Softspaces Podcast

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You know they’re not good for you. 
Your friends know it. Your family has said it more than once.
And yet, you keep going back.

Here’s what nobody told you: that pull you feel has a name. It’s called a trauma bond, and it lives in your nervous system long before it ever shows up in your decisions.

In this episode of Softspaces, I’m breaking down exactly what a trauma bond is, why it feels so much like love, and how to start telling the difference between the intensity that keeps you hooked and the real intimacy you deserve.
Because real intimacy is the capacity to tolerate closeness. A trauma bond is your body clinging to the hope that the good moments will come back.

In this episode, you’ll learn:
✔️ What a trauma bond is, and why it forms in the relationships that hurt us most
✔️ How intermittent reinforcement (the hot-and-cold cycle) wires your brain to stay
✔️ What Dr. Patrick Carnes’ work on betrayal bonds reveals about why leaving feels impossible
✔️ The signs you’re in a trauma bond, with a partner, parent, friend or even a workplace
✔️ How real vulnerability feels in your body, and how it differs from trauma bonding
✔️ A guided 4-4-6 breathing exercise to help your nervous system feel safe

☕ Tea Time
In this week’s Tea Time, we unpack a real comment from [Name] and talk about what it really takes to break the cycle.

🫖 Tea Time is brought to you by EmbodiedLife Wellness. Our signature Renewal blend combines cinnamon, sage, lavender and orange peel for a smooth sip of calm and renewal. Get yours and explore more at [www.EmbodiedLifeWell.com].

👍 If this episode helped you understand yourself a little better, hit LIKE so it reaches someone who needs it, and share it with the friend who keeps going back.

🔔 Subscribe for new episodes of Season 4: Closeness Is a Capacity.

📺 Binge the full season: www.youtube.com/@SoftSpacesPodcast

🎧 Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and all podcast platforms.

💜 If you’re in a relationship that feels unsafe, you deserve support. You can reach the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233, or text START to 88788.

Softspaces is for education and is not a substitute for working with a licensed mental health professional.

Thank you for tuning in to Softspaces Podcast with Yolanda Lewis!
If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe and leave a review to help others find their soft space too.

Stay Connected:

• Instagram: @softspacespod
• Facebook: /softspacespodcast
• YouTube: @softspacespodcast

Join the Conversation:

• Tag me on social media with your thoughts or takeaways from today’s episode using #SoftspacesPodcast.

Want more?

• Join the Unmuted Community for exclusive updates, member-only content, and tools for healing and personal growth. www.healwithyolanda.com 
• Explore more of my work and services: www.extremeoverflow.com
• Interested in learning about somatic breathwork and healing? Visit: www.healwithyolanda.com 

Send us Fan Mail

"I'm done. This ain't worth it, so I cut them off."

If those words have ever come out of your mouth, you're not alone — but you might be surprised to learn what's actually happening underneath. In this episode, Yolanda Lewis breaks down emotional cutoff, the clinical term for the pop culture trend of cutting people off, and reveals why it has less to do with the other person than you think.

Drawing from Bowen Family Systems Theory and her own dissertation research, Yolanda introduces the Relational Repair Spectrum — a model that maps the difference between healthy relationships, toxic relationships, and the "dysfunctional gray zone" most of us actually live in. It's in that gray zone where emotional cutoff does its most quiet damage, leaking from the relationship where it started into friendships and connections you actually value.

You'll learn:
- What emotional cutoff really is (and how it's different from just needing space)
- Why your nervous system defaults to cutting off when anxiety gets too high
- What "differentiation of self" means and why it's the key to staying connected under stress
- How to identify a skill gap you may have never been taught — staying in hard conversations
- One simple tool to try the next time you feel the urge to go quiet on someone you love
- A guided breathing practice to help you regulate in the moment

Whether you've ever cut someone off, been cut off, or noticed a pattern you can't quite name, this episode will help you understand that the urge to distance yourself isn't a flaw — it's a reflex. And reflexes, as it turns out, can be unlearned.

If you liked this episode, check out this one next: www.youtube.com/@softspacespodcast
Connect with Yolanda:
Grab Yolanda's NEW book: Untangled: How families stop walking on eggshells and start rebuilding closeness
Get the signature Renewal Tea
Follow Yolanda on Instagram and TikTok
Watch the episodes on YouTube
Subscribe for new episodes of Season 4

Thank you for tuning in to Softspaces Podcast with Yolanda Lewis!
If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe and leave a review to help others find their soft space too.

Stay Connected:

• Instagram: @softspacespod
• Facebook: /softspacespodcast
• YouTube: @softspacespodcast

Join the Conversation:

• Tag me on social media with your thoughts or takeaways from today’s episode using #SoftspacesPodcast.

Want more?

• Join the Unmuted Community for exclusive updates, member-only content, and tools for healing and personal growth. www.healwithyolanda.com 
• Explore more of my work and services: www.extremeoverflow.com
• Interested in learning about somatic breathwork and healing? Visit: www.healwithyolanda.com 

Send us Fan Mail

Why You Feel Guilty Having a Good Day When They’re Having a Bad One | Enmeshment Explained

Some call it love. Others call it nosy and all up in your business. But what do you call it when your loyalty runs so deep you can’t tell where your feelings end and someone else’s begin?
If you’ve ever felt guilty for enjoying a good day because someone close to you was having a bad one, this episode is for you.

In this episode, we explore enmeshment, a family dynamic named by Dr. Salvador Minuchin, one of the founders of structural family therapy, where boundaries blur so much that people lose their sense of identity and self. Enmeshment often looks like loyalty. It can show up with a parent, a partner, a sibling or a friend.

You’ll learn:

• What enmeshment looks like in everyday life, from guilt over boundaries to absorbing someone else’s bad mood
• Where enmeshment comes from: intergenerational trauma, cultural expectations of self-sacrifice, and limited mental health support
• Why the people closest to you push back when you start setting boundaries
• Three transitions for undoing enmeshment: expect the shock, separate your feelings from theirs, and reclaim your identity
• A simple practice: observe what others feel, and decide what’s yours to carry
• A guided 4-4-6 breathing exercise to help your nervous system feel safe

In Tea Time, we unpack a real comment from a woman finding herself again after enmeshed parents, raising two children and a 16-year marriage..

This episode is for education and is not a substitute for working with a licensed therapist.

Watch more episodes: www.youtube.com/@SoftSpacesPodcast
+Subscribe for new episodes of Season 4.

Thank you for tuning in to Softspaces Podcast with Yolanda Lewis!
If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe and leave a review to help others find their soft space too.

Stay Connected:

• Instagram: @softspacespod
• Facebook: /softspacespodcast
• YouTube: @softspacespodcast

Join the Conversation:

• Tag me on social media with your thoughts or takeaways from today’s episode using #SoftspacesPodcast.

Want more?

• Join the Unmuted Community for exclusive updates, member-only content, and tools for healing and personal growth. www.healwithyolanda.com 
• Explore more of my work and services: www.extremeoverflow.com
• Interested in learning about somatic breathwork and healing? Visit: www.healwithyolanda.com 

Send us Fan Mail

"I'm fine."

If those words have ever come out of your mouth when you were anything but, you're not alone — but you might be surprised to learn what's actually happening underneath. In this episode, we break down self-abandonment: the moment you downplay your needs so you don't burden anyone, accept less than you deserve so you won't be left alone, and walk away from your own boundaries to keep the peace.

Self-abandonment is a survival strategy. And every single time you do it, you teach your own intuition that it isn't safe to trust you — and eventually, that leaves you feeling like a stranger in your own body. Because if you can't trust yourself, who can you really trust?
 
You'll learn:

• What self-abandonment really looks like (and why it's different from just being easygoing)
• Why your nervous system defaults to abandoning yourself when connection feels at risk
• How every boundary you surrender becomes a broken promise — to yourself
• The quiet cost of "keeping the peace" and what it does to your relationship with yourself
• One question to sit with the next time you feel the pull to abandon what you need
• Why self-abandonment starts as survival — and how it can be unlearned

Whether you've ever said "I'm fine" when you weren't, swallowed what you needed to keep someone close, or noticed a pattern of putting yourself last, this episode will help you understand that the urge to abandon yourself is a reflex that can be unlearned.

If you liked this episode, check out this one next: www.youtube.com/@SoftSpacesPodcast
Watch the episodes on YouTube
Subscribe for new episodes of Season 4

Thank you for tuning in to Softspaces Podcast with Yolanda Lewis!
If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe and leave a review to help others find their soft space too.

Stay Connected:

• Instagram: @softspacespod
• Facebook: /softspacespodcast
• YouTube: @softspacespodcast

Join the Conversation:

• Tag me on social media with your thoughts or takeaways from today’s episode using #SoftspacesPodcast.

Want more?

• Join the Unmuted Community for exclusive updates, member-only content, and tools for healing and personal growth. www.healwithyolanda.com 
• Explore more of my work and services: www.extremeoverflow.com
• Interested in learning about somatic breathwork and healing? Visit: www.healwithyolanda.com 

Send us Fan Mail

If you've ever waited years for something to happen — the relationship, the breakthrough, the dream — and then found yourself unable to celebrate when it finally did, this episode is for you. It's time to understand what's really going on.

In today's episode, Yolanda breaks down why we pull away from the very things we've worked so hard to achieve — and it has nothing to do with laziness, bad timing, or being too busy. It's about your capacity for closeness. The same drive that got you to the finish line can be the thing that makes you step back the moment you cross it. Through a powerful reframe and a single question, Yolanda shows you how to spot the pattern, understand what's actually underneath it, and begin expanding your capacity to hold the good things you've been chasing.

By the end of this episode, you'll know:
- Why "I'll celebrate later" is a form of self-sabotage disguised as being practical
- How your capacity for closeness determines whether you can actually receive what you've built
- The difference between effort and capacity — and why effort alone won't fix this
- Why we sabotage the things we want most right when they come close
- The one question that reveals your pattern: *What do I step back from every time it comes close?*

If you've ever watched yourself pull away from the thing you wanted most, this episode will help you see exactly what's been standing in your way — and what it takes to finally hold it.

If you liked this episode, check out this one next: www.youtube.com/@softspacespodcast

Connect with Yolanda:
Grab Yolanda's NEW book: Untangled: How families stop walking on eggshells and start rebuilding closeness

Get the signature Renewal Tea
Follow Yolanda on Instagram and TikTok
Watch the episodes on YouTube
Subscribe for new episodes of Season 4

Thank you for tuning in to Softspaces Podcast with Yolanda Lewis!
If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe and leave a review to help others find their soft space too.

Stay Connected:

• Instagram: @softspacespod
• Facebook: /softspacespodcast
• YouTube: @softspacespodcast

Join the Conversation:

• Tag me on social media with your thoughts or takeaways from today’s episode using #SoftspacesPodcast.

Want more?

• Join the Unmuted Community for exclusive updates, member-only content, and tools for healing and personal growth. www.healwithyolanda.com 
• Explore more of my work and services: www.extremeoverflow.com
• Interested in learning about somatic breathwork and healing? Visit: www.healwithyolanda.com 

Send us Fan Mail

Season 4 is 10 episodes on closeness as a capacity: trauma bonds, overreacting, the reassurance loop, keeping score, and the family doors that quietly closed. New season premieres Tuesday, October 6.

Thank you for tuning in to Softspaces Podcast with Yolanda Lewis!
If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe and leave a review to help others find their soft space too.

Stay Connected:

• Instagram: @softspacespod
• Facebook: /softspacespodcast
• YouTube: @softspacespodcast

Join the Conversation:

• Tag me on social media with your thoughts or takeaways from today’s episode using #SoftspacesPodcast.

Want more?

• Join the Unmuted Community for exclusive updates, member-only content, and tools for healing and personal growth. www.healwithyolanda.com 
• Explore more of my work and services: www.extremeoverflow.com
• Interested in learning about somatic breathwork and healing? Visit: www.healwithyolanda.com 

Are you wondering, “Why do I feel so depressed?” or searching for real answers about how to cope with depression? 

In this episode of Soft Spaces, we break down what depression really is, why it can feel so overwhelming, and—most importantly—what you can do about it.

You’ll learn:

• Why depression feels so heavy
• How to recognize the signs and symptoms of depression
• Practical, evidence-based tools to help you manage depression in the moment
• How to create supportive spaces for healing and connection
• Why seeking help is a sign of strength, not weakness

Whether you’re struggling with depression yourself or supporting someone who is, this episode offers clarity, hope, and actionable strategies to help you move forward. 

If you’ve ever asked, “Will I always feel this way?” or “How can I start to feel better?”—this conversation is for you.

👇 Drop your questions or experiences in the comments and join our community of healing and support.

—

🔗 Resources & Contact:
• For booking and inquiries: www.embodiedlifewell.com/contact
• For workbooks and classes: www.embodiedlifewell.com
• For the Reset Experience: www.embodiedlifewell.com/reset

#Depression #MentalHealth #CopingWithDepression #DepressionHelp #SoftSpacesPodcast #YolandaLewis

Support the show

Thank you for tuning in to Softspaces Podcast with Yolanda Lewis!
If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe and leave a review to help others find their soft space too.

Stay Connected:

• Instagram: @softspacespod
• Facebook: /softspacespodcast
• YouTube: @softspacespodcast

Join the Conversation:

• Tag me on social media with your thoughts or takeaways from today’s episode using #SoftspacesPodcast.

Want more?

• Join the Unmuted Community for exclusive updates, member-only content, and tools for healing and personal growth. www.healwithyolanda.com
• Explore more of my work and services: www.extremeoverflow.com
• Interested in learning about somatic breathwork and healing? Visit: www.healwithyolanda.com

Have you ever felt like you’re just waiting for the other shoe to drop, even when everything seems fine? 

In this episode, we discuss the hidden ways hypervigilance shows up in our lives—how our bodies can get stuck in a state of high alert, always bracing for the worst, even when we really just want peace.

We’ll talk about why calm can feel so unfamiliar, how childhood experiences shape our adult responses, and what it really takes to teach our bodies that safety is possible.We talk about the science behind trauma responses, and practical steps you can take to start feeling at home in your own skin.

Ready to move from survival mode to a life where you can truly thrive? 
Let’s do this together.

For workshop details or to book a session, visit www.embodiedlifewell.com/reset

For more information, visit www.embodiedlifewell.com

Support the show

Thank you for tuning in to Softspaces Podcast with Yolanda Lewis!
If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe and leave a review to help others find their soft space too.

Stay Connected:

• Instagram: @softspacespod
• Facebook: /softspacespodcast
• YouTube: @softspacespodcast

Join the Conversation:

• Tag me on social media with your thoughts or takeaways from today’s episode using #SoftspacesPodcast.

Want more?

• Join the Unmuted Community for exclusive updates, member-only content, and tools for healing and personal growth. www.healwithyolanda.com
• Explore more of my work and services: www.extremeoverflow.com
• Interested in learning about somatic breathwork and healing? Visit: www.healwithyolanda.com

This one’s for the Black women who’ve spent a lifetime feeling out of sync, only to discover—maybe much later than expected—that there’s a name for it. 

In this episode, join us for a powerful conversation with a guest who, after years of navigating life’s challenges, finally received an autism diagnosis as an adult Black woman. We dig into what it’s like to grow up feeling different, the relief and complexity of finally having answers, and the unique journey of unmasking in a world that often overlooks Black women’s experiences. Her story is honest, nuanced, and a reminder that it’s never too late to understand yourself more deeply.

If you’re ready to step into your truth and connect with a community that gets it, join us for Reset. Let’s rewrite the narrative together. 

Register here: www.embodiedlifewell.com/reset

Support the show

Thank you for tuning in to Softspaces Podcast with Yolanda Lewis!
If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe and leave a review to help others find their soft space too.

Stay Connected:

• Instagram: @softspacespod
• Facebook: /softspacespodcast
• YouTube: @softspacespodcast

Join the Conversation:

• Tag me on social media with your thoughts or takeaways from today’s episode using #SoftspacesPodcast.

Want more?

• Join the Unmuted Community for exclusive updates, member-only content, and tools for healing and personal growth. www.healwithyolanda.com
• Explore more of my work and services: www.extremeoverflow.com
• Interested in learning about somatic breathwork and healing? Visit: www.healwithyolanda.com

Have you ever caught yourself procrastinating, saying yes when you really mean no, or pulling away just when things start to feel good? If you’re nodding along, you’re not alone—and you’re definitely in the right place. 

In this episode, we’re getting real about self-sabotage and how it’s often a gentle signal from our nervous system, not a flaw in who we are.

Let’s sit together in this soft space and talk about what it looks like to lovingly interrupt those old patterns. I’ll share some of my own stories, walk with you through the signs of sabotage, and invite you to notice how your body responds—without any shame, just honest conversation and a lot of compassion.

We’ll even take a few deep breaths together, so you can feel what it’s like to create safety and healing in your own body, right here and now. 

And if you’re ready to go deeper, I’d love for you to join me at the next Embodied Life Reset class. It’s a one-day, in-person workshop where we get to breathe, connect, and reset together. 

You can save your spot at www.embodiedlifewell.com/reset.

Thank you for tuning in to Softspaces Podcast with Yolanda Lewis!
If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe and leave a review to help others find their soft space too.

Stay Connected:

• Instagram: @softspacespod
• Facebook: /softspacespodcast
• YouTube: @softspacespodcast

Join the Conversation:

• Tag me on social media with your thoughts or takeaways from today’s episode using #SoftspacesPodcast.

Want more?

• Join the Unmuted Community for exclusive updates, member-only content, and tools for healing and personal growth. www.healwithyolanda.com
• Explore more of my work and services: www.extremeoverflow.com
• Interested in learning about somatic breathwork and healing? Visit: www.healwithyolanda.com