to the foreground all the areas she had sought more clarification about - eating, sleeping, stress and the whole lifestyle.
She said that instead of being "a woo-woo thing," the meditation espoused by Chopra was purely scientific regarding the biological aspects of relieving stress. The book spelled out the science of life and longevity.
"I was just so excited to read that book," McLean said. "Within six months, I was working for Deepak... I called up there and said, 'Hey, I'll do anything.'"
She began working for her room, board and education at the Chopra Center for Wellbeing. She eventually worked her way up to being education director.
"I found it was totally my passion," McLean said.
She was working for Chopra about the time he rose to fame among the mainstream media. On weekends, she stayed at a Buddhist monastery to increase her study. Involved with the study of Ayurveda, she went to India.
"I quickly found out I'm definitely not Hindu, but I love being in communities that work toward a common goal," she said. She had that within the military and within the meditation communities.
The culture shock of coming back to the United States, with its abundance of goods, personal space, and even hygiene, was so great that she "didn't know how to be happy in America at that point." So she moved full-time into the Zen Buddhist monastery in Southern California and became a cook.
After two years, she was asked to be a personal assistant for author Gary Zukav ("Seat of the Soul") as she had managed accessibility for Deepak Chopra. She said one of the best experiences with Zukav was the practice of sitting in circles and waiting, Quaker-like, for divine guidance before making decisions.
She then became curriculum director for Byron Katie's School of the Work, specializing in self-inquiry. That is where she met her husband Martin.
They married and moved to Sedona in 2001.
McLean was initially reluctant to tell people here that she was a meditation trainer because of the stigma attached to it by "woo-woo" practitioners. Sedona is full of those "who look inward" and those who don't, and she suspected her work in environmental awareness would not be taken seriously if her meditation background were known.
But she noted that Chopra's work and the studies and writings of others on modern-day relativity were demystifying meditation. She likes to quote Arthur Schopenauer's line about new ideas: "First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Then the respected Chopra began coming to Sedona. People from Sedona and from all over the world heard that and started getting McLean's name off of Chopra's Web site and asking for training in the Perfect Health concepts.
That evolved into the Sedona Meditation Training Company, offering not only sessions in her home but also training around Arizona and surrounding states. Her great love now is working as a facilitator for meditation retreats.
"I want to make it so available to everyone and yet deep," she said.
She finds her inner connection to self underscores her connection to the environment and animal welfare. She still remembers the first Earth Day when she was in third grade, going through the teacher's trashcan to reuse paper.
She knows the concepts of building "green," which have always come natural to her (years ago she retrofitted her California apartment for solar power) can be a hard sell. Convincing people of the importance of water reclamation, turning down power use, cutting down on fossil fuels and keeping an organic food supply has been an uphill battle. It has been an effort from the outside in, when real change only comes from the inside out, she said.
Still, the concepts of green-building alone have become more mainstream across the state and across the country during her tenure with Sustainable Arizona.
For McLean, it's all about reconnecting to nature in the daily lifestyle and using that relationship for a healthy wellbeing.
"What happens when you meditate is the interconnectedness of life becomes so clear," she said.
For information on McLean, visit her Web site at www.meditateinsedona.com, call her at (928) 204-0067 or e-mail meditate@sedona.net.
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