Have you ever looked in the mirror and been disappointed with who’s looking back, or even worse, horrified by who you’ve become? After awakening in his bathtub, practically dead and not sure how to face another day, Jesse decided he didn’t want to die - he wanted to live differently. From that moment on, he decided to figure out how to do just that, live differently - and to become the person who utilizes his potential instead of continuously squandering it. In 2017, after two decades of bat ...
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I find Everything Interesting. This is show is a reflection of that. I have since left it in hiatus but it exists here so enjoy!
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College Success Habits is for those preparing for, in, or coming out of college who know there is more to school than what is taught in class. Learn successful habits, better productivity, and develop the growth mindset you'll need to achieve your "meant to be" in life. Discover mind hacks that can get you through college and life easier and more effectively at any age. If learning is a life long endeavor then College Success Habits is for you.
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Meet your hosts Shafondra Matthews + Glenn Dougherty Jr. These college sweethearts take you inside their 20-year journey...Married, Divorced, now Back Together again! Hear the break down of how they overcame personal struggles to navigate Life, Love + Everything in between. Listen for your dose of Inspiration + Personal Growth mixed with Wild Stories + Shenanigans. Join them for candid conversations...About This Life!
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Positivity is a learned behavior: The Power of Positivity - Release and Flow
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Ep #299: Positivity. We all have a different relationship with this word, with this energy, with this notion that optimism and a positive attitude are the keys to experiencing a life with happiness, contentment, and gratitude. Even those three words can conjure an infinite amount of thoughts, feelings, and actions from each of us. So, this week, I …
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Ep #298: Is sobriety a punishment? This question was asked of a member of my Wise Mind Empowerment and Recovery Tribe, which meets on Slack. When I read this, my mind swirled with so many topics, as I have been asked this question many times when I speak at addiction recovery centers. What is the answer? Well, if there were a clearly defined explan…
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7 things I learned in 7 years of sobriety and 297 episodes of From Sobriety to Recovery
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Ep #297: We're diving deep into what it takes to change your life and stay sober. First and foremost, you have to want to change. No one can make you do it but yourself. Most of the hard work happens when nobody's around to cheer you on. It's in those quiet moments that real progress is made. Remember, you're moving forward even when it feels like …
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Some days (maybe weeks) I am just sad and I don't really know why
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Ep #296: Long-time listeners will hear a vulnerability in me that I do not often expose while I am still going through emotional turmoil. New listeners, this is not how the show usually goes. Today I am going to use the show as therapy and talk to y'all about sadness and depression I have felt this whole month. Maybe you will hear something that he…
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How your cultural influences unconsciously direct your sobriety and recovery
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Ep #295: Cultural perspectives and perceptions shape how we think, behave, and view the world, significantly impacting our sobriety and recovery journey. This episode dives into challenging harmful perceptions related to self-worth, health, and capability. We'll explore how culture, media, and personal experiences shape our perceptions, often leadi…
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Optimism and Pessimism: Its a chosen perspective
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#294: Whether you are new to sobriety or have some time under your belt, your attitude about the world around you and the life you create for yourself is a never-ending journey of self-discovery and evaluation. Circumstances, events, and actions pour at you like Niagra pouring off that cliff - the one constant we can know without a doubt is that ev…
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48 birthdays and still figuring out this adulting thing
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Ep #293: June is my 48th birthday month, and I am a Dragon too, so maybe it is my 48th name day - either way, this birth year is shaping up to be wonderous. In this episode, I discuss how to stop giving away the things you love to addiction, how adulting is finding things wonderfully awesome that I once mocked, and why you are capable and stronger …
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A productive nighttime routine can be the key to not (re)lapsing: Nighttime and bedtime routines are not the same; Part 2
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Ep #292: Do you recognize when you shift from one routine into the next? What cues you to change from the work version of yourself to the family, recovery, emotional, or working out versions? Oh, the list goes on. You know how you've looked around and said to yourself, "Well, now what am I going to do?" The main problem in that strategy is that our…
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Morning and Nighttime Routines: How patterns and habits fuel your sobriety and recovery
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Ep #291: Ready to supercharge your sobriety? This episode dives into the battle of morning vs. nighttime routines and their crucial roles in recovery. We'll explore why your morning routine can be a game-changer, setting the tone for a day of success and stability - but also not beholden to the usual workout and meditation advice others accentuate …
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Ep. #290: Chasing the idea of "making up for lost time" in addiction recovery is a dangerous fallacy. In this episode, let's explore why recovery is a lifelong journey rather than a race against the clock. I'll discuss the unrealistic expectations and pressures this mindset can create, often leading to burnout and relapse. Emphasizing steady, incre…
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Regrets and forgiving yourself in early sobriety
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Ep #289: Regrets from our addiction years can be a heavy burden, but they don't define us. This episode dives into how to acknowledge and transform regrets into opportunities for growth. Learn the importance of self-acceptance and how it plays a crucial role in recovery. Discover practical strategies for self-forgiveness, goal setting, and mindfuln…
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Early Sobriety: Not everyone deserves your Truth, let alone your whole Truth
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Ep #288: Have you ever wondered why some people choose not to share their sobriety journey with everyone? It's not about hiding; it's about protecting your truth. Let's explore the importance of setting personal boundaries, avoiding stigma, and maintaining healthy relationships. We'll delve into why focusing on the present and future, avoiding unwa…
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How forgetting is sobriety's greatest ally
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Ep #287: Most of us will not remember today over any other day. Most days are just another day in our lives. When you allow your emotions in the moment to dictate your behaviors, you can betray the promises you've made to yourself. Here's the deal. We forget so much about our lives. It's part of the brain's ability to store things in the unconsciou…
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Your Blueprint for Sobriety Success: Constructing New Habit and Behaviors
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Ep 286: We all have behaviors that no longer serve us. You might even notice that certain things you do annoy you or give you a result that is not what you really want or intended. I believe that our entire life is built upon habit loops, and the behavioral loops repeat over and over and over again. Today, I will give you my breakdown of how to rem…
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Getting out of debt as part of your sobriety and recovery journey
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Ep #285: Money can be a huge stressor. How much do you make? Where are you spending it? Can you save any, or are you living paycheck to paycheck? Do you have ample funds, yet you find yourself unable to set aside any for retirement, savings, vacations, or other things you want that would add to your life? I know about debt. I started this year with…
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Prioritizing what you want most over what you want now
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Ep #284: Okay, this episode is totally Jesse-isms and pumping you up. From inspirational propaganda to my many voices to diatribes - if you love it when I get all Jesse and excite you, this episode is for you! I will also delve into the idea that easy decisions often lead to a challenging life, while tough choices can afford us our best future. I t…
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Deciding how to respond to anxiety, stress, and the unexpected
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Ep #283: This week, I traveled to Oklahoma for my dad's birthday and the solar eclipse, and then my car broke down, the boat battery died, and clouds filled the sky. What was to be a once-in-a-lifetime experience quickly could potentially turn into the week from hell, BUT we chose to experience ourselves at the moment, stay focused on what we could…
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Recovery is saying YES to yourself and NO to your self-judgements
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Ep #282: Judging oneself is the harshest criticism because it sounds like our voice, in our heads, telling us we can not achieve something we desire for ourselves. Teaching yourself to reject those self-critiques and take the next smallest step toward your "meant-to-be" is where the magic of addiction recovery lives. Saying yes or saying no is dete…
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10 Keys to make or break your sobriety (early or longterm)
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Ep #281: Maintaining sobriety, whether in its fragile early stages or as a long-term commitment, requires vigilant self-awareness and dedication. Individuals navigating this path may encounter significant hurdles if their focus drifts from the critical pillars that underpin a sober lifestyle. The journey is fraught with potential distractions and s…
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Am I running hot, burning down, or burning out?
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Ep #280: Somedays, I am surprised I hold it all together. Today is not one of those days. Today, anxiety and inner judgment are running rampant, and rather than act like everything - I think it best to talk it through with y'all. It is okay not to be okay. We all have those days when sobriety isn't enough for today to be the best day. Know you are …
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How personal, familial, and societal roles effect your recovery
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Ep #279 - A role is a set of expectations, behaviors, and responsibilities assigned to an individual within a specific context, such as in a family, workplace, or social group. In the context of sobriety and recovery, adopting roles that promote healthy behaviors and offer supportive relationships can significantly enhance an individual's ability t…
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Mastery in the moment: Stop being the reason you don't succeed
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Ep #278: How would you rate your emotional resolve and resiliency? Do you notice when life seems to get into a state of flow? Mastering your emotions, physical responses, thinking, and feeling is a never-ending journey and a beautiful aspect of life. In this episode, I'm gonna discuss self-mastery, mastering each moment, self-awareness around your …
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How biases are controlling and directing your mind and life
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Ep #277 - Have you ever convinced yourself that your way of seeing things is the only way? That's Perspective Bias waving its wand. Found yourself nodding along to information that confirms what you already believe? Ah, Confirmation Bias strikes again. Ever stick with the familiar just because it's, well, familiar? Exposure Bias has you in its gras…
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Early sobriety, anxiety, anger, and automatic negative thoughts (ANTS)
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Ep #276 - Automatic negative thoughts in early sobriety can spiral you down with anger, anxiety, resentment, and a myriad of other emotions aimed at your past self and potentially anyone you decide to blame for your lot in life. I get it. Traumatic things happen, you re-live them in your head, and they grow and grow into trauma that is rooted so de…
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Four Quotes and a Historical & Psychological Diatribe on Humanity
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1:09:48
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Ep #275 - The trials and tribulations of life are an excellent opportunity to journey into one's emotional resiliency. In today's show, I discuss four quotes that have fueled me these last four weeks and how I use that energy to push and pull myself toward the accomplishments of my plans. I close the show with a bit of a rant and a whole lot of exc…
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The price is goodbye: Things to stop doing in your addiction recovery
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Ep #274 - We have accumulated a lot of bad habits in our journey of addiction. The physical ones are very noticeable, but the mental ones - perhaps not so much. We are all searching for solace from our past selves in our sobriety. Saying goodbye to your old self requires saying hello to new ways of living your life. This episode starts a series mea…
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How to support someone in addiction recovery
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Ep #273 - A person new in sobriety and recovery has a lot of inner turmoil, which will show in their outer actions and behaviors. Supporting them, while not enabling them, is critical in the early stages. If you or someone you know is a supporter of a person in addiction recovery or if a loved one is seeking answers to what they can do to help you,…
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Ep #272 - You will want to change many of your habits and routines in your early stages of sobriety. There are certainly actions and behaviors you are going to need to stop doing to increase your odds of not succumbing to the mental gymnastics and voices in your head saying, "come on, one more time." Whether you are new to sobriety or an old-timer,…
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7 Years Sober: Humility, Gratitude, and Integrity
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Ep #271 - Wow, I'm seven years sober. Addiction recovery is a journey. A huge part of mine has been learning to accept me for me. My life, where I am, who I am, what I am doing - all of this and more is part of my human experience, and it is a massive experiment in learning my human design. I am me. We are we. Together, we achieve a collective vibr…
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AUDIT: Alcohol Use Disorder Identification Test: Are you or someone you know an addict?
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Ep #270 - Do you think you have a drinking, drugging, or process addiction problem? There can be a lot of information out there telling you one thing and then being contradicted by the very next Google result. If you are asking yourself if you have a problem, then chances are you are long since past the point of no return, and sobriety to addiction…
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Ep #269 - A new year brings with it an opportunity to change our lives in a meaningful way as our society has deemed this day to be so important that we all get to forget now to put 24 on everything we date for the next few weeks, LOL. Jokes aside, today really is just another day in life - yet we can choose to make this the day that changes everyt…
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Are you interested in OR committed to your sobriety and recovery?
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Ep #268 - Your level of commitment to yourself when you step into sobriety is going to determine significantly your resiliency when your mind plays games with you and uses its cunning and mental gymnastics to pull you back into behaviors you have already decided you are sick and tired of having in your life. Being sober curious is dabbling, and bei…
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Ep #267 - Not making assumptions and striving to do your best every day are beautiful life goals to seek to achieve daily. Perfection is non-existent, so release the notion you will rock these every opportunity they present themselves. Instead, seek that level of self-awareness that opens you to the recognition and evaluation of your behaviors so y…
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Ep #266 - Be impeccable with your words, and do not take things personally. Sounds easy enough, and then life creeps in - you know, that thing that happens while you are busy making plans and doing things. When you strive to live by the four agreements, you offer yourself a roadmap to navigate. There will be detours, speed bumps, and emergency pits…
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Ep #265 - Self-awareness connects us to what we are doing and why we are doing it, and I don't mean the obvious why - I mean the profound reason related to a past anchor. In the depths of our subconscious lies the answers to the questions we seek. The first step is to recognize that you are not thinking, feeling, or acting the way you desire, and e…
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Ep #264 - Addiction isolates. Maybe not in the beginning, when our socialization is kicked up because of the introduction to substances, but in time, when we aren't paying well enough attention, our drug or booze of choice begins to shrink our world smaller and smaller. Then, one day, we look around, and the reasons we started to use aren't as prev…
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Ep #263 - Your words have power. They have meaning. What you repeat in your head about yourself becomes your identity statement. Choose wisely what you say to yourself. This year, choose your power words with the internal desire to live toward them; those power statements fuel your life's inferno! Listen to #164 and #193 for past episodes on this t…
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7 Powerful Principles to Inspire You, Today!
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Ep #262 - Life throws curve balls, or is it hail the size of a baseball? Living our lives through our past is killing us. You see it everywhere in our world. Old grudges, past misdeeds, a lack of acceptance and forgiveness - all these and more eat away at our souls. Today, let us choose a different response. Let's all decide to seek a higher sense …
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Are You Emotionally Reactive or Grounded and Responding?
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Ep #261 - Triggered, activated, tripped - whatever you call it, you have emotional anchors set all around you. They can be in your external world where other people do things around you, to you, or with you. Additionally, there are infinite anchors in your mind just waiting for that turn down an old worn-down path, and then the anchor triggers/acti…
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Focus, be in the moment - and multi-taskingis a fallacy
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Ep #260 - Focusing on what we are doing, where we are, and when we are is such an important habit, yet often tossed aside in a world where a thousand things are vying for our attention every day of our lives. Pull yourself back into the moment, realize that multitasking isn't a real thing, and utilize your five senses. These are excellent ways to b…
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Ep #259 - Part two of the expectations walks you through an in-depth adventure around why knowing where you place expectations is crucial in identifying areas in your life when you can release your predeterminations and ground into the moment. There are many aspects of your life where what you expect to happen won't, and right behind that disappoin…
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Expectations: The leading cause of disappointment
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Ep #258 - The holidays trigger anchors in our lives set down by unfulfilled expectations from past holiday experiences. We have expectations set all over our lives. Some are real and pertinent, like fidelity in a romantic relationship or trust in a friend, and others' expectations are not warranted, let alone discussed and agreed upon. You want to …
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Acceptance, forgiveness, and emotions: Grief Patterns and Healing
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Ep #257 - Your emotions are valid, and your expression is unique to you. Accepting others for who they are and how they choose to heal is empowering to everyone involved as judging and criticizing alienates and ostracises - and if anyone knows what it feels like to be alienated and ostracized, it is us in the addiction and recovery community. The b…
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How do you experience grief: Intuitive or instrumental
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Ep #256 - Grief, sadness, loss, and all the other emotions we express and feel are deeply personal processes for us to navigate. The Grief Pattern Inventory is a system that helps us identify how we process grief - and I now notice how it is useful in regard to many emotions that we feel that are not pleasant. Intuitive grievers and instrumental gr…
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Its okay to be sad (its pretty great actually)
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Ep #255 - It is okay to be sad about something ending that matters to you. It is okay to have anxiety about something important to you. Feelings and emotions are a wonderment to the human experience. How we choose to process these emotions makes our human-ness simultaneously magnificent and tragic. I embrace my sadness. My confusion. My anxiety. Be…
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Treating others better than they’ve earned
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Ep #254 - People are awesome. People are rude. People are friendly. People are cruel. We do not control how people treat or behave around us. We are in control of how we react and respond - and sometimes, it doesn't even feel like we are in control of that. A key I have reasoned is that I will treat others how I want to be treated as much as I can.…
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Releasing your pain starts with healing your past
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Ep #253 - Imagine your life as a towering skyscraper, each floor constructed upon the foundations of past experiences, some wonderous and joyful, others painful and traumatic. These lower floors are often hidden in the shadows of the unconscious mind, unseen yet foundational to everything that rises above. We understand that to reach the pinnacle o…
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Honor your commitment, release your feelings
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Ep #252 - Events in sobriety may feel, sound, and look much differently than similar experiences from your addiction days. Celebrate these changes. Celebrate the differences because we once prayed for a new life and when it arrives understand there will be some internal blocks around whether it was fun or blah. When we decide to undertake sobriety,…
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Breathe deep, stretch yourself slowly - this takes time
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Ep #251 - The parallels between working out or yoga to the journey from sobriety to recovery are so noticeable I must share this perspective with you. I learned a lot from my first yoga session in years today. I will not repair years of shortening my muscles in one session. I am not going to benefit myself by pushing into a stretch so deeply that I…
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Stepping out of the storm: Embracing sobriety with resilience and courage
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Ep #250 - Crisis moments. What are these to you? Every day, things that are out of our control are happening around us, and yet we survive. We live to face the next day's challenges. In the world of addiction and survival, living on the edge of our sanity might have worked for months, years - and probably decades. Now we desire to dedicate ourselve…
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