264: Healing from Unhealthy Relationships (with Rebecca Kay)

You’re listening to the Vibrant Happy Women podcast, episode number 264. We’re talking about relationships and how to make sure your relationship patterns are healthy. Stay tuned.

Hi, I'm Jen Riday. This podcast is for women who want to feel more vibrant, happy, aligned, and alive. You'll gain the emotional, physical, and spiritual tools you need to get your sparkle back and ensure that depression, anxiety, and struggle don't rule your life. Welcome to the Vibrant Happy Women Podcast.

Hey friends. I am honored and happy you’re listening to the podcast today. I’m talking with a great friend, Rebecca Kay whom I met in the Vibrant Happy Women Coach Certification. Rebecca is a mom of three and she has been divorced twice. And when I first met her in the certification she shared in one of those early weeks when we were learning the basics of how to be a coach and how to use thought tables and the Feel It to Heal It method. She shared that she had some shame around having been divorced twice.

And as we do in the coach certification, I talk to her and the other students about how often in the coaching world, in the world of helping other people we tend to do best when we turn our mess into our message. I really believe that each of us have had experiences that if we get past them and heal from them we can then help others with those same situations and experiences. And the right people will resonate with your message if they’re meant to learn from you. And really in the end to help another person you just need to be a step ahead of them on some path of healing.

So of course a lot of people who listen to my podcast and follow my work may have some kids who struggle because that’s been a message I’ve had. Or maybe they’ve struggled with elements of their marriage, another struggle I’ve had, or stay-at-home moms who have lost themselves, another part of my message which was created from my mess.

I just want all of you to think about when you contemplate your purpose and what you’re meant to do in the world that all of your experiences, all of those things that were traumatic or hard for you can become a means that, if you overcome it, and grow from it, and learn from it you can help other people. Just contemplate that.

And so that’s what Rebecca did. And now she helps women who have left toxic and abusive relationships to essentially figure out how to live an independent life and no longer be codependent. How to have those healthy boundaries, how to love themselves, how to break the patterns that kept them trapped in those toxic relationships. And she talks about depression, abuse, love, divorce, getting to know your true self. She teaches you how to truly value and love yourself and be confident and find your passion for living and loving again. It’s beautiful work.

So she took her mess and made it her message and that’s what a lot of amazing therapists, and coaches, and social workers, and nurses, and all those people in the caring professions, I’ve noticed that they tend to do. And that’s beautiful; it gives meaning and purpose to the things that you have struggled with.

So without further ado, whether you are in a toxic relationship or not, or have been or not, stick with this one. Keep listening because all of us can learn how to approach our relationships more as a whole, and healed, and independent person so that we don’t need the other person because we have everything we need inside ourselves as Rebecca talks about.

And in this way we can approach the relationship as a form of companionship, enjoying each other’s company, not needing to find completion for ourselves through that other person but coming at it whole and healthy. So without further ado let’s dive in.

Jen: Hey everyone. I’m talking with my friend, Rebecca Kay today. We’re going to be talking about love and healing patterns in our relationships so we can experience a deeper form of love. Rebecca is a life coach. And I met her through the Vibrant Happy Women Coach Certification which is so cool. And I guess I’ll let you go ahead and introduce yourself from there Rebecca. You can do an even better job than I can. Welcome.

Rebecca: Thanks Jen. So my name is Rebecca and I work with women who have left abusive or toxic relationships and are looking to rebuild their lives in a way that makes more sense and that is in more alignment with their inner values. So I work with them to help discover what those values are in order to create a life where they stop repeating those toxic patterns. I myself repeated that pattern for too many relationships. And I eventually learned that I wanted to stop doing that. So I was able to find the help for myself to learn that and now I want to pay that forward and help other women.

Jen: Cool. This is so an important topic because I think we’ve all heard of the stereotype of the women who consistently choose the bad guys.

Rebecca: We have a broken picker, right?

Jen: Yeah, exactly. So when you mention ending of a broken pattern or whatever what are you exactly talking about for yourself?

Rebecca: So for me it came down to learning about codependency and new ways. Those were words that I really was not familiar with until I found myself married to an alcoholic and at a pretty dark place for myself. I realized that I needed to get help. And by a stroke of Google luck I found a program that was specifically for wives of alcoholics. And it was amazing to learn about how I was sick. The program wasn’t about fixing your husband, or staying married, or leaving a marriage or anything like that.

But it was about finding the pieces within ourselves that we could control, that we needed to heal so that we can stop living in that toxic victim mentality and break those patterns for good.

Jen: Wow. So take us to your low point or maybe it’s even a point before that that got you to that low point. And then we can feel into what this was like for you.

Rebecca: Sure. So the low point came – I mean it was really a sequence of events. I married super young, got divorced fairly young but I had three small children to support. And so I went right into survival mode of getting a job, and a career, and figuring out what I needed to do to support them because their biological dad was not in the picture. It was actually one of those stories where he dropped the kids off at school and didn’t come home.

Jen: And he wasn’t an alcoholic, he just left?

Rebecca: He just left. I think he had other addiction issues. Even that, it was still a surprise when he left. But also in many ways it was a relief because I never would have and it was miserable. And at that point in my life at least I never would have left it.

Jen: That’s just such an interesting story. So you were in your first marriage, you’re what, maybe in your 20s somewhere? You had three little girls and you didn’t love the marriage. And then what, you were just at work and one day the kids – how did that go down? I mean it must have been super shocking.

Rebecca: It was rather shocking. He was, I would say, a pathological liar without trying to be too labeling, but lied about lots of things, jobs being one of them. And I had kind of a host of information land in my lap about a variety of things that he’d been lying about. And I had a small baby. I mean I had a six month old child at the time that this all went down. My oldest was six.

I just kind of brought it to him and said, “Hey, this is what I know. And we don’t have to talk about it. I just need to know whether it’s true or not and then we can go to counseling, we can fix this, whatever we need to do.” He said, “Well, I’ll talk about it after I drop Kaley off at school.” That was my six year old and then he didn’t come home. So obviously that was the answer. And that was almost 13 years ago, so nothing has changed in that realm.

But because of the way that that all happened, I was able to totally put all the blame on him of just thinking that that was the problem. And that I had married too young, too fast, too whatever, to have seen the issues, and as such I didn’t have to take any of that responsibility and just went into fixing my life. And through a series of amazing miracles I was able to do so. I was able to find a job. I was able to get some schooling and find childcare. And just I had this whole village that really did just show up in my life and was absolutely incredible.

And then a few years later I met who I thought was a great guy and again got married really fast. And thought that at 33 I knew better than when I was 19 and still really ignored a lot of red flags and fell head over heels in what I thought was a Disney love story, that we were meant to be and destined to find each other.

And he was a great dad with my girls and all of these great things that right after we were married some things popped up from my first marriage that were pretty heavy and dark. And they really picked at I think the scars from his own life. And that’s when the alcohol really ramped up and I watched this man that I loved turn into a different person in a pretty short period of time. And because I thought that it was totally my fault, that’s where I started to spiral.

Anybody who has lived with a mean drunk knows that alcohol can really lie to you a whole lot and I believed those lies. And just really spiraled into a really dark, dark depressive state where I was able to really resonate with, there was a like a slew of women who had gone missing recently in my community, not a slew, I mean there were three.

Jen: Well, yeah, that’s crazy.

Rebecca: But still over the previous couple of years and their circumstances all seemed to be that they had taken their own lives in ways that, you know, it wasn’t overt. But I understood why somebody would do that. And I thought oh my gosh, what the heck is going on? This is not okay. And that was my big wake-up call of I don’t want to understand this. I want to feel better. I’m glad that I have empathy for that. But I don’t want to find myself resonating with that to the point where I did something about that.

And I read a list of depression symptoms and realized I had every single one. And I was shocked because I thought depression was like you cry in your room when it’s dark and you don’t see people and you don’t function in your life. So I got to learn about functional depression. That was cool. That absolutely was the turning point where I realized…

Jen: When you realized you were thinking – resonating with these women who had committed suicide most likely?

Rebecca: Absolutely. Absolutely.

Jen: Take us back just a tiny bit. So what I’m hearing you say, reading between the lines is because of the alcohol he said things that were so negative that they made you start to doubt your worth. And can you just go a little deeper there so people probably can relate to that, whether alcohol is involved or not?

Rebecca: Absolutely. So now I would call it verbal abuse and emotional manipulation but I didn’t have those terms or those words then. But absolutely looking back I can see that that is what it was. And I thought that all marriages had rough patches. I thought that we could get through that especially I think the feeling of that we were meant to be. That if we were meant to be then obviously I just needed to be strong enough to get through this piece and then we’ll get out on the other side and it’ll be fine. And it’ll be glorious. And look at this big huge thing that we overcame.

But it wasn’t that way. It got darker and darker over time and became more of our life rather than an episode that would happen when he was drinking. It would become just woven into all of our life, the little nitpicky, or the undermining, or putting down, all of those types of little things started to creep in even in front of the kids. And that was when I started to really realize why am I showing my daughters, I had three daughters, that this is okay?

And I was having conversations with them even of, “This isn’t okay. Don’t be okay with this in your life.” And it’s like well, wait, if this is what you’re showing them. That’s not okay.

Jen: Wow. Goodness. That is dark. That’s hard and heavy.

Rebecca: It was really dark. And I think one of the things that comes a lot with verbal abuse that grows over time is that not only did I believe it but then I think he started to as well. So instead of it being something that he would apologize for later, it became something that he justified. And then that really messes with your worth. If you’re not even worth this person that you love and trust treating you well, that messes with your brain in all kinds of ways.

Jen: Yeah. You start to wonder are they right. Maybe it is true, yeah.

Rebecca: Especially when here I’ve done this a second time and you’re using the same words that my former spouse and in-laws would use about me. And you’re saying that I’m those same things. It’s like, well, maybe it is true. And so then I started to learn about, okay, well, what if I’m the abuser? What if I’m the person that’s the problem? And went overboard in trying to adjust my own behavior in that way as well.

Jen: And then what helped you to finally say, “Enough?”

Rebecca: Ironically it was him getting sober and continuing to say the same things.

Jen: Oh my goodness, even worse. He’s sober and saying it, oh no.

Rebecca: Right. That was far and away worse. And I mean I’d been starting to – I had been in this program for wives of alcoholics for quite some time, at this point a couple of years. And I had totally just fallen in love with myself over that program of getting to know myself and to own my own worth, and doing mirror work and looking myself in the mirror and saying, “I am lovable. I am kind. I am compassionate.” Saying all of the words that were the opposites of what were being thrown at me and being able to still function while those things were happening.

And that was wonderful and amazing. And I felt strong. And I felt like I could start to make different choices in my life and was starting to examine what that would look like. What would it mean to divorce? How would I support myself? How would I support my children? Those types of things, so I was starting to explore those various options, he had an accident one night. He was the kind of drunk that would drink to passing out nearly every night for five years.

And one night he had an accident where he broke his nose and just kind of really – he fell onto our fireplace and it was a big mess. And I stood by with him whilst he did the physical healing. And that was his wake-up call that something was not right from with his drinking. And he stopped, he went cold turkey overnight which is amazing and I’m super proud of him for that. It’s a few years later and from what I understand he’s still sober, which is amazing.

And one of the things, too, that that program taught me is that these are good men that suffer from alcoholism. It’s not that they’re bad people. They’re good people underneath. And that’s what I always felt like too is that he’s a good man but this façade personality that alcohol rewired his brain to be was not the real him. Yeah, so we went through that healing process and a few months down the road, I mean he was still quite bitter and horrible to me.

I knew about dry drunk where essentially the same drunken behaviors are perpetuated over time because they’re not getting the help that they need for healing. And there was a couple week periods there where it got pretty bad and he eventually – I think it ended with him telling me he could get a better wife and a house closer to his interests. And I told him, “Okay.” I moved out within a couple of weeks and when he was drinking he had always threatened to leave.

I think he’d packed his bags multiple times and would always come back when he’d sobered up or looked at housing prices or whatever. And so that time when I said okay, I think that really shocked him. But it’s also what happened. I moved out within a couple of weeks and he got married a few weeks after our divorce was final.

Jen: His interests were another woman?

Rebecca: Right.

Jen: Oh gosh, [crosstalk].

Rebecca: And so when you’re replaced that quickly that messes with your brain too. So that first year after divorce I had to really step up my own self-care, kind of similar to what I had done when I first was getting help with the depression as well is just really step that up so that I didn’t spiral into that really dark place because I felt like my goodness, how can this be?

And I remember having this conversation with him where I said, “I am in this for the long haul. I love you. I love our family. I believe we can get through this. We both need to heal separately so that we can come back together. And I believe life is worth that, it’s worth that long game.” And his response to me was that life was short and he didn’t want to give it that time. I didn’t know that he had a relationship with somebody else at that point. And maybe their relationship did start up fast and that’s fine, it’s not my business. And they seem to be happy.

And like I said, it’s a couple of years later. And that makes you confront things as well of here’s this person that you thought was meant to be and yet they had no problem moving right along to somebody else. It’s like, wait, what?

Jen: Yeah. So you’re at this place, two ‘failed relationships’ behind you. But during the second one you had started to learn about codependence and exercise self-compassion. You were doing the mirror work. So now in retrospect, what do you feel are the things that have made you different, healthier so you can break the pattern like you talked about?

Rebecca: So first and foremost knowing my own self and knowing my own self-value. That because I know myself I’m able to speak up and hold boundaries. I know which boundaries are important to me and which ones I can have wriggle room in. I didn’t even know the word ‘boundary’ five years ago. So that’s been tremendous. And I think when somebody tells you, “You need to have this boundary.” That’s one thing, but when you know yourself and know why you need to have that boundary, then you can hold it. You can hold yourself.

It’s why I was able to say, “I love you and I will always love you unconditionally but I need to do it from over here because the counterfeit you is destroying the real me.”

Jen: Yes, that’s good.

Rebecca: That was a big day when I was able to recognize that and to be able to speak that out loud. And to know that other people don’t have to agree, that it’s okay for somebody else’s reality to be different, to see that, you know, obviously when I look back at that marriage I don’t think of it as a failure, it just was a short one. It served a plethora of purposes. And I have really good memories from that as well.

But I definitely think that if I had held boundaries and been strong enough in myself to do so earlier on, it would have had different results. I mean it may have ended sooner or it could have gone a different way. But when I look back at that I can see those things. But I also can recognize that when he looks back at it, it’s through beer goggles for lack of a better word. So he sees something very different. He sees the coloring of that counterfeit version.

And so recognizing I thought we had something worth fighting for and he didn’t feel that way because of his not rose colored glasses is interesting. It’s interesting to think about that and to realize that that’s okay.

Jen: Well, you mentioned that the relationship was meant to be, was there an element of you just wanting to be in love and seeing it through that lens?

Rebecca: Absolutely. I say sometimes I was raised on religion and Disney. And so I…

Jen: That’s great. That’s great. That’s so fun.

Rebecca: It’s great and I think it cultivates that attitude of I was obligated almost to find somebody who could be a dad for my kids because they didn’t have that.

Jen: To complete you, yeah.

Rebecca: To complete the family. And that is the one thing that I wish I had learned earlier is that my girls and I are a complete family all by ourselves. And I mean I was single for four years in between marriages, so it’s not like I rushed right from one to the next. I absolutely felt like there was something missing and that the religious aspect came in for me too is marriage is ordained of God. And it’s something that everybody should have, then what was I doing wrong that I didn’t have that? How was I not worthy to be able to have that?

Jen: Wow, yeah, a lot of pressure then to be in the relationship, any relationship, yeah.

Rebecca: Absolutely, a lot of pressure. And then I met him and he’d always wanted a family and fell in love with my girls. And it was great. He still refers to them as his children and they still call him dad. He doesn’t see them often anymore but when he does that relationship is still there. So I feel like we need to normalize that sometimes meant to be doesn’t mean meant to be forever. And so maybe that relationship was what was meant to be and this was just the bridge to make that happen. I don’t know.

I could speculate all day long, but I think that’s a big piece is that we hear so much about a soul mate and finding the one and meant to be and you complete me that we put a lot of pressure on ourselves to stay in something that no longer works because we thought meant to be meant to be forever.

Jen: Yeah. Or putting the relationship and the unit of marriage or family above your own well-being, too far above, I don’t know where you need to rank these. But putting an institution above your own well-being feels like sometimes.

Rebecca: Absolutely. One of the things that I publish on my Instagram is values and how sometimes values can be used against you. And so what I’ll do is I’ll explain what the value means, like say family and how it may have been used against you in an abusive way and how you can turn that around in your life if you want to have that value going forward. Because I believe that we’re all governed by our top values but if that puts, like you said, the institution of family above my own well-being, is that the right value to be having?

Jen: Wow, yeah, that’s a cool way to look at it. So what are your top values now, Rebecca, and how have they shifted from before?

Rebecca: So I think for sure one of my top values used to be family. I absolutely believed in that 100% and thought that that was my top value. And now I have been able to realize that using my own voice, and loving myself, and loving the people around me sometimes rocks the boat in a way that doesn’t prioritize family. So my top values now would be more love is still my number one.

I use hope as my second one because for me that encompasses everything that I’m doing to build a better future. It encompasses personal development and education, and abundance, and gratitude. Curiosity is another one that I put at the top because I think that that’s how we rebuild our lives. When you’ve been stuck in these abusive cycles or toxic cycles, or you’ve had the broken picker and you think the problem is you, if I have a broken picker then the problem is me.

But it’s not the problem that – think it’s not that you have a broken picker, it’s that you never learned how to pick. You never learned that you could pick, you wanted somebody to pick you and then be the person that they wanted you to be. And that’s not sustainable. So curiosity, you’re able to explore different things like do I want this in my life? Is this something that I want to keep? Is this a person that I want to keep?

And to be able to have the time to be able to see what is real as well, especially in dating to be able to take that time that you can feel really strongly. But if the things are real then they’ll still be there, you don’t have to get married right away or get serious right away, and so curiosity.

Joy, and again that encompasses playfulness, and spirituality, and peace. Things that I all want to have in my life. And community is another big one of using my strengths as an amplifier and a connector to bring a sense of community to people who don’t have it as well as to serve the community that I do have and to be a part of this greater good and however that ends up looking.

Jen: Yeah, that’s cool. So I kind of hear, reading between the lines, I kind of hear you saying your happiness now is the central focus and you’re not looking for someone else to complete you. But how might they fit into the happiness you’ve already created for yourself.

Rebecca: Absolutely right. And as women we’re taught that that sounds so selfish. How dare you put your happiness above others? We’re taught to serve and to be others focused and all of these things. But yet when we put our own peace, and joy, and happiness at the top of the list then that can’t help but spill over to the others in our life. We can’t help but want to spread that happiness, and joy, and to do things from a place of happiness and joy instead of from a place of obligation and have to’s. I hate the shoulds.

Jen: Yes, me too. Well, so how does all of this inform the way that you date now and approach new potential friendships or relationships?

Rebecca: So I’ve actually had a lot of fun dating over the last couple of years, it’s been fun, which I don’t remember it being fun the last time, probably because I put way too much pressure on it, that I had to decide from date one. And my friends used to have a joke that, well, they kind of still have this joke that I’m either like a one date or I marry them. Because I go on a lot of first dates, and I think because I’m able to be curious, and playful, and I enjoy meeting new people but I also am very – what’s the right word? Protective.

Jen: Particular. Protective.

Rebecca: Particular as well but also protective of my time, that I don’t want to waste my time with somebody. I have friends. I’m not dating to make friends. I am dating to see do I want to go on another date with you? Do I want to see where this goes? I live in the world of online dating. And so we’re chatting and we’ve made plans but then something over the course of the next conversation’s come in up in a way that doesn’t meet my values, then I am comfortable breaking those plans. I no longer feel obligated to keep a plan just because I made it.

That that’s not fair to the person of him wasting his time, it’s not fair to my own time. I’ve been stood up many times and I don’t want to do that to others. I have. I have stood somebody up before. I think I got to the parking lot and just had this overwhelming feeling that I needed to leave and I did, and so again, just respecting our own intuition. And when you’ve been in these patterns of having that broken picker, that’s one of the first things that goes is you don’t trust yourself.

You don’t trust yourself because, well, if you could trust yourself then you wouldn’t have been in these bad situations is the lie that we tell. And that’s just simply not true. So learning how to critically think, and analyze, and make choices, and make small promises to ourself every day then we’re able to cultivate that trust in ourselves again. And begin to listen to that intuition so that when you hear that little voice or that feeling that says you need to leave you can listen to it and trust it and know that you might never know why that was and that’s okay, but because of that…

Jen: Yeah, serial killer, yeah, a good thing you were listening Rebecca.

Rebecca: Right. It’s funny you say that. So I use that as a joke to kind of weed things out. Sometimes too, because – so one of the things that I can see now as a little red flag with my last wrong relationship was I asked him for his last name so that I could tell my friend because it’s just safe. So somebody knows who you’re with. And he was super offended that I would ask for that.

Jen: Oh my goodness, wow.

Rebecca: And so that taught me though now I use that as an icebreaker. If we’re going somewhere, and I live in a place where there’s lots of hiking and beautiful things to do outside. But I’m sorry; I’m not going to be in a kayak with you on the middle of a lake on our first date or on the river because that just isn’t safe. I don’t want to be on a dateline special. And so I’ll say that, I’ll say, “I don’t want to be a dateline special.” And if they laugh with me I feel like that’s a much better sign than being offended.

Jen: I have a little tangent to throw in here. I’m a big daydreamer so I always play out what if scenarios in my mind. So one of the what if scenarios, if my husband ever died or something and I needed to start dating again, I’ve already got plans in my mind for this what if scenario. I would hire a private detective to check anyone out them before I married them. So there you go, Rebecca, do that one. Hire a PI.

Rebecca: I love it.

Jen: I don’t even see anything wrong with that, how could anyone get married these days with all the horror stories I’ve heard, without checking them out first?

Rebecca: Well, and to think of how I got married so fast both times before. Now I’m like what on earth, who let me do that? It’s so, so crazy. I have – so my girls and I we have the location services turned on, on our phones and just for each other. So I can see, if it’s been a while since they’ve – I thought they should be home I can see where they are. But it came back to bite me one time when I was on a date and they text me and said, “Are you on a houseboat?”

Jen: Were you?

Rebecca: And I was. I was like, “Yes.” I live on the river and there’s lots of floating homes. And I had gone to get a drink with this guy and he asked if I’d come back to his place and we could sit on the patio and look at the stars. And I was at the very beginning of dating at that and thought that was an innocent request. I was wrong.

Jen: Of course you were.

Rebecca: But I’ve learned a lot from that date which is how I approach them now. And I will actually tell that to people that I’m dating too and they’ll say, “What are you looking for?” And I’m like, “I think it’s a big experiment.” See what works, what doesn’t work, what I like, what I don’t like. And so it was so funny because I was like, “Yes, I am on a houseboat.” Why is my, you know, 18 year old daughter asking me this question? So that was kind of funny. But I’m glad to know that they check in on me and make sure that I’m not dead in a ditch somewhere.

Then I found myself on a second date going up in the mountains to go shooting and I’m thinking, well, that was a dumb choice. Here I am. There’s guns in the trunk, we’re going where there’s no cell service.

Jen: Oh no.

Rebecca: Well, maybe don’t make that choice again.

Jen: But what I love about it, there’s no neediness in your approach because you have everything you need. You’re just going to figure out (a) what dating even is like now and (b) do you want to have a second date. No pressure like you said. And you’ve learned a lot, yeah.

Rebecca: And that neediness is tremendous. And I think that that’s a big part, when I work with clients as well is talking about how to start cultivating independence so that you can date from that place of abundance rather than of need. And for me I’ve been seeing the same person now for a few months. And it’s a great way to have a relationship to know that I’m not needy. I spend time with him because I enjoy it. We both enjoy each other’s company. It’s fun. We’re interested in seeing where this goes without being committed to having to have a certain trajectory. So it’s been fun, been a lot of fun.

Jen: That’s so cool. So you teach your clients how to be independent. What are some of the first steps that you help your clients learn, the first things you do with them?

Rebecca: Sure. We talk a little bit about money management, getting into a better money frame of mind as well, knowing what you have coming in and going out. Some of the things that I see consistently are women that never had a clue about funding. They had always been dependent on somebody else’s finances and are still dependent on somebody else’s finances while they receive alimony. And alimony ends. You have to have a plan.

And I think a lot of what I learned there, I’ve pieced together from different things on the intrawebs because I had to. I never received alimony. That was never something that has been a part of my equation. So I had to piece it together rather quickly. And so I take the things that I have learned over the last 13 years of piecing that together and working on money mindset and just knowing what’s coming in and going out. And finding a job and sometimes letting go of that neediness comes from mindset.

And so a lot of it still comes back to visioning and mindset work, even though it’s more concrete of independence.

Jen: Mindset work in the form of self-love, and learning boundaries, and healing from past hurts, that kind of thing?

Rebecca: Absolutely. So affirmations are really big. I do a lot of visioning work around how do you want to feel. One of the exercises that I’ll take women through, I just did this with a client last week and it was amazing. We talked about how she wanted to feel in five years. And she at first started naming off all of the accomplishments she wanted to have. And in there I was able to pull out a couple of feelings. And then we were able to discuss those feelings a little bit on a deeper level.

And to pull out the ways that we can cultivate those feelings in her life right now because I’m a big believer in the Gabby Bernstein Law of Attraction of how you feel now is what you can attract in. And so how can we cultivate that in such a way so that you can have that feeling now and have it even bigger in a few years. So not just I have done all of these things, but I feel this way. And so if you can feel that way today you can in five years say that you’ve done all of these things.

Jen: Yeah, makes sense. I love law of attraction. Well, Rebecca, for anyone listening whose maybe just left an unhealthy relationship, what would you say is their next best step or any last piece of advice?

Rebecca: To practice radical acceptance and curiosity. Accept what is, what was, this is now a part of your past. It does not have to be a part of your future anymore. And you don’t have to know today what your future holds. It’s okay to explore all of the options that are available to you. And to know that operating in survival mode for a little while or for a few years is totally okay. Sometimes you have to do that. And that gives time for the stress hormones to calm down or whatever it might be to happen, survival mode’s okay. You have a family to take care of and bills to pay.

But during that timeframe start to accept that this is a part of your story. And your story is not done being written yet so how can you use those lessons to build a better life in your future?

Jen: Yeah, I love that. So if anyone listening wants to have your support as they write their new story, where can they go?

Rebecca: So you can connect with me at wildradiantlove.com. Or follow me on Instagram at Wild Radiant Love as well. I share lots of free resources there, amplify other messages. You can connect with me in either spot. I take a very few amount of private clients right now. But I do love working with women and being able to just chat with them and see how we can work together to build that better life.

Jen: Awesome. Thank you so much Rebecca for being on. This is such an important message. And I’m so glad you agreed to share it with us today.

Rebecca: Absolutely. Thank you so much Jen.

I love Rebecca. And I hope whether you’re in a relationship or not, or whether that relationship is toxic or not, I hope you all take away that thought that we need to approach our relationships from a place of wholeness. And I want you all to know that I know each of you has everything you need within yourself right now. You have everything you need within you now. You do not need another person to complete you and make you whole. You have everything you need right now.

And what a beautiful gift, not only to have for yourself but to model that wholeness, that health for your children so that they can approach their relationships not from that place of neediness but from a place of companionship and fun, and wanting to be around another person. It’s so much better that way.

Also Rebecca as we mentioned was one of the first students in the Vibrant Happy Women Coach Certification and I love what she is doing with her life. Not only has she found a career that supports her. But she’s doing something that she loves. And she’s making a difference. And she’s using her story to make a difference. Coaching is cool that way.

The next round of the coach certification is starting soon. And if you would like to look into the idea of turning your mess into a message using your heart centered gifts to help other people, whether that’s just helping your family or working as a coach part-time or even full-time. You can have a career that’s fulfilling, and meaningful, and allows you to make a difference. And that feels so good.

So if you’re thinking about that you can learn more about the Vibrant Happy Coach Certification at jenriday.com/coaching. I have put up four videos there that you can watch that will teach you about the program, what to expect, what we do over the course of the 10 months, what you’ll learn, how you will be able to implement everything and anything else you need to know should be right there. Again that’s jenriday.com/coaching.

My friends I want to wish you well, I want to wish you wholeness and completeness in your relationships. I want you to take the step of doing whatever it takes to feel like you’re living authentically, living your purpose, doing what you were born to do and touching the lives you were born to touch just like Rebecca’s doing. That is a big part of my message. I’m so glad you were listening today and I will see you again next time. Until then make it a vibrant, happy and authentic aligned week. Take care.

If you enjoy this podcast, you have to check out the Vibrant Happy Women Club. It’s my monthly group coaching program where we take all this material to the next level and to get you the results that will blow your mind. Join me in the Vibrant Happy Women Club at jenriday.com/join.