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Sarah Farina — Walking the Camino de Santiago · High on Life with Melissa Minnich

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Speaker 1: What if the success in life you've been chasing was
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never meant to come from outside of you? This is
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High on Life. I'm your host, Melissa Minnick, scientist, consciousness explorer,
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and spiritual alchemist. And this is where we go deeper,
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where science, spirituality, and human potential converge through conversations that
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explore consciousness, energy, and what it actually takes to stop
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chasing and start experiencing your life differently. Get high with
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me in this conversation. Hello, everyone, and welcome. Today's conversation
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is about what happens when life doesn't go according to plan,
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when the identity you've built begins to crumble, when the
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path ahead disappears, and when you're forced to discover who
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you are beneath everything you've relied on to define yourself.
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My guest today is Sarah Farina, transformational coach, author, and
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one of the contributing authors in our upcoming book, The
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Way of the Initiate, Stories of Remembering, Awakening, and Becoming
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the New Human. After experiencing the collapse of significant areas
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of her personal life, Sarah embarked on the Camino de Santiago,
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which I've always wanted to do, a pilgrimage that became
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far more than a physical journey. It became a path
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of healing, self-discovery, and remembering who she was beneath the expectations, roles,
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and stories she'd carried for years. In this conversation, we
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explore transformation, resilience, flourishing after collapse, the Camino as a
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living metaphor for awakening, and what it means to trust
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yourself when everything familiar falls away. Sarah, welcome to High
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on Life. Thanks, Melissa.
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Speaker 2: I'm so happy to be here.
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Speaker 1: Thanks for having me. I'm so excited to have this conversation.
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I am an avid trekker. I have trekked to some
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of the coolest places in the world, yet the Camino
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is not one that I have done yet. And I
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think it's more than a trek. It is a pilgrimage.
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But before we get into the Camino, I'd love to
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know what was happening in your life that ultimately led
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you to that journey?
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Speaker 2: Yeah, well, it actually was an interesting thing because I
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was an avid trekker too. And I've traveled to a
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lot of places in the world and hiked all kinds
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of places. And that point in my life, though, I
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actually was barely able to walk. I'd been walking with
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a cane. I had some really serious knee problems and
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was essentially not going anywhere anymore. And I was super depressed.
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And basically what happened for me is I had always
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wanted to do the Camino. And then I did a
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treatment that really just took the edge off. It didn't
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fix anything, but I was sort of able to hobble
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along and I just booked the trip. I normally plan
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everything and, you know, kind of have these decision-making processes.
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And I, I just felt like, you know what, my
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life had closed down so much that I just wanted
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to do it. And I wanted to have that experience.
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I knew it wouldn't be the same as maybe the
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other people who could just sort of walk like normal,
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but it was so important to me to be there.
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And I, I'm so glad I did. It really was life-changing.
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Speaker 1: Wow. So you had a physical condition going on and
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you just said, no plan. I'm just doing it. That's
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two really bold things to go on a pilgrimage like this.
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And were you looking at the Camino as a pilgrimage
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or did you just look at it as I got
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to physically do this thing because I'm a trucker?
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Speaker 2: No, I really wanted it as a pilgrimage. I'd always
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heard about that idea of the journey and that really
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called to me and I didn't know what it meant.
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I just had this sense that I had to do it.
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And I did find that there was something about being
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there that you could feel the intentionality of it. So
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walking on that path, you actually are walking the path
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of thousands of people or thousands of years of people
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going on a pilgrimage. So I had my own issues
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and so did everybody. That was the interesting thing. You know,
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I could feel as down as I was about how
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hard it was for me to physically move, but everybody
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there was carrying something and I felt like there was
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an energy on the path, even though I didn't have
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a lot of communication with other people because I was
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mostly alone and in quite remote areas and I couldn't
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keep up with others. But I felt it and I
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had that intention not only in myself, but I actually
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feel like the path held that as well.
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Speaker 1: Wow. That's really beautiful that there's an energetics that shows
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up when you say yes to this next thing in
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your life. So you did this completely all alone. Oh, yeah. Okay.
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So is this the story? Are you sharing about this
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in the book? Is this the story that you're sharing
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in The Way of the Initiate?
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Speaker 2: Yeah, I do mention it. And I actually had written
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a memoir about that. So I just recently finished it
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and I will be coming out at some point as
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soon as I can figure out the publishing. But it
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was really a story that was powerful for me. So
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I wanted to share it with others.
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Speaker 1: So what was your intention since you said this was
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a pilgrimage for you? What was your intention as you
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set off for the Camino?
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Speaker 2: I just felt like my life had no more meaning.
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I basically couldn't do most things anymore. My social life
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had really changed because I couldn't sort of keep up.
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And I had thrown myself into work, which was great
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but exhausting. And I just felt like I didn't know
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myself anymore. I had no more sense of purpose. And
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so I just wanted to find out. So it was
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as simple as that. I didn't know the answer. I
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barely knew the questions. I just knew I had to
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go through that process.
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Speaker 1: Well, I think you're speaking to a lot of people
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in our audience right now and in the world because,
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you know, I was recently reading an article that was
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talking about the meaning crisis, that the world is having
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a crisis of meaning. And that compared to like 1990,
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that we're five times, it's five times more likely to
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not know what, to feel like I have no meaning
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in life. Like, what is, what am I doing? Like,
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arriving here and have done all of the things. I've
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followed all the rules I was told. I did all
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the things I was supposed to do. And all of
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a sudden, what was it all for? Like, what am
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I doing? And so you had this same thing going
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on and you're like, no, I'm going to go do
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something about it. I'm going to go walk the Camino. Yeah.
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And it's interesting.
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Speaker 2: There is a place called Finisterra, which means end of
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the earth. And it's actually past the end of the Camino.
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So you finish the Camino and then some people carry
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on walking. I was done at that point. But I
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wanted to go to this place because in my imagination,
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it was so important to go to a place where
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people at that time, when they called it end of
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the earth, didn't envision another world, right? So I come from,
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you know, what we now call the new world, even though,
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of course, there are people here at the time. But
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It wasn't in my ancestors' imagination. And so for me,
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it was really important to connect with a place and
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the idea that you can look out at the sea
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and not see anything, but it doesn't mean there isn't
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anything there. And so I kind of got obsessed with
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that and understanding what came next after the point of
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my imagination ending.
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Speaker 1: And what came next?
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Speaker 2: Well, I basically realized that walking was... horrible for me.
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Walking was so important to me my whole life. It
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took me to so many places. I had traveled a lot,
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so it really enabled me to explore places, get to
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know people. And my world, because it had closed in
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so much, I kind of felt like I couldn't do anything.
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But the Camino just reminded me that I'm just stubbornly
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sticking to this one thing I can't do, but I
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wasn't open to other possibilities. And so I came back
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and I started to explore what can I do? And
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I started to enlarge my world again. And I really
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sincerely found a place of joy in myself. And I
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started to connect with others. And it really did change
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a lot for me in terms of not only remembering
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who I am and that I don't have to sort
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of hold myself back because of other limitations, but that
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there's a bigger world and a bigger experience that we
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can have.
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Speaker 1: Yeah. And so how did your life change after coming
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back from the Camino?
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Speaker 2: Basically, I just found a lot of new hobbies. So
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at that point, I really came into a time of
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being in the water. So it was really important for
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me to, I started swimming. I had always loved being
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in the water, but now swim became a way of
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having my full range of motion, of being in movement,
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being held. And actually, I just started last year now
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doing open water swimming. So it's this incredibly beautiful experience
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where you are held In the earth, in the water,
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you look out, you're fully in nature, and you just
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feel not only fully alive, but fully part of the
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bigger picture. So for me, it's been absolutely an incredible
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experience in what it's led me to. And that's so
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much bigger than what I even knew before.
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Speaker 1: What do you think was the biggest lesson or the
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thing that came from the Camino for you? What did
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it teach you about yourself?
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Speaker 2: I think it just taught me that I knew what
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I knew and I just kind of stopped being creative.
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You know, I got stuck. And so the Camino just
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reminded me there are so many different ways to live life.
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And so I had always been a creative person, but
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I started writing. I started first actually putting writing prompts
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on social media. I started this thing called Word Garden
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where I would just put prompts because I just missed
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my writing group and it was just for me. But
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then I started doing workshops and then I started writing
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more and then ended up.
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Speaker 1: Writing this book.
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Speaker 2: And it just all kind of gave me this outlet
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for things that were tapping into my own creativity, but
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connecting also with bigger themes and meeting people also through that.
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Speaker 1: Oh, so writing and water. I love that. The two W's,
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like they came flourishing out of your life from this
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experience here. And you literally like that's what you have.
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Your coaching work is called Flourish. Yeah. Why that word?
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Speaker 2: I think it just represented why I was doing it. it.
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I actually didn't come into coaching on purpose. I had
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been over the years, and especially as I say, because
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I threw myself into work, moving into higher and higher
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levels of leadership and just finding that it was really hard.
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I had the technical skills, but there were all of
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these soft skills that really challenged me and that made
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it interesting and it pushed me, but it also made
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me want to learn. And I actually couldn't find a coach.
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So I had at that time said to myself, I'm
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going to become some kind of a leadership coach just
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to help people. It was sort of a side idea.
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But then I ended up having some really devastating personal
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things happen. And I actually decided to find a coaching
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program that would actually help me as much as train me.
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And so I started doing a transformational coaching certification. And
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that is where I really have to say, I kind
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of drunk the Kool-Aid. I mean, I just couldn't believe
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how powerful it was. I couldn't believe my own connection
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to myself and to others, to the energy of it all.
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And so I witnessed that transformation in others, but I
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also saw the energy that I was able to hold
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through it. So for me, the idea of flourishing is
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really about finding that essence, whatever it is in yourself
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and giving that space to grow. So that's really what
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that means to me.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, I found transformational coaching in 2013. That was when
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I took my training in that, and I felt the
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same way about it. It's transformational, right? It was literally
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one of those things. I was doing health coaching and
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holistic hormone therapy at the time, and I stumbled upon
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this when I was trying to figure out why my
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clients were having these strange instantaneous healings and what else
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was going on and what's energy and all that. And
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transformational coaching was like the first thing that I really
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stepped into. And I was like, oh, wow, this is
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so powerful when you can see the transformation that can
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happen in your life. So you came into the coaching
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and the transformational coaching because you said you had some profound,
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you know, personal experiences and some things that were going on. Well,
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you know, how did the transformational coaching help you to
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move through that? And like what happened in your own life?
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that allowed you to, you know, like to really shift
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in that area?
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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I just lost my confidence. I essentially
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lost my belief in the world. I lost my sort
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of sense of my own values because I'd always tried
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to be this sort of good and kind and compassionate person.
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And then that also then led me into some of
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the problems that I ended up in. And so I
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was really full of a lot of self-hate. And so
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the transformation allowed me to look inside of myself and
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find the things that really are still of value, things
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that I actually had been really blaming myself for and
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sort of, yeah, just reconnecting with those things. And then
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also the idea of surrender, because I was trying to
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surrender for a very long time. I worked on it.
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It was on my list. I did all kinds of things.
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Speaker 1: It was the opposite, trying to surrender. Yeah, exactly. I
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couldn't do it.
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Speaker 2: I absolutely couldn't do it. I was trying my best,
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accepting surrender every day, and I couldn't do it. And
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so through that transformation, I actually finally got there. And
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I can't say there was one moment, but it was
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extremely profound because I had to let go. There are
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things you can't control in life. And I think all
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of the skills and the competencies and all of that
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that I used to sort of have and be able
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to use, they didn't work in this situation. And so
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it was just this process of letting go and saying,
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these are the things I think made me powerful, that
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made me good at what I did. And maybe they
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were in a certain setting and context, but not anymore.
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And so that transformation really took me deep inside of myself.
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And also it connected me to things much bigger than myself.
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Speaker 1: So for people out there that are like, you know,
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I'm going through this in my own life. Maybe they've
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lost their confidence. They've had that collapse. They've had the,
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you know, the pain in their lives and they're like,
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I can't go to the Camino and walk my way to,
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you know, stripping away and surrender and rediscovering myself. You know,
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do you, first off, is it possible, like, you know,
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can someone flourish after this type, when they have this
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type of profound loss and collapse and Like, what's the
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first step for someone that's in that kind of state?
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Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, honestly, I think the first thing is
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to be kind to yourself. Because I feel like when
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I was in that state and I'm, you know, I'm
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working my way out of it. You know, I can't
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claim perfection at this point. But I think if you're
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not kind to yourself, you can't expect it to come
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from outside of yourself. And so that's really the first
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step is just allowing yourself to be as you are.
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giving yourself that space. And then there are many other things,
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of course. I mean, I think I did all of them.
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There are lots of activities, but really just allowing yourself
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to be, allowing yourself, even when, and that's part of
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the shadow work that I did, but even when you're
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incredibly angry, when you're full of grief, when you don't
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think you can hold your own emotions, even in that,
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to find a way to be with it. Because I,
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you know, my first instinct was to just repress all
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of that, to do my absolute best not to feel
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those things. And in this situation, it was too much.
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That actually wasn't possible anymore. And that's maybe part of
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what pushed me into that state of surrender, because I
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just couldn't do it on my own. And so the
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other part of that, and this is speaking as somebody
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who's done everything by myself my whole life, super independent,
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there's this point where you just can't. And so having
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to ask for help, ask for support, tell people what
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you're going through, look for help. Those are also things
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that I think anybody can do. And I think it
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sort of puts you in a really humbling position because
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especially if you're sort of that capable person, you're usually
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maybe the one that helps others. And so to actually say, hey,
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I'm not okay, that isn't self-estep, right? And that's sort
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of your own process that you need to go through.
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And then, I mean, I still think journey as a
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metaphor is actually incredibly healing. So for me, for example,
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when I did the Camino, my life was sort of
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sad and depressing because I couldn't walk, but I was
16:26
otherwise okay. And then some other things happened after that
16:30
when I was in this beautiful state that actually brought
16:32
me lower than I've ever been. And so the process
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for me was actually to walk the Camino again on
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the page. So that's when I started writing. And I
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started relearning and reliving those lessons. And it was a
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way for me to integrate those things. So I'm not
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saying everybody should write a story, but you can experience
16:53
things in a way that's meaningful to you. So tapping
16:56
into whatever your kind of creativity is that you're interested in.
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I was talking to a friend yesterday who's interested in dance.
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You know, that can be a way to express things
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in your body. There are just so many ways. And
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I think just finding out what that is for you
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and anyone can do that is just figure out your
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own interests and get into a place where you can
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express your own creativity.
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Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, I love that you said, I took the
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journey again. It was like, I'd done this journey and
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I took the journey again. So like, walk us through, like,
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when you took the journey again, what did that feel
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like for you? Like, what did you notice? What else?
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Because since you had already done this once and now
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you're here doing it again, you know, but on paper
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and in a different way, what were some of the,
17:37
like the ahas or the things that came up for
17:39
you that you were like, Oh, I, you know, cause
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I have had the same thing happen. My, you know,
17:44
with the way of the initiate and my initiation, I
17:47
had an experience in Egypt when I went through this initiation,
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but it wasn't until about two years later when I
17:53
started telling, sharing the stories and being that, that I started, Oh,
17:58
that's what that was. Oh, That's what that was. And
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I'm wondering if you had a similar experience.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely. So people had told me after the Camino,
18:08
we should write about it because people are always interested.
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Speaker 1: And I'd said, sure.
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Speaker 2: And I just hadn't done it. And then when everything
18:14
kind of collapsed in my own life, I had actually
18:17
gone to a Reiki session. And I'll say her name
18:19
because I cannot thank her enough. Daniela Fisher is the
18:24
Reiki practitioner. practitioner who I saw and who's the most
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sort of compassionate and powerful and an amazing person who
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just was there for me in that moment. And she,
18:35
after the very first session, when I was just in
18:37
a state of absolute collapse, she said to me, you
18:39
need to write. And when she said that to me,
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I knew immediately why. I knew I had to write
18:45
about the Camino. And so I started the next day
18:48
and it was interesting because I actually was very angry
18:51
with the Camino. I had blamed it Because after the Camino,
18:55
I felt so good. I felt I was just in
18:57
such a state of trust with the universe and I
18:59
felt so open. And then that's when much worse things happened.
19:04
And I thought, oh, if I hadn't trusted, if I
19:07
hadn't believed that life could be good, this wouldn't have happened.
19:11
And so the book actually was a bit begrudging. I
19:15
knew I had to write it, but I felt a bit,
19:18
you know, it wasn't sort of this cheerful process. As
19:21
I wrote it, I remembered everything again, why I did it,
19:24
how excruciating it was. It wasn't fun. A lot of
19:28
people love the Camino because they drink wine and eat
19:30
good food and make friends. I mean, I just didn't
19:33
do any of that. I was in excruciating pain most
19:36
of the time. But I realized other things. And so
19:39
for me, writing that again just brought me back to
19:44
every single lesson and all the things that I had
19:46
to face about myself, about life, about everything. everything being
19:51
put into perspective. And so, yeah, the book actually really
19:56
brought me to those lessons. But now that I was
19:58
at a different place in my life, it gave them
20:00
even more meaning.
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Speaker 1: I mean, just listening to you, I can see like
20:15
resilience and persistence. I mean, most people that would embark
20:20
on a journey like that, first off, wouldn't be injured, right?
20:24
And wouldn't make a plan, would probably go with some
20:29
friends or whatever. And so this was like that. It's
20:32
the hero's journey, that solo journey. And you're wounded. You're
20:36
not even 100% yourself. And yet you had the fortitude
20:40
and the resilience and the, you know, to keep getting
20:44
up every day. And that says something deep. I mean,
20:47
that in itself is transformational work is what do you
20:50
do when you get up every single day, even when
20:54
you don't want to, even when you're in pain, even
20:56
when it's, you're at the worst that you, that you
20:59
could be and you, and you proceed on knowing that,
21:04
knowing that there's this this goal, this thing that you
21:07
have in mind that is so important. That's so important.
21:14
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's funny because I didn't really know why.
21:17
I still knew it was important. I knew I had
21:19
to do it. I just couldn't figure out why. And
21:21
there were most days, not even some days, where I
21:24
thought I might not make it. I can remember one day,
21:27
because I did the longest of the Kaminovs, which also
21:31
has its own story of why I selected that. But I...
21:35
was probably half or two thirds of the way, something
21:38
like that. And I was walking and I was almost
21:41
finished for the day. I had, I think, six kilometers
21:43
to go, but my leg just totally seized up. I
21:46
couldn't move it at all. So I just kind of
21:50
laid down on the path because there was nowhere to sit.
21:54
And I just sort of sat there and I took
21:55
a bunch of anti-inflammatories and it started raining. And I thought,
22:00
you know, I'm going to see if I can get help.
22:02
Because normally you don't want to, you know, get help
22:04
because then it sort of, I felt like I was
22:06
cheating or something. So I thought I'll call a taxi.
22:08
I don't know. I just, I can't walk. But of
22:10
course they were out of range and then nobody came
22:12
by because I was sort of in this very isolated place.
22:16
And so I just waited maybe 45 minutes just laying
22:19
there in the rain. And then eventually the inflammation came
22:23
down enough to bend my leg a little and I
22:25
carried on. And I don't know what it was about
22:29
that moment, but it just made me realize like it's
22:31
not about my leg bending or not. You know, there
22:35
are other things inside of me that can help me
22:38
to keep going. Yeah.
22:40
Speaker 1: And I find it fascinating. Also, you said it was like,
22:42
I didn't realize until later why I kept going. It
22:44
wasn't about the ending, the goal, right? I think so
22:47
many times, how many times I've created a goal or said,
22:49
I'm going to do this thing thinking that I was
22:51
going to get one thing out of it. And that
22:53
is never, you know, and then you finish it or
22:56
you do the thing and you realize that there's a
22:58
whole nother experience or lesson or reason behind why I
23:02
had to finish that thing. And it was not ever
23:04
the reason that I thought it was.
23:07
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was so surprised. One of the big things
23:09
that came up for me was the idea of fun,
23:12
which seemed, I mean, I judged it even then. I thought, oh,
23:15
that's irresponsible, you know. But then I realized, like, my
23:18
life had become so closed down, so not fun, so
23:23
not engaging, so not vibrant. And then, yeah, just this
23:28
idea of giving myself the permission to to have fun
23:31
and to not judge myself by how much work I
23:34
can do. And, you know, all these all these other
23:36
things that we use as as our markers in life.
23:39
And so it actually was very empowering. I know that
23:42
sounds kind of strange as a sort of this big
23:45
epiphany that you should have fun in life. But for me,
23:48
that was actually a really important thing and something beautiful. Yeah.
23:51
Speaker 1: Well, and this was this was the precursor to you
23:54
starting this work as a transformational coach. could possibly be
23:57
that if you hadn't figured out that fun and those
24:00
different things that you wouldn't have been open to a
24:02
whole new path in your in your world yeah yeah
24:06
so what does transformational coaching mean to.
24:09
Speaker 2: You well I think it really taps into other parts
24:15
of yourself so I mean in my other work that
24:18
I do as a consultant, it's always about data and
24:21
decisions and evidence and all these things. And so I
24:24
think the transformational piece, the reason I found it so
24:27
powerful is that you tap into your heart, you tap
24:30
into your body, into sort of greater wisdom than yourself, right?
24:34
So you can, you know, people interpret that differently. It
24:37
can mean nature, it can mean science, it can mean
24:40
spiritual sort of experiences. And all of those things are
24:45
places where we get information and that we are connected to,
24:48
but we often don't interact with them when we're trying
24:51
to make a decision or think about our lives. And
24:53
so for me, transformational coaching isn't about telling anybody what
24:57
to do or, you know, I'm not handing out advice,
24:59
but I'm just there as a partner really and supporting
25:03
that energy shift. And so for me, I see it
25:05
as really just supporting somebody to allow that energy to
25:09
flow and find out what's there.
25:11
Speaker 1: Yeah. And so what is... Your company is called Flourish, right?
25:17
That's your coaching program. So what do people most often
25:21
come to you seeking?
25:24
Speaker 2: Well, so it's sort of two things, because on one hand,
25:26
I work with people who are in sort of, you know,
25:29
high achievers in leadership roles who are looking for sort
25:33
of a thinking partner or somebody to support them through coaching.
25:36
you know, the loneliness sometimes, right? They, you know, people
25:39
say it's lonely at the top.
25:40
Speaker 1: Well, it's true.
25:40
Speaker 2: When you have that much responsibility, sometimes you want to
25:43
be able to receive support, but also to think about
25:46
yourself in that, especially for women, because, you know, we're
25:49
told to be a certain way. And so to find
25:51
your own style is actually really powerful. That's one side
25:54
of the work. And then the transformational side is really
25:57
more about people generally who, you You are in a
26:03
great life, but you don't know yourself anymore. You just
26:06
nothing satisfies. So it's it's a little bit different in
26:10
terms of who is interested in that kind of transformational coaching.
26:14
But generally, it's people who, for whatever reason, life is
26:18
just not working as a match for who they are
26:21
right now. And that transformational piece helps them to go
26:24
into it much more deeply to really see who's in there.
26:28
Who do I want to be? And especially at a
26:30
certain age, people just want to live, right? They want
26:33
to live well. They want to live abundantly. And we've
26:36
all followed so many rules in our lives. And I
26:38
think there's that point where people come to and.
26:40
Speaker 1: Say, that's not the only thing.
26:43
Speaker 2: And I really want to understand myself better to really
26:46
live out the rest of my life in a more beautiful, connected,
26:51
engaged way. Yeah.
26:53
Speaker 1: Yeah. What's the difference between living a successful life and
26:56
living a fulfilled life? fulfillment, right? Success is something that
27:01
I can say I have on paper that, you know,
27:03
the outside world looks at me and says, oh, she's
27:05
really successful. And then it's like, and, you know, am
27:09
I really fulfilled in my life and knowing who I
27:13
am and seeking the ways that are calling to me and,
27:17
you know, in my deepest desires, you know, because a
27:21
lot of people that are successful have followed the rules.
27:23
They followed the rules of what was told was going
27:26
to make them happy and they wake up one day
27:27
and they're like, ah, yeah, not so much anymore.
27:31
Speaker 2: Because there's a time where that stuff works, right? I mean,
27:34
I've been through it too. I followed the rules. I
27:37
did the things. I got all the credentials and I
27:39
was happy about that. That felt good for me. So
27:42
it's not a negation of any of those things. It's
27:44
just a recognition that there's a point where you've grown
27:46
into somebody else and you want to find your own
27:48
life that matches.
27:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. Find a life that matches where, because that is,
27:53
we do, we grow over time. Things shift, things change. uh,
27:57
we look at things differently that, you know, maybe the
27:59
kids leave the house or you go through a divorce
28:00
or you move, you know, you have to move or,
28:02
or you've, or you've hit the top of the ladder
28:04
wherever you're at. And you're just like, so I'm here now,
28:07
now what?
28:08
Speaker 2: Right.
28:08
Speaker 1: And then, and then how do I find the next
28:11
thing that's going to awaken me and, uh, you know, and,
28:14
and find the truth of what, what is my soul's
28:17
calling or my heart's desire or that, or that deeper
28:19
meaning in life. Yeah. Yeah. Beautiful. I really love the, um,
28:26
You're literally helping people to flourish, to help them to
28:29
understand that. One of the things that you said with
28:33
the big piece you were talking about, what are some
28:35
of the steps? I want to go back to this
28:37
idea of surrender because I think that is something for
28:40
so many people that they're like, yeah, I hear you.
28:44
But what, how, how do I really do that? What,
28:46
you know, what's the, what's the key to surrender? What
28:50
does that really look like? So when you say surrender,
28:52
what is that, what, what would that look like for someone? And,
28:56
you know, how will they know if they actually have surrendered?
28:59
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I'll start off by saying it's not easy. So,
29:03
I mean, I literally spent the last two years every
29:06
day telling myself to surrender. I put out, you know, affirmations.
29:09
I did all kinds of rituals. I did all kinds
29:11
of things and I did not get there. So, you know,
29:14
just bear in mind that surrender is not an easy thing.
29:18
And people throw it around like this. It's this great thing.
29:20
And in theory, it is. But, you know, we I
29:23
think as humans, we want to have a certain amount
29:25
of control because it gives us a sense of safety.
29:28
And I think that for me was huge because I
29:31
felt like, well, if I surrender, if I give in,
29:33
if I accept this, then I've said it's OK, you know,
29:37
and it's not OK. And so. I think you have
29:41
to come to terms with a very long list of things.
29:44
And that will maybe be different for different people. But
29:47
it can be, you know, for me anyway, it was
29:50
especially that sense of control in the sense that, well,
29:52
if this thing is wrong, then I can't sort of
29:55
let it go. Right. I have to do something. And
29:58
then there's also, I think, in surrender, a certain looking
30:03
inside yourself and saying, well, what is this for? What
30:06
am I kind of not, like, why am I fighting?
30:09
Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
30:11
Speaker 2: You know, there's an author from Montreal, Kim Thuy, and
30:15
I saw her years ago. She was at a writing
30:18
festival and she talked about, she's from Vietnam, and she
30:22
was talking about the people who were kind of fleeing.
30:26
And she said the people who were swimming and trying
30:29
to save themselves were generally the ones that actually didn't
30:32
make it. She said the people who just kind of
30:34
floated and just let go were the ones that were
30:39
carried with the flow. And that's a very difficult thing
30:43
to think about because that's life or death, right? And
30:47
I think in life, we often in seeing something we
30:52
don't want, we don't want it. And so I think
30:56
the idea of acceptance isn't about accepting the thing you
31:00
don't want or the thing you don't like. It's about
31:03
accepting that life is way bigger than what you can
31:05
see maybe in this moment. And so that's where.
31:09
Speaker 1: I think bigger than what you see in this moment. Yeah.
31:12
Speaker 2: Yeah. So for a lot of people, I think working
31:14
on your perspective, which also is a big job, that's
31:18
your whole lifetime of of everything that you've been taught,
31:21
everything you've learned, everything you've become. But just really looking
31:25
at that and especially the idea. I mean, people also
31:28
throw around this kind of idea of, oh, it's in
31:30
your your ego. And that's part of it, though, right?
31:35
It is true that you also, I think, in the
31:37
exercise for me is to look at other parts of yourself,
31:40
not the part of yourself that you want to show
31:43
to the world, not the part of yourself that you're
31:44
proud of, not the part of yourself that you're comfortable with.
31:48
Speaker 1: It's all the other parts. Yeah. I find it profound,
31:52
the story you shared about the escaping from Vietnam, you know,
31:56
that the idea of like those that were like really
31:58
trying were the ones that weren't making it of I
32:01
had a similar experience in 2017. I was in Pokhara,
32:07
Nepal for the month and I'm like hiking the mountains,
32:09
you know, doing that, but I'd also stayed. And I
32:11
wanted to take a canoe, you know, a boat across
32:16
to see a golden Buddha and come back. And everybody
32:18
had people like giving them, and I'm like, I'm an athlete.
32:21
I don't need anybody to take me. I'm going to
32:22
go do it by myself, you know, so I'm oaring
32:24
over there. And the whole way over there, I'm like fighting.
32:27
And I'm like, you know, just fighting the... the waves
32:31
and everything and stuff. And by the time I get there,
32:32
I'm like, oh, I gotta hike the mountain, go see
32:34
the golden Buddha. And I'm just kind of like, now
32:36
I gotta go back. And I remember coming back and
32:38
the same thing, you know, these, the waves are there
32:41
and it's, it's a lake. It's not that bad, but
32:44
I'm fighting it so hard. I'm going in circles. I'm
32:47
not making it anywhere. And I got so upset that
32:50
I picked up one of the oars and I just
32:52
like went like, and I cracked it in half and
32:54
I broke it. And I was like, well, now what
32:57
are you going to do with one oar? So I
32:59
like sitting there with both of the oars and I'm
33:01
just like, wow, there's nothing I can really do. And
33:03
it was a moment of surrender for me. There was
33:05
nothing I could do. And magically, not magically, right? Magically,
33:09
I floated back to where I needed to go. And
33:12
I was like, thank you for the lesson, right? I
33:16
was actually reading at that time, The Surrender Experiment by
33:18
Michael Singer. thinking that I was surrendering in my life,
33:21
recognizing that I was not surrendering, you know, and then
33:25
this happened and I'm like, yeah, sometimes when you let
33:30
go of control and you surrender, things just go the
33:34
way they're meant to go, you know? And so it's
33:37
such a beautiful lesson of like, when you said that
33:39
about the Vietnamese, I'm like, oh my gosh, like, yeah,
33:43
sometimes we think by controlling it, that we're going to
33:47
get to exactly where we need to go. That is
33:49
But it was a lot heck of a harder to
33:51
do it than if I had just, I say it
33:55
in the realms of like, the universe organizes the grass
34:00
so that it grows. You know, everything is in abundance.
34:03
There's a multitude. Everything is there. You know, everything comes
34:07
in this beautiful. And I think that I have more
34:09
control than that. Oh, no.
34:13
Speaker 2: Right?
34:13
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.
34:15
Speaker 2: And that's the thing we forget. Like if I were
34:18
in charge of beating my own heart and taking every breath,
34:22
I would forget. Like I wouldn't make it, you know? Yeah.
34:24
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. So thankfully there are other things out there
34:28
helping you. Yeah. Good point. Yeah. We, we are, uh,
34:36
there are things that is beautiful. Like, yeah, we want
34:38
the goals and the desires and have those things, but
34:41
it's like, I set that and then if I allow
34:45
the magic of the world and the universe to show
34:48
me the way instead of controlling it, I always say
34:50
it's like, if you have a horse, And it has
34:52
blinders on. It has one focus and I only can
34:54
see one thing. There's one path. There's only one way
34:57
to get to the destination. And it could be the
34:59
longest one because I don't know because I'm not seeing
35:00
anything else. And then if I take those blinders off,
35:03
if I allow that to open, then I have all
35:06
these other options. And that's what the universe is trying
35:08
to give us is like all these other options, all
35:10
these other things. And we're just like, no, my way
35:12
is the best way. I'm going to hold on tight.
35:15
Speaker 2: Yeah. And that's what I've spent my career doing, right?
35:18
It's helping people to plan things, figure out how to
35:20
get there, figure out how it's going, what they want
35:23
to change, but always with that vision in mind. And
35:26
so this process is basically the opposite. So for me,
35:28
it's been very counterintuitive, but also extremely powerful. Because I
35:34
think one of the other things about transformational coaching that's
35:37
interesting is in general, we are moving towards, like you said,
35:41
a goal, right? You see the finish line, that's where
35:43
you're going. And when you get derailed, you just want
35:46
to get back on track, right? You want to go
35:48
back to the path that was there and just follow it.
35:51
And I think in transformation, you go through this experience
35:54
of looking inside yourself and finding out, is this actually
35:57
the path for me? Maybe not, you know, and then
36:01
you're actually not really orienting yourself to these goals. You're
36:04
orienting yourself to all of these other bigger.
36:08
Speaker 1: Things out there.
36:09
Speaker 2: In yourself, in the universe. And like you said, that
36:13
opens up so many more possibilities that you couldn't even
36:15
yourself have come up with.
36:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, because really in the end, what is the true goal?
36:20
The true goal is never really the relationship or the
36:22
home or the thing. It's something greater than that. It's
36:26
a feeling of peace or a feeling of happiness or
36:28
joy or love or something that is what's beneath the
36:33
why of the thing that I want over just the
36:37
thing that I think that I want. Because that's just
36:39
the means to the end. What is the actual end?
36:41
Like you said, you went to Italy. So you're in Italy,
36:44
the end of the end of the earth. What was
36:45
the name of the place again? Oh, Finisterra.
36:48
Speaker 2: Yeah.
36:48
Speaker 1: Finisterra.
36:49
Speaker 2: Right.
36:49
Speaker 1: Right. And so there's this thing of like, what is
36:52
the actual end goal? What is the actual thing? It's
36:55
actually not. The other things are just points along the
36:59
way that are leading us to the greater purpose, the
37:02
greater goal, the greater thing that I want. Yeah.
37:06
Speaker 2: Yeah. And yeah, and I just, I fell in love
37:08
with who I was on the path, not at the
37:11
end of the path, you know?
37:14
Speaker 1: If everyone can fall in love with themselves of who
37:17
they are on the path, walking the path, then it
37:20
doesn't even make a difference what the destination is.
37:24
Speaker 2: Yeah.
37:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, beautiful. Oh my gosh, Sarah, what an incredible conversation
37:29
we have had today about the Camino Real and transformational
37:33
coaching and Flourish. And before we go, I have a
37:36
question that I love to ask everyone. This is the
37:40
High on Life podcast, so I want to know, what
37:42
does High on Life mean to you?
37:44
Speaker 2: I think High on Life means that you give yourself
37:50
a chance to find out what you're made of and
37:54
find out what's out there. Because I think it's always
37:57
more than we think it is. And the more open
37:59
we can be and the more generous we can be
38:02
to ourselves and to others, the more we get to
38:04
experience it.
38:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, beautiful. Is there anything else you would like to
38:08
share with our community today?
38:10
Speaker 2: No, I am so grateful to be here. And yeah,
38:16
it's wonderful to share this.
38:18
Speaker 1: You'll be able to connect with Sarah. and find out
38:21
more about Flourish and her transformational work. And as soon
38:24
as we have information about her Camino book, we will
38:27
also have that there for you. And you can go
38:30
to below, find out about The Way of the Initiate,
38:34
Stories of Remembering and Awaking a New Human, our co-author
38:37
book that is coming out in September, and our online summit,
38:41
The Way of the Initiate. Both are down below, and
38:44
you can check all of those out. Thank you again, Sarah,
38:46
so much for flourishing us today.
38:51
Speaker 2: Thank you.
38:54
Speaker 1: Take a moment and notice what shifted for you in
38:56
this episode. If something opened, clicked or landed, share this
39:00
episode with someone in your life who's ready for more.
39:03
And if you're ready to experience a different kind of high,
39:06
one that comes from being fully present in your life,
39:08
not chasing something outside of you, download my free BlissRx
39:13
toolkit in the show notes. Inside, you'll find simple, powerful
39:16
practices to help you regulate your energy, shift your state,
39:20
and create more flow and synchronicity in your daily life.
39:23
Make sure you're following the show and I'll meet you
39:25
back here for the next episode. Get high on life.