Rachel (00:00):
You're listening to Relationship Coaching with Rachel, episode number 58. Today I'm talking to my guest and fellow coach, Sarah Plowman.
(00:19):
So before we get started, I just want to say this was a great conversation that I had with my new friend Sarah. And what I really loved about it was how she talks about what it looked like to take emotional responsibility for her life. Now, Sarah found life coaching after going through a divorce. She figured out how to really work on herself, and she transformed her life, and now she helps women build their coaching businesses. So something fun and unexpected happened as we were having our conversation. I'm always looking for signs that things are going amazingly well. And in the middle of our conversation, a hummingbird comes right up to the front window where I work and just hung out there for a few minutes. And I promised that I would not edit that out. And if you happen to be going through a challenging relationship with your mother, you're in luck.
(01:23):
I have created a three step guide to Creating Peace with Your Mother. It's on my website. There's a banner at the top and you can just download the free guide. It does come with a guided meditation that I created for anyone who's going through a challenging relationship, whether that's your mom, your dad, your best friend, your sister, your boss, your coworker, you know relationships, right? So the three step guided, creating peace with your mother, it's got great insights, it's got great tips and journaling exercises to help you improve your relationship with your mother without her having to change. I know, I didn't think it was possible either. It's possible. Download the guide, download the meditation that comes with it, and you'll be on your way. So let's get into the interview. Hey everybody, welcome back to the podcast. And I have my new friend, Sarah, coming on to talk to us today. Sarah, take it away. Tell me all the things.
Sarah (02:32):
Hi Rachel. Well, first of all, thank you so much for having me as a guest. We came together on Instagram recently dropped into each other's dms, and this happened very quickly and it's so fun. So I'm really happy to be here. And the quick version of my story, and I'll let you ask questions as they come to you, but is that I was a stay-at-home mom for about six years before I went through a divorce and I separated from my husband. There were some substance abuse issues and this all happened during the pandemic. So I was all of a sudden a single mom going through a divorce during a pandemic. And it was at that time that I discovered life coaching and got really into it to help me put the pieces of my life back together and heal post divorce, and not just post divorce, but heal things from my childhood, things from my very religious upbringing, traumatic twenties.
(03:38):
So it was really was the first time that I took emotional responsibility for my life. And I noticed a pretty dramatic and quick change to my outlook on life and how I felt so much more confident, happy, self-confident, not resentful, not in victim mentality anymore. And I felt so good that I realized I had to get these tools of life coaching into the hands of as many women as possible. So it went from me just learning, using the tools of my life to, okay, I have to shout this from the rooftops. So I launched my coaching business and I again was a single mom, stay-at-home mom before that. And before I was married I was in the restaurant business. So I had no background in marketing or sales or entrepreneurship. I just made a decision and hired a coach and went all in. And that was just over two years ago.
(04:40):
And I started off as a general life coach, and I would help anyone with anything. I coached women, but I just started with an Instagram account that had maybe a hundred friends and family were following me. And I just organically started sharing with the transformation that I had undergone and made offers to help people. So I was a general life coach for about the first year, and then women started coming to me wanting me to help them build their businesses. And I realized that's what I loved talking about the most. So a little over a year ago, I niche down into business coaching. So that's who I help now. I help other life coaches live like icons in their lives and business and get rich well while doing that. And
Rachel (05:23):
I love that. It's
Sarah (05:24):
So fun.
Rachel (05:25):
I love that you're like and get rich. Yeah. I'm going to touch on this later, but I'll say this now because a lot of women aren't told or aren't encouraged to be in that space where we think of a rich person as usually somebody's dad or a grandpa or a man. And you are breaking the mold girl.
Sarah (05:56):
Yes. Isn't that true? I think of, when I think of rich people, I think of old white men still,
Rachel (06:02):
It sounds, yeah, I think about my dad's friends and they're great people, but we've never been, it's not that anyone was pushing us down, it's just that wasn't even a thing that anybody why? It's almost like why would you want to do that?
Sarah (06:17):
Yes,
Rachel (06:17):
As a female,
Sarah (06:18):
It's true. And my parents really encouraged me to go to college. So it wasn't both my mom and my dad. It wasn't like, oh, you're, even though I was raised in a very traditional and religious household, my mom was a stay-at-home mom. We were homeschooled, we went to church. We weren't allowed to be really included in pop culture. I wasn't allowed to listen to pop music. We were very sheltered growing up. But my parents encouraged us to go to college, but never occurred to me that I could be wealthy, me, Sarah, and that I could make a lot of money. And I loved working in the restaurant industry and in hospitality. That's what I did throughout my twenties. They never made more than $42,000 a year. And so when I discovered life coaching, and I heard women in the coaching industry say, it's possible for you to make a hundred thousand dollars in a year as a life coach, I can feel myself wanting to cry at this memory. I never thought that was available to me.
Rachel (07:17):
Yeah,
Sarah (07:17):
I remember the day I questioned, but what if I could make more than twice as much as a life coach working for myself than I've ever made at any other job? What if that's possible? And the day that I ask myself that question, I just decided, okay, that's what I'm doing. I don't care how long it takes. I don't care how hard it is. I don't care how embarrassed I have to feel. I am going to make a hundred thousand dollars as a life coach. And I did. And I've now gone on to do that five times in the last two years. I built a half million dollar cash business in the last two years by just making a hundred K over and over and over.
Rachel (07:56):
I love it. And I love the word that you use. I'm the energies just kind of stood out to me. I never thought it was available. It's available when we just didn't even know it. It just wasn't really in our awareness. I was in the restaurant business for, it was a long time, 20 years. I mean, I worked on cruise ships. I was a manager of restaurants. And I mean, I loved it because it kept me busy. And you're right, there's a whole lot of money in it. But your work, you know how to work, right? Yes. Your restaurant business, you have no choice. Yeah. Let me ask you something. You said emo taking emotional responsibility. What was the taking emotional responsibility path for you?
Sarah (08:49):
Yes. I think the example that best highlights this is with my ex-husband who was dealing with alcohol abuse. And when I left that relationship, I blamed him for everything. I thought he was the reason. And his substance abuse was the reason that I wasn't happy. It was the reason I didn't have money. It was the reason that I was the way I was. I pinned everything on him and it just made sense. And a lot of people around me went along with that because I was raised with a lot of black and white thinking, a lot of good and bad. So I was good and he was bad. And I had us labeled. And when I discovered the idea of like, oh, I am in charge of how I want to feel however I want to feel, that is my responsibility to create those emotions inside of me.
(09:46):
And I realized, oh, he's not creating my emotions. I am. That blew my mind. And so I said, okay, if I'm not happy, it's not his job to make me happy. It's my job to make me happy if I want money, if I want to feel confident, if I want to feel loved, if I want to feel safe all, I don't mean physically safe, but emotionally safe. One thing I always used to say to him was, you don't have my own back. I loved saying that to him when I was upset, you don't have my own back. And I realized I didn't have my own back. And so figuring out how, what does that mean to love yourself and have your own back and still seek that out in a relationship. I'm not saying that we have to be islands unto ourselves. And of course there are times it's very appropriate to put up boundaries, but I had to learn to stop outsourcing my emotional wellbeing to the people around me and to give myself what I needed first and foremost,
Rachel (10:46):
The emotional outsourcing. I'd been in that place too, just like it's somebody else's fault. And I look back and what a lazy kind of way of going through life. It's the easiest, thing to do. To outsource. I'm miserable because she's doing or he's doing this thing and it just lets me off the hook and I get to play in the victim playground because there's a lot of toys in there. There's
Sarah (11:19):
A lot of toys in there. We love playing there.
Rachel (11:22):
Yeah. And it's, it gives us some, or sometimes it gives us some familiarity and it just kind of takes the responsibility off of our shoulders. And I know that when we stand up and take responsibility for our own emotions and our own situation, it's liberating because we actually, get to drive. We're like, let's just see how this happens. I'm going to go through this thing and if it fails, it's on me. And if it's wonderful, it's on me. And if it kind of looks a little squirrely on me and I can rinse and repeat until it gets better.
Sarah (12:02):
And I think a lot of people might hear that and be terrified, right? Oh, it's all on me. Which is why we avoid it. But like you said, it's so liberating. And now as challenging as it's been, take responsibility for myself. I would choose this way of living forever over how I was living before. I feel free and I feel content and I feel insufficiency and just, I love being me too. I didn't love the experience of being Sarah before because I was always trying to get people to, like me, trying to get ex-husband to me, which is actually people pleasing is a form of manipulation, which blew my mind when I learned that I'm just going around trying to manipulate the people around me so that I can feel a certain way. And when I realize I can just cut out the middle man and just be okay with what everyone thinks about me, ex-husband, mom, kids, friends, whoever. They can have their experience in me. But my job is to give myself the experience of living this life as Sarah. That's my job. And it's so fun to be me now.
Rachel (13:11):
And you get to you.
Sarah (13:13):
Yes. I like meat so much. I highly recommend it.
Rachel (13:19):
So since this is primarily about mothers and daughters, and I know my philosophy is our mothers generally are our first experience in having a relationship with somebody. And that template, if you will, and oftentimes does fold over into all of our other relationships, whether it's friendship, relationships, romantic, who we're going to pick as a partner, bosses, how we show up at work. Just give me all the things about Sarah and Sarah's mom. If you were to tell the story of here's how it used to be, excuse me, and here's how we are now. How did your thinking change?
Sarah (14:12):
I was always close to my mom emotionally and physically because we were homeschooled. So I was with my mom 24 7 until I left for college. I never went to public school a day in my life. So we had a really unique relationship and I really loved her and respected her and have mostly pleasant memories of my relationship with my mom. My parents and my mom in particular were also very religious and had very clear and strong expectations about what I was to believe and how I was supposed to behave. And there were a lot of things, especially with me going through puberty and becoming a young woman where that was challenging to navigate with my mom and in the church because we were very much, I felt a lot of shame during that time because I wanted to explore my sexuality and I was very vivacious and flirtatious, and there was a lot of shame put on me by my mom.
(15:22):
I don't think she was intending to, but it was like, you need to quiet down that part of yourself, Sarah. That part is wrong. That part is bad. It's too loud, it's too flashy. So that was definitely a part of our dynamic. And I will never forget, I lost my virginity when I was 19, and I will never forget the day that she asked me. She was like, are you having sex? And I said yes to her face. And I can still feel like the feeling that I felt in that moment just wishing the earth would swallow me up, so much shame and just feeling like I had disappointed her and that I had somehow broken our relationship and it would never be the same. And I will say even, and I really started breaking away from my religious upbringing at that point and have continued. I am not a religious person at all now, and my mom and a lot of my siblings very much are still, my mom loves to remind me that she baptized me, so she got to me first. Too
Rachel (16:28):
Late. She got to you first. I love it. She did.
Sarah (16:30):
She's like, it's too late. You can't be unbaptized. So she likes to remind me of that. But I think it is a testament to we do have unconditional love for each other and we haven't been able to navigate those differences in opinions and ideologies. So I'm really glad about that. And yeah, we definitely don't see eye to eye on a lot of things now, but we still very much love each other.
Rachel (17:05):
And I have a similar background to you. I wasn't homeschooled or anything, but my mother and I like to label it in the past is very enmeshed. Do you feel like there was a sense of enmeshment, meaning you didn't know where your mom you started and your mom stopped or vice versa?
Sarah (17:24):
Yes. And one really crazy part of my story with my mom that illustrates this so well, this enmeshment, I think that's a great way to put it, is that when she decided to divorce my dad, I was 18, and they were very involved in the church and she went through a church court, literally it was a court, a judge and a jury made up of elders at the church to try to get permission to divorce my dad. It was up to the church to see if she was granted a divorce or not. And I was very involved in that process. I was her key witness, and it was almost like she and I were best friends. We were one, and we were going through the divorce of her and my dad together.
Rachel (18:11):
It's very interesting, the best friend thing, because I do feel like my mother and I were best friends when I was a teenager. And then as friends are there sometimes, is this there becames, a little bit of jealousy? I didn't really understand that.
Sarah (18:29):
Yes.
Rachel (18:30):
Oh, that's the first time I experienced my mother being jealous or I'm like, oh, I felt like the shame was I just couldn't piece it together in my 14 year old brain or 11 year old brain. I look back, I'm like, oh gosh, okay. That's kind of where I learned that from. Do you have any experience with that type of thing?
Sarah (18:55):
Yeah. Isn't it funny when you have these kinds of conversations, a memory will come to you? Yeah, I'm like, wow, I haven't thought about that in so long. But after my parents were divorced, now I'm in my early twenties and I'm dating, and my mom had been married for 18 years to my dad and had five kids. So she lost all this weight and she was coming into her second phase of life, I think she was in her maybe mid forties. She was young and she started dressing differently, I remember. And she got her haircut and she was fun to be around. And she was like, it was this whole new woman and it felt like a pier and friends. But I remember being out to dinner with a guy I was interested in, and we were on this group dinner and she was there and there was this weird flirtatious energy, and I felt like she and I were like, there was some jealousy or competition going on, and I was like, what is happening? It was very confusing.
Rachel (19:51):
And confusing is the word that comes up for me. I'm like, ah, what was that all about? So yeah, when we are a mess with our mothers, and I see that a lot with a lot of women I work with, and it is a confusing thing, and it's in this, then there's this, well, how do I separate the Velcro strips without just crushing the person that I love my first relationship?
Sarah (20:21):
Yes. So what comes up for me, this is one of the tools that I've learned in coaching is when someone is being a circumstance, they're doing their thing in your life and you're being affected by it, you have a choice what you make that mean about you. So I think back then when my mom was going through that, I was making it mean something about me, her thoughts about me or what the implications were for me. And now looking back in hindsight and the way I treat people now, or mom, I have a great example from recently. I'm like, oh, this isn't actually about me. This is about her and her thoughts about her or her morals, her values, and she's just, they're being reflected back to her through me. I'm like the mirror, but it's not actually about me. And the way this came up recently is I was sharing, my mom follows me on social media. I decided not to block her, which was kind of sometimes I think it would be easier if I just blocked her. I could sleep more easily at night.
Rachel (21:18):
Yeah. I did mention the, what did I call it? The block party? Yeah,
Sarah (21:22):
The block party.
Rachel (21:22):
She did not need to see this. She would lose her mind.
Sarah (21:25):
Yeah, I thought about it, but I was like, you know what? I'm going to let her make that decision. If she doesn't want to follow me, I'm going to let her opt out, but I'm not going to make that decision for her. And I think part of, I've carried so much shame with me my whole life that this is part of an expression of love to myself that I am so safe to be seen by everyone. Even my mother yesterday, I posted it into my stories and I was topless. I just had these crystal pasties on and I was like, mom is not going to like this. And I was like, but I love me so much, and it's part of how I don't indulge in shame anymore to show off more of my body. And if she doesn't like it, it's okay. And there was a time recently that I shared in my stories that I was going to do a naked photo shoot.
(22:17):
I'd hired this female photographer and I wanted to have nude portraits done, and I just wanted them for myself. I wasn't going to share them to social media, but I was talking about how I had booked the photo shoot and my mom texted me and she was like, honey, you are going to regret that. Just this really loving, concerned text. And I felt the rage well up inside of me, and I felt the shame well up. My cheeks got red and I was like, oh, so busted. I'm so embarrassed now I have to cancel my photo shoot because all the thoughts that went through my mind very quickly, and I know now that's just a reaction. So we don't do anything. I just sit and vibrate with all those emotions first. And then I asked myself this or I told myself, this doesn't have anything to do with me actually.
(23:05):
I don't have to make this mean anything about me. This is everything to do with her and she's allowed to feel this way and she's just trying to love and protect me. And so I ended up just texting her back and saying, thanks for loving me so much, mom. I appreciate you. And it was just so beautiful where in the past I would've raged about it for days or blocked her, been so angry. And I just felt those emotions. And then I sent her love back and I just moved on and had an awesome naked photo shoot,
Rachel (23:31):
An awesome naked photo shoot. I love it. Look, can we talk about, because something that kind of bubbled up for me was the word fear. Mom's fear, not your fear so to speak, but when they do have a reaction to whatever it is that we're doing, even though we are adults, we're grown up women, where do you think their fear comes from?
Sarah (23:58):
That's a great question. And also, yes, we are adult women and that still feels weird.
Rachel (24:04):
I had asked this interesting question and it was just a random thing, and I didn't think anything about it. I was like, Hey, friends, what kind of car did your mother drive when you were kids? And I'm 52. And so some of the women that I'm friends with are in their sixties and they're some of my mom's friends. And I would say about half of these women were like, my mother didn't drive and I forgot about, it really wasn't that long ago where I remember realizing that my grandmother, she had two sisters and she was the only sister that drove as an adult, as a grandfather. Everybody else had to, she was independent, she was married, but she worked. She was the only one that had a job. She's the only one who drove. And I forget, it really wasn't that long ago that we just like, what did you call it? Available? It wasn't available for us just in our head legally probably. It was totally fine. But just our thoughts that have trickled down from generation to generation. Do you think the fear that maybe comes up for maybe what your mom is feeling comes from the messages they got down the line?
Sarah (25:29):
I do think so. I think it's just the generational trauma, the generational coding. I know in my mom's case in particular, she is very religious and she really adhere, takes the Bible literally and adheres to the Bible. So there's definitely this moral code that's involved. So when she see, I mean, it's probably my soul that's at stake when she sees me doing things that to her are these major sins. She's like, that's my daughter and I love her and I don't want her to go to hell. And I know that she genuinely believes that. So I think that the stakes are, and then there's other little fears like, oh, you might have a weird social media stalker because you're posting naked pictures.
Rachel (26:15):
You're going to invite something in.
Sarah (26:17):
Exactly. Yes. That's definitely part of it. So I think there are some lower stakes things, but also I think the stakes can be quite high for her. And I can empathize with that. I don't believe that at all. But imagine if I'm her firstborn and we have this special bond and she's like, my baby is going to spend all of eternity in hell. That's terrible. That sounds,
Rachel (26:38):
And it's terrifying for the mothers. They just cannot, they can't make it be okay in their head and in their reality. I have this written on a sticky note, I got coached yesterday about some things about the mom thing. Yes. In her reality, she's right. And I'm like, I'm forever going to go back to that. Yes. Because it's such a neutralizing statement in her reality. She's right. And she's going to act on that belief just really ingrained, whether it's generational, probably. I don't know. My family's really religious.
Sarah (27:16):
Well, and it's interesting because something that's helped me become more empathetic is this same is true. If you flip the script, in my reality, I'm right. And I would never want my mom or anyone to come to try to shove their religion down my throat and be like, no, you have to see things my way, Sarah. And so I don't want to do that to her either. I don't agree with everything that she believes in, but I also want to treat her with the same respect. And Hey, you want to believe that that religion brings you joy? Great. I'm happy for you. And then knowing when it's appropriate for me to draw a boundary, that doesn't mean that I have to just say, okay, whatever you want to put on me, I'm really going to sit here and receive it. So I've learned what boundaries to put up. But yeah, I, that's her reality. And she gets to choose her reality, just like I'm in mine and I'm choosing mine.
Rachel (28:16):
So when we first met just a few days ago on Instagram, we kind of like, oh, that's nice. And I'm like, yeah, here's who I work with. You're like, that's fun. Ditch the drama with your mama. And I'm like, yeah, because I had to do it. And I'm like, I know I am not the only person. My mom didn't do anything wrong. It is just a relationship and how we both grew as adults. And you and I went back and forth. And then the funny thing was, this is so funny, but I initially thought, oh my gosh, what if my mom hears this? And then you're like, and I'm going to do it anyway.
Sarah (28:53):
It's so true. I was like, my mom's going to hear this when I'm talking about my mom. I did. I had this flush of just that shame and that fear come up. But the beautiful thing about doing this work, as I'm sure is you get used to that. You have awareness around what's happening and you're like, oh, this is just the fear talking. This is just a reaction that I'm having right now. And then I bring myself back to desire a true desire. Is this a true desire to come to have this conversation with Rachel on the podcast and share my story and help encourage other women who have mama drama? It's like, yes, that sounds fun. That sounds like a really wonderful act of service that I could do. It sounds like just an amazing opportunity so I can allow all of that fear and those emotions to be there and still do what I want
Rachel (29:43):
In your work. And I imagine that there are plenty of women that you work with who have maybe some of the stories in their head, I'm just going to, and I should have called my podcast. What's my mom going to think? Because that is the mantra or the question that comes up. I can't do that. What's my mom going to say? What are her friends going to say? I have a client her mom's been dead for 10 years and she still cannot post on social media because she's like, I just know she's looking over my shoulder. I mean, that's extreme. Well, I mean, I think a lot of people could relate to that.
Sarah (30:27):
Oh, I get it. What just came up for me, this isn't directly about my mom, but my ex-husband, who I just also want to say we've healed our relationship and we're pretty friendly now, but Oh, that's great. He was very critical. Our entire relationship of how I kept the house, it was never clean enough. It was never organized enough. No matter what I talk about people pleasing, I lived to please that man. And no matter how clean it was, no matter how beautiful the meals were, it was never enough, especially with the house. And I still have lived on my own for three years with my kids that we split custody with them. And still, when I see the house is messy, I'm like, what's Michael going to think? And he never comes over here, but I'm so afraid I still, he's so in my psyche still about what he's going to think about. I think about what if I died and he had to come pick the kids up from my house? And I'm like, Sarah, you would be dead. You wouldn't even know. You wouldn't even see his reaction. So I get it.
Rachel (31:30):
Yeah. So do you think your clients might have this background thought?
Sarah (31:36):
Yes, they absolutely. You assumed correctly. They absolutely do. And sometimes it is particularly about their mothers, but it could be about anybody. What's Susie? My next door neighbor going to think Sometimes they're not thinking of anyone in particular. It's just like, what are people?
Rachel (31:53):
People? Yeah.
Sarah (31:55):
Yes. Or they'll fixate. I know when I first started my business, and most of the people watching me were friends and family. I fixated on this one woman, her name was Melissa. And I was like, what's Melissa thinking for months every time I made a post? So I think this is a very real thing, whether it's your mom or an ex or future clients, it could be anybody. And our brain likes to fixate on certain people. So yeah, that's a real thing. But at the end of the day, I just remind myself and my clients that especially when you're putting yourself out there from a place of true desire and to serve others, you have to focus on, am I making myself happy, truly? And is this going to impact the people who are meant to come closer to me? Because if someone does not, my clients are all life coaches building their businesses, and they tend to worry about, well, what if people don't like this post I'm about to make?
(32:55):
They say, well, they don't like it. They were never going to be your clients. And we're not posting for our non-clients. We're posting for the people who are like, yes, thank you. This post is an answer to my prayers, and I'm so excited to know you exist now and know that you can help me with whatever the result is that you're offering as a coach. So we have to remember, we have to keep our eye on that prize. Why are we showing up? One, because it's what we want to do from a place of authenticity and true desire. And then two, we're there to help the people who want to be helped.
Rachel (33:30):
I love that. So powerful. And it's funny because the things that we're like, I don't know, even the email, email that we're like, oh, nobody's going to read it. Or maybe it's an ex-friend and they're still kind of lingering in the background somewhere. There's a hummingbird in front of me. I just had to stop. Oh my gosh, that's so crazy. What is going on?
Sarah (33:56):
Hummingbirds are my sign. I am not surprised. You just saw Hummingbird. Oh my
Rachel (33:59):
Gosh. I was like, I saw this little flutter back and forth, and I was like, is there a bird getting ready to crash into my window? And I'm like, oh, he's like this big. Okay, you guys are not seeing this, but my, I'm like, I've got chills.
Sarah (34:11):
Yeah, please don't cut this out. No, we birds are literally my side. I was just in Arizona and I was at the botanical gardens and I saw a baby hummingbird leave its nest for the first time. Stop. I'm not kidding
Rachel (34:25):
You. I'm going to pass out. Not really, but oh my gosh, that's so crazy. You want to hear something? My mother collects hummingbird figurines. I just know this is the right conversation to have. I mean, I just know it.
Sarah (34:37):
If we even needed more proof, there it is.
Rachel (34:40):
Right. That was pretty cool. Anyway, where was I? It was the post or the podcast, the hiding. The hiding, and then finally coming up for air, posting the thing, talking to the people, asking someone, even if they, so say no right now, but just knowing that that relationship is building or sometimes it could be the best thing that's happened. I think that I heard you, and I can't remember the story, but you were on one of our coaching calls and you had just signed a new client, but she wasn't really a new client. Is that the thing? You had spoken to her a couple of years prior.
Sarah (35:25):
Yes.
Rachel (35:26):
Can you tell us about that a little bit? Just a little celebration.
Sarah (35:29):
Oh, sure. I'm always down for celebration. That's actually one of the things that I very quickly discovered that women are also terrible at celebrating ourselves. So I have become the queen of celebrate, and there's nothing too small. I celebrate all of the things, and that's what I helped my clients do. I realized this when I was having business clients come to me and I was like, they kept telling me nothing, like, your coaching isn't working, your coaching isn't working. And I realized it wasn't that the coaching wasn't working until that they were not in the habit of celebrating themselves and looking for the evidence that things were working. So I was like, oh, if I want a great testimonial at the end of this coach, 12 weeks,
Rachel (36:11):
Yeah, we're really terrible at it. I mean, sometimes my coach asked me, well, what did you do today? And at first I'll say Nothing. Yes. And then they're like, okay, run me through your day. And I'm like, well, even getting you on my podcast, I'm just dare of the day that we do at the Life Coach school. And I'm like, she's getting my dare of the day. I'm like, listen, I know you're busy and you can say no, but I think you'd be a great guest on my podcast. And you're like, yeah, a hundred percent, let's do it. And then three days later, here we are.
Sarah (36:43):
And isn't that such a great example of you made an offer to me to come be here and you had to put yourself out there and whatever emotions you were feeling and you just never know. I was so excited to get that offer. So it's always worth making the offer to somebody.
Rachel (37:01):
And I know that more women have these stories, and I tell this story in particular because I do networking events and stuff like that. And when I say, when I talk about what I do, there's a little bit of, I can see people, there's shoulders come up and they're wearing their shoulders earrings, and their breath is shallow. Like, oh my gosh, I hope she's not talking about being my mother. I'm just talking about moms and daughters in general, where people pleasing approval seeking in no boundaries. And then it's after, as soon as we get closed up and everybody's ready to leave on the way out the door, they're like, Hey, can I talk to you? Hey. And I know that comes from feeling shame for some reason, I think there's this idea and I just want to blast it out of the water because it's a lie that mother-daughter relationships are supposed to be best friend relationships. They're supposed to be perfect. The beautiful Hallmark Mother's Day card. I wish it was that way, but this is real life.
Sarah (38:11):
It sure is. Yeah. That was another concept of the manual. So the expectation that life should be like this or this is what a mother-daughter relationship should look like. And when I learned that that is not true and that my job is to not go around shoulding all over the place and just accept this is what is, especially the things that I have control over, we all know we can't control our moms. So when you cannot
(38:42):
News flash everyone, you cannot control your mother. I have tried, does not work or Or it just doesn't work. So when I realized, okay, my job is to accept them as they are. It doesn't mean I always like it, but just surrender to what is not fight against the reality, right? Because actually we think that our relationships with our mothers are exhausting, but it's actually the resistance that ex is exhausting. So it's like swimming upstream. You're so exhausted from trying to swim upstream, and the answer is to stop. Just let yourself go and float downstream. And yes, that's going to involve feeling some uncomfortable emotions, but it's going to be so much more peaceful and relaxing and good for your physical health and your mental wellbeing to just surrender to the things that you cannot control.
Rachel (39:37):
I love that. And it's so true because a lot of times throughout our lives as daughters sometimes are just looking for a fight. I know she's going to be mad. And so I'm already on the defensive, and I see that a lot. And I did that a lot. I was in this emotional immaturity with my mother for a long time. I'm like, oh, I know what she's thinking. And I had all these weird stories like, oh, she's going to say something snarky. I'm like, probably that's who she is. She, that's just what she does sometimes, so.
Sarah (40:07):
Well, that's true. The thing that we're complaining about other people more often than not, I'm like, oh, I
Rachel (40:14):
Hate the way she does blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, but you know what? I do that too. I do it a lot.
Sarah (40:19):
Yeah. I mean, the apple doesn't always fall far from the tree.
Rachel (40:22):
Exactly.
Sarah (40:24):
We're all humans with human brains, and it's just, yeah, it's just not a problem. That's the other thing that I ask myself, okay, if I know mom's going to be snarky, you just said Mom's probably going to say something snarky. I just asked myself or so, and you just keep asking and tell you like, well, I guess at the end of the day, the worst thing that's going to happen is, Sarah, I'm going to feel an emotion because mom's feeling snarky. But that emotion is coming from my thought about my resistance, about her feeling snarky. So if I'm like, she gets to be snarky 24 7 because that's what she does, and I don't have to be bothered by that, or I can be bothered about it, but know that that bothering is coming from my own thoughts all of a sudden it's so much easier.
Rachel (41:10):
And you're right, the resistance, and we see so many women being exhausted, and I think it is the resistance. I mean, I'm guilty of it too. And I mean, I always have to coach myself on why am I so tired? And I'm like, well, how long have you got? It's the resistance that comes up for me that I'm always internally fighting. I could sit at this desk all day and I could still be like, I am. I so exhausted. And then I'm like, oh, that's why. Because I'm just resisting all of these things and it's all within myself.
Sarah (41:47):
Yes. And you just brought up a good point. I am not perfect, and I know I'm talking about how I've learned these tools and I implemented them in my life, but that does not mean that it's not work sometimes. And I actually have two coaches right now. I have a life coach and a business coach, and I have all kinds of mind drama all the time, but I take responsibility from it, and I know where it's coming from. I know the drama is coming from my thoughts, and now I have all these tools in my tool belts, the self-coaching, the investing in the coaches, the ways I physically take care of myself, and I know how to calm my nervous system that I didn't really know how to do before. So that's different. It's not that magically we don't have mind drama anymore. Totally. Still have mind drama, have human brains, just have this beautiful tool belt that we have access to.
Rachel (42:41):
We do. And I don't know about you, Sarah, but what I have noticed that before as call it, before coaching, the emotions seemed to last for days and weeks or the problem seemed to last for days and weeks. And as I continue to get coached and coached myself and really work on myself in a loving way, that timeframe can sometimes just be minutes. I'm not kidding. I mean, it doesn't happen overnight. We all know that. And it doesn't look like that every single time. But I noticed it's the span of, I don't know, self-loathing or whatever. It used to last a week and now it only last half a day or 45 minutes, or let's go take a walk and just like, let's move it out and see what happens. Yes. Are you saw the same thing at all?
Sarah (43:32):
Absolutely. And I have this, this world within a world of building my business over the last two years. So I can even see things that were caused me big emotional upheaval earlier in my business when I was newer at practicing these tools in my life and would take me days or weeks to work through the emotions. Now, like you said, sometimes it happens in minutes or in hours, and it's just shortening that timeline. And I think part of that is getting more efficient at the tools and loving myself more. I just have such unconditional love for myself now. And then the other piece really, I'm going to bring it back to not resisting. Now when I feel like shit, I just let myself feel like shit. I'm like, okay, this is what we're doing. We're feeling really sad, and we're going to go sit on the floor of the shower while the water's running over my head and just sob my eyes out.
(44:33):
And I don't fight that. I'm like, this is what I'm doing right now. I'm doing sad. And when people are like, I'm so sick of feeling sad, I'm so exhausted from feeling sad or feeling angry all the time, I'm like, if you're saying that what you're tired of is not feeling those things, you're tired of resisting feeling the sadness because feeling the sadness, feeling the anger, vibrating with the shame, whatever the emotion is, is the quickest way through always. And most of us were not trained how to do that. Most of us do not know how to do that.
Rachel (45:03):
Yeah, it's stop that crying right now. I mean, it's like, okay, well then what? You're just going to push it down. And I think I had a coach, it was during coach training, there was a lot of stuff that came up for me and I was really mad about something. I honestly can't even remember what it was, but I call it, I was hopping mad. I was like, listen, I am really mad. And the coach we were practicing with was trying to get me out of being mad. And then the trainer stepped in and she was like, Rachel, do you want to be mad? I'm like, yes. And she was like, you have my permission to be mad for the rest of the day. And I was like, real. I was like, what's the catch? I was so suspicious of like, wait, is she trying to trick me? But you know what? It didn't last half a day. She's set a timer. And I was like, okay, now I can set a timer. Learning from that just weird little experience. I can set a timer for 10 minutes to try to be mad, and I'm so over myself by two minutes.
Sarah (46:07):
I don't even need the full 10 minutes anymore.
Rachel (46:08):
No, and I mean, that's exhausting too. But I'm like, we get to pr. I love it. We get to practice feeling things that are normal. Being upset is a natural human emotion not to shut it down and turn off the faucet.
Sarah (46:26):
No, and I think one of my superpowers and building my business and helping other women, I talk about shame a lot. And I think it's really important to understand that the difference between feeling shame and indulging in shame, and I call feeling shame, vibrating is shame. Because you might think, well, no, we like Sarah, you've been shamed your whole life. You shouldn't feel shame anymore. No more shame. Shame is a normal human emotion. It is totally normal to have shame well up inside of you. So now what that looks like for me is I just drop into my body and I say, I'm feeling shame right now. And shame feels like a redness in my cheeks. Maybe I feel like I'm going to cry. My throat is getting tight, my chest feels heavy, and I just sit there and I witness myself. I used to take myself into my bedroom and practice this intentionally when it came up.
(47:15):
Now I can do it on the go out in the world, but I would just sit there and be like, coach myself out loud. You are feeling shame. And this is what the sensations of shame are. That is what it looks like to allow shame to vibrate through your body or to allow the feeling of shame to be present in your body, to signal to your nervous system that feeling shame is not dangerous. Whereas what most people do is they indulge in shame, which is the story you tell yourself about feeling shame. I'm a bad person, I've done something wrong, there's something wrong with me, and we beat ourselves up. That's indulging in shame. So learning how to differentiate between those two experiences and control that experience is a game changer.
Rachel (48:00):
I love it. I'm writing down notes, just like as things pop up in my head, I just wrote down, every emotion has a message for us.
Sarah (48:09):
Beautiful.
Rachel (48:09):
And it has something to teach us. And just me learning that I could be upset or mad or something without having my world crumble because I shouldn't be feeling, I think a lot of us men and women are like, I'm not supposed to feel that. Well, it's a human emotion. It's got a message for us. We can, my meditation teacher, David G, shout out to him. He just says this little phrase, we can visit the lands of hurts and disappointments, but we don't have to live there. And I'm like, really? We can just go for a visit, but we don't have to live there. And it's something that has really stuck with me, and obviously it takes us a while to process these emotions process. I don't know, because a lot of the world does not agree with what we are talking about. They're like, how dare you talk about crying? And crying is not good, but it is really, it's part of our human experience. We can experience emotions just a little kid when they get upset, they're going to cry.
Sarah (49:18):
They're going to cry. And that's energy moving through you. So when, the example that I love is if you take a beach ball and you're in the ocean and you take a beach ball and you're pushing it underwater, that's like you taking, let's say your sadness and you're suppressing it deep down inside you, and it takes a lot of energy and effort to keep that beach ball pressed underwater because it wants to pop up and eventually it's going to pop up anyway no matter what that beach ball is coming up. And when you let it come to the surface and stop trying to suppress it, it just bobs away and floats away on the water. And that's what sadness is. When you cry or when you just lay on your bed and you feel your cheeks get red, whatever the physical sensations are, and you let that energy move through your body, that's all that's happening is energy is moving and all of that energy was going to be trapped down inside of you, which can have all kinds of implications on your mental and physical health when we suppress emotions like that.
Rachel (50:15):
And I will say in my experience and people that I work with, and a lot of times that emotion's going to come out in something small, someone cutting you off in traffic. That is not the end of the world. But we've been pushing this down so long that this is like, okay, that was the thing, right? Yes.
Sarah (50:37):
Yeah. You hit your limit or your tipping point and you, or maybe it's something like you snap at your kids, like you overreact. I mean, I've done that so many times, right? I'm mad about something else and I've been trying to suppress it, and then the kids do something that I don't like and I unload on them and then I feel terrible, and that's not how I want to parent them. So yeah, all of that energy is pent up inside of us and it's going to come out eventually. So do you want to just see how it comes out, cross your fingers, or do you want to create this beautiful practice and space for it to just come out naturally?
Rachel (51:10):
Yeah, intentionally feeling the emotions. What is one thing that you would like people, women to take from our conversation today?
Sarah (51:24):
I would love for women to take away that they deserve the pleasure and they have the right to be their own authority in their life. And if you're like me, you have constantly looked to other people to be the authority church, God, mom, boyfriend's husband. And it has been the gift of my lifetime to be my own authority. And it takes practice and it takes some deconditioning, and I highly recommend hiring a coach. Come work with Rachel to do this work, but it is work. It's the work of a lifetime to be your own authority.
Rachel (52:02):
That's beautiful. And I'm going to start asking this of women, as you know, I love to interview. I just love interviewing more women because I think we've got so many amazing stories to share about our mothers. Give me some things that you love about your mom. It could be anything. The way she was back then, the way she is now, the way she dresses anything.
Sarah (52:24):
I love how fiercely loyal she is to her kids. I love how I know that her love for me is unconditional. I love how much she loves being alone. She's just delighted by her own company.
Rachel (52:39):
Oh, I love that.
Sarah (52:40):
Yes. I also love that this is a memory from childhood, but I loved that she loved to stay up all night and that's when she would have her alone time and be productive. I love that. She is a really talented gardener.
Rachel (52:55):
Oh my gosh, I feel like I need to meet your mom.
Sarah (52:58):
She's amazing. She is really, I've never met anyone like her in my life. And she is. She's a one of a kind. But yeah, she has this incredible green thumb. And speaking of hummingbirds, when we were growing up, she had a beautiful butterfly garden, and we would go out there at lunchtime and we would display with the hummingbirds and the butterflies and pig vegetables out of the garden for lunch. It was beautiful.
Rachel (53:19):
That sounds magical. It really does. I love my mother's sense of humor and she's so witty and funny, and I think that's where I get my little, I think I'm funny. My husband does not. He does. He is like, that's not funny. But my mom and my sister and I can get together and we can just, the most mundane of things. It's hilarious. We can laugh for days. I mean, we can fight too, but we love to laugh. I love my mother's sense of humor, and she's just a lot of fun to be with. Okay, I'm going to wrap this up. How can people get in touch with you one more time? Just plug anything and everything that you have going on.
Sarah (54:02):
Thanks, Rachel. So yeah, this is a big year for me in business. I have run my business off of Instagram for the last two years, and that's it. It, I have never, of course, I have no web. I'm working on a website now. But yeah, so all of you, let's let this be an example that you do not have to have all the things to start a business and make a shit ton of money. So right now, you can find me at Sarah Plowman coaching on Instagram, and I have a, I'm on there all the time. There's hours worth of content for you to binge good stuff and entertaining stuff. And then on June 5th, I am launching my website, Sarah plow, Sarah plowman coaching.com. And when that s lodged, I'll also have a podcast, so podcast website coming up soon. And if you want to work with me right now, I work with women exclusively on a one-on-one level. So just send me a dm, come to Instagram and just send me a dm. Just, I don't have a team, it's just me running the show, connecting with people. I love that. I, that's my dream to run my business. I never wanted a big team or a corporate feel. So come send me a VM if you're interested in working together, or if you just want to say hi, and then stay tuned. There are some more ways to work with me coming up in July, but I can't talk about that yet.
Rachel (55:21):
That's, I will also link all of your stuff in the show notes of the podcast, which is on my website and all that kind of good stuff. So thank you so much. Yeah, thank you,
Sarah (55:33):
Rachel. It was a pleasure. And you are amazing. And yeah, what drew me to you in the first place was the ditch Your mama drama. I was like, this woman is where it's at. So you were doing good work. It
Rachel (55:45):
Really says everything. I mean, I don't have to explain anything. Right. Love it. Okay. Thank you so much.
Sarah (55:51):
Thank you.
Rachel (55:53):
Okay, so before we go, I have something special for you. I have created a three step guide to creating peace with your mother. This three-step guide is filled with relationship insights, tips, and thoughtful questions to help you create peace with your mother. And there is a bonus for you. It's a healing meditation for your most challenging relationships. It's called the Thread. The link to the guide is in the show notes and on the top banner of my website. Just go to rachel k hudson.com.
