When Life Falls Apart: How to Choose Yourself and Start Again with Sass | Hot Flushes & Higher Self

Starting Over After Divorce, Job Loss and Two Floods

0:00 Sass: So I spent 15 years in corporate healthcare. Um, and you know, really felt like that was a big part of my identity. That was very much like who I was, what I did. I defined myself by work. And I did that for 15 years. And then about three years ago, the universe shook my snow globe, and uh, I was laid off from corporate, from my healthcare job. And I live in Florida uh in the United States, and we had a hurricane and my house flooded. And uh I rebuilt the house and went back to my back to my job in corporate.

0:34 Sass: And about six months after the rebuild, the house flooded again, and then I lost my job again. So one of those times where, you know, you've heard the expression, I'm sure, right? Like, uh, if you don't listen to the universe, it will keep knocking. So the second, the second year in a row when uh I lost my job and I lost my home, I thought, well, we are gonna do something different. Please don't raise the stakes again. And in between the first flood and the second flood, those layoffs, I started looking at public speaking and doing some talking.

1:05 Sass: I always done a lot of presenting for work. And I thought, you know, maybe it is time. Maybe it is time for something new. And I've just been following my intuition and the signs as it's taken me down this journey now to uh coaching primarily.

1:20 Soraya: Okay. And looking back, what were some of the biggest lessons you've learned along the way?

1:25 Sass: Yeah, the biggest lessons I think for me are, you know, I've I'm a little bit of a people pleaser, you know, perfectionist, right? I like to get things right. I like to be an A plus gold star student. And I really ran my life like that. I thought I could plan my way into things always working out and working out the way I wanted them to. But it wasn't until, you know, a series of these events happened, you know, divorce, a layoff, a flood, all these things back to back that I finally kind of surrendered that our life will take some twists and turns that maybe I would not have planned.

2:01 Sass: But in the end, surrendering to that journey, surrendering to what happens to me and seeing the good in it has really been the biggest lesson in all of this. And the only reason I'd be able to keep my peace with so many changes.

2:13 Soraya: Yeah, I think that's so important. The reframe, that's the key, isn't it? Because as opposed to being feeling sorry for yourself, being a victim, you looked in a way that how actually it was for the right reason and how you were able to kind of grow and evolve while was coming up.

2:29 Sass: Yeah, the reframe from victimhood. And it's funny because I don't think a lot of, you know, right, I work with women, I don't think a lot of women, right? We're we're we have good careers, families, we did all the things. I would never think of myself as a victim, right? I used to be a competitive amateur boxer. Like, I'm not a victim, I'm a fighter. And yet, I, you know, I I was in the victim mode for so much of my life, and it wasn't until these things happened that I really assumed that reframe of like, I'm the hero.

2:55 Sass: Of course, tough things happen to the hero, and of course she comes back stronger. And and that reframe made a huge difference.

3:02 Soraya: Yeah, I think it's really empowering, isn't it, as opposed to like you can take it two different ways. You can feel sorry for yourself and stay where you are, or you can change the way you're looking at it and actually you know see like what you did, change careers as well. Yeah. Because a lot of people would have had the house flooded two times and would have been like, that's it. It would have felt really bad, gone through a depression. But the fact that you kind of looked at it as a way to change the way you were living, that's quite inspirational.

3:30 Sass: Yeah, and I didn't do it every time, right? Like I repeated a lot of patterns, primarily my relationships, right? Like same different guys, same problems, right? Different details. And so, you know, I don't think, you know, we can't always choose to take the higher route, but eventually, right? I think eventually all of us know in our heart there's a time where we have to really do the hard work and be like, all right, something needs to change, and the only thing that I know can change is me.

3:56 Soraya: Yeah, and I think that comes with age as well. I think, you know, I'm sure like for me, when I was a lot younger, I didn't see that way. But as you get older, you have that wisdom, don't you?

4:07 Sass: Yeah, yeah, that's a good point for so many of us, right? As you age, you do, it does change how you think about things for sure.

Why Women Lose Themselves in Midlife

4:15 Soraya: Yeah, it's experience and more kind of self-development and you understand yourself a bit more, which leads me to my next question about women who feel disconnected from themselves. Um, I know how you how did you feel that before the hurricanes happened? Did you feel like some kind of change going on, or was it the hurricanes was the catalyst for you to change halfways?

4:39 Sass: Yeah. Yeah, lucky for me, I felt the call to change a good year, year and a half before the hurricanes. And so I was able to do that self-growth before, you know, before things really changed. But yes, I definitely felt that way. You know, I felt like I was I was doing everything right. I had checked all the boxes, and yet I couldn't just be happy, you know, and this life, relationship, a career, a home, family that I meticulously engineered and everything. And I put all the pieces together and I made everything work.

5:09 Sass: And yet I just I wasn't happy. I felt that discontentment of like, so what do I do now? And, you know, it was realizing that I I had stopped putting myself on the list. Um, right? It was never my turn. It was always somebody else's turn. I gave it to everyone else. And I think a lot of women, by the time you hit your 40s, you realize you've been doing that for 20 years and you're like, I just can't go on like this. I don't know what has to change, but I just can't keep living like this.

5:35 Soraya: Yeah. Yeah. That that's what I see a lot of my clients as well. I'm sure you see the same women who've been doing it for so long, they kind of forget what they actually want to do and they're not being happy, but they don't know what to do next.

5:47 Sass: Yeah. Yeah. And we lose ourselves in these small ways, right? We give it away. Like, what do you want for dinner? Where do you want to go? Oh, I don't care. Or we, you know, we do what everyone else wants to do. Right? It's these small self-sacrifices along the way. But if you do that long enough, I know I did, if I do that long enough, you you suddenly erode who you who you are at your core. And then you're just the person that makes lunch and fills the dishwasher and goes to work, and and that's a hollow life for any of us.

6:17 Soraya: Yeah, but it's like you said, it doesn't happen overnight, it's over time. So you kind of like put everyone before yourself and you kind of lose your identity there. You're just like a wife, the mother, and you forget what it is that you actually want because you're just always trying to keep the peace, everyone being happy around you, but you forget your own happiness.

6:37 Sass: Yes, yes, yes, and it's right, and then the more you talk about to other people, and right, I at first I knew it was myself, and then I knew it was my friend group, and then you know, you listen to podcasts and read, then I was strangers, and I started coaching and realized there's women everywhere, all around us, who are doing this. It's not just a me problem, respectfully, it's a it's a we problem. We are doing this, yeah.

7:00 Soraya: And that's the thing though, but I think that's what kind of makes it better when you can connect with other women who are going through the same thing. You're not the only one. You feel you know, you're not going crazy because I think it's so quick. People always put it down to you know, midlife, you're having midlife crisis, and you're you know, it's the hormones, but it's not I don't think it is. I think the hormones actually is actually screaming at you to wake up and change something, and that's what it actually is.

7:24 Soraya: That's how I feel, and I see with my clients like the anger they're feeling isn't necessarily the hormones, it's actually because they're not happy with their lives and it's all coming out, all the stuff that repressed and held down, right? It's coming out in a hasky voice.

7:38 Sass: Yeah, people are like, and I think we saw that yeah, right, we see that, you know, with aging, but like you know, we get we saw that on a grander scale with COVID, right? Suddenly when everybody thought, wow, the world might end, you know, people made big changes, right? If if the world is gonna change, if the world's gonna end, you know, right? And so I think you can see that it's not just the right, it's not just the hormones, it's this arc in a woman's life and right, the situation where it just becomes intolerable um to keep going on the way that we are.

8:08 Soraya: Yeah, because we're it's that literally in midlife. So do you want to spend the next 20 years carrying on the way you are now? And yeah, or do you want to make changes? So I I think that's a lot of the questions that people women are asking themselves now. Well, some aren't actually, some are just carrying on and they're just unhappy.

8:26 Sass: Yeah, yeah. And as your children, you know, as your children age, even if you don't have kids, right? Because the point where it, you know, most of your friends at that age, in in general, yourself, right? The focus isn't just the kids. The kids are a little more self-reliant. You realize that one day you're gonna be not, you're not gonna be a full-time mom looking for shoes, right? When they're little, it feels like it's gonna be that way forever. And then even once they hit their teenage years, you start seeing that peak of they're not gonna need me, right?

8:53 Sass: And they don't, and nor do I want them to be attached to me 24-7 as they grow up. And then what do I have for myself? What is what is actually mine? Exactly.

How to Rebuild Self-Trust and Stop People-Pleasing

9:02 Soraya: Yeah, I think that's it. So, how can women begin to trust themselves again when they feel lost, stuck or uncertain?

9:11 Sass: Yeah, I think we said, right, that we, you know, we give ourselves away in these tiny moments, in the what you want to eat, in the no, it doesn't matter. Oh, I'll skip the gym, right? Whatever our little self-sacrifices. And I think learning to trust ourselves, right? I I'm a big believer in, I come from the fitness world, big believer in like practice and repetitions, right? How would you get better at anything? You practice it. You have to embody it. It's not just thinking about push-ups, it's doing the push-ups.

9:37 Sass: So I think it's the same when it comes down to trusting ourselves. It's all those little decisions that we need to start trusting and practicing. So, what do you want for dinner? Just make what you want for dinner, right? You don't have to check with every family member or whatever. These small decisions of like, should I do this or should I do that? Just learning to just listen to yourself and trust your intuition and trust your own decision without having to poll your friends or talk to your boss or run it past anyone, just starts the muscle of, oh, okay, well, I make good decisions for myself.

10:11 Sass: I can do this. My needs are important. And I think if we start small, you know, it's much more accessible than saying, write the book, quit your job, you know, move to Bali and be a yoga instructor. Like no one's gonna do that, right? I can't blow my whole life, but I can decide that, you know, I'm wearing this or I'm eating this or we're going here this weekend.

10:32 Soraya: Yeah. Great tip. And that I think that's what it is. Slowly, slowly you need to start building that muscle as opposed to overnight.

10:38 Sass: Yeah, yeah. And that's a shocker, right? A lot of us, you know, we don't speak our truth for so long and then we blow up, right? I know I have clients where they're like, well, I've got to myself.

10:49 Soraya: Right.

10:52 Sass: Yes, right. You get a stomachache from swallowing your truth and holding it in. And then one day someone asks for something simple and you're like, right, a total freak out. And everyone's like, oh, what's her problem? Wow. She's really, you're in a bad mood. You're like, no. And those are like, those are the telltale signs. If someone's been doing that, right, if you've been doing that, that is a sign that you are not getting your smaller needs met, you are not speaking up for yourself, and then it blows up.

11:18 Sass: And then that confuses the people around us, right? They want to support us, they want to love us. But if we say, no, I don't need anything, no, I don't need anything, no, I don't need anything, and then one day be like, nobody gives me anything. Like, yeah, it's confusing. We have to learn that muscle of the thing.

11:34 Soraya: I've seen on Instagram there's a couple of skits like with the kids and the moms, and the mom blows up and the kids like, Well, that's me. Because you know, it's true, unless you're communicating your needs and they're so used to you being a certain way, all of a sudden, you know, you're blowing up at them. It doesn't make sense to them. So it's about communicating that's in a in a calmer way.

11:54 Sass: Yeah, yeah, and just those little things, right? Just test it out. You know, if we've been, if you've been uh, you know, self-erasing for so long, even just asking again what you want for dinner or where you want to go on the weekend or what show you want to watch, just say those things without the whole, if that's okay, you know, maybe this time if you don't mind, just just state your needs and and see how people respond. Give them a chance.

Rediscovering Your Authentic Self After 40

12:16 Soraya: Yeah, that's yeah, good point. And what does living authentically mean to you, Seth?

12:22 Sass: Living authentically, wow. You know, I think that comes up a lot, this whole like living authentically. And you know, I feel like it does get harder to define as you get older, just because the evolution is there. And so living authentically doesn't mean living as I did in my 20s or 30s. It might not mean be living the same way I did last year, right? The evolution is so is happening happens so quickly in in, you know, in snowballs, I think at midlife, that when I think about living authentically, I think about, you know, what makes me happy?

13:00 Sass: Right. Presuming that you have a good heart and you have good intentions, you're not out to hurt anybody. Really ask yourself, like, what makes you happy? What version of yourself are you when nobody else is around? And I noticed that there was a big gap between how I showed up at work and who I was, you know, on a Friday evening, you know, hanging out with my daughter. And not that not that it was a different person, but you know, I I I presented the person I thought people wanted to know, right?

13:32 Sass: I presented and that and and if again, it's just like the other thing, if you do that long enough, you kind of forget who your authentic self is, right? If you've been the super polite, helpful one at work who never needs help, and you're the super helpful one at home who never needs anything, right? How do you even know what your authentic self is if you've been ignoring her for so long? So for me, it really came down the past few years of being like trusting my heart, trusting my intentions. I know I'm a good person, I'm not out to hurt anyone.

14:02 Sass: I I, you know, I just want to make myself happy. And what would actually make me happy if nobody, if I didn't care what anybody said and I didn't, I didn't worry about money or whatever or what people thought, like what would I actually do? And then just doing some of those things and seeing if they feel, if they feel authentic. Because again, if you've been losing who you are, it might take a couple of reps to kind of figure out who who the real you is now so you can live authentically.

14:33 Soraya: Yeah, I mean, you're right though. I think that's true. I think we do in I had somebody who who interviewed a few months ago, and she was talking about we actually are our authentic selves before the age of seven, and over time that's when we kind of lose ourselves and we get conditioned by our environment, society, and culture. And then, you know, at our age now is when we're coming trying to find our way back to when we were pre-seven, which I think is a really bad point.

15:02 Sass: It is, and I think, you know, yeah, sometimes I, you know, and I'll be honest, sometimes I push back, right? In our mid-40s, there's some of that like girl boss energy, or like that kind of right, like, I don't know, it almost seems like a childish way to celebrate femininity in our 40s. But after, you know, the past few years, especially when we're with clients, I do feel that, right? We do have to kind of recapture some of that childhood whimsy, right? The belief, the, the, the, even some of the magical thinking, right, that we had when we were kids before we were so conditioned to be told who we could be or what we should do or our role in the world.

15:37 Sass: And so I've revised my own positioning about some of that and even made some of my program like more fun and more embodied, right? Because when it's so heavy and it feels like dark, we don't really want to do the work. Um, and so I think returning to, you know, a childhood playfulness with our lives is actually a great antidote for you know what's going on in your 40s when you're reinventing yourself.

16:00 Soraya: Yeah, because when you're a child, you're living actually in the moment, aren't you? You're really enjoying yourself, you're not caring what people think about you, you're just being yourself. Yeah. And I think it's um yeah, it's about going back into that kind of place where you can you know, be who you are, who you're who you're born to be.

16:21 Sass: Yeah, yeah. I yeah, I think that's a gift that you know, if you had and if you, you know, if you're around children, I know raising my own daughter, seeing her and seeing her through those ages, right? It's a little bit of a mirror looking at yourself, thinking, oh, okay, well, maybe that's what I was like when I was a kid, a chance to re-explore some of the things that that I enjoyed as a as a child um through her eyes and you know, and allowing that to shape how I show up even in my adult life.

16:46 Sass: How old is your daughter, Sass? She is nine and a half, she will be ten this year, double digits.

16:54 Soraya: Oh, yeah. But that's the thing, though. I think as they become teenagers, they really care so lot about what people are thinking. My teenagers are always embarrassed by me. They get so easily embarrassed. Whereas I think as we get older, we care less what people think.

17:09 Sass: Yeah. Yeah, that's a fun, you know. I do sometimes see an affinity there, you know, between like right, the moms who've maybe gone through this transformation and the kiddos who don't, because I am I just fully embrace it. I am just the most embarrassing mom. I'm like, I love you, you're doing great. All you kids are great. I just and she just rolls her head, but you know, everyone smiles, right? And it shows the kids that you're not gonna actually die of embarrassment, you know.

17:35 Soraya: Even my nine-year-old, she hates when I dance. Like, even in front of her friends, I was watching her assembly and they were singing and it was a great song. I was dancing along, and her friend looked back and was like laughing at my daughter. And my daughter said, Why do you dance? It's so embarrassing. But it's like this, you know, at such a young age already, they're kind of really caring what others think.

17:56 Sass: So yeah, yeah, and role model that too, right? I know I think I'm so much more cognizant of how I show up as a mom because I know that ultimately my daughter's gonna do what I do, not do what I say. So if she sees me, she has this fun phrase she says, deleting your personality. She's like, Sometimes the older girls will will be with the boy and then they delete their personality. And I'm like, She said that? She said that, uh-huh. And like for nine, I'm like, well, you know, Claire, that's hi Claire, that's a very valid point that when when a woman, right, oftentimes I know I lost myself in relationships, right?

18:30 Sass: Like to delete your personality and just become whatever that man, whatever the situation needs, whatever the relationship needs. And, you know, to do that and and you know, hopefully raising a generation, our next generation of daughters and sons who don't who don't take that up quite so quickly.

18:47 Soraya: Yeah, but I think that's a common thing that we do delete our personality is a great term because that's what happens, the people pleasing us as well, the peacekeepers, the people pleasers. And then, you know, when you're going back to the point you made before, you kind of forget who you are because you're so used to being this other person for other people. Yeah. That you erode yourself.

19:06 Sass: Yeah. Yeah. And that can be super, you know, that can be scary and that can be empowering. Like we open the show by saying, right, that's the reframe. Is it scary that I'm, you know, that my life is changing quickly and I don't know what tomorrow brings? Maybe. Is it adventurous? Is it fun? Is it, you know, does it mean that the door is open to all possibility? Yes. And that's that's how I choose to see the future in a way that, you know, in a reframe that keeps me, that keeps me showing up every day.

Signs It’s Time to Make a Change in Your Life

19:34 Soraya: Yeah, no, it's great. And what are some of the signs that it's time to make a change with some women who are listening?

19:40 Sass: Yeah, yeah. So I think we've talked about a few of them here, but women, we tell on ourselves. We absolutely do. I mean, you can just, right? Can you not? If you talk to a woman, can you tell if she's happy? Yeah, of course, yeah. Like right away, right? Like I think I think with women, you know, we we're not always good at hiding our feelings, right? So if if you know, if you're shut down, if the answer is always good, if you're always in a gray t-shirt and shorts, and you know, right, no, no effort into yourself.

20:07 Sass: It's not that it's about appearance, but right, not putting yourself on your list, right? Um, I know when times I talk to, you know, even my uh female friends, and like you ask them how they are, and they talk about their husband's job and the kids, and and you're like, How are how are you, right? Like, yeah, how are you doing? What's up with you as an individual? So I think some of those things are, you know, we just listen to the women and listen to yourself, right? We say those things, you know, oh, I don't care, whatever you want, I don't need help.

20:33 Sass: You know, anytime that we kind of like diminish ourselves, reduce our needs, say we don't matter, you know, if you're flat, I that was a big sign for me where, you know, I'm pretty, I'm usually a pretty happy, outgoing person, but there are times where I just am flat because, you know, I I don't enjoy my life. And listen, it's, you know, not every day paying bills is rainbows and sunshine, but for the most part, right, when things are going good, when you're in a good mindset, right, you can find fun anywhere.

21:00 Sass: So I think, you know, the ability to not have fun, to feel flat, right? How we talk about ourselves, our families, all of those are big towels. Um, you know, that that that we're stuck or we it's time to rebuild and or rebuild or reinvent to something different.

The Mind-Body Connection and Healthy Ageing

21:14 Soraya: Mm-hmm. Yeah. And how do you see the connection between the mind, body, and emotional well-being?

21:22 Sass: Yeah, so we talk, I think, you know, there's some there's some camps where we talk about them so separately. And, you know, I came up um as a registered dietitian, a certified personal trainer, and I've always been kind of a fitness nutrition person or I've always really been to well-being. And, you know, it, and there's some people who are physically very healthy and then mentally they just don't put the same energy, and vice versa, right? Some people who are always pushing and learning, and then they kind of forget their body.

21:47 Sass: And and then there's some of us who are in the middle, right, trying to do it all and probably fried, right? Probably just burning out by trying to be the best person we can. Oh, by the way, stay in shape and do all the things and you know, be Everything to everybody. So I think no matter what camp you're in, it's recognizing that you can't, you can't outthink or out hustle right the body at its most physiological level. So that is right, relearning old patterns, that is right, some of the neuroplasticity, the rewiring.

22:16 Sass: That is also getting yourself out of that constant freak out mode, that fight or flight, right? If everything always feels like an emergency, if you're always rushing, if you always feel like you're in trouble, right? All that fight or flight, you can't just think your way out of that. You really have to tamp down your nervous system and teach yourself that it's safe to be calm and you are, you are safe just as you are. And so I think that mind-body, you know, we can kind of you can kind of exploit that connection either direction.

22:44 Sass: But I'll say a lot of people, a lot of my, you know, a lot of my women clients, right, they're so in their heads, right? They're so overthinking and they're always worried and they're they're just always thinking that they almost kind of forget they have the body, right? They forget that they should take care of themselves. They don't find that that joy in movement or the, you know, the joy in like feeding yourself healthy food. And um, and so really I've I've really found that the best way is to work both sides of that coin.

23:12 Sass: Yes, you need the mindset, but you also need a steady physical foundation, especially if you know you're in your 40s and you're going through some of midlife changes with hormones and sleep and right body composition, all the more reason to really hone in on that foundation. Again, not for abs or aesthetics, but that that is your your physical health is your foundation for everything else. So I find, you know, working both sides of that coin is really necessary.

23:38 Soraya: Yeah, no, absolutely. And it's consistency as well, isn't it? Like having the habits and just kind of doing it every day, a little bit every day, and building into your day. But you're right, I think you really need to have the body strong and the mind strong as well. And it's all tied in together.

23:54 Sass: Yeah, yeah. You can't you can't make up for one with the other entirely. It has to be, it has to be on both levels.

24:00 Soraya: But yeah, just by moving your body though, you do help your mental well-being anyway.

24:05 Sass: Of course, yeah, right. Taking a walk, it's not just for you know physical health, right? Looking around gets you out of that kind of tunnel vision, right? That's why when we're always on our phones, we feel so anxious because you're just staring at one spot in space. Yeah. I mean, that's a sign evolutionarily that you're like looking for a predator, right? You go outside, you look around, you're taking in the world, you know, all of those things. The the mind-body is it is such a strong connection.

24:28 Sass: And, you know, I think most of us don't, you know, don't really exploit it as fully as we should, really.

24:34 Soraya: Yeah, I think for me, especially since I've been yelled, it's more to do with my, you know, my body being strong as opposed to aesthetically looking good. Like I'm more interested in just being strong and growing old, having that strength. Because I know we lose muscle. Like I'm not an expert on on the body, but that's I I know that we lose muscle mass, right? So it's really important we're doing strength training for that reason. So yeah. Yeah, so it's a very different mindset.

25:03 Sass: Yeah, it is. And you know, and sometimes it's right, and you know, I I have a fair number of women, whether they came up through my, you know, uh coaching or they came up through nutrition and fitness, who have been like, well, I've been, you know, I've been normal weight my whole life. I haven't really ever had to work out, and now I can't eat what I want and not work out. And right, the conversation there is, you know, you have a body, part of the price of having a body is is maintaining it, right?

25:29 Sass: Just like your car, you would never, you know, never give a gas and not, I mean, you have to just take care of it, right? You don't have to like it necessarily. It's fun if we can find a way that you enjoy it, but you know, um, you know, it's time, it's time to take care of it, especially. I think in our 40s, right? You're thinking about long-term, aging in place, mobility. I don't want to be the person who can't get off the toilet, right? Like these little things. You know, I mean, that's the truth, though.

25:53 Sass: You get older, your goals change. Forget the bikini. I want to be able to get up off the floor without groaning.

25:58 Soraya: You want to be independent. You want to be able to, I don't want to live till I'm 90 and not be able to do anything. I want to, if I'm gonna be 90, I want to be mobile, moving around. You know, that's what I'm thinking, my mindset right now.

26:08 Sass: Heck yeah, or travel, right? Like, oh great, the kids are older, we'll start traveling. Well, not if you can't do stairs and you, you know, your back hurts, and yeah, no, for sure.

26:18 Soraya: Yeah, so yeah, that that's my drive to stay fit is for that reason to get around, but also to the good that that's like a secondary thing, a secondary game. But the main thing for me is to be strong in my body and my mind. So I think that's a different change, change over time to my 20s.

26:35 Sass: Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I I would never go back. Would you go back? Would you go back and be in your 20s again?

26:41 Soraya: It was fun. Don't get me wrong, I love my 20s. I had a lot of fun, but I just think I was so dumb. Like when I look back at my choices and the patterns I was repeating over and over again, now I have all this wisdom. I'm like, wow, you know, so yeah, it's a different stage of my life. What about you, Sas? Would you go back?

27:02 Sass: Yeah, no, no. I mean, not not if I mean if I know if I think the right the game always is if I if I could go back knowing now what I knew then, sure, yeah, maybe I would I'd run the yeah, I'd run the 20s body again, but yeah, no, I wouldn't, I wouldn't, I wouldn't. And it's so funny because right when I was in my 20s, boy, I thought 40s was like, wow, like so old, right? Like not then, but like wow.

27:26 Soraya: I thought it was an old number. I thought when I turn 40, I'm really old. Whereas now, like I'm 49 and like I still feel like I'm in my 30s, I still have the same energy.

27:38 Sass: Yeah.

27:38 Soraya: Um yeah, I don't know what old is anymore, to be honest.

27:42 Sass: Yeah, well, and I, you know, I think we see more and more that it's less about a number and more about right, how you take care of yourself or what your lifestyle is like, because I know 30-year-olds who are old, right? Who oh my knees hurt, oh, I can't, you know, right? They don't like taking a walk and you know, they stay on the couch or whatever. So I think so much of that, and the boomers, you know, they had a different way of aging. They didn't, uh, you know, I don't think, especially boomer women, right?

28:06 Sass: The gym going to the gym and those kind of things and prioritizing your health, you know, really wasn't as available, at least in the states, for women of that generation. So I think we as, you know, like Gen Xers in our 40s and 50s now really have the option to rewrite what it looks like to be quote unquote old. Um, you know, it doesn't, it doesn't have to mean I, you know, I work my whole life, I, you know, and then at 60 I retire and I travel and then I get 10 good years until I have a heart.

28:33 Sass: You know what I mean? Like the whole story I think is changing now.

28:37 Soraya: I think also the generation we're from, we didn't grow up with technology as well. I don't know if that makes a difference. Yeah, I think we really had a great childhood when I think back and I see my kids and all the technology that's around them, the constant like screens. We really had it much better.

28:52 Sass: Yeah.

28:54 Soraya: And I don't know if that makes a difference as well and how we see ourselves. I don't know. I just feel sorry for the generations that are to come and what they're exposed to because they're constantly switched on, they're always on some kind of device.

29:06 Sass: Yeah, yeah. No, it I do think, right? It was a it was a pleasure to grow up in a time, right? Learn the Dewey Decimal system at the library, and you know.

29:15 Soraya: Yeah, I do remember the libraries, the big books. I remember at university having to go to the library and find the references, get the books. And now everything's available that you just don't know. Now AI can do it.

29:27 Sass: Now you don't even need to write your paper, let alone Google it. You just have AI write the paper for you.

How to Tell the Difference Between Intuition and Anxiety

29:32 Soraya: I know it is really different. Yeah. Well, changes, I guess. Um, and going back to intuition, what role does intuition play in your work and in your own life, Sass?

29:47 Sass: Oh, yeah. Intuition, you know, I'll say that every time I've gone against it, I've kicked myself. And if I had a forehead tattoo, it might be uh, you know, listen to your listen to your intuition. Because, you know, I I don't know, it's it's most often about people or individual circumstances where I'm like, oh, this doesn't feel right. I shouldn't do this. And then I do it. And then three, six a year later, I'm like, you know, that didn't work out. And you know what? You knew it. And that seems to be a lesson I still I still have to learn sometimes.

30:20 Sass: I think I'm, you know, still inclined to give people the benefit of the doubt and like maybe it's this, and you know, kind of justify and rationalize. And um so in that way, I'm still I'm still coming out from ignoring my own intuition for 20 years. Um but it's a lot better because if it weren't, I wouldn't be here at all, right? I would be right back in corporate doing the same thing. So, you know, it has been a balance. And you know, for me too, sometimes I think initially when I started this work and after my own transformation, it was like, how do I know the difference between the voice in my head?

30:55 Sass: Is that anxiety or is that intuition? Right? Is that the voice of worry and fear and concern, or is that the voice I should listen to? And one thing that's worked for me over the past few years is, you know, when I know something with my intuition, um, I have like a calm certainty about it. It just feels right, normal, even if I can't explain it. And that when it's um anxiety or overthinking or people pleasing, it usually feels like very urgent. It's always like, I need to do this right now, this exact way.

31:28 Sass: You send the email, say this, fix the situation. And so I've I've noticed that when I have that urgency around something that like this is gonna make or break it, nothing makes or breaks it, right? No one relationship, no one job. I mean, maybe in some situations, but for the most part, right? Life is just a series of little decisions, none of them right or wrong, just guiding us, you know, a slightly different path, one degree, depending on each decision. So I've learned that with my intuition to, you know, listen to the calm voice, uh, tell, tell the loud, urgent voice that she can probably just, we could just wait and chill out and hold on a minute.

32:03 Sass: And uh, but yeah, it's it's still been it's still been something I'm working on, but uh uh uh I think a deeply powerful source, um, I think, especially for women.

32:14 Soraya: Yeah. But you know, you're right, it does take time to trust your intuition after you've been in work for so long as well.

32:21 Sass: Yeah, right. It's like turning, it's like a radio station, you know, it's on so quiet, you're like, I can't even really hear it because of all the other stuff. And I found like as I kind of dial the knob and get closer and closer to the source, you know, more time in meditation, more quiet time, less time scrolling, less time asking everybody what I should do about a situation. That the quieter I get, the louder the voice gets. And that's that's been super helpful.

32:45 Soraya: Yeah, I think that's a really good point as well. It's because we're always busy. It's always busy being busy, and it's you're right, you need time, quiet, just you know, meditation, going for a walk, just really kind of being with yourself, right? And turning up that volume of your inner voice.

33:04 Sass: Yeah, and then the and then a lot of times the answers come without making the pro-con lists or without texting all your friends, or you just, you know, you just know the right thing to do, and that's such a valuable gift.

33:16 Soraya: Yeah, absolutely. And one question I always ask my guests what does limitless mean to you living your limitless life?

33:25 Sass: Living a limitless life. You know, and so funny, uh my thoughts on this have changed. I think when I was younger, if I'd answered this question, I would have said limitless means I can do whatever I want and be, you know, big dreams and the million dollars and the right. Like I would have thought about all the kind of superficial stuff that maybe you think about with limitless. And I think now, you know, doing this work and being in my 40s and grief, my own transformation, limitless now is really about not limiting myself.

33:56 Sass: It's much more about not having boundaries on um the way I think my time, what I expect of myself, the standards I hold for others. It's really, it's really a much broader category, even though maybe it seems not as sexy and glamorous as limitless, like you know, a Hollywood star and a million dollars. Limitless now, right? Is is not the not the limitations on myself.

Choosing Yourself and Creating a Limitless Life

34:24 Soraya: Yeah, and I think that's it again, like what we talked about before, like you change, you're evolving. So what you see in life has changed as well to what it was before. Yeah. And if someone listening is feeling overwhelmed, disconnected, or at a crossroads right now, what would you want them to know?

34:42 Sass: Yeah. I would want someone who felt, you know, disconnected right now to know that they're not doing it wrong. Um we're all given these moments in our lives where you're standing at a fork in the road and um to have the strength and the courage to make the choice they know in their heart is right. I think most of us, we know, right? We know. We know what we want, we know who we are. Uh we get ourselves in trouble when we try and talk ourselves into being something other than who we are or what we want.

35:20 Sass: And so if you've been ignoring that for some time, I would just encourage you that, you know, anybody who's been through it isn't on this side will be encouraging, right? We'll be supporting and to really take the time. Maybe this is it, maybe this is a time that you that you really true yours, you know, choose yourself. You finally choose yourself. Um, and just to to tap back into that inner voice and and do what you know is right in your heart.

35:49 Soraya: And then what simple daily practices or rituals have had the biggest impact on your well-being, Sass.

35:56 Sass: I would say the biggest rituals that have an impact on my well-being is really connecting with other people. And like, yes, this can be deep conversations, you know, this can be a support group, a mentor, a coach, but it's also just connecting with people in my everyday life. Um, especially right after a divorce, after a layoff, after some change and a health diagnosis. You know, a lot of us feel like we just want to kind of like hide and get ourselves together and not tell anybody. And I know I was like that, especially after my layoffs.

36:26 Sass: Um, and it was it's really connect with people, right? The cashier at the grocery store, the other mom picking up her kid. Just those little, those little connections do so much to keep me plugged into humanity, into what's beautiful about this world, into you know what's beautiful about right, the real people in my neighborhood, not always worried so much by getting the little hearts on my social media, but talking to the real people around me. It's been, you know, it changes, it just changes the whole color of my of my daily life when I connect with people everywhere I go.

36:56 Soraya: I think that's so important, just connection. But we're not meant to be by ourselves, you know. As humans, we're supposed to be in tribes or in communities. And I think that's where a lot of the problems come when we're disconnecting, we're all by ourselves and isolated. So you're right, connection, community is really important. Yeah.

37:16 Sass: It's my yeah, and just to see someone's right, but I I find that when I walk, when I open that door, people usually walk through. Not always the teenagers, like we were saying. You can't always smile and say hi to a teenager, then you give just give you a look. But to everybody else, you know.

37:35 Soraya: My teenagers always give me a look. Like, yeah, they're like me quite mean teenagers. Yeah, they're like, What are you doing?

37:42 Sass: Yeah, well, we just keep trying it, just keep giving out the good vibes, they'll pick it up eventually.

37:47 Soraya: But yeah, no, but it's it is important that it's small costs nothing, it's so easy, and you know, just that having that connection of days to basis, I think, is a great point as well. Yeah. Um, and what are you currently most excited about, Sass?

Reinventing Yourself and Becoming Your Future Self

38:02 Sass: What am I most excited about? Well, uh, I don't know if this time for shameless self-promotion. Yes, it is. No, I didn't point. It's your time. This is the point. Okay, all right. Well then I'll say it. No, you know, I was doing this coaching work, and you know, the work can be the work can be kind of heavy. And it it is, right? It is hard work. But um, you know, revamping my program for the baddie rebuild and branding it as something that is fun and bold, I've just found that it's so much more empowering to move toward a future version of yourself that is happy and healthy and successful than to focus on the version of yourself that you're trying to run from, right?

38:41 Sass: We spend energy, I don't want to be like this, and I don't want to be single, and I don't want to be old, and I don't want to be alone, I don't want to, you know, scratch all of that and really focus on that. And so that's one of my favorite things is really helping women, you know, uh getting that physical health foundation, tapping intuition, and then setting a bold anchor for who you want to be, right? Part of that for me was doing stand-up comedy. I love it. It's something, you know, yeah, right.

39:06 Sass: It's just it's a little bit crazy. And you know, how long ago did you start that, Sass? Uh, about three years ago when I started, there was always something I've like the stand-up comedian.

39:15 Soraya: I've got a lot of respect for people that can do that. Stand up on the stage and make try and make people laugh. Yeah.

39:22 Sass: Right. And it's, you know, it's something that I consciously do, I always wanted to try it and I put it off and I put it off. And as part of this transformation, I was like, you know, what is Sarah, you know, what is what do I want to do just for me? And that would be part of it, right? Is doing stand-up. So, and even just doing it, right, anchors me in that little bit of like swagger, right? That little bit of like, I do something that makes me feel good and it's fun and it's cool and it's a little weird.

39:46 Sass: And it changes, you know, how I show up in other places, right? It changes how I show up, you know, in professional situations, knowing that I can do that. So I think that's really one of the fun things is finding those anchors to that future vision of yourself and then doing them, right? Maybe it's starting a podcast, maybe it's stand-up, maybe it's climbing a mountain, maybe it's, you know, wearing that red dress, whatever. Finding these anchors um to something that's that's that future vision of you, and then and then just going for it.

40:13 Sass: You know, it's just it's such a beautiful blessing to watch women, you know, go through that transformation.

40:19 Soraya: I love that. And what's next for you in your work?

40:25 Sass: Oh, what's next for me in my work? Um, you know, I'm really I'm really pleased with where I'm at. I don't, you know, I think in the past I used to always have a five-year goal and grow this and do that and the next job, and especially when I was in corporate. And, you know, I don't have such big, I don't have such big five year plans now. I like what I'm doing. Um, you know, I really have the dream life that I that I looked, I waited for for so long and I'm open to the evolution. But yeah, I think I think after all these years, it's kind of just enjoying enjoying my life again, enjoying the ride, you know.

40:55 Sass: Um, so I don't know. We'll see where this takes me in the next five years. But for now, it's one day at a time, yeah.

41:02 Soraya: Yeah, love it. And um before I let you go, how can listeners connect with you if they want to work with you? What's the best way of looking at?

41:10 Sass: Yeah, the best way is probably Instagram on SAS underscore schafer, S C H A E F F E R. And I know you'll have it in the show notes. Um, but yeah, Instagram's a great way. You can see all the content for the baddie rebuild and you know, kind of get a feel and a flavor and DM me there. That's probably the best way.