The Dish You Set Down (with Sarah Reuter)

You can hit every goal, nail every KPI, build the business, even travel the world in luxury with clients — and still stand at a sink one afternoon knowing something has to change. That's exactly where Sarah Reuter found herself before walking away from a multimillion-dollar events company with no plan, no safety net, and no clarity about what was next. 

All she had was a feeling she couldn't ignore anymore.

In this episode of Changeology, host and transformational coach Dr. Meg Trucano talks with Sarah Reuter — events industry veteran, embodiment coach, and founder of the Revive and Thrive program — about what it actually looks like to trust your intuition when everything on paper says stay.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• How emotional avoidance masquerades as busyness and productivity--and how to recognize it in yourself
• What intuition actually feels like in the body, and why it doesn't come from your mind
• How to rebuild your identity after walking away from a career, a role, or a version of yourself
• The "head trash record" exercise that surfaces the subconscious story you keep pressing play on
• Why anxiety is a signal of misalignment, not a problem to suppress

If you've been carrying a quiet but persistent sense that something's off — and wondering whether to trust it — this conversation is for you.

Connect with Sarah:

https://www.experienceselevatedconsulting.com/ 

Changeology is a podcast about the real, messy, nonlinear process of personal change — hosted by life and change coach, Dr. Meg Trucano.

Book a free 30-minute Clarity Call here to cut through the noise and bring next steps into focus: https://www.megtrucano.com/book-a-call

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Meg: My guest today is Sarah Reuter and her story, which we'll hear more about in a minute, will make you stop and think about what success feels like, not what it looks like. Because for years Sarah built a wildly successful, we're talking multimillion dollar company in the events and travel world. She was busy always moving and filling the spaces in between that perpetual movement with numbing, with nicotine, with alcohol, with staying busy, and on paper she had everything, the business, the money, the image, and she really loved the work and she really loved her clients.

But as inside. She was unfulfilled and she kept hearing that quiet inner voice say something has to change. So she did the unthinkable. She walked away literally in the middle of doing dishes, walked away from the company, from the identity, from the life she'd spent years creating. She had no safety net, no plan, just a deep intuitive knowing that she couldn't really ignore anymore.

Today, Sarah's work lives in this really fascinating space between immersive design and intuitive guidance. With 25 years in the events and design industry, Sarah helps conscious brands and business owners explore their outer world through the power of curated events, sensational incentive trips, wellness retreats, luxury events, but she also helps high achieving women reconnect to themselves through embodiment and nervous system work through her eight week Revive and Thrive program because she's learned in the hardest and truest way that no amount of outer success can compensate for an inner life that's out of sync.

In this episode of Change, we talk about that moment when you realize that you can't keep going the way you have been, what it actually means to trust your intuition and how that feels, and how to rebuild your life and your identity from the inside out. Please enjoy this episode with my guest, Sarah Rooter.

Welcome to the Change Ology podcast. Sarah, it's so great to have you.

[00:02:22] Sarah: Thank you Meg. I'm honored to be here with you today.

[00:02:25] Meg: I can't wait for our conversation. So before we get into any of the like really juicy bits, I think it's super important to start with your. Transformation story and you spent years crafting a career, but at some point you found that the experience you'd built for yourself stopped feeling alive and the success and the company and the image all kind of looked right from the outside, but something in you started to kind of whisper this isn't it for me anymore.

And so that's where I'd love to kind of start today is the moment you realized you kind of couldn't keep going in the way you were, could you tell us your story?

[00:03:09] Sarah: Yes, and I, you know, hopefully Meg, your listeners will be able to somehow relate to this in some way. You know, I really believe in sharing our transformational stories, even if it's one person that's like, oh my gosh, I get this, this is me right now. Or this was me four years ago, or, oh my gosh, could this be me in the future?

Right. you know, it, you're right. It, it became a point where after building my first business for about eight years and. Had, you know, it started in 2008. I had had my, my child, Carson in 2007, 11/11/07. He was born and not long after the birth of my child. I think I had a really great surge of hormones that that really enlightened me in so many ways that I wasn't expecting that I left corporate America and I thought, you know what?

I'm going to do this business ownership thing on my own and I'm gonna serve my clients in the way that I feel really is the way they would appreciate and deserve to be treated. And so I left the corporate America nine to five and went out on my own and built a business alongside two other partners for eight years.

And what a journey that was of literally everything from birth to death that we experienced as women together. And, Eventually the day came where, like you were saying, from the outside looking in, I had made it, I felt like I had made it on paper. I didn't have to check my bank account anymore to see if I could spend, you know, $50 for lunch or buying coffee or just the things that I used to really worry about on the day-to-day basis.

Financially. I no longer had that stress, but yet there was something an a deeper underlying current that just my heart and my body just felt like, whoa, something is totally off here and I don't feel fulfilled, and I've hit all the goals. I've hit the KPIs, I've hit all the revenue, you know, markers. I'm traveling the world with luxurious brands and clients and experiences, and yet why do I feel this longing for something more and something deeper?

Mm. And I literally remember being in the office that day and I was washing, you know, we had a, one of my partners, we, we, we worked out of her home, out of her home space, and so we would entertain clients and have them over into the kitchen and dining room, and we'd all pitch in and clean up and, and everyone left the office that day.

And I was there washing dishes and something profound hit me and struck me. And I literally set the dish down and , I felt this, I felt a push, I felt a magnetic, like back up, push and walk out the door. And I literally walked out the door and I never walked back in. I just knew it was over, it was done.

My time had been served, and I didn't have any answers about what was next. I just knew it was my time to step away from the chaos and the madness that I found myself in.

[00:06:15] Meg: Wow. Okay. So you mentioned that it felt, like a, a magnetic polar push. but can you describe for the audience a little bit more about the signs and sensations in your body kind of before that point? Like as you were starting to understand something wasn't quite right and maybe you weren't ready yet to admit something wasn't quite right.

[00:06:39] Sarah: Yeah, well the, the signs and symptoms are always there, right? We are, our bodies are constantly communicating with us. And, you know, for me, I, I am still this person, however, I have much more awareness around it, but.you know, high achieving doer, always moving, always stretching, always people pleasing and, and figuring out what's next.

And so my anxiousness was at an all time high. I was smoking two packs a day of marble lights. so I was filling my space, my, my pause. Any, any sort of pause or free time was filled with basically nicotine and alcohol. If I, you know, if I wasn't doing business development and selling and or traveling or figuring out how we were gonna scale or grow the company a little bit, then I was, you know, smoking, smoking two packs a day.

And I was in a long-term relationship with Kendall Jackson Chardonnay. I loved a good but buttery ard. And so I did, I, I think my, my signs were, linked to. the space with addictions, really, truly with, with keeping myself busy so that I didn't allow myself to feel. And so going back to that moment of the simplicity of, you know, washing dishes and the water running over my hands, and having this moment where this kind of like natural cleansing came over me, this moment of stillness and just feeling like I needed to set it all down.

Everything just needed to be dropped and set down and, and I had to walk away. I, I don't know a better way to explain it other than just this, this force came over me, this feeling came over me, and I knew it was time to set things down and walk away.

[00:08:32] Meg: Hmm. And we'll talk a little bit about trusting that, kind of guiding intuition in in just a moment. But I want to stick with this emotional avoidance conversation for a little bit because I think this is something that many of us can relate to, especially kind of the high. People pleasing perfectionist sets, you know, that are my clients, but also myself, right?

but this, this sense of just not being able to rest for a moment, otherwise these emotions kind of start to fill that negative space, right? So you have to be doing something to keep those negative feelings or, or those, deeply feeling, I guess I'll say emotions kind of at, at bay. and so when you decided to walk away, I'm curious about the emotions that you experienced after you made this decision.

So did you, from that point, did you kind of let yourself feel those emotions or was there kind of a transition period where you learned how to do that?

[00:09:37] Sarah: That's a great question. you know, I feel like it was such a frame by frame, day by day, moment by moment experience. You know, at first there was this full body. Bliss, if you will, of like, you know, when you, you know, when you finally have made a decision, you feel the weight come off of your shoulders. So I felt this heaviness leave, but then in the space of the unknowing, you know, like, well, what am I doing?

And, and how am I gonna make an income? And what's the next step? And you know, all these thoughts start to come in. Fear starts to come in, imposter syndrome starts to come in second, guessing yourself, did I make the right decision? then you, you know, you get opinions from people in your circle of like, what, what the heck are you doing, Sarah?

You know, and that can really add into the chaos in the mind. and so I, I think it was such a variety of emotions that, that flooded me and came in. And honestly, I probably spent years healing emotionally from that. You know, it was, it was like a divorce. I mean, I, I, at the, at the end of the day, I was divorcing two partners that I dearly loved.

And at one point, you know, we had maybe a similar vision and I loved the clients I worked with. And so it felt so discombobulated. I was so confused because I was like, wait a minute. I love the work I do, but I had also found myself, and I take full responsibility in the fact that I had surrounded myself and put myself in some not so great situations and some toxic environments.

And, you know, I, that was the wake up call, you know, so it, it was a, an unraveling of many years that, it took me to, to finally feel whole again and to finally feel, gosh, you know, there I trusted myself. I did, I, I went back to this moment, but. 10 years went by and, you know, I can put myself back in that scenario in an instant.

And, there's still sadness there. There's still pain, fear, bliss. And I, I go back to my meditation teacher, she says, bliss, the definition of bliss is any feeling fully felt. And I, I love that definition, right, because we think of bliss and we think of like, I don't know, my head goes to perfection. Like, or all good, all things good, right?

But the true definition of bliss is any feeling fully expressed, fully felt,

[00:12:12] Meg: There's a wonderful kind of tie in with surrender there too, right? Like giving yourself over to deeply feeling whatever happens to be the emotion or emotions that you're feeling at the time. I love that definition. I think that's a really beautiful conception of it, and to lend a little bit of, to do a little bit of normalizing here when.

We, well, at least in the United States, we're not super good at knowing how to feel our feelings. Right. I was in therapy for years and I mean literally like probably five to seven years. And at one point she's like, are you ready? And I was like, what? What do you mean? She's like, are you, are you ready to learn how to feel your feelings?

And I was like, oh my God, we've been doing all this work has been the pre-work to get to the actual feeling of our feelings. Right? It's tough. we're not taught how to do it. And so when you say that, you know, you're, you can transport yourself back to that period of time and. Really feel as though you're still there and can really easily access those emotions.

I think that's a, that's a huge testament to the fact that you have done that emotional work and can, can honestly say that you've felt those feelings. But I'm also curious about your sense of identity, right? Because you went from a, you know, partner in a very successful business venture that you created, co-created,

[00:13:45] Sarah: Mm-hmm.

[00:13:46] Meg: and then there was just like this, I left.

And now what, so talk to me a little bit about the process of kind of recreating your identity.

[00:13:57] Sarah: Yeah. So I've always been someone who's invested in myself and believed in myself. I think there's that core. There's that core value I have of that. You know, I've always, you know, when I sold my shares of the, of the company, I remember thinking, I don't know what's next. I don't know what I'm going to do, but I'm going to take $10,000 of the, of, of, you know, the investment I just built, co-created, and I'm gonna reinvest that back into myself.

And I went to a Tony Robbins business event, and that helped me gain clarity of what's next, because I really didn't know. I truly, at the time, the only thing I knew was that, I had just started yoga teacher training and I really was starting to learn how to get into my body and feel my body somatically because I was so cut off from it.

I was numbing it, you know, like I said, with nicotine and, and, and drinking wine. And, and I was really scared to. Allow myself to crack open and break. I thought, you know, I have to hold this together. I have so much that, you know, I need to, I need to portray that I'm okay, even though deep inside I was not okay.

And I think that's the fear is that, you know, if we show it or if we feel it, that we're just gonna fall apart. And, and truly the falling apart and the surrender is, is the gift. You know, you, you can't even begin to reinvent yourself or figure out what's next until you allow yourself to fully go through the thing, the challenge, the pain.

And you know, I always say the hardest part of anything is deciding once we decide, you know, and once we feel safe in our bodies, you know, going through the yoga teacher training allowed me to. Really connect with my, my breath again and my breathing. That's when I quit smoking cigarettes, is that, you know, I, I knew that I needed to rehabilitate my lungs and I started to feel just my, my breath and how, what a gift it was to, you know, pause and be in my body.

And, and I now, now when I go to a yoga class, I'm always like, gosh, I'll know it's a really good teacher if they make me cry by the end of, by the end of class. And I have tears streaming down my face because I want, I want my body to express and to feel, you know, some of the underlying layers that I know I've been holding onto.

It's, it's so healthy to express those emotions.

[00:16:30] Meg: So you talked a little bit. About making the leap, right? So you, you didn't have a clear plan. You just were like, this is not for me, I'm moving on.

[00:16:41] Sarah: Yeah.

[00:16:42] Meg: But there wasn't any, there wasn't any plan. It was just kind of a deep knowing that it was time to move on. And so from the outside, that kind of decision looks very brave.

And it is brave. But on the inside, I'm sure you were completely terrified and, you know, confused and all of the things. But I really want to talk a little bit about this notion of trusting your intuition. So you've said that intuition guided you to kind of leave without a plan, which makes some of our, our perfectionist parts like very, like that's a squidgy thing, right?

Not having certainty of what's coming next. So. Can you tell us a little bit, especially for those of us that might be disconnected from our intuition, what does it feel like when your intuition speaks to you?

[00:17:33] Sarah: You know, it's, that's such a good question and I think it feels different for everyone, but I will tell you this. Intuition does not come from our mind. It doesn't come from anything on in our head at all. So the biggest thing I think is, is, is being able to tap in and tune into the subtleness of feelings in our body. we hear the, the gut, you know, the, my gut, my gut's telling me. And that is such a visceral feeling. If we, if we can, you know, get still enough and pause and, and just be brave enough to ask a question and listen for the answer. Our bodies speak their own wisdom and their own language, and you'll start to actually feel, it might be a shoulder ache, it might be a right big toe ache.

I mean, I have, I have a book by my bedside table from, Louis Hay. I don't know if you know that, author, she started Hay House, which is a big production company and a lot of wellness. Featured artists and authors and teachers are, are under this, big publishing umbrella. But Luis Hay talked and wrote about, the, the, the metaphysical basically, and how our, we have the ability to make the connection of the emotional, the emotional connection to the physical, you know, manifestation that's happening in our body.

And once you can kind of connect these two, you can start to really understand what the wisdom of your body, what it's trying to remind you or tell you. And so for every little egg or ailment or little visceral feeling in the body that I open up this, this, this little booklet, and it has it in there, you know, shoulder, stomach, headache, heartburn, you name it, anxiety, joint pain, like it's all in there.

And it will tell you the emotional root cause and then it'll help you kind of rewire. Your neural pathways. 'cause this thing up here is what messes us up from not listening to our intuition. but you know, I I also study a little bit about human design and, and,

[00:19:42] Meg: design.

[00:19:42] Sarah: yeah. Yeah. It's such a deep dive, isn't it?

I mean, you could really go down the rabbit hole with it, but my authority is splenic authority, and so it's a very, my intuition is, is, very subtle. So things like a meditation practice and finding stillness have been very helpful for me. Someone who's a sprinter, I like to go fast. I like to move, I like to dance and sway.

getting still and, and finding those moments of pause and stillness just allows me that space to go within, ask the question, ask my body to guide me, or, you know, ask my guides, my spirit guides to come in and, you know, help. Connect me to the next person. The next thing that's gonna guide me on this thing we call life, you know?

[00:20:31] Meg: Mm. Mm-hmm. I love that and I love that you brought up reconnecting with your, your body as a way to differentiate. From other kinds of, of feelings that we might have that that might interrupt the flow of our, of our intuition. Right? I am a, in human design, I'm a manifesting generator, so I have a sacral response, and I, it's very much a gut Yes, no, like very strong, but it's, it's always in my gut.

And it is such an interesting thing because not everybody makes decisions that way. Not everybody has that authority type. So, and if you, if you in the audience have no idea what we're talking about, we'll, we'll make this brief, but it is, it is a very interesting phenomenon to bring yourself out of your head and into your body.

And I think. You've, you've spoken, you know, when we were doing our coffee chat to prepare for this interview, you spoke at length about this return to our bodies, right? So we're so in this daily life, we're so used to living in our heads that to return to our bodies brings us this kind of wisdom that we've forgotten

[00:21:44] Sarah: Mm-hmm.

[00:21:45] Meg: so one of the things that I have personally struggled a lot with is this idea of trust. So I know intuition and kind of trust they're very related concepts, but in my opinion, trusting, especially if you're trusting in, call it divine timing, trust in trusting the universe, trusting in, you know, God, whatever kind of, Figurehead you want to, to call it. it's really hard. And I'm curious, what has trusting, like the divine timing or the correct timing, taught you about control? About patience? About momentum? What has it taught you?

[00:22:28] Sarah: It is taught me to be a better listener. It is taught me to wait for the invitation to give my opinion. It's taught and, and back to the even the better listener. You know, I, I think we live in this day and age where. They're our answers to everything. I mean, we can, we can ask chat, GPT, we can ask our circle of friends, our mentors, our therapists, our coaches.

And yet the, the truest, most aligned answers are always within us. And, you know, someone like me, I, I have to have my circle of influence and, and people to help extract that. You know, especially when I'm stuck and I have to have tools and practices that help me stay in my body and trust that even if it doesn't make sense, even if no one else understands it, even if it feels really uncomfortable.

I think that's the biggest thing, is that most of the time trust requires this uncomfortable mess. To kind of be in this space of like, this is gonna get a little messy here. And you have to trust that in the mess is the message and that you will find your way through. I love the story of the buffalo and how the buffalo and nature, they know that when the storm comes, they face it and they, they run directly through it.

Because if not, you know, if they're veering left and right, they may stay in the storm much longer. And so their natural ability to face the storm and and run directly through it, it's very similar. I feel like trust is very similar to that. Is that okay, we know this is going to take courage and this might feel really yucky and sad and I'm gonna feel pain.

No one wants to feel pain or suffering, but I think. I think we worry, we, we in our, our, in our minds about it so much and needing to have it all figured out that we don't even allow, it's like we block ourselves from the fast track in so many ways. We really do. And it's in the surrender, it's in the letting go, you know?

And I have to practice it every day. I mean, practice what we preach, right? It's truly a practice. And you have to cultivate a lot of compassion for yourself because, you know, like you said earlier, we don't learn how to feel our emotions. No one's taught us that. most of us are taught to stuff it and throw some dirt on it and keep going and don't cry and, you know, never let them see you sweat.

That was my head trash and motto for a long time. Never let them see you sweat, especially in my line of work, which, you know, is to make things really look. Effortless in my line of work of event planning and travel logistics. It's like, and it couldn't be a messier, more chaotic field to be in, especially right now.

[00:25:41] Meg: Oh yeah, for sure. so I love this idea of surrendering and this is very top of mind for me because I've, you know, I feel like life is a series of learning the same lesson over and over again until you actually get it. so who knows if this is the, you know, final time, I'll learn it. But for someone who's listening who wants to begin a practice of surrendering to step back from control and trust the flow, trust, divine timing, what do you think would help them build that trust muscle?

And you mentioned that it's a practice. What do you think you would recommend from your practice that people in the audience could potentially take in and run with?

[00:26:27] Sarah: Hmm. The first thing I would recommend is to find any practice that allows you to get into your body. If it's singing, dancing, writing, journaling, making food, making art, any yoga, you know, think about all the ways in which singing, I, I think I said singing already, but even, you know, activating our, our throat energy center. The embodiment practice. And I think as women especially, it's so intuitive for us to, to naturally be in these more creative states that sacral energy. it's not easy all the time, especially when we're, you know, if you're a intellect and you know, you really thrive on knowledge and wi, you know, knowledge, I think too about knowledge versus wisdom.

Wisdom lives in the body. Li wisdom, I, I can't tell you how many times that I have known things that aren't, I've never read about from a, you know, a factual book or something, you know, like, oh, there's a river, there's a river or a body of water running underneath us in the earth right now. Like just weird fluky things that I'm like, I don't know how, but I know.

And if I that I look at a cartography map, there is a body of water underneath right now, just this. Again, getting back into the body and, and, moving it in some way, shape or form. I, I feel like that trust that has built my trust muscle to know when my body is giving me a signal or symptom, even if it's something like an anxiety, we, we deem anxiety as a kind of a negative.

Like, oh gosh, this has happened. Now how do I, how do I stop this? How do I suppress this? And when you think about what anxiety is there to remind us or to teach us is that something is not aligning with our truth. We are, we are misaligned. There's something happening in our lives that we're, we're, we're not trusting, we're betraying ourselves.

That's what anxiety is there to remind us. It's, it's a gift. It really is a gift and it's painful and it's scary and it's awful, but it's truly a clue towards

[00:28:50] Meg: I love that so much and I, I completely agree. You know, from the, the psychologist's perspective here, anxiety exists to help us exactly as what you said. It helps us to, to know that and fear to know when something's amiss. Right. And, and fear and anxiety are both adaptive in. Many circumstances, right?

And so to completely vilify this emotional experience, which by the way, both of those are very, embodied emotions, right? Like they don't live up here as much as they live in our, our actual physical bodies. so I completely agree that anxiety, fear, bo both are telling you something and your job is to figure out what that is and where the misalignment is.

[00:29:40] Sarah: Mm-hmm.

[00:29:41] Meg: can you recall a time where you tried to force something that wasn't, you know, the timing was off or it wasn't the correct thing and it didn't work, versus when you let it unfold?

[00:29:57] Sarah: Oh my gosh. Every day of my life, that's a lesson I have to learn. Relearn I'm a projector in human design, and so as projectors, we have to sit back and wait for the invitation. And so you know, so my ideas just even like, oh my gosh, if I can see this whole perspective, I can see the entire story.

It's like I have to sit back and wait for the other person. To have their own experience and to have their own journey. It's like, I wanna, I'm trying to, I think about my, my younger sister, you know, for example, who is six years younger than me and, and you know, maybe walking some similar steps or paths in life.

And it's like, I wanna, I wanna inject myself and force my wisdom or even experience, you know, in her, into her experience. And all she wants is maybe for me to listen and not offer one piece of advice. She just wants me to hear her. She just needs to be seen and heard. And that's it. And honestly, I feel like in most relationships, that's a lot of the, you know, a lot of it, I mean, think about, I think about my line of work and, and working in the hospitality and travel industry and how chaotic it is and you know, how unhappy people are.

And yet. Travelers when their trips are interrupted and when things don't go on time and their flights are canceled and their bags are broken, and you get people who are really angry and everybody's trying to get somewhere, right? We're all trying to get home or to our next thing, and most of the time talk about psychology.

They need to offer some psychology training to all airline employees, to just,

[00:31:40] Meg: think you're right.

[00:31:41] Sarah: to just hold space for people, you know? and just, just listen and empathize and, you know, that's all. Sometimes it's just, just in the listening and holding space that, versus trying to force somebody to understand why or how, or what's the fast track.

It's like, gosh, I think that's the probably the biggest thing of, that I have to keep relearning is to stop trying to force or. Be, be the rescuer, the fixer that can identify the problem and just allow people to have their own experience. And, you know, all I can focus on is really how I show up and what sort of energy I'm bringing into the situation.

Mm-hmm.

[00:32:24] Meg: Yeah. And that segues perfectly into the next set of questions that I have for you, which is kind of around this idea of practicing what you preach and walking the talk, right? So trusting yourself, trusting. Divine timing, trusting that your body will come to trusting intuition. All of these things, you know, it isn't a one-time thing.

You have to keep doing it. You have to keep choosing that way over and over again. And I'm, I'm curious, you've talked a little bit, and you mentioned it before about head trash.

[00:32:58] Sarah: Mm-hmm.

[00:32:59] Meg: so for the audience, what is head trash and for you personally, what are the kind of head trashy stories that still creep in for you and

[00:33:08] Sarah: Mm.

[00:33:08] Meg: cause you grief?

[00:33:10] Sarah: Yeah. I, I like to visualize it as a record plane, like a turntable, and we all have our, our favorite record that we love to put the needle on the record, right? And so mine is very much, I learned this through a brain dump exercise that I actually teach in one of my courses now. But, I learned this through a, a brain dump of three times a day.

I would, for two weeks morning, you know, breakfast, lunch, dinner, I get my journal out and I just start writing whatever's up in my head. It, it, it just comes down on paper. No thought process about it. Just as crazy as it all might sound. Just start to write it out and what you'll notice in two weeks time.

I noticed it in probably three days, is that we all have a theme that's our record, where there's something in our subconscious mind that is this, this theme, mine at that time in my life was very much related around my body image

[00:34:10] Meg: Oh, interesting.

[00:34:11] Sarah: and what I, what I looked like when I'd catch my glimpse, walking past a window on the city streets and, and the, the head trash and the conversations, the criticism about how about judging myself?

And then, you know, in turn what we're, what we're doing to ourselves we're, we're doing to others. We right. Whether we're aware or unaware of it. And so this, this judgment and this criticism of the self was definitely head trash and or a record that, I identified and that I still have great awareness around.

So now. Meg, when I catch myself a glimpse of myself in the mirror after a 24 hour delay and no shower and no luggage or whatever it may be, and I catch a, a glimpse of myself, I say, oh my gosh, Sarah, you're beautiful. To try to rewire those neural pathways and to try to change the story, even if I don't fully believe it, maybe in the moment.

It's, it's a, it's the practice. It's like I have the awareness that I'm really critical of myself and the way I look, my body image and to love myself and to, to cultivate that inner practice is the greatest gift I could give myself.

[00:35:33] Meg: Mm-hmm. I love your analogy of the records and it's, a similar concept, that I have, which is the insidious shoulds, right? They're these stories that we've inherited from other places that we're not really that aware of. And I love this exercise idea. I think that's a great one. The insidious shoulds are these roles and stories and narratives that shape our behavior, right?

So for instance, when you show up in front of that mirror, you catch your, your glimpse of yourself as you're, you know, the ragged from a 24 hour trip, whatever, the, the behavior is because you are accustomed to having a narrative of, oh my God, my body looks horrible, or, I look, you know, fat or, you know, stringy hair, whatever.

It's right.because you are, you absorbed a narrative that you should look a specific way all the time, and especially as a woman, especially as a professional woman, right? Like you have all these things.

[00:36:45] Sarah: mm-hmm.

[00:36:46] Meg: so I love this idea of a record because. , in that metaphor, you are the person who is putting the record on and you are the person who is pressing play on

[00:36:55] Sarah: Yeah. Yes,

[00:36:56] Meg: ownership of it becomes so much more clear.

[00:37:00] Sarah: yes, yes.

[00:37:02] Meg: I really love that analogy. So

[00:37:04] Sarah: Yeah. And even changing the record, right? Putting a new record on and changing the tune.

[00:37:12] Meg: yeah. I love it. Oh, I love that metaphor. It's so good. and so when you think about how you can use your body or various tools like you just shared with us about writing to uncover these records. so how do you bring yourself back into your body, which is the seat of your knowing and of your intuition, when these old patterns and old records start to play?

Like how do you drop in to your body?

[00:37:44] Sarah: So there are two practices that I, I practice every day. and I'm big on, I'm big on things needing to feel aligned, right? So I always offer suggestions, but I encourage everyone to find, find something and or someone that you feel very connected to, and your body will tell you, right? We, we can feel this like push pull.

I, I have, and in fact, I'll, I'd love to offer it. To anybody listening, you know, like a, it's a freebie I do to start to ask yourself some questions about what your energy feels like after you've been on a Zoom with someone, or you're meeting with a prospective client. It's like just taking a minute to say, you know, ask yourself some questions and like saying, okay, how am I feeling?

Am I, am I feeling expanded and do I feel excited and joyful? Or am I contracting right now and feeling like I wanna, you know, grit my teeth or my breathing is accelerated? I mean, all these little symptoms in our body. But, I practice two things. I do my meditation practice is my anchor. It's my anchor into basically becoming aware of my thoughts.

And there's such a misconception about meditation. I remember when I first was asked, Sarah, do you meditate? I was like. Hell no. It's the last thing I'd ever wanna do. I can't meditate. That's what a lot of people will say. Initially that was me and it kept coming into my field. And so that's another thing when you continue to hear similar stories meets, oh, I keep bumping into this person, or I keep seeing this, this sign, or this phrase, or these words.

I feel like those are our signs, you know, from the universe or from higher power to follow that, that, these, these arrows in life that we get redirected to. But the meditation practice has helped me cultivate better awareness and de-stress. I mean, there's so much science out there about what happens in the brain and in the body as you go through the different se stages of meditation and the different, you know, theta wave or beta, alpha waves.

So the science is there, the slowing down is there, the stillness is there. And the other thing I do is I've developed, I really, in my yoga teacher training, learned about our seven energy centers in the body from root to crown. And so I developed a, I call it my magnetic energy activation. And it's a practice that you can do while you're waiting for the coffee to brew.

It's 10 minutes or less. And it's literally just these, you know, you can do it in your work clothes, you can do it in your PJs, you can do it anywhere, anytime. And it's really just bringing awareness to these different energy centers in the body to start to cultivate and see sort of signals, signs and symptoms you're, you're, you're feeling in these different places in your body.

And those are my two kind of core practices that I work on cultivating every day because. Otherwise, you're just, how, how can you even be aware of anything, right? When we're just speeding through our day, running from one thing to the next, juggling a million balls at the same time. I mean, we know this as women that, you know, we're, we're managing teams and businesses and careers, and we're also managing the household at home.

A lot of times after the work is somewhat done and there's just, you know, you have to get very intentional about carving out time to put yourself first. Whether you start with five minutes every morning, just giving, you know, waking up five minutes early and choosing some sort of practice to cultivate either stillness or movement in your body.

[00:41:37] Meg: Mm-hmm.

[00:41:38] Sarah: that's been my biggest, my biggest help, helpful gifts that have helped keep me on track.

[00:41:44] Meg: Those are beautiful practices, and I know the key to both of them is intention, right? It is an intentional, you know, I, whenever I. Consider adding another. I'm a practice person. Like I love my little practices, my little rituals. I love them, they help ground me. But whenever I'm considering whether I'm going to add something into the rotation or try it out, I have to really be intentional about that.

Otherwise, it's just another tick box that I have to check through. Right. And that's not the point that completely undercuts the, the value

[00:42:22] Sarah: Right.

[00:42:22] Meg: establishing those kinds of practices. So, you know, I think with the, you know, best inner practices, right? Like even if you're on top of your, meditation and, and your movement and all of this, the change can still feel very lonely and very isolating if you're doing it yourself. But you have built a way of creating transformation in community in. An industry that's not really used to slowing down. So I'd love for you to share with us a little bit about bringing this sense of, call it personal development, call it healing into the event industry. So I'd love to hear you talk a little bit about how you're doing that and, and why the event industry in particular.

[00:43:14] Sarah: Well, it's been my career path for the past 25 years. Events, hospitality, and travel has been all I've really known. And so all of my connections and network are from people, you know, globally, all over the world that, we share a very similar passion and love of hospitality. And so, you know, I've kind of started with my own internal network and, you know, about a year ago I started to, to, to do some interviews.

I did some market research and, and I, you know, wanted to find out, you know, is this what, what's needed in this space? And, you know, I, I saw that the common denominator was that, you know, self care. Was so foreign to people or misconception, lies that it's like bubble baths and pedicures and manicures, and that there was no middle, there was no middle ground.

And so I decided, you know, I, I really want to bring a more awareness into my community about how self-care can look very unique and everyone has their own path and own way. But, so I started teaching, you know, free master classes quarterly. I still do them with the seasons. I love

[00:44:28] Meg: Hmm.

[00:44:28] Sarah: with the seasons, the four Seasons.

And so I, I will offer free master classes to my community. Each season and, and I get on there and share, you know, nuggets of my own personal journey and story and struggles and then, you know, what society kind of requires or wants from us, and then how we can kind of come together and practice some of these simple, simple, pragmatic techniques that can literally change, everything for us.

You know, it's just, it's the consistency and it's in doing it in community that I think is so powerful. I mean, I just, I just returned from Costa Rica on a retreat that I helped co-facilitate, with two other retreat leaders. And it's astounding to see what one week in nature with good food and other women who are supporting each other and the transformation that takes place, it's, it's a powerful, impactful.

Reset that, really gives you kind of more bandwidth to to, to, make these subtle little switches on our dial and on our, go back to the record player or the radio. It's like, you know, we don't have to make massive big changes all the time. Sometimes it can be something so simple that we start doing that can really move the needle, because it feels so overwhelming sometimes.

And so I think I just got really passionate about wanting to bring people together, teaching them some of these embodiment practices through, you know, the wellness, the healing and wellness industry that I learned through yoga and meditation trainings and really cultivating these practices into, into the busy day.

And little simple things like taking your shoes off and putting your feet in grass. I mean, there's just, it doesn't have to be these massive, like week longs away. It can be something so simple that we can cultivate in our daily routines that, give us peace in the chaos of life.

[00:46:32] Meg: I think women, especially the women that I work with in my practice and my, my community as well, my peers, we're all thirsty for this kind of community and we're, we are deeply craving this communion and this, collective coming together. Right. And my question for you is, what do you see happen? When women kind of give themselves in these communities, in these spaces, the retreats, the various containers that you have,

[00:47:05] Sarah: Mm-hmm.

[00:47:06] Meg: when women give themselves permission to be seen and as they are real human, unpolished, unfinished in

[00:47:15] Sarah: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. You know, it kind of circles back to this whole like, the self-image when I was noticing my kind of self critical voice about what I looked like.

[00:47:25] Meg: Hmm.

[00:47:27] Sarah: after I'm done working with, with clients and my one-on-one coaching containers with Revive and Thrive, there comes a point in the eight week journey where I will look at people on Zoom and you can see the stress.

You can. They, they look 10 years younger. Their skin tone changes like you can physically see. This transformation taking place on their face. And, it's a beautiful thing to witness when, when you can kind of see people's stress just completely melt away. And you know, myself too, like I get that, you know, when I'm stressed out, I get that dent and that crease.

The 11, the 11, but you know, it's like, oh my gosh. And then you're like, oh, whoa, I don't need Botox. I just need less stress. But, and then we just did this on the retreat. We took a photo of the day, one picture of people's faces, and we did a side by side of their faces from the first to the last day.

[00:48:25] Meg: That's incredible.

[00:48:27] Sarah: And it's astounding.

Change the, the transformation on everyone's face that I was just describing. Even it's, it's such a, and I, I need to start doing this with my coaching clients too, after we just did this in person. I'm like, I have to snapshot so that they can see what I see. and truly to be seen to, to, to feel, to allow to, you know, we have to have safety.

I think that's the biggest thing, that as women especially, we have to create safety in our bodies. It starts with us. We have to create safety in our bodies to show up, to believe in ourselves, to say yes, to invest in ourselves, to, you know, be put ourselves out there. And then once we're there and we, we feel like we're held, we feel like we're in a safe space.

To be seen is truly,

it's the, it's the mo, it's medicine, it's it's nature's medicine, and it's. it's the greatest gift we could ever, ever give or receive. Just, just to truly be seen fully, authentically, you know, all parts of ourselves, the, the good, bad, and the ugly, all of it.

[00:49:38] Meg: Yeah. Oh, I love that so much. And I might steal that for some of my clients because that, that is such a, that's such a perfect, reflection too, of not only. The work that you do with clients, but also this embodiment aspect of, of all of it, right? Like it is, like so much of, of our existence here on this planet is, is this really interesting dance between the physical and this, this spiritual and the, you know, call it cognitive,

[00:50:13] Sarah: Yeah.

[00:50:14] Meg: know, as a psychologist.

That's kind of my language, but like really what it is, is it's a dance between all of these different components of ourselves. And I think that you have articulated that beautifully today. So thank you so much for sharing your wisdom with us. But before we wrap up, I want to kind of get into a little bit of a lighter tone just to leave people with some, some fun, interesting tidbits.

So I have a few quickie, rapid fire questions for you.

[00:50:44] Sarah: Okay, I'm ready.

[00:50:45] Meg: All right, so you have a, a series called Unmasked. Why don't you briefly tell us, a little bit about Unmasked so that we can contextualize this question.

[00:50:57] Sarah: Yes, unmasked is a LinkedIn live series that was intended to go over the summer during kind of the event and hospitality world's downtime, if you will. And I had guests on originally that were in the hospitality community. And it's about pulling back the layers, pulling back the masks, and identifying what masks each guest really wears from perfectionism, high achieving over.

You know, we all have something we kind of put on to perform in a lot of ways. And so it was this v it's these vulnerable conversations where people can kind of relate and cultivate, connection and feel like, Hey, it's okay. You know, there's not, I, I we, we have this shared collective experience of, you know, overachieving, high achieving or burnout.

It's in our shared stories of resilience that we can really start to heal. So that was kind of the, the, the essence of the, of the show.

[00:51:53] Meg: Okay, so knowing that, what's one mask that you've recently put down?

[00:52:00] Sarah: Hmm. My perfection is a mask.

[00:52:05] Meg: So it's down. It's down. Okay,

[00:52:07] Sarah: Yeah. It, it's down, it, it'll come back, but I'm aware of it. And, I think that's the biggest thing we have to kind of remind ourselves of is that it may come back, it may go fully on for, for a day or two, but it's the awareness that you have to cultivate of like, Ooh, I'm getting back into that perfectionism part of me that really wants things to look, sound and be perfect.

And it's okay that it's not so, yeah.

[00:52:36] Meg: Wonderful. Beautiful answer. I love that. So we've talked a little bit about your regular daily practices, so maybe something that's not those two things. What's something that you do regularly to keep yourself grounded?

[00:52:50] Sarah: Walk outside in nature daily,

[00:52:54] Meg: I

[00:52:54] Sarah: getting outside. Yeah, it's important for me. And rain or shines snow, sleet, hail. it's, you know, I had a rough winter. Last winter. I didn't get out enough and I became deficient in vitamin D and I became very seasonally depressed that it's a real thing. And so

[00:53:12] Meg: absolutely. Real thing.

[00:53:13] Sarah: it really is.

So yeah. Getting outside every day.

[00:53:17] Meg: I always love, I, I aim to do that too. And it, I have a, a dog so it's easier 'cause he needs to go outside, but I love when it's snowing or raining or something like exciting. Right. Just to make it feel like you feel alive when you go outside when it's raining.

[00:53:35] Sarah: You do. You do. And you wanna know what's funny? You talked about checking the boxes earlier. I recall being on a walk and looking down at my phone. 'cause I usually have my earbuds in and looking at my counting my steps. And I remember thinking, you're not doing this for the steps. This isn't about the steps.

This is about the smell of fall. And this is about feeling the wind on my face. And this is about hearing the birds chirping. And so letting go of checking a box, I think is really crucial when we start to cultivate these practices and routines.

[00:54:10] Meg: Yeah. And I think just to add a, another little point to this is I used to do the same thing. I used to go on my walks and have, you know, I'd listen to Slack, catch up on my messages, listen to a podcast, something like that. And I, I had this feeling like I couldn't waste any time. you know, I have like a couple minutes I can get in a podcast or something.

And then one day I completely forgot my phone and. I have not picked it up for a walk since then because I saw something that I would never have seen had I had my phone with me. Even if I had just had it in my pocket and my earbuds in, I would not have been attending to it. So I do think there's kind of, there's levels, right?

Like if, if you're, if you've not been outside for three weeks, maybe just take a five minute walk and if you need to do, you know, have your earbuds in, great. And the next level can be going out and really like getting the full sensory experience of it. So I love this and I think that's a, a wonderful way

[00:55:11] Sarah: Mm.

[00:55:12] Meg: to keep grounded.

So, next question. What's one thing big or small that you're celebrating right now?

[00:55:20] Sarah: Mm. I am celebrating that. I just revised my keynote and I've recently been hired to share it.

[00:55:30] Meg: Yay.

[00:55:31] Sarah: my new keynote. Thank you. Thank you.

[00:55:36] Meg: That's wonderful.so I hope you're celebrating big on that one. What's one book that has changed the way you think?

[00:55:47] Sarah: Mm, gosh, there are so many. You know, I'm gonna go back to the Louise Hay book because I think it allowed me to, to realize how connected our energy bodies, our emotional bodies, our spiritual bodies. This whole metaphysical concept, I think is, you know. It's astounding, and I think it promotes full healing, like root cause healing.

so my tribute, I, I go back to Luis. There's been so many, so many great books right out there, but she really, years and years and years ago started talking about these things that were really deemed as very woo and way too spiritual. And turns out science is finally caught up.

[00:56:39] Meg: Mm-hmm.

[00:56:40] Sarah: And yeah, so I just, I love her teachings and, and, the simplicity of her books.

[00:56:48] Meg: Wonderful. And if you want to share with me the title, I'm happy to put that in the show notes for audience members that are interested in checking it out. So what is one thing that you want the audience to take away from today's conversation?

[00:57:05] Sarah: All the answers are within all of your answers. Everything you long for. Everything you dream of, all of your heart's desires, they are not outside of you. They are in you. And the more you can sit with your feelings, the more you can learn to trust your gut and your intuition, and listen to your body and and decode your own unique language of your body.

My body's language is different from yours, so to really trust your own wisdom and innate wisdom is the magical key.

[00:57:43] Meg: And finally, for people who have been, whose interest has been peaked in you and your work, where can people connect with you?

[00:57:53] Sarah: So my website is experiences elevated consulting.com. A mouthful. I need to condense it. but that is my main website now. So you can find all sorts of resources there and freebies with that magnetic energy activation. And, I give a lot of free resources to start, you know, learning to listen to yourself and trust your intuition.

[00:58:19] Meg: I love that. So we will put all of those links into the show notes for people who want to connect with you in that way. And we hope you will tune into Unmasked the LinkedIn series. and so thank you so much, Sarah, for sharing your story of transformation and for sharing your wisdom about embodiment and learning to live in attunement with our own intuition.

Thank you so much for joining us,

[00:58:46] Sarah: Thank you, Meg. It's been an honor and pleasure.

[00:58:50] Meg: and thank you in the audience for listening to another episode of Change Ology, and I will see you in the next one.