Shannan Kym grew up in a family where addiction, violence, and extreme dysfunction were normalized. Robbed of her childhood, she was forced to grow up at a very young age. After not graduating from high school and leaving her family, she was filled with self-loathing and shame. Suppressing her feelings, Shannan became an alcoholic. For years, she abused her body, gained excessive weight, and let herself be taken advantage of by toxic people, including marrying a narcissist. She experienced career highs and lows and suffered the loss of a child. Eventually, Shannan hit rock bottom, but on August 17, 2019, everything changed. That day, Shannan made up her mind to stop letting addiction control her life. She also decided to get real, let go of her past hurts, embrace forgiveness, and focus on living each day with gratitude, purpose, light, and love. In her new book, FIND THE ANSWERS WITHIN YOU: Ten Pathways Toward Self-Discovery Shannan breaks out her book in three sections, not only revealing her tragedies to triumphs but also ten pathways for any reader to be inspired to live by:   In Part I, Shannan tells her story of trauma and addiction. The youngest of eight, Shannan was four when her father, a violent alcoholic, took his own life. Soon after, her eldest brother, at age 20, became the abusive, hard-drinking man of the house. Broken, twisted, and cruel, Walter took pleasure in pinching, hitting, punching, kicking, bullying, and berating Shannan and her sisters—enabled by their mother. To escape the fear and hatred she felt toward her brother, Shannan turned to alcohol in high school. For many years after, she continued to seek solace in bottles of wine, which only aggravated her insecurities, anxiety, and depression. Part II follows Shannan’s healing journey. In this section, Shannan lets readers in on what she learned—from her hellish childhood, toxic relationships, troubled marriage, and determination to change—to help them draw lessons from their own experiences. Stressing how self-worth begins with awareness, Shannan reveals how she came to speak her truth about being an addict, identify and manage her triggers for drinking, and got out of being stuck in her own story. She also shares how she took responsibility for her actions, forgave and said goodbye to those who hurt her, overcame self-criticism and perfectionism, committed to healthy eating, exercise, and treating her body with care, and cultivated a mindset of gratitude. Ultimately, Shannan recognized trauma as a gift for what it taught her, about others and herself, and how it led her to discover her life’s purpose.


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