What if something difficult can be part of your growth without you needing to pretend it's a good thing?
In this episode, Sarah continues reflecting on her experience in Peru, exploring the difference between optimism and bypassing. After becoming seriously ill during her travels, she began thinking about how we meet the unexpected challenges that interrupt our plans—and how we can remain open to what those experiences might bring without dismissing the pain of what we're going through.
Sarah explores the cycle of awareness, from the disruption of our familiar way of being to the chaos, confusion, and eventual possibility of a new perspective. She shares how genuine optimism isn't about immediately finding a silver lining. It's about being willing to feel what's hard while remaining curious about what else might be possible.
Through the care and support she received in Peru, Sarah reflects on the importance of recognizing our needs, allowing others to help us, and widening our perspective to notice the resources already around us.
She also explores how we can be multidimensional humans: even when one part of our lives is struggling, another part may be growing, opening, or surprising us.
This is the deeper work of resourcing ourselves—not suppressing difficult emotions, but bringing enough support to meet them while staying open to what life might offer.
Episode Transcript:
Hello, and welcome to Threshold Moments
I am currently in the car on a long drive. I have a microphone clipped onto my shirt, and I don't specifically remember the exact order that I promised you for my Peru trip. But I do have a few things that are top of mind, and there's a part of me that's unsure, will this be multiple episodes or is this something that I can simply say in 10 minutes and weave it all together?
In the last episode about Peru, I talked a little bit about being really sick when I got there and how I had two friends who were like, "You know, people pay a lot of medicine to come to Peru and [00:01:00] do psychedelic medicine and purge, but you got to purge without the whole psychedelic, you know, ceremony and process."
And I think what I wanna just go a little deeper on, on this thing about optimism, and some people love talking about delusional optimism And the difference between that and bypassing. So just if I can go back to the last episode and talk a little bit more on this. The first thing is to say that the, these two people who suggested that this was part of the medicine, this is part of the program, this is part of what's gonna bring richness to my experience, these two people happen to live extraordinary lives, and I don't think that that is separate from this idea of delusional [00:02:00] optimism.
So what it means is that it doesn't mean that challenges don't arise. It doesn't mean that your path to your goal is completely straight and obvious and everything is synchronistic. And I know we hear in our world so often, like if things are synchronistic, then follow that path, and I do agree with that.
There are also times where we have a pull towards something in our life, and we follow it, and different things come up, different challenges come up. It's like the book The Alchemist, right? The hero's journey, where you get a pull, and you follow the pull, and then these challenges that really break you down and open you up to new ways of thinking, feeling, and seeing arise.
And in the cycle of awareness, where you have your normal way of being, and then you have the challenge that interrupts it, the chaos and confusion when you try to just keep pushing forward with all the old tools you have, the fertile void of [00:03:00] like, "Okay, I surrender. I don't know. I wonder what else is there."
There are no banks on the river, so to speak, so it's almost like too many possibilities and no possibilities at the same time. And then eventually there's inspiration, and then eventually there's integration, and eventually there's the evolved state of being, and then we recycle through the whole thing This can happen over years or it could happen in 24 hours, right?
Like everything's going great, everything's synchronistic, and then the food poisoning hits and we still have to get onto like Stick shift cars down bumpy roads through morning traffic, onto small planes that are going through turbulence, uh, losing what's in my stomach multiple times in public places, in waterfalls.
Oh my God. Um, being in and out of [00:04:00] consciousness, getting to the place. Uh, I have to say it was part of the medicine, and it's one of those things where you wouldn't wish it on somebody else, right? It was part of the interruption of norm. It was part of the chaos and confusion of just like, "Okay, but I still need to get to my, uh, destination," and getting to my destination and then just like collapsing and ending up getting, you know, so fortunate to get this IV and so fortunate to have all the help that comes.
And on the other side, the inspiration is like the mountains and, uh, truly the mountains. I mean, we're in the Sacred Valley, so that means you're in a valley surrounded north, south, east, west by thousands of feet of mountains, and we are at 9,000 feet ourselves at this point, and the mountains are up around, you know, 12,000, 13,000 and there are other mountains [00:05:00] just beyond that that are closer to 16,000.
So yeah, elevation. So what I wanna say in this episode is to begin to differentiate between delusional optimism where... and bypassing. Bypassing is like you're, you're looking for the silver li- lining and you're not ready for it. You haven't also been with the ick. You haven't been with the pain. You haven't really let yourself feel what's there.
And so what I wanna say about... So Dr. Deborah Kearns was the one hosting this retreat. She was there six weeks early in preparation, in landing, in the space of life. She had created an entire community there, and she was one of the people who reached out on the day and when I said like, "Oh my God, everything's lining up, and I can't believe my day has been [00:06:00] 24 hours of travel, so little sleep the first night, and this next night going to bed at 1:00 a.m.
when I arrive to my hotel. I can't believe I'm feeling so good." And it's like synchronicity, you're supposed to be doing this. And the next day, the food poisoning. And either way, it was a positive take. So imagine you're going through life, and whatever comes to you, there is a possibility that it's for you.
And how do we do this without bypassing the scenario that's at hand?
My experience was if this were true bypassing, it would have been like I, you know, I arrive in Peacehavk, I see Deb, and she's like, "Let's go into town and come meet up with us," and right, it... That would be bypassing how sick I was. Instead, it's just like, "I've got your bag. We're [00:07:00] gonna carry this up. Uh, Amanda's downstairs.
Do you wanna get an IV?" And then Amanda's, "Do you want the small bag of fluids? Do you want the big bag? Do you want, uh, glutathione? Do you want vitamin B and vitamin C? Here's what these things will do for you." "Yes, yes, yes." "Do you want red light?" "Yes." "Do you want a PIV mat?" "Yes." And then when it was over, and I think it was like t- a two-hour infusion, then it's, um, "Is it okay if I just lay here longer?"
Like, it was just so hard to stand up, and she took my blood pressure, right? My blood pressure was 80 over 40, and, uh, and d- and Deb gave me oxygen to just breathe in a few times throughout the night. And the next day, it still wasn't like, "Okay, so glad you're feeling better. Come on out with us." It was like, "Just keep resting, and I'm gonna bring you a breakfast smoothie.
Are you good with these ingredients?" And each thing is thought of with love and care. So do [00:08:00] you see the difference, right? If you are a parent, you can probably imagine the difference. Have you ever had that scenario where you're like, "Is my kid really sick, or do they just not wanna go to school?" I have definitely had this, and I'm really working on trusting my kiddo because I'm in a unique scenario where my kids actually really do love school, and sometimes they do just need a day to rest.
And what would it look like if I just fully believe them and believe that even if they're leaning in because they really need a day for their body to rest, that I could show up the way that Deb showed up for me and the way that everybody in that house showed up for me. And I love that everybody else continued on, right?
They went to the restaurants, they went into town, and I took ... The next day was cart... Let's see, [00:09:00] Monday, Sunday, Monday, travel, IV, Tuesday, cart close day. Just like really slow. So much support in my bedroom. Sent out two newsletters. The next day I was teaching a juice class, and even that it was like when I started to do some of the more active movements in the class, it was like, "Oh, wow, elevation.
I can really feel my heartbeat." So I slowed down, and it was that way of getting to go like, wow, I get to just keep adjusting to what is real, and then the medicine is how we meet ourselves there. I'm going back to the cycle of awareness because many of us can be like, "Man, I'm in the fertile void." And I'm thinking about my friend Ruthie Lindsey, who has been on the podcast before, and she is publicly sharing about how [00:10:00] she's currently losing her eyesight.
It's a genetic condition that runs in her family, and it has to do with connective tissue, and the progression generally leads to blindness, and the progression this year has been really fast. And while So for many of us, when we're in the fertile void or while we're going through the cycle of awareness, it feels like it's a h- it's happening on every level.
And what I'm going to suggest right here is just to also get curious If you could break up the different parts of yourself into physical, emotional, mental, energetic, spiritual, and relational, could you see that while some parts of you are struggling, other [00:11:00] parts of you are coming online even more? Going back to Lindsay, excuse me, Ruthie.
Uh, as she is physically losing her sight She is calling upon herself to increase her inner sight. There is the theme, and gosh, this came up so much in Peru, about being able to navigate in the dark like a jaguar, right? And the, the jaguar is one of their four main totems, one of their four main spirit animals that they lean on.
And she has been writing, and I just highly suggest following her on her Substack, about the process of trying not to allow her entire world to shrink as her vision goes, 'cause you can imagine stepping out of the [00:12:00] house would be harder. You can imagine getting to the airport and finding your gate and finding your ticket on your phone if you can't quite see.
Everything becomes a little harder and a little scarier. And what she's been doing has been to open her heart more, to ask for more help, to be with a vulnerability, to lean, like, to a- to be looking. And again, we go over this so much in Resourced of using your, a new filter system in your brain, right? In the reticular activating system and other parts of the brain that filter to say, like, "Where are the helpers?
Where are the angels? Where are the blessings?" And to begin to see with new eyes
So when the hard thing happens, we get to be in the, the suck of it. Like, we get to be like, "Man, this is so hard." Like, there was no part of me when I'm running to a trash can in the airport and and leaning over the trash can, and [00:13:00] as I'm losing what's in my stomach, um, and smelling the cigarettes that were in the trash can, I'm not like, "This is so great.
This is a spiritual awakening." Right? Like, in that moment, I get to just be with like, "Oh, man. This is really hard." And, you know, when the airplane is going up and down at the end, and luckily I've drank all the water in this wide-mouthed water bottle, like leaning over the water bottle, and luckily there was nothing left in my stomach but dry heaving.
I'm like, th- there's nothing there where I g- have to be like, "Silver lining." Right? The delusional optimism is a little bit of like, what if? I wonder. I wonder if this is on my behalf. I wonder what will happen. And what I could say if I were to push my edges of how I choose to see this, w- we really have a choice in how we choose to write our [00:14:00] story, right?
Is that when cart closed came and I was like, "Oh, I don't have it in me to write another email," and I don't have it in me to force anything, that I just, I laid in my bed and I put my headphones on and I listened to the meditation, and I know I said this in the last podcast episode, and I really got to feel into the abundance of my life.
And there were real life experiences where I didn't have to bypass, like, again, the sickness or this or that, but I could go and I could widen, which is such, such an important nervous system tool. I could widen my perspective of all of the help, all of the helpers, all of the layers of support, including the mountains.
And I think what I'm gonna do is pause it here and the next episode, the next mini musing is gonna be about the [00:15:00] medicine of the mountains, which really actually plays in. Okay, here's the teaser. This really plays into this idea of delusional optimism. I just don't think it's delusional, if I'm being honest, verse bypassing, and maybe I'll start by saying that one of our guides said to us, "A lot of people call this altitude altitude sickness.
We call it mountain medicine because it moves people from their brain into their heart
So if we were to close out with a reticular activating system prayer, it would be for me, show me
When I'm really in it, [00:16:00] when I'm, when it's really hard, may I first just be with myself, be with the experience May I remember the tools that work for me. Perhaps it's hands on heart, calling a friend to call in layers of support
not to pretend that the hard isn't hard But to bring in what some would call like, uh, like a warm bowl of soup or a blanket if one were sick So that every time I bring in support, when it's hard, I know that I'm not doing it to try to press down or suppress the hard but to buoy it to support it, [00:17:00] to love it, to say, "I see you.
How can I help you while it's hard?"
May I get curious?
about what the hard could bring for me, about the good that it has lined up. May I keep my lens open with that curiosity. May I find the helpers. May I remember that when I'm having a hard time, that I'm a multidimensional human, so that as one part of me is really struggling, another part of me may start to enter its superpower surprise and delight me Taking a nice easy inhale and an exhale.
Until next time