Sophia Kerbler
Sophia Kerbler
About the Teacher
Why study with them?
Sophia and her Journey:
I grew up near a forest on the outskirts of Vienna, where nature, trees, and forest creatures were my first healing connection, my first experience of the vast unknown. This connection to nature and its mystical realms has been a thread linking all the various phases of my life. However, I had some big challenges to overcome before I could fully trust and work with these healing forces—or begin to help others do so..
My life as an adult began on the run.
After a series of painful and traumatizing experiences, I left my home country, Austria. I was only 16, and nowhere felt like home—especially not my body. On the surface, I was “making it” in the world. I got an MFA in Business Administration and started a successful company. And yet I felt empty like I was trying to walk in someone else's shoes.
Seeking to ground myself, I began the yoga practice that would become my medicine. And I decided to try the thing that excited and scared me most: acting. After considerable work and exploration, I achieved my dream of admission into the Actors Studio Drama School in New York City.
That’s where my healing journey really started. Method Acting is all about giving yourself fully to a character and thereby coming to understand the triggers of your own emotional life. The advice of my dear teacher Elisabeth Kemp, who reminded us to make anything we do an offering on stage, became the basis of how I guide embodiment practices.
Embodiment, like acting, involves allowing hidden parts of yourself to be fully revealed. After all that restless travel, I began my exploration of the unknown territory within as I gave my feelings my curiosity, my attention, and a stage. In opening my own subconscious, I began to develop deep compassion for all aspects of the human experience.
Power of Ritual
Elisabeth Kemp also led us into the power of ritual and reminded us to find our threads, the throughlines in our stories that make us feel connected. I turned once again to nature for my sense of connection. It’s the space where my perception shifts, the veil opens, and I tap into the unseen, the magical. Both as an actress and a person trying to find her way home, it was through my relation to the natural world that I gained my deepest insights of myself and the characters I embodied.
Pain Can Be Medicine, I was also mentored during that time by grandmother Shaman Kaariina Saarinen, who showed me that pain can be a medicine, helping me to find my priorities and life-path: leading as a woman with a fierce heart. I wrote my own short films and directed and produced them, achieving international acclaim. Valuing the women in my life more and more, I became part of the Box Collective, a women’s theater collective dedicated to creating and telling female-driven stories.
The peak experience in my life as an actor was playing the part of the archetypal “Woman” in Last Life—A Shakespeare Play, an exquisite and critically acclaimed show about a profound relationship cycle. This role showed me my own curiosity and led me to seek a deeper understanding of my />
At 33 I moved back to Vienna and delved into the world of Tantra. With this processing, I really began to understand my traumas, my fears, and my blockages. I worked through them in incredibly valuable containers like Tantra Women Training and with my personal mentor, Layla Laura Centorrino.
My conscious break from the acting and directing life coincided with the Covid pandemic, which was a time of profound regeneration and stock-taking for so many of us. While living in the Dominican Republic during this period, I felt deeply drawn to slowing down and honoring my feminine cycles. I started practicing and leading groups in womb yoga and breathwork. And, continuing the journey I began during my acting training, I sought to ground myself more fully in my body through my connection with nature.
Holding wild liberation through vulnerability and the feminine way was beautiful as I continued to develop proud in more masculine practices like Jivamukti Yoga. My subsequent relocation to Barcelona is where I went into even sharper focus on my spiritual and healing path.. I continued my studies in with Olga Oskurbina, studied trauma yoga with Radika, continued breathwork with David Elliot, tantra, and transformative work. I feel very lucky to have had some of the most incredible teachers and offer these gifts back into the world wherever I go.
I have found breathwork to be the most profound tool for working past limiting storylines.
To experience healing on the deepest and most subtle layers inside us. I am so grateful to be able to integrate this offering into the other practices and modalities I have learned.
Out of the many mosaic pieces of my life, patterns have emerged. I’ve learned important lessons about what it means to be human, to be a woman, and to feel at home in my body. I’ve discovered the power of vulnerability as the first step toward reclaiming essence and authenticity. I’ve explored love, forgiveness, and connection as forms of healing.
I love to guide you into wild liberation- through the power of vulnerability.
I grew up near a forest on the outskirts of Vienna, where nature, trees, and forest creatures were my first healing connection, my first experience of the vast unknown. This connection to nature and its mystical realms has been a thread linking all the various phases of my life. However, I had some big challenges to overcome before I could fully trust and work with these healing forces—or begin to help others do so..
My life as an adult began on the run.
After a series of painful and traumatizing experiences, I left my home country, Austria. I was only 16, and nowhere felt like home—especially not my body. On the surface, I was “making it” in the world. I got an MFA in Business Administration and started a successful company. And yet I felt empty like I was trying to walk in someone else's shoes.
Seeking to ground myself, I began the yoga practice that would become my medicine. And I decided to try the thing that excited and scared me most: acting. After considerable work and exploration, I achieved my dream of admission into the Actors Studio Drama School in New York City.
That’s where my healing journey really started. Method Acting is all about giving yourself fully to a character and thereby coming to understand the triggers of your own emotional life. The advice of my dear teacher Elisabeth Kemp, who reminded us to make anything we do an offering on stage, became the basis of how I guide embodiment practices.
Embodiment, like acting, involves allowing hidden parts of yourself to be fully revealed. After all that restless travel, I began my exploration of the unknown territory within as I gave my feelings my curiosity, my attention, and a stage. In opening my own subconscious, I began to develop deep compassion for all aspects of the human experience.
Power of Ritual
Elisabeth Kemp also led us into the power of ritual and reminded us to find our threads, the throughlines in our stories that make us feel connected. I turned once again to nature for my sense of connection. It’s the space where my perception shifts, the veil opens, and I tap into the unseen, the magical. Both as an actress and a person trying to find her way home, it was through my relation to the natural world that I gained my deepest insights of myself and the characters I embodied.
Pain Can Be Medicine, I was also mentored during that time by grandmother Shaman Kaariina Saarinen, who showed me that pain can be a medicine, helping me to find my priorities and life-path: leading as a woman with a fierce heart. I wrote my own short films and directed and produced them, achieving international acclaim. Valuing the women in my life more and more, I became part of the Box Collective, a women’s theater collective dedicated to creating and telling female-driven stories.
The peak experience in my life as an actor was playing the part of the archetypal “Woman” in Last Life—A Shakespeare Play, an exquisite and critically acclaimed show about a profound relationship cycle. This role showed me my own curiosity and led me to seek a deeper understanding of my />
At 33 I moved back to Vienna and delved into the world of Tantra. With this processing, I really began to understand my traumas, my fears, and my blockages. I worked through them in incredibly valuable containers like Tantra Women Training and with my personal mentor, Layla Laura Centorrino.
My conscious break from the acting and directing life coincided with the Covid pandemic, which was a time of profound regeneration and stock-taking for so many of us. While living in the Dominican Republic during this period, I felt deeply drawn to slowing down and honoring my feminine cycles. I started practicing and leading groups in womb yoga and breathwork. And, continuing the journey I began during my acting training, I sought to ground myself more fully in my body through my connection with nature.
Holding wild liberation through vulnerability and the feminine way was beautiful as I continued to develop proud in more masculine practices like Jivamukti Yoga. My subsequent relocation to Barcelona is where I went into even sharper focus on my spiritual and healing path.. I continued my studies in with Olga Oskurbina, studied trauma yoga with Radika, continued breathwork with David Elliot, tantra, and transformative work. I feel very lucky to have had some of the most incredible teachers and offer these gifts back into the world wherever I go.
I have found breathwork to be the most profound tool for working past limiting storylines.
To experience healing on the deepest and most subtle layers inside us. I am so grateful to be able to integrate this offering into the other practices and modalities I have learned.
Out of the many mosaic pieces of my life, patterns have emerged. I’ve learned important lessons about what it means to be human, to be a woman, and to feel at home in my body. I’ve discovered the power of vulnerability as the first step toward reclaiming essence and authenticity. I’ve explored love, forgiveness, and connection as forms of healing.
I love to guide you into wild liberation- through the power of vulnerability.
