Sara Champie, LCSW

Sara Champie, LCSW Through somatically oriented psychotherapy and Neurofeedback, I work collaboratively with my clients with a deep trust for each person's innate ability to heal

There is a before genetic testing you.And there is an after.Katie was 17 when she lost her mom to breast cancer. At 25, ...
02/26/2026

There is a before genetic testing you.
And there is an after.

Katie was 17 when she lost her mom to breast cancer. At 25, she tested positive for BRCA1 — and chose preventative mastectomy during COVID.

This episode is about what that actually feels like.
The grief that reactivates.
The fear your body remembers.
The fierce agency it takes to say: I’m doing this differently.

If you’re navigating hereditary risk, you are not dramatic.
You are not overreacting.
This is big.

Listen wherever you stream podcasts.

BreastCancerRisk WalkingTheGeneticLine

02/12/2026

On this week’s episode of Walking the Genetic Line, I’m in conversation with Ingrid Mishimoto, LCSW—about what it actually means to live under medical surveillance and still choose a full life.

We talk about:
✨ growing up with Peutz-Jeghers syndrome
✨ multiple cancer diagnoses
✨ grief, anger, hypervigilance, and resilience
✨ learning to trust your body again
✨ letting go of false certainty

This is the emotional terrain no one prepares you for—the stuff that lives between the scans, and don’t fit into a treatment plan.

Listen now. Link in bio. 💛

01/19/2026

“My mother taught me to live it fully.”

When risk becomes part of your story, the question isn’t
How do I get rid of the uncertainty?
It’s:

How do I stay alive inside my life anyway?

We don’t get guarantees.
We get time.
And meaning is built inside the unknown—
through how we show up, care, love, and choose to matter.

This conversation is about living with risk, not under it.
About staying in your body, your values, and your life—anyway.

🎧 New episode of Walking the Genetic Line is out now.
Listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

This one is for anyone learning how to live fully
even when the future won’t cooperate.

Cancer — or learning you carry a genetic mutation — doesn’t only affect tissue, cells, or treatment plans.It reorganizes...
01/06/2026

Cancer — or learning you carry a genetic mutation — doesn’t only affect tissue, cells, or treatment plans.

It reorganizes identity.
It activates family roles and long-held survival strategies.
It asks the nervous system to move faster than it knows how.

Medical care focuses, understandably, on prevention and outcomes.
But meaning, safety, grief, and trust live elsewhere — in the body, in relationships, and in the stories we inherit.

When those layers aren’t tended to, people often feel confused by why they’re “still impacted” even when things look stable on paper.

This isn’t a personal failure.
It’s how human systems respond to threat, uncertainty, and loss.
If this approach feels aligned, information about working together is available via the link in my bio.



12/18/2025

In this week’s episode of Walking the Genetic Line, Beth Martinetti talks about being in the middle of her preventative surgeries, letting her kids know when she’s struggling, and giving them choice in how close they want to get to the reality of illness and recovery.

She describes moments when her daughter wants to see her post-surgery body — and Beth responds with openness and consent:

“You don’t have to look if you don’t want to. It can be unsettling, and that’s okay. But if you do want to look, I’ll share that with you.”

That’s trauma-informed parenting in real time:
✨ honesty without pressure
✨ boundaries without secrecy
✨ connection without emotional demand

Talking about bodies, illness, surgery, and vulnerability doesn’t have to overwhelm our children — it can teach consent, emotional self-care, and choice.

If you’re navigating hereditary cancer risk, parenting through illness, or supporting kids through medically-driven uncertainty, you don’t have to figure it out alone.

📩 Send me a DM or reach out through my site — I support families, parents, and individuals who are carrying all of this.

12/16/2025

There is a moment when everything changes.

It’s the moment you’re told you carry a genetic mutation.
Before the appointments.
Before the decisions.
Before the “what are you going to do?”

That moment is often quiet — and seismic.

In today’s episode of Walking the Genetic Line, Beth Martinetti and I speak directly to that threshold moment. The instant your body understands something before your mind can organize it. When your nervous system registers danger, loss, responsibility, and uncertainty all at once.

As we do the work, this is often the moment that we uncover actually brings people into my therapy office.
Not because they don’t understand the medical facts —
but because their world has just reorganized itself.

This podcast exists for that exact moment.
For the grief, fear, and identity shift that begin long before surgery or surveillance — and deserve care, language, and support.

🎧 Episode drops today.
Link in bio.

Just because the medical chapter is “over” doesn’t mean your nervous system feels done.For so many people navigating her...
12/05/2025

Just because the medical chapter is “over” doesn’t mean your nervous system feels done.

For so many people navigating hereditary cancer, prevention, surveillance, surgery, or treatment — the aftermath can sometimes be the hardest part.

Because the body stores:

• the urgency
• the hypervigilance
• the procedures
• the fear
• the loss
• the moments you had to hold your breath and keep going

And when the appointments slow down… the body finally has room to speak.

If you’re noticing anxiety, tension, fatigue, numbness, irritability, grief, or a sense of uncertainty long after the medical piece is complete — nothing is wrong with you.

This is what it looks like when the body tries to make sense of what happened.

Healing is not about “getting over it.”
It’s about being supported as you come back into your body — gently, slowly, with compassion.

Your experience is real.
Your body is wise.
Your timeline is valid.

11/27/2025

This week’s episode feels like a milestone — not just because of the topic, but because of who’s sitting with me for it.

Dr. Corinne Menn (tag), board-certified OB/GYN, Menopause Society certified practitioner, breast cancer survivor, BRCA2 carrier, and one of the most trusted voices in the menopause and cancer-risk space, joined me for a conversation that bridges the most recent medical evidence with the lived story of a BRCA carrier walking her own genetic line.

What makes this episode meaningful isn’t just her credentials (though they’re extraordinary) — it’s that she brings medical knowledge, personal experience, and deep compassion to a community that often falls through the gaps.

If you follow her, you know her work:
📍 clarity over confusion
📍 evidence over fear
📍 advocacy over silence

And that aligns with the reason Walking the Genetic Line exists.

This podcast isn’t only about science, risk reduction, or guidelines — it’s about the emotional, relational, identity-level impact of hereditary cancer. It’s about the part of care that doesn’t fit neatly into a chart note or follow-up appointment.

Having Dr. Menn here feels like a full-circle moment: the science and the soul of this experience sitting at the same table.

🎧 The episode is live now — and it’s one I hope is shared widely.

Tag someone who needs both information and validation.

11/26/2025

I want to invite you to sit with this for a moment:

Imagine a 28-year-old man. Or 31. Or 40.

He undergoes surgery to remove both testicles—not because he has cancer, but to prevent the possibility of cancer in the future.

And afterwards, he’s told:

“Let’s just see how it goes.”

No comprehensive hormone plan.
No guidance on long-term risks.
No acknowledgment of the identity, sexual, psychological, or relational impacts.

Maybe someone hands him coconut oil for “symptoms.”
Maybe he’s told to exercise.
Maybe he’s given an antidepressant that worsens the side effects of hormonal depletion.

If that scenario sounds unthinkable, that’s because it is—for men.

And yet, this is the lived reality for countless BRCA-positive women and non-binary people undergoing prophylactic oophorectomy in their 20s, 30s, and 40s.

Despite more than a decade of medical guidelines outlining how to safely and effectively manage surgical menopause in hereditary cancer risk, many are still:

Sent home without hormone replacement.

Left to figure out how to survive a body no longer supported by the hormones it needs.

And yes —Dr. Menn isn’t afraid to tell us clearly: it is medical malpractice.

The full episode releases Thursday, and it’s one you don’t want to miss — one of the country’s top menopause experts breaks down what every BRCA previvor, survivor, clinician, and caregiver needs to know.

🩵 If this is your story, please know:
You’re not dramatic. You’re not weak. You’re not alone.
Your symptoms are real. Your body deserves support. Your care should be evidence-based — not dismissive.



11/13/2025

Childhood memories, family secrets, & the invisible threads of genetic risk.

In our latest episode of Walking the Genetic Line, Martha Kaiser shares the layered reality of living with a genetic mutation—from noticing a changing mole during pregnancy, to the early childhood experience of her mother “disappearing” for breast cancer treatment in the 70s, a time when families often didn’t talk openly about illness.

As Sara Champie (host, therapist, & fellow traveler) reflects, the impact of these unspoken stories and silent hospital visits echoes through our relationships with our bodies and our sense of safety.

Martha’s story reminds us that: ✨ The body remembers, even what the mind can’t quite recall. ✨ Generational silence can shape how we approach our health—and how we choose to do things differently for our own children.

You don’t have to have all the words or explanations to honor what you lived through. Sometimes, just being willing to notice and name these threads is where healing begins.

If you grew up with secrets, silence, or uncertainty around illness—know you’re not alone.

Listen to Martha’s episode for a moving conversation on honesty, legacy, and rewriting family patterns.

Scan to scan.Appointment to appointment.Let’s talk about what it’s like to live in the in-between. If you’re in Californ...
10/27/2025

Scan to scan.
Appointment to appointment.
Let’s talk about what it’s like to live in the in-between. If you’re in California and want community support while you face testing, scans, or decision-making, my trauma-informed support groups are enrolling. DM GROUP or tap the bio link to learn more.

10/23/2025

From Oregon to 13 years in Brooklyn, Katherine shares how place, identity, and season-of-life shape the way we live with hereditary cancer risk—and how story helps us metabolize the unknown. As she put it, these conversations can become “an incredible trove… as we navigate this and start to make meaning for ourselves.”

🎧 Episode out now on Walking the Genetic Line — listen via the link in bio.

If you’re in California and want community support while you face testing, scans, or decision-making, my trauma-informed support groups are enrolling. Tap the bio link to learn more.

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Sebastopol, CA
95472

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