Show Notes
If you've ever known something was wrong but couldn't quite let yourself fully see it — this episode is for you. Today I'm sharing a video I created called Stages of Denial: Denial, Awareness, and the Courage to See Things as They Really Are. And I'm airing it here because this conversation matters not just when you're still in the relationship trying to figure out what's real, but after you leave too. Even years into healing, denial can still be present — denial about the severity of what you experienced, about the impact it had on you, and sometimes even about your own healing timeline. This one meets you wherever you are right now. What we cover: Why denial is not a character flaw — it's a rational adaptation to an environment designed to make your reality hard to see The central dialectic of trauma (Judith Herman) and why the internal war of knowing and not knowing makes complete sense The four degrees of denial and which one most survivors are actually living in The dimmer switch analogy — why the room gets dark so slowly that you convince yourself you can still see just fine How abusers use denial differently than survivors, and what Lundy Bancroft and Evan Stark say about that The quieter forms of denial: omission, compliance, intellectualizing, hopelessness A predictable pattern researchers found in recorded calls between abusers and survivors — and why knowing the pattern is the beginning of not being moved by it Where to actually start: the body, the journal, the emotions you've been holding under water
✨ WORK WITH AMIE + NEXT STEPS IN YOUR HEALING https://amiewoolsey.com/amie-woolsey Free Video Series "Am I In An Abusive Relationship" :You will receive an email containing videos that guide you through the 8 domains of a relationship and explore potentially destructive dynamics you may be experiencing.Each video includes a worksheet to help you reflect on your lived experience and gain greater clarity and understanding of your reality.Please note: the email subject line will not include the word "abuse." https://amiewoolsey.com/am-i-in-an-abusive-relationship 📍 Dating From Within Workshop- June 11th-13th 👉 Click here to join interest list https://datingfromwithin.amiewoolsey.com/dating-from-within-page 💬 Empowered Divorce Q&A – Free monthly group coaching. First Thursday of each month. 👣 Body Love Class – Learn how to reclaim your body after betrayal. 📍 Divorce 101: Self-Paced GuideFeeling stuck in the aftermath of betrayal or unsure where to go next? This guide meets you right where you are and helps you make your next best step.🎯 Start by taking the quiz 📍 Intimacy Within: Self-Paced CourseWant real connection in a future relationship? Start by building healthy intimacy within. Learn the 7 levels of intimacy and how to practice them—first, with YOU.👉 Check it out here 📍 Should I Stay or Go? CourseThis guide walks you through one of the hardest questions you'll ever face. It's not about finding the right answer—it's about becoming the chooser of it.👉 Learn more + enroll 💻 Want to work with Amie 1:1?Book a consult: Click here 🎥 Watch on YouTube: Get episodes early + visual tools to support your journey.📲 Follow me on social:Instagram | Facebook | TikTok → @amiewoolsey
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Musicbed -January 8, 2024The Music Bed, LLC ("MB") approves the use of "Today Will Be The Day - Instrumental" (Composition(s) and Master(s)) for intro"intro" (the "Production") pursuant to your request date January 8, 2024 as follows:SECTION IComposition/Master: Today Will Be The Day - InstrumentalArtist(s): Summer Kennedy
More from The Empowered Divorce Podcast
With the Cornell 7 case all over social media, so many women are wondering whether what happened to them counts, including what happened inside their marriage. This episode is for you. I’m re-airing my conversation with marriage and family therapist Geoff Steurer about sexual consent in marriage. We talk about why marriage is never a blanket yes, how coercion shows up in everyday ways, why your body’s response doesn’t mean you consented, and how pornography shapes our beliefs about sex. Before the conversation, I share the ways we rationalize what happened, how coercion can continue after divorce, and what healthy sex really looks like. You are the chooser of your life and your body, and you can choose to heal. Content note: This episode discusses sexual coercion and assault. Please listen with care. If you need support, RAINN’s 24/7 hotline is 1-800-656-4673 (rainn.org). @geoffsteurer https://www.geoffsteurer.com/ ________
Today I’m talking about indifference—the idea that if you feel nothing about your ex, you must be “healed.” I get why that sounds appealing after betrayal, trauma, and a life-saving divorce, but I don’t think indifference is a reliable measure of growth, especially when you’re still co-parenting and their choices keep impacting you and your kids. If you spiral when they start dating, brace when a text comes in, or feel grief watching your children be let down, that doesn’t mean you’re failing—it means something real is being touched. Instead of asking “How do I stop caring?” I invite you to ask “What just happened in me?” and “What needs my attention?” Somatic healing, honest emotional clarity, and boundaries can help you find relief while still building the life you choose. _________ ✨ WORK WITH AMIE + NEXT STEPS IN YOUR HEALING https://amiewoolsey.com/amie-woolsey Free Video Series "Am I In An Abusive Relationship" :You will receive an email containing videos that guide you through the 8 domains of a relationship and explore potentially destructive dynamics you may be experiencing.Each video includes a worksheet to help you reflect on your lived experience and gain greater clarity and understanding of your reality.Please note: the email subject line will not include the word "abuse." https://amiewoolsey.com/am-i-in-an-abusive-relationship 📍 Dating From Within Workshop- January 14-16th 2027!! 👉 Click here to join interest list https://datingfromwithin.amiewoolsey.com/dating-from-within-page 💬 Empowered Divorce Q&A – Free monthly group coaching. First Thursday of each month. 👣 Body Love Class – Learn how to reclaim your body after betrayal. 📍 Divorce 101: Self-Paced GuideFeeling stuck in the aftermath of betrayal or unsure where to go next? This guide meets you right where you are and helps you make your next best step.🎯 Start by taking the quiz 📍 Intimacy Within: Self-Paced CourseWant real connection in a future relationship? Start by building healthy intimacy within. Learn the 7 levels of intimacy and how to practice them—first, with YOU.👉 Check it out here 📍 Should I Stay or Go? CourseThis guide walks you through one of the hardest questions you'll ever face. It's not about finding the right answer—it's about becoming the chooser of it.👉 Learn more + enroll 💻 Want to work with Amie 1:1?Book a consult: Click here 🎥 Watch on YouTube: Get episodes early + visual tools to support your journey.📲 Follow me on social:Instagram | Facebook | TikTok → @amiewoolsey Need support ?📩 [email protected] Musicbed -January 8, 2024The Music Bed, LLC ("MB") approves the use of "Today Will Be The Day - Instrumental" (Composition(s) and Master(s)) for intro"intro" (the "Production") pursuant to your request date January 8, 2024 as follows:SECTION IComposition/Master: Today Will Be The Day - InstrumentalArtist(s): Summer Kennedy
I’m excited to welcome licensed psychotherapist and author Terri Cole back to the podcast to talk about her upcoming book, Father Wound (out November 17th), building on our past conversation about Too Much and the high-functioning codependent. Terri defines the “father wound” as a psychological and emotional injury from an absent, abusive, or emotionally unavailable father figure (and broader patriarchal conditioning) that creates a core worthiness wound, without needing to villainize fathers or involve them in the healing process. We discuss myths, how unhealed wounds can look like strengths, and key symptoms including perfectionism, people-pleasing, harsh inner critic, anxiety or numbness, self-abandonment, disordered boundaries, fear of abandonment, hyper-independence, and hypervigilance. Terri shares how healing through self-awareness, compassion, nervous-system practices, and integration can change relationship patterns and dating choices, plus resources, bonuses, and her free pre-order retreat at fatherwoundbook.com. terricole.com __________________ ✨ WORK WITH AMIE + NEXT STEPS IN YOUR HEALING https://amiewoolsey.com/amie-woolsey Free Video Series "Am I In An Abusive Relationship" :You will receive an email containing videos that guide you through the 8 domains of a relationship and explore potentially destructive dynamics you may be experiencing.Each video includes a worksheet to help you reflect on your lived experience and gain greater clarity and understanding of your reality.Please note: the email subject line will not include the word "abuse." https://amiewoolsey.com/am-i-in-an-abusive-relationship 📍 Dating From Within Workshop- June 11th-13th 👉 Click here to join interest list https://datingfromwithin.amiewoolsey.com/dating-from-within-page 💬 Empowered Divorce Q&A – Free monthly group coaching. First Thursday of each month. 👣 Body Love Class – Learn how to reclaim your body after betrayal. 📍 Divorce 101: Self-Paced GuideFeeling stuck in the aftermath of betrayal or unsure where to go next? This guide meets you right where you are and helps you make your next best step.🎯 Start by taking the quiz 📍 Intimacy Within: Self-Paced CourseWant real connection in a future relationship? Start by building healthy intimacy within. Learn the 7 levels of intimacy and how to practice them—first, with YOU.👉 Check it out here 📍 Should I Stay or Go? CourseThis guide walks you through one of the hardest questions you'll ever face. It's not about finding the right answer—it's about becoming the chooser of it.👉 Learn more + enroll 💻 Want to work with Amie 1:1?Book a consult: Click here 🎥 Watch on YouTube: Get episodes early + visual tools to support your journey.📲 Follow me on social:Instagram | Facebook | TikTok → @amiewoolsey
In today’s episode, I’m sharing a few quick updates (no October live Q&A because I’ll be in Vancouver for training, the next Dating From Within workshop interest list is open for January, and how following/reviewing helps other women find this support) and then diving into a powerful healing metaphor I learned from functional medicine: autophagy. I talk about why it can feel like you’re “going backwards” when things finally get safer—because your nervous system adapted to chaos—and how healing can look like sorting what you’ve carried: keeping what’s still useful, breaking down what’s damaged, and releasing what no longer needs to run your life. I also connect “mitophagy” to the question of energy, share a personal example around child support, and offer my pillars of healing—awareness, acceptance, and agency—plus two questions to help you reclaim your energy. _________ ✨ WORK WITH AMIE + NEXT STEPS IN YOUR HEALING https://amiewoolsey.com/amie-woolsey Free Video Series "Am I In An Abusive Relationship" :You will receive an email containing videos that guide you through the 8 domains of a relationship and explore potentially destructive dynamics you may be experiencing.Each video includes a worksheet to help you reflect on your lived experience and gain greater clarity and understanding of your reality.Please note: the email subject line will not include the word "abuse." https://amiewoolsey.com/am-i-in-an-abusive-relationship 📍 Dating From Within Workshop- January 14-16th 2027!! 👉 Click here to join interest list https://datingfromwithin.amiewoolsey.com/dating-from-within-page 💬 Empowered Divorce Q&A – Free monthly group coaching. First Thursday of each month. 👣 Body Love Class – Learn how to reclaim your body after betrayal. 📍 Divorce 101: Self-Paced GuideFeeling stuck in the aftermath of betrayal or unsure where to go next? This guide meets you right where you are and helps you make your next best step.🎯 Start by taking the quiz 📍 Intimacy Within: Self-Paced CourseWant real connection in a future relationship? Start by building healthy intimacy within. Learn the 7 levels of intimacy and how to practice them—first, with YOU.👉 Check it out here 📍 Should I Stay or Go? CourseThis guide walks you through one of the hardest questions you'll ever face. It's not about finding the right answer—it's about becoming the chooser of it.👉 Learn more + enroll 💻 Want to work with Amie 1:1?Book a consult: Click here 🎥 Watch on YouTube: Get episodes early + visual tools to support your journey.📲 Follow me on social:Instagram | Facebook | TikTok → @amiewoolsey Need support ?📩 [email protected] Musicbed -January 8, 2024The Music Bed, LLC ("MB") approves the use of "Today Will Be The Day - Instrumental" (Composition(s) and Master(s)) for intro"intro" (the "Production") pursuant to your request date January 8, 2024 as follows:SECTION IComposition/Master: Today Will Be The Day - InstrumentalArtist(s): Summer Kennedy
After divorce, your ex may be out of your life, but their lens can still come with you. You may find yourself questioning purchases, choices, how you look, what you wear, whether you’re “doing divorce right,” or what your ex might think—even when you don’t want them back and don’t actually need their approval. Betrayal, criticism, control, and years of adjusting around someone else can make their opinions feel so familiar that you don’t realize you’re still using them as a reference point. And sometimes it isn’t even your ex. It’s the church congregation, former in-laws, mutual friends, family, or the imagined audience wondering what they must think about the life you’re creating now. In this episode, I talk about how to recognize whose lens you’re looking through, take the mirror back, rebuild self-trust, and begin making choices from your own thoughts, values, body, and desires. Because you are the chooser in your life, and little by little, choice by choice, you get to build a life that reflects you. _________ ✨ WORK WITH AMIE + NEXT STEPS IN YOUR HEALING https://amiewoolsey.com/amie-woolsey Free Video Series "Am I In An Abusive Relationship" :You will receive an email containing videos that guide you through the 8 domains of a relationship and explore potentially destructive dynamics you may be experiencing.Each video includes a worksheet to help you reflect on your lived experience and gain greater clarity and understanding of your reality.Please note: the email subject line will not include the word "abuse." https://amiewoolsey.com/am-i-in-an-abusive-relationship 📍 Dating From Within Workshop- June 11th-13th 👉 Click here to join interest list https://datingfromwithin.amiewoolsey.com/dating-from-within-page 💬 Empowered Divorce Q&A – Free monthly group coaching. First Thursday of each month. 👣 Body Love Class – Learn how to reclaim your body after betrayal. 📍 Divorce 101: Self-Paced GuideFeeling stuck in the aftermath of betrayal or unsure where to go next? This guide meets you right where you are and helps you make your next best step.🎯 Start by taking the quiz 📍 Intimacy Within: Self-Paced CourseWant real connection in a future relationship? Start by building healthy intimacy within. Learn the 7 levels of intimacy and how to practice them—first, with YOU.👉 Check it out here 📍 Should I Stay or Go? CourseThis guide walks you through one of the hardest questions you'll ever face. It's not about finding the right answer—it's about becoming the chooser of it.👉 Learn more + enroll 💻 Want to work with Amie 1:1?Book a consult: Click here 🎥 Watch on YouTube: Get episodes early + visual tools to support your journey.📲 Follow me on social:Instagram | Facebook | TikTok → @amiewoolsey