Chapter 6: Cause Over Applause: The Resource Page Is Back

From Ottawa to Toronto, with Humility

This is for the person who wrote me from Toronto.

Humility first.

For context, I am in Ottawa, the capital city. Toronto is also in Ontario, but it is about a four-hour drive from me. Pretty much an exact drive.

So this was not someone from the other side of the world, but it also was not someone from down the street. It made the internet feel weirdly real for a second.

I knew people were “reading this.”

Kind of.

I could see the views. I could see the likes. I could see that people were passing through.

But in my head, the old version of this site was still mostly a personal survival blog with some Ontario-based resources attached to it. A messy little corner of the internet where I wrote through recovery, systems, survival, and whatever else I was trying to understand at the time.

I created the first version of this site because I needed somewhere to express myself.

That has always been part of who I am.

I have been writing poems, thoughts, little fragments, and whatever else I could use to get the inside onto the outside since I was about twelve.

Maybe even before that.

I have always needed a medium.

A place to put the feeling.

A place to put the pattern.

A place to put the thing I could not always say out loud.

So in 2024, when I was still in the preliminary phases of recovery, I started a blog.

I posted twice.

Then I abandoned it. To make matters worse in a move that is somehow both ridiculous and very on brand for me, I still paid for the website subscription and kept the URL for three years.

So, obviously, things were not going spectacularly in between.

I was not feeling empowered.

I was not feeling particularly brave.

I was not exactly out here trying to take on the machine.

I was mostly trying to survive myself, my circumstances, my recovery, and the quiet grief of realizing how much rebuilding actually costs you.

Recently, though, I came back and decided to step into my power and maximize my skill set.

This newer version of the site has been me trying to move from testimony into empowerment. From only telling the story to also asking harder questions about the systems underneath it.

Or, as I like to say now, going after the machine.

Not because I have all the answers.

I do not.

But because I am tired of pretending the machine is not there.

The last version of the blog had a resource section. It was not perfect. It was not fancy. There are much more professional, higher-level, polished resource hubs out there than anything I could ever build on my little corner of the internet.

But apparently, someone found it useful. They bookmarked it. (That melted my brain and heart by the way).

Anyhow, person from Toronto, I restored it. Thank you for saying you liked my old content and that the new site was cool. You also used a bunch of Gen Z sayings that I had to look up online, which humbled me immediately because I like to believe I keep up with the times.

I'm getting to the point I promise.

I usually try to navigate life with a “cause over applause” approach.

That is not just a cute phrase to me. It is genuinely how I try to move through the world. Professionally. Personally. Creatively. In recovery. In conflict. In rebuilding. In the strange little places where life asks you to decide what kind of person you are going to be.

I do things for the cause, not the applause.

Yet, I have this line in my profile about doing this with “CEO energy” for free, and honestly, it keeps bothering me.

Because part of me meant it as a joke.

Part of me meant: I take this seriously even when nobody is paying me to or paying attention to me.

But another part of me hears the self-grandizing in it.

The covert ego.

The “look at me, but pretend I am only saying this because of the mission” energy.

I hate that.

I really do.

I tend to have a fairly high level of emotional intelligence. Sometimes I can sense why somebody is doing something before they have even fully thought through why they are doing it.

Which is annoying, because then I have to apply that same standard to myself.

So let me be honest.

Toronto human, I am sorry.

I had such low self-worth about the site, and about coming clean in public, that I did not really believe someone would read it, save it, and come back to it.

That is on me.

You should not have had to ask where the resources went.

I stayed up until about two o’clock in the morning trying to find the relics of what existed before, and I am making it right today.

So, in the most Canadian way possible:

I am truly sorry. Its back.

Links and Contact | Recover With Sara

Without further ado, the “More” section of this website is where the resources now live.

There is also another section called “Good Reads,” which is my little homage to the people who are doing the work professionally, consistently, and with more polish than I may ever have. That section includes good reads, useful resources, and places worth spending time if you are trying to understand recovery, systems, strategy, resilience, or the machine we are all navigating in one way or another.

This weekend, I am retreating to the remote backwoods of somewhere in Canada.

Seriously.

I am not bringing much tech with me beyond a cell phone. What I will have is a notepad and a pen.

I know.

I know.

I know.

It sounds very grandma.

But hear me out.

I had a big conversation recently about the use of AI, and yes, obviously, use the tools. Use the technology. Use what helps. I am not here to pretend we live in 1987.

But I also come from a time when, if you submitted reports to executives at work, you printed them out, put them in their mailbox, and they came back corrected in red pen.

That kind of old.

There is something organic about old-school writing.

About slowing down.

About being mindful.

About letting your hand move before the performance brain gets involved.

About putting a little bit of heart into the work before the world gets to touch it.

That is part of what this post is about too.

I am having a bit of an ethical dilemma sometimes.

About tools.

About ego.

About visibility.

About responsibility.

About what it means to build something that starts as survival and then becomes useful to someone else.

But maybe we do not have to be just one thing.

Maybe we can live in complexity.

Maybe we can use AI and still write from the heart.

Maybe we can have credentials and still move with humility.

Maybe we can be strategic and still be soft.

Maybe we can be emotional and still be accountable.

Maybe we can go after the machine and still apologize when we accidentally move the map someone else was using.

Maybe that is the whole point.

So, Toronto human, thank you. Thank you for writing.

Thank you for reminding me that even small things can matter to someone.

Thank you for the humility check.

The resource page is back.

The “Good Reads” section is there too.

I am not an island, and I do not want to build like one.

This blog is for anyone, anywhere in the world, who finds something useful here.

But to my fellow Canadians 🍁🥊

You have my heart. Elbows Up!

Cause over applause.

Always.