118: Tamar & Lindsay Go Neuro: Emotional Intelligence118: Tamar & Lindsay Go Neuro: Emotional Intelligence
You're Sober! Now What?
Tamar and Lindsay talk about emotional intelligence, body-based awareness and triggers, linking these ideas to recovery and leadership. Their conversation offers practical exercises and reframes emotions as useful information rather than personal flaws.
36:03•22 Jul 2021
Emotional Intelligence, Triggers and Sobriety: Tamar & Lindsay Go Neuro
Episode Overview
- Emotions show up in the body before the brain labels them, so noticing physical sensations is a crucial first step.
- Separating “I am” from “I am feeling” helps prevent emotions from being tied to personal worth.
- Journalling about where emotions appear in the body and the stories that follow can reduce reactive behaviour.
- So-called negative emotions like anger have a useful role, as long as they’re expressed in healthy, intentional ways.
- Focusing on positive emotions and reframing difficult ones can build resilience and support long-term recovery.
“We are not our emotions. You're not necessarily an angry person, you're just experiencing anger in this moment.”
Curious about how others navigate their sobriety journey while juggling business, leadership and big feelings? This chat between Tamar Medford and Lindsay heads straight into emotional intelligence and why it matters so much for people in recovery and for anyone leading others. You’ll hear Tamar share how she once thought her emotional intelligence was “pretty high” after learning to cry and feel in early sobriety, only to realise she still had triggers – especially around her integrity and credibility.
Lindsay breaks down emotions as energy in the body, explaining how the physical sensations show up first, then trigger thoughts and actions. She jokes about her “flaming red” ears when she’s embarrassed and uses that to show how the same bodily feelings can be labelled as either anxiety or excitement. A big focus here is separating “I am angry” from “I’m noticing that I’m feeling angry”, which helps avoid tying self-worth to emotions.
They walk through a simple exercise: pick a handful of recurring emotions, replay a recent moment when one showed up, notice where it sits in the body, track the stories your mind starts telling, and then journal it out. Tamar talks about using this process to stop herself from instantly reacting and to move towards a more thoughtful response.
The episode keeps looping back to recovery: how unprocessed emotions can fuel drinking, how resentment can snowball from a molehill into a mountain, and how emotional awareness becomes a foundation for long-term sobriety and resilient leadership. There’s plenty of humour (including Mentos-in-Coke analogies and joking about singing kumbaya), but the message stays practical – emotions aren’t “good” or “bad”, they’re information.
If you’re sober and asking “now what?”, this conversation might prompt you to look at how your body, your beliefs and your emotions are all working together – and what could change if you gave yourself a bit more curiosity and compassion.
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