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18. Healing Trauma and Embracing Purpose: A Survivor's Journey of Pain to Purpose with Kristin Fuller
52 Plays2 years ago
Welcome friends!
This week's episode we get to hear the brave and vulnerable life story of Kristin Fuller, a Trauma Practitioner and Recovery Coach.
Kristin is a beam of bright light; she helps her clients break the chains of addiction from being in the trenches with them. Empathetic, loving, and real-- Kristin's heart is on fire living her soul's Purpose after surviving childhood and adult trauma which lead to alcohol and drug abuse.
By prioritizing her healing and diving into personal growth, Kristin has turned her deepest pains into her purpose.
Join us as this this lovely Manifesting Generator shares:
- her survivor story
- her recovery story
- how she turned her pain into her purpose
- her entrepreneurial journey
- and sooo much more!
**Content Warning: This episode contains discussions about sexual assault and related trauma. Listener discretion is advised.
***Content Warning: This episode includes discussions about drug use, addiction, and recovery. Please take care while listening, as these topics may be distressing for some.
You can connect with Kristin at: www.instagram.com/coachkristinf
You can connect with me at: www.instagram.com/iamellisamae
Looking for more guidance on your soul's purpose? You can book a Human Design or Gene Keys Reading with me at: https://calendly.com/byellisamccoy
If you loved this episode please rate and review, it would mean the world to me!
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Transcript
Introduction of Kristen as Special Guest
00:00:02
Speaker
Yay. Hello everyone. Welcome to the it's happening for me podcast. I am so happy that you're here with us today. And today we have such a special guest, my good friend, Kristen.
Meeting through Sobriety Coaching Program
00:00:13
Speaker
So Kristen, I'm going to have her introduce herself in a moment, but Kristen and I met through a sober girls guide coaching program. So we were both coaches and sobriety has been a huge part of our purpose journey.
Kristen's Purpose-Driven Path
00:00:28
Speaker
and really stepping into our purpose. And so I'm so excited today to just dive into her story. And we're going to hear all about Kristen's life before she's kind of found her way and living her purpose now and all of the juicy details that are going to really help us. So Kristen is a trauma-informed recovery coach. And thank you so much for coming, Kristen.
00:00:51
Speaker
My honor. I'm so happy to be here with you. Yay. Yes. So, okay. On this podcast, we're obsessed with purpose and something that I really admire about you is we also love talking about entrepreneurship and something that I love about you is the way that you show up so consistently and you, it's like, I can tell there's a fire inside of you that is leading your purpose.
00:01:16
Speaker
And I think that's probably why you're able to show up so consistently. Um, and so can you really talk to us about like, what do you do? And like, where does that fire come from?
Starting Trauma-Informed Coaching Practice
00:01:26
Speaker
I would love to, Alyssa. Thank you. First of all, for the compliment, because sometimes I'm like, creating three pieces of content today doesn't seem like that big of a deal. But when there's more than a hundred pieces every month, it's like, damn, that is so hard.
00:01:43
Speaker
So I really appreciate being noticed and seen. I created a coaching practice for the kind of coach that I needed when I started my recovery journey. That's kind of how my purpose came into play was
00:02:06
Speaker
I need someone that's not scared to dive into the trauma that led to my addiction. I need someone that's not afraid to call me on my bullshit. And those two factors were kind of the foundation of my coaching practice.
00:02:29
Speaker
I wanted to have the hard conversations and I wanted to speak very candidly with my clients in a way so different than traditional therapy or coaching.
00:02:45
Speaker
I love that so much. And I think that for speaking for myself on my sobriety journey, that's something that really would have helped me is to have somebody who actually honestly talks about the things that they went through. I think your journey and your story
00:03:02
Speaker
can like allow you to have so much empathy and connection with your clients. So it's not like you're just kind of guiding them through a textbook way of becoming sober or like AA, like any of the traditional routes that can kind of feel not so good to a lot of us. What is your, so like what is your journey?
Kristen's History of Trauma
00:03:21
Speaker
Like what was your story like before you got sober and what led you to that?
00:03:26
Speaker
It's a story with lots of different facets, but I'm gonna simplify it and kind of take you back to almost the rock bottom. And then I'll fill in the blanks from there, but I feel like that's an easier way to go. I had several different points in my life where sexual trauma was,
00:03:55
Speaker
a part of my story. So in order to not re-trigger or traumatize any other survivors, I wanna give a little trigger warning right here. I'm going to use a really broad paint stroke when I describe what happened in an effort to not re-trigger anybody. But if you're still really, really raw on your journey, maybe fast forward just a few minutes.
00:04:25
Speaker
So my first sexual abuse happened when I was six. I carried that, developed some very unhealthy coping mechanisms, a really poor sense of self.
00:04:41
Speaker
shame because I was brought up in a very religious family and so the shame of that sexual abuse plus the purity culture of the religion I was brought up in
00:04:57
Speaker
produced this massive storm when I was assaulted again at 16 by a youth pastor in the church. So having everything that I believed in God, church, Sunday school, my youth pastor, the families in the church,
00:05:17
Speaker
turned upside down on top of the trauma that I never dealt with at six was really where my addiction story started because after that it was like
00:05:31
Speaker
No holds barred. I'm going to move to LA. I'm going to sew my wild oats. I've already gone off the rails. Nobody wants me. I'm so bad and disgusting and filthy. So I'm just going to go prove that story in LA, which I did.
Life Changes and Marriage in Recovery
00:05:54
Speaker
And in my early twenties, dating a DJ in LA and experimenting several nights a week with ecstasy, cocaine, like pretty much if they did it at a club, I consumed it. So when I
00:06:19
Speaker
met my now ex-husband. I was in my mid 20s and he was sober and lived in Northern California where my family lived. And I saw him as like a shining light, like a prince that would help me change my party girl ways. And I ditched everything.
00:06:47
Speaker
moved up to Northern California, um, said goodbye to the party girl lifestyle and hello to marrying someone I barely knew who was also in recovery and just kind of saying, let's shove all of that under the rug.
00:07:08
Speaker
Like I know doing drugs in the bathroom at a CD club in LA. Nah, that girl's dead and gone. She, I'm not her anymore. Oh, the bisexual girl. Yeah, no, I'm not her anymore. Like I completely denied all parts of my old identity and just
00:07:32
Speaker
threw myself into a life of stay-at-home mom, wife, suburban lifestyle, just wanted to be perfect in all of those areas. And I was for a little while. I was a great young mother. I was a fabulous wife. And when that started to tarnish,
00:08:00
Speaker
a little bit when I started bartending when my daughter was two, my son was a newborn, and financially, we couldn't afford our home. So I needed to bring in $1,000 extra a month. And what better way than bartending? So where things really
00:08:20
Speaker
took a harsh turn was about 12 years ago, almost 13 now, I was assaulted again by two men.
Coping with Assault and Addiction
00:08:34
Speaker
And trigger warning one more time, because this one's the worst of the three. Trigger warning because the assault was so horrific that
00:08:49
Speaker
It took surgical physical therapy for me to recover from what happened on that night. I honestly didn't think I would live to see my children the next morning. I covered all of that because I didn't want to disrupt my children's life. My husband,
00:09:17
Speaker
was in and out of recovery, in and out of relapse. We had dealt with house arrest. I didn't want to upset him. I just wanted it to go back to the way things were. Like I can be normal. I can be a perfect suburban housewife. I can be the kindergarten room mom. I promise none of this happened. Move on. And that's how I dealt with it.
00:09:43
Speaker
And after about two years of drinking alcohol, taking Ambien in order to be out of my consciousness to be intimate with my husband, I finally told the truth. I finally got a therapist and decided I can't be this fractured,
00:10:10
Speaker
paradox of a human anymore. It was quite literally killing me. And I told the truth to my husband, to my family. I confronted the wife of one of the men who did this to me. My brother helped me confront him because he continued to stalk me. So it wasn't just the assault that night. This whole thing went on for a long time.
00:10:40
Speaker
And by 2020, after like no intimacy with my, at the time, my husband, I had an affair with a friend that was a woman I swore off ever dating or being intimate with a man again because of my trauma and
00:11:05
Speaker
I had really turned to drugs and alcohol to manage all that had happened. And to the point where October of 2020, I was
00:11:23
Speaker
almost playing Russian roulette nightly. I call this death by installment. Like if I were to describe a layaway program where someone is unaliving themselves on a layaway program, that's what I was doing. Like I wasn't suicidal.
00:11:43
Speaker
and I wasn't willing to live either. So it is a very small skin of our teeth distinction because it's something we don't really talk about either you're suicidal or you're not. No, there's this gray area where really bad things can happen and we need to be honest about it. So I,
00:12:12
Speaker
On Christmas day, 2020, I took, I don't know for sure, but more than 40 milligrams of my prescription sleeping pill and mixed with several bottles of alcohol at a van.
Family Intervention and Acknowledging Addiction
00:12:30
Speaker
I don't know what else was in that mixture, but nothing was enough to get me to a place where
00:12:42
Speaker
I couldn't feel pain and shame. And I had no other way out of it, I thought. So I just kept going and kept going. And by a miracle, I woke up on the 26th around like late morning, right before lunchtime. And my kid's dad pulled me aside and they had a full blown intervention with me in the garage.
00:13:12
Speaker
And I told them I would cut back. I was like, I don't have a problem. I just, I need to cut down a little bit. And he showed me a bin, a recycle bin with like 18 bottles of wine.
00:13:34
Speaker
And he's like, Kristen, this is from last Friday. So one week, 18 bottles. But the truth that he didn't know, that was only what I let be in there. That didn't include the alcohol at my friend's house, the alcohol over here, the alcohol bottles I shoved in the neighbors. So all of them telling me, you do not have,
00:14:03
Speaker
a drinking situation that you can cut back on, you're about to no longer be on this side of the grass situation. So stop lying to yourself. And if you want any involvement with your family and your children, and you want custody of your children because we're going through a divorce, then you need rehab.
00:14:32
Speaker
And I suggest 90 days. And I looked at my kids and I was thinking, how am I going to get through 90 days? I can't get through 90 minutes without drinking. And they were my motivation and having custody at some point as I, I went through the process of
00:14:57
Speaker
of rehab and learning. My rehab, thankfully, was dual diagnosis, so it wasn't just for substance addiction. It was also for mental health and PTSD and trauma.
Rehab and Recovery Journey
00:15:13
Speaker
I was finally able to start to heal because with the amount of alcohol I was consuming, none of my psych meds were working. None of the therapy I was doing was sinking in. Like with the amount I was drinking, everything was rendered completely ineffective. So to finally have three months clean,
00:15:40
Speaker
where my meds could work, my therapy can work, my treatment can work. I'm connecting with other survivors. I'm learning, I'm not in a hole. I'm not a shitty person. I developed these coping mechanisms as a way to survive. And when I learned that, the sense of profound freedom
00:16:07
Speaker
and forgiveness and self-love that started to kind of creep into those cracks just filled me with so much that I didn't know existed that I had to keep going. And that was December 26, 2020 was my day one.
00:16:34
Speaker
So I've been on this journey almost three years and a lot's happened in such a short amount of time.
00:16:40
Speaker
Oh my gosh. Congratulations on three years. And oh my gosh, I just want to say thank you so much for being so brave and sharing your story. This, when you're speaking, I literally feel like I saw your six year old inner child talking the whole time. And I just see like this inner radiant light and beauty inside of you. That is your soul and inner child. And it's like,
00:17:07
Speaker
all of these things that you have gone through created so much shame at the time. And you're just using alcohol as a coping mechanism, but you were the victim in every single situation and you felt like you were the villain, you know? And so it's like so much self, like just so much shame and guilt when really you were the victim of every single circumstance that led
00:17:31
Speaker
in your path. So I just want to say thank you so much for sharing. There's so many people that go their whole lives holding on to these assaults and similar situations and they will never talk about it and it's just literally creating disease and eating them up alive. So just you even sharing so openly I feel like is going to help so many people.
00:17:51
Speaker
Alyssa, thank you for giving me such a safe. I felt your hands under me the whole time. So thank you. Yes. Okay. So I want to ask you when you went through therapy and you started learning, you know, the different like things that helped you through processing the trauma, what would you say? Like what was maybe a tool or something that just clicked in your brain that you felt like now you want to share that with the world?
00:18:21
Speaker
Hmm. I love that question. I love that question.
Impact of EMDR Therapy
00:18:26
Speaker
EMDR therapy. So eye movement desensitization. I'm butchering it. EMDR just I'll say that it helps to rewire the way your brain stores information. I think that
00:18:45
Speaker
for many people is really, really powerful. Highly recommend it. If you don't have access to a therapist that can do EMDR, then I think for me, the second most powerful therapeutic modality that I've learned was somatic therapy. So learning how to connect my brain, my head, my body together, because as an assault survivor,
00:19:15
Speaker
I went around pretty much living from like the neck up only for more than a decade and just was not in touch with grounding, with having a safe place to land, with being safe in my body.
00:19:39
Speaker
As I'm in your three now of this healing journey, I have become more accustomed to meditation, but that meditation and I had a rough start because it was a scary place to go within my body in the beginning.
00:19:57
Speaker
So even this morning, I'm trying to push my meditations a little bit further. I made it 11 minutes, but I had a candle that I was watching the flame. Because to close my eyes and go within for that long is still kind of tricky for me.
00:20:13
Speaker
Not triggering, just it's challenging. I love that you say that because that is true for a lot of people as well. So it's really good that you say that and that there's other kinds of bridges that you can get. Like there's so many different types of meditation that you can do to where you feel safe and you don't have to go totally inward. I'm very curious. So when you're able to talk about your story and kind of, you know, tell what happened, how do you feel like you were able to
00:20:44
Speaker
kind of come to terms with what
Acceptance and Shame Removal Discussion
00:20:46
Speaker
happened. So it's like, you kind of have accepted it and now it doesn't hurt as bad. Or how would you say you are with like the shame and guilt? Like, is that something that you've worked through to remove it? And now it's just kind of something that you see happen to you, but you accept it. Can you kind of talk about that to give people hope for what they could expect?
00:21:05
Speaker
Absolutely. So the therapist that I worked with, I worked with two different ones, but most recently her name is Leah and she's been my coach and therapist basically for the past four years. So she's done all of this work with me and she uses something that I've started working on with my clients and it's called flying above. So rather than
00:21:35
Speaker
being Kristen six years old in the scene with the abuser, she asked me to fly above the scene and describe it as like someone looking down into the room and being able to remove myself. And then I have a picture over here of me when I was six. As I do this work, I look at her
00:22:06
Speaker
And I remind myself, she only had a six year old's brain and body to process all of this. Don't you think she deserves a little extra love and compassion? And then that would usher 47 year old me to be like, absolutely she does. So just the flying above method was really helpful in getting the,
00:22:34
Speaker
the story out, and then the more I was able to say it, I was able to write a different version, knowing what I know now. I was able to piece onto Little Kristen's version of the story with what I know now to be true.
00:22:53
Speaker
I love that so much. And I also really love how so many times outsiders who have maybe friends or family that have alcohol abuse issues might think that, oh, the problem is the drinking. But as we know, it's literally just a coping mechanism and a mask to cover up whatever is going on that we don't know how to properly deal with or to process.
00:23:21
Speaker
I'm wondering is, do you feel like that the experiences that you've had in the past has really helped you step into your purpose of wanting to help other people? Because it's not even so much that if you really look at it, it's not even so much that it's the substance abuse, even though that is the industry that you're in, but it's like you're really helping people deal with as being a trauma-informed practitioner, the things that they went through. Do you feel like that's kind of helped you really step into that?
00:23:50
Speaker
Yes, 100%, because so much of traditional recovery and when I say traditional recovery, I'm referring to like 12 step programs or traditional rehab facilities, which almost always use 12 step programs. The foundation of that kind of recovery is character defects, shame.
00:24:21
Speaker
disease, defective. Like this is language powerlessness. This is language that is so pervasive in the recovery world even today. So by coming up with a new way to talk about addiction and recovery that doesn't focus on
00:24:49
Speaker
what's morally right and wrong, or doesn't focus on what someone did while they were under the influence and how disastrous and messy their life was. Because what we know is it doesn't matter whether the substance is a stimulant, an opiate, alcohol, porn, shopping, it's all to cope with pain. Pain from trauma,
00:25:19
Speaker
Pain from grief, physical pain, pain is at the nucleus of all addiction.
00:25:30
Speaker
Yes, I love that. And I think that that is where, I think that's where both of us maybe found a sober girls guide when we first found it. Like such a great platform because it's really focusing on, first of all, kind of like making sobriety more like light and fun and focusing on future possibilities. How do we want to show up as our highest self? Like what is our 2.0 version of self instead of, you know, being so stuck in this box of like, Oh, I'm an alcoholic. And now
00:25:59
Speaker
my whole life, every day I'm going to have to wake up and you know admit that I'm powerless to a substance when really we're these like infinite soul beings that like are so much more bigger than this freaking substance and like that word is just so constrictive and so I think that's probably what drew us both to that and then with that I also wanted to say that um so you you'd work with people strictly with
00:26:27
Speaker
sobriety, right? Like you don't do moderation and you don't do, um, I don't know, like whatever some of the other terms they use these days, but like Cali sober or things like that. Right. I actually support all forms of recovery. Okay. Okay. Got it. If someone is.
00:26:46
Speaker
interested in just getting curious about their relationship with alcohol. There is so much movement and momentum that can be created
00:26:59
Speaker
just with 30 days of sobriety or just within even out of a month, I only drank four days. I usually drink daily. That's massive. We can really do some good work with limiting the amount of drugs or alcohol. So it really depends on their commitment.
00:27:27
Speaker
not what kind of sobriety they have or not what kind of recovery journey they want. It depends on their level of commitment to change two things. The belief of what the drugs or alcohol are doing for them and that they deserve a life without being
00:27:55
Speaker
to addiction or trauma. If they believe those two things, then it doesn't matter which way we get there. I love that.
00:28:06
Speaker
Yes, especially for when someone is just starting on their journey, it might feel very daunting to be like, oh, I'm going to quit drinking forever. But I love that because once they can kind of cut down or like start taking a break or say, I'm going to do 30 days and then we start to feel better. You know, like we start to feel the health benefits of not having alcohol in our system and then, you know, things start to change. It's like I feel like that's when people can really grasp like, oh, how beautiful it really is to not have it.
00:28:34
Speaker
as a hundred percent. I've had some clients start with me, do 30 days and then moderate and then come back to me and then they're like nine months sober now. Sometimes they need to gather more information and that's okay. That's how we make a decision. That's how we learn. So I don't look at things like that as
00:29:02
Speaker
Oh, they relapsed or back to day one. I look at that as, well, what'd you learn? That's usually the first thing they'll ask. Tell me what you learned. I learned I hate being hungover. I learned I'm too old for this or whatever they come up with. But usually the result of a slip or a data point, whatever you want to call it,
00:29:28
Speaker
is almost always in my experience a higher level of commitment to their recovery. A hundred percent. I can speak from my personal experience too. It's like I tried to stop drinking so many times and it's like until it was the last time it's like okay since the last time that's how it's been you know so it's not like it's so easy to just be like okay I'm gonna stop drinking and I think if
00:29:53
Speaker
if we were so black and white and really were judgmental around that, it would be so hard for so many people to seek help because it literally is completely changing our life and rewiring the habits and all the patterns that we've been doing for so many years. So I really love that. Yeah. And I love the freedom and flexibility of designing a recovery that works for each person individually.
00:30:19
Speaker
For some people counting days is daunting. They don't want to do it. Um, for other people having a harm reduction strategy where they see their calendars start to fill up 15 days out of a month and then the next month, 26 days out of the month, like that is empowering to them. So as long as they're moving toward changing the beliefs of what they think the drugs or alcohol are doing for them.
00:30:50
Speaker
and learning how to get dopamine on their own, how to feel a sense of calm and safety on their own, as long as those two things are happening at the same time, they're on a recovery journey, regardless of their abstinent days. 100%. And how would you, okay, so I know like that, if you were to Google right now, like what makes someone an alcoholic, I know that there's a lot of like,
00:31:19
Speaker
the actual, I was reading somewhere where like the actual guidelines, it's very confusing. And like a lot of people don't really think that they fit in with that, but maybe they feel like they do have some sort of issues with drinking because maybe it's affecting like their work or their life, or they just don't feel good. And they want to kind of start to look at their relationship with alcohol.
Identifying Problem Drinking
00:31:37
Speaker
How would you like describe it to people to know like, oh, maybe you do have some sort of issue with alcohol. Like what is the difference between people who are just normal drinkers and the people who actually have an issue?
00:31:49
Speaker
I love this question. I love this question so much because I can't think of how many times I would like Google this exact question and then take different tests. Yeah. Because on all of the tests, I was a problem drinker, but I was like, let me go to Cosmopolitan. Like Cosmo magazine, I'm sure
00:32:13
Speaker
I will have a lot more leniency over there. I just find it so funny. What I like to say is if you're asking yourself, I wonder if I have a problem.
00:32:32
Speaker
or you're asking family members or friends to either let you know if they notice anything weird or if you have a problem or to fill in the blanks, that was my big thing. Can you fill in the blanks for me? What happened last night? If that's going on, odds are real good that there's a problem, but a more substantial way I tell clients
00:33:01
Speaker
to look at it is to look at your life as a table with four legs. And if one of the legs is career and one is finances, one is relationships and one is health. If that table loses a health leg, it's going to be wobbly, but it's probably okay. If it loses a health leg and a career leg,
00:33:30
Speaker
You're gonna have a real wobbly ass table. If alcohol is affecting your health, your career and your relationships, you got no table and you have a problem with alcohol. Not just alcohol insert. There's been a lot of talk lately about marijuana is not addictive. There's no problem with marijuana. And I like to tell my clients and students put
00:34:01
Speaker
Take out alcohol, put marijuana into the equation. Is it affecting your finances, your family and your health or your health and your relationship? If you've got a wobbly table, we need to talk about it.
00:34:18
Speaker
I know I with marijuana it's interesting because I've like I've had a past ex-boyfriend who would swear like it wasn't a problem it was like I think it was like a functioning addiction because he would work and like do all of the things but it was like every time anywhere we went anywhere in the car has to smoke before we go here has to smoke like it literally ruled the whole life even though there wasn't like
00:34:45
Speaker
he wasn't doing bad at work, he wasn't doing bad messing up in like somewhere but it was just completely anchoring him. I look at it as like an anchor and it's like if you have to constantly be using this thing like it's like what are you escaping? And so it just felt like it wasted so much of our time and I was always just there like waiting like I feel like I wasted so many hours and years of my life just like waiting for him to have to smoke before everything
00:35:12
Speaker
And so I think a lot of people might think that they're functioning because they're showing up or like they're teaching, they're leading, like maybe they're even a leader, you know? But if it's something that I feel like if you have to do all of the time and it's taking like a lot of time, I feel like it is a problem. I agree. I agree. If it's using up your resources, if it's causing relationship issues, a lot of people feel like
00:35:39
Speaker
Like I have to lose a job or I have to get a DUI before I change something. And that's just not true. Like if your health is being questioned, you can't buy health. You can't buy time with your family or your girlfriend or your children or your loved one.
00:36:09
Speaker
So if you're anything, insert, shopping, marijuana, whatever is affecting those things that money can't buy. It's something to look at.
00:36:27
Speaker
100%. And it's I like what you said too, that it can literally be insert anything. Because so many times we think that it has to be whatever is really popular as a drug, a substance, but it's like it can literally be anything. And it's, if it's taking away our attention or focus on growth, evolvement, and like you said, being with our family, our career, that it is something to look at. And I think also that
00:36:50
Speaker
Like it's more normal than not to have trauma like all of us have trauma at some level stored in us if we're not addressing these things that we've gone through in our life like we're going to be finding outlets to try to feel better. So I feel like it's I feel like a lot of people just don't realize or maybe they think they didn't have anything.
00:37:12
Speaker
quote unquote, huge or like, you know, big happened to them. It's like you've still probably experienced some sort of trauma. So can you speak on that? I know. So I know that I don't know if Big T Little T trauma is correct to say or if that's incorrect to say now. So can you just kind of talk on that and the differences between those?
Understanding Trauma Hierarchies
00:37:30
Speaker
I still use Big T Little T trauma. The other way I like to kind of describe Little T trauma is
00:37:41
Speaker
like death by a thousand paper cuts. Because that imagery is so clear. So big T trauma, I'll use my life as an example, big T trauma was very evident in the abuse I described at six, 16, 38. So that is clear as day, big T trauma. But then there's little T trauma. My parents got divorced, my dad,
00:38:10
Speaker
was caught being in a different relationship with another woman. Like there were little things also. And when we have a big wound, like a sexual assault or like a divorce or the loss of a loved one, obviously that's a big, big wound and you see it and feel it. But if you can picture having
00:38:39
Speaker
all these little tiny paper cuts on your fingers. Like those are little tea trauma. And yeah, one or two of them, you're hardly gonna notice, but if you have a hundred of them, every time you curl up your hand, every time you like go like that with your hair, every time you wash your hands, you'll be like, ah, shit. So the pain of a thousand paper cuts,
00:39:05
Speaker
can be the same as the pain of losing a finger on your hand. So little T trauma and big T trauma, there's no hierarchy in the suffering. Your brain takes on trauma as like an injury, almost like a traumatic brain injury, can be as bad as some trauma as a traumatic brain injury on a scan. So
00:39:35
Speaker
the idea that nothing really happened to me. I wanna be careful that people don't go in the past to mine for trauma. I never like my clients or students to come to me and be like, well, I know something must have happened cause I have a problem with weed. So let me really think on this. Like don't go mining for it.
00:40:05
Speaker
However, with most humans, we can pick out an instance of bullying in middle school. We can pick out when our parents got divorced. We can pick out when I found out about my dad's relationship. We can pick out like these little T traumas, acknowledge them, and go through the process of setting them down. And sometimes that can be,
00:40:36
Speaker
doing some somatic work to help your body let go of the trauma. It can be talk therapy. It can be journaling. It can be meditation. Like there are so many modalities today that really unlock those chains and let you free yourself from those traumas. We don't have to live with them anymore.
00:41:03
Speaker
I love that. I really love that breaking down of how it's like, even though some might seem more significant in the memory, it's like our body, our mind holds onto it all the same. It's like it sees it and keeps track of it all as the same. So that makes a lot of sense. And I think that can give people just a lot of like,
00:41:28
Speaker
a validation you know for it's like you have reasons why you, you know, have like don't feel well or why you're holding on to things and it doesn't have to be this like a big event that happened to you so I really love the distinction between those.
00:41:43
Speaker
Yeah, okay, so I want to know now, so now you've been through your sober, like, what is life like now? Like, are you dating? Like, are you, like, what is life like? Like, how good is it? Like, can you explain to people the difference? Pretty good, Alyssa, I've got to say. So I didn't date, I didn't do anything for about a year and a half into my recovery.
00:42:13
Speaker
I also had a hysterectomy and some major surgery to correct a whole bunch of stuff. But part of that was physical therapy. Literally they have that for that part. Physical therapy to relearn how to be in touch with that part of my body and with how to not be in pain.
00:42:42
Speaker
how to not automatically like wins or be closed off. So the combination of somatic therapy, EMDR, rewriting my script, and then the physical therapy allowed me to come to a place where I could really experiment with what I'm available for in a partner. I was no longer swearing off
00:43:11
Speaker
I can never date anybody of the opposite sex again. Like I was now open, not to one or the other, but to a human that not that would complete me because I feel like I am complete with the work that I've done or I'm doing a good job of moving in that direction, but someone that complements the work that I've done.
00:43:40
Speaker
not another half, another whole that compliments the whole that I've worked so hard to become. So that when I started dating and sober, I'm just gonna say it, sober sex was terrifying to me. So I tended to stay,
00:44:07
Speaker
very close to people that either I knew for a long time or that just made me feel safe.
00:44:17
Speaker
I realized pretty quick into the process that Tinder was not a safe place for me. I ended up meeting someone a few months ago, and I think we are a really good complement to each other. And he has just recently met my ex-husband. We still cohabitate and raise our children together.
00:44:43
Speaker
Last week, everybody met each other and I feel really good about this human having done his work and then here I am having done my work and we cross paths.
00:44:58
Speaker
Oh my God. That is like, it makes me so happy. Like imagine, it just shows like what doing the work and actually like working on yourself and taking the brave steps to start to feel better and like literally change your life. And now you met such a great partner meeting your ex-husband. It's like, that is crazy. Like it's like, that does not happen to everyone. So I love it so much. Like that is so awesome.
00:45:28
Speaker
Thank you. Yeah. It's crazy. When I tell people or they see the picture of all of us having dinner a couple of weeks ago, they're like, your boyfriend and your ex-husband, like he's part of my family. I love it. Yeah. And I don't mean it's crazy and like, it's crazy, but I mean, like, it's so cool. I'm like, this is like, this is what like healed and like embodied relationships can be, you know, it's like we can be
00:45:54
Speaker
loving towards each other. And it's like it takes, it took your ex-husband as well to be okay with that. And it's so beautiful for your kids that you all can be together. Like, Oh my God, that's like a dream. It is, it is. And I have to say there was a point about six months into my sobriety that I was going to go back to work at the bar. And I was like, I can be sober. I know I can. I need to work.
00:46:21
Speaker
And him being an entrepreneur was like, you need to do your business. You need to get...
00:46:32
Speaker
You're going to have to do your business. You're going to have to do your business. Your butt in gear and do your business because that's where your purpose is. Not working at the bar as a sober bartender. You won't, you won't stay sober and he's right. I wouldn't have. But he was committed. Like. We will live together.
00:46:56
Speaker
get onto helping people, get onto writing your book, get onto building this method of recovery. Like you can't do that and be working at a bar. I'm so grateful you did that.
00:47:12
Speaker
That is just, and honestly, that is what I'm saying where I see you showing up. So many people that I know, I'm in this space of purpose and I have so many peers and friends and the dream is to live our purpose and to step into our highest self, have ways that we can express ourselves through mediums that we love. And it's like, you really are such an embodiment of living your purpose. And you show up so often,
00:47:40
Speaker
It's like consistent. Your content is out there. You always show up like with such a great like energy. It's like, I can feel your heart coming through and it doesn't feel like force. It doesn't feel, and for everybody listening, Kristen is a manifesting generator. So just have to plug that. Love your energy. And I just, yeah. And I just feel like you're like.
00:47:59
Speaker
I don't know it just feels so aligned and it makes me inspired to want to show up because it's like when we're in the in the stages of building our business like this is when it's going to be the hardest and this is when most people quit so it's like just seeing you show up oh okay also sorry just like my brain is like also didn't you go to a freaking Lewis house um event can you talk about that I was like holy shit that's a freaking dream it okay so
00:48:28
Speaker
Yes, I'll talk about that, but you have to, and I'm gonna make all your listeners hold you accountable. You have to go with me in September. It's in Los Angeles this year.
00:48:40
Speaker
Shut up. I'm serious. Okay. I'm already writing that down to be like the week of September 16th. Oh my God. They must plug for Lewis House. You can have both of us on your podcast now, Lewis. You're welcome. Yes. Oh my God. No, I'm going to put that like as a manifestation, like a hundred percent. And my, on my vision board and manifestation is to have my book out.
00:49:07
Speaker
at that time so that when I go, I can be like, yeah, I wrote a book about healing from trauma. Here it is. Want to buy it. And then 2025, I'd like to be on the stage at Summit of Greatness. Let's go. It is written.
00:49:27
Speaker
So when I went to coaching school, I started, so backing way up in 2016, I went back to college to get my degree in psychology, to be a therapist. And then I realized the amount of money to pay for grad school and then get my licensure to be a therapist, I'd be 50 before I was even practicing. So my best friend who is a therapist said, girl, go into coaching.
00:49:59
Speaker
then you can pay for grad school, but you might love coaching. So I went to coaching school and graduated in 2018. And during that time, Gary, John Bishop, Jen Sincero, um, these people were really a stair prowl, really big,
00:50:20
Speaker
players, takers up of space in my brain on all of my commuting back and forth to school. All of my homework had to do with these thought leaders. So when the opportunity this year came to meet Jen Sincero, who is one of the people that influenced me to become a coach, I thought, oh, yeah, I need to make this happen. And meeting her
00:50:51
Speaker
telling her I'm writing a book, telling her how influential she was on me having the guts and the gumption in my 40s to reinvent myself had a lot to do with her in her turning 40.
00:51:09
Speaker
changing from a musician that lived in her parents' garage to this world-renowned coach and author. So I felt like if she could do it, I can do it. Like my ship hasn't sailed yet.
00:51:25
Speaker
And then other people that were there that I didn't know, but ended up seeing and meeting them were Jaspreet Singh, who talked about money and money mindset and how different what we're told by our parents is than what is the truth today. So what I learned there shaped a lot of the financial decisions and investments I made this year. And then,
00:51:54
Speaker
a lot of what Lewis and his fiance had to say about love and relationships shaped how I came to think about myself in a relationship. For example, he made a comment, I will never please my fiance. And I was like, what an a-hole. And what he meant
00:52:22
Speaker
was he wants to do kind things for her. He wants to love her. He wants to make her feel appreciated, but he doesn't want to people please with her. He doesn't want to be a yes man with her. He doesn't want to appease her. And that really meant a lot to me because I, after that felt like that's what I want. I don't want to be a chameleon anymore.
00:52:52
Speaker
I don't want to just say, Oh, that's what kind of girl you want. I can totally do that. Oh, you want to hike for six hours? I could probably do that. No, I'd love to hike with you, but I've got a two hour limit. Did you watch football with you, but I have a one game limit. Yes. I freaking love that. Standing up for what I want.
00:53:22
Speaker
but I need what I desire without being afraid of the other person bolting. Yeah, it's almost like a superpower. It is, that is freaking powerful. It took a long time to get here.
00:53:40
Speaker
Yes and it's crazy too because it's like who we listen to and what we're feeding our mind is literally helping create our future reality and so it's like yeah just you commuting back and forth listening to these people like that is literally what was in your head and it literally shows in the actions that you take and in your outer reality it's like your internal world creates your outer world and
00:54:06
Speaker
It's so easy for us to have negative self-talk, to think about the worst case scenarios. That's literally how our brains are wired. So it's so important that we're always just going in there and like, nope, I'm not thinking that. And it's like, it takes that to literally be successful. So I just want to say like, good job because it really does come out. Like it really does show.
00:54:29
Speaker
You, I appreciate that. Yes. And okay. So the other question I have that I'm super interested in is like, where, so what exactly do you offer right now? Like what services do you have? What are you super excited about? And like, how do you help people? Like, what are you excited to help them with? I love that question. I love it because I've never put myself just in one place.
00:54:55
Speaker
Like when I started my practice, I thought I wanted, I thought I wanted it to be like therapy sessions. Like once a week, come see me. We'll visit for an hour. And then you don't see me for like a month. And I realized that's not going to get us anywhere very quickly. So last year I created a structured four week coaching program.
00:55:24
Speaker
that lasts a month and is intensive coaching during the week with homework. So that is where a lot of my clients live in that four week container.
00:55:38
Speaker
And the beautiful thing about that, they can decide, Oh, I want to keep getting curious. So I'll do another four weeks and then another four weeks. So that's probably the most impactful way that I get to work with my clients. But then also on the podcast, I've offered in exchange for their bravery of telling their story to do life coaching.
00:56:02
Speaker
with potential clients. A little bit of that is to give back because I don't charge them for that coaching session. And then it's also to illustrate to people that maybe have a weird connotation about what a coach does so that they could see the process firsthand. Oh, that's what it looks like. Oh, that's what it sounds like. That's how it's different than therapy.
00:56:30
Speaker
So, um, and then I teach smart recovery every Tuesday for an hour and a half. And that's for anybody abstinent thinking about it. So we're curious.
00:56:43
Speaker
any kind of addiction or addictive behavior. So I have about 30 to 50 people on Zoom every Tuesday. That's like my extended family. Wow. And that's outreach that I do for free for not, um, for a nonprofit, smart recovery is a nonprofit. And then I just about three weeks ago started a Monday night women's small group coaching.
00:57:09
Speaker
And that is where women come and some of them are my clients. Some are my students. They come together. It's come as you are. There's no like workbook or if you missed last week, you're messed up this week. Like it is just come as you are.
00:57:29
Speaker
This is a safe space. How can I support you tonight? And we do laser coaching and it's not just recovery-based. We talk about relationships, communication, boundaries, kids, sex. There's nothing off the table. And with the success of that group, I'm launching a group for men only as well.
00:57:54
Speaker
Oh, I love that. They need, they need help too. And I think too, that
00:58:05
Speaker
I think a woman's guidance to men can also be really awesome. I know a lot of women coach women, men coach men, which is awesome too. It's all great, but it's also really supportive for men to have a healthy, divine feminine leading them and opening things up. And sometimes men feel more comfortable to open up to their feelings in a woman's presence. So I think that's beautiful.
00:58:32
Speaker
Thank you. I was really sitting with some limiting beliefs. Like I need a male coach on staff to like do this with me or for me. And then I just thought about it. I'm like, some of your best relationships with clients have been male clients. So why, and you weren't a male coach then, so why do you even male coach now? It was just a silly belief that I've decided I'm not available for that anymore.
00:59:02
Speaker
So I'm excited to offer that because there's not much out there as far as trauma work for men specifically. Yeah. I haven't seen it. I mean, also I'm not a male searching for it, but just like in the space, I mean, I am following a lot of people in that space and I haven't seen it. So I think that's so exciting.
00:59:23
Speaker
What, where can people, um, like, what, what is your podcast name? First of all, I want to know your last call with Kristin. Okay. I have to tell the everyone. So I started listening to your podcast when you first put it out and listening to the coaching sessions. I was like, Oh my God. I felt like a fly on the wall and it made me feel so good and two ways. Like it made me feel so good from the perspective of like.
00:59:51
Speaker
you guiding them through whatever they're working on. And then also as a coach, you know, as a new coach starting out, it made me feel so good to see like, how do you guide the sessions? Like, what questions do you ask? What tools are you guiding them through? So, um, I know I have a lot of healers and coaches that love this podcast. So guys, you have to check out Kristen's podcast. It's so fun. Just like listening to you. And it made me feel so good to be like, Oh, wow. Like seeing you do the process, it just feels good.
01:00:21
Speaker
So I love that. Thank you. Yes. I want to do more of those. It's really fun. Is it hard to, um, is it like people that you're meeting for the very first time or is it people that you also coach and then they're just volunteering to go on there? So all of the ones that have been on the Life Coaching episodes,
01:00:49
Speaker
were not my client. They either met me in smart recovery or on social media. So anybody that you hear that says live coaching with, they were not in my sphere. They were brand new to me, to recovery, to the podcast, and they were just willing to share their story in exchange for free coaching for an hour and a half.
01:01:17
Speaker
So it's really cool to know like one of my first life coaching episodes, she's going on two years sober. Oh my God. Yeah. Yeah. So she's continuing her journey and still moving forward with it. And, um, in fact,
01:01:35
Speaker
One of the other girls, now that I think about it is still moving forward in her recovery journey, but it just started at a place where they're like. Free coaching. I can't turn that down. Let's see what this girl has to say.
01:01:50
Speaker
I love too that it's a way, like you said, that you can give back to people. And then also it's like, it literally is a win-win. Like you're helping them, you're guiding them. And it's also like allowing the audience to see, like you said, to get an idea into like, what is it like to actually be in a coaching container? Like what can I expect? And I feel like that takes away like a lot of the fear or confusion around wanting to work with people, especially people that are new into like personal growth and development. So it's really cool to see that.
01:02:16
Speaker
Yeah, thank you. Yeah. I love directing people. Like if you want to see what it feels like versus a therapy setting, it's at least my practice is a totally different scenario. Like I hug my clients. I tell them I love them. We follow each other on social media. Like it's a not being above, it's a being with. Almost like a
01:02:46
Speaker
recovery midwife. Oh my God. I love that. Yeah. That's what it reminds me of. I'm not a doctor. I'm not diagnosing them. I'm with them. I get down in the trench with them together. I'm not the expert way up here in a white coat. I'm next to you saying,
01:03:13
Speaker
You're in deep. You're in pretty deep. Let's, let's move forward. Let's keep going this way. And that is the type of person that we want on our side, you know, like we don't want someone who is looking down on us and just giving us directions. It's like, we want to feel that like connection and love and guidance. So that is why it feels so soul aligned, like
01:03:38
Speaker
What is one tip of advice you can give to people who are maybe on the path to purpose? They're trying to figure out what do they want to do with their lives? And you are someone who's so connected to the work that you do. So what is maybe one tip that you have for them? I'm going to steal a page from... I can't remember who I heard it from, but I love it.
01:04:06
Speaker
Think of yourself when like six months ago or a year ago or wherever your ideal client lives. So for me, when I began my practice, I was really interested in the brand new sobriety
01:04:26
Speaker
contemplation side of people in recovery. So I would use language directed toward Kristin, December 2020. Well, as my practice has evolved, and as I've changed and grown, and the more I become educated and learn, I am able to offer more than just contemplation and early sobriety. So now I speak to
01:04:56
Speaker
maybe even a more roughened up version of Kristen fresh out of trauma 11 years ago. Cause it takes some working knowledge, some bravery for sure. And willingness to get into that trench with a client.
01:05:26
Speaker
but I love it. I love it. I love it in the trench with them and I really love it when they get out of the trench. Sometimes I wonder who should be paying who truly.
01:05:40
Speaker
I love it because there's like so many different parts of the journey. And so it's so special to see. This also proves too that you guys, our purpose evolves. Like it's always evolving with time as we evolve. Like this is literally what you just said is proof that it's like,
01:05:56
Speaker
When you started, you wanted to help people fresh out of sobriety. As you evolved, as you continue to follow your passions, get more education, become trauma-informed, you now have an interest and you're following your interests in helping people who are more in the trenches. You didn't know when you first started out that that's where you would end up, but you just kept following what lights you up and you followed what was exciting for you and to learn more. It's always like continuing your growth.
01:06:24
Speaker
and learning and then that just led you to where you are now and who's to see like what you fricking come up with next and you're like writing your book and then like there's literally it's limitless so I'm so excited to see what you do and like where everything goes. Thank you and you just said one of my favorite words limitless when you are just starting to discover your purpose or just contemplating
01:06:49
Speaker
Do I want to be an entrepreneur? Do I want to be a coach? Do I want to be a trauma-informed practitioner? You can try on anything. I tell this to my young adult children, try it on. You are limitless. You are limitless. There is nothing you can't try on.
01:07:17
Speaker
in some way, shape or form, especially nowadays post COVID with so many courses, master classes, offerings, certifications, it no longer takes a $40,000 master's degree. Like you can learn in so many different capacities, learn by volunteering. A lot of the crisis intervention work that I've done, I learned volunteering for crisis text line.
01:07:48
Speaker
or the Trevor Project or Smart Recovery. So you can learn by giving. That's one of my favorite ways to figure out, be of service.
01:08:01
Speaker
Oh, yay. Thank you so much. This is just like so much wisdom. I love this so much. Um, yay. So where, what is your Instagram? Where can people reach out to you? Where can they follow you?
Connecting with Kristen on Social Media
01:08:15
Speaker
So Instagram and TikTok both have the same handle and it's at coach Kristin F.
01:08:24
Speaker
K-R-I-S-T-I-N-F for Fuller. And then on Facebook, I have a group called Unshakeable AF, which AF is alcohol free, but also as F. Love it. Love to play on the words.
01:08:42
Speaker
and unshakable, cause that's my goal for you, for all of us to be unshakable. And then Kristen Fuller, just my normal Facebook personal page. Like I said, I used to have like a business page and a personal page. And I thought, I am who I want to connect with people, not a business, not a person, like I said, in a fancy coat with like a super cool, like realtor backdrop.
01:09:13
Speaker
I want people to connect with me. Yes. You are your brand. You are your personal brand. I believe in that wholeheartedly.
01:09:23
Speaker
amazing okay well thank you everybody for being with us on this journey thank you Kristen for being so vulnerable and sharing so open and honest this literally is going to touch so many people's hearts and it's just been so cool to watch you on your entrepreneurial journey and so everybody make sure you follow Kristen tell her hello and thank you guys we will see you next week