Episode 41 transcript: From Burnout to Finding Her Purpose with Sara McElroy

Podcast Introduction:

[00:00:00] Sara: And part of that means you have to disconnect from your body and that you can't stay connected to your body and push yourself like that without there being a real gap because you can't keep doing it. So that was my body finally screaming at me to say, Sara, enough.

[00:00:17] Aneta: We often hear people wishing us a long, happy, and healthy life. But what if the length isn't what matters most? What if instead, it's the breath, depth, and purpose of each day that matters most? Welcome to the Live the Width of Your Life podcast. My name is Aneta Ardelian Kuzma, and join me weekly as I interview guests who made changes in their own lives to live more fully with intention, gratitude, and joy. Be prepared to be inspired by their stories of how they shifted their mindset. Took courageous action and designed the life that they always wanted to live.

[00:00:51] Aneta: Welcome back to the Live The Width of Your Life podcast. Thank you so much for joining me again. This week's guest is Sara McElroy. Sara is an ex-chief marketing officer and former corporate good girl, who reinvented her career and reimagined the way that she worked after unexpectedly becoming the Wall Street Journal's Poster girl for pandemic burnout.

[00:01:15] Aneta: Now she's a career transition expert. Soon to be author and speaker on a mission to help brilliant professional women unapologetically do the same. She just landed her first book Deal for Women Who Walk a Self Guide which gives women the confidence and blueprint to leave the job that no longer serves them and land the one that will, which will be published by Post Hill Press in the fall of 2024.

[00:01:41] Aneta: I loved my conversation with Sara. We talked about what it felt like to be on that burnout journey and the wake-up call that her body sent her where she could no longer ignore all the signals. We talked about how she detoxed from the ground culture and the lessons she learned as she was interviewing other women during the great resignation with the raze-to-rise interviews that she was doing.

[00:02:07] Aneta: And then we also talked about her spiritual awakening and transformation on this journey. Our conversation went in so many different directions and I think you're going to enjoy it. Take a listen.

Podcast Interview:

[00:02:19] Aneta: Hi Sara. Thank you so much for joining me today. I'm so excited to have you with me.

[00:02:24] Sara: Hi, Aneta. Great to be here. Excited for our chat.

[00:02:28] Aneta: Oh, me too. So for those that aren't familiar with you, or a little bit about your background, will you share your journey with us?

[00:02:37] Sara: Sure. It's been a pretty interesting one. If I were to categorize myself looking back, I was always the good girl. Like in school, at work, and all of life. I thrived on external validation and praise, if I'm really honest, that's a pretty gritty way to open up that question of who are you and who have you been and what's your journey?

[00:03:01] Sara: But it's a part of me that I'm owning and trying to let go of deconditioned and let go of. Because I did that whole valedictorian in high school. Go to a prestigious college, and get a good job. I worked on Capitol Hill for a little bit and rose through the corporate ranks. I reached the C-Suite by age 35, and I was super proud of that accomplishment.

[00:03:24] Sara: But I was working insane hours. I was doing an executive MBA program at the time and in addition to trying to juggle that CMO role, I was working up to 20 hours a day and it was just unsustainable. I thought felt like it was the only thing I could do, I just had to kind of hold on and keep it going.

[00:03:47] Sara: It felt like my hamster wheeling had taken on a life of its own, and it's something that I had powered for a long time, but now it was like I couldn't even stop it, and so I ended up getting shingles in April 2021, and that was my wake up call moment of Sara, you cannot do this anymore.

[00:04:04] Sara: Because I'm sitting in the doctor's office and the doctor tells me I have shingles and I am honestly elated, which is such a strange thing to say when you're given a pretty serious diagnosis like that. But for me it was I'm going to have eight days off of work and nobody can judge me for it. That was the bigger thing, is that I'm sitting there grinding, just waiting for people to recognize that extra effort and be like, it's enough, Sara, you can take a break now.

[00:04:30] Sara: But of course, that was never going to come, so I ended up quitting that job after the shingles diagnosis, I guess a week and a half as I was coming back from shingles, I left that job, found a new one, moved to Florida. I'm full of life reset. I found a little house on the water.

[00:04:46] Sara: I started hitting the yoga mat. I'm thinking, I'm going to prioritize myself really for the first time in my life. And what I came to find though is that the job I accepted down in Florida and moved down here for was not a super great fit from a [00:05:00] culture standpoint. I was dealing with a sexual harassment situation that wasn't properly investigated for months after shingles.

[00:05:09] Sara: And that being that sort of first, I think, cracking open of that good girl mold that just shattered the good girl version of Sara. I couldn't fathom walking back into an office or a culture in the kind of stressful position that I'd been in just recently. I couldn't imagine continuing to subject myself to that.

[00:05:30] Sara: I would go to the parking lot in the afternoons most days and go cry. It was bad. So I quit that job last January 2022. I'm feeling emboldened and I'm on a crusade. I'm going to interview women and find out what they're going through because I'm thinking I cannot be the only woman who is experiencing this type of spin cycle of burnout going from one toxic culture to another and I'm thinking I can't be the only one.

[00:06:00] We're amidst the great resignation. There are millions of women right now, and so that's why I founded Raze to Rise and started interviewing women about their journeys. It's been an incredible journey thus far.

[00:06:11] Aneta: Thank you so much for sharing and being so honest and vulnerable. There are so many things I want to ask you a little bit more about, but it resonated with me.

[00:06:22] Aneta: This idea of you saying being a good girl and sort of seeking this external validation, even when it sounds like in using my words, you were just working yourself to death, right? To the point that your immune system had to kind of raise up a flag and say completely you got shingles and how old were you when you got shingles?

[00:06:44] Sara: 36 I think. Yes, just for 36. And that's young. Yeah, really young or

[00:06:48] Aneta: yeah, really young for something like that, which definitely your immune system was suppressed. So if you're working 20 hours a day, you're not sleeping. So that was one of the things, right? Four hours of sleep maybe. That's not going to be really great for health wellness. And so just tell us a little bit about when you're working those kinds of hours and you're keeping up that pace and not just for the job that you were in, but Sara, this sounds like this started when you were younger, right? We find ourselves on this journey. So by the time you got sick with shingles, what was your state of mind and how were you feeling physically also?

[00:07:25] Sara: Such a great question, Aneta. I love that you pinpointed that because what I was starting to notice is that physically I was experiencing so much tension in my body that I couldn't figure out what was really happening.

[00:07:43] Sara: I would go into the office and I'd have that churning stomach feeling, but I was clenching my jaw so much. I ended up with larger masseter muscles because I'm sitting there in my office grinding my teeth under the stress and building the muscles in my cheeks that are growing.

[00:07:56] Sara: I mean, it was so crazy. I was that stressed out and I could feel I was so irritable. I was on edge. When I was interviewed by the Wall Street Journal, they actually picked up my story going from shingles and CMO to Florida and the new job down here. They asked me about this experience I had when I was driving to the office down here and just ran into a train track and the lights start flashing, the train's going to start coming and I get stopped at that light and I can't go through and I'm only going to be five minutes late for work but it was full tilt meltdown.

[00:08:30] Sara: And so that was a few months later. But I was on the precipice of that and I was doing my best to kind of control the outbursts and the experiences that I was having. Just thinking that that's what we do. And that's good emotional intelligence and emotional regulation.

[00:08:46] Sara: But what I was doing is I was just suppressing so much and my nervous system, if you talk about the immune system too, but it's the whole endocrinology, immune system, nervous system relationship. I was fried and everything starts crumbling at that point.

[00:09:01] Aneta: Yeah, I was going to say your nervous system was so dysregulated at that point and of course, that's when so much disease sets in. But also there are studies, I can't remember the name of the study who did it, but they tracked people who weren't sleeping and they said that after six days or after five days of six hours or less of sleeping, the folks, their cognitive ability was that of someone who's legally drunk.

[00:09:25] Aneta: And so you. Yes. So you've got an impaired cognitive system. You've got an immune system, nervous system, and physical body that can't keep up with all of this. You're not recovering cuz you're not sleeping. So you can see it's a perfect storm for burnout and for things to happen. So do you feel now that shingles, almost saved your life in that moment?

[00:09:45] Sara: Completely now because it made me pay attention to my body, the way I looked at myself. I was, the performer, and the good girl, and that meant I operated from my brain and that was it. My body was [00:10:00] a tool to do the things that I needed to do, but I never had any sort of respect or appreciation for my body, nor did I even have.

[00:10:08] Sara: I'm realizing, especially now, full integration between my actual logical, rational brain and the rest of my being. I just ignored the rest of it. It's such a strange thing. I mean, growing up, well, I guess it was really more so when I went off to college but developed an eating disorder and it makes sense why all these things happen when I can look back and see all the breadcrumbs on the trail of like, it is so damaging to objectify ourselves and this idea of that internalized capitalism or internalized sort of productivity that, that is what our value comes from. That is what I had done.

[00:10:46] Sara: And part of that means you have to disconnect from your body and that you can't stay connected to your body and push yourself like that without there being a real gap because you can't keep doing it. So that was my body finally screaming at me to say, Sara, enough.

[00:11:04] Sara: And honestly, I'm amazed too because it's now been two years since then. And that was like pulling a thread on a sweater and starting to pull it and starting to see there's no sweater here anymore. And I've had to rebuild from the bottom up, not just my life and my career, which I knew would happen when I left corporate. But it has been a catalyst for such deeper growth and a spiritual awakening, but also a deep dive into actually knowing who I am as Sara because I didn't even know. For example, I've been diagnosed with A D H D just recently. I had no clue. I think I had such a fear like the existential threat of losing my job or not being the good girl or performing or whatever, that I was able to kind of make my brain work within the structures and systems of the educational system in corporate and stuff like that.

[00:11:58] Sara: And it's been so interesting on the other side to realize that I've been the same sort of thing, forcing myself to be a certain way for a long time because I thought that was expected of me. But yeah, there's certainly a lot I've learned over the last couple of years because of all this.

[00:12:14] Aneta: No, it's so true. And I love what you said. We do need to disconnect and disassociate from our bodies if we want to keep up with the pace and continue to do what we think is expected of us, right? So I always say, devices tell us you need to charge it up. The battery's saying it's low, the computer will get, you'll freeze, it'll get stuck. You're going to have to reboot, you're going to have to do certain things take measures.

[00:12:40] Aneta: Our body and when we're connected, it sends us signals. All the time. Our consciousness, all the time. But we spend so much of our life in the thinking mind. Which actually usually is just deceitful. Like it's not even true many of the thoughts that we're thinking, right? Anyway. So it's not the place to be, but unfortunately, we do make that choice if we want to continue to do what we think is expected of us. But, or I should say, and, in your case, the body finally was like, we've got a message for you we want you to listen.

[00:13:17] Aneta: And even I would say maybe your experience at the second job in Florida when there was an external circumstance, it sounds like the sexual harassment, where that also forces you to maybe overcome some of those behaviors that were keeping you small or keeping you within the confines of what women we're supposed to do, maybe stay silent, not say anything, be the good corporate citizen, all those things.

[00:13:41] Aneta: So let's talk about how then you used your voice, how you stepped into who you were. As you said, you started to discover who Sara is, and that is part of your spiritual awakening. Discovering who we are, right? Underneath all the layers when we get rid of it all. Then there's room for all this new stuff and discovery. So tell me about Raze to Rise and the interviews you did with women and how that came to be, but also what did you learn, some of the biggest things that you heard and learned, and maybe it validated some things that you were thinking about already.

[00:14:16] Sara: Well, so raze to rise. I think the biggest thing for me is that it's a perfect segue into what we were just talking about or what we were just talking about. It's a perfect segue from that because what I was so surprised to realize is that when I was asking each woman, I'm really fascinated by our inner landscapes as humans in our inner worlds and how we make decisions, and why we do what we do.

[00:14:38] Sara: It is so compelling to me to try to understand that, and perhaps it's because I've never had a really good understanding of why I do the things I do, except for when I had that sort of external orientation that made sense to me. So I've been really curious to see why women have been making the decision to walk away, to start a new endeavor of their own, or to find another corporate opportunity that is a better fit or even downshifting for some women, and they all talked about just coming to this point of knowing they needed to walk away. So yes, that doesn't mean we're throwing out all logical, rational decision-making practices.

[00:15:17] Sara: Some did crunching of numbers and spreadsheets for budgets. Can I take this leap kind of thing or pro-con list, or talk to their family and friends? But what really stuck with me is that they all came to this place just knowing it was time to go, and I was so blown away by this because, to your point, I like to thrive in the corporate world, especially as the corporate good girl, you very much are.

[00:15:47] Sara: You're like, you're worshiping mental prowess along with everybody else because that's how you've gotten to have a seat at the table. Honestly, as a woman getting to the C-suite. And so that was what I thought was the most important and useful tool we all had in our tool belt for making decisions, but really women were talking about their intuition, even if they didn't use the term, they were talking about, the intuition.

[00:16:09] Sara: And I loved what you said about the body sending us science all the time. Of course, it's we're getting those science related to our physical well-being, our mental, emotional, spiritual, all of that. But it's the intuitive piece too that is so powerful. When I was starting this research, I listened to a podcast that Elizabeth Gilbert, the author of Eat, pray, love, did for Tim Ferriss's four weeks or four hour work week podcast back in 2020, and she spoke about how in ancient times, our bodies were used as like this internal compass and navigation system.

[00:16:45] Sara: Because think about it, we didn't have all of the technology at our fingertips. We didn't have news, we didn't have internet, all of that. So we knew that we had this finely attuned navigation system and used it to get us through, in addition to the logical mind. So there was more balance in that. And I was fascinated because she was bringing in some of the science and the history around the evolution of the thinking mind. It's only been for hundreds of thousands of years versus our bodies’ millions of years. And so that's why we are so wise.

[00:17:18] Sara: So that's been the coolest thing to me, is to try to understand how can we still show up in the corporate world with our feet planted on the ground, but harness the power of that part of us that can tap into something that's bigger and far greater than we can do, than just staying up here in our brains.

[00:17:39] Aneta: Yeah, it's so true. And I was going to say, and in addition, the spirit is eternal. So that's where the intuition is coming from anyway. But the challenge is, and I remember I spent 25 years in the corporate world, even though I was told, to bring your authentic self. Bring your whole self to work. It's like no, you actually don't want that.

[00:18:00] Sara: Exactly. Yeah.

[00:18:01] Aneta: That isn't what was promoted. That isn't what was going to get you to the top. It wasn't necessarily what people were comfortable with. And so when you choose to change your behavior, you are not in integrity with yourself. And when you are not in integrity with yourself in listening to your truth, you are shutting off your intuition because you feel like it is wrong. And so many decisions you think about are made just purely from the thinking mind standpoint in organizations, in corporations, and with so many women leaving. The great resignation leaving during Covid, leaving now that people are being forced in some instances to come back to the office.

[00:18:49] Sara: It's going to be really interesting to see what happens with the populations of women continuing to decrease in these organizations. And because traditionally women were the ones that were relying on both the integration of the thinking mind and the intuition.

[00:19:05] Sara: Absolutely. It's a real crisis at least that's what Lean In has called it in their Women In the Workplace report that was released in October of this year, they called it the Great Breakup and they said women are breaking up with toxic cultures, bad companies, they're just fed up. And the rate at which senior leaders, so women who are director level or above are walking out. It's for every two going out the door, one is promoted. So there's bleeding, like a real issue of not being able to keep that pipeline full. And so there's a great concern to your point of not having women who have more of that.

[00:19:44] Sara: That connection, but also we're known for empathy and compassion and all of those things that are really important for the retention of amazing employees and creating great cultures and all of those things. There's a real concern that if we don't have those voices at the top, what's going to happen? So it's going to be fascinating to see. I was speaking with a woman who wrote a book. I guess maybe 10 years ago, left her job and had been very consistently growing her company to coach in the de and I space, especially around women, and she said that at the beginning of this year, her business dried up completely.

[00:20:20] Sara: Now, I know this is just one data point in an anecdote, but she believes that the industry is actually changing entirely in that tech. She was saying that she worked in tech a lot. People, obviously with all those layoffs, they're cutting their budgets and stuff, but I think it's endemic of a greater issue. And it's not just about dollars and cents right now. It's a matter of prioritization and where we place our values as a society and one that's in late-stage capitalism where growth is what it's all about year over year, month over month.

[00:20:51] Aneta: And it's at the same time, we know that these women are starting their own businesses because the rate of women over the age of 50 who are starting their own businesses is the fastest growing segment.

[00:21:03] Sara: That's awesome. I did not know that. Very cool. Yeah.

[00:21:06] Aneta: So at the same time, people are saying, yeah, I'll trade in whatever I was doing there and just go work for myself and do something that feels good and that feels right. So what were you finding with the interviews that you were doing where when these women had this, knowing cuz that's what it felt like for me. It was literally a light switch that went on one day and it was such a deep knowing. It was a certainty like, of course, this is exactly the right timing and it's going to happen.

[00:21:32] Aneta: So where did the women that you were interviewing, where were they going? Were they going to take time off? Were they just going to stay home the whole time? Were they exploring what they wanted to do next? Because I'm sure all of 'em didn't have necessarily an idea of what they were going to do next. Right? You don't have to wait until you have your next step figured out. Which says even more, I think, which is even more impactful.

[00:21:54] Sara: I definitely agree. I think the bulk of the women that I talked to were going into either entrepreneurial ventures or another corporate job. So the women who were going back into work, it actually for me was split about 50-50, which I think was a really positive thing for the project to get the perspective of the women who were trying to make moves within corporate. Because there are so many people who were talking about being an entrepreneur, starting a business, so many awesome thought leaders in that space and talking to people about quitting and making bold moves and all of that. But, I wanted the message to also be that you can be a woman who wants to be in corporate or maybe for this season of life, that's what's right for you.

[00:22:32] Sara: But that's great. And if that's you walking away from even this team to go to another role, that can be a bold career move too. And so it was really cool to see that women were taking their careers by the reins in whatever way felt best to them at the time, I did have a few women who were taking time off. One was. Trying to become kind of a singer-songwriter, and she was also picking up some project management jobs, so she was kind of seeing how it was going to unfold to determine exactly where it would end up. Another woman was traveling to Africa and yeah, it's just been really cool to see how we have found what that next anchor point is going to be, to be able to cross that threshold.

[00:23:15] Sara: Because that is the hardest thing to do when we have that knowledge and that call too, it's almost that call to adventure in Joseph Campbell's hero's journey. You're being called to the threshold to make a choice and to get over that threshold. That's where you have to have at least a little bit of an idea of what the boon is on the other side to be able to motivate yourself to go there. So for some women, to your point, it was freedom and space. And for me, that was a lot of what that was too. But for others, it was just a fresh start when they hadn't given themselves permission to make a move until the world went upside down. And all of a sudden all of us were like, maybe we might have some of our values and priorities out of whack with the way that we're living.

[00:23:59] Aneta: Yeah. And that's like mother nature's signal, right? Similar to your shingles. Signal to us like, Hey, pay attention. So I'm very curious because you shed the good girl identity. You said working all these hours and you left a role that you needed to from the company then. So what have you replaced all of those things with? I'm sure you let go of more things too if you're willing to share, but what else did you let go of and what did you find, or what did you choose to replace it with intentionally instead?

[00:24:35] Sara: Well, so I will say that when I first left corporate, I was so averse to the idea of any kind of forced routine related to how I was going to work on my own as Sara because I had followed everybody else's sort of routine or even matched my whole life to just fit into work. I was having a conversation when I knew I was going to, this was before I got shingles, but I already knew three months before I got shingles, I was going to have to leave that CMO job.

[00:25:06] Sara: I had a conversation with a friend of mine from business school and she was like, Sara, that sounds like you got to do something fast. And I was told her, I talked to a former boss of mine who was in South Dakota working for a different company, and I come from Wyoming, so I know that part of the world, not the most exciting, glamorous, luxurious place to move to as far as the big city and all of that vibe and stuff like that.

[00:25:30] Sara: But I was saying to her, I can move anywhere for work, I'll just move. It's fine. And as long as I have my weekends, I'll be fine because five days of the week are just all about work kind of a thing. I didn't phrase it exactly like that cause I think if I did, I might have actually listened to myself and been like, that sounds a little crazy.

[00:25:46] Sara: But that was just the way that I thought. And so I really thought this idea of routine and structure on the first, really the first tranche of the journey and it's been interesting because that's where the A D H D diagnosis has really shown itself. It's been, as I've issued any sort of semblance of structure that all of a sudden I've realized, that was the scaffolding that was really helpful for me as someone with A D H D.

[00:26:13] Sara: So building that back in. But honestly, my days are not anything they used to be. I would do the whole back-to-back meetings all day thing for years. And not only are you not terribly productive, but it is. Just such a grind, and so I don't do that. I will only take two calls in a day if I have a podcast recording.

[00:26:37] Sara: That's the only interview I'm going to do. I did a huge media campaign last year and I was doing up to three or four interviews a day, and it was just, I burnt out even from that, and so Aneta, it just became very clear to me that this was going to be something I'd have to be intentional about, to your point, to set some checks and balances and be my own governor for the first time because I had to actually, think about and feel into my body cuz I'd never asked it before, right?

[00:27:05] Sara: Feel into my body what feels good to me and what is supportive. So starting to add in more of the structure. It's a long way of explaining that I didn't get there for a really, really long time and now I'm starting to add it in as I'm getting medicated and getting everything sort of balanced out and starting to work with a coach.

[00:27:23] Sara: But no, for me, I've spent more time at. Obviously, I didn't have a beach in Atlanta, but so much time at the beach, so many sunrises at the beach, so many sunsets so much time in nature. I had a wonderful dog. That was my anchor point too, and she passed away in March and so that made things really hard too.

[00:27:48] Sara: But I did just adopt a puppy and so we're getting outside and playing in the park and as much as I am still so passionate about all of this work, I just believe that sometimes we end up in these seasons of life where we just have to give to ourselves and take the time to get to know us, heal. That was an interesting thing. I didn't know I'd have to heal or detox on the other side of corporate, but that's what really had to happen.

[00:28:19] Aneta: I remember day one when I didn't have to go to work and my calendar was completely empty and the first time ever in which you're looking at a calendar, right? I guess because you're not in school. You don't need to show up for someone's meeting that they put on your calendar. It was the first time I remember in my life where I could just go, what do I want to do? What would feed my soul right now? What could I do? Mentally, physically, socially, emotionally, spiritually.

[00:28:56] Aneta: What are those things that I enjoy doing? And I wish that gift for everyone where they could take the time and. What does self-care look like to me? And how can I nourish myself in the best ways possible? And then how can I commit to this being just the way that my life is and not giving those things away when other things come in?

[00:29:18] Aneta: It's just such a beautiful gift, and so I'm glad that you are able to do that for yourself. And I guess my advice is don't let it go. Because sometimes we revert back and think, there's no time for it. There is, there absolutely is. You can work around it, which is so beautiful. But also we need to detox from all the other stuff.

[00:29:38] Aneta: We need to detox from the conditioning. And so I think it's beautiful that you gave yourself that space and you recognize that you weren't ready to jump right back into something else because we need to give ourselves time to heal. And to allow that journey and that path to take as long as it does and to go where it wants to go.

[00:29:57] Aneta: So any surprises during that time? Because I think when we are able to take care of ourselves, when we're able to connect again to our spirit, to our body, to listen in, there are so many blessings I find in abundance that comes in. So what came into your life during this time?

[00:30:15] Sara: It has been the most amazing, but also most challenging experience because what I have found is that, well, I thought I would kind of get through the first few months of healing, detoxing, all of that, and I would just feel normal and feel okay again. And what ended up happening instead is that I would do some work.

[00:30:43] Sara: For example, I did to your point of asking what else came in, I did a lot of different types of healing and energetics and things like that. RTT hypnotherapy. Regular sort of hypnotherapy and things like that. And I would do some sessions and I would have this amazing realization about how really my good girl conditioning is born out of things that happened in childhood that were not great and carrying P T S D even into adulthood.

[00:31:10] Sara: In fact, I was hospitalized in 2011 as a 20-something-year-old. For childhood trauma in a childhood trauma treatment center. So it's no shock that I would still be carrying things of that, cuz I never really took the time to completely heal from that. But I'd have a realization that and I'd be like, this is so awesome.

[00:31:29] Sara: I figured it out. I've got it, I'm better now. And then it would be another opportunity, the universe would present me with another mirror, which is what I believe that sexual harassment situation was. That was to really make me face some things and I would face another mirror, another situation, and I would dig in, get it kind of excavated, and feel good about it.

[00:31:48] Sara: And now I've just realized, I think this is just my journey for a while, that this is just the way it's going to be and every day may be kind of a new realization about who I am, who the things I maybe still need to change and work on. For example, I'll give you another one here where we're talking about emotion regulation and emotional intelligence.

[00:32:07] Sara: I thought I was a super highly emotionally intelligent person because I could read people well and I kept my emotions in check and I thought that's what that meant. I had no idea that it meant actually feeling your emotions, not suppressing them. Not trying to process them. Cuz I did go to a coach or a therapist about that and she was like it was a somatic experience.

[00:32:29] Sara: That's what I was doing. I was like, so how do I process emotions? And she was, you just feel them. You're not trying to process them and just get rid of them. You feel them because they're informed and they're telling you something, and it was just so mind-blowing these things to learn that are so simple, but 20-year-old Sara, 30-year-old Sara, never, never understood those things.

[00:32:49] Sara: And I don't, Aneta, if I'm really honest, I would not have realized those things if I'd stayed in corporate maybe later on, I'm sure later on, because I would've hit a breaking point. But if I'd stayed, I wouldn't have had this just quantum leap of what feels like a personal metamorphosis.

[00:33:08] Sara: What I think it's doing is to expand my nervous system and to allow me energetically to be able to hold more and to play that thought leadership role, be the author who's publishing a book and things like that. Cause those were things that I could not have been prepared for operating with this facade that I just didn't even know was there.

[00:33:28] Sara: That was so hard to realize. I wasn't purposely trying to put on a mask and trying to be authentic, and in a lot of ways I wasn't cause I've really valued authenticity for a long time. I just didn't know what my authenticity truly was. Also realized I have some intuitive capabilities. I came out as bisexual.

[00:33:46] Sara: Like so many things. It's just mind-blowing when we can actually take that focus that was pointed to the outside world to tell me if I was good enough for 38 years to then turn it inward. And for a while, it was a really harsh inward look and now it's just gentle and it's soft and it's like we're coming home.

[00:34:08] Sara: I'm coming home to me and that's been the greatest gift of this journey. Yes, the work is amazing too, but I feel this is my magnum opus is being able to heal and be in my body. And I think, sorry. It gets me even a little bit emotional. Like, be somebody who can show that you can be that corporate type.

[00:34:27] Sara: You can have done all of those things and they don't have to define you. We say that a lot for the bad things in life, but those things, even the good things don't have to define you and you don't have to stay that person. And so now I'm not, I'm very different than the person that I used to be in. I'm working on a project actually related to that, a documentary, and I'm working with a film crew that I worked with back in 2019 when I was in corporate, and it's so interesting even to get that gentleman's perspective, he's at the different company now, he can see the difference in Sara corporate version versus Sara, real, raw, authentic, and vulnerable because I just.

[00:35:09] Sara: I wanted to hear this stuff Aneta if I'm really honest, this whole journey, if I'd heard something like this, I would've been, I'm not crazy. It's okay. It's going to be okay. I'm going to get there. And I didn't have that. And so now at this point, it's just, I'm going to share it all because it's me and I just want others to feel they're not alone either.

[00:35:29] Aneta: No. I'm so glad that you are sharing because we do spend so many years. I had this thought, I remember when I left and I was on my own journey, I just said I felt the first part of our life, the first half. We're accumulating all of these things we're consuming, right?

[00:35:44] Aneta: we're creating identities, like you said, the good girl, the good student. You're defined by the school you went to, the partners in your life, and the job that you take. All these things, title, salary, money, all of it. And then I just feel for those that are on a path of awakening and spiritual journey, It's all about shedding.

[00:36:05] Aneta:  It's like you're on the other end and you're like, I don't need that. I'm going to let go. I don't need that. And then you're just left with yourself, which is amazing and scary. And it's that mirror which sometimes is very harsh, all of it. But at the same time, it's so beautiful because it reminds me of the scripture verse that says you can't put new wine in old wineskins for it will burst.

[00:36:29] Aneta:  And I think the same thing. Until we shed and let go and make room and release, all those things that don't serve us, even if we've held onto 'em, even if that's all that we've known for so many years. There isn't space and there isn't room for the other, and you don't want to put it on, you don't want to stuff that on top of the other gunk.

[00:36:48] Aneta:  Like sludge all of it, let it go, and create the space. and it's interesting of course people are going to notice that because energetically we're 99.9% energy. The very tiny minuscule amount of matter. So, of course, people radiate from within when they do this work. Of course, there's a light that is there. Of course, everything seems different even though you're still Sara.

[00:37:13] Aneta:  So let's talk about the book because you said one of the things that you now have space for is the book, and you have a book deal, and I think you told me the title of the book is Woman Who Walk. Yes. So tell me a little bit about the book, how it came to be when it's going to be available, and anything else that you're willing to share.

[00:37:31] Sara: Sure. Well, it was inspired by the Raze to Rise journalism project, but knowing that as I dug in and was capturing these stories and speaking with these women and doing my own research and experiencing all of my own transformations. It was, this is not just about this singular moment in time. That is a great resignation. These are universal themes and truths that we are playing with here, and these are tools that can serve us whether we're in the midst of the post-pandemic movement of all of these people making changes, it honestly doesn't matter.

[00:38:07]  Sara: I think that was such a breaking point for us, that it is moving forward. All of the lessons from it are still going to be so critical for us as women, as we link arms and define the next, I guess next, really like the next wave of feminism. Arianna Huffington has been prognosticating for years. Like the next sort of third-wave feminism. That's what I think this is part of. It's part of that opportunity is us defining how we can approach work in a way that is, kind of like the, I guess the pendulum swinging back from the hashtag girlboss and things like that. Girlboss is dead. We don't want to do all that.

[00:38:46]  Sara: So the book is to bring forth a blueprint that gives women confidence. And really the path to be able to leave a job that's not serving them anymore and to find one that will. And so the first part of the book goes through the seven steps that we, or seven stages that we go through when we're thinking about quitting a job. That's what we're talking about with that, kind of like that knowing the rumbling into the knowledge is what I call it. Rumbling into knowing into the threshold. As we're making that decision I'm going to have to leave here. So that's part of the book. And then on the backend, I call it the Return to Wholeness toolkit.

[00:39:21]  Sara: And what I'd like to think is that it's actually, yes, we will use the Return to Wholeness toolkit to determine what our next steps are. So the framework helps you to be able to do the Walking Away. The Return to Wholeness toolkit helps you to shed the layers as we're talking about reconnecting with your values, your intuition, your dreams, and all of those things. And it helps you with this situation here that you're trying to leave. But it's a toolkit that we will keep coming back to time and time again in our careers because I believe that once we do the deconditioning and we're removing the layers and we're like the statue of David, right? I think Michelangelo talked about it. I just had to keep carving until I got to David. And once David was there, then he was there, which is such a beautiful way he describes it. But even when we do that, And we have chipped down to what we think is our most authentic level, being a human in this world, we're going to pick up things.

[00:40:14]  Sara: And so we need to have these points in time where we come back to ourselves and remove more of the additional programming, conditioning layers, limiting beliefs, whatever we pick up. Because life can be really hard and kick our butts sometimes. And so that's what the second half of the book is to give you this playbook and really touched on for your career to return to time and time again as a woman in the workforce.

[00:40:39] Aneta: When will it be available?

[00:40:41] Sara: Not until September 2024 at the moment is the publishing data. So it's a little ways away, but I am working on an online tool that will give people access to these tools earlier. And as much as I am such a book girl, I've always been a total biblical file. But, even with books they're not the best for putting your practical learnings into action. Knowledge is up here in the brain, wisdom is in the body. So my goal is to also create an online toolkit so people can start accessing the tools now. And then the book is more of that literary piece that takes you through the stories, the journey all of that. And that'll be out next year.

[00:41:21] Aneta: I love it. I can see a class coming out of it. All kinds of things. So exciting. And I wanted to go back to this notion about women and this new wave of feminism as you said, and maybe we call it something else, cuz some people I think it's been so distorted.

[00:41:37] Sara: People get turned off by that. Yes, I know you're right. Yeah. I like that. We can come up with something else.

[00:41:43] Aneta: Yeah, and I'm in an all-female mastermind and I will tell you that for the very first time in my life, being in a space this wonderful, amazing, supportive, loving, energizing container of female power is unbelievable. Because there is no scarcity. There aren't a couple of positions that everyone is for. There aren't any limitations. And we celebrate one another. And I always come back and I say this time and time again when people are like, well how do you deal with competition or whatever, and I'm like, there 8 billion people on the planet.

[00:42:22] Aneta: We cannot take care of everybody. We need all of us to rise up to lead authentically as ourselves cuz that's when we're standing in our full power. And the people who gravitate toward me will gravitate to me. People who gravitate toward you will gravitate toward you. That's okay. That's awesome. So I think it's just, it's interesting. I'm starting to see the shift and I'm feeling it and experiencing it, and I'm telling you, it is amazing. So I look forward to more.

[00:42:56] Sara: Well, so that makes me think of a couple of things. I just listened to or watched. Benjamin Hardy, he's an organizational psychologist. He just released a new book called 10 x is easier than 2 x. Basically being or saying, you can 10 x your performance easier than you can two x, because 10 x means simplifying and cutting out to your point, that fluff, and getting laser focused and just mastering your craft and delivering on your quality.

[00:43:26] Sara: And you will, to your point, attract the right people from that. That's your point of differentiation when you're focused on that rather than trying to do an example Mr. Beast, the most famous YouTuber in the world. He was saying on a Joe Rogan podcast and Benjamin Hardy mentioned this as an example, it's far more difficult to create a hundred videos and get 500,000 views on them versus creating, one video and getting 5 million views on it because he's like, just focus on the quality.

[00:43:54] Sara: So I love that as far as that goes. And another piece I'd forgotten about this when you asked, what's come in for me, human design has been really powerful. I started getting into it a little bit last year. This year I've been digging in so much more. And that's actually when you're talking about the attracting of people and stuff like that, there's actually a whole side of human design related to attraction in business and my defined centers versus my undefined centers in your centers, all aligned in a certain way that we're attracted to each other in stuff in such a way that if we're leveraging our design right We're going to be able to connect with each other and it was kind of one of those things that I was, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's cool. But now starting to see it play out, it's phenomenal and so much abundance is available to everybody if we just show up in my opinion, and serve in the most authentic way that we can.

[00:44:49] Aneta: That's right. Place of service. One of the Until we shed women in our mastermind does human design coaching and charts. Yeah. So I'm just starting to tap into it a little bit. I definitely need to go a little deeper, but I'm a manifest generator, which explains a lot cuz I do a lot of different things.

[00:45:09] Sara: Okay, so you're very multifaceted, multi-passionate is what they say about the man gens. Yes. Okay. Very cool. Well, I'm a projector and I remember when I first left corporate and I did a couple of kind of this coaching programs with a woman who did dabble a little bit in human design and she said to me, she heard I was a projector and she was, working 20 hours a day in the burnout.

[00:45:32] Sara: And I just didn't even really know what that meant at the time. Now on the other side, understanding, not that I don't have any defined energy centers that makes so much more sense now. And yeah, it's just been so helpful to see myself. For who my true essence is that is this journey, right? Remembering the truth of who we are. Coming back, walking each other home as Ramdas says, that's what I deeply believe and the 2020 version of Sara would not be having this kind of conversation with you. I would not be entertaining any stuff, quote unquote. That was not my thing, right?

[00:46:07] Sara: I was logical, rational. I want to be C-suite Sara, and now my life is just so much richer and more beautiful. And I think the wisdom that can be shared with other people coming out of, not just my journey, but all the women who have raised their eyes and then the book Women Who Walk, that's just, it's magic. It's such a gift. And wouldn't go back to that old way. You couldn't pay me. Yeah, you couldn't throw me. Seven-figure salary even to go back at this point.

[00:46:34] Aneta: Isn't that amazing? How liberating to feel that kind of freedom.

[00:46:41] Sara: Certainty and trust, right? Yeah. Because that is what the bottom line is. And I'll be honest, this ADHD thing has thrown me for a loop. It's not the diagnosis, but really seeing the way my brain operates and not being able to get all my systems and structure put in place in a way that allows me to write. Being diagnosed with ADHD when you're trying to write a book is pretty hard.

[00:47:02] Sara: And at times I have felt I am just clawing. And, am I doing the right thing? Can I do this, I guess is really the question that I asked. Should I just try to, I don't know, do something else? But for me, I just have the last couple of days with this little dog coming into my life and some other new things coming in, it's like just trust. That's the message I keep hearing is just trust and surrender. Stop fighting, stop fighting to surrender trust. And that is the ultimate freedom there for sure.

[00:47:33] Aneta: Absolutely. And the other thing too, Sara, is our brain is so neuroplastic and so it starts to behave the way that we've trained it to.

[00:47:44] Sara: Yes, exactly.

[00:47:46] Aneta: So you also can build new neural pathways of clarity, of more mindfulness, of presence. And so I would say give yourself a lot of grace because it didn't get that way overnight. And change doesn't happen. I mean, it can exponentially happen and we can make these quantum leaps. I absolutely believe it. It's not linear.

[00:48:11] Sara: This is a baby stepper.

[00:48:13] Aneta: Yeah, this is a baby stepper. And just say, and how amazing that maybe these are the little tiny limitations that remind you how far you've come already. And that also when you have some of those things that are hard it makes it that much sweeter.

[00:48:31] Sara: It's true. Indeed. Well it reminds me, I listened to, I had never paid attention to the name of this song yesterday. I really like Andy Grammar. He's got such inspirational music. And it's really good too. It's fun. It's got that good Poppy Phil, he's got a song that I had to replay yesterday.

[00:48:49] Sara: Cause I was like, did I hear that right? It's called, I Wish You Pain. And he says, I know that's strange, but I wish you pain in that the way that it breaks us open and the gifts that come out of the struggle, the meaning that we find in the mystery of it is just so beautiful. And if we can stay connected to that, it's Viktor Frankl and Man's Search for Meaning and the time that he spent as a captive in one of the Holocaust camps, he talked about how if a man has a why he can sustain pretty much, and what.

[00:49:31] Sara: And I just think it is such brilliant, timeless wisdom for us to come back to. And of course, A D H D is nowhere, it's nothing compared to something like that. But even just remembering that simple thought coming back there repeatedly, trust. It's going to be there. It's going to be okay. It's been a really important practice through all of this.

[00:49:52] Aneta: Yeah, and a reminder too, all of those things, sometimes, anytime something, as I said, is a limitation or it's [00:50:00] hard or it just reminds you to ask for help too. Sometimes you surrender and say,

[00:50:05] Sara: I just got a coach yesterday. Exactly.

[00:50:09] Aneta: We don't exactly have to do it all alone. We can allow ourselves to surrender and let go and be curious about what's happening and our stories about it and just that kind of work through it.

[00:50:20] Sara: Totally. That was in the final episode of Ted Lasso this week, that was one of the final messages, which is that being an imperfect human, but asking for help when you need it, is the way we are kind of, we can be perfect. And that's actually, I got a bunch of messages kind of like that this week and that's why I hired a coach. So yeah.

[00:50:40] Aneta: There you go.

[00:50:40] Sara: We do what we can.

[00:50:41] Aneta: Exactly. Well, I could talk to you forever and I'm so grateful that you spent a little bit of time with me today, Sara. I think everything you shared is going to be really impactful to so many. And so how can we best support you? Where can people find you and how can we best support you?

[00:50:59] Sara: Yes, my website is sarajmcelroy.com, and it's Sara without an H, and you can find me on LinkedIn and Instagram @sarajmcelroy on both platforms. And I would say just sign up for my email list and keep in touch and let me know how I can support you too, and what you're looking for as if this kind of conversation that we've had sparks something in you and you're like, Sara, I want more of this.

[00:51:28] Sara: Reach out and let me know because I think we're able to be of much greater service when others are able to tell us what they're finding of value in this kind of journey if I'm really honest because it can get really clouded. There are so many things I've picked up and learned and put into use, it's really an amazing thing when we can come together and start to say, yeah, that's where this comes together. Let's make this into a movement, a community, a tool, or whatever it is. I'm really excited to see what comes from it all with all the great ideas that people have with brilliant women out there.

[00:52:03] Aneta: I love it. Connection is so important. And the final question that I ask all my guests is, what does it mean to you to live the width of your life?

[00:52:11] Sara: It is everything we talked about in this conversation for sure. And I was reflecting yesterday when I had my new little pup at the dog park on what I would say for answering this question.

[00:52:27] Sara: To me, it is reconnecting with that part of you, your true purest essence every day and finding the awe and wonder in the moments because, we have to remember, we are made of stardust on a spinning marble in space, and we just get ourselves so spun up about silly things and the width of my life is pursuing my passions and all of those things and doing meaningful work with the journey that I've had.

[00:53:05] But it also just remembers every day this is a fricking miracle that we're even here and doing this thing, so let's do it. And have the fullness of the human experience not be just some linear path toward an endpoint.

[00:53:20] Aneta: Thank you so much, Sara. Thank you for all the great work. I cannot wait to read your book when it comes out and we'll definitely include your website and all of your handles in the show notes and look forward to catching up again soon. Have an amazing day.

[00:53:36] Sara: Definitely. Thank you, Aneta. You too.

[00:53:38] Aneta: Thank you for listening to today's episode. If today's conversation inspired you to dream again, break out of your comfort zones, or reflect on what it means to you to live more fully, then please follow this podcast because every week you'll hear more stories from people just like you, who took imperfect action towards their goals, creating more joy, and are living the life that they always dreamt of living.