Make Some Noise with Andrea Owen

Welcome back to another episode of the recovery series! If you are new to the series, I’ve been speaking with women about their addiction and who are in recovery. We cover topics such as alcohol addiction, codependency, and even food addiction. You can find all of the episodes here.This week I welcome back my friend and colleague, Amy Pearson. You may have heard Amy and I talk about being addicted to approval and feeling like a fraud back in Episode 118. This time we talk in-depth about her addiction to alcohol, her obsession with seeking approval and using blame as a crutch.Amy is a master certified life coach, a coach mentor, and founder of LiveBrazen.com. She is currently writing her first book, a memoir called, “Forgiving Amy,” where she shares her experiences with self-forgiveness. Amy has been sober for four years. Today, she shares how grieving the loss of her mother and feeling shame around not being the person she thought she should be led to her downward spiral into ”self-medicating” with alcohol. And, then later, she shares a poignant story of what made her turn everything around and led her onto the path of recovery.In this episode you’ll hear: How two life-changing events underlined her path to addiction (9 minutes and 12 seconds) Amy discusses how alcoholism is progressive and the fact that she was very self-aware of her addiction (13:03) Amy shares the story of putting her children at risk because of her addiction and how it ultimately led her on the path to recovery. Plus, she shares a promise she made to herself. (16:43) How recovery can lead you to uncover and accept parts of you that you didn’t know even existed; including the good, the bad and the dark. (21:18) Why Amy thinks alcohol and drinking is the lazier choice (24:27) Telling the truth and finding a supportive community helped Amy get sober, and how it all was a very humbling process (26:05) Saying no is hard, but it’s so important to put into practice when maintaining sobriety (28:39) We discuss triggers (both big and small) and two tools Amy uses for overcoming them (32:28) http://yourkickasslife.com/196  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

As promised in the podcast episode, a quick (1 min) video explaining how roller derby is played is here. Also, the Whip It trailer because I love it when Bliss says, I am IN LOVE with this.” (which btw, many of the hits in that movie are highly illegal to the game, but I think they captured the culture of derby really well.)At the end of 2012 and early 2013, I played roller derby for the Junction City Roller Dolls in Ogden, Utah, skating under the derby name, Veronica Vain. A shoulder injury took me out and I retired from the game. There I am, on the right with hair flying like Medusa.Lately, I’ve been thinking about going back here in North Carolina (more on that later), and it got me thinking a lot about the game and it’s similarities with life. Derby taught me a lot about fear, and other things, and in no particular order, here’s 6 ways roller derby can teach you about life.There is no room for paralyzing fear. You’ll get eaten alive if you stay there. Derby can be scary. Whether you’re showing up for tryouts, gearing up for your first bout, or going up against a player you know is bigger and stronger than you are, for every player at least once somewhere there is an element of fear. Which is actually perfectly normal in any sport and in life.I remember the first time I realized I was getting better as a player. During a practice scrimmage, I realized I was the smallest and least experienced player out there. For a second, I was scared. Then out of nowhere I pushed that voice aside and tried my damndest to knock another player that had at least 6 inches and 50 pounds of an advantage on me. I can’t even remember if I succeeded or not (I probably didn’t), but that was the shift I needed. Just trying. Just feeling the fear and doing it in spite of it.In life, there’s a lot of fear. We all have it, no one is immune. The difference between people that go after the badass life they have, is that they went up against their fear. They were scared when they went after that awesome job, or broke up with that person that they just weren’t happy with, or went back to school after 15 years of being out. You’re not unique in your fear. Just do it anyway.When you fall down, hurry and get the fuck up. In roller derby, when you fall or get knocked down in a jam, it’s part of the rules that you only have just a few seconds to get back up. No taking your sweet ass time. Plus, you can’t fall down and quit just because you fell down. Well, I suppose you could, but your team would be pretty pissed at you. And think about this-- falling happens a lot in derby. A lot. If everyone quit derby the first time they fell down, no one would be playing derby.How many times do we fall down in our everyday lives? We screw up, make bad decisions, and just plain fail. Everyone eats shit from time to time and doesn’t necessarily feel great about it. Instead of beating ourselves up for the mistake or quitting altogether, what if we just took two seconds to get back up and keep trying? Life goes on, just like the jam does. The world doesn’t stop spinning just because you took a tumble. Don’t quit, just get up and keep going.Only stay down if you’re really hurt. If not, get the fuck up. Okay, sometimes, when we fall down on the track, it really, really hurts. We’ve all had that slam on the concrete once or twice where we automatically want to get back up and keep skating, but our body says, “Oh, heeeeell no.” and we stay on the ground. Our fellow skaters help us and we do what we need to get better-- whether that’s sitting out for a while or going to the nearest hospital for an X-ray.Read the rest HEREhttp://www.yourkickasslife.com/195 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to another recovery series episode, and as we near the end of this season for these shows, our guest today, Lara Frazier, is sharing about her addiction to alcohol, pills, and love. Lara explains how her own addiction issues came from trauma in her life that she didn’t know she had, and how she found that she could just distract herself by falling in love. She explains that ultimately, this wasn’t the best for her, and how she really came to understand what romantic love and intimacy was (and wasn’t).http://yourkickasslife.com/194  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Ok, I don’t even have a word to describe how much I’m looking forward to having you hear this episode. Terri Cole is a returning guest who appeared on the show way back on Episode 76, and this time I wanted to make sure we talked about codependency.Why codependency? If you’re a listener of this podcast, you’ll know codependency is something that I’ve struggled with and talk about often. In this episode we look at what it really is and how to deal with realizing that it may be part of your life. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

There’s still time to sign up for the free book club! We start January 22nd, giving you enough time to read my new book, How To Stop Feeling Like Shit. Click this link to purchase the book and sign up-- if you already have your copy (Audiobook or e-reader counts too!) click “claim bonus” to sign up for the book club.This show is another recovery series episode, and as always, I’m so grateful to have these amazing conversations with women in recovery. Today is no exception, as I’m talking to Carly Benson. Carly has been sober from alcohol and cocaine since August 17th, 2008, and in this she shares her own path to addiction, and eventually her recovery.A big part of what she talks about is the need to truly open up and be willing to do things differently, but first you’ll need to be honest with how you are feeling inside. This will allow you to process the things that are happening, but you’ll hear how we all wear addiction differently and it’s up to each one us to learn how to live an intentional life.http://yourkickasslife.com/192  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

MY BOOK IS OUT! To celebrate, I’m giving $10 to Best Buddies International for every Amazon review from now until January 9th. (Scroll down for instructions on how to do this). Best Buddies is a nonprofit dedicated to helping people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.If you haven’t purchased the book yet, it’s in bookstores NOW (front tables at Barnes & Noble!) or you can purchase online. Once you’ve done that, don’t forget to join us for the free book study I’m hosting starting on January 22nd (click “claim bonuses’).*****************************************************If confidence were easy, it would have been bottled a long time ago by Big Pharma and somebody would have more money than God right now. However, gaining confidence is not that easy.Years ago when I saw women with confidence, I thought a few things that turned out to NOT be true. I thought they were born with it. I thought confidence was in their genes. And clearly, I wasn’t born with it. I thought maybe I could fake it by acting like I was the shit when I really did NOT think I was the shit. All this did was make me feel like shit and a big ol’ phony. I thought I could just wait until I was old to finally get it. Because we all know how much confidence Blanche Deveraux had. However, I didn’t want to wait until I was a Golden Girl. Confidence is not something you’re born with, or something you get just by faking it, or something you automatically gain when you turn 45. It’s something that’s built piece by piece over time. It’s something you try, mess up, try again and again until you see progress, and then keep practicing for the rest of your life.The way to gain confidence is by practicing courage.And courage can look like many different things. They don’t have to be big, sweeping events that shake you to your core with fear. Even practicing small acts of courage will likely evoke fear in you, but all of them add up to a courageous, confident YOU.I’ve broken it down into some steps for you…Step 1. Decide. And I don’t mean just decide you’re confident. You can certainly do that, but I think your brain will spike the bullshit alert and the whole “fake it til you make it” thing is tough with this one. When I say “decide” I mean decide you will start practicing courage. Decide you’re ready to step out of your comfortable ways of being and try something else, little by little.Step 2. Really dig into what practicing courage means to you. Start by thinking of the behaviors you currently do that are making you unhappy. I’ll bet some of them are: isolating, people pleasing, perfecting, believing your inner-critic, numbing out, comparison, approval seeking, and control (Wait– did I just name your to-do list?)Then, think of the opposite. If you’re an isolator, practicing courage would be reaching out for help and support.The opposite of people pleasing would be to simply stop before you immediately say yes to everything and practice saying no. If you’re a perfectionist, practicing courage would be to lean into “good enough” or start before you’re ready. I think you get the gist here.Step 3: Keep repeating steps 1 and 2. Over and over again.This will be scary, I can assure you. But, what’s scarier is looking back on your life and realizing you stayed in a place of fear. What’s scarier is realizing you allowed fear to drive your entire life. What’s possibly scarier than that is that you’ll look back and realize you modeled fear for the people you love. I’ll tell you something I know for sure. I am immensely proud of myself that I can practice courage in my life, but what makes me even more immensely proud, is that I model courage for my children. Marian Wright Edelman said, “You can’t be what you can’t see”. If you’re a parent, I KNOW you want your children to grow up learning how to practice courage. And if they see it in you, they’ll know how.http://www.yourkickasslife.com/191  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Happy New Year Ass-Kickers! Before we jump into today’s episode, a quick announcement: From today until January 9th, I’ll be giving $10 for every Amazon review about my new book, How To Stop Feeling Like Shit, to Best Buddies International, which is a charity close to my heart. Best Buddies helps people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. You can hear more about it and why it’s important to me in the episode. So, if you’ve read my book, please help me help them by leaving a review. Thank you in advance! Today is another recovery episode with guest Arlina Allen. Today she shares how her career aspirations eventually led to issues with alcohol, how everything came to a head for her at age 25 and then how she was introduced to a 12-step program paving the way for her recovery.Arlina has been clean and sober for 23 years and in her own journey, she was able to see the patterns that were holding her back. Along the way she’s discovered she wasn’t a victim and did indeed have the power to make the decisions that were best for her. Arlina now helps others as a host of her own podcast, The ODAAT Chat, and in this talk she reveals how she’s now able to pay it forward to help others battling addiction.Like the other episodes in this series, even if you’re not struggling with addiction or in recovery, you probably know someone who is. That’s what these stories are for; it’s about shining the light on addiction and recovery and telling our stories. You’ll find out why quitting drinking is just a small part of the equation though, and that sobriety and recovery are two very different things.http://yourkickasslife.com/190  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

As always, I’m very excited about today’s guest, partly because she’s awesome and partly because we’re talking about a topic I wrote about in my book-- a topic Tanya Geisler is an expert on! Tanya has dedicated her life to helping women conquer the imposter complex, (we went into even more detail on the topic when Tanya previously appeared on the podcast). In this most recent episode we also look at everything from leadership to fear of success to cultural messaging. When reaching a certain level of success people feel they are going to be alone, that there will be a disconnect between themselves and others, but it really doesn’t have to be this way and Tanya will help show us how.http://yourkickasslife.com/189  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you’re a new podcast listener, you’ve found another recovery episode, where I have amazing conversations with women in recovery. Today’s guest is no exception! Tiffany Han is a writer, speaker, teacher and coach (as well as a fellow podcast host), and she has an interesting story of recovery. You’ll see that not all problems are problems with a capital “P”, and listen to how Tiffany knew she needed to make changes before her drinking became a big problem.It’s not just about quitting drinking, because you have to deal with your “shit” along with it. Sobriety and recovery are two very different things, and you are always learning about yourself.http://yourkickasslife.com/188  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This is a topic I talk at length about in my book, How To Stop Feeling Like Shit: 14 Habits That Are Holding You Back From Happiness. Most people struggle with having hard conversations, as well as setting boundaries. These can be some hard lessons! Enjoy...Let’s talk about something that doesn’t always kick ass: Tough, awkward conversations.And I’ll start with a truth: most of us don’t have enough of them. I was just talking to a friend recently who had just moved in with her cousin and was feeling like she had no say in the space. That her cousin/roommate was messy and had her stuff everywhere. So my friend was upset and complaining at length about it.And I asked, “So what do you plan on doing about it?” And my friend laughed and said she planned on doing nothing. Basically, just continue to complain about it. That having the conversation would be awkward and uncomfortable.And I wonder– how many of us do this every damn day? How many of us avoid awkward conversations so often that it’s affecting our lives way more negatively that we even know?You may think I’m nuts- but I think it’s all of us.I’ll bet you reading this can think of at least one awkward conversation you need to have. Your mom does ____, it bugs the shit out you and you wish she’d stop. Your partner keeps joking with you about ____ and you actually don’t think it’s funny, it hurts your feelings. Your boss is ______ and you really wish she wouldn’t do that. Your best friend is always late and you need to ask her to try harder to be prompt to respect your time.Almost every single one of my private clients over the last 8 years has had some kind of conversation that’s needed to take place that they’re avoiding. Why? Because it’s uncomfortable. Because they aren’t sure what the outcome will be. What if they other person gets mad? Says no? Gets their feelings hurt? Breaks up with them? Or (insert whatever worst-case scenario you can think of).Now I’m not going to sit here with my pom-poms cheering you on and just telling you to go out and do it. If that’s all you needed you would have done it by now. What you need are some hard truths and a plan:Read the rest of the article HEREhttp://www.yourkickasslife.com/187  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices