What does it really mean to choose yourself — especially when choosing yourself means walking away from something you once thought was your dream?

In this deeply honest and beautifully real conversation, Kristin Crockett sits down with longtime friend, author, educator, keynote speaker, and creator of Soul Not Skin (soulnotskin | The Stories We Carry), Jen Slumac.

Jen opens up about her journey through alcoholism and long-term recovery, the inner work that helped her untangle patterns born from survival, and the courage it took to walk away from her dream of Hollywood when she realized staying could jeopardize her sobriety. Her story is a powerful reminder that sometimes the bravest decision isn't pushing harder toward the life we thought we wanted — it's choosing ourselves.

Kristin and Jen also explore what happens when we stop hiding the parts of our stories we're ashamed of and begin using them to create connection. Jen shares how hearing other people speak openly about experiences she thought she would take to the grave helped her realize, I'm not the only one. That realization became part of her mission: sharing real stories of adversity, healing, and hope so others feel less alone.

Together, they talk about:

• Breaking old patterns and learning new ways of being
• Recovery, healing, and the courage to choose yourself
• Following a calling even when the path doesn't look the way you expected
• Turning your greatest challenges into something you can give the world
• The power of listening to understand instead of listening to respond
• Why our stories can create connection between people who seem completely different
• Finding your voice and having the courage to use it
• Becoming more fully who you were created to be

Jen describes her calling as ultimately being about connection — bringing people together, sharing stories, giving hope, and helping us remember how much we have to learn from one another.

This episode is raw, funny, vulnerable, faith-filled, and deeply human.

Because living your Courageous Destiny isn't always about becoming someone new.

Sometimes it's finally having the courage to choose yourself, heal what needs healing, use your voice, and become who you were always meant to be.

Takeaways:

• In the podcast episode, the speakers discuss the transformative journey of recovery from addiction, highlighting the importance of inner healing and personal growth.
• The importance of storytelling is emphasized as a means of connecting with others and fostering understanding among diverse communities.
• The speakers share their experiences of overcoming personal struggles and the significance of sharing these narratives to inspire hope and resilience in others.
• The discussion touches on the idea that genuine connection among individuals is essential for a healthier society, urging listeners to engage with and support one another.
• A key takeaway is the recognition that many people suffer from unaddressed emotional pain, which can hinder their efforts to build meaningful relationships and achieve personal success.
• The podcast also highlights the critical need for tools and resources to help individuals navigate their journeys of healing and transformation.

About Jen Slumac:

Jen SluMac is a published author, educator, keynote speaker, and storyteller whose work draws on recovery, education, comedy, reinvention, and more than a decade teaching inside jails and prisons. Through soulnotskin (find the podcast at soulnotskin | The Stories We Carry), she shares honest human stories on her podcast, creates workbooks, learning and speaking experiences designed to deepen reflection, strengthen connection, and help people find the courage to begin again.

Credibility (if valuable here)

• M.Ed. in Education / Instructional Design

• California Adult Education Teaching Credential

• Certified Substance Use Disorder Certified Counselor (SUDCC)

• More than a decade teaching inside jails and prisons

• Restorative Justice facilitator

• 25 years working with people toward recovery

Hello everyone and welcome to the courageous destiny build a business and life you love podcast.

You guys, I am so excited.

Do you believe I have a friend on here of 30 plus years?

What?

I know, it's.

It's incredible.

It's incredible.

Well, you stay quiet for just a minute because I gotta introduce you.

So my friend is Jen Slumak.

She is the author.

She's an author, educator and keynote speaker.

Speaker.

And she is the creator of the soul not skin podcast.

And boy, I knew you in another life and it's like we've all grown up.

I know.

How about that, huh?

It's so cool.

It's so cool.

Jen, can you share about, can you share about me with or about you?

Not the stories about me?

Oh boy, I had a podcast.

It was really great.

It may be a little short lived.

Tell us about yourself.

Happy to.

First of all, Kristen, thanks so much for having me on the show.

Really happy to be here.

Really happy that we have sort of reconnected in, in full recently.

Really proud of you for what you're doing and I think what we're both doing is pretty exciting.

I am a woman in long term recovery from alcoholism and I have been making it sort of a mission of mine that as I had the opportunity to heal a lot of the things that I used to medicate, I realized the value in those things in helping other people.

And so, you know, so I, I.

Find that.

I had a wonderful family and so many wonderful things about my family that I could tell you.

There's also a lot of chaos and, and I think born of that I had my own stuff.

And so what I've been able to do now, as you said, now that I'm all grown up, is sort of speak from the place where I've healed.

But, but I talk about the things that were really hard because I don't think we talk about them enough in this world.

I think so many people move through life with these undealt with hurts, you know?

Yeah.

And they can really hold us back.

Whether they hold us back from succeeding in our own lives or whether they hold us back from authentic connection with others, which I think is critical for us to be a healthy world.

Well, and I was always inspired by your sobriety because you really did.

You really did.

I'm going to say sober up.

Right.

We were all still kind of in that party mode.

I think I was in the party mode until I was like 30 some odd years old, maybe even into my early 40s.

But you really did end it pretty Quickly, What.

What happened to you?

Like, what.

What was it that happened where you're like, I can't do this.

This is different.

This isn't.

This isn't quite right.

Like something's not right.

Yeah, it's a great question.

I mean, it's.

It's part of what I wrote about in my book Soul Not Skin, which is, by the way, what started the Soul Not Skin journey that I'm on with the podcast and other things.

What happened to me, I think, was, you know, I had this little girl's stuff, this hurt, the fractured family.

And I learned lots of ways to sort of move through life anyway.

And there were just a handful of things that sort of led me to alcohol.

Some of them were hanging out with my friends.

Some of them were trying to belong.

Some of them were self medication, you know, And I think I knew Kristen by the time I was about 17, 16.

Wow.

That I did not have control when I drank.

Like, I already knew that it sometimes was okay and sometimes wasn't.

That was around.

I think we were a little older even when you and I met.

I'm not sure.

But.

But when I was in high school, I learned after the fact.

Two of our mutual friends told me after I was two years sober, they said that they used to bring me home from parties and they used to lay me on my side and they would each sleep back to back against me to keep me from laying on my back and vomiting and choking on my own.

Wow.

I had no idea.

Right.

So for me, what happened was, without knowing those details, many of which I learned because I was a blackout drinker, I didn't drink casually.

I drank.

And when I drank, it was a roll of the dice whether it was going to be a great night, a good night, a bad night.

I was going to be a jerk.

I was going to be fun.

I was going to be blacked out.

I was going to wake up with your husband, your wife, spooning your dog.

Like, I didn't know what was going to happen that night.

Right.

So I was aware of it.

But I think what really came to is by the time I was 27, I could not stand being born, you know, And I said in the book, I think I didn't know anymore if alcohol was driving me crazy or keeping me from it.

Right.

If that makes sense.

So I. I had to get help.

And that's a really nice, simple way to say what happened.

Well, no, and I. I appreciate you sharing your journey.

I have, you know, as we know, I have my.

As we Know, but it's soon to be, everybody knows, right?

I have my own journey with it.

You know, for me, it was.

Maybe it calmed down in my 40s, but it was never normal.

It was never normal.

Like, I'm the one in that goes to a party and goes, well, how much of this is there?

How much of that?

And, like, I'm sitting here, like, going, how.

How much can I politely have of this before I need to move to that?

And would anybody notice if I had this?

And you don't even realize that you're doing it.

And I know now, just with the work I do, that the reason why I drank was just to escape and get some peace and quiet in my brain, because my brain is like, all the time, you know, And I didn't have tools.

I didn't have tools.

I didn't know.

You know, I didn't know that that wasn't normal.

So it was like I almost needed a vacation for myself.

And, you know, wine or whatever alcohol I could find really did fit the bill for a very long time.

And.

And.

And then when I became a mom to triplets, gosh, you.

You really can't do that anymore.

And if you do, you're going to pay for it because you're going to be up three times in the middle of the night or inevitably, if you over partake, that'll be the night that somebody wakes up and they're sick, you know, So I couldn't use that anymore as an escape mechanism.

So instead I found other escape mechanisms, you know, that I didn't understand why I was getting so cranky or.

So what do they call it emotionally?

You know, I was emotionally wired all the time.

You know, my nervous system was going crazy and.

And we didn't have the tools.

And I love that you call it the Soul Not Skin podcast.

Right.

And, Jen, I want to slow down just for a minute to call it the Soul Not Skin book that you wrote, which is so flipping cool.

Tell me, what drove you to write the book.

What sort of difference did you want to make?

You know, like I said earlier, I think it's just through my journey of recovering from my alcoholism.

I have to do some inner work.

I have to do some inner work to sort of get to the bottom of, you know, you said we didn't have any tools.

We had tools.

They were just really bad tools, right?

Yeah.

So, like, I had to sort of untangle the way that I was, what my patterns were, because my patterns had developed probably out of survival, you know, when I was A kid.

It doesn't always mean, like, you know, ducking bullet survival.

I mean, that can just be wanting to be seen.

And what did I have to do to manipulate an environment to.

To get some attention?

Right.

So these.

These behaviors, I had to recognize and acknowledge them and untangle them, and then I had to train myself into behaving differently in the situations that tried to call forward these old behaviors.

Right, right.

And when I started doing this, Kristen, like, I started meeting other people who were also going through the process, and we would share our stories, and there was nothing like being in a room of people or being in a conversation with somebody who's also in recovery.

And they would say something that I swore I would take to the grave.

Like it was never going to come out of my mouth.

This thing, right.

This thing that I did that I was ashamed of or that scared me, and they would say it out loud, and I thought.

And I felt this hope.

Yeah.

Like, it's not just me, Right.

But I would have carried it to the grave.

And I.

And I shamed myself inside, thinking it was just me.

And so I think that the book and the podcast and my mission is sort of to share stories of coming through adversity, of, you know, different things and.

And saying what needs to be said so people can be like, oh, me too.

Right?

We're not alone.

So alone.

You know, when I.

When I.

When I wrote the book, it sort of.

I'd always wanted to write a book, but all of a sudden it was over.

During COVID I just, like, I. I tell people I just got pregnant with it.

Like.

Like, I just went into labor pains and like, I just.

Right.

I just had to get it out of me.

Right.

And I'm building a second one now.

But at the same time, I didn't really sit down and plan the book.

I just kind of.

It just kind of fell out of me, so.

Well, it's like life directed you that way, Right?

Like a calling.

I always like to say, you know, I've been called before.

I got called for courageous destiny, for sure.

I completely, like, I was.

I was doing really well.

I mean, I was in corporate America.

I was, you know, financially, things were going great.

I had.

I enjoyed sales.

I loved it.

It was fine until it wasn't.

And then when it wasn't, it really wasn't.

I couldn't even stand it anymore.

And then I hired my first coach, and I started learning how.

I started learning how to break patterns in a different way.

More of my unconscious mind kind of patterns.

And then when I would do that, then my behaviors would change.

And when my behaviors were changed, I would get different results.

And I went, holy.

You know what?

If I can do this as a mom of triplets, you know, working full time, I felt like somebody had handed me, like, the king's keys to the kingdom and said, get out there and let people know.

Be in service, share with people.

I couldn't.

I couldn't stand it because once I could hear kind of the.

The decisions that I made about who I was and the way the world works, and then I could see what actions they kept me out of that were really just pretty simple actions.

And then when I actually took those actions, I get way different results.

And I'm like, oh, I'm like going, oh, my gosh, everybody's going through it.

I would go to Starbucks and I would hear these kinds of decisions in line at Starbucks.

I would.

And then it was like this tap, tap, tap.

You got to do something about this.

Tap, tap, tap.

You got to do something about this.

Yeah.

And to me, that's like being called.

It was like, I didn't have a choice.

No, I.

And I've totally seen that in you.

I really have.

And.

And you know, the tricky thing is, it's like at first I really wanted to, like, wanted to grab an audience.

I wanted to tell them what I had to tell them.

I wanted to share with them what I had to share with them.

And it's taken me years to get to the point to realize, like, I don't know who my audience is.

I don't know who needs to hear what I have to say.

I don't know where somebody is on their journey, on their own journey of self discovery or growth or healing.

So none of that is my lane, right?

In marketing, you're supposed to know exactly who you're targeting and all this kind of stuff.

But the truth is, it's like human beings, you know, I have a story.

I feel like I've taken my own challenges, and I would say, like, with God's love, turn them into my greatest asset.

You know, Like, I literally.

It's what I have to give the world and.

And whoever is ready to grab it can grab it.

Right?

Because if I knew how long it was going to take me to get here, emotionally, spiritually, all of that stuff, oh, my God, I probably wouldn't have started.

Yeah, I didn't.

I didn't know how many times I was gonna, like, start, stop, start, stop, start, stop, get discouraged, start over, try something different.

So I.

You know,.

And to me, I like to call it.

So this is the Courageous Destiny podcast.

Right.

And I like to call that something because to me, it does take courage to keep going.

You know, when you got something on your heart that you know needs to get out in the world, and you know that you're the one that needs to bring it out to the world, it's very difficult to quit.

Once you see it, you can't unsee it.

And once you feel it in your soul that there's more healing, you know, you could relate it to healing or really to different areas of life, but once you see that there's something there for you, you can't just quit on it.

Yeah, you don't know that.

It's building resiliency.

You don't know that.

Like, I really.

I don't know about you, but I love my 50s.

I love my 50s.

I'm not so young.

I don't know yet.

I hear they're great.

Oh, yeah.

Stop it.

Oh, stop it.

I'm like, are you younger?

No.

50S.

Yeah.

That's so far.

It is really good because to me, it's like, there's just an element I'm not given a flying.

You know what?

That's right.

You know, like, what do I have to lose anymore?

I've got, you know, I've got breath in my lungs right now.

So this is the only time I've got to really be able to make a difference and to follow my calling.

Because if I don't, who's gonna do it?

Yeah, exactly.

Right.

And, you know, I think a big piece, so.

God, I hope I don't get distracted because I tend to do that to myself.

I want to start with talking about seminary, and then I want to end talking about my purpose being connection.

Okay, so help me out.

All right.

So when you talk about calling, initially, I felt called to the ministry.

My dad's a minister.

Really?

And.

Oh, yeah.

On the south side of Chicago, I had.

After I graduated college, I applied to the Quanic Seminary on the south side of Chicago.

They had a dual program, mdiv, which is Masters in Divinity and a sort of.

I don't know what you call it, but I would be working with folks on the street.

Okay.

Like a street ministry type thing.

And.

Oh, you know, Dr. King was a huge inspiration to me.

Mother Teresa, huge inspiration to me.

And so I. I sort of wanted to.

My calling always felt like loving people, Right?

Yeah.

I didn't get in initially because you had to belong to a church for a certain amount of years.

And I was gay, and so I didn't belong to a church because that just didn't work out at that time.

So the long and short of it is that was my initial calling and that didn't work out.

And so what I found over the course of the next two decades is I continued to find a stage.

You know, I performed and talked about my drinking and my healing and a lot of other things that were actually pretty funny, but some pretty crass.

And then I. I was a teacher and I got to teach about addiction and recovery and trauma and healing and.

And now, you know, speaking and the podcast.

So I continue to find a platform to do this thing, which now I fully understand is less about.

It's always about teaching, but it's less about that and more about facilitating connection across humanity.

We tend to live in echo chambers.

And I've had the great privilege of being a fly on the wall in some remarkable places, working with folks on the street, working with folks in addiction, working with folks who are incarcerated, working with folks who are suffering from mental health.

And what I know is we don't know people's stories.

Yeah.

And there's so much power in it.

There.

We have so much to offer each other in, in like the folks that we think have nothing to do with us or that we're scared of are sometimes the ones that hold the lesson that we need to heal.

So when I speak about healing or when I speak about success and those types of things, it's not so much so you can become rich and famous or so that you can, you know, do all of these things.

It's so that you can be open enough to engage with other humans because the human race needs to.

We need.

We need to knock it off.

And we need to remember that we belong to each other.

I really love that you said the open, particularly the open up.

I was actually in one of my.

I run every other Monday.

I run Rise.

You know, I have a program called Courageous Destiny Rise.

And we were actually talking this month is all about breaking patterns, of course.

And one of the biggest patterns that I broke in this work intentionally so we have conscious things.

So if we want to actually break patterns, we can consciously create them by taking on a characteristic or something that we want to create in our lives.

And I wanted to be open minded and create more openness for myself.

I grew up, my.

My family was relatively, I don't want to say necessarily close minded as far as family goes, but, you know, I. I grew up with an element of People are out to get each other.

There's a little bit of that, there was a little bit of, you know, I don't even know, discrimination at times, things like that.

And you know, through between the classes or you name it.

And I'm like, I really want to open up my mind a possibility and I really want to create that for myself because I could start to see even when I'd have conversations with people where I was having a full on conversation in my mind before I was actually speaking.

So by the time I was speaking, people didn't understand what I was talking about because they had moved on, you know, and it was like I wasn't present anymore because I wasn't open to hearing what other people had to say.

I was listening.

I was listening, but I was, I was not listening to understanding.

Listening to understand is asking questions.

Listening to understand is to actually be able to hear that person.

And I couldn't believe how many patterns I broke just by doing that.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean that's a huge one to even be aware that that might be a valuable thing to work on.

Now.

I think that's really insightful because so many of us listen for our turn to talk.

So many of us find ourselves in dialogues where we can't wait to share our next wisdom, but we don't.

But we're not in this engagement pattern with somebody else.

There's not really a, you know, give and take and that's not all the time.

But I'm saying like a lot of the time we find ourselves really just talking to ourselves, you know, and that's in.

And that just.

There goes the connection.

Right?

There goes the opportunity to grow.

Yeah, it.

But,.

Oh no, I was, I was just listening to understand to you.

Well done.

Check you out.

Am I doing good?

Yeah, so good.

So, so you had, so you had ministry, by the way.

Isn't that kind of cool to see?

Like at a very young age you had a call in a ministry.

So you knew that.

And really if you look at it, you're, you've been ministering this whole time.

You found a way to do it.

That's right, Storytelling.

And now I want to know, I want to know about something.

I want to know what's, what's the dream in soul, not skin.

So you've got a book, your keynote speaking.

Right.

So your keynote speaker, you have a podcast.

What's the big vision?

The vision is just that, to bring people together to share stories, to give hope, to open people's minds.

See, here's the Thing if I. I've done a few podcasts with folks who work with prisoners.

Right.

I've listened to them.

You guys have to listen to them, by the way.

Thank you.

And.

And a lot of people in my family, or as you described in your family, or maybe some people in my audience have never and will never meet somebody who has been in prison or is in prison, but they certainly have their ideas about it.

Right, Right.

So if you were to run into.

If I'm somebody who's never been.

Had the opportunity to meet somebody who's incarcerated, and I got put in a situation where somebody was like, well, why do you have a problem with it?

And all this stuff, their defenses are going to go up and they can't hear.

Talk about not being able to listen.

Understand.

Right.

But if I do it in a podcast, people who have never been exposed to some of these different people and ideas and situations, they can listen in the privacy of their own earbuds.

They don't have to defend.

They can just hear without raising their defenses.

They can fold laundry and listen and say, wow, I never thought about that when it comes to somebody in prison.

Or I never thought about the fact that, you know, people recidivate or go back to jail or prison so much because by the time they get out, they're more traumatized than when they've gone in.

Right.

So like introducing parts of the world that we won't walk in.

Right.

I will never walk the path of a black man, but I learned so much about life to listen to the story that he has acquired through walking through the world, you know, and it's exciting and it makes.

There was this guy, Troy Williams, and this kind of has to do with this.

I asked him one time.

He's.

He was in for aggravated robbery.

I met him at the same point.

He had a life sentence.

And I got to talking to him and he was explaining, he said, you know, even when I was in the gang culture, in my community, my main purpose was to protect my family.

And what do you say?

My community and my family.

And he said, what has changed for me is that as I began to heal, my community and my family has grown.

Yeah,.

I want us to grow that way.

There's so many things that would.

I just think it's what God needs me to do, wants me to do.

And if I don't do it, somebody else, somewhere, someone might do it too.

But yeah, or 10 people will do it, or 100 people will do it.

But each person will have their own unique perspective that's it.

And we can learn, we can learn from that unique perspective.

I was, we didn't talk about this, maybe a little bit over text, but I, I listened to the podcast about one of your, one of the people that you were interviewing and I can't remember her name, so my apologies in advance.

But she talked about how she had married, you know, an ex.

An ex convict.

Right.

So Sheila Bruno.

Yeah, Sheila Bruno.

Oh my gosh.

And listening to her, all I could think about was, of course it's scary for him when he gets out.

You know, now all of a sudden you have to rely on yourself.

And does anybody tell you that you can trust yourself?

Is there any kind of remediation on how you can trust yourself and, and developing different skill sets while you're in there?

Or are you in constant fight orf flight mode the whole entire time?

Because all of your decisions have been taken from you because you're in an institution that has to operate efficiently.

So you don't get choices, you get told what to do.

So you learn to comply, but you don't have any skills to choose.

Right.

And I just thought that was, that was really something, you know, that was really something to understand because I think about how many people I mean, I coach build a business in life you love.

So a lot of times I'm working with, you know, women entrepreneurs, people who are wanting to create success that they haven't had in their life before this, this point in their life.

And we do a lot of, you know, we do a lot of decoding, we do a lot of rewiring because you can't think like the person that doesn't have that success.

Right.

You want to be able to create a new way of thinking for yourself, but that's like, that's for success.

So then to hear about it in a true humanitarian way and like this is really know, people don't think about this on an every day.

It was so interesting and humbling to me.

Very much so, because I remember you.

Reached out to me right after you listened to it and, and that's exactly what I want to do.

That's exactly what I want to accomplish, is I want to, I want to humanize the sort of the people that we don't really think about or that we've sort of created two dimensional caricatures of that just are over there.

They don't have anything to do with.

Me.

Just because, because we belong together.

We belonged to each other, you know, as a, as a human race.

I truly believe that.

And yeah, And I appreciate that you said that.

I mean, another piece of that you said was in fight or flight all the time.

Like some of these guys, you know, you can't.

You can't sleep at night because you don't know if somebody's coming over shank you, they're gonna, you know, whatever.

And it's.

You be on alert.

You can't just rest.

And so she told a story about how when he got home, he would sleep on the couch.

He didn't want to sleep with her in the bed.

And to her, without any knowledge of this, she was like, why after all this time, wouldn't you just jump into bed with me?

Right, right.

He said, I'm afraid that I would hurt you if you touched me.

Because for 20 years, if somebody touched you, you have to go into full defense.

Yeah.

You have to protect yourself.

And he was terrified of the habit that he created, you know, so.

Yeah, so that's why I do it.

I want to share stories.

I want to inspire people.

What you're doing, Kristen, helping women find a success that they haven't had in their lives.

Critical.

So important.

So important.

And what you said earlier is absolutely true.

We can reach different people.

So we all have to be lighthouses.

And we don't know who's gonna be guided by our.

By our light.

But the people who recognize what they need in what you're doing will find you.

Right?

And you're going to reach different people than I'm going to reach, and it's just that way.

Well, and I. I've been thinking here, so soul, not skin, right?

And what a beautiful way to.

To say that.

That's really, truly a beautiful way to say that.

Looking at somebody for their soul.

Like we were all.

I mean, to me.

And people can believe what they want, but we were all created in the image of God.

No one of us is any more important or not important than the other person.

And it doesn't matter where they're at in life or how they grew up or what their social status was or anything like that.

We are all equals.

We are all equals at the soul level.

And our skin, right, Our skin.

Living in this world, we live with things like habitual hierarchies and.

And I've got to be better than you, or I need to have more of this than you have, or I need to compare myself to you, or I need to do this or I need to do that.

Right?

And so I really love what you're.

I really love what you're creating.

So are you going to have program?

You told me before.

You haven't said it on this podcast yet, but you told me beforehand that you were going to have some, maybe some trainings through Soul Not Skin.

Yeah, I mean, right now I'm focused on the podcast because I really need to get just sort of, you know, first of all, I'm starving to tell more stories.

It's just where, where I'm at right now.

But also it'll help folks to sort of learn about what I'm doing.

Right.

To sort of get some, some folks who might be interested in the courses that I can do.

I've taught for many years.

You know, I've got a degree in education and I am putting together materials, practical materials.

There's one on my website you can get like sign up if you give me your email address.

Sorry, I hate that.

But if you give me your email address, you'll get like a starter kit.

It's like a couple of pages showing what kind of work I've had to do to get through some of the stuff that I got through.

Breaking some patterns.

And then there's a workbook that's like 60% off right now.

I think that you can get on my site too.

And it's all about heal what raised you.

And it sort of talks about these different patterns.

And this isn't just for people who've been like, you know, horribly traumatized.

They, this is all of us, we all have stuff, right?

Absolutely.

And I want to train, I want to teach about some of the stuff that I've learned.

So adverse childhood experiences, you know, you can, you can score based on your life up until 18, the amount of things that you sort of experience that sort of predicts potential antisocial behavior, health issues, all kinds of stuff.

And so it's not a diagnosis, but it gives you an opportunity to intervene on it.

And then there's post traumatic growth and addiction and recovery.

People have loved ones that are addicted to opiates or to God knows what people are using nowadays and they don't know what to do.

They love their family, but their family doesn't.

It's not even recognizable by behavior anymore anymore.

They don't know what to do.

So I want to be able to just provide some sort of one on one information about that type stuff.

Maybe I'll.

Maybe I'll do some live ones.

I saw you doing something live the other day, weren't you?

Yeah, I like to do live things.

I like to talk.

I like to talk.

I like to talk.

I love to podcast.

I love to speak.

I love to keynote.

Speak.

Speak.

I like to encourage people to live their courageous destiny, which is what they want in their business, in life.

And I'm.

I'm.

I'm so.

I'm so excited to have you on my show, John, really and truly.

And I've got.

I know that we can talk for hours and hours, but, you know, we'll have to do a round two here on this podcast.

But I want to ask you two questions that I ask everybody on my podcast.

So are you ready for them?

I don't know.

Let's see.

I think you are.

Okay, what.

Okay, number one, what is the most courageous thing you've ever done?

Walked away from Hollywood so that I didn't use drugs and alcohol again.

Wow.

Can you.

Can you say that just a little bit louder?

One of the most courageous things that I think I've ever done is walked away from my dream in Hollywood because I was afraid I was going to drink or drug again.

Wow.

You chose you.

Wow.

So my keynote is about.

Choose choosing yourself before life forces you to.

Wow.

That needs to be everywhere.

By the way, I have some.

Don't let me forget, because I found some different conferences that I've been applying to.

I think you should apply to it with that too.

I would love to.

Yes.

The second thing is, is what is the most courageous thing left for you to do that's on your bucket list?

I don't know if it's the most, but it's the one that's coming back to me.

I'd love to do stand up comedy again.

Yeah.

Oh, you guys, she's awesome too.

She's so funny.

But I would love to.

I think about, what was his name, the guy who did Back to School?

Robbie Dangerfield.

Yeah.

Tried to do comedy when he was young, and then he, like, got out of it and did, like, aluminum siding for decades.

And then he, like, at that age, he went back and he got a movie.

I was just like, why can't that happen for me?

The triple Lundy.

That's what's coming to me.

Back to school.

Ever since I was a little girl, I wanted to tell stories that mattered.

That's how I wrote a journal.

When I was, like, 8 years old, I wanted to be an actress because I wanted to tell stories that matter.

I wanted to share the stories that need to be shared, make them come to life for the world.

And so I'm doing that now.

But, yeah, comedy might be fun to do again.

I just don't know if I have any material.

Oh, it'll come to you.

It'll be like the book.

All of a sudden, you're like, I got pregnant.

Yeah, I got pregnant.

And here I am pregnant with my next comedy act.

Yeah.

All right.

Well, it has been so much fun interviewing today on my podcast.

Do you have any other words that you'd like to share with the listeners before we sign off for today?

Yeah, Kristen, actually.

And they're for you.

I just want to tell you that I love you and I'm so proud of you, and I'm so grateful that you are stepping into and leading into the work that is calling you to gather women and empower us.

I think that the world will be a different place when more of us have found our voices.

I think that what you're doing is just really courageous.

I didn't mean to do that, but there it is.

And I'm just grateful that we met.

And it's interesting how life works, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I. I would love to.

I would love to find ways for us to continue to collaborate, because I. I celebrate what you're doing.

And we're doing similar things, but very different, too.

I think it would make a really rich mix.

I think it's the coolest thing ever.

I think it's the coolest thing ever that we were put together so young, and nobody would have ever thought we would be on a podcast about our healing.

You're one of the few people today.

Who has seen me wasted.

What?

You're one of the few people in my life today, besides a few of our mutual friends who knew me drunk.

Oh, my God.

Whoever saw me drunk.

Well.

And I don't know that I ever remember you drunk, because I think I was too drunk at the time.

I've been sober 24 years.

Do you know that one of my last drinks was at Kate and Steve's wedding?

Wow.

When we sang.

We sang.

We sang Bobby McGee.

We sang Bobby McGee at Keith's wedding.

No idea what it sounded like.

Well, it sounded really great to us in our memories.

Very talented.

And it still took some courage.

It took some brass ovaries to be able to do that.

So hats off to us, for sure.

Yeah.

Thanks for having me.

I really appreciate everything you're doing, and I appreciate you having me on.

Yes.

It's my incredible honor.

And you guys go to the Show Notes.

You're gonna see how you can download the Soul Not Skin podcast.

I want to definitely rise my.

My dear friend Jen up, because she is amazing.

And I also.

Oh, what did you have something else you want to say?

I just wanted to say I also did an episode with Kristen, so that one's going to be live soon, so we'll have the video and the audio up in that the next several days.

All right.

All right.

So, yeah, that's like a double promo.

It's like a double win.

So you guys gotta listen to our podcast.

She's got books I will love to put a link to so that you can check out her books.

And some of those journals that you were talking about sound incredible as well.

So we'll let you know how you can get in touch with Jen.

And I think that it's appropriate with the both of us being on this podcast to say it.

If you are struggling with an addiction and you don't know where to go, you can come here to either one of us.

And we would be honored, honored to direct you, to help you in any way we like.

I'd love for us to be able.

I'd love for at least to say, I probably should have asked you before I. I volunteered that.

Is that okay with you, Jen?

What I.

It's part of what I do in my life.

It's.

It's like.

It's like.

It's like part of the gig, right?

Like, it's our hearts, man.

You don't have to go through any of this kind of stuff alone, so.

And there's two really, really great women here that are willing to help, so you can contact us for that, too.

So thank you so much for listening today and until last time, listeners, live courageously.