Most Replayed Moment: Better Sleep Doesn't Always Mean Longer Sleep! Fix These Habits Today

**Steven Bartlett** (0:04)
When I talk about being able to change your behavior and break a habit, it is nothing in the context of someone who is ensnared by an addiction of sorts. It's a completely different conversation.
What is it like growing up with a mother who you observe at a very young age? You were how old?

**Kristen Holmes** (0:28)
I'm in my whole life.

**Steven Bartlett** (0:29)
Your whole life?

**Kristen Holmes** (0:29)
Yeah, like you.

**Steven Bartlett** (0:32)
As a child, when you see a parent, someone you love, that is sort of gripped by addiction, what is that like?

**Kristen Holmes** (0:43)
Yeah, I mean, I think at a fundamental level, you just feel de-prioritized, I think, generally.
I think you feel you're unsupervised, number one.
There isn't a lot of supervision, so you end up really having to defend for yourself. My dad worked a lot. He was definitely a workaholic, such a good man, so much integrity. But I think that was his form of escape, but it kind of leads, you got to figure out how to eat. You got to figure out how to do a lot of the basic stuff on your own. So you develop a lot of independence, I think, but it's hard to form emotional attachments, I think, as an adult, unless you really work through that. Because you're afraid that you're not going to be taken care of.

**Steven Bartlett** (1:47)
What did you come to understand about your mother's addiction and what she was struggling with, if anything at all?

**Kristen Holmes** (1:54)
Yeah, I mean, I think what was so sad about that time period is, I think it was well understood. I think a lot of those behaviors, I think to a degree are normalized, and I don't know that the connection between depression, she was no question, she had massive seasonal effect disorder, which is one of the reasons why I'm so interested in everything related to light and just the opportunity there for health. But she had major depressive disorder and was not diagnosed properly. I don't even remember, I have no idea if she ever even went to the doctor to try to get treated.
So, you know, I think the biggest thing that I learned is that we can actually make choices. And I know that there are, you know, when you look at regions of the brain, we understand that people are predisposed. But I think there's a lot of things that we can actually control to reduce our vulnerability to some of these diseases.

**Steven Bartlett** (3:07)
How has that experience defined and shaped you when you look back and connect dots?

**Kristen Holmes** (3:13)
Yeah, I mean, I just, I always, you know, I was very competitive, high level athlete representing the US. And so there's definitely trying to understand my own body and my psychology so I could perform my potential. But there's no question that like this whole, everything that like underpins the work that I do is trying to understand, you know, how we can improve our own situation so we can self-actualize and live our potential. And so that was I always, you know, felt so bad, you know, for my mom.

**Steven Bartlett** (3:59)
Why?

**Kristen Holmes** (4:02)
You know, that she wasn't able to become the version of herself. Like, I wasn't able to realize her potential. And she had so much.
I can't believe you did this to me.

**Steven Bartlett** (4:25)
Would you like a tissue?

**Kristen Holmes** (4:26)
Thanks.

**Steven Bartlett** (4:33)
You're a very special person. It makes a ton of sense why you've got such an incredible drive and mission to you. I didn't know any of those, what you've just said, but...

**Kristen Holmes** (4:43)
I've never talked about that publicly, so I'm just... yeah.

**Steven Bartlett** (4:48)
What a wonderful way to have channeled such an unimaginable pain, to then sort of fix hundreds of thousands of people's other lives and help them get closer towards their own potential.

**Kristen Holmes** (5:03)
Yeah. I...
And I never want to project my values onto other folks, but I think that's always been at the core of why I do what I do. And the reason why I coached for so long is I just love seeing people like realize their potential or understand their potential, knowing that we're always, of course, a work in progress. But I just like I want like everyone to be able to wake up and feel, you know, be energetic and be able to like really, really live the things that you care about, you know, and just in understanding, I think the path to that, you know, requires some work, you know, in terms of making sure that you're attending to some of these non-negotiables that we're talking about. And I think sometimes it takes folks time to connect those dots and there's a lot of wonderful learning that comes with that. But I think if I can kind of help accelerate some of that wisdom and keep people from experiencing, I think some of the pain that I felt, you know, it's worth it to me.