Sara Sweat, MA – Founder, Monarch
There’s a moment many of us reach after we’ve “made it.” The hardest parts of our life are behind us. The resume is impressive. The goals are achieved. The family is well. And yet— something still feels…off.
Everything around us says we should be thriving. But we’re not.
We fought so hard to get to a place of healing but it feels like we’re just surviving our beautiful, miraculous, and accomplished lives. Not that long ago, that was me.
My trauma history reads like a menu at an all-you-can-eat buffet.
My early life was marked by abandonment, familial addiction, and devastating losses. As an adult, my attempts to navigate my unhealed trauma created more of the same. Self-inflicted wounds, abusive relationships, and more abandonment and loss compounded the damage.
Yet, while all this trauma was unraveling in my life for decades, I was also building a thriving career, being a spectacular friend, putting myself through grad school, caring for ill or dying family members, and becoming a solo parent by choice.
You see, I was the strong one.
The cycle breaker.
The one who did the therapy, read the books, built the life, and carried everyone else across the finish line with me.
I committed to my healing. I worked with multiple therapists and therapeutic modalities, established boundaries, developed new coping mechanisms, and got a master’s degree in Counseling – just to make sure I got it all right.
I did the work and built a life that was stable and safe and good.
And still, I found myself asking the question so many high achievers are afraid to say out loud:
“Is this it?”
What I discovered—first in myself, then in hundreds of others—is that healing from what happened, and preventing it from happening again – doesn’t prepare you for what comes next.
Life taught us how to endure.
How to succeed.
How to survive.
But, no one teaches us how to truly live.
Too Many Hard Things
Just like the monarch butterfly, after which this company is named, we survivors and cycle breakers earn our wings through painful transformation.
Within the chrysalis of whatever we endured – abuse, neglect, abandonment, & more – we gained something that served us well.
We learned how to do hard things.
How to push through when others could not. How to achieve under less than ideal circumstances. How to read the room, assess the risks, and shift the momentum of our lives.
Doing hard things became so much of our identity, that we lost touch with how to do anything else.
This way of being can look like:
- Over-functioning at work or at home – regardless of our own capacity or desires
- Achievement as identity – feeling ok about ourselves only when we’re going above and beyond – or being recognized as the one who does it all
- Ignoring our body’s signals and requests – tuning them out to allow us to do more
- A quiet panic that arises whenever we try to rest, relax, or simply just “be”
After years of doing hard things this way – it becomes our default setting. So even when we try to escape the cycle of achieving, something always pulls us back to our emotional set point – until we burn out, break down, or implode.
What I had to learn the hard way is that the real pace of achievement is very different than we think. It’s not about hustling harder, doing more, or gaining additional recognition – although you will.
It’s about building the infrastructure of sustainable success. About doing everything you’re doing now – and more – without it costing you your peace, your joy, or your health.
It’s about building a life filled with ease. With rest, delight, fun, laughter, and connection. And finding your community of people who “get it” and welcome all of who you are.
Your Invitation To More
I created Monarch because I don’t want any high achiever to simply survive their life.
I don’t want to see one more high functioning executive flame out in her 40’s because the pressure finally became too much. Or watch one more successful man blow up his life because he can’t take his foot of the gas.
I don’t want to the world to be robbed of the full expression of your brilliance and beauty – just because you only value your output.
Because trauma survivors deserve more than lives that look great on paper. They deserve to actually enjoy the lives they’ve worked so hard to create – without sacrificing their results.
Monarch is not self-improvement.
It’s self reclamation.
It’s about rediscovering who you are on the other side of what happened to you. About creating your own personal flight plan for where you want to go next. And, about learning how to soar without constantly flapping your wings.
Monarch is for the people who have been through hard things AND done the hard work of healing from them. It’s for people who aren’t satisfied with a life lived on the ground – and are ready to finally use their wings.
I have a rare set of skills born of generational trauma, cumulative loss, 25 years of business leadership experience, and masters level training as a therapist.
You don’t need all that. I did it for you. I did it so you wouldn’t have to. Now, I’m using all I’ve learned to break the last, most stubborn cycle that’s holding achievers back.
The cycle of settling for survival when you no longer have anything to survive.
I don’t want another cycle breaker or trauma survivor to wait one more day before they finally start enjoying their life. To pause or hesitate at all – at trading in achievement for lasting, edifying success.
Because you are not what happened to you. You are not even what you did to yourself.
You’re the light that dispels the dark. The truth that unveils the lie. The disruption of what no longer serves.
And, you deserve something far greater than just making it through the fire.
The Phoenix rises from the ashes, but you? You turned those ashes into wings.
You are The Monarch. 🦋
And, I’m here to welcome you home.
If this resonated, you’re not alone—and you’re not too late.
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