Make Some Noise with Andrea Owen

Latest Episodes:

Episode 200: My deepest, darkest fears. Feb 05, 2018

Show notes

Today starts a new thing over here-- daily emails and podcast episodes (weekdays only) I’m calling them the DAILY DIARIES! I’ve kept them short, sweet, to the point, with lots of content to hopefully help you! Enjoy...

It all started with a damn upper limit problem.

Let me backup. If it’s one thing we all want-- it’s to be seen and heard. We want those loving connections with the people who matter to us. To know our struggles, our stories, and our celebrations matter. To know that we matter.

And for some of us, our path includes being seen and heard by lots and lots of people.

In 2013 my first book came out and I was catapulted into the spotlight. I’m not talking Beyoncé type spotlight, but a spotlight nonetheless in my industry. No one can really prepare you for this and it was one of the most exciting and terrifying things that had ever happened to me. More people watching, judging, criticizing and loving me (which can also be scary). Over the last few years I’ve been unpacking this and getting curious about why this scares me, what it stops me from doing, and how to move past it.

Fast forward to 2017. I knew my second book was coming out and I was more prepared for the epic explosion that was about to take place (that’s dramatic, but that’s what it felt like). I also knew I wanted to talk more about this to my YKAL community (you!) because I know most of us deal with this on some level.

The fear of shining too bright.

The fear of shining at all.

The fear of not shining at all.

The fear of getting it wrong.

The fear of what people expect of us.

The fear that we can’t measure up to what we expect of ourselves.

The fear of failure.

The fear of success.

The fear of moving too far forward in our lives and leaving people behind.

The fear of what people will think.

Basically, the fear of raising hell in our lives, causing any attention to ourselves that might cause us to not have it all under control.

So, going back to the “upper limit problem” that I mentioned before. You might be wondering, what is an upper limit problem?

The “ULP” term comes from the book The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks and in a nutshell, the theory is this: We all have a certain set point of success, happiness, health, and love. How much of it we can take. A “comfort zone” of all those things. When we get more, say a promotion, a new amazing relationship, a fantastic opportunity, finally lose that extra 15 pounds we’ve been carrying around, we get extremely uncomfortable for having it and therefore sabotage it. I wrote a whole chapter on self-sabotage in my last book so you probably are familiar with it.

When I write books I can’t control whether people like my writing or not. I can’t control whether they like me or not. I can’t control that I’ll always get it right. I also can’t control if the books will sell or not, which not only affects my emotional state, but my livelihood and my future.

So, it might be easier and safer to stay under the radar, not do too much to cause too much attention. Hide. Be quiet. Do things like not write books.

As 2018 approached and How To Stop Feeling Like Shit was about to be born, I knew this was a topic I couldn’t avoid with all of you. So, I set out to untangle it, rectify it as best I could, and help all of you in the process.

Over the course of the next few weeks, I’ll be walking you through that journey, as well as talking about other topics that happened to pop up along the way. Tomorrow’s episode I’ll be telling a story of a meeting I was a part of in October, which made me feel like a failure, not enough, and incompetent. I’ll tell you how I got through it, the tools I used, and what ended up happening.

Stick around for Friday’s episode where this all comes together and there’s an assignment for you.

http://yourkickasslife.com/200

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Episode 199: Taking Small Steps To Become Unstuck with Erin Stutland Jan 31, 2018

Show notes

For the month of February, I will be producing daily podcast episodes. You read that correctly ass-kickers - daily episodes are coming! The episodes will be shorter than the typical podcast format you are used to hearing. Emails with short lessons will accompany them. If you want to be notified each time a daily episode is released in the month of February, sign up here. Okay, now let’s jump into this week’s episode!

I am so excited because my friend, Erin Stutland, joins me on the podcast this week. Erin and I have known each other online “for-eva”! She is a mind, body, wellness and fitness expert and the host and coach of the new weight-loss transformation television show Altar’d on Z Living. We talked about getting unstuck, over-analyzing, how to stop being comfortable with feeling crappy, self-care practices and more.

In this episode you’ll hear:

Erin provide tips to help get unstuck, shift your perspective and become motivated (4 minutes and 10 seconds)
The “morning pages” concept, what it is and how to use it (6:13)
Biggest obstacles that prevent you from making your exercise routine a reality, plus advice for how to move past these challenges (11:18)
How to be more loving and kind to yourself (and what Peanut M&Ms has to do with it) (13:47)
The starting and stopping pattern with exercise routines (15:56)
Erin’s Soul Stroll Program, how to make the most of your daily walks by rewiring your thoughts (22:34)
Recommendations and tools to help quiet your inner critic and how acknowledging all parts of oneself will help with the process (27:49)

http://www.yourkickasslife.com/199

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Episode 198: Recovery Series Season Finale With Andrea Owen Jan 30, 2018

Show notes

This week, I am rounding out the recovery series with one final episode. I have been so blessed to have nine amazing conversations with women in recovery. You can catch up on all of the episodes here.

In this episode, I read two blog posts I wrote on the 2nd and 3rd anniversaries of my sobriety. Plus, I include some new insights along the way.

From my 2 year sober anniversary on September 27th, 2013.

I want to start this post by telling a story that is really hard for me to tell– and I tell it in hopes that it helps someone else.

In May of 2011 I made my first attempt at sobriety. I made until September 26th of that year. I was active in my recovery, but in hindsight, a few things happened that were slowly chipping away at me. I kept hearing the voice that “I wasn’t that bad”…that I wasn’t like “those people”. Those alcoholics that told their stories, that had been arrested, had DUI’s, etc. The voice whispered that since that wasn’t me, surely I could moderate and drink like a normal person.

On September 26th, 2011 I got into an argument with my husband. We don’t argue often, so when we do, I can tend to slip quickly into this-is-it-it’s-over-he’s-going-to-leave-me land. It’s one of those really vulnerable places for me where I feel I’ve lost control over a situation– a situation that is very important to me.

In that late afternoon, he left the house to go for a drive. I sat at home alone and desperately wanted to drink. I called a friend in recovery. She talked me through it. I sat again alone in my glass case of emotions. I didn’t want to drink because I didn’t want to break my sobriety and have to start over. Plus the shame of relapse was too much to bear. But, I remembered hearing that if you drank enough NyQuil, you could get a buzz. And since it’s not technically “drinking”, it’s like a loophole, right?

10 seconds later I was in the bathroom chugging a bottle of cherry NyQuil.

A few minutes later the buzz hadn’t reached me yet. I then remembered hearing that Vanilla Extract could do the same thing. I went to the pantry and took a drink of putrid tasting Vanilla Extract. I looked closely at the bottle to see that not only had murky sediment gathered all along the bottom, but it had expired in 2005.

And to think I was trying to convince myself that I wasn’t an alcoholic.

As I type this, I’m embarrassed to admit this. But, now I understand just how cunning, baffling, and powerful alcohol is to an alcoholic. I didn’t think clearly and rationally at that time. I remember thinking, “Okay, I’m an educated person. I’ve done YEARS of my own personal development. I’m in the helping profession for pete’s sake”. And the reality is that none of that matters at all if you are truly an alcoholic. You don’t get extra credit for that. I don’t care how smart you are. We can’t think our way out of it.

I truly believe I needed that short relapse to prove to myself that I truly am an alcoholic. If the whisper ever comes back that I’m not that bad and maybe not a “real” alcoholic, I think back to my Vanilla haze (as my friend Courtney so lovingly puts it) and I’m back to reality.

And if I’m being really honest, I don’t want to drink like a normal person. I don’t want just one glass of wine. I want at least three. In a big ass glass. And if there’s white and red, I just can’t decide, so I’ll have a few of each.

This is insanity.

I tell my story not for the pats on the back or congratulations, but to show others that even people like me are alcoholics and that there is hope in recovery. I tried to quit by myself back in 2011. I strung together 6 miserable days. It wasn’t until I reached out for help and started a recovery program was I able to not just stop drinking, but stop obsessing on alcohol and being able to feel my feelings without resorting to drinking.

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Episode 197: What Does Raising Hell Actually Look Like? Jan 24, 2018

Show notes

You may have followed my work for a bit now and know that I talk about courage and confidence. And maybe you think “Well, I get it, and this whole ‘courage and confidence’ thing sounds good in theory, but how will my life be different if I learn to be courageous and confident and will it even work for me!?”

Let me tell you what I was like in my 20’s. I was actually a really happy girl. I had great friends, a family that loved me, worked at good jobs, and was in a long-term relationship. Outside, everything seemed great and on a surface level I was happy.

But, underneath I was struggling. I was unfulfilled with my life. In my relationship there was no trust and no real connection, and my friendships were good, but nothing deep and intimate. I struggled fiercely with perfectionism, comparison, and control. I NEEDED to control. I thought if everyone would just act like I thought they should act, my life would be so much better.

When shit hit the fan for me in 2006, I isolated to the point of not checking my email for weeks. I screened all my calls, and barely even talked to my parents. I hardly saw my friends and once had lunch with one of my long-term friends and she said to me, “Well, with the divorce statistics, it was bound to happen to one of us.” That’s not to blame my friend...none of us knew what to say to each other. None of us knew how to truly connect. I was lonely when I was alone, and I was lonely when I was around people.

During that time of struggle I made decisions that 100 percent went against my values as a human being. I said yes to men when I really didn’t want to. Just because I thought I should or to try for one shred of connection. I would meet new people and either unload my whole story (what Brené Brown calls trying to “hotwire a connection”) or completely shut people out. What I came to realize was that once I hit adulthood, my soul became unconscious.

Fast forward to now.

Anyone that knows me well will tell you I’ve always been an assertive person. I’m an Aries, ENFJ, Type 8 on the Enneagram. But, all this personality stuff does not automatically mean that I was born with courage. I had to learn it, and still do every day. What it looks like in my life is this:

Reaching out to the right people when I need help
Making peace with the fact that most things are messy and imperfect
Standing up for what I believe in— such as giving an opinion
Setting healthy boundaries and saying no even though it’s not easy
Letting go of control and trusting myself and my faith enough to know that I can handle anything

These are just a few things of what practicing courage looks like. All of the things above still sometimes make me really uncomfortable and/or are scary. I’ve accepted that and it’s necessary.

And that’s what I want for you. You can choose to be like I was— happy on the surface with an unconscious soul— or you can choose to make the decision to wake up your soul, step into an uncomfortable life that is full of imperfections, messiness, and uncertainty. But, I promise you, my dears, that this same life will be full of truth, grace, and insurmountable beauty.

http://yourkickasslife.com/197

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Episode 196: Interview with Amy Pearson Jan 23, 2018

Show notes

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

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Episode 195: 6 Ways Roller Derby Can Teach You About Life Jan 17, 2018

Show notes

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 HERE

http://www.yourkickasslife.com/195

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Episode 194: Interview with Lara Frazier Jan 16, 2018

Show notes

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

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Episode 193: High functioning codependency: What is it and how to heal with Terri Cole Jan 10, 2018

Show notes

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.

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Episode 192: Interview with Carly Benson Jan 09, 2018

Show notes

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

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Episode 191: The Key To Confidence Jan 03, 2018

Show notes

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’).

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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

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