Love with Francesca

What if the problem isn't that you keep choosing the wrong person—but that you haven't yet understood your own patterns in love?

In this episode, I sit down with Jena Jake, a compatibility strategist and former marital therapist, to explore what it really means to choose a partner who is compatible with you.

Jena shares how her own experiences with people-pleasing and self-abandonment eventually led her to the work she does today: helping women understand their patterns, personality, and compatibility so they can approach relationships with more self-awareness and intention.

We explore:

✨ Why leaving one relationship doesn't necessarily mean you'll stop repeating the same patterns

The conversation ultimately comes back to one powerful idea: the relationship you have with yourself is the longest relationship you'll ever have.

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What happens when a relationship that has been part of your identity for decades comes to an end?

In this episode, I sat down with Tracy Blotsky, who spent 38 years married before going through her own divorce and eventually discovering EFT tapping as a powerful tool for navigating the emotional aftermath.

Tracy shares what it was like to realize that she and her husband had grown in different directions, the complicated grief that came with leaving behind a life they had built together, and the questions that continued to surface even after their decision to divorce was mutual.

Together we explore:

✨ What happens when two people grow in different directions

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What if some of the patterns you're struggling with in your relationship didn't actually start with you?

In this episode, I sit down with Owen Smithyman, who practices Peak States Therapy, to explore how trauma, generational patterns, and deeply ingrained associations can influence the way we show up in our relationships—even when we can't identify an obvious reason for why we feel anxious, insecure, or stuck.

We talk about how our past experiences can become a kind of blueprint for what feels familiar and safe, and how those patterns can show up in our romantic relationships through over-giving, self-sacrifice, conflict, insecurity, or even self-sabotage. Owen explains how his approach works with what he describes as associational and generational trauma, and how working with those underlying responses can sometimes create more harmony and connection—or help someone gain clarity that a relationship isn't right for them.

This conversation explores:

✨ How childhood and generational experiences can influence the way we navigate relationships

Connect with Owen Smithyman:

His free resources include guided processes designed to help with things like resistance to positive change, self-sabotage, insecurity, and projection.

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Sometimes the path you're meant to follow doesn't look anything like the one you imagined.

In this solo episode, I take you behind the scenes of a major career decision I've been quietly working toward for years: finishing the process to become a psychotherapist.

After earning my master's in Mental Health Counseling, I didn't immediately pursue licensure. Instead, I followed unexpected opportunities in life coaching, built my own business, and spent years helping women navigate relationships and reconnect with themselves. Along the way, I learned that purpose isn't something you discover overnight—it's something that unfolds as you're willing to listen to yourself.

I share why I chose to trust my intuition, even when other people questioned my decisions, and why I'm finally stepping into this next chapter. I also talk about the importance of making mental health support more accessible, and how that value ultimately influenced this decision.

This episode explores:

This conversation is for anyone who feels behind, uncertain, or worried they're taking the "wrong" path.

Maybe you're not lost.

Maybe you're exactly where you need to be to become the person you're meant to be.

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❤️ Download your free “Should I Stay or Leave” Guide

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One of the hardest questions you can ask yourself in a relationship is:

"Am I investing in the right person?"

It's a question so many women ask when they're in a long-term relationship that feels uncertain, painful, or full of growing pains. But the answer isn't always as simple as deciding whether to stay or leave.

In this solo episode, I unpack how I wrestled with this question in my own relationship and why, looking back, it wasn't just about my husband. It was also about learning to trust myself, my intuition, and my own decision-making after years of questioning it.

This episode dives into:

This isn't about finding the "perfect" partner.

It's about learning how to discern whether the relationship you're building has a strong foundation, mutual effort, and the willingness to grow together.

If you've ever found yourself asking, "Am I investing in the right person?", this episode will help you look beyond fear and toward clarity.

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When we look at happy, healthy relationships, it’s easy to assume they’ve always been that way.

We see the connection, the ease, the affection, and the partnership, but we rarely see the years of difficult conversations, misunderstandings, growth, and repair that happened behind the scenes.

In this solo episode, I share a more personal side of my own relationship journey and talk about something I think we don’t discuss enough: the space between where your relationship is now and where it could become.

For years, my husband and I struggled with communication, conflict, distance, and different relationship needs. There were seasons when things felt incredibly hard, and moments when it would have been easier to walk away than continue doing the work.

But what I’ve learned is that hard doesn’t automatically mean wrong.

Sometimes, what feels broken is actually a relationship that’s still growing.

In this episode, we explore:

✨ Why healthy relationships are built, not found

This conversation is for anyone who feels discouraged, stuck, or uncertain in their relationship and wonders if they’re failing.

Because sometimes, the relationship you want isn’t impossible.

You’re just not there yet.

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Motherhood is often described as one of the most beautiful seasons of life, but for many women, it can also be one of the most overwhelming.

In this episode, I sit down with Brooke Bridges, mental health advocate, speaker, and coach, to have an honest conversation about postpartum anxiety, identity shifts, and the emotional realities that so many women experience after becoming mothers.

Brooke shares her personal journey with anxiety, from growing up in the entertainment industry to navigating motherhood and discovering how postpartum anxiety can affect even women who have already done significant inner work.

Together, we explore the pressure many women feel to have it all together, the isolation that can come with motherhood, and why having the right tools, support, and community can make all the difference.

This conversation explores:

This episode is a reminder that you are not failing if motherhood feels harder than you expected.

You are not alone.

Connect with Brooke Bridges:

✨ Brooke is currently accepting 1:1 Coaching clients for women looking for support in their mental health, personal growth, and healing journey. 

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What do you do when you’ve been waiting for your partner to change… and they still don’t?

When they don’t show up for the conversations, the connection, the emotional support, or the relationship the way you’ve been hoping they would, it’s easy to get stuck in the painful loop of asking: Should I stay or should I leave?

In this solo episode, I explore a shift that completely changed my life and my relationships: learning to choose myself even when someone else wasn’t showing up the way I needed them to.

We explore:

This episode is an invitation to redirect your energy away from trying to change someone else and back toward your own healing, joy, and sense of self.

Because sometimes the relationship doesn’t need to change first.

Sometimes, you do.

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Breakups are painful, but often, what hurts most isn’t just losing the person. It’s grieving the future you imagined with them, the routines you built together, and the version of yourself that existed inside the relationship.

In this episode, I sit down with Tisha Monee, relationship coach and author, to explore what healing after a breakup actually looks like beyond the surface-level advice.

This conversation explores:

This episode is about more than moving on, it’s about learning how to come home to yourself after heartbreak.

🌱 FREE Reclaiming Love Community

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“It’s not that bad.”

For many women, minimizing becomes a survival strategy in relationships, a way to avoid conflict, keep the peace, and protect connection.

But over time, constantly silencing your feelings comes at a cost.

In this solo episode, I unpack what minimizing actually looks like in real life, why so many women unconsciously do it, and how this pattern slowly disconnects you from your own needs, emotions, and inner truth.

This episode dives into:

This isn’t about becoming dramatic or starting unnecessary conflict.

If you’ve been telling yourself “it’s fine” while quietly hurting inside, this episode is for you.

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