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5. Victim or Victor: The Choice Is Yours! - With SaraMae Hollandsworth
65 Plays5 years ago
SaraMae Hollandsworth is an athlete who lost her feet but gained more than she could ever imagine! She made a choice to be a Victor and not a Victim! Listen to her journey and feel inspired by her perseverance, patience, determination and above all FAITH!
Find out more about SaraMae: www.saramae.co or IG @thesaramae
Music: www.rinaldisound.net
Get In Touch with Kendra Rinaldi:
www.griefgratitudeandthegrayinbetween.com
IG @griefgratitudepodcast
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Transcript
Introduction to Grief and Life Transitions
00:00:00
Speaker
I strongly believe that we're given what we need before we know we need it. If that makes sense or like prayers are answered before they're asked or their need to be asked. I've I had honestly been preparing for this my whole life without realizing. Hello and welcome to grief, gratitude and the Gray in between podcast.
00:00:27
Speaker
This podcast is about exploring the grief that occurs at different times in our lives in which we have had major changes and transitions that literally shake us to the core and make us experience grief.
00:00:43
Speaker
I created this podcast for people to feel a little less hopeless and alone in their own grief process as they hear the stories of others who have had similar journeys. I'm Kendra Rinaldi, your host. Now, let's dive right in to today's episode.
Meet Sarah May Hollinsworth
00:01:05
Speaker
Well, hello. Today I have my friend, Sarah May Hollinsworth on the line. Sarah May, are you here? Yes, I'm here. Thank you for having me.
00:01:18
Speaker
I am so excited you're on this podcast. I've been waiting and so excitedly to be able to share your story ever since we met. Oh my gosh, I think it's been almost four years ago that we met at an airport in Las Vegas. Yes, we did.
00:01:38
Speaker
So is it okay? Do you remember that day? I very much remember that day. Yeah, and then we shared a taxi to the hotel. We shared a taxi or Uber or whatever.
00:01:51
Speaker
But I want to actually, if it's okay with you, I want to say the premise of how it is I met you and why it is I need to share your story, if that's okay. So I remember we were on the same plane, we're going to the same conference, and I knew you were going to the same conference because
00:02:10
Speaker
You were wearing a backpack from our companies, our health and wellness company that we're both a part of. And so I got off of the airplane and saw you at the baggage claim and started chatting with you. I'm like, oh, how long have you been using the products? And in the conversation, you suddenly said something that made me jump back.
00:02:33
Speaker
like two feet because he said, Oh, well after I lost my legs and I remember just jumping like what and doing that second kind of like that comic look of the back and forth like that. And I didn't realize
00:02:49
Speaker
I didn't realize I had been talking to you for all this time, not realizing that you didn't have your limbs. And then on your end, you probably were not used to that. You're probably thinking people are coming to you already.
00:03:05
Speaker
noticing that? Is that usually what happens? It's funny, it's honestly split down the middle, like half the people come and I can usually kind of tell by their demeanor and they want to ask about it. And then I know that the other half you can just still have no clue and then I do like what I did with you and then it's a similar thing. It's so fun.
00:03:24
Speaker
I love it. Well, thank you. And I know that it's a tough topic we're talking about, but at the same time, something that I think will bring a lot of hope and inspiration to a lot of the listeners because something that struck me when I met you was in that Uber, Lyft, taxi driver, again, one of the vehicles.
Sarah's Transformative Perspective
00:03:46
Speaker
I don't remember which one of all the means of transportation it was that we shared to the hotel.
00:03:52
Speaker
You said the following words and it was, this didn't happen to me, it happened for me. I know we cried the entire ride to the hotel in our conversation talking about
00:04:08
Speaker
all these different aspects of grief and things that I was even going through in that moment too with my mom being diagnosed with cancer. And it was just amazing how inspiring you were. So let's begin from the kind of beginning. Let's begin with how long ago it was that you lost your, do you like to say limbs, legs? What is the correct terminology?
00:04:39
Speaker
Honestly, it doesn't matter. I usually say feet because I'm like I have most of my legs. So in my brain when I say legs, it feels like I'm claiming more of a loss than I have. So I usually just say feet. Okay, feet. So take us back to that and how it happened.
00:04:56
Speaker
Yeah, and just to give you guys a tiny bit of background so you kind of understand the full picture. I'm a lifelong personal trainer, wellness coach, and athlete myself. That's what I've done. And at the time, I was in school getting my degree in kinesiology and sports psychology. I was running my own boot camp business. I was preparing myself for a half marathon. And I was also a couple days out from a fitness competition.
00:05:25
Speaker
And I just had, I felt off for starters, and then I just had some nagging pain and kind of my hip and low back and I knew I hadn't injured myself. I was pretty in tune with my body, but
00:05:38
Speaker
I also knew something wasn't right and that just continued to escalate for the next few days to the point where and some parts of my memory at this time are foggy and parts are crystal clear so I'll do my best to provide the details but it got to where I was crawling around the house from the pain it was so bad so I finally went in to the ER
00:06:01
Speaker
And they thought, when I described everything, they thought that maybe I had either hurt myself or that I had sciatica. And I said, I don't think so. But they gave me morphine and ended up sending me home the same night. And then it was, I believe, like a day and a half to two days later, which ironically is coming up in just a few days. We call it my alive day. It'll be my eight year anniversary, my eighth alive day.
00:06:27
Speaker
Um, the day I was, it's March 24th. So it was March 24th, 2012 that this all happened. Um, I went in first on the 22nd, they sent me home and then I believe it was, um, like the middle of the night on the 24th. I turned to, um, my boyfriend at the time and I said, I think I'm dying.
Health Crisis and Recovery
00:06:50
Speaker
And so, which for me, you know, I was pretty tough chick, so to say that things had to be pretty bad. So they took me in and I pretty much immediately went into full organ failure. They had to put me on life support. I had a heart attack, all my organs were failing, and so they ended up having to put me on a bunch of medications to
00:07:17
Speaker
keep me alive so that I wasn't crashing and then yeah I was on life support and that was for a couple of weeks I was in a medically induced coma every time they would try to bring me out of it I would crash but after a couple weeks then I kind of turned the corner I guess you could say and
00:07:40
Speaker
They brought me out of the coma and it had been an interesting experience being in the coma, so I was not communicating with anybody for a while. They thought maybe I'd had some brain damage and some other stuff. I remember having to relearn to swallow
00:07:58
Speaker
to even use my hands to do any regular functions. I had no idea what had happened. I remember some of my bootcamp clients coming to visit me and I was like, I'll see you tonight at bootcamp. And they're going, when I finally was talking and having visitors, they were like, not anytime soon.
00:08:17
Speaker
Um, you were saying that you were telling them tonight at boot camp. Yeah. I was like, go change your clothes. We have class. I mean, I just had no idea what had really happened. Um, not even slightly. And to give you a little bit of background, they, my body couldn't handle diagnostics, so they didn't fully know what had happened to me. They just kind of had to keep me alive. Um, after the fact down the road, they ended up.
00:08:46
Speaker
They kind of guess that they think I had an infection in my hip, that that's where it started and that it had spread to my blood, which is why I was in septic shock. That's what almost killed me. And I didn't lose my legs right away.
00:09:02
Speaker
So I was in the hospital in ICU and in other areas for six weeks. I ended up walking out, but like I said, I had to relearn how to do all functions, which was just, it's like I went in, preparing for a marathon, you know, getting ready for a fitness comp, and then I come out not really knowing how to use my hands and barely being able to walk. I mean, it's amazing.
00:09:32
Speaker
Yeah, I was probably, I don't know, 115 pounds, no body fat, um, super fit. My body ballooned up to like 160 pounds and in the six weeks, in the hospital, it was when my kidneys shut down. Um, and I guess liquid was just oozing out of my pores. You know, my body was just so swollen. And then I left the hospital. I want to say I was like 84 pounds.
00:10:00
Speaker
Which, you know, I lost 30 pounds of muscle. I looked frightening. I remember the first time I looked at myself in the mirror, I'd avoided that, but I accidentally did and it looked like I looked like a ghost. I didn't look like a person. And that was really terrifying.
00:10:18
Speaker
So, this is six weeks after going basically into a coma. You come out of the hospital. Learn again to basically, again, learn how to move your hands, swallow the basic functions. Speaking you did, you did have that knowledge. Yeah, after a while.
00:10:40
Speaker
Yeah, I didn't speak to people for a while because I was terrified. My coma was a pretty terrifying time period. So I just kind of didn't trust anybody. And I mean, I'd been extremely traumatized. So it took me a while to speak, but then I yeah, I could speak fine. So you remember bits and pieces of when you were in the coma? Oh, yeah.
00:11:03
Speaker
That part I remember well. Especially if you're saying that it was traumatizing. Is it something you want to touch on right now, or do you want to just go over the aspects of the relearning? I don't want to have to necessarily talk about something that maybe is not the right moment, too.
00:11:21
Speaker
It's okay. I didn't give you a glimpse. Is it just because you're aware of what's going around, you're listening. The reason it's interesting is because so many people end up having to be around family members that end up being in a coma and sometimes are left in these situations of having to make these really big choices of whether to keep them disconnected. Sometimes they don't know, can they listen to me? Can they not? All these kind of questions that they may have.
00:11:50
Speaker
Um, and you had a two, it was a two week period that you were in a coma. Yeah. And that those two weeks for you that they ended up having such impact and trauma, uh, is just something I'm just curious to know what about it was that it felt so like, as was it like a prison, like, uh, like being caught in this prison. I don't, I'm just trying to visualize what it would even feel like.
00:12:17
Speaker
Yeah and I'll preface it to say like I've spoken you know to other people who've been through similar types of things and I often hear that theirs was maybe a better experience so I don't think that the nature of what I experienced is necessarily like you know super common or what everyone's experiencing but the element of I was very aware
00:12:40
Speaker
of what was going on to the point where there was a room that I was never conscious in that I was able to describe what it looked like and where how it was set up and things which is really interesting like I knew where I just got chills yeah right I mean that gave me chills when I realized that
00:13:00
Speaker
Yeah, so right now I'm not kidding because sir me I'm like having to right now like my face my face is like goosebumps on my face. The the idea
Coma Awareness and Psychological Impact
00:13:16
Speaker
of
00:13:16
Speaker
of that aspect that we can see without eyes, that's in my perspective at least. I've said this in the other interviews that I've had, the people that will share stories and listen to stories here in this podcast will have very different spiritual backgrounds and beliefs.
00:13:37
Speaker
But I am always curious to hearing everybody's story. So that was what is going on. You can describe it to a T of what was this room when there was no consciousness. Wow.
00:13:52
Speaker
I knew like you know I knew the energy that was going on I knew when people you know because it's trauma it's chaos for everyone involved so friends family members arguing you know different stuff like that I was aware of um the traumatic part of it is I was experiencing my own
00:14:10
Speaker
death and murder, which just sounds so intense but that's what I was experiencing pretty much on a loop for those two weeks and being tortured like when, because obviously, I'm aware and I also
00:14:25
Speaker
And then this, you know, altered state or place or whatever it is. But when they were like, for example, I think they would turn me so that they could clean the beds and make sure that I wouldn't get bed sores and things like that. And I mean, I just thought I thought I was being tortured during those moments. So and like you mentioned, was it like a prism? There was one of the things that I was being tied down, reoccurring and held down and I couldn't. So all these scary things. Right. And it wouldn't end.
00:14:55
Speaker
And I couldn't cry out for help. And there was just no control over that. And it was just enduring that. And then I suddenly came out of it and was like, wow, I don't know who to trust. I don't know. And I also didn't really have the ability to communicate it with people. So no one, in all fairness, knew that that's what I was experiencing either. I just quietly had it going on in the back of my mind, I guess. Wow. That just totally moved me right now.
00:15:25
Speaker
Yeah, that is a lot. Because not only are you having then to come out of this re-learning, but as you said, just kind of experiencing that trauma and again, the regaining of the trust. And to some extent, probably were there aspects of like not knowing even what was real or not? Were there those, like what had really happened, what hadn't? So the trust aspect comes from that a little bit or where do you... Oh, for sure.
00:15:52
Speaker
I just think, you know, I went from what was real to that. And then I think that was the me like, see you at bootcamp. That just shows for one, obviously how much I love fitness, but also the like, not fully understanding what had just transpired. I don't know why I thought I was in the hospital. I don't know that people really explained it to me. I think no one knew.
00:16:16
Speaker
you know how and really know how to handle it yeah exactly and they didn't know what was going on either the doctors didn't even know yet even what was happening right there was so much uncertainty plus there was this element of like
00:16:31
Speaker
I want to say this correctly, but just like of all people, this can't happen to her because fitness was such like health and fitness was just such a part of my life. To you know, to such an extent that I think everyone was just really impacted by a feeling of disbelief, disbelief, because it was, yeah, it was my own, you know, my own worst nightmare.
00:16:56
Speaker
Wow. Now you come out, you said you had not lost your feet at that moment when you came out six weeks later. So then you go home, you're relearning all this, not even really speaking about all these emotions, plus you're also dealing with all these internal things of what's going on with your body, not knowing, relearning everything. At what point did you end up going back to the hospital? What happened there with your health?
00:17:25
Speaker
Well, they had told me, because the reason that my feet came into play is when they were just trying to keep me alive, my blood pressure was tanking, not to sustain life. They had to pump me full of so many vasopressors that keep the blood flow localized to your major organs and brain. So I lost blood flow to my hands and feet. My hands quickly recovered. My feet were compromised halfway up my leg.
00:17:53
Speaker
And I remember a surgeon coming in saying, we need to schedule your amputation surgery. And again, I literally couldn't even understand why I was in the hospital. So having this man come in and say that, first of all, I think it could have been
00:18:09
Speaker
you know, I don't know, maybe communicate it a little bit more gently. But I said, absolutely not. And then, you know, I do remember having some conversations with family with the medical providers. And it was like, let's give her a chance to try and save her limbs, because that's, you know, so important to her. So I did undergo limb salvage, which I did hyperbaric treatments and different things and had quite a bit of healing. But ultimately, it became a matter of
00:18:36
Speaker
I would have more functionality long term, having both of my feet amputated, my legs amputated below the knee versus what I was looking at would be maybe losing part of my foot. But as far as like prosthetics and different things go, that was my best prognosis for being an athlete.
00:18:59
Speaker
being able to move the way that I wanted versus keeping more of my body, but to have less function if that makes sense.
00:19:08
Speaker
So that came, that decision came how many weeks into this?
Decision and Adaptation to Amputation
00:19:14
Speaker
Well, no, it ended up being about a year and there's multiple reasons why it took that long. Yeah, there was, I was in a toxic relationship at the time, which I don't talk a ton about, but I knew that I needed to get out of that environment to move forward.
00:19:30
Speaker
I was living in Dallas, Texas at the time, but family was back in Oregon and I knew that it was important to get back close to family. Then there was also advocating for myself and finding the best surgeon I could find, the best prosthetist, different things like that. And I was undergoing the limb salvage. There was a lot of different factors at play, but I was in the wheelchair for that.
00:19:59
Speaker
timeframe. For a year, for a year, you were in a wheelchair and making those decisions, ending a relationship, about to move, or making that choice to move, right? Yep. All those things all at once. So these are all these other, like, other losses that were happening at the same time as your health
00:20:23
Speaker
had been one of those losses. So when you then had your surgery, did you have it in Dallas? Did you have it back where your family was on the West Coast? Yeah, I had it back in the West Coast. In the West Coast, close to Homestead, you'd have then that support system for your recovery process.
00:20:46
Speaker
Yeah, I honestly did not have a very, very big support system, but I was really blessed that my mom is a rock star and she's a nurse. So that came in extremely handy to have her support and have her in my corner during that time. I don't, there's no way I could have gotten through it without her. That's for sure. She's the real MVP of the whole thing.
00:21:10
Speaker
Oh my gosh. Wow. Oh, that is amazing. Well, just the fact that you just had, even just that, I mean, even one person can be an extreme support. You can have 10 million people and be alone. So I think in these moments like this is sometimes when we notice or realize who is really in our corner and who we really have.
00:21:37
Speaker
and who's really our friend, who's really there completely unconditionally in these kind of situations. So I'm sure that that was a part of that whole process within that year and thereafter, I'm sure, of that. So would you like to talk about then how it is that you transition then after then?
00:22:01
Speaker
you know, having the amputation. Again, your life right now had put on a whole halt, right? Because you were a fitness instructor, so you couldn't do what you were doing before if you were in a wheelchair. Oh, I did for a short period of time. You know how I did. I should see.
00:22:18
Speaker
I think I might have a photo of me in the wheelchair teaching boot camp. Nevermind. Let me just go back in that. This is the rock star ceremony. I know she continued to be a rock star. You're amazing. You're amazing.
00:22:35
Speaker
You then you did a little bit of that then while you were wheelchair bound then you have the amputation you long after the amputation did you get your prosthetics do they is it right away what is that process like. It's so funny reliving this with your mind oh geez.
00:22:52
Speaker
I forgot. I didn't forget. But so when I went to have my amputation surgery, I remember because when I woke up out of a coma, I remember telling them my right hip still really hurts. I think at the time, they were just like, that's the least of your problems. You know, I was not in a good state. So when I went to my prosthetist again, or my sorry, my surgeon for like the
00:23:19
Speaker
appointment before the surgery or whatever. I told him my hip is my big concern. I said, yeah, because for one, there's a history of addiction in my family. I've been very, you know, intentional about being preventative in all of my
00:23:38
Speaker
healthcare and my healthy lifestyle. And I know that, you know, a lot of people who go through something like this can become addicted to pain meds. And so the thing that I was afraid of is I was like,
00:23:51
Speaker
we're going to amputate my feet, but then this hips an issue, you know, I don't, we got to address the hip. So anyways, I got them to x-ray it. And that's when they said, we think that this all started there. I mean, there's not a way of knowing for sure. And then that's when then they referred me to an orthopedic surgeon to have my right hip replaced after the amputations, because they determined that it was basically destroyed.
00:24:17
Speaker
So, I had the amputation surgery, and then about six months later. And so, I had prosthetics, but the thing is, the pain was so severe in my hip, the trying to walk. Yeah, I'd end up being in the fetal position for five days because I wasn't willing to take the amount of medication that I would need to lessen the pain. So, I just kind of was in mostly the fetal position during that time in the wheelchair with limited walking.
00:24:46
Speaker
And then I had my hip replaced in two separate surgeries, essentially twice, six months later. And then we got to kind of start moving forward. And so at six months after the amputation and the prosthetics, you had your hip replacement and the hip replacement surgery takes about how long to recover from that.
00:25:13
Speaker
Well, like I said, I had them twice and I don't remember exactly, but I want to say it was around eight weeks in between. Um, and then it was probably about three to four months of recovery. Cause I, Oh, that was pretty, my hip was pretty painful. Um, so it was a couple, I don't know, maybe like four months after that, then I got to really start moving.
00:25:43
Speaker
So then we're looking into almost two years after your actual, I don't even know what to call it. I don't even know what to call it. Yeah, the incident, let me just say the day you went, the original incident where you went into a coma, a coma, coma, coma. I'm like, I'm like, coma, coma.
00:26:05
Speaker
My spanglish comes in here, like sometimes it's a coma, right? It's a coma and the comma is the other one in the grammar. So it's technically almost two years then. So then this is when the work begins of the learning how to walk with your prosthetics and so forth. And so here we're going to then fast forward a little bit, but at the same time, I want to know how
00:26:33
Speaker
Aside from your mom being here, your rock star and keeping you, taking care of you with your health, how did you make sure that your mental and your spiritual and emotional health survived those two years of what you were going through? What did you do to take care of yourself in that aspect?
00:26:55
Speaker
and not let yourself or unless you did let yourself in those certain moments, I'm sure you're not, you know, invincible, you're human.
Spiritual Growth and Career Evolution
00:27:05
Speaker
But how did you come out of water in that moment, you know, come out of being in water? I strongly believe that we're given what we need.
00:27:16
Speaker
Before we know we need it if that makes sense or like prayers are answered before they're asked or their need to be asked I've I had honestly been preparing for this my whole life without realizing. I mean I was a kid Like seven and eight who would go to the library and read self-help books and
00:27:36
Speaker
And I just was obsessed. I had this knowing as a young child that we can rewrite our story, that we're not stuck, you know, like, I just had the knowing, like I said, there was addiction in my background, and I never showed that with doctors because, and then there was also, you know, depression, anxiety and other areas because I didn't want to be labeled as having that issue and then have that re was what I'm looking for.
00:27:59
Speaker
and retell the story, like basically become your story. Yeah, I didn't want them to label me that way. And then treat me that way. So when I just, I didn't really ever share that, and I was constantly seeking how to
00:28:11
Speaker
how to not have that, you know, I realized that that takes work. Like it, you know, it doesn't just magically not be our story, but I really had done so much work ahead of time to write a different story for myself in some of these other capacities that when this happened, it was like, okay, this is like the graduate course. This is just taking it to another level.
00:28:36
Speaker
And that was the greatest gift. I mean, yes, it was, there were some like, I don't even think I have adequate words to describe the level of pain, like mental, emotional, spiritual, physical, all of it. But the gift was that I had those tools, you know, so I just went to work. Again, it was like, okay, what,
00:29:02
Speaker
you know book what teaching what things do I think I need to hear and I just really kind of went on the soul journey of continuing to heal past things like generationally in my own life and then now bringing all of this into it and I knew I was like what what is here for me what's the gift in this I you know like you said that I had told you
00:29:24
Speaker
in the uber is i knew i had a knowing that this didn't happen to me and it happened for me and it's twofold it's like i didn't feel that way you know i obviously felt like this is hell this is my own purse like worst nightmare this feels personal this feels cruel but i also i think about myself and i have a good heart you know and i'm like okay
00:29:48
Speaker
I don't have, you know, a child, but if I had created a child, I would never want to allow or do this terrible thing to them, right? So I was like, well, I just don't believe that, you know, I believe in God. I don't believe that God is cruel. So if this happened, there's, you know, he's going to use it.
00:30:07
Speaker
and I decided that most especially when I didn't feel it and so I experienced it that way again that does not take away the fact that there was a lot of tumultuous times tons of times so much pain like I can't sometimes I look back and I'm like I cannot believe I got through all of that
00:30:26
Speaker
But I also just set my sights constantly on what's the gift in this? What can I learn from this? How can I grow from this? What can I share with others from this? And you know, I'm still walking that out. It's obviously always going to be a journey and a process, but I did. I really focused my thoughts on that and I knew that I needed to guard my thoughts and I knew that I needed to
00:30:51
Speaker
be on the lookout and really, I almost didn't allow myself to relax. I allowed myself to rest, but I was on the lookout for my thoughts and I really chose to, you know, like mindfulness.
00:31:07
Speaker
to use my mind rather than let my mind use me because the thoughts and the feelings were you know all the like awful things um and I just knew I couldn't afford to let that get away from me so I was just constantly you know affirming myself and focusing my mind on things that I was grateful for even when I literally didn't feel grateful for anything because I remember I was like okay
00:31:33
Speaker
What am I grateful for? And I sat there and I'm like, Oh goodness, like I'm grateful that I'm alive. And I'm like, but I don't really feel that like life doesn't feel like a gift right now, you know? But I was like, but I choose it anyways and different things like that. And then I, the biggest thing for me though, honestly, that was like my North star in that.
00:31:53
Speaker
is i knew you know as an athlete my heartache was going to be limited movement you know that was just the most painful because i was a bikini model so i'm not going to lie like i got the best body in high school there was definitely the the superficial element of like wow
00:32:11
Speaker
And you used to do fitness competition, right? You used to do fitness competition. So your body was part of your... Huge part of my identity. Your personality, right, of your identity. That's the right word. So then it's shifted. Yeah. But yeah, we'll get to where that pod is now because I follow you on Instagram and I know where that pod is now.
00:32:35
Speaker
So, um, I, all that, so what you're sharing and I'm sorry, if I'm not in, if I'm done, I just realized I almost, but go ahead. Put it, put it, put it, go finish. Oh, I was just going to say, cause it's so, for me, it's so important. I think it is for all of us in our own way that it applies to us in our own personal journeys. Um, again, my heartbreak was in my limited movement and mobility, but I had, um, a dear friend.
00:33:04
Speaker
who had a brother-in-law and he, I believe, was paraplegic. And that stuck with me. I was like, I'm going to get to move again. Free movement, will it be different? Yes. But that I could be grateful for, even when being alive didn't necessarily feel like a gift. It was like, I get to move again. I will get to move again. That will be in the future. I know.
00:33:28
Speaker
And I had really sought out at the time I went, thank goodness for Facebook, I went to Facebook and found every NPT athlete I could find. And so that was really the image in my mind. It was just all of these incredible humans doing incredible things. And that is kind of the future that I created for myself and my mind's eye, even when it was not what I was experiencing in reality.
00:33:52
Speaker
That is amazing. Everything that you're sharing is just amazing. The aspect of the gratitude, even when you didn't feel like it, of choosing to find something that you were grateful for that day, that is big. It's kind of like choosing to go work out even if you don't feel like it.
00:34:07
Speaker
It's like in that moment, you did not feel it. You did not feel it yet. You just forced yourself to say something that you were grateful and it goes again with how it is that we look into our health and the choices that we make each day that we just sometimes have to push through those limiting thoughts and then just go through it with that perspective of gratitude. Did you keep a gratitude journal prior to this happening since you had already been doing
00:34:37
Speaker
personal growth and development since you were seven, basically. Was it something of practice that you already had or did gratitude kind of start happening in the moment of that? Or was it something that you always practiced?
00:34:50
Speaker
I did not I on and off I would, you know, I think there's layers to layers to our awakening layers to our healing. All of that this obviously took me many layers deeper. So I had the knowing of it, but I think I'd kind of taken it
00:35:07
Speaker
for granted in a lot of ways, you know what I mean? And it's like, okay, let's build this from scratch, this gratitude in our spirit. But I obviously had it as a foundation in some ways, because I turned to it, I just had to really dig, I had to dig deeper, honestly.
00:35:25
Speaker
Yeah, so that went back, going back to your faith, going back to your trusting in the process, trusting that you had these tools already to get you through this moment, even in those moments in which you doubted yourself. And again, knowing that of what I got from what you said, that this did not happen because of your creator, of our God, whatever we want to call source,
00:35:55
Speaker
you know, doing something to punish you but more as a process for you to grow from and a gift to some extent to continue to learn from and evolve and grow to become
00:36:09
Speaker
an inspiring light to so many people that you are now. And I want to touch a little bit on that, on how now suddenly then did you shift then your life? It went from this, you start, you relearn to walk then.
00:36:26
Speaker
you transitioned into now being a little, you shared a little bit at the beginning, you know, health and wellness coach and inspirational life coach as well. So share a little bit of how it is that it's now a tool for you and who you are now. Yeah, that's kind of been the journey and the process that I've been on. There's a lot of like, um, becoming, and then
00:36:50
Speaker
You know that when we go through a fire or refining fires, we know it's like that, which is really truly us remains while everything else falls away. So it was a lot of like figuring
00:37:02
Speaker
that out and experiencing that. And, you know, I just came back to my roots and who I've always created to be. And now it's like I get to, you know, impact on a greater level doing a lot of the same things that I believe I've just always been here to do. And so yeah, getting back to my roots as a health and wellness coach and entrepreneur, and I'm looking into actually opening my own gym.
00:37:28
Speaker
down the line that you're like one of the first people to hear that. It's funny. I'll have to make sure I time this for when you allow to release this podcast when it's allowed to be heard that you're allowed to open it. If anything, it's fair. Yeah, definitely.
00:37:48
Speaker
Like, this is what I know that I need to do. It's what honestly, I completely forgot. But in high school, I when you graduate, I think they ask like, where do you see yourself in five years or whatever I said, owning a gym, and I just laugh because it's as if I forgot that, you know, all this time going out and being an adult and doing all the things we think we should do, knowing like, well, not knowing then, but knowing now that it's like the dreams inside of us are ours, right? They're, I believe they're gifts for us. And I think for me, especially, I was often and
00:38:18
Speaker
not at all out of people like intentionally trying to kill dreams. I just think when we're adults, we've all been through pain, heartache, disappointment things. So often I think if you share your dreams too soon, then people have an ability to kill them before they have the legs under them that they need to really, you know, walk.
00:38:37
Speaker
through life and so I would share stuff like that and I think I was just always told fitness was Superofficial or you can't make money doing that or whatever So anyways, I've just come full circle and I know that like I call The gym my church, you know, essentially it's like it's so we walk out so many life lessons and it's it's multifaceted I refer to it as spiritual fitness a lot. It's like
00:39:03
Speaker
mental, emotional, spiritual, and it is physical. So that's just really where I feel like I have the greatest growth and where I can also walk people through their own, which is essentially what I'd been doing in the boot camp that I taught in Dallas, Texas. There's, you know, obviously there's so many different
00:39:22
Speaker
ways that people like to teach and coach but mine was really mentally driven because it's something that um you know i've struggled with in my own life mindset really transcending um mindset and building a more bulletproof one so i trained them and these you know they were just average everyday people they weren't athletes when they came in but they
00:39:43
Speaker
did stuff that was more impressive than pro athletes because they didn't know any better. I just, I didn't, they never knew I was pushing them and their limits because they just, they didn't know their limitations. They didn't know. Yeah, I didn't let them think they had any. So, I mean, they blew my mind daily. I was like, wow, I've never seen that done, but trusted me enough to go for it.
00:40:07
Speaker
Yeah. And I think that that is actually kind of going back to being even a child, right? When we're kids, we don't even have a concept of even fear. That's why all these dreams and things that we think of when we're kids, it's as if because we don't even have any concept or doubt that they can happen.
00:40:25
Speaker
And all of a sudden we start believing, as you were saying before, what people say around us. And then we start kind of putting these layers and layers until we kind of hide it down deep in our soul of those dreams that we had and then they reawaken. So then with the bootcamp then that you do now, you do the type of fitness you practice right now. You did bootcamps before and now you do what type of fitness?
00:40:54
Speaker
I just actually started a year ago CrossFit as a student because honestly my like a little bit of shame that I carried is that my fitness getting my own personal fitness back took a lot longer than I could easily say than it needed to because you know obviously I had to have all the tools the know-how all of that but that's where all my grief was and I
00:41:19
Speaker
couldn't face it to be totally honest like for me because it again I started at such a young age to where like when I would teach I did it by feel you know I did it by show I did it was very intuitive
00:41:35
Speaker
um in nature and so nothing felt right you know and it was just like that was heartbreaking so it was almost like every step at the time just felt like heartbreak and the the level of trauma and grief and all of it that i had it was like i almost couldn't
00:41:58
Speaker
handle that yet and I needed the support and I was nervous for that even to like welcome someone into that journey and I'd really been praying I'd you know I'd gone to the gym and done some stuff and I was decent but I knew I was like I want to be
Embracing CrossFit and Holistic Coaching
00:42:17
Speaker
an athlete again. I want the eye of the tiger back. And so I'd been praying, honestly. And then a friend of mine, Cody, awesome friend, he's like, you need to come crossfit. I was freaking terrified to be totally honest because that wasn't even something that
00:42:34
Speaker
I'd done I mean I had done some movements and you know but I've always been the teacher and not the student and it just felt so vulnerable there's so many layers to it but I knew that that was an answered prayer and so I signed myself up I probably took me a month or two before I would finally walk in
00:42:54
Speaker
But I did. And it's like, nothing will ever be the same. It's I was like a fish to water, you know, it's so my just tossing weight around. Yeah, it feels like I've been doing it.
00:43:08
Speaker
since the womb. And the support that you're saying that you had in that environment, like you said, it's your church, because at the same time, you have all the support system. I've done CrossFit myself, and it's a community effort, not an individual effort. Oh, yeah.
00:43:29
Speaker
That's awesome. So then all this transformation that you regained your own confidence then and love again for what your body could do now. Again, your confidence, all this. So now that this has happened, and I know along the way, you also now help coach people not only physically, but also
00:43:56
Speaker
um with life coaching is that correct yep health and life coaching um i'm super passionate a little bit about that talk a little bit about that yeah i actually just finished um two health coaching certifications which was really fun yeah again it's stuff that i've been doing forever um but now it's just really putting the foundation back all kind of putting all the tools in my toolbox that i want to really
00:44:21
Speaker
coach holistically and as we know it's it's all connected so again the best way that i refer to it i don't know that everyone gets it or not but it's spiritual fitness because it's like that it's the mental the emotional the physical you know both through fitness as well as how we feel our bodies but it's also very soul driven very you know there's so we know it's like you're not
00:44:44
Speaker
overeating or you're not eating the wrong things because it's about the food. It's not about the food. It's never been about food type of a thing. So really having all of those things in place and realizing people may come to you for fitness or they may come to you for health coaching, but recognizing that you need to, or at least I wanted to have the ability to address the whole person.
00:45:07
Speaker
It's really rewarding and I've been taking on a few private clients but I'm looking to or I'm in the process of creating some programs in group coaching which I'm really excited about. Well that's really exciting and that's something that at the end too if you want to share a little bit of how people can find you
00:45:26
Speaker
on social media or any of your websites, because that way they can be in the loop for when some of these things launch, as well as already seek for your services as well. So what do you want to just say those tags now? I Instagram, which one would you rather say?
00:45:43
Speaker
I'll do both. I'm at the Sarah May, T-H-E-S-A-R-A-M-A-E on Instagram, or Sarah May Hollinsworth, which it'll be in the podcast on Facebook. Perfect. Perfect. And you have a website too, or right now those two are the main things. It's under construction, but sarahmay.co.co.
00:46:12
Speaker
Okay. So yeah, I'll put those in the notes here in the podcast as well so that people can go to those links. But I wanted to just quickly, just the aspect of you now being this spiritual coach, do you feel that you, and not that we could go backwards in time, but if this had not happened to you, do you think that you would be able to impact people in the same way that you are doing now?
00:46:43
Speaker
I mean, I know that's kind of like, that's a weird question. I mean, you know, I, I constantly think about that. But what I know about me is, like I said, I've been, I had been attempting since I was a kid to transcend and to grow and to get to this place. And it was, it was just something that I wasn't able to get to. But you know, I love, I'm sure you've maybe
00:47:11
Speaker
read or studied like the shadow side of us and done some shadow work. That's just really where it's like all the stuff we don't want to feel, we don't want to look at, we don't want to acknowledge. That's really where so much magic is, which I think is really one of the greatest gifts of grief.
00:47:29
Speaker
Right, it's like, if we will sit with it, there's so much there for us. And I was a runner like I've been a runner my whole life, and I basically wanted to run from all all that pain all of that stuff and so I would do the work.
00:47:46
Speaker
But I wouldn't necessarily sit with the pain. I love that quote, the cure for the pain is the pain. It really is true. And I took, to be honest, it took me not being able to run temporarily, being stuck. I think that's why my journey took as long as it did. I think it needed to. Like, I'm also a sprinter. That's my main thing. And so my spirit was like, let's sprint through this process. I'm going to get it back. Let's go. I'm going to kick off like now.
00:48:15
Speaker
Nope, that didn't happen. And I think that's because it really needed to take what it took to get me to this point. And again, I'm still growing, I'm still walking out, it's like we all are in our own ways. Not to mention, it's visible. And it's like we all, me not having my feet and what it looks like when I'm wearing my prosthetics and maybe kicking butt in a gym or something, is just something visible of what we all
00:48:43
Speaker
have or flip side you could look at it someone could try and look at it as a handicap which is clearly not for me um but if they did it's like we all also have our own often invisible versions of that as well right so i think the nature and it being visible like just today um at the store you know i had two different people come up to me and and talk to me about it and i always get really positive like people are so you know
00:49:11
Speaker
excited and positive about it because I carry myself that way. I feel I don't people don't ever come up to me with pity. I, you know, glad. But I think that adds another element to it. And that's something that I'm really
00:49:26
Speaker
cognizant of even it took me a while to be comfortable i just remember wanting to i was like okay i want the cosmetic coverings how can i hide it so no one ever knows and then when i was ready to just own it and embrace it and i have really cool legs um i was very aware of how i carried my energy and how i portrayed myself because twofold i um didn't want people
00:49:53
Speaker
to look at me with pity you know or to feel sorry for me or whatever and I knew that that had a lot to do with how I felt about it and then secondly I just felt a responsibility to show people that you can come back and you can be strong and stronger and proud and all those things I didn't want again I didn't want people to see it and think it was a bad thing and so I wanted to try and inspire and give hope to people whether they've been through something are going some
00:50:23
Speaker
through something or maybe one day would you know like today we're talking during a pandemic and it was like i recognized that people always come up and talk to me but today especially it felt like i was giving hope to people that were like oh my gosh we need hope and it felt like it touched them in a way that was different just by the nature of what's happening for all of us
00:50:46
Speaker
Yeah, it's an awareness that people start having when things like this happen, right? Of the interconnectedness that everybody has and so forth. You said so many nuggets in those minutes that I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm like so many nuggets. One of the things is that you said your loss, quote unquote, and I say the quote unquote, the loss even when it's somebody that's passed away in the process of grief and so forth, is a visible one. Right.
00:51:11
Speaker
is a visible one, so people notice that. But as you said, so many of us carry things that people can't see and that that's really the main difference to some extent between this particular type of loss, then what's an emotional type of loss or something that people have lived through and that we are all
00:51:31
Speaker
we all have something that we're going through or have lived through. And again, some of us just will never know what others have gone through. So that was just, whoa. So thank you for that awareness. And now what are the first words, and we can wrap it up here, or what are the things that you would say to somebody that may be experiencing something
00:51:55
Speaker
like this, a type of loss in this moment in their life. Of course, I know that after listening to this, you've already given so many glimpses of hope of what it is that can happen and that we are really prepared to be able to handle
00:52:12
Speaker
what we're given. We just have to dig deep and deep and deep and be patient. I think the patience was the quality that also came up to my mind when you were talking about that you just wanted to spit. So I think God really, really wanted patience to be one of those that you learned in this time period.
00:52:30
Speaker
I know I laugh because people now tell me I'm like one of the most patient people they've ever met and I just can't help but laugh. I'm like, I had the reputation of having the least patience of anyone ever. And so it's hilarious. Yeah. Well, you were saying I wanted to go.
00:52:47
Speaker
You were going to learn it, whether one way or another. I feel that way even with parenting, being a mom, every day I'm faced with that and that's the skill I keep on having to learn as patients. So when you were saying, I just wanted to sprint and get it done and do it and get it, no, God needed me to wait. So I'm like, well, patience, that's the virtue she was sent to learn.
00:53:10
Speaker
So, what are some of the things that you may say then to somebody when they're in the middle of that storm? What would you say to somebody?
00:53:21
Speaker
For one, if it's at all medical related, I would say to advocate for yourself and make your own choices. And that's so unique, right? It's to honor what is best and right for you, for the people in that situation. Because I think we're set up, for example, when I went through everything, it was very like I was being given grim
00:53:43
Speaker
information at all times, like basically your future is grim, you know, type of a thing. And even just the nature of like the amount of medications that they want to put me on. And I made my own choices with that for some of the reasons that I shared with you.
00:53:58
Speaker
And ideally, which it's so hard during trauma, obviously, you could be passive or you could be more proactive. And I would just say to encourage people to try to be as proactive and to retain their own control to the extent that they're able so that you can really write your own story.
00:54:21
Speaker
in whatever way whatever that looks like even if it's just like not really the medical part but the story that you're telling yourself versus what is maybe being told to you you know like this has a grim outcome or something and you can decide that that won't be my story or that doesn't have to be my story and really direct you know your thoughts and your actions from there and honor yourself to the best of your ability
00:54:45
Speaker
And again, just gratitude. And it's like, I want to validate that I know that that pain makes it so hard. Like you almost feel like
00:54:58
Speaker
I am completely BS-ing myself here, to be totally honest. It was just like, this is ridiculous. You have to BS yourself long enough to believe your own BS, to some extent, in some point. We have free will. We have full and complete, and sometimes I think I don't stand on this fact as much as I would like to, to be honest, because I'm afraid of upsetting people.
00:55:22
Speaker
But you get to decide and it's on you if you're going to be a victim or a victor, right? And I just felt like the worst thing possible, my own, if I could have written my own worst nightmare, I was living it.
00:55:37
Speaker
and so it was like the only thing that I can control but it's the most powerful thing I can control is my attitude and my perspective because it was like what I'm not gonna do is lose my feet and also lose my light and become bitter and whatever else you know I was like I'm going to be grateful I'm gonna have more light I'm gonna be gracious I'm gonna be kind you know kinder more gracious those things and so I really want to encourage people to like
00:56:08
Speaker
own that and also I want to preface that with I also understand how pain pain will lie to you and it will also like it'll make you want to shrink and stuff and it will tell you you have a right to feel sorry for yourself pain does
00:56:24
Speaker
and so you kind of have to it's like you have to swim upstream through this process while also honoring it while also sitting with the pain and giving it permission but not allowing it to then drive the car like stay in the driver's seat and kind of go on a road trip with it but do not do not get in the passenger seat don't become passive in this experience because you'll end up or you don't want to
00:56:51
Speaker
love, love, love, love everything you said. It is exactly how I believe in the process of grief and gratitude. And all those grades in between you just touched on all that and the aspect of pain and even just living with grief.
00:57:06
Speaker
in our life, just not living in the grief. But you can live with grief in your life, but still moving forward rather than letting it consume you. And the same goes with pain and any other thing in our life. And you just basically put it with a bow on it, with a cherry on top, everything, all these nuggets at the end. And I'm just so grateful that you were on this podcast here sharing all these beautiful nuggets to the rest of
00:57:34
Speaker
the listeners, whoever listens or the world, hopefully the world and whoever shares with anybody else.
00:57:44
Speaker
the world, as well as just so grateful to have you in my life. So thank you again, Sarah, for taking the time to share your grief and your gratitude as well. Love you, my dear. Thanks so much. I love you too, and you have so much to offer the world with your own journey and this gift. So it made my heart so happy to know that you were doing this podcast. I was extremely honored when you asked me, and I just love and appreciate you so much. So thank you for the opportunity. Thank you.
00:58:14
Speaker
Thank you so much. I'm so glad we made it happen. Love you. Thanks again.
00:58:24
Speaker
Thank you again so much for choosing to listen today. I hope that you can take away a few nuggets from today's episode that can bring you comfort in your times of grief. If so, it would mean so much to me if you would rate and comment on this episode. And if you feel inspired in some way to share it with someone who may need to hear this, please do so.
00:58:52
Speaker
Also, if you or someone you know has a story of grief and gratitude that should be shared so that others can be inspired as well, please reach out to me. And thanks once again for tuning into Grief Gratitude and the Gray in Between podcast. Have a beautiful day.