Overcoming Trauma, Divorce AND Loss; INCLUDING self-loss. You don’t have to bear 100% of the guilt and shame. with Special Guest Angie Monko & dedicated to Maddie

Real quick, before we get into the episode, I just want to talk a little bit about Mother's Day. If you haven't listened to our bonus episode from yesterday, we're actually putting out three episodes this week. So yesterday's episode was celebrating Mother's Day and there's a giveaway. So if you haven't listened to that, go back and do that.

But I'm intentionally airing this episode today for those of you who have experienced or are experiencing separation, divorce, or loss. Mother's Day is often, you know, thought of as this happy day to celebrate mom. But for many people, the day actually stirs up loss and sadness. Whether it's loss of a child, loss of your mother, or you're in a strained relationship, or maybe you've divorced, know that you're not alone. Many women are experiencing, you know, this kind of turmoil over, I should be happy because it's Mother's Day, but there's this pain in me that I'm experiencing that it's just really hard for me to put on the facade that I'm all happy because it's Mother's Day. Today, you're going to hear a story of a very brave and courageous woman who is going to share with us, trust me, there's so much more she could have shared.

I mean, it was at times difficult for me to even have the conversation from growing up in an abusive family to marrying, you know, dating her high school teacher at age 15 to who also had, you know, while we're all appalled by that, he also had a past and reasons why he ended up dating a much younger person. person girl at the time really she's going to share that a little bit about those things and also about the loss of a child so although her personal story of divorce is pretty drastic she learned that the negative impact of divorce on young children is very common in fact they have a 25 to 30 percent greater chance of depression anxiety declining grades drug and alcohol abuse, and self-defeating behaviors. The long-term mental and emotional effects of divorce remain with children, often a minimum of two decades and sometimes even for a lifetime.

So after her painful divorce experience, Angie Monco vowed to help as many women and children as possible to avoid what she experienced. And you're going to learn all about that today. And I'm dedicating this episode today to Angie's daughter, Maddie. She was, you're not going to hear all of this. There's some things that I cut out, some things that conversations we got into that were just, believe it or not, when you hear this, it's very personal. And we even cut some other things out of the episode that were even more personal. And so her daughter, Maddie, was definitely with us today during the episode. And I'm just so grateful that Angie, you know, came on the show and shared her story with us and her resource. I mean, she's been doing this coaching and helping women now since 2008. And you guys, you're just going to love her. So we'll get into the episode. And again, happy Mother's Day, whatever that looks like for you,

just know I'm thinking of you and sending lots of love your way. Welcome to the No Problem Parenting Podcast. Turn behavior problems into no problem with Jackie Finneman. Are you ready to become the confident leader your kids crave you to be?

Do you want to learn how to make parenting easier and more fulfilling? Whether you are at your wits end or you want to have more fun as a parent, you're definitely in the right place. Now here's your host, Jackie Fineman. Welcome back to the No Problem Parenting Podcast, where we choose to deal with and overcome the emotional and behavioral challenges within our homes.

Today, I brought a special guest on to talk about divorce and loss and really empowering women to be loving self-advocates after the trauma of divorce or loss so that they can be strong role models for their children. And, you know, with No Problem Parenting, I talk about how we deal with and overcome the behavioral and emotional challenges within our home. And sometimes that's hard for me to say, because I don't want any of us to think that when we're thinking of divorce or loss or trauma, that I'm saying, oh, no problem.

It's not that it's not a problem. It is a problem. But how can we support each other to and empower each other to be able to deal with and overcome and survive and keep going in the midst of tragedy and trauma and grief and loss and all that? So today I brought on a special guest, Angie Monco.

She is the owner of Harmony Harbor Coaching since 2008 and a conscious women's divorce and loss coach. She guides women to heal from divorce, loss of a loved one, and loss of self so they can move forward stronger and happier into the next chapter. Angie created this safe space for women to become loving self-advocates where they honor and respect themselves. Under Angie's guidance in her workshops, retreats, private coaching, and online programs, women become healthy and vital leaders for themselves, their family, friends, and all who they influence.

By healing their heart from past trauma and harmful beliefs about their worthiness and deserving, they are able to advocate for their needs to be met in a healthy way, to feel supportive, and to take actions that align with their heartfelt desires. Angie has certifications in emotional freedom techniques, hypnosis, and the healing codes, and is well-versed in Donna Eden energy medicine. All of these designed to heal the heart and promote healthy habits of thought and action.

Well, that's a lot, I know, but I really wanted to read it all and let everybody know all about you, Angie. Thank you so much for joining me today. Thank you for having me, Jackie. I really connect with you, so it's a pleasure.

Oh, I appreciate that. I just, um, I feel very honored to have your time and to be in your company, your story. Like, I, I think you have three books in you, um, with all that I know that you've been through and endured and have overcome. And so if we could start there before we get into sort of some of the things that people, women especially can do to take care of themselves.

Uh, I really would like you to share your story with the listeners. well 24 years ago I went through my own divorce it was a very very bitter divorce and I gave up my only child a daughter Maddie to my husband I gave him custody of her and it was so devastating to me that it put me on a path to figure out why why I could why I did it how I could have done it and my daughter Maddie, because she's, well, she's very special. She's a pivotal part of my whole story. And, um, I ended up getting time with her. Of course, I didn't see her every weekend.

I saw her every other weekend and I had her on summer visitations and holidays and so forth. She was two years old when I got divorced and it was her dad didn't want the divorce. And so he was very angry and very bitter that I did. Okay. And as a result of that, he talked about me, right. And, and because he was traumatized by the whole thing, my leaving, you know, children pick up on people's energy. And so Maddie picked up on her dad's energy and the anger and the frustration. And she was put in the middle of our bitter love triangle, more or less for a long time, for 11 years. Actually, this went on when she turned 11 years old. So nine years later, she asked to come live with me. And we were extremely close,

just so you know, like I gave custody, but I didn't abandon Maddie, right? I was there for her and probably more so than most because it was, we didn't have that time together all the time, right? So we valued it and was very precious to us. And so, you know, I, I just, I, it was, it meant everything to me to spend that time with her. So when she turned 11, she asked her dad, now she went and asked him, daddy, I want to go live with mommy, you know, and he was very hurt by the request. And so after he found out what she wanted, he sort of take, he took it out on her and over the next couple of years and things got worse. Um, and, and so it was, it just, again, it put her firmly in the middle of things and it wasn't good. Right. And at one point, um,

you know, he, he was verbally emotionally abusive to her and, um, and she had cystic fibrosis on top of this. So she had a physical disease. She was born with cystic fibrosis, which affects the lungs and the digestion, and it's a really debilitating thing. And so if you believe in the mind body connection, then you understand how that would have affected her, right?

How do you come to that decision? I mean, things had to be pretty horrible, pretty rough for you, for you to say, I, I need to go and I have to give him custody or I'm never going to get out of this. Right. Well, just so you know, the relationship, he was 12 years older than me. He had been my high school English teacher. There was an authority, right, that was unconscious for me. I didn't even understand it. And so there was a lot of pain, a lot of healing that needed to occur with both of us.

You know, I mean, he had mommy issues. I had daddy issues. And so there was that pain body, that pain body. And so I felt like I was over giving constantly. You know, I was with him. We dated for seven years. We were married for five.

And during that time, I just felt like I was constantly overgiving, taking over responsibility with our finances, like with everything. And I was commuting over about an hour and a half each way to work. After we had my daughter Maddie, I was in Illinois, I commuted to St. Louis, Missouri, and it just felt like everything was all work and no play.

there was, I believe this, my experience was there was a lot of narcissistic tendencies on his part where he couldn't see that he was responsible for certain things and taking ownership of certain things. And because I always thought I was a nice person, you know, I was a good person. And yet I betrayed myself, Jackie, on so many levels, you know, as far as not listening to what I needed. and like I gave up going to church because every time I'd come home on a Sunday, he'd say, oh, you have that childish dependence on God. And there was always this criticism, right. Of, of me and what I was doing and, you know, friendships I lost. He tried, I remember he tried getting me not to see my mom who I'm very close to. And then I just put my foot down. I'm like, nope, not having it. And I don't like to be controlled. Who does? And so we fought a lot.

We fought because I was, I was trying to claim my sovereignty, you know, like, no, you don't get to tell me that. So there was a lot of conflict, right? A lot of self protection going on. And, and so I got to the point where I'm like, I don't want to do this. I started reading books on religion and spirituality, going within, doing my inner work.

I had a successful job as a CPA controller at a company. And so I was bringing in good money. You know, I, I wasn't reliant on him for that. And so I just, I was starting to fall out of love with him.

The intimacy was going, like, I didn't have an interest. And, um, and so I asked him for a divorce. And, and he, and this was when I was 28, I just turned 28 years old. And he said, when I said I wanted joint custody of our daughter, who wasn't quite two, he said over my dead body, you know, and, and I mean, he didn't say it like that. He was very stern about it.

Like, and I just thought, oh my God, like, I can't fight him. That's what it felt like. I can't fight him because he's so strongly positioned, you know? And so, um, I didn't want to give him custody of her, but he convinced me. I mean, I, I really feel kind of stupid how I was so gullible, but he absolutely convinced me that he wants me to have a relationship with Maddie that he, you know, he, he really stressed how much that that was important to him, that he wanted her to have a relationship with her mother and that he would do everything to facilitate that.

I even let him hire an attorney to represent him, not me. So we had a one-sided agreement and, um, yeah, I, I was totally not in my right mind, you know? Yeah. It's, it's amazing when you are trapped right in your that um the desk levels of or the desperation that you go through to just survive and in your story that meant giving up your daughter in essence i mean you still you didn't i mean he got full custody right he was the uh main legal and custodial parent and I had visitation rights and I paid child support and all that. Yeah.

It's just, I'm happy that I'm hearing your story because I think so often it's the reverse. It's the, the mother that gets custody of the children. And this is, so this, there are moms out there that have went through the same thing. So thank you for sharing, for sharing this. So clearly you have personal experience in going through divorce. And that obviously is, is why you're so passionate about helping women. So your daughter's 11 and she asked to come live with you. And did dad allow that? No, absolutely not. Again, one of those over my dead body things, you know, like absolutely not was the answer. And so what I did was I taught Maddie how to do emotional freedom technique.

I taught her how to visualize and I thought we're going to do this in an energetic way and I was doing the same thing so we were both visualizing her coming to live here having her you know she had a room anyway but but to have her lying in bed and just you know we just visualized this and so and we tapped on fears and you know that we had around why this couldn't happen and and all of that. And so it did take about a year and a half of doing this. And then I started working with a woman who we were actually exchanging. And I learned I was helping her with EFT and tapping and all of that. And then I learned that she was a guardian med litem. And I didn't know that when we started working together, but she was asking me questions about things. And she said, well,

you don't seem like you're too focused on the business. What's stopping you from focusing on building your business. And I said, my daughter, Maddie, like I said, it's getting in the way because that's my main priority. Like I want her to live with me. So this little angel started teaching me how to advocate for my daughter. And so I started a conversation with my ex saying, you know, Maddie has expressed, she wants to come live with me. She, but by this time she was, she just turned 13 years old. And I said, she is what she wants. I didn't create that desire.

It's what she wants. It's normal for girls to want to be with their mothers at this age. And so anyway, I started advocating for her through an email because I can articulate and so can he. But when we speak like we kind of we can't keep our calm sometimes.

When that woman was advocating for us, he actually agreed to sit down with. So I had remarried my husband, Steve. He had remarried a woman. and so he remarried a year after we divorced by the way it had a couple of sons and so we were getting ready to sit down and have a discussion about Maddie and possibly moving in with me and Steve and the day we were supposed to move in and I don't have to go into this detail there right his youngest son was diagnosed with leukemia I kid you not I mean it was just like are you kidding me? Um, the five-year-old son is so obviously rescheduled. And at that point he was no longer interested. He was in fear mode. Right. So, um, so then I hired an attorney.

Now I didn't, I gave it time. Like I had compassion, but I'm like now more than ever, my daughter needs me because he's so immersed in this with his son. And so I ended up because when I asked him to reschedule, he said, absolutely not. Nope. He changed his mind and that kind of thing. So I thought, okay, well, I have to take the next step. So I had an attorney and, um, and so we never went to court because he ended up saying, okay, I can't fight you and Maddie. I cannot fight you and Maddie. And so he let her move in with me. So this was just after a few months of working with his guardian, Medlitum. And so in July of 2009, Maddie moved in with us, with me and my husband, Steve, and Steve had a daughter, Chelsea, and that Chelsea and Maddie were best friends. And so, you know, since they were two and three years old. And so Maddie moved in with us and it was wonderful. We were so excited. And then the guilt set in,

the guilt for Maddie set in because her dad was saying, Maddie, you're so selfish. How can you leave your family, you know? So there was a lot of manipulation and, you know, she was confused, right? She had issues. Mom had left and now her dad was, he didn't have any interest in coming to pick her up at our house because for 11 years I did that, right? Commuted back and forth.

And, but he had no interest in that. And so, yeah, that, that was really hard to watch her feel, you know, so guilty and to take that on with her cystic fibrosis, you know, and when she turned 15, she started going to the hospital. That was the first time she went to the hospital when she was 15 years old with cystic fibrosis exacerbation. And by the way, when she was 14, um, about a year later, her dad and her family moved cross country to Pennsylvania. They, and she felt abandoned again. Right. And so the, the, the love was very conditional for her with, um, from her dad.

And, and I'm not saying I'm perfect by any means. No, right. Right. Don't get me wrong. Like I made mistakes. I should have never, ever given him custody. Like why, you know, why would I think that he'd treat her better than he treated me? Again, it's the effects on the kids too, but how resilient is your daughter? Yeah. And I think there's a really important message in that as well, because I think a lot of parents are, are worried about their kids and, um, and, and how you go through that. Got to know the end of the story, right? So this will make sense to you.

Why? Okay. I mean, what I am. So, um, she started going into the hospital more frequently and, uh, after she was 15, IV antibiotics are really hard on the gut, you know? And so that's why it lowers your immune system, which, so she started getting more exacerbations when she was, so she'd go in the hospital about once a year, you know, get these IV antibiotics and because of the cystic fibrosis. And, and so over time it started increasing to a couple of times a year.

And, um, and so in 2018, her CF was getting worse. And, um, so long story short in October of 18, we lost her October 26th, 2018. And he was supposed to come and see her in August, but he canceled and, uh, he was going to come see her because she didn't feel well enough to go to him, you know, and, and rescheduled for October. And by then she was gone. We did a prayer circle for her to try to, you know, help her, you know, and, and, and what happened, Jackie, is it transitioned her faster. Like this prayer circle, you know, we were saying, we see your lungs as healthy and you're digesting good and all this stuff. And she loved it. And, but it transitioned her into another realm. And, and so now she's my Maddie angel. I'm serious. Like, absolutely. Um, and that's how I can be strong because I have that relationship with her. And even though she's not here in physical form, she's truly still here with me. Absolutely. She's here right now. Like I,

I called her today. So absolutely. I got goosebumps on my arms. She was 22.

Oh man. That just touches my heart. You guys, that's, you have so much. And then how long since she's has, since she's passed, have, have you, did you start your company or all of this?

Oh, well, I started my business in 2008. Okay. My coaching business. Oh, you did women.

Yeah. To empower women. Okay. This focus of working with divorce has been the last couple of years and really getting clear that, you know, I want to help women keep the kids out of the middle.

But even if they're women not with kids, like I want to help women advocate for themselves. It's called a loving self-advocate. It's what I call it. And, you know, to not betray themselves when they're going through this, to feel that self-worth and ask for the rightful share of custody and assets.

and and and my ex when maddie was on um she went to respiratory failure on a tuesday i'm sorry i didn't expect to get emotional but on friday um we took her off life support and rod my ex asked me um to forgive him oh for putting us for turning to he didn't want maddie to love steve oh but she did and um but that was hard because you know we thought he's suffering he's suffering because of what he did to maddie you know yeah and so we basically said yes we forgive you it took her death for him to see it right wow and i wanted that relationship i wanted that for Maddie, for her to see. But in fact, he just doesn't accept me as I am. Everything's my fault.

And, and, and, and I think it will always be that way. Yeah. So, and I don't want to add pain to his heart, but right. I, it's not, he's not your responsibility either. He's not my responsibility.

Right. I'm so thankful that you are sharing your story and for your coaching. And, and I mean, because this, this is the, there's so many women that are just, you know, people know they're not the only one. Right. But at the same time, we're not a lot of times we're talking in general terms when we talk about divorce and, you know, our stories we share, we're sharing surface stuff.

And so we're sharing the, you know, the arguing back and forth or the, you know, you can't get along with them or the dad's narcissist or mom's crazy, or, you know, like we're putting these generalizations on all of it and not really talking about the, the actual story, the actual things and how you've been able to continue to do this. And just, um, with her literally on your shoulders, I see her on your shoulders, like, okay, mom. Right. Right. Yeah. Um, we're still team. We were always a great team, you know? Yeah. Oh, part of my heart is with you. That is for sure.

I, uh, and I can see why you would initially have, have talked about grief and loss or, I mean, divorce and loss. Right. Exactly. That makes a lot of sense.

This is, this is my story. This is why I'm passionate to help women empower themselves to stay out of the self-betrayal, you know, that often goes along with divorce when we self-betray and when we self-betray, it hurts everyone around us. It hurts our children. You know, I would have never given him custody had I felt whole or complete. Right.

So I help other women do the same thing to become loving self-advocates. And I want to bring the women in at the divorce. Yeah. And then if they have lost grief is in divorce too. Right. Right. Absolutely. And because they've tried for years, they need to grieve their divorce. Right. And so for my group purposes, I focus on the divorce, but privately I do coach people going through loss and grief and loss of self. I mean, that's big.

What do you think the biggest reason is that women aren't able to set those healthy boundaries? And then how can they start to do that? Like if you knew then what you knew, what you know now, what would you, what would you say is the biggest reason you find that women aren't able to set those healthy boundaries? That's a great question. I think it's because when we're younger, we have this foundation built through a trauma, some sort of trauma. You know, my dad and watching my dad be abusive to my own mom. And also I lost my aunt Elaine when she was six years old and she was like my best friend and we were born on the same day. I mean, that was a trauma of, I didn't talk about that, but it was a trauma of abandonment. Okay. And so I learned that love is conditional. Like we can't trust our own, our own intuition. We can't trust ourselves. And so I believe that that wounding starts usually when we're quite young. Now, not always, but pretty much like when we're up till age seven, eight years old, before our ego mind, our conscious minds created,

we create we have that wounding that story within us that tells us that we are not enough we are not worthy and so that to me is a setup for a broken heart along the way the other shoe's going to drop I need to control things I need to I need to manage things and and so we hold on tightly to the reins of life and I think that that's that's how it gets started and then it becomes a snowball effect. We have to heal the heart. We have to start changing some of the more core belief systems that tell us that we're not good enough. Because if we don't feel that we are worthy of taking care of ourselves, well, guess what? We're not going to do it. We're not going to eat right. We're not going to get exercise, not sleep. So, and we're also not going to want to do a self-care routine, which is foundational for me, self-care. And we're not going to want to do that. So we still have to start with one of the belief systems that, that is the most damaging, you know, and, and there's a lot of little tentacles below the belief of I'm not enough. You know, that's, that's a big one, but underneath that, there are stories that we tell ourselves why we're not good enough. Right. So we take one story at a time and we chip away at that.

And we, I use those energy techniques because I believe energy we're all made of energy is the most advanced form of healing there is when we work with our energy. We don't work with symptoms. We work with the energies through EFT and so forth. Okay. And start to rewire how we think. So EFT is, it's like a form of acupuncture without needles. So it's really acupressure.

So if you're familiar with acupuncture, it really is designed to get your energy flowing again. okay so what's that mean flowing energy well when we have experienced a trauma our energy gets disrupted or stopped in a particular area of our body so when we stimulate these we call them energy meridians around the body they're like rivers of energy that go up and down the body when you stimulate the beginning points of that river of energy it gets your energy flowing. When your energy is disrupted, you feel negative emotion. So like fear and shame and guilt and jealousy and anger. So when your energy is disrupted, that's what you have. You have negative feelings. Okay. But when you start working with your meridians and you, you really hone in on where did this trauma start, you know, and then you start tapping and doing the acupressure points,

then it gets that energy flowing again. And you can change belief systems this way, habits this way. You can calm the nervous system and take you out of fight or flight or freeze, which is a trauma response. It's in the body and our body has a cellular memory.

So we have to work with the body. We have to get in there and reconnect with our body. I love it a lot of times we think it's all in what we say and what we do that it's just talk you know we need to go to therapy and talk out our feelings and work through the trauma which sometimes that works and sometimes that's right but it's more than that and you really are working energetically with your clients awesome and you have on your website I'm going to have all your links in the show notes, you have an event coming up on May 10th. So probably about just a little less than a week from when this episode is airing. And I'll put a link in there. Once you talk a little bit about this event, three secrets to survive the stress of divorce. Yes. Helping women reclaim their whole selves. And this is just, it's a zoom event. So it's online and it's free about an hour and a half. And, you know, here I'm going to teach EFT. So we're actually going, I'm going to show them how to do emotional freedom techniques, also called meridian tapping.

People hear it often referred to as tapping nowadays, more than anything, tapping with the fingertips. You tap on these acupressure points along the body called meridians, and that gets the energy flowing again. But a lot of it is how you talk about it. You know, what the words that you use. And so I'm really, really, really good at that. And really sensing into what's really going on with somebody, not the words necessarily, but the underlying energy, the core patterns.

And, and that's where I can come in and I can just, I, if they allow me to, right, I got to get permission, but into their energy to figure out what's really going on underneath the surface and then to start to clear that out. I think that if we can see beyond the current pain that we're feeling and really know that there's so much more to this experience of life than just what we see in front of our faces, you know? Absolutely. Pay attention to the signs around you because they're there, right? Yeah. And that we can connect with those other ones. We still have a relationship with them. We still have a relationship. And to me, in some ways, our relationship is even better now. It's very strange. Yeah. Well, it's hard to explain if you haven't actually experienced it, right? I'm sure other mothers out there who have lost children know exactly what you mean. Right. To grieve, to allow ourselves to grieve is the other thing. To not hold it in or stuff it down or think that we have to be strong and all held together.

like we don't we're human it hurts and to talk to people about the one you've lost or you know and and just express it and cry like I I literally gave myself the opportunity to cry every day listen to music and you know if I if I feel self-protected like I don't want to cry but I know it feels terrible it's like we're stuffing down emotions that we don't want to stuff down. And so allow ourselves to express. That's really key. So we're not harboring it in our body and keeping it stuck in there. Right. We're setting that free. Oh, I love it. Well, thank you again so much for being with us today. I really appreciate the connection to and the resource that I have in you. So thank you. I appreciate it. I'm just gonna, I'm gonna pray to your Maddie tonight. Thank you. My heart goes out to you parents that have lost kids because It's just unimaginable.

Thank you. Thank you, Jackie. This was great. Thank you for tuning in to the No Problem Parenting podcast.

Join Jackie next time for more tips, tools, and resources that will help you become the confident leader your kids crave you to be. Who do you know that we could support on their parenting journey? Like this podcast, subscribe, share, or leave a review of the show. Your support of the No Problem Parenting podcast pays it forward and helps us help more families.

Thank you.