Recognizing Red Flags & Overcoming Toxic Relationships - Inspired by 'It Ends With Us'

What if recognizing the early signs of toxic relationships could save your emotional well-being AND give you a peek into where you might be bulling yourself?

(Trigger warning: includes a discussion on domestic violence AND spoiler alerts for the movie: "It Ends with Us.")

Join me in this heartfelt episode as we explore the profound and often hidden truths about domestic violence, framed through the lens of the powerful movie "It Ends With Us." I'll share my own experiences and insights, shedding light on early red flags like love bombing and extreme jealousy, while also discussing the crucial role of spiritual and energetic healing in overcoming abuse (within and without).

Celebrities like Blake Lively play a pivotal role in bringing these issues to the forefront, yet the actress flopped on helping spread positive messages for domestic violence victims. She could've used her celebrity status to help those in need, but instead fell short.

Discover how shifting your internal state not only changes your external experiences but also helps you reclaim your power, paving the way for a truly transformative healing journey.

If you need help along this journey, I encourage you to join my Clean BDE program here.

Resources mentioned: Elevated Consciousness podcast here.

My membership here.

Chapters

• 0:00 Reflections on Domestic Violence
• 6:35 Soul Connections and Internal Healing
• 15:28 Personal Empowerment and Healing Journey
• 24:18 Self-Reflection in Healing Relationships

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hello and welcome back to the show. As promised, a full report on my thoughts after watching it Ends With Us and a couple of warnings before we jump in. One trigger warning If you've heard of this movie, you know it's about domestic violence. I'll be sharing some of my personal experiences and you know just talking about domestic violence overall, so if that's something that triggers you, then you might not want to listen. Two, if you haven't seen the movie yet and you don't want the ending to be spoiled, don't listen to this episode, because I am talking about the movie openly and so I wouldn't want you to listen and then get upset that I talked about the ending and all of that.

Speaker 1: 0:44

So I'm one of those weirdos who I love to know how a movie is going to go. So I'll actually look up a movie. I didn't let this one, but I will. Often if I know it's going to be kind of an anxious, if I know the movie is going to give me an anxious feeling or I'm going to feel a little stressed out, I will look up the movie's ending, because then I can just relax and watch the movie it out. I will look up the movie's ending because then I can just relax and watch the movie. It doesn't ruin it for me at all. Nobody else seems to understand that. So if you're one of those weirdos, let me know, because there has to be more than one of us, so yeah, so I just wanted to give those two warnings before I dive in, and so I actually already did record a whole breakdown right after I watched the movie, but it was a little bit more personal details than I wanted to share on my podcast. I do share in more detail in my clean BDE program, my clean baby daddy energy program, because I did clear all of the trauma and the pain and anger and the fear related to domestic violence that I experience and, in fact, the person who is the most violent towards me. I actually like, if I see him, I give him a hug, I say hello, I have a child with him, so I invite him to our you know child's events and all of that, and I have no issue with him because of all of the spiritual, energetic, universal laws that I've learned, which I will get into at the end, and it won't be for everyone, based on whatever stage of healing you might be in if you've experienced domestic violence. If someone had told me these things when I was in it, I probably would have wanted to argue or, like you know, get a little upset. But if you're listening to this, then you're probably someone who you know has the desire to expand their soul and to really understand these things from an energetic spiritual perspective. So just keeping that in mind.

Speaker 1: 2:38

So first I kind of want to talk about the signs like leading up to okay, this relationship could turn toxic, and the movie did a good job of showing that. Like love bombing, just being really intense, wanting to move really fast, like those are all signs, like extreme jealousy, picking fights, like when, out of nowhere you know, like all of those things are signs that the relationship is probably not going to be an easy one. And then also in the movie, her, you know, accidentally getting hurt, which turned out to not be so accident. That's kind of like the gateway drug to abuse right or playing rough. Even that was something interesting about my relationship with my most severe domestic violence is it was really intense, like attraction. And now, looking back, I know and this is where some people might not understand this perspective, but just stick with me Now that I know what I know and I'm not saying I know everything, but I have been studying spirituality energetics for over a decade.

Speaker 1: 3:57

At this point, now that I've been using my intuitive skills like all day, every day, I know that the person who hurt me the most he was actually a soulmate. So, not to go down a different rabbit hole, but typically in each lifetime we have four to seven soulmates, which, if you want to learn more about that, I will link a podcast who you'll listen to Elevated Consciousness. That's where I learned, that's where I've been learning a lot about soul contracts. I'm in the intuition program there and I'm also in Ali Ninfo's intuition program. But Alessandro, with Guided Light Healing, who has the Elevated Consciousness podcast, he talks a lot about relationships. Who has the Elevated Consciousness podcast, he talks a lot about relationships, things that are just like so eye-opening. So we each have four to seven soulmates in each lifetime and then we have something called a soul complement, which is basically you, but in the opposite, like feminine, masculine energies. So I'm not going to explain that because it's not something I fully understand yet. I just know what I've learned.

Speaker 1: 5:11

Someday I will definitely be incorporating all of this into my Clean BDE program because I want to be able to tell women like your soul contract with this person is XYZ. This person is a soulmate in a past life. This is what happened blah, blah, blah. Right, so I just think that will help women so much to be able to see things from a soul perspective, not just a human perspective, because our higher self literally chose everything in this life. They chose your hair, your nose, your body, your toes. They knew every mistake and I'm putting that in quotes every mistake that you made, because they knew it would lead to soul growth, soul expansion. And so the older souls, like me, and probably most of you, if you're listening to this, the older souls go through more obstacles than most people because they have a very specific purpose, and their purpose is to help humanity, and so to do that, you have to know every facet of something right. So one of my purposes in this lifetime was to understand every facet of parenting and relationships, and so I've experienced just about everything from parenting like all aspects.

Speaker 1: 6:35

It's just crazy, and I used to like really focus a lot on any little mistake, even though the mistakes were a lot less than my, you know, successes. It's the human thing to focus on the negative. I mean, that's what kept us alive as cavemen, right? So we haven't evolved all that much in the last six million years. So just knowing that and I just did a podcast episode, or was it a podcast episode? Sorry, now I'm blanking no, it was in my membership, so I talked about this in my membership.

Speaker 1: 7:08

Why reoccurring painful memories keep popping up? And it's because it has a lesson for us. It wants our higher self wants us to look at that and see, oh, that's why that happened. And I'll kind of like give some examples here. But I in my membership I go way more into specifics, so I'll link that like give some examples here. But I in my membership I go way more into specifics, so I'll link that in the show notes for you.

Speaker 1: 7:29

Getting back to this, so I know the person that hurt me the most. He is actually one of my soulmates in this life. He's not my soul compliment, a soul compliment like I haven't met yet and I know I still have some more work to do before I'll be able to call in a soul compliment and be successful in that relationship, because they will reflect all of your insecurities and all of that not in a negative way but in a way for you to grow and I know that I still have a lot of relationship or inner work to do before I'm ready to attract my soul compliment, or at least that's what I believe. Who knows what higher self. I could probably intuitively check in, but that's just like kind of what I'm thinking. So getting back to the movie, all of those signs I was like yep, yep. So the writer I haven't really researched her at all. I don't know her Colleen Hoover, I think, is her name. She must have either done a lot of research or experienced this herself.

Speaker 1: 8:25

Domestic violence I will say I was really disappointed with Blake Lively and the other women, but mostly Blake, because she's just so well-known. She could have used her fame to really spotlight domestic violence and options for women, or like there could have been some of the funds from the movie. And I don't know, I didn't actually look into this. Maybe, maybe I'm wrong. I haven't seen anything. I've watched her Instagram page. I've not seen anything about like helping domestic violence and women survivors, all of that. It's actually one of my goals to be able to come up with a nonprofit that can really help women leave the relationship and then also grow from a soul perspective, because I know how hard it is to leave, and that was something I noticed in the movie.

Speaker 1: 9:15

I loved that there's a scene where Blake's character, lily, is putting the crib together. So she's left at this point and again, you don't want to listen if you don't want to know how the movie ends. She's left at this point. She's pregnant and he comes over to put the crib together and she lets him feel her stomach and then he starts begging her to come home. Promises to be different promises. He'll never do that again and you can tell that the characters really truly love each other, right? And I've been in that position so many times and I did fall for that many times, and it's because one I can sense their soul. I can sense that their soul is an older soul. I can sense their love and their potential. But that's what I learned is, you cannot like count on potential, right? Because even if I can see their potential, they're not always going to see their potential. And this is well. There's another piece I'll get into there.

Speaker 1: 10:21

But so I was like, oh my God, if she goes back to him, I'm going to be so mad, because I really didn't want that message to be sent out to people like go back to your abuser. So at the end, when I will admit, when he's holding the newborn baby and she's saying I want a divorce, what would you do if someone else was hurting our daughter? Like all of this stuff is making me a little nervous, that he was holding the baby while she was saying all of this I probably would not have done that. Well, I know I wouldn't have. But I thought like, wow, that is such a powerful message to send to people Like have to break the cycle. Like why isn't this being talked about instead of these stupid interviews she's doing about what's your favorite animal? It's just like come on, uh, anyway. So that piece of it. I was Okay.

Speaker 1: 11:13

So every time I found myself in a toxic relationship, abuse, I always wanted to be rescued. I always wanted an Atlas character, that part of the movie or book. I don't feel like that's the case for most domestic violence victims, right. So I don't feel like there's an atlas. Maybe there is, in the form of a mom or a friend or something. But I remember being in those relationships and just wanting to be rescued. I remember one time trigger warning I was in the car with one of my exes and he hit me in the face and then I had to go into the gas station and I was crying and with my eyes I was like trying to communicate to the gas station person like help, help me. Didn't work. So if there had been an atlas, oh my God, yes, I would have left. But here's the thing for a spiritual universal, there had been an atlas, oh my god, yes, I would have left. But here's the thing for a spiritual, universal, energetic perspective is, if we don't shift internally, we're going to keep attracting that because and that's why the cycle of abuse keeps happening.

Speaker 1: 12:27

Yes, you know what we witness in our homes growing up, if we do witness abuse. I I didn't witness physical abuse, but I was very abusive to myself. I did experience trauma in a different way and I experienced bullying at school, but because I was bullying myself, it all started in about seventh grade when I really wanted to be a supermodel. Sounds so funny now, but that was my dream. And so I was 5'7" in seventh grade, very thin, probably 100 pounds, and I would only allow myself to eat saltine crackers and drink Diet 7-Up man. I was very anorexic. That carried on for a long time. I would always beat myself up about my body, beat myself up about school, like you're not doing good enough.

Speaker 1: 13:21

And this all came from a place of not feeling special, which most older souls and really everybody, typically is born feeling not special because look at our school system. They teach us that we're not special. They want us to be like everybody else. Right, but you are special. You are unique. There is nobody else like you.

Speaker 1: 13:42

So I know one of the reasons I felt like that was because my mom told me as a child that when she got pregnant with me that my dad didn't want me. He had already had two children my brothers from a different wife. And when my parents started dating, he was very upfront with my mom. Like look, I just got out of a divorce, I have two boys. Like I don't want any more kids. Well, she got pregnant and he said you know, I'm sorry, I told you I don't want this. I don't know exactly what happened, but I knew from a young age like my dad didn't want me. Well, then my mom and dad got back together when I was four and they decided to have my sister. So I was really the only. In my mind, I was the only unplanned, unwanted child.

Speaker 1: 14:28

You can see in home videos like I'm always trying to take center stage and sing and dance and you can hear my parents like it's, you know, normal for this to happen. I'm not blaming them in any way, but they're like, move out of the way, angela, let your brothers and sisters you know. So it's just this constant. Like you come into this world believing you're special because you are, and then society, parents, friends, whatever classmates, teachers, make you feel not special.

Speaker 1: 14:56

There were moments in my life where I did feel special, like I remember I was, you know, in the gifted program at school. In seventh grade I took a test I can't remember what it was and I was contacted because I scored so high. So they wanted me to go to this like John Hopkins program, I don't know. So my parents didn't do it. But then I was picked and I was in modeling school and I was picked by an LA agent to be a model. That my parents said now because they didn't want me going to LA. I was 15 or 16.

Speaker 1: 15:28

So there were moments where I was like, oh, I am special. But then it would always get like it was from the external world, right, I didn't know it internally. I wanted to see that I was special from the external world, which we have to feel special from the inside first, because when we feel special from the inside, everybody else will start treating us as if we're special, because we are right. So it's nobody's fault that we find ourselves in abusive relationships. That's not what I'm saying at all, obviously. So what I realized is okay, what is the common denominator here with all of these toxic relationships? Me, right. So I like that because then I'm also the solution. Like Andrea, my coach and mentor, always says, if I'm the problem, that means I'm the solution, which is great because I can. Definitely. You know, I have the power to change that, taking that a step further.

Speaker 1: 16:28

When we change from the internal world, from an internal place, and truly root to the feeling of I am special and I love myself so much, unconditionally. When we root to that and we really believe it, it actually changes how people treat us, and that includes who we attract, because I was an energetic match for people bullying me because I was bullying myself and this could be like a whole. Well, it will be at some point a whole course on its own, because there's so much to it. There's a lot more details to it that I just can't get into in a short amount of time, but once I shifted that internally, I saw a huge shift in who I was attracting in. Now I haven't dated in like a year and a half purposely because I want to really be in such a good space, because what I found is I was again turning to the external. I was looking for a man to save me. I kept finding myself in these bad financial positions and then I would manifest a guy and he would help me, and so it's not just about me.

Speaker 1: 17:38

I have my children too, and with an ex that I was with, he got physical with me a couple of times, but it was more the emotional and verbal abuse, like literally daily following me around the house, tearing me down, my kids having to see that, and it was just exhausting, like exhausting, and it was even hard to leave him because we get stuck in these relationships. And I did felt like. I felt like I really did love him in the beginning and pretty soon it was just like okay, this is not love, right, being torn down, torn down, torn down. But what that led me to was finally saying was choosing myself right, and that is one of my soul lessons, for sure is like choosing myself above all else, and so that's what I've been doing. I don't know that I've ever been single this long in my life, except before I started dating, but it has been so freeing to me because I was monitoring everything, I said everything, I did anything, I even posted on social media when I was in relationships, and now I am free finally to just be me and to love who I am. So that way, when I attract, when I decide to be in a relationship, so that way when I decide to be in a relationship, someone will mirror that to me. And that's what I want, right. And so we have so much more power than we actually know.

Speaker 1: 19:06

We were never taught this in school. That was by design. We were taught that we're not special. We were taught to just conform. Our society does not reward genius, it does not reward uniqueness, it rewards conformity. And that's what I'm here to help you with is to shift out of that, because you are not everybody else. You are extremely unique and you are here for a purpose. So that's what excites me every day is just knowing, like hearing from my students like, wow, angela, I you know, when I had my call with Andrea last week, as I mentioned in the last podcast, like hearing a mother who experienced abuse tell me she's completely neutral to her abuser, which is not with him anymore. But like hearing that that is what I was like. Oh my God, that is what I'm here to do, because it's not just about well, let me back up for a second. I'm in.

Speaker 1: 20:06

I see a lot of you know women on social media, for example, complaining about their exes, and I used to be one of those. So it's like I'm no judgment, I just want to reach out and be like I can help you. Please, you don't have to give your power away. That's the thing is. You don't have to give your power away. And what I really like about Alessandro's relationship podcast episodes is he teaches you that you can shift an abusive relationship by shifting yourself internally, and he's helped people with that. And so that's just such like.

Speaker 1: 20:40

I feel like our society right now is very much focused on, like it's like a victim mentality society. So like there's so much, so much cancel culture. There's so much like it's their fault. It's their fault, look what they're doing. It's their fault. It's their fault. Look what they're doing. It's always pointing outwards. Right, we've lost sight of actually taking our power and saying, no, I can shift this myself, I don't need to blame anybody else. And so, and because I know now that I look back, I mean there were some guys I dated who were so nice They've never been physical with anybody and yet they were physical with me and so that to me just like kind of confirmed that you know, we have this thing called a creator field, which I've talked about before, and it literally creates all matter circumstance and gives literal scripts to people on how to treat you. So if you're bullying yourself and someone comes into your orbit, they're going to be handed a script unconsciously bully her right. And I teach my kids this too. One of my children, they were being bullied and I told her how to shift it. And that's what our society needs to be moving to, to have less war, less violence. Right, when we can take our power back and just say like, okay, I'm going to shift this from within first, and then I will see an external shift.

Speaker 1: 22:11

So, going back to the movie, I don't know that the Atlas character was super real. I don't know If you've had that experience and it was in like you had like what I would call that is, like a knight in shining armor, right, I just don't see that really happening because again it comes back to us and so she had wired in her system like abuse was normal because of the way that she grew up and what she experienced, and then that's what she attracted with her husband in the movie, right. So that part of it I was just like, oh, that's not super realistic in my opinion. But overall I felt like the message was really amazing and I was a little nervous to watch the movie, to be honest, because I was like, okay, I feel so healed. This is really going to be a good defining moment for me to see if I am truly healed from the.

Speaker 1: 23:07

You know, I used to have horrible flashbacks of being physically hurt and I was able to watch it for the most part. They were serving wine there at the movies and I was like, well, maybe I should have a glass of wine to like relax. And I was like, nope, I'm just going to go in there just full force and just watch it. And I'm glad I did, because it did have a beautiful message and I love that. She chose herself and her daughter and said it ends with us, because it truly can end with us when we choose ourselves and we can learn to love ourselves. Love every single piece of ourselves, love every mistake, because you know what being in these relationships has taught me. I finally had enough right, and so I'm grateful for that, because I would not be living in my purpose if I hadn't experienced all of that. I wouldn't be able to help other women heal and neutralize the pain and the heartbreak and the fear and all of that if I hadn't experienced it. So I'm grateful for all of that and it's what led me to my purpose.

Speaker 1: 24:18

So I just wanted to share my two cents. So, instead of like seeing the red flags and thinking, oh, he's toxic, what I would recommend this is what I am going to do is, if I see any of those signs, I'm going to say, ooh, where am I bullying myself? And take some space from the person and really work on myself first. But I will say I have had one relationship since the last abusive one, and he was not abusive at all. He was very kind.

Speaker 1: 24:47

So I know that I shifted inside how I treat myself. It really reflected that in the other person. He just wasn't the right person for me. So my takeaway here is just like it all, it ends with us, but it also starts with us. So when you're ready to shift within, you'll see the shift outwardly as well. So, sending you guys so much love and let me know what you think I would love to hear from you I always love seeing your notes and like having conversations about this, because it is a really, really important factor, because if we could change people from the inside out, there would be no violence. Right? What a beautiful thought that is. Have a great weekend.