From Toxic Relationship to Finding Her Person with RRA Graduate, Annie

I had the pleasure to have Annie, a Radiant Relationship Academy Graduate, on the podcast.

In this interview, we dive into her journey of healing from a toxic relationship how she finally stopped self-sabotaging, and how she got to where she is today, which is enjoying a very fulfilling relationship with her partner.

Let’s dive right into it.

Meleah: I want to go all the way back, back to the beginning before you joined RRA. What was going on for you in your life in relationships that inspired you to take the step and jump inside RRA?

Annie: I was definitely Going through the healing process for myself. I was in a relationship that I thought it was going to be the one that I spent my whole entire life with, but it ended up not being that way at all. That relationship ended very dramatically with a lot of trauma within that relationship. There was a lot of very much verbal mental, and emotional abuse, and even got to a point where it was physical abuse at some point in time. After that, I completely lost myself as an individual and a human being. I didn't know who I was as an individual anymore. I didn't know. It was that whole cycle of Who am I without this person? So when I connected with you. I definitely was taking a leap on myself by joining the program.

M: How were you able to get out of that relationship? What clicked for you where you were like, Okay, this is actually not healthy for me? What was it that inspired you to leave? And then what was it like initially after getting out of that relationship?

A: I went to Mexico, Tulum, for nine whole days. That's where I was introduced to Reiki by one of my now friends, Erin, who was tapping into Reiki a lot. And I had an individual session with her, and pretty much everything I literally was stuffing down, not talking about, all the internal energies came in the session for me. She talked about the chakras and everything and how my throat chakra was blocked and my root chakra was blocked and how there is always a linkage, whether it's because it's the woman's womb and there might be trauma in that for certain individuals who experience trauma. For me personally, I have endometriosis, so that's where most of my trauma was coming from. But the fact that she was able to pinpoint what was going on, I'm just like, wow. And so it was a huge nine-day eye-opener for me as an individual I realized that I missed being by myself a lot.

I was really in a cycle where I wouldn't even necessarily see my best friend or my family members because they were an hour away. I felt so stuck within my environment that I was in that I felt very guilty and ashamed to invite even anybody into the house I was living in at the time. So when I came back to my environment [after the retreat], there was a conversation between my ex and me where we said, “We're just not happy anymore, and this is just how it needs to be”.

Things started to turn for me when I started your program. We do have a voice. We get to speak our truth, and we shouldn't have to step on eggshells all the time.

M: You mentioned that signing on to the program, and getting enrolled in the program, was really a leap for you. What was that like for you? And how did you know that it was the right time for you?

A: At the time, I was literally starting all over. I was getting a different job and getting a new house. And I was like, “I know this is something I need for myself, and I'm just going to have to figure it out”. So I think when it comes to anything, whether it's doing a program, whether it's school or even taking a leap on a new job that might have a lot of benefits for you, or it might not have the pay rate that you want, but it's going to have the long term positives. It's always that back and forth of what ifs. And I started just asking myself, “What if this is going to work? What if this is is going to give me the tools that I need in order to get back to me again? What if I get to feel empowered and I get to wake up with confidence more?”. So instead of thinking for the negative, I had to really encourage myself and push myself to think of the positives in all of it.

M: What was it like when you first got started in the program?

A: Like with anything else that's new, I was definitely nervous, but it didn't feel like unfamiliar territory. It's a very opening, welcoming community of badass women, and we are all coming together and we're all supporting each other while in the program. And definitely very much so validating each and every one of our feelings and each and every one of our experiences, because oftentimes, and I'll speak for myself in general, when I came into the program, there was a lot going on. I wasn't confident at all. I wasn't speaking up or speaking my truth whatsoever. I was very shy and shut down, and I wasn't really necessarily being for myself either. And being within the RRA community, I got to be more authentic. I got to be silly. And I pretty much had no filter whatsoever because I'm like, You know what? Fuck it. I'm going to say what I want and how I feel, and if it doesn't resonate with you guys, then that's okay, too. And I think that's the overall empowering goal, especially with RRA, is for myself to be able to just be me and be authentic Annie, because I wasn't able to do that in my previous relationships.

M: What did you notice happening within your relationship throughout the program?

A: As I started the program, I started dating and attempting to date again. I did give myself a year to process and heal from my previous relationship. I didn't want to jump into the next relationship because, one, it didn't feel authentic, and two, it didn't fix all the inner booboo that I was experiencing.

I asked the hard questions when I first started dating my current partner. And I asked him, the biggest part that I learned in RRA: What are the non-negotiables? What are you for? What are you against? We really visited the attachment styles as well at the beginning of our relationship because in his previous relationships, he was cheated on, and he's also a single dad with our now 10-year-old tiny queen. And so being a parent and a single parent at that is a lot to invest in, obviously. But having those conversations at the beginning of our relationship and talking about that, and asking “Are you okay with this?”.

We had to have those conversations. I think it was the perfect time and a really good lesson for me, too, to be in the program at the same time I was in a relationship because I could catch the red flags quicker and I could learn what the green flags are. I was learning how to heal that inner trauma, and not constantly second guess myself, because that was still popping up for me with the new relationship.

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If you’d like to hear more of Annie’s story, you can listen to the full episode here, on the Leah on Love Podcast.

And if you’d like to experience healthy relationships just like Annie, you can join the Waitlist to Radiant Relationship Academy here.