The Power of Vulnerability in Healing with Malisa Hepner

In this episode of Carrie's Always Talking Carrie speaks with Malisa Hepner about her profound journey through trauma, healing, and self-discovery. Malisa discusses her complex childhood, the impact of family dynamics, and the struggles with emotional availability. Carrie and Malisa emphasize the importance of vulnerability, curiosity, and compassion in building healthier relationships and understanding oneself. Malisa also reflects on her experiences with shame, self-worth, and the journey towards acceptance, ultimately conveying a message of hope and the significance of being true to oneself. It's an honest and open discussion about trauma, and as always there is some appropriate use of levity as well. 

Malisa's Linktree:  https://linktr.ee/Mdhepner

If you have a story you'd like to tell, send me an email at carrie.always.talking@gmail.com. I'd love to hear from you.

You can also find me on Bluesky- @carrie-is-talking.bsky.social 

www.youtube.com/@carrie-always-talking

Transcript

Carrie McNulty (00:01)

It's Carrie's Always Talking and I'm your host Carrie McNulty. This is the podcast all about stories and connections. I believe that when people share their stories with one another, it's the main way we build empathy in humanity and that's something I think we need a lot more of in the world today. This is episode 12 of season two. I have a guest with me today. Her name is Malisa Hepner and Malisa's story is

one of really overcoming some really difficult childhood circumstances and getting to a place later on in her life where she came to realize that she had not really dealt with the things that had happened to her as well as she had thought she had. And I think that's something a lot of people can relate to. I know her story certainly resonated with me in parts. ⁓ And I think you'll enjoy hearing from her. She is also a licensed clinical social worker and she lives in Oklahoma.

She's an author and also has her own podcast called Emotionally Unavailable. She's overcome, like I said, an extensive history of childhood trauma, only to get well into adulthood realizing how significant that trauma was and that it did have a lasting impact. She did hit sort of a wall at one point and ended up in this very profoundly dark place. There is some discussion.

suicidal thoughts, heavier mental health themes, some child abuse. just giving, you know, that information and, you know, listener discretion is advised if those are things are more challenging for you. If hearing about somebody's story that way is hard, I like to give that heads up. She did decide, thankfully, to give healing another chance and she began moving her life around in such a way that she quit her job, started the podcast and opened her own private practice.

She has a lot of great resources and workbooks that she's created I will put all of her information in my show notes. She has a link tree where she's got all of those resources listed and it's a really great place to learn more about her and what she can offer. As always, I'm going to ask people listening to

rate and review the podcast, share it with people if you're enjoying it. Anybody listening, always appreciate your support. And my call to action, you know, is that if you are able to donate to your local community in some way, I've been asking for food bank donations in your local community, joining me in what I'm doing monthly, if you are able to. And if there's another charity or

place that you can put your resources if you have them or donate your time. Now is the time to be working on building more community where we are and supporting one another as it's pretty tough time to be a human being.

Also, if you're interested in coming on the podcast, all you need to do is reach out to me. My email will also be in the show notes and I would love to hear from you always looking for more stories. And I'm going to go ahead and transition us into the interview and discussion with Melissa

and I will talk to you all in another couple of weeks.

Carrie McNulty (03:23)

Hi, Malisa Thank you so much for joining me. Yeah, it's great to have you. I'm excited to hear what you have to share with us today. And I know that my audience will be as well. So I don't usually take too much time at the beginning. I'm just going to say, let's get into it. So tell me some of your story.

Malisa Hepner (03:26)

Hi, I'm so excited to be here.

Sounds good, I'm ready.

Well, listen, I'm not great at abbreviated versions, so please forgive whatever long-winded answer is about to come out of my mouth. It changes almost every time I'm asked this question, depending on what I'm feeling is the most important piece for that day. I had a super complex childhood. I did a lot of back and forth in early childhood between, I did have some outside kinship foster care,

Carrie McNulty (03:55)

laughs

Sure.

Malisa Hepner (04:19)

I don't have a great history of that. It was kind of convoluted in the way that it was told to me. I do know that I was in a foster home, but we did a lot of back and forth between our grandparents and our parents who were addicts. The siblings that I was raised with for my entire childhood, I have a brother a year older and a brother a year younger, so I'm a perfect middle child. And... ⁓

Carrie McNulty (04:26)

Mm-hmm.

Mmm.

Malisa Hepner (04:46)

It was very traumatic in that I was the only one of us that my mom physically abused. don't know why that is, but so I experienced every level of abuse that you could in childhood. then, in sixth grade, 11 years old, something like that. My grandpa divorced my grandma after like 36 years of marriage for his best friend's wife.

Carrie McNulty (05:01)

Mm.

Mmm.

Malisa Hepner (05:12)

and ⁓ she kind of lost it as one would, but she was also going through menopause at the time. And so she was actually going to like, she at first said, okay, you're go live with your dad who previously had been deemed unsafe by her and like DHS, ⁓ but she just didn't know what else to do. My mom was absolutely unsafe. My dad was actually stable for a lot of ⁓ the later parts of my childhood just because he had been.

Carrie McNulty (05:20)

That'll do it. Yeah.

Malisa Hepner (05:42)

like remarried and two young girls. And my stepmom was a real stabilizing force in all of our lives. So she was like, well, if I got to choose someone for them to go with. And then while we were there, she was like, okay, maybe that wasn't a good idea. So she went to DHS and said, this is where they are. You got to go get them. And they found a private foster care agency called the Casey Family Program to enroll us in and said, no, like they need to be with you. This is going to give you help.

a lot of monetary compensation. It was the best thing that ever happened to me. And so we got all these opportunities to go camping and do like service learning projects. I got to go to a camp called Camp Anytown to learn about like anti-racism and things like that. And leadership as a teenager, I got to go two or three times. It was amazing. And I got to travel in a way that other

Carrie McNulty (06:31)

Hmm

Malisa Hepner (06:39)

Children my age weren't able to travel. And so then my dad died when I was 15 of a morphine overdose. And then that was traumatic enough, but there was a lot of things happening within my home where I was, first of all, having my experience minimalized and trivialized because I wasn't outwardly looking the way my brothers were in our grief processes. They were losing it. They were doing drugs. They're running away. They're doing all the things that I'm...

continuing to be the good girl that I was raised to be. And so I just, I was very, I was internalizing every ounce of it. also my grandma just wasn't a safe person to share the grief with. She was a narcissist, which was obviously not something I was aware of then, but she made jokes about my dad dying. And I mean, she called them jokes. She really, I think thought she was joke. I don't know, but it was horrible. And

Carrie McNulty (07:13)

Mm-hmm.

Yes.

Boom, yeah.

Wow.

Malisa Hepner (07:37)

So I just knew like you're not a safe person. And so because I wasn't talking about it, it didn't bother me the way it did them, which was just another piece of the pain that I really carried because hearing that really did subconsciously make me feel like I had to fight for a right to grieve that. And also because I wasn't raised by him, even though we were in, you know, pretty steady contact with both of our parents, both of their deaths, I felt like I had to fight.

Carrie McNulty (07:58)

Mm-hmm.

Malisa Hepner (08:06)

for the space to grieve it. Yeah, it was really awkward. It really was. And not to mention everyone around me was emotionally unavailable. So nobody knew how to handle a grieving friend anyway. And my mom died when I was 22, married and pregnant with my first kid, incarcerated at the time. And it was a real traumatic situation when she died, just because, you know, it was from complications related to hep C and cirrhosis, but it was, it was.

Carrie McNulty (08:07)

Yeah, the right to grieve. Yeah.

Mmm.

Malisa Hepner (08:35)

when your liver fails, it's a nasty process. And so it was. ⁓ And I was one of those people who literally spent the first half of my adult life saying, yeah, I don't think my childhood really affected me. I just don't because I, you know, eventually made my way to college and got a master's and did all the things and.

Carrie McNulty (08:38)

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Malisa Hepner (08:55)

You know, I do know that I yell a lot and I do these things a lot, but that's just because I'm a mean person that I need to work on being nicer. But other than that, like I just really don't think my trauma really affected me at all. And so.

Carrie McNulty (09:03)

Right. Right. You

were so internalized and compartmentalized that you just felt like, I'm fine. Well, because you always had to be fine, right? So yeah. Yeah.

Malisa Hepner (09:14)

Right, yeah, there was no option for anything else, absolutely. And so

that's, it kinda led me to this place at like 43 where I was in profound darkness and wanting to die, made a plan to die. But during that plan, I realized that the date that I set was like two weeks away from my oldest child's birthday. And I was like, oh, I don't wanna do that. So as I'm flipping through the calendar, trying to find a suitable date,

Carrie McNulty (09:25)

Hmm.

Mm.

Malisa Hepner (09:43)

I'm like, okay, well let's get through birthday, holidays, this date, da da. And it was like day after day after day, month after month. And so finally the date ended up being like, I don't know, like seven months away or something. So very quickly, because the pressure to decide whether or not I was going to die was off of my shoulders, and I had a date, that pressure was off. For me, I feel...

Carrie McNulty (10:06)

Mm-hmm.

Malisa Hepner (10:11)

really lucky that that kind of turned things around for me. First of all, I was really, I guess it was finally sinking in like, you are not okay. something could be better, I think. And so I just started to move the pieces like pretty quickly. I decided I wasn't going to follow through with that plan, but I didn't really know what I was going to do. Like how, how

Carrie McNulty (10:36)

Mm-hmm.

Malisa Hepner (10:37)

I don't feel any better than when I made that decision. So like, what am I gonna do now? So I just kind of started moving the pieces of my life around a little bit and eventually quit a job that was causing a lot of pain in my life. And I started a podcast and once I got to a place that I felt really okay in my healing, I started a private practice.

Carrie McNulty (11:03)

How did you, so you did your podcast and that's part of your healing once you came to the realization that you actually weren't okay. Did you do any kind of therapy? ⁓

Malisa Hepner (11:13)

I didn't. ⁓

For one thing because, I mean, like if I'm just being really honest, the reason I didn't is because my thought process was I have the same credentials as these people and everyone I've ever known can just tell me how strong I am, you know, like and how resilient and no matter what their credentials were, I had done therapy once.

Carrie McNulty (11:19)

Mm-hmm.

Malisa Hepner (11:40)

for a very short stint at 18. I didn't know that therapists like me in the way that I currently practice existed because I had kind of a really small world and which sounds weird, but I think you probably know what I mean. But I, you know, I just, wasn't exposed to a lot of the things that I've been exposed to since I got intentional about finding information to live, you know? But no, honestly, it was,

Carrie McNulty (11:48)

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Malisa Hepner (12:09)

Therapist that I met on my show that really like changed everything for me. I was doing okay by the time I started the podcast I'm gonna use that term relatively loose because I wasn't having thoughts of dying, but I was certainly I had zero coping skills still zero Grip on my reactivity. I mean that was that was the single most source of my shame my entire life was

Carrie McNulty (12:16)

Mm-hmm.

Mm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Malisa Hepner (12:38)

being

such a reactive person and only with the people that I cared the most about. Like freezer-fawn in public and then come home and take it all out on everyone I love or even close friends. I mean, I've ruined several friendships in my lifetime from getting triggered and just spouting off at the mouth something rude or just short or snide, know, something very passive aggressive, ⁓ which was really hard for them to take.

Carrie McNulty (12:43)

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Keeping people

right. I mean, it's a protective way to keep people at a distance, right? You know, like you, you could be friends, but it sounds like you are very, there's a part of you that's very protective of your inner stuff. And if people come near that, then that's the, part that people would be presented with, right? Like don't come near here.

Malisa Hepner (13:09)

Yes, yeah.

my gosh, yes.

Yeah, and I had no idea how protective I was. Like,

that was the biggest part of my learning is how much I've pushed people away in these different ways, lots of different ways. ⁓ Like, even if it wasn't like, I'm rude to you, I would cut my friends off in a heartbeat. maybe it would take a while, but you know, in my mind, it was they're not showing up for me the way I need them to, or whatever other excuse I would come up with.

Carrie McNulty (13:31)

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Malisa Hepner (13:50)

for why I was cutting them off, but I would. Like, I still have lots of apologies I would love to make to people. I don't know that I will just because, but like, I think about those people that I literally just ghosted because in my mind, they weren't as good of a friend as I was. But I mean, that was the learning is that I've surrounded myself with a bunch of emotionally unavailable people just like me so that I didn't have to share my stuff. But that's what was crazy is I felt like I was. I've always shared my story.

Carrie McNulty (13:52)

Yeah.

Hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Malisa Hepner (14:20)

but in a

very comedic way. But I didn't know that that wasn't normal, you know? Like I was like, I mean the standup comedians do it. I'm just doing what they do. But I didn't realize how disconnected I was from all those stories.

Carrie McNulty (14:24)

Right, right.

Well, it's so funny. Well,

it allows you to be able to tell it. it also, I think it helps to reinforce the message that you've been given that you're resilient. Because if I can talk about this and laugh about it and joke about it, right? If I can, and then it's also interesting to see how people respond. You know, how do they respond to it? My brother and I joke because we will tell stories from our childhood. And you know, we think it's funny in an unhealthy way. Cause you know, some of it.

Malisa Hepner (14:45)

Yes.

Sure.

Carrie McNulty (14:56)

is not, but the reaction that we've gotten from other people throughout our life and telling those stories has been like, okay, so that's not normal. Got it. Yeah, we know that now.

Malisa Hepner (15:05)

Yeah, and the difference between

telling those stories to people who have done this work and people who haven't, like that's crazy, but that felt so unsafe. To tell my story to a person, ⁓ gosh, it hurts my chest to even think about the fact that like some people would get that, ⁓ and it would feel like pity and I hated that. But the people who could laugh, it was like, you're my people.

Carrie McNulty (15:13)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Right.

Malisa Hepner (15:35)

Of course I know what that is now, but at the time it was like that's disgusting like that that would be your reaction So normal like I'm telling you crazy horrible stuff and you're responding like a human like I would cry To their face if someone were to tell me those stories now because I am so in touch with my feelings But at the time it was like my god. No And and I would just I mean I would not even be nice to them after that because they had committed

Carrie McNulty (15:46)

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Malisa Hepner (16:04)

the ultimate sin, I didn't want to feel vulnerable. So like when they showed me their vulnerability, it gave me the ick I was out.

Carrie McNulty (16:08)

No.

Yeah,

How did you feel about being needed during that time in your life? OK.

Malisa Hepner (16:19)

Loved being needed, loved being

needed to a certain extent. What I've learned is most of us walk around with that I'm not enough kind of narrative. I'm too much and not enough at the same time. And the not enough can get triggered really easily. So if they need me in a way that I don't feel like I have the capacity to give, I will cut you off. You're out. You're out. Sorry. You're just, you, got to go do your own work. I mean, I'd get so.

Carrie McNulty (16:29)

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Malisa Hepner (16:44)

you know, self-righteous about it. But I needed them to want to ask me for advice on the daily, like, but texting, you know, loved a group chat, loved that. ⁓ Loved for them to vent to me and me to be able to come up with some beautiful, eloquent, you know, advice for them. That was my role. I was the fixer of the friend group, always, always, In my mind, I wanted them to be there for me in that way too, but...

Carrie McNulty (16:52)

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Malisa Hepner (17:11)

only if they could meet X, Y, and Z criteria, say it perfectly, receive perfectly, you know, never react incorrectly or else again, you're gone. It sounds insane now, just saying it out loud, but.

Carrie McNulty (17:15)

Hmm.

I mean, to

me, just sounds like, again, very protective. It just sounds like your system was pretty well defended, is what that sounds like. Yeah. Right. Right.

Malisa Hepner (17:27)

Yeah.

fortress, fortress, brick wall. Yeah. With some golden bars around the brick wall. I mean, it was,

yeah, very protective. And I mean,

It was as if I remember a conscious thought as if I let any of that out that I was losing something. Some source of my strength is gone if I release any of the things that are inside of me. It was a really weird thing and I didn't give it too much thought but I do remember one time like really thinking like, no, just, this is a part of who you are.

Carrie McNulty (18:03)

Mm-hmm.

Malisa Hepner (18:13)

And truly when I got to burnout, I remember in the healing being like I don't ever want to be called strong again for the whole rest of my life. I'm ready to be soft. I want someone to hold me. I want to be nurtured like really leaning into what I will now call like my feminine energy. But like at the time I realized I had lived in this masculine energy my entire life and like

Carrie McNulty (18:24)

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Malisa Hepner (18:41)

I was so protected because nobody else on this earth could protect me. And so I was, I couldn't give it to anyone. Absolutely. Yeah. And that's, that's kind of where I'm at in this process now is learning to help, learning to let others protect me or help me or love me or show up for me. Yeah.

Carrie McNulty (18:48)

Exactly. Yeah. So your system figured it out.

It's, it's a tough one. It's a tough one.

And sometimes the universe will just smack you in the face with a situation where you require help. I resonate so much with a lot of what you're saying. And when I got sick and had to rely on somebody, I had cancer when I was 29, I had breast cancer and I had to rely on people. And my husband was my caretaker. That was very different time in my life because I didn't have a choice. Right? Like I had to let people help me and it really changed.

Malisa Hepner (19:15)

Mmm.

Mm-hmm.

Carrie McNulty (19:28)

my trajectory,

Malisa Hepner (19:30)

Yeah, I can imagine that. Yes. Yeah. Well,

I really hope that it doesn't take something that drastic for me, ⁓ but I can see how that would be something in my learning plan. I haven't had, I've so far, it's really kind of come up more in... ⁓

Carrie McNulty (19:40)

Mm-hmm.

Malisa Hepner (19:54)

my middle child has, he was raised to be a middle child. Like he was born a middle child, just headstrong, all the things. He has diagnoses now like autism and ADHD and whatever. But like at the time, I don't know Jack about anything. So like, I'm just winging it, right? But this last year he had like legal trouble at 17. But.

Carrie McNulty (19:58)

⁓ yeah. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Hmm.

Malisa Hepner (20:20)

trouble every single day of his school life. Like I was, he just graduated in May, best day of my life. I was like, this is my graduation. We are here for me. Like I was, I was like, I was making those jokes, but then I was like, my God, do I sound like my narcissistic grandma right now? Because I mean it. I really mean this, but like, when he got in legal trouble, it was very traumatic for me. And also I had never really shared with

Carrie McNulty (20:27)

good.

Yeah.

Malisa Hepner (20:46)

with very many people all the trouble he was in his entire life because a it reflected poorly on me that was I don't believe that now but at the time you know my unhealed self really believed that and because that's what we're taught right and also I couldn't handle anybody giving me advice because that was the way I protected myself because like

Carrie McNulty (20:50)

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Malisa Hepner (21:11)

Well, learned later that's a trauma response. I had to forgive myself for that one a lot like because I did recognize like I do overreact a little bit when people give me advice, but not really know what that is. I mean really bad and I'm like, ⁓ okay. I could recognize that like you're doubting who I am my problem solving whatever and like how could you I'm the one who solved everybody's problems my whole life. So like ⁓ I know more than you. Thank you again a reason I didn't go therapy. but

Carrie McNulty (21:33)

Mm-hmm.

Malisa Hepner (21:40)

it wasn't until that really reached the head of the stress that I finally gave that to someone. Obviously my family and my husband knew, but no one outside of our house really knew. And so whenever I was sharing that, the person's response made me so mad, but I was like.

Carrie McNulty (21:52)

Mm-hmm.

Malisa Hepner (22:04)

Malisa, this is the first chance that you're like understanding that it's not their responsibility to respond perfectly. It's your responsibility to be held by you in this moment to remember that you're still safe. Like you're the container for this. You can do this. You can hear something that's pissing you off pretty badly and still be calm. And that was when things started to really shift in that area for me that like I can, I, people can react imperfectly and it doesn't say anything about me.

Carrie McNulty (22:10)

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Right.

Malisa Hepner (22:33)

and it doesn't really say anything about them. Like it's, this is just them and this is just me and we're gonna, you know, have a little bit of friction here for a second. And then it can just be past that part and onto the, need support, please offer it to me now. You know what I mean?

Carrie McNulty (22:35)

Right.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. What, I'm curious if we could go back just a little bit. You know, you had a lot that you'd shared at the beginning about what had gone on with your family. Do you still have relationships with your brothers? And if so, what does that look like?

Malisa Hepner (22:56)

Mm-hmm.

Okay, so my older brother is actually chronically unmedicated schizophrenic and chronically unhoused. I actually didn't have contact with him for quite a few years. Periodically I would. He did a little bit of time in prison over something that I don't think he should have been imprisoned for. I think it was a, I think he picked up a credit card and used it or something. It was labeled as computer fraud, but he doesn't even know how to work a computer, so I don't know. ⁓

Carrie McNulty (23:10)

Okay.

Mm.

Mm.

Malisa Hepner (23:34)

In either case, he was kicked out of mental health court because he wasn't coming to court. We could get, that's a whole systematic problem. You know, we could go down that road. But ⁓ in the last year, he's been back and up until this last month, I was doing a lot like helping him get a birth certificate, helping him get an ID, you know, things like that, which were not fun and very stressful. Another part of my stress that I was having trouble like,

Carrie McNulty (23:38)

Right. Right.

Malisa Hepner (24:02)

sharing with people because there are people who just don't understand this dynamic. And so even well-meaning people who want to remind me about the importance of boundaries, like, yes, I know, and I am, but it's still hard to watch somebody you love be this. You know what I mean? Can't put a boundary around your heart. That's what I've been doing for 45 years. So, but I mean, we've gotten into a good place like Ebenflo by the grace of God. He has another person who I think

Carrie McNulty (24:07)

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Malisa Hepner (24:30)

Probably is mentally challenged but lets him live with him He was living like on the streets when he got back into contact with me Like I would drop him off at this car wash. He was living inside of that until it got demolished So like that's been a very hard thing to watch my younger brother is not in quite that situation But he has made very different choices than me

Carrie McNulty (24:34)

Nice, okay.

off

Mm.

Malisa Hepner (24:53)

The

relationship between us looked a lot different prior to my healing. One of the things that I had to learn was that I was so dismissive of his experiences in adulthood and very quick to judge because part of my shame was that I had never reached the level of wealth to be able to make sure my brothers were okay. Not like I need to be able to go buy them a mansion or whatever, but...

Carrie McNulty (25:16)

Hmm.

Malisa Hepner (25:20)

you know, that sibling thing when you're raised in trauma, like there was this part, this little girl inside of me that felt very responsible for those boys and their wellbeing and then their children and they both have children and that's been another pain. I've never really had a relationship with my older brother's children because it was too painful and I just, you know, like if I can't show up in this way, which I couldn't.

Carrie McNulty (25:34)

Okay.

Malisa Hepner (25:46)

Like if I can't save you from this, it was just too hard to watch. And so I just was not present. And then my younger brother's kids, ⁓ I've been somewhat present in their lives. And one of them is the same age as my middle child. So I've seen him the most because, you know, he would come over for sleepovers and stuff. he doesn't like have a phone. We communicate over the Internet. So like it's not an active presence.

Carrie McNulty (26:01)

⁓

Okay.

Malisa Hepner (26:13)

but I'm a much softer presence in his life than I was because I was very much like, well, I mean, I guess you should, you know, I mean, I don't know that I said a lot of that to him, but I was harsh. I was very harsh with him.

Carrie McNulty (26:27)

Yeah.

Yeah. I wonder if there's a part of you that felt like, you know, I don't know if either brother had more support and you had to figure it out on your own and you did it, sort of less compassion there. Yeah.

Malisa Hepner (26:38)

That younger brother, yeah, there

was a lot there, a lot in the history. You know how narcissists love to divide families and, you know, do the things. So my grandma, like, he's the baby. And that's what he was referred to as, yeah. I was like, he's 14 months younger than me. Like, he's not that much younger. Exactly, exactly. And I'm like, our older brother is.

Carrie McNulty (26:46)

Yes. Yep.

⁓ no.

Well, right, you're all very close. ⁓ yeah.

Malisa Hepner (27:05)

Literally two years older than him. Like what are you talking about? But I mean, you He needed her in a way that I didn't and so it was very They had a very codependent and messed relationship He lived with her until she died like he only had like a few months at a time Probably if I'm being generous a year and a half of his entire adult life With like while she was alive that he didn't live with

Carrie McNulty (27:08)

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Okay.

Hmm.

Malisa Hepner (27:35)

Yeah, so there was a lot of resentment there because I had to do it all on my own.

Carrie McNulty (27:40)

Right, and he had that continuous support up until she wasn't here anymore. So that would be hard. Yeah, even if you didn't want that kind of support, it was the fact that he had it, right? Yeah.

Malisa Hepner (27:44)

Rights. Yeah.

Right. Well, and

she fueled too by being like, you're just, I don't know why you're so jealous. Your life is way better than his and blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, I'm not jealous. I'm resentful. There's a difference. You're right. I don't want his life. His life does not seem like a life I would enjoy yet. I can't even get emotional support from you, you know?

Carrie McNulty (28:09)

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Right. Well, and I think that would take her maybe acknowledging some things that she wasn't capable. Right? I always like to talk about capacity in that way. Right? Like, it doesn't sound like that would have been possible. You know?

Malisa Hepner (28:19)

Never. She was not capable ever. Mm-mm. Yeah. Mm-mm.

No, absolutely.

And even like, that's the beautiful thing about you doing work on yourself. And I've been very committed to looking at everything from multiple lenses and understanding that like, this was just a filter I created to view the world. And so much of what I believed wasn't true. And I work really hard to see like the them and me and the me and them and understand how I commit the same sin.

Carrie McNulty (28:35)

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Malisa Hepner (28:59)

You know, like I am using that language, but I don't mean it like that. But like I do the same stuff. I'm avoidant just like they are, you know, all of the things and in this past like six months actually because of guests that I've met, I have really come to a place of peace with my relationship with her. But it was a long road. But one where it was like actually where I wasn't resistant to

Carrie McNulty (28:59)

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Yeah.

Malisa Hepner (29:24)

how angry I was, I decided I was gonna allow that to stay as long as I needed it to. I didn't necessarily feel like it was serving me very well, but I wasn't in a place to let it go, and so I just said, that's okay, you're just not there yet, and you hate her right now, that's fine, we can hate her, as long as you need to hate her. And now I just don't. I feel a lot of compassion because I can certainly see...

Carrie McNulty (29:29)

Mm-hmm.

Right.

Malisa Hepner (29:48)

how she was not set up for success and she was experiencing all the things I've been experiencing.

Carrie McNulty (29:54)

Yes.

Well, and typically if we pull the thread on our family history, we see that cycles repeat and repeat and repeat and repeat. And so the things that you've dealt with chances are others in your family have as well. Right. and it just seems to go that way, no matter how hard we try sometimes.

Malisa Hepner (30:05)

Mm-hmm.

Oh yeah, yeah.

Well, I mean, she, that was the thing that was confusing to me is her recounting of her childhood is very different from what I've gotten like really close with a cousin who was like first cousins with my mom, but was raised around like the siblings of my grandma. Like her dad was a sibling of my grandma. So hearing about those childhood stories, very different than what she said. Like,

Carrie McNulty (30:23)

Mm-hmm.

Okay.

Malisa Hepner (30:37)

come to find out like she blocked everything out. Like there was atrocities committed against her and other siblings she would have never mentioned. so knowing that, knowing that she was with a man seven years older than her who was physically abusive, she didn't really even wanna be with him. He left to be in the Navy. She was like 14.

Carrie McNulty (30:59)

Mmm.

Malisa Hepner (31:01)

He came back when she was like 15 and a half and she was devastated, but she was codependent and didn't have a boundary in her. So she didn't say no and moved from Virginia to Oklahoma with him to get married at 15 and a half. And he started physically abusing her on that road trip on the way back. She was, she was never going to make it. You know what I mean? And she got pregnant like immediately and had five kids. So yeah, yeah, that's how you.

Carrie McNulty (31:07)

Mm.

Right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Malisa Hepner (31:31)

have that cycle, you know?

Carrie McNulty (31:32)

Right.

Right. Did you ever get to a place with your mom where you were in a better place with her before she passed or no?

Malisa Hepner (31:39)

Yeah, what's crazy is I never really, I had some friction with her just because there was weird stuff. Like when she was over, she tried to get me in trouble for my room. But I understand what that stuff was now, but it was, there was worry, but it was also like, why'd she get by with this? I would have gotten my ass beat if, you know what I mean? ⁓ Stuff like that. But like, and she was always a little jealous of me and I didn't understand that either. But I mean, I get that now, but she was a baby.

Carrie McNulty (31:45)

Mmm.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Malisa Hepner (32:05)

Like my mom's inner child shown through until she died. Like literally she had a little hissy fit about us. We were smokers and we were out smoking when she was getting a medical test done. And she got so upset because we were not back in that room when she got back in there. And she was like, you can just go. And we're like, we're not leaving the hospital. But like that, she was such a child. Like really a little baby who never like developed.

Carrie McNulty (32:29)

Mm-hmm.

Malisa Hepner (32:32)

emotionally beyond that. And so she was fun. That last year and a half her being incarcerated was the best gift I've ever been given because she was clean and sober. And I visited every chance I could like every weekend, every holiday, you'd get like four or five hours. So I would go and ⁓ the best time ever because we were a lot alike. And so a lot of

Carrie McNulty (32:43)

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Malisa Hepner (32:59)

a of joking, a lot of serious talks ⁓ to our capacity, even as stunted as we both were, there were lots of amends made. yeah, so I really, I think our relationship was beautiful, especially for what it was.

Carrie McNulty (33:03)

Mm-hmm.

That's good.

That's a good thing that you got that time with her. Like you said, seems like a gift because it probably wouldn't have been the case had she been out, right? So yeah.

Malisa Hepner (33:19)

It really is, yeah.

⁓ not at all, because

she had actually been supposed to be out before that, was in a minimum security prison, doing like a work release thing. The day before her parole was signed, she didn't return to the prison from the work release because she went, met up with X and did whatever it was they did and didn't return. So like that was a whole month before she turned herself back in of like

Carrie McNulty (33:40)

Mmm.

Yeah.

Malisa Hepner (33:51)

the crazy up and down stuff again. yeah, we wouldn't have had and then she would have died with me being in a very resentful place because I had so much to work through that last couple of years. And but I really do feel so grateful that I got the time to even say like, I'm mad at you, you know, like that was wrong of you to put me through that and blah, blah, blah. But yeah, she was she was very kind and and

Carrie McNulty (33:53)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Malisa Hepner (34:18)

always I knew how much she loved me. Like if she wasn't drinking or on whatever she could get her hands on, she was just a completely different person.

Carrie McNulty (34:28)

Yeah. Wow. You've mentioned your podcast a couple of times. What is your podcast?

Malisa Hepner (34:35)

Well, it's called emotionally unavailable because You know that was the first key for me was learning that that's what I was and that was prior to like the Profound darkness that was really a step that I had started to take the year before that year but I I'm a person who takes a quiz like because I'm perpetually addicted to the internet and So like sometimes it's a witch graze anatomy character. Are you other times? It's this whatever

Carrie McNulty (34:37)

Mm-hmm.

you

Malisa Hepner (35:00)

But this was like, you emotionally unavailable? And I was like, I mean, I'm not, but I'll take this quiz. I'll take this quiz. Well, you the results said I was. And so I was like, So I worked with another social worker. And so I texted her and I said, do you think I'm emotionally unavailable? And she was like, yeah, I do. And I said, okay, I'm pissed, know, like, and I'm not happy that she said, I'm like,

Carrie McNulty (35:04)

Ha

Hmm. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, yeah.

Malisa Hepner (35:29)

You don't know me. And I was like, can you give me some examples? Because this is very new information for me because like I've shared my trauma forever. I can trauma dump, I can trauma bond. I can do all kinds of stuff. So like, what do you mean? She was like, will you start with the way you retell your trauma? And I was like, that one hurts because I'm funny. I am funny.

Carrie McNulty (35:34)

Yeah.

Well, that could

be very true and at the same time, right? It doesn't have to be a butter and or, it could be an and. You you tell that as I think probably a way to entertain too, right? Like people, yeah, I'm there, I'm with you. I get it.

Malisa Hepner (36:00)

Yes, yes.

yeah, yeah. Well, and I learned that from my older brother. Like

I saw him be very funny and then, and he would tell those stories like that. So I started to, and I saw the reaction and for once I'm accepted by people and you know, and then like comedians like Chris Farley were really big during that time. So we're like borrowing like his facial expressions and whatever, but all of this, like I feel like I'm bonding with you and I'm not, I'm just making you laugh.

Carrie McNulty (36:21)

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Malisa Hepner (36:38)

You know what I mean? But because

Carrie McNulty (36:39)

Yeah.

Malisa Hepner (36:40)

of the content, I really thought that was appropriate to share your trauma in that way. And so yeah, it really was a shock. Like I was shocked. So I got a little workbook that summer and started working through some of that. And I was trying to learn to be more vulnerable. ⁓ Boy, I was not even scratching the surface. Like I had no idea how much.

Carrie McNulty (36:44)

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Malisa Hepner (37:03)

I was so scared to tell anybody real raw stuff. I learned that like, I was really incapable of sharing things in real time. I always would be like, I have to internalize, I have to process it. Really, I was just intellectualizing everything to death and trying so hard to figure out a way to figure it out on my own. Like I had no idea that was a trauma response.

Carrie McNulty (37:07)

Mm-hmm.

Mmm.

Right.

Mm-hmm.

Malisa Hepner (37:31)

or an avoidant tendency or anything like I just think I'm just this way and so I would just prefer to whatever and so I could say like man two weeks ago I was about to kill myself but like I would never dream of picking up the phone to say to somebody I'm in a very bad place right now can you help me like never never never never never it was very well yesterday was rough you know but yeah I'm good now

Carrie McNulty (37:33)

Yeah.

Yeah, right.

Malisa Hepner (37:55)

We can talk about it now because I'm all over it. ⁓

Carrie McNulty (37:59)

And

then joke about wanting to kill yourself. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Malisa Hepner (38:01)

⁓ absolutely, absolutely. Yes,

it was very eye-opening, especially because I've always been really open on my show. I've been committed to be authentic from day one. And so I will say things or I will ask things. And I noticed how often there was this small pause.

Carrie McNulty (38:16)

Mm-hmm.

Malisa Hepner (38:24)

because of how embarrassed I felt right before I would say it. And I was like, ooh, it's because it's vulnerable. Okay, great. I'm glad I'm like learning this practice. Like, okay, this is not like shame. It's not whatever. It's just, this is a little scary because I'm going to be very real. that's helped me a lot because I started to notice where I was doing that in a lot of different areas. But man, was, it is still the single biggest struggle I have is to be very, very honest in real time.

Carrie McNulty (38:25)

Hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Malisa Hepner (38:52)

look someone in the face and say, this is a struggle I'm having right now.

Carrie McNulty (38:56)

This is actually how I'm feeling. Yeah. Yeah. When you're having people on, you said you've learned a lot through that process. What are some examples of things that people have said that have made you be like, mm-mm?

Malisa Hepner (38:59)

Yeah.

Well, I will tell you, ⁓ the thing that really changed my entire life was one of my very early guests. She is a relative of my husband. I saw on Facebook on the people you may know, because I had just accepted a friend request from her brother. And I was like, who is this? Something made me click on the picture. I don't do that very often, but something made me click on the picture. I did. And.

The only public post she had available was about her journey on like working through her mental health. And so I asked her to come on my show and it took her a couple of weeks to even respond. And then she did. And she came on and I'm still at this point trying to like hold it together. Like I'm doing better, but I'm still wailing at every little minor inconvenience. Like I have no coping abilities.

Carrie McNulty (39:42)

Mmm.

you

Right.

Malisa Hepner (40:05)

I'm serious. I spent hours every single day crying. In fact in my early episodes my voice is so raw from like being crying about a tech issue right before and I mean for like hours before I'd record like it was all the time. I think she had not even graduated with her master's yet whenever I met her but in social work she was like at that point at the time I think

Carrie McNulty (40:15)

Mm.

Malisa Hepner (40:29)

She works for a guy named Troy Love in Arizona. He developed the Finding Peace Method and he has a book called The Finding Peace Workbook. Why this book was so impactful for me personally is because he works in shame, but he did it in a way that makes so much sense to me. He breaks shame down into certain archetypes. So one of the reasons I felt like I was like beyond help is because I...

Carrie McNulty (40:37)

Okay.

Okay.

Malisa Hepner (40:58)

was questioning whether or not I was starting to have some form of schizophrenia because the stuff that was happening in my head was very loud and my mother was diagnosed with schizophrenia. I don't believe she was schizophrenic. I think she was going through the exact same thing I was because the way she described it was nothing like my brother. Like he had the break. You could see like boy lost his mind, right?

Carrie McNulty (41:14)

Hmm

Yeah, yeah, full

on delusions and all of that. Yeah, yeah, right.

Malisa Hepner (41:25)

Thanks, the TV's talking to him, you

know, things like that. My mom didn't have that. She described it as as ⁓ really looking back. There was only one conversation about it, but it was like voices, but voices she couldn't even describe. And that's where I got to. So it made sense to me because something would happen and I am reactive. Here comes my judge, one of the archetypes that's like

You know better. You are such a mean person. Here comes the royal who says wouldn't have done that if they hadn't done that. These two are now fighting. And then these other archetypes come in and they're all fighting with one another. So for me, I was like, I'm going insane and you can't just tell people you're hearing voices. You know what I mean? But since it was all my voice, that was the distinction is like, well, I'm not hearing voices. Something about myself talk is off or, you know, like maybe I have like

Carrie McNulty (42:01)

Mm-hmm.

you

Mm-hmm.

Malisa Hepner (42:21)

done something, like maybe the days I drank too much, maybe that like did something. I was really like, no, I'm crazy. Like I was having such a hard time explaining and I didn't really even try. To my husband, I would kind of try to explain, but honestly, half the time I wasn't even conscious of all of it. I just know it felt really loud up there, you know? And so whenever I got a hold of that information and...

Carrie McNulty (42:28)

Yeah, right.

Yeah. Yeah.

Malisa Hepner (42:47)

I mean, I've always been so open on my show. She's like sitting there just helping me right on the show. Like there's a whole episode. Like she's helping me work through a situation where she's like, that's this. And then I had her on for a second time and I was actually in a fight with my husband at the time. So was like, we're going to talk about that today. And so she helped me work through this thing and that's whatever I could really just like quiet it. And for the first time I heard the narratives. I could hear exactly what was happening. And I'm like,

Carrie McNulty (42:56)

Mm.

Mm-hmm.

Malisa Hepner (43:14)

Oh, there's my judge. And then from then on, anytime something like that would come up. So now I've got really good control over my brain. But at the time I just had zero. And so as things would come up, I'd be like, oh my God, I know what that is. I know what that is. Yay. And so once I got a hold of that, then I just had to learn how to quit intellectualizing everything and experience feelings, which was a whole other monster. Yeah, I know. I'm like, that's all I had to do, You know, I was how I learned. I was how I learned how to feel.

Carrie McNulty (43:23)

Yeah.

I was gonna say you just had to learn how to do that.

Malisa Hepner (43:43)

Just a little task, my God, that was just as big as learning how to shut my brain up. But like, that was a really life altering time because I finally was like, okay, I'm actually normal. Like, cause if you have a whole book about this, like I am not crazy. I just needed a little help in this area or a lot or whatevs. But you know, like I, it made sense.

Carrie McNulty (43:49)

Yeah. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

You just needed something that clicked for you.

Malisa Hepner (44:12)

Yes,

yes, that's why I always tell people about the book just because I'm like, if the other stuff hasn't worked, try this because it was really impactful. And then he also like breaks down attachment wounding through each wound. That was really helpful for me, not because I wasn't aware of that in theory, but now I'm like applying it to me. what worked for me because I was really trying to learn feelings.

Carrie McNulty (44:31)

Mm-hmm.

Malisa Hepner (44:39)

but there are way too many feeling words, right? So I just learned to talk about what was coming up, which is like, where did it, what wound did it hit? Instead of trying to, cause I would spend so much time trying to, like, am I disappointed or am I frustrated? I, you know? And then I just was like, forget that, forget that. And then I learned like, okay, oftentimes, a lot of times I feel betrayed.

Carrie McNulty (44:55)

Yeah.

Malisa Hepner (45:05)

And I'm embarrassed that I feel betrayed because it doesn't make sense to me. But see, I have this little checklist over here of how my betrayal wound was created. And it's a big one. And my neglect wound is huge. So between those two, and of course rejection and abandonment, those were easy for me to identify. Betrayal and neglect were, I felt so embarrassed by them because like I remember one time a really big fight with my husband because...

Carrie McNulty (45:12)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Malisa Hepner (45:31)

He was going to like Home Depot or Lowe's to rent a snake for our drain. And I said, listen, don't let them talk you into the electric crank because it's not going to work for this. You got to get the hand crank. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. This is why I know what I'm talking about. Cause I grew up in a house with bad plumbing. I've snaked the drain hundreds of times. Please, please, please comes back with the electric crank. I can lose it. I mean, I'm bawling and I'm like, you'll never listen to me.

Carrie McNulty (45:35)

Mm-hmm.

off

Well, obviously, yeah. Exactly,

it's not about the snake, although that is annoying, but it's about the fact that you know things, but nobody believes you know anything. And everybody must think you're stupid and why don't you ever listen to me? mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Yes.

Malisa Hepner (46:06)

Yes And you never choose me it's never

me you choose and so yeah I felt so betrayed and Anytime he didn't listen to my opinion be listening to someone else's and but I couldn't ever like Sit down and talk about that. I would just start a fight about the thing You know what mean? Because I was like I don't understand this so we'll just be I'll just be really rude to you and and that's then then we'll work through the fact that I was rude to you and then that whole thing is solved

Carrie McNulty (46:17)

Yes.

Yeah, yeah.

then it'll be

over, but I'll still feel that same thing and nothing will been resolved. Yeah.

Malisa Hepner (46:35)

Oh girl, I'm

actually gonna hold a grudge about this for at least three months and you know, throw it in your face so many times, but you know, whatever, it's fine, it's fine. But then once I realized like, it's okay that that's what's coming up and then learning the accountability and responsibility for that too. Like there's a huge difference between I'm feeling betrayed and you betrayed me. And I had to learn that and all of the ways in which I had victimized myself.

Carrie McNulty (46:44)

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yes. Yes.

Malisa Hepner (47:00)

through the you're doing this to me, you're doing this to me. Instead of understanding like, no, this is just what's coming up right now. And here's some ways you can help me work through it.

Carrie McNulty (47:06)

Mm-hmm.

Right. I think it helps so much when we start to get curious about why something is causing the reaction that it's causing for us, right? Instead of ⁓ just the emotional outburst or whatever, or the internalization or whatever it is that it's going on, after the fact even. If you can't do it before, fine, but eventually learning to get to the place where you can say, I wonder why my reaction was so big to that. And our brains are so

Malisa Hepner (47:16)

Absolutely.

Yes.

Carrie McNulty (47:35)

you know, clever, they're brains. trauma is like a spider web, you know? And any time something happens that hits on an old wound, like you're talking about, your mind can sort of connect the dots of, ⁓ that's what that feeling is, right? But if you don't ever get curious about it, if you stay in reactivity, ⁓ you won't get the benefit of that, right? Like, you're staying in that protective place instead of the...

Malisa Hepner (47:50)

Yes.

Right.

Carrie McNulty (48:03)

the place where you're being empathetic to yourself and being curious, right?

Malisa Hepner (48:06)

Yeah,

yeah, and I think I think curiosity lends itself to compassion and vice versa because yeah, whenever I realize I can be wrong about a lot of things and I'm still worthy I can be completely wrong and that is totally fine Then I can just say like that was a really big response to something that outwardly doesn't seem very big I wonder what that was about and I'm really committed to curiosity now whereas before

Carrie McNulty (48:11)

Yes. Yes.

Yes

Mm hmm. Yep.

Malisa Hepner (48:35)

Maybe I was and I wasn't asking the right questions.

Carrie McNulty (48:36)

Well, that's the... But I think

because your system was so defended from what you're sharing, if you would have allowed yourself to be curious, that would have meant that you would have had to accept that you might not be right. And you probably weren't there yet, right? You probably weren't there yet where you could consider that maybe somebody's not trying to hurt me or maybe, you know, yeah.

Malisa Hepner (48:47)

true. I wasn't.

Absolutely. Yeah, yeah.

Because I certainly wasn't ready to see the ways in which I was actually creating myself to be the victim and was not actually the victim. But I didn't feel like a quote unquote victim at all. So if anyone had tried to call me out on that, the rage, the rage. So yeah, I absolutely was not in any way, shape or form ready to confront any of that stuff.

Carrie McNulty (49:08)

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, right.

Yeah, but you got there, right? But you did get there. So you got to the place now where you can be a little more gentle with yourself. And it's so funny that for those of us who are big internalizers, I have an older brother who was very much was the externalizer. So there was no space in that house for me to also be that way. but the reactivity, like the nervous system and reactivity and the, the, quick to get angry.

Malisa Hepner (49:26)

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Carrie McNulty (49:53)

definitely

goes hand in hand with the internalizing. And people don't think that. They think it's always ⁓ the people who are quick to let you know immediately how they're feeling. But there's like the rage, the boiling rage underneath that comes with the internalization. Yes, it's ready to go. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Malisa Hepner (49:56)

Ugh.

Yes, at all times. Like it's ready to be unleashed. Yeah,

and my grandma really tormented me with it too. Like, just you're so mean and your brother has such a better heart than you and you're a bad person. yeah, attacked me in the ways that nobody else could hurt me like that. Mm-hmm.

Carrie McNulty (50:22)

Cool.

Just go for the jugular, right? Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Malisa Hepner (50:30)

Like

Carrie McNulty (50:30)

Mm-hmm.

Malisa Hepner (50:30)

you have a bad heart, your brother has a better heart than you. Could not have hurt me more. Like that was the worst thing she could have said. And I really internalized that. So every single time I'm reactive, that's what I'm hearing is you're the worst, you know? And it was so painful. Uh-huh. yeah, absolutely. And it took so long to be like, that's not your voice. This is programming that you receive.

Carrie McNulty (50:35)

Right.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. See? Yeah, I was right about you. Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Malisa Hepner (50:56)

And

that was something that the book did too, was a process of externalization and understanding, like give it a whole character, because it's not you, honey. That's not you. This isn't the way you think about you. This is the way your brain was programmed and you can unprogram it just as easily. so understanding that, was like, that is gone now because... ⁓

Carrie McNulty (51:12)

Absolutely. Right.

That's good.

Malisa Hepner (51:20)

Yeah, I can think of so many ways that all of us, even if you didn't have the big T traumas, were programmed in some way to have these narratives.

Carrie McNulty (51:29)

Mm-hmm.

Absolutely. Yeah, as kids, we really take on what is said to us and perceive the way we are treated. And if nobody tells you why they're treating you a certain way, you can only assume it's because you were a bad person as a kid. That's the only option. It's my fault. I did something. I need to do something different next time. Oh, I tried something different and I still got in trouble or they're still mad at me or they're still saying this stuff. Like, you know, it's...

Malisa Hepner (51:36)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, it's all your fault. Yep.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, it's never-ending too, because your brain's capacity to take on those things is endless, even if you're not aware of them.

Carrie McNulty (52:07)

Mm-hmm.

You also talked about shame. Is that something that goes along with the book that you were talking about, or is that different work that you've done? ⁓

Malisa Hepner (52:17)

Yeah, no, was the Finding Peace workbook. That section of the

book is called The Shadows of Shame. And so that was mostly where I focused my work was understanding my wounding and the ways that the shame was showing up in my life and just understanding that it wasn't me.

Carrie McNulty (52:29)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah. In what ways do you think your relationships are different now?

Malisa Hepner (52:40)

Gosh, that one's a little tricky for me mostly because I don't have a lot of the relationships that I did have. And I would say I am really uncomfortable in the types of conversations that I used to be involved in, because I realized, oh, we're kind of programmed to socialize by gossiping or complaining.

Carrie McNulty (52:47)

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Malisa Hepner (53:06)

And

that's just, it doesn't cut it for me. Like I will sit and have this kind of conversation for hours before I would go engage in something like that again. So that's a little tricky because again, I had surrounded myself with people just like me. So I think people in that former life have had a harder time adjusting to me being different because I am more willing to call you out and say,

Carrie McNulty (53:12)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Of course. Yeah.

Malisa Hepner (53:35)

you know, I don't like the way that felt when that happened. And before I would have just been passive aggressive like they were. So I think that's been a struggle. inside, like, it's the same as I tell my clients, like, when you change, the world around you changes. And so, like, inside my house, everything's changed. Like, I have such a better relationship with my kids. I'm teaching them how to be human and be totally fine with their humanity. Like, my oldest are 22.

Carrie McNulty (53:43)

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, so for those relationships. Right.

Mm-hmm.

Malisa Hepner (54:05)

in 18. So that's been, it's been amazing to get to like, I, you know, I made a couple of workbooks recently and the middle one was talking to me about a new relationship and I was like, Hey, you know, what, if you want, can send you these. Cause he had been doing some of the other stuff that I had been teaching him about and he was open to it. Like just the, the communication is so much better. My daughter who had previously received the worst version of me, she's 11.

Carrie McNulty (54:22)

Hmm.

Malisa Hepner (54:33)

Now we just have this beautiful relationship where I can be present when she's having a meltdown because it's not too much for me to deal with. Any kind of expression of emotion from her was too much for me before. I was like, ⁓ God, here we go again. I I was just totally unavailable to her because I had nothing to give. I couldn't even give to myself at that point. ⁓

Carrie McNulty (54:49)

Mm-hmm.

Well, and I would bet

that you didn't know how to do that because nobody ever tended to your emotions, right? So like,

Malisa Hepner (55:00)

100%. I had no

idea how to sit with someone in there just to comfort her or anyone else. Like, no, I was like, okay, well, ⁓ I can either offer you a solution to rescue you, and if that's not gonna be good enough, then I'm just gonna make fun of you for crying. I didn't actually make fun of her, but like, was like, you know, the same way I got. Like, you know, I refuse to say quit crying or I'll give you something to cry about, but I mean, that was my behavior.

Carrie McNulty (55:04)

No.

Uh-oh. There you are.

Mm. Yeah.

Malisa Hepner (55:26)

But now I'm like much more comfortable to sit with someone and understand that presence is very meaningful and a hug when she's crying about anything is just as impactful like as me coming up with some way to rescue her from her discomfort, you know? So yeah, with my family, the relationships are so much deeper because...

Carrie McNulty (55:42)

Yeah.

Malisa Hepner (55:49)

I know how to connect with people now. And before I just went for the low hanging fruit, like you want to go to dinner or a movie or, you know, buy you something expensive or whatever. Whereas now we can, we can sit around and just have a really good time.

Carrie McNulty (55:56)

Mm-hmm. ⁓

How about husband? Anything different there? ⁓

Malisa Hepner (56:07)

Yeah, well because

I took everything out on him. still do like if I were gonna if I were to say like I have a punching bag it would probably still be him. It's not anywhere near the extent that it used to be but I would say intimate relationship is probably gonna be where I will struggle the most for ever probably. just because like now I'm so acutely aware of my children's pain that like I could never

Carrie McNulty (56:15)

Okay.

Mm-hmm.

Malisa Hepner (56:34)

be that way with them anymore. like, you know, if I'm going to have like a snappy moment, it's going to be with him, you know, but like what really changed for us is his ability to hear me because like he listens to my show, like as a way to support me and he can hear me talk about these things and me take the responsibility and accountability. And so he doesn't have to be defensive or, you know,

Carrie McNulty (56:39)

Hmm.

Malisa Hepner (57:01)

anything he can just understand that like this is a process and this is why I do what I do and so he's like ⁓ I don't I can help you with that like I don't you know not not that either of us are perfect at any of this but it's changed big time because I don't take any of the stuff that he does personally anymore that was our biggest thing because I was always looking for a way to prove like you don't love me as much as I love you so

Carrie McNulty (57:13)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Malisa Hepner (57:27)

I mean, I was so insecure, always accusing him of being unfaithful, like all the insecure, jealous stuff. And as I really cultivated love for myself, that just changed everything. Like I remember one day being like, you do love me. Like, ⁓ okay, I get this now. Like now that I love myself, I can receive this energy from you. But before I had to prove over and over and over, it wasn't there. You know what I mean?

Carrie McNulty (57:31)

Hmm.

You

Mm-hmm.

Right. Yeah.

Well, I mean, I think it sounds like you've been disappointed a lot by people in your life and you were probably just at some point waiting for him to do the same, right? And he, yeah.

Malisa Hepner (58:02)

absolutely. Yeah,

and it didn't take much like for me to be like, I knew it. I knew I shouldn't have believed you. And I mean, you know, there are real things that he does that like any wife would, you know, get like he's not a super reliable person because he has a memory of like an aunt, you know, like, and he knows that about himself. But like, for somebody who like

Carrie McNulty (58:14)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah. ⁓

Malisa Hepner (58:27)

took every word so seriously. if you said you'd do it, that's a contract. You signed that in your blood. And I was full of expectations for you that you're not meaning. So yeah, that was the struggle, was like understanding like, okay, this is an expectation issue, not the fact that he's like this giant disappointment. Like, how are you managing your expectations? And how are you managing the disappointment when someone doesn't meet them? It wasn't very nice.

Carrie McNulty (58:31)

Yes. Don't say you're going to do it. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Malisa Hepner (58:54)

Versus now, again, like I just find ways where I do this too, and if I can offer myself compassion, it's so much easier to offer it to him. And vice versa, sometimes I have to offer it to him to be able to see a place I need to offer it to me, you know?

Carrie McNulty (59:04)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah,

yeah. Is there anything that we didn't cover that you wanted to share today?

Malisa Hepner (59:20)

I guess I would just say that all of the things that I've shared really led me to the biggest misunderstanding, was I was perfectly lovable and worthy of love and belonging, even in the messiest time in my life. And when I look back at why I wanted to die, it was literally because I wasn't perfect. And I didn't understand that that's what I was struggling with at the time.

Carrie McNulty (59:44)

Hmm.

Malisa Hepner (59:48)

But as I've worked through so much of that, I just realized I was really holding myself to a cross of perfectionism and believed that to be the only way to be accountable was you got to shame yourself to death or allow others to shame you to death. And when I realized like you already are all the things you're trying to become, you just need to unbecome a couple things too. But right here, right now, you are just as worthy.

Carrie McNulty (1:00:01)

Mm-hmm.

Malisa Hepner (1:00:17)

as if you had reached all these little developmental milestones that you're trying so hard to achieve, you know? And so that I think right now is really my message. And I think it should be a message of hope to others that like, nobody needs you to be that thing that you've written down, you know? Like identity audits are a beautiful thing and they should happen, but not because...

Carrie McNulty (1:00:23)

Right.

Mm-hmm.

Malisa Hepner (1:00:44)

you need to become something completely different than what you are. You are wonderful exactly how you are, even at your worst. And you are lovable even at your worst. And you're not fundamentally unlovable or like a fundamental screw up. Like you are wonderful period. And that you just have to figure out how to feel that about yourself. And you know, I use the word just again, but if we're talking in drastic terms of like,

Carrie McNulty (1:00:47)

Yeah.

Right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Malisa Hepner (1:01:12)

figuring that out or killing yourself, it is just figuring it out. You know what I mean?

Carrie McNulty (1:01:15)

Right, right,

Well, yeah, I think it's huge to learn that you have value apart from what you can accomplish and that just by being a human that's alive means that you have value.

Malisa Hepner (1:01:28)

Which to me, think still when I hear other people say it, it sounds so simple. But like, boy, that's been the journey. It's just understanding, like we don't have to be anything other than exactly who I am in this moment. Like if I'm tired, that's okay. If my brain's in a place where it's not recalling facts easily, that's okay. Like whoever I show up as in whatever moment I'm showing up, it's all okay. Yeah.

Carrie McNulty (1:01:32)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

It's OK. Yeah.

And giving yourself the, you're doing the best you can, right? Like giving yourself the permission to say, it may not be all that I thought it would be, but I really know I am doing the best I can.

Malisa Hepner (1:02:05)

That's why we grow, but like, once you get through any of those dark periods, you get an equal amount of light, and it becomes worth it then, because you do have that comparison, and you get to the other side. So like, keep fighting, you know?

Carrie McNulty (1:02:14)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah,

yeah. Well, thank you so much for joining me today. I'm going to make sure to include in the show notes ways to connect with Malisa, some of her workbooks, all that stuff will be there in the show notes. And you're welcome. Thank you for coming on and to anybody listening. I'll be back again in another couple of weeks with another episode. So until then, please take care of yourselves and each other and be well.

Malisa Hepner (1:02:33)

you so much.