Adult Child of Dysfunction

In this Tammy’s Take, we build on my conversation with Angie Hawkins and break down one of the biggest misconceptions around boundaries: it’s not that you don’t know how to set them, it’s that your body doesn’t feel safe enough to hold them.

If you’ve ever found yourself saying yes when you meant no, over-explaining, or giving in after trying to set a boundary, this episode will help you understand why. What looks like a boundary issue is often a nervous system response rooted in early patterns of survival.

In this epis...

In this deeply empowering episode, we sit down with Angie Hawkins, known as The Inner Glow Coach, to explore what it truly takes for women to move from chasing external validation to embodying self-acceptance, confidence, and inner peace.

Angie works with high-achieving women who have “done the work” — therapy, personal development, self-help — yet still feel stuck, unfulfilled, or disconnected from their worth. Through both professional insight and personal vulnerability, Angie shares how lasting transformation requires deep inner work and identity-level change, not just surface-level coping strategies.

Drawing from her own journey of resilience and healing, Angie di...

In this episode of Tammy’s Takes, Tammy Vincent breaks down a powerful insight from her recent conversation with Doris Angel and turns it into a practical strategy you can use immediately.

If you’ve ever felt like you’ve done the work—talked about your past, understood your triggers, and still feel stuck—this episode will help you understand why.

Tammy explains the missing piece in many healing journeys: the body.

While many approaches focus on thinking, analyzing, and understanding, true healing requires reconnecting with what the body is holding. When emotions and experi...

What if healing wasn’t something you had to search for… but something already inside of you?

In this episode, Tammy sits down with Doris Angel—musician, spiritual guide, and creator of Divine Flow workshops—to explore how breath, sound, and movement can help release emotional pain, regulate the nervous system, and reconnect you to your heart.

Doris shares her journey through adversity, insomnia, and emotional overwhelm, and how she returned to her natural gifts of music, breathwork, and spiritual connection to heal. Together, Tammy and Doris dive into the power of intention, the importance of integ...

In this Tammy’s Takes episode of Adult Child of Dysfunction, Tammy Vincent unpacks a powerful insight from her conversation with Kelly Kinney:

👉 You don’t need to find yourself—you need to remember yourself.

This episode dives deep into how trauma, conditioning, and life experiences can disconnect us from who we truly are. Tammy explains that many people feel “lost,” not because they’ve lost themselves, but because they’ve become disconnected from their authentic identity.

Through Kelly’s story, we explore how self-trust is built—not through one big breakthrough—but through small, aligned...

What happens when childhood trauma shapes the way we see ourselves, our relationships, and the world?

In this powerful conversation, Tammy Vincent sits down with mystic healer Fairy Kelly, founder of the Wild Way Apothecary, to explore the journey from childhood dysfunction to deep personal healing. Kelly shares her story of abandonment, addiction, motherhood, and ultimately discovering a path of healing through nature, ritual, and reconnecting with the body.

Together, Tammy and Kelly dive into nervous system healing, breaking subconscious patterns, the mother wound, and the importance of looking inward rather than searching for external...

In this Tammy’s Takes episode of the Adult Child of Dysfunction podcast, Tammy Vincent explores why emotional triggers can feel so powerful and where those reactions really come from. Building on her recent conversation with Josie Gibson, Tammy explains how the nervous system stores past experiences and trauma patterns, which can influence our emotional reactions in the present.

Many people believe they are simply overreacting, but in reality their body may be responding to learned survival patterns from childhood or past experiences. Tammy discusses how recognizing these trauma triggers and nervous system responses can help people be...

In this episode of the Adult Child of Dysfunction podcast, Tammy Vincent sits down with Josie Gibson to explore the ideas behind Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health and how understanding the mind can help people navigate trauma, emotional triggers, and personal growth.

Josie shares how discovering Dianetics as a teenager helped her make sense of intrusive thoughts, emotional reactions, and the patterns that often develop from past experiences. Central to the conversation is the concept of the reactive mind—the part of the subconscious that stores painful memories and emotional responses that can influence our be...

In this Tammy’s Takes episode of the Adult Child of Dysfunction podcast, Tammy Vincent reflects on her recent conversation with marriage coach Dr. Lee Balcom and expands on an important topic: how childhood dysfunction often shows up in our adult relationships.

Many people assume relationship struggles start within the relationship itself, but the truth is that our early environments shape the way we communicate, handle conflict, trust others, and connect emotionally.

In this episode, Tammy shares five common ways growing up in dysfunction can affect adult relationships, including conflict avoidance, hyper-independence, emotional shutdown, over-giving, an...

In this insightful episode, Dr. Lee Baucom — renowned marriage coach, speaker, and author — joins the conversation to unpack one of the most common yet overlooked challenges in marriage: disconnection.

Dr. Baucom explains how many couples enter marriage with deep love and good intentions, only to unintentionally place their relationship on pause as careers, parenting, stress, and daily responsibilities take center stage. Over time, this lack of intentional connection can quietly erode the bond between partners, leading to frustration, conflict, and emotional distance.

Throughout the episode, Dr. Baucom emphasizes that love alone is not enough to sust...

In this Tammy’s Take follow-up episode, Tammy Vincent expands on the powerful conversation from Episode 277 with resilience coach Tom Lenoble about what he calls “terrible gifts.”

Tom shared the idea that some of life’s hardest experiences can eventually lead to unexpected growth. While that perspective can be incredibly empowering, Tammy dives deeper into an important truth many people who grew up in dysfunction understand: resilience doesn’t always feel like strength. Sometimes it simply feels like survival.

In this teaching episode, Tammy explains how resilience is not just a personality trait — it is deeply conne...

In this powerful episode of Adult Child of Dysfunction, Tammy Vincent sits down with executive leader, resilience coach, and international speaker Tom LeNoble to explore the transformative power of resilience and how life’s most difficult experiences can shape us into stronger, more compassionate human beings.

Tom shares insights from his remarkable journey through business leadership, life-threatening illness, and personal adversity. His perspective reframes hardship as what he calls “terrible gifts” — moments that may feel devastating in the moment but ultimately offer profound opportunities for growth, purpose, and self-discovery.

Throughout the conversation, Tom explains why resilien...

In this follow-up solo episode of Adult Child of Dysfunction, Tammy Vincent expands on a powerful moment from her recent conversation with Carly Alyssa Thorne about forgiveness and trauma recovery.

Forgiveness is one of the most misunderstood concepts in healing. Many trauma survivors hear the word “forgive” and assume it means excusing abuse, forgetting what happened, or allowing harmful people back into their lives.

But true forgiveness is something entirely different.

In this teaching episode, Tammy explains how forgiveness is actually a nervous system process. It is not about condoning the past — it is abo...

In this deeply powerful episode, I sit down with Carly Alyssa Thorne, trauma-informed coach, advocate, and transformational guide, to talk about what it truly means to heal from survival mode and reclaim your life after trauma.

Carly shares her lived experience navigating adversity, chronic stress, and the long-term impact of unresolved trauma — and how those experiences shaped her mission to help others regulate their nervous systems, rebuild emotional resilience, and rediscover their voice.

We explore how trauma doesn’t just live in our memories — it lives in our bodies. It shows up as anxiety, burnout, chroni...

In this powerful and hope-filled episode, we sit down with Eileen Kopsaftis, founder of Lifelong Well-Being and co-founder of Cameo Ministries, to explore the deep connection between chronic pain and unresolved emotional trauma.

For more than 26 years, Eileen has dedicated her life to supporting women who have endured various forms of abuse. As a chronic pain specialist and nutrition educator, she brings both professional expertise and lived compassion to the conversation — illuminating how emotional wounds often manifest as physical symptoms in the body.

We dive into the mind-body connection, unpacking how trauma can be stored in...

In this follow-up teaching episode inspired by my conversation with Sue Bowles, we go deeper into one life-altering question:

Do you believe that you matter?

Not intellectually.

Not because someone else says you do.

But in your body. In your nervous system. In the quiet spaces where your real beliefs live.

For so many adult children of dysfunction, the core wound isn’t just what happened to us — it’s what we came to believe about ourselves because of it. Survival mode can quietly shape our identity, leaving us stuck...

In this powerful and heart-centered episode, we sit down with Sue Bowles, life and mental health coach, founder of the Dare to Believe Movement, and passionate advocate for dismantling the stigma surrounding mental health.

At the center of Sue’s work is one transformative question:

“Do you believe that you matter?”

Drawing from her own journey through trauma, grief, resilience, and personal rebuilding, Sue shares how self-belief becomes the foundation for healing. She explains that real change does not begin with external validation — it begins with the courageous declaration: I believe that I matter.<...

In this episode, I sit down with Anthony Spark, a personal and business coach who brings powerful insight into the often-overlooked gap between external success and internal alignment. Together, we explore what happens when life looks successful on paper—career growth, leadership roles, financial wins—but feels disconnected, strained, or empty behind the scenes.

Anthony shares his own journey of navigating success while quietly losing connection with himself and the people who mattered most. He speaks candidly about how hustle culture, unexamined values, and unresolved patterns can pull us out of alignment, even as achievements continue to stac...

As a follow-up to the recent episode with Bryan Power, this conversation looks at a familiar experience many people encounter in long-term relationships—often referred to as “the ick.” That subtle but persistent feeling of irritation, resentment, emotional distance, or shutdown can be unsettling and easy to misinterpret.

Rather than suggesting these feelings mean something is wrong with your partner or your relationship, this episode offers a different lens: the ick as a response from a dysregulated nervous system. When stress, emotional load, and unresolved experiences accumulate, the body can shift into protection mode, altering how we percei...

In this episode, Bryan Power shares his personal experience of a major breakdown in his marriage and the journey that followed. What appeared to be a stable relationship in 2024 quickly unraveled, leading to a period of separation that required deep self-reflection and personal accountability. Rather than focusing solely on fixing the relationship, Bryan explains how this time became an opportunity to examine his own emotional patterns, reactions, and behaviors.

Bryan discusses how learning about attachment theory helped him understand the subconscious wounds and nervous system responses that were influencing his relationship. He explains how attachment styles develop...

In this solo follow-up episode, Tammy speaks directly to parents who are doing the healing work—but still feel overwhelmed by guilt, regret, and fear that they started too late.

With honesty and compassion, Tammy shares what it was like to begin her healing journey after her children were older, the unbearable guilt that surfaced with awareness, and the moment her eight-year-old son told her he didn’t like who she was when she was drinking—a turning point that changed everything.

This episode is both deeply personal and practical. Tammy explains why knowing better doesn’...

In this heartfelt episode , Tammy sits down with Misun, a spiritual life coach who supports mothers navigating the complex emotional terrain of parenting after deep personal growth. This conversation is especially resonant for women who have done the inner work, yet still find themselves caught in cycles of guilt, anger, emotional overwhelm, and self-judgment.

Misun shares her powerful personal journey of growing up in a dysfunctional family and how those early experiences shaped her identity, relationships, and approach to motherhood. Through vulnerability and insight, she explains how unresolved childhood patterns can resurface in parenting — not because mothers ar...

Today Tammy builds on the last episode, the powerful conversation with Peak Performance Hypnotist Tim Shurr. to explore a critical reframe many people have never been offered:

What if anxiety isn’t a stress problem — but a belief your nervous system learned long ago?

Drawing from Tim’s insights and her own trauma-informed coaching work, Tammy walks listeners through five clear signs that anxiety may be rooted in subconscious beliefs rather than current circumstances. She explains why affirmations and mindset work often fall flat, how the body responds to meaning instead of logic, and why adult...

Today we sit down with Tim Shurr, a renowned Peak Performance Hypnotist with over 37 years of experience helping people break free from subconscious limitations and step into what he calls “Peaceful Success.”

Tim shares how many of the struggles we face—chronic stress, anxiety, self-sabotage, health issues, and emotional overwhelm—are not simply mindset problems, but the result of deeply rooted subconscious beliefs, often formed in childhood. These beliefs quietly shape our behaviors, self-talk, relationships, and even how our bodies respond to stress and trauma.

Throughout the conversation, Tim explains his One Belief Away method, revealin...

In this episode of Adult Child of Dysfunction, Tammy explores why healing often feels incomplete—even after therapy, insight, and years of personal growth.

Many people understand their childhood trauma, dysfunctional family dynamics, or emotional neglect, yet still struggle with anxiety, chronic tension, shutdown, or nervous system dysregulation. This episode explains why: the body learns survival before language ever develops.

Long before we could speak, our nervous systems learned how to stay safe through sensation, tone of voice, emotional absence, inconsistency, and chronic stress. These early survival patterns don’t live in memory or story—they l...

In this deeply moving and insightful episode of Adult Child of Dysfunction, Tammy sits down with Deepak Chari, engineer, certified biofeedback specialist, and co-founder of the Chari Center of Health. Deepak shares his personal journey—from years of childhood bullying and emotional isolation to becoming a pioneer in advanced voice biofeedback technology used to help people release long-held emotional patterns.

Deepak explains how early life experiences, including ancestral and prenatal stress, can become “programming” stored in the subconscious and nervous system—shaping our relationships, self-worth, health, and emotional responses well into adulthood. Drawing on both engineering principles and over...

In this follow-up episode, Tammy gently expands on her recent conversation with relationship clarity coach Bre Waltas, diving deeper into how growing up in dysfunctional or chaotic homes shapes our identity, attachment patterns, and nervous system responses.

Tammy explores why survival, not self-discovery, becomes the priority in childhood trauma — and how that survival wiring follows us into adulthood. She explains how identity loss, people-pleasing, emotional hypervigilance, and trauma bonds are not personal failures, but intelligent adaptations the body learned to stay safe.

Listeners will learn:

Returning guest Bre Wolta, relationship clarity coach and EFT practitioner, joins us once again for a powerful and deeply relatable conversation about how growing up in dysfunctional families shapes our adult relationships.

In this episode, Bre and I explore how early experiences with addiction, instability, and emotional neglect can impact identity, boundaries, and self-worth. Bre shares how these environments often lead individuals into patterns of codependency, trauma bonding, and repeated attraction to narcissistic or emotionally unavailable partners.

We break down the psychological and biochemical dynamics of trauma bonds, explaining why unhealthy relationships can feel addictive...

In this follow-up episode, Tammy expands on last week’s heartfelt conversation with author Kimberly Conte and explores the missing piece so many adult children of dysfunction run into: awareness isn’t always enough to create real change.

If you’ve ever thought, “I know why I’m like this… so why do I still feel stuck?” this episode is for you. Tammy explains how people-pleasing, indecision, and chronic self-doubt are often not personality flaws at all, but nervous system survival patterns, especially the fawn response.

You’ll learn why self-talk and mindset work can feel impossible...

In this deeply moving and honest episode, I sit down with Kimberly Conte, author of Who Am I Really?, a woman whose life story speaks directly to anyone who has ever felt abandoned, broken, or unsure of their place in the world.

Kimberly shares her journey through a rough and painful life shaped by childhood bullying, family dysfunction, parent loss, and personal heartbreak. She opens up about how these early experiences affected her identity, self-worth, and sense of belonging, and how she slowly learned to rebuild herself from a place of hopelessness into one of empowerment.

Joy isn’t something we wait for once life settles down—it’s something we choose, even in the middle of uncertainty. In this powerful conversation, Alexi Bracey invites listeners to rethink what it truly means to thrive after hardship.

Drawing from her lived experience as a cancer victor and resilience expert, Alexi explores the meaningful distinction between happiness and joy—highlighting joy as a deeper, steadier force that can exist even during life’s most difficult seasons. Rather than framing resilience as sheer endurance, she reframes it as an intentional, transformative journey rooted in gratitude, emotional intelligen...

In this heartfelt episode, poet and community builder Teri Petz joins Adult Child of Dysfunction to explore the profound healing power of words. Through her personal journey, Teri shares how writing and poetry became a lifeline—helping her navigate adversity, reconnect with hope, and shift her focus from heaviness toward beauty, light, and meaningful connection.

Teri has spent years hosting open mic events that create safe, encouraging spaces for people to express themselves authentically. In 2025, she expanded this mission into virtual Zoom open mics with a central theme of encouragement, recognizing how deeply needed supportive spaces are in...

In this powerful and heart-centered episode, I’m joined by Kristen Renee, a three-time author and holistic healing guide, for a deeply meaningful conversation about reclaiming health, wealth, and purpose after years of chronic illness and personal transformation.

Kristen shares her decade-long journey navigating autoimmune challenges—an experience that ultimately led her to create her 12-part foundational framework designed to help individuals reconnect with their bodies, heal from the inside out, and rebuild their lives with intention. Rather than focusing solely on symptoms, Kristen invites us to see the body as a communicator—one that offers wisdom, signal...

What happens when you grow up feeling unwanted — and choose to turn that pain into purpose?

In this powerful and deeply reflective episode of Adult Child of Dysfunction, I sit down with Martha Burich to explore healing beyond childhood trauma, reclaiming self-worth, and breaking generational cycles of dysfunction.

Martha courageously shares her journey of growing up in a family impacted by addiction, navigating feelings of worthlessness, and discovering that your past does not get to define your future. Together, we unpack the transformative power of boundaries, forgiveness, community, and personal responsibility — especially for adult children heal...

In this deeply moving and insightful episode, we sit down with Barbra Banner, a certified psychic evidential and trance medium, to explore the healing potential of mediumship for those navigating grief, trauma, and loss.

Barbara shares her personal journey into mediumship—one that unfolded later in life and was profoundly shaped by years of volunteer work in crisis intervention and trauma-related settings. These experiences not only deepened her compassion but also strengthened her understanding of the emotional and spiritual needs of individuals facing profound loss.

Throughout the conversation, Barbara offers a clear and grounded explanation of...

In this powerful and timely episode, we welcome Dr. Kate Lund, a distinguished clinical psychologist, resilience expert, and speaker with over 20 years of experience helping individuals, families, athletes, and organizations thrive under pressure. Affiliated with renowned Harvard Medical School institutions, Dr. Lund brings both clinical expertise and heartfelt personal insight to the conversation.

Dr. Lund reframes resilience as far more than simply “bouncing back” from adversity. Instead, she describes it as a holistic lifestyle—one that integrates mental fortitude, emotional regulation, self-awareness, and supportive connection. Together, we explore the nuanced differences between types of trauma, how individual temper...

In this enlightening episode, Veronica Moya brings much-needed attention to the vital role of emotional intelligence and mindfulness in childhood development. Drawing from her work as a mindfulness and meditation coach for children, Veronica shares how early emotional awareness can shape lifelong self-regulation, confidence, and resilience.

Throughout the conversation, Veronica explains how modern societal conditioning often pulls children away from their natural intuition and emotional wisdom. She emphasizes the importance of helping children stay connected to this inner guidance, rather than unlearning it later in life. By nurturing mindfulness early, children can develop a healthy relationship with...

What happens when science, trauma, and hope collide?

In this episode, we talk with Dr. Hector Rodriguez, a psychiatrist and brain health expert who helps people understand that their pain isn’t a personal failure — it’s a survival story written into the brain and body.

Dr. Rodriguez opens up about his own journey growing up in a culture where strength meant silence and mental health wasn’t discussed, and how recognizing the same patterns in himself — perfectionism, burnout, emotional disconnection — changed the way he practices medicine.

Through his work in trauma, resilience, and emotiona...

In this powerful and deeply validating episode, we sit down with Gretchen Hill — Spiritual Life Coach, Akashic Records practitioner, and creator of the Multi-Generational Money Map™ — to explore what it really means to break inherited patterns and reclaim your emotional and energetic sovereignty.

Gretchen shares her personal story of growing up in a family system where emotions weren’t discussed, intuition wasn’t honored, and being “the responsible one” was expected without question. Like so many adult children of dysfunction, she learned early that staying small, agreeable, and helpful kept the peace — and that pattern shaped her relationship wit...

On this episode of Adult Child of Dysfunction, we’re joined by Wendy B. Correa — former music industry insider, radio DJ, trauma survivor, and author of the upcoming memoir My Pretty Baby (She Writes Press, Nov. 4, 2025).

With honesty, grit, and a touch of rock ’n’ roll magic, Wendy shares her riveting story of overcoming Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) — a form of trauma that impacts nearly 64% of adults in the U.S., per the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Wendy’s mission is to destigmatize trauma and help others find happiness, authenticity, and emotional freedom.

Her incredib...