Episode 72
Navigating Toxic Relationships

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Description

In this episode, we have an extraordinary guest, Bre Wolta, a relationship clarity coach who runs her own business called Lucid Living, where she helps women find clarity in their relationships. We dive deep into the harsh realities of toxic relationships and how to navigate yourself out of them.

Talking Points

1. What inspired Bre’s business ‘Lucid Living’
   
2. Common toxic relationship aspects
   
3. What it looks like when family or friends get involved
   
4. The breaking point
   
5. Gaslighting
   
6. Working through the trauma from a detrimental toxic relationship
   
7. Boundaries
   
8. Cutting the Cord & The Empty Chair
   
9. Bre’s Curriculum
   
10. Touching base on plant based medicine
    

Quotes

”Love Bombing is the beginning stage of the relationship, it’s all of the affirmations, the gifts, the sweet words that we’ve never heard before, and it’s intoxicating. So that is the initial phase where you latch on, and then what happens as the relationship progresses is you might start to see some things, warning signs, temper tantrums, things that don’t feel good, you get that gut feeling, and that’s where you start to question yourself and sense of reality.”

– Kate Nelson, MS, LPC, RYT – 200, Clinical Director

Episode Transcripts

Episode 72 Transcripts

Brandon Burns here chief executive chief executive officer for Peaks Recovery Center is excited to bring you on to this exciting episode here at uh finding Peaks today for um I’m a little distracted right now because we have our friend outside who’s suffering from a mental health issue we’re compassionate and filled with empathy here at Peaks but we’re just going to have to roll through that as a background noise today so uh with that bringing it a full back into Circle here joined today uh by our co-host Kate Clinical Director all of us women’s programming at Peaks recovery Center’s LPC super talented thanks for being here I’m really excited to be here for this topic thanks for having me absolutely and we have Bree wolta with Lucid living the relationship Clarity coach starter founder president CEO all the things operations running it today thank you yeah thank you so much for coming down here today and joining us to talk about your work and what’s going on so thank you for being here thanks for having me absolutely so I’ve had the opportunity and the privilege to review some of your work online and your podcast episodes and so forth and I think you know let’s let’s dive in and talk about your work in general and I think just kind of a as a basic framework for this kind of what inspired Lucid living as a journey and how did we come together today yeah well I think as a lot of therapists and coaches we all kind of find ourselves in helping roles because of something that we have gone through so I went through a pretty dysfunctional and toxic relationship and it was through understanding that I was even in something like that like wrestling with that for many years and then finding the courage to leave that situation and then what happened in the aftermath and the amount of confusion and turmoil and needing to learn boundaries and all of these things that you just get like thrown into the fire when I came through that experience and integrated that I was like I would like to help other people do this because there wasn’t like a road map you know there was there was a therapist that I have who didn’t she hadn’t gone through it herself so like obviously she is a support person and super helpful but didn’t have that first hand like I’ve been there type of understanding same with friends and family like they were supportive in the ways that they could be supportive but there’s so many nuances in healing from something of that caliber and I had a pretty extreme experience but dysfunction in general is really confusing yeah why we stay and why we can’t let them go and why we keep going back and why we hang on to this place of hope you know so to be a coach and to be able to guide other people in something that I’ve walked through is really powerful for them to to lower their shame and their embarrassment I was like I start with every client saying there’s nothing you can say to me that I haven’t done thought or said you know it’s like there’s so many commonalities in the experience yeah so it’s such an honor to be able to to help and see them make changes in their their world yeah wonderful you Kate have the experience of the therapist chair yes and the coaching chair here today so this is great to just have these you know converting perspectives uh in that regard and uh you know with that when my when I think about you know toxic relationships uh as well too I think we all are uh moved by our personal experiences in that regard as well too and so I think there’s a commonality that brings this room together in that sort of way and so you know between the two of you you know let’s let’s talk to the viewers about those uh pers not the Deep dive into those personal experiences but through those personal experiences the inspiration and what we feel like we can give back you know in that regard and maybe common features that we’re seeing within the clients that we’re seeing at any given time that are bringing people you know to these Services I can speak to that so much like free I found myself in a toxic relationship at a young age and it took me eight years to leave I’m now eight years out of it so it seems really like a long time ago and like a very different person that I was at that time um but there are just a lot of things that I think a lot of people don’t realize about these relationships and why people stay and a big part of it is much like you mentioned before Brandon is it is kind of like an addiction um in the sense that it there’s a cycle to it and so a lot of women and some men I don’t want to exclude men out of this because it does happen to men as well um they’ll find themselves in what we call love bombing and so love bombing is the beginning stage of the relationship it’s all of the affirmations the gifts the the sweet words that we’ve never heard before and it’s it’s intoxicating so that is the initial phase where you latch on and then what happens as the relationship progresses is you might start to see some things some warnings sign some temper tantrums some things that don’t feel good you get that gut feeling right and and that’s where you start to sort of question yourself and your sense of reality as it continues to go then you are going to start to see the physical verbal or emotional abuse whatever that looks like and then there’s kind of the calm afterwards where the person in the relationship is kind of like what happened should I leave did I do something wrong and then we go back up to the love bombing in the honeymoon and so you end up finding yourself staying for those dopamine hits that you get from this person that is just showering you with everything um and so that that’s the cycle and that is why it gets harder and harder to leave because every time you go through it your self-esteem deep Dives and you don’t have the strength to leave yeah the phenomenon of you know how narcissist that the narcissistic cycle and how they give you breadcrumbs right they start with the love bombing and then they slowly start to dis discard you and they give you so little that any little thing that they do give you is so important to you that it almost overshadows yeah all of the [ __ ] that they’ve been doing yeah um and then you start the justifications of why it’s okay and why they’re trying and why it’s not a red flag um and it’s all part of their cycle to get it the control to get the validation and it’s almost like they they get off on being able to control your emotions and to push you away and pull you back whenever they want right and your confidence does it like tanks because not only in that situation are you confused as hell and what is going on but they are intentionally gaslighting you to make you feel like more confused and like gets all your fault yeah so what is it like as a personal experience then okay now you’ve had these experiences you’ve gone through that sort of honeymoon phase of a relationship and now it’s forming those toxic those toxic behaviors are coming out now you’re hanging out with your friends or whatever and you’re displaying this to your friends and they’re saying hey something’s wrong here and you gotta go but that doesn’t feel like a tripwire you know in that regard it’s almost like the friends become you know you guys are wrong I’m just trying to share a story here and it’s just this you know moment uh uh can you just just describe to our viewers a little bit more about what it’s like to be around people have your best interests in mind but a rejection of that information all at the same time because you can’t have the hindsight moment yet right of like any of my friends were right so you’re sitting in that moment and what is it like to be in that um you know are we still trying to your head maybe I shouldn’t even brought this up to my friends you know what is that experience like I know we’re both like I could say I do I remember this so well and it’s interesting talking about it I’m like wow I remember some stuff about this um I actually had two friends tell me they were going to have an intervention to uh have me not marry this person and then they were afraid they’d lose my friendship and so they didn’t but there were certainly conversations before that like are you sure this seems unhealthy we’re worried about you um and what happened for me is I just stopped sharing and then it became a secret that made me sicker and sicker because I knew that they would tell me to leave and I knew at that time I didn’t have the strength too yeah it’s very isolating yeah because you’re feeling already so confused about what’s happening you want this person to be the person they were in the beginning this this love bomb version that was like you know promising marriage or whatever and it’s if you have an accepted reality yet you’re confused about it you’re ashamed about it and as you share with your friends and you’re hearing them say he’s not a good person you need to leave whatever you start defending so you actually switch over into the other role of like I’m not only not gonna hear what you’re saying but I’m gonna defend why he’s doing the best he can or whatever and that you know that pushes friendships apart that puts you more in isolation you feel more Shame about it and it’s you end up feeling like you are alone and crazy so so you’re going through these processes right and you we get sicker and sicker as the language is informed right Within it you know as as personal experiences what is what becomes the breaking point what becomes like the aha moment of like I think all my friends were right and I feel this now and like what is that experience like um or how do you find that or as a process of discovery is it commonplace for a lot of women or is it just more personalized you know in that regard just curious about that from the yeah so not only from a personal standpoint but I worked um in a domestic violence shelter for three years so you know I really learned a lot about this pattern and unfortunately it takes women about seven times before they actually leave they go back a lot because there’s another common phrase in this Dynamic hoovering where they suck you back in um I’ll change I’ll do the therapy I’ll you know do everything you said I’ll go back on medication and so you’re like okay well I’ll give it another shot and that’s what pulls people back in um and so I don’t and maybe we can speak to this too but I don’t think there’s a set formula I think there’s an element of either I’m going to die in this Dynamic from him or you know harm that I might cause to myself or I have enough things motivators kind of like with addiction external reasons of why I need to finally take care of myself yeah I struggled with with that for a long time because it was clear in my body that something wasn’t right like I’m like I don’t think you’re supposed to be this unhappy in a relationship and I had always had the understanding that relationships were hard that was a false belief that I adopted when I was younger and so part of me felt like it was normal but as it started to progress um it was little things that people said that were like planting seeds so a piece of advice for people if they have friends in this the situation is like just plant Little Seeds don’t come at them with like he is ruining our life what are you doing because that will make them retract and then defend so I had a my therapist at the time um I was making all the excuses all the justifications for him and she just asked me she’s like what are the things that you like about him right now and I I was listing things I liked before right I liked all the love bombings yeah the love bombing and she’s like no right now and I couldn’t give her an answer and so that was a massive aha moment for me where I was like why am I with somebody where I can’t list even one thing that I like right now and then when I was in the phase of like I think I need to do it I was I was teetering and more on the edge of like knowing I needed to but scared shitless of doing that a friend of mine was like either you go through this moment of pain and like discomfort or you live the rest of your life in pain and discomfort and that was like a huge aha for me where I was like I am in a lot of pain and I am becoming somebody that I don’t even recognize anymore and I was like this I don’t I can’t like I literally cannot sustain in this this environment yeah I was just going to add that um you know it’s cool to have this come full circle in the healing work that I’ve done and you know we talk about recovery like I you know you probably feel like you’re in recovery from an abusive relationship but I’ve gained a lot of insight personally and I’ve really been able to bring that with clients and what I see with our clients is um time and space away from it and that’s what you know treatment gives them a lot of times that is just perspective like I need to get some perspective and some outside opinions on this also connection finding like safety and connection with you know other staff members other peers and stuff like that and like wow like I don’t need to like live in this isolated state by myself there’s people that love me absolutely co-host getting a little bit ahead of hosts here I’m sorry I just got really excited

I love it though love your energy uh we’re gonna come right back to that um you know one one feature of that you know came up at least in um you know podcasts and uh in your literature that have come across free is the what makes it difficult to get out is this uh language of gaslighting uh in that regard and I thought you brought a brilliant metaphor forward which I had never heard were the term gasoline actually came from was an old movie of some sort I didn’t seek out the name of the movie in that regard but I thought it was a brilliant metaphor and I was hopeful that you could introduce that to our audience as well too and then we could have you know a common discussion thereafter about that as a feature of this making it kind of difficult to get out of so that the viewers can understand or maybe even experience like oh that’s what that is because I’ve experienced that too right yeah yeah I think it was a 1904 would have been earlier but essentially the the middle character was dimming the gaslights in the house the actual Lighting in the room and he did it little by little and as the woman was like I think it’s getting darker in here he’s like no it’s not just so matter-of-factly completely died denied her reality and kept turning it down until it was almost almost pitch black and when she was like no it’s definitely getting darker in here and he’s like something’s wrong with you you must have something going on in your head that’s making you like assume that it’s dark in here and it’s such a I think that’s the term originated from the movie because gaslighting is where they deny your reality they spin you around they throw you into all of these word salads so that you get so confused on what you’re even thinking feeling needing that you you like give up essentially you’re like okay I don’t need that anymore and not only that but all of that is wrong right right and that is it’s like a it’s like a sort of Silent enemy right you come in to bring your emotions your ideas thoughts into the situation and for it to be spun around into you as the experiencer right thinking well maybe I actually don’t feel any of those sort of things and to lose all of that ground that you probably ruminated about to even bring into the room in the first place right um and it probably the impact of it as well too I mean I can imagine not experiencing it you know I think in the way that you guys are sharing with the audience here as pretty shameful and defeating as an experience um so you know out of that then uh what was it like to kind of go through that so that you know maybe we can Engage The Audience just a little bit further about um insights into what that experience is like and what it feels like to go through that I know from my experience um you just really start to question yourself and your decision making and your perception of reality because perfect example with that movie um it’s slight little um things that they might lie about or shift or that conversation didn’t happen or it wasn’t said this way to the point where you do start to feel a little crazy um and so then when they call you crazy you know you’re kind of like I mean I guess I have been remembering things wrong or seeing things wrong like and you start to lose that self-esteem question you know other relationships and how you’re showing up in those and so it’s it’s just a really big mind game until you’re at a point where you don’t really even know what’s true anymore that was my experience

hopelessness real like it it used to take me weeks to to lead up to understand what I was feeling to be able to think about bringing it to the table to try to have a conversation about it because I knew that it was going to turn into a fight immediately right and that I was gonna likely leave the conversation like thinking it was my fault anyway so what’s the point of bringing it up and I remember towards the end when it got really bad like I used to take notes after fights to remind myself of what actually was said because to your point yeah it’s little things that you could almost argue with yourself like well maybe they didn’t say that or maybe we did come to a resolution around that and I just forgot or even like why would they lie about that yeah yeah yeah and the the sickest part of it is it’s such it’s such an Insidious form of abuse because they know what they’re doing and they’re doing it on purpose to deflect having to take accountability or anything right and then also to just know that they’re in control of you and your mind and it’s it is so hard to come out of that type of experience and to even understand that you are in an experience like that because it’s so it’s like you’re in a fog you cannot see you don’t know what what is real anymore so it it’s not just uh maybe an experience but a commonality because I think about it too as well like do at least in this particular situation do the men in your lives know consciously that they’re you know committing you to the suffering or is it sort of an unconscious thing because you know when we think about you know mental health and substance use disorders we do the Deep dive into inner child work and all that stuff and then we turns out on the other side men and women are kind of suffering from these you know pre-existing uh situations that they went through that form these maladapted behaviors over time and so I think about it sometimes as like you know we have one individual suffering within the toxic relationship and another is suffering from that history and projecting it um so in that way it could feel unconscious but through the experiences it’s felt like they’re consciously doing it and then maybe in the evidence as well too what you guys have learned through you know your schooling and your research and all of this as well too that these are actually there’s a real intentionality behind it yeah it’s interesting because there’s so much more research being done on this topic now and a literature that’s coming out and there is this pattern of empaths which you’re probably an empathy me too and narcissus um and this Dynamic of narcissists being able to kind of sniff out an empath um and finding those individuals who are just going to be really forgiving compassionate you know see the the good in people and stuff like that narcissism you know really stems from a lot of insecurity um and needing constant ego boosts right and so what better way than to have somebody that you can completely control somebody that continues to come back to you even in your worst moments and worst times and so you know I intentionality I think it can go lots of different ways Brandon but I think mostly yes there is intention I don’t know if they are always have awareness that it is that intentional for them what do you think I think it’s on a spectrum yeah right like we I think we both had experiences with narcissists yeah and and it can be part of their behavior is a maladaptive maladaptive behavior in order to you know deflect having to take accountability deflect having any sort of um you know light shown on that they’re not a good person or their their shortcomings so I think they learn through their life how to manipulate people so that they never have to look at that because it’s so painful so there’s an there’s an element of you know understanding they need to sort of like manipulate people and then on the very other end of that scale there are like the malignant narcissists who actually part of their narcissism is to inflict pain on purpose and so depending on sort of the type of narcissist you get if it’s a narcissist right I also think people who are not narcissists can Gaslight okay um I think it’s less intentionally to hurt people and more of just like the they they can’t take the accountability so they push push push and they just learn how to adapt but with the malignant narcissist like that they do they they get off on not just controlling you but causing you pains physical or psychological physical emotional all of it well I appreciate you drawing out the narcissist there as kind of a definition and it has a spectrum and how it operates because I think at least sometimes here at you know good old Peaks Recovery Center sometimes like somebody’s a narcissist and it’s not actually the case because it’s a very particular type of right you know person and I think I think it I think it’d be right to call it a mental health disorder right in that regard it’s not normal behaviors in the sense of how to nurture relationships and Foster them so uh so yeah I appreciate you bringing that out because sometimes that word gets lobbed around and I think right concise definition in a spectrum of it is important yeah yeah NPD like narcissistic personality disorder is a disorder that you know maybe think it’s seven percent of the population is actually diagnosed but people can have narcissistic Tendencies yeah so there’s there’s a wide there’s a wide spectrum yeah wow really one in ten almost as a disorder that’s I did not think it was that high but that’s interesting uh certainly so you know with gaslighting uh as a feature of this I mean it could be gas I mean it could be a variety of different you know little T traumas that take place but it feels like this becomes a very traumatic experience if we’re not feeling it uh within the moment as a traumatic experience it feels like in a hindsight you know kind of rearview mirror moment of it it’s pretty traumatizing and out of that so we’re not only balancing like the awareness around the condition and what we’re suffering from as well too but now we have to work through a process on the other side and what is that like you know whether it’s um you know just talk therapy to ground ourselves or you know actually identifying real trauma moments within and I think you know Brie on some of your past episodes you talked about those beginning EMDR sessions and that sort of thing to you know create that awareness and so just hopeful to talk to the viewers a little bit more about um you know trauma whether it’s Big T Little T and what that’s like to kind of start the healing process on the other side as personal experiences yeah yeah yeah I’ll start eating um gosh there’s so much you know Works to to work through with when you’re talking about these abusive relationships um I can speak for me and also kind of some of the interventions that we use at the women’s program but a lot of it starts with first you have to let go of your shame you know there’s so much shame involved with us why did I stay I can’t believe I let myself be treated like that um you know and getting out of that space first and and really recognizing like a lot of women fall into this and Men um this is a pattern that happens to a lot of people and I don’t need to live in shame and then you can start to rebuild yourself and find self-love again and self-compassion and then going into that there’s trauma interventions like EMDR and somatic experiencing brain spotting you know to get to some of the things that still are activating you know we have to Target those things like flashbacks nightmares all those things that still happen as you’re walking through it and so talk therapy processing but also these other trauma interventions I think are a really important component yeah they’re trying it’s definitely traumatic I mean there are moments in the healing process that need to be Unwound um I I talk about my experience of when I left it was like this [ __ ] slap from the universe it was the aftermath of that decision was so horrific in so many ways his behavior and what he did and all of it was so eye-opening that not only did I get confirmation that I made the right decision but I also got confirmation of how bad things were right and that’s coming back into the reality of what you were in and what it was will not only help you heal moving forward but it helps you from stop going back yes um thankfully I never had the like desire after the the second or the final attempt to to go back because of his behavior um but what that did for me is it really illuminated all of the things that I was doing that was contributing to the dynamic so my co-dependency my lack of boundaries my like lack of self-esteem and confidence like all of those things became so clear to me like okay I need to like work on that to be able to heal from this and not have this happen again because not only are they attracted to empaths but like not all empaths are Unbound read so you have to learn how to be boundaried and how to know who you are and exude that because that will in essence be less appealing to them because they can’t they can’t puppet you if you have boundaries totally right yeah so learning that is a big big part of the the healing process yeah because it there’s that relapse potential right and this you know kind of is the caring metaphor of you know addiction into toxic relationships and then without the boundaries right I mean boundaries encourage um emotional safety for the individual and so forth and without that tool kit right you know you get the text or whatever the case might be right um so I I think through that you know I always uh you know family systems at Peaks will come up they’ll say hey Brandon I’m sitting in a boundary and I’m like well tell me what the boundary is and they tell me and I’m like that’s not a boundary like that’s a wall that’s like a rule you just made up to like stop something from happening right let’s think about this a little bit more but uh because it came up as a word you know within this framework um you know I would just love for you two to share your experiences about boundaries and and what those actually are and then the power that comes with them on the other side so uh because I think it’s one of those things that viewers um you know you really do have to build some muscle around it to get it right because it is a difficult I think it’s an easy concept up front and then like when you put it into play it becomes this really challenging aspect um so share with us that please work in progress and something you know I think we are always working on getting better at but I know for me like I just have to start practicing in my relationships family friends um dating you know like when something doesn’t feel good why is that and and noticing my body and stuff um and then setting the expectation hey moving forward like um I’m not going to be treated this way or when we when we communicate like I can’t have yelling or race tones or anything like that um you set the boundary if it gets crossed then it only works if you stick to it right so that at that point you know that relationship is severed or you know you establish a new boundary um whatever that looks like next time we’re going to take a break before it gets to that point you know and stuff like that but it’s really the follow-through that has to be consistent in order for it to work and it took me a lot of practice but I’m definitely better at setting boundaries now I love it I think boundaries can sometimes come off as like a pretty clinical word for sure right yeah we use it a lot yeah and really and that can feel like I know in my experience in the beginning I was like I have to like build this Fortress around me and like this armor like that’s what I thought boundaries were which is also unhealthy you know um but boundaries really are just being able to speak your needs and your expectations in order to feel safe and supported so like if you are in a situation where you’re feeling unsafe or unseen or unsupported you can identify like oh I need to have space for my voice in this conversation too and then you can request that and people can always say yes or no right and then it comes to like well what are you gonna what is the consequence for yourself if they say no are you going to say that you can no longer have them in your life are you going to say you can no longer interact in this way like what is the how how will you take care of yourself despite them choosing to to adhere to your boundary or not um but just simplifying it down to like what do you need do you need to say no do you need to change how often you see the person like it doesn’t always have to be do this or else and in fact the ultimatums is not a boundary right yeah yeah totally and it feels like an early recovery Journeys that’s what we get is yeah the ultimatum you know if you leave treatment this happens versus I think um you know what we’ve done well in our family systems practices of course is encourage families too boundaries are prior to the event yeah your needs and your safety prior to the moment happening so it’s something to be discussed before all the other things take place and then we learn how to do that within treatment episodes and you know real quick back before we kind of bridge this Gap from you know the personal experiences into the professional side of things and you know carrying that your both your projects forward and this regard are you know going back to the moment of that honeymoon period of relationship so difficult to know in that moment if you’re with somebody who is going to potentially you know have these behaviors on the other side and you know I don’t know if there’s a silver bulletin answer or anything like this there’s probably not thinking about it out loud but you know what what can for the sake of this conversation right what can women do out there maybe to kind of locate like sort of these uh the problems as they arise and and go okay I’ve heard about that before and that seems a little bit different than a normal relationship like are there more identifying features of this weekend even if we’re working through a honeymoon you know moon phase of something um just to you know at least get people a little bit aware of it maybe it if anything it’ll support maybe the over commitment until like month nine until you can fully see what’s going on you know something like that yeah I think number one pay attention to the love bombing there’s a difference between you know the romance in the beginning of the relationship and the butterflies and the fun that comes with that right like we all enjoy that feeling um between that and like saying things too early like I’m gonna marry you you’re the love of my life you’re my soul mate we’re going to have babies together if those things are starting you know to be said really early out the gate like I would always pay attention to that um and then paying attention like a big thing for me was my body like why do I have knots in my stomach all the time you know and really listening to that gut feeling like it matters um and we teach that a lot to the women like what was your body telling you in those moments right and then noticing you know the small things like a big reaction to a small problem um or noticing it seems like their story changed and that’s not what they said last time those little things I ignored along the way but those are good indicators in the beginning like something’s up and there’s a red flag Happening Here yeah I tell clients and people I talk to in general that like if it feels too good to be true

you know like you’re taking extravagant trips within a couple of months you’re you know planning um living together after a couple of months like these big these big things that are like oh but he just loves me so much it’s like but that’s not how normal relationships progress right so and and a piece of that too is um like part of the love bombing in that whole phase is to avoid reality because it’s when you start like trying to speak your needs or trying to set a boundary or start disagreeing with them that’s when they’re like real personalities come out so if you can like start to speak your needs along the way and just see how they react when you’re like no you know I know we have plans tonight but I I really just had an overwhelming day I need to take some self-care like how do they react to that right do they respect it right or do they shame you somehow or make you feel guilty and then you’re like okay I’ll come anyway right yeah um and part of in the beginning of getting to know each other to trauma bonding can happen with narcissists it’s another way that they can see that they can like kind of latch on and you know almost be your savior in some way of like I’ll hold all of your trauma so if you find yourself over disclosing or they’re over disclosing and it’s like I shouldn’t know about your deep childhood trauma on like the second date you know yeah like that’s a little weird but there are so many like justifications that you can give for that type of behavior so part of building a healthy relationship is like slowly building trust yeah and as you lean in a little they lean in a little and then the trust builds and then you lean in a little more and they lean in a little more yeah so like do you have that dance going or is it just like you’re both full in all the way you’re moving in together and traveling to Bali like yeah yeah I love that I think that’s great insights into just the way to approach a relationship in general it you know it just has me thinking about like you know when my wife you know goes out of town or she went to a concert just last week and then I was just like you know babe you have a great time love you and then like in that moment I’m like I just get to uh appreciate that she’s off doing her thing and then I’m sitting at the home with my dogs and like I never cook and I’m like this is a bachelor moment like I get to do quesadilla and what if she’s having a good time and I get to like figure out how to survive on like cheese and you know tortillas like they used to 15 years ago and yeah um and there’s a beauty in that balance is what I’m trying to share and what comes up for me in that way of things that that time and space apart is appropriate and it’s nurturing and um might be a good indication of somebody’s resistant to their own time and space in that regard yeah two more things that just came to mind for like red flags um that just that like if you don’t really have your space anymore or if you don’t want to have your space anymore you want to spend all of your time with them they want all of your time like there’s not a healthy amount of like interdependence um and then paying attention to if they have long-standing friendships yes so yeah that’s a really good one for with narcissists specifically they don’t they’re they don’t have the capacity to truly connect and have authentic relationships that are long-standing because eventually they’ll discard right it’s not just romantic they they are manipulating and controlling everybody in their life so if you are with someone and they’re like they don’t have a friend group or their friend group is very surface and that you’re like you’ve known each other for a month or whatever you know paying attention like who are the people they have in their life yeah is a big big big red flag yeah it’s a really good one Bree put a let’s put a shindig yes get out of all the people in the room bring all your friends I’ll bring all my friends yeah you know like we’ll mingle and if no friends show up that I don’t have any friends probably run you know or if they’re all just work friends right yeah yeah you know how you know they’ve been at the job for six months or whatever like that doesn’t count as a long stance absolutely no great insights and I appreciate you bringing those uh two other aspects forward and so transitioning now uh uh I’m sure uh you knew this shared this with you we had Tim sure um doing uh his uh bringing his success and uh book on leadership and so forth into this room just a few short weeks ago the secret society of success in particular for the viewers out there go back watch it especially Professionals in our industry and so forth just a lot of great insights and how how to nurture teams and environments especially within leadership roles but I was out on a walk small little hike with him prior to him coming on the episode and I asked him you know like what inspired the book in the first place who are you writing to as an audience and he also talks about this on his leadership podcast as well too I believe it’s episode five I can’t remember his guess but both of them conveyed the point that like we write the books for ourselves first right there was something that I was doing for Tim it was like I was living in the spotlight mentally and I thought as I learned how to be you know Chief Operating Officer in time and learn those leadership skill sets you know I found that I wanted to support people so they could avoid you know that type of leadership behavior and that way of things and it seems like you know through these personal experiences and journey sitting in front of a therapist now nurturing you know women who come through Peaks uh you know and certainly in the past in your private practice and now through your coaching model as well too that out of these experiences it felt like um you know I don’t want to over stretch here but to say that kind of writing your own book in this regard and out of that truth developing these you know business models and so forth that can be supportive of others that are suffering in the same way and um you know certainly correct me if I’m wrong but your services um uh seem to start with the cord cutting ceremony in that in that way and I think that’s a powerful aspect of lucid living and what you’re bringing uh to women that you’re coaching and would just love to you know start with that as a as a platform as a ceremonial event that takes place and where would that was inspired from and then we’ll just you know build on the professionalism from there yeah so before the coaching before this Direction with working with dysfunctional relationships and finding healing in that I started doing just cord cutting ceremonies I had taken a course in Shamanism during quarantine actually okay because it was the first time that I wanted to explore spirituality I was never a religious person I didn’t grow up in church I didn’t really have a concept for a higher power and a friend of mine was running this course on Shamanism like that makes sense like nature signs animals like all that feels more natural to me so part of that course was learning this ceremony learning this cord cutting ceremony and it’s performed in a lot of different ways but essentially it’s being able to energetically detach from anything that’s that’s an energy leak so that’s sucking your energy so a lot of uh people who do cord cuttings will do it between you and another person which is totally valid we have energy exchange with everybody we come in contact with what resonated for me was to be able to detach from a past version of yourself so when I work with clients we go through a 12-week container and we get really clear on what what is that version of you that’s in these relationships what are the patterns and the beliefs and the you know maladaptive things that you learned and and getting a good view of her and being able to then move towards your higher self and be able to let her go and it’s not from a place of I hate you you ruined my life it’s it’s from a place of love and honor because we all learn different things on different parts of our journey so just because I wasn’t given the tools to know what a healthy relationship was and set the foundation for me to be more attractive to narcissists or unhealthy people like that was not that was not um there’s nothing wrong with that inherently it’s like integrating that experience and learning from it and then moving continuing to move forward but if we have this energy leak into that version of us and we’re feeling shame and embarrassment and heaviness from all of that it’s hard to it’s hard to keep going right so being able to energetically let that go and just it’s it’s really a commitment ceremony to you and your healing of this is what I know this is what I know I no longer need and this is this is what I’m choosing to do yeah it’s it’s powerful and I know it’s brought up on some of the past podcast episodes that you’re on and you’re welcome to represent these podcasts on here because it was uh it was Rise From the Ashes or From the Ashes from yeah is it was an excellent podcast I thought the narration of it was great who’s the host of it uh Mark Azula Mark aslay uh great stuff and I thought he did a wonderful job but his sort of it just reminds me in this moment uh you know just to bring basically his metaphor that he brought to you that we weren’t severing things here right it’s kind of a you know kind of pushing the suffering boat out to see in that regard and having a ceremonial sort of view of it in that regard a Letting Go feature rather than like we’re going to be done thinking about that right because these experiences are stuck in time right so they are very real things that you know at least in our psyche will carry through in some aspect for our lifetimes in that regard and so I think it’s a more of a light gentle push out to see as he said you know in that regard versus like burn the ship to the ground sort of experience yeah absolutely I’ve had clients have experiences of one client in particular she we always integrate on the back end of what the ceremony was like and she’s like I saw this past version of my self almost holding back the darkness being like go go go like I got it like you can leave like I’m okay and you’re okay and she said that was the most profound permission that she had ever understood from herself and that’s how change happens right it happens when we internally know and when we feel it and when we experience it um so yeah it’s definitely a place of like that girl went through some [ __ ] girl or guy right I do chord cuttings for all genders but um it’s it’s it’s like respecting yeah that part of your story and letting it still be in the story without having to be attached to you energetically right now love it yeah yeah I love it how does it you know and you loving it too how does that really you know like in your journey in that regard you know um you know maybe you don’t call it in your therapy sessions cord cutting that sort of thing but is there something like that that you think from a therapeutic value composition that you walk you know clients through as well to that we can share with the audience I mean honestly it’s similar to what Bree’s talking about um we go at a lot of different angles we we have a grief week in our curriculum you know and sometimes they grieve the loss of the relationship of the person but a lot of times they’ll grieve kind of I’m letting go of that part of me um I don’t need to hold on to her anymore I don’t need to shame her anymore and so you know we’ll do what’s called empty chair work an evidence-based intervention there’s literally an empty chair sitting across from you a lot of people start with feeling like it’s pretty weird and hokey but if they let themselves kind of sink into the experience imagining that version of themselves sitting across from them letting them go saying goodbye thanking them for things that they’ve learned from them and then we also kind of lean into inner child work a lot of these patterns start younger it isn’t like these confident strong women are just walking about and they just get swooped up by a nurse this is right like there were there were pieces and parts that weren’t working before low self-esteem I was bullied in school my dad you know wasn’t there for me and so it creates the inner workings to be susceptible to those types of relationships so we need to go back to that that little part of you that you know inner child that’s still hurting and needs nurturing and we do some writing around that we do some Bodywork around that creating safe a safe space where you can feel safe and also like nurture that part of you and also sounds corny but you know sometimes we need to re-parent ourselves is what we call you know talking to ourselves in the way that we need it and and you you literally see people kind of like start to come up to their age I once worked with a client who presented very young in session and then as we continue to do this work she she started to look and act her age um so yeah really cool stuff yeah it’s powerful stuff you know as industry insiders we get to you know often you know I mean you know I came to this industry as I’ve shared on this podcast many of times like totally ground I didn’t even know what a PHP was and IOP you know talks to relationships wouldn’t even been thinking about it you know in my mind coming into this and first readings of some of this stuff I think in the public sphere of things is like it is hokey it is kind of yeah you know Fufu snap or whatever like why are they doing this why am I paying a thousand dollars a day to send my loved one Retreats and do this you know at the end of the day but you know we get to live and experience the the change in real time and it’s some of the the great gifts we get um as an industry is to see that progress and that change and so you know hold on to that viewers because we it is very real and it is very special uh as a process and you know you two women get to bring people through these processes in this extraordinary way and it’s just powerful and you know with that you know Brie I want to talk just a little bit about that curriculum you know within Lucid living and okay so we’re at cord cutting ceremony we have that acceptance to move forward in this path and to do the challenging thing to learn all the boundaries to learn the insights and to you know start backing out of that relationship uh so you know after cord cutting where do we go from there usually the cord cutting is towards the end of the so I work in the 12-week containers okay and it’s towards the end so what we’ve been doing for the weeks leading up to is really getting clear on who they are because also what happens in these relationships and because we’re primed to be codependent we are very externally focused and so we know what everyone else needs we know how to anticipate other people we’re very hyper Vigilant we we got everything else besides ourselves and that often comes from what we learn when we’re young and so being able to help them see that those Tendencies are from your childhood circumstances yeah and the phenomenon of repetitive compulsion I teach about because it’s fascinating to me that we experience a wounding in our childhood and then we adopt behaviors to try to get our needs met because it’s too painful for us to assume that it’s our parents responsibility that something happened because they’re the superhero right so we assume all fault and then we adapt all these behaviors to try to manipulate to get our needs met and then as we go like move into adulthood we are choosing people unconsciously that represent the original wounding to try to fix it now and that’s why we attract people who like they say you’re dating your mom or you’re dating your dad it’s like because that’s the original wound that we’re trying to work out with this person but it’s not it’s not it doesn’t work you just re-wound yourself so bringing Clarity to all of these pieces of the puzzle and how you can drop shame around all of this experience because you were set up with this deck of cards and so we aren’t responsible for the traumas that happen but we’re responsible for like clearing them so that they’re not driving our life from the back seat so bringing all of that for forward and then helping them identify what are your values what are your needs and your wants like that exercise that I do with clients is one of the most profound because they’ve never asked themselves those questions I remember in my healing when I did that it I was like I don’t know what do you like like that was literally my answer and I had to go moment to moment throughout my day of like okay I think I’m doing something I like and I’d write it down like that was how disconnected I was from myself and I share that with clients because it like there’s no shame in that if you weren’t taught how to be self-reflective and if you weren’t in a safe enough environment to explore yourself because you had to be hyper Vigilant on everyone else like that’s not your fault yeah so helping them start to get curious and date themselves because we can’t have healthy relationships externally until we have a healthy one internally right so we get curious we learn how to build trust with ourself we learn how to communicate and hold boundaries with ourself because part of building the trust is like not letting your little girl get hurt anymore so you have to prove to her that you’re going to show up and so doing all those pieces and then coming to the cord cutting and allowing them to let her go let all of that maladaptive coping and survival go is such a it’s such like the crescendo of the of the experience gotcha yeah terrible reading of the cord cutting and what in my future about it you know I just saw it you know as I’m reading through the literature and listening to the podcast and uh you know in that regard like you know speaking of like you know just historical principles that form like it’s I see the words cord cutting I’m like oh that’s the beginning because that’s how I came into this world so that would be the beginning of the ending of the relationship like into the curriculum so that’s my missed charitable misreading of of that situation so thank you for clarifying that absolutely not fully though because I do I hold individual cord cutting ceremonies too okay um and sometimes people who have come to those actually turn into clients okay so it can happen in sort of both ways because it sort of brings awareness to more things that you need to like identify yeah but in terms of the actual coaching container the the structure is that it happens towards the end got it okay well now we have to do the whole episode over again so we’ll just we’ll just start it for minute one and we’ll do the whole thing again uh so that’s brilliant so at what point in the process are we actually like moving I mean to me it sounds like it’s going to come up sometime on the Spectrum where we actually exit the relationship like where does that actually take place in your curriculum or is it just uh when the inspiration obtains or when the individual finally feels ready within that process but it feels like it’s going to happen before cord cutting as the full curriculum right yeah everybody everybody’s on their own track so some people I start working with when they’re already exited and either can’t stop going back or they’re like that was what was that that was a narcissistic situation I don’t know how to move forward so some people have already made the decision that they that was crazy and they need to heal but other people are either still in the process of going back and just need more data so I do a lot of data collection we do a lot of journaling a lot of bringing you back into reality again of like what’s happening now how are they showing up right now how does that compare to your values and are they meeting your needs and once once you start identifying what these things are you start setting a bar for yourself so that you can finally like like weigh someone against that because if you don’t know what you need or who you are you’ll take whatever is given to you so to be able to have a backboard of like oh wait I really Value Health and Fitness and they sit on the couch all weekend like well is that working for you you know and just being it being able to look at it pretty objectively yeah um and and having those sort of like seeds right planted where they come to the conclusion on their own of how it’s not working instead of me coming in being like all right week five he’s out you know yeah that’s not in sweaty Palms week five have to do the thing right yeah and really like the first very first week we take an inventory and that’s really focused on the partner and the dynamic but after week one we’re really we’re really focusing on them and what they’re feeling and what they’re experiencing so they can choose to stay or leave at any point during that that process right and that that sounds critically important too because I went I did my you know trauma five-day intensive once upon a time a couple years ago and I got into like day two of it you know we’re just doing like you know reading letters or something like this and uh there were five people in the group uh two men three women and like on day two the three women were like you know what I think we’re done with our relationships I think that’s the price you know there’s it was such a such a Sprint to that it’s like the silver bullet pulled the lever Finish Line and so I think there’s a maturity within the curriculum in that regard and an actual honoring of the person who’s absent within it because they might not be in the you know dire position of you know the full-blown narcissist in that regard and there might be room for Behavioral change and room for reconnecting in that regard and so having that exploratory sort of period makes a great deal of sense because it would be easy to be like you know fire alarm with no understanding just pull the lever and do it but you know uh that would feels kind of short-sighted within a curriculum sort of side of things yeah I definitely work with clients who are with narcissists or have been with narcissists but I also work with clients who are just in dysfunction and and I try to steer away from like one person’s the villain and one person’s you know like the one being taken taken advantage of because in my definition of a dysfunctional relationship it takes two people to create a dysfunctional relationship right because if you have dysfunction and your partner doesn’t your partner’s not going to hang around right you know both people are in dysfunction that’s why you’re dancing so like you can take responsibility for what’s yours and then as you take responsibility for what’s yours paying attention to are they taking responsibility for what’s theirs and if they are and there’s room to to work on communication or rebuild trust or whatever awesome I’m not in the business of like trying to like break up people just to break up people if it’s abusive and it’s like you know clearly an unsafe situation where there are more real conversations that happen but not all of my clients are leaving their Partners or yet or are ready or whatever they’re all in different sort of phases of of it but my job as the coach is to help them get clarity on their side of the street what is what is theirs who are they what are they bringing to the relationship and controlling what they can control and giving responsibility to their partner for what they’re responsible for so they’re not responsible for their emotions and their reactions and their life anymore yeah you know and really choosing to step out of that rescuer role and disrupt the system and see what happens like does that other person rise in their healing or do they discard you to find another person that will fill that role yeah absolutely powerful stuff I we’re coming up on time here um and I want to be sensitive to that and just so grateful for this conversation and I know it can continue in a variety of different ways um but I’m I’m bringing on uh the the Colorado uh natural medicine folks uh next week who are pushing forward the legislation that would bring plant-based medicine into organization like Peaks Recovery Center is certainly into practices like yours down the road in 2026 in that regard and um so before I dive into that I just want to check the box you know with you Bri to see if there’s anything else you know you’re that I might be missing or that you would like to add to this discussion maybe that we’ve kind of glossed over to this point or I think we’ve covered a lot of a lot of good territory yeah a lot of good stuff awesome well um so plant-based medicine across your platforms and podcasts and things that you’ve done you’ve been so vulnerable about it in your own experiences of working with plant-based medicine and for me and us at Peaks recovery centers um you know when we we’ve talked about it on the show we’ve talked about it with our psychiatrists our doctors and so forth you know ssris work 30 of the time around major depressive disorders like there’s a great deal of limitations in what we’ve been able to bring forward as an industry and so plant-based medicine is bringing forward just a world of potential in that regard and so um you know before you know next week’s episode I hope you could share in some of that vulnerability around your experiences as well too but maybe introduce the topic to our viewers in a way around that those components of intentionality that we talked about prior to the episode and sort of you know the value propositions through your personal experiences and then what you’ve seen in sort of those communal settings in your travels and the power that you know comes with it when we’re not looking at it as something to abuse but something to gain insights Within and what comes from you know those experiences yeah oh gosh yeah set and setting is so important so important I was never a recreational psychedelic user so I don’t have the experience of of using it on that purpose yeah um but being in circles with people who either are in recovery or have used it and had really bad trips before when you are held in a circle with a facilitator and it’s sacred this is sacred medicine oftentimes that we’re working with and it’s treated with respect and there’s a structure and you feel safe you can surrender in that so when we’re held we can actually lean in when we don’t have any boundaries when we don’t have anybody to hold us then that’s when we need to get protective and our defenses come in and we start having these bad experiences so doing it in a way that’s sacred and honoring and that you’re coming in with something that you want to work with or an intention that you have is so so important it’s important and you might have an intention and be shown something completely different yeah so true so the bigger intention is really to surrender to the process of the medicine because it’s when we start to fight what’s happening that it gets harder and I don’t like to use the verbiage of like a bad experience and a good experience because if you have a lighter more fun more visual experience you could be learning just as much as if you are diving into your trauma and you’re seeing darkness and it’s a heavier experience so kind of being open and being being willing to face whatever will be presented and not try to control it the number one fear that I hear from people who want to come on Retreat or or do these circles is like I don’t like being out of control I’m like that’s probably what you’re going to work on then because you have you have to surrender um but if you’re in a space with someone you trust the medicine is pure you know so many Ayahuasca specifically has has blown up in the in the news and so going down to Peru or to other places where it’s commercialized now and there are some really reputable treatment centers and there are some who are doing it to make a lot of money and they’re not doing it from a place of reverence for the medicine so just being really careful of who you’re sitting with um and as far as the medicine itself I think there’s there’s place for all parts of healing there’s place for the processing and more of the analytical under standing of what’s Happening there’s plates for the trauma work that you do with the therapist there’s also a place for spirituality and there’s a place for plant medicine in a way that it helps you lower your defenses so that you can actually access these these pain points these wounds so when we’re in when we’re in our our conscious mind our ego is often playing like the bouncer so when we take a substance like Ayahuasca or psilocybin or MDMA or ketamine or whatever it is it helps to it helps to remove the bouncer so that we can actually get in there to the places of our mind that often feel too scary to touch and what we find not obviously not everyone’s experience is the same but the the part even if it’s scary and dark in the in the initial like introduction of that if you lean into it it changes and it transforms into something beautiful and so it’s such an analogy for life right of like not running away from our pain but actually opening up the light into it and that’s how we heal it is we look at it and we integrate it if we keep running it when we keep stuffing like it’s just gonna come out some other ways it’s not it doesn’t go anywhere yeah yeah I love it I love it too I think that you know it’s it’s a challenging I it feels internally like a challenging conversation at the same time it doesn’t feel like it should be challenging um in that regard and being so close to substance use disorder I can I I think this is an important discussion bec