Imagine…falling apart in front of the world.  Now, imagine a friend offering you help to put yourself back together.   This is the very personal journey that OWN and Sarah are taking us on in “Finding Sarah” as she works to put her own pieces back together in front of the world.  So often we see the mess and aftermath of lives falling apart and so rarely do we see the heart and lessons of lives being built up.  In Finding Sarah, we see the heart…and with her, we are on a journey to find those lessons.

As any good royal story, the tale begins with the background of information.  Married in 1986. 26 years old.  A little girl from a small english village marrying into the royal family.  Two beautiful daughters.  “On the outside, it looked perfect.  On the inside, I felt worthless,” Sarah says.  This”perfect royal life” came with spending only 40 days a year together for the first five years of marriage and dealing with learning how to be part of the royal family and a new mother. With this also came the press over the years and the hard fall – Dutchess of Pork, Fat Frumpy Fergie, a bad mum, Dutchess sells Andy… For anyone else, it is called living life and making some bad decisions.  For someone in the British Royal family, well…it’s worldwide news and public history.

Early in the show, Sarah’s daughters, Princess Eugenie and Princess Beatrice join in and show us a different side of Sarah. Princess Eugenie says, “She’s the best mother.  Kindness, love and generosity and I want everyone to know that she’s not what they portray her to be.”   Her daughters are her best side…because it’s clear that they love their mother very much and that she loves them.   “I’ve got to change the way I feel about myself…I’m on this journey for my daughters just as much as I am for myself,” Sarah says.  “If I don’t heal who I am, then how can I inspire them?” 

In the first part of this journey, Sarah is going to work with Dr. Phil…”Why do I self sabatoge?” Sarah asks and she’s looking for a quick fix and for the healing to begin.  But, with self discovery there is no “quick fix” and Dr. Phil delivers a strong lesson on finding your own personal truth and what that means to your life.    “Everyone has a persona that we put out to the world,” Dr. Phil says.  “But I also believe that everyone of us has a personal truth,” he goes on to say, “and a personal truth is what we really believe about ourselves when nobody’s looking, nobody’s listening except us.  What we in the core of our soul truly believe about ourselves.  I think personal truth is so important because I think we generate the results in life that I think we believe we deserve. And if you have a damaged personal truth, I think you are going to generate results that match that.”

“Serioulsy, it’s not what happens in our lives, it’s what we say to ourselves about what happens in our lives,” Dr. Phil says.   Sarah asks Dr. Phil how he healed his own personal truth.  “I healed it by getting very very honest with myself about what I was saying to myself internally.  I listened to my internal dialogue.  I figured out what it was that I was saying to myself that caused me to make the choices that I was making…and for making this journey work…understand that the only person that you have to control to fix this is YOU…”

Back in London, Sarah’s next lesson involves Suze Orman and while we may think that this has to do with money, it’s really about something much more valuable – self worth.  “People do stupid things when they are lost,” Suze tells us as she drives to meet Sarah for the first time.  “One may think that money is the problem but money is never the problem.  You’re the problem.  You’ve done something that isn’t good and it’s showing up in your money.”  But it is Suze’s lesson about self worth that was the most valuable lesson takeaway. 

While at times Sarah’s reality seems reserved and disconnected from what the vast public would seem as sensible, this is someone who has lived publicly for the last 25 years – every mistake made, every pound gained, every word spoken.   Imagine your life amplified and available for public consumption…and I imagine you might see some disconnection and walls of protection built as well.  Here is what I know for sure…we are all human…we all have a magnificent human story to tell…and we all have lessons that are given to us in our lives that help us become better human beings.  It is up to us to choose to learn from those lessons…and it is up to us to grow ourselves up.  For Sarah, I am hoping she does…and that her journey lights the world with a few new lessons to add to her OWN story.