What happens when we stop outsourcing our knowledge and begin listening to the wisdom that’s been living inside us all along?
Brenda is joined by somatic and expressive arts therapist Cathy Williams to explore what it truly means to come home to your body after trauma, burnout, and self-abandonment. Cathy shares her personal healing journey, from living in her head and overriding her intuition, to reconnecting with her body as a source of safety, guidance, and truth.
Together, they unpack how psychological abuse, people-pleasing, and over-intellectualizing can disconnect us from ourselves and how somatic awareness, creative expression, and gentle self-forgiveness can guide us back.
This episode is an invitation to soften, slow down, and remember: your body has always been trying to protect you.
In this episode, you’ll hear about:
Cathy's Body Wisdom Oracle cards are currently in a crowdfunding campaign till the end of January 2026! If you'd like to participate, click here:
https://project.liftwomen.com/p/692f852562daa122b31ea41b
Connect with yourself through Cathy’s free resources: https://www.intuitiveself.com.au/category/all-products
Follow Cathy on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/intuitiveself__
Connect with Cathy on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cathywilliams-intuitiveself/
Follow Cathy on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/IntuitiveSelfCathyW
Subscribe to Cathy on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Intuitive_Self
Resources:
Your FREE Forgive Yourself resources: https://brendareisscoaching.com/podcast-resource-optin/
Are you struggling with a situation or a person in your life? Wondering if you are ready to work on forgiving yourself? Take our quiz to find out your emotional IQ and how this impacts your ability to forgive: https://archetype.brendareisscoaching.com/sf/357cdc60
Brenda’s Website/Links
In this deeply vulnerable episode, Brenda opens up about a powerful and unexpected moment in her caregiving journey with her husband, who lives in memory care due to dementia. What began as shock and heartbreak became a profound awakening, revealing a pattern so many high-achieving, caring women carry quietly into adulthood: the Good Girl Syndrome.
Brenda explores how early conditioning to be “good” evolves into people-pleasing, over-functioning, emotional suppression, resentment, burnout, and the slow abandonment of our own needs. Through raw storytelling and compassionate reflection, she shares how this pattern showed up for her in real time and how it cracked her open to a deeper layer of grief, truth, and healing. This episode is an invitation to gently notice where you may be carrying too much, silencing yourself, or equating your worth with how much you do for others and to begin loosening those patterns with honesty, self-compassion, and courage.
Ready to break free from the good girl pattern? This worksheet is for you: https://therecreationcoach.aweb.page/breaking-free-good-girl-pattern
What You’ll Learn
Resources:
Your FREE Forgive Yourself resources: https://brendareisscoaching.com/podcast-resource-optin/
Are you struggling with a situation or a person in your life? Wondering if you are ready to work on forgiving yourself? Take our quiz to find out your emotional IQ and how this impacts your ability to forgive: https://archetype.brendareisscoaching.com/sf/357cdc60
Brenda’s Website/Links
Edit B. Kiss, a holistic mentor, success habit coach, and humanitarian award-winning author is joining me to share her story of transformation, which is as grounded as it is spiritual. After 15 years as a petroleum engineer, Edit followed a deep inner calling that led her from spreadsheets to source energy, from panic attacks to peace. Together, we talk about trauma, triggers, forgiveness, and why mindfulness is not the first step in healing. Edit shares how she learned to recognize synchronicities, how the body reveals unresolved emotional patterns, and why true change requires tending to the mind, body, and soul. We also explore her 3P and 5-Step methods for closing the gap between where you are and where you want to be. If you're navigating the unknown or feeling pulled toward something new, this conversation is a powerful reminder that healing is possible—and closer than you think.
What You’ll Learn
Get Edit’s latest book, The Gap Filler Success: Simple Steps to Reach Your Goals: https://www.amazon.com/-/he/Gap-Filler-Success-Simple-Steps/dp/B0FVG3RVW3
Learn more about Edit on her website: https://editbkiss.com/
Follow Edit on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/editbkiss
Connect with Edit on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/editbkiss/
Follow Edit on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bkissedit
Check out Edit’s YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@MagicalKarmaPriestess
Resources:
Your FREE Forgive Yourself resources: https://brendareisscoaching.com/podcast-resource-optin/
Are you struggling with a situation or a person in your life? Wondering if you are ready to work on forgiving yourself? Take our quiz to find out your emotional IQ and how this impacts your ability to forgive: https://archetype.brendareisscoaching.com/sf/357cdc60
Brenda’s Website/Links
I sat down with author and executive coach Laing Rikkers to explore how quiet rituals, creativity, and the natural world can become anchors during our deepest seasons of loss. When Laing’s younger sister died suddenly just months before the world shut down, she found herself searching for a way through overwhelming grief. What began as simple morning walks and unfiltered “morning pages” soon unfolded into Morning Leaves, her beautiful collection of plant-inspired poems and reflections.
Laing shares how slowing down helped her reconnect with herself, how creativity became a lifeline, and how she gently released the guilt she carried around her sister’s passing. She also offers the powerful checklist she uses to return to balance when life feels heavy: sleep, eat, steep, walk it, talk it, write it, and pay it forward.
What You’ll Learn
Get the 2nd Edition of Laing's book Morning Leaves: Cultivating a Life of Beauty, Meaning, and Joy: https://bookshop.org/p/books/morning-leaves-meditations-on-beauty-and-joy-laing-f-rikkers/f8c694a6cc939b5a?ean=9781636284729&next=t&next=t&affiliate=177
Connect with Laing on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/laing-rikkers
Follow Laing on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/morning_leaves_and_poetry/
Resources:
Your FREE Forgive Yourself resources: https://brendareisscoaching.com/podcast-resource-optin/
Are you struggling with a situation or a person in your life? Wondering if you are ready to work on forgiving yourself? Take our quiz to find out your emotional IQ and how this impacts your ability to forgive: https://archetype.brendareisscoaching.com/sf/357cdc60
Brenda’s Website/Links
Ever wonder how the roles you played growing up impact your life and relationships today? In this episode, I break down the six most common family dynamics and the archetypal roles we fall into. I share how self-awareness is the game changer that lets you set healthy boundaries and choose who you want to be moving forward. Remember, your family story doesn’t have to define your future. You have the power to give yourself permission to change, grow, and find more peace.
Resources:
Your FREE Forgive Yourself resources: https://brendareisscoaching.com/podcast-resource-optin/
Are you struggling with a situation or a person in your life? Wondering if you are ready to work on forgiving yourself? Take our quiz to find out your emotional IQ and how this impacts your ability to forgive: https://archetype.brendareisscoaching.com/sf/357cdc60
Brenda’s Website/Links
In this episode, I talk with the luminous Harper A. Bailey, whose debut memoir It Was Her poured straight into my heart. We talk about the dream that sparked her writing, the spiritual co-creation behind her pen name, and the moment she realized her story wasn’t just hers, it was meant to unlock stories in others. Harper shares how grief became both her wilderness and her teacher, and how processing isn’t about doing, but about learning to be with ourselves again. This conversation is all about reclaiming the wholeness we’ve always carried but sometimes forget. If you’ve ever felt stuck between the pain of the past and the hope of what could be, this episode is a reminder that you can return home to yourself at any time.
What You’ll Learn
Download the first chapter of It Was Her: https://www.harperabailey.com/
Get the full book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FMH494DB
Follow Harper on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/harper_abailey
Resources:
Your FREE Forgive Yourself resources: https://brendareisscoaching.com/podcast-resource-optin/
Are you struggling with a situation or a person in your life? Wondering if you are ready to work on forgiving yourself? Take our quiz to find out your emotional IQ and how this impacts your ability to forgive: https://archetype.brendareisscoaching.com/sf/357cdc60
Brenda’s Website/Links
If you’re the one who holds it all together—for your family, your friends, your business—but quietly struggles to ask for help yourself, this episode is for you. I know that story well. For years, I prided myself on being the strong one, the fixer, the problem solver. Until my body and spirit finally broke down.
In this conversation, I’m exploring why asking for help feels unsafe for so many high-achieving women, and how that belief was formed long before adulthood. I talk about how childhood conditioning creates the “I should be able to handle it” mindset, and what happens in our nervous system when we even think about reaching out. Most importantly, I’ll share what it looks like to rewrite that story and see asking for help not as weakness, but as wisdom.
You are worthy of support. You are allowed to have needs. And when you let yourself be held, you don’t lose your strength—you reclaim your wholeness.
What You’ll Learn
Resources:
Your FREE Forgive Yourself resources: https://brendareisscoaching.com/podcast-resource-optin/
Are you struggling with a situation or a person in your life? Wondering if you are ready to work on forgiving yourself? Take our quiz to find out your emotional IQ and how this impacts your ability to forgive: https://archetype.brendareisscoaching.com/sf/357cdc60
Brenda’s Website/Links
I’ve always believed that forgiveness is the bridge between who we’ve been and who we’re becoming, and today’s conversation is proof of that. I’m joined by Riana Malia, a board-certified neurosomatic practitioner and creator of the Clear to Create method, who helps high-achieving women break free from painful relationship patterns and finally claim the love that matches the life they’ve built.
Riana shares her powerful story of betrayal, loss, and rebuilding from the ground up, and how learning to release stored trauma at the cellular level opened the door to deep peace, purpose, and extraordinary love. We talk about why self-forgiveness is often the hardest kind, how to stop repeating old stories, and why true healing begins when you make the invisible visible.
If you’ve ever carried shame, guilt, or old pain that keeps you stuck, this episode will remind you: you don’t have to relive the past to release it, you just have to be willing to clear it.
What You’ll Learn
Discover what’s standing between you and extraordinary love with Riana’s free 40-question diagnostic assessment: https://quiz.rianamalia.com/
Connect with Riana on…
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@rianamalia121
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RianaMalia
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rianamalia/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@rianamalia
Website: https://rianamalia.com
Brilliance Brunch Event Page: https://thebrilliancebrunch.rianamalia.com
Podcast Page: https://podcast.rianamalia.com
Resources:
Your FREE Forgive Yourself resources: https://brendareisscoaching.com/podcast-resource-optin/
Are you struggling with a situation or a person in your life? Wondering if you are ready to work on forgiving yourself? Take our quiz to find out your emotional IQ and how this impacts your ability to forgive: https://archetype.brendareisscoaching.com/sf/357cdc60
Brenda’s Website/Links
Sometimes, it takes everything falling apart to discover what’s been broken all along. In this episode, I talk with Bryan Power, who went from a “pretty good” marriage to complete collapse before finding the tools that helped him rebuild his relationship stronger than ever.
We talk about what really causes relationships to unravel, how childhood wounds and attachment styles shape the way we love, and why forgiveness—for ourselves and each other—is often the key to true healing. Bryan shares how learning Integrated Attachment Theory transformed his marriage, and how facing his own patterns helped him find peace, clarity, and connection again.
If you’ve ever hit rock bottom in love or wondered if something broken can truly be made whole, this story will remind you: sometimes the breakdown is the breakthrough.
What You’ll Learn:
Take Bryan’s free attachment style quiz: https://www.myrelationshipfail.com/
Connect with Bryan on:
Resources:
Your FREE Forgive Yourself resources: https://brendareisscoaching.com/podcast-resource-optin/
Are you struggling with a situation or a person in your life? Wondering if you are ready to work on forgiving yourself? Take our quiz to find out your emotional IQ and how this impacts your ability to forgive: https://archetype.brendareisscoaching.com/sf/357cdc60
Brenda’s Website/Links
You’re confident, capable, and in control…until it comes to love.
At work, you lead with authority. At home, you walk on eggshells. You know how to speak up in the boardroom, but in relationships, your voice gets quieter. In this episode, I’m opening up about how high-achieving women like us lose our voice in love—and how we can reclaim it without losing our softness. I’ll share the five subtle signs that you’ve started to silence yourself, the deeper reasons why vulnerability feels unsafe, and the small daily practices that helped me reconnect to my truth.
You’ll hear about the power of micro-boundaries, journaling, and inner-child work, and why learning to speak up with compassion is one of the most radical acts of self-forgiveness we can make.
Resources:
Your FREE Forgive Yourself resources: https://brendareisscoaching.com/podcast-resource-optin/
Are you struggling with a situation or a person in your life? Wondering if you are ready to work on forgiving yourself? Take our quiz to find out your emotional IQ and how this impacts your ability to forgive: https://archetype.brendareisscoaching.com/sf/357cdc60
Brenda’s Website/Links
What happens when the life you built for decades disappears in a single moment? When you go to bed a wife and wake up a stranger to your own story?
In this episode, I sit down with divorce recovery coach Beth Carroll, who knows that pain all too well. After her 25-year marriage ended without warning, Beth faced the shock, grief, and loss of identity that so many women silently carry. But through subconscious reprogramming and somatic healing, she learned that transformation doesn’t have to take years—it can begin in weeks. Together, we explore what it means to release shame, let go of self-blame, and stop replaying the past so you can finally start asking, ‘What’s next for me?’
Follow Beth on Instagram and Threads: @bethcarrollcoaching
Get 65% off of Beth's Belief Breakthrough Audit with code FORGIVE: bethcarrollcoaching.store/shop/beliefbreakthroughaudit
Resources:
Your FREE Forgive Yourself resources: https://brendareisscoaching.com/podcast-resource-optin/
Are you struggling with a situation or a person in your life? Wondering if you are ready to work on forgiving yourself? Take our quiz to find out your emotional IQ and how this impacts your ability to forgive: https://archetype.brendareisscoaching.com/sf/357cdc60
Brenda’s Website/Links
Today, I’m sharing something deeply personal as well as common, especially for those of us who pride ourselves on being strong, capable, and independent. We’re exploring the hidden cost of hyper independence, that survival strategy that helps us feel safe but often leaves us lonely, exhausted, and disconnected from others.
I’ll walk you through how healthy independence can tip over into hyper independence, driven by childhood wounds, betrayals, or cultural conditioning. Together, we'll look at how keeping people at arm’s length may protect us from disappointment but also shuts out intimacy and support. I’ll offer you reflective questions and simple, practical steps to help soften your emotional armor, receive support, and communicate your needs so you can keep your strength and independence while welcoming deeper connection into your life.
If you recognize these patterns in yourself or someone you love, I invite you to join me for this honest conversation. Let’s take a breath, grab a cup of tea or coffee, and commit to opening our hearts just a little bit more because you don’t have to carry it all alone, and true freedom lives in connection.
Resources:
Your FREE Forgive Yourself resources: https://brendareisscoaching.com/podcast-resource-optin/
Are you struggling with a situation or a person in your life? Wondering if you are ready to work on forgiving yourself? Take our quiz to find out your emotional IQ and how this impacts your ability to forgive: https://archetype.brendareisscoaching.com/sf/357cdc60
Brenda’s Website/Links
"We all have needs, right? They're not selfish. They're not wrong, and they are not a weakness. They're part of being human." This solo episode dives into something that quietly shapes our emotions, choices, and relationships - unmet needs.
Many of our adult struggles stem from basic human requirements that went unfulfilled, often dating back to childhood. If you grew up in a home where safety felt uncertain, you may carry a deeper need for security. If you were only praised for achievements, you may hunger for recognition and validation. If expressing needs was labeled selfish, you may struggle with autonomy or even resting without guilt.
I share Sarah's story - a successful woman who looked like she had it all together but came to me exhausted and resentful. As a parentified child, she learned that being loved meant serving others first. Her healing began when she named her unmet need: "I need recognition for who I am, not just what I do."
The episode explores five common unmet needs: safety and security, belonging and connection, recognition and validation, autonomy and freedom, and rest and nourishment. For each, I offer practical ways to respond with self-compassion rather than shame.
"What we name, we can nurture," I remind listeners. Unmet needs aren't flaws - they're signposts pointing toward healing. The path forward requires self-awareness, honest communication, self-compassion, and the willingness to seek support.
Your needs are valid, and meeting them with gentleness is an act of self-love.
Resources:
Your FREE Forgive Yourself resources: https://brendareisscoaching.com/podcast-resource-optin/
Are you struggling with a situation or a person in your life? Wondering if you are ready to work on forgiving yourself? Take our quiz to find out your emotional IQ and how this impacts your ability to forgive: https://archetype.brendareisscoaching.com/sf/357cdc60
Brenda’s Website/Links
"Your whole being is saying nope, nope, nope, not right now." Sound familiar? This solo episode dives into something we all experience - that moment when we know change would be good for us, but we find ourselves resisting it anyway.
Resistance isn't failure or brokenness. It's often a sign you're on the right track; your system just hasn't caught up yet. After noticing this pattern with clients, friends, and colleagues lately, I felt called to explore why we resist the very growth we're seeking.
I break down three core reasons resistance shows up in our lives. First, growth threatens our familiar identity - even when our old self isn't happy, it's what we know. I share the story of a client who'd been the family "fixer" for decades and felt deep unease when setting boundaries because she didn't know who she'd be without that role.
Second, change disrupts our sense of safety and control. Our survival brain screams "danger" at the unknown, even when our conscious mind wants the change. I get vulnerable about staying in unfulfilling situations because "the pain I knew felt safer than the uncertainty of change."
Third, growth forces us to face discomfort we've been avoiding - grief, anger, shame, hurt. I share how my own resistance to forgiveness work was actually protection from decades of suppressed emotions.
Each reason comes with a gentle reframe to help you move forward with self-compassion rather than self-judgment. Because resistance isn't a stop sign - it's a signal that your system is adjusting.
Resources:
Your FREE Forgive Yourself resources: https://brendareisscoaching.com/podcast-resource-optin/
Are you struggling with a situation or a person in your life? Wondering if you are ready to work on forgiving yourself? Take our quiz to find out your emotional IQ and how this impacts your ability to forgive: https://archetype.brendareisscoaching.com/sf/357cdc60
Brenda’s Website/Links
What happens when profound love meets devastating loss? My guest Kathryn Henry, author of "A Dime to Say I Love You," shares her transformative journey through grief after losing her wife Lisa to cancer.
After a successful corporate career leading global teams at Lululemon, Gap, and Levi Strauss, Kathryn stepped away to honor a promise to her late wife: to live fully, love deeply, and tell the truth of her experience. Her memoir is a raw, honest account of how walking through illness and death became a profound spiritual awakening.
"The profound nature of that and what ensued beyond that opened my aperture of life so much more," Kathryn reflects on Lisa's transition. Through their journey together, they discovered that love doesn't end with death - it transforms.
One of the most powerful concepts we explore is AFGO - Another F*cking Growth Opportunity - a phrase that became their healing tool for reframing life's hardest moments. "It was a healing tool for us," Kathryn shares. "It helped us to recontextualize something and shift ourselves from a perspective of victim to a perspective of owning what was happening."
We delve into "dime moments" - unexpected appearances of dimes that bring presence and connection to something beyond the visible world. These moments teach us that the present is the only place we can truly operate from.
This conversation offers profound insights on using grief as a catalyst for transformation, the power of forgiveness in healing, and how love continues to show up in the most unexpected ways.
More info and links:
Resources:
Your FREE Forgive Yourself resources: https://brendareisscoaching.com/podcast-resource-optin/
Are you struggling with a situation or a person in your life? Wondering if you are ready to work on forgiving yourself? Take our quiz to find out your emotional IQ and how this impacts your ability to forgive: https://archetype.brendareisscoaching.com/sf/357cdc60
Brenda’s Website/Links
Sometimes the most profound transformations emerge from our deepest wounds. Today I welcome life coach Louisa Hext, whose story of resilience will stop you in your tracks and remind you that healing is always possible.
Louisa's journey began with a beautiful friendship - helping an elderly man named Gordy with daily tasks, groceries, and companionship. What started as genuine care and connection became a decade-long nightmare when she was falsely accused of financial exploitation after his death. Despite having only received $300 monthly for gas and time, she faced felony charges and the choice between prison or a plea bargain that would forever change her life.
"I could have all of this love for someone else or compassion for someone else, but I didn't have it for me," Louisa shares with raw honesty about her healing journey. Through therapy, inner child work, and learning to love the six-year-old version of herself, she slowly rebuilt her sense of self-worth.
The most powerful moment? Last year, after almost a decade, Louisa successfully obtained an expungement - having her record sealed forever. When she called to share this victory, she was surprised by her own flat emotions. As I reminded her, "Your body is letting go of the grief because it could finally let go after holding on for so long."
This conversation explores the intersection of shame, resilience, and the courage required to reclaim your story. It's a masterclass in forgiveness - not just of others, but of ourselves.
More info and links:
Resources:
Your FREE Forgive Yourself resources: https://brendareisscoaching.com/podcast-resource-optin/
Are you struggling with a situation or a person in your life? Wondering if you are ready to work on forgiving yourself? Take our quiz to find out your emotional IQ and how this impacts your ability to forgive: https://archetype.brendareisscoaching.com/sf/357cdc60
Brenda’s Website/Links
"I'm smart, I can figure it out at work, but not at home. I know better - why do I keep choosing the wrong people?" If this sounds familiar, you're not alone, and this episode is exactly what you need to hear.
Trauma bonds are like emotional glue that keeps you connected to someone who's not good for you through cycles of hurt, apology, and reconciliation. They feel like love, but they're actually your body responding to something familiar - even when it's not safe or healthy.
The truth is, being smart or strong doesn't make you immune. In fact, the traits that make you successful can make you more vulnerable. You're a problem solver who sees emotional distance as a challenge to overcome. You've normalized emotional labor and giving the benefit of the doubt. Most damaging of all, the pattern feels familiar because if love was inconsistent growing up, your nervous system learned that connection comes with uncertainty.
I share my own experience from my third marriage - my "awakener" relationship where I was caught in cycles of warm attention followed by complete shutdown. When he pulled away, I felt anxious and had to fix it. When he came back, it felt like relief, like the sun coming out. I told myself we were "passionate," but really, my nervous system was hooked on those highs and lows.
This episode includes five signs you might be in a trauma bond and five concrete steps to break free, including the science behind why these patterns are so addictive and healing.
Resources:
Your FREE Forgive Yourself resources: https://brendareisscoaching.com/podcast-resource-optin/
Are you struggling with a situation or a person in your life? Wondering if you are ready to work on forgiving yourself? Take our quiz to find out your emotional IQ and how this impacts your ability to forgive: https://archetype.brendareisscoaching.com/sf/357cdc60
Brenda’s Website/Links
"I told myself it would be different this time." Sound familiar? Despite being strong and self-aware, many of us find ourselves caught in the same painful relationship patterns over and over again - not because we're broken, but because our inner world is repeating what it learned long ago.
In this vulnerable episode, I share my own journey through multiple toxic relationships, including my third marriage where I ignored every red flag because I saw "potential." The wake-up call came when my therapist told me: "Brenda, love isn't like Hollywood movies. It's not supposed to be about intensity."
I explore five telltale signs you're caught in a toxic relationship cycle: always doing the emotional labor, confusing chaos with love, ignoring red flags for potential, shrinking yourself to keep peace, and ending up in the same dynamics with different people. As my AA sponsor bluntly told our group: "Any relationship based on potential is fucked."
Through my forgiveness work, I discovered my core belief: "Any man that I love will choose another woman or something over me." This pattern played out repeatedly until I could see it and heal it.
The empowering truth? You can rewrite your story. I share five practical ways to break these cycles, from validating your experience to choosing peace over familiar chaos. Remember: "Real love doesn't ask you to shrink. It celebrates your wholeness."
If you're ready to stop repeating the same painful patterns and create the healthy love you deserve, this episode offers both understanding and hope.
Resources:
Your FREE Forgive Yourself resources: https://brendareisscoaching.com/podcast-resource-optin/
Are you struggling with a situation or a person in your life? Wondering if you are ready to work on forgiving yourself? Take our quiz to find out your emotional IQ and how this impacts your ability to forgive: https://archetype.brendareisscoaching.com/sf/357cdc60
Brenda’s Website/Links
What if being "too nice" is actually a form of self-abandonment? This question stopped me cold as I caught myself saying "yes" to yet another request while my body screamed "I can't take one more thing."
Sound familiar? Between construction chaos at home, my husband's health issues, challenging client calls, and a friend needing support, I found myself pouring from an empty vessel once again. It's that moment when we smile and agree while everything inside us protests - and I realized this pattern runs deeper than just being helpful.
Self-abandonment happens when we dismiss our own needs, emotions, or truth to avoid discomfort - ours or someone else's. We become emotional caretakers of others at the cost of ourselves, and that's not kindness - it's depletion.
"Boundaries aren't about keeping people out. They're about keeping yourself in your own integrity."
Through stories of clients like Beth and Linda, I explore how childhood programming creates these patterns. We learn that love is earned through being agreeable, that "good girls don't say no," and that boundaries somehow equal meanness. But here's what changed everything for my clients: "Love that demands emotional neglect isn't love. It's obligation."
In this episode, I share practical boundary scripts, five steps to reclaim your voice, and why real kindness must include you. As I tell my clients: "Real kindness includes you. If it excludes your needs, it's not being nice and it's not kindness. It's performance."
Remember, when you stop betraying yourself to make others comfortable, you begin a powerful journey of self-loyalty and sovereignty. And that, my friend, feels liberating.
Resources:
Your FREE Forgive Yourself resources: https://brendareisscoaching.com/podcast-resource-optin/
Are you struggling with a situation or a person in your life? Wondering if you are ready to work on forgiving yourself? Take our quiz to find out your emotional IQ and how this impacts your ability to forgive: https://archetype.brendareisscoaching.com/sf/357cdc60
Brenda’s Website/Links
"Now I get to be unscripted. Now I get to be authentic. Now I get to practice all these things that I really help other people with on a deeper layer."
Sometimes the universe orchestrates exactly what we need when we need it most. As I navigate the ongoing grief of my husband's dementia journey, my home decided to reveal its own hidden wounds - dry rot behind bedroom windows, black mold in his old office, and deteriorating siding that needed complete replacement.
What started as routine window repairs became a profound metaphor for my own reconstruction process. Just as the workers discovered years of hidden damage behind beautiful facades, I found myself facing three and a half days of guttural loneliness that had been buried for decades. "I have felt lonely even in a room full of people, feeling like I didn't fit in, feeling like I was different," I share with raw honesty.
Through this vulnerable exploration, I recognize how busyness became my lifelong distraction from these deep feelings. Years of people-pleasing, external validation seeking, and maintaining personas that kept me safe but hidden from my true self. The timing wasn't lost on me - as new windows were installed to change how I see the world and how the world sees me, I was simultaneously shedding old ways of being.
This episode is about choosing authenticity over performance, connection over hiding, and the courage to be unscripted in a world that often rewards facades. It's my invitation for you to examine what might be hidden behind your own beautiful exterior and to consider what reconstruction your soul might be calling for.
Resources:
Your FREE Forgive Yourself resources: https://brendareisscoaching.com/podcast-resource-optin/
Are you struggling with a situation or a person in your life? Wondering if you are ready to work on forgiving yourself? Take our quiz to find out your emotional IQ and how this impacts your ability to forgive: https://archetype.brendareisscoaching.com/sf/357cdc60
Brenda’s Website/Links