And my journey back to myself in 2023

Listen to the episode here on the Healthyish + Happy podcast, or read below.

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A few things have changed around here.

The most obvious being the new brand spanking name for the poddy: Healthyish + Happy podcast.

A name which, in my eyes, reflects the truth about what it takes to feel so fudging healthy and happy. I know how confusing, overwhelming and disheartening it is to see all this health advice telling you you have to heavily restrict food, do a soul-crushing diet and drink unicorns blood just to feel good. What I’ve learnt and seen from my degree as a naturopath and with countless clients, is the total opposite. You can be healthyish, and have choccie in your breaky every morning like me, and still feel so darn healthy and happy every single day. Health and happiness doesn’t have to involve sacrifice. Just ta few easy tweaks. Exactly what I’ll be teaching and showing you on the pod.

But one other, maybe not so obvious change is me.

And that is something that has been totally life changing, and something I think you’ll likely really understanding.  Because I know I’m not alone in feeling this way. And the story we’re going to jump into today.

I want to let you know my truth of whats been going on these past 8 months.

The truth is: I wasn’t feeling right. At the end of 2022 I felt off and lost.

This isn’t a new sensation for me, feeling a bit uncertain with my direction in life and biz usually pops up every 6 months or so. Because my biz goals and dreams might change a smidge or I forget my *why*. I can usually plop myself down, go through my biz + dreams clarity journal prompts and I get the most amazing clarity. Like I am fired up ready to scream from the rooftops and live my dream. Id ask myself a whole bunch of clarity questions, and before I know it, I’d get the most beautiful, heart and brain calming clarity and I hobble on my merry way.

This time, that didn’t happen.

It felt like I was writing answers logically – like I knew the answers I was supposed to write, but my heart + soul wasn’t feeling lit up. It felt the opposite –  It felt like this big thick grey cloud covered my soul and I just couldn’t get to it. I could see my soul. I couldn’t hear it. And my soul is where all my answers are. The stuff that is true to me and truly lights me up. So not seeing my soul was fudging scary.

Because I couldn’t get clarity or answers, my feeling of being on edge and lost skyrocketed. No answers meant overwhelm and anxiety.

I was feeling off and didn’t know what to do

I knew I could keep doing what I know I was *supposed* to do and have been *told* to do. But I was terrified of getting further off track. Like, I can’t take my heart out of my biz. I help people with what I do, I’m a healer. So I can’t switch my emotions off and just be a good soldier and do what I’m supposed to do.

I’m trained and qualified as a naturopath. Gimmi diet, lifestyle, mindset, counselling, body, and all the biochemically hormonally good stuff and I could do it with my eyes closed.

But building a biz and marketing? That is not something I’m trained in. And I was terrified to spend so much time and energy throwing marketing jimbo jambo mud at the wall and hoping to see if it sticks.

I wanted a plan and I wanted to know it’s the right plan. I don’t spend hours doing marketing or socials for fun, because it’s the one place that drains me a lot.

And one thing I’m super clear on these days, is the amount of energy my biz gets from me. I know she has the ability to grow and soar with the right tools, but I don’t have an infinite amount of energy or capacity to keep fuelling her until she gets there. Because I’d be having to take from my personal fuel tank to do that.

That only equals one thing in my eyes when my biz takes more from me than I have to give = less time for me, less time with my partner, less time with friends, less time living life. My health would go downhill and my happiness would disappear. In essence, burnout-ville. No, thank you!

The turning point

I knew feeling lost had reached a high point, because my bod started to tell me. I started to wake up feeling worried, which made me feel anxious. Which then switched off my rationale brain and suddenly I’m overwhelmed easily by everything going on, I’m feeling irritable, I’m waking up thinking about work, my headaches are sneaking back and my mind is going round in circles thinking what da fudgeroonies I’m supposed to do.

Basically all my red warning flags were screaming their lungs at me to get help.

So I made the decision to get help, because I couldn’t do it on my own and I didn’t have the capacity to figure it out on my own either. I know investing in help will not just get me results faster, but the soothing they have on my nervous system having someone hold my hand and tell me the next steps is like…ugh ma gawd…as good as a hot brownie smothered in caramel fudge sauce…just ugh.

So I got a biz coach…well, I actually got 3 biz coaches. Cause this girl binges when she’s in panic mode.

My root cause

What I realised was I was utterly and totally out of alignment with not just my biz, but myself. I didn’t know this at the start, but holy dooly I see it now.

Like, a lot has happened since I started my biz 5 years ago. Not just in my biz, but my personal life. My entire world was different:

• I’m in a different relationship
• Multiple different houses
• Different friends
• Different life

I was different. But I was holding on to a lot of who I used to be, despite the fact that everything else had changed.

My mistake: in 2022, I thought I was in alignment

I was 4 years into business so I thought I was shooting for my dreams, I thought I was making my wildest ideas my reality. I thought I was doing everything right and like I’d been told to do. I’d had multiple business coaches at this point and the same theme in biz had always come up.

Yet I felt so off by the end of 2022 when I couldn’t figure out why.

And the truth that got unravelled these past 8 months while I’ve been healing, is I truthfully wasn’t in alignment. I thought I was – but deep down my soul knew I wasn’t.

My unravelling

I was doing everything society told me to do in order to be successful:

• how to run my biz
• how to market
• how to be

The only time I was really true to who I was, was when I was with clients or at networking events. Because I struggle to be anything else but myself in real life.

And looking back now, I realised 2022 was the year of fleeting joys and short term wins. I’d had new friendships and relationships in 2021 and 2022, so I’d been on social media more than ever (hello the introduction of TikTok into my life).

And in doing so I was being exposed to all these businesses again that I hadn’t spent much time observing prior. I started subtly comparing myself to others who were miles ahead of me and where I wanted to be.

I started to feel inadequate, like a failure, like an imposter…all the good stuff. And because I wanted to be where they were (especially the businesses that were advertising all this amazing success after 1 or 2 years in biz), I started jumping on others ‘quick win’ schemes to try speed along my own process.

I realised I had started getting so consumed in others lives that I started living mine on autopilot and was slightly doing what they were doing. To the point that I’d lost so many of the things that enrich my own life and being with my own thoughts and the way I wanted to run my biz…without external influence.

These things started as enjoyment, but before I knew it they had subtly influenced me step by tiny step that I was so far detached from my most aligned path where I was aiming for my dreams and the biz that lights me up. The path where I didn’t give a flying fudgebuckets what others thought or were doing. The path that lit me up so much and I loved it. That path was nooooo where to be seen at the start of 2023. So I was essentially trying to market something that didn’t feel like it belonged to me and felt off.

The healing: coming back to me

So it feels very timely that my Saturn return started in January 2023 and it forced me to beautifully audit and look at my entire life, to figure out what truly is aligned with me (and is me) and is fulfilling AF to my life, and what is just a Frankenstein of pieces from other people that I’ve absorbed and tried to morph into being me.

And so, these past 8 months have been about soul clarity. About going all the way back to basics. Back to my soul and helping that little bugger come out from her shroud of thick grey clouds. About discovering me again.

• Discovering what truly lights me up
• What my soul truly wants to do
• How I actually want to run a biz that feels exciting and fun – to me

In 2019 after I first burnout and was like “what da fudge is running a biz doing to me”, I finally uncovered and found the real Sarah. 2019 was the year I realised, thank you to my psychologist, that I was a people pleaser, that I was living on autopilot living life the way society told me to, that I was terrified of not belonging or making anyone upset, of not realising I had a choice to be and live differently. I thought this big discovery in 2019 after I burnt out was it. The light bulb was on and now I was on my merry adventure and finally the real Sarah was uncovered.

Well, now in 2023, I realised I had only uncovered the first layer of my Sarah-onion in 2019. This year, I’ve had to go deeper. I’ve re-found me again, and I’m also rediscovering the core of who I am as a human being, as a naturopath and the core of what my humble biz and life is all about.

Re-emergence: not a new Sarah, but the real one

And the biggest, most amazing moment for me, was realising that I do this with my clients, but it’s not something I’ve ever spoken about publicly that I do. It’s usually a super pleasant surprise for them that we dive into this stuff too.

That in fact, I realised I’d become so hyper-focused only talking about the biological things you can do when it comes to feeling healthy and happy (Aka. balancing your hormones). And got so scared of imposter syndrome and feeling I needed to be what you might have perceived a naturopath to be (very presumptuous of me!), that I’ve hid so many facets about what a naturopath actually is…or at least how I am as a naturopath.

My biggest passion is discovering and healing the root cause of why you feel how you feel.

You feel crappy, un-aligned, meh, drained. Maybe highly strung, irritated, on edge or overwhelmed, anxious. Maybe even low or numb.

But the crux is, you just don’t feel like yourself. Your true, best, most magical self. The version of you that makes your heart sing with happiness and your soul radiate with joy.

But we can’t just bandaid your symptoms to get quick wins.

Balancing your hormones & neurotransmitters will get you short term success. Because yes, they directly influence how you feel. But they’re not the root cause of why you feel the way you feel.

We need to nourish and heal all 4 of your root causes.

1. Give you the most crystal clear clarity on exactly how you want to feel but also what your dreams are and the steps on how to make them your reality.
2. Nourish your physical health so you feel healthy, happy & vibrant AF by regulating your nervous system, but also healing your adrenals, brain, gut, blood sugar rollercoaster, nutrient deficiencies, your genetics and all the intricate systems that help your cells (and therefore, you) thrive.
3. Optimise your lifestyle with routines, habits, people and places that fuel, enrich, revitalise and restore you and remove the ones that drain you dry.
4. Support your mindset with the thoughts, beliefs and words that make you feel so fudging amazing and like yourself, so you’re not constantly fighting your mind or letting your subconscious control what you do.

This is all the stuff I’ve always done with clients behind closed doors, I’ve just never shared how to support them all publicly before. Darn imposter syndrome.

So, while 2022 got me a wee bit off track and educated you about the world of hormones and their influence on how you’re currently feeling.

2023 isn’t about a new me blossoming like a new butterfly. Oh no, 2023 is all about the real me.  About coming back to me and the truth and what I do with clients all the time – which is looking at the whole picture, especially the root causes.

Because they are the key to feeling like your most truest and magical self, and helping you create a life where you feel so fudging healthy and happy.

A final take-home note:

If there’s one parting message I want your brain to absorb from this word vomit, it’s that

If you ignore and push the truth of who you are into a tidy little box in your brain, and continue to push yourself down a path that wasn’t right for you, you’ll only push yourself further out of alignment with who you truly are.

Not only is it unfulfilling and leave you feeling lost, you’ll also end up sacrificing your health and happiness to sustain it.

I can’t wait to show you how to become the healthy and happy version of yourself that feels like warm beams of sunshine bursting out of your heart. I can’t wait to show you how to embody the real you, your magic, and watch yourself absolutely soar.

So, strap in, cause this is gonna be one hell of a fun ride!

In hugs + happiness,