A,
Thanks, Heather. I love you. I think of you as a dear friend.
And I want to help women. This is something that we carry not only within our bodies, but emotionally as a trauma that, there's a lot of shame around, especially when we're drinking and. And I think that the more we can share our stories as hard as they are to talk about, the more that we can see that there is that we aren't at fault that, somebody took advantage of a situation and, that unfortunately, alcohol, a lot of times does play a part in those
scenarios
and.
I think that by sharing the story or stories, because it happened to me, unfortunately, two times, and I do talk about it a little bit in my book, I want women to say, oh, my gosh, I'm not alone and that they feel safe. To, just feel seen. And I think that when we are seen, heard, loved and validated in our journeys, that's when we really begin to heal.
And so I really hope that our conversation today brings some healing for others.
Thank you so much. Thank you so much. It, I did expect both of us to get emotional. I fully expected that because. It's such a tender topic and it's, I can't think of something more vulnerable, to be honest. So the fact that you offered that to me and to this podcast and these listeners is really important.
If it's okay, I'd love to read a little bit from your book. I think you have a really great. short way of sharing one of your experiences and we can go from there. It's, titled an education in shame. Put my glasses on showing my age. I settled on a college six hours from home, far enough from your turmoil of divorce.
Even though we were hundreds of miles between me and my past, the words, you'll never amount to much still rang through my head as I raced from extracurricular activity to extracurricular activity on campus to prove my worth. Alcohol, particularly beer, was 2 got you into any keg party on campus. One night, I was inviting at one of those on campus keg parties when a good looking, muscular rugby boy started flirting with me as we gulped down our cheap beer.
He asked me to go outside with him to talk because the music was too loud. Naive and buzzed on beer, I followed him outside. He led me behind a bush where no one could see or hear me. He balled his hands into fists and punched them into my shoulders, thrusting me backwards. I landed on my back so hard that the leaves on the ground ended up in my mouth and entangled in my hair.
He immediately jumped on top of me, pinning me to the ground. I could not move any portion of my body. I only had my voice, knowing no one could hear or see me. I screamed, no, get off me. This did not stop him. I knew I was going to be raped right there behind that bush. So I'm going to stop there, but you remember this.
You remember this moment vividly, just reading that, writing it, bringing back those words. And how did you feel at that time? You had been drinking. What was your first reaction to that?
I really thought that this person wanted to talk to me outside and because the music was too loud. That was the intention and knowing now what I know about what alcohol does to our brain and that we don't make good decisions and think things through.
And again, I was a freshman. I was naive. I followed him outside and he knew exactly what his intention was and what he was going to do to me. And I was completely blindsided. And I think in the moment, I couldn't, it happened so fast that I couldn't even believe what was happening. And so I went into the trauma response of fight or flight, and I could not move any portion of my body.
He had everything pinned down. And so I thought, I cannot physically fight back,
Because I can't move anything. And that was the first time in my life. That I had lost complete control of my body. I had no control over my body whatsoever. What was going to happen to my body?
And
that was terrifying.
And.
So I started using my voice because that was the only thing that I had. And so I thought I'll just start making myself disgusting. I'll pee on you, I'll defecate on you . Like I just, anything to try and, I'm screaming now, but no one can hear me because the music is blaring and I'm behind a bush and no one can see me, and I'll never know what words I used.
Because it's a blur, but. Whatever I said, he got off of me
and
thank God I was not raped, but I, was sexually assaulted. He did touch me and so I, ran back inside the party with the leaves in my hair and, Just in complete shock and not even really fully comprehending what had just happened to me.
And
my roommate said to me, Oh my God, what happened to you? I looked completely disheveled and I said, we have to leave. We have to go right now. I remember just trying to understand my brain could not wrap around how another human being could do this to another human being.
Was it something I said? I immediately went to blaming myself. Was it something I said? Was it what I wore? Was it because I was so drunk? Like, why would somebody do this to me? And I started shaming myself and blaming myself because Logically, I could not understand it otherwise.
And that's the really, I think, sad part to this is that is how our brains work is wait, what we have to make sense of why another human being would do this to us. And this is somebody who wanted to be in power, be in control, wanted to take control over me, right? This is not my fault. This was a violation.
And, but as a woman, I just, and as just. Never having something like this obviously happened before our my brain went into what did I do wrong to deserve this? Or how did I bring this on? How did I lead this to happen? And, I just decided to keep the secret myself. I knew that if I told my parents about it, they would pull me out of the school, which was 6 hours from my house and make me go to the college And town, at University of Delaware, and I just, my parents were, when I read the part in the book about them going through a divorce, it was, wore the roses, and I didn't want to go back home.
Shame and the secrecy inside. But what grew on me was a fear of this happening again to me. And, I took Taekwondo. I thought, I'm never going to allow this happen to me again. And unfortunately. After college so that was freshman year, so we're probably now five, six years, so after college, I got myself into a very similar situation, but this time much worse, and I don't know if you want me to go into that one, but, that one was one of a heavy binge drink, drinking night, with somebody I had just started dating, and, Got myself into a situation where I was date raped and did not give consent.
There was a lot of alcohol. So it was, I think again, where when there's alcohol involved, there's a lot of blurred lines of what the other person thinks is okay and what you think is okay. And there isn't good decision making.
And that shattered me that really. Made me feel unworthy and worthless and broken after that, because I really thought it would never allow that type of thing to happen again.
But this was somebody that I trusted, because I was dating him and really went into a trauma response after that of overfunctioning. I had to control everything in my life because I had no control over those situations, especially in my body. And this trauma was living in my body.
Unbeknownst to me, I'm in my twenties.
No one's really talking about getting therapy or self help back in, I'm 51 now. Back then nobody was really talking about that. And So I just went into this, make it look like everything's perfect, make it look like it all, is perfect. Going really well and be in control of your sales.
So I got into sales and then I got into aesthetic sales and literally selling women on the notion of, if you look beautiful, you'll get what you want in this world. This is what I was showing up, in these incredible designer outfits with my nails done the shoes, the hair and using these products.
And, just really drinking down this, mask of perfection and that everything was okay when really everything was a hot mess inside,
And really not aware of it because I was. Winning awards at work, and I was in a sales environment where it was rewarded. You work hard, you play hard and that included lots of alcohol.
And so it just. kept going for years where I was living in this pretty unhealthy cycle of Thinking I was in control Thinking that I was showing to the outside world. I had it all but inside it was a real struggle and it wasn't until I got sober and I watched a movie with, a date rape scene in it and I had a visceral response.
I started sweating and shaking and realizing that this was still in my body. Even though I had done some talk therapy around it, I had not truly healed this wound that had been living in my body and a fear that had been living in my body for decades. And alcohol was one of the ways that I could escape that madness.
I'm so sorry that all those situations happened to you. The first is it makes so much sense that you would blame yourself because if you blamed yourself and it was your fault, then there would be something you could do to ensure that this wouldn't happen again. So it was almost self protection to say, Oh, this was on me, because then that's going to protect you next time if there's some lever you can pull, to keep yourself safe.
So no wonder. And also how it makes me sad to think this boy likes me and who wouldn't, that's so beautiful and innocent and who wouldn't like you, of course, you're a beautiful, intelligent, wonderful, kind woman now, but just a little girl back then. Who wouldn't like you? Of course that was your instinct.
He likes me. He wants to go outside and talk to me. The music's too loud. You had no reason to believe that wouldn't be true. And then how foolish you must have felt because of him, not because of you. But to take that blame too, like I was foolish to think that he actually liked me.
Yeah, I just, I blamed myself at every turn to make sense of it, to, like you said, to just, wrap my brain around it.
I just could not understand how another human being could do this to another human being. And especially when someone's screaming no, and, it just it was like, I couldn't comprehend what was happening. It was like, surreal. And, I understand why people dissociate, right? And black out from these situations, because I think that's probably where I would have had to go to next.
And
I was lucky that I had my mouth to be able to, talk him out of it in a way. I don't know if somebody walked by the bush. I, to this, I'll never know why he got off of
me,
but I am lucky in that sense. And I think that, the shame was there. And then the second situation just.
shattered me. Because again, this was somebody I trusted. Like you said, I trusted that he wanted to go outside, right? It was this trusted situation where I thought that I was safe again. And. I was not.
This one even more so because you had a relationship with them. In the first time you went in, you told your friend and you left and you decided not to tell anybody else.
Do you recall your friend's reaction to that?
She was just like, do you want to report this? And I just said I just. And again, I wasn't in a really good frame of mind. I was blaming myself. I was literally analyzing my outfit. Was my skirt too short? Yeah. Was my outfit too tight?
And so we're freshmen and she didn't really know what to do either. We just didn't have the awareness like we have today where I've had. several conversations with my daughter who's in high school, right? I never had these conversations, right?
And the consequences of that, of making a spectacle of it and putting the spotlight on it and pressing charges and a doctor and a cop and a lawyer and your parents, you didn't want.
the consequences of that.
No, I didn't. And what's sad is that, it was, I didn't want to go home. I didn't want to go back to university of Delaware. And my parents told me if something like this happened, they would pull me out.
It was
almost like that was looming over it as. The reason to not tell I mean it just Looking back doesn't even really make much sense.
But I Did not and it did not want to go home. That was like the last thing I wanted to do and I was still in this blame and shame that I think a lot of women feel and are trapped in for Years after something like this happens, because it's it is where you think I, I trusted this person. I maybe had a relationship with this person.
I decided to do X, Y, Z, and got myself into the situation and. It's not our fault. That's the biggest thing I want.
You did not ask to be violated. No matter what you didn't ask to for somebody to take power over you. It is not your fault for sure. Did you ever run into that first guy again? Did you ever see him around campus?
I actually started dating another guy and I went over to his house one day and guess who his roommate was,
was the guy that attacked me. And I said to him, I said, I cannot. Go into your house. I cannot. I can't be around this individual. He said, what happened? And I told him what happened. And he said, are you kidding me? I cannot believe he did this to you. And I said, he instilled a fear in me that I never had before.
And I cannot be at your house. I cannot be around this person. And he actually had this guy come and apologize to me. And I said, I will never forgive you for what you did to me. You instilled a fear in me and in my body that I will have for the rest of my life.
I just, I'm sorry, but I know that we're supposed to have forgiveness, but when someone violates somebody like that, I, it's really hard to find forgiveness.
I've found the forgiveness for myself and I think that has brought me a lot of healing where I have forgiven myself for shaming and blaming myself and understanding and having compassion for the young girl that was naive and didn't know and I've done somatic therapy now that has gotten this out of my body.
And that is why I'm able to talk to you today, because if I had not done cinematic therapy, I would not be able to have this conversation with you. And I had to go back to that bush, and I had to go back to that bedroom where the other incident happened, and I had to wrap my arms around that little girl who was completely violated and taken advantage of.
And, I was so broken, and I didn't know if I would ever be loved and could trust. There were so many emotions around that, and I had to go back and heal that younger woman.
Yeah. How did this affect your relationships following that with all this fear and with these incidents of violation?
Yeah, I,
and also wanting to keep it secret, to be honest, wanting to stop it and not let anybody know.
I actually, after the second incident, I had met somebody that I thought I was going to marry and I had told him about what happened to me. And he made me feel. So protected and safe. And here's the craziest part to the story.
I, I thought I was going to marry him. I moved home for him. He was a family friend. And when I moved in, he became verbally abusive. He frayed on the fact that I was vulnerable. He knew that I needed somebody who. Was going to make me feel like that they were protective for me, but that protection turned into controlling me and not allowing me to leave the house and not have any friends and then became verbally abusive behind closed doors.
And that was a. I had a really hard relationship to get out of because I had given up my job and my house and moved for this individual back home. And if it wasn't for my family, he took everything away from me. He knew that I was in a vulnerable place, and he took advantage of that. And if it weren't for my family I remember saying to my dad just bawling about how he was treating me.
And And I was staying with my dad. I had moved out of the house and he said, Meg, if he truly loved you, he would be here right now. He doesn't love you. And it was like somebody slapped me across the face and woke me up. And after that, I, Did a lot of work on myself and spent a lot of time alone and didn't get into any relationships.
And then I met my husband and because of the work I had done, I was able to get into a healthy relationship.
How did you exit that relationship after your dad said that? And it felt like a slap across the face, but also maybe like a breath of fresh air to have heard the truth so clearly.
Yeah, it was, he was very manipulative.
He, didn't let me go very easily. There was a lot of back and forth trying, trying to make it work, not work. But when my dad said that, I was like. This is never going to work. Like this is the truth. My father is showing me the truth. That is the writing on the wall. And I need to wake up to this.
I have got to get out of this manipulation. He just kept tearing me down. And I think this is what happens when you get into a verbally abusive or physically abusive relationship, they tear you down so low. And I was already low, right? I had just been date raped. So he knew this. He knew that this was a person that he could take advantage of.
And and so I had to build my, myself back up. And so when I met my husband, I said, I used to be this person. I'm not going to be that person anymore. This is who I am. This is what I will. Put up with this is what I will not put up with. I was very clear about my boundaries and my expectations and what I wanted and he showed up in a way.
Obviously, we've been married for 20 plus years, 21 years. And but it took doing the work on myself and being very clear about what I wanted. But I think, I thank God that guy that I didn't marry that guy. And then my father said that to me, I thank God,
because that
would have been end of divorce.
What were some of the pivotal moments after that, that helped you begin to reclaim your sense of self worth?
I would definitely say that. These courses that I took, and self help books. I was still drinking at this time, so I wasn't a hundred percent woken up. I don't want to say. Sound like I was still caught up because I was in that sales culture. But I knew clearly my, I was starting to have value in myself and realizing that I did not need a man to complete me, that I was worthy enough and I needed somebody to compliment me.
And that I would rather be alone than be in another one of those situations. I was like, I. I'm done with these type of men who have literally manipulated and taking advantage of me, right? That was those three bad situations that I got myself into. And so it was like, I have to break this pattern. I am picking a certain type of guy.
Kind of doing this over and over again.
Yeah. And I would say you're saying these situations that I got myself into maybe. Yes. Also, it's never okay for anyone to take advantage of anyone, no matter what situation. No matter what, no matter if you go outside, no matter if you roll in the leaves, no matter if you're dating them, not that will never be okay.
That is all on them and none on you. Just to be clear. Sure. You were in those situations. Sure. You found yourself there again. Still, it is never okay for somebody to take advantage and violate against your will with hundred percent to you.
You are. Yep. And I may even be saying that in a way it's making me think am I still a hundred percent healed if I'm saying it in a certain way where I'm still, there's still you're trying to
take responsibility for something that isn't yours to take responsibility for.
But you're also trying to protect yourself to not be in that position again, totally understandable. How do you navigate the self blame or shame that's often associated with this kind of sexual trauma?
Yeah, I think that it's important to be with a trauma informed coach, first and foremost, a licensed coach or therapist.
I, for me, somatic therapy, going back into my body and really finding where that pain lived and resided was a big thing for me than just getting on a chair or couch and talking about it. And going back and having, so I think, and I do this today with any challenge that comes up. I feel like the very first step.
Is acknowledging the pain and honoring it, not dismissing it, not pushing it away, not trying to fix it. Just being with it. Yeah, that was really hard. That was really painful. That was true violation,
right?
And honoring what happened to me in that way. And then. Going back to that little girl, not little girl, 18 year old
baby girl.
Yeah, she's a little girl, but yeah, me too. That young woman and I had to get into those leaves with her and wrap my arms around her and be there for her in a way that I couldn't. I just had never done this type of work before. And so I do take the reader through this and the book, and and realizing that this didn't define me that I was enough and that I am enough.
This didn't break me. This person didn't steal my value like I had originally felt when I was younger and, that work of healing that, that brokenness, that shame that I felt like I had, I really was like, no, actually, this is a young woman who to your point, Didn't know that when she went to go talk to somebody or went out on a date with somebody that this would be the result right when this Person swooped in and wanted and knew my most vulnerable thing that had happened to me that took advantage of that too right in a relationship, so I don't blame myself anymore, and I don't have really even anger around it.
I just feel compassion for that young girl who was doing the best that she could. And just showing up with a full heart on her, wearing her heart on her sleeve, like I'm here for this. And this is somebody else's pain that they projected onto me and their crap a lot, right? That was taken out on me.
And so I try to have compassion, not only for myself, but for the other person too. And that is where that forgiveness can come in. And I think when I do those steps of acknowledging it, honoring it, going back and reparenting it with compassion and then kind of compassion for the other person.
It's like the little girl within me, the, Painful parts of me, they it's like what I said earlier. Okay. I feel seen. I feel heard. I feel loved. I feel validated like that little girl can rest and say, okay, we're not rolling around in these leaves by ourselves. You are here with me.
Telling me I'm safe, telling me I'm loved, telling me I'm enough.
And
again, I had to do this all with a therapist. It wasn't like I just went and did this on my own. She walked me through this step by step. And that is where the healing for me really began. And there are still certain things that I I can't play around where I'm pinned down.
That's a no go for me. I cannot, there's some things when people touch me a certain way, this lives in my body.
And
so it will always, it's not like it will just poof, go away. It's there, but it's there at a much less intensity. And the way that I know that is that. Watched another show, another incident on the show, another rape, and little tingles, little bit of tingling, but not the sweating and the shaking and like the visceral spots that I used to have in the past.
That has gone away.
And so
that is how I know that I have, that I'm healing.
That is really beautiful to me, Meg, because it's almost like you time travel back with your current self to go alongside your younger self. And that sort of connection, that sort of love story to you from you with love. And now when you see that scene on TV, you don't.
It is a different reaction because you are safe with you. You're always going to be safe with you. Now that person wasn't a safe person in that. Incident wasn't a safe incident, but you've got you now.
And I have access to myself to that at any time. Yeah.
So no matter what would happen to you you're with you.
You're linked arms with yourself, your younger self. It's like a Russian nesting doll, right? She lives inside of who you are today. And this. Current Meg does have it, is, does have the compassion, does understand it's not your fault, does have the forgiveness for self, maybe others someday, maybe not.
Maybe that's the best we can do is understand that person's in pain and it's unfortunate you were an outcome of that, but you accept what happened. You understand what happened and you've released a lot of it, but you're with yourself. So it sounds like a love story. a self love story to me that no matter what happens to you, you've always got you.
Yeah. And I feel like this is how we learn to trust ourselves and love. It's I know I've got my back, right? I know I'm going to take, I can go back and do this work. And I've healed enough now to be able to talk about it. And that's why I want other women to be able to hear this when it is such a hard conversation to have and be like, Oh my gosh, there is a space and a place where healing can happen.
And that you can come out on the other side of this and feel. Okay. Again, in your body and not be driven by a fear or shame or the blame and know that you can reclaim that power within you and that you have it.
That's so beautiful. And what I know is being a coach is it likely happens to the majority of us.
Unfortunately, probably the majority of us have been in this and most of us are not talking about it because we are full of shame or we want to brush it under the rug, or we wish it didn't happen, or we think it was our fault somehow, and so one in three. Yeah, the fact that you're sharing this out loud is going a long way towards healing anybody that's listening because that they can raise their hand and say, me too, right?
Yeah. Is the book the first time you talked about it publicly? It's a pretty big thing to do to literally put it in words in a book that you're publishing. Tell me about that. Or had you been talking about it prior to this?
No, it was the it felt very vulnerable, to put it out there. And, it was the very first time that I had talked about it.
And I, appreciate you wanting to have a conversation about it, because I wasn't sure. I think there was only one other podcast that asked to speak about it. I think when you and I were talking about this before we came on, hard things like grief and rape and things that are just really difficult conversations.
We live in a culture and a society where we don't want to talk about it because it's uncomfortable and it's. We haven't been trained really how to, or conditioned on how to sit with those uncomfortable feelings. And we know when we become alcohol free, we learn how to sit with that uncomfortable feeling of being the only person at the party who's not drinking.
And so we, we learn how to be with those uncomfortable feelings. So I just want to say thank you for, and I commend you for allowing me to speak about it because. I don't think we talk enough about it. And I think the Me Too movement, which, was just profound for me, it blew the lid off of it.
And we are talking about it more and holding people more accountable. But I still have such a, heartbreak for how many times this goes unreported and how many times, when you do try to report it, that the And I hate to use this word. It's not really victim. It's survivor is re traumatized by talking about it and trying to get justice and isn't believed.
If I don't want to get into politics, but the whole Brett Kavanaugh thing, it just when there's a lot of alcohol involved and everyone's a little bit blurred on what happened, but we know, that it takes an immense amount of courage to come forward and talk about this.
That we need to believe women when we, when they bring this forward, because usually, and we're not getting anything out of it, but, trying to help other women, and hopefully young boys to see and hear, I've really talked to my son a lot about consent, the importance of it and. How you know, just even does she want to hold your hand?
Does she want you to put her arm around you? Like you have to ask these questions. They're not assumptions that should just be made and I think that as parents, we can have these conversations with our kids more. Of course, I've talked to my daughter at length about this. And she knows how serious this can be, especially if alcohol is involved.
We've had. Probably ad nauseum conversations about this. And I think that if my story and sharing this encourages somebody to then talk to their, even their kids about it, we can change this going forward in the future for future generations.
Absolutely, it does. You are changing the conversation by bringing it up by talking about it.
And I love to say you're talking to your daughter but you're also talking to your son. Because perhaps therein lies the bigger issue. And so of getting permission and asking and reading signs, so I
know.
Yeah, absolutely. And even if it was yes a minute ago and now it's not right, So I definitely can appreciate that.
Yeah, I was going to ask you about that because I often tell my clients and I like I'm somebody who ruminates on things so I get it. I'm one of you, but your body doesn't know the difference of when something's happening for the first time and when you're thinking about it happening. So for instance.
Every time I think about a conversation that hurt my feelings, it's hurting my feelings over and over again. It's as if it's happening over and over again because my brain and my body do not know the difference between reality and imagination, or memory, or it feels the same in me. I'm hurting myself.
When I'm ruminating on something, I'm hurting myself about it, and in this situation, there is a going back with current Meg. Linked arms. To say, you're okay. I've got you. I love you. You've done nothing wrong, and also you don't wanna keep hurting yourself over and over again. How to kind of balance that with I've, I am, I'm here now.
I'm safe now. I'm in this body now. And when those feelings come up, I know how to process them. I know how to let them move through me and not stay stuck in me. And I imagine part of your alcohol use, and I know some of it because of course I've read your book, but It's just the stuffing, and then it's going to come out sideways.
It's the mental chatter that we want to quiet, right? The voices in the head, like you're talking about the ruminating, the demons that just, the inner critic and, The alcohol just quieted that just numbed that out and made that go disappear, but it came out in other ways that were worse.
And at the time then too, I didn't even realize that I was using that as a crutch. I didn't really it just was this unawareness, almost this like a sleep. I felt like I, like when I became alcohol free, I was waking up to all of the things around me. But most importantly, this connection to that little girl to that inner knowing.
And when I had alcohol, it was always fogged out. It was always blurred. I could not feel that true, authentic self, ever, even if I had not drank for a whole week. Cause right. It's five days for alcohol to leave our system. And so it just never really felt even though I never hit a rock bottom that I was ever really, truly getting to the inside of who Meg was and even the bad part, not bad parts.
There are no bad parts, but the hard parts, right, difficult parts and learning how to love all parts of myself. I just don't think I could, I know I couldn't do that with a substance in the way, I just want to be, I want to feel all the emotions as difficult as they are. Even crying here, like I wasn't sure if I would cry today, but it's okay.
Like it's okay. And Sometimes it's the release that we need and a trusted friend, a therapist, whatever it is to make sure that we do feel safe and that we do feel supported, it's okay to ask for help through this because I'm just such a big proponent of someone like yourself as a life coach, because everything you're saying as I'm done talking is yes, like you're supporting exactly.
Yeah. The healing process of and the thought process and that affirmation of the work that you do in conjunction with a life coach or a therapist really then just propels you forward through this healing journey and it's an ongoing healing journey.
Yeah. Definitely. I love this. Ditching the drink for you has been a spiritual journey is what it sounds like to me, like a connection to you and your source, true source that you maybe never had.
And now it's becoming your life's work with the community, with the talking, with your book with sharing your story with other women. It's so beautiful, but I'm curious how like beauty or sexuality interacts with this and has in your past because you had these, terrible situations with men.
And then also turned into I don't know about you, but I was on a lot of all male sales teams. I was often like the only female. And I think we have some of that in common or working with a lot of men. I think you now work with like physicians and a lot of them are. Male probably so maybe being like a female in a more male dominated industry and then these beauty standards and these, fillers and Botox or whatever, like whose standards are they and what was your goal and how confusing is that like I'm coming in with the shoes and the purse and the hair or whatever.
you share a little bit ab where you're at today wit
The beauty culture. I sold the two largest launched the two largest rank of fillers in the world. And I was immensely immersed in this culture of looking a certain way, appearing a certain way and what was so sad. And again, I go back to that little girl, that young girl with compassion is that I was seeking.
So much outside validation and approval because I was getting my worth from my appearance and from the outside approval. And that is aging happens every day and you get wrinkles and people's minds change how they feel about you. And so for somebody who was in an over functioning and wanted to control everything, that was like constant rat race of trying to pull up with the
dresses.
It's awesome. Feeds the never enoughness because there's always another shot to take and a thing to block and lift and where they like, it feeds this never enoughness. And the other thing is. That not enoughness and that low self worth felt like home to you. That was familiar. It's what you knew.
That
was the familiar hell that they talk about.
Yeah. So it's not that it was good or right, but it's what you knew. So it felt like home. And so no wonder you've sought that out in other ways. And no wonder. Like a beauty culture would be a perfect fit because it feeds the never enoughness and that's what's familiar to you, right?
And as a young girl, I got into modeling. So at a very young age, in eighth grade, I started modeling. So I, from a, again, a very impressive young age was like, oh. I need to look a certain way. Oh, I need to show up a certain way. Oh, people will give me attention. If I look this way and I act this way and I achieved the sales and I go out to the bars all night and I look this, I was literally the Budweiser girl passing out shot, passing out beers and then I was the Jagermeister girls.
Doing Jagermeister shots and passing it out and looking all of this, a certain part. Meanwhile, not really realizing what I was. Selling as well as saying to my own self, like that this surface stuff was more important than, and I think that's why this work now for me with my community and, with my book and wanting to help so many women and the conversation that we're having today is that.
It is the most soul fulfilling. It is the most I have a little bit of makeup on today because I knew I was getting on camera with you, but I don't even really make wear makeup anymore. I don't do my nails. I just don't care. I used to care so much about all of that. And it was exhausting. And we know that where we find rest for me, it was in wine, and keeping up with all of that is an empty place to live. And I have no desire to go back there. I'm not papooing if people do Botox or papooing if you do fillers or whatever. You go do you and whatever makes you feel more like you. But I was so caught up in this. Beside that, I even had some plastic surgery done, which I completely regret because, and I've never spoken about this, but I had my breasts done and, my mammograms are extremely painful and I want to get them out and I completely regret it.
Nobody was telling me like, oh, by the way, when you go get a mammogram, they have to like, push it out of the way and it is going to be excruciatingly painful and you're going to have scars and oh, when you want to get them out, this is like the 10 things you're going to have to do with surgery. Nobody told me all these things.
I literally was living in these physicians, these plastic surgeons offices where it was so normalized. I was just seeing breast implants all over the place and people getting Botox and fillers and all of this that it seemed it was almost like the big alcohol industry. It was everywhere around my day, everywhere I went.
And so it was like, not a big deal. You just go get some breast implants. It's a huge deal. And, I. I do regret it personally, and I know a lot of women don't, and that's, again, I'm not papooing it, but, for me, I wish that somebody could have said, have you thought about this? And what about that? And, it just wasn't having those conversations either.
It's just like the same thing with alcohol. Do you know this is a highly addictive drug? Are you sure you want to start drinking this? It is a carcinogen. Do you know your mammograms are going to be excruciating and that you're going to have to get rid of these things in about 10 to 12 years?
Is this what you want to do is have another surgery? And we just, again, these are conversations that we just don't have. We just don't talk about, and we just see the pictures of the beauty and what we think is beautiful in this world. And to me, what beauty is now is this inner.
This connection with the inner knowing and the spiritual awakening and, reclaiming our joy in our lives and loving ourselves. No matter how we look, no matter how we appear.
Yeah, it's definitely not about how we look, although I am a little jealous of being an eighth grade supermodel because I did want that.
But yeah, so you did some of the work, of healing yourself. While still drinking, married your husband, doing these sales, doing this, being in the world of plastic surgery and all this stuff. And then you got alcohol free. And then would you say you like really did the work? Is that when you did the somatic therapy?
Yes. And when you feel like more healed. And of course it's an ongoing process, but, and now so healed that you're capable of talking about it, spreading the word.
Yeah. I thought, like I said, I had done some therapy, so I had thought I was okay. And then when I had that. I realized, and you know what, I probably, and now I'm just realizing this, having this conversation with you may have even watched it while I was drinking.
I did. This is just like a light bulb that just went off here for me. This is the coaching ball. I couldn't feel the, couldn't feel the body reaction that I was probably having because I had so much wine in me and just realizing this.
And
so being alcohol free and then watching it and my body going we're having alarms about this.
That's when I was like, Oh my gosh, this is still in my body.
This has
to be healed. This is when I, that was when I started the cinematic therapy. And, I just, that, that connection just came through while we were just talking. I love that. Probably, yeah.
Yeah. The, ditching the drink is the most empowering thing you can do, truly.
And if you want to truly heal, you can do all that other work you want, but if you're still drinking, You're not getting to the source. And I'm sorry to say that you're not going to get as far as you want to go. When you let go of alcohol, you can really get in touch with your inner self and your inner knowing, as you say, and, really start to address those long held traumas in your body, resentments, disappointments, any anger, and grief, any of the tough stuff you can repair.
You can heal through connection, through, through the work as they say. But that is the work is getting it up and out of your body, telling somebody about it. Getting some tools and coping skills, letting yourself feel what you feel, having radical acceptance. But you end a lot of the suffering, when you start to address it.
That's the number. And we
have to feel, we have to feel it to heal it, like they say, right? We, and we can't feel it. I just. I just realized I probably had never felt it, you
were seeing it but not feeling it because you were dumbed down. Yeah, totally. You weren't like fully present there as.
Those images were going across your eyes. You weren't, you were turning your brain off. So you wouldn't know. What's the next step for you in your journey of healing and advocacy and personal growth?
Just really a focus on my community. I, it brings me the greatest joy. I don't know, I've been toying with a possible second book around what I'm, we're doing in the community on emotional sobriety.
So we'll see if that comes to fruition. And. I just really want women to have these safe spaces where they can have these conversations, have access to a coach like yourself, where they can get the support that they need, just to know that they are enough and that, all this stuff we're not talking about and all that superficial outside approval is just It's all an intoxicating lie.
Yeah, absolutely. So we're going to have all your information in the show notes, but why don't you tell listeners how they can connect with your work and find some other resources like your book and your community that you mentioned today.
Oh, thanks, Heather. So my website is intoxicatinglies. com or meggeiswhite.
com but intoxicating lies is a little easier to spell.
Nobody knows how to spell that.
Nobody knows how to spell my website. I don't know how to
say it. You've only told me like a million times and I'm still like, wait. Guys White. Is that right? ?
I know it's a mouth.
Intoxicating lies.com or at Intoxicating Lies book on Instagram, and that is linked to my Facebook, which is the title of the book, intox.
It's called intoxicating lies, one woman's journey to freedom from gray area drinking.
So thank
you so much, Heather, for having me here today and people can find out about my community. The next cohort is opening in January. You do not need to be a writer to join. We do a lot of healing through writing journal prompts, but you do not need to be a writer.
And that opens in January and that's on my website as well at intoxicating lies. com.
Awesome. Thank you, Meg. I'm really proud of you. I feel really honored that you had this conversation with me that you offered it, that you brought it up. I'm thrilled I got to be the one to do it with you. I think you did an incredible job sharing.
I think it's going to help so many women. I know that it's going to help so many women out there. I appreciate you so very much. And I just want to reiterate, it was not your fault. None of those things were ever your fault. Okay. I love you.
Thanks Heather. I love you too. Thanks for making me feel safe.
