Pathways To Peace

Christiaan Mader hosts Out to Lunch Acadiana at Gravy in Downtown Lafayette

Some places you can’t get to with a map. You need a guide. Someone who’s been down the road before, who knows where it gets rough, and who’ll walk it with you.

Sara Sullivan learned her route the hard way.

Sara Sullivan co-founded Paths To Restoration, a sound bath suite, as an alternative to her more traditional therapy practise. Sara tells Christiaan, "For the most part people are coming for stress, and then they're finding to affects them in other ways as well."

Sara Sullivan co-founded Paths To Restoration, a sound bath suite, as an alternative to her more traditional therapy practice. Sara tells Christiaan, “For the most part people are coming for stress, and then they’re finding it affects them in other ways as well.”

Sara grew up in Ohio in a musical family and picked up the violin at age five. Some of her first gigs were playing hymns with her family at senior homes.

She trained classically through college, went into social work, and came to Acadiana in 2009 for what was supposed to be a nine-month stay. Instead, she earned a counseling degree at UL and has been in practice at Hope, Heal and Joy Counseling since 2015.

Then, in 2017, at age 44, Sara had a stroke.

Recovery meant accepting that she couldn’t keep pushing her body the way she had been. She started practicing yoga and going to sound baths — sessions where you lie back and let the sound of bowls, gongs and chimes wash over you — and says it changed her. She wanted her clients to have that too. So she and a fellow musician started hosting sound baths in the lobby of her counseling office, moving the furniture out every weekend to make room.

The science on sound and wellness is young. In one study, people reported less tension, anger and fatigue after an hour of singing bowls. Finnish researchers found that stroke patients who listened to music every day recovered memory and attention faster than those who didn’t.

Sara’s idea has grown into Paths to Restoration, a somatic wellness space behind Asbury Methodist Church in Lafayette. Sara will tell you it is not a yoga studio. The centerpiece is the Forest Room, hung with wisteria and leaves under a fiber-optic night sky. On Saturday mornings, Sara plays violin and Ryan plays handpan, improvising the whole thing.

Seven in 10 American households have a pet. That’s about 94 million homes. And in one national survey, nearly half of pet owners said they’ve had to have an animal put to sleep. It’s a trip every pet owner knows is coming, and nobody wants to take. When the day arrives, most of us load up the car and drive to the vet’s office.

Dr. Carolyn Benedetto thinks there’s a gentler route. She comes to you.

Dr Carolyn Benedetto, her Forever Family Veterinary Hospice specializes in euthanasia for pets in the comfort of their own home. Carolyn tells Christiaan, “It can vary a lot, from almost like a funeral service to a more private experience.”

Carolyn grew up in Crowley, in a house where animals were always around and she was the one taking care of whatever showed up.

She graduated from veterinary school in 2018 and worked her way through nearly every corner of the field: general practice, emergency medicine, rehab, acupuncture and in-home hospice. Then her own dog developed lymphoma. Carolyn arranged for an at-home euthanasia and came away convinced that a pet’s last moments ought to be spent somewhere familiar.

She moved back to Louisiana in 2025 and began seeing clients as Forever Family Veterinary Hospice, a Lafayette-based practice offering in-home euthanasia and end-of-life care for pets. There’s no car ride. No waiting room. No exam table. Carolyn doesn’t even wear scrubs. To the pet, she’s just a friend coming over, and the family gets the time and privacy to say goodbye.