The Birth of the Mind Medicine Movement
How stress, burnout, cancer and nervous system healing changed my life
I never felt like I belonged. Have you ever felt like that?
I never felt like I belonged at home. The youngest of 3, I wanted to play with my older brother and sister, but I was the pain in the arse younger sister, hanging on, as they just wanted to play with the kids next door, who were their age. I get it now. Who wants their baby sister tagging along?
On my side of things, I saw this as a rejection. I didn’t belong. They didn’t like me. As each one of us reached the age of 7, we were sent to boarding school. I was the last to go, which meant that there were 3 years when I was, in effect, an only child, when my siblings would only be there in the school holidays and still didn’t really want me hanging around.
I just wanted to be liked, belong, feel safe.
The age of 7 is young to be separated from your family. I know that now, especially as I’ve learnt about our brain development in our early years.
Safety is something we seek from the moment we are born. It is hard to survive without it. When we don’t feel safe, it’s hard to move into love, belonging and self-worth.
Someone once asked me how I knew that my parents loved me and I found that hard to answer. I knew that they did, but their way of showing it was typical middle class of the time. And one of those ways was to ensure that we received the best education. However, that took away from the nurturing of a healthy, family environment. My parents never used the words “I love you”.
I took my stories forward into school. Of course I did, because 0-7 are the years when so many of our core beliefs are formed. We take on the beliefs of others, because our brains are in a theta hypnotic state. I was told that I was “too sensitive” and that always seemed such a bad thing. I felt judged just for being “me”.
At first, I actually enjoyed being away at school. I felt a sense of belonging. But as I moved towards being a teenager and friendships changed, I felt the rejection all over again. I decided that no-one liked me.
In fact, my stories around this were so strong that I moved school, to the boarding school where my sister was.
Of course, that didn’t really change anything, as I was still me, with the same stories. However, on a positive note, it did bring my sister and I closer together.
No-one liked me. Or at least that is what I told myself (and most of the people around me). Now I know that I didn’t actually like myself and I was projecting this onto them.
Over the school holidays, after a year of being in the new school, I reflected on this. I clearly had a level of self awareness. I realised that it was my own mindset that was creating most of my issues, and that I needed to stop projecting. I went back with a different intention and made the most of it. Of course, I still had the same insecurities, but I decided not to react to them in the same way and project onto others.
I moved out of home at the age of 18 to London. I had completed a 2 year training in Beauty and wanted to get away from my toxic home life. I wasn’t at home that much, but when I was, the atmosphere was unbearable. My parents didn’t talk to each other at all and were clearly extremely unhappy and my siblings had also moved out. In fact, I don’t really think any of us went back home after education.
I fell into a relationship with the first man that paid attention to me. I had made a small group of friends, but was still desperately seeking where I belonged. I stayed in this relationship for 4 years and only really left when we were actually due to get married. I knew that I couldn’t go through with it. I wasn’t happy and he had a controlling nature.
By this time, I had moved to Brighton and I was on my own. Limited friends and desperate to fit in somewhere. I met Pete. He showed me attention and made me feel safe. We married after only 2 years of being together and immediately started a family.
I was safe and I belonged.
Pete however was a drinker. He always liked alcohol. In fact I met him in a pub. Our social lives revolved around drinking. I assumed that as we matured into our family that he would prioritise us, his family. However, I think he just felt the pressure of that, along with running his own business and his drinking went from being more than social.
This led to a decline in my own mental health and such a bad disc prolapse that I could barely walk. The body keeps the score. After 2 years of trying to see if we could make it work, I knew that things had to change and I ended our marriage. Our children were 6 and 4.
After we split, the responsibility for the children fell to me. No child maintenance. I felt a huge responsibility to ensure that they were looked after and had things that they wanted and needed. I worked long hours, despite my continuing back issues.
I’d learnt the art of working hard through my parents and helping them in their business during school holidays. They ran a business together and when I was at home, they were hardly there. It was a lonely childhood.
I still had a craving to feel safe and loved. I had a few dates but nothing that felt right and I didn't want to settle into something for the sake of it.
A year later I met James. We have now been together 24 years.
I am loved and I belong.
The thing is, I didn’t love and belong to myself. And I never realised this until cancer came along. The first time was in 2005, when I was only 36. Cervical cancer, diagnosed from a smear test, caught early. I had a hysterectomy and moved forward with my life.
However, I wasn’t listening to what my body had been screaming at me for years. To stop and pay attention. To nurture, love and value myself. In fact, how could I truly receive it from others if I didn’t give it to myself.
At times, I came across to others as ‘cold’. I didn’t think I was, but even my own children called me out on it. I know now that it was a way of protecting myself. My shield. If I kept a certain barrier up then no-one would realise that I’m not likeable, loveable. If I was, surely Pete wouldn’t have given up on us in favour of alcohol? Of course, now I realise that addiction doesn’t work like that.
James and I were meant to be together. 21 years my senior, there were many judgments, many of them by myself. He also had come from a background of lacking in self belief. We came together at a time when we both needed each other. Our journey over the last 24 years has been an incredible journey of personal growth and we have grown closer, rather than further apart.
I reached burnout at several points of my working career, but plodded on regardless. Not really listening, because I always felt that pressure to provide. It was (and still is) deeply ingrained. The most significant time was when Covid hit. I had my own beauty salon and employed staff. I was actually relieved when we initially went into lockdown as I was exhausted, physically and mentally. I had, unwittingly, layered the pressure onto myself, because I wasn’t just providing for my family, but for my team too. Ensuring they were paid, whilst at times struggling to pay myself.
During Covid I started looking at my mindset. I was realising that it all starts with me and I felt like I was blaming everyone else. The team for not “working hard enough” (although they did work very hard). To be a good leader I needed to look at myself.
That’s where I started unpeeling layers of the internal onion, one at a time.
This wasn’t an overnight journey. In fact the journey will continue for the rest of my life as the layers gently peel away. Covid brought many challenges, especially financial ones, which for someone like me, who has always had issues around money, proved to be really difficult. Lots of anger issues as people didn’t follow the rules and this just kept pushing back the reopening of the close contact industry. We felt like we were forgotten and not important.
And then……..Hope! We were due to reopen in April 2021. Gosh it felt exciting, after everything we had been through. Even more exciting, my son and his fiancée were expecting a baby and decided to get married. The wedding was to take place in San Diego, because this is where she was from. To get into the US, we had to travel via Mexico for 2 weeks due to the ongoing travel restrictions.
It was in Mexico that I became really unwell. Pain in my kidney area, vomiting, migraines. I was taken into hospital and was told that they suspected I had ovarian cancer. I had to be repatriated to the UK and missed the wedding completely.
The next few months were a blur of medical treatment. An emergency operation to remove my ovaries followed by 6 rounds of chemo. And then the all clear.
I got on with my life. In fact I think the next year felt a bit like a party to be honest. A celebration of my life and who could blame me? I travelled, I socialised, I had great fun. I even got married to James after 20 years of togetherness. But what I didn’t do was slow down. I wasn’t nourishing myself. I was still living in the fast lane and although I was still looking at my mindset, I wasn’t really embodying the work.
We had also found out that I carried the BRCA1 gene mutation and my whole family started being tested. My 2 nieces and my daughter were all found to carry the gene. I should have said, but my sister died of breast cancer in 2010. I was absolutely devastated. The stress of finding out that they were all affected was immense for all of us.
Cancer returned in 2023. I wasn’t expecting it, but here it was again and I had to take back my power. I felt traumatised and was having panic attacks. I cried whenever I saw any sort of medic, which was frequent due to the amount of tests I was having.
I’d started my life coaching and emotional and behavioural psychology training at the end of 2022. Having started the peeling of the layers, I wanted to go much deeper with this journey. Starting to really get to know myself and why I behaved in certain ways was actually really liberating. It felt a little like removing my own ball and chain.
I put the training on hold whilst I went through treatment, but I still continued to find ways to help me manage with what I was going through.
I turned to a guy called Brett Moran, who a friend had introduced me to about 6 months earlier. He is a coach who also teaches meditation and breathwork.
He kicked my arse into gear when I needed it the most. He called me out when I slipped into my victim and he taught me to meditate, to breathe, to visualise, to heal. I learnt about the mind/body connection and that how we talk to ourselves really does matter. I underwent his certification in meditation and breathwork so I could learn at a deeper level.
I also sought nutritional advice from Amber Silverman, who had been on my life coaching course. She helped me to get my diet straight so I was eating to really nourish my body.
I had complementary therapies such as Reiki from my friend Teri.
I spent so much time in nature. This was where I felt connected and at peace. There is something very powerful about nature when we truly immerse ourselves in it.
I learnt how to calm my nervous system and slowly come out of fight-or-flight. Looking back now, I think my body had been living on high alert for most of my adult life, possibly even since childhood.
I didn’t really know how to slow down. I was always pushing, striving, worrying, overthinking, trying to hold everything together. My body had become so used to surviving that I’m not sure it really knew how to rest.
The more I learnt, the more I understood that the body was never designed to stay in that state long term. Over time, stress affects everything. Sleep, digestion, hormones, immune function, energy levels. The body starts focusing on survival rather than repair.
For the first time in my life, I began creating safety within my own body, rather than constantly searching for it outside of myself.
Now, I know that I carry the BRCA gene mutation. But something else I discovered along the way was epigenetics, which fascinated me.
It’s the idea that whilst we may inherit certain genes, the environment within and around the body can influence how those genes are expressed. Things like stress, sleep, nourishment, emotions, lifestyle and connection all matter.
Genes are not always our destiny. That doesn’t mean we are to blame when illness happens, far from it. Human health is incredibly complex. But it does suggest that the body is constantly responding to the world we live in, both internally and externally.
Instead of only focusing on illness, I began focusing on creating wellness.
I had a few rounds of chemo, followed by surgery a few months later. The surgeon was astounded. Not only was he able to do surgery, whereas he didn’t think that was going to be possible, but he removed every last trace as there was so little remaining. His exact words were, “You are a miracle.”
I took time out on completion of my treatment. I had sold my business. I was no longer aligned with it. We purchased a motorhome and travelled much of the UK (I couldn’t go too far due to regular blood tests for the maintenance medication that I take). This afforded me reflection time, time to study and finish my life coaching certification. I just wanted calm and peace within my life.
The Mind Medicine Movement grew out of everything I had learnt, both personally and professionally.
It brings together nervous system work, coaching and mentoring, touch therapy, meditation, breathwork, sound and guided visualisation to help people move out of survival mode and reconnect with themselves.
At the heart of it is SIPS.
Slow Down. Identity. Purpose. Self-Love.
Because healing begins with gentle sips.
It supports people experiencing stress, burnout, illness and major life transitions. Within the movement is my Rising Above Cancer pathway, which specifically supports those facing cancer and going through treatment or moving beyond cancer afterwards.
It is my passion and my purpose. I now think of cancer as my greatest gift, because without it I’m not sure I would have fully embraced the changes that I needed to make in my life. The layers of the onion keep unpeeling as I continue my journey of self discovery, but it’s an exciting journey and I am at more peace with myself now, than I ever have been before.
Sarah 🩵