Category: Emotional Abuse

The Pastor's Wife Nobody Saw: Jessica's Story

The Pastor’s Wife Nobody Saw: Jessica’s Story [Episode 378]

In this episode, I sit down with my real-life friend Jessica, a pastor’s wife whose story intersects with mine: her husband was a pastor at the very church that excommunicated me. What started as a conversation about her story turned into one of the most layered, honest episodes I think we’ve ever recorded.

Jessica spent decades being told her emotions were idols, her feelings weren’t facts, and her needs were sin problems she needed to repent of. In this conversation, she shares what it took to finally see through that, what the long road out of a high-control religious marriage actually looks like, and why freedom sometimes takes many years to arrive even after the divorce papers are signed.

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Learn How to Get Into Enjoying Your Free Time!

Learn How to Get Into Enjoying Your Free Time!

You finally have a Saturday to yourself. The kids are gone. The house is quiet. And somehow… you end up on your phone for three hours feeling guilty. Sound familiar? There is something happening in your brain that’s worth understanding.

In this episode, Natalie and Diana Swillinger dig into the science behind why divorced Christian women struggle to enjoy their own free time, and why the solution isn’t a better to-do list. If you’ve ever felt frozen when you finally had space to breathe, this conversation was made for you.

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Finding Your Freedom, Autonomy, and Independence - High Functioning Women Series Part Four

Finding Your Freedom, Autonomy, and Independence – High Functioning Women Series Part Four [Episode 377]

This is part four of the High Functioning Christian Women in Destructive Marriages series, and today we talk about a concept that ties the whole series together: sovereignty.

Synonyms for sovereignty include: freedom, autonomy, and independence.

If you’ve spent years managing everyone’s needs, shrinking your own, and building an identity around your capacity to give without limit, this episode will challenge a misunderstood theology that was never meant for women who are already pouring out from an empty cup.

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When the Fear of Failure Stops You From Getting Stuff Done

When the Fear of Failure Stops You From Getting Stuff Done

What if failure isn’t the problem — it’s the story you’re telling yourself about it?

In this episode of the Divorced Christian Woman Podcast, I take you through the first part of a class I teach inside Flying Higher. Let’s talk about the real reason failure stops us cold. It’s not the failure itself. It’s the meaning we assign to it, the story we quietly tell ourselves about what it says about who we are.

But there’s something even harder to face than failing. It’s the moment you break trust with yourself. These two things look alike but they’re completely different, and once you understand the distinction, the way you relate to your own setbacks will never be the same. This episode draws from two lessons inside the Flying Higher program.

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