The Unexpected Joy of a Sober Life with Laura McKowen

Laura McKowen is one of the foremost voices in the modern recovery movement, having helped thousands of people reframe addiction and transform their lives through her writing, teaching, and speaking.

She writes an award-winning blog, hosted the iTunes Top 100 HOME podcast, and currently hosts Spiritualish, a show that provides an irreverent take on self-development and spirituality. She has been featured in WebMD, New York Post, Huffington Post, the TODAY show, and more.

Laura has an MBA from Babson College and spent 15 years in advertising, managing million-dollar accounts for Fortune 100 companies before transitioning to writing and teaching. She’s the founder of The Bigger Yes and We Are the Luckiest, online programs for personal development and sobriety. She teaches workshops and retreats all over the United States.
Her first book, We Are The Luckiest: The Unexpected Joy of a Sober Life is forthcoming in January 2020.

This conversation will connect with anyone who has had to face any addictions, obstacles, or change in their life. Even though Laura’s journey includes getting sober, her lessons and life-learnings have far greater implications. We discuss AA, how to attract big doers, friendship, parenthood, and end with a meaningful question to challenge you as we leave.

Episode Highlights

• 2:32 - Laura's core message - devoting yourself to the bigger yes
• 4:51 - How the universe's complexity helps solve our problems
• 7:39 - Exploring a more chaotic time in Laura's journey
• 12:12 - Laura's reckoning with her addiction
• 15:14 - Addiction recovery is never a clean process
• 20:31 - Laura's thoughts on AA and why she doesn't call herself an alcoholic
• 27:06 - Some tools that helped Laura move past her addiction
• 30:33 - How Laura started to attract the big doers
• 33:25 - The life-changing mind shift of battling something you never saw for your life
• 35:34 - Dealing with a solitary existence and being at a different stage than others
• 39:22 - Moving past limiting stories with old connections
• 41:24 - Laura discusses her sobriety memoir and how it's different from what's out there
• 44:00 - Does Laura see her future creating an addiction program?
• 45:12 - How Laura's daughter sees her mom
• 48:09 - What does it mean to be beautifully broken?
• 49:34 - Laura’s challenge to you
• 51:05 - Connect with Laura

UPGRADE YOUR WELLNESS

Silver Biotics Wound Healing Gel: https://bit.ly/3JnxyDD
Code: BEAUTIFULLYBROKEN

LightPathLED https://lightpathled.com/?afmc=BEAUTIFULLYBROKEN
Code: beautifullybroken

STEMREGEN: https://www.stemregen.co/products/stemregen/?afmc=beautifullybroken
Code: beautifullybroken

Flowpresso 3-in-1 technology:
https://calendly.com/freddiekimmel/flowpresso-one-on-one-discovery

CONNECT WITH FREDDIE

Work with Me: https://www.beautifullybroken.world/biological-blueprint

Website and Store: (http://www.beautifullybroken.world) 

Instagram: (https://www.instagram.com/freddie.kimmel

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@beautifullybrokenworld 

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Freddie Kimmel and Laura McKowen (00:00.076)
when I have been at my darkest moments or when you're just stuck with something, right? And you can't figure out what could possibly be the answer or how you're gonna get out of it or what the solution is. It's like, no, you actually can't know. And that's such a good thing because the world is so much more intelligent and infinitely complex than you could imagine. It's this thing that a lot of people go, yeah, that's daunting. But to me, it's like, thank God.

Thank God.

Freddie Kimmel and Laura McKowen (00:33.283)
Welcome to the Beautifully Broken Podcast brought to you by AmpCoil. I'm your host, Freddie Kimmel, and on this show, we discuss the common thread survivors share after walking through the fire, the practitioners making a difference, and the treatment modalities that deliver healing back into the hands of the people who need it most. Witness the inspiration we gain by navigating the human experience with grace, humility, and a healthy dose of mistakes. Because part of being human is being beautifully broken.

Freddie Kimmel and Laura McKowen (01:07.407)
Well, good morning, Laura McCowen. Welcome to the beautifully broken podcast. Thank you. It is an honor to have you here. Now I'm reaching you in Marblehead, Massachusetts, correct? Correct. Yep. Beautiful. The little fairy tale town of Marblehead. Unbelievable. Well, I always say I'm like, I'm so gracious for technology and the ability to reach out and just like have these, you know,

It's like we're sitting in the same living room. We get to have these amazing conversations with people all over the world, any country, any time, and there's no, there's absolutely no delay. I know. It's brilliant. It's, there's a lot, I rag on technology and social media a lot because there's a dark side, but this is crazy. You know, can't forget that part. It is. Now you came to me through Tori Dooby, who is one of my greats, one of my favorite.

you know, people in the whole universe because you were on her podcast and she just raved and raved and she said, do you need to have this woman on your show? Her message is incredible. Her writing is incredible and her heart and soul are next level. I love that. Yeah, she's you've known her for a very long time. I've known her for a tiny amount of time, but she was one of those people instantly. I was like, we're I I'm going to know you. We're going to be friends.

So Laura, let's let's jump right into it. If you couldn't tell the audience a little bit about, let's say, let's just go with your core message that that you stand behind some of your writings and some things that you talk about on your your podcasts. Sure. So I've had two podcasts. One was called Home, which was all about life through the lens of sobriety, addiction and sobriety. And then. One I have now is called Spiritual ish, so it's more of a take on

personal development and spirituality. But so that leads into my big messages. One, a lot of my work came through my work in getting sober. And so I really try to tell people that their pain is not a problem. It's it's an invitation always to something bigger, especially the big pain. Right. Like for me, getting, you know, being caught in addiction and having to get sober was

Freddie Kimmel and Laura McKowen (03:32.037)
burned me to the ground. And I didn't see it as an invitation at the time, but it was. And it was the biggest invitation in my life. It's completely changed everything. So I try to tell people that their pain is not a problem. And also, the other big message I would say is that we have this bigger yes inside of us. So one of my most favorite quotes, and when I read it, kind of

shifted my life in a completely different direction is from the Gospel of Thomas. And it's, if you bring forth what is within you, what is within you will save you. And if you do not bring forth what is within you, what is within you will destroy you. And so to me, that's like, our potential inside us is not this late and sort of benign thing. If we don't use it, something really dark takes its place.

and using it, finding it, using it, devoting yourself to it. And it's not just work, right? A lot of people think, my work has to be my purpose. No, it's just the way you live in the world. Devoting yourself to that bigger yes is, I think, a responsibility that we all have. That really brought up, you know, it's so hard quantum physics or energetics. It's very hard to maintain.

It's very hard to stay in the same place. Like we have this natural trend towards an ebb and flow energetically That's what the patterns of gravitation the earth the magnetic pulse coming from the core the solar systems Everything's in this constant flux and I was actually just listening to a podcast on They were talking about the Big Bang Theory and how and how you know, they were arguing Well was their creation in the universe or is it is it just a stream of forever?

And just blew my mind and they were saying they can look back and you can see, you can see from a chemical structure that there was, there was so much more order billions and billions of years ago. we're trending towards this phase of chaos and things are changing and rules are changing. The laws of physics are changing. It was, it blew my mind and that we have to be for me, how it resonated was we've got to be open to the state of flux.

Freddie Kimmel and Laura McKowen (05:58.195)
And we're going to have this attachment where like, know this, I know how life feels right now. But if I'm open to what comes next, who knows that it's not more brilliant or more incredible. love that you went there. Yeah, it's, it's for me, quantum physics and, and string theory and all those things, they kind of melt your brain, right? Because it's, I think it was either Deepak Chopra or

or Wayne Dyer or something said, it's not strange to think about, it's like stranger than you can think. And to me, I try to think about those things or when I, it puts you in this sort of like contemplating infinity space that is crazy making on one hand, but on the other hand, it's like, there's so much more than I could possibly fathom. Like my realm of understanding is so tiny and to me that's such,

good message because when I have been at my darkest moments or when you're just stuck with something, right, and you can't figure out what could possibly be the answer or how you're going to get out of it or what the solution is, it's like, you actually can't know. And that's such a good thing because the world is so much more intelligent and infinitely complex than you could imagine.

It's this thing that a lot of people go, yeah, that's daunting. But to me, it's so, it's like, thank God, thank God there's a more complicated, complex, intelligent thing happening than what I could understand. Yeah. So let's trace your timeline back a little bit. You know, the beautifully broken podcast. We talked to many people who have walked through the fire and out of the other side, they become these brilliant, brilliant.

human beings, creatures, whatever you want to call it. And I was looking over your website this morning and it's so inspiring. Thank you. And I would love it if you wouldn't honor us just for a little while when we can go back to a time and maybe your life was a little more chaotic. And when you were walking through the fire. Chaos is such a good word too, because that's really what it feels like. Yeah. So.

Freddie Kimmel and Laura McKowen (08:18.9)
It's pretty easy to think back. There was a period of time, I would say 2012 to 2013 was like the grand chaos. was, I got separated from my husband in 2012. We had a three year old daughter at the time, which is its own form of chaos. And I was really, really in the darkest place with drinking.

and really kind of just hanging on by a tiny, tiny thread. For people who haven't experienced addiction per se to that degree, it's terrifying because I could not trust myself. I had no trust in myself anymore. I didn't know what I was gonna do on any given day when I woke up. I was living

I think everyone can probably relate to separate lives, an external life and an internal life, and that disconnect being very scary. Like nobody really knows what's going on with you. And what is going on with you is so dark and so scary and so secretive and shameful that to imagine bringing that into light is you'd almost rather die.

I mean, I've actually thought that many times. I'd rather die than anyone know what's really going on with me. had so many secrets and so many just, I'd done 20 years of just drinking and all the accumulation of just really horrible things that had happened to me or that I'd done because of my drinking. So you're carrying this past around. And then also I was like a VP of marketing at this big agency and I had this beautiful daughter and I lived in this

really nice home that I couldn't afford and I had stacks of, you know, IRS bills. had so much. I was financially in a really scary place. Wouldn't open mail, but I looked okay. Like everything pretty much looked okay. And unless you got really close, you couldn't tell what was going on. And that's, I actually, more than anything, when I look back at pictures of that time, I look so normal and so good and

Freddie Kimmel and Laura McKowen (10:43.965)
so put together in pictures and they terrify me because I know what was going on, right? So there's this like hidden chaos, right? And it's going, it's getting bigger and bigger and bigger all the time. And it finally sort of exploded into the surface when I had a really bad night that was sort of public with my family. I left my daughter uncared for overnight and in a

and my family knew about it. So that force, that sort of exposed the chaos, right? I always say it like pricked a hole in the bubble of my denial in my sort of private life. And then you can't unsee that. But when you're caught in an addiction, it's like, this thing can be killing you and you still are...

holding onto it with claws because I thought like there's no life without this. It was not just the drinking, it's everything that drinking had been to me, which is relationships and how to connect with people and how to have a conversation and how to date and how to have sex and how to work, know, how to connect with people at work and how to travel is everything. So when I, that came to the forefront and you have this moment of reckoning where it's like,

there are kind of two ways that this can go. One is I keep going as I was and one is to go off into this totally unknown place. And I started to go off into the totally unknown place, which was sobriety. And it took me a year of trying to get sober. And really, I say I was trying, because sometimes I was, but it was more like trying to want a thing you don't which...

think we've all felt before. It's like grief, know, just pure raw grief of trying to let go of something you don't want to let go of, which is this life that I had in this person I thought I was. And yeah, and really thinking that getting sober would be drain all the color out of my life. I wouldn't have, I would never be in my first thoughts were what if I'm boring and who's going to love me?

Freddie Kimmel and Laura McKowen (13:10.176)
Like the boring thought is, yeah, okay, that's sort of not that awful. It's kind of awful, but the who will love me is devastating, right? Devastating. Who's gonna love me? And I don't mean just, I meant mostly like a romantic partner. Like who's ever gonna wanna date me, want me, love me, but also everybody else. Everyone I knew, you know, it it,

It was connected to every relationship I had with family and friends and everyone. So it was pretty devastating. I, that's where I was at that time. It was at the bottom of a really, really dark, scary, lost place. just, all the things that had carried me through to life to that point, know, intelligence and will and charm and just sort of this, I have a lot of

go in me, know, just like figure it out. None of that was going to work. And it took, it has taken years and years to come out of that chaos and it is still going, you know, it's a forever unfolding process. when I, I'm coming up on five years sober in September and when I look back on that time, it's almost unrecognizable.

to me as a life because I can't believe how small it was. can't believe how... It's almost impossible to articulate, right? Like what life is like before you get burned to the ground. Because you become a different person. I'm more me, I'm still me. I'm a bigger, brighter, more alive version of me.

but I had no way of knowing how that was gonna go. No way of knowing, yeah. Do you remember, was there a moment that you felt, obviously we, you you talk about the downward spiral and you know, was there a moment where you felt you're like, can do this, I have this power within inside of me to make this shift or was it gradual? It was gradual for me, you know, I think people always want that.

Freddie Kimmel and Laura McKowen (15:37.434)
like the story of the moment, you know, it's the rock bottom story, but it wasn't like that for me. It was a, it was a lot of really the moment with my daughter in July of 2013, that was a moment for sure, but it wasn't an, can do this. was like, fuck, I am, I'm caught basically. Yeah. It wasn't that it was, um,

But that was what got me to my first meeting, for example, like my first AA meeting. And that was the first real step I had ever taken to sort of acknowledge like, okay, I'm gonna do something about this. And that there is a thing now, that this is a thing now that we're dealing with. But I have a lot of moments of I can do this. And then they would quickly be supplanted by moments of equal grief, devastation, sadness. So it was a, I think,

It's never a clean process in my experience. This, like, you know you can do it and then you get pulled back. You know you can do it and then you get pulled back. So it's this more of like a slow climb. I would have moments, so there is a moment that I can go back to. So I took this retreat, I went to this retreat. This was like a year later. I had just finally put together

like a few weeks of consecutive sobriety a year later. And so I went to this retreat at Kripalu, which is this retreat center in Western Massachusetts. It was with Sean Korn. I don't know if you know who she is. She's this amazing, very fiery yoga teacher and activist. And I'd never been to a Kripalu before. I had no business being there. I had no money. It was like, what am I doing in this sort of like,

I'm going on a yoga retreat and I'm literally just fighting for my life mostly every day, you know? It very privileged and ridiculous. But it was the best thing for me because she talked about that exactly. Like you know where, I'm sure you've experienced this.

Freddie Kimmel and Laura McKowen (18:00.354)
infinite number of times, but where life meets you sort of exactly where you are and you get the exact message you needed to hear from, the exact person you needed to hear it from, and it just reaches you. And you couldn't have orchestrated it, right? So I'm laying there, I barely made it to this retreat. I'm laying there in this room with all these other people on our yoga mats going, what the fuck am I doing here? And this woman, Sean Korn, comes out and she's like,

We are all so privileged to be here. Like, look, if you're here, you have a responsibility to heal your life and you have a responsibility to show up because you're one of the lucky ones. Like you get to be here doing this work. And it was like, oh, holy shit. And this whole, the whole time during this retreat, I'm a yoga teacher too. I have been for about 10 years, but this whole time during this retreat,

I just had this like crazy big fire in me going, I want to do this. I want to do what she's doing. And I couldn't explain it because I wasn't really even teaching yoga. I'd certainly never let a retreat. I didn't even know if the exact thing she was doing was what I wanted to do, but I knew I wanted to feel like that. And I knew I had that in me to like lead people through this stuff. I knew I had it in me.

I hadn't done anything even close to that yet. I was still like working my job and in a completely different life, but I felt it. I felt it so strongly and, and I also knew that I would if I stayed sober. It was like this very clear, if you stay sober, you will do this. And that was something I wanted more than I wanted to keep drinking.

And there weren't many things that I wanted more than that. Like at all. So it reached me. And then on the way out of that retreat, I stopped in the bookstore and I found a book called The Great Work of Your Life by Stephen Cope. And the first thing I read was that quote to you that I read in the book, The Gospel of Thomas. And it was like, boom, this is what you're doing. This is what you're doing here.

Freddie Kimmel and Laura McKowen (20:26.734)
The body knows. The body knows. The body knows. The body knows. So you mentioned AA for a moment in the program. Is that something you're still, is that still resonate with you? Was that like one of your main lifelines? So it's interesting. I have an interesting relationship with AA. I write about it a lot in my book because I think it's important to address.

Yes, it was a lifeline in that the people in there saved my life in the beginning. had nowhere else to be, nowhere else to go. And some of the messages reached me because I do, I am definitely a God person. Like that wasn't a hard leap for me to make. I've always been very, like just had this deep sense of God. But a lot of it, I really

rejected and still do. I'm kind of unapologetic about like take what works and leave the rest type thing, which some people in NA don't jive with and that's fine. I don't go to meetings anymore. I do still have a sponsor who I talk to and she's the person that helps me go through the steps in my third year of sobriety and she did it in that.

brought me to a different place. So this is how I feel about AA. I love, I think the steps are really beautiful, deep spiritual wisdom, ancient spiritual wisdom. I really think that if you strip away the fellowship, which is in and of itself, fellowship and community is great, but there's a lot of junk there. And if you strip away the dogma, then there's some beautiful spiritual wisdom at the heart of the 12 steps.

But there's also a lot that's missing from it. It's really not a program for women. Like really, really not. It's, you know, there's a chapter in there called For the Wives. And it's like, it's the most absurd writing you've ever heard. But it was also created in 1950s by two men and it was of its time, right? So, and I know a lot of people who love AA and it's saved them. They appreciate it and they love it. And that's great. I think it's

Freddie Kimmel and Laura McKowen (22:52.849)
been time for something else for a long time. And so I kind of DIY-ed my sobriety a little bit. I've done AA and I've done a whole bunch of other things. And I think that no person recovers in the same way. Yeah. I've had some family members in and out and some clients that have been in and out. And I've never been to a meeting, so I don't know enough about it to speak to it. But I always thought,

from listening to them and some other very close people in my life, it felt like everybody was stuck with this label of I am an alcoholic. yeah, well we can talk about that too. And I was like, it's not that you're not an alcoholic, but I think we can go about 38 steps below that. And we can just start to really get real. It's like telling someone, well, this is...

This is what, you know, you're, this is the autoimmune disease you have, or this is the cancer you have, and this is what you are. And this is what your cells are. And you listen to it and you listen to it and you have every doctor and every technician and every nurse and every injection. And it's like, you start to identify, you're like, yeah, well I'm a T cancer person and that's what, that's what I am. And it becomes, it becomes its own persona and this own entity, which can be more powerful than you are.

Because you're living, you've built this like world that's not real. It's imposed by everybody around you in your community and doctors and, you know, people who are quote unquote smarter than you are or professionals. And then how do you break out of that? But I see that same thing in some of the literature in AA. Amen. 100%. I never like, I don't call myself an alcoholic. Do I have the thing where I can't drink alcohol?

Totally. But I don't like labels in general. But I also, it is exactly what you said. To me, I didn't like organizing my entire persona around this thing. And you get a lot of that. The reason I do this is because I'm an alcoholic. The reason I'm this way is because I'm an alcoholic. The reason I have relationships in this way, I relate to the world this way. It's like, ah, no, no, you're a human being.

Freddie Kimmel and Laura McKowen (25:17.685)
This is not unique. Like your proclivity towards extremes is not unique. Your proclivity towards whatever, you name it. It's not unique. And that drove me nuts right away. But what I really want to tell people is about rejecting a program that, you know, or rejecting anything is like, there's a different, I was rejecting AA in the beginning because I was rejecting sobriety, right? And I

manipulated, you know, I, I'm very good at rationalizing. We all are self rationalization. do at least four a day. Right. Right. So, so I had to be really clear about that. What am I rejecting? And for me, it was sobriety. And it was like, no, you, you, there are good things here. And look, for now, you're not doing well staying sober. So let's just like, you can argue your way out of AA when you

got some sober time. And I also started doing my own shit. I immediately rejected the anonymity piece. We know that shame, what is the quote by Brene Brown? It's like if you put shame in a Petri dish, it needs three things to thrive. it's like secrecy, silence, and judgment. So to me, the anonymity piece just made no sense.

Anyway, yeah, there's a lot to say about it. mean, I think anything that defines you too much, disease, role that you have, being a mother, being a wife, being a husband, being a partner, anything that defines you too much, you gotta really look at. Yeah. What were some of the most amazing tools that you had access to that really helped you up and to get up and get on?

So for me, writing, creativity was the biggest one because it was the thing I had not been doing. That I had been talking about writing a book, talking about writing, dreaming about writing, obsessing over words my entire life. It was like from the time I was eight or nine, had journals just collecting quotes. Like this is my...

Freddie Kimmel and Laura McKowen (27:43.519)
this is me, you know, and I hadn't been doing it. And so writing really did save me. It helps me figure out what was going on and to sort of metabolize this experience. I think it's creativity in whatever form it comes, think is, I know it's scientifically also proven that it's very, it's transformational for people because it speaks a language.

I think it taps into our body, taps into our soul language, taps into, it gets out of the mind and the mind is where we make all the, we make all the mess, right? So I think the more we can do that, the better we are. So creativity helps me a lot. I am also like reconnecting with my body in a different way. I've always been a very physical person. I've always been a runner, but it was, for a long time it was,

to run away, to escape or to like discharge all the anxiety and everything that was going on with me. But when I got sober, I started to reconnect with my yoga practice and my body as like this intuitive, intelligent animal. That has, and breathing has been tremendously, that saved me a lot.

Yeah, I think those are the two big things. then, you know, learning how to be in actual relationship with people, like having actual conversations and telling the truth to people, which was something I had to learn and practice. I didn't think I needed anybody and I didn't really, I didn't have real relationships. had very surfacey sort of, I was too afraid and too...

secretive and too hidden to have real relationships. So learning how to do that is still a process, that that'll change your life. it will. Yeah, well, yeah. Can you can you think about if you think about your circles, you know, your social circles and your friends and like, let's call them your top five, you know, your super friends. How much of those shifted over the last, you know, five, six years? Every

Freddie Kimmel and Laura McKowen (30:10.313)
every, it's totally different, new. There, I would say there's one in there, one person in there that was there before, but that took a long time to recalibrate. Everyone else is new and they're people that live much differently than anyone I would have attracted into my world before. Let's talk about that for a moment. How do you feel, how do you feel your decisions and your changes in this journey?

has changed what people you pull into your circle energetically. So I love this conversation. I magically now pull in people that don't care about drinking or at all, which is fascinating because I thought everyone cared about drinking. So not that they're sober necessarily, but it just doesn't matter to them.

they don't center their lives and they're socializing around it. I find that most people who are really committed to growth and really committed to sort of being awake and present and doing big work, just, that it doesn't fit into their world anymore. So there's that. And there's also just people who I,

I have started to attract people who are doing really cool work in the world. Like really creating things and love to have the conversations that I love to have about like conversations like this, you know? And it's like just any time. And people who are deeply interested in our interior lives and in whatever also just

things that I don't know anything about, but that just they have really deep interests and curiosities and passions about life. And yeah, it's pretty interesting. I also have noticed that I've started to, I don't know what this is. I mean, I do know what it is, but I seem to attract a lot of people that have defected from like fundamentalist religious world and have, and cause I am very deeply attracted to theology and God and not God is like,

Freddie Kimmel and Laura McKowen (32:38.433)
I don't even, I'm not a practicing person of any religion, but just God as a concept. And so people who are, like have those conversations and can, and because of their background can teach me a lot of things about say Christianity or Judaism or that I wouldn't know on my own, but I'm still like my, one of my good friends is Megan Watterson who just published today a book.

about Mary Magdalene and it's like people like that, you know? Yeah. It's just different. It's all different. I want to ask you the same question, but I guess this is an interview for me, not you, but I still want to know. it's it's it's unbelievable. You know, I talk about this and I think about it a lot because it's just it's just so drastically shifted over the years. You know, I came

I came to New York in like 2001 to do music theater Broadway. So that family is like, you know, you don't find more magical animated storytellers that are just, they don't care about, you don't go to Broadway to make money. mean, not really. Like if you really want to make money, you go be a lawyer or a financial investor. You know, you're like putting it out there. Oh, I'm going to be okay with losing my job every like six weeks my show closes.

You know, and you're just really you're going to try to find a new job every like three or four months for 20 years. I did that like that's like that. That takes a certain caliber of human beings. So imagine like, you know, it's like that's the community. And now and so now I'm moving into this like going through cancer in the middle of that. You know, before that, it was like every audition and every job was like life and death. I would like

I remember crying over not being cast in these shows and just like hurting so bad. I'm like, why not me? It's not fair. And then you go through, you know, like whatever, you know, these crazy experiences where your whole life is just burned down in a little trash can. You're just like this little ember. And then you're like, you walk, I remember going in auditions and things after that. like, I don't care. I'm happy to sing. I get to sing in the room. Like each audition is a performance opportunity.

Freddie Kimmel and Laura McKowen (34:57.643)
Like I just get to show up and be me. And I honestly sense that like from after cancer, I really didn't stop working for like eight years, nine years. mean, I was never like, I'm good with money, all these things, even with going through additional like health surgeries and stuff. It was like, good, we're going to roll with it. You know, know, but that's right. That's the perspective. Like the crazy thing is you were you were OK, right? Through that whole thing, you know, you weren't

crazy stressed and spinning around about it all all the time. It's not funny. It's funny. And then moving into this health and wellness space, you know, and now I don't now I'm not in that. It's very strange. This is so weird. I feel so and it's I'm OK with it, but I'm so like alone like I'm 41. I'm not married. I don't have a girlfriend. I don't have kids. I'm not with that. All these actors, you know, I'm normally are with 30 people a night.

Like, and you're gonna go out afterwards and you're gonna be in rehearsal all day. And now I'm just like, I'm on the microphone, I'm on Skype, I'm on Zoom, I'm doing webinars, but like, I'm like in this pocket. So I'm- I so understand that. So I'm accepting it as like this cocoon. You I'm totally accepting. like, I don't know what this means. I feel like the lack of like human connection. And I'm trying to do things to biohack around that, but it's very-

I keep saying to everybody, is so weird to be in this space and just feel like all this purpose, but I'm like, a total, I feel like I'm on my own freaking country. Okay. So I have a question. How long have you been doing this? The, the, the health and wellness racket. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, like since, like since 2009. I mean, it's always, it's, it's been like two split paths. I've been

But the last year and a half, it's been, I've really opened the gates. I've said, you know what? I've had, can't do shows, those are done. And I'm just opening the bandwidth to tell the universe. And the second I did that, was like, people are like, work with us, let's do this, come work with me. I want you to program this program for So really for like, so that's what I mean. Like when you really like focused into it, has it.

Freddie Kimmel and Laura McKowen (37:18.995)
It's been a shorter amount of time. A short amount of time, yes. But that's okay. So I, I'm glad you brought that up because I probably made it sound like I'm just swarming with all these amazing people. No, I mean, yes, but I live, I mean, you're, seeing me in my house right now. Yeah. I work, I work by myself. Most of the work I do is alone and it will probably always be alone. Like being a writer is a

Very lonely existence. But you find you you start to connect in different ways. And I think it's also a function of like where we are age wise. I'm forty one to people are doing different stuff. know. Yeah, I get it. It's it's interesting. That's it's a weird because my relationships, my circle is smaller, but so much deeper. Each individual relationship is so much deeper.

But I'm not out. Like I don't go to an office. I don't, you don't go to the theater. I'm not going to bars. I don't do the big social thing ever. You know? So it is interesting. It's, it's a weird thing to grapple with. Yeah. I've been, I've been thinking about that a lot. There's this, there was just this article where these, I don't know if you saw this, there were like eight women who in Japan, they had all pooled all their money and they had bought a house together.

And I got, did see that remodeled it. They're all going to live together. They want to now they're young women. They're like 30, but they're going to die there together. They said, you know, it's this communal living thing. And I was like, that's pretty cool. Yeah. what everyone talks about that, right? I've always talked about living with my friends on a commune. You wonder how it would actually work because families, what if, if you start to build a family, you know, or each person starts to build a family, families are weird.

They're really weird. So that would change things, but I, I'm curious to see how that goes. Yeah, me too. I want to see what happens and somebody brings in a partner or like somebody has a kid or you know, what's gonna, that's gonna just upset the flow. Yeah. But this, you know, I think about this as well. you know, in this, and I see this a lot, I see there's this element of many, many people have built this shell of isolation into their world, especially in New York city.

Freddie Kimmel and Laura McKowen (39:43.561)
It's like so many people, but everybody's alone in their little cubicle apartment. And you can stay there for days and days now because well, new stranger things came out and you know, it's really cold, icy weather and it's like, you've got your phone. Your entire world is right here. I can access anybody. And I find people forget what it's like to connect from the heart.

You know, I just just will go off this topic, but to speak to old friends, you know, I just went out to dinner with some friends the other the other night. And I literally I went to the bathroom halfway through the meal and I cried because it was so it was so sad. Old stories, limiting beliefs, victimization. And I was like, it was like 30 minutes in. I was like, my God. I was like, this hurts.

Like I'm very, I'm so empathetic. I'm like touched in how empathetic I am. I feel it deeply in my organs and my food, my food that I love eating, my favorite restaurant tasted so bad. It tasted so bad. Every bite I was like, can't wait to get done with this meal. I got to get out of here. And it was really, you know, was really, it was heartbreaking to me and it was, and again, you know, I also have to draw this line. can't, I can't get it. I can't go into coach mode. No.

Cause it's the people pay you. Yeah. You're like, stop life coaching me. Well, it's also like people don't want to be coached and unless they do, unless they do. Yeah. Yeah. So we're going to let's, let's talk about your book. Okay. Let's talk about your book. Cause you're, you're coming out with, a masterpiece here. yes. Hopefully. yeah. So my, my book is called, we are the luckiest.

It comes out in January and it's a, I call it a sobriety memoir. It's not, it's not the sort of typical, a lot of, and I've read them all and I love them all, but a lot of the addiction memoirs are you hear the whole train wreck story, right? Of how you got mired in addiction and sort of the end is, and I got sober and it's usually I,

Freddie Kimmel and Laura McKowen (42:09.821)
got into AA, got sober, and that was it. And I wanted to write more about what it's like to get sober, like what happens in sobriety, because it's bizarre and crazy. so it's wild. So there is decent amount of the drinking story in there, because otherwise the sobriety part wouldn't mean much. it's about.

It's about sobriety and the sort of just surprising way that it, the surprising gift that it's been. And we are the luckiest came from the title came from some Instagram posts that I made. Like four years ago when I was laying in bed with my daughter, I think I was just had 30 days and I was crying. I was always crying then. everything was hard all the time. And, but I had this moment where.

It was like, no, this is what you wanted. Like you're awake, you're alive. You're amazing and beautiful daughters, like asleep next to you. You're not punk, not destroying anything and you're feeling it all. And it was like, no, we're lucky. We get to do this. We get to do this. And so I posted something and

said we're the luckiest and then and then it kind of became a thing. I teach a class that's called we're the luckiest and it was just going to be that it was going to be the title of the book. It was obvious. Yeah. Yeah. Do you know the song, the luckiest? Of course. Yeah. Yes, I do. Yeah. That's one of the magical ones. It is. I agree. So do you have, you, do you see yourself? Um, you know, I know you said you teach a class, but do you think there's any, um,

Is there any bandwidth for you to create a program that you envision being a little more heart centered and sustainable and that would work better for, for cases of addiction? You know, I don't, I don't think that's what I'm going to do. I, my dear friend, Holly Whitaker created a program called Tempest and that's basically what it is. Uh, you should connect with her. She lives in New York.

Freddie Kimmel and Laura McKowen (44:37.149)
But I don't think I, I'm a writer at the core and that's where I want most of my work to come from. So if I reach people, I wanna reach people mostly through that. And I do, I love teaching, I have a few different courses. I don't think I will ever create something like that. I mean, who knows? But I don't see that as being what I'm doing and there are other people doing that now. And I think in 10 years we will have

programs that are as big as AA or at least as available. Yeah, I can see that in creation. I can feel that vibration that that's coming. Yeah, it is. The other question I have is, if you could just be so bold to speak to our audience a little bit, what does it mean to you to step in the role that you're

that you're living right now for your daughter. So interesting because people ask questions about what she thinks of what I'm doing a lot. And it's so hard to even contemplate because there's like this public world that I have my work life and my Instagram life and even the book that, know, even like work that's

so close to my heart, but then there's this like relationship with my daughter that's so, it's a private, intimate, like it's my world, you know, but it's not a world that I don't know. Okay, so let me think about this, cause I love the question. I'm sure it means more things to her than I, that I don't know. I don't know how she experiences what I do or if she really even understands it. But I know that she has a mom who is

99 % more present even when I'm an impatient asshole and I'm not there. You know, she's, I'm there. She will.

Freddie Kimmel and Laura McKowen (46:47.719)
I think she sees me creating things and just starting things. She knows that I podcast. She knows that I have a book coming out. I think she wrote me this note. I wish I had it right in front of me, but she wrote me this note the other day and it said, I know you don't think that I notice, but I want you to notice that I'm noticing.

that you work really hard to make us an amazing life and always have good food. It was like, okay, she gets it a little bit. That's a lot. Yeah. Yeah, that's so it was a pretty great note and it's like, okay, so she sees as much as she can in her 10 year old mind. She sees it's really been me and her too, you know, haven't been.

remarried, haven't even, she's met one person that I've dated in seven years. So it's been me and her, you know? And so I think she, I hope, I don't know what she will see. I hope that she sees that I am my own person and that I've created much of my world, you know, intentionally. Yeah. That's incredible. So I want to, I want to be respectful of your time.

And this has been absolutely incredible, but we always end the interview with two questions. Okay. I love it. All right. So the first one is, and you've answered this a little bit, but if you can speak a little bit to the podcast mission, what does it mean to you to be beautifully broken? So when I saw the name of your show and when I think of the word broken, have you ever heard of Akhilandeshvari? No.

So she is the goddess of never not broken. And her power came from, she would burst herself into shards of light and like work her magic that way. She was never not broken. And I did a workshop with Holly Whitaker about this, was about sobriety. I, so to me,

Freddie Kimmel and Laura McKowen (49:08.649)
She resonated with me so much, just that what she would do and where her power came from, it came from being broken and she was never not broken. So I always think of it that way. I don't think we're ever not broken. But to be beautifully broken is to use it, right? To use it. Yeah, easily one of the best answers I've had so far. And then the last one is if you can just leave the audience.

You know, maybe there's some people out there just examining choices they're making day to day with, their habits and addictions. And you could leave the audience with a question for a little self-examination. Yes. Okay. So a lot of, I get a lot of emails or messages with people describing in great detail, their drinking or their drug use or their food use and saying, but I'll just stick to alcohols.

and saying, I an alcoholic? Do I need to address this? And I thought about this for a long time and it was like, God, the question that we ask is always, this bad enough that I have to change? Is this bad enough? And it's like the question we should be asking is, is this good enough for me to stay the same? Whatever it is, is this good enough for me to stay the same? And then the

The question I want to leave people with or have them ask themselves is, I free? Am I free in my life? Does this thing or this behavior or this relationship own me?

That's a question, it'll give you the answer pretty quick. is, and there's many filters you could put that through with all the different things we have going on in our lives. people can find you at lauramcowen.com and where else can we go to experience all your magic? So I'm on Instagram, that's my favorite social media place, Laura underscore McCowen.

Freddie Kimmel and Laura McKowen (51:21.769)
And I have a podcast called Spiritualish. It's on iTunes and SoundCloud and Spotify and all that. Those are the places. And then if people want to support the book. Yes. And is there any way for people to pre-order and get this? You can pre-order already. I'm going to be announcing soon that I'm going to have a launch team so people can join the launch team and help me.

launch it if they want. And it's pretty cool. They you get an early copy of the book, you buy a copy. That's how you get in. You preorder and then you get an early copy of it, like an early electronic copy, like a month before it comes out, which is pretty cool and another and other fun things. you can you could preorder it now and it'll be retroactive that you could join the launch team. But that's all on my website. Beautiful right now. Well, it's been an absolute pleasure.

I know I'm so grateful to Tori. Yeah, she is the super she's a super connector. That's what she does. It's true. And I just thank you for being here and being so authentic and vulnerable and sharing your story. And it's I I'm so excited for people to hear this. It's just yeah. Thanks for doing what you do. Yes. Thank you. Namaste. Namaste. Bye.

Ladies and gentlemen, you made it to the end of the podcast. Now in a world where the average attention span is less than 10 seconds, we just spent almost an hour together. And I think this is the beginning of something really beautiful. Now one way to support the podcast is to head over to freddysetgo.com and check out my newly launched page, Freddy's Faves, where I've linked every five star product and healing modality you hear about on the show.

Most offer significant discounts by clicking the link. And please know it doesn't cost you anything extra. And at the same time, they support the show through affiliation. check out Freddy's faves on freddysetgo.com. This episode of the beautifully broken podcast was brought to you by our sponsor, Amp Coil, upgrading the vibrations of hearts, minds and bodies all over the world. Thank you for tuning in. If you enjoyed today's show,

Freddie Kimmel and Laura McKowen (53:42.567)
head over to iTunes and leave a five star review. Grabbing a download is like giving this virtual thumbs up that we're doing it right. And if you want to connect with me, shoot me a message on Instagram at freddysetgo.com or at freddysetgo. That's all for today. Our closing, our closing, the world is hurting. We need you at your very best. So take the steps today to always be upgrading, whatever it takes to move the needle. Remember, while life is pain, putting those fractured pieces back together is a beautiful process. I'm your host. I love you. Namaste. Have a wonderful day.