Using the Power Within to Heal From Sexual Trauma with Sara Webb the author of “Look Lush”

Our guest today is Sara Webb. And in her book Look, Lush: it's a collection

of poetry, which helps folks to heal their life arise out of the ashes, and to

get connected with nature and their inner life through meditation and

other aspects of the inner life. And she's going to share with us some

of her story here today. I'm not gonna get into too much, but I want

her to share her story. But Sara Webb, we welcome you to Beyond Adversity here today.

Thank you so much, Dr. Miller. It's a pleasure to be with you.

That's awesome. Awesome. And, and for moving forward.

Let's just be Sara and Brad moving forward. Okay,

You got it, Brad.

That's all right. Awesome. Well, Sara, you have this book of

poetry that's comes out of your own life experience. And here

on the Beyond Adversity podcast, we're all about about being

helpful to people who deal with I like I call it the five Ds of

adversity: depression, divorce, disease, debt, and death. And

most people have some combination thereof of those deal.

Those factors, you and your case, have had some really

unfortunate devastating things happened to you there.

It's kind of set the stage for what you do now, or it's certainly

was a pivotal part of your life. And if you don't mind, I know it's

kind of sensitive. But if you don't mind to share a little bit about

your story about some of the things you've had to deal with.

And which leads you to do what you do now.

Yes, absolutely. Brad, thank you so much. I appreciate the

opportunity to spread light and love and hope and healing.

Because I believe that obstacles are just opportunities. If we

was raped by eight men, pretty brutally, and I survived. And

now I'm thriving. My autonomic nervous system and

subconscious mind did their jobs very well. And essentially

repressed the memories for a long time. Because our unconscious

mind, our subconscious mind is very good at that it's very good at

keeping us safe, and basically repressing unresolved emotions, negative

emotions until another time when we're able to deal with them. After I

was raped, I did not go to the police. I told my sister, I didn't tell anybody

else in my family, even though I was on vacation with my family when it

happened. By the grace of God, they propped me up outside of the hotel

lobby, where they had essentially taken me from and I went on with

my life, I ended up getting married and had a baby. And through the

course of the years, my drinking increased in order to be able to cope.

fully rid alcohol from my life, because it was just alcohol, which is perfectly

legal for somebody of my age at the time. I was just using it in order to

numb. And once I got sober, I realized that I had some things that I had to

deal with, because I wasn't able to cover it up, mask it any longer. So I'm

really grateful for the healing work that I did, particularly through meditation.

You know, a lot of people say that prayer is talking to God. And

meditation is listening. It's about getting quiet. Yeah, so So my meditation,

first of all,

I just, I think that there's a delay my I'm sorry, go ahead. No problem.

No, that's all right. I just want to say, Sara, that. Before we get

into some more of sharing of what you have, what how you've

responded to this, I just want to say I'm just so sorry that this

happened to you, that I just resonate with that, that everyone

has bad things happen to them. But some are really devastating.

And sometimes it's hard to get our heads around, at least from

my perspective, what happened to you and I just want to say I'm

sorry, and that you've had not only sexual assault, but you had

alcoholism, and you've had some other things to deal with here.

And you've you mentioned meditation as one of the ways you

deal with those about prayers, talking to God and meditation,

listening to God, but you also said that you had a long period

of time when things were suppressed and repressed. So I want

to talk to you for just a minute about Sara about what were

some of the actions that you took or what was some triggering

things that helped you to break a pattern there. What are some

of the things that you either did or happened to you that may

or may have transferred things from that suppressed state to

at least started a journey to where you're rising from the

ashes, as you'd like to say,

it was when I started a daily meditation practice. I'm a certified

yoga teacher. And I've been practicing yoga for over 20 years.

And we in yoga say the issues are in the tissues. So perhaps that

was my first moving meditation. And yoga is how I came to begin

to seek meditation. I tried a lot of different kinds, mindfulness,

Deepak Chopra, you name it. But it wasn't until I started practicing

TM, or Transcendental Meditation, which is something that does cost

a little bit of money. You learn with a teacher for four days, two hours

each. And then they teach you how to meditate with a mantra. It's a

very specific thought, word sound, that doesn't mean anything in any

language. And it's your own personal mantra, no one else has it.

And you basically just meditate for 20 minutes, twice a day. And it's

when I started that regular daily practice, that I was able to see

what we call that 30,000 foot view. I was able to metta think

that thinking about your thinking, and really observe myself

and my habits from a little bit more of an exterior perspective.

Instead of being inside of the movie, I was watching the movie

screen and noticing the destructive habits that I had going on, I

was a new mom, and my little 18 month old daughter who's

incredibly precocious, and was verbal. From a very young age,

we went over to a party, I'm originally from New Orleans, and

she picked up this little chalice kind of looked like a Mardi Gras

cup, and She sipped it. And she said, This is my wine. And it was

like a punch in the gut. I asked myself, What am I teaching my

daughter? to emulate? Yes, by my actions. And that's when I started

changing my relationship with alcohol. I thought that I could read

myself sober. Well, I mean, the first thing that I noticed was when I

actually got pregnant that I was sober from the day that I

got pregnant until I gave birth, which I guess isn't necessarily

something that people would assume. But I did get sober.

And I didn't. That was when I started realizing, I have an

automatic thought, every day at five o'clock. And I say, oh,

no, I'm not going to do that I have a precious baby that I've

been, you know, really wanting in my life inside of me. Of course,

I'm not going to do that. However, it made me become aware.

And when my daughter, my biological daughter, I now have

three children, two bonus children. When my daughter was

five months old, that's when I found TM, transcendental

meditation, I see and was able to really start to increase

that awareness, that self awareness of what I was doing.

You said so there I found interesting. Five, you said you

thought you could read yourself to sobriety is what you said?

I read several sobriety.

Did you see this kind of what I'm trying to get out of?

Did you see this at some form or another kind of an academic

exercise where I can learn my way out of this? Was that a

part of what's going on here?

Yeah, just to learn about the dilatory fact that the things that happened?

Well, I think there's some there's some great things that

are unique, we need to learn, we need to take action you

mentioned about you know, finding tea, um, you invested in

it, you know, time and energy and money to do that, and you

knew you had to change and also you had that seminal moment

with your daughter, picking up the little teacup or whatever it was,

and particularly his wine glass or whatever. And you had, okay, I

can't, this is not going to work, you know, it was point of pain, as

I'm getting to the point of pain, but let's go now for just a minute

or two, Sara to that inner life. You know, I'm a believer that in

order for one to have transformation, you got to have those

physical acts, you know, you got to take the class, you got to

read the books, you got to be, you know, motivated by your

child. Those are some of the physical acts, but you also need

to kind of go a little deeper tell us anything about any kind of

a connection to a higher power or spiritual element A, how the

meditation took you to a deeper, intimate place within your soul.

How is any of this a part of your transformation to, as you say,

rise from the ashes?

Oh, absolutely. I believe that meditation connects us to God

directly or, or what quantum physics science calls the unified

field of all possibility, which come on. That's God. That's right.

That beautiful still place where I go so often. And meditation,

it doesn't happen every time. And I'm not chasing it. But it's a

place of stillness and peace and suspension, almost. And I was

raised in the Southern Baptist Church, and I renounced it for a

few years in college and really did some of my own research.

And of course, I didn't remain atheists, I don't know if I ever

called myself that for very long, I guess I was more agnostic.

But learning TM definitely allowed me to see that I am a

drop of God, you know, that we are created in God's image.

And that we're able to have that deep relationship with God,

every single day.

He said a couple of things, I love the way you speak about this

was such eloquence in such a poignant approach. What I mean

by that is when you say about being suspended, and a drop of

God, those I think are some imagery, that I think it's important

for us to get a handle on that when we have a spiritual

experience. It's not only just something kind of woowoo out

there, it is connected to various aspects of our life. You know,

I know you mentioned yoga and that kind of thing. So there's a

physical manifestation, you know, the interrelatedness of this,

and that tickets. Awesome where you put it. Let's go now to how

this is. I'm sorry, go ahead.

I was just saying, Thank you. I appreciate those kind words. Yeah, I guess

I am a poet. If you like my imagery,

well, Oh, yes. Hey, here we go. There we go, we get a you should be

good with your boy, we'll get into get into that. Because that's kind

of where it kind of where I want to go now are is really about how

you think about this, and how you apply this to your life and how

you apply it to others. And when I mean, how you manifest this

now, so what are some of the habits or practices or way you do

life? Now that may be different than what you did before? That

makes life a little bit more? I think you've used the term lush

in your in your book of poetry. What do you do now? What

are some of the habits practices they do now,

I like to say you can magnify your life, M A G with meditation,

affirmations and gratitude. magnify your life by a daily meditation

practice, a daily affirmation practice, which is not what most

people think it is, and a daily gratitude practice. I've been making

serendipitously, just a few weeks before we hit quarantine,

God told me to start doing that. And I got a couple of gratitude

partners. Now I have about a dozen gratitude partners. And it's

so beautiful, because I make a gratitude list every day along

with some affirmations included in there and send it out. And

I get back gratitude and affirmations from said people. So I

get these beautiful things, you know, I'm grateful for oxygen,

I'm grateful for technology, there's always always, always

something to be grateful for. And it's about, you know,

looking for not the grass is always greener on the other side,

but the grass is greener where you water it and trying to make

ourselves see that glass half full instead of focusing on on the

lack. Because that's what our subconscious brain naturally does.

It's based in survival, our sort of our subconscious brain is

constantly scanning for problems. And so if we allow our

subconscious brain to rule us, you know, because really, we

think that the conscious brain is in charge. But really, it's the

subconscious that's keeping us safe, and looking for problems

and threats. So it's about using our conscious brain in order to

reprogram the subconscious.

Well, that's you and that's where you have to be. Sara very

intentional about that. That's why, why you have to develop

new habits and new practices and new ways of doing life.

They break the old patterns, because the old patterns would

tend to lead us to what a lot of people go into. People use

different terminology, we have a spiral or funk, or, you know,

a stuck place one of the more meaty you know, malaise,

depression, yeah, where a lot of people get stuck in those

places. And you have to be intentional about getting out of it.

And part of what you've talked about, and one of the ways

you do that is through poetry and through writing, things like it.

Tell us a little bit more about your book. I know you divided into

two parts. I found that kind of interesting about the look and

the lush. Tell us what about your book in terms of how that how

that format came about and how that might be helpful to other people.

Look is about my rise from the ashes and particularly using meditation.

It's formatted Allah Have a bit differently, it's simpler structure, simpler

words. And each of the poems have the word look or something about

perspective, in it look or our physical looks or seeing things differently.

Lush is a play on words, something that's lush and green and

beautiful and overgrown. Also, it's a slang term for somebody

that drinks too much. And so lush is about healing from addiction.

And in conjunction really with nature, which Gosh, I really

feel God, when I am part of nature, when I'm enjoying the

beauty that's been created here. And the way that it came

about was I had some deep healing work, I've done some self

hypnosis, which I really believe that meditation is basically self

hypnosis if you look at the brain waves that occur, but I also

went to a practitioner who helped me to get into my subconscious

and relive some of these experiences and, and I forgave every

single one of those men. Because, you know, anger is like drinking

poison and expecting somebody else to die. So I have done what Oh, go ahead.

Oh, forgive this message that you have here. And that, that

comes from, you know, Spruch a core that from many different

faiths, but still so hard to implement when you've been brutalized,

and to have forgiveness there for those who've hurt you.

And that is amazing, and helpful. And I bet you deal with

some people in your, in your life, or you served some people

who have hard times with this forgiveness thing. I have a

hard time dealing with getting unstuck. hard time dealing

with getting extracting themselves from whatever they

did is dragging him down, whether it's a past relationship,

or alcohol or whatever. Tell us about somebody you

may have worked with, or have some connection with

or may have read your poetry. Who, who you've seen

some transformation happen. Tell us a story.

Well, I'll keep everyone anonymous. But one of my favorite

clients I've been working with for several years, and I won't

even use pronouns, but they have been in and out of treatment

centers, and in and out of sobriety. And they are over five

months sober today. And I have seen such huge transformations.

I've continued to work with this person. And they really thought

for a little while that I was going to ditch them just like everybody

else did. But it's I think it just comes from understanding that

it does take time. And yeah, so

I read that is that's an awesome and when you have that

affirmation, it affirms you that you're doing something that's

a value that says for the greater good, a gift to others.

Yeah, I don't specialize in alcohol treatment. It's more about

the life coaching, you know, the spiritually activating people to

really, it's guided meditations, it's getting real with themselves

and their true desires and, and how they can send you an articles out into the world.

It takes all that it takes, I'm a very big on the integrated sense,

you know, the physical part, the spiritual part, the emotional,

that relationship type of thing, all that's here. And that's what

happens when you serve others in that way. And that's obviously

a part of your heart to serve others, and to not be a prisoner of

your pain. You know, I love that about you. So how can, Sara

How can folks learn more about you? How can they get your

book Look Lush? How can they find out more about your

coaching opportunities or, or other opportunities, you have

to serve others? How can people find out more about you?

I'm very active on Instagram with daily quotes and reals. It's

at @sarawebbsays that's s,a, r, a, w, e, b, b, s, a, y, s. My website

is the same. Sara Webb says.com. And you can contact me

through the contact page. There you can see a full suite of

pricing for my I'm an inspirational speaker. And I only have

a couple of slots per month. I also only work with two

clients full time at a time and I'm completely booked at this

time at this juncture. But I am available for speaking next

going out into you know further years.

Yeah, we'll put connections to all of that on our website drbradmiller.com.

Again, the book is called Look, Lush. Her name was Sara Webb from

SaraWebbSays.com. We thank you for being our guest today on

the Beyond Adversity podcast.