Roots of the Rise
Grounded wisdom for the journey inward and upward.
Roots of the Rise is a soul-centered podcast hosted by Sarah Hope—Ayurvedic health practitioner, spiritual mentor, meditation teacher, biodynamic craniosacral therapist, and energy healer. Drawing from thousands of hours of client work, group facilitation, and her own journey through childhood trauma, grief, and the profound rediscovery of love and joy, Sarah offers a grounded, heart-led space for inner transformation.
Short, daily episodes (10–20 minutes) offer bite-sized insights, ideas, and practices for inner growth and self-development. Whether you're seasoned on the path or just beginning to explore, this podcast gives you digestible nuggets to stay inspired—without overwhelm. It’s perfect for those who want to stay engaged in the work, curious newcomers feeling overloaded by long-form content, or anyone wanting to understand a loved one's journey from a broader, more accessible perspective.
Sarah’s intention is to expose you to a wide range of spiritual concepts, therapeutic tools, philosophies, and practices—all in service of helping you become the healthiest, happiest, most authentic version of yourself. The journey can be hard. It can feel lonely. But you’re not alone. Come walk this path with her—learning, healing, and rising, one grounded step at a time.
Roots of the Rise
Episode 40 - Pollen, Perfectionism, and the Path to Self-Compassion
I didn't post an episode on Monday, due to a double hitter of prioritizing family and pollen induced insomnia. I started to slide into self flagellation, but pivoted to self-compassion instead. This is a crucial skill we must develop to break free from harsh self-judgment and perfectionism. Research shows that being kind to ourselves doesn't make us complacent but actually improves performance and helps us take responsibility for our actions.
Check out Self-Compassion - Dr. Kristin Neff
Welcome to Roots of the Rise with me. Sarah Hope, are you your greatest critic? Do you find it far easier to offer compassion to others than it is to offer yourself the same grace? Let's talk self-compassion basics. I didn't post an episode on Monday. I had intended to put it together on Sunday because I was supposed to have three hours to myself at home, but then plans changed and I had an opportunity to go to a hockey game with my family and I opted for that versus work. By the time the kid was in bed I had nothing left, so I thought, okay, it's fine, I'll just do it first thing in the morning and post later in the day. Not ideal, but that's okay in my voice, just how congested I am created the most miserable night's sleep Sunday night. It was bad earlier in the day, but then laying down just the congestion was awful. If you have not had the pleasure of experiencing spring in the South, it's an experience, because the world really does turn yellow with pollen. Anyway, I was a wreck by the time.
Speaker 1:Monday morning rolled around. I threw all the energy I had into my clients. I came back home, I recorded episode 39, but I just couldn't get happy enough with it to post it. If you listen to it, it's really sensitive content. I'm talking about a difficult topic that's very personal to me, combined with describing a sacred ritual that I really wanted to get right. I kept working on it, then walking away, working on it some more, coming back to it, but I just could not get it how I wanted it to be, and then my software fritzed. I lost some of what I had done, and that's when I just gave up. I threw my hands up and said, nope, I just cannot do it, and episode is not going to get posted today, and that just has to be all right. The thing is, it wasn't all right. It ate at me. I was judging myself so harshly for failing, for not following through on time, for not doing exactly as I said. I was going to do all that lovely childhood perfectionist programming popping right up on schedule, and it's that judgment that was stopping me from being able to have even an ounce of compassionate understanding for myself.
Speaker 1:I haven't yet really talked about the facets of the heart, what love actually means, so let me digress for a moment to touch on that. We have become so kind of careless, blasé about all the different ways we use that word. I love that book, I love going to concerts, I love pizza. I mean, I do love all those things. But in some ways, using love to describe so much has maybe decreased our understanding and appreciation of what love truly is.
Speaker 1:As one of my mentors, dr Paul Douglas, puts it love is a verb, Love is divine expression in action. Love is always present and accessible, even when we don't feel loving or loved. Love is possible even when it seems impossible. Love is your birthright. Love is the answer. Love heals.
Speaker 1:Gandhi said may my actions arise from the wisdom of the heart, not may my brain be smart enough to figure things out. We can cultivate a heart that's ready for anything that can hold us through any experience, and we do this by cultivating the different facets of it, and by that I mean the different ways love expresses itself, things like acceptance, presence, gratitude, generosity, joy, forgiveness, compassion. And that's what brings us back to today, to me struggling to be compassionate towards myself. I asked myself why? Why am I not giving myself a little grace? And I realized it was fear that this would be a slippery slope, that once I missed one day, I'd start making all sorts of excuses about why I could miss another. And it's happening right on time because more people are listening. I just did a milestone 500 downloads. So of course, my what if this actually becomes something? Fear kicked on, cue self-sabotage and judgment.
Speaker 1:And one of the biggest myths surrounding self-compassion is that if we offer it to ourselves, it will undermine our motivation. But it's exactly that a myth. This is according to Dr Kristen Neff, who is a psychologist specializing in compassion. She says research shows that self-compassion engenders a learning and growth orientation that improves performance. Huh, because isn't that the fear that if we're kind to ourselves, we're somehow letting ourselves off the hook and therefore we're just going to slide into complacency, that we'll do the bad thing again or care less about it. But that's not what the research shows. Quite the opposite. Neff says that research shows that people who are self-compassionate about their past mistakes are more likely to take personal responsibility for their misdeeds and try to repair the situation.
Speaker 1:I'm going to link you to her website so you can take a self-compassion quiz and read more about the myths. It's really fascinating. Quiz and read more about the myths. It's really fascinating. But I think a good place to start, a good question to ask is what stops you from being compassionate towards yourself, as funny as it sounds, sometimes you have to just look at physiology. Are you tired? Are you hungry? I don't know about you, but I don't show up as my best self when I'm either of those things. If you handle a situation poorly, either with others or beating yourself up over something, maybe it's just because you're exhausted or have low blood sugar. In good news, that's a pretty easy fix Get some sleep, eat some food. Sometimes it really is just that simple.
Speaker 1:Other times you might want to investigate your emotions. Did your feelings get hurt? Did you get triggered and have a disproportionate reaction to something someone said or did? Or is it all of your own making? Is it the way you think about yourself, your own fears that are driving you? Either way, acknowledging it can really help.
Speaker 1:For a lot of us, shame is a barrier to self-compassion. Help. For a lot of us, shame is a barrier to self-compassion. Understand that shame is normal. It's the brain's way of dealing with the threat of disconnection. If we feel ashamed, we are less likely to do the thing that will alienate us from our tribe, because at our core, we're all tribal beings. So what do we do? We label it. It's an emotion, you have shame. You are not shameful. Same thing with any other emotion. Labeling it as that, labeling it as something you are experiencing, not as who you are, can help you move beyond it.
Speaker 1:Another thing you can do is replace judgment with curiosity. Try to hold the experience, with interest versus judgment. Curiosity about your situation, your emotions, can help you shift into a more caring and understanding perspective. So I'm not ashamed that I didn't post yesterday. However, I did feel some guilt. So that's the difference between I am bad, which is shame, versus I did something bad, which is guilt. In this case, I didn't do something and that was bad, so I got curious about it. Why am I feeling that way? What am I believing? It's one of my favorite questions. What am I believing? Well, I was believing that if I missed one episode, I'd miss many more, that I'll disappoint my listeners, that I'll stop the role of momentum that's steadily picking up. So what do we do with the information we find through curiosity? Well, we acknowledge it. We acknowledge that inner critic.
Speaker 1:One of my mentors pardon the profanity, but one of my mentors calls it the itty bitty, shitty committee. You know, be aware that it often likes to amplify shame. Remind yourself that you are a work in progress, trying to navigate the best you can. When you hear it, when you hear all that judgment against yourself, try to practice what is helpful, not harmful, right. First rule do no harm. Try to speak to yourself like you would a friend. Literally. What would you say to a friend in that same situation? Can you offer yourself constructive correction rather than a shaming self-attack? In fact, this is like really an excellent practice that you can do.
Speaker 1:Anytime you find yourself hate speaking and judging yourself, go, stand in the mirror, look at yourself directly in the eyes and talk to yourself as you would your best friend. Doesn't matter how stupid or awkward or weird you feel, just talk yourself through it. So in this scenario, I would look at myself in the mirror and say something along the lines of like sweetie, of course you missed an episode. It was bound to happen. You know. You thought you were going to have time, but you put your priorities in proper order and chose family time over doing something for work. You didn't post because you care enough to want it to be something you can be proud of. And it wasn't. Yet this is you showing up as your best self. You are walking the walk and focusing on what's most important, you'll catch up, people understand you've got this and you know what's crazy.
Speaker 1:I actually believe all that. I believe that it's more important for me to spend time with family than it is for me to get a podcast episode posted on time. I believe it's more important for me to post something I'm proud of late than it is for me to put out something I don't feel good about. And if that doesn't work for someone else, that's okay, because the most important thing is that it works for me. Here's another bit from Dr Neff. One of the most pervasive findings of the research literature is that self-compassion leads to authenticity, because when we aren't dependent on the approval of others for our self-worth, we are free to express our true selves. And isn't that exactly what we're here to do? Be as authentically, honestly true to the best version of ourselves possible. It's what I'm aiming for. If you found today's podcast helpful or interesting, be sure to follow or subscribe so you don't miss tomorrow's episode.
Speaker 1:I'll be answering a listener's question about navigating a relationship with an aging parent you find challenging. Have a wonderful rest of your day and remember, know who you are, love who you've been and be willing to do the work to become who you want to be. I am an Ayurvedic health practitioner, spiritual counselor, meditation teacher, energy healer and biodynamic craniosacral therapist, with thousands of hours of training in these modalities and more. I'm here to help you discover as many different ideas, therapies, philosophies, spiritual concepts and inner development tools as possible in order to help you become the healthiest, happiest, most authentic version of yourself possible. I'm excited to be on this journey with you. It can be hard at times and there are moments you may feel stuck and very alone. I'm here to tell you you're not. Come with me, let's learn and grow together.
