Episode 107- Breaking Free from the Bonds of Trauma with Stephany Ann

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to Conversations that Matter with your host, amber Howard. Each week, amber dances, in conversation with inspirational leaders, out to make a difference for what matters most to people. She brings you incredible guests who share their real life experience of being a leader and what it looks like to live a truly created life of service to others. And now here's your host.

Speaker 2: 0:24

Welcome back everyone. Welcome back to the Conversations that Matter podcast. It is my absolute honor today to have Stephanie Ann on the show. Stephanie Ann is an attorney, speaker, author and EFT practitioner. A recipient of the Governor's Award for Advocacy for her work with survivors of domestic violence. Her commitment is for people to let go of their victim mindset and become heroes in their own stories. Stephanie uses techniques like EFT to empower individuals to release emotional blockages and embrace their true selves. Stephanie's lived experience and expertise make her a powerful guide on anyone's healing journey. Stephanie Ann, welcome to the show.

Speaker 3: 1:11

Hi, thank you so much for having me, amber. It is such a pleasure to be here with you today.

Speaker 2: 1:17

Yeah, it's a, so you're joining me from Oregon. It's super early in the morning there for you, so thank you so much for you know making yourself available so we can have this time together. I would love to just hear from, in your own words, what has your journey been like to you know I know a little bit about because, but I'd love for my audience to hear a little bit about your journey to get to today, Stephanie.

Speaker 3: 1:40

Yeah Well, you know, I found myself on the floor of my sister's house, just like crying, tears running down my cheeks and just like, why me, oh, why me I didn't do anything wrong, why me I'm a good person, why me I've done everything right? Yeah, yeah, in that moment I could not see past the pain and suffering that had engulfed my life. I spent over 17 years with, you know, with multiple disasters in my life. I had a house, a house fire. I lost a house in a hurricane. I lost loved ones to COVID and became, you know, a truly a mother to four little boys who lost their mother to COVID. You know, I had a baby born with this really very rare genetic disorder. And then I spent 17 years within these two narcissistic, abusive marriages and it's like, why me, god, why me? And in that moment I also had lost my eyesight and I literally could not see. You know, physically couldn't see, but also spiritually, metaphysically, you know, metaphorically, whatever I couldn't see. And in that moment, at my sister's house, just crying, why me? I felt the divine God source. You know, whoever we resonate with saying Stephanie, you're not seeing your life through the right lens.

Speaker 3: 3:21

And so for me, this, this huge change came when I was able to make that, that shift in perspective from why me to for me. And I needed to let go of this victim story that kept me stuck for so many years and become the hero, the star of my story. You know, when we're stuck in this victim mindset of why me, we can't see the lessons, we don't know what needs to be healed, what needs to be released, we continue to repeat these patterns because, you know, we think we can run from them, but we can't. They catch up to us. And so once I was able to, to make that, that shift in perspective, you know, and it's, it's a choice, it's a choice, and, and to let go of that victim mindset, I could look at my two ex husbands. Instead of them being monsters who are out to destroy my life, I could see them as teachers who were here to teach me some very powerful, painful, hard lessons.

Speaker 3: 4:32

And so when I made that, um, yeah, then I could see the lessons. Because you know, again, when you're stuck in this victim mindset, it's you can't see the lessons. People would ask me well, just see the lessons, stephanie. Well, there's no lessons because I didn't do anything wrong. But once I was able to release that and see them as teachers. Then I could see the lessons, then I could sit down and say thank you, husband number one, thank you, husband number two for teaching me all these things. Then I could forgive, then I could have more compassion, then I could let go and then I could break those patterns and those cycles in my life and let it go and become the hero.

Speaker 2: 5:16

Well, first, I am, you know, regardless of where the circumstances in our life come from and what the whatever beliefs, I'm really sorry that you had to go through all of those experiences and, um, having gone through some similar experiences in my life, I, you know, have been gifted that tool of framing, like being able to choose how we view the circumstances that we're in.

Speaker 2: 5:40

Um, it's been an absolute gift in my, in my journey and just being able to um be at choice, and I think one of the things that you know you're talking about here is the importance of our ability to be at choice and not be at the effect of.

Speaker 2: 5:57

You know, life happens, always happening to people all over the world every day, and sometimes, when life happens, that the circumstances are good and exciting and fun.

Speaker 2: 6:07

And other times, life happens and the circumstances are not not great and even, you know, all the way to extremely traumatic, and it sounds like you've come through some very traumatic experiences and become someone who is able to be responsible for, you know, like has, has the awareness, because I think that's a big part of what you're also pointing to yes, and it's so easy for other people looking in at something that you know that other people's lives and saying, well, why can't they see it, why can't they learn the lessons, why?

Speaker 2: 6:41

But until we get that awareness for ourselves and until we can see for ourselves, then we can't be responsible for the role that we're playing in our own story and, you know, elevate ourselves to the hero of our story instead of being the victim of it. So, um, just um, you know, just really can like, but I was going to say congratulations, but I don't know if that's the appropriate word, but just really want to acknowledge you for everything that you've done to kind of flip that script in your own life, and I'm sure you know the impact of that on the everyone around you, including your children and the many people that you, you know, coach and take care of and have benefited from this journey that you've gone on.

Speaker 3: 7:24

Absolutely, and you know that's why I share my story as well, because it is a story of empowerment and and you know we go through these traumas, we go through these things and I don't believe we're meant to to hold them in and keep them to ourselves. I mean, I went through a lot of stuff. I'm not going to keep it in me because if it can even benefit one person, it is worth it to share and to talk and to get it out there. And, and you know, another thing too is that shame loves secrets. Shame loves when we don't share our story and and it keeps us out of a really low vibrational level.

Speaker 3: 8:13

Shame. You know it's very low vibrating and so you know so many people don't share this stuff because it is, it is shameful. It is hard to talk about abuse, it's hard to talk about narcissistic abuse, it's hard to talk about domestic violence, but when we talk about it it releases that shame and raises our vibrational level. And so you know, and it's also it gets it out there. His shame likes the secrets and to be in the dark. Let's all bring it to the light and and let's, let's get these conversations out there.

Speaker 2: 8:55

Yeah, I didn't experience what the narcissist is not too long ago and you know it's interesting because I really do believe language matters and so I try very hard not to use labels and stuff like that. But I think it's a very experience dealing with that personality type and as well. Narcissism is a trauma response just as much as victimhood is right or just kind of.

Speaker 2: 9:20

I think, different ends of the spectrum in terms of how you, you know, you ended up internalizing your own trauma and then, you know, projected out onto the world. So, in your experience, stephanie, and you know, for people listening, how would you define a narcissistic relationship or a narcissist? And for people who may not know what kind of some of those signs are to look for, yeah, how do you know if you're in a trauma bond with a narcissist? Yeah, it is.

Speaker 3: 9:55

I will first say it's very it's complicated. It's complex it is. You know, my background was in domestic violence work. And yet here I am, I found myself. I say found myself because you don't know in the beginning that you are. You know that something is often something feels not right, but it's always hard to like pinpoint what that is. And so, again, you know, I'm an attorney. My background's in domestic violence.

Speaker 3: 10:30

20 years ago, 30 years ago, when we would talk about domestic violence, we were always focused on, like, the physical violence. There wasn't a lot of focus on the emotional and psychological abuse. And so with narcissistic abuse, a lot of it is psychological and emotional and it can lead to physical violence as well. So if you look at the whole overarching art of domestic violence, it's power and control. And that is what you see in narcissistic abuse. It is power and control. So they'll use no gaslight you, they'll manipulate you, they will create this huge fog that we call cognitive resonance and where you're just so freaking confused. And all of this is to control you. They will try to get a reaction from you and then we start living in the space of reacting and not responding, because then every time we react to them. We are giving them what they want, which is control of our emotions and our reactions, and so you can hear my son.

Speaker 2: 11:42

We have an extra special guest on the show. Everyone Just like be with life as it's happening, and Stephanie has young children, including a two-year-old who is joining us on the show today. So welcome, it's good to have you here, and we're just going to include all of it, because this is what it is to be an entrepreneur, to be a coach, to be a mom, to be someone living a big life and up to extraordinary things. We get to include all of it in that journey, yeah, so thank you.

Speaker 3: 12:08

What is their?

Speaker 2: 12:08

name? What is their name? His name is Barron. Hi, barron, welcome to the show. It's good to have you here with us. Thank you, yeah, you know, go ahead. Yeah, I was good.

Speaker 2: 12:23

Well, I mean, look, I think a lot of the dialogue out there and stuff makes narcissism wrong, and my commitment is that there are safe spaces for us to have conversations about anything. Because, again back to what you were saying, stephanie, you know, shame tells us that there are things that we can't talk about. Shame says that there are things about us or others that if those things were known, then we wouldn't be worthy of connection and belonging, and that's what all human beings need, desire, crave more than anything. So shame keeps us disconnected. So I think it is important to have safe spaces for all sides, for people who are dealing with that trauma response and behave that way in the world. But I really resonate with what you just said.

Speaker 2: 13:09

You find yourself in that kind of relationship. For me it wasn't a romantic relationship, it was a business relationship and it's not there at the beginning. You know, you don't go in and it's not like. You know they've got. Oh, this is how I've responded, or this is how I've overcome my trauma. I've become a narcissist. You know, these are the things that you should be prepared for If you're going to be in some kind of partnership relationship with me.

Speaker 2: 13:35

You get into the relationship with someone who appears to be very charming and very you know so many different things. And then you, you know, and over time there are red flags. I think that was my experience. Over time there were red flags or things you know, like I was like huh, that doesn't quite make sense, that's not. That's not a lines you know with who you say you are. But then there are, you know. Other things come into play and there are other considerations and I think we stop listening to ourselves and listening to our own intuition and that's that cognitive dissonance that you spoke right Like how do you reconcile how this person who they say they are and who you thought they were with, with the behaviors and how someone's showing up?

Speaker 3: 14:22

Yes, yes, absolutely. And to go back to, you know what you were talking about with the trauma bond and stuff. And so if you look at what a narcissist is, if you remember, like that grief myth of narcissist, it was the man who fell in love with his reflection and he just, he never left, he died there just staring at his reflection. And so you know narcissists, they have this grandiose sense of self-importance, they have this preoccupation with, with fantasies of unlimited power, success, wealth. They have this belief that they are so special and only you can understand them, or, you know, be understood by special people. They have this huge, excessive need for admiration and adoration. They have this big sense of entitlement and they will exploit others to get exactly what they want. They will manipulate any situation, they will use coercion to get what they want. They lack empathy, they're very arrogant, but the you know, you see, like all these traits and think, wow, this person must have a very secure sense of self and who they are. It must be very confident. But the myth is that they're not. They actually have a very, very fragile ego and they're very, very sensitive to criticism or any sort of critique on who they are. And so you know, if you look at the cycle of narcissistic abuse, there's the idealization phase, the devaluation love bomb, devaluation, love bomb. You know, however, however much that goes back and forth. And then there's the discard.

Speaker 3: 16:21

So in the beginning is the idealization phase and you know, in the beginning of every relationship it's fun, you make time for this person, you want to be with them and they narcissists go out of their way to make you feel loved, special, cared for. You're the only person who can understand them, you're their soulmate and you know they put you on this pedestal and, in a sense, they worship you. And who doesn't want that? I mean, it feels great. And they listen Like they're the best listeners. They talk, they open up, they share things, but what really is happening is they are mirroring you, they are mirroring your hobbies, they are mirroring your likes, they're mirroring your values. But we don't, you don't see that in the beginning, because in the beginning it's like everything is like how. This is too good to be true. Hello, red flag right there. If it's too good to be true, it probably is too good to be true. And so you, because they're such great listeners and they make you feel very comfortable and very safe with them, you start sharing all your deep secrets, you start sharing your insecurities. These relationships go quickly. They go quickly from a place of like this intense connection with this person. They get you, they understand you and they will say the things like I was saying like you're my soulmate, you get me, you are the only person who's ever got me. I've had all these horrible relationships with other men, other women, but you understand me. So do you see how like it's intense in the beginning and it's so perfect. And then, once they have you hooked, once they have your heart, then the devaluation comes and so it's everything that they mirrored, all your values, everything. The thing is that someone can't hold that fake face for so long. Then the mask comes off a little bit and so it's like everything they loved about you now they hate about you.

Speaker 3: 18:57

For me, with my second husband, it was he loved that I was a strong, powerful, independent woman. He loved that I was an attorney. He loved all my girlfriends, that they were strong, powerful women. He loved my children. He loved the way I painted when the devaluation phase hit. It was I hate attorneys. And you know all he could do was just go off on my profession and not like I care that much, but it's like hi, this is what I do. He loved my girlfriends. Now he hates them all. Oh, your girlfriends are blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. He just, he just became a completely negative, challenging person to be around, but then, but then they would come back. So maybe that would last a couple of days, or maybe that would last a month, not a month.

Speaker 3: 19:54

Well, for some relationship that does last that long, or a couple of days or something, they give you the silent treatment. They start gaslighting, and for anyone who doesn't know what gaslighting is, it's when you manipulate another person into doubting their perception, experiences or understanding of what is actually happening, and so devaluation is when all the gaslighting comes in. It's when all the manipulation comes in. You'll hear things like you're too sensitive. I never said that, it was a joke, that didn't happen. You know they. They turn everything around, but it's, it's a coercive technique to control you, and so you know. So you're in devaluation right now and then they will. They'll come back with whenever and they will start and they will love bomb you.

Speaker 2: 20:52

So what is a love bomb? So? I heard that term before.

Speaker 3: 20:56

Oh yes, so a love bomb is basically, they will just, you know, they'll go from just this hatred towards you to, all the sudden well, here's some flowers. Oh no, you're the most beautiful woman in the world. I love you. I love you. It just goes right back to that. They, they've thrown you off the stool and then they pick you back up and put you high up on the stool again, without an apology, without anything. So it's so.

Speaker 3: 21:29

It becomes very, very confusing. So then you have all this intermittent reinforcement. You know you have the good, the, the, the love bomb, the devaluation. The love bomb, the devaluation. And it's just this, this cycle, and you don't know when it's going to to end. And so, because of all of this, it creates this.

Speaker 3: 21:52

This thing called cognitive dissonance is what we were talking about. So many people will say, yeah, my partner has a Dr Jekyll, mr Hyde personality. I can't figure him out. They don't want you to figure him out. They want you to be confused, they want you to be obsessed with trying to figure it out. And it's very, very confusing because you know that something's not right, but when it's not physical violence, it is hard to to know that you are being psychologically and emotionally coerced and abused, and so because of all of this intermittent reinforcement, it creates a trauma bond. And so the trauma bond is it's kind of like Stockholm syndrome, where the the victim and the kidnapper. You know they they want the abuse to stop, but they love the person, they'll stick up for them. You know they have this trauma bond. And so what happens in a narcissistic, abusive relationship is that this trauma bond forms that intermittent reinforcement.

Speaker 3: 23:05

And I like to describe a trauma bond like a drug addiction. You become addicted to this person and so you know if you've ever used drugs or no. You know the first time you use you have this really high dopamine rush, you get really high. So then you, you use again, but now you're not quite as high, you never quite reach that first high. And this is what keeps people hooked and addicted, because they keep using, trying to get that first dopamine high, but they never quite get it. And so it's similar with a trauma bond with a disordered personality, like narcissism, is that we know that they know how to love us, we know that they know how to treat us well, we know that they know how to be kind to us. And so when you're in the devaluation, and it's horrible. We don't leave because we know that well, it's going to be good again, but it's never the first original good that every time the cycle repeats itself the good becomes less and less and the devaluation becomes more and more. So it keeps you hooked.

Speaker 2: 24:24

Does that make sense? Yeah, it does. I don't know that I would have called my marriage a narcissistic relationship. I think it's important. I mean not like anything I ever say is the truth, but I think it's important to know for anyone listening to this conversation at least in my view, that people who are exhibiting narcissistic behaviors are doing.

Speaker 2: 24:47

I mean, it's like anything, we operate off-brain patterns. That's the way our brains function. This, too, is a trauma response. They may the level to which people are aware that they're behaving this way and I know we talk generally that people know what they're doing. I think it's important just to note that for many people, these are just patterns of behavior that got developed in childhood as a response to whatever trauma that they were going through, and not that we excuse the behavior because we don't, but it helps for me anyway from a compassion point of view, to get that perhaps many of these people are not consciously aware of the behavior that they're exhibiting.

Speaker 3: 25:30

I would say they are aware to a certain extent, but what happens is we have your mind, you have the two briefly, two parts of your mind. You have the conscious mind and the subconscious mind. The subconscious mind is where our habits live, where we do things on automatic pilot and so I think, over time, their protective self they have, they do things on automatic pilot that they're not necessarily always consciously aware that they are doing it, but they do know that they are trying to get a reaction. They do know that they are manipulating you. They do know that they are not the nicest people. And I say this because I have been married to two of them. I was married my first relationship, my first husband he was a covert narcissist. My second one was an overt narcissist and they both referred to each other as narcissists. Oh, your ex-husband, stephanie, he's such a narcissist. Oh, your current husband, he's such a narcissist, stephanie, why are you with him?

Speaker 2: 26:50

Well, I think it's so easy for us to see it in other people that we don't necessarily always see our own behavior so clearly. But I think when you were sharing about that pattern, I was present to my own experiences when I got married at 18, and it was very much. This pattern of things would escalate, and escalate, and escalate, and then there would be an explosion or a big blow-up, something would get broken, words said, and then it's the I'm so sorry, that's never gonna happen again. And then it's like for wherever you are in that relationship, there's an investment that you've made. In my case, we had children together and so it's like, oh, you wanna believe the person that they're not gonna do that. And I think that's the. Those are the for anyone listening to this conversation.

Speaker 2: 27:39

Those are the patterns to become aware of, right and notice when they start to show up, when you have these kind of highs and lows or really behavior from another person in the relationship that's so out of character, seemingly out of character or not aligned, and then it's like this back and forth and I think a big part of it and I'm not here saying that my former husband intended to do this, to be honest, I don't even think he was particularly conscious of it personally in that relationship but it was like you just never knew what to expect.

Speaker 2: 28:16

You could spill some milk and the massive outburst of anger and rage and then you could tell them that I don't know not that this ever happened, but just for an extreme example, all I had an affair and it's like, oh okay, no problem, and so it's like that, leaving people in a position of never knowing how your communication is gonna be responded to or what you're gonna get back from the person. So you're constantly hyper-vigilant, on eggshells and I think even in the good times, right, even when things are, you're in that cycle, that part of the cycle you still never know what to anticipate or expect from the other person, which is very challenging energetically, emotionally, physically, mentally and spiritually to constantly be on guard like that.

Speaker 3: 29:09

Oh yeah, no, you never know what to expect, and that's when I brought up the Dr Hyde, mr Jekyll personalities. It's like you don't know when you wake up in the morning, which personality is going to present itself. Do I need to just get the kids out of the house and be gone all day because it's going to be horrible and not someone you want to be around, or is he going to be the loving, kind, caring person that shows up today and it's going to be a wonderful, beautiful day? You don't know and, like you said, you become so invested and you have the trauma bond too. So it's very challenging to leave when you have that trauma bond.

Speaker 3: 29:57

Because, again, we look at the potential and I used to tell people like, oh, I fell in love with his potential. You can't fall in love with someone's potential because you know what? With my second relationship, four years later we're still in the same place. Yeah, I could see all the beautiful potential in him, but he never went anywhere and the potential didn't do anything. And you know he would say things like and I hear this often for many people like you're only with me because we have a child together. If we didn't have a kid together, you would leave me.

Speaker 3: 30:35

You know they have all these abandonment issues, but sometimes some of us do too. It's like, well, I've invested four years of my life into this, I want to figure it out, I want to make it work. But you know, if we go back to the beginning, when we were talking about, like, why me to for me, and changing that perspective, that mindset, and thinking about being the creators of our reality, and you look at this and it's like this isn't what I want, this isn't the reality that I truly want, and I hear this a lot from many people who have been in these relationships For a long time. I would hear that all the time, because I hear it a lot in the entrepreneur circles and stuff, the spiritual circles. We are the creators of our reality, we are the creators of our destiny. Well, what does that mean when you are in these abusive relationships?

Speaker 2: 31:54

Yeah, I think that's an interesting question from a manifestation point of view, and I think sometimes when people go down that route, especially at the beginning, it's like oh, I manifested that I'm the creator of everything, so it's my fault or I'm to blame for these crappy circumstances that I find myself in.

Speaker 2: 32:14

I did this to myself, kind of thing. And when you're someone who's as I was for much of my life in a place of low self-esteem and lack of worthiness and a lot of shame, it's like you can't be with that because it's not. There's a way in which the concept of being responsible or, as one of my favorite human beings says, give or retain response able, like able to respond. There's a very empowering context for that If you have the awareness to know that it's not morality, it's not blame and guilt you didn't do it to yourself but as you're to your point, lying there on the floor of your sister's bathroom, like I have a choice about how I frame my circumstances. I have a choice to say I have a choice about the questions I inquire into, about my own life. There's a significant difference between why did this happen to me versus how is this for me?

Speaker 2: 33:15

Like how have these circumstances come into my life and what am I not learning? Or what is there for me to glean from this experience? And I've been doing some work with this extraordinary man around honoring. He lives in San Diego and one of the things that Chris taught me is, like I just finished a journey into acceptance. I do a journey every year, stephanie. This year's journey is into creativity and man was a journey into acceptance. A hard year. I'm not sure I would recommend it to anyone because really, when you do a journey like that, you're just what's showing up is all of these circumstances in life that you then have to get to choose to whatever accept right.

Speaker 2: 34:01

And the one of the things I got on my journey with Chris is so many things about the world were there before I was born. I didn't create them. It's kind of like I like to use the analogy of the ocean, right Like the waves crashing on the shore there are some waves that I did create. They are like, whether they're so-called good waves or bad waves I don't usually use that frame, but whatever, I did create those waves, yep, but exactly, and that one was a really big one and that was a nice gentle one. But there were so many waves the majority of waves that crash on the ocean that I did not directly create. But I think this concept of you're the master of your fate, you're the creator of your life, is that whatever that wave is like, you have a say in how you respond or react to it. And I just got certified as a Reiki practitioner last night, not that I plan on using it.

Speaker 2: 35:00

Yeah, thank you, not that I plan on necessarily using it in my coaching practice or anything like that, but more for my as someone who's empathic, more for my own energy and how I can keep the flow of energy around me, because I've given out a lot of energy throughout my life and so I found myself gotten to a point kind of been life form a bit protective, and I don't want to be that way. But one of the things that my Reiki teacher was like the practitioner who taught us was showing, is like that energetically, when someone is like the narcissist, let's say, is throwing out those energetic tendrils, they couldn't hook the person if there wasn't something there to hook. And I think, like, look at it, narcissists are not going out and dating other narcissists, they're not. They're not attracting other narcissists to themselves, they're attracting people who are the opposite to them, whose trauma response to whatever their own trauma was to be in victimhood, to be unworthy and full of shame. And I mean I definitely didn't.

Speaker 2: 36:04

I look back at my life when I got into a relationship with my husband, I was already very unworthy for myself. Did that become more exasperated throughout the relationship and did I become more for myself devalued in that relationship, yes, but I did not come into that relationship whole and complete and then had those circumstances which devalued me. So I think that's I don't know that that's a like for me. That's my answer to that question. How do we talk about being in the creators of our own life and our own stories and our own journey, without it being about blame and shame and guilt and all of that?

Speaker 2: 36:48

And I had a hugely transformative experience in 2016,. I took a training program where I got to see the extent to which I had authored my own journey, but not from a place of guilt and shame, but just from a place of like responsibility. And I'm really getting that. I had been walking around in life with a story that I was powerless and worthless and you know, and when we're in that space, we'll find the evidence to prove that we're right about it. And if we can't find that in our circumstances, we'll go manufacture circumstances to make us right about our view of ourself.

Speaker 3: 37:20

right, oh, yeah we're looking for that validation to say, yes, see, I'm proving myself right. Yeah, you know, for me, I look at you know what so many people you know we talk about the law of attraction and okay, will you attracted these people into your life. But before, I mean, the law of attraction is secondary to the law of vibration and so we can only attract what we are vibrating on the same frequency of. And so for me, for my second husband at least, I knew well, I didn't it at the time. I know now, you know I'd just come out of a abusive eating, you know, narcissistic relationship with my first husband. And so when I got together with my second husband, I was vibrating very low and I was attracting what you know, other people who are vibrating on my same frequency, and so I did not think I was attracting another narcissist into my life. I thought I was doing everything right. But it doesn't matter if your frequency is low, you're only going to attract what you're on the same frequency to. So I thought I was on a high frequency, going to attract these high quality people, but I wasn't. And you know this is again lots of many years of mindset, work and all that kind of stuff you know to get to this place of, like you said, taking responsibility, awareness, reconditioning, becoming all of that. But I did want to go and address one thing you said like narcissists don't attract other narcissists, my second husband actually went off when he had an affair and laughed at me and the boys he went.

Speaker 3: 39:26

The woman he was with had a disorder personality as well. Oh wow, yeah, I would kind of classify her as borderline narcissist and histrionic, which they are. You know they're in the same cluster B personalities. And so many people have asked this question does the narcissist attract another narcissist? And what happens in those relationships and what I saw over the six years that my ex was with this woman the woman he actually committed suicide. She was very controlling. She was very, just a very horrible person with her own big issues and sets of trauma. You know I don't, I've forgiven them, I've worked through all of that. I don't want to say you know all of these negative things about them, but you know this is just my experience. Wow.

Speaker 2: 40:38

Well, I guess there are no absolutes, but I'm really sorry, recently lost a friend of mine to suicide over the last couple of months and it's very challenging to you know way to lose someone, and especially when it's like a very paradoxical and complex relationship.

Speaker 2: 41:01

Right, given all of the different feelings, right, father of your children, ex-spouse, you know as much as there are.

Speaker 2: 41:10

You know, as someone who's grown up in a family where there's lots of early childhood abuse and trauma and all of that stuff, not for me, necessarily, but for the generation that came before me, my parents, it's like not all of the memories are bad, not all of the times are bad, but I think you know one of the things that does often happen is that's what gets talked about a lot, cause that's just like, especially when there's significant trauma, that just becomes, you know, a lot of the focus, I think the whole.

Speaker 2: 41:45

Well, I guess one of the things I wanted to ask you, stephanie and you know you're lying there on that floor, you have that realization, that divine download or gift that you talked about, that you know, not why me, but for me, what has what has transpired on that healing journey since that point in time? Because I know for myself, I mean, it's been. I mean, the work to fall in love with myself started in 2016, and you know. But you know, the journey to heal for my trauma has been ongoing for a long time. And for other people who are at different points on this journey, who might be listening to this conversation, you know what are the things that you might want to say to them about being on that journey, from from that that low place or that place. You know, it's funny even framing it as a low place, because maybe that's the most divine of place when you're lying there in the mess of it and you have that initial spark of awareness that awareness creep in.

Speaker 3: 42:44

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 42:44

Perhaps that's the most divine and empowering of places at all, because it might not feel great in the moment, but that's the beginning of the journey to health and well being right.

Speaker 3: 42:54

Yeah, absolutely. So. You know, when I was able to make that shift from why me to for me, I could see the lessons. So what I did? I got a journal and I said, okay, let's just start with my first husband, instead of viewing him as a monster trying to destroy my life. What if he was a teacher here to teach me these powerful lessons? What would that look like? And so I could say thank you, josh, for showing me that I need boundaries in my life, although, you know, I thought I had boundaries what I was doing for him, because he had multiple affairs all the time. I was trying to be the boundaries person for him. I was trying to create boundaries for him instead of creating boundaries for myself. Like, we cannot create boundaries for other people, we are only responsible for our own boundaries. So I can say thank you, josh, for showing me that I need to have firm boundaries in my life. Thank you, josh, for showing me that I'm worthy of so much more in my life. Thank you, josh, for showing me that you know whatever.

Speaker 3: 44:08

I just made a list and just went through 14 years of marriage and what were all the lessons?

Speaker 3: 44:14

And then I moved to my second husband whose name is Jace it's so funny, it's Josh and Jace, they're both Aquarius, they both look similar to each other and like, okay, I have a type, I need to work on this, so you know.

Speaker 3: 44:29

Then I got my journal and I said, okay, jace, if Jace is not a monster but he is a teacher, what could he show me? Because I thought I went in with boundaries because, you know, I knew that I couldn't be a boundaries police for someone, so I need to have my own boundaries. But what would happen is that he just kept pushing my boundaries and I would pick up my little toddler toddler fence was my boundary, pick it up and just move it. And then he'd come up and push against my boundary again and I would just pick it up and move it like a little toddler fence. A boundary is something that is firm in the ground, unmovable. So you know, I did not have boundaries so I could say thank you, jace, for showing me that, even though I had the idea of a boundary, it wasn't, it was just a little toddler fence.

Speaker 3: 45:28

And I, you know thank you, Jace, for showing me that I don't well one. You can't fall in love with someone's potential. Thank you, jace, for showing me, you know. So I just spent hours and days just thinking about okay, if they were teachers, what did I learn? And so I filled up a whole journal of all these experiences and all these lessons that had been learned, and then I focused on myself and my mindset, because what happens when you are in a relationship with a disordered personality? It reprograms your brain. All the years of gaslighting, manipulation, the psychological and emotional abuse, the cognitive dissonance, all of that it changes your brain, and so you really have to recondition. And so I learned about EFT in 2020.

Speaker 3: 46:35

I thought I was signing up to work with a practitioner, and I love this story because it's like the divine knows what we need when we need it. I actually signed up for a course to become a practitioner. I had no idea I never had even done the EFT before, and so here I'm in this practitioner course. But you know, it was exactly what I needed, because I had so many years of trauma that I needed to work through, and what better way to really, really dive deep into working on yourself is being in practitioner course, because I don't know how many hundreds of hours we had to do to become certified. But now I had 50 other women that I had to practice on, and you know.

Speaker 3: 47:19

So, just every day I filled up my calendar with just all these practice sessions and I just spent hours, days, weeks and now years reprogramming my brain and so my mind and my mindset, to where, when things come up, I know exactly what to do to release it, to sit with it and to let it go. And then what I love about EFT is that you know, the first round is really where are you feeling the emotions in your body, what's coming up? Second round you release it, but I do another round of becoming. And so who do I want to become? Let's tap into that. And that's where I go back to like we are the creators of our reality, the masters of our fate. We can become whomever we want to be. Once we release all that trauma, once we let go of all that negativity, all that negative mindset, we can become. And so that's kind of how, where my journey has been, you know, seeing the lesson, seeing the gold nuggets of for me, and then really reprogramming, reconditioning my brain and my mindset to a place of empowerment.

Speaker 2: 48:53

Well, that seems like a beautiful place to end the conversation for now. I you know, stephanie, I think those, the journaling, really doing that inventory that I think you're talking about, of those relationships and looking, you know what were the lessons, what were they try to teach you? Just really powerful tools for people on that journey and the journey of healing. So thank you so much for coming on the show and sharing yourself so generously and your experiences. Thank you for being someone who's out there in the world willing to share their voice, even though it's difficult at times and sometimes shame says we should be quiet, but thank you for being someone who pushes through that and says no, I'm going to share, because you know my voice might make a difference for one more person, and although I suspect it's making a difference for way more than one, and I just really acknowledge you for everything you've done to get yourself to today on your journey and it's been a privilege having this conversation with you.

Speaker 3: 49:56

Thank you, amber, I really enjoyed this conversation as well.

Speaker 2: 50:00

For everyone listening to the show. Thank you for joining us. You'll be able to find out how to connect with Stephanie in the show notes and just have an amazing week. I love you and I will speak next week. Take care Bye.

Speaker 1: 50:14

Thank you so much for joining us for this week's episode. For more information on the show and our extraordinary guests, check out conversationsthatmatterpodcastcom.