Sarah Prout discusses manifesting and transformation, emphasizing listening and connecting with the universe. She recounts a detailed personal story (originally presented as a letter from a woman in an abusive marriage dated around New Year's Eve 2008–2009) about rock-bottom isolation, leaving that marriage, meeting a soulmate, suffering five consecutive miscarriages, and a near-death experience during an elective C-section before successfully delivering a baby. The phrase "Dear Universe"—used in the letter—became the title of a book she wrote; she reveals that she is the woman in the story. The talk frames pain and joy as portals to connect with higher power and to manifest change.
Chapters
Fear, pain and failure leave blessings. And it's that pain that becomes a magical portal to transformation, to connect with the universe. Because when you connect with the universe, it can happen in one of two ways. It's usually through either pain. You know you're in such dire pain, and you know you don't want something to happen, and you really want to connect with a higher power to hand that situation over to something that you believe will help. Or it's joy, you know, crying out, oh, God, during sex, or something like that. But what I love is, like I mentioned, leaning into the comments and listening, because I believe that listening is a superpower, and we all have that ability. Not only is super consciousness and the universe such an underutilized, undertapped resource, so is listening. We have these two things on the side of our heads, and hardly any of us actually stop and say, hey, am I a good listener? Because that's how you get the biggest clues to expand the next level of your journey, by paying attention, by bringing conscious awareness to whatever the universe is delivering into your reality. And so that's why I love listening to the email, listening to the emails, reading the emails, reading the DMs, reading the letters, and one letter in particular changed everything for me. This was a letter that a woman wrote to me who had been through a very similar situation to me. She had endured many years of violence by her husband. And it was 2008, 2009, on New Year's Eve, when she wrote to me, and she said that her husband had gone to bed in a really bad mood. She'd chosen a movie that he didn't really like, and so he went to bed with his cranky pants on. And her two little children were very small, so she'd had them in bed already. And it was approaching midnight on New Year's Eve, and you know what it's like. There's parties going on. And she went out into her backyard, her garden, and she could hear her neighbors connecting, having fun. She could hear them popping bottles of champagne and loud music cranking loudly and the occasional firework going off. And in that moment, she had never felt so alone, so isolated and so disconnected from humanity and from her purpose. Has anyone ever felt like this? Are you brave enough to raise your hand? Thank you. I really honor you for that. Because we're not alone. We're all in this together. And she wrote to me in this moment where she felt so isolated and alone. And she said, dear Sarah, please help me to take this pain away. Show me an inspired Idea Share with me an inspired path of action to take. I never want to feel this way ever again. That was her rock bottom moment, that moment that she really needed to walk through that painful portal to create transformation. And so over the years, we kept in touch and I was very happy to see that she did leave her first marriage. She ended up going on to meet and manifest her soulmate, which was fantastic to see. But what she didn't anticipate was that the universe had other plans for her. And when she wanted to create and manifest a baby God, the universe source energy and her body had different ideas. She went on to have five consecutive miscarriages in a row, one after the other. Doctors told her that it would be physically impossible for her to carry a baby to full term. In fact, one of the miscarriages happened at an A Fest 5 years ago almost to the day. But the good news is that she actually did go on to have a successful pregnancy. So by the time 38 weeks of the pregnancy rolled around, she had to go in to have an elective C section. Now if you don't know what that is, that's where you surgically have the baby removed from your body as opposed to passing a watermelon out of the eye of a needle, which is. I've done that myself. It's not very fun. And so it was the happiest day of her life to welcome in her soul baby, which she had manifested after overcoming and rising above so much adversity. And due to the high risk nature of the pregnancy, the elective C section was the only way she could do that. So they took the baby out, they handed the baby to the daddy who was so in love with that baby, and the anesthetic wore off from the waist down. That was. Would have been horrific, right? The worst pain you could imagine. She could feel her abdomen wide open, everything. She could feel the blood leaving her body very quickly, blood pressure dropping, the pain so bad that her body went into shock, she lost consciousness and she transitioned to the other side with at that point her music still inside her. But the good news is that it was a near death experience. A choice that she made after she communed and connected with the universe to come back into her body and to be with her baby and her soulmate and to fulfill her mission. And I was reminded of that letter that she had written to me many years ago. Dear Sarah, take the pain away. Help to take the pain away. Share with me an inspired idea. Show me an inspired path to take. I never want to feel this way again. But here's the thing. She didn't write Dear Sarah. She actually wrote Dear Universe. In that moment, she connected with the universe, with the all pervading power that animates all that is. Those two words, Dear Universe, would become the title of a book that she would write 10 years later. And how do I know that? Because I wrote that book and because I am that woman.
