Using the Power Within to Heal From Sexual Trauma with Sara Webb the author of “Look Lush”

Dr. Brad Miller: 00:00

Our guest today is Sara Webb. And in her book Look, Lush: it's a collection

Dr. Brad Miller: 00:05

of poetry, which helps folks to heal their life arise out of the ashes, and to

Dr. Brad Miller: 00:14

get connected with nature and their inner life through meditation and

Dr. Brad Miller: 00:17

other aspects of the inner life. And she's going to share with us some

Dr. Brad Miller: 00:21

of her story here today. I'm not gonna get into too much, but I want

Dr. Brad Miller: 00:25

her to share her story. But Sara Webb, we welcome you to Beyond Adversity here today.

Sara Webb: 00:30

Thank you so much, Dr. Miller. It's a pleasure to be with you.

Dr. Brad Miller: 00:36

That's awesome. Awesome. And, and for moving forward.

Dr. Brad Miller: 00:39

Let's just be Sara and Brad moving forward. Okay,

Sara Webb: 00:41

You got it, Brad.

Dr. Brad Miller: 00:42

That's all right. Awesome. Well, Sara, you have this book of

Dr. Brad Miller: 00:47

poetry that's comes out of your own life experience. And here

Dr. Brad Miller: 00:51

on the Beyond Adversity podcast, we're all about about being

Dr. Brad Miller: 00:53

helpful to people who deal with I like I call it the five Ds of

Dr. Brad Miller: 00:58

adversity: depression, divorce, disease, debt, and death. And

Dr. Brad Miller: 01:04

most people have some combination thereof of those deal.

Dr. Brad Miller: 01:07

Those factors, you and your case, have had some really

Dr. Brad Miller: 01:12

unfortunate devastating things happened to you there.

Dr. Brad Miller: 01:14

It's kind of set the stage for what you do now, or it's certainly

Dr. Brad Miller: 01:18

was a pivotal part of your life. And if you don't mind, I know it's

Dr. Brad Miller: 01:23

kind of sensitive. But if you don't mind to share a little bit about

Dr. Brad Miller: 01:25

your story about some of the things you've had to deal with.

Dr. Brad Miller: 01:28

And which leads you to do what you do now.

Sara Webb: 01:31

Yes, absolutely. Brad, thank you so much. I appreciate the

Sara Webb: 01:34

opportunity to spread light and love and hope and healing.

Sara Webb: 01:39

Because I believe that obstacles are just opportunities. If we

Sara Webb: 01:45

can, as you say, grow through what we go through. In 2008, I

Sara Webb: 01:52

was raped by eight men, pretty brutally, and I survived. And

Sara Webb: 02:01

now I'm thriving. My autonomic nervous system and

Sara Webb: 02:06

subconscious mind did their jobs very well. And essentially

Sara Webb: 02:13

repressed the memories for a long time. Because our unconscious

Sara Webb: 02:17

mind, our subconscious mind is very good at that it's very good at

Sara Webb: 02:21

keeping us safe, and basically repressing unresolved emotions, negative

Sara Webb: 02:26

emotions until another time when we're able to deal with them. After I

Sara Webb: 02:33

was raped, I did not go to the police. I told my sister, I didn't tell anybody

Sara Webb: 02:38

else in my family, even though I was on vacation with my family when it

Sara Webb: 02:42

happened. By the grace of God, they propped me up outside of the hotel

Sara Webb: 02:49

lobby, where they had essentially taken me from and I went on with

Sara Webb: 02:55

my life, I ended up getting married and had a baby. And through the

Sara Webb: 03:02

course of the years, my drinking increased in order to be able to cope.

Sara Webb: 03:08

And when I got sober in 2019, which it took me about a year to actually

Sara Webb: 03:14

fully rid alcohol from my life, because it was just alcohol, which is perfectly

Sara Webb: 03:21

legal for somebody of my age at the time. I was just using it in order to

Sara Webb: 03:27

numb. And once I got sober, I realized that I had some things that I had to

Sara Webb: 03:33

deal with, because I wasn't able to cover it up, mask it any longer. So I'm

Sara Webb: 03:40

really grateful for the healing work that I did, particularly through meditation.

Sara Webb: 03:44

You know, a lot of people say that prayer is talking to God. And

Sara Webb: 03:49

meditation is listening. It's about getting quiet. Yeah, so So my meditation,

Sara Webb: 03:57

first of all,

Sara Webb: 03:57

I just, I think that there's a delay my I'm sorry, go ahead. No problem.

Dr. Brad Miller: 04:01

No, that's all right. I just want to say, Sara, that. Before we get

Dr. Brad Miller: 04:09

into some more of sharing of what you have, what how you've

Dr. Brad Miller: 04:12

responded to this, I just want to say I'm just so sorry that this

Dr. Brad Miller: 04:16

happened to you, that I just resonate with that, that everyone

Dr. Brad Miller: 04:20

has bad things happen to them. But some are really devastating.

Dr. Brad Miller: 04:24

And sometimes it's hard to get our heads around, at least from

Dr. Brad Miller: 04:28

my perspective, what happened to you and I just want to say I'm

Dr. Brad Miller: 04:32

sorry, and that you've had not only sexual assault, but you had

Dr. Brad Miller: 04:36

alcoholism, and you've had some other things to deal with here.

Dr. Brad Miller: 04:40

And you've you mentioned meditation as one of the ways you

Dr. Brad Miller: 04:42

deal with those about prayers, talking to God and meditation,

Dr. Brad Miller: 04:45

listening to God, but you also said that you had a long period

Dr. Brad Miller: 04:50

of time when things were suppressed and repressed. So I want

Dr. Brad Miller: 04:54

to talk to you for just a minute about Sara about what were

Dr. Brad Miller: 04:57

some of the actions that you took or what was some triggering

Dr. Brad Miller: 04:59

things that helped you to break a pattern there. What are some

Dr. Brad Miller: 05:03

of the things that you either did or happened to you that may

Dr. Brad Miller: 05:05

or may have transferred things from that suppressed state to

Dr. Brad Miller: 05:10

at least started a journey to where you're rising from the

Dr. Brad Miller: 05:13

ashes, as you'd like to say,

Sara Webb: 05:15

it was when I started a daily meditation practice. I'm a certified

Sara Webb: 05:19

yoga teacher. And I've been practicing yoga for over 20 years.

Sara Webb: 05:22

And we in yoga say the issues are in the tissues. So perhaps that

Sara Webb: 05:26

was my first moving meditation. And yoga is how I came to begin

Sara Webb: 05:33

to seek meditation. I tried a lot of different kinds, mindfulness,

Sara Webb: 05:37

Deepak Chopra, you name it. But it wasn't until I started practicing

Sara Webb: 05:42

TM, or Transcendental Meditation, which is something that does cost

Sara Webb: 05:48

a little bit of money. You learn with a teacher for four days, two hours

Sara Webb: 05:52

each. And then they teach you how to meditate with a mantra. It's a

Sara Webb: 05:57

very specific thought, word sound, that doesn't mean anything in any

Sara Webb: 06:00

language. And it's your own personal mantra, no one else has it.

Sara Webb: 06:05

And you basically just meditate for 20 minutes, twice a day. And it's

Sara Webb: 06:09

when I started that regular daily practice, that I was able to see

Sara Webb: 06:14

what we call that 30,000 foot view. I was able to metta think

Sara Webb: 06:19

that thinking about your thinking, and really observe myself

Sara Webb: 06:23

and my habits from a little bit more of an exterior perspective.

Sara Webb: 06:27

Instead of being inside of the movie, I was watching the movie

Sara Webb: 06:31

screen and noticing the destructive habits that I had going on, I

Sara Webb: 06:35

was a new mom, and my little 18 month old daughter who's

Sara Webb: 06:40

incredibly precocious, and was verbal. From a very young age,

Sara Webb: 06:44

we went over to a party, I'm originally from New Orleans, and

Sara Webb: 06:47

she picked up this little chalice kind of looked like a Mardi Gras

Sara Webb: 06:50

cup, and She sipped it. And she said, This is my wine. And it was

Sara Webb: 06:56

like a punch in the gut. I asked myself, What am I teaching my

Sara Webb: 07:00

daughter? to emulate? Yes, by my actions. And that's when I started

Sara Webb: 07:05

changing my relationship with alcohol. I thought that I could read

Sara Webb: 07:08

myself sober. Well, I mean, the first thing that I noticed was when I

Sara Webb: 07:12

actually got pregnant that I was sober from the day that I

Sara Webb: 07:15

got pregnant until I gave birth, which I guess isn't necessarily

Sara Webb: 07:21

something that people would assume. But I did get sober.

Sara Webb: 07:24

And I didn't. That was when I started realizing, I have an

Sara Webb: 07:27

automatic thought, every day at five o'clock. And I say, oh,

Sara Webb: 07:32

no, I'm not going to do that I have a precious baby that I've

Sara Webb: 07:35

been, you know, really wanting in my life inside of me. Of course,

Sara Webb: 07:39

I'm not going to do that. However, it made me become aware.

Sara Webb: 07:43

And when my daughter, my biological daughter, I now have

Sara Webb: 07:46

three children, two bonus children. When my daughter was

Sara Webb: 07:49

five months old, that's when I found TM, transcendental

Sara Webb: 07:53

meditation, I see and was able to really start to increase

Sara Webb: 07:58

that awareness, that self awareness of what I was doing.

Dr. Brad Miller: 08:02

You said so there I found interesting. Five, you said you

Dr. Brad Miller: 08:05

thought you could read yourself to sobriety is what you said?

Sara Webb: 08:09

I read several sobriety.

Dr. Brad Miller: 08:13

Did you see this kind of what I'm trying to get out of?

Dr. Brad Miller: 08:16

Did you see this at some form or another kind of an academic

Dr. Brad Miller: 08:19

exercise where I can learn my way out of this? Was that a

Dr. Brad Miller: 08:23

part of what's going on here?

Sara Webb: 08:25

Yeah, just to learn about the dilatory fact that the things that happened?

Dr. Brad Miller: 08:31

Well, I think there's some there's some great things that

Dr. Brad Miller: 08:33

are unique, we need to learn, we need to take action you

Dr. Brad Miller: 08:36

mentioned about you know, finding tea, um, you invested in

Dr. Brad Miller: 08:39

it, you know, time and energy and money to do that, and you

Dr. Brad Miller: 08:43

knew you had to change and also you had that seminal moment

Dr. Brad Miller: 08:45

with your daughter, picking up the little teacup or whatever it was,

Dr. Brad Miller: 08:49

and particularly his wine glass or whatever. And you had, okay, I

Dr. Brad Miller: 08:53

can't, this is not going to work, you know, it was point of pain, as

Dr. Brad Miller: 08:56

I'm getting to the point of pain, but let's go now for just a minute

Dr. Brad Miller: 09:00

or two, Sara to that inner life. You know, I'm a believer that in

Dr. Brad Miller: 09:05

order for one to have transformation, you got to have those

Dr. Brad Miller: 09:07

physical acts, you know, you got to take the class, you got to

Dr. Brad Miller: 09:10

read the books, you got to be, you know, motivated by your

Dr. Brad Miller: 09:15

child. Those are some of the physical acts, but you also need

Dr. Brad Miller: 09:18

to kind of go a little deeper tell us anything about any kind of

Dr. Brad Miller: 09:22

a connection to a higher power or spiritual element A, how the

Dr. Brad Miller: 09:27

meditation took you to a deeper, intimate place within your soul.

Dr. Brad Miller: 09:31

How is any of this a part of your transformation to, as you say,

Dr. Brad Miller: 09:36

rise from the ashes?

Sara Webb: 09:37

Oh, absolutely. I believe that meditation connects us to God

Sara Webb: 09:44

directly or, or what quantum physics science calls the unified

Sara Webb: 09:48

field of all possibility, which come on. That's God. That's right.

Sara Webb: 09:55

That beautiful still place where I go so often. And meditation,

Sara Webb: 10:00

it doesn't happen every time. And I'm not chasing it. But it's a

Sara Webb: 10:05

place of stillness and peace and suspension, almost. And I was

Sara Webb: 10:14

raised in the Southern Baptist Church, and I renounced it for a

Sara Webb: 10:20

few years in college and really did some of my own research.

Sara Webb: 10:24

And of course, I didn't remain atheists, I don't know if I ever

Sara Webb: 10:28

called myself that for very long, I guess I was more agnostic.

Sara Webb: 10:33

But learning TM definitely allowed me to see that I am a

Sara Webb: 10:41

drop of God, you know, that we are created in God's image.

Sara Webb: 10:46

And that we're able to have that deep relationship with God,

Sara Webb: 10:52

every single day.

Dr. Brad Miller: 10:54

He said a couple of things, I love the way you speak about this

Dr. Brad Miller: 10:59

was such eloquence in such a poignant approach. What I mean

Dr. Brad Miller: 11:05

by that is when you say about being suspended, and a drop of

Dr. Brad Miller: 11:08

God, those I think are some imagery, that I think it's important

Dr. Brad Miller: 11:13

for us to get a handle on that when we have a spiritual

Dr. Brad Miller: 11:16

experience. It's not only just something kind of woowoo out

Dr. Brad Miller: 11:20

there, it is connected to various aspects of our life. You know,

Dr. Brad Miller: 11:24

I know you mentioned yoga and that kind of thing. So there's a

Dr. Brad Miller: 11:27

physical manifestation, you know, the interrelatedness of this,

Dr. Brad Miller: 11:30

and that tickets. Awesome where you put it. Let's go now to how

Dr. Brad Miller: 11:34

this is. I'm sorry, go ahead.

Sara Webb: 11:36

I was just saying, Thank you. I appreciate those kind words. Yeah, I guess

Sara Webb: 11:39

I am a poet. If you like my imagery,

Dr. Brad Miller: 11:41

well, Oh, yes. Hey, here we go. There we go, we get a you should be

Dr. Brad Miller: 11:46

good with your boy, we'll get into get into that. Because that's kind

Dr. Brad Miller: 11:50

of where it kind of where I want to go now are is really about how

Dr. Brad Miller: 11:53

you think about this, and how you apply this to your life and how

Dr. Brad Miller: 12:00

you apply it to others. And when I mean, how you manifest this

Dr. Brad Miller: 12:03

now, so what are some of the habits or practices or way you do

Dr. Brad Miller: 12:08

life? Now that may be different than what you did before? That

Dr. Brad Miller: 12:11

makes life a little bit more? I think you've used the term lush

Dr. Brad Miller: 12:16

in your in your book of poetry. What do you do now? What

Dr. Brad Miller: 12:19

are some of the habits practices they do now,

Sara Webb: 12:21

I like to say you can magnify your life, M A G with meditation,

Sara Webb: 12:28

affirmations and gratitude. magnify your life by a daily meditation

Sara Webb: 12:34

practice, a daily affirmation practice, which is not what most

Sara Webb: 12:39

people think it is, and a daily gratitude practice. I've been making

Sara Webb: 12:43

a gratitude list every single morning since February 27 2020,

Sara Webb: 12:47

serendipitously, just a few weeks before we hit quarantine,

Sara Webb: 12:52

God told me to start doing that. And I got a couple of gratitude

Sara Webb: 12:56

partners. Now I have about a dozen gratitude partners. And it's

Sara Webb: 13:00

so beautiful, because I make a gratitude list every day along

Sara Webb: 13:04

with some affirmations included in there and send it out. And

Sara Webb: 13:07

I get back gratitude and affirmations from said people. So I

Sara Webb: 13:11

get these beautiful things, you know, I'm grateful for oxygen,

Sara Webb: 13:14

I'm grateful for technology, there's always always, always

Sara Webb: 13:18

something to be grateful for. And it's about, you know,

Sara Webb: 13:21

looking for not the grass is always greener on the other side,

Sara Webb: 13:24

but the grass is greener where you water it and trying to make

Sara Webb: 13:28

ourselves see that glass half full instead of focusing on on the

Sara Webb: 13:33

lack. Because that's what our subconscious brain naturally does.

Sara Webb: 13:37

It's based in survival, our sort of our subconscious brain is

Sara Webb: 13:41

constantly scanning for problems. And so if we allow our

Sara Webb: 13:45

subconscious brain to rule us, you know, because really, we

Sara Webb: 13:48

think that the conscious brain is in charge. But really, it's the

Sara Webb: 13:51

subconscious that's keeping us safe, and looking for problems

Sara Webb: 13:55

and threats. So it's about using our conscious brain in order to

Sara Webb: 13:59

reprogram the subconscious.

Dr. Brad Miller: 14:01

Well, that's you and that's where you have to be. Sara very

Dr. Brad Miller: 14:04

intentional about that. That's why, why you have to develop

Dr. Brad Miller: 14:07

new habits and new practices and new ways of doing life.

Dr. Brad Miller: 14:11

They break the old patterns, because the old patterns would

Dr. Brad Miller: 14:13

tend to lead us to what a lot of people go into. People use

Dr. Brad Miller: 14:17

different terminology, we have a spiral or funk, or, you know,

Dr. Brad Miller: 14:21

a stuck place one of the more meaty you know, malaise,

Dr. Brad Miller: 14:26

depression, yeah, where a lot of people get stuck in those

Dr. Brad Miller: 14:29

places. And you have to be intentional about getting out of it.

Dr. Brad Miller: 14:32

And part of what you've talked about, and one of the ways

Dr. Brad Miller: 14:34

you do that is through poetry and through writing, things like it.

Dr. Brad Miller: 14:38

Tell us a little bit more about your book. I know you divided into

Dr. Brad Miller: 14:41

two parts. I found that kind of interesting about the look and

Dr. Brad Miller: 14:43

the lush. Tell us what about your book in terms of how that how

Dr. Brad Miller: 14:48

that format came about and how that might be helpful to other people.

Sara Webb: 14:52

Look is about my rise from the ashes and particularly using meditation.

Sara Webb: 14:59

It's formatted Allah Have a bit differently, it's simpler structure, simpler

Sara Webb: 15:03

words. And each of the poems have the word look or something about

Sara Webb: 15:08

perspective, in it look or our physical looks or seeing things differently.

Sara Webb: 15:14

Lush is a play on words, something that's lush and green and

Sara Webb: 15:19

beautiful and overgrown. Also, it's a slang term for somebody

Sara Webb: 15:22

that drinks too much. And so lush is about healing from addiction.

Sara Webb: 15:30

And in conjunction really with nature, which Gosh, I really

Sara Webb: 15:34

feel God, when I am part of nature, when I'm enjoying the

Sara Webb: 15:39

beauty that's been created here. And the way that it came

Sara Webb: 15:44

about was I had some deep healing work, I've done some self

Sara Webb: 15:51

hypnosis, which I really believe that meditation is basically self

Sara Webb: 15:55

hypnosis if you look at the brain waves that occur, but I also

Sara Webb: 15:59

went to a practitioner who helped me to get into my subconscious

Sara Webb: 16:03

and relive some of these experiences and, and I forgave every

Sara Webb: 16:07

single one of those men. Because, you know, anger is like drinking

Sara Webb: 16:12

poison and expecting somebody else to die. So I have done what Oh, go ahead.

Dr. Brad Miller: 16:20

Oh, forgive this message that you have here. And that, that

Dr. Brad Miller: 16:24

comes from, you know, Spruch a core that from many different

Dr. Brad Miller: 16:28

faiths, but still so hard to implement when you've been brutalized,

Dr. Brad Miller: 16:33

and to have forgiveness there for those who've hurt you.

Dr. Brad Miller: 16:36

And that is amazing, and helpful. And I bet you deal with

Dr. Brad Miller: 16:41

some people in your, in your life, or you served some people

Dr. Brad Miller: 16:45

who have hard times with this forgiveness thing. I have a

Dr. Brad Miller: 16:49

hard time dealing with getting unstuck. hard time dealing

Dr. Brad Miller: 16:53

with getting extracting themselves from whatever they

Dr. Brad Miller: 16:58

did is dragging him down, whether it's a past relationship,

Dr. Brad Miller: 17:01

or alcohol or whatever. Tell us about somebody you

Dr. Brad Miller: 17:04

may have worked with, or have some connection with

Dr. Brad Miller: 17:06

or may have read your poetry. Who, who you've seen

Dr. Brad Miller: 17:09

some transformation happen. Tell us a story.

Sara Webb: 17:13

Well, I'll keep everyone anonymous. But one of my favorite

Sara Webb: 17:17

clients I've been working with for several years, and I won't

Sara Webb: 17:22

even use pronouns, but they have been in and out of treatment

Sara Webb: 17:30

centers, and in and out of sobriety. And they are over five

Sara Webb: 17:37

months sober today. And I have seen such huge transformations.

Sara Webb: 17:43

I've continued to work with this person. And they really thought

Sara Webb: 17:47

for a little while that I was going to ditch them just like everybody

Sara Webb: 17:51

else did. But it's I think it just comes from understanding that

Sara Webb: 17:58

it does take time. And yeah, so

Dr. Brad Miller: 18:02

I read that is that's an awesome and when you have that

Dr. Brad Miller: 18:04

affirmation, it affirms you that you're doing something that's

Dr. Brad Miller: 18:08

a value that says for the greater good, a gift to others.

Sara Webb: 18:12

Yeah, I don't specialize in alcohol treatment. It's more about

Sara Webb: 18:17

the life coaching, you know, the spiritually activating people to

Sara Webb: 18:21

really, it's guided meditations, it's getting real with themselves

Sara Webb: 18:27

and their true desires and, and how they can send you an articles out into the world.

Dr. Brad Miller: 18:34

It takes all that it takes, I'm a very big on the integrated sense,

Dr. Brad Miller: 18:37

you know, the physical part, the spiritual part, the emotional,

Dr. Brad Miller: 18:41

that relationship type of thing, all that's here. And that's what

Dr. Brad Miller: 18:44

happens when you serve others in that way. And that's obviously

Dr. Brad Miller: 18:47

a part of your heart to serve others, and to not be a prisoner of

Dr. Brad Miller: 18:53

your pain. You know, I love that about you. So how can, Sara

Dr. Brad Miller: 18:56

How can folks learn more about you? How can they get your

Dr. Brad Miller: 18:59

book Look Lush? How can they find out more about your

Dr. Brad Miller: 19:03

coaching opportunities or, or other opportunities, you have

Dr. Brad Miller: 19:06

to serve others? How can people find out more about you?

Sara Webb: 19:08

I'm very active on Instagram with daily quotes and reals. It's

Sara Webb: 19:13

at @sarawebbsays that's s,a, r, a, w, e, b, b, s, a, y, s. My website

Sara Webb: 19:21

is the same. Sara Webb says.com. And you can contact me

Sara Webb: 19:27

through the contact page. There you can see a full suite of

Sara Webb: 19:31

pricing for my I'm an inspirational speaker. And I only have

Sara Webb: 19:36

a couple of slots per month. I also only work with two

Sara Webb: 19:40

clients full time at a time and I'm completely booked at this

Sara Webb: 19:44

time at this juncture. But I am available for speaking next

Sara Webb: 19:49

going out into you know further years.

Dr. Brad Miller: 19:52

Yeah, we'll put connections to all of that on our website drbradmiller.com.

Dr. Brad Miller: 19:58

Again, the book is called Look, Lush. Her name was Sara Webb from

Dr. Brad Miller: 20:04

SaraWebbSays.com. We thank you for being our guest today on

Dr. Brad Miller: 20:08

the Beyond Adversity podcast.