Happiness is often treated as a personal goal or a private feeling. Individuals chase it through success, rest, or self-improvement.
However, research and lived experience keep pointing to this truth: Happiness grows faster when it moves outward. It involves giving time, offering care, and showing up for others. This is the idea that Sara Spowart, PhD, DMFT, LMFT, MA, MPA, explores through her business, Compassion-Based Happiness.
Dr. Sara Spowart is a therapist, educator, and public health scholar based in Florida. Her work focuses on compassion as a daily practice. To her, it is not an abstract idea. She has spent more than a decade studying happiness, trauma recovery, and mindfulness. Her academic training covers public health, marriage and family therapy, and happiness studies. Through her clinical work, she combines all these fields.
Dr. Spowart believes that happiness is strengthened through connection and care. This belief can be seen in her therapy, her writing, and her business. It is also the foundation of Compassion-Based Happiness.
The Science Behind Giving and Emotional Wellbeing
Dr. Spowart studies and promotes happiness with evidence. Her background in public health helps her connect compassion with tangible results. Research shows that helping others improves mood regulation, reduces stress, and increases long-term life satisfaction. In therapy, she sees this happening daily.
She often reminds clients that happiness is not about feeling good only. It is about feeling useful, connected, and valued. Acts of care activate parts of the nervous system linked to safety and calm. Volunteering, mentoring, and kindness routines can shift how the brain responds to stress.
As she says, “I believe that the very purpose of life is to be happy… The key is to develop inner peace.”
As Dr. Spowart reiterates, inner peace grows through outward action. Compassion becomes a stabilizing force that improves self-esteem because people see themselves as capable of caring.
Her clinical work supports this view. Clients dealing with burnout, anxiety, or trauma often feel stuck in self-protection mode. Gentle service-based practices help them step out of that state, and go from survival to meaning.
Compassion-Based Happiness: Care as a Daily Practice
Compassion-Based Happiness, was founded to focus on care as a daily practice. Dr. Spowart offers therapy and coaching for individuals, couples, families, and children. Sessions are available in person and remotely, and are personal and flexible.
Dr. Spowart describes her work as boutique therapy because clients never receive a fixed formula. Instead, they are offered customized care, ‘tailored’ for them. Financial flexibility is part of that care. Sliding scale options and insurance acceptance allow more people to access support.
The practice emphasizes happiness as a skill set. Clients learn how compassion affects thought patterns, behavior, and emotional stamina. This includes self-compassion, which is often missing in high-achieving or trauma-affected individuals.
She also offers group programs. Her Happiness-Based Mindfulness program teaches practical habits over six weeks. Participants learn about kindness, presence, and service, which leads to sustainable wellbeing. The results are not temporary, but permanent.
Important Services and Therapeutic Focus
- Individual therapy for trauma, anxiety, burnout, and life transitions.
- Couples and family therapy with a focus on secure attachment.
- Child and adolescent therapy using play and mindfulness tools.
- Group programs in mindfulness and self-compassion.
- Happiness and wholebeing coaching.
Away from the Therapy Room: Continued Service
Dr. Spowart’s care and compassion is not limited to her practice. She has worked with survivors of human trafficking and sexual violence. She supports international education and child welfare projects in Tanzania and Afghanistan. These experiences inform her belief that giving strengthens resilience on both sides.
Her clients rediscover energy by reconnecting with service. Small acts, like helping a neighbor, volunteering once a month, and practicing daily kindness count.
Dr. Spowart teaches that caring for others does not drain happiness but replenishes it. When care is given (albeit with boundaries and awareness), happiness is easier to achieve.
Training and Modalities Used
In her training, Dr. Spowart utilizes these modalities:
- Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT).
- EMDR for trauma recovery.
- Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction and Cognitive Therapy.
- Clinical hypnotherapy.
- Polyvagal-informed nervous system regulation.
- Yoga, Reiki, and mindfulness practices.
Conclusion
Dr. Sara Spowart’s work shows how happiness is not found in isolation, but grows through care, contribution, and compassion.
Through Compassion-Based Happiness, she translates science into daily practice. Her approach shows that doing good is not a side effect of happiness. It is one of its strongest sources.