Latest / Mind Over Mountain / Alone at Sea: Sarah Outen on Isolation, Survival, and Inner Strength

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Alone at Sea: Sarah Outen on Isolation, Survival, and Inner Strength · Mind Over Mountain

• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Hi everyone, I'm Cheryl stra. Welcome to mind o Our Mountain,
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: where I have conversations with women about the epic and
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: interesting things they do, and their lives and their sport.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: My guest today is Sarah Utten, the extraordinary adventurer who
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: has circumnavigated the globe on kayak, rowboat, and bicycle. Before
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: that big adventure, she went solo across the Indian Ocean
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: in two thousand and nine. She was the youngest woman
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: and only woman to do that solo. In our conversation,
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: we talk about everything from those epic adventures, from dealing
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: with fear and drawing upon your courage and making the
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: right and wrong decisions, and also about how venturing into
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: the natural world can be a profound healing journey when
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: it comes to reckoning with our grief and our loss.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: Let's listen to my conversation with Sarah. Sarah Utin, Welcome
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: to mind Over Mountain.
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: Thank you for having me. Good to be here.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: I'm really thrilled to talk to you because I have
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: followed your amazing adventures over a long time. I guess
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: I was thinking about when I first became aware of you.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: I think it was that I first read your amazing
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: book Dare to Do, which, of course chronicles your epic
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: journey by sea and land and bicycle and kayak and
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: rowing boat.
• 1:31
  Speaker 3: But I always like.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: To begin with I guess the origin story that very
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: first big expedition you took you were that you rode
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: solo right from Australia to Mauritius across the Indian Ocean.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: And I think, were you the first solo woman to
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: have done so, or the youngest or both?
• 1:51
  Speaker 4: I think the both, Yeah, the both. At that point
• 1:55
  Speaker 4: the book, I think, yeah.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: And this was back in two thousand and nine, and
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: you were what twenty two, twenty three years old?
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  Speaker 4: Twenty three years old. The idea for that journey had come,
• 2:10
  Speaker 4: I guess three years before. I was a student at
• 2:13
  Speaker 4: university and part of the rowing club there, and an
• 2:18
  Speaker 4: email came around the all the different boat clubs this
• 2:21
  Speaker 4: one day advertising ocean rowing races, and to me it
• 2:25
  Speaker 4: just seemed like the perfect adventure. I loved the oceans,
• 2:28
  Speaker 4: I loved rowing. I'd never put the two together before.
• 2:31
  Speaker 4: I didn't even know that was a thing that I
• 2:33
  Speaker 4: had this sense of, I'm going to do that. After
• 2:37
  Speaker 4: I finished university, I'd had plans to go into the
• 2:40
  Speaker 4: army on a scholarship that that had kind of been
• 2:44
  Speaker 4: revoked essentially because I'd injured my knee and I had
• 2:48
  Speaker 4: an autoimmune condition that had kind of come about around
• 2:50
  Speaker 4: about that time, and so I had this sense of
• 2:53
  Speaker 4: I don't have a plan for after university, yet this
• 2:56
  Speaker 4: is going to be the plan. And I thought I'd
• 2:59
  Speaker 4: go with a team of people, because why would I
• 3:02
  Speaker 4: go solo? That also had not occurred to me, and
• 3:05
  Speaker 4: so started making kind of preparations in terms of just
• 3:10
  Speaker 4: finding out, you know, how would we do that, who
• 3:12
  Speaker 4: would come with me, that sort of thing. And a
• 3:15
  Speaker 4: few months into that very early kind of process, my
• 3:19
  Speaker 4: father died suddenly and unexpectedly, and it shifted I mean,
• 3:25
  Speaker 4: it shifted a lot of things for me, but it
• 3:26
  Speaker 4: certainly shifted the focus of that row. I had a
• 3:30
  Speaker 4: strong sense very quickly that I still wanted to row
• 3:33
  Speaker 4: across an ocean, but that actually it was going to
• 3:36
  Speaker 4: be my way to get through grief. So I needed
• 3:38
  Speaker 4: to do it so low. And so that's how I
• 3:41
  Speaker 4: came to find myself in Mauritius, sorry not in Mauritius,
• 3:45
  Speaker 4: in Australia at twenty three years old with a six
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  Speaker 4: meter long rowing boat, and there I was looking out
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  Speaker 4: to see thinking, oh my gosh, this is way bigger
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  Speaker 4: than I.
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  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 4:00
  Speaker 4: I sort of thought, you know that that moment of
• 4:02
  Speaker 4: you're about to go and it hits you what you're
• 4:06
  Speaker 4: taking on. And I had a failed attempt to start
• 4:10
  Speaker 4: with ten days out from the start.
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: I was back at the start.
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: Wow, I didn't know that.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, the ocean has been a great teacher of how
• 4:20
  Speaker 4: to fail for me.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm imagining it's pretty good at that. Yeah.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, there was something really powerful in that because I
• 4:31
  Speaker 4: kind of nicknamed it my warm up lap because actually
• 4:34
  Speaker 4: it had been a great sort of shakedown, and it
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  Speaker 4: somehow took the pressure off the next start because I thought, oh.
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: I've already had a go at that.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, And so a week later I set out again
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  Speaker 4: and had four of the most extraordinary months of my life.
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  Speaker 4: They really shaped a lot of things in me.
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  Speaker 1: I think, right, you know, I think that it's interesting
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  Speaker 1: to to fail, and I mean fail is a strong
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: word obviously, but you know, to be turned back so
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: early in the journey, some people would have said, isn't
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  Speaker 1: this means I can't do it? But you decided, okay,
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  Speaker 1: I mean I think that that humility, right, is a
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: huge part of success. You know, what do you think
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: went into that decision where you didn't take failure as
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  Speaker 1: the sign to turn back, you took it as the
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: lesson that would allow you to continue on and succeed.
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  Speaker 4: I think that word humility is just so apt for
• 5:31
  Speaker 4: the ocean, but also lots of well, lots of life. Really,
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  Speaker 4: I think that is one of the most important things.
• 5:39
  Speaker 4: I failed in as much as I didn't get to
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  Speaker 4: where I'd intended to go, but in terms of keeping
• 5:45
  Speaker 4: myself safe and keeping the boat safe, well those had happened.
• 5:49
  Speaker 4: And actually I'd learned various useful things in those ten days,
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  Speaker 4: things that I thought perhaps I didn't need to bring
• 5:58
  Speaker 4: with me, or things like something really sort of it
• 6:02
  Speaker 4: feels really obvious once you've been through it, but I
• 6:04
  Speaker 4: hadn't thought of it beforehand, was what I would eat
• 6:08
  Speaker 4: in those first few days, because actually I was horribly
• 6:10
  Speaker 4: sea sick, and so it made me kind of change
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  Speaker 4: my food set up for that first little bit of
• 6:18
  Speaker 4: the journey, and so it was a real confidence boost
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  Speaker 4: in some ways, Like I'd never spent ten days alone
• 6:23
  Speaker 4: at sea before, So to sort of have that was like, well, okay,
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  Speaker 4: I can do that, And there was something of just
• 6:33
  Speaker 4: accepting again, that kind of humility, and yeah, the word
• 6:36
  Speaker 4: acceptance comes in around well, what can we control and
• 6:40
  Speaker 4: what can't we control? We can't control the weather, and
• 6:43
  Speaker 4: so the weather had shifted from what had been forecasts.
• 6:46
  Speaker 4: So we'd set out with good intent and sort of
• 6:50
  Speaker 4: safe forecasts, but of course things change, and so actually
• 6:54
  Speaker 4: that weather shift had meant that I couldn't get safely
• 6:57
  Speaker 4: away from the coast, and I'd got caught up in
• 7:00
  Speaker 4: a current that pulled me way south and I ended
• 7:03
  Speaker 4: up turning back in So turning back is sometimes not
• 7:09
  Speaker 4: just the only thing to do, but like the best
• 7:11
  Speaker 4: thing to do as well, you know, in terms of safety.
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: On my long hike on the Pacific Crest Trail, I
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: realized I had a similar thing about you know, the
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: first eight or nine days, I didn't even see another
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: human I did. I had put the wrong gas in
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: my stove, so I couldn't cook any of the food
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: I'd brought, and everything went wrong, and I was like,
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: you know, I did it all wrong.
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  Speaker 3: But I also learned so much.
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  Speaker 1: If I had quit after day nine that would have
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: still been a formative experience, but I retreated, went back, said, whoops, okay,
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: let's correct. Let's take in those lessons of humility and
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: also practical lessons and then go onward with strength. And
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: you know, I think that that probably is is a
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: really common experience in journey an adventure, wouldn't you say?
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: I agree?
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  Speaker 4: And I love that phrase. You ended with their onward
• 8:03
  Speaker 4: with strength, you know, and certainly for me. I don't
• 8:06
  Speaker 4: know how it was for you, But through my big journeys,
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  Speaker 4: there's been a real shift in my almost my sense
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  Speaker 4: of what that strength looks like and what it means
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  Speaker 4: and how to cultivate it, and in that idea of
• 8:23
  Speaker 4: sort of toughness and resilience that actually there's so much
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  Speaker 4: that's about flex and softness and humility. My younger self
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  Speaker 4: had a distorted sense of that. She thought it was
• 8:36
  Speaker 4: all about pushing on at all costs. And that's been
• 8:41
  Speaker 4: a lesson that, yeah, I learned both during my sort
• 8:45
  Speaker 4: of big journeys and then also more afterwards as well
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  Speaker 4: as my body kind of body mind being recalibrated from
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  Speaker 4: it all and processed some of the perhaps more difficult experiences.
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: I mean, I think that comes to some degree with aid.
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: But the experience of these kind of adventures, which which
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  Speaker 1: I think are so much all about being framed as
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  Speaker 1: a kind of toughness determination, a decision never to give
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: up or you know, never never, never give up, that
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  Speaker 1: famous quote, which and I have held onto those messages.
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  Speaker 1: I'm sure you have to at certain points in your life.
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  Speaker 1: But I'm with you, sister, It's all about in the end,
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  Speaker 1: you know, the big message is about those those about gentleness,
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  Speaker 1: about forgiveness, about surrender, about acceptance and softness. As you say,
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  Speaker 1: I mean, I want to hear about the tough stuff
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  Speaker 1: in your trip. But I'm also curious about you know,
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  Speaker 1: you did begin with that first journey saying, you know,
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  Speaker 1: I wanted to take this because I wanted something to
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  Speaker 1: help me get through my grief. Another thing we share.
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  Speaker 1: I lost my mom died suddenly when I was twenty two.
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  Speaker 1: I was in college as well, and that is why
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  Speaker 1: I went, like the Pacific Crest Trail. I was grieving,
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  Speaker 1: And I'm curious how how your grief journey went, how
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  Speaker 1: that roll across the Indian Ocean did help you heal
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  Speaker 1: or at least reckon with some of the feelings you
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: were having about the loss of your father, and I'm
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  Speaker 1: so sorry for your last by the way, all right.
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  Speaker 2: Back at you, sister too, Thank you face.
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  Speaker 4: It really shook shook my sense of life in some
• 10:28
  Speaker 4: ways when my dad died. You know, that was my
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  Speaker 4: first big shock of this is mortality. You know, my
• 10:35
  Speaker 4: dad who had been ill with rheumatoid arthritis for most
• 10:43
  Speaker 4: of my life and it had got progressively worse sort of.
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  Speaker 2: Through my teens.
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  Speaker 4: He'd been in and out of hospital at different times,
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  Speaker 4: and I always had this sense of, yeah, my dad
• 10:55
  Speaker 4: has this sort of condition that really limits a lot
• 10:58
  Speaker 4: of what he can do at times, but he always
• 11:01
  Speaker 4: bounces back.
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  Speaker 2: He's always okay.
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  Speaker 4: And so to have that what felt like a real
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  Speaker 4: kind of earthquake of oh gosh, he's mortal obviously, as
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  Speaker 4: everyone is. I think having the goal of that row,
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  Speaker 4: the focus of this project to give myself to was
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  Speaker 4: powerful in pulling me through that final year of university.
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  Speaker 4: And in fact, I was back at my old college
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  Speaker 4: the other day meeting the boat club and they asked me,
• 11:35
  Speaker 4: you know, what was the meaning of the boat club
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  Speaker 4: to you? And it was such a place of sanctuary
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  Speaker 4: and solace to be out on the water. There was
• 11:43
  Speaker 4: a quote that I wrote on sort of the door
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  Speaker 4: of my cabin, this too shall pass in that sense
• 11:51
  Speaker 4: of storms, like no storm can run on forever. And yes,
• 11:55
  Speaker 4: my dad is no longer alive, He's always going to
• 11:59
  Speaker 4: be dead.
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  Speaker 2: In that way.
• 12:00
  Speaker 4: But I had this trust that as almost like as
• 12:04
  Speaker 4: the ocean progressed, that actually my grief was changing shape
• 12:09
  Speaker 4: and texture and softening somehow.
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  Speaker 1: It's almost as if you know when we're writing about it,
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: I know you've written about it too.
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  Speaker 3: It's like we have to.
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: Tampen down the metaphors because they're so I mean, they're
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: just right there right you knows you as you describe
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  Speaker 1: so beautifully the way the ocean, the way the ocean lives,
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: evokes entirely grief and entirely all kinds of things. You know,
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  Speaker 1: Sometimes we float and sometimes we sink, and sometimes it's
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: raging and storming, and sometimes it's calm and breathtakingly beautiful,
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: and we feel like all is right in the world.
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  Speaker 1: And I think that I know you are too, such
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: a proponent of going into nature to heal, because it
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  Speaker 1: reminds us I think of the most profoundly true things
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: about human existence or existence I want even put human.
• 13:01
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I'd say that, and actually that reminder that we
• 13:04
  Speaker 4: are a part of it too, you know, we are
• 13:07
  Speaker 4: not separate to it. I think also in a human
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  Speaker 4: powered way brings you into that sort of the slowness
• 13:15
  Speaker 4: of the world around us, the fullness of the world
• 13:18
  Speaker 4: around us, in ways that I so holding and healing.
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: I call it life at foot speed because I'm a hiker.
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: I mean you you moved a little faster as a
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: cycler and a rower and a kayaker.
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: But but it is it's a way of seeing.
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: That is that is the most natural and ancient way,
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: which is you know that only at the speed that
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: that our bodies can make us go. And here again,
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: I think that this is about some kind of profound, primal,
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: ancient truth within us, right and that we see the world.
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: I remember on my hike thinking, I'm having a relationship
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: with the blades of grass that I walked past, and
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: the trees and the wind and the atmosphere and everything
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: in the natural world. And you know you spent so
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: much time alone. I did too, but you spent some
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: real solitude, which is so different than being lonely. I
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: want to say, because the word I have heard you
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: say over and over and it's the word I felt
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: too when I'm alone in nature especially, is connection and connectedness.
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  Speaker 1: What was that next expedition you went on a couple
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: of years after the first?
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: I shake my head in.
• 14:36
  Speaker 4: Amusement and awe at my younger self for making that jump.
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  Speaker 4: So whilst out on the ocean on that first journey,
• 14:45
  Speaker 4: I spent a lot of time thinking about what will
• 14:47
  Speaker 4: come next. And I had a place for a teacher
• 14:51
  Speaker 4: training course lined up when I got back, but I
• 14:55
  Speaker 4: sent them a message beforehand and saying, can we just
• 14:57
  Speaker 4: put that on pause just in case I don't make
• 14:59
  Speaker 4: it back in time. And so it felt like there
• 15:01
  Speaker 4: was a dichotomy in me of a teacher or actually
• 15:07
  Speaker 4: this idea that had kind of started to form whilst
• 15:09
  Speaker 4: out on the ocean, which was to join up the
• 15:13
  Speaker 4: other oceans and the other sort of join up the
• 15:16
  Speaker 4: other oceans with continents as well, traveling across across land
• 15:20
  Speaker 4: and see by human power. And I had this sense
• 15:24
  Speaker 4: that actually that would allow me both to adventure and
• 15:27
  Speaker 4: learn and experience myself and the world around me, to
• 15:32
  Speaker 4: meet people, because I didn't meet anybody on that first
• 15:37
  Speaker 4: ocean any humans anyway. And I had a sense that
• 15:43
  Speaker 4: I could kind of be a teacher whilst doing that
• 15:46
  Speaker 4: journey in terms of sharing the story, and there was
• 15:49
  Speaker 4: a strong educational.
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: Sort of arm to the expedition.
• 15:52
  Speaker 4: So there's coming back to that word of connection, just
• 15:55
  Speaker 4: in terms of my body and my health. There's been
• 15:58
  Speaker 4: a real shift in that connection too, of really understanding
• 16:06
  Speaker 4: I guess energy flow and what's needed and that actually
• 16:11
  Speaker 4: it's really important to rest before you get exhausted, which
• 16:15
  Speaker 4: was a total revelation.
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: We have this in common too. You named your boats
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: and bikes. I named my backpack monsters, and it's felt like,
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: you know, monsters actually just behind me on a shelf
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: you can't see, but it actually felt like my friend,
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: my best friend, but also connected to the people who
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: aren't there, both because they're dead like my mother and
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: your father, or because they're just far away.
• 16:47
  Speaker 3: And what's really powerful is how.
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: Solitude can bring you to a place of sort of
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: purity and gratitude for the relationships you have with people
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: back home. Right you think like, Okay, that thing that
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: that friend did or that sibling did that irritates me,
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: forget about it. I love them and I miss them,
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: and I treasure and cherish them, and I think solitude
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: can give us that corrective or reminder.
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: I'd agree. I'd agree.
• 17:16
  Speaker 4: I felt very connected to loved ones at home and
• 17:21
  Speaker 4: all the people who'd come together to help make the
• 17:24
  Speaker 4: journey happen as well. So there were lots of people
• 17:28
  Speaker 4: that had come together to help make the Indian Ocean
• 17:30
  Speaker 4: journey happen. And then you know, the London to London,
• 17:33
  Speaker 4: the kind of loop of the planet one was even
• 17:37
  Speaker 4: more people coming together. But I remember on the Indian Ocean,
• 17:40
  Speaker 4: I had really limited capacity to call in and speak
• 17:46
  Speaker 4: with people sort of over the satellite phone because it
• 17:49
  Speaker 4: was so expensive. For the other journey, I had a
• 17:52
  Speaker 4: satellite phone, so I was very fortunate in being able
• 17:55
  Speaker 4: to call lots of people. But I remember i'd make
• 17:58
  Speaker 4: one phone call a week, really and really savor it
• 18:02
  Speaker 4: and write play back the calls in my head and
• 18:05
  Speaker 4: think through and reflect on relationships with people and moments
• 18:11
  Speaker 4: and memories.
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: And so on.
• 18:12
  Speaker 4: And lots of people had written letters and sent some
• 18:16
  Speaker 4: small gifts for my birthday. So actually I've had some
• 18:20
  Speaker 4: of the most wonderful birthdays of my life alone at
• 18:23
  Speaker 4: sea and tiny boats. It's really lovely. That's all my
• 18:30
  Speaker 4: favorite times.
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: But I don't I just have to say, Sarah, let
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: us pause because you just said you're your loop around
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: the globe.
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: Okay, just to be.
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: Clear, I didn't tell if I.
• 18:43
  Speaker 3: Here's what I here's what I think it was in
• 18:44
  Speaker 3: list fashion. Okay.
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: You know, KAYAKT from London to France, check cycled across
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: Europe and Asia to the I guess the the far
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: eastern edge of Russia, is that right?
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: Yes?
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: Yes, Then KAYAKT and cycled to Japan, then rowed across
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: to the Aleutian Islands and down the Alaskan Peninsula right, which,
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: just by the way, is that is all right?
• 19:13
  Speaker 4: Yes?
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: So well there's two parts to that.
• 19:15
  Speaker 4: So rowed from Japan and the rowing boat across to
• 19:19
  Speaker 4: Aidak in the Aleutian Islands that followed a rescue from
• 19:23
  Speaker 4: the Pacific.
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: The year before.
• 19:26
  Speaker 4: Okay, And so this whole new part of the journey
• 19:30
  Speaker 4: came about by ending up on my second attempt ending
• 19:34
  Speaker 4: up in the Aleutian Islands. The original plan was for Vancouver, Canada,
• 19:38
  Speaker 4: but the weather just was not allowing it, and so
• 19:42
  Speaker 4: the plan changed again to go to Alaska and then
• 19:45
  Speaker 4: we kayaked the length of the Alaskan sorry, the Aleutian
• 19:50
  Speaker 4: Island Chain and Alaskan Peninsula.
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: I say we.
• 19:53
  Speaker 4: The kayaking sections were with another kayaker, Justine Kagenman, the
• 19:58
  Speaker 4: Queen of sea kayaking, and my and so once we
• 20:03
  Speaker 4: got to Homer, not yes, to Homer in Alaska. I
• 20:08
  Speaker 4: then got on my bike and cycled up over well
• 20:14
  Speaker 4: up and across the North American continent to Massachusetts, and
• 20:19
  Speaker 4: then set out in my rowing boat to row home
• 20:22
  Speaker 4: across the North Atlantic Ocean. I didn't row the final
• 20:26
  Speaker 4: six hundred miles of that ocean because a hurricane was
• 20:29
  Speaker 4: coming my way. And after my experiences on the Pacific
• 20:33
  Speaker 4: the first time where a tropical storm had damaged my boat,
• 20:37
  Speaker 4: I decided I was going to let go of returning
• 20:40
  Speaker 4: to that idea of surrender and letting go of earlier,
• 20:45
  Speaker 4: and I flew back to the UK and finally sort
• 20:50
  Speaker 4: of cycled and kayaked the last I don't know, five
• 20:53
  Speaker 4: hundred miles maybe something like that, back to London. So
• 20:56
  Speaker 4: it was a four and a half year about twenty
• 21:02
  Speaker 4: thousand miles or something, I don't know. It was a
• 21:04
  Speaker 4: lot of miles and it was a journey that took
• 21:08
  Speaker 4: twice as long as we first sort of imagined, and
• 21:12
  Speaker 4: had lots of moments of not going to plan if
• 21:16
  Speaker 4: the plan needing to change, of being really humbled by.
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: Natural happenings, the weather, and so on.
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: The most dramatic being it sounds like that rescue you
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: mentioned sort of a passing that from on that stretch
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: from Japan to Alaska you ran into. Was it a
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: hurricane or a tropical storm or is that the same thing?
• 21:42
  Speaker 4: It was, so a tropical storm is sort of the
• 21:45
  Speaker 4: precursor to the hurricane or the typhoon in that part
• 21:49
  Speaker 4: of the world, A hurricane be a typhoon, so it
• 21:53
  Speaker 4: was it was a typhoon, so typhoon mawer, and by
• 21:58
  Speaker 4: the time that it reached I See area, it had
• 22:03
  Speaker 4: dropped off a bit to a tropical storm, which I
• 22:07
  Speaker 4: mean the winds, the winds and waves sort of wind
• 22:11
  Speaker 4: speeds and waves that I experienced. Certainly according to the
• 22:14
  Speaker 4: weather router who was, you know, mapping everything, we're sort
• 22:19
  Speaker 4: of speeds of sixty miles an hour and wave fights
• 22:24
  Speaker 4: sort of topping out at twelve fifteen meters, which is
• 22:28
  Speaker 4: just phenomenal. I remember lying in my cabin so just
• 22:33
  Speaker 4: to paint the picture of the size of the boat
• 22:35
  Speaker 4: for listeners. The rowing boat was seven meters long. It
• 22:40
  Speaker 4: looks to me a little bit like I always liken
• 22:43
  Speaker 4: them to the lifeboats that you see on the side
• 22:45
  Speaker 4: of cruise ships, sort of capsule. Like you've got a
• 22:49
  Speaker 4: little cabin at one end for sleeping in, a little
• 22:52
  Speaker 4: cabin at the other end for storage, and an open
• 22:55
  Speaker 4: deck area. And the idea is, if you've packed everything
• 23:00
  Speaker 4: and the hatches aren't compromised, then if the boat capsizes,
• 23:06
  Speaker 4: the sort of gravity will do its thing. You've got
• 23:09
  Speaker 4: these big bulbus are kevins. They will rock background in
• 23:14
  Speaker 4: severe conditions. I would harness myself to my bunk because
• 23:19
  Speaker 4: that was the safest thing given capsize risk and so on,
• 23:24
  Speaker 4: and so essentially for three days I lay strapped to
• 23:27
  Speaker 4: my bunk whilst the storm did its thing outside. And
• 23:33
  Speaker 4: it was terrifying. It was absolutely terrifying. Something some people
• 23:38
  Speaker 4: say sometimes is I can't do what you did. I
• 23:41
  Speaker 4: would be so scared, And I say, well, I was
• 23:44
  Speaker 4: very scared often, particularly see I would never want to
• 23:48
  Speaker 4: lose that fear of some of those situations because it
• 23:51
  Speaker 4: keeps you safe, you know.
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: Going back to primal instincts and so on.
• 23:56
  Speaker 4: I remember there was something totally awesome about it as well.
• 24:00
  Speaker 4: I perhaps wasn't feeling that in the moments where it
• 24:03
  Speaker 4: was at its peak, But as the storm kind of
• 24:05
  Speaker 4: moved over and started to die down and the sun
• 24:10
  Speaker 4: was out, looking out through the tiny cabin, you know,
• 24:12
  Speaker 4: still strapped in my bunk, but looking out through the
• 24:14
  Speaker 4: tiny cabin window, it just looked like the Alps, you know,
• 24:18
  Speaker 4: these huge waves with foam everywhere and an albatross soaring
• 24:24
  Speaker 4: at different times. And I just thought, how phenomenal would
• 24:28
  Speaker 4: this be to experience this from the air and not
• 24:31
  Speaker 4: in a tiny boat, Because in the tiny boat it
• 24:34
  Speaker 4: was utter chaos. It was so loud and so violent
• 24:40
  Speaker 4: and so frightening.
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: And you were you were literally strapped in for three days.
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: I mean, how did you eat or drink or.
• 24:48
  Speaker 4: I mean tried not to. I sort of tried to
• 24:52
  Speaker 4: limit intake of the limit intake of food and water.
• 24:57
  Speaker 4: I peed where I lay unless there There were there
• 25:00
  Speaker 4: were some moments in the sort of either end of it,
• 25:02
  Speaker 4: as the storm builds and then drops, there were moments
• 25:07
  Speaker 4: I would like, hurriedly get up, quickly, pee in a
• 25:10
  Speaker 4: bucket and chuck it outside the door. That essentially it
• 25:14
  Speaker 4: was surviving in those conditions. It was, yeah, an experience
• 25:21
  Speaker 4: that I wouldn't wish on anybody.
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: And you had to be rescued, Is that right the
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: Japanese that's right.
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: Yes, that's right.
• 25:31
  Speaker 4: So I guess it was sort of halfway through or
• 25:34
  Speaker 4: so I'd clocked that various things had been damaged that
• 25:39
  Speaker 4: I didn't think we were going to be able to
• 25:42
  Speaker 4: repair and carry on safely, and so I called my
• 25:46
  Speaker 4: team in the UK and they sat in that kind
• 25:48
  Speaker 4: of cascade of seeking rescue from the japan Coast Guard,
• 25:55
  Speaker 4: who we'd been in contact with from the start, so
• 25:57
  Speaker 4: they sort of knew where I was.
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: And actually there was another British.
• 26:00
  Speaker 4: Rower at the time, Charlie Martel, maybe five hundred miles
• 26:06
  Speaker 4: away from me, maybe it was a bit close, so
• 26:08
  Speaker 4: I can't remember exactly well that he was. He was
• 26:10
  Speaker 4: also on the same quest to row across the Pacific,
• 26:12
  Speaker 4: and so he was also picked up by a different boat.
• 26:18
  Speaker 3: Wow. And what was the fallout for that? Personally? For you?
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: I mean, it sounds to me beyond I mean, you're
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: obviously an adventurous person.
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: You do things that are inherently scary.
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: But that seems like a different level of fear to
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: me that you actually you use that word survived, like
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: you actually thought you might not survive in the midst
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: of that.
• 26:42
  Speaker 3: It sounds like to me, what happened next for you
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: inside yourself.
• 26:48
  Speaker 4: Your boat, bike, rucksack, et cetera. Become your well, your team,
• 26:54
  Speaker 4: you're you're there for each other. I mean you literally
• 26:56
  Speaker 4: carried monster, carried everything you needed. Yeah, same way for
• 27:00
  Speaker 4: the boat, right, My sense has always been I keep
• 27:03
  Speaker 4: the boat safe. The boat keeps me safe. That is
• 27:05
  Speaker 4: my home, that is everything.
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: And also.
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: That's it.
• 27:11
  Speaker 4: But there's also something profound in or feels profound to me, as.
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: Gulliver was that boat.
• 27:18
  Speaker 4: Gulliver was the only one who knew what we've been
• 27:20
  Speaker 4: through together, whereas actually no other human had been in
• 27:26
  Speaker 4: that boat with me in a physical sense. And so
• 27:30
  Speaker 4: the coastguard couldn't take Gulliver, and sadly they removed the
• 27:35
  Speaker 4: tracker sort of unknowingly that you know, without knowing what
• 27:38
  Speaker 4: the GPS tracker was, And so Gulliver was lost at sea, and.
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: I felt bereft. I felt like I had abandoned Gulliver,
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: of course, and.
• 27:48
  Speaker 4: So I flew home to the UK full of this
• 27:54
  Speaker 4: experience that I'd just had, but sort of not knowing
• 27:57
  Speaker 4: what to do with it, and actually, looking back now,
• 28:02
  Speaker 4: I could have done with a different sort of support
• 28:05
  Speaker 4: and guidance through that, because the way I'd grown up
• 28:11
  Speaker 4: was you push on through, you keep on going. You
• 28:14
  Speaker 4: don't acknowledge when things are really difficult, when you're struggling,
• 28:19
  Speaker 4: And so it took a bit of time for almost
• 28:24
  Speaker 4: for things to get so bad for me that actually
• 28:27
  Speaker 4: I wasn't functioning around other people, and other people started
• 28:31
  Speaker 4: to say, hey, what's going on, how are you doing,
• 28:35
  Speaker 4: And in hearing stories from for example, one of my sponsors,
• 28:40
  Speaker 4: who is this amazing business woman who I had a
• 28:43
  Speaker 4: lot of respect for, hearing her talk about her own
• 28:46
  Speaker 4: struggles and similarly with other people gave me the almost
• 28:52
  Speaker 4: like the permission to let that be a really difficult
• 28:58
  Speaker 4: thing that had happened, and to kind of be with
• 29:02
  Speaker 4: the challenges of it.
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: Because I was still there was still a part of.
• 29:07
  Speaker 4: Me that was very focused on moving forwards and being
• 29:10
  Speaker 4: able to get back to the ocean. There was something
• 29:13
  Speaker 4: important for me about going back and having another go
• 29:18
  Speaker 4: kind of continuing.
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: The story that there was still so much of the.
• 29:21
  Speaker 4: Journey left to happen, and various people said to me, like,
• 29:25
  Speaker 4: why would you go back there when that could happen again,
• 29:29
  Speaker 4: And my answer was, well, but it might not happen again.
• 29:32
  Speaker 4: There's so much good that comes from the ocean, and
• 29:35
  Speaker 4: I had a sense that actually it would be a
• 29:36
  Speaker 4: healing experience to be back there and hopefully have a
• 29:41
  Speaker 4: different experience of the ocean and not have an encounter
• 29:45
  Speaker 4: with the tropical storm.
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: I guess ultimately you're right. You returned about nine months
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: later to finish the trip. Is that Is that right?
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 30:04
  Speaker 4: I mean, the first time in my life the insurance
• 30:07
  Speaker 4: has ever paid out amazingly, the insurance had even happened
• 30:12
  Speaker 4: to start with for the rowing boat that I was
• 30:14
  Speaker 4: able to buy a secondhand boat that happened to be
• 30:17
  Speaker 4: the sister boat to Gulliver. So that sister boat, Yeah,
• 30:20
  Speaker 4: that sister boat was called socks, which I thought was
• 30:23
  Speaker 4: something you might call.
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: A guinea pig or something like that.
• 30:26
  Speaker 4: Whereas my mom knits socks that are multicolored and they've
• 30:30
  Speaker 4: always made me really happy, so I called them happy socks,
• 30:33
  Speaker 4: and so I thought, okay, I could change the name
• 30:35
  Speaker 4: of the boat, but kind of keep the essence of
• 30:38
  Speaker 4: it too.
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 30:39
  Speaker 4: So yes, the following season, I was back in Japan
• 30:45
  Speaker 4: ready to go again, and this time I mean, I
• 30:50
  Speaker 4: love it. How each ocean journey has ended differently to
• 30:54
  Speaker 4: the way I imagined it might however, you know, however
• 30:58
  Speaker 4: that might be in each one. But the second attempt
• 31:01
  Speaker 4: on the Pacific was the one where again I'd been
• 31:05
  Speaker 4: aiming to road to Vancouver, but four months in I
• 31:09
  Speaker 4: wasn't even halfway across the ocean. My weather router had
• 31:12
  Speaker 4: to keep delivering this news to me of Sarah, I'm
• 31:15
  Speaker 4: really sorry, there's another ten days of headwinds. We just
• 31:18
  Speaker 4: weren't getting the kind of the breaks in the weather.
• 31:20
  Speaker 4: So going to the charts to sort of look for
• 31:23
  Speaker 4: a plan B. The only option really to be safe,
• 31:26
  Speaker 4: you know, to land somewhere safely, was for me to
• 31:28
  Speaker 4: row north to the Aleutian Islands in Alaska, which it's
• 31:33
  Speaker 4: an island chain that I hadn't really heard of before
• 31:35
  Speaker 4: that point, but it was a way to be able
• 31:39
  Speaker 4: to carry on the journey and to be safe. So
• 31:42
  Speaker 4: I landed there after one hundred and fifty days. At see,
• 31:47
  Speaker 4: i'd had five months to see at that point.
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: And then you just bicycle across North America. No a
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: small thing.
• 31:55
  Speaker 4: Well, so yeah, after the kayaking through the Allusions that
• 32:00
  Speaker 4: I returned home to the UK after the row because
• 32:04
  Speaker 4: we needed to be able to prepare for the kayaking journey.
• 32:07
  Speaker 4: I also was really ill. I'd got sick on the ocean.
• 32:11
  Speaker 4: I had pneumonia, which was only picked up a couple
• 32:14
  Speaker 4: of days after I returned home. And then I had
• 32:17
  Speaker 4: a huge allergic reaction to my mum's dogs and kind
• 32:22
  Speaker 4: of became allergic to everything. It felt like, well, certainly
• 32:25
  Speaker 4: my immune system. I now look at it as my
• 32:27
  Speaker 4: immune system was screaming out for me to stop and
• 32:30
  Speaker 4: rest exactly. I did not know what that meant at
• 32:35
  Speaker 4: that time, though, and so I pushed on and yes,
• 32:39
  Speaker 4: you're right, as as you said. After the Allusions and
• 32:44
  Speaker 4: Alaskan Peninsula, I then cycled North America through the winter,
• 32:48
  Speaker 4: which is quite a different setup to the UK winters.
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: It was, I would say, so, And because were you
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: in Canada a lot of the time or were you
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: in the US.
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: So I sort of came up.
• 33:01
  Speaker 4: Up from Homer to Anchorage and then drop down on
• 33:04
  Speaker 4: the Alaska Canada Highway all the way down to Edmonton
• 33:09
  Speaker 4: and Calgary, and then turned eastwards and sort of scooted
• 33:13
  Speaker 4: across through the Prairies before to Winnipeg, before dropping down
• 33:18
  Speaker 4: into the States for that final sort of third of
• 33:21
  Speaker 4: the continent to Massachusetts.
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: Do you have a I mean, we've talked so much
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: about the ocean and your love for the ocean and
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: how much it teaches you. What was it like to
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: travel on land? Do you do you love one more
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: than the other for different reasons?
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, different reasons.
• 33:42
  Speaker 4: I mean, the ocean feels like another world and to
• 33:47
  Speaker 4: experience it solow in a tiny boat is sublime. I mean,
• 33:52
  Speaker 4: it's all sorts of other things too, but there's this
• 33:55
  Speaker 4: sense of awe and total immersion. I think that's what
• 34:00
  Speaker 4: I love about it too. And also it has its challenges, obviously,
• 34:04
  Speaker 4: because you can be totally immersed in a wild storm
• 34:07
  Speaker 4: that's super scary in a tiny boat. But that way
• 34:10
  Speaker 4: in which there can be well and are often close
• 34:14
  Speaker 4: encounters with wildlife. I love that about the ocean. Land
• 34:19
  Speaker 4: it's about people, and I love that you get things
• 34:23
  Speaker 4: like the chance to freewheel downhill on your bike.
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: I love that you don't get pushed backwards by the wind.
• 34:31
  Speaker 4: Actually sometimes you do get pushed backwards, but you don't lose.
• 34:34
  Speaker 4: You don't lose all the miles that you do in
• 34:36
  Speaker 4: a rowing boat, for example. But certainly the people on
• 34:39
  Speaker 4: land became sort of the highlights of the journey, or
• 34:43
  Speaker 4: one of the main highlights of the journey for me
• 34:46
  Speaker 4: in ways that kind of surprised me at the start,
• 34:49
  Speaker 4: because I'd gone out on that journey thinking it was
• 34:52
  Speaker 4: all going to be about the wildlife and the wild places.
• 34:55
  Speaker 4: But obviously it's about people because we're social mammals. And
• 35:00
  Speaker 4: so the way in which I was invited into people's
• 35:03
  Speaker 4: homes or helped or just encouraged or greeted was again
• 35:10
  Speaker 4: back to that word humbling and heartwarming and what's the
• 35:15
  Speaker 4: word inspiring, and kind of it nourished me and it
• 35:18
  Speaker 4: drove me on as well, and certainly one of my
• 35:22
  Speaker 4: favorite stories of the whole journey. I mean, I could
• 35:25
  Speaker 4: even say one of my favorite stories of my whole
• 35:27
  Speaker 4: life comes from cycling too. So it was twenty eleven,
• 35:32
  Speaker 4: the first year of the journey, about four months in
• 35:36
  Speaker 4: or so, and I was in China on my bike.
• 35:39
  Speaker 4: I was in Shinjan Province, the Western province, and I
• 35:43
  Speaker 4: was getting some food from a petrol station. My bike, Hercules,
• 35:47
  Speaker 4: was waiting outside and I noticed a young guy really
• 35:51
  Speaker 4: interested in the bike, and so I went out to chat.
• 35:55
  Speaker 4: And he was kind of astonished that the answer to
• 35:59
  Speaker 4: the question of where are you going and where have
• 36:01
  Speaker 4: you come from was the same as London. And he
• 36:06
  Speaker 4: said that he would like to make a journey by bike,
• 36:10
  Speaker 4: but he said, I don't know how I do it.
• 36:11
  Speaker 4: It's I don't know. I'd have to train, and I
• 36:14
  Speaker 4: don't think I'm strong enough, and I don't think my
• 36:16
  Speaker 4: mom would let me. So this young guy was called Gal.
• 36:18
  Speaker 4: He was twenty one twenty two, and I encouraged him.
• 36:23
  Speaker 4: I said, dude, it's riding a bike like you could
• 36:26
  Speaker 4: just go an hour down the road adventure exactly, and
• 36:30
  Speaker 4: it doesn't have to be around the world, you know.
• 36:31
  Speaker 4: I think that for me, there's something about the kind
• 36:36
  Speaker 4: of the mindset, the curiosity, the attitude that you go
• 36:38
  Speaker 4: out with that actually, I can go into my garden
• 36:41
  Speaker 4: and it feels like an adventure of sorts. And so
• 36:44
  Speaker 4: I encouraged him and said, here's my email. I'd love
• 36:47
  Speaker 4: to hear about it one day, please let me know.
• 36:50
  Speaker 4: I didn't anticipate, but half an hour down the road
• 36:53
  Speaker 4: he would arrive in his car with his brother and
• 36:56
  Speaker 4: cousins and ask if he could.
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: Come with me on the bike across the country.
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: It was just a very friendly stranger. Okay, I'm joining,
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: I'm joining the ride.
• 37:08
  Speaker 4: And I then had all the what ifs in my head,
• 37:13
  Speaker 4: you know, like what if his bright breaks, what if
• 37:15
  Speaker 4: he comes to harm in the Gobi desert, something like that,
• 37:19
  Speaker 4: And then I was thinking, well, Sarah, what's the worst
• 37:21
  Speaker 4: that will happen. He leaves after a few days, and
• 37:24
  Speaker 4: hopefully he's had an experience that has given him trust
• 37:27
  Speaker 4: that he can do this. You know, this could be
• 37:29
  Speaker 4: really positive. And meanwhile, Gao had out the road at
• 37:33
  Speaker 4: this and he's showing me the places we're going to
• 37:36
  Speaker 4: go and where we can stop.
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: And he said, Sarah, you be the guide. I'll be
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: the story.
• 37:42
  Speaker 4: He said, you be the leader and I'll be the
• 37:43
  Speaker 4: guide and translator. And I just thought, well, of course
• 37:47
  Speaker 4: I should say, like all the people who've helped me
• 37:50
  Speaker 4: in my life, learn how to do something. And so
• 37:53
  Speaker 4: I said yes, and he said I better go and
• 37:57
  Speaker 4: buy a bike, and so.
• 38:00
  Speaker 3: Wait, you didn't have a bike.
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: Didn't have a bike. I know that, isn't it cool?
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: Isn't it cool?
• 38:07
  Speaker 4: It is didn't have a bike, It never cycled more
• 38:10
  Speaker 4: than a handful of miles before, and so what we're.
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: Just about playing Carl within It's like, I see, that's it.
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: This excites me. I think that's I mean, really every
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: time that I have trusted that, I mean, that is
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: what led me to buy hike and to so many
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: more things where you have that sense of like that
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: that experience that Gow had or that you had when
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: you first learned about ocean rolling.
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: That's what I was thinking.
• 38:35
  Speaker 4: Yeah, And I think the bit that goes with that
• 38:38
  Speaker 4: as well of Okay, I'm gonna do it. I'm going
• 38:40
  Speaker 4: to give myself to the adventure of this and that
• 38:44
  Speaker 4: you meet the challenges as they come. You know, his
• 38:46
  Speaker 4: first night he had a puncture and didn't know how
• 38:51
  Speaker 4: to fix it. The second night he lost his tent poles.
• 38:56
  Speaker 4: We just had to learn as we went along together.
• 39:00
  Speaker 4: And I think that he'd asked me if he could
• 39:03
  Speaker 4: come with me. There's something important in that too. I think,
• 39:06
  Speaker 4: like I think of lots of my adventuring and certainly
• 39:09
  Speaker 4: the early parts of it was alongside other people.
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: So actually the idea of well, probably.
• 39:15
  Speaker 4: Someone's done what you might want to be doing, like
• 39:17
  Speaker 4: go and ask.
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: For some help. People love to help, and.
• 39:21
  Speaker 3: I want to say too.
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: You know, this comes up a lot where there sometimes
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: can be this idea that like, well, the experienced people
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: or the experts like nothing goes wrong, and that's just
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: not true, you know, you, you know, at all levels
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: of experience, things get really fucked up once in a while.
• 39:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And that's just a fact of life. It's true
• 39:40
  Speaker 3: in life, and it's true in sport.
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: It's true in whether you're rowing or running or you know,
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: whatever it is you're doing, and those any adventure includes
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: some some difficulty. But Sarah, as you're telling this amazing
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: story about Goo, it's making me think we need to Actually,
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: I want you to help me answer a dear sir letter.
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: And I feel like this story is so connected to
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: what you're saying. So can I read you the letter
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: and we'll talk. We'll give this this letter writer, this
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: lovely woman, some advice thanks to do Okay, dear sugar,
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: I'm a twenty four year old woman and like most
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: people in their twenties. Lately, I've been faced with making
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: a lot of big decisions, and I hate this. I
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: hate how every decision feels like it's going to change
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: the entire trajectory of my life. I hate how everyone
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: thinks they know what's best for me. The most recent
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: decision I made was turning down an academic opportunity to
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: work as a river guide for the summer. I'm graduating
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: with my Master of Arts this spring, and I have
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: no idea what I want to do with my life.
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: I'm fine with that, but everyone else seems to think
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: I should have it all figured out by now. I
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: decided to pursue being a river guide because it's something
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: I've always wanted to do and it feels exciting. I
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: don't know what will come afterward, but I will cross
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: up when I get there. When I was deciding to
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: turn down the academic opportunity, I kept thinking of your book,
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: Tiny Beautiful Things, and how you wrote the most of
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: the time, people already know the answer to the question
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: they're asking.
• 41:12
  Speaker 3: That's true.
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: This is what ultimately helped me make the decision to
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: say yes to being a river guide. I knew what
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: I wanted to do the hard part was finding the
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: courage to do it. But now I'm asking for advice
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: on how to live with the decisions we make. I
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: keep asking for a validation from friends and family that
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: I made the right choice, but that's not helping. How
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: can I find it in myself to trust that I
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: know what's best for me? Do I even actually know
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: what's best for me?
• 41:41
  Speaker 3: Is it okay? If I don't?
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: Sincerely unsure? Now that's a fantastic letter, isn't it, Sarah?
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: I mean, I feel like I just lived through that moment,
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: and I think you have too. I mean, we both
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: as I think this is so much part of growing
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: up and what your twenties are about is learning how
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: to trust yourself and wanting and trusting that what you
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: want is enough.
• 42:07
  Speaker 2: I'd go with that.
• 42:08
  Speaker 4: It makes me think of something one of my team
• 42:11
  Speaker 4: members said to me.
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: I don't remember at what point it was in the journey,
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: It was obviously around a big decision that I was Oh,
• 42:19
  Speaker 2: I know, huh, I know what it was.
• 42:21
  Speaker 4: It was that big storm of deciding to stay and
• 42:26
  Speaker 4: kind of have a go with the storm, And afterwards
• 42:29
  Speaker 4: I had a lot of sort of self reproach around
• 42:32
  Speaker 4: that and kind of wrestling as I tried to kind
• 42:34
  Speaker 4: of make sense of it, and she said, sometimes it's
• 42:38
  Speaker 4: just the decision you make at the time, and that
• 42:41
  Speaker 4: felt really helpful. It kind of takes the pressure off somehow,
• 42:44
  Speaker 4: the idea of it being the right decision for the
• 42:47
  Speaker 4: rest of my life.
• 42:48
  Speaker 2: Because actually we don't always know. We don't know, doy,
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: what's going to happen later on.
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that is So that's such a wise
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: and great things. Essentially, what we're saying to Unsure is,
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: you know, part of trusting yourself that you are making
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: the right choices is embracing the fact that sometimes the
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: right choice goes wrong or the right choice ends up
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: being like Okay, well that didn't turn out how I hoped,
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: or you know, next time, I'll make a different decision.
• 43:22
  Speaker 3: I mean, that is part of building trust.
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: So the right choice, Like what I would say first
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: of all, is I'm a true proponent of the fact
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: that you know, when you can listen to your body,
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: which I think I'm sure has done. You know, you
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: sign your letter unsure, Unsure, but actually what you your
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: letter is full of clarity. Your letter is absolutely shouting
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: with clarity because the most important thing you say in
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: this letter, and really I think it's the only thing
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: you should pay attention to, is I want to be
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: a river guide.
• 43:53
  Speaker 3: So I said yes to it.
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: Period done, you know, and then laugh and cackle at
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: everyone who who questions you, because this is your life
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: and you get to.
• 44:03
  Speaker 3: Do what you want to do.
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: Now, you might go be a river guide and hate it,
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: or it's a disaster, or you you know, all of
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: those things, but that doesn't invalidate the fact that you
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: chose to do what you wanted to do.
• 44:13
  Speaker 3: And there is a true power in.
• 44:14
  Speaker 4: That, absolutely, And I'd say there's something to be gained
• 44:19
  Speaker 4: from every experience also, you know, the ones that might
• 44:23
  Speaker 4: not turn out how we thought or different to how
• 44:25
  Speaker 4: we expected that actually there's going to be learnings and
• 44:29
  Speaker 4: other things that come from that that I think are
• 44:34
  Speaker 4: to be embraced. And sometimes they're not always clear at
• 44:36
  Speaker 4: the time as well. I think, you know, sometimes I
• 44:38
  Speaker 4: think the times that have thrown me the most challenge,
• 44:42
  Speaker 4: it's afterwards that I kind of can pick through and
• 44:45
  Speaker 4: see how that has helped me.
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: It feels like too there's.
• 44:49
  Speaker 4: Something of I love the metaphor of the river as
• 44:52
  Speaker 4: well of it kind of finding its way and sort
• 44:57
  Speaker 4: of the trust in that somehow you will find your
• 45:00
  Speaker 4: way on shore through whatever you find on that river.
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: Sarah, it has been really truly an honor and a
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: pleasure to talk to you. I feel like we could
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: talk for a lot longer about your adventures at home
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: and at sea and all over the land around the globe.
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for taking the time to share
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: your light and dear wisdom with me here on Minover Mountain.
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much, Cheril.
• 45:29
  Speaker 4: I've really enjoyed talking and sharing and reflecting on things
• 45:34
  Speaker 4: with you.
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: It's been a pleasure.
• 45:35
  Speaker 3: Thanks so much for listening.
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: If you'd like to submit a letter seeking advice, please
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: send it to me at Dear Dearsugar at gmail dot com,
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: and don't forget to rate, review, and subscribe wherever you
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: get your podcasts.
• 45:48
  Speaker 3: Happy trails, and I'll see you next week.
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: Mine Over Mountain with Cheryl Strait is an I Hurt
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: women's sports production produced by Britney Brown and Rodney Brown
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: of Barbera Jean Productions. Supervising producer is Caylin West at Rome.
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: Associate producer Amaya Brathwaite. Our executive producers are Molly Barton,
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: Jerry Carrita, Grace Views, and Jesse Katz. Our theme song
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: is composed by Gramoscope Music. Don't forget to rate, review
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, Happy Trails, and
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: I'll
• 46:21
  Speaker 3: See you next week.