Red Flags & Real Love

Send us Fan MailWhat happens when you leave an unhealthy or abusive relationship, but your body still feels like you're in danger?In this powerful conversation, Virginia McConnell sits down with Jessy Pearson Cheney, an Emotion Code practitioner who helps women rebuild trust in their bodies after relationships that taught them to ignore their own intuition.Jessy shares her personal journey through trauma and domestic violence, and explains why healing isn't always about understanding everything intellectually. Sometimes, the body needs to be part of the healing process too.Together, Virginia and Jessy explore how trauma can affect the nervous system, disconnect us from our intuition, and keep us repeating relationship patterns—even when our minds know better. They discuss self-trust, fight-or-flight responses, emotional patterns, movement, and practical ways to reconnect with your body and begin feeling safe again.In this episode, you'll learn:Why leaving an unhealthy relationship doesn't automatically erase the patterns it createdHow trauma can disconnect you from your body and intuitionWhy you may know someone isn't safe logically but still feel drawn to them emotionallyHow rebuilding a relationship with your body can help restore self-trustThe role of movement in releasing stress and pent-up emotionsHow body-based approaches can complement therapy and other forms of healingSimple ways to begin listening to what your body is telling youIf you've ever questioned your intuition, struggled to trust yourself after a difficult relationship, or wondered why your body still reacts even when you're finally safe, this conversation is for you.Listen in and discover what it can look like to stop overriding yourself—and start trusting yourself again.About Jessy Pearson-CheneyEmotion Code PractitionerJessy works with women rebuilding trust in their own body after a relationship that taught them not to.Having experienced domestic violence herself, she brings more than theory to this work; she’s walked through it and found her way out.What she sees, again and again, is that leaving the relationship isn’t where the pattern ends. The body often keeps replaying old wiring long after the danger is gone, staying too long, missing red flags, feeling drawn to familiar dynamics that don’t actually feel safe, even when the mind knows better.Jessy gets to the root of where that wiring started and helps clear it directly, so safety isn’t just something a woman knows intellectually, it’s something her body finally believes.Women who work with her leave feeling safer in their own skin, more able to trust their own read on people and situations, and less pulled back toward the same pattern again.Ways to contact; [email protected] All socials: @jessypearsoncheneyText: 765-436-0985Support the showRed Flags & Real Love is a Break the Patterns podcast, hosted by Virginia McConnell — Dating and Relationship Pattern Coach, specializing in narcissistic abuse recovery.🔗 Free quiz: breakthepatterns.netlify.app 🔗 Website: breakthepatterns.net 📅 Book a free coaching consultation: calendly.com/breakthepatternsConnect with Virginia: 📸 Instagram: instagram.com/officialvirginiamcconnell 👥 Facebook: facebook.com/officialvirginiamcconnellNew episodes every week.

Send us Fan MailMost people go into relationships with hope and a good feeling. Anil Gupta goes in with a system — and he's blunt about why: roughly nine out of ten relationships fail, and most people are on their fifth, sixth, or seventh before they marry, still guessing.My guest today has spoken in 18 countries, shared stages with Richard Branson, Les Brown, and Daymond John, spoken at Harvard, TEDx, and on Fox News, and met the Dalai Lama. He's a five-time international bestselling author. He also built all of it out of the hardest moment of his life, in 2008.What he brought to this conversation wasn't inspiration. It was homework.In this episode:The happiness formula: giving × gratitude × growth, scored out of ten — and the pickleball fall that took him from 729 to 1 in half an hour, and how he climbed back before the day was outThe hundred-dollar-note exercise: why your worth doesn't move no matter what's been said about you or done to youThe moment he stopped me mid-sentence to correct how I described my own past — and what saying "I had none" does to the brain that "I had less" doesn'tAwareness → clarity → focus → action → results → momentum, and the small daily practice that starts itWhy "speak less, listen more" is a relationship skill, not a manners ruleThe three-way test every partner has to pass: integrity, being loving to everyone not just you, and being healthy — emotionally, physically, spiritually, mentally, and financiallyA-B-C-D-E-F-G: Always Be Collecting Data, then Evaluate, Finalize, and Go. Looking for alignment: the dog question, and how a two-minute exchange tells you whether someone is telling you the truthWhy he'd tell you not to date at all yet — and why coffee at an awkward hour reveals more than dinner ever willThe question to ask about their last relationship, and what complaining versus complimenting predicts about how they'll talk about youIf you've ever wondered why the same thing keeps happening, this episode hands you a method instead of a feeling.Find Anil:http://meetanil.comReady to go deeper?More of Virginia's story at http://breakthepatterns.netBook a complimentary consultation: calendly.com/breakthepatternsSupport the showRed Flags & Real Love is a Break the Patterns podcast, hosted by Virginia McConnell — Dating and Relationship Pattern Coach, specializing in narcissistic abuse recovery.🔗 Free quiz: breakthepatterns.netlify.app 🔗 Website: breakthepatterns.net 📅 Book a free coaching consultation: calendly.com/breakthepatternsConnect with Virginia: 📸 Instagram: instagram.com/officialvirginiamcconnell 👥 Facebook: facebook.com/officialvirginiamcconnellNew episodes every week.

Send us Fan MailThere's a moment in dating when the story stops being about them and starts being about you. NK Navarro found hers in a coffee shop, in tears, at 40.My guest today is NK Navarro, author of When the Bar Is in Hell: Dating at 40. She's an entrepreneur, educator, and single mom with two master's degrees who relocated to get specialized care for her youngest son — and who then spent five years discovering that experience doesn't make dating any less complicated. Her book started as journal entries she'd read aloud to friends, who kept telling her the stories were too good not to publish.She's not wrong. Wait until you hear about the minivan.In this conversation:The coffee date that unraveled in real time — the makeup on his shirt, the device on his dashboard, and the phone call that explained everythingWhy she kept swiping right on the same kind of man, and what it took to admit the pattern was hers"Fire" — the one who didn't fit her checklist, had his life together, and told her the truth she wasn't ready forThe sentence in the middle of her tears that changed everything: you are single because of youWhy she didn't chase him back, and what respecting someone's no taught her about respecting her ownBeing a lifelong fixer, and learning that the word no ends with a periodThe three practices that actually hold her together: gym time with no screens, a midday walk with the dog, and a journaling rule her mom taught her — every entry has to end on something good, however smallThis one is funny. Genuinely, laugh-out-loud funny. It's also one of the most honest accounts of self-accountability we've had on the show — because the hardest pattern to spot is the one you're choosing.Find NK:Website: nknavarro.comTikTok: @authornknavarroFacebook: Author NKWhen the Bar Is in Hell: Dating at 40 — available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Walmart, Books-A-Million, Indigo (Canada), and independent bookstoresReady to go deeper?More of Virginia's story at http://breakthepatterns.netBook a complimentary consultation: calendly.com/breakthepatternsFollow along on Instagram and Facebook @officialvirginiamcconnellSupport the showRed Flags & Real Love is a Break the Patterns podcast, hosted by Virginia McConnell — Dating and Relationship Pattern Coach, specializing in narcissistic abuse recovery.🔗 Free quiz: breakthepatterns.netlify.app 🔗 Website: breakthepatterns.net 📅 Book a free coaching consultation: calendly.com/breakthepatternsConnect with Virginia: 📸 Instagram: instagram.com/officialvirginiamcconnell 👥 Facebook: facebook.com/officialvirginiamcconnellNew episodes every week.

Send us Fan MailContent note: this episode includes pregnancy and infant loss, infidelity, and sustained emotional and verbal abuse. Take care of yourself as you listen — pause when you need to.The Jane Doe series is where anonymous guests share what they actually lived through. No names, no places, no identifying details — that's what makes this kind of honesty possible.Today's guest spent twelve years with someone they met on a dating app. The beginning was attentive, flattering, and fast — a whirlwind they'd only later recognize as love bombing. The early signs were small enough to explain away: impatience, a temper that flared easily, unkind words about other people. Then, with the wedding months away, the sudden announcement that children were a non-negotiable no.What followed was years of a pattern tightening: a mother-in-law who openly criticized their age, race, culture, and appearance. The loss of a daughter partway through a pregnancy, grieved almost entirely alone. A gut feeling that something was wrong that took two separate discoveries to finally name. And a partner who, in the end, said out loud whose side he was on.In this conversation:How a fast, flattering start can hide a pattern that only makes sense looking backThe message spotted while sitting in a church in Mexico — and the explanation that didn't hold upFinding proof of a years-long affair at two in the morning, and why the pandemic made leaving feel impossibleWhat it does to a marriage when a partner's family becomes the thing you're up againstThe love bombing that arrives after someone gets caught: the flowers, the cards, the therapy, the counseling that ended the moment it got uncomfortableThe single sentence in a counselor's office that made everything clearWhy "I just need to be a better wife" is so often the wrong questionWhat choosing yourself actually looks like in practice — the quiet planning, the separate finances, the plan you hope you won't needLife on the other side: their own home, low contact, and a sense of self rebuilt from the ground upThen the six questions asked of every guest in this series — including the one that lands hardest: what would you want someone still in it to know is possible?Support the showRed Flags & Real Love is a Break the Patterns podcast, hosted by Virginia McConnell — Dating and Relationship Pattern Coach, specializing in narcissistic abuse recovery.🔗 Free quiz: breakthepatterns.netlify.app 🔗 Website: breakthepatterns.net 📅 Book a free coaching consultation: calendly.com/breakthepatternsConnect with Virginia: 📸 Instagram: instagram.com/officialvirginiamcconnell 👥 Facebook: facebook.com/officialvirginiamcconnellNew episodes every week.

Send us Fan MailMia Hanks — 29 Years, Two Memoirs, and the Long Road to Naming ItSome patterns don't announce themselves. They arrive quietly, build slowly, and by the time you have language for what's happening, years have gone by.My guest today is Mia Hanks, an author and survivor who spent 29 years inside a marriage marked by covert narcissistic abuse — the kind that leaves no marks anyone else can see. She's written two memoirs about that experience, and in this conversation she shares what those years actually looked like from the inside.If you've ever wondered why it took you so long to see it, Mia's story is a reminder that the answer is usually built into how these patterns work — not into anything wrong with you.Find Mia:Books and more of her story: https://miajhanks.com Narcissism in Marriage: Understanding the Cycle of AbuseReady to go deeper?More of Virginia's story at http://breakthepatterns.netBook a complimentary consultation: calendly.com/breakthepatternsSupport the showRed Flags & Real Love is a Break the Patterns podcast, hosted by Virginia McConnell — Dating and Relationship Pattern Coach, specializing in narcissistic abuse recovery.🔗 Free quiz: breakthepatterns.netlify.app 🔗 Website: breakthepatterns.net 📅 Book a free coaching consultation: calendly.com/breakthepatternsConnect with Virginia: 📸 Instagram: instagram.com/officialvirginiamcconnell 👥 Facebook: facebook.com/officialvirginiamcconnellNew episodes every week.

Send us Fan MailViolet Lange is a dating, relationship, and intimacy coach who helps smart, spiritual women attract healthy, lasting love. In this episode, she shares her latest dating after toxic and narcissistic abuse relationships.We also get into:How do you know when you're actually ready to date again versus just wanting to not be alone?What's the hardest part about dating after this kind of experience — what catches people off guard?What does a healthy early relationship actually feel like when you're used to chaos? How do you keep yourself from reading "calm" as "boring"?What are the first things to look for — and look out for — when you start dating again?You can check out more about Violet Lange at violetlange.com/loveharmonics/Love Harmonics: 6 weeks for $69 to change your love life at https://violetlange.com/loveharmonics/ doors open August 17th and it starts Sept 10thon IG as @violetlovelangeon FB as https://www.facebook.com/violetlange1Ready to go deeper? Free workshop August 3rd — 7:30pm ET, register at Upcoming Events More of my story at Break the Patterns Book a complimentary consultation: calendly.com/breakthepatterns Follow along on Instagram and Facebook @officialvirginiamcconnellSupport the showRed Flags & Real Love is a Break the Patterns podcast, hosted by Virginia McConnell — Dating and Relationship Pattern Coach, specializing in narcissistic abuse recovery.🔗 Free quiz: breakthepatterns.netlify.app 🔗 Website: breakthepatterns.net 📅 Book a free coaching consultation: calendly.com/breakthepatternsConnect with Virginia: 📸 Instagram: instagram.com/officialvirginiamcconnell 👥 Facebook: facebook.com/officialvirginiamcconnellNew episodes every week.

Send us Fan MailA note before you listen: This episode contains a first-person account of narcissistic abuse. Some details may be heavy, especially if your own story is still fresh. Take care of yourself as you listen — pause when you need to.This is the first episode of the Jane Doe series — real survivors, real stories, told anonymously. No names, no identifying details. Just the truth of what these patterns actually look like from inside.Today's guest shares the story of a whirlwind overseas romance that moved fast — fast enough that the marriage happened before the mask came off. What looked like a love story from the outside was heavy love bombing on the inside, followed by escalating signs of alcoholism and a partner who simply vanished whenever things got difficult. In the end, she had to hire a private investigator just to track him down and serve him divorce papers.In this conversation:The whirlwind beginning — how love bombing dressed itself up as a once-in-a-lifetime romanceWhy the speed of a relationship is itself a signal worth paying attention toThe disappearing act: what it looks like when someone vanishes instead of dealing with hard momentsLiving with the escalating signs of addiction alongside the emotional patternsWhat it took to finally end it — including hiring a PI just to serve the papersWhat she'd tell someone whose relationship is moving faster than their gut is comfortable withYou'll hear things in this story that might sound familiar. That's the point of this series — because the patterns repeat, and recognizing them in someone else's story is often how we finally see them in our own.If you have a story you'd like to share anonymously as a future Jane Doe, reach out through breakthepatterns.net.Ready to go deeper?Join the free live workshop August 3, 2026 at 7:30pm ETMore of Virginia's story at http://breakthepatterns.netBook a  consultation: calendly.com/breakthepatternsFollow along on Instagram and Facebook @officialvirginiamcconnellSupport the showRed Flags & Real Love is a Break the Patterns podcast, hosted by Virginia McConnell — Dating and Relationship Pattern Coach, specializing in narcissistic abuse recovery.🔗 Free quiz: breakthepatterns.netlify.app 🔗 Website: breakthepatterns.net 📅 Book a free coaching consultation: calendly.com/breakthepatternsConnect with Virginia: 📸 Instagram: instagram.com/officialvirginiamcconnell 👥 Facebook: facebook.com/officialvirginiamcconnellNew episodes every week.

Send us Fan Mail"Abuse is abuse... right?" Not exactly. All narcissistic abuse is abuse — but not all abuse is narcissistic. And if you've ever tried to explain what happened to you and watched someone's face say "that doesn't sound so bad," this episode is for you.Narcissistic abuse doesn't always leave marks you can point to. It's a pattern — a slow, deliberate erosion of your reality, your confidence, and your sense of self, often wrapped in charm that everyone else gets to see.In this episode:What separates narcissistic abuse from other forms of abuse — and why the difference matters for your healingThe signature pattern: idealize, devalue, discard — and why it keeps you hookedWhy narcissistic abuse is so hard to name, prove, or even explain to people who haven't lived itThe role of gaslighting: when the abuse itself convinces you there was no abuseWhy "but they never hit me" doesn't mean it wasn't realWhat recognizing the difference frees you to do nextIf you've been minimizing what you went through because it didn't look like what people call "abuse" — this one will help you name it.Ready to go deeper?Join the free live class every Monday at 7:30pm ETMore of Virginia's story at http://breakthepatterns.netBook a complimentary consultation: calendly.com/breakthepatternsFollow along on Instagram and Facebook @officialvirginiamcconnellSupport the showRed Flags & Real Love is a Break the Patterns podcast, hosted by Virginia McConnell — Dating and Relationship Pattern Coach, specializing in narcissistic abuse recovery.🔗 Free quiz: breakthepatterns.netlify.app 🔗 Website: breakthepatterns.net 📅 Book a free coaching consultation: calendly.com/breakthepatternsConnect with Virginia: 📸 Instagram: instagram.com/officialvirginiamcconnell 👥 Facebook: facebook.com/officialvirginiamcconnellNew episodes every week.

Send us Fan MailSomewhere along the way, you learned to make yourself smaller. To soften your needs. To say "sorry" for things that never required an apology — for having an opinion, for needing rest, for simply being in the room. When you've spent time around someone who treated your presence like an inconvenience, shrinking starts to feel like safety.This episode is about unlearning that. About noticing where the over-apologizing comes from, and giving yourself permission to stop.In this episode:Where chronic apologizing actually comes from — and why it's a learned survival response, not a personality flawHow narcissistic dynamics train you to treat your own needs as "too much"The quiet signs you're still shrinking: over-explaining, pre-apologizing, downplaying your winsWhat it looks like to take up space again without guiltSmall, honest first steps toward standing in your own life fullyYou were never too much. You were just around people who wanted less of you. Let's change that.Ready to go deeper?Join the free live class every Monday at 7:30pm ETMore of Virginia's story at http://breakthepatterns.netBook a complimentary consultation: calendly.com/breakthepatternsFollow along on Instagram and Facebook @officialvirginiamcconnellSupport the showRed Flags & Real Love is a Break the Patterns podcast, hosted by Virginia McConnell — Dating and Relationship Pattern Coach, specializing in narcissistic abuse recovery.🔗 Free quiz: breakthepatterns.netlify.app 🔗 Website: breakthepatterns.net 📅 Book a free coaching consultation: calendly.com/breakthepatternsConnect with Virginia: 📸 Instagram: instagram.com/officialvirginiamcconnell 👥 Facebook: facebook.com/officialvirginiamcconnellNew episodes every week.

Send us Fan MailYou've replayed it a hundred times. The moments that didn't sit right. The way you started second-guessing your own memory. The apologies you gave for things that were never yours to carry. And still, that question lingers: was that actually abuse — or am I overreacting?In this episode, we sit with that question honestly — no labels, no diagnosing, just the patterns and signals that help you name what you lived through.In this episode:Why the confusion itself is part of the pattern — and what that fog is really doingThe difference between conflict in a healthy relationship and something that quietly erodes youCommon signals to look for: gaslighting, love bombing, guilt cycles, and slow isolationWhy "but they weren't always like that" keeps you stuckThe first honest step toward trusting your own read on things againIf any of this lands a little too close, you're not broken and you're not overreacting — you're starting to see clearly.Ready to go deeper?Join the free live class every Monday at 7:30pm ETBook a complimentary consultation: calendly.com/breakthepatternsFollow along: Instagram @officialvirginiamcconnell · Facebook @officialvirginiamcconnellSupport the showRed Flags & Real Love is a Break the Patterns podcast, hosted by Virginia McConnell — Dating and Relationship Pattern Coach, specializing in narcissistic abuse recovery.🔗 Free quiz: breakthepatterns.netlify.app 🔗 Website: breakthepatterns.net 📅 Book a free coaching consultation: calendly.com/breakthepatternsConnect with Virginia: 📸 Instagram: instagram.com/officialvirginiamcconnell 👥 Facebook: facebook.com/officialvirginiamcconnellNew episodes every week.

Send us Fan MailWhy do so many people end up in the same relationship — different face, same dynamic? In this first episode of Red Flags & Real Love, Virginia McConnell breaks down the psychology of relationship patterns: where they start, why they persist, and what it actually takes to change them. If you've ever wondered why you keep arriving at the same place in love, this episode is for you.What we cover:Why relationship patterns feel like chemistry — and how to tell the differenceWhere patterns actually start (it's not where most people think)The four most common relationship patterns and how to recognize yoursWhy awareness alone is never enough to change a patternLinks:Free quizzes: breakthepatterns.netlify.appWebsite: breakthepatterns.netConnect with Virginia:Instagram: instagram.com/officialvirginiamcconnellTikTok: tiktok.com/t/ZTSMSNPY4Facebook: facebook.com/officialvirginiamcconnellSupport the showRed Flags & Real Love is a Break the Patterns podcast, hosted by Virginia McConnell — Dating and Relationship Pattern Coach, specializing in narcissistic abuse recovery.🔗 Free quiz: breakthepatterns.netlify.app 🔗 Website: breakthepatterns.net 📅 Book a free coaching consultation: calendly.com/breakthepatternsConnect with Virginia: 📸 Instagram: instagram.com/officialvirginiamcconnell 👥 Facebook: facebook.com/officialvirginiamcconnellNew episodes every week.