From Hiding To Being Seen: Sarah Hunte

Sarah Hunte spent much of her life believing she had to hide parts of herself to be accepted.

After losing her eye as a baby, she grew up carrying a deep sense of inadequacy, constantly trying to maintain the illusion of normalcy.

But what began as a journey into voice acting eventually became something much bigger.

A revelation.

A reinvention.

And a decision to stop hiding.

In this episode, Sarah shares how she moved from self-doubt to self-authorization and why the life she thought was impossible may have been waiting for her all along.

✨ Sometimes your breakthrough isn't becoming someone new.

✨ It's finally giving yourself permission to be who you've always been.

🎧 Listen now on The Resilience Files: Unlocked.

#TheResilienceFiles #Resilience #Healing #PersonalGrowth #VoiceActor #ActingJourney #DisabilityAwareness #SelfWorth #MentalHealth #CreativeJourney #Storytelling

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

When you feel like life has dealt you a hand of unfair cards. Instead of voting, you double down. You stuck in the game. You faced battles. You felt broken. But hey, do us a favor. Put your hand on your heart. You feel that? You're still here. Welcome to the Resilience Files Unlocked, where survival meets transformation.

SPEAKER_01 0:29

Welcome back to the Resilience Files Unlocked, a space where real stories of resilience are shared with honesty, reflection, and hope. As you know, each episode we explore are the moments in life that challenge us, shape us, and ultimately reveal the strength we didn't know we had. Trigger warning before today's episode. Before we begin, we want to offer you a gentle content note. Today's episode touches on themes of childhood trauma, medical experiences, and feelings of inadequacy growing up. While this story ultimately moves toward healing and empowerment, some listeners may find it as parts emotionally sensitive. So please take care of yourself while you listen. I'm so excited to introduce today's guest. Today's story comes from Sarah Hunt. She's a voice actor, creative, whose journey has been shaped by both visible and invisible challenges, from losing her eye as a child to navigating years of self-doubt, of academic struggle, and more. But you know what? I'm not gonna tell you anymore. We have Sarah here. She's gonna read her essay on today. And then we're gonna do what we do here on the Brazilience Files. We're gonna break it down and get into it. Hi, Sarah.

SPEAKER_02 1:39

Hi, thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_01 1:41

Yes, thank you so much for being on.

SPEAKER_02 1:44

When I was 10 months old, I lost my right eye. So my right eye is a prosthesis. The loss of my eye wasn't one of those good losses where your family celebrates the fact that you're alive because you had to sacrifice a body part that was diseased. This was an avoidable loss, and it caused a lot of grief, particularly for my parents and for me. The trauma I experienced wasn't a one-time experience. It was a repeated trauma throughout my life, which created a deep, dark well of inadequacy within me, nourished by decades-long pressure to perform and maintain a facade of normalcy. As a child, I was chronically withdrawn and shy. My socket was irregular in that it was prone to inflammation, soreness, and infection every several years, has always been a renewed trauma because my socket has basically rejected the new eye by getting horribly inflamed and irritated for well over a month until the socket gets used to the new prosthesis. I have had to adjust to a new prosthesis while returning to my everyday life with one eye inflamed and sore and one time even bleeding. Even after adjusting, my socket has remained sensitive. Every morning I clear a little mucus from my eye with water and saline solution before applying makeup to create as much of an illusion of normalcy as I possibly can. To say that I was plagued by a nagging sense of inferiority would be an understatement growing up. This sense was a core belief, an unshakable truth of which I was supremely confident because in my mind I was irretrievably flawed and insurmountably marred. These hardships were aggravated by the academic challenges I experienced in school. I simply couldn't read at all, but I was never diagnosed with dyslexia. Standing up to read in class as a young student brought debilitating fear. I simply couldn't get the words out of my mouth. My Caribbean parents' solution for this was to just make me make me read a lot at home. They even signed me up for a reading contest at a local library where I performed so well that I got a prize of some sort. School was incredibly hard and I learned to outwork most challenges. Needless to say, I credit my parents with my relentless refusal to quit and my ability to press through fear and failure, even in the postgraduate and professional programs from which I would later graduate. My journey brought me to voice acting in 2020 when a friend suggested I audition for a part in a dramatized audiobook. Launching into voice acting felt like I had finally found where I belonged because I had been painting pictures with my voice and often making people laugh in doing so throughout my whole life. While working on the dramatized audiobook, I invested in a new microphone and jumped into all I needed to learn to get started in voice acting. This season was a real watershed moment in my life. For the first time, I was giving myself permission to prioritize my own dreams and interests. Suddenly things made sense. I felt a sense of purpose in challenging people to doubt their doubts and stop disqualifying themselves. As a Christian, I believe all things will ultimately work together in my favor. I do love and live by the quote: In every adversity, there lies a seed of an equivalent advantage. The work I was doing was in secret and in many ways internal. I told no one until I felt it was time. And even then, I only told a few friends who loved me and understood me well enough not to undermine me. After narrating several audiobooks, I pivoted to corporate voiceover work and expanded my work. Always wanting to be taken seriously as a voice actor, I signed up for my first on-camera acting class a few years ago. When I walked into my first class, the instructor looked at me and said, You don't want to be on camera? I swatted down the question dismissively with a no, I'm a voice actor. I knew who I was, and I knew if this man knew who he was dealing with, the one-eyed little girl, he would never have asked me that question. But several months later, the strangest thing happened. One evening, while I sat watching the instructor guide a student through a scene, I suddenly felt something unlatch on the inside of me. It was as if a light had been turned on. Somehow, this concept of on-camera acting, which had never occurred to me as being remotely possible or accept or accessible to me, made all the sense in the world. As I sat there, prayerful and suddenly tuned into the voice of my Heavenly Father, I realized that in identifying myself as a voice actor alone, I had quietly compromised myself because I was satisfied to stay hidden. Whereas I had once thought voice acting was my destination, I suddenly realized that voice acting was always supposed to be a foundation or an access point to other ventures, including acting on camera or on stage and stand-up comedy. The thought literally took my breath away. My little booth was never supposed to be a destination. It was a door, much like the wardrobe in C.S. Lewis's The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Since that day, I have been cast in three short films and nine YouTube sketches. As a creative who never had the chance to live out her creative identity as a young girl, I have felt very much like a precious piece of broken and long-buried pottery that has been discovered at an archaeological dig. The work I've been doing, including my study of the Meisner technique in acting class, is helping me overcome decades of toxic performance. I have spent most of my life on the altar of other people's expectations. Now I am authorizing myself to make myself proud.

SPEAKER_01 8:30

Wow, Sarah, thank you so much for trusting us with that story. There's so much honesty and vulnerability in what you shared, and it's so beautiful and just eye-opening, you know. Um wow. Let's hop into it. First off, I before we hop into it, I should ask, how are you doing? How do you feel after you've read that out loud?

SPEAKER_02 8:52

I feel good. I feel good. I mean, I've been, you know, on this, in this journey of, you know, just like I said, just uncovering these layers and layers. And it's um, you know, it is there fear, you know, uh, you know, there's fear. But I decided I'm tired of being afraid. And as much as as much as I would like for the fear to go away, it's like, you know, creatives lots of times we want to wait until we're inspired to create. We want to wait and encouraged to do what we're supposed to be doing the whole time and consistently. And I'm realizing I I'm not supposed to wait until I'm not afraid, you know.

SPEAKER_01 9:36

I agree. Yeah. Let's go back to the beginning of your story. You lost your eye when you were very young, obviously, but the emotional impact followed you throughout your childhood. It wasn't just a one-time situation. When did you first begin to understand you were different than everyone else?

SPEAKER_02 9:54

Well, I think I always knew it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, because my eye was, it was, you know, it always creates the mucus, you know, and always has. So in the morning, my dad, you know, would be so patient and would help me with it. And I always had a sense that I was different. So being chronically withdrawn, that was why I was chronically withdrawn. Because I would walk around with my head down and my my arms just by my side. I was, I struggled. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:20

Yeah. I'm so sorry that you experienced that. And I'm so happy that you had your dad and your mom there for you, and they were very supportive during that journey. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:31

They've always been very much so.

SPEAKER_01 10:34

That's beautiful. You talk about carrying a deep sense of inadequacy growing up. How did that belief start forming in you? Or really for you?

SPEAKER_02 10:45

How did that belief start forming in me? I think um, you know, I think there's something, it's not something anyone said, right? It's um which it could have been, but it would never was. I'm grateful I was never bullied, I'm grateful I didn't have anybody say anything, you know, to demean me. But I think, you know, we we do have a tendency to compare our worst to others' best, naturally. I think we do that. And so I think for me that was what I did. I think I looked around myself and I couldn't find anyone, you know, who's really struggling at all, at least to me, right? It didn't people were struggling, and so that's where that came from, I think. And then it didn't help that there was nothing that I felt like I was good at. You know, if you're if you're a creative and you're and you have that as an outlet, and maybe you're struggling academically, you you at least have something you can hang your little self-esteem on. And I didn't I didn't have any of those things. I, you know, I did play musical instruments, I played the piano and the violin, but even that was hard, right? The reading challenges I struggled with in reading English were the same challenges I had in reading music. And so it was just a lot of work all the way around. I was working hard.

SPEAKER_01 12:05

Yeah, well, definitely. I I can tell you, I know you definitely were a hard worker. And for your parents to challenge you so much as you read in your essay, we see that you described like feeling pressure to maintain the illusion of normalcy. What did that look like for you day to day as a young person? Because I'm sure someone hearing the story and they're wondering, like, well, I have to do the same thing, and wondering if their story relates to yours. What was your day-to-day looking like?

SPEAKER_02 12:33

I mean, I just did my childhood was just like everybody else's. Yeah. And that's a testament to my parents, right? Like, yeah, very much so. Amazing parents who, you know, really struggled with this, but decided, it's like they conspired together and they were like, she's gonna have a normal life, she's gonna do everything she wants to do. She wants to swim, she wanna, you know, so and and and I'm able-bodied. So I don't at all compare myself to people who do have, you know, challenges in that they they have limitations that limit their physical capacity. But because my parents were very much like, no, no, no, it's okay, just do do, you know, we're gonna just do, we're gonna pretend everything is normal or just, you know, carry ourselves as if everything is okay, it wasn't there was no room for me to really talk and be able to vent or even share that I was in pain. So when I did cry about it, which I did, cry about, you know, just having one eye, sometimes it would be at bedtime, you know, it would be like, well, listen, you're upsetting your mom, you know. And so I I I learned to kind of, okay, I definitely don't want to upset, you know, my folks. So let me keep a lid on this and keep just keep it to myself. Yeah. And so that that was just sort of a, I think, the place where the unhealthiness kicked in.

SPEAKER_01 14:05

Yeah, discussing the unhealthiness of that when you kept the lid on and compressing your emotions and feelings. And at the time, school was obviously so incredibly challenging for you. Although you were going through day-to-day as a normal young person, you still had a set of challenges that other people didn't experience. And how when did you feel comfortable enough to just be like, I know that mom is gonna be upset, but this is my true feelings? Or did you ever get to a point that existed like that?

SPEAKER_02 14:38

Yeah, no. No, you know, I was, yeah. And it it it was an it it was just something that was just too hard, I think, for them. Yeah. Then also they, you know, my parents are are from Trinidad and Guyana, and we were in England, and and so, and we weren't, I didn't grow up with, you know, surrounded by family and you know what I mean, extended family and all of that. So I very much, it was just us four. It was just me, my mom, my dad, my brother. And so they were very much like, look, it's us four, no more. We gotta, you know what I mean? We do what you gotta do, we'll do what we have to do, taking care of you guys. And you know, you work hard, we're working hard. And that was kind of the paradigm that I grew up in. So yeah, it wasn't, it wasn't like anybody, and this was a long time ago, I mean. So, so it wasn't like the conversations that we're having now about and you know, emotional grief and all of those things. These are not things we talked about. And I don't to be candid, I don't think Caribbean people talk about it to this day. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:49

Of course, no, uh, that's uh yes, I understand completely. Yeah, and also just in general, like, you know, as time grows and changes, we know that the older generation definitely had a lot, had it a lot harder and tougher, and their parents probably had very little empathy or you know, no capacity to allow them to say things because they just had to work and get home and feed, and it was a cycle of that, and it was not a lot of time to know like your true feelings of how you're doing. It's about getting day to day. We're working hard to make sure you can go to school and good night. And um good night. That's right. Yeah, that's exactly what I mean. Yeah. During that time you were having some difficulty, you said struggling with reading. How did struggling with reading shape your confidence during those early years?

SPEAKER_02 16:40

I had no confidence whatsoever, like at all. It was the worst thing ever. I mean, I know it wasn't the worst thing ever. I again, I I know there's worse. But I was actually just thinking about this as I was reading my essay, like how far I've come, because I could not have done that, right? Like I would see the words and I just couldn't, I just couldn't get them out of my mouth. I don't know how to describe it. And similarly, when I was practicing piano and learning how to sight read, I never really learned how to sight read because I could see the note, and if you ask me what note I'm looking at, I'd say that's D. But to to make it sound like a melody, ah, no. And I would spend most of my semester when I got to college playing piano, I'd spend most of my semester sounding like I didn't know how to play at all because I was sight reading and I couldn't remember where my hands had to go on the keyboard. But once I didn't have to read anymore, because I'm a kinetic learner, I I sounded immediately like like I had been playing my whole life. But uh yeah, I the the confidence uh uh wasn't at all there. Um, it was completely scuttled by my inability to read and or do math or science or you know, there wasn't anything I could do well, it was bad.

SPEAKER_01 18:09

Oh, but you did your parents did they kind of push you to be a part of a library competition, right? So when you uh got an award for that, you know, reading books, what was that experience like for you? Did that boost any of your confidence in reading?

SPEAKER_02 18:25

Yeah, that's a great question. I have no recollection of that competition. Yeah, I don't know, you know, what what the parents for the parents.

SPEAKER_01 18:38

You were like, I'm doing this and I'm out.

SPEAKER_02 18:40

I'm out, yeah. And clearly I have no, I mean, because my mother talks about it, and I'm like, okay, you know, so I just repeat that story, but I'm like, I remember the library. I know we used to go there a lot, but do I remember that? Not at all. I don't remember that.

SPEAKER_01 18:54

No, I understand. It sounds like you were carrying the law internally while trying to like just function in everyday life. And you know, like you were trying your best to also like in a sense be performative and make sure that your parents, you know, you listen to them and you were like, okay. And um, we'll get more into it, but I feel like as we make the transition, you started to discover your path in life. And I feel like your story begins to shift through creativity. So I wanted to know more about that. Like, at what moment did you say that let me explore the arts and use this as an outlet to, you know, express myself more and allow myself some freedom? Like you said, um Yeah, that's a great question.

SPEAKER_02 19:42

I I mean, I began to be involved in uh I became a Christian in college and I began to be involved in dance ministry when I was an adult, like when I was quite, quite old, you know, arguably. So I had been dancing for a while, and that was really my only expression. And it wasn't a limit, it was it was great. It was very, very, it's been very helpful. It's been a safe place for me. Dance has been a place where I really have felt like the one place where I've been able to feel safe, where I have felt whole and where I have felt like I feel God's pleasure, you know, as I'm as I'm moving. But to do anything else, I didn't have the courage and um always was afraid to do that. Um I think I think the pandemic was was the thing, you know. Like I think that was the case for a lot of people during the pandemic. It was a lot of soul searching that was going on. I listened to there's a book by a woman named Bronny Ware called The Top Five Regrets of the Dying. And I I listened to that book very early in the pandemic and it wrecked me. It really kind of challenged, provoked, and sh and really uh, you know, shook me because one of the top five regrets of the dying is I I think actually the first regret that she talks about is um is that people often say they they not living a life that was true to themselves as opposed to what other people expected of them. Um and so that caused me to sort of begin this journey of really just some deep introspection, digging in and figuring out what I would like and really asking myself those questions, because you know, you get in the habit of being performative, like you said, and you don't realize how much you aren't enjoying what you do in your life. And so uh that's that's what caused me to even mention to my friend voice acting, and she happened to have a friend who was a novelist, and that's how I got the audiobook, um, the dramatized audiobook upon it.

SPEAKER_01 21:59

Nice.

unknown 22:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:00

I love that. So okay, you your friend mentioned to you about the voice acting opportunity during the pandemic. Yes. And initially before then, were you drawn to voice acting? Did you I know you've had some passion for it, of course, but when did you was your aha moment of like saying, you know what, voice acting feels like a safe place creatively?

SPEAKER_03 22:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:23

Because maybe people can't see me, or what was that for you?

SPEAKER_02 22:26

Yeah, great question. So I think I know I had thought of voice acting before I had that conversation with her because I had actually purchased a book. I know I went on Amazon, I went, I ordered a book, I bought the book, I got the book. I never read the book. The book stayed on my shelf. Yeah, we all can relate to that. Yeah, you do. You're like, I have a book, you know. I'm I'm committed. I got a book. I didn't read that book. That book stayed on my bookshelf for I'm gonna say a a year, a couple years before I had an honest moment with myself and was like, oh, please give the book to the goodwill. At least let somebody, you know, somebody who's gonna read the book, read the book. And so I I ended up getting rid of the book and I didn't do anything else with it. And so it was really, it was just me, train of thought, conversation with this, with this woman I was working with at the time. She was like, Oh, voice acting. I was like, Yeah, you know, because you think you hear about how we're encouraged to identify things that we do naturally and then find something that kind of is along that those vein that vein. And I've always played games with my voice. I've always, you know, channeled mindsets, attitudes, you know, people just being silly, just being just being silly. So that's how that conversation came up. And then to your point about being hidden, I think when I figured out that my closet was my studio, I was like, yeah, this is this is amazing. I didn't have to, you don't have to clean up, you don't have to dress up, you don't have, you know, you don't have to do anything except make sure that you haven't been consuming a lot of dairy and sugar and that you don't have a cold. I mean, these are obviously you have to take care of your your vessel, but besides that, everybody guess how you look, right? And so because I was always sort of, not sort of, but always preoccupied. Like from the minute I wake up to the minute I close my eyes. Yeah. When I'm not in my home, I'm preoccupied with, you know, my eye and what's going on with it. So not to have to be preoccupied with it, I that's why I thought that I was onto something, you know, that I had discovered something.

SPEAKER_01 24:50

Absolutely. That makes a lot of sense. Uh completely makes sense. You mentioned that you kept this stream very private at first. Why was it important for you to protect that part of your life?

SPEAKER_02 25:01

I you know why? I think I figured out that this was gonna be a huge change for me. Now, on the inside of me, it wasn't a huge change because I had been making these little baby steps internally, doing the introspection, doing the analysis, you know, the self-assessments. So to me, these things made sense. But you know what I mean? But when you've got people on the outside of you who are like, oh, this is the box she fits in, this box. And you take and do something over here in left field, they're like not authorized. What are you doing? Like, why would you? Are you out of your are you okay? Yeah, okay. Do we need to talk? And you're like too many opinions. Yeah, it's so it's too much energy, right? And so I actually tell people this like if you're gonna do something that's that for you is a big change or is big for you, and you're seeing it, like writing a book, I mean, sorry, reading a book, starting a business, something big you're gonna launch into, you don't have to tell everybody. In fact, it's probably best that you don't because the energy that you take defending your idea, literally just writing down the not even the words, but the people's tone of voice when they say, okay, right? Like that communicates like, are you really gonna pull that, you know? And so now your mind you're thinking, she doesn't think I could do it. I don't know if I can. All of that is time because it's energy that's being sucked out of you, and you need to take that same energy and direct it towards the target, which is your goal. So I think I realized for me that was what I had to do.

SPEAKER_01 26:47

Absolutely. I think, yeah, sometimes I feel like the things we begin quietly end up being the things that changes our life the most. And I do believe too what you're saying, especially if it's completely different than the thing you've been focused on, the people know you most for. You will sometimes have some, I don't want to call them haters, but some people that are doubters because they've never seen you operate in that lane. So they're gonna have their own preconceived notions of like, but it's gonna do this and this and this and this and put unnecessary, unfiltered thoughts in your head that you don't need to think about if you're already in motion on it. Stay emotion on it and focus on your own vision, your own time, your own what you want to do. So yeah, I agree with you on that. Yeah, I want to hear about the moment of realization for you. You described that a powerful moment during an acting class where something internally just shifted inside of you. Can you walk us through that moment when something that unlashed inside of you, where you move from the moment of saying, you know what, I don't want to be seen. I'm good. He doesn't know me. He doesn't know I have one eye. So why? Like, I'm not about to put myself out there. I don't want to embarrass myself. I'm scared about it. To saying, you know what? No, I deserve to be seen and I'm ready to step out of this box that I created myself. I put myself in this box. Very much. Tell us about that moment.

SPEAKER_02 28:11

Yeah. So I was sitting in this class, and it was just a just a darkened warehouse where this class would go on, and it was great, great class. And the instructor was working with someone. I don't remember anything else about the day. It wasn't like I had had a particularly deep and insightful moment beforehand, or the whole day had been spent walking on the, you know, in a in a park with the breeze blowing. But you know what I mean? Like it wasn't like that. But I just in that in this particular moment, as I was listening to another person getting instruction, because I was always, always taking notes. Like I'm always listening for stuff that may help me. I'm not just waiting for, you know, the instructor to be instructing me. And as I sat there listening, it was it was like something, and the the word I use is unlatched because it was as if it wasn't like a door flung open, right? But it was like this door had been, you know, locked and padlocked and bolted, and all of, you know, like the the lock on the door was like, you know, and it was like, you know, you can you can you can actually you can actually come in now, you know, uh the you being, you know, the the the you know just concepts, thoughts, ideas, dreams, you know, these things that I have, you know, been so much like, no, these are things that are forbidden. These are things that I'm disqualified. I'm not I'm disqualified from even envisioning these things for myself. And it wasn't like I was like, I'm gonna be violent. You know, it wasn't even that. It wasn't about that at all, but it was just like I'm no longer saying no to myself. Good. So yeah, the the unlatching was very much like, you know, you know, like, you know, really, you know, and then in that I went from because when I discovered voice acting, I have been really excited. I had and I'm still excited about it, to be clear. Like I love voice acting, and I, you know, I love, you know, uh the idea of narrating, you know what I mean, all kinds of like feature films or whatever. It's not like I'm saying that I've left that behind me, but I genuinely was like, this is it. This is this is where I belong, this is who I am, this is where I fit, and nowhere else will I fit. Like I don't fit anywhere else. And it was only in that moment that I realized, and it was like it was almost frightening because you don't realize how much you can convince yourself of a lie. You can convince yourself, and it's not that you go through a lot of work to do it, but because your beliefs about yourself are so strong, so they're so strong and they're warped, like they're just they're like all the way wrong. You don't and and you're like, yeah, this is true. This is this is this is right, I'm right about this, and you're wrong about it, like on every level, you're wrong about it, you know, and you don't realize it until something causes you to be like, hey, hey, hey, hey, and you're like, huh? And you're like, wait, I was asleep, you know. Yeah. But that's how it was in that moment. I was like, yeah. So it was it was intense, it was good. It was like that.

SPEAKER_01 31:38

That makes complete sense. Yeah. I mean, if you continue to tell yourself something over and over, you'll convince yourself to believe it. Your brain is just, you know, half a thought away from believing a dream is reality. A reality is a dream, and we are here, you know. I also think like this just like shares for this is just a great example for the audience of like, what is that lie that you continue to tell yourself because of your own insecurities? And it's not bad to have insecurities. We all have them in one way or another. And it's because of know our own thoughts of the way that maybe beauty is supposed to look or um education is supposed to look, or by this age I should have XYZ. And we tell ourselves these things, but the reality is, is like, no, we can make whatever that reality for ourselves. And I think it takes a lot of soul searching and a lot of digging and a lot of like, I love myself enough to blah, blah, blah. And to putting that work in. I want to know how did that realization for you change the way that you saw yourself after that?

SPEAKER_02 32:37

Wow, that's a good question. It didn't change the way that I saw myself in a very radical way, you know. It wasn't like, yeah, it was, it was, it was like I just began to question, you know, but why not you? Why not? You know? Yeah. So that's the question that just keeps coming up as I continue to, you know, hesitantly put one foot in front of the other. You know what I mean? So it's not yeah, so it's definitely not like I, you know, woke up and was like, look at you, honey, you're just as fine as you could be. You know what I mean? Yeah. Like it's it's every time the the thought comes, and it comes less now and less loudly now than it did before. But yeah, I I've become stronger and quicker and more efficient and adept at swatting it away. You know, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 33:44

Yeah. Yeah. What it sounds like to me is that it gave you, it kind of gave you permission to like expand beyond the limits that you place on yourself of saying why not me. And maybe it wasn't a superior radical change right away, but to me, it like it allowed the seed that was already planted in you to start taking root and to start growing. And I think the more that you water that, the more that grows. It's gonna become a very fruitful tree that's gonna be not only why not me, this is me. It's gonna say, it can be you too. And I'm gonna do this and this and that and that. And it's gonna be like, hey, look in the mirror like I am a bad uh woman. I do look good, and I am, you know, and it's just like I think you know, we all need that seed to be planted in us, and we need that seed to kind of unlock and be planted deep into soil where it's worded enough that something starts to grow, and then boom, you get your why not me moment. I appreciate you sharing that. As um, we move to the end of this podcast episode. I want to know just a little bit deeper on who you became. I feel like probably so much has changed since that moment. You stepped into on-camera acting and you're doing more creative work. What has that experience been like for you? And are you happy that you did that? I'm sure you are, but I want to hear from you.

SPEAKER_02 35:06

I am happy that I did that. Uh, I mean, on the subject of fear though, is the fear real? Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 35:14

Yeah. And I want to say something. Go ahead. You're gonna experience fear no matter what. I think like the people, everybody, I think there's so many people think that like nobody walks this earth without having fear. I don't care what anybody says. Like, I feel like you have to feel the fear and do it anyway. And that's what courage is, and that's what makes the difference between the people that graduates this program and the people that don't, because you know, fear is gonna be there no matter what. And I'm not saying it's bad for you to say you have fear, or even if fear still exists today, I think like for a person that's listening to this episode, is like there's gonna be fear in absolutely anything that is bigger than the complacency that is on your life. Wherever you are comfortable, you can stay there, but you may not grow there. But if you are okay with experiencing a little fear, and even if you're not okay with it, but you have the courage enough to step into the fear of the unknown, courage enough to step into this new experience, I promise you that it's gonna be, you're gonna grow so much from that that all of a sudden you're gonna experience life like you've never had it before. And it's not gonna be easy, but it will be worth it. And even if it's challenging at the beginning, you're gonna grow more than you've ever grown. So I'm gonna throw it back to you about that fear moment.

SPEAKER_02 36:41

And I will say that one of my favorite books, as somebody who does not even still to this day like to read, one of my favorite books is Failing Forward, Failing Force by John Maxwell, right? And uh where he talks about like all the legendary failures who like we know as great successes, you know, the you know, the Michael Jordans, you know what I mean? All of the people who were told, you know, you shouldn't be doing this, and who struggled at the beginning. And I I think that another thing to your point about fear being the thing that we should never allow to paralyze us is that we think that people we believe are successful or that we hold in high esteem, I should say, who are embraced by the culture as being successful, we think that they are doing what they're good at and that they don't deal with fear. I sub would submit that most of those people are actually only doing what they're good at. They're literally tormented by fear so much that they will never ever risk failure to do the thing that they actually wish they could do, but they're but they think they would mess it up and all of their self-esteem would be thrown, you know, apart because they messed up. So they stay doing the one thing they know that they can kill it, right? And everybody says, Oh, you're so great, and they congratulate themselves that they're so great. But if it comes to doing the other thing that they wish they really could do, they would never do it because they're terrified. It's almost like how people talk about, oh no, I'm not, I'm not, I don't leave town, I don't go anywhere. You're afraid to fly, but you won't admit it, you know. Right. And so you're like, no, no, I'm good. And your whole life is now limited to your zip code because you you really are afraid, but you're just like, no, no, I'm not afraid. I I just live a good life. I I thoroughly enjoy my life. And you're like, no, actually, you you would enjoy going to at least, you know, Orlando or whatever. Right. And I think I think there's just so much to be said for that because we think fear limits unsuccessful people, but it actually limits people who seem like they're succeeding, right? It's the ones who are, you know, like uber successful, who are the ones who have really pushed through fear. But the other people who are like in that, like maybe the upper echelons of their careers, and and you know, they they may do other things fairly well, but they stay in the like a very small number of things that they know they can execute well because they're afraid. I just, to your point about life experience and being in a place where you're like, look, whether or not you're whether or not people ridicule me, the people watching me are gonna at the end of this wish they had my courage, you know. So go ahead and ridicule, go ahead and you know, eat peanuts while I'm being torn apart in the gladiator, you know, stadium. But at least I'm trying and at least I'm stretching and I'm doing what I know fills me and nourishes me. Yeah, you know.

SPEAKER_01 40:00

Absolutely, absolutely. I love that. At least you're trying and you're showing up and you're doing something and you're after something different. I love it. Um, and I'm so proud of you. Thank you. Absolutely. As we like uh wrap up, I have just two more questions for you. And you used a beautiful metaphor in your essay, and you were describing yourself as a very piece of pottery being rediscovered. What does rediscovery look like for you today?

SPEAKER_02 40:29

What does rediscovery look like for me today? Wow, well, rediscovery for me, I would say, you know, looks like, I guess, first of all, seeing myself the way that my creator sees me, you know. Seeing seeing myself as whole. You know, I I I know that I wouldn't be half as funny as I am if I haven't, you know what I mean, if I hadn't gone through some things. I think that, you know, people who have, you know, struggled are oftentimes the ones who are, you know, have that comedic angle. And so I think, you know, rediscovery for me is coming out on the other side of this, of a dark, like, like I said, like decades-long, dark, you know, time of having that warped perception of myself. And being re-rediscovery is really seeing myself through the lenses of the one who is looking at me like I always knew, you know, fill in the blank, you know. Yeah. So yeah, that for me is what it is. So it's, you know, it's it's not hesitating, you know, to audition and and feel like I am, you know, qualified to meet the needs of the casting director or whoever's, you know, looking for a particular role and you know, has a particular need that uh that needs to be cast.

SPEAKER_01 42:01

Absolutely. I love that. I feel like it's it's very powerful to see someone move from hatty parts of their life to embracing the parts that they wanted. And and hearing your story is such a reflective journey. And I know that there's probably someone listening today that has been taking the shadow of life because they don't want to be fully seen in the light. And I think that this episode is gonna definitely offer a reflection to them that it's okay to step into the light, it's okay to look into the mirror, it's okay to dance in the rain, it's okay to to step out and try something new, and that it's it's gonna reveal like an even stronger version of you. And for anyone that's listening who feels disqualified because of something about their body or their past or their story or or whatever that is, what would you want them to know?

SPEAKER_02 42:53

I would want them, I would want them to just take, take time, shut down the voices, the noise, right? Because we're in a we're in a culture that's very steeped in visual images. We get told what to like, we get told what is beautiful, we get told, you know, all kinds of stuff in subtle messages. So I would encourage that person to shut off all of that, just to do an experiment, just to shut it all off, even like social media, everything, even television, shut it off, give it a month and take time to really just drill down and identify those things that on your deathbed you're gonna regret not trying. You know, and then just write those things down. For me, it was important for me as a Christian to write down all of the lies I had believed about myself, all the negative chatter that bubbled up in my mind all the time. I wrote it all down, did I took inventory over days or weeks, and then I went to scripture and I found all of I pulled all the verses on that subject, and those verses that spoke to me, I wrote them down on a on an index card. And I wrote the lie on, I wrote the lie on one side, I wrote the verse on the other, and I carried those things and I tattooed my brain, read them every single day, took them everywhere I went. They lived in my purse until I dropped them in the gutter one day, and then I had to make a whole new set. But that kind of thing takes time, we don't want to do it, but the discipline is worth it. The discipline is worth it.

SPEAKER_01 44:35

I love that.

unknown 44:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 44:37

I love that. Absolutely love that. That's that's great, that's actionable, that's on it. And I know someone's gonna listen to this and do it. And I think thank you so much. This was amazing. Uh, thank you so much for just sharing your story so openly with us today. And I feel like your journey reminds us that's that resilience doesn't always look like strength on the outside. And it's, you know, holding it all together, maybe for the moment. And sometimes it takes the quiet courage to just face the beliefs that we've carried about ourselves and choose that we're gonna tell a different story today, and we're no longer gonna tell ourselves the same story. And our why not me moment is on the way. And I just want to say thank you. This has been another amazing episode of the Resilience Files Unlocked, where stories of resilience reminds us that healing, growth, transformation are always possible. If this episode met you at a part of your life where you really needed it, or if you know someone that needs this episode today, please share with them, encourage them, let them know that if Sarah's story exists and she can unlock and go forward in her life, you can too. We appreciate you all for listening. We're so excited to share another great episode with you. And um, Sarah, I meant to ask you, do you have socials or anything that you want to include in this episode?

SPEAKER_02 46:02

Yeah, I'm uh at voices by Sarah on Instagram, Sarah Hunt V O, a website, Sarah Huntvoiceover.com.