Transformational coach, Dr Sarah Madigan speaks about her journey to overcome anxiety and how today she leads thousands of people to find their joy and inner wisdom.

By Vaila Erin Bhaumick

What happens when you emit the beautiful energy you know you hold inside despite the outer environment being extremely challenging? According to Dr Sarah Madigan, joy happens. 

Sarah is the leader of The Joy Movement, which in her own words is: “The most glorious business in memory of my firstborn Finlay Joseph Madigan. We teach thousands of people how to access joy and how to be their best, most brilliant selves.” A qualified clinical psychologist who retrained as a transformational coach, Sarah shares her own transformational story and how her vibration (and dancing) has built a successful coaching business that has truly changed lives.

What’s your story of transformation Sarah?

I used to experience debilitating anxiety. During this time I trained as a clinical psychologist and helped many people with their own wellbeing, whilst feeling that my own anxiety was a dirty secret I had to hide. Devastatingly, in May 2015 our beautiful first child Finny was diagnosed with spinal muscular atrophy type 1. Finlay died on 28 September, just four months later, during the most stunning sunset I have ever seen. The sky lit up with the same magical brilliance and beauty we saw in his soul. This changed everything. I ended up leaving the NHS. (I had unsuccessfully re-interviewed for my job at the time and felt humiliated, but it was the best thing that ever happened to me.) 

I was so judgemental of ‘coaching’ from my awful and superior ‘ivory tower’. “They’ve only trained for like a weekend and call themselves coaches.” But the universe divinely guided me to a transformational coaching course that blew all of these preconceptions out of the water. Coaching helped me overcome decades of debilitating anxiety in a way that years of therapy had failed to do. My coaches saw power within me, they asked me about what I desired, they talked about what was possible… and magic unfolded. 

I used to take drugs (Propranolol) to deal with the smallest meetings at work due to my crippling social anxiety. Now I run a huge movement, guiding (literally) thousands of people each year towards their joy and inner wisdom. It’s amazing! I am free, joyful and full of magic and this is what I enable in my clients’ worlds, and in their businesses.

Your approach is radically different to other transformational coaches. Tell us about your way of transformational coaching and your philosophy.

I know that I am in my zone of genius as a transformational leader and I trust my inner guidance system very deeply. I do things my way. I have decades of experience as a clinical psychologist, which enhances what I do but, quite honestly, I just have a lot of fun, my way, and I really, really believe in my clients and what is possible. I am what we call ‘spicy’. I am brave in my feedback to my clients, because I want to empower them in the most profound of ways. I say the things that no one else would dare say to them. 

Our community attracts lots of creative and interesting people who light me up so much. Our focus is heavily on fun, joy and love. Oh, and we absolutely love a lip-sync competition where I get to live out my dream and pretend to be RuPaul. My son died when he was eight months old, so I have a deep understanding of how precious life is. This means that I inspire others to treat life differently and also it emboldens me to be brave as a coach. 

Could you say more about The Joy Movement, your courses and how they are unique?

We dance, we sing, we laugh, we process trauma whilst having fun. We love each other, we celebrate each other. We cry, we share, we do life together. I run a course called Relationship Magic, which involves transforming the relationship that you have with you. I teach about the law of attraction, being in the present moment, radical self-love and compassion, communication techniques, codependency and boundaries. 

I run a Spectacular School, which is a coach training programme. I run NO-LIMITS, which supports people in building successful and joyful businesses. Because what is the point of achieving success if you are not enjoying yourself and are able to receive deeper levels of love and joy along with the abundance? Aside from my courses I also run retreats. 

The NHS clinical psychologist to transformational coach journey is intriguing. Tell us more about your experience of it and the role of neuroscience and psychology in The Joy Movement/your coaching.

Some psychological theories back up what I do, but my honest truth? The huge transformations that my clients achieve have little to do with my background in training as a clinical psychologist and more to do with my utter belief in them and their power. I require my clients to take radical responsibility for their lives and I teach them how to love themselves deeply. I could write a fancy-sounding sentence about neuroscience and psychological theory, but I’m not going to. 

There is a huge evidence base backing up what I do, but I also trust my inner knowing and my inner guidance system and teach others to do the same. This is an entirely different culture. I deeply trust the universe and people’s ‘higher selves’ and we do oracle cards and sing medicine songs. I wear sequins and wigs and show up in ways that would have utterly horrified my bosses in NHS clinical psychology. Or, maybe, the freedom would have made them envious for a second before they directed me to some guideline on professional appearance, who knows?

What role do stories play in the rewiring of our brains?

Our brains amaze me. Despite the existence of critical periods of brain development (around two years old and during adolescence) when the brain is super receptive to its environment and does lots of rewiring, we can rewire our brains at any point during life. The key to this is repetition, repetition, repetition. An easy way of illustrating this is how easy it is for children to learn new languages. Have you tried learning a new language as an adult? It’s hard, right? But if you moved to France, and were exposed to multiple stimuli on a daily basis for months, you would gradually learn to speak French. If your kid went to a French-speaking school, they would likely embarrass you so much with their fluency whilst you were still struggling to order your daily baguette. And you would get there eventually. My message is: don’t give up because you don’t feel transformed straight away, keep going! Habits take about 66 days to develop. 

Daily meditation is an absolutely glorious way of rewiring your brain for more calm, peace, joy. One of the things I love about The Joy Movement is that unlike 1-2-1 therapy, which is perhaps an hour a week, we operate within a huge and inspiring community where there are multiple stimuli, helping you rewire that brain for more joy. I have seen people make huge transformations in the energy they create on a daily basis and it’s such a joy to see. People change, their brains change, I see it every day.  

What’s the future for the Joy Movement and Dr Sarah Madigan?

I have so many very exciting plans but they are secret for now. The main plan is GLOBAL JOY DOMINATION! 

drsarahmadigan.com
@drsarahmadigan