You're Already Whole: Healing from Shame and Perfectionism

What happens when generations of emotional suppression collide with childhood trauma? For therapist Malisa Hepner, it created the perfect storm of perfectionism, people-pleasing, and eventual burnout that forced her to completely reimagine her approach to healing.

Born to parents struggling with addiction and raised in an environment of chaos and neglect, Malisa developed coping mechanisms that initially helped her survive but eventually left her feeling perpetually broken. Despite outward success as the "golden child," she carried deep wounds from both obvious traumas and the more insidious damage of emotional neglect. The messages that shaped her—serve others to your own demise, prioritize compliance, be a perfect reflection of your family—created patterns that followed her into adulthood.

The breakthrough came when Malisa hit rock bottom. Experiencing severe dissociation and overwhelmed by critical inner voices, she made radical changes: quitting her job, starting a podcast, and opening a private practice. Through this journey, she discovered that healing wasn't about becoming a perfect, perpetually zen person. Instead, it meant embracing all parts of herself—including her fire and reactivity—while releasing the shame that had kept her trapped.

"I was walking around believing myself to be, at my core, unlovable, and doing all kinds of things to confirm that bias," Malisa shares. Her story illuminates how we can hold two seemingly contradictory truths: our parents did the best they could with what they knew, AND what they did wasn't enough. This compassionate perspective allows us to honor our wounds without being defined by them.

For anyone struggling with perfectionism, people-pleasing, or the feeling of being "too much and not enough" simultaneously, Malisa's journey offers a roadmap to self-acceptance. By bringing our trauma into the light rather than compartmentalizing it, we create space for authentic healing and connection.

Ready to explore your own path to self-acceptance? Follow Malisa on Instagram @malisahepner or visit her website for workbooks, guidance sessions, and more resources designed to help you release shame and find unconditional love.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to No Shrinking Violets
• 0:42 Rethinking Trauma and Resilience
• 4:14 Melissa's Journey Through Childhood Trauma
• 10:50 The Hidden Wounds of Emotional Neglect
• 18:12 Breaking Free from Perfectionism
• 26:52 Finding Self-Love After Burnout
• 34:44 Embracing Authenticity and Vulnerability
• 42:36 Creating Systems vs. Assigning Blame
• 51:06 Resources and Final Thoughts

Transcript

Mary: 0:05

Welcome to no Shrinking Violence. I'm your host, mary Rothwell, licensed therapist and certified integrative mental health practitioner. I've created a space where we celebrate the intuition and power of women who want to break free from limiting narratives. We'll explore all realms of wellness what it means to take up space unapologetically, and how your essential nature is key to living life on your terms. It's time to own your space, trust your nature and flourish. Let's dive in. Hey, violets, welcome to the show.

Mary: 0:42

I was recently listening to an episode of the podcast Hidden Brain and the subject was trauma and how we process it. The guest was George Bonanno and he's done research on suffering, grief and tragedy Sounds like a really happy job and how we think about it today versus how we did in the past. One aspect of the show was exploring the idea that therapists believe that people overall are more traumatized than what his findings would indicate. As a therapist myself, I have many thoughts about that. First, obviously, we see a population that, percentage-wise, does have more trauma. That's why people often go to therapy. But mainly, I believe that many people overall think about trauma and its impact in a much different way than we did when I was young. Okay, I'm a Gen Xer, as they say. I was raised on hose water and neglect. Well, I was raised on hose water, for sure, and actually was shocked when, as an adult, I saw that there was a lead warning on new hoses and I drank out of hoses when I was a kid. But neglect, well, not exactly we just. Well, we didn't have Google, we didn't have cell phones and basically we had to live by our wits. But as far as trauma, most parents of Gen Xers literally did not have the language to help us process hard things.

Mary: 2:02

As humans, we're made to withstand trauma. We're nature, just like forests and grasslands regrow after fires. We're resilient. Our brains protect us when we experience anything similar to what created the trauma. So, for example, let's say one day you're making toast and happen to look out the window and see your dog get hit by a car, and now, anytime you smell toast, you get a wash of anxiety and you have no idea why. And when we have reactions like this but don't have the benefit of insight, we start to believe we're broken. Or the critical voices from childhood start to get a bit louder, saying things like come on, what is wrong with you? Get over it. We are so complex and the same event can affect two different people in vastly different ways. That doesn't mean one is more healthy than the other. There are so many issues that impact our ability to bounce back from stuff, but the thing about trauma is that air and light are what helps to heal it. Stuffing it down into an airtight, dark compartment in our brain doesn't so.

Mary: 3:05

Between the hidden brain episode and reading about my guest today, melissa Heppner, I have been thinking about the idea of resilience and healing, specifically in the case of trauma. Because Melissa experienced trauma from a young age and when it reasserted itself later in life in the form of burnout because those pesky trauma reactions find sneaky ways to get our attention, she chose some unconventional strategies to move through and past it. Melissa is a licensed clinical social worker in Oklahoma, an author and podcast host of the Emotionally Unavailable podcast. After reaching burnout in every area of her life, she decided to give healing one more chance and she went big. She quit her job, started a podcast and opened a private practice. She is now teaching others how to rid themselves of shame and find unconditional love, both for themselves and for each other.

Malisa: 4:00

Welcome to no Shrinking Violets. Melissa, sorry, I unmuted and it took me forever to find the unmute. Hi, thank you, what a great introduction. I'm so excited to be here.

Mary: 4:11

Yeah, I'm here. I'm glad you're here, okay, and I love that we had a little technical issue and we are both podcast hosts, see nobody's perfect right Exactly.

Malisa: 4:19

I love it.

Mary: 4:20

A little peek behind the curtain, folks. Okay, so I would love to start first with the parts of your story, because you have quite the story that you feel are most important to where you like, to your journey and where you are today.

Malisa: 4:34

Well, oh, my goodness, the most important parts. You know, sometimes people want me to get into the deep dark because it does show my resilience, and so, like just to briefly summarize, I had addict parents. I was in the hospital by two months old, from quote unquote failure to thrive, but it was because I would. You know, they were doing things like putting orange juice in a bottle instead of formula. You know things like that. So neglect, um, lots of back and forth between my parents and my grandparents, and then back and forth between my mom and my grandma, because then even my grandpa left us. It was a good thing, he was not a good dude.

Malisa: 5:18

And then there was a lot of every level of abuse that you can have in childhood and incarcerations from both of my parents, my mom more than my dad actually. And then, when I was 15, my dad died of a morphine overdose. And there was still more trauma piled on after that because my brother's responses to that, my grandma's response to it, in that she was like continually minimalizing and trivializing my experience with losing my dad, because I wasn't like going off the walls and starting a drug habit, running away from home, being institutionalized, being sent to boot camp for bad kids like my brothers. You know, there's like all these things that they were doing to live their pain out loud and I was continuing to be the golden child and you know. So it was a really frustrating experience to be like, oh, I'm not upset about losing my dad, because I'm doing exactly what you've trained me to do, which is to live to please you, what you've trained me to do, which is to live to please you. And then you know, high school, after losing my dad, was just like really surreal for me. I think I had an expanded level of consciousness then, just understanding like some of the stuff we care about as kids doesn't really matter. So I felt pretty like separated from my peers. I went through real isolation and I think probably actually, as I'm saying that, I'm probably realizing for the first time in my life that that was the beginning of me pushing people away because I was protecting myself. But in my head that went very differently. So that was probably just an epiphany I just had in real time. Yay, but yeah, so then I'm a little embarrassed about this part.

Malisa: 7:10

I could have made much worse decisions for myself. Honestly, I made really good decisions for bad reasons, like, because I'm just doing it to prove my family wrong, prove to myself that I am better than all of them. Blah, blah, blah. Very motivated by spite, if you will, one of the things that I did. I picked a very sweet partner, very calm, very docile, very loving, nurturing, but I was 18 when I met him and lost my virginity to him, and because of a program that I had received from my grandma and the religious institutions I was a part of, you know, because I lost my virginity. That sin, though, could then be absolved if I married him, so we were married when I turned 20.

Mary: 7:55

Wow.

Malisa: 7:56

And then, because I thought it was a good idea, I had my first kid at 22. And it was when I was pregnant with him that I lost my mom to complications related to cirrhosis and hep C, and it was a little bit of a three-week ordeal. She was actually presently incarcerated when that whole thing happened. So then I can't even say that I really grieved because I was pregnant and I was just blocking everything out and like I'm going to be the best mom ever, blah, blah, blah, and so that was kind of the beginning of adulthood in real life for me and believing that my childhood hadn't really had an impact, as if all those little decisions I had just made in the last two years four years weren't directly related. But the reason that I just gave such a brief summary of childhood is because I love what you said in your intro. I'm a zennial, so you know, baby Gen X, elder millennial I'm in that last three months of Gen X and that's what I've always identified as.

Malisa: 8:57

So but it was the emotional neglect that really, really left me with so many wounds Like physical traumas. Yes, there is stuff and I'm not going to say that it doesn't have a profound impact on you, but it was the things that everyone in my generation experienced that really shut me down. I think that, along with all of the really big T traumas that I also experienced, you know, it left me in a very battered place internally where I just didn't look at any of that because I wasn't aware of it and I didn't want to be aware of it. I just wanted to move on with my life and do better than they did. But I'm so excited that that's kind of the angle we're taking in this conversation, because as a therapist, that's the thing that people have such a hard time understanding is there can be two perspectives that you can hold at the same time, in that your parents this is the first time that they are living they did the best they could and also what they did sucked and it wasn't enough yeah you know, you don't have to be angry about it, you don't have to hate them, you don't have to anything, but you do have to acknowledge that it did do some things that left you with some maladaptive coping, because I get it, I've repeated plenty of those patterns with my own children you know what I mean, so like

Malisa: 10:21

it's easy to extend them compassion. Now that I see oh gosh, I did that too. I see how you get into a situation Like if you have no idea how to sit with somebody when they are uncomfortable or they're expressing emotions. Our parents did what everybody did, which was either completely rescue you from the experience you know, attempt to, or dismiss you because it dismisses their own discomfort with sitting with you in your emotions or your experience.

Malisa: 10:52

So, yeah, that was kind of figuring out that my wounding was so much more from that type of stuff. I mean, and I was raised by a narcissistic grandma on top of all of the like, from zero to 18, it was nothing but chaos, nothing Every day. Every day was chaos. So, yes, that my poor little brain was not prepared. I was a completely reactive person. With strangers or people I wasn't that close to, I would freeze or fawn and then I'd go home and think about it for days and days and days and you know, wish I had said something. Or you know what I'm going to do next time With people I cared about. Oftentimes I didn't say anything either, but I could sometimes, just from a completely triggered place, react and just be really just rude, and that was something I carried a lot of shame about. But anyway, that was a lot.

Mary: 11:50

Yeah, no, that was great. The one thing you said that I want to tease apart a little bit is you mentioned big T. So you know, for me I feel like there's trauma, like there's trauma that gives you post-traumatic stress disorder, and then there are traumatic events. We all have traumatic events. So, in saying that there's also now the complete opposite of what we're talking about with Gen X, in that, like on TikTok, there's trauma dumping. So we have so gone the other way. And so when you say this big T, how do you think about that? How do you sort of do you in your mind, either for your life or your clients, do you kind of separate out these typical things in life, like losing someone you know, and it doesn't have to be this, if it's a violent death that you witnessed, that's something that can cause PTSD.

Mary: 12:47

If you have someone in your life who's ill and you lose them. That's a traumatic event. They're separate and I'm not sure that everyone recognizes that's the case. What do you think about that?

Malisa: 12:59

I think what you're saying is very true. I don't know that I do a lot of separating, just because I think what I find the most is that the people who come to me are already fighting for the space to grieve or to have, you know, feelings related to their experiences. And or that's just the filter that I'm using to see because I was that person myself who just constantly felt like when I lost my parents, I felt like I really had to fight for the space to grieve that because I wasn't like raised by them every day of my life, as if losing your parents in itself, like even we know now, adoption is a trauma, like you know. But you know in the nineties that we didn't know anything about anything, and so I felt very minimalized and trivialized by everyone around me.

Malisa: 13:57

So, no, I don't do a lot of separation. In fact, I'm probably always pointing out like well, just because that's not like the way you define trauma doesn't mean that it's not one. And like I do a little bit of work still for the hospice that I used to work full time for for years, I do a little bit of bereavement calls for them and I'm constantly having to tell people like hey, before you think that you know you just need to get busier, to keep your mind off of it and whatever, you need to acknowledge that your body is experiencing this with you because it is a traumatic event and so, like, maybe a glass of water showering, you know, like, take care of your physical self first, because the things that you're doing are just going to lead you to a really bad place if you don't stop and acknowledge like, oh, it's a trauma, it's not just a loss.

Mary: 14:49

Yeah, and that's not to minimize anything. I think sometimes there can be an idea and I think it's among younger people that when something traumatic happens, they've been damaged and you know, we are certainly all shaped by it. That's why we end up with difficulty, because something happened that was difficult, whether it was these things you're talking about, that were things that many people really can't relate to. They hear it and they're like how is she sitting here with us today? But then there are, you know, just a really significant breakup with someone you know, these things are all traumatic events.

Mary: 15:28

Yes, they all shape us. So I think, recognizing that when something happens that's really painful, we are made to be resilient and sometimes you need to process that. And sometimes you need to process that and I think, conversely, I can imagine in your situation, people might have felt for you like, well, look what kind of parents she had, why would she be grieving them? We make a lot and this was in that Hidden Brain episode we make a lot of judgmental well, judgments. We make a lot of judgments about how other people grieve things. Yes, judgments.

Malisa: 16:04

We make a lot of judgments about how other people grieve things. Yes, absolutely.

Mary: 16:06

That's a very personal and individual process.

Malisa: 16:10

I actually think that's a beautiful example of the way we've been programmed to dismiss others, to dismiss our own discomfort, because I think what happens is you see somebody hurting, instinctively, you're going to feel compassion, and that compassion brings your own level of pain if you care about this person, and so then we just find a way to poo-poo their experience so that we can shove what we're feeling down. I was the worst about this, but I see this all the time, even on tiktok. I'm glad you brought it up because I'm addicted a little bit, but like I don't know if you've watched the new documentary out on Netflix, unknown Number High School.

Mary: 16:53

Catfish, I read about it and what the ending is and, yes, I did watch it. Yeah, I can't even imagine.

Malisa: 17:00

And so now the big discourse on TikTok is I'm not going to spoil it for anyone, but like, why would this certain individual respond this way? And I'm like, oh guys, give it a break. Like, why are we still doing this? And so I'm like, ok, well, tell me, you haven't gone through something in this manner without telling me. Like, you just don't understand it. Like, but it's what we do. When we see the most atrocious news, we go well, I mean, if they hadn't done such and such and such and such. Like you know, when people lose their infants to like SIDS, well, they had unsafe sleeping practices, okay, and that really sucks for them. But I used to do it too. I used to dismiss the plight of others just because, I mean, I did a lot to dismiss my own discomfort for myself too. But that was what I had trained myself to do, and I think that's kind of what most people are accustomed to doing.

Mary: 18:00

Yeah Well, we like to think about the world in black and white. You know you're either reacting right or you're not reacting right, so true, yes, yeah, and I think that that's such like a theme of perfectionism.

Malisa: 18:13

That's so. It's been really sneaky for me Even just this last week. I don't know if I was on someone else's show or they were on mine and they said something about yeah, and it's OK that you didn't do that perfectly. And I don't know if I was on someone else's show or they were on mine and they said something about, yeah, and it's okay that you didn't do that perfectly. And I don't remember what it was even, but I was like, oh, you're right, I was upset again at myself that I did something imperfectly and I find that theme coming up a lot and most people I know struggle with forms of perfectionism.

Malisa: 18:43

They're not aware of it, Like, and they're so painfully unaware that, if I like just pointed out, without leading them to the water, they reject the notion immediately. But it is like that's our entire generation, we were taught serve to your own demise. Compliance above all, because I mean that was that was disguised as respect your elders, but it was compliance above all. And second to that is Putting the comfort of others ahead of yourself as the rule. And then right underneath, that is, you are a direct reflection of me and you will never bring shame to our family name. That was deeply ingrained in all of us. So I mean, if that's the messaging that you're getting literally every minute of every day, like maybe you do look cute in those pants, but I don't like the way they make our family look, you know? I mean, you're just constantly criticized. We're all battling perfectionist standards, all of us.

Mary: 19:47

Yeah, and even now, in the age of social media, it's a very, it's perfectionism in a different way, because filters and you know, and this has evened and I think it's overcorrected in maybe the other direction. But initially, when social media started, people only ever posted like looking perfect, being happy. Now we've gone to the other direction of like look how miserable I am, which you know, there's a space for that, that's another episode. But I think we can fall into that trap of thinking what we are seeing is what I mean. Even I, when I am on you know, a camera angle or something where there's no filter, I'm like, oh my God, and then I have to remind myself that's actually what I look like in real life.

Mary: 20:33

So yeah, but, we get so used to seeing everyone looking their best that that comparison can be really hard too, and we just need to know, like that's why I love the fact that when we started, your mic was muted, and I love that because and even we're both saying, even with the work we do, we are far from okay every day, and I think it's really important for people to hear that over and over again. So when they have that day, there isn't that shame.

Malisa: 21:03

Absolutely, and that's been probably. When I say that the work I'm doing is to rid ourselves of shame and to teach you how to love yourself and each other a little bit better, that's the core of it. Right there, our shame is directly related to the fact that we're not perfect, and when you can get really raw and right in the middle and just go, yeah, I'm actually pretty great. If I'm going to compare myself to you know, mother Teresa, yeah, I'm not. I'm not going to look so hot, but like I'm actually a pretty great person. And that was my journey, was I was doing? I like to do like full moon, new moon stuff.

Malisa: 21:44

I was doing an identity audit for like a new moon and I had been future self-journaling for a while and it was all related to my reactivity. It was all related to my reactivity and I had just been imagining myself as this perfectly zen, perpetually unbothered person, I mean, and it was a very peaceful energy when I would get into that as I'm imagining it. And it became a great, you know, regulation tool. But but it wasn't realistic and it wasn't until I got to a place where I was looking at all the characteristics I had put down about myself and I was like, okay, I really actually like this fire that I've recently learned to hold in myself, like I had learned to advocate in myself. I was no longer freezing or fawning. I was being authentic in my communication as much as I could at that point. But I was on a journey to be more vulnerable and to just, you know, lean into who I wanted to be in any given moment, and part of that included harnessing this fire in myself for the first time ever. And I was like, okay, that I can't be Buddha and this at the same time. And I like this, I like my fire, I like that. I can be zany and quirky and you know like, yeah, there are parts of me that really are super Zen and unbothered. And then there's parts of me that are purifier, and if you mess with someone I love, that's gonna be shown and I like that. And so I was like I don't wanna extinguish this.

Malisa: 23:25

And as I was kind of just working through that, I thought I'm already all of this stuff. Like the only thing I'm not is zen, but all of these things that I'm working so hard to be, I'm already all of those things. I need to un-be, a few things. You know I needed to un-be as reactive and protective and all of the things, but like it was the first time in my life that I could look at myself and go, baby, you are fine. Like what are we doing?

Malisa: 23:56

And that was a huge shift in my life because it was the first step towards that real cultivation of self-love and it just tore me open and I was finally ready to receive the things that I had been just pushing and pushing and pushing out, because I just didn't understand. I mean, just like I'm still surprised to this day. That wasn't my first identity audit, you know what I mean. But like, whatever I was writing that day was the thing that made something click in me and I've had like a really privileged opportunity to deepen that lesson and get deeper understandings. But that's the point is to understand you're great Exactly how you you are. That doesn't mean like some things don't need to change.

Malisa: 24:40

But I was guilty of using that language of when I'm better, like one day I'm gonna be all better, and blah, blah, blah. And I mean I think that you know that just comes from the fairy tales we were fed as children too and we think that, like utopia is going to exist or something. I don't really know. But I know for myself I wasn't going to be rude ever or yell at my kids ever or, um, push my friends away out of the self-protection I wasn't gonna do any of that anymore. And now I'm fully comfortable with saying I do some of that still. Absolutely I'm rude. Ask my husband. I you know I I'll not understand why I'm pushing someone away, but I'll see that I'm doing it and I'll just say, like, let's chill a minute, like you know you don't have to talk to them today, but let's figure out what's actually going on.

Malisa: 25:30

You know all those things, and that is how you can rid yourself, slowly over time, of the perfectionism and to cultivate that love that we're looking for.

Mary: 25:40

Yeah, and we never arrive. I think there's that idea that we arrive and you know. To go back to what you said about the rules that we followed, and another that I'll add from childhood is children are seen and not heard. So you know we got these messages consistently. So, of course, when we have something like a fire or an anger, we were taught that's not okay, you're hysterical, you're crazy, you're too sensitive. I say all the time take up your space. And I think there are still women that are like, okay, like I feel that, but I don't know what that means, because like you're saying it's scary to realize, oh crap, like I'm feeling all this down here.

Mary: 26:31

And there's still the social scripts of like don't lose your shit, because that means you're a crazy bitch.

Malisa: 26:35

Absolutely, absolutely Well, and like again, it's so sneaky, like you, you programmed yourself on top of the programming that you've received, so, like, layer after layer, for me it really cause I was like real, like I am emboldened Right, but like after, like I've reached healed or whatever. Um, and in my podcast I started kind of lighthearted because I was afraid of going. I didn't want listeners to be like, hey, I don't want to listen because it's too deep or too serious. I also didn't talk about deconstructing from religion for a while. I also didn't talk about astrology for a while and then I also didn't talk about other woo-woo stuff I'm into for a while, and just more and more and more. I mean I think I'm pretty now very open and I just check myself and say like, okay, am I saying no to that because I'm afraid of a response.

Malisa: 27:33

And listen, that's not to say that there's been several episodes that before posting I will be threading a little bit, like considering editing some things out. But I'm really that committed to this that I will not. But I'll be sitting there with my tummy on fire like, oh, just that one line. If I could just take that one line out, you know. But I'm really committed to it, because I, you know, I teach people all the time like your people are looking for you and they can't find you if you're continuing to wear a mask. Like all of us, you know, or so many of us, find ourselves to be in this lonely place or in need or desire a community, and we cut ourselves off from the community by being like fake about who we are. You know, we're not showing them our real selves, and so I'm a person still in like, I'm still seeking community myself, and so it's important to me to just be really truthful about how I feel about things and about how I mess up all the time, because I mean healed doesn't mean perfect.

Mary: 28:42

No, and you even brought up. Your instinct when you were, I guess, a teenager was to keep people at arm's length, because if they reject you, then they're rejecting that sort of hard cactus-like exterior. But if you are authentic and they reject you, they're rejecting you. But I think people forget the flip side of that, and that is when you are truly who you are and somebody loves you just, and it doesn't mean they're always going to agree with you. Love doesn't mean you know, like you're a doormat or the other person's a doormat. If they really love you just as you are, that is the most powerful feeling in the world.

Malisa: 29:22

Yeah, and I think for me, I just started understanding like this love that we cultivate for ourselves is the only real love. You share that energy with others and they share theirs with you, but this is why we keep. I mean, I was a person who felt like I loved everybody in my life far more than they loved me, and I was on the periphery of every relationship and that like they needed me but they could also live without me and I was very convenient for them. I mean, none of this is true, but it was all what I was really set on believing. And when I started to feel that love again, I had this moment. I was like, oh OK, this is what they're talking about.

Malisa: 30:00

And I remember going to my husband and being like you do love me Because I've been, you know, up to that point. It had been like 10 years of me just saying all the time like you don't love me, believing he was unfaithful for literally no reason, because I was super insecure, all of the things Like I had, just, you know again, other ways to keep myself separate from him. I was very I will reject before I can be rejected, and that showed up in a lot of sneaky ways too. But you know, when you're carrying that narrative of I'm too much and not enough all at the same time, it's a very scary world to try to let people in. And you're exactly right Reject me for the parts of me that aren't real, and then that's much less painful than I'm completely vulnerable with you and you reject me.

Mary: 30:48

And.

Malisa: 30:48

I've had. I've had people reject this real version of me and that was a process to work through. I just learned like your stuff's about you, my stuff's about me and I really don't care. Yes, the human in me. When I say I really don't care, that does not mean that for three days I wasn't processing the fact that somebody asked to not air their episode because they didn't like kind of me as a person, like I was cussing, because I'm a cusser. I mean I wish they had listened to five seconds of a show before they had, you know, asked to come on, because it would have been really obvious that I say the F word a lot. But I just processed it like because I was like this really isn't about me, this is about them, like the way they want to be perceived or whatever, but like it's not about me and so you know that little convergence of your human self and your highest self and be like holy shit.

Mary: 31:58

But you don't know any different. And I think as we move into the world, I've had clients say to me why do I keep making these choices in these partners? And it's like, well, it's all you know. It's like living in a city and then you go to the country, which is what I prefer. I love the quiet, and they are so unnerved by the quiet they are coming out of their skin. So how were you? You said you initially chose a partner that was the antithesis of that. Right Calm, you know, you're in high school, the you when you got married.

Mary: 32:30

How did you I mean, did you recognize that you were intentionally making a choice that was different than your intentionally making a choice that was different than?

Malisa: 32:40

your sort of your home environment. Well, I don't know if I said this, but that was my first husband. I've been married twice but I don't think so. I don't think it was intentional because I I had been very attracted to anything I could fix Anything. So previously it was maybe the bad boy, because they showed their pain the way I was used to seeing their pain shown. But all of a sudden I started kind of being attracted. I mean, this is the same about my current husband too Like he's so quiet and whatever. Like I started picking the quiet ones because I was like I can fix you. There was something about wanting to fix them really honestly.

Malisa: 33:24

But I think I I don't remember if I said this the other day when I was thinking about this, but I believe wholeheartedly that was my higher self helping me out there because I wouldn't be here anymore if I had picked somebody volatile.

Malisa: 33:43

I truly do believe that was my higher self just guiding me along the way, because that man, for all of his faults, was exactly what I needed at that time in my life.

Malisa: 33:55

You know, like I moved out of my grandma's house immediately following high school and I lived in an apartment with like not in that relationship for like four months and then I met him and a lot of crazy things kind of happened around that time and he was such a safe person and so was like his family, you know. And so that was the first real look into a different kind of life that I ever really had. I mean, they were in stark contrast from what I was being raised in. I mean they had their own issues which I learned. Like you know, higher class doesn't mean that they don't have a lot of the same stuff, it just looks different. You know what I mean. But no, I just believe it was my higher self, because I picked them based off the same criteria I picked ever, which was let me try to fix you. That's how I went for friends, that's how I went for boys, like everything.

Mary: 34:49

Yeah, yeah. So you had you hit the burnout point, right. And that's when you decided I'm going to start a podcast. I'm going to start a podcast, I'm going to. So that to me sounds like you were at a low point, right. How did you find that energy to decide I'm going to step into this whole other world and really facilitate healing for other people?

Malisa: 35:16

It was slow. It was a slow process because I didn't even have half of the information that I have now. So I it kind of started with creative projects that I could just zone out or get into a flow state in to to just feel a different energy. For a couple of hours I was crying a lot because I had started this like road to becoming more emotionally available prior to this pinnacle of a mental health crisis. So I kind of was incorporating some of the things I was learning from that. That was scratching the surface at trying to be more vulnerable. Like I literally had no clue. I felt broken. I felt really broken and like I had there, none of this up here was ever going to change. And so, yeah, I just kind of started doing creative projects. I had energy because I was working in education and had a bunch of like days off saved and and I used them. I used them and I would be. I was creating like what my next life was going to look like and that's kind of the beginning of it.

Malisa: 36:27

The podcast man you want to talk about tech issues. I had so many problems. I was like perfect is the enemy of good. I'm not going to sit around overthinking this, I'm going to just start it. And we learned by Google. You know, like every little step I would just learn. I paid for so much stuff in the beginning, like editing software or whatever, like I just had no clue what was out there, and so, like I used to record on Google Meets, but then when I wanted to do like the video on YouTube, I couldn't find a good like way to do that. So, like I've switched things since then, but I just was like one day at a time I was, I was really focused on being present and mindful, because that's where I had been struggling for like a year.

Malisa: 37:15

Like I was so in such a bad place I would get lost, like walking from my bedroom to the kitchen because I was just so dissociated, you know, like I would start walking and then why am I in the hallway? Where was I going, you know? And so I would have to walk back and forth. It got to where I would literally tell my family, like if I would be walking from the kitchen back to my bedroom to grab something, I'd say guys, I'm doing this. So if I don't remember this in five minutes, please remind me what I'm doing. Literally that's where I had gotten to.

Malisa: 37:46

So I was working really hard on being present and mindful, but it was just. It was a lot of crying, a lot of crying and just putting my energy into things that lit me up. You know what I mean Like that that's been something that I stay really consistent about is the things that lit me up. You know what I mean Like that that's been something that I stay really consistent about is the things that I don't want to do. I just don't do them until I've done something that really lights me up. I started going in nature more, you know, getting in the sun more, like things like that.

Mary: 38:15

Yeah, and I think the one of the messages that I'm hearing from this is that sometimes there's a middle ground where you feel like, am I ever going to get through this? And I think that is when just hang on to a little bit of hope, because there's not. Really. It doesn't sound like you didn't go somewhere and you didn't go to chat GPT and say, print out a list of what I have to do to get to the other side of this. You had to live in it.

Malisa: 38:44

And.

Mary: 38:45

I think sometimes we underestimate when we're trying to find space for lots of traumatic things. It's exhausting, it's your body gets exhausted and I think that's where especially women go through that. Why am I so tired? And we assign this word of lazy to it. And it's no, it's. We don't just have parts, we don't have a spirit separate from our emotions, from our mind, from our body. It's all one thing. So when you have had a lot of things happen, it's going to affect every part of you.

Malisa: 39:20

Yeah, and just the exhaustion of it's, like how you push through when you're running long distance and then you have to have that recovery period, like it was really intense because for the first time in my life, I'm allowing myself to experience feelings Again. At that stage I didn't know how, so I was working really hard to feel instead of think and was still trying to learn how to stop like overthinking. And you hit on this in your intro too, when you talked about the childhood narratives. That is where I reached my my like mental health crisis. Those narratives have gotten so loud in my voice, but saying such contrasting things, I felt like I was going crazy and I have a schizophrenic brother. My mother was also diagnosed with schizophrenia. I now believe wholeheartedly she was going through what I went through, because she just described it the one time we ever talked about it as mean voices, and I'm like, no, oh my gosh, this is what she had. I get this now and, honestly, my podcast saved my life because I had a guest on and she just gave me information in a way that, like it finally clicked, like that was the way that I finally learned how to quiet the noise.

Malisa: 40:53

She works with a guy named Troy Love who's a LCSW in Arizona. He has something called the finding peace Method and then this workbook called the Finding Peace Workbook. He breaks shame down into different archetypes and I was like, yes, first of all, I'm not crazy If you've written an entire book about symptoms I'm experiencing and that it's common. Okay, great, and I'm not broken. There is hope. Like I had been left feeling really hopeless because, like I was still carrying all this shame about my reactivity Because that's not what it was called People are like you're mean and like also my grandma tormented me with it, like because I had been reactive my whole life and so she'd be like you're mean my whole life, and so she'd be like you're mean and like your brother, my little brother. He has such a better heart than you, he has a heart of gold and you are, your heart is black and you are just so mean and the way you talk to me or talk to people, blah, blah, blah. There was truth. I mean, I was mean to her. Like you know, as an adult, like I, my reactivity was normal teenage stuff, honestly. And you know, like, grow up, grandma, but like it got worse throughout the years because there was all this resistance I'm trying so hard not to, by using self-control and discipline that I don't have. So, like you know, like ah no, you just pushed that wrong button, grandma, you know, and she knew exactly how to push the button. So, like that, that became our dynamic oftentimes.

Malisa: 42:28

But understanding that, that's all this was like it's not you, melissa, it's programming you've received. And so I went through that process of externalization. You know where I'm understanding it's not me and I, you know, assign these things and whatever. And then I got my brain quiet and for the first time in my entire life, I had control over what I was doing up here and what I was saying to myself. And man, that was really kind of the real beginning for everything, like I had quit my job and whatever. But I met her right at the end of cause. Like I went, I worked in that school until, let's say, the middle of May. Um, I met her somewhere in there. So then I spent that summer kind of figuring things out, you know what I mean. And then I was like man, I'm in a really good place, and that's when I started my private practice.

Mary: 43:25

Yeah Well, and you talk about that inner critic and I think we often don't know till somebody points it out that the things we say to ourselves somebody else often said to us when we were a kid and when we finally recognize because you funny, we believe the adults in our lives when we're kids, because, right, that's what you're supposed to do. So if somebody says you have a black heart, it's like, oh man, I must be a bad person, but it's about you were human, you were a hurting kid. And that's where the idea of the resilience and positive psychology comes in, because we all survive our childhood the best way we know how and you mentioned sometimes fawning, sometimes you know, we all have the instinctive way we handle it, and later it's when we realize, oh, this isn't working anymore, and then we have to reevaluate and switch it up. But we're just doing the best we can, absolutely.

Malisa: 44:24

Yeah, and I, you know, like there's so much forgiveness that you have to extend to every previous version of you. I wish that that wasn't the case. I wish that we didn't, you know, get so down on ourselves that this is such a necessary step in, you know, moving forward. But I mean, I'm constantly finding ways where I'm holding some previous version of me responsible in a way that's just unnecessary, unhealthy, and just have to forgive those things that I did, because I can honestly say I did the very best I could with the information I had.

Malisa: 45:05

Yeah, if I had this information, I wouldn't have behaved that way. I my life was pretty miserable on the inside for 43 years, like, as much as I was trying so hard to not feel that way, most of the time I wasn't really a truly happy individual. So, like, yeah, I would have loved to have had better information and to utilize it, but I didn't. And now I do, and now I just have to remember all the time that that doesn't mean I'm going to do it right every single time. You know what I mean. Yeah, and I'm just kind of learning to like lean into the idea that sometimes it's not as wrong as you think it is Like it's just what it was in that moment. We assign so much morality and emotion to some experiences that really could otherwise be benign if we didn't attack it with the things that we are programmed to believe, you know.

Mary: 46:07

Yeah, and all of this, I think, is the way through shame, because we feel that shame and then we stay quiet or we think nobody will understand. Nobody else does all these things I do. And knowing that we really, why would we not do the best we can, Even if to someone else it looks like? Why is she a brat? Why you know what is happening. We all are just trying, based and I talk about nature all the time. We're wired to react a certain way. So if I was a kid growing up in your home, I would have reacted differently, Maybe I would have acted out, Maybe I would have been more like your brothers. But we instinctively do what we can do, based on how we're wired and what environment we grow up in. And it's later, as you're saying, you get these insights and being sort of forgiving gentle to that kid, that teenager, that young woman that really just was hurting and lost and trying to do the best that she could to get through life.

Malisa: 47:10

Absolutely, and I think that was the first step to to then being able to offer that compassion and understanding to everyone around me. Because you shift your paradigm. When you start to see that they're doing this because of them, not because of me, I can look at them and go how do I do that too? Like we're really I don't believe any different. Honestly, like, yeah, some of our behavior is different and whatever.

Malisa: 47:40

I think our core motivators are pretty similar, our core narratives are pretty similar, and so, as I was very, very committed to the idea that everyone in your energy is just like a projection of you or reflection of you, and so I started to be like okay then, because I was still kind of victimizing myself in my marriage at that point, because, while I'm not like a full type A person, I can get scheduled and organized.

Malisa: 48:09

You know what I mean. Like I can, I can get my life together. My husband is the exact opposite of that, like literally the most disorganized person I've ever met in my life, can't be on time anywhere, you know, like all the things, and it was something that was coming up a lot, and I'm like I'm so tired of the same fight, like, and I was trying to decipher how important it was for me to work through the fact that I felt unsafe because of him being unreliable you know, like how serious is this? Blah, blah, blah. And as I was sitting there, I was like, okay, well, I'm committed to this belief that I have heard about and believe that anything that I am judging or hating in someone else is directly tied back to something I hate in myself. And so I was like, well, I just don't think that's true.

Malisa: 49:03

You know like. And so I just sat and I worked through it and, like him making messes, I was like, well, no, it's, I don't hate that about him because I'm messy, I'm not messy. And then I was like I'm messy.

Mary: 49:14

I'm messy.

Malisa: 49:16

I'm so messy, and what I was actually upset about was the fact that I need his help. I need his help with the things that he's not showing up on time for or remembering at all, like whatever. I need his help and I can't do it all by myself, which I'm programmed to believe I should be able to. You know what I mean, and so like it's things like that, and so when I was like okay, so if we strip away morality and we strip away emotion, what we're left here is we need a system, and that's all it is Like what. I'll be honest, we have not found that system yet.

Malisa: 49:45

We're we're, you know, still makes me mad all the time, but I'm not sitting here just like assigning value to it that it can be a benign experience, and so that's really what I work really hard to do is just to shift that paradigm and go. First of all, how do I do that too? Because I know I do, I know I do this too. So how? And then when you go, well, I do it because of this. Well, baby, that's why they do it too.

Malisa: 50:08

So you know, there are things that are really serious and there's that whole idea of unforgivable and whatever. And I'm not here to dispute any of that. I'm talking about this normal everyday stuff where we are really victimizing ourself, and I don't want to trigger anyone with that either, because I remember being really triggered by that before I understood it. But all I know is for me, I was walking around just believing myself to be, at my core, unlovable, and doing all kinds of things to confirm that bias. So that was me victimizing myself. And now, in this empowered place, I'm not going to take anything personally. I might for a minute or 24 hours, you know. Like yeah, I'm a human. Like, yeah, I might for a minute, but I'm not going to be knocked off center ever, because I'm very centered in the fact that nothing external of me changes my worth or value as a human, you know.

Mary: 51:09

Yeah, wow, what beautiful icing you just put on the cake that we baked together today.

Mary: 51:15

It was a good cake, wasn't it? Yes, a great cake. And your energy. I just I love it. And this was a great cake and your energy. I just I love it. And this was a tremendous conversation. You are so inspiring with what you have worked through and what you're doing now because people you got to check out you have so much on your website you wrote the coolest books so tell us a little bit about where people can find you and what you do to help people about where people can find you and what you do to help people.

Malisa: 51:46

I am super active on Instagram at melissaheppner, and my name is spelled M-A-L-I-S-A. My parents thought they were cute and so that makes it tricky. But on Instagram is my link tree. Link tree will take you anywhere else you can find me. My website is just empoweredwithmelissahepnerorg. I have most of my links there as well. I think I have forgotten to update a workbook or two link on there as well. I offer guidance sessions.

Malisa: 52:14

I have workbooks available. Like I try to make those really affordable and accessible. They're just instant downloads and I put a new one out every month. I've kind of just recently started that. One is like to help you with that overthinking. You know it's got a quick step guide in there. So like, okay, you've discovered, like oh, I'm really tense right now, what's going on. Oh, I was overthinking how to work through that. One is about overcoming perfectionism. One is called surviving the shit. Show how to like build up your inner world when the world around you is falling apart. So some of that is really good for people who are, like currently living in real stress or survival mode, and I plan to do more with things like that in the future.

Malisa: 52:57

And then I've got books on Amazon. I mean, I've got books other places like the same books other places, but Amazon's just so easy. So if you just put my name into Amazon, it'll show you. I've got my little story, my first book, owning my Crazy Learning to Survive Trauma, which I wrote prior to a severe mental health crisis, but it's, you know, I at least I found a way to share my story for the first time, really, and so that was nice. Um, I, I did a revamped thing of that because I wanted to release it to a wider market. Um, so it's out there. But and then I, just I did some cute little children's books that I did from, like my days as a school counselor, like lessons that I had taught the children I created stories about. That was my creative projects during that time of like early healing. So those are available. But yeah, and then my podcast is called Emotionally Unavailable, but I've got links on my link tree for that.

Mary: 53:56

And we will link all that in the show notes. I was a school counselor too, were you really? Yes, mostly high school, but I did spend a year and a half in elementary school, which was such a shock after high school because I'm standing there singing to kindergartners, but anyway, it was part of the journey. So thank you so much for being here today. This has been awesome.

Malisa: 54:17

Thank you for having me.

Mary: 54:18

I've had such a great time, sure, and thanks to everyone for listening. Please forward this episode to anyone who you believe would feel inspired by Melissa's story and, until next time, go out into the world and be the amazing, resilient, vibrant violet that you are. Thank you.