Saoirse's Story: Soul Crushed or Soul Soaring

She called herself a cliché. A woman in her mid-40s who needed to find herself.

 But there is nothing clichéd about what Saoirse Temple actually did.

 She left a relationship that had been slowly shrinking her — not with drama, but with years of quiet courage, one small step at a time. She packed one box. She asked the hard question. She walked through a door she had chosen for herself for the very first time at 48 years old.

 And then she kept going.

 Today Saoirse is a writer with nine published books and a definition of success that has nothing to do with sales.

 This is a story about what it looks like to stop letting fear rescue you from your own possibilities.

Connect with Saorise Temple:

Website - https://www.saoirsetemple.com/

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/saoirsetempleauthor

Ko-fi - https://ko-fi.com/saoirsetemple  (in case anyone wants to buy me a coffee to support my creative projects.)

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/saoirse-temple-64755735a/

Intagram - https://www.instagram.com/saoirsealt/

Substack - https://saltemple.substack.com/ (people can subscribe to my free newsletter: A Dash of S.A.L.T.) 

Hosted by Bernice McDonald — Courage Architect, speaker, and author. Each episode follows a real woman's journey through the Courage Map: from waking up to fear, to embracing who she truly is, to standing up for herself, to creating her impact.

 Visit:  www.tinybravesteps.com.

Connect with Bernice:  bernice@bernicemcdonald.com

Join me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bernicemcdonald/

If this episode moved something in you — leave a review, share it with a woman who needs it, or send Bernice a message. Your courage story matters too.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Have you ever looked around at your own life and realized you had been shrinking yourself to fit someone else's idea of who you should be? Not dramatically, not all at once. Just year by year, giving in, giving up, quietly handing pieces of yourself over and calling it love. I spent so much of my life up to that point trying to fit into somebody else's um idea of what I should be or what my life should be like. Everything that I gave up of myself and that I sacrificed to fit in, to belong, to be accepted. It was just, it was like, no, I I'm I I can't survive that. I'm Bernice McDonald, and this is Sertia's Courage Story. And if you've ever wondered whether it's too late to find out who you really are, this one is for you. Act one, wake up your courage. Sertia is the kind of woman who laughs at herself a little when she tells this story. She calls herself a cliche, a woman in her mid-forties who realized she needed to find herself. She says this with a self-aware smile. But there is nothing small about what she's describing. She had been in a relationship for years, but she had been slowly disappearing, not in dramatic ways, in the quiet, everyday way that women of a certain generation learned was just what you did. I was a cliche. She had a dream. She wanted to write a novel, had always wanted to write. And when she brought it up, he thought I was being insane. Yeah, no, we're not doing that. That would be crazy. Like we you can't quit your job so you can write a novel. Don't be silly. There was also no compromise. And I gave in. I would just give up and give in. She gave in. And she kept giving in. And one day she looked up and realized she hadn't just set aside a dream, she had set aside herself. Now, here's the thing about this kind of waking up. It's not a dramatic moment, it doesn't arrive with a single incident or one clear breaking point. It took several years. She'd feel discontent, then she'd explain it away. Blame something else, keep going. We feel perhaps discontent with something, but we often um subscribe that to something else in our lives. And we have to kind of pick through it a little bit to get to what it the real issue is. That's Fred, our name for the fear voice, at his most sophisticated, not the loud warning, the soft reassurance, the fear voice that helps you stay comfortable by helping you stay blind. But eventually the truth she had been explaining away reached a point where it could no longer be explained away. But once I made up my mind, that's when the fears took over. And it was like, what have I done? You know, how am I going to deal with this? How am I going to get through it? And here is where it gets interesting. Because the moment she got honest, the moment she stopped explaining and actually decided, fear didn't disappear, it got louder. But at the same time, her courage was waking up. You see, fear never goes away. But what happens is something else turns out to be more important, stronger than that fear. Her fear Fred was asking some pretty intense questions at this point. How are you going to survive on one income? What are you going to do? Where will you live? I realized that probably most of it, most of the fear, I was manufacturing. I was building up this wall really to protect myself from me. From herself. Not from the situation, from the version of herself that was capable of more than she had been allowing. It gives us ways to rescue ourselves from possibility. That line stopped me when I heard it. Fear doesn't just warn you away from danger, it waters down and warns you away from possibility. The possibility of a different life, a bigger life, the life that you actually want. And Sertia was done letting it drive. I want to understand how things work and and and why people do the things they do. A curious girl who asked too many questions. In fact, she got sent to the school office for it. She learned eventually to stop asking until she couldn't anymore. It was just time to stop letting myself get squashed by people. It's not the leaving, it's not even figuring out the logistics. It's living in that moment when you have to look at everything you're giving up and not let that list destroy you. And even if I don't survive me, I have to try. I have to go and see what I can do. That's a courage pivot sentence. Not I know it will work out, not I'm not scared anymore. Just I have to try. I have to go and see. Now the other thing she had to face was the fear that lived inside the decision itself. Because leaving didn't just mean figuring out how that looked, it meant a serious discussion with her partner. She had spent years, remember, backing down, holding the peace. And here she was, about to approach something that she was still afraid of. Even that was scary to actually say, Did you want us to split up? Are you trying to get rid of was a scary thing to do because I I was always, you know, bite your tongue, don't say anything, don't stir the plot. She asked anyway. And something she had not expected happened. I honestly think looking back, that when he realized how unhappy I truly was, he realized that letting me go was really in both of our best interests. No, I don't I don't want to get rid of you. I'm sad that you're going, but if this is what you need, this is this is what we're gonna do. She faced the fear, and on the other side of it was support she hadn't known was there. Not because it wasn't there, because she had never looked it directly in the face and asked the question. When you when you face those fears and you get support back, yeah, it changes everything, right? It it gives you that strength to keep going and you realize that it probably was always there, you just didn't know how to access it. Years of holding the fear instead of testing it. And the first time she did, the first time she actually faced it, she found out that the wall in front of her was never as solid as she thought. This is what identity work does. It's not just knowing who you are, it's knowing you are allowed to find out. Act three. Stand up for you. The split was amicable. They remained friends. Neither of them called it a failure. She stayed in the same town, in fact, and then a few years later, she bought her own home. I was 48 years old at the time, and that was the very first time in my entire life that I had chosen where I was gonna live. 48 years old, the first time she had chosen her own home when they handed me those keys, and I walked into a home that I chose. Wow, that was like it was, I don't have words to describe that that feeling, but I'm so glad I got to feel that. I'm so glad that, you know, I I I pushed past all of those fears and all of that doubt and got to feel that feeling. That moment, keys in hand, walking through a door that she had chosen, this is what evidence feels like in your body. It's not a concept, a physical, irrefutable truth. I did this, I chose this, I am capable of this. Stay with me here. This is where Sertia's story does something most courage stories skip. It doesn't stop at the triumph. After raising her kids, after years of putting everyone first, she had a moment she didn't see coming. Once they were out on their own, and I realized how little over those years that I had looked after myself, I was I was appalled. I was actually quite shocked and appalled that I had put myself behind everybody else. And why is it wrong to want something for me? Why is it wrong to want something for me? Is one of the bravest questions a woman can ask. She sat with it, and the answer that came back was clear. That was a huge question, and the answer is it's not wrong. It's not wrong. Today, Sersha is a writer, she has published nine books, and she is doing the most daily courage requiring thing I know of, refusing to go back to safety, and safety is right there waiting for her. The trade-off is sure you get that steady paycheck, um, but you're sacrificing yourself for that, and I I'm I'm no longer willing to do that. I would rather worry about this stuff than know that there was a paycheck coming next Friday and have to put up with somebody else's rules. That is a woman who knows what she gave away once and has decided quietly, practically, every single day, that she will not do it again. Act four Create Your Impact. Sersha has published nine books. In four months, she sold eleven of them. She joked about Van Gogh, the painter who sold one work in his entire lifetime. She said, I'm still chewing on that one. Whether it matters, whether the numbers define anything. And then she told a story that answered the question without her needing to answer it. After her second book in her series, her nephew read it, finished chapter 13, went straight to Facebook and posted. Auntie, now I hate you. And my heart actually just sang. I felt I never felt more joy because my book moved him. You know, there was a um an emotional resonance there, and it's like I will I was so so happy. I saved it. I took screenshots of it. It was like the best review because my story mattered to him. She took screenshots, she saved it. That is what evidence looks like in the impact phase. Not the bestseller list, but one person who genuinely moved, telling her the truth. If he's the only person in the entire world who was moved that much, felt that much emotion, I've done my job. This is what Sersha is building. Not a platform, not a following, something truer and harder to manufacture stories that matter to people. And she knows now, at 63, with a life that did not unfold the way she thought it would, with fears that still show up every single day, she knows why she's doing it.

unknown 18:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:16

But the journey has been incredible. I want to leave you with the thing Sertia said when I asked her why. Why should the woman who is right at the edge, the one who can feel the fear, but can't quite make herself move, why should she take this step anyway? Because it because what the the the real choice when it comes right down to it is you can stay and have your soul crushed, or you can go and have your have your soul soar. You can stay and have your soul crushed, or you can go and have your soul soar. And one more thing she said, a question that she has been sitting with for nearly 40 years, and every few years she sits down and does one particular exercise to answer that question. I write my own eulogy. And I look it over, I'm brutally honest about it. Is this what I want to be remembered for? Is this how I want to be remembered? If it's not, we're gonna do something to change that. Is this how I want to be remembered? If the answer is no, we're going to do something to change that. That's not a dramatic declaration. That's a tiny brave step, a decision to pick up the one box you can carry today and trust that you can figure out the rest when you get there. Sersha did it at 45, at 48, and now at 63, she's still doing it. And so can you. If Sersha's story touched something in you, a place that says, I've been drinking myself too, I want to hear about it. Leave a review, send me a message, share this episode with another woman in your life who needs to hear it as well. And here's something I want you to do. Go to Amazon and buy one of Sersha's books. They're filled with wonderful stories that come right out of her courageous heart. If you're standing at your own edge right now, wondering what to do next, I have something for you. Go to tinybravesteps.com. My Tiny Brave Steps Generator, a specially designed AI app, designed by me. It's ready and waiting to quietly and privately help you to find that step. There's no cost. I'm Bernice McDonald. Thank you for listening to this courage story.