After the Breaking: Stories of What We Rebuild After Life Breaks Us

When did you stop loving yourself?
In this season finale, I share how my rebuild started with one word I had to stop believing: selfish. As a little girl I loved to dance, and I was taught that choosing joy, choosing me, was selfish. I went straight from a home of patterns into a marriage of patterns, until no one had to say it anymore. I was guarding the cage myself.
Then in 2019 I said one yes, to an urban soul line dancing class. That yes led to community, a choir, my voice, my son, and years later an apology I never expected.
We walk through RETURN: Remember, Examine, Transform, Unlearn, Reclaim, Nurture. The framework for coming home to ourselves.
The thing they called selfish was the way home.

Go deeper: linktr.ee/browngirlinterrupting

#AfterTheBreaking #ComingHome #HealingJourney #InnerChildHealing #SelfLove #BreakingCycles #LifeAfterDivorce #BrownGirlInterrupting

For years, every buzz of my phone made my stomach drop. His name meant a fight I hadn't agreed to. And then one day I realized the war was still going — he was still fighting it. I had just stopped showing up.

Leaving was the loud part. Nobody warns you about the after: when you share children with someone, you don't get to fully leave. You renegotiate them, over and over, for years. This episode is about the thing that finally saved me. It wasn't winning. It was neutrality.

I used to tell this story as a weather report — what he did, what he said, what he tried this time. Now I tell it differently. He's the weather. I'm the ground. In this episode I walk through the times I stopped reacting, stopped chasing the narrative, stopped performing for everyone watching — and the one day I lost my footing and had to find my way back to center. Because this isn't a before and after. It's a practice. I don't arrive at it. I return to it.

If you're coparenting with someone who still tries to pull you into the storm, I hope this gives you a place to stand.

Ready to protect your peace and reclaim your calm? Empowerment Unlocked is built for exactly this. Book a discovery call and find everything at the link below.

Linktree: https://tr.ee/FhVCsn3taW

Bold, not bitter. Come rise with me.

#AfterTheBreaking #Coparenting #ParentalAlienation #NarcissisticAbuseRecovery #HealingJourney #ProtectYourPeace #WomenSupportingWomen

People always ask when I left. Like there was a day. There wasn't a day — there were about a thousand of them.

This is the story behind the name of this show. Seventeen years of marriage, told in five movements — not steps, because I didn't walk out in a straight line. I decided to leave, and then I took it back. I stayed longer after I knew than before I knew. 

In this episode I talk about the pride that kept me in, the micro-moments where I first knew, the reasons I stayed, and the day the reasons finally ran out. I also read a poem called "Control" out loud — the first piece of my own writing I ever performed in front of strangers, three years after I left.

If you've ever wondered why you stayed as long as you did, or felt ashamed of how long your own leaving took — this one's for you. You weren't stuck. You were in motion.

Ready to stop surviving and start rising? Empowerment Unlocked is where the real work begins. Book a discovery call and find everything at the link below.

Linktree:  https://tr.ee/FhVCsn3taW

#AfterTheBreaking #HealingJourney #LeavingAnAbusiveRelationship #WomenSupportingWomen #NarcissisticAbuseRecovery #DivorceRecovery #Storytelling

I used to think healing meant going back — back to who I was before it all broke. But she was never coming back. She was the skin, not the self.

In this episode of After the Breaking, I'm sharing the five skins we shed after a marriage or relationship ends — and the woman who grows underneath.

In this episode: • Shedding self-abandonment for self-loyalty • Trading performing "okayness" for modeling repair with our children • Moving from auditioning to be chosen → to discerning who even earns a seat at the table • Releasing the shrinking, the fawning, the over-explaining — for quiet authority • And the hardest skin of all: letting the shedding decide who gets to stay

Healing after the breaking isn't one moment. Glass shatters once. Skin sheds again and again. And every time you shed, the people around you either evolve with you — or reveal they can't.

After the Breaking is where we talk about the part of healing no one prepares you for. Not the leaving. Not the grief. But the after — the quiet, disorienting work of rebuilding yourself when the noise finally stops. I'm Marya, also known as Brown Girl Interrupting, and every week I share my own story and the real lessons of healing after a marriage or relationship breaks.

If this resonated, subscribe, like, and share it with someone who needs to remember who they are. Leave a comment below — which skin are you shedding right now?

✨ Ready to go deeper? Empowerment Unlocked (group course) + one-on-one discovery calls + our brand-new season Pain to Power (October) — everything's in one place: 👉 linktr.ee/browngirlinterrupting

I left the marriage. I did not leave the hole.
In this episode, I'm taking you back to where this all started — not the leaving itself, but everything that came after it. The patterns that crept back in. The thoughts that didn't get the memo that I was free. The years it took to realize that healing wasn't a single decision, it was a hole I had to actually climb out of, slowly, more than once.
I'm also sharing a few entries from notes I wrote on my phone during the final years of my marriage — never meant for anyone but me, written just to survive. I'm reading them now because no one tells you that the unraveling of a marriage doesn't happen in one fight or one day. It happens in a million small moments that quietly add up until you can finally see the whole picture.
This episode is about why I built Brown Girl Interrupting the way I did, why "After the Breaking" is the name of this show, and why I show up for women the way I once needed someone to show up for me.
If this resonates, this is what we go deeper on inside Empowerment Unlocked — and if you want to talk it through with me directly, I offer free discovery calls too. Both are linked below.
🔗 linktr.ee/browngirlinterrupting
A Million Moments on Substack
https://substack.com/@browngirlinterr...
#AfterTheBreaking #BrownGirlInterrupting #HealingJourney #NarcissisticAbuseRecovery #ConsciousLove #SelfReclamation #EmpoweredWomen #OriginStory

What if the reason you keep going quiet — agreeing when you don't, staying small when you want to speak — isn't a character flaw?
What if it's a scar?
In this episode of After the Breaking, I'm getting into something I lived for seventeen years inside a marriage built on emotional abuse, and that I've spent the eight years since trying to unlearn: the pattern of shrinking to stay safe.

If any of it sounds like yours, you're in the right place.

If you're ready to go deeper, Empowerment Unlocked is open — five sessions of real conversation in community to help you come home to yourself.

Join Empowerment Unlocked  https://tr.ee/lQl0VIUmOp

Want to work with Marya directly?

Book a free discovery call and let's talk about where you are and what's possible.
Let’s Map your Path to Healing  https://tr.ee/FhVCsn3taW

After the Breaking — because healing isn't about becoming someone new. It's about returning to who you were before the world told you who to be.

Emotional abuse doesn't just break your heart.
It breaks your ability to trust your own mind.
The second-guessing. The self-doubt. The inability to make a simple decision without needing someone else to confirm you're not wrong. The shrinking at work, in parenting, in friendships — in your own life.
That's not weakness. That's what happens when someone spends years quietly dismantling your sense of reality.
In this episode of After the Breaking, we name the part of emotional abuse that nobody talks about — the slow, deliberate erosion of self-competence. And we talk about what it actually looks like to rebuild it.
In this episode:
Why emotional abuse targets your confidence, not just your heart
The areas of life where self-doubt quietly takes over — work, parenting, relationships, decisions
What gaslighting does to your inner compass over time
How the RETURN framework helps you reclaim trust in yourself
What healing actually looks like — not all at once, but moment by moment
This isn't about becoming someone new. It's about returning to the woman who always knew — before the noise told her she didn't.

Ready to go deeper?
If this episode resonated, Empowerment Unlocked is where the real work begins. Resources, community, and tools to support your return to yourself.
Join Empowerment Unlocked  https://tr.ee/lQl0VIUmOp

Want to work with Marya directly? Book a free discovery call and let's talk about where you are and what's possible.
Let’s Map your Path to Healing  https://tr.ee/FhVCsn3taW
After the breaking, we rebuild differently.
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#AfterTheBreaking #EmotionalAbuse #HealingJourney #SelfConfidence #EmpowermentUnlocked #ConsciousHealing #WomenWhoSurvived #BrownGirlInterrupting #RETURN #HealingAfterAbuse

Most men say they want a strong woman.
 But what they really mean is they want a woman who endures.
There’s a difference.
In this episode of After the Breaking, we talk about what it actually takes to love a woman who has survived a narcissistic relationship.
She’s not insecure.
 She’s informed.
 She’s not difficult.
 She’s discerning.
After emotional manipulation, gaslighting, inconsistency, and ego-driven love, a woman changes. Her nervous system changes. Her standards change. Her tolerance changes.
And if you want to be with her, you need to understand what that means.
If you are a man who truly wants to love better — listen closely.
If you are a woman who survived — this is your clarity.
After the breaking, we rebuild differently.
https://browngirlinterrupting.com/
✨ Subscribe for more episodes of After the Breaking
✨ Stories of what we rebuild after life breaks us
✨ From Brown Girl Interrupting — Coming Home to Self

I broke. Not quietly, not gracefully — into shattered pieces that took years to gather back up. Seventeen years of marriage that I walked into at twenty-three and walked out of at forty, four children, and a version of myself I no longer recognized on the other side of a narcissistic relationship. This is where the rebuilding started. And this is what After the Breaking is about.

In this first episode, I'm introducing myself — I'm Marya, also known as Brown Girl Interrupting — and the heart of this show: what we do after life breaks us. Because the breaking comes for all of us. A divorce, a brutal breakup, a job that falls apart, an empty nest. There's a moment, especially for women, where we realize we don't know who we are anymore. I've lived in that moment. And I'm living proof that it gets better — not by magic, not because someone swoops in and saves you, but because you do the work of coming home to yourself.

So I'm starting where healing really starts: with what we let go of. Here are the five things I've learned to release in order to vibrate higher — not chasing happiness, but chasing peace:

1. Give up control — stop digging up the seed to check if it's grown.
2. Stop absorbing other people's pain — you can hold concern without carrying what was never yours to fix.
3. Release old stories — the loops of rejection and abandonment keep you convinced you deserve them. Write a new one.
4. Let go of resentment — the bitterness we hold only harms us; the past isn't ours to control.
5. Step forward as your authentic self — the highest vibration you can have is being fully, imperfectly, beautifully you.

This is my starting point. If any of it resonates, come sit with me.

🎙️ Watch, follow, and go deeper:
🔗 Everything in one place: linktr.ee/browngirlinterrupting
📺 Catch my talk show Pain to Power — Sundays at 8PM on YouTube (@BrownGirlInterrupting)
✍️ Read my writing on the whole journey — dating, motherhood, and life inside and after a narcissistic relationship — on Substack
🌐 www.browngirlinterrupting.com
💬 Drop a comment: What have you let go of to vibrate higher? What's helping you rise?

Keep rising, keep finding your light — and remember who you are.