October 31, 2025

Not long after I declared I was going all in on my coaching business, I did what any sane person would do: I cut off my other income streams. (Because apparently, I’m a glutton for pressure.)

I’d been putting my energy in a hundred different directions and was ready to streamline — to bet fully on myself and my coaching work.

Except… I hadn’t exactly built my full client roster yet. So (shockingly) the money slowed down. Cue the inner financial freakout.

At that point, I did what any trying-to-play-it-cool person would do: panic-pivoted and started applying for jobs. Told myself it was “temporary” while I built the biz.

That’s how I found myself dusting off my résumé for positions I could do in my sleep — the kind that soothe the insecurity of entrepreneurship and hand your ego a nice warm cup of you’ve still got it.

And sure enough, the interviews rolled in — from roles I knew well, ones I’d once dreamed of.

Only they were full-time. In healthcare.

Doing work I’m good at… but that drains me and leaves zero space for anything beyond the 9–5 grind.

So naturally, I figured, sure — why not do that again?!

After one especially good interview, I suspected an offer would come.

And before I knew it, I was already imagining it was a done deal.

When we hung up, my face flushed, my heart pounded, and my body buzzed — that jittery mix of adrenaline and dread.

And just before I could go into full-on ignore-all-my-body’s-signals mode, the Universe interrupted — with a text from my mentor:

“Are we meeting today?”

As far as I knew, we weren’t meeting — for our weekly money experiment call, the one where Zach (my fiancé!) and I are testing what happens when we only follow our “hell yes” (plus a few new ground rules for relationship and money).

And yes — I wanted to be on that call. So did Zach.

Five minutes later we were on the call, and I was crying.

As I leaned fully into the tears and heaviness in my chest, I eventually got clear about what the sadness wanted me to know: I’d lost touch with myself — and with what I wanted.

And when I stayed with it a little longer, another truth surfaced:

I wasn’t freaking out about money.

I was freaking out about feelings.

Zach’s, to be exact.

The ones that looked like they were about money.

So naturally, I tried to fix them — by getting a job I didn’t even want.

And that little stunt?

A classic move to avoid my own feelings in the face of someone else’s. (You know those moments when your stomach flips and you slip into manage-instead-of-feel mode?)

Other versions might look like:

• Rushing to fix their stress instead of noticing what’s happening inside you
• Softening or sugarcoating what you want so it doesn’t seem “too much”
• Making decisions from fear of their reaction instead of what’s truly aligned for you
• Withholding your truth to “keep the peace”

It’s all the same thing: somewhere along the line, we start managing someone else’s emotions to avoid feeling our own.

So there I was — caught in the very pattern I help other people break: controlling instead of connecting; fixing instead of feeling.

Yikes. Yes. I totally did that.

Eventually, I saw it — and faced into all the other feelings I was trying to avoid. (You know, the ones that had nothing to do with Zach or money and everything to do with my own old, unprocessed stuff from way back when.)

From there, I started finding my way back to center — recommitting not just to speaking what I want, but to allowing myself to know what I want.

(And staying curious about what Zach wants, too — finding that sweet spot where we both get what we want without losing ourselves in the process.)

Each week in this experiment, we peel back another layer. And every time, we’re reminded that the thing we think we’re arguing about — money, time, chores — is never really the thing.

It’s the doorway into the deeper feelings underneath.

Some days, we’re deep in it — tangled in our stories, convinced we have to fight for what we want. (Because Reactive Brain always forgets there’s room for both of us.)

Other days, we’re wide open — in trust, expansion, and flow.

Most days, we’re somewhere in between — laughing, learning, and giving each other a ridiculous amount of grace.

Why?

Because our brains aren’t used to this new way of being yet. The old wiring runs deep — and it loves being in charge.

But every time we see the pattern and feel the feelings beneath it, something shifts.

We open.
We connect.
We remember what’s possible.

And the more I practice being in this new way, I get clearer about what this whole money-freakout-meets-old-relationship-pattern has been trying to show me about partnership and growth:

The old relationship paradigm — the one that says to keep the peace, we have to hold back what we really think and feel; that compromise is just part of the deal (hello, resentment starter kit); and that being fully ourselves means we risk losing the connection we care most about — just doesn’t work anymore.

Those ideas might’ve helped us survive once, but they don’t help us thrive.

So what does?

Embracing the new paradigm — the one where everyone gets to have their feelings and get everything they want, while both people stand fully in their true power.

The one that invites us to notice when we slip into the old story, give ourselves a little compassion when we do, and recommit — as many times as it takes — to a new way of being:

• Coming back into our bodies
• Taking 100% responsibility for our own feelings
• Accessing possibility, love, and connection first within ourselves — and, as a result, with each other

Because in the end, money — like relationship — is just another mirror.

A reflection of where we’re still trying to control instead of trust. Where we abandon ourselves in the name of connection. Where we confuse peace with avoidance.

The truth is, money and relationship aren’t the enemy.

They’re the teacher.

The one that doesn’t give you the answers, but instead keeps pointing you back to yourself.

Because this whole growth thing?

It’s a playground.

A messy, beautiful, hilariously human one — where the goal isn’t perfection, it’s learning how to play our way through what’s stuck. (Extra credit for laughing as we go.)

One where, every time we recommit to this new way, we find our way home.

To ourselves.
And to each other.
And maybe even to those divine interventions — the ones that always show up right on time.

Again, and again.

And as for my business and job status?

Let’s just say the Universe and I are still workshopping that script — while Zach and I keep exploring what it really means to grow, individually and together, in the great big Unknown.

For now, we’ll call it a work in progress. 

With love,

Sarah