Naomi McDonald

Episode 1159 with Guest Mary NurrieStearns



Mary NurrieStearns, MSW, LCSW, ACEP-EFT, C-C-IAYT, E-RYT 500, is a licensed clinical social worker with four decades of professional experience. She maintains a virtual counseling practice in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Mary has presented seminars to mental health professionals across the USA since 2006. She has trained extensively in clinical Emotional Freedom Techniques and received ACEP certification. She is a certified trauma-informed yoga therapist, has over 1200 hours of yoga teacher training and has taught yoga classes for twenty years. A long-time student of Thich Nhat Hanh, she was ordained into his Order of Inner Being. Mary is also author of numerous articles on psycho-spiritual growth, co-author of Yoga for Anxiety, Yoga for Emotional Trauma, Yoga Mind, Peaceful Mind and co-editor of Soulful Living. She is the author of Healing Anxiety, Depression and Unworthiness: 78 Brain-changing Mindfulness and Yoga Practice (2018). She, and her husband Rick, have conducted retreats on the transformative, mind-body healing practices of yoga, meditation and self – compassion for over twenty years. She credits mindfulness-based practices for significant healing in her own life.



Naomi McDonald

Over the years I came to understand that a constant and driving presence had always pushed me to change, grow, learn and look at myself with more honesty. That the loving presence of animals had brought companionship to a lonely girl, pushed me to find courage and do things I could never imagine, much less accomplish. Because of the love of horses, I became a horse trainer which soon revealed a person struggling with all relationships; human, financial, physical. The love of sheepherding and a Border Collie named Luke took me down the path of self-discovery. To become the person I wanted to be for the animals, I first had to know, and accept myself. Through my journey with Luke and the horses I was drawn to study shamanism, animal communication, meta and quantum physics, and much more. After Luke earned his angel wings, I felt a calling to share the story of this magnificent dog and my life as a trainer. This plunged me into unknown and to do something I never wanted to or thought I could do, I wrote the book Away To Me, My Love: A Sheepdog’s Tale Of Two Lives. Our story has helped countless others find courage and understanding within themselves.