Interview with Sara Hirsh Bordo: Women, Out of Balance Caretaking Patterns and Autoimmune Diseases

Added: 2026-05-30

[00:00:01]Greetings everyone. I am very excited today to be in conversation with Sarah Hersh Bordeaux and she is an award-winning documentary filmmaker and she is also the founder and CEO of the female empowerment production company Women Rising.

[00:00:24]I love the name by the way.

[00:00:26]She's also facilitated live events and summits for the empowerment of women.

[00:00:31]But today we're going to be talking about her remarkable book autoimmunity and the good girls which is about her research that she conducted in 2023 looking at autoimmunity and patterns in women around women's empowerment. but in particular ways in which the effects of trauma and chronic caretaking patterns affect women's health and she also talks about her own journey of healing in the book. So thank you for being here today Sarah.

[00:01:10]>> Thank you so much Heather. Thank you so much. I have been a part of your sisterhood and community for years now and to be on this side of the screen with you is really incredibly moving. Thank you for all you do.

[00:01:32]>> Before we get into the book, I think it'd be wonderful if you explain this beautiful butterfly behind your head.

[00:01:39]>> Oh golly. Um, you are looking at a handmade set of wings that a very sacred designer friend of mine created for me after I told him that I had written the book. It's inspired by a piece of art that I saw in a Germany museum, in a German museum in Cologne.

[00:02:14]And this artwork really brought me kind of to my knees when I walked into this small room. in this it was this massive installation that was done by a woman and female artists don't tend to get their own rooms in museums.

[00:02:38]Um, and I was completely overtaken by this set of almost distorted looking bruised wings of a butterfly.

[00:02:53]It very much told a story to me about the journey to flight is not an easy journey. Mhm.

[00:03:07]>> And I think we can talk about that very much on a human level and how that transformation is so right on time especially for women and the reclamation of power and voice and sovereignty of body and wellness.

[00:03:27]Mhm.

[00:03:29]>> But as I looked closer, the title of this piece of art was Memories of a Butterfly. And immediately I heard this monologue in my in my mind of if a butterfly had these memories, what would she say? And how would she talk about the journey to flight? And to me, these wings, they were irregular. They were colors that that weren't kind of obvious as a butterfly color palette.

[00:04:10]The parts of the monarch were irregular.

[00:04:14]Part of it almost looked tattered and bruised, but then part of it had this very kind of luminous reclamation. And so it was this piece of art that very much represented to me the heroine's journey of, you know, beginning somewhere, going so deep, so inward, and then the triumph and the sort of um healed finish line, if you will, >> is that of flight. And to me, that was such a beautiful representation of what I hoped the book gave a reader. And I actually have something that I'd like to read later, which I haven't read to anybody. But um I think that for me I wanted behind me a a little bit of creative courage because I'm an introvert and um I identify on the spectrum as well. So this scene being seen on the other side of a story I'm used to the other side of the camera. So being a director who's now telling her story for the first time is something that I'm still super uncomfortable with, but I feel very safe in this community. And um so the wings are very much kind of a representation of writing the book and my own personal journey of finding my own way through irregular trials and thresholds that have luckily kept me still here.

[00:06:07]It's beautiful, Sarah. And I really want to honor your courage in the healing journey that you've been in and that metamorphosis, >> but also the profound courage in writing this book. I mean, I know writing a book like this is not an easy process. And as I've said to you before we got on the recording, this is a book that I think every woman should read. It is so powerful and is so about how we all need to reclaim our true authentic selves and our true voices. And as you and I have talked about, it's a part of the reclaiming of the sacred feminine wisdom that's been suppressed and repressed.

[00:06:56]But talk a little bit about how you got into writing the book and this remarkable study that you did in 2023.

[00:07:06]Um, I first would just again like to thank you for holding space not only for my voice but for other women who are coming forward with their own experiences, be them patient or otherwise. Um, I've lost a lot of women around me too early, too soon from being undiagnosed or misdiagnosed or mistreated in the medical community. Um, I also come from a very long lineage of women whose voices were not championed or safe to own. Um, so I hold both of those groups of women here with me now. And lastly, I think that I think a lot of us come from maybe past life experiences where being known um with our own name was not safe, >> where our own voices.

[00:08:06]>> [clears throat] >> So to be in this time where female artists and healers are not just safely known but safely seen. So thank you for um for all of us for that space.

[00:08:23]Um as you said I've been a documentary filmmaker of women and girls stories now for about 15 years and before that I was on very much on the other side of story.

[00:08:34]um in Hollywood. I ran uh digital marketing teams at some of the a couple of the film studios. [clears throat] So, I've always been around story, but it wasn't until I founded my own production company where I really felt like I wanted to be a part of the storytelling community that helped women champion each other instead of allowing ourselves to feel threatened by each other, >> which I think is such a pattern, especially in the power over paradigm that doesn't just have to be systemic in And we, you know, women can very uh comfortably and and painfully uh be mistreated by by [clears throat] other women. And um I'm really grateful >> experienced >> as I experienced in the book uh just the short story of that was I was told by a female boss who I just revered profoundly that uh I belonged more in an apron than in an office.

[00:09:48]And it was that day that Women Rising was very much born in my spirit. I think that was her birthday, my production company, because it was it was very much of well that that can't stand. We can't we can't do that. That's that's not going to be a pathway for women alongside of each other, for any of us to reach where we are hoping to go and hoping to reach. So that's why I really wanted to tell stories that champion women and girls. I wanted to build stages that supported women and girls. Um, but I will say that whether it's a film feature or short or um a stage or experience, I always very much believe that issues facing women and girls are not just for women and girls to tell. I so I have men with me, male allies that are very much in support of the female sovereign voice with me at some point in every turn. And as it related to my book, um that was how I um incorporated a a very powerful male ally in the cover art uh for the book, which I'm feeling inspired to share. Is that okay?

[00:11:16]>> Sure.

[00:11:18]So this is done by an artist named Shepherd Ferry who um uh very much stands for kind of social propaganda and for me I felt that self-permission propaganda was sort of u the look of this um and he has a wife who lives with MS so he's very much um an ally and an advocate for women. [clears throat] So my journey um I was healthy for a very long time and then I was unhealthy for a very very long time and I was able to discern kind of studying my own empowerment when lockdown began. I had a diagnosis of Hashimoto's, which is an autoimmune disease, which is thyroid disease, which I was diagnosed with at age 30. And um as of last week, I just turned 50. So that was 20 years ago. Um but I had a remission of Hashimoto's. I had melanoma. I had multiple breast and ovarian tumors. I had active Epstein bar. Um, I also had heavy metals poisoning and toxic mold in my gut. So, my tender body was living with a a very substantial amount of, to use one of your sacred words, misalignment, within my immune system, and within my body. And no doctors were really able to explain what was happening to me, but one doctor said to me, "Why are you killing yourself?" one wrong choice at a time. M >> and for someone like me who was raised in a southern Lebanese family as the eldest and only daughter, as the caretaker and the lifelong conditioned good girl.

[00:13:23]That was paralyzing to receive if you like it to feel that I had done something so wrong >> to create a body that was screaming so loudly.

[00:13:46]Um, that's punishment to a girl raised to be good for a lifetime.

[00:13:57]And I can actually feel even saying that that there uh that that's going to sting a little bit [clears throat] listening to it. So I went into COVID locked in and locked in. Um I began as a documentary filmmaker. I'm curious by nature.

[00:14:22]I love peeling back the layers of a backstory.

[00:14:27]And the question that that doctor said to me, why are you killing yourself one wrong choice at a time? And I thought to myself, have I been a fraud my whole career of empowering other women? Was I secretly just building these stages and telling these stories for me?

[00:14:55]>> What brought me to this reckoning?

[00:15:01]So, um, I wrote a question on my wall, which was, "If making the wrong choices for myself made me sick, could making the right choices for myself make me well?" But I didn't understand what right and wrong really meant. I just knew that I became a bit fascinated with this inquiry.

[00:15:26]And what I immediately was drawn to read and look at was how an autoimmune disease operates and in the body. And just for for any of those listening who aren't as familiar with an autoimmune, I'd love to just explain an autoimmune disease is a class of diseases and um conditions. There are over 140 of them on record. None of them have cures and over 80% of all autoimmune diagnoses are in a woman or a girl's body.

[00:16:12]The way that an autoimmune condition works in relation to the immune system is that an immune system is so out of balance that it can't recognize its own healthy cells from its unhealthy ones and it begins to attack itself.

[00:16:37]And I found that fascinating.

[00:16:42]The concept that my immune system who is designed divinely to protect me from the inside out is in identity crisis.

[00:16:57]And if it's an identity crisis, then how would that story play in the body of a girl that's been living out a character of being a good girl >> forever?

[00:17:21]Did my immune system even know who I was? Did I even know who I was if I had abandoned me for the sake of protecting and servicing and being beautiful to a family and people around me with needs where I prioritized their needs so naturally, so comfortably that being safe to me felt like being in service.

[00:17:49]Feeling loved in my body was the same as feeling that I was good.

[00:18:01]>> And so to me, I began to unravel these questions about, well, what made, you know, if a if being a lifelong good girl was making me sick, then could being a real girl and a true girl get me well?

[00:18:16]And it turns out that it did.

[00:18:21]So I began to talk to other women and girls around me who were also diagnosed with an autoimmune no matter the di no matter the diagnosis.

[00:18:32]And we were almost all either the eldest or the only daughter in our family and we were almost all playing out a caretaker role.

[00:18:45]So these echoes began to present and then I did research amongst a thousand American women and those echoes rang and then I began to write the book.

[00:19:02]>> Sorry that was a biblically long answer.

[00:19:06]>> So 80% of autoimmune diseases are among women.

[00:19:13]>> Yes. and say the percent in your study of how many fit this pattern of >> yes >> eldest or only daughter caretaker role >> 64% >> 64% of those diagnosed with an autoimmune and my my my um humble research um amongst a thousand American women what I saw was that one in four is diagnosed with at least one and that is not an insignificant statistic to me that feels like the climate crisis of women's health.

[00:20:00]I mean this is huge Sarah this is huge and you also talk in your book about how trauma is also a significant factor in the development of autoimmune disorder.

[00:20:13]So, you know, in reading your book and from the psychological perspective, it felt to me like for some women who've grown up in traumatized childhoods, then the only way to be safe is to please or accommodate others. You know, it's it's the trauma coping mechanism of fawning. How do I make sure I'm reading other people's cues and doing what I need to do to stay safe? But it involves a suppression of the true self. But it's a different dynamic for those who are the eldest daughter or the only daughter put in that chronic caretaking role. But it's still about your value is in being someone other than who you truly are and how you are meeting and accommodating other people's needs at your own expense. And as you know, I also was diagnosed with Hashimoto's.

[00:21:11]And I also didn't really find a path to recovery until I realized how much as the only daughter in my family, I'd been in that role and had suppressed my own voice.

[00:21:25]So I think part of what's so beautiful in what you're writing in the book is how our bodies hold the wisdom.

[00:21:33]>> Yes. and are giving us these messages not to cause us more pain but to wake us up to say we need to reclaim our true selves.

[00:21:46]>> Um beautifully put and and I you know I would like to share if it's okay that I you were one of the experts that I interviewed for the book. Um to me I not only wanted to bring forward a thesis which was a sense of self in compromise is bringing forward immunity compromised.

[00:22:14]>> Well put.

[00:22:15]>> That felt to me like our body isn't just speaking science.

[00:22:22]Our body speaks story. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:22:27]And your sacred contribution and and I interviewed I I I looked at the book like I had never written a book before but I know how to make a documentary film. So I said to myself, let me try to make a literary documentary.

[00:22:45]So it has my voice and for the first time it's my arc.

[00:22:51]It has experts from science to soul contributing all kinds of insights and modalities that might be in service of the reader.

[00:23:04]And a lot of divine feminine mysticism, which is sort of my favorite throughine secret sauce of the experience, [laughter] is this mystical um truth around the female experience of transformation throughout time mythology and story because transformation and a reclamation that you speak about you just spoke about it in the beautiful new moon video. You know transformation is not a simple journey and it's not an easy journey and it is a for me I saw this and for other women that I interviewed it can feel terrifying to begin especially when you've been raised as so many of us have with a set of permissions that tend tend to keep us small and tend to keep >> suppressed >> suppressed.

[00:24:20]And the you know sort of the outcome of that is we live self- betrayed self- neglected self-abandoned because at one point or another I found that I don't know if this resonates with you sister but you know I believe in the arc of stages ages of of of the female journey from maidenhood to motherhood to crone. I believe that for so many of us raised as little girls, we had freedom to be in our maidenhood. And I'm specifically talking about the eldest and only a caretaking archetype of us. We had these maidenhoods that were interrupted.

[00:25:17]>> Too short.

[00:25:20]>> I haven't seen that in youngest daughters.

[00:25:25]>> Yeah.

[00:25:25]>> The youngest daughters I interviewed were safely allowed to be in this maidenhood. You know, it it's, you know, maiden and virgin are sort of one and the same. Even the you know Greek definition is one unto herself.

[00:25:44]>> We were that was interrupted from many of us but so we were expedited into a motherhood role but in little girl aprons.

[00:25:58]Yes. And part of what you so beautifully describe in the book too is how this can be generational patterns that get passed down. So mothers who weren't allowed to come into their own full true self then pass on those same patterns to their daughter and then it just keeps going generation after generation.

[00:26:26]I was raised by an eldest daughter who was raised by an eldest daughter who was raised by an eldest daughter. So these wounds and limitations, what's coming forward for me right now is this image that I I I I felt um this this morning when I was meditating. It was very much almost as if the women in my family, and I I hope that this resonates for our sisters and loved ones listening, but it was almost as if we were born into a cage that was unlocked.

[00:27:03]But it's so comfortable and known that so many of the women in our lineage tend to stay in that unlocked but closed cage.

[00:27:16]And you talk about this so beautifully with our beloved Arzena and Sedna and you know these goddesses of kind of freedom and and and reclamation and and and fire in a way.

[00:27:30]They've been able to help me walk out of the cage. I'm not meant for that cage anymore. And I think that so many of us right now are in this generation of sort of these liberation daughters. That's the moment that I feel like we're also in astrologically. Wouldn't would you echo that?

[00:27:57]>> Absolutely, Sarah. I mean, the movement into the age of Aquarius is about reclaiming the lost wisdom of the sacred feminine, bringing it back into balance, coming back into more mutuality with each other in community, moving out of the power over paradigms because I think part of when you're describing and how painful and sad that you describe that that powerful image of being your generation of the motherline being in cages that are unlocked, but the cultural conditioning is this is how you stay safe and this is how you're valued.

[00:28:36]And I think we're really breaking out of those paradigms and needing to reclaim our true selves and our true empowerment.

[00:28:46]>> Isn't that also the genius of the system?

[00:28:51]>> Absolutely.

[00:28:54]That this is how you succeed.

[00:28:56]>> That's right.

[00:28:57]that it's so subversive and so woven into the unconscious that there's actually more fear. In my research, I um I did I asked a lot of questions kind of beyond let's say some of are you you're I know you are but the ACE study >> which is trauma.

[00:29:22]>> Yes. So to go back to the the trauma narrative here, I felt to me like there were genders specific soft traumas experientially within a female experience that aren't, let's say, the more traditionally measured trauma.

[00:29:46]Were you hit by a parent? Was there divorce in your house? was someone um abusing alcohol or drugs, you know, these very um let's say conventionally described traumas. I don't want to speak improperly about about that, but to me, I knew that the women who I was speaking with had experienced traumas with maybe a lowercase T.

[00:30:18]>> Yeah.

[00:30:19]that I felt should be researched. So that was a huge part of of asking questions around women and these girlhood truths because you know being asked um to take less, being asked to be in service more, being asked to be quiet in order to feel good. These are very dangerous conditionings [clears throat] and traumas that are so not just confining but I believe that they are shaping identities.

[00:31:02]>> Yes. And so it's no a it was no sort of accident that when I started peeling back the story that my immune system was telling me.

[00:31:13]Why would I be surprised that it didn't recognize me?

[00:31:18]I didn't recognize me. And who was even the me that I was trying to recognize?

[00:31:25]That Sarah had a very short lifespan. I have twin brothers that were born when they were three and a half. And as I write in the book, mom very understandably took one, dad took the other and I went overnight having two hands to hold to no hands.

[00:31:46]So there are so many of us I think then this birth order component that is that is um very powerfully creating these identity um elements that are so starving to be reclaimed. Arashkiguel Anana story you know being able to go back to those lost parts and welcoming them home.

[00:32:22]Let's talk about the Anana story. I mean that has been such a profound myth from my perspective for us as women and it's been so critical in my work for over 30 years now. But it's such a powerful story because it was actually written Towards the end of the age of Taurus when the goddesshonoring cultures were beginning to be decimated by the nomadic warriors who are beginning that shift into the patriarchal power over paradigms. So the story is encoding that and it is about that way in which we can get traumatized at whatever level like you're describing so that we have to hide parts of ourselves and suppress parts of ourselves to feel safe. And part of what I love in the Anana story is she hears the call of the great below. It's like she hears the call of the body, the call of the inner self that's needing that healing journey. And you so beautifully utilize that journey of Anana going into the underworld, going through the gates to let go of the identity that she's had, to go through that metamorphosis, to emerge transformed, to be describing what the healing journey can look like for us to be in that process of reclaiming our true selves. Yes.

[00:34:00]>> So, can you talk some about that because the steps that you outline are so accessible and so clear and so supportive of what the process is.

[00:34:11]>> Well, blessings for you for inviting me to do that. And I I want to I'll sort of just give a a little bit of a of an of an overview about it. To me, it felt like, and I'm sure that everyone listening has heard you retell the story of Anana and Arashkiguel as well as Sedna, but if they haven't, please go back and do a a dive into Heather's library because it is the most like I just want to sit at the at your feet in a cozy blanket and have you tell me these stories. Um, no one tells them better. No one. But to me, the seven gates of the unbecoming.

[00:35:00]>> Yeah.

[00:35:01]>> If you like to me was a was very much [clears throat] this architecture of in order to become I must unbecome.

[00:35:20]And I think that the first step of that was giving myself permission that it was okay.

[00:35:28]I think permission is such an insidious set of identity framework. And a lot of us that were raised to be good or to caretake I think that permission is an another word for a story. What stories do you believe about who you can be >> and who can give you permission to be who you are?

[00:36:02]So the seven gates to me before I even you know disroed at gate number one I really needed to kind of on the ground in a very um crumbled place give myself permission before you can become anything else I had to give myself permission to unbecome And that carries, tell me if you agree, that carries to me um what can feel like a a very terrifying invitation because there's safety in what we know.

[00:36:52]>> Absolutely. I I love again that you tie in the the butterfly metaphor because for the caterpillar to become the butterfly, it has to die to being a caterpillar. It has to die to everything it's known about its identity and how it functions and to go into that chrysalis that in between time of not having any clarity about its sense of identity.

[00:37:25]It is the process of a right of passage that you have to die to the old identity and truly let it go in order to be in that transformation and healing into a new way of being.

[00:37:40]I also write about this delicious scientific explanation around the imaginal cells.

[00:37:53]Um, and I must give um credit. The very first time I heard that was um from, you know, Dame Pam Gregory. Um, she isn't a Dame, but she deserves that that [laughter] mantle to be sure. Um, in essence, your DNA knows what it is and what it can be.

[00:38:20]And the imaginal cells in a caterpillar are in essence the presence of understanding what it is to become.

[00:38:34]And that doesn't go away. That doesn't disappear. That doesn't change. And I think that I took a lot of courage from believing that there was a divinity within me that knew where I was potentially destined to heal.

[00:38:55]But I had to do the work myself and I had to claim that for myself. And I think that that reclamation also is sort of that, you know, if a if permission has a shadow, it also has a light. And I feel like the reclamation is a layer of permission that women are.

[00:39:27]I think it's birthight.

[00:39:31]>> Birthright. And as you're describing, we all have that true self within us.

[00:39:38]>> That's right. and that soul self that knows what our gifts are and what we're capable of being. But we have to deconstruct the old identity and open to hearing and tuning in again to the true self. And as part of that process, you so describe the importance of remmothering ourselves because we have to be giving ourselves different messages each step of the way.

[00:40:11]Otherwise, we're still in that internal process of the old permissions and the old conditioning and messages.

[00:40:19]>> Yeah. I also feel like there is an element of not only having compassion for the female lineage from which I hail, but also forgiveness for what they weren't able to um bestow upon me.

[00:40:42]And both can be true at the same time.

[00:40:45]>> Absolutely.

[00:40:47]And I had to arrive there. And certainly, you know, divine feminine myths and story were a huge part of almost a north star of introducing me to a mother daughter, but also a sovereign self relationship.

[00:41:07]>> Um, because I didn't have a lot of those women around me. Um, And I believe very truly that the act of remothering I believe that that me now you now I believe that we are you know the baby in the womb, the mother and the doula all at the same time. M >> I believe that there is still a little girl within me all the time that needs uh that needs some attention and mothering in a way that I I just didn't receive when I was little. And I think that first step of that really the the first gate of the embarking is to realize and to give yourself the invitation that the little girl has been waiting for me. She's been here the whole time. Little Sarah has been here the whole time. She hasn't gone anywhere. She's been very patiently waiting her turn and um holding her hand at the at the same time where I'm holding my own as the grown womanhood Sarah. That's really where the remothering comes in. It isn't to un It isn't to unravel all of you to the point of nothingness.

[00:42:54]It's to um it's a shedding. It's a healthy shedding. Does do do you do you agree?

[00:43:02]You know, in that in that, you know, embarking through the seven gates, it's there's still a lot of me that I'm I'd like to keep.

[00:43:14]I'd like for her to still those little parts of me.

[00:43:20]I want them here, too. But the story is that my being and my identity and my character, I use character in quotes because I think that so you know that good girl caretaker role. There's part of me that loves caretaking.

[00:43:41]But there's part of the caretaker in me that was conditioned to do that as a value of worth that is not allowed anymore.

[00:43:53]So a lot of it is what is the underlying motivation and is it coming out of that early trauma and lack of permission to be the true self? Is it coming out of that conditioning?

[00:44:03]>> But we feel the difference when it's coming that love or caretaking and giving is coming out [clears throat] of the true self.

[00:44:10]>> Yes. Yes. Yes. And I think as you're describing, it's so important to realize when we're in that process of shedding, it is as Anana was doing at each of the gates. She was shedding those things that had been attached to her, giving her the sense of identity that weren't connected to her true vulnerable real self.

[00:44:33]>> Yes.

[00:44:33]>> And that's what we're reclaiming in the healing journey. And I I think it's so important, Sarah, that you're talking about those young parts that have gotten suppressed and locked away in the cage are still in us.

[00:44:49]>> Absolutely.

[00:44:50]>> And that we do need to hear them, reclaim them, allow them to finally feel seen and heard and given that permission to be fully themselves.

[00:45:03]because then that healing can really integrate at a deeper level.

[00:45:09]>> That's so be thank you for saying that so beautifully. Um and vulnerably this is a this is a journey and an experience that I believe saved my life.

[00:45:26]>> Yeah. Literally >> literally saved my life. Um there are so many beautiful modalities out there and I am neither doctor nor um medical researcher. I am a social scientist, a documentarian and a patient and I wrote this book for other women like me. And I wrote this for our loved ones as well because one of the things that I think is very critical is around receptivity. And this is a huge piece of the divine healed feminine is am I even able to receive love when it's my turn?

[00:46:11]Am I able to receive care when I need it?

[00:46:16]Am I able to ask um in a way that doesn't make me feel like I'm being too much trouble?

[00:46:26]>> Yeah. Or selfish.

[00:46:29]It was very it was very powerful in the book Sarah that you give quotes of women who talk about that sense of guilt about ever asking for anything or difficulty even knowing what they feel or need.

[00:46:45]>> Yes. Yes. Um um to everyone listening, the research that I did was um a quantitative and qualitative research where I invited women to speak to me about peeling back a layer or a a question that they might have answered, but that they might have had a little bit more that they wanted to express. I really wanted to hold that space. Um and there are hundreds of of [snorts and clears throat] these experiences from different women of different ages, of different e um ethnicity, of different um regional background, of different socioeconomic background, and of different diagnoses who I include their voices in the book.

[00:47:32]Um, and so I really wanted to make sure that whoever was um, picking up the book that there was a voice whether it was yours or mine or a hundred of other thousand other different women or different experts because I think that our lived experiences are all different and I think that what resonates with one doesn't resonate with another. But at the root of the root, I believe that we're in a time and a place and an urgency of healing the feminine parts of ourselves that have been suppressed or perhaps mishandled or hidden away or locked away in some others. And you know, I I think that um receptivity is another permission story that can start so small of just accepting a compliment can be a a first step around receptivity instead of being told, "Oh, that's a nice shirt.

[00:48:47]Oh, no, it's not.

[00:48:50]It's not. It's not really pretty. I just got it out of the back of my closet.

[00:48:55]just then in that small small way but daily way you're blocking the energy of receiving and the body needs to know and believe that it's worthy of receiving.

[00:49:10]>> Yeah.

[00:49:12]Yeah. Beautifully said. You know, the other thing as I'm thinking about it, Sarah, that's so powerful in the book is in the journey of Anana, she can't go through that transformational process without a supporter and an ally there to hold the thread for her journey. And you talk about that in terms of finding supports for yourself in the process.

[00:49:40]But in a powerful way, your book is a ninabar is the companion like Anana had.

[00:49:49]You really are helping hold other women's hands as they embark on the journey.

[00:49:56]>> That got me. That's very kind.

[00:49:59]>> It's beautiful.

[00:50:01]>> It's very kind.

[00:50:03]And I think in your writing your story and you're bringing forth these other women's voices, we hear ourselves in that and then we feel seen and understood. And I think that also is giving us permission to listen to those inner voices and reclaim those traumatized parts of ourselves, those young parts of ourselves and the voice of the true part of ourselves.

[00:50:35]every day that I sat uh got ready to write um and I wrote the book in nine months, exactly nine months. Um so she feels very much like a child of of mine.

[00:50:52]Um, but I sat and wrote um before the first day of writing a prayer that I would read every day um that I hoped um my book might reach women with. Um I've never actually read it out loud.

[00:51:12]Could I read it out loud?

[00:51:13]>> Oh, I'd love that.

[00:51:15]>> Okay.

[00:51:18]Thank you so much. This is really a a a thousand treats in one. Okay, here we go.

[00:51:29]May my book May my book gently awaken women to the sovereign responsibility of being in a female body.

[00:51:39]May it help catalyze a consciousness for healing and transformation.

[00:51:44]May it help women feel heard, seen, and validated.

[00:51:48]May it help give women page by page and word by word divine permission to stand in the power of her birthright.

[00:51:58]May it be the weapon of light she has been waiting for to self-recognize, self- advocate, self-possess, and heal.

[00:52:06]May it cradle her like a chosen mother.

[00:52:09]May it soothe her like a chosen sister.

[00:52:12]And may it champion her with the power of a goddess.

[00:52:16]May it catalyze self- prioritization one perfectly clumsy step at a time.

[00:52:24]May it give permission to every cell of her receptivity to receive, be open, and to release the fear that the strong have no needs.

[00:52:37]May it be a torch of mirrored glass, knowing her aloneeness is but an illusion, and that the world of women around her is waiting for her to heal.

[00:52:48]As my world of women around me awaited my own.

[00:52:54]May she feel with every letter my love and my life, my heart and my hope. May she feel the love letter that it is. And may she, my literary little girl, help change the world in the humble way she has been destined to for the highest good.

[00:53:12]So be it. So it is. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

[00:53:22]Thank you, Sarah. That's exactly what this book has done and is.

[00:53:29]>> You think so?

[00:53:31]>> Absolutely. And you know, I'll put the link below so that people can get it.

[00:53:37]This is emerging. It's been birthed, but it's emerging into the world the beginning of June, but I'll put the link below for people to know about it and be able to pre-order it. And you are a living example of how this journey has led to your own metamorphosis both in your sense of yourself and empowerment and how it's changed your relationships and how you experience who you are in the world, but it's also helped you heal on the physical level.

[00:54:12]I have the last time I went to the doctor.

[00:54:19]Um, so I'm now four years of remission for everything. Every all of the diagnosis either are in remission or disappeared.

[00:54:30]um since I began this work which is all in the book and I hope and pray that it's in service.

[00:54:41]Thank you for inviting me today.

[00:54:44]>> Thank you Sarah. Thank you for having the courage to do this journey, for writing this book, for being such a support to us as women to reclaim our true selves. Thank you.

[00:54:58]>> Thank you.

[00:55:01]and blessings and love to all of you listening and for the ways that we can all be in community supporting each other in reclaiming our true empowered selves.

[00:55:13]Blessings and love to all of you.