Plenty with Kate Northrup 123: Healing Worthiness: Christine Gutierrez on Addiction, Power & Pleasure as Medicine
Have you ever felt like you have to earn your worth—whether by over-functioning or staying stuck in struggle?
In this week's Plenty episode, I sit down with psychotherapist, mentor, and author Christine Gutierrez to explore healing worthiness through sobriety, power, and pleasure as medicine. We dive into why so many of us confuse toxic capitalism with true abundance, how to let old identities "die" so new ones can be born, and the practical, compassionate steps to reclaim your inherent worth—no proving required.
What you'll learn:
- Worthiness first, money second: How rooting in inherent worth transforms your relationship with money and expands real abundance (without the hustle-and-prove loop)
- Sobriety—many paths, same heartbeat: Christine shares a non-dogmatic approach to changing your relationship with alcohol and choosing self-tenderness over self-punishment
- Masks that drain us: Recognizing people-pleasing, "good girl" conditioning, and hyper-independence—and how to gently retire these exhausting patterns
- The "life-death-life" cycle: Why true thriving includes endings, mess, and rebirth—and how to meet transitions with both grit and honey
- Pleasure as spiritual pathway: Rewriting inherited scripts that glorify suffering and renounce the body to reclaim joy as sacred
- Receiving with dignity: Especially for women of color, claiming fair compensation as part of collective healing—not a betrayal of your values
This conversation will leave you with permission to stop performing your worth and start living from it.
About Christine
Christine is the author of I Am Worthy and I Am Diosa, a psychotherapist and facilitator whose work blends trauma healing, spirituality, and practical tools for women’s empowerment.
“We cannot be in our soul led place on a bed of lies, we just can’t.” –Christine Gutierrez
🎤 Let’s Dive into the Good Stuff 🎤
00:25 Guest Introduction: Christine Gutierrez
02:20 Exploring Worthiness in Money Work
05:08 Spirituality vs. Mundane Life
09:37 Paths to Sobriety and Healing
13:33 Masks of Over-Functioning Women
19:02 Deserving More: Beyond Mediocrity
26:45 Patterns of Worthiness and Struggle
33:39 Undoing Lies of Unworthiness
36:22 The Role of Compassion in Advocacy
40:00 Relationship with Money and Worthiness
44:11 Empowerment through Financial Growth
45:34 The Game of Worthiness
Links and Resources:
I am Diosa
Terri Cole
Clarissa Pinkola Estes
Nisha
Connect with Christine Gutierrez:
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