501 Comments
User's avatar
Christy's avatar

Letting the universe unfold without trying to control the outcome

Expand full comment
Fay's avatar

Learning how to feel comfortable or sit with feelings as life unfolds in ways that weren’t what we hoped for and see the light

Expand full comment
Shannon's avatar

Yes! Exactly what I’m being curious about right now.

Allowing life to live through me without gripping

Expand full comment
Jodi's avatar

The gripping is so real!!

Expand full comment
Steven Barclay's avatar

Well said 🙏

Expand full comment
Rachel Moore's avatar

Exactly where I am at right now. Learning to trust life and letting go, and also learning to trust myself, and this journey I'm on.

Expand full comment
Jackie's avatar

This is so on point xx

Expand full comment
Ali's avatar

I love this and feels so on point with where I'm at right now in my journey as well :)

Expand full comment
Nina's avatar

This 💚

Expand full comment
sara's avatar

the space between endings and beginnings

Expand full comment
Life on Mindfulness's avatar

I think sometimes about death and dying. I'd love for it to touch my life in a way that brought lightness and love and connection instead of anxiety and fear. That sounds like living to me.

Expand full comment
grantwestcoast's avatar

I often recommend the book, Die Wise to my client who are struggling with loss. It's an amazing read by Stephen Jenkinson, a man who was the head of Hospice for a large Toronto hospital for years. He also has an excellent documentary called Grief Walker! :-)

Expand full comment
Amy B's avatar

I’m so happy that I saw your comment. I lost my father (favorite person ever) to a quick and terrible cancer last year. I have really struggled with his passing. I will definitely check out these books

Expand full comment
Mary Lynn Futers's avatar

I am so so sorry Amy. Another book that has supported my heart and soul on my grief journey is: The Wild Edge of Sorrow by Francis Weller 🤎

Expand full comment
Dr Tracy Chandler's avatar

'Dying to be me' also may help Amy :-)

Expand full comment
Paula Dobbyn's avatar

That's a good one. Anything by Anita Moorjani.

Expand full comment
grantwestcoast's avatar

I’m sorry for your loss.... I hope that the book will be supportive.

Expand full comment
Life on Mindfulness's avatar

Thank you! A friend recommended Grief Walker to me forever ago - thank you so much for taking the time to write this to me! xoM

Expand full comment
Diane's avatar

Thank you SO MUCH to both of you!!!! I feel like such a weirdo because anxiety and fear consume me... every day. The struggle is real. I took Sarah‘s recommendation of reading Byron Kates book, Joy. That is helping me change my mindset to accepting “what is”. These thoughts are so engrained in me. Thank you for sharing that I am not alone, Michelle, and thank you for coming to the rescue, Grant. I’m ordering the book now. 

Expand full comment
grantwestcoast's avatar

My pleasure!! Be well!! :-))) xo

Expand full comment
Shantelj's avatar

Signs by Laura Lynn Jackson 😘

Expand full comment
Jodi's avatar

excellent book

Expand full comment
ROCHELLE POLLOCK's avatar

Read THE BEAUTY OF WHAT REMAINS

Expand full comment
Mary Lynn Futers's avatar

on my heart too. every day.

Expand full comment
duara 🌱's avatar

Also on my mind, Michelle! I’ll be writing about this ✨

Expand full comment
Life on Mindfulness's avatar

beautiful, I'd love to see it when you do if sharing's in your wheelhouse.....xxooM

Expand full comment
"V" Clark's avatar

Ok, longer than a few words in response, but at 70 I 'get' to do this ; )

Dear Sarah, "resonance between your heart and mine??"... oh my! One way I define you to people I share with is that you are someone who not only "gets 'it' ", you "speak my language", you are from "my planet"... you go deep, fast and softely....touch my soul with an insight I find in no other 'human' around me or currently in my life. I not only resonate, but dive deeply with you each time I listen to you. I find a remarkable resemblence of who I am and the dance of my mind and heart... to your ability to embrace and go inward, interest to share, and wordsmith prowess, re: being, looking, surviving. Yes.. yes... yes there is resonance between your heart and mine! Hmmm... what's on my heart? For me, it's the reality of of how to be "okay" to be "okay". To let go, drop what I call the DNA of my intensity, my 'survival' story, how amazing that at last life (gratefully for me) is the most calm and stable it has ever been... and I've had a long one! I'm finding I don't know how to live in ease and calm, it's a new practice for me. Shush, shhhhh nevous system, shhhhh......

With that said, my somatic experience, nervous system, often feels that it remains battered, beaten and bruised. Not wanted, "not seen" (which goes back to an initial rape/abuse as a teen that I have carried with me my entire life of "no one was there... no one witnessed.... and in those days you certainly didn't tell anyone!" and domestic violence). At 70 I've just been learning via somatic experiencing coaching THAT is a connection to why I've never felt "seen" and how important it is when I am!! I've had a 40 year career working with the disabled (primarially Deaf Community) and working/supporting survivors of Domestic Violence/Sexual Assault on a state level. I worked in upper management, was state director of training, managed statewide customer service department with Deaf staff, and coordinated services for Deaf victims of DV/SA throughout the state of Wisconsin.

....Yet, here's where my heart is... retired, safe, alone (utterly, but preciously alone), 2 kids grown with their own families doing well, and yet... Sarah, here I am with a "broken soul" that almost doesn't know what to do with NOT being in "fight or flight"! Analogy I made up and love: Retirement is like tap dancing as fast as you can your entire life... and then, the music stops. This relates to life in general for me as well... the music/distraction of suvival has stopped. There's just me here now (and 2 small dogs). I have want for nothing. I am utterly alone with truck loads of tools (Buddhist for 22 years, tons of my own personal growth 'mission', and Masters degree in Counseling)... plus, getting old and facing my body changing, hurting, ... the last chapter, and death. I continue to work every day on all of this in various ways. Latest is Qigong to Native American Flute music! (and I still ride my precious motorcycle!) And, mornings I listen to you in bed, eyes covered, holding and surrounded by pillows and down comforter and often burning tears fall from a deep, 'far away place' as I so profoundly resonate with you. You touch my soul, Sarah. You, my dear one, touch my soul. I feel "seen" by you. Gassho.

(A friend once told me an analogy that makes me think if of you, and how we resonate.... she said it's like we are standing on the edge of deep, dark, scary forest and there is a conveyor belt going down into it and she said "and YOU just get on it and go down in with no fear knowing you'll come out" and then said she'd sooner die than trust if she got on, she'd never come out! Sarah, I absolutely love that finding you, has been finding one more person who willingly just steps on that conveyor belt down into the dark knowing you'll come out, as I do. (P.s. you can't ask me about my heart and get a short, one sentence reply ; ) Thankful for you; just keep on being all that you are. Take from this what you will, I trust my heart will resonate.

Expand full comment
Patti Morrissey's avatar

V - your words do elegant justice to Sarah's deep spiritual beauty ... and your own.

Expand full comment
"V" Clark's avatar

Thank you Patti, for "seeing me" 🙏❤

Expand full comment
Wendy's avatar

Beautiful and written from your heart and Wisdom. Sending love and light your way. Wendy (from Australia) ♥️

Expand full comment
"V" Clark's avatar

Kind thanks Wendy ~ thank you for "seeing me" ❤🙏

Expand full comment
Michelle Arregoitia's avatar

I can feel the beauty of this resonance. So grateful that you shared your heart

💗🙏💗

Expand full comment
"V" Clark's avatar

Reading that you are grateful for my sharing my heart, touches me tenderly Michelle. As to all who took the time to read my length and comment, I feel blessed by everyone to feel, indeed... "seen".

Kind thanks ❤🙏

Expand full comment
User's avatar
Comment deleted
Oct 12, 2022
Comment deleted
Expand full comment
"V" Clark's avatar

Kind thanks, Larry ~ for "seeing me". You gave me a smile with the words "perfectly flawed"... as we all are. Amen ; ) Thank you for sending 'love' 🙏

Expand full comment
tricia french's avatar

perhaps around a concept I have been marinating -- that (unlike us) nothing in nature sees itself. would love to feel where you might carry it.

Expand full comment
Oscar Lamont's avatar

Do we know that nothing in nature sees itself? I always suspect that we think we know more about other beings than we can possibly know

Expand full comment
tricia french's avatar

wasn’t approaching scientifically or w superiority. loose and light. not speciesism — more a suggestion for reflection. and i was curious to see where sarah would take it since that was the invitation. (i would still ask what in the natural world takes a selfie though) ;)

Expand full comment
Alison's avatar

Yes!

Expand full comment
Ben Junta's avatar

Great to ponder!

Expand full comment
Jacquelin Turner's avatar

Love this.

Expand full comment
Leanne Aminiel's avatar

Feeling lost but resisting surrender and trust.

Expand full comment
Oscar Lamont's avatar

Wow this describes me right now better than I had managed to put it

Expand full comment
Heather W's avatar

feeling like you're in anticipation of something - how to live in the in-between

Expand full comment
kokoniwa's avatar

how to have a healthy relationship with this thing called "money"

Expand full comment
Holly's avatar

Exactly why I started therapy. Bari Tessler's book The Art Of Money is grounded in somatic therapy and is the most heart centered "financial" book I have ever read.

Expand full comment
Nicola Gibb's avatar

Full but not fulfilled; too much noise, not enough quiet.

Expand full comment
Allison's avatar

I love this idea

Expand full comment
Amanda Werner's avatar

How to accept and practice compassion with people you love deeply who have different core values and opinions than you do.

Expand full comment
Heidi Edginton's avatar

Connecting with God. Lately, I've been in a real dry season with spirituality and feeling connected to a higher divine source. I could always sense a presence in the past, but lately, I don't at all... it's a scary feeling to feel like I'm out here willy nilly and the more I pray and try to become connected, the more distant I feel. I've always loved your meditations and sharing because you speak about God in ways I relate ~ mostly through nature. I'd love to hear you free write on times you've felt disconnected and what you did in those moments to stay hopeful when you couldn't touch the light.

Expand full comment
Jana Joy's avatar

Thanks for this Heidi. I’m feeling very adrift spiritually as well. I have my meditation and yoga practices, but lately I’m just going through the motions and feeling nothing. I need some kind of inspiration or new practice or something as I long to feel connected to Source again.

Expand full comment
Suzanne Halliwell's avatar

This has resonated with me today.

I’ve done a painting and the quote was constantly going round in my head

“The Wound Is The Place Where The Light Enters You” ~ Rumi

Expand full comment
Christine's avatar

So true.

Expand full comment
Ben Junta's avatar

Vital

Expand full comment
Cynthia C's avatar

Permission to play

Expand full comment
Ben Bragdon's avatar

The ache of change.

Expand full comment
Rona Heifetz's avatar

Joy and vulnerability. How both exist together.

Expand full comment
ROCHELLE POLLOCK's avatar

I will be an ancestor one day.

Expand full comment
"V" Clark's avatar

Hmmm yes, precious notion.

Expand full comment
"V" Clark's avatar

My comment “Precious notion” was in reference to Rochelle’s comment re; “ I will be an ancestor one day.”

Expand full comment
Ben Junta's avatar

LOVE THIS - Sadly, the predominant power nations/people/corporations today have so little respect and understanding for how vital this concept is for a healthy peoples...

Expand full comment
Amber's avatar

Living your day in flow state. Returning to flow state when disregulated.

Expand full comment
"V" Clark's avatar

Yes, yes... finding connecting with my breath and the practice of Qigong really helps return to "flow".

Expand full comment
Dr. Erin Thorne's avatar

The paradox of wanting to share your gift and equally wanting privacy.

Expand full comment
Roiya Fleming's avatar

COMPARISON is a thief

Expand full comment
Molly Hervey's avatar

Resistant Surrender

Expand full comment
Michelle's avatar

Totally!!

Expand full comment
Maria's avatar

"I am enough"

I struggle daily with feelings of never being enough as a parent, wife, member of the community

Expand full comment
Kathy Kyre's avatar

I do too .. I never feel like I'm enough .. but now as I think of it, I have never asked myself what "enough" really is. Perhaps I should start there .. thank you for spawning this thought in me.

Expand full comment
Ben Junta's avatar

Yes, what is “enough”?

Expand full comment
Ben Junta's avatar

I hear you and appreciate the honesty. I often feel that my paintings, even though they sell and I make a modest living from them, are never quite talented enough. I am working to figure this one out...

Expand full comment
Debbie 223's avatar

Authenticity

In the search for truth in life, and about life, I am questioning the authenticity of others, as well as myself. People are not what they seem or what they portray themselves to be. This is resulting in a variety of emotional and psychological discomforts and confusion.

Expand full comment
Rachel Butler's avatar

Finding that lightness, in the hustle of everyday life :)

Expand full comment
Heather Tennant's avatar

Whose life expectations are we unconsciously following to our own detriment

Expand full comment
User's avatar
Comment deleted
Oct 12, 2022
Comment deleted
Expand full comment
"V" Clark's avatar

Hmmmm nice Larry...

Expand full comment
Denise's avatar

abandonment

loneliness

betrayal

rejection

Expand full comment
Rajni's avatar

belonging

Expand full comment
Kellie McGrath's avatar

Letting go of the guilt of walking away from hurtful family relationships. I want to be free from this and stop doubting my choice, esp since I know it’s needed 🤍

Expand full comment
Maitê César's avatar

Maternity and the challenge of loving someone so deeply and feeling so happy for being a mother, and yet having so many confused feelings about the new “me” that was born with my daughter, and who we are/who we became since labor.

This is something so beautiful, so powerful, so deep and yet so challenging that I would love to hear more from you, Sarah.

Thank you from my heart to yours

Xx

Expand full comment
Melissa Ligotti's avatar

Anxious attachment

Expand full comment
Carlene Kucharczyk's avatar

I've been thinking about this too.. and reading the book "Attached" that a friend sent me right now..

Expand full comment
Dave Beaulieu's avatar

What is my purpose?

Expand full comment
Jessica Plummer's avatar

Transitions and letting go and what we have learned from nature

Expand full comment
Lia's avatar

How to find my tribe. The real friends I aim for

Expand full comment
Linda's avatar

Self abandonment - what does the most vulnerable part of me need right now and can I parent that.

Expand full comment
Kathryn's avatar

Allowing feminine energy in but still living in a world that asks you to get things done (like mothering kids with hefty schedules)

Expand full comment
Nevena's avatar

Motherhood is

Expand full comment
Roiya Fleming's avatar

YES YES

Expand full comment
Stacey's avatar

Grief and the everlasting hole that it leaves in your heart ❤️

Expand full comment
Charlotte Derksen's avatar

currently on my mind: when will i finally feel safe to be a woman in this society, when will i feel safe enough to live a life that pays the bills AND fills my heart?

Expand full comment
Martha Kovack's avatar

I cannot express how much this is on my mind right now... I want to rest, receive, and be in my feminine, but the bills come piling in, chores need my attention (single mom) and I feel like I need to be in my masculine to get things done. It is a lifelong struggle that I would love some support with!

Expand full comment
Nathalie's avatar

Wait. Weight.

Expand full comment
Sarah Blondin's avatar

LOVE all of these notes! Can't wait to sit down and write! thank you

Expand full comment
Abbey's avatar

A question I saw yesterday that I’ve been sitting with since… “If you want something you have never had, you must do something you have never done. What would your something be?”

Expand full comment
Belinda Hanson's avatar

Love that question! I will have to sit with that and use for my writing practice. Thank you

Expand full comment
Kathi's avatar

What is sitting on my heart is the question of how can I make someone be faithful to me.

It seems like a stupid question, but as nobody knows me here, I find the courage to write it down anyway. Maybe there is no answer to that and maybe there is no way to make that happen. But it helps writing my question down.

Expand full comment
User's avatar
Comment deleted
Oct 12, 2022
Comment deleted
Expand full comment
"V" Clark's avatar

Indeed Larry 🙏

Expand full comment
Wendy's avatar

Beautifully said Larry.

Expand full comment
Ben Junta's avatar

The word could be "Surf". Although I do it literally with the ocean, it also applies to all life in the sense that we are all surfing through the ocean of life... Often, one may look at surfing from a distance and think that it is either basic fun, scary, or mainly just sustainable fitness. But when one surfs throughout the year, one continually is faced with ups and downs and everything in between and that is the same with trying to live life with awareness. For example, when "caught inside" (meaning looking at medium to large waves breaking right onto you (with enough force to snap a leg or easily break a surfboard in half) or breaking in front of you and you have to watch and think quickly as a 5-15 foot wall of whitewater barrels right at you, it can become a survival game - and by paying attention one learns how to deal with this) - and daily life outside the ocean is the same-a figurative wave breaks and is heading towards us and we have many different concerns, fears, awarenesses and thoughts as this "wave" is coming at us and we cannot stop it - so what do we do? And surf also greatly is about the symbiotic relationship between human and ocean/earth, and so every moment in the ocean is literally like being in the womb of Mother Earth. But in the ocean we don't have our mother's belly to keep us safe, and to survive and thrive one needs to learn to pay attention. I wish knowing how to "pay attention" in day to day life was as "focused" as it is in the ocean. I think the reason it is harder to pay attention on land is that we are not necessarily dealing with a literal immediate threat to our existence as one faces in the water - on land we are more often facing more distant threats that may be anywhere from an hour to a month or two further out, and so we have some wiggle room as to how we choose to pay attention, and we can tend to push it out of our view a bit - we are NOT forced to practice "paying attention". But the ocean will take your life in a split second if you do not pay attention right there in that moment.

Expand full comment
Wendy's avatar

I love this analogy Ben and so true. Wendy (from Australia)

Expand full comment
User's avatar
Comment deleted
Oct 12, 2022
Comment deleted
Expand full comment
Ben Junta's avatar

Hi- I don’t know that it does pale in comparison because same as with surfing, just as all I have to “float” on is a board, all you have is a boat/ship- and when the sea gets big you know it can eat a boat for breakfast. As a mariner you too are always having to pay attention to the narrative of the sea, or else!!!! My Dad was a naval officer and used to tell me stories of having to take night watch on his aircraft carrier- again the whole issue of “paying attention” to the sea. Have seen sooooo many instances where smaller sailboats or power boats get stuck in dicey situations due to the whims of the surf (and some questionable human choices) and seen a wave just destroy a sail/powerboat… Cheers!

Expand full comment
Tara's avatar

How to truly heal and open your heart back up to love.

Expand full comment
Elizabeth Peebles's avatar

Resting rather than doing. (Sitting in the present moment enjoying motherhood and this season and all the demands without falling into the numbing of doing to fight off the anxiety the wants to creep in).

Expand full comment
Christine's avatar

We are human beings, not human doings.

Expand full comment
Rose's avatar

Permission to rest

Expand full comment
"V" Clark's avatar

Two acronyms I created:

REST

R - relax

E - Exhale

S - Be still

T - Trust

the other is:

PEACE

P - Give permission

E - to live with ease

A - Accept/allow

C - Calm

E - Embrace

Whatever it takes, right? Yes, give yourself permission to be still. Rest.

Expand full comment
Jen Baxter ✒️'s avatar

My body is trying to tell me...

Expand full comment
Hadassah Jordan's avatar

What happens when your child is in pain. I have mothered with a full heart until the pandemic hit and instead of our unit becoming stronger we, self isolated within the unit. Now two individuals battling each other, lost in an abyss of fear. A year after and finding our feet again, redefining who we are. Lost, found, lost again. I lost my role as. mother, and now my daughter needs me more than ever, how do I find her.

Expand full comment
Jana Joy's avatar

I lost my daughter after I left my 24 year marriage. She has stopped speaking to me because her need for her father’s attention and approval has made her vulnerable to his manipulation. I know she’s in pain and needs support that he can’t (won’t) give her. Once he’s done using her for some kind of tactical gain in our divorce, he will cast her aside. Perhaps that’s when she’ll reach out to me. Trying to find peace in between respecting her boundaries and also making sure she knows I love her unconditionally and that my door is always open... Your words really resonated as I lost my role as wife, mother to my daughter and practice owner all at once, along with my home and community. I was set adrift / set free. My grown son helps to keep me grounded, along with my beautiful new (ish) relationship, but I often still feel uprooted, disconnected and anxious. Her recent birthday celebration with her dad, his mistress-turned-girlfriend and my son in our family home that I still half own really threw me for a loop. I hope you’re able to reconnect with your daughter and find your bond again. That will give me some hope. ❤️

Expand full comment
Hadassah Jordan's avatar

It took time, and as Sarah spoke of in the last podcast, the vulnerability became the thing that was most needed. Seeds were planted and the shots sprouted. Tiny incremental turns of events lead to a heart connection, my daughter came to me vulnerable needing a safe space and I opened my arms wide, being the shelter with love and care. A cycle was finished. Last night with the eclipse and new moon we did a ceremony writing for what we did not want and what we want for our own lives. I quite sat not looking at her, as she opened up to what was before her. It has been less than a month since I wrote the above and my daughter who was school refusal, has attend a weeks worth of one class a day, has gone to the gym and walked the dog, these to others would be the regular, but to us is the world, my daughter, Frankie is finding her feet again and it took me to resign from work and become a grounded mother, cooking meals and being present. No money or hard work will ever be the elixir of my life, but being a mother is a role that took me to find bravery to take a stand. What has proceeded is the blossoming of a girl that was lost and filled with fear. Take heart in my words and know that in one moment of vulnerability, can the change start. Thank you Jana and Thank you Sarah ........

Expand full comment
Jana Joy's avatar

Thank you for sharing your daughter’s and your journey with me. It brings me much hope that I will be re-connected with my own daughter someday soon I hope. 🙏🏻❤️

Expand full comment
Grizz Phillips's avatar

Emotion is just Energy.

Expand full comment
Alison Skoff's avatar

Rebirth

Expand full comment
Kristina's avatar

“Connection” is the word that comes to me today.

Expand full comment