Pulling Threads, Weaving Authenticity

This conversation explores why love can feel overwhelming, painful, or confusing, especially for capable, intelligent women who appear put together on the outside but feel anxious or depleted in their relationships.

Leslie sits down with Stephanie McPhail to unpack the subtle dynamics of toxic relationships, trauma bonding, and the unconscious patterns that keep people stuck long after they know something isn’t right. Together, they explore how early conditioning shapes what “love” feels like in the body, why intensity is often mistaken for intimacy, and how calm can feel unfamiliar or even unsafe after years of emotional chaos.

Stephanie shares her personal story of surviving a long-term toxic marriage and the profound internal shifts that allowed her to rebuild her life, heal her nervous system, and create a relationship rooted in safety and mutual respect. This episode speaks directly to women who question their judgment, carry quiet shame, or feel torn between what they know logically and what their body feels emotionally.

This is not about blame or labels. It’s about awareness, compassion, and learning to listen to yourself again so love no longer feels like something you have to survive.

I trained in the official MBSR lineage at Brown University, continuing the work of Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn, founder of the original MBSR program at UMass Medical Center. And now I’m bringing this transformative framework to women navigating divorce, separation, heartbreak, and reinvention.

🧡 JOIN THE UPCOMING MBSR GROUP

Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction for Women Navigating Separation, Divorce & Breakups

Where neuroscience meets self-compassion to help you regulate, rebuild, and rise.

📅 Starts late January

🌐 Virtual (Florida-based, open to all women)

#ToxicRelationshipHealing #TraumaBondRecovery #EmotionalSafety #RelationshipPatterns #HealingAfterAbuse

The Good Girl Syndrome Unraveled | People Pleasing, Trauma, and Reclaiming Your Authentic Self

Have you ever said yes when every part of your body was screaming no?

Do you apologize reflexively, avoid conflict at all costs, or feel responsible for everyone else’s comfort—while quietly burning out?

In this episode of Pulling Threads, host Leslie Mathews unravels Good Girl Syndrome—the deeply ingrained pattern of people pleasing, perfectionism, and self-abandonment that so many women carry without realizing it.

This episode explores:

What Good Girl Syndrome really is (and why it’s not a personality flaw)

The neuroscience behind people pleasing and why setting boundaries can feel unsafe

How conditional love and early socialization wire this pattern into the nervous system

The physical and emotional toll of chronic self-abandonment (anxiety, burnout, exhaustion)

Why being “nice” often blocks real intimacy and authenticity

Signs you may be living behind the mask of perfection

How awareness begins to rewire the brain

Gentle, neuroscience-backed steps to start reclaiming your voice, needs, and boundaries

Through trauma-informed insight, attachment theory, polyvagal theory, and lived experience, Leslie explains why disappointing others can trigger the same fear response as physical danger—and how learning to pause, name the pattern, and practice self-compassion creates real change.

This episode is for you if:

You struggle with people pleasing or setting boundaries

You feel exhausted but can’t pinpoint why

You’ve lost touch with who you are outside of being “the helper”

You’re healing from trauma, burnout, or relational over-functioning

You’re ready to stop performing and start living authentically

The “good girl” once kept you safe. She doesn’t have to run your life anymore.

🎧 Listen now and start pulling the thread that leads back to yourself.

Connect with Leslie / The LooM Life

🌿 Website: https://www.theloomlife.com

🎙️ Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/pulling-threads-weaving-authenticity/id1805667549

📸 Instagram: @theloomlife and @loomlifetherapy

📘 Facebook: The LooM Life

📺 YouTube: Pulling Threads with Leslie Mathews

If this episode resonated, please like, subscribe, and share it with a woman who needs permission to choose herself.

You’re not broken. You’re waking up. 💛

Divorce doesn’t just change your schedule, it activates your nervous system, your old conditioning, and the parts of you that learned to survive conflict. In this conversation, Leslie and parenting coach Mackenzie Kinmond unpack what happens to you (and your kids) when co-parenting brings up grief, anger, guilt, and the urge to control what you can’t control.

You’ll hear real, compassionate guidance on:

How divorce amplifies people-pleasing, perfectionism, over functioning, and self-sacrifice

The difference between validating your child’s feelings and letting emotions run the house

How to talk about an inconsistent co-parent without shaming your child’s experience

Why kids form “stories” about divorce (and how to help them build a healthier narrative)

Nervous system tools for high-conflict co-parenting—before, during, and after hard moments

How to offer steadiness without pretending you’re “fine”

If you’re parenting through divorce and trying to stay grounded, present, and emotionally safe for your kids—this episode will help you step out of survival mode and lead with calm authority and grace.

I trained in the official MBSR lineage at Brown University, continuing the work of Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn, founder of the original MBSR program at UMass Medical Center. And now I’m bringing this transformative framework to women navigating divorce, separation, heartbreak, and reinvention.

🧡 JOIN THE UPCOMING MBSR GROUP

Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction for Women Navigating Separation, Divorce & Breakups

Where neuroscience meets self-compassion to help you regulate, rebuild, and rise.

📅 Starts late January

🌐 Virtual (Florida-based, open to all women)

#DivorceParenting #CoParenting #HighConflictCoParenting #ParentingAfterDivorce #EmotionalRegulation

If you’re a therapist or coach who wants to start a podcast but keeps putting it off, this episode is for you.

I’m breaking down the six biggest fears that stop helping professionals from pressing record — and gently debunking each one.

In this episode, I’m not talking about microphones, editing software, or going viral. I’m talking about the real reasons therapists and coaches hesitate to use their voice publicly — fear of being seen, imposter syndrome, time, tech overwhelm, decision paralysis, and the quiet worry that no one will listen.

As a therapist, coach, and host of the Pulling Threads podcast, I waited a long time to start my own show. What finally helped wasn’t more research — it was understanding what was actually holding me back and taking one small step at a time.

If podcasting has been on your heart but something keeps stopping you, this conversation is meant to help you feel calmer, clearer, and more capable.

In this episode, we cover:

Why procrastination around podcasting is often protective, not laziness

The truth about imposter syndrome for therapists and coaches

Fear of visibility, judgment, and being misunderstood

Why “I don’t have time” doesn’t mean what you think it means

How consistency can look different (and still work)

Why technology is no longer the barrier it used to be

Decision paralysis around naming, format, and where to start

The fear no one talks about: What if no one listens?

Why podcasts aren’t about going viral — they’re about resonance

How a podcast can support your practice, visibility, and referrals

Who this is for:

✔ Therapists

✔ Coaches

✔ Helping professionals

✔ Anyone who’s thought “I want to start a podcast… but”

About Press Record

For more information about the cohort, go to https://theloomlife.com/podcast-course

I created Press Record, a live 6-week cohort for therapists and coaches who want to launch a podcast together — with structure, support, and real accountability.

The cohort includes:

Weekly live meetings

Step-by-step video lessons

Marketing & YouTube templates

AI tools to simplify editing and content

A private community of therapists & coaches launching together

If this episode helped your nervous system soften or your fear feel more manageable, that may be your cue.

👉 Learn more about Press Record:

[ADD LINK]

About Me

I’m Leslie Mathews — therapist, coach, and host of the Pulling Threads podcast. I help therapists, coaches, and women in transition use their voice, untangle fear, and build aligned, sustainable paths forward.

🎙 Subscribe for more conversations on authenticity, visibility, nervous system regulation, and meaningful work.

In this episode of Pulling Threads, we explore the quiet unraveling that can happen inside a high-control marriage: the identity loss, the normalization of pain, the body symptoms that show up long before the mind is ready to listen.

This is a deeply honest, unscripted conversation about staying because it “wasn’t that bad,” enduring for faith, vows, and children, and the moment validation finally breaks through the fog. We talk about how the nervous system holds truth, how faith can become complicated inside marriage, and what it looks like to surrender without losing yourself.

You’ll hear reflections on rebuilding after separation, co-parenting with boundaries, trauma healing, mindfulness, EMDR, and the surprising peace that can come on the other side—especially learning to be alone without feeling lonely.

This conversation is for anyone who feels high-functioning but exhausted, capable but disconnected, faithful but conflicted, and quietly wondering if there is more peace available than the life they’re currently enduring.

I trained in the official MBSR lineage at Brown University, continuing the work of Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn, founder of the original MBSR program at UMass Medical Center. And now I’m bringing this transformative framework to women navigating divorce, separation, heartbreak, and reinvention.

🧡 JOIN THE UPCOMING MBSR GROUP

Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction for Women Navigating Separation, Divorce & Breakups

Where neuroscience meets self-compassion to help you regulate, rebuild, and rise.

📅 Starts late January

🌐 Virtual (Florida-based, open to all women)

#DivorceRecovery #LifeAfterDivorce #DivorceHealing #CoParenting #NervousSystemHealing

What we are experiencing right now—as a country, as communities, and as individuals—is not normal. And your body knows it.

In this episode of Pulling Threads, Leslie Mathews speaks directly to the collective nervous system response many of us are feeling but struggling to name. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, distracted, angry, numb, tearful, or constantly on edge, this conversation offers language, validation, and practical support grounded in trauma-informed neuroscience.

We explore what trauma researchers call Continuous Traumatic Stress—a state where the nervous system never gets a chance to complete the stress cycle because threat keeps coming. Leslie also names and explains moral injury, vicarious trauma, and anticipatory trauma, helping listeners understand why so many people feel exhausted, divided, and disconnected right now.

This episode is not about politics or sides. It’s about what prolonged stress does to the human nervous system—and how trauma responses like fight, flight, freeze, and fawn can quietly fracture relationships, communities, and our ability to see one another clearly.

You’ll learn:

Why what you’re feeling is a normal human response to ongoing threat

How continuous traumatic stress differs from PTSD

What moral injury feels like in the body

Why trauma increases division—even among people who care deeply

How helplessness forms when systems themselves cause harm

Trauma-informed tools to support nervous system regulation right now

Leslie also offers practical regulation strategies, including:

Pendulation and healthy boundaries with news and media

Somatic release to complete the stress cycle

Co-regulation and the power of presence

Grounding practices for moments of overwhelm

Finding small, aligned actions that restore agency

This episode is a space to pause, breathe, and remember that your nervous system is not broken—it is trying to protect you. Healing and resilience don’t come from bypassing what’s happening, but from staying regulated enough to remain connected, compassionate, and human.

If you’ve been feeling like something is deeply off, you’re not alone—and you’re not imagining it.

Keywords / SEO tags:

nervous system regulation, collective trauma, continuous traumatic stress, moral injury explained, vicarious trauma, anticipatory trauma, trauma informed podcast, mindfulness and trauma, somatic regulation, trauma and the nervous system, grounding techniques, emotional regulation, stress cycle, co regulation, healing during uncertain times

Connect with Leslie & The LooM:

🌿 Website: https://www.theloomlife.com

🎙️ Podcast: Pulling Threads

📸 Instagram (Coaching & Content): @the.loom.life

🧠 Instagram (Therapy): @loomlifetherapy

🎥 YouTube: Pulling Threads

🎵 TikTok: @parandpeace

If this episode supported you, please consider liking, subscribing, and sharing it with someone who might need it. Gentle conversations create ripples—and we move through this together.

In this episode of Pulling Threads, Leslie sits down with Courtney Carter for an intimate conversation about what happens when you grow up in a small town and later realize you’ve been postponing your voice.

They talk about the unspoken rules many of us learned early: stay agreeable, don’t take up too much space, don’t say the dream out loud, don’t make anyone uncomfortable. And then adulthood arrives and something shifts. You move. You leave. You enter new rooms. You start seeing how much of your personality was protection.

Courtney shares what it was like navigating identity as a biracial girl in a small, isolated environment, how stereotypes and expectations shape self-expression, and why boundaries can feel terrifying when you were trained to keep the peace. Together, they explore people-pleasing, perfectionism, communication, and the slow return to self-trust.

If you’ve ever felt like you edited yourself to fit in, this one is for you.💛

I trained in the official MBSR lineage at Brown University, continuing the work of Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn, founder of the original MBSR program at UMass Medical Center. And now I’m bringing this transformative framework to women navigating divorce, separation, heartbreak, and reinvention.

🧡 JOIN THE UPCOMING MBSR GROUP

Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction for Women Navigating Separation, Divorce & Breakups

Where neuroscience meets self-compassion to help you regulate, rebuild, and rise.

📅 Starts late January

🌐 Virtual (Florida-based, open to all women)

#Boundaries #SelfTrust #Mindfulness #AuthenticLiving #NervousSystemRegulation

What if your divorce isn’t the end—but the beginning of your most aligned life?

In this episode, I sit down with Amber Shaw, host of The Divorce Revolution Podcast and business coach for divorced women, for an honest conversation about turning pain into purpose, rebuilding confidence, and creating a business rooted in lived experience.

Amber opens up about navigating the end of her marriage at 40, building her first online business while still working full-time, and how mentorship helped her scale to six figures—twice. We talk candidly about the real challenges divorced moms face, including time constraints, financial pressure, and the fear of getting it wrong when the stakes feel high.

We also explore what it really means to “stay in your lane” as a coach, how to share your story without oversharing or creating conflict, and why authenticity—not perfection—is what truly attracts the right clients.

Whether you’re considering divorce, in the middle of it, or rebuilding life and income on the other side, this conversation will help you reconnect with your confidence, clarity, and sense of identity.

In this episode, you’ll hear about:

Reframing divorce as a catalyst for reinvention

Low-risk ways to start a coaching side hustle

How mentorship shortens the learning curve and builds confidence

Moving through fear and freeze with both courage and compassion

Sharing your story safely while protecting your kids and peace

The difference between therapy and coaching and why scope matters

Knowing when to delegate so you can focus on what you do best

Why you don’t need to be fully healed to help others—just a few steps ahead

This episode is for women ready to stop waiting for permission and start building what’s next.

I trained in the official MBSR lineage at Brown University, continuing the work of Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn, founder of the original MBSR program at UMass Medical Center. And now I’m bringing this transformative framework to women navigating divorce, separation, heartbreak, and reinvention.

🧡 JOIN THE UPCOMING MBSR GROUP

Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction for Women Navigating Separation, Divorce & Breakups

Where neuroscience meets self-compassion to help you regulate, rebuild, and rise.

📅 Starts late January

🌐 Virtual (Florida-based, open to all women)

If you're NOT navigating divorce but are interested in another MBSR group, send me a message on Instagram! I’m exploring a second February cohort.

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the.loom.life?igsh=ZHl3Nm1ibWd4dm1w

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/19bKH1AGZ9/

#DivorceRecovery #WomenRebuilding #LifeAfterDivorce #PurposeDrivenBusiness #WomenSupportingWomen

Parenting can feel surprisingly hard, even when you love your kids deeply. In this episode of Pulling Threads, we talk about parental burnout, old conditioning, and the internal patterns that can quietly run in the background and drain your energy.

I’m joined by Mackenzie Kinmond, a parenthood transformation coach and therapist who helps overwhelmed parents step out of survival mode and reconnect with daily joy. Together, we explore why your nervous system can react before your thinking brain has a chance to catch up, why certain ages and stages can activate old wounds, and how burnout is often less about “trying harder” and more about shifting what you’re carrying.

We also talk about the “Four Horsemen” that show up in everyday parenting: people pleasing, perfectionism, over functioning, and self sacrifice. If you’ve been feeling exhausted, reactive, or disconnected from the parent you want to be, this conversation offers a compassionate path forward, with practical ways to start making small, doable changes that create real relief over time.

In this episode, we cover:

Why parenting can activate trauma at specific ages and stages

Nervous system regulation and embodiment in real life parenting moments

Blocked care, burnout, and why shame fuels dysregulation

Repair after conflict and why it strengthens secure attachment

Micro shifts, boundaries, and creating structure that lowers stress

How to move from survival mode toward presence, clarity, and authenticity

You can also listen to Pulling Threads on my podcast and watch on YouTube.

I trained in the official MBSR lineage at Brown University, continuing the work of Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn, founder of the original MBSR program at UMass Medical Center. And now I’m bringing this transformative framework to women navigating divorce, separation, heartbreak, and reinvention.

🧡 JOIN THE UPCOMING MBSR GROUP

Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction for Women Navigating Separation, Divorce & Breakups

Where neuroscience meets self-compassion to help you regulate, rebuild, and rise.

📅 Starts late January

🌐 Virtual (Florida-based, open to all women)

#ParentalBurnout #MindfulParenting #NervousSystemRegulation #EmotionalRegulation #ConsciousParenting

Welcome to the first episode of Authentic by Design, a transformative series about discovering your true self, reclaiming your life, and stepping off autopilot. If you’ve ever felt like you’re watching life happen to someone else, like life isn’t really yours, or like you’re aged-ahead while still waiting to feel alive, you’re in the right place.

In this episode, I share a moment of awakening — sitting in my car in a Tampa parking garage, realizing the job, marriage, and identity I’d built wasn’t mine. I explore how we abandon ourselves to fit in, perform, succeed, and survive — and why that creates misalignment even at the height of achievement.

👉 If you’ve ever thought, “On paper my life looks great — but I don’t feel it inside” — this episode is for you.

🧠 In This Episode You’ll Learn:

✔ What it feels like when you’re living someone else’s life

✔ How childhood, culture, school, and social systems shape inauthentic paths

✔ The myth of success = happiness

✔ Why the “Sunday Scaries” may actually be your body telling you something is off

✔ How your nervous system signals misalignment

✔ A powerful invitation to listen to your body & inner knowing

✔ A roadmap for the rest of this 4-part series on authentic living

📍 Chapters / Timestamps

0:00 — Episode Intro: Awakening in Tampa

2:15 — What It Feels Like to Live a Life That’s Not Yours

5:40 — Why Achievement Doesn’t Always Equal Alignment

9:20 — Authenticity vs Performance (Therapy, Career, Culture)

12:55 — The Sunday Scaries: A Hidden Alarm System

15:42 — Invitation: Listening to Your Body

18:10 — Where Inauthenticity Begins — Childhood & Conditioning

23:00 — Systems That Teach Us to Abandon Ourselves

26:35 — People Most Susceptible to Losing Themselves

29:50 — The Four Pathways to Awakening

34:15 — Physical & Emotional Signs You’re Off-Course

39:40 — How to Know You’re Ready to Come Back

42:10 — Your First Invitation Toward Alignment

45:00 — Closing + What’s Coming Next in the Series

❤️ If This Resonated With You

✨ Subscribe so you don’t miss Episode 2 — where we dig into nervous system science + practical steps for returning to YOUR voice.

💬 Comment: What did you feel when you asked your body if you’re living your life?

👍 Like & Share with someone who needs to hear this.

🔗 Connect With Me

👉 Subscribe for all episodes & updates

👉 Follow on IG/TikTok for clips & reflections

👉 Join the conversation in the comments