Episode Details

Have you ever been so insecure about your body, that it made you do something that you regret doing? Did you experience body-shaming and struggled with food anxiety? Then this episode is a MUST LISTEN! 

My guest today is Sarah Anne Stewart. She is a holistic health practitioner who helps women to discover a fun and diet-free way to a body that they love.

A quick overview about Sarah’s story, and how she overcame all the pain she went through, and how she turned this into her passion:

Sarah grew up in a really holistic environment one, where she was meditating and doing yoga and learning about wheatgrass and going on vegan diets as a kid.

Many years later she ended up in a hospital bed. And every time she looks back on her childhood, she feels so much guilt and shame.

She was 15 years old, and at the same time, her dad was diagnosed with terminal cancer. She was in this weird predicament where she was going to castings. And she started to develop a really bizarre relationship with her body so much.

Her agents were saying, “Don't eat until next week. You can't play sports anymore. You really need to lose weight, you have this amazing career ahead of you. But it's going to require you to change your relationship with your body, meaning, you really have to think about slandering down and doing commodities and yoga instead of sports.”

During that time, her dad was going through this crazy experience of facing the end of his life and telling the doctors that he was not going to go the western route, and he was only going to use food to heal his body. 

And at that point, she was very angry with her dad. And he said, “Sarah, you have to trust me.” and he would meditate every day. He was doing yoga, and he was like visualizing, and basically putting affirmations all over our home. And then he went completely vegan. And within seven months, the cancer was completely gone. 

Once, she ended up in a hospital bed, and that wasn't the first time she was in there. She was in hospital for multiple eating disorders, laxative abuse. And then on top of that, she ended up getting breast implant illness or breast implants because she wanted to extend her career.

She thought she would absolutely lose her life and she had to create a career change. And so all she knew was nutrition. At that point, all she knew was that her dad had cancer with food. And so she thought, she can just go and study nutrition, and maybe she can kill herself.

The interesting part was when she realized that the more nutrition information she bought, the worse her anxiety and depression got, because she was trusting everyone outside herself. She was looking at all the experts and the different coaches and the different diets and protocols, without trusting herself.

And it wasn't until she came across a meditation teacher whose very first question was, “Are you willing to unlearn the way that you were taught to suffer? Are you ready to hear this truth?” and Sarah said she’s willing to do anything. And he took her on this journey of really peeling back the layers of cultural conditioning, or which she had placed on herself, allowing her to finally witness her truth and begin to heal.

A lesson from Sarah that people can use to rediscover themselves internally from the adolescent stage, so they don't have to chase after likes and comments and external validation:

Self love, self worth, self esteem are so important.

Self love exists within us always, it's not like the stock market where it goes up and down, it is always there.

The answer to the solution exists between thought. It exists outside of mind, it exists within our heart, it exists by connecting to higher consciousness, and higher awareness. 

And that