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Unboxed Identity · Is Your Way In Your Way?

0:26
Cassandra: Good day out there to all of my listeners.
0:28
Cassandra: And I'd like to welcome you back to Is Your Way and Your Way podcast.
0:35
Cassandra: And I am your host for those new listeners.
0:38
Cassandra: My name is Cassandra Crawley Mayo.
0:41
Cassandra: And this podcast is actually about, well, let me tell you this.
0:45
Cassandra: Initially, when I started this, it was about self-improvement and empowerment and being stuck.
0:54
Cassandra: And it's not ultimately about that.
0:57
Cassandra: It's actually about being free.
1:00
Cassandra: It's being free from your past, being free from the lies you were told, being free from those folks that you've been comparing yourself, being free from your parents or your guardians or whoever uh you that reared you and said you weren't this or you weren't that, and just just all of that kind of stuff.
1:22
Cassandra: So it's actually an opportunity for you to discover your greatest barrier.
1:28
Cassandra: And your greatest barrier is your life, and your life is in your life, it's often within you.
1:34
Cassandra: But when you become aware and you recognize it, you will be able to rise, I mean, really rise beyond it and live with purpose, peace, and lasting impact.
1:46
Cassandra: So that's what this podcast is about.
1:48
Cassandra: And the title for today is The Woman Who Refuses to Fit in a Box.
1:55
Cassandra: So let me ask you this before I bring on my great guest.
1:59
Cassandra: What if discovering who you truly are requires stepping beyond everything familiar and entering the spaces where the rules, labels, and expectations of ordinary life no longer apply?
2:16
Cassandra: Think about that.
2:17
Cassandra: What if that?
2:18
Cassandra: Think about that.
2:19
Cassandra: And also, if I bring on, is your way in your way?
2:22
Cassandra: Let's find out.
2:24
Cassandra: Well, hello, Sarah.
2:26
Cassandra: How are you?
2:27
Sarah: Hi, Cassandra.
2:28
Sarah: Thanks for having me on.
2:29
Cassandra: Yes, I'm so glad that you're on.
2:31
Cassandra: You know, one of the things I'd like to do before we talk about the woman who refuses to fit in the box, I'd like to share your bio because a lot of my listeners will say, well, what in the world qualifies her to talk about?
2:46
Cassandra: You know, the woman who refuses to fit in the box.
2:49
Cassandra: So just let me share some things.
2:51
Cassandra: Sarah Marshall is a novelist, U.S.
2:54
Cassandra: Navy veteran, engineer, technology leader, member of the LGBTQ community, and lifelong explorer of the worlds that exist beyond convention.
3:08
Cassandra: After traveling across six continents and participating in Burning Man more than 20 times as a contributor, a camp leader, and a devoted student of this community, Sarah is going to bring extraordinary death and authenticity to her storytelling.
3:28
Cassandra: Now, as an author, she authored a book titled The The Playa Dust in My Soul.
3:35
Cassandra: And she'll let me know if I'm pronouncing that wrong because even the the mountain, the, I'm sorry, the what she's involved in for over 20 years is new to me.
3:49
Cassandra: I had to do some researching and find out what that really meant.
3:54
Cassandra: But in her book, she writes about chosen family, self-discovery, and the transformative moments that emerge when you step beyond the familiar.
4:04
Cassandra: Her work invites us to question what we have been taught, explore who we are beneath society's expectations, and embrace the questions that may never offer easy answers.
4:19
Cassandra: Welcome to the podcast, Sarah.
4:23
Cassandra: Wow, what a what this is just, I've been so excited about this.
4:27
Cassandra: Before we go move on, I just want to know, and my listeners want to know.
4:32
Cassandra: Tell me a little bit about your backstory.
4:35
Cassandra: And even in your backstory, did you have a dream?
4:38
Cassandra: Like, you know, they they always ask young when we're young, what do you want to be when you grow up?
4:43
Cassandra: I'm like, I don't know, I'm only a kid, you know, but there were times for me I wanted to be a I wanted to be everything.
4:49
Cassandra: I wanted to be a teacher, I want to be an anesthesiologist.
4:52
Cassandra: I was all over the place.
4:53
Cassandra: So I'd like to know, once you share your backstory, was there anything within your backstory that you always wanted to do?
5:02
Sarah: What a great question.
5:04
Sarah: And I I'm 69.
5:06
Sarah: I I grew up, you know, in the 60s and the 70s, and and it was a it was a wild time to be growing up because there was so much going on during that period at the end of the Vietnam War, etc.
5:20
Sarah: But but I grew up in a tiny little conservative town up in the mountains, and it was a place where you were expected to fit in, and that was your job was to fit in and be like everybody else.
5:33
Sarah: And if you didn't fit in, you were very much a target.
5:38
Sarah: So I uh knew from when I was four years old that I was a girl.
5:44
Sarah: It was very clear to me, that's what I knew, but I also got all the messages that it was not okay to be that way.
5:52
Sarah: And that would be dangerous to explore that.
5:55
Sarah: Um, not just it's not okay, but it would be dangerous to explore that.
5:59
Sarah: So I I was so wrapped up in the what do I do about that, that it was hard for me to know what I wanted to do or wanted to be, because I was just I was locked in this struggle with I can't be this thing that I know that I am, so what do I do with that?
6:17
Sarah: And and so I spent literally my entire youth looking at what successful men did, yeah, trying to pretend to be that.
6:28
Sarah: Oh, okay.
6:29
Sarah: So it wasn't like I had a a goal to get to, I just wanted to look like what I was supposed to look like, what the world said that I needed to look like.
6:41
Cassandra: Wow, wow.
6:42
Cassandra: Let me ask you, what was it that you felt was telling you that you should be a girl and you were born a boy, correct?
6:53
Cassandra: Right?
6:54
Cassandra: Okay, what was and at what age you said?
6:57
Cassandra: Did you say four?
6:58
Sarah: Four, four years old.
6:59
Sarah: I mean, I knew right away because I wanted to do the things that the girls were doing, I wanted to be like the girls.
7:07
Sarah: It wasn't well formulated, it wasn't, I didn't have a lot of complex understanding of what that meant.
7:15
Sarah: I just knew that what the girls were doing and what they were like, that's the way I wanted to be.
7:20
Sarah: But I was in this other club that wouldn't allow me to be that way.
7:24
Cassandra: Okay, okay.
7:25
Cassandra: Were you an only child?
7:26
Cassandra: You had siblings?
7:28
Sarah: Well, I had uh I had three brothers, one one 10 years older that wasn't really part of our uh nuclear family, and then two two siblings that were younger than me.
7:38
Sarah: So I was the oldest in in our little family.
7:41
Cassandra: Okay, okay.
7:42
Cassandra: But you know, this is interesting.
7:46
Cassandra: You move between the worlds that really talk to each other.
7:50
Cassandra: For example, you in the military, you did martial arts, yeah, you are firefighter, yeah, an engineer.
8:01
Sarah: All the boy things.
8:02
Sarah: Whatever the boy things were, that's what I did.
8:06
Cassandra: Oh my gosh, even chemical engineer.
8:09
Cassandra: I mean, you were you were the burning man village mayor, and we're gonna talk about that.
8:15
Cassandra: Excuse me, Google AI, transgender task force coach, co-chair.
8:43
Cassandra: Now, most people spend their lives in one lane, right?
8:48
Cassandra: What have you learned from being a perpetual?
8:52
Cassandra: I'm gonna call you a perpetual border crosser, and how does that inform both your consulting work and your fiction novel?
9:02
Sarah: Great, great questions, all of them.
9:04
Sarah: So very early on, I I had this bug to travel to see new things.
9:11
Sarah: I didn't really understand it at the time, but I would say in retrospect, what was driving me is I wanted to be perpetually uncomfortable.
9:21
Sarah: I wasn't finding what I was looking for in my comfort spaces and the spaces that were familiar I knew.
9:29
Sarah: So I was constantly pushing myself to be uncomfortable because in that discomfort, I could see things about myself that I couldn't see when I when I was in the familiar.
9:41
Cassandra: Unpack that a little bit.
9:43
Cassandra: That's interesting.
9:44
Cassandra: Yeah.
9:45
Sarah: So so the idea behind becoming yourself is that you transform yourself, right?
9:52
Sarah: You're in a particular state, in a particular frame of mind, and you go through this transformation process to get to the other side.
10:01
Sarah: And I certainly had to do that when I transitioned, and that's one of the most dramatic transformations I've done.
10:07
Sarah: But but in order to transform, it's sort of like putting that that little bit of sand inside the oyster that creates the pearl.
10:17
Sarah: Being uncomfortable forces you to look at your life in different ways and look at yourself in different ways.
10:25
Sarah: And in that discomfort, you get to see new things.
10:28
Sarah: I certainly had that experience my first time at Burning Man.
10:31
Sarah: Okay.
10:32
Sarah: Very uncomfortable.
10:33
Sarah: But that's that would that's been the driver for me to continue to travel, both for work and for a pleasure, and to go to places not just to do the tourist things, but really get inside the culture, understand the people and why they live the way they live and what's important to them, because that reflects new things about me that I get to see.
10:57
Cassandra: Wow.
10:58
Cassandra: Okay.
10:59
Cassandra: When you were doing when you were in all of these, what I'm calling different interests, like the martial art, military, firefighter, chemical engineer, had you transitioned then while in those?
11:12
Cassandra: Oh, you had no.
11:14
Sarah: No, that so I've almost lived half my life as a woman.
11:18
Sarah: I lived the first half as a man.
11:21
Sarah: Um so all of those things that you're describing, all the guy things, were things that I kept doing to be the best guy ever.
11:29
Sarah: And I was um and I was very successful at it externally, socially, I was very successful at it.
11:37
Sarah: Internally, I was absolutely miserable.
11:39
Sarah: The more that I pressed myself to be successful in that world, the more unhappy I became with myself till I was just living miserable every day.
11:49
Cassandra: Wow, that's amazing.
11:50
Cassandra: That is amazing.
11:52
Cassandra: Now, I want to know, it's interesting.
11:56
Cassandra: When I was reading and preparing, I saw Burning Man, and I was like, what is the Burning Man village?
12:03
Cassandra: And so I did my research and I never ever knew or heard of it.
12:08
Cassandra: And I was just kind of fascinating, fascinated by it.
12:12
Cassandra: And I just want you to, first of all, what is Burning Man for my listeners that have never heard of it?
12:20
Cassandra: What is that?
12:21
Sarah: Sure.
12:21
Sarah: So Burning Man is an event that happens every year.
12:24
Sarah: In fact, it just happened last week.
12:26
Sarah: It's once a year, it lasts for about a week, a little over a week, in the most remote desert in the United States, the Black Rock Desert.
12:34
Sarah: It's in north, north, north central Nevada.
12:39
Sarah: And it's it's in the middle of nowhere.
12:43
Sarah: It's on this empty alkali lake bed.
12:45
Sarah: It's just flat lake bed.
12:47
Sarah: And if you look at it, it looks like a canvas that you could put something on.
12:52
Cassandra: Yeah.
12:52
Sarah: And uh, and this event was the was started in the early 90s and grew and went out to this Black Rock Desert and became a full event.
13:01
Sarah: And what happened with me is I had transitioned already.
13:05
Sarah: I was going through the early couple years of post-transition trying to figure out my life, and a couple of community of friends invited me to go out to this event.
13:16
Sarah: And the event is it's it's an art mostly an art event.
13:20
Sarah: There's lots of art installations out there.
13:23
Sarah: There, it's very creative.
13:25
Sarah: You there's a couple of things about it that makes it different from most like a big party events, and it is, it can be a big party if you want it to be, but that's not what would bring me back, you know, over 20 times.
13:37
Sarah: What it is is is it's a place for you to completely express yourself as yourself.
13:43
Sarah: And it's it's in the principles of the organization.
13:47
Sarah: There's there's a couple of key principles that really hit me the first year.
13:51
Sarah: The first one is the gift economy.
13:53
Sarah: There's no buying, selling, or trading out there at the event.
13:57
Sarah: There is only giving things away.
13:59
Sarah: That means that when you get out there, you come out with enough to take care of yourself and then something more to provide as a contribution to the city.
14:07
Sarah: And that can be as small as you want.
14:10
Sarah: It can be a trinket, it can be a service, it can be whatever, or you could get together with your friends and create a whole village and then offer something much bigger to people.
14:18
Sarah: But the whole idea is that if you walk down the street of your city, if I walk down the street in Oakland here and somebody offered me something for free, I would be very suspicious.
14:29
Sarah: But at Burning Man, it's a norm.
14:32
Sarah: So it takes the social barriers down very quickly because you're very intimately connected with a stranger with no nothing, no strings attached, nothing is going to force you in a in a particular direction.
14:44
Sarah: So you're suddenly in these intimate connections with people all day long, and and you get to choose what you're gonna do with them.
14:54
Sarah: The other big one that hit me was participation, that you're not there as an observer, you're not coming out there to you know be in the crowd, you are part of the action.
15:05
Sarah: So if something comes up spontaneously as you're walking down the street, you're a part of it.
15:10
Sarah: You're you're not just watching, you're part of whatever they're doing.
15:13
Sarah: So it'll very quickly put you out of your comfort zone if you're like me and you don't like to perform.
15:18
Cassandra: So what was some of the things that can you participate?
15:21
Cassandra: Like, what were some of the things people were doing?
15:24
Sarah: It could be it could be like performance, and you get tossed in the middle of whatever the performance is.
15:32
Sarah: It could be like one time I saw a kissing booth, and all these people crowded inside the kissing booth, and they're trying to get everybody to come kiss them.
15:42
Sarah: Oh wow! And so, you know, watching people do that and having you know, having that experience of being having the courage to step up and kiss somebody, and people just having fun with it.
15:54
Sarah: It could be getting a ride in an art car, or it could be say our village has a cabaret and they do performances every night, and people will come see the performer.
16:06
Sarah: Anyone that wants to can just come in and watch the performances.
16:10
Cassandra: Wow.
16:11
Cassandra: So so you talked about the principles, and that's interesting, the gift economy, like and then participating in the contribution.
16:20
Cassandra: Was there another principal?
16:22
Sarah: Oh, there's 10 principles.
16:23
Sarah: Oh, it's 10.
16:24
Sarah: There's a whole bunch of them.
16:26
Sarah: Um I just hit a couple of them.
16:28
Cassandra: I could tell you all of them, but no, no, I was just trying to get a sense of what the Burning Man Village was about, and and also for my listeners.
16:37
Cassandra: Let me ask you, what what age were you when you try fully?
16:43
Cassandra: Well, maybe it took some process to transition, so it didn't happen overnight, right?
16:48
Sarah: Yeah, it it does not happen overnight.
16:50
Sarah: I started, I was in stealth.
16:52
Sarah: I didn't tell anybody.
16:53
Sarah: I started medicating and doing you know therapy and that sort of thing in my kind of mid-30s, early to mid-30s, and I transitioned out in public and I think I was 37.
17:08
Sarah: So almost half a life ago.
17:11
Sarah: Yeah.
17:12
Cassandra: Wow.
17:12
Cassandra: Okay, okay.
17:14
Cassandra: Now, what could when you transitioned?
17:18
Cassandra: Were you in a profession?
17:19
Cassandra: Like what were you doing?
17:21
Sarah: Yeah, at the time I was director of operations of a biotech company.
17:26
Cassandra: Wow.
17:27
Sarah: So so I had 120 employees that I had to take on this journey as I transitioned.
17:32
Sarah: And you know, there were everybody had various levels of discomfort, and I had to be okay with their discomfort.
17:39
Sarah: So when I was going through transition, I was very well planned.
17:43
Sarah: And what I did was I kicked up my therapy sessions to twice a week so that I wouldn't get anything on my employees and I would only deal with it in therapy as I was as I was going through the process.
17:57
Sarah: It was a very public and very uh challenging struggle for me to do that.
18:03
Cassandra: Yeah.
18:03
Cassandra: Right, by so, how long afterwards did you continue to work there until you retired?
18:10
Sarah: So I worked at that company for a couple more years.
18:13
Sarah: My my boss at the time was very supportive, surprisingly, very supportive of me.
18:18
Sarah: When I got a new boss, I definitely he definitely had some trans issues.
18:23
Sarah: Every time I met with him, he would he said, uh, I don't know why it bothers other people.
18:27
Sarah: It doesn't bother me at all that you're trans.
18:29
Sarah: But he saw every time we got together.
18:32
Sarah: Yeah, right.
18:32
Sarah: So it became very uncomfortable over about a year, and I eventually went to HR and said, I think we need a divorce.
18:41
Sarah: And so I I I I managed my exit from the company, and then I went into the tech industry and I worked in the tech industry.
18:50
Cassandra: Okay, okay.
18:52
Cassandra: What was it about Burning Man, the village, that made you more comfortable?
19:04
Cassandra: Because initially you were not.
19:06
Sarah: I was not, and it was I had a I had an experience my first year that made me face how I wasn't living into my life fully.
19:15
Sarah: Now I'd already transitioned, I thought I'd done the hard part and all that.
19:20
Sarah: But when I got out to this place that is designed for people to participate and for people to be themselves without judgment, right, I had no capacity for that.
19:30
Sarah: I I didn't even know how to do that because I was so busy trying to stay in control and not not show anything that would make me vulnerable.
19:39
Sarah: But this was a place that was asking me to be fully vulnerable, fully myself.
19:44
Sarah: And and I saw it every day, and I was very, very, I was so uncomfortable, I nearly left after a couple of days out there.
19:53
Sarah: That all these people were having fun, enjoying themselves, and I felt so alone.
19:58
Sarah: And I had several experiences that made me realize that I was that I was holding my own self back, like I wouldn't spend time even with my friends.
20:08
Sarah: And I realized that that this that what that same thing that I was doing out there at Burning Man, that where I would be around people, but I wouldn't join, so to speak.
20:19
Sarah: I would just kind of keep on the periphery.
20:20
Sarah: That's what I did in my whole life.
20:22
Sarah: And it really hit me like a ton of rocks that I that I didn't that I had no capacity to really let people in.
20:30
Sarah: I had no capacity to be myself.
20:32
Sarah: And and what I realized by the end of that week as I started to participate and do things with people and be connected was I was the only one holding myself back from community.
20:45
Sarah: I was the one that was keeping myself from being part.
20:49
Sarah: I was telling myself that people, like I had one group of friends that were mostly straight, and I thought, well, they just want me around because I'm a novelty.
20:56
Sarah: And so I wouldn't get too close to them because I just felt like I was I was an observed piece of art or something.
21:04
Sarah: And what I realized was I was just holding myself back from that.
21:08
Sarah: They were all they wanted to do was love me, and all I had to do was open my arms and they would be there.
21:14
Sarah: And as soon as I realized that, I stepped into that.
21:17
Sarah: But it wasn't till the end of Burning Man that I got that.
21:20
Sarah: So I wasn't really ready to be at Burning Man until I was leaving Burning Man the first year.
21:26
Cassandra: The first year, okay.
21:27
Cassandra: Because you know, the the name of my podcast in my book is Is Your Way in Your Way?
21:36
Cassandra: And and as I indicated in the beginning of the show, that a lot of us it's all within, you know, that we're in our way.
21:45
Cassandra: There are things that we want to do, but yet we we are stuck, kind of like you indicated.
21:52
Cassandra: Like I I didn't have the capacity.
21:54
Cassandra: I I've never been like this.
21:56
Cassandra: I don't know what to do.
21:58
Cassandra: What would you tell my listeners?
22:02
Cassandra: And I don't I don't know what my listeners are stuck on.
22:07
Cassandra: I don't know what their thorn in their side is.
22:12
Cassandra: I'll call it a thorn that's not really gonna go away.
22:16
Cassandra: What do you think happened for you to?
22:19
Cassandra: Well, first of all, when you were four, you just felt it.
22:23
Cassandra: Okay, and it took you up to 30.
22:25
Cassandra: I mean, you you you got in all what I would call the manly occupation, so to speak.
22:30
Cassandra: So what what was it that enabled you to feel free?
22:39
Cassandra: You know, because one of the things you said, how conventional expectations can become invisible barriers.
22:47
Cassandra: Yeah,
22:47
Sarah: I had to get to rock bottom.
22:49
Sarah: I mean, I was I was married for years before I transitioned.
22:54
Sarah: I had always told my then wife that I could never be happy.
22:58
Sarah: I was miserable.
22:59
Sarah: I knew I had gender issues, but I didn't, I couldn't fully accept that I needed to transition until I got to the point where I realized here's here's what happened is I was doing manly manly things.
23:13
Sarah: I went on a mountaineering trip with a friend of mine to climb Mount Shasta.
23:18
Sarah: We got halfway up.
23:19
Sarah: I was, I was, I was leading.
23:23
Sarah: He said, I'm really worried about this area we're on.
23:25
Sarah: I said, I'll just stay in the boot prints, we'll be fine.
23:28
Sarah: And I took three steps and the whole ridge sheared off and I was falling.
23:33
Sarah: And so I was it was about a thousand foot drop.
23:36
Sarah: So I was like, I'm dead.
23:38
Sarah: And I threw up my ice axe to give myself a rudder down.
23:42
Sarah: And when the dust and the ice cleared, I was still a thousand feet up, and I looked up, and my friend had reached out, he had anchored in, reached out, and caught me on the way down.
23:53
Sarah: So I was hanging, he's holding me by my wrist.
23:56
Sarah: And I said, I said, nice catch, Bill.
23:59
Sarah: Um, and he pulled me up and he was wrecked.
24:02
Sarah: And he said, Let's go back down.
24:03
Sarah: We went back down.
24:04
Sarah: I told that story a few months later to another mountaineer, and he said, That's bravado, that's BS.
24:10
Sarah: You didn't do that.
24:11
Sarah: And I thought, why didn't I care about nearly dying?
24:15
Sarah: And I realized that I had no capacity to be to be alive, no capacity to really be in the world.
24:23
Sarah: And when I realized that, I was going through this process of what do I do with this?
24:28
Sarah: And then at the end of the year, I did what I did every year, and that is knock off all my commitments for the year.
24:35
Sarah: You know, what were my goals?
24:36
Sarah: Did I do them?
24:37
Sarah: And now let's write some new goals for the next year.
24:39
Sarah: That was my thing every year.
24:40
Sarah: New Year's Eve, I'd write, I'd go through my goals.
24:42
Sarah: New Year's Day, I'd write my new goals.
24:44
Sarah: I got, I was doing that inventory on New Year's Eve, and I got to my last goal and I hadn't done it.
24:51
Sarah: And then I looked back in the year before, and there it was, and I hadn't done it.
24:55
Sarah: And the year before I hadn't done it, and it was be more intimate with my spouse.
24:59
Sarah: I had no capacity for intimacy, and it broke something in me to realize that I was walking around dead and I had no capacity to be with other people.
25:10
Sarah: And I went home and said, Honey, I'm gonna start therapy.
25:15
Sarah: And she said, That's great, right?
25:17
Sarah: Oh shit, because she knew I had gender issues, and this is what happened within three weeks of therapy.
25:24
Sarah: I knew I was transitioning, and the rest was planning and execution.
25:29
Cassandra: Wow, wow, that's that's some kind of story.
25:32
Cassandra: So your spouse already knew it, and you, you know, as much as I knew it, I told her what I near-death experience was like, okay, all right, something's coming.
25:45
Cassandra: It's like, okay, now I I hit rock bottom, and it was that goal that said, I can't do this.
25:50
Cassandra: I can't do it.
25:52
Cassandra: Yeah, I just have to be real, right?
25:54
Cassandra: So when you became who you really wanted to be, how did that feel?
26:03
Sarah: Oh, so it was it was a relief, it was immediate, like sunshine came out into my life in this in a gray world that I lived in.
26:14
Sarah: I could see color, and it was terrifying because everything that I had been working towards the beautiful wife, the beautiful house, the perfect job, the rocketing career was all now in danger.
26:29
Sarah: And and so everything that I had known or I thought I was moving towards suddenly shifted, and I had a whole new future that was completely unmapped.
26:40
Cassandra: Oh my gosh.
26:41
Cassandra: Oh my goodness.
26:43
Cassandra: Well, you know, in your debut book, let me talk about your book, The Playa Dust in My Soul.
26:50
Cassandra: Is that how you pronounce it?
26:52
Sarah: You said you said it right.
26:53
Sarah: You're the first person to actually say playa correctly.
26:55
Sarah: So, yes, you said it right.
26:57
Cassandra: Okay, you indicated that your book is fiction, number one.
27:03
Cassandra: Yes, and much of it you said is based on real experience, coming to terms with your own inabilities, and let your guard down and accept you accepted the invitation to your vulnerabilities.
27:17
Cassandra: But the other thing you said is your book was a burden and a gift.
27:24
Sarah: How so?
27:25
Sarah: So after that first year, I had this experience where I felt out and I and I suddenly realized it was me that was holding myself back and that I could be with these people in a full, deep and in fully expressed way and be vulnerable and they would hold it.
27:43
Sarah: So all that became clear, and it but it left a seed for me, this thing that I that I've talked to other people that have gone to Burning Man that have a similar experience where they feel like they're in this place where it's just calling you to be yourself and belong, and they have no capacity to accept the invitation.
28:03
Sarah: So, and this idea of playa dust in my soul.
28:06
Sarah: If you ever go out to Burning Man, there is this dust, this this thin, it's almost like cement powdered dust on the playa, and it gets in everything.
28:15
Sarah: You if you have if you take something out there, it will have playa dust in it when you walk right.
28:21
Sarah: And the idea of having plia dust in your soul is something so profound happens out there that it becomes part of who I am.
28:29
Sarah: And so the book is explores what it's like to be in a place that calls for you to belong, but you have no capacity to accept the invitation.
28:41
Sarah: And what do you go through?
28:42
Sarah: And it's and it's viewed through the lens of seven different characters and their approach.
28:47
Sarah: People that have never been to Burning Man, people that are veterans, right?
28:51
Sarah: But each one of them has a struggle in how to belong, and they go through that process during the course of the book.
29:03
Cassandra: Interesting.
29:03
Cassandra: Did you find that healing?
29:06
Sarah: Oh, yes.
29:06
Sarah: Oh, yes.
29:07
Sarah: I mean, writing the book and then rewriting the book and then rewriting the book, and then my daughter becoming part of the reading it and saying this character wouldn't do that, and so and then being in this collaboration with my own daughter, it was awesome.
29:22
Sarah: It it let me work through all the things that I had felt that first year and come to terms with, but was unable to fully express.
29:31
Sarah: Wow.
29:32
Cassandra: How long did it take you?
29:34
Cassandra: Only 22 years to write the book.
29:38
Cassandra: That's all, huh?
29:40
Cassandra: Wow, only 22 years.
29:44
Cassandra: I I get it because I always wanted to write a book, and I think it took me 15, 15 years to write a book, you know.
29:54
Cassandra: So yeah, and and that that that was healing.
29:57
Cassandra: Oh my gosh.
29:58
Cassandra: You mentioned something that I want to hear a little more about.
30:03
Cassandra: You talked about one will find emotional truth, the kind that lingers, resonates, and asks you to reflect on your own remembered version of the past.
30:18
Cassandra: What does that mean?
30:20
Cassandra: Your emotional truth is going to keep lingering and resonating and reflecting, and it's also versions of the past.
30:29
Sarah: Yeah.
30:30
Sarah: So very much like the book, which I say is not accurate at all, but it's it is the truth, um, is that being able to reconcile yourself emotionally to be a fully expressed human being is not it's an act of courage, it's not an easy thing to do.
30:52
Sarah: It's it's an act of courage, it's an act of vulner vulnerability every day.
30:57
Sarah: And if you are fully vulnerable with the world, you are what's called the peaceful warrior, not somebody who fights, but somebody who accepts and accepts the world as it is, right?
31:10
Sarah: And when you're able to do that, you can form close connections and contribute to others in a way that you're just unable to if you have yourself all wrapped up.
31:23
Cassandra: So would you say you're at a peace now?
31:26
Sarah: As much so, how do I put this?
31:29
Sarah: So I'm living my life so that I will die satisfied.
31:35
Sarah: Oh, that's good.
31:36
Sarah: And what that means is at any moment, because we don't know when that moment is going to come, so that at every moment of my life has to be finding a way back to satisfaction, even if things aren't working and I have to find a way to get there.
31:53
Sarah: So that is that is how I live my life, is that I keep putting myself back to a state of am I contributing the way I want to contribute?
32:03
Sarah: Am I expressing myself the way I want to contribute?
32:06
Sarah: Am I surrounding myself with the people that make me the best version of myself?
32:11
Sarah: And if I'm not, then what do I need to do differently to have that in my life?
32:15
Sarah: Opposed to living a fraud.
32:19
Sarah: And I very much was living a fraud.
32:22
Sarah: I was really, really good at living a fraud for years and years, and it pains me to see other people doing that.
32:28
Cassandra: Yes, yes.
32:29
Cassandra: And I loved it when you said, well, first of all, we all gonna die.
32:34
Cassandra: And I really think it's a gift that we're all here, the individuals that are present.
32:40
Cassandra: That is a gift.
32:41
Cassandra: And I also believe that we're not just here just to be here, that's something that we should contribute, like serve or or do something, and and why not just bask in that and try to figure out what it is now.
32:57
Cassandra: Now that you have fully transitioned, one of the things you said was transformation is not an event, it's a practice.
33:08
Cassandra: Yes.
33:09
Cassandra: What does that mean?
33:11
Sarah: It's not an event.
33:12
Sarah: So I don't think I'm fully formed yet, and I don't think I'll ever get fully formed.
33:18
Sarah: I think I will continue to form until I stop living.
33:22
Sarah: Um and so informing, we were talking about this earlier when I said I put myself in a place of discomfort, right?
33:31
Sarah: So so that I can go through a transformation process.
33:35
Sarah: That is my practice on a daily basis.
33:38
Sarah: I always find some way to put myself in a place of I'm not quite comfortable here.
33:43
Sarah: I don't feel like this this is putting me out of my comfort zone.
33:47
Sarah: And as soon as I do that, I start seeing things about myself that are new.
33:51
Sarah: And that gives me an opportunity to do something with it that transforms it as well.
33:57
Sarah: So that that practice, that process is literally 24 hours a day.
34:02
Sarah: If I'm awake, I am in some level of transformation, at re-looking at myself, at not holding on to things need to look a certain way or be a certain way, or I have to look cool to the world.
34:16
Sarah: I can be messy, I can be fully forming human being and do that in front of you as we talk.
34:25
Cassandra: That's amazing because what you just said, I I say the same for me.
34:31
Cassandra: I transform all the time.
34:33
Cassandra: And as I look back over my life, it you know, like it didn't take us a day to get to where we are.
34:44
Cassandra: It didn't take us the day to have those emotions or gone through that mess that we've been through or whatever to get to where we are today.
34:51
Cassandra: So we're we're all transforming.
34:54
Cassandra: And I I I just applaud you because that took courage for what you've done.
35:01
Cassandra: And I know that I have listeners that are or even my listeners who know individuals.
35:09
Cassandra: And one of the things that I've learned is I don't judge.
35:16
Cassandra: Why?
35:18
Cassandra: I mean, who who who who am I to judge?
35:21
Cassandra: You know, and I actually think too, based on my experiences, I learn from differences.
35:26
Cassandra: You know, if everybody was like me, I wouldn't, I wouldn't learn anything.
35:30
Cassandra: You know, so there's certain things that happen that helps you open up to this vast world.
35:37
Cassandra: And I'm not I'm not telling my listener, you know, you you do do do what makes you feel comfortable.
35:46
Cassandra: Don't die with regrets, because a lot of people do, and you don't have to.
35:54
Cassandra: So I just, you know, I I just uh applaud you for what you've done.
35:58
Cassandra: And I will be, I will be, as I always say, I'm I'm pretty upfront.
36:04
Cassandra: And when I started preparing or making a decision, because I have a lot of people and I'm thankful, I'm so grateful that would love to be on my show.
36:16
Cassandra: And I I love it because I remember in the beginning, I was scared as I don't know what.
36:20
Cassandra: Like, what am I gonna say?
36:21
Cassandra: What what who am I gonna talk to?
36:23
Cassandra: I mean, it was like crazy.
36:25
Cassandra: And I made a decision to take action.
36:29
Cassandra: And when I read your story, I was just drawn to what you had to say because I know that a lot of people are struggling with identity.
36:40
Cassandra: The world makes you like that, but yet you're in a you're in a good place, you're still evolving, you're still a work in progress.
36:47
Cassandra: So am I.
36:48
Cassandra: So I would like you to share with my listeners that are actually in their way, that that are looking for that freedom, or you know, they really, they really, really want to start living the life that they truly want, and they're not doing it.
37:11
Cassandra: What can you share with them that could support that?
37:15
Cassandra: I'm not saying living the life like you, just living their life on what it is that they want.
37:19
Cassandra: It's not about what you've done, it's just period.
37:22
Cassandra: What would you tell them?
37:24
Sarah: Yeah, so I I used to do what I call trans 101.
37:27
Sarah: I used to go talk a lot publicly, and the thing that I recognized really early on is while most people cannot don't understand the experience of being trans.
37:37
Sarah: They just won't.
37:38
Sarah: You can't if you're not that.
37:40
Sarah: You can't possibly understand what that's like.
37:42
Sarah: That's but what you can relate to is hiding parts of yourself that you're not expressing in the world, that you're not fully being yourself in the world.
37:52
Sarah: And so, as I said earlier, I see that as uh an act of courage because you are being vulnerable and you're expressing some part of yourself that you are hiding.
38:04
Sarah: And that does two things.
38:05
Sarah: One is it gives you freedom, it gives you a freedom to be yourself.
38:09
Sarah: You're no longer hiding the true you, you are putting that out in the world.
38:14
Sarah: On the other side of it, that there are consequences.
38:17
Sarah: So, my career that was going this way, right that way.
38:21
Sarah: My marriage eventually dissolved.
38:25
Sarah: Right, we're still close friends, but we couldn't be together in that way anymore.
38:29
Sarah: Uh, and my whole life began to change, and those were the consequences of the choices I made.
38:35
Sarah: Now, as uncomfortable as all that was, it was important for me to go through because you were you and I were talking before we started this.
38:44
Sarah: Right.
38:44
Sarah: And I I mentioned that I had been I had met with my dad before I transitioned.
38:49
Sarah: I was in the process, but I hadn't told anybody.
38:52
Sarah: And my dad was slowly dying of bone cancer.
38:55
Sarah: He had he had been diagnosed a couple of years before, and it was probably gonna be a couple more years before he would pass.
39:01
Sarah: But he was in the process, he recognized he was at the end of life.
39:06
Sarah: And he we were talking, he said, you know, I if I had known that this I was gonna live this long, I would have done things different.
39:13
Sarah: And I said, Well, what do you mean?
39:15
Sarah: And he said, I thought I'd be dead by 40.
39:17
Sarah: So everything after 40 was you know, it was just I didn't have a plan.
39:21
Sarah: There was no, I was just and and I thought, I am not gonna get to the end of my life and regret that I wasn't fully myself.
39:31
Sarah: And so I even though I was on course to transition, I think about that conversation I had with him every day and think about what is the thing I am not expressing now?
39:43
Sarah: What is the what are the choices that I am not making that would fully give me a life with no regrets?
39:50
Sarah: And so I keep aiming that I certainly have regrets in my life, but I try to avoid them.
39:55
Sarah: Sure, sure.
39:57
Sarah: That's good.
39:58
Cassandra: I liked it when you said you don't know because you you you you've not been there.
40:03
Cassandra: You you can't relate to being a trans if you're not had that experience.
40:07
Cassandra: I say the same thing about being an African-American female.
40:10
Cassandra: Sure, right?
40:11
Cassandra: You don't know because you're not here, you know.
40:15
Cassandra: You know you're not experienced without experience.
40:17
Cassandra: Wow.
40:18
Cassandra: So currently you're coaching.
40:21
Cassandra: What are you currently doing?
40:23
Sarah: I am I'm doing several things.
40:25
Sarah: I am coaching and consulting.
40:27
Sarah: I I am still doing the kind of work I used to do when I was working in enterprise world, but I run my own consultancy.
40:33
Sarah: So I help, I help organizations be able to.
40:37
Sarah: We're in a we're in a time of incredible disruption.
40:41
Sarah: Technology, economy, sociopolitical competition, you name it.
40:47
Sarah: There is disruptions in every direction.
40:49
Sarah: So I I show companies how to run themselves so that they can thrive in disruption, that they can respond to disruption like a Tuesday.
40:57
Cassandra: Wow, that's awesome.
40:58
Cassandra: That's awesome.
41:00
Cassandra: How can my listeners get in touch with you, particularly when you say you do one-on-one, you know, individuals just contemplating or just need to talk through some things?
41:10
Cassandra: How will they get in touch with you?
41:12
Sarah: So the easiest way to get directly in touch with me is on my website for my book, PlayadustinMysoul.com.
41:19
Sarah: It's all one book, PlayadustinMysoul.com.
41:23
Sarah: People can uh I'm there is uh contact information for me on the website, and you can reach directly to me through the okay, okay.
41:31
Cassandra: I will put that in my show notes.
41:33
Cassandra: Thank you.
41:34
Cassandra: Yeah, I will definitely put that in the show notes.
41:37
Cassandra: Well, again, I just want to thank you.
41:42
Cassandra: I I want to thank you for your your your vulnerability, your candor, your courage, and being on my show.
41:51
Sarah: Oh, it's my pleasure, and thank you so much for having me.
41:54
Sarah: This is yeah, you're wonderful.
41:55
Sarah: I love this conversation.
41:57
Cassandra: Thank you so much.
41:58
Cassandra: And you know, to all my listeners, I would like for you, and I know actually, you will hear you can listen to this podcast over and over and over again.
42:07
Cassandra: And if you know of anyone that would be blessed by this podcast that that that you know that needs to hear this, it's something inside.
42:18
Cassandra: Please share it.
42:19
Cassandra: This podcast will go on forever and ever, you know.
42:23
Cassandra: And one of the things I say is when you land on it, perhaps you needed to listen to it as well.
42:29
Cassandra: So I'm gonna sign off.
42:30
Cassandra: I'm gonna thank you all again, and I ask that you subscribe to this podcast, hit like, and also share it with your community.
42:40
Cassandra: And don't feel bad.
42:42
Cassandra: Please, please make your comments again.
42:46
Cassandra: God bless all of you, Sarah.
42:48
Cassandra: Thank you, and bye for now.
42:51
Sarah: Thank you.