Make Some Noise with Andrea Owen

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

Welcome back for the fourth episode in this recovery series (in addition to the 10 recovery episodes we aired last year)! My guest today is writer, life & recovery coach and speaker Sasha Tozzi.Love addiction was a big realization to Sasha after she got sober and today she makes a conscious decision not to put people above her sitting on a pedestal. She also shares that learning how to trust herself and others again was a challenge for her (and so much more).It’s important to understand that the addictions we are talking about today are isolating addictions, and it is important to have support as we go forward.http://yourkickasslife.com/186  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

For this episode I’m bringing back a repeat guest: the amazing Lori Harder! The first time Lori was here I really connected with her, and I felt like we had some unfinished conversation, which is why I’m so excited to do this today. Lori uses the approach of mixing and matching both fitness and personal development, and she shares how failure and negativity will undoubtedly be a big part of your growth (and success). You’ll hear how we all have personal fears that we’re working through, but it’s in his fear that opportunities can be revealed. Surrounding yourself with the like-minded people is key, and can you give the fresh perspective that you need.http://yourkickasslife.com/185  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices