Stephanie: Hi Sarah. Thanks so much for joining me today.

Sarah: Hey, Stephanie. Thank you so much for having me. It's a real honor.

Stephanie: Oh, well you say that, but I have to admit to being more than a little bit starstruck today because I am not a big reality TV watcher, but I have watched every episode of Project Runway ever andyou were sort of introduced to me as the Nina Garcia of Project Runway Australia. And so even my husband will be impressed that I'm talking to you, so I'm a little starstruck today.

Sarah: Oh, well that's so beautiful. Thank you. Oh, reality, hey?

Stephanie: Indeed. Yes. And someday I would love to chat with you about how real it is, and I have so many questions, but that's not what we're talking about today.

What we are talking about does have some relation to your time at Project Runway because your entire career, or most of your career has been in the fashion industry, which is another thing I told you last time we spoke, that I have always been interested in and on a parallel timeline somewhere, I might have had a career in fashion, but not this one. Why don't we start by backing up to, let's say your twenties, your thirties. Tell me a little bit about your formative adult years that brought you up to the era that we're really gonna focus on today.

Sarah: Mm, that's such a great question. I'd have to start at six when I had an out of body experience.

Stephanie: Okay.

Sarah: It was just like mind blowing. It was actually mind blowing. I grew up fourth daughter out of five kids, so four girls and then a boy. And I can remember one day sitting in the car and just being inside, knowing to close my eyes, and I closed my eyes and all of a sudden I went into total nothingness. It was like I got transported out into, I can only describe it now as like the collective consciousness, the fullness of who we really are, and it was bliss. Stephanie. I just went into complete nothingness and it was like bliss. And I heard or felt or sensed, it's hard to put into words, a booming voice that said to me, "You don't die when you die." And it was like ka-pow. And then I heard the voices back and it said to me, "There is more to life than this." And I knew this to mean what I was currently experiencing in my everyday reality.

Now the feeling that I felt, I can only describe as complete freedom of nothingness. Like it was, oh my gosh, it was so delicious. And then when I started to think about the feeling and wanting to stay in the feeling, I could feel myself being brought back into my body and I was just like, no, no, no, no, no, no, I wanna stay here. And all of a sudden I could hear my siblings arguing in the car, and I could feel the dampness, the heat of the air. And it was like, oh my God, I'm back. But I opened my eyes and it was like, oh my God. There's something. I just felt so different, different to everyone. So that was six.

Stephanie: That's a lot for a six year old. Thinking back to when I was six, I don't know that I could even comprehend all those thoughts and feelings.

Sarah: They were not something that had ever been in my head, but they stayed with me in my heart and in my body for the rest of my life. and up until now, thinking about that memory, it's like it was yesterday.

Stephanie: Wow.

Sarah: So I guess I tell that story because I always knew that there was more than what was external. Did I go to sleep, I term it, and just play in this everyday reality? Yeah, for a very long time until I was about late twenties. And then I woke up one day, it was literally one day and the voice was back and it was just like, whoa. And it was like, it's time. And I'm like, okay. And my life just started to unfold. I mean, my life looked picture perfect on the outside, I even had the picket fence. I had a son. I was married to a professional footballer. I'd had this amazing career already in my twenties where I was traveling first class around the world, shopping in all of the best stores around Europe and the States. I just all of a sudden came home to myself and went, there's something else in this life. There is something more to what it looks like. So then let's fast forward another 10 years. And I went on, in that 10 years, a deep dive into who really am I? And so that I also separated from my husband. We studied A Course in Miracles together and then just knew our paths were going to different ways and we made the really hard decision to separate when our boys were two and five, it was very early, and I went back out then into the industry. And so I had these almost what felt like a double life. I had the fashion industry on one level where I was a buyer and doing all those pieces. And then I had this very strong personal development lean, which really was the anchor of who I was. And back in those days I didn't bring them together. So I lived very dualistic back in those days. It was quite hard, actually. With the young kids, my boys, life just got busy. So that was about really in my thirties and then coming into my forties, it was like, I just felt more and more that I needed to really reclaim and own who I really was. So I left full-time roles because I just knew I had to, I forgot to tell you, I bordered chronic fatigue, I ran my adrenals down, all that kind stuff. So much traveling with work and then balancing kids and single parenthood and all that kind of thing. And then I ended up in my forties and in an emergency ward with blood pressure of 230, over 180. It's like my body just kept saying, would you stop? We need to talk to you. Then I had a near death experience. It's too long to go into, but that was when I was about 42 and I got that real message. It's just like, stop now. And then everything just started to line up in perfect synchronicity for me to take six months off and to really just reconfigure who I am and what's really true to me. And as I did that, as my forties started to unfold, that's when you know, synchronistic events, Stephanie, just started to happen.

They rang me to ask me to audition for Project Runway. I was not really the prime candidate at all. You know, they auditioned a hundred different women, editors of top magazines and like really focal people. I was a buyer. It's like, I'm not quite sure where I fit in, but Sure. And then I get that. I get that role, and I knew something was going on. I'd already started to produce a pilot for a television series in personal development with some really high level people here, and I just heard inside, "This is great for profile. Go with it, Sarah." It was like, okay. So there was this mix of wonderful trajectory in my career where I could really pick up the phone to anyone in the fashion industry because I'd raised such profile, and then this extraordinary deliverance back to myself in the personal development world. And that's when they just started to meld together.

Stephanie: I have so many questions. I'm gonna go back a ways. You said in your teens and twenties, after that experience when you were a child, you said you went to sleep.

Sarah: Hmm,

Stephanie: What does that mean? What does that look like? And I'm asking for a specific reason, but tell me a little bit about what the difference is between being asleep and then where you came to in your late twenties and then into your thirties.

Sarah: Do you know that's such a great question and one I've never been asked, so thank you so much for that. I love that, Stephanie. I really love that.

So what I mean by being asleep, it's like I forgot that there was another world that we live in, apart from the reality that we see. So as is very normal in navigating teenagehood, it was all about the external environment. What the external environment thought of me, how I positioned myself in that external environment and how it was so important to me about what everyone else thought of me and how was I going to navigate this so I could be loved and accepted and all that kind of thing. And when I went into the fashion industry to begin with, I noticed that I just knew stuff. I just knew it, and yet I still didn't put that down to that knowingness inside. I still didn't trust myself. I didn't that sense of self of there's something wider here. So I had a lot of anxiety. I actually had some OCD in late teens and early twenties down to my mid twenties as well. There was a lot of anxiousness and trying to control life and not realizing that there was a force around me, through me, in me, that was actually the true instigator of my life in this human body. Like, my humanness is just as important as my soul land, but back then my humanness was everything, hence why I ended up, I think, getting to that point where I was just like, whoa, I need to do something here. Because it just all of a sudden there seemed to be a shallowness and an emptiness, even though externally I had everything. Everything. My life just looked picture perfect, that there was a deep, long connection in life for me.

Stephanie: I think that's very common for lots of people, and I don't know if it's more women than men, but I certainly know my experience. Certainly in the teens and in the twenties, you wanna conform, you wanna be accepted. You don't wanna be weird. And it's interesting to me that you said that you were good at fashion. It came to you naturally, but you had to justify that away as a skill or a talent. You had to sort of invalidate yourself.

Sarah: Oh, Stephanie, that's gold. That is just total gold, let me tell you that. Yes. Instead of just realizing that this was just coming through me and surrendering into that and that absolute knowing inside. Yes, I took it to my head and called exactly what you said, a skill and as if it was something learned or of this external world, rather than just this essence of who I was. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Stephanie: When I was in fourth grade, my teacher was handing back some homework essays, and in fourth grade we were 10. And I remember her putting mine down on my desk and saying to me, "Who taught you how to use a comma?" And I looked at her and I said, "What's a comma?" But I had used it right in my little essay. So for me, words and language just came so naturally to me. But yeah, you try to sort of explain that away as, oh, well I must have learned that somewhere.

Sarah: Oh gosh. That's just so touched me. That's so touched me. Thank you so much for sharing that because it gives such a lovely parallel. And so insightful to those early gifts that we feel, but we so discredit as they must have come from someone else instead of that is within me. That is just beautiful. Oh

Stephanie: Yeah. And I think it's common though, for, I'm gonna call it people because maybe boys and men do this as well, that we explain those things away. We put them in a little box, we put them in a closet, and we keep doing all of the things we're supposed to do and follow our path. Andit usually isn't until this period in time that I like to focus on, this 35 to 45, that people kind of wake back up and realize things about themselves. And for you it's this real profound knowing of self that's, I think so many of us long for and strive for.

Sarah: Mm. And you know what's interesting about that as well and of late, I've definitely started to realize how I did that in my head first. So I think what I know now is really coming back into the body. Our body holds all our wisdom. Yet for me, and maybe not everyone was just so slow on the uptake, but I feel like I was slow on the uptake even though I had this extraordinary, it's almost like I had myself split back in those days. So I had myself split between a body and a song, and couldn't somehow it was reconciling those and reconciling a beautiful dance between the two and both being just as important. So it's like I outsourced my sense of true knowing to my soul. And in my humanness, I then outsourced that to my head. And you know, my head can be a really dangerous place to go.

Stephanie: Yeah. Oh, trust me. I know.

Sarah: Yeah, it's noisy, right? It can really noisy. It'll justify whatever it wants to justify and it will override my body if I give it half the chance.

Stephanie: Well, and here's the other thing, I don't know about for you, but for me, for a very, very long time, there was a very mean voice up there. I always say I have two voices in my head and one is the nice one and one is the mean one. And for a long, long time, oh, that mean girl was so loud.

Sarah: Oh. Stephanie, I'm so with you. We could've played in the playground together because, and you know, it's really only been of late that I've really been able to really hold her and, and see that the self-criticism and that self-judgment and that making me wrong and feeling like my role in life was to keep everyone else happy, regardless of how I felt. I'm really only just waking up to that now

Stephanie: Yeah.

Sarah: properly, and I think we are like onions as, you know, the old metaphor that we do just keep peeling back. And I think as I do that I'm just starting to realize how much I've just been so nasty to myself. So nasty and my expectations so unrealistic and the lack of love for just who I am. Like really am.

Stephanie: Yeah,

Sarah: Mm.

Stephanie: because she's good enough,

Sarah: She's so enough And she's not too much. Cuz that's always been my piece, right?

Stephanie: Mine too.

Sarah: Your's, too?

Stephanie: Mine too. oh

my God.

Sarah: I'm too much. So I would then find partners who would tell me I'm too much. And I would find workplaces that I would be too much because of whatever we hold inside, we bring towards us for that experience so that we can, one, that energy lines up, so we are going to create that. But also it's our extraordinary opportunity to be able to bust out those old patterns when we are faced with them face to face. That, yeah, that not enough and too much, it's that circle, which is just not winnable. Yeah.

Stephanie: Yeah, A lot of my life I was called ridiculous. And for a lot of my life, it was something I sort of recoiled from and thought, "Oh, oh, oh, oh, okay. I can't be that." And then it wasn't until right around my 40th birthday and my 40 Drinks Project, which I chose, not chose, which I decided to do in part because it was ridiculous. And it was a way for me to really own that ridiculousness and that over the top, and that and just step into it and be that

Sarah: Oh.

Stephanie: girl who makes her 40th birthday last a whole year.

Sarah: I love that. I so love that. And I so relate to that point of ridiculousness. And I don't know about you, but in my earlier days, it was almost like I made a point of being out there. Like I used to carry around little mini suitcases, which were my handbags, like bright pink and white spots and striped and anything. And I would be known for something quite outrageous, and that was my way of saying, could you see me? It was so external, what they were seeing was the external. I was giving them the very lighthearted and fun and outlandish Sarah, but I wasn't really giving them the fullness of me because I was still working out who that fullness was. Who could I be, who couldn't I be?

And my 40th birthday was interesting. So I was single parenting and a very good girlfriend at the time said, "What are you doing for your 40th?" And I said, "Oh, I don't think I'm gonna do anything." She said, "You can't do nothing." And I said, "Do you know what? I'm working this full-time job. I'm absolutely exhausted. I'm running around after the kids. I don't have time to do anything." She said, "I am gonna cater for everything. All you have to do is invite the people. I will organize the rest. Let's have it at yours." And I'm like, " Okay." And she did that. I didn't have to think of anything else. Do you know about Stephanie? It's the first time I've ever talked about this, but I felt really self-conscious about asking people to my 40th. It's almost like I didn't feel like I could really take up the space for other people on their weekend. It was like, who would want to come to my 40th? And it was really an interesting piece to get for me, how I felt not worthy of other people's attention. Unless I was doing something for them, why would they come and do something for me?

Stephanie: Yeah. You were intruding.

Sarah: Yeah, like I was intruding and it was a really important step for me. And then when speeches came, give me a speech now and I'm fine, put a camera in front of me, I'm fine. But back then it was almost, I did not know. I remember standing there and there were about 40 people there, right? All in a circle around me. And I made some kind of speech. I don't remember what it was, but I can remember feeling so anxious about that. And again, taking up space. Whoa. I only just remembered that. It was tough actually, and there was something beautiful, and inner knowing knew that this was my time. It was time. Mm

Stephanie: Wow.

Sarah: mm.

Stephanie: I had sort of the opposite experience on the 40th birthday, but it's so in alignment with what you're talking about because I wassingle, had gotten out of yet another, you know, awful relationship. And I threw myself a birthday party when I was 25, and it was fabulous, and it was sassy and it was all the things, right? We took over a club, a friend of mine managed it. We had the VIP run. I mean, it was off the charts. We snuck my teenage brothers into the club, it was great. At 40, I thought this is the birthday that somebody else should throw you a party for. Like, it felt a little, a little, I don't quite know how I'm feeling, but it didn't feel right for me to throw my own party at 40, and there was nobody else to throw it for me. The other thing I was feeling was, as a single never married woman, I was feeling like it's kind of like the wedding reception I never had, and I didn't want all of those people coming and looking at me and, you know, oh, she's 40, and look where she is. There were all of those reasons that led me away from a party and to my 40 Drinks Project, which clearly were exactly the right steps I needed to take. And it's turned out perfect. But yeah, I get you. The taking up space, the being in front of people, the judging myself and projecting that onto my friends and family.

Sarah: Yeah. That projection, that's beautiful. And what I'm hearing, I just wanna really acknowledge that comment of what you talked about, that at 40 and if you haven't been married, and the whole patriarchal piece that we've bought into about as women what we are here for, and that that is not our choice, that is our destiny. It's like, for goodness sake. Yeah. It's really ingrained, and I know I've got friends who haven't married and choosing not to have kids, and that's their choice. You know, it's like, where did we get it to the point where we thought that a woman's life needs to look like this or there's something wrong otherwise. It's like by goodness me, so I'm so glad that you pulled that piece out. It feels really strong for me and it's just as women to really hold on to, we have choice and there isn't a right way of living womanhood and a wrong way of living womanhood. There is just our way of living womanhood and that has to be our choice.

Stephanie: But I think that right there, that's the rub in that I'm not sure that we're, most of us, are strong enough in our core, in our identity, in our own thoughts and opinions, and our own authority when we're young, when we're in our twenties, when we're in our thirties. So for someone like me, it looked like being a party girl until my mid thirties. It was almost like I was being distracted with all the, you know, the drinking in the bars and the partying. Don't get me wrong, it was a ton of fun, but, you know, a lot of traditional life passed me by. And I think I'm actually just putting this together as I'm talking out loud, which is what I usually do. I think by distracting myself with this lifestyle that I was living, I didn't actually have to make a choice that went against the grain. I was just distracted over here. Oh, I'm busy over here. I'll get to it someday. Whereas, it's a lot to swim against the tide, as a young woman, as a young person. And that's why I am so curious and intrigued about this 35 to 45 kind of age period, because that's when we build, that's when we come into our own authority and we trust in ourselves more and we start really learning who we are and making decisions that suit that, and that actually, really does hold true for me.

Sarah: Mm, I totally get that. And I came into the essence of me, as I said, around my late twenties, 28, 29. 28 actually. And that's when our Saturn return is. At our first Saturn return, it's like it turns life, it can turn life upside down. Like all the thoughts of who am I? And so that unfolding, what I've noticed is, with myself anyway, is I jumped on that and I could feel, but I was still taking in so much new information and allowing all of it to settle in me. Yet it wasn't until I came into my late thirties and I'd left a second marriage and I'd come into that and it was like, no, it's time. So there was a lot of learning and anchoring new points in me and eyes being wide open to, whoa, there is more to life than this. Taking me back to that six year old type peace and just really consolidating and learning about myself more. And then starting to take those steps towards my late thirties of actually putting that into true practice in some really hard decisions that I had to make. Now remember when I left my second marriage, cuz I knew that that's what I needed to do, but it was really hard to do so, for so many different reasons. And I remember someone asking me only a month or two after I'd left, just in a general conversation and they said to me, Sarah, who inspires you most? And the answer that came out of my mouth shocked me as much as it shocked them. And I looked at them and I said, I do, I inspire me. Look what I just did. And it was this extraordinary, it's when I started to think the word you used that self-trust, it's when I started my own business, it was in my early forties. It was like, no, something needs to change here. Actually, I did start at early on, no, it was around my mid thirties actually, my first business. I knew nothing about what I was doing. I went into a totally different, I went into marketing and PR in the personal development area, and no one was doing it back then. I knew nothing about PR. I found the top PR person in Melbourne. I paid them a swag load of money for one morning and I grilled them and for four hours, tell me how I do this, tell me how I do that, this, this, this, this, this. And he was just like, oh my God. And then I opened my business. I go, okay, great. I can do this. And off I went. The brazen confidence on the outside was just like, my goodness. And I had some really strong successes within that in really helping bring people from the heart out into the public. It was really satisfying actually, now I think about it.

Stephanie: It's interesting you talk about the Saturn return, I hadn't really put this piece together, but when I was 27, 28, that's when I sort of embarked upon my own sort of spiritual path. And this is something that my mom had been involved in since I was a little kid. She's always been into the spiritual exploration and personal development and all that stuff. But of course, as you know, when your mom does it, it's not cool and you're not gonna learn from her. So a friend of mine, who was one of my 40 Drinks and I've known since I was 18, she kept putting crumbs in my path and I kept making excuses. And then finally one day there was a psychic who was a wonderful friend of hers and she said, "That's it. You're gonna go see him and I'm gonna sponsor you so that you can't give me any excuses." And that kind of started it off for me and I was probably 28. So it's interesting because I'm thinking of myself as you're talking, I'm like, oh God, am I gonna be doing this? I think this whole Saturn transit is, that's gonna be for me. I'll be doing this until I'm 56.

Sarah: Yes.

Stephanie: uh, So since I was 28 until like you say, 38, 39, 40 and then really sort of stepping into some ownership and some truth for myself and really believing it, kind of opening up to a lot of things.

Sarah: Mm I definitely found my forties like really fruitful.

Stephanie: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: It was almost before going into the winters, cuz I'm older now, but going into my winter after that and almost where then come out in the forties. I've got a lot of friends in the forties and it's just a very fertile time both internally and externally. And it's different for everyone, right? We've all got our own journeys obviously, but it was almost like, especially in those early forties, what I touched just worked. I did at times have to make some really tough decisions and a lot of self-trust, but I could access that self-trust at the same time as the wobbles. It was an interesting time and I think it is an interesting time in the sense that it's almost like when we start to, I think you said it before, and these might not be your words, but really like land in ourselves. And I see that in the work I do with women as well, is that anything too early like in the twenties, you're really fighting a lot of these external messaging that's very much a part of their psyche. It's almost like we get to a Saturn return and it starts bringing in hang on a minute, you're more than just this external reference points. And then we come into our mid thirties and we've kind of got a bit more connected to those pieces. And what I find is like mid thirties, up into their fifties, women are willing to go, "Actually, I now wanna embody who I really am in my clothes rather than who I think I'm meant to be." And that's, for me, an exciting pivotal point because it means that on a daily basis they can do something about that, like a true embodiment. And that I definitely notice a difference. Definitely notice a difference.

Stephanie: I started my business, I think I was probably 36 or 37. I own a marketing agency and for a long time, and I'm talking like, mm, 10 years, I built it the way I thought it should be built. And, I'm part of my community here. The city I live in is about a hundred and ten thousand or something. So, you know, it's not enormous. I have contemporaries and friends who started businesses, a couple of them who own marketing agencies and web development agencies and I watched these guys build these agencies and just, build it, build it, build it. And for a long, long time I thought, oh God, I must not be doing it right cuz look at them, they're growing and they're going nationwide and they're acquiring other agencies and God, I must not be doing it right. And I kept trying to follow this playbook that was just sort of some traditional playbook. I don't know where I picked it up, but, I'd done some sales training and I actually had a sales trainer sort of fire me because I didn't grow my business as fast as he wanted me to grow my business. It was really kind of twisted. So you talked earlier about you being sort of a late bloomer or taking a long time, and I'm telling the same story because I spent a long time thinking I was doing it wrong, I wasn't quite good enough, all of these things. And it's funny aboutfive or six years ago, I ended up getting sick with Lyme disease and having to really pull back on my business. For a couple years I was pretty debilitated. And, um, as soon as I let go, it was like the business just went and shot up. And the last six years have been better than any of the years before them. And I'm like, oh, wait, wait, wait, so if I work less, the business is more successful? If I actually trust my team to help me carry the weight, then things go better. It's been ridiculous to me, but y some of us need more pain and suffering before we learn our lessons.

Sarah: Oh, I just love that cause what I'm hearing is when you gave over to your feminine, that's what I'm hearing. It's like when you stepped aside and received, rather than that push, shove, hustle. It's a sense of trust, isn't it? If I think about, I started up a business in my early forties, so I left my corporate career from a whole lot of different events, which I won't go into now, but it's a fascinating story of synchronicity and I'm like, oh my God, and I decided I was gonna start up a consulting business in the fashion industry. Now there were no such things as consultants back then. I went and stalked people in like shopping centers and found my clients within there. I didn't seem to have a problem doing any of that. But what I did was every morning I would drop my kids at school. Cause I had six months where I actually decided I needed to, like you, I needed to pull back. I'd been sick a couple of times and it was just like, Sarah, stop. It was like, okay. And I came into a payout from a job that I'd left and I'm like, okay, this is my time. I didn't really have the wisdom as I would now to go, okay, this is my time. How do I make the most of this? No. It was just like, I just knew inherently and I started to do things that I loved. So I started making a documentary with an indigenous man, like talking to him about making a documentary to put into schools, which led me to a filmmaker who said, "Hey, we think you'd be great on camera. Let's do a thing around fashion. I've got someone in one of the top media companies." I just went and did these things and they were fun. And then I started, as I said, stalking people and finding these people as clients and then got offered Runway and I had my breakdowns in that as well. I can remember one weekend just absolutely collapsing into total breakdown. Met a friend for coffee, poor man, because not really accustomed to a female breaking down. And I'm a blubbering mess for 45 minutes, and I dunno what I'm gonna do. And you know, and I had the kids and I had private school fees and I had rent and I had like a thousand dollars in the bank and I had no income. And I was like, Oh my God, what am I going to do? And eventually I was so cried out and then one weekend, three things all landed all at once. And I was like, oh my God. And it's that sense of really holding, really holding that faith in those times where it looks like you are battling the storm of your life. That's what I've realized. And as I got older, I started to reprogram that part of I don't have to be battling the storm of life. I don't need to have my back to the wall. How about I just listen along the way and follow that. So I'm really only just starting to come into that and working with a very skillful coach at the moment. It's coming back into our feminine as women. It's really re owning her because she receives, she doesn't push. I know that if I can see my plan ahead, it's actually not my plan. Because the feminine works, like you said, one step at a time. What's next? Great. Let's do that. Yeah, we're not taught that in this world.

Stephanie: No, we're not. And the thing that I love it's like when you stop trying so hard, then things will happen. And you were talking about synchronicity and it's like you can't make synchronicity happen. So it doesn't matter how hard you're hustling, how, how much you're digging it out, you're just gonna be digging for sort of the next potato in the ground. But, if you want a beautiful, magical rainbow, you gotta stop and you gotta sit down. You gotta look up.

Sarah: Oh, Stephanie, can I hug you now?

Stephanie: Yes,

Sarah: I love that about the next potato and the ground as much as I like potatoes, I have to say, but like that sense of, oh, it's really just letting go of that control because the feminine she so wants to be in that sense of flow. And she's naturally in that. I drowned her out for years. And actually there's a beautiful book around Mary Magdalene and I'm not a religious person, I just haven't been brought up with a religious background. But two, one by Tom Kenyon, another by Meggan Watterson. But that really just goes through that absolute rebirthing of the feminine within us. And if it's one thing I feel like I'm here to impart in this world, it's like how do I really allow my feminine voice and then how do I take women on that journey as well? Because I know from that sense of who we are, the world needs women in their full feminine power. We don't need women coming in and being masculine. We have both and I'm fully aware of that. For me, the masculine is there to hold a container for our feminine, but not to contain her. And that's one of the things I've really noticed is that like when I dive into a woman's wardrobe, cuz it's a very deep process. This is not about clothes, it's a very, although it impacts our clothes, so many women shut down on their feminine in what they wear. And the patterns that we play in our wardrobe are the same as the patterns that we play out in life. And so when we are doing that, it's that sense of we've been brought up to diminish her. And so many of the women I I work with talk about growing up in families that the father had so much more say than the mother, and so they've diminished their own feminine because they see her as weak. And the power of the feminine in her full force, I'm a strong believer when we come into our true power as a feminine, then the healthy masculine will show up. We think that that the feminine responds to the masculine, but actually it's my absolute belief and inner knowing that the masculine responds to the feminine. So as we shift and move up that vibrational frequency, in the strength of the feminine, the masculine will move into a very healthy space and meet us there.

Stephanie: So interesting. I'm gonna bring it all back to a word that you said a couple of minutes ago, and that's having faith. I think the transition needs to go from having faith in systems and institutions and paradigms, to having faith in ourselves.

that's where, That's where the switch flips.

Sarah: Thank you for that. My switch was my own inner authority

Stephanie: Yep.

Sarah: and really because I had my authority invested, just as you've said, in all of the systems and the external reference points and other people. I thought everyone else had the blueprint for life and I had somehow missed that download until I started to realize, Sarah, your life just looks different to others. And especially in my family of origin. I wasn't brought up, we didn't all have these kumbaya nights. Like that just wasn't how my family was. And so I always felt very different and I saw different as wrong somewhere deep in my psyche. Even though I knew there was something very powerful about who I was, I still thought if everyone else is doing that, I must be wrong and I don't belong. And it was a really painful right, actually. Then as I started to realize the authority measures that I hadn't owned myself. That was scary, Stephanie. That was scary. You mean I'm my own authority? Oh my God. I wanna swear now. Like, but I'll say flip. What if I get it wrong and this whole wrongness and rightness and, you know, everyone else will be flying ahead and I'll be just in a gutter somewhere because I've made wrong decisions and I've got it wrong and I can't trust myself and all that piece.. It was a journey to come back to who am I? And yes, I have my own right to live my life according to my own internal authority.

Stephanie: However you want. You can live it however you want.

Sarah: Yeah. Scary thought to start with.

Stephanie: it is. It is. And that's really where the messy part is. Going from trusting somebody else's authority and the systems and institutions to trusting yourself. That's where the messy part is cuz I think there's a lot of experimentation, there's a lot of trial and error. There's a lot of trial and not trusting. There's a lot of, you know, looking for evidence. You said between 28 and 38, sort of for me too, it's between 28 and 40, there's a lot of experimenting and you get steps along the way, you keep making progress. But it's not like a video game. You don't reach a level and then you win.

Sarah: No

Stephanie: it's ongoing.

Sarah: That is fabulous. And I do laugh you know at that thought that I hear others and I can remember with myself as well thinking that I was going to arrive at some stage instead of the constant work in progress. And I think the older I've got, the more I realize what I don't know, and the more I realize what I do know on the inside, and that I never arrive, I just arrive in the next step. It's like I think we're taught, and especially these days, when I first embarked on this whole spiritual motion and notion, it really wasn't very popular out there. So I really had to hunt it down. Whereas now, oh my gosh, like it's everywhere. And on one level that's fabulous. And on another, it could have you outsourcing your authority even more because yeah they've got the answer and they've got the answer and let's go there and let's be like them and what are they doing? And really being different back in those days allowed that piece to percolate within me and I could recognize. I get visions of things before they happen as well. I saw my brother die before he died. I've never said that on air somewhere, but it was like a few days earlier and it was just like, what is that? And I said out loud in my kitchen, why would Pete die? Like it was just like, it was nonsensical. He was 51, he fell off a quad bike and this was three days before that happened and it was like, whoa. Back in my early thirties I saw the deaths of two different people and and saw the newspaper and then that happened the following weekend and it was like? My mom was in hospital who got high hepatitis E and I was in the shower and I heard go and turn on the radio to this, this station, which I never list listened to, they're going to talk about your mom. And I was like, what is that? But I got out of the shower, I turned it on, and there they were talking about this woman that had got Hepatitis E up in the Northern Territory. And I was like? So I've always had these messages for me, because it wasn't a lot of people I could talk to about this, I just chalked them up inside of that's interesting. That's interesting. So in a sense with not so much noise on the outside, I got to just allow them to bubble inside and inform me very quietly of this internal power without needing to belong to what might be out there at the moment on some level of almost the status around, look how powerful I am.

Stephanie: Mm.

Sarah: Does that make any sense?

Stephanie: Yeah. Yeah, it does. It does. it's wild. I mean, I have not had that experience of having premonitions of things happening. Um, I can only imagine. It's gotta be unsettling and scary.

Sarah: You know, because it was so out there, I didn't realize it until it happened and it was like, oh yeah. It's almost because it was coming from a different world, there was no fear in that because there was no fear in that realm. It was like when a girlfriend of mine died and she came to visit me that night and I didn't know she had died and we had a full on conversation and she told me our friendship will surpass all time and space. And at that time, I didn't think to text her, I didn't think to call her, which normally if I'd had that kind of thought pattern, it was totally different. The next day I heard that she'd passed the morning before and that was unexpected. But at no point in time was there any fear surrounded with that because it wasn't within that realm. It was fascinating actually.

Stephanie: Years and years ago, I heard an analogy that the barrier between sort of the physical world that we exist in and the spiritual world it's like a door, and for most people it's closed and locked and maybe even padded over with, with Sheetrock. And for other people it's, it's a little bit open.I knew one woman who her description was it's been kicked down and it's hanging on by one of the uh, the hinges. But it sounds like you have a, a bit of, of light there between one world and the other. Your door's a little bit open, you're able to get messages and downloads from that side.

Sarah: Yeah, it seems to be, and it's not something that I intentionally do, whereas,

Stephanie: could, you couldn't

Sarah: That's right. It just drops in when it drops in and it's quite fascinating actually. I did go searching after that happened with my brother because I was like, how could I have seen that? So I went and read everything I could, Greg Braden, Joe Dispenza, one other guy, I can't remember his name now, to see what actually happens. And there was an explanation of some sort in how energy works and we can see to a certain extent. And then there's almost a wash back that we can see. But you know, that's just our brains trying to make sense of it as well. I put it down to, I've been a daily meditator for over 26, 27 years now. And I wonder whether that helps in that or whether some of us, I mean, I guess at six years old, there was always gonna be something from that point in time that there was a larger realm of some sort. I can't explain it. And

Stephanie: And you had some connection to it as well.

Sarah: Yes, thank you. Yeah. Some sort.

Stephanie: So one of the things you told me the last time we spoke was you were in your early forties, you had a long and very successful career in the fashion industry. You knew how to put an outfit together like nobody's business. But you said you felt anxious in your clothes and you started wondering what that was about.

Sarah: Yeah, so it was exactly as you've just said, it didn't make any sense to me because I felt this sense of not at home in myself, in my clothes. I was so concerned, Stephanie, with what other people thought of me. And this didn't make sense to me because I knew externally that I looked great cuz I knew how to do it, right?

Stephanie: Right.

Sarah: Yeah. It's like if you code a program and you're a coder and you know how to code, you know how to code. I knew how to put an outfit together and I was always being told, oh, you look fabulous, blah, blah, blah. But inside myself, there was something that didn't feel congruent with who I was and I felt very insecure and I used to spend a lot of time deciding what to wear. And it felt like I was having to carve my own identity every time I got dressed. And like I was carving it for others rather than myself. And I was carving it for how others would respond to me rather than how I would embody myself. So it's completely externally focused and yeah, it really, it messed with myself.

Stephanie: I'll bet it could change too. Depending on where you were going and who you were seeing and what the meetings were or what the events were. That identity, how you presented yourself, would change, which must also be quite confusing.

Sarah: Absolutely. Absolutely. And I even found, depending on what relationship I was in, I found my clothes would change then. I found I would play down for some or I'd go more conservative in a particular marriage, or I would then be out in Diesel t-shirts and jeans with some particular friends. It was always about the other person and how they received me, not about how I was receiving myself. And that, just saying that now, is like that sense of as soon as we put our authority outside ourselves, we are gonna be on shaky ground.

Stephanie: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: And I knew at that point in time that this was something I was doing to myself every day. And I knew there had to be another way, but it was really confronting because as women we got such baggage around our appearance. And you know what? It's really easy to convince myself, it was back then, very easy to convince myself that if I was getting lots of compliments and people were seeing me, that that was fine.

Stephanie: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: But inside it wasn't, cuz they weren't really seeing me, I was giving them the version of me that I knew would be okay for them. So actually what they were seeing were, they were seeing themselves through me.

Stephanie: Yep. They were seeing a projection.

Sarah: Correct. I was not giving them me, not wholeheartedly. I was aware. Yeah. That was my securities and anxiousness and it was like, woo.

Stephanie: Hmm.

Sarah: Yeah, it was hard.

Stephanie: Yeah. Then you said you would go stand in front of your closet and listen.

Sarah: Yeah. This is when I did decide I knew something was off from what I just explained. It was like, okay, this simply doesn't make any sense. And I started to come into myself enough, and it was after I'd had the near death experience that it was like, okay, it's time, it's to really get real. And something changes when that, for me, it was like almost before and after, and I stood in front of my closet one day and I just got really, really quiet. And I just allowed myself to listen to what was going through my head as I was choosing what I was going to wear. And what really astounded me was there was like a white noise and we talked about it before, that self-judgment, that self-hatred, all that. But it was things like, oh my God, you can't wear that, Sarah, what will they think of you? It was like, um, will they think I respect them? Can I wear this? Oh my God, what will they be wearing? Can I belong? Everything was externally focused and I heard the noise and I was just like, oh my God. And from that it was almost like this part of me just started to feel there's something more than getting dressed in my clothes. This is about the relationship I have with myself and that is pan being transposed into my clothing relationship. So from that, I then started to go into girlfriend's wardrobes and say, can I just try something with you? And I went in and we started to dissect how they felt about their clothes, what they were currently wearing, what they felt about how, what they wore, how they felt in their clothes. And then I would just intuitively pull different things out of their wardrobe that I could feel and sense were part of the trueness of who they were. And as they would get them out, I mean, floods of tears, terror, frightened of really showing who they really were. Yet when they would get into these outfits, which by the way were just different combinations within their current wardrobe, all of a sudden what I saw was what happened to me as well. It was this power would ignite within them. It was like a fire just ignited of who they really were. They stopped hiding and we started to dissect all of the patterns of where they were hiding, why they were hiding. We went back to like, there were childhood things they'd been told, there were patterns that they were holding onto about who they needed to be, what they needed to look like, and how they needed to show up in this world to be be safe. But in that safety, it was costing them their own inner authority. It was costing them their own security, their own sense of safety in themselves their own sense of power. And so as I went through from woman to woman, the same thing started to happen and I was like, oh my God. It's like, hang on a minute. But because I was also by this stage working through some really powerful project pieces, you know, I wasn't planning on leaving the fashion career as I knew it. So I said inside myself, if you want me to do this, you are gonna need to give me really concrete evidence. Like, come on. And I kept hearing a book and there's a process, and I'm like, give it to me. So then over the next say 12 months, two years, I would get downloads, but not at a reasonable time of the day. It would be say, 1:30 in the morning

Stephanie: Right.

Sarah: And I would wake up and I'd start laughing and I'm like, not now. And it would be flooding. Hey, do you know this?

Stephanie: I do and I'm so curious because I do, it's usually when I'm just about to fall asleep and I'm not somebody who's kept up with anxiety necessarily, but all of a sudden I'll be like, ready to go to sleep. And I don't know, maybe that's a period where I let go and just allow, but all of a sudden, like things will start writing themselves in my head and I'll go, oh yeah, I'll remember that in the morning. Yeah, yeah, I'll remember that. And I don't, but I'm also so protective of my sort of sleep hygiene and my sleep process that I don't wanna grab my phone. I don't wanna turn on a light. I don't wanna start writing. I don't wanna start dictating. So I'm so curious. What did you do at 1:30 in the morning when you're getting these downloads? Did you just get up and go with it?

Sarah: Eventually I had to, because they wouldn't stop and it was so gold and I felt it to my core. This was not just something coming into my mind. It was my whole body was reverberating with these messages and so I got a pen and a book next to me and I would just write, and I would write and write and write and write. And I had no idea at that point in time whether I was writing a book or whether I was just downloading what I needed to know. And I know now, like it was as much a download as anything because then I would take that and then I would be given a process and it's like, go do this. And I'm like, okay.

And so I would go in these women's wardrobes and I would do this process with them. Oh, and then this was just like mind blowing because in the middle of the session when I would start to worry, because think of the creative process. What happens is we start with a vision. We start with an inspiration. Yeah. Then we have a vision and we actually get some clarity. Then we start, and then it goes to mush. Then confusion is just rife and it's whoa. And it's can you get through that confusion and sit with that discomfort of that confusion out to the other side where it comes in. Like that butterfly goes in. Did you know the butterfly when it goes into the cocoon, looses its head

Stephanie: Yes. It

Sarah: Yes. And then it goes to mush, but his head never even makes a cocoon. That's how much we have to lose our head. Then the whole body goes to mush and then comes out. So what would happen to me is I would get into these sessions and I would be following instruction from inside cuz it was very clear. And then I would start to feel this panic inside cause it's like where the F is this going? And I'd just hear that booming voice would be back. Would you get out of the way and boom. And so on instruction, I would get out of the way and I would ask questions that came from nowhere. And next minute ka-poom, ka-poom, ka-poom.

And this is what I learned: we all have what I have termed three style essences.. Now those style essences, Stephanie, are unique to you. Yours will be totally unique to you. Mine are totally unique to me. When we put those three style essences all together in the one outfit, it's like what we've done is we've plugged ourselves into an electrical current of our very own charge. And it's like we get to show up congruent from the inside out. And that was the piece that I had been missing. And it was like to begin with, we find all of the patterns that we're playing so we can undo those,bring the patterns to awareness. We don't need to fix them or karate chop them or anything like that, right? We just need to bring them to the awareness so they don't have the hold on us. Then once we've done that, it's almost like opening up this lotus and our true essence comes through and says, ah, this is how I want to express. And it's just like, oh my God.

And every time I have done this with a woman, and I've done a few men as well, men are different in their wardrobe to women. And so I concentrate more on women because I really want this feminine power to absolutely like land in this world. And what happens is when they get in, unprovoked by me, I hear a very similar phrase if not the samephrase from them. And it sounds something like this. Whoa. And the whole energy shifts and they go, I've never felt more alive in my life. Ugh.

And that's what happens when we find the congruency. Our clothes are a second skin. They are an energy. We embody either the truth of who we are or the mistruth of who we are every single morning when we get dressed. And my old way of being was externally focused. And it might have looked great, but I felt like crap on the inside and I couldn't be a full antenna for my full power. Now I know my essences, I get dressed in my essences every day, and I have greater accessibility to who I really am.

I show up differently. I have more courage. I have more forthrightness in my own authority. It's made such a difference. And from other women, I just see their trajectory in lifeit's absolutely mind blowing to watch when they use their wardrobe as an embodiment tool. And we think about the wardrobe as something so superficial normally. So not Stephanie, because anything that we interact with in this life has the capacity to either connect us to who we are or disconnect us to who we are.

Stephanie: Yep. Yeah. I have a bit of a sense of style essences because I did your free course, which I thought was wonderful, in preparation for this conversation. But give me like five examples of just individual style essences.

So just so listeners can sort of understand what you mean by a style essence.

Sarah: Great. And what I'll say is the words I'm about to say now, uh, everyone resonates with different words as well. Mm-hmm. So for instance, grace could be a style essence. For me, that's effortless elegance. Bold could be one. Playful is another. Sexy is another, but let me just term sexy for a moment. Sexy is not about how other people see you or perceive you. It is not about an external reference. Sexy, for me, is this internal sense of feminine power. If we think about how we originally had sex, it was to procreate. At the seat of where our sexual organs are is the seat of our creativity. So sexy is like really igniting with that full creativity. But why shouldn't we feel sexy?

I read somewhere two days ago, sensuality, sexuality, and spirituality are all of one. And I love that cause we so often, because we've been brought up in these very strange rules that we see sex as bad, and it's just not, but it's not for anyone else. It's for you. What else? Um, Unique is another. Um, edgy could be another. So it's bringing in these pieces. There's mysterious, mischievious, like there's hundreds that I've come across and I've actually charted them all because what I've learned is there are five major groups and that, so what I've done is been a bit of a data geek as well, is seeing where the most common groups come together. And then I've had a look at when they come together, what are the commonalities in these people? And do you know what I'm starting to see these correlations between who we are and what our essences are. And I'm writing a book at the moment, just really unfold this for people cause I really want people to have accessibility to be in their fullness in what they wear every day, because the only messages we've had thus far have been either go with the grain or go against. That's pretty much the messages we've been given. Yeah. And do you know, fitting in and rebelling are exactly the same chord, so people who say they wanna be different and they rebel. It's exactly the same as belonging and fitting in because it's all externally referenced. Being different is very different from being unique. Being unique is self being different is as opposed to someone else.

Stephanie: Hmm.

Sarah: So it's really a distinction that's worth contemplating within one's self.

Stephanie: Yeah. And as I went through your mini course, I was thinking about my own. And I have some insight into my own thanks to my friend Susan Osborne, who I had on the podcast in the first season, who is also an image consultant. But she comes at it from a very similar place that you do. It's all about internal and figuring out who you are. And so for me, I think I know two of my three, and then the third one I'm kind of playing with. But certainly for me, um, feminine or girly is kind of like number one. Very feminine stuff.I love scarves. Oh my God, anybody who knows me knows for like nine months out of the year I have a scarf on. And then playful is the other one, really not serious. And then I'm the third one. The sort of notes that I was taking as I was thinking about talking to you is, is it romantic? Is it unique? I don't know. I haven't quite got the third one nailed down, but the first two definitely resonate for me. The feminine, very girly and playful.

Sarah: Beautiful. Do you know what's so interesting about what you just said is often our third there is one that is often our blind spot. So it'll be totally different what you feel because it's almost like that disowned piece of us. So the playful might be easy and I can see in your glasses as well right now. Yeah. It's either playful or a uniqueness in there. You may actually, one of your essences may be playfully unique. Possibly. So when we come into it just to really play with that. But I find that there's often one which is just hard actually for people to really reclaim back and bring in, and that's often that missing piece. So yeah, it's a really important piece. And sometimes it's so hard, like for me to find my own, whoa, it was hard because I have my own blind spots. So I went through it in a slightly different process, which wasn't comfortable for me, but I got there. When I go through like the one-on-one immersions, there's often a point in time where there will be a breakdown. Because there's so much that's been rattled inside there and it's like, oh, I don't feel safe, find this.. And when it's found, that is the piece that just goes ka-pow.. And one thing I will say is it's really important with our essences that we have all three on. If we only have two or if one of ours, so often I find with an essence like edgy will often, will often express in more of a masculine overtone and it will often dominate the other essences because it's been easier for that person to hold edgy and be known for edgy. Yet that is almost an identity that they've clung to. Now it may be one of their essences, but when they put it, so for instance, had a client not long ago who was both edgy, playful, and elegant. Now people said, how does that come about? But when they were put together, it was like the power that came out from that juxtaposition and the power that came out from that uniqueness of that combination. She was just like, Kapow. Oh, I've got so many stories I could just impart. It brings such a smile to my face because I see people come truly alive. And when you find the essences in your wardrobe, then you go and find out where they need more expression in the rest of your life because it's the same.

Stephanie: Well, and it's funny cuz it just goes back to we were talking about the voices in our head and the mean one's usually so much louder than the nice one. And with your essences, the way you're describing it, it's almost the exact same thing. You have to tone down the voice that's always been too powerful, that's been too loud and build up the voices that have been too quiet or that have been domineered or dominated in order to find the right balance. And that doesn't necessarily mean everybody's at the same level, but the right balance to bring you to that place of where you're saying the ka-pow, the, the angels singing. The putting on your clothes and feeling joy.

Sarah: Yeah, absolutely, you've got it in one. Over the last decade or so that I've been working this more that I've recognized that balance and then the balance also on top of your essences and the balance of masculine and feminine. That's a really important balance to get into that as well. It's so powerful. Stephanie, and I never intended to do this. Trust me, I've tried to walk away from it so many times, I can't tell you.

One, I thought I would really peeve off the industry, because it's different and it actually stops you buying so many clothes. Because you're so intentional, you know your essences, the amount that you buy is far less because everything in your wardrobe, when they're all within your essences, that they all go together. I still find new combinations in my wardrobe every day. One client I worked with, she said she hated her wardrobe. When we found her essences, and she was like temper tantrums for 18 months prior, she found 22 new outfits in her current wardrobe she said she hated.

Stephanie: Yeah.

Sarah: We've got everything there, we're just missing the connection between self and our clothes and when we find that the joy and ease of getting dressed... My clients say they go out and they've no longer got those voices in their head that are consumed with, what have I got on? I wish I hadn't worn that. What are they thinking of me? They are so present and they have a confidence that is profoundly centered within their being. It's really beautiful and as I say, not something I set out to do, but I totally understand how my paths came together and did that. And I do love it. I do love it.

Stephanie: Yeah. You're so passionate about it and you talk about it so well, it's fun to talk about with you. But I say that, and I've loved clothes since I was a little kid, so, you know, I could talk about clothes for days. Sarah, I just have so thoroughly enjoyed our time together today. I'm so glad that you were able to join me on the podcast and talk about this today.

Sarah: Mm. Stephanie, thank you so much for having me. This has been one of the most delightful conversations, honest to God. It really has. You've meandered into so many different places that I don't often get asked, and I really, yeah, I really honor you for that and for your beautiful genius in doing that too. So thank you.

Stephanie: Thank you. That's so kind.