Episode 322: Put Your Past In Your Past with Beverly Engel

The Divorce Survival Guide Podcast

Kate Anthony

Relationships, Education, Self-improvement, Society & Culture

4.4 • 573 Ratings

🗓️ 8 May 2025

⏱️ 57 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Beverly Engel is back, and I'm so grateful to talk with someone who's spent decades helping people break free from trauma-driven relationship patterns. If you've ever felt stuck in the same story - same red flags, different partner - you're not alone. In this episode, Beverly brings clarity to the messy, courageous work of breaking free and putting your past in your past.

Beverly is a renowned psychotherapist and author of 27 self-help books, including her latest, Put Your Past In Your Past. In this conversation, we get into how hard it is to break lifelong patterns, especially when you were never taught how to feel your feelings, let alone trust them. But that's where the work is and that's how we begin to change everything. Healing is messy. It's uncomfortable. But it's also liberating as hell.

Here's what else we discuss in this episode:

What trauma reenactment actually is and how to begin interrupting the cycle (7:56)
How to create a "triggers list" and begin connecting the dots between past pain and present-day reactions (10:51)
Why you can't heal what you don't feel and what to do when the emotions finally surface (18:44)
The fear of naming your trauma in relationships (and how to work through it) (40:08)
Tools for building self-compassion and protecting yourself moving forward (43:40)

Learn more about Beverly Engel: Beverly is an internationally recognized psychotherapist and expert on trauma. She has written 27 books on the related subjects of abuse, shame, and empowerment, including The Emotionally Abusive Relationship and Healing Your Emotional Self. Her books have been translated into many languages, including Spanish, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Greek, Turkish, and Polish. She has a blog on Psychology Today titled The Compassion Chronicles and her writing has been featured in Oprah Magazine, Cosmopolitan, The Chicago Tribune and The Washington Post, to name a few.

Resources & Links:

Thank you to today's podcast sponsor: Our Family Wizard
Submit your questions here for possible inclusion in future Q&A podcast episodes
Focused Strategy Sessions with Kate
Phoenix Rising: A Divorce Empowerment Collective
Beverly's website
Heal My Shame
Beverly on Instagram

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DISCLAIMER: THE COMMENTARY AND OPINIONS AVAILABLE ON THIS PODCAST ARE FOR INFORMATIONAL AND ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY AND NOT FOR THE PURPOSE OF PROVIDING LEGAL OR PSYCHOLOGICAL ADVICE. YOU SHOULD CONTACT AN ATTORNEY, COACH, OR THERAPIST IN YOUR STATE TO OBTAIN ADVICE WITH RESPECT TO ANY PARTICULAR ISSUE OR PROBLEM.

Episode link:
https://kateanthony.com/podcast/episode-322-put-your-past-in-your-past-with-beverly-engel/

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	The key phrase is, it's understandable.
0:02.8	Understandable that I have all these triggers.
0:06.2	It's understandable that I get upset when my husband ignores me at parties.
0:11.9	It's understandable that given my trauma, I'm super sensitive to certain behaviors.
0:18.7	It's understandable that I need a lot of attention sometimes. It's
0:24.8	understandable that I'm in pain a lot. So my key phrase, it's understandable, is remarkably
0:32.1	healing when you say it and you mean it. You're really understanding yourself.
0:38.3	You're giving yourself empathy and compassion and love.
0:42.3	And it's just incredibly healing.
0:48.3	Welcome to the Divorce Survival Guide podcast, where we have open and honest conversations about co-parenting, separation,
0:56.7	divorce, and the hardest question of all, should you stay or should you go?
1:02.3	I'm Kate Anthony, your divorce survival guide, and I'm here to help you navigate some of the
1:08.1	roughest waters you've ever swum in and answer some of your toughest
1:11.9	questions. I've been to hell and back. And now it's my mission in life to help you get to the
1:18.3	other side of this process with your sanity and your heart intact.
1:37.6	Hey everyone, welcome back. Well, it's almost Mother's Day. What are we going to do? This is a question I get every year.
1:47.2	Multiple versions of the question. One is I'm not going to have my kids or I'm not going to have them for the entire day.
1:49.1	Maybe I get them for a couple of hours.
1:49.8	What do I do?
1:51.1	How do I take care of myself?
1:55.4	How do I spend the day in a way that doesn't feel shitty?
2:03.5	Another version is, you know, I have my kids, but I don't think my co-parent is going to do anything.
	...

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