Explorez tous les épisodes du podcast Healing Our Relationships: From Codependency to Authenticity

Our final episode of Season One is inspired by Lily Allen's West End Girl. This is not a pop-psych analysis or an attempt to interpret the artist's life or relationship. I'm bringing this album into our space as a mirror for the work we have been doing here.

As I listened to West End Girl, I noticed how much it stirred in my own healing work. The linear and direct way she shares her experience feels potent, and the record spread so widely because it's deeply relatable. When we approach another person's experience with awareness, it can reveal something essential about our own.

Inside this episode, we move into the heart of some of the most painful and often misunderstood patterns in relational healing:

• saying yes when we mean no

• staying in situations that hurt because we're afraid to lose connection

• suppressing our truth to stay safe

• rumination as an attempt to feel in control

• and the quiet self-abuse that shows up as shame, self-hate, and self-abandonment

More than anything, this episode is about recognizing how we relate to ourselves inside relational pain — how quickly we blame ourselves, disappear, or try to control the outcome through self-abandonement — and how awareness becomes the turning point. Not by fixing the pattern, but by noticing and interrupting the moment we begin abandon ourselves to keep ourselves safe. 

This is an invitation into awareness, compassion, and embodied self-honesty. Not to rush change or force resolution, but to stay present long enough for something deeper to shift — and to begin healing your relationship to self from that place.

As we close this season, I invite you to practice one thing: stay. Stay with your truth. Stay with your body. Stay with the moment you want to disappear or attack yourself. That choice — again and again — is where the healing begins. 

If you are new here-go back to episde one. I invite you on a linear journey to come into a deeper relationship to yourself. 

If you are ready to stop circling the same patterns and start living differently book a Free Connection Call with me to see how a 12-week guided 1:1 journey can help you rebuild trust with yourself and step into the life of radial self-acceptance and embodied love. 

Book your connection call here

Learn more about me at www.healwithalchemy.com

Join our next women's retreat here

Meditate with me on Insight Timer Here 

If this podcast is serving you please rate, review and share with a friend. 

See you again in Season 2

Today I have someone incredibly special with me. Not just a renowned Toltec Master of Transformation, not just a teacher or an author, but a dear friend to me and to everyone he meets.

don José Ruiz is a Toltec Master, a storyteller, the author of The Fifth Agreement, Ripples of Wisdom, and My Good Friend the Rattlesnake. He's a speaker, a devoted vegan, a coffee lover, and someone who has dedicated his life to translating ancient Toltec wisdom into practical teachings that bring more truth, love, and personal freedom into the world.

But beyond all of that... José is someone who embodies unconditional love. He walks through the world in a way that makes people light up when they see him. His presence softens defenses. His humor and humility make the teachings feel accessible. And the way he loves openly, generously, and without condition is medicine this world desperately needs more of.

José shares his own personal story, the obstacles he has worked to overcome, his journey inside of relationships and addiction. He will inspire you to remember you are more than your human experience. You are infinite, and you have the power to create the life of your dreams. You have the power and courage to love yourself and soften to love others and the world around you, even if you do not agree with their personal dream. 

This conversation is unscripted and straight from the heart. No planned questions. No performance. Just two friends sharing truth, laughing, exploring, and letting the moment guide us.

I'm so honored to share this space with him, and I hope you feel the love, the freedom, and the permission that José naturally awakens in everyone he meets.

*Content note: This episode includes a brief reference to sexual abuse. Please prioritize your emotional well-being as you listen.

Let's dive in.

Learn more about Jose here

Meet him in person on December 6th in LA. Get your tickets here

You can learn more about me and my offerings here 

If you are craving a real shift,  a deep return to yourself, explore my 12-Week Soul Return

This is my most intimate 1:1 container.
Twelve weeks of guided healing, honest reflection, emotional processing, and spiritual integration, all designed to help you come home to the parts of you that have been lost, silenced, or abandoned.

This journey is for you if you are ready to:

• break lifelong patterns that keep pulling you back
• stop betraying yourself in relationships
• release survival-mode living
• soften old defenses and open your heart again
• reconnect with your intuition and your inner authority
• step into a life that feels aligned, grounded, and true

Together we work inside the real layers, the stories you were shaped by, the beliefs you absorbed, the patterns that once protected you but now keep you small. You will learn how to meet yourself with compassion, build emotional resilience, and shift from fear to truth.

This is not passive coaching. It is a partnership, a sacred container, and a transformational commitment to your divine unfolding. 

If you are ready for big shifts, deep healing, and a return to your soul's clarity, the 12-Week Soul Return may be for you. Learn more here

Yes — there are many people in this world you could be in a relationship with. There is no shortage of potential partners. But when you are struggling inside your relationship, when there is fear, insecurity, reactivity, shutting down, chasing, or any kind of trauma response, the idea that there's "someone better out there" doesn't empower you. It actually pulls you further away from yourself. It keeps you externally focused instead of internally connected.

For someone who is living inside anxiety, attachment wounds, people-pleasing, avoidance, perfectionism, or the pattern of running every time things get hard…
the message "you deserve better, go find it" becomes another way to disconnect from yourself. It reinforces the belief that your healing lives outside of you. That someone else will come along and soothe everything you haven't yet learned how to hold within yourself.

And that is where this narrative becomes harmful.

Because it pushes people into the next relationship without ever stopping to understand:

• why they choose who they choose

• what part of them gets activated, frightened, or shut down

• what version of themselves takes over when things feel threatening

• what need in them keeps going unmet, and why

• what patterns they are replaying from their childhood or past

• what agreements or beliefs about love they are still living inside of

Without that awareness, leaving doesn't create clarity, it creates repetition.

If someone leaves without doing their inner work, they don't "find better."
They find a new person to run the same patterns with.

They carry the same wound into the next connection.
They carry the same fear into the next dynamic.
They bring the same unspoken needs, the same unhealed parts, the same survival strategies — and eventually, those patterns show up again, no matter how different the new partner seems at first.

And because the beginning of a relationship feels exciting, hopeful, intoxicating…
people mistake that dopamine rush for healing.
They mistake the quiet of a new connection for safety.
They mistake difference for evolution.

But when the high wears off, when the nervous system settles, the same wounds come forward.
And the cycle repeats.

So when I say that "go find better" is harmful, this is what I mean: it seduces you into believing that your healing is waiting for you in someone else, instead of waiting for you in you.
It distracts you from the work that actually changes your patterns.
And it prevents you from looking at the version of yourself that keeps showing up in your relationships, over and over again.

You don't break the cycle by finding someone new.
You break the cycle by coming home to yourself.

Learn More About Me and My Offerings at www.healwithalchemy.com 

Book a free 30 minute connection call to learn more about Awakening Woman: A 12-Week Soul Return. A sacred 12-week journey for the woman who is ready to turn inward, meet herself with honesty, and remember the truth of who she is.

Release resentment in this transformative 5-minute spiritual based practice. Let go of giving someone or something your energy and power. Through a powerful practice of cord cutting, sever the ties that bind you to the other. 

Step away from the ego's grip on resentment and step into the energy of your soul. Step into your courage and let go of giving someone or something yoru energy, your power and your time. 

Close your eyes, take a breath, and allow the journey to hold you.

You can find more of my meditations on Insight Timer or my personal mediation App Healspace. 

Learn More About Working With Me @ www.healwithalchemy.com

Find Me on Instagram @soulalchemyhealing 

Welcome back to Healing Our Relationships. This episode dives into the space between who you have been and who you are becoming. The bridge is the place where awareness meets embodiment, where intent becomes practice and where the real transformation happens. 

On one side of that bridge is the familiar self, the one who moves from the patterns of codependency that keep them "safe" to avoid pain, the side that is often built on the foundation of fear. Fear of not being good enough, not doing right or fear of truly being seen. On the other side of the bridge is what it looks like when you are living as your authentic self. It is here, on the bridge, it can be really uncomfortable, but where the real lasting healing and growth happens. It is in that walk across when the relationship to yourself deepens in love and reverence. 

I will inspire you to have the courage to navigate the discomfort in the in-between of wanting to be chosen and learning to choose ourselves. We look at how the mind, body, and spirit each hold a piece of that work: the mind still learning to release the old story, the body remembering safety, and your spirit teaching you how to trust what's real.

This episode is about the devotion it takes to live in alignment with your soul — to stay steady when the bridge shakes beneath you, and to keep walking toward the life that's actually yours. It is on the bridge you not only meet yourself, but others walking alongside you, tools to help you keep walking and the awakenings that will forever change you. 

The first step towards ourself is the scariest, the rest is an unfolding of more than you could probably imagine. 

Ready to stop circling the same patterns and start living differently? Book a free Connection Call with me to see how a 12-week guided 1:1 journey can help you rebuild trust with yourself and step into the life you've been working toward. Book Here

Join our live monthly Zoom call for women on the last Thursday of the month by dowloading my free meditation app HealSpace 

Thank you for being here. Don't forget to rate and review if this podcast is supporting you. 

With Love & Appreciation, 

Marisa 

This week on the Healing Our Relationships Podcast I have a very special guest. She is the author of 13 books, the Founder of Venus Rising Association for Transformation and creator of Shamanic Breathwork. She has been a shamanic visionary teacher and guide to thousands of people over the last four decades, dedicating her life to assisting soul seekers to transform and embrace their lives. Star Wolf's lifelong passion and sacred purpose is to support personal transformation. She shares openly and vulnerably of her addiction and codependency recovery and brings forward a theme we have not yet touched on in our podcast, Codependency as a crisis of the Spirit.

In this vulnerable and intimate conversation, we explore how the roots of codependency can stem from spiritual disconnection, the forgetting of who we truly are and the divine source that is all around us. Star Wolf speaks to how recovery, in its truest sense, is a process of remembrance and of coming home to the sacred within ourselves.

Together, we discuss how healing moves beyond human behavior and into the realm of the soul, where surrender becomes an opening rather than a loss, and where breath becomes the bridge between the human and the divine. 

We also touch on the deeper spiritual roots of codependency and how it reflects the collective wounding of the Divine Feminine under patriarchal systems that have long valued doing over being, pleasing over truth, and control over trust. In reclaiming our connection, we begin to restore balance within ourselves and the world remembering that our worth, our power, and our love were never meant to be earned, only remembered.

This episode is an invitation to those on the path to explore if a connection to something greater could help them reclaim the power of love, and to remember that the journey of healing is ultimately a journey of returning to wholeness, to truth, and to the heart of who we are.

I invite you to have an open heart and open mind. Take what feels in alignment, leave what doesn't and be curous about that which may push you to your edges. Remember we are sharing our own personal expereince- not overarching truths. 

Learn More About Star Wolf and Venus Rising at https://www.shamanicbreathwork.org/

You can buy her new book Aquarian Shaman Here

You can learn more about SHIP (Shamanic Healing Initiatory Process) Here 

Buy Jacquelyn Small's Book Awakening In Time From Codependency to Co-Creation Here 

Learn More about working with me 1:1 or in a Cohort Here

Join our live monthly Zoom call for women on the last Thursday of the month by dowloading my free meditation app HealSpace 

Thank you for being here. Don't forget to rate and review if this podcast is supporting you. 

With Love & Appreciation, 

Marisa 

In order to be authentic we have to have the courage to be seen, judged and misunderstood.

So much of our fear of authenticity comes from making assumptions and projection — seeing others not as they are, but through the lens of our own unhealed stories. Whether we are the projectors or being projected upon, in this episode of Healing Our Relationships, we explore how projections keep us afraid to be fully ourselves, and understanding that people's personal experience with us, is rarely just about us. And how having the courage to live with this awareness transforms it into a pathway of freedom.

We explore the subtle and often painful ways projection keeps us trapped in fear — fear of being misunderstood, fear of being too much or not enough, fear of losing love if we show who we really are.

This is a conversation about learning to let others be themselves without trying to fix, manage, or interpret them through the lens of our own wounds. It's also about reclaiming your own freedom by allowing people to have their experience of you and learning how to hold judgement, criticism and someone else's fear. 

Together, we'll explore what it means to stand rooted in authenticity, to hold the discomfort of being misunderstood, and to meet yourself with compassion when fears rise.
Through reflection and embodied practice, you'll begin to notice the moments when projection takes over, and learn how to return to truth again and again.

Because when you stop trying to control how others see you, you make space for the one thing you've been searching for all along: the freedom to be yourself. 

Learn more about me at www.healwithalchemy.com

Follow me on instagram at @soulalchemyhealing 

Join us for free on live on Zoom on the last Thursday of the month for Healing Our Relationships the Circle

This month I am on an ancestral pilgrimage to Italy with my father so I am getting creative to bring you something every week. A couple weeks ago my offering for you was a free 7 Day Morning Practice at your own pace video course, last week I offered you a prayer for moments of relationship fear, obsession or disastermind. This week I offer you a guided meditation.

In this meditation you will embark on a profound journey to release feelings of insecurity, unreasonable expectations for yourself and "not enoughness," fear, and anxieties. Expand your consciousness, and transition from focusing on the micro to the macro. As you immerse yourself in the energy of your soul, you will rise above your current state, and transcend beyond the constraints of your rolls, expectations and surroundings. Find inner peace and transform your perspective in this empowering meditation experience.

Give yourself 10 mins to be held, inspired inside of your vision and connect to yourself. I have a reputation for being the best meditation teacher for people who don't like to meditate. I don't invite you into silence, but into vision, into a creation of an inner landscape where you can learn to trust yourself and remember who you are. 

You can find more of my meditations on Insight Timer or my personal mediation App Healspace. 

Learn More About Me @ www.healwithalchemy.com Work with me 1:1 , Join My Mystery School or Retreat with me. 

Find Me on Instagram @soulalchemyhealing 

This month I am on an ancestral pilgrimage to Italy with my father so I am getting creative in order to bring you something every week. Last week my offering for you was a free 7 Day Morning Practice at your own pace video course. Give it a listen for the free promo code. 

This week I am offering you a prayer for moments when you are experiencing obsession and fear inside of your relationships. Whether it be catastrophic thinking, disaster mind, or fight or flight in your body; Ask the Spirit, the univer, God, whoever you connect to- for relief and the courage to come back home to yourself. Make room for your feelings, honor your experience, and soothe the part of you that needs healing, love, and support.

This is a favorite for all of my Insight Timer listeners. 

I hope you will find your breath, inner peace and trust. 

Learn More about me at www.healwithalchemy.com 

Meditate With Me on Insight Timer 

This week I have something special for you. 

We can only go so long on our healing journeys with concepts and conversation. We need rhythm. We need practice. We need to move from head to heart to truly begin to embody the work we are doing. We need tools that helps us feel connected to ourselves in a real and powerful ways. 

In this bonus episode, I'm offering you just that. A way to root deeper into self-love and self-trust. A way to expereince compassionate awareness as a real living thing and not just a concept. A space for daily practice, without pressure or perfection.

As I am traveling this month and can not bring you a full in depth episode this week, I wanted to make sure you had something substantial from me. So give this short episode a listen, head back here, click the link below, and put in the 100% off code. 

On the other side is a gift from me to you — one you can return to again and again. 

Your Free Gift Is HERE 

Your Promo Code is: PODCAST22

You are worth it. Come home to yourself. 

New episodes drop each week! 

And if you'd like to explore this work more deeply in community, join me for my Healing Our Relationships live circle on Zoom on the last Thursday of every month. You'll also find guided meditations, teachings, and resources in my HealSpace app — your sanctuary for coming home to yourself.

Learn more at www.healwithalchemy.com

Email me your story submissions, questions or thoughts at marisa@healwithalchemy.com

Follow me on Instagram at @soulalchemyhealing

Join me in Sedona this November for Awakening Woman Retreat

Codependency can be so confusing. Where does true caring end and self-abandonment begin? How do we know when we've shifted from showing up with love into people-pleasing, controlling, or living for someone else's approval?

In this episode of Healing Our Relationships, I share one of the most direct tools that helped me begin to sort this out: the framework of "Codependency and Recovery — The Differences." Using clear examples, I walk you through these patterns — like in codependency, my good feelings come from you liking me; in recovery, my good feelings come from me liking me — and show how to apply them in real life.

This isn't theory; it's practical guidance you can start using today. As you begin to work with these distinctions, you'll find yourself stepping out of confusion and into greater authenticity, self-trust, and inner peace. Boundaries become clearer. Self-worth grows steadier. And slowly, you return to yourself.

You can find the PDF I am referring to in the episode here: Download PDF

And if you'd like to explore this work more deeply in community, join me for my Healing Our Relationships live circle on Zoom on the last Thursday of every month. You'll also find guided meditations, teachings, and resources in my HealSpace app — your sanctuary for coming home to yourself.

Learn more about me and my offerings at www.healwithalchemy.com

Email me your story submissions, questions or thoughts at marisa@healwithalchemy.com

Follow me on Instagram at @soulalchemyhealing

Follow me on Insight Timer

Join me in Sedona this November for Awakening Woman Retreat. 

In this special conversation, I sit down with Don Miguel Ruiz Jr. — A Toltec Master, author, speaker, teacher, and the son of Don Miguel Ruiz, author of The Four Agreements. Together, we explore the Toltec path and how its wisdom can help us navigate the fears and patterns that shape our relationships. 

Miguel shares powerful insights from his new book, The Poisoned Arrow: The Toltec Guide to Overcoming Fear, on how fear underlies so much of our human experience, and why the key to healthy, happy relationships is not control, shpeshifting, or perfection — but authenticity and unconditional love. We talk about the courage it takes to surrender, to honor both our yes and our no, and to meet others not through fear but through freedom and truth.

This episode is an invitation to pause, reflect, and remember that love rooted in authenticity transforms not only our relationships, but our relationship with ourselves.

By combining the wisdom of his family's traditions with the knowledge gained from his own personal journey, Miguel helps others realize their own path to personal freedom. Meet him on his website www.miguelruizjr.com

Check out his new book in bookstores and online: The Poisoned Arrow: The Toltec Guide to Overcoming Fear

Learn more about me @ www.healwithalchemy.com 

Follow me in instagram @soulalchemyhealing 

Boundaries are one of the most misunderstood aspects of healing and recovery. For some of us, being "boundariless" looks like saying yes when we mean no, letting others decide for us, and living in fear of rejection or disapproval. For others, it looks like building walls, controlling outcomes, or cutting people off entirely as a way to feel safe. Both are forms of disconnection — from ourselves, and from authentic relationship.

Today, we'll explore why so many of us struggle to set boundaries and how this ties back to fear, perfectionism, and old survival strategies. More importantly, we'll talk about why boundaries are not only safe, but necessary. Setting a boundary is one of the most self-honoring acts we can take — it's how we reclaim our authenticity and create space for others to show up authentically too.

You'll discover:

• How being boundariless can look like over-giving or walling off 

• Why guilt, shame, and uncertainty are normal when we start practicing boundaries.

• The difference between boundaries that keep us safe and walls that keep us stuck.

• Tools to practice boundaries as an act of truth and self-worth, rather than control.

• Why taking care of yourself first is not only safe, but sacred — and how doing so creates space for authentic, honest connection with others.

This conversation is a reminder that boundaries are not about shutting life out; they're about letting life in, in a way that feels safe, honoring, and true. When we learn to set them, we reclaim our energy, our relationships, and our place in the world as whole, worthy beings.

And, in order to give you a powerful guidepost for really transforming behaviors that are rooted in self-abandonment, you are getting two episodes this week so you don't have to wait to begin the powerful practice of coming. home to yourself. 

Learn more about me at www.healwithalchemy.com

Follow me on instagram at @soulalchemyhealing 

Join us for free on Zoom on the last Thursday of the month for Healing Our Relationships the Circle

You can't just flip a switch and love yourself after a lifetime of feeling disconnected. For many of us, self-worth was never modeled it was something we had to earn through approval, performance, or meeting someone else's expectations. Over time, our nervous systems adapted to live in survival mode, we lost sense of who we really are and 

But this is not who you are. Beneath the roles you've played and the patterns you've carried is the unshakable truth of your worth.

In this episode of Healing Our Relationships, we'll explore why reclaiming self-worth isn't about pretending, bypassing, or forcing affirmations to land. Instead, it's about coming back into alignment in your mind, body, and spirit recovery and discovering your truth, accepting the truths that already exists. It is about creating space for compassion and care to grow. 

In this episode you will learn three powerful practices you can start using today to move from head to heart and to shift your nervous system out of survival mode, ground into security, and reconnect with yourself in a way that's loving and lasting

This is your reminder: self-worth isn't the starting point. It's the result of choosing truth over fear, moment by moment.

The books mentioned in this podcast are: 

Dr. David Hawkins - Letting Go The Pathway to Surrender 

Don Miguel Ruiz- The Four Agreements 

Learn more about me at www.healwithalchemy.com

Follow me on instagram at @soulalchemyhealing 

Join us on Zoom on the last Thursday of the month for Healing Our Relationships the Circle 

Welcome back to Healing Our Relationships. I'm Marisa, Healer & Transformation Guide. Love avoidance often gets mistaken for independence, but in truth, it's another face of codependency — a strategy to control connection and protect ourselves from pain. In this episode, I'm unpacking three core beliefs that keep love-avoidant patterns alive: I can't trust anyone, If I don't get close, I can't get hurt, and I am not worthy of love.

We'll explore how these beliefs form — often from early abandonment, betrayal, or a deep mistrust of others — and how they quietly dictate the way we choose partners, keep people at arm's length, or test whether they'll chase us. I'll share why walling off isn't the safety net we think it is, but a self-imposed cage that limits intimacy, joy, and real connection.

This conversation is about awareness, compassion, and the courage to take contrary action: to open the gates, to allow closeness without giving up yourself, and to risk being loved for who you truly are. You'll leave with reflection questions and practices to help you step out from behind the walls and into relationships that feel safe because you are safe inside yourself.

Learn more at www.healwithalchemy.com

Email me your story submissions, questions or thoughts at marisa@healwithalchemy.com

Follow me on Instagram at @soulalchemyhealing

Join me in Sedona this November for Awakening Woman Retreat

What a title! We are packing a lot in today. In this episode of Healing Our Relationships, we explore the deep-rooted beliefs that quietly shape compliance patterns—the part of us that abandons our truth to stay safe, to be liked and to avoid loss.

These patterns aren't weakness. They're survival strategies we learned in environments where our voice didn't feel welcome. But they cost us. They cost us authenticity. They cost us self-trust. And over time, they keep us from the very connection we long for-connection to ourselves and others. 

Together, we'll explore four core beliefs that often live beneath compliance behaviors:

If I speak up, I'll be rejected: 

It's the fear that our truth will cost us connection. That we'll be too much. That if we ask for what we need, they'll leave. So we quiet ourselves. We hold back. We sugarcoat. We speak in half-truths. We edit who we are just enough to stay acceptable and keep the peace. 

I'm responsible for how others feel: 

This belief convinces us that other people's discomfort is our fault. We walk on eggshells. We manage their moods. We monitor our every word to prevent someone else's reaction. But the truth is: You are responsible to people—not for them. You can be kind without controlling. You can be honest without caretaking. We learn that it's not loving to protect others from their own feelings—it's enabling. And it's not loving to take on their emotions at the expense of our own.

If I disappoint someone, I'll lose them:

For many of us, this wasn't just a feeling—it was a lived experience. Love was conditional. Approval came when we performed correctly. Safety meant staying agreeable, available, and easy to be around. So we adapted. We became who others needed us to be.We said yes when everything in our body said no. We became masterful at anticipating needs and avoiding conflict. And disappointment felt like danger. But here's what this belief forgets:

Disappointment is not the same as betrayal.
Discomfort is not the same as abandonment.

They'll leave me and find someone better: 

Many of us stay in unhealthy relationships because we believe we're replaceable. That if we walk away, they'll find someone better. That our absence won't even matter. But that belief doesn't come from your soul—it comes from your wounds. The truth is, you are not disposable. You are not interchangeable. But if you stay where you're not seen or valued, you'll start to believe you are.

In this episode:

You'll learn how these beliefs form, how they play out in relationships, and what it means to meet them with compassion rather than shame. I'll offer tools, teachings, reflection questions, and small but powerful practices to help you reclaim your voice and come home to your truth.

This is the path of coming back to yourself—not to please or perform, but to live in alignment with your integrity, even when it's uncomfortable.
Even when it's scary.
Even when it means someone won't approve.

You are worth it. Come home to yourself. 

New episodes drop each week! 

And if you'd like to explore this work more deeply in community, join me for my Healing Our Relationships live circle on Zoom on the last Thursday of every month. You'll also find guided meditations, teachings, and resources in my HealSpace app — your sanctuary for coming home to yourself.

Learn more at www.healwithalchemy.com

Email me your story submissions, questions or thoughts at marisa@healwithalchemy.com

Follow me on Instagram at @soulalchemyhealing

Join me in Sedona this November for Awakening Woman Retreat

Welcome back to Healing Our Relationships. I'm Marisa, Healer & Transformation Guide. In this episode, I'm diving deep into the low self-esteem patterns that so many carry—patterns that whisper, "I'm not enough," "I'm not worthy," "I can't trust myself," and "If I show up fully, I'll be rejected."

These beliefs aren't the truth of who you are. They're stories you learned to survive. And if you're here, I know there's a part of you that's ready to tell a new one.

Together, we'll explore how these patterns show up in relationships—with others and with yourself—and how to begin shifting them with radical self-honesty, compassion, and small but powerful acts of devotion to your own healing.

This conversation isn't just about awareness—it's about action. I'll offer reflection questions, embodied practices, and small but sacred shifts you can make right now to begin loosening their grip.

This isn't about becoming someone else. It's about remembering who you've always been—and having the courage to live from love for yourself instead of fear of others. 

✨ New episodes drop every week.

And if you'd like to explore this work more deeply in community, join me for my Healing Our Relationships live circle on Zoom on the last Thursday of every month. You'll also find guided meditations, teachings, and resources in my HealSpace app — your sanctuary for coming home to yourself.

Learn more at www.healwithalchemy.com

Email me your questions or thoughts at marisa@healwithalchemy.com

Follow me on Instagram at @soulalchemyhealing

Join me in Sedona this November for Awakening Woman Retreat

This is a bonus episode — one I felt called to share because I know how torturous it can feel to be caught in that anxious loop of "Should I stay or should I go?"

And there is a good chance if you are on this journey with me. You may be in a relationship that doesn't feel good. When you're unsure what's yours and what belongs to someone else… the confusion can feel unbearable. The mind obsesses, the body tightens, and the urgency to get clear becomes overwhelming.

But beneath that question, there's something deeper. A river beneath the river. This episode invites you into that deeper current — the one that asks: Do I trust myself? Am I safe to listen to what's true for me? Can I hold the not-knowing with compassion, not panic?

Together, we'll explore:

• Why clarity can't be forced, but must be felt

• How codependency makes it hard to hear your own truth

• A few simple questions to help you tune into whether you're in a codependent pattern

• Practical ways to soothe the nervous system so clarity can emerge

• And a reframe that may help you feel less alone, less crazy, and more at peace in the in-between

If you're struggling in the not-knowing, this episode is for you. You don't need to rush. You don't need to force answers. You just need to stay with yourself.

Join me live on Zoom on the last Thursday of the month. Learn more at www.healwithalchemy.com

Welcome back to Healing Our Relationships. I'm Marisa, Healer & Transformation Guide.

So many of us live trapped inside stories we inherited long ago — stories about who we're supposed to be, what makes us worthy, and how love must be earned.

In this episode of Healing Our Relationships, I explore how these old stories block us from our authentic, divine unfolding — and how remembering who we truly are is the path back to freedom and wholeness.

We'll talk about:

• The invisible agreements we made in childhood

• How codependency keeps us living in old narratives

• The difference between your story and your soul

• Gentle ways to begin rewriting your story and reconnecting to your authentic self

Because your story does not have to be your prison. It can be the doorway back home.

If you're ready to explore the space beyond your old story, I'd love for you to join me.

✨ New episodes drop every week.

And if you'd like to explore this work more deeply in community, join me for my Healing Our Relationships live circle on Zoom on the last Thursday of every month. You'll also find guided meditations, teachings, and resources in my HealSpace app — your sanctuary for coming home to yourself.

Let's keep walking this path together.

Welcome back to Healing Our Relationships. I'm Marisa, Healer & Transformation Guide,

In this episode, I want to go deeper than just naming patterns of codependency.

Because self-abandonment comes at a cost — and until we see that cost clearly, we stay trapped in cycles of survival instead of living the life we're here to live.

Today, I'm exploring the hidden toll that self-abandonment takes on us — emotionally, physically, spiritually, and in our relationships.

In this episode, I'm sharing:

✨ How each emotional struggle — resentment, anxiety, numbness — reveals something sacred we're sacrificing
✨ How our bodies become messengers when we're not living in alignment
✨ The quiet spiritual costs of feeling disconnected from purpose, Spirit, and our own soul
✨ The relational pain of feeling unseen 
✨ A sacred inventory practice to help you gently explore where you might be leaving yourself behind and what it would mean to come home to your authenticity. 

This episode isn't about shame or blame.

It's about remembering that your life is sacred — and you are worth fighting for.

If you're ready to begin choosing yourself, even in small ways, I'd love for you to join me.

✨ New episodes drop every week.

And if you'd like to explore this work more deeply in community, join me for my live Healing Our Relationships circle on Zoom on the last Thursday of every month. You'll also find guided meditations, teachings, and resources in my HealSpace app — your sanctuary for coming home to yourself.

Let's keep walking this path together.

Welcome back to Healing Our Relationships. I'm Marisa, Healer and Transformation Guide. 
One of the biggest questions I hear from people on the journey of codependency recovery is this:

"How do I know if I'm being loving… or if I'm being codependent?"

Because when you're healing from codependency, it can feel confusing to tell the difference between true caring and patterns of people-pleasing, self-abandonment, or over-giving.
In this episode, I'm diving deep into how to recognize when your caring is coming from fear, obligation, or anxiety — versus when it's rooted in genuine love, choice, and self-connection.

I'll talk about:The key differences between codependent behaviors and healthy, interdependent relationships

• Real-life examples of what codependent caring looks like — and how true caring feels different
• A story from my own journey of learning to stay connected to myself while loving others
• Reflection questions to help you explore how these patterns show up in your life

If you've ever wondered whether helping someone else is codependent or simply part of healthy love… this episode is for you.

I want you to know: Caring for others isn't wrong. The question is whether it includes you, too.
Thanks for being here with me. Let's keep walking this journey — together.

Welcome back to Healing Our Relationships. I'm Marisa, Healer and Transformation Guide. 
In our first episode, we talked about noticing the ways we abandon ourselves to feel loved, safe, or chosen.

But awareness alone can leave us wondering… Why do I keep doing this, even when I know better?

In this episode, I want to help you understand why codependency runs so deep.
We'll explore how these patterns don't just live in our minds — they live in our bodies and our nervous systems. I'll share how many of us learned, even as children, that our safety and worth depended on keeping others happy, reading the room, and shape-shifting to avoid conflict or rejection.

I'll talk about:

• How codependency is actually a survival response, not a personality flaw
• Real-life examples of how these patterns begin in childhood
• Clues that your nervous system might still be stuck in old survival modes
• Moments from my own journey of learning to come back to myself

I'll also leave you with reflection questions to help you gently explore where these patterns might still be living in your life and in your body.
This work is not about blaming ourselves for the past — it's about understanding how brilliant and adaptive we were, and how we can now choose something new.
Thanks for being here with me. Let's keep walking this journey — together.

Welcome to the first episode of Healing Our Relationships. I'm Marisa, Healer and Transformation Guide. 

If you've ever felt like you're losing yourself in relationships… like you're constantly saying yes when you mean no, staying silent to avoid conflict, or feeling invisible even with the people you love most… you're not alone.

Today, I want to help you begin to understand what codependency really is.
Not just the clinical definitions — but the deeper truth: that codependency isn't who you are. It's something you learned to do to stay safe.

In this episode, I'm sharing:

• How codependency often begins in childhood and becomes a survival strategy
• The subtle ways we abandon ourselves to avoid rejection or loss
• How these patterns live in our nervous systems and shape our relationships
• A piece of my own journey with codependency
• Reflection questions to help you notice where you might be leaving yourself behind

My hope is that by the end of this conversation, you'll feel a little less alone… and a little more hopeful that there is a path forward.

This work isn't about fixing yourself. It's about remembering who you are beneath the patterns that once kept you safe.

Thanks for being here. Let's begin this journey together.

Welcome to Healing Our Relationships.

I'm Marisa. I'm a Healer and Transformation Guide, and someone who's spent years untangling my own patterns of addictions and codependency — and helping others do the same.

Join me each week on Healing Our Relationships as I guide you through understanding codependency, reconnecting with your authentic self, and creating relationships rooted in truth.

Codependency often sounds clinical, as though it's only a problem for people in chaotic relationships or recovering from addiction. But it's subtler and far more pervasive than that.

Codependency is what happens every time we abandon ourselves to avoid conflict, rejection, or loss.

It's in the way we swallow words that tremble to be spoken.
It's in the quick, polite yes when everything in our body screams no.
It's in the silence we keep because we're afraid of being misunderstood.
It's in the way we dim our own light so someone else won't feel small.

These are not failures. They're survival strategies.
Brilliant adaptations we created to stay safe.

But survival is not the same as living.
And at some point, the strategies that kept us safe become the very cages that keep us disconnected from our truth.

Healing Our Relationships is a space to explore all of this with compassion, curiosity, and courage.

Together, we'll talk about how these patterns show up in real life. We'll learn how to come back to ourselves, even in the middle of messy relationships. And we'll discover practices for building connection that doesn't cost us our own wholeness.

If you've ever felt like you're losing yourself in the name of love… you're not alone. And you don't have to keep living that way.

Join me as we begin the journey — back home to ourselves.