Shift Shift Bloom

A TCOM Podcast About People and Change

Author: ActuallyQuiteNice, INC and TCOM Studios

Shift Shift Bloom is a podcast examining how people change, why they change, and how they sustain the changes that are most important to them in their everyday lives. Our guests consider themselves change makers, change embracers and change resistors were all somewhere on that spectrum at different times in our lives, arent we? Conversations with host Kristen Cerelli explore the impact of mindset, personality, life circumstances, communities of support and sources of inspiration on the process of transformation. Illuminating how change can be both deeply personal and profoundly universal is the show's guiding principle. Shift Shift Bloom is produced by host Kristen Cerelli and audio engineer Timothy Fall at ActuallyQuiteNice, a full-service media studio. They develop the show in collaboration with Dr. John Lyons, Director of The Praed Foundation, which supports the development and dissemination of systems improvement strategies called Transformational Collaborative Outcomes Management, or TCOM. Online at https://praedfoundation.org, and https://tcomconversations.org.
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Language: en

Genres: Personal Journals, Science, Social Sciences, Society & Culture

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EP17: You Can’t Outrun Your Sh*t: Andrea Ciannavei on Weight, Addiction and Writing Towards Healing
Episode 17
Friday, 14 November, 2025

📝 Shift Shift Bloom S2 EP 17 Show NotesThis is the story of a body—how it holds pain, how it hides it, and how it sometimes saves your life by refusing to keep going.In this episode, Kristen talks with Andrea Ciannavei: writer, activist, playwright, TV producer (Mayans MC, Boots), and end-of-life doula. Andrea is also someone who spent decades navigating addiction, trauma, rage, disordered eating, and a complicated relationship with the world—and her own body.From her early years in New Rochelle and the halls of the Actors Studio, to gastric bypass surgery, 12-step recovery, and a spiritual path paved with dogs, writing, and grief work, Andrea’s story is brutal, funny, brilliant, and deeply felt.In this conversation, Andrea shares:🍽️ How growing up in an Italian American family shaped her earliest experiences with food, shame, and visibility🩺 Why her gastric bypass was “a suicide attempt with a side of surgery”🚬 How addiction masked deeper emotional pain—and how 12-step work cracked things open✍️ How writing helped her integrate the past and develop her voice🌈 Why she became an end-of-life doula—and how death work is deeply linked to trauma recovery🧠 How trauma isn’t just a personal wound—it radiates outward like fallout🔥 Why healing is nonlinear and sometimes angry, and why she’ll never stop fighting for her own lifeThere are moments in this episode that hit like a freight train, and others that feel like a hand on your shoulder. If you’ve ever struggled with body image, addiction, loss, or the long arc of becoming — this one’s for you.🔗 Related Resources📘 Andrea’s Play: Pretty Chin Up Published by Playscripts, Inc.🎤 Andrea Ciannavei – IMDb📚 It Didn’t Start With You by Mark Wolynn – Book link💀 National End-of-Life Doula Alliance – Certification and resources🧰 The RISE Framework – A trauma-informed approach from TCOM🧭 TCOM (Transformational Collaborative Outcomes Management) – Healing-centered strategies for helpers and systems💬 Favorite Quote“I was the biggest I’d ever been, and I knew I was going to die. And I didn’t want to die. I wanted to live—but I didn’t know how.”Andrea Ciannavei is a writer, actor, teacher, producer, and political activist.TV: Co-Executive Producer on Boots (Netflix/Sony), Mayans MC (FX Networks), The Path (Hulu), Last Men Out (National Geographic); American Odyssey (NBC Universal), Copper (BBC America), Borgia (Canal Plus). Plays: The Winstons, one-act play commissioned by Hangar Theater, Deep Trees, The Hard Sell, 7 Captiva Road, and Pretty Chin Up which received a development production at LAByrinth Theater Company (Artistic Directors: Philip Seymour Hoffman and John Ortiz) at The...