Anxiety Isn’t the Enemy — It’s the Portal: A Story of Identity & Power

What if the anxiety you’ve been fighting… is actually the doorway you’ve been avoiding?

In this powerful conversation, Rachel Fitzpatrick sits down with Sari Cowsert for a raw and revealing journey through chronic anxiety, panic attacks, identity shifts, and the uncomfortable truth of what happens when your entire sense of self begins to unravel.

Sari shares the reality of living in a constant survival state—waiting for the next panic wave, searching for validation, and trying to build an identity around other people’s perceptions. What unfolds is a story of vulnerability, self-love, and remembering who you were before fear took over.

Together, Rachel and Sari explore:

• How anxiety shapes your identity (and how to take it back)
• The power of vulnerability as a healing tool
• What really happens when your nervous system has been in survival mode for years
• Why validation becomes addictive—and how to break the cycle
• Meditation and the spiritual practices that helped quiet the internal chaos
• Rebuilding trust in humanity when life has shaken your faith
• The beauty of tearing down the old self to meet the real you

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Chapters

• 8:37 The Role of Validation and Identity
• 12:39 Facing Rejection and Building Resilience
• 16:34 Understanding Anxiety and Its Triggers
• 20:33 The Path to Self-Love and Acceptance
• 32:22 Rediscovering Humanity and Kindness
• 38:14 The Power of Vulnerability and Trust
• 42:29 Meditation: A Path to Inner Peace
• 47:03 Embracing Change and Possibility
• 54:31 The Journey of Self-Discovery and Transformation

Transcript

SPEAKER_02: 0:00

Hi, beautiful Fits in family. Welcome. Welcome into the FITSIN project. And today's episode, I'm Rachel Fitzpatrick, and I'm so happy and honored that you are sharing your time. I know it's the most valuable currency we all have. So trust me when I say thank you. Thank you for showing up. Thank you for pressing play. This conversation today is, oh man. Let me just say, when I had this conversation, it was like synchronicity after synchronicity after synchronicity. I was so happy and just so in love with hearing Sari Kausart and her express her full-on her life and her story with us. It's such a beautiful way of expression and such a beautiful way of being there for the collective. Like anyone who is listening to this podcast is part of the collective that needs to hear exactly what is being shared today. So I'm just seriously just so grateful that you wanted to show up today. Something called you in. And it's so needed because this one, it really touches my heart. It brings so much value to life. And I hope that you take the same takeaways as I did once um I got into the conversation and started really listening. And it was kind of like eating my favorite sherbet or my favorite candy or having my favorite cup of coffee. It was just that beautiful. So before we get into it, before you meet Sari, I would love to share with you what I've got going on. This week we know as Thanksgiving. And I'm so this might be one of the very first Thanksgivings where, for one, it's the first Thanksgiving without all of my grandparents. But also for another, it's the first Thanksgiving that I'm hosting um extended family. So as you know, um engaged and me and Josh, and we're having our life together, and it's just starting out, and his sister is coming in and her family, and it's like having in-laws, because like they are gonna be my in-laws, but it's like having in-laws now at the table in in Kentucky, and it's like hosting and everything that I dreamed about is here, and it's such a special time of my life. So I am so happy to get to share that with you, and I hope that your Thanksgiving is special too. There's been a whole lot of changes that's gone on in the past year. There's been a whole lot of changes with life, a lot of loss, and um there's a lot of grief that goes with that. So with that, in the same breath, there's a whole lot of gratitude and a whole lot of thankfulness that I have to get to be here and share these new precious memories and these new precious moments with what I do have. So keeping my eye on the abundance and in in in the in the zone, in the presence, which brings me to what I've got special offer. Our presence over presence went over so well in November. It was such an amazing uh workshop that Gwen, Celissa, and I had. We're bringing a part two series for December 13th. Presence over presence part two. And this one is specifically geared toward your empath side, your energy side, the one that picks up everybody else's energies. And by the end of it, you don't even know who you are anymore because you're that overwhelmed. This can be you in a leadership role. This could be you in your home. This could be you in your friend space and taking on and being the yes man, yes woman, all the things. Come to this workshop. This is you. I'm talking to you. Come to this workshop and enjoy what we've got going on because we're gonna give you the tools to get through the holidays, not just to get through, but to be present. And actually, you're gonna walk away from the holidays and you're not gonna be drained. You're not gonna be any of those things where you're like, who am I? What am I even doing with my life? You're gonna be totally untethered, unbothered, undrained. You're gonna be the person you are right now, signing up when you go out of the holidays come January 2nd. You're gonna be the same person. As far as your energy, you're not gonna take on other people's energies because you're gonna learn how to get out of that people-pleasing, that empath, protection, protection when you walk into these spaces. So, anyway, it's what I got going on. But aside from that, I hope you have the most lovely Thanksgiving. And I'm so happy to share this week with you and back to our special guest, Sari.

SPEAKER_00: 5:46

How the heck have you been? I've, you know, been great, you know, with any anything. We have our ups and downs, and um, I think the downs are, you know, just a reminder to get back to what feels an alignment or um where we straight away. So yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 6:07

So uh first off, thank you for being vulnerable and trusting the space and sharing your story. Uh I could feel the intensity of it and how this is gonna root some people to rise. So I appreciate that a lot. And um I do have my little sphere name. I'm petting hand, so it's Alfie. If you hear little pitter patters, he's it's I love that. All right. Thank you, Sari, so much. I love your name, by the way. Can you tell us where this came from?

SPEAKER_00: 6:44

Um, I don't have an awesome story for that, other than the fact that um I always say um my parents were kind of hippies and um they couldn't agree on a name. My mom had done a lot of international travels and things of that sort. She loved India. Um, and she wanted to actually name me Suri, like with a U. And my dad at the time was like, Yeah, I can't really get on board with that. But my dad's name was Larry. And he's like, What if it was Sari, like Larry? And I guess they ended up agreeing on that. Um, and so that's where it came from. And it's it's funny because I I recently had a conversation with someone a few months ago that was like, wow, your name itself is such an initiation to use your voice. Because so much of my childhood was people butchering my name and really unable to pronounce it correctly. And for so long, not being able to correct people because I felt like it was, I don't know, shameful to open my mouth and to correct people. Um and so that is definitely an initiation that I've had to step in over the years, and that there's a certain ownership of taking that on and really loving that there's such a uniqueness to me. And it started just with the naming of who I was.

SPEAKER_02: 8:23

Yeah. I can feel that, like every bit of that. That is such a I mean, I think that's a cool story. India. So I thought it when I first saw your name, I was like, is it sorry? But not like S-O-R-R-Y, but like as it looks, you know? Like an Indian sorry, yeah. Yeah. But I'm super even more inspired by the you said she's she was gonna call you what now? I don't want to mess around. Sorry. Yeah. I went to California last week, and one of the things we were just I was just with my mom, and we were like, what are we gonna do? What are we gonna do? So she started Googling some places around. Here's this museum or that museum, but the one that stuck to me was the Bhagavad Gita museum, and it was free, you could go to. I'm like, I have to go there because we had to read the book. We don't know what was kneeled the teacher trading and whatever. So, long story short, we go there, it's closed. We're at the gift shop, and the lady that was just she gave us food that was blessed from the altar in their community, and it was a Krishna community, Indian Drive, and her name ended with how you how your mom wanted to pronounce your name. Okay. So I was like, interesting, and then you just said that, and I was like, Wow, that is a magic name.

SPEAKER_01: 9:59

So that's that's got a really good name. That's awesome. So that allowed you to use your voice, and you are here today. So tell us a little more about you and what got you.

SPEAKER_00: 10:12

Yeah, and it's such a little synchronistic gem. That's that's how we're starting with things. Um, because I think so much of my journey was this level of being able to speak up for myself and to share what I was experiencing. Um, from early on, um my we had we had a little bit of a chaotic household. Um I would say both of my parents, like so many people nowadays, didn't know how to really express their emotions. My mom, we just didn't really talk about emotions a whole lot. And then my dad used alcohol and pills and other things of that nature to deal with what he was experiencing. So there was definitely no modeling of how to share. And I have an older sister, and I would say she had a bigger part in my upbringing than my parents really did, just because she was that safe place for me to be able to. Um, I don't even know if we even her and I shared what we were experiencing, but we were sharing the lived experience of the chaos in the house. Um, and so yeah, I think that really built this model of act like shit's okay. And I think that a lot of us are given that model growing up of, you know, have the American dream, have, you know, go to school, get married, meet your person, have children, have the house and the white picket fence, and never share that anything is a struggle. And that was so much of the model that I was experiencing. Luckily, I grew up as a dancer. And I think the amount of time that I spent in the dance studio was actually very much a somatic release for myself, letting all of my emotions come out through my body and being able to dance them and express myself in that way. While definitely I had, I was also Jewish growing up in a small town in Texas where everybody was primarily Christian or Catholic or Presbyterian or of some nature. And so I was also the little outsider of who I didn't, I didn't know where I belonged. And so the dance studio was really the only place that I felt like I truly belonged. And I don't think that I was knew that I was using it in that sort of therapeutic way. And I would say things probably didn't start really hitting the fan until I actually stopped dancing at about 19, 20 years old. So now I have all of this emotion that I'm experiencing. And instead of having a place to allow this energy to move outside of my body, I was now shoving it down. And this is when the anxiety really, really started to start building. I think that, and also in growing up as a dancer, it was a it was a world of validation of am I improving? Am I doing the best? Am I being the best that I can? And you don't really know that until your teacher or your mentor says, Hey, you're doing really good or you look really great. Or I would be in competition or audition situations to where you had to be the best. And if you weren't the best, who were you? And so a lot of my identity stemmed from this identity of being this really amazing dancer. And then I had auditioned for a high school performing arts center that was, I would solely focus on dance. And after I graduated, I decided I would move to LA and become, I wanted to be like basically the next Britney Spears backup dancer. But I had danced all my life. I was professional. I wanted to be able to keep dancing. And you go from being in a, I would say, I mean, I grew up outside of Dallas, going from being one of the elite dancers in Dallas to moving to LA, where everybody is pilgrimaging to LA to find themselves to be the next star to do all of these things. And you find out that you're just a little fish in a really big pond. And I didn't have anyone in my life at that time to help me through these identities that I started working through of like, who am I if I'm not this amazing dancer? And who am I if I'm not getting these validation from my teachers and from these auditions saying you're the best?

SPEAKER_02: 15:33

This is like team, right?

SPEAKER_00: 15:36

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 15:37

Yeah. What a vulnerable age to first of all, you're moving far away from everything you know. And then second of all, you have a lot of built-up confidence, so to speak, but yet everything is only as much as you outsource is what I'm in hearing about it, which like what a perfect 19-year-old story, you know. Like, I've outsourced my entire life up until about 35. So I can only imagine how being 19, how easy that is. And like having that, you need that validation. You need it, it's almost like a love, right? And I don't want to put words in your mouth, but what is that coming into you? How is that hit?

SPEAKER_00: 16:32

Yeah. Um, I mean, I definitely don't think I knew how to love myself at that point in time. Um, and again, obviously my parents didn't model self-love. They still don't. And I I love them for the journey that they're on, but that's just not what I was given. And so, and I and I think too, there was um, there was a pivotal moment when I was in LA. I was auditioning for this scholarship program, and it was a year-long scholarship where you got to work with some of the best choreographers and teachers in the business. And I think there were over 200 people that auditioned for this and they were taking 50. And I ended up being 51. And they were going to use me as an alternate if someone couldn't move forward. To to literally be on the cusp of literally your life changing from one position that you didn't get. And and that really also, you know, I thought this was this was the life I was supposed to lead, right? And this is also where I think there is divine divine intervention of my life could look so differently if that was how life decided to go for me.

SPEAKER_02: 17:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 17:59

And and it didn't. And and again, just going back to how also crumbling this was. Like I didn't really know how to deal with this. And I didn't have the support to help me reinstill that belief in myself, that confidence in myself. And so it just started dwindling. And then that's when I really, instead of going within and building up who that version of me is, it's almost like I was completely torn down. We had to completely tear down the identity of Sari and who she was up until this point. And who am I going to be now? I mean, I look at kids, my kids are nine and 13, and all of their friends are in club sports and things like this. And if if they don't get a scholarship, you know, to some college or something like this after high school, then what? Right? We we build these kids up to be so devoted into these athletics or sports or whatever it is, up until high school or up until college. And then who are they? Wow.

SPEAKER_02: 19:12

The perfect time for this conversation. You said synchronicities a minute ago. And I can't even like it is just like right here for me and what is happening in my life and where I'm heading in my own life for this conversation to be happening right now. And I'm just kind of like, oh, I need everybody to hear this. Because this is bigger than just like you being 19 and doing this is kids all around. And like you said, your kids, the ones like in real life, like right now, are living this exact, you're told you're really good at something, you need to go do it, you need to go pursue this thing that you're told you're really good, or you even believed in. So, like for me, for example, I was told I was really good at being academics and being academics in academics. And I was. I had a 4.2 GPA when I graduated high school. Like, I could I was physically fit if I needed to try or whatever, but I went uh my my thing was I was gonna go to the Coast Guard Academy. You have to be elite in not just physical performance, but also in academics. Well, had that. But there was one thing holding me back, which was the SAT. And that was something like I just don't do that great standardized test. But when I applied anyway, I had everything we needed and on the wait list, first on the wait list for the state of Kentucky to come to the South Spart Academy, talk about yeah, divine intervention, what my life would even be like, you know, but shattering all the same and going into your next phase of life, starting out shattered from what you knew to be your dream, it it crushes you, and you and I had good parents, I had like you know, it's a charmed life and the support, but in on this side of the fence, I felt nothing. I was worth nothing because they like I couldn't even get into the Coast Guard Academy, you know, like it was a thing for me. So it's like then what? What do you do? I feel like I know what you did, I know what I did, and it it took me 20 years to come back to myself, to me.

SPEAKER_00: 22:01

What was your life like? Yeah, absolutely. Um, I definitely think it took some time for sure. And you know, and I think now having a teenager and and seeing even teens who are 18, 19, and there is some level of aloofness that we we think we know everything at that time in our life, and yet we know nothing. And there is there's a version of myself that I go back to sometimes that I think about how confident she was. And I want to like borrow some of her confidence because of how strong she believed in herself. But it was so strong based off of other people's ideas, not based off of her own. And so that's why things I think started tearing down. And they started tearing down through anxiety. And I am, I've always been a very physical person. I'm very connected to my body. I, the signals are very loud, I'm very clairsentient, meaning my body like feels other people's energies, other people's emotions. And that's that was also, I think, a heavy thing that I carried around a lot, that I didn't have anyone in my life to kind of help me understand what it was like to carry other people's emotions, that maybe they the things that I was feeling and experiencing weren't actually mine. They were someone else's. Um, and that's a conversation I have a lot with my two daughters now to help them begin to identify and discern what is theirs and what's someone else's and to know when to just let it go. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 23:53

Discment is key. I wish I had that. I wish I had that. But you know, like my parents didn't know what they didn't know, and they didn't even know that they should have been discerning. I mean, when you're being raised and as a teenager in the late 90s, early 2000s, like that wasn't a talked-about thing. You didn't have an Instagram reel telling you about it. Like it wasn't a thing until like now. And I'm so proud of you, literally being able to have two teenage daughters and tell them about that. I mean, yeah, your lived experience.

SPEAKER_00: 24:30

Yeah. So, so basically, my by not having this outlet of something to express the energy that I was either experiencing, feeling, um, holding, it just started piling up in my body. And it started piling up even more and more as anxiety. And that anxiety looked like panic attacks. It looked like um insomnia, it looked like stress, it looked like constant ruminating thoughts of whether I'm enough, right? Like, who am I if I'm not this version of myself? And I was constantly looking for validation in others. And because of the stage of life being in that kind of early 20s, we're we're all still figuring it out at that point. And no one is really in a state to give me any validation. So I just kept looking for it and looking for it outside of myself and never got it. And so the anxiety just kept building and building and building. And then you add in, you know, drinking alcohol at that stage of life of just partying, and that's what you do, and being hungover in the hungover state just made me feel like crap. Eating horrible things late at night because that's what you do made me feel like crap. And I was constantly looking for answers as to why I wasn't feeling great. And one of the reasons why I wasn't feeling great is growing up being a dancer, body image was very important. And I was never the like prima ballerina body type. I always had a thicker, more muscular body type, which I look back at pictures now and you're like, what the fuck was wrong with me? How could I have ever thought that I had issues? Um, but that again was just these were limitations that were other people's ideas that I took on as my own. That Susie over here said, you don't have the body type to ever be in a modern company. And so then I believed that, right? That was literally when we're kids, we're sponges and we're taking in so much and being a hypnotherapist now and working with the subconscious mind and going into people's old programs and stories and seeing what they have picked up that is no longer theirs, but they're still holding on to it. Like this is this was the identity that was not mine, it was someone else's, it was a teacher's, it was somebody that said, Oh, this is what dancers are supposed to look like, but whose opinion is that?

SPEAKER_02: 27:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 27:17

And I decided it was mine.

SPEAKER_02: 27:19

That's powerful. That is super powerful, not only for an awakening moment for you, but also like that is real life moments that still goes on today. And it is bizarre to me how we get caught up so easily, so subtly in taking ownership of someone else's ideology of ourselves, of who we are, of and of their identity that they named us. You know, uh you can't read the ingredients label from inside the jar and you let everyone else read it for you, but you're the only one that really knows what you're made of. Yeah, I love that. I love that. That's beautiful. But that's what we all are. That's our human experience. Right. Right. So how did you get like what experiences brought you to your awakening for understanding that's wearing the path team along?

SPEAKER_00: 28:33

Yeah. I I mean, I think it it's it just kept building over the years, right? It kind of, okay, I'm no longer a dancer. I'm no longer being validated. I don't feel good in my body because I've decided that my body isn't good enough. Um, I have an amazing partner that I actually met, um, my husband, when I was 20 years old, and he is stuck by my side the entire time. God love him. And he always loved me and saw me unconditionally, but I couldn't see myself. And I think it was also divine intervention that he came into my life so that someone could love me in the way that I needed to love myself. And I don't think I realized that for probably 15 years, but um I'm grateful he showed up. But ideally, um, in this sort of body image, I always go back to how anxiety for me and a lot of people out there, when it's physical symptoms, right? We feel our heart begin to race. Um, maybe we feel chest pain, we feel our breath begin to quicken, we feel dizzy, maybe we feel lightheaded, perhaps our hands are sweaty, maybe our bowels are moving and we have to run to the bathroom. There's so many symptoms. Of anxiety that show up. And as this started to build and build and build, I started to begin to adopt ideas that something was wrong with me. Whether it was I had a heart condition or maybe I was going to have a stroke, all of these different ideas kept coming in, you know, because I was now living in this survival state where I am constantly looking for the threat. And when you're in that survival state, you're extremely suggestible. I was extremely suggestible. So anytime, whether it's you hear the pharmaceutical commercial on the TV and it tells you, don't take this medication. You could have blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Right. And it tells you every possible shitty condition you could have by taking this medicine. And at some point I was on SSRIs and all these other things. And I'm like, wait, you're telling me that all of this could happen to me, or God forbid you're taking birth control and you could get breast cancer or all of these things. I now believed that my world was not safe because I was seeing all of these ways in which the world could harm me. And I think this actually came from a deeper seated experience of sexual trauma when I was a child. But it was just now these walls were up even more of how can we protect ourselves? And so it was funny. I was listening to a wealth building class the other day, and they used this analogy that was for wealth building. But when I heard it, I believed it to be such a great analogy for my own anxiety. So it was if you were given a car and there's no dashboard and you don't have an exact destination. So you don't know how much gas is in the car. You don't know if it's running hot or cold. You don't know if the pressure is right. And you're just hoping that you get to wherever you're supposed to go with enough gas. Like, how would that feel in your body if you were truly in that situation? It would feel stressful, right? Like there's a contraction that begins to happen within my own body when I think about that. And that's how I live so much of my life was just this I know I'm supposed to get to somewhere, but I don't know how I'm gonna get there. I don't know what's happening in my own system, but yet I keep doing this over and over and over. And then you get a car where you get a dashboard. You get to know how much gas is in the tank, but you don't have a destination. And so you're still just driving and you know that you're gonna run out of gas at some point, but you still don't know where you're going. And then you get another car and it has the dashboard and it has a GPS system with a specific destination. And you know how much gas it's gonna take, you know where that destination is, and you trust that you're gonna get there just as you're supposed to. And this was sort of like the theme of my journey. And in reality, the anxiety was so bad. I was so debilitated from this to the point to where when my girls were younger, I had had a really horrible panic attack. We had a, we lived in this town where there was a big lake separating you from Dallas, the major city. And the bridge itself, I think, was like six miles. And there was one day that I had my worst panic attack I've ever had on the middle of that bridge. And I had to pull over and wave someone down. And I was so scared that no one would stop for me. That here I was suffering, unable to, I didn't have my phone at the time. I couldn't call anyone. And I was so scared. And luckily, this one family ended up stopping and was like, Can we help you get to the gas station? Can we call your husband? Can we call someone for you? And I think that, like, at some point, through all of this control, through all of this anxiousness and fear of what the world I was experiencing was the feedback that it was giving me, that that humanity in itself wasn't good. I believed that people wouldn't stop for you. They wouldn't care about you. And that's a really sad place to live in. Yeah. And these, the, these one, this one family ended up stopping and helping me. And my worst panic attacks were always in the car. It was always this fear, especially once I had children, of what if something happens to me and they're going to be left? And these innocent little humans aren't gonna know what to do. No one's gonna stop to help them. And that was my biggest fear. And it wasn't until later after I really started healing, I went to this, my first retreat ever. And I had this big energetic kundalini awakening at a Joe Dispenza retreat.

SPEAKER_02: 35:41

Oh my gosh, I'm so jealous now.

SPEAKER_00: 35:45

And there was all this energy moving through my body, and it was similar to like what a panic attack might feel like. And so I was kind of, you know, on the double-edged sword of on one side, I could really freak the fuck out because this is an unknown. And this feels like this also feels like a panic attack. Like, is something really going wrong in my body? And at the other end, like, this is an unknown. This isn't quite like my panic attacks used to be. And I had met some people at this retreat and I ended up calling them and saying, like, hey, would you guys just mind sitting with me until like my body starts to calm down? And seven people came to sit with me, strangers I had met that week that were just so loving and so willing to show kindness, to show compassion, to show what humanity really is. And God, I wish the old version of myself could have believed in that. And granted, I needed to experience what I needed to, and I'm grateful that I did because it's gotten to me where I am now. But so much of it, like I said, this control. And I think that what a lot of our country, a lot of our world is living so much in that energy of we are not trusting that our neighbor is a good human, right? Just because we all have different views or perceive the world differently. Yeah. But that we are all innately kind, we are all innately loving, but it's the walls that we've built up that haven't allowed us to fully access that love.

SPEAKER_02: 37:28

There you're so right on right on the money. What is the truest form of all of that is you're still in a you're in a safe place. Like you're at the Joe Dispensable retreat, you're experiencing this Fundabay Night Awakening, but in a controlled container in a safe spot, in a safe space where you do have your seven people, thank goodness that you made that contact and you're like, yeah, I trust you to come back and sit with me. I trust you to help me through this energy. That's a big step. That's a big vulnerability. And most people who get the call, that's what they see when they receive the call. Of course I'm gonna come sit with me. But as this passes, as this is gonna go through the body, uh I wouldn't I would never turn down that call from someone, you know? And and creating an environment and a space in this container that's safe for you to experience what it feels like to have uh a panic attack safely. You're not where you know you're not gonna die. And I think that's the whole panic part, right? Like the death. But that's the also the fun funniest thing is that's the one guarantee when none of us are making out of a lot out of here alive. But it's like I'm not ready.

SPEAKER_01: 39:05

There's things.

SPEAKER_02: 39:07

And you got to coming back to you, you got to use your voice and ask for that help in a trusting way to these new strangers who are now like your friends, probably.

SPEAKER_01: 39:22

But it's like your older version that is a stranger to who you were. Y'all were strangers to each other, but I feel like the if I do and that collapse time, does that make sense? Like your mom might have perfect sense. And I'm like, this is awesome.

SPEAKER_00: 39:38

But yeah, I think 100%. And even, you know, that version of me that allowed these people in to come and support me. Because also, like at a Joe Dispenza event, like he's teaching you how to tune into your heart, right? How to open your heart. And so, you know, 2,000 people are are tuning into this energy. And so I trusted that, hey, if I let this person know that this is what I'm going through, I know that they're going to see me with compassion, with love. And the the old version of me, like, for example, I was a hairstylist for 17 years. And I would have to come into the salon and like, again, like kind of have that mask on, like have everything put together and have and pretend like I got I got it all, I'm good, like everything's great. You don't need to know that I'm actually floundering internally right now. You learn that at a very young age. Right. But I think that within that, like living in this environment of acting like we're supposed to have it together. There's some sort of guilt or shame around sharing that actually I don't have my shit together right now. To me, vulnerability at this point is my superpower. I love sharing what I'm going through. But that that version of me before, that was my kryptonite. I couldn't share that this is what I was experiencing. And that's why I say, like, you know, it's it's no stranger to me that my body ended up manifesting so much of my energy into hypothyroidism, which is in the throat, right? This is a body syndrome of stored energy because I wasn't willing to share to my external world that I was struggling. And again, I think that came from, you know, my parents' modeling of we don't really talk about emotions a whole lot. And I didn't get to talk with my mom about how much my my father being an alcoholic really bothered me. I didn't feel like I had a safe space. So I believed that the world wasn't safe to share these things. And and speaking of death, right? This that was one of my biggest fears was this fear that, like, I'm gonna die. And that's it. Like, there is nothing else. You know, my religion didn't give me any faith in what comes after death. You know, so much of that is still in this unknown. But the version of me now does believe that there's something better. And that's when I when I started meditating into being able to quiet the noise a little bit. Guided meditation helped me so much because it wasn't like I had to be this like Buddhist monk who was just like clear thoughts, clear mind. It was a guidance that allowed me to follow along, to listen, to think, and to visualize in a different way than my brain, I'd programmed my brain to be. And this is why I became a hypnotherapist, because these are the experiences I get to customize and curate for my clients now, where I get to guide them. I don't want you to worry about clearing your mind. And if thoughts come in, it's okay. Just come back to the sound of my voice. And so that's what I got to experience in these guided meditations. And these, this was the first time that I was ever able to turn the noise down, turn the dial down on that anxiety, on those what-ifs, on that panic, on those, the world is not safe. And I started having these really blissful moments and meditation where I was outside of my body. And it felt like just this harmonious, floating on a cloud sort of experience. And I finally came to terms with if this is how I feel or what happens when I die, just this feeling right here alone, I'm okay with it. And that is what started just disintegrating the panic, the worry, the anxiety, because I was allowing myself to be in a new unknown that I had never allowed myself to be in. And that's when change happens. Yeah. Trusting with full certainty you're okay.

SPEAKER_02: 44:32

Because, like you said, if this is what it's gonna feel like when I'm gone, I'm okay with it. Like you trust with full certainty that it is okay and it will work out for you. And I think that in and of itself is its own religion. And I say that with full confidence because it it is a trust law, right? But it's not a religion that's telling you what you are or what you're gonna do or what your next steps are. It's a religion that says, I got you. It carries you and it holds you in this safety net that exactly who you know you are to be.

SPEAKER_00: 45:23

Right. Yeah, and I think that even with that, like what you're saying, is absolutely, I started, I started believing in something bigger than myself. I didn't know what that was. I wasn't even in a place to be able to call it God or anything, but it in the same sense of as you and I are speaking on this call, right? We're tethered in Wi-Fi or something somehow to where you're able to pop up into my screen. I can hear your voice, I get to experience you. I there's some sort of energetic thing that's interchanging here that's allowing us to do that. I can't see it, I can't feel it, but like energetically, I can feel you right now, Rachel. I can feel your heart, I can feel your energy. And it was that belief system that was like, okay, just as we microwave our food in the microwave, we can't see the microwaves as it cooks it, but it does cook it. It's like this magical thing that happens. There has to be some magical thing that's happening that's making my blood run from my heart to every cell, to every organ. There's something making me inhale oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide. There's something. What is that something? And I had to just be able to, in these blissful states, like it was such a miracle, such a miracle that I could go two hours without having a panic attack. Like that was a miracle. And when we start to allow ourselves to change from fear to trust and love and joy and compassion, that is the miracle. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 47:19

Your own radio station just changed.

SPEAKER_00: 47:22

Right.

SPEAKER_02: 47:22

Your Wi-Fi changed.

SPEAKER_00: 47:24

The world that I was experiencing now through, you know, and it and I I wouldn't even say that it was like this massive jump, but just this willingness to be here. Here is where fear lives, here is where my anxiety lives, here is where my life will not change. And and that was the the biggest question. And I always say this is the people I love to work with most because they're willing to do anything. But I was in this place of this can't be my life. I can't continue at this rate. Like, this can't be what life is. Something has to change. And it was, it was that question of I'm willing to do anything. And I always say that the person or version, let me take that back. The person that's coming to save us is the version of ourselves that's fucking sick of the situation we're in. Because she is so over it and livid and is not willing to settle for the life that she's created, that she's willing to do something different, even if it's just one micro step. And that just puts you on this another level, even if it's just like a half step higher than the one that you were living at. It starts opening the door to possibility. And it's following those little micro step after micro step of opening that door to trust, opening the door to that you're in co-creation with something.

SPEAKER_02: 49:02

Oh, you're speaking my love language right now. This is such a thrill for me. Where we started this conversation, so you've heard of the frequency chart, I'm sure. Maybe not, I don't know, but it kind of looks like this, and it's you know, like a pyramid, but upside down. But at the bottom is full shame, and you started with that shame of not being able to correct people of your name. And now you are Sari in full possibility, and that is like your highest frequency that you can be in. Shame is the lowest frequency, and possibility is your absolute highest in co-creation of this quantum world that you can't see. Your Wi-Fi, that is your Wi-Fi, is possibility. That is your thing that cooks in your microwave. That's the possibility, you know. It's not just plugging it in. There's some science behind that. There's science behind exactly what I'm saying. Don't take me Google it, you know, like it's all out there. But it's like that is also the turnkey into your highest self, who is the one that, like you said, verbatim. She's coming to save you because she's done with your bullshit. She's done with you living in this world of fear. She's done with you living in this bottom belly frequency, not even belly, because we're not attaching that to the body, but this bottom of the barrel, right? She's like, come on out here. Yep. Above, like the groundhog. Do you see the sun?

SPEAKER_00: 50:55

You know? And in, and you know, and this is this is uh this version that you you keep talking about. Like she continues to keep showing up. Not only is she that possibility version, she also keeps upgrading, right? And even yesterday, um, I was in a meditation and and I primarily work from home. I see clients through Zoom. And um, I have my own podcast as well. So I, you know, do a lot of things at home. And there are some days that I truly do not get out of my PJs. And there's a another version of myself that I'm leveling up to, doing more public speaking, doing more things that are helping impact the world of some nature. And I had this realization in my meditation yesterday, where that future version of myself was witnessing me and was like, if I am speaking on stages all across the world, am I staying in my PJs for two days, not showering, not putting on makeup, not really having a whole lot of excitement to do things in the world? Is that version, am I gonna ever get there at this level? And now, granted, that doesn't happen every single day, but I was having my moment and I was kind of in my sulky kind of phase, whatever that was. Um, and here comes this version of me that's like just pulling me out by my hair, saying, No. And so I decided yesterday just to even like, okay, I'm gonna put on some makeup, I'm gonna get dressed, I'm gonna do my hair, I'm gonna feel really good about myself. And then I'm they opened this beautiful new botanical cafe that's down the street from my house. And I went and worked there. And the energy there was so much better. And there were fountains and plants everywhere, and just being like, okay, this is my new workplace. Like, we're not gonna just sit at home all the time. So easy to just roll out of bed and open your computer and your PJs, and like that's how you do life.

SPEAKER_02: 53:13

Uh so, and like you did this on a a new moon night. Um, you just set your energy for the next 30 days. Like, this is how I'm showing up now. So you just opened your own next level portal. That is awesome. Oh, then you're you're her. You're you're the one who is looking down and saying, or not down, but no one's really looking down at us. But it's like you're the one that has the bird's eye view and also the full feeling from within, all the way from the core of the earth, all the way up through. And you are the one who gets to make your next best decision for you. This is something I've learned recently, and I really love, and I'm I'm wanting to bring it in here for some unknown reason, probably because I heard is saying now's the time. But I learned about what I I learned about the cross. Okay, and its significance to uh Jesus. And I learned that we are in this godly plane, this up and down from the core of the earth, like I just mentioned, all the way up through the sky to the cosmos. And that's how I'm viewing this, and this is what I'm this is my total point of view. I'm taking it, and this is what I'm going with, because it means something to me. So if I'm down in the core of the earth, I'm all the way up through the cosmos, I'm standing straight up. And that's the first part of the cross. But here is this plane, and that's where we see, and and that's what we see only at a our eye level is just at this plane, right? But this plane here is down the crossroads from your highest best all the way down to the core, your highest self right here in this plane. And this is what I feel like the level is when you're coming up, and that uh plane just moves from up, down, up, down, and it's called this unconditional love. And that's what it moves, and that's what guides you is this unconditional love. And I feel like it goes all the way, and it can go as high as you want to see and as high as you want to imagine, but it's always gonna be this cross and cross foreign. But this is our human reality. Like, in my opinion, this is our human reality. So we can look at our life like and I'll say we used to, you and me, because I was in the same boat with you in another parallel universe in my own time frame of how nothing is working out for me and outsourcing my identity. Or we can look at it like we are now, where we've leveled up, where we can say, No, I know who I am, and I will pull myself with by my hair and pull me up and out, because the one that I want to be, where I want to be, isn't here. I'm here. So we be the person we are. Yeah. And that just hit me the other day. I'm reading um the book called Universal Christ. And went out there, read his version and the breakdown of um Jesus' crucifixion on the cross.

SPEAKER_01: 56:59

I was like, this hits this hits hard. This just happened to me on Sunday. So I'm like, you're the first person I need to talk to about.

SPEAKER_00: 57:08

Right. Yeah. And you know, it's it's so wild too, because you know, the I don't know if you're familiar with uh the Magdalene manuscripts. This conversation couldn't get any bet like any better. Yeah. Yeah. Right. But his, you know, his um the the resurrection and what they talk about is is not so much of the physical man, but the energetic man. Yes. Right. The the the qi that is um opened up and transformed, right? It's so so much that it looks like he is physically present, right? Yes. And to me, this is a a metaphor for not that when we die, this is what happens, but this is actually what we get to open up within ourselves right here and right now. And that to me, that kundalini awakening was me unlocking that energetic chi of that energy body within myself that had been dormant for so long. And that was the death that was happening and the resurrection of myself.

SPEAKER_02: 58:21

Yeah. Oh man. I feel that like all over. Like that is just in all full body yes. Yes. And I'll I'll take that. That's my knowing. I it's my yeah. So thank you for sharing all of this in this path. I truly feel like everybody needs to hear it. If I have any podcasts that I'm gonna now say, like, this is the one, this is the one. Because it's like you've got to hear how as children or as teenagers, and then coming into yourself, it's not even that everybody needs to go through this um mass self-abandonment episode to get to this transformation, this new awakening, this resurrection of yourself. It's not that. It's just that you you don't need something super powerful to punch you in the mouth. You just need a tiny shift of perspective to here's an idea, check in with yourself. Yes. Look in at your surroundings.

SPEAKER_00: 59:39

And you know, it's so funny because being a mom and having a teenager is you you only hope that the things that you're saying are sinking in. And there's also like a level of like control I've had to learn of like you can't keep controlling their experience. Like they have to experience it for. themselves. Like she has they have to fall flat on their face and and remember maybe the wisdom that mom told them at one point to bring them back. My daughter recently had to do a memoir, and it was based on a conversation that we had that she says allowed her to reclaim her power. And it just was like, I was just bawling in tears by the fact that she was telling me that this conversation meant so much to her. You know, I just think it's that willingness, like if we can just open the door, allow them to open the door, to let that higher power, that higher frequency in and let that be their subconscious programs. Like we're setting them up for success. Whether they model it today or they model it five years from now, they're getting it. And they just have to be open to that frequency. And I think that coming from a upbringing of chaos to now, I get to deliver this home of love and compassion and sharing feelings and all the things. And they might not love everything that I'm spitting out or sharing with them, but I know that it's coming from a frequency of love and it's transmitting whether they believe it or not.

SPEAKER_02: 1:01:29

You're right. And it's just like osmosis or our WAFA signal. It's coming in. Yes. Yes. It's coming in. Now the willingness to receive, like you said, you can't control their own experience. But I have a feeling you're doing a really awesome job at sharing your experience in your highest good. I mean, that's it. That's all we can do, I feel like, and as humans anyway, even without being parents, that's all we can do.

SPEAKER_00: 1:02:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 1:02:10

Thank you. I'll receive that. So, what is your podcast? How can my listeners get a hold of you? What does this look like for you? I would love for them to be like, I'm working with an hypnotherapist now. I found it on the Fitz and Project, and this is how it's no doubt.

SPEAKER_00: 1:02:27

But how can they get a hold of you? Yeah. Um, well, definitely come listen to my podcast. It's called the Uncharted Way Podcast. And there's really amazing stories of guests on there that are just if you need inspiration, listen to one of these stories because they will inspire you to make some little nugget of change in your life. And then I also have solo episodes that are um really a dear diary to that version of myself that was, I would say, chronically ill in fear, and she needed resources and she needed tools. And so that's what my solo episodes are. If you um need any sort of tool or resource, um, it's free and come find it. And um there's so much goodness in there. You can also um head over to my website at www.tegrowthgoddess.net. And if you sign up for my email news newsletter, you will get a free meditation that I customized and curated just for the audience. So um that's greatness. You don't want to miss out on that because just in that meditation alone, there will be a frequency change. And what gift do we want to give ourselves, other than like changing our frequency from that shame, guilt, fear, anger to feeling more hopeful, feeling more inspired. So that's a free gift to you guys. And yeah, I would love to connect with anyone that's in your field, Rachel.

SPEAKER_02: 1:04:13

That is such a beautiful gift, and I really feel like that's a tender gift, heart-filled, heart-centered gift. So I hope everybody listening to this takes advantage of that. And I'll put all of that in our show notes. And I hope they come and listen to you. I hope they love you just as much as they're here. I call them little Fitsies. I love that. So, like, I hope the Fitsies love you as well. I know those conversation hits, and I'm so happy and honor for your best currency, your time to be here and sharing with the world. Like, this is just beautiful.

SPEAKER_00: 1:04:59

So thank you very much. Yeah, well, thank you for having me on and having such a beautiful platform and space to share so much of what needs to be shared out into the world to create so much life, so much joy, so much possibility. And we're just we're doing it together.

SPEAKER_02: 1:05:20

Yeah, we are, and you're so welcome. Yeah, thank you.

SPEAKER_00: 1:05:26

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02: 1:05:28

Oh, wasn't that so good? Oh my gosh. Sari is seriously, like I said at the beginning, she is the best. Like that was such a good conversation. I'm so grateful that she was able to join us, be with us, all of that, and just giving us these like drops of nuggets, like really just taking it in and understanding how to work anxiety through your body, how it shows up in your body, how you can lean in to trust and be in certainty, you know, like be in certainty that things are actually gonna work out, that there are actually good people out there. And there's not a reason to walk around on eggshells in this world. There are things that you may feel, and then when they come up and just let them go. But when you walk around and you're expecting all of this terribleness to happen all the time, it more than likely will because you called it in. You expected it, and that's the point of the whole entire conversation is when you can lean into this certainty, this trust, this like things are gonna work out because I just know they will, because I said so. That's when it happens, that's when it does, and it will all unfold and you'll see it for yourself, and you'll see it, your body will feel it, your body will be with that. And I know it might sound nuts, but just try it. Try it out for three days. Start there, try it out small. You will see, you will see it unfold because you said so. Then it's just collapsing that time, collapsing the gap between what it is that you want and what it is you know you are to be. And that is real, I'm telling you, it's real. So I hope you've loved it. I hope you loved everything that she got to talk about in her own experiences. I've got more coming just like that. I mean, all the time. How much better can it get? And how much more fun can we have? But in the meantime, I hope you enjoy your Thanksgiving. I hope you enjoy your holiday, and I would love to see you sign up for Presence Over Presence Part 2, December 13th, 1030 to 12 Eastern Standard Time. And right now through November 29th, that's the Saturday after Black Friday at noon o'clock, the sale ends for 20% off. Use the code FITSIN, F-I-T-Z-E-N, to get your 20% off. So either way, I'll see you in a week, or I'll see you at the workshop, or I'll see you in 2026. If that's the case, have a safe, happy holiday season. Let's bring it in. Take a full breath.