Sarah Frank (aka Frankie -she/her)
Zenly Founder
Autistic Advocate
A 37 year-old living and working on Gadigal Land in Sydney, Frankie is a trained Hatha, Vinyasa, Yin Yoga and Pilates teacher with over eleven years of experience. She has also completed Marsha Linehan’s six month Dialectical Behavior Training (DBT), Dr. Jon Kabat-Zin’s Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction course (MBSR), and is a registered Mental Health First Aider (MHFA). She has trained in Vipassana (10 day silent course, 3 day immersion, and Vipassana for Teenagers), and taught mindfulness in corporate spaces.
She has worked with ASPECT (Autism Spectrum Australia) to deliver yoga and mindfulness programs to teens and kids on the spectrum. She has her Working With Children Check (WWC) in QLD and NSW and has worked teaching children music, mindfulness and yoga both in groups and privately.
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In 2024 Frankie launched a dream project: a Monthly Autistic Skills Group focused on addressing two key problem areas for autistic people: regulation and relationships.
‘People improve when they get
external love and support
-how can we hold it against them when they don’t?
No one is beyond rehabilitation’.
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- NBC’s "The Good Place"
In her late 20s Frankie recovered from a mental and physical rock bottom by learning and then employing the emotional and regulatory tools she wasn’t taught in her childhood. At age 28 she was diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), and severe Dissociation catalysed by PTSD. Diagnosis allowed her to pursue a tangible course of action for her interpersonal skills and mental health.
Now, through years of intensive skill building she is able to understand and appreciate her worldview as an autistic person, and as she no longer meets the criteria for BPD, it has been removed from her diagnoses list. A depressive episode in 2022 led to her diagnosis of complex post traumatic stress disorder (C-PTSD), and to a whole new world of care for herself and others carrying trauma.
Frankie has built a safe home in herself and shares how with others. She has built her life from the ground-up with a steady accumulation of practical skills, a deep engagement with therapy, and the cultivation of meaningful relationships. She believes that we all have the capacity for great love and that healing is not only possible, but beautiful.
Frankie is especially passionate about creating space for young women to explore what skills support them best. Nervous system regulation through the practice of mental, physical & emotional skills is at the core of Frankie's work. She responds to individual needs with helpful tools to these key questions; what do I need to feel 'in my body' today? How can I release any resistance? How can I feel safe right now? How can I action/communicate all of this?
She doesn’t preach that mindfulness is a magic pill or a miracle cure; she teaches malleability, pausing, and adjusting thought processes, communicating with and leaning on supports. Her work is constantly evolving as she does, and her ability to translate skills -especially to neurodivergent people and to kids, has been applauded throughout her career.
Frankie dreams of paying back the money she borrowed to open Zenly, publishing her book 'Good Enough' (part-instruction manual / part-biography), she wants to enjoy making music, and to broaden Zenly's facilitation of emotional regulation skills training for autistic people & people with C-PTSD.