Rebuilding Self-Worth After Heartbreak with Dr Stephen Edwards

Have you ever given so much of yourself to a relationship that somewhere along the way, you lost sight of who you were?  Maybe you've experienced heartbreak, betrayal, divorce, or the painful realization that a relationship you hoped would last simply wasn't healthy for you. When relationships end, the loss often goes far beyond the relationship itself. Sometimes we lose confidence. Sometimes we lose trust. And sometimes we lose a piece of our identity. But what if heartbreak could become a doorway to healing, self-discovery, and a stronger version of yourself? 

Today on Call It in With Dar, I'm joined by Dr. Stephen Paul Edwards, an international speaker, coach, counselor, and transformational guide with more than two decades of experience helping people break free from the patterns that keep them stuck. Holding a PhD in Spiritual Counselling, Dr. Stephen combines professional expertise with hard-earned personal wisdom. His own journey has included childhood trauma, mental health struggles, multiple divorces, profound heartbreak, and the courageous work of rebuilding his life from the inside out. 

In this deeply honest conversation, Stephen shares how one particularly toxic relationship became a catalyst for extraordinary personal growth. He reveals the lessons he learned about self-worth, boundaries, vulnerability, and reclaiming his identity after years of looking outside himself for validation. We’ll explore why so many of our relationship patterns begin in childhood, how unresolved wounds can influence the partners we choose, and what it takes to stop repeating the same painful cycles. Most importantly, Stephen reminds us that healing isn't about becoming someone new—it's about coming home to who we've always been beneath the hurt. 

If you've ever questioned your worth after a difficult relationship, struggled to trust yourself again, or wondered whether it's possible to rebuild after a heartbreak, this conversation will offer hope, insight, and practical tools for moving forward. So grab a cup of tea, settle in, and join us for this powerful conversation on Rebuilding Self-Worth After Heartbreak. 

Transcript

Have you ever given so much of yourself to a relationship that somewhere along the way, you lost sight of who you were?  Maybe you've experienced heartbreak, betrayal, divorce, or the painful realization that a relationship you hoped would last simply wasn't healthy for you.When relationships end, the loss often goes far beyond the relationship itself. Sometimes we lose confidence. Sometimes we lose trust. And sometimes we lose a piece of our identity.But what if heartbreak could become a doorway to healing, self-discovery, and a stronger version of yourself?Today on Call It in With Dar, I'm joined by Dr. Stephen Paul Edwards, an international speaker, coach, counselor, and transformational guide with more than two decades of experience helping people break free from the patterns that keep them stuck.Holding a PhD in Spiritual Counselling, Dr. Stephen combines professional expertise with hard-earned personal wisdom. His own journey has included childhood trauma, mental health struggles, multiple divorces, profound heartbreak, and the courageous work of rebuilding his life from the inside out.In this deeply honest conversation, Stephen shares how one particularly toxic relationship became a catalyst for extraordinary personal growth. He reveals the lessons he learned about self-worth, boundaries, vulnerability, and reclaiming his identity after years of looking outside himself for validation.We'll explore why so many of our relationship patterns begin in childhood, how unresolved wounds can influence the partners we choose, and what it takes to stop repeating the same painful cycles.Most importantly, Stephen reminds us that healing isn't about becoming someone new—it's about coming home to who we've always been beneath the hurt.If you've ever questioned your worth after a difficult relationship, struggled to trust yourself again, or wondered whether it's possible to rebuild after a heartbreak, this conversation will offer hope, insight, and practical tools for moving forward.So grab a cup of tea, settle in, and 

join us for this powerful conversation on Rebuilding Self-Worth After Heartbreak.Welcome to Call It in With Dar, let’s call it in Dr. Stephen

Speaker Dar 

Welcome in, Stephen. I am excited for today's talk about rebuilding self-worth after heartbreak, but before we dive in, please tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got to this point, do alright, 

Speaker Stephen  

darling. Well, thank you very much for having me. I'm excited too. We're gonna have a great conversation. I listened to one of your earlier podcasts, so I got a good sense of, you know, what you're up to and your audience. So, I think we're gonna have fun, and it's gonna be entertaining. Alright, so my background.. well, it's, you know, where do you want me to start? You know, background.. grew up in England as a child, which most people do to grow up, right? So I grew up in England, pretty traumatic childhood, as we all did, right? Usually, most people had some kind of trauma in their childhood, but they just didn't know that everybody else did too, right? Everybody thinks as we're growing up with the only one, right? Because it's not like in the playground you start talking to each other, so you have any trauma, you're having a difficult 

time, we don't do that. So anyway, it was a very controlling environment, felt like I was having to walk on glass when I was in my home, and so all I wanted to do was get away from that environment, so I wanted to run away from home, which I did eight times, but I got caught each time, and rubber brought me back until eventually I got away. I went through some mental trauma, I had, I was, I was put in a mental asylum when I was 16, diagnosed as manic depressive, or what would they recall that today, bipolar, and given electric convulsive therapy, and that became, you know, part of my issue with self-esteem. First of all, in an environment where I wasn't made to feel safe, I wasn't felt loved, and then I go into a mental asylum to kind of compound the issue, as it were, right? And then I get this electroconvulsive therapy, so all these things don't exactly help to build a strong self-esteem, obviously. And so I went through life not feeling great about myself and looking for love in all the wrong places, and then, which got me in some serious trouble at different times, which also were very transformational. When I was 30, just before I was 30, I came to live in America and decided to put all that behind me, have a live a healthy lifestyle, and I'm doing this really very, very Reader's Digest, right, very surface, but then I got to, I said about, I went to see Tony Robbins live, and then I set about going to work with him, which I did, which was incredibly transformational, obviously, spending three years working with him, then I decided to put my focus on more spiritual teachings, because through Tony I got to meet Deepak Chopra, Wayne Dyer, James Redfield, Neil Donald, you name it, right, and so I got very engrossed in their teachings, and then started my own mind, body, and spirit events, and people would ask me after the event, you know, this event was incredibly transformational. Can you be my coach? Well, you need to have a licensure to do that. And so I didn't want to become a psychologist, A, it's not my thing, and B, it takes seven years. So then from my spiritual friends, I found out you could become a spiritual counselor, you get a PhD in that, so I did that. Took about three and a half years, and then I got into investing in real estate and other real estate investment vehicles. Became very successful at that, did very well financially, but I was traveling, you know, almost every day I was going somewhere. My events were three days, I would spend two days traveling, three days doing the event, and the rest trying to recuperate to do it again. So I was very intensely focused. I'm a very intense person, so when I decide I want to do something, or I'm passionate about it, I throw myself into it, and that had been the pattern in my life. I had always built everything up, got exhausted, and then just collapsed it, and then reinvented myself again, and I'd done that many, many times. So, and then in the when, when my, when I would crash it and burn it, that's when I would become reflective and really learn some powerful teachings about what I did. 

Speaker Stephen 

I had a lot of very spiritual openings, awakenings along that journey, which obviously was amazing. And then I found myself in a situation when I started this book with me going through my four. Divorce, so that tells you a lot about my focus and my intensity. It was not on my marriage, it was on my career. So, anyway, so now I'm in a situation where I'm exhausted, I'm burned out again, and I'm going through my fourth divorce, and in steps this incredible woman, Tomas, and that was the beginning of an amazing time in my life, but also in a very toxic relationship, and of course, toxic relationships, like everything in life, don't happen to you, they happen for you to give you the tools and give you the experiences and reflect you back at you, so you can do the healing, and that's what happened. So my self-esteem has been recreated through the healing of going through that toxic relationship by seeing myself reflected back at me by finally taking the time to reflect back on that, take the lessons and apply them in my life, and change my life forever. So, that was what I call, and you've heard of this doll of the dark night of the soul. It wasn't the first time I'd been through the dark night of the soul, but it was the most powerful. So, even working with luminaries like Tony Robbins and all these other people, you know, Robert Kiyosaki, and meeting all those other luminaries earlier on, they taught me a lot, a lot of wisdom, but there was that, that was nothing compared to what I learned from this relationship. So, the whole point of writing the book is to say, you know, even though I'd been through 20 years of spiritual counseling, 25 years of personal development. It doesn't mean anything. We're all human, even your counselor, your therapist has issues, right? In fact, I was on a podcast recently, it's called The Secret Lives of Therapists. You know that all of us are going through stuff, and need to heal. No matter how much you've healed already, there's still more. But I wanted people to realize that we're all going through it. You're not alone, that you know when you go through situations like this, circumstances like this, toxic relationships, you can feel alone because nobody can understand, right? So, what I do is bring understanding to people to help them realize there's nothing wrong with them, you know. People think they have relationship problems, and they don't. They simply have pattern problems, patterns of behavior, patterns of thought, patterns of language that they probably learned when they were very young, usually in their childhood. There's a famous pastor that once said, "Give me your son until he's seven years old, and I will show you the man. So, all of our patterns are created very early in life, and then, as we go through life, we try and build walls around ourselves to protect us, but they don't protect you, they isolate you, they make you feel alone, they cause you to live life, half a life, and not life to the full potential, because you're not owning and using all of your gifts, and only by putting yourself in places like this, where you learn how to be vulnerable, you learn how to let all that go, let it out, say it out loud, and, and realize that it's not anything to be ashamed of, right. You have nothing to be ashamed of, and that once you let that out, it gives you a freedom that you simply cannot get any other way. And so that's what Tamas, the star of the book, the woman I was in this incredible relationship with, taught me. She gave me a freedom I'd never had before to just be vulnerable, to let it out, to be my authentic self, because she was right, and then be able to take the lessons, like learning how to not give yourself away, not lose your identity, to set boundaries and focus on what you want, let them focus on what they want, and you can have a relationship that's healthy and helps you grow. Alright, so that was the opening, maybe a little bit long there. I don't know, Tala, what do you think? 

Speaker Dar 

Oh, wow. Thank you, thank you, thank you for being authentic, vulnerable, and letting all of us know that we're not inall alone in this. I especially appreciate when you say that these toxic relationships are for you. In reflection, I found in my life, too, it's, it's in the reflection, it's in the breakup, it's in the heartbreak that you learn your lesson. In my opinion, 

Speaker Stephen 

I agree, I agree, you're absolutely right. 

Speaker Dar 

So, let's dive into that subject of rebuilding self-worth after heartbreak. You definitely. I sound like you know this story. 

Speaker Stephen 

Yeah, I do. Yeah, you know, and I like.. I didn't, you know, I wrote the book, not because I.. because I had it all together, I wrote the book because I experienced it, right? I lived it, right? And I think that adds another dimension, you know, when you're.. you know, helping people is great, and it can be very fulfilling, but it can also be very time consuming, and you know, for me it was taking all my time. So, what wasn't I doing? I wasn't necessarily focused on my own, right? And so, like I said, the universe, God, whatever you want to call that force, that energy said, okay, enough. Stop. I'm going to stop you. You will have no choice, and I'm going to put this in front of you, and you will have no choice but to look at this, because it's you. This is you, and these are what you, these are the things that you want to heal, because I remember, you know, when I was telling you at the beginning, Dola, when I was a kid, all I wanted to do was run away from home. Now, what I didn't realize once I left home, because I kept running. I've lived all over the world, right, but wherever you go, there you are. So, I wasn't really running away from a physical home, I was running away from my home, which is me, right, because I was too afraid to turn around and look back, because that's where the pain was, right, so I use this analogy when I, when I lived at home, there was a across the street from where we lived, there was a dog that lived at right, and every so often this dog would take off and chase a car. Now, obviously, it never caught the car, right, but it would just chase cars anyway. One day, it's chasing a car, and for whatever reason, the car stopped, so the dog ran into the back of the car full force, right, and so it squealed and it whimpered, and it began running in the opposite direction, and you go, what's it running for? Because it was running from the pain. The dog thought that if it ran fast enough, it could run away from the pain, and so that was me, you know. It was an analogy for me, just running away from the pain until I.. and I didn't know this consciously. It's not like I'm going to all these different places and traveling all these different places, and I'm going.. yeah, I'm running away from pain. I wasn't aware of it, but it was just a reaction, like the dog didn't know it was running away from its pain, it just knew it had to run right. So, anyway, so only by turning around and looking at that could the healing really begin, right. And so when I was going through this fourth divorce, fourth divorce, which sounds crazy, right? I sometimes say to people, listen, I don't know if four is the world record, but I'm well on my way, anyway. What happened, you know? For each of these divorces, I never got married to get divorced, right? But each time I did that, that was another implosion, right? It was another complete implosion of my life, another time for healing, and another time to learn things. So, anyway, I'm going through my fourth divorce, but usually what happens when those things happen, you're totally depleted. I was burned out from running all over the earth, doing all these things, right, focused on everybody else but me, which is kind of, you know, that's a nice thing to do, but it doesn't really help. Anyway, so everything had imploded again, I was exhausted, and that's when you're at your weakest, and that's when God can do the most work with you, right? Because you got no more defenses, it's like the walls are going to come down, and then I no longer want to do what I've been doing. I need something different, or I think I do, because I'm so tired of it. I'm not excited about traveling anymore, and I'm not excited about getting on that plane. I'm not as excited to be speaking to people as I was, and so there was a void right in my life. 

I'd gone through a lot of healing, and my friend said, who's in the book a lot, he says, "Well, you know, you need to get out, you're going to get out, you're going to start living your life, and he said, "You know, why don't you start dating again? And I go dating. Are you crazy? First of all, I haven't dated in God knows how long. Second of all, I'm on the road, I'm traveling all the time. So, anyway, he convinced me out to go on this website, and I meet - that's where I meet, right? I 

meet Tomaz, and so I'm obviously giving a Reader's Digest version of this book. I start communicating with, I'm just like, I almost fell in love with her instantly, right. And I don't know if you're familiar with Young and Carl Young psychology, but he's amazing, and he was the one that explained to me that this is how it happens. You get drawn into something so powerfully that you think this is the right person. Oh my god, thank you for bringing this. Person, she's perfect, he's perfect, whatever. And then, as you go along, you realize that maybe that isn't the case, and then you start saying to yourself, God, how could you be so cruel to bring someone into my life that seems so perfect and make the relationship impossible? Because that was the whole point, right? So, anyway, when I'm talking to her on this website, I'm trying to get a date with her, right, and so the best thing I could get initially is to go for coffee, right. I'm like, that's pretty weak, right. So then I get a degree to go on a date with me, and I go to all extremes for this date, as it explains in the book, it's insane, right. But I wanted to make sure initially that I tied it down, that she didn't cancel with me again, right. So, as I'm texting backwards and forwards with her, I said, "By the way, you know Friday's all set, it's going to be amazing, but what's your favorite flower? To which she said, "Bird of paradise. So, you know I got a sense of humor, as you see in the book, and so I always like to play around, and I go, I go mine too. It's a bit expensive, though. So, what's your second favorite? I mean, who asked that, right? Who would say that to somebody? And she immediately came back, Venus flytrap, and so that intuition, right, that we all have sometimes we don't listen to or say. I just felt it, right? I felt it, and I felt that ominous feeling, and I knew that she was this bird of paradise on the outside, but on the inside she's the Venus flytrap. Now, from that second I knew that she was dangerous, right? No question, right? But at that point I'm like, yeah, she's dangerous, but that could be fun too, right? Which it was to some degree right, but my point is people tell us who they are within the first few minutes of us meeting them, and then we make a choice: do we continue on that journey, or do we say I'm not, I'm not looking for danger right now, and so I'm going to sidestep this, you know, like saying that song, not every ship you come across is one you have to take, but I decided to take that ship, and throughout all these outrageous circumstances, I was constantly checking in, you know, do you want to go back to your life, or this is relatively boring, or do you want to continue experiencing this outrageous, crazy, adventurous, beautiful woman in this relationship, and you know when you're in that kind of a relationship, you're going to continue to do it because you're getting something out of it until you're not anymore, and that's when you're ready to make a change. So the healing process, right, to get back to your question, starts after the aftermath, right, and it's not overnight. It takes time to heal from something like this, right? 

Number one, because I did fall in love with her, for sure, right? I didn't want to let her go, but I knew I had to, and kind of a choice was kind of taken out of my hands, which you discover in the book, but still I had to let her go, and that's not easy. It's painful, right? So it takes time to heal from all of that, all of it. I mean, there was just so much to go. We went through in a relatively short space of time, and so my journey was, you usually are losing yourself in those relationships in some way, shape or form. You make them a priority, and you do not, so you start not doing some of the things that make you who you are. This is common, right? This is part of being in a toxic relationship. There's usually a giver and a receiver. The giver can never give enough, and the receiver can never get enough, right? So, you both just burn each other out. So, the first thing that I had to do was to regain my identity, right now, not the same identity, because the person I was is dead, they're no longer here, right. So, you have to grieve the loss of that, and you have to embrace the new identity that you're going to create, but the foundation of who you are are the foundational things you do that you've not been doing because of this person, and you've been sacrificing those things, like you know, for me it was waking up every morning very early, meditating, then going to work out, then coming back and having a very healthy juice, and so on and so forth, the preparations that I did, the foundational things in my life, so you get back to those things, that's what I had to do to begin with, right. And then slowly go from there, and then there comes a point, no set amount of time, where it's time for you to reflect, right. And I'd never really done that before to this degree, Dola. So I spent three years not being in a relationship. My own, and writing these, there's three books in this series, right, writing these three books, which were extremely cathartic, and that allowed me to begin the deep down spiritual, mental, physical, and emotional healing that this relationship provided the opportunity for me to do so. Does that? 

Speaker Dar 

I love how authentic and vulnerable you let yourself be, and three books worth, plus, yeah, plus showing up for these interviews. 

Speaker Stephen  

It gets worse, Dar I promise you, it gets worse. Some stuff that I did was, I mean, people are reading the book, and they're saying to me, How the hell did you let that happen? Why did you stay? You know, how can someone with all this knowledge, all these years of spiritual counseling, spiritual development, going to all these spiritual counselors and these powerful spiritual events, and you know processes you went through working with Tony Robbins and knowing all this. How could you let that happen? And I go, I ask myself that question all the time, right? But sometimes you have to forget in order to have experiences, and you use the analogy. Listen, in our normal natural state, we are fully enlightened. There's nothing that we don't know, but in order to come into this experience, a human experience, we have to forget all that. Otherwise, how could you have an experience, right? So you know, I got into this because I forgot everything, right? Everything went out the window, and she just became the focus of my life, and then my addiction, Dola, right, because I was prepared to give everything up for her, right? And that's another thing, you know, when you're in a toxic relationship and if you're prepared to give up everything for that person, that's not healthy, right? That's not a good thing, right. So you gotta realize that you're in an addiction, and that you have to face that reality. And you know, I tell people in the book, she became my heroine, right, and I don't mean my hero, female hero, I mean heroin, right, that I became addicted to her nectar, if you want to call it that, from the Venus flytrap, and so in the end I had to extrapolate myself from that, but you know, getting up any addiction is not easy, especially in the beginning, right, you have withdrawal symptoms, right, and if you don't fill that void that they have filled. You're going to keep going back, and I did keep going back for quite a long time, right, until I didn't, and then I didn't anymore, because I began to love myself first, right. So that's you all, everybody's heard that phrase, right? How do you love yourself? You walk down the road kissing your hand. What do you do? Well, you just mean I'm going to put myself first. You know what's important to me. Where am I seeing that I'm not doing what I need? You know, I use the analogy of, if you're in an airplane and you're, you know, the oxygen goes out and the masks come down, whose mask do you put on first? You don't walk around the airplane going, "Hey, do you need a mask? You put yours on, right? You've got to take care of yourself first, and you know my tendency is to put myself last. There it was, right? Why? Well, because I've learned all these things, and you know this person doesn't know that, and so, yes, they're, you know, pushing over my boundaries, but I'm going to let that happen, and I would make excuses to allow that to happen, instead of standing in my own power, setting a boundary, and say, listen, yes, I'd be happy to talk about you this with you, but I can't right now, and being able to step aside, instead of saying, well, you know, I really shouldn't be doing this right now, but I'm going to give them this time because they need it right, without thinking that sometimes I need some time that I need to regenerate, rejuvenate, and so I'm respecting them, but not respecting myself, right? So these are the kind of things that you become aware of, that everything is a reflection of you. Everything is a relationship, and how you are in that relationship is how you're going to be in every relationship. If you keep giving yourself away, then people will take, right? People will take it. Oh, thank you. Without necessarily realizing or appreciating how much you're giving up, so I just went on. Did that answer your question? 

Speaker Dar 

I think there are so many people in our audience that can really identify with that statement about giving yourself away. And especially in relationships, 

Speaker Stephen  

yeah, I think so. I think so, you know, I really do. That doesn't mean everybody does, but I think there's a lot of people that do, and it doesn't make you a bad person, right? It just means you're not aware, right, that maybe you know a lot of us are told when we're kids that everybody else is more important than us. I don't know, that's intentional, but it can feel that way, right? And so we can sometimes tend to put everybody ahead of us because we think that's the right thing to do, right? It's the polite thing to do, it's the nice thing to do, it was the kind thing to do, this, that you know, but you've got to be those things to yourself first. You got to be kind to yourself. You've got to think about you and your energy and your time of peace and reflection, and so you need to set boundaries around those things, because if you don't, people will take advantage of it, right? So, yeah, I think a lot, man. That's what people tell me when they read the book. Not everybody, but a lot of people who read the book tell me, "Gosh, I see myself in there, and now, now I know I'm not alone, that I was never alone, right? That people go through this, and you know, one of the things we want to do is create a community where people can feel safe, feel safe to be vulnerable, feel safe to be authentic, that no one is going to judge him, right? Because we're I was very afraid that if people found out about the things, some of which I've mentioned, right, being in asylum, having electro convulsive therapy, which I can laugh about now, but for a long time, I would never tell anybody, you know, that I would be in my head, people would be like, "Oh, he's crazy, right? You know, stay away from him, or, you know, when I was a kid, having any kind of mental illness was not considered an illness, it meant there's something wrong with you, and people judged you, right? I mean, even when you go for a job, it would say on the application. Have you ever had a mental illness? Well, why are they asking? What are you going to say? Yes, you're not going to get the job right. So, again, as another thing to make you feel less right. So, when I wrote the book, and that's not all of it, I mean, there's so much stuff that I share that I was so ashamed of dollar that I've never told anybody about it, but what I realized in the end, that if we don't let it out, we're going to be constantly in, we're going to be in a prison for the rest of our life, that we can never be who we really are, we're only going to live up to a very small part of our own potential, right. So you know, in the end, I just went, well, here's the thing, I 

can go maybe through some short-term pain here or long-term misery, right. So, and I got to be vulnerable to do this, and I'm from England, right. We're not usually considered people that are very in touch with their emotions, or are going to tell anybody about anything. We're very conservative, generally speaking. And so, you know, here I am. I'm talking about living in a mansion with a sex room, right? I'm talking about all the humiliating things that happened to me as a child and as an adult, and getting into drugs, and all these different things that you know someone who's standing on a stage in front of 1000s of people that's teaching spiritual and personal, you know, personal principles probably wouldn't want everybody to know about, right? But why not? Why not? It makes you human, right? We're all human, we're all going through our stuff, and you know, whenever you come off stage, very often people would say, oh man, that's incredible. You know, you're amazing. Listen, hang on a second. That's a show, right? That's me talking about things. If I was doing half of those things, the world would be a better place, right? It doesn't mean it's wrong to share it, but it's not who I am, right. 

Speaker Stephen  

Who I am is a normal human being, and so what it would make you feel like is that, what am I supposed to be that person on stage? Does it mean that if I'm not that person, people are not going to like me? So all these things go through your head. So sometimes you're on a stage with, you know, 3000 people in front of you, and you feel alone, right? You feel like, yeah, it sounds great. We're having a great time, but is that because you think I am that person? Does that make sense? 

Speaker Dar 

And that's part of you being authentic and vulnerable, beautiful, beautiful example for us. How about reading a section of the book? 

Speaker Stephen 

Okay, so all right, I opened it to this page, so we're going to go with it, right? I'm doubting my own faith, right? So the chapter 26 what happens in Vegas may scar you for life. We needed a break and to spend some time together, having fun. I had an event in Las Vegas, and wanted to take Tamaz with me. After the event, we could stay at the fabulous Wind Suites and enjoy a few days and nights in Vegas together. Tomas loved the idea. She was jumping up and down, doing her exaggerated girly dance, the one she knew I loved to see her do. It always made me happy when she was happy. There's one condition I said to my face. She hated conditions or being told what to do. Look, babe, I need to focus right now. My numbers at the events have been terrible. I need this to be a great event, which means I gotta get plenty of sleep. I need to get to bed early, so I won't go out until after the event, when we go to the wind. Okay, of course, baby, she agreed. We arrived in Vegas, took a limo to the hotel, since the event was at the embassy suites, right behind the wind. We decided to stay there. Jerry, who had recently joined my team, much to Thomas's chagrin, was already waiting for us. After checking in, we went up to our rooms. It was about 10pm when I started unpacking while Tamas took a shower. Tomas came out of the bathroom and slipped into one of her nice dresses. I was about to jump into bed when I saw her, I started trying to hold it together. What are you doing? I'm going to go see some friends at the Bellagio, she said, as if you were no big deal, as if she'd already told me. My heart sank. To Mars, we talked about this. I need to get to sleep early. You agreed we weren't going to go out until after the event. Well, you go to sleep, baby. I'll be quiet when I come in, she said, putting the final touches on her appearance. I was fucking furious. She knew she would wake me when she came in. She also knew that if I woke up, it was almost impossible for me to get back to sleep, but I wasn't about to have a knock down fight with her, and risk the police showing up again and arresting me. So I said, "Okay, babe, have a nice time. She said, "Thanks, babe. Then she kissed me on the cheek, opened the door, and she was gone. Gone, girl. Normally, I'd be panicking if my girlfriend were out alone in Vegas, but to Maz, she wasn't a normal girlfriend. I wasn't afraid about her, I was worried about everyone else she might run into. This was Tomas' world, she owned it. As soon as she left, I packed my suitcases. Once everything was packed, I left. I went down the hall and knocked on Jerry's door. He opened the door, looked down at my bags, then looked up at me and said, "What's going on? I said, "Let me in, I'm staying with you. Is that enough? 

Speaker Dar  

That was great, and that leads us to tell us about the free gift you have for our audience. 

Speaker Stephen 

Sure, yeah. So, for your audience, I put together, and I think it's going to be the seven signs you're in a toxic relationship. How I was going to say, how to get into one. No, so how to get out of one if you're in one. How to make sure you never go back into one, and how to not get into one in the first place, right? So that's the first thing. And then the other thing that I've done, send you a link for anybody who's interested in maybe going deeper and getting rid of some of these patterns that are created in our childhood, so we don't get into toxic relationships, or we get out. I've offered a 30 minute free consultation with me, so we can chat, see if there is resonance or a vibe between us, and feel like we could work well together, and it's so we can take it from there. 

Speaker Dar 

Beautiful, I am beautiful, what a, what a generous gift. I know I need those seven. I said, I know I need seven. 

Speaker Stephen 

Okay, yeah. Well, even if you don't, it's a good thing to read once in a while, anyway. You know, just as a reminder, that's the great thing about sharing, counseling, speaking, and doing podcasts is you remind yourself, or you're reminded of those things sometimes, so that you don't forget, right? Like I did, and you stay on track.  

Speaker Dar  

Yeah, it's true,right? I know, it does. About boundaries, you know, over the years I have more boundaries now, and they're not, not in number, just stronger boundaries than I had when I was younger, for sure. So I have definitely gotten reinforcement on boundaries from our talk and reflection of toxic relationships, so I'm sure many of our audience has to. Would you like to talk about your books just a little further? 

Speaker Stephen  

Sure, it's funny, you was what you said about that. Looking back on those toxic relationships, I learned new things about what happened there all the time. Just the other day, I had a profound, like, oh my god, I realize now that I have an issue with intimacy. I mean, that's a big one, right? 

That's a really big one. This all happened 10 years ago, so it's still rolling out for me, you know. So, about my book, well, it's about, you know, me back then, successful business English business entrepreneur, you know, I was making a lot of money, I was making millions a year, and that's not because that's important. It was just that set the backdrop right. So, I had a mansion with a sex room in it, and I meet this incredibly beautiful former international supermodel. You're not going to be careful how you say this, right? But it's true, she's completely crazy. But, in a.. I mean, I like crazy. I mean, that's just me, right? I just love people who are different, out of the box, adventurous, exciting. So she was perfect for me, as Carl Jung would say. But I also knew from the beginning that their relationship was untenable. But we go through these crazy, fun, adventurous experiences. When we first started out, we love bombed each other. I took her out in the Rolls Royce. I took her to this beautiful restaurant. I spent so much time and energy getting things prepared, so even went there five hours before our dinner day. I arrived at the hotel, and it has a - they had cabanas upstairs, right on the roof, rooftop cabanas, and I booked one of those, so I go to the restaurant. I speak to the lady, you know, at the front of the desk, the hostess, and I said, she said, so how can I help you? I said, well, my name is Edwards, and I have a reservation. She looked down the sheet, and then she, she, she looked at me and went, yeah, but that's not till 730 mr. Edwards. I go, I know, but I want to make sure everything's perfect. I want to, you know, decide where we're going to sit, bla bla bla. So, at that point, she thinks it's great. Then I go in the restaurant, and I know I'm kind of getting into details more than the book, but it gives you an idea, right? So, I go in the restaurant with her, and we look around and find the perfect table overlooking the ocean and the grounds of the hotel. And then, so we're walking out, and she goes, "Okay, mr. Edwards, we will have everything ready for you at, you know, 730 whatever. I said, "Yeah, I'd just like to meet the waitress. Could I meet the waitress? She looked at me like, "Are you serious right now? I said, "I want to make sure she's got the right personality, right? So anyway, then Sonia comes out, meets me, super nice. Tell her I've got these flowers arriving at 6o'clock and they need to put in a vase, and blah blah blah. mr. Edwards, everything will be taken care of, not a problem. I will give you great service. I'll make sure that I'm not obtrusive, but that you know I'm there and taking care of you. Perfect. Then we walk out, we go to the podium again, and she said, Okay, mr. Edwards, looking forward to seeing you tonight. I said, yeah, thing is, I booked a cabana on the roof after dinner. She said, yes, yeah, well, it'll be ready for you. I said, yeah, but I'd like to see it. She said, they're all the same, like this is enough, right? I said, yeah, but you know, I'd still like to see it. So then she goes, I can't leave the podium for that long. I said, Okay, I understand. Is there anybody else that could show me? And she says, Well, only the manager, right? Like, that's not you, like, you're never going to ask me for the manager, right? I go, Yeah, the manager will be fine. So the manager has to come out. It's a sweltering day to get to the rooftop, you have to stand outside an elevator in the blazing heat, so he's standing there dripping wet, so on and on it went. 

Speaker Stephen 

So these are the kind of things that happened so over the top that I couldn't even tell them that this was the first date, right? They would have liked that he may need to call some kind of an ambulance or some kind of a doctor, this is crazy, right? So the first day was amazing, right? It was just incredible, but slowly things went down from the herb from there. So what I didn't know, first of all, I didn't know her father was a billionaire, right, which made me feel good in the first place, because I'm thinking, oh, she just. Not having to leave for money, that's for sure. But what became apparent later, her father had put her in an asylum when she was 16, and she couldn't get out, and she'd never forgiven him for that. So now, because she didn't feel like her father loved her, she's thinking, well, how can any man ever love me? So no, all men want to do is sleep with me, use me, and then throw me away, and that had been her experience, because that, what, that was what she believed. So she was out to punish men, to take wealthy men for everything they had, and say I won, and then go to the next, and do it again and again and again. And I didn't know this at the time, until the father told me down the road, she'd been doing that for over 20 years, and so I, she was the Venus flytrap, and I was the fly, right, so she was constantly trying to devour me to prove to herself that she was stronger, better, and more intelligent than men, and I was the fly who was definitely not intelligent, right, but I was keep getting the nectar, and then trying to get away, and so it became a hilarious story of me escaping miraculously, I mean, really miraculously from her attempts to take everything I had and devour me, and in the end she kind of gave up on that, and then she decided she wanted to marry me, because she thought that might be an easy way to do it, but I kept away, and I managed not to do those things, so I live, I live to talk another day. So the book is hilarious, it's tragic, because there are things that neither of us had any idea about that were tragic. It was traumatic. It was also an incredible adventure, and there are so many fun times that we had that neither of us will ever forget. So, it's fun. You could just read it as an entertaining book and have a great time. You could read it as a possible insight into who you are and maybe where you've given yourself away, whatever you're looking for, you can find it in there if you want. 

Speaker Dar 

Thank you. Thank you so much for being with us today, and all of this information. How to contact Steven and learn more, read his books, and get his very awesome gift that'll all be in the show notes, so thank you so much for being with us today, and just so appreciative for this chance to talk with you. 

SpeakerStephen 

Thank you, Dola. I appreciate it too. It's been wonderful. Thank you so much. Transcribed by https://otter.ai 

Episode 45 

Dr Stephen Edwards ( help@vft23.com) 

Rebuilding Self-worth After Heartbreak 

OutroThis episode naturally lends itself to a message about healing, belonging, and not walking through difficult seasons alone.Before we close today's episode, I want to leave you with this reminder:Heartbreak may change you, but it doesn't have to define you.As Steven shared so openly today, healing isn't about pretending the pain never happened. It's about having the courage to look honestly at your experiences, learn from them, reclaim your identity, and discover your worth was never dependent on another person's ability to love you.Whether you're healing from a toxic relationship, navigating loss, rebuilding your confidence, or simply trying to understand patterns that keep repeating in your life, know this: you are not alone.A heartfelt thank you to Dr. Stephen Edwards for sharing his remarkable journey—from childhood trauma and personal struggles to healing, growth, and a deeper understanding of self-worth. His story reminds us that even our darkest chapters can become powerful teachers.And if today's conversation resonated with you, I'd love to invite you to join my free Facebook group, Connections Community With Dar.It's a warm and welcoming space where women come together to support one another through life's challenges and celebrations. We share inspiration, meaningful conversations, personal growth, spiritual insights, and the kind of encouragement that reminds you you're stronger than you think.Because healing happens faster when we stop trying to carry everything by ourselves.Sometimes the most powerful thing we can do is reach out, connect, and allow ourselves to be seen.Until next time, be gentle with yourself, honor your journey, and remember that every step you take toward healing is a step toward becoming more fully yourself.So call it in , Call IT in With Dar.