Relationship Diversity Podcast
Every relationship is as unique as you are. Relationship Diversity Podcast aims to celebrate, question, and explore all aspects of relationships and relationship structure diversity. Together, we’ll bust through societal programming to break open and dissect everything we thought we knew about relationships. We’ll ask challenging and transformational questions, like: Who am I? What do I really want in my relationships? Am I in this relationship structure because it’s all I know or is it really the fullest expression of who I am? Being curious, having courage to look within, and asking these important questions creates the space for joy-filled, soul-nourishing relationships. Your host and guide, Carrie Jeroslow is an International Best-Selling Author, Conscious Relationship Coach, and Intuitive. Through this podcast, she helps to normalize discussions about all different kinds of relationship structures from soloamory to monogamy to polyamory, and everything in between. This is a space of inclusivity and acceptance. The time is NOW to shift the conversation to a new paradigm of conscious, intentional, and diverse relationships.Join in as we reimagine all that our most intimate relationships can become.
Relationship Diversity Podcast
Overcoming the Betrayal of Rejection: Lived Experiences with Janice Holland
Episode 083
Overcoming the Betrayal of Rejection: Lived Experiences with Janice Holland
Join me as I talk with Janice Holland, a beacon of strength and a licensed professional counselor, where she shares her story of how growing up in an ultra-religious community, contributed to an emotionally manipulative marriage. Her candid recount of the pain caused by mismatched sexual desires and the perceived betrayal within her relationship not only sheds light on the suffocating impact of purity culture but also offers hope and guidance for those wrestling with similar chains.
Janice's path of healing from betrayal to freedom is a testament to the resilience of the human spirit. She reflects on the tumultuous emotions that accompany the end of a marriage, the delicate balance of community and isolation, and the strategies that guided her toward understanding and forgiveness.
Most people have felt rejection, regardless of whether they are practicing monogamy, non-monogamy, or polyamory or choosing to be single. Janice's inspirational journey will give you tips on moving through the betrayal that might have come from the rejection.
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Please note: I am not a doctor, psychiatrist, psychologist, therapist, counselor, or social worker. I am not attempting to diagnose, treat, prevent or cure any physical, mental, or emotional issue, disease, or condition. The information provided in or through my podcast is not intended to be a substitute for the professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment provided by your own Medical Provider or Mental Health Provider. Always seek the advice of your own Medical Provider and/or Mental Health Provider regarding any questions or concerns you have about your specific circumstance.
I started having flashbacks of memories of abuse and I just broke. At that point I couldn't handle navigating all of these underlying issues within our marriage that nobody knew about. I couldn't talk about it with anybody and he kept me feeling crazy. He was so scared of himself and avoidant of his own sexuality and what's going on with him that the way he handled that was making me think it was me and keeping me confused about everything.
Carrie Jeroslow:Welcome to the Relationship Diversity Podcast, where we celebrate, question and explore all aspects of relationship structure diversity, from solaramary to monogamy to polyamory and everything in between, because every relationship is as unique as you are. We'll bust through societal programming to break open and dissect everything we thought we knew about relationships, to ask the challenging but transformational questions who am I and what do I really want in my relationships? I'm your guide, Keri Jarislow. Bestselling author, speaker, intuitive and coach. Join me as we reimagine all that our most intimate relationships can become. Today's episode is an offshoot of our conversation series that I'm calling lived experiences. In it we hear life stories from the people who live them with the intention of cultivating understanding, empathy and connection. There's such power in storytelling, which can also create an opening for self-reflection and awareness.
Carrie Jeroslow:My guest today is Janice Holland. We talk about growing up in an ultra-religious community and the trauma that came from that, as well as being in a long-term relationship with an emotionally abusive man who came out as gay. She shares with us her inspirational healing journey and how that has motivated her to help others do the same. But first a little about her. Janice is a licensed professional counselor supervisor and a certified trauma model therapist. She teaches and trains therapists, coaches, counselors and healers worldwide on how to effectively work with those who've experienced complex trauma. As a complex trauma survivor herself, she knows firsthand how adverse life experiences can shape our worldview and hinder our ability to show up as our authentic self. She's overcome religious abuse, sexual abuse and a 19-year emotionally abusive marriage to a man who eventually came out as gay. Janice is authentic and relatable as she helps individuals and professionals understand the complexities of trauma and how it colors the lens through which we view and relate to the world. Her personal story of triumph will inspire and encourage anyone who's seeking to courageously live a life of freedom and abundance.
Carrie Jeroslow:Let's get into the conversation. Hello everyone, and welcome to this episode of Relationship Diversity Podcast. We've got another great guest for you and I'm really excited to have this conversation today. I have Janice Holland with me and she is going to share her experience with mismatched sexual desires with her partner, and I feel that a lot of people come to me with this issue and I think that she's gonna really help us learn more about what her experience was so that you could bring it into your lives, if you have that going on, and bring some healing. So thank you, janice, for being here.
Janice Holland:Hi, I'm so excited to be here. This is obviously something I'm really passionate talking about. I am a licensed therapist and I do a lot of work with people who've been through an experience like this really any kind of betrayal or trauma within their relationship and within their marriage. But I also do a lot of training for other therapists to really understand this dynamic, understand trauma, because it is becoming more and more prevalent and it's just something that isn't talked about a lot, I don't think, and so I'm happy to be here and talk about it.
Carrie Jeroslow:I agree and I think this is really important to destigmatize this idea of mismatched sexual desires, libidos. I think that people feel very ashamed by that and if we can bring it into the light and talk about our experiences, that will help to destigmatize it. So it's interesting because you talk about in just your little intro. You talk about this idea of your experience in this mismatched sexual desire between you and your first husband being a betrayal.
Janice Holland:Yeah.
Carrie Jeroslow:Yeah, and so I would love to start first with your story to learn more about that and why you saw it as a betrayal.
Janice Holland:I'm from Texas. I'm from a very conservative community. I grew up in a very religious, conservative environment which took Christian school my whole life. I was at church every Wednesday night, every Sunday morning, every Sunday night. It was full immersion in that world and that's where I met my first husband as well. We met in high school and I would say at the time it wasn't mismatched.
Janice Holland:There was a lot of conditioning and shame, honestly, around sexuality. I grew up right in the middle of purity culture. I was doing everything I was told to do. I checked every single box that the pastor, the youth pastor and my parents said that I should check in order to live a happy life. I also have a history of sexual abuse and so I was just, I think, the combination of the abuse that I went through with purity culture.
Janice Holland:I was completely shut down sexually, like I had no connection to that part of myself. But I thought that was a good thing. I thought that was me doing the right thing, and so I found a man and a partner who was also very much sexually shut down. I didn't realize it at the time, but I can look back and see, yeah, we worked perfectly because we both were totally disengaged from the sexual side of our life, and so initially it made it a really safe relationship. It made it. We were great friends. We hung out together all the time and just really enjoyed each other's company. But sex and sexuality was not part of who we were, and being so young and being in a religious culture that everyone thought that's exactly where we should be, which is so sad now that I look back and think about all the developmental milestones that I missed because I was following the path that was laid out for me through religion.
Carrie Jeroslow:Right, so what were some of the milestones that you feel like you missed in your journey?
Janice Holland:I didn't ever go through the phase that young girls go through, where they start to enjoy their curves and celebrate their body development. I was very much embarrassed and ashamed of my body development and I wasn't allowed to wear swimsuits. If I had a swimsuit, I had to have shorts on over it or have a skirt on or a T-shirt. My culture also perpetuated the shame and embarrassment of my body and so when I think back to my college years, I had girls all around me. Thursday night was like the night to go out and they were getting dressed up and going out and I just I was like that's bad, that's you shouldn't do that. And towards the end of my college years I would flirt with that line a little bit and dress up a little bit, but I just felt dirty and bad doing it. But I still like I was not doing anything that most people would consider rebellious, but I felt so rebellious just putting on a tight shirt and going out.
Carrie Jeroslow:You had been programmed for most of your life.
Janice Holland:Yeah, making me sad, thinking back now to getting to enjoy having a young body and just enjoying my femininity and being able to appreciate men appreciating my body in a good way, not in a dirty way or gross way, but just as women were designed. That's part of our design is to feel feminine and to be seen and to be wanted, and I didn't really ever get to experience any of those things.
Carrie Jeroslow:So, going back to your relationship with your first husband, what was the beginning like in terms of your sexual relationship?
Janice Holland:Yeah. So, like I said, they're dating. We didn't have sex. We didn't even really try to have sex. It was never something we pursued. We talked about it once we got engaged and talked about being excited about it. I can look back now and see a lot of flags. I should have seen. I should have noticed that he was very avoidant of the topic of sex. He never even tried to do anything. We dated five years. Towards the end of that five years, I did start to feel sad. There was something wrong with me. I started to feel the other side of that coin of like wait, doesn't he want me feeling that rejection already before we were even married? But then, anytime I would try to talk about it, people would be like he's such a good guy, Janice, that's exactly what he's supposed to be doing. He's one of the only guys actually doing what he's supposed to be doing.
Carrie Jeroslow:He should be super Wow.
Janice Holland:That's what kept me confused and shut me down. We got married and there were problems right away. Sex was not something I don't really want to share. Too much of his part of this that's his story to tell it just was awkward and uncomfortable and something that he immediately began to avoid. I was really, really confused. I don't know what to say other than I was just so confused. I didn't know what to think. I didn't know who to talk to about it.
Janice Holland:We came back from our honeymoon and of course, everyone's like oh my God, how sad. Did you have sex all day, every day, and I just started lying. I didn't know what else to do. I didn't know how to talk about it. That was not my experience and I have so much shame. I can look back now and see that he was just in an immense amount of shame and I just took that shame on as well Because I didn't know how else to handle it, because normally people are like if there's problem with sex, it's the woman right, it's the woman who doesn't want it, or the woman who's pushing him away, or the woman who's like leave me alone, don't touch me, I'm too tired, I have a headache. But it was him doing all these things, and so I was starting to come around and want to experience that part of myself, but I couldn't with him, and I was really confused about what to do about it.
Carrie Jeroslow:Yeah, so you're in this state of really confused.
Janice Holland:Yeah.
Carrie Jeroslow:You are wanting to explore, he is still avoiding. That's what it sounds like.
Janice Holland:Yeah.
Carrie Jeroslow:And so where did you all go from there?
Janice Holland:It sounds crazy to say that I stayed in that pattern for 19 years, but I stayed in that pattern for 19 years of just there would be moments or times where it felt okay and I started therapy pretty quickly. We did have one weekend where, like two years into our marriage, where we went away and I don't even know why we didn't use protection to have sex but like we were having sex maybe twice a year and we went on this vacation and had sex and I got pregnant and we had our son and that was really a beginning marker for me and healing. And I started having flashbacks of memories of abuse and I think I just broke. At that point. I couldn't handle navigating all of these underlying issues within our marriage that nobody knew about, I couldn't talk about with anybody and he kept me feeling crazy. He was so scared of himself and avoidant of his own sexuality and what's going on with him that the way he handled that was making me think it was me and keeping me confused about everything. Then I had our son and I just lost it. I ended up in a hospital.
Janice Holland:I was suicidal by the time he was a little over a year old and I just couldn't handle it anymore. I didn't know what was up from down and unfortunately it allowed him to still look like the normal one or the one who's now. I'm dealing with this crazy wife and I have to be strong for her and she's so subtle and I'm going to take care of the baby Like he was able to maintain that while I just was going crazy, literally. But I doubled down and started therapy and really dug into understanding. I thought it was all trauma from my past. I still didn't really understand that it was him and so I just started doing a lot of work on healing from my past. I was pretty dissociative from the abuse that I had been through, so most of the years, honestly, were me navigating that and just healing from my past and we look like a normal happy couple, like nobody really knew anything was going on.
Carrie Jeroslow:Yeah, you know, when you said it sounds kind of crazy that I did this for 19 years, it really doesn't, because I can feel, as you're talking, the confusion of I don't understand what's going on and it's all being talked about, especially before therapy, of it's my fault and I'm also programmed that way, and there were just all of these beliefs and then what you were getting from him that was saying you're the one that's crazy, so it's you, and so I'm wondering if you can take us through where that started to shift to. Oh wait, this is not so much about me, this is a lot about him. And what was that period like?
Janice Holland:I can think of a few different markers of that. So we married when I was 22. By the time I was 28,. Our oldest son was two or three and I knew that I really wanted to pursue another degree, intrigued by the counseling I had been through and also recognizing these counselors don't really know what they're doing. I'm helping them as much as they're helping me. I could tell they were in over their heads with and now I'm like I can see why.
Janice Holland:Now, looking back, and I was like no, there's got to be more. There's some things not right. I just knew something wasn't right, but I didn't know what it was and I thought it was me and I thought it was that they couldn't understand me. I just knew I was just hungry for more information and I just also instinctively knew that I needed to get us out of the bubble. We were in the little conservative bubble and I definitely was recognizing he was avoidant. He would go to therapy, but then, once it got past some other, so he quit. But he'd always have this really good reason for why he quit, and so I was already starting to build resentment and frustration, but I didn't have the tools or the confidence yet to fully blame him, but I was starting to see it. So, anyway, I applied. I had always loved New York City and I was like I looked at him and said I'm going to apply to NYU and if I get in, I don't care what it takes, we're moving to New York and I'm going to that school.
Janice Holland:I was like there's no way I'm getting in, but I'm doing this for me, so I just wrote this really honest essay to them and just laid it out there and I got in.
Carrie Jeroslow:Wow.
Janice Holland:I can't believe it. And so we moved to New York City and that was. It was just such a man I don't even know how to describe like that. Well, I've lived in.
Carrie Jeroslow:I've lived in New York City. I lived there for seven years. I understand now. I didn't. I've not experienced being in a super conservative group. I live in more of a conservative place now, but I know. Moving to New York City, everything and anything is available to you and it's all in your face too.
Janice Holland:That's true, and it was just about freedom for me and breaking free and breaking patterns and expectations, because I was told I'll ever be as a wife and a mom. All I could ever want, all I should ever want, is to be a wife and a mom, and wanting anything other than that as selfish and a sin and wrong. And so that was my moment of you. Like you, fuck you. I am going to do me, I am going to celebrate me. So we went and while it was all of those things, it was equally heartbreaking and hard. He did not thrive. He caved in on himself when he left that environment, the conservative environment, and after one year we were already six figures in debt, just trying to survive there and pay school loans or pay for my tuition plus living. He couldn't get a job, wouldn't get a job, he's admitted after the fact that he he disrupted the whole thing so that we couldn't stay. He took it away from me and I I still was so brainwashed. It was never an option to leave him or to end the marriage. It never crossed my mind that I could end the marriage. I was just still so like no, I made the choice to marry him and that's just the way it is. There was no option for anything. Now I'm like that's so insane that I was in that space.
Janice Holland:But I was, and so I went to my advisor at NYU and begged and cried like, please, it was my dream to go to school here, I want my degree from here. Cause she was like, oh, janice, I'll help you transfer to a school in Texas and you can finish your degree. And I was like, no, I have to have the stipulation with him NYU, please, I want it. So I ended up, he and our son moved back home for the summer. I stayed and slept on friends' couches and took as many courses through the summers I could, and then they didn't even have this yet, but they would set up like a Zoom camera and some of the classes and let me zoom in and that wasn't even a thing yet, but they were just doing.
Janice Holland:it was really cool. They did what they could do. I think you're allowed to transfer three or four classes from another university, so I took those in Texas and transferred them. Anyway, nyu worked it out where I could still graduate. I got pregnant with our second son when we were back, and two weeks after I delivered him I flew to New York and walked across the stage because I was just so determined to give myself that moment. And so I see where my true self, my true strength, was starting to poke through, even though there was still so much pain and chaos and confusion that I was willing to.
Carrie Jeroslow:Those choices and the way that you explained it of I am going to go to NYU. That takes courage. That takes a lot of courage to know something isn't right. But I don't even know what that is and I have got to fight for myself, at least for this moment which got you to New York. And then this moment which got you walking across the stage. You said, two weeks after you had your second child, wow, and so you had this programming that I married him. I gotta make it work. When did that start to shift?
Janice Holland:I graduated from NYU in 2009. And at the time I actually I had heard that you could live and work overseas. I didn't know a lot about it. I knew that there were schools, like with Department of Defense. I had been a teacher but I was then a school counselor and I was gonna. My plan was to be a school counselor and then transition into private practice eventually, but so I was trying to figure out how to work at these schools overseas, but I just didn't know anybody who did it and didn't know a lot about it. I couldn't figure it out. So we just I just started working in Texas and eventually I got some certification in trauma, because I was realizing that even though I had the degree, I still wasn't fully trained in trauma.
Janice Holland:So as I continued to just get healthier and grow and understand who I am and understand human nature and work with people, it was starting to come into the back of my mind. But it felt so big and overwhelming to figure out how to blow up my life that, in combination with I was scared of him emotionally, I was scared of his volatility, and the further we got into adulthood in a lot of ways, the more volatile he was, just because he was. You can only hold light a beach ball underwater so long, right. So he's navigating a lot of these big secrets. And I didn't know that he was navigating big secrets, but I knew something was and I was scared to to separate and leave my kids with. I knew together I could protect my kids and be more in control of his. I could navigate his moods with the kids and be that buffer, and I think a lot of women are actually in that position where they really want to end it, but you leave your kids in a really vulnerable position if you do right. So that was tricky and I was trying to figure out what to do about that.
Janice Holland:Fast forward to 2017, we one of his roommates from when he was in grad school had a job overseas at a school here in Shanghai, and he called us and was like hey, like it was almost 10 years later. I was eight years later, right, and he's like I know that you guys were looking. Are you still interested? There's a position open for both of you if you're interested. And so we interviewed him. We're hired within two days. And so I closed my private practice and we moved to China and he said that was 2017.
Janice Holland:Yeah, and that was really the beginning. Almost immediately when we got here he unraveled. I don't know the details of his side of it, but from what I could see he would go to work. But he had always worked at a Christian school, at a very small conservative. He never really went out into the world. And so now he's in this very progressive, very liberal this is a high world-class school and I think he just didn't know how to function. So he would work and then come home and just stare at his iPad all day. And I had just had enough. So by spring break of that year I gave him my ring back and I just said you will figure out how to show up in our marriage or our marriage will be over. And I was like and I can be patient Our oldest son at the time was in eighth grade.
Janice Holland:I was like you have four years, I've done 19 or 18 or whatever it was. At that time I was like I can do four more years. We're overseas. I don't want to screw this up for our kids. This is a world-class school. I'm not going to take that away from our kids. I didn't think at the time it would be possible to divorce and stay in China. So I just said you've got four years to figure it out, but I'm done.
Carrie Jeroslow:Wow, and so did you still live together, or did you yeah?
Janice Holland:we lived together. He was really angry and upset at first, but then he flew home and did an intensive therapy thing and then finally just really got serious about figuring out who he is and what his life is about. And that's his story to tell. But it was two years later that he finally came out to me that he's gay oh wow. So that was a two year journey and actually, honestly, our marriage was in a better place than it had ever been when he came out. We were communicating, we were having sex, I mean, way more often than we ever had in the years before. It was devastating because I thought when I gave him the ring back that this would be it. He's going to figure out what the deal is and he's going to fall in love with me and propose to me. And that's not what happens. It was pretty devastating, but the truth really did set me free. I was ready to be free.
Carrie Jeroslow:Yeah, and when he told you this, were you able to look back and just say, okay, it all makes sense. What a release for him especially when you're holding that in for your entire life or most of your life Then to just say I'm going to go there, and then that takes a lot of courage, for sure. Yeah, and I can understand, with your story now, why you felt betrayed. Can you talk about that, though, a little bit from your perspective?
Janice Holland:Yeah. So I think it has to do with he knew all along that he couldn't give me his heart. Now, how present he was with that reality or not, or that's I'll never, I knew. I know that he knew enough to know that he was tricking me, that he was lying to me, that he was using me, and to give my heart to somebody and center my life around somebody who refused to give his heart to me and centers life around me is what is the center of what? The betrayal, what it felt like, where it stemmed from.
Janice Holland:So, while he did act out in ways like with porn and thing, he didn't, when we were engaged, I did find out that he did meet up with, but not after we were married. But I do know that there was quite a bit of porn activity when we were married. I don't really necessarily have an issue with porn, but when you are ignoring and blaming your partner for a lack of intimacy and sexual activity but you're being sexually active in some other way, to me that is a problem and that is definitely.
Carrie Jeroslow:Yeah, yeah, that's that avoidance of what's really going on and using the porn as an avoidance, right? So here you are. You both are now separated. You've agreed we're going to divorce and you're sitting with this betrayal. Yeah, how did you move through that? Now having a lot more information about trauma and about how we store trauma in our bodies and emotions all of that. So now you have all this information, how did you move through that time in your life?
Janice Holland:It's interesting. I actually think I was a pretty darn good therapist even before he came out. I was already teaching and training other therapists on trauma and being trauma informed, and I think I have a really unique perspective in that I was so sick and so dissociative that when I train other therapists I can explain in pretty good detail about what it's like to be mentally ill and to be dissociative and how manipulative you can be when you are in that space and it's just a survival. It's nothing more than survival. So I was doing a lot of training around that.
Janice Holland:Once he came out and I was finally able to really sort through and get to truth and just live in pure truth, I've skyrocketed in my ability really even more so to be able to help other people and then also train other therapists. So that's been a cool piece of what's come around and come out of it, but it wasn't overnight for sure. I was in a lot of pain. I was standing in two places and this is what trauma healing does is it allows you to feel more than one thing at one time, because before you've done healing you really don't have the capacity to do that. So I could stand equally in heartbreak and freedom.
Janice Holland:Like this thing I've been wrestling with for my entire adult life, not knowing what I'm wrestling with, but knowing that I'm wrestling with something big is finally over. There is finally closure. There was so much peace in that reality that I'm finally free of wrestling with this reality and I can finally really know what true love is. And I didn't really worry about not being able to find it. I was so hungry for just being seen as a woman and being treated like a woman and being. I'd really done so much work around my femininity and my sexuality and I was so hungry to experience true sexual expression. And so that hunger and that excitement got me through the pain and the heartbreak of the reality of our marriage ending, and I think I just was able to stay connected, as angry as I was with him, as betrayed as I felt and frustrated as I was.
Janice Holland:It was so much time of him just wasting time, of not dealing with himself. I have so much compassion. There's no way you look at our story that it's not heartbreaking. My story is super heartbreaking, but his is super heartbreaking too for a lot of different reasons, and so I never really lost my connection to my compassion with that, because here there's a lot of people who've judged him because we're in a liberal environment, people who've been out since they were teenagers and they don't understand. But they don't understand right. I understand the environment he was in and it wasn't an option to come out. It just wasn't. And the people that he did see come out it cost him so much. He didn't have what it took to do it and I understand that. So I think, because of my training, because of the work, the personal work I had done, I could stay connected to all these really core truths and realities, even though they all had really conflicting big feelings.
Carrie Jeroslow:Right, and I think that we're taught that those feelings that seem conflicting cannot coexist in the same place, and so that programming makes us think if I feel compassionate with him, I can't be angry at him. But I think what you're wanting to normalize is that, yes, absolutely conflicting feelings can coexist at the same time.
Janice Holland:Yes, for sure, and there were times where if somebody talked to me compassionately about him, it would make me angry and I couldn't have a conversation. That was definitely a season I was in. Well, I could feel it you better not acknowledge it Because I needed people to be on my side, even though, conversely, if somebody started talking shit about him I couldn't be around them. So I had I definitely, in the beginning, kept my circle extremely small. We're in a very small community here. Even though it's a liberal community, it's an expat community in a foreign country is a very small bubble of people, and so it was important to me that we both keep our jobs and that I keep my children's lives as stable as possible.
Janice Holland:I've been through enough, and those two things motivated me to keep my mouth shut and to keep my circle very small. The people that I talk shit about him or about the situation too, we're just very, very, very few people. I've evolved and grown through that and I needed that space in that time and I'm glad that I let myself it's not that I didn't let myself have those feelings. Of course I had them, and I still have people here who are like Janice, you're so strong and I can't believe. There's no way I could do what you did and I'm like I did all the things that you would have done. You just didn't see. I just didn't do them publicly, right.
Carrie Jeroslow:Well, that kind of leads me to my next question and that it sounds like to me that you, even though it took a long time that you were able to move through those feelings of betrayal, to get to the other side or to get to a different place and I know many people who cannot, just cannot release the hurt from a betrayal and they are stuck and they keep themselves stuck in their lives, in their relationships, but lives in general. What is the first step? If someone is listening to you right now and they're saying I just have tried and tried and tried and I still am so hurt and I just don't know how to move through this betrayal, what would be the first step that you would encourage them to do?
Janice Holland:The first step is be really real and honest with yourself about everything you actually are feeling. Like we wanna cover up the rejection and the pain with anger or with blame or with keeping everybody focused on what he did, but really all you're doing is avoiding the feeling of rejection. You were rejected and there's an honestly, I can't think of a feeling that's worse, like it is the absolute worst feeling. So if you'll let yourself feel it, bring it to you and sit with that feeling of rejection and really work through it not cover it up, not dwell on it, but feel it as long as you need to feel it then you're free from it. But if you keep avoiding the feeling of rejection by the blame and by the he did this and he's this and he's a monster, so that's probably the first piece, and then right behind that is letting go.
Janice Holland:I had to let go. He will never know the number of nights I cried myself to sleep. He will never know the feelings Like I can think of these really pivotal moments of pain, of desperately wanting to be seen and wanted by him and I'm invisible to him. I had to accept that. He will never know how much he hurt me.
Carrie Jeroslow:It's a hard thing to accept because when we're hurt it is just very much a instinctual reaction to want to hurt if we're feeling hurt, wanting to hurt others or hurt the person that hurt us. So that takes a lot of self-awareness.
Janice Holland:Sure, yeah, yeah, but you're gonna hold yourself captive if you need to wait until they get it.
Janice Holland:Because I'm never gonna get it right and I'm actually lucky he's done so much work that he has come back and said I'm sorry. He has come back and said he sees a lot of it. Like I said, he'll never know the details of my pain, but most people in my position they don't. They will never own it. They stay in that grandiose state forever, and so I understand that I am fortunate. And then I do have somebody who has come back and said I'm sorry, but I moved on before I got that because, I got to a place where I didn't need it to be okay because he took so many years of my life.
Janice Holland:I refuse to give him anymore.
Carrie Jeroslow:Yeah, because when we stay in that betrayal, they still are controlling our lives.
Janice Holland:That's right.
Carrie Jeroslow:So it's so disempowering when you say I have the choice and I am making the choice. And I think when someone does that and they're moving into an area or a feeling, embodiment of something that feels really unfamiliar, because we're taught that we should just blame other people for our lives and our problems and for where we are and shifting, that takes again self-awareness and courage. Your story is different than mine, but I went through a lot of betrayal, a lot of rejection. I wrote a book about it. It's called why Do they Always Break Up With Me? Because they always broke up with me.
Carrie Jeroslow:So it was constant rejection, rejection, rejection. And for me it was the original perceived rejection of my father. And it's perceived because, as a 12 year old, that's how I perceived it when he left my mom's and it's how it sat in my subconscious as well. But me holding that blame towards him only kept me captive and kept me from experiencing that life. So I love everything you're talking about and very empowering, and I know that it's the inspiration for the work that you do with women and you have a group program. Could you talk a little bit about?
Janice Holland:that, yeah. So it's called the courageous woman because, as you've said, it takes so much courage to face yourself, to face your past, to come alive and who you really are. So most of the women in the group are. A lot of them have been in long-term marriages that have ended. A lot of them have been in a conservative community and are wanting to break free but don't know how, and trying to deep program themselves. And so it's a 90 day journey that I take us through.
Janice Holland:Why do I feel crazy?
Janice Holland:Why do I feel so empty inside? What patterns do I keep repeating and cycling through? Once you end those patterns, there's this space where you don't have your new self yet, but you're stepping away from your old self. And how to hold that space and not self-sacrifice and not go back, revert back to what you know, because it's scary to be in that space. And then the last part of it is how to live in abundance, because a lot of us get what we've always wanted, and then it freaks us out and we sabotage it because we don't know how to enjoy it, we don't deserve it or something bad's going to happen. So I can't stay here. We just have all this programming that we have to undo.
Janice Holland:So the 90 days is really about understanding all of that and gaining the tools you need to really live in that abundant life. But I put it in a cycle because our growth is cyclical. Even after the 90 days, I give the women lifetime access to the work that we do because we're always in this growth pattern. We're always continuing to evolve and grow and change. So the content is there for them to go back to and be like okay, that's right that I need to. This is oh, I'm recognizing another pattern. What did she say about patterns? So you can go back to the section just on patterns and work yourself through it.
Carrie Jeroslow:So that's pretty powerful. That sounds like an incredible program, and from someone who has moved from something known into this, what I call the bardo, which is Tibetan term, but like this, not there but not there in this unknown period, and then moving to something that is new and that you want but that is unfamiliar, that journey is a really pivotal time, and to have content and to have you help during that time, I can feel the power behind it, and so I really want to encourage. If there's anyone out there who's listening and who feels like they might be in that time period, please reach out to Janice. Janice, how can people get in touch with you?
Janice Holland:My website is janicehollandcom or my Instagram is the trauma teacher. But the period between the and trauma those are probably the two best ways to reach out to me. I would love to connect. I want every woman to have access to healing. So if you can't afford working with me, then I created a membership where you just you can have access to the digital content on that. You just pay monthly to have access so that you can start to heal and grow and learn as much as you can until you can afford working with a therapist.
Carrie Jeroslow:Do you work one-on-one with people?
Janice Holland:Yes, yeah, I have a group and then I also do one-on-one as coaching because I'm licensed. I am licensed in the state of Texas, but if you're not in the state of Texas, then I would do coaching with you instead of therapy.
Carrie Jeroslow:Right, sure, yeah, wow. Well, your work is really powerful and your story is just as powerful, because I think it's clear to anyone out there listening who's in either a similar situation or just a dynamic that's similar, that there are ways to move forward. What I love, janice, is that I don't love that you went through that. I want to say that but I do love that you are using your story and your experience to help others. I just feel from our discussion that you are such a help to people.
Janice Holland:Thank you. I want to say one more thing for anybody listening.
Janice Holland:Now I'm dating the most incredible Italian man who is the most affectionate, loving everything you think about Italian he is. He's just so amazing and just sensual and sexual To look back at my when I connect with my 18-year-old self, to think that that girl who was so closed off and shut down and scared and could hold a relationship and enjoy a relationship like this now at 44, it's just so powerful. I just want to incur it like it's possible. If I can evolve to that woman, anybody can, and it is so worth all of the work to get there because this phase is really fun, yeah.
Carrie Jeroslow:Well, I have chills all over. I am so thankful and excited that you shared that last little bit, because I think that is the inspiration. I had a very similar experience, whereas they always broke up with me and then I just freaking, doubled down and went into the deepest, scariest healing but came out in a way that, yes, my 18-year-old self, my 20-year-old self, would be like I can't even imagine your life could ever be that way. It's like no, yes, it is, it is. It is why I really want to encourage people to go work with someone.
Carrie Jeroslow:If you can afford and have the connections to work with someone one-on-one amazing. Yeah, janice, I love that you have this option, that, if people can't afford that, that they have the ability to get the information and to connect with you in a way that is maybe more affordable for them. I really highly recommend. If you've been thinking about it and it's just about taking the step, I want to lovingly push you over to Janice and encourage you to make this shift for you, for no one else but you. The beginning of the year is coming up. It's a great time for us to set these intentions and I hope that, if you've been struggling, that you will make the intention to begin creating a new life for you.
Janice Holland:Yeah, I'm excited for the women stepping into that.
Carrie Jeroslow:Definitely, definitely. Well, janice, thank you so much for being with us today, and I will tag all of your information in the show notes so people can just very easily scroll on down, click right to your website and we've got that covered for you. So it's just about taking the first step, clicking on Janice's information and scheduling a time to talk with her or connect with her. So again, janice, thank you so much for being here. Thanks so much for listening to the Relationship Diversity podcast. Want to learn more about relationship diversity? I've got a free guide I'd love to send you. Go to wwwrelationshipdiversitypodcastcom to get your sent right to you. If you liked what you heard, please subscribe to the podcast. You being here and participating in the conversation about relationship diversity is what helps us create a space of inclusivity and acceptance together. The more comfortable and normal it is to acknowledge the vast and varied relating we all do, the faster we'll shift to a paradigm of conscious, intentional and diverse relationships. New episodes are released every Thursday. Stay connected with me through my YouTube channel, where I'll give you even more free resources and information, all about relationship diversity. I'm super excited to go deeper into YouTube because I'll be able to connect and have conversations directly with you. You'll find the link in the show notes.
Carrie Jeroslow:Stay curious. Every relationship is as unique as you are. I'll see you next time. I'll see you next time. I'll see you next time.
Carrie Jeroslow:Are you wondering why you never seem to find lasting fulfillment in your relationships, or do you create the same kinds of relationship experiences over and over again? Can you never seem to find even one person who you want to explore a relationship with? Have you just given up hope altogether? If this sounds like you, my recent book why Do they Always Break Up With Me is the perfect place to start. The foundation of any relationship, whether intimate or not, is the relationship we have with ourselves. In the book, I lead you through eight clear steps to start or continue your self-exploration journey. You'll learn about the importance of self-acceptance, gratitude, belief shifting and forgiveness, and given exercises to experience these life-changing concepts. This is the process I use to shift my relationships from continual heartbreak to what they are now fulfilling, soul-nourishing, compassionate and loving. It is possible for you. This book can set you on a path to get there, currently available through Amazon or through the link in the show notes.
