Welcome to the first episode of the whole enchilada. I'm hungry already.

I haven't had breakfast. Let's go for it. Were talking about our recovery journeys, and I was mid bite, and I said, Heather, we need to do a podcast, and you went, you're and this is how it started. Because of our own journey through sobriety, and healing our hearts and wounds that we have, needed to heal first recognize and then accept and then heal, walking through our lives, happy and whole. Our tagline is rising stronger on the journey to wholeness and healing. And that's where we started and we wanted to begin this process knowing we had to. We needed help with stopping our addiction and from there, that was the foundation that we built on. So what do you think? I love that. the Truth is, being on the recovery journey is a long journey and there's a lot of things that get revealed and pop up along the way and it doesn't just end with when we stop the addiction. There's just a lot more work that needs to be done. Basically wanting that, like you just mentioned that felt sense of wholeness. And, and so how do we do that? And how do we keep it being inspired and keep waking up every day, really grateful that we're no longer in the frequency of addiction, using those words, but How do we keep that joy and that freedom and, happiness going. We have to keep on going, we have to keep on learning new things. And I think that's what we were talking about, that it just doesn't end here. We gotta keep growing. We gotta keep, getting better! There's two things that are going on. We're learning how to slowly peel away and open up and get, like the metaphor of the onion that we talk about a lot, in recovery that peeling of the layers, but the enchilada is like this whole idea of how do we encase ourselves around, all these ingredients and what ingredients are we going to put inside of this enchilada and really embark on this, wonderful journey of sober living and, like I just said earlier, we want to become better and not bitter. Think about how do we want to, embark? How do we want to, walk in life as these sober people? And how do we do that? And really feel this, that we have the whole, we have the whole enchilada, we have the whole thing. Like a whole and healed human. And that was the whole reason, we started this journey. I know when I didn't feel whole and healed. I needed to get help, and that help led me on this path of recovery that has brought me to my life today.

What's really changed is what happens to me internally. How I talk to myself, how I feel about myself and how I love myself today. When I was using, it, I was out there. I was in pain. And I wanted to use these substances to ease that pain. And it stopped working and it became destructive. And I knew unless I. I'm willing to get help from others and from others that have walked this journey and from what I call my higher power. I was not going to be around much longer, one way or the other. And that is when I made the decision with some grace to start this recovery journey. You and I have been sober for a while. And I realized with some time in that I am so glad I have this foundation and yet I still feel this, I don't know if it's emptiness? Something was missing, I needed to find something within myself because I knew that something was already there. I just needed to recover it and remove the layers that had been placed on me since. I started this journey of not liking myself much, not liking other people very much, not trusting. And these are all layers that sort of cover who we really are. And that's what recovery is all about, bringing that sense of authenticity and wholeness to the surface. So we can be of the most service to ourselves and to love others I couldn't love you until I learned how to love myself because I didn't have it to give. And that was what the whole enchilada was about. I love recovery and I love being sober today and I love the depth and the color that this journey has brought. To my life we have a similar journey, and we can relate to pain, and we can hold that pain for ourselves, for others, and show others, without having to fix them, that there is a way to get through this. And it involves work, it involves self discovery and recovery, and what ends up happening is you really learn to love yourself. And that is such an easier, softer way through life. 1 of the hardest things, when I began this journey, was to ask for help and, having been, someone who was very much a high achiever. I really worked very hard on not asking help for help ever, because I think early on, you mentioned it too, there was a lot, there was a broken trust with humans, early on as children, and so my thinking, that came out of that was like, I can do this. I've got this. I can do this on my own, but the energy of addiction was more powerful, more cunning, as they say, and baffling than anything I'd ever encountered. And let me tell you what, I gave it my best shot to try to. Out think it outrun it. I studied every self help book that was on the market. I went and got a master's in psychology. So I could be my own therapist. I, really worked hard to try to master this. This idea of asking for help is vital. And I finally was brought to my breaking point and it wasn't any one episode, it was multiple episodes. Over and over again, there was this insanity when I drank, I got in trouble and I woke up the next day. Always with shame, guilt, and remorse. And that's how I live my life in this constant shame, guilt, and remorse cycle of my life. And when I finally asked for help. That's when things started to change and that took a lot to do that, but, but coming back to what you're saying, and I think it's really important to pop this out. I think in the beginning I was always, I was asking for help, but I was asking for help because I was blaming everybody for what was wrong with me. It wasn't the part of this, it was because of you that I was drinking over you. I was eating over you. I was smoking over you. And this idea that, that I had to really begin to cultivate this loving relationship with myself. That took time. That took years. Wouldn't you say? Years. And to this day, several decades later, I still have to like, take moments and go and talk to myself and say, you're okay here. You got this, and so it's, it is something like you, the last one, last thing you said is that it is something that. It really requires a daily reprieve. Every day I have to wake up, feel my feet on the floor, breathe, get in myself in the present moment, and then do this self care, and we'll be talking about that in later episodes, but take care of myself throughout the day. And there's many different ways that we will be looking at this. But for today, I can say, even though it feels a little uncomfortable sometimes, I really Love myself. One of the things, the first things that was told to me by a wise person, you have to stop taking yourself so seriously. This is one of the things that's going to have to shift. And I really listened to those words. I don't think I got it back at that time, but now I get it. And I laugh at myself a lot. And I think that's why I like myself because I laugh at myself. I'm not so hard on myself. I got Oh my gosh, you're eating lollipops again. Really? Yeah. We learn new coping mechanisms and, I realized it's more than just not picking up, it had to start there because then once that happens, all bets are off. As long as, on a day to day basis, one day at a time, I don't revert back to those unhealthy and destructive coping mechanisms with life. Life is so daily And life doesn't change. We change and What ends up happening, especially in relationships is. We're like, a relationship is just better, and it's better because we changed and our expectations changed and our level of compassion and grace and empathy deepened. And that was not something that came to me naturally. It just didn't. I was very self absorbed, very self centered, and I used my relationships as a barter arrangement. If I do this for you, you're going to do that for me. Thank you. And that led to a lot of loneliness, and emptiness. And that further triggered my addiction, because I didn't want to feel that. So today, I can feel things and they're not always comfortable. And, but I can feel them today. And not only can I feel them, I can tell you, this is what's going on with me. I'm in the weeds, I'm not feeling great today. I'm feeling whatever, sad, lonely, and I can also share with you when things are going very well. I'm really happy to be alive today. I do believe that's what, We're here to do to fully Know ourselves and express ourselves and love this time. We have on this planet and learn to love each other. I love all that you shared so far and I think in the beginning, because there was such a disconnect with myself I was going to get help, from the professionals and from, other groups healing. And what I was able to get was this connection with others. And when I, as that time, as time went on, that connection, I was able to start to get with myself. And I was able to articulate, maybe not in the beginning, that there was something greater than me. I didn't know what that looked like. I didn't know how that was going to show up, but I knew that people were down the road that were more sober, were wise, and I was getting information from them, and I was just learning how to have a sense of self because I don't think I had a sense of self when I first came Into recovery. I didn't know who I was. I feel like I was a chameleon lots of times I'll be who you want me to be what my parents wanted me to be. So here was this opportunity now to remove this strategy of 25 years of drinking that was killing me. I was able to now go embrace this concept, which I think has taken many years to really understand this concept, but it was life changing is this idea that Life was not happening to me that it was happening for me and that shifted a lot because I was like, why is this happening to me? Why me? Poor me, poor me another drink, and so this idea of really shifting into Oh, why not me? I remember one of the most wisest person said to me, why not you? And so this connection, of being able to share and pick up the phone and call people and share. I'm hurting. I'm struggling. I'm in pain. I'm, I, every time I wanted to isolate and move away from people, it was just drummed into me. You got to reach out. You got to connect. You got, you can't, that isolation, that loneliness is going to, it's going to take you back out. So I'm so grateful for the friendships that I have cultivated in these last many years, because that's what's sustaining me. And it's also helped me to be able to feel this connection to those. There is something greater than me that has been guiding my life that has my life. There's the details are all being, created to help me become the best version of myself instead of being that bitter self that could just, take in the situation and become bitter. How can I become better? How can I look at this with a different lens? And that is what happens when you start to connect with humans and you start to have conversations to help you shift your perspective on things to shift out of fear and to love. And I will say that I believe it is our birth. Is our fundamental birth to be happy to be free to be calm, but these aren't things that we were taught. There was no class in school that taught me how to be calm. There was no, there was nothing going on. There was no subjects that I, that talked about how do you be peaceful in life? What can you do to help yourself when you're feeling uncomfortable? And what I love is we are evolving as a species because today more and more of this, of these kind of classes are happening in schools. We have more, treatment programs for teens that are helping us to get that connection earlier on. I liked what you said earlier, too, about fear and shifting from fear into love, Because I heard somewhere, I don't know if it was Marianne Williamson, and she was quoting from A Course in Miracles. Yes. We have basically two emotions, fear or love. And that's how I walked through life, very fearful. And when you're that afraid, You take a lot of things personally and you, don't trust. And there are a lot of things that stem from that fear. And my fear was dysfunctional, because I had all these narratives running through my head. I had all these stories about what you were thinking about me, what you were doing to me. And it affected how I thought of myself and those narratives really drove a lot of relationships away because I was having this conversation about you and it all came from fear. So love is the easier, softer way. And can I say honestly that I'm there 100 percent of the time? No, but I am a woman who has been in recovery and has wanted to feel and love and live a fuller life and not just skate along the margins of life, but really be in life. And that's what this journey has meant to me and you, I know, because we've known each other a long time, and what we want to bring to those that share this journey with us, and, for upcoming episodes. Along this line of thinking, we will be talking about finding a purpose after recovery,? What are we supposed to be, what are we here for? What are we supposed to be doing? Other than this journey to self love and loving others, it's how do I make this manifest in the world? And then building healthy relationships. And how do we do that? And even how are we transitioning in our professional lives and our careers? And how has that affected our recovery? How has our recovery and our healing affected the choice of work we're doing today? Or maybe bringing a whole new attitude to our work,? And wellness and self care and mindfulness and how meditation has made such a difference in terms of our sense of presence and connection. And even how we manage our finances, and not being so afraid of economic insecurity. So early on in my early days, I would say the first couple of years of not drinking and giving up my strategy that I use to cope with being happy sad. Anything. It was, that's what I used to live, for many years. I, when I remove that, I was left with a body and a breath that was, that's probably was the body and breath that, that was a 15 years old when I first started my drinking career. And so that 15 year old teen in me had a lot of anxiety, was, very perfectionistic. I could hardly sleep. I had so this is you remove the strategy and now I'm left with. Who I was at 15 years old. And because I was back to that state of this regulation, I remember many people in the meetings would say to me, things like, what, you really need to, maybe go to yoga or something because, I was so wired, I'd be talking a mile a minute, and I was just, and so I did that and I went with a, a mind that was not really accepting of going into a yoga class because I thought, what are those Yogi's going to be doing? They're going to be sitting there, the weenie little. Positions just, and I'm gonna have to sit down and, and so I remember running around the building twice before I went in to take the 1st yoga class. And, and so I remember sitting down just okay, here I am. What am I going to get from this? But the interesting thing is what I did get from it and what began, and I try to keep a curious. That was something that was cued to me, go in with curiosity. And I think when you're given suggestions, because I'm so addicted to my own way of doing things, that was something I had to shift. I had to shift and be open minded. And we talk about that being open minded. And so being in this, being in that yoga class, I tried to have this. Be open minded and okay, let's see what happens. But I do remember at the end of this class, I remember, when they had us in, they almost had you lie down or sit or whatever, which way is comfortable for you. And you have these moments of silence with yourself. I realized in those moments that I was always a human doing, I never had been a human, just being, and in those moments, And I'll never forget it. And it actually brings some tears to my eyes in this moment, because I had, I felt like I had met a part of me that had been veiled over by all the struggles of life. The part of me that had never been really hurt or touched or damaged or broken because I walked around with this idea that I was damaged and broken beyond repair. And here in those moments, I had that feeling of calmness and peace that I had not ever felt before. And no drug, no, nothing had ever created that feeling in me in that moment. And so I wanted more. And so because of that, I began to explore that path, the philosophy, I, the more I learned about it, the more I got into it, the more the philosophy I got into it. And then I began to be a student. a practitioner, but what ended up starting to happen in this journey is I began to be in certain classes that were not peaceful and then I walked away feeling maybe more anxious and more angry and so I began to like question like Because yoga was this name and there was many brands and this is the thing that I teach about is if you're going to even bring this as part of your tools to your tool bag, got to understand that there is, there are practices in yoga that can be dysregulating and harmful, especially if you already have a very high arousal system or even a low arousal system. So anyway, I, back in, I think it was about 10 years ago, there was This training that I saw that said trauma sensitive yoga. And I was like, Oh, sensitive yoga. What is that about? So I thought I got to go there. It was like, it just was like, I gotta go. I gotta find out more about this. And it was up in Massachusetts at a place called Kripala. And I flew there 85 people around the whole world went there. We were all there to try to figure out what is this about. And what I learned is that we have to, the yoga domain needs to be a safe space, a safe haven. Where we can go and really sit. And the uncomfortableness of our emotions, but learn how to regulate them in, in, in ways that are, I guess the word, is, I just want to bring that back up. I guess the word again is in a safe way, safe. Safe yoga, I guess I'll call it. So once I started to study it and learn, oh my gosh, I became so protective of the yoga domain and I wanted to bring this to people in recovery. And that's been my mission and my journey because it's helped me so much. I know you work with people that have had trauma in their lives and trying to heal from that. So as I work with clients and my own self, is that there's a theme that comes up over and over again. And I, and what it is that we have, we all, I haven't found one person yet, even though they can say they don't remember, but it will come out eventually that we all had pretty tough, pretty stressful, childhoods. And there is this. There's this word out there, it's called complex post traumatic stress disorder. I like to term it complex post traumatic stress injuries, childhood post traumatic stress injuries. So it's complex because it's from. Relationships PTSD is a word that came out in the 80s early. It actually got it got in put into the diagnostic statistical manual of the psychotherapy manuals in 1980. And it was always used to be a diagnostic tool for people that were in wars. It's came out. There's a whole, it's this is. This is when we first started to give it this word. It used to be called combat syndrome. It used to be called all different things along the way, but that's when we started to look at it and fund it. But what started to happen is that, that the psychotherapist who finally got this diagnostic tool started to see that it wasn't just applicable to military people. It was being applicable to people, to women and children of domestic violence. And so we started to see this, these injuries. And so fast forward now to 2024 childhood PTSD. And that's what I started to see. And so what I'm seeing a lot of is in clients. So they're coming in with this untreated part of their ways of coping. And so a lot of people who've eliminated, who've stopped with their addiction strategy, are now left with this, these injuries that changed the way we developed. We're now, there's so much studies now that when we, when you have that kind of stress as a child, it changes the way the neural platforms form. It changes the way our brains, deal with stress, our nervous system still stress so that we are very wired. In a way that we are almost like, we don't know how to self soothe. So we're always going to externally reach for things. And it's our go to button every time now, 20, 22 years later here when I'm really stressed out, I am wired. That's why I was joking about the lollipops, but I am wired to go to the external to fix the internal. Cause, that's my button. And so what I'm teaching people to do, how do you pause? How do you press the pause button and get yourself back to that wise recovery person, take the breath in so that you don't go towards things to make yourself feel better. And let me tell you what, all of us are doing it. All humans are doing this and it can look like this. Five hours of binge watching Netflix. There are ways that we want to not feel and step away from it. So that's a common theme I see and Gabor Maté, who's a great, psychiatrist and written many books on this. He will say, and it's, that trauma is the root cause of all addictions. And I'm just quoting him and I'm just going to put it out there, but that would be, I would say a hundred percent of every client I work with. That is. It's the core root issue and it, and the fact that it was introduced so early on in our baby little child bodies, it is something that we are going to live with and learn how to befriend the rest of our life. And I love what you just said about learning to befriend it rather than making this part of ourselves at the enemy. Because that's what I felt like I was in conflict with myself because of my own trauma and my own dysregulation. I was like, why do I feel so? And it became such a, natural state for me being dysregulated, like just on high alert all the time, because that is what I learned growing up. I needed to be on high alert to take care of myself. And at the time, it was the perfect coping strategy. For a five year old. It not so much as a 60 plus year old, and I learned to, and I had to learn this through recovery and through my own therapy and through my own journey, that there are parts of me that are there to protect me. And that's how I learned these parts of myself and befriend them and talk to them and say what is it you're trying to teach me now, if it's a critical parent, or a teenager, and it's all about protecting ourselves. And that is part of our, the journey that the rising stronger to wholeness and healing is really about getting back to those parts and understanding them and knowing, of course, we did what we did. We didn't know how to do it any other way. And the recovery piece for me has helped me to connect so many dots, and it made, it makes sense of behaviors that I was like, why do I keep doing this? Why do I keep picking the same people? And why am I attracted to those that really aren't willing to express themselves? emotional. It was because I was emotionally unavailable and because it was a safer place to be. And so that's, again, that, that's part of this journey on this podcast is really looking at that, how it's affected our lives. And how, we can heal it or that we have healed it and how it has helped us live our lives, sober and free and at peace. That's what I used to drink after. I didn't want to feel that pain that came from my own trauma. And I thankfully made the choice to go in a different direction. Because I did have a choice. It was a Y in the road and I chose to get some help. And I'm so glad that we both did. And I love the work that you do in the world. It's your ministry. Truly is. And perhaps you can share more about that as we, as this podcast evolves. I think it's something that I think many could relate to as far as this type of journey and healing. And you, and I get, and coming back to This idea, this befriending, this part of ourselves, so much of the journey has been this self compassion. And I, and I think what I love and like you skirted around this a little bit, but. I want to come back to connection, this connection to ourselves, where we start to have self compassion for ourselves really needed to begin when we did get help. And when we did go into group support groups, because we needed to have the support of people in our lives that we were able to really talk kindly to ourselves and have this really kind, resonant self talk where we were, where I now say to myself, Of course, you're overwhelmed now, Heather, any person in your position now would be overwhelmed. It's okay. But also to be able to reach out to you, Peg, and say, Peg, and I'm coming back to this because it's so vital. We need each other. This is not an island thing. We need to be connected to each other. And that is another reason why we're talking on this podcast because we want to be. To bring that connection and also bring this awareness that one of the most important things that, that I had to do, not only did I let go of this strategy of addiction, but I also needed to surround myself with wise people with, I need to pick my friends wisely. I think this has been one of the hardest things and some of the saddest things is having to let go of like a 30 year relationship that I had with a friend who. Who was drinking, who would drink in front of me, who would say things like, too bad you can't drink anymore. Why would I want to keep somebody like that in my life? But I did, because I thought, I've known this person for so long. Sometimes we have to let go and let those people, because I can't be with people who are not trying to work on being the best version of themselves. Exactly. And this is really important and it took time. And, and so this is also part of, the healing process because by having these mirrored people mirroring me, I was able to see myself, I was able to look in the mirror and go, I'm going to like you. I remember the beginning, I'd say, I'm going to learn to like you today. I'm going to learn to, I'm going to look in my eyes and I'm going to learn to like you today. And we both started to say that we can actually say that we actually love ourselves today, which is huge when we've spent many years, In having bad behavior, that's how it was. I was just so I had my own rules. I live by my own laws. I can't believe, in situations where police were involved. I was defiant to the police officer who does that now. I walk around and I'll tell you a quick story. I actually was able to bring, a trauma informed yoga experience to probation officers at the court. I was at the courthouse. I was able to, I was there and I was speaking with them. And I said, I started my talk by saying, I want to thank you because the first probation officer I had when I was 21 years old. She's told me I had to go to meetings, and I needed to send a postcard about each meeting. I went to and what I, what was the golden nugget that I walked away with now? Now, back then I was 21 and I was so full of myself. And I said to myself, my drinking hadn't even begun. This is I'm too young to be having a problem. I just messed up that I. That I drove with a 24 blackout and hit somebody at a stoplight. I was just too young to have a problem. That was just a spooky thing, but I remember saying to these probation officers, Thank you so much, because she planted a seed. And I said to them, you never know what kind of seed you're going to plant. When you work with people like us. So anyway, we hope to plant seeds to all of you and we hope that we become better and not bitter and we hope that you will want the whole enchilada and it takes a lot of work, but it can be fun and it can be joyful and yes, it's hard and it's difficult, but, as I've heard said, we can do hard things in the world. We can. Absolutely. This is our mission. Connection with each other. Yes. That's vital. And that is our wish for you that you are willing to keep growing and becoming the best version of you. And we look forward to our next episode We love you. And we'll see you soon.