Ask Sarah

you ask, I answer

Hello, my dearies,

I’ve just now realized I missed our ‘question and answer’ segment from last month. One week late is better than not at all so let’s dive into the beautiful, thought-provoking questions some of you sent in.

1. Sarah, when noisy inside do you sometimes use overeating/crunching/food or substance use to quiet the noise? Either way, what wisdom might you share for those who do?

My natural response to the noise inside is most often, escape. I’ll run with the distraction, hopping from one stimulating thing to the next before I realize I’m not home anymore. I make phone calls, zone out on social media or consume. I’ll most often over-consume knowledge in those times. I know that doesn’t sound harmful, but it’s another arm of distraction. A needing to fill a void, seeking something to soothe or affirm. So, of course, I do just as each of us does most days of our life.

I used to be very hard on myself for getting lost, but have softened a tremendous amount around the whole process. Softening helps us become less rigid and critical of ourselves. This is important because the heart will only open and be receptive to us if we are being gentle. Be aware of the structures that your feel caught in, the looping habits and then, move into non-judgment as best you can. If you are spinning out and reaching for that next hit of comfort, drop the dialogue of self-abuse and put your hand on your heart- if even just for a breath, and watch as you slowly start re-entering your body. ‘I am here in this body, I am home’ is my favorite mantra when I notice I am disconnected.

I also meditate daily, so there is always, always a window in my day that I am simply arriving at the feet of myself with no running. This practice helps the noise quiet and teaches us of our agency. It slowly shifts our beings into a state of consciousness, which then helps us in every arena of our life.

We are human, ‘both and’, awake and asleep. Escaping and arriving again. This is the dance. So long as your eyes are open, and you are seeing yourself- as it seems you are- you will learn how to better navigate these places. This is not easy work, so we must be as gentle and accepting of ourselves as we can, so that spirit can lead and we can find our way back to our hearts.

2. How do you stay hopeful in such hopeless times? How do you continue to get up, day after day, and find beauty in this world of such darkness? Have you ever felt hopeless in life? What advice would you give someone who is having trouble finding purpose?

How do you get attuned/aligned each day and stay in that place of oneness with all that is? I have been struggling and feeling disconnected. Just survived Hurricane Ida where we lost so much. Over 20 days no power. I was so attuned and focused on myself and now I’m all out of whack, back to just barely surviving. I long for new meditations. Need help on how to get back in my right space of clarity.

How can you love your life when you are not happy with how things are?

This answer is applicable to all of the above questions:

I have felt hopeless in my life, many, many, times. It was from my hopelessness, that “live awake’’ was born. Hopelessness is the reason artists paint, writers write, philosophers contemplate and muse. Every alternative, redemptive, reformative, and revolutionary social movement came from a sense of hopelessness. Good, beautiful, wonderful, healing, creative, transformative things come from the visitation of hopelessness. You are in a very fertile place, whether you are aware of it or not.

I am not intending to dismiss how hard, despairing, and paralyzing that place is, for I know the breadth and depth of that suffering. May we honor the incredible courage it takes to sit in that place and to keep moving forward, but may we too learn something about ourselves in the process. May we explore with curiosity the being inside feeling this feeling. May we meet ourselves in loving ways so explore and love what feels hard.

I encourage writing every day. It is the most reliable and transformative spiritual tool in my repertoire. Look at what you are feeling daily. Admit it to the page. Let your suffering make a sound. And then, listen. This is what wholeness comes from- denying nothing is arrival. This acceptance, love, and openness create movement and space around our pain. It then creates momentum, sometimes creativity, and other times it teaches us how to simply be compassionate.

The most important thing you must hear from this is: you must be disciplined. You must tend to yourself even when feeling like you can’t. Even when you can not lift your body from your bed. Even when you are numb to the bone. Lay on the floor, name the ache. Ask for help. Pray. Release. Make space around yourself. You will be warmed dear one, I promise you…with time and sometimes only briefly, you will connect with the breath of love inside of you. Make sure you create space to release and listen, this is where the purpose is born. This may even be the one true purpose of our lives: to connect with and know ourselves intimately. It always begins in the quiet of you, raw and open. You must be disciplined, and you will be rewarded. And perhaps, it may not be in the ways you hoped or imagined, but something will fall into your hands or heart. When you come to truly love yourself in this way, you fill with a bottomless hope. You collect evidence in goodness. You collect evidence on love. You are nurtured by your own hands and you learn the power of this tender and simple way of arriving in your life. Everything will shift around you.

Maya Angelou once said fear visited her often, but she had collected enough evidence in her lifetime that she learned to trust the love and goodness within everything, and in her abilities to face what life brought to her. Each time fear, hopelessness, and pain visit we have an opportunity to collect our own evidence.

My life has been filled with suffering, pain, and heartache, I have learned the answer is not curing myself of them, but just arriving to meet it each time it comes. My spine is strong now, I know how to be with all the currents of my humanness…for now. I know I will continue to be asked to grow. I am grateful for the chance to meet my edge, and find my way into greater depths.

Also, this poem saved my life many times:

Cast All Your Votes for Dancing

I know the voice of depression

Still calls to you.

I know those habits that can ruin your life

still send their invitations.

But you are with the friend now

And look so much stronger.

You can stay that way

And even bloom!

Keep squeezing drops of the sun

From your prayers and work and music

And from your companions’ beautiful laughter.

Keep squeezing drops of the sun

From the sacred hands and glance of your beloved

And, my dear,

From the most insignificant movements

Of your own holy body.

Learn to recognize the counterfeit coins

That may buy you just a moment of pleasure,

Then drag you for days

Like a broken man

Behind a farting camel.

You are with the Friend now.

Learn what actions of yours delight Him,

What actions of yours bring freedom

And love.

Whenever you say God's name, dear Pilgrim,

My ears wish my head was missing

So they could finally kiss each other

And applaud all your nourishing wisdom!

O keep squeezing drops of the Sun

From your prayers and work and music

And from your companions’ beautiful laughter

And from the most insignificant movements

Of your own holy body.

Now, sweet one,

Be wise.

Cast all of your votes for dancing!

-Hafiz.

5.I am getting stuck every few weeks now. I know it passes soon enough, but it is so frustrating to feel timed-out, or worse, locked-out. I am sure you have a helpful perspective on this.

Ohhhh I know this feeling well. It used to torture me. I always thought I would arrive at a place where I would be cured of all my habits and the tailspin into places of suffering. This feeling of being “locked out” is so very hard to feel, especially since many of us spend so much time trying to heal this divide.

I meditated one day, laying on my back, looking at this very thing. Feeling victimized and hopeless… “oh this is back, why oh why can’t I be rid of this? What am I doing wrong? What am I missing.”- I pleaded with the abyss. And a voice answered it said something so simple: “Don’t take it so seriously.”

So I’ve learned to not pay much attention to it now. I fall and know very well, a gust of wind and love will lift me again soon. So I don’t fret anymore. I don’t dive deep into the conversation so much. It comes more like a dry leaf at my feet and I allow it to come and go as the wind pleases. Before I learned this, I would engage in the story of it for longer. Talk about it, feel it deeply, get lost in it. Tell people about how I was feeling, basically I would let it take a big amount of my time and energy. Now, I don’t do that anymore. I don’t take it as seriously.

Also, every experience we have provides fuel and kindling for something. We are learning constantly. Under the surface of our conscious understanding, there are often things getting ironed out and dealt with. We evolve and develop by going through periods of deep, meaningful connection with ourselves and feeling isolated from ourselves. It is again, the dance that teaches us much we may not understand yet.

Someone once said to me “if it’s happening, it’s necessary.” It comforts me so deeply. It helps me be with my sense of being locked out and reminds me of my longing. It helps me feel my love for my life ultimately and gives me fuel to continue to dance with it as it unfurls open and curls back closed…ahhhh how beautiful.

Thank you for asking me these questions. Answering them helped me remember my own connection, and woke me up on a level to the many layers and beauty of it all.

YOU, ME, WE, ARE NOT ALONE. May we find comfort in knowing this is for certain. May we use each other to see the beauty of our efforts and learn from each other how to harvest the fruit of our perpetual evolution!

big hug,

Also, some people asked about my live webcasts and meditation. I will be offering one of two on Insight Timer this month. I will let you know when.

For those asking about founding membership vs. annual. The founding membership is really for those who’d like to support me for more than the 70$ a year plan. It’s just a little more love to the cause. But I am going to offer a zoom meditation with my founding members. One evening to connect and meditate together as a bonus. TBD.

‘Ask Sarah’ is offered only to my paid subscribers. This is the only one that will be available for all.