Meet Dr. Sunshine

Sunshine came first. The “Dr.” came later.

Long before I became Dr. Sabine Clarke, DACM, there was Sunshine.

Growing up in Germany, “Sonnenschein” – Sunshine - became my nickname in my late teens. It followed me so naturally that even my very first personal email address had “HappySunshine” in the name. I still use it today, and whenever I spell it out for someone, I usually get the same response:

“Oh yes. That’s so you.”

Years later, I moved to the United States, built a new life, entered a new profession, and eventually opened Rise Above Acupuncture & Wellness.

And somehow, Sunshine followed me here too.

Patients began greeting me with “Hey, Sunshine,” or telling me, “You’re such a ray of sunshine.”

By then, Sunshine had met the doctorate.

And Dr. Sunshine simply made sense.

Whole Body. Whole Mind. Whole Person.

My path in healthcare has never been about collecting treatments.

It has been about understanding people.

The longer I have worked with patients, the more fascinated I have become by the connections between our physical health, our thoughts, emotions, nervous system, sleep, stress, environment, behavior, and the way we experience our lives.

The body does not exist separately from the mind.

Stress does not always announce itself loudly. Sometimes it shows up quietly—in our sleep, digestion, energy, tension, pain, focus, mood, or the feeling that we simply cannot switch off.

That understanding has shaped the way I practice and continues to shape everything I study.

I fix what stress quietly breaks.

Not by chasing one symptom after another, but by looking at the person in front of me and asking a much bigger question:

What does this person need to move toward greater balance, regulation, and well-being?

Sometimes the answer may include acupuncture. Sometimes it may involve clinical hypnosis, nervous-system regulation, movement, meditation, breathwork, lifestyle support, or another appropriate tool.

There is no single modality that explains a human being.

And I never want to stop learning.

Curiosity Became My Career

I have always loved learning.

For me, education has never felt like something to finish. One question usually leads to another, and somewhere along the way, continuing to learn became part of how I live.

I became a Doctor of Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine, built Rise Above Acupuncture & Wellness, raised my family, and continued expanding my understanding of health through movement, yoga, Pilates, Chinese medicine, integrative health, and clinical hypnosis.

And then life entered another season.

My children were grown. My practice was established. I had more space to ask myself:

What do I want to understand next?

Apparently, my answer was: quite a lot.

Today, I am pursuing a PhD in Psychology with a specialization in Consciousness, Spirituality, and Integrative Health.

This next chapter of my education allows me to explore questions that have fascinated me for years, not only how the body functions, but how the brain, mind, nervous system, consciousness, and our inner experience interact.

I am particularly interested in areas such as consciousness, automatic thought patterns, attention, meditation, hypnosis, emotional regulation, nervous system regulation, neuroplasticity, and human potential.

How does repeated experience shape the brain?

Can we become more aware of automatic patterns rather than simply be governed by them?

What happens when we deliberately train attention?

How do practices such as hypnosis and meditation influence our experience of ourselves?

And how can emerging knowledge in psychology and neuroscience complement what we already understand about the body?

These questions increasingly influence both my academic work and the way I think about integrative health.

They also make me curious about tools and technologies that explore the intersection of relaxation, attention, sensory stimulation, and brain-based wellness, which is one reason approaches like BrainTap® have caught my attention.

I don't add something to my work simply because it is new.

I want to understand it, experience it, ask questions about it, and determine where—or whether—it belongs.

For me, that is part of the fun.

The more I learn, the more there is to explore.

And I hope I never reach the point where I think I know it all.

Rise Above Acupuncture & Wellness

Rise Above is my clinical home.

It is where years of education, experience, curiosity, and human connection come together in actual practice.

What began with acupuncture and Chinese medicine has grown into a whole-person wellness practice offering different ways to support the people who walk through my door.

Depending on individual needs and goals, services may include acupuncture, clinical hypnosis, BrainTap®, LPG Endermologie, wellness injections, herbal and nutritional support, and other integrative wellness approaches.

I do not believe every person needs every tool.

I believe in having enough tools and enough curiosity to recognize that every person is different.

That is what Rise Above has always meant to me.

Beyond the Treatment Room

For loves exploring the relationship between the body, mind, consciousness, and the way we live.

My podcast, Conscious Living with Dr. Sunshine, gives me room to ask bigger questions, explore science and wellness, challenge some of the stories we tell ourselves about health, and occasionally laugh at how complicated we humans manage to make things.

I am also the author of, for example, Please Arrive After Coffee: Stories from the VIP Pollinator Lounge, a book born from an unexpected little world on my balcony filled with plants, pollinators, humor, observation, grief, and life.

Very different from a treatment room.

And yet, perhaps not so different after all.

Because underneath my clinical work, my research, my writing, and the conversations I have behind a microphone is the same fascination:

How do we live well?

Not perfectly.

Not without difficult days.

But consciously, curiously, and with a greater understanding of ourselves.

Why Dr. Sunshine?

Dr. Sunshine is not a character I created for a business.

Sunshine has been following me since I was a teenager.

The “Dr.” simply came later.

Today, the name represents something that has become increasingly important to me throughout my life and career: even when circumstances cannot be changed immediately, there may still be something within us that can.

A thought. A response. A breath. A perspective. A next step. A new beginning.

There is always a new day.

Welcome to my world.

Dr. Sabine Clarke, DACM
Dr. Sunshine

Doctor of Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine
PhD Student — Psychology: Consciousness, Spirituality & Integrative Health
Founder, Rise Above Acupuncture & Wellness
Author & Host of Conscious Living with Dr. Sunshine

Whole Body and Mind Integration.