FROM THE DESK OF Sara Mulder

BY CLAIRE MISFELDT

As the founder and creative director of Bella by Sara, one of Austin’s premiere wedding and events florists, Sara Mulder tells young women to “love what you do and do what you love.”

Before working in Austin, Mulder started her journey with a background in interior design in her native city of Lima, Peru. However, she soon found her creative passion in the event-coordination industry. She then gained extensive experience with her own event planning and design business, Sara’s Creations.

The first job Mulder landed in Austin was with a home-decor business. After a few years of experience in event planning and interior design, she found that her absolute favorite aspect of her job was floral design.

She was determined to expand her knowledge. She obtained a certification in floral design, wedding planning and event design through Preston Bailey and Lovegevity’s Wedding Planning Institute. In 2009, Mulder founded Bella by Sara with hopes of filling others with a passion for beauty.

With more than 15 years of experience in the Austin event industry, Mulder learned how to stay relevant in its ever-changing landscape. These are her tips to evolving with your industry while staying true to yourself.

One challenge that has shaped how my business has grown over the past decade is the competitive nature of the Austin event industry. As an up-and-coming event florist with several years of event coordination experience, I learned that investing back into your own business and yourself as a professional is crucial in keeping up with competition and providing the best for your clients.

My first business was in home decor, but after so many years my passion for design faded and my interest in floral design grew rapidly. By refocusing my attention to florals, I was reinvigorated and inspired to continue as an entrepreneur, just in a different way than I initially thought. Listen to your passion and don’t give up on trying to follow your dreams.

COVID-19 definitely had a negative impact on my business. We are living in unusual times, making it very difficult for wedding industry professionals. It is unprecedented. Without clearly understanding what is happening today, it has become infinitely harder to predict what will happen in the future. For most industries, 2020 was a year of flexibility. Traditional events were no longer in demand, so I made a quick update to my services and included elopements. That flexibility to change is what helped my business stay afloat. As a wedding professional, my priority is taking care of my couples, letting them know I’m here for them in any way they need and making their wedding day special no matter what is happening in the world.

The past year undoubtedly pushed the events industry into plenty of challenges, but it has been absolutely inspiring and wonderful to see the ways in which we innovated. We worked with clients to adapt their previous plans to be more pandemicappropriate in any way. With every new challenge I face, it’s extremely rewarding to continue to adapt, pivot and provide a better service for my clients. There’s so much to be said for the satisfaction and pride that comes from putting time and effort into your own business and seeing it come to fruition.

Spending time working with industry peers is not only inspiring and creative, but also helps you feel like a part of a community. Another element that drove shifts in my business is the advent of collaborating with fellow industry professionals. There is so much meaningful learning and purposeful work that can be done when combining your strengths as a small business with those around you. I’ve come to deeply cherish the friendships of fellow vendors and lean on them for support.

No one will forget March 2020 and what it looked like to navigate the COVID world. No one will ever be the same. We are seeing more exhaustion coming through the doors than ever before.

There is a very high chance 2020 will have left many of us with chronic fatigue/ adrenal fatigue, which can lead to inflammation, thyroid dysfunction, sometimes autoimmunity and even cardiac issues.

Not only are we still in a pandemic, but we had to navigate the Great 2021 Freeze, many of us are stressfully homeschooling, the racial tension is palpable and all the social media anger…ugh. It’s all just too much. Meanwhile, we are socially distanced, masked and continually the most hyperconnected to information yet disconnected from humanity and nature the planet has ever seen. It’s a perfect storm for chronic fatigue/burn out!

These events are leading to a terrible situation for our physiology. Human physiology is designed to adapt to stress for short times and then return to homeostasis (normal). Think running from a tiger or bear. We are not built for this. Not 14 months of missing your friends, your community, your people. Not 14 months of watching the world hate one another. Not 14 months of the unknown: Will I get sick? Will I get laid off? Will my business thrive? Will I get to travel this year and see family? This is leaving us in fight-or-flight for hours, days, weeks and months instead of minutes.

The problem with our world as we know it is that we were never far away from stress as it was. Insert 2020 and it all intensifies the fight-or-flight response and burns out our adrenals.

This level of stress, for this amount of time, leads everyone (not an overstatement, everyone) to be overly stressed or, to put it another way, adrenally fatigued. We see it every day in almost every patient right now. The exhaustion in their eyes, the worry, the stress.

In practice right now, most people walking in the door have some adrenal fatigue, not a medical-level condition of adrenal insufficiency or Addison’s disease yet. But we are seeing adrenal exhaustion, causing all kinds of other imbalances.

Diet – Avoid refined sugars/carbs, cut out bread and most things that use wheat or grain flours. Eat smaller meals a bit more often to keep your blood sugar stable. There is much debate on this one, but you have to keep cortisol down to help the adrenals balance themselves.

Exercise – If you are more exhausted after exercise, then you are doing too much. You may need to switch to a lower intensity like walking or hatha yoga.

Meditation – This has been crucial for me and is possibly the only reason I am still upright. I like the Calm app, but there is also Headspace and other meditation apps out there.

Breath work – This will renew motivation, boost mood and calm your anxiety. I am a big fan of Nadi Shodhana or “alternate nostril breathing.“

Support – This is based on your individual needs, but a good start is methylated B-complex, vitamin C and apoptogenic herbs. Minerals like magnesium, or GABA, are good if you have a lot of anxiety. But really, we need to dig in and figure out what is best for you. To do that, you can book your appointment to discuss your specific problem set and what would be the right one for you.

aFeeling tired/struggling to wake up in the morning aLow thyroid aGI issues (when you are in flight/flight, you can’t rest

aIrregular periods aLow sex hormones aLow motivation aTrouble falling asleep aWaking up at night aA midafternoon slump (falling asleep at 3 p.m.) aAnxiety or feeling on edge aMood swings aDepression aWeight gain aAutoimmune issues aBrain fog aBody aches aHair loss aLightheadedness (especially when going from lying to

aAdjustments don’t hold aSlow healing time aPotential decrease in immune function

1201 West Slaughter Lane Austin, Texas 78748 512-328-0505

Stay healthy. Stay safe. Stay calm. Stay sane! Dr. Lauren Sanchez