Welcome to Back from the Abyss. I'm Dr. Craig Hecock.

This is the third of an intermittent series of stories about therapists in the abyss. Today, my friend and colleague, Dr. Elena Estenol, shares her, as she calls it, her fourth dark night of the soul.

After her very painful struggles through three brutal and unexpected life challenges,

Elena thought she was done, that the crises were surely passed, that she'd

finally gained the wisdom, the positive momentum, and acceptance to handle anything life

could throw her way. And then came the fourth. I have long been fascinated with how people heal. When is psychological healing primarily a solo

inward journey? And when is it best catalyzed by interpersonal connections? After all,

relationships are human growth machines. Yet the ending of relationships can feel like some kind of

unbearable drawn-out death. So what's the best healing path for a broken heart and spirit?

Through her story, Elena and I explore the roles of both interpersonal and intrapersonal

healing, the power of owning and crafting our personal narratives and moving toward the difficult

but ultimately necessary realization that the hardest stuff in life tends to hit us unexpectedly

like some kind of existential avalanche.

I was at a really good place in my life.

You know, I felt excited. I feel like I felt like I had gone through like three maybe more massive challenges, both personally and in my relationship, I'm professionally.

And, you know, I kind of finally felt like I was good, right?

Like when you just kind of feel like, oh, I'm getting to the top.

And I was feeling super excited.

I felt like we had, I had a really stable relationship. My husband and I

had been married for 17 years. We had formed this beautiful, integrative wellness center.

I had two other businesses, a coaching practice. Things were going really well. And I was so

excited to be writing a book about intuition. Like I had written a few other

...