Latest / The Cyclical Doula Podcast: Fertility Awareness, Charting Cycles, and Reproductive Health Education / Learning to Breathe Again: Sobriety, Survival & Humor with Sarah Marie Shoulak
Transcript
- emmamma: Welcome back. Today I'm joined by Sarah, a speaker, artist, mental health advocate, and author with a memoir out titled Dead Serious, How Death Made Me Laugh at Life. Sarah brings a rare combination of honesty, humor, and depth to the conversation about sobriety, trauma, and survival. She doesn't shy away from the hard parts, but she also doesn't believe healing has to be joyless or heavy all the time. Emmamma: Thanks so much for being here today on the cyclical doula podcast. If this episode resonated with you, the most powerful thing that you can do is to share it, send it to a friend, text it to your sister, forward it to that group chat. This is how conversations about our bodies start changing, quietly, organically, woman to woman. you are listening and thinking, ⁓ ⁓ want help applying this to my emmamma: I'm so excited to dive into this conversation to learn more about you as an individual and also just talk, have these conversations openly. So welcome and thanks for being here. Emmamma: I offer free cycle clarity calls. It's a relaxed conversation over Zoom we talk through your goals, your charting practices, and kind of support that would actually make sense for you. can book one at emmamma.com / free. And if you already, make sure you're following or subscribe to the Cyclical Doula - podcast so that you don't miss future episodes. Sarah Marie Shoulak: Yes, absolutely. I really appreciate you having me. emmamma: So tell us a little bit more about who you are as just a human being. Sarah Marie Shoulak: Yes, well, I love that question. So obviously, where's my name set? I am Sarah Marie Schuleck. And it's really funny that I chose to write the memoir under my full name because I just thought that it kind of added some extra weight to have the balance of the three names. living in Florida, living kind of in the South, people have started to refer to me as like Sarah Marie when they address emails. I'm like, ⁓ no, no, no, I'm still just Sarah. Emmamma: And if you feel called to leave a rating or review, it genuinely helps more women find this work. So thank you. You deserve to understand body. You deserve to feel confident in your reproductive choices. And you ⁓ have to figure it out alone. I'll see you next week. Thanks for being here. emmamma: Yeah. I was gonna ask. Sarah Marie Shoulak: Yeah, it's just Sarah, but you know the last name is Shulak, kind of like you don't have footwear. And when you ask that question of kind of who are you outside of your work and your titles, it really shines a light on how often we define ourselves by those roles and titles. And I'm an HR person or you know I'm this job function or I'm that job function or even the other hats that people put on like I'm a mom and I'm a school worker or caregiver and all those things. And I think that some of the book process, the book writing process, because it is a memoir and because it has such heavy themes and subjects, I think it's helped me bring that out a little bit more about who I am and what I like. And a lot of times we're just so, we go into that muscle memory of knowing what other people want us to say or what would be a good response. Or then you start going, well, what is my favorite color? What is my favorite movie? What is my favorite cuisine? And things like that. So... emmamma: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yes. Sarah Marie Shoulak: I would say that I'm a kind of goofy, whimsical, silly person. ⁓ I love to watch lighthearted content. I'm not the kind of horror junkie or gruesome type fan. ⁓ I probably end up watching a lot of cartoons and things like that and Disney Plus as my streaming platform of choice. And I think that there's just a lot more of that coming out from this year and beyond. ⁓ So I appreciate that as a leading question. emmamma: Yes. Yeah, absolutely. I feel like it's helpful to just like, I love what people respond as because you say there's these titles that we just so quickly kind of spit out of like, this is who we are. And I think me, like myself over the last year, I've been like, well, who is Emma? Like actually outside of mom, wife, like all of these things. And I'm like, I don't know. Like I'm still figuring this out. Sarah Marie Shoulak: Right. emmamma: I know who I was when I was in college, but maybe not in this season of life. that's kind of cool to figure out. And I love how you responded to that. ⁓ So you, when you were filling out some information for me, you called yourself a Jill of all trades. Tell me what that means for you as an individual and how this kind of like pieces all together in your Sarah Marie Shoulak: Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, I've loved that phrase. can't remember. I would definitely give credit if I remembered who said it first, like who coined it. So I definitely didn't make it up. I cannot take credit. But there's something about that vibe of being, you know, the actual phrase is a jack of all trades, master of none is much greater than a master of one. So people think that it's a bad thing, but it actually shows the diversity of skill. And I think it's probably just emmamma: ⁓ yeah. ⁓ yes. Sarah Marie Shoulak: hiding the fact that I'm pretty ADHD when it comes to my crafting and you know, I'll be knitting for a while and then put it down for six years and put it back up for six months and I'm kind of ping-ponging all the time between different crafts and where I used to look at that and be ashamed of it or frustrated by it or feel defeated that I couldn't finish anything and I had all these half-finished projects, what I started to do was kind of lean into it and show that emmamma: Yes. Emmamma: Welcome to the Cyclical Doula podcast. I'm Emma, a certified fertility awareness educator, miscarriage doula and the founder of Emmamma emmamma: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Sarah Marie Shoulak: It actually is a value, it is a strength of mine to have all of these different, ⁓ you know, just different ⁓ crafty things that I can connect to. And whether that's I do a little bit of sewing, I do a little hot gluing, I do a little cosplay, I do a little this, then anytime I approach a project, I have that brain that kind of goes where all of my references come from and so how do I take all of these experiences and influences into the next thing that I do versus, you know, if you're... I don't know why the cobbler's shoes was like the first thing that popped into my head, but if you only make shoes and you go to make a dress, it's gonna look like a shoe, you know? And that's what they say, to a hammer, everything looks like a nail. So I think that for me to be a Swiss Army knife, I'm much more versatile in my life. emmamma: Yeah. Yeah. I love that. That's so good. Well, I'd love to get a little bit into your story and what maybe made you start to write your memoir and things as well. So I don't know what you're hoping to share today specifically. Obviously, people will have to read your memoir to get all of the details. ⁓ But what experience have you lived through that ⁓ people need to know about as we start this conversation? Emmamma: This space is for women who want to understand their bodies deeply, not just memorize information, but actually feel confident in interpreting their cycles. Here we talk about ovulation, hormones, cervical mucus, basal body temperature, and all that's messy in between emotional layers that come with being woman. We talk about trying to conceive, avoiding pregnancy ⁓ hormones. Sarah Marie Shoulak: I appreciate that question Emmamma: postpartum transitions, pregnancy loss, perimenopause, and everything in between. Because body literacy isn't just about charting. It's about the autonomy. It's about informed consent. It's about not outsourcing your reproductive decisions to guesswork or fear. Each week, you'll hear conversations with women's health professionals, ⁓ workers, ⁓ Sarah Marie Shoulak: But my mom, just to segue into that, my mom is an incredible role model and has just been a ⁓ icon slash idol for me and role model growing up, ⁓ partially maybe because I'm the only girl and I'm you her daughter like following in her footsteps as ⁓ little Judy so to speak and ⁓ so always wanted to emulate what she was doing whether it was following in her corporate footsteps or ⁓ you know just Emmamma: and researchers along with solo episodes where I teach practical skills you can apply to your own cycle right away. if you have ever felt like you should have learned this information sooner, if you have ever felt disconnected from your cycle, Sarah Marie Shoulak: working hard and providing for her family. I just saw that discipline and that dedication. But I also was trying to make my own path and I was trying to go out on my own and it's kind of ping-ponged where life has taken me and I'll leave that as a cliffhanger for people to read the book. as I went on my merry way around the United States and I was born in Ohio, raised in Minnesota, college in Denver, graduate school in Miami, Florida, now I'm in Orlando, Florida. Emmamma: If you want to raise the next generation without shame around their bodies, you are in the right place. So grab your tea, open up your notes app, and let's build a cycle confidence together. Sarah Marie Shoulak: And so all these different travels, all these different experiences for good and bad have ⁓ made me realize a lot of different traits that I had that I had to work on personally. Because a lot of times people will kind of look at what's wrong with their life and I say that they want something to blame, right? They want to point to something and say, that's what's wrong. If I just lived somewhere else or if I made more money or if I had this person in my life, they want to have a tangible thing. So that can be hard, right? Because emmamma: Mm. Sarah Marie Shoulak: both things can be true, that can be better and you can have a different life and you can work on yourself too. So I realized in 2017 that I was relying too heavily on alcohol. And so being only 27 in that year, that's a young age to realize that you have an issue with alcohol because usually people are waiting for you to hit some kind of big rock bottom, big explosion. You lose your car, you lose your family, you lose your stuff, you lose your job and I looked at my life and I looked at everything that was chaotic and going wrong and I said, what can I control? I can control myself and my decisions. And if I just took this one big rock off my chest, how much better could I breathe? How much better would my life be? So the big change that I made is in 2017 on December 13th, yes, that's Taylor Swift's birthday. I just realized that like two years ago, but it's so fun that that's the same day as my sobriety date. And then I realized emmamma: No. Sarah Marie Shoulak: that my whole life didn't turn around and change just because I took alcohol out of my life, right? So certain things changed, but other things didn't. going back to why this ended up in book form is that my mom always said that she had a book inside of her, that she always wanted to write a book. And so I tried to encourage her to be in this anthology project that I found out about, and it was to just write a chapter. And I said, mom, this is a perfect way to dip your toe in because then you don't have to commit to a whole book, just write this chapter. emmamma: Yeah. Sarah Marie Shoulak: But it was, you know, kind of, I don't want to call it high tech, especially after what we went through in the pandemic, but you had to like be on Zoom calls and you had to like be coordinating with all these people. And I was trying to make it seem accessible to her. So I said, ⁓ I'll be on the calls with you. I'll help you. And I'll like, we'll go through the process together. Well, the people who are writing that book were like jackpot. We got both of them and we'll make them do it together. And it's a mother daughter duo. And, you know, we took the bait. It was a fun project to work on. Like we both had to pay to be in the book, but emmamma: Yes. Mm-hmm. Sarah Marie Shoulak: it was just a wonderful experience to do with my mom and to go through that. So there was a little bit of reflection. The book is called Wisdom Before Me and the concept was that these 15 women, myself included and my mom, that we were writing kind of to our 10 years younger self and saying what knowledge did I learn and could I bestow upon you? But again, I think I wrote this in like... what year is it? I think I wrote this in like 22 so I was only 32. emmamma: Mmm. Sarah Marie Shoulak: So 10 years younger is only 22, so it's like the things that I learned and unpacked in that time were pretty huge. ⁓ And I think that even though I went into that writing project a little begrudgingly, like I wasn't the one who needed to do this, it was really for her, ⁓ I think it did light that spark and light that fire in me that said, ⁓ I do think I could write a book. And then when I thought about what the subject of the book would be, a lot of times were... our own critic, right, the imposter syndrome and saying, well, I have nothing to write about. I'm not successful. I'm not this, you know, multimillionaire. I don't have the key to success. I don't have something that I'm gonna write in these pages that's gonna change everybody else's life. But we do. Our stories do help others and they do impact others. And when I actually started to realize the stories that I had in my life that were powerful and, you know, had a theme, it was all about death. So I was like... emmamma: Mm-hmm. Sarah Marie Shoulak: Okay, so let's run with this because I'm this like bubbly laughing person but I wanted to write about death and I just feel like it's a really great juxtaposition to say let's look at these heavy subjects and not dismiss them, not have toxic positivity, not just rose tinted glasses, look on the bright side like everything's going to work out, hold the weight of it but then balance it with levity, balance that with watching cartoons or having a stuffed animal sidekick or you know having emmamma: Yeah. Yeah. Sarah Marie Shoulak: colorful things in your life or I have fairy lights all around me you can't see and stuff so that balances. It doesn't take away, it doesn't fix, it doesn't minimize and it shouldn't patronize but I think that those are some of the strategies that I've definitely utilized to balance all those things out. So that's what I'm excited to share in the memoir. emmamma: Yeah, that's amazing. I mean, you shared so much. And so there's so many things that we could talk about with that. We went on such a journey and I love that. ⁓ Do you think as as you went through this process of writing and putting all of that down, is there one thing that came up with like getting to know your body in a new way through becoming maybe, I know you had mentioned that you became sober and Sarah Marie Shoulak: We did go on a journey, we did. emmamma: you went through this whole writing process. Is there something that you learned about your body in that time? Sarah Marie Shoulak: My connection with my body has absolutely changed because now at the time that we're recording this I actually celebrated eight years of sobriety doing that math from 2017. So it's kind of wild that I'm like on the heftier part of a decade of sobriety, which is incredible. And like I said, the switch didn't flip. Like all of a sudden, like people maybe online want to portray sobriety when they're really trying to encourage people to give up alcohol and be sober. And I'm not here recruiting. Like I don't care. emmamma: Yes! Yeah. Right. Sarah Marie Shoulak: what you do, just make good decisions that don't hurt other people. And what I realized when I gave up alcohol, that year following from 2017 to 2018 and actually into 2019, I was in a toxic relationship. And I don't mean that to just use that very overused phrase to just label somebody as toxic. The environment between the two of us was toxic. What I like to say is really that we brought the worst out of each other because I was a nasty person in that relationship too. We both were at fault. emmamma: Mm-hmm. Right. Mm-hmm. Sarah Marie Shoulak: It was an unhealthy dynamic while we were living together and other people were living with us. So even though I made this big wonderful change and there were health changes in my body that, you know, I have a friend who jokes, you've been skinny since you got sober. Like she'll just say it in that way. I'm like, well, you know, you don't have all these extra sugars and mixers and things that you don't think about because you're looking, you're thinking of the benefit of the alcohol. You're not thinking of the consequence or kind of the unintended consequences. emmamma: Yeah. Yeah. Right. Sarah Marie Shoulak: And then so while I was in that relationship, I really had to realize this wasn't a silver bullet. This wasn't a magic pill that I could take that's like, ⁓ sobriety saved me. I had to do more work yet. And so I had to leave unhealthy environments. I had to stand up for myself. I had to find my voice. And then when you no longer have that alcohol kind of masking how you're feeling and how, because think about it. If you had emmamma: Mm-hmm. Sarah Marie Shoulak: things that were wrong with your gut or things that were wrong with your immune system or if you were dealing with fatigue and all these things you can't understand that those are symptoms when you are waking up with hangovers because how would you be able to differentiate those things from hangovers and then you don't realize when you have chronic pain because you're drinking so much you don't feel the pain and so in a lot of ways I hate to say it because I'm not trying to deter people from sobriety but it did get worse before it got better and it's emmamma: Yeah. True. Yeah. Sarah Marie Shoulak: know, healing is non-linear, so it doesn't mean that eight years means I'm like eight times happier than I was when I quit drinking. So it just helps me be more in tune and know how to listen to it a lot better than I did before. emmamma: Right. Absolutely, that totally makes sense. And yeah, because it masks alcohol and drugs of all sorts mask that type of that your pain all of those other symptoms and so you can't experience that and man That's a hard part of coming out of that is being able to live through all of those experiences While you're also trying to work on the other aspects of it Yeah Sarah Marie Shoulak: But it's such a confidence builder, will say. when I, cause when I was sober and I was like really trying to be sober that first like year and a half, like still in that bad relationship, I just kept looking around at my situation, which was, you know, that meme of like the dog in the dumpster fire of like, this is fine. I was like, if I can be here and I'm not drinking, like if this isn't going to make me drink, nothing's going to make me drink. Like it's not worth it. emmamma: Yeah, right? Yes, yes. ⁓ Yes. Yes, that's so true. Yeah, absolutely. And what an empowering thought to have of just being able to like, be able to live in that situation of like, okay, like, I can do this. I have this confidence. I have this ability to go through that for sure. ⁓ did anything change with regulating your nervous system in in this experience? Sarah Marie Shoulak: ⁓ yeah. I think when we talk about things that are ongoing and that I'm still trying to figure out, I feel like that's one that I'm still, it's like a Rubik's Cube, right? You can tinker around with it, you're holding it, and you might even know the different steps to solve Rubik's Cubes, and it doesn't mean that you get it quickly and you're not the person who can solve it in five seconds yet, right? And so I feel like starting to, and just for your listeners to understand all of the different things that are interplaying, just at the end of... emmamma: Yeah. Absolutely. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Sarah Marie Shoulak: or maybe it was a year ago now, because you know, it's been a blur of where we are, I got diagnosed with a thyroid disorder of Hashimoto's. And so that was kind of eye-opening and enlightening because I would look at just random things that I had in my life, random symptoms or things that I was dealing with and I'd be like, ⁓ I have to fix this or I have to address this or I have to take medication for this in isolated ways or I'm just really sensitive to cold or maybe I ate something that's making me constipated. You you have all these random things. emmamma: Yeah, right. Mm-hmm. Yeah, yep. Sarah Marie Shoulak: And then you get a diagnosis and you look at the symptoms list and you're like, oh my gosh, this is everything I've been dealing with all into one. And I'm like, wow, this is so sometimes I feel like, and I hate to pigeonhole anybody or make assumptions, but a lot of times as women, we ignore symptoms because I, and a great example of this was back at the end of 2023. I will spare the whole story because I can get quite wordy, but I was dealing with ovarian torsion, which is an incredibly rare situation. emmamma: Literally everything. Yeah. Sarah Marie Shoulak: I didn't realize how or why it was happening. I, my fiance was gone. He was on a trip. I was supposed to meet up with him the next day. So I was just cooking dinner and I, you know, by myself, I'm trying to like get an Instapot to work and I'm really not great with technology or cooking. So this combination was like the worst for me. And I'm like, why am I doing this while he's not here? And I think I was just so trying to focus on like, let's make this freaking soup. Let's get this, let's cook the vegetables and get this going. And I had this immense pain in my side. emmamma: Yes. Yeah. Sarah Marie Shoulak: And I kept saying, ⁓ it's my period, ⁓ it's cramps, ⁓ it's this, ⁓ maybe I ate something weird, maybe it's food poisoning, I'll get through it, I'm okay. And then I'm making this food and I go and I throw up in the bathroom and I maybe feel a little better but not really, again still thinking, could be cramps which is weird, I've never had that response to that, could be food poisoning but maybe whatever. I go to sleep and then the next morning I'm still feeling just as terrible so I call a nurse line and because of where I explained where the pain was they thought my appendix had burst. And they're like, you need to get into an ER. And all of this to say, they found a cyst on my ovary that had turned itself around kind of like a ferris wheel cart where it had spun around. They couldn't tell how many times it had spun around. So suddenly I go from valet-ing myself into an ER to having a surgeon come in and telling me that I need emergency of torsion repair surgery and that they're not sure if they can save that whole part. then I start, and I'm at this point, I'm probably, I was 23, so I was. emmamma: Right. Yeah. Sarah Marie Shoulak: 33 at the time and so now I'm I hadn't really thought about having kids or biological birthing children anything like that and now suddenly the surgeon is coaching me about ⁓ well you'll still be able to have kids if you want to just with the parts on the other side if we can't save it and I'm like these are just things I've never that you're just flooding over me now that I suddenly have to think of that about 12 hours ago I was making soup and I was about to meet up with my fiance and I'm Right. I was just like let's focus on this but it shows how driven women are and when we're goal-oriented emmamma: Right, yeah. Great, you're just trying to figure out how to make the instant pot work. Yeah. Sarah Marie Shoulak: and we don't want to slow down and say my body is telling me something and I'm not feeling good I could have called the nurse line that night I could have gone to the ER that night but I just kept being like ⁓ it's fine I'm okay we'll get through it and then I needed emergency surgery so spoilers thankfully they were able to save everything so I'm I'm still intact but I don't wish that pain on my enemy and I'm allergic to painkillers so it was it was a wild night emmamma: Right. Yeah. That's Hans' wonderful experience. Yeah, I think it's things like that that just help you sharing your story and helping people remember that we as women need to make sure that we're advocating well for ourselves when we need support in any aspect of our lives, but especially when it comes to health. things specifically, like you said, I would agree that as a society, women do not do a great job advocating for when they're in pain and often because it's kind of just like pushed down of like, ⁓ no, you're fine. Like whatever, especially when it comes to reproductive stuff and things around period pain and stuff like that. Like we're always just like, ⁓ no, like you're fine. It's not a big deal. And it's like, no, like it literally feels like my insides are being twisted around, which they were. Sarah Marie Shoulak: Great. When I called the nurse, I felt, when I called the nurse line in the morning, I said, I feel like a shark has taken a bite out of the right side of my body. That's what it felt like. And she's like, well, it's the right side of your abdomen. Your appendix get in there. yeah, it was wild. emmamma: Yeah, yeah. Right, right. That's crazy. And like, if it was your appendix, like, that's good that you got, but it's one of those things of just like, it's that's so hard and so frustrating. And then also, I think a lot of times we just don't have the knowledge base of like, ⁓ like, right, like the right side of our body, like, maybe it could be our appendix, or maybe it's a little bit lower. So it could be something with our ovaries. Like, we don't know that these are things that can take place sometimes too. ⁓ Man. Yeah, so. Sarah Marie Shoulak: Exactly. ⁓ emmamma: ⁓ you talk a lot about finding and you've told a little bit about the balance between talking about like heavy topics like death and things like that, but also, ⁓ like not not drowning in the aspect of that they're so serious of topics and bringing in that joy. Tell us a little bit more about what that looks like. ⁓ and maybe like the day to day aspect of it. Sarah Marie Shoulak: Yeah, and in writing the memoir and going through each chapter, I really ⁓ want people to know when they're reading it. I kind of joked on a different podcast with a friend of mine that even though the title of the book is How Death Made Me Laugh at Life, it's not a haha funny book. Like, I'm not, it's not like reading like Tina Fey's autobiography, right? This isn't like as we go throughout that you're gonna, it's like a knee-slapper and you're like, ⁓ my gosh, that's hilarious. Like, it's a lot of dark humor. It's a lot of like... emmamma: Yeah, yeah. Right. Right. Sarah Marie Shoulak: ⁓ this is how maybe it's metaphorically laughing at life or laughing at my approach to life or even kind of a juxtaposition of feeling like life is laughing at me and mocking me and things like that. So it's kind of a deeper read than I would say. So I wouldn't really actually put it in the humor category. But I feel like the point of it, it being, you know, looking at those heavy subjects is that emmamma: Mmm, yeah. Great. Sarah Marie Shoulak: Sometimes people think that the way like we were talking about before with like toxic positivity that the way to push through something is to look on the bright side or find the silver lining. But when you think about grief and loss, whether that's losing a person or losing a job, they can be metaphorical losses. It could be losing a relationship or losing what you thought your future was going to look like if you are suddenly disabled, suddenly and coming to terms with I'm not able to physically do the things that I used to be able to do. emmamma: Yes. Hmm. Sarah Marie Shoulak: That's all grief. You can grieve all of those things and you can't always look at something, you know, and I think of my mom who's like a cancer survivor. You can't always look at a cancer diagnosis and go, this is a blessing. I'm so glad this happened to me. And you're not going to look at death in that same way and say, I mean, sometimes you might like if somebody was in pain, you might be able to say something like, I'm so glad they're not in pain anymore, but you're never going to be like, I'm glad this happened and I'm happy and I'm laughing at the death. So really it is that balance of emmamma: for sure. bright. Sarah Marie Shoulak: knowing to hold the space in your heart for the real emotions that you're feeling because the other thing I talk about in the book which really goes hand-in-hand with my issues with alcohol is how much things were bottled up and when emotions were bottled up and I didn't feel them fully and I didn't allow myself to Identify and acknowledge what those feelings were because I wasn't emotionally intelligent at the time So when you bottle everything up The trick about it is you think you're doing good just like we were saying with like women stifling how they're feeling it emmamma: Mmm. Mm-hmm. Sarah Marie Shoulak: it's gonna come out one way or the other. That's the trick about it. And so you either let it out in healthy cathartic ways and maybe that's walking in nature or having a sport where I used to do a lot of ⁓ fighting sports and MMA and things. And so I feel like maybe that helped a little bit to have those physical outbursts of I'm gonna punch things and take this out in that way. But it could very easily be embroidery and cross stitching and I really wanna stab things and stab things repeatedly and meditate into the stabbing. ⁓ emmamma: Yeah. Yes. Yes. Sarah Marie Shoulak: I think that there's ways to kind of, humor isn't always watching a standup comedian, right? It's maybe doing something that balances and says, you know what, if this is heavy right now, how can I lighten my load? And that could be traditional things like self care, like taking a bath or, you know, getting a new, going to Bath and Body Works and getting a new scent of lotion or candle that really speaks to you and makes your spirit a little bit lighter. But these things are not going to fix it because... emmamma: Right. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Right. Sarah Marie Shoulak: that would be masking it. And sometimes you just need a good cry. And sometimes you need to have a memorial for the person or get together with some of your friends who knew the same person that you lost and all talk about them or something. you have to find space for both of them because just looking at the little positive things and saying that that's going to make it all better ⁓ is not gonna work the way you think it is. emmamma: Mm-hmm. Yeah, man, I think that's one of those things where it's just like, we don't talk about it enough in our society of going through grief, especially with death, about working through that well, that it's just, it becomes such an uncomfortable topic for so many people to talk about, and therefore makes it even harder to, for many people to go through that process, because they don't want to make other people uncomfortable or other people get uncomfortable when they bring things up, and therefore we're just... trying to say, ⁓ it's just fine. Like, everything's fine. We'll just keep going and put on all those things and move on. Which isn't really a thing because we can't just do that. ⁓ But yeah, think, I mean, man, that idea of like doing embroidery and stabbing something when you're feeling fresh. Like that actually, like I'm like, ⁓ that could be a good outlet. I should take up some embroidery. Sarah Marie Shoulak: Yeah. Right? And that's why it's not doing the thing that I'm telling you to do. It's not like, here's my heat of success. It's like, and that's why one of the workshops that I teach is called Whimsy 101, because there is a big difference between creativity and whimsy. And whimsy, believe, in my stance on it, is that it's really connected to your personality. And so whimsy is very personalized. And so for some people, like my fiance and I are incredibly different people. I... emmamma: Yeah. Yes. Sarah Marie Shoulak: If you had a visual of a rainbow and then a black and white tile floor, that's us. But our birthdays are a day apart. And so I find it fascinating how in some ways our personalities and our values and the core things that kind of make us who we are vary in line with each other. But our personalities and how we present ourselves and act out in the world, you know, I'm an artist surrounded by color and he is a computer programmer with binary, you know, like... emmamma: Yeah. Right. Yes, I love it. Yes, yes. Sarah Marie Shoulak: The code either works or it doesn't. It's like you run a test and there's no gray areas. But ⁓ that's where think whimsy is very personalized. And so for me to say, the way to be silly and whimsical and lighthearted is word games or doing ⁓ the wordle every day or doing, you know, it's not going to be, because if word games don't appeal to you, that's not going to be the, it's not going to you're going be like, I'm going to never do that. And same thing with like having a stuffed animal sidekick. Like somebody would be like, emmamma: right? for a start. Sarah Marie Shoulak: Definitely not my thing, but for some people they're like, I love that. Why didn't I think of that sooner? ⁓ emmamma: Yeah, absolutely. think that's so good. love the fact you said find your whimsy is that what you said? I love that. like that. I think that's so good. And I think that we can use that for all aspects of life of just like figuring out what brings us joy and and like peace in in those in those times of just life and that comes up for sure. Sarah Marie Shoulak: Yeah. Well, and sometimes a way that I have an easy kind of entryway to whimsy that I talk to people about is kind of almost like a Dungeons and Dragons mindset where it has that expansive improv kind of yes and thinking where it's like if you're in a situation like your job and there's a cubicle that you always have to pass and there's a co-worker that you really are in conflict with, the professional world and emmamma: Okay. Sarah Marie Shoulak: people who say what should happen is that you should have conflict resolution, right? You should resolve it. It should be all better. Everybody's good. Everybody's happy. Kumbaya, hold hands. It's not always gonna get like that. Like sometimes there's gonna be that person that you just don't vibe with where every time you try to talk to them, something's off and it's like a little crunchy and you just have to scoot by that cubicle really quickly because you don't wanna engage. emmamma: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Sarah Marie Shoulak: maybe when you think about it you're like on a mission or you're on a side quest and that's a troll under a bridge and you have to think to yourself like you know and it immediately makes you start to like kind of laugh at it even if you're laughing at how ridiculous it sounds that you're thinking like this but the fact is your brain doesn't know just like we've there's tons of research that says when we absorb media our brains don't actually know what's real and what's fabricated so the more that you can trick yourself emmamma: Yeah. Mmm. Yes. Sarah Marie Shoulak: You know, I hate to say that we're kind of dumb creatures because we are also very intelligent, but you can trick yourself in ways and that's why the placebo effect works. So if people want to look at me and they go, well, this stuff doesn't work, I'd be like, it does if you think it does. emmamma: Yes? Right, for sure. ⁓ man, that's such a, that brings up such a good point of like, ⁓ we only know like what we know and what we tell our brains to know. I lived this firsthand the other day when my son is six years old. I was watching somebody's Instagram story. and she was ⁓ sharing. ⁓ how she uses a spray bottle. This is like so specific, but she was sharing how she uses a like Mr. Spray Bottle to help with stain remover to like before she puts the stain remover on. And my son was listening over my shoulder and he goes, mom, need, we already have this stain remover mind you. And he goes, we need that spray bottle so that the stains come out sooner. And I was like, need is a strong word. Sarah Marie Shoulak: can't. Yeah. emmamma: It's fine, but it's stuff like that. And that's such an innocent example. But it's things like that of, if we just tell ourselves that it's something that's important, then it can be. It can be that way. ⁓ And like you said, we can be really intelligent as human beings when we use our critical thinking skills. But also, we can use the placebo effect to our benefit to... Sarah Marie Shoulak: ⁓ yeah. 100%. emmamma: Help us get through life and get through situations to just help us be better human beings in general. Yeah, I love that. ⁓ Do you have a specific rhythm or ritual that you just live by in this season of Sarah Marie Shoulak: 100%. This is a question that I love being asked because I don't know that I, if I look back in my life, whether it was like in my drunk days or in the era when I was trying to become sober and or, you know, living in sobriety in the early days, I feel like the first rhythm that comes to mind is the obvious sobriety of like every single day. And they say that in AA like get to midnight and start again. That is just such a common phrase. Even when I say I'm eight years sober. you say right after it one day at a time because you remind yourself that I didn't set out when I quit drinking on December 13th, 2017. I didn't quit drinking and I said, I'm going to be sober for 10 years. I didn't proclaim like an amount of time. I just said, I'm not drinking anymore and I let it be indefinite. And then the only responsibility I had to do was wake up, not drink and do it again and kind of rinse and repeat. So emmamma: Right. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Sarah Marie Shoulak: ones that felt like it was kind of on autopilot where every single day I wasn't battling cravings and you know it's still I mean eight years in I still have moments where I just like because my fiance has alcohol in the house that I just look over and I go I could but it comes back to it comes back to the mentality of if those crazy times didn't make me drink none of none of this no little impulse or intrusive thought is going to be worth it but now what's exciting when we were talking about in the beginning about defining who you are and getting to know yourself emmamma: Yeah. Yeah. Right? Sarah Marie Shoulak: What's really exciting and feels like the doors are flinging open is the fact that I get to build these rituals and I get to define them for myself. And even if they are a little placebo, they're super fun for me. So I'll shout this one out because ⁓ this human is just so absolutely incredible. And her Instagram handle, think is goddessglow11.11. And she sells these incredible oils and bath salt. I'm looking at a couple that I have on my shelf that I have to use, but they're for the new moon. So I'm like waiting for the new moon to do them. emmamma: Mm. Okay. Sarah Marie Shoulak: ⁓ She has candles, has oils, she has just a whole bunch of like witchy accoutrement that you can get and so this was maybe even about a year ago I bought one of her bottles of oils and maybe I had used it a couple times on my hair because it's crazy dry or I'd used it here and there and I didn't think anything of it and I don't know what made me switch and turn it into a ritual but now every night I take that little dropper because it's an oil that comes in a little dropper thing and I drop three little dots of oil on my forearm. And when I rub it in, because you're supposed to kind go onto the pulse points, so I go from my wrist pulse point to my elbow pulse point, and I kind of just, you know, like a violin, and I just kind of rub my arms together like a cricket or something. And when I drop those three drops, I say three different words, but they're not always the same words. I kind of feel like they're being channeled or I'm manifesting them. And someone has asked on a different podcast when I shared this, you know, emmamma: Yeah. Sarah Marie Shoulak: Are you saying words that you want? Are you saying words that you think that come to you? And I said either way. mean, so be it either way. If they're words that I think are coming from a divine, it's kind of like a meditation or prayer that is sending me those words, or they're words that I need at that time. And sometimes they can be wisdom, power, patience. Patience comes up a lot, ⁓ gratitude, things like that. And so whatever those words are that night, emmamma: Mmm. Yeah. Sarah Marie Shoulak: Either way I win. So either if they're being told to me by something that I'm grateful for the incoming message and if it's a request then it works that same way and whether I feel that it's like a protection or a cleansing or a divination like it's just that kind of anointing of myself that I've done and now I had to buy a new bottle because I'm already almost out of it and it it's become such a ritual of my way of shutting down for the night and and you know getting to midnight and starting again. emmamma: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, that's great. mean, what a what a specific ritual of like, you're doing like a physical action, but also like taking this time of reflection or manifesting, as you said, like, that's like such a cool way to do both of those things together. And I love that. That's so good. ⁓ As people are listening to this, if they're in this time of their life where they're feeling like they need to make a big life change, but feel like kind of frozen in their steps, do you have anything that you wish that they knew. Sarah Marie Shoulak: Yeah, and I might even get emotional. It kind of takes me back to times where I've been in those moments where you feel like you're in quicksand and just depending on what level of the quicksand you are, you know, it could be up to here and you just feel like you're drowning and the deeper you get down into quicksand, the more pressure you feel on you and you feel how much more unlikely it is for me to get out of this. But I don't want to... emmamma: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Sarah Marie Shoulak: minimize what they feel and say that that's all made up, but there is no quicksand. You know, it is like a riptide and our emotions are like water and just like water can float you up or it can pull you down, there is ⁓ so much power and intention and I think that that's really important for individuals listening to know the power that they have and the power that they have to change their life. And oftentimes when we hear people giving advice to people, they'll be talking to older people, right? emmamma: Mm. Sarah Marie Shoulak: and I'm 35 now, so I think I'm almost in this category of older people, but they'll be looking at people and they'll say, you're never too late to follow your dreams. You're never too late to start that podcast. You're never too late to change your career or write the book or do whatever. And I almost want it to be my mission to have the opposite advice, that you are never too young to change your life. That a lot of times when we were talking about my sobriety, that I was only 27 when I kind of came up for air and I said, oh no, no, no more of this, thank you. emmamma: Hmm. Yeah. ⁓ Yeah, yeah. Sarah Marie Shoulak: but everybody feels like you have to prove yourself. Like, well, prove to me that relationship was bad enough that you should leave. Prove to me that that job was bad enough that you should leave. You don't have to prove anything to anybody because if you know, trust that intuition, know that your ovary is tied up, whatever, like know that something is really actually wrong in your body and follow that because you know your body better than anybody else. And we know that because we've all navigated the United States fricking healthcare system and it's horrible. emmamma: Mm. Yeah. Sarah Marie Shoulak: So if you don't actually know your body, you're never gonna get the care you need. And that starts whether it's a physical thing or a mental thing, and you are so much stronger than you realize. You've got this. emmamma: I love that so much. I, I'm 31. And my husband and I like four years ago, he's a year younger than me. And we lived in Vermont at the time he is a teacher, I worked for the church running their education program. And we had a one and a half year old and a brand new baby on the way. And we just made the decision to leave Vermont like we gave it like nine months ish a year that we were gonna leave Vermont and move to Charleston and totally switch careers at the same time and people like, again, like people thought they were crazy and they're like, oh, I wish I had the resources or the whatever, the to just like switch jobs, switch careers, move different states and we're like, yeah, like we don't have resources. We don't have resources. We're just doing it. Yeah. Right. Exactly. And yeah, so it's I love the way that you worded that and just like that it's so powerful of just like being able to Sarah Marie Shoulak: Mm-hmm. ⁓ no. Yeah, it would be nice. Do you have any for us? emmamma: Just trust yourself to make those changes and make those changes when you're ready. Like when they come up and do it whenever you're ready and not have to prove to anybody that you're making the right choice. What do you hope that people walk away with from this conversation? Sarah Marie Shoulak: Well, when you were talking about that last example, whether it was the big move or the big life changes, there's a story that I realized it didn't even end up in the book so I'll keep sharing it on these podcasts because I just think it's so important and powerful. But it was after I'd gotten sober. I was still in that toxic relationship. And when I talk about how chaotic this living situation was, emmamma: Awesome. Sarah Marie Shoulak: I don't always share it often because again, I'm not trying to like throw my ex under the bus It was just it was a situation I got myself into as well but I was living with my ex who I was dating at the time his ex-wife with her new wife and his two kids were all living with us so the amount of emotion and dynamics that were happening in this household were Crazy like everybody who hears that they're like, I'm sorry who was where and it was my house my house It was not like a shared house. It was I owned that property emmamma: Right. Yes. ⁓ wow. Yes. ⁓ Sarah Marie Shoulak: And then I let all these people live with me and when I would get uncomfortable I would be the one who would excuse myself Like I didn't I wasn't like kicking them out. I was like, I just need to go I'll stay with somebody else. I'll stay on the couch. I'll stay whatever and people thought that was bunkers too and the people pleasing landscape of like wait It's your house your mortgage your utilities your everything but but it's also like I'm not gonna displace a family like I'm also like gonna be kind and as long as they're not squatting like we'll be okay, ⁓ emmamma: Mm-hmm. Right. Mm-hmm. Right? Great. Sarah Marie Shoulak: And I remember this one particular night where you know with those little fights where they're so little you don't even remember what it was for but it blew up into something huge and it was probably that it was the 15th time that we fought about the same stupid thing and I remember it distinctly because a hurricane was on the way. And living in Florida when you have a hurricane it's very different from living in like a tornado alley where you have no idea when it's coming to hit you. hurricane is a lot of hurrying up and waiting and so you'll see the spaghetti graphs for weeks and weeks and be like, ⁓ here it comes! emmamma: Yeah. ⁓ Sarah Marie Shoulak: Here it comes. Like it just, for like a week, you're just like watching it kind of crawl across the map. And I remember that there was a hurricane coming, so there was winds and there was rain and it felt extra dramatic. Maybe it was even kind of dark outside and we had this fight and I was just not having it. I literally said to myself, I'll take my chances with the storm. Like I literally said, I got to get out of here. So I left the family, the ex, the kids, the moms and I left. I just needed to get some air in this crazy nature storm that was happening. emmamma: Yes, yes. Yeah. Sarah Marie Shoulak: And I remember in the house where I lived at that time, if you go right around the corner, you just kind of like loop around the block, there was this giant Baptist church. And I would always drive past it. You never really saw people there, but occasionally you'd see people there. And I felt like it was one of those missions or calling to me like, go to the church, Sarah, you know, like go, like that's what you do, right? When you're running from chaotic situations, you find faith and you go to the church. And I just sat on the- emmamma: Yeah. Sarah Marie Shoulak: the stoop, you know, just on this concrete stair in front of the church and I just sobbed and I just cried and I I don't know if I was waiting for like the clouds to open up and a ray of light or that an angel would come down or somebody to come out of the church and be like, what is it young sister? I can't like let me shepherd you into our flock. Like I don't know what I thought was gonna happen, but nothing happened and I don't mean that to be, you know, agnostic or atheist. I don't mean it in a way that's, you know, disrespectful to people who have faith, but I mean it to say emmamma: Yeah. Yes Mm-hmm. Sarah Marie Shoulak: no one's going to save you. And I don't, I also don't mean that in a nihilistic way, but it's not anybody's responsibility to swoop in that goes back to the advocacy. And just like I said, that people need to find their voice and stand up for themselves. There's going to be a time. And I think somebody had phrased it really well where the pain of leaving is less than the pain of staying, no matter what the situation is that you're weighing. And you had that situation when you moved from Vermont and you looked at it and you said, this isn't the right fit anymore. emmamma: No, I think that's good. Yeah. Sarah Marie Shoulak: There might be tons of risks. There might be tons of unknowns But it's it's the devil you know versus the devil you don't know and and at that moment when I like kind of looked around and like dried my tears and I'm like Well, this isn't doing me any good sitting on this like rainy stoop where no one's gonna come and get me I got to just go march back in there and if I want things to change I got to be the one who changes them emmamma: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. ⁓ man. Well, thank you so much for sharing that. think what a what a great way to end. think like, yes, absolutely. We have to be the ones to save ourselves in the little things and the big things. And sometimes it's the little things of just like knowing to stop making the soup and just go call the nurse line or or ⁓ but also just like being able to make those big changes in our life, too. And Sarah Marie Shoulak: Yeah. And I do want to clarify just so that so that people don't think that I'm totally rude to them That doesn't mean that you have to do everything alone You do have to save yourself. You have to make that first choice Just like as an alcoholic I had to make the decision to stop drinking so you can't go to someone and say you have to stop drinking They have to make that first choice, but then there's tons of resources. So there are definitely resources. There's communities there are emmamma: sit in the fear. Yes. Mm-hmm. Yes. Right. Absolutely. Sarah Marie Shoulak: advocates, there are people who can support and stand by you. So when I say you have to save yourself, that doesn't mean like a solo journey the whole time. But yeah, the first step has to be for you. emmamma: ⁓ for sure. Yeah, well, I mean, I think also like, like you mentioned, and I haven't been through a sobriety journey, but I know that many people when they're in that, like, there's family members who know sometimes their friends that are like, ⁓ like, I wish this person would go through that journey. And you can't make anybody else go through that you like, they have to make that choice on their own. And then you can support them through it when they when they want the support. But Sarah Marie Shoulak: Mm-mm. emmamma: Yeah, that's a really good distinction to make as we close out. Thanks for that. Awesome. Well, thanks so much for being here, for sharing all of your things. I'm excited for people to read your book and I will make sure that people know that it's out ⁓ yeah, how people find you and connect with you Sarah Marie Shoulak: Yeah. Absolutely, if you go to Sarah Marie Shulak, ⁓ that is my handle on Instagram. That's also my website, SarahMarieShulak.com. I do have a sub stack. I need to be updating it a little bit more, but I've been busy, know, writing a book. So I'll get to the sub stack. And so a lot of things, and I will say that if you do start following the sub stack, a lot of the stories that didn't end up making it into the emmamma: Yes. Yes. Sarah Marie Shoulak: Now that I'm done with the writing and editing process, I'm going to start teasing some of those things and putting out stories that didn't make it in that are still really impactful to me. So that's going to be content that's not regurgitated in the same thing that feels really repetitive. And when you go to my website, you can also sign up for the newsletter because I know a lot of people these days are choosing to not be on a lot of social media channels or they're limiting their scrolling and they're just trying to have less doom scrolling. so having these updates in your inbox can be ⁓ a better strategy than, ⁓ emmamma: Yeah. Sarah Marie Shoulak: Yeah, always being on social media. ⁓ emmamma: Yeah, absolutely, for sure. I love that. All right, perfect. So I'll put all those things in the show notes so people can easily find them. ⁓ And I appreciate you being here. Thanks so much. Sarah Marie Shoulak: Absolutely, it was a pleasure. Thanks.