The Samantha Parker Show

Sober, 40, and Starting Over! How to Start Again Even When Life Looks Good

• Samantha Parker • Season 1 • Episode 53

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I’m one year sober, just turned 40, and I run a successful business. And I’m still starting over. Not because I lost everything, but because I changed. The life I had doesn’t fit the woman I’m becoming.

If you’ve ever thought, “Is this it?” this episode is for you.

  1. Relationships -Sobriety changes your relationships. Some people will cheer for you, and some will disappear. I had to learn to let go, reintroduce myself, and stop chasing people who didn’t see the new me.
  2. Business - I didn’t start my business sober, but now I run it as this new version of me. With clearer boundaries and a bigger vision, I’m building something that actually supports my energy.
  3. Fitness and Routine - I created my version of 75 Hard, that is about consistency, not punishment. Daily movement, clean habits, and showing up for myself have reminded me I can keep promises.
  4. Finances - I pulled my head out of the sand and started being intentional about money. I’m focused on earning, saving, and giving in ways that feel powerful and aligned.
  5. Identity - Turning 40 made me stop pretending. I’m dressing how I want, trying new things, and asking who I am when no one’s watching. It’s not about reinventing. It’s about remembering.

This isn’t a breakdown. It’s a fresh start. And this might be your sign to begin again, too.

Step into Your Sober Era! Are you ready to embrace a life of clarity and empowerment? Let’s embark on this transformative journey together! [Subscribe Now ➔] Sam's Sober Stack | Samantha Parker | Substack


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 Hey guys, welcome to the podcast. I've got my crispy Diet Coke, and today's podcast is all about sober 40 and starting over. This is the truth about starting again, even when you've already built the life 

 today's episode is real and it's raw. I think every episode is real and raw. Do you guys get tired of hearing people say that they're like, today I am gonna be extra vulnerable. And it's like, well, I hope so. You're doing a podcast where kind of you divulge your entire life or pieces of your life, segments of your life, but you give your deepest thoughts.

So I would hope that it's real and raw. But what I wanna talk about is kind of this point in life where I've hit 40, I've hit a year sober, and now I feel like I'm starting over in so many ways. I'm honestly, I'm just giving myself a fresh start.

And this isn't because like I lost everything and I'm literally physically starting over. I have an amazing foundation to work with.

I've just kind of realized that the life that I have and had is really no longer fitting the woman that I'm becoming. And that's a really cool space to be.

One year sober. I just turned 40 and I already have a thriving business. And yes, I said it. I am starting over.

So if you've ever looked around and thought, is this it? This is the episode for you. So in my whole starting over phase that I'm in, I have really found that there's five areas that I really wanna dive into over the next year.

What really, you guys, when I say I'm starting over, what I've done is I've created goals for myself to take me through the rest of the year. Or at least I've started some sort of like movement forward into those goals. I don't think goals have to be so. Linear and so exact and have like this huge timestamp on them.

But I do think it feels good when you're making progress and you have something that you're looking forward to or something that you're really like moving into. So that's the space that I've created for myself and I really kind of just broke it down into five sections, and I am already pretty deep into this process.

So this isn't like a big announcement. This is just something fun that I wanted to share with you guys 'cause you might be feeling how I'm feeling. Is it a turning 40 thing? I don't think so. I think it's more of a, I got sober thing and I started looking around in my life and I was like, there's so much more that I want, but like in a really, really good way.

Because I feel like I already have so much. Every day I literally wake up and I feel extremely grateful for where I'm at. I feel really good physically. I feel really good mentally. I feel really good about how things are moving forward.

But I was still feeling like this weirdness of like, who am I now that I'm sober? And I talked about it a lot on my last podcast episode where I celebrated turning a year sober. So this is just me, a week later kind of telling you guys how I work through that, how I'm moving forward and the things I've actually been doing to drastically change my life.

And again, I wasn't, you know, in a gutter halfway dead, you know, trying to be like. If you don't quit drinking alcohol, your life is over. That's not it at all. It's fresh. It's big. Like I just feel like there's so much stuff ahead of me and I'm excited. But I think you guys are gonna take a lot of away from this episode because if you're not challenging yourself, like you're dead, you're a fish dead in the water.

If you're not trying to swim somewhere new, trying to see new things, like what's the point? You're just always swimming around the same fishbowl around and around and around until you get brave enough. To like eventually try going somewhere else. That analogy seems really weird in my head because all I can think about is my fish.

I have a fish that lives in my bathroom. It's a beta. I keep it in my bathroom, so it's like away from the pets. But we have a big bright bathroom. He's not in like some dark bathroom. Okay. He's got natural lights. But I'm like that poor guy, like he doesn't really have the option to swim into a bigger pond.

But guess what you do? 'cause you're not a fish.

So the first part of my life that I really feel like I'm starting over in is relationships. And I spend a lot of time feeling extremely guilty, feeling like I have a body count from the last year. You know, there's people I don't talk to anymore.

There's people I just keep my distance from, but there's also people that I'm like, freaking, I want more of that. Like, your energy's so amazing and incredible, but also a lot of it has to do with the fact that I changed. I changed. I'm not the same person that I was. So as I feel like I'm starting over, that means I feel like I'm starting over with my relationships

and listen to this next sentence and listen to it hard. Okay. Sobriety changes your relationships, period. There's no way around it. I did not expect it to change my relationships this dramatically as it has, but it has, it's changed 'em, and that's just where I'm at. , God, I love the space that I'm in.

I just gotta tell you guys, I love it. I love it. I love it because instead of feeling stupid or feeling guilty or afraid that I was gonna run into so and so, like, I just don't care. Like I really, really like this version of me. And today, as I was pondering, which I probably do way too much pondering, but I try and share as much as I can with you guys.

But as I was pondering life. It was probably while I was running. I ran five, I did a longer run today, like 5.1 or 5.2 miles. It was super close to 10 k. I didn't realize we were under 10 K or else I would've just finished it out to be like, I just did a 10 K this morning, so I'm far superior. I don't know.

We just come back to that. I don't know where I was going with that. But sobriety changes your relationships. It changes you. Some people will cheer you on and some people will disappear. Facts are facts

and some people honestly won't know what to do with this new version of you.

I have learned a lot from all of this though, and I have some tips for navigating your relationships as sober you. So as sober Sam, I've had to learn to navigate things and you know, if you knew me over a year ago, you actually, like, you don't know me now. I have never ever in my life. Like even maybe from childhood to a teenager, you know,

obviously that would change dramatically. But in my adult life, I have never done such a like flip. I don't know. So here's the cliff. I jumped off, I fell down really hard. I broke some bones along the way, and now I'm like back and recovered. But I'm not that same person who is standing on the top of the cliff looking over.

I'm just not. It's wild. Like did I switch bodies? Am I in a different reality? Is the matrix playing out? We don't know, but I really like where I'm at

So tips for navigating these new relationships. My number one tip. Would be to not chase those who have left you. Like, do not chase that. It's okay. Like give it love. Give those versions of you love and just like let it go. Like, ooh, there it goes. It's like a baby bird that fell out of the nest and now it's gotta fly away and go somewhere.

Don't chase those old relationships. They're no longer belong to you. Thank them. Let them go.

I'm learning to reintroduce myself as well, so I was in kind of a little bit of a scared state where I was like, you know, I'll just go to my office.

I'll hang out with the people that I know are safe. Which means I won't hang out with anybody and I will do the things that feel really comfortable to me. But now as I'm doing this whole starting over thing, and this is a challenge for me, I'm like. I am here and I know that I'm going to have to reintroduce myself, and I don't think we should fear that, you know, walk into rooms proud of who you are now.

You know, don't stay hiding. Feel free to go back to certain spaces if they feel okay. And for me, I'm thinking of like a business perspective there. For a while I was not going to any networking meetings. I wasn't doing things where there'd probably be other business people there.

You know, the things that like keep your business going and help you growing. I was being really conservative in what I would do, which is great. That is so, so great. But now I feel like I am ready to reintroduce myself. Back into society and back into circles. So I've done a lot of crazy things and I've signed up for stuff.

So when, you know, opportunities are placed in front of me, I just say yes. I recently got asked to sit on a board for a group of women realtors, and I was like, yeah, that'll be super fun, but you know, hey, I'm not a realtor. But they're having me help with social media and next week I get to go and talk about social media, and be at their event.

I'm actually sponsoring it. So I get to provide the lunch, which is really exciting, but also like get content and like help them grow. And that felt really good to me. There was a huge piece of me that was scared because. I know a lot of these people know me before sobriety, so I feel like I'm going into these spaces kind of brand new, but maybe with a little bit of like prejudged disposition.

But I'm gonna do it anyways, and I'm just gonna be like, let me reintroduce myself. I'm not that same person. I'm really excited to meet you. We're gonna see how it goes. Stay tuned.

When starting over with relationships, get comfortable with the loneliness. It has felt lonely. It has, you know, I'm the only one going on this journey. It's not like there was five other mes who were on it. I do go to aa. I get a lot of support there from other alcoholics.

I have a support system of like core family and friends and that is fantastic. But it still feels lonely. And I know that you listening on the other side, I bet you've been through an experience. Maybe it was sobriety, maybe you know, you got divorced, I don't know what it is, but you went through something where.

You kind of had to go through it alone. It's kind of cool what happens though. You know, you learn to not be codependent, but you've gotta be careful and not just, you know, hide in your bubble forever and not let anybody see you. Eventually. We've gotta go out and reintroduce ourselves, but also at the same time, you have to get comfortable being lonely.

You're no longer like gonna go out and have drinks. You're no longer gonna go out and do whatever it is. Again, using that relationship example, your relationship ended, you're no longer gonna go out as a couple. So how do you go out as just you alone into the world? That would be like a huge one for me.

I've been with my husband since I was 22 years old. I'm 40. That would be wild to have to go out and like reintroduce myself. We're starting over though. We're starting over. We're starting fresh. I just look at it as like a totally clean sweep. We're doing it

And in finding people who see me without having to be the party girl, the helper, the fixer, they just see this healthy version of me.

You are absolutely not starting over alone. You're walking into a life where people actually get to see you. This time without the mask of alcohol, it's freaking amazing.

So we're starting over with relationships. That was number one. Number two, we're starting over with our business clarity and our business goals.

I didn't start my business sober. I've had a business for an entire decade, but now I've had to learn to run my business as this new version of me.

Sobriety has given me focus. It has given me boundaries. It has given me vision, and it has given me the clarity to make insane pivots and make them fast.

And if I'm being a hundred percent honest, it made me realize that I was playing so small in so many areas.

Now I'm really building a business that supports my energy and doesn't just constantly drain me.

If you're at this point in your business or your career, I've got some really good tips for you and some things that I've been implementing and some ways that I'm pushing myself outside of the box. First off, okay. I've done some really crazy things like I was talking about earlier.

I joined, it's the Women's Council of Realtors. It finally just went into my head. I'm sitting on their board, but the other thing I did that I have not mentioned yet. As I also signed up for a big festival in la, it's the Create and Cultivate Festival, and it's the largest business festival for women, and I'm going to that in July.

And then yesterday I pulled the plug and I signed up for Powerhouse Women. So I'm gonna be going to that event in August in Scottsdale. I'm just saying yes to a lot more things. You will stay small if you never put yourself out of the box. Oh. And yes, I will be at Pod Fest in January as well with Sober Life Rocks, which is a really cool organization.

So you guys, I'm putting myself out there as much as I can.

And then I want you to say this one, loud and proud. Boundaries are a business tool. I'm a social media manager, which means the social media landscape is moving really fast, but my clients also have to be keeping up and they do require a lot of like one-on-one attention. So I have to communicate with them, help them with their videos.

It requires quite a bit. You know, like I'm the expert at what I do, but they need me to show up pretty big for them. And I've learned that I can only like output so much. So boundaries have made me a very, very good business owner, and I have executed them quite well this last year. And not in a crazy, scary way.

I cannot handle, like if you've ever worked with business people where they're like, oh, we're out for two weeks, and you're like, wait, are you getting my posts up? Or wait, do you know what I'm saying? Like, so. You know we're gonna have boundaries within reason, but I'm saying if I have a client reaching out to me and it's like six, seven o'clock at night, I don't work well at that time of night.

So it doesn't do me any good to help them. Like my business ideas are not fresh and on point. My prime time is mornings, so you will always get a message back in the morning. I just wait because that's when my energy output is really, really good. By the end of the day, I'm more into family mode. I wanna chill.

I want my brain to reset. I'm doing my evening walk, which we're gonna talk about soon. As part of my starting over. I'm doing the things that like I do to like build myself back up. You know, the easiest way to look at it, and you've heard it a million times. You're a flipping battery, your battery's going out.

We need to recharge and plug in. Often it is okay to say no.

And when I'm looking at this pivot that I'm in, starting over in business, really, it's just a vibe, you guys. It's a vibe. We should have started the whole podcast with that. It's a vibe. We're starting over. Everything we do is a vibe, but I. You've gotta let your business grow up with you. I've done a lot of growing up.

I went from a 30-year-old to a 40-year-old. I have changed immensely. You know, we don't just do our growing up in our teenage years, it continues all through adulthood. I'm at a totally different place in my life than when I was 30. When I was 30, I had little kids at home. Now my oldest is 20, like when you're listening to this podcast, she's 20 years old.

Her birthday's actually in two days, and I'm like, oh my God, how did I get a 20-year-old? Well, 'cause I had a baby at 20. That's how. But it's wild. I've grown up a lot. That's what I'm saying. Okay. We all grow up. Let your business grow with you as you grow. Feel free to start over in your business. Feel free to go at it again.

Feel free to bring in renewed fresh energy. It is the only way to succeed if I had continued down the exact same path I was on when I started. That would be wild.

When I first started my business, I was charging $150 a month for social media management clients. And I remember kind of doing the math and I was like, if I could get 10 clients, that would be so much money every month. I don't know what I was thinking. I don't know if I didn't know like math, like one 50 times 10.

Like that's, what is that like $1,500? I guess I was gonna live on that. Is it? Is it more than that? I don't think it is, but to me I was like, if I have 10 people I can help at this one 50 a month, that would set me up for success. I don't know where that number came from, but I find it really entertaining to look back and think on.

But I've done a lot of growing since then. Is it time for your business to do some growing up because you've changed? It's a big question to ponder.

Number three. Look, we can count guys. 1, 2, 3, personal and fitness reset. I have totally started over on my personal and fitness reset. What was cool about this though is it wasn't some huge, drastic changes that I actually couldn't implement and I'd hit burnout. Like today, I'm on day 13.

I was trying to do the math of when you listen to this podcast, but as of today when I'm recording this, I'm on day 13 of 75 Hard and what's I am on day 13 of 75 hard, and it's proving to not be that hard. It's keeping me very, very consistent, but I'm like, this isn't that hard because it had a lot of really good foundational pieces.

This was kind of just the next level for me.

But I needed something that really reminded me that I could keep these promises to myself. That I could look at something and be like, I will do this for 75 days. Oh my God, I'm having a huge epiphany. What if we applied this to so many different areas of our life? What if it was like, for 75 days, I'm gonna make a post on TikTok?

And you just fully committed. It feels so good when you keep those promises to yourself. I'm trying to think of all these other areas that I could implement this in. Hmm. Oh my gosh. Okay. This could be big. This is huge.

And if you're not familiar with 75 hard, you can Google it. But what I did is I created Sam's version of 75 hard. Which is funny because if you look at 75 hard, one of the things on there is no alcohol for 75 days. So yes, in the past I have tried to do 75 hard two different times. I think I did it one whole day once, like literally one whole day.

'cause I remember I did the first workout and then the second one I went for a walk at the park. And then I was like, how do people not drink alcohol for 75 days? Like how stupid, I'm not doing this. So I didn't make it very far. So when it like came into my awareness a few weeks ago and I was like, I could do that, actually, I could do that.

I sat down and I made Sam's 75 hard version. So let me share that with you guys. But if you're not familiar with 75 hard, what it is is like the standard mode I. You can do whatever you want. And that's the cool thing you guys remember. You can literally do anything you want. My good friend Brenda was messaging me and she's like, oh, are you gonna like burn out?

Like doing all that crazy hard workouts and all this stuff. And I was like, what do you mean? Like my second workout every day is I've been going for a walk. My husband and I have been walking the dogs together. I'm like, it's so peaceful and so calm. And she was like, wait a minute. And I said back to her. Yes, absolutely. Because it's Sam's 75 heart, and when you look at like the traditional 75 heart, it doesn't say you have to do these mind blowing workouts. You know, it's not like you have to go do a 25 mile run and then do a full hit class. It's not like that at all.

So what it is, is it says, , two workouts a day. Doesn't really matter when you do them, but one must be outside. The second thing in 75 hard is you stick to a diet of your choice. So anything you wanna choose, and then you drink a gallon of water. You read 10 pages from like a self-help book every day.

And then what's the last one? Oh, you take a picture of your progress. So that's the traditional 75 hard. So I'm gonna tell you what I created for Sam's 75 hard. And then my husband created like his own version of 75 Heart two, which was pretty cool. So here's mine. So mine is two daily workouts and I do a combo of like runs.

So this morning I did a run. I will go to the gym, I'll lift weights. I.

I'll walk on the StairMaster. I've got my Peloton fired back up in my garage, so I've even been doing some of my workouts just at home. And then my second workout is every night. I've just been going for a really lovely walk, like a very lovely walk. We walk to the park where I happen to live.

The city ends like at the end of my block, and there's really amazing. BLM Land, if you're not familiar with that, it is not Black Lives Matter, it is the Bureau of Land Management. So it's just public. Utah lands. There's tons of cool trail systems and we can just walk. It's amazing. We've also been driving places the other day we went up above the city and there's some walking paths up there, but I didn't realize they've made like bridges and like all this cool stuff to see.

I had no idea it was there. So we walked along there for like 45 minutes.

My step count has been wild. Some days it's 17,000 steps, which is pretty awesome. I'm hoping today it's closer to 20,000 steps because I did that longer run this morning, but we shall see. It's super fun and I have to tell you, my body feels really, really good.

My recovery has been so much better, and I know a lot of it has to do with that second walk. Every night I'm moving my body. My dad always tells me, you just have to keep moving. So when I was in Hawaii with my dad a month ago, we were talking about getting older

and we were having this conversation about not wanting to just be angry when you get old and just be like, oh, and stuck in your house. And you know, we've all met those angry people, older people. I'm not gonna name names, but some of my elders where they just kind of no longer get fun to be around because they're so negative and have this horrible outlook on life.

And my dad was telling me, you just gotta keep moving. He's like, you just keep moving. Sam, my dad's a park ranger and he's in Hawaii National Parks right now, and he says he just moves a lot, obviously with his job, they're doing trail sweeps. I don't know what to call these things.

But they're moving a lot. Okay. And my stepmom's out there with him now too, and she said to me, yeah, I just try and go for a walk on my lunch break. She's like, just keep moving. And we had this like really cool conversation about it. So I feel like my recovery and the way that I feel in my body is feeling so good because I'm getting.

Just that calming walk every night. And we know too, it's good for our nervous systems ladies. It's good for our cortisol level and walking with my husband. So I feel like we can have fun conversations. And my two dogs are getting, you know, a lot of walks. My younger dog, Dolly, she does run with me, so now she's getting some bonus.

And our older dog, Charlie, she's so freaking insane to walk. She's a very reactive dog and it's like she gets really worn out within the first few minutes, especially if we see another dog and then she'll just get super tired. Just imagine her like waddling. She's a little chihuahua mix, just waddles with her little butt.

She'll get tired and just lay down. My favorite thing about Charlie is she's had most of her teeth pulled and her tongue sometimes will just like hang out the side. So just imagine this little chunkier. She's not really chunky, it's just that she's not as small as a chihuahua. We're not quite sure what she is, but she has Chihuahua in her for sure.

Just imagine her just toodling and then she'll just plop down. But then if another dog comes, she's gonna try and eat you alive. I don't know. It's a lot of fun though. Okay, back to my Sam 75 hard two daily workouts. Runs, gym weights, weighted vest walks, normal walks my peloton. And then second, I've been sticking to macros.

In the traditional 75 hard it says to just pick a diet plan of your choice. So I've been counting my macros. I use this app called Fit Hub. It's really cool. , But it's AI generated.

AI generated or AI powered? I don't know. Yes, it's called Fit Hub and it's a little picture of a carrot you guys, but what's fun about it is you can just snap a photo of your food and it'll analyze it and calculate all the macros. You can also just talk to it, be like I had. Half a cup of cottage cheese with blah, blah, blah, or I just took down a burger, you guys, I went and got like a burger from a really nice, it's like a healthier fast food food place here.

Oh, it was so good. I just had, I was craving it. I'm craving red meat. I know I'm about to start my period, but I can just talk to it and be like, I had a half pound burger, blah, blah, blah. You know, it's really cool and it'll calculate the macros for you.

Every once in a while I have to make some small adjustments to it, but it's so much better because tracking things, I hate it. I hate it so bad. And then I've been eating in a fasting window but only like five days a week 'cause it always doesn't work out and I still need to eat food. I wanna make sure that I'm hitting my protein goals.

So part of sticking to my macros is just mostly making sure that I hit my protein goals and I feel so good you guys. Okay, so the next thing on my SAM 75 hard is I am sharing the journey daily. I wanna just share it online. I just, I hope to inspire. So every day I've been sharing up my Instagram stories.

I also read two bible verses every night. This is something that I was doing before. That's what I'm saying. A lot of this hasn't been really hard, getting very consistent with those macros and my fasting windows and my protein. That's been the, like big one for me is just being consistent there. And then I was already doing at least a workout a day.

I would say at least four to five days a week for sure. And then I was reading the Bible every night, but I just, I wasn't consistent in any of this. So I'm back to my two bible verses at night, and then I listen to a self-help book for 10 minutes. Right now I'm reading The Miracle Morning, which is great.

It's a lot of reminders of the things I already know and some of the things I already do. And then this is a big one for me and I'm, I'm getting better, but it's, I've cut it way, way back is no doom scrolling in the morning. Just get up and go. So that is Sam's 75 hard and it's gone in really well with this whole Sam's starting over thing.

So still on number three here, a personal and fitness reset. Don't over complicate it. Pick five or six things that you know you can lock in daily. So again, you know, you might be working out a few days a week, but how can you make sure that you're really, really consistent hitting, you know, your goal of five days a week or whatever it is.

I've loved doing it every day. I thought it would get really sore and really burned out, but I haven't because on the days where I'm like, oh, I'm tired and I need to rest, I'm going for two walks. Just pick a few things and be consistent at it

and track that progress for you. Track it to show yourself that you can still make promises to yourself and complete them.

You really want this challenge to be a container for growth and not treat it like a punishment.

No one needs to overhaul their life overnight. No one needs a complete start over, but you actually do need to start.

Number four, financial, reset and power moves. Financially, I would say I stuck my head in the sand over the last year and was so focused on getting sober and now I need to make up for a little bit of that. A KAI overspent. I wasn't looking at the budget, I wasn't really tracking where my business was going.

My main focus and my main priority was just staying sober. Are things still going good? Yes, but I am ready for things to go really, really great.

So starting over financially, these are some things that I'm really working on and implementing and like pulling into that consistent effort.

I'm gonna read them straight from my notes, but I think you guys would really, really benefit from some of these two. So number one, I'm gonna audit my spending without judgment. I'm just noticing, and that's something that I actually implemented last year was using a tracking sheet. I just gotta make sure that I'm staying consistent on it and looking at where my money really is going.

And then second, I'm gonna be creating three financial goals, earn, save, and give. And that's pretty, I'm saying this out loud and I'm like, you're doing it, Sam. You're doing it. Okay. It's just like when I was like, I've gotta get sober. I just eventually had to come outta the closet and say that I'm doing it.

I really wanna lock in and master my financials. That's something I want so bad. So three financial goals here. You guys earn, save and give. And then I'm really working on making decisions based on where I'm going and not where I've been so big. I don't have to look back, but I do like to look back to see how far I've come, what I've overcame, and the lessons that I've learned from it.

But now we're moving forward. So what is it that I want moving forward? You can apply that to like everything, but specifically financially, what is it you want? Financial freedom is just emotional sobriety with a credit score.

Number five, Sam, starting over is my identity and confidence. Rebuild

sobriety strips away everything that isn't real. And what's left is you,

you know, turning 40 didn't scare me. I ran that 10 K in Vegas. I did some really cool things. The day before my 40th birthday, or was it the day after? Oh, it was actually a few days before my 40th birthday. I hit a big milestone in aa. You get a chip for this one, but it was nine months sober. It was really exciting.

But what 40 did was kind of just shake things up in my head and I'm thinking about like, who is Sam? Who is this 40-year-old version of Sam?

So I'm having some identity shifts.

I'm having some changes in styles, hobbies, routines, and really like how I see myself,

and these are the tips that I'm using to really rediscover myself i'm getting really curious, who am I when no one is watching?

I am trying a lot of new things and there's been this weird little voice in my head sometimes. It's like, you are too old. Like today, I've got on like these skater Adidas shoes. Here. I'm gonna hold them up on the camera 'cause I'm obsessed with them. They're like a green velvet and gold, but they're like the fatter style.

And I put 'em on and I was thinking in my head, girl, you're too old to be dressing like that. I'm basically dressed like I would have dressed in junior high. In fact, junior high me would think I'm super cool. But a lot of those styles are coming back in. I have on some camo pants, I've got on this cute black strapless shirt.

I'm like filling myself. I. And when my hair gets to a certain length, 'cause I have like the short Bob, it won't go under anymore. So today I just let it flip out and I can tell you there's a photo of me on my mom's wall. Well actually they just sold their house and they're in the middle of moving, so it's in a box.

My mom has it in a box somewhere just to keep faxes. Facts.

But she 100% has a junior high photo of me with my strawberry blonde hair flipped out. And there was this little voice in the back of my head that was like, you're 40. What are you thinking? And I'm like, wait, I'm 40. I'm not thinking. 'cause I don't have to think anymore about this shit. I just do what feels good to me

and I'm starting to show up as my future self now because this is the future. This is the future right here.

You really don't have to reinvent yourself.

You just have to remember who you are under all the noise. For me, alcohol was a lot of noise. As a social media manager, I consume a lot of content and lately I found myself looking at other people, telling myself they're further along than me. Oh my gosh. Look at Becky. Like, what? What are we doing? We don't need to do that. It's all just noise. So who are you under all of that noise.

If you're listening to this and thinking maybe you need a fresh start, this is your sign. You can start over sober. You can start over at 40.

You can start over, even if everything looks fine on the outside,

because sometimes we don't need a total mental breakdown.

We just need the truth of who we are, but the truth of who you are is up to you. You get to decide that.

So when I say that I'm starting over,

I know that I am, but it's nothing like huge and dramatic. It's just new energy. It's new Sam. I love to push myself. If we're not growing, we're dead. If we're not moving, we're old and it's a really fabulous place to be in. Alright guys, let's wrap this up here. Thanks for listening to the podcast over on my Instagram.

Thus Samantha Parker, I'll be sharing a series where I break this down, Sam starting over series. I think you guys will really, really enjoy it. And I think it's gonna be a beautiful summer ahead, so cheers to another day sober or wherever you're at. You know, you don't have to be sober to listen to this damn podcast, but I'm gonna enjoy this Diet Coke.