Why the 'High Vibe Only' approach is holding us back.
Choose your own adventure style publishing!
a) Listen on Spotify or on your fave podcast player via Acast.
b) Read it with your eyes, so old school…
Hello, lovely ones.
Thank you so much for clicking on this creation! What an honour to be sharing my work with you in this way.
As a podcast producer and a creative entrepreneur, it can be tricky to start and finish your own things with spontaneity because you know what good looks like, you know what high quality sounds like, and I have a story about what that means sometimes and that I shouldn't do anything or share something unless it as good and as polished as I would for a client. But I’ve decided I trust the right folks to know the difference between what I would do for myself versus my gorgeous clients. And so here we are.
I don't know what this is. It certainly will not be consistent. That is not something that I have the capacity or the preference to do. So will there be three posts/recordings in a week and then nothing for a month? Probably. Welcome to the world of Sarah.
I’m here with you today, because I want to share with you something I wrote a couple weeks ago. So here we go.
Why the 'High Vibe Only' approach is holding us back.
As a maker, a sage, a teacher, a knowledge collector, an over-sharer, an over-carer…
I often have these incredible experiences either in person, in life or in a book/pod/artform and my instant desire is to share the learning. When I have profound discoveries that feel life altering and deeply supportive, I want to somehow send them to everyone.
Mostly from a desperate desire to help and probably a little from my unresolved savior tendency.
But also maybe to avoid allowing deep integration for myself.
Sometimes it feels like if I don’t tell anyone or show anyone or pass it on, did it really happen? If it’s not recorded how will I remember? If it’s not public even to one other human how will I receive the validation, the reward.
As I’ve become aware of this, I try to take a moment, and self talk: ‘Just sit with it Sarah, you don’t need to broadcast or publish everything. You don’t need to recount everything profound to your people, you can have things that are just yours. If the tree fell in the woods and no one heard it, it still fell!’
And so then I don’t write it down, I don’t share it, I don’t record it for anyone or for myself.
And then it does feel lost.
Like a wave of profound discovery that washes out to sea.
So today, I have started writing immediately. I have not checked my phone, or put on a podcast, I am staying in the profound discovery and letting it settle in my bones and using my desire to share it with others as a secret ploy to embed it for myself. To deepen my memory of it. To sink into it.
I am a verbal processor and written communicator. That is how I move through the world most comfortably, most impactful and most connected to myself, to others, to guidance and to ‘what’s true for me’.
And so here we are. I don’t care anymore if it may seem performative or indulgent. I care about letting things sink in. About profound discoveries becoming profound impact. About allowing things to deepen.
To be more visible than I have ever been. Mess and magic, all intertwined.
Humbly human.
Today, (now two weeks ago cos biz/mum life) we had our first Retreat Day inside Sammie’s Expansion coaching container and it was so nourishing, supportive and dare I say, expansive.
I would love to share some powerful phrases, delicious words and helpful learnings and unlearnings that I took away from our conversations and the stunning facilitation from Victoria Bauman that closed the experience.
Unpolished, unstructured and unfurled, here are some things:
One.
I am here to translate the human experience, the parts I have access to, have witnessed or experienced.
I can never speak for the entire human experience but I can see, uncover and untangle some of it. And I can see both the big picture and the minute detail in a way that feels very unique to me.
I intend on using that in my offerings more and more, leaning into that as my style of teaching and consulting. Being of service by simplifying complex themes, or giving revised definitions to over-used terms and offering interpretations that encourage others to ponder what their interpretation might be.
Two.
I am here to tell the truth as best I can.
To get quiet and listen and encourage others to do the same but to also be very loud at other times. To question everything, to make a stand, to get uncomfortable, to create spaces, tools, invitations for us all to unravel and reimagine, independently or collectively.
To contribute to the dismantling and rebuilding. In individual & community level ways.
Three.
Sammie said something like ‘Choose the way you want to orient’ in relation to the theme of ‘Your North Star’ and that stuck with me. It fits my adventure metaphors, orienting like a compass, but your compass is uniquely tuned to you and only you. It reminded me of my first coaching experience and client work with beautiful Angie of Untaming the Wild. She always had a compass in her logo for that reason. She gifted her clients a candle called ‘Wandering Home’. Stunning.
Four.
You don’t have to be ‘high vibe’ to have meaningful experiences or opportunities.
You can redefine what high vibe means to you. Sammie shared her view that we can absolutely be experiencing deep grief, pain or disappointment and still have powerful, impactful, abundant experiences, outcomes, ‘successes’. In fact that is the depths of being human. Being outwardly ‘high vibe’ and positive manifestation vibes constantly, is a disservice to our true nature and feelings. It dismisses our actual human experience. I agree and have added it to my personal dev / online business glossary of reimagined terms that I’m writing.
Five.
Everything is made up so we can take that as a reminder to choose which parts we engage with, which parts we adjust to our own preferences and which parts we ignore (if our circumstance allows) instead of that leading us to a feeling of hopelessness. We can stay in curiosity and exploration. One of my first ever poems / book chapters was ‘life is a platter so choose what you want to have’, I’ll try find it, lol.
Six.
That there are three types of discovery. This deserves it’s own essay so I will do that soon.
Seven.
And then the breathwork with Victoria was beautiful. Challenging for me at the start because I was still trying to ‘perform’ what I thought it meant to ‘do it right’ or to experience some profound out of body transcendence, instead of just being there, in my body, and listening to her words and allowing the wriggly thoughts and feelings to come and go.
Victoria offered the reflection that our North Star can be a ‘strong felt sense’, from within, from our bodies. And that maybe our north star is found in our peace. She used the term inner awareness and then coming back to our outer awareness, I loved that.
Eight.
And lastly, another reminder that meditation, mindfulness and breathwork do not have to be inaccessible to me because I can not quiet my mind or keep my body still. That I can explore the itchy, wriggly, wandering and know that it is all welcome and doesn’t mean I’m not doing it right, I’m just doing it in a way that is available to me.
That once I give up trying to control my mind or body, then peace arrives. That calm presence and nourishing nervous system reset.
I landed on these main take aways for today:
1. Presence, embodiment and feeling centred or grounded, does NOT have to mean still and straight and uninterrupted. For me it never will, so allowing for that will mean I can benefit more deeply.
2. Inner knowing / coming home / self sovereignty and divine guidance / universe/north star / channeled wisdom do not have to be in competition. I can trust that my knowings, teachings and instincts are coming from a mix of deep within me and also from connecting to ‘something/somewhere bigger than me’. Both can be true. It can be a gift, an insight, an offering that is both innate and expansive.
I will now call it the ‘Deep Knowing’ and add it to my rebellious, reimagined glossary of terms.
That’s it, that’s what I wanted to share with you and maybe more importantly, share with myself.
A written account of this moment, these un-coverings, un-learnings and reminders.
Feels like version # 8492 of Sarah has arrived and finally made it onto the internet.
Strap in folks, she’s ready to burn some shit down but also take more naps, obvi.
Sending you so much love, adventure & grace.
Sarah xx
Thank you so much for reading, I would love to know what you think. Do you agree? Have any requests for my reimagined glossary of terms?
See you next time. Sarah x