SHE RECOVERS Podcast

In this warm and wide-ranging conversation, Taryn Strong sits down with coach, breathwork facilitator, and Decolonize and Rize Co-founder Ariana Fotinakis — a woman whose truly integrated healing journey weaves together sobriety, burnout recovery, cultural reclamation, and nervous system awareness.
Ariana shares the quiet but pivotal mirror moment that led her to get sober after a decade of drinking and substance use. She expounds upon years of trading alcohol for fitness and work, and the breathwork session six years into her sobriety that she now considers the true beginning of her recovery. Ariana also opens up about growing up as the daughter of a Sixties Scoop survivor, carrying internalized shame and what it has meant, and still means, to reclaim her roots and find belonging on her own terms.
Ariana's powerful conviction that healing our nervous systems and healing our world are not separate endeavors, and that gentleness, not intensity, is often the most radical and lasting path forward for our individual, collective, and global recovery.
In this episode, we talk about:
Getting sober after 10 years of drinking and substance use — without hitting a dramatic rock bottom
The mirror moment — really seeing yourself and knowing something has to change
Trading alcohol for fitness and work — and how cross-addiction and escapism can quietly shift forms
Burnout as a turning point and the body's wisdom in forcing us to slow down
The first breathwork experience that cracked open everything numbed and unfelt
Why gentle, nervous-system-informed breathwork can be more transformative than intense sessions
Being the daughter of a Sixties Scoop survivor — what that history means personally, physically, and relationally
Growing up disconnected from Indigenous identity— internalizing shame in the absence of culture or representation
The ongoing journey of cultural reclamation — finding community, returning to the land, being led by willingness
Belonging vs. assimilation — why true belonging never asks you to leave parts of yourself behind
The Seven Generations principle and how it invites slowness, intention, and long-horizon thinking
Bridging nervous system healing with social and systemic change — and the tensions that can emerge
"Hard on systems, soft on people" — a framework for creating change without replicating harm
Ariana's June 30th workshop in SHE RECOVERS Foundation’s Inclusive Recovery Training: Anti-Racist Spaces of Belonging Series — Decolonizing Recovery: Belonging with Body, Land & Community with Ariana Fotinakis

EPISODE RESOURCES
Ariana Fotinakis: coaching, breathwork, and more
Decolonize and Rize: programs and resources for individuals, teams, and organizations
Follow Ariana on Instagram: @arianafotinakis 
June 30 - SHE RECOVERS Foundation’s Inclusive Recovery Training: Anti-Racist Spaces of Belonging — Decolonizing Recovery: Belonging with Body, Land & Community with Ariana Fotinakis (sign up for newsletter for more details soon!)
ABOUT ARIANA
Ariana Fotinakis (she/her) is the Co-founder of Decolonize and Rize, a trauma-responsive coach, breathwork facilitator, and devoted advocate for decolonized well-being. With Anishinaabe (Aamjiwnaang) and Greek ancestry and as the daughter of a Sixties Scoop survivor, she is deeply committed to reclaiming her roots and supporting others on their journeys of healing and transformation. For over a decade, Ariana has worked with hundreds of individuals and organizations globally, offering a grounded and compassionate approach to personal and collective change. Her work integrates nervous system awareness, cultural reclamation, and systemic change, creating spaces where people and teams can build resilience, deepen self-awareness, and cultivate sustainable well-being.
ABOUT SHE RECOVERS® Foundation 
We are a non-profit public charity and a global grassroots movement serving more than 325,000 women and non-binary individuals in or seeking recovery from life challenges including mental health issues, trauma, and substance use. SHE RECOVERS is dedicated to redefining recovery, inspiring hope, ending stigma, and empowering women to increase their recovery capital, heal themselves, and help other women to do the same.

If you found this conversation helpful please consider donating to our lifeline organization or sharing it with others who may benefit. We would love to also receive your rating and review of the SHE RECOVERS Podcast on your favorite platform.

Visit sherecovers.org to donate today.

In this rigorously honest conversation, author, speaker, advocate, and young woman in recovery Emi Nietfeld joins Dr. Tiffany Wynn to challenge the cultural narratives that equate suffering with strength and healing with achievement. Together, they explore what it means to reject recovery as a redemption arc and to release the pressure to turn pain into proof of worth.
Emi shares her journey through foster care, homelessness, and significant mental health struggles, alongside the complex reality of later achieving many of the success markers society celebrates. She reflects on the dissonance of being seen as a story of resilience while still living with the lasting impacts of trauma, and how ambition can become entangled with survival, shame, and the need to justify one’s suffering.
Together, Emi and Dr. Tiffany unpack the myths of toxic resilience culture, including the expectation that trauma survivors package their pain into inspirational narratives. They explore the importance of creating communities where young women can be honest about struggling without feeling broken or behind, and how healing is shaped not only by individual effort, but by systems, relationships, and spaces that offer truth, connection, and a sense of belonging.
Woven throughout the conversation are reflections from Emi’s memoir, Acceptance, and a reminder that recovery is not about becoming stronger, more successful, or more palatable in the aftermath of pain. It is about telling the truth, being witnessed in our humanity, and remembering that we are always worthy of love and belonging—even when we are still healing.
About Emi
Emi Nietfeld is the author of Acceptance (Penguin Press, 2022), a memoir chronicling her journey through foster care and homelessness while interrogating the true meanings of resilience, ambition, and success.
After graduating from Harvard in 2015, she worked as a software engineer, an experience she wrote about in her viral New York Times essay, “After Working At Google, I’ll Never Let Myself Love a Job Again.”
Emi’s passionate about mental health, helping young people navigate their careers, and the connection between engineering and creativity. A dynamic, sought-after speaker, she regularly appears on podcasts, delivers conference keynotes, and speaks at universities and companies.
Her essays have appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, Teen Vogue, Fortune, The Information, and other publications, been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, noted in The Best American Essays, and taught in classrooms from high schools to MFA programs.
Connect with Emi: https://www.eminietfeld.com/ 
About Dr. Tiffany
Dr. Tiffany Wynn is a behavioral health leader with a PhD in Counsellor Education who focuses on trauma and resiliency, behavioral management, leadership, and professional development. 
She serves as trainer and consultant for academic and treatment organizations and is also a woman in long-term recovery. 
Connect with Dr. Tiffany Wynn: https://www.newexperiencescc.com/ 
Episode Resources:
SHE RECOVERS Support for the Next Generation: https://sherecovers.org/support-for-the-next-generation/ 
Acceptance, A Memoir:  https://www.eminietfeld.com/books 
“After Working At Google, I’ll Never Let Myself Love a Job Again.” New York Times Essay: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/07/opinion/google-job-harassment.html

In this honest and deeply human conversation, speaker, author, prevention advocate, and Executive Director of RISE TOGETHER, Nadine Machkovech, joins Lisa Wall of Mission Programs & Community Care at SHE RECOVERS. Together, they explore what becomes possible when we loosen our grip on perfection and the pressure to hold it all together as recovery advocates, leaders, mothers, partners, and friends. They reflect on recovering out loud with honesty and courageous vulnerability as a pathway to healing, connection, and empowerment.
Nadine shares her journey of entering recovery in her early twenties, navigating the expectations of being a visible voice in the recovery space, and the profound loss of her teenage son to overdose. She speaks to the turning points that invited her to stop hiding her pain and grief, and to the role that connection and storytelling have played in her healing, especially in reaching and supporting the next generation.
Together, Nadine and Lisa delve into what it means to redefine recovery, to listen to intuition as a guide, and to permit ourselves to show up just as we are. They also offer a clear reminder that we do not have to wait to hit rock bottom to pursue recovery. 
Woven throughout the conversation are reflections from Nadine’s book, Enough Already: A Journey from Hiding to Healing, along with an invitation to consider authenticity, community, and self-compassion as essential forms of recovery medicine. Nadine reminds us that no one should have to navigate their struggles alone, and that sharing our stories can create a ripple effect of meaningful change.
About Nadine Machkovech
Nadine Machkovech is a TEDx speaker, author of Enough Already, and Executive Director of RISE TOGETHER. She leads evidence-backed, connection-centered prevention work informed by research published and indexed through the NIH, validating the power of storytelling and trusted relationships in strengthening youth mental health. Through lived experience and practical tools, Nadine helps audiences build resilience, deepen connection, and turn vulnerability into meaningful action. Having transformed personal pain into purpose, she has reached over one million people with her message of self-worth, healing, and courageous truth-telling.
Episode Resources:
NadineSpeaks.com: Featuring Nadine’s books, workshops, and resources
Book: Enough Already, A Journey from Hiding to Healing
TedX Talk: The Secret to Being Enough
RiseTogether: a peer-led, connection-centered prevention model that helps communities create spaces where young people feel safe speaking honestly. EmpowerHER: Organization dedicated to redefining care, reclaiming health, and empowering women.
SHE RECOVERS Support for the Next Generation is here for you. 
If you’re a young woman or non-binary individual aged 18-35 who is navigating recovery, you don’t have to do it alone. Facilitated by SHE RECOVERS Certified Professionals, this monthly online support group and gathering was designed to meet the needs of young adults like you. Learn more here.

In this intimate conversation, Taryn Strong sits down with beloved teacher, writer, and artist Elena Brower to explore the layered realities of recovery—including cannabis dependency, tobacco addiction, grief, and shame. Elena shares the self-abandonment loop that kept her stuck, the moment of truth that helped her stop hiding, and the simple, powerful practices that helped her rebuild trust with herself.
Together, they also open into grief as a lived practice—not something to power through but something to move with—and they explore how shame can stunt our inner world…and how repair, compassion, and do-overs can restore what shame disconnects. Woven throughout is the heart of Elena’s book and journal, Hold Nothing, and the recovery medicine of storytelling, service, and self-honesty.
In this episode, we talk about:
Recovery from cannabis and the quiet dependency many struggle to name
The daily internal battle: “You can do it. No, you can’t.”
The role of hiding in addiction - and how shame feeds secrecy
What helped Elena quit cannabis (and what replaced the ritual)
Recovery from tobacco and the emotional roots underneath the habit
Why substances often function as a stand-in for connection and solitude
Grief as a practice - learning to respect pain and exhaustion as pathways of healing
Building altars, talking to loved ones who have died, and honouring impermanence
Shame stress, nervous system repair, and the power of relational “do-overs”
The phrase ‘how human of me’ as an empathy-based pattern interrupter
Elena’s service work: hospice volunteering, teaching yoga in prison, and supporting formerly incarcerated women
A loving invitation for anyone quietly questioning their relationship with a substance or behaviour
Resources Mentioned:
Elena's website here: books, workshops, resources
Book: The Grieving Brain by Mary-Frances O’Connor 
Research on shame stress referenced: Allan Schore
Nonviolent communication: Judith Hanson Lasater
Death doula course: Sierra Campbell
On The Inside: nonprofit providing rehumanizing and healing programming to incarcerated women while reducing recidivism and intergenerational incarceration
About Elena Brower:
Elena Brower is a bestselling author, artist, mentor, and yoga/meditation teacher. Known for her depth, honesty, and devotion to practice, Elena creates resources that help people meet themselves with clarity, compassion, and courage—including her journals and the book Hold Nothing.
About SHE RECOVERS® Foundation
SHE RECOVERS Foundation is a non-profit public charity and a global grassroots movement serving thousands of women and non-binary individuals in or seeking recovery from life challenges including mental health issues, trauma, and substance use. SHE RECOVERS is dedicated to redefining recovery, inspiring hope, ending stigma, and empowering women to increase their recovery capital, heal themselves, and help other women do the same.
If you found this conversation helpful and you are able, please consider donating to our lifeline organization or sharing it with others who may benefit. We would love to also receive your rating and review of the SHE RECOVERS Podcast on your favorite platform.

Visit sherecovers.org to donate today.

In this candid and deeply human conversation, SHE RECOVERS® co-founder Dr. Dawn Nickel sits down with Elizabeth Gilbert to explore the intertwined threads of love and sex addiction, codependency, drug dependence, and recovery - core themes of Liz’s newest book, All the Way to the River. Liz shares openly about her own compulsive relationship patterns, her partner Rayya's relapse, and the moment that brought Liz to her knees. Together, Dawn and Liz explore 12-step recovery, emotional repair, and what it means to start again in the aftermath of profound loss. What emerges is a raw, insightful look at addiction, grief, and the deep courage it takes to heal and return to oneself.
EPISODE RESOURCES:
Book - All The Way to the River: available at Indigo, Powells.com, bookshop.org/shop/elizabeth_reads, and at your local independent bookstore.

Elizabeth's website: www.elizabethgilbert.com
Elizabeth's Substack: https://elizabethgilbert.substack.com/
SHE RECOVERS: www.sherecovers.org
Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous: https://slaafws.org/
Narcotics Anonymous: https://na.org/
Al-Anon: https://al-anon.org/
SHE RECOVERS® Foundation is a non-profit public charity and a global grassroots movement serving more than 325,000 women and non-binary individuals in or seeking recovery from life challenges including mental health issues, trauma, and substance use. SHE RECOVERS is dedicated to redefining recovery, inspiring hope, ending stigma, and empowering women to increase their recovery capital, heal themselves, and help other women to do the same.

If you found this conversation helpful please consider donating to our lifeline organization or sharing it with others who may benefit. We would love to also receive your rating and review of the SHE RECOVERS Podcast on your favorite platform.

Visit sherecovers.org to donate today.