Unbreakable You: Breakup Without Being Broken

Sometimes the word co-parenting is a myth. We have our own beliefs about what co-parenting should be like and get frustrated when that isn’t the reality.

My guest on this episode is Michelle Dempsey, the author of Moms Moving On: Real-Life Advice on Conquering Divorce, Co-Parenting Through Conflict, and Becoming Your Best Self.

Episode Highlights:

• Setting realistic expectations about co-parenting
• What to do when rules are different for your kids in each home
• How oversharing and other types of communication with your ex can backfire 

If you’re looking for coparenting help, you can purchase my online masterclass on Parallel Parenting (another word for when coparenting doesn’t work) for just $25. Click here to purchase! https://startovercoach.kartra.com/page/dsQ65

Other resources:

Buy Michelle’s Book 

Linktree: Michelle Dempsey-Multack

Instagram: @themichelledempsey and @momsmovingon

Moms Moving On Website

How many times a day do you hear a voice inside you that is putting you down? I hear it multiple times. It’s not really my voice, though. It’s a culmination of voices that I’ve heard over the years criticizing me. 

My guest Jacquie Elliott has a name for it: abusive brain chatter. This episode will help you get the tools you need to find the loving voice that’s within you.

Jacquie is a certified life, relationship, and spiritual coach who leads retreats that help women find their purpose and let go of things that are blocking them from moving forward. 

You’ll also get a sneak peek of her forthcoming book the ABC's of Abusive Brain Chatter. 

Episode Highlights:

• How to quiet abusive thoughts
• Why it’s good to challenge your core beliefs
• How to tap into your inner voice and become your divine highest self 
• Why people pleasers are actually manipulative

Jacquie Elliott’s Website 

Spa For the Soul Retreat: Oct. 14-16

Instagram - @jacquieelliottclc

Being a good listener is critical to building healthy relationships. It’s easy for us to think we are good listeners when, in reality, there is still a lot to learn. 

My guest on this episode is Christine Miles, and she will help you transform the way you listen. Chistine is the founder of EQuipt, a training and consulting company that uses a method called The Listening Path to help improve organizations and create cultures of understanding. She has taught at various Fortune 100 corporations, universities, law firms, and privately-held companies nationwide.

Episode highlights:

• What good listening means
• What to focus on first during conflict resolution
• What you can do if you feel someone isn’t listening to you 
• Tips on communicating with children and teens 

Resources:

EQUIPT website

‘What Is It Costing You Not To Listen?’ book

This discussion with the founders of Best Self Magazine will help you avoid parenting mistakes during a breakup or divorce. Bill Miles and Kristen Noel are the creators of the Best Self Intuitive Divorce Coaching Program, which focuses on achieving the best outcomes for kids during a divorce. 

Together they help parents in the early stages of divorce avoid unnecessary pain and suffering, so they can take control of their divorce before it takes control of them.  

Episode highlights:

• What it means to have an intuitive divorce
• Using divorce to reframe and improve your next chapter in life
• Issues parents commonly struggle with during divorce
• How children process divorce

Best Self Intuitive Divorce Program

When I got divorced, I felt like I didn’t know anything about finances because my husband had always managed our money. It was a scary situation, and I had no confidence in my financial  future. If you find yourself in a similar situation, my guest Rachael Burns has some solid advice for women on how to achieve financial independence after the loss of their partner. 

Episode highlights:

• How to take control of day-to-day finances when you’re newly single 
• The importance of taking stock of your assets
• The process of negotiation 

About Rachael Burns

Rachael Burns is a certified financial planner and a certified divorce financial analyst. She helps newly-single women achieve financial independence after the loss of their partner to death or divorce. 

eBook by Rachael Burns

5 Things Newly Single Women Should Do to Protect Their Finances

Instagram: @trueworthFP

Rachael’s Recommended Resources:

Podcasts 

So Money with Farnoosh Torabi

Her Money with Jean Chatzky

Websites

Clever Girl Finance

HerMoney

Books

You Need A Budget

SPONSOR LINK:

Soberlink.com - remote alcohol monitoring

I remember the time in my life when I was at my lowest. I honestly didn’t know how I was going to get out of all the pain alive. Maybe you have been there or you are there right now. 

My guest George Kalantzis has also been at that point. George is a combat veteran, a podcast host, and author of the book Nowhere To Go. He shares his story of overcoming a suicide attempt and finding a life of meaning, inspiration, and empowerment.  

Episode Highlights:

• Why George decided not to commit suicide
• His journey toward making peace with his family and childhood
• How you can trust the unknown 

Instagram: @_georgekalantzis

DM George on Instagram for a free digital copy of his book. 

Website: https://sociatap.com/georgekalantzis/

When we are triggered, our initial instinct is to fight back or stand up for ourselves using words that often come out as confrontational. Immediately after the trigger, we produce a negative thought, which leads to a negative emotion, which always produces a negative outcome. But if you use my ABC method, it will mitigate the negative thought from occurring, and thus, give you a much better outcome!

“Always Be Curious” will help you put resentment and unresolved anger aside and give you the upper hand, rather than leaving a situation feeling hurt and vulnerable. It will save you a lot of stress, so take a listen! 

Episode highlights:

• How not to engage with or react to a person’s bad mood
• How to stay grounded and remain your authentic self when you are caught off guard
• How to neutralize power struggles 

What is happiness and how do we achieve it? My guest Mike Duffy actually has a formula for it, based on his research and the wisdom of thought leaders. Our conversation on forgiveness, especially, could help you get one step closer to being happy! 

Episode Highlights: 

• Managing negative thinking
• The ‘purpose + progress = happiness’ formula and what it means
• The law of reciprocity and how it relates to happiness
• Finding your purpose 

Resources:

Happiness Hall of Fame
Mike Duffy Speaks
Happiness Wealth Management
TEDxBerkley talk 

About Mike Duffy:

Author and speaker Mike Duffy is the founder of the non-profit Happiness Hall Of Fame, which recognizes and encourages people and organizations that have advanced the cause of happiness. 

Duffy is also CEO of Happiness Wealth Management, which helps clients with money management so they can do the things that make them happy, like traveling and engaging in philanthropic giving. 

You meet someone for the first time. The passion is head-spinning. You feel like you’ve known them forever. But then, they begin to pull back. And just when you’re ready to say goodbye, they come back into your life. And the cycle keeps repeating itself. 

I call this drunk love. In this episode, I break down the characteristics of a love addict and a love avoidant, and how you can be both. But more importantly, the key indicators for a healthy relationship, and how you can break the cycle of unhealthy love.  

And, if this sounds like you, and you are serious about ending this unhealthy love pattern, schedule your FREE breakthrough session today and let’s talk! 

Episode highlights:

• What typically causes love addiction
• The difference between a love addict and a love avoidant and why they attract
• The characteristics of healthy love 
• How things can get better and how I can help - because I’ve been there, too!

This month, I’m taking on new clients who are interested in solving their love addiction. Reach out to me and schedule a breakthrough session! I hope to hear from you soon! 

I want to share with you an inspiring story of a warrior who overcame what she once thought was impossible. Susie Pettit went through a tumultuous divorce and knew she had to break a pattern of codependency if she wanted to create a life filled with happiness. 

She is now taking the important lessons she learned during this difficult time and coaching others about setting healthy boundaries and breaking away from people-pleasing. 

Our conversation might help you or a loved one identify codependency issues and stop these harmful patterns of behavior. 

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT: Boundary Bootcamp TOMORROW

Are you wanting to gain confidence in setting and communicating boundaries? I know how hard it can be and I can help. Join me TOMORROW, June 29, for my Boundary Bootcamp! If you can't make it live, there will be a recording available for a limited time to those who sign up.

Episode Highlights

• How to recognize codependency
  
  
• The difference between codependent and interdependent relationships
  
  
• How books and movies often promote codependent behavior
  
  
• The importance of realizing we are not responsible for other people’s feelings

About Susie Pettit

Life Coach Susie Pettit is the owner of Strength: Mind & Body, LLC. Her goal is to help women create lives they love. She helps her clients through mindfulness-based cognitive behavioral coaching. 

Susie teaches on topics like battling codependency, parenting teens, and overcoming stress. She is the mother of three sons. 

Episode Resources

SMBWELL

Love Your Life Show podcast

Instagram: @smb.wellness

Parenting Teens: A Survival Course

When we have a physical injury, like the broken foot I had recently, we usually take the steps needed to acknowledge the injury and heal it. Why is it then that we often take the opposite approach with our emotional wounds? We try to pretend they don’t exist and want to hide them from the world. 

In this episode, I share how we can protect our emotional scars so that they can heal and stay healed. It is my hope that after you listen, you’ll be better equipped to get close to those people you want to become close to while preventing old wounds from opening back up. 

The majority of my listeners and clients are women. Many people think this is by choice and that I market specifically to women. That’s actually not the case. My theory as to why I have fewer male clients is that men often suffer in silence, especially when they are dealing with a narcissistic spouse or partner. 

In my opinion, female narcissists can be far more covert and manipulative than male narcissists. Women can be verbally and emotionally abusive to men, but our culture often keeps us from believing that a man can be a victim. This can make men ashamed to talk about their struggles and seek help. Men deserve all of the support and resources available to have a healthy and less traumatic divorce and we must help them get there. 

Episode Highlights:

• Men and women have the same emotions about divorce and breakups, they just tend to manifest differently 
  
  
• Why men tend to be more isolated during divorce than women 
  
  
• Why being the nice guy often fails 
  
  
• How to spot your codependency in a relationship

About Jude Sandvall:

Jude Sandvall, also known as The Divorced Dadvocate, has made it his life’s mission to connect men who are going through divorce with the resources they need to feel supported, be healthy, and thrive. His work helps men navigate their lives when it comes to issues like legal challenges, parenting skills, co-parenting, and dating with kids.

Jude is a divorced, single father of three children. As an Integrative Wellness & Life Transformation Coach and Integrative NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) Practitioner, he uses cutting-edge approaches to coach fathers. He assists dads with creating a vision for their lives after divorce and uncovering hidden challenges that may be sabotaging them. 

Jude has a podcast called The Divorced Dadvocate and a website by the same name. You can take his Divorce Quiz to see how you compare to others going through the challenges of divorce. 

Divorced Dadvocate Website

Divorce Quiz

The Divorced Dadvocate podcast

Have you ever wanted to share your personal story either by writing a book or starting a podcast? Finding your voice and then being able to speak it authentically is what today's episode is all about. I'm talking with Jackie McDougall who is an expert on coaching people on how to find their voice from within and crafting a story that is uniquely theirs. 

I'm incredibly passionate about this topic because if it wasn't for me finding my voice, and being able to share my story with you every week, I'd be missing out on one of the most intimate pleasures in life; connecting with others in the most amazing way. I hope this episode inspires you to tell your story from your voice within so that you can change the world because you absolutely can.  

Episode Highlights:

• We are all born worthy; then we begin to listen to outside influencers who tell us who we are, how to be, and what they think we are worth
• Ask this question, “Whose story am I perpetuating? Is this my voice?”
• Jackie shares strategies for cultivating your voice 
• How to discover the uniqueness of your story 
• Why Jackie believes mid-life is a magical time

How many times a day do you find your inner critic getting in the way of your success, dreams, or relationships? Are you even aware of how much it sabotages your authentic self from rising and thriving in your life? Today I am talking all about the inner critic with Leadership Expert, Maureen Ross Gemme.

Episode Highlights:

• Maureen’s unique approach to inner critic management begins with giving a name to your inner critic voice  
• Some of the ways the inner critic shows up in our lives
• What to do when the inner critic shows up during times of reinvention 
• Why it is important to have an internal and external support system
• Maureen’s 5-step process for managing your inner critic
• Plan for the obstacles, and also, plan for the fun things

I have come to think of Mother’s day like Valentine’s Day. It has so much hype and hope, coupled with all the social media posts we see of happy people, happy couples, or happy families doing their thing… to me, Mother’s day is a huge setup for disappointment and hurt.  

In this episode, I share how this year’s Mother’s Day was heartbreaking, and the lesson I learned in overcoming the pain. It’s a short but sweet episode, aimed to keep things real and recognize all you moms out there, who aren’t always recognized.  

Money coach, Morganna Rae, joins me for an eye-opening discussion about how to rebuild yourself financially and heal the rift between heart, spirit, and money.

Have you ever thought about your relationship with money? Did you even know there was such a thing? If you are newly divorced or thinking about it, it's very likely your relationship with money is wrought with fear, scarcity, resentment, or another negative emotion. 

Morganna explains the root cause of money issues and the connection between love and money, and even asks a mic-dropping question, which left me speechless. Make sure you listen all the way to the end, where I share the answers to her question (which really surprised me!)

Episode Highlights:

• Money is the number one excuse for what we can’t have, do, or be
• If you dig deep enough, money issues are love issues
• Figuring out the root cause of your issues with money. Hint: it’s not about money, it’s about what money represents
• When you change your relationship with money, you change the way you see yourself and relate to the world

The most common question I get from my clients or readers is, “What if I'm the narcissist?” This is a question wrought with fear. And it often comes from the actual narcissist, accusing you of being a narcissist.  If you think you're a narcissist, then that means you are concerned about other people's feelings, as well as questioning your own behavior and taking accountability for it. This is the exact opposite of how a narcissist thinks and operates.  

Your biggest problem with a narcissist isn’t worrying if you are one, but instead, it's how you think of them, how you see them, and mostly how you see yourself. In this episode, I break down how you view the narcissist in your life may be working against you and what you can do instead.  Thinking like a narcissist does not mean you are one. But it does mean you are no longer stuck in a frenzied, scared mindset.  

Episode Highlights: 

• Why you must stop fearing what a narcissist says, does, or thinks of you 
• The importance of breaking down the illusions and thought distortions we once used to survive our childhood or past traumas 
• The reason you must see a narcissist as a squirrel and not as a bear  
• How a narcissist sees you, is ultimately how you see you 
• A narcissist is terrified to be seen as who they really are, but so are you

“When you take away the illusions and defenses you had to deal with growing up, the path to authenticity becomes very clear” -Dion, Breakup Breakthrough graduate. 

Rarely do I get the chance to interview men who have overcome narcissistic abuse, because so few like to openly talk about it. But this week, I’m honored to have you meet Dion, my client and recent Breakup Breakthrough graduate, who shares his rise out of an abusive marriage and finding a life filled with peace and joy.   

Dion found me after realizing therapy took him as far as he could go. Yet he still had questions about why he continued to fall into similar patterns of toxicity. He knew something needed to change within himself but didn’t know what. Through our work together, he has been able to discover remarkable changes in his life, relationships, and his newfound passion for novel writing.   

He shares his new skill of recognizing his wounded child’s thoughts and how he “short circuits”  them by stepping into his true reality. I hope you are inspired by Dion’s strength and resiliency, as much as I am!   

Episode Highlights:

• Dion shares his experience of being in a 12-year toxic marriage
• How the severity of depression led him to therapy and ultimately my program
• Dion explains how when you face your childhood trauma and how it shaped you, coupled with a knowledge that your emotions are generated within yourself, a huge light bulb goes on, and it's truly liberating
• When we expose our ego states and rediscover the authentic self, profound changes happen in all areas of life including love, relationships, and careers
• His realization that when we learn to regulate our emotions, we can model those behaviors to our children as well
• Dion offers some advice for men who are experiencing or think they may be experiencing abuse

Today I’m sharing an unbelievable story about a miracle that happened in my life and its message of forgiveness. I share my experience in hopes that you can find a piece of my story that is relatable to you and your life.  

In order to understand the present, I first need to take you back to the past. In this episode, I detail the traumatic event that happened when I was six years old and how it resurfaced in 2020, in more ways than one! The moment I was able to accept not knowing the truth about my past and forgive those involved, was precisely when the truth showed up.  This story is a testament that when we heal, miracles happen. 

Episode Highlights:

• My story of realizing that unresolved trauma made my life dysfunctional and unmanageable. 
• A surprising revelation: When I began to unravel my trauma, I discovered hidden anger that was the source of what held me back 
• The miraculous story of how I finally learned the version of the story I’ve been searching for, for over 40 years. 

You may have heard of law of attraction principles such as “like attracts like,” or whatever you think, you will get. It’s that simple, right?  No, it’s not. Most law of attraction books and teachings skip over something extremely important: how the traumatized brain is in exact conflict of the laws we want to attract. In this episode, I explore how the ego, conscious mind, and subconscious mind coupled with trauma can impact (or even sabotage) the things we want to attract into our lives.

I have spent years reading books on positive thinking and manifesting, only to find that I would always default back into my old thinking patterns. I would give up on Law of Attraction altogether.  Once I learned the tools to unravel my adapted self, and was finally able to step into my authentic self, I saw a massive shift in my thinking. Which in turn impacted my life in a positive way. The fact of the matter is this: you attract who you are, not what want.

Episode Highlights: 

• Thoughts have a high or low frequency depending on how positive or negative they are.
• In the mind of a traumatized brain, any change is seen as a threat, which is in exact conflict with the laws we want to attract
• How your ego is the gatekeeper of your conscious mind
• Your ego is not in charge of your actual survival, it just thinks it is. So, you have to heal your trauma in order to tell your ego you’ve got this!
• When you are able to safely expose your trauma and heal from it, you can use it for your benefit and not your detriment. Then and only then are you able to attract what you want.
• The episode ends with a self-realization exercise to help you understand how your ego may be sabotaging you.

Click HERE to apply for my Breakup Breakthrough program.  I can't wait to hear from you!