Welcome to the Very Well Mind podcast. We've interviewed over 100 authors, experts, entrepreneurs, athletes, musicians, and others to help you learn strategies to care for your mental health.

This episode is hosted by psychotherapist and bestselling author Amy Morin. Now let's get into the episode.

Okay. Do you numb yourself from uncomfortable emotions?

Are you so busy running from activity to activity that you don't have time to build the kind of life you want to live?

Do you ever feel like you're missing out on living your best life?

If you answered yes to any of those questions, today's show is for you.

I'm talking to Mallory Irvin.

She won the Miss Kentucky pageant in 2009.

Then in 2010, she became the fourth runner-up to Miss America.

She's also been on the amazing race three different times.

By all means, she's successful.

But she said that while she was earning all those achievements and all of those claims to fame, she secretly didn't feel good enough.

In order to numb her pain, she started taking prescription pills and didn't

recognize how big of a problem they had become in her life. It wasn't until she went to rehab and got

treatment that she realized she actually hadn't been living her best life, despite all the cool things

she was doing. Now she's written a book called Living Fully, Dare to Step Into Your Most Vibrant Life.

And on today's show, some of the things she talks about are how she learned to stop

numbing her painful feelings, what she learned about herself in treatment, and the steps that are

helping her live a richer, fuller life. Make sure to stick around until the end of the episode

for The Therapist Take. It's the part of the

show where I'll break down Mallory's strategies and talk about how you can apply them to your own life.

So here's Mallory Irvin on how to stop numbing yourself to painful emotions so you can become the

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