Let me tell you about who I am and where I came from, starting from the very beginning.
I grew up in a small town right on the Jersey Shore. I was an incredibly joyful, creative, loving kid. I always gravitated toward the arts, making people laugh, and expressing unconditional love for others. Something I remember specifically from my childhood is how often I questioned our reality. I wanted to know where we came from, what was outside of this world we could see, what it really meant to be human. I craved knowledge and insight into who we truly are. I remember feeling like magic was real, we just weren’t looking in the right places.
In addition to my youthful questioning of the universe, from a very young age I experienced an array of health ailments that only grew with time. This was everything from environmental and food allergies, asthma, acid reflux, vertigo, you name it. I even developed a
fibroadenoma in my breast when I was only13 years old. Yikes, I know. My parents took me to doctor after doctor trying to figure out what the issue was. By the time I was 17, I was experiencing severe nausea and ovarian cysts. I often felt like I would faint, I had trouble concentrating, and I was experiencing mood swings. At this point, my doctor diagnosed me with Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome. I would later find out that this was a misdiagnosis.
My physical health wasn’t the only thing suffering. I had experienced anxiety from the time I was in the 3rd grade and had been diagnosed with General Anxiety Disorder. In my teen years, I developed Pure-O, a form of OCD that shows up with purely obsessive and intrusive thoughts, reassurance seeking, and the absence of any physical habits or rituals. I also had begun experiencing panic attacks whenever I started feeling unwell. I saw a therapist and the OCD subsided, but the general anxiety and panic attacks continued.
All of this aside, I was still generally a pretty happy person. I was involved with music and theatre, was always out with my friends, and loved my teachers at school. My life at home with my family was great, and I was still
that goofy, bubbly person that I was when I was a little kid. At my core I had not changed, though I was becoming increasingly exhausted with these pesky symptoms and anxieties.
Lucky for me, my mom had long been doing research on holistic health and wellness. She had begun buying organic foods and researching superfoods and holistic remedies when I was very young, so by the time I was 17 and my symptoms became unbearable and I received my PCOS diagnosis, she booked me an appointment with a Naturopathic doctor. This was the appointment that changed my life.
When I saw the Naturopath, I got some tests done and found out that I had something called estrogen dominance. My hormones were completely out of whack. No wonder I was experiencing such bizarre symptoms! She put me on some supplements to naturally balance my hormones. I stayed on them for years, and for a while
they did help. However, a few years into college I started experiencing all of these symptoms again, and they came back with a vengeance.
The food and living situation at my college was less than ideal. I was living in dorms without AC and with serious mold issues, and I was eating food that was poor quality, and no doubt harmful to my health. I had also been on medication for acid reflux for seven years at this point. I would later learn that this did a lot of damage to my digestive system.
By the time I was a senior in college, I was absolutely miserable. I was experiencing depression, the return of crippling OCD, severe digestive issues, dizziness, light-headedness, serious acne, extremely painful periods, PMS, and chronic fatigue. I had also developed a large number of new food allergies and my environmental allergies were so bad that I could barely walk outside in the spring without needing to use my inhaler. I even experienced an anaphylactic attack from pollen.
In addition to this, I was in school in NYC studying Arts Administration. I had internships at one of the most popular late night talk shows and at the most famous children’s television show in the world. I had a wonderful circle of friends, was involved in a singing group I adored, and had a girlfriend who was everything I could ever want in a partner (we’re still together, by the way). It was everything I had worked toward my entire life, and I felt immense guilt that I was depressed even though my life situation was everything I had dreamed of.
Finally, I called my parents and told them I needed help. We found a therapist who worked with me on the OCD, and a wonderful godsend of a doctor who was the first one to diagnose me with something called leaky gut. This diagnosis was the explanation for almost everything I was experiencing. What wasn’t caused by leaky gut was being caused by hormonal imbalances, which leaky gut was likely contributing to. As I graduated and entered the workforce in the city, I worked with multiple doctors on healing leaky gut, and both my physical and mental health improved dramatically. Hooray!
I entered the workforce working as a production assistant on a new daytime talk show. I was so excited to get started really working in the industry I had admired all my life, but when I started I found myself feeling unfulfilled. The hours were much longer than I had expected, the work wasn’t as fulfilling as I thought it would be, and I had no time to do the things in my life that really brought me joy. I started getting resentful, and was ready for something new. I remember calling my
parents and questioning why we spent most of our lives working, why we were taught this was our only option. I felt so trapped.
When that job ended, I started working as a PA on the same children’s show that I had interned at when I was in college. This work environment was wonderful. I loved my coworkers, my hours were a bit better, and I enjoyed the atmosphere at the studio. However, I still noticed that I was feeling pulled towards more freedom. At this point, March 2020 hit, and I left NYC and went back home to stay with my family during the pandemic.
When the quarantine began, my PA contract ended and I found myself questioning absolutely EVERYTHING. Did I want to keep working in film and tv? What are my passions? Could I ever start something new? What do I need to do in order to have freedom? What is my purpose here? This is when a close friend of mine asked me if I wanted to join a group chat and do Deepak Chopra’s 21 Days of Abundance Meditation Challenge. From there,
the rest is history. The challenge opened my eyes to spirituality, and I dove deep into a spiritual awakening.
I spent the entire quarantine learning and embodying everything I possibly could about both ancient and new age spirituality. I realized that everything I had been feeling intuitively was true. Humans aren’t meant to spend all their time working. We are here to learn and grow and do the things that bring us joy. We are innately worthy of abundance. Human constructs like capitalism, social norms, and the idea that there aren’t enough resources to go around were created by human ego, and are not in alignment with our true nature. I had been right the entire time, from when I was a small child questioning everything.
I regained my self confidence, started embodying the divine feminine and became less embarrassed of my creative expression (I had stopped doing theatre because I was so afraid of not being talented enough and being made fun of by my peers), and found myself basically bouncing off the walls with joy. I have even been able to use mindfulness and meditation to prevent panic attacks, which before were crippling and sometimes lasted up to five or six hours. I felt free. I felt that I had returned to my childlike spirit that had always been there, but didn’t show as frequently as
I had gotten bogged down by poor physical and mental health. It felt like I was myself again. I also felt an intense intuitive connection to the universe and my higher self.
I feel that it’s important that I mention that I have always had a connection to the Other Side. I feel intuitive messages regularly, and since my grandfather’s passing in 2017, he will visit me in dreams and deliver messages for me to either share with my family or just because he is visiting me. One time he even told me where he had hidden something for my cousin in his house. We had been looking for it for two years after he passed. He came to me in a dream and showed me where it was hidden at the top of his closet. When I went to his house and checked, there it was. I am so grateful for this connection to my grandfather and am currently working on fine tuning this skill so that I can connect more clearly and consistently with the Other Side and be of service to people looking for guidance, healing, reassurance, or closure.
At this point in my life during my spiritual awakening, I felt so much joy. I was then introduced (by the same friend who shared the meditation challenge with me, thank you Lauren) to the Institute for Integrative Nutrition. IIN held every value that I had been going on about for my entire life. Because of my own health
history, I had become so passionate about holistic wellness and healing. Not only was the physical body emphasized, but the mind and spirit were addressed as equally important! I immediately knew what I wanted to do. With the support of my family, girlfriend, and friends, I set off on a new career path.
I dove into my studies at IIN, and in addition started learning about the menstrual cycle. This information truly blew my mind (shout out to Alisa Vitti for writing In the Flo and completely rocking my world). I could heal my menstrual cycle with lifestyle? How amazing! Not only had I tuned in to the divine feminine on a spiritual level, but I was now going to be reconnecting with the womb space, the source of all creative energy. I began practicing the Cycle Syncing Method, developed by Alisa Vitti, which is basically just living in alignment with your natural hormonal rhythm as someone with a uterus, and whatever symptoms I was still having disappeared. I was able to balance my hormones with food, movement, and lifestyle. I was able to take advantage of my creative gifts and lean into my cyclical nature. I quickly became passionate about helping others do the same, and began integrating this into my coaching as well.
I briefly worked again as a PA, but once my contract was up I felt so secure in my path as a coach and mentor that I decided not to go back again. If any of my work
friends are reading this, I love and value all of you so much. Thank you for your support and for making my time as a PA so memorable.
In February 2021, I went full time in my own business as a Higher Self Embodiment Guide and Holistic Health Coach.
And now I help people all over the world expand consciousness, love themselves, live in their most authentic expression, nourish their bodies, fine-tune their intuition, live cyclically, step into their soul's purpose, cultivate presence, and embody their highest selves. I create my own schedule. I create my own income. I have full time and money freedom while helping others to live a heart-centered and joy-based life.
This is the work I was born to do, and I have never been happier.
I share my story in such detail because I want to inspire others to take the leap and run as fast as they can toward wherever their joy is taking them, and to show anyone experiencing pain like I was that you are not alone, and there is always hope.
Much love to you,
Sarah