Dr. Janice Sullivan

Janice Sullivan, Ph.D., is an educator, researcher, author, transformational coach, and founder of Yogabrella whose life and work explore what she calls The Language of the Heart, the profound ways we connect through presence, intuition, silence, and compassion, sometimes beyond the boundaries of words and ordinary understanding.

Her inquiry has unfolded through an unusual convergence of personal experience, contemplative practice, science, caregiving, and service.

In 2015, Janice underwent a life-threatening pancreatic surgery that became an unexpected threshold in her exploration of consciousness and mortality. Having prepared for the possibility of death through contemplative practices, she experienced during the prolonged surgery what she understands as a profound near-death experience: perceiving herself above the operating table and encountering a luminous being who offered her what appeared to be a radiant sphere of life. As she reached for it, she experienced herself returning to her body; her next memory was awakening after surgery. The experience left her not with definitive answers, but with a deepened sense of wonder and an enduring curiosity about consciousness, life, death, and dimensions of experience that may lie beyond ordinary perception.

In 2020, after more than two years of accompanying her husband through cancer, Janice cared for him at home through his final months during the COVID-19 pandemic. As his ability to speak gradually diminished, their sense of connection did not; more than once, they woke describing the same dream, of being together somewhere else, which left her wondering whether connection can outlast words. Near the end, he asked to celebrate Christmas — in July. What seemed impossible became an extraordinary gathering of family, neighbors, caregivers, and carolers, and though largely bedridden, he found the strength to rise and sing every song; it would be the last time he got up before he died, only days later. It taught Janice that dying, even amid loss, can still hold love, joy, and presence.

In 2025, during her first advanced meditation retreat with Dr. Joe Dispenza, Janice was selected for research studies measuring physiological and biological responses. She experienced what she describes as communication with beings of light, and at some of those moments, the heart-monitoring equipment recorded unusual patterns, a correlation that remains unexplained. For Janice, that intersection of the measurable and the mysterious became an invitation to deeper inquiry rather than a conclusion, and awakened a new curiosity about the intelligence of the heart, heart-brain coherence, and the relationship between physiology, consciousness, and connection. She went on to train with HeartMath Institute, becoming a certified coherence trainer and personal resilience coach.

Drawing upon more than two decades of experience in education, research, leadership, and community engagement, together with decades of contemplative and healing practice, including meditation, yoga, Qigong, and Reiki, Janice brings scientific curiosity and lived experience into conversation without asking others to accept any particular explanation for what remains mysterious. Her work increasingly brings together education, human development, well-being, coherence, and compassionate leadership in service of individuals and communities. Through Yogabrella, her writing, teaching, and community work, she invites people not to reproduce her experiences, but to become more present and curious about their own.

At the heart of her emerging work is a question: What becomes possible when we begin listening beyond words?

For Janice, The Language of the Heart is not an answer. It is an invitation — to explore connection, consciousness, healing, love, illness, dying, and the mystery of how we communicate with one another, and perhaps with life itself, in ways we are only beginning to understand. And we welcome you to join the call to explore it together.