Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Welcome to The People of Work, the podcast where we explore the unique journeys that bring people to their careers. Every episode is a deep dive into the twists, turns, and surprises that shape how individuals find their career paths—whether they’re engineers, artists, baristas, CEOs, or anything and everything in between.
It’s not about the destination; it’s about the story. Through honest conversations, we’ll uncover the moments that define careers, the challenges overcome, and the lessons learned along the way. These are real stories from real people, celebrating the diversity of work and the individuality of the people behind it.
Join us as we break down stereotypes, embrace the unexpected, and shine a light on the human side of work.
[00:00:00] Sara Whitley: Don't put off for tomorrow what you can do today. One foot in front of the next. you can decide later. If it's not for you, you can decide in two weeks. In two months. In two years, you know, this isn't for me. I'm going somewhere else. That's fine. Nothing's set in stone. It doesn't say you have to do that for the rest of your life. If it's interesting to you and you're curious about it, check it out. What can you do today to like, explore that?
[00:00:27] Ami Graves: You are listening to The People of Work, the podcast that dives into the real stories behind what people do for a living and how work shapes who we are.
[00:00:41] Ami Graves: Hi everybody. Welcome back to The People of Work with Amy Graves.
[00:00:45] Ami Graves: I am so excited to introduce my guest today, one of my very best friends since seventh grade. We're not gonna talk about how many years ago that was, 'cause we don't wanna age and date ourselves, Sara, but let's just say we've been friends for a very long time.
[00:01:03] Ami Graves: this is my girl right here and I'm, I'm actually really excited to like, showcase your journey, Sara, through Sara's a, an owner of a private practice, like a private therapy practice. So we're gonna talk about that and dig in. But Sara, thanks for joining me today. I know you've got a lot going on, so I am appreciative that you, uh, carved out time for me today.
[00:01:20] Sara Whitley: Yeah. Well, thank you for believing that this was a valuable interview to do.
[00:01:24] Ami Graves: Yeah, it's, it's, you've got a cool story and, honestly, you work in a field that, I mean, I can't think of a time where it is more needed than right now. So, um, I think this is a very timely discussion about the work that you do and the importance of it. So, so Sara, let's dig in.
[00:01:42] Ami Graves: First of all, I wanna take it way back to when you and I were youngins.
[00:01:46] Ami Graves: I said earlier, Sara, and I've known each other for a really long time. I think we met in seventh grade, something like that. And Sara, I wanna start by sharing with our listeners how work was talked about and framed in your household when you were growing up. So what were conversations about work, whether conversations about college or not?
[00:02:09] Ami Graves: your mom was kind of in a similar field, so let's just dig in and kind of start there.
[00:02:13] Sara Whitley: Sure. So, work in my household was. Very important priority number one. It was, that is how you get anything that you want or need. At 12 years old, my mom told me that if I wanted a car at 16, I better get to work. so I was like the youngest person to work at Kentucky Fried Chicken, and I do believe they did get fined for, child labor laws.
[00:02:40] Sara Whitley: But, um,
[00:02:42] Ami Graves: It was a little more lax back then, you know?
[00:02:44] Sara Whitley: It was a little bit more lax. I mean, it, mom had signed all the paperwork, but I was young to be working the number of hours I was working. So it was just super important. my grandparents, you know, through the depression and so like, even like grandparents wise, like it was just, we work, we work, we work, we work.
[00:03:02] Sara Whitley: And so that was what was expected.
[00:03:06] Ami Graves: was your, mom talking to you about going to college or was the conversation more like, get through high school and then get a job? I mean, obviously there was a lot of talk about the importance of work, but was the importance of education also talked about or not?
[00:03:21] Sara Whitley: Yeah, so education was spoken about, and the reason being was my mom did not have an education when she and my, biological father divorced. So she was a single mom with four kids and trying to make ends meet. And so she put herself back through school to be, become a nurse, and also worked full-time while doing that, while raising four kids on our own.
[00:03:45] Sara Whitley: what was then taught to us was education was the way to make enough money to. Provide for your needs and wants. And so it was never a question what the expectation was. The expectation was we would all go to college,
[00:04:00] Sara Whitley: You've got one sister that's a nurse practitioner, another one who's like, works her ass off in the like restaurant industry. Did she go to college as well?
[00:04:08] Sara Whitley: she did, she went to Ball State as well.
[00:04:10] Ami Graves: Yeah. Okay. And obviously you did then. BJ BJ's a successful company. I'm not sure if he's, did he go to college?
[00:04:17] Sara Whitley: He did not. He went to the Marines
[00:04:19] Sara Whitley: and so, but the other piece of this was not only did, um, was mom a big worker, but then went from administration of a psych unit, from psych facility to an entrepreneurship. And so we were introduced to entrepreneur aspirations at a very young age.
[00:04:40] Ami Graves: So did you know when you were exploring college, which is, this is so, so we were best friends. We grew up, all of our shenanigans. But what's interesting is your mom, I remember your mom working in kind of the psych field and behavioral health and mental health and, college was talked about in your house.
[00:04:57] Ami Graves: Not so much in mine. I don't remember anybody talking about college in my house. I mean, my, as you know, my dad owned a, a trucking company and a lot of our family at different periods of time worked for that company. So nobody told me I had to work there. I guess it was, I felt like it was kind of an unspoken thing, but they definitely weren't talking to me about, you know, you have to go to college.
[00:05:20] Ami Graves: It was like. I don't know if I just blocked this out or if this was just kind of like a, it was just known that you were gonna get outta high school and go to work. I have no idea. but I'm interested in, like, from your perspective, when you were hearing your mom talk about education is the way, did you know at that time like what you wanted to do?
[00:05:40] Ami Graves: Or were you kind of all over the place? Did you have any inkling before you went to college what you were gonna study or, or be when you grow up?
[00:05:48] Sara Whitley: Sure. So I should probably correct. So mom never really spoke to us about going to college, but we were super dirt poor and her working full-time and going to school full-time and making that a priority, it really just meant like, school equaled money in the ability to afford
[00:06:10] Ami Graves: Get out of, get out of the situation you're in.
[00:06:12] Sara Whitley: absolutely, like we, did not have, we didn't have, we just didn't have, you know what I mean?
[00:06:19] Sara Whitley: when you're growing up in that, you kind of just learn like one equals the other, right?
[00:06:22] Ami Graves: yeah.
[00:06:23] Sara Whitley: yes. Mom was an administrator of a psych facility, an inpatient unit, uh, or inpatient hospital, I should say. And, I remember visiting her, she actually, being a single mom, um, and not having childcare.
[00:06:36] Sara Whitley: There were times that my brother and I literally were being babysat by being in padded rooms
[00:06:42] Sara Whitley: and like we would, like, entertain ourselves, play games or whatnot. But mom didn't have it, you know. A babysitter or couldn't afford a babysitter at the moment in time. So anyhow, so, I learned about mental health that way.
[00:06:55] Sara Whitley: And then also I would say church played a big part in it as well around, supposed to be witnessing to others. Giving to others, like be selfless, all of these things. And so with that became this idea, I learned, my mom actually saved an essay that in third grade were asked, what are you gonna be when you grow up?
[00:07:17] Sara Whitley: And mine was, I'm gonna be a social worker.
[00:07:19] Ami Graves: Oh wow. That's so awesome. I don't think I knew that. That's so crazy. And, and here you are
[00:07:25] Sara Whitley: Yeah. I just wanted to help people and make things fair.
[00:07:29] Ami Graves: Yeah. So when you went to Ball State, your undergrad, you study, well it was, is social work, is that, what's the study? Undergrad,
[00:07:38] Sara Whitley: Bachelor's of social work. Yeah.
[00:07:39] Ami Graves: bachelor's of Social Work. Okay, got it. So you got your Bachelor's of social work from Ball State.
[00:07:45] Ami Graves: So you're still in Indiana. What was your first job out of college?
[00:07:49] Sara Whitley: Out of college, I was like, oh, uh, out of college, was at a skilled nursing, a skilled nursing facility in downtown Indianapolis. that had recently, gone under investigation by the state and had not had a social worker in over a year. And so wet behind the ears, coming out, just looking from a job, anybody that would hire me, I took that without understanding what the risk was, that they were under investigation, and learned really quickly what that meant.
[00:08:20] Sara Whitley: And had to get the entire 155 bed facility up to compliance,
[00:08:26] Ami Graves: How long did you work there?
[00:08:27] Sara Whitley: a little over two years.
[00:08:29] Ami Graves: Yep. And is it around that time that you left and went out to San Diego? Was that,
[00:08:34] Sara Whitley: Yeah, it was about that time. I, uh, decided it was time to fly and, drive as far west as I could go. And then when we got to the coast, turned left and started driving and then made it to the Mexican border, and I was like, mom would kill me if I crossed this border. So landed in San Diego.
[00:08:52] Ami Graves: So when you went to San Diego, were you thinking about grad school at that time, or were you more like, I just wanna be, be near the beach and get a far away from, you know, Indianapolis and, just find a job? Was that kind of what you were looking for and thinking?
[00:09:06] Sara Whitley: I had no idea what I was looking for. I just knew that
[00:09:09] Ami Graves: Yeah, I mean, we were, we were young.
[00:09:10] Ami Graves: We were in our early twenties. I remember very vividly the conversation about you going out there and me saying, oh, I really wanna go too. But then. Somehow I ended up pregnant. I don't know how that happens, you know, just, yeah. So I didn't get to, I didn't get to go spread my wings and fly.
[00:09:27] Ami Graves: Okay. Anyways, yes. So you went to San Diego and I think you went into like, you didn't find a job right away and social work, you were like working in restaurants because you know you gotta pay bills and you gotta eat and pay for your apartment and all the things. So transition from what you were learn, what you had learned and worked in the career that you had anticipated going into to, Hey, I just wanna fly a little bit.
[00:09:51] Ami Graves: I'm gonna head out to San Diego and, you know, be near the beach and got a job in restaurants. Tell me how long you kind of worked in that field before you decided to go back and get your masters and kind of head back towards the path that you were originally on.
[00:10:04] Sara Whitley: About three years. I was doing restaurants and I, you know, climbed that, that ladder a bit and was in management and, worked at a, a really prestigious restaurant and jazz bar out there. had a lot of fun. but then realized this was as far as I would ever be able to go. and that seemed a bit like a dead end for me.
[00:10:26] Ami Graves: the thing about restaurants is a lot of flexibility, fast money. 'cause you, you know, you're making money kind of every day.
[00:10:33] Ami Graves: And then what a tough decision to like, put a, you know, a stop to that and go back to school full time. Right Now you gotta be dirt poor again and, you know, continue to climb the ladder in another way.
[00:10:45] Ami Graves: So how, what made you make that decision?
[00:10:48] Sara Whitley: we don't close till 2:00 AM sleep till 11. You know, like it just, that was, that becomes your life. It's just a different lifestyle.
[00:10:55] Sara Whitley: and so I, wanting to make a change, I went and, uh, returned back to my roots of working in skilled nursing facilities and, um, got a job doing what I had done in Indianapolis.
[00:11:06] Sara Whitley: I was the director of social services, and did that about a year and a half, two years, year and a half probably, and was realized again, I had climbed as far as I could climb without getting more education. And so. Then decided to go back to grad school.
[00:11:23] Ami Graves: So we went to grad school. San Diego State.
[00:11:25] Sara Whitley: Yeah.
[00:11:26] Ami Graves: Master's degree in, what's it called? It's like social work. Right?
[00:11:31] Ami Graves: Master's in social work.
[00:11:32] Sara Whitley: social
[00:11:32] Sara Whitley: work
[00:11:32] Sara Whitley: With a double concentration. So San Diego State Universities, their social work program is highly in the clinical, like focused on the clinical piece as well as, um, public school counseling. And I didn't wanna do that. I wanted to do administration, I wanted to run systems, I wanted to, to impact large amounts of people.
[00:11:52] Sara Whitley: And so. Going to San Diego State, I kinda had to do the clinical route, but then added administration on top of it as a concentration, so that, I could get what I wanted with the systems piece. did I know it would turn out to be where I am today, but, at the time, chose the hardest route possible.
[00:12:11] Ami Graves: Well leave it to us to make things complicated for our own
[00:12:14] Ami Graves: path. You know,
[00:12:15] Sara Whitley: easy.
[00:12:17] Ami Graves: it made you stronger, made you
[00:12:18] Sara Whitley: That's right. That's right.
[00:12:19] Ami Graves: you know?
[00:12:20] Sara Whitley: like, I opted to do some things that I didn't have to do. Like I wrote my own, wrote a thesis. If you talk to Masters of social work programs, they generally don't make you write a thesis and have it, you know, printed and the whole nine yard, it's published the whole nine yards.
[00:12:34] Sara Whitley: So, yeah, not afraid of a challenge, I would say.
[00:12:37] Ami Graves: Yeah, clearly. So after you graduated from San Diego State with your master's degree, how long did you stay in San Diego before you decided to once again uproot and go to the opposite end of the country in
[00:12:50] Sara Whitley: Yeah, it was pretty close. Uh, as a matter of fact, it was like the day of, like my mom and sister Kelly flew out to, uh, San Diego to watch me walk in graduation. And on that trip we drove back across the country to land in western North Carolina again, with no job, just another adventure ready to be had, being motivated or inspired more around wanting to plant roots and start a family, and wanted to get back to an area that, I thought would facilitate that.
[00:13:23] Sara Whitley:
[00:13:23] Ami Graves: yeah,
[00:13:23] Ami Graves: Now, you were, at the time, you and your first husband were not married yet. You guys got married after you moved to North Carolina. Is that remind me?
[00:13:32] Ami Graves: I mean, I know you got married in Indiana 'cause Hello? I was in the wedding. Duh. But I'm trying to remember at the timing, were you married when you were living in San Diego or you got married after that?
[00:13:41] Sara Whitley: We got married about two and a half years before we left San Diego
[00:13:45] Ami Graves: Got it. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:13:47] Sara Whitley: because remember you
[00:13:47] Ami Graves: married
[00:13:48] Sara Whitley: for dress shopping.
[00:13:49] Ami Graves: Yeah, I, I totally reme. I, yes, yes, yes, yes. Gosh, Okay, so you go to North Carolina, you have no job lined up. You're on another adventure. I love this adventurous spirit of you, that you've, you've always had.
[00:14:02] Ami Graves: That's, that's exciting. So you're in North Carolina and you're like, what's next? So tell me what's next?
[00:14:08] Sara Whitley: So didn't have a place to live, didn't have a job. started looking for through the ads, found a place to live and it was beautiful. I don't know if you remember that home, but it was like 14 ridges of Blue Ridge mountains that we could see from our deck.
[00:14:20] Sara Whitley: Gorgeous. Um, exactly what we were looking for, right?
[00:14:24] Sara Whitley: but then, looking for a job was much, much harder. And we went from San Diego with lots of people and lots of, transplants and that being the norm to Western North Carolina, where that wasn't necessarily so much the norm anymore. It was about who you knew and those relationships were getting people jobs.
[00:14:45] Sara Whitley: And that's how you found out about vacancies. And so I didn't know anybody. I had one old college buddy that lived here, and he was in nowhere in the social work field whatsoever. so started looking for jobs and would apply to lots of jobs. And I had sworn to myself that I would never work with kids because.
[00:15:08] Sara Whitley: Initially that's what I wanted to do. And worked with kids for about a year at one point and became very frustrated because the system was not built to help really find solutions for kids and families. And oftentimes the kid was being identified as the problem rather than looking as at the family as a unit and how to wrap our arms around the entire unit.
[00:15:33] Sara Whitley: Right? And so swore to myself, I would never work with kids. And literally like no joke, two times in the middle of prayer, like one time my husband's sister-in-law was praying that we would find a job. And as she's praying, call waiting back in the days of call waiting, came through and it was, this organization that was a therapeutic foster care agency called for a second interview
[00:15:59] Sara Whitley: and then they had the
[00:16:01] Sara Whitley: foundation. and I was like, no, no, no, no, no. I don't want this job. I don't want this job. But went in for the second interview 'cause nobody else was biting, right? And so went in for the second interview a few days, like a week or so later, I'm like literally on my knees in prayer going, God, we're running outta money.
[00:16:18] Sara Whitley: I don't have any money. I, I can't pay rent. Like, I don't know how I'm gonna do this. Like, I need a job. And as I'm praying, the phone rings and it's the Bear Foundation again. And, uh, they're offering me the position. And I was like,
[00:16:31] Sara Whitley: I can't do kids. And very clearly God said to me, you can't without me. And so.
[00:16:38] Ami Graves: Yeah, I love that you are meant for this work. No question. You know, and I love that your faith moves you in this way, Sara. it's really special, honestly. So this emotion that you carry right now is what makes you such a great therapist and leader of your business. So I, I lo just lean into it, girl.
[00:17:00] Ami Graves: I'm, I'm gonna be tearing up with you here in a second. So it's good. It's all good. You spent a few years at the Baird Foundation, and then moved into a, a government role.
[00:17:09] Ami Graves: We won't talk a lot about that in detail. It was a few years of interesting work and chaos.
[00:17:15] Ami Graves: What do you
[00:17:15] Sara Whitley: Well it was super interesting. So yeah, I did the Barrett Foundation for almost five years and it was the first office they had planted in North Carolina. And so I was responsible to open and grow that office. And I grew North Carolina to go from coast to coast with over three offices and had contracts across the state.
[00:17:35] Sara Whitley: So was promoted to then South Carolina clinical director. So now I'm kind of working North Carolina and South Carolina and just hustling. in the meantime, got pregnant and had a baby during all of this, right? And so I kinda looked around and I was like, this is crazy. I mean, child wear work is around the clock, 24 hours, seven days a week.
[00:17:56] Sara Whitley: It was therapeutic foster care. It was challenging. And I, as
[00:18:00] Sara Whitley: I'm looking at my six month old as I'm holding her right, I decided that I needed to prior put my priorities in order
[00:18:07] Sara Whitley: and started looking for another job so that I could be a mom too. And
[00:18:12] Sara Whitley: so went and worked for the government, with a managed care organization in North Carolina.
[00:18:17] Sara Whitley: local organizations manage the Medicaid benefits for behavioral health. and so worked for them and was over, over all of the psychiatric hospitals in Western North Carolina and discharge planning there and worked with adults, with comorbidity, meaning, you know, multiple diagnoses, addictions as well.
[00:18:39] Sara Whitley: and so did that for a while until funding, when you're working for government, all bases goes back to funding. And so funding started to get a little bit more tight and was, my position that then I was promoted to another position where I was over all the counties and the, and the poli. It was a political position, that I was, um, rubbing elbows with, elected officials and trying to get them to understand the need and the importance of mental health and support services in their counties.
[00:19:07] Sara Whitley: Long story short, funds start to dissipate. Position di dissipates with it. And so then went and worked for community mental health, organization over three counties and worked to really include, I think the thing that I was most proud of there was including peer mentorship, meaning individuals with lived experience with mental health or substance abuse, becoming peer models for others that are currently in the, you know, trenches dealing with it and having a, a success story come in and hold their hand and help them through that.
[00:19:42] Sara Whitley: And so that was really cool to do that work. But then, um, was invited to be in a political position for a county where, where I learned the ugliness of what all politics are and what, how this, you know, social work is government. I mean, it's about funding from the government, that is what it is.
[00:20:02] Sara Whitley: So I had tried to make, you know, back in San Diego, you heard me talk about wanting to make an impact with lots of people. I wanted to make system changes, not just individual changes. And so I took that position, thinking I was gonna be able to make a systems change within this county. And I do think that I made that impact.
[00:20:24] Sara Whitley: However, politics comes with a lot of responsibilities and it's a lot of, being able to watch what you say and manage a message and secure those votes. And that's just not me. I'm going to be as honest. Like, I can't lie. It's just not in my blood. And I'm as transparent as they come, but ethical at the same time.
[00:20:47] Sara Whitley: And that doesn't get along. that doesn't dovetail very much with politics.
[00:20:51] Sara Whitley: And so, Decided that that was not for me either, and that I was, I had gone to every angle to change the system and decided the system was, broken, and I would go back to working individually one-on-one with clients and decided to open my own practice doing that.
[00:21:09] Ami Graves: Yeah. so your own practice is Complete Peace.
[00:21:12] Ami Graves: I'm trying to remember how many years you've been doing this.
[00:21:15] Sara Whitley: About six.
[00:21:16] Ami Graves: Six years. Yeah.
[00:21:18] Ami Graves: that is such a scary jump. First of all, I mean, you're going from a regular paycheck to a. Benefits all the things, right?
[00:21:27] Ami Graves: Like PTO, I don't know that you clock in and clock out in social work. I think I wanna talk about that too. Like, it's hard not to take those things home, or at least I imagine that it would be. So we'll dig into that. But I mean, you move from technically a role, we're clocking in, clocking out, right?
[00:21:42] Ami Graves: To a role where you gotta get paid once you build a practice. And so how in the world, just talk me through that. Like how, how did you make that jump? What were you saying to yourself? How were you able to like actually make it happen in those early, early years?
[00:21:59] Sara Whitley: Yeah, so here I was. I found my, myself as a single mom, and again, having to look at how do I be a parent and. work and bring in money and really second guessing myself in that. And, found for myself that a stress releaser was running at the time trying to figure out what my next step was.
[00:22:20] Sara Whitley: And, again, argued with God and told him that he didn't know what he was talking
[00:22:26] Ami Graves: You don't know what you're doing. God. not do I need to have insurance. It makes no sense to open up my PR practice. And literally again said to me, so you're saying you trust the state of North Carolina more than you trust me? And I was like, ah, damnit, like, no.
[00:22:41] Sara Whitley: Okay, fine. And so literally I left, you know, finished that run and then went and applied for my tax ID and started that day.
[00:22:51] Ami Graves: And here we are, six years later, you've got a flourishing practice.
[00:22:56] Sara Whitley: Mm-hmm.
[00:22:57] Ami Graves: where you're at now with Complete Peace.
[00:22:59] Sara Whitley: I am now at eight clinicians, two locations online and in person. and we are ready to launch a new online mental health platform.
[00:23:12] Ami Graves: Yeah, I can't wait to hear about that. So, Sara, I have a question about just in general, therapists, I don't know this space, although I will say being a best friend, like I love that I get to call and say, Sara. Put on your therapist hat, or I'll have sometimes say, Sara, take off the therapist hat.
[00:23:33] Ami Graves: I don't want the, the, just gimme the BFF hat today. I don't want the therapist hat. It's hard. I think sometimes those are a little interchangeable, but, I love that I get free therapy with my bff, so thank you for that. but I am interested in how, as a therapist you unplug at night. How do you not take some of this stuff home?
[00:23:53] Ami Graves: I mean, I'm not talking about like going home and not sharing names and details. We all know the confidentiality is critical. I know how important that is to you in your practice. I'm more like talking about like, internally, how are you not going home and just worrying or obsessing every night over all of the problems that your clients have.
[00:24:13] Ami Graves: How do you
[00:24:13] Sara Whitley: Yeah,
[00:24:14] Ami Graves: turn that off? Or do you,
[00:24:16] Sara Whitley: I think you learn with experience.
[00:24:18] Sara Whitley: and I think it also depends on the. Population you're working with. When I was working with kiddos to hear the trauma that they had experienced at two years old, five years old, 12 years old, that is really hard to come home and turn off the thinker on that one.
[00:24:35] Sara Whitley: that's tough because I mean, complete victims, right? Like there, there's nothing helping them but you at that moment in
[00:24:43] Sara Whitley: time, like, how do you solve that problem?
[00:24:46] Sara Whitley: And, so that, that was tough. But in private practice, I do still work with kiddos, but I also work with adults and couples.
[00:24:54] Sara Whitley: and what I have found. Is I leave it all on the table every day. I mean, when I say that, what I mean is everything I've got, they get like in that 60 minutes that I'm sitting with them, I've given them everything I have and like, at the end of the day, there's nothing left to give them.
[00:25:13] Sara Whitley: because I gave it all to them in that 60 minutes. Right. and I might find myself, like, in the time between the end of that session and the beginning of the next session, then I might think of them or, circling around how to best help them the next session.
[00:25:29] Sara Whitley: but not overwhelmingly so. I, it, you can prepare too much for a session.
[00:25:33] Sara Whitley: You can think you've got it all laid out, you've got an agenda, you know how you're going to get this person from point A to point B, and then they walk in and there's a crisis that occurred that you would've never. Thought in a million years would've exploded in this person's lap. And so everything you prepared is out the window and we start, here.
[00:25:51] Sara Whitley: And
[00:25:51] Ami Graves: yeah. Yep.
[00:25:52] Sara Whitley: do that.
[00:25:53] Ami Graves: Yeah. how do you take care of you when you're busy taking care of other people all day, every day?
[00:26:00] Sara Whitley: So running I a physical exercise, that's one of the reasons why Complete Peace became the name of Complete Peace. it's not, you can't look at happiness in one dynamic. Like it's not just mental health, right? It's also physical health. It's social health, it's economic health. It's all the things. Faith, it's all the things.
[00:26:24] Sara Whitley: Complete Peace being the entire thing.
[00:26:27] Sara Whitley: And so, you know, clearly I've already spoken about my faith. And so that is one way, that I navigate that,
[00:26:32] Sara Whitley: Good old Ben and Jerry's and Haagen Doss help a lot.
[00:26:35] Ami Graves: we know you love that ice cream. It's all about
[00:26:39] Sara Whitley: Um, yeah, absolutely. And running exercise, like, physical exercise is a great way to just get it out there get all the adrenaline moving, all of it going. Dopamine's just going
[00:26:52] Ami Graves: Yeah.
[00:26:53] Ami Graves: what's like a, one of the biggest challenges that your industry is facing right now?
[00:26:58] Sara Whitley: Oh my goodness. So many things. And I, I, you know, as I start to say that, I almost like, literally felt tingles up my spine because what's safe to say really?
[00:27:09] Sara Whitley: so many things. I mean, gosh. Where do you,
[00:27:12] Ami Graves: Listen, the good news is this is, our show today. So we can say whatever the hell we wanna say. We might piss people off, but we're brand new show, so,
[00:27:20] Ami Graves:
[00:27:20] Sara Whitley: absolutely. So funding a big one right there, right? Like insurance, big insurance. I mean, they're in the business of minimizing their expenses and that means the providers. And that doesn't stop with mental health. That means your medical providers. That means all of us. funding is always a big piece.
[00:27:40] Sara Whitley:
[00:27:40] Sara Whitley: you look at the fact that we just, you know, we had a pandemic, what, five years ago. we went from being a very social. Society to being a very isolated society where everybody's bars went up on their windows, stayed inside. You may have had a really healthy functioning family while everybody was out moving around and doing their own thing.
[00:28:01] Sara Whitley: But now we find ourselves captured into our own homes and having to deal with each other 24 hours a day, seven days a week with no break.
[00:28:10] Sara Whitley: I mean, couples counseling went through the roof. Like people were like, who am I married to and why? Like, you know what I
[00:28:17] Sara Whitley: mean? child behaviors. I mean, they weren't going to school.
[00:28:21] Sara Whitley: So like, how do I manage the behaviors of my child while I, you know, work from home or all the expectations there. So we, we just navigated that. The social unrest, the political unrest that's going on,
[00:28:34] Sara Whitley: I mean, it impacts people and so much so that I think I'm on four years without the news. I've turned that off because it came onto my couch so regularly and I had to watch and work with people on a daily basis of how the news was promoting so much fear in them and so much anxiety about what was going on.
[00:29:01] Sara Whitley: And I'm not to say that anxiety's not good. It is a, you know, survival skill. Absolutely. But to remain in that anxious state for prolonged periods of time does functional damage to your brain and your ability to connect with other individuals. Like it's just rough.
[00:29:21] Sara Whitley: so I mean, we're facing lots of things.
[00:29:24] Sara Whitley: everything you are facing, your friend is facing, your boss is facing, your employee is facing. Your grocer, you know, your waitress, all those things that people are facing, they all come into the, onto the couch.
[00:29:37] Ami Graves: Yep.
[00:29:38] Sara Whitley: navigating all of those things.
[00:29:40] Ami Graves: Are you seeing an uptick in clients that are. Struggling to deal with kind of these big political divisive issues that are coming into your office saying, how do I manage this and how do I deal with it? Because it's, I'm just speaking freely, like it feels really, really big and like way bigger than just us individually, but it has an individual impact on us.
[00:30:05] Ami Graves: I feel it too, like, the stress of the news, and not even just the news, but like how people are treating each other. We've seen it online, just the, all that, but even just in person, like you can't have a different opinion without it blowing up into a very serious situation. Are you seeing that more on your couch these days too?
[00:30:27] Sara Whitley: Absolutely. I mean, people are watching the news again with anxiety and with fear.
[00:30:33] Sara Whitley: there is a very strong. Two ends of the spectrum here, and people are feeling pulled to choose, the far ends of the spectrum. And, and that makes it difficult again, what it, what it does is isolate us. And what we know is, one of the longest research studies in existence is what is the key to happiness?
[00:30:54] Sara Whitley: And what we know about that is relationships. Relationships Relationships are our key to happiness. But yet we're in this place where it's not safe to really even talk about your own opinions or experiences because you might offend the person that's across from you and they may take that to a place that's unsafe or vice versa.
[00:31:14] Sara Whitley: I
[00:31:15] Sara Whitley: mean, it's a challenge. So yeah, people walk in and see something on the news and think, oh my gosh, me, my family member, my child. Are being impacted by this. And it's direct. I mean, it looks like it's on a, a very high level political, you know, federal level. But it's not, it's, all the way to you and me and, and
[00:31:36] Sara Whitley: and our kids
[00:31:37] Ami Graves: It's in our homes, right? Like yeah. Affecting our kiddos.
[00:31:41] Ami Graves: speaking of kiddos, so you've got a teenage daughter, like a, as do I, and I am curious what Lila thinks about having a mom as a therapist and a, a leader of a business. Like, complete piece. Does she feel like you're, like constantly like psychoanalyzing her?
[00:31:59] Ami Graves: Does she tell you to knock it off sometimes? Talk to me about that.
[00:32:02] Sara Whitley: absolutely. She'll, I don't need the counselor, like,
[00:32:06] Sara Whitley: stop
[00:32:06] Sara Whitley: with that. Uh. That's right, that's right. If she wants mom, I mean, she is 14, but, um, but absolutely, and it, there are times, there are moments where I feel like, I can see that she's proud of me for having my own business and, um, making that successful.
[00:32:23] Sara Whitley: There's a couple of her friends that have started to verbalize their interest in mental health and what that might look like, and they wanna be a counselor when they grow up. And so Lila is, Looking at that and, trying to figure out if she, she likes it or not. 'cause it definitely can't be cool if mom's doing it.
[00:32:40] Sara Whitley: But,
[00:32:41] Sara Whitley: if you ask her on a good day, she, she'll say she's considered being a counselor herself. And I will say she is guilty of being a social worker's daughter from preschool. Her teachers have said she is so emotionally mature. And I'm like, well, yeah. we have been talking about feelings since before she was
[00:32:58] Sara Whitley: like, like,
[00:33:01] Sara Whitley:
[00:33:01] Ami Graves: How do you feel about that? Lila?
[00:33:03] Sara Whitley: absolutely show me your mad face. Show me your sad face. Show me your disappointed face. You know, like she's two disappointed. What's that mean? but yeah, so she is the friend to others that she is the one that they come to talk to. And she's talked to me about like, that's hard because then who do I talk to when I
[00:33:22] Sara Whitley: need somebody? And, like, well, me. And she's like, I don't wanna talk to you. And I'm like,
[00:33:27] Sara Whitley: okay, all right. I'll find you another, you know, we'll, we'll find you somebody else to talk to.
[00:33:31] Ami Graves: Yeah. What about, your husband, Jason, obviously, you know, when you guys, uh, I love the, your story of how you met, by the way, and I don't know if, we'll, maybe we'll have a chance to get into that. I, I'm just gonna throw it out there, but before we talk about that, I'm curious what Jason thinks about having a wife that's also like a therapist.
[00:33:48] Ami Graves: So does he feel like you psychoanalyze him too? Does he ever tell you to knock it off? Is it helpful?
[00:33:54] Sara Whitley: I, I can't really speak for him on what he thinks about it, but what I take away from our conversations and exchanges at times is that there are two different ways to look at things and, uh. I might be more psychoanalytic, analytical about things, whereas his might be more logical and pragmatic.
[00:34:12] Sara Whitley: and so he's never disregarded my input to things. and at times it takes the skills that I have built for mental health to be patient. And he'll say, you were right about that. Like, parenting strategies and how to engage with difficult, you know, people that we have to engage with on a basis.
[00:34:36] Sara Whitley: where he will value, some of my input. But, he's not mental health. He's not psychoanalytical, he is tactile, he
[00:34:45] Sara Whitley: is function, he is, he is all those things. So we compliment each other very well.
[00:34:51] Ami Graves:
[00:34:51] Ami Graves: So, speaking of Jason, I wanna talk about, something that Jason and you, your family has gone through recently. And while this might not be a part of your career story, we we're, we're holistic people talk about Complete Peace, right? We, we take all the things that happen to us and the decisions we make into our journeys as whole people.
[00:35:12] Ami Graves: So you and Jason have gone through something. Recently, that's incredible is really the word that comes to mind. And I don't know that, I mean that in a good way, but certainly in a huge way. There's just, it is incredible is the word that I think of. And I, I'm kind of putting you on the spot here.
[00:35:29] Ami Graves: I know that this is, uh, fairly fresh. Do you mind talking about what Jason's experienced and kind of the impact of this whole family and, and what does this mean for you? I think too, as a, as a therapist, because this has brought on some challenges that I don't think any, any of us or you or him could have anticipated
[00:35:50] Sara Whitley: Yeah. I mean it huge, right? Like last day of Lila's middle school
[00:35:56] Sara Whitley: Jason wakes up, actually, he didn't sleep all night because he was uncomfortable, wakes up with lots of pain and was supposed to go to a doctor's appointment.
[00:36:05] Sara Whitley: Didn't make it to the doctor's appointment 'cause he was in too much pain and wanted the sleep. And we ended up with a nine one one call going to the hospital, within the hour, was being told that there was probably nothing they could do about it.
[00:36:19] Sara Whitley: And that made no sense to me. so to make a very long story short, Jason, uh, lost his spleen over 20 years ago and that's the organ that fights infection, when the infection hits our body.
[00:36:32] Sara Whitley: And so he apparently had like an open sore, had gotten a scratch or even a hangnail, who knows what it was. But we are dog lovers and there is a bacteria that lives organically in dogs and cats' mouths that 0.04% of people without a spleen will react poorly to. And he,
[00:36:56] Ami Graves: that's
[00:36:56] Sara Whitley: yeah,
[00:36:57] Ami Graves: And Jason
[00:36:58] Sara Whitley: he.
[00:36:58] Ami Graves: be in that 0.04%.
[00:37:00] Sara Whitley: That's right. He thread that needle. And so he went into sepsis almost immediately and we live in the, you know, the Blue Ridge mountains. We live rural, and never did I ever understand what rural medicine meant, um, until that day.
[00:37:19] Ami Graves: yeah, I know there's a lot of emotions 'cause this is really like super fresh still. And, and I'm gonna fill in the gaps where I can because I know how emotional this is. Um, that phone call, it was actually a text you sent me and said, um. I don't think Jason's gonna make it through the night.
[00:37:39] Ami Graves: I, I was like, there's no way she's texting me this, first of all,
[00:37:42] Ami Graves: like,
[00:37:43] Sara Whitley: We had just left your house like two days at before that.
[00:37:46] Ami Graves: yeah, It was just wild timing. I mean, again, like from the BFF's perspective, you're like, that can't be right. Like, he's a, he's a 40-year-old, 40 something healthy. Like, I mean, okay, he doesn't have a spleen, but, you know, it's, fine. He is made it 20 years without a spleen.
[00:38:02] Ami Graves: No problem. No. legitimately they called in the family, he's not gonna make it through the night. and I remember talking to you and, it felt surreal, not real. It just felt not real. I mean, I'm giving my perspective. I can't imagine you as his wife, right? I remember the very next morning hopping at you.
[00:38:21] Ami Graves: you said he made it through the night. They're gonna, lift him, airlift him to obviously a, talking about rural medicine, a better hospital that could potentially attempt to keep him alive in Chapel Hill, right? So you go there, I hop in the car, I drive just to see you and just see Jason.
[00:38:39] Ami Graves: And, it was such a whirlwind. I mean. he is a walking miracle. Uh, he's, he's not walking right now
[00:38:46] Ami Graves: just some surgery. He just had some surgery. but let's, let's talk about that. I mean, I know that that whole thing was so trying to tell me, Jason's a miracle. He lived through that experience.
[00:38:58] Ami Graves: spent quite a bit of time in the hospital. He is, recovering and most recently had some surgeries. So talk to us about, that
[00:39:09] Sara Whitley: So he was in medically induced coma for over 10 days. we were prioritizing keeping his brain and his heart, working. And so, in the process of that circulation was, um, limited, if not cut off to extremities. and
[00:39:24] Sara Whitley: so.
[00:39:25] Ami Graves: the points to keep blood flow to the brain and the heart to keep them protected, right?
[00:39:30] Sara Whitley: That's right, that's right. so, so that the heart wouldn't have to work as hard to get the blood to like his feet and hands. And so, in that process, so with no circulation, your body starts to identify this as dead pieces of your body. And so the circulation stops going there. to make a very long story short, we spent 32 days, in UNC Chapel Hill and then transferred to a, inpatient rehab facility for about another two or three weeks to come home to, uh, doing wound care to try to recover some type of circulation to his extremities.
[00:40:10] Sara Whitley: That are now turning necrotic, at that time. And then, to kind of roll up into just three, four weeks ago where he was, uh, went into surgery to have a below the knee amputation on his right leg and a half foot amputation on his left leg. And we are awaiting surgery scheduling for amputations of some of his fingers.
[00:40:32] Ami Graves: Yeah.
[00:40:33] Ami Graves: So how has this entire experience and your, does your training as a therapist even matter when you're going through something like this? Or does it go out the window, or is it helpful
[00:40:46] Ami Graves:
[00:40:46] Sara Whitley: It was super helpful, I think to me, like you don't, you don't realize it, except for the fact that like, you know, all that time as a social worker, you deal with crisis all the time. So I was working in the nursing facilities, I started learning how to talk about wound care and to how to talk to doctors, how to get them to stop talking medical speak and talk plain speak.
[00:41:05] Sara Whitley: I knew what his rights were.
[00:41:07] Sara Whitley: how to fight for that stuff and how to
[00:41:09] Sara Whitley: advocate for him that way stay calm under pressure, you know what I mean? And yeah, totally worked. And then I remember there were some days that I was walking across the crosswalk, Saying things to myself that I find myself saying to my clients on a regular basis.
[00:41:25] Sara Whitley: Like, you've gotta put your own air mask on first before you can take care of others. You've
[00:41:30] Sara Whitley: gotta Let's do mindfulness. Exer, like feeling overwhelmed and going into mindfulness, exercises. and so absolutely, it definitely made a big impact and, those skills totally helped, helped me through the steps and continue to.
[00:41:46] Ami Graves: Yeah. I think this is one of the, biggest like challenges is when you're speaking of putting your own mask on first. Like when you're going through a crisis with your family and you have a demanding role. Like me, I'm in corporate, you know, hr, working for an IT managed services company.
[00:42:03] Ami Graves: You as a, a business owner that's got a thriving small business, after what I went through with my daughter being sick last year, as you know about, about cam, I really. Understood and learned in those moments that there was no such thing as balance. I mean, we talk all the time about work-life balance.
[00:42:22] Ami Graves: No, there really is not balance. you, you dedicate and give so much time of yourself to work because you love it, you enjoy it, you wanna make a difference, whatever those motivators are. And then you go through a crisis and all of a sudden, you know, you can't even con, barely concentrate. You know, you're just trying to like make it through a day in a hospital with a family member.
[00:42:43] Ami Graves: And it's like, so I've reframed that for myself and to where it's not balanced, it's just prioritization. There's times when I'm locked in a hundred percent at work and I love that. And then there's times when I need to be locked in with family and I can only give what I can give in those moments.
[00:43:01] Ami Graves: Tell me about how you manage that. Running us a business, you've got employees, you've got tons of clients. How in the hell do you juggle all that while you're in the middle of a crisis?
[00:43:13] Sara Whitley: You're spot on, like priorities and every day there was a different priority, right? Like every day you have to assess where is the priority today? Like when Jason was in the hospital, you knew that the doctors were gonna be done with rounds by nine 30. So priority from seven 30 in the morning till nine 30 was to be by his side so that you would be there for the doctors.
[00:43:34] Sara Whitley: About 10 30 is when a lot of the individual clients start coming in for counseling sessions. And so, you know, then your phone might start ringing. And so answering those calls and being able to navigate and be able to be present in those moments. So it, it wasn't even like, you couldn't organize it to be like, Monday, I am all family.
[00:43:53] Sara Whitley: Tuesday I'm
[00:43:53] Sara Whitley: all Like that doesn't happen. You
[00:43:56] Sara Whitley: it's
[00:43:57] Ami Graves: moment by moment. Right.
[00:43:58] Sara Whitley: absolutely it is. Absolutely it is. And so you find yourself just having to prioritize over and over and over again. And then when. You're able to at least prioritize and kind of get your head up out of the smoke that's around you.
[00:44:17] Sara Whitley: then it's time for allocation, right? Like delegate, like,
[00:44:20] Sara Whitley: okay, I clearly can't do all of this. It's not possible to do all of this, so we've
[00:44:25] Sara Whitley: got bring it some troops. I've got to have some help. I need delegation for this. I need, I can let this go, that go. Somebody else can sit, you know, while he's sleeping or these types of things.
[00:44:38] Sara Whitley: And so, thank god for strong support systems.
[00:44:41] Ami Graves: I completely agree with you. It can't be understated. Um. That was one of the things, like when I was in the hospital with Cam when she was sick, was, I remember my CEO at the time, well, he's still my CEO. I remember him sending me a text one night and saying, Amy, nobody's expecting you to work and you don't have to work.
[00:44:57] Ami Graves: Like you need to be, you need to be with your daughter, and that's the priority. And I already knew that. Like, that's the culture that's created where I work. My CEO's amazing. Like I, I knew he felt that way. even as a senior leader in my company. I appreciated him saying that to me. I had already given myself that permission, but for him to kind of come behind me and give it again, that's exactly what you would want to hear in those moments.
[00:45:22] Ami Graves: The flip side of that is. as a, a mom and a woman, we're nurtures and we fix problems. There's something going on. We take care of it. This needs fixed, we fix it. You know this feeling? I knew that feeling. We cannot fix this. This is completely out of our control. There's nothing I can do to impact this outcome at all.
[00:45:44] Ami Graves: It feels chaotic and really scary. So for me, and I know you too, we talked about this, like plugging back into work, even in the middle of all of that crisis and chaos brought me some comfort. It's like, okay, it's a an hour of normalcy. It's an hour of perceived control and, and something that I have, a little bit of, I don't know, control, insight into, I've got, I can do this and not.
[00:46:16] Ami Graves: Focus on this crisis in that moment. That was like therapeutic for me in those times. I know it was for you too, and people have a hard time, I think understanding or seeing that, you know, you're got your laptop out in the hospital, or what do you mean you're not gonna be here, you know, until nine o'clock at night or whatever it is.
[00:46:36] Ami Graves: Like, I think that to your point, you gotta put that mask on first or you're no good to anybody. Right. Those moments got me through a lot of that
[00:46:46] Sara Whitley: Yeah. And you know, the first step back for me, once the, initial shock and everything set in was doing payroll, like a, I thought everybody still needs to get paid. They, their bills aren't gonna stop of my family crisis, right. But in doing so, getting into that system and like looking at Excel spreadsheets and whatnot, I was like, oh, this has no emotion at all.
[00:47:10] Sara Whitley: Like, this is black and white. I could do this. Like, this allows me to step outside of myself, allows me to like just turn the volume down on the emotions for a few moments. so that was my first step to like kind of trying to integrate things. And then when I was at a place that was, I thought felt healthy enough to work with clients again, going in and sitting with clients was hugely healing for me because I was able to get out of my own self and the problems I was facing back there, this individual in front of me or this couple in front of me or this child in front of me, were dealing with their own crisis and whatever shape or size that looked And I helped that. I didn't have control over what was going over here,
[00:47:56] Sara Whitley: but of me, I had the skills and tools to help them with what was going on there.
[00:48:02] Sara Whitley: So yeah, absolutely. It kept me together.
[00:48:04] Ami Graves: Yeah. I love that.
[00:48:06] Ami Graves: how's Jason today and how are you today kind of coming out of the, the crisis and dealing with kind of a new normal, creating a new normal? How, how are you guys doing?
[00:48:15] Sara Whitley: So new, normal, um, we're not there yet. because there we're just still in healing and repair, right? Like, there's still a long road to go, but, uh, today, is a pretty special day in that we went to, The prosthetic center, and he was sized for his prosthetic leg. And so we're hoping that he will have that next week, which means
[00:48:38] Sara Whitley: he'll get walk.
[00:48:39] Ami Graves: huge.
[00:48:40] Sara Whitley: four, four and a half months of him being either in a chair, in a bed,
[00:48:44] Sara Whitley: and so super
[00:48:46] Ami Graves: And if anybody, anybody that doesn't, people don't know Jason, but, this man doesn't sit still. there is no come home and sit in the, the chair for four hours and just, you know, rot. Absolutely not. So the toll this has taken on Jason and you and your whole family, like just mentally, spiritually, questioning all the things is cannot be understated.
[00:49:08] Ami Graves: So these moments, that's great. Did you guys do that today? You guys
[00:49:13] Sara Whitley: Yeah. morning? Yeah.
[00:49:15] Sara Whitley: morning. And then we're, he's resting up now and then tonight we're, he'll, it'll be his first public outing. We're going to Lila's Homecoming football game.
[00:49:24] Sara Whitley: she will be cheering, with the Varsity squad. So she's excited and we're excited to be there, but I mean, this is a big cornerstone for us on, in
[00:49:34] Ami Graves: It's huge.
[00:49:35] Sara Whitley: recovery.
[00:49:36] Ami Graves: Yeah. Glad to hear that.
[00:49:38] Ami Graves: okay, let's wrap up with one thing, and that is for somebody that is interested in going into this field or maybe like complete career pivot and they're like, I wanna go into social work. What's the piece of advice you would give somebody looking to make that transition or head into social work as a, as a career?
[00:49:57] Sara Whitley: I would say, so I feel as though like my career has really pivoted from the traditional definition of social work to, I'm a licensed clinical social worker, so it's counseling at this point. Right. and so as somebody looking to get into counseling, what I'd say is, don't put off for tomorrow what you can do today.
[00:50:17] Sara Whitley: one foot in front of the next. you can decide later. If it's not for you, you can decide in two weeks. In two months. In two years, you know, this isn't for me. I'm going somewhere else. That's fine. Nothing's set in stone. It doesn't say you have to do that for the rest of your life. If it's interesting to you and you're curious about it, check it out.
[00:50:37] Sara Whitley: What can you do today to like, explore that? Explore your curiosity, because that's where you're going to find you, right? Like if you follow your own love your own curiosity, your own drive, you find you, and that's where happiness sits.
[00:50:52] Ami Graves: Yeah. I love that. That's great advice, Sara. I love that you wrapped it up in that way. To my dear, dear, best friend, thank you for your time today and I appreciate not just, you know, your career story and you sharing your journey through social work and counseling, but also the few minutes that you gave me and, and. your story with Jason because this whole show again, is more than just jobs and careers. We are a whole person. We bring all of ourselves, the good, the bad, the ugly, and even the crises that we all go through at different times in our lives. We bring that to work. 'cause we are, we're just a person.
[00:51:30] Ami Graves: We're we're, you know what I mean? We got, we got all kinds of things going on, so I am tremendously, first of all, thankful that Jason is a walking miracle, truly like actually gonna be walking with this new prosthetic leg. So I'm thrilled about that. I think anybody that has a questioning faith, can hear the story that what you and Jason have gone through and be encouraged.
[00:51:53] Ami Graves: So I think that's important as well to kind of have that spiritual aspect has been, I mean, it's been an honestly enlightening for me to watch that strength that you guys both have shared through this whole experience is incredible. And I know you're still going through it. I know you're still creating your new norm, but I'm proud of you and inspired by you both and, um, I just love you to pieces.
[00:52:14] Ami Graves: So
[00:52:14] Sara Whitley: With
[00:52:15] Ami Graves: on today.
[00:52:15] Sara Whitley: of course.
[00:52:16] Ami Graves: All right, talk to you soon.
[00:52:17] Ami Graves: Thanks for tuning in to The People of Work. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to follow along and share it with someone who loved these stories too. Do you or someone you know have a unique job or an inspiring work journey? I love to hear about it. You can find me on Instagram at The People of Work, or visit The People of Work.com, and if you're navigating a career transition or just.
[00:52:40] Ami Graves: Need support in your work life. I'm here for that too. From personal coaching to leadership and HR consulting, I'd love to help head to thepeopleofwork.com to learn more and get in touch. Until next time, thanks for being a part of The People of Work.