How I Healed My Inner Validation Junkie By Arlina Allen, SHE RECOVERS Coach | SHE RECOVERS® Foundation I keep coming back to the idea that there are limitless versions of me and they all see me the way I now see my Mom. I only care about the good parts of her. That’s...
Finding Your Sexy Self in Recovery | Mental Health Monday With Cindi Roberts Monday, April 11, 2022 @ 11:00 am PST Finding Your Sexy Self in Recovery With Cindi Roberts SHE RECOVERS Coach and Sex Educator, Cindi Roberts, also known as the Sober Sexpert, will be with...
Good Enough Mother | Mental Health Monday With René Syler Monday, April 4, 2022 @ 11:00 am PST Good Enough Mother With René Syler After 20 plus years of chasing deadlines, Rene Syler discovered the real secret to success in life is just being “good enough”....
Executive Function in Recovery | Mental Health Monday With Lisa Abbott Moore Monday, March 28, 2022 @ 11:00 am PST Executive Function in Recovery With Lisa Abbott Moore Did you know executive function plays into every aspect of our lives? And we can experience...
Galentine’s Day 2022 SHE RECOVERS® Together After Dark Extended Online Gatherings We understand that the practice of radical self love is paramount to our well-being. SHE RECOVERS Intention & Guiding Principle Join the free SHE RECOVERS® Together After Dark...
Emotional Sobriety | Mental Health Monday With Veronica Valli Monday, January 31, 2022 @ 11:00 am PST Emotional Sobriety with Veronica Valli What is emotional sobriety? It’s two things: feeling comfortable in your own skin and having appropriate emotional responses to...
You Can Stop Now | Mental Health Monday With Lizi Jackson Barrett Monday, January 24, 2022 @ 11:00 am PST You Can Stop Now with Lizi Jackson Barrett Lizi was eleven years old when her science teacher told her she was too ugly to feed the worms, triggering decades of...
Shred the Should | Mental Health Monday With Alex Katz Monday, November 1 @ 11:00 am PST Shred the Should In a society that emphasizes hustle, grind, and productivity, it can be easy to constantly feel like you’re not doing enough, even when you might be doing...
Transforming Wounds Into Scars Through Radical Self Love By Mallory Bales “When I look a certain way I am lovable” “When I have an open heart I am lovable” “When I am articulate I am lovable” “When I am perfect I am lovable” Do any of these sound familiar to...
Galentine’s Day 2021 SHE RECOVERS® Together After Dark Extended Online Gatherings We understand that the practice of radical self love is paramount to our well-being. SHE RECOVERS Intention & Guiding Principle Join the free SHE RECOVERS® Together After Dark...
Hope for the Holidays Community Stories of Hope & Healing | SHE RECOVERS® Foundation All I want for the holidays is donations to the SHE RECOVERS Foundation. Here’s why: They’re lifesavers! I could leave it at that, but I hope you read on to hear how...
65 ways to celebrate and create connection with yourself ( body, mind, emotions & spirit!) “Recovery is a journey to wholeness. We learn to take care of our body, mind, and spirit.” ~ SHE RECOVERS Foundation, Intention & Guiding Principle ~ In celebration of...
A few years ago I started a new job and during my first staff meeting, I was asked to share one unusual thing about myself. Without hesitation I shared with my new coworkers my love of Suzanne Somers. Now, to the unenlightened, Suzanne Somers is best known as the...
Thank you terror Thank you disillusionment Thank you frailty Thank you consequence Thank you, thank you silence – Alanis Morrissett Oprah Winfrey has given us three of my favorite phrases: vajayjay, Ah ha, and woo woo. Vajayjay and Ah ha are fairly well known...
“There comes a point where we need to stop just pulling people out of the river. We need to go upstream and find out why they’re falling in.” – Desmond Tutu When my boys still wore diapers and could not eat grapes safely, we moved to a small seaside town in Italy....
My 200-year present I recently heard a theory about how we each live in a 200-year span of history. You mark the beginning of your span, your “200-year present,” by thinking of the oldest person who could have held you as a baby (my great grandmother, born in 1900)....
“Your birth altered my whole posture on this planet … because of you, I couldn’t die and couldn’t monster myself, either. So you were the agent of my rescue – not a job for somebody barely three feet tall.” –– Mary Karr writing about her son in Lit: A Memoir Last...
I’ve come to know and believe that each of us has a soul message that only we can share, and if we don’t discover this message, the world misses out on a beautiful offering. Our message is within us when we are created, and although our childhood and other life...
Show me a woman in her late 30s/40s, whose life partnership is at least a decade old and whose kid(s) is out of diapers, and I’ll show you a woman who is about to say, “Wait. What?” to her life. This woman has done life mostly by the rules. She did both what was...
For the past few weeks I have been consumed by negative thoughts about the world and worries about my family. Life’s headlines – both inside and outside of my house – have had me holding my breath, waiting (almost wishing) for “the other shoe” to drop. My son is...
This is a guest post written by Lori Ann H., who lives in Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada and has been writing/ blogging privately about her recovery since 2016. Mindful Meditation It is fascinating to me the succession of events that come together in our lives by...
My sons are 12 and 14, and they are fully and completely their ages. This means they are constantly engaged in testing both their limits and mine. A few weeks ago, report cards came home. Things escalated quickly and I could feel my 12-year-old digging his heels into...
“To succeed, most people need a community of support.” – Cheryl Strayed Many of us are working on our recovery alone or piecing it together from various programs, therapies and online resources. These tools are powerful, but they do not replace the need for actual...
Keeping track of it all Last weekend I was at a Christmas party at the home of a couple who have two children with special needs. Stephanie, age 7, was born with only one hand. Christopher, age 5, has Down Syndrome. The parents warmly greeted their guests. You could...
“Relationships change.” My father-in-law’s new wife gifted me with this life truth a few months after she married into our family. I had just honestly and gently shared with her that my husband, her new son-in-law, and his brothers were feeling abandoned by their...
The post below, originally published at The Fix, was written by Rebecca Rush who attended a She Recovers retreat in Bali earlier this year. (This fantastic picture is a favorite from that trip!) “I knew something needed to change in my life and originally signed up...
You do not have to spend too much time in recovery before the Good Things come. Refugees from a foreign land, they arrive slowly. Just one tiny, quiet Good Thing at first. Then, because word gets out that you are accepting Good Things, others follow. Faster. Bigger....
Guest Blog Post by Caroline McGraw Oh honey, I know what you’re like. You are a driven, high-achieving woman trying so very hard to be perfect. You have a staggering helping of responsibilities on your plate. You’re the conscientious planner, the purposeful...
Relapse is common in early recovery from drug or alcohol abuse. Many long-term alcoholics and drug addicts fail the first time they attempt to quit. This is because the intense cravings experienced by substance abusers are actually due to changes in brain chemistry....
I felt the crack split slowly beneath my feet as it gave way and I plunged into the deep freezing water. Grab my camera! I shouted as the weight of my wool coat got heavy and my body began to sink into the lake. I looked up at my friend Rae standing just a few feet...
Shelly Dimitrijevic’s professional and philanthropic activities have always focused on improving the lives of others. She began her nursing career at Cardinal Glennon Children’s Hospital in St. Louis and went on to become a LifeFlight nurse specializing in neonatal, pediatric, and cardiovascular intensive care.
Shelly has been involved with numerous charities focusing on children and education including the Charlee and the Chocolate Factory gala, The Venus Orbit, Design For A Cure, Jackson Memorial, and Impact Oasis. In 2010 she founded the Lotus program, a program that focused on educating parents on the nutritional needs of children and basic child development. Shelly also served on the Frost Science Museum gala committee for 7 years before Co-Chairing the event in 2015.
After a diagnosis of Celiac disease and subsequently receiving Certification as a Nutritional Consultant, Shelly recognized that topically applied products have an effect on her Celiac Disease and overall health. She turned her focus to developing skincare that was free of toxic and hormone-disrupting ingredients.
Since she lost her only sibling in 2012 Shelly has been determined to find a way to contribute to the recovery community in a way that can make a great impact and ensure that others have the resources necessary when they are struggling.
Shelly's substantial contributions to SHE RECOVERS of both time and resources have been instrumental and deeply appreciated.
As a result of being introduced to SHE RECOVERS through retreats and meet-ups, Kirsten will be starting her yoga teacher training in the fall. These retreats also led her to become more deeply involved with SHE RECOVERS in a volunteer capacity. Kirsten was instrumental in setting up some of the Foundation's grassroots groups and currently volunteers her time helping SHE RECOVERS Foundation to design and implement the Volunteer Chapter Network.
Kirsten and her husband recently moved from Southern California to Roswell, Georgia to be closer to Kirsten's sister and two young nieces. When she isn't spending time being an aunt, you can find Kirsten hanging out with their rescue Labrador or exploring their new state.
Mary Beth is a founding member of SHE RECOVERS Support for Legal Professionals and is active at the local level with SHE RECOVERS in the Bay Area. Mary Beth has been living a sober life in recovery for over 26 years. She also has a history of trauma and abuse, from which she’s worked hard to recover as well. 6 years into her recovery, Mary Beth attended Berkeley Law. She worked at a large firm in Silicon Valley, then litigated class actions for the federal government. In 2014 Mary Beth was appointed an Administrative Law Judge. She recently retired, so she could devote her time to completing her writing and being more active in the recovery community.
She regularly speaks on behalf of LifeRing and develops relationships with organizations supportive of the multiple pathways approach. In August 2020, Mary Beth had an op-ed published in the Wall Street Journal, I Beat Addiction without God, where she described building a personal recovery plan by combining ideas from LifeRing, Women for Sobriety, and Narcotics Anonymous. In November 2020 she had an op-ed published in the Philadelphia Inquirer, I was a federal judge, and I support Safehouse. Here’s why. She is currently working on a full-length memoir.
Taryn Strong is a founder of SHE RECOVERS® Foundation as well as a trauma-informed yoga instructor, recovery coach, aromatherapist, and herbalist (and daughter to Mama Dawn). Taryn has developed a unique yoga retreat program and led over 40 yoga for recovery retreats since 2012. She is also the host of the SHE RECOVERS Podcast and most recently created and taught the inaugural trauma-informed SHE RECOVERS Yoga Teacher Training Program. Operating from a trauma-informed lens and a firm believer in anti-oppressive practices, Taryn brings an empathic and invitational approach to healing - empowering women to find and follow individualized pathways and patchworks of recovery.
Taryn's courageous vulnerability and passion for recovering out-loud has made her an influential voice in the global recovery movement - smashing the stigma often associated with substance use and mental health issues. Taryn creates and lives with her beloved and two dogs within the ancestral and unceded traditional territory of the Hul’qumi’num and SENĆOŦEN speaking peoples (Saltspring Island).
Susan is an architect of hope and healing with over 30 years of experience in providing executive-level leadership to heart-centered teams in the non-profit realm. Since joining SHE RECOVERS® Foundation as Executive Director in April 2020, Susan continues to weave her experience with her passion to help other women receive what she has been so graciously given – long-term recovery from substance use disorder, body image issues, codependency, perfectionism, and moral injury.
Susan’s work in the treatment industry quickly revealed how stigma kept women struggling with mental health issues and addiction from seeking help, and the lack of resources available to them once they did. Having served as a founding employee of Susan G. Komen for the Cure for 20 years, playing an integral role in creating the global grassroots movement that changed the way breast cancer is talked about and treated, she felt called to utilize that experience to do the same for women struggling with mental health and substance use disorders.
Celebrating more than 27 years of continuous sobriety, Susan is a Certified Peer Support Worker (CPSW) in the state of New Mexico to provide resources and peer support to those in or seeking recovery. She lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico with her fur family of four, Alex, Chaco, Bodhi, and Gracie.
Dawn Nickel, Founder of SHE RECOVERS® Foundation, is a thought leader in the women's recovery sphere as well as an accomplished leader, dedicated researcher, and visionary in the recovery moment. She holds a Ph.D. in health care policy with extensive experience in researching and writing about women experiencing substance use disorders, mental health challenges, and intimate partner violence. Dawn started her own journey of recovery from a substance use disorder and domestic violence in 1987. She is also in recovery from anxiety, grief, trauma, overworking, and cancer. Dawn's tell-it-like-it-is wisdom has created a ripple effect where you will often hear her quotes "the shit you did is just the shit you did - it's not who you are" and "recovering from all the things" resonating throughout many recovery realms.
Currently working on her first book, Dawn is living proof that in a world where all women in or seeking recovery are celebrated, supported, and deemed essential to healthy communities - anything is possible. She is fondly referred to as Mama Dawn in the SHE RECOVERS Community and to her daughters Taryn and Ashley. Dawn lives, works, and plays with her beloved grandchildren on the traditional territories of the Lkwungen speaking peoples on Vancouver Island.
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