How I Went From Suicidal Alcoholic to Emmy-Winning Life Coach

For twenty years, my life was a wreck.

I was an alcoholic who attempted suicide three different times. Oh, and don’t forget those lovely DUIs and the week I was in jail. (Yikes!)

Yet today, I’m an Emmy-winning Life Coach who has been on Oprah and written multiple best-selling books.

I’ve spent the past 25 years as a Master Life Coach. And I’ve been a host on over 600 episodes of reality TV, including the hit NBC show Starting Over, Channel 5’s Help me, Rhonda, and VH1’s The Celebrity Fit Club.

So how did I go from the brink of suicide to this?

It all started on the worst day of my life…

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The Worst Day of My Life

I was fourteen, and my mother was putting on her favorite shade of rose colored lipstick while I was bouncing on her bed anxiously waiting for my father to take us out for Father’s Day brunch.

I could hear him shouting, “Come on. Come on. Let’s go.” My two sisters were fighting it out in the bathroom and not near ready. But that didn’t stop me from heading outside to get into the car.

As my mother grabbed her coat, my father was opening the trunk of his car to grab his coat, too.

But out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that he didn’t grab a coat -- he grabbed a gun.

As he pointed the gun at my mother, he started yelling: “You made me do this!”

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The gun fired.

I screamed, “What are you doing, Dad. Stop!?”

He cocked the gun again, and this time, pointed it at me.

I knew I was next.

My mother already shot once, looked up and saw the gun in my face and with her very last breath screamed, “No! Don’t!”

My father, realizing my mother was still alive, took the bullet intended for me and shot her a second time.

Then he cocked his gun one more time, fell to his knees, put the gun against his head and fired.

In two minutes, I was the sole witness of my father killing my mother and committing suicide.

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My life, which had been a normal midwestern upbringing until then, had been shattered.

I spent the next twenty years haunted by this day. I mean, wasn’t it my fault? I was the only one who could have physically stopped it but I didn’t step in front of my mother, or kick my father in the shins. No. I just stood there. Frozen.

On the outside, I was able to keep up appearances but inside, I was a mess. So I dove into therapy, grief support groups, woo-woo workshops and read every self-help book I could find.

They helped a little, gave me some great tools, yet I was never able to move on.

I blamed myself for not saving my mother. And with it, happiness was no longer an option.

Inevitably, during college I turned to alcohol to numb the pain as well as I jumped from one toxic relationship to another, desperately trying to fill the void inside and finally feel loved.

I was a needy, emotional mess.

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How I Reinvented Myself By Mastering My Fear

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Until one day, when everything changed...

It was 1995. I was training to be a minister at night while during the day I was doing public relations for small-time businesses who didn’t know how to make a name for themselves.

It was a Monday, and I was sitting on the coach brainstorming with one of my clients.

And out of nowhere, I had a flash of insight. Well, it wasn’t exactly an insight, it was more like a full-on experience. An awakening. Somehow I knew all the answers to all the questions I had ever asked.

I saw how ever since that day with my parents - and even before - my life had been run by fear.

Fear that I wasn’t good enough. Fear that I was a failure. Fear that I would always be alone.

Fear had driven me to drink and try my hand at suicide. It was the reason why no matter how much work I did on myself, I never felt like I was good enough.

Fear was keeping me stuck.

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Once I saw how fear worked, that vision always showed me how to break free from it.

Within weeks, I was finally able to let go of the past and start on the journey to become the person I was born to be.

I became confident, authentic, and loved myself for the first time in over two decades.

I felt like the real Rhonda Britten. The person I was born to be.

Along with this “download” from God, Spirit, the Universe, or whatever you want to call it, I got another message. It was: “Now go teach this to others.”

My first response, “Are you kidding me? No way.”

I was terrified, yet, with some support and guidance from a mentor or two that’s what I eventually did. It took me a few months to get started but once I said yes to my purpose, I was on fire sharing the secret handed down to me by that thing larger than me.

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One of the things I saw clearly was what I now call the “Wheel of Fear'' and could see how that is what keeps us stuck in our lives. More importantly, I was given the antidote, the “Wheel of Freedom” that shows you how you can break free from fear to become the best version of yourself.

The work was so transformative, my coaching practice exploded.

I started working with Olympians, top CEOs, celebrities, bestselling authors, moms, bus drivers -- you name it. And I was featured as a coach on over 600 episodes of reality TV.

Over 25 years, I coached thousands of people. And clients happily paid $35,000/year or more to work with me.

As much as I loved coaching, I had this nagging feeling that it wasn’t enough.

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Nobody Becomes Fearless Alone

I realized that until people master fear, they will have the same struggles over and over.

(If you’ve done a million self-help workshops yet still aren’t where you want to be in life, it’s because fear is still keeping you stuck.)

And I had learned from my journey that nobody becomes fearless alone.

If I was going to help people master fear, I needed to go beyond books, shows, and one-on-one coaching.

So I created the Fearless Living Training Program, which gives you the steps and support to master fear and become the most confident, authentic - fearless - version of yourself.

My students transformed their lives so much through this course that they wanted to help others master their fears.

In essence, they wanted to become Life Coaches and do what I do. So with a little push I created Fearless Conversations for Coaches, where you learn the coaching skills that are key to helping others create massive change in their lives.

Everything I do is in service of one thing: to help you
live the life your soul intended.

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