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 episodes (10–20 minutes) released on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, 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.
This podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only. Sarah is not a licensed therapist, and nothing shared here is meant to replace the guidance of a physician, therapist, or any other qualified provider. That said, she hopes it inspires you to grow, heal and seek the support you need to thrive.
Roots of the Rise
Episode 54 - Why Loving Who You've Been Can Change Everything
Self-hatred doesn't just damage us internally; it radiates outward, affecting our relationships and perpetuating cycles of pain across generations. When we can't forgive ourselves for past mistakes, we limit our capacity to love others cleanly and completely, creating ripple effects that touch everyone in our lives.
• Self-hatred often serves as a mask for deeper pain or unmet needs
• People love to their level of self-love, communicate to their level of self-awareness, and behave to their level of healed trauma
• We unfairly judge our past actions through the lens of our present wisdom
• Self-forgiveness isn't letting yourself off the hook—it's reclaiming your power to choose differently
• You cannot grow if you're still at war with the person you once were
• Breaking cycles of self-hatred requires understanding what this hatred is protecting
• Getting curious instead of cruel about our past actions is the first step toward healing
Resources:
Podcast: Roots of the Rise Episode 6 – Curiosity Required
Podcast: Roots of the Rise Episode 10 – Two things (of the many) needed for Acceptance
Podcast: Roots of the Rise Episode 11 – Forgiveness and one way to get the apology you always wanted
Podcast: Armchair Expert with Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Book: calling in “the one” by Katherine Woodward Thomas
Book: Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself: How to Lose Your Mind and Create a New One by Dr. Joe Dispenza
Welcome to Roots of the Rise with me, sarah Hope. How much damage is done on a daily basis simply due to self-hatred. At the end of every episode, I always end by saying three things Know who you are, love who you've been and be willing to do the work to become who you want to be. Today I want to explain what I mean and why I say love who you've been. We all make mistakes. No one is perfect. You did the best you could. So many different platitudes all trying to make us feel better about actions we can't take back but wish to God we could. And how much more damage is done because we can't forgive ourselves.
Speaker 1:The soldier who blames himself for the death of his platoon mates An IED took them out. He should have seen it. He should have acted faster. It should have been him On the outside. He might look functional, he laughs, he's got a career, he even goes to counseling. But every time a relationship starts to get close, when someone starts to really see him, he shuts down, he pulls away, ends it before they get too close. Because in his mind, love is for people who deserve it. And the part of him still stuck on that road, still hearing the blast, still counting the names. That part whispers that he doesn't. He tells himself he's protecting them from the version of him they haven't met yet the broken one, the guilty, unfixable one. But the truth, he's protecting the part of himself that refuses to feel joy, because joy would mean letting in forgiveness, and to him forgiveness feels like a betrayal.
Speaker 1:Or the addicted nurse who can't forgive herself for a fatal mistake. She accidentally administers the wrong dosage during a long shift and a patient dies as a result. Though the hospital rules it an accident, she can't stop replaying the moment, believing that if she had been just a little more alert, more careful, that person would still be alive. She keeps working but begins drinking alone after every shift, numbing herself to the guilt. Every time she starts to feel a spark of confidence or hope, she unconsciously undermines it, showing up late, snapping at patients, sabotaging promotions, because deep down she doesn't think she deserves to be trusted. Again. She's punishing herself through burnout and self-destruction.
Speaker 1:Or me, the child who carried the shame of not being able to do the one thing she believed she was put here to do Bring her mother happiness, healing hope. I thought I had one job to bring joy to someone who had only ever known pain. One purpose, written clearly in the middle name she gave me I, was her hope for a better life, one not filled with depression and loneliness. But instead I brought her sadness, disappointment. I made her feel worse, not better. At least that's what I believed. That's what she told me, and I carried that guilt like a second skin.
Speaker 1:I carried the shame of hurting her for years. It followed me into every relationship, made me doubt that I could ever truly be loved, made me feel like I always needed a backup plan, a way out, because eventually someone was going to see the real me. And when they did, they'd look at me the same way she always had, with disappointment, with betrayal. So I'd leave first, or I'd stay halfway in, halfway out, just in case, because I didn't want to be alone. More than that, I didn't want to be alone with me, with the awful, unlovable version of me I'd come to believe was true.
Speaker 1:It's not just the soldier or the nurse or me. When we carry deep self-hatred, it doesn't just hurt us, it radiates outward, it's the ripple effect. It's the soldier's best friend, whose heart he broke when he pushed her away. It's the nurse's co-workers who had to quietly absorb the fallout, cover her shifts, double-check her work, hold their breath every time she walked in hungover or hollow-dyed, just hoping no one got hurt. And it's every intimate relationship I've ever been in, the two wonderful, amazing men I married and later divorced because I was too tangled in shame and self-doubt to ever really go in grace.
Speaker 1:These are just three examples, but take a moment. I am sure someone comes to mind for you, someone who keeps sabotaging themselves, someone stuck in the loop, caught in the cycle of guilt, pain, shame, repeat. I once heard this people love to their level of self-love, communicate to their level of self-awareness and behave to their level of self-love. Communicate to their level of self-awareness and behave to their level of healed trauma. And it's true to a certain degree.
Speaker 1:If you can't love yourself, your capacity to love others truly and cleanly is deeply compromised. It doesn't mean that you don't care. You absolutely can love other people. Sometimes you might even love whole communities with a fierce kind of devotion. I mean, take my mom. She was a gift to the children with special needs that she worked with an absolute angel At her funeral, person after person I can't tell you how many told me about her patience, her care, her compassion, how watching her work with these kids had changed them, inspired them, moved them to be more giving, more loving. They were talking about a saint, but to me it felt like they were talking about a stranger, because that was not the version of her I ever got to meet. She loved the children she worked with, cleanly, without compromise, without condition.
Speaker 1:But me, I was a different story, and this is why we have to learn to love who we've been, because the guilt, and, even more so, the shame that we carry around doesn't just stay inside us, it spills out, it spreads, it does damage my childhood. My pain was not born in a vacuum. It was a product of her pain, of my mother's childhood trauma, of the things she endured, the wounds she never got to heal, the damage left behind by her father. She was carrying her own burden of guilt, her own hidden shame, and, whether she meant to or not, she passed it down to me. And that's how the cycle goes. This is not a unique story. One generation's silence becomes the next generation's confusion. One person's self-hatred becomes another person's heartbreak. So the question is, why do we do it? Why do we carry this burden as if it's ours to hold forever.
Speaker 1:Often, self-hatred is a mask for deeper pain or unmet needs. When we hate ourselves for something we've done, that hatred usually isn't just about the action. That self-hatred is a reaction to something underneath, usually something much more raw grief, shame, fear of being unlovable or the pain of having betrayed our own values. We're not just upset at what happened, we're wounded. And hating ourselves can become a strange form of self protection. It gives us something to hold on to when we feel powerless. If I punish myself hard enough, maybe I won't mess up again, maybe I can control the pain. But that self-hatred, it doesn't heal. It freezes us. It keeps us locked in that moment instead of helping us understand it, learn from it and move through it. So one of the most powerful things we can do is gently ask gently what is this hatred protecting? What's under it? What is its positive purpose? Because when we get curious instead of cruel, we start to uncover the real emotional landscape underneath, and that awareness is the start of healing.
Speaker 1:Almost always, you are judging a past version of you with the wisdom of the present. One of the hardest parts of regret is that it often shows up after we've grown, after we've become more aware, more compassionate, more capable. I think it was Oscar Wilde who said life is a hard teacher because she gives the test first and the lesson after. And so we look back and we judge our past selves through the lens of who we are now. We say how could I have done that? What was I thinking? I know I am not the only one who looks back on things I did, even a year ago, and think, man, I wish I had handled that differently. But that's potentially being a bit unfair to yourself, because the truth is you weren't who you are now. Maybe you made that choice with a different level of awareness, maturity, pain or survival instinct. It doesn't mean it wasn't wrong or that it didn't hurt someone, but it means your self-hatred is based on a version of the story that ignores your evolution. Instead of how could I have done that, maybe the better question is what was going on in me that made that seem like the only option? What did I not yet know how to do?
Speaker 1:That shift doesn't erase the impact of the past. It adds understanding to it, and understanding is what allows us to take accountability with compassion. And that brings me to the last point, which is that I think it's really important to recognize that self-forgiveness is not letting yourself off the hook. It's reclaiming your power. There's this idea that forgiving yourself means you're excusing what you did, that if you stop hating yourself, you're somehow avoiding responsibility. But it's actually the opposite. Self-hatred is paralyzing. It keeps us spinning in guilt and shame without ever moving forward.
Speaker 1:True forgiveness, real, grounded self-forgiveness, is not about forgetting or bypassing. It's about facing what you did, fully feeling the discomfort, taking ownership, making amends if that's possible, and then deciding that you are more than the worst thing you've ever done. Go back and listen to the episode about receiving the apology you always wanted. It may give you some ideas on how to get started with this process. Self-forgiveness is how you reclaim your power to choose differently now. It's how you break the cycle of pain, not just for yourself, but for everyone who's connected to you. It's how you become someone who learned, not someone who is forever defined by a single mistake or even a multitude of them.
Speaker 1:So if you're holding on to something you did and if you hate yourself for it, maybe today is the day to stop punishing yourself and start leaning into the process of healing, not because you don't care, but because you finally do, because you deserve love. You deserve happiness, learning from our mistakes. That's why we're here. We're here to grow, to evolve, to become, not to drown in self-hatred and misery. That helps no one, that changes nothing. You want to make amends for your past? Then learn from it, grow from it and understand this you cannot grow if you are still at war with the person you once were. You have to learn how to love that version of you, the one who did the best they could with what they had, the one who was just trying to survive, because knowing you'd make different choices. Now, knowing you have grown, that's the most powerful amends you can make.
Speaker 1:This work is not small, it's layered, it's complex, which is why, once more, with feeling, I say you may want to have someone to help you work through it. We'll talk more about why this is so important, especially when dealing with things like self-hatred tomorrow. But I just want to make it really clear that trying to answer these questions by yourself can sometimes do more harm than good. It can sometimes be not useful to try to figure this stuff out on your own and, because it's so complicated, it's something we'll talk about on this podcast again and again.
Speaker 1:I'm going to link a few related episodes, books and other podcasts, below all focused on forgiveness, acceptance and learning to love yourself, because you deserve that love. You are worthy of that love, and if you're feeling stuck in the loop of self-hatred, chances are shame is at the root, which is exactly what we'll be talking about tomorrow. If you have thoughts or questions or just want to share your story, click the message me button If you're listening on Spotify, or you can always send an email to rootsoftherisegmailcom. And don't forget to follow or subscribe so you won't miss tomorrow's episode. Until next time, know who you are, love who you've been and be willing to do the work to become who you're meant to be.
