Sanctuary Yoga & Wellness was created as a place to step away from the constant demands of modern life and engage with yoga as it was originally intended. Not as a performance, a workout, or another form of self-improvement, but as a practice for developing greater awareness, clarity, and stability.
About Sanctuary Yoga & Wellness
Yoga Beyond Movement
Overlooking the river in Exeter, Sanctuary offers an environment that supports attention rather than distraction. Here, yoga is approached as a precise and practical system, one developed over thousands of years to work with the human mind and nervous system. The tradition knew things about stress, attention, and regulation long before modern science had the language for it. We teach from that foundation.
At the center of this tradition is a simple definition:
Yoga is the stilling of the fluctuations of the mind.
This understanding shapes everything we do.
The practice is not focused on achieving the perfect pose. Instead, it helps students observe how they apply effort, where they hold tension, how they respond under pressure, and the patterns that influence their daily experience. Through consistent practice, attention becomes steadier, perception becomes clearer, and the relationship to stress, discomfort, and mental activity begins to change.
Where Attention Becomes the Practice
Most people come in expecting just a workout.
What they find is that the practice is less about what the body can do and more about what the mind does while the body is doing it.
That gap, between effort and awareness, between pushing and feeling, is where the real work happens.
That's what we're here for.
A Pathway for Deeper Practice
For those who have watched yoga become increasingly focused on appearance, performance, or physical achievement, Sanctuary offers a different approach.
This is a place for people who value depth over distraction, awareness over achievement, and a practice that continues to reveal something meaningful long after class ends.
Our work is grounded in both traditional yoga and modern therapeutic understanding. With a background in Sports Medicine, experience as a Physical Therapist Assistant, and certification as a Yoga Therapist, Sharon brings together clinical knowledge and traditional practice in a way that is thoughtful, practical, and accessible.
Sanctuary offers three distinct ways to engage with the practice:
Personalized one-on-one sessions that address your unique physical, mental, and nervous system patterns.
Yoga Therapy
Structured programs focused on specific themes such as stress, chronic pain, nervous system regulation, and sustainable effort.
Small Group Programs
Structured programs focused on specific themes such as stress, chronic pain, nervous system regulation, and sustainable effort.
Classes
Founder of Sanctuary Yoga & Wellness
I was an anxious kid in an unstable home who learned early that safety came from doing things right. From producing. From being the one who had it together. That belief never left. It just grew up with me and started calling itself discipline.
I was running half marathons, doing Bikram four times a week, strength training, checking every box the wellness industry handed me. My hair was falling out. My body was exhausted. I was doing everything right and completely missing myself in the process.
Yoga found me before it was a brand. In homes and old mill buildings, no mirrors, no music, no performance. Just a framework so precise and so old that it cut right through the pattern I'd been living inside without knowing it. The understanding that your sense of worth is not something you produce. That steadiness is not something you earn. That you are not broken. You are patterned. And patterns can change.
I built Sanctuary for the woman I used to be. Capable, driven, exhausted, and quietly wondering why nothing ever feels like enough.
I'm a Certified Yoga Therapist, Ayurvedic Health Counselor, and licensed Physical Therapist Assistant. I've trained extensively at the Himalayan Institute under some of the most respected teachers in the tradition. Everything I teach draws on both that lineage and a clinical understanding of how the body and nervous system actually work.
The practice changed my life. Not because I finally did it right. Because I finally stopped trying to.
Meet Sharon Gordon
Emily grew up in York, ME, and has completed a 200-hour Hatha Yoga training, a 200-hour Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga teacher training with certified teacher Melanie Fawer, and a 300-hour Ashtanga yoga teacher training and mentorship at Yoga East.
She started practicing yoga regularly after college, but after moving for grad school and struggling with isolation and social anxiety, she started looking for something deeper from her yoga practice. That search led her to Ashtanga yoga, and she has been a dedicated practitioner since 2016. The discipline of the sequence shows up on her mat where she is currently working on the third series, and has influenced the way she approaches teaching, continued education, and personal growth.
Her teachers have taught her that the practice is meant to adapt to the individual, and that yoga does not have to look a certain way and be a one-size-fits all. She carries this philosophy into her teaching, offering thoughtful cues to support different bodies and experiences. Her goal is for students to have time to learn, explore poses, and develop a practice that supports the nervous system rather than overwhelms it.
Off the mat, she enjoys reading, snuggling with her animals, hiking, gardening, and traveling.
Teaching Philosophy:
My teaching is rooted in the traditional structure of Ashtanga vinyasa yoga, with an emphasis on breath and drishti, and thoughtful progression. Each class integrates intentional strength work, mindfulness, and accessible options for all levels in order to challenge and inspire others. I aim for my students to gain skills they can carry beyond the mat--cultivating mindfulness, resilience, and confidence to support them in daily life, while nurturing a sense of belonging and connection.
Meet Emily Wall
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Sanctuary Yoga & Wellness is a traditional yoga and Ayurveda studio in Exeter, New Hampshire, founded by Sharon Gordon. Classes, small group programs, yoga therapy, and Ayurvedic health counseling all grounded in tradition, clinical training, and a deep understanding of how the body and nervous system actually work. This is yoga as it was originally designed to be practiced.
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Most yoga studios organize classes by difficulty and reward physical achievement. Sanctuary organizes classes by what the nervous system can actually receive. Depending on the class you take and your current capacity you may be challenged physically. What is different is that the challenge is purposeful, not performative. There is no heated room, no loud music, no mirrors, and no culture of pushing past what your body is telling you. The practice is rooted in traditional lineage and informed by Sharon's clinical background as a Physical Therapist Assistant and Certified Yoga Therapist. You will work but you will work skillfully.
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Sanctuary has two teachers. Sharon Gordon is the founder, lead teacher, Certified Yoga Therapist, Ayurvedic Health Counselor, and licensed Physical Therapist Assistant. She trained extensively at the Himalayan Institute under Pandit Rajmani Tigunait and brings both traditional depth and clinical precision to her teaching. Emily Wall holds an RYT-500 with deep roots in Ashtanga yoga, has completed a Second Series Intensive, and maintains ongoing mentorship with Dr. Kimberly Dahlmann.
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The class schedule is built around three weekly classes and one monthly offering. Regulate is slower and floor-based, designed for days or seasons when the nervous system needs support before demand. Build is strength-focused, standing postures, breath-led, physically substantive. Refine is Ashtanga-rooted, asks the most physically, and rewards full attention. Once a month, the Nervous System Support Restorative class offers fully supported, prop-assisted practice for recovery and regulation. This is yoga as it was originally designed to be practiced.
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It depends on what you mean by beginner. If you are new to yoga and ready to move and be challenged, yes. Build is the right starting point — physically substantive, strength-focused, and taught with enough precision that you will actually learn how to move and breathe correctly, which is harder than it sounds. Regulate is floor-based and slower-paced, a good way to get a feel for the studio and the teaching before asking more of yourself physically. Either way, you do not need experience. You need to be ready to pay attention.
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Classes are where most people begin. The range from floor based and slow to more physically demanding. All are breath-led, and designed to build real capacity over time. Small group programs go deeper on specific topics: nervous system regulation, seasonal Ayurveda, chronic stress, chronic pain. They include a physical practice alongside more focused instruction. Yoga therapy is one-on-one work that uses clinical assessment and traditional yoga tools to address your specific physical patterns, injuries, nervous system tendencies, and goals with a level of precision a group class cannot reach.
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Yoga therapy is not a yoga class. It is personalized, one-on-one work that can address physical issues like chronic pain, back pain, injury recovery, muscle imbalances, movement compensations, alongside nervous system patterns, chronic stress, and the habits that have been running quietly in the background. At Sanctuary, it draws on Sharon's clinical training as a Physical Therapist Assistant alongside her Yoga Therapy certification. You will be assessed, worked with directly, and given practices to continue between sessions. It is the most precise and physically targeted work the studio offers.
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Sanctuary Yoga & Wellness is at 109R Water Street in Exeter, New Hampshire, overlooking the Squamscott River. Note the R in the address the studio is in the rear of the building and can not be accessed on the street side of Water street. We are in back, overlooking the river, and up the stairs. We are not a heated yoga studio. We have no mirrors and no loud music. Sanctuary was designed to support attention rather than distraction. We have yoga mats to borrow if you don't have your own.
Questions Students Often Ask
The Practice is Here When You’re Ready
You've been trying more. Pushing through. If part of you is wondering whether something different exists on the other side of that, it does. Come find out.