August 17, 2025 • 39 mins
When lawyer and mum Sarah Susak was told she had a rare - and deadly - cancer just a year after the birth of her “miracle baby,” her world cracked. In this uncompromising conversation, she takes us through surgery, grief, and the path of spiritual rebirth that followed. Sarah shares how Vedic meditation, ancestral wisdom, and radical acceptance helped her heal more than her body - they healed her identity. This episode is a testament to the deep resilience we discover when life demands it of us - and the power of becoming your own guru. If you've ever wondered what your “Yiru” - your inner wisdom - is, let Sarah’s journey guide you toward your own quiet strength.
Web: https://www.sarahsusak.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sarah_susak/?hl=en
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
All right, run it. I wonder what you mean when you
use the word I Use the word I, I, I, I.
Take a break. We have an aversion to ourselves
and to what's happening inside us inside.
(00:23):
US. I've been very interested in
this problem for a long, long time.
Something settles. Welcome everyone to the Heart of
My Sleep podcast. I'm Luke Cook, and today's guest
is a woman whose life has been anything but ordinary.
Sarah Susak is a lawyer, a mum and now the author of Yuru
(00:48):
That's YOURU. But behind those titles is a
story of unimaginable resilience.
When cancer struck just a year after a miracle daughter was
born, Sarah's life began to unravel and then rebuild again
and again. This conversation is about those
moments we don't prepare for, and the quiet power we find when
we have no choice but to keep going.
(01:11):
It's not always about finding those external gurus, It's about
what's in within you. What is your yuru?
Well, today's guest. Let's welcome Marie into the
Heart of my Sleeves podcast. Welcome, Sarah.
Thank you. Thanks.
Lovely to be here, Luke. Sarah, I am very fortunate to be
seeing you on screen right now. To be able to today to both of
(01:33):
us potentially wearing our hearts on our sleeve.
Your journey is incredible and you've, like I said, you've just
written this incredible book called Yuru.
Before we get into the many ups and downs that you've
experienced during this journey,who were you before everything
changed, Sarah? Like before the cancer, before
(01:54):
motherhood, before the breakdowns, before the
breakthroughs, Who was Sarah Susak?
It's a very, very good question because I've done so much work
in the last few years on trying to understand the answer to that
very common question like who amI?
Who am I really? And so my view of who I was back
then is very, very different to the view of who I am today.
(02:16):
But if I had to answer from pre cancer, which was when my life
was seemingly so cool, so smooth.
It's quite funny because at thattime when I got this cancer
diagnosis, I thought, wow, that's so unfair.
Life feels so perfect for me right now.
I have just gotten the the miracle baby.
You know, Stella took quite a lot of rounds of IVF to become
(02:40):
true. I had a great, you know, high
flying executive job. I think I was with Coca Cola at
the time. My health was in great, you
know, position. And so I really did assess
myself at that time as, wow, I've got it all.
I've got the beautiful family, the daughter, the great job,
loving family, life's good. Tick, tick, tick.
(03:02):
Had my home. But it's funny now when I look
back at that version of Sarah from the benefit of all of the
trauma that's kind of gone through and transpired, I look
back and I actually don't see that Sarah as having the perfect
life because absolutely everything about the way I live
my life post cancer has changed for the better.
(03:25):
So I back then I thought, wow, Sarah's got the life.
But now I'm like, no, no, no, Sarah had life all wrong.
My priorities, how I spent my time, what I ate, what I, you
know, all of those things have changed now for the better.
So yeah, I thought life was excellent and it was, it was a
good life. But yeah, definitely feel like
(03:46):
now post cancer and everything I've learnt from it, I'm
actually in the best version of my life now.
So yeah, it's an interesting depending on when you're looking
at the the question, right. Totally.
And I, I suppose my follow up moment from what you're just
talking about there is the, it would, do you think it's the
preconceived personas that we hold that we think are the most
(04:08):
valuable or we think that, you know, the ones that make us so
called happy? Do you think those personas we
hold, are they the ones that youthink are really challenged in
the time when we have to deal with some sort of traumatic
event? Yeah, and like I was saying that
whole who am I back then, I think I was deriving my sense of
self worth or, or, or self identity based on my egoic mind.
(04:34):
You know, I am Sarah, I'm born of these people, I am mother of
this person. These are all really changeable
relative aspects of who I am. But since you know, and we'll
talk about it a lot, I'm sure inthe conversation.
But since being sick and learning meditation and going
within, I've realised that there's this much grander part
of my my nature, which is my pure consciousness, which really
(04:57):
is now where I derive my sense of who I am.
Who is Sarah? Yeah.
So it's it's a huge shift. But yeah, definitely my self
identity precancer was very muchbound up in all of the social
indoctrination, the opinions of others that who I'm told I am as
opposed to who I really AM. And I'm so happy to have met the
(05:20):
true me in the last few years asopposed to that version that I
was just caught up in at that time.
I love that Sarah and I love thespiritual component that we're
going to touch upon today because I've gone on that exact
same journey as you in, in maybea different way.
But to get to that point of understanding, you know, the
broader why we're here and humanity in total, it's a, it's
(05:42):
a beautiful thing. But you received 2 words, rare
and deadly, those two words, when you heard those two words
when it came to your cancer diagnosis, and please share what
type of cancer diagnosis it was.But those two words, what did
they mean? Yeah, it's like even when you
say them like I take a big breath in and a big.
(06:04):
I I gave myself shivers just saying that.
Like it's just, they're just the2 words that stick in my head.
And I think the word rare didn'tsurprise me much because I just
seem to have one of those lies where of course it's rare, of
course it's special and unique. I can't just get the run of the
mill anything in life. But it was the deadly that shook
(06:27):
me because I haven't I I had because it's past tense now, but
I had an enormous fear of death.Like even before getting cancer,
I had major health anxiety from things that happened to me when
I was young. So I was always afraid.
And death was just a topic that I just, you know, I, I, I had
even sought therapy for it before I got a cancer diagnosis,
(06:48):
such was the gravity of my fear of death.
So to hear the words deadly at atime where, as you say, I had
just received the beautiful giftof Stella, who was only one year
old, that that was it sent, you know, earthquakes through my, my
like nervous system. But essentially I got diagnosed
with adenoid cystic carcinoma and it's a very rare cancer.
(07:11):
I don't know the stats on it, but when I got told I was like,
wow, like very few people have this type of cancer and it
doesn't get the research and, you know, screenings and things
that other cancers do, which is something I'd love to help
change. But yeah, very aggressive form
of cancer. It was attached to nerves inside
my face and to my brain. And so because of that, they
(07:34):
were like, we need to get on to this quick, smart.
And it was, you know, only a matter of a couple of weeks
before I had to leave my job at Coca Cola, temporarily move to
Brisbane because that's where the specialists were that that
specialised in this particular type of cancer and undergo
within a matter of two weeks or so of diagnosis, a 19 hour
(07:54):
surgery to remove the tumour from my face.
So it was, yeah, like, just yeah.
Total shock. That two week journey, 19 hours.
Wow, by the way, for a surgery far out.
Yeah, my hubby said when they came out of the surgery, they
were just like poltergeist, like, just like, you know,
(08:15):
drifting wet in sweat. Like the two surgeons.
They're very, you know, very close to them because they saved
my life. But apparently they just came
out very heroically dripping in sweat.
Not a single break. They just kept going.
It makes me quite emotional to think of what they did for me.
Did time slow down in that two week period or did it fasten up
(08:35):
like what were what happened in that?
Period. Yeah, it was.
It's a good question, but I would say it went really fast
because I tend to be one of those people that just, I don't
sit in my shit. Excuse the French, but I like,
I've got the diagnosis. I move very, very quickly to
acceptance of that fact because I couldn't change it, but I went
(08:58):
straight into active mode. Like I always, I think a lot of
people have this misconception that acceptance is apathy.
It means, oh, if I accept it, well, then I'm just accepting
the shitty thing that happened to me.
And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no.
Acceptance is so that you can get, you know, stop the
suffering. Why me?
Why me? Why me?
Just move away from that and go straight into what?
(09:21):
What now? What am I going to do about it?
And so for me, it's snowballed really quickly because I went
straight into active mode. And yeah, I just, yeah, I was
on, on immediately. I didn't sit around dwelling in
it for, for more than a nanosecond.
I would say I was pretty quicklyinto what can I do?
Researching, reaching out, reading, listening, you know,
(09:43):
anything I could do to find whatwas going to be my way through
this challenge. I just want to stop there though
because you only had just becomea mum after 8 rounds of IVF.
You had this beautiful daughter that you could see every single
day. How did it feel to face
potentially your own mortality right when life felt like it had
(10:03):
just begun? Yeah, it was.
It was so hard. I remember when I got the
diagnosis, it was my mom and my husband were with me in the room
because we kind of knew. When I went to get the
diagnosis, they opened, they asked me to open my mouth and
look in the mirror and you couldsee the tumour inside my mouth
and it was, I was shocked. I've been living with it in
there without any. I didn't even know it was there.
(10:26):
So we knew and then it was goingto be bad news.
So I took my husband and I took my mom.
We were hoping for the best, butwe, you know, but the doctor's
face just said it all when he came in and he had not a great
bedside manner and he just delivered it very matter of
factly. You've got a rare and deadly
head and neck cancer. It's inside your face.
You have to operate. It'll likely metastasize and
(10:47):
within a will prolong your life,but then you'll probably die.
Like it was gross. It was pretty grim.
And, you know, like you asked about my daughter, the first and
only word that came into my headwhen he said that was Stella.
I I was just Stella, Stella, Stella.
Like I, I remember turning around and just had my back to
(11:07):
him and just kept every single moment of her life flashed
through my consciousness. Sorry.
You said wear your heart on yoursleeve, so I'm doing it.
But yeah, that's all I thought about, if I'm really honest,
because I've longed for her for so long, and then her not having
(11:29):
a mother for the rest of her life really bothered me.
So yeah, she very, very quickly became my reason for living.
Yeah. That North Star, and thank you
so much for sharing there because you know, what we stand
for at heart on my sleeve is theI'm not OK.
You know, it's the three most powerful words you can say, but
(11:50):
also having that North Star of Stella was sounds like, and and
probably still is to this day islike the major reason why you
kept on going. Or was there also a deeper sense
of, you know, I've got this, I understand, I've got this.
I just need to find out the way that I can breakthrough this.
Yeah, it she was definitely the hugely motivating factor, I
(12:13):
can't deny that. But, and, and I remember reading
a great book at the time by a doctor called Doctor Kelly
Turner and she wrote a book called Radical Remission and she
did a study of what were the top9 commonalities between people
that have been given a terminal cancer diagnosis, but went into
remission. And interestingly, it wasn't
(12:34):
radiation, chemo surgery. It was, I think at the top of
the list. It was community.
I can't remember the order, but community was in there.
But one of the big ones was reason to live like, like most
people that have a reason to live get through it more than
people that that don't because everyone's as fortunate to have,
you know, great things to live for.
(12:54):
But I definitely had a great thing to live for.
So that was a huge part. But then there was also a part
of me personally was like, Oh mygoodness, I am not done yet.
There's so much I have to do that's in here and in here that
I want to achieve. And so that was, yeah, I can't
say it was entirely stellar. There was definitely personal
(13:15):
motivations. And I think in some ways that's
better, you know, because you'vegot to live for yourself as
well. You can't just live for others.
So yeah, the things that I wanted to do and achieve in my
life, and one of them included writing, for example.
I wanted to do those things. So I was like, no, no, no, this
is not going to be my story. We're not ending just yet.
(13:36):
And I went full scale into everything that I did to make
sure that came true. Well, let's go there now because
after the surgery, what were thenext steps that you took or that
you navigated or that you found?And maybe even to the spiritual
journey as well? Like how did the Journey posts
recovery look like for you to ensure that your body was strong
(14:00):
enough to fight whatever was potentially going to come back
or Yeah. Yeah, no, definitely.
I started that journey immediately.
So one of the first things I didwhen I got the diagnosis was I
reached out to a total stranger on social media.
He looked pretty calm and I needed to feel calm.
And so I reached out and said, Ihope you don't mind me asking,
(14:22):
but you know, have you, this hasjust happened to me.
What should I do? I was so desperate.
I was reaching out to anyone andeveryone.
And he just said to me, I'm in India with some Ayurvedic
doctors. And this was kind of the
beginning of my spiritual journey.
And he said, let me have a look at a picture of your face.
I'll share it with them. And they'll, they'll be able to
tell just from a picture of yourface what's going on and I'll
(14:45):
come back to you. It was quite, it's, it was a bit
weird to me at the time, but nowthat I know a lot about
Ayurveda, which is a very specific, you know, realm of
holistic health from India, it makes a lot more sense.
But they looked at the picture and said, tell her to go
immediately to surgery. It's very aggressive cancer.
But when you've finished, come back to us and we'll teach you
(15:06):
Vedic meditation. And I was like, okay, I didn't
know what that was. Started looking it up and and
that just snowballed into a whole lot of reading and
researching and books. I asked him for recommendations
on podcasts and books and what could I do to learn more about
that? Because I knew that even in
recovery like post surgery and post radiation, I was going to
(15:28):
have a lot of time on my hands that I didn't want to spend
lying around being a sickly person.
I wanted to use that time to really work out how can I avoid
this coming back? How can I avoid this killing me?
And so that was the beginning ofit.
And I when I did finish the surgery and and the radiation, I
did go back and learn meditationoff this particular guy.
(15:50):
And that was the beginning of all of it for me in terms of the
spirituality. Yeah.
And I, you know, from that I kind of went into, you know,
holistic herbs, Vedic meditation, a lot of Ayurvedic
self care practises and rituals and all of the stuff that's
integrated into my life. Diet, looking at the way that
they manage diet, cutting out alcohol, looking at all that
(16:13):
they have to say around low tox,around, you know, water
philtres. And you know, I just kind of
started to learn all of these holistic things that I could do
that would up the chances. You know, I knew it wasn't, you
know, 100% guarantee, but I thought, if I'm going to give
this a go, I'm going to do it fully.
I wasn't obsessive or you know, I find I've learnt that a lot of
(16:36):
people do it with like great obsession.
I, I thought, no, let's look at this as the long game.
I can't do everything all at once, but I'm just going to chip
away at it. And it's taken me even until
now, I'm still integrating some of the things that I learnt
about on day one. Like, you know, for example, the
water filtration system. I always knew that showering in
water full of chemicals and drinking water full of chemicals
(16:59):
wasn't good. But you know, based on where I
was that and what money I had and different things, I've just
kept them on my agenda and I've integrated them 1 by 1.
So I would say to people, you don't need to do everything all
at once. It can be very overwhelming
learning about diet and toxicity.
And you know, it's like, Oh my God, I'm ruining my life.
It's like, no, no, no, just moderation.
(17:21):
Just get it, get it in place as you can.
And so that's what I've done andit's been like a seven year
journey of doing that. And I want to unpack that a
little bit more, and I want to ask you a little bit more about
Vedic meditation as well. But what made you go to the
spiritual path? Yeah, it was.
I have never been religious, so I've never had the, the joy that
(17:43):
I can see it brings people to have a faith based existence.
Like I didn't know what it was that I believed in, in terms of
why we're here. Is there a higher power that,
you know, is supporting my, my evolution and my, my time on
earth? I didn't have any beliefs.
I, I grew up a Catholic, you know, I didn't religion never
(18:04):
kind of gelled with me. I always saw it, even though
like there's so many beautiful religious principles in so many
different religions, on the whole, I saw it as kind of a
divisive, you know, kind of institution.
And I just never jogged with anything.
But when I learnt Vedic meditation, my first question
after I learnt the practise was where does it come from?
(18:25):
Like it was, it was so beautifuland so profound, the experience
of the practise. I, I just naturally wanted to
learn more. And then I learnt about this
body of wisdom called the Vedas,which in Sanskrit essentially
just means knowledge. The knowledge and what I learnt
was, you know, this was an old tradition that had been handed
down for thousands of years in in ancient India and in the
(18:47):
Hindu, Hindu tradition. But the knowledge was completely
universal. It was meant and intended to be
accessible to all. And so I embarked on this huge
period of study where I did courses on exploring the Vedas,
reading about the Vedas and understanding because they
essentially are a body of wisdomthat give all the answers to the
(19:07):
questions I was looking for about why are we here, Who am I?
You know, all of these things, why different things happen to
bad people, You know, all of these existential questions.
I started to get maybe not like answers that I necessarily
wanted to hear, but but really like answers that resonated with
with me. And so that's what got me into
(19:28):
it, like understanding where thetechnique of Vedic meditation
came from and also the life wisdom that comes out of this
body of wisdom called the Vedas.And then I was hooked.
I I definitely became a spiritual person after learning
what I learned through that through that study.
Going through that spiritual practise, what were some of the
biggest moments that you realisethat, oh, I might have to go
(19:50):
deeper on some other things thathave been going on in my life,
whether that's childhood trauma or other components because you
know, like that. And just speaking openly here,
like that's been the journey that I've been on myself is
going well. Everything almost started from
the day my dad passed away when I was 4.
(20:10):
And it's read its head up at a time.
That I, you know, try to hide that puzzle piece underneath the
couch for most of my life, not knowing its impact was I was
four years old. But trauma sits within and to go
spiritually, you have to sit with that trauma and work
through that trauma and. Yeah.
So you talk to me about that component.
(20:32):
You did mention that you had childhood trauma.
Yeah, I did. I did.
I had a lot of things happening.I had a great early childhood,
but then things went a little bit S but I'm trying to work
out. There's so much I want to say
about that. But one of the biggest
motivators for me when I learnedabout Vedic meditation and what
it was capable of helping me do was definitely the desire to
(20:54):
process past trauma, because what I had learned through my
studies about health and Physiology was repressed.
Trauma is one of the biggest causes of disease.
And so when you're told you havecancer that may come back and
kill you, the number one motivation you have is, OK, I've
got to do everything I can to become the healthiest version of
(21:15):
myself. And you know what they say about
anger and resentment and bitterness and things about past
is it's like swallowing poison and expecting the other person
to die, right? That's what I was doing.
I had spent so much of my time angry and resentful and bitter
at my dad. For example, my dad hasn't
passed away. So I'm sorry for you, for you,
but my dad entered a relationship with someone and
(21:38):
that as a result of that relationship, my time living
with them was just not sound. That's it wasn't great.
It was pretty aggressive and pretty unsettling.
I was a young person and I had so much anger and resentment
towards him for that. And we still don't speak, but my
anger levels are completely dissolved.
Like I have nothing but love forhim and if he wanted to talk to
me I'd be there. That is huge progress for
(22:01):
somebody who met me before. I was like an embittered old
cow. But what I learned about Vedic
meditation was when you meditate, what happens is it's a
2 step process. So the first is you receive a
mantra that takes you deeper anddeeper into your layers of
consciousness so that you can get into a place of stillness
(22:21):
and just pure being. No doing, no thinking, transcend
the mind and just be. That's Step 1 and that's
fantastic. But the most important step is
actually Step 2. And it's it's usually the reason
that people walk away from meditation because they think
this is too hard. But what I try to convince
people through my own course, because I'm a teacher of
meditation now, is I try to teach them, no, no, no.
(22:44):
The next part of the process is where the magic happens and
where the real transformation happens.
And that's when, when you're, what essentially happens is when
your mind goes quiet, your parasympathetic nervous system,
which is that part of your nervous system responsible for
healing and healing all of the impact that those repressed
traumas have created in your Physiology or in your mind.
(23:05):
The parasympathetic nervous system's job is to actually
activate and to scan your body for all of the anomalies of
stress from the and allow you torelease, trap trapped energy or
repress trauma and let it rise to the surface.
But what happens when that happens is it rises to the
surface of your mind and it lingers there.
It becomes really murky. And so people are like, I don't
(23:27):
want to feel this. It feels uncomfortable, right?
But all this stuff comes up. But I say to people, no, no, no,
our bodies are not like our minds.
Our minds can completely delete irrelevant memories.
So you don't remember what you wore on the 9th of August 1980,
27 for example, but you rememberdeaths and marriages and all of
these important things. Our mind will just automatically
(23:49):
delete irrelevancies. But our body, if we've repressed
trauma into our Physiology and there's so much, you know, I
challenge somebody to tell me they don't have a repressed
trauma in their body somewhere, you know, whether it's, you
know, small or large, there's repressed trauma.
And So what happens when you meditate is it it gets released
(24:09):
out of your body and then you need to do the self work.
Once you become aware of the trauma, it's arisen, you know,
you release that energy from your body, then you need to do
the work to process. But what you don't want to do is
restrike, recycle that stress and let it go back down.
You don't want to push it back down once it comes up.
You need to do the work. And so I've done the work.
I've done so much unstressing. That's the second part of
(24:33):
meditation, which is letting theparasympathetic nervous system,
when you activate it, because you can't activate it without
meditation. Once it's doing its work, let
it. Let it do its work.
And then you need to do the work, whether that's through
therapy, talking to friends, getting help, you know, reading,
whatever it is that you need to do based on what you've gone
through, do that work. And so, yeah, that's been the
(24:54):
biggest blessing for me is finally dealing with that
refreshed trauma. I feel like my body is a light,
light vessel compared to what itwas before I started meditating.
It was so laden with trauma, even the trauma associated with
my cancer diagnosis. I've let that go, too.
I know what it felt like. I can still talk about it, but
(25:16):
I've done the work to release it.
But I always say to people, it doesn't happen by magic.
You have to work. You have to commit self work.
Yeah. And I was just super motivated
to do that because I had cancer.Why, why?
Like I've got so much to unpack there.
And I love that because you know, big thing of what we talk
about with heart on my sleeve isgoing towards the pain because
(25:37):
you've got to go towards the pain to be able to move through
the pain and work through the pain.
And it doesn't happen overnight.Like you said, there is support
networks, there's other things that you can do to be able to
navigate through that. And I just love every bit that
you've just shared there becauseI think I think that resonates
with everyone. I suppose my question to you,
now that you reflect on, you know, this big moment had to
(25:59):
happen for you to get through that part, why is that the case
that when it's big moments we gotowards it and why can't we do
it beforehand? I say this all the time.
My number one advice to people after having gone through what
I've gone through is don't wait for the Wrecking Ball before it
changes in your life in respect of things that you know no
(26:19):
longer serve you. And I remember the spiritual
guru that that got me into meditation.
His name's Tom Knowles. And I went to a lecture with him
and, and said to him, you know, hand up, you know, it was just
after I've been diagnosed. Why?
Why did I get diagnosed? I'm a good person.
I do good things. I lived a good life.
I live a good life. And he just looked at me and
(26:40):
said, tell me he was very calm and I was not very calm.
And he said, has everything about the way that you live your
life changed since you got cancer?
And I said Yep. And and then he just moved to
the next person and, and, and hejust smiled at me and moved to
the next person. And I thought, I never say are
you saying I caused my cancer? And this was thinking inside and
(27:05):
I was so grumbling. But when I went away, I realised
what he was saying. He was saying if everything
about the way you live your lifewas so bloody and perfect and
great, and you thought you were doing the right things by your
body and by your mind and by your nervous system, then how
come you changed all of it when you got a cancer diagnosis?
And I, and it's so powerful to know that because it's like,
(27:27):
don't wait for the Wrecking Ball.
In the Vedic tradition, they teach that there are three
forces of nature. There's the creation operator,
there's the maintenance operator, and there's the
destruction operator. And why we come to Earth is the,
our entire purpose of coming to Earth is to evolve and to learn
and to grow. But if you get stuck in
(27:47):
maintenance mode, if you're justsort of, you know, treading
water, you know, that stuff in your life is not good.
Like, I knew that I smoked, I drank, I partied.
You know, I did all sorts of silly things.
I worked till 4:00 in the morning thinking I was a goddamn
hero. So cool.
I'm such a senior executive. Didn't meditate, did nothing to
manage stress. Ate fast food, convenience
(28:10):
burgers, fries, you know, you name it.
Lathered my body. Inexpensive.
Fabulous make up thinking I was so you know, and I thought that
that was a good life. I genuinely didn't question it.
But deep down I knew that many of those things I was doing were
not right. I knew that it wasn't, but I did
nothing to change it. And so the Vedic perspective is
when you get stuck in maintenance mode, what nature
(28:32):
will do is send in the destruction operator to move you
into creation mode. And they were saying the
aspiration for enlightenment is to stay in creation mode of your
own free will so that nature doesn't have to come in a movie.
And I just found that also very like, wow, OK, I need to keep
myself in creation mode. I need to stay really hyper
(28:55):
aware through this expanded selfawareness that I'm getting from
my meditation practise so that Ican hear the sounds and those
beautiful natural intuitive impulses you get from your
yourself. My husband actually tells the
story that when we sat out on the deck smoking at 4:00 in the
morning, I apparently said to him, what if I get a mouth
(29:16):
tumour? He said that.
Yeah. And he said that he thought I
was such a weirdo asking that question because it is a bit
weird. I don't remember saying it, but
he swears I used to say it on repeat.
That's my body and nature telling me this isn't right what
you're doing. You're the little chain smoking,
(29:36):
you know, moment. I never really smoked day to
day, but like every now and thenif I drank and, you know, I
would have a cigarette. I knew that it wasn't right, but
I didn't listen. And so incomes nature and you
know, and so when I thought about what that teacher asked me
that day, I thought, yeah, I didcause some of my cancer.
I probably did, but that's okay.I'm okay feeling that because
(30:01):
that means I have the the power to change what it was that may
have caused my cancer. I could never know for sure what
caused my cancer. I could have been bad luck.
But there were also lots of things I was doing that could
have contributed to it as well. And that's great news because it
means that if I extract that stuff from my life, I have a
better chance of it not coming back.
(30:22):
And so, yeah, there's a lot in that answer.
Sorry, I know. But yeah, it just gives you a
sense of it. Was it?
Was very clear, Sarah, I was andprofound because, you know, like
again, like I've sat here and experienced my own story and my
own journey, which is exactly that.
Like I knew something deep down probably wasn't right and didn't
(30:44):
listen to either my body or my energy or my heart or my gut
around certain things and make decisions that, you know, either
cost me financially or cost a relationship.
You know, like there's so many things that we we know
intrinsically within us, but we just don't know how to listen.
No. And you know what?
Also, our minds are so clutteredand indoctrinated and infested
(31:07):
by our ego. Everybody around us, we don't
know what to do, you know, because our minds are just so
busy. And that's why I have become so
addicted. I don't know if it's great to be
addicted to something else, but whatever.
I'm happy to be addicted to meditation because what it's
done is it's it's taken me completely out of my mind to the
(31:29):
point where there's emptiness and there's space and there's
ability to sort of view my life more from the balcony and less
from the dance floor, if that makes sense.
Like I'm up on the balcony. I can see everything for what it
is. I can be the observer more of
what's happening in my life and I can pick up those subtle cues,
(31:49):
whether they're feelings or thoughts or things that come up.
I can go, that's something I need to be aware of or listen to
and I need to take action. And I can do that proactively as
opposed to cleaning up the the mess reactively, which is not
fun. No, it's not fun, It's not fun.
And you know, most people that you hear goes.
I wish no one else could go through what I've gone through,
(32:12):
but that's that's now my next question.
Right. So you've written this
incredible book called Yuru and it's the sort of anti guru.
Well, it's basically making yourself the guru in your own
life. You know, a lot of people do
resonate, like they try and seekother people to sort out their
problems. Is that the essence of the book
is to, you know, stop looking for the gurus out there and
start believing more in yourselfand looking within?
(32:34):
Yeah, it's definitely in the main message.
I think I wrote it because when I learned Vedic, the Vedas, I
learned that guru in Sanskrit means remover of darkness.
And when I was in that really dark place, I thought, wow,
that's a pretty good superpower to have.
I would like the ability to remove darkness from my life
right now. How good would that be?
And I just kept jotting down theword yuru.
(32:56):
This was years ago and I didn't know what it meant, but I just
kept jotting it down. And I looked back over my notes
and saw it and thought, that's areally good idea for a book.
Because essentially what I'm trying to communicate to people
through my own stories is try tolive your life in less
dependence on things or people or events out there changing in
(33:18):
some way in order for you to be happy.
So when I get well, I will be happy.
Or when I get a husband, I will be happy.
Or when I get a baby, I will be happy.
I've, I've gone through so many moments in my life where I've
gone, OK, if I can just get thatto happen or that person to
change or that thing to go away,I will be happy.
And the, the problem with that is that you're relying on the
(33:41):
world out there to stay exactly as it is when you're happy for
your peace to be maintained, which is a really kind of
dangerous precipice to stand on because the minute something
goes away or falls away or is taken away from you, you
crumble, right. And it didn't feel like a stable
way for me to live my life anymore.
And so, yeah, when I wrote the book and I, I'd studied
(34:03):
meditation and gone within, I really realised that the, the
part of me, that pure consciousness that that really
is who I am as opposed to this mind identified egoic individual
personality walking around the earth.
That's the part of me that I want to be guided by from now on
because it's pure, it's joyful, it's peaceful, it's blissful.
(34:25):
It's not indoctrinated or laden down by the opinion of anyone
else. And I just decided that that was
the best guide moving forward. And so I tell the story of the
shift that I made from guru reliance or reliance on things
out there to greater reliance onmyself and just what a positive
journey that was for me personally.
Yes, I've written that down and I hope maybe it will help people
(34:48):
that are, you know, further downthe, you know, their own
evolutionary journey to just kind of get there a little bit
quicker without all the pain in between.
Absolutely beautiful and make sure that you do pick up the
book Yuru. It's out now.
So make sure you do check that out.
Where are you at now, Sarah? Like if, if you're looking now
in the in the future, like, you know, is there still this
(35:11):
massive concern that the cancer will come back?
Like where, where, where are youmentally at the moment in this,
in this journey? Like, are you not even thinking
about it now? If you move through a place, I'd
love to know. Yeah, look, I think you'll never
stop thinking about it once you've had it.
I think the fear of the recurrence will always be there,
and I think I'd be lying if I said it's not.
But what it doesn't have is a grip hold over me like it used
(35:33):
to. I used to have severe anxiety
attacks. I was on anti anxieties, anti
this, anti everything, and now I'm not on any of that.
So I manage the fear myself withmy meditation practise and just
with the way that I live my lifenow.
So that is really well under control.
I'm absolutely, you know, that the cancer came back last year
(35:54):
and came back as one lesion in my lung, which the doctor said
was awesome because it normally comes back as multiple and
everywhere. So they said it's really amazing
that it's just once I had that removed and you know, I had
another health crisis after that, but we won't go there.
But that's all over now. And honestly, I feel like it
(36:16):
traumatises, like my family for example, won't read my book.
It's so traumatising for them. Whereas for me, I can talk about
it, I can share it, talk about it doesn't trigger me at all.
It doesn't take me back. I've fully processed it, and I
have so many of those answers about what life is, what death
is, and you know that, that I feel a lot more stable and a lot
(36:38):
less worried about these things than I used to be.
And yeah, you know, the last time that I went through this,
it was only in sort of July lastyear, and we're in a year later,
and I'm back teaching. I work full time, Mother of
Stella written my ball. Morning to write another one.
So yeah, grabbing life by its shortened curlies and making the
(36:58):
absolute watch to it. You got it.
Yeah, you got it. And that is so good, Sarah.
Sarah, I want to thank you so much for being part of the Heart
on my Sleeve podcast today. It's been an absolute privilege
to hold space with you. Congratulations again on your
the book that's out now. I want to leave you with this
last question. Like for anyone going through
something that feels impossible where they're saying I'm not OK,
(37:22):
what's the one truth you'd want them to hear today?
Oh gosh, that's a good question.Oh, do you know, it's so simple
what I'm going to say, but I would just say I want them to
believe that it is 100% possible.
I like, don't believe the hype. Your future is your story.
It's yet to unfold. Your future is yet to unfold.
(37:43):
I remember when I got the diagnosis, I thought, OK, I can
accept what's already fact, but I refuse to let anyone else
write the future part of my story that is yet to be written,
that I have the ability to influence and change and unfold
in the way that I want it to unfold.
And so, yeah, just that belief in the power of your own mind
(38:04):
and the power of your own, you know, ability to self heal and
learning anything that you can about it if you don't already
believe. And then, yeah, come and learn
meditation with me and I'll, I'll teach you all of it.
But yeah, just believe in that that ability to self heal
because it 100% take it from me exists.
(38:25):
Thank you for that last moment. And yeah, we'll post all the
links to find out more about Sarah, her book and also the
meditations called Medi Steady Go, isn't it?
Yeah. That's it.
That's the one. It's all on my website.
So yeah, I'm sure you'll share that in your notes.
Well, thank you again, Sarah, for being part of this podcast.
It's been an absolute privilege.Hold space.
Thank you for wearing your hearton your sleeve and sharing so
(38:46):
much today. No doubt, even if we can impact
one person out there to be the change that they need to be
right now to navigate their own zones, we've we've done our job.
Say, Sarah, thank you so much for being a part of Heart on My
Sleeve. Thank you.
Thanks, Luke. Appreciate.
It emotions have a natural tendency to dissipate unless
they get reinforced. And so if there's more thoughts,
(39:07):
more stories, more intentions come along.
So the act of how am I leaving it alone is an act of not act,
adding more stories, adding fuelto it.
So it might not go away in 2 minutes, but it then begins to
relax and dissipate. And so rather than being the
person who has to fix it, we've become the person who makes
space for the heart, the mind, to relax and settle away itself.
All right, run it. I wonder what you mean when you
use the word I Use the word I, I, I, I.
Take a break. We have an aversion to ourselves
and to what's happening inside us inside.
(00:23):
US. I've been very interested in
this problem for a long, long time.
Something settles. Welcome everyone to the Heart of
My Sleep podcast. I'm Luke Cook, and today's guest
is a woman whose life has been anything but ordinary.
Sarah Susak is a lawyer, a mum and now the author of Yuru
(00:48):
That's YOURU. But behind those titles is a
story of unimaginable resilience.
When cancer struck just a year after a miracle daughter was
born, Sarah's life began to unravel and then rebuild again
and again. This conversation is about those
moments we don't prepare for, and the quiet power we find when
we have no choice but to keep going.
(01:11):
It's not always about finding those external gurus, It's about
what's in within you. What is your yuru?
Well, today's guest. Let's welcome Marie into the
Heart of my Sleeves podcast. Welcome, Sarah.
Thank you. Thanks.
Lovely to be here, Luke. Sarah, I am very fortunate to be
seeing you on screen right now. To be able to today to both of
(01:33):
us potentially wearing our hearts on our sleeve.
Your journey is incredible and you've, like I said, you've just
written this incredible book called Yuru.
Before we get into the many ups and downs that you've
experienced during this journey,who were you before everything
changed, Sarah? Like before the cancer, before
(01:54):
motherhood, before the breakdowns, before the
breakthroughs, Who was Sarah Susak?
It's a very, very good question because I've done so much work
in the last few years on trying to understand the answer to that
very common question like who amI?
Who am I really? And so my view of who I was back
then is very, very different to the view of who I am today.
(02:16):
But if I had to answer from pre cancer, which was when my life
was seemingly so cool, so smooth.
It's quite funny because at thattime when I got this cancer
diagnosis, I thought, wow, that's so unfair.
Life feels so perfect for me right now.
I have just gotten the the miracle baby.
You know, Stella took quite a lot of rounds of IVF to become
(02:40):
true. I had a great, you know, high
flying executive job. I think I was with Coca Cola at
the time. My health was in great, you
know, position. And so I really did assess
myself at that time as, wow, I've got it all.
I've got the beautiful family, the daughter, the great job,
loving family, life's good. Tick, tick, tick.
(03:02):
Had my home. But it's funny now when I look
back at that version of Sarah from the benefit of all of the
trauma that's kind of gone through and transpired, I look
back and I actually don't see that Sarah as having the perfect
life because absolutely everything about the way I live
my life post cancer has changed for the better.
(03:25):
So I back then I thought, wow, Sarah's got the life.
But now I'm like, no, no, no, Sarah had life all wrong.
My priorities, how I spent my time, what I ate, what I, you
know, all of those things have changed now for the better.
So yeah, I thought life was excellent and it was, it was a
good life. But yeah, definitely feel like
(03:46):
now post cancer and everything I've learnt from it, I'm
actually in the best version of my life now.
So yeah, it's an interesting depending on when you're looking
at the the question, right. Totally.
And I, I suppose my follow up moment from what you're just
talking about there is the, it would, do you think it's the
preconceived personas that we hold that we think are the most
(04:08):
valuable or we think that, you know, the ones that make us so
called happy? Do you think those personas we
hold, are they the ones that youthink are really challenged in
the time when we have to deal with some sort of traumatic
event? Yeah, and like I was saying that
whole who am I back then, I think I was deriving my sense of
self worth or, or, or self identity based on my egoic mind.
(04:34):
You know, I am Sarah, I'm born of these people, I am mother of
this person. These are all really changeable
relative aspects of who I am. But since you know, and we'll
talk about it a lot, I'm sure inthe conversation.
But since being sick and learning meditation and going
within, I've realised that there's this much grander part
of my my nature, which is my pure consciousness, which really
(04:57):
is now where I derive my sense of who I am.
Who is Sarah? Yeah.
So it's it's a huge shift. But yeah, definitely my self
identity precancer was very muchbound up in all of the social
indoctrination, the opinions of others that who I'm told I am as
opposed to who I really AM. And I'm so happy to have met the
(05:20):
true me in the last few years asopposed to that version that I
was just caught up in at that time.
I love that Sarah and I love thespiritual component that we're
going to touch upon today because I've gone on that exact
same journey as you in, in maybea different way.
But to get to that point of understanding, you know, the
broader why we're here and humanity in total, it's a, it's
(05:42):
a beautiful thing. But you received 2 words, rare
and deadly, those two words, when you heard those two words
when it came to your cancer diagnosis, and please share what
type of cancer diagnosis it was.But those two words, what did
they mean? Yeah, it's like even when you
say them like I take a big breath in and a big.
(06:04):
I I gave myself shivers just saying that.
Like it's just, they're just the2 words that stick in my head.
And I think the word rare didn'tsurprise me much because I just
seem to have one of those lies where of course it's rare, of
course it's special and unique. I can't just get the run of the
mill anything in life. But it was the deadly that shook
(06:27):
me because I haven't I I had because it's past tense now, but
I had an enormous fear of death.Like even before getting cancer,
I had major health anxiety from things that happened to me when
I was young. So I was always afraid.
And death was just a topic that I just, you know, I, I, I had
even sought therapy for it before I got a cancer diagnosis,
(06:48):
such was the gravity of my fear of death.
So to hear the words deadly at atime where, as you say, I had
just received the beautiful giftof Stella, who was only one year
old, that that was it sent, you know, earthquakes through my, my
like nervous system. But essentially I got diagnosed
with adenoid cystic carcinoma and it's a very rare cancer.
(07:11):
I don't know the stats on it, but when I got told I was like,
wow, like very few people have this type of cancer and it
doesn't get the research and, you know, screenings and things
that other cancers do, which is something I'd love to help
change. But yeah, very aggressive form
of cancer. It was attached to nerves inside
my face and to my brain. And so because of that, they
(07:34):
were like, we need to get on to this quick, smart.
And it was, you know, only a matter of a couple of weeks
before I had to leave my job at Coca Cola, temporarily move to
Brisbane because that's where the specialists were that that
specialised in this particular type of cancer and undergo
within a matter of two weeks or so of diagnosis, a 19 hour
(07:54):
surgery to remove the tumour from my face.
So it was, yeah, like, just yeah.
Total shock. That two week journey, 19 hours.
Wow, by the way, for a surgery far out.
Yeah, my hubby said when they came out of the surgery, they
were just like poltergeist, like, just like, you know,
(08:15):
drifting wet in sweat. Like the two surgeons.
They're very, you know, very close to them because they saved
my life. But apparently they just came
out very heroically dripping in sweat.
Not a single break. They just kept going.
It makes me quite emotional to think of what they did for me.
Did time slow down in that two week period or did it fasten up
(08:35):
like what were what happened in that?
Period. Yeah, it was.
It's a good question, but I would say it went really fast
because I tend to be one of those people that just, I don't
sit in my shit. Excuse the French, but I like,
I've got the diagnosis. I move very, very quickly to
acceptance of that fact because I couldn't change it, but I went
(08:58):
straight into active mode. Like I always, I think a lot of
people have this misconception that acceptance is apathy.
It means, oh, if I accept it, well, then I'm just accepting
the shitty thing that happened to me.
And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no.
Acceptance is so that you can get, you know, stop the
suffering. Why me?
Why me? Why me?
Just move away from that and go straight into what?
(09:21):
What now? What am I going to do about it?
And so for me, it's snowballed really quickly because I went
straight into active mode. And yeah, I just, yeah, I was
on, on immediately. I didn't sit around dwelling in
it for, for more than a nanosecond.
I would say I was pretty quicklyinto what can I do?
Researching, reaching out, reading, listening, you know,
(09:43):
anything I could do to find whatwas going to be my way through
this challenge. I just want to stop there though
because you only had just becomea mum after 8 rounds of IVF.
You had this beautiful daughter that you could see every single
day. How did it feel to face
potentially your own mortality right when life felt like it had
(10:03):
just begun? Yeah, it was.
It was so hard. I remember when I got the
diagnosis, it was my mom and my husband were with me in the room
because we kind of knew. When I went to get the
diagnosis, they opened, they asked me to open my mouth and
look in the mirror and you couldsee the tumour inside my mouth
and it was, I was shocked. I've been living with it in
there without any. I didn't even know it was there.
(10:26):
So we knew and then it was goingto be bad news.
So I took my husband and I took my mom.
We were hoping for the best, butwe, you know, but the doctor's
face just said it all when he came in and he had not a great
bedside manner and he just delivered it very matter of
factly. You've got a rare and deadly
head and neck cancer. It's inside your face.
You have to operate. It'll likely metastasize and
(10:47):
within a will prolong your life,but then you'll probably die.
Like it was gross. It was pretty grim.
And, you know, like you asked about my daughter, the first and
only word that came into my headwhen he said that was Stella.
I I was just Stella, Stella, Stella.
Like I, I remember turning around and just had my back to
(11:07):
him and just kept every single moment of her life flashed
through my consciousness. Sorry.
You said wear your heart on yoursleeve, so I'm doing it.
But yeah, that's all I thought about, if I'm really honest,
because I've longed for her for so long, and then her not having
(11:29):
a mother for the rest of her life really bothered me.
So yeah, she very, very quickly became my reason for living.
Yeah. That North Star, and thank you
so much for sharing there because you know, what we stand
for at heart on my sleeve is theI'm not OK.
You know, it's the three most powerful words you can say, but
(11:50):
also having that North Star of Stella was sounds like, and and
probably still is to this day islike the major reason why you
kept on going. Or was there also a deeper sense
of, you know, I've got this, I understand, I've got this.
I just need to find out the way that I can breakthrough this.
Yeah, it she was definitely the hugely motivating factor, I
(12:13):
can't deny that. But, and, and I remember reading
a great book at the time by a doctor called Doctor Kelly
Turner and she wrote a book called Radical Remission and she
did a study of what were the top9 commonalities between people
that have been given a terminal cancer diagnosis, but went into
remission. And interestingly, it wasn't
(12:34):
radiation, chemo surgery. It was, I think at the top of
the list. It was community.
I can't remember the order, but community was in there.
But one of the big ones was reason to live like, like most
people that have a reason to live get through it more than
people that that don't because everyone's as fortunate to have,
you know, great things to live for.
(12:54):
But I definitely had a great thing to live for.
So that was a huge part. But then there was also a part
of me personally was like, Oh mygoodness, I am not done yet.
There's so much I have to do that's in here and in here that
I want to achieve. And so that was, yeah, I can't
say it was entirely stellar. There was definitely personal
(13:15):
motivations. And I think in some ways that's
better, you know, because you'vegot to live for yourself as
well. You can't just live for others.
So yeah, the things that I wanted to do and achieve in my
life, and one of them included writing, for example.
I wanted to do those things. So I was like, no, no, no, this
is not going to be my story. We're not ending just yet.
(13:36):
And I went full scale into everything that I did to make
sure that came true. Well, let's go there now because
after the surgery, what were thenext steps that you took or that
you navigated or that you found?And maybe even to the spiritual
journey as well? Like how did the Journey posts
recovery look like for you to ensure that your body was strong
(14:00):
enough to fight whatever was potentially going to come back
or Yeah. Yeah, no, definitely.
I started that journey immediately.
So one of the first things I didwhen I got the diagnosis was I
reached out to a total stranger on social media.
He looked pretty calm and I needed to feel calm.
And so I reached out and said, Ihope you don't mind me asking,
(14:22):
but you know, have you, this hasjust happened to me.
What should I do? I was so desperate.
I was reaching out to anyone andeveryone.
And he just said to me, I'm in India with some Ayurvedic
doctors. And this was kind of the
beginning of my spiritual journey.
And he said, let me have a look at a picture of your face.
I'll share it with them. And they'll, they'll be able to
tell just from a picture of yourface what's going on and I'll
(14:45):
come back to you. It was quite, it's, it was a bit
weird to me at the time, but nowthat I know a lot about
Ayurveda, which is a very specific, you know, realm of
holistic health from India, it makes a lot more sense.
But they looked at the picture and said, tell her to go
immediately to surgery. It's very aggressive cancer.
But when you've finished, come back to us and we'll teach you
(15:06):
Vedic meditation. And I was like, okay, I didn't
know what that was. Started looking it up and and
that just snowballed into a whole lot of reading and
researching and books. I asked him for recommendations
on podcasts and books and what could I do to learn more about
that? Because I knew that even in
recovery like post surgery and post radiation, I was going to
(15:28):
have a lot of time on my hands that I didn't want to spend
lying around being a sickly person.
I wanted to use that time to really work out how can I avoid
this coming back? How can I avoid this killing me?
And so that was the beginning ofit.
And I when I did finish the surgery and and the radiation, I
did go back and learn meditationoff this particular guy.
(15:50):
And that was the beginning of all of it for me in terms of the
spirituality. Yeah.
And I, you know, from that I kind of went into, you know,
holistic herbs, Vedic meditation, a lot of Ayurvedic
self care practises and rituals and all of the stuff that's
integrated into my life. Diet, looking at the way that
they manage diet, cutting out alcohol, looking at all that
(16:13):
they have to say around low tox,around, you know, water
philtres. And you know, I just kind of
started to learn all of these holistic things that I could do
that would up the chances. You know, I knew it wasn't, you
know, 100% guarantee, but I thought, if I'm going to give
this a go, I'm going to do it fully.
I wasn't obsessive or you know, I find I've learnt that a lot of
(16:36):
people do it with like great obsession.
I, I thought, no, let's look at this as the long game.
I can't do everything all at once, but I'm just going to chip
away at it. And it's taken me even until
now, I'm still integrating some of the things that I learnt
about on day one. Like, you know, for example, the
water filtration system. I always knew that showering in
water full of chemicals and drinking water full of chemicals
(16:59):
wasn't good. But you know, based on where I
was that and what money I had and different things, I've just
kept them on my agenda and I've integrated them 1 by 1.
So I would say to people, you don't need to do everything all
at once. It can be very overwhelming
learning about diet and toxicity.
And you know, it's like, Oh my God, I'm ruining my life.
It's like, no, no, no, just moderation.
(17:21):
Just get it, get it in place as you can.
And so that's what I've done andit's been like a seven year
journey of doing that. And I want to unpack that a
little bit more, and I want to ask you a little bit more about
Vedic meditation as well. But what made you go to the
spiritual path? Yeah, it was.
I have never been religious, so I've never had the, the joy that
(17:43):
I can see it brings people to have a faith based existence.
Like I didn't know what it was that I believed in, in terms of
why we're here. Is there a higher power that,
you know, is supporting my, my evolution and my, my time on
earth? I didn't have any beliefs.
I, I grew up a Catholic, you know, I didn't religion never
(18:04):
kind of gelled with me. I always saw it, even though
like there's so many beautiful religious principles in so many
different religions, on the whole, I saw it as kind of a
divisive, you know, kind of institution.
And I just never jogged with anything.
But when I learnt Vedic meditation, my first question
after I learnt the practise was where does it come from?
(18:25):
Like it was, it was so beautifuland so profound, the experience
of the practise. I, I just naturally wanted to
learn more. And then I learnt about this
body of wisdom called the Vedas,which in Sanskrit essentially
just means knowledge. The knowledge and what I learnt
was, you know, this was an old tradition that had been handed
down for thousands of years in in ancient India and in the
(18:47):
Hindu, Hindu tradition. But the knowledge was completely
universal. It was meant and intended to be
accessible to all. And so I embarked on this huge
period of study where I did courses on exploring the Vedas,
reading about the Vedas and understanding because they
essentially are a body of wisdomthat give all the answers to the
(19:07):
questions I was looking for about why are we here, Who am I?
You know, all of these things, why different things happen to
bad people, You know, all of these existential questions.
I started to get maybe not like answers that I necessarily
wanted to hear, but but really like answers that resonated with
with me. And so that's what got me into
(19:28):
it, like understanding where thetechnique of Vedic meditation
came from and also the life wisdom that comes out of this
body of wisdom called the Vedas.And then I was hooked.
I I definitely became a spiritual person after learning
what I learned through that through that study.
Going through that spiritual practise, what were some of the
biggest moments that you realisethat, oh, I might have to go
(19:50):
deeper on some other things thathave been going on in my life,
whether that's childhood trauma or other components because you
know, like that. And just speaking openly here,
like that's been the journey that I've been on myself is
going well. Everything almost started from
the day my dad passed away when I was 4.
(20:10):
And it's read its head up at a time.
That I, you know, try to hide that puzzle piece underneath the
couch for most of my life, not knowing its impact was I was
four years old. But trauma sits within and to go
spiritually, you have to sit with that trauma and work
through that trauma and. Yeah.
So you talk to me about that component.
(20:32):
You did mention that you had childhood trauma.
Yeah, I did. I did.
I had a lot of things happening.I had a great early childhood,
but then things went a little bit S but I'm trying to work
out. There's so much I want to say
about that. But one of the biggest
motivators for me when I learnedabout Vedic meditation and what
it was capable of helping me do was definitely the desire to
(20:54):
process past trauma, because what I had learned through my
studies about health and Physiology was repressed.
Trauma is one of the biggest causes of disease.
And so when you're told you havecancer that may come back and
kill you, the number one motivation you have is, OK, I've
got to do everything I can to become the healthiest version of
(21:15):
myself. And you know what they say about
anger and resentment and bitterness and things about past
is it's like swallowing poison and expecting the other person
to die, right? That's what I was doing.
I had spent so much of my time angry and resentful and bitter
at my dad. For example, my dad hasn't
passed away. So I'm sorry for you, for you,
but my dad entered a relationship with someone and
(21:38):
that as a result of that relationship, my time living
with them was just not sound. That's it wasn't great.
It was pretty aggressive and pretty unsettling.
I was a young person and I had so much anger and resentment
towards him for that. And we still don't speak, but my
anger levels are completely dissolved.
Like I have nothing but love forhim and if he wanted to talk to
me I'd be there. That is huge progress for
(22:01):
somebody who met me before. I was like an embittered old
cow. But what I learned about Vedic
meditation was when you meditate, what happens is it's a
2 step process. So the first is you receive a
mantra that takes you deeper anddeeper into your layers of
consciousness so that you can get into a place of stillness
(22:21):
and just pure being. No doing, no thinking, transcend
the mind and just be. That's Step 1 and that's
fantastic. But the most important step is
actually Step 2. And it's it's usually the reason
that people walk away from meditation because they think
this is too hard. But what I try to convince
people through my own course, because I'm a teacher of
meditation now, is I try to teach them, no, no, no.
(22:44):
The next part of the process is where the magic happens and
where the real transformation happens.
And that's when, when you're, what essentially happens is when
your mind goes quiet, your parasympathetic nervous system,
which is that part of your nervous system responsible for
healing and healing all of the impact that those repressed
traumas have created in your Physiology or in your mind.
(23:05):
The parasympathetic nervous system's job is to actually
activate and to scan your body for all of the anomalies of
stress from the and allow you torelease, trap trapped energy or
repress trauma and let it rise to the surface.
But what happens when that happens is it rises to the
surface of your mind and it lingers there.
It becomes really murky. And so people are like, I don't
(23:27):
want to feel this. It feels uncomfortable, right?
But all this stuff comes up. But I say to people, no, no, no,
our bodies are not like our minds.
Our minds can completely delete irrelevant memories.
So you don't remember what you wore on the 9th of August 1980,
27 for example, but you rememberdeaths and marriages and all of
these important things. Our mind will just automatically
(23:49):
delete irrelevancies. But our body, if we've repressed
trauma into our Physiology and there's so much, you know, I
challenge somebody to tell me they don't have a repressed
trauma in their body somewhere, you know, whether it's, you
know, small or large, there's repressed trauma.
And So what happens when you meditate is it it gets released
(24:09):
out of your body and then you need to do the self work.
Once you become aware of the trauma, it's arisen, you know,
you release that energy from your body, then you need to do
the work to process. But what you don't want to do is
restrike, recycle that stress and let it go back down.
You don't want to push it back down once it comes up.
You need to do the work. And so I've done the work.
I've done so much unstressing. That's the second part of
(24:33):
meditation, which is letting theparasympathetic nervous system,
when you activate it, because you can't activate it without
meditation. Once it's doing its work, let
it. Let it do its work.
And then you need to do the work, whether that's through
therapy, talking to friends, getting help, you know, reading,
whatever it is that you need to do based on what you've gone
through, do that work. And so, yeah, that's been the
(24:54):
biggest blessing for me is finally dealing with that
refreshed trauma. I feel like my body is a light,
light vessel compared to what itwas before I started meditating.
It was so laden with trauma, even the trauma associated with
my cancer diagnosis. I've let that go, too.
I know what it felt like. I can still talk about it, but
(25:16):
I've done the work to release it.
But I always say to people, it doesn't happen by magic.
You have to work. You have to commit self work.
Yeah. And I was just super motivated
to do that because I had cancer.Why, why?
Like I've got so much to unpack there.
And I love that because you know, big thing of what we talk
about with heart on my sleeve isgoing towards the pain because
(25:37):
you've got to go towards the pain to be able to move through
the pain and work through the pain.
And it doesn't happen overnight.Like you said, there is support
networks, there's other things that you can do to be able to
navigate through that. And I just love every bit that
you've just shared there becauseI think I think that resonates
with everyone. I suppose my question to you,
now that you reflect on, you know, this big moment had to
(25:59):
happen for you to get through that part, why is that the case
that when it's big moments we gotowards it and why can't we do
it beforehand? I say this all the time.
My number one advice to people after having gone through what
I've gone through is don't wait for the Wrecking Ball before it
changes in your life in respect of things that you know no
(26:19):
longer serve you. And I remember the spiritual
guru that that got me into meditation.
His name's Tom Knowles. And I went to a lecture with him
and, and said to him, you know, hand up, you know, it was just
after I've been diagnosed. Why?
Why did I get diagnosed? I'm a good person.
I do good things. I lived a good life.
I live a good life. And he just looked at me and
(26:40):
said, tell me he was very calm and I was not very calm.
And he said, has everything about the way that you live your
life changed since you got cancer?
And I said Yep. And and then he just moved to
the next person and, and, and hejust smiled at me and moved to
the next person. And I thought, I never say are
you saying I caused my cancer? And this was thinking inside and
(27:05):
I was so grumbling. But when I went away, I realised
what he was saying. He was saying if everything
about the way you live your lifewas so bloody and perfect and
great, and you thought you were doing the right things by your
body and by your mind and by your nervous system, then how
come you changed all of it when you got a cancer diagnosis?
And I, and it's so powerful to know that because it's like,
(27:27):
don't wait for the Wrecking Ball.
In the Vedic tradition, they teach that there are three
forces of nature. There's the creation operator,
there's the maintenance operator, and there's the
destruction operator. And why we come to Earth is the,
our entire purpose of coming to Earth is to evolve and to learn
and to grow. But if you get stuck in
(27:47):
maintenance mode, if you're justsort of, you know, treading
water, you know, that stuff in your life is not good.
Like, I knew that I smoked, I drank, I partied.
You know, I did all sorts of silly things.
I worked till 4:00 in the morning thinking I was a goddamn
hero. So cool.
I'm such a senior executive. Didn't meditate, did nothing to
manage stress. Ate fast food, convenience
(28:10):
burgers, fries, you know, you name it.
Lathered my body. Inexpensive.
Fabulous make up thinking I was so you know, and I thought that
that was a good life. I genuinely didn't question it.
But deep down I knew that many of those things I was doing were
not right. I knew that it wasn't, but I did
nothing to change it. And so the Vedic perspective is
when you get stuck in maintenance mode, what nature
(28:32):
will do is send in the destruction operator to move you
into creation mode. And they were saying the
aspiration for enlightenment is to stay in creation mode of your
own free will so that nature doesn't have to come in a movie.
And I just found that also very like, wow, OK, I need to keep
myself in creation mode. I need to stay really hyper
(28:55):
aware through this expanded selfawareness that I'm getting from
my meditation practise so that Ican hear the sounds and those
beautiful natural intuitive impulses you get from your
yourself. My husband actually tells the
story that when we sat out on the deck smoking at 4:00 in the
morning, I apparently said to him, what if I get a mouth
(29:16):
tumour? He said that.
Yeah. And he said that he thought I
was such a weirdo asking that question because it is a bit
weird. I don't remember saying it, but
he swears I used to say it on repeat.
That's my body and nature telling me this isn't right what
you're doing. You're the little chain smoking,
(29:36):
you know, moment. I never really smoked day to
day, but like every now and thenif I drank and, you know, I
would have a cigarette. I knew that it wasn't right, but
I didn't listen. And so incomes nature and you
know, and so when I thought about what that teacher asked me
that day, I thought, yeah, I didcause some of my cancer.
I probably did, but that's okay.I'm okay feeling that because
(30:01):
that means I have the the power to change what it was that may
have caused my cancer. I could never know for sure what
caused my cancer. I could have been bad luck.
But there were also lots of things I was doing that could
have contributed to it as well. And that's great news because it
means that if I extract that stuff from my life, I have a
better chance of it not coming back.
(30:22):
And so, yeah, there's a lot in that answer.
Sorry, I know. But yeah, it just gives you a
sense of it. Was it?
Was very clear, Sarah, I was andprofound because, you know, like
again, like I've sat here and experienced my own story and my
own journey, which is exactly that.
Like I knew something deep down probably wasn't right and didn't
(30:44):
listen to either my body or my energy or my heart or my gut
around certain things and make decisions that, you know, either
cost me financially or cost a relationship.
You know, like there's so many things that we we know
intrinsically within us, but we just don't know how to listen.
No. And you know what?
Also, our minds are so clutteredand indoctrinated and infested
(31:07):
by our ego. Everybody around us, we don't
know what to do, you know, because our minds are just so
busy. And that's why I have become so
addicted. I don't know if it's great to be
addicted to something else, but whatever.
I'm happy to be addicted to meditation because what it's
done is it's it's taken me completely out of my mind to the
(31:29):
point where there's emptiness and there's space and there's
ability to sort of view my life more from the balcony and less
from the dance floor, if that makes sense.
Like I'm up on the balcony. I can see everything for what it
is. I can be the observer more of
what's happening in my life and I can pick up those subtle cues,
(31:49):
whether they're feelings or thoughts or things that come up.
I can go, that's something I need to be aware of or listen to
and I need to take action. And I can do that proactively as
opposed to cleaning up the the mess reactively, which is not
fun. No, it's not fun, It's not fun.
And you know, most people that you hear goes.
I wish no one else could go through what I've gone through,
(32:12):
but that's that's now my next question.
Right. So you've written this
incredible book called Yuru and it's the sort of anti guru.
Well, it's basically making yourself the guru in your own
life. You know, a lot of people do
resonate, like they try and seekother people to sort out their
problems. Is that the essence of the book
is to, you know, stop looking for the gurus out there and
start believing more in yourselfand looking within?
(32:34):
Yeah, it's definitely in the main message.
I think I wrote it because when I learned Vedic, the Vedas, I
learned that guru in Sanskrit means remover of darkness.
And when I was in that really dark place, I thought, wow,
that's a pretty good superpower to have.
I would like the ability to remove darkness from my life
right now. How good would that be?
And I just kept jotting down theword yuru.
(32:56):
This was years ago and I didn't know what it meant, but I just
kept jotting it down. And I looked back over my notes
and saw it and thought, that's areally good idea for a book.
Because essentially what I'm trying to communicate to people
through my own stories is try tolive your life in less
dependence on things or people or events out there changing in
(33:18):
some way in order for you to be happy.
So when I get well, I will be happy.
Or when I get a husband, I will be happy.
Or when I get a baby, I will be happy.
I've, I've gone through so many moments in my life where I've
gone, OK, if I can just get thatto happen or that person to
change or that thing to go away,I will be happy.
And the, the problem with that is that you're relying on the
(33:41):
world out there to stay exactly as it is when you're happy for
your peace to be maintained, which is a really kind of
dangerous precipice to stand on because the minute something
goes away or falls away or is taken away from you, you
crumble, right. And it didn't feel like a stable
way for me to live my life anymore.
And so, yeah, when I wrote the book and I, I'd studied
(34:03):
meditation and gone within, I really realised that the, the
part of me, that pure consciousness that that really
is who I am as opposed to this mind identified egoic individual
personality walking around the earth.
That's the part of me that I want to be guided by from now on
because it's pure, it's joyful, it's peaceful, it's blissful.
(34:25):
It's not indoctrinated or laden down by the opinion of anyone
else. And I just decided that that was
the best guide moving forward. And so I tell the story of the
shift that I made from guru reliance or reliance on things
out there to greater reliance onmyself and just what a positive
journey that was for me personally.
Yes, I've written that down and I hope maybe it will help people
(34:48):
that are, you know, further downthe, you know, their own
evolutionary journey to just kind of get there a little bit
quicker without all the pain in between.
Absolutely beautiful and make sure that you do pick up the
book Yuru. It's out now.
So make sure you do check that out.
Where are you at now, Sarah? Like if, if you're looking now
in the in the future, like, you know, is there still this
(35:11):
massive concern that the cancer will come back?
Like where, where, where are youmentally at the moment in this,
in this journey? Like, are you not even thinking
about it now? If you move through a place, I'd
love to know. Yeah, look, I think you'll never
stop thinking about it once you've had it.
I think the fear of the recurrence will always be there,
and I think I'd be lying if I said it's not.
But what it doesn't have is a grip hold over me like it used
(35:33):
to. I used to have severe anxiety
attacks. I was on anti anxieties, anti
this, anti everything, and now I'm not on any of that.
So I manage the fear myself withmy meditation practise and just
with the way that I live my lifenow.
So that is really well under control.
I'm absolutely, you know, that the cancer came back last year
(35:54):
and came back as one lesion in my lung, which the doctor said
was awesome because it normally comes back as multiple and
everywhere. So they said it's really amazing
that it's just once I had that removed and you know, I had
another health crisis after that, but we won't go there.
But that's all over now. And honestly, I feel like it
(36:16):
traumatises, like my family for example, won't read my book.
It's so traumatising for them. Whereas for me, I can talk about
it, I can share it, talk about it doesn't trigger me at all.
It doesn't take me back. I've fully processed it, and I
have so many of those answers about what life is, what death
is, and you know that, that I feel a lot more stable and a lot
(36:38):
less worried about these things than I used to be.
And yeah, you know, the last time that I went through this,
it was only in sort of July lastyear, and we're in a year later,
and I'm back teaching. I work full time, Mother of
Stella written my ball. Morning to write another one.
So yeah, grabbing life by its shortened curlies and making the
(36:58):
absolute watch to it. You got it.
Yeah, you got it. And that is so good, Sarah.
Sarah, I want to thank you so much for being part of the Heart
on my Sleeve podcast today. It's been an absolute privilege
to hold space with you. Congratulations again on your
the book that's out now. I want to leave you with this
last question. Like for anyone going through
something that feels impossible where they're saying I'm not OK,
(37:22):
what's the one truth you'd want them to hear today?
Oh gosh, that's a good question.Oh, do you know, it's so simple
what I'm going to say, but I would just say I want them to
believe that it is 100% possible.
I like, don't believe the hype. Your future is your story.
It's yet to unfold. Your future is yet to unfold.
(37:43):
I remember when I got the diagnosis, I thought, OK, I can
accept what's already fact, but I refuse to let anyone else
write the future part of my story that is yet to be written,
that I have the ability to influence and change and unfold
in the way that I want it to unfold.
And so, yeah, just that belief in the power of your own mind
(38:04):
and the power of your own, you know, ability to self heal and
learning anything that you can about it if you don't already
believe. And then, yeah, come and learn
meditation with me and I'll, I'll teach you all of it.
But yeah, just believe in that that ability to self heal
because it 100% take it from me exists.
(38:25):
Thank you for that last moment. And yeah, we'll post all the
links to find out more about Sarah, her book and also the
meditations called Medi Steady Go, isn't it?
Yeah. That's it.
That's the one. It's all on my website.
So yeah, I'm sure you'll share that in your notes.
Well, thank you again, Sarah, for being part of this podcast.
It's been an absolute privilege.Hold space.
Thank you for wearing your hearton your sleeve and sharing so
(38:46):
much today. No doubt, even if we can impact
one person out there to be the change that they need to be
right now to navigate their own zones, we've we've done our job.
Say, Sarah, thank you so much for being a part of Heart on My
Sleeve. Thank you.
Thanks, Luke. Appreciate.
It emotions have a natural tendency to dissipate unless
they get reinforced. And so if there's more thoughts,
(39:07):
more stories, more intentions come along.
So the act of how am I leaving it alone is an act of not act,
adding more stories, adding fuelto it.
So it might not go away in 2 minutes, but it then begins to
relax and dissipate. And so rather than being the
person who has to fix it, we've become the person who makes
space for the heart, the mind, to relax and settle away itself.
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