Latest / Reflect Reclaim & Liberate - with Sallyanne Hartnell / Living A Guilt Free Life After Divorce

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Living A Guilt Free Life After Divorce · Reflect Reclaim & Liberate - with Sallyanne Hartnell

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to Reflect, Reclaim and Liberate, a podcast covering all things relationships, separation and divorce.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_01: How to create healthy, happy, fulfilling relationships without sacrificing any part of yourself.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_01: Supporting anyone feeling challenged in their relationship or marriage.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_01: These are confidential conversations for you if you're navigating separation, divorce, or reorganising life afterwards.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_01: Decide whether to stay or leave a relationship or marriage, divorce with less drama, and consciously choose what's next for you.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_01: I acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which this podcast is recorded, the Warrentry people of the Kulin Nation, and pay my respects to their elders, past, present, and emerging.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_01: I acknowledge them as the original storytellers of this land.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to another episode of Reflect, Reclaim and Liberate.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_01: And in this episode, I'm speaking with Annie Callas.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_01: Annie is a business and life strategist who helps women stop performing and start remembering who they really are.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_01: Beyond the pressure, the roles, and the rules they never agreed to.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_01: Her work is rooted in clarity, self-trust, and deep reconnection.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: She believes every woman deserves to feel at home in herself and to build a life and business that actually feels like hers.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: Grounded, true, authentic, and wildly free.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_01: And whether you are a female, female identifying, woman, man, any gender, I know there are takeaways in this conversation for you.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_01: But I hope you enjoy this conversation between me, Sally Ann Hartnell, divorce coach and strategist, and Annie Callis.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome Annie.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_01: I'm so excited to be having this conversation with you.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: I'm really happy to be here.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: I'm also a little bit nervous, but I just trust the post process.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: I know this is going to be great.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely trust the process.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um let's start.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_01: Can you take us back to the moment you realized your marriage was over?
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if it was a specific moment.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: It was a gathering of things, certain situations.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: I started to question what are we doing?
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I think as the years were going by, and I think the financial stresses were kicking in, and we were going, I think, in different directions, and we couldn't really speak to each other.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: We didn't know how to communicate.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: But we did actually love each other, but it was just one of those things, and I made the decision.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't want to destroy everything that we built.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I left.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: So it's really interesting.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: I'm in a transition now, and I think there's many people, many women are in transition.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: There's some women that go from they want to change careers working for somebody else to working for themselves.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of business women out there that I have been working with in my other um, I don't want to say job in the other thing I did before.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: I used to work with relationships.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a relationships architect, yeah, and I help people build great relationships with themselves and others.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: So for five years I worked with marriages, people were coming to me and working, wanting to work on their relationships.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I had people coming to me wanting to work on their relationships to separate amicably.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: And based on my experience, that I have a very good relationship with my former husband.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: That was just fun.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: It was great because, and it's the awesome thing is that I see them on social media now hanging out with their children as a family, and that just brings me joy.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: And many couples actually worked with me and they called me and they said, Hey, we are separating.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: We just wanted to let you know.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: And in that moment, I was like, Oh my God.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: And they said, But if it wasn't for you and what you did with us, we wouldn't have done it this way.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: However, many of the women that were I worked with within those relationships, they were all business women.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: And what I found is a lot of them were really burnt out, and they were just they wanted to be everything to everyone, and they stepped, a lot of them stepped into their masculine, and I was one of them too, and just took over everything, and we needed to do everything, and they're just complete the breakdown, just tired, overwhelmed.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, for me, it was overweight and a lot of other women.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: So, and when I started to shift that after speaking to so many women outside the work, also, I thought I want to work with businesswomen and help them connect to themselves because from that space they can have more clarity in their businesses, they can be more calm, they can thrive, they can have more confidence.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that will spill into every aspect of their life.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: But it starts with you.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: And that was my journey.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I think normally, you know, we teach the thing we want to master, which is you know, self-love and having great relationships.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: So that's where I am now, and I'm building uh actually a program right now called uh becoming her again.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: So helping businesswomen to just tap into themselves and just be a little bit calmer and not live this crazy mad life that they tend to live.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, I love it.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_01: I love it so much.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_01: Becoming her again.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_01: And we've talked together off air about our clients, especially female clients, remembering who they really are beyond the roles, the expectations, and as you say in your bio, rules they never agreed to.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_01: What does that remembering process look like?
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_01: Can you lead us through?
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: So I think it sometimes is not even remembering, sometimes it's discovering, finding out who you are at the core, what drives you, what moves you, what are your values?
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: Like what is the fundamental principles that you live by?
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I think we got so busy that we consciously never think about hang on, that is really important to me.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: Why am I giving this up to please or appease somebody else?
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: Like, who told me that I have to do that?
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: And you don't know whose voice that is, but we tend to go, oh well, I have to do this.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: And can I give you an example?
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_01: Sure, that would be great.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: My own marriage.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: So I used to do a lot of things for him, and he did too, but I never saw that, of course.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: But then I would say to him, Yeah, but I did this for you, and then he would go, but I never asked you to do that.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: So then I'd be like, oh, that is just shocking.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: The reality is he never asked.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: I did things to please him because I thought that's gonna please him, but I never asked.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: And he did exactly the same.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: So he would say, Well, I did this and this and this for you.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I never asked to, I, you know, I cook for you.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: I never asked you to cook, I could have a sandwich, you know, but he did what he thought would please me, I did what I thought would please him, and in the end, you get lost in all that translation because nobody has ever asked for anything.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: But this comes from that old programming of what your role is and how you should be and what you should do, all the shoulds and needs and musts.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I love that.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_01: Not yeah, I often say that when you hear should come up, you can flip it and say, Well, should I?
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_01: I should do, I should cook for my partner.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_01: Should I?
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_01: Why should I?
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 8:39
  unknown: Yeah.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_01: Showing up is an invitation to get really curious about those stories and that that internal programming that we just accept as part of who we are, but we never actually get curious and question it and go underneath it.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I and some some of the listeners might might relate to this.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: So as a businesswoman, you know, like, and we do a lot of personal development, and I think that's that's paramount when you run a business to constantly work on yourself to look at where are your limiting limiting beliefs.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: I still have them.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: I've been doing personal development for 15 years, but there's always another angle that I find, right?
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm sure you relate to this.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: Healing the onion keep and it just came.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but now I'm at the core, so now it's like it really hurts, right?
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: But I remember when I first started, and I would go to America because that's where my the academy is that I'm certified by.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I used to go for a couple of weeks, and I would get all these friends who were all females because the guys never did.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: It was always the females who would say, Yeah, but how about your son?
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I go, What about my son?
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but who's gonna take care of him?
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: I said, Well, he has a father.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but how about your husband?
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: What about him?
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: He's not a child, he's a grown-up.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, and them being together allows them to build their own relationship because sometimes, and I've seen many, many friends and and women out there who they could they attach to their children, and that's it, and that's their whole life, right?
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: And we identify by the by you know the identity of mother and wife, daughter, friend, this and that.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: But who are you?
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: Who am I as a as me, as a person?
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: So then I would go on these trips because I said I'm going there to do something to to get for me to understand myself better, and in return, I thought it'll be better for the marriage, too, right?
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: And then I would hear on a great wine, they would say, I'm a horrible mother and I'm a terrible wife, and how dare I, and all that kind of stuff.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: So all of a sudden, you just get caught up in this somebody else's perspective of what your life should be, should.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: Should, yeah, there's that word again, right?
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, right.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_01: Now, Annie, your personal journey of divorce and transformation, I think is a really powerful story.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_01: But how did guilt show up for you in that process?
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_01: And how have you or did you work through it?
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: So guilt has been in my life my entire life.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: So I grew up with I'm from Romania, and I grew up with being blamed for everything that has happened in our family.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: And even and it got to a point that they my parents lived into it so much that everything that happened in their lives prior to my existence was somehow my fault.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I lived with that guilt my entire life, and to the point where if I would call you on your mobile and you pick up the mobile, you get pulled over by the cops, somehow I thought it was my fault.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: Then I would offer you to pay your fine.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: Because how dare I call you?
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: Like I was meant to know.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: So guilt was a huge thing.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's like I've always felt I've done something wrong.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: Now I can say I live a life guilt free.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I learned that I need to look at am I denying something in my life?
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: Am I blaming somebody else?
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: Am I justifying?
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I started to take full responsibility for my life.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: And what I learned is that if I was denying something, I had to own it.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: Because denial is like it's lying to yourself.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: You're a liar.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: You're lying to yourself that something's, I was lying that things were right in my marriage.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I used to put posts up, oh, my darling husband and my life is graced, and la la la la.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: Until some people, some of my closest friends would say, you know, you're lying.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: No, I'm not.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, and then I would say, it wasn't me, it's him, it's always him, it's always him.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: Well, no, it wasn't.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: It was 50-50.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: And then all the reasons, well, I don't know, and I this and my parents and blah and blah.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: But when I decided to take full responsibility for my life, all of a sudden I start to own my bits.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember Ami saying to you that I have been apologizing to my former husband for the last nine years.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: But it's not apologizing for the sake of it, it's actually just releasing that resentment that I had towards myself, which I realized consciously that my God, I wasn't angry with him, I was angry with myself for not knowing better, for allowing, for not having my boundaries, for whatever they were.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: And slowly the guilt started to dissipate.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I had a very, very, very powerful event happen to me.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: And with that, I started to release the ownership of other people's behavior.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: Would you like me to share it?
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, please.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: So it was my my mentor's name is Blaise Singer, and he teaches uh leadership and team building and sales and all sorts of and mastery of facilitation and all that kind of stuff.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: And the very, very first program I did with him, there was an exercise where he put us into teams and we were playing a game.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: And we got all the way into the into the final and our team lost.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: But we were so excited that we came together, you know, six strangers, but we we we figured it out how to work together.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: And it was a really great analogy for business, how in a team you you have different personalities, how do you bring them together so you work towards the common, you know, good of the business, yes?
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: And then there was a he turned it all around, so there was an opportunity to get back in the game again.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: So when we got back in the game, we had to to give uh we had to pay.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: So everybody collected money, and I was so afraid I was in this in a different country, I was in America, and I was like, Oh, I don't have so much money, but I had 800 bucks.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: I said I'm gonna give it to you.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: But I already made so many excuses, they were like, Don't worry about it.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: So we had the least money in an in the envelope, so he lost it.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: He just said, This is your life, this is your business, this is this, this is that.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: And then one of the girls said, Yeah, but what if one of our team members was the one that they want to put in?
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: And he just went, Who's that?
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I just went, Me, put my hand up.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: I said, Me, like as scared as I was, I I had to I had to own it.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: And he goes, Why?
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: I said, Because I don't have this much money, and I I can't, you know, call my husband and tell him to give me money and this.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, You know, how for how long are you going to keep blaming everything and everybody else for your decisions?
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like shocked.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: So then the team that put most money in came back, they and they were the last, they lost.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: They were like the at the bottom, they put the most money in, they came back in and they actually won the grand final, right?
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: So talking about the power of the mind.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: Now, while all this is happening, the team walked away from me and I was devastated.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: So I went to this corner and I just cried like I don't think I have cried like that ever.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's like my whole soul was shaking.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I took the the I was so guilty that I didn't put them, I didn't put more in.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: And by the time I offered, they were like, no, we're good, right?
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I kept going, yeah, but I said I'm gonna put in, and they wouldn't take it.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_00: And oh my god, I'm so terrible and I'm a horrible person, and I destroyed our opportunity and just self-beating to the nth degree.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I might get emotional here, so you've got to forgive me because this was a massive turning point.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: So he brought us all together once the game was over, so then he debriefed it, and then he said, Where is Annie's team?
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_00: So they all came around and he said, Did you see where she was?
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: And they were like, Yeah.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: So where were you?
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: Where were you supporting her?
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: She took the brunt of it all, and she went there and cried, and you guys shunned her.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: Shame on you.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: Because when you're in business, you do not get rid of the weakest link, you help them and you lift them up because they could actually be your strongest link.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I can tell you, out of all of you, she has the biggest courage ever.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: And he goes, and then he called out the the leader and he said, You have money, you could have made a deal with her that she could pay you back, but she would have been in the game.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: And for me, that was when I just learned, oh my god, I don't need to own everybody else's responsibility, I can only do my own.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: And since then, I learned I learned how to forgive myself for my thoughts and also not to take responsibility for others.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I think those two go really hand in hand.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: Owning your stuff.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: So if I stuff up, I apologize.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: Am I embarrassed and have shame around it sometimes?
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but I overcome myself quickly because I don't want to sit in it because there's nothing I can do, it's gone.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: So with that, I forgive myself, I take responsibility, and there's no more life with the guilt.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: If I feel an ounce of guilt, I go through these questions.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_00: And in one of your questions, you asked there, how do you do that?
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's by going through this thing.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: Am I denying anything?
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_00: Am I laying blame or am I justifying?
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: And if there's a yes anywhere there, then I have to focus on that and figure it out.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: Where am I responsible in this?
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_00: And then I own it, I go back to the person and then I look at how we can shift this around.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_00: Now I'm not gonna own if the person says, Is there anything I can do?
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: And they go, No, I can't own that, then that's theirs to bear.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: But I know that I did everything in my power, so because I don't want to live with that guilt anymore.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_01: Long-winded answer, but very long, but good answer, really good answer.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I want to ask you a little bit more about apologizing to your husband to your ex-husband.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_01: Can you share a little bit of more about that?
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_01: You know, how has that helped heal you?
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_01: Even perhaps how has that impacted your ongoing relationship, your relationship with your son?
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_00: So again, I have a lot of examples, and I think those might help.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_00: So when I used to go to the states to do these events, and in order to get certified, I had to crew at some of the events.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I would just pick up and take off.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I would say, Oh, I have to go because I need this for my certification.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: I have to go again.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_00: Because there I will I felt loved, I felt accepted, I I was shining.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, the the lessons were just endless, it was amazing.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: So there was transformation happening within me, and and I was saying yes to me again and again and again and again.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: At one point, I remember one of the trips I felt I probably shouldn't be going because financially, like I wasn't working anymore.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_00: I I I had another business, and all I was focusing on was learning because I wanted to become a facilitator and a coach.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I had this sense that this is not right, but I went anyway because that pulled me more.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_01: You dismissed your inner knowing.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and when I came back, we had a huge, huge fight.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_00: And A couple of years later I left.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_00: And a couple of two years after I left, I remember sitting in a coffee shop with a girlfriend.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: I said to her, You know, this thing is eating at me.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: I go, Do you do you think that I used him?
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_00: And she looked at me, she goes, What do you think?
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I went, so I got in my car, I drove to his house, he opened the door, said, What do you want?
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: I said, I need to talk to you.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_00: And he let me in.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_00: So we I went to sit down and he sat in this chair.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: And our son came downstairs, Mom.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_00: And uh the the the my husband said, Oh uh, you need to go upstairs.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, No, I think he needs to see this.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_00: So then I said to him, I said, I want to apologize for using you.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_00: And said, You were right.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_00: And he goes, What do you want me to do with that now?
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, What you do with it, it's not up to me.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_00: I said, but I felt so much resentment towards myself for something that I did, and I made you wrong.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I want you to know that you were not.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_00: So if you find it in yourself, in some shape or form, to connect back to that moment and to know that you were right and I was wrong.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: I said, I can give you a whole bunch of reasons why I went.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_00: So, but at the end of the day, I should have listened to my own intuition.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_00: And all I can do now is apologize to you.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_00: I can't change it, but I just want you to know that you were right.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_00: So he was crying and I left.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: I said, I'm gonna go now, and I left.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_00: And my son called five minutes later.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: He said, That is the coolest thing I've ever seen in my life, mom.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: He goes, That took a lot.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: He would have been about 16 at this point, and I know that it is up to me to teach my son everything I know and to tap into himself, and and I think that could have been a turning point for my former husband and I.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I just kept every time I had a breakthrough about something and I could always relate it to our relationship, I would either call him or go and I would apologize.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: And it felt so good because that's self-forgiveness.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I said to him, I hope one day you can forgive me for hurting you.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's not up to me to say to him, now you gotta do the same to me.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_00: That's up to him to figure out if he wants my forgiveness.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: But I have forgiven him because all I know is we are who we are, and we grew up the way we did, and we had our dramas when we were kids, and I decided to do something about it.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: And if he ever will, he will.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_00: But what I learned, and it's one of the tools in my I've got a methodology that I created called reality bridging, where we look at what you know and how you apply it in real life, because a lot of people don't know how to apply their knowledge, and the last the last tool is acceptance and forgiveness.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_00: So when you get to know yourself really well, you can accept yourself and forgive yourself for just not knowing any better.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I was able to accept him for who he is, and I love him and he loves me, and we support each other.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_00: There's just nothing romantic, it's real platonic, but it's beautiful.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I think if more relationships would be like that at the end of a relationship, I mean there's a period of eh, you know.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, there's that transition period where yeah, you don't want to be in the same room, yes, for many couples, yeah.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I think I built a trust.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_00: Uh he's he trusts me now.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_00: And he didn't trust me before, but it's because I think he didn't trust himself, but it's irrelevant now.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_00: I I'm very grateful.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I did a Tony Robin Robins event called Date with Destiny, where he said you can to go and blame somebody positively.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_00: And it took me ages to figure it out.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_00: But I I again I called my ex-husband and he goes, Why are you calling?
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: I said, Because I have to blame you positively, but he didn't hear the positively, he just heard the blame.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_00: So I could almost hear him brace himself for me going, eh.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, I just want to say thank you for coming into my life.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_00: Because if it wasn't for you and everything we went through, I would have gotten to the place I got to within myself to go, I have to see what's going on here.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I've become this amazing Annie because of you, and I owe it to you.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_01: That's amazing.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_01: I've shared a few things uh on different podcast episodes and in conversation with clients, um, tips and tricks and tools that I learned from my ex-husband.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um I certainly wouldn't be the human that I am without that relationship.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um, yeah, lots of things that I've learned and unlearned, and lots of things that I have him to thank for and that relationship to thank for.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_01: Not least of all two great kids, but yeah.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_01: I wanted to ask a little bit more about guilt, right?
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_01: We've been deeply conditioned as women, female identifying humans especially, to carry and feel and hold on to so much guilt, and that shit runs deep, right?
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_01: So how you've you've touched on it earlier, but how do we really release ourselves from guilt?
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_01: And when we do, what shifts and changes?
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's very I think it's very important that you do the work, whatever that is.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_00: Because we only know what we know.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_00: So in order to have a shift, we gotta learn something new.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_00: So I think it's very important to seek, look, seek different types of I don't know, professionals, healers.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_00: You know, there's space for counselors and therapists and psychologists, and they deal with the mind and so forth.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_00: But then you've got spiritual healers, you've got inner child, you've got to you've got to tap into where's this coming from?
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_00: There's got to be a curiosity, like if you want your life to be different, like think about it.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_00: I don't like where I am, or what do I want instead?
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_00: If if they could just do this one thing, when you feel whatever you're feeling, whatever hurt it is, and that and that guilt that's coming, okay.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_00: What do I want instead?
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_00: And start sitting with yourself with a journal and start writing.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_00: You have to do something, just sitting there thinking about it, you're not gonna get anywhere.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_00: Get a coach.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_00: Like you are a coach, you guide people in in what you want in the future, and I love that.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_00: Like when we last spoke, you you know, you shared a little bit more about what you do, and I think it's brilliant at the end of a set, you know, of a marriage or a or any any relationship that ends, there's sorrow and there's hurt and and a lot of guilt.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_00: Why didn't I do this?
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_00: I could have done what could I have done better?
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_00: I am such a loser, I'm not good enough.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_00: I'm this is so much guilt on not being good enough, right?
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_00: But if you start looking at people that can help you, that investment is in you and in your joy and in your happiness and living a life without it.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, right, and it is deep, and in general, and this is something that I heard from one of my mentors, guilt.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_00: So that's just my perspective.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_00: What I learned, it could be many different angles.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_00: This is just my angle.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_00: Guilt comes from usually who was the more um out of the parents, the one who was more in charge.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_00: And we all know that when we do something good, we get rewarded, when we don't, then we get put down.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_00: And that's kind of like a norm, unless our parenting changes, right?
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_00: So we we learn, we get programmed to actually constantly please and appease.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_00: And if we don't do it right, then we feel the guilt, we get the guilt trips happening, and we live that into our life.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_00: So then when we, for example, we're in a relationship with a significant other, and any other relationship, all of a sudden we want to be the good girl or the good boy or whatever it is to please the person, and then if we don't, then we start the guilts happen again, or they guilt you into it, yeah.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_00: But how about why don't you?
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_00: And this and that, and if you this, then that, and you get guilted into it.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_00: So, one of the things that I have learned that if I get a sense, like once I started to understand myself and know myself better, and I think this goes to everybody, is to sit there and you go, is somebody are you guilting me into this?
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: And actually say it.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_00: Are you trying to make me feel guilty?
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I've done this before.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_00: Once I learned it, I went that now.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_00: This is interesting.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_00: So I thought, okay, let me pay attention to it, attention to it.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I said that, are you trying to make me feel guilty?
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_00: And the person was like, what?
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_00: I said, No, are you trying to make me feel guilty right now?
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, oh, oh no, no, no, I'm not, I'm not.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, okay, thank you, thank you.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_00: I just wanted to clarify that, but I can tell you it shifted the way the person spoke to me after that.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so it's it's that's a kind of like a boundary because like guilt can come from different things.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_00: Guilt can be, did you actually commit a crime?
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_00: Because the definition of guilt is you committed a crime.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_00: Us women, we want to go have a bath and we think we committed a crime because we are not there for the kids.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_00: For those that have children, okay?
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_00: But there's always every time you want to do something for yourself, you feel guilty because oh, I should be productive, I should be doing something for somebody else, and then we are all burnt out, and then there's a problem with that too now.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I will feel guilty.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_00: I shouldn't be burnt out because I'm super woman.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_01: Oh dear, dear, dear.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_01: We could go on and on talking about appealing back the layers of the onion, right?
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um, what I really want to know, what I really want to know from you is you talk about living wildly free.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_01: What does that actually mean in real life?
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_01: And what does it look like in your everyday choices?
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_00: Wildly free is being you.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_00: And that taps into forgiveness because my message to the world is that forgiveness is freedom, freedom from your own resentment to yourself, and when you let go of being upset with yourself, there's this amazing joy and peacefulness and fulfillment that comes up where you you laugh wholeheartedly and your eyes sparkle and you go, you and you know, freedom the word freedom is not just about, oh, I want to do what I want to do when I want to do it.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, that's great.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_00: But when something impedes your sense of joy, which is your freedom, then you gotta address that.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_00: You can't let it, you know, push you down.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_00: So I've just been on a night week, nine-week trip overseas, and I've been to Mexico and I've had so many women private message me, which was actually really surprising.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_00: Are you really traveling on your own?
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, aren't you scared?
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my god, that's amazing.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_00: I'd love to do that.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_00: Well, just do that.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_00: But I can tell you, I felt so free and so I felt just wild.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I spent five days at a beach, there was not another soul on this beach for five days.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_00: Just me, the birds, and the bees, literally, and I was nude, naked, there, because there's nobody there, barefoot, literally, and naked.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I felt so wild, and I thought, oh my god, if somebody is gonna walk by on a beach, they're gonna get an eyeful.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_00: But it was that was so wild to be so me, so free.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_00: It was amazing.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I love it, absolutely love it.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_01: What else did I want to ask you?
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_01: I I know I want to ask you about self-trust because I recorded an episode recently about self-trust after divorce or after a betrayal and infidelity.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I missed the signs, I chose badly, I chose the wrong person.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_01: How did I not know he or she was having an affair?
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_01: How can I trust myself again?
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_01: How can someone start trusting themselves again after a betrayal or even just after years of self-doubt or guilt-driven living?
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, this is all podcast on its own when it comes to betrayal.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_00: A betrayal doesn't just happen on its own, and you gotta really look at what was your part in that, and we can sit there going, Oh, I didn't see the signs, or and all of that, and hindsight is so good.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's learning from you gotta learn from those situations and look at why did it happen?
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_00: So I had some clients where they there was infidelity, but the person went back to the person, and I asked them, I said, You've been punishing your partner ever since, and it can be a decade, and you chose to go back.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_00: Why did you go back?
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_00: If you went back and you said, I forgive this person and I'm gonna go with, then why you keep punishing the person?
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_00: That's not right.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_00: So, are you punishing the person or are you self-punishing?
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_00: And the other thing is, you have you ever asked the person why what was missing in their life?
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_00: People, I mean, we there are people that go and do it all the time, but sometimes it can happen because something is missing from the relationship, and you can sit down and have a conversation about it, and probably you need to have some kind of guide, somebody to help the dynamic.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_00: So when I was doing relationship coaching and they would start that, ah, and I go, no, no, we don't do that here.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_00: We listen and and stuff started coming out, and it opened the eyes of the person, the other person, knowing, oh, so what was it that I didn't give you?
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and I think in a lot of marriages, one or the other withdraws the physical part of things as a subconscious punishment, but they don't they don't even know that they're doing it, but then they get all upset.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_00: Well, hang on a minute.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_00: What gave you the right to take something away from another person?
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_00: Whether it is sex, whether it is words and communication, whether it is a hug, but whatever it is, or doing something for the other person because you're pissed off.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_00: Well, what gives people the right to do that?
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_00: So some people might not like hearing this, but the reality is like you know, we give and then we take away without an explanation.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_00: So I think it's very important that you tap into like when it comes to self-trust, if something doesn't feel right, you your responsibility is to yourself first and foremost to understand your emotions, your own emotions.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_00: Why you're thinking what you're thinking, because our mind is there to protect us, you know.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_00: People say, oh, the ego, no, the ego is good, just don't let it take over and create stories that possibly don't even exist.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, right.
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_00: So I think a betrayal doesn't necessarily have to be sexual, it can also be financial.
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_00: And in a financial situation, things that I've seen is that people hide things because they feel that they did something wrong and they're afraid to say that, oh, well, look, I spent this much money on this and blah, blah.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_00: But then when it blows out, because everybody gets found out in the end, was it worth it?
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_00: So I think it's really important that if you are in a relationship, that you actually work on it because you loved each other at some point, something happened.
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_00: Well, go and figure it out.
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_00: And if you are separated and you've gone, well, it's your responsibility and you owe it to yourself to understand yourself why you react the way you react.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_00: So the next relationship, you're not going to repeat the same thing.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_01: I often talk about, and it's really aligned with what you're saying, um, taking radical personal responsibility.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_01: What is your part in this?
• 40:27
  SPEAKER_01: Whether it's a betrayal, whether it's a relationship breakdown, whether it's a fiery argument, whatever it is, what's your part?
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_01: What can what can you control?
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_01: And what, you know, what lesson is this experience delivering you, or what what's being put in front of you so that you can look at it, question it, get curious about it, unpack it, unravel it, change it.
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_00: But all that, when you when you take charge, because you know, when there's uh when there's pressure, when there's some kind of drama, where there's those sorts of things happening, there's change waiting to happen so for your good.
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_00: And every time you have a pain, and if you if you do the work and you address it, the gain is double better.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_00: You know, so if you can just have faith that everything will work out as it needs to be, just have the faith, but then it's up to you to go and do the work to get the result that you want, despite what everybody else wants for you, you gotta always tap into what is it that you want.
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 41:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_01: Annie, if you could leave our listeners as we close this awesome conversation, if you could leave our listeners with one message about guilt or self-trust or liberation, what would it be?
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_00: So you're not on this earth to be perfect, even though the word so the word perfect means as good as it is in the moment, which means that every moment of your life is perfect, actually.
• 42:21
  SPEAKER_00: But we hung up on this.
• 42:23
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, you don't need to be perfect, you gotta have progress.
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you've got to have progress, so the next moment is perfect, but you're not here to please everything and everybody and and be right to do the right thing.
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_00: You've got to do the right thing by yourself, not by what perfection means to somebody else, right?
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_00: Forgive yourself first and foremost.
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_00: Accept you for who you are with your idiosyncrasies, because we've got, you know, like the law of duality states everything has two sides.
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_00: So you can't just love the good bits of you, you've got to love the other bits of you.
• 43:03
  SPEAKER_00: I used to be called a drama queen.
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_00: Now I have four crowns and I wear them where I feel the drama coming on, and I and I crack up laughing because the moment I put the crown on, it's ridiculous and funny, and I go, okay.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you integrity has two definitions.
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_00: I I love words and definitions.
• 43:26
  SPEAKER_00: One is keep your word to society.
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_00: When you said you're gonna do something, do it.
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_00: But the other one, and I feel this is the most important one, is to be in integrity with yourself, which means is to be whole and complete.
• 43:40
  SPEAKER_00: If you feel that there's a gap somewhere in your life, you owe it to yourself to go and learn, question, read YouTube videos.
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_00: All you gotta do is just type in what you're looking for.
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_00: Don't feel that you're on your own.
• 43:58
  SPEAKER_00: And like I I love AI, some people don't.
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_00: I love Chat GPT.
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_00: I sit there and I talk to it because you can do voice call.
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_00: And at three o'clock in the morning, when I meet myself and I and I don't want to wake up my friends, I sit there and I talk to it, and I love that it puts my mind at ease.
• 44:17
  SPEAKER_00: But I, you know, there's in this day and age, in our generation, there's so much great stuff on social media, on YouTube, on you know, there's a million books.
• 44:31
  SPEAKER_00: So again, it is up to you.
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_00: If you want something to shift, it's up to you to seek the answers, and the more you seek it, the more it's gonna come to you.
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_00: I wrote this down.
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I wrote this down.
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_00: Guilt is a cage, self-trust is the key.
• 44:51
  SPEAKER_01: Perfect.
• 44:51
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that's just the best uh place to end our conversation.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_01: Guilt is a cage, self-trust is the key.
• 44:59
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 44:59
  SPEAKER_01: I got goosebumps now.
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_01: So did I.
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_01: So good, Annie.
• 45:03
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today.
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_01: It's been a good day.
• 45:08
  SPEAKER_01: If you enjoyed my conversation with Annie Callis and want to connect further with her, there are links to all her social media handles and her website in the show notes.
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_01: And if you did love something particular about it, we would both love to hear from you.
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_01: Drop us a DM via social media, or you can send me a message via the link in the show notes.
• 45:31
  SPEAKER_01: If you know someone who would feel supported, uplifted to listen to this conversation, please, please share it with them.
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_01: As always, thanks for being here.
• 45:40
  SPEAKER_01: Bye for now.
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_01: I'm Sally Ann Hartnell, divorce coach and strategist, and you've been listening to Reflect, Reclaim and Liberate.
• 45:49
  SPEAKER_01: You can follow me on Instagram at Reflect Coaching, and if you can think of anyone who would love or benefit from listening to this episode, please share it with them.
• 45:57
  SPEAKER_01: I'd also be so grateful if you would follow and review the podcast so we can get in the ears of a whole lot more people just like you who are ready to reclaim and liberate themselves in life and love.
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_01: I hope you'll join me next week for another episode of Reflect, Reclaim and Liberate.
• 46:13
  SPEAKER_01: Until then.