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Why Family Estrangement Hurts More Than Death: Healing After Rejection & Narcissistic Abuse · Wake Up with Marci

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Another misconception would be that you did something wrong as
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  Speaker 1: a parent. None of us are perfect, and people think, well,
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: you must have done something. It must be you. What
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: did you do? And believe me, for the love of God,
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: if I knew what I had done, if it was
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  Speaker 1: something that I could fix, I'm coach Sean, and you
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: look at my children. You see how successful they are.
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: I didn't do anything wrong. I didn't you know. I've
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: talked the truth about narcissism and parental alienation and if
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  Speaker 1: it can happen to me, if I can put it
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  Speaker 1: all out there and it's still not register, that must
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  Speaker 1: tell the general public something is wrong besides Sean or
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  Speaker 1: the mom or like, how can this still be going on?
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  Speaker 1: I'm sure that if I was not telling the truth,
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  Speaker 1: there would be some video out there of something about,
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  Speaker 1: you know, disparaging me. And if my ex husband could
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  Speaker 1: have shut me down with a cease and desist, he
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  Speaker 1: would have done it. I am speaking the truth. I
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  Speaker 1: am telling parents my story and I know that these
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  Speaker 1: are their good parents out there, and the misconception that
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  Speaker 1: we must have done something wrong is just simply not right.
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  Speaker 2: This is wake Up with Marcie, a space for honest
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  Speaker 2: conversations about healing, recovery, and women's wellness. I'm Marsey Hopkins.
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: Take a breath, You're safe here. Let's begin. What happens
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: when you lose people you love the most, not because
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: they have passed on, but because they've walked away, because
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  Speaker 2: the relationship somehow unraveled, and you're left caring questions that
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  Speaker 2: may never get answered. You replay the conversations, you wonder
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: what you could have done differently. You hold on to
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: hope that maybe one day they'll come back, and somewhere
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  Speaker 2: in all of that heartbreak, you begin to lose yourself.
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  Speaker 2: But what if healing isn't about getting the relationship back,
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: What if it's about finding yourself again?
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: Hello?
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  Speaker 2: All, welcome back to Wake Up with Marcy. I'm so
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  Speaker 2: grateful you are here. Thank you for watching or listening.
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  Speaker 2: I'm your host, Marcy Hopkins, author, TV host, motivational speaker,
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  Speaker 2: and mental health advocate. And on this show, we have
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: honest conversations about healing, recovery, relationships, women's health, and what
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: it really takes to rebuild your life after it's been
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  Speaker 2: turned upside down. And if today's conversation resonates with you,
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  Speaker 2: please make sure to like, comment and share this episode
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: with someone who may need to hear it. Because these
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: conversations help people feel less alone, and I want to
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  Speaker 2: create a ripple effect. Can you help me do that?
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  Speaker 2: Today we're going to talk about one of the most
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  Speaker 2: painful and misunderstood experiences a person can go through, family estrangement,
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  Speaker 2: parental alienation, narcissistic abuse, and learning how to rebuild your
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  Speaker 2: life after profound loss. Because sometimes the hardest grief isn't
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: losing someone to death, it's losing someone who's still alive.
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  Speaker 2: Today is Sean Howarton. She's a nationally recognized life coach, speaker,
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  Speaker 2: and advocate for parents navigating parental alienation, family estrangement, narcissistic abuse,
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  Speaker 2: and life after divorce. After experiencing the heartbreaking alienation of
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  Speaker 2: her own adult children following a high conflict divorce, Sean
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  Speaker 2: transformed her pain into purpose. Today she is helping others
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  Speaker 2: to move beyond grief, reclaim their identity, establish healthy boundaries,
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  Speaker 2: and build a meaningful future even when reconciliation never comes. Now,
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  Speaker 2: let's meet Sean Howardton. Hello, Seawan, Welcome to Wake Up
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  Speaker 2: with Marcy.
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  Speaker 1: Hello, good to be here. Thank you so.
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  Speaker 2: Great for you to be here and in such a
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  Speaker 2: timely topic. And I know a lot of people go
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  Speaker 2: through these toxic divorces and the estrangement with their families,
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  Speaker 2: and I love that you are now educating us about
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  Speaker 2: it and what you have done, because we've learned through
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  Speaker 2: other people's experiences. And what what I'd love to do
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  Speaker 2: is is take us all back. Everything started to change
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  Speaker 2: for you when you were going through that profound period
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  Speaker 2: of loss. So can you share with us what was
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  Speaker 2: happening with you during that time of your life?
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  Speaker 1: Well, it was excruciatingly painful. I have no words for it.
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  Speaker 1: And that is why I do what I do. Betrayal
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  Speaker 1: trauma is the worst trauma that you can go through,
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  Speaker 1: and people really don't believe that unless they've been through it.
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  Speaker 1: I've even had clients that said, you know, I really
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  Speaker 1: didn't believe that. I thought people were faking it, and
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  Speaker 1: I thought people were lying about how much they were
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  Speaker 1: hurting just for attention or what have you, when they say,
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  Speaker 1: and I went through it, and I couldn't believe it.
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  Speaker 1: When someone that you love deeply betrays you in such
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  Speaker 1: a way that it's not even it's not even the affairs,
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  Speaker 1: not even the dating apps. It's a fundamental betrayal to
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  Speaker 1: your core, you know, making you feel as if you're
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  Speaker 1: the entire problem, and turning your children against you, and
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  Speaker 1: really it's an annihilation of self. It's a horrific experience
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  Speaker 1: that I would not wish on anyone. And after coming
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  Speaker 1: out of it, you think, after the divorce, it's going
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  Speaker 1: to be over. You've been with this person who is
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  Speaker 1: just cruel. I have no other word for it. I
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  Speaker 1: remember when my therapist she was crying and she said, Sean,
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  Speaker 1: he's so cruel. I can't even wrap my head around.
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  Speaker 1: And I couldn't either, which led me to try to
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  Speaker 1: take my life on three different occasions. It was just
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  Speaker 1: such cruelty that I could not wrap my head around
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  Speaker 1: how I could be with a man for twenty five
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  Speaker 1: years and he could toss me out like a piece
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  Speaker 1: of trash on the side of the road and undermine
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  Speaker 1: me with my children in such a way that left
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  Speaker 1: me feeling just less than a person. I couldn't believe it.
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  Speaker 1: And yet even I was on the ground literally figuratively
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  Speaker 1: bleeding out, he was still kicking me in the head
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  Speaker 1: and then he said, oh, kids, let's join in. Isn't
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  Speaker 1: this fun, Let's abuse your mother. So they literally teach
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  Speaker 1: these kids, you know, a power and control dynamic, and
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  Speaker 1: how much fun it is to hurt, how much fun
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  Speaker 1: it is to have power and control and to hurt
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  Speaker 1: their mother. And it started at a young age of
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  Speaker 1: just the disrespect. And I said to my therapist, I said,
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  Speaker 1: it always felt like it was five against one in
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  Speaker 1: that household, and she said, because it was. And then
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  Speaker 1: so you go through this devastating divorce, which was horrible,
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  Speaker 1: and then you have to deal then you start dealing
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  Speaker 1: with the Printola nation. I kind of knew that at
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  Speaker 1: some point the kids were going to break off from
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  Speaker 1: me altogether. I knew it. I could see it coming.
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  Speaker 1: And that was another devastating blow. And so what I
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  Speaker 1: do now is I help other parents, men and women
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  Speaker 1: try to cope with this devastating loss. And it is
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  Speaker 1: not easy to try to rebuild after you've spent decades
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  Speaker 1: in a family that you built and that you love
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  Speaker 1: and they go off and forget you as if you
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  Speaker 1: never existed. It's absolutely devastating. I don't have another word
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  Speaker 1: for it.
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  Speaker 2: Well, let me ask you this early in the relationship,
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  Speaker 2: I mean during the courtship and when you got married.
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  Speaker 2: Were things good in the beginning?
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  Speaker 1: You know how I described my marriage as this. I
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  Speaker 1: was almost twenty seven years old when I married my
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  Speaker 1: ex husband, and I really, I really tried to make
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  Speaker 1: a decision. I didn't want to fall in love. I
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  Speaker 1: didn't want to make a mistake, and I looked at
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  Speaker 1: my ex husband very objectively. Had wonderful qualities. We both
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  Speaker 1: worked together. He was getting his MBA, I was getting
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  Speaker 1: my MBA. In that respect, we were both up and coming,
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  Speaker 1: and I felt as if I had chosen a partner
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  Speaker 1: that would He was a Christian. I thought he'd be
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  Speaker 1: a good father, his parents were still married. All he
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  Speaker 1: checked all the boxes. Was I madly in love with him? No?
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  Speaker 1: Did I marry my best friend?
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  Speaker 2: No?
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  Speaker 1: And looking back, I wish I had, But I felt
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  Speaker 1: as if I didn't want to. You know, you fall
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  Speaker 1: in ditches, you're not you don't fall in love. And
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  Speaker 1: so I wanted to make an objective decision on who
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  Speaker 1: I married, and by all accounts, I did, But there
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  Speaker 1: was always something missing. Did I know that he was
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  Speaker 1: unable to attach? Did I know that he had that
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  Speaker 1: he was going to be evil? I mean, I had
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  Speaker 1: no idea, but I knew on our honeymoon I'd made
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  Speaker 1: a mistake. I knew I'd made a mistake. We were
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  Speaker 1: out all these couples and they were all laughing and
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  Speaker 1: enjoy each other's company. And he was trying to control me,
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  Speaker 1: even on the honeymoon. You know, don't do this, don't
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  Speaker 1: say that, and you're being too loud. Oh my god,
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  Speaker 1: you shouldn't have said that. And it started like that,
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  Speaker 1: It started controlling. He was never my friend. He was
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  Speaker 1: always in competition with me. It was not It wasn't
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  Speaker 1: It wasn't a healthy relationship from the start. It was
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  Speaker 1: toxic from the start. But I'm Catholic, and you know,
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  Speaker 1: I didn't believe in divorce. And back then, you know,
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  Speaker 1: I was almost twenty seven when I got married. I
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  Speaker 1: was a one month later I turned twenty seven, and
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  Speaker 1: my friends were already having babies. So as I approached thirty,
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  Speaker 1: I wanted to start a family. And before I knew it,
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  Speaker 1: I'd had two sets of twins. They were only born
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  Speaker 1: two years apart, and I was stuck. There wasn't going
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  Speaker 1: anywhere at this point, and I knew I'd made a mistake,
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  Speaker 1: but I didn't know he was going to be evil.
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  Speaker 1: I had no idea what he was going to do.
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  Speaker 2: Now, you had five children with.
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  Speaker 1: Them, four two sets of twins, two sets of twins.
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  Speaker 2: Wow, and how old are they now?
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  Speaker 1: Twenty four and twenty two when.
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  Speaker 2: We're How old were they when the divorce happened?
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  Speaker 1: They were eighteen and twenty. But he had already, especially
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  Speaker 1: my oldest son, my youngest son too, but especially my
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  Speaker 1: oldest son. He had already. He had My oldest son
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  Speaker 1: had caught him on dating apps, and instead of saying, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: I'm cheating on your mother, he said I was cheating
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  Speaker 1: on him and he was looking for me, so he had.
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  Speaker 1: That was two years before I found out he was
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  Speaker 1: on him. So my thought I was cheating on This
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  Speaker 1: is what's so messed up, is he my ex husband
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  Speaker 1: traveled all the time. He was never home. He was
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  Speaker 1: a very absent father, extremely absent father. I did everything,
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  Speaker 1: and I'm home every day after school. I'm doing carpool,
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  Speaker 1: I'm tim making meals. I don't ever travel, I don't
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  Speaker 1: do girls weekend. So how was I going to cheat?
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  Speaker 1: But this is the kind of thing that they do
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  Speaker 1: to the kids. And I thought my oldest son's disrespect
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  Speaker 1: was just due to being a teenager. I had no
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  Speaker 1: idea that he had been planning all these seeds about
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  Speaker 1: their mother all these years, right, Right?
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  Speaker 2: And then you also have daughters.
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  Speaker 1: I do, yes, boy girl twins. So I have two
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  Speaker 1: daughters and two sons.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, So when did things start falling apart? Like with
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  Speaker 2: your husband. I know that you had said that he
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  Speaker 2: had turned your two sons against you, right, but when
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  Speaker 2: did you start seeing it with your daughters? Because it's
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  Speaker 2: it's so hard for me to wrap my head around it,
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  Speaker 2: because I know children are so attached to their mothers,
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: very so for them to start turning on you, I mean,
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  Speaker 2: he had to be doing some real big manipulation.
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  Speaker 1: I wish I could tell you what he was saying
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  Speaker 1: behind my back. I don't know. I only know what
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  Speaker 1: the behavior started to become. Yeah, I knew what he
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  Speaker 1: was saying, but I don't I'm sure whatever it is
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  Speaker 1: was very toxic obviously. And this is the thing too,
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  Speaker 1: You know, you always want your children to have a
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  Speaker 1: relationship with their parent. I never would have turned the
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  Speaker 1: children against him. But the problem is he was so
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  Speaker 1: evil and such a liar and such a manipulator and
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: such an adulterer that he had to turn them on
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  Speaker 1: me because he couldn't dare let them see who he was. So,
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  Speaker 1: how you've been doing it for a long time. I
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  Speaker 1: remember at one point I walked out of the house
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: to make a return, and I came back in because
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: I forgot something, and I heard my youngest son saying
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  Speaker 1: to him, every time your wife leaves, it's not a
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: chance for you to diss on her dad. And that's
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: when I realized. I was like, oh, oh, my god,
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: my husband is talking badly about me to my children.
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  Speaker 1: That was the first time I realized that. And my
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: kids were probably they were all in high school. I
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: think my youngest were like freshmen in high school, and
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: my oldest oldest were like juniors. And that's when I
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: started realizing. He had gone to my oldest daughter and
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: told her, think about how toxic this is. Oh, I'm
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  Speaker 1: going to divorce your mother when you're the two youngest
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: graduate high school. So she had kept that a secret
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: and finally told me the things he said to the
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: kids and the toxicity that he placed in their head
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: trying to get them to come over to him, and
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: it's us against her I remember my oldest son came
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: and said, Dad's been building a case against you for
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: a long time. And I remember getting on his computer.
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  Speaker 1: He was googling me on everything he could find. I
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: don't know what he thought. I mean, he was trying
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: to find anything and everything he could on me. I mean,
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: the man was just incredibly sick and still is. I
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: think the catalyst to it was when I tried to
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: take my life. He had broken me to such a
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: point where I mentally was just so broken from this man.
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: He would stand in front of me and say, I
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: wish we lived in a different country. I could beat you.
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: You're really lucky you're with me. Any other man would
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  Speaker 1: have left you by now. Don't make the same mistakes
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  Speaker 1: in your next relationship. And he was cruel. He was
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  Speaker 1: toxic and cruel, and when I broke he used that
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  Speaker 1: to get my kids to turn against me. Or your
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  Speaker 1: mom's mentally unstable, she's an alcoholic, she's this's that she's
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  Speaker 1: not safe, And it just went from there, right And
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  Speaker 1: one of the.
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  Speaker 2: Things you said earlier, it just keeps staying with me.
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  Speaker 2: Are you saying that if they were literally kicking you
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  Speaker 2: or figuratively figuratively.
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  Speaker 1: Now, I will say this, and I hate to say this,
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  Speaker 1: but it's the truth. My boys have put their hands
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: on me and they should have never done that. I
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: love my sons dearly, but I have a lot of
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: clients who've been punched in the face or thrown or
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: put chokeholds or had police called on them and lied.
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: And this is very common. The kids are they feel
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: that anger from the dad or the mom towards the
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: other and they don't know what to do with it,
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: and they they act out physically, They act out, you know,
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: in the courts. These kids lie under oath in courts
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  Speaker 1: and because they've been told by the parent what to say.
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  Speaker 1: It it's child abuse to no end in its times.
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  Speaker 2: Mm hmmm mm hmmm. So tell me about those that
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: are out there. I mean, first of all, for women,
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: I mean, that's that's a lot of times our identity, right,
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: We're a wife, a mother, caring for others, and then
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: we lose ourselves. How do we move on? How do
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: we rediscover? I mean, you're at your lowest point. How
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: did you start turning things around?
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: Well? I started living my life for me, and that's
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: what that's what parents have to do. It's really hard
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: because as moms and dads, but especially as moms, we
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: we we live our lives for our children. I mean,
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: my oldest son just graduated medical school, my oldest daughter
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: just graduated loss school. My youngest son just got into
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: law school. My youngest daughter just graduated from Georgia Tech.
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: I did a bang up job as a mom for
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: not to speak to me. All my husband ever did
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: was travel. He was never home. I was running to
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: ballparks and running carpool and doing homework and making sure
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: that they were taking act classes so that they could
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: get into the best colleges. I was a bang up mom,
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: and nobody could say that I won't. But what he
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: did is came in and just completely annihilated me. So
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: what I did is I said, you know what, I'm
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: not doing this anymore. I'm not doing this anymore. So
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: I went to law school. After my divorce. I decided
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: it wasn't for me. I went for almost a year.
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: I started my coaching business. I said, this is not
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: going to define me. It's painful, and don't say that.
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: I can't say that I don't hurt. Of course, I
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: still hurt. I hurt daily. I wake up in the
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: morning and I think, Wow, I can't believe that this happened.
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: But then I remember how much he hurt me, and
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: I remember that right now, my kids aren't healthy. They're toxic.
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: I look at the things that they did to me
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: and the other parents same. These kids are toxic. I mean,
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: it's unbelievable to me. It's take take, take, it's cut
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: you down, it's lie. It's not invite you to graduations
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: and other milestones. I mean, my daughter just got married
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: last couple of months ago, my son's getting married this month.
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: I'm not invited. I didn't go to the graduations my
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: ex husband's going. You didn't raise those kids. You didn't
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: give birth to them, you didn't raise them. You did nothing.
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: You did nothing but put me down for years. And
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: all you did was travel. That is why you've got
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: the position you did because I let you travel. Other
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: moms said I would never let my my husband travel
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: like that, especially if I had four small kids. But
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: I did. I sacrifice sacrifice for everyone, and finally I
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: got to the point where I said, I'm not doing
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: this anymore. I'm not sacrificing you. Kids are gonna have
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: wonderful careers because of your mother. My ex husband has
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: a wonderful career because of your mother. You want to
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: take me out of your life, Well, that's a shame
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: because you're not gonna have a grandmother, You're not gonna
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: have advice. It's going to hurt my children way more.
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: And I've looked at the decisions that my ex husband
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: has made since he has left me, one dumb decision
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: after another, and that's their karma. And you just have
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: to sit back and watch and say, you know what,
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: I'm going to remove myself from someone else's life who
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: doesn't appreciate me. I built them, Let them go figure
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: it out themselves. It's time for me to build me
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: and to help other people build themselves.
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: I feel so much for the children because they've basically
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: been brainwashed. Yes, they've made their own decision right, and
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: they could choose to now have a relationship with you.
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: I mean, have you tried.
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: I do not want a relationship with my children.
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: Oh not today.
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: I don't know when or if I will now, So
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: I think too. A lot of people confuse they were brainwashed. Yeah,
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: maybe so, but they eventually get to the point where
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: they enjoy that power and control dynamic. Yeah, they have
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: made a decision. So we all make decisions. I call
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: it the good angel and the bad Angel. Right, we
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: can go this way or we can go that way.
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: And what they did is they dad that just they said, well,
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: mom is broken, she's laying on the ground.
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: She can't.
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: We don't know if she's going to get back up.
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: She requires too much. I can't. I don't want to
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: give that. I would rather go live my life, go
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: to college, have fun, join my sorority in my fraternity,
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: and date and do. Daddy's got money, and so we're gonna,
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: you know, if we don't really want to deal with that,
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: so we're gonna go over here. That was a conscious decision.
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: They weren't children. They made that choice and they continue
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: to make that choice because it's easier for them. Okay, fine,
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: you go do that, but you know it's gonna happen
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: one day. You're going to need somebody in your corner
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: and you're not going to have that person, namely your
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: mother in your corner. Mama Bear was always there. You
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: decided not to have my back because it was too
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: hard for you. You decided it was easier to go
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: do your thing. And go be over here. That's what's
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: wrong with these kids.
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: Now.
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: Now all of these kids do that. I have many,
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: many clients that have several children and one or two
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: or maybe all or whatever, say no, I'm not going
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: to abandon my mom or my dad because it's easier
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: or because they're hurting and and it's uncomfortable. I'm going
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: to go protect them and I'm going to go be there.
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: These are conscious choices. So yes, I have some phibit
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: sympathy for what happened. I do understand that. But I
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: was beaten down to a bloody pulp. And I'm still
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: a good person. I still give back, I still coach,
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: I still love, I still try to move forward. I
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: still try to be a better person. They're not doing that.
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: My ex husband will never do that. And my kids
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: have chosen a life of comfort. Most of these kids
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: are raised in privilege. My kids will raised in extreme privilege.
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: These kids don't want to be uncomfortable. They don't want
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: to sacrifice, they don't want to own up, they don't
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: want to admit truth. They don't want to be accountable. Okay, well,
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: life will get you. It's not going to stay that
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: way forever. You can't live a life like that.
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: Are you finding that that this is common? Are you
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: a lot of parents or mothers that are experiencing this
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: with their children.
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: Very very much? I mean, I can't, you know. I
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: I've always spoken on narcissism, and then I speak on
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: what I know. And then when I started experiencing extreme
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: parental alienation, I started speaking on it, and I again
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: I was supplementing the videos in with narcissism, and the
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: videos just went absolutely crazy because there's so many parents experience.
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: I mean, narcissism is on a rise, a strangement is
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: on a rise. It's not necessarily alienation, but it's still
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: on a huge epidemic right now, happening all over the world.
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: I have clients everywhere. I have clients in the UK,
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: have clients in Australia, I have clients in India. I mean,
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: this is happening everywhere because the fundamental breakdown of the
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: family system that's you can't and social media, you know,
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: this whole cutoff culture. It's become cool to not talk
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: to your parents and this kind of thing. I know.
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: I mean that that was something and we saw that
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: when on Oprah and that opened up a huge amount
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: of people discussing this, And are people coming to you
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: for help on that? I mean, is that what they're
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: they're coming to you for exclusively.
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: Yes, because they have to speak to someone who's actually
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: lived it. Yeah, you know, I'm not. I think therapists
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: are amazing. I think coaches are amazing. But you have
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: to live something to truly be able to relate to
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: somebody on a fundamental level.
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: Oh, I get that. You know me as being a
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: sober woman and working in the in doing the work
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: I'm doing, I've lived the experience, right, So you are
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: able to help people in a very different.
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: Way knowledge their pain in a way that nobody else can.
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: And I understand what they're going through. And then we
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: talk about how to set how to not be taken
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: advantage of anymore, because we're moms and we've become doormats
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: and we're not respected, and so it's always give, give, give, take, take, take,
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: but there's nothing left for the mom or the dad.
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: And I teach them how to stop doing that. And
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: I hate the word boundaries. I wish there was a
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: better word. But you do have to set at least
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: self respect. You have to say, look, you can't treat
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: me this way. This isn't okay, and I'm not going
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: to take this anymore.
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: I think so when you find because I was able
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: to start setting healthy boundaries right, say no not being
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: people pleaser. When I started finding love for myself and
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: prioritizing myself, I didn't know how to do that. So
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: I do feel that once you, like you're saying, once
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: you started to prioritize yourself, do things for yourself, find
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: what lights you up instead of always giving up.
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: Yourself right right, And I'll see something else that happens too, though,
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: when you start doing that, when you start saying no,
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to be I when I started holding
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: my ex husband accountable that they're the divorce went but look,
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: you cheated, you lied, you manipulate, you didn't tell the truth.
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: You're still not telling the truth. I was still finding
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: things that he had been lying about, and the same
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: with the kids. After all these years, I said, look,
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: you know, I'm not going to do this anymore with you.
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: You're you're going to stop treating me this way. You're
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: going to talk to me with respect. You're going to
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: treat me with respect. You know what, they don't like that.
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: That's it gets worse when you start to initiate boundaries.
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: It actually gets worse, not better. With toxic people. Healthy
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: people will say, I respect that, let's talk about it,
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: let sit down, let's work it out. Toxic people do
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: the avoidance, they do the power song and dance.
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's very true. And also with narcissism. Narcissistic people, right,
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: they turn everything back on the other person, and they
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: don't have the ability to change what I have found
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: through any research I've done. Can you talk on that
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: a little bit?
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: Yes, So I say it like this. My eyes are brown, right,
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: bright brown. I can pray, I can meditate, I can
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: spend a fortune on coaching and therapy and psychoactive drugs.
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: My eyes aren't going to turn blue. They're not. Their
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: brains are wired. We've done scans of their brains. They're
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: wired in such a way that the empathy centers are
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: shut down. That is why there's never been a documented
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: case of a narcissist ever changing because you can't. It's
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: no more than I can change my eye color. I
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: can't no matter what I do. Is there a chance,
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: is there a miracle that it might happened? Can I
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: pray all day long about it? Yes, the likelihood that
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: I'm going to die with brown eyes is pretty strong, right, Okay,
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: so people have said, but there's hope. Okay, well yeah,
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: but it will be a miracle because their brains are
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: not wired that way. And so I go back to
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: the kids always and I say, Okay, how much of
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: it is nature versus nurture? We don't know that. We
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: have that discussion often. I have a wonderful support group
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: on Tuesday nights of men and women who come together
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: to discuss their feelings and we support one another and
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: tools that we can use to help one another get
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: through the day. And it always comes back to that,
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: how much of this is nature versus nurture? And we
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: don't know that? But I will say most of these
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: kids between the ages of like nineteen and twenty five,
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: that's when you really start to see the shift. And
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: I think that's just something that we all do and
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: we probably didn't recognize it. What kind of person do
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: I want to be? How do I want to leave
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: my life? And you know a lot of parents will say, well,
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: we were so close you know with my kids too.
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: I was so close, especially with my daughters, you know,
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: especially my oldest daughter, and I think, my god, what happened.
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: She made it choice, she said, I'm going to align
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: over here. I'm not gonna I'm not gonna. I'm not
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: gonna buck the system. It's just easier for me to
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: align with my brothers and my sister and my dad
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: and his new wife than to try to protect my mom.
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: And that's what she did. And so people make these choices,
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: and we all make them in our early to mid
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: twenties about what kind of a person we want to be,
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: and most of the time we don't change that. It's
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: usually a core attribute of who we've become and who
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: we want to be.
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: Mm hm. So you said that you started to prioritize yourself.
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: How did you start picking yourself up? I mean, you
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: wanted to end your life three times. I can't even
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: imagine the pain that you felt and what you went through.
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: I just watched my sister in lawgo through a brutal
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: divorce and not near what you went through, but it
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: just breaks you down to nothing.
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: Nothing. I didn't want to be here, you know, people,
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: I didn't really have an opinion on suicide before, but
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: you know, I'd heard people say, oh, it's so selfish,
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: and even without an opinion, I thought, I think you're
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: the one being selfish, like you don't understand people don't
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: want to take their life because oh, well, I don't
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: have anything else better to do. So people have their
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: own opinions on it, and I find that people who
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: voice their opinions in a negative weight of no idea
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: what they're talking about, and they better be careful because
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: you know what, when we don't know what we're talking about,
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: oftentimes we find out firsthand. But I will say this,
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: what I did is I just started small. I said,
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: get up, eat, I'd gotten so thin, you know, just eat.
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: My hair was falling out. Just get out of the bed,
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: take a shower, put one foot in front of the other,
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: eat some food. It was small, Take a walk, get
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: out in the sun, you know, pet my dog. It
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: just started really, really really small. And then from there
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: I went to, Okay, what other tools can I do?
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: Journaling helped a lot. Talk therapy people want to talk
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: about listen. Talk therapy is so important. It is just
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: so important to get it out and to talk about
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: it and to journal about it. You've got to work
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: through it. You know, it's like taking an onion and
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: peeling it apart and looking at every part of it.
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: You have to do that, you have to. And then
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: it became finding support and finding other people that had
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: gone through what I had gone through and really be
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: able to talk to people who understood, because before that
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: I had therapists who might try to help, but they
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: really didn't understand what I was going through. They had
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: absolutely no idea about a trauma bond and about parental
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: alienation and how they a lot of the therapists had
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: never been married or had kids, Like, how in the
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: world were you going to understand what I was going through?
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: And so then at that point I said, Okay, I
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: know for me, I've got to figure out a way
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: to give of myself. I can't be inward all the time.
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: And that's when I started my coaching and said, how
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: do I help other people going through this? Because I
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: needed someone to help me. I wish there had been
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: a coach Shawn out there for me. God, how I
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: wish there had been a coach Seawn out there for
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: me when I was going through my divorce and after
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: so that wanted to be that for those people.
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, one hundred percent. Let me ask you, did you
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: have any negative coping during that time, because when we
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: heard a lot of times we use negative ways to
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: mask the pain.
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: Sure, I started drinking in my marriage, you know I did.
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: I wasn't one, thank god, to you know, pass out
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: on the couch or wreck a car or do any
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: of that, thank God. But I did use it as
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: a serious coping mechanism and I had to find some
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: way to quail the pain and to kind of numb
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: it out. And I used it a lot. And I
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: think that's really common with women and men, but specifically women.
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: You know, wine was my go to and I also
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: found too when I when I drank wine, I had
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: a voice. He was always stuffing me down, and so
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: when I drank, I had I found a voice. Now
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: was the voice always good? No, sometimes she was very angry.
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: But I was so shut down for so many years
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: that at the time I felt like it gave me
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: h not only a way to quail the pain, but
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: also a voice. And did I abuse it, Absolutely? Yeah?
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: I did.
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: We do. We do, especially when we're going during a
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: very difficult time, when we're going through something hard. So
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: once you started, once you pulled out of that and
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: you started making the changes for yourself. Did you find
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: that you didn't need it as much or did you
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: need to seek support in any way?
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: So, you know you said once you pull out. The
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: thing about this is I have found this has been
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: a marathon. So I feel like once I got a
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: little once I was able to move forward a little bit,
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: I'd be punched again. And then I would move forward,
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: and you know, you bring a lawsuit, or you know,
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: the kids would uninvite me to something, or something would happen.
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: It's like, this has been not I get up and
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: I go. It's been It's definitely not linear. It's been
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: very up and down. And that's been the same with
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: the drinking. Yeah, there have been times during the last
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: you know, four and a half years of the divorce
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: or you know, it's over whatever, going on five years,
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: that I used it more than others. When I was
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: not invited to my daughter's wedding in April. Yes, I
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: found myself drinking more. I absolutely did. Did I get
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: help during times that I after my divorce when it
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: got bad, Yeah, I went to two rehab centers too.
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: I had to. I needed to detox and I needed
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: to try to get myself, you know, back on a
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: better What have you? Am I sober? Or do I
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: work a program? No? Do I still drink? Yes? Do
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: I drink heavily? No? Do I still use it as
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: a crutch sometimes? Yes? I would be lying if I didn't.
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: And my whole point of being a coach is to
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: be completely and brutally honest about my journey and what
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: I still do today and how if I'm not. If
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: I'm sitting here saying, oh, you know, I'm perfectly healed
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: and I don't do this and I don't do that,
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: that's an unrealistic goal. And anybody that says you know
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: that they're lying. Every day is a journey, and every
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: day something different happens, you know, depending on my mood,
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: how much sleep I've had, whether I've eaten, you know,
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: how much pain I meant it. I don't just go
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: throughout a day without hurting. Of course I still hurt.
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: Of Course I still miss my children. And I have
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: a lot of anger and resentment towards my ex husband
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: When I say where and what our wives could have
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: been because you were just so dumb and made the
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: most ridiculous choices because of your ego, or because of
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: your pride, or because of whatever it was that was
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: going on with him. You know that you sacrificed your life,
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: your wife, your kids, all of that for you, and
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: the fact that they follow him. That's that's not something
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: that you get over easily. I still want a daily bes.
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: No, no, no, it's not easy at all, and it
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: does take years. And I want to talk to those
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: out there that are in the midst of a loss,
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: a loss of a relationship, divorce, estrangement, or just feeling
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: like you've lost yourself, if you are coping with alcohol
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: and you're ready to start to stop and surrender, just
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: like I did. I May. I had to make a
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: decision for myself to stop drinking, and sobriety was my
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: foundation to rebuild my life. And I just wrote a book,
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: Wake Up, You're Not Broken, and it's a gentle companion
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: for anyone out there that's ready to stop drinking and
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: ready to take their lives back. So we're going to
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: take a little break and we'll be right back. Are
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: you in the first thirty days of sobriety are wondering
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: if now is your time to start? Hi? I'm Marcy
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: Hopkins and I wrote wake Up, You're not Broken, just
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: for you. It's a real raw guide to those first
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: thirty days, what no one tells you, what you will feel,
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: and how to keep going. This isn't about perfection, It's
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: about progress. Or to your copy now on Amazon. Remember
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: You're not alone, You're not broken, You're waking up. Welcome back.
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: I'm so grateful you are here. Thank you Sean for
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: this incredible conversation and just being so raw and vulnerable
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: and sharing with us how you are helping so many
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: out there that are going through the same that you
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: went through. So let's talk about acceptance and what acceptance
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: means to you.
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: That's a big one, and that is a big Can
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: you get to acceptance? That's a big healing milestone because
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: so many years I wrestled with how could this be? Why?
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: Why did this happen? You know, if I just could have,
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: should have, would us, and so many things of that nature,
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: and you finally have to really start to say, look,
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: this happened. This is my life. This is a reality,
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: and it's painful, but it happened. And now I've got
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: to figure out what to do. I've got to move forward.
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: And when I finally said, you know what, my marriage
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: is over and I I could have should have what
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: I wish I'd done things differently. Would it have mattered whatever?
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: When I finally said that, I was able to start
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: moving forward with the kids too, and I finally said,
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: you know what, right now, they're toxic and I can't
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: have a healthy relationship with them. They're choosing to follow
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: a path that is not healthy. I have to let
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: it go. I would say the children was much more
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: painful than my but God had a reason, right. I
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: went through that first, and it made me strong so
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: that I could endure the parental alienation and estrangement of
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: my children. Thank God, because I wouldn't have been able
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: to survive that. That was incredibly more painful than my
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: ex husband. But I had built the armor, I had
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: built the tools, and I knew that this too shall pass,
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: and I moved try to move as quickly into acceptance
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: as I could.
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, what about self discovery. We've talked a little
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: bit about self discovery, but do you feel that self
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: discovery changes everything?
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: I feel that it is a journey and it does
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: change a lot because when we're in these relationships we
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: sacrifice ourselves so much, and most of the time we
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: end up in these relationships because we didn't have the
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: best childhoods. So obviously we choose toxic partners because our
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: childhoods weren't healthy, and so we've never had the opportunity
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: to get to know who we are. And so when
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: we talk about self discovery, it's interesting because when you
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: have the time to sit back and say, Okay, who
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: am I, what do I really want? It's very scary,
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: and it's like you're in this vast ocean and you
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: can't see ashore and you have no idea which way
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: to go or what to do because you've never learned
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: anything about yourself. And so it's little steps, you know.
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: I've had clients say I don't even know what my
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: favorite color is. I really don't know what food I
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: like because I always wanted to eat his food or
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: whatever the kids wanted, or so it's amazing to really
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: figure out, Okay, what kind of music do I really like?
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: What kind of food do I really want to eat?
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: How do I really feel about this situation? It's very cool.
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: It's like it's like a little prize that comes out
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: of all of this that you finally get to focus
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: on you a little bit.
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: M Yeah, I remember, like I said, just well, growing
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: up and the difficulty the trauma I had, and then
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: just pouring myself into relationships. I just did whatever anybody
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: else wanted because I didn't know what I wanted. And
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: I remember getting that out of a relationship ship once
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: and this guy I dated once and he, you know,
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: let me say, a first date and he said, well,
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: what's your passion? And I'm wast like, I don't you know,
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: I don't know. I said animals. He's like, okause I
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: didn't know what to say. So I've since then discovered
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: all quite a few passions and I'm very grateful for that.
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: You've never been allowed to get to know who you are.
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it really is one of the small gifts that
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: come out of this. Well, there are there are gifts
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: that come out of this. It takes it takes a
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: little while to realize, but that is one of them.
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: Another one is you get this sense of people that
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: you didn't before. I would I always say, you know,
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: I never met I never met somebody that wasn't my
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: friend before what happened to me, And now it takes
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: that I have a very small circle. It takes a
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: while for me to accept you into my circle. I
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: have to really really trust you. Where before I trusted
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: you before I didn't. Now I don't trust you till
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: I do good or bad. That is That is another
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: for me, I feel because I've been hurt so many
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: times and now I really keep a smaller circle. I
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: watch people's actions, not their words. That's super important to me.
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: And so that's another gift that comes out of it
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: self discovery, being able to, you know, really understand your
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: worth and knowing how people should respect you and talk
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: to you and treat you. That's another one. Like you said,
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: the people pleasing all of that, A lot of that
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: goes away during this time, and I think that's part
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: of the journey. We're all here for some journey and
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: there's a lesson to be learned in this. And I always,
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: I always like, you know, like what Oprah says, and
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: not that I'm a big Oprah, but I do think
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: she says some great things. And one of the things
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: she said was, you know, you always ask what is
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: the lesson in this? What is the lesson in this?
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: And this has been a very hard lesson for me.
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: But there's a lesson in this, and I'm not going
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: to forget it.
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: I was always the victim in life. Obviously our circumstances
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: were different and are different. But I am grateful that
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: I can ask that question on myself today when I'm
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: going through a difficult time. It changes everything of how
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: you respond to life. And something else that I've realized
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: is that vulnerability is strength, right, And one of the
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: things I like to talk about is vulnerability. So when
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: when did you allow yourself to get vulnerable and how
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: did that feel for you?
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: Well, you know, I think we're always I think is impaths,
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: which you're doing what you do and what I do.
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: I would definitely label you as an EmPATH. And I
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: think we're always vulnerable to some extent. That's why we're
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: taking advantage of We always wear kind of our hearts
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: on our sleeves, and we're always wanting to help people
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: and tell the truth and put ourselves out there and
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: be accountable. And for a lot of people, that's weakness.
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: Oh I would I just I would never do that.
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: But it's strength to be able to be that emotionally
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: mature and be so sure in yourself that you can
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: lay yourself out and say, you know, what do you think?
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: Or what about this? Or or know that where you're
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: coming from intention. That's another thing too that I love.
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: One of the things that Oprah says is coming from
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: a place of intention. I go look back on everything.
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: I never came from a place to hurt my husband
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: or to hurt my children. I hurt myself. They did that,
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: especially my husband. You laid beside me at night knowing
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: you were lying to me. You laid beside me at night,
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: knowing you were cheating on me. You laid beside me
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: at night, knowing for two years you told our son
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: I was cheating on you and on dating apps like
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: you're sick. And so you know that they're never going
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: to be vulnerable. They're always going to lie. And so
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: they may look at us as vulnerability as being not
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: a strength, but you look at truth is vulnerability. And
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: what religion is based on, and it's based on truth,
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: and it's based on justice, and it's based on accountability,
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: and all of that comes from vulnerability, and that's strength.
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: Absolutely. So, like you've been sharing and you help so
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: many people to navigate estrangement and loss. Right for me, like,
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: I can't even imagine the loss. So what's the biggest
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: misconception people have about this kind of grief?
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: That you're either faking it you know, that you're weak,
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: that you're not able to withstand the life storms. Well,
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: you know, sometimes there's a big difference between a wind
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: and a tsunami. Okay, this has been a tsunami. And
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: another misconception would be that you did something wrong as
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: a parent. None of us are perfect. But I've got
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: clients who have made extreme mistakes, you know, and their
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: children still love them. And none of us are perfect.
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: But it's not that I was a bad mother, and
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: people think, well, you must have done something. It must
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: be you. What did you do? And believe me, for
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: the love of God, if I if I knew what
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: I had done, if it was something that I could fix,
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: if but by all objective measures, I'm coach Sean, and
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: you look at my children. You see how successful they are.
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: I didn't do anything wrong. I didn't and so my
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: kids are highly highly successful. And if that can happen
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: to coach Sean and I can have a platform where
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: I talk about this and have said repeatedly, you know,
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: I want a relationship with my children that has changed
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: in recent years, given the fact that they keep doing
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: the things that they're doing. It's cruel. But I've said repeatedly,
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: you know, I've talked the truth about narcissism and parenial alienation.
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: And if it can happen to me, if I can
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: put it all out there and it's still not register,
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: that must tell the general public something is wrong besides
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: Sean or the mom or like, how can this still
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: be going on? I'm sure that if I was not
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: telling the truth, there would be some video out there
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: of something about, you know, disparaging me. And if my
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: ex husband could have shut me down with a cease
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: and desist, he would have done it. I'm speaking the truth.
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: I am telling parents my story, and I know that
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: these are they are good parents out there, and the
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: misconception that we must have done something wrong is just
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: simply not right. It's not true.
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: Well people judging and saying things they don't know anything about, correct,
• 42:17
  Speaker 2: I listen. I think that we all have a role
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: in certain things, but I also know that there are
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: very cruel people out there doing cruel things, and we
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: haven't done anything so human.
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I was huge, you know, I obviously say, if
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: you cut me, I'm going to bleed, and I got
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: ridiculed for bleeding. I've never been through that kind of trauma.
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: I wished I could have been stronger. I wished I
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: could have handled it better, but I didn't, and it
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: is what it is. I don't think anyone should ever
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: be penalized for not being strong enough in somebody else's eyes,
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: or handling a crisis the way they thought it should
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: be handled. You know that old saying walk a mile
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: in my shoes. You didn't. You weren't there, You didn't
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: go through what they did, and try to tind to
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: judge someone on how they handled it. It's just it's like,
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: you know, someone getting into a car wreck and breaking
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: every bone and you saying, well, why did you break
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: all your bones? Couldn't you have wis done our wreck
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: without breaking your bones?
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: No, I'm always saying, don't judge a book by its cover.
• 43:20
  Speaker 2: And you don't know what happens behind closed doors. I mean,
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: and so many people do. But for the people out
• 43:28
  Speaker 2: there that are listening or watching right now and they
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: feel abandoned, rejected, or like life is over, what would
• 43:38
  Speaker 2: you want them to know?
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: It's not, and you are your best friend. We came
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: into this world alone, and we're going to leave this
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: world alone. Believe me, I'm alone. I have no family
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: members left. I've lost my mom, I have a very
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: small close group of friends. I don't have siblings. I
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: navigate this world alone. But you know what I learned
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: that I was felt alone in my marriage. It didn't
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: matter that somebody was beside me. We have to be
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: the best friend to ourself, you know. We have to
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: know that we've got our own back and that no
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: matter what comes, we can navigate it on our own
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: and we're going to be okay. We don't have to
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: have someone around us all the time. We can have
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: people around us and still feel alone. Go out into
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: the world, Go sit in a coffee shop, Go take
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: a vacation, go take yourself to dinner. Be your own
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: best friend. And I know that sounds really kind of
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: out there, but when you really become your own best friend,
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: you will never feel alone again. You might feel lonely sometimes,
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: but you won't feel alone.
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: I love that and it's so true. Well, I just
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: want you to know that your work and your story
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: are giving so many people hope thank you. Thank you
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: for your vulnerability and being on the show today. See
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: thank you. Yes, can you tell us where we can
• 44:57
  Speaker 2: connect with you and tell us about your support group,
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: your weekly support group and how we can find it.
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: Yes. Yes, So you can find me at www. Seankhowarton
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: dot com or you could just google Sean Howerton. You'll
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: be able to find me. My last name HOWE R
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: t O N. You could probably find me as coach
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: Sean as well. I'm the same across all my socials,
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: whether it's Instagram, TikTok, Facebook or YouTube. It's coach Sean
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: or Sean Howerton. And my weekly support group that's every
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: Tuesday night, seven thirty pm Eastern time. You can sign
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: up on my website or you can reach out to
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: me on any of my socials and I'll help you
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: get there. It's a wonderful group of men and women.
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: It lasts an hour and a half every week and
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: it's great. I started out by a lecture and then
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: I open it up to group questions and people share.
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: It's something that I highly recommend, even more than one
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: on one. I'd love to do one on ones and coaching,
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: but having people around you that understand you and can
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: say hey, I've been there, it's okay, and you can
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: just cry and sear your story. That's an amazing healing experience.
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: Community and connection are everything that's true God. For all
• 46:12
  Speaker 2: those out there of today's conversation resonated with you, please
• 46:16
  Speaker 2: make sure to like common and share this episode with
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: someone that needs to hear it, because sometimes the deepest
• 46:23
  Speaker 2: grief isn't losing someone to death, it's losing someone who's
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: still here. But no matter what you've been through, I
• 46:31
  Speaker 2: want you to remember this, your story is not over.
• 46:35
  Speaker 2: Healing is possible, hope is possible, and you are not broken.
• 46:40
  Speaker 2: And thank you so much for being here again, Sean,
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: and thank you to all of you out there, and
• 46:48
  Speaker 2: I'll see you next Thursday with an all new episode. Bye, everyone,