Love From the Inside Out: Honest Conversations for Women About Midlife, Menopause, Body Changes and Becoming Yourself Again

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Stop Self-Abandonment: Nervous System Healing and Learning to Stay With Yourself

What does it actually mean to stop abandoning yourself — not in theory, but in real life?

In this episode of Love From the Inside Out, Susan names what she stands for. Not as a recap. Not as a how-to. But as a clear point of view rooted in lived experience.

This conversation explores what changes after a quiet but decisive internal shift — and how nervous system healing, attention, and self-loyalty become the foundation for lasting change.

In this episode, you’ll hear:

• Why discipline and mindset alone often aren’t enough
• How self-abandonment shows up through urgency, control, and over-functioning
• The difference between self-improvement and self-loyalty
• How to care for your body without collapsing your identity into what’s struggling
• What it looks like to “stay” with yourself as trust rebuilds over time

Ready for the real-life version of this work? Join Return (Private Podcast)

If you’ve been listening and thinking, “Yes… this is me,” — especially if you’re in that in-between season where you can’t go back, but you’re still learning how to live here — I created a private feed to support you.

Return is where we take this out of the “insight” zone and into your actual day.

Inside Return, you’ll receive at least two private drops each month, designed to help you come back to yourself in the exact moments you usually lose yourself, including:

• Resets — short audios for urgency, overwhelm, spiraling, or the pull to self-abandon
• Boundary Scripts — clear, kind language you can borrow (texts, work replies, family moments) without over-explaining
• Audio Letters — like a voice note from me when you’re in the middle of it, helping you re-ground and choose differently

No community. No calls. No pressure to “keep up.”
Just steady support you can return to anytime — especially on the days you need it most.

👉 Join Return: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2369290/subscribe
Questions or trouble subscribing? DM “RETURN” to @susan.kricun.

Text Susan about this episode

🎧 Connect & Stay in Touch

• Instagram: @susan.kricun — DM me to share your story or ask a question.

• Join me on Substack: Love From the Inside Out® — Personal reflections, bonus content, and more ways to connect. Free and paid options.

• I'd love your feedback! Take my anonymous listener survey and tell me what you'd like more of.

✨ Support the Show

• Follow, rate, or review the podcast wherever you listen.
• Share this episode with a friend who might enjoy it.

🎙️ Interested in Being a Guest?

Fill out the guest interest form.

🎶 Music Credit

“Seize the Day” by Andrey Rossi, via #Uppbeat (uppbeat.io/t/andrey-rossi/seize-the-day)

© 2025–present Susan Kricun. Love From the Inside Out® is a registered trademark of Kricun Media, LLC. All rights reserved.

All opinions are my own. This podcast is educational, not medical or legal advice.

As the Lunar New Year begins and we enter the Year of the Fire Horse, I’m sharing a grounded reset you can use anytime you feel that “new chapter” energy building.

This isn’t a predictions episode. It’s a practical, nervous-system-friendly guide to working with momentum without burning out, overcommitting, or self-abandoning. Think of this as a steadying reset for your nervous system, your mindset, and your next season.

In this bonus mini episode, we move through the 7 Love Lenses with one simple, doable anchor for each:

Live, Think, Nourish, Move, Create, Connect, and Heal — plus a two-minute ritual to clarify what you’re ready to be bolder about this year and what you’re releasing so you can move forward with more alignment, self-trust, and ease.

If you’re in the Phoenix area, I’m gathering with a small group in person this weekend. We have a few spaces left and I’d love to have you join us.

PHOENIX IN-PERSON EXPERIENCE (Limited Spaces Available)
A Return to Center | Half-Day Retreat (Sun, Feb 22, 1–4:30 pm | Central Phoenix)
Click here to sign up.

A guided self-love immersion weaving meditation + sound bath, gentle breathwork, expressive art, oracle guidance, and earth wisdom to help you reconnect with your inner source and release patterns of self-abandonment. You’ll leave with fresh clarity for the year ahead and a Fire Horse ritual box (tea blend, grounding crystal, palo santo, mushroom chocolates, mini bronze bell) plus a handcrafted journal you’ll create and personalize during the retreat. Intimate group, all materials included.

Wherever you are, you can create your own moment of beginning.

Text Susan about this episode

🎧 Connect & Stay in Touch

• Instagram: @susan.kricun — DM me to share your story or ask a question.

• Join me on Substack: Love From the Inside Out® — Personal reflections, bonus content, and more ways to connect. Free and paid options.

• I'd love your feedback! Take my anonymous listener survey and tell me what you'd like more of.

✨ Support the Show

• Follow, rate, or review the podcast wherever you listen.
• Share this episode with a friend who might enjoy it.

🎙️ Interested in Being a Guest?

Fill out the guest interest form.

🎶 Music Credit

“Seize the Day” by Andrey Rossi, via #Uppbeat (uppbeat.io/t/andrey-rossi/seize-the-day)

© 2025–present Susan Kricun. Love From the Inside Out® is a registered trademark of Kricun Media, LLC. All rights reserved.

All opinions are my own. This podcast is educational, not medical or legal advice.

Learning to Trust Yourself Without Certainty

Living Without the Old Map

After an internal threshold is crossed, there’s often an expectation that certainty will follow — that clarity will arrive and confidence will lock in.

In this episode of Love From the Inside Out, Susan closes the limited series by exploring what actually comes next: learning how to live forward without certainty, guided not by a fixed plan, but by orientation, awareness, and trust in the body’s signals.

Rather than arrival or resolution, this episode stays with the lived experience of navigating uncertainty — noticing when fear tightens, when the mind reaches for control, and when familiar patterns try to reassert themselves — and choosing to return instead of override.

Susan reflects on:

• What it means to live without the old map — and without a new one
• Why certainty was never the thing that actually kept us safe
• How curiosity softens fear and loosens the grip of familiar patterns
• The difference between pushing through and staying present
• Learning to come back to yourself when fear, doubt, or old habits surface
• Why trust isn’t loud or dramatic — but grounded and lived

As this episode is released during a season often associated with love and connection, Susan also reflects on what becomes clear after this series: that the most important relationship we will ever have is the one we have with ourselves — and that everything else flows from how we show up there.

This episode is not about fixing fear or eliminating uncertainty.
It’s about learning how to stay with yourself when the future hasn’t revealed itself yet.

If you’ve crossed a line you can’t uncross —
If you’re no longer who you were, but not entirely sure who you’re becoming —
This episode offers language, reassurance, and recognition for living in that space with honesty and trust.

Text Susan about this episode

🎧 Connect & Stay in Touch

• Instagram: @susan.kricun — DM me to share your story or ask a question.

• Join me on Substack: Love From the Inside Out® — Personal reflections, bonus content, and more ways to connect. Free and paid options.

• I'd love your feedback! Take my anonymous listener survey and tell me what you'd like more of.

✨ Support the Show

• Follow, rate, or review the podcast wherever you listen.
• Share this episode with a friend who might enjoy it.

🎙️ Interested in Being a Guest?

Fill out the guest interest form.

🎶 Music Credit

“Seize the Day” by Andrey Rossi, via #Uppbeat (uppbeat.io/t/andrey-rossi/seize-the-day)

© 2025–present Susan Kricun. Love From the Inside Out® is a registered trademark of Kricun Media, LLC. All rights reserved.

All opinions are my own. This podcast is educational, not medical or legal advice.

In this special bonus episode of Love From the Inside Out, Susan shares a heartfelt tribute to her mom, Margie, on what would have been her 80th birthday.

Ten years after her mother’s passing, Susan reflects on love, grief, resilience, and the ways the people we lose continue to live on inside us — through the memories we carry, the lessons we inherit, and the strength we find along the way.

This episode includes excerpts from what Susan read at her mother’s funeral, along with reflections on how healing and self-understanding unfold over time.

Margie always believed: “Where there’s a will, there’s a way.”
And this tribute is a reminder that love doesn’t disappear — it changes form, and it stays.

If you’ve ever missed someone you love, this episode is for you.

In This Episode, You’ll Hear

• A personal birthday tribute to Susan’s mom, ten years after her passing
• Funeral excerpts and memories that still resonate today
• Reflections on grief, growth, and emotional healing over time
• The legacy of resilience: “Where there’s a will, there’s a way”
• How love continues, even after loss

Text Susan about this episode

🎧 Connect & Stay in Touch

• Instagram: @susan.kricun — DM me to share your story or ask a question.

• Join me on Substack: Love From the Inside Out® — Personal reflections, bonus content, and more ways to connect. Free and paid options.

• I'd love your feedback! Take my anonymous listener survey and tell me what you'd like more of.

✨ Support the Show

• Follow, rate, or review the podcast wherever you listen.
• Share this episode with a friend who might enjoy it.

🎙️ Interested in Being a Guest?

Fill out the guest interest form.

🎶 Music Credit

“Seize the Day” by Andrey Rossi, via #Uppbeat (uppbeat.io/t/andrey-rossi/seize-the-day)

© 2025–present Susan Kricun. Love From the Inside Out® is a registered trademark of Kricun Media, LLC. All rights reserved.

All opinions are my own. This podcast is educational, not medical or legal advice.

Hey friends—quick bonus mini-sode, especially for anyone listening here in the Metro Phoenix area.

I’m popping in with an invitation to join me in person for Return to Center, a half-day retreat in Central Phoenix on Sunday, Feb. 22 (1:00–4:00 PM).

Early bird pricing ends Friday, Feb. 6, but that doesn’t mean registration closes—you can still sign up after Feb. 6 as long as space is available. We’re keeping this group intentionally small.

This is a grounded, supportive afternoon to slow down, reset, and reconnect with yourself—especially if you’ve been feeling stretched thin, or like you’ve been showing up for everyone except you. It’s held at a private residence in Central Phoenix (exact location shared after you register). All materials are included.

I’m co-hosting alongside three incredible local women:

• Cathleen Mitchell (Kaya Holistic) – earth-centered practices + herbal wisdom
• Kristen Fagan – an intuitive, tactile art experience (you’ll decorate your journal cover)
• Marney Henze – meditation, gentle breathwork, and immersive sound with crystal bowls, chimes, drums, and vocals to help you land, regulate your nervous system, and integrate what you’ve received before heading back into real life

I’ll also guide a self-love conversation about what it really means to stay with yourself and how to recognize those subtle moments of self-abandonment, even in small ways, and come back.

You’ll leave with fresh clarity for the year ahead and a Fire Horse ritual box that includes a handcrafted journal (customized by you), a grounding crystal, palo santo, a mini bronze bell with ribbon, Alice functional mushroom chocolates, plus Kaya Holistic’s Rhodiola tincture and Fire Horse herbal tea blend.

If you’re in Phoenix / Scottsdale / Tempe / Mesa / Chandler / Gilbert / Glendale and this is speaking to you, I’d love to see you there.

Click here to register and for details.

Text Susan about this episode

🎧 Connect & Stay in Touch

• Instagram: @susan.kricun — DM me to share your story or ask a question.

• Join me on Substack: Love From the Inside Out® — Personal reflections, bonus content, and more ways to connect. Free and paid options.

• I'd love your feedback! Take my anonymous listener survey and tell me what you'd like more of.

✨ Support the Show

• Follow, rate, or review the podcast wherever you listen.
• Share this episode with a friend who might enjoy it.

🎙️ Interested in Being a Guest?

Fill out the guest interest form.

🎶 Music Credit

“Seize the Day” by Andrey Rossi, via #Uppbeat (uppbeat.io/t/andrey-rossi/seize-the-day)

© 2025–present Susan Kricun. Love From the Inside Out® is a registered trademark of Kricun Media, LLC. All rights reserved.

All opinions are my own. This podcast is educational, not medical or legal advice.

When Your Body Sets the Boundary

Non-Negotiable

After an internal threshold is crossed, something subtle begins to take shape.

Certain things stop being optional — not because of discipline or willpower, but because the body knows what it can no longer tolerate.

In this episode of Love From the Inside Out, Susan continues the limited series by exploring what happens when inner change moves from insight into lived reality — when returning to the old way of living simply isn’t available anymore.

This episode isn’t about rigid routines or self-improvement strategies.
It’s about the quiet settling of non-negotiables — the practices, rhythms, and choices that no longer require debate.

Susan reflects on:

• What it feels like when the body sets the boundary before the mind does
• Why balance isn’t something you achieve once — but something you return to
• How meditation becomes a place of orientation rather than effort
• The disorientation of organizing life around what actually supports you
• Learning to come back to yourself without shame, urgency, or pressure

Rather than mastery or arrival, this episode stays with the lived experience of being in the middle — noticing when old patterns resurface, catching them sooner, and choosing to return again and again.

This episode is not about doing more or getting it right.
It’s about staying with yourself when the old way no longer fits — and allowing something quieter and more honest to take its place.

If you’re learning how to live from a new internal baseline —
If your body is asking for something different than it used to —
This episode offers language and recognition for that return.

Text Susan about this episode

🎧 Connect & Stay in Touch

• Instagram: @susan.kricun — DM me to share your story or ask a question.

• Join me on Substack: Love From the Inside Out® — Personal reflections, bonus content, and more ways to connect. Free and paid options.

• I'd love your feedback! Take my anonymous listener survey and tell me what you'd like more of.

✨ Support the Show

• Follow, rate, or review the podcast wherever you listen.
• Share this episode with a friend who might enjoy it.

🎙️ Interested in Being a Guest?

Fill out the guest interest form.

🎶 Music Credit

“Seize the Day” by Andrey Rossi, via #Uppbeat (uppbeat.io/t/andrey-rossi/seize-the-day)

© 2025–present Susan Kricun. Love From the Inside Out® is a registered trademark of Kricun Media, LLC. All rights reserved.

All opinions are my own. This podcast is educational, not medical or legal advice.

When Urgency Is the Problem (Not the Solution)

The Anger That Arrives After

After an internal threshold is crossed, the most unexpected thing isn’t relief or clarity — it’s resistance.

In this episode of Love From the Inside Out, Susan continues the limited series by exploring what often surfaces after a quiet but non-negotiable inner shift: a steady, protective anger that arises when the old way of living is no longer available.

This isn’t explosive anger or reactivity.
It’s the kind that shows up as a refusal to keep pushing — a signal from the body that urgency, productivity, and constant responsiveness are no longer sustainable.

Rather than offering solutions or strategies, this episode stays with the lived experience of being pulled back into familiar rhythms — email, deadlines, caffeine, productivity — and noticing how quickly those patterns drain energy and lead to self-abandonment.

Susan reflects on:

• The quiet anger that emerges when the body resists chronic urgency
• Why productivity and adrenaline can feel rewarding — and still be harmful
• How stress and over-functioning quietly erode well-being
• The tension between the old operating system and a new way of living
• Learning to listen when the body says “no” — without judgment or force

This episode is not about slowing down for the sake of balance.
It’s about recognizing when urgency itself has become the problem.

If you’ve ever felt caught between staying productive and staying well —
If your body has begun pushing back against the pace you once relied on —
This episode offers language and recognition for that moment of reckoning.

Text Susan about this episode

🎧 Connect & Stay in Touch

• Instagram: @susan.kricun — DM me to share your story or ask a question.

• Join me on Substack: Love From the Inside Out® — Personal reflections, bonus content, and more ways to connect. Free and paid options.

• I'd love your feedback! Take my anonymous listener survey and tell me what you'd like more of.

✨ Support the Show

• Follow, rate, or review the podcast wherever you listen.
• Share this episode with a friend who might enjoy it.

🎙️ Interested in Being a Guest?

Fill out the guest interest form.

🎶 Music Credit

“Seize the Day” by Andrey Rossi, via #Uppbeat (uppbeat.io/t/andrey-rossi/seize-the-day)

© 2025–present Susan Kricun. Love From the Inside Out® is a registered trademark of Kricun Media, LLC. All rights reserved.

All opinions are my own. This podcast is educational, not medical or legal advice.

Life After a Quiet Shift: Learning to Live From the Other Side

After an internal shift, the hardest part isn’t the moment of change — it’s learning how to live from the place you’ve crossed into.

In this episode of Love From the Inside Out, Susan continues the limited series by exploring what happens in the days and weeks after a quiet but non-negotiable inner shift. The breakthrough has already occurred, but life hasn’t fully reorganized yet — and the work now is learning how to stay with yourself in this unfamiliar territory.

Rather than dramatic transformation, this episode focuses on integration: the slower rhythms, the recalibration of daily choices, and the realization that old survival strategies no longer apply.

Susan reflects on:

• What it feels like when the old way of living is no longer an option
• The disorientation that comes with internal change — and why it isn’t failure
• How trust replaces urgency when deprivation falls away
• Shifts in relationship with food, movement, and decision-making
• Learning to let the body lead instead of managing it

This episode is not about fixing or optimizing your life.
It’s about learning how to live after something inside you has already changed.

If you’ve ever felt like you can’t go back to who you were — but you’re still figuring out what comes next — this episode offers language, reassurance, and recognition for that in-between space.

Text Susan about this episode

🎧 Connect & Stay in Touch

• Instagram: @susan.kricun — DM me to share your story or ask a question.

• Join me on Substack: Love From the Inside Out® — Personal reflections, bonus content, and more ways to connect. Free and paid options.

• I'd love your feedback! Take my anonymous listener survey and tell me what you'd like more of.

✨ Support the Show

• Follow, rate, or review the podcast wherever you listen.
• Share this episode with a friend who might enjoy it.

🎙️ Interested in Being a Guest?

Fill out the guest interest form.

🎶 Music Credit

“Seize the Day” by Andrey Rossi, via #Uppbeat (uppbeat.io/t/andrey-rossi/seize-the-day)

© 2025–present Susan Kricun. Love From the Inside Out® is a registered trademark of Kricun Media, LLC. All rights reserved.

All opinions are my own. This podcast is educational, not medical or legal advice.

Throwing Away the Bra: Letting Go of Survival Mode & Coming Back to Yourself

There are moments in life when something inside you shifts quietly — not with a dramatic decision or a clear plan, but with a simple knowing that the old way of living isn’t available anymore.

In this episode of Love From the Inside Out, Susan shares a deeply personal story about returning from a meditation retreat and realizing just how far she had drifted from herself while living in survival mode. What followed wasn’t a big declaration or a checklist for change — it was a small, symbolic act that marked the beginning of coming back to herself.

This episode is the first in a short, limited series exploring what happens after an internal shift — when your body knows something has changed, even if your life hasn’t caught up yet.

Susan reflects on:
• Letting go of survival mode without forcing change
• How chronic stress and self-abandonment quietly shape our lives
• The moment you realize you can’t go back to the way things were
• What it feels like to come back to yourself — gently, steadily, without a roadmap

This is not a how-to episode.
There are no steps or takeaways.

It’s a story about identity, nervous system awareness, and the quiet crossing point where continuing the old way is no longer possible.

If you’ve ever felt like you’ve been managing yourself just to get through the day — or sensed that something inside you has already changed — this episode is for you.

Text Susan about this episode

🎧 Connect & Stay in Touch

• Instagram: @susan.kricun — DM me to share your story or ask a question.

• Join me on Substack: Love From the Inside Out® — Personal reflections, bonus content, and more ways to connect. Free and paid options.

• I'd love your feedback! Take my anonymous listener survey and tell me what you'd like more of.

✨ Support the Show

• Follow, rate, or review the podcast wherever you listen.
• Share this episode with a friend who might enjoy it.

🎙️ Interested in Being a Guest?

Fill out the guest interest form.

🎶 Music Credit

“Seize the Day” by Andrey Rossi, via #Uppbeat (uppbeat.io/t/andrey-rossi/seize-the-day)

© 2025–present Susan Kricun. Love From the Inside Out® is a registered trademark of Kricun Media, LLC. All rights reserved.

All opinions are my own. This podcast is educational, not medical or legal advice.

Wanting something doesn’t create change — in fact, it often keeps what we want just out of reach. Real change happens when we stop chasing outcomes and start becoming someone new.

In this anniversary episode of Love From the Inside Out®, Susan reflects on what truly changed inside her before she became a first-time wife at 52 — and why this same shift applies to love, health, self-trust, and the life you’re creating right now.

Rather than forcing outcomes, Susan shares how learning to let go, regulate her nervous system, and embody the feeling of what she was creating ahead of time transformed her relationships, her sense of self, and her life. This episode explores the difference between wanting and being — and why embodiment, not effort, is the real catalyst for change.

You’ll hear about:

• Why wanting something can actually keep it away
• The difference between chasing outcomes and embodying change
• How self-trust is built through safety, not control
• Why becoming matters more than fixing
• How embodiment applies to love, health, and everyday life
• A simple reflection exercise to help you move forward without forcing

Susan also shares a personal dedication to her husband, Elliot, in honor of their fourth wedding anniversary — a real-life example of what’s possible when you choose yourself first and live from the inside out.

If you’ve been feeling stuck, impatient, or like you’re trying too hard to make something happen, this episode offers a calmer, more grounded way forward.

✨ Reflection Exercise from the Episode

Ask yourself:

1. What do I want to believe?
2. If I already believed that, how would I behave today?

Small choices from that place add up faster than forcing ever did.

🎧 Want to Go Deeper?

Susan references her Season One episode From Victim to Victor, which explores the mindset shift from waiting to choosing and reclaiming your power.
👉 You can listen to that episode here.

It’s never too late to create a life — or a love — from the inside out.

Text Susan about this episode

🎧 Connect & Stay in Touch

• Instagram: @susan.kricun — DM me to share your story or ask a question.

• Join me on Substack: Love From the Inside Out® — Personal reflections, bonus content, and more ways to connect. Free and paid options.

• I'd love your feedback! Take my anonymous listener survey and tell me what you'd like more of.

✨ Support the Show

• Follow, rate, or review the podcast wherever you listen.
• Share this episode with a friend who might enjoy it.

🎙️ Interested in Being a Guest?

Fill out the guest interest form.

🎶 Music Credit

“Seize the Day” by Andrey Rossi, via #Uppbeat (uppbeat.io/t/andrey-rossi/seize-the-day)

© 2025–present Susan Kricun. Love From the Inside Out® is a registered trademark of Kricun Media, LLC. All rights reserved.

All opinions are my own. This podcast is educational, not medical or legal advice.