Your Kick Ass Life Podcast

This week on the podcast we are talking about consent and some other extremely vulnerable topics with guest, Karen B.K. Chan. Karen is an award-winning sex and emotional literacy educator in Toronto, Canada, with over 20 years of experience. She is trained in creative facilitation, productive thinking and nonviolent communication. I have had Karen on my podcast guest wishlist for such a long time. I was so enthralled with her website. I read ALL.THE.THINGS. she has created, watched her YouTube channel and more. She is an amazing Emotional Intelligence educator and I'm excited for you to hear our conversation. In this episode Karen and I talk a lot about emotions, so much emotions y’all. But not only do we talk about emotions, Karen provides insightful advice and information on how to actually deal with emotions, how to feel our feelings and do the work. We also dive into sexual consent; how to navigate it, how to overcome emotional and social barriers relating to consent and letting go of guilt for creating b

Hey there, ass kickers! Solo pod episode today, WHOOP! I start today’s show with a question from one of the amazing supporters over on Patreon (btw, the show is now listener supported! Check it out here.) Erica asks, “How can we celebrate our small wins on our self-development journey? Could there be a podcast on different ways we can encourage ourselves to look at how far we have come instead of focusing on our shortcomings?” Such a great question! I go into 5 or 6 different ways you can do this. Then, it’s off to the main content! A few weeks ago I was listening to Scene on Radio, an excellent podcast. It was episode 10, in season 3 where it was a man telling a story about his son going to 6th grade and the changes that took place-- I’ll let you listen to it (it’s REALLY good, please go listen to both season 2 and 3). There was a particular part where Terry Real, psychologist was talking and said something in particular that stopped me, and I had to pause the podcast, and cry. He talks about how children ar

This week Allana Pratt, relationship intimacy expert, joins me on the podcast. She inspires open-hearted, unapologetic living. Allana and I go waaay back. She embodies such an amazing energy and has a true intimacy with herself, both of which I truly admire. She is divine. In this episode Allana and I talk about being vulnerable in relationships, cultivating rich, intimate relationships with ourselves, as well as, listening to our intuition. We also talk about the aging process and some ways we can embrace it with grace and humor. Plus, we talk about how to better harness our anger and the importance of releasing it in healthy ways. In this episode you’ll hear: Cultivating intimate relationships with ourselves and “In To Me I See” (11:00) Lack of trust and vulnerability in relationships: what you can do (12:52) What intimacy looks like for Allana and how she went from “victim to goddess” (19:32) Allana shares some ways to embrace and find humor in the aging process (27:07) Valuing your own self-worth and

I have another great conversation this week, this time with love coach, Nicole Moore. Nicole helps powerful, amazing women find their ideal partner using her signature Love Works Method. Before you dismiss this episode, hang on! This episode is not just for singles. We talk about love in general. There’s a bunch of wisdom in this episode for singles and those partnered up. I hope you stick around and listen to this amazing conversation with Nicole.  In this episode Nicole and I talk about rewriting your childhood love story and overcoming love trauma, shifting your awareness around love, and how you can let love in by looking at your mind-body connection. Plus, we dive into an important conversation about self-trust and your emotions, how to know if you’ve settled in a relationship, what “being love” means and the number one thing anyone can do to feel more confident. In this episode you’ll hear: Nicole’s story of being born into a world of lack of love, healing her own love wounds and what brought Nicole to

Welcome back, ass kickers! This is the first interview episode of 2019 and I am super pumped to share my conversation with Thais Sky. Thais is a truthspeaker, healer, women’s coach and feminist on a heart-led mission to support the seekers, the edge-dwellers, and the "why the heck do I feel so broken” of the world reclaim their sense of belonging by learning how to explore, trust and express themselves unapologetically. Thais is so expressive and downright poetic, as you’ll hear. I loved my conversation with her and I hope you do too. This week, Thais and I talk about the worthiness wound, what contributes to it, some critical steps to take to reclaim your worth and how healing the worthiness wound is a radical act. We also talk about personal development and how we often hope someone will save us, but it really comes down to doing the work. We also touch on holding the human experience and being capable of navigating through triggers, thoughts and feelings. Lastly, we talk about whiteness, patriarchy, becomi

I’m about to say something that goes against what you might be hearing from other self-help/motivational speakers/cheerleaders/thought leaders. You don’t need a morning routine if you don’t want one. Confession: I haven’t had a regular morning routine in about...well, never. I know there are self-help books specifically written about this. That scientists with glasses and white lab coats with clipboards have painstakingly studied the human effects of morning routines and found that it helps people Live Their Best Life. I know there are self-help people out there who have cute names for their lists of things they do in the morning, and keep telling you to get up an hour earlier than your early-rising children or dog, so that you can Live Your Best Life. I know you might feel like you’re doing it all wrong if you stumble out of bed and reach for your phone and coffee first thing. I know that the new year is full of NEW YEAR NEW YOU and that your morning routine feels like this *one thing* that you can change th

My guest this week is AH-mazing. During our conversation, I even referred to him as an evangelist for love. An evangelist. for. love, y’all. Yes, I’m excited to introduce you to Kute Blackson. Kute is a charismatic visionary and transformational teacher who offers a fresh, bold look at spiritual awareness for a whole new generation. Oh, and did I mention, he’s also very intense. I love intense people. Kute joins me to talk about love; including self-love, living your own truth and what it means to live a fulfilled life. Plus, we talk about allowing yourself to feel pain, coping mechanisms and conditioning, questioning who you truly are and what Kute means when he says, “we are born-free.” As Kute so eloquently stated, love is the most important thing on the planet and the most important thing to experience while we are alive. And lastly, “Real healing happens in the space of love.” Hell-to-the-yes. In this episode you’ll hear: Kute’s deep calling to serve humanity, following his own truth and integrity and h

I am ecstatic to introduce you to this week’s guest, Rob Mack. Rob is an ivy-league-educated Celebrity Happiness Coach, Positive Psychology Expert, Published Author, and TV Host/Personality. He just exudes peacefulness and while it looks like it comes naturally to him, he works hard at it. Rob joins me to talk about prioritizing peace, happiness, love and joy and how to focus on feeling better. We also talk about negativity bias, being comfortable with our uncomfortableness, being stuck in an identity story and some ways to let it go. Rob is such a delight. And, y’all, he is a very snappy dresser too! In this episode you’ll hear: Rob shares his story of suffering with depression and attempting suicide (11 minutes and 35 seconds) Micro-meditations (for super, busy women) (17:15) Some ways to build optimism, resilience, and real confidence (24:40) Negativity bias and why we tolerate being unhappy (26:45) Being stuck in an identity story and how to reframe it and let it go (31:04) A few simple actions you

We are in the last stretch of the year and it’s business as usual over here at Team YKAL with a brand new episode!. This week on the podcast, speaker, writer, and educator Melissa Toler joins me. Her work encourages people to make the connection between our culture's oppressive beauty standards and our personal struggle with self-acceptance. I’ve been following Melissa and her work online and social media for a while now. I love her message and I was so excited for the chance to speak with her. Today, we talk about challenging the cultural standards of wellness and beauty, plus diet culture and it’s messaging. We also talk about how we all have internalized thoughts around certain body types, including black bodies, brown bodies, or even trans bodies and how it perpetuates harm. Melissa reminds us the work of unpacking and unlearning our internal body biases is lifelong work. In this episode you’ll hear: Melissa’s pivot away from the wellness industry and why she became disillusioned with it (7 minutes and 2

Happy December! It’s podcast day, y’all. And this week, I am excited to introduce you to my guest, Nitika Chopra. She has been a leader in the wellness industry since 2010, is known for her straightforward tone and intense vulnerability, and recently created a conversation about self-love in the chronic illness community. The energy she exudes is just so magnetic. She is someone I wanted to have on the podcast for a while and I’m thrilled to share our conversation with you. Nitika and I talk in-depth about self-love, specifically her journey to finding self-love after suffering debilitating psoriasis for many years and her thoughts and philosophy about self care. Plus, Nitika shares openly and honestly about how she repaired the hatred she had over her body for so many years. In this episode you’ll hear: Nitika’s humbling and eye-opening journey to self-love (9 minutes and 11 seconds) Why Nitika thinks self-help can sometimes be more harmful than helpful (15:22) Self-care was Nitika’s saving grace; she exp

Not long ago, I got inspired, turned on the mic, and riffed about comfort zones. I think I started sweating even a little, not because I was nervous, but because I get FIRED UP about this stuff. I go over what it is that keeps us stuck. Is it fear of failure? A habit? Fear of success? Is it our feelings and emotions that keep us from the person we want to be? I go over all of this. Alas, I don’t have this episode in written format, but you don’t want to miss this.  Also, I have ONE spot open for 1:1 coaching. Two options there: I take women privately through The Daring Way™ work, as well as do traditional life coaching where we basically get down to what you want, I help you get there (with a little hand holding and a lot of holding your feet to the fire) and VIOLA! You have Your Kick-Ass Life. Simply reply to this email and we’ll get you started with an application and a call with me to see if it’s a good fit. Okay? Okay. http://yourkickasslife.com/257   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices

The holidays are upon us! If you’re like me, you love to get your shopping done early AND you love to get just the right gift for that special someone in your life (and even if they’re not that special to you, I mean sometimes we have the obligatory gift to buy, am I right?) Here’s a few of my favorite gift ideas as well as some nifty stuff we found on the internet to I like/love so you have a plethora of things to choose from! Happy shopping! Pet stuff Personalized pet socks. Y’all. YOU CAN GET YOUR ACTUAL PET ON A PAIR OF SOCKS. I mean, not the actual pet but their picture. You understand. Is this already a thing and I’m just learning of it? Whether it is or isn’t, it’s amazing. If you follow me on Instagram and watch my IG stories, you know Dirty Baby. If you don’t, then this won’t be funny at all (but seriously, get in on the joke, go to my Instagram profile in the “highlights” and click on “#dirtybaby”. You’re welcome). So, for your dog (or cat?) they CAN HAVE THEIR OWN DIRTY BABY and we can be gross pet

This week I welcome Lauren Handel Zander to the YKAL podcast. Lauren is the author of, Maybe It’s You: Cut the Crap, Face Your Fears, Love Your Life. She is also a life coach, university lecturer and co-founder of Handel Group. She joins me to talk about the everyday shit that we do that takes us farther away from the person we want to be and the person we were meant to be. We had an amazing conversation about her journey to becoming a life coach, what personal integrity means to her and her work, qualifying yes versus no, and the epidemic of lying. In this episode you’ll hear: Lauren’s path to becoming a life coach (7 minutes and 30 seconds) What is personal integrity and how she uses it to help people achieve their goals (13:51) One trick to keep you accountable when it comes to doing the work (20:17) Boundaries: Why people say, “Yes,” when they mean, “No,” and how to empower ourselves to say, “No”, when we really mean it (26:35) How to develop the awareness to stop the cycle of numbing out and isolati

This week my dear friend Kate Anthony is back on the podcast. If you are new to the show, I’ve started a new series where I’ve been talking with close friends about shit that matters. During these candid conversations, we take a big topic where we are not experts and unpack our own stuff around it and begin to make sense of it all. In this episode, Kate and I continue our conversation on rape culture and sexual assault. I highly encourage you to listen to part one of our conversation, if you haven’t done so already. The reason I wanted to create two episodes on this topic is to shed light on stories of non-consensual sex, rape, and assault. If you feel your story is not important enough, something I believed of my own story for a long time, know that your story is important. All of our stories are important and everybody’s story matters. That’s my why. And, trigger warning: Kate and I share our own experiences with non-consensual sex in this episode. In this episode you’ll also hear: The moment Kate realized

Hey ass kickers! I am bringing you another episode of Conversations About Shit That Matters with Unqualified People. My “unqualified person” this week is my friend Kate Anthony, who helped me kick off this series several months ago. For newcomers, here’s a brief introduction to Kate: Kate Anthony is a certified life coach who specializes in helping moms decide whether they should stay in or leave their marriages. This week, Kate and I are talking about rape culture. Kate is truly kick-ass, one of my dearest friends, and someone I feel totally comfortable with unpacking this sensitive topic. And, rape culture is a lot to unpack. As a reminder, before we get started, this is not an episode where I am teaching about rape culture. It’s an honest conversation between two unqualified people, emphasis on unqualified, about a very important and hard topic. We cover a lot, including what rape culture looks like, how we all participate in it, and some ways to start conversations with people about it. In this episode yo

With recent events that are happening in the news in the U.S. surrounding the U.S. Supreme court nomination of Brent Kavanaugh and Dr. Christine Blasey Ford coming forward with her story of sexual assault, I knew I needed to have a podcast on the topic of sexual trauma. While I do plan on having an episode where I speak with a friend on the topic of sexual assault, I knew how very important it was to have an expert on to discuss this topic, as well. Because, y’all, I am not an expert in this area, but as many of you know, finding an expert in a given field is something I take very seriously. And that is why I am honored and grateful to be welcoming back to the show, Licensed Marriage and Family and Therapist, Rebecca Bass-Ching. Rebecca is also a Certified EMDR Therapist+Consultant, Trauma Therapist and a Certified Daring Way™ Facilitator. Today you’ll hear us speak on the topic of sexual trauma, including: feeling triggered by sexual assault stories in the news, navigating the differencing of opinions to sex

This week on the podcast Shanna Lee joins me. She is founder of the platform The Soul Frequency and author of the book of the same name. And, guess what? I’m holding a contest this week over on Patreon. One winner will receive a copy of Shanna’s book, Soul Frequency: Your Healthy, Awakened and Authentic Life. If you haven’t joined the Patreon Party yet, which is in full swing, you still can. Head over to Patreon to participate in this contest or to become a Patron, here. I know of Shanna because I was a guest on her podcast several months ago. Her message is very similar to the one I share with you here at YKAL. Once I learned she was about to release a book, I knew I wanted to have her on my show. Today, we talk about some of the concepts she covers in her book, including how to align yourself with the life you want to be living. Plus, we talk about suppressed anger as a woman and how to open the door to it, being open to bad experiences and seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. In this episode you’ll h

I have a rich and amazing conversation with Rachel Foy for you this week on the YKAL Podcast. Rachel is an author, motivational teacher and the founder of the Soul Fed Woman. Rachel helps women overcome things like emotional eating, binge eating, and weight obsession. She helps them wake up and reclaim their lives so they are no longer missing from it. I am excited to bring you this topic today. But first, one quick note before we get started. At the start of this episode, I briefly share that I am gathering my thoughts on sexual assault all while trying to hold back my rage. I plan to talk about this tender topic in a future episode of Conversations About Shit that Matters with Unqualified People. Current events in our country, the #whyIdidntreport movement and the trauma many women have had to face, again, either due to reliving their own experiences or empathizing with that of another woman, is just too much. More on this topic will be coming soon. Okay, now back to today’s episode. Today, Rachel and I tal

Joining me on the podcast this week is leading Latina psychotherapist, Christine Gutierrez, LHMC. Christine is the founder of Christineg.tv, an online hub that features psychologically-savvy and soulful advice. Christine also specializes in love addiction which happens to be the topic of today’s episode. In this episode, we talked about healing from love addiction, Christine’s own experience with it and how she now helps clients move through the healing process. We also touched on codependency and love addiction red flags. It’s clear through my conversation with Christine that she has worked hard and tirelessly on learning how to trust in herself and lean into her biggest self. I’m happy to share our conversation with you. In this episode you’ll hear: What love addiction is, how Christine’s early childhood experiences ultimately led to love addiction, and how she got on the path to healing (1 minute 47 seconds) The distinction between healthy, falling in love and love addiction (5:46) Some tips and tools f

Today I have an episode for you that was a suggested topic from one of our awesome listeners on Patreon. Patron members can suggest show topics, as well as get their personal questions answered on Listener Q & A episodes, and so many more perks! Head on over HERE to read more about how you can become a member.  Corrina asks: I would love to hear about how to tell the difference between the internal voice that is authentic and courageous versus the voice that is fearful and holding you back or is reactionary. For example, are you leaving a situation because it's good for you or are you in flight mode?I also wrote a blog post about this AGES ago (2011 omg) so I’ve dug it up, updated it and am putting it back out there. First and foremost, this is one tricky mother. To be honest, it’s still something I sometimes am challenged by in my own life, and when I am, I talk it out with a trusted friend. Sometimes processing externally can be helpful for you to be able to decipher. Journaling can also be helpful to proce