Deborah, with her thirty years of being an entrepreneur and creating over seven companies,
knows exactly what it means to accept the mission. When you make that
decision, when you accept the mission to become a solopreneur, to take yourself
and your talents to market, then you embrace a life of not only unlimited
possibilities, but also the unknown. It's an elixir of fear and bravery that
only someone who's taken the leap really understands. On our show, deb digs
deep with her guests to highlight what you the listener wants to know, the
stories, the whys, and the hows to navigate the journey to success.
Get ready to hear from some of the most incredible mission takers from Generation Z
to boomers. So sit up, perk up, and get ready to be
blown away. Now here is your host, Deborah Drummond. Welcome back.
Thank you so much. You know, I think, and it's kind of
easy to say it, because we've got an incredible woman that has an incredible
show with listeners and viewers that love her as well. But I always tell
you that you are the best podcast audience ever. I talk about you like
we all know each other in one day. I hope that we do because
the comments and the forwarding and the numbers of the shows have been incredible and
where it's going all over the world. Yes, I'm a bit of an
analytics puller and we have found out everywhere. And thank you Ireland. You
guys are rocking the show right now, so do share. But thank you
so much for joining us. And as you know, our show is called
Mission Accepted. So if you are on a mission and you want to share,
you know how to reach us. But you get to come and what
I say, love with us, join the journey with us, because not
only do our guests talk about what they do and why they do it,
because it's a calling, it's a mission. It was put in front of
them. They wanted to say no, but they said yes. They wanted
to say yes, but it was hard, or someone talked them into it,
or a book fell as they were walking somewhere and it was just too
obvious that they needed to do this. Right. Some people take on the
mission, and you know what, I think, taking on the mission is
one thing and staying on the mission is the other. So you kind of
listen to our stories. You laughed with us. You're like, I would
never do that, or oh my gosh, I did that last week.
And I'm very excited to have a really beautiful woman in I just love this
world of collaboration and you get put with people and you have a conversation and
you're like, let's start off sharing about what we do. And so she
also has an incredible show that she will share with you. We will put
in the show notes as well. So Stephanie McPhail is a toxic relationship recovery
expert. What I love about your title, Stephanie is really clear. It's
also really clear, but it's really empowering, right because instead of just like,
oh, she's an expert in toxic relationships and those of us that have
had some that get taken back and go mmmm, or are working through one
in all relationship and it doesn't have to be necessarily an intimate relationship. I
mean some of us have had toxic relationship with bosses or people that we worked
with or people that we didn't want to work with. But you put the
word recovery in there, and I think that's really important because recovery is part
of that process and that there is recovery. There's not only kind of recovery,
but there is full recovery, and you are an example of that.
You're living an incredible life. You are working with your partner in this whole
project. So welcome to Mission accepted, and I'm super forward looking forward to
our audience hearing a little bit about how you ended up making kind of like
you know, people talk about it right, like your mess your message,
right like how did you go from a painful place to being able to help
people pull out of their pain? Well, thank you so much, Jeb
for that introduction. First of all, I mean, I love you were
an amazing guest on my podcast, and I'm excited to be able to come
here and share my mission with everybody that's listening. I was, like probably
a lot of people that are listening, I was really good at choosing really
crappy relationships and then trying everything in my power to try to make it work.
I don't know if that resonates for anyone that's listening at all, but
you know, I came from a family that there was a lot of arguing,
but once you got married, you stayed married. And I was you
know, a lot of us are very loyal. We try very hard to
figure out what the problem is in the relationship, and then we try to
research our way out of it to find a solution, which makes us really
great at our jobs. But when it comes to letting go from these toxic
types of people, not so easy anymore. My first long term relationship ended
up with the police being called and holes in the wall and all sorts of
terrible things going on. My second long term relationship was my first husband.
That should have been a runaway because on our wedding night he actually strangled me
till I thought I was going to die. And I stayed for five years
because I was married, because I was embarrassed, because I was ashamed all
of those things, and the abuse continued the entire five years. I would
throw him out, I would let him back in, and we got into
that toxic dance, that toxic cycle of going back and forth, and I
would try to explain it to him in a way that he would finally understand
and stop doing the things he was doing, until finally one day I was
like, you know what, I can't do this anymore, and I took
my stuff and went and stayed on a friend's couch for two months, and
he'd threatened to kill my dogs, he'd threatened to burn my house down,
and at that point I was like, you know what, all of those
things would be terrible, but I cannot live this way anymore and I need
to be able to get myself out. And so I stayed on a friend's
couch, went through a divorce, and I thought things would get better automatically
because I ended the relationship. And this is where I think a lot of
us get stuck. I thought it would automatically be just freedom and it would
be done. But instead I went through a terrible depression. Everything got worse
for a little while. I call it the dark Knight of the soul.
And then I came out the other side as and it was funny. The
reason why I came out the other side is because I went in. I
sprained my ankle at work, and who was called to the emergency room but
my ex husband. So now there's my crazy ex husband in the egency room
with a doctor, and the doctor because of it is like you have a
severely sprained ankle, and I start laugh crying. They probably thought I had
just like lost it, and I heard a voice that said, clear as
day, you need to be your own night and shiny armor. You have
to stop waiting for somebody else to come and save you, and you need
to save yourself. And in that moment, I decided I was going to
do everything in my power to make changes and never do this again. I
created a team. I changed my life. I got really happy being single.
Then I met an amazing man who's now almost nine years married to him,
with two beautiful children. Completely different life. And yes, he helps
me help women heal from toxic relationships. So we're on a mission together to
help as many people as we can really step into their power. Well,
congratulations, And I know just from being on the planet, but I also
know from having a little being spent a little more time with you, is
that you know when you tell a story of such there's these highlights and I
and I really appreciate you sharing that you thought it was going to get better,
because I think many of us, when we make a decision and we
make a switch, there's this automatic I mean, there's a relief of one
thing, but the reality is still there and there's things to change, right,
And why we were attracted or why we accepted or what was it that
was going on? And I know that you shared with me that you You
know, it's interesting because people pick a ticket picture, right, Like they
listen to your story and they right now have a picture of what that was
like. But during that time, you were excelling in your career, right,
people didn't know. People didn't know. When you finally broke silence,
your girlfriends called you and like, what the you know, what the what
the why did you not tell us? Let's talk a little bit about that,
because the secrecies keep us sick, right, the secrecies keep us sick.
Yeah, and so and you're one hundred percent right, is that I
was getting Teacher of the month, I was being asked to go into the
administrative roles. I mean, everything was going great in my career. I
had great friendships all of that, and because I was the go to for
everyone else, I had a mask, and so I would go out in
public and pretend like everything was okay. And I think I did that really,
you know, it's partially just to save my sanity. Like here I
can be the real me. And he would tell he would actually tell me
I was being not the real me. I'm like no, the not real
me is with you. That's actually who's not being authentic. But you know,
I was doing so well there, and then I would come home and
I'd see his car in the driveway. I would literally go. I called
it my crying place. And I live right by the beach. There was
a parking lot I would go sit in and just cry and then come back
and come home to you know, being not spoken to. I would be
cursed at, I would be threatened. And I did that for years and
years and years. And yeah, my friend, my good friend at the
time, is a psychiatrist, and she's like, you, I could have
helped you, like you didn't tell me, And I'm like, I know,
but you had a life, you had a relationship that you were happy
with. I didn't want to tell you. I didn't even know how to
use the words to explain what I was going through. And I think,
you know again, that shame, guilt, embarrassment was so much that it
kept me stuck. And that's really what I want this platform to be is
I want other people to see my face and see someone who was doing so
well that it can literally happen to anyone. It's not it doesn't matter who
you are, socioeconomic, none of those things really matter. It literally could
happen to anybody. No, so true, right, And I think we
know that until we see it. We know that until we hear it.
We know that until we know that. So you said the word embarrassment a
couple of times, and it's interesting when you're in a relationship like that and
you feel like you're embarrassed. But sometimes I don't think people know embarrassed to
what embarrassed to who? We don't have judgment on people that are going through
hard times. We're going to put our arms out, we're going to open
our doors, we're going to help people. So there's this embarrassment and shame.
I think that's difficult for people to nail down because what are we ashamed
of? Like how do how does that transfer? It's interesting, Well,
I think for me, I was ashamed that I was not the person that
people saw me as, or that I believed people saw me as. And
I had a friend of mine at some point that I worked with at that
point for like twelve thirteen years, and he's like he took me to the
sidement time and he's like Stephanie You're the one I've looked up to, like,
you can't you can't allow this to happen. I see that something isn't
going right, just admit it and get out of there. You are the
one that has, you know, all these great capabilities, and you're ignoring
it. And so I think, and I was like, yeah, I
guess you're right. But again, I think we're still stuck in that place
that was so wait, I'm letting somebody else down. I can't let anybody
else. And we're people pleased. There's a lot of us, so we
have extreme loyalty and we're people pleasers. So like I had this whole imagined
world of like, I've got to make all these other people happy, whether
or not they even knew what was going on, and realistically, they would
want me to be happy too. I mean, let's be realistic. But
I didn't want to let those people down. They saw me as this high
level person who was doing so well. I didn't want them to know how
badly things were actually going. So it was more for myself really than anybody
else. And I think there's different kinds of shame, and I think there's
different kinds of embarrassment and then there's people that don't get out of situations like
that because of what the family would say or do, or or it's been
generational or there's the and you know, people kind of go, oh,
yeah, they can change or they can change, But really there's a true
belief that if you talk enough, if you show enough, if you somehow
turn yourself into a pretzel enough, or explain it in a different way,
that they'll see what their behavior, whether it's verbal or physical or emotional,
is having an impact on you. I think that there's this power that we
think that we have, true or not true, because you know, people
are powerful, we can make great changes. And I think that there's a
disbeliever or disconnect in terms of I know people can change, and they can
too, but at what point and at what cost? Well? And do
they want to change? Yeah? That's the hardest thing, right, is
that we can see the possibilities in them, but if they don't see it
or they don't care, they're not going to make any changes. I think.
So for me to add to that other question you were asking before,
religious upbringing was part of it also. I mean I was brought up going
to church every single Sunday. My parents stayed together and shouldn't have to be
quite honest, and so that's what I saw growing up, was this unhealthy
dynamic of people that didn't get along, but we're staying together for the children.
And you know, that's what I learned. Love was so to me,
and so my book Being Loved, Should and Hurt was like the epiphany
of oh, my gosh, love is supposed to be calm. It's supposed
to be easy going, it's supposed to be simple. You're supposed to feel
safe. None of those words I associated with love before I did my own
inner work when I had my AHA moment of what love actually was and finally
felt internally that it was calm, it was peaceful, it was easy,
it was lowered stress, it was best friend, I mean, all those
wonderful things you could think of. I didn't associate love with those words before.
So it makes complete sense that for a lot of us, if love
to us is stressful and causes anxiety, we find that and we're like stamp
of approval, that's love, and then we try to make that work,
even though either afterwards you're like, why would I want that? Why would
anyone want that kind of stressful life, you know, and partner, why
do we choose that? But if it's literally all that we know, then
that's what we search out right. I'm so glad I was going to ask
you that question. I was like, when you say associated to love,
associated to love, associated to love, because many people like yourself had safety
over here in this relationship. They had affirmation in this relationship, They had
a collegial respect in this like they have the things in other areas which kind
of compensate because if they didn't have that, this would gleam. I mean,
your life would be so much more painful. But we search it out
there and then, but we don't associate it to love. So I like,
how when you said then you had to do your own work, what
does that look like a little bit? I mean people come to you and
your husband, you have classes, you have programs, you have all sorts
of things, and I know you're going to share more a little bit about
that. But when people have that moment like how do how does one start
associating love to those things that you just talked about safety being one of them.
I think that's a big one. Yeah, Well, and that's that's
such a beautiful part of the process. I mean, if you have to
compartmentalize your life, this is where I'm doing well, this is where I'm
sad, this is the you know, I have to, like you said,
twist us at out like a pretzel to be around this person. I
think, you know, one of the hardest things that I find is that
when clients come to us and I have a client right now that I'm thinking
of, and she's like ending a relationship with one person, but she's already
got another one lined up, and I'm like, oh my gosh, don't
do that. That's what got you here to begin with. And so there's
the reason why I went through my dark night of the soul is because I,
for the first time really was had to sit with my own feelings.
I had to sit with myself. And when we are the helpers and the
fixers, we can focus so much on other people's problems that we compartmentalize and
put ours to the side. So part of healing is starting to say,
hey, if I want to help people, you can get paid for it,
you can volunteer for it, but you don't put that in your relationship.
That's something that I talk about a lot. So your home should be
your safety place, and you start creating that life for yourself so that you
know, I called the healing bubble. So in your bubble, you want
to have the commness and the easy and all that. So you're creating your
life. You're going out and you're finding yourself. You're doing the things that
you enjoy. You're adding to your friend group, you're adding to your social
group. And that doesn't just mean like the people you hang out with.
It could be people you go to the gym with, people that you go
on traveling trips with, whatever, But you're extending that so that your little
bubble is this peaceful, calm place. And so when someone who isn't healthy
comes in and starts trying to take advantage or take over, or you know,
you feel like they're trying to push you around or manipulate you or whatever,
you will see it more easily. But that's why that time in between
relationships is so important, because you need that time alone to feel your feelings.
You need that time to create that healthy bubble and to get used to
what that feels like, because at first it feels really weird. You're like,
I can have boundaries. I can create con for myself, I can
say no to things. All those things take practice. But as you start
practicing, I apply and some of all of a sudden, i' like,
oh my gosh, I just knew that that person wasn't a good pers for
me because I felt the need to help them. And when I felt the
need to help them, I knew that that meant I needed to not date
them again. They can be volunteer, they can be for business or work,
but it's not someone I'm going to be a relationship with. So they
start seeing the red flags for what they are, but you can't see that
until you do the other work first. Yeah, well said, Well said,
it's really getting to know yourself. And let's tell for me, there's
this question that's ringing. So people hit that places at different times. Sometimes
it's an intimate experience, which is what you're sharing. Sometimes someone has had
like you know, are there a narcissistic boss or someone in the office that's
not been kind or even a family member, right, and there's this I
should voice going on or I can't leave, And then the list of things
that go So when people first start taking that break away and they start to
find their safe place, right what where can people like you know, they're
looking for resources, and I think that there's many You can see that there's
a plethora of resources, but many times it's the phone call or the like
getting over the shame and embarrassment to make that call, the process of getting
yourself into a place where you are starting to revillage your life. Can you
talk a little bit about that, Like you just talked about one thing,
not dating, but you know, there's what are people are they journaling?
Are they going to counseling? Like what are some of the things that people
can do to start getting themselves on the right path, Because like for you,
it was a moment you're at the hospital, You're like, oh my
gosh, I gotta do Like where did you go? So okay, So
for me back in the day when I was going through my talxic relationsis there
were no coaches like me. Yeah, there was a there was therapists and
I actually I remember for me when I was going through it, I was
like the therapist was helpful and the only thing I knew was that I wanted
to help people, but I didn't know what that was. And so that
was the closest. It was just someone to hold me accountable, and that
was I was able to start there. I needed a grounding rock of someone
who knew more than me, and that was really important because as professional women
who have been through trauma, we are hyper independence. Hyper independence is a
trauma response, and so it's such a hard thing to say, I can't
do this by myself. But anyone who right now might be struggling themselves,
ask yourself if you would ask someone who's never done brain surgery to do brain
surgery. The answer is obviously no, we would never do that. But
here we are a lot of us have never gotten the tools to create healthy
relationships. We don't know what we need to do to make that. We
have that idea, but we don't know what to do to get there.
And then we're mad at ourselves because we can't get there, or we keep
making the same mistakes, but we don't reach out for help, and we
don't accept help when it comes to us because of that hyper independence. So
we're like, no, no, no, I don't need anything. I
can handle this by myself. Well, literally be on fire and drowning at
the same time and still say I got it. I got a dory.
I'm okay, but we need to be able to accept that. Number One,
people that love us want to give back to us. They're excited to
give back, except of the help. But number two, the thinking that
got us to this place is not going to be the thinking that gets us
out. So I needed someone outside of my brain because everyone that comes to
me is like, well I know better, I just don't do better.
Yes, just like everybody else. We all if we would give advice to
somebody else and say don't do that, but we're doing it to ourselves.
We need someone else to point out where we're making those mistakes and say,
hey, you notice what you did there, Let's do this instead. How
about we try something else? You know, because again, when we are
in it, in that real time, we are making those decisions based on
feelings, and some of those feelings have guided us in the wrong direction because
we are a pain avoids. And when we have something that it's like having
a coach, you know, when you're at gym and they're like ten more
reps and you're like, oh god, I want to punch you, like
I can't do ten more, and there you go. You did twelve because
you pushed yourself, you know, having someone else to say, Hey,
you're going to go out on Friday night and you're going to go to a
bar and have a drink by yourself, or you're going to go you know,
try this, or you're gonna journal this this specific question, or you
know, any of those things that just kind of guide you in real time
so that you can start and making those little small changes and one degree will
bring you in a completely different direction. But you've got to get sat outside
of your own thinking and have somebody else who knows who's been there, done
that is where you want to be, to help you move to a different
direction. Thank you so much. That's kind of what I was because many
of us go to like you know, you're going to any kind of resource
and it's like, if it's journaling, but what are you journaling about?
And I really loved and highlighted that the same voice that's trying to get us
healthy, healthy, and it's so true, right and you try, but
it's the same voice, and it's easy to default because some of the times
I truly believe in my experience in my life so far, even just coaching
in business or being a parent, or living on the planet is everyone's doing
the best they can with what they have, but sometimes what you don't have
is the advice that you need for your future. Right, it's really hard
to see yourself in action there, whether it's a codependency thing, whether it's
a people pleasing thing which you're really to related, or it's because you've been
in that same experience that's your neuronal go to, Like, that's just your
neuronal go to, and it's not till someone points it out and says,
let's try it this way that like you said, it doesn't even have to
be grand, doesn't even have to be grand to beginning, it's just the
results become grand. So I and I want to jump in there really quick
too. We will default. It's like it's like a rut in the road.
You know, the car's going a certain way and all of a sudden
you're on the high When you're like, oh, I keep wanting to go
in this one place, it's that rut. You're automatic will go back to
that same rut until you start making those gradual changes, so you might not
even realize it. But there's another part too, is that we will self
sabotage and not realize that we're doing it, because as we start to grow
and change, people around us might fall off. Other people might not like
that we're growing and changing. And if we don't have someone to help motivate
and cheerlead us on the new direction that we're going, all of those other
people and that thinking that we have is going to put us right back to
where we started, and then we haven't done what we needed. So if
we don't believe, for example, that healthy relationships are possible for us,
if we start working towards it, our brain all of a sudden is going
to be like, no, that's not possible for people like us, we
can't do that. And then we're going to screw it up. And then
we're going to but we're not gonna mean to. We're going to say we're
doing something different, and we're going to think we are, but we are
actually doing exactly the same thing, and then we're going to end up in
another unhealthy relationship where we're like, see, I was right, I can't
there's no good guys out there, they're all terrible, and we put and
then we believe that, so then we've now we retrained our brain that see,
it's not possible for me to create something different. But that's why that
outside support is so important, because I can call you'll be like, this
is where this is where we sabotage. This is where where that fear comes
up of the new you and who you're creating. That's where this comes up
and where you're going to be scared and try and fall backwards. So I
think that was important to add because that sabotage is so amazing. It's the
bs, the belief systems that we have will keep us stuck in sabotaging ourselves.
Yeah. I have a saying that the lies look real. Yeah.
The difficulty is that the lies look real. They don't look obscure. They
just sit there and they're like, Oh, you're going to do this in
many areas, You're going to do this, and then all you know,
it's like when someone used to book. I had a health studio at one
point and we had these really big, incredible treatments that were pretty revolutionary for
someone you know, just everything changed and it was a full day. It
was a six hour treatment, and we would we got to the point where
we had to get them to prepay because if not, guess what would happen.
Oh I need a new stove, or you know, I have people
that came in from out of town, and it was just we could see
that they were sabotaging this, you know, evolution that they were going to
go through. So once we started putting in a deposit non negotiable, then
everybody showed up. There was no issues that were pertaining. They dealt with
that. So let's jump a little bit to you working with your new husband,
because wow, right, I mean, first of all, working in
the dynamic of you know, one that you love can be interesting, can
be joyful, and can be interesting. And so you meet this gentleman and
then I mean, I'm assuming he wasn't in the same field before you met
him, or tell us a little bit about that. No, So well,
it's it's so funny because he actually had wanted he had dipped his toe
in the entrepreneurship world, and that was actually something that if I was going
to date again, I wanted someone who was open to be an entrepreneur.
That was something that was important. But he was a reiki master teacher and
I was like, oh, that's right, really cool, And he is
a psych k facilitator, which helps with subconscious belief change, and he had
been doing that already for years, and so he's a little bit the woo
and I'm a little bit more like the down to earth, more grounded one.
So it's a really good yin and yang combination. But I'll tell you
this is something that's really kind of funny is that the first time I went
to his apartment and I walked in and he had a big bookshelf, and
on the bookshelf there were all these like self help books, and I was
like, he has all the same books that I do. I was like,
made me a little hot. I was like, whoa, Yeah,
this is really nice to see a guy who's got all the same books.
So it's not you know, it was real and it was genuine, and
he had done some of that work himself. And he actually had broken up
with his longtime girlfriend and around the same time I ended my relationship with my
husband, so we had both had about a year and a half of just
being single and not being serious about any type of relationship to really work on
ourselves, and that to me was really important. But if you would have
told me fifteen years ago that number one i'd be married to my best friend,
and that we would be helping people heal together, and that i'd be
working with women. All of that, I would have laughed, like,
there's no way that I would have believed that to happen. Like me,
that's really good at crappy relationships. I'm going to help people out of these
things like never in a million years. And that's something, you know.
I really hope anyone who's listening can hear that and understand like I didn't foresee
this, I didn't know. I would have never imagined that this would be
the direction that I went. And so you know, if it can happen
to me and I can make such a shift, I'm not any more special
than any of you, it's all. I'm not a guru. I'm not
anything other than someone who made it my priority to do the work and do
the healing and not settle. And so like I did the work, I
got happy being single, and when I met my husband, I was so
happy being single that I allowed it to just be friendship and see what it
went. And when I saw because I almost broke up with him a few
times because I really liked being single that much, and I thought, I
just felt this loss, and I was like, this is the first guy
that's not trying to control me. He's not trying to manipulate me, and
he adds to my life where before relationships all took away from my life,
and all of that together created this beautiful, you know, just combination and
like we were both better versions of ourselves together. So if anybody's stuck right
now and they're like, I don't know, I can't see it. I
had a glimmer of hope that maybe maybe maybe something could be better if I
got out, and that was what got me. That little glimmer of hope
is what got me to make all those changes, find an amazing partner,
and do all of this work. Thank you for sharing that, because I
think we don't foresee like many decisions that we make in our life, whether
it's entrepreneurial. I mean, this was obviously clearly an entrepreneurial decision as well.
You couldn't have seen that. So you made unforeseen business decisions, you
made un seeing relationship decisions. And I like that you said that you liked
being singles so much, and I hear a lot of people that have come
out of difficult experiences when they start to find themselves again and love themselves again,
what would you say to the person who's been in that place, has
done the work. I hear it all the time. I'm sure, so
are you. I'm finally happy. I don't want a relationship, and the
fear of going into relationship or losing yourself again is so prevalent. It reminds
me of e Prey Love at the end, where you know he wants to
have relationship with her, but she finally found herself and she was like,
I don't want to give this up in the fear of losing yourself again.
I mean, people must come up against that. Oh yeah, And it's
actually and that's why you know, I would say most of what I do
with my clients is getting them back into living their lives because you can't live
your life for somebody else. That's not possible. And we were talking about
before we started. I mean, I have so many clients, like there's
one in particular, whe she is this high end lawyer. She's doing really
well for herself, but the only thing exciting she's had in her life in
the past few years is these really terrible relationships and I use the word exciting
loosely because they're not exciting. They're dramatic and they use up all this energy,
but you know, getting her to like, Hey, how about you
go kayaking this weekend. How about you plan a girl's trip with some of
your friends. How about we start meeting new people that are outside of your
regular circle, and we start creating a life of adventure and excitement outside of
your career, and then we can start looking at because you know, no
matter what happens, we create our life single, and then we don't just
drop all of that once we get into our relationship, and that's where I
think so many of us. And then when we've been in a toxic relationship,
it's even more hyper focused on the relationship because it's taking up so much
energy. So we have to remember that there is that balance. I mean,
David is my best friend. Him and I work together, we do
all these things, but I also have my book club, I also have
my hiking group. I also have the other people that I do things with
that's not all him. Because it's not even really fair for us to put
so much energy and so much expectation on our partner because they're human too.
They deserve their own life, they deserve their own space, you know.
And so to be able to have that separation and to me, not only
does it keep the relationship strong, but it gives even something fun to talk
about, because if you're just together all the time and it's always working on
the relationship and figuring out, you know, doing all that stuff out,
it's very draining, but it's also not very fun. And again, when
you go and you're doing your things and you come back you're like, oh,
guess what I did today, It keeps everything more exciting and more interesting.
And then you can share your own adventures together, the things that they
enjoy and that you enjoy. This so there's no resentment, there's no you
know, anger like, oh you want to do this with me? No,
you know, Oh I think that's cool. I'm going to go do
this with somebody else. And then you can both just kind of come back
together and share your experience together. Right. For those that are scared to
open their heart again and that kind of process, it's you know, it's
not all or nothing, yep yep, right, yeah, And again very
important before we start dating again to have that as your baseline because if not
then we are again. I'm thinking of another client where she has been afraid
to really create this other life because well, what if I meet someone and
I said, but what you're doing is is you're coming across, like I
can tell by what you're saying, you're lonely. So you're looking for a
relationship to fill in that void because you're lonely, and lonely people come across
as being desperate and who is attracted to that narcissist toxic people They want to
take advantage of the fact that you aren't feeling very good, that you're feeling
lonely, or feeling isolated, all those things. But what a narciss doesn't
like is a woman who is strong, who's independent and doesn't put up with
a shit. So because then they're like, wait, I can't control and
manipulate her. She's got her own life. She's not going to deal and
like you know, I can't. She's not going to cater to my every
whim everything. So they're not going to be interested in that. But the
strong men, not the boys. We don't want boys anymore. But the
strong men are going to see that strong, independent, powerful woman and be
like that is an amazing person. She doesn't need me, she chooses me,
and so that's you know, remind yourself of that she doesn't need me,
she chooses me, and that's again adding to your life. Wow,
I know we're going to be wrapping up soon. You have two beautiful children.
And it's interesting, right, Like, you know, for those of
us that are entrepreneurs or have our own business, what do your children think
about what you do? It's interesting sometimes. I mean my side ocean,
we're doing this big women's project, big women's rights, and he happens to
have been raised by a mom and a sister who are fairly independent, right,
and so he's like, I don't see what the issue is, you
know what I mean, Like, which is great as we want this generation
to feel like, what do you mean? You know, he doesn't know
historical information. So for him, it's very interesting being around all these women
and what's going on and that kind of stuff. What about your children,
It's like what do they think about their moment and dad that you know in
this business and helping people in relationships that aren't so great. Oh, it's
so funny because I mean, so my office is right near the front door,
so they can hear me as they walk by, and I don't realize
how much they hear until all of a sudden things come up. And my
son is eight, he's going into third grade, and he'll say he'll make
comments about toxic relationships and like, oh, my mom wrote a book about
toxic relationships, and we'll talk about things qualities, about what's toxic and what's
healthy. But he also says, like it's so cute because he's like,
women are so powerful and strong, Like I don't know why guys say that
girls aren't strong because women are so strong. In fact, I think they're
stronger than men. And I'm like, yeah, this is good. And
he's funny too because like something as silly as my husband will vacuum and like
clean the toilets, you know, and he for him, that's a man's
job. Like I help, and so you know, we talk about,
well, when I grow up and if I want to be a good partner,
I need to also clean toilets and vacuum, so I need Daddy to
help me do those things. And Daddy helps support mommy, So I need
to do those things. So it's just and he's eight, you know,
so it's like, and we've never told him those things. It's just he
sees that we are a force together and that we are on the same you
know, playing field, and there's no one better than the other. We
just listen to each other and go back and forth. But that's how we've
seen his whole life. And my daughter is very much the strong, independent
five year old girl that you know. It's it's very much. She's very
sure of herself and she knows she is not afraid to say no, and
I love that. Difficult sometimes as a mom, you might want to revisit
that when she's sixteen exactly. But she I mean she but she'll talk about
it and she'll you know. But it is interesting and I think it's also
interesting even just for us to relook at how we were brought up and as
people who helped toxic relationships. We're not parenting coaches, but there's a lot
of learning that happens because we see, we've seen and heard stories from the
other end once they are adults of what's happened to them in their childhood.
So we are hyper aware of certain things and certain behaviors that are okay versus
not okay, and we're also, and we're learning that as well for ourselves,
like how do we navigate this? We don't want them to live in
shame and guilt, so we're very big. You know. My son actually
was having some issues at school and the school psychologist or whatever, she's like,
I have to say that he is so well spoken and speaks so eloquently
about his feelings and in this very assertive communication style. We don't see that
with boys or any kids really that age. And I'm like, well,
we're relationship where we teach people about toxic relationship. So that's you know,
but I you know, it's such an amazing learning experience for us and for
them as well, to see to hear the stories of what we share.
I mean, they all know about my history and my background, right right,
Wow, Well, look, I know that we're, like I said,
getting close to time, and please tell us again the name of your
book. I think it's a I think it's perfect. I love the clarity
in what it is that you know when you put it out there to the
world. So the name of your book. And I know that we were
talking a little pre show that you've got something. And when I was talking
about accessibility to information and how important that is. I think we've all had
something like even if it's a medical condition that we're trying desperately to find someone
to help us with. So you've got things of all level. We're a
big believer in accessibility over here at you know, two sixty two and giving
accessibility. You've got something that people can tap into full access with no investment,
and then if they want to dig in more, obviously you have that
as well. Can you just give us on what that is right now?
Yeah? Sure. So I've got my book Being Loved Shouldn't Hurt the what
I'm offering. So we have a subscription that is launching this week, which
we're really excited about, and that's free for listeners. They can try it
out, and then after that it's only thirty three dollars a month. So
I wanted to make it super accessible. You would get my book and workbook
when you do sign up for that. So go to Being Loved should Hurt
dot com slash links and we'll put that in the show notes of course.
And then of course there's my podcast, Toxic Love Transformation. If you go
to toxiclovepodcast dot com you can find that on all of the different areas where
podcasts stream, but definitely go check it out. You know, no matter
what I think, the really important thing is is there's nothing wrong with you.
There's just the lack of knowledge is the lack of tools. So instead
of beating yourself up and wishing that things were different, start taking action,
start getting the information, and start actively working towards creating something different. Because
you were put here for beautiful, amazing things. It was not to just
struggle. You have a beautiful gift that the world needs for you to step
in to that power and give back. Well, well I couldn't have said
it better. And I think the only one thing to add to that is,
no matter where you're at, even if your toxic relationship was a long
time ago, but yet you find yourself still in some kind of repetitive pattern
or whether you're in that in situation or anywhere around that line, good information
is always good information. It just moves you in knowledge, particularly in this
arena. It's so powerful. Thank you so much for joining us today.
Like you said, everything will be in the show notes watch her show.
It was such a pleasure to be on your show and have that conversation.
Like I said earlier. You incredible audience. If you want to be here
where she is sitting today, sharing something that's important to you, you're powerful
your message. You know how to reach us. You're just going to go
to Depth Drummond dot com. There's contact there and there's all sorts of ways
to play as well. As you know, we have been embarking on this
incredible book launch the two sixty two project, and so again go to the
website. The book is now live. You've been hearing about it for almost
two years. And the two sixty two mission of two hundred and sixty two
women that are sharing their stories of gumption in all areas of their life.
So you can go and support that project as well. Stephanie, thank you
so much for being with us today. Listeners, thank you so much for
being with us today. And I have one final question for Stephanie that is
different than what we just talked about. So, Stephanie, if you were
on your way to a desert island and it was just you and your suitcase,
and you had room in that suitcase for one album. One album couldn't
be a collection, can't be a playlist, but just one album that you
couldn't imagine not sitting on the beach and listening to you for the rest of
your days. What album would it be. It could be an album,
it could be a song or an artist. Well, I'm gonna go with
artists. So I'm a big Fish fan. Fish is like the newer version
of the Grateful Dead. But they just bring me to a happy place and
I could listen to them. They just remind me of summer and fun and
adventure and excitement, so definitely fun. Right. Is there a particular song
that you like. There's a few that are coming through, but there's one
that's actually called Free, and it's about being able to float and just be
free to be who you are. So that's all right, all right,
So listeners, go out there and put in free from Fish. We're big
music supporters here, so it will actually be in the show notes. Look,
thank you for joining us, and thank you for joining us everybody today,
until we meet again, be well and stay or bye for now.