“When I discovered life coaching I thought it was wacky and woo-woo, but I invested the last of my savings in it. This ended up being one of the best decisions of my life.”

Hi there, friend! Thank you for tuning in yet again today. Hopefully, you’ve already listened to episode one of the show to understand if this show is right for you (and if you haven’t listened yet, I encourage you to start listening there).

If you DID listen to that show and think this podcast is going to be something you’ll enjoy and grow from, I’m so excited!

I can’t wait to see how our journey together grows over the next few months, if not years.

Today, I wanted to take some time to share with you my journey to becoming what I consider an unstoppable woman.

Now, if you’re not new to me, some of this story is a repeat of what you’ve heard before, but I will say, it’s told in a different way and I’m sharing more today than I’ve EVER shared before.

It’s so easy for us to see someone in their lives when they’re thriving and assume they’ve never struggled.  I know I do it all the time and I find it so amazing when I hear the behind the scenes of what someone had to overcome to live at the place they’re living at today.

My story is no different. 

Although I’m thriving in life now, it’s been a journey to get here. 

Now, I must admit, sharing this story is hard for me!  I’d so rather listen than talk or share.  But, I want you to see that being the woman you want to be and creating the life you want to create isn’t always easy.

Many times, we just need to right teachers to show us the way to tapping into our highest potential and I’m been SO fortunate to have those teachers along the way.

My ultimate goal by sharing my story with you today is to be that teacher for YOU!  I know that by sharing my story, it puts me at risk of angering certain people, but your growth is more important than my comfort (or others).

With that said though, I want to put out there to keep in mind that this is MY version of my story. It’s obviously told from my perspective.

There’s always other sides to things and someone else may have a different view of how some of this went down, but, just like I tell my clients in coaching or my daughter when she’s emoting, it’s not really about other people right now, it’s about YOU and how YOU felt, so friend, today is how I felt….

Got it?!

Be sure to listen in above to hear my story to becoming an unstoppable woman.

RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

→ Apply to coach with me

→ Continue the conversation in my free online community

→ Get The 4-Day Accomplish Your Dreams Free Training 

Episode 2: LINDSAY’S UNSTOPPABLE JOURNEY

This is the Become an Unstoppable Woman podcast with Lindsay Preston Episode 2, Lindsay’s Unstoppable Journey.

[music]

Welcome to the Become an Unstoppable Woman podcast, the show for goal-getting, fear-facing women for kicking ass by creating change. I’m your host, Lindsay Preston. I’m a wife, mom of two, and a multi-certified life coach to women all over the world. I’ve lived through enough in life to know that easier doesn’t always equate to better. We can’t fear the fire, we must learn to become it. On this show, I’ll teach you how to do just that. Join me as I challenge you to become even more of the strong, resilient, and powerful woman you were meant to be. Let’s do this.

[music]

Hey there friend, thank you for tuning in yet again today. Hopefully, you’ve already listened to episode one of the show to understand if this podcast is right for you. If you haven’t listened to episode one yet I encourage you to start listening there. If you did listen to episode one and think this podcast is going to be something you’ll enjoy and grow from, I am so excited. I can’t wait to see how our journey together grows over the next few months if not years. Today I wanted to take some time to share with you my journey to becoming what I consider an unstoppable woman.

Now if you’re new to me, some of the story is a repeat of what you’ve heard before but I will say it’s told in a different way. I’m sharing more today than I’ve ever shared before. It’s so easy for us to see someone in their lives when they’re thriving and assume they’ve never struggled. I know because I do it all the time and I find it so amazing when I hear the behind-the-scenes of what someone had to overcome to live at the place they’re living at today.

My story is no different. Although I’m thriving in life now, it has been a journey to get here. Now I must admit sharing this story is hard for me. I’d so rather listen than talk or share but I want you to see what being the woman you want to be and creating the life you want to create isn’t always so easy. Many times we just need the right teachers to show us a way that we can tap into our highest potential. I’ve been so fortunate to have those teachers in my life.

My ultimate goal today by sharing my story with you is to be that teacher for you. For I know that by sharing my story it puts me at a big risk in my life. There are certain people who aren’t going to like what I have to say, but I am going to push through that uncomfortableness and those risks because the growth that you can experience from hearing somebody else’s story is more important to me. Yes, I am saying it out there that it is very easy for me to just never say these stories again but for whatever reason, I am called to do the work that I do.

It is important that I share some of these so you can see firsthand how I’ve been able to overcome this in my life. Now you may think Oh my gosh, Lindsay what do you have in your past? Did you have all of this abuse? Did you have this and that? I will tell you although my journey has not been easy, now looking back in some ways, I do see how I was privileged. I do see how some of this was from a child’s perspective.

I do see very much the glass half full. That’s because I’ve done incredible healing through that work with coaching. Also, I have opened my eyes to a whole new world to be able to take in with adult eyes, a lot of the benefits I did have that as my child self was so naive that I couldn’t see it. I hope you understand that and that yes this journey has been hard in ways but also I do see and recognize the privilege and the benefits that I had along the way too. It’s mixed between the two. All right friend.

Now before I get into my story, I do want to say that you have to remember that this is my side of the story. It’s my version. It’s obviously told from my perspective there’s always other sides to things. Someone else may have a different view of how some of this went down. Just like I tell my clients or when I tell my daughter when she’s emoting, it’s not about other people when you share your story, it’s about you and how you felt, how you interpreted things. Friend, today is how I felt in this journey of life, got it? Let’s jump in.

I was born in August of 1984 in Dallas, Texas to two late 20-something parents. They’d been married for two years when they had me and were just starting to get some grounding financially. Neither of them came from money per se, but they did have an opportunity as two white educated young people. My dad especially took advantage of that. He was the first in his family to go to college. He grew up without a father and his mother was what I consider in some ways emotionally hard.

Can you blame her? She was in her early twenties, already a mother of three young kids when she found her husband in the barn with Trixie, and yes friends, that was really her name. It was in the 1960s at this point and she divorced his little Toshi and he ran off to never be seen again. She had to fight like hell in her life because she didn’t have the right she deserved for herself or for her children.

When I think about what my dad probably experienced as a child and went through in order to create the life that he did with us, it’s remarkable to me. I’m so proud of him. My mom too. From what I got my mom had to deal with a lot of emotional uncertainty in her home as a child.

My mom is extremely intuitive and sensitive like me. I’m sure it impacted her a lot. Being a girl growing up in the 60s and 70s, my mom had a little empowerment coming your way but certainly not enough. She was discriminated against because of her weight at times and wasn’t allowed to moat in the ways that she should’ve been able to.

When I came along my parents had grown a lot already on their own but there was still a way to go. As a child, I had immense safety insecurity growing up. I never felt in danger. I never felt like we didn’t have more than enough. I never ever felt scared about anything except for disappointing them. My parents really rocked to giving us a safe and stable home, that they probably didn’t have growing up. They truly up-leveled in that area of their life. I believe my parents up-leveled emotionally too.

Based on what I know from their upbringing, my dad didn’t leave us. He wasn’t in some cheating scandal at least none that I know about. He stuck around. He was always there physically for us. My mom, I believe, was also probably more emotionally stable than her mom and my parents had a lot more money than either family. Despite their growth that I can now see with adult eyes and realizing firsthand how hard parenting is and breaking family cycles can be. As a child, I felt unloved and I felt alone a lot.

I have learned now that I am very sensitive intuitive being and I require a lot of emotional depth in my relationships in order to thrive. I didn’t get that depth from my parents and I felt deeply my parents’ pain often especially my mom’s. Growing up with my parents felt very tumultuous at times. Emotionally, I felt often like my dad, my brother and I were all these planets orbiting around the sun which was my mom.

If my mom had a good day, we all had a good day. She had a bad day, we had to learn quickly how to manage that. I’ve learned later in life that a mother tends to be the emotional center of a household and this pattern is common. However, when you have a mother who is emotional sensitive and didn’t learn how to express herself in healthy ways, it was hard. I felt like I was walking on eggshells constantly in my home. If I did things I would “wake the monster” and I would be yelled at in ways that I felt repeated in my head for decades. Now my mom’s yelling wasn’t necessarily beyond the normal at the time. From what I remember even though I was raised in an upper-middle-class area. A lot of parents yelled at their kids and it really wasn’t that big of a deal but to me, being as sensitive as I was, being as intuitive as I was, I took things very, very deeply. My parents were also very hard on me. Being a firstborn, they really wanted to make sure they were doing this parenting thing.

Can you blame them? Parenting is hard, isn’t it? Even if I came home with a low A, I was told I needed to make it better. Then when I did something amazing, like when I had strong test scores or some of the successes, I had a middle school or in high school, it was brushed aside and treated as nothing. Consequently, I never felt like I was enough. I felt like something was wrong with me to not perform the way they wanted me to.

By the time I was a teenager, I had a lot of anger toward my parents. I knew deep down that my parents’ opinions of me was their own crap that they needed to deal with but there was still a little sliver of doubt that made me still feel like I wasn’t enough. Because of that, my confidence suffered. It certainly didn’t help that I was going through those teen years where teens can be mean to one another.

I had a boyfriend that broke my heart in a public way. Or at least it felt like I had classmates saying I was prude or childless at times because I wasn’t as mature as they were but I look back and despite feeling unsure, I really think I rocked my school academically and socially despite these setbacks. The biggest thing that held me back truly was my parents.

Believe it or not, they just couldn’t enjoy my gifts and my blessings because I was thriving and they couldn’t see that and that angered me.

I just, again, felt like, why can’t you just enjoy me? Why can’t you just love me? That’s all I want. They treated me even so sometimes like a drug-addicted, pregnant, dropout, and worried about everything all the time. If I came home late, Holy moly, I must be pregnant. The truth was, I wasn’t even having sex at the time. If I was disrespectful, then, I must be on drugs. I never once did drugs.

If I made a bad grade, meaning like a B or C then, Oh my God, I was going to ruin my life but I ended up graduating high school with a three-five and going to my dream school. I wasn’t even near rooting my life. Are you starting to see here? Just some of the drama of things. Again, it wasn’t just, I wasn’t good enough. It was this fear that they had, that they were just going to screw it up.

That just made me so mad because I felt like I was working so hard to be the child that they wanted from me. Yet still trying to be myself in the world that I just, again, never felt like I added up. I really, to be honest, could not wait to get out of that house when I graduated high school. Even though I had been accepted into my dream school, I really didn’t want to go to college. I wanted to go to New York City and I wanted to become a professional dancer, but my parents made it clear that that was not an option.

I hated them for a long time because they didn’t support that. Now, looking back on it, I probably would have gone to New York. I probably would have realized how hard it was and I would have come home crying within just a few months but again, it was like, I couldn’t have this freedom to be myself. I had to fit in this box of what they wanted for me and do the things that they wanted but even when I did those things, it didn’t add up. I just got so frustrated.

I entered college thinking regardless of it all, I’m going to make the best of it. As I said, I was going to the school that I wanted to, and it was a great school. It’s TCU or Texas Christian University if you’re curious. I opted to say, heck, let’s make this and rock these next four years. I ended up in a sorority. That was the image of everything I was trying to escape in high school. They were smart and involved girls. I wanted to be rebellious. No matter how hard I tried, I just could not show that image.

I just was always seen as the smart, good girl. Even though I didn’t get the sorority, I wanted, I thought again, okay, I’m going to make the best of it. I’m still going to be me. I’m going to be rebellious in the good girl sorority, but I couldn’t even do that. I was immediately one of the officers in the sorority and soon enough I was a vice president and I was one of three members that was likely going to be president during their junior and senior years.

Here I was thinking, how in the heck did I get here. Again, I’ve been put in this box that I didn’t want to be. I’m wanting to figure myself out. I want to rebel. I want to do my own thing. For whatever reason, I just can’t do it. I decided, well, I’m going to rebel in my own way. The summer between my sophomore and junior year, I went a little crazy. I went wild. I started drinking a lot and I started dating a man 10 years older, who was recently out of jail and out of rehab for marijuana possession.

He worked at a restaurant as a waiter making about $10 an hour. I also started telling secrets about my sorority friends behind their backs and lying about it. I felt horrible, deep down for my behavior, but I also felt really good too. I was in control finally, and it felt freeing. Within a few weeks, everyone in my sorority found out about my secret sharing problems and my lies to cover it up.

When I came back to school for my junior year, after the summer, I had been blackballed from my sorority. I went from being the top of my class to nobody even speaking to me. Then I had to finish out the semester in our sorority house where I was still a vice president and I had no friends. Talk about awkward and uncomfortable. All while this is happening, I continued to date the guy 10 years my senior knowing I should end it with him but again, I liked being in control and I liked feeling free.

I didn’t stop. The relationship with that man became very unhealthy and I made extremely poor decisions during our tenure. That included choices I’ll share about in future episodes. This man and I ended up breaking up after about a year together because it became apparent he was stealing from me. Yes, so fun. In the end, it was thousands of dollars that he stole from me. It was done in a very slow and meticulous way.

I had also invested in him with money on credit cards because I really wanted to try and help him. I thought, Oh, I’m going to prove these people wrong. I’m going to turn this guy around and they’re going to be all coming to me saying, Oh Lindsay, you were so right but I was obviously very wrong about that and talk about a good slap in the face. The first decisions I try and make on my own as a “grown-up” and I get completely screwed. It was a blow to my confidence for sure.

I felt like I deserved every single second of this misery because I was so mean to some of my sorority friends. It was also a wake-up call for me in some ways because I just needed to get out of college and start over. At this point, I’m starting my senior year and I just think, okay, well, let’s just get out of here. Let’s just move away and start fresh. Wow. Around this time too this new site started to develop and form and everyone was talking about it.

This site was called, wait for it. Don’t laugh. MySpace. Remember those days? I started getting messages from guys who wanted to date me. I remember thinking how fun it was to open my MySpace account and see messages from people who wanted to connect with me. It was thrilling to meet people beyond my immediate circle. This was the start of online dating in some ways and connecting in ways that we could never even imagine possible just months prior.

It was thrilling. I started going out with a couple of guys and I realized pretty quickly that this was not going to be the scene for me, but I had one more date lined up and I agreed to go out with the sky. That’s my friend. When I met a man, I’ll call Him. When I met Him, I felt like we had known each other before, even though we had just met, I thought Him was the most handsome, articulate, and funny guy I had ever met. After our first date, I jokingly remember telling my mom, I think I met the guy I’m going to marry.

I truly felt that I was smitten and in love at first sight. That love continued to grow. I was deeply madly and passionately in love with him. All of those plans I had to leave after I graduated were thrown out the window. Although Him was my age, he still had a year left of college and I agreed to wait around so that we could be together when he finished. Even after I graduated and I had these awesome job opportunities, I had the possibility of moving anywhere in the world. I decided to go back to my parents’ home. Remember the home that I so wanted to leave four years ago? I loved him that much and I took small piddly jobs. Teaching, dance here and there, babysitting, doing all of these kinds of teenager, like things simply because I wanted to be with him, so dumb. I look back on this part of my story and I hated myself for many years for making this choice because here I was as strong, smart woman who had every door open for her and even some incredible opportunities.

I turned it all down for a guy, but that’s what I saw around me at the time. When you find Prince charming you drop everything and you forget it all for love. To be honest, I didn’t really regret that decision. When things were working in our relationship I felt like I had found my forever partner. Giving up other things was worth it to me. During the first two years together with Him, things were really good.

I enjoyed our time together so very much then we decided to move in together. As the years passed by things became not so fun. We started to grow apart. I left the little rebellion I had from college behind and he seemed to get more and more rebellious to me. We also fought often and that wasn’t completely his fault. In fact, it was mine. I was repeating the patterns from my childhood in many ways in this relationship.

I would have these huge anger outbursts where I would scream, leave, lock him out or do things like punch his arm. I was turning in to my mom. Granted where those outbursts picked out. Yes, but it was still my fault completely that I acted like that. I knew I didn’t want to be that way, but I didn’t know another way to be. I was modeling what I saw around me. I wanted to make better choices, but I didn’t know-how.

At this point, Him and I had been dating for four years, three of which we were living together and I unexpectedly got pregnant with my daughter. When I say unexpectedly, I should really say irresponsibly got pregnant because we both knew what chance we were taking The night she was conceived. I wasn’t scared or feeling unprepared to be a mom. At this point, I was 25. We had been dating for four years and while I felt shame that we weren’t married and knew my parents would be extremely disappointed in me.

Remember, this was my big fear I had of disappointing my parents. I knew they were going to react harshly and they were going to say really mean things that were probably going to scar me emotionally. I decided to take that risk and I decided to have this baby. Looking back, the truth was on the wall. We both wanted out, but neither one of us had the guts to pull the plug. We were comfortable. Plus, I didn’t have the guts to raise my daughter on my own.

That was not part of my life vision. My life vision was that I was going to have one joint family and there was going to be no budging on my part. Now you may think, “Well, Lindsay, what about abortion? Why did you not consider that?” I will tell you I didn’t even once consider it because I felt so connected to this pregnancy. I felt like without a doubt this was meant to be something big in my life and this person was going to forever change me.

Despite feeling very unsure of myself, a lot of shame even, a lot of uncertainty, I move forward in this pregnancy. I announced it. Sure enough I was met with a lot of hate from my mom. Again, those were moments that I had to do a lot of healing around and I really tried to make things the best that they could be with Him. Throughout the pregnancy, it was pretty good. It wasn’t great, but it wasn’t horrible.

In the first few months of her life, again, it was okay. Part of that was because I was okay too. I had a great job and human resources. At the time, I owned a dance studio. I had my family life and then I also had a professional life. Soon after my daughter was born, I just felt this huge desire to be at home with her as a stay at home mom. I knew logically my mind.

It was a dumb choice to leave my job and to leave my business, but my heart told me that I couldn’t deny this intense feeling to be with her. Although during those years my daughter and I thrived at home together, we developed a connection that I cherish then and now. Those years at home with her are some of the highlights of my life. They were very, very, very hard. Not only are they hard being a stay-at-home mom or being a new mom, they were hard because Him wasn’t very present.

I wanted Him there so bad. I wanted to have this vision that I had for my life. I wanted Him to experience the love and the joy I was feeling with her, but he started pulling away more and more. He started going on a lot of “work trips.”

I got it. He was growing his career for our family, especially financially. We were in an apartment at the time and we really wanted to get a house. I was a hundred percent supportive of that, but I wasn’t supportive of some of the aspects of his “travel.” It involved a lot of weekends, he would leave. He wouldn’t tell me when he would return and he was doing things that just felt really off to me.

So often, in fact, I started feeling like he was cheating on me and I didn’t have any concrete evidence, but other than just this huge intuitive hit constantly. This intuitive feeling got so strong. In fact that I started going to therapy weekly to discuss why I felt this, how to handle my feelings about it and these huge desires to want to leave our relationship. In therapy, I was told I was catastrophizing, that I had anxiety and basically felt like I was just bad-chick crazy.

Despite being told it was me that was the one that was creating this drama. I couldn’t deny my feelings. They were eating me alive that I couldn’t escape these visions I had of him with other women. Even after months of weekly therapy, I needed to know the truth. I took him to a couples counseling session where I looked at him directly and said, “I can’t deny these feelings. I have that you’re cheating on me. I need you to tell me there’s not another woman.”

That’s when he looked me right in the face and said, “No, Lindsay, there’s not another woman.” It was then that I decided despite my feelings, I needed to let it go. I needed to believe him because why would he lie? Why would he put himself through coming home week after week when I was feeling so unhappy and feeling so distant from him. I was not an enjoyable person to be around because I was trying to make it work between us.

Yes, but I was also trying to stand up for what I was feeling and set some boundaries in my life with him in regards to his travel schedule. In regards to some of his attitude that seemed to be changing more and more every day. He just seems cocky here. He just seems like a different person than the person I had met years ago. Looking back on this time of my life, it is very reminiscent of how I felt in my childhood. I was trying to stand up for myself.

I was trying to go after things, but I was constantly being told I wasn’t enough, that there was something wrong with me. I truly thought at some point they were going to bust in my front door and take me to an insane asylum. That is how doubting I felt about myself. It’s just so sad that I felt that way because I was being denied who I was. I was being fed lies day after day to a point where I was no longer the go-getter powerful Lindsay anymore at all.

I was this walking zombie who just felt very confused, very doubting, and really wanted more than anything to make my relationship work so much so that I was willing to give up everything that was important to me to keep this family together. Then, my friend, I was given one of the best gifts I’ve ever been given in my entire life, but at the time it felt like one of the absolute worst.

You see, Him went on a business trip and he said, “I’ll be home in a few days.” We had just gotten back from visiting my extended family in Michigan for the first time in seven years. He, on that trip, told my mom that he was always going to be there for me and my daughter. We had just gotten re-engage after going on a couple of trips in Mexico. We celebrated our daughter’s second birthday. We closed on our first home.

On the outside things looked good and despite these ongoing feelings that I was being cheated on, I decided I just needed to accept the goodness in my life and move on. When he left on that trip I remember kissing him goodbye. He went out the door and thinking, “Okay, he’ll be back in a few days.” A few days turned into a few weeks and soon enough he was gone for over a month that included missing Thanksgiving and our annual family pictures. I was pissed and I was over it.

I felt like I had given up everything. To me, if you can’t even come home on a holiday and you can’t even prioritize one of the biggest most important days of the year which was family pictures because remember I really liked having this external look of things. If I didn’t even have the external look of this perfect family, what was I doing here?

Again, I was like, “I am done with us and I’m going to file for divorce because I know it seems confusing.” We weren’t really married, but how I filing for divorce, but according to Texas law we were common-law married. That’s what I had to do. I truly thought by me just stating I would go and file for divorce that it would be a wake up call for him, but it wasn’t. Things got worse. He still didn’t come home and it drug into another month and finally I decided, okay, I will actually go and file for divorce.

I know it’s going to cost some money to do this, but then that will be the wake-up call. Then he’ll decide, okay, yes, I’m going to prioritize my family. I’m going to come home and I really thought in my heart of hearts, that he truly was working for our family. He was just extremely burned out. I did worry a little bit that maybe he had gotten involved in some shady business practices or maybe gotten involved with drugs.

Again, he would have just this beautiful aha moment by me filing for divorce. So naive, but that’s what I thought. Instead when I went and actually filed for divorce and I told him exactly what I was doing. I was met with a man who changed on me. He was extremely angry. He was crying uncontrollably. He was screaming and he was just acting extremely emotionally unstable.

I got really scared and I started to think, “Okay, what is going on? What would anger him so much about this?” Because instead of it being a wake up call it seems to be an opportunity for him to fight me. My lawyer immediately saw this as a red flag and thank goodness she did because she encouraged me to hire a private investigator. Reluctantly, I did. Sure enough, I got a call one day.

I remember it like it was yesterday when my lawyer says, “Okay.’ We got some information back from the private investigator. I know we’re going to court tomorrow. I just need to tell you real quickly what he found. I thought, “Okay, well, he just probably found something really small and no big deal.” She said, “Okay, are you sitting down?” I was like, “Yes, I’m just sitting here hanging out with my daughter.”

She’s like, “There’s another woman, Lindsay. She’s moved from California and she’s been living with him since July.” At this point it’s December. Also, she moved the weekend before we went to Mexico on our couple’s trip. Just a little bit of fun fact for you, but, yes, he’s been living with this woman and it looks like they’re engaged. She’s just started saying all this other information that I can not remember because after that it was all blur.

I realized, “Holy crap, who’ve I been with. Holy moly.’ I have a daughter with this person. Holy moly, I am actually going to get a divorce. It was just gut-wrenching. Can you imagine if you were with somebody for seven years, you have a child with them? You’re just get reengaged. You’re told time after time after time that you’re crazy for thinking that he was cheating on you.

You buy this new house in both of your names as husband and wife per his request. He puts you on his insurance as his wife per his duty and you are being cheated on. I was just like, “What in the world?” I remember the room was spinning. I felt gutted and I just didn’t even know what to think, to be honest with you. It took me a long time to process this and to process just how much I had been lied to over those seven years.

I needed to process this and I still needed to fight like hell for what I wanted in this divorce that was now on my plate and part of that was protecting my daughter in every single way. I did not want this woman around because she had just seen me and her father together acting as a family just a few weeks prior. Not only that, she hadn’t really spent a lot of time with her dad. Now it became, okay, she’s going to have this set time with him.

I don’t know where he’s living. I don’t know what he’s doing. It was very, very scary as a mother who was involved as much as I was. I had been with her every single day of her life. Now I was giving her away to somebody I felt like I didn’t even know. If you are a mother or if you have any children in your life you can just relate to how hard this could be and I’m not going to deny how hard it was.

It was very, very, very, very hard, but something happened to me during this time that was very life-changing. When my daughter is going to meet with her father for the first time since he has been outed as having this double life and all of this stuff and I’m feeling very, very scared of who this man is with. He comes to pick her up in his car and we’re both sitting on the porch and I see her run and give him this big hug and she’s so excited to see daddy.

He looks at me and he is enraged. He just looked like he wanted to kill me. I just thought, ‘Who is this person? How I’m doing is just moving on with my life and holding you accountable to your action and you are just furious with me. Again, here he is putting our daughter in his car and I’m thinking, “What are you going to do to her? Are you going to hurt her and revenge to me?” The amount of anxiety I felt was huge. At this point too, I was going through my own inner trauma of processing this whole thing. I hadn’t eaten in weeks.

I got into a point where I weighed less than what I did in middle school. I truly thought that my body was going to start shutting down on me because I couldn’t handle any more stress. As they drive off and he speeds away. Speeds, which again, so scary. I heard this voice, “I know this is going to sound weird and woo.” I heard this voice that came to me. I don’t know if it was God, angels, myself. I don’t know what it was, but it was something.

It said, “Lindsay, are you done yet? Are you done questioning yourself? Are you done settling with who you are? Are you done putting up with crap in your life because it’s time to live Lindsay. It’s time to change for you and your daughter because if you don’t otherwise, your daughter is going to be sitting here one day, going through the exact same thing that you’re going through, you need to wake up and you need to change.”

Friend, that’s what I did. I changed. I said no more crap, no more doubting. It’s time to be the woman I want my daughter to become. The woman I have always envisioned being and I did. I got the divorce I wanted including one of the biggest things which is more time at home with our daughter before going back to work and it was empowering. It was the first time I felt like I was me and I felt like I was living life for me. I was doing things the way I wanted to do.

Immediately, my life started to feel great. So great, in fact, my divorce was finalized and just a few short months which is crazy from going from a very high conflict divorce to being settled and a mere four-month period. It was really, really awesome. Again, it just shows what can happen when you believe in yourself and you get clear on what you want, but I regress.

I get my divorce finalized and I think, “Okay, I’m feeling great. I’m feeling free. I’m ready to date again. I’m ready to have some fun. My daughter has now these weekends away. Let me go do something for me.” Right out of the gate I meet a guy and he is completely into me and to a point where it was concerning, but flattering. You have to remember, I’m a woman who was just cheated on.

It is, feels good to be desired as much as he desired me. We started dating, but again, my intuition was like, “Something is off here, Lindsay. Something is just not right.” Sure enough, I dug and I dug and I dug and I dug and I found that this man had a very serious girlfriend and I was his side piece. He was trying to push me into a relationship with him very fast.

He could dump his other girlfriend and be with me, talk about weird and talk about full-circle moment. This time I got to be the other woman that I wished I had had where I got to go to her and say, “Listen, I am so sorry. I had no idea. Here’s all the proof. Please, please go get help. If you need anything here I am for you.” I was able to pick up and move on clearly and easily.

From there I decided, “Okay, I need to stop dating for a bit and I need to instead focus on what my dream career is going to be because yes.” I was very lucky and privileged to have had some financial sediment, but that money was going to go quick. I didn’t want to go back into the careers that I once had as a dance instructor and in human resources. That was my passion for the next few months. What was it that I was going to do with my life?

At this time too I was still exploring fun new things in different ways. One of which was going to a tarot card reader. I truly did this just on a whim out of fun, again, thinking, “Okay, I’m just going to go and have a good time.” While I walked into that room with a tarot card reader and the first thing she says to me without ever knowing anything about me.

She said, “You’re going to have a big career.” I was instantly giddy from this because that has always been my dream for so very long was to have this very strong career. Remember Lina, that 20-something girl who wanted to leave college and just go and do her own thing and have that career. Well, I felt like I could still have that opportunity to do that. As I started talking to the reader throughout our session, she told me I would become a life coach.

I would do these really great amazing things with my business and help these people and do all this fun, exciting stuff. As much as I wanted to believe her, I just couldn’t because the only thing I knew about coaching at the time was stuff that was not positive. I thought it was for a bunch of wacky people who had no credibility. I truly viewed that as Lucy, from Peanuts with the free advice sign. I just thought there is absolutely no way I’m doing that.

If I’m going to do anything I’m going to follow my psychology background and I’m going to be a counselor because that’s what I had always envisioned for myself. Remember too, I just been banned from counseling. I thought, “Okay, maybe I do need to explore this whole coaching thing.” I love that session, started Googling, doing all my research and I found a coaching school actually in my area that was based in neuroscience.

The founder was a counselor turned coach and she explained why she went from counseling to coaching and the difference between the two and why she found coaching to be a more positive and bigger rating process. I was intrigued. I reached out to the company, learns a bit more about them and realize as part of their coach training process I would have to go through the coaching process myself as a client.

I was okay with this because I thought I’ll go through it as a client. I’ll see if I like it to do this as a profession. I really didn’t even think that I really needed coaching per se despite having the crappy dating patterns I had. I know I should have red flag. Hello, but again, I was just so focused on, “Let me find my dream career.” I start going through coaching and immediately, friends, within the second week of coaching I had my duty handed to me real quick.

I started to see the patterns in my mind that were sabotaging me. I started to heal some of the pain and that how was constantly lingering around that I didn’t even know really existed. I started to feel better than ever and I started to just be the person I wanted to be. I had this confidence about me. I knew who I was. From there too, I met my now-husband, Jason and without coaching and going through that process, I would have absolutely sabotaged that relationship.

If not even ever have met him because I just didn’t know how to be in a good relationship. I didn’t know how to love and the right way and to not have fear around connection and things of that sort. Coaching allowed me to have those things in my life. Of course, from there as I went through the process I realized without a doubt this is exactly what I wanted to do as a career and had that element of psychology.

Had that counseling a little bit in there where we’re talking about the past, but then we immediately move into action. The thing I loved most about coaching was I was talking and learning about what made me unique and special and beautiful in the world. I wasn’t seeing from this broken perspective, instead it was, “Hey, you have these strengths.” Sometimes with people with these strengths, they can have anxiety or they can be codependent, or they can do this.

All you got to do is tweak it a little bit and you’re going to be rocking in life. That was so true because I was able to balance those things and again, become the person I was meant to be from a perspective again, that was already good. Not from this perspective of you’re broken and need to be fixed. Makes sense. It certainly did to me at the time and it certainly does now.

That’s what I did. I became multi-certified as a life coach. I started taking on one-on-one clients very slowly after that while still maintaining my day job because, of course, I was a single mom at this time and very, very actively trying to pay all the bills on very little money. So much show that one Christmas definitely would not have happened in my household without the help of different or family members.

It wasn’t like it was just a rock and good time here, especially financially, even though emotionally, I felt really good. I was trying to build a business. I was momming. I was dating my now-husband as I said, but at the time I had a longer distance boyfriend. It was just a lot, but again, I was heading in the right direction and despite it all I now have these tools to get me through anything.

Again, it just felt so powering. Also, I was able to heal all the pain that I had from that relationship with Him. I knew I didn’t want to be this jaded and scorned, angry woman, but I couldn’t help but feel that way for a very long time. Because I had been very, very much emotionally abused and taken advantage of and I have every single right to be as angry as I did, but I needed to learn how to heal that too.

I wanted to have a great relationship with her dad despite it all because I wanted my daughter more than anything to thrive. Again, coaching gave that to me. Despite coaching being something extremely rewarding and a big life-changing in my life, then being on the other end and being somebody’s coach in a one-on-one setting and then in a group saying. Then now even in an online setting and in a workshops and all these speaking events and stuff, it is so crazy to me that I get to do what I do everyday and transform lives.

Not only do I feel like coaching has transformed me, but to see it help other people and help them in ways that they didn’t even know they needed help with to begin with is so beautiful. I already get to work with these women who are doing great things in the world and they come to me and say, yes, but just something’s missing, Lindsay. Like there’s just something there. I want to clean up a couple of things or some of them they know they’re like, “Oh, I know that this relationship from my past hinders me.

Or I know I have these patterns I want to change, but despite it all, getting to help them make that change.” Not only are they changing themselves, they’re changing future generations, their children and children’s children and children’s children and so on. Will not have to deal with those patterns anymore that have been passed down to them because they took the time to do this work.

Again, it’s just so incredible to me that I get to have this impact that I do and really live the life that I get to live. Now my life is not perfect by any means, but I have the husband that I’m always wanted and yes, we still bother each other sometimes. Do we have arguments? Of course, but he is truly the man that I envisioned being with. I just again kept doubting myself that maybe I was asking for too much that wasn’t there.

I’m so glad that coaching gave me the confidence to go after that, to find that and then have the ability to keep that. Then until now, we have a son together and he, at the time of this recording is nine months old. Just being able to parent him in a way that I wish I would have been able to parent my daughter in those early years, just feel so freeing because I am the mother that I’ve always wanted to be.

I get to be that mother with her too despite the first few years being rough and I get to see her thrive. I realized too that you can mess up this parenting thing a lot and still have a child that’s thriving. Then the relationship I have with her father is pretty good. I’m not going to say it’s amazing and awesome. Impeccable, it is what it is, but we do get along. A lot of people come up and ask me all the time, “What happened between you two, you sure are friendly with one another?”

I’ll say, “Oh, well, this is what happened.” The shock on their face because most people would not be as friendly as we are based on what had happened, but again, I don’t feel any other reason not to be friendly because I’m just so happy. I’m so healed from all of this stuff. Just so blessed that I’ve gotten to create the life that I love. My life truly is what I had envisioned as a little girl and my 20-something years when I thought, “How am I going to do this? How am I going to create this?

I was making all these mistakes, I felt like I was asking for too much in life and that I would just have to settle with a career that was okay. Or a relationship that looked good on paper, but it felt really so, so an inner world in my head that was dramatic and chaotic at times. Feelings that I felt like just couldn’t go away no matter how hard I tried. Then I wouldn’t get to be the mother I wanted to be, but I get to do that now.

I get to do all the things I set out to do. I’m just eternally so grateful every single day that I’ve been led on this path because it’s just like the Rascal Flatts song that says blessed this broken road that led me to you. That you is you friend. You, thank God. I had a childhood I had where I felt misunderstood and in turmoil, thank God I made some of the poor choices I made in my 20s. Thank God I had a crappy relationship with Him.

Thank God I didn’t believe the absolute crap people were telling me not to trust myself and to put myself in this box that didn’t fit and to settle. I could go on and on here with all the things I’m grateful for, that went wrong in my life, but you get the idea. Our past pain and our past mistakes truly are our opportunities for greatness.

It’s our pain from that allows us to become our highest self but it’s just that we need that teacher or that coach, that mentor, whatever you want to call it, to show us the way and teach us the tools, and I’m so grateful. I was able to have that and I’m so grateful I’m able to give that to other people. Now, if you feel like you could use some help becoming the person you know that you want to become, and feel like coaching may be the thing to get you there.

That’s what I’ll be covering in episode three of the show. I’ll be talking all about the basics of coaching with me, who it’s for, who it’s not for, and the different ways that I can help you. Now, I know you may just be a listener of the show and listen for enjoyment and growth and not want or need coaching. I have people in my life I follow very closely who I adore, and yet I’ve never given them a dime, because I just don’t feel called to work with them in that way and that’s okay.

Don’t ever feel like I’m pressuring you to work with me because I want you to just take what you love and leave the rest. If I’m here to just be a podcast person for you, great, but I do want to share with you if you feel called for more, you know where to go to understand if that is a right fit for you. All right, friend, today was a lot. It’s probably the longest episode we’ll have here on the show because my goal is to keep these episodes around 30 minutes.

I wanted you to understand a bit about my story and how I got to the place I am today. There will be many more stories here to come on the episodes for sure but for now, I’m signing off with immense gratitude that you’ve listened to this episode to the very end, and you held the space and gave me the attention to listen to my story. I know it’s not easy, I know your time is valuable, so thank you.

I hope I helped you grow, and I hope it allowed you to have all holds in your life to see that you can absolutely get what you want, and be the person you were meant to be. It’s just that sometimes you need the right teachers to get there. I just want to say one more time, that despite my story having its bumps along the road, I do feel very privileged to have some of the blessings that I’ve had in life too.

I realize that not everyone’s journey has been as hard as mine or as easy as mine but that’s the beauty of life. Is that we know that about one another and we can respect that about one another and we can help one another despite our differences. Okay. I will see you over in episode three. Until then, all my love and blessings, and remember, you’re only as unstoppable as you believe you can be, so believe in yourself. You got this.