Permission to Heal Episode #22 - A Conversation with Sarah Alysse Rosner about De-Stressing & Going for our Dreams

Sarah Alysse Rosner
Stress Management, Gut Health, & Fitness Coach

Sarah Alysse helps corporate executives implement fun SOULutions to their stressful lives so they can up level both at home and in their careers. She’s the creator of Live Well Enhance You which formed out of a need for her pilates clients to find balance in their lives. 

Her 3 pillar SOULutions to Success plan used in her personalized coaching program “Enhance Your Life”, examines what areas clients are missing and discovers ways to bring joy back into their daily lives. She understands the connection between the brain and body thanks to her BFA Musical Theater education and an abundance of certifications from STOTT Pilates, Integrative Institute of Nutrition, to National Academy of Sports Medicine. 

Sarah has both in-person and online coaching and fitness programs for corporate clients looking to improve their work-life balance, brain-gut connection, and enrich their fitness practice.

Connect with Sarah Alysse
Her Stress-Free SOULutions Podcast
Her Email
Her Website
Instagram

Connect with Marci

·       Website, Patreon, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Facebook Group.

·       Permission to Heal on YouTube.

·       Permission to Land  (memoir) - Hardcover, Paperback, eBook, audiobook 

-      Permission to Land: Personal Transformation Through Writing

Permission to Heal Bookshop - Buy books from the episodes & support independent bookstores. 

Permission to Heal is a passion of mine.  I need your help to bring more inspirational episodes to the world; please consider becoming a patron through PATREON. This is where your PATREON subscription comes in. You get perks & the contentment knowing you are helping get PTH out to the people who need it.  

Transcript

Welcome to permission to heal. I am Marci Brockman, and I am thrilled that you're here at tonight's episode. I have Sarah Elise Rozner. She is a stress man management gut health fitness coach out of Chicago, Illinois, Sarah and I met through the BCN accelerator course with Jen Gottlieb and Chris Winfield.

And we were both learning how to share our message out with the world, and you are going to want to hear what she has to say. Sarah helps corporate executives implement funds, so Aleutians to their stressful lives so that they can level up both at home and in their careers. She is the creator of live well, enhance you, which formed out of a need for her Pilates clients to find balance in their lives.

Her three pillar solutions. S O U L  to success plan used in her personalized coaching program, enhance your life examines, what areas clients are missing and discovers ways to bring joy back into their daily lives. She understands the connection between the brain and the body. Thanks to her BFA, musical theater, education background, and an abundance of certifications from S T O T T or Stott Pilates, integrative institution of nutrition and national Academy of sports medicine.

She has been mostly recently featured in WGN around town segment as a stress management expert. Also she's been promoted on business, insider, Yahoo, finance, and us reporter. Sarah has both in-person and online coaching and fitness programs for clients looking to improve their work-life balance, their brain gut connection, and enriched rich their fitness practice.

And if that wasn't enough, she also has a podcast called stress free solutions available on Apple podcasts. And I would imagine any other listening platform that you could find. I listened to a few of her episodes and you're not going to want to miss them. Welcome, Sarah. Thank you so much, Marcy, for having me, I'm so thrilled that we were able to finally connect and get this going.

Me too. I remember,  being, you ask questions on the BSA Q and a calls when we were chatting with Chris and Jen, and I was like, she's got infectious energy, that one, you know, and you were just moving apartments with your boyfriend in the middle of a pandemic and taking the class and running your business.

And I was like, just in awe of the energy. Well, thank you. I appreciate that. Sometimes I feel like I'm, I'm going full force too much, but, yeah, that's me. Awesome. Awesome. And you have a musical theater background. Yeah. I started in high school and I just loved it so much that I had to continue in college.

And honestly, I feel that tough love from musical theater really helped me with my career and being, wow. Yeah, we'll get into that in a minute.  I like to begin all of the podcast conversations with my six quick questions, although occasionally I leave them to the end cause I forgot about them.

Okay. So let's, let's just dive in. You ready? Right. Okay. Now what five words would you use to describe yourself? Ooh, I'm a giver bubbly. Yes. Go getter. Uh, let's see. Um, innovative, I guess creative was there similar and. Yeah, I'm adventurous. I, yeah, I think innovative and creative are very similar, although there's probably shades or nuances of differences, but I think it's pretty close.

Um, what's your favorite way to spend the day? Well, I do love taking a walk with my dog Presley out in Chicago and just seeing where it takes us. Cause he just snips around and then he'll go one direction, but be like, okay, Presley, if that's where you want to go, let's go. He's a Chiweenie. He's part Chihuahua and Jackson before he's the cutest.

Oh my God. A Chihuahua and a docksin beanie. Oh my God. I'm going to have to write that down and look that up. They're adorable. They definitely, the pictures of them put a smile on my face, so, Oh my God. So cute. What is your favorite childhood memory? My dad and I played pretty pretty princess on an airplane.

I thought it was so great how he just would be like, well, my daughter needs to be entertained, and this is how to do, what's pretty, pretty princess with this, um, game that basically you would roll a dice and then you would hop around and every single spot would have like a piece of clothing you had to put on yourself.

So it might be a TM. It might be a ring earrings. It would be like clip-on earrings. And I wish, I, I wish I did. That's something I don't think we ever did, but it's a memory that I'll never forget. That's awesome. Talk about feeling loved and seen and, and cherished and cared for, you know, I imagine your dad on an airplane with a Tiara on his head.

That's awesome. Okay. What's your favorite meal? I love mashed potatoes, which is funny as a health coach, but my mom always made good mashed potatoes. And now I know how to make them. You do scratch. Start from scratch with actual potatoes. Actual potato is. Yeah. And I also loved making latkas growing up too.

So I think like the favorite things, so good. Like the smell of a frying Latka to bring me back to my grandmother's kitchen. Exactly. Exactly. So that's fine. A lot of potatoes, I guess in general, grandmother, Mae or mom, or whatever, make brisket for holidays.  No, I didn't learn anything about brisket.

Really. It wasn't a tradition really in my parents' side, which is, or my mom's side, I saw some brisket, like on my dad's side, growing up when we would go visit Jersey. So yeah. Okay. I've been like hounding every Jewish person. I know to see if they're, if they have an old recipe for brisket, because my grandmother used to make this amazing brisket and she died with the recipe.

Oh no. Nobody knows how she made it. And I it's been so long that I, I hardly even remember the taste footprint in my mouth, but I have this memory of it, whatever experiments and play around maybe, and I haven't quite hit on it. I found a lot of recipes that I liked that I do make, but they're not quite, and it could just be that elusive childhood love memory of grandma that's the missing quality.

I don't know. I don't know. Number five. What one piece of advice would you like to give your younger self?  Be okay with not knowing all the answers, because someday along the lines, you are very smart and you'll discover that that is a great answer. It's true. We're so impatient when we're young and so hard on ourselves when we don't know, and we want it now and we don't have the life experience to know that we need to just be calm.

And eventually when we're meant to know, we'll know exactly brilliant. What is one thing you would most like to change about the world? People understanding one another,  and taking the time to get to know the person versus the idea of the person, but you always have preconceived notions and that's something I make sure to do when I'm getting to know a new client is not to have any preconceived notions.

Yeah. It's so easy to use your first impression of somebody were their physical appearance or even the energy that you get from them in the first, the first impression. So not jump to conclusions about them. You know, I do that every year with my, when I get a new compliment of students come into my classroom.

And sometimes I have, even though I try to be open-minded like that, I do make a misjudgment. Yeah, it's hard though. Just when their energy comes into the classroom, you probably noticed, Oh, this person seems like a goofball. This person's really quiet. I don't know if I'm going to have to like, get more out of them, but maybe then they become the busy bee and talk all the time.

Yeah. I mean, not this year, nobody's saying anything during COVID school, but, uh, but a few years ago in the mid year, middle of the year, I got a, I, I teach 11th and 12th grade English and I had an 11th grader. This young man moved from Florida, came to New York, had a very thick  Southern dialectic accent. And he wore his pants down below the crack of his butt and had like these like gangster rapper kind of clothes.

And I was like, Oh my God, this is just going to be a pain in my Keester. Yeah. Just had this attitude physically that I misread as problematic. And he turned out to be brilliant. And participated. And even when it didn't look like he was paying attention, he was totally on fire and knew exactly what was going on, but like nineties or above on everything without seemingly trying.

And, and I began, as I got to know him, I began to realize that that whole first impression he had engineered so that he was coming to a New York school. It's suburban well Island, New York city. He was from this small town in Florida. And I think he asked, affected that whole thing as a way of, you know, leveraging an impression on these new kids so that he wouldn't get picked on or something.

Interesting. It was very interesting. I could do a whole psychological paper just on this one boy. And, and over the first few weeks of him acclimating in school, his entire wardrobe changed. His vocabulary changed his, his diction and his accent changed. He just was putting it on so that he could make his presence known.

Interesting. Yeah. Interesting. Huh?

No, you wouldn't expect that. No, no. Teaching 25 years. That's the only incidence of that, that I've ever been able to see that, you know. Yeah . Okay. So we started out talking about your background. So as an undergrad, you were a musical theater major, and then somehow after you graduated, you transitioned and became a stress management coach.

Yeah. So that took a long path to get to,  interesting one. I'm sure it was, it was a very interesting, so basically college, you would just constantly get rejected as a, as a musical theater performer. We would always. The audition, concern, audition. Exactly. So I was starting to notice there was a trend of, well, I am not going to be an ingenue.

I'm always the fun friend or the serial killer or always some sort of person. Yeah, it was, it was interesting. I also had a really, I mean, I still have a baby face, but it looks super young in college. So they would cast me as teenagers. I was like, I don't want to be the honors. You knew so badly. And I just came to that realization.

Hey, it's fine. And then I started developing other things that I love. So. I was a musician play piano and saying in my own time still would act, sing and dance and audition. And then my third thing was I was a smoothie maker at a gym fitness formula club. And someone said to me, you would be a really good body strainer.

And that's how that, so I started doing fitness and then eventually it led me to the path of coaching. I started taking ownership of my own health and went to the integrative Institute of nutrition. And then there, it was stress management. Wow. Yeah. That's so cool. You probably have the greatest smoothie recipes too.

I do. I've really gotten good with them. That was something I I'm very passionate about because it's awesome. Bread and butter for so many years. Can you give us a little snapshot of what your childhood was like? Yeah. Um, so I came from a Jewish family. I, I was an only child too. Um, no way. So yeah, you know how it is like very outgoing, sometimes loves to share sometimes prefer to have their own things.

Um, I, I was one of those children then my parents were so nervous to be a stereotypical, only child where they were awkward. You know, just all the things that you hear as a parent growing up, like your kid's going to not socialize well. So being Jewish, only child, my parents were like, let's put her into every activity possible.

And have all these play dates and she's going to be normal and not just talk to adults. So that was, that was that. So I went to a theater camp and then I would go to, um, outdoor camp and to sleep away. So eventually I chose just theater camp and it was my, my theater camp that brought me probably into musical theater.

More and more brought you the most joy. Where did you grow up? Was it near Chicago? I grew up in Wisconsin, so I was born in Jersey, North Brunswick area, and then grew up in Macwan Wisconsin. My mom's family was originally from Milwaukee and my dad's side Jersey. So that's how I got there. And then college Chicago.

I wanted to be in a big city to go to USC. No. So I went to Columbia college, Chicago it's  fine arts, liberal arts and they have journalism, a TV broadcast. Yeah. So it's an interesting, yeah, mainly in the arts, but yeah, that's fun. So you have been doing the coaching for what, eight or nine years now.

So the trainee like fitness coaching for a good eight or nine years, I'd say the stress management coaching the last three years. It's, it's a bit newer for me.  But I've been really focusing a lot on that since 2020. I just felt that was my calling. This is why I'm supposed to be doing it more. They needed, I needed it.

We're in the middle of a global pandemic and there isn't a single person I know who is not suffering in some way from. Burnout stress, anxiety, depression, grabbing fever. You know, hypochondriasis not that that's crazy because we're in the middle of a pandemic, but I think that, we're all suffering.

Definitely. Yeah. We gotta find new ways to, to relax our brains bodies and souls. So, yeah. Amen. So what, what was that like starting a business from nothing. Well, it was interesting. I've always been a bit of a hustler and I knew that when someone told me you'd be good at this. So it was like, well, okay.

I could figure it out. So that was my first step. It was just saying, yeah, let's give this a go. And I was almost the goofball in the class. The woman pointed me out. That was the head instructor, but she would say, Oh, Sarah's doing this wrong. And this exercise. And that was a challenge to me. I was like, well, now I'm going to be the perfect example of what not to do, but I will feel it in my body.

And I will know how to teach other people how to do it correctly because I know what it's like to do things wrong at first because I was new at it. And I learned a lot from her. And over time I became one of her favorite students because I was always willing to take, a critique because I learned that from musical theater all those years.

So I knew, Oh, this isn't right, I'll do it this way. Little change, boom done. And it's. It's honestly been my structure for business too, if something's a failure. Okay. What can I do? And tweak it. And now this is a business model I can, I can live by and teach others. Yeah. That's a great way to do it. I then we were so many people who were so afraid to try new things because they might fail at them or because they might look silly doing them, or it might not work out the way they hoped it would that they don't even try.

Yeah. Then I think you and I have that in common where it's just like, the failure would be not trying it, so let's try it and if it works great. And if it doesn't, we'll tweak it until it does work. Yeah. Yeah. One of your books is called failure to launch. 

But no, you said you have permission to land belonging. Another book that came out before that to permission to land searching for love home and belonging is my memoir. Um, a companion guided journal called permission to land personal transformation through writing that sort of led me to permission to heal the podcast.

It's all and organic trail. I've been watching too much TV now mixing things up, but yeah, that failure, the launch was a movie, Matt McConaughey and Kate Hudson. Kate Hudson. Yeah. Yeah. Oh see,

I definitely been there.  Like you learn from your mistakes, you laugh at them and you get through them. Exactly. That's what I do every day in my life. You know, as, as Jen Gottlieb used to say, and as you said on your podcast that launched today, your message is your message. We're all humans and we're all flawed and imperfect and we're showing up the best way.

We know how to show up in the moment that we're showing up. And, and that's how it is, you know? I mean, we're doing this podcast. We, we. Kind of screwed around for like an hour, because my sound wouldn't work. I'm trying power chords and sound chords, and it's so weird. Just cobbling it together and making it work and yeah, definitely right.

Taking risks and fixing things up. Exactly. Exactly. I used to be afraid to, to shoot videos and last my hair was perfect and I had my makeup done. I had to sort of curate my look and, and this afternoon I realized how far I came because I got out of the car when I got home and the sun was shining and it was 55 degrees and it was warm for a change.

And I just recorded a video and like instantly uploaded it to Instagram. And the hair's like getting stuck in my lip balm and like it's blowing around and I didn't care. What did you, because you've really, truly felt that moment. And you're like, I need to share this with people and that's, that's great versus, uh, you know, opposed video.

It never comes up naturally. So, absolutely. I love that. You did that. That's cool. So what has been the biggest stressor for you as you've been evolving your career? And you've been trying to build a business and gain clients and learn the marketing and starting a podcast and like what, I'm sure you are vibrating with stress.

Yeah. And so honestly, that's why I created the podcast. Cause I thought it was ironic stress free solutions with me. It's, I've been through so many stressors in my life, but I've been able to break habits and maybe I develop new habits, but then break those. It's something that's really important. And there's so many different ways to go about it, regardless of who you are.

And I thought it was interesting to have different perspectives of stress. So for me, the most stressful thing, 2020 was this was the first year I had time to just sit in silence in my apartment and be like, well, what do I really want to do with my life? Like, do I want to just go and teach and teach and teach and teach?

Right. I'm going to burn myself out by the time I get to, I would say I'm 32. I was like, I see myself at full burnout at 38 and how will I have a family? And all of these things started creeping in and I took a pad of paper, started journaling, and I discovered, well, you've always wanted to coach more.

Look at this as a time to learn about how to market yourself in a different light. And just go for it. And there's been a lot of trial and error, but, um, I discovered my voice through all of this and that's, that's probably the number one thing is taking, taking the risk and saying yes to myself for a change that is beautiful.

Wow. There are so much about that, that you just said that I am in love with that instead of like ruminating on the negative, you took the opportunity to get quiet with yourself, to listen to the whispers of your heart and figure out through journaling, which is like what I'm all about. You figured out what you wanted to do and made yourself a plan.

That's outrageously fabulous. Thank you.

You know, it's, I say that so many times. I write about it. I'd say it. I tell everybody, I tell my students, we have to get quiet with ourselves and shut off all of the media and the television and take some time away from other people and just sick with ourselves to figure out how we feel about things.

Meditate, don't meditate, draw, right? Doesn't matter. Just be quiet, even, even meditative walking, go and just breathe and take in all of your senses and be in that moment with yourself, it's calming, it gets rid of stress, but it also into tunes you in with your own soul, there's a way to figure yourself out otherwise.

Exactly. And that's why I needed to take that time for myself and, and recognize also what was important. Um, And it really, really was beneficial to have, even though if it was maybe one or two months, like I had no idea what I was going to be doing. Cause it was especially for gyms, they were all closed and I could see the writing on the walls, like, okay, this virtual training stuff for companies then actually is going to go by and I'm going to have to figure out, okay, am I going to create a whole fitness model and start doing a crazy amount of classes and destroying my body more?

Like that's not for me. And so I figured out, I reached out to old clients that I don't get to see as much because they live elsewhere. And I said, Hey, I just recently decided to get my personal training certification. I got it. I'm certified. Now I can do that. Pilates. You tell me what you need and let's do this.

And then a lot of people. Yeah. And they were open to just training online. And it's great because I'm able to look at their form if they want a recording of it, I'll record it. And then they have it to keep and to do things on their own or certain exercises. So I've really personalize my approach with training while also pursuing more of my stress management coaching.

And that's honestly, what's been a game changer with my business and not working for other people as much. It's all me. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. I just, I think about as you're talking the chutzpah and the, the. I don't know what the word is. It's, it's bravery. It's, self-reliance it's independence. It's, uh, to be able to do all of this and know that you're supporting yourself while you're doing it.

So the money that's coming in while you're changing directions has to support all of it. And, uh, I think that that's, that I don't know if I would be able to do that. I have I'm relying on my teaching income is actually paying all of my bills still, and I don't make any money yet from anything that I've been doing, but, you know, like, I'm sure in the summertimes you have off though a little bit, so you'll have a little bit more, more time now that you've created such amazing content.

Like you're going to be able to. Take the bull by the horns when you have a little more time for me. Yeah. The fitness stuff was just disappeared. So it was like sink or swim after pivot. I have to pivot,  otherwise I won't be able to eat and my dog won't be able to eat and Presley, gutsy that dog. He's the cute S and , that, that was when I realized I was like, okay, well, rent's important.

I can sustain this for this amount of time, but I need to have something coming in. And it's great because now I work less, but make more because I'm working smarter. And, uh, now it's an actual business before I didn't realize, I thought I had my own business, but now it's become something. So what does it look like to work smarter?

How does that, what does that look like and how does that feel? So working smarter for me, it has been less hours actually putting strain on my body. I now get to do the workouts. I want to teach maybe, maybe one or two. I miss my cycling classes. My Tuesday, Thursdays, those were blessed and wonderful people, but I taught like six bar classes a week.

I don't even love bar. I like doing it once a week because I think it's great. But when you have to demonstrate all the time and people might feel differently about it, but I feel you need to demonstrate to show the correct form because a lot of new people don't know what the heck they're doing. So I'm glad I teach one of those and I love it, but now I just, my body feels better.

And then in addition to that, I'm able to. Still concentrate on form with my clients that are still coming to my group classes virtually, and I've been able to create an intimate environment. So, so it's, it's still bringing a nice sane community in there, but people that are actually working hard at improving versus I felt some people were just there, you know, because they hadn't, I don't know if you know, class cast, it's a thing in the Midwest.

Um, but people would come on class pass and they would leave these reviews and then it would be, you know, they don't necessarily know Pilates. They only have their version of Pilates and like, well, I know what I've been doing for a while now is real Pilates. Right. But that's, that's just the way they learned about it.

So this has been much, much more freeing for myself. And, now I can do things I've always wanted to learn how to actually market myself and BSA. I wouldn't have never been able to have the time to do that app on a call at 1:00 PM. Never. No. Yeah, yeah. For me, I'm in New York and the time zones changed.

So I mean different. So for me it was three in the afternoon, so it was perfect. I would get home from school and then just hop on the call and otherwise I couldn't have done it. There were so many things that I wanted to do, but the timing just didn't allow me to. To do it. Okay. So a new coaching client shows up and says, Sarah, I am completely stressed out.

I'm on the edge of burnout. I'm crying all the time. I don't know what the heck to do. What do you tell her? How do you say? Well, I always like to start with people on their bedroom routines and I asked them, what do you do? First thing, you come home. What's the first thing you do. Normally they'll be like, well, I have to do , this, and this and this and this and this.

And I'm like, well, there it is. That's why you're so stressed. Do you ever pause a moment to breathe? And that's where we start. And then we get into nitty gritty of what they're fueling in their body. Then we get into, okay. Are your career, how's that going? How are you feeling about it? Where are you right now?

Then we dig deeper more relationships. Then sometimes they dig deeper finances. Then we dig deeper. And where do you want to be in five years? And we do a breakdown. So I like to tackle from the inside out what's going on in your body? Um, I'm big gut health coach. So always about following your gut, what's the gut saying to you today?

Did you wake up, did you feel bloated? Did you feel like you had knots in your stomach, in your brain? Are you feeling a little foggy? What time of the day? So just kind of asking them all the questions to really, really finesse exactly what needs to be worked on and, and what they can actually change tomorrow versus what they, saying I'm going to cut sugar out tomorrow.

That doesn't necessarily happen. It's going to take a long time to get to that and cutting out sugar or coffee or whatever it is because you've been doing it for so long. So, and the systemic change of that omission takes a while to notice. Exactly. Yeah. And then also some people, they want that sugar craving.

Right. So we have to go through that , almost like an addiction thing. And I always give them resources.  If they, if mentally they need someone else, I'm always referring people out to a therapist or I stay in my lane because that's, that's also important or a nutritionist. Uh, so yeah, that's a, it's actually just the, even the beginning of that is, , is an excellent thing.

I was a single mom working three jobs. I had two kids, no support system. You know, I would come home from school. Luckily I was a teacher, so I got home relatively when my kids got home and I was off when they were off and it just made life a lot easier. But, but even that, like I would come home and immediately like launch into mom mode and okay.

Who's getting what snack. And did you remember all your books for your homework and what do you have to do and where do you have to go? And it was like all this stuff, but then once all of that was sort of squared away and we were home off, comes the bra I'm back in my jammy, like, all right, let's, let's relax and let's figure out our evening or, you know, whatever it was.

And, uh, and it was, it's hard to, to John all those balls in the air at the same time and not lose it. You know, it's hard to remember self care in the middle of all of that when you're. Taking care of everything else. Right. Taking care of everyone else as well. And you're the number one person that needs the care and often that's, what's forgotten.

Yeah. For a while I was trying, I knew I had to work in an exercise routine and everybody I was talking to said the best time to work out is first thing in the morning. And I was getting sashes every two weeks on Fridays. And my massage therapist was a professional professional and competitive bodybuilder actually.

And he, I think he was jacked.  And, and he would say you should work out first thing in the morning. You should do. High interval, intensity interval training. I couldn't remember the acronym and you should do it on an empty stomach, first thing in the morning.

And I'm like, yeah, I get up at 5:00 AM already. And he's like, so go to bed an hour earlier and wake up at four. I'm like, it's not as easy as that, you know, I got to get the kids to bed, whatever things I have to do for the next morning I do at night. And so for a while, I was able to keep it up for a few months.

I was going to bed a little bit earlier and I was getting up at four. And I was working out for an hour before school. And at first it was like, I wanted to just drive nails through my eyeballs. It was just like, I couldn't hold my eyelids open. I was dragging. And then the endorphin sort of caught up to me and I was excited and good.

And I was jazzed about a new routine, but that didn't last more than a few months before, or I just couldn't keep it up. It was just too much burning the candle at both ends. And since then, I mean, that was probably seven years ago. And since then, I haven't been able to effectively work a workout routine into my life.

Yeah, it can, it can be really challenging. And I think too, those almost those memories of it, of what working out was perceived of what you needed to do, stays in your body. And so that, that's something I've, I've told many of my clients too. I was like, just because of, let's say. You worked out a certain way in your twenties that you do in your forties or fifties.

Like it's always totally different things that are different things that are gonna feel good.  Yeah, like everyone always says to me, you know, yoga is the best thing ever. And I remember having a bad experience with yoga. And so that for a while was not letting me go to a yoga class. And I was like, why is this bothering me so much?

And I was like, my body is just telling me no, for some reason. Cause I had injured myself at a yoga class and I was like, well now I found a different spot to go to and I love it. So yeah. It just, everything always has changing. Yeah. Yeah. About two years ago. Yeah. I, my God, yeah, it was two years ago. I had decided that maybe what I needed was more monitoring while I was working out.

And so I had. Her, I'm not going to use the name of the gym, but there is a cause I don't want to get sued. There's a gym chain that provides like wearable heart monitors, where I get met measures, you know, your pulse and your heart rate and all of that stuff. And then up on these TVs that hang up on the wall, it shows your name and what your heart rate is and what your target should be.

And like all this stuff. And so I figured, all right, my cognitive brain. Can look up at the TV. And even though I feel like I'm having an anxiety attack and I'm going to die, I can look up at the TV and know, okay. My heart rate is in the target range. I'm not going to die. Yeah. And so I allowed the cognitive brain to sort of override the emotional and I thought that would help me.

And it didn't at all. And because as I was on the treadmill and I was doing like really scaled back from what the instructors were having everybody do. And as I was working out, I was crying. People I think were a little uncomfortable to run on the treadmill next to me because here I am,  this 50 year old premenopausal woman hysterical, crying, treadmill.

Sorry. It's not like stress and exercise, induced anxiety attacks is what I was labeled the me that, and I don't know if that's a thing, but that was my self-diagnosis. Yeah. Hey. Oh, I mean, it's real, but your whatever was going in and needed to release something so good for you for releasing that because some people would just hold it in and then wouldn't be able to breathe.

I would just cry. I'd bring tissues on the treadmill with me and I'd look at the woman next to me. And I'm like, I'm just going to cry. I'm just warning you pour out. I don't know what was trapped in there that just needed a release. So bizarre, so bizarre.

Okay. So, so we've got listeners, hopefully there are people listening. What advice could you give them? What actionable things can they do now? To sort of release some of the stress of the anxiety that they're feeling immediately when they walk in the door at home. What's one thing that will bring them joy in that moment.

For me, that seemed Presley, wag his tail and runs to me every time without a doubt, unconditional love. So for me, that's that, but for other people that might look like I'm taking a nice breath or a size sitting on my couch and just closing my eyes for a second, or it could be lighting a candle, whatever it is.

Just take that moment and say what would bring me joy at this time from getting home from work, like don't even think about work. What would bring you joy? My stepmother used to come home from work. Uh, it never even dawned on me or connected it until this moment when you were talking, but she would come home from work in the city and before she would really even focus on anybody and say, hello, she immediately went to her.

Roman, took a shower and she just washed whole day off and came out. She was in her nightgown already, who cared. She just came out and then she could hug and kiss. And how are you? And what's going on and how is school and what are we doing for them dinner and how is everybody feeling? But it wasn't until after she took that shower that she felt human again.

And it didn't Dawn on me until just now that that was probably a really good anti-stress. Behavior. Yeah. Yeah. She just, like you said, kind of like washed away the day, whatever, whatever was bothering her or whatever she was holding onto. Yeah. For me, it's always removing the bra and having something tasty to eat.

Like I take a few spoonfuls of ice cream or something just to sorta, okay. We're home, you know, it's just, and hugging the cats. We have four cats and I don't think it's possible to be stressed and anxiety if you're holding a kitten, it just, it just can't, um, one's five and a half one's one and a half and two, 10 month old kid.

Oh, so cute. All adoptions and rescues. And you know, none of them are related, but we call them brothers and sisters and they all get along and broom each other and chase each other around and, uh, brings me such. Joy I'm running around and to cuddle with them. And, Oh my God, my house is like a jungle gym for cats.

They're just toys everywhere, but it makes us all happy. Yeah. Um, so how did your podcast grow up? Like w did, did you get that idea through BSA or it did. It happened to from some other. So it's interesting you say that, um, it's a really good question. I, when I first started having conversations with people, the reason why I did it when I really dig deep it's because I didn't believe in myself that I was a stress management coach.

And so I felt this would bring that to light for me. And I did, as I was chatting with my guests, I realized, you know, a lot, it kind of goes back to that thing. I said about the childhood. Yeah. So I always believed that, you know, I was not smart enough or. It carried with me into my Dell hood. It had nothing to do with my parents.

Like they would always praise me and love me, but it was something that developed when I was a little girl I didn't realize was there. And I just held myself to this standard. And yeah. Now, um, this was kind of my break away from it by creating the podcast. And that's why I, and it worked and it really works.

Yeah. I've been living in it now. I really, I lived true to me as a stress management coach. So that's beautiful. That's beautiful. Yeah. For, for me, I, throughout the time that I was writing my memoir, I knew that I wanted to build some sort of community to share these ideas with  who would embrace the messaging that I wanted to communicate about wellness and mental health and being compassionate to ourselves and trusting ourselves and giving ourselves permission to do all the things that we want to do in our life.

That, that so many of us look for external validation or external permission to do. We're looking for somebody to say, okay, it's okay if you do that, but we need to realize that we need to do this ourselves. That we're the only people who can give us the permission to do things the way you gave yourself permission to, to create this business and to create this the podcast.

 And, and I was trying to do it through YouTube videos, but I was doing them by myself. There were all these monologues about things and I, I know some stuff. And so they were useful, but they really warrant. Feeling for me, like I envisioned. And, uh, and I had a professor from a local college who was doing a zoom presentation in my senior English classes about the art of the podcast.

And it was like, somebody hit me over the head with a four by four, like lightning bolts. Oh my God. That's what I'm doing. That, that, that's it. And I don't think, I think the universe brought him to my class for me, not for my kids, not one single one of the 50 seniors. I have over two classes who heard this, where the slightest bit interested.

And I was, Oh my God. Yeah. It was supposed to happen. It was supposed to bring you that energetic and light or your life. Yeah. Yeah. And I realized I had all the components. Because I had put together this little home recording studio to do my audio book, and I knew how to do all of that. And I had a ton of friends that I made through BSA, and then I made through the elephant journal and all sorts of people in my writing communities.

And like, I'm going to have guests for years. I don't have to worry about that. I immediately, I'm not an avid podcast listener. So, I mean, it seems like your format for yours is extremely fluid and easy and casual like this I hope is. And immediately within a few hours, I knew exactly how everything was going to go.

Or at least from the beginning, how everything was going to go. Right. Well, and even, you know, um, I love your questionnaire too. Like it was straight to the point, but I felt then you could get a sense of people's personalities. And I feel that's very helpful for me. , I do like a 15 minute personal conversation with them because that resonates with me.

Every one is different, but it, it's still getting your voice out there. And I think it's important for people in the world to also collaborate and talk to one another because that's how you'll bring your other communities to each other. Right. And it's the sharing of stories that creates empathy and the sharing of stories that allows the sharing of our humanity to bring meaning to all of our lives.

So definitely. It's a beautiful thing. Yeah. I love it. Fabulous. Do you have any go-to books or music or podcasts or something that, that turns you on or immediately relaxes you or helps you get into your zone? So whenever I am hopping on a call, whether it's a new client or a podcast, whatever, I, I listened to the rolling stones and big stones girl them, and it's usually the song start me up.

Wow. Okay. And I was very fortunate to see Mick Jagger and the whole crew performed two years ago at soldier field. Now I'm a diehard packer fan. So me going to soldier field is a big deal. And I was critiquing being the musician, everything around me. So I made sure I had the perfect seat. I bought the perfect seat for the sound stones and it was magical.

And I went by myself. So that was an experience. I loved everything about it. Yeah. Then worry about anyone else's needs, but your own. Exactly. It was funny though. The two sitting next to me were. Definitely I want to say in their seventies and they were smoking weed the entire time and beer, and I was just like, this is fabulous.

Everything about this experience is just magical. Great. That's so great. Yeah. I don't have a, uh, like a go-to start me up kind of thing or no, I gotta find one. Maybe that would help me settle in a little faster. Yeah. Um, it was honestly because of what Jen said when she said about Michael Jackson music.

Yeah. And when and pre ritual and you know, so at night I like to do, if I'm doing an interview, I like to do the candle thing during the day. I might do a diffuser. It just really depends on my mood. And then yeah. Um, but the book that I've been. Rereading lately is the big leap by Gary Hendrick.

But that's been my favorite because it's talking about, it's helped me actually with my business is, but it talks about the zone of competence, the zone of excellence and living in your zone of genius. And so that's where we want to strive. Explain that. What does that, I've never heard of that before.

Yeah. So the zone of confident confidence is just living your day to day,  kind of in a blah sort of mindset. And, it could be with your career, it could be with your life.  And then the other things zone of excellence is doing something you're really good at loving what you do, but never taking that extra leap to go to the next level.

So I, I admire you for writing two books. That's something that I think is really, really challenging. And I admire people because you have to get your brain to a certain level to actually do that. And I know you're an English teacher, but no matter what, like people don't just write books. And it had been percolating in my brain for a very long time.

And then like the planets just aligned. And last October 1st I was taking a writing course through elephant journal, just as to keep me a little accountable. I could myself, a writing community. And in the 10 weeks between October 1st and December 15th, I wrote 126,000 words.

It just poured out of me. Yeah.  As unbelievable. Yeah. Okay. So zone of competence of excellence, and then what don't have what genius. Yes. Yeah. Where every day it's like, you don't have any real problems because you're living every day as your best self. It sounds very, very difficult. I also sound very woo woo to me when I was first reading it.

But then as I was exploring it more and I was like, well, it's because you have all these limited limiting beliefs about yourself and all these fears, like, well, what if I get there? And then I just, you know, self-sabotage so I'm trying to focus in on how I'm serving at a higher. Level for not only other people, but myself.

And I think it's, that's, that's what it, what it comes down to is believing more in yourself and then you can serve at a higher level for other people. So makes sense. I think that when I try to do my language is different, but when I try to do that, I have to remember that what I'm doing. Isn't for me, what I'm doing is to be of benefit to others, that I'm trying to do this in service to other people's healing journey or in my student's case, um, you know, I'm, I'm teaching them to, to make them better people to make them better communicators, better writers, give them emotional literacy that we get through literature and learn how to connect and analyze it of about that.

Whatever could go on and on and on. But when I, when I make it not about myself, but that I'm the conduit for. Giving it and sharing it with others that I find that it automatically snaps my mindset in the right way. Yeah. And then you're more ready to receive too. Is that that's another thing is we're not always able to receive compliments or, um, just receive accolades in general because we are so focused in on, well, I'm going to step away from this because I don't, it's not perfect yet.

You know what I'm saying? Like, we're always focused on that. Factionism and we don't let ourselves like explore more and, and just be more vulnerable. And so that's what your podcast is doing. It's letting people dig deeper and be vulnerable. So absolutely. And, and every single guest that I have. On, as I'm talking about healing and trying to really dig at the heart of their message and what they have to offer the world, the beauty and the fabulous things that they have to offer the world.

It's like, I'm growing, it's like a therapy session for me, you know, but that only happens when I'm focusing on the guests and I'm focusing on the message. Definitely. Such an amazing thing. Yeah. So great. Thank you so much for being here. I loved every second of this. I'm going to link your website. Sarah Lee's coaching. They can find you on Instagram and live well enhance you. You have a Facebook group. Is that open to the public? Yeah, so I have a Facebook page live well, enhance you. And it basically is my backstage pass to my podcast episode.

So there are always uncut unabridged though, that you can watch and you can see my mess is my message and my guests as well. So that's, that's why I have that, uh, mainly on Instagram. And then you can contact me through my website. If you have any questions about coaching or training. And the website is www live well, enhance you.com.

Yes. Okay. So I'm going to link all of this fabulousness to the show notes and all of the links to find you and, and so on so that everybody can, can follow Sarah Elise Rosner. That's awesome. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you for being here. This was really great. Appreciate it.