Tell Me Something True with Laura McKowen

Mikel Ellcessor, Laura McKowen

Tell Me Something True is for people who want to fall in love with the mystery of life again. Practical, fun, and provocative conversations that use the lenses of psychology, philosophy, creativity, science, and spirituality to help us discover the surprising things that make life meaningful. Laura McKowen, the host, is the best-selling author of We Are The Luckiest, a "raw, deep and hopeful" memoir. Laura brings hard-won life experience, a searing curiosity, and deep passion for others to every conversation.

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Top 10 Tell Me Something True with Laura McKowen Episodes

Goodpods has curated a list of the 10 best Tell Me Something True with Laura McKowen episodes, ranked by the number of listens and likes each episode have garnered from our listeners. If you are listening to Tell Me Something True with Laura McKowen for the first time, there's no better place to start than with one of these standout episodes. If you are a fan of the show, vote for your favorite Tell Me Something True with Laura McKowen episode by adding your comments to the episode page.

Veronica Valli on The Promise of Emotional Sobriety

Tell Me Something True with Laura McKowen

12/23/21 • 52 min

What if you could step off the rollercoaster of emotional highs and lows? What if the pain that comes with taking everything personally could taper and largely disappear? THAT’S the promise of emotional sobriety, and Veronica Valli is one of the most steady, sane, helpful voices when it comes to that murky topic. Veronica is a woman in long-term recovery, a therapist, a sobriety coach, founder of the Soberful program, a co-host of the Soberful podcast, and the author of three books, the most recent of which, Soberful: Uncover a Sustainable, Fulfilling Life Free of Alcohol, will be published on January 25. On this episode of TMST, we get into how emotional sobriety does, and doesn’t, relate to abstinence from substance or process addictions. What emotional sobriety actually means, why it’s something everyone (not just people in recovery) has to do if they want healthy relationships, because no matter what, “the hardest thing any human being has to do is deal with other people.” Veronica’s site: https://www.veronicavalli.com/ The Soberful podcast: https://soberful.com/ Spotify playlist for this episode: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2loOl3NNSDWcCu4P2eiYJL?si=8037f210931b423d&nd=1 Tell Me Something True is a 100% independent podcast. There are no corporations or advertisers backing this community. We are 100% funded by the TMST community. Support TMST today so you can hear the uncut interviews, attend private events with Laura and help keep TMST ad-free: https://tmst.supercast.com/

Mishka Shubaly on Getting Through Your Worst Year

Tell Me Something True with Laura McKowen

04/14/22 • 67 min

What do you do when a friend tells you he’s just gone through his worst year? Well, when he’s a brave and bright light in the world, and he’s Mishka Shubaly, you invite him on the podcast! Seriously, Mishka Shubaly is a brilliant writer, a profound soul and the owner of one of the darkest senses of humor EVER. As he says early in our conversation, “I'm here to bring you the inspirational message that there's always a fresh hell available to you.” And...somehow, it’s a laugh line! Alternating between raw, courageous vulnerability and pungent insight, this conversation with Mishka reminds us that getting clean, looking inward, and being committed to the well being of others doesn’t make you exempt from the pain - but it does give you a place to stand when the world goes upside down. Mishka’s IG: https://www.instagram.com/mishkashubaly/ Mishka’s linktree: https://linktr.ee/mishkashubaly Spotify playlist for this episode: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4r1RHnqkMeTri5FbZVTXwB Episode link: https://www.tmstpod.com/episodes/43-mishka-shubaly-on-getting-through-your-worst-year Tell Me Something True is a 100% independent podcast. There are no corporations or advertisers backing this community. We are 100% funded by the TMST community. Support TMST today so you can hear the uncut interviews, attend private events with Laura and help keep TMST ad-free: https://tmst.supercast.com/

Laura McKowen on 7 Years of Sobriety

Tell Me Something True with Laura McKowen

10/07/21 • 59 min

This week, Laura takes the mic solo to reflect on hitting seven years of sobriety. She goes deep on four ideas that feel most important now as she looks back - ideas that are both urgent and grounding, timely and timeless - whether you’ve struggled with addiction or not. Since Laura got sober in 2014, cultural ideas and discussions around sobriety and addiction have massively changed. A “condition” once cloaked in anonymity and dark church basements has become both vocal and visible as more and more people choose to recover out loud, new recovery modalities surface, and movements like #sobercurious #oneyearnobeer #soberoctober and #dryjanuary have brought alcohol-free experiments and lifestyles into the mainstream, Amidst this shift, Laura encourages us to play the long game. She touches on the many layers of her sobriety from quitting Ambien to body issues, money, emotional sobriety, relationships with men, and finally quitting social media, and how the work of recovery is an ever-evolving, mysterious and life-giving process. ‘How I Knew I Needed to Quit Instagram’ (New York Times) https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/01/well/mind/instagram-quit.html Laura’s book: https://www.amazon.com/We-Are-Luckiest-Surprising-Magic/dp/160868654X/ The Luckiest Club: www.theluckiestclub.com Laura’s Website: www.lauramckowen.com Spotify playlist for this episode: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/478iRwMKSjbPbLBaJQaHsy?si=845f0479f47c4342 Tell Me Something True is a 100% independent podcast. There are no corporations or advertisers backing this community. We are 100% funded by the TMST community. Support TMST today so you can hear the uncut interviews, attend private events with Laura and help keep TMST ad-free: https://tmst.supercast.com/

Veronica Valli on The Promise of Emotional Sobriety for TMST’s 1st Birthday

Tell Me Something True with Laura McKowen

06/23/22 • 52 min

Rollercoasters are a fun diversion, but they’re no way to live. That’s why the whipsaw experience of being on an emotional rollercoaster is one of the things folks are most happy to see leave their life. Those radical highs and lows aren’t confined to the times when people are using - they often extend well into sobriety. Usually driven by hyper-sensitivity and, to be honest, a lot of self-absorption.

And that’s where today’s guest comes in.... As we mark the beginning of Year Two for Tell Me Something True, we’re revisiting a conversation with Veronica Valli on emotional sobriety.

We get into how emotional sobriety does and doesn’t relate to abstinence from substance or process addictions. What emotional sobriety actually means, why it’s something everyone has to do (not just people in recovery) if they want healthy relationships, because no matter what, “the hardest thing any human being has to do is deal with other people.”

In addition to being a dear friend, Veronica is a woman in long-term recovery, a therapist, a sobriety coach, founder of the Soberful program, a co-host of the Soberful podcast, and the author of three books, the most recent of which, Soberful: Uncover a Sustainable, Fulfilling Life Free of Alcohol.

Veronica has genuine encouragement to share about the comfort and relief that comes from living an integrated life. As happens every time we talk, after this conversation, we felt more grounded, clear, and hopeful, and hope this has the same effect for you, too.

Veronica’s website
The Soberful podcast

SUPPORT: Tell Me Something True is a 100% independent podcast. We are 100% funded by the TMST community. Become a TMST member today so you can hear the uncut interviews, attend private events with Laura and help keep TMST ad-free.

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TMST is hosted by Laura McKowen, the bestselling author of We Are The Luckiest and founder of The Luckiest Club. Follow the show and Laura on Instagram.

Marissa Moss on Not Getting Chicked

Tell Me Something True with Laura McKowen

07/14/22 • 59 min

HANDS UP if knowing what you want, and standing up for it, has not always been welcome.

Imagine being hit with that - and you’re America’s top-selling female group of all time!

Marissa Moss has a lot to say about powerful women, making their own rules, and finding solidarity when the world is pitting them against each other. This TMST is a conversation about how women are being true to themselves and reshaping culture, while building huge, diverse audiences.

In the book, “Her Country: How the Women of Country Music Became the Success They Never Were Supposed to Be,” Moss weaves together The Chicks, Shania and Loretta, and the new generation like Maren Morris, Kacey Musgraves and Mickey Guyton.

The stories she shares in our conversation are gripping, and gut churning. And.... she’s going to explain to us the veiled threat that still exists today - you don’t want to get Chicked, do ya?

Episode link: https://www.tmstpod.com/episodes/56-marissa-moss-on-not-getting-chicked

Spotify playlist for this episode: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0hJwhPHQzuqT9OgiAnpAhQ

Here’s the transcript: https://tell-me-something-true.simplecast.com/episodes/marissa-moss-on-not-getting-chicked/transcript

Tell Me Something True is a 100% independent podcast. There are no corporations or advertisers backing this community. We are 100% funded by the TMST community. Become a TMST member today so you can hear the uncut interviews, attend private events with Laura and help keep TMST ad-free.

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TMST is hosted by Laura McKowen, the bestselling author of We Are The Luckiest and founder of The Luckiest Club. Follow the show and Laura on Instagram.

Jeff & Debra Jay on Intervention & Family Recovery

Tell Me Something True with Laura McKowen

08/18/22 • 63 min

It’s a familiar, but true, saying: recovery is about breaking cycles.

Jeff and Debra Jay know this better than most. Together, they’ve been doing pioneering work in the areas of family recovery and intervention for decades.

Their book, Love First is the essential work on the family recovery dynamic. It’s now in its third printing and it’s a powerful roadmap for harnessing the power of family and friends to help a loved one accept treatment.

Debra’s book, It Takes a Family, is a ground-breaking introduction to Structured Family Recovery®. In it, she demonstrates the interconnectedness of addiction inside a family structure, and provides mountains of good news and hope - both for the person who is suffering - and the people around them.

Jeff and Debra Jay also happen to be married - and they’ve made the family health and recovery their life’s work. This is one of those episodes that NEEDS to be shared with the people you know who are at their wits end. Jeff and Debra are the real deal and we’re so glad to welcome them to Tell Me Something True.

Resources:

Love First - Jeff & Debra Jay’s site

Structured Family Recovery

Books by Jeff & Debra Jay (with several free samples to download and share)

If you care about these kinds of conversations, we hope you’ll become a TMST Plus member.

Episode link: https://www.tmstpod.com/episodes/61-jeff-and-debra-jay-on-intervention-and-family-recovery

Spotify playlist for this episode:

Here’s the transcript:

https://tell-me-something-true.simplecast.com/episodes/jeff-debra-jay-on-intervention-family-recovery/transcript

Support TMST and keep it ad-free: https://tmst.supercast.com/

Jenn Wasner on Being vs. Performing

Tell Me Something True with Laura McKowen

08/19/21 • 58 min

What do you do when the music stops and there’s no dancing in the distraction machine? For Jenn Wasner, like so many of us, that was her pandemic year. She had become “incredibly adept at outrunning myself,” so when her life as a touring musician was paused and two relationships ended she realized that picking up the guitar was not going to bring peace. Jenn Wasner’s band Wye Oak, her collaboration with Andy Stack, is connoisseur-grade indie rock and her deep musicality has earned her spots on the Bon Iver and Sylvan Esso touring line-ups. She just released her best solo work as Flock of Dimes and the moving, evocative songwriter that has won over so many showed up in our interview. Even if you’ve never been in the spotlight, we think you’ll identify with Jenn’s poignant, often funny and piercingly true reflections on why we can’t let the outside give us our inside. Plus, you get a surprise detour discussion about the Enneagram. Get to know Jenn better: Flock of Dimes' Jenn Wasner: 'I became incredibly adept at outrunning myself' An instrument of healing with Jenn Wasner and Helado Negro - Jenn Wasner of Wye Oak and Flock of Dimes, Roberto Lange (aka Helado Negro), Hand Habits’ Meg Duffy and saxophonist Joseph Shabason discuss music as a form of healing. Tell Me Something True is a 100% independent podcast. There are no corporations or advertisers backing this community. We are 100% funded by the TMST community. Support TMST, hear uncut interviews, and keep it ad-free: https://tmst.supercast.com/ Join our free online community (it’s not a Facebook group!): https://www.tmstpod.com/

Nadia Bolz-Weber on How We’re REALLY Doing

Tell Me Something True with Laura McKowen

02/10/22 • 55 min

This week, we asked a big question... what can Timothée Chalamet’s character in “Don’t Look Up” teach us about finding faith in tough times? No, seriously... we dig into it in a real way and Nadia Bolz-Weber is exactly the person to explore what we can take away from what she admits is a “deeply cynical movie.” Nadia is an ordained Lutheran pastor, the New York Times best selling author of three memoirs including Pastrix and Accidental Saints; Finding God In All The Wrong People, and a woman in long-term recovery. She’s an example of the ways faith can exist without dogma, exclusion, or shaming. She speaks candidly and generously as a woman with decades of sobriety and a life spent as the person who “always sits in the corner with the other weirdoes.” In this conversation, Nadia urges us to take a breath and step forward into life with courage, an open heart of acceptance, a hell of a lot of humility, and especially, a sense of humor. Show notes: Nadia’s site: https://nadiabolzweber.com/ Episode link: https://tmstpod.com/episodes/34-nadia-bolz-weber-how-we-are-really-doing Spotify playlist for this episode: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3dhzKN3INZTtRg6TQkPuSr?si=a0a9ae43b3674c23 Tell Me Something True is a 100% independent podcast. There are no corporations or advertisers backing this community. We are 100% funded by the TMST community. Support TMST today so you can hear the uncut interviews, attend private events with Laura and help keep TMST ad-free: https://tmst.supercast.com/

Jamie Lee Finch on Purity Culture, Sex, & Befriending Your Body (pt.2)

Tell Me Something True with Laura McKowen

01/13/22 • 40 min

Purity culture isn’t a thing that happens to OTHER people. The tendrils of sexual repression have insinuated themselves into all of our lives. In the second half of our conversation with Jamie Lee Finch, we see how evangelical Christianity’s restrictive approach to sex, sex education and owning your body and desire isn’t that different from what so many of us experienced. It’s a shocking and bracing discovery that has profound implications for our lives. This conversation is funny and weird and dark. We get into why so many pastors can’t stop talking about their “smoking hot wife” and how missionary work might be completely inseparable from sexual sublimation. Jamie Lee Finch is the author of You Are Your Own: A Reckoning with the Religious Trauma of Evangelical Christianity. Make sure you check out the first half of our conversation from last week! Spotify playlist for this episode: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2LdiPlkf5XqJiNPr8yKqD2?si=a7a9878a8eb845a4 Episode link: Tell Me Something True is a 100% independent podcast. There are no corporations or advertisers backing this community. We are 100% funded by the TMST community. Support TMST today so you can hear the uncut interviews, attend private events with Laura and help keep TMST ad-free: https://tmst.supercast.com/

Larissa May and Our Journey to Digital Wellness

Tell Me Something True with Laura McKowen

09/01/22 • 41 min

On TMST we’ve been open about our conflicted relationship with technology and social media. And you’ve heard many of our guests recount their mixed feelings, as well.

Today’s guest takes all of that and turns it up to 11.

In 2018, Larissa May (who goes by Larz) spoke out about her struggle with depression on social media. The post and hashtag that emerged around it was called #HalfTheStory - and it sparked a global conversation about the relationship between technology and emotional wellbeing.

Having just turned 28, Larz holds a unique place in our culture. She’s a part of society that has had their adulthood defined by social media AND, she’s also just about as old as you can be and still be able to talk to Gen Z as something like a peer. She’s doing that through workshops, and creating screenless experiences, and nature immersions.

Today, Larissa is asking us to consider what we get out of being the guinea pigs in Mark Zuckerberg’s experiments in the metaverse.

Or getting us to become aware of how prevalent the drug trade is on the social platforms - and how they’re not doing a whole lot to crack down.

She’s is exactly the kind of person who we love to welcome to Tell Me Something True and we’re excited for you to meet her today.

Larissa’s site: https://www.livinlikelarz.com/

Larissa’s IG: https://www.instagram.com/livinlikelarz/

#HalfThe Story: https://www.instagram.com/halfthestory/

If you care about these kinds of conversations, we hope you’ll become a TMST Plus member.

Episode link: https://www.tmstpod.com/episodes/63-larissa-may-and-our-journey-to-digital-wellness

Spotify playlist for this episode: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1T8Wqk3beLx3f8BTaIAtXx

Here’s the transcript: https://tell-me-something-true.simplecast.com/episodes/larissa-may-and-our-journey-to-digital-wellness/transcript

Support TMST and keep it ad-free: https://tmst.supercast.com/

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FAQ

How many episodes does Tell Me Something True with Laura McKowen have?

Tell Me Something True with Laura McKowen currently has 68 episodes available.

What topics does Tell Me Something True with Laura McKowen cover?

The podcast is about Poetry, Radiolab, Meditation, Literature, Society & Culture, Spirituality, Faith, Art, Psychology, Creativity, Personal Journals, Love, Music, Mental Health, Emotional Intelligence, Depression, Wellness, Sobriety, Therapy, Humor, Self Help, Podcasts, Memoir, Science, Relationships, Philosophy and Recovery.

What is the most popular episode on Tell Me Something True with Laura McKowen?

The episode title 'AMA with Laura on Friendship' is the most popular.

What is the average episode length on Tell Me Something True with Laura McKowen?

The average episode length on Tell Me Something True with Laura McKowen is 52 minutes.

How often are episodes of Tell Me Something True with Laura McKowen released?

Episodes of Tell Me Something True with Laura McKowen are typically released every 7 days.

When was the first episode of Tell Me Something True with Laura McKowen?

The first episode of Tell Me Something True with Laura McKowen was released on May 27, 2021.

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Tell Me Something True with Laura McKowen

Mikel Ellcessor, Laura McKowen

Top 10 Tell Me Something True with Laura McKowen Episodes

FAQ

How many episodes does Tell Me Something True with Laura McKowen have?

What topics does Tell Me Something True with Laura McKowen cover?

What is the most popular episode on Tell Me Something True with Laura McKowen?

What is the average episode length on Tell Me Something True with Laura McKowen?

How often are episodes of Tell Me Something True with Laura McKowen released?

When was the first episode of Tell Me Something True with Laura McKowen?

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