Two years ago, I made one of the hardest decisions of my life: moving my husband into memory care. Last year, I shared the raw shock, grief, and guilt of that first year. This episode is about what the second year has taught me.

I thought year two would feel easier. More settled. Instead, it brought new crises, a nervous system stuck on high alert, and an unexpected moment that finally cracked my grief wide open. What followed was a deeper reckoning with loss, with old patterns of over-responsibility, and with the belief that love must be earned through self-sacrifice.

This is a reflection on how grief changes over time, how the body decides when it’s safe to feel, and what it looks like to slowly let go without abandoning love, and without abandoning myself..

In this episode, you’ll hear about:

• How grief can shift—and intensify—in the second year
• Why my body stayed in survival mode longer than I expected
• How caregiving can awaken old “good girl” and people-pleasing patterns
• What helped me begin letting go without guilt
• How I’m learning to care for myself while still loving deeply

Here are the episodes that I reference in the podcast:

Episode 64: A Difference a Year Makes – https://brendareisscoaching.com/2025/01/14/a-difference-a-year-makes/

Episode 94: The Good Girl Syndrome – How People-Pleasing Sneaks Into Adulthood (and How We Break Free) – https://brendareisscoaching.com/2025/12/21/the-good-girl-syndrome-how-people-pleasing-sneaks-into-adulthood-and-how-we-break-free/

Resources:

Your FREE Forgive Yourself resources: https://brendareisscoaching.com/podcast-resource-optin/

Are you struggling with a situation or a person in your life? Wondering if you are ready to work on forgiving yourself? Take our quiz to find out your emotional IQ and how this impacts your ability to forgive: https://archetype.brendareisscoaching.com/sf/357cdc60

Brenda’s Website/Links

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• LinkedIn

What happens when we stop outsourcing our knowledge and begin listening to the wisdom that’s been living inside us all along?

Brenda is joined by somatic and expressive arts therapist Cathy Williams to explore what it truly means to come home to your body after trauma, burnout, and self-abandonment. Cathy shares her personal healing journey, from living in her head and overriding her intuition, to reconnecting with her body as a source of safety, guidance, and truth.

Together, they unpack how psychological abuse, people-pleasing, and over-intellectualizing can disconnect us from ourselves and how somatic awareness, creative expression, and gentle self-forgiveness can guide us back.

This episode is an invitation to soften, slow down, and remember: your body has always been trying to protect you.

In this episode, you’ll hear about:

• How intuition speaks through the body
• Why forgiveness often starts with self-trust
• The role of somatic and creative healing in trauma recovery
• How to rebuild a loving relationship with your inner guidance

Cathy's Body Wisdom Oracle cards are currently in a crowdfunding campaign till the end of January 2026! If you'd like to participate, click here:

https://project.liftwomen.com/p/692f852562daa122b31ea41b

Connect with yourself through Cathy’s free resources: https://www.intuitiveself.com.au/category/all-products

Follow Cathy on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/intuitiveself__

Connect with Cathy on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cathywilliams-intuitiveself/

Follow Cathy on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/IntuitiveSelfCathyW 

Subscribe to Cathy on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Intuitive_Self

Resources:

Your FREE Forgive Yourself resources: https://brendareisscoaching.com/podcast-resource-optin/

Are you struggling with a situation or a person in your life? Wondering if you are ready to work on forgiving yourself? Take our quiz to find out your emotional IQ and how this impacts your ability to forgive: https://archetype.brendareisscoaching.com/sf/357cdc60

Brenda’s Website/Links

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• LinkedIn

In this deeply vulnerable episode, Brenda opens up about a powerful and unexpected moment in her caregiving journey with her husband, who lives in memory care due to dementia. What began as shock and heartbreak became a profound awakening, revealing a pattern so many high-achieving, caring women carry quietly into adulthood: the Good Girl Syndrome.

Brenda explores how early conditioning to be “good” evolves into people-pleasing, over-functioning, emotional suppression, resentment, burnout, and the slow abandonment of our own needs. Through raw storytelling and compassionate reflection, she shares how this pattern showed up for her in real time and how it cracked her open to a deeper layer of grief, truth, and healing. This episode is an invitation to gently notice where you may be carrying too much, silencing yourself, or equating your worth with how much you do for others and to begin loosening those patterns with honesty, self-compassion, and courage.

Ready to break free from the good girl pattern? This worksheet is for you: https://therecreationcoach.aweb.page/breaking-free-good-girl-pattern

What You’ll Learn

• What the Good Girl Syndrome really is and how it quietly follows us into adulthood
• How people-pleasing and over-functioning disconnect us from our emotions and needs
• Why suppressed grief and resentment often show up through the body
• How to move through guilt, shame, and emotional overwhelm with compassion
• Practical, grounding steps to begin reclaiming your voice, honoring your limits, and caring for yourself in a more sustainable way

Resources:

Your FREE Forgive Yourself resources: https://brendareisscoaching.com/podcast-resource-optin/

Are you struggling with a situation or a person in your life? Wondering if you are ready to work on forgiving yourself? Take our quiz to find out your emotional IQ and how this impacts your ability to forgive: https://archetype.brendareisscoaching.com/sf/357cdc60

Brenda’s Website/Links

• Website
• Facebook
• Instagram
• LinkedIn

Edit B. Kiss, a holistic mentor, success habit coach, and humanitarian award-winning author is joining me to share her story of transformation, which is as grounded as it is spiritual. After 15 years as a petroleum engineer, Edit followed a deep inner calling that led her from spreadsheets to source energy, from panic attacks to peace. Together, we talk about trauma, triggers, forgiveness, and why mindfulness is not the first step in healing. Edit shares how she learned to recognize synchronicities, how the body reveals unresolved emotional patterns, and why true change requires tending to the mind, body, and soul. We also explore her 3P and 5-Step methods for closing the gap between where you are and where you want to be. If you're navigating the unknown or feeling pulled toward something new, this conversation is a powerful reminder that healing is possible—and closer than you think.

What You’ll Learn

• How Edit moved from a highly logical engineering career into intuitive, heart-centered healing
• Why triggers point directly to unresolved trauma and how to use them for growth
• Why mindfulness alone isn’t enough without healing the deeper emotional roots
• How the body, mind, and soul work together in releasing anxiety and panic
• Edit’s 3P Method for reaching your goals
• How forgiveness frees you without requiring you to trust someone again

Get Edit’s latest book, The Gap Filler Success: Simple Steps to Reach Your Goals: https://www.amazon.com/-/he/Gap-Filler-Success-Simple-Steps/dp/B0FVG3RVW3

Learn more about Edit on her website: https://editbkiss.com/

Follow Edit on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/editbkiss

Connect with Edit on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/editbkiss/ 

Follow Edit on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bkissedit

Check out Edit’s YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@MagicalKarmaPriestess

Resources:

Your FREE Forgive Yourself resources: https://brendareisscoaching.com/podcast-resource-optin/

Are you struggling with a situation or a person in your life? Wondering if you are ready to work on forgiving yourself? Take our quiz to find out your emotional IQ and how this impacts your ability to forgive: https://archetype.brendareisscoaching.com/sf/357cdc60

Brenda’s Website/Links

• Website
• Facebook
• Instagram
• LinkedIn

I sat down with author and executive coach Laing Rikkers to explore how quiet rituals, creativity, and the natural world can become anchors during our deepest seasons of loss. When Laing’s younger sister died suddenly just months before the world shut down, she found herself searching for a way through overwhelming grief. What began as simple morning walks and unfiltered “morning pages” soon unfolded into Morning Leaves, her beautiful collection of plant-inspired poems and reflections.

Laing shares how slowing down helped her reconnect with herself, how creativity became a lifeline, and how she gently released the guilt she carried around her sister’s passing. She also offers the powerful checklist she uses to return to balance when life feels heavy: sleep, eat, steep, walk it, talk it, write it, and pay it forward.

What You’ll Learn

• How simple daily rituals can create space for healing
• Why connecting with nature helps regulate the nervous system and ease emotional overwhelm
• How creativity (even if you’ve never seen yourself as “creative”) can transform grief into meaning
• How to recognize, release, and forgive the complex guilt that often comes with sudden loss
• How finding purpose after loss can keep our loved ones present in our daily lives

Get the 2nd Edition of Laing's book Morning Leaves: Cultivating a Life of Beauty, Meaning, and Joy: https://bookshop.org/p/books/morning-leaves-meditations-on-beauty-and-joy-laing-f-rikkers/f8c694a6cc939b5a?ean=9781636284729&next=t&next=t&affiliate=177

Connect with Laing on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/laing-rikkers

Follow Laing on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/morning_leaves_and_poetry/

Resources:

Your FREE Forgive Yourself resources: https://brendareisscoaching.com/podcast-resource-optin/

Are you struggling with a situation or a person in your life? Wondering if you are ready to work on forgiving yourself? Take our quiz to find out your emotional IQ and how this impacts your ability to forgive: https://archetype.brendareisscoaching.com/sf/357cdc60

Brenda’s Website/Links

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• Facebook
• Instagram
• LinkedIn

Ever wonder how the roles you played growing up impact your life and relationships today? In this episode, I break down the six most common family dynamics and the archetypal roles we fall into. I share how self-awareness is the game changer that lets you set healthy boundaries and choose who you want to be moving forward. Remember, your family story doesn’t have to define your future. You have the power to give yourself permission to change, grow, and find more peace. 

Resources:

Your FREE Forgive Yourself resources: https://brendareisscoaching.com/podcast-resource-optin/

Are you struggling with a situation or a person in your life? Wondering if you are ready to work on forgiving yourself? Take our quiz to find out your emotional IQ and how this impacts your ability to forgive: https://archetype.brendareisscoaching.com/sf/357cdc60

Brenda’s Website/Links

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• Facebook
• Instagram
• LinkedIn

In this episode, I talk with the luminous Harper A. Bailey, whose debut memoir It Was Her poured straight into my heart. We talk about the dream that sparked her writing, the spiritual co-creation behind her pen name, and the moment she realized her story wasn’t just hers, it was meant to unlock stories in others. Harper shares how grief became both her wilderness and her teacher, and how processing isn’t about doing, but about learning to be with ourselves again. This conversation is all about reclaiming the wholeness we’ve always carried but sometimes forget. If you’ve ever felt stuck between the pain of the past and the hope of what could be, this episode is a reminder that you can return home to yourself at any time.

What You’ll Learn

• How grief can become a doorway back to yourself, not a destination you’re meant to stay in
• Why Harper chose a pen name and how it unlocked a deeper spiritual and creative voice
• The difference between doing the work and actually processing your emotions
• What it looks like to forgive the younger version of yourself and reclaim your wholeness

Download the first chapter of It Was Her: https://www.harperabailey.com/ 

Get the full book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FMH494DB

Follow Harper on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/harper_abailey

Resources:

Your FREE Forgive Yourself resources: https://brendareisscoaching.com/podcast-resource-optin/

Are you struggling with a situation or a person in your life? Wondering if you are ready to work on forgiving yourself? Take our quiz to find out your emotional IQ and how this impacts your ability to forgive: https://archetype.brendareisscoaching.com/sf/357cdc60

Brenda’s Website/Links

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• Facebook
• Instagram
• LinkedIn

If you’re the one who holds it all together—for your family, your friends, your business—but quietly struggles to ask for help yourself, this episode is for you. I know that story well. For years, I prided myself on being the strong one, the fixer, the problem solver. Until my body and spirit finally broke down.

In this conversation, I’m exploring why asking for help feels unsafe for so many high-achieving women, and how that belief was formed long before adulthood. I talk about how childhood conditioning creates the “I should be able to handle it” mindset, and what happens in our nervous system when we even think about reaching out. Most importantly, I’ll share what it looks like to rewrite that story and see asking for help not as weakness, but as wisdom.

You are worthy of support. You are allowed to have needs. And when you let yourself be held, you don’t lose your strength—you reclaim your wholeness.

What You’ll Learn

• The childhood roots of our resistance to asking for help
• How “being the strong one” can lead to isolation and burnout
• Why your nervous system may interpret support as unsafe
• The hidden cost of over-functioning and self-reliance
• How to reframe asking for help as an act of intimacy and self-trust
• A reflective journaling prompt to begin softening this old belief

Resources:

Your FREE Forgive Yourself resources: https://brendareisscoaching.com/podcast-resource-optin/

Are you struggling with a situation or a person in your life? Wondering if you are ready to work on forgiving yourself? Take our quiz to find out your emotional IQ and how this impacts your ability to forgive: https://archetype.brendareisscoaching.com/sf/357cdc60

Brenda’s Website/Links

• Website
• Facebook
• Instagram
• LinkedIn

I’ve always believed that forgiveness is the bridge between who we’ve been and who we’re becoming, and today’s conversation is proof of that. I’m joined by Riana Malia, a board-certified neurosomatic practitioner and creator of the Clear to Create method, who helps high-achieving women break free from painful relationship patterns and finally claim the love that matches the life they’ve built.

Riana shares her powerful story of betrayal, loss, and rebuilding from the ground up, and how learning to release stored trauma at the cellular level opened the door to deep peace, purpose, and extraordinary love. We talk about why self-forgiveness is often the hardest kind, how to stop repeating old stories, and why true healing begins when you make the invisible visible.

If you’ve ever carried shame, guilt, or old pain that keeps you stuck, this episode will remind you: you don’t have to relive the past to release it, you just have to be willing to clear it.

What You’ll Learn

• Why we must clear before we can create, and how that principle changes everything
• The three layers of forgiveness: others, the ones who didn’t protect us, and ourselves
• How trauma and limiting beliefs become stored in the body
• The five core emotions to release for lasting healing (anger, sadness, fear, guilt, shame)
• How Riana’s “Clear to Create” and “Quantum Time Release” methods help you rewrite your story without reliving it
• The first step toward self-forgiveness and reclaiming your worth

Discover what’s standing between you and extraordinary love with Riana’s free 40-question diagnostic assessment: https://quiz.rianamalia.com/ 

Connect with Riana on…

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@rianamalia121

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RianaMalia

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rianamalia/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@rianamalia

Website: https://rianamalia.com

Brilliance Brunch Event Page: https://thebrilliancebrunch.rianamalia.com

Podcast Page: https://podcast.rianamalia.com

Resources:

Your FREE Forgive Yourself resources: https://brendareisscoaching.com/podcast-resource-optin/

Are you struggling with a situation or a person in your life? Wondering if you are ready to work on forgiving yourself? Take our quiz to find out your emotional IQ and how this impacts your ability to forgive: https://archetype.brendareisscoaching.com/sf/357cdc60

Brenda’s Website/Links

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• Instagram
• LinkedIn

Sometimes, it takes everything falling apart to discover what’s been broken all along. In this episode, I talk with Bryan Power, who went from a “pretty good” marriage to complete collapse before finding the tools that helped him rebuild his relationship stronger than ever.

We talk about what really causes relationships to unravel, how childhood wounds and attachment styles shape the way we love, and why forgiveness—for ourselves and each other—is often the key to true healing. Bryan shares how learning Integrated Attachment Theory transformed his marriage, and how facing his own patterns helped him find peace, clarity, and connection again.

If you’ve ever hit rock bottom in love or wondered if something broken can truly be made whole, this story will remind you: sometimes the breakdown is the breakthrough.

What You’ll Learn:

• How childhood trauma silently shapes your attachment style
• Why emotional “no contact” can be a powerful tool for healing
• The six core elements of Integrated Attachment Theory
• What true forgiveness looks like after deep hurt
• How rock bottom moments can become your greatest turning points

Take Bryan’s free attachment style quiz: https://www.myrelationshipfail.com/

Connect with Bryan on:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bryanwpower/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/myrelationshipfail/
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@myrelationshipfail

Resources:

Your FREE Forgive Yourself resources: https://brendareisscoaching.com/podcast-resource-optin/

Are you struggling with a situation or a person in your life? Wondering if you are ready to work on forgiving yourself? Take our quiz to find out your emotional IQ and how this impacts your ability to forgive: https://archetype.brendareisscoaching.com/sf/357cdc60

Brenda’s Website/Links

• Website
• Facebook
• Instagram
• LinkedIn