EP 143 | Stepping Into Your Personal Power: From Addiction to Empowered Entrepreneurship

In this episode, our host Lisa Tarkington sits down with guest Colleen Kachmann, Certified Master Life & Recovery Coach for an empowering discussion. Together, they dive into the transformative journey of stepping into personal power and entrepreneurship. Colleen and Lisa share their valuable insights on overcoming self-sabotage, gaining self-confidence and resilience, and creating a life of fulfillment. Tune in for actionable tips for leading a more empowered and fulfilled life!

Chapters: 

• 0:00 Intro 
• 3:20 Welcoming Guest Colleen Kachmann
• 10:59 Transforming Mindset & Overcoming Addiction
• 18:42 Doing The Work for Personal Growth
• 25:58 Outro & Key Takeaways

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 Our Guest, Colleen Kachmann’s information to connect:

• Instagram
• Website
• Podcast

Transcript

Colleen: 0:00

Shame-based motivation is when you are doing things because you are bad and you want to feel good, look good, be good to everybody else, and when you are doing that. The problem with shame-based motivation is it works. For a while we do quit drinking, we do lose the weight, we do do the hard thing, but then when the shame goes away, so does the motivation.

Lisa: 0:25

Welcome to the Confident Podcast. I am Lisa Tarkington, your host of this podcast. If you found yourself hitting play on this podcast, it means it was meant for you. My goal is to help, empower and guide you to become a better version of yourself through conversation, advice and tips that are real, vulnerable and authentic. I am excited to have you join this journey with me. So let's get started Well.

Lisa: 0:49

Welcome everybody to the Confident Podcast. I am your host, lisa Targinton, and it's such an honor to be in the seat talking to all of you guys about confidence, about things that really matter, and really just kind of diving into people's real life experiences, getting tools and tips and tricks. I think I say this every week, but this is like the coolest job ever to just be hosting a podcast to talk about confidence, which has been something that I've integrated into my life since the early 20s. Now I should have been doing this a long time ago, but that's really where I started to put tools into my life, strategies into my life to really help myself, and so you guys have been along on this journey with me for a few years now, and last episode I shared a lot about. My word was discipline. This year I told you guys I would keep you guys posted on how that's going, and it is going good. I'm going to say good, not amazing, but I would say that changing and having a word that really resonated with me this year was a really good change into how I looked at 2024. And I picked a word that really meant something to me, that I knew that I had to be intentional about every day, and so it's been really awesome to see the discipline with my inbox, for example, or my discipline with the gym, or a variety of different things in my life that I kind of just said I'll just do that later Now becoming kind of a forefront of my day and really freeing up time for me on my weekends. So I hope that anybody that set the intention of having a word for the year, it is going really well.

Lisa: 2:21

If this is your reminder that it's not going well, I want you to reflect for a second and just think about what do you need to change. There's plenty of time, we have a lot of 2024 ahead of us and so think about how do you be intentional with your word and following it up with action. So if you want to share that with me. Just send me a message at Lisa at lisatarkingtonofficial. I would love to hear how you are using your word this year.

Lisa: 2:47

So we are going to dive into today's episode, which is all about really stepping into your personal power, from addiction to empowered entrepreneurship. Now, I'm excited for this because, a we're going to be talking about personal power. B we're going to be talking about addiction and changes that we need to make to stop self-sabotaging ourselves. And then, as someone who works in the entrepreneur world, I love meeting other entrepreneurs to really help them or not help them, learn from them, but help you guys learn a variety of things that can help you with your entrepreneurship journey. So, with that, our guest today is Colleen Katchmann, a master recovery coach. So welcome, Colleen.

Colleen: 3:26

Thank you so much. It's so good to be here, Lisa, and I'm right there with you with really being intentional with my thoughts and my actions of what do I need to do today to be where I want to be in a year. So that's a powerful intention, to have a vision, yeah.

Lisa: 3:42

I love that. So do you have a word for the year?

Colleen: 3:45

You know, I didn't do the word thing until I saw it was like trending my word, it would be balance, and just evening out, as an entrepreneur, I tend to work and work and work and wake up three months later and realize I have no plans and I have no friends, and so learning how to pace myself throughout my day and not just do the bare minimum but actually build a life that I want to come home to even though I work from home, you know and be able to to just have a fully holistic everything is good in my life and that I'm not hiding from anything that feels really good to me. The word balance.

Lisa: 4:26

I love that and I love that you're defining it for you. So I think one of the things that I hear a lot from people that are starting the new workforce, or things they talk about balance. They're like we want work life balance and I'm like, well, we have to define that for ourselves, right, and you're defining what that looks like for you. But, like I love that you said I want to build a home that I want to go home to, even though we work from home, like you work from home. But it's like, once I shut that computer at the end of the night, how do I want to shut up for myself? So awesome. So, colleen, I have to know. So you are a master recovery coach. Tell me, like, what does that even mean? And like, how did you land there?

Colleen: 5:04

So I was a health coach when I first started and I was all things vegan and plant-based foods, fermented foods and really helping people. And I was the health coach who believed that alcohol was part of our daily diet. And I have to caveat what I'm saying. I have come full circle and now no longer I don't teach sobriety, I teach happiness and mental health, because happiness or happy people don't drink themselves into a stupor. When you have the balance and you're running on all cylinders, you have a focus and a vision and so you just naturally stop.

Colleen: 5:42

But as a perfectionist, you know, I grew up, I had bulimia for 20 plus years and I tried so hard to self-correct by what I would refer to as like cheating the system, like there's got to be a pill that can make this easier, there's got to be a cheat code that I can hack my own body, and so I just spent years being an enemy of my body, not understanding that my feelings and sensations in my bodies and that my needs were actually coming from my body. It was all just happening in my brain. I was the chronic overthinker perfectionist and I was very high functioning. I have four of my own children, three step children, and I teach hot power yoga in the morning, and I had graduated with a master's degree and I was building a coaching business. Meanwhile I'm putting away half a fifth of vodka a night, and that was taking me down.

Colleen: 6:43

I didn't know at the time that alcohol is a drug. I mean, I know that sounds so basic, but I didn't understand. It's a depressant drug. So I go to my doctor and look for the latest antidepressant, the bandaid that would keep me going, not realizing I was dosing myself with high levels of alcohol, a depressant drug, every day, and then wondering why I was experiencing so much stress, so much anger, so much resentment.

Colleen: 7:13

I equate it to kind of like getting your shoelace wrapped around the bike pedal you can only pedal so long before it's tight and then at some point you have to take it off. And so I was about six weeks into COVID where I woke up and said not this, this is not my life. I didn't identify at first as an alcoholic and I've come full circle with that too. We can talk about it. But I just knew I can't keep going. And as COVID lockdowns were in full swing, there was only one thing I could do, and that was to quit drinking, and so that's what brought me to what I would say the curve in my life, the turn.

Lisa: 7:55

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Lisa: 8:49

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Colleen: 9:26

Almost four.

Lisa: 9:28

Yeah, I guess we're in 2024. I keep thinking we're in 2023. So you hit that point right, and so can you go back to that moment for me? Tell us, like you said that to yourself and it probably wasn't easy to say, like I know I need to make that change. And then it's been four years since then. So tell us a little bit about, like, how you've noticed those maybe self-sabotaging patterns and but like, what have you been doing to kind, of course, correct those things?

Colleen: 9:59

Well, the first thing I did, which I want to be very careful here to not highlight as a mistake you know, if you follow me on Instagram, the top mistakes drinkers make you know that's different, because everything I've gone through has gotten me here. I had to go there to get here, and so I… what I would refer to as overcorrected. In our culture, if you're a heavy drinker or just any sort of drinker, there is this belief that there's normal drinkers and there's alcoholics, and so if you're not a normal drinker, you must be an alcoholic. So the mo… and that's why we delay and deny and pretend that this isn't going as well as we want it to, because we think that, well, we're going to have to set our drink down. Do not pass, go, do not collect $200, go directly to AA, get your new sponsor, get a copy of the big book and start apologizing to everybody in your life. And that's what I had avoided for years. But that's what I did. And, so to speak, to that moment, I would say my impulse control actually did something good for me, because I was out for a run. I was doing a seven mile run, trying to run my hangover off. That's what I did every morning so I could come back fresh and knock it out, and my hand did not consult me and Google the AHA hotline. I called a number, got somebody on the phone and was in an online meeting three minutes later. Wow.

Colleen: 11:28

And so that began what I would say about an 18 month period where I did what I was told. I had gotten to the place where what I think isn't working so I will just follow directions and I allowed myself to be indoctrinated by this belief that I was an alcoholic and I began to rewrite the narrative of my life to be in line with the signs and how I could have known, and we train ourselves to work within a framework. And so I got in line and I did it, and it was about 18 months later of being perfectly sober. I'm leading the meetings. Now I'm coaching sober, right Like this.

Colleen: 12:08

Is it that I realized I still felt hungover, and so where I because my mindset I was still operating in a black or white mindset I was playing the alcohol game. I had just switched teams from team drinker to team sober. My life still revolved around alcohol, and so that was where I started to realize that this, and it's evidence based, that when you are taught that you can't control yourself, you are nine times more likely to binge drink in the future. So everybody that's to rehab or court ordered programs where they have to go to the 12 step and adopt that mindset. That's why they keep coming in and out.

Colleen: 12:53

It perpetuates the treatment industry, whereas people who believe that they are changing the way they drink because they want to be happier easily and permanently change. And so when I said, when I stumbled upon that research and I realized that my belief about myself as an alcoholic was just another form of perfectionism wrapped in a black and white all or nothing, life or death decision, I realized that I could let go of that story as well and just look forward when do I want to go and who do I want to be, and step into that. So I no longer identify as a woman who used to have a drinking problem I mean six. We could sit around and I can tell you all of the problems I've ever had and we will laugh. They have nothing to do with who I am now. Wow.

Lisa: 13:40

First off, I have never thought about it in the sense that you just said it, you just switched teams right and how you row in a way a new narrative, or you thought you were writing a new narrative innocent, which you were you were like making some changes, but then for you now to have that moment of like wow, I can really write my own story. And so when you had that moment of like, I'm going to change this, I'm going to change how I see myself. That narrative and stuff like what did that feel like?

Colleen: 14:09

It felt like a glitch in the matrix. It happened when I was about I was two and a half years, sober. I was sitting at my parents, my brother, we all have been fun, big party people and my brother said, no, I'm not having any wine. I was drinking a mocktail. And I looked at him and I, oh, you're not drinking. I go oh, did Molly tell you you're getting a divorce if you don't knock it off? And or did you get, or did you get, a DUI? And he looked at me and the way he looked at me like I was embarrassed. And he goes saying no to a glass of wine doesn't mean I have a drinking problem.

Colleen: 14:47

And that's when I realized the truth of like, oh my God, this is a thinking problem and I still have it. So it was a glitch in my matrix where I saw an alternate universe where I'm just a normal human, learning the lessons of life, usually the hard way, and correcting and moving on. So in that moment I realized in some ways I was a little ashamed because I built a business on sober coaching. You know now I call myself a soberish recovery coach and I don't speak of recovery in terms of alcohol, it's more of mindset, burnout, overwhelm. Overthinking is really what I help people with.

Lisa: 15:29

Amazing. And the mindset I mean we you kind of said this earlier in a way like our minds set put tricks on us. Right, they have tricks on us. They like can tell us stories. The gremlin on our shoulder can really show up a good amount of times, especially in moments of being uncomfortable, right, like that uncomfortable piece. But I think a lot of times when we think about unhealthy coping mechanisms, it's also about like not understanding the why behind we're doing those things, or the mindset. And so what have you found from having, like having unhealthy coping mechanisms to finding new ones, like how your emotional connection has grown because of that?

Colleen: 16:11

Oh, so much. But I will identify for you the big difference that anybody listening with that struggles with any sort of self-sabotage is to recognize when shame based motivation is in play. Shame based motivation is when you are doing things because you are bad and you want to feel good, look good, be good to everybody else. And when you are doing that, the problem with shame based motivation is it works for a while. We do quit drinking, we do lose the weight, we do do the hard thing, but then, when the shame goes away, so does the motivation. And so we end up in this cycle because now I feel confident and how I feel strong, and now I feel like I got this, and so then we stop doing the things that we want to do because we're not used to. And this is very biological as well. Our story that we tell ourselves and our emotions, it all ties into our dopamine. So when your brain is wired to your dopamine response to you chasing the carrot, then your that. That's going to set you up for a cycle of self-sabotage where what I teach now is emotional sobriety, where you're able to connect to the experience.

Colleen: 17:33

Why is alcohol use disorder, which is drinking too much, right? Why is that mental health issue? Because the story in your head isn't matching your experience. You think you love to drink. That's what people think. Well, I just really love to drink. Well then, why are you coming to a sober meeting? That doesn't make any sense. So you're not telling yourself the whole truth.

Colleen: 17:55

My new favorite book is by Brad Blanton and it's called Radical Honesty and he says in there yesterday's truth is tomorrow's bullshit, and you have to learn how to not be attached to what worked yesterday or what you thought yesterday. Instead, connect with the experience in your body so that you're always able to meet your own needs and allow for growth. Most of us don't grow because we're stuck in a mindset that we inherited or something that worked for us. As a 50-year-old woman, the way I work out, the way I eat, the strategies I used that worked in my 30s don't work anymore and I wasn't paying attention. Then we burn ourselves out and we hurt ourselves and, bottom line, we don't have a good relationship with ourselves.

Lisa: 18:42

Yeah, and I think what you said is, in a way, of what worked in the past is different now. The relationship with ourselves is different and that's kind of just like the evolution as humans, like what maybe I enjoyed at the age of 12, I changed and didn't love at the age of 18, all the way up until I'm in my 30s now, and so I think that that's something so beautiful for people to understand, that it's like the journey. You're not going to have all the answers right now. I am a recovering perfectionist to the T, I would say. My husband would still say I'm a perfectionist in some aspects of my life, but I'm working on that. But it's like this up and flow, it's understanding now, like what are the tools that I need to have in my life to really help me.

Lisa: 19:26

But one thing that's you know it's it's as you were talking. One of the things that continued to come up for me was okay. So you have kiddos, right, like you were teaching, you're teaching, or maybe you still do hot yoga. You have all these relationships with all these other people. When you think about the relationship that you have with yourself, it's also about, like how that connection has grown. And so have you noticed a completely like different aura in those aspects too, like can you share a little bit more about, like the relationships with certain people that have maybe come stronger because you've done the work on yourself?

Colleen: 20:03

Well, yes, because I see this a lot with new clients that come in and they're struggling with drinking and their experience mirrors mind where I just felt like I was going through the motions of life when I was really stuck in addiction and I wasn't connected. I wasn't like these people. I felt like an outsider looking in and the truth is I wasn't connected to myself. So everybody else, we project what we're experiencing and we try to make sense of what we're feeling by an outside story like what's going on out there. Oh you're bored, oh you're shallow, oh you're superficial. Oh this is stupid when, in fact, by correcting the relationship with yourself, I now can go back into friendships and group social circles where I used to think everybody was a heavy drinker and stupid and now, like half of the people, barely even drink at all.

Colleen: 21:01

Like when I, when I was seeing the world through that narrow, you're either a drinker or not everything looked like that. When you feel differently about yourself, the world reflects how you feel about yourself, and so that has been. The best part of this journey is to know that I can trust myself to the experience in my body. I'm paying attention to it. You know, I tell people the key to self-care because what is that right, like I used to think it's pedicures and Prosecco. It's working out every day and wearing a size two jeans and my hair's good. And now I say no, no, no, it's the hard work. It's when you respect your body and your space like it belongs to somebody else and you speak to yourself in third and second person. You know, oh, I made Colleen's bed today and then I walk in later, I go thanks Colleen for making my bed, you know. So I have this relationship, using the dialogue in my head to actually love and nurture myself In a kind way. I treat we got this in couples counseling years ago where they said treat your spouse as you would a stranger in the grocery store. Well, treat yourself as kind as you would a stranger in the grocery store. You know. Do the things, the little things that you know you like, express gratitude and that's the foundation of self-care. It's not working out and having a perfect morning routine and eating all perfect, the real. You have to love the person you're taking care of.

Colleen: 22:33

And if I could share, it's from Barbara King's lovers, demon copperhead. The character of the story says what is recovery. It is when you switch your seat of consciousness from being the person who is sick, being the person who is broken, being the person who needs help, to being the person taken care of that person. And when I'm having the down day, that little thought allows me to shift. What does Colleen need right now? And I'm able to show up for myself, doing the hard thing you know well I need to get her outside and take her for a walk, you know whatever.

Lisa: 23:11

Yes, I think that you just painted. I was smiling the whole time we were talking, colleen, because this is literally what I teach on a daily basis when it comes to confidence, when it comes to self-esteem, self-love and you said the word self-respect it's setting those self, like those boundaries, and it's really appreciating the person of who you are. So I hear a lot of people that specifically that work in the service industry say all the time well, it's, I'm a giver, I'm a giver, I want to take care of everybody else, but it's back to that ripple effect of change that happens. And I teach a lot around the MIUI us model, all evidence-based, about how, when we take care of ourselves, that ripple effect of positive change happens on other people. Same happens when we don't take care of ourselves, when we are doing those self-sabotaging things, the relationships that we build are not strong, we're probably lying, we're not as honest, we're always frustrated and people feel that and so it's so powerful. To bring it back to 100% is.

Lisa: 24:12

If I want to see all of these things change in my life, it has to start with me, and the impossible journey is one that never began Right Like it's the journey that you know that you need to go on, but you're not willing to do it, and I just want to give you kudos for doing the work, because I think that, as people who help other people, we have to also acknowledge like, well, I had to do the work to get here, right, and it wasn't easy.

Lisa: 24:38

It's still not easy, but it's about making yourself self-aware of hey, I got to show up for myself today in order to be the best version for someone else as well, right, and modeling that. And I think about all the people that are role models in people's lives, and I look at my role models and they project a certain type of confidence, maybe, or the way that they take care of themselves, and so I just love to remind people that when you decide to take care of yourself, you have a ton of people that are watching from afar that could be learning from you, which is so powerful and beautiful, because I hear all the time from people I want to make an impact. I want to make an impact, and it's like then start with making an impact on yourself, right, like start with you. And so, colleen, to kind of wrap up today, is there any last piece of advice that you would give to our audience around, taking back that personal power in order for them to become the best versions of themselves.

Colleen: 25:34

Well as a coach, you know the quality of your life is determined by the quality of questions you're asking yourself. One of my favorite questions to ask is to flip the idea that we have to do stuff to be, to achieve, to get. We have to do the thing to get there. My favorite question to ask myself when I'm struggling is to stop, drop and say who do I need to be to do what I need to do Instead of what do I need to do so I can be successful and I can be the business owner and the podcast host? It's like no, no, no, I'm going to start with getting still. Who do I need to be? And I'm gonna get right in my body with myself.

Colleen: 26:18

And then you're living from the inside out, and that is really where I think truly successful people get to, and by successful I mean happy and functioning in all areas of their life. You know it's not attached to income or achievement, but truly happy people take care of themselves first, because you just simply can't give from an empty cup and you have to understand that it is your thoughts and feelings that are making you feel or perceive the world as it is. You know it is not happening out there and if you reverse your problem solving skills to always start with me and to start with my emotional state who do I need to be to do what I need to do Then the motivation, then the tools, then the mentors, then the strategies all come in line, because there's no one right way to do anything right. But if you start from a grounded, centered place of who I am and have that as your vision, then all of the details you just work through them every day. That's all.

Lisa: 27:24

I love that. So, like encompassing everything that you said today, the biggest takeaway that I have is that it starts with you, right, it starts with you making that decision. Sometimes, for some of us, we have that light bulb that goes off. Sometimes we have to hit almost rock bottom or bottom to get back to the top, but the point of having conversations like this is to prevent people from having to go through some of the things that we had to go through, and so to anybody tuning in that can relate to, maybe, recovery of any aspect of your life. I hope that you understand that it's all about, like taking care of yourself first. Happiness comes from within, finding that purpose, and when you start here, oh man, the possibilities are endless, and that is my hope for all the people listening in today.

Lisa: 28:10

So thank you so much, colleen, for being on the podcast today. We will definitely be sharing some information about you in our show notes. So everybody check Colleen out, especially if you want to work with her and if you would like to connect with me in any way. I'm taking on some new coaching clients, and then we have a brand new newsletter that you can sign up for as well to stay connected and stay inspired. So, as I always say at the end of the podcast, continue to spread love and kindness to everybody that you meet and have a great day. Thank you for tuning into the Confident Podcast. If you enjoyed today's episode, don't forget to subscribe, leave a review, follow the Confident Podcast on Instagram and TikTok and share it with those who might benefit. Also, if you're looking to work one-on-one with me, message and follow me on Instagram at Lisa Tarkington official. Stay confident, stay inspired and until next time, keep striving to be the best version of yourself. Take care.