Hello and welcome to the second season of The Narrow Path! Today, Nathan and Loretta speak with Sara Semenick. A wife of 14 years, the mother of three boys, a woman of faith, and a Marriage and Family Therapist, Sara discusses battling the internal and external pressures to be perfect that she has felt throughout her life. She shares how her family, social, and religious worlds throughout childhood and young adulthood all reinforced the idea that she was worthless if she was not perfect, and how those feelings shaped her interactions with the world. Now in her thirties, Sara tells us how she managed to identify and escape her cycle of negative thinking in order to come to a healthy place within herself.

Episode Highlights:

[1:58 ] Nathan introduces the second season and provides a disclaimer for sensitive audiences.

[3:13 ] "Every family gathering is a big family gathering." Sarah discusses how growing up in small-town Illinois laid the foundation for her life.

[7:59 ] Sara reflects on how her father's withdrawn, aloof nature shaped her relationship with attention. 

[9:55 ] We hear a traumatizing event that Sara experienced in kindergarten and what she drew from it.

[13:21 ] "If you mess up, you're going to make me look bad." Sara delves into how the pressure to be perfect that her mother perpetuated shaped her worldview and actions.

[21:12 ] "I honestly didn't know who I was." We learn about Sara's experiences in Bible college, and the fallout afterwards.

[27:07 ] "It's been a difficult road. I feel like I've been very hard on my kids, unknowingly." Sara shares the negative effects that her relationship with perfection produced during the early years of her marriage and motherhood.

[34:04 ] Sara details the depression that she felt after becoming a stay-at-home mom and how advice from her husband served as a catalyst for change.

[36:44 ] "Looking in the mirror is really what I had to do." We learn the steps that Sara took, and is continuing to take, to develop a better relationship with herself.

Episode Resources:

Kentuckianacontainer.com/

Liminalwork.com