Confessions of a Freebird - Midlife, Divorce, Heal, and Date Differently with Somatic Experiencing, Empty Nest, Well-Being, Happiness

Have you ever felt like something was wrong with your body, but no one could tell you why? After my own health crisis left doctors searching for answers, I began to understand how deeply our physical and emotional health are connected.

My guest is Dr. Karyn Shanks, physician and author of Unbroken: Reclaim Your Wholeness. Karyn has spent four decades on both sides of the exam table: first as a doctor trained in internal medicine, then as a patient searching for her own answers, which led her to functional medicine. We talk about what her medical training left out, why Western medicine often misses the whole person, and why self-compassion is essential to healing.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• What functional medicine is, and how its root-cause approach to chronic illness differs from conventional medicine
• What epigenetics is, and how your daily habits and environment influence the way your genes work
• What Dr. Gabor Maté’s work teaches us about the connection between trauma and the body
• How suppressed emotions and chronic stress can show up as physical symptoms
• Why emotional eating and self-soothing behaviors are often tied to unmet emotional needs
• How self-compassion helps you make healthier choices without guilt or shame

Whether you're living with symptoms no one has explained, or you're tired of meeting your cravings with shame, this conversation gives you a doctor's map back to whole-person healing.

Much love and freedom,

Laurie

Free Resources

Click here to schedule a FREE inquiry call with me.

Click here for my FREE “Beginner’s Guide to Somatic Healing”

Click here for my FREE Core Values Exercise

Want to try somatic work for free? Download my somatic exercises on Insight Timer and start reconnecting with your body today.

Connect with me:

Click here to purchase my “Nervous System Regulation Starter Kit” it’s $29.99

Click here to purchase my book: Sandwiched: A Memoir of Holding On and Letting Go

Website

Instagram

Substack

Connect with Dr. Karyn

Website: karynshanksmd.com

IG: @karynshanksmd  

Facebook

LinkedIn

Please leave me feedback. I cannot respond so if you'd like me to respond, please leave your email

***********************
DISCLAIMER: THE COMMENTARY AND OPINIONS AVAILABLE ON THIS PODCAST ARE FOR INFORMATIONAL AND ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY AND NOT FOR THE PURPOSE OF PROVIDING LEGAL, MEDICAL OR PROFESSIONAL ADVICE. YOU SHOULD CONTACT A LICENSED THERAPIST IF YOU ARE EXPERIENCING SUICIDAL THOUGHTS. YOU SHOULD CONTACT AN ATTORNEY IN YOUR STATE TO OBTAIN LEGAL ADVICE. YOU SHOULD CONTACT A LICENSED MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL WITH RESPECT TO ANY MEDICAL ISSUE OR PROBLEM.

What if emotional and binge eating aren't a willpower problem but your nervous system trying to keep you safe?

You've read the books and done the therapy, and you can explain your emotional eating better than most. 

Still, after a hard day, you're at the counter eating faster than you can taste. Most advice on how to stop binge eating starts by taking food away. Stephanie starts with the nervous system. Stress eating is a body stuck in fight-or-flight (sympathetic nervous system), reaching for quick energy. 

Banning the cookies only convinces your system there's a famine. I sat down with Stephanie Mara Fox, a Somatic Nutritional Counselor with a master's in somatic psychotherapy who is now completing her PhD on food behaviors. We talk about why nervous system regulation can't become one more thing to get right, and the embodiment practices she uses when the body is hard to come home to. 

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• How to tell physical hunger vs emotional hunger in your own body.
• Why rating your capacity on a scale of 1-10 is a great place to start
• Why a simple 1–10 capacity check is the place to start 
• Why the binge-restrict cycle keeps pulling you back to what your body already knows 
• What "why do I eat so fast?" reveals about the meals you grew up with 
• The decades-old theory behind why banning a food makes you want it more
• How food can lift you out of collapse or contain you in fight-or-flight, and how to tell which 
• A practice to match the intensity you are experiencing in your body when being still or meditation isn’t for you
• Why food neutrality should come first, and what embodied eating looks like at the table
• The unlikely body part Stephanie starts with when finding embodiment
• What to say to yourself after a binge so the shame doesn’t take hold 

Whether you're still caught in the binge-restrict cycle or years into recovery and reaching for food when life gets loud, this conversation offers a kinder way to listen to what your body is asking for.

Much love and freedom,

Laurie

Free Resources

Click here to schedule a FREE inquiry call with me.

Click here for my FREE “Beginner’s Guide to Somatic Healing”

Click here for my FREE Core Values Exercise

Want to try somatic work for free? Download my somatic exercises on Insight Timer and start reconnecting with your body today.

Connect with me:

Click here to purchase my “Nervous System Regulation Starter Kit” it’s $29.99

Click here to purchase my book: Sandwiched: A Memoir of Holding On and Letting Go

Website

Instagram

Substack

Connect with Staphanie:

Website: stephaniemara.com

Somatic Eating® Website: somaticeating.com

Email: [email protected]

Instagram: @_stephaniemara

Want more from Stephanie? Listen to her podcast, Satiated

Please leave me feedback. I cannot respond so if you'd like me to respond, please leave your email

***********************
DISCLAIMER: THE COMMENTARY AND OPINIONS AVAILABLE ON THIS PODCAST ARE FOR INFORMATIONAL AND ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY AND NOT FOR THE PURPOSE OF PROVIDING LEGAL, MEDICAL OR PROFESSIONAL ADVICE. YOU SHOULD CONTACT A LICENSED THERAPIST IF YOU ARE EXPERIENCING SUICIDAL THOUGHTS. YOU SHOULD CONTACT AN ATTORNEY IN YOUR STATE TO OBTAIN LEGAL ADVICE. YOU SHOULD CONTACT A LICENSED MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL WITH RESPECT TO ANY MEDICAL ISSUE OR PROBLEM.

A year and a half after my divorce was finalized, I ended up in the hospital, and none of the tests could explain why. It took two hospital visits and a year of somatic healing to understand what had happened: my body had shut down from stress. The trauma stored in my body and nervous system was never going to show up on a medical chart.

As a Somatic Experiencing practitioner, I'm sharing this story in full for the first time, including the unexpected turn my emotional healing after divorce took.

In this episode, I share:

• Why chronic stress symptoms in women can build for decades before the body forces a stop
• What somatic therapy gave me that talk therapy couldn't, and the kind of healing only the body can do
• How to become a human being, not a human doing, when your worth has always come from productivity
• Why a regulated nervous system isn't about staying calm, and what itreal regulation looks like instead
• 
  
• How to gradually expand your window of tolerance so your body can handle more activation and rest more deeply
• The first of three Somatic Experiencing exercises, and what it does that your thinking mind can't
• What pendulation looks like in practice, and how long to stay with a hard sensation before moving on
• Why healing alone takes longer, and what co-regulation offers your nervous system that solitudeself-healing can't
• How to find a compassionate witness when a practitioner isn't within reach
• The root of my childhood roottrauma I finally found beneath my lifelong longing for a partner and how I care for her
• Three easy Somatic Experiencing exercises, and what it does that your thinking mind can't

Your body has been carrying everything you couldn't. This story is an invitation to let it start setting some of that down.

Much love and freedom,

Laurie

Free Resources

Click here to schedule a FREE inquiry call with me.

Click here for my FREE “Beginner’s Guide to Somatic Healing”

Click here for my FREE Core Values Exercise

Want to try somatic work for free? Download my somatic exercises on Insight Timer and start reconnecting with your body today.

Connect with me:

Click here to purchase my “Nervous System Regulation Starter Kit” it’s $29.99

Click here to purchase my book: Sandwiched: A Memoir of Holding On and Letting Go

Website

Instagram

Substack

Please leave me feedback. I cannot respond so if you'd like me to respond, please leave your email

***********************
DISCLAIMER: THE COMMENTARY AND OPINIONS AVAILABLE ON THIS PODCAST ARE FOR INFORMATIONAL AND ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY AND NOT FOR THE PURPOSE OF PROVIDING LEGAL, MEDICAL OR PROFESSIONAL ADVICE. YOU SHOULD CONTACT A LICENSED THERAPIST IF YOU ARE EXPERIENCING SUICIDAL THOUGHTS. YOU SHOULD CONTACT AN ATTORNEY IN YOUR STATE TO OBTAIN LEGAL ADVICE. YOU SHOULD CONTACT A LICENSED MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL WITH RESPECT TO ANY MEDICAL ISSUE OR PROBLEM.

Why do you keep reacting the same way in conflict, even after all the work you've done?

You've been to therapy. You've read the books. You know what a healthy relationship is supposed to look like. And still, when things get tense, you snap, shut down, or give in. If that's you, this conversation is for you.

My guest is Zach Brittle, a certified Gottman therapist, Relational Life Therapist, host of Marriage Therapy Radio, and author of two relationship guides. We talk about the Gottman predictors of divorce, where Terry Real's Relational Life Therapy (RLT) picks up, and what sobriety and relationships taught Zach about anger in marriage. 

In this episode, you'll learn:

• The question Zach asks himself when anger takes over, and how it shifts the story from the inside out (think parts work)
• Why getting sober didn't end his anger and resentment, and what recovery turned out to be about
• The difference between emotional sobriety and white-knuckling it, and why the same test applies to your relationships
• The Four Horsemen (criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling) and how to tell when they're working against you
• Why contempt is the single biggest predictor of divorce
• How defensiveness in relationships becomes useful once you check whether the threat is real
• The Brussels sprouts lesson that turns criticism into a request your partner can actually hear
• What Zach advises when a defensive partner can't or won't show up as an adult
• Why kids need healthy parents more than parents who stay together, and what staying in an unhappy marriage teaches them

Whether you're working on your marriage or healing from one, this conversation will help you understand your reactions and choose new ones.

Much love and freedom,

Laurie

Free Resources

Click here to schedule a FREE inquiry call with me.

Click here for my FREE “Beginner’s Guide to Somatic Healing”

Click here for my FREE Core Values Exercise

Want to try somatic work for free? Download my somatic exercises on Insight Timer and start reconnecting with your body today.

Connect with me:

Click here to purchase my “Nervous System Regulation Starter Kit” it’s $29.99

Click here to purchase my book: Sandwiched: A Memoir of Holding On and Letting Go

Website

Instagram

Substack

Connect with Zach:

Website

Substack

Instagram

Please leave me feedback. I cannot respond so if you'd like me to respond, please leave your email

***********************
DISCLAIMER: THE COMMENTARY AND OPINIONS AVAILABLE ON THIS PODCAST ARE FOR INFORMATIONAL AND ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY AND NOT FOR THE PURPOSE OF PROVIDING LEGAL, MEDICAL OR PROFESSIONAL ADVICE. YOU SHOULD CONTACT A LICENSED THERAPIST IF YOU ARE EXPERIENCING SUICIDAL THOUGHTS. YOU SHOULD CONTACT AN ATTORNEY IN YOUR STATE TO OBTAIN LEGAL ADVICE. YOU SHOULD CONTACT A LICENSED MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL WITH RESPECT TO ANY MEDICAL ISSUE OR PROBLEM.

Who are you once your career title no longer defines you?

The team meetings. The decades of being known by peers, subordinates, and bosses who knew the old you. The social interaction and the productivity you're wired for.

Like a lot of midlife women and men, you've built the career, raised the kids, and been the one everyone counts on — and now the role that organized your days is ending. You expected relief. What showed up instead was excitement, grief, and fear, all at once.

All three are valid. But left unexamined, they can keep you stuck. The identity crisis that follows a midlife career change is what happens when the thing holding it together ends — and the fear underneath it rarely survives a close look.

Today I'm joined by Johanna Danaher — mindset, life, and leadership coach, founder of Anchor to Aspire, and former senior director of career growth at Pfizer after more than two decades in HR.

We take the excitement, the grief, and the fear one at a time, and get into nervous system regulation, asking for help, and how to stop people-pleasing once you can see where the habit started.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• The three feelings that arrived at once when Johanna left Pfizer — and what each one asked of her
• Why grief after a long career has no timeline and can't be scheduled away
• How she memorialized 25 years of work so she could finally set it down
• What she wrote about first, and the second question that made the exercise useful
• The specific fear underneath her midlife transition, and why failure had nothing to do with it
• How the body reads uncertainty as danger — and what you can do to recognize it and move through it
• The two-part practice for when fear shows up physically
• How helper energy turns into people-pleasing, and the one shift that keeps it from becoming burnout
• The new perspective on "you can't pour from an empty cup" that stopped Johanna mid-sentence
• The one question you need to answer to redefine success on your own terms

Whether you're a year into a midlife reinvention, or still inside the role and already wondering who you'll be without it — this conversation gives you a way to hold the grief, the fear, and the excitement all at once.

Much love and freedom,

Laurie

Free Resources

Click here to schedule a FREE inquiry call with me.

Click here for my FREE “Beginner’s Guide to Somatic Healing”

Click here for my FREE Core Values Exercise

Want to try somatic work for free? Download my somatic exercises on Insight Timer and start reconnecting with your body today.

Connect with me:

Click here to purchase my “Nervous System Regulation Starter Kit” it’s $29.99

Click here to purchase my book: Sandwiched: A Memoir of Holding On and Letting Go

Website

Instagram

Substack

Connect with Johanna:

Website

LinkedIn

Please leave me feedback. I cannot respond so if you'd like me to respond, please leave your email

***********************
DISCLAIMER: THE COMMENTARY AND OPINIONS AVAILABLE ON THIS PODCAST ARE FOR INFORMATIONAL AND ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY AND NOT FOR THE PURPOSE OF PROVIDING LEGAL, MEDICAL OR PROFESSIONAL ADVICE. YOU SHOULD CONTACT A LICENSED THERAPIST IF YOU ARE EXPERIENCING SUICIDAL THOUGHTS. YOU SHOULD CONTACT AN ATTORNEY IN YOUR STATE TO OBTAIN LEGAL ADVICE. YOU SHOULD CONTACT A LICENSED MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL WITH RESPECT TO ANY MEDICAL ISSUE OR PROBLEM.

Have you been in a misogynistic relationship for years without ever naming it?

You might have called it a difficult marriage, a controlling husband, a spiteful partner or "just a complicated dynamic." Maybe you're only now able to say the word misogyny out loud. If so, this episode is for you.

What most people don't realize is that the recent rise in misogyny didn't start with an election or a headline. Researchers tracked the pattern building for nearly two years before it reached the mainstream — quietly moving into ordinary marriages long before anyone had a name for it.

In this solo episode, I walk through the rise in misogyny, why your nervous system chooses the partners it chooses, and the specific steps that support healing afterward.

You'll learn:

• Why the rise in misogyny didn't start with a headline — and how long researchers tracked the pattern before it went mainstream
• How childhood trauma and old attachment wounds teach your nervous system what to accept in a partner, long before you ever meet them
• How early conditioning determines who you choose as a partner
• What happens in your body during the fawn response — and why it develops as a survival strategy
• How psychological abuse predicts PTSD more often than physical abuse, based on the research
• Why boundary setting can start with something as small as rescheduling a dinner when you're tired
• How body awareness practices — a hand on your chest, noticing your feet on the floor — help regulate the nervous system after it activates
• What parts work, or Internal Family Systems, reveals about the specific roles different parts of you took on to keep you safe
• The difference between your essential self and your social self, and how to find your way back to who you were meant to be
• How self-trust rebuilds through small, repeated actions — like saying a true statement in a low-stakes conversation

If you're looking for more self-trust, want to find your essential self, or are working through trauma and divorce recovery, this conversation walks you through the rise in misogyny, why you chose the partner you chose, and what it takes to heal — starting with your own nervous system.

Much love and freedom,

Laurie

Free Resources

Click here to schedule a FREE inquiry call with me.

Click here for my FREE “Beginner’s Guide to Somatic Healing”

Click here for my FREE Core Values Exercise

Want to try somatic work for free? Download my somatic exercises on Insight Timer and start reconnecting with your body today.

Connect with me:

If you're local to the South Bay, join me at Harmony Yoga in Hermosa Beach for a four-week somatic and yoga course — Thursday evenings from 6:30 to 8 p.m. starting September 3rd.

Click here to purchase my “Nervous System Regulation Starter Kit” it’s $29.99

Click here to purchase my book: Sandwiched: A Memoir of Holding On and Letting Go

Website

Instagram

Substack

Revisit my past conversations with Kate:

Listen to part one of my conversation with Kate on The Divorce Survival Guide podcast here.

Episode 228
Is it Time to Leave: How do I know if Divorce is the right choice for me

Feel Safe Again in Love: How Somatic Healing Supports Secure Relationships

Please leave me feedback. I cannot respond so if you'd like me to respond, please leave your email

***********************
DISCLAIMER: THE COMMENTARY AND OPINIONS AVAILABLE ON THIS PODCAST ARE FOR INFORMATIONAL AND ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY AND NOT FOR THE PURPOSE OF PROVIDING LEGAL, MEDICAL OR PROFESSIONAL ADVICE. YOU SHOULD CONTACT A LICENSED THERAPIST IF YOU ARE EXPERIENCING SUICIDAL THOUGHTS. YOU SHOULD CONTACT AN ATTORNEY IN YOUR STATE TO OBTAIN LEGAL ADVICE. YOU SHOULD CONTACT A LICENSED MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL WITH RESPECT TO ANY MEDICAL ISSUE OR PROBLEM.

Nearly half of all women in the U.S. have experienced psychological aggression from a partner — gaslighting, isolation, coercive control. Most never call it abuse. They call it a difficult marriage, a controlling husband, a complicated dynamic or a spiteful partner. If you've spent years second-guessing your own memory, wondering if it counts because he never hit you — this episode is for you.

I'm joined by Kate Anthony — certified high conflict divorce coach, host of The Divorce Survival Guide podcast, and author of The D Word: Making the Ultimate Decision About Your Marriage.

We talk about why emotional abuse leaves deeper, longer-lasting harm than physical abuse(PTSD), the psychological framework that separates a coercive controller from a narcissist, and the specific work each of us did to rebuild self-trust before dating again.

You'll learn:

• Why women describe psychological abuse as "a difficult marriage" — and what changes when you name it as abuse
• The signs of emotional abuse that leave no bruises, no police report, no evidence a family court will accept
• Why psychological abuse predicts PTSD in women more strongly than physical abuse does
• How gaslighting in relationships is designed to make you question your own sanity
• The difference between protection and control — why a controlling husband is never just a "communication problem"
• The dark tetrad: the four personality traits every woman should know how to recognize
• Why family court professionals aren't required to complete domestic abuse training — and how that gap affects you and your kids
• How your own healing work helps you spot red flags early if you date again
• What it looks like when a partner deliberately, deceptively builds your sense of safety
• How to date after divorce without shutting every new connection out to stay safe

Whether you're still inside a marriage trying to find the words for what's happening, or years out and learning to trust yourself again — this conversation gives you the language and the framework to see it clearly.

Much love and freedom,

Laurie

Free Resources

Click here to schedule a FREE inquiry call with me.

Click here for my FREE “Beginner’s Guide to Somatic Healing”

Click here for my FREE Core Values Exercise

Connect with me:

Click here to purchase my “Nervous System Regulation Starter Kit” it’s $29.99

Click here to purchase my book: Sandwiched: A Memoir of Holding On and Letting Go

Website

Instagram

Substack

Connect with Kate:

Website

Instagram

Podcast

Grab Kate's book, The D Word, 

This episode is part two — listen to part one of my conversation with Kate on The Divorce Survival Guide podcast here.

Want to go deeper on the dark tetrad? Here's an article that talks about what Kate references in this episode.

Revisit my past conversations with Kate:

Is it Time to Leave: How do I know if Divorce is the right choice for me

Feel Safe Again in Love: How Somatic Healing Supports Secure Relationships

Please leave me feedback. I cannot respond so if you'd like me to respond, please leave your email

***********************
DISCLAIMER: THE COMMENTARY AND OPINIONS AVAILABLE ON THIS PODCAST ARE FOR INFORMATIONAL AND ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY AND NOT FOR THE PURPOSE OF PROVIDING LEGAL, MEDICAL OR PROFESSIONAL ADVICE. YOU SHOULD CONTACT A LICENSED THERAPIST IF YOU ARE EXPERIENCING SUICIDAL THOUGHTS. YOU SHOULD CONTACT AN ATTORNEY IN YOUR STATE TO OBTAIN LEGAL ADVICE. YOU SHOULD CONTACT A LICENSED MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL WITH RESPECT TO ANY MEDICAL ISSUE OR PROBLEM.

Have you spent years — maybe decades — building a yoga practice or physical discipline, only to reach a point where your body simply won't cooperate the way it used to?

If the one thing that once grounded you, defined you, and kept you regulated is starting to slip away — this episode is going to meet you exactly where you are.

My guest is Harmony Slater — one of fewer than 20 people in the world to hold the highest level Ashtanga yoga certification, earned through 15 years of immersive training in India. A certified mastery coach and breathwork trainer, Harmony has spent over 25 years helping women navigate midlife transitions, identity shifts, and the particular grief that comes when the body you've relied on starts to change.

In this conversation we go deep on why the intense physical practices so many women depend on eventually stop working — and what becomes possible when they do. We explore how the nervous system learns to stay regulated under stress, why body awareness matters more than any pose you can hold, and why the present moment is the only place real choice actually lives.

This one is for the high achievers, the disciplined movers, the women who built their identity around what their bodies could do — and who are now being asked to find themselves somewhere new.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• Why your yoga practice was always about more than flexibility — and how it was quietly training your nervous system to stay regulated under discomfort
• What happens to your sense of self when the body you've relied on for control and accomplishment stops responding the way it used to
• The difference between living as a human being versus a human doing — and why high achievers struggle most with this shift
• Why your thoughts aren't where you'll find the truth — and why Harmony points you to the heart and body instead
• How midlife women return to nervous system regulation without an hour and a half on the mat
• A hand-on-heart breathing exercise you can try while you listen — a gentle way to feel into your own body awareness right now
• Why the present moment is the only place you can make a real choice — and how tracking breath and sensation gets you there
• How a two-minute breathing practice can bring your nervous system back into regulation on even the hardest days
• What coming home to yourself actually asks of you — and why it's simpler than you think

Whether your yoga practice, running routine, or physical identity is falling away in midlife — this conversation gives you something more portable and more permanent than any pose: a way back to yourself through breath, body, and the quiet wisdom of the present moment.

Much love and freedom,

Laurie

Free Resources

Click here to schedule a FREE inquiry call with me.

Click here for my FREE “Beginner’s Guide to Somatic Healing”

Click here for my FREE Core Values Exercise

Want to try somatic work for free? Download my somatic exercises on Insight Timer and start reconnecting with your body today.

Connect with me:

If you're local to the South Bay, join me at Harmony Yoga in Hermosa Beach for a four-week somatic and yoga course — Thursday evenings from 6:30 to 8 p.m. starting September 3rd.

Click here to purchase my “Nervous System Regulation Starter Kit” it’s $29.99

Click here to purchase my book: Sandwiched: A Memoir of Holding On and Letting Go

Website

Instagram

Substack

Connect with Harmony:

Website

Instagram

Want a simple way to settle your nervous system between meetings, in the car, or before bed? Download Harmony's FREE Breathwork Practice For Stress-Reduction and use it anywhere you need to find calm.

Harmony mentioned the research coming out of the HeartMath Institute on heart consciousness. If you want to look into it yourself, you can find them here.

Please leave me feedback. I cannot respond so if you'd like me to respond, please leave your email

***********************
DISCLAIMER: THE COMMENTARY AND OPINIONS AVAILABLE ON THIS PODCAST ARE FOR INFORMATIONAL AND ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY AND NOT FOR THE PURPOSE OF PROVIDING LEGAL, MEDICAL OR PROFESSIONAL ADVICE. YOU SHOULD CONTACT A LICENSED THERAPIST IF YOU ARE EXPERIENCING SUICIDAL THOUGHTS. YOU SHOULD CONTACT AN ATTORNEY IN YOUR STATE TO OBTAIN LEGAL ADVICE. YOU SHOULD CONTACT A LICENSED MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL WITH RESPECT TO ANY MEDICAL ISSUE OR PROBLEM.

What if joy wasn't something you had to wait for  — but something you could actually adopt into your life?

If you're rebuilding after divorce or navigating a recent loss and are quietly wondering whether you're allowed to feel good again while you're still grieving — this episode is for you.

Most of us treat grief and joy as opposites, as if one has to end before the other can begin. My guest today gently dismantles that idea. Her argument is the reverse: your capacity for joy grows in direct proportion to the pain you've allowed yourself to experience. So the question isn't how to get past the grief — it's how to hold both at the same time.

My guest is SC Perot. A Stanford Law graduate, Vanderbilt adjunct faculty member, and author of Styles of Joy. After the pandemic, a divorce, and a career shift that dismantled the life she'd planned, SC took a grief sabbatical that led her to 17 Harry Styles concerts across five countries in ten months — and to an entirely new understanding of what joy can look like after loss. 

In this conversation we explore the identity loss that quietly lives inside divorce grief, why escapism only works when it runs alongside doing the inner work, and the Japanese concept of borrowed views — a practice for turning jealousy into genuine delight in other people's good news. SC also shares her four-part CAPS framework for making joy a skill you build through repetition, and lays out what life after divorce can look like when you stop settling for just okay.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• Why SC says the opposite of joyful is jealousy — and how you can catch envy before it takes hold
• What a grief break is, and how to tell it apart from bypassing your pain
• How happy music became part of SC’s healing journey — and what it means to build a new soundtrack for a new life
• Why sitting fully inside divorce grief expands your capacity for joy
• How the doctrine of borrowed views lets you adopt other people's joy as your own
• How an abundance mindset replaces the scarcity story that someone else's good news means less for you
• The 4-part CAPS framework — cultivate, adopt, protect, and spread — and which part trips people up most
• How SC's body told her it was time for a career pivot before her mind caught up
• Why collective joy counteracts lonely grief — and where to find it without a concert ticket
• How the three circles of connection — intimate, relational, and communal — protect you from loneliness after divorce or anytime.

Whether you're deep in divorce recovery or simply carrying more than you expected this season — this conversation offers something rare: a concrete, compassionate path back to more joyful living and feeling like yourself again.

Much love and freedom,

Laurie

Free Resources

Click here to schedule a FREE inquiry call with me.

Click here for my FREE “Beginner’s Guide to Somatic Healing”

Click here for my FREE Core Values Exercise

Connect with me:

Click here to purchase my “Nervous System Regulation Starter Kit” it’s $29.99

Click here to purchase my book: Sandwiched: A Memoir of Holding On and Letting Go

Website

Instagram

Substack

Want to try somatic work for free? Download my somatic exercises on Insight Timer and start reconnecting with your body today.

If you're local to the South Bay, join me at Harmony Yoga in Hermosa Beach for a four-week somatic and yoga course — Thursday evenings from 6:30 to 8 p.m. starting September 3rd.

Connect with SC:

Website

Substack

Instagram

Grab your copy of Styles of Joy wherever books are sold — or listen to the audiobook, narrated by SC herself, on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.

Please leave me feedback. I cannot respond so if you'd like me to respond, please leave your email

***********************
DISCLAIMER: THE COMMENTARY AND OPINIONS AVAILABLE ON THIS PODCAST ARE FOR INFORMATIONAL AND ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY AND NOT FOR THE PURPOSE OF PROVIDING LEGAL, MEDICAL OR PROFESSIONAL ADVICE. YOU SHOULD CONTACT A LICENSED THERAPIST IF YOU ARE EXPERIENCING SUICIDAL THOUGHTS. YOU SHOULD CONTACT AN ATTORNEY IN YOUR STATE TO OBTAIN LEGAL ADVICE. YOU SHOULD CONTACT A LICENSED MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL WITH RESPECT TO ANY MEDICAL ISSUE OR PROBLEM.

What do you do with a relationship after a shocking truth comes out? 

If you're the betrayed partner making the therapy appointments, reading the books alone, and wondering whether the person across from you is actually changing — this episode is for you.

What most people don't realize is that the day you found out wasn't the beginning of the problem. The patterns of behavior that led to betrayal started long before that moment. And the real question isn't just why did this happen and how do I fix it — it's how do you both heal from betrayal trauma, and how do you know whether your relationship can survive it?

My guests are Brannon Patrick, LCSW, and Tyler Patrick, LMFT — brothers, licensed therapists, and hosts of the Therapy Brothers podcast. Between them they bring more than 40 years of experience in addiction and trauma work, and across more than 500 call-in episodes they've sat with real people in real time navigating betrayal, shame, and the long road back.

In this episode we go deep on what your body needs in the immediate aftermath of discovery, why sobriety and real recovery are not the same thing, and the three specific signs Brannon and Tyler look for when assessing whether a relationship can genuinely be repaired.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• Why the patterns behind betrayal started long before discovery — and what that changes about the repair process
• What to do when your whole system goes into shock and you can't think straight
• How grounding, breathwork, and somatic healing help refill an emotional tank running on empty
• Why no major decision is worth making when you're at an eight out of ten — and what to do instead while you return to a five
• Why the hurt partner often ends up overfunctioning — and how it quietly affects the relationship dynamic
• What shame resilience actually sounds like in a conversation, and why it's the skill that makes real honesty possible
• How to tell the difference between a partner doing the work for themselves versus performing it for you
• Why rigorous honesty isn't the same as confessing every detail — and how anxiety can disguise itself as transparency
• The 3 signs Brannon and Tyler watch for when someone is genuinely in recovery
• How to be vulnerable in small ways when rebuilding trust after infidelity or betrayal still terrifies you

Whether you're standing at the crossroads of betrayal or deep in the process of infidelity recovery, this conversation will give you a clearer lens — and a little more ground under your feet.

Cheers to more love and freedom,

Laurie

Click here to learn more about my Somatic/Yoga course with Harmony Yoga

Click here to purchase my “Nervous System Regulation Starter Kit” it’s $29.99

Click here to purchase my book: Sandwiched: A Memoir of Holding On and Letting Go

Free Resources

Click here to schedule a FREE inquiry call with me.

Click here for my FREE “Beginner’s Guide to Somatic Healing”

Click here for my FREE Core Values Exercise

Connect with me:

Website

Instagram

Connect with Brannon & Tyler:

Website

Instagram

YouTube

Listen to Brannon and Tyler's weekly call-in show: The Therapy Brothers Podcast 

Please leave me feedback. I cannot respond so if you'd like me to respond, please leave your email

***********************
DISCLAIMER: THE COMMENTARY AND OPINIONS AVAILABLE ON THIS PODCAST ARE FOR INFORMATIONAL AND ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY AND NOT FOR THE PURPOSE OF PROVIDING LEGAL, MEDICAL OR PROFESSIONAL ADVICE. YOU SHOULD CONTACT A LICENSED THERAPIST IF YOU ARE EXPERIENCING SUICIDAL THOUGHTS. YOU SHOULD CONTACT AN ATTORNEY IN YOUR STATE TO OBTAIN LEGAL ADVICE. YOU SHOULD CONTACT A LICENSED MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL WITH RESPECT TO ANY MEDICAL ISSUE OR PROBLEM.