Fearlessly Feral Living!
Fearlessly Feral Living!
Guest Rev. Sara Stevens Nichols
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A wonderful conversation with Rev. Sara Stevens Nichols about her new book titled How to Know What you Know, available in March of 2026.
Along our conversational journey we discussed pushups and communal living, along with the importance of distinguishing between thoughts and feelings when making decisions.
Rev. Sara's website is www.sarastevensnichols.com, you can reach her at Sara.S.Nichols@gmail.com
Rev. Karen's website
Well, welcome everybody to Fearlessly Feral Living. This is Reverend Karen, and I'm broadcasting to you. If you've listened before, you know I'm broadcasting to you from the Woogie Ranch out here in the back 40 of northwestern Nevada, where I am a half an hour away from the nearest gas station and the nearest grocery store. And this is a podcast devoted to revealing practical ways to apply new thought principles and practices to ensure successful creative living. Fearlessly Feral is a focused ministry of Centers for Spiritual Living and devoted to the vision of a world in which everyone lives Fearlessly Feral. In other words, wild and free. So I have a very special guest today. Her name is Sarah Nichols. Now I've known Sarah Nichols for uh 14 years, 12 years, something like that. We went through ministerial school together. And did you graduate in 2014 with me, Sarah? Yeah. Yeah, we graduated together. So that's kind of a big deal when you go through ministerial school with someone. You get to know someone pretty well. So I'm going to share with you three things I know to be true about Sarah and then let her have at it and introduce her. She does have a new book out, which is why she's here on my podcast, is talk about her new book. I'm pretty excited about it, and I'm going to get it when it comes out. It's called How to Know What You Know. And I'm going to let her speak to that, but my little brain is churning. It's like, yeah, yeah, I could take, I could speak to that. But here's what I know to be true about Sarah Nichols. The first time I met her was at a ministerial student retreat, and we were gathered together, our campus of ministers, minister students, up in Northern California, somewhere, in a very, very, very rustic place that was set back on a dirt road in the middle of a forest. It was beautiful. I fell in love with this place. And I walked into the common room where we were all to have our group meetings at this retreat. And there was Sarah, a woman whom I had never seen before, doing push-ups in the middle of the floor. And what that told me about Sarah is that she has an excitement and an enthusiasm and a passion for life that shows up pretty visibly in everything that she does. So I decided then and there that I wanted to get to know her better. I also know that Sarah has a passion for carpooling. She cares deeply about the environment and she walks her talk. And she carpools every chance she gets. She uses public transportation every chance she gets. And I have been on the receiving end of an email or a text from Sarah going, Oh, we got to be here at this place and this time. You want to carpool? Which has always been a little difficult for me because I've been used to doing things on my own. And then she lives in Sacramento in an intentional community, co-housing. And I've been to visit her at her home. And it's it's quite interesting, and I like the concept. So those are the three things I know to be true about Sarah. And now I'm gonna let you speak, Sarah, and talk a little bit about your book and um whatever else is floating your boat this morning. How are you doing?
SPEAKER_00Thank you, Reverend Karen. I appreciate that. Um, and it's great to be here with you. And for anybody who's uh ever gone through an intense program with someone else, you know how close you get, and you learn so much about a person. And um I really appreciate how um powerful your mind and your consciousness is, and how you bring it to everything you do. So, including this podcast, obviously. Thank you. Um, yeah, totally. And I have written this book, which is being released by Divorce Publication in March, called How to Know What You Know. And I wrote this book because my daughter told me to, actually, you know, if you really want to know. She said, Mom, um, my other friends have great moms, but when they talk to their moms about difficult times in their life and decisions that they have to make, their mothers give them advice. And you don't give me advice generally, unless I ask for it. You guide me to, and you use tools to guide me to my own internal wisdom to actually see what's right for me, what's light for me, um, what's actually mine to do, um, and not and to and to take the thinking out of it and to get into the feeling and the connection with the part of me that knows these things. And she said, You um my generation needs this book. My generation needs to have something that takes them so that they're not just asking for advice from others, including Google and AI, but they're actually dialing into their own internal wisdom. And so so I started writing it. And the other reason was because I had actually a lot of people that I mentor in various contexts who were always asking me, well, how do I have conscious contact with um the part of me that is connected to all things, with my higher self, my higher wisdom? Like what do how do what do I literally do? How do I tell the difference between what is my is the authentic um spirit and how do I and something else, right? And I developed all these developed slash borrowed slash stolen all these tools from other people over the years, and I kept them like in a toolkit. And that's what this book is. It's a toolkit, it's a handbook. Yeah. It literally goes through different areas of your life, and in each area of your life, you can see how much do you actually know what you know about it from your spiritual level, from your connection to all things, and then a new tool within that area of life for how to maybe new, probably new, um, for how to actually dial into that wisdom.
SPEAKER_01How wonderful. Oh, I'm even more excited about the book than I was before. Yeah, I can't wait. I can't wait to see.
SPEAKER_00So you probably know something about this. How do you dial into how do you tell that? Well, first of all, not all centers for spiritual living ministers think of themselves as having that kind of relationship with spirit, where they actually, because we talk a lot in in our tradition about no separation, right? And sometimes people aren't even comfortable saying the word God because it implies something that's outside of them. I sort of doubt that's the case with you. Um, but how do you know what's what's your what's your real authentic knowing? How do you access that?
SPEAKER_01I sit and get quiet and go within because that that God thing, and I do call it God, even though the connotation is that it's an out there thing. Um that's not my connotation. Um, I also very at various times have been known to call it um the div the divinity within me. Um on my more humorous days, I call it the force. Yeah, and the forces within me. So I go within and I get in touch, and there's some somatic stuff involved in that, some physical things, yeah, where um it lives in me, kind of like in my solar plexus area. And and I can go in there, and if I'm feeling tension or like I got a basketball in my stomach or something like that, that's telling me something.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Whereas if I go within and it's calm and peaceful and relaxed, and I can breathe easily, that's telling me something else. So um that's how I access that wisdom. And it's not just a semantic piece, it's uh there's a feeling tone there.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01There's a um, and from that feeling tone emerge some thoughts, and underneath the feeling tone are the beliefs. Uh, so yeah, it's definitely a within piece for me. Yeah, very much so. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Well, would you like to try out one of the tools? Sure. So, what's do you have any decisions that you're trying to make right now? It could be a big one or it could be a small one. Do we have any? Um, doesn't have to be like earth shattering or life or death.
SPEAKER_01Well, we can talk about um the decision whether I'm whether I'm going to pay for and staff and man an exhibitor table at the upcoming Center for Spiritual Living convention in April.
SPEAKER_00Oh, the one in Reno, yes.
SPEAKER_01I'm trying I'm in the question about it right now. Do I want to do this or not? So yeah.
SPEAKER_00All right. So um let's do the most basic tool that I do, which uh is comes from the access consciousness uh to tradition. Okay. Um and so it's called light versus heavy. And so you go, okay, if I pay for and staff this exhibitor table, what will my life feel like in five years? Not be like. So it's not a thinking thing, it's not a um, it's not like anything I could know, right? Because I can't know about I mean my my little self can't know how things are going to be to feel like in five years, but the part of me that's connected to all things is beyond time and beyond space, right? So it can know. So if you close your eyes, if you will, and and dial into what will my life feel like in five years if I say yes to this opportunity? And notice, and this it can actually be tricky, even for those of us that have been doing these kinds of self-inquiries for a while. Notice if it feels you're not you're looking for a feeling of does it feel spacious and light and full of possibility, or does it feel constricted or heavy or something in between?
SPEAKER_01It feels something in between. Okay, and there is be and I want I want to add an addendum. Okay, there is a part of me that is feeling all the stuff that's going on in the country, and it is coloring all of my decisions, it's it's coloring everything. Um I'm I'm hesitating in places where I've never hesitated before. I have a lack of faith where I've never had a lack of faith before. So when I go to make a decision like this, it's not like it used to be for me.
SPEAKER_00Because there's what if, you know, what if what if what yeah, so so um that's thinking though, digging deeper. That's thinking, that's not feeling, and that's right. So that's where you know, my little Sarah or my little Karen, the little online part here, anytime I'm in fear or thoughts, beliefs, opinions, and conclusions kind of spinning, then I'm not actually feeling into what the part of me that's connected to all things can know about this. Okay. So now go to the opposite. Like if I say no to this and I just don't do that exhibitor table part, right? What how does that feel for you in five years? What will my life feel like in five years?
SPEAKER_01Okay, so discounting all of the thinking stuff.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, just feeling does it feel again? Light and heavy can be hard. There's another tool I can do if you just don't perceive that.
SPEAKER_01No, I I got it. So if I decide to do this table, how I'm gonna feel in five years is expansive.
SPEAKER_00If you do do it, if I do do it, if okay, because a moment ago, the first question I asked is if you do it, and you said eh in between. What is and now I just ask you to dial into if you don't do it, what it feels like.
SPEAKER_01If I don't do it, I would feel like I limited myself.
SPEAKER_00Okay, so that's an actual energy feeling, uh-huh. Not a thinking.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, those are energies.
SPEAKER_00Okay. Well, those are energies. Then I mean no, that's your answer then. That doesn't mean you have to act according to what you were given, obviously. Yeah. Um, I can I can feel that something's light and expansive, and I can still do the opposite. Like for me, it was really hard to get this concept of light versus heavy because I was a good girl and I grew up, and you know, even all this carpooling and stuff you talked about and push-ups, um, that all kinds of carpooling and push-ups. Um, some people are into rhinestones and cowboys, and some people are into carpooling and push-up. And um, but all of that had has kind of a should quality about it. Like I should carpool, I should do push-ups, I should um, I should market my book, could be quite should he, and should is actually heavy. I grew up being the good little girl, and even when you met me in ministerial school, I was still a lot of times the good girl that was doing what she should do. And should is heavy, whereas feral perhaps and fearless, uh, I I haven't read your book either yet. I've opened it I bought it, I own it, and I've cracked it. Um, it's on my list. But that could be, I can imagine that fearlessly feral would be an energy of light and not should, right? About what is actually just yours to do, regardless of whether there's a should attached to it, right? Is that right? Very definitely so.
SPEAKER_01In fact, I go so far in my book as to say somewhere in there, I say take the word should out of your vocabulary. It's a dirty word.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah. I agree. I agree. I think um, but if we take the should out of our vocabulary and then we don't have a way to really know what is ours to do, um that's that's the missing, that's the missing piece that made me write this book.
SPEAKER_01Good.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Is like, how do you actually, and you probably have what are some of the tools you use in your book?
SPEAKER_01So let's say someone decides they're not going to shit on themselves anymore. They take the word shit out of their vocabulary. Um, I'm then speaking and writing in the book about replacing that void with um affirmative prayer, for example, and knowing, and and then I talk about the creative process and knowing what I I've got a sneeze coming. Oh my goodness. Okay, knowing um what I want to create in my life instead of shooting on myself, and then creating that and using affirmative prayer to cement that, maybe using um meditation to get clarity on what I want to create. So I'm I'm not leaving a void where you know I'm taking away something, there's big old empty space there. I'm actually actively moving towards something new in my life. So the spiritual practices that I would talk about would be um creativity, meditation, affirmative prayer. And always, always, always underneath all of that is um spiritual self-awareness, personal self-awareness, so that we know and and we can tell the difference between what you talked about earlier, being or thinking, and although I I refer I use being a little bit differently, but yeah, between what's a thought and what's a feeling. Yeah, to know the difference between those things because it's it's um you know, thoughts come and go, and our thoughts have power, yes, but only if they've got feelings attached to them.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so there's all of that stuff in there, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. Well, in in my book, um for your listeners, you know, each people have an opportunity to look at different areas of their life, like health and body and food and time and boundaries, and their life's work, um, and their and death, all these different topics. And within each one, there's a there's kind of a quiz, but it's not like a Cosmo quiz where there's uh where it's thinking, it's a feeling quiz for you to actually dial into what do you actually know about that area for yourself. Yeah. And it was hard to write that quiz because there are no right answers, you know, because each person is going to know different things. Um right. There's not right or so. The answers, the right answers are the ones where you're open to the idea that within yourself you have answers around that. So, for example, with health and healing, a lot of people um think that the only people that have answers are health professionals and they have certain letters after their names, and those are the only people that they can listen to. Well, that's okay. It's fine. There's nothing wrong with that, but it is, it might not be um you it's it might be possible that we know a lot about our own health and body too, not just the people with letters after their names. And that there might be our own intuitive. If we're in a situation where we have some diagnosis and nothing's working and we're not getting better, you know, our own spiritual wisdom may help guide us to we may there may be a part of us that knows who we need to see, or what kind of person we need to see, or what kind of thing we need to try, right? Or would help us evaluate the options that are out there.
SPEAKER_01Yes. Oh, it sounds fascinating, Sarah. I'm pretty excited about this book, and I can't wait for it to come out. Yes. So I'm very excited. And you gave me a title for today's episode of Carpooling and Push-ups. Yes, Sarah Nichols.
SPEAKER_00Not so feral necessarily, unless it is, I suppose. I think it is feral. I mean, yeah, I guess there's always been a part of me that's been feral in the sense that I'll do push-ups in the middle of the room, even if that's not exactly appropriate.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's I was gonna say it appropriate. Yeah. If you tell me something's inappropriate, I'm gonna go and do it just because you told me it was inappropriate.
SPEAKER_00Sure. I know that about you. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, this has been a wonderful conversation, and I'm very excited to uh get your book when it comes out, and very excited to have this. Opportunity to speak with you. Um, I think that we're on the same page, uh, both literally and figuratively, perhaps, in terms of what we've written about in our books and really looking forward to to reading it and seeing where the parallels are and the commonalities.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, same.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. All right, is there anything else? Uh, do you have a website, Sarah? You want do you want to?
SPEAKER_00Yes, I do.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00Uh, my website is Sara StevensNichols.com.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_00And um, I also have a a webcast um on the the New Thought Network. Um, it's called it's on it's on YouTube and it's called the Conscious Reality Show. So those are two places to find me.
SPEAKER_01Conscious reality show.
SPEAKER_00But if you go to my website, it's all true.
SPEAKER_01Okay, Sarah StevensNichels.com.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah. We have to go with the Stevens, which has been my middle name forever, because there's only one Sarah Stevens Nichols, and there's five million Sarah Nichols out there. Oh, is that why you did that? Okay. Okay. Um, yeah. So even though I've like had a public life for a really long time, you cannot find me unless you have that Stevens.
SPEAKER_01I wondered about that. I yeah.
SPEAKER_00And it's been my name, it's been my name since birth. So it's not cheating.
SPEAKER_01Good. Good. Well, I'm happy to to know that that little information because I was very curious about that. Why did she put that name in there? Yeah, yeah. That was the name on the phone. There's only one other Karen Lindsley in the entire worldwide world. Really? And she, yeah, um, and that spells her name the way I do with no D in the last name. And she is um, she lives in Canada, and she is a um, oh my goodness. Okay, I'm totally spacing on what she does. Every once in a while, she gets her name in the paper up in Canada somewhere, and I get an alert that my name has been mentioned, and uh yeah, so not a lot, not a lot. Karen Lindsley's running around, just two of us. So yeah, yeah, it's amazing how when you start doing this stuff, you gotta. I never would have thought that I would have had to research. Is there anybody else with my name out there? Yeah, yeah. Well, I'm gonna end our podcast. I hope you've enjoyed our time together today. I certainly have, and I hope that when Sarah's book comes out, you will purchase it. I'm assuming available anywhere in both Kindle um and um print versions, Sarah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, ebook, print, and audiobook.
SPEAKER_01Oh, audio also good, good. Okay. Who's doing your audio for you? Me. You are oh good, okay. Yeah. All right. So again, Fearlessly Feral Living is a focus ministry of centers for spiritual living. And if you wish to engage in a timeless spiritual practice called support, financial support, you may do so by supporting our podcast on Buzz Sprout or making a donation at our PayPal page. And all that information is on my webpage at fearlesslyferal.org. In the meantime, I am knowing Fearlessly Feral Living for me and for you. And I wish you all the best. Thank you so much for listening.