Do you ever feel like you’re drowning in guilt, shame, and Christian “shoulds” while trying to survive a toxic marriage, a brutal divorce, or the aftermath of both? What if I told you that letting go, accepting reality, and loving yourself isn’t just a cliche, but it can actually change everything?

In this episode of Flying Free, I dive into the “Let Go, Accept, and Love” tool (a.k.a. LAL, because who doesn’t love an acronym?). Plus, you’ll hear how one brave mama used these steps in the middle of a soul-crushing custody battle, and she came out stronger, freer, and a whole lot wiser.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

• Why believing the actual good news (and not the toxic “dirty worm theology”) matters more than you think.
• The three steps of the LAL tool
• How one Flying Free member used LAL to survive a painful separation from her child with compassion instead of despair.
• The messy, real-life lessons another member learned during her custody evaluation, and why showing humility beats trying to look like “Super Perfect Christian Mom.”
• Practical ways to prepare for divorce and custody evaluations without losing your sanity.

Read the full show notes and/or ask Natalie a question here

Related Resources:

• Check out the Divorced Christian Woman Podcast, my newest podcast specifically for divorced women rebuilding their lives.
• The Mirror Bible is a refreshing Bible translation I highly recommend.
• Go follow Gretchen Baskerville’s YouTube channel. Also check out a recent interview I did with her, “Do Marriage Intensives Help to Heal Abusive Marriages?”
• Need a Certified Divorce Financial Analyst (CDFA)? Rhonda Noordyk will help you with financial clarity and advocacy in divorce.

Have you ever felt like you're starring in a rerun of your own life? Same arguments. Same heartbreak. Same fake flowers and empty promises. It’s called the abuse cycle, my friend.

In this episode, I dive deep into an exercise that one of our Flying Free members shared in the private forum. She mapped out her relationship’s specific abuse cycle, and what she discovered was pretty important.

Nothing changes when nothing changes. Oof. That one landed.

What you’ll learn:

• The Three Phases of the Abuse Cycle
• What HE Does vs. What YOU Do in each phase, and why it’s crucial to spell it out.
• How this member's personalized cycle became her key to awareness, and eventually, empowerment.
• The Denial Trap: Why “love doesn’t keep a record of wrongs” is not a permission slip to forget he’s hurting you.
• The radical difference between surviving the cycle and disrupting it with intentional action.

Read the full show notes and/or ask Natalie a question here

Related Resources:

Check out some other related Flying Free Podcast episodes: “Interrupting the Abuse Cycle” and “How to Change Yourself While Still Stuck in an Emotionally Abusive Marriage.”

Ever fallen for someone who looked flawless on paper, but in real life turned out to be your personal nightmare with a Christian smile slapped on top?

In today’s episode, I sit down with Maile, a bright spark in our Flying Free community, who thought she’d landed in God’s will when she married her second husband. Instead, she found herself suffocating under spiritual gaslighting, emotional sabotage, and escalating violence, all hidden behind the shiny veneer of “good Christian marriage.”

This is a real story of what it looks like to wake up, break free, and rebuild your life, even when you’ve already done the divorce thing once before, and the church ladies are clutching their pearls at you for round two.

In this episode:

• The red flags Maile ignored during dating (love bombing, control, snooping)
• How spiritual abuse kept her stuck under the “good Christian wife” lie
• Why COVID became the unexpected wake-up call she needed
• How she found the courage to leave, even after already being divorced once
• What freedom and faith look like on the other side of abuse

Read the full show notes and/or ask Natalie a question here

Related Resources:

• Book mentioned: The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk.
• Some other survivor stories: Shelley’s story and Stacie’s story.