I met Sabbath Schrader many years ago as we both belong to same local moms group. It has been fun to get to know her and follow her journey in Des Moines, Iowa. She recently co-founded an incredible and unique resource for our community, Sacred Health. Learn more about Sacred Health and her personal reason for why this business is needed within our community.
Give us a little background on your family and personal life! How many kids do you have? Have you lived in Des Moines all your life?
I love this question about living in Des Moines my whole life because the answer is a resounding NO! I was born in Alaska, moved to New Orleans, moved to Portland, moved to Denver, and settled there for a while ……. then moved to Des Moines! Then I moved to Seattle, had my first daughter, moved BACK to Des Moines and here I’ve stayed. I wouldn’t trade my travels for anything.
I have two wonderful kiddos, a 13-year-old and a 3-year-old. My husband and I live in the North of Grand neighborhood very close to my business. We love that we are so centrally located in the US because it allows us to travel to so many amazing cities and do a lot of the fun hobbies that we have like camping and kayaking in all different areas. All just a day trip away!
Aside from being a small business owner, I also work as a labor and delivery nurse at Broadlawns Medical Center (Des Moines hidden gem!). I have been a nurse for 8 years, and I love every minute of it! My husband is a Senior Art Director at a national marketing firm. We’ve got cats and chickens.
What is your business, and what do you do?
I am the Co-Owner of a Holistic Wellness + Movement Studio in central Des Moines, called Sacred Health! Inside our walls, we have a yoga studio, a classroom space, and 9 practitioners that offer services that include Massage, Reiki and Sound Healing, Reflexology, Yoga Therapy, Intuitive Healing, Hypnosis, Functional Nutrition, and then what I do: Ayurvedic Wellness and Holistic Case Management.
Ayurveda is a 5,000-year-old system of medicine founded in India, considered to be the Sister Science to Yoga. It’s similar in a few ways to Traditional Chinese Medicine (which more people are familiar with) but with its own rich history and modern practices.
I also offer Holistic Case Management, which is simply lining individuals up with the right alternative holistic wellness modalities. For example, a patient undergoing chemotherapy that needs additional help with nutrition, may benefit from some gentle massage, might try to use hypnosis for pain management, and may use reiki as a secondary healing option. This patient may also consider our Persistent Pain yoga class, or perhaps our Yoga Nidra for a meditative practice. So we create a plan to help them incorporate those things into their lives. This is very similar to the way things work within a medical model! And we work alongside medical providers to make this a reality. We are not a replacement for standard medical care. We just hope to supplement the areas that they don’t typically focus on.
Why did you become a small business owner?
Honestly? Because the system needs some help. As a nurse in a teaching hospital, I know how hard those Resident doctors work to learn the things they learn and how many hours they spend to simply become competent in the practice of medicine. And I love being a nurse in a hospital! But I also saw that there were so many needs that we simply cannot even scratch the surface of in that setting. So, I wanted to create a space where this model can bloom. Where we can create a holistic plan for patients that address their medical concerns with the right providers that have spent so much time learning how to treat them, but also giving them the practical everyday things that modern medicine simply cannot offer them.
On a personal level, as a person living with Cancer myself, I have the first-hand experience in how much room for improvement there is in how we teach people about nutrition, self-care, pain management, and mindfulness when it comes to battling that disease, or really any chronic or terminal condition. The focus becomes the disease, not the person. I wanted to create a place where we shift the focus back to the whole person for myself just as much as for other people. I need Sacred Health. For me.
Where is your favorite place to take your children to play indoors?
The Science Center is a great place for my 3-year-old to run around! It’s expansive enough to offer us great variety, while also feeling accessible if all we want to do is go play on the ball wall. That place is amazing, and we love it! We also love to run through the Botanical Center, especially in the Winter!
Where is your favorite place to take your children to play outdoors?
Oh man, anywhere? My preschooler would just permanently live outdoors if we let him. Browns Woods, just about any playground (we do love Colby Park in Windsor Heights quite a bit!), Jester Park, Walnut Woods, and Ledges if we’re feeling like a nice little drive. Right now it’s pretty easy to find anywhere that’s magical for him.
Parent’s day/night out. Describe your perfect parent only day/night out in Des Moines.
There are so many restaurants I have been wanting to try! I really love to see movies, and I really love a good restaurant. It’s boring, but it is the little things, like being able to focus through a movie without interruption that I love!
If I had an entire day, though? Kayaking on the Upper Iowa River with my husband would be the dreamiest thing I could do. It is between a 6-7 hour float on that river, and even up to 8 hours. There is nothing more wonderful to me than being in my kayak on the water.
What are some tips on juggling parenthood, working, and personal life?
Having a backup babysitter. And a backup sitter to that sitter. Outside of that? I’m still trying to figure all of that out. Our family is without an anchor here, so we have to rely heavily on daycare or the kindness of friends, as most of our family is 2+ hours away. I think that is the biggest challenge we face, and we’ve tried to combat that with having a lot of options.
But if I could tell people to focus on doing two things better, it would be to take personal time when you can, but make sure you do not lose that time with your kiddos too. You only get it once. And losing out on that is not worth any amount of career advancement on the planet.
What is your number one parenting tip?
Aren’t tips usually preempted with the word ‘expert’? Man, I do not feel qualified to give out parenting tips! LOL! That being said, if I have learned one thing it is to take nothing for granted. Not your job, not your partner, not the happiness of your children, not your health. And being the best parent, to me, is having a plan AND having the ability to toss that plan and find a new one at the moment. The single biggest obstacle to that? Taking things for granted. Don’t. Do it.
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Website: www.sacredhealthdsm.com
