Ep365 – The Second Story with Shari CaudronEp365 – The Second Story with Shari Caudron
Untoxicated Podcast
Matt and Sherry talk with writer and coach Shari Caudron about her memoir *The Second Story*, midlife dissatisfaction, and how writing can reveal deep roots of trauma and coping. The conversation links emotional neglect, inner critics and self-acceptance to addiction recovery and building healthier relationships.
1:21:05•14 Sept 2026
Midlife, Memoir and the "Second Story" with Shari Caudron
Episode Overview
- Memoir invites people to place themselves inside a story, offering reflection rather than prescribed solutions.
- Early-life strategies like achievement, perfectionism and people-pleasing can help children cope but later limit adults.
- Childhood emotional neglect may be harder to see than overt abuse yet can deeply shape self-worth and relationships.
- Body-focused trauma work can surface long-suppressed fear and, in some cases, ease chronic physical tension and pain.
- Shifting from self-attack to self-acceptance and asking "What do I feel like doing?" can reshape midlife and recovery goals.
“I had to learn to live from a place of self-acceptance, not self-attack.”
How do people turn their lives around after addiction? This conversation with writer and coach Shari Caudron lands right in that midlife zone where the old tricks stop working and the big question becomes, "What now?" Matt and Sherry Salis chat with Shari about her upcoming memoir, *The Second Story*, and how it speaks to anyone who’s hit midlife with plenty of skills yet a nagging sense of being unfulfilled.
Instead of handing out a neat 10-step plan, Shari talks about telling the truth on the page and letting readers see themselves in it.
As she puts it, in memoir, "People are reading your story, but they're thinking about their story." You’ll hear them contrast self-help with memoir, unpack why achievement and people-pleasing can be early survival tools that later turn into traps, and joke about messy handwriting and thumb-typing while making a serious point: actually writing your story can surface things you’d never reach by talking alone.
Shari opens up about naming her inner critic "Why Bother," learning that childhood emotional neglect can be as damaging as more obvious abuse, and doing deep body-based trauma work that literally eased long-term neck and shoulder pain. Her line, "I had to learn to live from a place of self-acceptance, not self-attack," hits especially hard for anyone who’s tried to outrun shame with alcohol, overwork, or caretaking.
The trio also touch on cancer, fear of burdening partners, and the pressure to have "droves" of friends, gently suggesting that a few emotionally honest relationships might matter more than volume. For people in recovery or living with someone in recovery, Shari’s shift from "What should I be doing?" to "What do I feel like doing?" offers a different way to think about healing and growth.
If midlife feels like a messy rewrite and you’re wondering what your own second story could look like, this chat might give you permission to start writing it your way.
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