41: Creating the Higher Self After Abuse With Stephany Ann

In this powerful episode of Breaking the Silence – Healing from Domestic Abuse, we welcome internationally recognized speaker, author, and transformation mentor Stephany Ann.

Formerly a high-level domestic violence advocate and Governor’s Award recipient, Stephany shares her deeply personal journey from legal advocacy to personal alchemy. After years of surviving psychological and narcissistic abuse, she stopped asking “Why me?” and started asking “What now?”

Together, we dive into the emotional toll of invisible abuse, how it fractures identity, and how to stop circling the loop of survival and endless healing. Stephany unpacks her formula for conscious self-recreation—blending law, biblical insight, and mindset mastery. Her message? You’re not broken—you’re becoming.

We also explore her upcoming book, Magnificent Me: A Formula and Process for Higher Self Creation, and how to break generational patterns, reclaim your power, and consciously create the future version of yourself that’s been buried under survival.

✨ For anyone ready to stop surviving and start embodying the highest version of themselves, this episode will inspire, awaken, and empower.

Connect with Stephany Ann:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rewritethefairytale/

Email: stephanyannspeaks@gmail.com

Access the free Reclaiming Your Worth Masterclass: https://www.highvaluewoman.info/reclaiming-your-worth-masterclass

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Website: https://www.highvaluewoman.info

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LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/darla-ridilla-3179b110/

Transcript

Darla Ridilla (00:02.018)
Hello friends, welcome to You Have the Power. We have another wonderful guest with us today. Her name is Stephanie Anne and we are going to have some wonderful conversations about being our higher self, healing from narcissistic abuse and thriving and not just being stuck in the loop of survival. So let me introduce you to our guest today. Stephanie Anne is an internationally recognized speaker, author and transformation mentor who helps individuals move

from awakening to full embodiment of their highest selves. With a background in law, biblical studies and politics, she bridges ancient wisdom with modern transformation, guiding people to break free from limiting narratives and step into mastery. A licensed attorney, Stephanie Ann has dedicated her career to advocating for others. Her work in domestic violence advocacy earned her the Governor's Award for Victim Advocacy

an honor given to just one recipient per year. Stephanie Ann is an internationally recognized speaker, author, and transformation mentor. She's an international bestselling author with three collaborative books launching in 2025. And her highly anticipated solo book, Magnificent Me, A Formula and Process for Higher Self-Creation is coming out in summer of 2025.

Welcome Stephanie and I'm so excited to have you here today.

Stephany Ann (02:29.584)
Thank you. It's really an honor and a pleasure to be here today with you.

Darla Ridilla (02:34.932)
Awesome. Well, we're just going to dive right in. The first thing I wanted to say is that you did have quite a powerful career in advocacy, law, and victim support. But what kind of inspired you to transition from doing that external advocacy to guiding others and going towards that internal transformation and embodiment?

Stephany Ann (02:55.43)
Yeah, well, you know, like, like most people, I found myself on the floor of my sister's bathroom, just like, why me? Why and how did my life go so terribly wrong? Like, yeah, I had, I had done that stuff in the past, but here I was like, nothing was working out. I kept repeating these same patterns in my life. Like first I was married to a covert narcissist for

almost 11 years, then he used courts to retaliate and further that abuse for six more years. Then I attracted another one into my life, a more aggressive, malignant narcissist. And, you know, it's just, I lost everything. And I was like, how did I get here? Like, how, how do you go from understanding domestic violence to being a victim in domestic violence?

But that's the thing with narcissistic abuse, it didn't fit the pattern and the mold for domestic violence 20 plus years ago. What happens when it's psychological and emotional abuse and you just, can't figure out what's going on. And so for me, it was, I'm sitting there at my sister's house and like, what just happened?

Darla Ridilla (04:05.1)
Yeah. Go ahead.

Stephany Ann (04:23.356)
How did I get here? Why do I keep repeating all these patterns? Something's got to change.

Darla Ridilla (04:32.136)
I fully understand that because the majority of my abuse with my narcissist as well was psychological. And I think it's so hard to deal with because we are bruises are on the inside and not on the outside. And in some schools of thought, which I disagree with, they don't consider it domestic violence, but it is words can be very cutting and the manipulation that we that we experience, I think

bruises heal, not psychologically that messes with you too, bruises heal, but I think that psychological manipulation that we go under, I mean, I'm almost 12 years out and I'm still hear his voice in my head in certain instances. There's still that echo of all of the things that happened to me.

Stephany Ann (05:15.558)
Yeah, yeah, and I, you know, with the psychological and emotional abuse and all the gaslighting, which is coercive control, it messes with your identity. It messes with who you are because on one hand, we hold this image, like knowledge of who we are.

Darla Ridilla (05:29.582)
Mm-hmm.

Stephany Ann (05:42.616)
And then we have a belief about who we are and the gaslighting comes in and it challenges that. And that's what cognitive dissonance is. And that's why these relationship dynamics are so tragic, why they're so destructive, because you have those two conflicting beliefs. And then we're left wondering, who the heck am I? How did I get here?

Why do I keep attracting them into my life? Why is it so bad? Yeah, maybe he didn't hit me. I say he because, know, talking about my ex-husbands and your ex-husband, but it does happen to women as well. But it's like, breaks down your sense of identity and your sense of self. And so when we get out of these relationships or even still when we're in, but we're, you know, we're trying to get out, it's who am I?

Darla Ridilla (06:23.79)
Thank

Darla Ridilla (06:42.434)
Yeah, I do remember feeling like that. And, you know, I've said many times, I look even at the pictures of myself, I don't even recognize myself, I had put on a lot of weight, my eyes looked dead from the inside, because I was so hollowed out. And there's, there's this process of where they break us down. Often, we are strong, powerful women in the beginning, because that's what attracts them to us in the first place.

and they get off on actually breaking us down and getting us to question ourselves. And there is this moment of when we're still in that victim mode, when we're still there of it's happening to me, not for me, we're still like, why? I mean, first of all, I didn't even know it was an abusive relationship till a year after I left. But that second and third time, that's when I really beat myself up. whoa, there's the pattern. Why does this keep showing up? So.

Stephany Ann (07:20.252)
Mm-hmm.

Stephany Ann (07:35.324)
Yeah.

Darla Ridilla (07:36.428)
That kind of leads into another question of you've talked about having that higher version of ourselves after the abuse. What does that process look like? And how is that different from simply surviving or just healing?

Stephany Ann (07:55.794)
Yeah, so similarly, like, you know, going back to my story of being on the floor and just saying, like, why does all this stuff keep happening to me? It was in that moment that I realized that I needed to shift from why me to for me, because having been almost 16 years within these two.

narcissistic abusive relationships, was like, well, who am I? Because so many times we, when we're in these relationships, we have these big dreams, right? It's the fairy tale. Who doesn't like the fairy tale? And not that it's like we're this princess who needs to be rescued by this, you prince. It's more of the fairy tale of we start dreaming together.

Darla Ridilla (08:38.126)
Mm-hmm.

Stephany Ann (08:48.9)
and we start planning our future, which is what everyone does in healthy, typical relationships as well. But with the narcissist, it's like they continually take that dream away from you. And so we stop dreaming, we stop setting goals, we stop believing that everything is possible because every time we try to do that, it's taken away from us. It's like when it's so good,

And then the devaluation stage happens and all that good was taken away. And then we start all over again. And so I found myself like most people when we get out of these relationships, I had stopped dreaming. I had stopped setting goals. I didn't even know what I wanted because again, every time I dreamt it was taken away. And so what I tell people and what I've written in my book is that we need to start dreaming again.

we need to start going back into imagination and realizing that anything and everything is possible. Yeah, we had a really, really negative, horrible relationship experience. Now we can let that go and all the stories that we wrote that were attached to that. We can let that go and we can consciously create a higher version of ourself, a version that is

doing whatever it is we want. can go back to imagination and fantasy and dreaming again. And so, you know, one of the things I say as well is that we're not broken. We went through a really bad experience and we attached a story to what we went through. That's trauma. So we need to rewrite.

Darla Ridilla (10:23.48)
Mm-hmm.

Stephany Ann (10:45.986)
that story and let go of that negative attachment and create the version that we want to be. And so for me, when I started dreaming again, it was like a blank canvas. If you could be and not be as in becoming a different person, we're revealing the person that is always there, that has always been there.

the one that has been too afraid to come out, the one that we had to hide to survive. So what would I want? If I could be, do, and have anything, what would that look like?

So when I first left, looked like I was going against, it felt like two guys were fighting over me. Cause I had two exes, both narcissists. And so I had my first husband who was the covert narcissist and he was trying to take my boys away and alienate them.

Darla Ridilla (11:41.282)
Wow.

Stephany Ann (11:57.45)
and then I had the other one who was, thankfully he wasn't present because I was 3000 miles away from him, but I was still trying to find him, serve him. And I was dealing with other things from him as well. And so during that time, it's like, well, I just want peace in my life.

That's the only thing I can think of. Like I just want all the chaos, all the drama, all the negativity, all the stress and overwhelm. I want that to go away.

And so I consciously created a peaceful environment. And then I, you know, there's only two ways to change a belief. our beliefs go back to how we identify and define who we are, which goes to our story. And so there's only two ways to change a belief. One is a traumatic, like a sudden traumatic.

Darla Ridilla (12:58.222)
this.

Stephany Ann (13:05.828)
experience, which we know that they're all usually negative. It's what we just walked out of. And the other one is through constant spaced repetition. That's how we change a belief. And so I found this, this poem by, what is his name? I can't remember something, Alan, and it's Serenity. And it's not the Serenity in the, you know, treatment program.

Darla Ridilla (13:10.156)
Yeah. Yeah.

Darla Ridilla (13:35.626)
Right, the serenity prayer, right?

Stephany Ann (13:37.017)
It's a different serenity, but I just started reading it and writing it every day. I'm like, I just need peace. And coming out of all of that chaos, it's like our nervous system. It's just heightened awareness. We're hyper-focused. We're easily reactive because we've been conditioned and programmed in that environment.

Darla Ridilla (13:40.131)
Right.

Darla Ridilla (13:58.222)
Mm-hmm.

Stephany Ann (14:03.246)
And so I just started writing Serenity and even I had my kids start writing it too. I'm like, we all just need to calm our nervous system down and create a very peaceful place. you know, going back a little bit more as well. So I had my two exes kind of fighting over me to see who could destroy my life even more. And,

my first husband when he was attempting to alienate the boys, he committed suicide in the middle of all of this. And that's a whole different, how do you, it's a whole different level of grief because here he just made a huge mess of my life and I was left to clean it up like we always do. I mean, that's what.

Darla Ridilla (14:57.229)
Mm-hmm.

Stephany Ann (15:01.702)
we end up doing in these relationships. They're making messes and lighting fires all over the place and we're putting them out, putting them out, putting them out and cleaning up after them. And so, but what happened was the abuse stopped from him.

And that was kind of me recreating myself and having this piece, like I had peace on that side. And then my second husband, I wrote out, if I were this higher version of me, how would I want this to go? You my first divorce, it took over four years. Because again, this is what they do. Filing all kinds of things, delaying.

Darla Ridilla (15:45.57)
Mm-hmm.

Stephany Ann (15:48.706)
not providing discovery, doing this, asking for extensions. Divorce should not take four years.

Darla Ridilla (15:56.834)
No, but it's a way of them remaining in control. And when you have children with them, you have no choice because there's the children to deal with. I was so fortunate not to have children when I got divorced. And that's why I didn't hire an attorney because I knew it was just going to be that. And I just wanted it done. Yeah.

Stephany Ann (16:00.793)
Absolutely.

Yeah.

Stephany Ann (16:19.814)
My first husband, he wanted to move more than 60 miles. Well, you don't know because you don't have kids, but there's a domicile rule that says without the court's permission or the other party's permission, you are not allowed to move more than 60 miles outside of this radius. And so he wanted to move to a different town with his affair girlfriend.

Darla Ridilla (16:28.052)
Right, okay.

Darla Ridilla (16:39.896)
Mm-hmm.

Stephany Ann (16:46.706)
And I'm like, well, it was only like 76 miles or something. And so I said, well, sign over and give me full custody of the boys and you can move. And he did very quickly. Yeah. He had a reputation to uphold. Too many people knew about his affairs and business and what he was doing. So yeah.

Darla Ridilla (16:59.104)
Mm-hmm. wow.

Darla Ridilla (17:07.319)
Always.

Stephany Ann (17:16.122)
I started becoming this or stepping into this higher version of myself by writing her. Like who is she? Well, she wins court cases. She gets what she wants. She has full custody of her children. The other party has no visitation. So I started by writing out what I wanted. And I started

by dreaming again. And so once those goals were met, my second husband, he lost all pretty much all of his rights to our little boy that we shared together. And I didn't want him in his life. And so I wrote it. I rewrote the story that most of us tell ourselves. And then I said, OK, well, who

Darla Ridilla (17:48.44)
Mm-hmm.

Stephany Ann (18:15.89)
Now what? Well, I'm prosperous. I'm abundant. I'm not following the old story of being a solo parent where it's hard, it's challenging, it's going to, you're going to be overwhelmed all the time. It's not going to work out. You're going to be on welfare. You're going to have all these things. I rewrote that story as well. And yeah, I mean, yes, there are challenging days.

but I'm in control of my story.

Darla Ridilla (18:52.566)
And I can imagine that it's probably, while there are challenges to being a single parent, I'm sure it was much less challenging than trying to co parent with a narcissist.

Stephany Ann (19:04.562)
I like, feel so blessed. And it's one of those things, well, but what about the boys and their dad? Well, he wasn't a good dad. He wasn't involved with them. He didn't do a whole lot with them. I mean, yeah, when he had to look good and pretend.

Darla Ridilla (19:10.931)
Yeah, you are.

Darla Ridilla (19:25.326)
Right.

Stephany Ann (19:31.058)
But he wasn't there for them.

Darla Ridilla (19:34.222)
And then there's the generational. I've seen so many cases of children of narcissists becoming narcissistic as well because they're exposed and influenced by that parent who's very convincing. And what example do you want for your children? You want them to be raised and become productive adults, not mentally ill, crazy, manipulative people.

Stephany Ann (19:56.938)
yeah, or, or, or on the other extreme or victims as well, because, you know, I was, I was listening to something the other day and I can't remember. It was on a podcast and the lady was saying that, you know, kids aren't going to, it's something like not, not turn out the way you, you treat them. The way they treat themselves is how you treat.

Darla Ridilla (20:02.21)
Yes, yes.

Stephany Ann (20:26.502)
yourself. And so when you are putting yourself first and your needs and you are taking care of yourself and you are not in that victim mindset, but more in like a growth mindset and you are not in that environment because you said no and you put down a firm boundary and you have all this self-worth and self-love that is

Darla Ridilla (20:39.662)
Mm-hmm.

Stephany Ann (20:55.25)
who your children will become.

Darla Ridilla (20:58.008)
Yeah, that's an important point.

Stephany Ann (20:59.152)
Because, yeah, because even in the relationships, when I stayed and I was with their fathers, like I was still, I was treating my kids well. I was doing all the, you know, protecting my kids, teaching them, okay, this is right, this is wrong, okay, his behavior, that was not okay. But they look at the way you treat yourself.

Darla Ridilla (21:26.062)
Yeah, that is so true. Absolutely. You know, you mentioned your book, The Magnificent Me. Can you tell us a little bit more about that book and what's in it?

Stephany Ann (21:41.904)
Yeah. So, you know, I, I spent one year radically transforming my life by rewriting my story. And so first, you know, it was the transformation, like, what does that even mean? I came up with my own formula for transformation that are, it's our thoughts, it's fantasy and it's consideration. And

You got to have a destination. And so we call that a goal. And so you want to, you want to go after the really big goals. Bob Proctor always says it's the C type goals, the goals that scare you. Go after those goals because then there's growth. And so I set some really, really high goals and we're talking, I hadn't had a goal since law school, like 20, almost 20 years.

because we stop having goals in these marriages because we're going nowhere. And every goal I would try to set, it would never happen because he would sabotage them all. And so it's like, I haven't read a book since law school. I didn't like, there was, there was, mean, we're surviving. And so I, I set these really big goals because

Darla Ridilla (22:43.736)
Right, right.

Darla Ridilla (22:56.237)
Hahaha!

Darla Ridilla (23:01.25)
Right.

Stephany Ann (23:10.246)
really it's the person that is revealed in the process of achieving the goal. That's the point. The goal is just a destination. And especially when we've been, again, in these relationships where we're going nowhere, we're going in circles and we're going backwards. We're not moving forward.

We need something to motivate us. need that big goal that we can at the prize. And so I looked at our mind, like, what does our mind look like? How do we close the gap between what we know and what we believe? Because again, that's the cognitive dissonance, and we've been in that for a long time. And then how do we become that

Darla Ridilla (23:55.342)
Mm-hmm.

Stephany Ann (24:00.988)
that person, not become, but reveal it. And so I do consideration, which is a legal term. And it means it's the cost. So what are you willing to give up? And I forgot to mention one other one, tender. So tender in legal terms means I'm ready, willing, and able to perform the contract. So when, again, if we look at it like a goal contract, are you ready? Well, ready?

Darla Ridilla (24:02.254)
Mm-hmm.

Stephany Ann (24:30.244)
means do you have this intense burning desire to be something more? You need to have that because you can come out of these relationships and you can just give up. can just, I mean, I kind of did that between marriages. Like what I prayed, I don't know. How did I keep repeating the same pattern? I went to therapy and I prayed. Well, and guess what? I got a worse narcissist.

Darla Ridilla (25:01.549)
It happens.

Stephany Ann (25:01.732)
And so, yeah, and because there wasn't like a full on paradigm shift that would break that pattern of attracting these people into our life. And so I had this intense burning desire to be something more. There's got to be more. I'm not going to have a third or fourth narcissist in my life. We're done. What do I need to do? I'm tired of repeating these patterns.

Darla Ridilla (25:31.416)
Mm-hmm.

Stephany Ann (25:32.594)
And so if you think of like an intense burning desire, so growing up in Oregon and you lived in Washington, so you know we have fire season. We have summer and towards the end of summer is fire season. So Oregon, the forest fires are always on fire. It just, it just is. And so one year it was in 2020, the fires were starting to encroach on some of the larger towns.

Darla Ridilla (25:40.188)
He

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Stephany Ann (26:01.126)
We were on like high evacuation notice because my favorite, the Umpqua forest was on fire. In this forest, it rarely gets as close to the town as it did that year. And so about a month later, we never got evacuated, but about a month later, we were finally able to go up there and just check on the damage, check our hiking trails and stuff. And I remember driving up there.

and noticing that there were still logs that were smoldering, not logs, but like tree stumps. They were still smoldering. And that is an intense burning desire. Like after you go home from the conferences, after you go, after you're done reading my book, after you're done doing all these things, you still have to have that intense burning desire to change.

Darla Ridilla (26:39.022)
Yeah.

Stephany Ann (27:02.162)
to transform. Then you have to be willing. Willing is the next step. Nobody can force you to change. And who knows that better than any of us who have ever been in a relationship with a narcissist? They will not change. And we overstay hoping and believing we will get the person that we fell in love with back. Well, that's never coming back.

Darla Ridilla (27:05.112)
I love that. Go ahead.

Darla Ridilla (27:23.31)
you

Stephany Ann (27:33.074)
So the only person that we can change is ourselves. And so you have to be willing. And how do you change? You change and you grow in discomfort. You change and you grow in facing your fears. My son, my boys have been in CrossFit for many years.

We're a big athletic family here. And so sometimes they'll come back from CrossFit or something, oh, my arm, my biceps, don't touch me here. And I'm like, oh, you're breaking the tissue down so that it can be built up. And it's that discomfort. And so we have to be willing to get uncomfortable. And that means something different for everyone.

Darla Ridilla (28:13.736)
Hahaha!

Darla Ridilla (28:19.138)
Mm-hmm.

Darla Ridilla (28:31.854)
Mm-hmm.

Stephany Ann (28:33.05)
Because it's in that process of breaking it down that we can rebuild a stronger, firmer foundation of who we really are. So another example that goes along with it is cold plunging. So my kids and I, we cold plunge. And my kids would just jump in and swim around. They didn't even call it cold plunging. They're just like, where's the web egg?

They would beg me, mom, come in, mom, come in, or try to push me in. But I could resist that. Like they could not get me in there. I had to make a decision. Like, do I want to do this? And then I, I started doing it with them as well because that the health benefits and whatever it's just plus time with my kids, you know. and so that's being willing and it looks different to everyone.

And then you have to be able. Now, I love Napoleon Hill. has this quote that says, if you cannot imagine it, then you're not able to achieve it. But if you can imagine it, then it's possible. And so especially when we've lived in survivor mode and victim mindset, it's hard to think of

Darla Ridilla (29:48.206)
Mm-hmm.

Stephany Ann (29:58.874)
all the things that are possible for us, especially when you're just getting out.

Darla Ridilla (30:04.642)
Yes, and I'm so glad you said that and about the discomfort because I was thinking that to people like us who've been through the process, still went through the process, but we're far enough in, it can look easy to others, but it really isn't. And I think it's okay to say that it's not. And what would you say to those people who are just in the beginning that can't even think of a dream? Like how, if they don't have the Bob Proctor resources, how...

Did they start?

Stephany Ann (30:35.42)
You start with gratitude and you start with building just a peacefulness around you. so, that means to you, like for me, was, just wanted just a peaceful space. I don't wanna hear people arguing. I don't wanna hear people fighting. I don't want noise. I just put on like a high vibe.

music, like instrumental, like that was all I could handle. Because even lyrics to songs, I mean, there's just, it's too much. And so I created just a very calm presence and calm environment. And then getting into gratitude. Well, what am I grateful for? Because gratitude is a mindset of abundance. And when we've been

in these non-abundant relationships.

We start there. Get a piece of paper and a pen and what are you grateful for today? I still do it every day and you know one of the first things I say I'm so happy and grateful that I am alive and that I exist and that I'm here.

Darla Ridilla (31:56.192)
you said that I it's a reminder to do this again.

Stephany Ann (31:56.802)
Every single day, every single morning when I wake up, that's the first sentence. And then I look around, I'm grateful that I have created a peaceful environment. I am happy and grateful for that I have food, that I can go grocery shopping. As you know, in the beginning, one of my best friends, was over

for the weekend and she's actually a marriage and family therapist. She was over at our house for the weekend. And we were laughing because she's like, remember when you didn't even have money to buy a garbage bag? So you came to my house and like took like 20 garbage bags. I'm like, yeah, I had like $20. I was like, do I get a garbage bag or do I buy a sponge to wash dishes?

Stephany Ann (32:53.862)
That's, we're starting over and we're rebuilding something. And, and so we were just laughing. I'm like, God, there was a time when I couldn't afford a garbage bag. But then you can look back and we can laugh about it because wow, look at the growth. Look how far we've come. I'm not that woman anymore. She was an older version of me.

Darla Ridilla (33:18.478)
Mm-hmm.

Stephany Ann (33:20.092)
but we all have to start somewhere.

Darla Ridilla (33:22.968)
We do. I found, know, when me, when I just lost everything, well, there's nowhere else to go now, right? There's no, I've hit the bottom and now the slate is clean. The possibilities, they're always endless, but sometimes we have to start over very dramatically to see that. Yeah.

Stephany Ann (33:41.234)
Yeah. And that was me as well, because right before I left my second husband, we were just hit by Hurricane Ian. I lived on the Gulf, though my house was underwater. And then he went on his rage and all this stuff and I left and never went back. And so, yeah, I also didn't have anything. My kids had some of their things and I had like a little bit of, I had what I could fit in a car. And so,

You know, I mean, we, slept on mattresses on the floor that were, that were used and all, you know, it's like, whatever it took, but I knew just like you that I had an intense burning desire. There has to be something different and something more because I'm done with this. And so, yeah. And so, so that, to me, that sums up tender, like you have to be ready.

Darla Ridilla (34:28.91)
Mm-hmm.

Darla Ridilla (34:33.678)
Totally. Go ahead.

Stephany Ann (34:41.2)
willing and able because if you can't answer those three questions, you're not ready. won't be able to transform your life the way it needs to be. I'm not saying that as like, well, people can change. This is the process. These are the steps. Like if you really want to break these patterns, you have to have everything has to be different.

Darla Ridilla (35:11.672)
Mm-hmm.

Stephany Ann (35:12.452)
which goes to the first, the other element, which is your thoughts. I love, don't know if you've read any of Neville Goddard, but I love his writings. Yeah, so he's kind of like esoteric mysticism, you know, but he really talks about like the power of awareness and the power of our thoughts. And I love what he says because he says, thoughts assemble.

Darla Ridilla (35:24.269)
heard of him.

Darla Ridilla (35:29.869)
Mm-hmm.

Stephany Ann (35:41.242)
and imagination fuses. So it's our thoughts that all come together to create the picture we form in our mind of who we are or who we can become. And so you have to look at your thoughts. And for so many of us, when we are coming out of these relationships, our thoughts are very negative. Our thoughts are very focused on

Darla Ridilla (35:54.264)
Mm-hmm.

Stephany Ann (36:10.426)
maybe revenge, I was there. Why did I go to jail and he didn't? Why does everyone believe his story and not mine? why, know, whatever those thoughts are, or like, well, I'm a failure. I've just had two abusive relationships and why do I keep having them? I don't have a history of trauma. My parents are still married and they've modeled good relationships.

Darla Ridilla (36:15.502)
Hmm.

Stephany Ann (36:40.464)
Hmm. So we got to look at our thoughts because it's our thoughts that shape our beliefs.

Darla Ridilla (36:49.262)
Mm-hmm.

Stephany Ann (36:51.588)
And so it's really kind of rewiring on a deeper level. And that's why I say start with gratitude, because gratitude helps you become aware of your thoughts.

Stephany Ann (37:09.938)
And so.

Darla Ridilla (37:11.256)
Yeah, I feel like it, it grounds it grounds us in a moment, regardless of the chaos or wherever we're thinking. And that moment as we're writing down that gratitude. That's our focus.

Stephany Ann (37:23.408)
Yeah, yeah. And that's the thing too. It's learning to be in the moment and learning to say if there's an experience that we don't like, learning to be able to say, okay, I didn't like that. Let's move on now. We don't have to put an attachment to that. And that's being in the moment. And so, yeah, you want to, we got to look at our thoughts.

Darla Ridilla (37:29.675)
Mm-hmm.

Darla Ridilla (37:44.696)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Stephany Ann (37:52.594)
We got and go into imagination again, like I said before, and figure out what it is we want. What do you want? For me and for most of us, we have powerful stories.

And so we're not.

We have the story, but we need to see the transformation. That's the arc of the story, right? Where they transform and then what happens next. And so we have these stories. What do we do with them? I just went through 18 years of hell. What do I do with this? So I decided that my big goal, who I saw myself in my imagination,

was to become a speaker and an author.

I'm like, let's start talking about this because we're not talking enough about narcissistic abuse, what it is, how it damages us, and also how we can recover from it and fully recover to where we are 100 % whole, healed, healthy, whatever. And so I wrote my goal. like, well, I'm going to be this like,

Darla Ridilla (38:59.8)
Mm-hmm.

Stephany Ann (39:15.826)
big speakers speaking on stages all over the world. Okay, I haven't spoken in so long. And even coming out of these relationships, we were very isolated. Like our world starts to shrink and shrink and shrink. I haven't even talked to anyone in forever. Where do I even begin? And so I created an image in my mind of who I could become.

Darla Ridilla (39:26.232)
Yeah.

Darla Ridilla (39:32.163)
Mm-hmm.

Stephany Ann (39:44.402)
be in this speaker. And then I said, okay, well, I need to start speaking.

And that's when I started going on podcasts. My first podcast, and again, this is the willing. Are you willing to get uncomfortable to transform your life? Do you know how scary it is to go on a podcast when you've never been on one before? Yeah. And we all say, well, I can talk. I'm fine.

Darla Ridilla (40:02.957)
you

Darla Ridilla (40:12.098)
Yes, that was me a year ago. Yes.

Stephany Ann (40:20.092)
Can you hold a conversation for an hour? Can you hold a conversation to where you know what you are talking about? And sometimes, like here on this screen, I can see me and you. Sometimes people flip it off and I only am just looking at myself having a conversation and they're somewhere in the ether. And so can you, so, you know, but.

But I had that intense burning desire. I needed to transform my life. And I had a freaking crazy story and I needed to figure out how to tell it because that's all I got right now. And so my first podcast, Darla, dear in the headlights, my words, couldn't even like.

Darla Ridilla (40:58.104)
Mm-hmm.

Darla Ridilla (41:08.213)
How was it?

Yeah.

Stephany Ann (41:14.448)
You know, it's, and you're looking at yourself and it's like, I don't even know what I'm talking about, but I know my story's in here and I know I just need to keep practicing. I need to keep showing up and yeah, it's embarrassing. Yeah, there's it's uncomfortable, but I had a burning, intense burning passion or desire to be something more to transform my life. And so I just kept showing up.

I kept showing up and showed up. And one year I was, I did 150 podcasts and it was probably around the 80th I was, I was on and I, it was like almost like my, the higher version of me. had like an out of body experience or something that I was just observing me talking on this.

Darla Ridilla (42:10.446)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Stephany Ann (42:13.294)
And I was like, I've become her. I did it.

but it took me continually showing up every day, getting on podcasts, speaking, sharing my story, figuring it out.

And so that's what my book is. It's you don't, the goal is over here. The goal is just a destination, but it is the person that is revealed when you embody that higher version of you. So that higher version of me that I created in my imagination, she is a professional speaker who gets paid.

Darla Ridilla (42:41.315)
Mm-hmm.

Stephany Ann (42:59.558)
to travel around the world and speak on stages. So I had to embody her. And what does that mean? It means at the moment that I say this is who I am, I am her. I have to dress like her. I have to walk like her. I have to speak like her.

Darla Ridilla (43:17.058)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Stephany Ann (43:25.092)
I go on podcasts, I go on summits, I speak on stages. And another one was like, okay, well, I'm going to be the New York Times bestselling author. Okay, well, what does she look like? How does she go about her day? What does she do? What time does she wake up? And how does she navigate having been a solo parent? I have no ex-husbands.

Darla Ridilla (43:40.814)
Mm-hmm.

Stephany Ann (43:52.53)
How does she do it without having the help? Well, she hires a nanny. Okay. So for nine months, I wrote out every day. I'm so happy and grateful now that my nanny's here and a part of my team.

I am so happy and grateful that my book is written and that women are changing their lives by reading it. I am so happy and grateful that I'm speaking on all these stages and all these podcasts are ready to hear my voice and my story.

It became her. And then my daily gratitude reflected that it was done. And then, oh, go ahead.

Darla Ridilla (44:32.844)
you

Darla Ridilla (44:38.346)
I was gonna say I love that. It's interesting because that's exactly what I'm being taught in other areas of my life in a mastermind that I'm in. And we had to do a meditation where we met our future self, that person, give us in that future self was going to give us a gift. And then the facilitator said, we'll go out that object that your future self gave you find that object somewhere. Me, it was a marble. So I have this on my desk.

Stephany Ann (45:06.49)
I love it.

Darla Ridilla (45:07.342)
And I look at it every day when I get scared about whatever it is. I look at my marble on my desk, my obelisk or whatever it is. And that is an embodiment of who I am becoming. Would you recommend like your in in in as women heal from their own narcissistic abuse, maybe doing something similar, finding something that symbolizes that?

Stephany Ann (45:23.099)
Yes.

Stephany Ann (45:33.638)
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Like meet this version of you that you are creating. Because again, it's not like you are becoming someone new. Think of it like those Russian dolls. You you keep taking them apart and it's the same doll. They're bigger and bigger and bigger versions. And so similarly with us,

Darla Ridilla (45:35.342)
Mm-hmm.

Darla Ridilla (45:50.018)
Yes.

Darla Ridilla (45:58.114)
Mm-hmm.

Stephany Ann (46:00.806)
Like when we come out of these relationships, we're like this little tiny, we're like the little tiny one. And when you're the little tiny one, you can't see that big doll over there. But maybe you could see the one that's like two sizes bigger. You can see that one because that's where your awareness is. And then when you step in and embody that one, well, that one's, she's, her awareness is a little more expanded. Okay, maybe she can see the bigger doll.

Darla Ridilla (46:23.64)
Mm-hmm.

Stephany Ann (46:30.512)
And so that's the growth. constantly growing and evolving and expanding and becoming more of who we always were. And so when we do integration or embodiment practices like that, it makes it more real because here's something tangible. And sometimes we need that tangible thing to...

remind us of who we are becoming or who we are revealing within us.

Darla Ridilla (47:09.198)
especially on the bad days where I've just had a really rocky few weeks where I was moving from Arizona to Colorado. And then nine days after I got to Colorado, my dog dies. having all of this happen, there were days just as recently as last week where I just was like, gosh, this is so much to bear. I don't think I can do this. And then we have to remember that the bad days are going to come, that actually

This is a fire that's molding me for the future. It's actually making me stronger. So when Friday rolled around and I was feeling better that I actually felt different and more empowered. Like I almost feel like I morphed into something else over this month.

Stephany Ann (47:52.027)
Yes.

Stephany Ann (47:56.24)
Yeah, no, I am right there because people are like, well, Stephanie, you've transformed your life. You did all this and you're doing it all by yourself. And I still have hard days. the couple of nights ago, I was like, because we're human. We're human. Yeah, like, OK, yes, I have a nanny now.

Darla Ridilla (48:17.26)
Yeah. Yeah. It was not, probably yet.

Stephany Ann (48:23.826)
Yes, I have someone who cleans my house. Yes, I have all these things in place, but sometimes at the end of the day, I'm still a solo parent. My kids still don't have a father.

Stephany Ann (48:41.234)
And it's like, why did I have to go through all of this?

Darla Ridilla (48:52.012)
And there are, yeah, there is still the pain of that and the wish for something different, I'm sure, right?

Stephany Ann (49:00.978)
Yeah.

Yeah, well, it's our humanity, our humanness. Like, I'm still a mom. I still have kids without a father. but we still have an incredible life that I've created. But there are still those, you know, my son just turned 13 and it's like, oh, God, I'm the one who has to talk about puberty and all this stuff. in my...

Darla Ridilla (49:30.2)
Yeah.

Stephany Ann (49:32.646)
You know, yes, they have grandfathers, you know, but they don't live near us. like, being on, so my three-year-old, is so sweet. There's no dads in our house. We don't even say the word dad, right? Because my older boys, their dad died. My youngest, his father lost all rights to him.

Darla Ridilla (49:36.91)
Mm-hmm.

Darla Ridilla (49:52.686)
Right.

Stephany Ann (49:59.152)
and all this stuff and lives 3,000 miles away. Hasn't even seen him in like two years. And so we were just on vacation. We were in the Bahamas and stuff. And my three year old, he's so outgoing and has just this beautiful personality. And he talks to everyone. He calls every man a grandpa. He's like, hi, grandpa. Hi, grandpa. Like just any older guy, because it's like, we don't say dad.

Darla Ridilla (50:21.799)
Aww.

Stephany Ann (50:28.59)
And so it's like, well, how? She doesn't know that word.

Stephany Ann (50:38.564)
And so, yeah, we are consciously creating and stepping into these higher versions of ourselves, but we're still human.

Darla Ridilla (50:49.432)
Mm-hmm.

Stephany Ann (50:51.362)
And it's, there's going to be days where I don't, I'm not grateful for anything. I hate all this. It sucks. Why did my soul choose this? But we pick ourselves up. Yeah. Then we pick ourselves up and, and we, you know, we, can sit and we can feel those heavy emotions.

Darla Ridilla (51:02.456)
Mm-hmm.

Darla Ridilla (51:06.35)
Right. What lesson and why?

Stephany Ann (51:19.622)
because we have more of a bigger awareness. So we can sit with them and then we can let them go. They don't need to define me. They're not changing my story. It's just something heavy that came up. I'm gonna sit with it, I'm gonna feel it, and then I'm gonna let it go. I'm not going to define it. Bye. And so like I woke up this morning and was like, okay.

I'm good, I'm great, yay. And we continue to move forward.

Darla Ridilla (51:55.746)
Yeah, I think that's really important because I have been doing a lot of that instead of stuffing my emotions. I've actually been letting them bubble up. Particularly as I've had a lot of challenges over the past few months. And being okay with that not sitting and marinating and victimizing myself. Like, but okay, I'm upset. I'm mad. I'm sad. Let's talk. I mean, actually talk to the emotional. I see you. I'm upset.

Stephany Ann (52:23.217)
Yes.

Darla Ridilla (52:24.448)
and I see you acknowledge it, let it bubble up. I've also found that it can get almost unbearable and intense, but I've also found that maybe after a few minutes, that intensity starts to dissipate. If I give it space, it's when I shove it. It normally comes out at somebody else. I direct it at someone who's innocent, maybe the grocery store clerk or, you know, we're a friend.

Stephany Ann (52:41.201)
Yes.

Stephany Ann (52:48.4)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, well, that's the thing with emotions and especially with all these big heavy emotions or meant to feel them. And I also think that, again, coming out of these relationships, we weren't, I don't want to say we weren't allowed to film, we stopped feeling them.

Darla Ridilla (52:57.409)
Mm-hmm.

Darla Ridilla (53:12.696)
We weren't allowed to express them. Let's put it that way.

Stephany Ann (53:14.514)
Yes, yes, and not allowed that we would get it's we.

Just over time, you just stop sharing. You're kind of just in robotic mode. And so, yeah, we have to feel these emotions because if we don't feel them and then let them go, then they'll keep knocking on your door. Feel me, acknowledge me, I'm here. So it's easier just to feel it. And I've noticed that as I've...

Darla Ridilla (53:28.448)
Mm-hmm.

Darla Ridilla (53:42.51)
Mm-hmm.

Stephany Ann (53:51.942)
moved through my transformation as well and my awareness. And when you're more aware, you know, when the emotions come up, you can sit with them and it doesn't take days to feel them and process them. It can just take a moment to feel it. Okay, I feel it. I see it. Why am I doing this? that's right. Because I hate driving my kids to school every day. Like someone else drive them. Okay.

We're done and I can move on now. But that's what integration is. coming from these experiences and we're building this higher version of ourselves, but we're not building it by letting who we were go. We're integrating who we were and who we are.

Darla Ridilla (54:25.454)
Totally.

Stephany Ann (54:50.864)
now. And when you integrate, you have to be able to feel the emotions. You have to be able to see the lessons and then make a better choice. You integrate. Like I so many books I've read and people I've talked to, they're like, no, you let the older version of you go so that you can have this higher version. No, you integrate the two. It's alchemy. You transmute. And then together,

Darla Ridilla (54:51.768)
Mm-hmm.

Darla Ridilla (55:14.253)
Mm-hmm.

Stephany Ann (55:21.05)
you create the higher version of you.

Darla Ridilla (55:24.45)
Yeah, I like that what you said earlier too about how that person or those things were inside of us before. We're basically reclaiming them. And while there are things that I did let go from my previous self because I had to make those better decisions, there were also parts of me that were really pretty awesome that he tried to get rid of that I reclaim. Like I'm a strong person. I'm outspoken. I'm going to keep those.

Stephany Ann (55:33.233)
Yes!

Stephany Ann (55:54.096)
Yes.

Darla Ridilla (55:54.666)
And people in my life, if they don't like those things about me, then they're not my people either. embracing my truth, reaching for the future self as well.

Stephany Ann (56:06.874)
Yeah, absolutely. Because we are revealing who we've always been. What's always been there, but we've had to suppress it for whatever reasons. Like I know in my second marriage, I just stopped sharing my true authentic self with him. And I just became agreeable because it was easier.

Darla Ridilla (56:14.797)
Mm-hmm.

Darla Ridilla (56:20.739)
Mm-hmm.

Darla Ridilla (56:31.554)
Mm-hmm.

Stephany Ann (56:32.892)
It was easier to keep the peace and just go along with his fantastical ideas or whatever it is than for me to stand up as a strong, powerful woman and say, no, this is my boundary. No, because they'll just make our life miserable the next day or the next hour. And it's it was easier just to, to bury who we really were, just to survive and get through the day.

Darla Ridilla (56:58.338)
Mm-hmm.

Stephany Ann (57:02.012)
to do it all over the next day. What a miserable existence.

Darla Ridilla (57:07.65)
Like all the crap I've had to deal with in the past 12 years, I would do again, not that I want to, but if I had to go back to where I was 15 years ago, no, no, no. This, what I'm dealing with now, it's not easy. There is at least a better place that I'm going and while I'll always be healing, there are things that will be laid to rest along the way. Whereas 15 years ago, I was just

adding to the load. wasn't unloading at all. I was adding. I call it the backpack of trauma. That's in my training. They call it that. We were filling the backpack. Now we're unloading.

Stephany Ann (57:42.416)
Yes!

Stephany Ann (57:47.606)
Yes. Yeah, exactly. All the things that like, why are you carrying around all these heavy bricks that you don't need? There's no point. Yeah.

Darla Ridilla (57:56.344)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. As we get close to our close, I'm just kind of thinking about if there's anything else that I wanted to ask you. Because I think you've covered everything. But is there something I haven't asked you or something that you just really want to share before we go?

Stephany Ann (58:21.874)
You know, I think so many times, know, our healing journey or our recreation of self, whatever it is, is not a competition and it's not a race. And these are things that I have to remind myself to, like, okay, well, why isn't this moving faster? Why?

Darla Ridilla (58:42.03)
Mm-hmm.

Stephany Ann (58:51.218)
Is this taken me so long to do these things? But then I have to stop and remember like, okay, so I mean, you're a solo parent. You have no family around here. You are mom, you're dad, you're the coach or the teacher. My kids homeschool too. I just love a challenge. And so, well, it's actually a hybrid. So they go two days in person and three days at home. But

Darla Ridilla (59:08.622)
Wow.

Stephany Ann (59:21.51)
You know, and so sometimes there's these parts of me that's like, God, why has it taken me so long?

to do these things that I want to do or to step into this higher version of myself that I know she's right there, but I just, I feel like I'm walking in quicksand or climbing shale every one step forward, two steps back. But the thing is, that growth, it takes time. And especially when you're building a strong foundation.

Darla Ridilla (59:54.189)
Mm-hmm.

Stephany Ann (59:58.926)
It takes time and we also we can't compete because we're all we all started at different points in our life and we are all moving towards different points. so focus on you. Focus on creating the version of you that you see for yourself that you've always believed was in there that you had to to suppress and any action.

Darla Ridilla (01:00:09.934)
Mm-hmm.

Stephany Ann (01:00:29.37)
aligned action, even if it's little baby steps, get on podcasts or speaking on little stages or starting a social media page and just start talking and sharing. You're moving forward and moving forward, even if it's a baby step, it still is forward. So continue to move forward and trust and believe.

Darla Ridilla (01:00:51.854)
Mm-hmm.

Stephany Ann (01:00:58.968)
that all the good in the person that you are trying to reveal within you, she's coming. But be patient and have grace. That's what I tell myself.

Darla Ridilla (01:01:16.194)
Yeah, the thought that came to me, think it's bamboo. think it's like two years. I mean, it's a long time that it actually grows underneath the ground, something like that. But it's not the growth isn't happening. It's just happening where we can't see it. I would think that also personal growth is the same way. And I think particularly in the beginning, we don't think anything's happening. But if you're doing that little bit, little bit at a time, it actually grows.

and builds on itself.

Stephany Ann (01:01:46.546)
Yes. Yes. Yeah.

Darla Ridilla (01:01:50.552)
Yeah. Thank you so much. I will put all the links in the show notes, but do you want to share how people can find you if they want to work with you read your book?

Stephany Ann (01:02:01.582)
Yes, so actually yesterday I started an Instagram Yeah, it's called it's called rewrite the fairy tale and It will be a community focused on stepping into our higher self after narcissistic abuse

Darla Ridilla (01:02:07.982)
Yay! I'll get that from you.

Stephany Ann (01:02:25.434)
So there will still be other stuff on there like awareness and I'll do stuff for legal as well. If you're navigating legal with a narcissist like co-parenting, custody, parenting, all that kind of stuff, I'll have stuff on there about it as well. But really it's about consciously rewriting our story. And so that's Rewrite the Fairy Tale. You can also find me at Stephanieannspeaks at Gmail.

if you want to reach out there. And I'm almost finished with my website. We're getting there. Baby steps. But still moving forward. There's still steps forward.

Darla Ridilla (01:03:04.348)
It takes a while.

Darla Ridilla (01:03:09.686)
Awesome. This has been fabulous. I'm sure the listeners are going to get a lot out of this and relate to your story and all the great guidance that you've given. So thank you so much for being here today.

Stephany Ann (01:03:25.468)
Thank you so much for having me. I really enjoyed our conversation.

Darla Ridilla (01:03:30.006)
was a pleasure. To my listeners, you have the power.