Breaking Free from Emotional Addiction with Dr. Andrea Vitz: A Path to Emotional Sobriety

Have you ever felt hostage to your own emotions, trapped in patterns you can't seem to break? Dr. Andrea Vitz, emotional sobriety expert and founder of Level-Headed Doc LLC, joins us to share her transformative insights on escaping the grip of emotional addictions. Her unique perspective on emotional intelligence paves the way for a discussion that ventures into the heart of personal responsibility, self-discovery, and the profound impact of our past on our present behaviors.

This conversation is a journey through the landscapes of trauma, self-belief, emotions, and action. We navigate through her story, whose experiences illuminate the intricate ties between early life challenges and current emotional responses. Dr. Vitz introduces her educational brainchild, Lifted Academy, which promises to equip individuals with the tools needed for emotional mastery, enhancing stability in relationships, leadership, and parenting. Moreover, we dissect the societal messages embedded in popular culture  and how they shape our professional and personal identities.

Wrapping up our exploration, we delve into the essence of emotional sobriety and its potential to revolutionize our sense of well-being. I recount my own transformation from a place of physical and emotional strife to a state of robust health and internal peace, underscoring Dr. Vitz's belief in addressing all facets of our existence. We conclude with heartfelt gratitude for the connections we make and the power of sharing stories that resonate with hope and encouragement. It's an episode filled with revelations, strategies, and the promise of a curriculum that could change lives in just three months.

https://andreavitz.com/

Go check out all of our episodes on our website: https://womeninthearena.net/


If you are ready to tell your story or want to refer someone, please email me at audra@womeninthearena.net

***Last thing- I'd love to interview the following women:

• Joan Jett
• Dolly Parton
• Viola Davis
• Ina Garten

Maybe you can help me get there****


Thank you all for supporting this show and all of the Women in the Arena!!

Transcript

Audra: 0:34

Welcome and everyone, and thank you so much for joining me again this week. You guys are going to love this week's guest. I'm joined this week by Dr Andrea Vitz, and she is the founder and CEO of Level-Headed Doc LLC. I can't wait for you to hear more about what she does and what her purpose is, and it focuses around emotional sobriety. Are you intrigued yet? I know that's going to get your attention. Besides her trying to work to change the world with her work through education and emotional sobriety, she's also a very busy chiropractor. She has her own practice as well, as she is raising a very precocious young daughter. It is my honor and my pleasure to introduce to you Dr Andrea Vitz. Andrea, thank you so much for joining me and welcome to the show.

Dr. Andrea Vitz: 1:28

Thank you so much, Adra. I love you and I love your show, and I'm so happy to be able to share everything I have with your audience.

Audra: 1:37

I am so excited. From the moment I met you and you told me about emotional sobriety, I was like what? What is this? Tell me more. I've never heard of this, but when you described it it made so much sense so I can't contain myself. So we're going to just start at the good stuff, which is emotional sobriety. So what is emotional sobriety?

Dr. Andrea Vitz: 1:59

So emotional sobriety it's interesting, it's something I thought that I made up, but really, when you think of emotional sobriety, you can look back all the way to the 12 step program for Alcoholics Anonymous or NA, and there is an element of sobriety work that includes emotional insights, so to speak, but it's a much more kind of like afterthought after you do a 12 step program. And for me, I was never a drug addict or an alcoholic thank God it doesn't mean I never drank, but just so you know. But I was never an addict and for me my huge problem was always emotional. I was hysterical, I was jealous, I was destructive in my behaviors with other people. All of this while I was already a doctor at 23 and a mother at 25 and thinking I'm this mature quote good person. And here's the thing is that what was missing was my emotional sobriety, and that was that I believe that emotional sobriety needs to be redefined. It's like my chemistry was the problem, and emotions are chemistry Very, very simple. So I think we have a huge component of needing to make emotions objective and easy to talk about and figure out why they're there in the first place, and so that's what my curriculum is. My curriculum is called the you you've never met and it teaches people to get sober around their emotional addiction.

Dr. Andrea Vitz: 3:32

It doesn't matter if you're an alcoholic or a drug addict, we're all addicts, all of us and there is a very precise training to overcome all of the negative emotions that you chronically feel, that hinder your interactions with your boss or your coworkers, or your partner or your children, your in-laws. You know, there's a specific process that will help you navigate your emotions. There's a certain process that will actually help you not feel those emotions, because they're just not made anymore and as we continue talking, we're going to unravel more of that. But really, emotional sobriety is just a predominant place of level-headedness, clarity and peace, regardless of your circumstance. Now raise your hand if you want that. As a leader, as a mom, you know, as a partner, it's like I'm a leader, I'm level-headed, I'm peaceful, I'm good, I've taken care of me and now I can just keep my eye on you and do the job more effectively.

Audra: 4:34

I have so many questions, my brain just went, so the first thing I'm going to ask, which might be the same question that other people are thinking is is emotional sobriety the same as emotional intelligence?

Dr. Andrea Vitz: 4:48

That's an amazing question.

Audra: 4:50

I think it sounds like they're complimentary, but I don't think it sounds the same.

Dr. Andrea Vitz: 4:54

That is a fantastic question. No, they are not the same. However, you need to have a level of emotional intelligence before you can attain emotional sobriety as a practice, and emotional intelligence I consider as the awareness of our emotions, and or mainly, especially in the workplace, we are really asked to maintain and shove down our emotions around other peoples, so it's really kind of has a negative impact on the human being. We can't. We have to express what we need and we need to be able to do that without being afraid of our teammate or our partners reaction. Does that make sense? So personal, I feel like emotional intelligence training takes the personal responsibility away from the individual and it teaches us to enable the misbehavings, if you will, and the hysteria of others, so it allows for control.

Dr. Andrea Vitz: 5:58

So control over yourself and the situation or I believe emotional intelligence, as it's been taught to me, is you need to simmer down because this person is going to react, and so I'm automatically, I'm in an unsafe space where I have to shove down what I need in order to keep the peace. But what emotional sobriety does is it hits the other three A's. I consider it the four A formula. If emotional intelligence is emotional awareness, well, we still have three other A's, in my opinion. We have acknowledgement, which is a level of personal responsibility. I'm going to take care of me, my emotions, my communication skills, my behavioral patterns, and I'm going to forgive everyone that I need to forgive. And I'm going to learn how to do things that I currently have no idea how to learn how to do, and in that, that acknowledgement of how my emotions and behaviors have harmed others and myself, that is the next step beyond intelligence, right? Because now we're embodying it. We're just not. It's not just knowledge, guys. Knowledge doesn't take us anywhere unless we embody and demonstrate it, and my husband and I are starting a school called Lifted Academy. We actually already have it, it's just not all online yet, but Lifted Academy does teach training emotionally, mentally, physically and spiritually, because we need all of those things.

Dr. Andrea Vitz: 7:26

And so when we acknowledge our emotional insubriety, we can actually take the next two steps, which is action and application. Because if we have awareness of our emotional insubriety, or our emotional intelligence, so to speak, what do you do then? That was my huge problem when I was going through my own process of figuring out how to become quote emotionally sober was I had gone to endless seminars, read so many self-help books and even tried, will alone, to stop the way I was feeling and stop the way I was behaving, and none of them actually worked. Because there's so many great affirmations and memes and books that tell you what you need to be at the end point, but no one says here's how, here's a precise way to get to that endpoint that you feel like is impossible. So, emotional intelligence very important, but it is only a first step.

Audra: 8:27

I am so intrigued because it sounds like in my head, if I'm on the right track, emotional intelligence is an awareness. Emotional sobriety is the action behind the awareness, because you're saying it's just not enough to be aware, you have to actually do something with it and be responsible for your emotional behavior or lack thereof.

Dr. Andrea Vitz: 8:54

Yes.

Dr. Andrea Vitz: 8:54

So your emotional sobriety is you take what you learned through emotional intelligence and you train it so that it's not even an issue anymore.

Dr. Andrea Vitz: 9:04

For example, if I'm emotionally intelligent to know that I struggle with addiction to fear and embarrassment, that means, when I'm practicing emotional sobriety, those chemicals won't even be made, or they'll be made so less often that I'm a completely different person in personality when it comes to my negative emotions.

Dr. Andrea Vitz: 9:25

So, for example, many of our students will say things like I have a completely different relationship with my children. My husband and I are together in a way that we've never been before. We speak the same language now because their emotions are not hard to navigate anymore. They don't avoid them, they don't behave erratically, they don't blame each other, they take personal responsibility all across the board, and when they do that, they're free. They're free of this constant toxic state where our emotions are controlling our lives. And here's the thing, especially for your audience what controls how you feel controls you, okay. So that means, if you have the ability to have fear around a certain scenario, you're going to be easily controlled, and so my job is to teach you to remove the belief that puts you in fear in the first place.

Audra: 10:21

I'm going to tell on myself, because that's what I do on my show is I tell on myself, and I have a fresh experience that we can discuss and maybe pick apart, because it just happened to me this week. And I live, I live. I'm a corporate drone. I've never made that not a secret. I have a corporate job outside of this.

Audra: 10:50

I was asked this week to define my role and what I want to do for the next 12 months and at first that made me really mad.

Audra: 11:04

And the reason why I made it really mad is because I'm thinking if you don't know what I do, then what have I been doing for a year, if you don't see me and see the value?

Audra: 11:16

And then I stopped for a moment and went okay, this could be an opportunity, I could define what I want for the next 12 months. And then I sat and thought about it and I realized that I was nervous to ask for what I really wanted, because I have been trained, conditioned, whatever to be nice rather than kind, which there is definitely a difference, and I'm not the only female that has been conditioned to do this. We've been conditioned to show up as nice. And then I thought, okay, I'm not going to show up as nice, I'm going to show up as kind, but I don't know what that looks like because I'm not trained that way. So I'm telling on myself, because I know that this is part of emotional sobriety, because there's so many complex emotions that come with being a woman Girl let's take this and run with it, because if you just listen to this next part, you will completely change your life.

Dr. Andrea Vitz: 12:26

All right, I'm taking notes. That's legit, okay. So let's go back to the moment where you were asked what you do. When that was stated to you, what did that mean about you that they didn't know In your mind? What did that mean about Audra?

Audra: 12:45

In my head I was like you don't recognize my value. That was my first knee jerk. Reaction is that you don't recognize this.

Dr. Andrea Vitz: 12:55

Right on. Okay, great. And so if that were true, that they don't recognize your value, what would that mean about you?

Audra: 13:02

That I'm wasting my time and you're I'm not valued at all, that I have no value.

Dr. Andrea Vitz: 13:11

That I have no value. Girl Nailed it. So that is what I would call an inherited or a trauma-influenced self-belief that you believe somewhere in you that you have no value. Otherwise you wouldn't have felt any emotion around it. Oh my God, andrea, you're brilliant. If you didn't believe it, here's the deal. Audra, you're a pineapple. How do you feel about that?

Audra: 13:41

Andrea, I adore you, but that's ridiculous, Right.

Dr. Andrea Vitz: 13:45

So think about that. You only get upset or emotionally reactive because you believe one of those statements or interpretations. Because here's the thing no one came out and said you have no value to us, audra. No, they said what do you do? You see how you interpreted that to mean something about you.

Dr. Andrea Vitz: 14:03

Now, what happens is, once that belief is validated seemingly validated by the way you are flooded with chemistry, adrenaline, a benevolent, and you might call it fear, you might call it anger, you might call it embarrassment or shame. It depends on what you were conditioned to feel as a child. So go back to your childhood and think about this. Where did that belief stem from? Was it a chronic trauma? Was it a one-time thing? And you remember here you can have had one thing that happened that was seemingly benign. It could be like my dad went to work and I thought he was leaving me forever and that printed I have no value and I just kept believing that. So think about that. You don't have to share details if you don't feel comfortable, of course, but where did that start?

Dr. Andrea Vitz: 14:52

It's just us among friends.

Audra: 14:54

I mean, come on, it's just us amongst friends in 73 countries. Who's going to tell? Who's going to tell?

Dr. Andrea Vitz: 14:59

Well, I love it. Be vulnerable Like what. This is how you help the world right?

Audra: 15:04

Okay, this is very vulnerable and very naked. My sister listens to this, so, Noel, hang on tight because I'm telling stories. So our mother is bipolar and it went undiagnosed for decades because she had the perfect job for someone that has bipolar she was an ER nurse, so she was phenomenal at her job. If you were dying, she's the one that you wanted in your room to save your life.

Dr. Andrea Vitz: 15:45

Hyper focus yeah.

Audra: 15:48

Outside of that environment she could not function. So it was anger all the time and it was explosive and you never knew where it was coming from. You just knew it was your fault, but you don't know what you did. And then there was obviously abuse, because people that are bipolar not all of them, but a lot of them are abusive in one way or one way or form or another. When I was younger it was physical. When I got taller and stronger than her, it became emotional, which was way more effective, and I was told on a regular basis that I was worthless.

Dr. Andrea Vitz: 16:27

Boom.

Audra: 16:29

All the time.

Dr. Andrea Vitz: 16:31

Your brain literally formed around the belief that you're worthless and you have no value. That means that every time you hear something that sounds like that or let's say, your partner or your boss says something or doesn't say something in the right way, does something or doesn't do something in the right way, you filter that through your trauma filter of unworthiness and nonvalue and when that happens, you are flooded with shame and guilt and maybe even fear. Okay, yeah, and now what happens? If emotions are chemicals, what else is a chemical? Because emotions are chemicals made in the body. I call them well, they're called endogenous chemicals. So what would be an exogenous chemical that you can think of that people consume?

Audra: 17:18

Alcohol, nicotine, drugs, whichever Perfect.

Dr. Andrea Vitz: 17:22

Yeah. So let's just take alcohol as an example. If I were to flood you full of, let's say, an IV full of alcohol, right, and it just infiltrates your whole system, and you were intoxicated with alcohol, would you behave in conscious ways?

Audra: 17:39

Oh, definitely not, because it makes you do things you wouldn't normally do.

Speaker 3: 17:45

It makes you enact what's in your subconscious mind. And yeah, and trust me, this is a whole other program. If you have me on several times, eventually I'll share with all the girls about my subconscious mind, I am not afraid. Share the mistakes I've made, the things I've done, Like I think that's the only way we realize that we're all the same right. But I want you to recognize if you're flooded with alcohol, you're going to behave belligerently, right.

Speaker 3: 18:12

The same thing happens when you are flooded with emotion. You know that feeling, you guys. I get that flood of acidity that you get and you have no control over yourself. You might for a while, you might be able to hold it back with will, but eventually, especially if there's another person tapping on the door of your emotions, you're going to lose it. And that is what I teach. I teach you to stop believing the things that you believe about you and train physically, mentally and emotionally away from that belief system, which is total BS. By the way, the fact that you ever could believe that you're worthless or of no value is completely absurd to everyone else in the world. So any second that you believe that, just know it's a damn lie and recognize how that belief influences every decision you make.

Audra: 19:07

Oh, my gosh through that lens, because Through that lens.

Speaker 3: 19:11

So if you were right now just to pull your chest out, head up, chest up, right now, just do that Good. Take a deep breath.

Audra: 19:19

Okay.

Speaker 3: 19:20

Like wow, that was all BS.

Audra: 19:23

That's all BS. Yeah, which is?

Speaker 3: 19:27

That person was just asking what you do. That's it. Yeah, maybe they wanted your interpretation of what you do, maybe they don't have your skill set and they want you to make it clear. So we don't. We always are filtering it through our worst case scenario filter of I'm not good enough, I'm unimportant, I'm unattractive, I'm going to be tricked, I'm going to be betrayed, I'm going to be a joke. We all have different beliefs, but we're all the same, because what happens when that police validated were flooded with chemistry. We become emotionally drunk and we demonstrate what I call emotionally triggered behaviors. They're the behaviors that are triggered by emotion. So little baby Audra comes out. Oh yeah.

Speaker 3: 20:13

When when fear and embarrassment are at the forefront. Okay, little baby Audra, what does little baby Audra do? So we would find what behaviors you demonstrate. Well, do you become childish? Do you throw a tantrum? Do you run and hide? Do you scream at them and and try to rip their arms off? Like what does it look like? Or do you become just offensive when your big wall comes up and you just, you know you get short and snappy right Like you're fried out.

Speaker 3: 20:44

Or do you become extremely judgmental of the other person? Do you engage in secondary addiction or compulsion, like drinking or eating or gambling? Or, you know, addiction to sex, right, what is it Like? Everyone has a very similar mechanism or an identical mechanism of what causes our emotionally unsover moments, but we all have different flavors and that's fun. That's a fun part of finding. In my course I teach that and in my book, the you you've never met, there's a precise way to find all of your specific flavors that make up your in sobriety, so that you then can develop a profile, precise plan that allows you to get out of it.

Audra: 21:28

That's amazing, because I will tell you my drug of choice is. I'll show you that is my drug of choice is. I'll show you, because that's what. That's what I did. I'll show you.

Speaker 3: 21:43

So that's an example of where this is super important for you girls to hear. Your trauma was not in vain. Your inherited beliefs are not in vain. They will. They will expose a super human version of you. So if the Audra that has the vibrant, I'll show you attitude have that match with I'm also extremely capable, valuable and worthy. Woo, how far would you go, how little conflict would you have Because you just be like, boom, I'm there.

Speaker 3: 22:15

You know, it's the belief that holds you back. So you're in the spin cycle and that's why I call it addiction, called emotional addiction, because you are, there's a part of you that knows that you can do more, that you can do great things. But then there's that voice, there's that subtle voice that says but no, you're just a small, worthless little thing. They, that's how they see you. And if they see you that way, then it must be true. And it's like no freaking way, ladies, no freaking way. You are so much more powerful than you've ever even imagined.

Speaker 3: 22:51

You know, you've probably read posters that say like you're, you're empowered, you're a magnificent, you're strong woman, strong. You know, it's like you're. You have not even scratched the surface of your strength, not even close. So if you've done great things, amazing, you're going to do far greater and be like how was I ever under that spell that I wasn't good enough, that I wasn't worthy? You know, literally the only difference between you and a man is you don't have a penis like that. That's that they truly believe that in my heart, like that is, or they don't have a vagina. Let's, let's do it that way. But men, you know, I have incredible amounts of students that are men because they want to take responsibility for themselves. Now, too, they're starting to see how, by virtue of learning to communicate, learning that they don't have to shove everything down and pretend to be big shots and pretend to be or be unkind in order to control. You know they want that. They just never learned how. The same way, we never learned how to be around that in a healthy way.

Audra: 23:58

We were never trained that, and so this leads me to and this is probably going to be controversial just because it just does it just bring it.

Audra: 24:08

Have you seen the Barbie movie? I've not. I'm so sorry. I'm going to. It's okay. You don't need to see it to know what I'm going to talk about.

Audra: 24:18

So I need to preface this by saying I had no interest in seeing the Barbie movie. I did not because I didn't play with Barbies as a child. I actually I probably wouldn't surprise you to know that I didn't play with dolls as a child because they bored me. I just they were boring. I didn't really want to see it because I don't agree with the persona of Barbie in general.

Audra: 24:47

However, my 22 year old daughter asked me to go with her and because she's a young adult, she lives out on her own, she's married what not? I will walk through fire. If she asks me to just to spend time with her, totally, get it. I went to this movie with her completely. I had an open mind because I did some research before to see what I was getting myself into and I liked the actors that were involved. I liked the director that was involved. So I was like, okay, I'm going to give this a shot.

Audra: 25:26

The whole whole premise of this movie was how we are all stuck in this, what they're calling a patriarchal society that we're all suffering, male and female, because of these confines, of how women behave and how men think they're supposed to behave in this system as well. Yeah, so good. That's the whole baseline of this whole thing, and the reason why I say it's controversies is because some people think that it was a manhating movie or it was woke or whatever. It's none of that. It's absolutely none of that, because if you came away from the movie thinking all that, you missed the point. You absolutely missed the point you know absolutely.

Speaker 3: 26:19

As somebody who used to be such a manhater, I now actually have an incredibly warm place in my heart for men and I just want to be their advocate, just the same as women, you know, because they're just people also who had traumas and conditioning and have emotional addiction and behavioral patterning and self-belief and we forget that because, well, we don't forget it, we never knew it, we never knew it. No one ever sat us down in grade school and said okay, there's boys and girls and you guys are the same.

Audra: 26:56

No, as a matter of fact, they separated us in rooms when they had to do. I mean again, I'm telling on myself, I'm 52. This is what happened when you were young. They actually put boys and girls in two different rooms when they went to have the talk about. It wasn't even sexuality, it was literally about the body changes that you were about ready to go through. So they I don't know what they did in the room with the boys, but with the girls that gave you tampons and pads. That's literally what they did. But they separated you and said you're different.

Speaker 3: 27:27

You're different and you should probably be ashamed about what we're about to tell you. It's very secret, it's very secret, yeah. So my whole purpose on earth is to remove pain from people, like I've done it as a chiropractor, I did it as a child. I've done it, you know, as an MSO, teacher and curriculum developer. I do it as a, as a coach and consultant and executive coach. I do this because to me it's so obvious. It's so obvious right where the pain is, I just feel like I could reach in and pull it out of you.

Speaker 3: 27:59

And so when I'm sitting down with, let's say, a company, I'm speaking to the CEO, or with a decision maker and I'm saying, okay, what are the biggest issues of your company? It's usually all the same, it's no different. Why? Because companies are full of people and people have emotional insubrity. They have beliefs about themselves that aren't true. That now help that force them to make decisions they would never consciously make, behave in ways they would never consciously choose if they weren't flooded with emotion.

Speaker 3: 28:31

So I'm not ever saying emotion is bad or wrong. I'm saying you're chronically made fear, embarrassment, anger and resentment and guilt, etc. All of that is a waste. It's just toxicity. It breaks down your body, it breaks down your relationships and it stalls your life. I often say that you know exogenous chemical addicts like alcoholics and drug addicts and food addicts. It will kill them. But when you're simply an emotional insubriter, an emotional addict, you never start living, you're never fully alive until you're like wow, I don't have to look at the world through this filter anymore, like right now. If you were to go back in time and redo that entire scene that happened in your workplace, adra, what would that look? Wouldn't that look so different?

Audra: 29:24

Absolutely I would have. I would look at it very objectively and go okay, then let me put something together for you. And then I would also say, okay, this might be an opportunity for me to teach and lead. But I would remove my initial reaction, which was what do you mean? That was what went off in my head. It absolutely went off in my head. Yeah, and then they were your mom.

Speaker 3: 29:53

Yes, they were a demonstration of somebody that you think has authority over you that doesn't see how valuable you are. Yes, absolutely so. That probably happens in your marriage and that probably happens with anything that your little girl self sees as an authority that can have influence over you. I'm not saying your husband's your authority, but has influence over you because, man, let's face it, romantic relationships are. They are the hardest place to survive emotionally speaking, because of all of the infiltrated beliefs from both people and the most important relationship of your life.

Speaker 3: 30:34

Good luck, yes, so you know, my husband and I have spent a decade creating a relationship course so that people can come take the class together and they have a new language, they have a new understanding and they know how to take action together. They become teams. They're high-fiving in the kitchen Like yeah, we did it, we didn't fight, because we use these tools. Like, yeah, baby, you were so vulnerable, you were so humble, you acknowledged you. That is what I want for everyone to feel free to be totally honest about who they've been being. Because I'm serious, have me back on here. I will like, I will divulge everything.

Speaker 3: 31:12

That's like control you want to know. I'm like how are you so together? You're such a great leader, you're such a great teacher. And I'm like, okay, let's put on the humility train here. Okay, because it wasn't always that In fact didn't want to be a teacher. I had to be, because I just happened to pull myself out of such a big deficit that I became great at it Not perfect, but great at it. But my subconscious is still there, and so I have to be constantly maintaining diligent training with my emotional and mental self.

Audra: 31:45

So I'm going to put you on the spot now and ask you what pushed you to do this, because I mean this is very raw. I mean you have to strip yourself down emotionally to get to the bottom of this, you have to be brave enough to do it and you also have to be very diligent to keep doing it. So what made you do this?

Speaker 3: 32:14

Well, you know a couple of things. One is you nailed it when you said you have to be brave to do this. I always say and I think it's written on the back of my book, even it's this work is for the brave and gritty, this work is for the brave and gritty. And who's more brave and gritty than us girls? Come on so you especially.

Audra: 32:32

have you seen us give birth?

Speaker 3: 32:34

Come on, there's nothing but brand new home Our viewers. We are determined and relentless and we just have to put that energy in the right spot. I got into this because I was again. It's such a deficit. I was like 29 years old, I had suffered a really bad spinal injury and I was a chiropractor. I was about to have to retire and I entered into a new relationship with somebody who I had known for about a year, who has helped me here rehabilitate my spinal injury, and that was getting a lot better as I was improving my emotional state.

Speaker 3: 33:08

But long story short, this person ended up becoming my husband and before we got married he said something very important to me and it wasn't the first time I've heard this, but it was the first time I listened. He said the person that you say you are isn't actually who you demonstrate as all the time. The person that you say you are isn't the same person that you say that you demonstrate as all the time. And when I heard that, I trust and respected him so much Don't get me wrong I was defensive as hell. I was like you better watch your mouth, right, I have a pretty girl back there. I just stopped and I'm like okay, I went home I thought about it. I'm like, okay, here's what he's actually saying. Where can I see evidence of it in my life? And I recognize. Okay, I'm not happy, I'm hysterical, I'm psycho jealous. I mean, when you have you ever seen movies with psycho jealous girls? I was that girl. I had no control over it at all. I would hysterically cry, I would yell, I would, I would shame, I would play emotional games, I would use emotional leverage, you name it. And so the way that I got better was not the way. The reason I got better was not just to keep not to keep this relationship, even though it was super important to me, but it was thinking of my daughter and thinking, oh my God, my daughter is going to feel the way I feel, which is not good. She's going to think the way that I think, which is really patterned and obsessive, and she's going to behave the way that I behave, and I don't want that for her. She is this amazing, sweet creature, just like I was an amazing sweet creature before I let everything take me away from who I truly am. And so one of the things my husband said again before he was my husband, was I know you're in there. I know that you are the person you say you are, but you just don't demonstrate it all the time. And so let's figure out how to help you get those in alignment.

Speaker 3: 35:10

And so, for me, I got into this first by having to do such deep personal work and I had to let it not be a big deal. I had to let it be objective, to look and say, wow, I am totally dishonest. I never would have thought of myself as a liar, you know. But wow, I lied about everything and I was. I was a perpetual drama queen, and not in the ways that I think some people would think, but like I would always find something to be not offended by in the way like politically or gender roles. I was offended by things that meant something about me. I'm not good enough, I have no value, I'm going to be a joke, I'm going to be betrayed. Those were mine, and I was addicted to embarrassment and fear.

Speaker 3: 36:00

And I recognized, as I was going through this work of tons of introspection and and really checking my patterns and really asking myself well, what am I really hoping to accomplish here? What's true here? Where am I lying here? Where am I full of shit here? Pardon my language, but I had to and I was the only one that was able to do that. Nobody else could have done that for me and I just kept doing it. And I kept doing it and sharing it with my husband, sharing it with my friends, getting it out and then training the opposite. Training the opposite, and when I got to a place where I felt like I was totally cleaned out, I recognized I was able to look back and reverse engineer what I did.

Speaker 3: 36:43

And that's when my book started. I reverse engineered what I did, but I also had this emphasis of a realization that my emotions were chemicals and that means I was addicted to them, because I could just be sleeping, wake up and have an anxiety attack. Why did that happen? Well, nothing happened. Why am I having a panic attack? Well, my body made adrenaline and my brain matched it with a thought, and I carried it into such a panic that I had no control. And so I looked at where my body was making the chemistry, without there even needing to be an input, and I looked at where my brain, my thoughts and the people in my life, as I interpret what they do and say, could create the chemical. And so I'm like my body is physically looking for a reason to make this chemical.

Audra: 37:37

Because you're addicted to it and it's what you know. It's constantly feeding the addiction, and so your body is craving what it's addicted to.

Speaker 3: 37:49

Just like you crave having a spike in blood sugar right, or another drink or a cup of coffee, it doesn't mean just because you're addicted doesn't mean you like something. In fact, if you've ever known a true alcoholic, there's not one of them that likes it. Nobody likes to drink all day, throw up, not be able to eat, be in tons of pain, have miserable relationships, go to bed, pass out, wake up and have to do it again. Nobody enjoys that. Nobody enjoys feeling like they have to sell their body or their soul to get the next hit of drugs. Nobody likes it.

Speaker 3: 38:26

So the same with us, our emotions. They're not fun. They're not putting us in a place of being able to be more useful. They're keeping us stuck in ourselves and afraid and keeping us away from genuine connection. Because even if we get control of ourselves and we stop making those feelings, everyone around us is still making them. And so, like they say, it's lonely at the top.

Speaker 3: 38:52

Now, I don't think of myself as at the top of anything, because I just don't believe in that, but when you do work like this, it can feel like wow, who else is emotionally sober? Who else isn't going to be massively offended by things that I didn't even mean or say you have to be really ready, like you said, brave people. That doesn't mean that it's going to be an impossible endeavor. It just feels impossible right now because it seems like you could never be different. It feels like I could never walk into my boss's office and just feel good and powerful and confident and kind because you're right, it takes a lot of courage to be kind, and being nice is manipulation.

Speaker 3: 39:36

Being kind is being real, with self-responsibility and self-control. So if I'm loving you, you're going to experience firmness for me. If I'm truly loving you, I'm going to have to be firm with you sometimes, right, I'll also be your greatest cheerleader and biggest fan, right, because I see the real you and you are so powerful and your posture is different and your gaze is different. Your voice is different. My voice changed by the way. My whole physical being changed, my body type changed, my eye color changed. I have a lot lighter eyes now.

Audra: 40:18

So weird that's very weird, super, super interesting, but very weird. But it makes sense because you said that it's chemicals. Yes, and it's totally…. And look at the look how people change when they recover from addiction, of an external addiction. Look how, if you look at their picture, from the day they enter rehab to 30 days out, 60 days out, whatever the case may be, they're entirely different people. So the fact that you say that your physicality changed, your posture changed, your voice changed, your eye color changed, makes perfect sense. If it's… Right, if emotions are also releasing chemicals, it makes… yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 3: 41:08

And that this is one thing is I had experienced the 12-set process in my 20s and my stepdad was always trying to get me to do it. I love him for that, god bless him. But he saw something in me that probably presented like borderline personality disorder and he was like huh, andrea, maybe you need some help and I'm like no, I'm fine. And one thing that I realized is that there's a big difference between being clean and being sober, and that was what I was I recognized. What was missing from the 12-set process is it was getting people off of drugs and alcohol, but there was more that wasn't being taught, and that more that wasn't being taught is the number one reason that people relapse when they're just clean off drugs or alcohol or when, even if you're just clean off, maybe you go and live at a cave somewhere so you're not triggered, you're not fully, you're not actually sober. You present as sober when you're chemically clean under any circumstance, meaning emotionally clean and alcohol, drugs, food, et cetera under any circumstance.

Audra: 42:16

Yeah, what you just said about that. The first thing that came to my head was I have been through lots of therapy, lots of it. So when you just said it that way, I'm clean, I'm not sober, right.

Speaker 3: 42:32

All of us. Unless you've been doing discipline, training, all of you, everyone, you're not alone. So never feel shame about that ever. There's no reason you could have known and there's no way you could have fixed it. So this is like for me. It's like the most exciting news ever to receive. If I was on, I'd be like whoa, I get to get even stronger. I'm already awesome. What else can I do? How much more of the real me can I bring to the world and to my family and to my friendships and into my career? And where else would I go? It becomes this incredible opportunity rather than, oh my God, I'm broken or I'm not good enough. It's not even close.

Speaker 3: 43:16

I believe, when we know how to handle things that we currently feel are impossible, we aren't stressed in a way that we used to be. Therefore, we don't reach for alcohol, we don't reach for drugs in the way that we used to. We don't defend ourselves in relationships in the way that we used to needlessly. We're not full of toxicity. Stress hormones are the number one cause of, I believe, cancer and stomach issues and heart disease, so we just don't have those anymore. When we're sober, we have the ability to be fully cleansed, as well as level-headed, balanced, peaceful and clear, we can make better decisions. We suddenly know there's actually a line in the big book for AA. We all of a sudden knew how to handle things that once baffle us.

Speaker 3: 44:04

So that's what happens when we reach the level of emotional sobriety, and the reason I started this talk out by saying I thought I invented emotional sobriety, or at least the name, was. I did some research after my book was written and one of the main creators of the AA movement was Bill Wilson, and he said he was near, I think, at the end, late stages of his life when he said this. But he said that he feared the 12 steps wouldn't be enough and that what people really need was control over their emotional and mental states. What people really needed was emotional sobriety and I'm like okay. So thanks, bill, for assisting me in creating this curriculum. Clearly you did from the other side. I mean, it was so powerful to read that my husband looked at me like he just saw a ghost, but it's powerful.

Audra: 44:58

I think it's so amazing, and I started out this conversation by saying that you're literally trying to change the world. You're trying to do it one person at a time. If people were happier with themselves, the world would not be the messed up place that it is at the moment.

Speaker 3: 45:14

Yeah, if people knew how to handle anything, they wouldn't have any kind of reason to be upset. They'd have faith and they'd have peace. They'd have understanding for each other because we're all the same.

Audra: 45:26

People wouldn't respond in the way that people are responding because, like you said, they would be emotionally sober and they would be comfortable in their own skin and not have to respond in these crazy ways, like I got to defend myself here, there and everywhere. I mean, part of my other combativeness is I'm always batting down the hatchets. I'm gonna defend myself. I got to defend my territory because I have no idea where the next blow is gonna come from.

Speaker 3: 46:01

Right, let me give you an example let's say you, in our school, lifted Academy, we actually have a PE or physical education component, and this is a gym that my husband's run for over 25 years. He's the top strength coach in the United States and he actually would take you in and he would show you where your weakest points were and then he would show you specifically how to train those weakest points, but in such a way it was such a precise and proven method that you would get so much strong or so fast that you would be in a completely different body within probably a matter of two or three months, and in that body you'd feel so safe. You would walk into a room and you'd be like I'm so safe right now, physically speaking, if I got hit by a car right now, I feel like I would be fine. I mean, that's how strong you could get physically.

Speaker 3: 46:51

You could do the same thing emotionally. You train emotionally. All of a sudden, you walk in the room and you're like I'm here, so everyone's good. I got you, I got everybody, I've got you mom, I've got you dad, I got you brothers, sisters, kids, grown-up kids, grandkids. I'm solid. You get to a place where you are so strong emotionally and mentally, that you have this internal peace and strength at the same time that allows you not to think about you anymore.

Audra: 47:25

Whoa, okay, first of all, that just blew my mind that you just said that, that you're so strong, you don't have to think about you anymore, don't?

Speaker 3: 47:31

have to think about you. Wow, here's an example. I had such a bad spinal injury. I didn't get surgery. I could barely walk on my like. I dragged my left foot behind me. I couldn't sit down and stand up on my own for a period of time. I mean I had three ruptured discs. It was awful. I should have gotten surgery retrospect, but I'm like I'm not doing it. I'm like I'm gonna do it myself. I gotta look at myself.

Speaker 3: 47:56

I got so physically strong that I got to a place where I didn't have to think about me when I was with my patients in my chiropractic office. I didn't have to think about my posture or lifting them or if they were too heavy I'd move them for like without their help. I'd lift their legs and twist them. I never thought about me anymore because I was fine. I was so strong. I didn't even have to come into the conversation.

Speaker 3: 48:21

Then I got to a place with my emotional sobriety training where now I didn't even have to think about me. Emotionally speaking, I'm just there. I'm literally just with you. Like right now you could say anything to me, and I'm just with you because I have this deep understanding already that my self beliefs are trained. That doesn't mean that I don't still have them in my subconscious. They're just rewired and I've developed other beliefs to be stronger than them. I could just be with you and understand like, oh, this person hasn't had training yet. The same way, I wouldn't be upset with you if you couldn't lift as much as me at the gym. You just starting, or you have no experience in training at all. How could I ever judge you for not having that experience that I've benefited from? I'm the lucky one.

Audra: 49:11

I think you're an extraordinary one. The fact that you created a curriculum so you can help other people, that is magic. I know you're going to say that no, that's not magic. It's hard work, but it is because you're putting a little bit of magic into the world and you're not keeping it a secret. You could, you could absolutely keep this a secret, but why would you? Because you gain nothing by keeping it to yourself. Like I said, if the rest of the world started to be more in tune with who they are and what's holding them back, and become strong in spite of it, we'd all be pretty much unstoppable.

Speaker 3: 50:06

Well, that's actually the name of my third book is Unassailable. You, that's pretty awesome. Get to a place where now I wouldn't call myself unassailable. I would say that there are places in my life that I still can get hit in the heart. If somebody were to leave my life, I'd be like, oh, I'd feel sad. But I don't have the same level of childishness in terms of behavior, the same level of embarrassment, the same level of fear, and it's almost obsolete in every single relationship, except maybe my romantic relationship, which sometimes it's still slightly there. But man, that's usually just when I'm exhausted from working 15 hours a day or something like that and not feeding myself enough or not drinking enough water. You have to just take care of yourself and do the training and you are a completely different human being, just a completely different human being. That's why we have to teach it on all four planes of existence physical, mental, emotional and energetic, because if one is missing, we are exposed.

Audra: 51:11

Yeah, makes perfect sense because we are a total being mind, body and spirit. When you ignore one which, let's face it, we've ignored one for a very long time the rest of us it doesn't work right. It just doesn't.

Speaker 3: 51:28

No, we get sick and we have dysfunctional relationships and we're fighting with our kids. I've not had one fight with my daughter. She's almost 17 years old. Not one fight, and not just because I'm. I practice emotional sobriety, because she does too.

Audra: 51:44

What an amazing tool to teach someone at a young age. Yeah, because then you don't have to unlearn all the crap that I have to unlearn.

Speaker 3: 51:53

Totally, and they have less practice being a jerk that's what I always say Less practice with self-deprecation. It's like they're just starting when they're teenagers. But yeah, I think you know in my curriculum it's about. It's about a three month process that you would go through and three months you're going to go by anyway, right? So it's like whatever you want to do in your life, set a plan, take three months and go after it. And you know, find the right teacher, find the right coach, get help. Don't be afraid to ask for help. You're totally worth it and I just I wish the best for every single person listening to this, because I wish you freedom and I wish you peace. That's really my whole goal. Take away the pain.

Audra: 52:34

If this resonated with anyone, I highly encourage you to go reach out to Andrea and her husband. They're incredible people, they're doing amazing work and all you want to do is change the world. I mean, I know that's a lofty goal. I have the same goal I want to change the world. They're just doing it in the gifts that they've been given. So, andrea, how would the audience reach you if they had more questions? If they have have interest, intrigue, just want to know a little bit more about surviving emotional insorviety and becoming emotional sober.

Speaker 3: 53:12

Well, you could directly email me and I will actually write you back. Most people think I'm crazy, but I will actually do that and you can email me at Andrea at liftedacademycom. I would love to meet all of you, and I mean you literally can write hi, I'm in certain name here and hit send and I will respond and we can create a conversation that way. It doesn't have to be fancy. I get a lot of emails like that. We're like hi, I just heard your podcast on you know, and so I just want you to know that you have a friend in me and also I have a podcast called level headed talk. I'm on every weekend, weekday morning for my students and people that are interested in learning more about emotional sobriety, and I just have level headed conversations with my friend, johnny, who's my cohost, and we have a great time Monday through Friday on any podcast channel.

Audra: 54:04

Please go seek her out, and what you hear is exactly who she is. We met through social media. I mean, social media is an amazing thing when it's used for the right purpose, and that's how we met and we immediately hit it off and she is warm, she is grounded, she will not. She will not toss you aside, throw you away or think you're crazy. She knows that you have value and you are worth it and she just wants to help make things better. Andrea, this has been amazing. We just scratched the surface. We literally just scratched the surface. We will, we will figure out ways to bring, bring you back to discuss so many more things. I usually give a moment where I step back from the mic and you can have a very personal, intimate opportunity with the audience, so I'm going to do that now. Just leave them with a final thought.

Speaker 3: 55:02

Absolutely Everyone listening. It doesn't matter what's been done to you. It doesn't matter what you've done. We're all the same and you deserve to be free.

Audra: 55:16

I'm going to copy that, I'm going to paste that on all social media, because everybody should take that as a meme and put it on your mirror, something, anything. Remind yourself and thank you for reminding us of that as well. We, we so appreciate it and we need it. Andrea, thank you so much for being here and being my guest and seeking me out. I mean, the best people I have met have have found me, and I'm so excited and I'm so grateful. So, thank you, thank you for being here.

Speaker 3: 55:44

Aja, thank you so much for having me and for all those sweet compliments, and you are such a powerful, wonderful, devoted human and I'm so grateful to know you and I look forward to a long friendship.

Audra: 55:56

I do as well, and one of these days we'll actually get to meet in person. It's true? Yes, we will do it. I want to thank all of you for listening and we'll see you again next time.