Music: Divine C.U.T.S. 

To help you set expectations get the right person challenge: https://www.yourcaseforlove.com/the-right-person-challenge 

Introduction: Tony Dee: 0:18 Hi, I’m Tony Dee, author of “Your Case For Love,” the book, founder of the “Bypass method,” helping you bypass the wrong person so you can get to the right person this time. 

Liz Merriweather: 0:35 Hi, I’m Liz Merriweather, life coach, Psychotherapist, and co-host of Your Case For Love podcast. 

Tony Dee: 0:42 Welcome to Your Case For Love. Guest Introduction 

Liz Merriweather: 0:45 In this episode, we’re going to introduce you to Dr. Erin Mayfield, who we affectionately call Dr. Erin. Dr. Erin is going to be featured in a mini-series over the course of the next several episodes. And you’ll see why in just a minute. 

Tony Dee: 1:02 Dr. Erin? 

Dr. Erin: 1:03 Oh well, thank you so much. I’m so grateful to be here on your podcast. It’s just really an honor to share this time with you and with Liz. So I’m a physician whose passion is lifestyle medicine. I am a retired gynecologist. I practiced in the Covington and Conyers, Georgia area for almost 30 years. And those are suburbs of Atlanta. We moved to Pensacola Florida. 

Getting License: Dr. Erin: 1:33 And in the process of getting my medical license, I had an accident, which required shoulder surgery and gave me a lot of time to read. That’s how I discovered lifestyle medicine. 

Childhood: Dr. Erin: 1:45 Growing up, I had very loving parents. However, my father was a very angry man. And he had a lot of issues from his childhood. He grew up in the depression. He was out on the streets when he was six years old collecting trash, trying to bring home pennies to help support his family. So he had a really hard life. 

To help you start setting expectations start with the right person challenge

Codependent Relationship: Dr. Erin: 2:05 And there was a lot of anger there, a lot of anger that was never processed until he was quite elderly. So when I was growing up, he verbally abused my mom. And I was very defensive of her. So there was this codependent relationship between the two of us, which really extended with me into adulthood. 

Marriage: Dr. Erin: 2:30 So when I married the first time, I also married into a codependent relationship. And the man that I loved turned out to be an alcoholic. We struggled for years. And he finally volunteered to go to rehab, which I congratulate him for that. 

Problems in Marriage: Dr. Erin: 2:48 And it was rough. But that’s when I really learned about all of my emotional problems and how I contributed to the relationship, how my codependency contributed to his alcoholism and how I really supported him, in doing that, even though, I thought I didn’t want to. So that was a critical transformation for me and that takes a long time to work through. I mean, there’s this initial emotional crash, where you feel like the whole world is coming at you. And there’s this black cloud that I felt like I was living under that I kept going to counseling, I went and went and went and when I was faithful with it, and things started to get better. 

Divorce:Dr. Erin: 3:27 And we eventually divorced, because we realized we weren’t compatible. That was okay. Had I not gone through that transformation and all of that counseling and really understood what codependency was, and how it affected my life, and how I affected other peoples’ lives in that space, I would have never been able to have the healthy relationship that I have with my husband, Steve. 

Today’s Topic: Liz Merriweather: 4:13 In this week’s podcast we’re also asking why create an avatar? Please see the full footnotes on our website: https://podcast.yourcaseforlove.com/what-is-an-avatar