Welcome to the graceful confidence podcast. I'm your host Lauren De Beck, the founder of Life coaching with Lauren, a female empowerment coach, an entrepreneur m path and a lover of the ego friendly lifestyle. My mission is to help women take control of their lives by teaching them how to increase their confidence in an authentic and genuine way so they can achieve both personal and professional goals. Each week on the graceful confidence podcast I will share ways to increase your confidence tips on how to integrate grace into your life as well as stories and advice from other experts on how as women we can better empower ourselves and those around us. I will show you exactly how to use the power of confidence and grace to create an empowering and invigorating life that you are excited about waking up to every single day. Now let's dive in. Thank you so much for tuning into this episode of the graceful confidence podcast. The podcast is all about really empowering women to make choices and decisions that are going to better themselves, better their families in the world around them and I have been watching this person over the past few months who made a decision recently that has really, it's been benefiting her life.

So that's why I wanted to bring her onto the podcast today to talk about her journey because it's something that is a little outside of the box of what I normally do but I think it's so on point and so important and a really tangible, solid way to make a choice that is good for you. So with that I want to introduce sarah James Sara James is a 30 year old mom of two. She is a wife educator, shampoo, slinger and fitness enthusiast. She is a mom who decided life would be easier if she ditched the booze. So she is here today to talk about her journey with sobriety over the last six months. Sarah, thank you so much for being here today. You're so welcome. I'm so excited to be here and talk about this journey and hopefully encourage other moms or other people to make a change. Absolutely. So I know I've read a little bit of your bio, but could you tell us a little bit more about yourself. Sure. So, um, I am first a mom and a wife, so I have two daughters.

I have molly is 3.5 almost and willow will be two in December. So there's 17 months apart. Um, so I am a mom all the time. We never really get to check out and then I am an educator. I'm an administrator in a public school. So that's my 9 to 5 gig and then I have partnered with Monet, which is a luxury hair care company. We also do skincare and wellness products and I've been with money for over two years as well. So I kind of dabble in a lot. I'm a crossfit level two trainer. So there was a time in my life when I was a competitive crossfit athlete and I still hold a certification to do that and I love functional fitness. Uh and so it just kind of all blends together and bleeds together to kind of create the mold of meat. That's awesome and I'm sure a lot of people can relate to that wearing some of those different hats. Yes, so many hats all the time. So can you tell us a little bit about how your journey with sobriety started? Yeah, so I um grew up in a house where my parents drank um and they still drink, they also are both very successful individuals college educated.

Um they have very successful jobs and so my parents drank every night growing up and that was just part of the culture in our home and then I started drinking probably as a late teenager went to college, I was in a sorority, experienced all of those things and drank in college and then as an adult, um I drank throughout my adulthood until very recently, it was a part of my social and daily life, so I would have a glass of wine or two when I got home from work or I would have like a vodka and soda water and that was just kind of part of the culture of my home, my husband drinks um and that was just kind of what we did, so I was when you have kids, so once you have kids things change your, everything you do changes. And so things got a little more challenging because I was realizing that I was having to be a few steps ahead of my kids or I was having to plan a little bit better or I was having to be more thoughtful about my actions or more intentional with my time.

And what I found was that was a little bit more challenging and I spent Probably the last 18 months, you know, going through different motions trying to figure it out. And so quarantine happened so we all can, you know, figure out what happened with quarantine. So I was in a public school educator, so we started our spring break when the whole world shut down and so my kids were out of school for two months and I love my kids, but I'm not a stay at home mom that is not a title or a hat that I like to wear. So it's really hard to be a stay at home mom and I give props to any mom who stays home that is a harder job than any other job I've ever done. So Quarantine happened in March and we were home and we were home all the time and I was working remotely, but I was trying to balance it all and I definitely leaned on alcohol as a coping tool as did a lot of people I know. Um, and what I realized was I was developing a unhealthy habit.

I was becoming more and more reliant on what alcohol would do for me and I also suffered a back injury um in 2018 of January 2018. So I have a herniated disc in my back and I had used alcohol as a way to pain manage because I didn't want to take pain pills. So I was drinking to make the pain feel better. Well the pain was never getting better, it was only ever getting worse. And so I had, I hit this brick wall on Mother's Day, I had gone to the beach with my family, my parents and my husband and our kids and my husband picked if I with my husband on saturday night and for whatever reason, I mean any married couple can just list the reasons why you randomly pick a fight. And I was drinking that night and I woke up on sunday morning and I was kind of hungover and it was rainy and I had to get out of the beach and packed the car and do all these things and my husband was still mad at me and I was like, I'm just gonna quit drinking. This is just a habit that's not serving me and I did and I did it very quietly.

I didn't tell anybody and my husband's birthday party was the next weekend and I had kept making it had been on my heart to quit drinking for a while, but I had kept making excuses of why I shouldn't, Like there was always going to be a party or an outing or memorial day or the 4th of July. And so I just kept making excuses And so finally I was like, well it's fine. I'm just gonna quit and whatever seven days and I'll go through, I'll get through his birthday party and it'll be fine. And so I did seven days and I told him at probably like day five And then I survived the birthday party and then I did 14 days and then a month and now it's been a little over six months and it's changed my life. So that's kind of how I got here. What were the initial reactions you got from people, your your husband and you know now six months and all the awesome videos that you do, people, people obviously know what, what have the reactions been. So it was so because my parents have drank my entire life, I I was hesitant to tell them because I felt like they would come from a place of judgment.

Um and my mom's initial reaction was from a place of judgment, she said, which actually She came to my husband's birthday party that Saturday. So then six days and I wasn't gonna tell them because I knew that the reaction was going to be like, why would you do that? And my husband told them and I was so mad at him because it wasn't his story to tell. And my mom said, why would you do that? And I knew that was gonna be her reaction and I had read a book um that helped. And so I was already kind of prepared for people to not understand when they found out because I kind of primed myself and so I was like, I think it's just something a habit that I need to break right now. It's something that I was leaning too hard on and she obviously is very understanding now and super supportive and it's not a big deal, but in the moment I had people in the initial response was like why would you do that? Um I went to a baby shower probably in early june So it had been like maybe six weeks.

And I had a mom, we're a bunch of moms there and I said, yeah, I'm not drinking right now, it was like a brunch baby shower. And she said, what do you mean you're not drinking? And I said, yeah, I decided to quit drinking for a while and she's like, oh, doesn't that make your life so much harder? That sounds horrible. And I was like, no, actually I cope better now and I'm kinder now to my kids and she just couldn't understand and I respect that mom a lot and it just didn't make sense to her because she wasn't in the same space that I was in, what I have always told people is you have to have it on your heart and your mind that that's what you're ready to do. You can't make decisions that are challenging for other people because they will be really hard to stick to now that you're six months in and you have a clearer perspective and approach to to this. Why do you think it is that people are so judgmental about this decision? Well socially drinking is very acceptable, excessively, drinking is very acceptable.

As moms. We literally joke about having to drink to speak with our kids. It's like a very normal thing. Oh my God girl, get me a bottle of wine. I'm stuck at home with my kids for the holidays and that's very normal, like literally it's totally socially acceptable. And I'm not going to say that I don't think that two weeks home with my kids for the holidays brings about a little bit of stress for me because it's really hard to be around very small Children for a long time if it's not something that brings you the ultimate amount of joy love my kids, but it's hard and doing hard things is not always fun. So I think that people just have a social acceptance to drinking alcohol, but drinking alcohol is the only drug that we socially except so if I had quit smoking, people would congratulate me or if I had quit my Xanax habit or if I had stopped smoking weed or lest any other drug, even if I had been on pain pills for my chronic back pain, which I could get a prescription for and I have decided to stop taking those and I publicly announced it, People would congratulate me.

But drinking is something that is so socially ingrained in the structure of what we do that people don't understand why why you would want to quit it. And so because they don't understand, they pass judgment and we see people do that. I mean, goodness 2020 has been the year of that, right? I don't understand why you don't wear a mask or I don't understand why you do wear a mask. So I'm going to pass judgment on you. And so in my opinion, it just stems from a lack of understanding of why not necessarily that they don't agree with it, they just don't understand why that would be something you would do. That's that makes so much sense. And hopefully one of the things that this message in this conversation can do is encourage those who are thinking about taking this journey for themselves, that it's okay. There's other people out there doing it and for those on the flip side of it, understanding the why. So maybe if their best friend does say that they are going to stop drinking for a little bit, they'll have a kinder reaction and a little more understanding.

So I think you're, you're absolutely spot on with that. So let's transition into your, why you started with it being seven days, which turned into a month and now six months later, what was your why or what made you keep continuing on this journey? So, I just, when I started, because I knew it was a habit that wasn't serving me anymore. So I like to think that I'm a person who's always trying to better myself, read personal development books. Um, I exercise, I eat healthy, I take vitamins, I do all these things that are healthy and I have this habit that was like, not serving me like nothing positive was coming from it. I couldn't name any positive. It wasn't helping my back, it wasn't helping my marriage, it wasn't helping me cope with my kids because I was losing it. This was when I, when May mother's day was like two months into quarantine. So like, we can all put ourselves in the arthur shoes of eight weeks into being stuck at home with everyone. It was really hard. So I was not nothing good was coming from drinking.

So I just figured, well, shoot, I'll just quit drinking and see what happens because this is a habit that's no longer serving me and then my back started feeling better. Like way better. Oh, tremendously. So alcohol causes inflammation in your body and I always knew that, but I used alcohol to pain manage, but in fact alcohol was making my back feel worse. My back has not felt this good since before I injured it. It's insane. In addition to your back feeling better. What are some of the other lessons you've learned throughout this process? Oh, well, I mean, I'm kinder, I am, I have a softer tongue so I'm not as sharp with my word choice um, with my kids within, with my husband, with my employees at work, I'm just softer. Um I am more patient. I have time to problem solved because I'm not foggy.

So kids, there's so much that happens with small Children in such a, like really quickly and you don't have a lot of time to react. And so now that I am not foggy, I feel like I respond more appropriately. I respond more from a place of love or a place of behavior like modification instead of no, don't do that, stop that. And of course I still do those things too. I am not perfect, but my approach is more gentle and I think that's the biggest thing I've seen. I think almost every day that goes by, I improve as a human because I am more and more clear. That's kind of what I have seen. And how has that overflowed to the relationships you have with people? Well, I definitely have more productive conversation with my husband. So, and my husband actually very recently cut back drinking tremendously.

So I never ever suggested he needed to quit. Um And about two weeks ago he decided that he needed to cut back and he pretty much, I think he's had one drink when we went out to dinner with friends In a period of two weeks and he was drinking two or 3 beers a night. Um which you know, just drinking every night very normal for our, our house, many houses, most people's houses. So um he's cut back a lot. But I will say that our relationship is better in that we have better communication because I am not, I'm, I'm better in conversation. I'm not as guarded. I'm not as instantly frustrated those kinds of things. Um, I think that my kids, I'm more present for my kids. Um, I think at work, I am more per chewable kinder. I did. I just think overall I've improved as a human over the last six months. Have you noticed any physical benefits I lost about, I mean maybe maybe 3-5 lbs.

So I didn't lose a lot of weight, but my um, I deflated like I'm less puffy, so even my face is like thinner or narrower. Um, I just was holding a lot of retention and inflammation in my body. So I haven't, the weight loss, I'm sure if someone who had a lot of weight to lose would probably see a different result, but I didn't have a ton of weight to lose. So and it's definitely not all about the physical, but I know that there are physical and mental and emotional benefits from the biggest physical benefit for me was my chronic pain and I know lots of people who have chronic pain and cope with it with alcohol and what I would, what I would tell them is the alcohol is not helping your chronic pain and Giving it 30 days and just quitting drinking and seeing how your chronic pain changes would be worth it because not having chronic pain anymore is life changing?

Absolutely. And yeah, people pay, people pay lots of money to get that pain to go away and just by giving something up like that, you can accomplish the same thing exactly what have been some of the most difficult points throughout this journey for you. Um, so that first birthday party, I drank seltzer water out of a Yeti cup so that no one would know I wasn't drinking. We had friends, it was my husband's birthday party, so we had friends show up and they brought me a case of truly and my husband a case of beer and on a normal night I would have like totally hit that case is truly hard. So I put it in the fridge and all but pretended to drink when I was just drinking soda water out of my Yeti cup. So those first initial opportunities of social interaction were awkward or challenging because you are kind of in a place where you are just feeling uncomfortable or unsure, those kinds of those things that I experienced in the beginning were challenging because I wasn't ready to tell people that I had given up drinking because I wasn't really sure that I could do it and so in my lack of confidence, I felt insecure about the whole process.

So that was challenging and then I went on vacation for four July so that was like two months in and I had never been on a vacation sober. Um I've just never, I've never been on vacation without drinking as an adult, so that was like a first, so I would say the first were more challenging, but none of it was incredibly challenging. Like I never wanted to drink once, I quit drinking. I had moments where I wanted like a frozen margarita and I just had a lime popsicle because I didn't really want to drink the margarita. I just wanted like a frozen lime, you know, like it's hot summer day, you just want to like a frozen thing. Um so, but I read some really great books which like helped my mindset and helped me be at a place where I was prepared to tackle the, the challenge, I guess you could say. Um and I also, I wasn't an alcoholic, so I wasn't addicted to drinking.

I had a habit that wasn't serving me anymore, it wasn't providing me with any benefit. So I decided to get rid of the habit like eating chocolate. You're not addicted to eating chocolate. I mean probably chemically speaking you are because your brain is addicted to it. But that's another story. But you know you don't have an addiction to it, you just have a habit that's really not good for you anymore, right. And I do think that's a really important difference to note from having a habit that's not serving you to to medically being addicted to something or having Sure, yes, an alcoholic disease and going through the process and the proper steps for Yes, for sure. So like I have never been to an a a meeting, I've never worked with steps, none of those things because I wasn't an alcoholic, I was just I had a habit. Like a lot of people do. I just had a habit that was just really not working well for me anymore. Which books did you read that? That helped you? So the first book I read was called This Naked Mind and it it's really good.

The first two chapters are hard to get through because it kind of makes you feel like an alcoholic. And then once you get through the first two chapters it's tremendous. And the second book I read was and in that book is more serious. The second book, it's called the sober Diaries and it's a european woman and it is hilarious, but it's essentially the diary of her first year of not drinking. And she narrates it, the book, and it's it's just hysterical and sad and happy and all the things, but it's really very funny and light, but hers is much more about all of these different social instances where she's in places where people would expect her to drink and she's not drinking. And so it kind of gets you prepared mentally for those circumstances that you'll find yourself in, like when you go out to a bar and you don't drink or you go to dinner with friends and you don't drink or a holiday party and people have expectations for your behavior and when you don't do those expectations, people wonder why, and so you just have to be prepared to explain because people are going to want an explanation.

I think there's so much power in taking control of your life in this way. So you're talking about expectations and it's like why? So being able to, to make this decision and stick with it, I think is so empowering. So would you recommend this to someone else who would be in the boat of thinking about doing something like this? Yeah, so I think the important thing and, and I, and I'm a, you know, a health and wellness coach. So I work with clients one on one with their nutrition and their habits and what I would say is for anyone looking to make a change in their habits, you have to identify the why that you what's your reason, because if you don't have a clear to find why you're not going to be successful, you're not gonna have that driving force behind you that helps you and reminds you of what you're doing and then you have to have an action plan like what are you, how are you going to do it? What is your plan? And are you prepared to explain to other people what you're doing?

Because people are nosy as hell? And so no matter what have it you break or in what new habit you create, people are going to ask you why and so you need to be prepared with a canned statement of sorts for why you created that habit or broke that habit. So my canned answer is alcohol was a habit that was no longer serving me. That's literally what I say, Why did you quit drinking? It just was a habit that wasn't serving me anymore. Do people tend to ask follow up questions? Um not really occasionally, like, okay, are you ever going to drink again? I don't know right now. No, right now I have no intention of drinking again. I don't know that I will never drink again, but I also don't want to start a habit that wasn't serving me because I know how habits work and once you start them again, you generally fall back into whatever habit you had created previously.

And so that is a habit that I do not want to get back into because it wasn't serving me and I'm not missing out on anything by not drinking like literally and missing out on nothing. That's how I feel. So I don't feel the desire to drink Maybe one Day I, will but not right now, you mentioned knowing your why and then the action plan, what was your action plan going into all of this? Well, I didn't really have one when I started because I didn't tell anybody, so I was so insecure about, it so I just made the decision and was going to go 14 days And then I got to 14 days and was feeling a little bit better, so I figured I'd go a month and then my action plan just kind of became like, I'm just not going to drink for a while and then I started doing Um I started 75 hard in like august maybe september, which is a kind of a mental toughness challenge and can you, can you explain that a little bit?

Yeah, so 75 hard is a creation by Andy for Selah, he has a podcast called real af um it's not for little ears, but it is great for motivation. So I've been following Andy Forssell a for years And previously I had considered doing 75 hard and one of the pillars of 75 hard is that you have to give up drinking. And previously I was like, well I could never do 75 hard because I cannot quit drinking for 75 days. Like no way ever am I quitting drinking for 75 days. And so once I quit drinking, I kind of thought about this challenge again because I was like, well, one of the hardest things for me was going to be quitting drinking and now I don't have to give that up because I already did it. So it's like one less thing to have to do, one less new thing to have to break. And so 75 heart is a mental toughness challenge. You have certain things you have to do every day. So you have to read 10 pages of a nonfiction book, you have to take a picture of progress, picture, you have to drink a gallon of water, no junk food, your cheat meals, you have to follow a diet, whatever diet you want.

Um which I'm following, intuitive eating. So eat when you're hungry, stop eating when you're not hungry, don't overeat. Just literally listen to your body. Um, no alcohol And then two workouts a day to 45 minute workouts a day. One has to be outside. So it's a lot. That's a lot, It's a lot, but it's really not too much if you make it a priority in your life because you can make anything a priority in your life and make it happen. So I get up in the morning most mornings and I read my peloton and then in the afternoons I go on a walk once my kids get in the bathtub. So my husband basically finishes bath time and gets the kids dressed and I go outside and go for a walk. So most of the time I'm not doing like a workout workout, so you could stretch, you can do yoga, we want to walk, I do just my stationary bike and the peloton. Um so lots of things you can do, but I would have never done this challenge two years ago because I was I literally had that conversation with myself two years ago. I'm not quitting drinking. Are you crazy?

I'm never quitting drinking for 75 days unless I'm pregnant and circle back around here. I am. I'm literally finishing it this saturday and it's been so easy. Really, it hasn't been hard at all. I mean my body is tired and I've had moments where I really didn't want to do that second workout, but like it's not been hard because I had already established lots of really good habits from quitting drinking. I'm going to look more into that. That's very intriguing. That's awesome. Yeah. And it's way more about mental toughness because in the quiet of your own life. Oh well the biggest thing is if you miss a day you have to start over. Oh that's a that's a big deal. Yeah. Sorry. So if you miss a day you have to start over. If you miss any section of any day you have to start over. So there's an app, it's like a $4 app and it has checks for every day. So before I go to bed every night, make sure I've done everything to remind myself. So I don't like have to start over, but I have created the habits of it all that like I actually am doing it so innately now that I don't even think about it because 75 days is a long time to do everything the same thing every day.

And so I've created these habits now. And so there literally, I think I've forgotten to do it and I've already done it because I did it. So it was just part of what I did. Um but that's the biggest thing is like, yeah, you miss a day, you missed any part of a day and you have to start over. So it's a mental toughness thing because in the quiet of your life, you could lie and say you did it and keep going. And so it's that being that ability to show up for yourself and say, I'm not gonna, I'm not going to quit and I'm not going to cheat myself, I'm going to get this done today because this is an expectation I set for myself. Same with drinking, it would be very, I could be totally doing all this and still drinking and no one would know right, like it's your own honest truth. And so That's what I've loved about. It is it's created such good habits and made me keep myself accountable because no one is keeping me accountable to do 75 hard. It's just me. Which day are you on Located Like Day 71?

I'm done on saturday. That's awesome. Congratulations. Yeah. Yeah, so it's been, I like literally started on a Tuesday. It was just I was talking to someone who was doing it and I'm like well you can't start things on a Tuesday and I'm like Sarah you can start things on whatever day you want, you don't have to start on monday. Like I started on a Tuesday in the middle of the week, you don't have to wait till next monday to start making good habits. You can literally just wake up tomorrow and decide you're going to be different just for the record. I did just download the app so I'm going tomorrow on thursday, thank you why not? Right, you can totally do it like, and I vote and I'm like, I'm signed up for a half Iron Man, it's in four weeks and I actually signed up for it This time last year and it was supposed to be in April and then it got postponed. I've never even done a 5K still like I have absolutely run a five K length, but I've never done a real five K event. I've never done a triathlon, a sprint triathlon and iron half Ironman is like a really, really, really long triathlon and I know that I physically can do it, but I'm unprepared, like for sure, unprepared, but it's a mental battle, it's gonna be, is my mind gonna win or am I gonna win?

Am I going to give up or am I going to keep going? And so I'm doing it really because I said I was going to do it almost a year ago and I committed to it and I'm not going to let myself down because no one else is going to be disappointed if I don't show up on december 13th for my half Ironman. Just me, it really does take a super level of grit and endurance to hold yourself accountable. So kudos to you, great job, thank you. It's been practiced like it didn't come overnight. There are lots of things that I have worked on over time. Like I have a vision board, I write the same three words, three phrases 15 times every morning. I write, I am kind, I am patient, I am present 15 times every morning. Um it's like my daily affirmations to remind myself to be kind to be present and to be patient. Um and it's a lot of little things that I've just done in my life to try and make myself a better person. so you can lay in bed and scroll instagram or you can write An affirmation 15 times if Sarah Today on day 71 of the 75 hard were to go back and talk to Sarah six months ago that was just starting on this journey to stop drinking.

What advice would you give her? Like I would have if I could go, if you, you know, hindsight's 2020 right, monday morning quarterback, Whatever they say, if I look back, I would have said sister, why are you doing this to yourself? Like I would've quit drinking before quarantine happened, I would have quit drinking two years ago. Um, but I was, you can't see what you need to see until you're ready to see it, until you get to a place where you are mentally prepared to make a shift, you can't make a shift for other people. And so I wasn't in a space then I wasn't in a space in March or april to make that change. Um and you know, I don't even know what happened on Mother's Day to make me wake up, except that it was Mother's Day. It was a day when I'm supposed to be honored and feel like really good and feel like a rock star and I felt like shit, you know, I woke up hungover, my husband was mad at me.

My kids were acting like a little kids. I mean they were just acting like little kids and I couldn't cope with any of it and it was raining and we're getting them in the car and I'd gone to Winn Dixie that morning because my, me and my mom went to buy groceries because we thought the whole world was shutting down and it was just like this, like, it was just this crazy day and I was like, I think I'm just gonna quit drinking and I did you mentioned that in the initial stages you felt a sense of insecurity and didn't have a lot of confidence. When did that confidence start to build up throughout this process when I knew I could do it? So when I hit a month and I proved to myself that I was capable, I was fine. Really? It didn't take long for me because I knew once I proved that I could do it because I'm like, I'm a pretty confident person and there's not a lot of things that I do that I don't do well, like if I'm gonna do something, I'm gonna, like, I'm gonna give it my all.

And so I was not confident that I could do this. I really felt like I had created such a dependency on alcohol as a habit and it's a part of my life and I was not confident that I could do it. And so when I realized I could and I was like, oh yeah, okay, this is just like anything else. If I get my effort, I got it, I was like, okay, I'm good. And then I just, I felt fine. Like literally, I haven't had a hard day, I haven't had a day where I got home and I'm like, oh God, I want a glass of wine, I just pour myself a fresca and call it a day. You know, it's, it's like not even, it's not even something I have the same bottle of wine that's half drank, sitting in my fridge still and my mother in law will drink off of it occasionally when she comes over, but literally is still sitting in the door of my fridge and I don't even want to drink it. Like, I literally don't want to drink it and alcohol doesn't actually taste that good. So when you see one of the books, I think it's sober diaries, but they talk about the fact that like, alcohol actually doesn't taste that good, which is why we put a bunch of sugar in it because it doesn't, it doesn't actually taste good.

And so first drink whenever that was, you weren't like, oh man, that is some good stuff. You were probably like, this is disgusting, but everyone around you was socially doing it. And so you felt this power or empowerment to drink because everyone was drinking, um when in fact, like, you didn't really want to do it because it tasted nasty. So it's, it's a, it's an interesting thing to think about for sure and I definitely do not stand in a place of judgment of other people or other moms who choose to drink alcohol. I think everyone should do what works for them. My habit was an everyday drinker. Some people only drink on the weekends or at events or whatever I was drinking every day and that was a habit that wasn't working for me anymore. So I kicked that habit. But if other people have a habit and it's serving them, who am I understanding judgment that Sarah thank you so much? I can't wait to see over these next few months. Um your videos as they start to come out and additional lessons and insights that you're gaining from this experience.

So, thank you so much for taking the time to talk about your journey today. I do have one more question before we wrap up. When do you feel the most confident? When do I feel the most confident? I would say that I feel the most confident when I am being my most authentic self. So when I feel good in the clothes that I'm wearing and the person I'm presenting to the world and when I get complimented on the type of mother I am or when I, I am able to give people compliments and they thank me, I'm a Words of affirmation. Love language person. So, um I don't really need anything except for you to tell me thank you or that you appreciate me or that you um just any kind of affirmation. So I feel at my best when I present my best package and it is affirmed, that is fantastic. Thank you again. Thank you so so much. If someone wants to reach out to you and maybe talk like one on one about your experience or for some more advice, what would be the best way for them to contact you?

Um Well, I'm on social media, I'm Sara S A R A H underscore J A M E Z Z. So, James, but with two Z's. Um and so they can DM me, they're on instagram, that's right, emotionally messaging. Um or they can email me. My personal email is Sara S A R A H E as an Elizabeth James, J Mes 90 at Gmail. And either of those platforms would be a great way to reach out to me. Um I always tell people I'm an open book, like, I have no reason to keep secrets. So, if you have a question about my journey, um I will share it. I probably share more than I should most days. So I'm definitely all about having a conversation. And if it helps, I've always said, if I help one mom be a better mom by quitting a habit that's not serving her, then I call it a success story. Thank you so much for tuning into the graceful confidence podcast. If you know someone who could benefit from this podcast, please go ahead and share it with them, encourage them to like and follow this podcast so they know when new episodes are launching.

Thank you again and we'll talk soon.