Roots of the Rise
Short episodes with grounded wisdom for healing, growth, and reconnecting to your true self.
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 75 - Stop Skipping the Wins: Why Looking Back Can Help You Move Forward
We often become so fixated on perfect end goals that we forget to acknowledge the meaningful progress we've already made in our lives. Taking time to recognize our forward movement, no matter how small, is crucial for maintaining momentum and fostering the self-compassion needed for continued growth.
• Regularly check in with yourself about your progress toward goals to prevent stalling out
• Healing from difficult relationships is like climbing a mountain—it's important to notice the elevation you've already gained
• Celebrating financial wins like paying off debt provides momentum for tackling the next challenge
• Keep visual reminders of what you've already accomplished to help during discouraging times
• Small wins deserve celebration as they build the foundation for bigger achievements
• Self-compassion rather than self-criticism creates sustainable growth
• Journal about your accomplishments to make your progress more tangible
Related Episodes:
Episode 19 - Podcast Recommendation - Self Hatred with Dr. Blaise Aguirre on Armchair Expert
Episode 54 - Why Loving Who You've Been Can Change Everything
Welcome to Roots of the Rise with me, sarah Hogan. On Friday we talked about destination detection, how we sometimes become so fixated on the end goal perfect forgiveness, complete healing, being totally death-free that we forget to acknowledge the real meaningful progress we've already made. Today, I want to talk about why that matters and why it's so important that we start giving ourselves just a little bit more credit. Let's start with this Take a moment and ask yourself is there a goal in my life that I haven't reached yet, one I consistently beat myself up about? Now, hold that example in your mind, acknowledge yes, maybe you're not where you want to be yet but then ask yourself have I made progress, even if it's small, even if it doesn't feel like enough? Have you moved forward in any way? Today, I want to talk about why it's so important to pause and ask that question regularly, especially when we feel overwhelmed, discouraged or like we're stuck in the same place we've always been. Before I get into some examples, I just want to emphasize the regularly part of this. You have to check in with yourself on a regular basis because, yes, sometimes we do get sidetracked, we do get stuck, we lose momentum, often because we get hyper-focused on what we have not done or how much there's still left to do, how far we still have to go. That's why it is so helpful to build a habit of asking you know, where am I at with this goal, this challenge, this area of growth? That kind of reflection can be the thing that keeps you moving forward instead of stalling out. We'll dig more into this next time, but for now, let's move into some real life examples that prompted me to talk about this today.
Speaker 1:One of my clients, who's given me full permission to share this, has been doing some serious inner work for years. She's more grounded, more compassionate, less reactive than she ever thought possible. When I think about the person I met five years ago and the person I know now, they are two very different people. But when Father's Day came around, old grief surfaced for her. Her father is still alive but is pretty absent. He still doesn't call her back, still ignores heartfelt messages, still doesn't visit, and she said to me I can't believe. I still feel this much resentment. Am I only going to be able to forgive him when he dies? So first of all, let's just normalize this feeling, because she is not the only one who struggled with a parent, a sibling or a friend who continues to cause pain, who we think the only resolution to this is going to be this person either passing away or not being in my life. I've been there too, with my mom.
Speaker 1:Even after she passed, I carried grief and anger for years, not just over her death but over everything our relationship never became and, honestly, her passing gave me the space to finally grieve her inability to be the mother I needed. She wasn't around to pick at the wound anymore, which, honestly, was a huge relief. It gave me the freedom to actually move through the stages of grief, not over her loss, but over the loss of the version of her I never got to have. There was denial, you know denial that maybe she wasn't as bad as I made her out to be, denial that maybe she actually was. There was anger, especially at all the bargaining I'd done my whole life just to feel loved. I mean talk about destination addiction I'll be good enough when Then came the depression.
Speaker 1:I mean grief over losing her, grief over losing the chance to ever fix it, grief over all the years I spent heavy hearted and depressed when she was still alive. I mean only after really acknowledging and feeling all of that could I finally begin to reach acceptance. But that happened because she wasn't still here, actively hurting me. I mean, god knows how much longer it would have taken if she had been. I like to think that if she were alive today we might have healed things, that the work I've done would have helped us come to some kind of peace. But I don't know that. And that's exactly where this client of mine is. Her dad is still alive and because she's grown, because her awareness and sensitivity have expanded, it hurts even more to realize that he's probably never going to change. And now she's beating herself up for not being in full acceptance of that yet.
Speaker 1:But what I had to remind her was just how far she's already come. I mean, years ago, when I first met her, Politics would send her into a spiral of rage and fear. Coworkers saying something homophobic or racist would send her totally over the edge. I mean, anger was her constant companion, not saying sometimes it wasn't justified, just saying that it wasn't useful anger. And now she's steady. She still holds strong values. She still advocates for the marginalized, for those who are discriminated against. She still has that wonderful fire. But the wild emotional charge isn't running the show anymore. She feels things deeply, but they don't take her down, and if they do bother her, they don't hold her down for long. She's no longer giving away her light. She's outgrown so much of the unhelpful thinking that used to keep her trapped in anger and fear. So now, now, her dad is her Mount Everest. He's the relationship that's going to help her grow into the next version of herself. And she will get there.
Speaker 1:But sticking with the mountain metaphor. Sometimes you think you've reached the summit and then you round a bend and realize, oh, I still have another mile to go. And when that happens it is so easy to feel discouraged. But we forget to turn around and notice we've already gained 3000 feet of elevation. We've been hiking for hours. We have come so far. Sometimes it's not that we haven't grown, it's that we're still climbing. It's easier to feel compassion once your legs stop burning and you're looking at a gorgeous view, but that doesn't erase how much progress we've made. When we're in the middle of the climb For my client and her dad, she's able to talk about what's bothering her regarding him, without stuffing it down or denying it.
Speaker 1:She's able to make plans to see him in a way that feels supportive, going for a visit but not staying at his house. I mean, that is progress that ability to set boundaries, to know what is actually going to be helpful and healthy and what is going to be really detrimental. So pause now for a second and ask yourself what relationship or situation feels like my Mount Everest and how? Have I already begun the climb? What has already shifted? What's changed?
Speaker 1:Next example I was chatting with one of my girlfriends and she was sharing how overwhelmed she's been trying to balance work and home, her relationship, parenting herself. It's a lot. We all relate to this, because this is just what life is right Trying to find this balance between all these things that we're juggling. It's a lot. So she finally feels like she has a handle on something that was going on with her child's health. So now she's in a space where she feels like she can turn her focus and her attention to her own health and relationships.
Speaker 1:And while she was sharing all of this, she sort of slipped in that she finally paid off all of her rather substantial credit card debt and then she just kind of kept talking about everything else that's going on, that's challenging her. So when she paused I interjected and I said, like can we just go back to you paying off all your debt Like that is huge. How long have you been carrying that Like? That must have been so stressful and what a relief, what a weight to lift. How much better you must feel now that that's done. And it took her a second, you know. She kind of like you know, said yeah, yeah, and kept talking. And then she circled back to it a couple of minutes later and said you know, you're right. Like I didn't even realize how much stress that credit card was putting on me, I made the last payment and just moved on to the next thing, the next challenge.
Speaker 1:And that's another version of destination addiction, when we're so focused on the next goal that we never stop to acknowledge what we've already done, whether it's paying off debt, finishing a home project or working through the endless to be read pile of self-growth books like what I have on my shelf. You know we skip the pause, we skip the celebration, and I'm guilty of it too, right? I mean, I keep a monthly to-do list that I add to so that I don't forget something I'm supposed to do three months from now, like give the dog his next rounds of meds in August, and then I also have like a weekly list that I update throughout the week. I have, like all the you know, various projects that I need to work on, and as I check things off during the week the page gets messy so I rewrite it, but of course in the next you know, in the rewritten copy I only include what's left to do. That list that's partially crossed off. I throw that out and that means that I often forget how much I've actually accomplished in a given week.
Speaker 1:Talking to my friend reminded me of when my husband and I first got together. We had a mountain of debt like three credit cards, two cars, a bunch of student loans and then eventually a wedding to pay off. So we made a list and we put it on the fridge in the order we wanted to pay things off. And here's the key Even after we paid something off, we kept it on the list. We just crossed it off. That way on the days we felt exhausted or discouraged we could look up and see we already paid off those two credit cards. Oh, look at that, we paid those off and we knocked out a student loan. We could actually see our progress and sometimes we need that. We paid those off and we knocked out a student loan. We could actually see our progress, and sometimes we need that. We need something tangible to remind us that we're not just treading water. We are moving forward and we need to make sure we celebrate those wins, no matter how small they might seem when they happen.
Speaker 1:Now, that might consist of an actual celebration, you know, if it's something big like going out to dinner, or maybe it's just having someone you can text to say, hey, I just did this thing. I love when I get those texts from my clients, the ones that are like I just had dinner with my stepmom and do not lose my temper, or I actually got up when my alarm went off this morning, or I meditated two times today. Right, those little wins are what set us up for the big ones, and this applies to everything from money to health to healing. If you're trying to lose weight and you focus only on how much more you have to lose, you miss the win of every inch you've already shed. If you're learning to run and you focus only on how hard that last half mile was, you forget you already ran half a mile more than you did last time. You are progressing. You just have to look back long enough to see it.
Speaker 1:So ask yourself what have I paid off, resolved or released that I haven't taken time to celebrate? Where do I need to pause and acknowledge that I'm already doing better than I was before, and acknowledge that I'm already doing better than I was before? Martin Luther King Jr said darkness cannot drive out darkness. Only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate. Only love can do that. That includes self-hate. When we beat ourselves up for not being perfect, for not having already accomplished the goal, for being behind, taking too long, we dim the light We've worked so hard to kindle. You don't create momentum by focusing on what isn't working. You build it by honoring what is. So take a breath, look back and recognize, acknowledge, celebrate how far you've come.
Speaker 1:If you want to take this one step further, journal about this. Actually, write out a list of all the things that you wanted to accomplish and did, whether it's having a difficult conversation with someone that you kept putting off because you didn't want to have that uncomfortable conversation, or doing something like instituting a self-care practice, whatever that might be drinking water first thing in the morning, meditating once a day, going for a walk after dinner, it doesn't matter whatever it is. Instituting a self-care practice, paying off debt, being better about setting boundaries for yourself, actually cutting out the toxic person that you really needed to let go of in your life. Being more consistent about seeking joy, it doesn't matter what it is. Whatever your challenges have been, whatever your struggles have been, whatever goals you have tried to set for yourself, take a moment to acknowledge the ones that you have met, no matter how quote unquote small they are. And if you try to do that exercise and you get really stuck and really discouraged, please know that you are not alone, that we all go through times that we look back on our life and we think, my goodness, I'm nowhere close to where I thought I was going to be. I haven't done any of the things that I wanted to do. Well, on Wednesday we're going to be talking about failure, what it really is and what it's not.
Speaker 1:I hope today maybe gave you a moment of clarity and a little bit more compassion for yourself and the journey you're on. If you have thoughts on this, I'd love to hear them. You can email me at rootsoftherise at gmailcom. If you found today's episode to be helpful. Please like, share or subscribe. I really appreciate your support. Until next time, remember, know who you are, love who you've been and be willing to do the work to become who you want to be. Just a quick reminder this podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only. I am 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, I hope it inspires you to grow, heal and seek the support you need to thrive.
