The Rising Beyond Podcast
If you're trying to protect your children while navigating an abusive ex, this podcast is for you. Because leaving the relationship didn't end the abuse, and no one prepared you for what came next.
The Rising Beyond Podcast is for protective mothers navigating the overwhelming reality of sharing children with someone who continues patterns of manipulation, coercive control, or emotional abuse after separation. Join Sybil Cummin, licensed professional counselor, who has spent the last decade helping survivors and their children navigate this incredibly difficult chapter. Every week, we share trauma-informed education, nervous system insights, protective parenting strategies, and honest conversations about family court, post-separation abuse, and healing, so you can feel more confident, more grounded, and better equipped to protect both your children and yourself.
Whether you're in the middle of family court, struggling with parenting alongside someone who continues patterns of control, or simply trying to become the parent you want to be after everything you've survived, you'll find validation, practical guidance, and hope here.
The Rising Beyond Podcast
Ep 214: Hope When Family Court Breaks Your Heart: Holding On Through the Impossible
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What do you do when the outcome you feared actually happens?
What happens when you've lost time with your children, the professionals who were supposed to protect them didn't listen, and you're wondering how you're supposed to keep going?
This is one of the heaviest episodes I've ever recorded—but it's also one of the most important.
Too often, survivors are told to "stay positive" or "everything happens for a reason." But that's not what hope looks like after coercive control, systemic betrayal, or devastating family court outcomes.
In this episode, I talk honestly about the hopelessness many protective parents experience, including suicidal thoughts that can arise after prolonged trauma and loss. More importantly, we explore what research tells us about hope—and why hope is not passive optimism. Hope is something we build one small step at a time.
If you've ever wondered whether you'll make it through this season, I hope this conversation helps you feel a little less alone.
We discuss:
- The difference between optimism and hope—and why the distinction matters.
- Why toxic positivity can feel invalidating after trauma.
- The grief that many protective parents carry after family court and post-separation abuse.
- How focusing on what is within your control can restore a sense of agency.
- Why breaking overwhelming goals into smaller steps builds hope.
- The importance of community and allowing others to hold hope for you when you can't.
- Why purpose can exist alongside pain.
- Practical ways to nurture hope, even when circumstances haven't changed.
If this episode resonated with you, please consider sharing it with another protective parent who may need to hear that they are not alone.
If this episode brought up thoughts of suicide or you feel like you may be in immediate emotional danger, please don't go through this alone. Here are some resources.
United States & Canada
- Call or text 988 to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, available 24 hours a day.
- Chat online through the 988 Lifeline website.
International Suicide Hotlines and Resources https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/suicide/suicide-prevention-hotlines-resources-worldwide
Register for the Free Webinar Series - Why Co-Parenting Feels Like a Trap here - https://mailchi.mp/risingbeyondpc/coparenting
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