As a recovering addict,whether its from alcohol, drugs, sex, food or other ways of checking out, you may be very familiar with what it’s like to suppress feelings and avoid life through addictive behavior.

Not only by stuffing uncomfortable feelings and emotions, but suppressing your way of true self-expression, or true nature. Somewhere early along your path, you may have received the message that you were too much, too intense, too wild, too out there, too loud or even too creative. Perhaps you started believing these messages and along with the numbing effects of addictive behavior, slowly started putting out your fire, denying your voice.

In retrospect, you might see that in the throes of your addiction, you were also screaming out to be noticed, heard, loved and valued for the gifts that you have to offer, and somehow along the way, life became twisted and derailed down a destructive path. You’re sober now and what a HUGE accomplishment! And yet it still might be awkward being with feelings and expressing yourself in healthy, skillful ways. What can happen, is that even in sobriety, the rawness of just being you, in all your messiness and gloriousness, is just too vulnerable and unfamiliar. The habit of shutting down, avoiding intimacy or feelings, and staying in the background of life, may still prevail.

There’s a saying that ignorance is bliss. Well I’m hear to tell you that
that bliss is very short-lived and shallow.

From my experience, ignoring or avoiding what scares us, keeps us stuck in a lonely world that just keeps getting smaller as our habit to disappear gets stronger. If we don’t take risks and find healthy outlets of self-expression, what we ignore will eventually show itself in harmful ways.
As a recovering addict, I'm sure you've noticed how easily addictive energy switches from one vice to another. What needs to be revealed?

There’s a myth that addicts are weak and have a disregard for life. And what I’ve seen and experienced is the opposite. Recovering alcoholics and addicts are courageous, spirited and passionate souls, with a yearning to taste the sweet with the sour, the bitter and the spice of life. There’s a hunger and curiosity to live and breathe everything that life has to offer, to experience intense feelings and sensations, not just read about it in a book or watch in a television drama. It take an immense amount of courage to jump off the ledge just because you want to see what’s down on the bottom.

This challenging energy is just misdirected, misguided and misunderstood.

Deep down there’s an incredible desire to transform your pain and personal experiences into a masterpiece of your own unique making. I’m here to tell you that within you are immeasurable resources of energy, wisdom, ability and genius waiting to be set in motion. These gifts are in you and have always been there.

Imagine a very poor man living in a decrepit little shanty, the only thing he owns in the world. What he does not know is that just beneath his shanty, but hidden in the dirt is an inexhaustible vein of gold. As long as he remains ignorant of his hidden wealth, this pauper remains in poverty; but when he attends more closely to his own dwelling, he is bound to discover his own fathomless wealth. Similarly, all we need to do is unveil our own nature, and we will find an inexhaustible source of wisdom, compassion, and power. It is nothing we need to acquire, from anywhere or anything. It has always been there.
All one needs to do is unveil it.

Imagine what your life would be like, if that passionate gift of yours was expressed constructively?

A life where you are heard, seen, recognized and have meaningful impact on those around you. What if that life force that had you dancing on dangerous, destructive edges, was transformed and applied as a vehicle towards happiness, success, love and inner peace?  Self-expression through music, art, public speaking, leadership, writing, personal boundaries, meaningful work, a spiritual practice, being of service to others, or being in loving and healthy relationships. Creative self-expression is endless!

A crucial part of recovery, is "Recovering" your Voice and Making Noise.

You want inner peace and freedom, and what I’ve discovered is that
 an important aspect of cultivating inner peace is not just about being calm, taking walks in nature, sitting in silence or spening time alone.

It's also about making “NOISE,” your unique, authentic, heartfelt "noise" or EXPRESSION. Claiming your space, your voice, and going out into the world and creating impact! Full permission to BE YOU. The is the power of Peace and Noise!

Through coaching, you will learn how to embrace your true nature or what's true to your nature, work with strong impulsive energy, self-defeating thoughts and transform those edges into skillful ways of empowered self-expression.

By learning to trust your inner well of wisdom and resource,
every aspect of your life will improve.

I'll guide you using my 6 steps to a life wide awake:

• Discover and Befriend Your True Nature

• True Recovery by holding Darkness and Light within the same Heart

• Lean INTO your Edges

• Notice, Stay and Dance

• Peace and Noise

• Life Wide Awake!

Are you ready to take the leap?

I am an artist. I am here to live out loud.

~ Emile Zola