Category: Identity & Self

Write. Every. Day.

11/27/2024

Alexander Den Heijer once wrote: "You often feel tired, not because you've done too much, but because you've done too little of what sparks a light in you."

That for me is writing. It wasn't always that way. My journaling days ended somewhere around the 8th grade when I put away my purple, jelly-bean covered diary with a lock that didn't work and didn't start another journal until my 30s.

Words though, words, have been strung together on random scraps of paper, gum wrappers, cut out of magazines and taped to my bedroom walls or hung from my fridge with magnets. Yogi teabag quotes torn off and used as bookmarks, Dove candy wrapper inspirations tucked inside my laptop bag. My mind seems to wander not in imaginary lands or dreams but in fantastical thoughts and quotes that often provide reassurance or a sense of love.

When I was at my lowest point in life, millions of thoughts and emotions swirling around in my head that I had to expunge from my heart, my mind and soul before I would be lost in them.

That is when I found the power of pen and paper.

My journaling started off as frantic, uncontrolled and completely private. Thoughts and emotions poured onto the paper between tears without even realizing the story they would eventually tell. All I knew was I had to get what was inside, out before it swallowed me whole.

Some may call it narrative therapy, others automatic writing. To me, it didn't matter what it was called only that I found after each entry my heart became a little lighter. I began reading the words on the page and reflecting on the woman who got to that point to write them.

I realized I had lost myself. Instead of growing into the woman I thought I would be, I grew into a shadow of everything I had hoped to be, to feel, to do. By external standards I was successful, beautiful, happy, "had it all." Internally I felt like a fraud. An actor in some low-budget, rom-com drama.

It was through my writing that I not only recognized the gap, but also began to fall in love with, the way the "inside me" not only saw the world but felt the world and believed in the world. Even more so - fell in love with my true self - not the woman everyone wanted or needed me to be.

My writing became my own little fantasy world. Yet I wasn't writing about far off magical lands of Utopia. I was writing about moments, experiences, sights and feelings that I was actually experiencing.

Suddenly ripping a rhododendron wasn't just ripping out a plant from my flower bed, it became incredibly symbolic of my own excavation of the things that were dead, dying and suffocating me in my own life.

Watching the sunrise in the morning transformed from not just a sunrise, rather the feeling of hope, validating my belief that the light will find us even through the darkest of nights.

A sink full of dishes and a mountain of laundry became a blessing that I had clothes to put on my children and the time and food to prepare healthy meals for them.

Writing opened my mind to a new way of perceiving absolutely everything in my life. It saved me in a moment when I needed saving, and it opened a new doorway to my soul I could have never imagined.

I have seen my writing move grown men to tears, children feel seen, and those grieving feel a moment of nostalgic love.

Yet even with the power I know that exists, I was inconsistent. Wrapped up in what people would think about my writing, if it would resonate with others, if I would run out of ideas, if it would impact me negatively.

In the days and sometimes weeks, sometimes months, when I stopped writing for one reason or another, life around me seemed to dim. I found myself tired more, drained, floating like an untethered boat.

Until I attended a content marketing course through Coppyblogger Academy and in one of the videos courses the simple instruction to "write every day" was given.

Yes, of course, that was from a business and growth perspective - but for me it reminded me of Heijer's quote.

Writing every day, getting my thoughts out every day, fuels my soul. It replenishes my own well by finding aspects of the normal day life to be utterly grateful for. Writing keeps me vulnerable. I want to be vulnerable. I have done enough relationships where we skirt on the surface of life - that is not me.

For me, it is writing. For you it may be dancing, singing, sitting outside, laughing, reading, walking, meditating, playing a sport, whatever it is that makes you feel truly alive. Alive for you. Not for anyone else around you. Whatever it is for you - find a way to do that and do it Every. Day.

Watch how your life unfolds, opens up, resonates more, matters more, when you take a few precious moments of these fleeting days to do the one thing that lights your soul up.

And you, beautiful soul, deserve to shine too.

Ready to Write Your Heart Free?

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A Rose or A Thistle: That is The Question

9/12/2024

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Perhaps one of the hardest lessons thus far has been the realization that despite all of the things in life that happen "to us" ultimately, we are always in the driver seat of our own lives.

So how do we want our garden to grow, a bed of roses? Or a land of thistles?

Maybe a touch of both...

That rose in that picture was given to me by the most unexpected person, during the most unexpected encounter, in what felt like the most unexpected (and worst) timing.

Yet it forced me to open my eyes and realize that for a long period of time I had returned to a place of all talk and all dreams. Scared to actually dig my shovel into the dirt of my existence and build the life I fantasied over.

I had been existing - but not really living.

Living will actually look different for each of us and that is okay.

In fact, it should.

Trying to keep up with and how everyone else wants you to look, function, thrive is actually the exact problem so many of us find ourselves drowning in.

That was given to me right after I had almost settled back into trying to chase that white-picket fence of a life.

The one that can make you look REALLY good on the outside to everyone else, but feel completely alone, lost and worst of all, unseen by those you surround yourself with.

Despite the degrees and certifications, I have obtained over the years, the thing I was most proficient in had become morphing myself into what everyone else needed me to be. Even if that meant tearing myself apart in my shadows for the gaps that I felt existed between what I was and what everyone else wanted.

A simple rose to remind me to pause and think about what type of life I wanted to grow. A thistle isn't bad, in fact you need some jagged moments to keep you moving forward and not stagnant in any period of life.

And now, a thistle brings even more meaning and resonance as it is the single flower engraved on my dear friend's tombstone. A reminder that what makes a garden beautiful is not so much the flowers that exist but rather the love poured into it.

But a rose....a rose is often considered to represent the balanced union between the divine masculine and feminine energies. Not an external balance - an internal harmony between the divine masculine and feminine inside of YOU. A harmonious intersection between embracing both your softness and vulnerability and stepping into your complete power to leave a lasting impact on those around you.

I want that.

I want to feel fully alive and fully present in every aspect of my life. Where one part of me is not compromising myself to make it easier for others to love me, accept me, engage with me.

Believing that there are actually people out there who will want me around just for me - and not because of what I can do (or can't do) for them. That there is a place out there where I don't feel like I have to hide or play small.

Wanting that and believing that is possible can be a challenging journey.

Hence why some thistles are still needed along the way. The ones to poke you just enough to remind you of your bravery, your strength, to infuse your internal determination to solidify your devotion to yourself no matter how hard life may rail against you.

The trick is to appreciate their gifts, learn from the lessons they teach us, and find the strength within us to say, "no thank you" and return to the tending of our roses.

Much like that rose, this little note is my symbolic act of returning to tend to the aspects of my life that matter most. The ones that I want to watch flourish.

Let this be a beginning for you too.

A moment to pause, to breathe, to center yourself and scribble down what in your own life needs more tending to - not out of service or demand - but in order for your heart to feel full and your soul at peace.

Maybe your rose garden isn't quite ready to be tended -but maybe it is time to plant the seeds.

Journey With Me

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Welcome Home: To Yourself

8/15/2024

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"Don't question it..." he said as I lay next to him my eyes scanning his entire being for some type of certainty, guarantee, or confirmation of belonging.

I have done that a lot - looked for belonging in my external world. Growing up with no cousins, grandparents, aunts or uncles closer than a 12-hour road trip, my home roots always felt like they ran shallow.

I thought that home was something external. Yet, I never quite found that "place" that I could go to where the weight of the world seemed to melt away because I was "home". No nest to return to. Believe me I have searched. I searched, I tried to create, I built falsehoods around me, I filled those voids with everything material or relationships that required a lot of effort to make them fit the mold I was searching for.

Holidays have always felt a little bittersweet without the dozens of houses to run around too, or the large parties where everyone gathered. The family vacations and parties, the noise, the chaos, the drama - I missed all of that.

It made me feel lost. It made me feel lonely.

On a trip in the budding of a new, divine connection, I went out onto the balcony wrapped in my towel, hair still dripping wet from the shower, cheeks streaked with tears. I stood in front of him telling him I had nothing to offer. I had no roots. There wouldn't be any big holidays or dozens of family parties. No gatherings or get togethers. None of that. It was just me. Just me and my children. I didn't have it. It wasn't my life. Slowly I began pushing him away in that very instance because I felt inferior to what I thought he wanted.

In that moment it wasn't about him, it was about me. He never asked me for a thing - I was staring in the mirror of my own reflection of perceived lack.

The truth is, I have had moments where I tasted "home." Often like a flash, so fast like the feeling of pop rocks on your tongue that fizzle for a moment and then disappear. Leaving you clinging to that sensation, searching for it once again even though it has passed.

It was a sense of home though, just not external. I have felt home in the core of my heart.

I have felt home in different states, in different countries, embraced by loved ones, and with the sensation of my babies snuggled in my arms. I have felt belonging on the edge of the ocean in silence as the sun lights up the night sky, and in a crowded concert venue with my favorite girls.

For a long time I underestimated that feeling. I made the sense of belonging in myself less important than the sense of belonging in a physical structure or crowd of people - blood or not.

It has taken life shattering over and over again. It has taken my heart breaking over and over again. It has taken standing up, slowly, over and over again to make me realize that I was never meant for the "home" and "family" I thought I needed.

The definition of home by the Oxford Dictionary begins with "the place one lives permanently...." the flaw in that definition is that nothing external is ever permanent.

So maybe I wasn't lost, maybe I was "ahead of the curve."

My home has become my inner being. My soul's sense of belonging. That is not defined by a structure, a tribe, or even a zip code. It exists solely, squarely, in my own internal ability to find belonging wherever I go, with whomever I go with, and whatever I bring (or don't bring) along my journey.

I have become my own soft space to land - and now, I no longer question it.

My goal is no longer to reconstruct a Norman Rockwell painting of home, family, traditions and love. It is to create an internal essence that makes everyone around me feel at home when I am in their presence.

Maybe someday that will include a large blended family of chaos. Or maybe it will include the arms of a singular love on a remote island in the tropics. Or maybe it will include solo-adventures around this big, beautiful world.

Regardless, I have come to realize it doesn't much matter where I find myself planted or floating around in 1 year from now, or 10.

I have found my home in me.

Check Out My Journey

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I Need Your Grace: An Offer of Vulnerability

7/24/2024

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Journey With Me

“Eight-year-old Sarah would be proud of the woman you have become.”

A text, from an angel here on earth, whose words I will treasure always, flashed on my phone nearly a year ago.

The truth is I am not completely sure she would be. I have made a lot of mistakes. Felt a lot of pain, caused a lot of pain, lost friends and family members, lost myself even.

The road to who I am now has been riddled with struggles and hurts and also incredible moments of grace, love and compassion.

Sometimes that humility and forgiveness came on my knees, on the bathroom floor, in the middle of a hard battle with the demons that tormented me from the inside out.

I was driving this morning to get a new battery for my ride-on lawnmower - a new project I was able to successfully tackle and complete by myself - when one of my favorite songs, Chasing Cars by Snow Patrol came on.

“I need your grace to remind me to find my own.”

In high school I had quotes plastered all over my bedroom walls. Some written in crayon, some typed on our StarWriter word processor, some cut from magazines.

Lyrics, provoking thoughts founds in books, magazines, advertisements have always hit me like a pause button.

Where the rest of the world freezes and I am in this state where the words cycle around and around in my head until they find the resonance they meant and land neatly in my heart.

Truth be told - don’t ask me about names of songs or lyrics or book titles or authors - I forget those details. Completely swept away in the sentiment and emotion I imagine that was required to come up with those words.

And overcome with gratitude that those words, often when I needed them most, found their way to me.

“I need your grace to remind me to find my own.”

As I tiptoe into this world of slowly removing so many masks of what and who people THINK I am, those words stuck with me as a reminder of why I feel so called to share.

Surface level has never worked well for me. I suck at small talk. I suck at casual. I suck at just going through the motions of life.

I can play the part - yes - but inside of me it feels like I’m dying in casual settings of chit-chat and frivalty.

Daring to step out of my shell, of the image and expectations most people have of me, showing my vulnerability, flaws, strength and grace is both freeing to myself yet also a call to others to tell them its okay to do the same.

We don’t always have to walk around with our armor on no matter how hard this world can be.

There are those of us out there who want the soft insides of your heart and soul and to learn what lights you up (and what breaks you down) not to feel like we have something to hold over you, but rather another layer of your most authentic self to love.

I share my words and inspirations and heartache and hope to give permission for you to do the same.
At this stage of the game, I want only those who are brave enough to lay down their swords and let their truest selves shine through - whatever that looks like.

I think that is what we are all craving most in this world not just connection but to be seen, to be unconditionally accepted.

To be authentically loved.

So, I will keep peeling off the costumes and layers I have acquired over the years to show you the heart of who I am, and I welcome, I invite, I hold space for you to do the same.

For you to find your grace and to believe that your heart will still be held safe when you do.

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Sidestepping In Secret: When Leaving Your Path Becomes a Solo Mission

6/26/2024

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There are moments in life when we find ourselves staring down a fork in the middle of the proverbial road.

A decision that requires us to choose between continuing down the path we have been on, the one we have always known, the one that feels safe and secure, the one everyone imagines us in…

OR

The choice to sidestep from the life we have known thus far and dare to embrace the vast unknown of a new way of showing up in the world.

For some of us, this decision is made in secret. In the quietness not only of our own homes, but rather in our own hearts. From the deepest caverns of our soul.

It is more like a quiet voice calling us rather than a decision we make with our mind.

With this calling comes the sinking feeling of complete knowing that there are many we will end up leaving behind.

There will be others with whom we choose to share our new journey only when we have become solid and stable in the conscious choice of our own direction - not the direction they had wished for us.

It requires an internal fortitude to find, within yourself, the trust in the path that appears overgrown with foreign surroundings and maybe only a glimmer of light somewhere far off in the distance.
As opposed to the neatly paved, groomed and well-lit path you had faithfully been following others along.

For months, I have slowly been stepping further and further in the direction of a world that doesn’t quite make sense, I don’t know where I am going, but I FEEL inspired and drawn to every single slow shuffle of a step.

No one knows. No one in my circle knows.

I am sidestepping out of the accounting, finance, business, political world and finding faith in the words that are strung together by the most convincing voice that echoes from the center of my heart.
I am sidestepping out of the world of controlled appearances, controlled expectations and outside image over deep vulnerability and authenticity.

I had to keep it a secret because I know all too well the disapproving eyes when you dare to move in a way that contradicts the way life was “supposed to be.”

I have caved to it in the past. A thousand times over I have caved to the expectations, needs, fears, and disapproval that has come from others around me - even those closest to me.

I needed to become a hermit in the middle of my own life sidestepping slowly, slowly, in a new direction. Gaining confidence, certitude, understanding and finding worthiness within myself first.

With each new step of emergence back into the light, slowly sharing my secret new path as I grow stronger and stronger in a new direction, I find the love, connection and acceptance on the deepest level - the humanness in our vulnerability I have longed for and searched for - never believing I was worthy of finding.

So, thank you for being here with me. Thank you for your strength and encouragement.

I hope through my words, if you too have been struggling to sidestep, you find the strength to do so - even if in secrecy at first - and know I will be here to cheer you on as well.

Journey With Me

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Permission to Begin.

5/16/2024

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"I do not promise to believe tomorrow exactly what I believe today, and I do not believe today exactly what I believed yesterday. I expect to make, as I have made, some honest progress within every succeeding twenty-four hours." Andrew Jackson Davis

It was May, 2016, and I had just begun the writing prompt “What is your greatest fear?” Spiders. Dying. Planes. Drowning. Fires. Nope. My answer: “If I weren’t my roles and responsibilities, who would I be? Would anyone want or need me? My biggest fear is I am no one—nothing.” I have been the other woman, the not-good-enough-because-you’re-divorced woman, the you-make-me-look-good woman, the boss, the fixer, the planner, the do-er, the wife, the mother, the daughter, and every one of these left me feeling exhausted and used and a little further from myself.
I am ready to begin again.

Why this, why now?

I thought motherhood, home, family, marriage, accounting career was the answer to everything I had been searching for, the complete solution to every insecurity and instability I felt, until I realized that those too are all masks, roles, responsibilities—treasured ones for sure—but they still weren’t releasing everything I felt bottled up inside. Ultimately it took their complete shattering for me to slowly begin to find myself in the charred rubble left behind by the life I’d set fire to.

Even my name has become an internal struggle. A lot of times I choose to go by Sarah Elizabeth, as neither my married name or maiden name seems to fit the woman who is searching to find who she is outside of what the world has told her she is supposed to be—or worse, the woman everyone thinks they know.

Through every single slow step forward, I have found that the greatest side of me, the part I want to leave behind, to be remembered by, to be loved for, has so little to do with the roles I have played for others and is instead all about the lessons I have learned: the way my perspective of the world was forced to grow with each stumbling block, the way I kept standing back up stronger but softer too, the way I try to look for love in every person I meet, in every challenge I face, in every corner of this big, scary world.

I Can’t Be the Only One…

Saint Sarah is sometimes referred to as “Queen of the Outsiders” and I feel that. When I first read this nickname for her, I began to wonder if she was my true namesake and not the family relative I had always been told about. When my picture perfect life collapsed I stepped back and watched the world happening around me with a completely new perspective. A recognition that the collapse was an ultimate gift as in my core, I didn’t belong in the places and circles I was giving all of my time and energy to.

It has been a lonely journey at times. Yet I have also found gratitude in my solitude of the last several years as I have excavated myself to determine who I really am. What lights me up because it certainly isn’t the hustle-bustle of suburban mommy and wifehood.

I hope through my raw and vulnerable writings, I find others out there who like me, are searching for “more” even if we don’t quite know what that “more” is just yet.

My Promise

My promise is to write from the heart. About the normal, every day moments from an extraordinary perspective. Or maybe not extraordinary maybe just gut wrenchingly honest and with a hint of a sliver lining. I will include thoughts for you to ponder or journal entry topics for you to navigate, but mostly just reason to pause and center yourself so that we can all keep growing and expanding through the rawness of our human experience.

“The ghosts of all of the woman you used to be are so proud of who you have become.” Nikita Gill

Join me on a journey to go deep.

Journey With Me

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my musings on life, love, and everything in between

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Write. Every. Day.

A Rose or A Thistle: That is The Question

Welcome Home: To Yourself

I Need Your Grace: An Offer of Vulnerability

Sidestepping In Secret: When Leaving Your Path Becomes a Solo Mission

Permission to Begin.

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my musings on life, love, and everything in between

Sign Up for ​friday reflections

friday reflections archive

Write. Every. Day.

A Rose or A Thistle: That is The Question

Welcome Home: To Yourself

I Need Your Grace: An Offer of Vulnerability

Sidestepping In Secret: When Leaving Your Path Becomes a Solo Mission

Permission to Begin.

Author

Archives

Categories

Sign Up for
friday reflections

friday reflections
archive