Content note: This episode discusses divorce, heartbreak, abandonment, grief and the emotional impact of relationship loss. Please listen with care and step away if you need to.
Why do so many of us lose touch with our own needs, identity and intuition inside relationships? What happens when the relationship ends and we are forced to meet ourselves again?
In this episode of AuDHD and Then Some, Ellie speaks with relationship coach and author LiYana Silver about divorce, heartbreak, self-abandonment and rebuilding a life rooted in self-trust.
LiYana is the author of Feminine Genius and Waking Up in the Dark Night of Divorce. She has spent more than 20 years supporting individuals and couples through relationship difficulties, heartbreak and profound personal transformation.
Together, Ellie and LiYana explore why divorce can feel like a dark night of the soul and why it should not simply be treated as a failure or covered over with positive platitudes. Advice such as “everything happens for a reason” or “you will find somebody else” can create even more disconnection when what somebody truly needs is to have their pain witnessed.
LiYana explains the phases we experience during relationship loss and why grief cannot simply be rushed or skipped. They discuss the difference between trying to get over heartbreak and allowing ourselves to move through it with honesty and care.
Ellie also shares her own experiences of abandonment, rejection sensitivity and repeatedly losing herself within long-term relationships. Together, they examine the moment when rebuilding self-trust begins with one vital decision: “I will not abandon myself.”
The conversation also explores the cultural messages that teach women to be endlessly giving, selfless and responsible for everybody else’s feelings. When we become consumed by maintaining harmony, we can lose contact with what we want, need, know and feel.
Topics include:
• Divorce and relationship loss
• Heartbreak and the dark night of the soul
• The phases of grief and transformation
• Self-abandonment and rebuilding self-trust
• Abandonment fears and repeating relationship patterns
• Why positive platitudes can make grief feel lonelier
• Losing your identity within a relationship
• Women, emotional labour and cultural conditioning
• Learning to be present for yourself
• Moving romantic relationships away from the centre of life
• Creating intimacy between two people of equal worth
• Breaking generational relationship patterns
This is an honest, compassionate and frequently funny conversation about what happens when a relationship ends, the identity we thought we had begins to dissolve, and we slowly learn how to become somebody who will no longer leave themselves behind.
Connect with LiYana Silver:
Website and coaching:
https://liyanasilver.com/
Waking Up in the Dark Night of Divorce:
https://liyanasilver.com/wakingup/
Free Breakup Transformation Map:
https://liyanasilver.com/map/
