In this special solo episode, Sarah Jordan Ross takes a breath and reflects on the first 14 episodes of Taboo Talk with Sarah. From healing through dance to navigating grief, breaking silence, and redefining motherhood and leadership—this is a heart-opening recap filled with insights, vulnerable reflections, and vision for what's to come. Whether you've been here from the start or you're tuning in for the first time, this episode is an invitation to pause, realign, and remember: you're not alone, and your story matters.
✔️ Healing Doesn’t Have to Be Heavy – Joy belongs in the process, and vulnerability is a bridge to connection.
✔️ The Sacred Messy Middle – That space between breakdown and breakthrough is where the real becoming happens.
✔️ Motherhood & Identity – You can be both a present parent and a purpose-led woman—but not if you lose yourself.
✔️ Community is Everything – Safe spaces, not isolation, are where transformation and healing unfold.
✔️ Turning Pain Into Purpose – Trauma and grief don’t define us—but they can refine and empower us.
🗣️ “We’re not broken—we’re becoming.”
🗣️ “One adult who believes in a child can break the cycle. Just one.” – Misty Kerrigan
🗣️ “Putting yourself last as a mum might feel noble—but it’s one of the most common traumas we carry.” – Ashley Borromeo
⏱️ 00:00 – Welcome & why this episode matters
⏱️ 04:30 – The biggest threads that keep showing up across episodes
⏱️ 09:10 – Why healing doesn’t have to look like hard work
⏱️ 13:00 – How asking for help is a strength, not a weakness
⏱️ 17:40 – The sacred messy middle: becoming in the in-between
⏱️ 23:00 – Reflections on motherhood, self-worth & generational healing
⏱️ 28:15 – From trauma to transformation: turning pain into purpose
⏱️ 33:30 – What we’ve learned & where we’re headed next
⏱️ 38:00 – The power of storytelling, safe spaces & community
⏱️ 42:00 – Closing words: you are seen, you are becoming, and your story matters
✨ Share this episode with someone who needs a reminder that they’re not alone in the messy middle.
💬 DM Sarah or drop a comment on your favorite moment—what hit home for you?
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📝 Leave a review to help amplify the voices and stories that matter.
💜 Until next time—take care of yourself, take care of each other, and remember:
You are not broken. You are becoming. And your story? It matters.
Sarah Jordan-Ross (00:00) Hey everybody and welcome back to Taboo Talk with Sarah, the podcast that fosters hope, breaks silences and tackles the tough conversations so you never have to feel alone. If this is your first time tuning in, I'm Sarah Jordan Ross, a wife, a mum to three amazing boys, a wellness coach and someone who spent the last 25 years, roughly, holding space for real conversations, healing moments and transformations.
And today we're doing something a little different.
Don't have a guest with me, there's no script, it's just me and you taking a breath, pressing pause and reflecting on everything we've covered together so far in these first 14 episodes since I started this show in January. So grab your favourite beverage, be it tea, coffee or something a little stronger depending on your time zone. It's five o'clock somewhere, right?
Or, let's be honest, you could take the time to tackle that mountain of laundry that's been staring at you. Hands up all the mums who never get to do all those things. So, over the past few months, I've had the privilege of sitting down with some truly extraordinary people. Some are friends, some are new faces, but all of them, courageous, real.
and generous with sharing their stories. And when I stepped back to reflect, I started noticing patterns, truths that kept weaving their way through every single episode, no matter what the topic was, no matter who was on the show with me. And here's what I saw. Healing doesn't have to be heavy and hard. Ashley Borromeo reminds us that it can be.
like dancing through life. can be joy and reconnecting to your inner child and discovering who you really are. Nicole Cowley spoke about how we're wired to grow, but when we feel stuck, that disconnection can be heartbreaking. Debbie taught us that sometimes the only thing holding us back is the stories we tell ourselves. Craig Whitney showed us that even from rock bottom,
there is a way forward. That rock bottom can be a really firm foundation to build yourself back up from.
And I'm reminded that in all of that, we're not broken, we're becoming. And that process of becoming can be beautiful. So what is one small way you can invite more joy into your healing this week? Where can you lighten the load that you're carrying without dismissing the depth of what you've been through?
Where can you ask for help? And how can we create those safe spaces? It came up again and again. From my solo episode on the strength in asking for help, to Craig's story of rebuilding, to Misty Kerrigan's insights on homelessness and foster care. The message is loud and clear. We're not meant to do this alone. We're built for community. We're built for connection.
and healing happens in that connection. It doesn't happen in isolation. It happens in those safe spaces. John O'Neill talked about it. We talked about it in the round table with Karen, Debbie and Jenny. Healing happens in safe spaces, not in isolation. And we need to find those safe spaces where we fit, where we belong. And to remember that asking for help
isn't weakness, it's wisdom, it's knowing when you can't do it alone. And Misty Kerrigan said something that gave me chills when she said it because it's true. One adult who believes in a child can break the cycle. Misty was talking about homelessness in our youth, but just one adult can make a difference to a child and break that cycle. Just one.
That's all it takes. One moment of belief, one consistent presence can literally change a life. So who was your one adult? Or who might be waiting for you to step in and walk alongside them, even if it's just in a really small way? It doesn't have to be a big thing.
And then there was those conversations about the sacred messy middle. That in-between space between breakdown and breakthrough. That's where life is lived. That space isn't polished. It isn't comfortable. It isn't glamorous. But it is sacred. It's sometimes in that mess.
in that hard time that we find who we truly are and what really matters to us. So what season of your messy middle are you in right now? Can you give yourself space and grace to grow through it?
do sometimes say there's a part of your story that's too messy? But what if it's that messy?
that is the most beautiful and that thing that needs to be shared because it's again that process of you becoming who you really are.
that may be the gift that you need to share.
Then we get to motherhood and all of the beautiful challenges that that throws up for us. Whether it was Ashley with Dancing Through Life or Jenny when she redefined success or Debbie inviting us to get back to our intuition. That thread came up again and again. You can be a present parent and a purpose-led woman, but not if you lose yourself.
in it, not if you forget who you are and just be those labels that you wear because that's not who we are.
And as Ashley put it, putting yourself last as a mum, it might feel noble, but it's one of the most common traumas we carry.
You need to remember that our children are always watching and they learn how to live by watching you. So think about what it is you want them to learn. How to honor themselves while also caring for others. That it's okay to put themselves first.
every once in a while because you can't pour from an empty cup if you've given everything you have to give to everyone else but you've lost sight of what it is you need in that space. Then you end up in a spot where you've got nothing to give.
So just ask yourselves, what is it that you're teaching your children and is it what you want to be teaching?
Then we talked to a few people about turning pain into purpose.
Those stories weren't all just about struggle. They were what happens in that struggle. You may not be able to change what happens to you, but you can change how you respond to it. So Jackie Wilkinson, Craig Whitney, Celine Egan, they all shared their stories around trauma, around grief, around loss.
and the lessons, sometimes very painful ones, that they'd learned through that.
We explored what grief, faith, leadership, shame, redemption, and how that fire doesn't destroy us, it forges us. Those hard experiences, sometimes they are what shapes us, but they don't have to be what defines us.
So what hard conversations are you avoiding right now? Because quite often it's those things that we avoid talking about that we need to talk about the most. And that's part of why I started this podcast was there is so much stuff that we just don't talk about. And maybe, just maybe if we did, we could change things.
So what have we learned in those last 14 episodes? I've learned that my glasses have a nasty habit of reflecting on this light so I am sorry if that's distracting for anyone who's watching rather than just listening. So what have we learned on Taboo Talk? Vulnerability is a bridge. Joy belongs in our healing process.
Leadership isn't about perfection, it's about presence and process.
saying no can be an act of radical alignment. Sometimes, especially if we're a bunch of people pleases and there's quite a few of us in the world, sometimes saying no can be a gift. It can be the best thing you can do because you need to remember everything that you say yes to
is something else you say no to. So make sure that what you're saying yes to is what you really want to be saying yes to.
And we learnt mostly, and it's the thing I noticed the most, community is everything.
It's that space where we get to be real, where we can do the messy, where we find our strength and our courage to face whatever it is that's going on because we have that community there with us. We are tribal creatures by nature and that's, we need our tribe.
I hope that you will find your drive here in Tabri Talk and some of the other amazing communities that I have spoken about on my podcasts. Debbie Prediger has one. Ashley Borromeo has one.
Find your tribe.
And if you're lucky, you might even find a couple that you can hang out with. So where do we go from here? Because it's always good to look back at where you've been before you then plan where you want to go. So what you can expect, more stories from everyday people doing extraordinary things. More light bulb moments, because
You never know when just one little sentence from a show might be that thing that lights a spark in you. So I hope there will be lots more of those. There will be more solo episodes like this one where I talk about the things that I've learnt or share experiences that I have been through in the hopes that it will get you talking, it will get you thinking.
And hopefully, you'll get some real conversations happening that create change and healing.
So we'll be diving deeper into those fun things like navigating grief and loss or where faith and healing intersect. Because they don't have to be separate things. Our identity and as women, how we change, how we reinvent, how we rediscover who we truly are.
are and then give that gift to the world. And the power of storytelling. Stories connect us. Stories inspire us. Stories can guide us to where we want to be. So I want to be sharing lots more of those. And then if there's something that you really want to talk about,
then I want to be talking about that too. So if there's something you want to see on the show, please send me a message. Because this show, it's not just mine, it's ours. I want to create a community that helps and supports each other and shares stories that really make a difference. Has conversations that go deeper than just the flippant
Hi, how are you? Where we just go, yep, I'm fine. Where we can actually say, it's okay to not be okay. And how can we come alongside you and work with you to where you are okay again.
If you've been part of this journey so far, thank you, thank you, thank you. If this is your first episode, welcome to the table. If this podcast has sparked something in you, share it. With your friend, with your sister, with your partner, let's keep breaking silence together. Don't forget to subscribe, leave a review,
Pop into my DMs. I love hearing what's resonated with you and what you'd love to hear, what you want me to speak about. Because we can't have taboo talk without lots of taboo topics to talk about. And I don't just mean those things that we say are taboo and we shouldn't talk about them.
We can talk about those two, but I mean those things that we all go through, but we just don't talk about.
I would love to hear what it is you want to be talking about. And finally, if no one's told you today, you're not alone. You are becoming. And your story, it matters. So please keep telling it. And until next time, take care of yourselves, take care of each other, and I'll see you
on next episode of Taboo Talk.