Background & Training

Sherry Lyerly-Tarner, MS, LCMHC, RT, RYT is the Owner and Lead Professional Counselor of Pure Wellness & Healing in Charlotte, NC.  She is a licensed professional counselor, a yoga teacher, a Reiki Master Teacher, and a Certified Equine-Assisted Psychotherapy Counselor.  Sherry holds a Masters Degree in Mental Health Counseling, is a Registered Yoga Teacher, and certified teacher of Color Me Yoga for Children. Sherry is also a long-time practitioner of mindfulness-based meditation and is trained in teaching the Mindful Schools curriculum.  She studied Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction in Education with Jon Kabat-Zinn in New York, and is also a former teacher of Language Arts & Gifted Education. 

Sherry currently counsels individuals, couples, and families, both in office and virtually. She also leading groups, workshops and classes in yoga, mindfulness, stress-reduction & Reiki for adults & teens. Additionally, Sherry has worked with a non-profit organization in NC and NY called Hearts 4 Heroes, utilizing the EAGALA model of equine-assisted psychotherapy in groups and individual sessions for active duty military and Veterans suffering from trauma and PTSD.  

Sherry has extensive experience working with adults, children, and teens with a variety of needs, specializing in trauma, self-esteem, body image, personal growth issues, anxiety, depression, relationship issues, emotional eating and food issues, divorce/blended families & major life transitions. She brings her experience with Reiki, yoga, mindfulness, teaching & parenting into her practice for an integrative approach to wellness and healing.  She has extensive training in treatment of trauma through multiple modalities, as well as in art therapy and high-conflict divorce.  She utilizes a blended, eclectic approach to counseling.

Sherry has a background in dance and has been practicing yoga for more than two decades.  She began teaching informally in 2003, after studying yoga with yoga teachers from the Sivananda and Kundalina yoga traditions.  She completing her first formal training in Color Me Yoga for children in 2003, and completed Subtle Yoga's RYT200 program in 2015.  She has brought both yoga and mindfulness into the classroom as a middle school teacher beginning in 2005, and as a counselor with K-5 students in Charlotte, NC, teaching yoga as part of PE and teaching the Mindful Schools curriculum in an elementary school on a weekly basis.

Sherry began her study of Reiki in the Usui Shiki Ryoho system of Reiki in 1999 in NY, and completed her Master training in 2001. Sherry is a Registered Karuna Reiki® Master, as well, and previously led Reiki groups & trainings in NY. She continues to lead Reiki trainings, groups and provides individual Reiki sessions in Charlotte, NC.