.png)
The Free Advantage
Are you feeling lost, stuck, or unfulfilled? Do you long for a deeper connection with your authentic self but aren’t sure where to start? The Free Advantage is a podcast designed to help you break free from self-doubt, past trauma, and emotional barriers so you can live a more empowered, meaningful, and authentic life.Hosted by Heather Davis, an authenticity coach with over a decade of experience, The Free Advantage guides you toward self-awareness, self-acceptance, and wholeness so you can live free, unlike conventional self-help approaches focusing on surface-level change, habits, and goals. Heather shows you that real transformation is possible when you embrace risk and vulnerability, dig deep, get curious and creative. Through immersive, empathetic conversations that engage all your senses, each episode offers practical tools to help you grow, overcome hopelessness, and cultivate genuine connections—with yourself and others.Expect deep dives into topics like:Authenticity: How to align with your true self and live fully in your purposeVulnerability: Why embracing your emotions is the key to lasting transformationEmpathy and Awareness: Learning how to better connect with yourself and othersCommunication and Relationships: Developing deeper, more meaningful connectionsGrowth: Overcoming self-doubt and moving toward a life of fulfillment and empowermentIf you’re ready to get risky and move from feeling disconnected and hopeless to a place of clarity, self-love, and freedom, The Free Advantage is for you. Whether seeking emotional healing, personal growth, or simply wanting to feel seen, heard, and validated, this podcast will help you unlock the tools to create the life you’ve always wanted—one filled with purpose, authenticity, and freedom.Ready to break free? Subscribe and tune in to The Free Advantage to start your journey toward the freedom you already own. For more resources, visit The Risky Path website. Like, subscribe, and leave us a review—your voice matters! Let’s walk this path of risk and freedom together.
The Free Advantage
Life Update! When Uncertainty Becomes Your Teacher
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
You can rebuild a life from the ground up and still find more of yourself on the way. Heather opens a new season with a vulnerable life update that starts with a lost job and a cross-country move and unfolds into a fuller story of recovery, faith, family, and calling. The year brought hard resets. Downsizing, living with relatives in Texas, and supporting loved ones in sober living—yet those constraints uncovered agency, compassion, and a sharper purpose.
We explore what recovery really means beyond addiction: recovering dignity after loss, recovering trust when plans fail, and recovering the courage to ask for help. Heather shares how her husband’s long job search reframed success as alignment, not title; how a second bout of shingles forced deep rest and sparked new creative work; and how earning a recovery specialist certification turned lived experience into practical tools for others. Through family milestones, graduations, marriage, and military service, the household learned to celebrate while still healing, to make space for joy alongside grief.
Spiritually, the risky path becomes a daily practice: embracing uncertainty, leaning into community, and finding God in the not knowing. February, her birthday month, serves as a personal new year, a moment to recommit to authenticity, vocation, and self-acceptance even while navigating menopause with humor and grit.
If you’re navigating upheaval, craving honest conversations, or seeking hope that holds in ordinary days, you’ll feel at home here. Listen, share with a friend who needs encouragement, and subscribe so you don’t miss the upcoming origin story and guest interviews. Your review helps more people find real freedom. What stood out most to you today?
═════════════════════════════════════════════════════
🎙️ Be Our Guest
Hello friends and welcome back to the Free Advantage. I'm your host, Heather Davis, and I want to invite you into a new season of real stories, real recovery, and real freedom. This show has always been about self-discovery, authenticity, and recovering a life of freedom. And this year, we are taking that journey together in a deeper way. You're gonna hear raw, honest conversations with people walking this path in real time. Stories of growth, healing, purpose, and becoming whole. You'll also hear from me as I reflect on these themes that rise from the stories, answer your questions, and offer small, meaningful takeaways that you can carry back into your week. This is not just a podcast you listen to. It's a place you belong where you are part of the conversation. Hello everyone, and welcome back to the Free Advantage. I am so happy you are joining me this week. Uh, this week is a big week. It's uh there's a lot going on in my life, and this whole month is so many things are happening, and I am excited to get it all started and to see how it all works out and turns out. Um, today I'm going to be giving you all a life update. I know that over the past year you have heard bits and pieces of the journey that I have been walking, that my husband and I have been walking. And with it coming up on a little bit past a year since we first moved to Texas, I wanted to give a little life update. February today is the first, and it marks the very beginning of my birthday month, which I love. And if anybody knows anything about me, I love my birthday. I think it's one of the most exciting things. It's the day you were born, it's the day you were brought into this creation, this beautiful, wonderful thing, and you're getting to live your life out in this world that we live in. So I'm excited about that. I'm excited about everybody's birthday. Um, and so I'm glad that y'all are all gonna kind of join me on this journey this month. I said that I would be sharing my story, and I thought appropriately it would just work out that I would share that story on my birthday month. So I hope that you all join me along the way. And I have a little, excuse me, hair on my mic and it's driving me nuts. Um, but yeah, I'm excited. I'm excited to share and get you all kind of up to date to where I am now. Um, last January, if you had listened in, my husband and I had been going through probably for the past like year or two, we had been going through a real big change with his job. He had lost his job. Um, gosh, I think it was like in October of 2023. Yeah, October of 2023. And so we had been working really hard to make it and to survive. Um, and life just got more and more difficult along the way. It just he couldn't find work. And after coming from a really high-powered job and then living a life where you had nothing, it was very, it was very difficult. We lost our home, we've lost a car along the way, um, and we ended up having to move in with some family in Texas. And we are blessed to be here. We were blessed that they um offered us to come stay here. And the things that all happened around that um really was a God move. Um, my family here at the time, some of them were going through addiction recovery and had just gotten out of rehab, and we were able to help and be a part of that journey for them. And it was really a wonderful thing to be um to be able to be here with them during that time. And we're still here. We're still here. It's been a year in January that we're here, and it's been a wonderful, a wonderful experience, one that I at the time I didn't want to do. I didn't think it would be a good thing. You know, when you're almost, I mean, I'll be 50, no, 50, I'll almost be 50. I'm 47, I'll be 47 this month. That you don't really think, you know, losing your home and losing those things can definitely feel like a huge step back. And it does. It felt like a huge step back, like we're losing everything, you know, uh we we got rid of a lot of our belongings because, you know, well, we didn't have the money or the place to put them. And so it it was very humbling in a way for sure, where you're like, What what is happening? What is happening in my life? When for me and my husband, we were really asking, like, what is God doing with us? What is what is what is happening? I can't, we could not foresee what the future would look like or how we would come back from this. But if the last year has taught me anything, it is that you never know. You never know what God's plans are you, or for you are. You never know. You sometimes, and I've said it before, sometimes when you think you're in the worst position possible, and the way it looks, the way it feels, the way it sounds, that you're actually in the best place you could possibly be. And this past year, that is something that we have learned. I think that the adversity that we have faced, the struggles that we've endured this past couple of years, we've really have watched God maneuver us in such a way that has put us in a place where He has exactly, He has us exactly where He wants us. And um, and little by little that has continued to be revealed to us. Um it is they have our family has been a blessing to us. We have been able to be a blessing to them, and and working together through sober living with them has been an incredible journey. Um, learning a lot about what recovery looks like, not just in addiction recovery, but what recovering in the from the real hard moments of life and recovering from trauma is, and living that firsthand, not just with myself and my own experiences or just coaching others, but living in it, living in the home with it every single day, what that looks like, what that journey feels like, and what we all endured during it. Um, and it has been, it has been a huge learning experience. It has taught me so much, um, and it is preparing me for for more work that I know that God has for me coming in the future. Um it has been, I mean, I don't know how much more I can say. It's been just a really wonderful experience. And um, the doors that are now opening, um, my husband is actually fixing to start a new job, which we're very excited about. Um, and we feel like it's been a long time coming, but even on his own journey, he's learned a lot about himself and finding himself in a new place in his relationships with God, in his relationships with other people, and especially with his relationship with himself and finding the true kind of work that he wants to do and what he's truly called to do and passionate about doing, um, and and being able to walk into that with a whole different kind of mindset. So I'll keep you updated on that. We should honestly, that I said this is a big week for us, it really is. We will find out this week, um, coming this week, uh, when he starts and it if he starts. Um, interviews were through last week. And um, along with it being the beginning of my birthday month, we are also on our way traveling to New Jersey to see our son-in-law graduate Coast Guard boot camp. Um, it's been a big struggle for him. He's been sick, and we're been praying that he is well and doing well, and that we will see him hopefully this Friday. So we got a lot going on, right? I got a lot going on. The podcast has taken a whole new direction. Um, I've started videos, I'm gonna do interviews, um, I'm doing QA's, as you know, if you've been listening in, and I'm hoping to continue that more and more and hopefully expanding that out and bringing on more people to share their story. Um I look forward to March when I'm having another guest on, and I hope you all will join in and listen to that. But yeah, there's been lots of things in the works. I've been releasing the podcast, not the podcast, but I've been releasing my new website, which I have been working diligently on for months. Um, my husband has been building it for me, and I've been writing and preparing and creating all kinds of new things for you. Um, it's great to get my own creative expression out in the world. It really is, and and putting the things that I've learned and that I've experienced out in the world. But my true hope, my true hope is that that you will find something that I have created from the work I've done, from the experiences that I've lived, that you will find something that will help you along the way on your own journey. Um I'm gonna be opening up some lives, some like join me live during the week sometime. So that'll be available to you. They got a lot coming and a lot in the works. So let's see, what else has been going on? It's been a crazy year. I recovered from shingles. I know that some of you had heard about that. I got shingles last year in July. It was probably a three to four month recovery for me. Um, it was my second time having it. Um, and it it begged for me to question why. I know that they're caused by stress. I got them once when I was 21 years old after a really stressful experience in my life. And I was like, oh, okay, so when it popped up this time, I was like, what is this? And why is this happening? Um, but it slowed me down in a different way, um, you know, to rest. And I think that happens a lot to a lot of us when we go, go, go, go. We have so much going on. There's a lot of stressful things in our life, and we don't self-care appropriately, appropriately. That's how you say it appropriately. And so sometimes life has a way of slowing you down for you. And so I took a lot of time resting and spent a lot of time in bed, and I spent a lot of time uh writing and working on some new things during that time, and it really kind of at that point was the pivotal moment for me to really start getting a lot of new things rolling. I had just started um uh my getting my certification specialty in recovery. So I spent a lot of time doing that and focusing on that, and that's what also I did through the end of the year. Um, I in December I graduated from my recovery specialist program and uh got my certification there, so I finished that schooling. Um, but there's been a lot, there's been a lot going on. My um my oldest son got out of the Navy. He's been in the Navy six years, and so he finished his service term, which has been a big change for us in our family. Um, my youngest and his fiancee, he got engaged at the very end of the year at Christmas last year, and him and his fiance graduated college in July with no June. Was it the beginning of June? Beginning of June. So we had a huge family trip. We all went and visited and got to spend a lot of time together and watching the two of them graduate and step into life, into their new roles and watching them grow and struggle and learn how to be adults in a whole different kind of way. And my daughter, my oldest daughter, she got married. Um, her and her husband got married in June, and he left for boot camp in December. So it's been it's been a wild ride with the kids as well. I think there's uh been a lot going on. I wish you could talk back and tell me all the things going on in your life this past year. You know, the state of the world has been in upheaval for a while, and I know that there's a lot of people struggling with uncertainty and fear and not sure what's happening or where we're all going. And I, you know, coming from my last year of my whole life feeling that way, everything around me feeling like it's crumbling and not knowing what's coming next, it has been a it's a true testament to learning how to lean on your spiritual grounding and finding that space within yourself and knowing that we don't have all the answers. We don't know everything that's gonna happen, that we're working our best to survive, and that having that grounding with that space with God is so, so important. It was for me and my husband, it's brought our faith to a whole new level. I mean, being completely humbled to the ground is and losing everything you have is is been one of the most humbling experiences for me. But it has really brought me back to a place where I've grown into a whole new place with my faith and learning that I have to trust the one who created me, the one who who's called me to do the things that I'm I'm called to do, who's put the desires in my heart, and who has brought me to the place in where I am, in which I am right now. So um, you know, I know that as you may have experienced a rough year last year or walking into this year the same way, I I want to encourage you that sometimes when it feels like there's no hope, like there's no hope that there truly is hope. There truly is the one and only hope and and that's God, and He can really help you walk through it and find your way through it if you just believe and then you just reach out and ask and seek, because there came a time where I'm questioning like, what are you even there? Are you real? Is this is this really happening? Um, you know, you're gonna learn more this month about my journey. I was a preacher's kid, I grew up in church, my parents were pastors, his parents were pastors. Um, so you know, God has always been a kind of focal center point in my life, always. And the I don't ever I was one of those people who like I don't ever remember a time where I didn't believe in Jesus or I didn't know that he existed. My whole life was always centered around that um until I got a little bit older as a teenager and life changed a lot with it within my own family. And I've I've walked a lot of life back and forth, you know, not not believing, but not really paying attention or focusing on, or it was just kind of like one of those things that's always in the background. Like I'm just out here living my life, doing my thing. You know, God's there, he sees me, he's got a part of it, you know, he's watching over me, you know, those kinds of things. That's kind of where I stayed for a long time in my life. And over the years, I have found my way back to him and and his purpose for me. And a lot of that has been through my own adversity and my own struggles that I have come to find him again. And I, you know, unfortunately, sometimes it just is that way. Um, you know, we start seeking for something different and something better and looking for that hope when when life really feels like it's all falling apart. Um but this past this past year has definitely brought me into a more serious and thoughtful and reflective place about who we are as people, who we are as humans, why we're here, why we were created and realizing that we are not meant to know everything, that the uncertainty of life, the that risky feeling, the nobody wants to step out and not know what's happening. They we don't want to know, we don't want to not know what's going on, but that we were truly not built to know all of that. If we truly did, we wouldn't do anything. I think that we'd be terrified if we knew everything. But I digress with that. It's just that but we're not meaning to know I'm gonna take a second because I want to make sure that I'm saying it right. Like it is in the not knowing that we are able to find a place within ourselves the strength to continue to move on. It's where we find that grounding within our spirituality and with God that it helps us in able to humble ourselves in our uncertainty that helps us be able to find Him, to come back to Him, and to move forward. You know, God has done a huge change in my life this past year with my husband and I, where our relationship has become something completely different than it's been for the past 15 years. Um we celebrated 15 years on New Year's Eve night, New Year's Day. We got married 15 years ago at at midnight on New Year's Eve. My uh grandfather married us in his home at the strike of 12. It was a wonderful, a wonderful time, and I'm super glad that we got the ability to do that since um before he passed away. But it is not it is I just want to say it's not unlike it's not unlike God to be able to maneuver us in such a way to where we need the kind of um the kind of things in our life that challenge us in a way that show us that we're so much more than what we think we are. And I hope I hope I'm I hope I'm saying this right, that it makes sense to you because we talk about I talk a lot about uncertainty and and how it feels very it feels very risky. I mean that's why that's why I call it the risky path, because that is what we're walking. We are walking a risky path. It's it feels dangerous, it feels scary out here. We don't know what we're doing, we're just walking around in the wilderness, just like half cocked, not knowing what's going on. And, you know, we think we have it together, we hope we have it together until something slaps us in the face and we're like, crap, I didn't have any of that together. You know, what happened? It's all unraveling, it's all falling apart. And I think that w God helps us and gives us opportunities where we're challenged to realize that we can't always just rely on ourselves. We we can't always just always just rely on a spouse or a family member, but learning to rely on a community and we're learning to lie on and learning to rely on him. And this whole past year has been nothing but that for me. Um, as I'm talking, I'm probably rambling, and you may not want to continue to listen, or you can just keep listening on or not, but that's what it's been like. This past year has been just one huge humbling and learning to have faith all over again in a whole new way experience that has brought me to a place where I have really actually found real purpose, real purpose. And as I'm walking into this new year, and for me, my new year, like everybody's like New Year's, obviously it's the new year, but then like New Year's starts of the spring equinox. Some people say New Year's starts in September. But for me, my year starts in February. My birthday's on the 20th, and for me, that's my life cycle. I was born on the 20th, so my year doesn't really conclude until the 20th, once again. And for me, I I think I get real excited this for this month because it is for me the rejuvenation of a new year for me. And so I focus a lot on who I am, what I'm doing, what my purpose is at the in this month. And then when my birthday comes, I celebrate that. I celebrate who I am, I celebrate who I was created to be in leaning in to my my my true design, my true authentic version that God made me to be. And the older I get and the closer to God that I get, and the closer to myself I get, I I'm finding myself really, really getting to know myself and who I am. And I'm really liking who that is. I'm really liking who that is. And and for me, that's saying a lot because right now, look, TMI for some of you out there, but I'm fixing to be 47. I am literally going through a menopause transition, which my God, Lord help me, please. I am so hot all the time. You know, when you're 20s, you're like, oh man. I'm hot. And now I'm just like, God, it's hot. I'm hot. I'm going to burn up. I'm going to die in here. I feel like I'm like a raging inferno from the inside out. I was just like telling my mom the other day, I'm like, how do I get air conditioner in my skin? So if anybody can come up with that plan, that sounds great. That would that would be awesome, actually. But, you know, I'm transitioning into a lot of different places in my life and um out of uh out of childbirth and into a different type of womanhood is another one that I am I am encountering and adventuring in. So to say that I'm really falling in love with myself in a new way, that's a big statement for me. At least in my mind, I'm like, wow, yeah, that's that's crazy. Um getting on here, I just want to say, like, look, I it is becoming increasingly, I am becoming increasingly more aware of of myself and getting on here and having these conversations with you and making sure that I am really showing up as myself, my true self. I mean, I I teach and preach authenticity every day to its fullest, and I want to make sure that when I come on here that I am also being that for you and not letting the camera take any kind of control or trying to steal any of that authenticity from me because it's it's weird getting on here and talking to you that I can't see or hear back, and it's weird seeing myself. So um, those who continue to watch and join me, I really appreciate your um enthusiasm and your uh your time that you give me every week. And uh I look forward to more and more of it, but I I'm doing my best to come on here and share the truth of myself and the truth of my life. And as I I continue on, I I really wanted to share because as I continue on throughout the year bringing people on to share their stories, I wanted to make sure that I was sharing that my story with you as well. That it wasn't just, you know, I'm having people come on and share my story, but nobody really knows mine because I've walked a crazy life. I feel like I've lived so much life in a really short period of time, and I've seen a lot. Um, but I want I want you to be able to know that I too am vulnerable and share that with you as well. So next week, next week come back because I'm getting started. Uh I'll be out of town, but you'll be here and you'll see my pretty face on there, and I'll be telling you all kinds of crazy stuff that you're like, whoa. So buckle up. My best friend was like, tell them to buckle up because it's a it's a wild, crazy story. Um, and it is, but it it it shows you where I come from and where where my work stems from and how how I got here, how I got here, and and uh maybe a little bit about where I'm going. So I hope this update was good. Maybe it sounded crazy, maybe I was rambling. Uh maybe it's all of the above. Um it is what it is, right? My life is my life. So I uh hope you all are gonna have a wonderful week. Stay warm. I know that the world is like super cold everywhere. People are getting snow who's never gotten snow. Florida's 20 degrees. Um, you know, Texas, we're icing over. It it's wild. So stay warm, be safe, guys. Um, I look forward to seeing you next week. Y'all have a wonderful week. And remember, guys, freedom is the advantage you already own. Until next time.